Romance Wrap-Up July 2025

 Out on a Limb - Hannah Bonam-Young

This has been on my TBR for a long time and I hesitated to pick it up only because I don't love surprise pregnancy stories.  But I'm so glad I did finally read it due because I ended up having a good time.  I found this leaned more on the friends-to-lovers trope and the pregnancy was more off to the side than in some surprise pregnancy books I've read in the past.  The disability rep was consistent, but not in an overwhelming way meaning their disabilities came up enough and in realistic, daily ways that made the disability just another part of the character.  The tension between our characters was fantastic - they obviously had a ton of chemistry but then both are trying to be so kind during the pregnancy that neither wants to risk their friendship or budding co-parenting arrangement. 

Tropes: Disability Representation, Surprise Pregnancy, Friends to Lovers

Series: Out #1

All Bats are Off - Kelly Reynolds

I'm absolutely not a fan of baseball, but I'm in love with this series.  This novella follows one of the players and a sports journalist who end up having a one night stand that just doesn't end.  I would have eaten this up if it was a full length read, but I still really enjoyed this book. Reynolds does a great job of giving us fantastic character details up front so I didn't feel completely lost in the story.  It was a generally low-angst read so I was bummed that we still had a third act break up based on bad communication when I really didn't feel like it was realistic for these characters.  I think the character development was a little lacking simply due to the page length and there were a few times where I didn't quite understand or believe one of our MCs would do something but I just went with it. Overall, I'll always take more of this series and I'm looking forward to the next full length read from Reynolds.

Tropes: MM, Novella, One Night Stand

Series: Rose City Roasters #2.5

Roll for Romance - Lenora Woods

Obviously TTRPGs (table top role playing games) are gaining popularity recently and this read is very much a love letter to playing these games.  Our MCs are both fairly new to town and have a mutual friend who is starting a TTRPG for beginners and invited them both (and others) to join.  The two become friends and soon romance is blooming both inside and outside the game.  An interesting element of this read is that we get chapters from inside the game.  When it first happened, I found it jarring and since I'm not really a fantasy reader, I wasn't super interested.  However, as the story went on these gameplay chapters were some of my favorites because I was invested in that sub-plot as well as how our MCs were interacting via their characters.  The romance was on the slower side and I didn't feel any real chemistry until the 25% or so point.  Despite the slow start, I did end up really enjoy our MCs and how they were so different but also so similar. I also enjoyed how the main conflict was handled and thought both MCs were being very mature and reasonable. This was a great debut and I look forward to reading more from Woods in the future.

Tropes: Small Town, Opposites Attract, Single POV

Standalone

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine for the ARC.  Publication date was July 15, 2025

Well, Actually - Mazey Eddings

Mazey Eddings does it again!  This was absolutely phenomenal which is extra amazing considering second chance romances are hard to hit right for me. It felt like Eddings was listening to my thoughts because it really felt like she addressed every one of my concerns with second chance romances.  This had the perfect mix of history between our MCs while also addressing why things failed earlier and what has changed now.  All too often, I find second chance romances have such a good reason to be broken up initially combined with not a lot of significant change which just leads me to believe they will break up later.  Not in this read.  The chemistry between our MCs was always an undercurrent even when they were seemingly completely opposed.  However, the more time they spend together, both in front of the camera and on their own, that chemistry can't stay buried forever. I love fake dating stories so much partly because we get so many individual scenes with the characters interacting and this read was no exception.  I also really enjoyed how the third act conflict was handled in a way that felt really realistic for the characters where the same situation could feel very contrived and overly-dramatic. Eddings really took so many tricky concepts and tropes that could easily become overblown but instead they all tie together perfectly into a really fun and heartfelt read.  

Tropes: Second Chance, Black Cat/Golden Retriever, fake dating

Standalone

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC.  Publication date is August 5, 2025

You Are Fatally Invited - Ande Pliego

"When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine, she jumps at the chance—particularly since she has an ax to grind with one of the invitees. The guest list? Six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem. Confess the crimes, survive the tropes.  Alastor and Mila have masterminded a week of games, trope-fueled riddles, and maybe a jump scare or two—the perfect cover for Mila to plot a murder of her own. But when a guest turns up dead—and it’s not the murder she planned—Mila finds herself trapped in a different narrative altogether.  One by one, you’ll lose your turn.  With a storm cutting off the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book."

This is one of those books where if the above premise interests you at all - just go and read it.  I had such a fun time with this isolated, closed circle mystery and fully recommend it to anyone who enjoys those tropes.  We open with the characters already on their way to the island for the writing retreat so we waste absolutely no time in getting right into the meat of the story.  The bodies start dropping early and often and there are a good amount of twists and red herrings to keep things interesting. I absolutely loved this debut and look forward to reading more from Pliego in the future. 

Just like with any mystery, there are always going to be some readers who can guess every twist seemingly from the beginning.  I'm not generally a reader who makes a point to guess along the way and am happy to be reading along and seeing where the story takes me.  The one mystery I was keen to try and sort out was who Alastor was and I did sort of guess it a few chapters before we get the reveal. I loved that there was an added mystery that came in about half way through the read that injected the plot with a little more urgency and I think would have re-intrigued any readers who were getting a little sick of the deaths we were getting until that point.

The game elements were fantastic and I wanted more of them.  Each of these characters have a secret that they don't know Alastor knows. Instead, their secrets are hinted at through various party games that give just enough information for the particular character to know what Alastor is alluding to but they aren't super obvious when the other characters see.  There is a Clue-like game where they have to match up the name, occupation, and secret of each character and I found that especially well done because the secrets were vague enough that numerous people could claim the same one for different reasons pretty easily which lead to more interpersonal tension as alliances start coming together. 

The character work in this read was fantastic.  I felt like each character was distinct and easy for me to keep straight. We get POV chapters of multiple characters, but not consistently through the read.  The first time a new POV popped up, I was a little annoyed because I was settled into the POV we started with.  However, I ended up really liking this choice because a POV change always happened at just the right moment to propel the plot forward or give the reader some insight into a character that was more on the sidelines but will become more prominent soon. This also eliminates the 'plot armor' of only having one or two POVs and then knowing those characters will most likely make it out alive.  In this story, you can't tell by POV only who, if anyone, will make it out alive.

The ending wrapped things up a little too much for my personal tastes.  With this much murder and mayhem, I didn't expect everything to connect so perfectly by the end.  It didn't necessarily detract from the rest of the story, but I did find myself reacting in a sort of "yeah, alright, I guess..." kind of way.  I loved the way the situation on the island wrapped up but the final chapters that acted as a sort of flashforward/epilogue didn't feel realistic enough given what we now know about these characters and the situation overall. 

Overall, this was exactly what I wanted out of an isolated mystery - great characters, interesting mystery plot, and lots of death. The resolution to the ending fell a little flat for me, but everything up until that very last bit was fantastic.