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The Spellshop
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst is $1.99! This came out last summer and I’ve heard it’s lovely, but may fall into the category of “no plot, just vibes.” Have you read this one?
Join Kiela the librarian and her assistant, Caz the sentient spider plant, as they navigate the low stakes market of illegal spellmaking and the high risk business of starting over.
Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she hasn’t had to.
She and her assistant, Caz, a magically sentient spider plant, have spent the last eleven years sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite. But when a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz save as many books as they can carry and flee to a faraway island Kiela was sure she’d never return to: her childhood home. Kiela hopes to lay low in the overgrown and rundown cottage her late parents left her and figure out a way to survive without drawing the attention of either the empire or the revolutionaries. Much to her dismay, in addition to a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor, she finds the town neglected and in a state of disrepair.
The empire, for all its magic and power, has been neglecting for years the people who depend on magical intervention to maintain healthy livestock and crops. Not only that, but the very magic that should be helping them has been creating destructive storms that have taken a toll on the island. Due to her past role at the library, Kiela feels partially responsible for this, and now she’s determined to find a way to make things right: by opening the island’s first-ever secret spellshop.
Her plan comes with risks—the consequence of sharing magic with commoners is death. And as Kiela comes to make a place for herself among the kind and quirky townspeople of her former home, she realizes that in order to make a life for herself, she must learn to break down the walls she has built up so high.
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Well Matched
Well Matched by Jen DeLuca is $2.99! This is DeLuca’s latest release in her contemporary ren faire romances. I believe there’s another on the way? The series has been reviewed well here and seems great for some low angsty reads, but correct me if I’m wrong.
An accidentally in-love rom-com filled with Renaissance Faire flower crowns, kilts, corsets, and sword fights.
Single mother April Parker has lived in Willow Creek for twelve years with a wall around her heart. On the verge of being an empty nester, she’s decided to move on from her quaint little town, and asks her friend Mitch for his help with some home improvement projects to get her house ready to sell.
Mitch Malone is known for being the life of every party, but mostly for the attire he wears to the local Renaissance Faire–a kilt (and not much else) that shows off his muscled form to perfection. While he agrees to help April, he needs a favor too: she’ll pretend to be his girlfriend at an upcoming family dinner, so that he can avoid the lectures about settling down and having a more “serious” career than high school coach and gym teacher. April reluctantly agrees, but when dinner turns into a weekend trip, it becomes hard to tell what’s real and what’s been just for show. But when the weekend ends, so must their fake relationship.
As summer begins, Faire returns to Willow Creek, and April volunteers for the first time. When Mitch’s family shows up unexpectedly, April pretends to be Mitch’s girlfriend again…something that doesn’t feel so fake anymore. Despite their obvious connection, April insists they’ve just been putting on an act. But when there’s the chance for something real, she has to decide whether to change her plans–and open her heart–for the kilt-wearing hunk who might just be the love of her life.
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Opening Up
RECOMMENDED: Opening Up by Lauren Dane is $1.99! This is the first book in the Ink & Chrome erotic contemporary series and is a KDD. Book two is also part of today’s deals. Elyse gave the book an A-:
This book was incredibly sexy and often very funny. It made me duck out on the coworker I was traveling with: “I’d love to go to TGI Fridays with you, but PJ and Asa have a new leather cane they’ve been dying to try out and also I need to know how his weenus piercing feels without a condom, so I’m gonna just head up to my room, ‘kay, thanks.”
The men of the Twisted Steel custom motorcycle shop are great with their hands… and they’re not afraid to get dirty.
PJ is exactly the kind of woman Twisted Steel owner Asa Barrons doesn’t need. The last thing he wants to do is mix business with pleasure, and PJ has some of the best custom detailing he’s ever seen. But the chemistry between them won’t be denied, and soon he’s introducing her to a whole new world in the bedroom, pushing her far beyond anything she’s ever experienced. PJ finds she can’t get enough, but how far is too far before he consumes her completely?
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Unexpected Goals
Unexpected Goals by Kelly Farmer is 99c! This is a f/f hockey romance and it’s book two in the Out on the Ice series.
On-ice rivals find some surprising heat under all their hostility in this enemies-to-lovers hockey romance
If you can’t play nice, play hockey
Canadian goalie Maisy Goode is wary of American Jen Donato and her dirty playing. She’s been on the receiving end of Jen’s aggressive style and doesn’t like it one bit. Now that they’re on the same women’s pro team, keeping her eyes off Jen is a struggle.
Jen signed up to win it all with the Boston Ice. Her very public clashes with their hot goalie aren’t going to derail her championship plans. Jen’s a professional. But there’s just something about Maisy that gets under her skin.
The media loves the tension, but the more time Maisy and Jen are forced to spend together, the more they discover what’s between them isn’t entirely hostile.
At all.
Banter turns into flirting, and flirting turns into more. The closer they get to the playoffs, the more pressure weighs on the team—and the couple. Maisy needs Jen’s support. Jen needs to know Maisy’s all in. And it all needs to get sorted out before the season—and their relationship—closes out.
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I really enjoyed Kelly Farmer’s Out on the Ice trilogy. I don’t read a ton of f/f, but hers has definitely made me appreciate it even more.
As a counterpoint, I could not stand Out on the Ice. I have an extremely low tolerance for YA and while this technically is not, the immaturity of enemies to lovers often hits the same reject button. The reductive way they thought about one another in the beginning when we’re establishing the big rivalry was just so phenomenally stupid and shitty I couldn’t carry on. They were unbearable, and I say this as someone who stuck with all of Taylor Fitzpatrick’s ninety gazillion words about David Chapman’s inability to recognize, deal with, or articulate a feeling in his interminable arc to a HEA.
At this point I might commit murder for a good f/f hockey romance. I don’t understand why I can’t find one.
I liked the Lauren Dane at the time but it’s been a minute. Idk how it holds up, but I felt like she was always able to write about various kinks in a way that made sense and seemed affirming (as opposed to your 50 Shades type scenes that left me baffled and concerned).
THE SPELLSHOP could have been twee, but it turned out to have more depth and conflict than I expected, also an initially annoying FMC. Caz the sentient spider plant was an excellent sidekick. THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE is out soon and we learn how Caz came to be, among other things.
I did not enjoy OPENING UP— the whole thing was just kinda boring. There’s insta-chemistry (and lots of piercings), but no real conflict except the age difference between the main characters and the fact that everyone needs therapy and isn’t getting it. Spoilers for the hero’s backstory/CW—child abuse:
All the men in the heroine’s family are awful to her and the hero was abused by his grandparents who had custody until he was 7 at which point he was reclaimed by his mother who had given birth at 15. The hero is an overbearing asshole at least 50% of the time. Seriously, get thee all to therapy and then try this again. Maybe.
The premise of THE SPELLSHOP was neat, but, to me, it failed in the execution. I wanted to know more about what happened to drive the FMC out of the city to the far reaches of her country. It had way too much “newcomer arrives to town and everyone rallies around her and willing to risk everything for her in like a month” vibes, which is a pet peeve of mine. The “Insta-Hero(ine)” trope gets on my nerves. I also felt like the romance was forced, and I could have done without the ending entirely (ICK).
Caz the spider plant was awesome – honestly the best thing about the book. I hateread the thing just to get it done, but I wasn’t enjoying it. It was TOO cozy, like “cozy for the sake of cozy”, and what little conflict there was felt extremely contrived.
It was a letdown after I’d loved the author’s “Queens of Renthia” series (those books were Bad Decisions Book Club reads until 3-something AM. All 4 of them.).