Category: characters

Book Review: My Favourite Mistake, by Marian Keyes

Image belongs to Penguin Random House.

Title:  My Favourite Mistake
Author: Marian Keyes         
Genre: Romance        
Rating: 4 out of 5  

Anna has just lost her taste for the big apple . . .

Anna has a life to envy. An apartment in New York. A well-meaning (too well-meaning?) partner. And a high-flying job in beauty PR. Who wouldn’t want all that? Anna—it turns out.

Turning a minor mid-life crisis into a major life event she packs it in, heads back to Ireland, and gets a PR job for a super-high-end coastal retreat.

Tougher than it sounds. Newsflash: the locals hate it. So much so, there have been threats—and violence.

Anna, however, worked in the beauty industry. There’s no ugliness she hasn’t seen. No wrinkle she can’t smooth over. Anna’s got this.

Until she discovers that leaving New York doesn’t mean escaping her mistakes.

Once upon a time she’d had a best friend. Once upon a time she’d loved a man. Now she has neither. And now she has to face them.

We all make mistakes.

But when do we stop making the same one over and over again?

This was the first Marian Keyes novel I’d read, and I was really impressed with the writing—the setting was so well done! I enjoyed Anna’s voice a lot; that was the only reason I kept reading, because she was too whiny for me and spent way too much time feeling sorry for herself. I was happy that Anna managed to grow and change throughout the novel—but I’ll probably not read the rest of these books, as Anna’s drove me up the  wall.

Marian Keyes is from Ireland. My Favourite Mistake is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review:  That Prince is Mine, by Jayci Lee    

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:   That Prince is Mine
Author:  Jayci Lee       
Genre: Romance      
Rating: 4 out of 5

Emma Yoon runs a small business as a culinary instructor in Los Angeles teaching Korean royal court cuisine to young ladies striving to marry into the exclusive upper crust Korean families. She has built her business alongside her renowned Korean matchmaker godmother, which brings her one step closer to her dream of opening up a culinary school on her own. But when her godmother’s fellow matchmakers decide to meddle in Emma’s love life in a bid to sabotage her godmother, and indirectly push Emma’s dream out of her reach, she must go on a series of arranged first dates and find herself the perfect-on-paper husband to help save both, her godmother’s reputation and her dream–even if she’s not ready for love. But when she meets Michel Aubert, a professor at USC, after a series of disastrous first dates, she wonders if she might reevaluate her position on love.

Prince Michel Aubert is bound by duty and responsibility to his country, but an arranged marriage is the last thing he wants. If he is going to spend the rest of his life in service of his people, then he at least wants someone he loves and trusts by his side while doing it. He needs to find a woman who loves him for who he is before his engagement to his handpicked bride is announced. Emma Yoon might be just the woman he is looking for.

This was a fun read! A prince in disguise, a girl who doesn’t believe in love, and lots of yummy-sounding food combine to keep the reader invested and entertained. Emma’s cynicism regarding love is understandable, and I enjoyed how she slowly became open to changing her mind about it. The secondary characters were a lot of fun here, and I’d be happy to read more about them.

Jayci Lee lives in California. That Prince is Mine is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Haunting of Hecate Cavendish, by Paula Brackston      

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  The Haunting of Hecate Cavendish     
Author: Paula Brackston         
Genre:  Historical fiction      
Rating:   4.5 out of 5

England, 1881.

Hereford cathedral stands sentinel over the city, keeping its secrets, holding long forgotten souls in its stony embrace. Hecate Cavendish speeds through the cobbled streets on her bicycle, skirts hitched daringly high, heading for her new life as Assistant Librarian. But this is no ordinary collection of books. The cathedral houses an ancient chained library, wisdom guarded for centuries, mysteries and stories locked onto its worn, humble shelves. The most prized artifact, however, is the medieval world map which hangs next to Hecate’s desk. Little does she know how much the curious people and mythical creatures depicted on it will come to mean to her. Nor does she suspect that there are lost souls waiting for her in the haunted cathedral. Some will become her dearest friends. Some will seek her help in finding peace. Others will put her in great peril, and, as she quickly learns, threaten the lives of everyone she loves.

I really enjoyed this read! Hecate is a fascinating character, and I loved getting to know her. This is a very atmospheric novel, and I was fully absorbed into the setting. The characters—including the ghosts—are well-done and believable, and I was eager to see where the story took them. Can’t wait to read more in this series.

Paula Brackston is a bestselling author. The Haunting of Hecate Cavendish is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review and Blog Tour:   The Backtrack, by Erin La Rosa   

Image belongs to Harlequin Trade.

