joconklin Book Reviews, Indie Books, Romance

I’m Reading: Crunching Her Numbers by Mia Sivan

I had the pleasure of beta-reading this book, and I love the author’s vision for it. I also received an ARC copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. I can honestly recommend it to any steamy contemporary romance reader.

The Tel Aviv financial world is a world of men. Kelly, an investment manager and Argentinian immigrant, must be twice as good and twice as tough to hold her position at the top. That’s fine with her. After all, she’s happy, rich, and really only needs a man for one thing. It seems like the ideal solution to take up an affair with her younger Russian masseur, Slava. Sweet, romantic Slava is head-over-heels for Kelly, but she’s clear at the beginning that there will be no happy-ever-after—no matter how good he looks kneeling at her feet.

Illan is a private investigator working for the Israeli Securities Agency to uncover a massive market manipulation scheme. He needs Kelly’s help, but her whistleblowing and cooperating with the ISA could risk everything she’d worked for. He asks that he trust her not just with her career, but with her pleasure, and her deepest vulnerabilities. When he asks her to give up Slava, though, she finds that no-strings doesn’t mean easy to let go.

This is a bit of a break from my recent Romcom streak, although the author does bring some lighthearted moments to balance the serious circumstances and stakes. Sivan brings the diverse city of Tel Aviv to life as a backdrop to this steamy romance about financial trading scandals, intrigue, and the global immigrant experience. With well-researched and realistic BDSM and polyamory rep, this story brings the heat in a big way. But it also makes the complex world of financial trading and investigation accessible and interesting to readers with no background in finance. The characters are beautifully developed, with unique voices that jump off the page. We see them all as real people in their different strengths and vulnerabilities, and root for all three right to the very end.

Follow Mia Sivan on her Amazon Author Page for Crunching Her Numbers and upcoming releases.

joconklin Book Reviews, Romance, Romcom

I’m Reading: Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens

Laura is a hopeless romantic and professional meet-cute reporter. Her own parents’ story of being brought together by a broken antique coin across the sea has set high standards for her love life, and she’s not about to settle for less than epic romance.

As she travels to the island of Jersey to trace her parents’ romantic footsteps for a story, her luggage gets switched at the airport. The contents of the mystery suitcase convinces her that the owner is the man of her dreams and she must find him to fulfill very own meet-cute. But as she tracks him down with the help of a surly cab driver and rediscovers her island roots, she uncovers family secrets that threaten to unravel her belief in happy ever after.

For me this romcom had the perfect balance of serious, funny, wholesome and whimsical to draw me right in. There are clever nods and twists to genre tropes and reader expectations that made the story fresh, and a light touch on the history of the island that captures the heart of the place without feeling that we’re being lectured on a school trip.

The plot threads get a little meandering at the end, but the dynamic characters carry it through with a well-constructed twist. The resolution is deeply satisfying all around, and the light touch makes this a great, cozy, curl up on the beach, escapist kind of read, with more laughter than tears, and all the warmth of a good cuppa with friends.

Visit the author’s page at https://www.sophiecousens.com/ to buy this book, or request it at your local library!

joconklin Book Reviews, Mystery, Uncategorized

I’m Reading: Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Finlay Donovan’s life is a complete mess. Her newly ex husband fired the nanny without telling her, she’s behind on the bills, the book she desperately needs to finish to cover the mortgage is past due (and barely started), and her kid chose this morning to cut her own hair before school, then insists on fixing it with duct tape.

But then a woman at Panera overhears Finlay and her agent discussing the overdue murder mystery, and mistakes the stressed-out single mom for a contract killer. Finlay finds a note in her purse with a name and an offer that would solve a large chunk of her problems: fifty thousand dollars.

What could go wrong?

Elle Cosimano brings us an unapologetically campy romp of a mystery novel. It’s real, refreshing, and hilarious, but with hidden sophisticated depths and empathy.

The writing craft is exceptional and the combination of feminist lens and sharp wit put this in an entirely different class of mystery. The hijinks and fast pacing give it a cinematic, summer blockbuster feel (and lets hope this catches Hollywood’s eye!)

I like that the platonic female friendships in the book overshadowed the romance threads. The latter were a little underdeveloped. Then again this is a woman who is working her butt off to figure out who she is and where she’s going professionally and personally, and the men just need to take a back seat until she figures it out. Character-wise, the women in this book really stand out as vivid, strong individuals with their own personalities, and their dialogue is particularly strong.

But I’m here for the weirdness of laugh-out-loud funny, surprise twists, and, of course, the murders. The sequel is already on my order list.

