Risk Taker

by Sonia Stanizzo

He’s everything she’s turned her back on.
And she’s everything he didn’t know he wanted…

On a night she'd rather forget, aspiring makeup artist, Holly Ainsworth meets actor Ethan Doyle.

Holly wants to keep her distance from Ethan, but working on his movie set has thrown them together. And she vows not to fall for his gorgeous looks and heated stares—it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

As hard as she fights, it’s not long until she can’t ignore the attraction when he’s near, and soon forgets the promises she’s made to herself.

The chemistry between them ignites but they realise their lives are heading in different directions. Ethan wants fame and fortune. Holly wants obscurity and simplicity.

Ethan and Holly are just another tragic love story… or are they?

Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance

Kindle Edition

Published July 16, 2021

About the author

Sonia Stanizzo is a contemporary romance writer who lives in the beautiful South Coast of New South Wales with her childhood sweetheart/husband and their three children. When she’s not dreaming up stories about couples and their road to finding love, sometimes bumpy but always a lot of fun, she can be found taking pole dancing lessons, reading, and writing.

Reviews

[Jo - •.★Reading Is My Bliss★.• · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holly is having a really shitty day after breaking up with her cheating boyfriend and losing her job. After walking out of the apartment they shared in a fancy dress outfit for a party she was going to, she now finds herself at a pivotal point in her life.

Six months ago she left Melbourne, her ex-fiance and her family behind to pursue a new life in Sydney. This is where she met Declan, her now ex bf. Her parents gave her an ultimatum and she knows that she is now at a point where she has to make a decision. Return to the life her parents want for her in Melbourne or tough it out where she is.

It is unfortunate that her dress up outfit is attracting a lot of unwanted attention - she pretty much is dressed like a call girl and there are plenty of takers offering her a ride. However, she soon finds a positive side to her choice of outfit when she stumbles across a movie set and is mistaken for one of the actors in the role of a hooker. It also turns out that the lead actor is none other than heart throb Ethan Doyle.

Holly’s luck continues to improve when she ends up helping in the make up department, after all this is her dream career, to be a makeup artist. What was one of the most awful days of her life now seems to be turning into one of the best. Being on set each day means crossing paths with Ethan Doyle. Everytime she sees him he seems to be staring at her intensely, it makes Holly feel really uncomfortable and nervous around him.

Despite all that, Holly does find herself falling under his charming spell and soon discovers there is a lot more to the guy than the public version. His family are amazing, the complete opposite to her own and she loves how close they are. They genuinely care about her and when things go from friendship to something more between Holly and Ethan she can see a possible future with them all.

Things may have started off casual but they quickly move into something more like commitment. When Ethan gets a movie offer with strings attached that would have an impact on Holly, things go a bit pear shaped. She understandably has trust issues when it comes to men in her life and Ethan has just proven that once again. It’s time she stood on her own two feet without a man swooping in to save her. If she wants to have the life she has always dreamed of she is going to have to take some risks.

This is a fun read about an everyday girl who falls for the gorgeous movie star. Easy to read, low angst and great fictional escapism.

[Erin Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Star Review Risk Taker (Acting On Love #1) by Sonia Stanizzo
Sonia Stanizzo is a new author to me and I am surprised I have not come across her books before. This is makeup artist, Holly Ainsworth and actor Ethan Doyle’s story.
Holly is determined to keep away from Ethan but since they are working on the same movies set that is rather difficult. However the chemistry between them is to intense to ignore and lines are soon crossed. The fact that this is set in Australia was an added bonus as I am Australian.
Holly shies away from the limelight but Ethan’s career ensures he is in it. Can these two make it work or are they doomed ? The story is well written and you cannot help but fall for the characters that Ms. Stanizzo has written about.

[Elizabeth Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original review can be found at: http://www.nerdprobs.com/books/book-r...


**A copy of this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.**

Recently an author emailed me and asked if I would read her most current book that she has coming out. I jumped at the chance. I have read her other 3 books that she has written and I love her books. I was giddy with excitement to start it and downloaded it immediately to my kindle when I got it.

