Book Review: Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 320 pages
Author: Annabel Monaghan
Publisher: G.P. Putnam
Release Date: June 6th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

The ultimate summer nostalgia read, about an engaged woman who comes face to face with her first love who she hasn’t seen in fourteen years, but who she spent every summer with from age five to seventeen when he broke her heart, calling into question everything she thought she knew about their love story, and herself.

Beach Rules:
Do take long walks on the sand.
Do put an umbrella in every cocktail.
Do NOT run into your first love.

Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?

Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed—Sam’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.

LOVED.

This is my new favorite from Annabel Monaghan! Great second chance romance, I FELT the angst and the chapters in the past were gosh dang sweet and heart breaking.

Often with second chance I feel like I need the reason for the original break-up to make sense. And this one did!! It still hurt my heart, but with all of things surrounding why there was a breakdown, it worked well and I loved seeing Sam and Wyatt work towards a resolution. I love a first love reconnection.

I loved the setting, this really is a great book for summer. It’s fast paced (and short, the audio was 7 hours), brings the feels and a little bit of heat. There were a lot of sweet moments and good conversations, I wish the other guy would have been gone sooner though!!

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: a little
  • Romance: closed door
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: cheating (parents, recounted)

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Book Review: Heavenbreaker by Sara Wolf

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Fantasy/Sci-Fi + Romance
Length: 448 pages
Author: Sara Wolf
Publisher: Red Tower
Release Date: May 21st, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

In Synali von Hauteclare’s world, blood is all that matters.

In a massive space station that houses the last of humanity, the king rules. Nobles dance. Commoners starve. And when they aren’t starving, they watch the riding tournaments between the giant robots called “steeds”—once used in the war against the enemy, now repurposed for honorable lance-to-lance high-speed combat with a gravity generator. Only nobles may have the honor of riding. Only nobles may have the glory. Only nobles have the blood.

In Synali von Hauteclare’s world, she’s a bastard; her mother a commoner, her father a duke. And she’s just killed him.

But he killed first.

Seven people in House Hauteclare helped her father hire an assassin to kill her and her mother. Synali survived. Her mother did not. And now Synali will do anything to make them pay, even ally with a noble, her sworn enemy. Now she’s made a deal: for every win she scores in the upcoming Supernova Cup, this enigmatic nobleman will kill one of the seven. She’s never ridden, and the steed her new ally gives her—Heavenbreaker—sings strange lullabies in its hangar. And, increasingly, in her mind.

With her half sibling, Mirele von Hauteclare on her trail, and hotshot pilot Rax who’s trying to get in her bed, Synali has her hands full.

But blood is all that matters. And she will ensure they see much of it.

PRETTY GOOD.

I was swept in by the pretty book and it contained a good read too. I have mixed thoughts on the audiobook though. I thought the narrator was great, but with a multi-POV story it would confuse me about who’s POV I was in whenever I picked the book back up.

I thought the concept was interesting. It gave me Red Rising, Hunger Games, and a dash of Scorpio Races kind of vibes. I loved the jousting element and the tournament was well crafted. I liked the main *main* character Synali a lot. She was someone to root for and I loved the revenge path she was on.

There’s a slow burn romance brewing I am absolutely here for. I enjoyed his POV a lot too. I’m curious about the others and how they will further play out in the series. It was like we got enough hints to be intrigued, but I needed more to really love them.

A truly solid good read, I will definitely be picking up the next one.

Overall audience notes:

  • Sci-Fi Romance
  • Language: moderate
  • Romance: for the life of me I can’t remember, I’m pretty sure it was heated makeouts and low innuendo
  • Violence: high

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Book Review: A Love Like the Sun by Riss M. Neilson

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Rating: ★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 368 pages
Author: Riss M. Neilson
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: June 11th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Lifelong best friends spend a fateful summer discovering what might happen if they were to be something more in this radiant, heart-clenching adult debut.

Laniah Thompson is a homebody who craves privacy. Issac Jordan is internet famous and spends his days followed by paparazzi. She runs a small business with her mom in her hometown. He runs an international brand.

And they’ve been best friends since childhood.

When Issac comes home to Providence for the first time in months and discovers Laniah’s dream is slipping out of reach as she and her mom struggle to pay the bills at Wildly Green, their natural hair store, she refuses to take a dime from him. And so, he does what any self-respecting best friend would do: tells the world they’re dating.

Suddenly business is booming, and Laniah agrees to his ridiculous plan to pretend to be lovers for the course of the summer. Just long enough to catch the eye of an investor and get her dream back on track, like she helped him do so many years ago, he reminds her.

Too soon, though, Laniah knows she’s playing with fire, because for as long as they’ve been friends there’s an undeniable pull they’ve never given in to. And as the lines between art and life—real and pretend—blur, it becomes harder and harder to see where friendship ends and something else begins….

Told over the course of three sizzling summer months, A Love Like the Sun is about shared history, those who make us our bravest selves, and love in its many forms.

Thank you to Berkley for the free book.

ESCALATION.

This unfortunately became increasingly more frustrating the further I went on.

I don’t understand how two people that have been best friends since they were children still don’t fully discuss aspects of their lives. Laniah hid some very big pieces of what was happening in her life from Isaac and I struggled a lot with how that part of the plot went down.

And for a romance, the couple spent very little time together. And too many deep comments were made via text. And I know that can work sometimes, but I really wanted to see more of Isaac and Laniah in the same place working through their friends to lovers feelings.

The story felt haphazard. Ultimately, all of the segments didn’t weave together to create a cohesive book. There wasn’t any character growth and nothing pushing this story forward.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: moderate
  • Romance: 3 open door + some innuendo
  • Content Warnings: missed medical diagnosis from a doctor, loss of a Dad, medical discrimination, kidney disease

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Book Review: I’m Not Charlotte Lucas by Kasey Stockton

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 240 pages
Author: Kasey Stockton
Publisher: Covenant Communications
Release Date: February 7th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Northern California girl Charlotte “Charlie” Lucas has two great loves: Diet Coke and Pride and Prejudice. But her passion for Regency classics is tempered by a very real fear: Charlie is terrified of having to endure the fate of her namesake—spinsterhood. Despite her best attempts to maintain a modern sensibility, she can’t say no when an elderly neighbor asks Charlie to attend a charity ball with her grandson. Blind date or not, Charlie is powerless to resist the allure of a real-life ball. Soon it’s clear that she will struggle to resist the charms of her blind date too.

Liam Connell is every bit the swoon-worthy leading man, straight out of Charlie’s daydreams. But he’s completely unattainable—his last girlfriend was a gorgeous actress and a far cry from Charlie’s world. So after a magical evening with Liam, Charlie is ready to get back to reality, even if her best option right now is a former boyfriend who wants to give it another shot. Unfortunately, despite imagining she’ll never see Liam again, he seems to be everywhere. How is a lady to move past a fantasy when life suddenly seems to be imitating fiction to an alarming degree?

WELL.

I wanted to love this. But I had the hardest time finding common ground with the FMC. She spent so much time comparing herself to everyone, knocking herself down and not listening to anyone around her. By the time things started to change it was really late in the story and I was already ready for it to be over.

Liam and Charlie did have a lot of cute moments. I liked the quiet scenes they had together and some sweet kisses too. Liam was swoony and was clearly enamored with Charlie and I wish Charlie would have seen that sooner.

I did like the audiobook and secondary characters too. It’s not a bad story by any means, I just didn’t connect with some aspects. I’ll still be reading Kasey Stockton books.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: none
  • Romance: kisses

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