Tag: tbr

#SmutAThon

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Happy Day 1 of SmutAthon. I wanted to jump on here for anyone who may have missed that this romance readathon is happening!

This readathon is hosted by Riley and Lainey and takes place January 4th through the 11th. I will post both of their announcement videos for you:

The hosts have also created a Roaring Twenties themed Bingo Board with the prompts for us which you can find here.

I am playing it safe this round being that I start back to school next week, so I only have four books on my to be read list, but am very excited! I will leave a link to my video below.

I would love to know if you plan to participate. It is so much fun and all about reading romance for a week. I hope you’ll join us.

Chat with you soon. xx.

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Romance Bingo First 5 Wrap Up

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Hey Friends! I hope you had a wonderful week and are enjoying your weekend. I wanted to check in and quickly recap my first five completed reads for the Summer Romance Bingo I’m participating in.

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  • My pick for a historical romance was Katherine by Anya Seton which I gave 3/5 stars. This is the fictionalize depiction of Katherine Swynford and John Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster’s love affair. Their love affair changed history. My first Anya Seton novel was Dragonwyck and it completely blew me away but the two I have read since have just been okay.  Katherine is over 500 pages and to be honest the first 200 were very slow. Had I not been reading this as a buddy read, I probably would’ve DNF’d it.

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  • I read Redemption Bay by Raeanne Thayne for the challenge of “reading a novel with someone in the medical field.” This is book three in the Haven Point series and I gave it 4/5 stars. Redemption Bay follows Mayor McKenzie Shaw whose sister Devin is a doctor. I loved this story, so much.

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  • For the challenge of “read a paranormal romance,”  I read The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark.  I gave this one 3/5 stars. It had so many things in it that I am a complete sucker for but it just didn’t hit the mark for me. Somewhere along the line, I started losing interest and had no idea what was going on. It had the creepy old house, a town full of witches, demons, vampires and faeries. It had old manuscripts from a romance author who lived in the creepy old house before passing away. I seriously wanted to love the hell out of this book, but I didn’t.

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  • For the challenge of “read a book with a cowboy in the story,” I read the next book in the Haven Point series, Evergreen Springs.  This is Devin’s love story with single dad, cowboy,  Cole Barrett. I gave this one 4/5 stars. Raeanne Thayne does such a fantastic job at truly capturing human emotions. Her characters are very real people with baggage, ghosts in their closets and self-doubt. I loved it.

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  • Lastly, for the “small town romance,” challenge, I read Riverbend Road which is book four in Raeanne Thayne’s Haven Point series. If you can’t tell, I was totally sucked into the town of Haven Point. I literally couldn’t get enough of them so I finished one and immediately jumped into the next and lucky for me, they fit into a few challenges.  Riverbend Road is the love story between Police Officer Wyn Bailey and the Chief of Police, Cade Emmett. These two have pretty much grown up together–Cade’s mentor was Wyn’s Father who was a police officer until his death, and he was best friends with Wyn’s brother.  Raeanne Thayne does such a good job in this novel of capturing that internal conflict we tend to have when we don’t think we are good enough for someone. That was definitely the case for Cade. True enough he worked himself up to Chief of Police but he saw Wyn’s family structure and never thought he was good enough for her because of how his was set up. I gave this one 4/5 stars!

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Let me know if you are participating in any summer reading challenges or if there are any read-a-thons coming up you’re excited for! Until next time, take care of yourself!

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E-Books I’m EXCITED for!

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I love reading e-books Friends. I have the Kindle App downloaded on both my Ipad and IPhone so between the two, I always have a book with me. It can get pretty crazy though! Between checking e-books out via Overdrive from the library and one clicking on Amazon, at times I feel like I’ve went a bit over board–but typically if I am hauling an e-book, it’s because I want that book RIGHT NOW. Once upon a time, I believed all my books needed to be in physical form. But after realizing how convenient e-books are, how much cheaper they can be at times and surprisingly how much faster I seem to read them–I got over needing all physical books pretty quick! Here are a few I have recently hauled that I am excited to read.collage (1)

Beverly Jenkins is at the top of my list of Must Read Romance authors. She writes historical romances that take place in America and the heroines are women of color. I recently checked out Destiny’s Embrace both in e-book and audio form from the library. Destiny’s Embrace takes place in the American West and follows Logan, a ranch owner who begins to fall for his housekeeper Mariah. The two bicker quite a bit but the sexual tension is there and only rises when Mariah’s former lover arrives on scene. You don’t see too many historical romances that take place in America, let alone with a woman or man of color who isn’t a slave so I am excited to read my first Queen Bev novel!

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Honestly this next title I saw on Instagram and within minutes found that it was not only on Amazon but that it’s part of Kindle Unlimited so I was able to click to read it for free. It is Lilith by Willow Aster which at some point had a title change, because when I found it initially it was titled Whore. It is the story of Lilith Fontenot who is beautiful, intelligent, independent and appears to have it all. She is also the highest paid prostitute in New Orleans. She once had dreams of a normal life but buried those long ago and is now focused on surviving. There are two men; a mob boss and a community center owner who have their own specific plans for Lilith and neither will rest until it becomes reality.