Check your local library, or find out more about the author’s work at https://www.ellecosimano.com/

joconklin Book Reviews, Romance, Romcom

I’m Reading: Get a Life, Chloe Brown, by Talia Hibbert

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill web designer who wants to experience life away from the hovering and smothering care of her family. So she gets an apartment and makes a list: Do something bad, ride a motorcycle, go camping, enjoy a drunken night out, have meaningless but enjoyable sex, and travel the world with nothing but hand luggage. But being chronically ill makes it tough to make friends to do bad things with. Not friends she can trust to stick around on bad days, through broken plans and physical limitations. Leave it to the grumpy, impossibly sexy handyman, Red, who secretly paints beautiful art at night and resents Chloe’s wealthy upbringing, to be the one to help her get a life. He doesn’t know that Chloe has already done her “something bad,” by way of spying on him at night through the curtains. But as he sticks around through thick and thin and helps her check off more of her missed experiences, she must decide if she can take the biggest risk of all; adding him to her list.

“Keep Red.”

This is the first in Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sisters series, and it pulled me in immediately with vivid characters, humor, a perfect balance of sweetness and steam, and beautiful writing craft. I immediately blew my entire monthly book budget on her back catalog and haven’t been able to stop reading since. This series marks her leap from Indie to traditional publishing, and you can see why she caught an agent’s eye. She balances witty hilarity with a rich, lyrical voice and captures beautiful scenes with a few evocative brushstrokes. Her men have emotional intelligence, her families are loving but imperfect, her characters are beautifully rounded, and her steam is so hot it should come with burn cautions. Overall, I would put Hibbert right up in my top 5 favorite re-readable authors and platonic author crushes.

I wholeheartedly recommend you check your local library for Talia Hibbert’s books, or visit the author’s website at https://www.taliahibbert.com/

joconklin Book Reviews, Indie Books, Romance, Romcom

I’m Reading: Highland Games by Evie Alexander

Zoe uproots everything when her great-uncle leaves her a run-down cabin in the Scottish Highlands. The cabin is the scene of her happiest childhood memories, and she hopes it will be where she finds herself and her future away from the pressures of London life. But her rosy memories of a rustic summer are no match for the reality of a leaky, ramshackle hut in winter without plumbing, electricity, or a front door. Or for the massive, muscular estate manager for the Kinloch castle who seems determined to be rid of her.

Rory is under enormous pressure to make the Kinloch castle profitable in the face of enormous debt, or lose his job. All he really wants is to fix up the abandoned cabin on the estate and live out the solitary life he wants, away from the stress of work and memories. When a strange, magnetic London woman claims his cabin and turns his world upside down, he must find a way to scare her off, or lose his last hope of peace and quiet.

I was fortunate enough to be a beta reader for this book and received an ARC copy.

This debut romcom is a delicious, sexy delight. The characters bring sparks and wit to the enemies-to-lovers trope, with banter and shenanigans that made me laugh out loud. I love that Zoe gives as good as she gets, and meets Rory blow-for-blow in the battle of wits and pranks. I also love the found family and the town as a secondary character. For me, it had the mark of great immersive setting, in that I want to move to my own cabin in the Scottish Highlands and see if I can become part of their family, too.

But OH THE CHEMISTRY between the lead characters, here. It builds well, with the fire of animosity turning to physical attraction, then we peel back the layers of the characters to reach something deeper. It hits all the romance buttons for me, and I think we can look forward to a lot of great stories from this debut author.

For more on this and the author’s future works, visit Evie Alexander’s website at https://eviealexanderauthor.com/

joconklin Book Reviews, Indie Books, Romance

I’m Reading: So Not My Thing by Melanie Jacobson

Elle Jones has learned the hard way that the Internet is forever. After a humiliating teenage rejection by her pop star crush went viral, it threatened to follow her forever. But she regrouped and rebuilt. She’s now on track to a wildly successful career in New Orleans real estate…until the man who wrecked her life walks through the door. Miles Crowe doesn’t recognize her when he asks her to help him find the perfect spot for his new jazz club. She plans to make him fire her as quickly as possible, before he learns the truth and makes her re-live her teenage humiliation all over again.

I’ll admit to being a sucker for enemies to lovers. There’s something about this classic romance trope that gets to me. Maybe it’s the idea of people actually growing and changing, or maybe it’s the best example of love conquering all. Or, you know, it could just be that the witty competitive banter is usually so dang sexy.

At any rate, Melanie Jacobson does it just right. So Not My Thing is smart romance. The conflict is real, as is the past hurt. The characters are deliciously competent at what they do. Both have actual, nuanced flaws, and have to do the work on themselves and grow as people to get what they want. The stakes are highly personal, which for me are the best kind of stakes. The world won’t end if they fail, but they’ll be better people if they succeed.

The city of New Orleans is itself a richly developed secondary character in the book, and one we fall in love with. Reading this makes me crave the place, but not just to visit. I want to belong to the place like Elle does, have her deep roots and connection to the community. It’s woven into both main characters’ identities as part of the story itself, not just a backdrop. You couldn’t transplant these people and conflicts to any other place and have it make sense. It has to be New Orleans.

