The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here! Any funds made in June 2021 will be used to spread bookish love and Claire Kinglsey books. #LoveforClaire #AlphasforDavid

When something sad happens, I want to escape into a book, or away with my favorite people.  Emily Henry’s Beach Read feels like the perfect book for this month with a bookish struggle, at the beach, and, with my favorite bookish people gathering to discuss it on Friday June 18th at 7:30pm Central Time, sounds like just the right medicine for my soul.  I hope it sounds good to you too, and you’ll SIGN UP HERE and join us.  

Dear readers, we’re making an editorial executive decision today and not posting about Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia as scheduled.  This has nothing to do with the book, which will be coming to the blog (date TBD) and everything to do with what we are posting.

One of the reasons we decided to start a book blog is that we love reading the same books and talking about them.  We wanted to go further and invite others into the conversation, and share our conversations with the world as a means of sharing our love of books with other bookish people.  Let’s be real, bookish people are the best, and we wanted to be a part of connecting those people together.  I hope you’ve found some of that here and in our Virtual Book Club.

In addition to finding community with you all, one of the places we’ve found a bookish community is on Facebook.  I didn’t really think about this until someone in The Lazy Genius Collective Facebook Group (yes, it’s connected to The Lazy Genius Podcast and The Lazy Genius Way) asked what other groups folks are in and why.  I’m in that group and the groups of the Bluewater Billionaires authors.  That’s right, I am a (very inactive) part of four groups of readers who adore these authors of open door romance novels.  AND the posts of those groups are possibly the most real in my Facebook feed.  Yes darlings, we generally post the highlight reels, and that’s ok, but I also like a dose of reality.  I appreciate a place where sharing what would otherwise be inappropriate (yes, there is NSFW content that comes up), and I adore the freedom folks feel to have vulnerable conversations.  THIS is part of what keeps me coming back to romance novels time and again, even though the HEA doesn’t always happen in reality, the struggles do, and the community does, even when it’s created on social media by authors and their admins.  These authors invite readers to see into their lives (even though many have noms de plume), to meet their husbands (even though they use fun names like Mr. Lucy and Mr. Arm Porn – and yes, there are two good reasons for that last moniker – and you can find those on his IG account romanceresearchassistant), be introduced to their families, and to hear their struggles.  

Claire Kinglsey is the first of the Bluewater authors I read, back in December 2018, when I was still training the Facebook algorithms to lead me to amazing romance novels.  They lead me to Book Boyfriend with the promise of an amazing plot – girl meets boy in a bookstore, boy buys girl books and asks for a date!  As with real life, it’s all much more complicated, but that’s how it begins, and how I began to fall into the community Claire has created with the help of her husband, Mr. Arm Porn, and others who work with them, especially Alex and Nikki who are the admins for the Facebook group. Claire, Alex, and Nikki share of their lives in the online community, so when Claire’s father had some health issues and moved in with her family last year, we followed along, we prayed for her family, and we cheered her on in the struggle.  When her family decided to move several hours away, including buying and selling a house, we did it all again.  And when Mr. Arm Porn started having some serious health issues, the process began again, although the cheering her on never really stopped.  Over the weekend Mr. Arm Porn’s, but let’s now call him David, symptoms got much worse, which led to an ER visit, followed by emergency surgery to remove a blood clot, a massive stroke Tuesday while in ICU, and finally his passing yesterday.  They’re in their 40s, they’ve been together since they were babies (ok, teenagers, they’ve shared fantastic pictures for proof and they look like babies), and they have three kids still at home, plus Claire’s dad is still living with them too.  They’ve had an amazing love story, and it is so clear to all who’ve been a part of their community, because he works with her on the publishing side too, that they are a team, one in which each partner helps to encourage and support the other, committed to their family and their passions.  In honor of their love, and in memory of Mr. Arm Porn (which will be forever how I think of David), we are resharing one of our favorite Claire Kinglsey books with you today from February 2020, The Mogul and the Muscle, Bluewater Billionaires #2  . Also in memory of Mr. Arm Porn and as the only means of support requested aside from prayers, we’re giving away two Claire Kinglsley books.  Read through to the end for the giveaway details, say a prayer or send a peaceful thought, and participate in a community that brings you joy, solace, and peace.  If you’re feeling in need of some open door romance reading, consider reading and reviewing one of Claire’s books.  If fantasy is more your thing, maybe try this series Claire and David worked on together. We’ve loved every single one we’ve read, added two new titles to our collection this week, and are looking forward to reading the rest of her backlist and anything new Claire gifts to us and the world of readers.  You can also check out her shop as an additional way to support Claire and her family, and share your bookish love with the world. 

Without further ado, our thoughts on The Mogul and the Muscle by Claire Kingsley:

The last post in the series came with a confession (that I read the book in less than 24 hours).  This one starts with a warning: I read this one in a day, as in between two sleeps. I also did laundry and took my children to the library, but I’m not sure I did much else AND IT WAS GLORIOUS.  

Now for the confession:  we have a problem around here.  When we read romance novels, we get sucked in and we don’t like to do anything else until we see how the HEA is going to happen.  I know it’s weird because we KNOW the book ends in HEA, but the HOW is the part that keeps me glued to the book until I have discovered all of its secrets!  So, now that we have learned reading romance novels on work nights means we stay up too late, we try to focus on romance novels on the weekends, especially these, because we had some pretty high expectations and y’all, so far, THEY HAVE DELIVERED!  

