Review: Lips on My Heart by M.J. Marino

Lips on My Heart by M.J. Marino

Series: Mercy Ravens MC #1

Publication date: March 28th, 2020

Pages 346

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

Not all the best decisions in life come from making logical choices. Going off the path most chosen sometimes brings you to where you were always meant to be.

Josephine Holland doesn't veer from the path of least resistance. She may appear fragile like a pixie, but Josephine takes control like a dictator with a Napoleon Complex. An awful ex-boyfriend has left her with a sour taste for any future relationships. Josephine wipes the slate clean for a fresh start in Fort Collins, Colorado. With no time for nonsense, Josephine busies herself with her start-up design company and hopes for the best.

Maceo Tabares, a man who oozes trouble, is only interested in no-strings-attached hookups. The former Navy SEAL's life is dangerous, and a dangerous, and a target is always on his back. A relationship would only complicate things. Tired of the vagabond lifestyle, he chooses Fort Collins as his headquarters for his crew, with plans of expanding his security company. Maceo longs for stability, but having an old lady to share his life with is not in the cards.

So when a chance encounter on a hiking trail has these two conflicting characters running into each other--literally--neither one is interested in anything beyond a stolen moment. What neither of them expected was for a spark to form after that single encounter--a spark that would burn down their defensive walls and throw their clear-cut paths into unfamiliar territory.

Josephine's reaction is to flee while Maceo's is to pursue.

Josephine has no intentions of seeing Maceo again, but fate intervenes. When she meets her new client, Atlas, President of the Mercy Ravens MC, she comes face-to-face with Maceo, and all bets are off.

When a potential stalker puts Josephine in danger, Maceo will stop at nothing to protect the woman who has consumed his life. Several hurdles must be cleared for them to have a fighting chance, but will their love be enough fight off all those that want to do them harm? Will love conquer all for these two headstrong lovers?

Lips On My Heart is the first book in the Mercy Ravens MC series.

Available at:

Review:

Who knew the man that Josephine randomly had a tryst with on a hiking trail after being literally swept off her feet by him would be the new client she was hoping to land to get herself back on top? After she was blackballed from her previous firm after her fiance at the time took credit for her work, she needed to land the multimillion dollar job with the local biker club in hopes of turning a profit and keeping her crew employed. When she walked into the diner to meet with the President of the club she was shocked to find her hiking lover sitting there grinning at her across the way. She has no choice but to keep the job or she would go broke, but when she is put back in Maceo's orbit he will do anything to keep her there. But she has other issues rather than a determined biker President. It seems someone is out to ruin her life and danger is lurking around every corner. Can the Mercy Ravens keep her safe?

Overall, I found this book to be a slog. I struggled to keep myself on track of reading it because I was cringing so hard over certain situations and events in the timeline that just seemed forced.

The romance was incredibly fast pace. They met and were sleeping together within minutes and then living together within days. It only went faster and faster to the point where none of it was believable. You're telling me a biker who had rules and regulations to keep himself detached from females to avoid entanglement just decided on a whim to throw it all away without any trepidation? You're telling me that she would provide zero push back and only a moment's hesitation? None of that fits with the characters personalities that the author presented them as in the beginning and so it felt forced and made me roll my eyes. I couldn't throw myself into their romance because it all felt generic and fake.

Another issue was a pet peeve of mine. This couple's sex life was grotesque. I am not a prude to copious amounts of sex but they were doing nothing but having sex for most of the plot! It was like everything else from the threats to Josephine to Maceo's chaotic life was just afterthoughts to them getting to bang any chance they could. And some of things they were into made me grimace. Like their obsession with scent. Him smelling her arousal and her smelling his manly scent down there. Him incorporating that scent kink into his dirty talk. "I can smell how much you want me". Ew. Just... ew. It was the biggest cringe I have read in a while and it made me put the book down over and over to gag. It was one of the defining moments for me in my overall opinion of the book, it was that bad for me.

And finally, it was just predictable. It was easy to pinpoint who the baddies were and what they were after. While the characters were all scratching their heads I'm wanting to throw my Kindle because they're annoyingly clueless. I found myself skipping over passages when they were trying to puzzle it out and that was the first sign that the book was a goner for me. 

I really wanted to like this book and if there had been less sex, less sniffing each other like dogs looking for the perfect fire hydrant, and more twists and turns in the mystery it might have scored higher with me. I know there are two more books with these characters in mind and another mystery to solve but I don't think I can keep going. I was lucky to have finished this book, I can't face two more of them sniffing and doing nothing but having sex.