I’ve been a fan of Courtney Milan since I picked up The Countess Affair. The premise intrigued me and it was a freebie so I figured it was a worthy gamble. And I was glad that I did because she fast became one of my favorite romance writers.

I still enjoyed this one, although it did take me awhile to get into. I was prepared to dislike Ash as a hero, and at first, I didn’t. His single mindedness for revenge, while warranted, did hurt Margaret and her mother as well as the men he wanted to hurt. And as with most every situation the women were innocent bystanders in this. However, as you read more about Ash and his history with the Duke, you could understand why he was so narrow minded. His issue with her brothers were a bit more to swallow since I, as the reader, just chalked that up to boyhood rivalry. Even Mark, who was the target of her brothers Edmund and Richard, didn’t understand Ash’s borderline obsession with revenge. There were also signs he’d be one of those heroes from the dawn of romance (meaning that he would pretty much force himself on Margaret) and but that didn’t happen. I had the “Enhanced” edition, and while Milan mentioned in the bonus features initially wanting to do that, she changed her mind knowing that wasn’t the type of hero she wanted for her stories.

Ash also let himself be vulnerable to Margaret. I won’t go into details for fear of spoilers but he shared a lot with her before anything physical happened. Margaret also didn’t use anything she found out for revenge, as she intended, which was interesting to see, considering what Ash had done to her family. It showed that Margaret was a true lady despite the bastard label society wanted to give her, but also helped to show that Margaret could be her own person and not do what society or her family expected of her.

Their relationship did start off as an odd sort of friendship which was nice. Both made mistakes, such as the cringe worthy moments when Ash would badmouth the Dalrymple family including the daughter not knowing it was Margaret. But it grew into love at a steady and believable pace.

This one took me a bit to get into, mainly due to my initial dislike of Ash. But it had in it what I love about all of Milan’s stories which is that the characters are people. They’re people who are flawed, who make mistakes, who have issues, who have pasts, who have scars, etc. And they’re intelligent, especially the women which is always nice to see. Overall an enjoyable book and one I would likely read again.

I am a huge horror movie fan, so I'm fond of this new trend of horror movie-esque novels. I read Final Girls earlier this year and found it enjoyable but I enjoyed this one more. The story started out with a fast pace and kept going. I was engaged throughout the entire book, and finished it in two days
As an added fun fact, half of this was reading out loud to a friend on a road trip, and this book was so interesting that when we got home she immediately downloaded it on her Kindle Fire! It went back and forth between the narrative and the murders which also helped to keep the pace engaging.

I was surprised how quickly the murderer was outted but that didn't make the rest of the story drag at all. In fact, I think it helped to keep the pace going. There was a good blend of emotions, and not just teen angst which is something that you expect in these types of novels and honestly was something that Final Girls had in spades. I found most of the characters sympathetic with the exception of the murderer (naturally), and mourned the losses, along with the characters. The threads with Makani's parents were never resolved so if you are a completionist and expecting a Hallmark moment on that brace yourself for that disapointment. For me, this was okay because the relationship with her grandmother grew so well and became stronger because of it.

Overall I would recommend this as a spooky read especially if you're a fan of this type of horror movie. It will keep you engaged the entire time until the last page.

I have been a Beverly Jenkins fan since I first picked up Indigo many years ago at a young-ish age. She is arguably one of, if not the, most prolific writers in African-American fiction today.
I’ve never been disappointed with one of her books. At worst, I’ve been a bit underwhelmed, but I still have enjoyed each one I have read. And Forbidden, was no exception.

It’s been years since I read Through the Storm, and I’ve misplaced the physical copy of the years so I haven’t had a chance to re-read it. So, I don’t remember Rhine and it was like reading a new character. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised with the reference to Sable when it came up in the book. Reading about him here was therefore a fresh experience as well as an interesting one. The premise of this story really intrigued me, since ‘passing’ is something a lot of mixed children from the master/slave unions did after the Civil War since it made their lives marginally easier. So, I didn’t have a bad or low opinion of him on that. I felt Jenkins did a good job of explaining why he did it since he felt he could help Black people a lot more passing than as a light skinned. I also enjoyed Eddy. All of Jenkins heroines are headstrong, proud, and try to be self-reliant which is always nice to see. I also enjoyed the slow steady way their relationship grew. Yes, there was attraction that was there from the start. They even admitted it, and Eddy was the one to point out why it was pretty much impossible for anything to come from it because of what she thought were the differences in their races. There was also the fiancée that Rhine had at the beginning of the story.

What I liked about this one especially was that it was heavy on the development of the relationship while being light on the physical aspect of it. There were no overly explained scenes, which was surprisingly in a romance. Personally, I think this helped to showcase Jenkins talent in writing though since that meant the story was mainly historically and plot based. There were no holds barred on the lines that were between the races around that time, even between Blacks and Abolitionists. Even in ‘progressive towns’ like this one seemed to be, at least comparatively, there was still a lot of prejudice that was experienced, and Jenkins didn’t shy away from shining that light on it. One thing that is always enjoyable about Jenkins books is that you also give a history lesson about things that you do not and likely will not learn about in school.

