Not Your Average Hot Guy - Gwenda Bond
This paranormal romance follows Callie and Luke. She helps run her family's escape room business while trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. He's the Prince of Hell who has yet to secure any souls and he's on a strict deadline. The two meet when an apocalyptic cult looking for a celestial weapon kidnaps Callie and summons Luke. The two of them (along with Callie's brother Jared and her best friend Mag) team up to defeat the cult and stop the literal end of the world. This was a super fun, paranormal, rom-com read. I flew through it in one sitting and absolutely fell in love with both Callie and Luke. I thought their relationship was super fun and had a lot of great banter. This book takes place over a weekend so they did fall on the insta-love side of things. However, there is a second book scheduled to come out Spring 2022 which has them continuing to date so I look forward to seeing their relationship progress. Side characters were well developed and I would love to read the story of Mag and Jared one day because they just seem so perfect together. I thought this, in a lot of ways, was similar in plot points to Harley Laroux's Her Soul To Take but obviously a much fluffier, lighter, more rom-com version.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for review.
Publication date: October 5, 2021.
Morning Glory Milking Farm - C.M. Nascosta
This monster romance novella follows Violet (a human) and Rourke (a Minotaur) and is the first in the Cambric Creek series. Violet gets a job at the titular Milking Farm but instead of milking for dairy, they're milking the male Minotaurs because their potent *ahem* deposits are used in the pharmaceutical industry. Yep, Violet is giving handies to Minotaurs all day (and the pay is great!). All jokes aside, this was such a cute and fluffy romance and I greatly thank Twitter for constantly talking about it so I had no choice but to pick it up. The town of Cabric Creek is home to humans and monsters alike and we get to see a few of them during this first installment of the series (Violet befriends a vampire, for instance). Violet and Rourke's romance was a bit of a slow burn since they met basically at work in an official capacity. They slowly build a friendship during Rourke's appointments and that friendship turns flirty and then downright dirty. Rourke was a perfect gentleman and I really appreciated him wanting to show Violet that he was actually interested in her as a person and didn't just want her to work from home (wink wink). I personally like my romances more on the slow-burn side of things and I really loved how we got that in a novella length story. This did leave the ending a bit open but I'm hoping we see more of them in other books in the series. This was zero-angst, slow burn, high heat, and such a sweet romance - I can't wait to read more from Nascosta!
The Ghost - Jessica Gadziala
This is the second book in the Professionals series and follows Gunner (The Ghost) and Sloane. Sloane witnesses a murder and soon finds herself in danger as the murderer is a well known and ruthless criminal boss. Running out of options, Sloane turns to Quinton Baird & Associates for help. The only way to keep her safe is to make her disappear - which is Gunner's specialty. The two embark on a cross country road trip from NYC to Nevada while working on her new identity. But a lot of time on the road (and in snowy cabins and hotel rooms) lead to a lot of thinking and talking and the two slowly find themselves letting down their carefully constructed guards. Only problem is, when they finally reach sunny Nevada, is that Gunner's job is over and Sloane is on her own. I really enjoyed this book and the way Sloan and Gunner's relationship developed. This was a bit on the shorter side (239 pages) so even though I would call this a slow burn romance, it didn't read as super slow because of the page count. I really loved that their relationship was built mostly on talking and feeling safe enough to open up to each other before things got physical. I think Gadziala does a great job with making her characters complex but also she seems to be able to make the romantic couples just fit together so perfectly. I can't want to continue on in the series.
