literarycherub's reviews
80 reviews

This was such a sweet read in more ways than one! The friendships, pining, and baked goods will leave you feeling warm and satisfied. Seriously, I had too many tea cakes reading this! 

Ally gets dumped by her long-term girlfriend, Emily, and immediately goes back to her childhood home (with the ex’s cat!) to lick her wounds. Ally’s childhood friend, Jeremy, is also back home and miserable with a breakup of his own. Together they fantasize ways to get their exes back. 

When Jeremy finds out his ex will be running a marathon, he convinces Ally to join with him. Did I mention they can barely make it past a mile? 

I absolutely adored the friendship with Jeremy and the marathon goal they had set out for themselves. It is so endearing to see them work towards this goal. Did they have questionable motivation? Yes. But they find out a lot about themselves on the way. 

Throughout this journey, Ally stays in touch with Emily via email to show how much she has changed and tried to make her interested again (and to use the cat as bait to make Emily come visit her). Ally even starts to show off a new person who has entered her life to make Emily jealous. 

The side characters at Ally’s job were so adorable and I loved all the gay representation in this book. It was refreshing to not have heteronormativity. I recommend this to all romcom lovers!

 

This was such a refreshing read! I have been in a bit of a slump lately and this has really helped me get out of it. Insatiable had me laughing and I quickly got sucked into the steamy situations Violet found herself in. I read it all within a day, which says a lot considering it has been taking me about week to read anything this month.

There is masturbation and a threesome all within the first few chapters, so this is definitely a sexy read. I absolutely adored Violet. She always makes questionable decisions throughout this book, but she was real and relatable. She is a feminist but has not so feminist sexual desires. I love how self-aware she was and how she went about exploring her sex life. Lottie, who she meets in the first chapter at an art show, and her husband are the ones who lure her in with the guise of a job offer. Violet instantly starts fantasizing about her life working with them. She is soon thrown into a sex party and gets caught up in the world and dynamics of the group.

The writing was brilliant. It had us in Violet’s head and what a delicious mess that was. She really desires to have her life together and you couldn’t help but root for her the whole time. She comes across self destructive, but really I admire her for putting herself first at the worst times where it would be hard for others to do. There are definitely moments where it gets quite dark, so please check the warnings if you are sensitive to some subject matters.

I am happy to say I was very satisfied with the ending. A love story for greedy girls sums this up perfectly. I feel fans of Melissa Broder would eat this up!

Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group UK – Sphere and Netgalley for the arc! This title was released February 11, 2021.

 

 

I don’t even know where to begin! I absolutely adored this. If you aren’t aware, this is the second novel in the All the Stars & Teeth duology. I don’t want to go much into spoilers, so I will just say what this entails and my feelings.

We have Amora, a Princess turned Queen alongside Bastian, a pirate, and Vataea, a mermaid. While there are other key characters (darling Ferrick!), these are my favorites. We follow them all on an adventure in both books, but the second is much more heart wrenching. There is magic, pining, and secrets. Safe to say I was an emotional wreck.

Amora goes through a great ordeal in the first book, so she is very closed off in the second and has a few panic attacks. I loved how the author, Adalyn, acknowledged these reactions and showed Amora’s mental state. I really felt for Amora and sympathized with her. We have a shared experience, but to avoid spoilers, I won’t clarify what it is.

Bastian. The swoon worthy pirate. I absolutely love him. He says he won’t pine for Amora, but I beg to differ. There was so much angst with them and I ate it up. Seriously, the romance was great in this. I have bookmarked so many scenes of them! We also had a side romance blossoming with Vataea and Ferrick. I just want to say Ferrick is the cutest lovestruck person!

We also have a new member of the crew in this novel named Shanty. We saw her briefly in the first book and I am so happy she got promoted in the second. She is a face/shape shifter who is totally badass. She can swindle anybody and I love to watch her do it.

I just want to quickly mention that the audiobook has a new narrator from the first book. I am so glad they have made that change. The voices for the characters have greatly improved and I really enjoyed it! Just wanted to mention in case people were turned off a bit from the first.

Sorry if this is all over the place, but I am very wary of spoilers. I do want to scream about this, so let me know if you read it! Adalyn Grace really ripped my heart out with the ending.

