All I Want for Christmas – Beers, Cummings, Riley

Dec 16, 2020Dec 16, 2020 ~ lgbtqreader85 ~ Leave a comment

Three high quality Christmas novellas. I enjoyed all of them for different reasons and am actually struggling to decide on an overall rating so I’ve rated them all individually below:

Triple Dog Dare – Georgia Beers

5 stars – I loved this story. Sasha was interesting as Brooke’s boss in 16 Steps to Forever but she’s great in this. I love the premise of needing a fake girlfriend for Christmas in order to try and win a date from your sister. Sasha and Kennedy are great both as a fake couple and a real one. I loved the back any forth between Sasha’s sister and Kennedy as she tried to trip them up and how Beers deals with the grief of lost ones at Christmas, the emotions around really falling for one another and the guilt in lying without making this a heavy story. I’d have loved this if it was a full novel too.

Hustle & Bustle – Maggie Cummings

4 stars – Toby is a cop with a social work background. She’s sweet and romantic at heart. She meets Hannah at Central Park Christmas market where she’s running a stall. I liked the diversity snuck into the story and enjoyed spending time in New York during the Christmas season. I enjoyed this storyline but I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed it as much without the New York setting. The narrative is sweet and sincere, with as much of a slow burn sweetness as is possible to get in a novella. The epilogue left me sated with a nice ending to Toby and

A Christmas Miracle – Fiona Riley

3.5 stars – I haven’t had the opportunity to read Bet on Me yet, so I’m only aware that Mira is a character in the novel and am coming to this not knowing anything else about her. I enjoyed this story but wasn’t able to connect with it as much as the other two works. I liked both Mira and Courtney as characters and they work well together on the page. This had more angst in it than the other stories due to the tensions at work for Courtney and the issues Mira was having her bar due to staffing so I felt pulled out of the Christmas fantasy a little. The humour was enjoyable though and I liked the journey both characters took in the short period of time the story covered.

I’d happily recommend this collection to anyone looking for some fun wlw Christmas reads.

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

16 Steps to Forever – Georgia Beers

Dec 15, 2020 ~ lgbtqreader85 ~ Leave a comment

A feel good, sweet romance from Beers. I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as Hopeless Romantic but this definitely cemented my enjoyment of Beers’ work for me. I liked this took place in the same universe as Hopeless Romantic and I’m hoping there’s more to come from this town.

Brooke has recently moved into town for a new job with a real estate agency. She’s well thought of in her field and is leaving behind family disappointment. Macy is a home stager who happens to work with the company Brooke has started with.

I liked Macy’s animal menagerie and the delicate way that Beers wrote her exploration of how to meet someone whilst dealing with the death of a previous partner. I loved her clumsiness and reactions to both Brooke and her family. I also really enjoyed her interactions with her nephew.

I really identified with and liked Brooke. I appreciated that Beers included a character that was both bisexual and of faith. I thought both of these and the reactions of the characters to these things were written really well. From the quick reading of the blurb I did I was expecting Brooke to have a lot more control issues than she actually did. Her moving and settling into a new job, whilst meeting someone she likes and trying to keep control makes things interesting.

I liked that both characters were intriguing with careers and pasts that made sense with regards to how they react to each other, which made the book a compelling read.

Fans of Beers will love this, and all romance fans will enjoy this too.

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

Not This Time – M.A. Binfield

Dec 15, 2020Dec 14, 2020 ~ lgbtqreader85 ~ Leave a comment

I’m not sure why but this one really surprised me. I try not to dwell on the book blurbs – only reading them when deciding which ones to review – so whilst I remembered that this was about a musician, I wasn’t expecting a second chance romance with as much passion and chemistry as I got.

The book opens with a lot of heat. We meet Sofia and Maddie at the point of the band they are both in breaking up due to Sofia making the decision to go solo. They don’t want to break up but it feels like a lost cause. I have to admit after that much steam I wasn’t quite sure where you could take the rest of the book – but Binfield does a great job of keeping up the narrative.

When we cut to the present day, Maddie is no longer in the business, she’s running her own interior design company. By chance she’s contracted for a job that ends up being for Sofia’s house. The universe bringing them back together forces Sofia to look carefully at the career she’s made for herself and whether she’s happy with her life choices.

I loved the push-pull of them getting back together. There’s lots of feelings between the two, from love, to hesitance and everything in between. The normally annoying lack of communication makes sense in this narrative.

There’s quite a cast of secondary characters – the majority of which all of have cringeworthy moments. Maddie’s son is absolutely adorable and I liked how the other band member we meet, Daya, is honest about the past with both Sofia and Maddie. I also really enjoyed the few moments Maddie has with her sister Ashley.

I really enjoyed the romance and narrative of this story even though it does fall into some of the typical tropes. I think all wlw romance fans would find something enjoyable in this one.

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

Love Changes Everything – Jaime Maddox

Dec 14, 2020 ~ lgbtqreader85 ~ Leave a comment

My third book from Bold Strokes this month that approaches the traditional romance book differently. I enjoyed the writing, the book construction and the narrative of this one.

We start in the present day with Samantha, an ER doctor, who is being sued. The hospital is providing a lawyer, who turns out to be the woman Samantha had a relationship with in college – Kirby.

A large chunk of the book takes place in 1993, when the pair originally fall for each other in their early twenties. Some of this has a stereotypical homophobic parental trend, but it isn’t done in an overly dramatic way. I enjoyed that we got to know the characters a little in the present day before we made the cut back to their origin story and I liked that we got to see the beginning and the end of the relationship journey at that point.

We don’t spend anytime with them as a couple in the present day except for the epilogue which is a bit of a shame, but nonetheless I felt like the pacing was about right as they explored getting to know each other again. It’s nice to have older characters in wlw fiction. I enjoyed the maturity of the discussions when they reconciled and in the present day discussions around the lawsuit. The tonal difference between the present day and the past to illustrate how both women had grown in themselves was also done really well.

I’d recommend this to any wlw romance fans. It’s structure makes for an interesting read, especially as by not having a traditional chronological structure it escapes the 90% breakup.

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

Heart of the Storm – Nicole Stiling

Dec 11, 2020 ~ lgbtqreader85 ~ Leave a comment

This was another book that surprised me on this months slate of releases. A mystery romance that gets a high three stars from me.

Juliet is a cop who had a son with her best friend. She’s called to a murder in her town. Sienna is a victim’s advocate and the step mother to Juliet’s son. The murder pushes them together. I enjoyed that the main characters had known each other and been in each others lives for quite some time. It was refreshing to have two people notice each other as their true selves, rather than a storyline with two people just meeting.

I liked how Stiling dealt with the breakdown of Sienna’s marriage and the impact it would have on her husband and step son for her to fall for their best friend/mother respectively. I appreciated that Stiling didn’t make either Sienna or Juliet oblivious to the implications of their love on others and that there was no automatic presumption it would all just be ok.

With it being a mystery this book came with a slew of additional characters. I thought this added to the depth of the book, as due to the nature of the MCs knowing each other already, there aren’t a lot of scenes added to allow us to get know the characters as part of the natural process of dating. I liked Juliet’s friends and thought Declan the son/step son was written wonderfully.

The mystery was interesting. I didn’t find it riveting, but it moved along at a pace that kept me somewhat interested in who had committed the crime and why. There were some parts that I felt were missing to explain some of the situation but I think it was mainly because by the time the crime is resolved we’re full into romance mode.

There’s lot about this to enjoy and I think anyone who enjoys wlw romance would enjoy this.

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