madeline's reviews
776 reviews

Lucy Score does some things really well, and one of them is a good, funny small-town romance. MAGGIE MOVES ON is definitely one of those romances. Sure, maybe it's variations on a theme: the heroine is relatable but just shy of "not like other girls," there's an enormous, overprotective hero, someone has a big, loud family and a sibling in need of some assistance, there's likely some kind of quirky animal and a local delicacy, and often there's an underlying mystery. But they're good themes, clearly! She and her readers are returning to them for a reason, and it's because she writes them well, particularly a small town that doesn't feel like it's full of white conservatives.

So alright, Silas is a bit more overprotective than he needs to be, and Maggie is almost obtusely independent, and the book is perhaps trying to accomplish one or two too many plotlines. It's a fun ride, though, and has Lucy's trademark steam (both sex and hot springs). 

Thank you Forever and NetGalley for the ARC!

Marian Hayes, Duchess of Clare, has been quite busy. She's shot (and hopefully killed) her horrible husband, and successfully kidnapped the man who's been blackmailing her through a truly delightful exchange of correspondence, threatening to reveal her husband's true heir. Except Rob, the aforementioned blackmailer, has sort of... escaped his bonds, and now he's accompanying her to visit her sick father and securing horses and rescuing kittens, and so what if there's only one bed at the inn and then they get snowed in at her father's and - oh god. She's fallen in love with him. Doesn't that complicate things.

I loved The Queer Principles of Kit Webb and I honestly believe I manifested this book, which I love even more. It is perfect from start to finish. We begin with a fantastic epistolary sequence, and it just keeps rolling from there. There's a real kitchen sink of tropes here: blackmail, antagonists to lovers, a golden retriever hero, she's grumpy/he's sunshine, road trip, only one bed, snowed in, and somehow Sebastian makes all of it absolutely sing and manages to work in a lot of great thinking about mutual aid and dismantling the kyriarchy. It is tender and thoughtful and queer and laugh out loud funny and very socialist and I fucking loved it.

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

 To be honest, Astrid Parker is… not having a great time. She’s broken up with her fiancé, her mother is a pain in the ass, her design career isn’t fulfilling, all her friends are disgustingly in love, and some horrible human has spilled coffee on her favorite dress on her way to film the redesign of a local inn for a tv show. And of course, that horrible human turns out to be Jordan, granddaughter of the inn’s owner and a carpenter on the project. With a bad start to their partnership and differering design visions for the inn, Astrid and Jordan seem destined to clash. But the more time they spend together, the more they learn about each other and themselves, until it seems their destiny is something else altogether.

I have a real soft spot for the long-suffering, misunderstood sister, so I knew I’d love Astrid’s book from the second she hit the page in Delilah Green Doesn’t Care. And I was right! I loved this book - the whole thing felt very soft and tender, as Astrid explores her sexuality and Jordan works through the recent loss of something herself. I think I’ll never 1000% love an AHB book, her writing style tends to get a little too bogged down in detail for my taste, but this was just a delight to read. I cannot wait to read Iris’s book!

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!

 

This was a quick read and super cute. I did think the dialogue was a little cheesy or condescending at points - it definitely reads like an adult writing how teenage them thought cool people spoke in high school, but it's all forgivable. I would absolutely read a spinoff with Amber's best friend Miguel.

Thank you Wednesday and NetGalley for the ARC!

I might love Rachel Lynn Solomon's YA novels more than her adult ones, which is saying something because 1 - I never prefer YA, and 2 - I really, really love her adult novels. And that a time-loop book would make me come to this conclusion? Unprecedented!!!

Everything about this book was so delightful, so sincere - Barrett sounds 18 and acts 18 and thinks 18, and it never feels like an adult condescending to a teen audience. She and sweet Miles are such a wonderful pair, and even though I skipped the bits that tried to explain the science (it stresses me out), I had such a nice time reading this book. Solomon really excels at layering in representation that doesn't feel too hammer-y or like it's got something to prove because her characters never have something to prove: they're just themselves, flawed and complex and imperfect and beloved. The whole book feels tender and careful and joyful in the midst of a setup that should be (and is) so fraught.

The scene where Barrett and Miles help her mother's partner propose to her should go in a hall of fame of perfect scenes - a moment of total love and happiness after days and weeks and months of difficulties that was a stroke of genius.

Solomon continues to knock it out of the park. Incredible.

Thank you Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC!

this reads like an undergraduate term paper. i'd give it a C+. it's full of arguments never seen through to their fulfillment and data points picked from some poorly-written surveys, and it's exclusively white and cis in its arguments. radclyffe is quoted, though, so there's your lgbtq content!

we can do better in promoting the genre than this!

