A Tempting Friendship

Clover Park #10

by Kylie Gilmore

Even Angels have their limits…

Widow Julia Turner is finally ready to date again after five years of mourning her husband. She confides to her long-time friend, Angel Marino, that she’s signed up for an online dating site and is shocked when it’s Angel that shows up at her door on the night of her first date. And the look in his eye is anything but friendly.

Angel has secretly been in love with Julia since college, and after fulfilling his promise to his deceased best friend to watch over her these past years, he can’t stand idly by and watch her date another man. It’s time to unleash the sexy for a seduction that’s been a long time coming.

THE CLOVER PARK SERIES
BOOK 1: The Opposite of Wild
BOOK 2: Daisy Does It All
BOOK 3: Bad Taste in Men
BOOK 4: Kissing Santa
BOOK 5: Restless Harmony
BOOK 6: Not My Romeo
BOOK 7: Rev Me Up
BOOK 8: An Ambitious Engagement
BOOK 9: Clutch Player
BOOK 10: A Tempting Friendship

CLOVER PARK STUDS
BOOK 1: Almost in Love
BOOK 2: Almost Married
BOOK 3: Almost Over It
BOOK 4: Almost Romance

Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Google, Amazon, Friends To Lovers

300 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 2016

About the author

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***THE SEXY PART is out now!***

Kylie Gilmore is the USA Today bestselling author of over fifty humorous contemporary romances. Her series include Happy Endings in Clover Park, Unleashed Romance, the Rourkes, the Happy Endings Book Club, Clover Park, and Clover Park Charmers. With more than three million downloads of her books, readers all over the world love escaping into her hilarious feel-good romances featuring strong bonds with family, friends, and community.

Kylie lives in New York with her family, a demanding cat, and a nutso dog. When she's not writing, reading hot romance, or dutifully taking notes at writing conferences, you can find her happily crafting what will surely be future family heirlooms.

Join the Gilmore Goddesses Readers Group to chat about Kylie's books in a non-spoilerly way. Also, man candy. Click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Gilmo...

Find out more about Kylie and upcoming books at www.kyliegilmore.com. Sign up for Kylie’s newsletter at https://www.kyliegilmore.com/newsletter

You can also find Kylie on:
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Twitter @KylieGilmoreToo
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KYLIE’S BOOKS

HAPPY ENDINGS IN CLOVER PARK
The Kissing Part (Book 1)
The Sexy Part (Book 2)

UNLEASHED ROMANCE
Fetching (Book 1)
Dashing (Book 2)
Sporting (Book 3)
Toying (Book 4)
Blazing (Book 5)
Chasing (Book 6)
Daring (Book 7)
Leading (Book 8)
Racing (Book 9)
Loving (Book 10)

THE ROURKES
Royal Catch (Book 1)
Royal Hottie (Book 2)
Royal Darling (Book 3)
Royal Charmer (Book 4)
Royal Player (Book 5)
Royal Shark (Book 6)
Rogue Prince (Book 7)
Rogue Gentleman (Book 8)
Rogue Rascal (Book 9)
Rogue Angel (Book 10)
Rogue Devil (Book 11)
Rogue Beast (Book 12)

HAPPY ENDINGS BOOK CLUB
Hidden Hollywood (Book 1)
Inviting Trouble (Book 2)
So Revealing (Book 3)
Formal Arrangement (Book 4)
Bad Boy Done Wrong (Book 5)
Mess With Me (Book 6)
Resisting Fate (Book 7)
Chance of Romance (Book 8)
Wicked Flirt (Book 9)
An Inconvenient Plan (Book 10) 
A Happy Endings Wedding (Book 11)

CLOVER PARK SERIES
The Opposite of Wild (Book 1)
Daisy Does It All (Book 2)
Bad Taste in Men (Book 3)
Kissing Santa (Book 4)
Restless Harmony (Book 5)
Not My Romeo (Book 6)
Rev Me Up (Book 7)
An Ambitious Engagement (Book 8)
Clutch Player (Book 9)
A Tempting Friendship (Book 10)
Clover Park Bride: Nico and Lily’s Wedding
A Valentine’s Day Gift (Book 11)
Maggie Meets Her Match (Book 12)

CLOVER PARK CHARMERS
Almost Over It (Book 1)
Almost Married (Book 2)
Almost Fate (Book 3)
Almost in Love (Book 4)
Almost Romance (Book 5)
Almost Hitched (Book 6)

Reviews

[Sacha Fortuné · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sacha's Book Reviews Blog

3.5 stars... close to 4.

This book was awesome and awful and beautiful and ugly at the same time. I finished it in one sitting. And I have feelings. I’m just not entirely sure what these feelings are. I felt schizophrenic reading it, because I teeter-tottered throughout the book. But a review has to convey more than utter confusion, so let me try to be eloquent.

