Connie is an aspiring writer who is going to attend a writing retreat thanks to her best friend's boss, and Connie's oddly cheerful neighbor, Beck. This would all be fine, if Connie didn't think Beck was hiding a sinister interior behind his seemingly naïve exterior. But when Beck confides in Connie that his colleagues think he's married--a lie he told to cover personal insecurities--she impulsively offers to be his fake wife for the duration of the retreat.

This book loves playing with tropes, particularly the fake dating and only-one-bed scenarios, with the dial turned up to 11. Connie is equal parts entertaining and exasperating. Her initial reluctance to interact with Beck, borne of Connie's previous bad dating history, definitely tends toward the latter. There have been plenty of characters in other stories who are understandably cautious, without defaulting to the belief that their innocent neighbor is a serial killer because he makes her baked goods. But when Connie finally starts opening up and using some of her protective instinct for Beck's benefit, she becomes a more fully realized protagonist and someone far more interesting.

As for Beck, I started off thinking no one could possibly be this goofy and awkward to wanting to protect him at all costs. No harm should come to this delightfully gentle giant! His desire to be loved and accepted was so disarming that I was entirely on his side no matter how many ridiculous things he said or choices he made along the way. And when Beck finally leans into his wants and desires with Connie? Holy moly, I was *SHOCKED* (in a good way!) at the hotness!

This is a very entertaining audiobook, but I will say that the narrator's American accent sometimes faltered in ways that were extremely noticeable, but she did a good job of capturing Beck's happy-go-lucky characterization.

I have to admit that I started this book without knowing it was the second in the series, and I absolutely did not clock it as a Ted Lasso-inspired story until I was halfway through When Grumpy Met Sunshine. In retrospect, that knowledge informs so much about Beck's personality, and made me adore him that much more. And

the basketball scene at the end inspired me to go watch the darts episode from season 1 of Ted Lasso

. But you don't have to be a fan of the show to appreciate the charm of this story.

Be curious, not judgmental indeed. 

 This is a fascinating story told from competing viewpoints, all intertwining to weave past and present together and resulting in a complicated tapestry of ideas. In 1985, we meet Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, and her extremely successful artist husband, Jack Martin. Their relationship is explosive, complicated, abusive, and steeped in class and competition, though neither would admit that fact. Anita dies under suspicious circumstances on the cusp of a breakthrough, and has been relegated to be a footnote in Jack's story rather than the main character in her own. 

Meanwhile, in 1998, Raquel Toro is an art history student at Brown University, who is struggling to reconcile her ambivalence toward her research topic (the aforementioned Jack Martin), to stand up for her success in a world that doesn't want to accept her, to navigate her "otherness" while dating a popular art darling from a prominent family, while not losing the qualities that make her fundamentally who she is.

This book does an amazing job of weaving the disparate parts of the story together, and grounding fantastical elements to better serve the story it's telling. Having Anita tell her story from beyond death is so essential to understand each of these characters - who they are, what they believe, and what they understand. I found myself wanting to go back to Anita's life in death because it was so rich with cultural references and humanity.

Having Jack's viewpoint is both frustrating and necessary. The image of a man larger than life is punctured when you have the opportunity to experience his fear of shrinking alongside him. 

In some ways I felt like Raquel's story was the weakest part, until I realized she needed to evolve and mature in the same way that Anita lost the opportunity to do. By the end, I was completely engrossed in the present day aspects of the tale, in a way that I certainly wasn't at the beginning.

This is a great book for anyone who has ever felt like the "other," or that you were on the outside looking in on a world you struggle to navigate. I'm still pondering some of the points made throughout even weeks after finishing. 

To be honest, it's hard to know how to rate a memoir. I love reading about people's personal experiences, particularly when they are significantly different from my own. So my rating has nothing to do with the content necessarily, it's more about the ease of reading.

With that out of the way, I really enjoyed how open Amy is in discussing her life and coming to terms with all aspects of her experience, from childhood to being out as a trans woman on national TV. It gave me a perspective I had not encountered before, which is always something I find beneficial. Amy is dryly funny and witty, which is something that comes through very well throughout the book.

The one drawback was the number of endnotes - I always find myself so distracted by them, and some chapters have an overabundance, breaking up the flow of the story she was telling. 

Still, overall I think this memoir provided a very honest and interesting insight into someone who became a public figure through her success on Jeopardy!, but who continues to provide much a much needed voice to the dialogue surrounding gender and identity. 

