Category: Romance

Review: With Any Luck (The Improbable Meet-Cute #5)

Title: With Any Luck (The Improbable Meet-Cute #5)
Author: Ashley Poston
Genre: Novella, Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Source: Purchased
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Every person she kisses finds their true love, and it’s never her—until now, in this funny and magically romantic short story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Audrey Love is cursed to be the person before you find your soulmate, the girl you dump for your true love. So when her best friend disappears hours before his Valentine’s Day wedding, Audrey fears that she did the unthinkable and kissed him at last night’s bachelor party. With help from the best man, she retraces her steps to find the missing groom and, with any luck, a true love of her own.

Ashley Poston’s With Any Luck is part of The Improbable Meet-Cute, irresistibly romantic stories about finding love when and where you least expect it. They can be read or listened to in one sitting. Let’s make a date of it.

Review:

Audrey Luck is unlucky in love. She’s the last person someone kisses before they find their true love. After her best friend disappears on the night before his wedding day, Audrey worries that she kissed him and led him to his true love, who is not his fiancé. Audrey must retrace her steps from the night before with the help of the best man to find her best friend before his wedding.

This was such a fun novella! It was an entertaining and slightly suspenseful story. It really felt longer than a novella because the characters were well developed and the story was cleverly plotted. This is my favourite novella the whole The Improbable Meet-Cute series.

With Any Luck is a fun romance novella!

Other books in the series:

Have you read With Any Luck? What did you think of it?

Review: Yours from the Tower

Title: Yours from the Tower
Author: Sally Nicholls
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Walker Books US
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback arc
Release Date: January 30, 2024
Rating: ★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Bridgerton fans rejoice! This epistolary confection—told in letters among three school friends—is perfect for devotees of gossipy costume drama.

Tirzah, Sophia, and Polly are best friends who’ve left boarding school and gone back to very different lives. The year is 1896, and Polly is teaching in an orphanage, Sophia is scouting for a rich husband at the London Season, and Tirzah is stuck acting as an unpaid companion to her grandmother. In a series of letters buzzing with atmosphere and drama, the friends air their dreams, hopes, frustrations, and romances. Can this trio of very different young women—one industrious, one artful, and one in exile—find happiness and love near the dawn of the Edwardian era? From the award-winning author of the Carnegie Medal–nominated historical romance The Silent Stars Go By comes a playful, feel-good story of friendship and aspiration pitched just right for fans of Jane Austen and her contemporary disciples.

Review:

1896: Tirzah, Polly, and Sophia are friends from boarding school who keep in touch through letters after they’ve finished school and moved on in their lives. Tirzah is living with her strict grandmother. Polly is working at an orphanage. Sophia is staying with her wealthy aunt and uncle for the season to find a husband. All three girls have to deal with tough problems as they move away from their teenage years and become young women.

This was a great epistolary novel. The short letters made the story fly by. It was easy to differentiate the three storylines since the girls were each leading such different lives. Polly was working, Sophia was looking for a husband, and Tirzah was still being treated like a child at home. They all had serious issues to deal with, such as a parent with alcoholism and a parent who abandoned their children. Despite these hardships, the story had a happy ending. 

Yours From the Tower was a great coming of age story. 

Thank you Walker Books US for sending me a copy of this book. 

Content warnings: alcoholism, parental abandonment, death of parent

Have you read Yours from the Tower? What did you think of it?

Review: The Dead Romantics

Title: The Dead Romantics
Author: Ashley Poston
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: June 28, 2022
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.

Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

Romance is most certainly dead… but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

Review:

Florence Day is a ghostwriter for a famous romance author, but now she doesn’t believe in romance anymore. She’s been stuck and hasn’t been able to finish her latest novel. She meets with her new editor, Benji Andor, who insists that she finish the book. Then, Florence is called home when her father dies suddenly. When she’s at her family’s funeral parlor, she opens the door to find a handsome ghost, who also happens to be Benji. Now Florence has to plan her father’s funeral, finish her novel, and figure out how to help Benji complete his unfinished business and move on. But she may find her own unexpected romance with a forbidden ghost. 

This was such a great romance! I love stories with ghosts. Florence not only had the ability to see ghosts, but she was also a ghostwriter who wrote romance novels for a famous author. I loved the forbidden romance between Florence and Benji since he was a ghost and they couldn’t be together. I guessed one of the big twists involving Benji, but there was another one later that really surprised me. I will say that this story had a happy ending!

