Dramatic & sensual, Katie Reus’s Ancients Rising series offers dependable entertainment for me.

Ancient Vendetta—her latest release, out yesterday—is the culminating moment I’ve been anticipating for Aurora, a Phoenix shifter, & King, a wolf shifter & Alpha, who’ve been crushing on each other for a long time.

While I enjoyed this one, especially seeing Aurora & King find their way to each other & how she has the power to bring the devoted Alpha to his knees, the story doesn’t feel as straightforward or tight as I would like, which detracted at times from the pace of the main story. Basically it just feel like there’s a lot going on.

The HEA between Aurora & King is satisfying after they’ve spent so long being attracted to each other, as is the sense of camaraderie between supernaturals trying to re-build the world after the Fall & fight against baddies. Despite some of the heavy topics covered here I did enjoy this one—it’s always fun being back in this world.

I’ve recently discovered that one of my fave sports romance tropes is rookie + the veteran 🤤 & Cait Nary’s Season’s Change offers that plus great mental health rep, sunshine & the loner, & roommates/friends falling in love.

Olly & Benji’s journey to a love declaration isn’t easy for lots of reasons, including the fact that hockey veteran Olly isn’t publicly out—he hasn’t even told his family yet—& Benji isn’t much for introspection & is overall pretty slow in recognizing/understanding his feelings for Olly.

Beyond this, Olly has experienced what I would call severe anxiety & perhaps even depression over how people associated with his previous team treated him after someone saw him trying to hookup with another man.

Needless to say, this isn’t a light read. There’s quite a lot of angst. But it is a wonderful story about friendship turning to love, about supporting someone & encouraging them through moments of emotional turmoil.

The steam doesn’t hurt (understatement); neither do the two MCs, who are sweet, well-meaning, & refreshingly “flawed” (ie human). I’m really looking forward to seeing what Cait Nary puts out into the world next.

📖 Q: do what’s a book you want to finish before the year ends?

This is not a light read but I really enjoyed it…in the way that you can enjoy a suspense w/ romantic elements which includes a serial killer 🙃.

First in the Laurel Snow series, Rebecca Zanetti’s You Can Run introduces us to the aforementioned Laurel, an absolutely brilliant FBI Special Agent with an eidetic memory & a reputation for catching killers.

When her uncle is accused of being a serial killer Laurel returns to Washington state to find out the real killer. Early in her investigation she meets Huck Rivers, a taciturn man with Fish & Wildlife—an organization which happens to have police-level powers in that state.

They have to work together to solve the murders as they continue happening, a task made more difficult by the fact that neither is exactly a people person & they happen to be wildly attracted to the other.

This book isn’t subtle. Some details are said again & again. But it is exciting & entertaining & creepy & sexy & I swiped the pages with speed. On the emotional front the book does a good job of showing how both Laurel & Huck are isolated in their own ways but still have some type of connection.

Though there’s no HEA or even a HFN I was okay with where things have temporarily stopped mostly because Zanetti so satisfyingly builds up Huck’s baggage & I know that Timber! moment is coming & I’m ready for it.

📖 Q: if you were staying at a genteel boardinghouse, what would you drink at social hour & what game would you play with your boardinghouse mates? I’d drink a glass of champagne or a margarita & play Rook 🤩.

A disgraced opera singer & a national hero General-turned-Duke meet at the Grand Palace on the Thames—a genteel boardinghouse by the docks—& it is *not* love at first sight.

After all, one of them, Mariana, is being harangued in the papers for causing two men—both, supposedly her lovers—to duel over her & the other, James, is a man who can do no wrong for most of his countrypersons; he’s roundly viewed as the prime example of a gentleman.

In After Dark with the Duke, the latest scintillating installment in Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series, the delicious enemies to lovers vibes between the leads are turned into something more heated & sweet by forced proximity & when it finally turns physical I was awed by how fantastically it’s written.

Ask me one of my fave communities found in the pages of a romance novel & one of them will be Julie Anne Long’s Grand Palace. With this book, too, I loved returning to a world that’s warm & loving & true—I feel like I can see scenes before the drawing room fire during social hour play out before my eyes.

Add to that a thrilling relationship arc between main characters, sex scenes that feel raw & epic, & some funny & crushing moments that pull at my emotions & you’ve got a historical that ticks so many of my boxes.

The Duke comes a long way in this way & his gesture at the end is meaningful, his speech is stirring, but I wanted even more. Like for maybe him to say I HAVE BEEN AN IDIOT, You are worth more than 1,000,000 of them etc.

But mostly everything is so well done in this book, including the emotional terrain both leads have to traverse, & the whole thing is just splendid.

📖 Q: if you had to make one signature dish to show who you are on a reality tv cooking show what would it be? Mine would be bruschetta with thick crusty bread. I would likely be kicked off right away 😆.

Food love, self-love, love-for-another love. Anita Kelly’s Love & Other Disasters had me swimming in—I’m gonna say it again, love—& it was just wonderful.

I’m trash for foodie romances, especially when they involve a competition. The enticing food descriptions 🤤 , the stakes of it all, how the leads express themselves through food, the ways they show care through every morsel…& those things were reflected in my reading of this book.

Dahlia Woodson is pretty recently divorced & wants to use the cash from winning reality tv show Chef’s Special—a show featuring amateur chefs—to apply to her debt. Stuck in a rut, living a life that she doesn’t love, she believes in herself when (almost) everyone else thinks she’s a long shot.

London Parker wants to open an LGBTQ nonprofit with the winnings. For them, the show offers the extra challenge of telling viewers that their pronouns are they/them, all the while being aware that those are pronouns their own dad refuses to use.