Now for the book – The Mogul and the Muscle is book two in our billionaire, open door, romantic comedy series wherein last week we focused on Emily and Derek and met Emily’s friends, Cameron, Luna, and Daisy.  This week, we’ll be hanging out with Cameron. Cam is an engineer turned CEO who was the victim of involved in an attempted mugging.  Her friends are very concerned about her safety, so Emily asks Derek for someone to look after Cam, so Jude (yup, we met him last week at the boxing gym) takes the job.  He’s struggling to adjust to life after the CIA and keeps getting private security referrals despite his desire to retire. He’ll take this (other) one last job because his pal Derek asked him to, and because he likes Emily.  Cam is, we’ll call it displeased, but not enough for me to feel comfortable calling this enemies-to-lovers. [Ashley says it’s an over-protective Alpha-male with a strong and sassy heroine trope.] We get to know our two leads as well as a few others at Cam’s company and additional residents of Bluewater (Cam’s chef, personal trainer, and gardener) and they are all just adorable, well mostly at least!  There’s even an 80s themed party at Bluewater! During the course of the book, as expected, drama happens a few times and Cam and Jude use their very different skill sets to tackle it. The bonus epilogue, oh y’all, it was very different from last week’s, but I loved it so much! It just fit Cam and Jude so well even if I was wondering about half the time if Jude set it up or if he really just shouldn’t have gone back there and it was going to be an actual problem.  

I’m SO looking forward to next week’s book, Wild Open Hearts by Kathryn Nolan where we’ll be focusing on Luna.  Nolan is the only brand-new-to-me author of this set and I am super excited to meet her on Saturday morning.  I’m not sure I’ll get the whole book in as quickly as the first two because spending most of the day on the couch isn’t going to be an option this time, but I’m guessing that’ll be the only reason.  

Oh, and just in case there is any question, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and am trying to figure out (even more than before, because it’s been a thing for a while), how I can live in a community my friends and I develop and hand select residents to share it with us.  I don’t need the drama of a romance novel, but some of the fun pieces are definitely worth pondering how to move closer to in real life. Just not necessarily one shaped like the female reproductive system, although, if it happens accidentally, I’ll take it.

~Nikki

True story, dear readers, usually Nikki writes her part of the post first [Nikki: because she can’t recall the plot and characters correctly if she doesn’t get it out quickly – perhaps one day Ashley will share some of my more egregious errors she’s corrected] and I fill in with my opinion after I have read her delightful words. But, this time, I avoided reading her overview and wrote my own, and this is how it began:

Let’s all get one thing straight, we read romance novels because we know exactly how they are going to end. It’s the characters, antics, story from beginning to end, in addition to quality and, yes, quantity of schmexytimes that keeps us reading them. We, as in humanity, love learning about what other people, fictional or not, do in their quest for love. Or, avoidance of love and denial of physical chemistry on the part of one or both parties… y’all should know the tropey drill by now. 😀

And THEN, she goes into this pretty fabulous and I can’t really do anything to ameliorate summary of the necessary plot points. But, I wrote this:

In  The Mogul and the Muscle, Claire Kingsley gives us Cameron Whitbury, aerospace engineer and CEO of Spencer Aeronautics, the second of the ‘vagillionaires.’ Yeah, that’s right, it’s the name these four badass lady billionaires gave themselves. Instead of meeting her first, though, we meet Jude Ellis, retired CIA operative who swears he doesn’t have a sign on his door that says “Personal Security and Problem Solver,” but he keeps agreeing to help those people who come to him with issues regular law enforcement can’t seem to handle. We also see him spectacularly fail at a first date with ‘normal seeming’ Karen, who he met on a dating app for ‘the over-thirty crowd,’ in chapter one.

Our couple’s meet cute is at Cameron’s office, where she doesn’t know her personal assistant, three best friends, and Derek Price (yes, our hero from The Price of Scandal) have conspired against her to have a meeting with Jude to hire him as her personal bodyguard since she was the recent victim of an attempted mugging in her office parking garage. Cameron, up until this point, was the only one of the four Bluewater Billionaires who did not already have personal security. Emily has Jane, Daisy speaks of Alessandro during their ‘personal security intervention’ conversation in chapter 2, where at the same time Luna admits it’s comforting to know someone has your back.

And now for my conclusion:

Maybe it’s my deep-seated need for red-headed solidarity, the fact that I am jealous that Cameron has both a personal trainer and a personal chef that live in one of her four guest houses, or the fact that she tries to break Jude’s professional stoicism by taking him lingerie shopping in Agent Provacateur, Cameron is my girl-crush aspiration. I also adore how Cameron and Jude have the usual rom-com blunders of life, but they are blunders that any human being could find themselves in, not just those with tons of money…ok, maybe you still have to have the B in front of -illions, but they ARE semi-believable situations.

Claire Kingsley writes contemporary romances with big-feels, sassy heroines, and swoony heroes. All of her books are available to read through Kindle Unlimited, or you can purchase them digitally from $2.99-$4.99. This was my first Claire title even though Nikki had been highly recommending that I read her Book Boyfriend trilogy for over a year. [The TBR is long and the days are short…] She and The Price of Scandal author Lucy Score have co-written the Bootleg Spring Series. If you want to know more about her, her titles, and for photographic proof of why she calls her husband Mr. Arm Porn to her readers, check out www.clairekingsleybooks.com.

~Ashley

P. S. It’s not just us who get/need to be/want to be absorbed in a book as The Bluewater Billionaires have done, as we had a friend of the blog share a title she’s absorbed in currently (and we are too – we’re buddy (re)reading it with a small group actually).  What are your go-to genres or titles when you need to be absorbed in a book? Are there a few?

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And with that, here’s how you can win a Kindle copy of a Claire Kingsley title: Let us know in the blog comments what Claire Kingsley title you’d most like to own by Sunday, June 6 at 8pm CST.  We’ll pick two random winners, announce them on Monday, June 7, and send them their book via Amazon.

We hope you have a bookish community you adore and feel drawn to support during the realities of life, and we are glad you are a part of ours.

Xoxo,

~Ashley and Nikki

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