Tag: contemporary romance

This Chick Read: Let’s Get Quizzical by Kelly Ohlert

Charlotte’s dream of competing on her favorite quiz show has finally come true and hopes to pay off some family bills might be a reality. When she gets to the show who does she see but her high school love who betrayed and ghosted her. Eli, too, has high hopes to win some money to solve his own family problems and when he initially sees Charlotte his heart jumps. He has always regretted how he’d treated her in school and sees this as his chance for redemption. Can they find a way to forgive and move forward, possibly in a new relationship?

I thought the premise of this novel sounded like fun and sometimes it was, especially when Eli and Charlotte first reconnected on air on the game show. The audience found their interactions riveting and as a reader, I did too. Where this novel fell flat for me was when they weren’t on the show. Over ten years had gone by and for them to still be in love after all that time didn’t seem very believable and all of the excuses, complaints, and family drama just didn’t seem to be all that interesting. Some of my books have complex characters with family drama but there was also a sidekick or group of friends that provided comic relief or gave the reader another way to connect to the main characters, and these two protagonists were very isolated. Neither had friend groups, just family issues that although rang true, just seemed sad and not very interesting.

It’s rare, but I just didn’t feel that connected to anything in this story. I do wish that the game show was more central to the plot. I mean, it kind of was, but for me it was overshadowed by the more depressing aspects of the story and lacked any kind of fun, other than the moment they first saw each other on set. Sorry, this one just didn’t do it for me.

❤️❤️❣️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* Let’s Get Quizzical

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On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: The Way I Hate Him by Meghan Quinn

Hayes Farrow, my brother’s arch nemesis, is back in town. When I decide to leave a box of his belongings (stolen by my ex) on his doorstep, I don’t plan to stick around very long. Until I’m caught by the man himself and blackmailed into working for him as his assistant. Did he offer me the job just to bug my brother? Probably, but I don’t have anything else to do and I need the money. What I don’t count on is the fact that he’s actually a nice guy, and very good looking.

A simple plot of a conflict caused by a misunderstanding, add in the big brother’s ex best friend AND rock star romance trope and that simple plot goes slightly off the rails. I’m kind of used to that from a Meghan Quinn novel. Hattie is anything but a normal romantic lead. Her sister just died, her brother and other sister are shutting her out of their grief, and her boyfriend dumps her. So it’s not really surprising that she turns to the one person who isn’t currently ignoring her. What is surprising is that he turns out to not be the horrible person her brother has told her he was, he’s actually pretty decent. She is pretty awesome as well so the outcome was destined to happen.

Would you go after your much beloved older brother’s old best friend who is not his enemy and not expect any fallout? Of course not, and there is a lot of conflict over those actions. There is also comforting, companionship, friendship, and the big L- lust. OK, yeah, love, but you get a lot of the other stuff first. Like a lot, a lot and also very explicit. So beware if that’s not your thing!

The Way I Hate Him had a LOT going on, at times a bit too much, but I liked Hattie and Hayes. They were a surprising couple who looked like they weren’t a fit who actually fit really well. That was nice, but I would’ve liked a bit more story because it seems like if you have all of these things going on in your life, like Hattie did, that we’d feel those things along with her, and there was a little bit of that but for me, not enough. I could’ve traded in a few of those sizzle scenes for some more heart and story. This one’s trending on Amazon right now so it could be I’m the only one who feels like this, so you’ve got to read it to form your own opinion! ❤️❤️❤️

This one’s on Kindle Unlimited right now but if you’d like to purchase it, click this link!

The Way I Hate Him

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This Chick Read: Better Hate Than Never (The Wilmot Sisters #2) by Chloe Liese

Katerina Wilmot and Christopher Petruchio grew up as next door neighbors. Christopher’s parents were non-existent and he spent more time next door at the Wilmot’s than in his own home. At one time, as children they were close but as they grew older their friendship somehow turned into animosity. As a photographer, Kat is rarely at home, but this Thanksgiving she is burned out and needs to be around her family, but she dreads seeing Christopher. Sure enough, as soon as they see each other they’re at it again, until one night when Kat is a little drunk and tells Christopher that the only reason why she picks a fight is because she thinks he doesn’t like her. Feeling guilty he decides to turn their relationship around. Then they realizes there are still sparks, but of a different sort.

