bandherbooks's Reviews (3.65k)

how I was on the EDGE of my seat listening to this exquisite audiobook!! The whole time, I wanted to be listening to this. The narrators were exceptional and Bastone has a flare for writing dialogue and stories that really suit this reading experience. I enjoyed the effects used to signify texting, phone calls, and emails, and all in all had just a ball listening to this SLOW BURN romance. Not even a kiss!! I'd die for an epilogue with their first date, I really would.

I appreciated some of the talk about catfishing, what we owe to people truth wise, and learning to believe in yourself. Some of the stuff about his parents I could have done without, but all in all an excellent time.

*listened to via Audible Escape free trial

Capri and Truth have been divorced for a year, after spending nearly their entire young adulthood in love. The love is still there, but Capri needed out after Truth dedication to his career (and refusal to check his family friend and employee Asia's disrespect) subsumes his life.

But now, a year later, Truth proposed they act on their simmering sexual chemistry. Sex only, right? But, as their sex pact quickly turns into the sparks of a new beginning, can Truth and Capri finally sort out the obstacles in the way of their HEA?

Oh my gosh, these two were combustible. *fans self* A case of they clearly were fighting and f*cking and not dealing with what led to the fights, but they finally got it out there, and talked! I was a bit leery of the jealous friend trope, but I really loved how K. Lashaun presented it, and never made Asia a villain. Truth needed to be firm, and I'm glad he listened to his wife.

All this said, loved the heat level and how it supported the emotional growth. I also appreciated the author depicting two young lovers (got together in HS and had a daughter very early), making it the long haul despite the ups and downs. Also this was the first time I saw a romance hero who owned an operated a dispensary, and that was great!

a favorite book of my former horse girl youth. I still own this paperback edition. Can't say how it holds up, but formative.

read partially for a work book club. a poetic memoir and reflection on Black life in New Orleans, centered on the author's ancestors and her family, and the house they've lived in through multiple disasters.

Audiobook narration ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Storyline ⭐⭐⭐

CW: sexual harassment, physical assault, alzheimer's, parental abandonment, mention of miscarriage, depression

rounding up to four stars for the absolutely stellar narration by Phillipa Soo, The Stand-In is a fade to black contemporary romance that skews close to the women's fiction / chick-lit line.

Gracie Lee is fired from her job after being caught calling-off work for a mental health day and for refusing her nasty boss's sexual innuendos and harassments. The same photo of Gracie in the coffee shot on her sick day also lands in the tabloids...as the press seems to think she is Chinese movie star Wei Fangli.

So much so that the burned out Wei Fangli reaches out to Gracie, offering to pay her to be her double at various events and seen out on the town while the actress performs in a stage play in Canada. Gracie reluctantly agrees, needing both money and a way to continue support her mother's care in an assisted living facility.

Sam Yao, Wei Fangli's co-star, best friend, and maybe more? also will be accompanying Gracie as she pretends to be Fangli, and Gracie certainly cannot believe the sparks she's beginning to feel are real, can she?

All in all - there was a LOT of plot. So much plot. Philippa Soo is such a great narrator, she really carried me through here. I was feeling solidly four stars until the twist I saw coming actually happened, and it really took away from the HFN with Sam.

All in all, a solid choice, I will try more from the author.

Spoiler - the twist -

Spoiler

turns out Gracie and Fangli are half-sisters. Grace's mom left China and her first daugther, Fangli, behind when she became pregnant with a second child and wanted to keep it. She immigrated secretly to Canada, but had a miscarriage. Grace was her mother's third child, with a white Canadian man her mother met sometime later.

This was my last un-read Kate Canterbary and alas, it didn't hit quite right for me.

Issues in representation, and some questionable language RE a secondary character's vagina all made this not sit quite right, and the narrators weren't selling me either.

Fairly spoilery review, especially if you've not read Book 1 & 2, but wow what a ride! I loved the romance arc in this one better than Griffin's book.

Re-Read with the #ButDoTheyBang crew and I'm rounding up to five stars because heck, Charming Mickey and his bejeweled fingers and his Jaysus have bewitched me body and soul.

Spoiler

So far we know Mickey ruined the now widowed Mrs. Silence Hollingbrook after forcing her to spend the night in his pirate palace. Her husband never forgave her even though Silence promised all she did was sleep. This is from book 1.

And in Book 2 a baby is left at the orphanage. Silence has been rearing her as her own, but turns out the kid is Mickey's and he stole her back for protection. Silence can live with him and the baby or be done. Further ruining her. Whew.

