Playing With Trouble by Joya Ryan......Another amazing book from this wonderful author. Joya Ryan knows how to suck the readers into the story and we become one big happy family. I loved seeing Laura and Jake's story being told and you have to work hard for what you want. I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book by publisher via NetGalley.

I really enjoyed reading this book! I loved waiting to see how they could work together and make the flower shop AND the home goods stores successful. The romance wasn't my absolute favorite but still enjoyable.

no review left - I didn't finish this book. I didn't like the heroine of this story at all and it ruined the whole book for me. It's a personal preference so I did not review this book - I would hate to discourage someone else from reading this book because they may like the heroine more than I did.

It wasn't bad, but also wasn't 5 stars read.
I really like Joya Ryan's books, she has amazing and engaging writing style, but during reading this book I simply didn't feel the chemistry between the main characters.
This is a good story, but some things are missing to be amazing read.

What’s it About? After spending ten years away from her hometown in Oregon, recently divorced Laura Baughman decides to take back her life. She starts by taking over her late mother’s flower shop but when she steps inside the shop she finds it’s been neglected and that former band geek Jake Lock is set to inherit the shop unless Laura can prove she can run it. The last thing Laura wants is a romance with anyone and Jake agrees, however, the attraction between them is too hot to ignore so Jake proposes a no strings fling for awhile but when things go wrong with the business, Jake has to think fast to keep Laura from leaving town again.




Overall reaction to the story? I’ve read Ryan’s books before and have loved them to bits which is why I picked up Playing with Trouble. I didn’t love this story though. I didn’t connect with Jake or Laura very well and I didn’t feel their connection to one another either. The plot is a good one: Small town girl dreams of something bigger and better, leaves home but returns years later a jaded, worn down version of herself only to find love with a hometown boy from her past. I just thought that the characters were lacking a bit and while the physical chemistry was a hit, the romance was a definite miss.



Describe the hero in five words: Smart. Pushy. Dedicated. Loyal. Fair.

Did you like him? Yes, even though I question his taste in women.

Why? Jake was a responsible guy for the most part and he had a practical way of looking at things, especially when it came to running a business. I like practical characters; they tend to do what needs to be done without bringing a lot of unnecessary drama and that was Jake. He wasn’t mean about making the business successful but he wasn’t going to be pushed into failure because of an emotional tantrum so it came as a surprise when he fell for Laura.


Describe the heroine in five words: Stubborn. Childish. Selfish. Irresponsible. Inconsiderate.

Did you like her? No.

Why? Laura acted like she was entitled to the family business even though she had no clue what to do with it. She essentially expected Jake to step aside and take orders from her simply because she had the right last name. She didn’t stop to think that 1.) She had no idea how to get the business going again, 2.) Jake was ALREADY taking steps to do just that and 3.) There were people who depended on the business being successful again in order to make a living. But Laura saw none of that. She essentially threw an adult version of a temper tantrum when she didn’t get her way and in between arguing with Jake and having sex with him, very little was done to change her personality. Laura never tried to be a better person.


Let’s talk about the romance: There wasn’t much in the way of romantic development between Jake and Laura. To be honest, Playing with Trouble was more the sexual escapades between two adults. Which wasn’t a bad thing. I like sex scenes in books, I really do and Joya Ryan writes some really hot ones. I just couldn’t get into a relationship between someone like Jake who was responsible and considerate of people, and a woman like Laura who seemed to only have consideration for herself.


Click It or Skip It? Skip It. A character like Laura isn’t much fun in real life or in fiction, even with a guy like Jake as a hero.

After coming home after a decade to rebuild the flower shop her mom owned. There she meets the former band geek. They have chemistry and it works.

Laura Baughman is recently divorced and decides to go back to her hometown to get her life back. All she wants to do is take over her late mothers flower shop and make her parents proud of the person she is but she quickly realizes that things aren’t like they were when she left 10 years ago. Laura’s father has basically left the business in Jakes hands and over the years it has gone from a floral shop to a construction company. As expected they but heads immediately, what’s less expected is the growing attraction they have for each other.

This book hooked me from the very beginning. Laura could be annoying at times but I still found myself connecting with her character. I think the reason I felt said connection was because she lost her mom and I have lost my dad and step dad so I know what its like to not want to deal with the pain. Although this is pretty much a typical story for this genre I couldn’t help but be drawn in. I had to know if Laura was going to stay or if she was going to run again when things got hard.

I have seen some reviews that say the steamy sex scenes didn’t fit but I disagree. I thought they were hot and spot on with the story. I am not the type to get flustered when I read sex scenes in books but I found myself looking around making sure no one was around even though I was in the comfort of my own home.

The reason I took off a star is because I really wanted more of the side characters. It seemed like they only popped in when the main characters needed to realize something that in my opinion they should have been able to do on their own. Overall I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to those who are looking for a quick romance read.

3.5 Stars

This book was a quick read focusing on the relationship between Jake and Laura.

