bandherbooks's Reviews (3.65k)

I knew from the first chapter After Hours was going to be a RIDE and oh wow it surely was. From the stranger bang in the dark bar, with maybe a ghost causing chaos, to Alex and her huge family and professor Jeremiah with his suspenders and waistcoat and glasses, what fun I had reading this steamy contemporary romance with a hint of a mystery and big found family feels.

I love the midwestern setting, learning the history of the Mexican immigrants to that era, how they lived in boxcars. Truly so many great details and rich character development!

The steam is also exceptionally fun, and even if I personally hate

A sheltered panther shifter gains an inheritance that can only be accessed once she's married; her harsh and unforgiving father and family hopes to take it all from her too, no matter who she marries. When Mason, a man she's been noticing since they were both young and attending the same stuffy society events, comes courting, she doesn't trust that his intentions are true. Mason is intent on proving Celine is his mate, and that he chooses her, money or no.

This was so much fun, I loved being plopped into this world of shifters, and dueling families. It has a grittier bite to it, like Cate C Wells shifter books, and I loved that Mason was intent on both worshipping Celine and showing her how to unleash both her panther and her inner badass. The way he protects her from her shitty family, so hot!

This was a fairly quick and sexy read, with a hero who is immediately head over heels for our fat heroine.

Content notes: blood, shifting, guns and gun violence, toxic family, fatphobia (countered by main characters). This is a Black romance (both love interests are Black).

Thank you to my friend Essie who recc'ed this on Twitter!

well heck I was not expecting to be crying while reading this GRIEF BOOK. I didn't read the blurb well and it was for a work Climate Action book club. This definitely punched me in my heart, and she had some great things to say about grief. Not sure I'd advocate this for the club we run at work again, but if you're well along in your grief journey (NOT FRESH) this might be worth looking into. Also, lots of animal death talked about which also gave me a sad. Nature is mean.

a super fun novella which begins with the titular tension relief, a quick dopamine hit of "good girl" and great friendship dynamics. No third act breakup, makes a perfect evening treat of a read.

content warning suicide, suicideal ideation.

tired of cutesy looking books being so damn sad.

SO I DON'T KEEP FORGETTING

okay but which nora roberts is it where she's the single mom of three boys and he just sweeps her off her feet and plays super hero action figures with the kids, including making small toy coffins for the action figures to use after the battles?!

An achingly tender second-chance romance featuring a determined heroine artist who finds herself confronted with a past love who broke her heart, who is now a bitter and ambitious man with some secrets.

I loved the details of Beth's artistry, the postcards and her patron, and this was just a delightfully sumptuous novella.

I finally broke A Midnight Feast out of my emergency file and hello perfect, angsty novella.

The authors truly explore this marriage in trouble with exquisitely shattering interior thoughts between perfect on the outside wife Margie, mother of six, head of the astronaut wives club and her husband Mitch. The plot device of the absolute terror of being alone with one's longtime partner/husband with all the children out of the house and none of the guests coming over to buffer the distance and coldness that has grown between you, whew. I felt this in my bones and soul.

Also captured so well is how the miscommunication trope is so actually true and so absolutely devastating, especially as we the readers are privy to Mitch's innermost thoughts and desires, the ones he has no idea how to express to his wife, the woman he still very much loves. He NOTICES her, the patriarchy and society and his career have just made it almost impossible for him to be open with her, to be honest. He takes all of his cues from her, and Margie has slowly closed her heart, and her bed (gosh hearing how he still tried to touch her, and then the two twin beds showed up, devastating). I'm going to use devastating a lot in this review.

And Margie, who knows how terrible marriages can go, is so grateful her marriage is solid, if without passion and honesty. She has no evidence of but believes Mitch must be having affairs; so many of the men do. She's just Margie. Just the quiet one propping up Mitch's entire career, his children, his lifestyle, his home. Keeping the heart warm on the home front. Never letting herself be fragile, scared, or emotional except in her one sanctuary, her bedroom.

All of these tensions leading up to Thanksgiving and after, juxtaposed with Margie & Mitch falling in love in the 50s is exquisitely wrought and achingly beautiful in both the historic and emotional details.

I could go on forever, but if you read one historical novella ever, this is the one.

CW: perceived infidelity (none has happened), cold marriage

This is the first Sara Cate I've read all the way through and it was...okay? But also second-hand embarrassing with some things that were a bit too much for my own personal tastes. While I can appreciate seeing the spurned ex-lover of the younger woman who ended up with his dad getting an HEA, having it brought up a lot and having the main character then having to sit through an engagement party, wedding, etc just started to make me go eeeeeek, and banging it out with his father's business partner too boot, whelp. YMMV, but that's all too much for me and took me out of enjoying the heat/romance a few too many times. Also there's a moment involving a safe-word that the heroine hears used by said dad & ex-girlfriend and then she incorporates it into their play and NO NO NO nope. Thankfully he never figured that out.

In the first half of the story, the heroine has a lot of internal squick regarding her sex club, the app she and her business created, etc. she thinks she's vanilla to the core, and has a lot of pent up repressed religious feelings about kink, which fine, but this many years into her business and friendship and involvement didn't work for me in this storyline. Both she and her love interest felt like they needed far more internal work before they could actually be together forever, especially since they are both babies in the kink world on top of their traumas/past relationships.

That said, I did appreciate the brat/domme dynamic, loved the ma'am-ing, the edging, the play. I just wish the surrounding plot worked on a deeper level for me and I question some of the rep of BDSM in this series (I am not an expert so I don't know for sure).

Content Notes: humiliation, toxic parent (mom of hero), kink shaming (countered), edging, pain play, c0ck cage, pegging, age-gap, friend's son (probably more but I didn't take detailed notes)

I finished Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean last night and all I can say is it soothed my soul and is the most romantic romance she's ever written.

And the way the banter is between Clayborn and Adelaide?? The Mary Jane Wells narration is going to light your pants on fire.

I highlighted so many swoony passages and I'll restrain myself until closer to pub date to share my favorite parts.

What I liked best was how close this was, especially for a MacLean romance. We are in one room with the couple a whole lot of the story and I ADORED THAT so much. As I mentioned, THE ROMANCE is real here.

thank you to Avon for the early copy.

Updated for review of audiobook narrated by Mary Jane Wells; this narrator + story combo is a match made heaven. This story is simply full of romantic and sexy dialogue, and there's no better narrator for the task than Wells. All the stars, cannot recommend enough. See full audio review in Library Journal soon!