Amanda
Probably more like 4.5, dinging it just a little bit because I just finished the Will Darling series recently and the two MCs here are pretty similar to Will and Kim (tall, blond beefcake war veteran and smaller, dark-haired, supposedly untrustworthy character), but neither of those are uncommon tropes, so it's not too distracting. And it's probably my fault for binging KJ Charles books anyway! (General warning, however: this book has a LOT of slurs for gay people, Jewish people, and people from Spain, mostly said by people we're not supposed to like, but it is a lot.)English country-house mystery that's not all that much of a mystery (the people you think are bad and suspicious are mostly bad and suspicious), but still has intrigue and drama and is overall a lot of fun. Also enjoyed seeing Fen and Pam from [b:Proper English 44420645 Proper English (England World, #1) K.J. Charles https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554298689l/44420645.SY75.jpg 68974183], which is a prequel to this, though I'm not sure how much they overlap. Embarking on a reread of that now, so we shall see. This isn't one of my favorite KJ Charleses (it would take a whole lot to beat out [b:Band Sinister 39345944 Band Sinister K.J. Charles https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1537454594l/39345944.SY75.jpg 60995770]), but it was well-written, a fast read, and very enjoyable.
Yes yes yes, more grumpy female MCs (“grumpy” is inadequate shorthand for “person who's been through ridiculous amounts of trauma and is closed off and untrusting because of it,” but we'll go with what we know). Loved the dynamic between the two MCs, didn't love how the end is kind of handwavey about what actually happened with the inheritance and the dukedom and all that and I also just didn't buy the plan for them to become a little crime syndicate with Betty, Kit, Percy, and Rob's mother, since it was so vaguely defined. Knocking off a star for all that, especially because I think this is the last one in the series so those ends are just going to stay loose. Cat Sebastian's writing just makes me happy, though.
It was fine? Too many subplots (I'm sorry to Swan's best friend, but that was simply one too many plots), sort of straddling the line between women's fiction and romance, and ... like I said, it was fine. The writing was good and I read this quickly, but it wasn't compelling in the way I usually want a fiction book to be.
(4.5, rounding up.) Super intense but so good - I need to reread it because the chapters are so short I found myself reading the book faster than I wanted to, almost by accident. It's hard to say I “enjoyed” a memoir about growing up with an abusive mom, but Jennette's voice is so strong and direct and strangely funny, even when talking about horrible things. I was a few years too old for her generation of Nickelodeon shows, so I wasn't familiar with Jennette before reading this, but I'm definitely rooting for her and keeping an eye out for what she does next.
A note: if parental abuse/mental illness/substance abuse/eating disorders are triggers or difficult topics for you, please take care of yourself. This book is very good and very smart about those things, but it is also very intense.
The premise is a little silly - surely there are more direct ways to figure out if a map was fraudulent than by posing as a footman in the mapmaker's home? But Romance Reasons and all that. I really like Diana Quincy's writing and I've enjoyed this series a lot. The plot got a little crowded towards the end, but this was a lot of fun.
I put this on my to-read shelf way back in 2014 and I have absolutely no memory of doing so or where I heard about this book - maybe a friend recommended it? Anyway. This was fine. The ending was really abrupt, or at least it seemed that way, because it ended at like 87% on my Kindle and the rest of the book was excerpts from other books by the same publisher, which was less than ideal.
I also wanted some sort of epilogue to make this feel more like an HEA than an HFN, though again that may have to do with my expectations of how much book was left being messed up by the other stuff crammed in at the back. It does seem a little bit rushed to go from not being able to stand the guy you're riding with to quitting your teaching job two weeks before school starts to continue riding cross-country with him and maybe starting a new business together? And maybe also getting married?
I'm being critical here, but I did enjoy the premise - I don't think I've ever read or even heard of a book being set on an endurance challenge like this before, and probably that's because my friends who have done stuff like this tell me you're way too exhausted by all the biking/hiking/etc. to even consider also having athletic sex with anyone. Suspension of disbelief for romance covers that, though, and also covers how Tom was apparently doing this 2400+ mile ride in stuff like cargo shorts and never had any chafing at all.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: bicycle.)
Very enjoyable, mostly low-conflict contemporary romance set in DC between a lobbyist and an actress. I liked that there was no question of her giving up her career/quitting her current role, especially because of the nude scene situation. The pacing was a little strange for me -there was never a big blowout argument/conflict/conflagration like there usually is in romance. It wasn't necessarily bad, and probably more realistic to actual life, but not quite what I expected. I would've liked a bit more of both protagonist's backstories, especially Alicia's, but some of that may have been laid out in the first book in this series. This is an author that wasn't familiar to me until I was looking for books to read for this year's Bingo, and I'm so glad I did!
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: protagonist smells like laundry. Would also work for bath.)
Men will literally get blind drunk and break up with their (much younger) girlfriends instead of going to therapy.
