This guest review is from Sam, who is a longtime romance and SBTB reader. … I’ve read so many of Sarah Morgan’s books, all the way back to when she wrote Harlequin Presents. I don’t like billionaires or captains of industry, but if Morgan wrote them, I was all in. I liked the Harlequins and I liked the longer books she wrote, too. Unfortunately for me, Morgan is now writing women’s fiction. And women’s fiction … Continue reading Guest Review: One Summer in Paris by Sarah Morgan →
I picked up this title because it was recommended to me as a historical with a mystery and a slow-burn romance. I like all those words. I like them quite a bit. What I ended up with was a narrative that, the more I thought about it, didn’t make sense because the first half of the story didn’t match the second. Former soldier Adam Drummond is working for the British government undercover as a majordomo … Continue reading To Love a Duchess by Karen Ranney →
Look, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve read some shit. I read the book about the blue alien/robot people who exist, I think, just to have buttsecks. I read the book about Santa’s Reindeer shifter. I read a book once about a guy who has psychic visions of murder and his eyeball rolls around in his head when it happens. Just the one eye though. Because two would be too much, I guess. … Continue reading Pestilence by Laura Thalassa →
I’ve been trying to branch out in my reading this year, and so despite not being a sports person I read The Art of Running in Heels by Rachel Gibson. For the most part I enjoyed it, but I couldn’t get past all the sexist and homophobic comments, especially those uttered by the heroine’s father (who is also the hero’s hockey coach). Trigger warning for quotes in this review that include misogynist, homophobic language. Here’s … Continue reading The Art of Running in Heels by Rachel Gibson →
I so very much wanted to like this book, and am so very disappointed that I did not. The setting – very rural Victoria, Australia, in the 1890s – was fascinating, and I think the initial chapters do a marvelous job of not only introducing the characters but also the place. The descriptions of the trees, the birds, the desolation and the beauty of the landscape surrounding the main characters were absorbing in a way … Continue reading By the Currawong’s Call by Welton B. Marsland →
It’s getting a little bleak for me, reading-wise. This was the first book I finished after 8 DNFs in a row, some of which were nonfiction and some romance or fantasy. I was pretty excited that the beginning of this story was so promising. Then it became repetitive, emotionally limited, inconsistent, and then offensive. Summary time! Stella Newport is a brand new FBI agent. Specifically, she’s a Lark, which is the name given to the … Continue reading Speaker of the Lost by Clara Coulson →
I mentioned in a recent Whatcha Reading? post that I “struggled with the rapid pace of the emotional development” in this novella, and that I had a hard time buying the HEA between the characters. All true. I don’t like insta-love, and in a novella it is so difficult to convince me as a reader that two characters who have never met before have enough time together to create a believable ending wherein they’re together and all … Continue reading Broken Resolutions by Olivia Dade →
Note from Sarah: We’re running this review and the Wedded Bliss review from Carrie together because they illustrate how one item in a larger context can ruin a book for a reader. Thanks to Poppy for submitting such a thoughtful guest review. Poppy is a long-time fan of SBTB and loves cats, books and coffee, in that order. … Confession: I spent a long time thinking about how to grade this book. Here are the … Continue reading Guest Review: The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long →
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is bad. It is so bad that it made me actually angry. It is so bad that I got bored and would have left were it not for my viewing companion who insists on never leaving a movie. Never have I been presented with something so visually enticing that is also so very, very boring. When my husband came home and asked me what the movie is … Continue reading Movie Review: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets →
I really, really wanted to like this anthology. Jewel heists? Oh, yes, please. Any kind of heist, really, but jewel heists have additional romance-friendly elements like wealth and potential world travel built in, coupled with a rather low risk for entrails, sexual assault, or crime elements that would preclude me from reading them. Alas, while one of the three stories was fun and another was sort of meh, there was the one that gave me … Continue reading Caught in the Act: A Jewel Heist Anthology by Ainslie Paton, Emma Sinclair, and Michelle Dayton →
The first thing that you should know about this book is that it is YA romance, which I didn’t realize when I signed up for it since it was under the “best first book” category. Abby and Zeke’s ages are never actually given, although their French professor ensures they are both over 17 due to some explicit course content. It is difficult to review it because certain things that are hallmarks of YA don’t work … Continue reading The Distance from A to Z by Natalie Blitt →