The one thing I love about Chloe Liese novels is that they’re about real people with real problems. Her characters worlds are not all rainbows and butterflies. Kat has anxiety problems and Christopher fights ongoing migraines. Both things are central to the plot and to our two main protagonists connection with each other and how they interact with society. I found the migraines to be especially interesting as it was the male protagonist who suffered from them a weakness that most author’s wouldn’t give their strong male character. This affliction made Christopher so much more relatable and I really appreciated how he learned to lean on Kat to help him get through.

We were introduced to the Wilmot sisters in the first novel in this series, although Kat was an honorable mention, Christopher was a side character that we got to know a little bit. I really enjoyed the family dynamics of this close knit family. A plot point that was used to create conflict for Kat in this novel. Feeling as if you don’t belong in your own family is something we’ve all felt a time or two I’m sure. Watching these sisters bond, and seeing Kat grow within that family dynamic added an additional layer to this emotional love story.

I haven’t yet been disappointed by a Chloe Liese novel. She’s quickly become a favorite and I know I can count on her books to be interesting and make me feel. I love her characters, and Kat and Christopher are in my top 3 favorite couples in a novel by this author.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest.

Click this link to purchase this book!* Better Hate Than Never

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above book I’ll receive a small stipend.

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This Chick Read: The Princess and the Fangirl (Once Upon a Con #2) by Ashley Poston

I read Geekerella, the first in the series, back when it came out in 2018 and whereas I didn’t love it, love it, I did think it was a good read. I’m not really sure why I never read the next two books but after getting into this author’s adult fiction I’m going back and checking out this YA series and I must say, this book hit the spot.

Imogen Lovelace is a fangirl for the character Amara on Starfield a sci-fi tv show a la Star Trek. Amara got killed off and Imogen has created a hashtag that’s gone viral #saveamara and she’s at the ExcelsiCon to hand out buttons and do her thing to try to save a fan favorite. Jessica Stone is the actress who plays Amara and admittedly hates her character. She’s contracted to make the rounds at the Comic Con and is hopeful that her character really did die and won’t be back for a second season. When these two meet the interaction isn’t friendly and when Imogen gets mistaken for Jess and lands on a panel as her she takes the opportunity to speak up for saving her character. Needless to say Jess isn’t happy. Until she needs Imogen to be her again.

I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane into the weird world that are Comic Con’s. I used to help out at them when I was younger and you really do see all sorts of “characters” and they are really a lot of fun. The thought that one person could be mistaken for a movie star is a bit of a stretch but this plot was a fun bit of fantasy so I didn’t bother with breaks from reality. What made this novel work was that these two characters personalities were complete opposites that ended up sharing the same view by the end of the book. I love those converging storylines, the journey is very satisfying!

Jessica and Imogen don’t really have a lot to do with each other in this novel other than replace each other a la Parent Trap, but they each get a love interest that is related to their counterpart. In Imogen’s plot it’s Jess’s assistant/best friend and in Jess’s it’s Imogen’s virtual female friend who has never set eyes on Imogen before so can believe the swap scheme. I enjoyed the latter story better than the former but I thought the parallel storylines were a nice departure from the usual YA romance plots. Jessica seemed a little bit more mature than Imogen and her romance read more mature to me and I liked that aspect, plus making this tv star gay made her more interesting and in comparison the boy meets girl romance fell a little flat. Despite that, I really enjoyed reading this novel and loved the sci-fi aspects to the plot. I think I’ll gear up for book #3! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase this book!* The Princess and the Fangirl

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*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: A Winter in New York by Josie Silver

When Iris and her best friend Bobby walk the streets of and find an Italian street fair, Iris spots a little gelateria that looks to be the same as the one in a photo of her mother’s. The next day, Iris goes back to that shop and meets the owner, Gio Belotti, and sample’s a taste of their vanilla gelato and realizes it’s the exact same one her mother used to make her. Gio shares that his uncle, who owns the shop, is in the hospital and that formula may be lost if he never regains his memory. Iris offers her services as a chef to help “recreate” the recipe and get’s to know Gio and his family and falls in love with them both.

Iris came to New York to escape from a bad relationship but to also see the places in New York that meant the most to her now deceased mother. When she finds work and starts to build her small family of friends in Bobby and his partner Robin, it seems natural that she is living near the places that her mother loved. As the book goes on she learns more about her mother, the struggles she went through and through that process gains strength in herself. Iris particularly went through a lot of self discovery and came out stronger. When she meets Gio, she is immediately attracted to him and is drawn to his family. Their warmth and generosity fills up that lonely place inside.

