I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Super-steamy read that will keep you turning pages.

I loved this book. This is one of the times I really have a hard time putting into words how much I liked a book. I loved Eddie. I loved his strength and his vulnerability. I loved Carmen. She accepted Eddie as he was. I loved them as a couple. I just really enjoyed this book.

Trashed by Mia Hopkins (m/f, good girl/bad boy excon, 1-night stand) Eddie is struggling to settle into a good path after prison, trying to track down his dad, keep a job and romance Chef Carmen who is way too good for an ex-gangbanger. (Cw: gang violence, guns, slurs).

This series is everything. I absolutely love both brothers equally, where usually with a series of books featuring siblings, I either have a standout favorite or am annoyed by how alike they are. Not so with this one. Both brothers have their own unique voices.

Trashed is the kind of book that you need to cancel plans for. Like Thirsty, I drank this beauty down in a single sitting and am still savoring the after taste. I love a good redemption ARC told in a believable way, and I especially appreciate how Hopkins handles a heavy theme like gangs with the depth it deserves.

I cannot recommend this series enough for anyone who likes whip-smart progressive romance with a whole lot of sizzle.

4 1/2 STARS

Super hot. As always, I do wish these books were told in dual 1st POV so I could understand the heroine more but I admit I know why Mia focuses on the hero's story and growth for this series, and she does it well..Can't wait for Angel's book.

I loved this book so much. One of the best depictions of a character who may not be soon as "good" or deserving of love. This book epitomizes what I think this genre is- it is hopeful and that the people who want love, deserve it.

this series by Mia Hopkins in simply the best of what romance has to offer. I will admit that I didn't love this one the same way I loved Thirsty. I felt like the hero was a little harder to get to know and I wished that I could get the heroine's point of view. but that's minor compared to how great they are and this is definitely worth a read!

It says a lot about an author's skill that a book can make me appreciate a hero-only first person POV when I am proudly heroine-centric. What is this black magic? So much good angst, so sexy, so riveting, so... ah! Just so many emotions. I need to go back and read the first book in the series. My only criticism is that I missed the heroine when Eddie went north on his solo adventure.

Eddie is not your typical romance hero. He's an ex con, gang member trying to get it right. He's still a good guy, just made some mistakes in the past. Carmen is from the same neighborhood and is a chef. She has ambition, brains and is determined to make it in the world. These two were HOT and sexy. I really liked this story.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley and am leaving a review.

In Mia Hopkins's Trashed, the 2nd installment in the Eastside Brewery Contemporary Romance novel series, this will make you believe in second chances. Meet Eddie "Trouble" Rosas. Six months ago, he's been released from prison and out on parole. He served his five-year stint for gang-related crimes and is ready to start fresh. But it isn't easy for Eddie, ever since she stepped outside of the prison doors and looked for work. Five years ago, he met a woman in the garden and made love to her. Ever since he had gotten out, he's been looking for her until he landed a plum dishwasher job at her restaurant. That's when he met Chef Carmen Centeno, and had gotten to know her name for the first time. Besides the sparks growing between them, it had cost them their jobs and back on the street to look for work. But when the Eastside Hollenbeck gang learns of his release, they make trouble for him and want him back in. Ever since his brother Sal gotten out of the gang, he wants the same thing for him too. But first, he needs to find their no-good father and get answers for him, then he would make a promise he intended to keep to go straight and be with Carmen, even though her parents like it or not. Though when trouble strikes at his brother's home, he needed to cut his losses and never look back to step forward and stay clean from the gangster life for good.

I received an e-ARC of Trashed by Mia Hopkins from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This was the second book in The Eastside Brewery series. I have enjoyed both books. This was about the middle brother, Eddie, and how he makes a life for himself after prison, and of course, the woman he falls in love with along the way. Eddie was a great character. I don’t always like first-person Hero point of view books, but I liked his voice.

Carmen was an awesome heroine — a badass chef who sees the good in Eddie. I wanted more of her and more conversations between the two of them. There was a side story about Eddie finding out what happened to his father, who supposedly died while Eddie was in prison. It was necessary to Eddie’s story, but I really wanted more of him and Carmen.

It’s cool to read about characters who aren’t your typical romance novel main characters. Of course, they’re still above average attractiveness, but they’re not rich or privileged. Eddie struggles. Carmen struggles. They help each other.

I give this book four stars. It was so well-written. The blurb at the end from the third book in the series has me on pins and needles waiting for it. It sounds amazing. I highly recommend this entire series. It’s sexy as hell and shows a side of life not often found in romance.

New book boyfriend alert! Eddie really was just such an amazing character. I loved this book love this series. Love Mia's writing style.

