My ARC reading has not been great recently, but I have managed to read a few things. Some were ARCs, some were purchases, and some re-reads.
ARCS:
The Write Escape by Charish Reid– This was a decent read. The heroine breaks up with her fiance and then goes off on an adventure in Ireland. The hero is a professor who is stuck in his ways. They meet and chemistry is there and they end up being neighbors. Sexy times happen. It’s dual POV so we get insight to each of these slightly broken people as they find their HEA.
It was a quick read but it wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. The heroine doesn’t really deal with her broken engagement, she leaves it to her sister and a friend. It felt weird, but a rather minor thing. The biggest thing in this book that didn’t work for me was that the heroine and hero don’t meet until after the 20% mark. Like close to 30%. That is a long time to keep me interested in a love story that hasn’t even started yet. That was my biggest issue. I do applaud the author for doing something outside of the norm in romance. I will definitely read more from her.
Four Meaningful Words by A.M. Guilliams– I requested this months ago when I read it was a marriage in trouble trope. (For real, give me all the broken marriages, I LOVE this trope). But this book quickly fell apart for me. The main couple has experienced infertility issues and at least two attempts at adoption have fallen through. Their marriage has fallen apart due to lack of communication. The story opens with the hero asking for a divorce because even though he loves the heroine deeply, he thinks it is the only thing that will make her happy. (Insert huge eye-roll here). I got to 25% and just wanted to yell at these two- TALK TO EACH OTHER. I couldn’t keep reading. I also felt like there was going to be a miracle baby. I did search the book for a miracle pregnancy and that wasn’t there but it did seem like there was a miracle adoption. With the couple’s inability to talk to each other or really even be mad at each other, I couldn’t understand their separation. So I had to separate myself from this book.
Plucked from the mountain that is my TBR
Desire and the Deep Blue Sea & Tiny House, Big Love both by Olivia Dade- I am going to talk about both in one mini review. Both are novellas that happen over a very short period while the main couple is on a reality show similar to house hunters. The heroine from Desire is looking for a perfect vacation and the heroine from Tiny House is looking for a tiny house. Both heroes have been secretly pining for their respective heroine for quite some time. Both heroes are kind loving, cinnamon roll men. I was here for it. There is a little sex, but it is a appropriate for the stories. Both were quick and fun reads. The only downside to each book was that they were short. I love books where the hero completely adores the heroine, even to a fault. I look forward to reading more in this series from Dade.
Grade: B
Desire and the Deep Blue Sea: Amazon l Goodreads
Tiny House, Big Love: Amazon l Goodreads
Re-Reads
I am going to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Shelf Love podcast and the book I was assigned was Time Served by Julianna Keyes. I read this back in 2015, before I was a reviewer. As I started the book from the beginning I was reminded of how often I read books from Carina Press and how much I loved the editor’s note from Angela James in the front matter. I remember relying on it to alert me to other Carina books I might want to read. I want to save all my thoughts for the podcast recording. (I will share with you once it is live) But I will say I immediately re-read the second in this series, In Her Defense and had to work hard to convince myself to read something from my ARC shelf instead of re-reading The Good Fight by Keyes. Re-reading this series also made me miss Keyes’ voice before she started writing New Adult. I did read her New Adult books the characters from these books are late 20’s/early 30’s and they are appropriately fucked up and that is basically my favorite.
I already commented about TIME SERVED (which I love) on yesterday’s sales post, so won’t repeat here, but did you read TEAM PLAYER, her baseball romance? I loved it—it meandered like a long, slow baseball season. And, like a good baseball game, seemed slow, but every moment counted.
DiscoDollyDeb, I have that on my Kindle I just haven’t read it. I think I need to though. Are the characters later 20s/early 30s? That was probably my mind block on actually reading it. I liked her NA series a lot (except the Princess book, I didn’t read that) but I am pretty much over reading younger characters.
Iirc, the h&h are late twenties/early thirties. I know the hero has been playing professionally for about ten years. The book definitely does not read like NA.
DiscoDollyDeb, I finished it today. I liked it. The sex was toned down from Time Served. But I really like Keyes’ voice. I wonder if there will be more from this world. Conner, the friend in prison, I think I’d like his story.
And I liked Keyes’ Going the Distance which seems unlike most of her books.
I read that too. The heroine is an English teacher in China? That is pretty much all I remember of it. Maybe I need to re-read soon :)
That is the one, Kini. After posting here this morning, I also thought that I should reread the book.
That was SO GOOD. Need to reread too!
I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of Keyes’ books. I might as well re-read this one.
JULIANA KEYES will forever be my first auto-buy for me. Her books hit all my romance buttons, books in general. I want to do a reread now.
PS: just finished my 3rd Joshilyn book. she a new find auto-buy ❤️
Joshilyn writes really complicated women really well. I bought A Grown Up Kind of Pretty at the used bookstore last week. I want to re-read it soon.