Well punch me right in my heart book. Jeez. I've been looking for some books to help my six-year old understand sadness, grief, and death because her beloved grandpa and my dad died way too soon from a horrible and incurable brain tumor.

This one was a little over her head and hard for her to conceptualize, but it really really struck home for me, the grownup. I think the inclusion of a male presenting character (to me a grandpa) who has a beloved chair (just like my dad), and an adoring little girl who loved to share her wonder with him just really hit home for me.

I too feel like my heart is in a bottle right now. I present like I'm okay, but really I'm guarding myself. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for me.

Julia meets a sexy stranger during her going away party. Thinking she'll never see him again once she moves to New Orleans to take a private nursing job for a rich family, she agrees to take him up to her apartment for a one night stand, something the recent divorcee has never done before.

The night doesn't turn out exactly as Julia expected, as the guy leaves after giving her a very satisfying orgasm.

Turns out Julia's sexy stranger is essentially her boss, one of the brothers who hired her on to take care of a family member in their ginormous estate, an estate that may just be haunted.

Entering a dangerous world of family secrets, extreme wealth, and maybe even...ghosts!!, Julia needs to decide if Lucian is for real, or just out to use her.

This was...interesting. It felt like a cross between a V.C. Andrews novel (INCEST), a romance, and a mystery/suspense. I wanted a little more story, but everything felt a bit rushed, especially the ending. Armentrout was definitely setting up more story lines for future books.

I also didn't entirely enjoy or believe Julia's relationship with Lucian, as a I had a hard time believing she would be okay with his initial lie and the extreme power imbalance between them (employer/employee). She reminded me a bit too much of Anna Steele from 50 Shades of Grey. I appreciated the attempt to make her "curvy," but found Lucian to basically be a sexy man-baby out to get what he wanted.

A fun start to a series, I'm interested to know more!

Thank you to Avon for the ARC!

The blurb didn't really do this book justice. While it is, on the surface, a story of two brown girls, one who can dance, and one who can't, it really is more about a person adrift.

Tracey, the girl who can dance, is the far more intriguing character. But, focus is the unnamed narrator who is really just a shadow of the other people in her life. These supporting characters are important to the narrative, but the narrative skips around in both time and place, and makes you want more, but also less.

The writing is lovely, the imagery evocative. Smith has a lot to say, a lot of it important, but you quickly become overwhelmed with the ideas. The chapters with pop star Aimee, the narrator's boss, were illuminating in the exploration of white savior complex, cultural appropriation, and wealth, but otherwise were dull.

Plus, the narrator is a sad character, one who has great ideas, great thoughts, but ultimately floats through life on the graces and failures of others. The ending left me cold.

Anne, a junior professor desperate for tenor, finds out her ex-fiancee is the new president at her university. Between her old feelings returning for Adam, the kind of wild and totally sexy famous author she is dating, her best friend dating a closeted actor, her looming contract deadline, and her ill father, Anne's life is a whirlwind.

While a pleasant read, there was far too much going on in this story which led to a severe lack of development in the main romance. Obviously we are supposed to root for Anne and Adam, who's young romance we see in flashbacks and is totally endearing, but for me there wasn't enough in the present to make me think they would actually get back together.

Plus, as we find out, Adam could have one simple conversation with Anne which would have stopped all the ensuing conflict with the other guy. The plots about her best friend Larry were fun, but not really necessary, and adding on the family drama with her father just kind of made me sad.

My favorite bits were Anne's struggles as a young professor in a harsh world, and I wish this could have been the focus. The inclusion of many literary references were also fun, but this wasn't the best Austen retelling I've read recently.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

High-powered divorce attorney Rebecca Lindt wants to put her past as a survivor of a high school shooting behind her, but her dad's political aspirations, the upcoming release of a documentary she was interviewed for, and the trauma that resurfaces during a mugging attempt makes it hard to do.

Wes Garrett, once an up-and-coming star chef, lost it all during his divorce. Finally sober and with a job teaching cooking to at-risk youth, Wes also wants to leave his past behind.

Wes doesn't believe he's a hero, but he certainly is when he helps a stray dog fend off Rebecca's muggers. Taking the shocked out Rebecca and the shot dog to his veterinary brother, Wes finds he recognizes Rebecca from somewhere but can't place it.

Rebecca instantly recognizes Wes from court. Leery, Rebecca can't reconcile this caring, sexy, helpful guy with the angry, scary one she took to the cleaners in divorce court.

Their attraction continues to grow as they can't help running into each other, but will their pasts and secrets ruin something before it can even begin?

So. Damn. Sexy. Wes is a hot, tattooed dream boat. It was great to see a strong guy who was aware of his mistakes, was learning from them, and willing to talk through everything, including sexy times. Sexy consent at it's very best.

I also loved Rebecca's character. She was sympathetic, and the majority of the drama keeping these two apart was real, un-contrived, and not based on lies. Yes, there were secrets, but the way Loren played them out was masterful.

Don't even get me started on the doggy. So great, I only wish we had a little more of him as he does drop off the page for awhile while recovering from his wound. The dog lives everyone!

Also, food truck sexy times! May be my favorite modern take on "sexy carriage rides."

Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the ARC!

