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chloe_liese's reviews
232 reviews
How to Catch a Wild Viscount by Tessa Dare
Short, tender, witty. I enjoyed this as I always enjoy Tessa Dare but as is usually the nature with novellas and me, I wanted a whole book! Dare builds such compelling characters and worlds, novellas feel like you miss the meat in her storytelling a bit. Still, a well spent hour or so reading her words.
Love in the City by Jen Morris
Love in the City is the perfect intro to the romance genre. Featuring a woman on the quest for self-discovery, moving across the world, pursuing her dreams, and finding love, this romance is delightfully meta-aware, asking the question through humor, heartfelt inner monologue as well as dialogue amongst friends: is romance real? is happy ever after possible? or is it all just a fairy tale...?
While grappling with some difficult subject matter such as unsupportive parents, heartbreak, divorce, and self-acceptance, Love in the City keeps it light, sweet, and delightfully fun. I highly recommend this to lovers of Sophie Kinsella who want a dash of sexy slow-burn steam thrown in.
Thank you to Jen for the ARC of Love in the City. All opinions are my own. Love in the City is out October 7. Pre-order today!
While grappling with some difficult subject matter such as unsupportive parents, heartbreak, divorce, and self-acceptance, Love in the City keeps it light, sweet, and delightfully fun. I highly recommend this to lovers of Sophie Kinsella who want a dash of sexy slow-burn steam thrown in.
Thank you to Jen for the ARC of Love in the City. All opinions are my own. Love in the City is out October 7. Pre-order today!
Sadie by Courtney Summers
Heartbreaking. Sadie’s story is one of pure love-fueled tenacity amid horrible abuse, perversion, and abandonment. My heart hurt for her suffering and isolation and the unrelenting drive that pushed her through so much pain and fueled her to fight for revenge. This book will stick with me for a while, I can feel it already.
Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas
This sucked me in and made me feel my feelings, but I think I’m just partial to Kleypas’ more recent work, particularly The Ravenels. While I liked Sara and Derek very much and found myself invested in them, it felt like a painfully long time to wait and see them truly come together. I also felt like the chemistry and the amount of interaction they had in the first half of the book was disappointingly thin. Sara was a wonderfully complex character and I felt deeply for Derek. I wish I’d seen more of them growing closer sooner, rather than later with so much of their bonding happening via tell not show.
This plot felt more driven by action and outside world interference, distinct from most of her Ravenels which dig deeper into character psychology and relationship chemistry earlier on. Still an emotionally engaging and overall enjoyable read! Just probably not one I’ll need to revisit.
This plot felt more driven by action and outside world interference, distinct from most of her Ravenels which dig deeper into character psychology and relationship chemistry earlier on. Still an emotionally engaging and overall enjoyable read! Just probably not one I’ll need to revisit.
Hello Stranger by Lisa Kleypas
Sole female physician in England?
Dirty talking, badass yet romantic Irishman?
Suspense and sexy times?
I got all of the above! Yes, please. This was close to a 5 star but sometimes I found the core plot a little thin on emotional depth. It felt very action-oriented which isn’t bad but I think I just prefer when Kleypas’ novels dig into psychology and feelings a bit more. Highly recommend the audio! I’ll listen to Mary Jane Wells read a recipe; she’s incredible.
Dirty talking, badass yet romantic Irishman?
Suspense and sexy times?
I got all of the above! Yes, please. This was close to a 5 star but sometimes I found the core plot a little thin on emotional depth. It felt very action-oriented which isn’t bad but I think I just prefer when Kleypas’ novels dig into psychology and feelings a bit more. Highly recommend the audio! I’ll listen to Mary Jane Wells read a recipe; she’s incredible.
The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt
"I wouldn't mind being the one that does the choosing for once, instead of the gents always getting to do the deciding."
This book had some powerful feminist messages and cultural critique. I think my favorite was how Hoyt highlighted the double-standard which dictated women were "compromised" when known or even rumored to have been sexually active outside marriage, while a man's reputation remained untarnished. This tension and societal hypocrisy is at the heart of the book, driving both Edward's conviction about "what's done" and "doing right" by Anna, and Anna's burgeoning independence in flouting societal confines upon her autonomy, her welfare, and ultimately her happiness.
Also, I want to salute and praise Ms. Hoyt for writing "plain" lead characters in a romance (though I wish the cover accurately reflected this). Edward is scarred from smallpox, and Anna is consistently portrayed as "no great beauty." Their initial impressions of each other are no less than "ugly" and "unremarkable." But delightfully, deliciously, she sucks her reader into the heart of a very old, proven adage: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
While the writing began strong with spare but vivid descriptive passages and enticing exploration of simmering sexual tension, I felt that the back half of the book fell flat on both fronts. Sex became a lot of sex (most of it pretty damn hot) that wasn't always necessary to drive the narrative, and while I love me some heat, I usually don't want to feel like I'm getting repetitive scenes that don't develop the story, or even worse, like I'm getting sex scenes *instead* of narrative that will develop the story.
Overall, a story I'm glad I read, but not one I'll need to return to. I'm intrigued enough by Hoyt's feminist narrative explorations and complex character development to try another of her books before coming to a decision about whether or not her storytelling is necessarily for me.
This book had some powerful feminist messages and cultural critique. I think my favorite was how Hoyt highlighted the double-standard which dictated women were "compromised" when known or even rumored to have been sexually active outside marriage, while a man's reputation remained untarnished. This tension and societal hypocrisy is at the heart of the book, driving both Edward's conviction about "what's done" and "doing right" by Anna, and Anna's burgeoning independence in flouting societal confines upon her autonomy, her welfare, and ultimately her happiness.
Also, I want to salute and praise Ms. Hoyt for writing "plain" lead characters in a romance (though I wish the cover accurately reflected this). Edward is scarred from smallpox, and Anna is consistently portrayed as "no great beauty." Their initial impressions of each other are no less than "ugly" and "unremarkable." But delightfully, deliciously, she sucks her reader into the heart of a very old, proven adage: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
While the writing began strong with spare but vivid descriptive passages and enticing exploration of simmering sexual tension, I felt that the back half of the book fell flat on both fronts. Sex became a lot of sex (most of it pretty damn hot) that wasn't always necessary to drive the narrative, and while I love me some heat, I usually don't want to feel like I'm getting repetitive scenes that don't develop the story, or even worse, like I'm getting sex scenes *instead* of narrative that will develop the story.
Overall, a story I'm glad I read, but not one I'll need to return to. I'm intrigued enough by Hoyt's feminist narrative explorations and complex character development to try another of her books before coming to a decision about whether or not her storytelling is necessarily for me.
Silence by Shūsaku Endō
Sad and thought-provoking. Plumbing a depth of despair and isolation that comes from the internal struggle of faith and spiritually, particularly wrestling with God's "silence" and perceived absence.
The Governess Game by Tessa Dare
5.0
“When you love someone there’s always a chance you’ll hurt them. But if you let them go, hurting them isn’t a possibility—it’s a certainty.”
Female scientist with a diverse background and a true belief in raising girls to be empowered; a rake who bears deep guilt and loves from a dry-witted, doting distance. This was witty (as always, cuz Tessa Dare), heartfelt, and flowed nicely. An absolutely delightful read!
Female scientist with a diverse background and a true belief in raising girls to be empowered; a rake who bears deep guilt and loves from a dry-witted, doting distance. This was witty (as always, cuz Tessa Dare), heartfelt, and flowed nicely. An absolutely delightful read!