Title: The Backtrack
Author:  Erin La Rosa     
Genre: Romance
Rating:  4 out of 5

Life, rewound …

Nearly twenty years ago, Sam Leto left her small hometown of Tybee Island, Georgia, to pursue her dreams of becoming a pilot. While she’d prefer to keep flying away from her painful childhood memories, her beloved grandmother Pearl decides it’s time to sell the family home. Reluctantly, Sam is summoned back to pack up the house.

The 2000s nostalgia from Sam’s old bedroom hits Fall Out Boy posters, drawers of roll-on body glitter and even her favorite CD player with a mixtape from her best friend, Damon Rocha. Damon was always a safe place and Sam often wonders what if her teenage self admitted her feelings for him back then…

Mysteriously, the CD player still works all these years later. And somehow it has the power to show Sam an alternate version of her life.

Song by song, Sam receives flashbacks from her past—senior prom, graduation, leaving home. But the memories aren’t as she remembers them; they show what could have been. Suddenly, Sam knows exactly what would have happened if she’d taken a chance with Damon—and she can’t help feeling she made a terrible mistake leaving Tybee all those years ago.

This was an interesting read to me. It did a great job of placing me in the early 2000s—that was a little unsettling, actually—and I really like both Sam and Damon and their alternates. Sam’s grandma was a hoot and she really had me laughing. I liked how well-done the setting felt, both in the present and the past, and that made this story a believable read for me.

Erin La Rosa lives in L.A. The Backtrack is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin Trade in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Year of What If, by Phaedra Patrick

Image belongs to Harlequin/Park Row.

Title:  The Year of What If  
Author: Phaedra Patrick         
Genre: Fiction        
Rating:    4 out of 5

Can the future be rewritten?

On the verge of her second marriage, Carla Carter knows she’s found the one. She and her fiancé, Tom, met through Logical Love, a dating agency she founded for the pragmatically minded, and she’s confident that, together, they’ll dispel an old family curse claiming Carter women are unlucky in love.

But when Carla’s superstitious family insists she visit a fortune teller before her big day, the tarot reveals that the love of Carla’s life is not Tom, but one of the men she dated on a gap year—twenty-one years ago. With her wedding just weeks away, Carla sets off across Europe, tracking down her exes from that unforgettable year to prove the fortune wrong. From Spain to Portugal, Italy to France, will one of them be her perfect match? And could a face from Carla’s past help her rewrite her entire family history forever?

I was a little iffy about Carla at first, with her insistence on logic and rules, but she grew on me. I loved her travels, and her bravery in returning to men she had known so long before to see if they were “the one.” Her family was pretty messed up, but I liked their quirkiness. This was a solid, enjoyable read.

Phaedra Patrick is a bestselling author. The Year of What If is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/Park Row in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review:   The Calculation of You and Me, by Serena Kaylor

The image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  The Calculation of You and Me         
Author:  Serena Kaylor        
Genre: YA        
Rating: 4 out of 5

Marlowe Thompson understands a lot of things. She understands that calculus isn’t overwhelmingly beautiful to everyone, and that it typically kills the mood when you try to talk Python coding over beer pong. She understands people were surprised when golden boy Josh asked her out and she went from weird, math-obsessed Marlowe to half of their school’s couple goals. Unfortunately, Marlowe was surprised when Josh dumped her because he’d prefer a girlfriend who was more romantic. One with emotional depth.

But Marlowe has never failed anything in her life, and she isn’t about to start now. When she’s paired with Ashton Hayes for an English project, his black clothing and moody eyeliner cause a bit of a systems overload, and the dissonant sounds of his rock band make her brain itch. But when she discovers Ash’s hidden stash of love songs, Marlowe makes a desperate deal to unleash her inner romantic heroine: if Ash will agree to help her write some love letters, she’ll calculate the perfect data analytics formula to make Ash’s band go viral.

As the semester heats up with yearning love notes and late nights spent with a boy who escapes any box her brain tries to put him in, Marlowe starts to question if there’s really a set solution to love. Could a girl who has never met a problem she couldn’t solve have gotten the math so massively wrong?

This was a cute read! I really enjoyed Marlow’s POV, and Ash is a great character, too. A teenage boy who reads romances? Totally unbelievable, but awesome. I enjoyed Marlow’s two BFFs, too, but her sister kind of got on my nerves. This ended up being very sweet and fun, and would make a great weekend binge-read.

Serena Kaylor grew up in North Carolina. The Calculation of You and Me is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

The Best Books I Read in June (2024)

In June, I read 20 books, bringing my total for the year to 108 books. I also DNFed 15 books—yikes! (I think it’s because I was behind on reading, so I was less tolerant and far less likely to keep reading to see if the story picked up). Of those 20 books, three were really excellent.

