Adriana Herrera is becoming one of my fave contemporary romance authors. Her books sweep me off my feet & the hero of her upcoming release Here to Stay is so heart-grabbing, the heroine so inspiring, that I wanted more than one Epilogue. Or for the Epilogue to be longer. I just wanted more .

Julia del Mar Ortiz is very close to her family but she moved to Dallas from NY so that she could support her boyfriend. & then he broke up with her.

In the time since she’s thrown herself into her rewarding job as Program Director for the philanthropic arm of a major department store. Now she wants to make friends, specifically with other former NYers in her work orbit.

Unfortunately that includes Rocco Quinn, the gorgeous analyst who’s come to assess her company & determine what can be jettisoned before it goes public.

As Julia discovers, Rocco is secretly a big mushy marshmallow. Despite his confidence & sometimes performance of confidence, she notes that he’s also occasionally shy, uncomfortable, etc & in each of those moments my heart is as touched as hers. Rocco’s never had someone take care of him the way that he feels compelled to take care of others (cue the tears ).

And Julia is fantastic. She’s brave, confident, into fashion, & as she reveals to Rocco, passionate about her role in providing safe spaces for children who are undocumented immigrants and/or have parents who are. Throughout the romance Julia has to learn how to negotiate fighting for herself & making a potential compromise for a beloved.

I kinda wanted more specific introspection on the ethicality of them pursuing a relationship when so much is on the line, but otherwise their relationship plays out beautifully. There’s a lot of yearning, a lovely slow burn, & it’s ultimately super sexy.

Add to all of this a nuanced & often loving portrayal of family life (especially Julia’s Dominican mother & Puerto Rican father), humor, & shared bonding over Queens, & Here to Stay gives me nearly everything I could ask for.

Q: what’s your fave mobile or video game to play/that you have played?

Suzanne Park’s ownvoices Loathe at First Sight was an interesting read for me.

I took so many notes about it & this is where I landed: it’s an enjoyable read with an admirable heroine, a nice guy hero, & an engaging game development premise. I loved dipping my toes into the world of gaming but there’s also enough misogyny from the gamers to make this reader mad over & over again for said heroine. And the romance isn’t super successful for me, so I’d label LAFS as fiction with romantic elements.

But onto the plot!

Melody Joo has gotten a job as Production Assistant for a game development company. Through a series of events she ends up leading the team developing her game idea involving a band of strippers & the women they encounter as they try to survive against zombies.

She’s supposed to work with Nolan MacKenzie, an intern & a relative to her annoying jerk boss, & a man she assumes won’t be capable of offering her assistance. In the course of developing her game she’s targeted by some absolutely trash people who are angered by the fact that she’s a woman &/a Korean American woman. She also just works with coworkers who are similarly dismissive of women/not supportive of women. Gross!

But I’m a big fan of the heroine, who refuses to give up or give in, to cow to the disgusting trolls who feel comfortable harassing her from their computers & to her often inhospitable work environment.

It took me a while to like the hero, who ticked me off the first time I met him & then slowly grew on me—though he still comes across as fairly lackluster.

Though Melody & Nolan’s romance feels on the periphery & some of her responses to him confuse me, I did appreciate that they learn to genuinely respect & support each other. This is a kissing only romance, btw .

Overall I enjoyed getting a peek into a world that I don’t know a lot about & it was exciting & uplifting seeing a heroine rise above the trolls & all the other people trying to bring her down. But I do feel like the romance trajectory isn’t clear enough for me & while I don’t shy away from a complicated character, so many of the the secondary characters provoke a strong emotional response from me—as in I disliked most of them.

I’m really curious to see what another reader will think about this one!

CW:
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Heroine receives dick pics; messages indicating stalking. She’s doxed.

Q: what’s one of your favorite places to travel to?

Adriana Herrera’s Finding Joy is the sweetest little treat and then BAM it’s dirty and steamy and . That’s the combo that makes my world go round. Add to that two characters who truly connect on an emotional level & an immersive journey into Ethiopian culture & you can see why I’m smitten.

