ARC, Books

Book 877: Twice in a Lifetime (Sheltered Connections #1) – R.M. Neill

Another ARC, another gamble. After reading the blurb on this one with two characters with emotional baggage and growing together out of their traumatic pasts, I requested a copy.*

What I didn’t realize was that the entire book was going to take place in roughly a week, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. Forewarning, my response is going to sound a lot more negative than it is, but it’s because Neill has a lot of potential I think she just missed the mark by just a smidge on SO. MANY. THINGS. in this book. One reviewer on Goodreads went so far as to say, “DNF. The only interesting thigs in this book were the conversations Micha had with the dogs he groomed.” While I agree with this, I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it was  a definite miss for me.

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ARC, Books

Book 778: The Mosquito – Timothy C. Winegard

Well if I wasn’t already so jaded from having lived through the last nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d be terrified mosquitos were coming to exterminate all of us!

I accepted this galley back in April when the pandemic was just really kicking off.* And then I promptly forgot about it for a few months, followed by avoiding it for even longer because it just didn’t feel right to read it with the way the world was going. I finally decided I needed to clear my galley backlog and this was the oldest so here we are. This particular quote caught me with all the rumors flying about where COVID-19 came from:

Zoonosis rates have tripled in the last ten years, and account for 75% of all human diseases. The goal of health researchers is to identify potential ‘spillover’ germs before they make a zoonotic jump to humans. (Ch. 18)

After reading this book, I feel like wherever coronavirus came from it was like “hey Mosquito, hold my beer,” and then it seriously underwhelmed when you look at the stats in this book!

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ARC, Books

Book 744: Better Than People (Garnet Run #1) – Roan Parrish

I of course grabbed a copy of this from NetGalley when I saw the cover because it’s freakin’ adorable.* I’m also, miraculously, pushing this post on the same day it’s published which RARELY happens! Don’t get me wrong, I love the ones with abs, but a cute dog and two guys clearly dressed for fall holding hands, sing me up.

This is the story of Jack, who breaks a bone in his leg/ankle while walking his pack of dogs, and Simon, a super anxious guy who loves animals but has trouble being around, speaking to or interacting with people.

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Books

Book 607: Worth Searching For (Heart of the South #2) – Wendy Qualls

I grabbed this, along with eight other romance novels Qualls wrote or co-wrote, when Amazon was having a sale in February. I enjoyed Worth Waiting For and figured why not. They’re usually pretty short, under 200 pages, and engaging enough to read pretty quickly, especially when laying in a lounge chair on a beach/boat.

Like most romance novels the connection between the two is tangential and almost a friend-of-a-friend connection. It doesn’t really bother me, except when I get 3-4 books into a longer series and then I stop and question every new minor character introduction because I’m like ohhhh is that the next one, or ohhhh is it this new person?

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Books

Book 601: My Boyfriend Is a Bear – Pamela Ribon and Cat Farris

I have no clue what blog I saw this on, but I feel like it’s been making the rounds ever since it came out last year.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It was an enjoyable read and beautifully drawn, but I spent so much of the time wondering if this was supposed to the bear/their relationship was supposed to be a metaphor for some under represented population or non-traditional couple. This didn’t necessarily take away from the story or the book, but it meant that I didn’t give it my full attention.

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