Reviews by unsuccessfulbookclub

916 reviews by:

unsuccessfulbookclub

A Cowboy to Remember

Rebekah Weatherspoon

3.25

emotional lighthearted tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

After reading A Thorn in the Saddle I absolutely had to go back and get whole story on the Pleasant family from the beginning, so here we are with Zach’s book: A Cowboy to Remember. Actually, I’d like to call this Evie’s book, since she’s really the most likeable one of the pair.

This book features Evie Buchanan, a celebrity chef who finds herself without her memories after an encounter with an old co-worker, and Zach Pleasant, luxury ranch owner and former rodeo star, brother to Jesse Pleasant from book 3. This book is great - hugely plot driven with lots of hilarious banter. Rebekah Weatherspoon writes *the best* friend groups. Her friends never fail to crack me up and they are always so beautifully reliable and honest with her MCs. For a Weatherspoon it’s pretty low heat, but the story is compelling so I still didn’t want to put this down. If you’re into cowboy hats? This one’s for you. 🤠

Zach and Evie have *history* but of course she is unaware of it, so their relationship is a little fraught. Okay, it’s a lot fraught, but I loved how much Jesse and Miss Leona (Zach’s grandmother) and Evie’s friends watched out for her. And I adored being along for the ride as Evie quite literally remembered herself (and figured out things like texting and Instagram DMs).

👍🏻Recommended for fans of cowboys, big family drama, reality TV, cooking shows and awesome friend groups.

Content Warnings

The Kingmaker

Kennedy Ryan

3.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is bonkers - just absolutely bananas - and it ends on a huge cliffhanger that had my heart pounding at 1030pm, and not in a good way. I was *not ready* for Kennedy Ryan, y’all.

There’s a pipeline protest! There’s an Antarctic expedition! There are missing and murdered Indigenous women! There is a trip to Amsterdam (complete with tulips)! There’s a PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN?!? A trip to Central America to distribute vaccines! A billionaire boyfriend who can provide private jet dates! There are lies of omission! There is sex! There is swoon!

I loved Lennix, the heroine. She is brilliant and brave and so resolved in her convictions. Maxim, well, he’s okay. He has a possessive streak that borders on invasive, and despite very clearly knowing that this is a book about the super wealthy, I picked it up and was once again reminded that super-wealthy protagonists piss me off. Try all you want to make him a “good” billionaire, I’m just envisioning Elon Musk. 🥴

👍🏻 All told I think this is definitely worth your time if you’re looking for a book with love in it but also with a LOT of other stuff going on. Anticipate the cliffhanger and mind the CW (I’ve put them in the comments).

Content Warnings

The Fastest Way To Fall

Denise Williams

3.75

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

There are so many things to love about this book, even though the plot balances on one of my *least* favorite tropes: lying. Wes and Britta don’t miss a single opportunity to not come clean about their real identities for most of the story. Gang. This bothers me. It makes me so anxious for the inevitable conflict when the couple finds out the lie and it laces every interaction with an uncomfortable power imbalance that makes it so hard for me to swoon as hard as I want to. I needed about 20% less lying and 20% more banging, but here we are.

That said, I loved Britta. And Wes! And Britta’s friends! The wedding scene in this book is super swoony, and following Britta fall in love with exercise and herself was really great. Britt’s is supremely likable and relatable. Love love love her. Can we have more heroines like this please? Can we have more heroines who enjoy exercise at all sizes too? There is a trope where FMCs just don’t like working out and I’m here for a lazy day, but there are so many benefits to exercise beyond what you look like and I want more of that represented.

Denise Williams can write a toxic ex!!!! Wow. Kelsey?! 😤 This is after putting one of the worst fictional men into the universe in How to Fail at Flirting: Davis. This book is teeming with superbly unlikeable jerks. We have Ben, the toxic hipster, Mason the douche-y marketer (who totally redeems himself!), and Wes’s mom, who more than anything is sad, but woof, also brutally difficult to deal with (great redemption arc here, too!)

Content Warnings

A Thorn in the Saddle

Rebekah Weatherspoon

3.75

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

In typical chaos demon fashion, I picked up A Thorn in the Saddle without reading the first two books in the series, so although I spent too much time wondering just *who* all of these side characters were, that’s on me.

This story features Jesse Pleasant, a luxury ranch owner with an anger management problem (and, at 6’7”, perhaps the tallest MMC I have read about) and Lily-Grace LeRoux, a former tech executive back in her hometown of Charming, CA escaping a toxic workplace and a super sh*tty ex.

This book was really sweet with an epilogue that actually made me cry a little! Jesse has lots of emotional baggage to work through and he *does*. Lily-Grace has some things to deal with and she *does*!

