Tag: avon books

ARC Book Review: Once, Again, Always by Amanda Gayle

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Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 384 pages
Author: Amanda Gayle
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: October 6th, 2026
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A second-chance romance following a young woman who wakes up in the hospital with no memory of the past six years, only to find that she apparently married the one man she can’t stand—her arrogant and infuriating former boarding school rival.

Molly Graham’s day can’t possibly get any worse after she wakes up in a hospital bed with a head injury and amnesia. But then Aster Bishop—the Aster Bishop who made her life hell at boarding school—storms into her room calling her his wife.

To Molly’s shock, in the six years she no longer recalls, she somehow fell in love with a man she once despised. Persuaded by her lifelong friends to give her new reality a chance, she reluctantly returns to the home she and Aster share to try and piece together her life.

So much has changed, not least the considerate and devastatingly handsome man who spends every night sleeping on the sofa to avoid making her uncomfortable. This Aster is nothing like the entitled boy she once knew. Their chemistry is undeniable, but he’s distant with her, infuriatingly so. It’s clear he has secrets, and Molly can’t stand it. Especially knowing that she might never regain her memories.

That she fell in love with Aster Bishop once is hard enough to believe. But to fall in love again? To promise a future, always, when she can’t remember her past? It feels impossible when faced with a man she hardly knows and isn’t sure she can trust.

And yet…

Thank you Avon Books for the eARC.

DOWN BAD.

Oh wow. I miss binging books??! This one had me in a straight chokehold for 24 hours and I regret nothing. I was LOCKED IN. And I’m not even an amnesia girlie?? What kind of magic was sprinkled into this story because I want mooooore.

I’m kind of sort of obsessed with Aster Bishop. I liked that he didn’t call every decision perfectly. He and Molly had to find a lot of new communication routes in an impossible situation. The miscommunication actually made sense and even though it’s pretty easy to assume (as the reader) what the big secret was, I still enjoyed the journey to get there and how I had to keep turning pages to get there.

I LOVED all of the the friendships. Every side character was a gemmmmmm. A GEM. And I liked learning more about them and their relationship to Molly and Aster. The little flashback moments worked well too and added historical context to the romance.

Aster was down bad. As he SHOULD BE. The yearning and longing was evident. THE YEARNING. Off the charts. 10/10.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: mild-moderate
  • Romance: light innuendo; one more emotions based open door
  • Violence: moderate
  • Content warnings: amnesia related to a stroke, miscarriage (briefly recounted)

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Book Review: Pick Me by Victoria Schade

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Rating: ★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 352 pages
Author: Victoria Schade
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: November 18th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A delightfully sexy romantic comedy about a romance writer determined to learn how to play pickleball to impress her crush, only to fall for her coach.

As a cowboy romance ghostwriter, Brooke Murphy knows a thing or two about happily ever afters. But following her last breakup, Brooke is feeling fresh out of hot and steamy vibes.

With her next deadline looming and desperate for inspiration, Brooke says yes to every possible romantic opportunity, including a mixed doubles pickleball game, where she meets a tall, dark, and handsome guy taking his pickleball very seriously. A couple of dates with this stranger would be all she needs to crank out her next trope-tastic novel. She just needs to learn how to play. Fast. So what if she’s the least athletic person alive?

Enter Owen Miller, aka The Big Gripper, the secret weapon of Manhattan’s most competitive finance bro pickleball players. The surly coach doesn’t look like a former elite athlete—with his bucket hat, oversized basketball shorts, and flip-flops—but the man can move when the ball heads his way. With enough shameless begging, she convinces him to take her on.

As her game improves, her muse comes back in a big way. Could it be that her feelings for the grump who taught her the difference between a dillball and a dink shot run deeper than just student and coach?

Thank you Avon Books for the gifted copy.

IT WAS OKAY.

Ironically enough the day I finished this book was also the day I played a pickleball game for the first time in 8 years. The pickleball game was more fun than this book.

I DO appreciate that this had plenty of pickleball content. You can call this a sports romance easy because it’s always a pet peeve of mine to not have the sport actually included in the book.

Owen was sweet, I liked his personality and he was cute. I was mostly bugged that much of the book was focused on Brooke trying to meet another man through Owen. That + the awkwardly thrown in innuendo made for a forced sexy atmosphere rather than natural. I was tired of hearing about Brooke’s characters and what they were doing.

I like the cover of the book? But I need to find another pickleball romance to try.

Overall audience notes:

  • Sports Romance
  • Language: moderate
  • Romance: 2-3ish open door; innuendo throughout
  • Violence: low

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Book Review: Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart by Emma Simmerman

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Rating: ★★★
Audience: Thriller
Length: 384 pages
Author: Emma Simmerman
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: February 3rd, 2026
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder meets Tell Me Lies in this binge-worthy debut murder mystery about a college student whose senior year takes a deadly turn when her exes start turning up dead…

Every time a guy breaks my heart, I write him a eulogy in my journal. It’s kind of my thing—closure through creative mourning. They don’t actually die… or, at least, they didn’t.

