Tag: Religion

ARC, Books

Book 811: Yes, Daddy – Jonathan Parks-Ramage

Geoff W

Book cover of "Yes, Daddy" with Amazon Affiliate linkThis is a dark ass book and a perfect example of what happens when I read too many MM Romances. I’m guessing I read the first part of the synopsis and either didn’t finish or blocked out the last portion when/after I requested a review copy.*

Don’t get me wrong, the fact that it’s dark definitely doesn’t take away from it being a good book, I just had no idea that it got dark and then even darker before starting to get a little lighter at the end. I did not like the protagonist, Jonah, and I do not think he redeemed himself by the end (and that is in no way victim blaming), he just wasn’t likeable.

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Books

Book 788: Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell #1) – Hilary Mantel

Geoff W

Book cover of "Wolf Hall" with Amazon Affiliate linkI clearly was not in a hurry to read this one. It has been on my Kindle since I purchased it in December of 2011 and that was TWO years after it won the Booker Prize! I avoided it for some time because I was waiting for the remaining two books: Bring Up the Bodies (2012) and The Mirror and the Light (2020), but I also avoided it because it’s a freakin’ tome. It comes it at just under 560 pages.* Thankfully the next one is shorter (436), but the last is 200 pages more coming in at 764 pages! OOF that is going to be a commitment when I get around to it.

I also actively avoided it because that was around the time that I came to realize that in general I find myself enjoying the runners up to the Booker Prize more often than the actual winner. There’s like a mental hurdle I don’t think I can quite make the leap over to fully appreciate and see the beauty in most of the winners. I knew this was long and I knew that it had A LOT of description and the formatting was weird (minimal quotation marks, the point of view), so I knew it would be a big challenge for me.

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Books

Book 777: Ben’s Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle – Penelope Peters

Geoff W

Book cover of "Ben's Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle" with Amazon Affiliate linkIf you want to know how to piss me off when it comes to a book put the setting in Boston but don’t do your research and don’t have the book copy edited or proofread. That’s a guarantee to piss me off. This could’ve easily been a 4.5-star book because of the hilarious hockey kids trying to be matchmaker for their coach, but nope.

I apparently put this on hold when I was in the middle of my 12 Books of MM Holiday Romance binge, but forgot about it until I was notified on January 3 it was available. I went ahead and read it as I’m making my way through Timothy C. Winegard’s fascinating tome The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, because let’s face it as fascinating as it is, that book is dense as hell. Continue reading “Book 777: Ben’s Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle – Penelope Peters” →

Books

Book 738: Another Chance with Love (Chances #2) – Blake Allwood

Geoff W

Book cover of "Another Chance with Love" with Amazon Affiliate linkI kept going with Allwood’s books because I wasn’t totally put off by the less-than-stellar copy editing and I had nothing more pressing to read. Plus start a series = finish a series 😀

Surprisingly, I enjoyed this one more than I enjoyed the first book in Allwood’s Chances series, Love by Chance. This is surprising because he veered very close to over-complicating things with the mystery/thriller addition again, but somehow managed to bring it back with some great minor characters who had their own plot lines but really supported the overall plot.

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ARC, Books

Book 723: Once You Go This Far – Kristen Lepionka

Geoff W

Cover art of "Once You Go This Far" with Amazon Affiliate linkI wasn’t sure what to expect going into this. When the publisher reached out to me about an ARC I liked the synopsis and loved the fact Lepionka co-hosts a podcast called “Unlikeable Female Characters”, so said sure why not.*

I don’t know if it’s worth noting (but clearly, I’m noting it), the first thing I noticed on Goodreads is I am one of very few men who have read this book prior to release. I don’t know if that means we’re not the target audience or if it was just a coincidence, but I thought it was interesting.

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