Reading Fanatic Reviews
Books to Add to Your TBR list... or Not!Hey, ya’ll! I’m VERY behind getting my reviews up on the website! I’ve increased the reading and reviewing, leaving less of my leisure time available to update this website. I’ll do weekly posts with links to my reviews at Amazon; you can also check out my Amazon and Goodreads profiles.
By the way, I’m now a top 50 Amazon.com reviewer (#12 currently) and the top 8 US reviewer of all time on Goodreads (and top 9 in the world)… and the #6 US reviewer and #8 in the world in the past year. Cool stuff!
I hope to make updates to this site soon!
Trinity by Serena Ackeroyd
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo (Chapters), and Bol.de
Trinity*
Hit All the Wrong Buttons
I loved the book’s beautiful cover, and I find myself intrigued by RH books these days, so I thought I would give this book a try. I’m sorry I did. I will admit that I did not get very far because so many elements of it just turned me off so quickly. First, this book seems to assume that one has a lot of knowledge about alphas, betas, and pack structure. While I have read some shifter books, this book seems to expect more than I know from just casually reading a few books. Then there’s the swearing. I just I’m not a fan of all the profanity that seems to be in so many books these days. It’s an immediate turn off for me. Sometimes I can get past it if I believe it is necessary for characterization, but it’s a massive no-go otherwise. Then there was a talk of a lot of rapes going on. I read books for enjoyment and escape, not to be reminded how brutal life can be. Hard pass.
Care of the Duke by Eliza Heaton
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
Care of the Duke*
Romantic Novella with Good Characterization
What a sweet and lovely story! Anna is the sickly daughter of an earl. Her mother and maid coddle her to the extent that she is not even allowed out of her bedroom most of the time. However, when the book starts, the entire family is off to enjoy a hunting party in the north. Anna makes the acquaintance of the owner of the house, the Duke of Richmond, while not knowing who he is. In this moment, the duke is able to just enjoy the company of a lovely young woman without her viewing him as one of the most eligible bachelors in England. They fall into easy conversation, and during the house party, they get to know each other better.
I really enjoyed this relatively short read. Even though it is a novella, the author actually has done a good job of characterization for both Anna and the duke. In the opening scene, Anna reveals some of her inner struggles as she relates what the landscape she is traveling through looks like; this was rather cleverly done exposition that creates empathy for Anna. We meet the Duke when he is in a brooding mood as well, so we learn a bit of his backstory and the emotion behind it. These are two wounded souls who come to find comfort, compassion, and genuine caring in each other. It doesn’t seem unnatural or forced, as it often does in a novella. Their relationship was lovely to watch unfold. While the duke was understanding of her delicate nature and frailty from years of ill health, he did not coddle her like the others in her life. They both knew that she wanted more than to be treated as an invalid, and he was good at making that happen for her. I thought the end was a little strange, as what the author called an epilogue really seems more like a continuation of the story (even if it was a few months later). I would have liked to have seen a proper epilogue. I would like to think that under the excellent care of the duke’s physician, as well as being in a loving relationship, Duchess Anna would continue to regain her health. A delightful historical romance with that setup that is different from most.
Just the Way You Are by Ann Roth
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, and Bol.de
Just the Way You Are*
A Heartfelt Small-Town Romance
A simply wonderful small-town romance! Both the hero and the heroine are flawed, each having a history that embarrasses them. The heroine comes to a small town on the Oregon coast to crash with a friend after she quit her vice president job at a consulting firm in Los Angeles after the breakup of her short-term relationship with one of the partners. The hero is a handyman with dyslexia, which he keeps a secret from everyone but his older sister because he feels ashamed and unworthy. On the night they first meet, the heroine breaks down in tears, the roughness of the past couple of months finally catching up with her. The two have a near-instant attraction, but both determined not to do anything about it.
This was a really sweet, well-done small-town romance. The author drew me right into the story with the heroine’s unbalanced emotional state, even though she was her own worst enemy with that bad relationship with the boss. The hero at first comes off as sweet and flirty, but he has deep self-esteem issues because of his dyslexia that wasn’t diagnosed until he was a teen. His feelings and thoughts about himself seem so realistic. I am often caught up in the heroine’s emotional drama in a romance but rarely the heroes, so I liked that he had a flaw, so to speak, that held such an emotional charge for him. The town itself can almost be seen as a character. I don’t want to give too much more away, but there is a series of events that involve the whole town that also touches the heroine, and I thought it was a beautiful thing to behold. Having lived in a small coastal town in California, I can say it was true to small-town life. If you enjoy a contemporary small-town Romance, you may very well find this as much of a delightful read as I did.
