This is like one of those cupcakes that looks absolutely gorgeous but the frosting to cake ratio is way off. The cover is adorable, the premise is cute, but there wasn’t quite enough substance there for me. After Tegan fumbles a wedding cake and Atlas comes to her rescue, she’s fascinated by the muscly wolven (basically a human/werewolf mashup). Atlas also can’t get the curvy human off his mind. It’s not just insta-lust but insta-love, and the speed with which they went from meeting to hooking up to declaring it true love gave me whiplash. “I’m here every day. IRead the Post
Review: The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate – Cate C. Wells
I don’t like bully romances and my track record with the fated mates trope is spotty at best. But after hearing a few trusted friends raving about this book, I gave it a try, and wow, am I glad I did. After assuming control of the Quarry Pack at a young age, Killian has worked to counter the abuses of his father. But there’s still a long way to go, so when Una, a disabled young woman who exists on the fringes of the pack, claims him as her mate, of course he denies it. For Una, it’s just theRead the Post
Review: Run Posy Run – Cate C. Wells
Look, I don’t read mafia romance. It’s just not my cup of tea. So the only reason I picked this up was because I needed something for the “mafia” square on the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo. I fully expected this to be a joyless slog, but instead I found an absolutely captivating romance between a psychopath and a disgraced mafia princess with serious daddy issues. “I always thought falling for the wrong man would be my downfall—like it was for my mom. Maybe it’s worse if the wrong man falls for you.” Dario is a stock trading whiz, the oneRead the Post
Review: Sweet Berries – C.M. Nascosta
Morning Glory Milking Farm was one of the most surprisingly gentle and sweet romances I read last year, so when I found out that the next book in the series was out and it featured a mothman, my favorite cryptid ever? Of course I dropped everything and read it in one night. While I don’t think it’s quite as good as its predecessor, it’s still a fun monster romance with an adorkable hero and a heroine who’s learning to love again, and it can easily be read as a standalone. Grace starts the book in a bit of trouble. SheRead the Post
Review: Dark Minds – Michelle Diener
I very much enjoyed the last two books in the series, so when I needed a break from some heavier material, I picked this one up. Sure, it’s not particularly complicated in the plot or characterization department, but it’s fun and engrossing! This is the third in the series and I wouldn’t recommend reading it as a standalone as a lot of the world building relies on you already knowing the events of the past two books. Cam was expecting a routine mission to interview the newly found Earth woman. Instead, his crew gets abducted and shoved into a prisonRead the Post
Review: Dark Deeds – Michelle Diener
I very much enjoyed the first book in this series (AIs! Aliens! And a dash of romance!) so of course I immediately borrowed the next one. It’s both very similar and very different from the first book, but I still had a great time reading it. Grih battleship captain Hal is not having a good day. After pursuing a Krik raiding party onto a Garmman trading ship, they discover another human – though thankfully this one doesn’t seem to come with a Class 5 like Rose. Fiona’s been kidnapped, enslaved and abused, and the chance to be rescued by peopleRead the Post
Review: Dark Horse – Michelle Diener
I’m not usually a fan of alien abduction books, but I originally picked this up back in 2020 and it was absolute brain catnip. Watching these characters “dealing with a crisis, wrapped in a disaster, surrounded by a mystery” was ridiculously fun, so when I heard the final book in the series was coming out, I decided to dive back in and read the whole thing. Dav, captain of a Grih exploration ship, doesn’t know what to think when he encounters a Class 5 Tecran ship deep in Grih space, and he’s even more perplexed to board it to findRead the Post
Review: Against the Grain – Melanie Harding-Shaw
I somehow ended up on a mailing list for a bunch of “witchy fiction” written by authors from New Zealand, and when I saw this novella was about a witch with celiac disease? I absolutely couldn’t resist. This was a fun and relatively light cozy mystery with tons of Kiwi flavor. Trinity has a set of immunity disorders: celiac’s, an overabundance of magic that basically would make her a battery to an unscrupulous witch, and one she jokingly says makes anyone she dates eventually act like a jerk to her. After her latest boyfriend trashes her apartment, Trinity’s moves on toRead the Post
Review: Morning Glory Milking Farm – C.M. Nascosta
I know I’m late to the party as literally everyone was talking about this last month, but, wow, this book! That cover does not do it justice. I mean, yes, there’s lots of milking of giant monster cocks, but there’s also millennial job angst, a sweet relationship buildup, and lots of coffee. Violet is pretty much your typical millennial: overeducated, underemployed and drowning in student loan debt. And it’s not like living in the city is cheap, either! Just as it seems like her only option is to move back into the loft over her parents’ garage, she finds anRead the Post
Review: The Friend Contract – Dria Andersen
Content warnings: I am always up for a best-friends-to-lovers fake relationship book. Add it that it’s between two Black shifters, one a panther and one a bear, and I was all in. Though this is the first in the Hamilton Brothers series, twin bear shifters, there’s another book that takes place before it that talks about how the panthers ended up in Florida. There was enough explanation that I was able to get the gist of what had happened, but I would probably recommend reading Chasing Savannah, about Naomi’s cousin, first if you’re worried about missing anything. “I don’t want toRead the Post