Thank you to Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for the arc! This title was released February 2, 2021. 

 

I am so happy I was given the opportunity to read and review this. As I have mentioned a few times on this blog, Danielle L. Jensen is becoming a favorite author of mine. Tarnished Empire is a new installment of the Dark Shores series. It follows Marcus and introduces some new characters, Agrippa and Silvara, who I absolutely adored. There is also an openly gay couple in this novella that I appreciated.

Before I continue any further, I would like to speak about the order of the series. Dark Shores and Dark Skies are parallel storylines and Tarnished Empire takes place before, so you can read them in any order. If you want more fantasy, I recommend starting with Dark Shores so you can become invested enough in Marcus to read his novella.

Tarnished Empire is very war centric and gives Galdiator/Troy vibes. There are definitely still some fantasy elements, but they are in the background. In this story, there are three point of views:

I absolutely devoured this within a day, which says a lot. I tend to be a slow reader, but I couldn’t put this down. It really helps the chapters are short, which I appreciate. I just kept telling myself “one more chapter” until I finished the whole thing!

This was a very light read given the setting of this story. Luckily for me, the battle was one of the very last chapters. It was pretty character centric up until that point. I laughed and gasped all throughout. Just please read this series so I can have someone to talk about this with! I am obsessed. 

 

The Innkeeper’s Daughter was a very quick read for me. The book started off with vulgar language and violence, which was hard to read, but I knew this was setting up Eliza’s need to run away and meet Sir Henry, so I continued on. However, the romance didn’t really do it for me. The meeting was great, but it became insta-love as soon as Eliza recovered from her injuries. I would have loved some more “will they, won’t they” or some yearning. Their scenes were definitely cute, but I wasn’t too invested.

What I really enjoyed was the mystery aspect and the mission within the story. Henry is a spy who is trying to take down a sex trafficking ring and Eliza has information which can help him. I flew through the pages. I did get quite invested by the end, so I will most likely pick up the sequel.

Please check trigger warnings before reading. I went in blind and was pretty shocked. This was an advanced copy, so I couldn’t have known. I believe you will enjoy this if you are able to handle these topics.

Thank you Netgalley and Central Avenue Publishing for the arc! This title was released January 12, 2021. 

I don’t know if any of you watched The Prom on Netflix, but I certainly did. And as much as I loved the star-filled cast, I wanted more focus on Emma and her story. Luckily, I was gifted a digital copy from the publisher to find out more! The book focuses entirely on the students with the adults in the background. Emma and Alyssa have the most chapters and that is exactly what I wanted from the film. I am not sure if the Broadway musical is the same format as the book, but I would love to see it if it is! I highly recommend for fans of the musical and/or film who want to know more about the relationship between Emma and Alyssa. I also recommend to all my sapphic readers!

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Random House Children’s UK for the arc! This title was released September 12, 2019.

Lie, Lie Again is the perfect beach read. It is fun, quick, and filled with drama! It is also very forgettable, but it is an easy way to pass the time or get you out of a reading slump.

I personally loved the three main women. They all had their flaws, but it is what drives this story. Sylvia is a charming woman who can con her way out of anything. Riki is a private school teacher with a crush on her neighbor who is married to her close friend, Embry. Sweet Embry is just a young housewife doing her best. Maybe a bit of a pushover. She is the true innocent party, and her secret isn’t anything bad.

There is a dead body found in the beginning of the book and I suppose that kicks off the mystery and events leading up to it, but you honestly forget about it. Somehow that isn’t the most interesting part of this story? I got sucked into the suburban drama and realistic life problems.

Once the death happened, it wasn’t a big moment. It didn’t affect many people.

I am just mentioning this because I see this being advertised as a Mystery Thriller. There is nothing that thrilling and the mystery isn’t really there. So if you are hoping for some thrilling murder, this isn’t the book for you. It is much closer to chick-lit.

Hard for me to delve into this without further spoilers, so I will end it here. My final thoughts: Entertaining, but I do wish there was more diversity in this story. Overall, I rated this a solid 3/5.

Thank you Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the arc! This title was released January 1, 2021.