fiction_aficionado's reviews
977 reviews

Network of Deceit by Tom Threadgill

tense medium-paced

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

4.75

An Unlikely Proposal by Toni Shiloh

hopeful medium-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

An Unlikely Proposal combines two of my favourite tropes—marriage of convenience and best friends to more—and proves that marrying your best friend can become complicated when you’re not actually in love with each other! Then again, maybe it would have been less complicated if they hadn’t been so determined NOT to fall in love with each other! Because apart from being best friends, Omar and Trinity have each loved and lost in some form, so a big part of their journey was overcoming their fear of being hurt again.

As always, Shiloh weaves a strong faith thread through her story, and the addition of Omar’s two little girls ups the cute factor considerably and adds an element of unpredictability to Omar and Trinity’s new relationship status. I couldn’t help but sympathise with Trinity as she jumped headfirst into fulltime care of Omar’s girls—Trinity, I give YOU a head nod in solidarity! Battle ready!

A heart-warming contemporary romance full of family life and growing in faith and love.

I received a copy of this novel from the author. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion. 

Beauty Among Ruins by J'nell Ciesielski

adventurous inspiring medium-paced

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

4.25

Who doesn’t love a Beauty and the Beast retelling? Not that this is a retelling per se, but it has all the essential points of the story, most importantly a beauty, a beast, and a castle! Alec and Lily are the kind of characters you can’t help but love, flaws and all, and they’re such opposites in personality that the tension is all kinds of wonderful. A big part of the enjoyment in this story was watching them grow to understand each other little by little—a process that was by no means smooth!

Even if one puts aside the Beauty and the Beast trope, this story has so much going for it. The Scottish setting comes alive both in Ciesielski’s descriptions and in the characters’ interactions with their surroundings, and the many facets of Lily’s winsome personality are reflected in her interactions with a varied cast of characters: her cousin Bertie, the dragonish Matron Strom; the catty nurse Esther Hartley; Alec’s frail and sickly sister, Viola; and a multitude of other characters from convalescing soldiers through to the slimy journalist Richard Wright.

My heart went out to Alec in his struggle to keep his family home amidst the other burdens weighing on him: his sister’s health, his own inability to enlist, a mother who sees what she wishes to see rather than the reality of her circumstances. There are a few other things I won’t mention here for spoiler reasons, but suffice it to say there’s a lot more going on in this story than just a Beauty and the Beast retelling. 

I did feel as though everything came together in a bit of a rush at the end—or maybe it was simply that so many things fell into place at the one time, some of them quite coincidentally at the eleventh hour—but overall, a story I would readily recommend to historical romance lovers.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion. 

Gray Mountain by John Grisham

mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.5

Well, that was underwhelming. Lazy writing, a plot that seemed to be building but then just fizzled out, a protagonist who had no personality and didn’t seem to want to commit to anything. Pretty disappointing for a first Grisham experience. Having read quite a few reviews saying this is a poor example of his work, I’ll probably give him another shot, but he’s got some ground to make up. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Suicide, Terminal illness

Minor: Child death, Chronic illness, Drug use, Sexual content

Roommaid by Sariah Wilson

lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

 This was a fun read, although for someone who supposedly didn’t know anything about cleaning or living on her own, I was surprised at how relatively few disasters Madison actually had. Mind you, that was better than what I was fearing going into this—that the story would be a series of cringe-worthy mistakes that got old faster than you can say roommaid.

I loved Tyler and Madison together. They developed the kind of relaxed friendship and banter I love, so seeing that grow into more was extra rewarding. The dynamics with Madison’s family added an interesting layer and a few surprise developments. All in all, a feel-good escape for a few hours reading. Appreciated that it was clean, too, but with some great chemistry between the hero and heroine. 

