I’ve been eagerly awaiting a F1 M/M romance story and couldn’t wait to get my hands on Pole Position! And it was a great, fluffy and cute story with a lot of tension and spiciness, but there were a few things that made it a 4 star rather than a 5 star read. But still, a very satisfying and adorable rivals-to-lovers story! Pole Position is told from the dual POVs of the new F1 team mates Kian and Harper. Where Kian is the four time championship-winner getting questions about his retirement, Harper is the reckless rookie, who gets on his nerves. There was so much tension! A true love/hate situation and the chemistry… just wow!
I totally rooted for Harper who was the absolute disaster, but kind and charming, with his heart on his sleeve. Kian was a bit stiffer and harder to truly get to know at first, but he won my heart too eventually. This was such a slowburn story, with a lot of back and forth, and the usual romcom miscommunications. I truly enjoyed it, and read it in one sitting, but I had some issues that took away a star from what I had hoped would be a five star rating. **Spoiler alert** First of all, there were some major plot holes and parts of the story that just didn’t make sense. The idea that neither of Kian’s problematic relationship with his father nor Harper’s foster care childhood would be common knowledge didn’t feel believable. So all the miscommunication based on these facts felt a bit too hollow. Furthermore, the whole thing with Kian’s dad was never truly resolved, and it was so weird how he was at the airport for Kian’s mother’s funeral, but then just agreed with Harper not to show up, even though he’d already travelled. And also, as far as I could tell, at that point Kian hadn’t really shared the problematic relationship, so wouldn’t it have made much more sense if Harper had gone all fanboy on his old idol instead? My second issue was the way Harper kept pushing and pulling Kian, and constantly giving mixed signals, running away and then coming back being needy and clingy. Even though I definitely understand Harper’s past drama getting the better of him, it just got too much at some points. Like Kian himself put it ”How many times am I going to find myself here? It’s almost as if I watch him every time realizing he’s a little too emotionally invested in what’s going on between us and then he shuts himself down completely. Cuts me off. At what point do I accept that he means it? How many times to I need to be shut out before I’m done?” But luckily the ending made up for it… **End of spoilers** But all in all, this was a cute, fun, adorable romance set in the thrilling F1 world! I truly enjoyed reading it, and can’t wait for another book in what I hope will be a series? I definitely need to know who Johannes’ secret lover is! Rating: 4 stars Get your own copy: Author links Author info: Rebecca J. Caffery
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I loved Ashlyn Kane’s rock band romance American Love Songs, so I was so glad to learn that she’d written another one! And I’m glad to say that this was another sweet and charming story, but more of a cute childhood sweethearts second chances romance than a music-themed one. The Rock Star’s Guide to Getting Your Man follows struggling rock star Jeff Pine, who’s exhausted from all touring and taking some time off to figure out what to do with his life, his band mates, the pressure of producing yet another album and go on yet another tour. Deciding to rent a cabin in the hometown he’d avoided for fifteen years, he–of course-immediately runs into the very person who’s the reason he hasn’t come back, his former best friend and lifelong crush, park naturalist Carter Rhodes.
I rooted for both Jeff and Carter, and I loved seeing Jeff reconnect with important persons from his childhood (like Jeff’s mother). And as always in Ashlyn Kane’s books, the banter was pure gold! It didn’t quite meet my expectations from American Love Songs (or Ashlyn Kane’s wonderful hockey romances) but it was a sweet, fun and charming m/m romance with a great couple. I really appreciated that there was no angst or playing games between them, but how they immediately found their way back to being friends as well as lovers. The rock star thing was more focused on the management struggles and the band dynamics than the music part, which worked well for the story. All in all, a lovely, heartwarming read! Thank you Prolific Works for the free e-copy which I have voluntarily reviewed. Rating: 4 stars Get your own copy: Author links Author info: Ashlyn Kane We Could Be So Good is one of my all time favorite books, and I was therefore a bit nervous that You Should Be So Lucky wouldn’t live up to my high expectations. But luckily it did! This was another marvelous gem by Cat Sebastian! Such a sweet and tender queer historical romance that tugged at my heartstrings. YSBSL is set in the same universe as WCBSG, but with the reporter Mark Bailey in focus (but there were also some adorable glimpses of Andy and Nick, with Andy being Mark’s boss) who is grieving the loss of his longtime partner. To help Mark get his bearings, Andy assigns him a weekly diary project about Eddie O’Leary, the newest and most hated baseball player in New York.
