I have had a miserable reading week and I DNF’ed 3 books.
Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner– I read this back in January when Berkley so kindly sent me a paperback galley. I really enjoyed it. It is super SLOW burn. But it felt very authentic to the characters. I really enjoyed watching Emma and Jo’s friendship blossom into romantic love. There are little hints throughout the story that even as “friends” they are more than just friends. They each do little things for each other that shows how much they care.
There is a scene where Jo apologizes for a bad that she did and Emma isn’t joyous and immediately back to business as usual-
“Just because you apologize doesn’t mean I’m not still hurt,” Emma said. Her voice waversm but she held eye contact. “Just because you apologize doesn’t mean that you suddenly have my trust again.”
This felt so real and true and different. I think a lot of times in romance we see forgiveness granted so easily. And sometimes it is fine. But sometimes it’s okay to say, what you did hurt me and I am not ready to move on quite yet.
I thought the boss/assistant relationship was handled really well and caused some trouble but wasn’t overly dramatic.
I really enjoyed this story and look forward to future books from this author.
Now my more current reads:
Last week I read The Roommate by Rosie Danan and it was so good. I will have a longer review as it gets closer to pub date (Sept 15) but I think it ruined me for other books. I have already thought about rereading it. LOL.
I hardly read at all over the long weekend. Although I did binge Sweet Magnolias on Netflix and that was a romance. #teamNoreen
I tried to read Don’t Go Stealing My Heart by Kelly Siskind. I bought this recently because the cover is cute and a friend recommended it. The blurb sells it as a rom-com but it’s actually rom-com caper/suspense and I was not in the mood for that. I just wanted a clear romance without all the whodunnit aspect.
I tried to utilize my KU subscription and picked up Jock Blocked by Pippa Grant. I saw Kelly from Boobies & Noobies tweet that the hero is a virgin. So I wanted to give it a try.. The heroine is OBSESSED with the hero staying a virgin because she thinks that his luck as a baseball star is tied to his virginity. Virginity is a construct and the whole concept of her trying to cock block him to stay a virgin seemed stupid as hell. That’s a DNF from me.
I took to my Twitter DM’s to lightly complain about this book to my friend Tabs who reviews at The Good, The Bad and The Unread. Based on my love of soap operas, she recommended The Billionaire’s Fake Fiance by Annika Martin. I read the first two books in this series so I figured I would give it a try. I tried the sample and it worked for me so I bought the book. It was cute, silly, and sexy.
The whole premise is that the billionaire hero Rex needs a fake fiance so his “team” gets his hair dresser to be the fake fiance. Tabitha is sunshine to Rex’s grump. They have good chemistry and steamy sex. Tabitha loves soap operas and there’s a whole campy, soapy subplot that was a little silly but also kept me reading. This book pubbed last month If you read and enjoyed the previous books in this series, I think you would like this too.
It is the end of May so I figured I should try to start chipping away at my June books. I still have some unread May books, but we aren’t going to talk about those right now. I attempted to read Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert. The cover is adorable and the premise sounded fun. But the main characters are approximately 23. I’m the old grump that wants to read about older characters. And because the age is stated in the first chapter it is already stuck in my head and it will be nearly impossible for me to attempt to age them up in my head. I am sure this book is lovely and wonderful, I am just not the target reader for it.
I started another book last night that is leaning toward DNF but I am going to read one more chapter before I decide so I don’t want to name it yet.
If this book doesn’t work out, I have no shortage of ARCs and books on my Kindle, so fingers crossed that I can find one that does work for me.
I liked the Annika Martin more than you did. I really liked the first two books in the series (MOST ELIGIBLE BILLIONAIRE and THE BILLIONAIRE’S WAKE-UP-CALL GIRL), but I thought the power imbalance in the third book, BREAKING THE BILLIONAIRE’S RULES, was too great and just left me with a sad feeling for the heroine. I thought THE BILLIONAIRE’S FAKE FIANCÉE was a return to form—if not quite as good as the first two.