I won’t go into too many details for fear of giving away spoilers about the story which is something I never really like to do. This was a sweet romance, with a slow steady development of the relationship between Rhine and Eddy, which was nice. I would recommend it and look forward to reading the others in the series as well as they are released.

This book was on my TBR for about a year before my book club managed to pick it for our October pick. It was quite an ordeal to get the book though since there were no physical copies in my area, and ordering a physical copy of Amazon would have resulted in a hefty price tag. This is probably the first experience for me where ordering it in e-book form actually made a huge difference, price-wise.

The trouble obtaining the book none withstanding, it was a cute read. As much as a horror book can be cute that is. I have a weird love/hate fascination with the Bloody Mary mythos. Due to a traumatic childhood experience, this is one thing I will *never do again*. But I enjoy reading and being scared, and it seemed like it would entertain me. There were a few creepy moments, but I wasn’t as terrified as I expected or wanted to be. I figured there would have been a bit more based on the description, especially with the summoning scene. Don’t get me wrong, it was still enjoyable and creepy but I wasn’t not wanting to fall asleep at night or needing to read something else to take the scary edge off before closing my eyes.

One thing I will mention is that I did enjoy the teenage characters, which as someone who is approaching cranky old lady status, was surprising. Even the mean girl teenagers had their redeeming moments, few that they were. And Bobbie was smart and didn’t make a lot of stupid mistake, like other girls in her role in horror movies and books. There was also a fair dose of gallows humor with the teenagers, which makes sense since most people do turn to humor in scary or otherwise challenging situations. One call out is there were a lot of similarities to The Ring. Not enough to where it was the exact same story, but enough to where it was noticeable.
The pacing of figuring out the mystery behind Mary was well done over the initial four days. Towards the end, on the fifth day, it really picked up the pace and did well on building on the tension until the climax. When the mystery was finally revealed, I can honestly say that I was surprised by the entirety of it. And the ambiguous ending, including the epilogue, was well written as well.

Overall, I enjoyed and it was a pleasantly spooky book to read for October. It is also something I would read again so I’m not too upset I had to purchase it digitally. If you want a quick spooky read for a rainy weekend, this might do the trick for you.

I tried reading Truth or Beard last year around this time and for many reasons had to put it down for a bit. So when this one was up as a Kindle Freebie I decided to give the Winston brothers another try by starting with the first, or rather 0.5 novel. And Ithink that worked to its favor since I am willing to give Truth or Beard another chance.

I enjoyred reading about Ashley and her desire to break away from the mold that she was set in with her background an her family. However I also liked how it showed how this affected the relationships with all of her brothers. Most of them understood her desire to leave so when she returned they were trying to show them they had changed. Then there was Billy whom she had to work to get forgiveness from.

(Slight spoilers in this paragraph)Families can be complicated things. Ashley was dealing with wanting to be seen as more than white trash or the baby sister. Her brothers were dealing with wanting to be seen as more than the brothers who admittedly did torment her growing up (because siblings). Then this reunionis further complicated by the Winston siblings dealing with the impending death of their mother and the return of their horrible father. They`re not sure how to act around each other in the leading up to all of these events but they do come together. One of hardest things to experience is the death of a parent and Iliked how that even with their rough history they came together to support and love each other when it was most needed.

Yes this book was a romance and the romance between Drew and Ash was very well done and developed. It was a bit of a twist on the whole hating each other from the start even though that wasn`t the case. I loved their banter and that it was intelligent banter and I hope that this happens in Reid`s other stories since I have a few waiting on my Kindle. This book is yet another one where it would have been easier had they just been honest and communicated but we all know that communication is one of the hardest things in a relationship because as much as you love someone there is a small part of you that doesn`t want to be vulnerable to them.

All in all this book reignited my desire to read this series and more by the author including the Knitting in the City series, the first of which is also waiting eagerly for its turn on my TBR pile.

This one took me a bit to get through mainly because I kept getting distracted by other books. Overall it was all that I've come to expect from a Janice Thompson book, at least the ones that have anything to do with the wedding business.

--Cute bubbly heroines
-- Big loving family with some kind of matriarchial or patriarchial member
--Sweet romance even if it is not with whom was expected

Now there's nothing wrong with this formula because it has been working for her and I have enjoyed the books I've read that followed it. However, for me, the only memorable "wedding" series I have read of hers was the Bella series. And while all these "wedding stories" are connected, it very rarely focuses on her.