This is a story about grief and the loneliness when you can’t even talk about your loss, and how to find meaning in that new, hollow, life. It’s also a story about finding yourself and finding hope, of friendship, love and maybe, maybe, daring to find happiness again. I rooted so for Mark and his struggles to come to terms with his new life, his grumpiness and his unexpected tender feelings for Eddy. “It’s foolish, but Marks is making peace with the fact that everything he feels about Eddy is a little foolish.” Sweet Eddy stole my heart right away with the way he just kept messing things up, his big mouth and even bigger heart, his naivety and positivity, and how unapologetically he installed himself into Mark’s life. And the respect he showed for Mark’s grief and how he acknowledged Mark’s memories of and relationship with his deceased partner was so wholesome. This story is a beautiful journey from grief and heartbreak to finding love again, from hiding to accepting who you are, and from fear to hope. It’s also a story with some amazing, heartwarming, supportive characters: Eddy’s mother, Mark’s found family of protective queer friends, the supportive coach, the reporter colleague who lost his wife and gently lets Mark know that the grief is the same. Even though this book deals with some pretty heavy things, like homophobia, loss of a loved one and grief, mental health issues and so on, it’s nevertheless a fun, sweet and adorable story, full of snarky banter, flippant jokes and hilarious situations. Cat Sebastian has a marvelous way of writing sad stories in a joyful way, and always ending them on positive note, full of hope and with an homage to the brave queer community paving way for the acceptance today (even though there is still a long journey ahead). All in all, I loved, loved, LOVED this book! Rating: 5 stars Get your own copy: Author links Author info: Cat Sebastian This was such an adorable, heart wrenching M/M hockey romance that added extra depths to the friends to lovers and second chance tropes. It dealt with difficult topics like trauma, homophobia (internalized as well) and horrible parents, but it was nevertheless a truly beautiful and sweet story with main characters that stole my heart! The Understatement of the Year is the third book in The Ivy Years series, but it’s no problem at all to read it as a standalone. It follows two college hockey players, who were once best friends and first loves, but who after a traumatic incident went their separate ways. Graham stayed firmly in the closet, letting himself be persuaded by the catholic school upbringing that being gay was a sickness and something to fear. Rikker was thrown out by his parents and sent to his Gran, who gave him a sanctuary where he could be himself and explore his sexuality without condemnation. Being a hockey player, he didn’t broadcast it though, not until he got outed to his coach and transferred to Graham’s team, making Graham’s secret harder and harder to keep…
“When he was around, nothing worked right. My eyes went where they weren’t supposed to go, and I felt the thrum of expectation just from breathing the same air that he did.” I rooted so for both Graham and Rikker. At the beginning I got a bit frustrated with Graham for not being as brave as I wanted him to be, but as I learned more about how the trauma in his past had shaped him, I just wanted to hug him and tell him that everything would be okay. That he was okay. That he didn’t have to be terrified of everything that was could even remotely come across as gay (from cappuccinos to bright colors), especially not of himself. “I was the most homophobic person alive. Because ‘homophobic’ means ‘afraid of homosexuals.’ And I was pants-shitting terrified of myself.” With Rikker it was instant love for me. He’s such an amazing, lovable character! Even though being openly gay meant so much struggle and hardship for him – getting kicked out of his home at sixteen, getting kicked off his team, getting mean comments from team mates – he was always true to himself, kind and gentle, and honorable. He truly personified the notion of “when they go low, we go high”. I rooted so much for them both and wanted them to get their well-deserved happily ever after. Graham and Rikker are now some of my favorite couples, next to Shane and Ilya in Heated Rivalry and Wesmie in HIM. This book had a lot of the same vibes as Cait Nary’s Season’s Change, with the angst and fear, the internal struggles and hidden emotions. Even though it was a YA/NA story with a lot of cuteness, it was very raw and real. It’s not so much a hockey romance as a story about finding yourself and accepting who you are, of letting yourself be loved even though you’ve been told you’re not worth it and that your love is shameful. “Getting along together was never the problem with you and me,” he said. “We’re both easy. It’s just the rest of the world that’s hard.” All in all, this was a heartfelt and beautiful slow burn romance with lots of depths and emotions, the perfect amount of steam and sweetness, and amazing characters to root for! Rating: 5 stars Get your own copy: Author links Author info: Sarina Bowen The Princess Diaries meets Red, White and Royal Blue in this sweet, light, easy and comforting queer royal romance. A perfect book for fans of Young Royals to read on the beach this summer! The Rules of Royalty is a dual POV story following American Jamie who on his 17th birthday finds out that he’s in fact the son of king in a foreign country, and Erik, the spare of the neighboring kingdom who is doing his best to live by the strict rules set by his grandmother.
