Another great one from Kelly Jamieson! You may have met Marco and Carrie when reading the first book in the series, but even if you didn't, you can jump right into this one without missing much. Their best friends are getting married, and when thrown together planning an engagement party, they realize that their animosity is really foreplay. I love this trope! And I cannot wait to read the next one!

I've read a lot of Kelly Jamieson's books, and have loved all of them until this one, in fact, I couldn't finish it, I tried, and kept going until about 40% through and finally gave up. These characters were just bad. Both had their insecurities, which by the way, wasn't even presented with any kind of interest at all. Marco character was just strange, I mean he's an ex Navy Seal, not many of them had hang ups like Marco, just didn't click for me. The three Conquistadors partners seemed to whine more than be close tight knit "brothers". Cade was a man whore, and Marco just came off as being creepy when it came to "getting companionship". Carrie was equally strange, model, from a successful family, her mother was a complainer because she chose to retire from her job and is now bored, but on an up note, loved the Grandmother! I had high expectations for this book given my reading history with the author, but was sadly disappointed with this one....

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC copy of this book.

Hot Shot is book 2 in the Last Shot series but can be read as a standalone. I did not read book 1 and it was easy to follow along however I do wish I had read Body Shot so that I experienced more of the backstory and connection between all of the characters. Hot Shot is an enemies-to-lovers story about Marco and Carrie, who need to come together to plan an engagement party for their friends. Both characters are flawed and dealing with their own insecurities based on their pasts which impacts their relationship in many ways. The two definitely had some serious chemistry and their love scenes together were super hot. The story is one of love, friendship, accepting ones flaws and moving past them to find the happiness that is truly deserved. Overall, it was a very enjoyable read.

Hot Shots
By Kelly Jamieson
📚💕⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐💕📚

When you look beyond the cover!!

In the second in The Last Shot trilogy we get to delve deeper into Marco a former Navy Seal. When his parents are deported and he and his sister are separated when Marco is only fourteen to be sent to multiple foster homes without finding a forever family. Marco and his two best friends from his Seal team are brothers in every way that matters. Retired around the same they open a tequila bar together. To bring in business they have a tequila tasting which is where Marcus meets super model Carrie. So here is the thing this story is written and trust me it's definitely not insta LOVE.

I really enjoyed this book and it kept me engrossed throughout. I really loved the characters and the way they interacted with each other. This is a fun, hot, romantic must read book and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. I think I just read a book that had everything I love in a book. Then you add that it's beautifully written and believable. It is easily a five star read. Written in dual POV my personal favorite this story flows so incredibly well that the next thing you know your 80% into the book and loving every second of it. The believable way the characters interact is perfect. Run, Hop, Jump or use your (1 click) finger to do whatever you have to do and get this amazing book. It'll break your heart, you'll want to scream with frustration and it'll let you discover that love just might conquer all. The chemistry is steamy and sweet and oh so romantic.

Thanks you Netgally for letting me read and review.

This is the second in the Last Shot series. I really loved the first in the series and have been eagerly awaiting the release of this one! I was so curious what Kelly Jamieson would do with the story of Marco and Carrie who I loved from the first book. The thing I enjoyed most about this book was how it explored the characters struggles with confidence and self-esteem in a way that you rarely see in a romance novel. It was interesting to follow each of their journeys towards each other and towards finding peace with their own insecurities. This felt, in many ways, to be more than ‘just a romance’ to me and I really loved seeing a romance that contained a little more substance and was about the character’s journey as individuals as well as a couple. Really strong romance series that I highly recommend!

Good book on not judging a book by its cover. People all face insecurities even those in the spotlight. Two people who have had different childhoods but both face self doubts come together through friends and find that maybe they CAN put aside their insecurities for the right person.

HOT SHOT by Kelly Jamieson was a fun read. I gave it 4 stars only because I hear enough politics on a daily basis and do not like to have them included in my reading...as I read to escape the everyday..... I did enjoy Marco and Carrie and also Hayden and Beck. I am hoping Cade and maybe Reese will get their own story. I do hope to read more of Kelly's work.

