Books

Book 992: The New Next One (Bethesda Barracudas #1.5) – Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood

If there is one book in this series that I am not happy with, it’s this one. Not because it’s poorly written or anything, it’s the same as all the others. I’m grumpy that Amazon doesn’t allow for half-books in their series listing resulting in me reading this thinking it was book two of the series when in reality it’s book 0.5 of the series that tells us Nick’s backstory.

Some of that is on me because I could’ve (and should’ve) looked at Goodreads to see the series’ order, but I didn’t. So, I just blazed into this one and then immediately was like wait WTF is happening?

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Books

Book 991: Nice Catching You (Bethesda Barracudas #1) – Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood

I started this book on the plane home from vacation in the Dominican Republic. I wasn’t ready for vacation to end and had shockingly finished my school reading. I decided to check this book out after reading The Chrismukkah Crisis, also by Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood. I’ve always been a fan of MM Sports Romances so I figured why not give it a go?

This is the story of Nick, the superstar of the college’s hockey team, and Jacob, a nerdy third-year law student at the same college. They meet on a trip when the bus driver somehow flings Jacob through the air into Nick’s arms and the story goes from there. Of course, they end up having to share a room and fall madly in love with each other over a ridiculously short amount of time.

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Books

Book 984: Two for Trust – Elle Brownlee

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this review, you can check out my May 2020 response, when I read it twice back-to-back. I decided to re-read this to see if it held up for me and it really did. [I have also read it again in October 2024 and again in March 2025.]

More “issues” arose this time around with some stilted dialogue and weird time jumps, but those didn’t detract from my sheer joy at reading it. It’s a tame and totally adorable romance with a little bit of external drama to really make Finch and Benedict get their shit together.

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ARC, Books

Book 983: Unexpecting – Jen Bailey

When someone in the marketing department reached out about this back in December, I wasn’t I was going to read it as I’d had a very stressful fall with a new puppy and school and work, but the blurb stayed in my mind, and after a couple of days deliberation I finally said yes.* I mean I had months to read it so may as well say yes and then plan around my schedule.

Unexpecting was unexpectedly (hardy har har) charming. Was it perfect? No, but that’s okay. It was a fun easy-to-read debut with unique and memorable characters (main and supporting). The book brought a lot of emotions out of me from hating and then understanding Maxie’s parents to my wanting to shake some sense into Ben but also wanting to give him a big hug for trying so hard and finally seeing reality. It was definitely a whirlwind.

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ARC, Books

Book 982: You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince (Boy Meets Boy #2) – Timothy Janovsky

As I mentioned in my review of Never Been Kissed, I originally planned to read this but when I found out it was the second in a (now I know unconnected) series, I had to start with the first! Thankfully, my local library had digital copies of both and I was able to download them and jump right in.

The premise of this novel is that the very wealthy Matthew pulls a ridiculous stunt and his parents send him to live with his grandparents for the holidays to let the press cool off and teach him a lesson. There he meets, down-t0-earth scholarship student Hector who has no time or patience for spoiled little rich boy shenanigans.

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