Publisher: Penguin

Honeymoon Reads // ARC Reviews: The Road Trip and The Royals Next Door

Posted November 8, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I finished THE ROAD TRIP during my honeymoon, late one night when I couldn’t sleep. I then started and blazed through THE ROYALS NEXT DOOR while hanging out in the hot tub, almost all in one sitting. I knew I’d manage to finish a book or two while I was out there enjoying the scenery! Here are the two reviews for this books – both were review copies that had already published. I’ve really enjoyed the first two books I read by Beth O’Leary – they’re unique and charming stories with fun characters. I even got past the horrible internal monologue/writing style in THE FLATSHARE because of how much I loved everyone. This book was generally pretty cute and mostly enjoyable, but not at the same level as the previous two books. I didn’t root for the main couple very much. They met and quickly fell for each other over one summer, have a weird and mostly shitty relationship for a couple of years, and break up. When they see each other again a couple of years later and end up having to road trip to a mutual friend’s wedding, sparks fly again. There were so many weird and complex elements to their love story and I didn’t feel like the chemistry was even there from the beginning, so why bother rooting for them to overcome their issues at all? Sure, they grew up a little bit by the “present day” chapters, but I still didn’t exactly care. There weren’t […]

Holiday Review: The Twelve Dates of Christmas

Posted December 27, 2020 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Story This was one of my most anticipated reads for the holiday season and it didn’t disappoint! I loved the idea of following Kate on her twelve dates, set up through the 12 Dates of Christmas program. A local agency developed a matchmaking program where the people would go on twelve predetermined dates with matched partners and see how they get along. They were all seasonal and often festive with holiday themes. Lots of the dates showed some promise and plenty more were major busts, so it was funny to see how they all shook out or what activities the couple would go with. It was pretty obvious where the story was going from the beginning, which was okay by me. I like a predictable holiday romance. It did take me a little while to warm up to the winning love interest though; he was a bit annoying and it felt like he took advantage of her a little bit in the first half of the book (her kindness or friendship, I mean). I won’t say anymore! As I’ll discuss more below, her snow-covered English village was adorable. I could relate to her feelings of wanting to be in the big city (London) for a while but happily returned home to help her father out. She debated if it was the right move but truly loved being there. It makes me want to travel to England as soon as I’m able to get out of the country haha. She had […]

Review Round Up | Good Girl Bad Blood, They Wish They Were Us, and The Inheritance Games

Posted September 10, 2020 / Book Reviews / 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! After finishing A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER, I knew that I had to read the sequel as soon as humanly possible. I haven’t read a lot of books during this lockdown period (combined with the new puppy period in my own life), so I want to capture that addicted-to-reading feeling as much as possible. GOOD GIRL, BAD BLOOD lived up to that for me, and allowed me to finish a nice, quick, entertaining story in a few sittings after ordering the UK edition from Book Depository. The second installment in the series follows Pip as she tries to find her friend’s missing brother. She’s reluctant to work on another case because the first one fucked her up so badly, but she feels the pull to help her friend Connor and his family. I can’t get too much into the reasons this book isn’t a full five-stars for me, but mild spoiler to follow: you definitely won’t see the ending coming. There’s literally no way to predict it and it kind of comes from left field. This was good and bad – in some ways it felt a little cheap? But in other ways it was incredibly clever and impressive, I think. This was JUST as addicting […]

Review Round Up | Beach Read, A Deadly Inside Scoop, and The Summer of Impossibilities

Posted May 4, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

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! Woo, boy. I had HIGH expectations for this book. A few bloggers/booktubers I follow closely loved this one (and Madalyn told me I’d love it) so I was really preparing to be wowed. And I totally was. This book exceeded my lofty expectations. January, a romance writer, and her college nemesis and literary fiction writer, Gus, end up neighbors in a sleepy Michigan beach town for the summer. January is getting through the death of her father and all of the secrets she’s learned in the wake of his passing, all while trying to clear his house (and second life) and write a new book. She’s not feeling very romance-y at the moment and when her and Gus meet up, they decide to swap genres for the summer and see if that breaks their writer’s block. Naturally, they get closer throughout the summer, and take each other on genre-relevant field trips so the other person really learns what they should be writing about. I LOVED that this book was very much a typical romance book (and sort of a love letter to the genre) while also managing to invent new tropes. Who knew that TWO grumpy main characters could be so perfect?! Usually you have one grumpy and […]

Review Round Up | Ghosted, With Malice, and All the Stars and Teeth

Posted April 8, 2020 / 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! I realized I forgot to review this one after finishing so here’s a quick review from what I remember – you know my bookish memory is garbage… Thanks Goodreads for holding my initial thoughts 😉 This book was a wild ride. It spent so much of the book thinking I had everything figured out and was really pissed that it was going to be that cliche and boring. I definitely ended up being wrong! It was almost the opposite of my prediction, without getting into spoilers. There were lots of twists and turns and suspense. The beginning of the book was just okay for me. I wasn’t overly interested in the chapters that had them getting to know each other and connecting when they first met. They were only together for about a week but fell in instalove pretty quickly. I got REALLY addicted to this one, though, while trying to figure out why he ghosted her. I was racing to finish this and see how everything wrapped up. Overall, this one took a little while for me to get into because I wasn’t overly invested in the couple in the early stages, but I absolutely couldn’t put it down once the story picked up, trying to […]

Review Round Up | Undercover Bromance, The June Boys, and Marriage on Madison Avenue