***First I should mention… there is cheating. I’m cool with that (in books!), but just a heads-up if you’re not.***

The Pros & Cons
My likes: I loved that both characters are difficult to love. I hate run-of-the-mill heroes and heroines… that’s just not real life. And sure, we often read for escapism, but I write “real-life romance” so I appreciated reading one as well. But this one is painfully real at times.

Missed chances, mixed signals, hot moments, emotional outbursts, a loooooooonggg drawn out torturous friendship, and frustrating memories of a dead “hero” who was far from the ideal hubby. It had me in an emotional twist, and I wanted to fling my phone at the wall sometimes. But I kept on reading.

There are sweet elements here similar to Ahern’s “P.S. I Love You” with the instructions from beyond the grave… but then the notes reveal awful characteristics. There are elements here of sweet romance… but then it gets really filthy. Oh, and there’s a shocking twist that was a true WTF????? moment. The book cover and blurb led me to believe it would be a sweet romance with maybe a racy moment or two, so as I read on, I was like “OMG, what am I reading?”… But I kept on reading.

From a stylistic point of view, it’s worthwhile to note a lot of the key moments happen in the past before the actual story starts, and the jumps were jarring sometimes. I can see some readers having an issue with it, but I’m a trooper who can roll with the punches… so I kept on reading.

What I didn’t much care for were the overly-heavy FSOG comparisons. The writing, the storyline, and the author’s talent — all great on its own merit, and so it all would have easily survived without that FSOG shadow. Sure, most erotica these days would get compared to that, but in this case it was just *too* on the nose… still, I kept on reading.

And eventually, finally, I finished it.

Conclusion
I must say I loved that the book was unpredictable, that it was unique, and needs to be in its own category. That’s high praise. And I must mention here again that I don’t mind tropes (in this case “friends-to-lovers” & “best-friend’s-ex”)… once there’s something different about it, and this one definitely brings “different” to the table. Dollops of different.

But I must also admit it was a difficult read at times. There’s a LOT to unpack here. You need to prepare yourself before you go in. You will be frustrated. You will have feelings. I’ll let you decide exactly what those feelings are.

Overall, I did enjoy it, and rated it highly (for me) BUT I don’t know if I can handle another by the author anytime soon. This romance was RAW… I think I need to read about murder and crime after this! 🙂


___________
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[Jill Cohen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book actually made me angry.

I have struggled with this series because of the amount of sex in the books. But for the first 9 books the sex scenes, which I skip, have been steamy but kept to less than 1/4 of the book. This allowed the books to focus on interesting storylines and character development.

But with this list installment of the Clover Park Series the book is more than 50% sex, and we are not talking steam, we are talking filth. (I have to skim over the bad parts to get to the other parts.) This book is basically Clover Park meets 50 Shades. Now if that is what you are into, more power to you. Enjoy, but it is not what I like and it's not what I thought I had bought.

It seems like the author used up the good storylines in the other books and just filled these pages with dirt.

I was so turned off that, even though I had bought a box set for her next series, I cannot read it right now. I have give my mind a chance to get this book out of my system. The last 50 pages were skimmed to the point that I basically by-passed chapters 15-18 and read the epilogue.

The sin here is that Ms. Gilmore is a very talented writer. She does not have to stoop to this level just to sell books.

[Coco.V]

🎁 FREE on iBooks today (2/24/2019)! 🎁

Blurb:
Even Angels have their limits…

Widow Julia Turner is finally ready to date again after five years of mourning her husband. She confides to her long-time friend, Angel Marino, that she’s signed up for an online dating site and is shocked when it’s Angel that shows up at her door on the night of her first date. And the look in his eye is anything but friendly.

Angel has secretly been in love with Julia since college, and after fulfilling his promise to his deceased best friend to watch over her these past years, he can’t stand idly by and watch her date another man. It’s time to unleash the sexy for a seduction that’s been a long time coming.

[Lena Dublin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is awesome sauce. Angel is my favorite Marino brother and I couldn't wait to read his story. Kylie sure did not disappoint. Angel was always deemed the good boy of the Marino brood. So good they named him "Priest". In this book we see a different side of him. We get to see the Dark Angel come out to play.

Angel has been in love with his friend Julia since college. These two along with his best friend Brad were always a trio. Always together. This got harder for Angel to deal with when Brad started dating Julia. Julia being young an naive feel for the larger-than-life Brad. Julia and Brad married before he left for the Army. Sadly, he would not return leaving Julia a widow. A widow riddled with guilt over sleeping with his best friend one weekend while Brad was away from school. Angel was a temptation she gave into and is now feeling guilty for. Angel was always her rock, her best friend. Now she feels she had done them both wrong and was never deserving of love.

Angel securely in the "Friend Zone" could not push Julia to seeing why they should be together. That it always should have been him and her not her and Brad. He bids his time for five years. Always being there for Julia and allowing her to mourn they way she needed too.

