 Hi and welcome to my blog tour stop for Ashley Herring Blake's Iris Kelly Doesn't Date! I've been loving the Bright Falls series and this is such a good conclusion. Summary.Everyone around Iris Kelly is in love. Her best friends are coupled up, her siblings have perfect partners, and her parents are still blissfully married. And she’s happy for all of them, truly. Iris doesn’t want any of that—dating, love, romance. She’ll stick to her commitment-free hookups…Except no one will just let her be. Everyone wants to see her settled down, but she holds firmly to her no dating rule. There’s only one problem—Iris is a romance author facing an imminent deadline for her second book, and she’s completely out of ideas. Perfectly happy to continue ignoring her problems, Iris goes to a bar in Portland and meets a sexy stranger, Stefania. A night of dancing turns into the worst one-night stand Iris has had in her life. To get her mind that terrible night, Iris tries out for the lead role in a local play, a queer retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, but comes face-to-face with Stefania, whose real name turns out to be Stevie. Desperate to save face in front of her friends, Stevie asks Iris to play along as her girlfriend. Iris is shocked, but when she realizes the arrangement might provide her with some much-needed romantic content for her book, she agrees. As the two women play the part of a happy couple, lines start to blur, and they’re left wondering who will make the real first move....  [ID: Jess, a white woman wearing a blue sweater with embroidered flowers on its sleeve, holds the ebook in front of a screen painted blue & white with a pink flower on a panel.]My review.I’ve been such a fan of Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series & Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date offers more time with the wonderful group of friends we met in book 1 & in particular irrepressible, vibrant Iris. But despite her passion & her confidence Iris can still be hurt & that’s something that’s definitely explored in this book, as Iris navigates expectations from her family & friends & meets & falls for Stevie, an actor who’s been struggling to get her big break & has problems with her own confidence. Fake dating shenanigans followed by the leads trading lessons in sex & romance ensue & of course added to all of this is the fact that our leads are catching feelings for each other even as they’re starring in a play together. There’s a nice amount of tension in this book as Stevie & Iris wrestle with those aforementioned expectations & how they butt up against their own desires, wants, & needs. The steam is also balanced by the sweetness of their relationship, their moments of bravery balanced by their moments of vulnerability. Stevie’s Generalized Anxiety Disorder is also beautifully explored & something that as an anxious person I’m always excited to see. Though I wish that at one later point of the plot Stevie takes more initiative, overall both leads end up taking a risk in this book & you love to see it. The ending wraps everything up very sweetly with this group of loving friends together again, doing what they do: being there for each other & appreciating each other. 4.25⭐️. Out 10/24.CWs: Iris has some trauma surrounding an ex who lied to her about being married & having a family. She runs into that previous lover on page.  Have you read any other books in this series? Let me know and thanks for stopping by! 