If I have one complaint, it’s that I would have liked an epilogue. I know they’re not everybody’s jam, but I like to spend a little time with the characters after an emotionally tense ending, to wind down and transition back to real life. It’s like pillow talk for the soul. I particularly miss that transition when I’m invested in the people and their happiness.

But I am invested, which is why I can recommend this book. The people, the music, the lives and relationships all come together in a place I’m hungry to spend more time in. My preference for romance usually runs high-steam, but this author packs more sensual tension into a kiss than others do in entire on-page sex scenes. All that adds up to a place in my re-reads for this book. I suspect the same will be true for the rest of the author’s catalog.

For more information on So Not My Thing and Melanie Jacobson’s other works, visit the author’s website at https://www.melaniejacobson.net/

joconklin Book Reviews, Indie Books, Romance, Romcom

I’m Reading: The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

Catalina Martín has a problem. When she discovered that her newly-engaged ex would be best man at her sister’s wedding in Spain, she may have accidently let slip that she would be bringing a date. Not just a date, though, a boyfriend. A handsome, charming, non-existent boyfriend. It was that or showing up single (again) and playing the poor pitiful sad girl (again.)

As W-Day draws near, Catalina must consider taking the offer of a date from the last man on earth she would willingly spend time with. Her fellow engineer Aaron is a humorless, soulless asshole who lives to make her miserable. It’s out of the question. She doesn’t even know why he offered, except maybe to mess with her. Why would a man who hates her guts want to fly to Spain to pretend to be her boyfriend?

And why, as the sparks fly and his touch lights up her body, does it feel less and less like pretend?

The Spanish Love Deception is everything I’m looking for in a feel-good, enemies-to-lovers romcom. It’s witty, quirky, and steamy. The characters are sharp, the secondary story meaningful, and the sexual tension is through the roof. The writing craft is solid, and while I would describe it as The Proposal meets The Hating Game meets telenovelas, the voice, the heart, and the nicely balanced classic romance tropes makes this book a phenomenon all its own.

…

(Minor spoiler alert)

…

My one complaint about this book is that Aaron joins the company after Lina, in the same role, yet he is being promoted ahead of her. The author isn’t shy about other elements of workplace discrimination, but this doesn’t even seem to show up on the characters’ radars. If she’s a highly competent engineer and team leader who has been there longer, why wasn’t she considered for the promotion? A company would normally post the position internally and interview applicants, not just pluck someone from the team arbitrarily to promote. Why would HR allow this, and why doesn’t Catalina fight it, or at least resent it? If Aaron is simply better for the job, I feel that the author needed to sell me on it more. I feel like this should have been caught by beta readers, at least.

***End Spoiler Alert***

But that is me being SUPER PICKY about an otherwise great book that I got very invested in reading. The rest of the story is solid. We get some of my absolute favorite romance tropes (Fake relationship feels all too real! Then grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one! and THERE’S ONLY ONE BED!). The romance is swoon-worthy, and the characters are real people you want to spend more time with.

This amazing debut goes on my re-read list, and I’m eagerly awaiting the chance to read more from Elena Armas!

Visit the author online at https://www.authorelenaarmas.com/

joconklin Book Reviews, Romance, Romcom

I’m Reading: The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker

Calla Fletcher is pure city girl. A banking analyst and aspiring social media influencer in Toronto, her life is all about fancy coffee and high fashion. Then she gets the call. Her estranged biological father, an Alaska bush pilot and small airline owner, is sick. Calla must decide if she wants this chance to repair things with the man she thinks abandoned her and her mother long ago. Venturing into the wild frontier of Bangor, she learns that their history is more complicated than she’d ever imagined. She doesn’t belong here, but the Alaskan tundra has its appeal, as does the surly young pilot who works for her dad and seems to hate everything about Calla. More than anyone, Calla knows better than to fall in love with a bush pilot. In the end, the sky cowboys always break your heart.

This was a delightful, well-rounded contemporary romance. The delicious enemies-to-lovers trope, the heartbreaking complexity of family, and the beautiful natural setting come together in a book I couldn’t put down. The side-characters were well-developed, and Bangor became a place I want to explore in as many sequels as the author wants to give me. The author manages to capture the bleak hardness of the wilderness, and the struggles of those who live there, without sacrificing its beauty and charms. If I had one complaint, I’d say the romantic tension felt slightly rushed, but the writing craft is so strong it didn’t hurt the story a bit. After finishing The Simple Wild, I’m ready to blow most of my book budget on Tucker’s other works!

Read an excerpt, find ordering options, and see the author’s other work at https://www.katuckerbooks.com. Remember to check your local library, and encourage them to stock the authors you enjoy!

