Carpool

Carpool is a funny, sexy slow burn. Jennifer and Marcus have grown up in the same town but have learned to keep their distance. Marcus was known as a rebel badboy when he was a teen but sometimes you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Marcus has so many layers and Jennifer is about to discover them.
Jennifer has always done the right thing and is the good girl but she has always been curious about the town badboy. When she needs to carpool and they are working in the same town things are about to get interesting. The more time they spend together the more they realize that they may have more in common than they once thought. A cute, sweet, sexy read !!
~~Michele McMullen ~~

Marcus Greene is the small town bad boy, who as a teenage was the rebel of the family, stay out all night, drank, was seen with plenty of girls. He is older now, lives on family farm to help his aging parents take care of the place. He is a good job, but people still see him as the bad boy, maybe because all he does is work, date ocassionally and is not very social within the community.

Jennifer grew up next door to the Greene family farm. She was raised by her grandmother and was warned very early on that Marcus was bad news and good girls like herself were to stay far away from boys like him. She was a good girl and even now as an adult she still refuses to think of Marcus as anything but a bad boy.

Jennifer has a problem, her car is in the shop and it will take weeks to fix. She needs to ask Marcus the last person she wants to ask for a favor if she could ride to work with him until her car is fixed. They work in the next town 45 minutes away at the college and they literally have the same schedule and live next door. She swallows her pride and ask him if he would carpool with her for the next month. He agrees and that is where the story gets good.

They carpool every morning and evening, each day Marcus is asking her all sort of personal questions. Like are you dating anyone? Do you like the one you are seeing? Does he like you? What do you do to have fun? Do you ever do anything risky? Jennifer is starting to question if she is happy with the way her life is going. If taking a few risk will hurt her stablility. The gets closer over time, sharing more of their personal thoughts and beliefs.

Marcus kisses her and they decide to have a no-strings friends with benefits relationship. Can they really spend all this time together, share their bodies with each other and feel nothing.

She hates him and she needs favor to ask from him.
Lines between hate goes blurry when they start spending time together while carpooling to work.
I enjoyed this book a lot, loved characters.

3.5 stars–CARPOOL is the first instalment in Noelle Adams’ contemporary, adult MILFORD COLLEGE erotic, romance series of novellas focusing on the men and women who work at Milford College, a small liberal arts college in Virginia. This is thirty-two year old, Director of Facilities Marcus Greene, and twenty-eight year old, financial assistant personnel Jennifer Raleigh’s story line.

NOTE: CARPOOL was originally released as a newsletter serial in the author’s email newsletter.

Told from first person point of view (Jennifer) CARPOOL follows the building relationship between thirty-two year old, former bad boy and current Director of Facilities Marcus Greene, and twenty-eight year old, financial assistant personnel Jennifer Raleigh. Growing up in Sterling, Virginia Marcus Greene’s reputation as a trouble maker preceded his introduction to our story line heroine. With her car in for repairs, and with no other option for commuting the forty-five minute drive to Milford College, Jennifer Raleigh reluctantly approaches the only person she knows who may be able to help her out with transportation between work and home. Enter Marcus Greene, a man Jennifer believes despises the ground upon which she walks, but the man with whom she will fall in love. What ensues is the back and forth, acrimonious relationship and building romance between Jennifer and Marcus, and the potential fall-out as miscommunication and misunderstanding, and a pattern of failed relationships threatens to destroy Jennifer and Marcus’ fragile hold of one another.

Throughout the story our couple struggle with their one on one time enclosed in a car together for forty-five minutes. Marcus and Jennifer make ‘small talk’ about everything and nothing getting to ‘know’ one another yet revealing very little about their lives and themselves.

The relationship between Jennifer and Marcus is one of immediate attraction but Marcus’ teenaged reputation as a troublemaker has followed our hero into adulthood, affecting friendships, and the possible relationship with the woman with whom he will fall in love. Hoping one day Jennifer will ‘see’ the real Marcus Greene, Marcus offers up a friends-with-benefits relationship as they get to know one another over the upcoming weeks. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text but I struggled to feel any real palpable, sexual attraction or energy. Perhaps if we had Marcus’ perspective we would be more aware of his emotions and mind set as it pertains to relationships and his struggle to ‘close the deal’.