I thought this was a cute book. I liked the development of the relationship between the characters and the drama between them didn't feel forced. I loved carries family. I didn't like the nickname of "Mr big" that seemed a bit immature. I look forward to reading the other books in the series

In this book we meet Marco, another ex SEAL along with Cade and Beck. The three of them own Conquistadors, an upscale Tequila bar (and trying to get their food menu up to par) Hayden and Beck are getting married soon and her best friend Carrie is spending more time at the bar with her. Carrie is a supermodel whose days are getting shorter work wise, she's a talented photographer and like Marco she's full of her own insecurities. Oh and she and Marco hate each other. That's the take off point of the story. Marco calls Carrie because he wants to plan a surprise engagement party for Hayden and Beck and needs her help. He's done all the research on line and has thought things through pretty well. Since she's maid of honor and best friend he enlists her, she's a little reluctant since they can't have a civil conversation but agrees and the planning begins. She's also leaving in 2 months for Spain to study photography. Raised in a family of overachievers she feels like she's never accomplished anything. She sees this as a means to and end. Despite her being work selling in galleries and getting great side jobs, she's still bent on going.
Things heat up with her and Marco. Marco wants her desperately and it takes half the book to get there. The first half is idle dialogue which took me two days to plow through. Once things heat up they really sizzle, but for me those scenes fall a little short and get redundant although I did like Marco's filthy mouth. There are a couple of subplots here, one being her niece, the awesome Grandma and the wedding plans. Cade the man ho and the ongoing menu issues. Marco and Carrie are seeing each other on the sly until it comes out at a gathering and then it's assumed they are a couple, when really they seemed to see it as a fling with a end date. In spite of their growing feelings for each other which were pretty obvious but neither spoke the words. Pfft. These are 30 year olds.
Hayden and Beck get married, Carrie is ready to go and after the wedding Marco tells her he's done. He's calling it off early. That's not a spoiler... threads of that run through the story.
I think this book was a little better than book 1. The dialogue could have been trimmed way back and you'd still have a strong story without all the redundancy between Marco and Carrie. The second half is basically sex. They aren't really deep characters. I'm not sure they're people you can relate to, there's no one focus in the book. I do love Kelly's books and I'm hoping with the momentum of this one Cade's story is even better.
This gets a 3.5 from me, but I rounded it up because of Marco.

**arc from NetGalley and Loveswept in exchange for a fair review**

Marco and two of his friends, all former Navy SEALs own a bar and grill. One of the guys is getting married to Hayden and everyone gets along well - except for Marco and Carrie, Hayden's best friend and maid of honor. It's hard to avoid each other in their small group but they try until they can't. These two are perfect for each other and it's fun to watch their relationship grow. Of course there is lots of steamy romance too!

Marco is a former Navy SEAL who owns a bar with his 2 buddies - Beck (Body Shot book 1 in the series) and Cade (hopefully book 3). Marco has lost everyone (but his SEAL brothers) that he gets close to ... his parents, sister, fiancee, and the list goes on. He met Carrie when she and her friend Hayden came to the bar for a tequila tasting night. Instantly they did NOT like each other ... Marco thought Carrie was a nut case and Carrie thought Marco was an arrogant jerk. But they had to tolerate each other because Hayden and Beck start going together and are now getting married. Marco wants to plan an engagement party for Hayden and Beck, but he needs Carrie's help and they begin to spend more time together. They find out that maybe their first impressions were wrong. Carrie is headed to Spain in a couple of months for a photography class, so Marco proposes that they have a "friends with benefits" relationship until she leaves ... and she agrees. And so their "benefits" relationship begins, but will their hearts stay out of it?

I received an ARC copy courtesy of Random House - Loveswept through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

I love Kelly Jamieson's books and thoroughly enjoyed reading this story of Marco and Carrie. It was pretty different from most of the other books I've read by this author, as I've devoured her sports romances, but I liked it. I empathized with the two main characters and enjoyed the chemistry between them. The story kept me interested and entertained all the way through. I'm already looking forward to the next one I'll read by this author.

Another entry to the series... This is about Marco and Carrie. These are brought together because of the close ties of their mutual friends. When they are forced to work together on the Engagement party... all of the assumptions they had of the other... start to fall away. The attraction they feel cannot be denied... but each has their own issues with how they see themselves... that that is the biggest obstacle then must overcome in order for them to have a real relationship.

Marco and Carrie have a sort of love/hate relationship. She is a model and is in flux with her career and life. Marco is trying to make the bar a go with his two friends and finds Carrie intriguing but doesn't want anything serious. Carrie fights their growing attraction and was quite rude about it at times. Marco wants to give it a go but backs down when she pushes him away.

Both have self-confidence issues. Marco was left in foster care after his parents were deported to Mexico and he and his sister were split up. Carrie feels that her looks are what people use to define her and doesn't think she is worthy. Both of them hide their fears and it takes a while for them to see each other in a real sense. Carrie was so set on pushing Marco away for her own good, that she failed to see she was hitting his biggest issue of not being enough.