Now? These guys aren’t just dead to me, they’re dead to everyone. And I’m the prime suspect.

With my senior year at Pembroke College—and my entire future—on the line, I’ve got no choice but to play detective. Unfortunately, that means teaming up with my long-standing frenemy, Asher, who is insufferable and somehow always there when I need him the least. We bicker, we banter, we occasionally almost hook up, but with the body count rising and my name all over the suspect board, there’s no time to get distracted.

Between college parties, messy exes, suspicious deaths, and a murder investigation I never asked to be a part of—one thing’s for this is not how I thought my last year would go.

Here’s to hoping I can find out who the real killer is… before someone ends up writing my eulogy.

Thank you Avon Books for the gifted copy.

WELL NOW I’M JUST MAD.

This felt a little all over the place. As if it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a thriller or a romance or maybe romantic suspense? But that didn’t nearly bug me as much as the FMC. I think it’s a cop out in thrillers to have the FMC be under the influence of alcohol or drugs every single time something big happens. The unreliable narrator component didn’t play out well because of this. And all she did was make bad choices.

I oddly enough, really liked Asher. He was probably my favorite character and I liked most of the romantic tension between him and Sloane. It did have an enemies vibe I could get behind. But his character was absolutely ROBBED with a plot choice at the ending. Whyyyyy???? Oh it totally ruined it.

The reveal of the big bad guy seemed out of pocket too. They weren’t involved with the plot much and the destruction they caused didn’t line up with the reasoning during their villain monologue. I had my eyes on multiple other characters who would have made more sense.

Anywhoooo not my favorite, moving on.

Overall audience notes:

  • Thriller/Romantic Suspense
  • Language: strong
  • Romance: 3-4ish open door
  • Violence: high
  • Content warnings: multiple murders, weapons violence

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Book Review: The Best Worst Thing by Lauren Okie

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Rating: ★★★★.5
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 416 pages
Author: Lauren Okie
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: October 14th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From a stunning new voice in romance, Lauren Okie’s The Best Worst Thing is an intimate story about starting over, second chances, and two people who cannot help falling into each other’s orbit once again.

All things considered, Nicole Speyer has a pretty amazing life. At least that’s what she tells herself. She’s got a beautiful house, a relatively successful fertility podcast, and a perfect husband, Gabe. The only thing that’s less than ideal is her years-long struggle with infertility—and how, with every passing day, she and Gabe seem to drift a little further apart.

But then, mere hours after a Hail Mary embryo transfer to her gestational carrier, Nicole discovers Gabe’s been sleeping with their dog walker, and her world turns upside down. Suddenly, a jobless, childless, and now-husbandless Nicole finds herself at the doorstep of somebody she tried to say goodbye to a long time ago.

Logan Milgram: a former colleague with serious golden retriever energy who happens to be laugh-out-loud funny, a colossal nerd, and legitimately kind of hot. When Logan opens his door that night, it’s like no time has passed. And as they fall back into each other’s lives, Nicole starts recognizing herself in the mirror again. She even begins to like what she sees. And then, like a cruel joke, she gets the news she’s spent a lifetime waiting for: her surrogate is finally pregnant. 

As her relationship with Logan develops from a blast-from-the-past fling into something much deeper, Nicole struggles to balance her past, present, and future. Racing against the clock, she must learn to forgive her body for falling short and recognize that sometimes, it’s the biggest betrayals in life that set us free. With everything on the line, can Nicole accept love from the greatest man she’s ever known . . . even if it’s nothing like the story she’d written for herself?

Thank you Avon Books for the gifted copy.

WHAT A MESS.

That I honestly could not put down. This wasn’t on my radar as it truthfully didn’t seem like a romance I’d love BUT HERE WE ARE FOLKS. Lauren Okie has done it and I will be seeking information on her next book because this one had me in a chokehold.

It also made me feel every. single. emotion. I was all over the place in my righteous anger over all the things and also just wanting to sit and cry with Nicole too.

The romance is SWOOOONY. It worked for me on so many levels. I adored Logan, gosh he was a vibrant green flag. I will say there was one too many “break-ups” that Nicole instigated to where I did get frustrated. Otherwise though, this was a genuinely amazing book. it covered some very difficult topics (please read content warnings first) and I thought handled them well. It felt raw and an uphill battle that I loved seeing resolved into a new kind of hope and peace for the days ahead.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: strong
  • Romance: 3-4ish open door
  • Violence: mild
  • Content warnings major themes of infertility, miscarriage, surrogacy, infidelity, grief/depression depiction, drug use

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