California
The Lady Has a Past - the fifth book in Amanda Quick’s Burning Cove series - is a fast-paced, lively mystery set in California in the 1930s, full of ambiance and clever plot twists. This is the first book I’ve read in this series, and it can be read as a standalone, but I plan on checking out th ...
A+
Chanel Miller’s Know My Name is a devastating memoir. It was a must-read for me, but the pain and fear and frustration in this book is so raw and immediate that I had to wait for the right frame of mind to tackle it. Nevertheless, it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year, and the only ch ...
When I think of powerhouse authors the name Jasmine Guillory immediately comes to mind. It takes a special gift to produce a great read each time you publish, and this lady definitely does that. Her latest, Party of Two, is a warm, sexy, charming masterpiece, perfect for escaping the stressful world ...
B-
The alpha president of a motorcycle club (MC) and a bartender-turned-badass heroine fall in love and raise a little hell in the newest installment of Chantal Fernando’s Knights of Fury series. A moderately affecting romance with thrilling action, Temper tells an entertaining, at times soap-operati ...
There are plenty of books about teens discovering that they have supernatural powers, and even a strong subset of those involving gods and demon-slayers. What Genie Lo brings to the table to make The Epic Crush of Genie Lo stand out from the crowd is the infusion of Chinese and Chinese-American elem ...
It’s been a while since I read a good cowboy romance, and I was starting to miss them. When I saw A Cowboy to Remember getting buzz on Twitter, it caught my fancy. Friends-to-lovers and second chance at love are my two favorite tropes, and this book has some of both going on in it along with the m ...
In 2019, my romance reviews frequently ranked as either ‘hot’ or ‘burning’ on AAR’s sensuality scale. I’ve decided to shake things up in 2020 by reading more novels on the ‘closed-lip kisses’ end of the sexy spectrum. Book seven in Anna J. Stewart’s small-town romance series Butter ...
I Buried a Witch is the middle book in Josh Lanyon’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks trilogy, a series of fantasy/mystery/romance novels set in and around San Francisco and featuring witch and antiques dealer Cosmo Saville and his husband, John Joseph Galbraith, the Commissioner of Police.
The books d ...
There’s something unexpected and unique about Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune. Magical and sublime with a core that’s a real heartbreaker, it nonetheless has a few problems that keep it from being a full-out A-grade homerun.
Natalie Tan once vowed to herself that she’d never retu ...
The View from Alameda Island is a book title dear to my heart because I used to live near Mill Valley, which, in this story, is the location of Lauren Delaney’s home during her marriage. The community is a metaphor for Lauren’s stifling existence because up-market houses like hers are closed off ...