sweetnessnf75's review against another edition
5.0
Loved It!
This is my second time reading this book and it just keeps getting better. I love Harlow and her guys. This one has now been added to my reread list for sure, along with the rest of the series.
This is my second time reading this book and it just keeps getting better. I love Harlow and her guys. This one has now been added to my reread list for sure, along with the rest of the series.
apicstory's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
That really hit the spot. This was exactly what I was looking for. Girl with a hard time meets guys that adore her and prove that she is worthy. I eat that stuff up! This was a hit for me and I would highly recommend it. I definitely look forward to reading the next one. It even got me in the feels a little and the storyline besides the relationship building stuff, was good! No real spice, just kissing in this one(personally is fine with me).
4.5⭐️ .5🌶
mandi7mm's review
3.0
This series was okay. It gave me something to read in the middle of a book slump, but honestly it felt like a cheap imitation of C.L. Stone's Ghost Bird series.
amandautx's review
4.0
Liked it
If you have ever read the Academy series you will tell that this book has a lot of things in common.
It is a slow burn reverse harem romance. A team of guys recruit a girl that is having home trouble into their secret group and Business
If you have ever read the Academy series you will tell that this book has a lot of things in common.
It is a slow burn reverse harem romance. A team of guys recruit a girl that is having home trouble into their secret group and Business
noemi1010's review
3.0
3.5 STARS
Before I started reading this book, I read a lot of reviews stating that the story it is like the Ghost Bird series by C.L. Stone. I remember starting reading this series years ago, and I can't say that I remember it clearly, but I remember the main points.
This series is not the same. Yes, both the boys teams in Now or Never and in the Ghost Bird series work for a secret agency, but the story develops differently, and the characters have different personalities.
I like this book. I'm curious to see what happens next.
Spoiler Alert:
Harlow is a teenager weeks away from graduating high school. She lives with her mom who has a bipolar disorder and cancer. Her brother left as soon as he turned 18 and calls Harlow rarely. We don't know exactly what happens to the dad, there are hints here and there, but not full disclosure of what happened. So you can imagine her situation. She goes to school and at the same time work as much as she can to provide for herself and her mother.
One day, at the diner she's working she encounters Knix and Marv, two hot guys. She meets Bellamy, the third hot guy, at her school when he comes to recruit her for a job that we still don't now exactly what it is. I guess we'll have to get the second book to find out. Texas, the fourth and last guy of the team, is the tech wizard, and Harlow meets him when she decides to give this "job" a try.
The company the guys work for does help the community. Harlow wants to help people too, so she starts her trial period with the guys. They have to find the thief who is stealing valuables from a retreat resort owned by a very wealthy company. Throw in a "fifth guy" Grayson, Harlow's classmate, and you can imagine the mayhem.
This book is a slow-burn reverse harem (really slow-burn! There are only two kisses in the book!!! Ok, they are hot, but still only two!) with a heroine who doesn't like to follow orders and four (maybe five) guys who try to get into her heart.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves a good YA slow-burn RH.
Before I started reading this book, I read a lot of reviews stating that the story it is like the Ghost Bird series by C.L. Stone. I remember starting reading this series years ago, and I can't say that I remember it clearly, but I remember the main points.
This series is not the same. Yes, both the boys teams in Now or Never and in the Ghost Bird series work for a secret agency, but the story develops differently, and the characters have different personalities.
I like this book. I'm curious to see what happens next.
Spoiler Alert:
Harlow is a teenager weeks away from graduating high school. She lives with her mom who has a bipolar disorder and cancer. Her brother left as soon as he turned 18 and calls Harlow rarely. We don't know exactly what happens to the dad, there are hints here and there, but not full disclosure of what happened. So you can imagine her situation. She goes to school and at the same time work as much as she can to provide for herself and her mother.