Clever, thoughtful, and occasionally heartbreaking, The Hop follows Lady Lane (née Kate Burns) on her journey to sex work. Clarke's work is nuanced and tender, and almost flies off the page - it's all done interview-style and I would have liked a little extra texture at the beginning of each chapter to ground it a little more. A fascinating read that you'll be thinking about for days.

Thank you Harper and NetGalley for the ARC!

I will admit I never really love a Lenora Bell - I think her books are often unforgivably cheesy, and the writing often feels like a self-congratulatory "aren't I so funny?" when I... don't think so. But this book is honestly horrific. Maybe if I hadn't read it in this exact moment it'd be 2 stars and not 1 but here we are.

Brandan Delamar, Duke of Westbury, has been doing his damndest to keep his dead father rolling in his grave with such frequency that the corpse has likely created a small weather pattern in the graveyard in which he is buried due to air displacement. He's successfully gambled away his entire fortune, including his five younger sisters' dowries, which he feels no shame about until he overhears a potential suitor for one of them saying she'd only be suitable as a mistress, since she has no money to offer. The idea of his sisters forced to "descend" into sex work is what sparks his realization that he must marry for money, which he promptly sets about doing.

In a day where childbearing bodies are increasingly and increasingly regulated, it's unconscionable to me that you would write a romance novel whose plot hinges on the hero destroying his sisters' chances at happy, loving, secure, and safe marriages by gambling away their dowries to spite a dead man. It's ridiculous. And then, the heroine, who is a lowly music tutor and not the heiress he seeks, is forced to publish her own work under her father's name because he cannot be arsed to finish the symphony he's been working on for years, content to let her do the commissions he sees as inferior for rent and bread money while the patriarchy prevents her from working under her own name. 

Of course, an 11th hour secret

revised will

reveal means that the hero's fortunes are restored with no work on his part, and he's free to marry our heroine. After so dutifully destroying his sisters' futures, he gets to swoop in and reveal that everything is fine with literally no work on his part. Incredible.

This book may be the death knell in my relationship with Lenora Bell. I cannot believe her agent and editor took a look at her proposed plot, took a look at the state of the world, and said "this'll go over well!". 

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC.

I know I'm in for a nice time whenever I pick up a Joanna Shupe - I wouldn't say she's one of my favorite historical authors, but she reliably delivers a good book. "A nice time" is definitely how I'd describe this one, too. It's a fun story (who doesn't love a masquerade meet-again?) and I was interested in Katherine's side career as a museum curator. But a lot of the characters, including Katherine and particularly Preston, just felt really flat. I also am 100% here for politically aware historical romances, but the dialogue in this book seemed very modern, which took me out of the story at points. Definitely in support of all the messages, but can we just do it with conversations that sound 19th century-ish, even if it's all the Tiffany effect?

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

 Adelaide Frampton left behind her life as the princess in a gang of thieves for a role as a Mayfair wallflower - and the knowledge that she continues to use her skills as a cutpurse to benefit the work of the Hell’s Bells is known only to a select few. But Henry, Duke of Clayborn, has been watching Adelaide for two years across ballrooms, and knows there’s more to her than meets the eye. When the two must team up to protect his brother and his fiancee by racing across Britain, Adelaide realizes that she must also protect her heart - but perhaps this duke is almost as clever a thief as her.

I begin this review with my usual Sarah MacLean disclaimer - all her books are automatic 5/5 stars for me for the writing and the work they do, so really this is a 9/5 star book. I’m biased! You must live with it. But I will admit to struggling with her last two books: the characters had been teased for so long that it was tough to watch them still dance around getting together, and to be honest, they kind of lacked the joie de vivre that I expect from her. They felt like they were tough to write, and thus became a bit tough to read. As much as I knew Sarah would take care of me in Bombshell and D&TD, it took us a long, painful while to get there.

This book, though, comes very close to achieving the lightness and wittiness of early MacLean books while still doing the important political and social thinking she’s begun to integrate more fully (not that Sarah has ever written an apolitical book, but it’s become more integral to the structure recently, which I love). 

Heartbreaker is fun from the first page - we have a duke who’s no-nonsense on the outside and gooey cinnamon roll on the inside, a heroine who’s afraid to acknowledge her own worth because then someone might take it from her, and a band of strong, strong women who would do anything to protect the people in their crew. And Sarah certainly never skimps on the spice but here? Whew. I think that sweet Henry may be her dirtiest talker yet.

This book came to me in the middle of a tough week in the middle of a tough month in the middle of a tough year in the middle of a tough…well, you’ve all been around for it too. It felt like a glass (bottle) of wine with a good friend, and truly reminded me why Sarah is one of the best in the business. It’ll be one I dive right back into when my hard copy comes later this summer!

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!