Just Say Yes by Elizabeth Hayley – Review, Guest Post & Giveaway
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Description:
Magazine columnist Quinn Sawyer has always attracted sweet, innocent, and safe men. And something tells her it’s because she’s just as harmless. So when she starts craving a guy with an edge, she realizes she may have to get one for herself.
When her boss asks for a unique pitch, Quinn’s quest to live outside her comfort zone prompts her to suggest an idea that will cause her to break her good-girl rules. And who better than Tim Jacobs to help her push her boundaries? For a while now, Quinn’s had a hot crush on the tattooed executive chef with a checkered past. If anybody can bring out her inner rebel, he can.
It’s no surprise that with every task the two complete, the sparks between them grow more and more intense. Soon there’s no denying the attraction they each feel. But Tim’s troubled past reveals an even tougher edge than Quinn expected—which means for her, falling in love might just be the greatest rebellion of all.
Review:
Just Say Yes starts with Hayley on a date that doesn’t go too well. She meets up with her girlfriends later and they ask for the dirt on her date. When she tells them it didn’t go too well, they give her a hard time. She then starts wondering if she has pigeon holed herself in what she’s actually looking for in a relationship. Even more than that, she’s wondering if she really knows herself or if she’s just set herself on cruise control.
At work, she’s in a meeting where the writers pitch ideas to their boss for the next month’s magazine publication. Even though she’s been somewhat of a lackey, she finds herself offering up an idea for a story that her boss actually takes her up on. The idea? A good girl who breaks the rules, throws caution to the wind when it comes to dating. Although Quinn is shocked that their boss actually liked the idea, she is even more shocked that she is going to try and go through with it.
At a get together, Quinn ends up talking about what she is setting out to do, when Tim agrees to help her. Tim has a bit of a checkered past, but is actually looking forward to helping her out. He’s always thought she was pretty and a nice person, but knows he’d never have a shot at her with his past. She’s way out of his league………. Or so he thinks.
As they start spending time together as friends, things start to heat up. Quinn doesn’t know if she’ll truly be able to throw caution to the wind and take the chances that she wants to, but she knows down to her toes that Tim is more than the bad boy persona he projects to everyone. Once things really get going, a few things happen that leaves us wondering if they’ll actually be able to get past it in order to have a real relationship. Funny how things work out when you didn’t really know what you were looking for………
Just Say Yes is a wonderfully written story with a lot of humor (had me laughing out loud a lot!), a beautifully developed friends to lovers romance, and a few moments that had me tearing up. Quinn is a great character that is totally relatable and you’ll feel like you’ve known her all of your life. Tim is awesome as well. A little attitude, a big heart and a lot of hotness. This is the first I’ve read by this writing duo, but I’d definitely like to go back and read the first in the series and read future stories. If you’re looking for a fast read with humor, a beautifully developed romance and some steam, this is definitely for you! Well done, Elizabeth Hayley! Very well done!
Reviewed by Vickie
Copy provided by Publisher
Built on a Hope and a Dream
Our journey as writers has been…weird. Weird in the best possible ways, but weird nonetheless. This all started with a discussion about how much we both loved Fifty Shades of Grey, and Hayley saying that she thought we could write romance. Elizabeth agreed.
So what started as a casual, off-hand comment turned into a book idea, became a planning meeting, transitioned into a super fun hobby, and ultimately morphed into Pieces of Perfect. We wrote our first book in about a month because once we started writing, we couldn’t NOT write. It’s like we’d been walking through life with part of ourselves missing. How could we have neglected this for so long? We were writers. Yes, we were also wives, mothers, teachers, assholes, the list goes on and on. But we also, most certainly, were writers.
We started to bleed words, characters, and plot ideas. But instead of trying to stem the flow, we continued to allow ourselves to hemorrhage. Because we know that this is it–this will never bleed us dry. Rather, it will invigorate us. And from it bloomed a hope. A hope that this could all somehow be more.
So we kept going. Pieces of Perfect turned into the Pieces Series–three novels and a novella. And when people actually bought them, we were amazed and thankful and excited. And the hope started to become something else–a dream.
We wanted this. We wanted to write stories that people would enjoy and characters they could relate to. But if we were going to strive for the dream, we were going to take it to the max fantasy: we wanted to be published.
We’ve never fully been able to grasp why being traditionally published was so important to us. A lot of authors prefer staying the indie course, and we admire them for it. Maybe we needed the validation–needed someone else to believe we were good enough. Maybe part of it was vanity. Who doesn’t want to see their novel in bookstores? Or maybe it was because we knew we could be better, but couldn’t get there on our own. Most likely, it was, and continues to be, all of these things.
But that meant that the next book had to be good enough for a publisher to want it. Enter The Best Medicine. And then enter Penguin Random House. With their help, we fixed up The Best Medicine, and created two more novels to make the Strictly Business Series: Just Say Yes and The Wedding Agreement (out in May).