Basically Mickey is draped sensually on ostentatious furniture or the tub in his palace or out trying to bring down the Vicar. Or acting like the Beast. He wants Silence in his home and he'll have her, consequences to her life in the future be damned. He claims he doesn't care about his baby but does everything to show this isn't actually true.

I HATE that Mickey forced Silence to unbutton her dress and "look" raped on her walk of shame. I still don't understand his motivation for this act, when her just leaving his palace would have been just as ruinous. And her husband's lack of belief just as hurtful if she had just left the joint with bedhead and looking tired. His fascination with her is a bit confusing at first but I believed it by the end of the story because seeing her stand up to his whims time and again made me pump my fist in the air. He's just so disconcerted that she won't do his bidding and he doesn't want to FORCE her to do anything.

Mickey's vendetta against the Vicar is scary and well plotted out, and I enjoyed seeing his men help him out. Mickey does care about his people and takes care of him, the big ugly dog too.

And wow what a slow burn! I loved seeing Mickey slowly seduce Silence into his bed (besides that bath tub scene which kind of made me mad). He waits for her to come to him and gets her consent.

That jail scene wedding SLAYED my emotions. Oh my god. "last chance" sex scenes are my catnip because they are just so fraught and full of emotion. Silence making love with Mickey as his wife while knowing everyone was out there giving them their time, whew. And her having to leave him to hang? *weeps* Hoyt got me good here.

The few interspersed scenes with other characters were just enough to keep updated on our other friends AND make me desperate for Winter's book. THAT ENDING JESUS. Need my book now!

CW for kidnapping, imprisonment, threats of starvation, sexual assault (Mickey grabs Silence's hand and forces it on his dick during a bath), violence, very violent death of a secondary character, child endangerment, threat of rape, stabbings, medical trauma, child abuse (in the past, described), rape (in the past, described), threats of allowing rape of a child (in the past, described), hanging by the throat (character survives), alcohol, on page sex.

What I loved the most about Goldie & The Bears was how it explored group dynamics and its complete respect for sex workers. Lia never gives up her career even after finding her HFN with Mac, the "just right" bear she meets while also fucking his married best friends and him at the cabin.

At times, the sex scenes read a little over-technical and I wanted some more emotional feels, but all in all this was a fun cabin sexcapade romp.

When Tam finds her boyfriend tupping his ex in their bed, she's just going to walk out after she grabs the very expensive cheese she recently broke her budget to buy...but he threw it in the trash. Ans Tam explodes and calls her best friend Josh O'Malley and ends up back home in California and staying in Josh's house....and quitting her job that she's given too much to.

Friends since childhood, both Tam and Josh have supported each other through their toxic family issues and Josh's career and relationship problems, but now it is time for Josh to help Tam. But, as they try to figure out what Tam's dream career might be, sparks fly and they finally hook up. And just one night turns into friends with benefits, turns into maybe more as these two try to figure out how they could possibly make a relationship work without ruining their friendship.

This was cute; friends to lovers isn't my favorite but this mostly worked for me. I liked the cheese jokes and puns, but there was a lot of "trying out job" sections, and some of the toxic talk between Josh and the hotsy totsy caricature of a woman who owns a business next to his was meh, and Tam's ex was also grrr. There were multiple open door sex scenes, but sometimes they felt a bit awkward, and Josh never ate Tam.

I'll definitely be reading more from the author, the writing was fun.

Character notes: Tam is a Vietnamese-American former executive assistant with a recovering honors student complex. Josh is a white chef/restauranteur workaholic. CW for fatphobic language (from Tam's ex, countered on page), toxic family (off-page, in the past), second hand embarrassment.

Thank you to the author for the complementary review copy!

A romance between a dowager Queen and her pining personal secretary (who are both 50+ years old btw!!) who finally allow themselves to give in to their love PLUS this cover??? Come on, a must read.

I absolutely did not read the first four books in this series, and based on other reviews I've read you get hints of Queen Giabella of Athawick and Dashiell Talbot's romance in the previous books, but I will absolutely be checking them out now.

Fun to be in a world that is set in a fake monarchy on an island in a Regency era setting, plus seeing two adults find their HEA after so long, the best!

Thank you to the author for the advanced copy - Jess Michaels is about to celebrate her 100th !!! novel release, so if you need a new to you, spicy historical romance author to jump into, here's a perfect choice.

CW: death of spouse, grief, mention of infidelity (not of main characters)