Coming in with some more book reviews. Am I just a book blogger now? With some random Amazon posts thrown in. Anyway, I had so many good ones in a row with some of my favorite authors!
I just love Elin’s books and I am so sad that they could be coming to an end soon. I read somewhere this was her last one, or there would be one more. Not sure which is true. Either way, nothing wraps me in like her books. This was such an interesting concept with the five-star weekend, inviting a best friend from each era of your life. What a fun idea! Of course, when you get five women together, some drama is going to ensue. There were several twists, the biggest one I totally guessed almost immediately. That didn’t take away from the story though. I will say, if this was her last book, I was expecting more of an epic finale? That is what makes me think there has to be one more for Nantucket. We shall see. Either way, I enjoyed getting to know each of the five stars in this novel, and even Caroline, the daughter, was an interesting character. I couldn’t put it down, which makes it a five star book for me.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Harriet at the beginning of the book. But the deeper I got in to it and learned about her past with her ex….I was like oh wow. Her ex was exactly like someone I used to date. All the gaslighting and lies. I am very far removed from that relationship, but dang if it didn’t bring back some memories I long since repressed. So, while she wasn’t my favorite character in a book….I sure could appreciate where she came from. And Cal, I loved him! He had his own baggage as well. I wouldn’t call this one a romance so much. It wasn’t really focused on that, as much as Harriet’s story and her growth throughout the book. While I felt their connection was realistic, I didn’t feel the actual spark between them. But that is ok, because again, the book is more focused on other things. I love this author and will read everything she puts out.
I absolutely loved Nora Goes Off Script, so I was super excited to read this. I got sucked right into Sam’s world. I felt like she was very relatable. And her family!!! I absolutely LOVED her family. I feel like Monaghan writes such unique, lovable characters and there was no shortage of them in this book. Wyatt and Sam’s history is so complicated. It was fun watching them fall in love, and then break apart. I won’t talk about what happens towards to end of the book so as not to spoil anything. I will just say it all felt right. I consumed this as audio and the narrator was fantastic.
I went into this one thinking it was going to be suspenseful, but it was more of a domestic drama of sorts? Did Arno cheat or did he not? Liz focuses on this basically the entire book based off of one text and maybe a few other little things throughout. The book is very heavy on the little aspects of her daily life. At times, that sort of dragged for me. I can’t decide how I feel about Liz. I didn’t really care for her, she clearly has an alcohol problem and she wasn’t a very good mother. She had narcissistic tendencies and was selfish in every relationship she was in except maybe the one with Arno. But you can’t help but feel sorry for her. And some of her inner dialogue was funny/entertaining. My main issue with the book was the ending. I wanted more, it sort of ended abruptly.
I consumed this book as an audio book and quite enjoyed the narration. It really added to the book for me, and I believe the narration actually made me like the book more than had I read it on my own.
Bottom Line: It is worth the read.
**I received a copy of He Said He Would Be Late from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are of my own.**
This was such a fun read. I absolutely loved Rachel’s enthusiasm for her job in hospitality. It sucked how she was fired in the beginning, but obviously, it was for the best. I enjoyed her and her daughter’s adventure to Ohio and meeting Mason and watching his dream of the brewery hotel come together. The side characters from the island were so great and overall it was just such an enjoyable read. I loved that Rachel grew and started standing up for herself to get what she deserved and made her happy. Such a good slow burn. I am just sad, because now the book is over. It could have been a tad longer. I wasn’t ready to let it go.
This is an enemies to lovers, second chance trope. When Margo’s podcast cohost gets married it is a big deal. Why? Because their podcast is advice for single girls. Throw in someone from Margo’s past in the wedding party…and you know it is going to be interesting.
To be honest, I thought the reason that Margo didn’t like Declan was kind of weak. It was something stupid he did in high school. I never really felt the true chemistry between them. There were many moments throughout the book that I eye rolled through, as I felt like Margo was kind of immature. She was so focused on the rules and what she was and wasn’t supposed to be doing. Grow up and live your life. I didn’t DNF the book, so there is that. I am not one to hesitate to quit something. I love a good enemies to lovers trope. I wanted more from this one, but it also wasn’t the worst book I read lately. Maybe if I were a bitter 20 something I would have liked it better? But I felt a little old reading this.
Bottom Line: This passed the time just fine, but it wasn’t my favorite.
**I received a copy of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are of my own.**
I have become quite the fan of Abby Jimenez’s books, so I was really excited to dive into this one. This is sort of enemies to lovers, fake relationship, forced proximity, co-worker romance all rolled into one. While the fake relationship trope seems to be popular lately, I don’t mind, I quite enjoy it. Briana is a very strong female lead, and this time we have a male with anxiety problems. Usually it is the other way around. This made for an interesting dynamic.
