{Review} Missed Connections by Tamara Mataya (with Excerpt and Giveaway)

Item: Missed Connections
Rating: 3
Author: Kassiah

June 7, 2016 Blog Tour, Giveaway, Reviews 1 Comment

We’ve been wanting to read a good missed connections story, so we jumped at the chance to check out Missed Connections by Tamara Mataya when we were invited to participate in the blog tour. We think you’re going to like this book, Pretties. We’ve got a fun missed conncections post for you today from Tamara, along with our thoughts on the book, an excerpt, and a giveaway! But first, here’s the 411 on Missed Connections by Tamara Mataya:

About the Book

Missed Connections by Tamara Mataya
Series: Summer Love #1
Also in this series: Truth & Temptation
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on June 7, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Falling for Best Friend's Sibling, Friends to More, New Adult
Character(s): Artists/Photographers/Producers/DJs
Pages: 352
Goodreads Buy the Book

Missed Connection: I saw you standing there, and I was struck by your eyes. Gorgeous, but not as gorgeous as your smile.

Thanks to her job at a crazy New Age spa, what should have been a sizzling NYC summer is being hijacked by demanding hippie bosses. To unwind, Sarah spends her nights cruising Missed Connections, dreaming of finding an uber-romantic entry all about her. Of course, the moment she finds that Missed Connection, real life comes crashing down around her in a night of unbridled passion with someone completely different: totally off-limits Jack.

Best. Hookup. Ever.

Gorgeous and wealthy, hot as sin, Jack can give Sarah everything she needs—except an emotional connection. That she gets from her Missed Connection, the romantic stranger who never fails to make her swoon. But there’s only so much of Sarah to go around. Torn between the bad boy she can’t keep and the sensitive stranger who bares his soul online, her heart and body are soon in two very different relationships…or are they?

Missed Connections Post

To celebrate the release of Missed Connections, Tamara has written this missed connection post between a fictional couple. Can you guess who these characters are?

You Slay Me Every Day
…And yet, I’d take it if it meant being close to you, being connected by anything, if only your job description annihilating my heart. I’ve seen you with him and said nothing, for it is your choice alone to make, and yet he’s no angel. Not the way you think. To think I once thought you were my enemy…funny how things change when we’re not looking at them. But I’d give my eye teeth for you to look at me the way you look at him, Pet. I’m a fool. –Blondie

EXCERPT

“No air-conditioning?”

Jack’s voice startles me, and I jump, dropping my shirt.

“No. I’ll have to look at getting a unit in.”

“Do you like big units?”

“Well, a tiny one wouldn’t do it…”

“Big ones are better for doing it.”

Keep Reading the Excerpt for Missed Connections

My apartment’s dinky but will need more than a small air conditioner. “For sure. I mean, mine’s pretty tiny, but it would still need…”

He bites the inside of his cheek and raises his eyebrows.

When he said unit, he was referring to… “Oh my God, so not what I meant!”

“Sure. And this?” He nods at the bag in his hands.

“I want it on the bed.” For crying out loud, am I capable of speaking without everything sounding like a “that’s what she said” joke? “In the bedroom is fine.” A giant, throbbing innuendo…What is wrong with me? This is Jack, my friend. Only my friend for reasons. Shaking my head, I shift a blue tub with my kitchen stuff into the tiny kitchen and move one from there into the equally tiny bathroom. On the way back, I trip over a bag and slam my leg into the corner of a box.

“Nice one, Grace.”

“Shut up.” I hiss through my teeth while rubbing my shin. “Ouch.”

“Are you bleeding?” He squats in front of me, cradling my calf to pull my leg closer. It’s tight quarters, and I can smell him—something fresh but mixed with his sweat. My mouth waters. Would I be able to taste it on his skin?

His fingertips graze the sensitive skin behind my knee. Jesus. He’s never touched my bare skin there before. It’s just my calf. How can that make me feel…restless and unfulfilled?

He traces the skin around the injury with a fingertip. “The skin’s broken, but it’s just the first layer. Nothing serious.”

Tell that to my pulse, which is doing a splendid imitation of a jackhammer. “Yeah.” My voice is raspy. “Nothing serious.”

