Tag: contemporary romance

This Chick Read: The Woman Left Behind (Misted Pines #4) by Kristen Ashley

Sheriff Harry Moran has a stack of files on his desk of cases that the inept sheriff before him may have messed up. When a gun in a double homicide gets traced back to one of those files, Harry makes the decision to head to the woman left behind. When Lillian Rainier opens the door, Harry is jolted by feelings he hasn’t felt since his wife died. As far as Lillian’s feelings, she’s had a crush on Harry for years but with this cold case mystery pending they take the time to not only investigate the murder but also to investigates they both are starting to feel for each other. When a witness turns up, they realize the killer is cleaning up his past mistakes.

Kristen Ashley’s Misted Pines series are good old fashioned romantic suspense novels and I’ve enjoyed getting to know all of these characters. A few of these characters make an appearance in The Woman Left Behind, a couple of whom help Harry with some out of town investigating. Otherwise, this story really centers on two characters who have not really been in any of the previous novels. Harry on the periphery, but only just. I enjoyed the lack of distraction as it read like a stand alone more than a part of a series.

The mystery in this story was quite good. It was a cold case regarding the disappearance of Lill’s parents when she was 18 years old. I liked the use of this case as a back story for the difficulties Lill had faced in her life and the obstacles she’s had to overcome. As Harry was the Sheriff and privvy to these details it allowed them to jump forward emotionally a little more quickly than would in real life, but then all of this author’s novels have a bent of a jump in time element speeding the romance along. Their emotional connection didn’t suffer from any insta-love backlash for the reader, but more of a whiplash reaction to all the emotions Lill was going through because of the appearance of that weapon being tied to her missing family.

Was this the best novel in this series? No. I still enjoyed the first book the best but I did think this was a solid romantic suspense novel and enjoyed getting to know these characters and their stories. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase this book!* The Woman Left Behind

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This Chicks Audio Review: Misdirected by Lucy Parker

Hattie Murton’s journey to acting was the stuff of any actresses dreams. A chance encounter with a casting director leads to her landing a role in what she thought would be a one-off for a show called Leicester Square, a bodice ripping romance. She doesn’t count on the audiences need for romantic dramas and now finds herself a household name. After four seasons of working in this cutthroat industry Hattie is thinking about trying something new but she has to finish out her current season. A season where her character has a mad affair with the shows villain, where she’ll have some very close, revealing scenes with the Anthony Rafe, A-lister, and absolute prat.

Narrated by Nicola Coughlan of Bridgerton fame, and English actor Gwilym Lee, Lucy Parker delivers a story that is reminiscent of her London Celebrities series, which I’ll admit to loving dearly. Our heroine, Hattie, is just out of a high-profile breakup and has had the papps hounding her for weeks. She just wants to finish out her season when she’s given this new storyline. She doesn’t have much to do with Anthony on set as their characters really never cross paths, but her best friend Jake went to school with him and has talked poorly of him to her for years. With those words spinning around in her hear, Hattie is not overjoyed to have been paired up with him for an on-set romance. Their close proximity and amazing chemistry start to make Hattie see through Anthony’s on-stage persona seeing the individual beneath and that is where the story starts to get interesting.

Lucy Parker’s novels typically have a quicker pace and I’m unsure if it was the narration or the pace of the story itself, but this read as more of a slow burn romance than it did a true romance. It took a long while for Hattie to see the man beneath the facade. I’ll admit to being a little impatient that it took so long for the two protagonists to find their feelings for each other, but when they did it was worth the long wait. The release of all that tension was definitely an oh-my moment but it was the personal revelations about their families and their future that really gave that yank on my heart. This wasn’t my favorite of her novels, but I know I’ll go back and read it when the book is released so I can catch those moments I may have missed in the audiobook version. I’m looking forward to it!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase this audiobook!* Misdirected

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This Chick Read: The One Month Boyfriend by Roxie Noir

Kat and Silas have a past. As a student in college she taught a class that he took and they did not have a good experience with each other. Flash forward a few years and Kat and Silas now live in the same small town. Silas is liked by everyone and has a lot of friends, but Kat has just moved to town and has only her best friend from college living nearby. Needless to say, they are not excited to be living near each other. When Kat’s ex-boyfriend’s business buys out the company where she works he comes to town to evaluate her office. Their relationship ending badly and Kat wants him to know she’s moved on so she makes up a fake boyfriend, who just happens to be Silas- who also happens to be frenemies with her ex. It’s a circuitous situation fraught with tension but Kat and Silas both want to show up her ex and agree to a one month plan.

I saw this book recommended on social media and as it was a Kindle Unlimited novel I decided to give it a try. It sounded like the plot would be fun if a bit fluffy, but I love the enemies to lovers trope and will always give that kind of plot a try. What I didn’t expect were characters who were much more than their surface and a plot that I actually ended up enjoying tremendously. There were a few funny moments too, but these were not perfect people and I found this story to be more serious than funny as the characters had a lot to work through to find their happily ever afters.

Sometimes it’s totally worth it to try out a new to me author and this was one of those instances. I was sold on the trope and even though I went into the story thinking it was going to be light-hearted, I enjoyed the depth to these characters and their growth with each other. They started out enemies but they found someone they needed in each other and truly became each others better halves. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase this book!* The One Month Boyfriend

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This Chick Read: Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

Ali Hazelwood quickly became one of my favorite authors with her debut release of The Love Hypothesis back in 2021. Her heroines are typically STEM themed doctors, scientists, biologists, mathematic geniuses, etc. and her hero’s are in that field but also broody, good looking, and at the top of their game in their chosen field. Deep End’s characters are a bit younger, in college at Stanford, but otherwise they fall into the same characterizations. Scarlett Vandermeer is in med school and Luka Blomqvist is also in that field. What makes this story unique from the others is that Scarlett is on the dive team at Stanford and one of the top divers in the country, and Luka is an Olympic gold medalist on his way to the next Olympics. Obviously at the top of that field as well. These two characters share the pool and have been in each other’s world for a few years, but it’s not until Luka and his girlfriend (also a diver) break up that Scarlett starts to notice him as a person. When his ex Penny let’s slip one of Luka’s secrets, Scarlett can’t stop noticing him, and Luka notices right back.

