Blog Tour Review: Sharkbait (Natural History #3) by Erin Mallon

Posted September 28, 2022 by Lisa Mandina in Blog Tour, Review / 4 Comments

Sharkbait, an all-new romantic comedy full of laughs and third standalone in The Natural History Series from USA Today bestselling author Erin Mallon is available now!

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

Blog Tour Review: Sharkbait (Natural History #3) by Erin MallonSharkbait by Erin Mallon
Series: Natural History #3
on September 27, 2022
Genres: Adult Romantic Comedy
Pages: 270
Source: Social Butterfly PR
Format: E-galley
My Rating: five-stars
Goodreads

Blurb:

My name is Louise and I’m a serial-monogamist marine biologist.

Try saying that five times fast.

Fresh out of an awful relationship and tired of always doing the right thing, this girl is finally saying “screw it” and having herself a meaningless fling.

Here’s the thing about flings though: they only work if you keep feelings out of the equation.

Well, that won’t be a problem for a sensible scientist like me… that is, until a one night stand with a hot single dad rocks my world and blows my plans completely out of the water.

If I’ve learned anything from the ocean world, it’s that those with the hardest shells have the most to fear. And something tells me this guy is going to crack mine wide the hell open.

Fall in love today!
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3abba2X
Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/sharkbait
Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/3r7fbdB
Apple Books: https://tinyurl.com/mwpk83sv
Nook: https://bit.ly/3Aljwjk
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3I8rRZJ
Google Play: https://tinyurl.com/5ffhakbb
Audible: https://tinyurl.com/mt7xauc6

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3BCNiQQ

Excerpt

Tonight I‘m not “smart girl” Louise who weighs every decision over and over until her brain is ready to burst. Tonight, I’m not “responsible girl” Louise who everyone counts on to do the right thing.

Tonight, I am Lou: the girl who does whatever—or whoever—she wants.

James breaks from the kiss and runs the backs of his fingers down my cold cheek. “You’re really not gonna tell me your name?” His whisper sends delicious chills across my skin.

“No, I am not,” I whisper back.

“Alright.” His deep voice vibrates as he rains kisses down the column of my throat. “I guess I’ll keep calling you Cold Brew then.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Oh no?” He tears his lips away.

“Resume what you were doing, please!” I’m giving him mixed signals. “What I meant was I like that.” I point at his mouth, then jut my neck out in his direction. “The uh, that thing you were doing just now to my neck? That was good. But I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me… Cold Brew.”

He dives into my neck again, and I think we’re back on track until he murmurs this madness between kisses, “That’s too bad. A hot thing like you slowly pouring over me and effortlessly spiking the temps in my refrigerator? A strong, concentrated woman like you who won’t be diluted with water for other people’s comfort? A delectable drink of a girl like you who isn’t afraid of a coarse grind when everyone else is pummeling themselves into soft, palatable powders to please the masses? Cold Brew is the perfect nickname for you.”

What the hell is he talking about?

So he’s weird.

That’s fine.

After tonight, I’ll never see him again.

Looks like I need to take matters into my own hands.

I cup the bulge in his jeans and feel him respond.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

I think.
“You said you don’t mind the cold,” he breathes. “Are you into winter sports then? Skiing, snowshoeing, mountain climbing?”

“Not into winter sports, no.” I desperately work to undo his pants.

“So what are you into?” he rumbles as he helps me with the button.

“You mean sex-wise? The regular stuff. The regular stuff will do.”

He laughs. “Good to know. But I meant what are you into in life? Like hobbies and stuff.”

Alright. Now buddy boy here is starting to test my patience.

“Not really a hobby person. My hobby is my work, and my work is my hobby.”

Score! Jeans are officially down. He kicks them, and they land on top of an icy growler, almost like he choreographed it. You would think a woman getting him pants-less would be enough to curb this guy’s relentless inquisition, but no.

“What’s your work then?”

“Marine biology,” I huff. “Can we—?”

“Oh wow, the ocean and I are like this.” He crosses his index and middle finger in that universal sign of closeness. “I’m a swimmer! A diver too!”

“Cool, cool,” I say and try to get his focus back to the physical. The fact that we have both been in a body of water at some point in our lives does not bind us together in any meaningful way.

“I’ve been told I have the lung capacity of a whale.” He pats his chest. “Yeah, these guys certainly served me well when I free dived in Sri Lanka. Wait. Is it ‘dived’ or ‘dove’? ‘Dived’ always sounds wrong to my ear, but I think that’s actually correct. Doesn’t matter. Point is, I love extreme sports! And speaking of marine biology, get this, once a week I volunteer at—”

“Hey, James!” I shout.

He stops speaking.

Hallelujah!

I soften my voice to a husky tone. “It is James, right?” “James, yeah,” he confirms with a dazzling smile.

I reach into his pants and find him more than ready for me, so I start to stroke.
“You’re fucking gorgeous, James,” I whisper in his ear and shiver when his stubbled cheek brushes against mine. His olive skin smells like ivory soap and shaving cream.

