 5 stars
Honestly?? I’m obsessed. I'm not usually a dragon-shifter person, but wow did this Regency-adjacent, filthy-yet-sweet variant really hit the spot. Concept: ★★★ Plot/Pacing: ★★★★★ Romance: ★★★★★ Calling all fans of dragons, Regency romances, alpha/omega, and soft yet filthy stories... The Alpha of Bleake Isle is your kind of good time. As the one Alpha of the Bleake Isle dragonkin, it's Lord Ronson Cadogan's duty to choose an eligible omega once per decade from society as his official rut partner. The fact that Ronson hasn't chosen one in decades is... not going well. The stuffy society Beta men of the island aren't going to let him get away with this odd behavior without a challenge for much longer, and Ronson knows it. So this time, he's made it clear that he intends to pick an omega for the very first time. Mairwen Posy knows precisely who the Alpha of Bleake Isle will choose, and it certainly isn't her. In fact, it's so predictable it's almost boring. Mairwen, called "Mouse" by society, is a wallflower and observer, cursed to the sidelines due to her lack of perfume and less-than-ideal body shape. So it shocks everyone when Ronson chooses...Mairwen. (The two of them have their reasons for this choice.) Now officially "together" with no warning and no preparation, Ronson and Mairwen discover that things on Bleake Isle aren't quite as they should be... and it's up to them to fix it. But can they fix the rot at the core of Bleake Isle while facing an intense attraction to each other?? Dun dun dun. Cue that sweet, sweet romance set with a heavy dose of spice. It was no surprise to me that I enjoyed this story—I am obsessed with Kathryn Moon. I'm always going to read what she writes. Always. But I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to fall utterly in love with this story. The dragon thing tied to the historical vibes...Those are not buzzwords for me as a reader. But then I tried it, and DAMN. I'm into it now. (Or at least, I'm into the version of it that Kathryn's given us here.) This was sweeter than I expected it to be. This was more plot-filled than I expected it to be. And it was just... perfect. I loved Ronson and Mairwen. I loved the unique spin on the alpha/omega tropes and setup. Every expectation I had was clearly blown away, and I find myself eagerly sitting on my hands now, waiting for news for more in this series/world! Thank you to the author for my early copy.
0 Comments
 5 stars
Me: I will never read a book with the cheating trope!! Never!! Sara Cate: Bet. Me: *immediately smashes that TBR button and consumes the story* When I tell you I devoured this story, I need you to know that I mean that literally. The Home Wrecker consumed me—this polyamorous story of Caleb, Briar, and Dean was one that I never thought I'd be interested in reading but, once Sara Cate introduced me to these characters, I knew it was all over for me. I don't like books with the following tropes: cheating, established marriages, or large plots involving children/having children as a main element of the story. I also speed away from all books centered on religion. The Home Wrecker had all of my no-no list tropes. It's about an established marriage in crisis surrounding two extremely religious characters who are trying to conceive their second child and fracturing apart because of their failures. Even typing out that sentence, my body is going ICK, PLEASE, NO. Those things are (were) not for me. But I was intrigued by The Home Wrecker's premise: Briar and Caleb, our married couple, find themselves orbiting around a new man in their lives—Dean. Dean is an escort with a very open sexuality (he's bi) and a sensuality to his lifestyle that both Briar and Caleb cannot understand. Dean's happy with who he is, he's not religious, and he's not afraid of his own desires and wants. Both Caleb and Briar are afraid of so many things. When Dean's presence starts to unravel the tightly wound nest of problems at the core of Briar and Caleb's relationship, all three of them start to realize that maybe... there's something else worth fighting for in this tense cold war. The core of the story is Briar and Caleb's relationship and how Dean finds his own home and belonging within their arms--I don't want this blurb to sound like Dean is a tool for the "main pairing" to thrive. Sara Cate has written a truly polyamorous love story here and Dean's own personal arc and journey are just as important as both Briar's and Caleb's. The marriage pairing might be the sexy and taboo hook here for the marketing, but I want to highlight Dean's own individualism in this story. His happy ending is very much at play here too. If you can handle the idea of these tropes, and you're willing to explore non-heteronormative traditional endings and acceptance, then I'd love to point you toward this book. It's a fulfilling and loving story of acceptance and personal growth wrapped up in a very Sara Cate-style sexy package. Come for the spicy taboo. Stay for the feels. I promise you won't regret it. (And trust Sara on the cheating trope! I did.) Thank you so much to the author for my advanced reader copy and the wonderful goodie package!!  5 stars
