thoughts on books

Category: Romance

  • worth fighting for by jesse q sutanto

    I love the Meant to Be series, and I love Jesse Q. Sutanto so naturally I jumped on the chance to read the advanced readers copy of Worth Fighting For, a modern retelling of Mulan. It was everything I hoped for and more. This may be my very favorite of the series so far.

    Mulan is a finance bro- no really- with everything that working in Private Equity implies. She graduated from Princeton with a 3.9, and works a tremendous amount of overtime at her father’s finance firm. She is always thinking that people are judging her for nepotism, so she makes up for this by working harder and longer than anyone else. No war in this retelling, and it does take place in America, San Francisco to be specific. 

    When her father has a massive heart attack, she keeps the deal with a fancy whiskey company alive by stepping into his role. There she meets Shang, who is not so much her commanding officer but a part of the deal. Mushu is Mulan’s assistant- not a dragon but a cousin who went to Rutgers while Mulan was at Princeton. Mushu and Mulan have the strong relationship you would expect of a character in the sidekick role. I loved the ending and how much of Chinese-American immigrant culture the author incorporated as a part of the story. It made me think of my own ancestors and how many of them chose to leave their homeland and start a new life in America. Different generations are a part of the conversations here and while they don’t save China so much as a whiskey brand, if you had never seen, or really heard of Mulan – this story is great stand alone without some of the hokey throwbacks you sometimes see in other “modern retellings.”

    One last thing- I loved the acknowledgements at the end. Half a banana!

    Thanks to Netgalley and Hyperion for the ARC. Book to be published June 3, 2025.

  • anywhere with you by ellie palmer

    really enjoyed Ellie Palmer’s first book, Four Weekends and a Funeral, and I thought it made a nice love story of a difficult situation. In her sophomore novel, Charley finds herself divorced after only 13 months. It just wasn’t a great match, Rich is a boring guy who seems….fine. Charley is more embarrassed to be a divorcee at 29 than she is in grieving the loss of Rich. Truth is, they shouldn’t have gotten married to begin with but it seems like they did so because it was time and that is who they were with at the tine. A talented lawyer, Charley is whip smart although insecure and easily manipulated into overworking.

    Charley is close to her sister Laurel, two years older and in love with Petey. Laurel and Petey are going to get married, Petey’s brother Ethan is Charley’s age and was once her best friend. They drifted apart after Charley’s ill begotten marriage, but he is a van influencer and has a very different wardrobe and entire life. With Laurel and Petey having a quick engagement, Ethan and Charley are thrown together again and find their easy banter picking up right where they left off.

    With many chapters jumping back to high school and various points throughout their lives, the reader understands the spark that Ethan and Charley have and how they really bring out the best in each other. It is a little of opposites attract, mainly a forced proximity, friends-to-lovers type romance. No super smutty parts.

    The dialogue between Ethan and Charley is really well done, I think we all would love to have someone that knows us and all of our faults and loves who we are. This isn’t sparring type competitive banter, it is a true friendship, “we know each other like no one else does” type of dialogue. You know they love each other many pages before they figure it out. Ellie Palmer writes dialogue so well it is a wonder why she hasn’t written several episodes of Gilmore Girls or the like.

    I also really appreciated and got into the relationship between Charley and her sister Laurel. We didn’t get to know Petey as well, but he loves his brother, respects him and is good in a crisis of wildlife proportions. Romcom fans will love this lighthearted journey of Ethan and Charley.

    Thanks to Netgalley and Putnam Books for the ARC. Book to be published August 5, 2025

  • the spirit of love by lauren kate

    A very romantic, descriptive romance for fans of Nicholas Sparks. Fenny is a screenwriter on a fun CWesque show, she has been a screenwriter for 10 years and well respected at work. The book starts out when she meets a new director named Jude, who looks exactly like Sam, a guy she slept with as a vacation fling last weekend- but he seems to be 10 years older.

    The narrative then skips to the previous weekend when Fenny met Sam. It has a coworkers enemies to lovers vibe, love triangle, although she is trying to determine who Sam is and how he is connected to Jude. I like Lauren Kate’s writing style better here as a time slip romance rather than her previous work in the romantasy realm. We don’t realize the answers here until the last few pages. It takes awhile to get there, but I enjoyed the characters and their motivations. I also liked the backdrop of this being in the entertainment industry.

