keytheelibrarian's reviews
68 reviews

funny 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? Yes

4.75

i'm not going to lie to y'all, i've been meaning to read this book for a MINUTE! like, from TIME. but i kept pushing it off because the title (i always think of that old kid's show) and the cover (so sorry to that man but he is not my taurus). i am happy to report that that was a mistake on my part and i regret not picking this up sooner. i LOVED this book. the characters, the plot, the writing–everything was done well and it was so entertaining! it's so good that i would even sacrifice my dislike for the pregnancy trope to get a second book about this couple.

taurus and savannah are fated and no one can convince me otherwise. the shift in their relationship happened quickly, but it wasn't unexpected or oddly placed. shae sanders' transitions and pacing throughout the book were perfect. the book flowed well which added to the overall enjoyability of the story.

i love savannah and taurus as individuals and as a couple. shae coined this story as a "grumpy boss romance" and then executed that perfectly. taurus is a true grump. he's not mean or belligerent, just genuinely grumpy and definitely the boss. he handles business and takes pleasure in doing so. his dominant demeanor fit perfectly with savannah's want to be a homemaker and knack for hospitality. while her plan didn't go exactly as she outlined, i'd say it was failed successfully.

4.7 ⭐️s!

That Time I Got Drunk And Yeeted A Love Potion At A Werewolf by Kimberly Lemming

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adventurous funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

in my review of tti got drunk and saved a demon i mentioned that felix and brie’s story would be a page turner and i ain’t never lied. kimberly lemming, you DID that. the time i got drunk and yeeted a love potion at a werewolf is well-written, beautifully crafted, and an overall damn-near perfect, entertaining book. maybe it’s the fact that it’s been a minute since i read ttigdasad & mistlefoe, but i would go as far as to say this is her best work thus far.

as mentioned, i knew brie and felix’s story would be top tier, but my expectations were blown out of the water. their story is hilarious, loving, SPICY (tentacles!?!!), and warm. though the title and plot include a love potion, it’s clear that no amount of magic can overshadow the genuine love they have for each other.

kim lem did her big one with this plot and its storylines. while reading the book you may think, “okay…do we need this?” there’s a lot of information given, most of which i questioned the necessity of. but by the end of the book my jaw was DROPPING at how she tied everything together and did so SEAMLESSLY. the call-backs to her previous works had me grinning and even the epilogue was 👩🏾‍🍳🤌🏾💋!

fat, black woman main character, bi-representation, werewolf obsessed, AND it was my @bookdbrunch tbr pick this month. what’s not to love?

5⭐️s

Strictly Professional by Christina C. Jones

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emotional funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

first and foremost let me say i enjoyed the book! i love the (severely underrated) workplace romance trope and combined with a little forbidden love, i found this work to be very entertaining! gabi & terrance’s love story is…rocky to say the least. i mean, what would you do if you accidentally make out with your boss BEFORE you know he’s your boss? me personally, i’m transferring states 🤷🏾‍♀️ but gabi has already done enough moving trying to escape her loser ex and controlling parents. yes it’s awkward, but she and terrence vow to keep it “strictly professional!”

if you’re a fast-pace lover, this is definitely the book for you. there’s not even smoke before the flame and that’s exactly what i needed coming out of a long slump. because of the pace, there’s a lot of miscommunication and repetition to keep the story going, but nothing i find entirely unnecessary. well…except for [redacted], but i can live with that because my people still got their happy ending. 3 ⭐️s!

Content Warnings

Revive Me, Part Two: The Affair by J.L. Seegars

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

reading about eric's death in restore me was sad, but let's all be honest here—we were more focused on the fact dom and sloane could finally be together. now, having seen his relationship in depth with his twin, his mother, sloane, even dom and watching them grieve, you can't help but do the same. my heart was already heavily bruised going into the story but after getting past those scenes it’s been completely broken.

chris’ arrival in this part was a pain in itself. i mean, to find out one of your closest friends and the love of your life’s brother has died in that way? it has to be indescribable. or you would think that, but jl seegars describes it perfectly in painstakingly detail so that you feel everything. the main and most prevalent emotion being yearning. not for his friend, not for the time they didn’t have together, but for mal; his lost love. they’re reunited and try as [mal] might, there’s no denying there connection and like magnets, they’re drawn to each other again.

if i was basing this rating solely off chris and mal’s romance it would sit at a 4.3-4.5. i enjoyed them as i always do but to be completely honest i’m ready for their happy ending. i understand the importance of their relationship in this season in both of their lives, but there are moments in the story where i am FEENING for their ending. where they can stop dwelling on their past and fall into each other without their past restraints. we don’t get that in this book and we won’t get that for six more (book) years. that’s the not-so-good news. the great news is that that isn’t what i’m only basing the rating on.

the reason for the 5⭐️ rating is what i like to refer to as the murder mystery. as much as i would love to get into this subplot and dig DEEP into theories with y’all i can’t. and i mean not even a little bit. bc i would never be able to forgive myself if i robbed y’all of the element of surprise jl has perfected. i was GAGGED, REPEATEDLY! and that’ll just have to be enough for y’all.

this last part isn’t a want, but a need. spring 2023 looking too far right now; i need it by YESTERDAY.

