Tag Archives: 4 fire emojis

Love at First Spite — Anna E. Collins

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 4 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses cheating, breaking off engagements, and office romances. Describes fires and fire/explosion injuries. Has explicit sexual content.

“Love at First Spite” follows Dani Porter, an interior designer who just broke off her engagement to an entitled, cheating jerk, and Wyatt Montego, an unfriendly (but good-looking) architect that works in the same firm as Dani. When she sees the opportunity to buy and build in the plot beside her ex’s house (that was supposed to be her house), blocking its beach view—she takes it. The only problem is no architect will take her project, except for Wyatt. A serious and critical architect that has lowkey always had a thing for Dani, but she really doesn’t know that. Until she does.

Look, objectively I understand office romances are wrong—but holy, this was so good. All the characters were so likable and the story relatively fast-paced (although the romance not to so much). Dani and Wyatt have great chemistry, although miscommunication was a big stressor here.

The writing was good, but I did see a few plot holes here and there. I don’t want to go into details, but after reading this book, all I am thinking about are those pieces I’m missing.

Overall, I would highly recommend this romance book if you’re looking for a light-ish read that’ll make you go through a great range of emotions in 320 pages.

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ARC — Twice in a Lifetime — Melissa Baron

“Okay, she typed. Okay, weirdo, I’ll humor you.”

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 5+ stars
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses and describes car accidents, suicide, and physical therapy. Describes panic attacks. Has explicit sexual content.

“Twice in a Lifetime” follows Isla, an insecure graphic designer that, due to her struggles with generalized anxiety disorder, decides to leave Chicago for rural Missouri. All is well until, one day, she receives a text message from her non-existing husband(?). Isla knows she’s not married but Ewan assures her he is actually texting from the future, in hopes to change their fate. Isla, naturally, doesn’t believe him—until he send her an all-too-real picture of them on their wedding day. In this novel, you’ll get butterflies and heartbreak tied with a pretty little ribbon. Isla’s and Ewan’s story is as unique as it get.

I had not give a book 5+ stars in quite some time, but this book is taking that cake. “Twice in a Lifetime” has been one of my favorite reads this year. With distinct characters and a beautiful setting, sometimes the time traveling aspects of this book weren’t even the most unique part. I fell in love with Isla and Ewan and the love so pure they had for each other—even breaking through timelines.

This fast-paced read delivers on all fronts: it’s steamy and hot, it’s heartfelt, it deals with difficult and uncomfortable topics, it’s sweet, (oh, and did I mention that it’s steamy and hot?). There was a lot of character development, a lot of sincere communication between the characters. You could clearly see how they fell for each other. It truly made me believe in soulmates and that, perhaps, I’ve found the Ewan to my Isla as well.

I would highly recommend this book if you’re looking for a unique, fantastically romance. When reading the description, you might think it’ll be like “Landline” by Rainbow Rowell (which I rated at 3 stars last year), but it couldn’t be further from it.

“Twice in a Lifetime” would be the perfect holiday gift this season. Definitely add it to your cart if you’d like a fast-paced novel that’s more than just a steamy love story.

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ARC provided by NetGalley and Alcove Press in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: December 6, 2022

“One of these days, she’d learned to get comfortable with good things happening to her as well as bad things. One day, her heart and her mind might be able to tell the difference between the two.”

ARC — Mistakes Were Made — Meryl Wilsner

“I want to go scuba diving with you. (…) Like, the ocean is huge and terrifying and unknown, but if you want to go scuba diving, I want to. I want to make you happy or do the things that make you happy with you.”

Author: Meryl Wilsner
Narrated By: Jeremy Carlisle Parker, Quinn Riley, and Stephanie Németh-Parker.

Genre: Romance, LGBTQIA+
Actual Rating: 4 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 stars
Narration: 4 mikes
Content Warnings: Discusses divorce and big age-difference relationship. Includes very explicit sexual content.

