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thischarmingreader's reviews
1459 reviews
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
✨ ALC Review ✨
I enjoyed this sweet little story of a Texas rancher and her brother’s best friend. It scratched that need for a small town romance.
Christine (Pris as in Pristine) has crushed on Tagger Grange forever, but he’s been gone a long time. Until the day he and his six-year-old son, Beckett, come back to Peachtree Pass for a visit. Now that crush is back with a vengeance and it appears to be returned this time.
The primary sources of tension in this book are how can these two be together when one runs a ranch in Texas and the other has to stay in NYC to share custody of his son. And you root for them to figure it out. The other source of tension is hands-down my least favorite: a promise to her brother that he’d never get involved with his sister. Y’all. This trope is tired and I hate it. A grown-ass woman does NOT need her brother telling his BEST FRIEND not to fall for her. These are grownups. Please let them have their sexy times and fall in love without your whiny yet aggressive interference.
That said, I still enjoyed the book. Christine is a woman who knows what she wants, but can also be vulnerable. Tagger’s son, Beckett, is positively adorable. I loved him getting to know the ranch life: riding horses, feeding chickens, getting dirty. So cute!
Recommended for lovers of small town, cowgirl romance.
This ALC was provided by @hambright_pr. All thoughts are mine alone.
#romancebooks #contemporaryromance #smalltownromance #longtimecoming #slscott #bookrecs #bookreview #bookstagram #audiobooks
funny
lighthearted
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:
Complicated
I’ve decided there’s nothing I love more than a well-done second chance romance. We have such a beautiful thing here in I Think They Love You.
Denz Carter is part of a high-profile (and very demanding) Atlanta family. There were times in his life when it was too much and he just wanted to be Denz, not Denzel Carter of 24 Carter Gold, elite event planning. This is when he went to UGA and met the love of his life, Bray Adams. They spent three years together and then when it came time to plan their future, Bray dipped to London and broke Denz’s heart.
It’s been a few years and Denz has been living a free-wheeling, never-to-be-tied-down again life in Atlanta. He’s working for 24 Carter Gold with several family members. He’s at the local coffee shop picking up muffins when who should he run into but Bray Adams? Pardon. Braylon Adams who is hotter than ever and has a newly acquired British accent. Denz is thrown, but he’s got to get those muffins to a meeting.
Forward to the meeting where his father, Kenneth Carter, CEO of 24 Carter Gold, has just announced he’s retiring early and wants to name his replacement soon. Other people put their names in the hat, but not Denz. Until he overhears his dad and aunts talking about how he’s not responsible enough to take it on. Nothing makes someone more determined than finding out others doubt you.
Now he wants to be CEO *and* he’s somehow told his family he has a boyfriend when he’s never even saved another guy’s number in his phone since Bray. Oh my my. What’s he going to do?
Convince Braylon to fake date him. Of course. Y’all. I loved these two fake dating and yearning. Falling into their old caring ways. And the tension? It was delicious.
Watch these two fall in love again and grow together. ❤️❤️❤️ Or listen because the narration was so good. 🎧
#booksbooksbooks #romancebooks #mmromance #contemporaryromance #bookrecs #bookreview #bookstagram #audiobooks #narrators
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
✨ARC Review✨
I wish I had a talent for writing. I’d like to be able to express the joy I found within the pages of It’s a Love Story. My heart is wide open. I devoured every word, every turn of phrase, every swoony moment.
Jane Jackson is a former child star, the jokey sidekick, turned studio executive trying to get her first movie picked up. Unfortunately her boss doesn’t think it’s commercial enough to proceed…until she claims super hot music star, Jack Quinlan, is ready, willing, and able to write a song for the soundtrack. Just one teensy problem: she hasn’t seen Jack since she was fourteen.
By pure romcom happenstance, he’s going to be playing a music festival in her sworn enemy’s, Dan Finnegan, home town in a week. Dan reluctantly agrees to house her with his family since there is no room at any inn or Airbnb.
Jane and Dan spend the week ostensibly on the Quinlan-hunt, but also getting to know each other. Of course, discovering they actually like and are attracted to each other is a surprise to them both.
Dan’s family is everything you want in a romcom family. They are loud and plentiful and they love each other a whole lot. Jane has only ever had her mother and while they’re very close, she’s missed this abundant familial caretaking. She likes it and everything about Daniel Finnegan.
And so do I. I love these main characters and their inner turmoil and their love. So so much. Greatly.
And the setting? Long Island beachy small town in the summer? Gimme 14 more of ‘em. Gimme all the beach days and bike rides. Summer storms and car kissing. I’m a melted puddle of love. Thank you, @annabelmonaghan for this wonderful book. I’m so grateful.
I received this eARC via #netgalley and @putnambooks. All thoughts are mine alone.
#booksbooksbooks #romancebooks #contemporaryromance #workplaceromance #itsalovestory #annabelmonaghan #bookreview #bookrecs #bookstagram
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
✨ARC Review✨
Folklore and women’s history merge in this story told in three timelines.
Lucy awakens with her hands around a man’s throat. Twin sisters, Mary and Eliza, are being put on a convict ship to New South Wales. Jess is discovering something life-altering.
