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Review: Ella Stainton's BEST LAID PLAIDS.

8/7/2020

4.25⭐️*
Tropes: best friend’s sibling; road trip

Q: what historical time period do you think is sexiest? I love 19th century Britain but I also get really excited about books set in the Gilded Age & 1920s!

There are parts of Ella Stainton’s Best Laid Plaids I devoured. Set in 1928 & revolving around the first World War’s ghosts, BLP is the steamy story of two academics who set out on a supernatural quest—one of them a believer in ghosts & one of them skeptical.

PhD student Joachim Cockburn travels to the home of discredited folklorist & academic Ainsley Graham in the hopes of convincing Ainsley to guide him to his favorite haunting sites.

Ainsley’s professional reputation is in tatters after it got out that he thinks he communicates with ghosts. But who better to accompany Joachim on his research trip?, because Joachim doesn’t believe in ghosts & his research in psychology will study places that have become famous for their supposed specters.

I loved so much about this romance: the atmospheric setting, the ghost stories (yes!!!), the steam between Ainsley & Graham (double yes!!!), the engrossing family drama, the way Graham helps Ainsley with his anxiety and “brain fidgets,” the academia angle, the humor. Sign me up for all of it!

What worked less for me: some of my questions didn’t seem answered & the frequent incorporation of lovers’s nicknames that I wasn’t a huge fan of in the narration itself made me feel a little uncomfortable in that secondhand embarrassment kinda way.

Overall, though, Best Laid Plaids is a sizzling, thrilling read & Ella Stainton’s a talent that I’m excited to read more of. I really enjoyed my time with this one!

4.25⭐️*Tropes: best friend’s sibling; road trip

*I read & rated this romance before doing away with my .25 rating.​Best Laid Plaids is out on 08/31. Thanks to Netgalley & Carina Press for my complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

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4.25⭐️*
Tropes: best friend’s sibling; road trip

I read & rated this romance before doing away with my .25 rating.

Best Laid Plaids* is out on 08/31. Thanks to Netgalley & Carina Press for my complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

5⭐️
Tropes: workplace; age gap; slow burn

4⭐️.

Tropes: age gap; workplace romance; opposites attract

3⭐️.

Tropes: workplace romance; enemies to lovers

4⭐️.

Tropes: opposites attract

4⭐️.

Tropes: childhood friends to lovers; brothers’s best friend

5⭐️.

YA Fantasy Lit. with Romantic Elements.

4.25⭐️.

Tropes: friends to lovers

4.25⭐️.

Tropes: road trip; childhood friends to enemies to lovers; opposites attract

4.25⭐️.

Tropes: workplace romance; second chance; enemies to lovers.