Books

Book 737: Love by Chance (Chances #1) – Blake Allwood

Since I have ZERO sense of self-control these days as soon as I finished Romantic Renovations I immediately jumped into Allwood’s Chances series, because why not?!

I did a little more digging and Allwood was planning to release a book a month starting in February 2020 with this being the fourth release and the next two in the series released fifth (Another Chance with Love) and sixth (Taking a Chance for Love) in June and July. As far as I can tell he has yet to release the July book so may be falling behind on his schedule or, fingers crossed, he’s going back and getting them better copy edited and proofread (more to come).

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Book 734: It’s a Steal – Arden O’Keefe

This is not a good book. It is not well written (story or characters) and it is definitely not well edited (any type, but especially copy or developmental). The shocking part, to me at least, is that I have to assume the author has paid an editor (listed in the front matter) AND a promotional group (Gay Romance Reviews) to produce this “final copy” version and I’m still writing this scathing commentary on it.*

If I were the author and read what I’m about to write, I’d demand my money back from the editor and politely ask the promotion company to pause all promotions while I paid someone else to re-edit it. But take my response for what it’s worth, the other Goodreads reviews have all rated it 3-5 stars and complemented the “cute story”.

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Book 728: Where the Boys Are – Christopher Murphy

I took quite a few days before writing this review because I wanted to be thoughtful in my critique and honest in what did and didn’t work.

It’s always a little bit harder to write a response to a novel when it’s the author who reaches out to you to review their work.* I know how much of themselves authors put into their books and to then put it out in the world, I mean come on that’s more nerve than I’ll probably ever muster, so kudos to all of you out there brave enough to do it.

I’m going to start with what didn’t work, and then end on a high with the things that I really enjoyed about this work. So, stick with me because there were DEFINITELY some highlights!

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Books

Book 722: His Horizon (His #1) – Con Riley

When I saw this come through from Gay Romance Reviews I wasn’t sure about it because so many abs and self-published, but then I read the synopsis and was on board with it so requested a copy.*

I loved my time living in England, so when a romance novel set on the south coast with a little bit of mystery and rivals to lover story line comes around, sign me up. That being said, when, not if, we buy a pub and/or bed and breakfast in England (or maybe Spain, Tim and I are still negotiating on location) I will 100% be blaming this book. Okay, maybe not blaming, but isn’t that a picture: a book blogger buying a pub/B&B so they can read and blog (and of course interact with the locals/travelers to an extent) because of a book? Swoon.

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Books

Book 721: Forgive and Forget – Charlie Cochet

This was a weird novel. I checked it out because of the cutie on the cover and the whole baking thing (there’s apparently a newer, hotter cover on Cochet’s website). It ended up being an amnesia spy thriller romantic comedy serendipitous mash-up that mostly worked.

Joe owns a pie bakery in NYC and has a traumatic past and when he finds “Tom” knocked out in his garden with no memory, he takes him in and trusts that he’s not a crazy person who is going to kill him in  his sleep and the story goes from there.

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