romancedispatch's reviews
284 reviews

I really enjoyed this Christmas-themed novella by Cassandra O'Leary, author of "Girl on a Plane", featuring flight attendant Sinead and beau Gabriel Anderson.

The novella precedes the story of the main book, and tells the story of Yuki, Sinead's colleague and friend, before they meet. In fact, before being employed by Mermaid Airlines, Yuki works at a hotel in Melbourne. Here, a few days before Christmas, she meets Irish tech CEO Declan. The attraction between them sparks instantly - too bad the hotel's policy forbids fraternizing with the guests.

With only a few days to her disposal before Duncan leaves again, Yuki decides to tempt fate and ask Duncan out. What follows is the stuff of (Christmas) magic.

I really enjoyed reading this! The story is sweet and light, Yuki is adorably quirky and oversharing, Duncan is the perfect mix of nerdy and sexy. Everything is a bit too fast-paced for my liking, but hey it's a novella- there's only so much you can do with character and story development in a short story.

Hence why I give this 3,5 stars, rounded up to 4 because I just love a nice, happy Christmas tale!

This book was a surprisingly heartwarming read.
Judging from the cover, I’d expected a light “enemies to lovers” story like “You deserve each other” or even “The hating game”. Instead it’s MUCH deeper than that.

The story features Liya, a beautiful, smart, independent woman who gets ambushed by her parents into a dinner with a potential suitor, Jay, and his mother. Wanting to escape the awkward situation, Liya makes a run for it, only to smack into Jay and then run from him too, without even bothering to explain.
Only one day later does she discover that Jay is the new lawyer assigned to save her company from closing, and that she is going to work with him every day from now on.

I almost dropped the book early on, because Liya’s character and her actions at the beginning rubbed me the wrong way. I could not understand her ways, she came off as conceited, arrogant, rude, even selfish.
But then? The ugly truths of her past come to light, and that changes the character completely. Immediately I felt for her, my heart ached and I just wanted her to be okay.

The romance with Jay is the sweetest thing. Jay is perfect, the epitome of a nice guy who has an open mind and open heart. He doesn’t trust the rumours going around Liya and is just *nice* to her, in a quiet, calm, undeterred way, and that is just what Liya needs - even if she does try to push him away in many occasions. But still, both of them have their past to face, and how will that alter their relationship? Will there be a chance for them after every secret is revealed?

I won’t spoiler anything, but I just want to say that this book is ... deep. There are some serious issues that are being dealt with throughout the story, like verbal and physical abuse, violence, loss, death, trauma. I believe the author did a good job of portraying them in a sensitive yet realistic way. Moreover, the story is set in Houston, Texas, and the “southern sass” intertwines with the Indian tradition and culture, especially as it pertains to the role of a woman in contemporary Indian society. I found this a very interesting take on the story and it rounded up the story for me.

All in all, an excellent book! I’m surprised and overjoyed, because I wouldn’t have guessed it from the title. But I read it in one day, and this is the longest review I’ve ever written, so you can say that I’m really impressed.
I look forward to reading more from Sajni Patel.

All in all a very enjoyable reading! I came to this after wanting to read more Regency similar to Julia Quinn‘s Bridgertons‘ series and it didn’t disappoint.

I won’t sum up the plot because I haven’t got the time (and honestly, you probably already read the blurb). The story reminds of a minor Shakesperean play, even though I’m not sure what its name is again - I will look it up
The series focuses on three rakes, the „difficult“ dukes -their „Dis-Graces“, ha!- and this Book in particular features the Duke of Ashmont and the duke of Ripley.

I found the first half of the book a bit slow, bit things pick up after the library scene and then from there it’s all rather quick! I definitely enjoyed the second half of the book more than the first.

As the characters go, I found Olympia quite a bit annoying- all that talk about her being kind, but seems to me she is not that kind at all - especially concerning the feelings of the men in her life. Ashton is a sweetheart though, and that’s the main reason why I’ll stick with the series.
The other reason is that I REALLY need to know WHAT is going on between Alice and Blackwood (which will be in the third Book, apparently coming out in 2022!)

To sum it up, a well written, enjoyable regency novel, with lots of funny respites and a sweet romance!

SO. MANY. EMOTIONS.

I read this book last in the series because, honestly, some of the reviews scared me. I‘m glad I did so, because I was more „prepared“ and could enjoy it more this way.

I LOVED Emory. Oh how I loved her. She is undoubtedly my favourite among the girls. With her outfits and her dream to become a librarian, her guarded but sweet ways, her wit... she is amazing. And her relationship with Knox... simply magical, the romance and steam are off the charts.

And that’s also why I „felt“ more with this book. I lost myself in the beautiful moments, and suffered more for the difficult ones. And now that I’m done with the book I’m in an emotional state, some kind of afterglow, happy and melancholic at the same time. What a fucking ride.

This book was a welcome surprise!

It’s not often that a main character or love interest in a US rom-com is Italian - writers seem to not want to portrait this “minority” on behalf of other, more popular ethnicities.

Therefore I loved the fact that the female main character, and Blaze love interest, Charisma, is in fact Italian, because there are a lot of issues that come with that, for example:

- height and height difference (5 foot 3! Standard height for Italians, but much too short in comparison to your average American),
- weight and weight loss in relation to body type (wider hips and thighs are a thing for Italian women, and something we do generally struggle with)
- hair and eyes (brown eyes and dark hair are hardly the stuff of dreams.... except in this book they are!!!)

Therefore, I want to thank the author for portraying Italian girls truthfully and beautifully- it feels good to be seen!