This was a moderate reading week for me that had some meh reads.

Steeped in Love by Julie Evelyn Joyce. This blurb makes it seem like this book will be a cutesy story as the heroine is back in the dating world. She read the tea leaves of potential mates and uses the findings as a reason to not date them. The hero is the writer in residence at the local coffee shop. They meet. Have great banter. He eavesdrops on her dates, then over time gets jealous and then finally asks her out.

The heroine is dating other people, kissing the not hero until at least the 65% mark. This was slightly unconventional and it bothered me yet, I was invested enough to keep reading, but more out of curiosity.

For me, the story lacked depth. It felt like it was missing back story of their lives, particularly of hero, before they met. No real prior relationship mentioned for him. Fairly chaste book. Interesting side characters. This was definitely more women’s fic than romance.

Grade: C
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Going Down on One Knee by Christina Hovland. I really wanted to like this book. But it wasn’t funny and relied on some gross tropes/descriptions that I don’t enjoy.. Uptight, prudish, non cursing heroine. Biker, kind of bad boyish hero. He takes over as wedding planner for her sister’s wedding. Hijinx are supposed to ensue.

But instead we get a scene where the heroine gets almost assaulted in a hallway to a bar bathroom, hero saves the day,because of course and then all but throws her on the back of his back. He gets get home and they have a passionate kiss and then he leaves. I’m so tired of seeing the heroine subjected to violence of the threat of violence so we can see how wonderful the hero is. See my Twitter rant about it.

I had to nope out because I don’t think the men in the book actually liked women. They talked about the women as “taking their balls” and how they used to look up their skirts. And how it is not like the hero to “chase a skirt”. I just can’t handle characters that describe and portray women like this. Even if it is early in the book. So I stopped caring.

Grade: DNF
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