Tag: romance

Posted on

South West Series

I recently finished the South West series by Rebecca Paulinyi, which I started back in 2024 when I downloaded the first book for free during a stuff your Kindle event. I liked it enough to buy the second book and then recently decided to take advantage of a three month trial of Kindle Unlimited to finish the series (and read a few other books that I couldn’t get through the library.)

I find these books to be charming, quick reads. We start out in book one by meeting Lee Jones, who impulsively moves to a town in Devon after discovering her husband is cheating on her.  In book three, we meet her sister, Beth Davies, who moves to Devon to shake up her boring life. Lee and Beth continue to be the focus through book six, and then the last two books are about related characters.

The books in order:

  • The Worst Christmas Ever: Christmas in Devon
  • Lawyers & Lattes: Happily Ever After in Devon
  • Feeling the Fireworks: Starting Over in Devon
  • The Best Christmas Ever: A Wedding in Devon
  • Trouble in Tartan: True Love in Devon
  • Summer of Sunshine: Missing Devon
  • Healing the Heartbreak: Moving On in Devon
  • Dancing Till Dawn: First Love in Devon

I am glad I finally got the chance to read the rest of these books. They are fun, feel-good reads.

Posted on

Modern Persuasion

Modern Persuasion by Sara Marks (21st Century Austen #1)

📚Summary

Emma Shaw is a modern woman with a classic problem. Eight years ago, Emma put her career and family above her own needs. She’s cut out the man she loves, is exhausted from carrying the emotional load for her family, and her dream career as an editor is on the brink of disaster. 

Now she has to face the man she gave up eight years ago in order to keep her career. When her ex’s book launch is in crisis, her bosses coerce Emma to step in to save it even if that’s no longer her job. Forced to spend a month on the road, Emma has too much time to think about her regrets but also discover new opportunities to make the life she thought she would have, including a second chance with Fredrick. If she can run her life as well as she runs this book tour, she can save her career, be with the man she loves, and maybe tell her family where to stick it.

✍️My Thoughts

I really enjoyed this book. I had read another book in this series last year but only recently realized the author had done more Austen retellings. I especially loved how this version was set in the publishing world with the FMC being an editor. I did find it ironic that a book set in that industry would have several grammatical errors in it, but I was able to ignore them because of how much I was enjoying the story.

I do wish she hadn’t changed the FMC’s name from Anne to Emma, especially when she kept the MMC’s name as Fredrick. I like the name Anne and found it confusing given that there is already an Emma in Austen’s work. I also thought the writing Fredrick shares with Emma at the end was way too long and detailed. I did like the Louisa character and appreciated how her story was handled, and I loved that Mrs. Smith was included in the book.

All in all, this was a very fun story, and I plan to read more from the series.

Posted on

A December to Remember

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss

This is the second book I have read by Jenny Bayliss.  The first was The Twelve Dates of Christmas, which I enjoyed so much I gave it 5 stars. She has six holiday novels out so far, and I plan to read them all at some point.

In this book, we meet three half sisters – Maggie, Simone, and Star – just after their father Augustus has passed away. They have not been close for quite a while, not since they spent their summers together with their father growing up. Now they have been given special tasks they must do together to receive their inheritance.

The time spent together jumping through the hoops their father has set up offers them the opportunity to acknowledge the things that had pushed them apart and to decide if they want to take a chance on reconciling their relationships with each other. 

This book was such a fun read. I enjoyed getting to know the sisters, who each have their own personalities, histories, and love interests, and I found the small-town setting charming, especially during the lead-up to the winter solstice celebration.

Highly recommend!

Posted on

Funny Story

Funny Story by Emily Henry

📚Summary

Daphne, a children’s librarian, gets abruptly dumped by her fiance Peter after he decides he is actually in love with his best friend Petra. Having moved to the area to live with Peter, she has nowhere to go and ends up rooming with Petra’s ex-boyfriend Miles (also newly dumped). After receiving invitations to Peter and Petra’s wedding, Daphne and Miles pretend to be dating.

📃My Thoughts

I really loved this book! Henry’s writing is so authentic, and I loved how she showed us more than just the romance. We got to learn about both the main character’s backstories and how that affected their relationships in the present, and we got to see how they learned to open themselves up to friends and family as well as to love.

Posted on

The Sandy Page Bookshop

The Sandy Page Bookshop by Hannah McKinnon

Leah is fresh out of a job and an engagement, so she moves back to her Cape Cod hometown. Once there, she impulsively decides to rent and renovate a historic home so that she can open a bookshop. A cast of characters forms around her, some of whom we get to know quite well as there are chapters told from their point of view. 

There’s Lucy, a teenager whose older sister has been severely injured in a car accident; Eudora, a widow who has become afraid to leave her home; and Luke, a local woodworker who knew Leah in high school. 