Catnapped by Susan Golden
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, Smashwords, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, and Indigo (Chapters)
Catnapped*
Quirky Humor Falls Flat
I’m not quite sure what to make of this quirky little read. The cover itself is a little strange—suggesting a boudoir romance with a cat included?—but I found the book blurb suggested something more intriguing. Unfortunately, I think the author tries too hard at humor and can’t quite pull it off. This is meant to be a romantic “comedic” suspense, but the hero disappeared after showing up and was absent for a while. This made the timing and pacing of the book feel off to me, not allowing the romance to simmer and bubble. Too much of the book was just spent in the heroine’s head. Stories told in the first person can tend toward navel-gazing, and there was a little too much introspection and narrative prose at times. Some paragraphs themselves were exceedingly long, which I find hard to read. When he was there, I did enjoy Ryan as a character, perhaps more so than the heroine. The suspense part is told to us in the title of the book. The heroine is a pet sitter, and a cat gets taken. All in all, I found myself a little disappointed in this book.
Falling for Her Opposing Counsel by Tami Franklin
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
Falling for Her Opposing Counsel*
Another Charming Trip to Holiday Junction
I’ve read one other book in the Holiday Junction series, the book that was formerly known as Lena’s Lucky Charm and is now known as Falling for her Headache. I enjoyed that visit to Holiday Junction, and so I looked forward to another installment. The heroine in this book gradually fell for both the hero and for this small town; I’m in agreement with her on both! I thought Evie was a good heroine as she isn’t just a hard-bitten New York businesswoman who is dismissive of small-town life (though she doesn’t like camping!), as they can often be portrayed in romances. Even before she engages with the locals over the development issue, she understands the need to respect the place that her company wants to develop, and she understands the need to negotiate. Liam, the hero, is passionate in his defense of his town; this is believable and understandable. At times, these two butt heads, but not in an overly acrimonious way. In fact, as they get to know each other, some of their banter is quite witty and engaging; I loved the stories they told as they became better acquainted. Their evolving relationship and the delightful town and denizens of Holiday Junction are just utterly charming. I enjoyed this book as I did the first one, and I am looking forward to reading more in this series.
The Key to Her Heart by Blanche Dabney
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
The Key to Her Heart*
Romance Didn’t Have Enough Time to Develop
I found this to be an odd story. Except for the prologue, the hero and heroine don’t meet until after the 33% mark. Because they met so late in the novel, there really isn’t enough time to develop a proper romance. It felt like the early time spent in Scotland dealt with mostly inconsequential things, like Daisy getting her bearings and trying to figure out what was going on. This book did have a different element when it flipped back to the present. It was mildly amusing, though in a serious way, that Jock really thought that a demon possessed her because of all of her talk about the future. The idea of the scourge, though, seemed a bit extreme. Wasn’t the use of that only for priests? In other ways, too, the author makes the Highlanders very superstitious, with a healer not even wanting to help Daisy in case she was possessed and his soul would be damned because of his involvement with her. I don’t think this is historically accurate; not everyone would be a religious zealot. I’m not precisely sure when this book is supposed to take place, but it is clearly in medieval times. Some of it just felt off to me in these respects. I didn’t feel like there was enough external conflict going on. There was some, but it felt like it was just kind of stuck on and not fully integrated into the entire story arc. In all honesty, even the Highlander aspect of this story seemed like it was more for window dressing than the actual firm bedrock of a setting; it actually didn’t seem integral for the story or the characters. So for me, the story fell flat in several respects, including an undeveloped romance and not much really going on in the story.
The Prisoner of Fate by Jacob L. White
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
The Prisoner of Fate*
Girl Masquerades as Boy, Even to her Father and Siblings
This story looks to be setting up future adventures. Noah is a girl, but at the start of the story, only her mother knows this. The position of the seventh son in a family is very important, so her mother decided that she would take on the guise of the seventh son even though she is not male. Her brothers and father have no clue. She is sent off to a magical academy where seventh sons and mages are trained and treated with particular respect. But the term does not go well for her on several counts even though she does well academically Will it be found out that she is, indeed, not a seventh son? What would be the consequences, for her and for her family?