A Winter In New York is a novel that feels nostalgic, and there certainly is quite a bit of looking back in the form of learning the story of Iris’s mother, but it is also a story about moving forward. Iris finds her inner strength and finally finds a place where she feels like she belongs. Even if it takes her a while to believe in that place and in herself. I liked this story a lot, and especially loved the Belotti family, Gio, and his daughter Bella. That family is the one that we all want to belong to and it was easy to root for Iris to untangle her life and believe that she deserves this happiness she has found. The satisfying conclusion was everything I wanted to read. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* A Winter in New York

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

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This Chick Read: Faking Christmas by Kerry Winfrey

Laurel is working as the Social Media Manager for an Ohio State Tourism magazine when she gives her boss the impression that she is married with two kids, owns a farm, and is a fabulous cook. That’s actually her twin sister, Holly, who’s social media she does handle for all of the products that come off the farm. When her boss gets dumped and invites himself for Christmas, Laurel has to fake it till she makes it, pretending to be married to her frenemy, Max Beckett, and cooking that big Christmas Eve Eve meal. Luckily Max knows how to cook. Is he maybe not so bad as she’d once thought?

I’ve enjoyed previous novels by this author and the synopsis made the book look really cute. The pace was quick and the side characters quirky- Gilbert was a bit of a mess but in a charming sweater dad kind of way and I loved Holly, Laurel’s twin sister. Unfortunately, I didn’t love Laurel! Her situation was rom-com ready but all I could see was a young woman who complained a LOT and couldn’t see the fabulousness that was Max Beckett. Why he could see through her cattiness can only be because the author worked really hard to make her likable. I think that if she had been nicer to Max a little sooner I wouldn’t been ok with her set-up, but that combined with the big lie to her boss made her a little hard to take. I was so disappointed!

This novel was certainly not all bad. There were some comedic fish out of water moments and general clumsiness that garnered a couple of smiles and I certainly loved her family. Max, despite being beaten down by Laurel remained a good guy and you couldn’t help but like him. So there was enough to keep me entertained. See, not all bad! I’m sure there are readers out there who will not have the same difficulties in liking the main character, since there was cute-content to make up for her general unlikeable-ness. Give this one a try and see which side of the line you fall on. ❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* Faking Christmas

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary

Izzy and Lucas, frenemies at best, are both receptionists at the Forest Manor Hotel when the hotel literally falls apart around them. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the owner cuts back and the two of them take on tasks to pitch in and keep their jobs. One of those tasks is to clean out the lost and found room. When they find a box of forgotten “lost” wedding rings Izzy is determined to find the owners and return those sentimental and important items. When the first ring is paired with a substantial reward, something the hotel desperately needs, Izzy and Lucas compete against each other to find the remaining guests for those lost items. While doing so they reignite the feelings they’d once had for each other.

Beth O’Leary has a really easy style of writing that makes connecting with the characters simple, which I really appreciate. The Wake-Up Call had one of my favorite tropes, enemies to lovers, and two main characters that were easy to like and root for a happy ending. The conflict of the plot between those two characters took a little while to resolve but by the time it did, I knew backwards and forwards the who, what, when, where, and why’s of their disagreement and/or miscommunication. The author did a good job of allowing the reader inside the character to help understand their perspective.

The plot to save the hotel was fun and I really liked the side characters, both good guys and bad. They helped create that feeling of a well-rounded story and sometimes gave the main characters a push in the right direction towards their final romantic conclusion. I appreciated all the drama and humor that went into creating the hotel setting and the strange characters you’d probably find in in true life were definitely inhabiting Forest Manor Hotel.

If you’re interested in a quick plot and interesting characters, you may want to give Beth O’Leary’s newest novel a try! I enjoyed it!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest.

Click this link to purchase this book!* The Wake-Up Call

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: You, Again by Kate Goldbeck

When Ari and Josh first met Ari was a rising comedian doing odd jobs to pay the rent while sharing a flat in New York with a girl Josh hoped to make his girlfriend. They couldn’t be more different, he was a chef with a very rigid schedule and timeline to fall in love whereas Ari was carefree and didn’t want to be constrained by the rules of a relationship. They clash and then don’t see each other again for a few years, when inevitably they run into each other again with the same kid of results. This happens a few times over the years until they are both handling break-ups at the same time and strike up an unlikely friendship until their turning to each other for comfort becomes something more. You, Again is a slow burn enemies to friends to lovers romance that takes the reader on a journey.