Restore me by J.L. Seegars

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emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i've said this a thousand times and i'll probably say it a thousand more, but i am such a sucker for good writing. and by good i mean great, exquisite, soul crushing, chest burning, eyes free flowing, EXTRAORDINARY writing and that's exactly what this is. i would usually wait to put the rating at the end but as this is my first five star read of the year y'all deserve to know ASAP. i wouldn't even mind if y'all stopped reading this now and went to buy this masterpiece j.l. seegars wrote bc i can promise you her words will fill you more than these ever will.

sloane and dominic are fire and fire and i find it to be a pleasure and an honor to be burned by them. their story is so, so heartbreaking and as you read you just constantly ask yourself what the hell is the ending and how the hell are getting there. they're enemies to lovers, but not really. second chance romance, definitely. friends with benefits.....eh, minimally. there's so much that happens and while you're reading you think, "my God where's the end???" and then you get to the end and it feels like you've just started. there's so much i want to say but won't because this book is one that y'all deserve to experience for the first time with a blank slate (and a lot of tissues).

my first 5 ⭐ read of the year and if it's the only one i would be just as happy. salivating at what's to come from j.l. seegars bc i know after just this one that's she's already one of my favorite authors.

thank you to @lalahburton who suggested this for our buddy read; her brain tooooo big for that 😭

p.s. very spicy, ALL the peppers n i'm so serious 😵‍💫😵‍💫

Revive Me, Part One: The Act by J.L. Seegars

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challenging emotional funny inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

there is nothing, and i mean NOTHING louder than the break of my heart as i write this. there's a different kind of ache that comes from blows you expect. i KNEW i was going to be torn into pieces, i expected it and prepared for it (or so i thought) and i STILL was bent over clutching my torso in pain. and that's not me being dramatic; i mean that literally.

when we met mal and chris in "restore me" i could've never imagined the cracked foundation their relationship was built on. i was so into sloane and dominic that theirs faded into the back of my mind as a subplot used to introduce other characters. i can confirm now though that there is nothing "sub" about mallory pearl and christopher [explicit]. their story is lovely, and passionate, and beautiful, and so gut-wrenchingly painful. the bad parts hurt, but the good parts hurt more because you know they aren't going to last and trying to brace for it only makes it hurt more. the best advice i can give you when reading this is to sit in the present scenes and don't think about what's coming.

while chris and mal's relationship caused me to cry more than once, the most painful part of this book is eric. eric, eric, eric......i had more to say but as i type this i can't even put my thoughts into coherent sentences.

i don't know what the hell i'm gone do when part two comes out.

JL SEEGARS! as always the writing is 100000/10. the characters she creates and the world she puts them in are always so vivid i can see myself in the story watching the events unfold. she's an AUTHOR (!) with range at that. in the two works of hers we have prior to this we are spoiled with a large quantity of quality smut. in revive me, there's a not-so-obvious lack of intimate scenes that you don't notice until one does happen. for a smut peddler to not peddle smut and still get 5 ⭐s? talent.

now that's she's gotten her flowers...oi i oughta 🌪️👊🏾💥!!!!!!

Captivated by Danger by Endiya Carter

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adventurous dark emotional funny reflective 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? Yes

4.75

let's just start off by saying GET THE BOOK 🗣! don't think too much about it, don't read too much about it, just get it and enjoy! it's a story about sex (and this is literal), but it's also a story about growth, life, and coming into one's self. easily 4.8 ⭐s; endiya carter scraped the plate clean with "captivated by danger"

when God said he gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers he was talking about greyson mccree forREAL. miss carter was putting my sister through just anything! dragging her from hell to highwater and back again with no remorse. for the first half of the book i felt like everytime i turned the page there was just a loop of craig and smokey going "damn!"

she was brokenhearted, bruised, and insecure and my favorite thing about the whole book is that diesel was not the person to fix that. he assisted and set her up but you could tell her confidence came from within. she fully took advantage of the tools he set out for her and reaped the benefits. and good for her for getting her back broken while doing it. ESPECIALLY by diesel!

endiya carter has a gift in character creation and it shows throughout the entirety of the book. from the distinct personalities of the danger brothers, to their parents, to the bitter contrast between grey's father and her mother and grandmother (who's old hag ass can really di-). elle was the perfect best friend and i am waiting for her book.

the only reason i didn't give this 5 ⭐s is because i needed her ex and his dog to get theirs and QUICKLY and that want was never satisfied. that's okay though, imma still be in line waiting for the next book 🤭.