When they do finally agree to see what happens and have a short-term fling, Carrie is still the one putting them in a box. She is leaving for Spain for 9 months to take a photography course and thinks that will make her family proud of her. She fails to see that they are already proud of her and it is her issue and not theirs that have her leaving. Marco agrees to their short-term relationship and finds himself falling for her. Both of them were not good at acknowledging their feelings. I did give Marco credit for fighting for her at points, but Carrie never really gave anything back. I did not like that about her. Even when her trip was imminent, she wanted Marco to step up and ask her to stay. Based upon his past, I didn't understand why she felt it was up to him to stop her and not for her to decide to stay for him and let him know he was enough.

The ending was nice and it fit this couple well. I am interested to see what happens with Cade. It was nice to see Beck and Hayden's relationship grow in this book also. It was with great pleasure that I received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

I'm no stranger to Kelly Jamieson's contemporary romance novels, but this is the first book I've read from her Last Shot series. To be honest, it took me a while to become invested in Marco and Carrie's love story. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the enemies to lovers vibe they had going on. I just didn't immediately feel their emotional connection. Looking back at the story after finishing, it was probably because there wasn't an emotional connection between the two for the first half of the book. Everything was based on attraction. It makes more sense to me now, but didn't help at the time.

Once Carrie and Marco decided to act on their attraction, there became an intense emotional connection between them. They were able to share parts of themselves with each other that they'd never shared with anyone before. It bonded them and deepened their sexual connection. This is when the story took off for me and I fell in love.

Carrie and Marco had some deep emotional scars they were living with. Carrie never felt good enough for her family, or that she was more than a pretty face. She hated Marco because he seemed to only see her for her beauty. Every suggestive comment from him felt like a smack in the face. Carrie didn't realize Marco found her extremely attractive. Marco felt constantly abandoned. He kept his newer relationships with people on the surface to avoid the pain of losing people. Carrie was the perfect sexual relationship for Marco because there was a time limit. He knew when thing would end and that was safe.

What I liked most about Carrie and Marco's relationship was that they weren't looking for it to fix their insecurities. They had plans to do that on their own. In the end, their relationship helped them achieve their goals, but it wasn't the only thing giving them strength.

Despite its slow start for me, Hot Shot was a great contemporary romance. It had two down to Earth main characters and some very fun secondary characters. While I would have rather it have been in first person, the third person narration was good. After reading it, I would love to finish reading the rest of the series.

Marco Solis knows that if he gets too close to people they disappear. His parents were deported back to Mexico when he was fourteen, his fiancée married someone else while he was in the military, and now his business partner’s spending more time with his girl than with Marco. For better or worse, that’s how Marco meets Carrie Garner. She’s legitimately model-hot. She’s also a nut—a wild, artsy, unapproachable nut. So why is Marco so interested in cracking her shell?

Although Carrie Garner is a natural in front of the camera, her dream is to make it as a photographer. Soon she’ll be heading to Spain for design school, and she’ll miss her best friend, Hayden, like crazy. She’ll even miss Hayden’s boyfriend, Beck—but she won’t miss Beck’s partner, Marco. Bossy, brooding, and annoyingly sexy, Marco really pushes her buttons, though he obviously wouldn’t mind pushing her buttons in an up-against-the-wall, hard-and-fast kind of way. The craziest part is, if Carrie lets him do that, well . . . she may never want to leave.

Marco owns a tequila bar with his friends Cade and Beck. They were all Navy SEALS and now they work together once again. Marco met Carrie when she came in for a tequila tasting with Hayden, who is now Beck’s fiancé. He was attracted to Carrie from the first minute but Carrie shut his flirting down pretty much instantaneously. He just figured that she thought he wasn’t good enough for her.

Carrie’s always been attracted to Marco but she doesn’t like to admit it to herself. When Marco first flirted with her she felt like he just thought she was a dumb bimbo and blew him off. As she gets to know him, now that they’re planning Beck and Hayden’s engagement party together, she sees that she was wrong about him. Sparks fly when they’re together but Carrie’s leaving to go to school in Spain for 9 months so she’s not about to get involved with anyone.

Marco and Carrie decide to start a fling and will end it when she leaves for Spain. Little did they know that they’d fall in love. Of course neither are confident enough to tell the other so this leaves each of them heart-broken.

This was a cute, light read from Jamieson. Despite the feelings that both Marco and Carrie carried with them about themselves I thought that the author did a great job of not dragging the story down with their issues. They were talked about and definitely were a major focus of the book but when I read the last page I wasn’t depressed with a sad knot in my chest. She dealt with both the hero and heroine’s personal issues in a way that made it emotional but not over-bearing.

Marco was a fantastic character. I really liked him so much as my heart went out to all that he’d been through in his life when he was an adolescent. He’d moved on and made something of himself – something he could be proud of and it showed in his whole being. I loved that he saw Carrie as others didn’t. He saw in her the bright shining light she was and then made it even brighter with his love.

