Review: Cookout Carnage (Evie and Kelly’s Holiday Disasters #2) by Evie Alexander and Kelly Kay

I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Cookout Carnage by Kelly Kay, Evie Alexander
Series: Evie and Kelly's Holiday Disasters #2
Published by Emlin Press on June 23, 2022
Genres: Adult Romantic Comedy
Pages: 175
Source: the author
Format: E-galley
My Rating:
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Blurb:

Cookout Carnage contains two riotous romantic comedies: Up in Smoke and Off with a Bang.

Off with a Bang – by Evie Alexander
Posh Brit Tristan has fallen for his American work colleague over Zoom. When she invites him to spend the Fourth of July with her and her family, he leaps at the chance to meet face to face. Maybe they can be more than just friends?

Sherilyn is in big trouble. She’s in love with someone she’s never met, and he’s just accepted an invitation she was sure he’d turn down. Tristan might think he’s about to meet a cute girl and her cookie-cutter family, but she’s Sherrie-Lynne, not Sherilyn. And when he discovers her family are lawless rednecks, he’s going to run a country mile.

Now, Sherilyn has to produce a fake family and put on a show bigger than her small town’s Fourth of July celebrations. Can she pull it off, or will she end up driving both Tristan and her family away forever?

Up in Smoke – by Kelly Kay
Cute farm boy Jonathan is about to get married to the wrong person. He’s clinging to an ideal of love, but his bride-to-be seems more interested in his best man, and wants to eat his pet. Jonathan’s heart has always belonged to his friend Juliet, but she left town years ago.

Now, the day before his nuptials, Juliet’s back and Jonathan’s had an epiphany. Can he get the right girl and find real happiness? Or is everything about to go up in smoke, including his pet pig?

My Review

I loved the first two stories in this series, Cupid Calamity, that were set at Valentine’s Day so I couldn’t wait to see what kind of crazy shenanigans these authors would bring about for the 4th of July. Once again there were two stories, both hilarious as can be!

First was Up in Smoke by Kelly Kay. This story had some of the best moments with the pig who was an escape artist and in love with a pig on a neighbor’s farm. Not to mention the bride-to-be that Jonathan was planning to end his engagement to, yet she wouldn’t take his “no” for an answer and kept on with the plans in some of the most hilarious ways! I mean, she wasn’t a good person, so I didn’t feel bad at all for her. I mean she was cheating on Jonathan, even up to the day of the wedding at the church! And she really just wanted the money she was going to get from her father when the two married and she could sign Jonathan’s farm over to him. So many scenes in this had me laughing out loud, and there was one that had me gasping, with the minister in the church!

Second was Off With a Bang by Evie Alexander, and oh my gosh this book took me on a bit of an emotion roller coaster from the very beginning! It started off a little sad, but then I was rolling with laughter as I read this one in bed before trying to go to sleep. First of all, I LOVED the banter/chat/text messages between Tristan and Sherilyn. The fun of them is what got me sad at one point, but then had me rolling with laughter later. The different terms used by British and Americans were some of the funniest parts. Tristan’s punny jokes also were my weakness. I love a guy who can give good pun! His “ex-girlfriend” the geologist was my favorite.

There was one text exchange between Tristan the rest of our “main” characters of this series from the airport layover that really got me giggling. It was when he asked Jonathan, who lived in Kentucky where Sherilyn was from, if he knew of the town where she was from. Tabi then asked him since he was from the UK if he knew Prince Harry. I mean, yeah, knowing one person in a state might be crazy to ask, but just knowing the name of a city? lol. Tabi was so funny.

And that leads into the third part that is woven through both of these stories, and the first two, and that is all the text conversations between these six people from that fateful night stuck in an airport together. Of course I adore Rory from one of the author’s own book series. He’s hilarious and grumpy. And they all are so funny and perfect bantering in these text group things. It was also fun when Tristan was helping Jonathan with his whole wedding cancelling debacle in the first story too.

If you like a funny, yet steamy, rom-com, with British characters as well as Americans too, you need to check out this series! I’m now anxiously awaiting the third set of stories!

About the Authors

Kelly Kay

Kelly is a writer of modern, funny, and fun romance, married to a writer, mother of a creative dynamo of a eleven-year-old boy and is currently a little sleepy!

She’s a klutz and goofball and loves lipstick as much as her Chuck Taylors. 

Good things in Kelly’s world include pepperoni pizza, Flair pens, wine, coffee, laughing with friends until her stomach hurts, a musician at the top of their game, matinee movies on a weekday, the Chicago Cubs, a fresh new notebook full of possibilities, bourbon on a cold night, Fantasy Football, witty men, walking through the local zoo in the rain and that moment when a character clicks in and begins to write their own adventure.  

Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram – Goodreads

Evie Alexander

Evie Alexander is the author of sexy romantic comedies with a very British sense of humour. She takes a method approach to her work, believing her capacity to repeatedly fail at life and love is what has given her such a rich supply of material for her writing.

Her interests include reading, eating, saving the world, and fantasising about people who only exist between the pages of her books. She lives in the West country with her family.

Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram – Pinterest – Goodreads