The Dead Romantics is a fun romance!

Thank you Berkley Romance for providing a digital copy of this book. 

Content warnings: death, car accident, coma

Have you read The Dead Romantics? What did you think of it?

Review: Drop, Cover, and Hold On (The Improbable Meet-Cute #4)

Title: Drop, Cover, and Hold On (The Improbable Meet-Cute #4)
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Genre: Romance, Novella, Contemporary
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Source: Purchased
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Rating: ★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

It takes nothing less than a fateful natural disaster to throw two opposites together in a ground-shakingly charming short story by the New York Times bestselling author of Drunk on Love.

This Valentine’s Day, Daisy Murray has her heart set on binge-watching rom-coms. Instead, an earthquake traps her inside a bakery with its impossibly rude and insufferably handsome owner and head baker. They already have a history: she’s always smiled, he’s always scowled. Where better to finally get to know each other than amid the disaster? Then again, they have no choice. Besides, it could have its sweet, undeniable, and unpredictable perks.

Jasmine Guillory’s Drop, Cover, and Hold On is part of The Improbable Meet-Cute, irresistibly romantic stories about finding love when and where you least expect it. They can be read or listened to in one sitting. Let’s make a date of it.

Review:

On Valentine’s Day, Daisy Murray ends up trapped in her favourite bakery after an earthquake. The problem is that she’s trapped with the owner of the bakery who clearly hates her. Daisy had even decided not to come to the bakery anymore because of the dirty looks he would give her, but she wanted to give it one last shot on Valentine’s Day. However, as they talk and snack on her favourite treats, she realizes that maybe she misunderstood his feelings. 

This was the most extreme grumpy/sunshine story I’ve read. Daisy was super bubbly and happy, and Harris was scowling at Daisy all the time. It wasn’t clear why he was acting angry all the time when he really liked Daisy. There wasn’t an explanation for why he scowled all the time. The romance also escalated very quickly at the end once they knew they liked each other, which seemed unrealistic, since they hadn’t even spoken to each other until a few minutes before.

Drop, Cover, and Hold On had potential to be a good story but didn’t seem realistic.

Content warnings: earthquake

Other books in the series:

Have you read Drop, Cover, and Hold On? What did you think of it?

Review: Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute #3)

Title: Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute #3)
Author: Sally Thorne
Genre: Romance, Novella, Contemporary
Publisher: Amazon Original Publishing
Source: Purchased
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Rating: ★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

For a hopeful and hopeless romantic, it’s love at first sight—with a little twist.

Rosie Whittaker and her sister are up for some Galentine’s pampering at a day spa. Getting locked inside a flotation tank is so Rosie. Enter a firefighter hero determined to pry this luckless pearl out of her high-tech shell. All Rosie has to go on is a dreamy voice and a flirty sense of humor. Remain calm, Rosie. This could be what you’ve been waiting for. Is this the man she’s waited for her whole life?

Review:

Rosie Whittaker takes her sister to a spa for Galentine’s Day for some pampering. When they go in the brand new flotation tanks, Rosie gets stuck inside. The fire department has to be called in to rescue her, and Rosie listens to the attractive voice of one firefighter as he tries to rescue her. 

This novella was quite short, at just around 40 pages, but it felt like it dragged on. Most of the story was spent with Rosie in the tank, speaking to the firefighter, and not much was happening. The way that Rosie was trapped in the tank was also making me feel claustrophobic, so it didn’t feel like a particularly romantic setting.

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this romance novella. 

Content warning: claustrophobia

Other books in the series:

Have you read Rosie and the Dreamboat? What did you think of it?

Review: Worst Wingman Ever (The Improbable Meet-Cute #2)

Title: Worst Wingman Ever (The Improbable Meet-Cute #2)
Author: Abby Jimenez
Genre: Romance, Novella, Contemporary
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Source: Purchased
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

They’re falling in love, yet they’ve never met. Maybe fate can intervene in a heartwarming “what-if” short story about new beginnings by the New York Times bestselling author of Yours Truly.

Holly is dealing with the impending death of her grandmother and still reeling from a bad breakup. One bright spot: a Valentine’s Day card on Holly’s windshield—even if it wasn’t meant for her. An amusing mistake soon turns into a lovely exchange of anonymous notes, little acts of kindness, and a growing affection between two strangers. What happens when one of them has to say goodbye?

