I’m not going to break new ground in reviewing here. Trade Me is every bit as great as one should come to expect from a Courtney Milan romance, with her trademark mixture of iconoclastic female characters, wit, progressive agenda, and wonderful chemistry between her main players. Brevity is the soul of this plot summary: Tina Chen, a student of low financial means, “trades places” for a semester with Blake Reynolds, young billionaire, after the former challenges the latter that he wouldn’t last two weeks in […]
Courtney Milan does it again. Now with New Adult
4.5 stars Disclaimer! I was given an ARC of this through NetGalley in return for a fair and unbiased review. Of course, it being a Courtney Milan book, I had also already pre-ordered it, because I will buy anything she writes, even if said thing is a scientific treatise on spiders and cockroaches (the things that creep my out the most). If Ms. Milan ever reads this – please don’t ever write a book like that. I will buy it, but I might not like […]
New Adult Romance, Not New Age Romance, Fortunately
I have already reread it. In historical romance’s greatest writer (and increasingly open iconoclast) Courtney Milan’s latest novel, Trade Me, her work steps sideways into the New Adult genre. In their early twenties, the main characters are young enough to be my children, but instead of putting me off, it created a similar kind of narrative distance to the historical elements in the romances I generally prefer. So much has changed since I was that age that this really is a different world for […]
Contemporary romances for when you don’t want to overthink it
The Sex, Love, and Stiletto series is three books so far, and there will be a fourth. It’s about a group of four women in the infamous “Dating, Love, and Sex” department at Stiletto magazine, who are each, basically, Carrie Bradshaw, but each one has her own specialty when it comes to writing about romance. The series is fun and harmless, if not especially relevatory, romance. The sex scenes, especially in the first two books, are appropriately steamy and well-written. The books are short and […]
A New Adult romance with rock stars
This is the third book in the Stage Dive series, and while the books can be read as stand-alones and independently of each other, the series is best read in order. Start with Lick and if you like it, move on to Play.If you don’t like the first two, then book three is probably not going to be your thing either. James “Jimmy” Ferris is the lead singer of the hugely popular, world famous rock band Stage Dive and he’s had a rough few months. Having hit rock bottom after […]
So what do you do when the rock star you fancies moves into your home?
Anne Rollins is having a really bad time of it. Her roommate ran off, owing Anne more than two months’ of back rent, taking quite a bit of the furniture with her. She needs money, and fast, or she won’t be able to keep her little sister in college. She reluctantly accompanies her next door neighbour Lauren to a party at Lauren’s best friend’s, who just happens to be recently married to David Ferris, the guitarist in world famous rock band Stage Dive (see the […]