Categories
Romance

Read Her Big City Neighbor

Read Her Big City Neighbor (Cider Bar Sisters, #1) by Jackie Lau

When small-town engineer Amy Sharpe inherits a house in Toronto, she decides it’s the perfect opportunity to start over and go back to school. Away from the family that takes her for granted, away from the ex who expected so much and gave little in return.

The new Amy enjoys wandering around the city and frequenting bubble tea shops, German beer halls, dim sum restaurants, and coffee bars serving Japanese pastries. She has a roommate with the same name as her favorite fictional character, and a group of friends who meet at a cider bar every couple of weeks.

The new Amy is also in lust with her brooding, tattooed next-door neighbor, Victor Choi, who is far from friendly but looks really hot cutting the grass without a shirt. Too bad the grass doesn’t grow faster.

As she starts telling him about her daily adventures—and as a little kissing in the garden becomes a regular activity—Amy begins to feel more than lust. But she fears she’s falling into her old patterns in relationships and refuses to let herself be underappreciated again.

Is Victor really more than a hot fling? And what’s he hiding behind that grumpy exterior?

Light low-conflict read with adults acting like adults and having conversations they don’t want to have. Lots of food (honestly too much). I liked their relationships with their families. I didn’t 100% buy their connection, it seemed to start too quickly. Something about the lack of intense emotions made it feel like the volume was kinda dialed down. Somewhat unbelievable this woman was in a graduate program with the amount of time and money she had, and lack of stress 😂

Categories
Fantasy Romance

Read Origin

Read Origin (Scales ‘N’ Spells, #1)

Cameron wants to make it clear that he did not go into the festival to find a dragon mate. Germany is supposed to be an escape. With a n…

As the first book in a series, this had a lot of work to do, and I think they weighed too strongly on the worldbuilding and setup. It was a slow 400 pages, with a limited action plot, a lot of training montage, and a heavy angst plotline. The king’s self-loathing and guilt are A Lot. There were weird specifics on how gay couples could have kids with magic. I’d be willing to try one more in the series and see if it picks up the pace.

Cool cover. Maybe feels a little paranormal?

Got for free through a Kindle promotion.

Categories
Fantasy

Read Iron Widow

Read Iron Widow

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

This main character was intense and unpredictable, which made for exciting reading. Didn’t bother me that it was YA, though that did mean there “had” to be a love triangle… which she subverted beautifully. Cliffhanger ending. Will be interested to see where this goes in the next couple books (I assume it’ll be a trilogy).

Beautiful cover 😍

Categories
Fantasy

Read The Black Tides of Heaven

Read The Black Tides of Heaven

Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as children. While Mokoya developed her strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While his sister received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What’s more, he saw the sickness at the heart of his mother’s Protectorate.

A rebellion is growing. The Machinists discover new levers to move the world every day, while the Tensors fight to put them down and preserve the power of the state. Unwilling to continue to play a pawn in his mother’s twisted schemes, Akeha leaves the Tensorate behind and falls in with the rebels. But every step Akeha takes towards the Machinists is a step away from his sister Mokoya. Can Akeha find peace without shattering the bond he shares with his twin sister?

Got stuck at 30% for a bit but when I picked it back up I read the rest at once. Interesting world building. I have the feeling there are layers I’m missing with the twins. Mokoya I didn’t especially like, I doubt I’ll read her novella. The love interests don’t get much time on page but that’s fine. Novella length worked well. I’ll probably try the sequel.

Categories
Comics Fantasy

Read Shadow Life

Read Shadow Life

When Kumiko’s well-meaning adult daughters place her in an assisted living home, the seventy-six-year-old widow gives it a try, but it’s not where she wants to be. She goes on the lam and finds a cozy bachelor apartment, keeping the location secret even while communicating online with her eldest daughter. Kumiko revels in the small, daily pleasures: decorating as she pleases, eating what she wants, and swimming in the community pool. But something has followed her from her former residence—Death’s shadow.

Kumiko’s sweet life is shattered when Death’s shadow swoops in to collect her. With her quick mind and sense of humor, Kumiko, with the help of friends new and old, is prepared for the fight of her life. But how long can an old woman thwart fate?

Not totally what I expected, especially the ending was a surprise.

Shadow Life works as a title on multiple levels — both Death’s Shadow, but also that at the beginning she’s withdrawn from all her friends and family and is living a shadow of her life, and succeeds in her quest when she rebuilds her connections.

Interesting presentation of an old woman as the heroine. She keeps pissing her pants accidentally ☹ She deals with her physical limitations throughout, but refuses to let her intellect be constrained by them, asserting her independence and self-determination.

Her children are obnoxious and controlling, and the way they’re drawn makes them look like they’re about 20, when they’ve got to be in their thirties at least given she’s supposed to be in her late seventies.

Categories
Romance

Read Something to Talk About

Read Something to Talk About

A showrunner and her assistant give the world something to talk about when they accidentally fuel a ridiculous rumor in this debut romance.

Hollywood powerhouse Jo is photographed making her assistant Emma laugh on the red carpet, and just like that, the tabloids declare them a couple. The so-called scandal couldn’t come at a worse time–threatening Emma’s promotion and Jo’s new movie.

As the gossip spreads, it starts to affect all areas of their lives. Paparazzi are following them outside the office, coworkers are treating them differently, and a “source” is feeding information to the media. But their only comment is “no comment”.