    Thanks to @netgalley and Penguin Putnam for the ARC. Book to be published July 1, 2025.

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  • it’s a love story by annabel monaghan

    Did you ever keep thinking “I can’t wait to re-read this book” multiple times while reading a book? I can’t wait until It’s a Love Story is published and I get a hard copy that I get to underline and write in the margins. I think we are in a “golden age” of romcoms where the best writers are writing this genre. Don’t be a genre snob. Romance books are by far the highest selling books in the US today. Why wouldn’t the best writers write them? Remember in the 1990’s when the NYT bemoaned that Broadway wasn’t doing anything creative and then pointed out that the best songwriters and show runners were working for Disney instead? I have read 75 books so far that will be released in 2025 and 3 of them are romance books that are some of the most well written books ever, and this is one of them. 

    Jane was a child actor, think iCarly or Suite Life with Zach and Cody. She was a class clown, made funny faces, the comic relief. She was a better singer than the lead, who was prettier. Jane knows that men aren’t attracted to funny women, and goes on a lot of dates up until date 4, when everything falls apart. Jane is now working for a studio and is trying to get a script made that she loves, the studio doesn’t think it is commercial enough. In a misguided impulsive move she promises her childhood co-worker Jack (who is now a big star) will write and perform a song. She hasn’t spoken to him since she was 14.

    Enter Dan. Swoon. He is her coworker and would be the cinematographer. Jane and Dan go to the east coast to find Jack and talk him into the song. He will be there for a music festival and they will stay with Dan’s parents and extended family. And the family is AMAZING. As an only child of a single mom, Jane makes these observations about Dan’s family that are heartwarming, emotional, and raw. 

    At its heart, It’s a Love story speaks to many of the deep fears we all have. That was aren’t lovable. That the best parts about us are something to be ashamed of. That we are destined to be in the background. Jane isn’t just likable, she is one of the most relatable female main characters I have read this year. She recognizes the privilege that her childhood gave her, and the opportunity to buy a house in LA, but it also gave her a slew of insecurities that led her to not celebrating her own gifts. The way she infiltrates into Dan’s family and starts to understand and yearn for their family dynamic. 

    I love this book. One of my top ten books of 2025, and it is purely because of how perfectly these characters are written. Flawed, funny, relatable. It’s the way we know Jane is falling for Dan ***just*** a minute before she realizes it herself.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @putnambooks for the ARC. Thank you to @annabelmonaghan for writing fade-to-black romance that doesn’t have cringy spice scenes and also isn’t full of purity culture harmful crap. It’s literally perfect.

  • abigail and alexa save the wedding by lian dolan

    A delightful book about a big fancy wedding! Penny’s mom, Alexa, is a successful travel guide in California, and Chase’s mom Abigail is a rich housewife. Penny and Chase call to say they are engaged, and Alexa is shocked- a strong Greek woman, she doesn’t see the point of the paperwork of a marriage. And Abigail isn’t much better, as fortunes have been on a downturn for her husband as she holds it all together. Chase is the right hand man of the mayor of New York, both Chase and Penny’s jobs are very important to them.

    Planning a wedding and combining families is a common storyline, fighting between the couple and their mothers is practically a trope… but this book is such a refreshing take on it. The couple are very much supporting characters, we know them but they don’t take the spotlight, this is like a romance novel where the love interests take a back seat. This is definitely Alexa and Abigail’s story, of how they come together, overcome problems with their lives and the wedding planning, and really become amazing mothers to married adults. Interspersed within the narrative are bits of an advice column website to the “betrothed and beloveds” that is all about wedding planning etiquette, it is very funny, pokes fun at family dynamics and how stressful this can be.

    I haven’t been a bride in 20 years, and I won’t be a “mother” to a bride or groom for probably 10 more years since I have teenagers. So for my own life, I am in that plateau of not attending any weddings for awhile. It was so much fun to jump back into that wedding planning world 20 years later, as so much has changed and yet so much remains the same. I absolutely requested this book because of the cover, my wedding had a lemons theme. I expected the book to be cute, fluffy beach read, and it definitely is, but I enjoyed it more than I thought. I would love to read a second book about Alexa and Abigail. They really put aside their own needs in order to make that transition into how your role changes as your adult child creates a new family of their own.

