Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn– I actually read this months ago but just waited to talk about it. I didn’t love this book. It was a good but not great read for me. It felt more like women’s fiction, but that is fine with me because I enjoy WF too. There was a lot of emphasis on the Meg’s work and it felt like too much at times. There is a subplot where Meg and her roommate/former best friend work on repairing their relationship but it also felt like this was a more important relationship to Meg than the romantic one with Reid. And I am not opposed to that, female friendships are incredibly important and I wish that we as a culture talked more about healing from broken friendships. All that to say, this book was fine but was missing something for me as a reader. Something that I find hard to describe. I think if you’ve read and enjoyed Kate’s previous books, you will enjoy this one as well.
A Taste of Her Own Medicine by Tasha L. Harrison– I purchased with book after we did an excerpt on Smexy and I was intrigued. The story is solid- older heroine discovering herself after a divorce. She takes a class on being a small business owner and she falls for the instructor. He is much younger so this causes a lot of stress for Sonja. I enjoyed the journey to them figuring out their HEA. Although I do want to mention that this story might have benefitted from stronger editing, there were some spelling/grammar errors and several spots where it could have been tightened up. (In my non-editor opinion)
The One For You by Roni Loren– This is the fourth and final book in this series and I really liked it. A second chance romance between childhood best friends is almost always going to work for me. Especially if there is a scene where as teenagers they share a bed in a non-sexual way and they feel like they are each others comforts. This makes me swoony. I liked seeing Kincaid and Ashton rediscover each other as friends and then lovers.
A few things of note about this story. There is a fairly detailed memory scene of them at the prom when the shooting happened. This may be very upsetting for readers. I don’t recall the other books being this detailed, but it might be that I have forgotten it.
Content Warning for neglectful parents and domestic abuse/intimate partner violence- secondary characters.
Also there is some lying between the characters. One of my friends pointed it out when we were discussing this book. It did not bother me, but if you have issues with a partner that lies/keeps things from the other, you may not enjoy this.
Husband Material by Emily Belden– I didn’t really enjoy this book but felt compelled to finish reading it. The heroine Charlotte is a widow. She is also judgmental as hell. There are several instances of body shaming and it was not fun to read. Charlotte has an interesting journey to deal with her grief over losing her husband. I did think it had a great exploration of Charlotte’s grief and how she can move on honoring the loss and not just forgetting it.
There are some twists and they were kind of weird. The love story is definitely secondary to Charlotte’s journey. And even though I liked it enough to finish it, I don’t think I would read this author again
Thanks for your reviews, Kini. I’m looking forward to reading Love Lettering and The One For You .