His gaze crawls up my shin to my thigh, my torso, my eyes. Oh, he knows what this is doing to me. Deliberately, he slides his hand up my thigh before letting go. Then he stands and licks his lips, eyes locked on mine.

Now I’m covered with goose bumps, suddenly feverish with wanting his hands on my body again—and not wanting to let him leave my apartment until we’re sweaty for another reason. The intensity of the attraction I feel for him spreads through me from cell to cell like a virus. Liking him is deadly because I can’t feel this for him, can’t want him this much.

His fingers tangle in my hair and lift my face. I shouldn’t be taking a step toward him, grabbing the front of his shirt, and pulling him closer like this. He crushes his body to me as his lips gently meet mine as if this means something. His tongue teases my lips open and eases inside my mouth, and when it touches my tongue, I shudder and clutch at him, desperate to pull him closer when I should be pushing him away.

But his hands are gentle, his lips are firm, and his tongue strokes mine in ways that dissolve rational thought and all the bones in my body. He tastes like peppermint and the last lover I can imagine ever wanting again because no one has kissed me like this—and I want more. I want it all. He wraps me in his arms and squeezes. I stretch up, allowing more of my body to press against his, then wrap my arms around his neck and gently grind my hips against his. One of his hands slips down my side and around to palm my breast, lifting and gently kneading it through my shirt and bra. He’s already hard.

He breaks the kiss, and I’m left breathless, but then he pushes me against the wall and pins my hands above my head—and who the hell needs air anyway? I arch against him, pressing my breasts against his chest, trying to ease the ache as he nibbles my earlobe and kisses his way down my collarbone, releasing my hands to palm my breasts.

I trail my hands under his shirt and over the cut ridges of his abs. He pulls one of my thighs up, pressing against my core, making me moan in his mouth when his lips find mine again. His mouth is everything. God, I can’t wait. This is going to be so damn good. We’ll have amazing sex, and then…what? Live happily ever after? I tip my head back to give him better access to the tender flesh of my neck.

Shut up, brain.

About Tamara Mataya

Author Tamara Mataya Tamara Mataya is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, a librarian, and a musician with synesthesia. Armed with a name tag and a thin veneer of credibility, she takes great delight in recommending books and shushing people. She puts the ‘she’ in TWSS and the B in LGBTQIA+.

Find Tamara Here: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Our Thoughts

Kassiah: Sarah is pouring over craigslist job ads when she clicks on the personals to have a moment of reprieve. She loves reading the Missed Connections sections.

…it was so romantic, I was gripped from the first post I read. I’d had moments with guys. Maybe one of them was my soul mate, and he’d noticed me in the crowd of faceless commuters.

She becomes kind of obsessed with searching through the personals, believing her knight in shining armor is out there looking for her, too. Finally, someone does…someone looking for her. And they begin a hot online affair.

Meanwhile, her roommate’s twin brother, Jack, is hotness personified, but Sarah thinks he’s not exactly the forever type of guy.

“I’m not looking for a random hookup.”

“Neither am I.”

“Please. Does the nickname DJ Madhead mean anything to you?”

He frowns. “That was years ago.”

Sarah can’t seem to get past Jack’s past, but she can’t seem to keep her hands off of him, either. As she gets closer to her online guy and Jack, who will she choose? Or will she get a chance to choose at all?

I really loved the whole idea for this story. This is the first book I’ve read by Tamara Mataya, but I’m all about this trope. Think You’ve Got Mail without the company rivalry. I loved Jack so much–he was hot and funny and hot and patient and did I mention hot? I loved the lengths he was willing to go to to prove that he and Sarah belonged together.

But Sarah? Ugh. I really hated her. She was such a bitch to Jack.

“I do like you, but I need a grown-up–not one of the Lost Boys who refuses to put his toys away.”

“Is that how you see me?”

I just didn’t get why he liked her so much. He was a total catch, and even when she realized she was being unfair to him, she still wasn’t sunshine and roses. It didn’t make her keep her hands off of him, though.

Their chemistry was hot, and the pacing of the story was good. If you like missed connections-type stories that are more than just online hookups, you’re going to want to check out Missed Connections by Tamara Mataya.