  • ps I hate you by lauren connolly

    I am starting to have a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to my reviews. I don’t identify myself as a book critic, I am a book reader first and second, a recommender. Sometimes I want to write a book report like I did in middle school, and I have an active bookstagram and a blog because I really want to tell you about the book I just read.

    As we mature and consume more and more content, whatever that content may be, over time we better understand what we enjoy. For awhile I used to read all of the National Book Award books and then over time realized they like books that have a much more somber and- dare I say- depressing- tone. If a book is shortlisted I almost always hate it. If those are for you, great. I am not trying to find the next pulitzer, but there is a reason why the majority of books sold in the US are romance or mystery/thriller. We like to escape into books.

    Which brings me to PS I Hate You, which first of all- why is it named that, friend?

    Maddie Sanderson lost her very close brother, Josh, to cancer. His best friend Dom, who she made out with in high school once, is the executor of his will. Dom lives in Philadelphia and Maddie lives in Seattle. Josh writes them 8 letters asking them to visit 8 destinations he never got to visit together and to read one letter in each place. They go to the Badlands, they go to Kansas, they go to Arizona, they go all over. Not as a road trip but as 8 distinctly separate vacations. Maddie has asthma and Dom takes care of her, she learns why he got married right after hooking up with her in high school, and his younger twin brothers are funny and lovable jocks. Her mother is awful.

    My favorite character was Josh, although he was dead the entire book.

    Dom is smart, sexy and a good brother, if a bit controlling. At the end he is over-the-top perfect book boyfriend, and truly unrealistic, honestly. Maddie is incredibly angry, mean, and self-pitying. It was hard to see her grieve. I truly don’t begrudge anyone to

    I looked back at Lauren Connolly’s other titles, and she usually doesn’t write deep romance but what I am going to call smutty romance. I follow lots of fun people who love smutty romance, it is not for me, I find it cringy, but that is a personal preference. I like a sweet romance, some call it “clean” or “closed door” romance. A lot that are specifically classified like this can be heavy handed on the purity culture, and don’t even want any swearing, and can go overboard in the other direction. So me? I am sex positive and all, but I just don’t want to read descriptions of things best kept inside the bedroom.

    So while I read a lot of romance it is easy for me to skip to the end of the chapter when I come across this part. Friends, I have a feeling that Lauren Connolly really excels in this area, but the bedroom parts are HORRIFYING to me, and I know for a fact that if that is your thing, they are really well done.

    It is hard to rate this- I was mortified at how Maddie grieved and how mean she was to the people in her life. But who am I to judge how people grieve? Dom was pretty wonderful but yet he was truly unrealistic and I had to actually roll my eyes at him the last 10% of the book.

    We are not responsible for our feelings, but we are responsible for how we treat other people when we are in our feelings.

    The premise is interesting, the writing and the pacing is great, the locations are wild and well thought out. The characters are in no way boring, they are interesting and truly well developed. This is a great book in many ways but I would never return to it.

  • the usual family mayhem by helenkay dimon

    A funny and engaging cozy mystery for fans of The Maid and Vera Wong. We love funny women solving mysteries.

    In an impulsive moment, Kasey pitches her DC consulting firm on buying and flipping a pie shop run by grandmas in Winston Salem. She doesn’t mention that it’s HER grandma. Or that they are wholly uninterested in selling. But naturally they send her to NC for two weeks to “seal the deal.” Kasey’s grandmother Mags and her partner Celia run the pie shop, and often see Celia’s nephew and Kasey’s long term crush, Jackson.

    That is when she notices that bad men have mysteriously died after their wives get a pie delivery.

    A charming mystery with a dash of romance, it was easy to love these characters. Although the author has many spicy romances, the romance in this book is “fade to black,” so to not take away from the lighthearted tone of the rest of the book. It’s very easy to know who to root for and root against, getting to know the motivations of the characters was a delight.

    If you like lighthearted mysteries with strong female leads about correcting injustice, this is a great title for you.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @avonbooks for the ARC. Book to be published March 10, 2025.

  • Last Night Was Fun by Holly Michelle

    A cute holiday baseball romance, enemies to lovers with some serious “You’ve got Mail” vibes. It is lighthearted and fun, and about finding love in unexpected places. Emmy Jameson is a baseball data analyst for a Major League Baseball team, she is outstanding at her job but has to face many hurdles at work being a female in a male-dominant industry. She is up for a promotion and in competition with the other strong analyst, Gabe Olson. Emmy holds her personal life close to the vest and doesn’t share personal details at all with her coworkers. She has sworn off dating, but one fateful night, she gets a text from a mystery number saying “Last night was fun.” It turns out that some girl at a bar gave a guy a fake number, which just so happened to be Emmy’s number!