This was quite the experience. I’m not sure how to talk about it? ...But I'll give it a whirl. I feel like Pam Godwin is in her own category and should be reviewed and talked about as such. Concept: truly dark, truly a Pam experience, truly gripping Sense of danger: ★★★★★ Characters: ★★★★★ I have no idea how to talk about this book—I feel that way about most Pam Godwin stories, let's be honest—because it's one of those stories that's meant for a very select readership and those readers often find these stories organically on their own. So please understand me when I say that this book is NOT for everyone. And it's not even for most dark romance readers? It really, REALLY depends on your personal boundaries and preferences. Let's pitch it like this... Did you love Credence by Penelope Douglas , but you wanted a lot more angst with a real polyamorous angle, a lot more trauma, a lot more triggers, and truly terrifying scenarios? Do you love horror and thriller books with twisted sexual angles in them? Do you have the will to experience realistically paced triggers on page? If you answered yes to all three of those things, then keep reading this review. (If you answered no, that makes sense and I love that for you, but then do please check out some other books instead of this one.) Hills of Shivers and Shadows is a story about survival, first and foremost. And a love story as a distant second subplot (that clearly will grow in the later two books in this trilogy). Don't come for the romance—it's not really about that. It's a study of psychology, of locked-room decision making, of only hard choices and no ability to abstain. What would you do if you were trapped and couldn't get out? Are you the type of character who, when caught in a bear trap, would chew off your own foot to survive if you needed to? Could you do it? This is the kind of questioning that Pam puts our characters through. And it's the kind of gripping, engaging narrative style that forces the reader to consider those same questions of evil versus survival and the depths of human resilience when placed in the darkest of nights. It's a 5-star read for me. But let me explain why, because I don't want to say it's a favorite because of the trauma or the triggers—the pain and traumas in this novel are NOT fetishized for the reader. This is a 5-star for its grip, its realism, and the sheer kudos that must be given to Pam for how absolutely singular this story was for me. Trigger warnings abound in this novel. Click here to visit the author's website to view the list. Thank you to the author for my early copy.  3.5 stars
This was super fun and lighthearted (and very focused on the steamy factor). A different kind of Lily Mayne book, but a fun time nonetheless! Concept: super fun Plot/Pacing: a little repetitive Romance: adorable and filthy Impromptu Match is the first in a nostalgic, 1980s-ish old-school pageantry-wrestling monster romance series. Yeah, did you get all of that?? That series of words is a lot to take in, but it's accurate and I wanted to make sure we all started off on the right foot. Lily Mayne is known, or at least known to me, as the writer of intense, somewhat angsty, post-apocalyptic MM monster romances that I've read and some equally angsty fae romances that I have yet to read. She writes extremely well-paced and engagingly plotted stories with softboi romances at the core of darker tales. So this... lighthearted wrestling sexfest was a departure from the norm. NOT an unwelcome one, but I did want to state for the record that I come from Mayne's more serious fare and, honestly, would have skipped over this book if not for the author byline. I think that a new readership to Lily Mayne will love this story. It's soft, it's fun, and it's not here for a deep time—just a really fun one with lots of steamy fluff wrapped up in a wrestling bow. Because I came from Lily's more serious fare... I found this one really easy to put down due to the lack of higher stakes. This is NOT the fault of this soft, happy novel. More a reflection on who I am as a reader and what I'm looking for (cough cough, that drama). Come for the softboi-in-love vibes, stay for the iconic wrestling outfits and hilarious antics of this hidden monster community!  4.5 stars