Video goes live 8/8

At times such as these, reading a book like this, it feels important to choose words with care. The word I most want to use about this absolute masterpiece of a contemporary romance is: visionary.
Mia Hopkins has gifted us with the story of a good girl chef, Carmen, and a bad boy gangbanger just out of prison, Eduardo “Trouble” Rosas. They shouldn’t want anything to do with one another, but they keep coming back for more, though they can’t quite say why. I am excessively picky about my gangster hero’s, but Eddie is easily the best one I’ve ever read, hands down, bar none. He’s not romanticized or whitewashed or fetishized in the way such heroes often are: he participated in a bad system, and he has to cope with the consequences and the trauma and the fallout. The story is careful at first, slotting characters and stakes into place one at a time, keeping the reader hooked with evocative descriptions (for instance: a gang leader’s grey Monte Carlo sedan pulling up to the curb “like a lazy shark”—the writer part of me writhed with wishing to have written that).
About halfway through—at least, that’s when it happened for me—all those shiny, colorful bits come together and what looked like fragments of shattered glass become a whole rose window, deliberately laid out and brilliant.
And you go breathless with awe.
This is a book that delves deep into our need for community and what that makes us do for and to one another. It’s the same question The Good Place asks so insistently: What do we owe to each other? We see the trials and temptations of gang affiliation and prisons, but also the systemic damage wreaked by gentrification. We see the strengths of good communities: tight-knit neighborhoods and family and friends and communal gardens and small local businesses and well-run kitchens. The people we’re closest to can hurt us the most, but they’re also the ones who make life worth living at all. This book is about people banding together to solve problems that would overwhelm any one person—it’s about putting together a future by refusing to let the evils of the world beat you down. And to see a book this focused on connection, but which also keeps the reader entirely inside the hero’s head is kind of … kinky? It’s like the author’s using POV like a set of leather restraints: not being able to move away from Eddie’s perspective magnifies every sensory detail of his experience. His laconic, introspective voice is quiet but potent. We fall in love with Carmen because Eddie can’t help but love her. In his vision, she glows like a star.
This is not always an easy read. There are abuses past and present, moments of genuine, searing pain. Eddie fucks up a lot, trying to keep his balance in the whirlwind, and the ending chapters are one punch to the gut after the other. And then, at the end of the fight, when you’re splayed out on the concrete and the rain is washing the blood thin and you think you can’t make it one second longer … the sun breaks through, and the light rushes in, and your chilled heart blooms with the warmth.
Don’t miss this one, folks.

Ladies, read Trashed with your A/C at freezing point because it's HOT! HOT! HOT! 🔥🔥🔥 It's raw and dirty and, I'll say it again, hot.

Eddie is not your usual romance novel hero (ex-con, gang member, inadequately educated, poor, etc.), but like his brother Sal before him, he is worthy of loving and being loved. Kudos to Mia for writing about men like him. Not many authors do that and I love her for it.

I really appreciate witnessing Eddie's growth throughout the book. His was a fascinating journey from the directionless newly-released inmate to a man with a purpose in the end. Mia's male voice is so strong that I believed that transformation wholeheartedly. Which is kind of a double-edged sword because, like in the first book with Vanessa, my main nitpick is that we don't get to see what goes on in Carmen's head. While I understand how she could fall for him in the end, I still can't believe how strong her emotions had been from the start.

Compelling writing has me going back for more and I'm absolutely looking forward to the next book in the series.

I loved this book. Mia Hopkins has an exceptional gift for writing "outside the box" romance, and the skill with which she threads class, culture, incarceration, and other key themes into her stories make er books stick with me long after I've finished them. One of the best books I've read so far this year.

(Not including a link because I can't remember if I've talked about this yet on the When in Romance Podcast, but I'm sure I will before the end of 2019.)

Oh Mama! What. A. Ride.

Trashed is a raw story of Eddie's rehabilitation following release from prison. Along the way he meets Carmen, in an explosive, jaw-dropping, steamy 'one night' stand - only to find out sometime later that she is in fact his new boss!

The relationship between Eddie and Carmen is breathtaking - Not only are they steamy as heck, they have a heartwarming connection that see's them both wanting to be better people around each other.

If you want character growth and authenticity with your explosive chemistry, then this is definitely the book for you!

I loved the first book in the series, Thirsty, and made the mistake of reading the first chapter of this one at the end of it and have been waiting for Eddie's story for over a year. I was so excited for it tat I read it as soon as I got the ARC, a couple of months before the actual release which is something I usually avoid doing.

This story was both everything I was hoping for it to be and also not quite what I expected. It's intense, powerful, very moving with strong emphasis on family besides the romance itself.

I knew the heroine is a chef and kind of expected she will be a chef throughout the story while he struggled to find his place after prison/gang life. As it happens this was not the central conflict but still liked the way the story progressed.


