Short & Sweet: The Soulmate Equation and You Love Me

May 17, 2021

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren
Published by Gallery Books on May 18, 2021
Pages: 368
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Single mom Jess Davis is a data and statistics wizard, but no amount of number crunching can convince her to step back into the dating world. Raised by her grandparents—who now help raise her seven-year-old daughter, Juno—Jess has been left behind too often to feel comfortable letting anyone in. After all, her father’s never been around, her hard-partying mother disappeared when she was six, and her ex decided he wasn’t “father material” before Juno was even born. Jess holds her loved ones close, but working constantly to stay afloat is hard...and lonely.
But then Jess hears about GeneticAlly, a buzzy new DNA-based matchmaking company that’s predicted to change dating forever. Finding a soulmate through DNA? The reliability of numbers: This Jess understands.
At least she thought she did, until her test shows an unheard-of 98% compatibility with another subject in the database: GeneticAlly’s founder, Dr. River Pena. This is one number she can’t wrap her head around, because she already knows Dr. Pena. The stuck-up, stubborn man is without a doubt not her soulmate. But GeneticAlly has a proposition: Get to know him and we’ll pay you. Jess—who is barely making ends meet—is in no position to turn it down, despite her skepticism about the project and her dislike for River. As the pair are dragged from one event to the next as the “Diamond” pairing that could make GeneticAlly a mint in stock prices, Jess begins to realize that there might be more to the scientist—and the science behind a soulmate—than she thought.
Funny, warm, and full of heart, The Soulmate Equation proves that the delicate balance between fate and choice can never be calculated.

I have no complaints on this one. The Soulmate Equation is pretty predictable yet still charming and not at all unsatisfying. And let’s face it, if DNA based dating existed, I would totally sign myself up for those potential shenanigans! If you’re looking for the familiar ease of CLo without anything terribly earth-shattering, this is an enjoyable beach read.

*****

You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes
Series: You #3
Published by Random House on April 6, 2021
Pages: 400
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Joe is done with the cities. He’s done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now, he’s saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe.
He gets a job at the local library—he does know a thing or two about books—and that’s where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won’t meddle, he will not obsess. He’ll win her the old-fashioned way... by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they’ll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town.
The trouble is... Mary Kay already has a life. She’s a mother. She’s a friend. She’s... busy.
True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He’s ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kay will do the right thing and make room for him.

Joe is back at it again with his signature alluring yet terrifying self. He’s like the human equivalent of Taco Bell: it might sound good, but probably you’ll wish you were dead later. There’s not much that is new or shocking with this third installment of the You series – it’s the same twisty turny stalkerfest I’ve come to enjoy. I, for one, am glad Kepnes keeps cranking these out so I can keep watching Penn Badgley bring this creeper to life in upcoming seasons of You.

Review / Short and Sweet

The Bergman Brothers Series by Chloe Liese

March 24, 2021

Only When It's Us by Chloe Liese
on April 1, 2020
Pages: 380
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Prepare for an emotional rollercoaster brimming with laughter, tears, and slow-burn sexiness in this new adult romance that tackles the vulnerability of love with humor and heart.

Ryder

Ever since she sat next to me in class and gave me death eyes, Willa Sutter’s been on my shit list. Why she hates me, I don't know. What I do know is that Willa is the kind of chaos I don’t need in my tidy life. She’s the next generation of women’s soccer. Wild hair, wilder eyes. Bee-stung lips that should be illegal. And a temper that makes the devil seem friendly.
She’s a thorn in my side, a menacing, cantankerous, pain-in-the-ass who’s turned our Business Mathematics course into a goddamn gladiator arena. I'll leave this war zone unscathed, coming out on top…And if I have my way with that crazy-haired, ball-busting hellion, that will be in more than one sense of the word.

Willa

Rather than give me the lecture notes I missed like every other instructor I’ve had, my asshole professor tells me to get them from the silent, surly flannel-wearing mountain man sitting next to me in class. Well, I tried. And what did I get from Ryder Bergman? Ignored. What a complete lumbersexual neanderthal. Mangy beard and mangier hair. Frayed ball cap that hides his eyes. And a stubborn refusal to acknowledge my existence.
I’ve battled men before, but with Ryder, it's war. I’ll get those notes and crack that Sasquatch nut if it’s the last thing I do, then I’ll have him at my mercy. Victory will have never tasted so sweet.