With the launch of Jo’s film project fast approaching, the two women begin to spend even more time together, getting along famously. Emma seems to have a sixth sense for knowing what Jo needs. And Jo, known for being aloof and outwardly cold, opens up to Emma in a way neither of them expects. They begin to realize the rumor might not be so off base after all…but is acting on the spark between them worth fanning the gossip flames?

Very slow burn with lots of yearning and misunderstandings. I was hoping for more on the screenplay and less with intrigue and betrayal and paparazzi.

Love the cover. Wasn’t sure about the type at first but it lends it that Hollywood glamour.

Categories
Fantasy Romance

Read The Sumage Solution

Read The Sumage Solution (San Andreas Shifters, #1)

Max fails at magic, relationships, and life. So he works as a sumage, cleaning up other mages’ messes. The job sucks and he’s in no mood to cope with redneck biker werewolves. Unfortunately, there’s something irresistible about the sexy muscled Beta visiting his office for processing.

Bryan is gay but he’s not out. There’s a good chance Max might be reason enough to leave the closet, if he can only get the man to go on a date.

Everyone knows werewolves hate mages, but Bryan is determined to prove everyone wrong, even the mage in question.

I was tickled that this was set in Marin, with a scene at the Civic Center. Turns out Gail Carriger was originally from Bolinas!

Interesting setup. It feels almost as if it’s the second book in the series because a recent new relationship is mentioned so prominently, but apparently that was covered in a prequel novella.

I was frustrated by the mage’s self loathing attitude and at the end wasn’t convinced the conversation he had would be enough to bring about a change of heart.

The bigger picture had a tie-in explanation to a steampunk history, which was intriguing but not explained very much — I presume that’ll be explained more in future books.

I don’t really read much urban fantasy / paranormal romance but these guys get after it pretty quick 😂

I do want to read more about the drag queen kitsune 🦊 so I may check out her novella — though the author recommends reading all the other books first so 🤷‍♀️

Categories
Romance

Read The Shaadi Set-Up

Read The Shaadi Set-Up

High school sweethearts Rita Chitniss and Milan Rao were the golden couple, until the day he broke her heart. Now, six years later, Rita has turned her passion for furniture restoration into a career and has an almost-perfect boyfriend, Neil. The last thing she needs is for Milan to re-enter her life, but that’s exactly what happens when her mother, an unfailing believer in second chances, sets them up. Milan is just as charming, cocky, and confident as he was back in school. Only this time, he actually needs her business expertise, not her heart, to flip a hard-to-sell house for his realty agency.

While Rita begrudgingly agrees to help, she’s not taking any risks. To prove she’s definitely over him, she signs herself and Neil up on MyShaadi.com, a Desi matchmaking site famous for its success stories and trustworthy enough to convince everyone that she and Neil are the new and improved couple. Instead, she’s shocked when MyShaadi’s perfect match for her isn’t Neil…it’s Milan. Ignoring the website and her mother is one thing, but ignoring Milan proves much more difficult, especially when she promises to help him renovate the beach house of her dreams. And as the two of them dive deeper into work—and their pasts—Rita begins to wonder if maybe her match wasn’t so wrong after all….

Overall enjoyed this story. Some quibbles…

I wish the initial boyfriend has been just a personality mismatch and not simply a loser who no one should date — because it is a bit of a sell that the main character cares enough about this guy to pull the website stunt. The website stunt is also pretty peripheral to the plot, and could have easily been taken out, perhaps to give more focus to the main story? Honestly the whole first boyfriend could have been left out and the parent set-up would still have worked and been the main spark for the whole book.

I was pretty underwhelmed by the reveal at the end about why they’d split up originally. I wanted it to be more than it was.

Categories
Romance

Read The Heart Principle

Read The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient, #3)

When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out f…

Forcing this story to serve as a romance was a disservice to the story and characters. I think it should have been written solely from Anna’s perspective and marketed more as chick lit. It would have allowed for the end of the book to be fleshed out, and more time given to Anna’s self growth and recovery. By shoehorning this complex and painful story into romance structure, it made a failed romance novel and failed literary novel because the romance was given short shrift, Quan didn’t get enough development, and Anna’s true problems weren’t confronted on page: her abusive family, harmful people pleasing, obsessive perfectionism, and self judgment.

It was clearly a deeply personal and hard story to tell. I wish the publisher had let the author write this outside of her usual genre and keep it separate from the main series. There was more I wanted from Anna’s story, so much resolution needed that became a brief outline — honestly, I suspect they were too close to the author to write as she did her experience caretaking.

As a romance, I wasn’t convinced their relationship was deep or strong enough yet to last Anna’s ordeal with her family. It pained me to see her so passive for so long, to sacrifice her agency for so much of the book and do harm to others to protect herself from the pain of responsibility for saying no, putting her own need to be liked and to do what others want above those she loves, to oblige only her abusers and let those who treat her well suffer from her obeisance. I also was unsatisfied with her capitulation at the end, that her reconciliation was neither earned nor sufficient to the harm she did.

Categories
Fantasy Romance

Read Fireheart Tiger

Read Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she’s returned to her mother’s imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria’s royal palace.

Thanh’s new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh’s home. Eldris won’t take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.

Interesting world (Vietnam inspired) and premise. I wished there were a little more depth to it, I wasn’t convinced by some of the relationships.