All the Feels - Olivia Dade
This is the second book in the Spoiler Alert series and follows Alex and Lauren. Alex is an actor on the highly popular TV show Gods of the Gates but after he ends up in jail after a bar fight, the studio decides to assign him a watcher to keep him out of trouble - Lauren. The two are complete opposites in the beginning - charming and talkative Alex vs chilly and quiet Lauren - but the more time they spend together, the more compatible they discover they are. This is my first book by Olivia Dade (so I haven't read Spoiler Alert yet, I confess!) and I absolutely loved it. This was pure rom-com magic and I found myself laughing out loud many times. Alex is diagnosed with ADHD and while he does take medication, it is still a big source of struggle in his life. Lauren is a burned-out former ER therapist who has spent so much time giving parts of herself away for others to be comfortable that it is just old habit at this point. The two are also physically different, with Alex being a tall, handsome, sculpted TV star and Lauren being short, fat, and not conventionally attractive. The two may be very different, but when they come together the chemistry is out of this world. I loved how their romance was a pretty slow build up considering both of them had to work through some personal baggage. They really do become friends first and slowly warm up and open up to each other first before any further intimacy happens. Their banter was delectable and Alex's chattiness and witty comments were perfect. I loved Lauren's dry sense of humor and the times when she was able to sneak a joke in while Alex was talking were perfection. I really think Alex and Lauren are among the rare romance-book couples where I really feel they are soulmates and are just such a perfect fit for the other.
TW/CW: domestic abuse, weight talk/insults
Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC in exchange for review.
Expected publication date is October 26, 2021
The Love Interest - Kayley Loring
This story follows Emmett and Fiona after they meet by chance one late night at a diner in NYC. Emmett is the author of a best-selling action/thriller series and Fiona is getting her MFA in creative writing. The two have an instant connection and end up spending the rest of the evening together - exploring the city and checking off some items on Fiona's NYC bucket list. As they separate with plans for later that day, Emmett gets a job offer to fill in and teach a creative writing master's course. He accepts the job, only to find Fiona's name on his new class roster. The two try to keep their relationship professional but their connection was too strong for them to ignore. This was a surprisingly cute story with a lot of heart and almost no angst. I really liked how they met before they were student/teacher and how their connection was so clearly shown to the reader. I loved the letter writing they do and how each of them use the other as inspiration for the love interest in their current writing projects. This did have some laugh out loud moments but overall, I was just in love with how sweet and caring Emmett was and just how many feelings were packed into this story. We get snippets of the writing each of them is working on and their characters are almost secondary characters in the main story because they would talk to Emmett/Fiona. I do wish we had gotten more from the actual secondary characters in the book (Emmett's sister and Fiona's roommates) because they were basically used only for advice on how to deal with the relationship.
TW/CW: death from cancer
The Highland Fling - Meghan Quinn
This enemies to lovers story follows Bonnie and Rowan. Bonnie and her best friend Dakota need a fresh start and some distance from the current job and relationship woes so they apply and get hired to manage a coffee shop in a small town in Scotland for 6 months while the owners go away on vacation. They were expecting fresh air and kilts but were not expecting the grumpy mountain of muscle named Rowan, who is the son of the coffee shop owners. Bonnie and Rowan continuously butt heads, despite the rest of the friend circle and town in general welcoming the American women to their town. Eventually, Rowan and Bonnie give into their undeniable chemistry and find out they have more in common than they initially thought. Meghan Quinn is an author who I'm always intrigued by her premises and her books get great ratings, but I've DNF'd the 2 I've tried reading. And I'll be honest, I almost DNF'd this one too because I was getting some pretty bad secondhand embarrassment from the way Bonnie was acting in the beginning (who moves to a new country and does ZERO research???). The only reason I picked it up in the first place was that it was basically trope candy for me and I'm glad I stuck it out. This is grumpy/sunshine perfection and once I got past the 25% mark or so, the secondhand embarrassment was pretty much non-existent. I really loved all the characters and thought the side characters were pretty well fleshed out. I loved how begrudgingly both Bonnie and Rowan admitted they actually liked the other and the banter between them was great. This story reminded me a lot of Tessa Bailey's It Happened One Summer so I would recommend this one if you liked that book (or vice versa). I loved the discussions about finding your place in the world and figuring out what you want to do with your life and when a grumpy hero finally opens up and uses his words to tell the heroine exactly how he feels it is *chef's kiss* perfection.
TW/CW: death from cancer
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