To preface this review, I have to confess that I started with Taming of the Dukes #3, which is a 5* book for me, and a very tough act to follow. But since I loved it so much, I was compelled to start the series from the beginning.

Always Be My Duchess is a charming and clever homage to Pretty Woman. Lysander stands in for Richard Gere's strict businessman character, while Genevieve takes on the role made famous by Julia Roberts, just without the prostitution. Lysander is an overly serious Duke who has no time or need for love or relationships after a family betrayal taught him the danger of opening his heart to anyone. Genevieve is a ballerina trying to support herself and her younger sister in a time when dancers are seen as lower class individuals, unless they're the prima on stage. When Lysander needs to act like a family man to improve his business prospects, Genevieve agrees to act as his fake fiance in exchange for financial help that will set her and her sister up for good.

I really enjoyed the way in which Amalie Howard adapted the Pretty Woman story in the regency era. Having various characters provide callbacks to important parts of the movie (like Lysander's business partner being as skeezy as Jason Alexander's character) was a smart way to use the inspiration while still maintaining the world building of regency England. I loved getting our first introduction to the Hellfire Kitties, especially since it would make perfect sense that those high society women would be in the same social circle as Lysander.

Genevieve is a fantastic FMC. She's smart, independent, and strong-willed, having dealt with difficult circumstances including the death of her father and a physical injury to her sister. I appreciated her pragmatism, her willingness to push back against expectations that were forced upon her, and her tenderness toward Lysander.

Lysander is an equally fantastic MMC. I think some of his obstinance was intentionally frustrating since any character growth was going to require him to confront his repressed feelings about his complicated family history. But his chemistry with Genevieve, combined with the respect he had toward her, made me want to root for the outcome I knew was coming, and allowed me to be satisfied when it did.

Overall, this is a very fun time, and searching for Easter eggs along the way is a very entertaining aspect of the story (

Like, e.g., Lysander playing the piano alone like Edward does in the empty hotel bar

). Definitely recommended for anyone looking for a light foray into historical romance.

Lauren is a single woman living in London, who comes home from her best friend's hen party to find a man named Michael in her flat. He claims to be her husband, but she knows she wasn't married when she left that night. When Michael goes into the attic the next day, a different man comes down, and suddenly Lauren's apartment looks completely different from the day before. Husband after husband descend from the attic - always one going up and someone new coming down - while Lauren tries to determine what type of life she wants, and how to make that happen.

I was intrigued by the premise of this story; the idea of changing out your partner and trying on a new life was something interesting to consider. And the mechanic of it was so straightforward: one goes up, another comes down. 

I really appreciated the way this book forced Lauren to continually analyze her situation and try to piece together how she ended up with each person. When she vocalized the thought that a different "her" must have seen something worthy in each husband, it made me think of those small decisions that alter the way in which our lives unfold. The fact that the world of her friends and family changed with every husband was also a clever conceit, especially when it forced Laurent to consider what aspects of her relationships were most important to her.

My main issues with the story were twofold. First, Lauren is not the most sympathetic protagonist. She's definitely selfish at the start, and certainly operating for a more surface-level place when the book begins. While I liked that Lauren wasn't perfect, it made rooting for her difficult, and I felt like her self-reflection took too long to really get going.

The second issue was some of the completely unhinged story beats and decisions she was making. I do understand that Lauren was reaching her breaking point as the husbands wouldn't stop coming, but I found myself saying, "GIRL, NO!" Out loud a multiple points while listening to the audiobook. Experiencing the consequences of cringy behavior is not my favorite way to spend time, so the 3/4 point was probably the hardest point to get through.

That being said, I still think this was extremely clever and well constructed. I enjoyed the resolution, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for something different and thought-provoking. 

Arthur and Sal are just like any other small business owners in the quaint town of Trident Falls. They're looking for a way to set down roots in their community and provide quality service to their customers. There's just one problem: Arthur and Sal are trying to do all of this while also trying to be accepted in vampires in a community led by an anti-paranormal mayor. Arthur and Sal feel some optimism when they meet Nora, the new city manager who is in the paranormal residents' corner. It's just too bad that she also stumbles upon the mayor's body in Arthur and Sal's garden, drained of its blood and with two distinctive puncture wounds in the neck.

This was a delightfully charming and perfectly cozy mystery that completely lived up to my expectations. The setting of Trident Falls provided the perfect backdrop for the story, and was well-established throughout. I could easily picture any number of towns that I've traveled through which are trying to embrace the future without completely forgetting the past that made them. The various characters we meet along the way are equally well-defined, particularly Theo, coffee shop owner and attorney at "claw." I had the biggest laugh of the book when Arthur and Sal make a late-night attempt to investigate Theo's home, and am still chuckling just thinking about the entire sequence of events.

