Books

Book 934: Breakaway (Off the Pitch #1) – Charlie Novak

Book cover of "Breakaway" with Amazon Affiliate linkI threw this on my Kindle from Kindle Unlimited at some point in the last two years because I’ve enjoyed most of Novak’s works and love a good MM Sports Romance. It was the oldest KU book on my list so I figured why not cross it off.

Breakway is the story of childhood friends Christian and David, who drifted apart when Christian went off to play for the pros in Germany, but the never gave up the torch for each other.

Continue reading “Book 934: Breakaway (Off the Pitch #1) – Charlie Novak”

Books

Book 916: Stronger Than Hope (Chesapeake Days #1) – Katherine McIntyre

Book cover of "Stronger than Hope" with Amazon Affiliate linkI grabbed this one from Gay Romance Reviews because at first I thought it was set in Chesapeake, Virginia, where my sister lives (I really SHOULD start reading the blurbs), but quickly found out it was Maryland.* The other reason was that I apparently was going through a single caregiver phase. This was the third or fourth over a very short period and they just melt my heart every time.

The fact that I am an incredibly stubborn and very fast reader is the primary reason I got through the first few chapters and found that the book, series, and author have a lot of potential, which seems weird as McIntyre has nearly 50 books on Goodreads and you’d think they would’ve polished some of these things already.

Continue reading “Book 916: Stronger Than Hope (Chesapeake Days #1) – Katherine McIntyre”

Books

Book 906: Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson

Book cover of "Black Cake" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen someone from the publisher reached out to me about Black Cake, it wasn’t an immediate yes or an immediate no.* I honestly had no idea what I was going to do, I thought it was a beautiful cover (even if I didn’t notice the woman on it for ages) and the multi-generational story drew me in.

What ultimately decided for me was that it was a debut novel, love those most of the time, and my reading list is seriously lacking authors of color and I’ve been saying for years I’m going to expand my reading list. And holy shit y’all I’m so glad I did, this book took me for so many rides.

Continue reading “Book 906: Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson”

Books

Book 905: Heartstopper, Vol. 4 (Heartstopper #4) – Alice Oseman

Book cover of "Heartstopper, Vol 4" with Amazon Affiliate linkI’m not sure I was ready for this one. I’d guessed it would overlap with what happened in Solitaire, but wasn’t 100% sure it would. I wasn’t sure how Oseman would handle it graphically, I think there were a couple of images in Solitaire, and she sort of glossed the particular scene probably because of this.

I really appreciated having Nick’s outside perspective on the situation as we know he’s been worried about Charlie for two books now and when it came to the point right when Charlie was going to tell Nick he loved him, Nick asks about the eating disorder and it throws both of them into confusion which was just so real.

Continue reading “Book 905: Heartstopper, Vol. 4 (Heartstopper #4) – Alice Oseman”

Books

Book 904: Heartstopper, Vol. 3 (Heartstopper #3) – Alice Oseman

Book cover of "Heartstopper, Volume 3" with Amazon Affiliate linkWow, just wow. I honestly don’t know how I haven’t re-read this one before now.

Re-reading this a second time showed me how much Oseman packs into these books. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 both had their powerful moments, but Vol. 3 takes it to a new level between Charlie and Nick, but also with their friends and even their teachers! And the fact Oseman does it with so little dialogue and just a shift in perspective shading in her artwork is fantastic.

Continue reading “Book 904: Heartstopper, Vol. 3 (Heartstopper #3) – Alice Oseman”