I loved Briana and how fiercely she loved and protected the people around her. Jacob was such a sweet soul. Both had issues they had to work through. There was a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding throughout this book. It caused a lot of angst, and a very slow burn. I do love a slow burn though! I will say, the heated scene happened so abruptly, I was a little let down by that after allllll the build up! I loved both of their family dynamics, all the delicious food, and Lieutenant Dan. Oh, Lieutenant Dan! I could not put this one down and it reached five star territory for me.
Book reviews coming in hot! I am going to split up this month’s reviews into two posts, as I want to make sure I get this one posted on the release date for R. S. Grey’s new book!
I enjoyed this clean romance. It is sort of an enemy to lovers / forced proximity trope in that Clara demands justice for Elliot’s reckless driving. The judge has Elliot serve the community by helping at Clara’s camp.
I feel like we get to see the spark start to form between Clara and Elliot and get to learn about her passion for helping and Elliot’s drive for business. I was not a fan of Elliot at all in the beginning, but he really started to grow on me.
Bottom Line: This was a cute read with good development. I am not as big of a fan of clean romance as I am something with a little spice, but I really enjoyed the storyline and the camp in this one.
**I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.**
I usually love Tessa Bailey, but this one fell a little flat for me. While I enjoyed the parts about Hallie and her grandma, and her love for Lorna and her wine store, and her relationship with her best friend….she came off as really immature for 29/30. Writing secret admirer letters, the way she handled the Corked’s competition, the fact that she was a virgin at her age?! Like that might have bothered me most actually, because when you get to the steamy bits of the book I had major eye rolls when it came to her virginity. So unnecessary.
And while I enjoyed Julian’s family business, his past, and his mom and sister….he wasn’t fully developed for me as a character. I never truly felt the spark between him and Hallie. And the conflict on his part towards the end was a major WTF. I don’t know. And him calling Hallie “soft” as a compliment. No. This book moves slow throughout, and while there were parts I liked, it just was a miss for me I think.
Bottom Line: Meh, it was alright. If you are fan of Tessa Bailey and you just want to read them all…then do. But you might be a bit disappointed in this one. It Happened One Summer was a lot better.
I couldn’t wait to read Tate’s story, and of course, I blew through this one so fast! It was so cute! This might be my new favorite R.S. Grey books, I don’t know, it is hard to chose just one to be a favorite….but dang I really loved Tate and Grant! This one revolves around professional baseball, obviously. It is a forbidden romance trope with a MLB’s little sister, so that is super fun. I love that we really get to meet and invest in this core group of friends. I almost feel like maybe there could be a good on Daphne too??? Come on R.S. Grey!! I am not ready to leave the Pinstripes just yet!
I really love Emily Henry’s writing and was excited when I saw that she had a new book out. She has become a must read for me. I really loved the way Happy Place was laid out. We start with finding out that Harriet is going to be on vacation with her friends in her happy place, only to discover that her and her ex broke up over 5 months ago and now they have to act like they are together because no one knows. I love a good forced proximity trope.
I could really feel the love that Harriet and Wyn still had for each other throughout. I loved how we went back and forth between the beginning of their relationship and current day. I enjoyed all the side characters, the location… I could barely put it down and had it finished in about 24 hours.
This was a fun read. I love enemy to lovers, and this was also a second chance romance. Lana Parker was a strong female lead. I loved her group of girlfriends, they were such great side characters and made me want to join their friend group! Seth was a little bland at times, I wish we could have heard his POV throughout the book, it would have made him a stronger character. I loved the premise and flow of the book. There was a lot of growth in Lana, and I like to see that in our main character. I will say, the article excerpts at the beginning of each chapter were a little disappointing. I felt like they were low-effort considering the entire book revolves around Lana and Seth’s work. I wanted something a little more clever.
This is the best book I have read on my relationship with food. Hear me out. While not every devotional day in this book went very deep, or was super life-changing….there were a few days that just really clicked with me and are the things I needed to hear. Especially the last few at the end. This devotional made me realize that sugar was ruining both my physical health and my spiritual one. And it goes beyond just sugar, spending…time on social media…etc. When you run to any of those things instead of God, you lack the spiritual fruit of self control and you will never be satisfied. I definitely plan to pick this up at least annually, as there are many good nuggets.
Bottom Line: Read it!
The next three are novellas by Ali Hazelwood. You can consume them all in one as Loathe to Love You, or separate. I chose to write about them separately below.