Review:

Holly is a hospice nurse who is taking care of her dying grandmother. When she leaves her grandmother’s apartment on Valentine’s Day, she finds a Valentine card on her windshield but it isn’t addressed to her. John, who mistakenly put the card intended for his brother’s girlfriend on the wrong car, writes an apology note and leaves it on the car the next time he sees it. This begins an exchange of anonymous notes and gifts, until fate gives them their meet cute. 

This was my first read of Abby Jimenez’s stories, and I loved it! It was short and sweet with some surprising twists along the way. It did have a sad side, with Holly’s grandmother dying, but her grandmother added some funny moments to the story too. 

Worst Wingman Ever is a fun romance novella!

Content warnings: death of grandparent, hospice

Other books in the series:

Have you read Worst Wingman Ever? What did you think of it?

Review: Role Playing

Title: Role Playing
Author: Cathy Yardley
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Montlake
Source: Firefly Books Distributed Lines
Format: Paperback
Release Date: July 1, 2023
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

From Cathy Yardley, author of Love, Comment, Subscribe, comes an emotional rom-com about two middle-aged gamers who grow their online connection into an IRL love story.

Maggie is an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit. But when her college-aged son makes her a deal—he’ll be more social if she does the same—she can’t refuse. She joins a new online gaming guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So that nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch.

Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an emotional outlet from his family drama caring for his aging mother while his brother plays house with Aiden’s ex-fiancée.

Bogwitch and Otter become fast virtual friends, but there’s a catch. Bogwitch thinks Otter is a college student. Otter assumes Bogwitch is an octogenarian.

When they finally meet face-to-face—after a rocky, shocking start—the unlikely pair of sunshine and stormy personalities grow tentatively closer. But Maggie’s previous relationships have left her bitter, and Aiden’s got a complicated past of his own.

Everything’s easier online. Can they make it work in real life?

Review:

Maggie is a forty-eight-year-old editor who lives alone after her son went away to college. Maggie makes a deal with her son to be more social, to make her son become more social at college. Though she doesn’t like many of the women in her small town, Maggie joins a local guild in an online game under the name Bogwitch. Aiden is the fifty-year-old leader of the guild Maggie joins. He’s busy trying to get his mom’s affairs in order as she’s aging. She agrees to sign the legal paperwork for him if he can bring a date to his cousin’s wedding. Aiden quickly builds a friendship with Bogwitch online, under the username Otter. Aiden assumes Bogwitch is an eighty-year-old woman, and Maggie assumes Otter is a teenage boy. Their attraction feels wrong, until they meet and discover they’re almost the same age. They both need to work through relationship problems from their past before they can commit to their own romance.

I loved that the protagonists in this romance were middle aged. Most romances have protagonists who are young adults, but new romances can begin at any age. The misunderstanding about their ages was funny and realistic. You never know who’s on the other side of your computer screen. Their reasons for thinking the age of the other person was different was logical (Maggie was recommended to Aiden as a mutual friend from his mom’s church and Maggie was told Aiden took classes at the community college). There was also some representation of the LGBTQ spectrum, which was explained to characters who didn’t understand it.

Role Playing is a fun romance!

Thank you Firefly Books Distributed Lines for providing a copy of this book. 

Content warnings: death of parent, homophobia, divorce

Have you read Role Playing? What did you think of it?

Review: The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute #1)

Title: The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute #1)
Author: Christina Lauren
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Novella
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Source: Prime Reading
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

On February 14, an accidental email to a stranger opens the door to an unexpected relationship in a captivating short story by the New York Times bestselling authors of The Unhoneymooners.

One typo, and a boy and girl connect by chance. Wishing each other a happy Valentine’s Day isn’t the end. In fact, it becomes a friendly annual tradition—with rules: no pics, no real names, nothing too personal. As years pass, the rules for their email “dates” are breaking, and they’re sharing more than they imagined—including the urge to ask…what if we actually met?

Christina Lauren’s The Exception to the Rule is part of The Improbable Meet-Cute, irresistibly romantic stories about finding love when and where you least expect it. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.

Review:

On Valentine’s Day in 2014, a student accidentally emails another student instead of their teacher. This begins a tradition of them emailing each other on Valentine’s Day for years, without giving away any identifying information. Eventually, years later, they decide to finally meet, but fate has other plans in store for them. 

This was such a fun novella! It’s a great quick read, with most of the story told through short emails. It was heartwarming and a sweet romance. There were some surprising and funny moments, without the tragedy of the third act break up. I’m excited to read the rest of the stories in this series. 

