thoughts on books

Category: Romance

  • Tropesick by Lauren okie

    I went into this expecting a trope-filled romance… and came out completely wrecked in the best way. Because yes, the romance is there (and it delivers), but this story is so much more about grief, addiction, and the messy, complicated process of growing up and moving forward.

    Katie is ghostwriting for a famous romance author (think Nora Roberts vibes 👀) when she finds out her co-writer is none other than Tyler—her ex-boyfriend and her late brother’s best friend. The same Tyler who disappeared from her life eight years ago after her brother Mikey’s death. And now? They’re forced to work together in close quarters. Cue tension, unresolved feelings, and so much chemistry.

    Let me just say: the marketing calls this a love letter to romance tropes, but that almost undersells it. The tropes don’t feel like boxes being checked—they feel natural, lived-in, and completely earned. The story itself flows effortlessly, and the emotional depth hits hard.

    And Meredith??? ICON. Every single line of wisdom she gives is stunning—I highlighted almost all of them. Truly one of those side characters who quietly steals the whole book.

    No spoilers, but there is a twist—and if anyone tells you they saw it coming… they’re lying. Immediate unfollow. 🚫😂

    Tyler’s final declaration of love?? I’m still not over it. Gentle, generous, and deeply romantic in a way that feels real. Raise your standards, everyone.

    Other things I loved:
    ✨ The picturesque setting
    ✨ Katie’s chaotic, whimsical fashion (think: a 5-year-old at Disneyland and I mean that lovingly)
    ✨ The chemistry—palpable, emotional, and earned
    ✨ A respectful, realistic portrayal of recovery and addiction

    ⚠️ CW: sibling death, parental neglect/abandonment, addiction

    I preordered a copy the second I finished—and I cannot wait for more people to experience this one. It’s not just a steamy romance—it’s a deeply human story that stays with you.

    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

    Bookstagram #ARCReview #Tropesick #LaurenOkie #RomanceBooks #NetGalley #AvonBooks #BookReview #EmotionalReads #SecondChanceRomance

    ARC Review — Thank you to NetGalley & Avon for the early copy!

  • extracurricular by rachel lynn solomon

    I absolutely loved Ramona and Nick’s story in Extracurricular by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Ramona is a feminine, flirty pop star who I kept picturing as Olivia Rodrigo. She was cast as a child in a Disney Channel–style show called Greta Lives and went on to have an incredibly successful pop career. But after years of nonstop work and extreme exhaustion, she decides to step away from the music industry and enroll at UCLA as a first-year student to try to live a normal life.

    That’s where she meets Nick Navarro—her psychology professor. Nick is 36, divorced, and living with his sister and her daughter. He’s a caring, thoughtful professor who truly loves teaching and isn’t looking for love at all.

    This book features an age-gap romance (Nick is 36 and Ramona is 26) and a professor/student dynamic. Normally that trope can feel uncomfortable because of the power imbalance, and it’s something I usually find pretty icky. But in this case, it worked for me. Ramona is independently wealthy and extremely famous, while Nick is very much not, which shifts the typical power dynamic and makes the relationship feel much more balanced and believable.

    One of my favorite things about this book is that there’s no third-act breakup—which felt refreshing and let the story focus on the characters actually building something together. The banter between Ramona and Nick is incredible and made their chemistry feel so real.

    The ending especially sealed the deal for me. There are two scenes near the end that had me making the full-on “this is so cute” face, 😍and they were so sweet that I bumped my rating up from 4 stars to 4.5.

    I loved this book so much that I already preordered a finished copy—especially after seeing that it has sprayed edges and decorated inner and outer covers. This is definitely one I can see myself returning to again and again. I really believed in their love, and the chemistry between them was fantastic.

    Content warnings (mild spoilers): off-page sexual assault prior to the timeline, panic attacks, and discussion of the stress, loneliness, and pressures of being a child star.

    Thank you to Berkley for the ARC.
    Extracurricular will be published July 14, 2026

    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5 stars)

  • vera stein is fine by julie murphy

    Vera has turned 40 and is taking an about face to her life. She has made herself small to fit the ego oh her long term boss and situationship. When she discovers his plan to let her go in exchange for several 20 something assistants, she sends a resignation letter and heads to her grandmother’s retirement community. Vera recently lost her mother to cancer and so her grandmother is her only escape hatch. Soon Vera is crashing on the chaise lounge and discovering what life is like in the community.

    Naturally, her ex also works there! and she gets a job as the events coordinator. Vera has an old screenplay from 10 years ago that she sometimes edits. The interstitial chapters are the screenplay (which is kind of awful, on purpose) and through these she is realizing that she is not the same person she was when she originally found this to be a love story.

