blewballoon's reviews
671 reviews

Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake

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emotional funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Ashley Herring Blake is a great romance author and their writing is the best aspect of this book. I could not get behind this particular romance, though. Brighton and Charlotte should not be together. 

The book tries so hard to justify Brighton's actions in the past and present Charlotte as also being part of the problem, but I just can't see it. Charlotte had some flaws, sure, but what Brighton did was devastating and cowardly and Charlotte not being able to magically intuit what Brighton wouldn't actually tell her is not something she should be faulted for. You cannot expect your partner to read your lip quivers and figure out what you want. And later in the book when
Charlotte leaves, the situation is entirely different. Number one, she actually told Brighton she was leaving and why. Number two, Brighton was not literally waiting at an altar for her, they were just hanging out with friends for the holidays. These events are not equivalent, yet the book implies that now they're even I guess?


Also the resolution to all the conflicts is just tucked into the final chapter and feels a bit unfair. Spoiler rant:
Charlotte, who allegedly loved New York and her music career there, just gets over that and decides she does want to live in Nashville where Brighton wants to be. I feel like this whole book is Brighton getting to have everything her way despite causing all of her own problems. She refused to compromise with her band and is upset that they go in a different direction without her, but then gets to shame them for using her song (even though she is partially at fault for showing it to them in the first place and putting it in their backlog). She has a supportive and loving family that she can always crash land on when she makes bad decisions. She has an unconditionally patient friend who is also her boss and tolerates her snapping at customers at work and boosts her music career. She left her fiance at the altar (shortly after having sex with her) without telling her or expressing that she didn't want to keep living in New York, then the fiance apologizes to her and leaves New York to be with her. Once she actually puts her big girl pants on and tries a music career of her own, it just works out and she's successful.
 

I did like the side characters and the dog.
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The Captain's Midwinter Bride by Liana De la Rosa

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Once I started this I couldn't seem to put it down. I loved this holiday historical romance. It was so sweet and refreshing to follow an older couple who had always respected and liked each other, but hadn't ever gotten any closer due to the circumstances of their lives and their own assumptions. Watching them reach across that distance to savor the love waiting there was just delightful. 
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You're the Problem, It's You by Emma R. Alban

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I think I may have liked this even more than "Don't Want You Like a Best Friend." For longer than I should have, I struggled to remember which of the two leads was which despite the audiobook helpfully having two different narrators. I also wish I had read this more closely to the first book in the series, since a lot of characters are prominently featured here (and I confused the girls with each other more than once.) Apart from my own failures with keeping all the characters sorted, I thought the romance was solid and the plot resolutions were lovely.
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A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience by Stephanie Burgis

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funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was a pleasant way to pass the time while waiting for my car at the tire place. Great use of the short page count to establish the characters, give them time to get to know each other in a travel montage, and have a little fantasy plot as well. I'd recommend to fans of paranormal and historical romance. 
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Merry Inkmas by Talia Hibbert

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emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

The quibbles I had kept piling up to the point that they tipped the scales towards disliking the book more than I liked it. Right from the beginning, I was baffled that a barista wouldn't have known the name of a customer they were interested in who comes in basically every day. It's standard procedure to take the customer's name and call their name out when their order is ready; writing names and messages on cups is practically a coffee shop trope by itself! Maybe it's different outside of the US, but I've been to a coffee shop in London and I remember it working the same way. Unusual story bits like that kept breaking my immersion, and some lines of dialogue were just too unnatural to suspend my disbelief for. Both Cash and Bailey had too many personal issues and over-dramatic reactions to be resolved properly in the short page count to feel like they could function as a couple. Less angst and better communication would have made it easier to root for them. Best thing about all this was that it had plenty of Christmas vibes.
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The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry

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emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I loved The Magician's Daughter by H.G. Parry, so I was really hoping I'd like this. Unfortunately this one's not for me. I do think plenty of people will enjoy it, this might hit the spot for fans of dark academia. The prose is good, the pacing is slower in order to gradually build suspense along with cryptic inserts by the narrator about their regrets. I did guess a few of the big reveals in advance, but not all of them. The audiobook narrator is good.

What didn't work for me was the main character, Clover. I've always struggled with stories about a less popular student giving into temptation and making bad choices to fit in with more popular/glamorous people. I don't know if it's a neurodivergent thing or not, but I've never felt that compulsion and I find it hard to sympathize with characters who give into it. In this book there's a specific effort to demonstrate that it's also Clover's scholarly ambition that drives her to make harmful decisions, perhaps even more than peer pressure, but I found this reasoning just as hard to swallow. The story follows Clover tightly, so although other characters were more interesting or likable to me, they felt too small proportionately in the narrative voice to improve my overall reading experience. 
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Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I knew what I wanted when I looked at the cover of this book, and it delivered. Thank you Lana Ferguson for giving me the supernatural romance goods. My only critiques are that I think the "mysteries" were very easy to solve (to the point that the main characters looked a little dumb for not figuring things out sooner) and that I personally would have preferred less of the stereotypical enemies-to-lovers setup for the romance. I think some people might not like a few of these spicy scenes, but I really enjoyed them.
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Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young

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emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Well, that was lovely. I prefer romances where the main characters start on friendly terms and then just get closer and closer until love is inevitable. This is a great example of that type of love story. I enjoyed the easy chemistry between the leads from the start. I understand that the "issue" with this type of romance is that it's "harder" to create tension, and here the tension came mostly from the characters just wanting to do the right thing and respect each other's wishes. I really didn't mind those low stakes and appreciated that in all the spots where I thought a trope I hated was going to happen, the characters handled it like emotionally mature adults instead. Also, even though I normally dislike the surprise pregnancy trope/story, this book kind of made me wish for a version where it really was just two people who are friends and decide to raise a baby together, as friends. I think there's a good story there as well.
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The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I don't know why I put off reading this for so long, it's a great follow up to The Queer Principles of Kit Webb and I loved seeing a bit more of those characters while following Marian and Rob. I picked this up now because I thought it was a Christmas book for some reason, and it does take place in winter time with some mentions of snow, so I guess that's close enough? I thought Marian was great in the first book but wasn't too sure about Rob, he definitely won me over here. I liked the demonstration of different styles of love, motherhood, happiness, and family. The spicy scenes were refreshingly different, especially compared to the Julia Quinn style of historical romance. (No offense to J Quinn, it's just nice to read something unexpected.)
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The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.
I actually like cheesy Hallmark/Netflix Christmas movies, but this isn't working for me. The sisters, particularly Charlie, just seem really stupid with the decisions they make. I can't root for them. The love interests are incredibly bland, and there's too much lying for any romance to work. The toxic male antagonists are annoying and I'm sure will be dealt with at the very end in an unrealistic way along with the fallout when all the lies come out. I can already map out the trajectory of this book and I'm not interested in seeing it happen. 
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