I enjoyed this book very much. The characters are likable and the bookstore is a charming setting. I would definitely recommend this when you are looking for a lighthearted, feel-good read.

Posted on

The Emma Project

The Emma Project by Sonali Dev – The Rajes #4

There was a lot to like about this book, which was the conclusion to The Rajes series by Sonali Dev. I liked how she used the theme from Emma but updated it for a modern audience with a plot about two people who do good works for society in different ways. I also liked the gender reversal of the Emma and Knightley characters, much like she did in the first book with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. And I was glad that Esha got some screen time, so to speak, although I find her whole situation to be quite odd.

If you are a fan of Austen adaptations, I would definitely recommend giving this whole series a try. I do think it’s best to read them in order because the cast of characters grows with each book, and it is helpful to know what has happened with the other characters in previous books.

Posted on

The Bride Test

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang is book two of The Kiss Quotient series.

This is a fun romance with a quirky twist and a few spicy scenes. The author is autistic and drew on her own experience while writing this series in which each book has an autistic main character. I had read the first and third books in the series but missed this one, so I wanted to fill in the gap.

I really enjoyed this story about Khai Diep, who believes that he has no feelings and is incapable of having a relationship. His mother takes the initiative to bring a woman from Vietnam to the United States to be his fiancee, giving her the summer to convince him to marry her. Their relationship has a lot of twists and turns and some miscommunications, some of which are due to the issues brought up by Khai’s autism.

I think this whole series has great autistic representation, along with an entertaining romance.

Posted on

What I Read This Week – July 26th

This week I only finished 2 books. I try to read 1 nonfiction book every month, and this week I read my nonfiction selection for July. Even though I do want to read nonfiction, I still have a mental block that makes me resist picking it up and diving in, so having the objective goal of 1 per month helps me stay accountable.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry by Beth Allison Barr

This book gives an account of how we have seen women in ministry treated in the Bible to medieval times to the present. The present/recent history deals mainly with the SBC, a conservative denomination in the US.

I have to admit I skimmed some of it, but I did find it very interesting how women have been moved out of leadership roles into often unpaid, non-leader ministry, especially in terms of the role of the pastor’s wife.

If you are looking for a good discussion of women in ministry, this is a good choice. For more general info on how women are treated in conservative circles, check out her earlier book The Making of Biblical Womanhood, which I highly recommend.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory

I loved this one! The characters were so well done and the relationships (both friendly and romantic) were so realistic. I really enjoyed her writing style, and I appreciated that even when there were miscommunications, they weren’t cringe-inducing but instead opportunities for growth and honesty.

Posted on

What I Read This Week – July 19th

Three books per week seems to be my sweet spot. Since I have started posting weekly updates, all but one has had three books on it.

Here’s what I finished this week:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

I loved this book! The story centers on Helen, who signs up for a wilderness survival course in an attempt to take back her life after a divorce. Although there is a romantic plotline, this book is much more than that, and I felt challenged and inspired by her adventure and the things she learned about life through the experience and the people she met along the way. Highly recommend and now I’m going to watch the movie!

⭐⭐⭐⭐

How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry

This is a charming novel about a woman who tries to keep her dad’s bookshop running after his death. The story goes back and forth between the present day with Emilia and the cast of characters living nearby and the past where we learn how she came to be.

I have to admit there were almost too many characters in this one for me; I kept getting Mia and Emilia mixed up. That could be because I was switching between this physical book and another book on my Kindle app, so I wasn’t giving it my full attention. Also, I have read so many books about bookshops lately that they are starting to blur together. Those things are on me, though, so I would definitely recommend reading this one.

⭐⭐⭐

More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

This was a nice follow up to the first book. I liked hearing what was happening with the characters I had grown fond of and even found myself liking the main character’s aunt Momoko better in this one.

What is your favorite book that you have read recently?

Posted on

What I Read This Week – July 12th

I finished 3 books this week. It could have been 4, but I kept jumping between 2 different books, so they are both half-finished.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev – The Rajes #3

I really enjoyed this one. I felt it had more similarities to Austen than the previous book in the series did, and I loved getting into Yash’s story. I am looking forward to book 4.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland – Lost for Words #1

I actually read the second book in the series before I was aware this one existed, but I don’t think I lost too much by reading them out of order. This book centers on Loveday, who is in the second book but not the main focus. She has had a lot of sadness in her life and the book shows how she struggles to overcome it, flipping back and forth between the past and the present. It has some heavy themes, especially of domestic violence.

⭐⭐⭐💫

Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand – Paradise #1

Hilderbrand’s books are usually a quick read for me, and this was no exception – I read it in one sitting the other afternoon. I enjoyed this story of a woman whose husband dies but turns out to have had many secrets. It was a fun story, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.