Felt good to get back on my #bMLread2020! Darling Beast, very horny. Lots of grunts and growls, including a growling heroine!

Last we met Apollo, he had escaped Bedlam with the help of his sister and her now husband, the Duke of Wakefield. Apollo is now hiding out, still unable to speak after the gruesome beating that almost killed him, and putting his gardening skills to use trying to rebuild the burnt down pleasure garden.

But there's a new set of residents in the ruin, an out of work actress, her 7yo son, a yippy Italian greyhound, and their grumpy but kind friend/caretaker.

Lily Stump is aghast to find out "the monster" her son found in their garden is in fact the very riveting and quite large man they name "Caliban." Unsure about who he is or why she's so attracted to him, Lily is determined to take him under their wing, especially as he is so good to her son. But after she discover's he's actually an aristocrat determined to find out who framed him for murder, can she ever believe they can truly be together?

Super fun, not my fav of the series, but I enjoyed.

CW medical wounds, child endangerment, physical assault (secondary character, dies), birth resulting in death (in the past, described), gun violence, ethnic slurs.

Realizing she's spent the last few years funneling all of her time and energy into her career, a career that is now under the microscope for looming cuts her her university, Dr. Naya Turner decides to give some harmless flirting a chance when she meets a cute stranger at a local bar. What is one night of testing her limits?

But this cute stranger turns out to be kind of her perfect match, but also someone who holds the fate of her department in his consultant company's hand.

As Jake and Naya flirt with becoming something more, at the risk of her career, Naya's abusive ex also threatens to upend any progress she made healing from her emotional and physical scars.

An emotional romance, be prepared for all the feelings. I loved Naya and wanted to wrap her in clouds.

CW: domestic violence, in the past and present, gas lighting, physical assault, emotional abuse.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced reading copy.

In the seven years since I first read E&P, I can no longer recommend it. I've read and learned about the racist and harmful representation in the story, which I as a white reader did not pick up on due to my own blind spots.

Original 2013 review:

This is the first book in months that I've finished in one sitting. I was up all night reading this sweet tale of first love between two misfit high schoolers in 1986. Rowell captivated me with her characters who while far from perfect, were all the more beautiful and tragic due to their quirks and imperfections. I only wish I had the complete track listings for the various mixed tapes the characters exchanged throughout the story.

**Will post link to my library journal review when live

I jumped into this series without any prior knowledge, and I was a bit lost. There are a lot of characters, a lot of step-siblings, and many a mystery arc that is not solved from those books or in this one. And honestly, the mystery plot was kind of a snore to me (but I don't like those generally).

If the relationship between Thorn (the Duke) and Olivia had been more of a focus, I could have ignored all of the mystery stuff and some of the chemistry stuff that I could just hear JenReadsRomance yelling FOSSILS about (Olivia is a chemist asked to determine if a character was murdered with arsenic using her skills). However, Thorn and Olivia's quick meet in the beginning when she takes him to a private room so she can use her chemistry skills to remove a wine stain from his waistcoat leading to getting caught and her rejecting his proposal did not make me believe they would, after many years, be immediately attracted to each other again. Also Olivia remains only kissed by Thorn and a virgin for all these years. Thorn is real handsy with Olivia and honestly Duke needed to just let her do her thing sometimes.

Not for me, I'm sure plenty of others will enjoy. Do read the others in the series tho.

I am confusing myself...did I actually never read this before?! I could have sworn I did but if I did I forgot a lot of details.

Any way, I loved how MacLean handled turning the cruelly nicknamed "the grape" from Eleven Scandals into a heroine in her own right. Penelope handles her business and Bourne with aplomb.

Great to revisit the start of my favorite series too. And start to pick out all the Chase mentions!!!

Read for #theSummerofSarahMacLean this 2020!

A new to me author that came highly recommended by trust Twitter mutuals, I am so happy I read Go Deep!

Friends-to-lovers is one of my least favorite tropes, but Rilzy Adams made me a believer!

When Erotic novelist Navaya asks her long time best friend Xander to help get her out of a writing rut with some horizontal inspiration, Xander is a bit reluctant to change their dynamic but trusts their solid foundation will hold no matter what. The naturally competitive side of their friendship translate to some amazingly delicious sex involving battery operated toys, edging, and more.

