 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Did I read a book that isn’t out until September & love it? Yes, yes I did. Shelby Mahurin’s The Scarlet Veil is such a delicious bite of vampire romantasy. It gave me those vampire book thrills I look for: danger, beauty, temptation, & a bite that brings pleasure . At the beginning of the book Célie is a Huntswoman, the only Huntswoman in a group of men who largely deride her & her abilities. Her fiancé, the Captain, is so busy trying to protect her that he stifles & under-appreciates her in a different way. Then Célie finds a dead body & in short order is kidnapped by mysterious, obviously dangerous people she realizes are vampires. Two mysteries surround everything: the recent crop of similar deaths in her city & the death of her sister & the trauma Célie experienced in its aftermath. If you’re looking for an atmospheric vampire book with kissing, check this one out. If you’re looking for a tortured MMC who speaks and moves & acts in a silky, clearly dangerous way, a spirited and beautiful FMC who can talk to ghosts (!), and a prophecy that suggests their romance is doomed, check this one out. Don’t be mad at me about the cliffie, please! Also I should note that this is a spin-off of the Serpent & Dove series but I’ve only read book 1 in that series & I was fine . In closing, this book is delivering big vampire energy & I’m here for it. You might want to be too . 4.5⭐️. Out 09/26.[ID: Jess’s white hand holds the ebook in front of a mural painted on a red background of a white woman with red lipstick wearing a tartan corset & holding a set of bagpipes.]
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 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC and the publisher for the complimentary hard copy. All opinions provided are my own. Unfortunately, Yours has: golden retriever & cat energy an MC defending another MC him panicking over the possibility of her being in present danger or past Some steam Comfort After not loving Secretly Yours, Tessa Bailey’s upcoming novel UNFORTUNATELY, YOURS out tomorrow, feels like a return to the hotness & the infatuation & the pure goodness of a TB dirty sex, he-will-love-her-to-the-end-of-time story. I adore August Cates. Like in a way as big as the man himself. I love his golden retriever energy, which gives me Brent from Asking for Trouble vibes. I love when Natalie gets pissy with him, how she calls him bonehead, & how he’s basically like “I know but you want me so what does that make you” in return. I love that you just know they will be in each other’s corners forever, defending the other from anyone else. It’s opposites attract, class difference, marriage of convenience, dislike-ish to love, and total wish fulfillment for someone who just wants a fast, low angst, ticks all the boxes, hot read. 4.5⭐️. Out now!CW: Heavy alcohol use. Reference to rehab, which her parents made her go to when she was younger.
 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs is one of those fantasies that slowly winds together a few different stories & then WHOOSH pulls them tight. I love that, don’t you? The sign of an author’s master plan coming into big & gorgeous effect. This story takes as its premise a world where magic can be found (& even created) in books & it’s activated through those books & blood. Magic has separated sisters Esther & Joanna, but it brings them back together when Esther is threatened. Magic is also part of the secrets surrounding Scribe Nicholas, who sees his carefully constructed world start to peel apart. Taking the reader from Antarctica to Vermont to the English countryside, Ink Blood Sister Scribe is an adventure that really started captivating me about 1/3 of the way in & that I loved from then on. There are visceral, violent moments & there’s also love, hope, sisterhood, & the possibility of a new romance. So, like, a great fantasy. 4.5⭐️. Out now!Please see a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs.
 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC and the publisher for the complimentary hard copy. All opinions provided are my own.Christina Lauren’s The True Love Experiment is so funny & effervescent & charming & hot & then BAM comes a twist & then it hurts for a bit & then it’s soft & fun & adorable again. The end. But seriously, Fizzy’s book is great. The premise of this book is that Fizzy feels like she’s lost some of her mojo & some of her certainty about what she’s doing career-wise & maybe even life-wise & she signs on to be the star of a reality tv show that she—a famous romance novelist—will help design. The producer of the show is Connor, a hot British single dad. Though they don’t get off on the best foot, soon after they’re friends & that friendship helps sustain them through the ups & downs & explosive attraction between them. This book has some real funny moments, like when Fizzy gives a list of the romance hero archetypes she wants to date on her show & Connor is befuddled by how to cast “vampire.” Not only is the relationship between Fizzy & Connor like warm golden sunshine but I absolutely love what the book has to say about the romance genre & its readers & just how important respect is for people’s various interests. Even “nice,” hot guys can be condescending about romance… The twist genuinely surprised me & I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it as a reader. I’m guessing the people who read this book will have lots of thoughts about it & my DMs are open. DMs are also open for any squeeing or mutual chuckling. I’m really glad I read this one. 4.5⭐️. Out 05/16. CWs: Fizzy was the other woman in a previous relationship without her knowledge & that man’s wife publicly confronted her before the book began. Connor cheated on a previous partner.
