Thanks to the author for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. 🎤 Q: if you’re singing karaoke, what are you picking? I could use all of the good adjectives to describe Anita Kelly’s Our Favorite Songs but the bottom line is that it’s one of my fave novellas I’ve ever read. The emotions captured (& elicited from me) in this short read are powerful, the craft shown is so admirable, the heart radiates from the pages…I just loved it. One snowy afternoon Aiden McCarstle realizes he’s been set up by his friend Pen to meet up w/ her friend Kai Andrews—who’s also the hot jock Aiden couldn’t stand in high school, years ago. Now a ship welder, Kai has returned to their hometown following his mother’s death. He’s aware that Aiden’s never liked him for reasons unknown & he’s surprised that Aiden agrees to stay after Pen is unable to join them. Aiden & Kai begin picking songs for each other to sing at Moonie’s karaoke, sometimes picking the right ones, sometimes the wrong, each choice ultimately moving them closer because they choose to. Because they see something remarkable in the other person, because they’re willing to be soft & vulnerable & music helps make it possible. This is a lovely story about starting to fall in love on a snowy night & a snowed-in day that follows. There are honest & thoughtful considerations of grief & academia & loneliness; there’s a romance that reached out to me so gently & compellingly. I highly recommend! 5 ⭐️. Release date: 09/01.
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Read on for a summary, my review, & about the author. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Summary.USA Today bestselling author Christi Caldwell makes her Berkley debut this summer with ALONG CAME A LADY (Berkley Mass Market; August 24, 2021), a sparkling, banter-filled, enemies-to-lovers tale about letting go of society’s preconceived notions and finding love. In a reverse retelling of My Fair Lady, ALONG CAME A LADY follows the budding romance between the irascible son of a duke and the lady hired to teach him the ways of a gentleman. As the lessons go on, the two engage in a battle of wits and passion. Rafe Audley detests his father, the Duke of Bentley, for abandoning his family. Born illegitimate, Rafe has worked the mines his whole life to care for his younger siblings. Edwina Dalrymple has spent her life making a name for herself as an instructor in etiquette, and she has yet to fail in preparing her charges for Polite Society. Edwina soon learns that Rafe is no ordinary charge. He is wholly uninterested in joining the Gentry, making his lessons Edwina’s most difficult undertaking yet. Taming the foreman would surely elevate her status, but can Edwina put her own feelings aside in order to get the job done? As the bold teacher and stubborn pupil work to sabotage each other at every turn, Edwina and Rafe will learn that while opposites attract, the unlikely pair have more in common than they think. My Review📖 Q: how do you feel about Pygmalion stories? Have a fave? Give me *all* the working-class MCs & Christi Caldwell’s Along Came a Lady has a hero named Rafe Audley with coal-stained hands 😍. He’s also the illegitimate son of a duke & when etiquette instructor Miss Edwina Dalrymple approaches him on behalf of his father, urging him to travel to London, undertake etiquette lessons, & be recognized in London society, he is quite firm in his refusal. What’s a determined woman—who is also illegitimate, though she’s told no one—to do, except everything she can to convince him, thereby ensuring her own professional & personal safety? Along Came a Lady has such great interplay between leads—a grumpy, scowling MC who’s reluctantly intrigued by the other & a relentlessly cheerful, gracious, & stubborn MC who doesn’t get sarcasm, which the first MC finds “endearing.” I’d also like to add that Rafe blushes, a fact which has my adoration. The internal conflicts for both MCs are compellingly drawn & Caldwell makes it apparent that being illegitimate is a source of commonality between them & has also taken its toll on them in different ways. The unique pressures facing women—the ability of rich men to be irresponsible or neglectful without facing the consequences, if they wish—is explored throughout the book & Rafe comes to his own realizations about that (though I did want it explored even more in regards to his mother). This is a sweet story with some bite to it, a Pygmalion retelling with moments of fun & heartache. 4 ⭐️. Out now! About the Author.Author photo by Kimberly RochaChristi Caldwell is the USA Today bestselling author of the Sinful Brides Series and the Heart of a Duke Series. She blames novelist Judith McNaught for luring her into the world of historical romance. She enjoys torturing her couples before they earn their well-deserved happily ever after. Originally from Southern Connecticut, Christi now resides in North Carolina, where she spends her time writing and being a mommy to an energetic little boy and mischievous twin girls who offer an endless source of story ideas. Learn more at christicaldwell.com.