And as for Arthur and Sal, I only wish we learned more about them! I adored their dynamic - almost a grump/sunshine, to borrow from the romance realm. Sal's personality and antics gave me Lazlo from What We Do in the Shadows vibes, which is high praise coming from me. As the more staid and serious partner, Arthur was wonderfully put-together, polite, and dedicated to his partner that you want no bad to come to him. He reminded me of a vampiric Ted Lasso in some ways, which is again, high praise.

If I had one real complaint, I left the story wanting to know more about Sal and Arthur's history together, particularly how they got together. There are mentions of the night they meet, but nothing else to flesh out the start of their relationship. But maybe that's a story for second book?? I would love to spend more time with the citizens of Trident Falls, from Lore to Nora to Rumble!

Thank you to Berkeley Publishing Group and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

Natalia is about to start her dream job: covering F1 for Auto Racing Journal. That means traveling the world, experiencing the glitz and glamour, and interacting with the teams and drivers. A hook-up with a handsome stranger on her first night on the job seems to be just that, until she recognizes him as Klaus Franke, the Team Principal for Emerald Racing. After a disastrous parting, Natalia and Klaus continue to orbit one another, trying to balance growing attraction with ethics, professionalism, and the need to seek out what they really want in life.

Natalia is a difficult character to fully warm up to. She's clearly capable in many ways, but she has such difficulty standing up for what she needs. Her friendship with Phaedra is one example of that - it takes a significant rift to help Natalia stand up for herself in their relationship. Natalia's difficult childhood does inform a lot of her choices and decision-making, but it doesn't excuse everything. 

The hardest thing to reconcile is Natalia's decision-making when it comes to her job and relationship. Dating Klaus is so clearly in conflict with Natalia's job, especially the special profile she's supposed to be doing, but the reader is intended to root for their relationship. The good thing is that Klaus is easy to fall for as a love interest. His love for his late wife underlies his icy exterior, and his chemistry with Natalia is evident throughout. It helps you want to root for the relationship, despite the ethics. 

I did have a difficult time truly engaging with the third-act break-up. The basis for it was more complicated than necessary, while also being underexplained. Without giving anything away, I just found myself not fully understanding the issue Klaus was handling that Natalia wanted to report on. They were talking past it so much that it made it difficult to fully appreciate the stakes. As for the ultimate reconciliation, let's just say it involved one of my least favorite tropes in romance.

Despite these concerns, I still enjoyed the book as a whole, and I'm glad I got to experience my first F1 romance! Thank you to Forever and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my review!

Jessie can't believe her luck when she has the meet-cute of all meet-cutes at the local Whole Foods. What starts as a fun chat during a sudden evacuation turns into the perfect day-long date complete with dancing along the river...until an emergency takes her mystery man away with nary a phone number. And maybe she would have eventually moved on from that day if Cal, the perfect man of her dreams, didn't show up  as the new boyfriend of Jessie's boss, Ali. As Jessie tries to navigate this new normal, she tries to live normally - seeing her friends, spending time with her dad, and "enduring" the flirty nature of the hot butcher, Leo.

As a Jessie who was also a nanny in a past life, I had high hopes for this story based on the description, but I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. Jessie is frustrating at times, particularly in her interactions with Ali. I guess in fairness, Jessie's love for her charge, Henry, is endearing and provides some much needed depth to her character. I also appreciated her drive to start her dream business and the fact that she demonstrated skill and capability as she took steps to do so. It would have been easy to make her stumble along the way, but that wasn't the case, and it was to the benefit of the character.

Leo was both too good to be true, but thinly characterized. It was easy to fall for him as a possible love interest, particularly following the slow exposure of Cal's personality, but it was because Leo was so perfect. Exactly as supportive as Jessie needed. Never a bad word against anyone. No flaws that were ever mentioned or outlined. It was never clear if Jessie's impression of Leo being a ladies' man was real or assumed based on his personality and appearance.

The biggest concern I had about the story was with regard to Jessie's dad and his engagement to Simone. This would have been a far more interesting story if Jessie had to confront her incorrect assumptions about Simone, rather than having her turn out to be the quintessential evil step-mother. There were already so many things happening in the story that the fallout between Jessie and her father was not only short-lived, but under-developed.

Overall, this was a pleasant story and way to pass time, but was not without its flaws.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the advanced copy in exchange for my review!