I couldn’t help but make comparisons to When Harry Met Sally as I was reading this novel. Ari and Josh literally run into each other at different points of their lives over about 10 years. Despite Ari’s job as a comedian and some witty conversation it didn’t have as much humor as When Harry Met Sally, but it had just as much of an emotional hit. Over those 10 years both of these characters change so much and even though they seem to make unlikely friends, when they finally get to that point of needing each other the reader is just really ready for that relationship to evolve. From that point forward the pace speeds up just a little but Kate Goldbeck held back that happily ever after until just the right moment. I felt wrung out by the delay but it was really worth the wait.

I know there were other characters in this book that helped make our heroine and hero real, Josh’s sister, Ari’s best friend, and a couple of other friends who meandered in and out over the years, but the real heart of this story was Ari and Josh that I now can’t even remember the side characters names in order to give them a shout out. All I remember was how I felt as our two main characters fell in and out of like and love, and as they got older seeing what used to be important to them change and become not so concrete. I liked the realness of this plot. We are not the same people we were 10 or 20 years ago and it’s natural to shift our perspectives or bend for a good friendship. How Ari and Josh evolved then fell in love was not easy but it was really rewarding.

You, Again was not the book I expected to read when I read the plot, it was a lot more. It has a bit of humor, yes, but it was the emotional depth in these characters that took me by surprise and kept me interested. At times it wasn’t easy to read and I was a little uncomfortable but those are the best kinds of books aren’t they? This one made me think while reading it and that is the sign of a really good book. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* You, Again

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: Things We Left Behind (Knockemout #3) by Lucy Score

Sloane Walton and Lucian Rollins were once close friends but are now frenemies at best. They are on two opposite ends of the spectrum, she’s sunshine and rainbows and he’s surly and too good looking for his own good. Constantly thrown together by their best friends, they argue and bicker, making everyone think they hate each other, but deep down are remnants of that friendship they used to have. When Lucian’s investigation into a local criminal bleeds over onto his friends, Sloane is the first person he wants to lock in a room for her own safety, but Sloane’s just like her dad. A bleeding heart do-gooder who wants to help and get to the bottom of the mystery, despite jeopardizing her own safety. This is the story that fans of this series have been waiting for- Lucian and Sloane’s story.

I enjoyed the first two novels in the series but Lucian and Sloane’s story was the one I was really waiting to read. Surly bad guy Lucian was such a mystery, we were never really given any backstory and only the fine polished surface of good looks and possible villain. We knew he really wasn’t though. Sloane, in the previous books, was always a fun best friend and the person you went to for good advice. The author dangled their dislike in front of the reader’s faces making us want to take a big chomp out of them but we were never given the chance. Boy, that wait was worth it.

Once you dive into this novel and understand their backstory, everything makes sense. I fell in love with Sloane’s do-gooder attitude even more and my curiosity about Lucian only grew until by the end I was all in for these two seemingly mis-matched pair, who were actually a perfect fit. One of the things I love the most about enemies to lovers plots is seeing the alpha male go from serious to cracking a smile and there were many smiles to be had by everyone by the end of this book. Well done Ms. Score! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* Things We Left Behind

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

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This Chick Read: The Long Game by Elena Armas

When an altercation between Adalyn and the Miami FC soccer mascot goes viral Adalyn is forced to take a leave of absence, sent by the owner of the team (her father) to troubleshoot a team in North Carolina, the Green Warriors. What she finds in North Carolina isn’t a minor league soccer team but a team of young girl misfits and their surprising coach ex- pro soccer goalie Cameron Caldani. From day one, Adalyn and Cam but heads but they both have a soft spot for these girls and team together to provide this struggling team a winning formula.

Honestly, this author had me at the soccer romance, but I was also along for the rom-com and enemies to lovers tropes. Adalyn was that type A pencil skirt and high heels exec who was definitely out of her element in the wilds of North Carolina, but I admired her spirit and her need to redeem herself if not only for her father and team, but also for herself. Cam had his own reasons for being in NC and finding out those reasons took a good long while, but luckily the tension between our two main characters kept my interest and then those sweet girls provided the comic relief and heart tugging moments.

Like I said above, I love a great sports romance and whereas this one was a little light on the sports it still fit the bill. The small town romance aspects with the kooky characters, lovable kids, and fish out of water elements helped keep the plot moving providing enjoyable scenes and heart-warming moments. Elena Armas certainly knows how to deliver.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley and from the publisher for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* The Long Game

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads