Love & Romance

Audiobook: Summer Romance

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by Annabel Monaghan
Read by Kristen DiMercurio
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, including a couple f-bombs, and some off-screen sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Ali Morris thought she had it all: a loving, supportive mother; the perfect marriage; the perfect kids; the perfect family. But, her mother died two years ago, and Ali retreated into herself, and everything fell apart: she and her husband separated and she’s losing touch with her kids. But this summer – the summer that the divorce will be finalized – Ali has decided that maybe what she needs is a summer romance.

Enter Ethan. He seems like the perfect candidate: he’s only in town for the summer. It’ll be the perfect fling to get Ali out of her funk. Except things aren’t quite that simple when you’re nearly 40.

This one – much like all of Monaghan’s books -was delightful. I loved the narrator; she kept me engaged in the story and added depth to Ali’s situation that I might have missed had I read the book. But I also love Monaghan’s tales of second chances. The women are always slightly older, always coming off a not-quite-great situation, and always find that person who fits them just perfectly. It’s lovely to read, and to be reminded that maybe just because it’s your second time around, it doesn’t mean you’re washed up.

A truly charming summer book

If You’ll Have Me

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by Eunnie
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is talk of sex, but none actual. It’s in the graphic novel section of the bookstore.

Momo is the one friend who is the helpful one. You know: the one you go to for homework, or to borrow $10 from when you need it. PG is a slacker – I’m impressed if she passes any of her college classes! – and tends to prefer one-night stands to actual relationships. So, when they meet, Momo doesn’t think she’s PG’s type. But as they get to know each other, Momo falls for PG.

I’m not doing too well describing the plot because there’s not much there. It’s a cute girl and a butch girl falling in love, having some miscommunications and then working it out. The art is where this one shines. Eunnie is a Korean-American artist and you can tell there are Asian influences in there. It’s all very pink and sparkly and big eyes and bubble hearts. It’s just so very sweet and cute and not a whole lot else. She did try to give PG a bit of an edge, but I’m not sure how well it worked; you could tell that PG is a softie under there. I still thought it was sweet and fun, and I’m sure there’s someone out there who will fall in love with it.

Here We Go Again

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by Alison Cochrun
First sentence: “As she stands in the middle of an Applebee’s being dumped by a woman she didn’t realize she was dating, Logan Maletis has a realization: this is all Death’s fault.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is talk of sex, as well as a couple of on-screen sex scenes. There is also swearing, including multiple uses of the f-bomb. There is also active talk of dying. It’s in the romance section of the bookstore.

Logan Maletis and Rosemary Hale are former best friends who had a falling out when they were 14. They’ve been coworkers in the English department of their small-town Oregon high school for the last eight, but they’ve not gotten along. Rosemary can’t stand Logan’s inability to take anything seriously, and Logan can’t stand Rosemary’s tendency to need to be in absolute control of everything. The only thing they have in common anymore is their love for their former English teacher, Joe. So when Joe, who is dying of cancer, wants to go on one last road trip so he can die in his family cabin in Maine, he taps Rosemary and Logan to go with him.

There is only one way for Logan’s and Rosemary’s relationship to turn out – it is a romance book after all – but the journey there is absolutely worth the time. It’s often funny, it’s got a lot of heart and soul, it’s got tender moments and explosive fights (in southern barbecue places!). It’s about making every day count and holding friends and found family close. And, yes, it’s about death. But it’s such a wonderful life-affirming story as well. It just made me happy, even while I was ugly crying at the end.

Highly recommended.

Audiobook: Lies & Weddings

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by Kevin Kwan
Read by Jing Lusi
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There are the uber-rich doing the uber-rich things, including just being despicable to other people. There is talk of sex, drugs, and getting high, and there is swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

 Dr. Eden Tong has grown up in the cabin next to Greshamsbury manor, where her father – while a noted oncologist – is the personal doctor to the Earl and Countess Gresham. While she is good friends with the Greshams – especially Rufus, her best friend – she doesn’t want to get involved in all their old money exploits – flying everywhere on a whim, wearing designer clothes – and she doesn’t have any intention of marrying Rufus (no matter what his Chinese mother thinks). Yet, as the oldest, Augie gets married on the Big Island of Hawaii, Eden finds herself pulled into the Gresham drama. 