 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own. I kept putting To Swoon & To Spar by Martha Waters off because I wasn’t in the “right mood”—I finally read it the other day & it was adorable & funny & heartwarming & naturally I was like why didn’t I read this sooner. If you haven’t read Martha Waters’ books yet, I would compare them to Tessa Dare or India Holton. Maybe a mash-up of the two actually. In this book, viscount Peter Bourne agrees to marry Jane Spencer because she’s part of the deal that will get him his ancestral home back. But Jane is very tired of being at the mercy of men in her life, who have basically been neglectful or dismissive of her (in short: uncaring), & she decides to carry on with a ruse she started with Peter’s deplorable uncle months ago: she & the servants perform a series of tricks designed to make Peter think the house is haunted so he will leave & she can live in solitary bliss. Only, Peter is different than she thinks. & for Peter, Jane is more than the prickliness that meets the eye. Marriage of convenience + fake haunting + slowly falling in love with people who are secretly nicer than they seem = happiness to me. The dynamic between Jane & Peter’s sister is amazingly antagonistic (watch two strong, opinionated women clash ), it’s so cute watching Peter insist that he doesn’t need spectacles, & Jane is such a grump but in a great nuanced way that’s appreciated by Peter. Also Peter is a hero who knows how to apologize & I am here for that . This book is so much fun & I love how the Martha Waters’ books I’ve read so far (2) merge humor with sensitivity. 4.5⭐️. Out now!Please see a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs:
 Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harpervoyagerus for the hardcopy. Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.There are some stories that really stick with you and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi will be like that for me. Shannon Chakraborty, also author of The Daevabad series, is becoming a fave fantasy author & I love the thick & ingenious fantasies she’s crafting. Framed as a memoir in the act of being written by a scribe, Amina is a fantastic storyteller, recounting her story of magic, danger, fear, & courage with compelling & sometimes visceral detail & the occasional irreverent & dry remark about whatever bit of nonsense / magical terror she has seen. This is an epic: at the beginning Amina accepts a job to rescue a rich woman’s granddaughter & realizes that there are larger implications of the whole situation than she had initially assumed. A road trip, an across the realms & back story with a fantastic heroine that odes *should be* written about, a story about what is right & wrong & guilt & love: this one packs a punch. & did I mention that Amina is “middle-aged” & a mother & still longs for the sea & her ship & can conduct a heck of a rescue when necessary? “To be a woman is to have your story misremembered,” Amina says at the beginning of the book & those words stayed with me. I loved hearing Amina’s voice. 4.5⭐️. Out now!Many CWs, including murder, violence, references to slavery, including witnessing a child being purchased by someone.
 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.I’ve found one of my new fave ways for the brother’s best friend trope to develop: basically the siblings just wait & watch the slow burn happening before their faces & by the end THEY are the ones trying to move things forward. Spoiler alert: that’s what happens in Chloe Liese’s If Only You. This contemporary sports romance featuring two pro athletes, both of whom want &/or need an image overhaul, is a lovely slow burn with a round of secondary characters who also had me feeling the love. If Only You is about people deciding to be something else & the decisions they choose to make to do it. It’s also a story about true friendship, great hugs, patience, & unconditional love (of the friend & partner variety). There’s a lot of pining, the hero Sebastian gives off lots of “I don’t deserve her” energy, & a heroine, Ziggy Bergman, who’s tired of sitting at the kiddie end of the table, literally, & wants to be acknowledged for the person she currently is. I love that message & that idea. If you’re looking for a book where the feelings are on the table (even if the pining itself is hidden from the other lead), where the characters make space for others’ authenticity, check this one out. I will admit, that same earnestness doesn’t always come across as natural to me in the dialogue, but for the most part, I love how openly this book shares its feelings. This is a really sweet, lovely book with a reforming bad boy & a reforming ultra good girl, & just lots of love all around. 4.5⭐️. Out now!CWs: Sebastian’s dad left him & he has trauma surrounding his ultra-critical stepfather & emotionally negligent mom. Ziggy is autistic & describes how she experiences social interactions. Sebastian experiences pain & is diagnosed as having Celiac’s Disease in the book.
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