Content warnings for this book are below, and may include spoilers. If you ever have questions about the contents of books I’ve reviewed, please reach out to me via the contact form, or on Twitter at @JoGeekly. I’m always happy to help you decide if a book I’ve enjoyed is safe for you to enjoy as well!

…..

Content warning: The story contains multiple depictions and descriptions of parent death, cancer, divorce, and parent estrangement. We also see characters experiencing fear of flying, and depictions and references to plane crashes.

I’ve added this and many other books to Does the Dog Die, a crowdsourced website that lists common trauma triggers in media content.

joconklin Book Reviews, LGBTQ+, Romance

I’m Reading: Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

Elle’s blind date with the beautiful, snobby sister of her new business partner is a disaster, but she considers that emblematic of her life in general. It’s for the best, really. Darcy strikes her as a particular kind of stick-up-the-butt snob who would hate everything about Elle and her chaotic life. But every time her mother asks if Elle is seeing anyone, it’s one more reminder that Elle is a failure in her family’s eyes.

Darcy is fresh off a painful breakup and done with her brother’s pressure to “get out there” and open her heart up again. All she wants to do is stay in and stay the course of her quiet, orderly, successful life. Her brother’s latest setup for her (with an astrologist, of all people) was the final straw. But she never could say no to her baby brother’s puppy-dog face. When he tries to push her into speed dating, she lies and tells him the date with Elle was a raging success, just to get him off her back.

Elle and Darcy’s fake relationship makes both their families happy, even if it comes with an agreed-on expiration date. Falling for each other was never part of the plan, but the chaotic pull of Elle’s gravity turns out to be too much for Darcy to resist. As Elle learns to believe in her value and Darcy learns to open her heart, they both find themselves reaching for the stars.

This is a great, tightly-written contemporary romance. I’ve seen it billed as a Pride and Prejudice meets Bridget Jones’s Diary, but I’m not sure I agree completely with that comparison. The elements of P&P are more about the characters than the plot. We have the aloof, snobby love interest with a cinnamon roll bestie-brother; and the free-spirited woman with catty sisters, passive father, and judgy mother. Bridget Jones is more of a stretch. Sure, Elle thinks she’s a mess, but she’s actually pretty together with a successful career about to launch. Her brain weasels come straight from her parents. She doesn’t need anyone to hand her success, either. She knows what she wants to do from the start, she pursues it, and she’s damn good at it. That competence makes Elle much more likeable and relatable than Jones.

Overall, I found it charming, sexy, funny, wholesome, and well-written. The romantic and sexual tension are nicely crafted, and there are moments of lovely imagery and connection. I highly recommend it to any fans of contemporary romance. Check out the author and their work at www.alexandriabellefleur.com, and look for the book at your local library!

joconklin Book Reviews, Indie Books, LGBTQ+, Romance

I’m Reading: Finding Joy by Adriana Herrera

Warning: Contains Spoilers

26-year-old American Desta Joy Walker begin his life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The country was his father’s first love as well as the place of his death. When Desta tries to follow in his father’s footsteps as an aid worker, he finds the shoe doesn’t quite fit. He reconnects with his heritage and understands the love his father held for Addis Ababa, but feels the pull of a social work career back in the U.S. He must balance his own identity and calling against his parents’ dreams. The stakes for his decision skyrocket when he falls hard for the gentle, beautiful Elias Fikru. Both under the pressure of family legacy and in a place where gay relationships are illegal, they risk everything if they choose to be true to themselves.

This was a beautiful mix of steamy-hot sex and sweetly beautiful love of all kinds. We fall for the beauty of Ethiopia through the eyes of the character, and our hearts break for him and Elias for the intense pressure and danger they face together. The blend of Ethiopian and Dominican cultures and their fierce family loyalty is a rich tapestry to frame the story and the decisions the characters face.

The only downside for the story for me isn’t a downside for many: The story is low-angst. That means there’s some very real, plausible sources of conflict and danger the author chooses to leave on the table and not throw at the characters. They would greatly increase tension, but for some, tension is not always the goal. Some people want their happily-ever-after without putting their characters through hell and breaking them, first. I would chalk this up to simple differences in taste, rather than anything actually wrong with the story.

Similarly, some reviewers have mentioned the sex scenes being “out-of-tone” for the slow, sweet pacing of the story. They are indeed high-steam and graphically erotic, but I wonder if the same reviewers would complain if the main characters were M/F? This is a sensuous story, where the food, coffee, and other richly detailed textures of life in Ethiopia are an integral part of the story. I think the author brings the same sensual details to the love scenes.

You can find this and the author’s other books at https://adrianaherreraromance.com/

Content Notice: Contains LGBTQ discrimination and ethnic discrimination