Only When It’s Us is a frenemies-to-lovers, college sports romance about a women’s soccer star and her surly lumberjack lookalike classmate, complete with a matchmaking professor, juvenile pranks, and a smoking slow burn. This standalone is the first in a series of new novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.

I always have tempered expectations when I’m surfing through Kindle Unlimited for some fluff. It’s very rare that I come across something good enough to write anything about, but this is one of those hidden gems I want people to know about. The willful heroine and grumpy (yet actually marshmallowy) hero make for a fun and smoldering enemies to lovers story. There are some heavier subplots around disability and death of a loved one, but Liese balances this into something overall feel good and even laugh out loud funny in spots.

*****

Always Only You by Chloe Liese
on August 4, 2020
Pages: 355
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Get ready for an emotional ride filled with laughter, longing, and a sweet slow-burn in this sports romance about love’s power not in spite of difference, but because of it.

Ren

The moment I met her, I knew Frankie Zeferino was someone worth waiting for. Deadpan delivery, secret heart of gold, and a rare one-dimpled smile that makes my knees weak, Frankie has been forbidden since the day she and I became coworkers, meaning waiting has been the name of my game—besides, hockey, that is.
I’m a player on the team, she’s on staff, and as long as we work together, dating is off-limits. But patience has always been my virtue. Frankie won’t be here forever—she’s headed for bigger, better things. I just hope that when she leaves the team and I tell her how I feel, she won’t want to leave me behind, too.

Frankie

I’ve had a problem at work since the day Ren Bergman joined the team: a six foot three hunk of happy with a sunshine smile. I’m a grumbly grump and his ridiculously good nature drives me nuts, but even I can’t entirely ignore that hot tamale of a ginger with icy eyes, the perfect playoff beard, and a body built for sin that he’s annoyingly modest about.
Before I got wise, I would have tripped over myself to get a guy like Ren, but with my diagnosis, I’ve learned what I am to most people in my life—a problem, not a person. Now, opening my heart to anyone, no matter how sweet, is the last thing I’m prepared to do.

Always Only You is an opposites-attract, forbidden love sports romance about a nerdy, late-blooming hockey star, and his tough cookie coworker who keeps both her soft side and her autism diagnosis* to herself. Complete with a meddling secretary, tantric yoga torture, and a scorching slow burn, this standalone is the second in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.

*This is an #OwnVoices story for its portrayal of autism by an autistic author.

Book two brings us a badass heroine on the spectrum and a ginger, hockey-playing, Shakespeare-loving hero…there’s not a universe were I don’t love this pairing. Then fate forces these two certified hotties to share the same house when they’re already pining for one another. Egads! This is the funniest (and perhaps the spiciest) book of the three. If that wasn’t enough to make me happy, I think it gets female friendship really right.

*****

Ever After Always by Chloe Liese
on January 12, 2021
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Buckle up for an emotional journey of hijinks, heartache, and a hot slow-burn in this marriage-in-crisis romance about going the distance to make love last.

Aiden

I’ve spent twelve years loving Freya Bergman and twelve lifetimes won’t be enough to give her everything she deserves. She’s my passionate, tender-hearted wife, my best friend, and all I want is to make her happy. But the one thing that will make her happiest is the one thing I’m not sure I can give her: a baby.
With the pressure of providing and planning for a family, my anxiety’s at an all-time high, and I find myself pulling away, terrified to tell my wife how I’m struggling. But when Freya kicks me out, I realize that pulling back has turned into pushing too far. Now it’s the fight of a lifetime to save our marriage.

Freya

I love my cautious, hard-working husband. He’s my partner and best friend, the person I know I can count on most. Until one day I realize the man I married is nowhere to be found. Now Aiden is quiet and withdrawn, and as the months wear on, the pain of our growing distance becomes too much.
As if weathering marriage counseling wasn’t enough, we’re thrown together for an island getaway to celebrate my parents’ many years of perfect marriage while ours is on the brink of collapse. Despite my meddling siblings and a week in each other’s constant company, this trip somehow gets us working through the trouble in paradise. I just can’t help worrying, when we leave paradise and return to the real world, will trouble find us again?

