Tag: Book Review

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

GoodeyReads1 Comment

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

Instagram || Goodreads || The StoryGraph

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

GoodeyReadsLeave a comment

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

Instagram || Goodreads || The StoryGraph

Book Review: Summer Ever After (Falling for Summer) by Kortney Keisel

GoodeyReadsLeave a comment

Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 364 pages
Author: Kortney Keisel
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: June 12th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Falling in love is easy. Finding the right guy to spend happily ever after with… that’s the hard part. 

But I have a foolproof plan. I’m taking the tropes that work in romance books and applying them to my love life.

Only one bed? Never fails.

Caring for someone when they’re sick? A classic.

“Who did this to you?” Seals the deal every single time.

So long, loneliness. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

But the more I try to force romance, the more feelings naturally progress with the one man who’s off limits: Walker Collins, the guy I’ve had a secret crush on since 7th grade, not to mention my best friend’s older brother. 

Dating Walker crosses BFF lines I swore I’d never cross. Plus, he hates Sunset Harbor, and his pro golf career will take him off the island as fast as he came, sending me back to the land of singlehood, loneliness, and broken hearts. 

At the end of the day, I don’t want to be the fool in my foolproof plan.

PLEASED.

I kind of have an up and down relationship with this author’s books. This, is an up! I really got caught up in the swoon of Walker. Because gosh DANG those kissing scenes were steamy and I’m pretty sure lit my kindle on fire. I am here for this.

What did bug me a little was Jane. I think her intense focus on the tropes and even creating them just rubbed me wrong in a way that’s hard to put my finger on. And that she held a secret from her best friend for so long?? Besides that, a truly good summer read.

I adore this small island and all of the interconnecting characters. I loooved the character growth in Walker and seeing him reconnect with his family and learning what he truly wants to value in life. I loved all of the flirting and banter. There was definitely plenty of fantastic chemistry between them. This is light, and fun and heated in all the best ways. Absolutely recommend for your summer TBR!

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: none
  • Romance: make-outs
  • Violence: low

Instagram || Goodreads || The StoryGraph

Book Review: Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley

GoodeyReadsLeave a comment

Rating: ★★★★
Audience: YA Mystery
Length: 400 pages
Author: Angeline Boulley
Publisher: Henry Holt
Release Date: May 2nd, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep.

Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.

But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.

Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right – for the ancestors and for their community.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter comes a thrilling YA mystery about a Native teen who must find a way to bring an ancestor home to her tribe.

PASSIONATE.

Another beautiful and immersive culture packed read where I feel like I am taught so much and still have so much to learn.

The mystery surrounding some suspicious characters was also intriguing and had me wondering what was happening and why. Those aspects were great and intriguing. I enjoyed Perry as a main character too. She’s hardened and kind and I liked seeing her characters progression throughout the story.

What I struggled with was the overall plot. Even reading at 3x on audio I felt like things were moving slowwww. There were a lot of small scenes that didn’t feel gathered into the entire plot and I spent a bit of time just waiting for anything to happen.

That being said, still a solid read. And I look forward to Boulley’s next book.

Overall audience notes:

  • YA Mystery
  • Language: moderate
  • Romance: closed door
  • Violence: high
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: mentions of teen sex, abduction, mentions/recounts of sexual assault, murder, underage drinking, theft

Instagram || Goodreads || The StoryGraph