American Desta Joy returns to Ethiopia—the place where he spent part of his childhood & that’s very special to his family—determined to help others & decide his next step. Soon after he meets the handsome, strapping, & delightfully kind man who’ll be the driver & logistics coordinator on their aid surveys: Elias.

The chemistry between Desta & Elias is immediate. There are some friend feelings & eventually the revelation of some mutual less platonic inclinations. But neither man can be fully who he is or romantically with who he’d like to be with in Ethiopia, something Elias has long been all too aware of.

I loved this book. Finding Joy is romantic and sexy. It also takes on topics like misogyny, the effects of Occupation, & racism because that’s what Desta and Elias are passionate about. Other incorporated subjects include music & YA lit & Ethiopian history & food. It makes for a delectable romance.

My only quibble is that sometimes Finding Joy seems to do more telling rather than showing, but that didn’t bother me so much because while it’s DEFINITELY A ROMANCE, it also feels so travelogue-ish.

This is a beautiful story. It’s also a love song to Ethiopia and to being who you are, loving who you want to love.​

I flew through the pages of Meryl Wilsner’s Something to Talk About rooting for Jo & Emma but also not feeling like my heart was held hostage by a stoically evil mastermind with nothing to lose & that made for a wonderful reading day. I’m highly recommending this adorable, funny, astute book that also feels pretty darn hopeful.

Jo Jones, a writer & producer on one of tv’s hottest shows, tells her assistant Emma Kaplan that she’s coming with her to the SAG Awards. The press turns a red carpet moment between them into a tender moment between a couple, & suddenly both women are battling invasive interest from paparazzi, friends, & family about their supposed love life. But they don’t even think about the other that way...right?

Something to Talk About puts a welcome spin on the age gap, boss-employee romance. Jo is not willing to let her attraction make Emma feel any kind of way in the workplace & this leads to some back & forth between the two that is at times a little annoying (kiss already!) but that I ultimately respected. Emma is her employee & that boundary means something to Jo.

Luckily for them they won’t have that dynamic for long, & that was another aspect of the romance I loved: both female leads’s ambition. As a Chinese American, female child actor & then writer/producer, Jo has faced her share of discrimination, & this was before their red carpet episode put a newly intense focus on her love life. But she’s taking on a major franchise. And Emma’s attached to Jo & her job but she’s not afraid to go after what she wants. Through it all they support each other generously & fiercely (do not come for either of them!)

The way that they finally realize their feelings, the way that they finally act on them, makes for the slowest of the slowwwww burns, and encouraging them along is a truly fantastic cast of secondary characters, including Emma’s sister Avery.

The ending chapter feels the slightest bit abrupt but the Epilogue is one of those perfectly fitting endings that left me feeling replete with those HEA feelings.
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CW: sexual harassment.

On a basic level Yaffa S. Santos’s A Taste of Sage calls to me: enemies to lovers set in the creative & delicious restaurant world, with some magical realism elements thrown in the mix. And let’s go ahead and give a round of applause to the person(s) who designed the cover because it’s a vibrant slice of happiness.

But unfortunately the more that I read of this upcoming release, the more I was confused by its execution, taken out of the story in the passages where narrative subtlety is lacking, & ultimately pretty shocked by a direction the plot takes.

Lumi cooks a spontaneous daily menu of Dominican food at the restaurant she’s just opened. At a catering job she meets famed chef Julien Dax, who arrogantly—& w/out knowing her identify—insults her food to her face. Oops.

Shortly thereafter Lumi’s restaurant goes under & she ends up interviewing with Julien. Lumi gets the job after a very brief interview & has to figure out how to put up with the uber traditional, conceited jerk who rubbed her the wrong way from the get-go. For his part, Julien feels a strong attraction for Lumi but it’s up for debate whether he’ll be able to tear down her walls.

Food is more than a profession for the hero & heroine in ATOS; there’s a lot of love for it and for the act of creativity that Lumi nurtures with her plates. Full recipes are even included throughout the book. There’s potential in Lumi’s and the book’s overall devotion to food & in Julien’s later care of Lumi.

But I didn’t feel like I really emotionally connected with the characters, even when they were at their lowest, & on the whole ATOS feels emotionally thin to me. This romance just isn’t for me.



CW:







graphically described burn injuries