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Book 1,068: The Rules of Royalty – Cale Dietrich

Book cover of "The Rules of Royalty"Imagine the Princess Diaries, but gay, with a few more edits and that’s what you get here, and I loved it. I accepted this galley at some point last year and finally got around to it on vacation in March.*

Seriously, imagine on your 17th birthday your adoptive mother is like oh heyyyy remember how I’ve been open with you about your mom. Well your mom actually wanted me to keep all of this LIFE CHANGING INFORMATION FROM YOU. As if you weren’t going through enough issues as a gay teen, throw in that you’re apparently also a crown prince of a small European country, yeah oof.

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Book 1,028: Up to Snow Good (Snow Way in Hell #2) – Charlie Novak

After reading Snow Way in Hell so that I could finally read this one, it was worth it. I’m always going to be a sucker for a holiday romance and an illustrated cover. Throw in Europe and chocolate/food and I’m 100% going to read it. This book picks up not long after Snow Way in Hell and tells us Max’s story, the brother of Tarquin and best friend of George, Tarquin’s fiancé.

Max has got it in his head to do something fancy for Tarquin and George and is stomping on toes left and right, including Luca’s, the local owner and confectioner of the chocolate shop. Thankfully, he shows some self-awareness and goes back to apologize and that kicks off the adorable chaos that becomes their relationship. Luca’s a grumpy overworked big bear of a guy who’s just trying to get by and Max is a wealthy, over the top golden retriever, happy go lucky go with the flow guy; and they somehow work together.

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Book 1,026: Snow Way in Hell (Snow Way in Hell #1) – Charlie Novak

I read this because Novak’s novel Up to Snow Good caught my attention and I realized this came first and introduced some of the characters in the second, so figured why not. Plus, when you add in it’s a short story/novella and it includes a protagonist of color, I grabbed it and blazed through it.

Snow Way in Hell is the story of Tarquin, a PhD pursuing academic, and his older brother, Max’s best friend, George, an Olympic snowboarder. Max drags them and a couple of asshat friends (thankfully they bail pretty quickly) on a three-day mess of a vacation.

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Book 1,019: The West – Naoíse Mac Sweeney

This was a fascinating read. Mac Sweeney takes what you think you know about “Western Civilization” and attempts to flip it on its head via fourteen mini-biographies about historical figures, only a few of which I knew immediately.

I feel horrible it’s taken me this long to push my response out. The publisher reached out in January 2023. I blew past the publication date in May 2023, and finally read it in December 2023. So, I’m hanging my head, because it’s now taken me another month and a half to actually publish my response.

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Book 1,006: Out of This World (Browerton University #5) – A.J. Truman

As I mentioned in my Out for the Night review, I think this is probably my second favorite of the series. I would say it has to do with the England setting, and that’s some of it, but most of it is just Rafe for me. It also might have something to do with the opening line being a Pride and Prejudice parody 😀

This book takes us away from the Browerton campus (as does the next one, which I had issues with) for a study abroad program. We still get to check in on Coop and Matty, but it’s pretty removed from the rest of the stories.

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