These four women’s stories make up The Sirens.
When journalism student Lucy becomes aware that she’s assaulted a former lover in her sleep, she can think of only one place to go- her sister, Jess. But when she gets there Jess is gone; her phone, keys, and car all left behind. The place where Jess lives, Comber Bay, is infamous for a shipwreck in 1801 and for the disappearances of eight men over the course of decades. There’s even a podcast about it.
Mary and Eliza are considered lucky to have escaped the hangman’s noose and *only* being shipped off as convicts to NSW. The prison deck is packed with 80+ women for a months-long journey. The women have nothing to do but talk to each other and barely survive for six months. And all the while Mary and Eliza remember their kind Da and their Mam who went into the ocean when they were little and never came back. And maybe they’re changing a bit too.
Jess has always been different, a goth teen in the late 90’s with one close friend and an art teacher who thinks she’s a special talent. That year everything changes for her.
I appreciate what this author was going for. Truly. This book just didn’t hit for me despite the alluring subject matter. As always, I do believe there are readers who will love this book.
I received this eARC via #netgalley and @stmartinspress. All thoughts are mine alone.
#contemporaryfiction #literaryfiction #litfic #booksbooksbooks #bookreview #thesirens #emiliahart
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-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:
Complicated
✨ARC Review✨
Now *this* is fun. A brother’s best friend to lovers romance. A childhood friends to lovers romance. An “it was always you” romance.
Melody spent her teen years quietly loving Zac, her twin brother’s best friend. On the eve of her departure to college, she asks him to kiss her. He says he’ll be right back, but he doesn’t come back. She goes to college heartbroken and spends ten years resenting him for leaving her hanging.
Now she’s back in their hometown after a breakup with her longtime boyfriend which left her basically homeless. When she’s coerced into a friend group camping trip, she’s spending an exorbitant amount of time with a fully-grown and insanely attractive Zac.
Their chemistry is off the charts and the push and pull is glorious. I love Melody and Zac. I love how he wants her exactly as she is naturally- kind of a grump, to be honest. And the way Melody strives to get his biggest grin. And y’all. Their spicy times be spicin’ hard.
There is a plot point that doesn’t quite work for me, but it was easy for me to disregard. Everything else is so good.
QOTD: Are you still friends with school pals? One of my besties and I have been friends since freshman home room. And that’s a looong time.
I received this eARC via #netgalley and @atriabooks. All thoughts are mine alone.
#romance! #romancebooks #contemporaryromance #spicybooks #spicyromance #onlyinyourdreams #elliekwilde #bookrecs #bookreview #bookstagram
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
✨ARC Review✨
❓What’s your favorite fairy tale?
This reimagining of Snow White is everything I needed to read right now. It’s a story where the sweet, docile princess finds her power has been within her all along.
In this world, the Prince does not kiss Snow awake. Twenty years after she bit into the poisoned apple and was interred in her glass coffin, she slowly awakes. She learns quickly that nothing in this world is as she left it. A dangerous blight (climate change, anyone) has ravaged the lands. The animals she used to sing to and frolic with have evolved into monstrous creatures.
In this new world, she is constantly in danger from the forest creatures and from the new Evil Queen. She has to stay a step ahead while also trying to figure out how she can become the Seasonkeeper and save their world.
I really enjoyed this retelling. It gave me a bit of hope in this dark week.
Recommended!
I received this eARC via #netgalley and @stmartinspress. All thoughts are mine alone.
#ya #youngadultbooks #youngadultfantasy #yafantasy #thewildestthings #andreahannah
#bookreview #bookrecs #bookstagram
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
✨ARC Review✨
Colleen Oakley has such a knack for clever, but relatable writing. This is no exception to her rule.
It’s Jane and Dan’s nineteenth anniversary and Jane has made a decision. They’re going out for an expensive meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant an hour and a half away from their home. They’re going to have their lovely dinner and then she’s going to tell Dan she wants a divorce.
This is the plan; however, her anger and resentment towards Dan has her telling him she wants a divorce during the first course. Dan is reeling, but tells her they’re not getting a divorce.
Then all hell breaks loose when a group of armed eco terrorists storm the restaurant. And why does this whole thing seem familiar to her? Oh no. Jane knows how this ends and it’s not good.
So, now Dan’s trying to reconcile her asking for a divorce and they’re both trying to figure out how to call for help and/or escape this hostage situation.
It’s funny, exciting, and ultimately relatable to most people in long term relationships. The book is told in third person and you do get insight into both Dan and Jane’s perspective. I’ll be honest. Jane was a bit of a pill for a lot of this book. I get it though. She’s in the middle of her life and her children and husband are central to her existence. She’s a failed writer in her mind. She’s in a rut and blaming Dan for her malaise. Like I said, it’s relatable. It reminds me of that meme that goes something like “I get on my own nerves- girl, you need to chill.”
Recommended! It’s a good, page turner of a book. I couldn’t wait to figure out exactly what was going on and whether Dan could convince Jane to not get a divorce if they make it out alive.
I received an eARC of this book via #netgalley and @berkleypub. All thoughts are mine alone.
