books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

This was an MM class difference plus interracial holiday historical romance novella. There was so much built-in angst to all that, I was ready to love it.

But I needed way more feels. I wanted more flirty-flirty. I wanted to understand how these characters’ personalities complemented each other. The emphasis was on the spice—but the spice was too transactional.

Then, a time jump (where some feelingsy stuff presumably happened) + too much focus on a problem that was abruptly solved = the “I love you”s had me “huh?”-ing.

Also, there was a “are you clean?” STI conversation, which I don’t love.

I was craving barbarians and I picked up this novella because my other barbarian book wasn’t cutting it.

And it says a lot that this series is my ‘Break In Case of Barbarian Emergency.’ Because they’re great:
✨ the barbarians are dumb yet protective (the word-vomit flirting in this one was sending me)
✨ the heroines are cool (this one had an extra cool secret identity)
✨ the magic system makes me want to turn it into an RPG that I play for weeks
✨ and these guys eat 🐱 like it’s the elixir of life

I only wish this one had been as barbarian-y as the rest of the series (I was having a really strong craving, okay? 😆)

A perfect free-with-the-newsletter holiday novella? This book was so freaking good!

… Just a sweetheart heroine hiding in the library at a ball, oops the hot rake is also in there, oops they kiss… and then BAM. 

This book became a story I did not expect at all.

Rather than list tropes or plot things (because I want you to be as taken off guard by then as I was), I want to speculate on some of this book’s secret sauce ingredients….
❄️ A hero who was a Capital-R Rake, aka kind of a bastard. He was malicious, vain, a sulky baby, selfish… the list goes on and on. And the deeper a hole he dug for himself, he more gleeful I became. It made his rake reformation arc DELICIOUS. And it made his grovel scrum-diddly-umptious.
❄️ Sunshine-y dreamer heroines can sometimes be written as if they don’t have a flaw, and therefore be cheated out of a character arc. But not this heroine. We kind of put her through it, and I was obsessed.
❄️ There was some particularly compelling ‘get him/her out of my system’ delusion.
❄️ And this was way hotter than I expected!

Also, the man read Persuasion by Jane Austen and identified with the way Captain Wentworth thought about the Asp (his first ship). Which is a reference that I can’t stop thinking about 😆

I should have loved this. I loved the world building. Loved that the book just threw me in the deep end with all the character and country names. This was my favourite kind of magic system. And we had intense barbarians, culture clash, prophesies—it was epic.

That said… all the character interactions annoyed me. And it essentially boiled down to this:
😕 The drama school acting and black and white (not grey) exposition wore me down. The book was too un-funny to be this OTT (bonus points for only speaking in heavy metal song lyrics). Especially, when the relationship-ending fight our MCs had (double-digit times) was the SAME EVERY FRIGGING TIME.

And here’s my theory (that ultimately killed my enjoyment):
😕 I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that these nonsensical fights were just a thin veneer on the real point of the book—getting these characters to hate f*ck each other (avec breeding kink) over and over again.

Like, I get it! The hate f*cking was delightfully chilling? Kind of psychotic? Messily mixed with genuine feelings? It just happened too many times. What began so unique became repetitive and it all felt really forced.

But there were prophesies about future books and that’s my kryptonite so maybe I’ll continue the series? I need help.

No no is more upset than me that I didn’t love this book. Because this premise was amazing.

I love a second chance romance + status reversal story. Our hero went from a mere third son to inheriting the title. And our heroine went from being a diamond of the first water with a large dowry to no dowry and no prospects (because an accident left her blind).

I love this writer and I love when a heroine has such a different perspective. She was compellingly resilient. And there was some swoon.

But there were three things bothering me about this one:
✨ the classic—their first chance was doing a lot of work in this romance plot, but it was entirely off-page.
✨ we had my least favourite source of second chance tension, the ‘I love him/her too much to marry them’ storyline. Idk, is it lazy? Boring? Been done to death? Maybe all three. I just wasn’t buying this reasoning. And the more this aspect of the story controlled the plot, the more stars got knocked off my rating.
✨ the book gestured at familiar tropes from other books (Anne being too easily persuaded in Persuasion, McKenna’s revenge in Again the Magic, etc) rather than developing things within the story.

Not that this will stop me from picking up more from this author.

A ridiculously honourable virgin hero with a Scottish accent, pining for the heroine for years. Need I say more?? 

This book was so unputdownable, I read it in a day!

We had a ‘ruined’ heroine (all on page btw—I’m obsessed with the way this author plots books), a hero who didn’t think he deserved her, a roadtrip, pretending to be a married couple (and feeling so many feelings about it), and soo much one bed trope, holy moly 🔥🔥

There was also some alchemical magic going on here and I think it was this: Arabella and Alasdair were such romantic, kind, and emotional people—they were almost too good for this world. But then they’d get put into situations that were so bad, so stressful (this author really knows how to write an ominous house party, damn) and they would.. thrive? I just loved this whole plot and I don’t want to tell you anything about it, you have to read it! 

This romance felt really unique. The characters were so compatible and their growth was well-earned. They had so many important and intimate conversations. What a sweet HEA!

Am I giving a heist-y spy book (aka my nemesis) five stars??

I have to—this book was just so unexpected. As romance readers, we see a series called The Lovelocks of London, with three Miss Lovelock sisters, and we know what’s up. 

But there’s four books in the series. And the math wasn’t mathing… a long lost sister, perhaps? Nope! Book two is about Mrs. Catherine Lovelock, their widowed mother. And that’s how this book hooked me.

