Life By the Lapels

I just finished “What I Did for a Duke,” and WHEW. First, this is a beautiful book. The dialogue, the detail, the POV… Julie Ann Long really mastered it. I cannot wait to read more of her work.  The Heroine: I really felt for Genevieve, the sweet, innocent, good sister that quietly harbors wit, intelligence, and passion.  She's so good and people think she's predictable. But she's not. She's in love with her best friend until Lord Moncrieffe arrives and turns her world on its head.  The Hero: God, what IS is about sarcastic bad boys with a painful past that I just cannot get enough of? PUT IT IN MY VEINS. Lord Moncrieffe is broody, good a gambling, and rumors fly that he killed his wife. He's clever and, in time, sees something in Genevieve that she didn't even see in herself. And, in turn, she recognizes qualities in him that people have long-ago decided he could not possess. I found all the characters endearing, and the plot of this book was just so smart. Tha...

Y'all. Please. Have a seat. We need to talk about Scarlett Peckham's masterpiece, The Rakess. This book might be my favorite book of 2020. It wrecked me, in the best way possible. It was not particularly uplifting read, but I found the storyline so heart-wrenching and real. I loved it. We meet Sera, a feminist writer, no stranger to romantic trysts, who is working on a new piece to expose the high-society men who ruined her along the way. While working on her new book in her childhood home, she encounters Adam, a widowed father and architect. The two start an amorous affair on a deadline, but they find themselves more and more attached to one another. This book has a lot in it. A lot of the past, pain, and misunderstanding. But it also says a lot about the nature of true love and what HEA looks like for the hurt, brokenhearted, and world-weary. It looks at true love between equals. This book made me think and feel differently than other romances that I've read recently! I h...

 The theme for this year is to escape, run away in our mind, flee the COVID quarantine life... and Alyssa Cole delivers the most delicious chance to do that in "A Princess in Theory." Pack your bags for the African nation of Thesolo, a hot prince, and a reluctant princess... The first of Alyssa Cole's Reluctant Royals series, this book was just so, so good! I really enjoyed the theme of royals being presented in this new, updated, and totally modern way. Sure, British royals are good but this was a real palate cleanser. I enjoyed the settings in both NYC and the fictional African nation of Thesolo. Can Thesolo be real? I would love to visit! The set-up is just so witty... the spam-like email the heroine keeps receiving, trying to tell her she is indeed a real life princess to an African throne (I guess we've all kinda sorta been there... except they wanted money and didn't turn out to be LEGIT). Let's talk about this heroine! Naledi is a smart, overworked and ...