abetterpaige's reviews
17 reviews

emotional fast-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

4.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hey Google, play Partition by Beyonce🥵

Ana Huang is keeping us fed with a new 7 book series, each showcasing one of the seven deadly sins. She kicked it off with Dante Russo, a ruthless businessman who’s married to his work and his billions. The female MC is Vivian Lau, and heiress to a new-money, jewelry conglomerate and proud owner of her own luxury event planning business. In Vivian’s family, arranged marriages aren’t uncommon, especially when they have the family’s best interest at heart. Her rocky relationship with her parents survives because of her respect for them, and when they tell her that she’s to be married, there’s nothing she can do but bite her tongue and accept it. Her husband by force? Dante Russo.

The first 100 pages of this book were 100 of my favorite pages written by Ana yet - I thought they were fun, funny, and immediately drew me in. Vivian is so multidimensional and I really liked her friends. After that… I was kind of surprised by the book. It wasn’t nearly as spicy as I thought it would be, and Dante and Vivian went from “enemies” to “kind of lovers” WAY faster than I thought they would. We also lost some of the side characters as we got into the depths of the story, in a way that didn’t happen in the Twisted series. Dante is a LOT like Christian so reading their stories so close together felt repetitive… but obviously I love him.

I still ate this book up in like two sittings and loved it, but I’m hoping Ana reinvents the wheel a little on the next book in the series… and maybe spices it up even a bit more!

Mafia Captive by Julia Sykes

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

⭐️⭐️

For a book with two men on the cover and “mafia” in the title, there was very little mafia and even less MFM in this book - I get that it’s a trilogy but I stronglyyyyy think it could’ve just been one book.

Ashlyn is a college sophomore at Harvard and has a crush on the hot bartender (Joseph) at the dive bar she and her bestie frequent - the tension is palpable but she’s too shy to make a move. One night, a frat bro corners her and won’t let go of her arm when her bartender crush saves the day. They quickly fall into a fast and deep romance… until one day he’s mysteriously whisked away by a domineering man in all black. A month later, Ashlyn wakes up in a strange room in a strange house after being drugged and kidnapped, only to find out that the same domineering man that made Joseph leave her is the one that kidnapped her… and brought her back to Joseph.

Other than brief mentions of Joseph and Marco (the stranger) being in “the mafia” and being “mobsters,” we don’t really see any of the inner workings… which is fine, I guess, but also leaves me wondering why I care about it at all. There’s also no MFM in this book so don’t let the cover fool you lol.

My biggest BIGGEST issue with the entire book was how the FMC was described. She’s constantly referred to as innocent, small, pure, angelic… her size is CONSTANTLY referenced and her blatant disgust at some pretty commonly known things (especially for a 20 year old in college…) is weird to me.

I won’t be reading the other two books in the series because there are just so many books to read but if you’re looking for a relatively light mafia romance, I think this is a good choice!

Content Warnings

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was my book club’s January pick, and I’m so glad that it was! Take everything you thought you knew about mysteries and throw it out the window when you read The Appeal. A captivating story, focusing around a murder in an adult theater drama group, told only in correspondence. Emails, texts, memos, and more give you the full story… or not.

I had such a FUN time reading this and I am not a true crime or mystery person by nature. Above all else, I’m a nosey bitch, so reading other peoples’ emails and texts is fun. Every time I turned the page I would come up with a new theory only to find myself proven wrong a few emails later… it was absolutely enthralling and a blast to read.

I docked one star for pacing, though I’m sure it was intentional, as I felt the time pre-murder was about 40-50 pages too long and the time post murder was about 40-50 pages too short. I thought it got too predictable to guess who would be killed (you don’t know until you KNOW) and I would’ve loved for there to be some additional correspondence after the fact.

Fair warning - you will hate every single person you meet at one point or another. As one woman in my book club said, “I would rather die than be in a room with all of these characters at once.” Which, well, I suppose one of the characters did exactly that.

10/10 would recommend for a book club, for anyone who wants to switch up their reading, or someone who wants an experiential book!

Content Warnings

The Wild One by Daisy Jane

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lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Here I go, starting another Daisy Jane series! The Wild One is book one in The Wrench King series - a series that will give us the love stories of the 4 main people who work at one location of The Wrench King - a car shop. Book one is Beau’s story with Beck - a reverse age-gap, single mom romance!

Beck and Beau meet when he’s not at his best, it’s been about a year since his father passed away and dropped a bomb on his life, and even after 12 months, he still finds himself at the bottom of a bottle trying to drown away his sorrows. He’s drunk and hungover (the worst combo) at work when Beck walks in to get her air conditioner fixed. Their first interaction goes… well, less than well, and a week later when she comes to pick up her car, Beau prepares to apologize. What he wasn’t prepared for was to fall in love at first, or I guess second, sight. Can they come back from their rocky start, and will Beck be able to accept love after divorcing her dirtbag ex?