The thing about a dream is that it changes every time you close your eyes. And the longer we write, the bigger our dream becomes. We don’t know what the future holds for us, but we hope it’s as exciting as where we’ve been. We hope the journey is long, and weird, and challenging. Because if it’s not those things, well then it won’t really have been a journey at all.
“Quinn had been feeling pretty damn full of herself in the kitchen. But once she got into the bedroom and kicked off her sandals, she faltered for a second, chewing on her bottom lip as she looked at his large masculine bed: dark wood with a dark slate comforter. It was so not comforting. I’m about to have sex with Tim. On a bed that screams Christian Grey, if for no other reason than because it’s gray. Quinn was spiraling into a nonsensical state of self-deficiency. Tim was nearly eight years older than she was—a seasoned pro compared to her. What if she didn’t live up to his other experiences? What if he wasn’t into it? What if . . . ?
“Whatever you’re thinking about right now, stop it. Unless it’s that you don’t want to do this, in which case we’ll go back out there and have dinner.” Tim came up behind her and brought his hands up to her shoulders, sweeping her hair over one in the process so he could place gentle kisses on the back of her neck.
Quinn immediately relaxed into his touch. This was Tim. He’d opened a whole new world for her without ever once making her feel inadequate. She’d been a fool to think he ever would. “I definitely do not want dinner.”
“Then tell me what you do want.” His lips ghosted over her skin as he spoke.
“I—I want . . .” God, how am I supposed to think when he’s kissing me like that? She forced her mind to work through the sexual fog he was blanketing her in. “I want to be with you. In every way two people can be together. But I think—no, I know that I want you to lead. Show me what you like. Show me how good it can be.” It wasn’t that Quinn hadn’t had good sex before. She had, by her standards. But she was also convinced that sex with Tim would blow any previous encounter right out of the fucking water. She wasn’t interested in timid first times. She wanted epic right off the bat. And Quinn knew Tim would deliver.
“Every way, huh? That almost sounds like a challenge.”
“It is. You think you’re up for it?”
At that, Tim ground his erection against her ass. An erotic moan left her as he said, “Oh, I’m up for it.” He let her feel his hard-on through the denim of his jeans for only a moment longer before he pulled away, walked around her, and flopped down onto his side on the bed. “Strip for me, Quinn.”
Quinn felt her face heat as she looked down at herself.
“Hey.” Tim’s voice was soft as it drew her attention back to him. “I have been reliving your nude modeling for the past week. But see, that’s a memory I have to share with all those other people. Not this time. This time is just for me.”
His words emboldened her. It was just for him—it had been just for him then too, if she were being honest with herself. His were the only eyes she had cared about in that entire room. But in his apartment, with just the two of them, it was different. She couldn’t claim that it was for the article, or about finding herself. In Tim’s room, with only the soft pallor of the descending sun illuminating them, she was fucking found. So she reached under her arm and drew down the zipper that was hiding there, letting the dress fall to her feet. Her white satin bra fell next. And finally, with her eyes trained on Tim the entire time, she lowered her matching thong. Quinn stood before him, summoning a confidence she knew had been hiding in her somewhere, and watched as his eyes raked over her body. His gaze was all lust and need. And something else . . . reverence maybe? Like he had every intention of worshipping her body as though it were a temple. The thought made her stand up even straighter.
Tim rubbed his cock through his pants as he took in the sight of her. But just before she felt the slightest tinge of self-consciousness, he stood and walked back toward her. His hands came and cupped her jaw. “You’re perfect,” he whispered right before he pulled her lips to his. The kiss was intense as they spilled all of their wants into it.
Quinn basked in the feeling of Tim’s tongue against hers, his piercing turning her on even more than she already was. He got that for me. And now I get to be the one who enjoys it. Her hands skated down his chest to his stomach, where she yanked his shirt up and slid her hands beneath it. Her fingers adored his runner’s body, the ridges of his hardened abdominals. He broke away from her lips long enough to pull the shirt over his head, and she took full advantage, moving up to feel his slender but muscular chest. Finally, when she felt like she was being a cocktease to herself, her hands landed on his belt, quickly unfastening it and pushing it out of the way so she could pop the button on his jeans and drag the zipper down.
Elizabeth Hayley is actually “Elizabeth” and “Hayley,” two friends who love reading romance novels to obsessive levels. This mutual love prompted them to put their English degrees to good use by penning their own. The product is Pieces of Perfect, their debut novel. They learned a ton about one another through the process, like how they clearly share a brain and have a persistent need to text each other constantly (much to their husbands’ chagrin).
“Elizabeth” lives with her husband, daughter, and nutjob of a dog. “Hayley” lives with her husband, son, and her own crazy dog. Thankfully, their children are still too young to read.
Elizabeth Hayley’s writing motto is best captured by the words of Patrick Dennis: “I always start with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.”
Elizabeth Hayley’s publisher is offering a paper copy of JUST SAY YES to ONE (1) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe.
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9. Giveaway runs from December 11 – 14, 2015
