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Not Your Average Hot Guy
Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond is $2.99! This is the first book in a series of paranormal rom-coms. I remember a lot of people being curious about this one (myself included), but it seems like it didn’t quite live up to the hype.
A paranormal romantic comedy at the (possible) end of the world.
From New York Times bestselling author Gwenda Bond, Not Your Average Hot Guy is a hilarious romantic comedy about two people falling in love, while the fate of the world rests on their shoulders.
All Callie wanted was a quiet weekend with her best friend. She promised her mom she could handle running her family’s escape room business while her mom is out of town. Instead a Satanic cult shows up, claiming that the prop spell book in one of the rooms is the real deal, and they need it to summon the right hand of the devil. Naturally they take Callie and her friend, Mag, along with them. But when the summoning reveals a handsome demon in a leather jacket named Luke who offers to help Callie stop the cult from destroying the world, her night goes from weird to completely strange.
As the group tries to stay one step ahead of the cult, Callie finds herself drawn to the annoying (and annoyingly handsome) Luke. But what Callie doesn’t know is that Luke is none other than Luke Morningstar, Prince of Hell and son of the Devil himself. Callie never had time for love, and with the apocalypse coming closer, is there room for romance when all hell’s about to break loose?
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Devolution
Devolution by Max Brooks is $2.99! Carrie was reading this one on a previous Whatcha Reading. It’s a mix of monster horror and thriller, told through epistolary storytelling. Definitely curious about this one!
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Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge
Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger is $1.99! The premise of this urban fantasy sounds really cool where the characters battle demons with “magically-mixed cocktails.” Carrie read this one and while she loved the inclusive cast of characters, she thought it’d be a more exciting read.
Bailey Chen is fresh out of college with all the usual new-adult demons: no cash, no job offers, and an awkward relationship with Zane, the old friend she kinda-sorta hooked up with during high school.
But when Zane introduces Bailey to his monster-fighting bartender friends, her demons become a lot more literal. It turns out evil creatures stalk the city streets after hours, and they can only be hunted with the help of magically-mixed cocktails: vodka grants super-strength, whiskey offers the power of telekinesis, and tequila lets its drinker fire blasts of elemental energy. But will all of these powers be enough for Bailey to halt a mysterious rash of gruesome deaths? And what will she do when the safety of a “real world” job beckons?
This sharp and funny urban fantasy is perfect for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and grown-up readers of Harry Potter. Includes 14 recipes from a book of ancient cocktail lore.
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Broken
Broken by Jenny Lawson is $3.99! A couple of use here at SBTB have really loved Lawsons’ previous two memoir collections and this is her third, which came out this April. Humor can certainly be subjective. If you’re tempted by this one, but are unsure if her voice will work for you, she has a long-running blog: The Bloggess.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Furiously Happy and Let’s Pretend This Never Happened comes a deeply relatable book filled with humor and honesty about depression and anxiety.
As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, Jenny brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way.
With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Jenny can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way. And of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor―the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball―is present throughout.
A treat for Jenny Lawson’s already existing fans, and destined to convert new ones, Broken is a beacon of hope and a wellspring of laughter when we all need it most.
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10 FREE MM ebooks available today here: https://www.subscribepage.com/free-mm-books-today
I’ve read 5 of the 10 and adored 3 of them and really enjoyed the other two, so this is a good bunch; I think most of these are/have been in KU so freebie here is awesome.
Roommate by Sarina Bowen
Hudson’s Luck by Lucy Lennox
Risk Taker by Lily Morton
One Time Only by Lauren Blakely
Pick Me by May Archer
Egotistical Puckboy by Eden Finley and Saxon James
Trust with a Chaser by Annabeth Albert
Devil’s Dance by Garrett Leigh
Unhinged by Onley James
Undone by Leslie McAdam
What @spinsterrevival posted 🙂
Also:
Nichole Severn’s Into the Veins (Hunting Grounds 2)
And there’s a Flashback promotion with first in older series, mostly discounted:
https://books.bookfunnel.com/flashbackmm/ynuxfndbun
Also, last day to pick up Taryn Quinn’s Have My Baby (Crescent Cove 1) for free.
Golden Angel’s Entering Stronghold is free
Naima Simone’s Ravaged is $1.99
I DNFed Not Your Average Hot Guy because the male POV was cringe. The very beginning of his first chapter includes him saying “I’m told my butt cheeks are quite something”. Just not the sort of quippy voice I like, YMMV.
Jenny Lawson’s books are awesome. Broken feels like it was written in early pandemic (no clue if it was). It swings from funny to depressing chapter to chapter. Definitely worth it but it’s less fun with taxidermy than her first two books.
