Genre: Adult

Review Round Up | The Cottages on Silver Beach and Listen to Your Heart

Posted July 5, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! The Haven Point series is one of my favorites, set in the adorable town with the same name. My favorite thing about companion series in these small towns is that you meet up again with old characters, visit the same local spots, and really get to know everything there is to know. The latest installment of this series follows Megan, the owner of the Inn that we actually met at the VERY beginning of book one, when it had just burned down and Eliza moved to town. The love interest is Elliot Bailey, another member of the Bailey clan that we’ve encountered in recent stories as well. I loved the parts of the book involving the Inn, Haven Point, and the Helping Hands… but there wasn’t enough of that for me in this book. I missed the setting and characters too much because a fair amount was spent on the road and in Hope’s Crossing (another companion series setting that I’m currently working through). I generally liked Megan and Elliot but the back-and-forth and arguing annoyed me more than usual. Like many of the books in the series, the couple realizes that they love each other very quickly and then proceed to ignore it for most of […]

Blog Tour: The Summer List

Posted June 18, 2018 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

This book was so well-crafted; I loved watching everything unfold and the many secrets fall into place. It did sometimes feel a little disconnected because there were three “points of view” and times that it switched between. There were italicized chapters involving two girls and a religious summer camp, which took place back in the 1970s/1980s; chapters with two different girls throughout their history of friendship in the late 1990s; and chapters with the present day women and their scavenger hunt. The latter two focused on Laura and Casey as they grew closer and then grew apart. The italicized chapters from farther back in time were a slight mystery that eventually tied into everything later. I always forget how much I enjoy stories like this, with multiple generations and different time frames between chapters. This one had light moments about friendship, sweet moments with Laura and her father’s bond, and heavier moments about health, family secrets, and breaking up. It’s a heavier “beach read” if I had to give it that label. I love books about scavenger hunts or bucket lists, especially when there are so many layers to why they were hunting in the first place. The scavenger hunt history was intriguing to read about, and everything fell into place from there. Even when I thought I had most of the secrets figured out, there was more to come. Things that could have been obvious but didn’t click into place until the very end. It was a fascinating journey […]

Blog Tour | Review: Herons Landing

Posted May 29, 2018 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

Review As you know, companion series involving cozy towns always make it onto my TBR. I love meeting everyone in the town, exploring the local small business, and picturing the scenery. HERONS LANDING was already ticking off a lot of those boxes. In this series, you can also add in a Romeo and Juliet-style “warring families” kind of feud that runs deep throughout the town. The Harpers and the Mannions have been at odds for years and now many of the family members are starting to comingle. There’s a lot of history to unpack and many characters are introduced in this first story, which makes me feel like this will be a nice ongoing thread throughout each upcoming book. This story stars Brianna Mannion, a hospitality specialist returning home to revamp an old building into a B&B, and Seth Harper, operator of the town’s best construction company. Brianna always had a crush on Seth when they were kids, until her new best friend Zoe moved into town and swept him up. After Zoe’s tragic death in the line of duty, Seth has been simply going through the motions until Bri comes back into town with her project. There’s a loooot of tropes here and they’re all ones I love! The warring families, “second chance” unrequited love, childhood best friends, and (one I haven’t dealt with before) the best friend’s widower. Bri and Seth had a pretty open and easy relationship develop throughout the story (until the inevitable moment where things […]

Review Round Up | Infamous, The Chaos of Standing Still, and Sweet Southern Hearts

Posted April 18, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Let me do a little plug here about Scribd again (link gives us each a free month if you sign up!) – I was hoping this book would be added because some of the others were on there, but I kept checking and didn’t see anything yet. I went on Scribd late in the day on April 3rd (its release day!) and found it, when I was super in the mood to read it. I love that they have new releases THAT day! So overall, this was a pretty good series finale. I didn’t find it quite as captivating as other books in the trilogy (and honestly I’m probably rounding up my rating a bit because of how much I enjoyed the series overall). There have been a couple of book series that I liked but didn’t love, where I thought about it a lot in between books and highly anticipated each release, but they never blew me away. This is definitely one of those series. I never connected with any of the characters and wish this book had more recap in the beginning. I forgot SO much of what happened in the previous book and there aren’t any recaps anywhere, so I just tried to re-learn […]

ARC Reviews: Frat Girl and The Elizas

Posted April 11, 2018 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

This is the kind of book I’d recommend to feminists and non-feminists alike. A lot of it was heavy-handed in the messages and would have maybe made more sense in the journal entries instead of internal dialogue, but the content itself was good. (More on that later.) I definitely figured that her study wasn’t going to be all black and white, and the really positive moments were so heartwarming. I loved the relationships that were developed between her and the guys, and one particular night where a few boys really stepped up to help. I didn’t do the Greek thing in college but this was a fairly accurate portrayal of a lot of the college experience in general; it felt real, which was refreshing. Bambi, Duncan, and Jordan were so great. The characters made me laugh and smile so much more than expected for “just dumb frat boys” (what the MC seems to think heading into the book). I think I would have liked more depth to Cassie’s character (and even a few other side characters, including her family). She came across as very preachy at times and it was hard to connect with her. I liked how she started to learn from her mistakes, and tried to grow from her existing biases as well. Some people calling her out made her realize she was working from a very “white feminist” angle instead of thinking of the bigger picture (her mentor talks about this early in the book and I […]