One day, at the diner she's working she encounters Knix and Marv, two hot guys. She meets Bellamy, the third hot guy, at her school when he comes to recruit her for a job that we still don't now exactly what it is. I guess we'll have to get the second book to find out. Texas, the fourth and last guy of the team, is the tech wizard, and Harlow meets him when she decides to give this "job" a try.
The company the guys work for does help the community. Harlow wants to help people too, so she starts her trial period with the guys. They have to find the thief who is stealing valuables from a retreat resort owned by a very wealthy company. Throw in a "fifth guy" Grayson, Harlow's classmate, and you can imagine the mayhem.
This book is a slow-burn reverse harem (really slow-burn! There are only two kisses in the book!!! Ok, they are hot, but still only two!) with a heroine who doesn't like to follow orders and four (maybe five) guys who try to get into her heart.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves a good YA slow-burn RH.
adreanna_readz's review
4.0
This book was awesome for me it was kind of slow but I liked that we were meeting and getting to know all the characters before it picked up a little and the bonds between Harlow and the iris men were beginning to grow! Watching Harlow go from working hard and doing it all alone to having help and also being bad ass at spy work and helping people was really something to see and I’m excited to start the next book
mom2pcnl's review
5.0
Fun intro to a series
I enjoyed this contemporary take on a slow burn RH. I look forward to seeing what more comes of this team.
I enjoyed this contemporary take on a slow burn RH. I look forward to seeing what more comes of this team.
azelius's review
1.0
it took me 3 tries to finally finish this book, i kept dnfing it then forgetting why and coming back.
drama's review
4.0
**This Review Contains Spoilers For Now or Never Book One and Study Break**
This book was easier to get into than Smoke's previous book, Daimon. I'm not a fan of Reverse Harem, but I am a fan of supporting authors. While a lot of the description in this book weighed heavily on the purple prose side, I gave Smoke the benefit of the doubt and continued reading.
The book itself is evenly paced. Though It didn't sit well with me how often one of the boys joined the main character in her bed. Harlow in and of herself is a trope of every female I've ever read in romance with one key difference. She does seem to genuinely care about helping other people.
The main mystery in the book, if you can call it that, sort of left me wanting. The "job" they did seemed to go by far too quickly. We didn't get to see Harlow shine and show off some of her intelligence. Despite the book playing up her intellect from the very beginning.
The guys are very similar in stature and description and that left me confused a lot because I often didn't know which man she was referring to. I know there's diversity among them with Bellamy being Native American, but men are much more diverse than skin color. I would liked to have seen some differences in their personalities and outward appearance. Not all men are tall and lean with endless muscles.
At this point I've read several of Lucy Smoke's books because she shows promise as a writer. I have noticed in many of her Reverse Harem titles that the boys are strikingly similar and not just among the books they're in, but also across series as well. In her novella "Study Break" Dexter Jones, who bears an extreme likeness to Knix in Now or Never, tells the main female character, Jamie, that he will "spank her" if she doesn't stop saying bad things about herself. Knix also tells Harlow he will "spank her" if she doesn't stop saying negative things about herself.
Smoke seems to zero in one one man in the series to be their main character's "focal point" despite there being three+ other men there that the character needs to pay attention to. In Now or Never this man is Knix. He is so obviously well-suited for Harlow and Smoke intentionally writes him this way. However, despite this, Harlow continues to pine over the other guys and worries about this hurting their feelings.
This didn't make sense to me. Harlow has never considered a poly lifestyle for herself and based on this evidence instead of her wondering if this is okay for her to kiss all these guys who are already in a well-established friendship, shouldn't she be agonizing over which one she should choose?
A lot of other reviewers have been praising Smoke up and down for writing Harlow as a "strong female character", when there's no such thing. There are only well-written female characters and poorly-written female characters. In reality, Smoke seems to write her female characters through the "male-gaze". She uses tropes like "She doesn't know she's beautiful" and "these men have to save her", not to mention, Now or Never wouldn't even pass a simple Bechdel Test.
