books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

I was disappointed in this one. The first two books in the series were so excellent that I was questioning my whole (non-college sports romance liking) identity.

There was some good pining in here, and some heartfelt dialogue. But this third book kinda played itself…
▪️ it was second chance-ish, with no first chance timeline so I was missing the flirty-flirty, on-page falling
▪️ the second chance was hard to read. They were emotionally closed off from each other and shut down any thoughts of why they had liked (or still liked) the other person. So I was just… completely in the dark about if and/or why they liked each other 🤷🏻‍♀️
▪️ it was just one big miscommunication-fest as they withheld a crap-ton of information from each other, literally every single side character, and the reader in their pursuit of staying casual
▪️ we eventually got a hint about their compatibility but unfortunately, not before they exchanged “I love you”s, so when we had the ILY conversation, I was just yelling “but whhhyyy?!” in my head
▪️and then, my pet peeve: we Good Girled a heroine who did not have a praise kink. She was a rebel who didn’t GAF and the teeny tiny bit of pleasing others she tried to do caused her an enormous amount of stress. So, no. We should have been Good Boying him, tbh.

Just when I’m starting to think I’m getting a little bit tired of the same old historical romances... Giovanna Siniscalchi drops a new book.

Her books just feel different because of,
💜 the Portugal (and Spain) setting. 
💜 the way the characters feel so Portuguese—from the cadence of their speech, to their gestures, their culture and religion, even something as simple as saying “Dom Quixote” instead of Don Quixote. So immersive!
💜 the completely different vibe to the monarchy and aristocracy in Portugal (especially in this 1870s setting where monarchies were falling and anarchists were unaliving royals all over Europe).

I loved all the myth and philosophy references in here. I loved that our hero was a Natural Philosopher, not a scientist. I loved how the brainy discussions between our hero and heroine were so un-modern. Like, they were debating whether man was ruled by his conscience or natural instinct (and it was all tied into the romance plot) and I was living! Tying our hero’s rake reformation arc to a critique of utilitarian philosophy was fun. Tying our heroine’s starchy character arc to untranslatable words that were deeply embedded in her culture was fun.

Just another unique historical romance story in this atmospheric and well-researched series 💜

What do you prefer: 
▪️a three novella series with one couple per book (and maybe even dual POV in each), or
▪️a three novella series with three multi-book love stories throughout (switching between three single POVs)?

I definitely prefer the former. But this book was very much the latter. And that was my only problem with it. The elf heroines + orc heroes were hot, this Cambrick Creek universe is fun, and the audiobook was extremely well narrated (without the audiobook, this would probably have been a DNF tbh—that’s how much I enjoyed the narrator).

But:
▪️ I’m bugged I have to wait multiple books for any of these HEAs
▪️ just as I’d settle in to one POV and romance story, it would switch
▪️ my least favourite part—all the jumping around lead to some major holes in the story. We’d have a POV switch and, BAM, we were mid-first-bj-scene with no buildup (with the Charlotte York pearl-clutching one of the group, no less) or, BAM, mid-sexy time with someone who wasn’t the love interest.
▪️ the POVs were very unevenly weighted. One ended with a HFN (that I think gets messed with in the second book… not sure how I feel about that), one had a whole other relationship off-page, and one had almost nothing happen (just her being unsatisfied with her time and a bad friend to the other POV ladies).

Kudos to this author for always taking risks, this time with the story’s structure. But I’m boring and would have preferred it the old fashioned way 🤷🏻‍♀️

I loved this premise… disliked its execution. Yet somehow this is getting a four star from me? Let me explain—

The premise was great. Our jilted duke hero didn’t want a wife he could fall in love with, so he sought out our heroine for her ugliness. Except, her personality was wonderful and this couple was extremely compatible, so of course he fell in love with her anyways. 

I just really loved the concept: how easy it is to fall in love with someone you find beautiful on the inside. And how you even start to find them beautiful on the outside, because how could you not?

That said, I thought the premise was undercut by the instalove in here. If it had taken a while for this duke’s love for our heroine to grow, it would have been angsty and delicious. But he started being into her almost immediately and that was meh.

So why the four star rating? Well, the best part of this book, for me, was its ‘je ne sais quoi’ writing flow that made me forget I was even reading. This feeling is so important to me that I wish I could say ‘je savais pourquoi…’ but alas, I too often can’t. The story just flowed. And there were a lot of intimate, human moments. 

I’m definitely excited to read more from this author.

Is it weird that I wish the kidnapping had occurred later in the story?

I saw the title. I saw the cover. I knew we were going to have a kidnapping + tied to the bed moment. And we did! And it was a fairly wholesome kidnapping, my favourite.