Wow, I loved this a lot. In the high-stress environment of wedding planning, two people collide over and over and find that sometimes, second chances work out... Forget Me Not is the story of a chaotic wedding planner and a grumpy florist. Ama doesn't believe in long-term love, but she's committed to bringing everyone's dreams to life with customized and personal wedding days. Elliott's the reluctant son of a florist legacy who never wanted to work with flowers, but he discovers that creating architectural floral masterpieces is his true calling. They made an odd pairing, but they worked. Until they didn't. And everything fell apart. Now it's two years after Ama and Elliott broke up badly. Ama's received the wedding commission of her dreams: an influencer and her bride want to use Ama's planning services for their showstopping wedding. The catch? They only want to work with Blooming Flowers—Elliott's flower service. Neither Ama nor Elliott are able to turn this job down—it could make or break their careers and put them on the national map. So these two exes have to put their pride aside and work together. With the pressure on and their lingering chemistry sparking the air... Anything can happen. Why not a second chance at love? Y'all, I read this entire book in one night. I couldn't put it down. Julie Soto has a talent for compelling characters and scenarios and her writing just plain fun and funny. I laughed, I anguished, I couldn't get over the exquisite tension between Ama and Elliott. My one caveat to this amazing reading experience is this: I didn't care for the dual-timeline style. (I know, I know.) I'm personally not a fan of flashbacks/flashforwards when they're used as a main plot device. This story alternates chapters from the present timeline and the past timeline in such an integrated way that a good 50% of the story takes place in the past. That's not my personal preference, so I kept wishing we'd fade that element away earlier in the novel and stay in the present for maximum dramatic effect. However, that being said, I still loved this story and it's a new favorite!  5 stars
From one classic film buff to another, this book was exactly my cup of tea. It's as campy and cliche as those classic 1930s films and captures the soul of the iconic movies like its title's original, It Happened One Night. Let's start this review from the end: my final thoughts and a reflection on the shockingly low average rating of this book by other readers. I'm really sad to see the low average. But I get it, I do. I think this novel took so many nuances from the classic movies it was referencing—and in such an one-the-nose AND somehow subtly organic way—that it looped from a level of clever referencing back onto itself with an over-the-top edge that appears to have turned off several readers. This novel captured the camp and cliches TOO well, and therefore it seems like a some readers see this romance as derivative, ridiculous, and not authentic. (I am not trying to shame or call out anyone who didn't love this book, to each their own.) As someone who's seen the movies that Lenker references in her afterword, I thought she nailed it. The soul of those movies and that era of filmmaking was captured in this novel—romanticized for the rom-com nature of the story, it's true, and omitting the period's racist ideals—and so It Happened One Fight felt like the best of fanfictions for themes and dialogues that I know so well. Dialogue repetitive and themes over-dramatized? That was the early 1930s' jam! Grandiose feelings and actions and constant external verbalizations of themes? This too was the era! Joan Davis is a movie star, and a damned good actor, too. Unfortunately, Hollywood only seems to care when she stars alongside Dash Howard, Tinseltown's favorite leading man and a perpetual thorn in Joan's side. Davis and Dash, constantly together and constantly clashing—their onscreen chemistry leads to fantastic blowups on set, and their famous feud heightens each box office sale. It's a classic Hollywood setup, and Joan's tired of it. So when Joan announces her engagement to Monty, another swoon-worthy Hollywood leading man, the LAST thing she expects is to find out that she's actually...already married? It turns out an onscreen marriage scene to Dash in an early film was much more legal than anyone thought. And somehow, a real marriage license made its way to a City Hall office. Yep, that's right. Dash and Davis are actually husband and wife. And Joan is PISSED. (Dash's feelings are more on the humorous side, as he loves to see Joan spark with emotions.) To fix this huge blunder, the two stars hightail it to Reno, where divorces are easier to grant after a quick 6-week residency. Their current film was already about a divorcee finding love on a remote ranch. A quick script rewrite and boom! Reno Rendezvous is ready for camera, set, action. But six weeks is a long time to be that close together, and Joan and Dash are about to discover that their feelings might not be so simple after all. And they're already husband and wife, so... Cue some shenanigans on set and behind the scenes. UGH. I loved this story. It was so much fun, and let's be honest: I did tear up there at the end. This romance was everything I was looking for in this setup, and the film buff in me enjoyed every reference. The characters were sweet, the plot was unique for the modern "illustrated cover romances" of today, and it was the perfect level of banter + slow burn + amusing setups. I just think this novel is a lot of fun, folks, and the author did a superb job at honoring the source material and twisting it slightly for modern readers to enjoy without making the romance, the characters, or the setting feel too modern. Come for the nod to the classics, stay for the nod to the classics. This is such a fun, lighthearted, and emotionally good time!  4.5 stars