Thanks to the publisher for the complimentary finished copy. All opinions provided are my own. A Prohibition setting, an honorable hero, a small town where secrets & sin flourish but a sense of community exists too…Sandra Brown’s Blind Tiger is one of my fave books of hers (but please check out the CWs!). The year is 1920, Laurel Plummer has recently lost her husband, & Thatcher Hutton is a veteran who’s stopped in her town to save some money so he can continue traveling to the place he lived before the war. They first meet when Thatcher—fresh from jumping off a train—stops by the shack where’s she’s living. She gives him water & sends him on his way, though both are very reluctantly intrigued by the other. Very soon after Thatcher is accused of murdering the local physician’s wife & as he seeks to prove his innocence he & Laurel continue to run into each other, the attraction between them growing even as the secrets between them do. This is moonshine country during Prohibition & as always, Brown’s characters do not hold back their violence. Murders & corruption abound. But Thatcher is willing to do what he can to bring an end to it, & Laurel is compellingly portrayed as someone who dips her toes into the less than legal moonshine enterprise in order to survive & finds herself eventually starting to sink under its weight. Thatcher is soft & romantic compared to Brown’s other heroes & I love how he basically wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to Laurel. Blind Tiger is a page turner with moments of sweetness & viciousness & a setting I got excited about. 4 ⭐️.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.From first sentence to last Olivia Dade’s All the Feels is a prolonged attack on the softest, sweetest, & also screwball comedy-loving parts of me. I loved it from beginning to end—every note is perfect. Alexander Woodroe, an actor on a Game of Thrones-type blockbuster show, has gotten into trouble again. The showrunner gives him a minder until the show airs, the man’s cousin, whose name is Lauren Clegg & who used to work as a therapist in an ER. Their first meeting is not auspicious & the ones that follow don’t go as Alexander would like either. Described by a coworker as a “delightful asshole,” Alexander runs his mouth like he’s training it for a marathon & Lauren has the patience of a saint. He wants her attention…& eventually her smiles, her laughs…& later, her touch. & Lauren comes to see that beneath his cat & also orchid-like high maintenance traits 🤣 he’s a good person. A principled person. A deeply caring person. I could list so many fantastic things about this book. How the heroine is quietly charismatic & & relatable & admirable & confident. Lauren’s strength of character, her figuring out how to set boundaries & take up for herself w/out allowing the bullies & harassers who make fun of her appearance to take too much of her life, & her Big Harpy Energy has me with mouth agape—I love her. & Alexander, wow, what a hero. I adore him fiercely. As Lauren & others point out, he’s whiney & charming, his heart is so pure, & he sees Lauren as the remarkable person she is. His journey too is stellar—& his realizations about how he reacts to what happens to others—his impulsive protective instincts—are truly 👏🏻. The humor, the heart, the steam: it’s a trifecta for me. I give this one 5 huge ⭐️; it lit up every part of my heart. Release date: 10/26.
Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC & the former for the finished copy as well. All opinions provided are my own. Penny Aimes’s For the Love of April French is a tender, sensual read told in an unconventional way. Dennis Martin is a dominant who’s recently moved to Austin from Seattle & meets April, a trans woman & submissive who has a reputation for being “Mama April,” at kink club Frankie’s. Dennis is still reeling from a relationship that went wrong (see CWs for this) & April has been ultimately rejected by so many people that she’s pretty much given up on the idea of a lasting relationship. They know they have something special together but when the topic of exclusivity comes up, April says no, & they agree to an orgasm control “project” where they’ll have check-ins. But that’s not the whole story, & we see both sides as the book progresses, as Dennis & April make more memories together & secrets are revealed. This book touched my heart—as April’s insecurities & fears about her body are repeatedly met with Dennis’s undeniable attraction & care for her. As she grows more confident in herself & about what she deserves. Dennis also grows throughout the book, having to process what happened in his past relationship & how to be the dom he wants to be through doing the work. Not only is there steam—there are great discussions of limits & safe words & obvious respect & appreciation between leads. The conflict is compellingly developed & features one of my catnip: a MC who’s in it for the long haul, who wants to wait with hope for the other MC to change their mind. On one hand the book’s set-up in showing the same timeline from both perspectives is such a cool way to give more insight into the respective characters, but on the other I did somewhat miss the extra opportunity to see them develop more new, in-person memories together. Still, this is such a loving read & I rooted for this couple—for their own separate happiness & their happiness as a couple. 4.5 ⭐️. Release date: 08/31.
Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. 📖 Q: what are you currently reading? A couple of weeks ago I read a historical romance that’s lacking in moments of emotional intimacy—then I read this one, where the leads have lots of kissing + convos about their pasts & it was just *delightful.* Charis Michaels’ When You Wish Upon a Duke is “over the top,” as she writes in her Author’s Note. In a really great way. Isobel Tinker is a 27 year old manager of Everland Travel, an agency that caters to wealthy women. She leads a staid, respectable life by choice & that’s all disrupted by the arrival of the bold, handsome, & charming Duke of Northumberland, real name Jason Beckett, a former foreign service agent who asks her for help on his last mission. Jason knows that Isobel lived in Iceland & for a number of reasons feels she can help him rescue his cousin from pirates. Even though Iceland left Isobel with a great deal of heartache & she’s vowed to leave that time, that Isobel, behind her. This book is filled with moments where the sexual tension building between our two fascinated leads bubbles over—though the actual sex scene doesn’t happen until late in the book—& I read it with *great* anticipation. Fiercely brave Isobel gives off the sense that she can handle any situation & Jason is the equally adventurous, surprisingly sensitive Duke she didn’t even know she wanted. His need to learn more about her, his desire to, burns throughout their every interaction even as he battles her reticence to reveal the things that have made her who she is. Eventually they both open themselves up to the other, allowing themselves to be vulnerable in ways they prohibit others, & it’s lovely. From a charming travel shop in Mayfair to a ship crossing the sea to a waterfall in Iceland, When You Wish tells a story of two curious, unconventional leads who can’t resist the lure of the other. 4.5 ⭐️. Release date: 08/24.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. 💛 Q: do you have any sisters? I have two: one biological & one adopted. Well I’ve been waiting on this romance for a while. The unapologetically sexy & confident Sesily Talbot—nicknamed Sexily by scandalized Londoners—& the sexy (how many times can I use that word in this review 🤔) self-made American Caleb Calhoun. Whew, what a ride it was, replete with sexual tension & so much emotion & yearning. It’s been two years since Sesily confessed her feelings for Caleb & he returned to America. At 30, Sesily is living her calling; scandalizing the aristocracy & using her wits & physical prowess to help bring down the worst men amongst her circle. But one night—after Caleb has returned to London—he spies Sesily in the midst of a mission & he has questions about the woman most people have discounted, underestimated, &/or completely misread. As they spend more time together he sees her & she sees him but there’s a reason Caleb hasn’t pursued her…a reason why he thinks he can never act on his feelings. Bombshell generated a plethora of feelings within me, chief of all a longing for these two to reveal all & accept that they’re meant to be. The yearning, the longing, the desire is strong between Sesily & Caleb 🥵. So are the emotional nuances in this book. I consider myself to have been punched in the gut with emotion at least once during my reading 😆. Sesily’s complicated feelings for her sisters & her assertion that she’s “tired of wanting” him are particularly powerful. If angsty reads are your jam, if you love MCs who fiercely want but one of them keeps denying them a path forward, if you crave steam + devotion, Sarah MacLean’s Bombshell is a great bet. 4.5 ⭐️. Release date: 08/24.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. 🍰 Q: what’s your fave kind of cake? Mine is white wedding cake 😍. I’ve written about my love of Lucy Parker books, cake, & enemies to lovers before & Battle Royal brings all of those interests together in a very delightful way 🤩. Four years ago Sylvie Fairchild was a contestant on a reality tv baking competition judged by the grumpy Dominic De Vere, pâtissier. She got on his nerves before her cake accidentally attacked his face so imagine how she grated on him after. Now, Sylvie is partial owner of Sugar Fair, a whimsical, creative baking enterprise across the street from Dominic’s long-famous, super traditional patisserie. They aren’t friends. But they are competitors when a baking contract—to make a cake for a Royal wedding, no less—pits them against each other. These leads are: I’m-Ms.-Congeniality-with-everyone-but-you & I-Am-Grumpy-with-Everyone-but-I’m-Weirdly-Fascinated-By-You-But-Also-I-Don’t-Like-You & I love it. The competition brings them closer together & it also gives each a new appreciation for the other’s very different aesthetics. The emotional intimacy between them is top-notch & Lucy Parker knew exactly how to play on my heartstrings—especially in regards to touch. There’s even a freaking sick bed scene & please respect my privacy & how I feel about Dom being a silver fox 🥵. I CANNOT WAIT for the next book in the series because I need more of these good feelings. 4.5 ⭐️. Release date: 08/17.Thanks to the publisher for the complimentary finished copy. All opinions my own. 🏔 Q: what are your fave mountains? I live a little over an hour away from the Great Smoky Mountains. Before reading Willa Reece’s Wildwood Whispers I saw that it was blurbed by Sarah Addison Allen (!) & compared to Alice Hoffman’s work (!) & I was so excited to take a look for myself. In its pages is a story brimming with loss & love & community, a story with secrets & magic & the impossible made possible. Foster kids Mel Smith & Sarah Ross are like sisters growing up. Mel has never met her birth family but Sarah lived in Morgan’s Gap until her mother was murdered when she was a preteen. It’s years later & Sarah has been killed in a hit & run. Mel must do what she promised Sarah: return her ashes to the mountains of Morgan’s Gap. But as soon as she arrives she meets Granny, a local wisewoman, & against her every preservation instinct—which insists that she not get too close—she’s pulled onto a path that takes her someplace different. Something that could offer her more than the life she’s been living. But will she pursue even more? Soft & at times violent, nurturing & at times painful, Wildwood Whispers is often like the wildwoods themselves—which border the Ross cabin where Mel stays & give wisewomen & villagers so much. But as they say in the story, death is part of them as well, & Mel wonders who killed Sarah’s mother & maybe Sarah too. This book is a lovely & also occasionally jarring read that touched my Southern lit.-loving soul & I really enjoyed it. There’s a slow burn, kissing only (but the suggestion of something more) romance inside, too. Check this one out if you’re looking for something haunting & warm (that sounds contradictory but it’s true 😆). 4.5 ⭐️. Release date: 08/17CW: reference to sexual abuse and harassment, trafficking, murder
Thanks to Berkley Pub for inviting me to be part of the Blog Blitz & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.About Say Goodbye.“Rose’s Say You’re Sorry delivers on the promise of a pedal-to-the-metal thriller with plenty of developed characters and converging mysteries....To call this book a page turner is an understatement.”--USA Today “Rose sends out her Sacramento trilogy (after Say No More) with an irresistible, heart-pounding thrill ride...Rose has a gift for making readers care deeply about her characters, and she certainly doesn't disappoint here; Tom and Liza will win readers' hearts and Hayley steals every scene she's in.This is a knockout.”--Publishers Weekly (STARRED review) on SAY GOODBYE Eden faces a final reckoning when the cult's past victims hunt them down in this explosive, high-stakes thriller in the Sacramento series from New York Times bestselling author Karen Rose. For decades, Eden has remained hidden in the remote wilds of the Pacific Northwest, Pastor keeping his cult's followers in thrall for his personal profit and sexual pleasures. But the Founding Elders are splintering, and Pastor's surrogate son, DJ, is scheming to make it all his own. When two of Eden's newest members send out a cry for help, it reaches FBI special agent Tom Hunter, whose friend and fellow FBI special agent Gideon Reynolds and his sister, Mercy, are themselves escapees of the Eden cult, their lives in danger from the Founding Elders who want them silenced forever. The three have vowed to find the cult and bring it down, and now, they finally have a solid lead. Neutralizing Eden's threat will ensure Tom's new friends can live without fear and will save those who are being held there against their will. But his own fear spikes when his best friend, ex-Army combat medic Liza Barkley, joins the case, putting her life--and their blossoming love--in danger. With everything they hold dear in the balance, Tom and Liza, together with Gideon and Mercy, must end Eden once and for all. My review.If you like twisty, high speed romantic suspense with weighty emotion you might try Karen Rose, whose latest read Say Goodbye comes out today. Say Goodbye is the culmination of the Sacramento series in which the respective MCs & plots have focused on finding Eden, a cult community which has long allowed the sexual assault of youths (sometimes under the guise of “marriage”) & used behind the scenes murder to maintain control over its members. You can jump in with this last book, although things might make more sense if you start at the beginning. In Say Goodbye Special Agent Tom Hunter’s efforts to find Eden take on new urgency when a pregnant teen who’s been taken there against her will reaches out via email to her boyfriend. She’s going to deliver their baby soon & this, plus a series of violent, public attacks perpetrated by Eden members in an effort to keep a lid on their secrets, means that Tom & his fellow agents are running out of time. His longtime friend Liza Barkley, a former Army medic, is helping to look after some of the victims of Eden—now close friends—when she’s pulled further into solving Eden’s mystery whereabouts as well. Add to that the attraction between Tom & Liza, an attraction that Tom resists as much & as long as possible since his former lover was murdered only one year ago. What he doesn’t know is that Liza has experienced her own loss. This slow burn ultimately ends in that Happy Ending we romance lovers long for but it did occasionally frustrate me as it sometimes feels one-sided—Liza makes so much of her feelings apparent—& doesn’t always show Tom off in the best relationship light. But he is dealing with grief & the complicated emotions that come from moving on, & that comes across clearly in the book. There’s so much detail in Rose’s mysteries & it was such a relief to finally see how it culminated. Thanks to Berkley Pub for the complimentary copy of this ARC. Let me know if you decide to check it out! 4 ⭐️. Out today! CW: Be advised, there are many murders in this book as well as references to pedophilia & kidnapping. About the Author.Karen Rose is the award-winning, #1 international bestselling author of some twenty novels, including the bestselling Baltimore and Cincinnati series. She has been translated into twenty-three languages, and her books have placed on the New York Times, the Sunday Times (UK), and Germany's der Spiegel bestseller lists.
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