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 Hi and welcome to my blog tour stop for Tori Anne Martin's This Spells Disaster! A big thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Summary.Morgan Greenwood may be an incredible potion maker, but she’s convinced she was hexed at birth. A self-proclaimed “messy witch,” it comes as no surprise when she finds herself drunkenly offering to fake date the woman of her dreams for the biennial New England Witches’ festival. Enter Rory Sandler, a spellcasting champion and brilliant elemental witch, who just so happens to accept the offer for reasons unbeknownst to Morgan. All those good luck spells must have worked after all! But as Morgan and Rory prepare to fool everyone at the festival, their relationship starts to feel very real—that is until Morgan realizes she might have screwed up the common relaxation potion she made for Rory and given her a love potion instead, breaking one of the most sacred Witch Council Laws. To fulfill her promise to Rory, Morgan must somehow keep playing pretend while under the watchful eyes of Rory’s family and legion of fans. But to break the love potion, she’ll also have to prove how incompatible she and Rory really are. For a screwup like herself, ruining their relationship should be easy—except every day, Morgan is becoming more bewitched by Rory herself.  [ID: Jess’s white hand holds the ebook in front of a garden of zinnias. Trees & a yard are on the right side of the image.] My review.An unrequited crush, a coven, a newt festival, a fake dating situation, a love potion… Wait. Recently I posted about tropes I’m weird about & one of them is love potion—a plot point in This Spells Disaster. With that being said author Tori Anne Martin addresses the lack of consent with those in the author’s note & one FMC’s awareness of it prevents her from moving physically forward with the other lead so it worked a-okay for me. This sapphic witchy romance is ca—ute! (Is that how you spell it if you say it like that?) The book is set in a cozy town in Maine (never been but it makes such a great romance backdrop!), there’s queer rep, that aforementioned consideration of consent & love potions, a fun newt festival (can I go?). Morgan is a potions-witch at her family shop; Rory is a very well-known witch who abruptly left the spotlight to become a bartender at Morgan’s small town. When Rory’s parents try to pressure Rory to return to the spotlight, she & Morgan begin a fake dating situation that gets complicated by their real feelings & also the love potion Morgan accidentally made that she thinks Rory has ingested. On one hand I grew a bit frustrated with how lead Morgan was trying to “How to lose a guy in 10 days” Rory because of the accidental love potion she made & gave to Rory, but on the other the conflict kind of made sense given how everything was set up for & about the characters earlier in the book. Witchy reads are the bomb.com & this is a fun one. 4⭐️. Out now! Please read a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs. How do you feel about a love potion read? 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.A small magical community where dangerous things can happen, a prickly MC & her half-Fae lover, a nurtured grudge & a forbidden spell. In Charm’s Way by Lana Harper has all of this & while I have my quibbles with the book, it’s also fun & atmospheric & the premise gives me those witchy romance vibes that put roses in my cheeks. In true Jess fashion I hadn’t read the three previous books in the series & this book definitely relates to previous events within the series. With that being said, after a bit of initial confusion surrounding who the romantic interest was (*my fault entirely*) I was just fine. Witch Delilah Harlow is having a tough time after losing her memory. Many of the memories have returned but others have not / do not, & in a moment of escalated emotion she decides to issue a spell from a taboo book. This sets off a series of events including getting to know Catriona Arachne Quinn, a half-Fae monster hunter, better. With danger, intrigue, & complicated friendship dynamics, this book serves up an entertaining Halloween-appropriate supernatural tale. I adore the premise & the Queer rep in the primary & secondary characters but I wish the book had been a bit tighter in execution in moments. Have you read this series? 3.5⭐️. Out 08/22.CWs: Catriona was abandoned by mother; childhood was difficult given that she’s half-Fae. Deception. Violence, death of supernatural creatures.
 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.Talk about serendipitous…Tansy Adams’ lie about having a fake girlfriend for the last 6 months could blow up in front of her face. Instead, the very woman she’s been pretending to date—Gemma West, a romance novel cover model—walks into the wedding reception & agrees with Tansy‘s story. But Gemma also wants to take their unexpected ruse even farther. She wants a marriage of convenience with Tansy so that she can satisfy the terms of her grandmother’s will & take over his media company. So now it’s a marriage of convenience between two women with some unexpectedly similar trauma from their childhoods, some similar ambitions when it comes to saving their family legacies, & some similar attraction for their “fake” partner turned real the more they spend time together. Alexandria Bellefleur’s The Fiancée Farce is really cute & the things that work for me really work for me. Like the mental health rep—this might be the only book I’ve read where the book talks about mixing mental health meds & alcohol? And though the relationship in this book moves really quickly at the beginning, by the middle & end I felt caught up & more settled in the feelings I could see were growing. Adorable text message exchanges & words + actions giving proof to how protective they are of each other really won me over. What works less for me are how some things feels glossed over or jumped over a bit, including the aforementioned beginning & a family bit at the end, & a truly unsettling villain who as far as I’m concerned deserved a far worse fate than what he got. I kind of wavered a bit on the ranking because the beginning is more like a 4 for me, & the middle toward end is more like 4.5. So how about 4.25? ;). Either way, this one is really sweet, but not too sweet (let’s not forget the dirty talk), with a lovely story of people finding out a marriage of convenience that turns into more is possible in & out of romance novels. 4.25⭐️. Out 04/18.CWs: Previous death of father. References to familial loneliness and scenes of familial antagonism. A lead is called a “whore.” In high school, Tansy was seduced and intimate photographs of her were shared with classmates, leading to harassment; the same person who did this is a secondary character who continues to appear in this book, often “leering” & making crude comments.
