Books

Book 736: Romantic Renovations – Blake Allwood

I stumbled across Blake Allwood on the MM Romance Reader blog with their review of Love by Chance and thought I’d give him a chance (ha!). Allwood isn’t a five-star read for me yet, but there is a lot of potential. I will say though, if he doesn’t hire better developmental and copy editors and proofreaders he’ll never get there for me.

Rather than diving directly into the Chances series that MM Romance Reader reviewed I thought I’d start with a stand-alone. It didn’t hurt that this one was set on a home renovation show.

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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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Books

Book 726: Must Like Spinach – Con Riley

After finishing His Horizon, and absolutely adoring it, I knew I had to seek out more works by Con Riley. Thankfully I recently received a Kindle Unlimited membership (to Tim’s regret at this point I’m sure) and I found quite a few books by Riley on there. We all know more will be forthcoming, but I am trying to show some self-restraint.

I chose this one out of those available because it was a standalone. And more importantly it had an adorably quirky title that just called to me even though I’m not the biggest fan of spinach.

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Book 724: Boyfriend Material (London Calling #1) – Alexis Hall

If this doesn’t overtake A.C. Rosen’s Camp as the book of the summer, I’m going to be so mad (but not really surprised). I honestly can’t even remember where I came across this, but when I did I immediately requested a copy from the publisher.* And boy, am I glad I did—it was so good.

I first read Hall’s work five years ago with Waiting for the Flood and could see the potential, but never followed up on my hunch only to be blindsided by this one! I could’ve been reading his work this whole time and growing with him. Needless to say, I will be going through his back catalog in the near future.

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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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