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Always Never Yours is a Young Adult Contemporary Romance that caught my eye on Amazon one day and ever since I haven’t been able to get it off my mind. I put it on hold with the library and it finally came through a few days ago. This is Megan Harper’s story of being the girl “before.” She is the girl who after dating her, guys find their one true love. Megan doesn’t waste time feeling sorry for herself. Instead she focuses on directing theatre and fulfilling her dream school’s acting requirement in the smallest role possible. Megan gets cast as Juliet in her high school’s production of Romeo and Juliet and this guy Owen promises to help Megan catch the eye of a sexy stagehand if she helps him with his script writing. Between rehearsals and her divided family Megan begins noticing Owen and questions, shouldn’t a girl to get to play the lead in her own love story? This story sounds so good. I am so in the mood for a young adult contemporary romance at the moment but I haven’t read the genre in years and can be very picky. I don’t have anything against young adult. Just the last couple of books I remember reading, I kept thinking, “I DON’T WANT YOUNG GIRLS READING THIS CRAP AND THINKING THIS IS OKAY.” Just the specific books I read I remember feeling like young girls deserved so much better and are way smarter than what the author was giving them credit for.

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This next one, I read the first few sentences in the synopsis and immediately clicked the button on Amazon. “It was a big lie. The biggest lie she’d ever told. It reverberated through her head as she said it, ringing eerily, and the girl behind her eyes—the girl who knew the truth—screamed, and her scream echoed along with the lie. ” In The Smallest Part    Mercedes says “No,” when she is asked if she loves Noah.  She knows that Cora loves him too. With the lie, Mercedes loses him. She was the best friend, the godmother, the bridesmaid, the glue. She was there through all the good and bad times and ups and downs. She was also there when everything came crashing down. I feel like this book is going to rip my heart all the way out and to be honest, I am so ready for it! I am in the mood for a book to completely shatter me at the moment.

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Lastly, I hauled Dangerous Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained by Maya Rodale. When I heard there were a few non-fiction books about the romance genre floating around, I knew I had to get my hands on them. Maya Rodale’s Dangerous Books For Girls is the first I picked up and it explores the origins behind the stigma against popular romance novels.  The book argues that the stigma behind romance has nothing to do with the covers or the audience but everything to do with the fact that these novels are dangerous. I am so excited to read this one!

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So these are the e-books I have recently hauled! Do you read e-books? Share with me some of the titles you’ve hauled recently on your e-reader. Until next time Friends, take care of yourselves–xoxo, Bree

 

 

 

 

 

June Romance TBR

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Hello Friends! We have made it to June which makes us that much closer to Christmas time. I am so over the heat already and may or may not be counting down the days until Hallmark starts playing their Christmas romances. One day at a time though, and here we are a few days into June and I feel like my to be read list for this month is set. I am participating in the Summer Romance 2018 Bingo so I have books that fit into 5 of the prompts.

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The wall of Winnipeg and Me

For the prompt, “Sports Romance,” I will be reading The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata. I don’t know why, but something has me a little nervous about giving sports romances a try but this one was recommended to me in the Summer Romance Bingo group on Goodreads, so I’m excited to read it. (And it has pretty awesome reviews!)  I’ll be reading this one on my iPad’s Kindle App and was lucky enough to get it for free via Kindle Unlimited.

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The next prompt I’ll be completing is “Book by an author writing under a pseudonym” and for this one I’ll be reading The Duke Is Mine by Eloisa James. I have only read one other Eloisa James novel and really enjoyed it. From what I’ve heard and read about her, she is basically a BOSS when it comes to historical romances and fairy tale retellings, so I am very much looking forward to another one of her works. I’ll be reading the physical copy of this one.

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“Never Seduce A Scot,” is one I am currently listening to on audio via Overdrive. I saw Nicole from WhoPickedThisBook and Angela at Books Are My Hart post the information for this one on Twitter for their online book club, Romantics At Hart and I immediately checked overdrive and was so happy they had the audiobook available. When it comes to historical’s I prefer having the audio version because reading it myself I know I completely butcher names and tend to not always understand what is being talked about. So audiobooks are very helpful with this. I am already a few chapters into this one and am very intrigued to see where the story is going to go!

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For the prompt, “Novel that takes place in a major city,” I’ll be reading Idle Bloom by Jewel E. Ann. This book takes place in Boston and luckily I came across it while browsing Amazon. I want to read more friends to lovers story lines and Boston is in my top 3 cities here in the states I want to visit, so I’m very excited to read this one. I’ll be reading this one on my Kindle app.

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And my last pick for this month is for the prompt of, “Romance novel published in 2018.” I chose, The Way You Make Me Feel,” by Maurene Goo for this one. It is a young adult novel but the main character experiences a romance in it, so I am counting it. It’s been years since I’ve read a young adult novel and I used to find them so much fun in the summer, so I am really rooting for this one! I hope I like it. I have the physical copy of this one checked out from the library so I need to get to it soon.

 

So that is my TBR for the month of June Friends! Let me know what you reading plans for this month consist of. Do you feel you gravitate toward certain books when summer comes? Hope all is well with you! I’ll talk to you in my next post–xoxo, Bree.