Tuesday 21 November 2023
Ben by Cora Rose (Unexpected #8)
Tuesday 29 August 2023
What We Earned by Hinsel Meyer
Sunday 6 August 2023
Only Skin Deep by Kelex
Monday 24 July 2023
Diablo by Cora Rose (Unexpected #7)
Monday 12 June 2023
Between the Devil and the Sea by Chani Lynn Feener
Tuesday 6 June 2023
Il Padrone by Leigh Kenzie (Vendetta Series Book #1)
Monday 5 June 2023
Bloodlines by AE Lister
Thursday 11 May 2023
New Blood by L.C. Davis (The Godbearer Book #4)
Monday 3 April 2023
College Bros: Scott and Caden's Story by Brett Chimes (Book #1)
Friday 20 January 2023
A Hellhound Called Derek by Michelle Frost (Mated to the Human #1)
Sunday 20 November 2022
Static by Romilly King (The Teams Book #3)
Maximus by Stella Rainbow
Pretty Puppy by Morticia Knight
Saturday 19 November 2022
Daddy's Boy by Romeo Preminger (Arizona Series Book #2)
Home for the summer, Arizona sets out to find his younger brothers and sister, who were scattered to different places when their family was torn apart. Along the way, he reunites with his tenth grade sweetheart, Preston Montclair, who still holds a torch for him.
But Arizona is struggling to figure out the man he’s supposed to be. He’s got an obligation to his daddy, who wants to mold him as his heir, but he’s also got a responsibility to his wayward siblings. It feels like he’s swimming against the rapids, trying to do both while figuring out if he belongs with his boyhood love or an educated man who can help him with his dream of being a famous writer.
Review: ⟫ After reading the first book, I was quite eager to get to the second so I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get into it. We start from where the first book ended and follow Arizona to college, where he struggles to fit in with boys who have lived a privileged existence from the time of their birth – nothing at all like him.
I picked this up and put it down numerous times, before finally determining that I was going to bull through. And I finally realised why I couldn’t get into the book. I don’t like Arizona – like, at all. In the first book, I sympathised with his plight and supported many of his decisions – or at least, understood them. In this book, I found Arizona to be reckless, uncaring and selfish. Even the things that were happening to his ‘siblings’ all seemed to be based on how it made him feel – little about what they were suffering through.
His behaviour at school – the lack of empathy for what his actions could cause – really annoyed me. Admittedly, he’s a young man and there were times when he tried to show maturity and responsibility like when he and his friends went out to clubs, etc, but I just couldn’t find anything about him to like. And that meant that my investment in the story dwindled until I finished it because I felt like I should rather than because I wanted to.
It is a very well written story, evokes the era extremely well, and the writing style is engaging, but my feelings towards the MC, how he treated Preston, some of how he behaved at school meant that I lost any inclination to read further. I completely understand that this is a ‘me’ problem rather than anything to do with the book, and perhaps it was written intentionally to create this feeling. Either way, for me this book was a 3/5 and I’m not sure if I care enough to read the third and final book.
I received an ARC from Gay Romance Reviews.
Double Play by E.M. Lindsey (Hit and Run Book #3)
Title: ⟫ Double Play (Hit and Run Book #3)
Author: ⟫ E.M. Lindsey
Rating: ⟫ 3.5/5
Blurb: ⟫ If self-destruction is an art-form, then Hervé is a master artist.
After all, he’s perfected self-sabotage since he was young and full of promise.
He’s spent his life
running from his past and pushing away anyone who might break down
his walls, but it wasn’t until his body betrayed him that he
realized just how lonely his present had become. Now he’s in the
countryside, trying to figure out if anything is worth salvaging, and
wondering if he’s the sort of man who will ever be worth a second
chance.
Even when Orion Coulter—one of the star pitchers
on the Denver Vikings—shows up in his little village like some sort
of predestined knight on a white horse, Hervé doesn’t trust him.
How can he when Orion is close to all the men Hervé hurt?
But
Orion’s situation is more complicated than Hervé realized, full of
pain and grief, looking for some kind of escape. And while Hervé
knows that he hasn’t quite earned meeting the man of his dreams,
Orion’s quiet voice, tender hands, and impossible promises has him
wondering if maybe—just maybe—the universe is willing to give him
the chance he doesn’t deserve.
Double Play is the final book of the Hit and Run MM baseball romance series. It features countryside kisses, grief, redemption, long walks, careful handling, and a painfully tender happily ever after.
Review: ⟫ I haven’t read any of the previous Hit and Run series and that may have influenced my experience with this book.
Well written, and extremely well researched, this book was an interesting read. I didn’t know about cataplexy although I knew a little about narcolepsy, and I found it quite educational. It features characters from the previous Hit and Run books (I assume so anyway), and there is obviously a lot of history playing a role in things.
Unfortunately,I think that may be what I struggled with. I haven’t read the previous books, knew none of the characters and therefore had no frame of reference and no ‘side’ in things. There were a lot of references to something Hervé did in previous books (and I know some people figured it out just from this book) but I couldn’t quite grasp what he had done that was so wrong, and I wasn’t sure I really cared.
That sounds really callous, but neither Hervé or Orion appealed to me at all – I felt their relationship moved at light speed when both of them were going through something completely life-changing and perhaps should have been more cautious. The struggles Hervé had with his health were handled sensitively and incorporated into the story – this wasn’t a case of saying a character is suffering from something and then never mentioning it again. But, again, I felt like he should be concentrating on stabilising his life and not on falling in love with someone based in a completely different country. I also thought recovering addicts were advised not to get into a relationship in the first year?
Basically, for me, this story didn’t connect and I think that is in large part because I didn’t have the history with the characters. As such, I personally don’t think that it can be read as a stand-alone novel. The sports was minimal, so I probably wouldn’t class it as a sports romance either.
The last two chapters were absolutely romantic, blistering and everything I could have hoped for. I just didn’t gel with the rest of the book. I received an ARC from GRR.
Tuesday 15 November 2022
Break Me Daddy by Skyler Snow
Wednesday 9 November 2022
Bully in My Bed by Rue Whitney
Debunked by Pandora Pine (Haunted #2)
We Choose You by Katy Manz
A Foot in the Door by Vinni George (An Open Doors Novel)
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Title: ⟫ Whiskey and Sin Author: ⟫ Emily Rath Rating: ⟫ 3.75/5 Blurb: ⟫ Run. In a world where unbonded omegas are worth their weigh...
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Title: ⟫ Bad Wrong Things Author: ⟫ C.P Harris Blurb: ⟫ One promise. One summer to see it through. One explosive love fuelled by mutu...
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Title: ⟫ Headcase Author: ⟫ Onley James Blurb: ⟫ Asa Mulvaney is half of a psychopathic whole. He and his twin brother live together, ...