#booksbooksbooks #contemporaryfiction #litfic #literaryfiction #janeanddanattheendoftheworld #colleenoakley
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
✨ALC Review✨
I love a good boarding school story and when you make it twisted? Even better.
When townie Marin James finds her cousin’s body in a shallow creek on Huntsworth Academy’s grounds, she knows he was murdered. And she knows the names of the three students to blame.
Marin becomes Jamie Vain (this is probably how it’s spelled, but remember, I listened to it), a transfer student whose tuition check is definitely going to bounce, so she has a limited time frame to find the murderers and prove they killed Sam.
They turn out to be super easy to find. She’s assigned to the same set of dorm suites as they are. She even shares a bathroom and common area with Adrian Hargraves (Graves, if you will). Henry Wu and Baz round out our weird little clique. And they’re all fascinated by Jamie Vain.
Marin/Jamie becomes part of the gang while she’s snooping for proof of Sam’s murder. She gets close to each of the three in different ways. The tension between Henry, Graves, and Jamie is palpable and not a good thing. What has she gotten herself into? And why doesn’t she care more about the potential consequences?
This book is almost all from Jamie’s POV and honestly, it did get a little repetitive in her head. But if we laid our thoughts out on paper, I reckon they’d be fairly repetitive too.
I don’t want to get too into the particulars of the story, but I’ll say it’s a good dark academia YA with paranormal elements. The solo narrator, @jenwrenpickens, did a fantastic job with the desperate inner voice of Jamie as well as her slight, southern accent. As a Southerner myself, I’m picky when it’s overdone. This was perfect!
Recommended for lovers of this genre.
I received an advance copy of the audiobook via #netgalley and @Macmillan.audio. All thoughts are mine alone.
#ya #youngadult #youngadultbooks #darkacademia #boyswithsharpteeth #jennihowell #audiobooks #narrators #bookrecs #bookreview #bookstagram
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Real talk. I wanted to like this more than I actually did. I mean, it was okay- a decent read, but it was missing that oomph, that it factor, that thing that makes me giddy and/or heartbroken.
Dove Barkley is a corporate penetration detector. She creates cyber attacks for corporations to detect their vulnerability. Her older sister invites her out for dinner to one of their favorite restaurants which Dove agrees to go to after her magazine interview for a local Washington D.C. magazine featuring her in their 30 Under 30 issue.
The interview with reporter, Sam, is a little interrogate-y, but she doesn’t notice because Sam is incredibly attractive. Right. Because women lose all sense of self when in a professional setting with a hot man. 🙄
At the restaurant she’s approached by an unknown man who clearly thinks she’s her sister, Madison. Suddenly armed men are in the restaurant and the unknown man is shot in the head. Dove takes the briefcase he had offered her and runs. Who just happens to pull up on a sexy motorcycle to whisk her away from danger? None other than Sam, the not so much a reporter.
Turns out he’s a spy. Her sister is also a spy. And the CIA needs Dove to impersonate her sister for a meeting in Prague with a shady arms dealer in order to catch a big fish arms dealer.
What follows are some spy capers and misadventures. A lot of forced proximity and what should be sexual tension. That part was a big miss for me. I didn’t see why Mendez (oh, that’s Sam’s real name) would be so into her so fast or vice versa actually.
You know how I can tell I’m not super into a book when I’m listening to the audiobook? I keep turning up the speed. I’m normally a 1.3-1.5x girlie dependent on the narrators. This one I ended up advancing until I finished it at 1.8x. My husband was like “are you listening to chipmunks?”
So, bottom line: if I used half stars, this would’ve been a 2.5, but I always round up. 😁
#booksbooksbooks #romancebooks #contemporaryromance #audiobooks #thespyandi #bookreview #bookstagram
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
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:
Complicated
✨In our beloved romance world, our main characters are often in the 20’s and 30’s. As a woman firmly in my 50’s, it is refreshing to read about 50-year-old Mira and 53-year-old Cole finding each other later in life. That happens!
Cole is the former drummer of rock band, The Makers, now running a recording studio in Seattle and getting in granddad time with baby Ruby. He travels to Montana to attend his bestie’s wedding. That would be Madigan from the first book in the series. Hi, Madigan and Ashley. 👋🏻
Mad asks him to stop at the local bakery, Glazed and Confused, to pick up tarts. Bakery owner Mira happens to be in the midst of a personal crisis since her ex and his new wife are standing right in front of her.
She sees gorgeous Cole walk in and immediately pleads with her eyes and announces this is her boyfriend. Cole, never one to turn down a beautiful face, goes along with it. Here begins a flirty friendship. Mira has a lot going on with her mom’s declining health, her teenage son, and managing the bakery. Cole offers her a welcome respite with every text, every conversation…every FaceTime sex session.
I adore both of these characters and want nothing more than for them to spend the rest of their lives happily together.
This book is sooo good! Highly recommend. Y’all need to get into this series by @jesskhardy_author.
#booksbooksbooks #romancebooks #contemporaryromance #spicyromance #lipslikesugar #jesskhardy #bookrecs #bookreview #bookstagram