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Book 890: Playing at Home (Sporting Secrets #2) – Jax Calder

I have been waiting for this ARC request to arrive in my inbox ever since I read the teaser at the end of Playing Offside and it was worth the wait!*

Playing at Home is the story of Jacob Browne, professional rugby player and son of a legendary New Zealand rugby player who’s recently split with his wife but is co-parenting his kids, and Austin, the manny his wife hires who’s fled London after a mess with his previous employer.

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Book 888: A Dashwood of Sense and Sensibility (Love, Austen #6) – Anyta Sunday

This wasn’t the perfect ending to Sunday’s Love, Austen retellings, but it was a damn good one. Like the last five there was no doubt I would accept the ARC when it came in (and I was a little worried when I didn’t see it even though its publication date was fast approaching)!*

We met Noah and Zach Dashwood in one of the previous novels (I believe Finley Embraces Heart and Home) and I have to assume we met Brandy/Brandon and Wade at some point too, but no clue honestly. For some reason, I guess because the names were great cognates like some of the other books, it took me way too long to remember who Zach and Noah were compared to Elinor and Marianne from the OG Sense and Sensibility. Once I got that sorted, I was all set.

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Book 887: If This Gets Out – Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich

My little closeted teenage heart would’ve died to read something like this in the late-90s/early-00s. So, when I saw it on NetGalley I requested it IMMEDIATELY, the publisher approved, and I have been sitting on it for months.*

I know I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it—I am SO jealous of all the teens today getting to see themselves in books like this. I mean hell I enjoy them and I am WELL outside the target demographic for these.

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Book 886: A Handful of Joy – Pat Henshaw

I accepted this review copy because the cover is adorable and it’s a novella.* This time of year is always busy for me at work, so I always need a few short novels/novellas on hand to fill gaps or to just distract me. The plot also grabbed my attention, but really it was the cover that got me, I mean ADORBS.

The protagonists Ted and Matt meet fatefully one night in a bar and slow dance when no one else is dancing. And it flies from there into a whirlwind romance of one week and then on to forever.

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Book 883: New Year Not You – Edie Montreux

UGH. Two duds in a row and MM Holiday Romances at that! I’m now warry about what I read next and really wish I had an Annabeth Albert or a Roan Parrish lined up, because I need their perfection after these last two!

This one had so much promise when it arrived in my inbox: enemies to lovers, substance abuse overcome with sobriety, redemption and romance, two protagonists who’ve known each other forever and reconnecting as they’re coming into their own as adults, but in the end, it was one massive let down from beginning to end.*

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