Everything Behind Us by Jennifer Rodewald

emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

5.0

 

Jennifer Rodewald’s books always clench my heart in a fist—sometimes gently, other times not so gently!—but this story has a particularly poignant quality of vulnerability and tenderness due to both the situation and the personalities of the characters. Marriage of convenience is one of my favourite tropes, and until recently it’s been almost exclusively the domain of historical romance, but this story is a shining example of how well it can work in a modern setting.

I formed an attachment to Connor Murphy the first time I met him. He fits right in to his family of jokesters but also quickly impressed me as the Murphy brother you would want behind you in a crisis. And that’s exactly where Sadie is at the beginning of this story: A single mother facing the fact that she may not be around to see her four-year-old son grow up. Is it any surprise Connor steps up with a literal proposal to support her through her crisis?

The beauty of this story lies in Connor’s absolute commitment to Sadie and his love and care for her even before that developed into a romantic attachment. It’s also in the way Sadie and Connor worked through the very real and complex emotions that came with their situation—both their current circumstances and the history that lay between them. As is so often the case with Rodewald’s stories, this isn’t just a romance; it’s a love story. And it’s a beautiful antithesis to the dominant narratives about romance and marriage found in our contemporary culture.

The Murphy Brothers series is quickly becoming one of my all-time favourite romance series!

I received a copy of this novel from the author. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer

The Match by Sarah Adams

funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Still the One: A Deep Haven Novel by Susan May Warren, Rachel D. Russell

hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Lovers of Susan May Warren and contemporary romance in general have much to look forward to with this new series that takes readers back to Deep Haven, stomping ground of the Christiansen family and a host of other beloved Warren characters. What’s more, author Rachel D. Russell writes in that engaging, conversational style that readers of Susan May Warren have long enjoyed.

Russell sets the stage for a story full of romantic tension as former childhood friends Megan Carter and Cole Barrett find themselves standing in direct opposition to one another’s goals. And that tension only ratchets up when Cole offers to help Megan with some last-minute wedding changes that have her a little under the pump. The more they work together, the more the romantic tension crackles and the less clear-cut their goals become.

I felt as though some of the complications toward the end of the story were a little contrived, but I loved the way Megan and Cole’s relationship developed as they worked together. The bonus is that their romance unfolds amidst cameos from several well-loved Deep Haven characters and a healthy dose of small-town charm and community spirit.

I’m looking forward to returning to Deep Haven with the next in the series.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion. 

Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

lighthearted medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

 I really have no idea how to rate this book. It’s kind of like a mash-up of Legally Blonde and that song “There’s a hole in my bucket”, except instead of Legally Blonde, you would have to call it Financially Blonde. It should have annoyed the tar out of me, but instead, I found it strangely compelling. Or at least, I assume I did, since I only really put the book down to go to sleep for the night, and then somehow ended up spending this morning in bed finishing it without ever actually deciding that’s what I was doing. But I also kept turning to my husband after involuntarily laughing at something to say, “I’m not really sure why I’m still reading this, because I cringe every time she digs her hole another level deeper.”

But it’s one of those books that has the distinction of being at once completely unrealistic and scarily spot on. I suppose that’s the point of satire, really, except that it felt as though the story lost track of any point it was trying to make along the way. Maybe that’s because the heroine pretty much lies her way through the entire book with very few lasting consequences. Perhaps part of the reason I enjoyed the reading experience was because I was anticipating a different ending? Considering there are several more books in the series, perhaps the vague expectations I had were unrealistic. But then I feel as though I should be more disappointed if that was the case.

Plot aside, Kinsella’s writing was quite entertaining. And masterful, really, when considered from certain aspects. It’s not easy to write such completely natural sounding first person narrative, particularly when it’s often hopelessly deluded stream of consciousness. Perhaps that was part of what made it so entertaining—the fact that the reader can see how hopelessly deluded Becky is even as she’s patting herself on the back for being so clever.

Anyway, I’m not sure I can recommend it as such. I’m not even sure I could go on to read the rest of the series. But I can see how it would both appeal and repel, so all that’s left is to work out which category you fall into.