While reading this story, I wasn't sure how Angel and Julia would end up together. How do you get the forgiveness from a man who has passed? Julia needed that to move forward and Angel needed to decide to either step up or step off. Kylie resolves this issue in a very clever fashion. I don't want to give anything away, just know it's really great stuff. She shows us the Dark Angel we all have been waiting for.

This was not your friends-to-lovers story. It's one that you will want to reread because there is so much that goes on. So many little clues you can pick up on after the fact. I will definitely pick this book up again when I want a little awesome sauce in my life.

[LoriEF · Rating 2 out of 5]

OMG, the angst! It became annoying after a while. Neither one can be honest about their feelings (good or bad) and, after a while, I didn’t care. They just played head games. And then all they did was have sex, her because she wants Angel, but she can’t let go of the husband she never really loved and feels guilty about it but she can’t stay away from Angel, and him because, well, it pisses him off that he can’t have her heart because she’s too hung up on guilt but, he’ll do her anyway (and say incredibly crude things to her, which turn her on for some ridiculous reason) because, hey, he’s not going back now. I’ve been fine with other stories about these people, but this one annoyed me because I can’t stand when people stay silence or avoid the truth, not because they’re in danger, but because they are too emotionally blocked.

[Pat Traettino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this book 4 stars because I'm a Kylie Gilmore fan, not because I liked it so very much. Too much borderline-porn, for starters. (If that's your thing, that's your choice.) I couldn't bond with or respect the heroine, Julie, so I never rooted for her. This was one book where I wouldn't have cared if there was no HEA. It was hard to grasp Angel's connection to Julie. Apparently, it was love at first sight and both had strong sex drives which seemed to define and provide most of the story line. I did like the book club characters who added some much-needed comic relief.

[Laura Cozicar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this in my TBR pile and decided to give it a try despite the fact that it is book ten in a series. So glad I gave it a chance! The story is well written and very entertaining. The characters are both sweet and tormented. This reads like a stand-alone book but I know I would love to learn more about the other characters. Lots of steamy sex, so if this is not your scene, don’t read! But there is more to this than the sex. One can’t help feeling for these two and hoping for their happy ending. So glad I finally read this one!

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

These two were toxic for each other IMO.
I also can't be okay with the fact that The first time they slept together was while she was engaged to their "best friend", she stays with the "best friend" and marries him, then tries to cheat on him again the day he ships off for the arm.

Part of a series, but can be read as a standalone. I hadn't read the rest of the series, but never felt lost or overwhelmed by side characters I hadn't met yet.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angel and Julia were good friends for ten years and Julia decides she wants to move on with her life after her husband died five years earlier. Angel has always been in love with Julia, but his best friend asked her out first so he backed off and stayed friends with both of them. When Julia decides to move on with her life she decides to let Angel go find someone to make him happy. Interesting book!

[Patricia Rutland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conflicted

I started the book thinking interesting, might be fun to read and my feelings shifted to disgusting. I put this one down. If you like the f word liberally laced throughout and erotic passages, then it's the book for you. I read enough good authors who deal with superb plots and well defined good guys..No need for this type.

[joette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay read

The reason for the rating was that I felt the “chase” was drawn out too long. Even though we generally know that things will work out, this was a little repetitive and made me feel like I just wanted it to end.

[Lisa Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy fun read

This is the only book I have read in this series. That didn't seem to matter as there wasn't any confusion, despite being book 10. It was an easy read, although I think not as good as it could have been.

[Trenna Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love

So love this series. So love the huge family. Love Julia and Angel! Now on to the next book boyfriend!

[Deanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Admittedly, this was my first book in the series. Julia was irritating.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!

What a spicy read! Loved the depth of the characters, their issues, and the curved ball I didn’t see coming.

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too long

For myself, it was too long for the couple to discover and act upon love. I sensed weakness in both characters and I don’t find that appealing in stories

[Patti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book!! After many road blocks in their relationship, Angel and Julia fight to be together!! These two are truly soul mates!! Great series, definitely a must read!!

[Ronie Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful😍💓

Absolutely nothing better than love, life, and friends!!! This book📚 is so heart warming and worth every page!! Must read📖!!

[Joanne Porter Speiser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friendship

Easy read. Good story line. A little slow and repetitive in getting to the inevitable end.
I would however, recommend this read to any romantic woman!

[Linda Coursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steamy adult read

Y luego can't help but like the characters. Way too much tolerance of the situation, but it doesn't drag. Love triangle.

[Karen Raper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet, sexy love story. 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[vickieallred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely

So happy I found this book. It was a very good feel good story that picked my spirits up. I enjoyed reading this book. I look forward to reading more tales by this author.