 Thanks to the publisher for the complimentary hard copy. All opinions provided are my own.#FlatlayFriday Yellow titles inspired by Karelia Stetz-Waters’ Behind the Scenes Today it’s all about yellow titles & to my surprise I had several, especially from Forever Pub. Forever recently sent me a complimentary copy of Behind the Scenes by Karelia Stetz-Waters, a Sapphic romance featuring a stressed out, workaholic director who desperately wants to her vision to life in film again & the take charge, brilliant consultant who immediately wants to help. Said consultant also has a secret about her own creative endeavors, one that actually connects her even more deeply to the director if they only knew it. This story is filled with tenderness, it’s very hopeful, & there’s an uplifting arc for both characters as they work on some of the trauma that’s been dogging them for years. If you like two characters appreciating the heck out of each other, you might want to check this one out! 4⭐️. Out now! Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own. #OnWednesdaysWeReadPink Match the shoe to the stack (not my original challenge) & review a book! I never know quite what I’m going to get with an Alexis Hall book & I love it. Mortal Follies is a fantastic boy fantasy with romantic elements told in AH’s inimitable style, aka supremely witty & funny. From the first pages where we learn this story is being told by an exiled hobgoblin forced to support himself by writing & publishing a book *shudder,* this book had me hooked. Then we meet the leads, beautiful Miss Maelys Mitchelmore who is the victim of a series of magical attacks & Georgiana, the so-called Duke of Annadale, a believed murderess & Ice Queen who hides her heart down down down deep. I know I’ve already said this but Mortal Follies is so witty, funny, & sophisticated. The unreliable narrator is hilarious—& the subtle moments where said narrator is moved to some kind of compassion offer a striking contrast & are so well done. This book is swinging hard with I hate everyone but you vibes (& at times I wondered if Georgiana actually hated everyone, Maelys included ) & while I might typically want a bit more softness it actually worked for me here. With some steam & that distinctive voice that had me snort-laughing on the inside this was a really fun one. 4.5⭐️. Out 06/06.CW: Maelys is the target of a sexual obsession. Attempted murder. Murder.
 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.With Ashley Herring Blake’s Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail we’re back with the same magnetic, loving, boisterous & balanced friend group, this time watching Astrid—who feels an imperative to always seem calm, cool, & collected—take on the renovation of a beloved inn before the eyes of the inn’s family members, a tv crew…& as always, her overbearing mother. Also before the eyes of carpenter Jordan Everwood, the same woman who Astrid had a nasty moment with at the end of Delilah’s book & the beginning of her own, about some spilled coffee & her power dress. Astrid isn’t someone who is open easily—we see that even with her close circle—& it’s lovely watching her find that safe place to land with the person who she started off so antagonistically with. Jordan, too, needs that safe place. As always, my heart cheered for two people finding a home & a refuge with each other, especially when I can relate to one of them in some way (hello self-consciousnesses & fear of failure etc. it’s nice to see you again ). This book has an interesting tension that strikes at the heart of what both women desire for themselves, heart-grabbing backstories about growing up & in the present, trying to wrestle back an identity & purpose for themselves, & that aforementioned wonderful group of friends. The “villain” in this story feels a bit obvious & I would have liked a bigger conclusion to that whole storyline, but on the whole, this is another emotional, powerful, sensual read with a great group of characters. Can’t wait for Iris’s book! 4.5⭐️. Out 11/22.CWs: mother’s manipulation & overbearingness, & there’s a reference to her homophobia. Jordan’s ex wife had cancer & left her soon after learning she was in remission.
 Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own Is it possible to fall in love with someone in one magical day, Alison Cochrun’s Kiss Her Once For Me poses. I don’t know about IRL but this book made me feel it, you all. From the beauty of the writing, to the romantic story that swept me off my feet, to the humor of this magical family & couple together, & just overall the evocativeness of the settings & the emotions. Bam. Total heart engagement. Last Christmas Eve artist & animator Ellie gave aspiring bakery owner Jack her heart after meeting on a day of random snow when most of the city was shut down. The very next day Jack gave it away. One year later Ellie has the chance to ask Jack about it all when she inadvertently poses as Jack’s brother’s fiancée at a family Christmas get together. So Ellie is fake engaged to Jack’s brother & the stakes for all of them are big. Especially since she feels like she can’t tell Jack that the engagement is fake. There’s demisexual rep, anxiety rep, a big whopping second chance, some deception & a grovel, & a lovely lovely story about two people finding their person. There’s only one thing/s that bothered me *dun dun dun*. That would be the conflict. I felt like one of the leads was a bit hypocritical—or maybe just not as understanding I thought they could be—but I was the only person who thought this . All of the characters are firmly on the side of one person so YMMV . But three cheers for beautiful romances that make me feel the love & the wonder of love & snow days. 4.5⭐️. Out 11/01.CWs: emotionally manipulative mom; absent dads & in one case, infidelity. Jack is married when they first hook up & she doesn’t tell Ellie this.
 Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own. I’ve been dipping my toes into holiday romance novels so to speak & Helena Greer’s Season of Love has some winning qualities but ultimately falls somewhat flat for me. Miriam Blum is an antique upcycler who’s estranged from most of her family, including her horrible father, her mother who remains married to him, & the beloved aunt who owned the one place she felt totally comfortable, a Christmas tree farm. At the beginning of the book Miriam’s aunt has passed & Miriam’s going to return to that farm after many years away to sit shiva. Back to the other people she loved but hasn’t had a meaningful relationship with in years, including a cousin. But there’s a new person living on the farm, Noelle Northwood, who immediately dislikes Miriam, & Miriam’s time at home is complicated by the presence of this person who doesn’t like her but whom she’s attracted to. There’s a lot to appreciate about this Queer romance, including Jewish rep, romantic moments on the ice, & how Miriam finds her way back home & to an old artistic love. But in general, I wasn’t a huge fan of Noelle (whose brashness & personality might feel authentic in some ways but also gets a little off putting for me in moments) and a secondary storyline which is a little puzzling at times. Also, a lot seems to happen to Miriam personally & professionally & it’s a little unsettling how quickly it did. Overall, there’s potential here & I can see a lot of people relating to & enjoying this sweet romance, but it didn’t really work for me. 3 ⭐️. Out 10/11.CWs: Noelle has a tattoo of “deadly women” including Lizzie Borden & I just found that choice a bit odd. Death in the family. Difficult relationship with mother & father. Noelle is a recovering alcoholic and was drinking as a youth. Dad destroyed her paintings.
 Thanks to the author for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. Somewhere there’s a bar called Moonies where people can drink, sing karaoke, & fall in love… In this latest novella in Anita Kelly’s Moonlighters series, Wherever Is Your Heart, MCs Mal & June build a long-building slow fire into something bigger & lasting. As Anita Kelly tweeted last week, this book is “a quiet tribute to mutual pining, soft butches, growing old, & taking a chance during Pride. (Doesn’t that sound amazing?) This book is so good. The writing is gorgeous & feels real (that’s a description that might not mean anything specific to you but it feels like something particular to me 😆) & it’s often funny. I love the pacing, how Anita relays info about Mal and June’s long history, & the idea of a simple road trip that’s actually a momentous step/moment for two people. This whole novella is soft but packs a punch. 5 ⭐️. Out now.
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