Posted March 23, 2020 / 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! DNF: 33% While I enjoyed the first book in this series, I certainly didn’t love it like everyone else. I didn’t really like Liv, the previous MC’s sister, at all either. She was incredibly stubborn and overprotective to me. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled when she was the lead character for book two. She proved to be just as irritating in this one – maybe even more so since we were in her head. I enjoyed Mack as a character and thought he was way sweeter than his “smooth guy” persona implied from the previous story. I loved how quick he was to use his resources to help Liv take down the shitty restaurant owner she previously worked for. I didn’t read the synopsis of this one fully and was really just excited to see how book two would go, so I wasn’t fully aware that this had the heavier topic of sexual assault/harassment at the forefront. I didn’t realize it was central to the plot for whatever reason. I just couldn’t read it. Also, the first book had cute inserts from the romance that the book club was reading, and showed how it related to the story itself. This book didn’t have that in the […]

December ARC Reviews: The Pretenders and Blitzed

Posted February 10, 2020 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I read THE SIMILARS super early, months before it came out, so I feel like I’ve been waiting for the sequel forever. I was soooo addicted to it and I’m pretty sure read it in one sitting. I think reading the first one so quickly and being super addicted meant that I overlooked some things with my rating? The writing here in THE PRETENDERS wasn’t particularly great and I definitely noticed it this time around because I read it much slower. It was moderately addicting when I really got going and pushed myself to read it though. I mostly enjoyed it but the writing and internal dialogue of the main character, Emma, got super repetitive. There was a love triangle, which I saw coming based on the ending of the previous book. I don’t mind them if they make sense and this sort of did, but it was also super weird. She was stuck between Ollie, her best friend from childhood, and his clone, Levi. So, basically the same dude with different personalities. Again, I could SEE the reason for its existence and how the two guys were different from each other, despite the clone stuff, but it annoyed me a lot. The ending was absolutely batshit and unexpected, so that took it to a different level! I’m not sure those twists were necessary (some things seemed like twists for the sake of them and not because they made the book better). Overall, I’m glad I read this duo. I’ve […]

January Adult Contemporary | ARC Reviews: You Were There Too and Mermaid Inn

Posted January 22, 2020 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I really enjoyed Oakley’s sophomore novel but STILL have managed to skip her debut. Regardless, I knew I needed this one. It reminded me of an adult version of my YA favorite Dreamology, where the main character has recurring dreams with a man/boy and then finds that they actually exist in real life… and they’ve been dreaming about her too. Mia has been dreaming of Oliver for years and discovers he’s also been dreaming of her too. They don’t share/live out the same dreams at the same time but they do have similar ones sometimes. This was a heavy book (major trigger warning for miscarriage and infertility) – definitely heavier than I expected – but very impactful. The first line of the synopsis says “heart-wrenching” but I didn’t expect this level of it for some reason. I really enjoyed the rare pops of chapters we got from other points of view (Harrison, Whitney, etc.). It added a little something different to the story. I did enjoy reading Mia’s point of view though. I felt her struggle and knew there was really no easy solution to her problems. The book just felt so REAL and raw, following the ebbs and flows of her relationship(s) in a way I could understand and empathize with. Like I said though: it made for a pretty hard read, and not every decision she made was perfect or logical. I didn’t agree with everything she did or said along the way. I’m a huge fan of […]

Holiday Reviews: The Matchmaker’s Mistletoe Mission and 10 Blind Dates

Posted December 6, 2019 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Story I was excited when I got approved for this holiday novella and first “book” in the Boots and Bouquets series. It seems like these books will center around the Bellini family’s winery (Red Moss Vineyard), where the entire family hosts weddings and – obviously – makes some wine! There are a number of siblings and parents who work there, so this novella did a good job of setting the stage for the series and introducing the characters. Aside from that, Alice meets Clay (the rancher next door) when they’re forced to sleep over the vineyard. They have some instant chemistry but she still pushes the idea of utilizing her matchmaking service on him. They end up spending more time together and boy did this get steamy for such a short little book! I love when I can FEEL the chemistry between the characters in such a short book. Very strong instalove here but it is what it is. Some things were too convenient, like how his house was EXACTLY like the house she’d always wanted?? Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The main reason that Alice is stuck at the Bellini vineyard is because of a major unexpected snowstorm, which certainly added to the winter vibes of this one. It takes place in December because her friends’ wedding is an OUTDOOR ceremony then (yikes). Being snowed in with a potential romantic partner is one of my favorite holiday book tropes! There were some good Christmas decor moments and the snowiness […]

ARC Reviews: Mooncakes and The Bromance Book Club

Posted November 11, 2019 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

I had really high hopes going into MOONCAKES – it looked like a very cute, inclusive love story with a good amount of witchy magic and Halloween feels. I planned to read it ON Halloween but got sidetracked with finishing some other books for the end of the month, so I read it over the course of one night (the next day). I received an egalley for review but ended up purchasing the paperback after my review copy expired (whoops!). This graphic novel is about Nova, a hearing-impaired witch, who lives with her two grandmothers. Her parents passed away but do appear in the story. When a wolf is discovered in the nearby woods, Nova goes to investigate. It turns out to be her childhood friend, Tam, a non-binary werewolf. The two, along with the Nanas, work to remove a demon from their town. Lots of family feels and little touches of side-stories that I’d love to read more about. An old flame reignites between Nova and Tam and it’s THE CUTEST. I love childhood-BFFs-to-more storylines. I have to say, a higher rating could very well have happened here but I seriously struggle with rating graphic novels. I know that they’re just as good as reading a novel, obviously, but I personally rush through them. It’s like I have a timer in my head saying I NEED to finish a comic in one sitting, just because I know I can. I blaze through them and it results in lessened enjoyment. […]