What I love the most about this series is the sense of realness they give me. There is no glorification of gang life and the easy money it can bring but there is also of Eddie and his brother for the choices they had to make. We see Eddie trying to leave the gangster life and find a new direction for himeself but no easy solutions for someone with no education and a prison record. There is also the very personal aspect of his family's past and present in all its complexity - the obligation, the sense of loyalty and guilt, mixed with love and hope.

Like Thirsty, Trashed is told in first person present tense, only from Eddie's POV. It worked well for presenting his inner turmoil which was the focus of the story in my opinion, but I missed seeing Carmen, outside of his version of her. We get bits about her own choices in life, her family situation is was not perfect but we don't see much of how she felt about Eddie and most importantly why she got the love him.

Eddie is lost and confused and struggling for most of the story but Carmen sees the good in him and appreciate that her support for him never wavers, her belief in him is strong but she also doesn't hesitate to call him out when he acts stupid/overbearing.

I wanted more of their connection, not just the physical stuff, they kind of used the intense chemistry between them as a substitute for talking about their issues.

I liked the epilogue - no magic solution, just gradual progress, hopeful, happy

I will admit that this book started out in a way I didn’t expect. We get Eddie having anonymous sex with a woman he found crying in a garden on his first day out of prison. It was super hot sex too! I guess, first day out of prison why not? Let me tell you the sex just gets hotter throughout the book! The woman disappears and Eddie can’t find her, doesn’t know her name, and spends months wanting her.

There just aren’t the words to say how awesome this book is. It is actually the first of the series that I have read and I have since gone back to read, Thirsty. Turns out the the mystery woman ends up being Eddie’s boss and let me tell you there is plenty of mystery that comes along with that relationship. I loved Eddie as a character, I mean the dude reads romance novels. That is my kind of guy!

4.5 Stars!

Oh, those Rosas men have stolen my heart.

Oh, how my heart has ached for them.

Like his older brother Sal, Eddie “Trouble” Rosas is struggling to make a life for himself as an ex convict, away from the life of a gangster, which is the only life he knows. He’s a man whose machismo has been knocked down several pegs by a five year stint in prison. He’s still haunted by his past, and struggles to let go of finding out what happened with his father, which occasionally makes him do stupid things. But six months after being released, he’s doing his best to live a clean life, working any job he can for money.

His latest job is as a dishwasher, where he finds chef Carmen Centeno, the woman he had an encounter with the day he was released from prison and hasn’t stopped thinking about ever since. While he didn’t recognize who she was at the time, she knew him from the neighborhood growing up, and knows his story. Knows his heart. As they spend time together, Eddie finds a way to help both his brother Sal with his new brewery business, and Carmen’s family with their abandoned bakery. But Eddie has some things to learn.

“To be honest, I don’t really plan things out,” I say. “The words—they just kind of rush out sometimes. I don’t even know what I’m saying half the time.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well. You need to work on that. You’re a grown-ass man.”

You gotta love a woman who isn’t afraid to call a man on his crap! And Carmen does, so many times. But she’s also the only one who makes him feel alive. Like he’s worth something. Not trash. The thing I loved about this story is that Carmen really is out of Eddie’s league. He has very little to offer her outside their bedroom chemistry (and WHOA NELLY there's A LOT, but you can't base a whole relationship about how good things are in bed), and knows it. But she never makes him feel that way.

I want her to feel about me the way I feel about her—amazed.

There’s something so endearing about a hero who is so earnest in his desire to have a better life, but makes decisions that colossally miss the mark. There’s nothing better than a heroine who holds a hero accountable for his actions, but has his back no matter how far off the rails he goes because she knows his heart.

Thirsty (Eastside Brewery #1) was one of my top ten favorite books for 2018, so I was anxiously awaiting Trashed. Once again, Mia Hopkins has given us another heartbreaking, compelling, unique story that touched me deeply. The writing is beautiful, the characters are charming, and you can’t help but root for Eddie and Carmen as a couple. I have such a warm spot in my heart for Sal and Eddie, and have loved watching them find love, make mistakes, be forgiven, and find a new way to live. These are characters I’m sad to say goodbye to at the end of their story. Thankfully there’s another book coming about the youngest brother, and I can’t wait for it!

* thank you to NetGalley and Little Stone Press for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review

This is the second book in the series. This series gives you the realness of life. It's raw and edgy. Eddie served his time and now he has to take back his life to create a future. Easier said then done especially when your old life starts to sinks in claws into you. This time around he has something worth fighting for, Carmen. I loved her because she can see the good guy Eddie is even though he never sees it himself. She makes him want to be a better man. Carmen and Eddie have such great chemistry. They burn up the pages. Eddie's childhood memories breaks my heart. My heart just bled for him and his brothers. I loved catching up with Sal and Vanessa to see how their love is doing. It made my heart happy. I can't wait for the third book in the series.