The Exception to the Rule is a fun romance novella!

Content warnings: death of parent, cancer

Other books in the series:

  • Worst Wingman Ever (The Improbable Meet-Cute #2)
  • Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute #3)
  • Drop, Cover, and Hold On (The Improbable Meet-Cute #4)
  • With Any Luck (The Improbable Meet-Cute #5)
  • Royal Valentine (The Improbable Meet-Cute #6)

Have you read The Exception to the Rule? What did you think of it?

Review: Whiteout

Title: Whiteout
Author: Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, Nicola Yoon
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: November 8, 2022
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Atlanta is blanketed with snow just before Christmas, but the warmth of young love just might melt the ice in this novel of interwoven narratives, Black joy, and cozy, sparkling romance—by the same unbeatable team of authors who wrote the New York Times bestseller Blackout!

As the city grinds to a halt, twelve teens band together to help a friend pull off the most epic apology of her life. But will they be able to make it happen, in spite of the storm? 

No one is prepared for this whiteout. But then, we can’t always prepare for the magical moments that change everything.

From the bestselling, award-winning, all-star authors who brought us Blackout—Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon—comes another novel of Black teen love, each relationship within as unique and sparkling as Southern snowflakes.

Review:

One night, a few days before Christmas, Atlanta has a snowstorm. Everything in the city stops, but Stevie needs to try to win her girlfriend back. She enlists the help of her friends, who do all they can to get around the city and help Stevie, while also finding their own snowstorm romances.

I loved the book Blackout, which was written by the same authors, so I knew I would love this one. It was so fun to read these intertwined stories of different characters who were working towards the same goal, but who also had their own subplots happening at the same time. There was a list of clues at the end of the story to help you figure out who wrote each chapter. I tried to guess which author wrote which characters while I was reading it, and I think I got a couple of them right. 

Whiteout is a fun snowstorm romance!

Have you read Whiteout? What did you think of it?

Review: Woke Up Like This

Title: Woke Up Like This
Author: Amy Lea
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Mindy’s Book Studio
Source: Firefly Books Distributed Lines
Format: Paperback arc
Release Date: October 1, 2023
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Planning the perfect prom is one last “to do” on ultra-organized Charlotte Wu’s high school bucket list. So far, so good, if not for a decorating accident that sends Charlotte crash-landing off a ladder, face-first into her obnoxiously ripped archnemesis J. T. Renner. Worse? When Charlotte wakes up, she finds herself in an unfamiliar bed at thirty years old, with her bearded fiancé, Renner, by her side.

Either they’ve lost their minds or they’ve been drop-kicked into adulthood, forever trapped in the thirty-year-old bodies of their future selves. With each other as their only constant, Charlotte and Renner discover all that’s changed in the time they’ve missed. Charlotte also learns there’s more to Renner than irritating-jock charm, and that reaching the next milestone isn’t as important as what happens in between.

Navigating a series of adventures and a confounding new normal, Charlotte and Renner will do whatever it takes to find a way back to seventeen. But when―and if―they do, what then?

Review:

Charlotte Wu is a super organized high school senior who is preparing for prom. She’s the vice-president of student council, and she has to work with her archenemy, J.T. Renner, who is president. While setting up the decorations for prom, Charlotte falls off a ladder and onto Renner. She opens her eyes in an unfamiliar bed, as a thirty-year-old, with Renner sleeping beside her. Neither of them know how they’ve jumped thirty years into the future. A lot has changed in the past thirteen years, starting with their upcoming wedding. Charlotte has no idea why she would be marrying her enemy, who she’s hated since he stood her up for homecoming in their freshman year. If they want to return to their senior year, they have to figure out why they were sent into the future, and maybe they were meant to be together all along. 

13 Going on 30 is one of my favourite rom coms, so I was excited to read this similar story! The movie is mentioned in the book, but to Charlotte, it’s considered a movie from her mom’s generation. Charlotte had such strong feelings of hatred towards Renner, it wasn’t hard for those feelings to be flipped to love. Though there was a misunderstanding that caused their rivalry throughout high school, it made sense that it happened the way it did. 

Woke Up Like This is a fun time travel rom com!

Thank you Firefly Distributed Lines for sending me a copy of this book!

Content warnings: death of parent, divorce

Have you read Woke Up Like This? What did you think of it?