Start Us Up by Lexi Blake Release Blitz

From New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake, discover The Park Avenue Promise series...

Three young women make a pact in high school—
to always be friends and to one day make it big in Manhattan.

She’s a high-tech boss who lost it all…

Ivy Jensen was the darling of the tech world, right up until her company fell apart completely after she trusted the wrong person. Her reputation in tatters, she finds herself back in the tiny apartment she grew up in, living with her mom. When a group of angel investors offer her a meeting, she knows she has to come up with the new big idea or her career is over.

He’s an up and coming coder…

Heath Marino has always been fascinated with writing code. He’s worked on a dozen games and apps and is considered one of the industry’s more eccentric talents. But now he’s back in New York to spend time with his grandmother. She was known as one of the city’s greatest matchmakers, and he wants to know why. Surely there’s some kind of code in his grandmother’s methods, and he’s going to find them.

When Ivy meets Heath it’s instant attraction, but she’s got a career to get back to and he just might be her on-ramp. It could be a perfect partnership or absolute heartbreak.

 

 

Book 1
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“Were you planning on introducing me as your boyfriend?”

I shake my head. “No, but I wasn’t going to correct anyone if they got that impression, and now that I’m saying the words, I feel like an idiot. I’m not some sad chick who always needs a boyfriend. Nick was actually only my second long-term relationship. I’m perfectly content on my own. I don’t know what came over me. I can tell him the truth.”

“And waste my knight riding in moves? That feels harsh. Was the kiss that bad?”

“You know it was not. It was a perfectly fine kiss.”

“It was a pretty good kiss.” There’s a wealth of masculine arrogance in his tone, and I wish I didn’t find that charming coming from him.

It had been my only kiss in the last six months, and probably the most passion I’d had from a guy in a couple of years, and that was so sad. “It was a kiss we both need to forget because we’re going to be working very closely together for the next couple of months. We’ve got to hire at least one, maybe two contractors.”

“Where are we going to put them? I don’t know if you noticed, but neither one of us has a whole lot of space. I was a little worried about where I was going to put you.”

“They can work remotely if we can’t find someplace cheap.” The remote work might be a necessary thing since I intend to have one of the coders working on what I want them to work on—an interface for a social media/commerce app. I can give Heath a little, but I know what CeCe wants. The AI and Heath’s unique framework is what will sell this project.

“And if we get full finding?”

I like that he’s an optimist. One of us needs to be. “Then we find a small office probably somewhere in Jersey because that’s what we’ll be able to afford and we spend the next three or four years working our asses off only to fail because some asshole swoops in two months ahead of our launch date with something too similar. Then we can decide if we want to spend the money on the inevitable lawsuits, but that’s only if we get the choice. There’s also the possibility that someone out there gets word of what we’re doing and preemptively files for a patent that will block us even though the fucker doesn’t have enough to prove concept. Then, it’s back to the lawyers and we decide if we have deep enough pockets to fight, and that answer is almost always no.”

Heath stands, and I can’t help but notice how tall and fit he is. I need to take some me time because my brain is spending too much energy on how hot he is. He starts to lift one long leg over the railing.

I pop up. “What are you doing?”

His head turns slightly, lips curling in a mischievous grin. “Ending it all. I’ve seen the future, Ivy. It’s not worth it.”

He’s teasing me. I’m not sure why it rankles. Or maybe I am. “It can happen, and it does all the time. This is the big leagues, and it’s a battle every single day.”

He looms over me, so close I can practically feel the warmth of his skin. “Is it war or baseball? I need to know because you are the queen of mixed metaphors, and I want to be sure I’m all kitted up. So glove or rifle?”

He’s really not ready for this. “Both.”

“All right, then.” He glances down at his watch. “I should go. Apparently I’ve got both a game and a war to prepare for. I’m going to need some sleep. Now I know you said we shouldn’t kiss again, but we already went there so…”

I take a big old coward’s step back. If I let him kiss me now, it won’t be because someone’s watching and we need keep up our “cover.” It will be because I want him to, and I can’t want him to. I just can’t.

I’m lying to him. Oh, it’s for his own naïve good, but I’m still lying.

 

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Mary – ☆☆☆☆
I love this author and found this story funny, nerdy, and all-around good. Ivy Jensen was at the top of the tech world until she lost it by trusting the wrong person. Now she is back in New York and living with her mother.

Heath Marino writes code and has worked on dozens of apps. He calls Ivy when he has the perfect app and needs the ideal person to help him make it real. They hit it off almost immediately and they understand each other.

These two have lots of help, from his grandma, her mother, her BFFs, his friends, and her mentor, C.C., and all of them will get the job done and in the process, bring down someone from Ivy's past.

I enjoyed this story and am looking forward to the next one in this series.


Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆
This is the first book in a new series – and we are soon brought into the world that is going to be home to what I am sure is going to be a fun new offering from the talented Lexi Blake.

Ivy and her two school friends are holding onto their promise of friendship forever through the thicks and thins of life – in this installment, it is Ivy who is centre stage, but the other two are also going through their own dramas on the side! Betrayed by her boyfriend and CFO, Ivy had to walk away from her brainchild business and is just about ready to try again. Benefitting from a loyal benefactor, she hasn't realised that she just needed to ask, but she will find out that it is not all about money.

When she meets Heath Marino and looks into his latest coding project, which needs funding, she is not convinced that it will work as a matchmaking programme, but she loves the beauty of his wireframe and has lots of ideas of how it can be adapted. I loved that this had a degree of nerd, which suited me just fine! The rest is, as you might imagine, history – and you would not be wrong, although there are plenty of side plots, chemistry-driven encounters, and intrigue for future installments.

This was a win for me, with fun characters, good friendships, and the good girls and guys win out!


Avid Reader – ☆☆☆
M/F Romance

Hmmm, I'm not quite sure how to start. I enjoyed the story a lot, but it's not quite what I have come to expect from Blake's previous books. I'm not sure if Blake is expanding or what, but this was definitely a different feel.

Ivy is just recovering from losing her business. While she knows that she trusted the wrong person, she also knows that she had to do what she did in order to save her employees. What's worse, is that people believe since she was a woman in the business, that she just couldn't hack it.

Heath is working and keeping his nose to the ground, but has something up his sleeve. With an app to do some matchmaking, Heath needs someone to handle the money and the business. He just wants to code.

Ivy and Heath are a strange match. I thought that Ivy was a little too ho-hum for this story. I wanted her to have more of a backbone. Heath was kind and you could picture the nerdy look, but I wanted him to be stronger too. Both were too wishy-washy for me.

Overall, while the story did have some heat and was cute, it was too "cutesy" for me. I do hope the next one is more heat.

 

 

 

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author LEXI BLAKE lives in North Texas with her husband and three kids. Since starting her publishing journey in 2010, she’s sold over three million copies of her books. She began writing at a young age, concentrating on plays and journalism. It wasn’t until she started writing romance that she found success. She likes to find humor in the strangest places and believes in happy endings.

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Start Us Up (The Park Avenue Promise #1) by Lexi Blake to read and review.