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Title: Hate Crush
Author: Angelina M. Lopez
Sub-genre: Contemporary
Trope(s): Enemies to lovers; second chance romance
Content Warnings: suicide; miscarriage
First and foremost, before you sit down to read this book, make sure you have some wine handy because you’re going to want it after reading this book (primarily set in a vineyard).
Princess Sofia has the reputation of a party girl, despite the fact that she has been devoted to helping the people of her kingdom save their vineyards for years. Not to mention she developed a chemical so important to wine-making that she sells it to virtually every winemaker out there and has thus made a fortune. Sofia needs a little image rehab before she opens her own winery with several of the grape growers from her kingdom. Enter Aish. Aish and Sofia had a tumultuous relationship when they were in their late teens and it ended badly, to put it mildly. But Aish is now a rockstar, who also happens to be in need of a reputation reboot. When the internet falls in love (or a lust for gossip) with #Aishia, Sofia has to set her feelings aside and play nice with Aish, if she wants her winery to succeed and her kingdom to flourish. But there are a lot of misconceptions and hurt feelings between Aish and Sofia and it’s going to take more than a couple of staged dates for them to rekindle their romance. But they do, because that’s how romance rolls.
Alright folks, if you are looking for a book that is luscious and decadent and hot AF, then look no further. This was by far one of the sexiest books I have read in a long time, and I was here. for. it. The chemistry between Sofia and Aish was beyond and these two go for it in many different places and positions and yowza. Good stuff. In addition to the heat factor, I absolutely fell in love with the setting for this book. I love wine (duh) and it was super cool to be immersed in the wine-making world in such an interesting way (meaning, I learned stuff about wine, but it was explained in an entertaining way). Honestly, it made me want to buy a vineyard in the middle of nowhere and just live in a world of wine. So we’ve got heat and wine, which really would have been enough for me, but on top of all that, we’ve also got a really soapy, dramatic, keep you on your toes plot. There were lots of twists and turns and I was never quite sure how things were going to turn out. All in all, a perfect end of summer read!
Overall Rating: 4.5 stars