Reviewed by Vicki (Tori)
TITLE: Rainbow Sprinkles 
SERIES: States of Love
AUTHOR: Anna Martin
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 77 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 29th, 2017
BLURB:
Cooper Reed has a fairly relaxed life for someone who lives in LA. He’s no celebrity—just the guy who makes sundaes at the Dreamy Creamery, and that’s the way he likes it. The highlight of every week is the beautiful guy who turns up and orders a sundae with rainbow sprinkles. Cooper still isn’t sure if that’s a code, because he has a huge crush and the hot guy is terrible at flirting.
Drew Tanner, it turns out, is an original California dreamer. He’s as wholesome as apple pie and twice as sweet, a real-life Disney Prince at Disneyland. But while Drew’s head is in the clouds, Cooper’s feet are firmly on the ground, and their different outlooks might be more than their new relationship can take.
REVIEW:
I was unfamiliar with this collection of books, States of Love, put out by Dreamspinner Press, before I saw this one come up for review. I’m not sure how I missed these, I love the concept! It appears they are short stories, each set in a different state. This one is set in California, Los Angeles and Anaheim mostly. Drew works at Disneyland, Cooper at an ice cream shop nearby. The two meet when Drew begins to buy ice cream at the shop, and eventually they begin to flirt. Well, Cooper flirts, Drew is pretty oblivious! What follows is sweet romance, that takes us to several SoCal landmarks, and gives us a few sexy scenes….
What it doesn’t give us is much of a plot, unfortunately. I started off liking this story quite a bit, the two men are cute and the dates they go on are fun. Some time is spent at Disneyland, and Venice beach, I certainly enjoyed the details since I’ve been to both places and could see them through the authors descriptions. The sex scenes were nice and hot, and the shyness of the two men was nice to see. I liked Drew’s friend Alana, and the details about the ice cream shop they work at. I liked the behind the scenes look at Drew’s job at Disneyland. All of that made for a fun little story.
So there I was, enjoying the story, waiting for something exciting to happen, then… Bam! Holy overreaction Batman! What the hell? No, I won’t say more, because so little happens in this story that I’ll give away too much of the plot, but it is a gimmick I was disappointed to see. The story never really recovered for me after that, although the epilogue was sweet.
I didn’t dislike this story, it’s actually very sweet and fluffy, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I liked Drew and Cooper, I liked the sex, I liked the flirting, I liked the setting, and the ending was ok. But not enough happened to keep my interest, and I didn’t like the big thing that happened. It was just an average book for me, not great, not bad. Anna Martin has written some amazing books, I just read The Impossible Boy last week, and LOVED it, Jurassic Heart is another favorite. She can really write some awesome plots, with lots of drama, but this one just isn’t like that. I guess I had a high expectation, even knowing it was a short, light story from the blurb.
If you like fluffy stories, or have liked the others in this collection, I would recommend reading this one. But if you are looking for a story with some meat to it, this may not be the book for you.
RATING:
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