Off Balance – L.E. Royal

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Rating: 4 out of 5.
I’m still struggling a little with how I feel about this book, even though I’ve sat on it for a while.

Firstly, it’s not quite a four star book – more of 3.75, so I’m rounding up. There are some parts of this book I really enjoyed and others that left me with a bit of a sour taste. I like a workplace romance, and an age-gap romance and I didn’t mind the power dynamic as such – I was uncomfortable with some of the conversations – however I can imagine someone saying these things – so they aren’t necessarily unrealistic.

I only know the basics of CP, so in order to review the work fairly I did a bit of reading. The depiction seems in line with the type of CP discussed in the book so whilst I’m not really qualified to discuss it in much more depth, I am disabled and relatively high functioning, so am comfortable talking about the feelings Elena displays, which to be fair, are mostly pretty much exactly how I’ve felt at times. Elena’s stubbornness and desire to ‘go it alone’ read very true, as does the impact of having a loving relationship on those feelings.

I loved the interactions with Maya’s daughter – Livvie – and Elena – in fact they were probably my favourite part of the book. I also really enjoyed the non-binary representation of Maya’s best friend, the use of pronouns and the discussion of introducing this to Livvie.

This is definitely worth a read – it just comes with a beware it isn’t a particularly light book.

I received an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Coming Out – Jourdyn Kelly

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Rating: 4 out of 5.
I read this off the back of reading Coming To: An LA Lovers Book. The MCs in Coming Out are secondary characters in Coming To and I was interested in hearing more about their story. Reading them back to back was a little strange – as the book takes place in the same period with many of the same events – but it really helped me appreciate the storyline further and didn’t detract from this book at all. As I said in my review of Coming To – I think you can read them in any order.

Whilst I loved both Hunter and Ellie, one of the things I liked the most about the storyline here is that you get a lot of time with secondary characters, all of which are written well and add something to the book, especially in getting to know the MCs. I especially enjoyed the relationship between Ellie and her daughter.

Both Hunter and Ellie have reasons to doubt each other, and whether their relationship will work, but a strength of both the characters and the storyline is how they work through these things together. Much like Coming To the topics discussed aren’t always easy and the book does deal with homophobia, but it doesn’t dwell on them unnecessarily.

At heart this book is a story of love and chosen families and how they face the world together and I would recommend giving it a go.

Finding Her Treasure – Alexa Woods

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Rating: 4 out of 5.
I enjoyed the premise of this book as it was one I hadn’t encountered before. Set in an antiques mall the book explores the relationship of Romi and Kiera. Both have reasons to avoid the relationship, but the book doesn’t have a major slow burn vibe as there are enough things going on to keep the story flowing. The world and character building are done really well and you can empathise with how both MCs got to where they are. I really enjoyed both MCs interactions with their parents, though very different, the alternating viewpoints work very well and the epilogue left me feeling warm and fuzzy.

As far as I can tell this is the authors first book, but I couldn’t tell. I hope there will be more and I look forward to reading them.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Coming To – Jourdyn Kelly

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
I loved this book. It’s not an easy read by any means, but the story and the characters had depth and I found I wasn’t able to put the book down, despite it breaking my heart in places.

I wasn’t aware when I agreed to read the ARC that the characters and this storyline are mentioned in another of the authors books – Coming Out – but that didn’t matter at all when I read the book – I was just pleasantly surprised to find out at the end that I could read about some of the secondary characters I enjoyed in this book in their own book. It certainly didn’t leave me feeling like I’d missed anything and actually having now read Coming Out I think the books work well this way round.

As mentioned, this isn’t an easy read – there’s a lot of homophobia, homelessness and a life changing accident. It deals with themes that I think every LGBTQ+ person worries about to some extent in their lives at some point, but despite all of this the one feeling I found I was actually left with the most after reading was hope.

I’d highly recommend adding this book to your TBR list, even if you yourself aren’t LGBTQ+ as this is a book about humanity and relationships that anyone can relate to.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Infinite Loop – Meghan O’Brien

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Rating: 5 out of 5.
I’ve had this on my TBR stack for a while and now I’ve finished I’m not sure why I let it sit there so long. I LOVED this book. Both characters are great, their back stories have genuine depth and there is no breakup angst in this book at all, which made it refreshing and unusual.

The book is really well balanced, covering life tragedies – both current and past – with both insight and empathy. Mel and Regan fall in love with each other – opening up a new world neither had previously considered.

Regan is a geek, who has some of the typical introvert tendencies you’d probably associate with a character of this type and I really appreciated how O’Brien doesn’t turn this into a “fault”, instead using this trait to provide some really nice, as well as comedic moments in the story. Mel is a cop with a buried sensitive side. For me seeing her become aware of this and open herself up to a chosen family of both Regan and her work partner was my favourite part of the book.

I’m definitely going to want to read this one again and I’d recommend it to any wlw romance fan.