The Twelve Dates of Christmas came out a few years ago and caught my eye. It has just enough holiday cheer wrapped up in a sweet and lighthearted romance. I enjoyed the dating events and found myself grinning at the humor. It’s a fun read. Kate lives in a small town outside of London and…
Briar Prescott’s The Island is an angsty childhood-friends-to-lovers romance featuring Olympic-level pining and an unrequited love that will tug at the heartstrings. I enjoyed it for the most part, although I have to say that it’s overlong (this is becoming a familiar refrain in my reviews of contemporaries lately!) and somewhat repetitive in the final…
The Heartbreak Hotel is a beautiful exploration of family bonds, obligation and grief. It’s thoughtful and tender and tough in places, but so comforting. Louisa (Lou) has just broken up with pop singer Nate, and all she wants from him is to be able to stay in their house, a rental in the Colorado Mountains…
Are you interested in a different kind of coming-of-age novel? I enjoyed how Stephanie Perkins’ Overdue made me think about what adulthood means, and the different markers of it. I remember when New Adult launched as a genre marking that period of transition out of high school and the childhood home; this book truthfully depicts…
Nobody does gritty, angsty and deeply romantic quite like Garrett Leigh. Just This Once is the first book in her new Men of Porth Luck series, which features a chosen family of misfits who are working hard to make ends meet in a small Cornish town. Porth Luck is a spin off from the author’s…
I do love a good redemption story, and E.M. Lindsey’s Absolutely Pucked is a very good one. The Punked as Puck series features three ride-or-die best friends who play hockey in local community leagues for differently abled players, and while I loved the first book and wasn’t wild about the second, I’ve been looking forward…
I chose The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake because it promised an immersive Italian summer – and I’m pleased to report that it delivers on that promise. However, author Rachel Linden focuses more on the connection between family and food than she does on the romance between Jules and Nicolo, hence my overall disappointment with…
Smooth prose and excellent pacing make Follow My Voice, a Booktok and Wattpad viral sensation that will soon be an Amazon Prime Video, an easy to read YA love story/coming-of-age story. A hopeful look at a young woman rebuilding after everything has been broken, this gentle tale covers some harsh subjects, including fat shaming, suicide,…
Painter has written some of my favorite YA romances and this is one of her best! It has hockey, fake dating, family drama and childhood friends. I really loved it! Daniella (Dani) and her mom have returned to Minnesota to live with her grandpa after her parent’s divorce. She lived there back when she was…
Why is falling in love so hard, and why does it hurt so much? Despite the light-hearted title, Fun at Parties explores these difficult questions on a second-chance romance road trip. Quinn works for CycleLove in Los Angeles, an online exercise platform (think Peloton) as a spin instructor. The book opens as Quinn finds out…
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