Pre-kidnapping, this book was unputdownable. It was a bit wordy, but I forgave it because there was a lot to set up with this ‘undercover alien on earth looking for a human mate’ story. And when he found her, the ‘trying to be cool but he keeps being so weird’ plot was adorable. Plus he was super swoony.

Post-kidnapping (aka most of it), this book felt veryy putdownable, unfortunately. It continued to be wordy, when I didn’t think it needed to be. The plot felt unnecessarily drawn out with a combo of miscommunication and arbitrary time limits. There wasn’t much alien-human culture clash. And how much forced proximity versus how little these two got to know each other on-page was kind of mind boggling. In a bad way.

Basically, it was 400+ pages and I thought it dragged. But I’m still going to read from this author duo again.

The writing was seriously funny. The heroine’s autism, the hero’s germ-aphobia and OCD, the bonkers situations our MCs got put in, and this author hitting all the punchlines made me smile. I was rooting for this couple, their insecurities felt earned, and I liked the balance of realism and escapism with this alien society’s response to humans.

That said, instead of one big adventure-danger plot climax, this story low-stakes solved a lot of mini-problems… 

Maybe that’s the secret sauce to a full-length lighthearted alien romance novel? 

Maybe I don’t really like full-length lighthearted alien romance novels?

I wanted more of a “oh no, how are we going to get out of this situation??” stress moment. But stress would have ruined the mood… so this feels like a me-problem.

Loved it. Nothing summons me like a histrom set in 778

Here’s my thesis: This book is for all the girlies (like me) who love old-school medieval historical romances but either don’t love or actively ignore all that old-school bodice ripper-y questionable content.

Because this book hit all the points:
🍂 that harsh medieval setting where the baddies are bad, the goodies are meh, and the heroes are everything
🍂 a stabby heroine
🍂 ‘he’s her jailer’ forced proximity goodness
🍂 she dressed as a boy
🍂 she was a bit witchy and had prophetic dreams
🍂 so much ‘one horse’
🍂 the kind of bonkers plot you can only set in 778

The romance was pine-y and angsty. The side characters were wonderful. Our heroine wasn’t underage (looking at you, A Kingdom of Dreams). And nothing unforgivably old-school histrom happened… but it still had that old-school flavour (and a few vintage tropes that might be out of fashion but I love for the angst).

It was perfect.

This one wasn't for me. It had too many of my pet peeves.µ≤

The nonsense—
▪️ from the ‘unrelated American woman inheriting a ducal castle’ plotline, to the (illegal?) forced proximity, to our non-heiress FMC not panicking about maintaining this derelict property + ducal servants, except that the MMC was nonsensically paying for its maintenance even though he’d never owned it…
▪️ the story-breaking-ness of this setup alone = one star from me.

The 0% swoony romance—
▪️ I don’t mind miscommunication. I do mind when it’s the plot device behind every single romantic interaction.
▪️ we were going for a “you are the bane of my existence, and the object of all my desires” thing. But their enemies status was lame-o. So instead it was a ‘they respectfully worked together and then the MMC was randomly incredibly vulgar’ story. Which I hated.
▪️ speaking of hate: books that try to combine a heroine’s independence arc with spanking. Especially given how much of a douche he was. The spanking needed to GTFO.

The Arab-American heroine—
▪️ this was what I was most excited for! But her background wasn’t at all defined and had very little impact on the story.
▪️ I temporarily DNFed this to read articles on the first wave of Arab-American immigration instead. And learning about Ottoman-era Palestine was both incredibly interesting and important to everything that has happened irl since. It was such a rich and diverse region when her family would have emigrated—I’m mad she was so vaguely characterized.
▪️ I wanted the book to celebrate her heritage. Instead it focused more the racism of secondary characters or the Orientalism of the MMC—without much pushback.

Also, the “ugh” I felt when the mystery baddy was both that obvious and that random.

Also also, the hero quoted The Shining.

Loved it! An excellent book, read at exactly the right time.

From its explicit anti-war message to the set up of intergenerational hate and prejudice between humans and trollkin, the themes of this book exactly fit into what I was thinking about. And I appreciated how high-stakes and un-sugar coated this world felt.

But then all that seriousness was tempered by an absolutely bonkers romance plot:
💛 mates
💛 breeding kink
💛 size difference
💛 major language barrier
💛 a stabby heroine

I love this world and the anti-war message in here. Plus, I can't resist:
💛 mates
💛 breeding kink
💛 size difference
💛 major language barrier
💛 tons of hurt comfort