[Anne Blyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always Kylie Gilmore has written a lovely, easy to read storyline. The characters are quirky and loveable. I’m looking forward to seeing others meet their perfect matches.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

She has too much guilt going on in her head. He just keeps waiting.

[Carol Nemecek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much friendship

The story is easy to read but not truly enough to hold your interest. Too much worrying about the dead husband and friend.

[Feija · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 ⭐️ I really really liked this book!

[Peg Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

10th book in series

[minda2galangatt.net · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading their love story but I felt sorry for the deceased husband.

[Lucia · Rating 5 out of 5]

True standalone and HEA friends to lovers romance book with a surprising erotic twist!

A Tempting Friendship is the fourth book I have read in this Clover Park series by Kylie Gilmore (I’ve personally only read books 1, 8, 9 & 10 now so far). However, anyone apprehensive about a series, I can assure you that you really do not need to have read any other books to follow, nor will you get lost with the plots, as each book truly is a standalone read, although obviously it’s nice to see characters from the previous books in the series pop up if you have read their stories.

While you may think A Tempting Friendship will be a typical classic storyline of best friends to lovers, the way in which Kylie Gilmore writes this book it is anything but typical. The plot is refreshingly unique with heart breaking moments and difficult circumstances which have held this couple back that are dealt with sensitively but also had such a curveball that I didn’t see coming.

Told through alternating points of views, Angel and Julia have been friends for around ten years but while they have an undeniable chemistry and connection, circumstances have kept them apart; their history is explained in enough detail throughout but not where it is too long winded, just the important pieces of necessary detail. Both characters are relatively quiet and keep themselves and their true emotions private until they both learn that they have to fight for what they want, or as Angel’s dad says: ‘Step up or step off.’ The rollercoaster of emotions both characters experienced throughout the book were captured incredibly with such heartfelt feelings, where you can clearly see them struggling to move from the realms of friends into true lovers despite all the issues they are dealing with presently and from their past, Julia in particular. It’s always refreshing and adds to the overall story when issues are dealt with in a book rather than being just swept aside. However, be warned, these two characters will make you so frustrated at times and want to bang their heads together as their attraction simmers close to boiling but keeps faltering as they struggle to figure things out.

As with all Kylie Gilmore books, A Tempting Friendship is well written and the easy flow of the steadily paced plot completely draws you in as a reader. I personally liked how the tension between the two characters was built up and then the surprising curveball in the plot that Kylie Gilmore throws in that makes you see things in a different perspective. This book will tug at your heart strings almost from the get go and throughout, with the characters getting you at one point or another. This to me was a clear indicator of Kylie Gilmore’s ability to develop believable characters with real emotions. The challenges that are faced by both Julia and Angel aren’t easy to deal with but the way they are handled is with sensitivity, delicacy and fittingly at times, humour. Being the final book in the series, it was nice to see a HEA epilogue ending for Angel and Julia while also adding in extra HEA endings that tied up some final little bits of details for some other couples, such as Luke and Kennedy and Jared and Emily. I will be eagerly awaiting the spin off series, Clover Park Brides, now.

Overall, I found A Tempting Friendship to be a well written friends to lovers story, with a sweet HEA ending that left no cliffhangers for Angel and Julia. This can be either read as a standalone or as part of the series, which I would recommend as it just adds further depth, even if it’s only one or two other books. I strongly suggest you give this story a read and any other books by this author.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for my review, and I was not required to write a positive review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

[Nikki Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how to describe this book, this author, and the way I felt while reading without gushing. I'm not a crazy gusher type person, but this book has pulled that out of me. A Tempting Friendship has been long awaited. Each of Ms. Gilmore's books in the Clover Park series can be read as a stand alone, but there are characters that show up in different books. Little hints dropped here and there for upcoming stories, and I've wanted to get my hands on Angel (Well, his story, hehe) for quite some time now. I've been lucky enough to follow this series from the beginning, and when I say each one gets better and better...well, I'm at the point where it's hard to pick a favorite. Each one is special for various reasons.

I LOVE friends to lovers stories. Absolutely adore them! A Tempting Friendship is that and so much more. I laughed, I teared up, and I felt a LOT with this book. Julia and Angel are complex, flawed, and have a wildly tangled history. Years and years of guilt, feelings of desire that are plagued with forbidden love. These two went through hell and back to get to their HEA. Tons of feelings had to be laid on the line. Oh, and the humor! Never a dull moment in a Kylie Gilmore book. I also did NOT expect the twist that was thrown into this book. There were quite a few surprises.

Clover Park has been a fantastic series to follow. Knowing that it's done and ended, I feel like a part of my own life has closed. But wait, are there more things in store? Whatever happens next from this author, I'll be sure to follow along. I'm a little too hooked on Kylie Gilmore not to!

Absolutely beautiful story, And without further ado, I will stop gushing. There. Done. Do yourself a favor and read this book.