Holly is in Syndey after fleeing Melbourne after a nasty breakup and a slight fallout with her parents. She wants to be able to support herself. She went to a fancy dress party thinking she was finally going to take a plunge with a guy she liked. Things didn’t turn out how she planned. On her way home, she stumbles upon a movie set and sent she is dressed as a hook they thought she was hook #3. Things from there were not as she was expecting as she caught the eye of the leading man Ethan Doyle. This book was so good. I read it in 2.5 days. It was that good. I liked how Holly wanted nothing more than to support herself and not count on her parents for money. She wanted to do what she wanted to do and didn’t want to follow the path that her parents had made for her.

While Ethan was a famous movie star, the author made him have real problems. He was very poor growing up and wanted to help his family. He fought depression when he was young and still saw a counselor. Holly just wanted to prove to herself that she could do it. She desperately wanted her parent’s affection and approval for what she did, just like any normal child would. I spent the entire time giggling with this book. It was a comedy of errors and kept me laughing the whole way. This book was a sweet romance that I would read again. I will be looking forward to any more books by the author and hoping I can review them!!

[Katja · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story about Ethan, a movie star, and an aspiring make-up artist Holly who is trying to find her own way in the world despite her controlling parents. They meet on the filming set when she gets mistaken for an extra. (It is certainly one of the more unusual meet-cutes.) She learns to know Ethan's family and loves their warm relationships that are a far cry from her own cold parents who are trying to blackmail her to return into family business. Ethan's career puts some unusual demands on their relationship as well as he is expected to date actresses for publicity. There are cheating exes, harassing jerks and sweet moments when she entices him to go slumming with her. The moral of the story is, love is more important than money.
Her parents's motivation for their ultimatums was a little unclear to me but I guess it doesn't matter, they're just minor characters. I was just expecting them to be a little more impressed that she was dating someone famous.

Steam level: Sure, sex happens and they both liked it.

I got a free review copy and this is a voluntary review.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ‘Meet Cute’ Moment
This was so good I stayed up very late last night to finish it, couldn’t put it down!
You’ll love Ethan and Holly; these characters are written with warmth and humour and a big dose of realism. We get plenty of back story to understand who they are and how they react to situations, this also helps us see the growth they both go through in the face of trying to make their unexpected relationship work.
There are great supporting characters, ones you’ll love and others you will want to kick in the shins, they add to a well rounded story with numerous laugh out loud moments and some heartbreaking ones, with just the right amount of heat to keep you engaged with Ethan and Holly’s story from start to end.

[Addison Laine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I wasn't sure what to expect, this was the first book I have read by this author and I wasn't disappointed. The plot was great and entertaining.

The author created some wonderful characters and their individual backstories were well thought out.

A great book I would definitely recommend, I would definitely read more by this author.

There were some grammatical errors in the book (most of which had text tagged as part of speech when it obviously didn't) this was in the last 25% of the book, it wasn't a major issue however.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun romance read. Main characters are Holly and Ethan. Holly's out to find her place and in the process makes some less than best choices. Ethan is a hot a list movie actor who's life gets flipped upside down when he meets Holly. I love Holly's strength of character from the beginning and the chemistry between them is sizzling. Amazing character growth and a beautiful HEA.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story. It had the perfect amount of humour, romance, serial tension and heat to keep me hooked from the start.

These 2 come from completely different worlds from birth and are in different worlds as adults but manage to find exactly what they need in each other regardless of that.
I don't think I have ever wanted to slap a mother before but Sonia did such a great job of making Holly's mother possibly the irritating woman in the world that I couldn't help feel like she needed a good slap.

A great story to easily capture your attention

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic opening chapter! Not to spoil it, but the Heroine (who is a great character) gets mistaken for someone of a different profession at least twice.

The hero is a Movie Star who is on his way up. How they meet is a spoiler.

The heroine's need for independence is understandable. The hero's need for financial security is understandable. They beat themselves and each other up but finally work it out. Love vs. money? Love always wins (or should.) Their sexual heat is excellent, but nothing kinky. Good descriptions of all the work worlds portrayed.