This age gap was 🔥 and I loved the characterization of this heroine. I love that she was 45 (and our hero was 28). I love that she had a biological daughter ‘out’ and two stepdaughters married (in the prequel and book one). But mostly, I love that Catherine was equal parts mother and very hot romance heroine—all at once.

Ngl, the moment I read the stolen naval plans prologue, I’d mentally downgraded this book to four star territory. Spy stuff? Schemes to retrieve objects? For some reason, I’m just allergic to these story elements. 

But then… the spy stuff was more character-driven than MacGuffin-driven, there was a very Clue-esque house party, and our hero James was such a Himbo spy that… I was having a good time? The best part was how well the spy stuff tied into the romance plot; way that James was outgrowing the facade he’d created as an agent, and the way Catherine was rediscovering, even growing into, herself.

And then this story hit me with my favourite word: Epistolary. Just imagine how I felt when I read this sentence:

“James sent Enfield out to buy foolscap, quills, and plenty of ink. He suspected he was going to need supplies for a long epistolary siege.”

Epistolary. Siege. Oh yes 🥰🥰

Ultimately, this was such a uniquely paced romance plot. It wasn’t friends to lovers, it was more like lovers to friends? Everything was so backwards that I never knew what to expect and by the end, I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

I am a puddle. A love-for-this-book pile of goo. This book was amazing!! And I am not okay.

This was an Amanda book. A capital-M Messy marriage of convenience story, a bit slow burn, with a neurodivergent heroine and an excellent reformed rake hero’s character arc.

This was the best neurodivergent MC book I’ve ever read. Harry (Harriet) wasn’t the kind of person with autism who could easily ‘pass’. She stimmed, she avoided eye contact, she didn’t get small talk, and her hyper-focus on mathematics negatively impacted her sleep, her eating habits, her health, and let’s face it, her appearance.

This story hit me right in my Achilles heel: MCs with autism who have loving and supportive friends and family. And the most important part: they didn’t love her because she was ‘special’—they loved her because, once the initial shock of her neurodivergence wore off and they understood the meaning behind her a-typical interactions, they loved her for herself. 

I loved the journey of this marriage of convenience story. Harry and our hero Thomas felt absolutely nothing for each other when they got married. Thomas was an impoverished peer, Harry was an heiress. Thomas didn’t want to inflict his rakish lifestyle on someone who could be hurt by it, Harry wanted the tranquility of a country estate to pursue her dreams in mathematics. 

(Sidenote: this is what’s meant by the TW “consensual non-monogamy.” I don’t think this element of the story crossed any lines and I actually loved the messy drama of it all.)

And this reformed rake story was god-tier. There’s just something about a (for real) rake who becomes absolutely torn up with love for his wife that annihilates me with the juicy angst. Especially with everything else that was going on in this story. And the character arc of how and why he went from rake to reformed rake was *chef’s kiss* perfection. 

I just loved this romance plot. It was complicated and intimate, and you kinda just had to be there.

Also, a birch tree 😭

And the winner of the Starchiest Dork Award goes to.. David, Viscount Tregaron 😆

This was a delightfully lighthearted and earnest novella. There was such a low-angst silliness to the Darcy-ish snub of our heiress heroine Mary, such an air-headed awkwardness to our snobby viscount David, that I was having a good time. Though the vibes were more ‘chuckle’ than ‘swoon’.

It was a short, fairly instalove-y prequel, free with a newsletter. What I appreciated most was the introduction to this author’s unique narrative voice. And I’m a sucker for an awkward drawing room moment—of which there were many!

No. Nope. Excellent writing, but no.

I love drama and badness. I want the MCs’ enormous problems to make me sweat. But then—importantly—I want the problems to get solved.

And that’s the thing. My issue wasn’t the violence, misogyny, or the baddy MMC—this gets a star just for how compelling the drama was. My issue was that this story created life-destroying problems for the heroine.. and left them unresolved. Basically, I don’t think this story had an HEA. And I’m not alone, Posy doubts this HEA too.

I loved Posy, flaws and all. Her entire character arc was about breaking the cycle of misogynistic, degrading, and abusive relationships in her life. And I was rooting for her!

But Dario had an Antisocial Personality Disorder. Colloquially, he was a psychopath. That’s not bad, per se. Except his APD destroyed Posy’s arc.

Because what was to stop him from emotionally and physically abusing Posy? That’s not a hypothetical question—abuse was the inciting incident of the book, he genuinely thought cruelty and manipulation was a good strategy for making their relationship work (and never changed his mind), and he was mean and aggressive towards her whenever he “lost his control.”

There was an attempt at growth for Dario with the sociopath vs psychopath moment—except it was utter bullcrap. Neither term is used in APD diagnosis. But even as unofficial terms, you don’t get downgraded from psychopath to sociopath when you see someone as a person and he still checked off more boxes as a psychopath than the latter.

Either way, Dario hardly changed and there was little emphasis on his mental health. Instead, Posy’s “emotional neediness” was the problem, and their primary focus as a couple 🫠

How about: don’t put the girl who needs therapy for her anxious attachment style with the guy who needs therapy to manage his lack of empathy! Are there two more incompatible people in existence?? 

Near the end, Posy asks, “What’s the difference between degrading myself for crumbs of affection and whatever this is that you’re offering me?” The response: ‘Silence.’ Because there was no difference. And Dario was banking on it.