“Mistakes Were Made” follows Cassie Klein, a STEM senior university student hoping to be a grad student in aeronautic engineering, after she hooks up with a hot older woman called Erin at a bar… an older woman that ends up being the mom of one of her close friends. But Cassie didn’t know Erin was her friend’s mom when they met. She just knew she was pulled towards Erin, and she wanted to be close to her—and close to her she was. Being an ode to secret relationships, this book brings you all the rush you can need for the foreseeable future.

This book comes in as steamy as they get, right from the start. It is fast-paced, although perhaps a bit unrealistic—hence the 4 stars I gave it. The writing and the narration was amazing, although I grew a bit tired of Erin’s voice by the end, it felt too sophisticated for its own good.

I also feel bad for pointing this out, but I think it simply can’t be ignored: the age difference was weird. Really weird. It’s almost unnatural how people accepted it in the end. I would not be okay with my mom dating my friend—my friend who is 20 years her junior. I know Cassie swears it isn’t mommy issues with her attraction to Erin, but girl… those were some hella big mommy issues right there, even if she refused to see it.

All in all, I would still recommend this book. It’s entertaining and exciting, and actually pretty sweet. If you like books with secret relationships and with very big age differences—and that end with a happily ever after anyways—then “Mistakes Were Made” is for you.

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ARC provided by NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, and published by St. Martin’s Griffin, in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: October 11, 2022

ARC — Bad Girl Reputation — Elle Kennedy — Avalon Bay #2

Author: Elle Kennedy
Narrated by: Lee Samuels and Summer Morton

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 4.5 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 stars
Narration: 5 mikes
Content Warnings: Discusses parent death, parent neglect, abandonment, alcohol and drug abuse, police/authority abuse, and includes sexual content.

“Bad Girl Reputation” follows Genevieve (Gen) West, a rebel who escaped the small town of Avalon Bay, running away from her past and her reputation—but then, after being a year away, her mother dies unexpectedly, and she is forced to come back and help her father with their family business. So in comes Evan Hartley, Gen’s on-again-off-again high school ex-boyfriend and personal bad boy. As soon as they see each other, they know there’s still something there, and so Gen has no option but to run away from him, constantly. If she wants to break out from old cycles, then she needs to start with Evan. She can’t be dating him if she’s planning on not being her past, irresponsible self. But what if she isn’t the only on that has changed? What if this time apart has also been good for Evan? What if she does have another shot at love after all.

“Bad Girl Reputation” is worth the hype. This second chance romance is both fast-paced and, well, romantic. I was lucky to get my hands on the audiobook ARC of this book, with Summer Morton narrating as Gen and Lee Samuels narrating as Evan. In my opinion, Summer was the perfect cast. Her voice was all I imagined Gen’s voice to be. Evan, on the other hand, took me a few chapters to get used to. I wasn’t feeling his voice, even if the narrator was doing a great job—and even by the end I wasn’t 100% sold on it.

I am happy to say, tho, that I liked “Bad Girl Reputation” so much more than the first book in this series, “Good Girl Complex”. The first book in the Avalon Bay series felt one-dimensional at times and perhaps even a bit bland. “Bad Girl Reputation”, on the other hand, has so many layers and parallel situations that all show their relevance by the end of the book, even if at times they felt like unnecessary filling. Everything from problematic friendships to awkward dating to strained parental relationships being mended to volunteering were discussed and it was precious.

I would highly recommend grabbing this audiobook, even if you haven’t read the first book on this series, as it serves as a standalone novel mostly. Gen are Evan are the sweetest couple and the narration is clear—so clear, actually, that I was able to listen it at 3 times the speed with no problem whatsoever.

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ARC provided by NetGalley and Macmillan Audio and published by St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: October 4, 2022

An Offer From a Gentleman — Julia Quinn — Bridgertons #3

“It suddenly made sense. Only twice in his life had he felt this inexplicable, almost mystical attraction to a woman. He’d thought it remarkable, to have found two, when in his heart he’d always believed there was only one perfect woman out there for him.
His heart had been right. There was only one.”