Ever After Always is a marriage-in-crisis, opposites-attract romance about a sensitive, fierce-loving woman and her resilient husband who has anxiety disorder. Complete with island vacation antics, a sibling prank gone wrong, and a steamy slow burn, this standalone is the third in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.

As much as I enjoyed the first two books, I am always nervous around a second-chance romances. They generally aren’t my thing, but I am really grateful I stuck with it. Under that love subplot were some beautiful dialogue and thoughts around anxiety, fertility, and the power of choice not chance for our lives. It’s an emotional journey, sprinkled with the same light, fun, and all-important steamy kissing, as the rest of the books in this series – and I hope you check them out. I’ll certainly be coming back to this family as the rest of the siblings find their matches.

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

February 27, 2021

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
Published by Park Row Books on February 23, 2021
Pages: 352
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

A refreshingly timely and relatable debut novel about a young woman whose life plans fall apart when she meets her wife.
With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.
This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.
In New York, she’s able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

In her debut, Morgan Rogers shows great promise. Her voice is full of poetic prose is this coming of age tale that follows Grace Porter after she makes one HUGE, uncharacteristically rash decision: she drunkenly gets married in Las Vegas to a woman she doesn’t know – and who is nowhere to be found the next morning when she wakes up with a hangover and a ring on her finger.

Romance takes a backseat, so if the fluffy blurb has you thinking this is all about falling in love with your secret wife, think again. Instead, we’re treated to a delicate and moving story about a woman trying to find herself after she’s done everything she was supposed to do, and still feels lost. Grace feels trapped in the shadow of familial expectations; but as she explores the new possibilities after her taste of rebellious freedom in Vegas, she learns there is so much beauty and adventure that’s possible if she starts following her heart instead of her mind – that it’s ok, even wonderful, when life doesn’t go according to plan.

Keep reading for an excerpt of the first chapter…

*****

Grace wakes up slow like molasses. The only difference is molasses is sweet, and this—the dry mouth and the pounding headache—is sour. She wakes up to the blinding desert sun, to heat that infiltrates the windows and warms her brown skin, even in late March.

Her alarm buzzes as the champagne-bubble dream pops.

Grace wakes in Las Vegas instead of her apartment in Portland, and she groans.

She’s still in last night’s clothes, ripped high-waisted jeans and a cropped, white BRIDE t-shirt she didn’t pack. The bed is warm, which isn’t surprising. But as Grace moves, shifts and tries to remember how to work her limbs, she notices it’s a different kind of warm. The bed, the covers, the smooth cotton pillowcase beside her, is body-warm. Sleep-warm.

The hotel bed smells like sea-salt and spell herbs. The kind people cut up and put in tea, in bottles, soaking into oil and sealed with a little chant. It smells like kitchen magic.

She finds the will to roll over into the warm patch. Her memories begin to trickle in from the night before like a movie in rewind. There were bright lights and too-sweet drinks and one club after another. There was a girl with rose-pink cheeks and pitch-black hair and, yes, sea-salt and sage behind her ears and over the soft, veiny parts of her wrists. Her name clings to the tip of Grace’s tongue but does not pull free.

The movie in Grace’s head fast-forwards. The girl’s hand stayed clutched in hers for the rest of the night. Her mouth was pretty pink. She clung to Grace’s elbow and whispered, “Stay with me,” when Agnes and Ximena decided to go back to the hotel.

Stay with me, she said, and Grace did. Follow me, she said, like Grace was used to doing. Follow your alarm. Follow your schedule. Follow your rubric. Follow your graduation plan. Follow a salt and sage girl through a city of lights and find yourself at the steps of a church.

Maybe it wasn’t a church. It didn’t seem like one. A place with fake flowers and red carpet and a man in a white suit. A fake priest. Two girls giggled through champagne bubbles and said yes. Grace covers her eyes and sees it play out.

“Jesus,” she mutters, sitting up suddenly and clutching the sheets to keep herself steady.

