the_cover_contessa's Reviews (1.75k)

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Another mystery/thriller from Lucy Foley that kept me on the edge of my seat. The opening night at The Manor is meant to be spectacular. The land has been transformed into an oppulent high end resort where no expense has been skipped to provide people with the highest quality vacation. But when the secrets of the past slowly start to unearth themselves, you find the guests and those working at The Manor are not all who they seem!
Foley has a way of taking multiple point of views and just making it work. I always worry I won't be able to keep everyone straight. Or that having more than one point of view in a mystery/thriller will take me out of the story. But, in reality, having all the points of view, plus journal entries, really helps the story take shape. And it lends to the author's ability to slowly reveal what is really going on and the truths the characters have to face. I also loved how each person in this story is not quite who they seem. They all have more than one identity or something they are hiding that effects the overall thrill and mystery of the story line.
The flashbacks with the journal entries really give great background to the characters in the story. It's easy to see how they have changed over the last 15 years and what the actions of their teens set in motion as they turned into adults.
I will say I did figure out a few of the mysteries along the way but this didn't detract from me enjoying the story line, I loved the inclusion of the local folklore. In all honesty, I felt like this book might actual take a turn into magical realism with how Foley presented the legend. But I know that's not really her style. And part of a mystery is to leave you wondering how such magical type things are happening when there's not real magic involved.
Foley has a knack for creating a tension that keeps you turning the page in a book. As each character develops you find yourself wanting to know just exactly how they fit into the story and what their background is. I also loved the shorter chapters. Short chapters are always something I appreciate. I feel like they really help push the story along and they kept my attention more so than longer chapters would have. And her ability to set the scene and vividly show you exactly what The Manor looks like is great. I could practically feel and smell the ocean air and the woodsy scent throughout reading the story.
Overall, I think this might be my favorite Foley book so far. I liked the idea of how things unfolded and there were definitely some things I was not 100% expecting. Lucy's fans will love this one as much as all her others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinion expressed here are my own.
Natalie is a budding writer. Rob is an academic. Thrown together for their best friends' wedding, they are forced to interact despite seemingly hating each other. When Natalie finds out Rob gave her book a one-star review, she is determined to never like him. But over their years from their 20s to their 30s they get thrown together over and over again and find what they thought was making them enemies was actually an attraction they might not be able to avoid.
I loved the idea of this book. Two people who couldn't be more different continuously thrown together only to find they can't stay away. A perfect enemies to friends to lovers trope. And also a those who are meant to be will be. Because despite their years apart, and the relationships those years bring, they always end up back in each other's orbit.
The pacing in this book was a medium pace. I was neither drawn to pick it up and continue reading nor was I disliking it. There's a lot of humor used in the book as well as sarcasm, which may or may not be easily understood by the reader. This is my first book by this author and I thought her writing was good. I liked the dual POV but then the author snuck in third person omniscient POV from a side characters and that was just really weird. Also the third person POV sometimes made it hard to realize whose POV I was actually reading and took me out of the story trying to figure it out. Given the jumps in time, I felt like this needed to be more clear and it was very frustrating at times that it was not.
Natalie was a fairly relatable character. I did find her a bit whiny and really wanted her to take hold of her life which seemed all over the place. It was like she was constantly having trouble becoming an adult. I also found her obsession with Gabby, her best friend, a little odd. Her life kind of revolved around Gabby and how she could always keep them being friends despite them forming their own lives as they get older. And she doesn't take any kind of responsibility for her actions but likes to think all the bad things that happen to her and due to outside forces she cannot control. In fact, she creates these situations on her own and it's not until the end of the book that we see her shift into understanding the need to take hold of your own life. It seems the point of Natalie's character was to show how you can only rely on yourself, but it took a super long time for Natalie to come to that conclusions and felt a bit dragged out.
I liked Rob's character. He was extremely pragmatic. And the fact that he was willing to accept a relationship which he thought of as love but was certainly not was a testament to the damage caused by his relationship with his father. You can see he has never received praise from the man and that has caused him to too easily accept a life he truly doesn't want and is not happy with.
Their romance was a very slow burn. But I will say, I never truly felt the pull between them. I just felt like they were always angry at each other and much of the time for no reason. Natalie carried her grudge of Rob's one star review but didn't take responsibility for what she actually wrote in the book and how it might affect others. The romance definitely didn't feel like the central plot to this book, which I kind of wanted it to be given the enemies to lovers trope.
The plot line rumbled along throughout most of the book and I felt like I just kept waiting and waiting for something to happen between Rob and Natalie which I know was the point but it felt a bit drawn out. I knew there would be something huge that would bring them together at some point. I wasn't thrilled with what it was. I cannot imagine the plot turn that happened would be the reason these two would finally realize they wanted each other. Maybe it was the "you only have one life" and "you never know what might happen" vibe that did it but it wasn't completely clear.
Overall, this was a cute read. It's a commentary on how to navigate the shifts in life as you get older. It touches on friendships, love, loss, Dementia, cancer, and the pandemic as it's told over a 10 year time span. This one will be good for an easy and fast beach or pool read for the summer.

 Thank you to Harlequin and Edelweiss for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I'm all about hockey romance. And I love how Elle Kennedy writes them. This book was so much fun. I really enjoyed getting to know the characters and watching them morph and change and fall for each other. Throw in forbidden love and it makes it even more fun.
Hayden is a fun character who craves stability after growing up being dragged around by her hockey coach of a father. She never liked hockey, either. She throws herself into the one night stand without abandon and comes out on the other side more attached than she wanted to be. There's an immediate attraction to Brody, something she cannot deny, though she tries throughout the book.
Brody is known to be a guy who doesn't settle. He's had his share of bad boy ways. But when he meets Hayden, there's something about her that he wants all of. I love that he's not broody. I love that he tells her exactly how he feels and what he wants, even if she pushes him away.
Of course it's not all sex and spicy times for this book. The plot is interesting with the fixing of the games, people being bribed, and finding out who done it. I think the biggest plot line is that of betrayal for both Hayden and Brody and how this effects their relationship and potential commitment to each other. I did find things may have just been thrown in to try and pull more tension from the reader; like Hayden's father's alcoholism, which seems kind of unnecessary and wasn't treated how I would have liked it (coming from a family of addiction). I think more research was needed for this part of the plot line.
My only issue with the book was Hayden and her "ex". She doesn't exactly cheat, but it kind of feels like it with how she keeps things from him. I'm not ok with that sort of dishonesty. It seemed to me Hayden knew she didn't want to be with the ex, yet it felt like maybe she was dragging him along a bit, making him wait for her even though they were on a break.
The book definitely lived up to its label of spicy rom-com. I found myself laughing at many times and the spice had me squirming and wanting more. The chemistry between the main characters was enjoyable. And I found both characters relatable. Or at least as relatable as I can when it comes to famous hockey players.
Overall, this was a nice read. I'd read more hockey romance from this author because I do love Kennedy. I can tell this is one of her earlier works, having read more recent things and seen how much more easily her books progress with plot lines that a bit more deep than what was given here. 

This book could not be more of a plagiarized Hunger Games if the author tried. Also Red Queen, Shatter mMe, The Darkest Minds, Defy the Night. It’s all those books with all the scenes from those books with characters with different names and some gender swapping. It’s one thing to take inspiration from a book, quite another two little use the same scenes in your book.

Thank you to Avon who sent me an advanced copy of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Delfina Silva-Miller is having some bad luck. She's out a boyfriend, a roommate, an apartment, and a job! She finds herself back in her hometown; a place she never thought she would return. And a place where she experienced heartache, lonliness, and abandonment. She finds herself interacting with her childhood nemesis, Edgardo. As she tries to get her life back together, she slowly realizes perhaps her hometown was not as bad as she thought it was and perhaps the one person she thought she hated might be the soul mate she never thought she'd have.

This was a fabulous debut for Betty Corrello. She did a wonderful job with her character development, her plot line, and her pacing.

I went into this book thinking there would be a bit more romance than there was. And I thought I would be disappointed. But I was, in fact, very pleased with how this story progressed. I was happy the story was not all romance and spice. The plot was focused on Del's growth and her experience as she comes to terms with who she is and where she wants her life to go. Throughout the book she learns to open her heart more and more. She learns forgiveness and love. 

Del is a great character. I love that she's almost thirty and is still struggling with being an adult. This is such a true representation of what we are seeing these days with people returning to home as they try to put their life in order. So many people struggle with being an adult at such an early age and then feeling they failed because they are not able to pull it off. She's vulnerable and definitely wears that on her sleeve, despite not wanting to do so.

Edgardo is so sweet and tender. I love that he's a hometown guy who truly enjoys where he lives. And I love how his experiences didn't make him an angry person but show that he was capable of great growth. And his relationship with his family is so fun. I loved watching the banter between them.

I really enjoyed the flashbacks Corrello incorporated into the story. They gave amazing background on the relationship between Del and Eddie and how they had this intrinsic push and pull toward and away from each other over the course of their teen years. Many of their moments were filled with what they termed hate but really was them fighting their attraction to one another. It totally reminded me of the relationships I had in high school.

There was lots of humor used in this book to form the relationship between the characters. We are told many times how funny Del is and you can feel this with her interactions with Eddie, her grandmother, her father, and a few of the other side characters in the book.

One thing that pulled me out of the story was not having much of a background from the last ten years Del has spent away from her hometown and Eddie. I need more of what she truly experienced during that time. We do get some of this for Eddie, but also not as much as I would have liked to truly shape him and show us why he is the way he is. Since the entire book is told from Del's point of view, we never truly know what's going on in Eddie's head. I feel like having his point of view would have really helped with being able to form a better opinion on his character.

This was a great summer or beach read. Something easy to move your mind into feel good stuff. A second chance romance that is sweet and slow to burn. An exploration of relationships, love, and friendships and how these all help shape a life. An impressive first foray for this author into writing.

Three is generous. Lots of sex. Lots of anger. Meh plot line. Can see it’s an early work compared to more recent things I’ve read. Let’s see what the rest of the series brings. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing me with a copy of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I am a big Nicola Yoon fan. I've read all her YA and I was super excited to see what her dive into adult fiction would be like. So much so, I didn't even read the blurb for this one but just requested it because I was sure I would love it.
Unfortunately, this book left me confused and unsatisfied.
When I started reading it, I saw it's intent of the book: show the fear of what it's like to be a Black person in the United States; show that racism still exists; show that Black people feel as though they are being erased in one form or another. I was very interested to watch the book blossom. To learn things from the book that would help me understand what it's like to be Black in our country. And, at some points, it did. I felt the fear, I felt the uncertainty, I felt the injustice. But, I also felt lost. Even at 50% into the book, I really had no idea where it was going. Yes, I knew there was mystery and thrill to be had, but I had zero inkling of what that could even possibly be.
I definitely got the Stepford Wives vibes that I'm sure the author was going for. There's a sense of dread from the very beginning. You just know things are not going to end well.
I wasn't a fan of the FMC, Jasmyn. She didn't have much depth to her. I really wanted to be on her side and see where she was coming from but overall I just felt like her character missed the mark with helping me feel empathy and really understanding her plight. She comes across as very shallow. Her dedication to helping eradicate racism and help her community is commendable. At the same time, she is very judgemental and revolves her entire life around this change, so much so she judges others if they do not do what she does. As if her way of being Black was better than anyone who might choose a different path.
As for the other characters, I didn't understand, connect, or even really get to know them. They seemed very surface to me. 
The pacing was quite slow though Yoon's writing is good. I'm not sure I agree with the third person point of view she provided. Perhaps a first person point of view would have helped me connect more with the main character as she told the story. There is a lot of guessing how others are feeling, what they are doing, etc. and I just found it annoying.
Yoon makes a statement with the theme of this book when it comes to being a POC in the United States and how that feels. I was hoping to learn and grow and see how I could find something that would help me better understand this point of view. But, in the end, I was just left feeling unsatisfied.  Does it provide commentary on race and and class, sure. But it was really hard for me to connect with the characters.

 To say I was excited to read this is an understatement. I really have loved Kennedy's works in the past and I'm a huge fan of the Off Campus series. I also enjoyed the first book in this series. And the blurb for this one had me really excited: fake dating, enemies to lovers, close proximity. All tropes I enjoy!
Diana and Shane are enemies. Now they live next door to each other and the tension is rising. When Shane needs Diana to pose as his fake girlfriend, she's not thrilled but does it anyway. As the fake relationship progresses from friends to friends with benefits, Diana and Shane find themselves slowly catching feelings. But can she give her heart over to the guy who has blown through her cheer squad? And can he show her he's not the man whore he's been made out to be?
I'm going to start with what I liked about this book and move on to the things I had issues with.
First, Diana Dixon. I really like her. She's spunky and no non-sense. Brash and not willing to compromise. Yet, she has a soft side and also some insecurities that come to surface when she experiences some trauma. She also has a love/hate relationship with her mother while she's super close with her dad. I remember her character from The Graham Effect and remembered liking her in that book, as well. I loved that we got her story here.
Shane, yep, man whore from the first book. But who knew the real reason. We know from book 1 he had a long term relationship that ended at which point he started sleeping around. But the emotional reasons were not clear. In this book, we see a deeper side of Shane. He's not at all the boy toy he's made out to be. There is a deep longing for connection and love within him. His character had the most growth in this book.
I totally enjoyed how Kennedy wove the older Off Campus and Briar U characters into this book, as well. We get glimpses of them in several situations and it's just fun watching these younger characters be in awe of the older ones.
And the banter. That was great. Diana and Shane really knew how to go at each other with is. I laughed out loud many times during the book.
Let's talk a bit about the supporting cast. For the most part, we see familiar faces from past books. Like Ryder and Gigi, who were the main characters in the first book. They are important because Gigi is Diana's best friend and Ryder is Shane's teammate and ex-roommate. Beyond that, we were introduced to so many new side characters, mostly from the apartment complex, and I'm not sure what the point of all of them were. Sure, we got to see some different personalities but it didn't lend much to the story. And I thought for sure we would see a development with Diana and Shane's neighbors in their own building, but we really did not.
On to plot. Well, there were several. And I think it made the book unnecessarily long, to be honest.
I will address the domestic abuse plot line because I think that was super important to the development of Diana's character. This particular plot point showed her vulnerability, which she tries so hard throughout the book to bury deep. But it's there. I also though Kennedy did a good job with showing how the victim often times will feel the need to sweep the abuse under the rug in lieu of being thought of as weak. So often those being abused will keep it hidden and suffer so much. I was happy Diana was able to come to terms with the need to bring the abuse out in the open and then deal with it.
However, when one plot line resolved, we were introduced to another. It slowed the pacing of the book for me and I honestly had to push through to the end to see what happens. I have not really had this happen with Kennedy books in the past (though Girl Abroad didn't leave a great taste in my mouth). I feel like this book does not do the world Kennedy has created justice. There were just too many plot points to keep track of: domestic abuse, friends with benefits, kinks, terminal diagnosis. Unnecessary drama, which resolves but seemed like filler. And then sadness that was totally unexpected and I'm not sure what the point of it was to the plot line, at least where developing and moving the characters along in their arcs were concerned. It was like the author wanted to keep building the relationship but could not continue with the plot points full to the end because they had nowhere to go. It was frustrating. And because there were so many plot lines, it made the book feel like there really was not plot at all above the friends with benefits fake dating situation going on.
And then the book seemingly just ended. All the action took place in the last quarter of the book but then, poof, that was it. No true resolution to things. The domestic abuse is thrown to the side. That definitely needed finality. The death issue was resolved more easily than I would have thought possible, as well. And the epilogue really did nothing for the plot. A few cute text messages? Meh, what was the point?
Overall, I liked it enough but I am disappointed in this one compared to the other books I have read by this author. Maybe I'm outgrowing this genre or maybe the author needs to branch out and create newer more interesting story lines that will keep me entertained. Will I read other books by this author, absolutely. But will I be cautious going into them and not getting ahead of myself with loving it, I sure will!