Emotional, the definition of "adorkable," and that classic Dade blend of gripping-yet-cozy concepts. At First Spite is a must-read! When Athena Greydon's fiancé ends their engagement, she has no choice but to move into the Spite House she recklessly bought him as a wedding gift. This is a problem, for several reasons: The house, originally built as a brick middle finger to the neighbors, is only ten feet wide. Her ex's home is attached to hers. And Dr. Matthew Vine the Freaking Third (aka the uptight, judgmental jerk who convinced his younger brother to leave her) is living on the other side, only a four-foot alley away. Oh yeah, things are about to get AWKWARD. (And it's already an awkward setup.) Athena is now penniless, jobless, and friendless in a town holding both her ex-fiancé and his grumpy older brother. And the older brother is constantly running into her in the wild—making an already bad situation that much worse. Both Athena and Matthew (that older brother) are in for a wild time of coincidences, conversational traps, and hilarious meet-cutes from hell. So in way, can you really blame them when things start to cross that line from hate to something else... Man, I am such a fan of Olivia Dade. This latest novel was an absolute joy to read and if you haven't read anything from her before, At First Spite is a great place to start. Great setting and great grumpy/sunshine hook with some subversions to the tropes that I was NOT expecting. Athena and Matthew's journey toward love and acceptance gripped me for the entire reading experience. In fact, I read this in literally one evening—I couldn't stop! Come for the one-of-a-kind housing setup hook, stay for the seriously deep emotional journeys these characters go through in their path to love. However, a word of caution: there are some topics in this novel that I would consider firm triggers for certain readers. Please check out the warnings list at the beginning of the novel before committing to the read. Thank you so much to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  5 stars
Well I've clearly wasted many previous years without the joy that is Kennedy Ryan. Before I Let Go was nothing short of flawless. Yasmen and Josiah Wade are divorced. After a cataclysmic series of tragedies, the Wades couldn't keep their foundation strong—they fractured in the aftermath of a sorrow so deep they couldn't reach each other. Their vows included "til the wheels fall off." They never imagined that anything could shake that unbreakable, lifetime love. But something did, and now they're two separate ships. Well... Not quite. They're still co-parents of two beautiful children, Deja and Kassim, which they both co-raise with love and daily support. They're also still co-owners of their business—the highly successful restaurant, Grits, is something they grew together and is almost as important to them as their children. So the Wades are still a team... even if that team looks a little (lot) different these days. Yasmen's spent two years in therapy, and with a healthier way to cope and the assistance of her therapist and medication, she's finally starting to feel like herself again after two years of endless night. She'll never, NEVER stop loving Josiah, even though she's the one who forced their hand into the situation of separation. Josiah's always been strong. He won't stop for the bad things, because if he keeps moving those bad things will fade. He's been in constant motion ever since the wrecking ball hit. Every bone in Josiah's body will always love Yasmen. However, he knows that door is closed and all he can do is try to pick up his pieces and love what's left. But where there is love... there is always a way back in. And the Wades are going to find that the light and love could reach them if they find a way to follow it. Before I Let Go is a story of pain, grief, and recovery. It's a second-chance phoenix rising from the ashes. I sobbed my way through this reading experience—sometimes sad tears, sometimes happy tears, sometimes more. This was an emotional release of a book! I aspire to have a life as rich and beautiful as Yasmen and Josiah's. From the tears and pain to the light and love, this was such a beautiful, real journey and I feel blessed to have had this reading experience in my life. I have no complaints, besides of course my own internal AGH! that it took me this long to try Kennedy Ryan. This book might include some serious darkness, true, but it is really about the light that shines in all the cracks. What a stunning, utterly perfect read. Pick it up!  5 stars