Getting back to this book the one annoying thing for me was how long it took for Katie to come clean about her lack of a fiance. The reasoning for it was silly even with Madge having an input because the contest never explicitly stated that one had to be engaged in order to enter the contest. I felt that was the only big conflict since the one with Queenie's sister was introduced halfway through the story and once it was resolved the rest of the story didn't have a driving point to it. I still enjoyed it but I am also not inclined to pick up the rest in the series since I really didn't get invested into the rest of the characters. They all seemed like rehasings of others that I had met through the other stories.

Overall a quick easy read once I made myself focus on it. But unsure if I will re-read it since nothing in it really stuck out to me as being particularly memorable or re-read worthy.

I have collected a few of the Coco books over the last year or so, but I decided to start with this one to help me get into the spirit of the holiday and because it is the first chronologically (at least for the ones that are out now). And I enjoyed it. It`s a quick read since it is intended to be a snippet of Coco`s life before the events of her first novel. Which honestly was the best way for me to do it since if I had read the first one before this one Daniel woudn`t have had a chance to be endearinng for me here like he was for Coco.

I am looking forward to reading the next Christmas story, which still takes place before the very first full length novel as well as the rest of them to see the further events of Coco.

I started this series a few years ago when I had Prime and thoroughly enjoyed all four of those. This one was lackluster by comparison and just left me wanting. The back and forth in all the different POVs got tedious after awhile and seemed almost unnecessary. It almost made it to where you couldn't get invested in any of the stories let alone the main one.

Honestly I just didn't get invested in Venom and Evie and their relationshi seemed more like a lust that happened to grow into a bond. Maybe the others were like that and I just forgot but here it seemed rush and there was no chance to develop into much of anything. And there was the chance in Ivar which was sudden but apparently there is a novella somewhere as an in-between that I missed.

I picked this up thinking it would be Sloan's story (as I said it has been a few years since I read the last one so I had forgotten all the names) and that could have contributed to the overall sense of it just being okay. But the story itself didn't give enough time for a romance or relationship to develop between Venom and Evie. I didn't hate this book but I also didn't enjoy it as much as I did the others. I will still likely pick up Sloan's book when she writes it but I am not sure if I will pick up the others just yet.

When I heard about this book from Jessethereader`s YouTube channel I was very intrigued. Famous BookTubers and YA authors team up to give a villian their chance in the spotlight. It`s interesting to read about villians since everyone has to admit that there is at least one villian that they love. And I mean love, not love to hate.

Overall all the stories were enjoyable. There was only one I didn`t enjoy that much and even on that I didn`t hate it. Honestly Ijust didn`t get it which left me feeling with a feeling of "meh". Now, one thing that threw me was the set up of the stories. Instead of the description coming at the beginning it came at the end. After a few stories I understood why since it was set up that way to have you read the story first and try to guess what the prompt was instead of knowing from the beginning. Which I ended up enjoying since it was fun to keep track of when I was correct in my guesses. I also like the insight from the BookTubers as to why they picked the challenge they did for their authors.

This is a quick read since they are all short stories and perfect for a weekend read. As an added bonus you may discover a new author when reading these stories.

This was a quick and cute holiday read. I`ve only read one another Cane River book so I wasn`t familiar with anyone other than Alice and Paul before reading about Flannery and Rem. But I have another one that I got a bit ago on my Kindle, so once the holidays are over and I`ve quit all my holiday reads I will be sure to pick it up.

When I say this is quick, I really do mean it. The story itself takes place over a few days and Flannery and Rem quickly move from friendship to love. Don`t get me wrong; that is one of my favorite tropes in romance novels. Always has and always will be. However, here I felt it was a bit rushed and not fully developed. The story depended too much on their history, which we knew very little of, without any real insight or a clear path to how their feelings for each other changed.

There were also a lot of breakaways from them to focus and catch up on the other couples to see how they were doing and where they were. While you expect some kind of follow up from the other stories when that content becomes even with or more than the actual story, it grates. It is one of the reasons that I haven`t really enjoyed any of the recent BDB books by JR Ward. Here it seemed to want plant seeds for future books in the series (as I am unsure if this is the last one) but what it ultimately did was short change the main romance.

Another thing was that this is one of the few books I have read in awhile where the issues literally would have been solved in the first few chapters had the characters just communicated with each other. Yes that would have made for a very short story but after so many chapters of misinterpreatation and miscommunication I wanted to reach into the book and shake both of them. Some miscommunication in romance novels is understandable and serves to drive the plot. Here it served to make a longer story or at least try to. But, again we couldn`t really focus on their love since we were getting all updates on the ones from earlier in the series.

Still, I enjoyed the story and tore through it in two days. It has been awhile since I read a book that quickly so that speaks for itself. It was exactly what I needed as a break from the real world and to prepare for the holidays. My biggest complaint is that I wish we had more of Flannery and Rem`s story rather than the catch up for the other couples and that is what kept this from being a four star book.