Genre: Historical Romance
Actual Rating: 4.5 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses parent death, child birthed out of wedlock (in the regency period), child labor and mistreatment, classism, and attempted rape.

“An Offer From a Gentleman” follows Benedict Bridgerton, the second eldest of the Bridgerton siblings, and his one true love, Sophie Beckett, who’s the bastard child of an Earl. These two meet one night at a masquerade ball, fall smitten in love with their masks on, only to not see each other for years—that is because Sophie has been working as a servant to her stepmother ever since her father died, and she had only been in that ball as an act of rebellion. Fast forward a few years, and Sophie is working for another family after her stepmother kicked her out, when the son of said family and his friends are set on raping the young maid, who is then saved by the brave Benedict Bridgerton. He gets a feeling that they’ve met before but doesn’t really recognize her, all he knows is that he doesn’t want to part ways from this clever girl dressed in maid’s clothes.

If we don’t get to see Benedict’s story on the Netflix series I will be royally pissed. I know they’ll be making Book 4 instead of Book 3 into Season 3 of the Bridgerton series, but God will I riot if we don’t get this happily ever after for Ben. The only reason I didn’t give this book the full 5 stars was because it was extremely predictable, in true Cinderella fashion.

I felt like the connection between Benedict and Sophie was explored better than the romantic connections in the previous Bridgerton books, but I think it had to do with the fact that Benedict and Sophie were in a secluded cottage for half the book, rather than in the middle of the London season as we saw with Daphne and Simon, and Anthony and Kate.

This is a truly lovely book. I would recommend “An Offer From a Gentleman” if you’re looking for a regency era romance where the main characters are from different social classes. A.k.a. if you’re looking for a spicier version of Cinderella, grab this book.

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“I shall have to make sure you take me up on my offer to find you employment with my mother. You do bring out the best in me, Miss Sophie Beckett.”
“This is the best?” (…)
“I’m afraid so.”

The Viscount Who Loved Me — Julia Quinn — Bridgertons #2

“You have to live each hour as if it’s your last and each day as if you were immortal.”

Genre: Historical Romance
Actual Rating: 5 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses parent death and describes panic attacks.

“The Viscount Who Loved Me” follows Anthony Bridgerton, the eldest of the Bridgerton siblings and the one who inherited the viscountcy after their father’s death, and Kate Sheffield, the orphan (and the eldest) daughter of a modest family who’s in London for the season in hopes of marrying off her little sister. Anthony wants to marry Kate’s little sister but she is completely against it, given his reputation as a rake—or is it because she’s called to him as well?

Anthony, oh how I love you. Julia Quinn really did go for my heart with this one. We get to see Anthony’s inner monologue and repressed guilt, which is something that they tried to portray in the series, but in the book it’s even more intense, more heartbreaking. But not only that, we get to see Kate’s trauma up close, and we get to love her through it all too.

There is no real love triangle in this one, which I much appreciated. Anthony and Kate end up together under extremely different circumstances as those portrayed in the series. Anthony recognizes his love for Kate at another time and for another reason as well.

I would recommend this book a hundred times more than the first book in this series. It is the perfect book for fans of regency period dramas and romance book. If you’ve seen Season 2 of Bridgerton, the Netflix series, expect to be surprised. “The Viscount Who Loved Me” is almost nothing like Season 2, making it even better.

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“Listen to me, (…) and listen well, because I’m only going to say this once. I desire you. I burn for you. I can’t sleep at night for wanting you. Even when I didn’t like you, I lusted for you. It’s the most maddening, beguiling, damnable thing, but there it is.”

Teach Me — Olivia Dade — There’s Something About Marysburg #1

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 3 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses divorce, discrimination, power imbalances, and inequalities in education and opportunities.

“Teach Me” follows Rose Owen and Martin Krause, two AP high school Social Studies teachers in the lovely town of Marysburg. Martin is the new guy, the one who inadvertently stole Rose’s favorite subject to teach, who Rose is set on being nice-ish to. They have an undeniable connection that they’re both denying, each because of their own reasons but they both agree on the same principle: it’d just be extremely complicated.