Laura left town 10 years ago after the death of her mother. After her marriage ends, she returns home to take over the flower shop her mother once ran. Unbeknownst to her, her father has more or less handed over the business to Jake, and it's no longer the flower shop she once knew. It's now a home and garden center selling lumber and other items. Flowers are no longer in the picture. Laura and Jake clash in how they feel the business should be run, and who should be in charge, while Laura's father steps back and let's them work things out for themselves.

I thought that storyline was OK. What fell short for me was there wasn't any additional depth to the story. We don't get a glimpse into her relationship with her father. We barely learn anything about her best friend. The only secondary character I felt we got to learn a little about was Jake's sister. Since this appears to be the first book in a series, I'm curious where it will continue since I didn't feel like we got to know anybody else in the book enough to desire to continue with their story.

ARC kindly received from publisher via NetGalley.

There's no question about what's going to happen here. You know Laura and Jake are definitely going to hook up and do it in a steamy way. This is a fast pretty predictable read that's just right if you want something escapist that's less romance and more sexy. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

3 - "I can’t make everyone happy." Stars.

Playing With Trouble, marks the beginning of Joya Ryan’s new Desire Bay series, and although well written as I have come to expect from this author. The story and characters definitely fell in the didn’t love it, didn’t hate it category…

A decade may have passed but they were still in different leagues.

This is pretty much your typical story of young woman heading off to find a better life in the big city, only to then return home with her tail between her legs some years (ten in this instance) later, when it all falls apart. Only to find that her small town community aren’t really on-board in letting her back in with open arms and all past indiscretions forgotten. Top of that list being Jake Lock, the man who has essentially revived her father’s business, and made it profitable. Boughman Home Goods is something that Laura believe is her birth right, and she is determined to take control, even if she actually has no idea what she is doing and risks the business and the livelihoods of the staff in doing it.

They may hate each other, but deep down, she wanted him… Just like he wanted her…

To be honest I found the story line for this one pretty weak, the author seemed to skim over both characters back stories and instead concentrate on sex. And there is a lot of sex in this book, not a bad thing if you are backing it up with a bit of substance in between but this couple pretty much had a loop and they stuck to it religiously –

• Sex
• Argue
• Sex
• Argue
• Sex

And so on, until the big fall out in the last few pages when everything was then resolved without too much fuss. My other gripe is the fact that while I loved Jake, I abhorred Laura, there was absolutely no point in this story where I felt any empathy for her or the situation she was in, she just came across as selfish, self-centered and didn’t really seem to grasp that after ten years away she wasn’t really qualified to just step back in and take over, after Jake was the one that had done all the hard work to keep the business viable in the first place.

"I can’t make up for the mistakes of the past…"

And to be honest, she never really tried, which is why I think I disliked her so much, she was so focused on resurrecting her mother’s Flower Shop, consideration for everyone else pretty much went out of the window.

She wanted to get lost. In him. With him.

For all the issues, Playing With Trouble wasn’t a struggle to read, but then it’s a relatively short book, but there were several secondary characters that offered up potential in relation to further books so I will be interested to see where the author goes next and whose story she decides to tell.

ARC generously provided via Netgalley, in exchange for the above honest review.

Teenage dreams spirited Laura out of small town Oregon. Now ten years later a reversal of fortune has brought her home to surprising twists. Playing with Trouble proves that change is inevitable, but life is full of surprises and life lessons. People change, places grow, life moves on. However, the most rewarding of experiences can start when we take a second look. Joya Ryan took us from bad girl to responsible woman. From geeky nerd to seductive heartthrob and from salty to sweet. Jake and Laura are a topsy turvy bundle of sexy, sassy, turbulent and tempting fun.

Really liked this book. Was very well written with great characters with a lot going on which I could follow the story an get into. Will try this authors books again an thank-you for letting me read this book. Would recommend

Another winner for Ms. Ryan! In this story Laura comes home after 10 years of being gone, freshly divorced from a loser husband who did nothing but beat her down emotionally. She ran from home when her mother died and now she is determined to make things right with her father and the past she ran from. Wanting to start her mother's flower shop back up she has a plan all worked out until she gets home and discovers things are not like she thought.
Jake who is in the process of taking over the company from Laura's dad when Laura shows up out of the blue. Jake has always been attracted to Laura from there school days and she has just gotten pretty to him. He has changed a little since high school and when Laura recognizes him the chemistry is off the charts. When Laura tells Jake she is running the flower shop he is not happy and makes it very hard for her to do that. Can the two figure a way to make the arrangement work with everyone happy or did Laura make another bad decision coming home. This story has quiet a few lessons given for life and that life is something you have to work at to reach your dreams. Really enjoyed this story and can't wait for more of Ms. Ryan's work. Honest review in exchange for ARC.

Definitely a story to enjoy on a lazy Sunday afternoon!

I like uncomplicated books. I like stories which are easy to read and enjoy. And, I like Joya Ryan’s writing style so yes, this book suited me down to the ground.

I get that some may find the story centring around a garden centre a little “flowery” but this story managed to smooth away the hard edges of my emotions, which I appreciated. So many books these days are about shock and awe but this was a simple love story told in a way which captures your heart.

