Books

Book 929: Portrait of a Thief – Grace D. Li

Book cover of "Portrait of a Thief" with Amazon Affiliate linkI’m punching myself for not reading this book earlier AND for goofing off (aka knitting and Minecrafting) while reading it instead of blazing through it as it deserved. I’ve been sitting on this since November of LAST YEAR when someone in marketing at the publisher reached out with it.* I forced myself to wait until late March/early April to read it because I had a feeling I would really enjoy it and that barely covers my enthusiasm for it.

The premise was fascinating to me even if I was a bit wary of the Boston setting (I have bad experience with books being set where I live/have lived), but international art theft by college students, critiques on colonialism, BIPOC author, and characters, discussion of diaspora, ummm obviously I was going to say yes to it. I found out while reading the acknowledgments, that this has already been optioned by Netflix and I cannot tell you how much I’m ready for that!

Continue reading “Book 929: Portrait of a Thief – Grace D. Li”

Books

Book 923: Lucky Match (Hearts for Hire #1) – Raquel Riley

Book cover of "Lucky Match" with Amazon Affiliate linkNope. Unfortunately, that’s the bulk of my response if you want to skip the overall review. When this landed in my inbox I said yes and had such high expectations because the cover looks well done and the premise was a great idea.* Unfortunately, the execution was lackluster at best.

Lucky Match is the tale of Lucky McGuire, a cocky student who started a dating service near his college campus, and Hayes Brantley, his recently divorced professor who’s decided to lean into his bisexuality and date a man.

Continue reading “Book 923: Lucky Match (Hearts for Hire #1) – Raquel Riley”

Books

Book 713: Force Play – Elle Brownlee

Cover art for "Force Play" with Amazon Affiliate link.Still chasing the high from Two for Trust, I’ve kept an eye out for additional books by Elle Brownlee. Plus, who doesn’t love as MM sports romance?

This is the story of Hawk, a pro ball player who wakes up after a big bender and ending up in a gay bar with photos on all the media, and Caleb, a former pro ball player who has his own trauma, but does his best to be the support Hawk needs as he navigates living openly.

Continue reading “Book 713: Force Play – Elle Brownlee”

Books

Book 436: Dragons in the Waters (O’Keefe Family #2) – Madeleine L’Engle

L'Engle, Madeleine - Dragons in the Water (O'Keefe Family #2)I am slowly making my way through the final books in the Kairos portion of L’Engle’s oeuvre. This is the sixth book in chronological story order and the fourth book published in the Murray-O’Keefe books (AKA Kairos). It takes place about six months after the action of The Arm of the Starfish and a few years (I think) before A House Like a Lotus which my response should be published later this week.

I’m glad I’ve expanded my L’Engle reading if only to fully finish the Murray-O’Keefe story line, which the more I dig into the less I think I have actually read because all of her works are intertwined, but I think I will be giving her a rest after I finish this Super-Series. With only A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time left to go I think that would be both a reasonable and acceptable dive into L’Engle’s works.

Continue reading “Book 436: Dragons in the Waters (O’Keefe Family #2) – Madeleine L’Engle”

Books

Book 314: The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5) – Rick Riordan

Riordan, Rick - The Blood of OlympusThis is one of those books that I probably should’ve re-read the entire series before reading. So much has happened in the novels, especially if you go all the way back to the first Percy Jackson book, but even just within the five books of this series it’s been a long journey.

As much as I want to say this was the best book in the series, I honestly think The House of Hades was better. And this is for a couple of reasons. If possible The Blood of Olympus had TOO much action. I get that this is the end of a series which is a spin-off/second half of another series, but this book just didn’t stop with the epic battles. Sure they’re facing the end of the world and Riordan said it best,

“Today, one way or another, their journey would end.” (378)

But honestly, the book left me exhausted and not in a good way. It felt like there was so much that happened off the page that I couldn’t keep track of who was where and what was happening. There are spoilers to the series and this book so don’t read past here if you’re planning to read it.

Click here to continue reading.