She gets up, knees wobbling. “Get it together, Grace Porter.” Her throat is dry and her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. “You are hungover. Whatever you think happened, didn’t happen.” She looks down at her t-shirt and lets out a shaky screech into her palms. “It couldn’t have happened, because you are smart, and organized, and careful. None of those things would lead to a wedding. A wedding!”

“Didn’t happen,” she murmurs, trying to make up the bed. It’s a fruitless task, but making up the bed makes sense, and everything else doesn’t. She pulls at the sheets, and three things float to the floor like feathers.

A piece of hotel-branded memo paper. A business card. A photograph.

Grace picks up the glossy photograph first. It is perfectly rectangular, like someone took the time to cut it carefully with scissors.

In it, the plastic church from her blurry memories. The church with its wine-colored carpet and fake flowers. There is no Elvis at this wedding, but there is a man, a fake priest, with slicked back hair and rhinestones around his eyes.

In it, Grace is tall and brown and narrow, and her gold, spiraling curls hang past her shoulders. She is smiling bright. It makes her face hurt now, to know she can smile like that, can be that happy surrounded by things she cannot remember.

Across from her, their hands intertwined, is the girl. In the picture, her cheeks are just as rose-pink. Her hair is just as pitch-black as an empty night sky. She is smiling, much like Grace is smiling. On her left hand, a black ring encircles her finger, the one meant for ceremonies like this.

Grace, hungover and wary of this new reality, lifts her own left hand. There, on the same finger, a gold ring. This part evaded her memories, forever lost in sticky-sweet alcohol. But there is it, a ring. A permanent and binding and claiming ring.

“What the hell did you do, Porter?” she says, tracing it around her finger.

She picks up the business card, smaller and somehow more intimate, next. It smells like the right side of the bed. Sea salt. Sage. Crushed herbs. Star anise. It is a good smell.

On the front, a simple title:

ARE YOU THERE?

brooklyn’s late night show for lonely creatures

& the supernatural. Sometimes both.

99.7 FM

She picks up the hotel stationery. The cramped writing is barely legible, like it was written in a hurry.

I know who I am, but who are you? I woke up during the sunrise, and your hair and your skin and the freckles on your nose glowed like gold. Honey-gold. I think you are my wife, and I will call you Honey Girl. Consider this a calling card, if you ever need a—I don’t know how these things work. A friend? A—

Wife, it says, but crossed out.

A partner. Or. I don’t know. I have to go. But I think I had fun, and I think I was happy. I don’t think I would get married if I wasn’t. I hope you were, too.

What is it they say? What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? Well, I can’t stay.Maybe one day you’ll come find me, Honey Girl. Until then, you can follow the sound of my voice. Are you listening?

*****

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

Short and Sweet: Anxious People & Crazy Stupid Bromance

November 24, 2020

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, Neil Smith
Published by Atria Books on September 8, 2020
Pages: 341
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined
Looking at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can't fix up their own marriage. There's a wealthy banker who has been too busy making money to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can't seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment's only bathroom, and you've got the worst group of hostages in the world.
Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in a motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.
Humorous, compassionate, and wise, Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious of times.

Sometimes I come across a book that restores my faith in humanity a small bit, and Anxious People is that kind of book. It is funny and sometimes heartbreaking, but left me remembering there is kindness in this hard, hard world – a sorely needed reminder after this year.

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”

*****

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams
Published by Berkley on October 27, 2020
Pages: 352
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Alexis Carlisle and her cat café, ToeBeans, have shot to fame after she came forward as a victim of a celebrity chef’s sexual harassment. When a new customer approaches to confide in her, the last thing Alexis expects is for the woman to claim they’re sisters. Unsure what to do, Alexis turns to the only man she trusts—her best friend, Noah Logan.
Computer genius Noah left his rebellious teenage hacker past behind to become a computer security expert. Now he only uses his old skills for the right cause. But Noah’s got a secret: He’s madly in love with Alexis. When she asks for his help, he wonders if the timing will ever be right to confess his crush.
Noah’s pals in The Bromance Book Club are more than willing to share their beloved “manuals” to help him go from bud to boyfriend. But he must decide if telling the truth is worth risking the best friendship he’s ever had.
A hacktivist and a cat café owner decode the friend zone in this romantic comedy from the author of Undercover Bromance.

I have become such a fan of this series, the latest book does not disappoint. I hope there never comes a day when I’m not giddy about a friends-to-lovers trope in a rom-com. Like books one and two of Bromance, there are some heavier themes in the subplot here, the same feminist energy of how men should treat women, and a bonus hilarious demon cat. I literally clapped when I learned The Russian is getting his own book next summer, and that’s the kind of excitement we all deserve right now.

“There is no more universal story than of two people working through their shit to overcome huge obstacles and find their way to happiness,” Malcolm said. “But every journey is different, every obstacle unique. And it’s in that unique journey that we find lessons for our own lives.”

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

Well Met & Well Played by Jen DeLuca

October 27, 2020

Well Met by Jen DeLuca
Published by Berkley on September 3, 2019
Pages: 336
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

All's faire in love and war for two sworn enemies who indulge in a harmless flirtation in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author, Jen DeLuca.
Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?
The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they're portraying?
This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can't seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon, or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

“The other greeting we’ll be using a lot at Faire is ‘well met,’ which can be a simple ‘nice to meet you,’ but it can also mean you’re particularly pleased to see that particular person at that particular time.”

I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn I’m an absolute dork for Ren Faires. How it took me so long to get around to this book, I will never know because weekend wenches and pirates (and men in kilts) give me LIFE.

This rom com starts out with a dose of real life. Emily only finds herself in this small town because her sister was in a terrible accident, and she and her teenage daughter need help while she recovers. Emily to the rescue…and also Emily with the convenient escape from her own problems back home. It’s a familiar circumstance to Simon, who a few years earlier moved back to his hometown to help with a sick brother. The two meet in a hot auditorium (where all the classic romances start, right?) and instantly butt heads over a Renaissance Faire sign-up sheet. Weeks of animosity turn to lust when they both don their costumes.

If you’re looking for a fun weekend read, this is your book!

*****

Well Played by Jen DeLuca
Published by Berkley on September 22, 2020
Pages: 336
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Stacey is jolted when her friends Simon and Emily get engaged. She knew she was putting her life on hold when she stayed in Willow Creek to care for her sick mother, but it's been years now, and even though Stacey loves spending her summers pouring drinks and flirting with patrons at the local Renaissance Faire, she wants more out of life. Stacey vows to have her life figured out by the time her friends get hitched at Faire next summer. Maybe she'll even find The One.
When Stacey imagined "The One," it never occurred to her that her summertime Faire fling, Dex MacLean, might fit the bill. While Dex is easy on the eyes onstage with his band The Dueling Kilts, Stacey has never felt an emotional connection with him. So when she receives a tender email from the typically monosyllabic hunk, she's not sure what to make of it.
Faire returns to Willow Creek, and Stacey comes face-to-face with the man with whom she’s exchanged hundreds of online messages over the past nine months. To Stacey's shock, it isn't Dex—she's been falling in love with a man she barely knows.
Another laugh-out-loud romantic comedy featuring kilted musicians, Renaissance Faire tavern wenches, and an unlikely love story.

In book two, we follow along Stacey’s journey to break out of her humdrum life into one that fills her with passion of all kinds (insert eyebrow waggle here ).

“I needed to get my head on straight. Stop living my life online. Of course, the problem was my online life was much more exciting than my real one. I needed to do something about that.”

Like Emily, our heroine in Well Met, Stacey is kept in this small town because of a sick loved one; she put her dreams on hold to care for her mother, but after a few years her mom doesn’t need help any more and Stacey is just stuck. After a drunken message to an old flame, Stacey finds something that’s fun again and has her itching for change. As we follow along their ever-deepening emails and texts, Stacey gets her opportunity for a new life…but not with who she thinks she’s texting.

Well Played is an easy and fluffy romp, and Well Matched (book three in this series, due out next year) stars some of my favorite side characters – so I’ll be sure to visit Willow Creek again in the future.

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

The Bromance Book Club & Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

October 19, 2020

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams
on November 5, 2019
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

The first rule of book club: You don't talk about book club.
Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott's marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.
Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.
Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville's top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it'll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

Alpha dudes who read romance novels…apparently this is a thing I’m VERY into. After Take a Hint, Dani Brown and now The Bromance Book Club, I kind of can’t get enough of this premise.

In book one of this series, we’re treated to a second-chance romance with hunky pro ball player Gavin trying to win back his estranged wife Thea. On the surface, the issue is that Gavin hasn’t delivered the big O since he and Thea got married after a whirlwind romance and surprise pregnancy, but the real deal is that these two don’t know how to communicate. Gavin is invited to the top secret Bromance Book Club by a teammate, and together they set off to save his marriage. As he delves into the pages of steamy romance, he learns how to break down some of his hyper-masculine walls and talk with his beloved Thea.

“We all have a void,” Del said a moment later. “Something that’s missing in us. Something we need but don’t want to admit or don’t even know we’re missing until we find it in that other person.”

There was really nothing to not like about this. I loved the predominantly male POV (though admittedly, it’s 100% through a feminine lens). I loved a bunch of dudes banding together to learn how to be better partners coupled with the somewhat silly twist that their learning “manuals” would be romance books. I’m generally not into second-chance romances as a trope, and that held true for me with this title, but overall it was a fun and easy treat.

*****

Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams
Published by Berkley on March 10, 2020
Pages: 320
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Braden Mack thinks reading romance novels makes him an expert in love, but he’ll soon discover that real life is better than fiction.
Liv Papandreas has a dream job as a sous chef at Nashville’s hottest restaurant. Too bad the celebrity chef owner is less than charming behind kitchen doors. After she catches him harassing a young hostess, she confronts him and gets fired. Liv vows revenge, but she’ll need assistance to take on the powerful chef.
Unfortunately, that means turning to Braden Mack. When Liv’s blackballed from the restaurant scene, the charismatic nightclub entrepreneur offers to help expose her ex-boss, but she is suspicious of his motives. He’ll need to call in reinforcements: the Bromance Book Club.
Inspired by the romantic suspense novel they’re reading, the book club assist Liv in setting up a sting operation to take down the chef. But they’re just as eager to help Mack figure out the way to Liv’s heart… even while she’s determined to squelch the sparks between them before she gets burned.

The sequel gives us Mack’s romance. Throughout the first book, Mack is the guy who flirts with anything with a pulse, but also the first one to show up when one of his fellow bros is in trouble. Mack seems like a douchey nightclub owner as we start our enemies-to-lovers tale between him and Liv, but ultimately we learn he has a heart of gold and a troubled past – and more than anything just wants some sweet, sweet lovin’.

For three years, their book club had hidden in the shadows. Read in secret. Met behind closed doors. There were ten of them in all—professional athletes and city officials, tech geniuses and business owners. And, in the case of Mack, the owner of several Nashville bars and nightclubs. All drawn together by a shared love of books that had made them better men, better lovers, better husbands. Except for Mack on that last one. He was currently one of the last single guys in the group.

My biggest draw back from this book was the subplot. I’m a stickler for what’s happening between all the kissing, and this one didn’t do it for me. At the very beginning, Liv is fired from her job as a pastry chef. Mack thinks it’s his fault for an exchange at the restaurant, but really her boss is a disgusting predator who Liv catches in the act. She vows to take him down at any cost. The cost turns out to be a lot of victim blaming for women who won’t come forward, and risky, questionable behavior to bait the former boss. I’m all for the sisterhood moment of trying to help others, but Liv had some serious stumbles on her learning journey that took away from my overall enjoyment. That said, I will absolutely be diving in to book three when it releases later this month because these are well written and fluffy reads.

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

Short and Sweet: The Roommate & Normal People

September 29, 2020

The Roommate by Rosie Danan
Published by Berkley on September 15, 2020
Pages: 336
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

House Rules: Do your own dishes
Knock before entering the bathroom
Never look up your roommate online

The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too much to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true.

After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet...

Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.

I’m going to level with you. When I snatched up this book, all I knew was the cover was pink and there was buzz everywhere about what a feminist delight it was – enough said. The blurb is also so polite that I couldn’t have realize what I was getting into: a socialite moves in with a porn star (unbeknownst to her) after her forever-crush ghosts her because his band might get its big break. She goes on to have the best sex of her life while trying to overhaul the industry of her new flame. Is it realistic? Nope. Am I here for it? Yass gurl.

*****

Normal People by Sally Rooney
on August 28, 2018
Pages: 273
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

Very rarely do I read such a deeply depressing yet honest love story. This is not a romance with an HEA. At every turn, Rooney seems to twist the knife a bit more into the already bloody hearts of her MCs bringing them to new lows – while still leaving them grasping for each others love. It’s raw, emotional and I couldn’t put it down. (And then promptly gobbled up the entire first season of the Hulu show, which was simply brilliant.)

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

Short and Sweet: Hot and Hammered by Tessa Bailey

January 7, 2020

Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey
Published by Avon on June 11, 2019
Pages: 400
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

A brand new romantic comedy from New York Times bestseller Tessa Bailey!
Georgette Castle’s family runs the best home renovation business in town, but she picked balloons instead of blueprints and they haven’t taken her seriously since. Frankly, she’s over it. Georgie loves planning children’s birthday parties and making people laugh, just not at her own expense. She’s determined to fix herself up into a Woman of the World... whatever that means.
Phase one: new framework for her business (a website from this decade, perhaps?)
Phase two: a gut-reno on her wardrobe (fyi, leggings are pants.)
Phase three: updates to her exterior (do people still wax?)
Phase four: put herself on the market (and stop crushing on Travis Ford!)
Living her best life means facing the truth: Georgie hasn’t been on a date since, well, ever. Nobody’s asking the town clown out for a night of hot sex, that’s for sure. Maybe if people think she’s having a steamy love affair, they’ll acknowledge she’s not just the “little sister” who paints faces for a living. And who better to help demolish that image than the resident sports star and tabloid favorite?
Travis Ford was major league baseball’s hottest rookie when an injury ended his career. Now he’s flipping houses to keep busy and trying to forget his glory days. But he can’t even cross the street without someone recapping his greatest hits. Or making a joke about his… bat. And then there's Georgie, his best friend’s sister, who is not a kid anymore. When she proposes a wild scheme—that they pretend to date, to shock her family and help him land a new job—he agrees. What’s the harm? It’s not like it’s real. But the girl Travis used to tease is now a funny, full-of-life woman and there’s nothing fake about how much he wants her...

*****

Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey
Published by Avon on January 14, 2020
Pages: 384
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey returns with a unique, sexy romantic comedy about a young married couple whose rocky relationship needs a serious renovation.

Rosie and Dominic Vega are the perfect couple: high school sweethearts, best friends, madly in love. Well, they used to be anyway. Now Rosie’s lucky to get a caveman grunt from the ex-soldier every time she walks in the door. Dom is faithful and a great provider, but the man she fell in love with ten years ago is nowhere to be found. When her girlfriends encourage Rosie to demand more out of life and pursue her dream of opening a restaurant, she decides to demand more out of love, too. Three words: marriage boot camp.
Never in a million years did Rosie believe her stoic, too-manly-to-emote husband would actually agree to relationship rehab with a weed-smoking hippy. Dom talking about feelings? Sitting on pillows? Communing with nature? Learning love languages? Nope. But to her surprise, he’s all in, and it forces her to admit her own role in their cracked foundation. As they complete one ridiculous—yet surprisingly helpful—assignment after another, their remodeled relationship gets stronger than ever. Except just as they’re getting back on track, Rosie discovers Dom has a secret... and it could demolish everything.

*****

I think a lot of readers will love Tessa Bailey’s Hot and Hammered series. I just don’t happen to be one of them. There are very hot tamale sexy times and a sufficient amount of girl power moments, but ultimately the weird pet names and hyper-masculine alpha male leads left me finding more to dislike than like in both books…and I didn’t even finish the second because I was over it. If you give these a try, particularly the second one, and feel strongly I should have kept going, hit me up 🙂

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

Short and Sweet: The Folk of the Air by Holly Black

November 25, 2019

Short and Sweet: The Folk of the Air by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Published by Little, Brown, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers on January 2, 2018
Pages: 384
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

*****

The Wicked King by Holly Black
on January 8, 2019
Pages: 336
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring.

The first lesson is to make yourself strong.

After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her younger brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.

When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world.

*****

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
on November 19, 2019
Pages: 300
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

He will be destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.

Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power.

Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan’s betrayal. She bides her time determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril.

Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines she becomes ensnared in the conflict’s bloody politics.

And, when a dormant yet powerful curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity…

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, comes the highly anticipated and jaw-dropping finale to The Folk of the Air trilogy.

*****

I improperly judged these books before reading them due to their YA designation (and my repeated struggles with anything YA as of late). I am prepared to eat crow. These are excellent fantasy books that happen to have a young batch of protagonists, who occasionally suffer bouts of hor-monstrous feelings.

While each book seems to have the same slow-paced start and are lacking significant character development, the plot and world building is awesome. The twists are oh so twisty and the ending of each book just made me crave the next all the more.

I’m semi-glad that I waited to read these until I could binge all three together, because the waiting between installments would have been sheer torture. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little bit that I missed out on this awesomeness over the past few years.

Have you read these? And if you did, my most important question is, where you as creeped out by Cardan’s tail during *certain* scenes?

XOXO

Review / Short and Sweet

DNF Round-up: Serious Moonlight & Star-Crossed

May 20, 2019

DNF Round-up: Serious Moonlight & Star-Crossed

Serious Moonlight by Jenn Bennett
Published by Simon Pulse on April 16, 2019
Pages: 432
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

After an awkward first encounter, Birdie and Daniel are forced to work together in a Seattle hotel where a famous author leads a mysterious and secluded life in this romantic contemporary novel from the author of Alex, Approximately.

Mystery-book aficionado Birdie Lindberg has an overactive imagination. Raised in isolation and homeschooled by strict grandparents, she’s cultivated a whimsical fantasy life in which she plays the heroic detective and every stranger is a suspect. But her solitary world expands when she takes a job the summer before college, working the graveyard shift at a historic Seattle hotel.

In her new job, Birdie hopes to blossom from introverted dreamer to brave pioneer, and gregarious Daniel Aoki volunteers to be her guide. The hotel’s charismatic young van driver shares the same nocturnal shift and patronizes the waterfront Moonlight Diner where she waits for the early morning ferry after work. Daniel also shares her appetite for intrigue, and he’s stumbled upon a real-life mystery: a famous reclusive writer—never before seen in public—might be secretly meeting someone at the hotel.

To uncover the writer’s puzzling identity, Birdie must come out of her shell…discovering that most confounding mystery of all may be her growing feelings for the elusive riddle that is Daniel.

Serious Moonlight is probably going to be enjoyed by lots and lots of folks, but for me, it was a case of teenagers not only feeling like another (DISTANT) generation, but a completely different species. Even as an optimist, there are times when I feel very old and very cynical. This book was hitting all those grumbly bits in me – coupled with my general meh-ness of contempo right now – and I’m calling it a day. I really wanted to like this story of a girl detective and a crushy boy magician doing stuff and falling in lurve. I’m starting to realize more often that just not the “right” me for this kind of book any longer.

*****

Star-Crossed by Minnie Darke
Published by Crown Publishing Group on May 21, 2019
Pages: 368
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

Sometimes even destiny needs a little bit of help.

When childhood sweethearts Justine (Sagittarius and serious skeptic) and Nick (Aquarius and true believer) bump into each other as adults, a life-changing love affair seems inevitable. To Justine, anyway. Especially when she learns Nick is an astrological devotee, whose decisions are guided by the stars, and more specifically, by the horoscopes in his favorite magazine. The same magazine Justine happens to write for. As Nick continues to not fall headlong in love with her, Justine decides to take Nick's horoscope, and Fate itself, into her own hands. But, of course, Nick is not the only Aquarius making important life choices according to what is written in the stars.

Charting the ripple effects of Justine's astrological meddling, STAR-CROSSED is a delicious, intelligent, and affecting love story about friendship, chance, and how we all navigate the kinds of choices that are hard to face alone.

I’m a “read my horoscope nearly every day” kind of gal, and this was too Zodiac-centric for even me to get into. I really liked the premise set up by the blurb that I read, but could not for the life of me jive with the story. I feel like this book is really similar to a Wes Andersen movie. They’re amazing and funny and quirky – but you 100% have to be in the exact same amazing and funny and quirky kind of mood to get any kind of enjoyment out of it. Sadly, after multiple attempts at starting this, I never found myself in the proper mood.