    I found the way Vera left behind Brody to be inspiring! Like many Julie Murphy heroine’s, Vera is in a larger body. She is confident and secure in her body, there is no fatphobia or weight loss talk in this book- which is great. I do love some books that handle fatphobia and body acceptance, but in this book her size is mentioned but is not a major plot point. I really hated Brody and was angry at how much he did not appreciate Vera and he was such a dumb, mediocre white man. It was hard to understand why she would allow herself to be in that situation for as long as she did, but you were really rooting for her to find herself.

    I would find this a midlife second chance coming of age book. I loved the octogenarians, the descriptions in the banter and the time jumps allowed us to know Vera and Elias and how their characters developed. I loved this one!

    Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC- I have already pre-ordered a trophy copy!
    Book to be published June 21, 2026

  • big girl blitz by danielle allen

    This is the spicy sports romance with a plus-sized beautiful black FMC that you have been waiting for! Jazmyn is a teacher and has come back to town as her beloved Aunt Addison (who has been more like a mom to Jazmyn) is at the end of her life. Addison has had a stroke and Jazmyn wants to be here to support her and her care team, and stops into a sports bar to watch the Baltimore NFL football game where she meets Lamar Anderson. He is tall, dark, handsome, athletic, and seems to love football as much as Jazmyn does. Soon she finds out that he doesn’t just LOVE football, it is his career also. Aunt Addison wants Jazmyn to start living her best life, it has been 2 years since her divorce and she hasn’t dated at all.

    First of all, this may be a bit too spicy for my own personal taste, but I know that is perfect for others! This is a romance that has a lot of substance, the grief that Jazmyn has for her aunt and how she fits into her family, she has really strong friendships (girlfriends chiming in with their loud opinion are the BEST) and stepping into her power after finding her next chapter. I was rooting for Jazz and Lamar ALL the way! I thought they had a great friendship and the relationship was more than just their physical chemistry, he was so respectful and thoughtful of her. She was so supportive of his career and wanted the best for him. I think what I loved best about Lamar was how he made her feel KNOWN. Isn’t that what we all want?

    Audiobook review- this is a top notch audio performance, I loved the narrator and the passion and sparkling personality she put into all the characters. It is well paced for audio and is well worth the listen. I just had to pre-order the paperback for my shelves as a trophy!

    Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ALC. Book to be published April 14, 2026.

  • thighs wide shut by hayley fleming

    Quarter-life Crisis book about Emma who has left teaching and moved back to Boston. The child of teachers, she has been devastated and upset by being in education and is working part time at her best friend Jo’s coffee shop. She rented a basement apartment and is surprised to learn that her college best friend Harrison is leaving in the same building. We know that things ended poorly with them, and he seems to have a codependent relationship with his mother and he hasn’t been totally honest about who Emma was to him to his current girlfriend.

    The romance and relationship in this novel is really strong, I wanted to know Harrison even better. Jo as a minor character is very well developed instead of just someone for Emma to confide in, she is a solid comic relief and helps the narrative along. While this is a second chance romance, at its core this is a story about Emma coming to terms with the condition she has called vaginismus. I had no knowledge of this prior to reading and I found this pretty enlightening. If you have this condition or knows someone who does, this novel does the heavy lifting of taking us into internal dialogue and the journey to work with this condition. Emma goes through the stages of grief, being in denial for a long time. In the current timeline she is accepting of her condition but still needs to go through the process to treat it. I can imagine this is something that is somewhat embarrassing and it is none of someone’s business until it is.

    Very promising debut, I appreciated the author’s note at the end and I even got to read the beginning of her next novel. I think she is a great writer and I look forward to her next title.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Dial Delights for the ARC. Book to be published in July of 2026.

  • The romance revival by christina Lauren

    This is a bit of a departure from Christina + Lauren’s other works, its genre-bending. I predict this is going to be either your favorite CL title or your least favorite.

    It’s my favorite!

    The second chance romance in this novel is the best I’ve read, a couple with 10/10 chemistry, wonderful back story and I am rooting for Luca and Emery all the way.

    Our minor characters- Annie and Crash- need a book of their own. I love it when the “best friend” characters are so well developed that you love them as characters instead of merely background noise.

    I don’t think I’m going to write a summary for this review, which is off-brand for me- but I think it’s best to go into as blind as possible.

    So it’s the top tier romcom we know and love, but this is also cozy mystery, speculative fiction. I would LOVE to see these authors explore this genre more.

