Mind Games by Nora Roberts
I was given an arc of Nora Roberts Mind Games a few weeks ago. One of the reasons she has such a large and loyal following is that she is so consistent in her writing. The stories are not exactly the same and she moves around in the subgenres of romance, but every one of her books has a familiarity. I generally know exactly what I’m going to get when I open a Nora Roberts book. I read a lot of her books at a […]
Manila Takes Manhattan by Carla de Guzman
I was reading a review of a different book and was struck by the reviewer’s complaint about the characters. They felt like the characters were shaped for the plot, rather than the plot shaped by the characters. In contrast, Carla de Guzman drives the action of her story by what her characters would do. In Manila Takes Manhattan, she throws Mon and Olivia into a month of close proximity and the love story feels like it grows organically from there. Mon Mendoza has flown from […]
Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday
After really enjoying my arc of Jenny Holiday’s Canadian Boyfriend I saw the news that Joshua Jackson would be narrating Mike Martin’s part in the audiobook. And then I saw the arc offer and jumped on it. And now I have mixed feelings about it. I’ll start with what I liked. I liked, really liked, the duet format. I want more of this please. It is imperfect, you could really tell at times that the dialogue was recorded at different times and probably different spaces, but […]
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu. Mandanna
I’ve been wanting to read Sangu Mandanna’s The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches for months. One of the reasons I decided to join the Diverse Baseline Challenge this year was to give myself permission to read the books I already have that are not arcs. The Very Secret Society fit one of the prompts for February, a book by a BIPOC author with found family. At the Cannonball Read 16 Romance Zoom Saturday night, I tried to explain why I love romance. Afterwards, I thought of how […]
How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly
I would read Anita Kelly’s grocery list. I loved How You Get the Girl. It’s just…perfect. Julie Parker is coaching a girls high school basketball team, which is fun and rewarding, but she feels adrift and left behind everywhere else in her life. Her twin sibling, London, from Love & Other Disasters, is in a committed relationship and is doing work they love. Her best friend, Ben, from Something Wild & Wonderful, is getting ready to move from Nashville to the Pacific Northwest to live with his love, […]
This Could be Us by Kennedy Ryan
“So tell us what happened between Oh, my gosh, my inmate husband has a secret baby and I smashed the man who put him in prison,” Yasmen says, resting her chin on her folded hands. “This is some Days of Our Lives shit.” Kennedy Ryan’s Before I Let Go was one of the best books I read in 2022. I can still call up the big emotions between a divorced couple who are trying to co-parent and run a business together while also trying to […]