Hottest thing in the book? He goes to therapy and then works on healing his relationships! 🥵🥵🥵

A little trope list for you:

He falls first
Long-term pining
Childhood friends
Small town romance
S e x lessons (she teaches him)
“I will face my fears for you” (wow this is surprisingly swoony)
Extravagant gifts
Date auction
Lots of cowboy hats 😂
Older MCs - both are in their late 30s

I have seen a few requests lately from readers seeking romance where both leads are Black. Here is a great one! She also has vitiligo which is another first in an MC for me.

👍🏻Recommended for fans of modern cowboys, sweet love stories, heroes who fave their fears and great communication!

Content Warnings

A Lady by Midnight

Tessa Dare

4.5

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A Lady by Midnight is funny, swoony and spicy! There’s even a puppy. 🥰

I am just barely getting into historical romance so I can’t tell you if I truly love the genre yet but I can tell you that this particular book was great. Tessa gives us Corporal Thorne, a big silent hulk of a grump with an absolutely ooey-gooey cinnamon roll middle. (This man irons clothes y’all, but he also fights and hunts and does all kinds of burly man things.) What Dare also gives us in this book is basically the opposite of miscommunication although there is a lot of intrigue and some unwillingness to part with information from the past. Kate, the heroine, is awesome - she’s a musician and tutor and she really takes no s h i t. Not from Thorne OR the mysterious wealthy relatives who show up with keys to her past (and potential future).

The tension in this one is *impeccable*. The MCs cannot keep their hands off of each other after they finally admit to liking one another. There is LONG term pining and he falls first.

👍🏻Recommended if you are new to historical romance and a fan of Downton Abbey who loves a strong silent type who IRONS, but also a super smart heroine who gets what she wants and won’t be lied to.

Tempest

Beverly Jenkins

4.0

adventurous emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Beverly Jenkins is a legend for a few reasons.

She is a Black woman writing romance focused on Black joy, and she’s been at it since the early 90s!
Her work focuses on Black love in historical settings where Black people are typically only portrayed in the context of slavery.
She literally assigns homework in her author’s notes. 🤓

Now, on to Tempest! Tempest is set in the Wyoming territory in the 1870s and centers on a kickass female lead, Regan, who is headed to meet a widower, Dr. Colton Lee, as his mail-order bride. Things get off to kind of a rocky start because Regan shoots Colt on sight. Oops.

The relationship between Regan and Colt eventually warms as she settles herself into life in the territory and helps Colt raise his daughter, Anna. This book is full of old west vibes: one room schoolhouses, wild cougars on the loose, meddling townsfolk, and plenty of excitement. It’s decently spicy and Regan is a woman who knows what she wants, whereas Colt has a few old-fashioned ideas about “decent women” 🙄. I think my favorite parts of the book are when Regan disabuses Colt of those notions. 😂

I particularly enjoyed the history lessons Jenkins wove through the story such as Dr. Lee’s MD from Howard, and the Rock Springs riots during the construction of the Union Pacific railroad. Dr. Lee is also an adherent to Dr. Lister’s germ theory, so is extremely clean about his work - a relatively new idea during the era. These are little geeky details that I love!

👍🏻Recommended for fans of westerns, American history, strong heroines and Black joy.

Rebel

Beverly Jenkins

2.75

informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

A Court of Silver Flames

Sarah J. Maas

4.5

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A Court of Frost and Starlight

Sarah J. Maas

3.5

emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

The Office of Historical Corrections

Danielle Evans

5.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This collection is amazing.

Danielle Evans is a force, a talent, a gifted writer, a freaking prose deity, all of the superlatives. Every story in this collection is detailed, gripping, and emotionally charged but also incredibly pedestrian - on the surface.

Some standouts for me:

Boys Go To Jupiter: in which a phenomenally self-absorbed white girl goes to great lengths to justify her blatant racism. I have never felt more uncomfortable while reading a story, in the best way.
Why Won’t Women Just Say What They Want: in which an artist disappears for years only to reinsert himself in the public consciousness via extremely public and elaborate apologies. Everything about this one is perfect.
Anything Could Disappear: in which a young woman unintentionally kidnaps a toddler.
The Office of Historical Corrections: a novella that is simultaneously deep commentary on history and historians, racial justice, Black womanhood, the federal government, gentrification and white supremacy and also a really interesting near-future story about a woman doing her (boring) job.

👍🏻Recommended for fans of short stories and contemporary fiction. If you liked Milk, Blood, Heat by Dantiel Moniz or Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw, you will enjoy this.

Content Warnings

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