I really struggled to like Beck. She was supposed to be about 10 years older than Beau but she had the emotional maturity of a mid-twenty something at best. Her character wasn’t fully developed and she flip-flopped a lot throughout the story which I didn’t like. Beau was lovable and so, so sweet, but I kind of wish that he’d had a little more growth. I don’t know that meeting someone is enough to pull you fully out from a funk like the one that he was in, and it felt a little savior complexy and wasn’t really addressed. He was never shy or dishonest, though, which I love, and that also made it harder to like Beck because she just didn’t see what was right in front of him???

The dirty talk and kinks were on point (check the author’s reading guide), and I thought the steamy writing was better in this book than some of the other books of Daisy’s that I’ve read. I’m excited to read the rest of the series and just hope I like the future FMCs more!

Content Warnings

Cherry Pie by Daisy Jane

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

⭐️⭐️

Hear me out - I love Daisy Jane, truly, I do. Her book Stray was one of my favorite romance reads of 2022. She has mastered taboo romance and I am slowly working my way through her backlist… however…. this felt like she was really just going for the shock factor. I’m not going to yuck anyone’s yums, but I struggled reading topics and tropes as serious as these in a novella format with no character or plot development.

The pacing was odd as some scenes would be entirely skipped over, others would take full chapters, and some days would pass with a single sentence. It was difficult to follow and it made it hard to enjoy the fun parts of the book b because I didn’t care about the characters at all!

Don’t let this turn you off of Daisy, but I’d recommend skipping this one.

Content Warnings

Tempt: Special Edition Paperback by Melanie Harlow

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Valentine PR and the author for the gifted copy of this book!

This is the second book I’ve read in the Cloverleigh Farms series though it is the 9th book! They’re all interconnected standalones so I didn’t feel strange reading this one before the others, and I don’t think I missed out on any of the important storylines by skipping ahead. In Tempt we meet Millie, a plus-sized wedding planner at Cloverleigh Farms who is visiting New York for a bridal convention. She loves her job and loves her life but feels uninspired and also like she’s cursed - all of her exes married the woman they dated immediately after her. And now she’s in the midst of planning her most recent ex’s wedding… with the girl she introduced him to. Stuck in New York for one extra night due to storms, she finds herself putting on her best dress and some red lipstick to make herself feel better and heads down to the hotel bar in hopes of finding a hot stranger to flirt with… and she succeeds (multiple times, if you know what I mean).

Zach is a retired Navy Seal in his 40s, working at a private security company, with no family and only a few close friends when he finds out he actually has a son that he never knew about. His son invites him to his wedding which is taking place at Cloverleigh Farms… do you see where this is going?

The tension they felt in New York doesn’t dissipate and they find themselves quickly enraptured with each other, going behind the backs of everyone they love to keep seeing each other and keeping it a secret. Will they be able to find a happy ending where they can be together publicly? Or are both of their hearts doomed from the start?

I liked this book. I thought the spice was SPICIN and I enjoyed the side characters - I just struggled with Millie and Zach being very one dimensional and not really having growth. They sure talked a lot about growing and changing but it all felt very surface level to me! All in all, it’s a fun, fast read, but very middle of the ground for me.

Back in a Spell by Lana Harper

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hopeful mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Berkley Romance and NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

This trip back to Thistle Grove was my favorite yet - we have city hot-shot lawyer Nina Blackmoore (yep, the family that you hate for the other books in this series), recovering from heartache and learning to cope with her family’s toxic nature, and Morty, our favorite bartender who also happens to be pretty freaking cute. Nina’s best friend encourages her to break out of her comfort zone and go on a date with Morty. They immediately hit it off with a type of chemistry that neither of them have felt before, only to discover that their families are essentially nemesis and have the date abruptly end, leading Nina to drink her sorrows away and fall into a deep sleep. That night, she dreams of traveling to the bottom of the lake and being blessed by a statue of a beautiful woman, along with being given a coin.

The nature of the coin and the blessing turns Nina’s life on its head, as she finds herself inexplicably bound to Morty despite their differences and, more importantly, more powerful than ever.

I thought that this was the most fun book in the series so far, though I wish the “forced proximity” aspect of the bond had been expanded on. I also thought the sex scenes after the first one were redundant and unnecessary to the plot - almost distracting, honestly. All in all, I enjoyed this though! Can’t wait to go back to Thistle Grove for Delilah’s story soon!

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abetterpaige's reviews 17 reviews

abetterpaige's reviews
17 reviews