Hang the Moon by Alexandria Bellefleur
Contemporary Romance
May 25, 2021, by Avon
Audio ARC

Review by Melinda

This was such a delightful book to read! Brendon was a side character in Written in the stars – the brother to the main character there. Brendon is basically a hopeless romantic, who believes in love, and is working to improve his dating app. And Annie is the best friend of the other main character, who thinks that true love is a farce and the everyone leaves, because that’s what she’s seen in her own life – all of the connections fading away as she business takes her all over the world. Brendon decides to convince her love is real by using rom com movie references while she’s in Seattle. I was sure this would be over the top, but it wasn’t! It just *just* the right amount, not too much at all.

What worked so well for me here is that Bellefleur manages to strike the right balance between these two personalities without making them seem too complete opposing forces. Annie has a ‘lonely girl’ air about her because she travels for work and that loneliness came through so well, she feels as if the second she leaves, everyone forgets her. I loved how Annie and Darcy are repairing their friendship (that neither really realized needed repairing) without taking away from the main focus of the romance with Brendon. Brendon and Annie separately come to the realization that they’d be happiest together…but Annie was only there for a pit stop before she moved.

I loved seeing the friend group and how they would all fit together if Annie lived there. The ending is super sweet and I just really enjoyed this book. Brendon and Annie got their very own rom com HEA.

Grade: A –

Amazon * Goodreads

The Anatomy of Desire by L.R. Dorn
Suspense
May 11, 2021, by William Morrow
Audio ARC

Review by Melinda

I *highly* recommend listening to this book if you pick it up because it was one of the most immersive listening experiences I’ve had in a very long time. The Anatomy of Desire is told in a true crime podcast format, and as an extremely dedicated podcast listener, I was delighted to no end by this.I kept waiting for it to break, even a little, and it never did, there were even commercials. Non-podcast listening people may be annoyed by all of the extraneous details and I had a hard time reminding myself that this was a fictional story because so many people voiced it that it felt so realistic.

This tells the story of a social media influencer, the murder of her girlfriend, and her subsequent trial. One of the things I liked about the book is that we never know who to trust because it’s truly like listening to a podcast so we have multiple unreliable narrators. There are slow reveals from Cleo, the influencer, as the trial goes on, and I had no idea what the outcome was going to be. Which, honestly, is exactly what I want in a suspense. And at the end, I was truly surprised.

CW: description of murder on page

Grade: A –

Amazon * Goodreads