Great character development for a shorter, novella length story, but alas in this day and age I can't really and truly get behind the idea of a boss making his female assistant wake him up in his bedroom and make her stand there as he struts around in all his nude glory, (no matter how sexy it is) as part of the job. So, starting the book with that scene put my ire up, and what followed didn't help it. Basically your typical alpha billionaire with dead wife issues who decides he must have his sexy assistant, but only on his terms. Her magical sexy times makes him change his ways, of course.

Why couldn't Gemma be Jack's equal, or superior? That would have made a more interesting story.

Besides the tropes I found not to my liking, I did finish the book, did find it kind of hot, but did feel a little bad about it. I'm interested to see where this imprint goes.

For a book with such a lurid, sensational title, this was actually a bit of a snore. The writing was quite dry and focused on description. Lots of architecture details, lots of legalese, and quite a few moments of great, so you researched that but wow you really didn't need to include it here (see photo of Evelyn Nesbit with bird hat).

That said, a timely true crime tale for the #MeToo moment, but not one that actually focuses on the girl on the swing (and WTF is up with the fucking swing Stanford White?!). Instead, we get more of the trial of Evelyn Nesbit's husband for shooting her rapist in cold blood many years after the rape was committed, long before Evelyn had even met her husband Harry Thaw. I was grateful that the author acknowledge Evelyn's pawn status in this entire affair, but wasn't super pleased he decided to include a post-epilogue note that questioned the veracity of her account of the rape. Of course we can't really know whether it occurred. Can we just believe her?

The husband/murderer Thaw, a disturbed rich boy, was not super fun to read about. I was appalled by the descriptions of the "asylums" of the early 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s.

I read this to check off my 2018 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge "read a True Crime story."

After his mother is given scandalous advice from one Lady Truelove, the Duke of Torquil decides he must find out who the advice columnist is and make the offending writer fix her error.

To Torquil's dismay, Lady Truelove is the utterly beguiling and entirely, unsuitably modern Miss Irene Deverill. A Suffragist! The horror!

Firmly believing in her advice to Torquil's mother, Irene refuses to stop publishing the gossip and her advice column in the newspaper she took over from her drunk father. Unfortunately, her father still owns the paper and in exchange for the Duke's assistance in presenting Irene and her sister to society, he has agreed to sell the paper to Torquil!

Torquil gives Irene an ultimate, stop his mother's upcoming nuptials to the younger, poor Italian artist she eloped with based on Lady Truelove's advice, or lose her paper.

Irene, torn between her morals and her ambitions, agrees but instead hopes to change the Duke's mind.

Two stubborn hearts, a Duke steeped in tradition and wary of love, and a woman intent on changing history, this is a classic enemies to lovers tale sure to melt the iciest of hearts.

I adored Irene's shirtwaists and ties, her convictions, and her willingness to explore an affair with the Duke with no marriage in mind. She doesn't want to be a Duchess, but she wants him. Torquil was an icy Duke of an imperious nature, with a soft, sexy heart he forgot he even had. I loved seeing Irene melt him down.

I also enjoyed all the sexy consent. There is a great love scene that showcases Torquil's willingness to stop, no matter what, if that is what Irene wants. More of this please!

I will definitely be reading the next books in this series. I'm glad I tried another Guhrke, as I didn't really enjoy my first.

Trigger warning: mass shooting

Nora Roberts has been traveling some dark roads lately and I for one am not finding myself loving the results.

I adore Roberts romances, but alas I wouldn't hardly classify this as one (yes there is a HEA so technically it fits the bill). There is a romance, eventually, between two survivors of a mass shooting but the road to get there makes the overall romance arc a bit of a throwaway.

About 40% of the novel is a very detailed account of the mass shooting from various character perspectives, the immediate aftermath, and years of separate character development for the main male and female characters who eventually meet up and fall into destined love. There is really no tension between the characters as they are 'fated' so it wasn't really interesting.

The book is supposed to be suspenseful because there is a nefarious person out there killing survivors of the shooting, but I found myself skimming those parts. You know what is going to happen in the end, so meh.

I believe many Roberts fans will love this book. It is well written, it is a page-turner, it has the Nora Roberts flair. For me who checks in to her for an escape, this was more a "let's get this over with." I'd much rather read about best friends running their successful wedding planning company.

Plus, the hero tells his lady love about fifteen times that he would leave her in a heartbeat for her grandma

Spoiler

even during HIS PROPOSAL

! Yes, grandma is awesome. Maybe he should have been with her. Now THAT would be interesting!

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.

Wow, this broke my heart. Celestial and Roy, married for fifteen months, have their lives torn apart when Roy becomes a victim of mass incarceration.

Roy is innocent of the crime, there is no doubt of his innocence throughout the entire story which I loved. But, while Roy is innocent, he is still sentenced to seventeen years in prison. What follows is the struggles between Roy and Celestial as they try to make their young marriage work via letters, miscommunications, heart-ache, and distance. It's not a happy story. But it is an important one.

The character development was extraordinary. Jones never allows you to pick a team, even while other characters are. Both Roy and Celestial's pain is made real, and understandable, no matter how angry their actions make you.

I can definitely see what Oprah chose this for her book club. Definitely the first hit of 2018.

I was happy to also have this check off my 2018 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge "Read an Oprah's Book Club Selection."