    This is a risk that pays off big time! Infinity stars!

    a best romance of 2026

    Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC. Book to be published July 14, 2026.

  • love and other brain experiments by hannah brohm

    Frances is headed to a new academic conference and is thrilled to be included, but she is very nervous because it is being run by her ex boyfriend, the one who said she would end up a failure and lonely. On the plane she is seated by Lewis, a fellow academic. She soon discovers that he is actually her academic rival Theodore L North who should have credited her on a paper that has been cited 562 times a few years ago. But due to a misunderstanding, her ex’s current girlfriend mistakes Lewis and Frances for a couple. So they decide that since he owes her, they will fake date during the conference so he can alleviate pressure from his family who just so happens to be local and celebrating his brother’s graduation and she can save face with the community.

    This one had a lot of promise and I know some people will love it, but it was not for me. I learned a lot about the academia life, how you don’t put down roots and it is hard to make friends. It seems kind of cut throat without a lot of benefit. Maybe if this is your setting it will help you feel seen, I feel like a lot of the science and professor speak culturally went over my head. At times I felt as though Frances is better off without Lewis I found him to be non confrontational to the point of being a wimp, she kept saying he was brilliant but I didn’t feel the chemistry or understand what she saw in him. So it took me a really long time to get through this and I felt as though I was forcing myself to finish but not really enjoying the story.

    I think I might be burned out on fake dating as a trope as I have read about ten 2026 releases in a row that are fake dating.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC. Book to be published February 3, 2026

  • sunk in love by heather mcbreen

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    Well, what do you know, it’s a two star buildup and a five star ending. Yeah, I said it. The ending was five star. And to think I almost DNFed.

    A marriage-in-crisis, grief, miscommunication, forced proximity fake dating cruise ship.

    Roslyn is a romance writer, her family is all doctors. Her soon to be ex-husband Liam is an oncologist, and naturally they really adore him. Her grandparents are going to renew their vows on a cruise ship going to Hawaii. She has been lying to them for months about the fact that they are about to get divorced, so she gets him to come with her so that they can pretend to be happily married and not disappoint her grandparents. They still have a ton of chemistry and soon they forget the “rules“ and “boundaries“

    I spent a good portion of this book being angry at both Liam and Roslyn. I felt like the reasons why they weren’t together. were still very valid and that they weren’t giving each other the benefit of the doubt. It seemed really immature and a bad idea for them to give up on their marriage without therapy or counseling. The setting was lovely, I really enjoyed the cruise ship setting, that her brother and sister had good relationships, and the narrative showed Roselyn growing through grief. Although I spent a long time being angry at the characters, the ending more than made up for it. It’s an incredibly romantic and wonderful journey.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Berkeley for the ARC. Book to be published January 27, 2026.

  • this story might save your life by tiffany crum

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    This is a special book. Plenty of books try to be mystery/thriller plus romance but one of the two always shines. This is an equally five star thriller alongside a five star romance. And did I mention it’s a debut? I’m blown away. I requested this after seeing several rave reviews and it did not disappoint.

    Benny and Joy are podcasters and best friends with incredible chemistry. They’ve never been romantically entangled but it’s because of insecurities. They obviously love each other. The mystery is that Joy and her husband Xander have gone missing and the world is looking for them.

    Audiobook is amazing- both performances are stellar. There is a bonus podcast episode and duet narration. I already ordered a trophy copy, I really loved this book. Definitely a Q1 favorite.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the arc. Book to be published March 9, 2026.

  • the alias agenda by holly james

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    A action-rom-dramedy, this book is a mix between Ocean’s 13 and A Killer Kind of Romance. If you like adventure in an Indiana Jones type way, this book is definitely an adventure that doesn’t come up for air.

    Erin is an undercover agent for the DSA, an underground CIA/FBI operation that doesn’t have to follow all those rules. After being arrested with her father as a teenager, an agent gives her this life- going from job to job, identity to identity, all undercover. It is as much work as it is witness protection because the mafia that she and her father stolen from is still after her and wants her dead.

    In the middle of the night she is whisked to Del Rio to be a nanny in the middle of a mom’s underground high end baby supply operation. There are twists and turns and this is a really fast paced fun story.

    The main character in 3 words? Clever. Reckless. Imprisoned.

    My favorite character? Her partner Agent Wallace, although he is MIA most of the book.

    Recommended? Sure. I liked it, but you might love it. It’s the book equivalent of the queso special at Chili’s. It’s a bit predictable but glorious and full of pizzazz instead of deep meaning. Chow down!

    Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington for the ARC. Book to be published April 27, 2026.