ARC, Books

Book 906: Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson

When 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.

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ARC, Books

Book 896: A Christmas Miracle (Winsford Green #4) – Ruby Moone

As I said in my response to Dances Long Forgotten, the first book of Moone’s Winsford Green series, I sought it out because I received this review request from Gay Romance Reviews and it intrigued me enough to want to give the series a go.*

I liked the series enough to request this book halfway through the first. And while I don’t regret it, I think the first book was the strongest (I LOVED the flashback and hoped for it again), this and People Like Us were a distant second, and The Schoolmaster’s Spy further behind them.

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Books

Book 895: The Schoolmaster’s Spy (Winsford Green #3) – Ruby Moone

In the third installment of Ruby Moone’s Winsford Green series, we once again find ourselves connected to the storyline from the first book, Dances Long Forgotten. This time the connection is through Cross, one of the protagonists, and his work as basically a spy during the Napoleonic wars.

This book took more of a turn than the last book, not in who was written about, but in that this definitely became a MM Romance mystery-spy-thriller-whodunnit versus the strict romance of the previous two.

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Book 894: People Like Us (Winsford Green #2) – Ruby Moone

This is the second installment in Ruby Moone’s Winsford Green series after Dances Long Forgotten. I started the series when I accepted A Christmas Miracle, the fourth book, from Gay Romance Reviews and am glad I started it.

I was really hoping each one would have a contemporary connection like the first book, but this one didn’t have it. That didn’t detract from the story, but I still felt it would’ve been a cool connection between each of the books even though all the characters seem to know/meet each other.

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Books

Book 889: Dances Long Forgotten (Winsford Green #1) – Ruby Moone

What a delightful read! I grabbed this from Kindle Unlimited when an ARC request came in for book four of the series (A Christmas Miracle) landed in my inbox.

Having never read Moone before, even though I was intrigued by the blurb of the ARC, I wanted to see what how her writing was so I went and grabbed this one and it was the perfect quick read. I hope the quality stays throughout the series and that they are connected, even if they’re just standalones.

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