The Iron Sword, by Julie Kagawa. I’ve been re-reading this entire series since last year, one book a month, and thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering the world and the characters. I’m reading the final book in the series in July, and I’ve never read it, so I’m excited.

The Mountain Between Us, by Charles Martin. This was the last remaining Martin book I hadn’t read—sob—and it was so, so good! He is a master at his craft, and, as always, manages to work the gospel in there between the lines of the fiction. Now I need to watch the movie.

The Rom-Commers, by Katherine Center. I have yet to read a Katherine Center book I didn’t love, and this was no exception. Emma really made me laugh, but so did Charlie. This was a wonderful, fun read.

Book Review: Heir, Apparently, by Kara McDowell   

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books.

Title: Heir, Apparently  
Author:  Kara McDowell      
Genre: YA      
Rating:  5 out of 5

Freshman year is stressful enough without accidentally being married to the King of England. Of course, Wren Wheeler can’t tell her Northwestern classmates about that; after surviving a narrowly-averted apocalypse over the summer, everyone’s had enough excitement for one lifetime. Wren knows she needs to move on from Theo, but she can’t forget the look in his eyes when he left her on that island in Greece—and also, he took her dog.

When an ill-fated attempt to rescue Comet the Apocalypse Dog turns into a chemistry-fueled reunion with Theo that’s caught by the paparazzi, Wren finds herself under the royal spotlight. Suddenly, she’s a problem for “the firm” to solve, and in order to be protected from the rabid press, she’ll have to fly back to London with Theo. Along for the ride are Naomi and Brooke, as well as Theo’s siblings, including Henry, the brother he’s spent his life being compared to. But because the universe can’t let these two maybe-newlyweds have one conversation in peace, their plane goes down over the Atlantic, crashing on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere.

Stranded with no sign of rescue, the group will have to band together against poisonous animals, catastrophic injuries, a brotherly rivalry, and an ill-timed volcano if they’re going to make it out alive. And, scariest of all, Wren and Theo will have to face their feelings for one another and decide what they want their futures to look like—and if that future will be heartbreak, or happily ever after.

This book was so much fun! Full disclosure:  I tried—and failed—to read seven books in a row and ended up DNFing Every. Single. One. That’s definitely a record for me. So, I decided to console myself by reading this. This was the perfect pick-me-up read!  It was funny, it was cute, it was romantic…it was perfect!

I loved Wren’s POV of view and voice so much, she captures the confusions and chaos of her life so well. Theo is, of course, super attractive and appealing, despite a few annoying tendencies, and their chemistry is so much fun to read. I loved all the secondary characters, too, even Victoria.

Kara McDowell lives in Mesa, Arizona. Heir, Apparently is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: 15 Summers Later, by RaeAnne Thayne    

Image belongs to Harlequin Trade/Canary Street Press.

Title: 15 Summers Later          
Author: RaeAnne Thayne         
Genre:  Romance       
Rating:  4 out of 5

15 summers ago, everything changed…

Ava Howell seemed to have it all. She moved away from Emerald Creek, Idaho, married the love of her life and published a bestselling memoir. But she never expected that her husband would feel so betrayed by a secret from her past—the truth of what happened to her and her sister all those years ago—that he’d walk away. Now Ava is back home and trying to move on with the only person who can truly understand…

Following years of healing, Madison Howell is finally happy. After college she built a no-kill shelter where she works with animals every day, and she’s in love with the town veterinarian, Dr. Luke Gentry. But she can’t ever bring herself to tell him. Years ago, his dad died protecting Madi and her sister, so how could he ever love her back?

With the truth laid bare, and the past that Ava and Madison have worked so hard to leave behind threatening everything they have built for themselves, the Howell sisters’ reunion is bittersweet. And as Ava and Madi attempt to remedy the rifts in their lives and reconcile their futures, they must face the demons of their past together.

This was a sweet read! I had some problems understanding why Maddie was so bitter towards Ava, and why she refused to even consider Ava’s point-of-view about the book, though. That came across as really selfish to me, so it was a bit off-putting, but I did enjoy both sisters. All the secondary characters were likable and believable, too, and this was a solid read.

RaeAnne Thayne lives in Utah. 15 Summers Later is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin Trade/Canary Street Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Rom-Commers, by Katherine Center   

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  The Rom-Commers   
Author: Katherine Center  
Genre: Romance        
Rating:  5 out of 5

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?

Like all of Katherine Center’s reads, this was stellar! I don’t even know how many times I laughed out lead reading this. Emma’s voice is fantastic and her and Charlie together are so much fun. I loved the style of this novel and found it drew me in from the very beginning and made me part of the story. This would be an excellent beach or weekend read.

Katherine Center is a bestselling author. The Rom-Commers is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)