I found it hard to believe that no one in the family except her mother knew that she was a girl. It just seems that with so many people living in such close proximity that they would have to know. I don’t feel it was adequately explained why keeping it a secret was so important. To have her family actually be in jeopardy if she is found out seems extreme. Other than that, I found this to be an interesting setup for a magical world, and given the ending, I am curious about what Noah’s future holds.
One More Chapter by K. S. Thomas
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, 24 Symbols, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo (Chapters)
One More Chapter*
Complex Romance
This book deals with a lot more than a simple romance. The characters both have elaborate backstories that make them fastening to watch as they try to negotiate their new relationship. They have both suffered in different ways. The author has done an excellent job of making the characters believable and relatable. Their pasts imbue their present with such emotion, and the author does a good job portraying that. There’s both humor and heaviness in this story. The only thing I didn’t like about it was all the profanity. The books I grew up reading never or rarely had profanity, so it is always a jarring and bad surprise to come across it in books. In this one, the F-bomb was dropped right on page one, which in itself was nearly enough for me to stop reading, but I read the reviews that said how good this book was, so I stuck with it. It IS a good story, one that hits all the right emotional buttons. I just think it would be better without all the swearing and other crude language.
Fall from the Moon by C. S. Hale
Available at Amazon only
FREE with Kindle Unlimited
Fall From the Moon*
Compelling Mix of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Romance
What a delightful and engaging read! This book takes the theme of time travel romance that is so popular today because of Outlander and spins the premise on its head. This is science fiction, fantasy, and time travel romance all rolled into one very well-done story. The futuristic heroine is as modern as we are and is traveling through space when she becomes marooned on a planet that is actually a Do Not Contact planet for the agency she works for. The people and culture on this planet mirror what we would call medieval on Earth. So this future woman with modern sensibilities—and with cool nanobots running around in her blood repairing her crash injuries and a communication device that can learn a new language in a few hours—is stuck on a planet with a much cruder society than she is familiar with.
The author was able to pull me right into the story with a dramatic scene of what was happening on her ship before she crash-landed. Compared to the world that she came from, this new one is so different, and she has choices that she must make right away to maintain her survival. She can be very cool and analytical at times, and she needs to be to survive both initially on the ship and on the new world. I absolutely loved both her and the hero. To add a further fantasy/mystical element, the hero believes that she is a prophesied savior, which is why he insists on marrying her when she arrives. This book was just so well done, with characters that you could relate to and root for. The heroine’s thoughts and commentary were just priceless. I really enjoyed this book.
Hunting the Beast by Anna Santos and May Freighter
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
Hunting the Beast*
Not the Best Retelling of Classic Tale
I am a sucker for retellings of fairy tales, and I particularly love the story of Beauty and the Beast. I fell in love with it when Disney came out with a cartoon movie in the last millennium. So I was anticipating this version of it, but unfortunately, I found it sadly lacking. The author gave Belle some potential strengths, but they weren’t really used. The character development that we see in the original fairytale was not truly seen here. Especially Drake, the Beast, as he came across as a cardboard character and certainly not one who grew and evolved. I felt the language in this book, too, was a bit strange. The language was very simplified, as if the book is meant to be a middle-grade story. I found that tedious to read. Some word choices for dialogue, too, seem far too modern. The book feels like it takes place in a fake medieval fantasy time, so modern terms feel out of place and are actually quite jarring when read. The level of the dialogue, too, seemed simplistic and childlike, not like real people talk. This story just missed the mark for me, which is too bad as I thought the premise had promise.
Jamie Brydone-Jack
Reader, Editor, Writer
I’m an avid reader, for both fun and work/business. I enjoy a wide variety of books, including literary fiction, romance, thrillers, cozy mysteries, and fantasy for fiction and history, contemporary issues, philosophy, music, medicine, and cookbooks for nonfiction. I’m a freelance copyeditor who also does beta and alpha reading. I have two websites that are all about romance and mystery. You can also follow my reviews at Amazon, Goodreads, and Bookbub.
Used To Build My Websites
NetGalley Badges