Tag: romance

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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?

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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.

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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.

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Amazon First Reads – July 2025

I skipped the Amazon First Reads for June, but when the July list came out, I decided to take a chance on them. This month, we were able to choose two of the titles from the list.

I chose a romance and a short story:

First is The Chemistry Test by Georgina Frankie, which is a college romance with a focus on physical disability.

Second is The Toy Car by Rose Tremain, a coming of age story set in Greece and London.

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What I Read This Week – June 21st

I finished three books this week, two fiction and one nonfiction.

⭐⭐⭐/5
Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev – The Rajes #2

I was really looking forward to this after reading the first book in the series, which is based on Pride & Prejudice. This one is based on Persuasion, which is my favorite Austen book, but I had trouble connecting it to that novel. Yes, there is the second-chance romance between Ashna and Rico, but there is also an equally prominent storyline of the troubled relationship between Ashna and her mother. There are a lot of good topics explored in this book, but some of them are quite heavy and I also would have enjoyed it a lot more if I wasn’t looking for the Austen connection while I was reading.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod – Austentatious #1

As you can tell from my first book this week, I am a sucker for an Austen spinoff, and this was an enjoyable entry in that category. I liked the colorful characters and found the queer romantic storyline a lot of fun!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has questions about the American evangelical church’s views on same-sex relationships. It takes a lot of courage to examine beliefs that you have been fed all of your life, and Vines shows how he and his dad wrestled with this topic and found freedom on the other side.