Books

Book 939: Ben’s Boss (Maine Men #2) – K.C. Wells

I decided to catch up on this series after reading Finn’s Fantasy, way back in April of last year, and seeing the ARC of book six, Aaron’s Awakening, in the last week or so. I enjoyed Finn’s story and the Maine setting so thought why not.

We got a taste of the friend group that provides the characters for each book, but barely enough to even guess at their various personalities. Ben is one of the quieter ones who was bullied in high school and has the opportunity to leave his grocery store job for a little tourist shop. As luck would have it, his new boss is his high school bully, Wade, who was so deep in the closet he lashed out at anyone and everyone, but particularly Ben because he had the biggest crush on him.

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ARC, Books

Book 937: Burn Rate – Andy Dunn

When someone in the marketing department at the publisher reached out about this because I’d positively reviewed David Chang’s Eat a Peach, I had to take a few minutes to really think if I wanted to go back into this world.*

In Chang’s book, his mental health struggles are peripheral, but in Dunn’s Burn Rate, he centers them. I spent quite a bit of time reading about bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and other mental health issues before my mom died a few years ago to try and understand what she was going through and what my sister and I were experiencing. And that REALLY hit home when the first quote Dunn uses in his book is a quote from Kay Redfield Jamison who wrote THE book (An Unquiet Mind) about brains and bipolar/manic depression/brains in general.

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Updates

April Recap 2022

We had a busy month full of hiking, travel, and knitting.

We kicked the month off by flying to Dallas for a family wedding and got to spend time with all of Tim’s family, but most importantly the niblings. It was great to see everyone, but what a whirlwind trip. We also had a bit of free time the day before the wedding and got to experience the Main St Fort Worth Arts Festival and Fort Worth Art Fair (hilariously even met an artist from Western Mass that we had a piece shipped home from).

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Books

Book 932: Young Jane Austen – Lisa Pliscou

I picked this up back in 2016 and it’s languished on my TBR Austen/Brontë shelf ever since. It came up on my random book generator spreadsheet when I was packing books for our vacation back in February but it was the last one on the list and it kept getting delayed.

So FINALLY I made myself read wedge it in between ARCs this month and realized I should’ve read it weeks ago because it could easily be read in one sitting.

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ARC, Books

Book 930: The Fake Boyfriends Debacle (Frat Brats of Santa Barbara #1) – Hayden Hall

When this popped up on the Gay Romance Reviews site I requested a copy since I’d been watching Hall’s social media and book releases for some time.* I figured why not give him a go and see what I thought.

Unfortunately, for me, this was a miss. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t poorly written or anything and honestly, it probably had better copy-editing than most of the self-published books I’ve read or received via GRR. It just didn’t work, but more on that later.

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