Dahlia & London’s first couple of interactions are so cute & when Dahlia repeatedly keeps being exactly who she is—someone who is initially only reluctantly appreciated by London 😆😆—my heart squeezed.

Soon the chemistry between them gets as hot & vital as oil warming in a pan (one point for that food analogy 😆), although it takes a while for Dahlia to see/recognize the romantic nature of it & it takes even longer for them to act on.

With a hilarious moment involving a cow, a heartwarming story that gives everything a person could want in a romance, lovely full circle closing lines, & two leads whom it’s a pleasure to root for, Love & Other Disasters is soothing & hot & altogether satisfactory.

The Spanish Love Deception was a total bookstagram made me do it & I have so many thoughts.

Workplace enemies to lovers, grumpy & the sunshine, fake dating, there’s only one bed, this big romance is a trope feast.

Leads Lina Martín & Aaron Blackford do not get along, not since Aaron rebuffed Lina’s initial friendly overture & denounced her to their boss.

But thanks to a series of events—chief among them Lina’s desire to prove to family & friends & her old community that she has moved on from her last (& sole) devastating relationship—Lina agrees to Aaron’s offer to assist her in her fake dating ruse. Thus, they board a plane to Spain together to attend her sister’s wedding.

Filled with vibrant characters, featuring two well-meaning leads who simmer & simmer, & with narration that’s comfortable & warm (like a hug 🤗), The Spanish Love Deception reminds me in some ways of Mariana Zapata’s books.

The tension between leads is built up nicely, though the reasons behind Aaron’s behavior—basically his overall arc throughout the book—aren’t 100% believable to me. But still, I enjoy him & his grunting, his starchy ways, & his romantic speeches very much. Maybe my fave thing about him is just how he reveals the things he’s picked up about Lina while they’ve been supposedly hating each other.

If you want a juicy, bright travel romance you might like this one. It feels a little too long for me—& I wanted to force the characters to admit they wanted to be together/would be together sooner 😆—but I can see why it’s been a booksta fave.

📖 Q: what’s your fave musical?

I blew through Emma Lord’s When You Get the Chance, mostly because it’s adorable & funny & that emotion I was looking for was waiting in the wings & regularly stepped out to take stage 💫.

If you love Mamma Mia you’re in luck (I actually haven’t seen it 😬) because this book delights in both it as a stage production & its basic premise (at least I think so—I repeat: I haven’t seen it 😆).

In this book’s case, Millie Price has just been accepted to a special musical theatre program that she believes will take her to the next level but will also separate her geographically from her loving dad. When he says no, she happens to wonder if the mom she doesn’t know anything about might be of some help.

With the help of her best friend, Millie seeks to learn the truth of her mom’s identity, narrowing in on several possibilities & doing what she thinks she has to do to put herself in their paths.

Including competing for a summer internship position at a casting agency against Oliver Yang, the stage manager who has seemingly hated her & her Millie-sized personality for years. The feeling is mutual.

Bursting with love for musical theatre & endowed with a main character who’s dramatic, occasionally impetuous, loving, sometimes sad & confused, irrepressible, & always very human, When You Get the Chance is an utter delight, a joy.

📖 Q: what are you currently reading?

I haven’t read very many pairings like this: a charmer rake who’s actually working as a spy for the Crown & a rebel *once arrested* for her political convictions who’s now hiding from her notoriety & surviving as a Lady’s Companion.

There’s so much going on in the background of Emily Sullivan’s The Rebel and the Rake & she weaves the various aspects with skill: blackmail, family dramatics, ton maneuverings, etc.

Against this backdrop our rake Rafe Davies falls for the usually unassuming, largely ignored by the aristocracy heroine, Sylvia, a lead who’s compelling for me. University-educated & willing to go to great lengths for her beliefs, *including* having heated conversations with the Hot Hero about them, she’s admirable.

Sullivan writes a well-crafted story—she takes risks & her writing style is easy to tumble for. I think she has a big future in historical romance & I’m really looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

But I didn’t always care for how the hero acts in this one—his feelings for Sylvia feel deep quickly & I didn’t totally buy it. I also didn’t 💯 enjoy how he fails to fully appreciate what she does for him at one point in the story.

In the end, I’ll remember how fine a writer Emily Sullivan is but not necessarily this book itself 🥴. With that being said, definitely check out the first book in the series, A Rogue to Remember, if you haven’t already & expect great things from her to come!

📖 Q: if you could travel to space, would you? I’ll stay right here, thanks.

In Fated Blades three of my fave romance things collide: fighting leads, solid worldbuilding, & Ilona Andrews’s writing 😆.

I jumped into this series with this book, an approach that worked for me but not necessarily one I would highly recommend.

In this novella, long-standing enemies Ramona Addler and Matias Baena from long-time fighting families learn that their spouses have cheated with each other & stolen data critical to the survival of their families from each of them.

Ramona & Matias embark on a dangerous journey to retrieve their data, each of them with the deadly person they’ve been told not to trust since birth.

The tension between leads is admirably built up & seeing it turn into trust & kinship warmed this romance-lover’s heart.

The fighting scenes are epic in nature, gory, & fast paced. This is a society that operates on threats of violence but neither Ramona nor Matias are crazed with bloodlust which makes it easier for me to root for them.

Despite the fact that they’re married to other people—marriages which are not based on love but rather alliances—they are attracted to each other. That’s not my fave romance set-up & I wish things are slightly different but I’m okay with how things play out here.

This read is fun & whip-fast, a sweet & also provocative treat but definitely not where I’d suggest starting if you’re new to IA 😉.