This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at _@thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next … Continue reading Give Me a Reason by Jayci Lee →
This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at @thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next … Continue reading Miss Caroline Bingley: Private Investigator by Kelly Gardiner and Sharmini Kumar →
Lessons in Disaster is such a beautiful, finely crafted book that I feel kind of humbled to have been able to read it. It’s not a perfect book – it ends abruptly, it can be didactic, and I developed a love/hate relationship with the tendencies of all these intellectual characters to use words like ‘heuristic’ in the middle of emotional arguments. But overall, this was lovely. The book tells the stories of two women and … Continue reading Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders →
Problematic Summer Romance is a friends-to-lovers romance/brother’s best friend romance, but it utilizes those tropes without any masculine over-protectiveness, which I appreciated. It’s also a romance that’s light on external conflict, but heavy on emotional growth, which was perfect for me. Maya Killgore’s parents died when she was barely a teenager, leaving her to be raised by her overwhelmed brother (about fifteen years her senior). Said brother has an extremely lucrative biotech start up with … Continue reading Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood →
This is an average length book at 368 pages. But it flew past in the blink of an eye. If I were to make a reading recommendation, I would say block off half a day and forbid anyone from interrupting you, then dive into this book and just revel in it. This is a fake relationship book that has that most rare of things: the reason for the fake relationship actually makes sense. I did … Continue reading Maid for Each Other by Lynn Painter →
Kim is a longtime SBTB reader. She writes boring professional documents by day to fund her ever-growing TBR pile, which is currently overflowing with T. Kingfisher, mystery thrillers, and MM romance. Everything she knows about hockey, she learned from queer love stories or the Mighty Ducks franchise. … Recently, I’ve been on an M/M hockey romance binge (and let me just say “queer romance” + “professional hockey” is the Reese’s “you got your peanut butter … Continue reading Season’s Change by Cait Nary →
This guest review is from Jeevani Charika! Jeevani (also known as Rhoda Baxter) writes award nominated romantic women’s fiction and romcoms. She has a YouTube channel teaching authors how to use Canva to make fun graphics. She is a ‘resting’ microbiologist. She lives in Yorkshire in the UK, where she enjoys eating cake, playing with Lego and, when she’s run out of excuses, writing. You can find out more about her (and get a free book) … Continue reading Queen of Tears (Netflix) →
The short version of this review is, if you like this series (as I do – I like it a LOT) you’ll really enjoy this latest installment. The mystery is sharp and poignant, there are myriad historical details folded in, the relationships between the characters continue to grow and mature, and Veronica is as sarcastic as ever. Longer (slightly) version: I was extremely happy that I received an advanced audio copy of this book, because … Continue reading A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn →
Please check the content warnings before continuing as several of them are unavoidable when discussing the setup! This manga is originally based on a series of Japanese light novels. They’ve been translated to English and even just reading the sample, it seems that the beginning of the manga follows the text closely. Maomao was kidnapped from her job as an herbalist/apothecary in a red light district and is now forced to work as a maid … Continue reading The Apothecary Diaries, Vol. 1 by Natsu Hyuuga and Nekokurage →
Carrie: Ana María and the Fox came out back in April but it has taken lo these many months for Shana and I to manage a review. I’m glad this book made it to the top of my TBR, because I found it to be romantic, educational, and entertaining. But I had problems with some plot stuff. The plot: Ana María and her two sisters, who are the subjects of two upcoming books, are sent … Continue reading Ana María and the Fox by Liana De la Rosa →
With the exception of Laura Griffin and Rachel Reid, I don’t really do multiple reviews for an author. Well, I need to add a third name to that list: Alice Coldbreath. I reviewed Wed by Proxy as it scratched an itch that I didn’t know could be scratched. I have now worked my way through most of the Brides of Karadok series and despite loving every single book (they’re all so unique in their premises … Continue reading An Inconvenient Vow by Alice Coldbreath →
