Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Wowie, I have a lot of thoughts about this one. What I love about At First Spite by Olivia Dade: 🤍Body positivity. I love the way Dade describes bodies. I feel like I could maybe say it more eloquently but it comes down to that fact. They’re beautiful & sexy & appreciated etc. & all of that means a lot to me as a reader & a person with a body. 🤍Sex positivity. Those scenes seem to be lingered on in a very effective way once we get to them. The window! 🤍Leads who cry & eventually get in touch with all of their emotions. 🤍A pining hero. 🤍A heroine who, by the end, knows her worth. Athena’s thoughts & insecurities feel very relatable & the realizations she comes to are striking. That journey she goes on helped remind me of something too! 🤍A developing friendship group & sense of community in a new place! We’ve all been there. With that being said, the conflict in this book gives me some of the dreaded ick. In the prologue, Athena is engaged to Matthew’s brother, Johnny. When the book opens, Athena & Johnny are no longer together & he is on their honeymoon, solo. There isn’t a lot of time between Athena & Johnny & Athena & Matthew & things get unnecessarily messy & in a way that I think weakens the book. I wish some elements of the plot had been written differently. But At First Spite is a good book with some shining aspects that I think will resonate with many readers. 3⭐️. Out 02/13.CWs: Depression. What I would say is passive suicide ideation. Past death of sibling. Estranged parents.
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Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Katee Robert writes on the blurb of Consort of Fire by Kit Rocha that this is “a primal scream of queer joy!” It also has a bazillion great reviews on Amazon & Goodreads. But alas, this one falls flat for me. What I liked: the steam, the basic premise, the unapologetic pleasure the leads find in sex & companionship, the generosity of spirit, the lack of jealousy, the devotion of Princess Sachi & Zanya to each other. It’s fun seeing where the imaginations of the two writers behind Kit Rocha takes them. But I had a big problem with the power dynamics in this one between the leads. It doesn’t feel like they are all on equal footing & I get a bit of the ick in one scene. Not to mention that the relationship between Dragon King Ash & Sachi feels rushed to me. If you want to try Kit Rocha I totally recommend the first two books in their Mercenary Librarians series (haven’t read the third yet!). A fantastic series. But this one sadly has some big deficits for me. 3⭐️. Out now!Please see a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs.
Hi and welcome to my blog tour stop for Stacey Abrams' writing as Selena Montgomery The Art of Desire! A big thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Summary.Trouble comes in threes... One doomed love affair after another has made lovely Alex Walton swear off men. Now, she's determined to try something that maybe she can succeed at: a writing career. Little does she know that a chance meeting with a strikingly handsome stranger, a mysterious obelisk, and a lost kingdom will change her life forever. As Alex is about to discover, truth can be stranger—and far more dangerous—than fiction. ...but true love comes only once. After three years inside a terrorist organization, Phillip Turman is trying to rebuild his life. His first assignment is to pick up Alex Walton, the maid of honor for his best friend's wedding, at the airport. His second is to deal with his instant attraction to her. But his third may be the toughest: to keep Alex out of danger as his past—and her need to know about it—threaten to destroy their future. [ID: Jess’s white hand holds the ebook in front of a group of multicolored zinnias.] My review.A rereleased romantic suspense, The Art of Desire by Stacey Abrams writing as Selena Montgomery is action-packed & full throttle, with intriguing leads who are forced to spend more time together (yay!) as they attend a wedding, try to stay safe from various attacks, & realize that they’re both embroiled in the monarchic affairs of a country on the brink. The hardest thing about reviewing this book is that it definitely feels like a romantic suspense book that released in 2002, for better or for worse. I mean no shade whatsoever by that comment. But there are aspects of characters & books that I remember enjoying as a reader in 2002 that I wouldn’t appreciate nearly as much now. With that being said, the hero Phillip Turman is not always my fave, he also has a mustache (not my preferred facial hair accoutrement ), the shifts in perspective mid-chapter are a bit confusing, & the romantic suspense plot is kinda bonkers in moments. But there are lots of things to appreciate about this book too. Phillip & Alex are very passionate & while Phillip sometimes frustrates with his temper, his unwillingness to fully appreciate Alex, &/or his strategies in trying to dissuade her from possible harm, I adore how Alex stands up for herself. She doesn’t fade into the background, she knows her worth, & she’s talented in so many different ways. Though aspects of this book don’t always work for me I’d like to try another Selena Montgomery book in the future. Maybe it will work better for me. 3⭐️. Out now! Please see a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs. About the author.Selena Montgomery is the nom de plume of Stacey Abrams—she is the three-time New York Times bestselling author of Our Time Is Now, Lead from the Outside, and While Justice Sleeps; an entrepreneur; and a political leader. As Selena Montgomery, she is an award-winning author of eight romantic suspense novels. Do you like romantic suspense? Do you have any Selena Montgomery books you would recommend? Let me know what you think about this one and thanks for stopping by!
Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.The 1930s Hollywood setting & the enemies to lovers vibe of the costars described in the summary of Maureen Lee Lenker’s It Happened One Fight lured me like a siren song. Like a SIREN SONG. & while some aspects of this book are fun, you guessed it—there are some other things that had me going WHAT. First, the fun things: the setting. This feels very much like watching a classic movie, from the clothes & the pencil mustache of the hero, to the heroine’s very dramatic reactions when she’s angry, to even the dialogue. The only other romances I’ve seen in this setting are Amanda Quick’s Burning Coves & I just love how this time & place come across the page. the premise: costars who realize they have accidentally been married while making a movie. They have to live in Reno together making their next movie so they can meet stipulations for a faster NV divorce. Doesn’t this sound so good?! the heroine’s inspired by Joan Crawford & Bette Davis, & I enjoyed that she is a Movie Star (capital M, capital S) & that she is not ashamed of her past, as she says to characters repeatedly. the sex positivity & the fact that the book is very aware of the specific challenges of being a woman in Hollywood, whether it’s acting or writing. What doesn’t work for me so much: I have issues &/or quibbles with the conflict, the breakup, and the reconciliation. The book starts off strong for me but by the middle & end it takes a turn & left me with some less pleasant emotions. I don’t love the conflict, the breakup lasts for 8 months (what?!?!?!), & I wanted more from the grovel / apology moment. I think that It Happened One Fight is one of those YMMV books. It isn’t an unqualified winner for me but I do think there’s a lot of potential here…but please, for the love of Oscar, no breakups that are this long. 3⭐️. Out 07/11.CWs: Misogyny in Hollywood. Joan is often physical or attempts to be physical when she’s mad. Hypermasculinity. Joan was in a stag film years ago & it’s used as blackmail against her. Dash was left by his first wife & that history is used as blackmail. For much of the book Joan is engaged in a marriage of convenience to someone.
Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.If found family is your jam Ann Aguirre’s The Only Purple House in Town has you covered. This book has such an interesting premise: Iris Collins is from a family of psychic vampires but she’s the only one who hasn’t manifested any talent yet. She feels like a disaster & a constant source of disappointment to others. Then she inherits a purple home that needs some love & chooses renters to live with her, including Eli Reese, a hawk shifter who has never forgotten the impression Iris made on him at young age—even if Iris can’t say the same about him. The family that Iris & her housemates build is my fave part of this book. How she & the people who live there—despite their wildly different personalities—welcome others & give them acceptance & a place to call home. The LGBTQIA rep in this book is also fantastic & I adore the overall whimsicality of the world. But I didn’t connect with the writing or the characters as much as I had hoped. The actual romance between Iris & Eli left me a bit cold, & that’s not a commentary on the fade to black aspect of the book but just on the romance arc itself. I’ve heard so many great things about this author so I might give another book a try at some point but I only liked this one & didn’t swoon for it. 3⭐️. Out 07/11.Please see a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs.
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