Okay, there's more to it than that, but ... this was fine? It's the fourth book in a series and several of the other couples from the earlier books show up, so I feel like I did miss out on a little bit, but it wasn't in a way that really interfered with my enjoyment of the book. I do sort of feel like any slow burn for this couple might have been more apparent in the earlier books. The plot was a little bit all over the place, with a crisis/issue/whatever arising, then being resolved, and something totally different coming up, without much real sense of an overarching theme/plot. I had kind of thought going in that this would be more about working to save the animal shelter, instead of yet another emotionally closed off MMC with unresolved daddy issues like something like 75% of them have, and honestly it's a little boring. Anyway, this was decent and I'll probably go back and read the rest of the series at some point, but glad it's on KU.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: animal shelter. Would work for bath, loosely for Halloween.)
4.5 stars, rounding up. Plot got a little complicated at the end with all the various inheritance shenanigans and secret plans, but I really enjoyed this. Kind of hard to call this a slow burn considering the premise, but the progression of Martha and Theo from being barely able to tolerate each other to friends and then more was delightful and really well done. I also liked the side characters, especially Sheridan (Martha's lady's maid). Not a lot to say here but this one is so good! Highly recommended.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: widowed protagonist. Would work for property inheritance as well.)
I devoured this one and it was just a delight from start to finish! Rom-com is overused (and often misused) in describing books, but even though this touches on some heavy topics, it manages to have a fun, lighthearted tone throughout. Rashid in particular cracked me up. Not a lot to say here - for some reason it's much easier to write reviews of things I dislike or things that didn't work for me, which means when I love a book as much as I did this one, the review is short.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: work rivals. Would also work for mistaken identity, loosely for property inheritance.)
I guess this is New Adult - the MCs are college students in their junior year. This is the third in a series, so I felt like I missed out a little bit on the goings-on before this book started. Specifically, I had a hard time keeping which dude was with which of Frankie's best friends, since they were both pretty generic in this book, but it wasn't that big a deal. I expected the whole Samara being the daughter of a conservative Republican mayor of a Southern town to be a much bigger deal than it ended up being. It's mentioned a few times, mostly in the beginning and some more at the end, but there's no big confrontation or drama resulting, and the book (and series) kind of ends with a bit of a cliffhanger on that front, a little weirdly. The major conflict here was a little bit of one of those “just talk to each other” situations, but that's understandable when the protagonists are like 21. I enjoyed this one a lot!
Edited to add: cover LOVE.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: college dorm.)
Very cute New Adult romance - pacing was a little bit off, as I would've liked the whole subplot about the drive-in being slated for demolition and Derick knowing all along to show up earlier than about the 90% mark. Overall, though, this was fun and easy to read.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: graduation. Would also work for second chance.)
Look, it's Nora Roberts, you're getting small-town coziness, banter, and three best friends who we all know are gonna conveniently end up married to three brothers. This leaned a little harder into supernatural than I expected it would, especially in the last couple chapters or so, what with the ghost living in the hotel writing a message in steam on a mirror to save the FMC from being kidnapped/assaulted, but weirdly I didn't mind it? Pretty low-conflict, low-heat for sure, but an easy comforting type of read. CW behind cut: CW for stalker and some brief sections from his POV, assault and threats. FMC's husband died in the Iraq War, some discussion of that but nothing detailed that I recall.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: architect. Would also work for Halloween, ghost, second chance, and widowed protagonist.)
Cute and extremely silly Halloween romance novella, kind of exactly what KU was made for - I enjoyed this but I would've been annoyed to pay a full e-book price for it, since it's pure nonsense fluff and barely over 100 pages. I did end up enjoying it quite a bit, even though I usually like books to be somewhat longer.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: Halloween. Would also work for amnesia, maybe dance, definitely ghost.)
It was fine? Definitely high heat level, which was a nice change of pace after the last book I read. Premise was ridiculous but also hot, though in this specific case wouldn't you think she'd recognize her boss's voice, considering that they work together? Plot was kind of nonexistent for most of the book and things I expected to be a big deal just weren't - he's only had one other girlfriend, they were together for twelve years, he's slept with several other people in the office, yada yada, none of those are major conflicts in any way. Anyway, like I said, it was fine. Not interested enough in it for me to keep reading the series, though.
(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: number in title. Would also maybe work for mistaken identity or work rivals.)
3.5, rounding up. Also, this COVER, so good! One of the MCs here is a bisexual powerlifter, so I was fully prepared to love this, and I did love the ... not quite a slow burn, since they get together relatively early, but the mutual pining and crushing on each other was a lot of fun to read. The character dynamics got pretty repetitive and frustrating to read, and it felt like they were having the same argument over and over with no resolution. I have legitimately no idea what happened at the end of the book - like did Sophie end up doing the TV show? Is the restaurant still open? I kind of wish the book had been in close-third person instead of alternating first-person narration, because I don't think the narrative voice was super-well differentiated between the two MCs. I enjoyed this overall, and I'm definitely enjoying the mini-trend of cooking/restaurant-themed romance, though it does make me hungry.