Tag: Lyrical Shine

Of the six books in this series, this one is toward the bottom of my rankings. I’m not sure if there is anything specific about this book (full disclosure it could be my biases), but I think it has more to do with this being the sixth MM Romance I read by the same author in a very short time.

For me, this one felt like Albert had a checklist of what all haven’t I included in one of my MM Romance novels in this series yet? And when she looked at her list she realized she hadn’t written a HIV positive character or non-binary character and voila Danced Close.

Continue reading “Book 623: Danced Close (Portland Heat #6) – Annabeth Albert” →

I think this is my favorite in the series. I’m not sure if it’s because of life-long friends becoming lovers, the twins marrying twins aspect, or the sheer adorkableness of snarky Hollis or the unsure cockiness of Sawyer.

This one falls into the same formulaic routine as the others (not a bad thing, just an observation), but because it’s Christmas themed and the two main characters have technically known each other for decades a lot of the get-to-know-you stuff happened off the page.

Continue reading “Book 622: Wrapped Together (Portland Heat #5) – Annabeth Albert” →

Flew through this one like the first two, basically reading one a day (on my commute to/from work) and maybe 20-30 minutes before bed. I started to see some of Albert’s tropes that she depends on/works into every story, but I’ll get to that.

Albert continues to diversify her characters and their relationships. In this novel we have Chris, the aging disgruntled restaurateur (the same restaurant that the others visit or supply bread for), and Lance, the young undergrad delivery boy from Vic’s bakery and the development of their relationship. It’s not a crazy amount of age difference (12 years), but Chris has a major hang up on it.

Continue reading “Book 620: Delivered Fast (Portland Heat #3) – Annabeth Albert” →

In book two of Annabeth Albert’s Portland Heat series we meet Vic, a baker, and Robin, a trust fund kid with a big heart. Their road to romance is of course paved with misunderstandings, stubborn personalities, and steamy sex scenes. That’s all good romances right?

Vic and Robin meet at the local homeless shelter that caters to addicts and teens. We find out midway through the story that Robin got his fresh start/second chance thanks to the shelter and has very high expectations for what he can do there to help others going through similar experiences. This novel wasn’t as specifically diverse as Served Hot or Knit Tight (they’re both white men as far as I can read), but it does have characters that I’ve never read before.

Continue reading “Book 619: Baked Fresh (Portland Heat #2) – Annabeth Albert” →