This is my fifth book by Felicity Niven and the first time I've been left so emotionally bereft at the end that I felt truly hungover. Felicity has always excelled in nuanced character studies for her female main characters, but this was operating on a different level. Where the first 20% felt almost silly, it quickly became something else entirely, and I was reeling from the emotional depth.

All that to say: Sherry Thomas readers, this one's for us. This is a level of messy, ragey chest-pain angst that felt reminiscent of Private Arrangements. It's a dual-timeline friends-to-lovers story that starts with playfully pedantic sex lessons (the "friends with benefits" set-up of historical romance), but then, with the discovery of traumatic twists, it devolves into a heady mix of hate-sex and groveling in the second half, forcing both characters to confront deeply held insecurities and fears. Please check content warnings for this one - several of the twists could be triggering for some readers.

For long-time Felicity readers, you'll be excited to know we get wonderful references back to so many of our favorite characters from the Lovelocks (I hadn't thought of Bed Me, Duke as a bit of a capsule story, but this felt fully immersed in our interconnected Felicity universe in a different way, and it was a delight).

This is going to be a knock-out for trash-for-angst readers who live for groveling and catharsis and pining. Thanks to the author for a complimentary advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Lizards Hold the Sun, a contemporary romance by Dani Trujillo, celebrates indigenous ancestry and belonging through its central love story between Xiomara and Calehan and through their work together to relocate and preserve sacred remains and artifacts from an island burial mound. Our FMC Xiomara is Apache; originally from Mexico, she is now an archaeologist working on an at-risk site on a reservation in Bunchberry, Canada, where she meets local Cree dreamboat and architect, Calehan Yellowbird. While Xiomara leads the excavation and relocation, Calehan is building the museum that will house the artifacts from the site, and the two are immediately drawn to each other through their shared passion for the work. This is a heartbreakingly tender romance between two people who have both suffered big losses and have consistently prioritized the needs of others over themselves. Their love story is earnest and flirtatious and gentle and consuming, and its pacing felt so real to me that when the inevitable blowup hit in the third act, it felt... right. The withheld information felt so understandable (who doesn't fear those big conversations early in a whirlwind romance?) that I never felt frustrated with either character, even as I was weepy through the final 20%. There were a few times I was momentarily pulled out of the story simply due to editing slips (dropped words or awkward transitions in action, repeated details - ultimately, small stuff), but the imagery was so sensory and the world so well-built that I was always pulled right back in. This is a story that wraps around you.

I can't wait to read more from Trujillo - this is an exciting debut, and I would highly recommend it to all romance readers.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! System Collapse, by Martha Wells, is the seventh installment in The Murderbot Diaries, though only the second full-length novel in this series (and even at that, it's still short!). Wells' latest installment was easily another five-star Murderbot diary entry for me.

We pick up after the events of Network Effect, with Murderbot, ART and our combined Preservation/University/Colonist crews royally stuck. ART's wormhole drive is still out of commission, Preservation back-up ships haven't arrived, and our current corporate-villain Barish-Estranza is attempting to subvert their efforts to free the colonists and/or set them up for independence (by instead attempting to convince the colonists to sign away their own freedom as contract, read: slave, labor). And on top of this giant mess, we have a highly traumatized Murderbot still coping with the final events of Network Effect. 

Throughout the first half we know something significant happened that has divided Murderbot's sense of self into before and after, but the event itself is redacted from Murderbot's entry. Our generally sarcastic but self-assured Murderbot is now deeply uneasy, compulsively checking its risk assessment module and performance reliability, frequently drifting into thought and forgetting its surroundings, and, most shocking, doubting its ability and worth at every turn. For anyone who has lived experienced with panic attacks or panic disorder, Murderbot's distress is painfully real. It spends a majority of the book's mission attempting to function while processing past events. Each installment in this series manages to explore a new facet of personhood, belonging and self-awareness, and this was perhaps the most emotional journey yet. Ultimately, System Collapse is a deeply satisfying conclusion to the events of Network Effect and I highly recommend to all Murderbot readers. 

Thank you to the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! This book truly is a love letter to some of historical romance's most beloved tropes (road trip, only one bed at the inn, forced proximity and enemies-to-lovers, primarily). I found the plot ultimately overburdened the love story, and it felt like it cost the characters time to develop their relationship on page. I didn't really see where and how the insta-lust matured into something deeper and more sustainable, and there were a lot of moments of push-and-pull between characters that felt a bit like whiplash and ultimately made the character development for each of them feel disjointed. Each main character's moments of emotional insight were narrator-driven or revealed in extended inner monologue, and I would have loved to see more evidence of their growth in their dialogue and events on page. This is a debut, and I look forward to reading more from this author, because I know that finding the balance between these elements evolves with each book and will feel different for every reader.