Lola Landry stares through the window of her locked car with the keys in the ignition and the radio blaring Beck’s “Loser.” While standing there and sweltering in the soupy Tennessee humidity, she wonders how her orderly life had crashed and burned so badly. Then her high school nemesis saunters up in all of his tall, strapping, fireman-to-the-rescue glory, slapping her with the humiliating proof that it can always get worse.

When the uber-confident Jedediah Lawson requests a date in return for popping her lock, a lightbulb goes off. Revenge is sweet. He would make the perfect victim—guest, that is—for her next podcast episode on Kiss and Tell. What shocks her is the casual way he not only agrees to the post-date interview on air, but ends up hijacking her audience and wooing them with his swoony, southern charm. Not even a low score on the date-o-meter can dissuade the man or keep her fans from demanding more of the charismatic Jed.

What’s worse, she secretly wants a second date with this man who is so different from his teenage self. His unwavering patience and dimpled smile erode her will, until she breaks the Kiss and Tell rules by agreeing to a second…and a third date. It’s a disaster. Not the date. They’re wonderful. The disaster is that she is falling for a man she once dubbed Jockstrap Jed.

‘Parks and Provocation’ is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #2 in the Green Valley Heroes series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe.

Favorite Quotes:

Ever since the layoff, my ego had been suffering from severe fracture lines, splintering into a million spiderweb breaks. I was holding it together with duct tape and a prayer, the most reliable of southern adhesives.

“Welcome to the annual man-meat show.” I was horrified and stupefied and in complete danger of swallowing my own tongue. I hoped there was a defibrillator in that ambulance just in case.

I bit my bottom lip, determined not to regret anything in the past. There was no use to it. Like my dad always told me, “Don’t waste your time looking back. You’re not going that way.”

Life is never fair. You just have to make roses out of shit-hills most of the time.

Meeting Jed’s family was like falling into a vortex and being squeezed tight by fluffy teddy bears and sharp-toothed piranhas at the same time.

My Review:

This was a cleverly written, fun, and frisky romp that kept me smirking, gasping, and seeking libation to rehydrate my desiccated body.   This engaging couple had a compelling yet tempestuous history as well as undeniable physical chemistry that singed the sheets.

My Kindle was smoking and my mouth was frequently parched. This was my first exposure to Ms. Cross’s delightfully delectable word voodoo as her listing looks primarily paranormal, a genre I don’t often peruse, although I can’t help but cross all my fingers and toes she churns out more of these clever Smartypants romantic comedies.