Tag: NYC

Books

Book 906: Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson

Geoff W

Book cover of "Black Cake" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen 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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Books

Book 899: Year One (Chronicles of the One #1) – Nora Roberts

Geoff W

Book cover of "Year One" with Amazon Affiliate linkWHOA. So, I’m really glad I didn’t read this book two years ago this time or I would’ve been freakin’ the f*** out as coronavirus took over the planet! Thankfully, I didn’t discover the fibercast Needles at the Ready (Instagram link) until late 2021 where one of the hosts, Ray, recommended this series.

It was bad enough when I read The Names We Take in May 2020 (or even Severance back in late 2019) where a virus wiped out huge swaths of the world’s population, but Roberts takes it to an entirely different level! The opening chapter is gut-wrenchingly dark and I actually stopped reading it in bed the first night I started because it was seriously creeping me out.

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Books

Book 876: Mr. Frosty Pants (Home for the Holidays #1) – Leta Blake

Geoff W

Book cover of "Mr. Frosty Pants" with Amazon Affiliate linkI hadn’t planned to start my MM Holiday Romance binge this early, but when I started getting requests for reviews, including the third book in this series, it was inevitable that I’d start sooner than expected.

The challenge I face when I get sucked in by a blurb is whether or not to go back and read the books earlier in the series. Even if they’re “stand alone” I truly love it when they’re inter connected even if it’s just quick glimpses of future characters. That common thread is just the best to me. Thankfully, when I saw Mr. Jingle Bells I liked the idea of this one (the first) and am sort of meh about the second in the series Mr. Naughty List so thought why not.

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Books

Book 864: Hold My Hand (One Man Guy #2) – Michael Barakiva

Geoff W

Book cover of "Hold My Hand" with Amazon Affiliate linkThis was an adorable angsty follow-up to Barakiva’s One Man Guy. I feel like he could choose an emotion and keep going with Alek and Ethan exploring what that emotion means to the two of them and how it changes their relationship.

Hold My Hand picks up roughly five months after the end of One Man Guy, and Alek is facing fears of how and when they’ll take their relationship to the next level physically and honestly, it’s endearing and horrifying and hilarious all at the same time. (Seriously, read the second quote in the more quotes. DIED.)  The rest of this will contain spoilers so stay out if you don’t want to know the main plot point and what happens.

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Books

Book 853: Game Changer (Game Changers #1) – Rachel Reid

Geoff W

Book cover of "Game Changer" with Amazon Affiliate linkNow THIS is a hockey novel. Everything the last one I read (Keeping Hope) did wrong, this one did right (especially the epilogues!). And to make it even better, this was kind of like the adult version of Ukazu’s Check, Please! series, with quite a few parallels that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Just like It Takes Two to Tumble, I found this one because Annabeth Albert (always, yes) highly recommended the newest release from Reid’s Game Changers series, Role Model, so of COURSE I was going to read it, because if Albert loves it, it is 100% worth checking out.

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