I am in love with this cover! I completely read a book based on a cover and this one called to me so loudly. Those colors pop beautifully and I can imagine in a bookstore they would do so even more. I’m a huge Sonali Dev fan from her first book, which I’ve talked about a ton here, so I was excited to see a Bollywood YA book like this. I’m so happy to say this book completely lived up to what I wanted. Continue reading “Book Review: My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma”
Holley Trent is a USA Today Bestselling author but is one that is new to me. I was looking for recs for authors of color and this book in particular was taking over my twitter timeline. I heard menage and addictive and I my antennae basically went up so I dove right in! Continue reading “Book Review: The Viking Queen’s Men by Holley Trent”
This book is So. Freaking. GOOD. On the one hand I’m mad that I didn’t find out about it until now because it released last fall. On the other hand I finished it and basically book 2 came out the same week…so yay! This book is seriously so cute, funny, and just what I needed to read. I can’t recommend it enough. Continue reading “Book Review: Acting on Impulse by Mia Sosa”
With everything that’s gone on in Romancelandia over the last few weeks it’s brought so much ugliness to the forefront of everyone’s minds. What’s come to light are some things that have just frankly never occurred to me about publishing; unconscious biases and to put it more overtly, racism, that is just built into our culture and society for the most part. And that includes me. I read across genres and across cultures and colors. I looked back through my reviews here on the blog over the last two years and of course I’ve reviewed Nalini Singh (my all time favorite author), Sonali Dev (who I adore), Alyssa Cole, Alisha Rai, Angie Thomas – but just because I’ve read and reviewed those authors here doesn’t excuse that I haven’t reviewed more. I looked through my Goodreads profile and there are more black authors there, more authors of color present. But…honestly? Not enough. I can do better. I *should* do better. Continue reading “Racism in Romance Reviewing – We can do better + Q&A with Holley Trent”
This is the third and final installment in Rai’s incredible soapy goodness romance series. I wouldn’t recommend reading it on its own because of the awesome buildup that comes from reading the first two books in this series. Some series are created to have each book stand on its own – I don’t feel that this one is made this way. The couple within this book – Evie and Gabe – stand on their own and get their HEA within the book and that part is definitely contained and can be read by itself. But the rest of the book is a wonderful tension that had built up in the first two books and finally exploded everywhere in this one . The last 25% of the book or so I couldn’t read quickly enough because every revelation was making my head spin and I felt like I was watching a tennis match. It truly was just like a soap opera – and I mean that in the best possible way! I loved every second of it. Continue reading “Book Review: Hurts to Love you by Alisha Rai”
Sometimes you’re looking for a light book, sometimes you’re looking for a more meaningful one, and sometimes you’re looking for something funny, you know? Invitation to the Blues by Roan Parrish is one of the more meaningful books that has some weight behind it. I don’t always read blurbs or even content warnings because I know authors that I like and I am almost never disappointed. I’m glad I was warned about this one going in just so that I could prepare myself. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVED this book. But it dealt with depression, anxiety, and mentions of previous suicide attempts, so not the easiest topics. If those things are hard to read about this book might not be for you. Continue reading “Book Review: Invitation to the Blues by Roan Parrish”
I love authors who do their own thing and just do it really, REALLY well. Alisha Rai, Courtney Milan, and Kit Rocha come to mind. This is admittedly probably because these authors are friends and I see them having intelligent discussions on Twitter, but also because in their respective books they are doing representation incredibly well and I am so *here* for it. I can definitely include Alyssa Cole in the group! Continue reading “Book Review: A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole”
This book is loosely tied to my BELOVED (and I think widely beloved) The Others series by Anne Bishop. It’s in the same world so I absolutely jumped at the chance to read it – and I mean squealed out loud when I saw ‘The World of The Others’ on the cover. Which BTW is smart marketing and a super easy way to convey to readers that it’s not in the series but it’s in that same world. Which I totally appreciated and for me I got right away what that meant. Continue reading “Book Review: Lake Silence by Anne Bishop”
I’m pretty sure my Sarina Bowen love is established for all here in the blog so I won’t bother reiterating it and boring all of you yet again…but I love her writing. Brooklynaire is loosely attached to her Brooklyn Bruiser series – in that it’s connected to the series and those who’ve read the previous books have been wanting this book BUT if you picked this book up cold, never having read the earlier ones you would be completely fine. I think that is incredibly smart and must have been so hard to do! This couple wasn’t so established that fans were dying for them, but just teased enough that we wondered. I love that a new reader could pick this up and not really be missing anything. I know that is a constant question, at least in the romance community, and here is a deft way to answer that. Continue reading “Book Review: Brooklynaire by Sarina Bowen”
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