Block Party (A Twin Estates Novel Book 3) Kindle Edition

5.5 amazing stars!
There are books by authors I look forward to reading and, as soon as they’re announced, I add them to my Want to Read list without reading the blurb, knowing ahead of time these master storytellers have yet to let me down. Each and every one of them a well-written tale, usually filled with intrigue, love, humor, and tears. Luckily for us, Block Party combines all these elements, and so much more. I had my laugh out loud moments, in between the ugly cry ones, and sometimes there was even that weird combination of both, at once. This story combines the perfect amount of sweet and sour, some angst and then humor, to lighten the story, so it’s not bogged down in too much heaviness.

It’s the third book in the Twin Estates Series and, while it’s technically a Standalone, I recommend everyone reading the first two books as there are crossover characters and some back story you won’t be privy to otherwise. This book features the amazing and wonderful Mr. Edenhoff, who I admit I’m in love with, and I’m happy he didn’t get his girl, Katya, in the previous books. Oops! See, that’s a spoiler from books one and two, which is why you should’ve read them by now, but we wouldn’t have this story if he had, so…

Liam Edenhoff’s a mess. Well, his personal life is, he’s thirty-two and hasn’t been very successful with relationships and he’s wondering what he can do to fix it. Everyone thinks he doesn’t take anything seriously and just likes to have fun. Liam’s a people pleaser and everyone, women especially, all gravitate towards him. But not everything is as it seems and he decides he needs to grow up. After Katya chose Wulf, his ex-business partner and former friend, he’s been trying to sort his life. He wants his twin brother, Landon, to get off his couch and either find someplace else to live or go back to practicing medicine out of the country. He’s been avoiding Wulf’s twenty-year old sister, Brighton “Brie” Stone, who’s been stalking him like a mad woman, after he decided to end their casual sex arrangement. If he had a bunny she would have boiled it by now. And now he’s afraid she’ll spill the beans and tell Katya and Wulf about their dirty little secret. His bookkeeping at the club is atrocious, but at least he convinced Wulf’s executive assistant, Ayumi Nakada, who’s a CPA, to stay on as his bookkeeper. A very no-nonsense, nose to the grindstone, bookkeeper that makes poor Liam do math. Something no one should be forced to do!

“Being an adult is nowhere near as awesome as everyone makes it seem.”

Ayumi Nakada, at twenty-seven, has no life outside of being Wulf Stone’s executive assistant for the last five years. Wulf’s her emergency contact, should anything ever happen to her, as she’s informed him. Ayumi is closer to him than anyone, unfortunately that’s sad, since she doesn’t really know anyone. She works up to fourteen hours a day, sometimes seven days a week and has no social life, no friends to call and meet somewhere for a drink. She adopted a cat recently, so she doesn’t live alone. She had an arrangement with someone she’d meet occasionally, when she had an itch to scratch, but he moved away and while she wasn’t actively looking to replace him, it would be nice to find someone who could keep things casual. She’s tried to please her mother her entire life and feels she’ll never live up to her impossibly high expectations, and as a result, their relationship is almost non-existent. Mrs. Nakada always said Ayumi was a “ruiner of things” and felt that was something she did excel at. Since her own mother never had a loving relationship with her father, Ayumi didn’t have an example she could follow, so she had no idea what to do or not do. It’s no wonder Liam calls her the Ice Queen.

“Ayumi had really gotten to Liam, it seemed. A girl carved out of ice had somehow managed to touch him in ways no one else had. He was scared. It was bad enough feeling like he wasn’t good enough for his family and friends—but to not be good enough for Ayumi, that was simply too much, it seemed.”

When these two broken people finally notice each other they embark on a strange journey of discovery. Both have secrets they slowly begin to share with each other. They both have so much complex, and heavy baggage they’ve been dragging around their entire lives, it’s both painful, and amazing to see how they slowly let some pieces go. Sometimes it seems that for every step forward one of them takes the other takes two backwards. I loved this couple so much and wept more than once to see how much they suffered, both physically, and emotionally. Oh and there’s an epilogue and it’s freaking amazing!

***4.5 ‘You Are The Moment’ Stars***

I know I should have been prepared for anything and everything after reading the first two books in the series, but h$ly h@ll can we say Hello, angsty emotional rollercoaster?!? I swear my emotions are still trying to settle after this one. But even with ALL the angst going on, they were balanced out some seriously swoon worthy and heart melting moments that made experiencing Liam and Ayumi’s journey absolutely worthwhile!

I was Team Taco aka Team Liam from the beginning. Yes, he did some stupid things in the first two books and I wanted to give him a good Gibbs smack a time or two, but his laid back and yet astute nature and innate charisma combined with his unhealthy love affair with tacos made him irresistible. But here we get to see what really makes him tick and find that he really is so much more. His heart is truly golden, but a little more bruised than anyone truly realizes and those bruises are what has him doing things that get him into the emotional entanglements that constantly plague him.

Ayumi…*big deep breath* Straight up, I loved the woman from the start and I ended up adoring the woman she evolved into in the end, but D@@MN! She could give graduate level classes in how to repress your emotions and build up titanium walls around yourself. She is something well beyond ice, in the beginning. But as her past unfolds, I got why she was the way she was and why she believed it to be the only way for her to live and my heart hurt for her. So watching as she allowed bits and pieces of her heart to be exposed, I found the icy woman had a warm soul that only needed the right push to break free of it’s confines.

Now for Liam and Ayumi’s extremely bumpy journey to their HEA...all I can say is that it was total opposites attract goodness! Yes, I got whiplash and wanted to smack some sense into both of them from beginning to almost the very end, but they were absolutely addicting when they were together. They were so opposite in so many ways that it made them so perfect for each other because through their differences they ended up helping the other confront their issues and hopefully bring about a lightbulb moment that would be the catalyst for a positive change in their outlooks on life. But of course nothing is ever easy, and dear lord did these two have a lot to work through. Some of their actions and reactions fell firmly into the juvenile zone, but they did bring about some pretty deep epiphanies even if they weren’t always welcome. In the end, I love them together and where they ended up, it wasn’t pretty, but Liam and Ayumi definitely deserved the HEA they got.

Block Party was all kinds of angsty, swoon worthy goodness that hooked me from the first page and had me wanting more in the end. If you haven’t read Neighbors & The Neighborhood, the first two books in the series, you won’t be totally lost as Ms. Fantôme has done a great job at giving the reader just enough background on what happened with Wulf, Katya and Liam, but I’m always a proponent of reading things in order and if you do decided to start at the beginning you’ll have a better understanding of why things between certain characters are the way they are, especially because Katya, Wulf, Tori and Landon do make some appearances throughout the book. If you love an opposites attract romance that has a tendency to dip it’s toes into the almost OTT angsty realm, but is tempered by a good dose of sweet and smexy moments then you will definitely LOVE Block Party!

~ Copy provided by Give Me Books Promotions & voluntarily reviewed ~