    What are the odds? (I mean, Emmy and Gabe could probably calculate the odds, but we couldn’t.)

    They exchange texts over the course of a few weeks and start to develop feelings for each other, to the point where Emmy is ready to invite the mystery man to her sister’s wedding in Cancun. Now, this isn’t technically a spoiler since it is in the blurb, and you can see it coming a mile away, but of COURSE the mystery man is Gabe. There is so much built up anticipation about the identity of the texter, who Emmy has listed as “Axe murderer” in her phone. I promise you, the witty text banter is worth it, and you will love seeing Emmy and Gabe feel safe sharing their lives with each other on text and falling in love. All of us want to believe that if we share ourselves with someone, that they will still be able to love us.

    The narrative accurately and infuriatingly describes being a woman in the workplace, and how much harder women, especially in male dominant fields, have to work in order to be taken seriously.

    If you enjoy a sports romance, witty banter and a good rivals-to-lovers storyline, this is a great summer beach read for you!

    Thanks to @netgalley and @avonbooks for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Book to be published June 10, 2025.

  • Beg, Borrow or Steal by Sarah Adams

    to be published January 7, 2025

    This might be the perfect rom-com novel.

    I would read ten more books about Emily and Jack. That’s how much I love these characters. I love the first two books in this series but this one takes the cake.

    Emily and Jack have been competitive nemeses since college. They became second grade teachers at the Rome, KY elementary school with some series Anne and Gilbert vibes. He relocated to Nebraska with his fiancé Zoe; who was unfaithful and canceled their nuptials. So now Jack is back in town and happened to buy the house next door. Emily hasn’t told anyone that she has been secretly writing a romance novel for years. She struggles with depression and is careful not to let anyone get too close.

    This is the best banter I have read in years, it was so obvious that these rivals were in love for the reader, but also very believable that they didn’t realize it themselves. I laughed, I cried. One of my favorite things about Sarah Adams is that she lets the reader know up front which chapters to skip if you “prefer to keep the bedroom door closed,” it’s so accessible if the steamy scenes aren’t your thing.

    Perhaps my favorite thing is how well Sarah Adams is able to describe what depression feels like, Emily was extremely relatable. There is something so healing about reading in a book EXACTLY how you feel, seeing on a page the words that you have never been able to find.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @randomhouse for the ARC. Book to be published January 7, 2025; you bet I preordered this from Barnes and Noble.

    Where is the 6th star?

  • 32 Days in May by Betty Corello

    Book to be published May 13, 2025

    32 days in May, on the surface, may seem like a typical contemporary romance. It has an “everyday” quality that describes the most mundane details about someone like only someone who is gently falling in love can.

    We are on the Jersey Shore, seeing the world through Nadia’s eyes, she attempted suicide due to debilitating depression after a lupus diagnosis. Lupus has given her terrible migraine headaches, overall body pain, and led to her being let go from her job. It was an all consuming job, one of those that we have a hard time separating our identity from. She is introduced to Marco, a celebrity formerTV actor who is the relative of her doctor. Marco is working hard at his sobriety and finding his next steps. They are instantly attracted to each other and decide to date for the month of May, a no-commitment casual relationship that will end when he goes back to LA.

    Nadia doesn’t tell him about her lupus or her depression, taking her medications in secret and getting to live a minor fantasy, having someone know her without knowing her diagnosis.

    Beautiful, sweeping descriptions of the boardwalk and the ocean, sometimes snarky observations interspersed with well timed dialogue, 32 Days in May is an emotional romance. Who hasn’t fantasized about being able to hide the shame of ourselves and find intimacy outside of our brokenness? And to have someone say, “I love you, for all you are, and the thing you are ashamed of is not something that defines you.”

    I have actually daydreamed about writing a book like this one. I have a severe case of misophonia, a loneliness inducing condition that is filled with shame. It is widely misunderstood, and to have someone love me despite my diagnosis is a romantic notion I can’t even rationalize. You will love Marco and you will want to wrap up Nadia and be her big sister.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @avonbooks for the ARC. Book to be released May 13, 2025.