Harlow is a girl who randomly starts following a bunch of older men around because they claimed to be from an organization they couldn't tell her anything about and they immediately started paying for her bills. Why? Harlow never questions this in any real way. Not to mention her only female friend exists to talk to Harlow about "the boys" or just relationships or men in general. That's not a healthy relationship with another female.
Harlow also doesn't once talk to "the boys" about the reality of the situation they're in. She leaves so much unsaid, yet still decides to join their group, "Iris", despite 3/4 of them kissing her and she never once brings that up. I know Harlow is new to being Poly, but communication is key. This could potentially come back to blow up in her face and ruin the dynamic of the group. This is something she should have considered prior to joining. Instead, she negated to even bring it up.
Despite all of this, Lucy Smoke has a lot of potential. I look forward to seeing new works from her and seeing her grow as a writer. Well done, Lucy :).
This book was easier to get into than Smoke's previous book, Daimon. I'm not a fan of Reverse Harem, but I am a fan of supporting authors. While a lot of the description in this book weighed heavily on the purple prose side, I gave Smoke the benefit of the doubt and continued reading.
The book itself is evenly paced. Though It didn't sit well with me how often one of the boys joined the main character in her bed. Harlow in and of herself is a trope of every female I've ever read in romance with one key difference. She does seem to genuinely care about helping other people.
The main mystery in the book, if you can call it that, sort of left me wanting. The "job" they did seemed to go by far too quickly. We didn't get to see Harlow shine and show off some of her intelligence. Despite the book playing up her intellect from the very beginning.
The guys are very similar in stature and description and that left me confused a lot because I often didn't know which man she was referring to. I know there's diversity among them with Bellamy being Native American, but men are much more diverse than skin color. I would liked to have seen some differences in their personalities and outward appearance. Not all men are tall and lean with endless muscles.
At this point I've read several of Lucy Smoke's books because she shows promise as a writer. I have noticed in many of her Reverse Harem titles that the boys are strikingly similar and not just among the books they're in, but also across series as well. In her novella "Study Break" Dexter Jones, who bears an extreme likeness to Knix in Now or Never, tells the main female character, Jamie, that he will "spank her" if she doesn't stop saying bad things about herself. Knix also tells Harlow he will "spank her" if she doesn't stop saying negative things about herself.
Smoke seems to zero in one one man in the series to be their main character's "focal point" despite there being three+ other men there that the character needs to pay attention to. In Now or Never this man is Knix. He is so obviously well-suited for Harlow and Smoke intentionally writes him this way. However, despite this, Harlow continues to pine over the other guys and worries about this hurting their feelings.
This didn't make sense to me. Harlow has never considered a poly lifestyle for herself and based on this evidence instead of her wondering if this is okay for her to kiss all these guys who are already in a well-established friendship, shouldn't she be agonizing over which one she should choose?
A lot of other reviewers have been praising Smoke up and down for writing Harlow as a "strong female character", when there's no such thing. There are only well-written female characters and poorly-written female characters. In reality, Smoke seems to write her female characters through the "male-gaze". She uses tropes like "She doesn't know she's beautiful" and "these men have to save her", not to mention, Now or Never wouldn't even pass a simple Bechdel Test.
Harlow is a girl who randomly starts following a bunch of older men around because they claimed to be from an organization they couldn't tell her anything about and they immediately started paying for her bills. Why? Harlow never questions this in any real way. Not to mention her only female friend exists to talk to Harlow about "the boys" or just relationships or men in general. That's not a healthy relationship with another female.
Harlow also doesn't once talk to "the boys" about the reality of the situation they're in. She leaves so much unsaid, yet still decides to join their group, "Iris", despite 3/4 of them kissing her and she never once brings that up. I know Harlow is new to being Poly, but communication is key. This could potentially come back to blow up in her face and ruin the dynamic of the group. This is something she should have considered prior to joining. Instead, she negated to even bring it up.
Despite all of this, Lucy Smoke has a lot of potential. I look forward to seeing new works from her and seeing her grow as a writer. Well done, Lucy :).
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