Sophie Jordan’s The Scoundrel Falls Hard was such a fun read that ticks major boxes for me:

🔨 An unconventional pairing.
Gwen Cully’s a blacksmith & Kellan Fox’s a conman whose con has been discovered & who takes refuge in her smithy.

🔨 She saves him.

🔨 Sizzling 🔥.
Honestly Sophie Jordan writes such great 🔥 scenes. The build-up between the ever-resourceful, determined not to fall Gwen & Kellan, the charming rogue finding redemption in a quieter life, is superb & then when they finally fall 👀, let’s just say they aren’t the only ones to see 🥵 🔥 .

🔨 A standout heroine.
She’s 28, nearly 6 feet tall, often wears pants, & is solely responsible for her home & livelihood until she gets some help from the friendly conman next door (he doesn’t actually live next door).

I flew through the pages of this one.

​Sophie Jordan brings it on the emotional front too & by the ending my little heart was going pitter patter at how settled the couple is & how Kellan has found a home with his Viking love that’s far more satisfying than the rootless life he had before.

This was a good time!

📖 Q: what’s been one of your fave reads of the year so far? This is one of mine! 👆🏻

​I feel like I’m still unpacking some of the things I was explicitly & implicitly taught about how young girls & women should act & books like Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, where the heroine, Nora, is often referred to as a shark, freaking delight me.

She loves high heels, she is a devotee of her phone, contracts, & NYC, she is shamelessly devoted to pros & cons lists, & the hero, Charlie Lastra (*swoon*) tells her YOU DON’T NEED TO CHANGE (that might be an exact quote from the book FYI), you are a terrifying force of nature & I worship the ground you conquer.

Book Lovers is a dream book to me, one that I’ll be thinking about for a long time. It’s dislike to love and fish out of water with two uptight, big city leads who move temporarily to a small town, & it’s peppered with references to Jane Austen, the Dewey Decimal system, & Rebekah Weatherspoon. I wanted two Epilogues.

It’s also about the relationship between sisters & how that can be affected by feelings of responsibility & protectiveness—how hard it can be to throw those things off & chase something for yourself.

This book had me smiling & thinking how funny it was, it had me swooning for both leads, it had my heart twisting…it’s sooo good!!