Thank you to the authors for the ALC of Sadie and the Bad Boy Billionaire by Jenny Proctor and Emma St. Clair. All opinions are my own. 

This is book three in the Oakley Island Rom Com series, and it follows the middle Markham sister as she returns to Oakley Island to escape the dangers she’s found herself in from her job. Benedict King owns Oakley Island and has had feelings for Sadie ever since he met her. The problem is that Sadie just sees him as a rich and flirty player. After getting stuck together on Ben’s yacht, Sadie has to decide if Ben is more than what he appears. 

While I enjoyed the first two books in this series, I absolutely loved this third book! It was so cute, and I loved all the romantic moments and swoony kisses. 

Benedict was adorable and took such good care of Sadie. I loved how patient he was with her and how well he communicated his feelings towards her. 

Sadie grew a lot in this story, and I really appreciated how she learned to let people in like Benedict and her sisters. I also liked how the authors portrayed migraines in this book because I really identified with Sadie’s experiences. 

I listened to the audiobook for this, and it was so well done. I loved having dual narrators, and they fit their characters really well. I’d highly recommend it! 

Overall, I think you should give this book a chance if you love closed-door romances with sweet characters and a little danger. 

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the ALC of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. All opinions are my own. 

I have very little reading experience with cozy fantasies, but after reading this book, I’m going to have to read a lot more because I loved this book so much! 

The Spellshop is such a sweet story with found family, a cute romance, and a sentient spider plant! 

Unlike a lot of fantasy books, this story is a standalone and is very low stakes. It’s a relaxing read and has such lovable characters. 

The found family aspect was so sweet because the town welcomes the main character into their community so quickly. They were protective and so helpful to her. 

While the romance wasn’t the focus of the story, I still found it really cute and wholesome. The love interest was so sweet and was constantly doing things for the main character. 

One of my favorite parts was Caz, the sentient spider plant. He was so funny and sarcastic. This was such a great addition to this story. 

Overall, I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for a cute cozy fantasy. 

Thank you to the author for the ARC of Overtime by Mari Loyal. All opinions are my own. 

This is book two in the St. Cloud Hockey series, but it can be read as a standalone. It follows characters mentioned in the previous book (Faceoff) but takes place quite a few years later. 

Overtime is a closed-door hockey romance with dual POVs, sizzling kisses, body positivity, and emotional growth. It follows two seniors in college—star captain of the men’s hockey team Aran and tutor/author Maddie. 

I enjoyed the main characters in this story a lot. Maddie was such a strong character with so many hilarious embarrassing moments. She was juggling so many things and having to deal with a lot of bullies (including some of her family), yet she didn’t allow all those circumstances to keep her down. 

Aran was secretly so sweet but had made some bad choices when it came to women in his past. I liked how kind he was to Maddie and how he constantly made her blush. I also really liked how protective he was of his family and how he turned to his sisters for help. 

The character growth in this story was nice. Not only did the main characters grow, but several of the side characters had moments of redemption. 

This author is great at including steamy romance scenes without explicit content. She also included a really helpful content warnings section at the beginning of the book to help readers to know what to expect. I really appreciated this! 

Overall, I would recommend this book if you’re looking for a college-age hockey romance without explicit content. 

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the ALC of Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi. All opinions are my own. 

Before this book, I had never read any books set in this time period or region of Africa. The story sounded interesting, so that’s why I wanted to read it. 

While this book is marketed as more of a fantasy, I would say that it is historical fiction with a few fantasy elements. 

There are quite a few rave reviews for this book so far, but this book just wasn’t for me at all. There were too many issues with it for me to enjoy it. 

Here’s what I did like: 

I loved the setting and how not only was the geographical location cool, but I enjoyed the magical elements of this place as well. 

The audiobook narration was great! The narrator had an accent that fit the character but was still easy to understand (even at 2.5x speed!). I was also impressed with all the hard names she had to pronounce and how effortless it seemed. 

The author did a great job keeping my attention throughout the story with enough tense and fast-paced moments to keep me wanting to read more. 

However, my main issue with this book was the main character. Òdòdó had questionable motives and made a lot of poor decisions. The romance was weird considering her circumstances. She didn’t seem to think it was a big deal in how she got together with the love interest, but in my opinion, it was really toxic and messed up. 

Also, the decisions she made outside of her relationship made no sense to me! 

Maybe it was because of the time in which this story took place, but there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary deaths. Also, be warned that there are a few graphic scenes that I hated. 

Overall, I just felt angry after finishing the story. I wasn’t really satisfied with how things turned out, and a lot of the plot just didn’t make sense to me. I do think some people will really enjoy this story, but this just wasn’t my kind of book.