There’s more to it, of course: Kevin Kwan’s books are a meandering mesh of drama and Rich People Doing Rich Things. There are a ton of characters (I really liked Freddy Farman-Farmehian (which probably isn’t spelled right) to keep track of, as well as jetting around to exotic locations to enjoy (not to mention all the clothes and food!). It’s a lush, wild, winding book, with an ending that I called but didn’t mind that I did. I loved Lusi’s narration; there were a lot of characters to handle, and she did it beautifully. 

In short, it was a delightful romp of a book and I’m glad I read it.

Audiobook: Happy Medium

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by Sarah Adler
Read by Mara Wilson
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s sweary including many -bombs, and has on-screen, explicit sex. It’s in the romance section of the bookstore.

Gretchen Acorn is a con artist. She runs a business where her job is to connect to the spirit world and help her clients connect with their dead loved ones. She tells herself that she’s doing them a service, comforting them in their time of grief. Then one of her clients pays her to go perform an exorcism at the farm of her bridge partner. Gretchen was expecting a quick, weekend job with a nice septuagenarian, and instead gets Charlie Waybill – hot, skeptical, and not at all grateful Gretchen is there. She also gets… a real ghost and a family curse. So, instead of performing an exorcism, she’s tasked with keeping Charlie at the goat farm because his life is in danger if he sells. And she ends up upending her own life in the process. 

By any measure, this was a fun book – a morally gray main character (that you can’t help but really like), a hot guy that pushes her to question her life, while also understanding where she comes from, a clever ghost sidekick. There are baby goats and goofily-knit sweaters! And a slight love triangle, not to mention a sassy best friend (that isn’t a goat). There are bad parents and questionable decisions. Oh, and the narrator is fabulous too. 

But. 

Something is off with it. I’m not sure if it was the sex – they were exceptionally rough, and there was some transactional quality to it that rubbed me a bit wrong – or if it was something else – the quick way Charlie came around to Gretchen (it was only a month, and yet there are books that move faster and I don’t mind), or… I’m not entirely sure. So, while I enjoyed this one, I didn’t outright love it (at least not as much as I loved Adler’s first book). It’s worth reading, though.

Novel Love Story

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by Ashley Poston
First sentence: “There once was a town.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: June 25, 2024
ARC most likely sent to me by the publisher rep, because he’s awesome that way.
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs, and some off-screen sex. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Eileen (side note: one of the joys in this book is the number of times there’s a “come on, Eileen” joke. I loved it!) is an adjunct English professor who not-so-secretly loves romance books. Specifically the Eloraton series by Rachel Flowers. It has seen her through good times, and bad – including a recent breakup that was devastating. She and her best friend Prudence are part of an online book club devoted to reading romance and they meet once a year in a cabin in the Hudson Valley to read and talk and drink wine. Except the only person who can go this year is Eileen. So, she heads north from Atlanta in her 1979 Pinto… and gets lost in a rainstorm once she gets to New York. Where she accidentally almost hits a man in the road and wakes up… in Eloraton.

Her car won’t start, and she has no cell service, so she’s stuck for a few days in a fictional town, with a guy – Anders – who also knows that the town is fictional.

That’s the premise – but the heart of the story is deeper than that. It’s about the power books have in our lives, the way characters can feel real, and letting go when it’s time, and embracing change. It’s about books and stories and community and connection.

And I adored it. (Of course!) It’s not as spicy as Seven Year Slip, but it’s sweet. And at its heart, it’s about Eileen learning to embrace love again. It’s about how love is important but maybe friendships are more important. It’s about grief and loss and moving on. But there are also some dreamy kisses and a grumpy-sunshine trope that made me smile (though I never could quite picture Anders with the blonde hair he was supposed to have).

It’s an absolute delight of a novel.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

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by T.J. Klune
First sentence: “Stepping off the ferry and onto the island for the first time in decades, Arthur Parnassus thought he’d burst into flames then and there.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The House in the Cerulean Sea
Release date: September 10, 2024
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is talk of abuse and a couple of moments of actual abuse. There is talk of trauma and CPTSD. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

I have to admit: I didn’t think this book was necessary. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an absolute delight of a book that ended quite satisfactorily. However, I am also not sad to spend more time on Marsyas Island with Arthur, Linus, and the children, and this book makes the case that it needs to exist.

This picks up soon after Cerulean Sea – the government is holding hearings to determine the future of the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. Arthur, having lived in an orphanage when he was young and is currently the headmaster of one, decides to face things and goes to testify. Which, of course, goes horribly wrong. So, another inspector is sent out to see what Arthur, Linus, and the children are up to and if the home is up to DICOMY standards.