We first meet Laura Baughman who, now divorced, has returned home with a plan to take over the running of her late mother’s flower shop. What she doesn’t expect to find in her way is Jake Lock, her father’s business partner. When Laura sees the flower shop closed up and now used as an office it breaks her heart but she is determined to resurrect her mother’s legacy. Her father soon puts a spanner in the works though when he tells Jake and Laura that they need to find a way to work together, something which brings about daily fights. Despite finding Jake hugely attractive, and remembering him from her school days, Laura knows that she can’t work with him but with her father’s ultimatum, she is not willing to lose the business to someone outside of the family.

Despite their resentment of each other, they are both attracted to one another and sparks fly when they connect but will their attraction win out over their mutual, business related, hatred of each other?

This is a relatively short story but one to still be savoured. It is a typical contemporary/women’s romance story so don’t expect too much angst, drama or violence. It’s simply the coming together of two people who were clearly destined to fall in love but first must face a few bumps along the road towards their HEA.

This book appears to tell a complete story, within a possible series and does not contain any cliffhangers.

This one was an ok read. I had a hard time getting into the story mostly because Laura irritated me. She leaves town leaving her father to run the family business on his own, which he has done very well, and she expects to come back and start doing things her way? Which if it had just been her father may have worked out but for ten years Jake Lock as worked side by side with Laura's father changing the business from a small flower shop to a thriving garden center. He's not about to walk away without a fight. Add in the fact that there is some serious sexual tension between Laura and Jake and you have one wild ride going. Overall this isn't a bad read, some parts were quite entertaining. I just had difficulty connecting with the characters.

When Laura returns home to run her late mother’s floral shop, she didn’t expect her father to make her divide the business between her and Jake. The two immediately start to bicker on how things should be done as they fight their attraction to one another.

Jake starts off very arrogant in my opinion. He is hot and he knows it. I expected him to be a little more humble since he was the former geek. I think that is part of why I liked him. He likes that he gets the former high school beauty.

Laura initially comes off as spoil. She expects that her life should be easy now that she is back. She should have the shop. Everything should be the same and she slowly realizes it is not the same. It doesn’t help that Jake is there to rub it in her face every chance that he gets until their little sexual encounters get real.

The author relies too heavily on sex advance the story along. While, I love a good steamy sex scene because I’m naughty, if it doesn’t help build an authentic connection between the main characters than it just becomes repetitive. I think there are good enough bones to this story to help with the character development without sex.

Laura relates to the people in her life in an interesting way. She takes on whatever problems as her own. She is heavily guilt laden throughout the book. She blames herself for not being good enough several times. She blames herself for not being emotionally there for mother. She blames herself for running away to California after her mother’s death resulting in her leaving her father.

As the story moves along, Laura blames herself for every little problem that occurs in the company. I started to root for Laura but after a while, I realized she didn’t grow as quickly as I had hoped. I realized at the very end, she still questioned herself and Jake had to reassure her.

There is also the strange dynamic between Laura and her father. He doesn’t explain anything about the family business to her before challenging her to run the company alongside Jake. This is a small town and he doesn’t stop by or speak to her. He is supposedly speaking to everyone about her but not to her. I wanted to know did Laura and her father reconnect after her being away for ten years.

Overall, this is a sweet and at times funny contemporary romance. It ticks off just enough of boxes to satisfy me.

~ Samantha

Review will be posted on blog next week

This book unfortunately did not work for me- there was a disconnect of what the start was and the largess of all the sex right away

As a fan of this author I wa excited to start a new series but this just fell flat with me, I couldn't like the characters as much as I tried, I will still recommend this book on my blog but it's just not for me. Sorry.

I read this book because of the "Sweet Torment " series which was very good,but I have to say that I was very disappointed with this book and was prone to just leave off reading it.The heroine came in from out of thin air with guns blazing, only to fizzle out with her constant self doubt and indecisiveness.The ad nauseam re-stating of her mission for returning home became crating and cause for skipping whole paragraphs.Jake ,the hero in the story was more likable and interesting.The sexual encounters felt forced, lacked any kind of romance and were more of a deterrent than a turn on.Is there a flat surface somewhere? Oh, the sordid tales the truck could tell. Couldn't wait to put an end to this book .This free read was provided by Netgalley.

This book had an interesting premise, but fell short in some areas. The main character Laura, returns home after a decade and expects to just walk in and take over her late mother's flower shop that her father now owns. This seemed very arrogant. After not even visiting for a decade, she is stunned to find that the shop is now a home improvement store, run by a former classmate, Jake. She is determined to step in and bring it back to the flower shop of her mother's time. She makes decisions that seem self involved and unwise. She was very difficult to like, which made me not care what happened to her or her part of the business.

Jake was a very sympathetic character, and I felt awful that after running the business for a decade and putting such effort into making it successful, his future was put in jeopardy by Laura's return. Laura's father decided that the two could run the separate parts of the business for a month and then he would determine which of them would control the entirety.

The story kept me interested, but I would have been more invested in the book if Laura would have been a more likable character. I didn't care much about the romance because I thought Jake deserved better than Laura.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest review.