This is the second of Cat Sebastian’s London Highway men series and it follows Marian Hayes, the Duchess of Clare, and Rob Brooks. I am so excited for this one!
What I’m Reading Now: The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian
Reply
Tag Archives: romance
Review: The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
Y’allllll, this was so good! The characters were interesting, the romance was spicy! I didn’t want to put it down! And! I got to do something I don’t often get to do! And that is enjoy a book so much while I am visiting my sister that I finish it and then leave it with her!
Okay, so this is the story of Kit Webb, retired Highway man and current coffee shop owner/manager and Percy, Lord Holland. Percy has a secret that he’s decided he doesn’t want to keep, but first he needs Kit’s help with a robbery. Of course, Kit is not at all interested. So, Percy decides the only thing for it is to annoy Kit into helping him by turning up at his coffee shop over and over. There is word play. There is sword play. There are feels. There is adventure. I loved this so much. Can I gush about it some more? Okay, I will. The conclusion was so sweet, I made Beth go to a bookstore to pick up the second in the series because I couldn’t put it down.
So, if you like sassy word play, not-really-enemies to lovers, adventure, and sweet, sweet romance, I recommend this.
Review: Love, Theoretically and Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
I read these two books back to back and since even though they are not technically related to each other I am assuming they take place in the same universe. I know that Love, Theortically and the first book in Ali Hazelwood’s first STEM Romance The Love Hypothesis because Olive and Adam do make a quick cameo. Love, Theoretically follows Elise, a adjunct professor barely getting by. She is interviewing for a tenure track position at MIT but 1 problem. Jack is a physicist professor on the hiring committee and he hates her. It doesn’t help that he thinks she is dating his younger brother. Adjuct professors do not make a lot of money and to help pay the bills she is paid to fake date men. One being Jack’s brother. Not that Jack knows that. I liked this book. Elsie is a great main character that really grows throughout the book. With the help of Jack, Elise finally starts to decide who she wants to be instead of what everyone else wants her to be. I know a little bit about the academia world thanks to Kate and well it sucks. I really sucks. The haves and have nots is such a stark contrast when it comes to professors and the power that mentors have over their mentees. I definitely had a lot of rage moments.
Love on the Brain is the only book in the STEM romance books that doesn’t take place in a University. Bee is a neuroscientist who works for the NIH but gets a chance to lead a project at NASA. The problem is as it always is, her co-lead Levi hates her from their grad school days. When she gets to NASA, her equipment isn’t there. She doesn’t have access to email or even her office. Politics of course is the blame. NASA doesn’t want to share credit. This puts Bee in a bad position because NIH wants results and ready to pull her at any moment. She has to trust Levi will get NASA on board. Despite their shaky start they work well together. And fall in love and all that jazz. Of the three books so far, this is probably my least favorite. Not that I didn’t enjoy it. I did but I didn’t really connect with Levi and Bee as I have with the other couples. That being said I would probably would reread all three books again because they are the perfect escapism.
What I’m Reading Now: Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
Might read the last STEM romance Ali Hazelwood has out.
What I’m Listening to Now: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
I had a bunch of credits left at Audible so I’m going to be listening to some audiobooks. I really liked The Love Hypothesis so I’m excited for this one.
Quick Review: All the Feels by Olivia Dade
This book absolutely is full of feels. This is a sequel to Spoiler Alert and, in the tradition of romance novels, it follows two characters introduced and/or mentioned in the previous book.
Alex Woodroe is a star of the hit TV show Gods of the Gates and Lauren Clegg is the unfortunate person hired to be his minder by the show’s production company after he gets in a bar fight as the filming of the final season wraps up. Alex is full of energy and a troublemaker, but Lauren gets the sense almost immediately that her cousin (A producer/director on the show) has overblown the situation and not gotten to the bottom of what really happened. But, who is she to look an easy paycheck in the mouth? She’s recently quit her job as an ER therapist and a little break from that world will help her plan her next move.
The two of them develop a friendship over the course of time spanning between when filming ends and the big con for the franchise begins. And, as we know from Spoiler Alert, Alex sets his life, and Lauren’s, on fire.
Y’all, this was so good. I was bereft when I finished it. I jumped from show to book to podcast to show trying to find anything that could fill the void after I was finished. Alex and Lauren have a fun dynamic. They both have really satisfying arcs, dealing with trauma and growing. I cried. I laughed. I fanned myself when the romance finally got spicy. Olivia Dade does some really fun things playing with fan fiction/romance tropes and tags and it had me giggling. Or saying, “Aww!” Or just plain screaming. (I’d apologize to my neighbors, but they watch a lot of sports so I feel like we’re even.)
10/10, this. It is narrated by Kelsey Navarro and I loved the choices she made with the characters.
What I’m Listening to now: All the Feels by Olivia Dade
I try not to have more than one audiobook going at a time so I don’t have to deal with decision paralysis about what to pick up. However, this became available at the library while I was still reading Renegades and I need to know about the characters in the B plot of Spoiler Alert and I’m told we find out what happened to them. I am so excited.
Quick Review: Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (Read by Isabelle Ruther
Y’all, this story was adorable. April Whittier is a geologist who writes fan fic in her spare time. Her favorite OTP are Aeneas and Lavinia from a series turned television show called Gods of the Gates. Marcus Caster-Rupp plays Aeneas on the television show. He has the reputation of being hard-working, very pretty, but very dumb. So, no one would know he has a secret. He also writes Lavinia-Aeneas fan fiction. April and Marcus meet online and have a wonderful friendship, never knowing who the other person is behind the screen.
Then April posts a picture of herself and Marcus gets tagged by a bunch of asshole fanboys who are making fun of a fat cosplayer. Marcus wants to make it clear that he’s not on their side, so he follows April and then asks her out. Their first date is bland and Marcus is able to get a second date. Then he realizes the woman in front of him is his friend from the fan fiction community. Can he keep that a secret while also trying to woo April? What if she finds out and they break up and she tells the press? That could ruin his career.
This book was fun. It was very touching. It had spicy sex scenes. It had me texting non-sensical things to Beth while I was listening. I really annoyed the character arcs of both April and Marcus. They struggle and grow, both as individuals and together. I really enjoyed this! I can’t wait to dive into the sequel.
What I’m Reading/Listening to Now: Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade
Beth gave me her copy of this to read and I’m excited to get to it. I’ve got the audio book from the library, so I’ll do some listening as well. We’ll see how it goes!
Quick Review: Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
Y’all, this book is so cute. I absolutely loved it. Chloe Brown decides she needs to get a life and become the badass adventurous woman she was meant to be. So, she makes a list of things she needs to do in order to achieve this goal. The first thing on the list is move out of the family home and into her own place. Which of course she does and that’s where she meets Redford Morgan, the building manager/artist/beauty/lovely guy. But, Chloe has fibromyalgia and on high pain days, she has a short fuse and, of course, that is always when she runs face first into Red.
Red is an artist and used to be out there, showing his work, and making waves. But he’s been hiding for a bit after a bad breakup back in his hometown working for a friend. He paints at night and he wonders if he’ll ever feel ready to get his work back out into the world.
I loved both the main characters in this. They both had really great individual arcs and their romance was heart warming and also hot. This is a 2 chili pepper book. I bombed my way through this while it snowed outside. The audio book is read by Adjoa Andoh, who really brought the text to life.
So, if you like novels that involve personal growth and heartwarming and a little spicy romance, give this a try.
2 Women, So Many Books 