Review Round Up | Surprise Me and Gone Rogue

Posted February 8, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I’ve been a fan of Sophie Kinsella since wayy before these books were “appropriate” for me. I read some of the SHOPAHOLIC series back before high school. I read a few more in 2014 and loved her latest release before this one, so clearly I was jazzed up for SURPRISE ME. I liked Sylvie and Dan as a couple, with them finishing each other’s sentences and managing to have a really solid relationship. When the whole “you have 65 years left together because you’re super healthy and will live LONG lives” thing comes up, they’re both thrown. How are they going to survive THAT many years together? It’s a reality check for them and even though there’s really not much wrong with their relationship necessarily, they second-guess everything. Sylvie develops this plan where they surprise each other with little things to keep everything interesting. Naturally, the surprises go awry and Sylvie learns that surprises aren’t the only key to a long and healthy marriage. The whole situation about Sylvie’s father that died and her weird mother was… interesting. She had the opposite of the traditional “daddy issues” thing – she was obsessed with her dad and thought he was a perfect hero. She had a very odd […]

Haven Point Seasonal Companion Series

Posted January 10, 2018 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

When I saw Hannah’s review roundup for the Haven Point series, I knew I had to add it to my list ASAP. She talked about all of the fun reasons to give them a try and every single one appealed to me. I love books set during the holiday season or during the summertime, in a quaint little town that is charming during both times of year. (This is very obvious at this point, I think!) It was tough because I couldn’t figure out how to read them all according to the season. Half of the books happen in the summer while the other half are in the winter/during Christmas. I decided to start the series in December to enjoy the Christmas feels, then feeling a little summery in between as a break. I’m going to keep my reviews short and sweet here, with a few highlights and lowlights about each book. Snow Angel Cove Quick summary: Eliza and her daughter, Maddie, are excited to start over in the new town of Haven Point, where she has a job at an inn. When it burns down exactly when she comes to start work, fate brings her into the home of millionaire Aidan Cane instead. At Snow Angel Cove, she works for Aidan as he prepares for his family to come for the holidays. Seasonal feels: Winter – Christmas Meet cute/backstory: Maddie runs into the road and nearly gets hit by Aidan’s car when he hits black ice. Eliza protects her daughter and […]

Holiday Reviews: We’ll Always Have Christmas and The Afterlife of Holly Chase

Posted December 24, 2017 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

Story Tis the season for my favorite holiday author! I always wait until it’s VERY close to Christmas to embark on my Jenny Hale book of the year, because they’re usually the most atmospheric. This one was a little different, which I’ll get into later. Noelle takes on a new job helping an elderly man in a local mansion while trying to fix up her family’s bakery to improve business. She falls for Alex, the man’s grandson, while staying there with her son. She has mixed feelings because Alex is the landlord for the bakery and is the one “pushing them out” with higher rent. Noelle has close friends, Phoebe and Jo, and a tight-knit family between her parents, grandfather, and sister. It was a really well-rounded story, even if some of the plot pieces were kind of annoying. There was a whole side thing that I predicted earlier with the grandfather’s lost ~first love~ and the fact that Noelle was thinking of moving to LA with Phoebe. The second thing there wasn’t needed in the story and took up an unnecessary amount of her headspace. The first one made sense even if it was predictable. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels I feel like this is the first time I’ve given a Jenny Hale book less than “full-on holiday cheer” on my cheer-o-meter. The book takes place in the month or two leading up to Christmas, so there were bits of the holiday sprinkled throughout. The cozy bakery setting and […]

Holiday Reviews: My New Crush Gave to Me and Winter Solstice

Posted December 15, 2017 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

Story I was really hoping for something cute and Christmassy, which I got in some ways. Unfortunately I spent most of the book incredibly frustrated by the clueless yet often bitchy and domineering main character. I like predictable holiday stories because they’re comforting but there was literally no surprise for any element of the plot. By a quarter of the way through the book, I knew every detail about how it was going to end. The side characters were fun and nice people who definitely put up with Charlie FAR longer than I would have. Her best friend was too understanding but it helped that there wasn’t a best-friend-fight subplot. The general storyline is that she is determined (with absolutely no actual evidence) that Teo is the perfect boyfriend for her, so she stops at nothing to make this happen… and I mean nothing. She refuses to see any kind of sign that maybe he’s not the right guy for her and ignores the compelling evidence that perhaps someone else is. I definitely wanted to give her a swift kick in the ass 99% of the time, which doesn’t make for the most fun holiday read. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The book took place in Connecticut, which I love, but they didn’t really make it a point to reference that too much. The main character has (in the past) loved Christmas and she celebrates pretty hard with her mom when she’s not working. (I literally can’t even remember if […]

Review Round Up | Crazy Little Thing Called Love and The Becoming of Noah Shaw

Posted November 27, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 3 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I either buy an ebook on sale and never read it, or read it within the first couple weeks of buying it. There’s no in-between. In this case, I’m very glad I hopped on reading CLTCL because it was completely delightful. The book starts on Christmas, has a big Christmas scene/section in the middle, and ends on Christmas as well. It was a nice unexpected “first holiday read” of the year, but could definitely be read in any season. Leila has gone on a “man ban” and started running a successful blog for other single women, which then moves into events, retreats, and presentations, all while balancing her landscape design job. When her brother gets married three months into her celibacy promise, she meets his new brother-in-law, Nick… and her man ban is all downhill from there! I really loved the couple of Leila and Nick, even though they had a number of obstacles to overcome in their journey. Leila was definitely a spunky main character and I just loved their chemistry together. The ending got a bit wild and absurd, but I really liked it. I think it actually was fairly reasonable based on how the characters’ personalities were. The reader really gets to know everyone […]