To get 5 stars: clean up your synonyms, punctuation, and sentence structure. These errors make it difficult to understand exactly what you mean at times. I hope it's not too late.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Barbara Strickland · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read

A very enjoyable light romantic read with some likeable, full of warmth characters. A nice easy flow of words, and some very good peripheral characters made this a very easy read.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, it had me laughing from the very first chapter. I loved Ethan and Holly's storyline. Their characters were realistic and 'normal'. I liked the way that the characters evolved throughout the book and the journey they took you on.
I'm looking forward to reading the next book this author writes!

[Gwendolyn Leeder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Risk Taker by Sonia Stanizzo. This is the first book of hers that I have read and will definitely be looking for more. This story is about Holly Ainsworth a girl who walked away from her international motel owning family to go out on her own and try and make her way. When she finds herself deciding to return home she ends up on a movie set, with actor Ethan Doyle, being mistaken for an extra and in the makeup trailer where Ethan’s mom is the makeup artist. Nancy and Holly hit it off and she pitches in to give her a hand. This story has cheaters, sleazy characters and some that think they’re all that. Is money the most important thing over love and family? You’ll have to read to see. I received this advanced readers copy for my honest review.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved learning about Holly and Ethan's families. Each of them had “baggage” from their childhoods and were wary of relationships. Holly had grown up wealthy but realized that money did not buy happiness. Ethan's family had struggled to make ends meet and he thought money was all that mattered. Watching these two muddle along finding what was really important was cute. The supporting characters from Ethan's family, Nancy, Aiden and Chloe, were well drawn and lots of fun to read about. Holly's parents, sister and ex were notable for their cold selfishness. I really enjoyed this story.

[Jenny Cadona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a sucker for a romance and I loved this one. I love how Holly was true to herself and strong enough to stand on her own two feet, even when things got difficult for her. I also love how Ethan swept her off those feet but didn’t try to change her. True love conquers all. Another great read from this author and I look forward to the next one in the series.

[Aksita Sarangi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first book of the author and I absolutely fell in love with it.A ⭐ romance it is, with a good story line,mixed with romance, emotions,stemset and happy ending and is a standalone.

[Christina · Rating 1 out of 5]

BOOKTOK REC

Booktoc recommendation that seemed so good but didn’t measure up. Storyline was good FMC was down on her luck running from her family and their conditions after finding her fiancé cheated on her. When she was about to return home to the she meets the MC a famous actor and they build a relationship but then he gets the role of his dreams but at what cost! My main problem with this book was the writing style. Story is told in third person POV and I just couldn’t get into it. I found myself skimming a long and skipping parts. I couldn’t connect with the characters or their emotions.

[M Reads Romance · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting premise with a poor little rich girl and her broken heart meeting a handsome actor. I like the h, Holly, she is fiesty, stubborn and independent. Ethan, H, is loyal, gorgeous and stubborn. The pace is slow, it plods along. I didn't feel much emotion or chemistry. Spicy scenes were typical, and ended up skimming them. Overall just ok.

[Daniela Serrano]

There whole relationship happened over night basically. The scene that I read this book for was ehh I was disappointed.

[Naomi Bigwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the overall concept of the book was sweet and one of the best Hollywood book tropes to read. I like a good actor story every now and then where love is found in unconventional places, and the characters aren't who you expect them to be.

This book delivered on that.

However, one of the things that brought this rating down for me was all the of the syntax errors. I'm not a stickler about here and there mistakes, but in this story, there were a lot of sentence structure mistakes that got a bit annoying as the story progressed. My high school English teacher would go ham on a story like this.

Like I said, the concept was good for me, but there was a lack of tension that I wanted but didn't get. I understand instant attraction completely, but it bothered me how much they liked each other and it felt as if there was no real build up to it. He went from being a douche to being her knight too fast for me.

I did like how strong Holly was, though I wished she had stuck to her guns a bit more with Ethan's family. It wasn't something I couldn't get over to enjoy the rest of the book, but I would have liked to see that heroine strength come in more. However, it was rectified in the end when Holly confronted her own parents. I felt so much woman power in that scene!