This was such a cute, quick read. I liked how it started out in present time, then went in reverse over the last five months. I wish we would have gotten Liam’s side of the story, it would have been fun to know what was going on in his mind. But, obviously since this is a novella, there isn’t a ton of character development. In fact, I didn’t really feel the moment when these two felt a spark. While I really love Ali Hazelwood’s longer novels, I wish we could get away from the exact same copy and paste characters in each book. While I love she focuses on STEM women, they are usually annoying characters and the men are always dull and boring with super huge *insert eggplant emoji here.** While the formula worked for me in the first two books of hers I read….I want something more now! I enjoyed this one, but I have a feeling the next two in the series are going to basically be copies of this story. And that is a little disappointing.
Bottom Line: I think this series of three novellas is worth a read, but I wouldn’t rush to purchase them.
This might have been my favorite out of the three? I feel like we really got to know Sadie and Erik more than the others. I could feel the chemistry more, they had a lot in common with their interests. It was steamy and fun! But again, big guy, small girl, science thrown in. Same formula.
This one was cute, but once again…same formula. For the third time in a row in one novella, I thought that was a bit much. I enjoyed the actual plot…of being stuck and the whole rescue. That part was fun. And I liked how each novel started in the current and went back to how the characters first interacted. But again. Three times in a row is a bit much.
I have gone all in on embracing the green thumb life. This book is full of different house plants and it talks about their benefits to promote healthy living, as well as general care for them. It is an easily digestible read, each page is set up the same. There are plants that help clean the air, promote digestion, better sleep, combat anxiety and depression, relieve pain, fight cold and flu, help with ear aches, PMS, there are even plants that act as an aphrodisiac. We are definitely adding more around here.
The book is very basic, I wish it had real photographs instead of illustrations. But it was just what I needed to get started. It is very easy to look up certain plants, as it is laid out alphabetically.
Bottom Line: Read it! You will definitely learn something.
We live in a society that breaks further and further away from Christian morals and values. There are so many lies fed to us every day. As parents, we are the gatekeepers to our children and what they are exposed to. Our kids are facing attacks on their faith that we never had growing up. I made a lot of notes while reading this book and I actually am hoping to start a local book club inspired from it!
I grabbed this from the library and fully intend to purchase a copy for myself. This book is full of beautiful photos, crafty ideas and knowledge/education about all things gardening. I really liked the layout and the way everything was presented. I found great value in this over other gardening books I checked out the same day.
Bottom Line: If you are a beginner gardener like me, definitely grab this.
I love a good family drama, but I feel like this one doesn’t have a strong plot/storyline. Nothing really happens. I mean, nothing monumental. It is filled with immature, catty characters. I felt like the book was virtue signaling a lot of the time. I didn’t quit it, and I am not afraid to tell a book bye. So there is that. I did enjoy reading it at times. But it took awhile to get into and I rolled my eyes a lot while reading it. I feel like this book is getting a lot of buzz and it is lost on me as to why.
Bottom Line: The best thing about this book is the cover. I gave it a solid 3 stars. I wanted it to be better, but still enjoyed parts of it.
I am trying to decide how I feel about this one. Trevor is amazing. I loved him throughout the book. Tara? Ugh. She got on my nerves! She is so immature for someone who is 30. I really don’t think that someone of this age would act so childishly at times. I liked the idea of going back through your exes, assuming they were half way decent people. But I also subscribe to the “they are exes for a reason” theory more often than not. I like slow burns and forced proximity, and we get both of that in here.
Bottom Line: This is another 3 star book for me. Trevor was a much stronger character than our leading lady, and frankly, he deserved better than her!
I wanted to mark all the potted things we are planting, these wooden tags are great and they come with a marker to use with them! They are so cute and seem like good quality.
Our local grocery store isn’t the best when you are looking for spices like this, thank goodness for quick delivery! Going to make cashew chicken this week.
Another repurchase. I love using this wand in our showers, it makes my life so much easier! Especially since we have tall ceilings and I can’t reach the top of our master shower. Works great in corners too.
Another repurchase! One bottle of this lasts us a long time. I use it on carpet, furniture, outdoor stuff, etc. With Mac getting older and having heart issues….he has had more accidents recently and we have really put this stuff to the test!
Repurchase. LOVE this stuff. It is the best natural laundry detergent I have found. You have to make sure you are using the correct amount and the right temperature settings accordingly, and once you figure that out, it is easy sailing.
I got this to go with Zoe’s monkey costume. I couldn’t find a plain brown shirt ANYWHERE in stores. I hated to pay this much for a plain kid’s shirt, but Zoe loved it and said it is her favorite fitting one she has. So I have a feeling cost per wear will be good for this come fall.
Talk about this nearly every month. Still can’t ever find unbleached parchment paper in our stores. Though, I did find some air fryer size ones this past month.
