A Dream Within A Dream: Entangled Embrace Blog Tour: Sneaking Candy Review + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the Entangled's Embrace blog tour! Today I have my review of SNEAKING CANDY by Lisa Burstein and don't forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post!

Sneaking Candy

Author: Lisa Burstein

Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance

Release Date: December 9, 2013

Publisher: Entangled Embrace

Description:

All I ever wanted was to make a name for myself as Candice Salinas, creative writing grad student at the University of Miami. Of course, secretly I already have made a name for myself: as Candy Sloane, self-published erotic romance writer. Though thrilled that my books are selling and I have actual fans, if anyone at UM found out, I could lose my scholarship…and the respect of my faculty advisor, grade-A-asshole Professor Dylan.

Enter James Walker, super-hot local barista and—surprise!—my student. Even though I know a relationship is totally off-limits, I can’t stop myself from sneaking around with James, taking a few cues from my own erotic writing…if you catch my drift. Candy’s showing her stripes for the first time in my real life, and I’ve never had so much fun. But when the sugar high fades, can my secrets stay under wraps?

Sneaking Candy is a fun and steamy New Adult contemporary romance that follows our main character Candice Salinas as she attempts to combine her graduate classes, her TA job, and her love life all while trying to become a great writer. But Candice has a secret that only her roommate knows about - she writes erotic romance under the pen name Candy Sloane to help pay her bills. She's doing well as a romance writer, but knows that if her secret got out, her academic career and the hopes of being taken seriously as a writer would disappear. Everything seems to be going fine until Candice gets up the nerve to ask out the hot barista, James, from the local coffee shop. What she wasn't expecting was the fact that James is actually an undergraduate at the school and is one of her students. Knowing that any type of relationship with James is off limits, Candice can't keep herself away from him and they begin a relationship that even her counterpart Candy would be proud of.

This was a light and fun contemporary romance that had it's share of both incredibly hot scenes and more serious parts mixed in. I really liked the character of Candice. She was down to earth, determined, and smart. She also had her flaws, like her incredibly low self-esteem after her last breakup and insecurities about her ability to write. I found her to be realistic and easy to identify with. The setting was at a university in Miami, which was perfect for the book. Being a reader and an English major myself, I really loved that Candice wanted to be a writer and was teaching English at the college. She even mentions bloggers and their reviews of her erotica books in the story, which was fun to identify with. It kinda felt like she was talking about me in a way, which I thought was really cool. James is (of course) super hot, smart, and basically the perfect guy. Naturally, there has to be a reason that Candice can't be with him - that's one of the things I hate about these types of stories - but they try to make things happen anyways. I loved watching them get to know each other and seeing their relationship develop. As I mentioned, there were some really steamy scenes in the book that definitely had me blushing. Overall, this was a well written book with an interesting and engaging story line and lots of great romance and sexy scenes. Definitely recommended for fans of New Adult and contemporary romances.

Lisa Burstein is a tea seller by day and a writer by night. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University. She is the author of Pretty Amy, The Next Forever, Dear Cassie and Candy, Stripped. As well as a contributor to the upcoming essay collection, Break These Rules: 35 YA Authors On Speaking Up, Standing Out, and Being Yourself. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her very patient husband, a neurotic dog and two cats.