I'm giving this book three stars because I liked it, but didn't love it. I don't regret reading it, but this definitely wasn't a spectacular win for me.

I think this book is perfect for readers who love the Hollywood trope, and don't read it once in a blue moon like I do, and are looking for a read that's steamy-but not overly so-and romantic in a lot of the ways that count, with a quick love storyline.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Em theglitterybookworm_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

One of my favorite tropes found in romance novels has to be the fame trope -- where one of the main characters is a famous actor or actress, so you can imagine my excitement when I found this ARC in my feed. For the most part, I really enjoyed this novel, though there were a few issues I had that I'll point out now.

-Everything seemed so convenient: from page one the main heroine seemed to be handed everything on a silver platter. We were TOLD that she had a rough go at things, however we were never really showed that through the author's writing, if anything it was the opposite.

-Some of the writing seemed out of place. This book was told from a third person's POV, but occasionally there would be a passage with either character thinking out loud, which was strange to me in a third person's perspective.

-I was wanting a little bit more of originality. This is definitely a ME problem, since I tend to read so many books that feature this trope, so take this with a grain of salt. I did love how the main female character was a make up artist, since that was a nice twist from what I have usually seen in books like this.

Like I said I really enjoyed this besides the notes up above, and I'd be happy to not only continue in this series -- I need Aiden's story NOW, but I am going to see if any of this author's backlist rings any interest for me.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

~3.5 stars~

My favorite part of this book was probably Ethan’s family. They were so supportive of Holly and Ethan, particularly Ethan’s mom. They had such a sweet and easy camaraderie, and it was really enjoyable. In contrast, I didn’t feel as though we got to know Holly’s family very well or the motivations behind their actions. Holly’s father seemed reluctant to hurt Holly but afraid to speak against Holly’s mother, so I would’ve been interested to learn more about the family dynamics.

The chemistry between Ethan and Holly was adorable and passionate. I really liked how they met and Ethan’s nearly instant infatuation with Holly. However, I grew tired of Ethan repeatedly mentioning just how beautiful Victoria was, and I wish Ethan had decided faster that he was looking for a real relationship. Their relationship was focused on lust more than the emotional connection for a significant part of the story.

Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable, romantic story with an interesting plot and fun setting. I recommend it to those looking for a celebrity romance with a slower build of the main relationship.

*I received an ARC of this novel. This is my complete and honest review.*

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a charming book, nothing earth-shattering, but a book with a clear message about standing up for your true self. I'd love to read more books where the characters are challenged by more than finding the right lipstick color.

Well-written with enough romance to keep most people happy. This good be a good beach read, but it has that little extra to take it beyond the sand and surf.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Kirstie Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great romance. I loved Holly and how strong and determined she was to live the life she wanted instead of what others wanted. It was also good to see how big Movie Star Ethan changed and grew through the book. All the other characters were great, loved Nancy the mum and I hope we get to read Aiden and Chloe's stories.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rags to riches and riches to rags will give you very different outlooks on life. Can Ethan and Holly bridge that divide or will their relationship stop after one hot night? I really enjoyed both sides of this story. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Bella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it cause it was set in Australia with Australian characters and that gave me the warm fuzzies.

Pretty simple story, nothing too over the top occurs but it’s just the right amount of spicy and sweet
Holly and Ethan both realise what they want out of life and each other by the end.

Holly stands up for herself and never back downs from her goals which is so refreshing.

[Giulia Gomez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ethan is an asshole and Holly certainly deserves better. All the drama with Victoria was so annoying and him accepting fake dating another actress not talking to Holly first was so fucked up. HE DIDN'T EVEN GROVEL!!

[Gracelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall Plot: 3/5
Ease of Reading: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 3/5
Character Relatability: 4/5

[mina · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it but the last 20-15 pages were a bit rushed

the chemistry and angst were so good ❤️

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some serious formatting and grammatical errors. A very unforgettable story and the same goes for the characters. From about 65% I started skimming to dialogue.

[T.M Caruso · Rating 5 out of 5]

sooo good!!

This was sooo good! Give me more of everything and everyone in this book… well except for maybe Victoria and Shaun