Carrie had some serious self-esteem issues even though she was a model. She felt like the tall gangly kid she’d always been while growing up and didn’t see herself as gorgeous. It wasn’t a vanity thing – wanting people to tell her she’s gorgeous. It was the opposite, in fact and it was just how she felt. She also felt that since her entire family was into business and had great careers that she hadn’t done anything productive in her life – which wasn’t true at all. I liked her character a lot as she worked on her self-esteem and the feelings of not being good enough for her family.

Overall I found Hot Shot to be a thoroughly enjoyable book and I’m looking forward to reading what happens with Marco’s friend Cade in the next book.

Rating: 4 out of 5

This will post as a guest review on Book Binge.
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There were too many things I didn't like about this book. The story felt a little flat and it seemed to go in too many different directions. Carrie's grandmother was a great character; can she get her own book? The part I liked best was the not-quite-connection between Reece and Cade, and that whole thing was just... dropped. Presumably their story is next, but still they were practically in the middle of a conversation and then, oh I guess we're done. *MILD SPOILER* And seriously, these two can't cough up the L-word until they're on a plane together and literally en route to another country? Fear of commitment, much? A one night stand confronts Cade and bursts into tears in public? The whole last part of the book was scene after scene of I-don't-believe-this.

Since I didn't connect to either the characters or the story this time anyway, I suspect this author and I are over.

Finally, making the hero an anchor baby* didn't set well with me. A Latino, sure. A Latino with that background, no. I suppose most won't even pick up on this, but it was a real sore point with me.

* A child with illegal alien parents, who birth him in the US to ensure he can sponsor his own parents and other family members upon the age of majority. This practice burdens US resources

3.5 Stars!

You never really think about the "beautiful" people having insecurities. Marco, a former seal who owns a tequila bar with his 2 best friends seems like he has it all. What most people don't know is he's still struggling with insecurities from being bounced around in foster care as a child. Carrie, a model/photographer, has her own set of insecurities. Her family is made up of very smart people and Carrie feels that she doesn't measure up.

What you get in this story is two beautiful people that are attracted to each other but miss all the social cues based off their insecurities and believe the other is not sincere. They finally get honest with each other (well partially honest) when they come together to plan their best friends engagement party. While being forced to spend time together, they realize the attraction is mutual.

I say they are partially honest because while they admit they are attracted, they still can't admit they want more than just a fling before Carrie takes up a scholarship in Spain for 9 months. At first I was worried the insecurities was going to be too much in the story and it did feel that way in the beginning. The more these two became closer the less we saw of the insecurities and their relationship felt more real.

Overall, this was a fun read once we got past the insecurities and I really enjoyed seeing the couple from the first book again. We also get to see a possible match for Cade in book 3.

This is book 2 in the Last Shot series by Kelly Jamieson. I truly like this author. This series isn't my favorite but it is good. Marco is one of 3 Navy SEALS that opened a tequila bar. Carrie is a model/photographer. Marco and Carrie hate each other and find each other irritating but when Marco decides to throw his best friend a couples wedding shower he recruits Carrie and sparks fly from there. I do like how things happened and the love you can feel between these two.

Marco Solis and Carrie Garner make the perfect "lonely hearts club of two" in Kelly Jamison's latest addition to her Last Shot series.
This book stands as irrefutable proof that sometimes, "having it all" isn't everything. Because even though Marco is a former Navy SEAL, turned bar owner. (Brooding, dark, good looks and body of a Greek god included.) He can't seem to shake the tragic losses of his past.

In much the same vein...
The equally emotionally encumbered, yet equally fabulous Carrie Garner just can't seem to find her place in her own life. Feeling like an outcast because her free spirit and artistic nature has lead to a life of runways and bright lights. Instead of the more practical business related professions of her family. Carrie has decided that maybe the best thing to do would be accept an opportunity to pursue studies in photography in Spain.
That is of course, after she helps to plan their best friends' wedding.

Enter tall, dark, and broody!

This sweet romance is all about perception. The way that the two main characters perceive each other...to an extent. But more to the point. How happenings and perceptions from their respective pasts, have shaped for better or worse, how they perceive themselves.

The longer that one is involved in this story; the longer one comes to realize that these two have had everything that they have been seeking the entire time. They each just needed the other to hold up the "love mirror" and say so.
This factor, as pivotal as it is to the "light bulb moment" of the read, is also the one facet of said story that is the hardest to reconcile.
The chemistry and sex are stellar. There is nothing that readers will crave more than these two together.
The inclusive slant, with nods to family and belonging add that heartfelt element that rounds this romance out in a very lovely fashion.

Reviewer's Note: This is the second book in a loosely related series. Though reading book one is strongly suggested, it is not necessary.