Well, these books definitely work like standalones. Take it for me, I’ve read this series out of orderbut I mean I did like it better than the second book in this series 40 love. I can’t say I didn’t like “Teach Me”, but in all honesty I’m writing this review and I’ve already forgotten half of the plot line. So, that’s basically it—it’s a good book but it’s somewhat on remarkable. But, I mean, I did like it better than the second installment in this series, the book titled “40-Love”. Which is sort of a letdown because Olivia Dade is one of my favorite authors and the last books I’ve read by her have been a bummer.

Anyways, I would recommend this book to readers who are looking for a read set in the high school/teaching setting. It’s not a bad book, and it’s definitely really good in the spicy sense, but it just wouldn’t really be my first choice when recommending Olivia Dade.

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Heartbreak for Hire — Sonia Hartl

“I’d gotten stuck in a cycle of resentment and revenge. And I didn’t know how to find my way out again.”

Genre: Romance, Comedy
Actual Rating: 3 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Extremely toxic work environment, mentions cheating, abandonment, and dealing with narcissistic personalities.

“Heartbreak for Hire” follows Brinkley Saunders, a grad school dropout who’s been working for a woman-owned business called Heartbreak For Hire—where they do just that: get payed to break the heart of egocentric douchebags. But what if they’re not all so bad? In comes Mark, one of her ex-targets now turned coworker, who’s an adjunct professor with some nerdy hobbies and passions. Their attraction is both undeniable and inappropriate, but Brinkley is set in not falling in love and in saving up for her dream of opening up an art gallery, so pursuing their love would be a waste of time, right? Right?

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. I loved the concept but really hated how so many important points were left untied. Like, for example, we saw how abusive Margo, Heartbreak For Hire’s boss/owner, was, and we saw how Brinkley dealt with that, but we didn’t really get to see how that outcome impacted Margo and her business or if Brinkley ever suffered from PTSD after that. I don’t know. I feel like the “evil” characters should have a more clear downfall.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the book and I feel like the characters were really likable. I’m not sure who I would recommend this book to, but, basically, if you have nothing else to do, might as well grab it. It’s not a bad book, it’s just not a great book either. Hence the 3-star rating.

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40-Love — Olivia Dade — There’s Something About Marysburg #2

“Love couldn’t solve everything, but without love, there was nothing to solve.”

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 3 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Considerable age difference couple, physic injuries, competitive sports injuries, and mentions of cheating and fat-shaming.

Where to begin. 40-Love follows Tess Dunn, a just-turned-40-year-old high school assistant principal on an all-inclusive island vacation, and Lucas Karlsson, a 26-year-old tennis instructor at the resort Tess is staying. Following a questionable meet-cute, Tess knows this summer flings will only crush her, but what if it went past that? Lucas wasn’t looking for another fling and was more than sure Tess was what he wanted right now. Will their chemistry overcome all odds or will the age difference pull them apart?

Oh God. I love Olivia Dade. Really. She’s one of my favorite authors for sure. But oh did I feel uncomfortable throughout this whole book. Call me a hypocrite, because I do enjoy some age-difference novels now and then, but 40-Love really wasn’t it. Because putting the age difference aside, there were some very clear power imbalances that I just didn’t feel comfortable with. The romance scenes were great, A+ in the spicy meter, but I just couldn’t get their differences out of my mind. I am sorry, but if a 26-year-old is willing to flip their life around for any person they just met, they should be going to therapy instead because there are some unresolved things there (and that’s ignoring the fact that that person they’re leaving everything for is 40 years old, which just unravels a whole other level of mommy or daddy issues to add upon that).

I think I’m being generous with the 3-star review. I don’t think I would personally recommend this book when recommending Olivia Dade, but if you like big age difference romances then grab 40-Love. This is supposed to be the second book in a series, but it works really well as a stand-alone.

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