Nothing – and everything – goes right.

Much like the first book, this is less about the plot and more about the characters. I adore the children – from Sal stepping into his own as a young man and a leader, to Talia and Phee, to Lucy and Chauncy, and David, the newest one – a yeti who has been on the run since his parents were brutally murdered. I adore Arthur and Linus and their relationship, and the way they wholly support and love each other. I can tell that Klune is angry at all the laws that are being passed targeting LGBT youth – especially the trans bills – and that they’re being done in the name of “protecting the children” and he harnesses that anger to good effect here. There are some absolute laugh-out-loud moments and some pages that are so beautifully written and so moving that I could hardly see the page for my tears.

So, no, while this book was not “needed”, it is wanted and welcome, and I’ll happily read anything else Klune decides to write about this family.

Audiobook: Happily Never After

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by Lynn Painter
Read by Helen Laser & Sean Patrick Hopkins
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It is very sweary and very spicy. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Sophie Steinbeck doesn’t believe in love. Especially after she found out her fiance was cheating on her right before their wedding. Enter Max Parks: a wedding objector for hire. He is responsible for dealing with the wedding Sophie desperately wants to get out of, helping her save face. And, as part of a drunken night, she decides she wants in. So, the next time Max has a wedding to derail, he calls her up. Thus begins their partnership… which soon blooms into a friendship. Except, Sophie doesn’t believe in love and Max has sworn off it. So, when they kiss – even though there’s a lot of chemistry there – it doesn’t mean anything. But what happens when it starts to?

Oh, this one was delightful on audio. But the narrators are superb, and I adored the characters that Painter created. She wrote some pretty incredible banter, and the sexytimes were done incredibly well (she wrote some of the best kissing I’ve read in a while). There are some genuinely funny bits, and while I think the idea of people objecting at weddings for pay is kind of silly, Painter made it work.

It was just a lot of fun.

The Rule Book

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by Sarah Adams
First sentence: “Sometimes life is like a box of chocolates, and sometimes life is like a box of chocolates left out in the sun all day.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: April 2, 2024
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, some on-screen sex, and instances of harassment in the workplace.

Nora Mackenzie loves sports and knows she can be a fantastic sports agent. The thing that’s been holding her back though, is that sports – and sports agencies – are Old Boys Clubs and it’s been hard for her to catch a break. She has found Nicole who has given her a break, and been impressed with her. So much, so that she’s given Nora a plum assignment: being the agent for star football player Derek Pender, who’s recovering from an ankle injury. The problem? Derek is her college boyfriend, who she broke up with quite heartlessly, eight years ago.

Thus starts a contentious relationship – especially since they’re trying to be professional even though they have feelings for each other – until they drunkenly get hitched in Vegas one weekend. Then, it morphs into a fake marriage to save their careers and reputations – until Derek and Nora give in to the chemistry between them.

Read this one for the characters. Seriously. Nora is an absolute delight, and the way she and Derek play off each other is just delightful. Outside of the characters, though, I think this book just tries to do too much. It’s a lot #wokefeminism, and it’s a lot of there needs to be more females in sports. There are some of dad issues (which Funny People does better) and some of the importance of friendships. But at its center are the characters and relationship between Derek and Nora and that’s absolutely worth reading this book for.

Lunar New Year Love Story

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by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is romance, talk of teenage pregnancy, and a kind of spooky ghost. It’s in the Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Valentina Tran’s favorite holiday was always Valentine’s Day. She loved making personalized cards for her classmates and her father, and one of her best friends is a projection of Saint Valentine – Cupid. Then, her freshman year of high school, things fall apart: her classmates don’t appreciate the valentines; one even goes so far as to tear it up and throw it away. And the worst news: her mother isn’t dead, like her father always told her, but had just left them when Val was a baby.

Then she meets Les and his cousin Jae, who are lion dancers. They convince her to join up, and she starts a relationship with Les, but it’s not everything she wants it to be. She’s torn: her father’s been nursing a broken heart her whole life and doesn’t believe in love; her best friend doesn’t want to commit to any relationship; Les is unwilling to call her his girlfriend. Is there anyone who actually believes in love?

I loved this graphic novel. It deals with cultural identity – kids trying to stay connected to their heritage and the disconnect that is often between generations. It deals with grief and loss, not just because of abandonment and heartbreak, but also from death. And it deals with the hope of love. I adored its humor and tenderness, and Pham’s illustrations are just delightful.

It’s practically perfect and a delight to read.