He tightens his strong arms around my back and pulls me closer. I continue my ministrations below.

“Thank you,” he says. “You’re also—”

“And you seem like a nice guy.” I interrupt.

He smiles. “I appreciate that. You seem like a—”

“But I’m not looking for a nice guy.”

“No?”

“No. I’m not looking for any guy.”

He looks down and laughs good-naturedly. “So why are we—?”

“I’m using you.”

His laughter stops.

He removes my hand.

His dark eyes land on mine.

Whoa. When he looks at me like that, I feel completely naked. In fairness, I am practically naked right now, but I mean more in the emotional sense, in the oh-my-God-he-can-see-deep-into-my-soul sense.

He stays completely still and silent, giving no clue as to what he’s thinking or what he’s going to do next.

“I’m not interested in anything beyond what we do here tonight, okay, James?” I continue. “Listen up because this is very important.”

His non-response seems to say, “Go on.”

“After tonight? If you ever run into me again, we pretend this never happened.”

No reaction.

I repeat myself. “We pretend this never happened.”

Still nothing.

Geez. For a guy who couldn’t shut up a few minutes ago, he’s now fully committed to his silence.

“Got it?” I say with more force than necessary, but suddenly, I can’t get myself to look directly at him.

He closes the distance between us, climbs his fingers into my hair, and gives it a tug, gently forcing me to look up at him.

Tingles cascade down my spine.

He tilts his head slightly.

His lips are barely an inch from mine.

His warm breath caresses my skin.

“Then I guess we’ll need to make tonight count, won’t we?”

Now I’m the silent one.

All I can do is nod.

“Let’s do this, Cold Brew.”

My Review

I loved this final full length novel of the Natural History series. Erin Mallon’s humor in these books is perfection! Or at least it is my perfectly matched to my own sense of humor! I loved getting to be back with Calliope from Flirtasaurus and Mabel from Lovebug. And oh my gosh was Mabel definitely #unchained or whatever different craziness she was about at the time!

This book had the same crazy out there wackiness of the situations the characters found themselves in or how they reacted to people or events around them. And while the first book will always be my favorite, because, dinosaurs, this one came pretty close to being better than the first two in that I LOVED getting both sides of the story as it alternated between Louise and James. While the love interests in the first two books, Ralph (snort-laugh) and Wally, definitely had their personalities shine through with Mallon’s writing, James getting his own voice in this story just made everything even better!

Now the family issues in this one were definitely deep for Louise, Cold Brew as James nicknamed her, they made sense and I liked how they were all wrapped up in the end. I feel like it was done realistically. The single dad bit as well, what a unique situation James had that led to his daughter Iris, and it was perfect how he dealt with her and even with dating. I totally got Louise’s points about a father should put his daughter/child first. It was based on her lack of that with her own parents. But even with my own good experience with divorced and remarried parents, I have always felt that is important too.

So many things to mention that stuck out for me. One, just like one of the characters mentioned, I also always have to think when I’m trying to spell the word jeopardy. You didn’t see it of course, but I had to pause and think as I typed it for that last sentence. A line thrown in about how the rhythm is going to get you just randomly, but hilarious if you caught it. AND THEN! OH MY GOSH! The bedroom scene where one of Mabel’s praying mantises makes a guest appearance had me laughing so hard and later on googling just what or if a praying mantis might actually be able to lift anything like in this scene. A sarcastic reply to Louise from James asking if she was “inviting him into her oven”. So so good. Love love love! I think with Teddy Hamilton narrating, I’ll have to buy this on audio to listen to as well. Another hit from Erin Mallon, and I was so pleased to see she’s got some short stories coming out that will fill in some details and add some fun scenes for these characters.

About the Author

Erin Mallon’s debut romantic comedy novel, Flirtasaurus, releases in July 2020. She is an award-winning narrator of over 450 books and an accomplished playwright and producer in New York City. She has written over 40 plays, which have been produced Off-Broadway and all over the country, including These Walls Can Talk, a raucous theatrical love letter to the romance audiobook community. She lives in a little yellow house on the outskirts of NYC with her husband and Three J’s.

Connect with Erin

Facebook: https://bit.ly/2XKvu2t

Instagram: https://bit.ly/3f0xYPY

Twitter: https://bit.ly/3eYTzrP

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2UkbMZ6

Bookbub: https://bit.ly/2Ab8Abo

Stay up-to-date with Erin, sign up for her mailing list:
http://eepurl.com/b_Ym75

Website: https://bit.ly/37akDBZ

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4 responses to “Blog Tour Review: Sharkbait (Natural History #3) by Erin Mallon

    • Lisa Mandina

      Her books are hilarious! Erin Mallon is known more for her audiobook narration, but this series started her writing romance books.

    • Lisa Mandina

      I love these books so much! The author has a hilarious sense of humor. It’s crazy, I know some people have had issues with that, but it makes me laugh so hard!

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