It felt quite a lot like The Princess Diaries meets Red, White and Royal Blue. Very YA, very sweet, very light and easy. Compared to RWARB it didn’t have the same intensity, nor the same chemistry and yearning between the two love interests, but I nevertheless rooted for Jamie and Erik together. They were truly adorable and good for each other. I think the story could have benefited from a little more drama and emotions. It was a little too much telling not showing at times and the way Jamie just accepted his new reality without any real meltdowns was perhaps not the most believable thing. But sometimes you just need a sweet, modern day queer fairytale, and Cale Dietrich sure delivered that! All in all, this was a sweet and entertaining story about two princes from neighboring countries finding support, friendship and eventually love in each other, but also heartbreak and the need to figure out what’s worth fighting for. Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the ARC, which I have voluntarily reviewed. Rating: 3.5 stars rounding up to 4 Get your own copy: Author links Add to Goodreads Author info: Cale Dietrich Such a cute, bittersweet and unique story about dealing with what life throws at you and about not letting anyone (men…) stop you from achieving your goals. A story of self-worth, independence and struggle to be taken seriously and get the same opportunity to succeed in the academic world as men, told with humor and snarky sarcasm. Chemist Elizabeth Zott has struggled to get a career, from being mistaken for the secretary and asked to make coffee to sexual assault, getting miscredited or having her work simply stolen. Still, she’s kept on fighting. When she meets and falls in love with and gets a supporter in Calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominee, things start to look better. Until life once again is turned up side down and Elizabeth finds herself a single mother being kicked from the research institute.
I must admit that I didn’t particularly like Elizabeth as a person and that I found Mad a bit too precocious to be likable, but I rooted for them both nevertheless and for the story. (My absolute favorite character was the wise dog!) Bonnie Garmus has a very unique, direct and humorous writing style that made all the bad things happening to Elizabeth bearable to read about. Despite the heartbreaking story that this truly was and despite all the science and chemistry explanations, Bonnie Garmus managed to make it a witty, cute and addictive read. It does leave you with a bittersweet feeling, even though it ends in a positive, almost fairytale, way. The story makes you realize how women still struggle with a lot of the same challenges that Elizabeth had to face. It definitely gives you a clear idea why there are so few women in science that we hear about. If you enjoyed Ali Hazelwood’s books, but want something a bit darker, I definitely recommend you to check this book out! Rating: 4 stars Get your own copy: Author links Author info: Bonnie Garmus 5/14/2024 0 Comments Here We Go Again by Alison CochrunI absolutely adored this ‘sapphic road trip rom-com about death’ (as Alison Cochrun pitched this book to her agent)! It was such a cute best friends-to-enemies-to-maybe lovers romance, with messy, relatable characters who went on a journey both literally, across the country, and internally, learning a lot about themselves. The story follows the two small town high school teachers Logan and Rosemary, who used to be best friends growing up, but now hate each other. The one thing they still have in common is their love for their former high school teacher and mentor (father figure), Joe. To fulfil his dying wish, they end up on a road trip across the country together. In a gay van. With a fake emotional support dog.
This book had so many of the tropes I love the most – enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn romance, second chances, forced proximity and found family. I loved the extravagant Joe and his love and support for Logan and Rosemary (and all his pupils over the years) and his scheming to make them forgive each other for past wrongs. Rosemary was the sweetest, and I ached for her struggles to cope with and hide her anxiety from others. Logan was a loud, messy, dumbass fuckboy, but I loved her anyway. Especially as we got to see more of her abandon fears after being left by her mother at a young age. “Hurt first, so she’ll never be hurt at all. Leave first, so no one ever leaves her. Careful, not careless.” This book was the perfect mix of pain and humor, grief and joy, miscommunication and finding love when you need it the most! I adored Joe and his old love story was the sweetest. I loved the dignity that Alison Cochrun gave it and that it wasn’t made into something too cheesy. My only minor complaints are that the lack of communication and the old conflict became a bit repetitive in the middle, and that the overuse of pop culture references and the f-word in the middle of famous persons names as an exclamation (like ‘Kristin fucking Stewart’) was somewhat annoying. But all in all, this was such an adorable, sweet, tender, witty and heartfelt story with the right amount of depth and emotions. It’s a story that deals with difficult topics, like death, mental health, and commitment issues in a both honest and fun way at the same time. Highly recommended! Rating: 4.5 stars rounding up to 5 Get your own copy: Author links Author info: Alison Cochrun This fourth and, sadly, final book in A League of Extraordinary Women series was another cute and intriguing story taking place in the English Victorian Regency era during the early days of the suffragist movement. Compared to the other stories it was a bit on the heavy side when it comes to the history part and a bit slower in general. This series feels a lot like a contemporary one, despite the historical setting. The books all have witty and funny dialogues and banter, more steam than expected and strong, feisty and intelligent women as far from damsels in distress as you can get.