The Rock Chick universe is one of my happy places. I’m so utterly thrilled that we finally got Darius and Malia’s story. Darius and Malia were high school sweethearts who found themselves separated by tragedy. They were it, the real deal, in it to win it and set to beat all the odds as soulmates in love. But then Darius' father died. And Darius found himself out of good choices and confronted with only one path forward to save his family and himself—so he buried his grief under layers of pain and moved forward in the only way available to him at the time. That way forward did not include Malia. Which was a huge problem for her, because even with the heartbreak of losing Darius, Malia had a bigger fish to fry: she was pregnant. As the years go by and Malia raises their son alone—but not truly alone--the two of them collide over and over, trying their best to see their love story bear fruit despite all the obstacles in their way. Rock Chick Rematch is the story of Darius and Malia. It's a story of endurance, pain, endless love, patience, and hope. And it was perfect for me. Kristen Ashley said that Malia wouldn't let her leave this story untold, and I can totally see that. Malia's been waiting a good long time for her happy ending. And it was TIME! And in true Malia fashion, she was going to make it happen. Seeing the cameos from earlier Rock Chick books in the series was such a fun time. I loved learning about new people, I loved seeing our old friends. Stepping into Fortnum's (the local bookstore/coffee shop) and hanging out with the group was so heartwarming to me—a Rock Chick fan who has waited a long time for a new story in the world. I recommend new readers start with the beginning: Rock Chick . This novella is perfect for existing fans of the series, but I'll be the first to admit that it's not the best entry point for brand-new readers. I think it's accessible to all, but a ton of context and supplemental backstory from the series is the core of this novella so new readers might miss out on the action. Thanks, KA, for this latest entry to my happy place. I'll be here waiting for the next one... Thank you to the author for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  3.5 stars
A super-sexy, witchy-vibe revamp of Romeo & Juliet for the moody romance girlies. Come for the vibes, stay for the drama! By Any Other Name follows the story of Etta Capulet, the only daughter of the Capulet witch dynasty in the town of Stratford, Massachusetts. In today's world, the witches are still alive and thriving in the Northeast, but they're hidden in old money neighborhoods and hiding in plain sight as the movers and shakers of the American money and political landscape. Etta is on the threshold of pledging herself as an adult witch in their coven, and with that kind of commitment comes a bunch of strings—including the betrothal to Harrison, a son from one of the other founding eight families in Stratford. Too bad Etta doesn't care for Harrison. She's too busy looking at Roman Montague, her childhood archnemesis and overall supremely-hot emotionally tortured eye candy. Etta and Roman have a legacy of obsession, petty childhood dramas, and inescapable chemistry. And as they find themselves strangled in expectations and political maneuvering nonsense, they find that the only people they can rely on are... each other. Things are about to get interesting. (And steamy.) I had a great time reading By Any Other Name. Full disclosure, I'm not a huge fan of Shakespeare or Romeo & Juliet-specific retellings, so I think it's not a huge surprise that I didn't fall head-over-heels obsessed with this story. (I tried to love this one, because I love everything Kate King touches.) BUT considering my stance on the inspiration behind the story, I think I enjoyed it a fair amount. This is one of those quick romance reads that has a good hook, good steamy scenes, and isn't mired in a bunch of logistical details. Come for the drama between Etta and Roman on an intimate scale, and stay for that drama. That's the long and short of it—no fuss, no frills. I did wish for more detail and larger worldbuilding/plot in the witch community and the mystery angle to this story, but again I think that's because I was looking for reasons to connect to this story beyond the Romeo & Juliet moments so that's really a "me" thing versus anything wrong with the story itself. Thank you to the author for my copy in exchange for an honest review. |
Amy Imogene ReadsJust someone looking for her own door into Wonderland. Categories
All
Archives
December 2024
|
RSS Feed
|
Home
About Contact |
All reviews posted are my own and do not reflect the opinions of any other individual or entity. When applicable, reviewed titles sent to me by the publisher are noted at the bottom of each review.
|