The secondary and supporting characters are few. We are introduced to Jennifer’s grandmother; assistant professor of history at Milford College and Jennifer’s best friend Beck, as well as her best friend from high school Giselle.

CARPOOL is a story of preconceived notions and discrimination based upon youthful exuberance and childhood mistakes. The premise is engaging; the romance is flirty; the characters are energetic but struggle with the little things that shouldn’t matter.

Reread review:

What a great reread! I’d forgotten how much I loved watching this good girl fall for the bad boy. And who doesn’t love a good bad boy? But he’s so much more than what he appears on the surface. Watching their relationship evolve was wonderful and I’m so glad I took the time to reread this one!

Original review:

This was so cute and fun with a low angst undercurrent to it. Who ever thought that carpooling could be so sexy?

When Jennifer’s car is in for repairs, she asks Marcus, the one person she’s always tried to avoid, if she can carpool with him to work. As the only two people in their small town that work 45 minutes away in Milford, she’s desperate for him to agree. Their relationship starts off awkward, sometimes frustrating, and definitely aggravating, but quickly changes to something deeper as they begin to open up to one another.

Jennifer was always the good girl, in her family and in her town. She’d not only been told about that bad boy Marcus, she’d seen some of it firsthand. I enjoyed watching her perception of him change even as her feelings for him began to morph into more.

”For some reason, this man can tempt me to do things I’d never consider before. My grandmother was right all along about how dangerous he is.”

We never really get a chance to get to know Marcus as this is written in the heroine’s point of view. However, there are lots of subtle hints that allow us to guess as to what he’s feeling. I loved the way he challenged Jennifer to reach for more out of life. In contrast, she helped him to see the need for family and community.

While the chemistry between them is a bit lacking in the beginning, as they move forward it begins to sizzle and build until my Kindle was on fire. You will be able to read this in one sitting if you desire, and I did. The characters are sweet and caring, both with their own quirks that helped them to shine. Secondary characters are minimal, with the exception of Jennifer’s best friend – I’m pretty sure her story will be up next. Definitely a fresh and original story by a master story teller!

Oh my goodness, this was just adorable!

I loved Jennifer and Marcus’s story. Told in single POV, first person (Jennifer’s POV), it’s an enemies-to-lovers, slow burn, sweet and sexy, angsty but but not OTT about it, tale.

Jennifer’s known Marcus forever–and disapproved of him from the very first minute of their acquaintance. He’s the town bad boy to her (extremely) good girl. She’s never hidden how she’s felt about him–heck, no one in town has–and so when she needs to ask him if they can carpool (translate: she needs a ride to work for goodness knows how long while her transmission is rebuilt; it’s not carpooling in the strictest sense since she’s not really reciprocating beyond financially) it’s pretty much the last thing she wants to be doing. But they live in the same town and work at the same 45-minutes-away college, so it’s really the only solution that makes sense. She’s both relieved and apprehensive when he agrees to her request–she needs to get to work, of course; but almost two hours together in the car a day, five days a week for who knows how long? This could go very badly.

Or it could go very, very well. 😉

The more Jennifer gets to know Marcus, the more she finds herself liking him. Then she discovers (to her initial horror) that she might be more than liking him. We’re only getting her POV, though, and throughout Jennifer is often more than a little bit clueless about things, so although the reader (like Beck, Jennifer’s BFF) is pretty sure that Marcus likes her too, it takes a bit longer than one might expect for anything to start happening on that front. Once it does, though, buckle up–because they get hot and heavy pretty fast, and it’s delicious.

They are derailed more than once along the way, essentially by miscommunication–most more or less caused by one or both of them misinterpreting one (or more) of their earlier conversations. For the reader this is frustrating but not as annoying as miscommunications often are, because you can see why they went in the direction they do and they both stay in (beautifully flawed) character throughout. When they finally, finally get to their HEA, it is just lovely, and I put the book down with a happy sigh.

Beck looks to be the heroine of the next book in the series, and I am here for it! Please write fast, Ms. Adams 🙂

Rating: 4 stars / A-

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

I received a review copy of this book before release for an honest review.

This a short novella that is very sweet and very HOT!!! It stars good girl Jennifer and Marcus who is the bad boy. They have both grown up in a small town and both ended up working at the same college, Milford College.