In this forth book, focus is on Catriona, the group’s introvert who is living in a remote castle trying to work on her book and stay away from distractions at Oxford like socializing with friends and the suffragist cause. She’s also given up on love after having been heartbroken twice. But of course, her suffragist friends have a mission for her, and her father’s new protégé Elias sees an opportunity to use her to get what he really came for when pretending to be classifying ancient artefacts. Unfortunately, this mission of seduction soon overshadows the original one… I love morally grey characters, and Elias was the perfect representation for that. As a couple, Catriona and Elias were a cute match, and I appreciated the respect Elias had for her. But they didn’t have the same kind of sizzling chemistry as the couples in the previous books. This book had more of a heist plot, that was fun at first, but then became quite dense and uninteresting with all the backstories and historical information, and ended quite anticlimactic to be honest. This series has always had a nice balance of history and romance, but here the historical politics and explanations overshadowed the romance and made the story slow and without the fun vibes from the other books. I also think that Catriona’s bisexuality and her school sapphic romance could have been given a bigger focus. But it was nevertheless an enjoyable read and the epilogue made up for a lot of what was missing. I loved how all the previous characters were included in the epilogue and what the struggles the characters in this series led to in the end. And what we in the 21th century still owe them thanks for. Rating: 3 stars Get your own copy: Author links Author info: Evie Dunmore I had such high expectations for this book, but sadly it fell quite flat. I enjoyed the historical setting and sweet Lily, but the story was just so painfully slow that I kept losing interest and never became fully invested in it. I started and restarted this one so many times, losing interest after just a few pages, then giving it another try, just to end up feeling bored right away again.
I do think it’s a question of me not you though since so many of my fellow bookish friends loved it. So don’t let my opinion discourage you from reading it if you think the blurb sounds interesting! Even though it was slow, the story itself painted a very interesting and beautiful picture of a Chinese American girl in 1950s San Francisco, with flashbacks to how her parents met, and with an adorably sweet friendship/crush as well as a fascinating tale of the Telegraph Club and its queer performers and guests. And the end made it worth pushing through, just wished that the first 70 % of the book had been cut down to give more focus on the last part instead of this long way to get there… Rating: 3 stars Get your own copy: Author links Add to Goodreads Author info: Malinda Lo This was such a heartfelt, authentic, angsty and intense read! A lot heavier than the cover and blurb might give the impression of, but also heartwarming and hopeful. But please be aware of the trigger warnings! Part of the story and content truly is on the darker side. Out of Blue Comes Green follows Kay (who during the course of the book changes his name to Nate) who has recently come out as trans and makes his first public appearance as a male with his band at the school talent show. After this appearance, we get to follow his struggle through the rest of the school year with bullies, falling in love and getting his heart broken for the first time, dealing with an unsupportive (actually even abusive) mother and just trying to navigate his way in life.
There are some really heartbreaking moments, when Kay/Nate has to experience misgendering, transphobia and a traumatic photo session that made me truly upset, and just plain mean and oblivious peers and adults. (Again, please be aware of the trigging warnings, including a suicide attempt!) But there were also so many beautiful things with the supportive brother and great friendships, and how music was a solace. Just a few thoughts, that include spoilers unfortunately, but that I felt were important for my review. **Spoiler alert** I especially loved the heartwarming way his dad stood up for him and genuinely understood what he’d gone through at the end. I hoped for JT to come around and understand the damage he’d caused at the pub performance at prom night. It was a little disappointing, but probably more realistic, that he just kept getting meaner and meaner all through the end. I also had a bit too much second-hand embarrassment for some of the things Kay/Nate did, like pretending to be someone else at the animal rescue, even though I can see why he grabbed the opportunity to be fully seen as a boy. **End of spoilers** The characters were such teenagers at times, quite annoying but always authentic and lovable! I definitely rooted for them all. It’s certainly a book that makes you feel! All in all, this was a heartfelt, sad yet hopeful, hurtful yet positive story tackling transphobia and the pain of not feeling at home in your body or being misgendered, not being seen or accepted as who you truly are, but also how support can lift you up, how being true to yourself is the only way forward and the power of love and friendship. A highly recommended and important story! Thank you so much to Page Street YA for the copy of this book through NetGalley, which I have voluntarily reviewed. Rating: 4 stars Get your own copy: Amazon Add to Goodreads Author info: M. E. Corey |
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September 2023
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