Gretchen is happy with her life...mostly. She's strong, independent, and a successful entrepreneur. She's reached every goal she's set for herself, so the fact that she's about to turn 40 while still dealing with the indignities of the dating apps shouldn't matter, but it does. So when she decides to embark on a quest to embrace her inner crone while serving as an "artist in residence" at an art camp in the woods, it seems like the perfect plan. Until she meets Teddy, the grumpy bass player from a moderately successful rock band who failed to read the fine print and thus failed to understand what kind of camp he was signing up for. Gretchen is drawn to him against her better judgment, and needs to decide whether her "cronification" is all it's cracked up to be.

So, as a woman approaching her mid-40s, I deeply related to Gretchen's feeling of being unmoored. I never thought I would understand the mid-life crisis, yet here we are...

Gretchen is a deeply relatable character in other ways as well. Her cheerful demeanor is the personification of the sunshine trope, but, as Teddy astutely notes, there is definitely some cynical sour underpinning the sweet. Gretchen's need to reach certain benchmarks in her life is so on point -- as she outlined the expectations she set for herself, I started to feel uncomfortably seen. Marking stuff off the list isn't all it's cracked up to be, and it certainly doesn't fill the voids that can persist in other areas. (Not that I know anything about that at all...)

As for Teddy, he is the quintessential grump, but as with most grumps, it masks deeper hurts, emotional vulnerabilities, and an empathetic streak that no amount of grouchiness can hide. I loved his evolution from apathetic rock star to dedicated mentor. His relationship with his sister was a great way to humanize him in ways beyond his relationship with Gretchen, and a method of bringing in a backstory that made sense, rather than forced.

I did enjoy Gretchen and Teddy's relationship overall. I love reading characters who are true adults, with actual lives and obligations that can interfere with a standard HEA. And these two were no different - the fact that they were already from different walks of life and different cities was a factor in how their relationship progressed and where it ultimately ended up. It was a refreshingly normal way of resolving the obstacles.

My only real knock against this story is that I struggled with the underlying reasons for the third-act conflict. Up to that point, these were two adults having adult conversations and forging an honest path forward. And then it just seemed to...stop. They stopped being honest with themselves, let alone each other, which made their conflict devolve into miscommunication, which is never my favorite trope.

That being said, I really enjoyed the book overall, I was rooting for Gretchen (and Teddy), and I found myself longing for a way to exit real life for a month to spend time around bonfires with s'mores and music. 

In this reimagining of the myth of Hades and Persephone, Persephone is a young society woman in Olympus, literally counting down the days until she comes into her trust and can leave the city for good. Unbeknownst to Persephone, her politically ambitious mother Demeter has arranged Persephone's engagement to Zeus, a powerful and dangerous man with a string of dead wives in his wake. The night of the engagement, Persephone runs to the river Styx, and ultimately crosses the bridge to evade Zeus' men who have been stalking and hunting her down as she crossed the city. She runs directly into the arms of Hades, who up to this point, was mere myth and thought to be nothing but rumor and legend. But all of those stories make him out to be a dark force in the lower city, possibly more dangerous than the world she escaped. 

The good first. The recharacterization of Persephone and Hades is top notch. Persephone is strong-willed, yearning for independence, devoted to her sisters, and empathetic to the people she meets in the low city. Hades is equally strong-willed, but also a distrusting lone wolf. However, he deeply cares for the people in his charge and longs for real connections (even if he won't admit it, even to himself). The chemistry between them, and the deal they strike, is pure fire. Hades' menace is tempered by Persephone's lightness, and his own devotion to his people.

The bad: I wanted to feel engaged with this plot but it just kind of...stalled. There seemed to be a lot of talk about Zeus being this larger-than-life danger, but it was all talk and little demonstration of power beyond setting up Persephone's sister Eurydice to be kidnapped. The same could be said about Hades' continued assertion that he would rain down power on Zeus that he has been preparing since he was a child...only for none of that to be explained, utilized, or mentioned. Instead, the plot deviated toward back-room dealings and double-agents, but in a way that undermined the promise of this conflict. And the ultimate resolution was...fine. Just fine.

I would still recommend this for anyone who enjoys Greek mythology because there were tons of fun Easter eggs (for example, Eurydice's boyfriend Orpheus is a loser musician, there are three dogs and one is named Cerberus, and Hades' right-hand man is Charon). The spice is spicing - Hades owns a sex club, so there is plenty of open door scenes throughout the book. But reading it for the plot alone, that I'm not so sure.