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Book 947: Hot Pursuit (The Hot Cannolis #3) – Eli Easton

It was a little surprising to see that this one was only written by Eli Easton but I found out that what I  believe will be the final book in the series, Hot Lips, will be authored by Tara Lain. That being said, it didn’t stop me from requesting this one when it landed in my inbox!* I knew Rick’s story would be good and it was definitely good.

Hot Pursuit is the story of Rick and John. Rick is Mike (from Hot Seat) and Donny’s (from Hot Wings) uncle and is a homicide detective and recently came out to some of his family in support of Donny. He’s assigned a new partner, John, who has a chip on his shoulder for some reason and caught Rick’s attention even before he was assigned as his partner.

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

I’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!

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Book 921: Remembrance Lost (Tasier #3) – Arian Williams

When this one came in from Gay Romance Reviews I signed up for it since I’d read the first two books in the series (Dream Bound and Souls Aligned).* I wasn’t sure how this one would be after my mediocre response to Souls Aligned, but I grabbed it anyway.

This series is full of secret societies, aliens (I think?!), individuals with supernatural abilities, lots of gay relationships and sex, and really diverse locations/settings. Remembrance Lost definitely picked up on the action front, but in the end, I’m still sort of meh about where the series is.

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Book 915: A Novel Death – Judi Culbertson

This was one big “MEH . . .” Some of it was the writing, a lot of it was the characters, and the nail in the coffin was the overall storyline.

I got a copy of this back in March 2013 and it has sat on my Kindle ever since, not for any particular reason, I just never got to it. I’m a little surprised I didn’t read it sooner since it’s a mystery/thriller about a book with bookstores and libraries involved and those, in general, are like catnip for me.

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Book 906: Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson

When 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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