This story is 100% from only Jennifer’s side and that’s my only complaint about it. I wanted to know Marcus’ thoughts but we never hear his side. Jen’s car breaks down and she is forced to hitch a ride with Marcus. They become friends over the months of car rides and eventually it leads to some hot scenes.

While they have sex a lot, they never date and that was my issue with this story. Marcus never even asks her on a date ever and that took away from liking this story. That said it was a well written and story and I did like both characters a lot.

Sweet With Some Heat! What a charming, warm, sexy gem of a story, that was filled with animosity, lust, and need and so much emotion and love. This story pulled me in and didn’t let go until the last page.

The characters, are incredibly sweet together and I loved their chemistry. I was expecting this player of a man with Marcus but who I got was so incredibly kind and generous. But he is stuck in this small town where no one wanted to forget his past mistakes and his bad boy reputation. I liked his characters development and growth throughout the story. He is so much more than anyone wants to give him credit for, until She comes into his life.

I really liked Jennifer a lot. She is the good girl, but she still feels the same surge of excitement, dislike and danger she has been experiencing since she was a girl, whenever she sees Marcus. So it is incredibly hard for her to ask him for a ride and to even contemplate about being in the car alone with him. Their time together to and from work, forces them to get to know one another. and their simmering attraction grows. I loved them coming together. It’s sweet, fun with a nice amount of emotion and drama mixed in. As well as some sexy times. She sees the real him, not the bad boy that she has been warned to stay away from her whole life. But she wants and needs more.

Towards the end my heart might have dropped a bit and I wanted to strangle Marcus but I love the drama that was created. I was on the edge of my seat turning the page dying for my HEA.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

When Jennifer’s car is in the shop for repairs, she asks her neighbor Marcus for a daily ride to work. Jennifer has always steered clear of Marcus and is horrified to realize he is the only one to help her get to work almost an hour away. Marcus, of course, is surprised, but agrees-after leaving Jennifer hanging a bit!

What happens when two people have preconceived notions about the other, stuck in the car daily, and find out they really aren’t like they thought they were? Chemistry that’s what! These two have a rather slow burn as they get to know one another. Awkward and rather frustrating at the beginning, these two slowly find common ground. Regaled as total opposites-good girl/bad boy, these two sizzle once some of their barriers are dropped.

You can always count on Noelle Adams to give you a fun, sweet, and sometimes spicy story! Carpool is a cute and entertaining read from start to finish! I liked Marcus and Jennifer together! This is written from Jennifer’s pov, but I really wanted to know what Marcus was thinking from time to time! I think it would’ve given me a much more rounded storyline by having his imput. I definitely enjoyed Carpool and look to the next book in the Milford College series!

I received a gifted copy of this book and chose to write a review. The rating and review are my opinions.

Carpool by Noelle Adams was an amazing opposites-attract and a bit of enemies-to-lovers romance. It was emotional, it was sexy and it was engaging from first page.

Jennifer is the good girl with a spotless reputation in the small town. Working in Milford College, taking care of her Grandmother, religiously living a practically boring life. She has deliberately stayed away from Marcus, town’s bad boy with a troubled youth and playboy reputation. No matter how responsible and settled he is, his name has certain baggages. Jennifer wants none of them in her stable life. But when she is forced to carpool with him to Milford College and spend a lot of time with him, she gets to see a whole new side to this guy. The burning attraction between them is not helping.

The equation of relationship goes from simple to complicated through the book. From awkward co passenger to friends with benefits to something more deep and profound. I loved Marcus. I could really feel his anger and frustration at being judged unnecessarily for a distant past. Jennifer is a sweet girl but she has a lot of vulnerability. She took a bold step with Marcus but I would say she was hard on Marcus sometimes. I can understand she was coming from the scared and insecure part of heart but it was not fair to Marcus. The chemistry was panty melting hot too! After a lot of heartbreaking misunderstanding, they got the HEA.

Carpool by Noelle Adams was an emotional roller coaster. It was witty and funny sometimes. It was smouldering hot and intensely heartwarming. I loved the characters, the story line and the writing. I had a great time and I bet you would too!

Received ARC for Honest Review