Books

Book 737: Love by Chance (Chances #1) – Blake Allwood

Book cover of "Love by Chance" with Amazon Affiliate linkSince I have ZERO sense of self-control these days as soon as I finished Romantic Renovations I immediately jumped into Allwood’s Chances series, because why not?!

I did a little more digging and Allwood was planning to release a book a month starting in February 2020 with this being the fourth release and the next two in the series released fifth (Another Chance with Love) and sixth (Taking a Chance for Love) in June and July. As far as I can tell he has yet to release the July book so may be falling behind on his schedule or, fingers crossed, he’s going back and getting them better copy edited and proofread (more to come).

Continue reading “Book 737: Love by Chance (Chances #1) – Blake Allwood”

Books

Book 683: The Gravity of Us – Phil Stamper

Cover art for "The Gravity of Us" with Amazon Affiliate linkThis was a good story. It’s probably better than I’m giving it credit for, but that’s the way it goes when you read a lot of books.

I’m not sure if it’s an across the board meh or just a meh for right now. I know this one will stick with me so maybe it’ll improve with time. I really enjoyed Cal (Jr.) and Leon’s story and adored the nerdiness of the whole work but most of it was overshadowed with the “realness” of the characters. And yes, I feel like a total ass saying I want less real characters.

Continue reading “Book 683: The Gravity of Us – Phil Stamper”

ARC, Books

Book 678: Blowout – Rachel Maddow

Cover art for "Blowout" and Amazon affiliate linkMy jaw legit hurt after I was reading this because my mouth kept hanging open at the sheer audacity of the companies, politicians, and countries in this book. Seriously though, let’s just say that, this is one of those books that if I used only emoji’s to review books would just be this one (link to gif of Nick from Big Mouth‘s head blowing up in amazement).

I stumbled across this book after seeing a review in the Washington Post (months after the book and review were published) and I reached out to the publisher for a review copy and they kindly sent one.* What I wasn’t expecting was for this thing to be like a spy/thriller novel. It. Was. Insanity. Just when you think something more ridiculous can’t possibly be done, Maddow gives her smirk and says, “but wait….there’s more.”

Continue reading “Book 678: Blowout – Rachel Maddow”

ARC, Books

Book 658: The Children of Harvey Milk – Andrew Reynolds

Cover art of "The Children of Harvey Milk"I’m not sure how I stumbled across this one, but when I did back in May I requested a copy from the publisher and they kindly obliged.* I was interested because of the subject matter, but also because Reynolds is based at UNC Chapel Hill (my undergrad) and his name rang a bell because he’d chaired the Sexuality Studies program there at some point in the recent past. And then with my master’s degree focusing on the Civil Partnership Act (2014) in the UK, of course I was going to want to read this book and see what he had to say.

Continue reading “Book 658: The Children of Harvey Milk – Andrew Reynolds”

ARC, Books

Book 651: Sorted – Jackson Bird

book cover of I am always on board for reading anything from LGBTQ+ authors, but particularly nonfiction (memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, etc.). So when the publisher reached out about this one I downloaded it (and somehow actually got to it the week it was published).*

Overall, I really enjoyed this. I mean page one is a J.K. Rowling/Albus Dumbledore quote, of course I was going to enjoy this. I had no idea about Bird’s connection to Harry Potter (or that the Harry Potter Alliance, now known as Fandom Forward even existed)! This being said, I wasn’t totally enamored with the book and didn’t figure out why that was until roughly 80% of the way through the book.

Continue reading “Book 651: Sorted – Jackson Bird”