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

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adventurous funny inspiring medium-paced

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

4.5

let's just go ahead and address the NASA rocket in the room, this is a biased review. everybody and their mom's mom knows i absolutely love the love hypothesis and adore ali hazelwood. it's not a secret, i'm not ashamed of it, but it must be said. for that reason, i'm going to start with what i didn't like so i can spend the rest of my time telling y'all how much i enjoyed this 🤭

ali hazelwood is president of the size difference committee. this isn't something i didn't know, but when i read tlh, i think i was still so new to reading again that i didn't notice it as much. in this? love on the brain? it's extremely prevalent. overly obvious. blindingly clear. at first it's like, "okay. she's small, he's big, we got it 😉" and by the time you're halfway through the book it's, "WE GOT IT DAMN!" it was the most annoying thing about the book and the main reason i can't give this 5 stars.

the entire third act felt rushed. we got conclusions, but not resolutions. a huge part of the plot was skimmed over and tied up in a paragraph that did nothing to tighten loose ends. because of this, the book feels off balance and incorrectly paced.

love on the brain follows its predecessor's pattern of unknown interaction(s), small, quirky, and nerdy girl forced to be around brooding, hot, dark-haired guy who always comes off as too attractive to be in the field. they secretly develop feelings for each other and then we go into a third act conflict that's usually caused by the friend of aforementioned brooding, hot, dark-haired guy.

we might disagree on this, but even though it's the same formula with different numbers plugged in...it works 🤷🏾‍♀️. i enjoyed it and if she released another one in the same exact format i would eat it up.

(just one more though because after that we'll be getting into dragging it territory)

love on the brain gets 4.4⭐s from me! now let me see what these novellas are talking about...

Dirty Love by Kenya Wright

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

okay, first and foremost it has to be stated that book two in the lion and the mouse series blew book one out the water. the characters, pace, content, general progression were all improved upon and it made this read so much more interesting and easier to get into. like i mentioned in my review of book one, mafia series take time and someone as impatient as i am struggles with that. HOWEVER, if the series keeps getting better like this, i can wait.

in dirty love we get closure on everything from dirty kisses and when i tell you it's the most expected unexpected conclusion? i mean that. even still, i do feel as though the main events were anti-climatic. i mean, you spend two books trying to get to the bottom of a situation and in its fruition you just speed past it. i would've loved to see more in-depth reactions from more characters. hell, even a pov from the characters involved.

emily and kaz, y'all have my heart. if i've said it once i've said it a thousand times: my favorite genre is black women being taken care of. my favorite sub-genre has to be them accepting it though. emily has been pushed out of her comfort zone and even though it's startling, she falls into it and i LOVE that. as a couple, emily and kaz balance each other out so well and their dynamic is one of my favorite things (writing wise) about the book.

dirty kisses gets 3.8⭐s from me. definitely moving on to the next. we

Dirty Kisses by Kenya Wright

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

after months and months of pushing this book down on my tbr, i finally started the lion and the mouse series by kenya wright. immediately (like, IMMEDIATELY) it reminded me why i took a break from mafia romances. they move too fast for me, often sacrificing depth for plot coverage. i prefer to sit in scenes of books rather than moving swiftly between them, but that's a personal preference.

now, most mafia books are lengthy series where you find out more about the characters as you read but still. i feel like the conflicts in this book were glossed over and resolved quickly without much thought or effort. i found the book to be predictable, but that didn't take away from the plot for me.

i absolutely adore emily's character, though she's not my favorite (hey xavier 🤭). she's a smart, bad ass, who definitely can handle her own. i would say she met her match with kazimir, but i think it's actually the other way around. kenya wright did a great job making the book a mafia romance and not a romance mafia. while there was attraction and spice, it did take backseat to the...family business.

i rate "dirty kisses" a smooth 3.4 ⭐s. it didn't move anything in me but not every book has to. i've said it before and i'll say it again: i love a good mid book and this is pretty mid. it's not uncommon for later books in a series to show up and show out so i'm definitely not using this to generalize the series. starting "dirty love" now 🫶🏾

Content Warnings

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keytheelibrarian's reviews 68 reviews

keytheelibrarian's reviews
68 reviews