Personal feelings here, but I hated Devolution. All the characters living in the community were made to be unlikeable (pedant academic, overly-sincere clueless couple with transracially-adopted child, tech genius with fitspo wife), and the plot was basically “all good intentions fall by the wayside when threatened by monsters, kill or be killed!” Read it if you’re feeling misanthropic, let it go otherwise.
Snowed in with Benefits by Misha Horne is on sale for .99 this weekend.
Here’s part of my GR review:
4.5 stars / A-
Not sure what to say about this mm forced proximity, enemies to lovers, slow burn, no plot just vibes, daddy kink romance – except that it really worked for me. If you like sexy brats and stern smoldering, with a healthy side helping of bantering, personal growth and forced proximity, you’ll probably like this. Plus spanking. Lots of spanking.
This is my favorite Misha Horne book and I think it’s their best yet. It’s by far their most mainstream romance. It’s still kinky and smoking hot but there’s character and relationship development that doesn’t revolve around kink or sex. And it’s so emotionally satisfying. There is some domestic discipline in it, so it’s maybe not completely mainstream, but I thought it made sense for both characters. Plus, it’s very hot.
@Cleo: totally agree! I think SNOWED IN WITH BENEFITS is Misha Horne’s best book since LOOKING FOR TROUBLE. I like how both characters undergo changes, not just the brattier, more famous younger guy. Highly recommended.
Re: the free m/m romances noted by @SpinsterRevival above, I’ve read a few of them. The Lauren Blakely is a very typical Blakely: hot sexy times, but rather limited in depth and character perception. DEVIL’S DANCE is an m/m/m romance, if that is or is not your jam. Plus, it’s the first book in a duet (SAINT’S SONG completes the story); and it is set in a motorcycle club—so there’s quite a bit of violence. As for ROOMMATE, here’s my take:
I was enjoying ROOMMATE—in fact, until about the 75% mark, I thought I might have a Favorite of the Year on my hands—when there’s a scene that totally ruined it for me: Roderick, who was kicked out of his home by his parents for being gay, is persuaded by the pastor of his parents’ homophobic church to do volunteer work at that very church!! Wtf?? I couldn’t get my mind around Bowen even including that scene. If Roderick wants to volunteer somewhere, how about at one of the LGBTQ organizations he says helped him when he was homeless? And when the church pastor tells Roderick that he (the pastor) couldn’t officiate at Roderick & Kieran’s wedding, but he’d certainly be happy to dance at it, I almost blew a gasket. Perhaps Bowen intended that to show the pastor’s tolerance, but I found it to be hypocritical and “having cake & eating it too” in the extreme. Yeah, this church is homophobic and it’s where your parents are members and they threw your teenage self out of their house for being gay, but I’ll dance at your wedding and, by the way, can you come volunteer here? Why in the world would Bowen include that? It was beyond baffling.
TL;DR: 3/4 of a good book marred by a incomprehensible character move toward the end.
Oh, ugh. Thanks for sharing that insight, @DiscoDollyDeb. I appreciate yours and @cleo’s recommendations, so am heading off to pick up Snowed in…
FYI re: Last Call …
A few years ago there were some allegations against Paul Krueger. I can’t remember the details, but I think it was they he was a misogynist and treated women poorly. It definitely turned me off.
Wanted to add to add a rec for one of the books on the Flashback sale link @flchen1 posted – it includes ON THE ICE by Amy Aislin for 99 cents. It’s the first in Aislin’s Stick Side series which is my very favorite m/m hockey romance series. I read the first one and immediately bought and read the next two, I think all in one day if I recall!
They don’t seem to be as well-known as some other m/m hockey authors and series, but I love her characters and as an obsessive hockey fan, the hockey is accurate enough not to bug me, which isn’t always the case! (Though okay, you *do* have to suspend disbelief enough to accept an NHL team in Vermont in the third book.)
I’ve read quite a bit of hockey romance and hers are still some of my all-time favorites, so definitely recommended for m/m sports romance fans.
I’ll add my thumbs up to @Loramir’s recommendation of Amy Aislin’s Stick Side series. I’ve enjoyed all of them, and most of her other books too. I always look forward to her new releases and read them pretty much as soon as they’re available.
I recently re-read ROOMMATE and was also struck by the pastor’s hypocrisy. I hadn’t remembered that from my first read.
@Loramir, I very recently read On the Ice and the next two in Amy Aislin’s Stick Side series myself and concur—she is quite good! I think she recently released the sixth in the series, and I’m looking forward to catching up. Another Flashback author I’d strongly recommend is Beth Bolden. She is fantastic.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore is a KDD today (Saturday) – $1.99.
I bought this in hardcover after Carrie S reviewed it several years ago. It’s been sitting in my TBR stack for about that long