They are both shocked by the sudden explosion in their chemistry, and their friends cannot believe why they won't just say they are dating. Watching these two finally fall in love was a true treat.

I will definitely be back for more!

André and Marcus both go outside of their comfort zones for a rare night out ending in the best one-night stand of their lives. Both think oh, what could have been, until Marcus walks into André's office as his new intern.

Trying to put aside their desire so they can work on the project that could mean everything for André's financial advising business only works so long before these two explode into something that could mean forever. But past professional and personal hurts haunt both André and Marcus, making their HEA both hard won and a all the more satisfying.

The exploration of the power dynamics in both business and bed was exquisite. Ellis's characters are so well drawn and thoughtfully portrayed, including the secondary characters. You don't need to read Jeremiah first but you should!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reading copy!

CW: casual homophobia from family, harassing language, past blackmail with a sex tape, parental death (in the past).

Bio-engineered ex-soldier Graven, hiding out and pretending to be aligned with the human rebels who've come to live on the Fellamana, is captivated by the new sex goddess Niva, chosen one of her people.

But a virgin who cannot feel physical touch and a human to boot would never be anything more than a patient for the healer, right?

For Niva, monogamy is against her very people's way of life, and humans are the way to temptation, or so her people think. But there's something about Graven's wounded aura that draws Niva in. She just wants to heal him and then go back to her work.

But magic vagina aside, Niva and Graven find they are perfectly suited in more ways than one. Both lonely in different ways, both carrying the weight of expectation and past harm.

A deliciously explored and fascinatingly created world. I love how Lovett plays with this subgenre, making it both intensely consensual while also amazing hot. Niva portrayal as a fat, beautiful goddess is satisfying to my heart and soul, and watching Graven give her pleasure and reveling in the giving was also wow. So good.

Love this series!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I could have sworn I wrote a review for this!

Captain Trevillian has been vexing our various Ghosts of St. Giles over the course of this series and I always had a feeling he'd get his own HEA, especially after it became clear he was falling for his Lady Phoebe after becoming her bodyguard. And oh, lo, I was right!

I cannot comment on the rep, so I will be looking for reviews from readers with disabilities, but this was definitely the first time I read a romance where both main characters have a disability. James' has a bad leg that never healed correctly after being badly broken when his dragoon horse fell on him. He uses a cane or a walking stick when he needs to, and his leg makes him concerned he cannot properly guard Phoebe. Phoebe is blind. She gradually lost her sight beginning in her teens and realizes at the beginning of this book her vision is now gone no matter the lighting conditions.

Captain Trevillion is one of those stoic, morose, and stern characters I adore, who when they melt for their loved one they are lost completely. He is your classic "I'd sacrifice everything, even my happiness to make sure you are safe" types that needs to realize sometimes being a little unsafe is worth the price of falling in love. He also goes completely feral when Lady Phoebe is kidnapped and I LOVED IT.

Phoebe was also amazing, and I loved seeing her assert her will and make her own choices. The imagery of Phoebe and James walking the moors, James afraid she'll fall and Phoebe acknowledging she might but the falls would be worth it to do something she's always wanted to do.

Phoebe buying James a custom scent because he was scentless was a bit amusing to me. I can't fathom the man, fastidious and neat as a pin, wasn't using some sort of soap, but I went with it because it was adorable. Lots of great scent descriptions in this book.

One of my favs of this series for sure.

Remains my favorite Maiden Lane! 2022

A rip roaring good time with all the hints of the Kit Rocha I fell in love with while reading the Beyond Series. Tension for days, amazing world building, a cast of characters you'll be rooting for until the end. Seeing a jaded and hardened soldier like Knox fall for the badass Nina and struggling to identify what that suspicious thumping in his chest was all about was delicious.

An amazing start to a new series, I enjoyed the chapters told from the secondary characters' POVs because I know we'll get to see more of them in the future. While this story is set in a dystopia, Rocha brings enough hope and heart to make it entirely readable even during these bleak times.

I don't want to say much more about the plot because this is best entered into knowing the bare minimum so you can gasp along with the twist and turns but there is definitely gun violence and medical gore/wounds in this story, along with drinking.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!