Just as with this author’s prior novel Not In Love, she seems to be veering away from the slow burn romance and veering towards more of a mild erotica feel to her novels. If that’s not your thing than you may not enjoy this novel which plays on control in a sexual relationship. Unlike other novels which may use this theme as an excuse to have slightly kinky sex, in this novel with two characters who are competitive in their sports, and in a high level field like medicine it somehow added to the narrative and didn’t detract from the story. In my opinion it added to their characters and explained emotional conflicts, which I appreciated.

Despite liking how their sexual relationship added to the growth of their relationship and revealed emotional problems I do like a slow burn romance and I miss the old Ali Hazelwood style of writing. I love the enemies to lovers trope and while Deep End had dark and broody Luka, they were never enemies, more forbidden lovers. I hope this author trades off and her next novel returns to a slow burn style, but you know what? I love this author and will be reading any book she writes so she can really ignore my protestations and just get on with writing!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase this book!* Deep End

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This Chicks Audio Review: Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan

Romance channel screenwriter Nora Hamilton knows the formula for romance, at least writing the screenplay for one, but when her own marriage ends in a long-time-coming divorce, she write the best script of her life. When it’s picked up part of it is filmed in her backyard and the very sexy actor Leo Vance is cast as her dead beat husband and her life is changed forever. The day after filming wraps she finds Leo on her porch asking to stay. He’ll pay $1000 per day for a week to just hang out in the back cottage. Seven days is enough time to get to know someone, love them, and break their heart.

Well, this novel was a complete surprise! I found it on a Best of 2022 list and I bought the audiobook a while ago because it sounded like a light read. It was and it wasn’t light-hearted. It certainly had moments of joy, frivolity, and heart but it also held a lot of depth, emotion, and heart break. I truly did not know where this book was going at times and wasn’t sure how it would end. It held quite a sucker punch and I felt everything Nora felt and cried my cold dark heart out. LOL.

Nora was one of those characters that is kind of hard to get to know at first, but slowly the authors lets you into their mind and then their heart. She is not looking for love at all- after all she just got rid of the dead weight husband and is trying to raise her kids as a single parent. Under all of that constancy, Leo plants a seed of hope. At first she is confused by his presence and kind of annoyed that he foisted himself on her family, but she needs his money and is willing to put up with his presence to have that security. He inserts himself into not only her life but her kids lives too. She teaches him how to grocery shop, make dinner, pick up the kids from school, etc. He’s charming, sexy, and good looking and is interested in her? It makes for a very compelling story. Yes, there’s a bit of that famous person loving an ordinary woman fantasy element, but this author makes it feel very real, not fantasy-like at all. Maybe hearing it voiced helped make that connection to these characters feel immediate too. I need to give a shout-out to the narrator, Hillary Huber, who really made everyone come to life and helped me fall in love with them.

I love novels with young kids. Which I find pretty funny because I don’t have children myself and mostly find them annoying. However, in novels they are used as a construct to add humor, emotions, sadness, and help move a plot along. Nora’s children give life to this story. They provide a connection with Leo and Nora that really give heart and push the momentum forward. I loved that Nora’s son was in a school play and Leo just kind of took over coaching him giving her child that father son relationship that he needed. Moments like this create joy and in this case gave a roundness to the story. Sometimes it doesn’t work but in this case it worked so well. In fact, I think I loved this love story more for the family unit than I did for Nora and Leo themselves. If you’ve not read this one, please give it a shot. I’m so glad I finally did! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase this audiobook!* Nora Goes Off Script

Copyright 2022 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chicks Audio Review: You Had Me At Hola (Primas of Power #1) by Alexis Daria

I love to go back through “Best Of” lists from previous years and ran across You Had Me at Hola on a 2020 list. At some point I picked up an audiobook of the title and it’s sat in my library for a few years. I’ve been concentrating on listening to books I already own instead of buying new ones (hello, book hoarder here!) and finally decided to give this one a try. Narrated by Seraphine Valentine, I really enjoyed listening to this story with a narrator who was bilingual. She really did it justice. Much better than I would’ve reading a copy on my own and hearing my inner voice’s use of my high school Spanish classes. Our two main characters, Jasmine and Ashton meet on the set of brand new streaming series made for the US audience. Their initial meeting was jarred by a spilled cup of coffee and the build-up of their relationship was inhibited by both characters insecurities and secrets. Listening to the narration give life to a story that used both languages very effectively really painted a picture that I found interesting and eventful. I didn’t even think of stopping this book and in fact listened to it constantly almost from start to finish.

Jasmine is just out of a nasty paparazzi fueled break-up with a very juvenile sounding rock star and is being haunted by those journalists. Ashton is gun-shy around any kind of notoriety that doesn’t have something to do with his acting and being seen off set with Jasmine isn’t something he wants to start up, regardless of their chemistry. These two characters had a lot to work through to find their happily-ever-after, but I was here for it!

If there was any negatives to this story I would say that it was Jasmine’s insecurity in herself. She has had bad luck in love and really just wants to find her person, someone who will love her as much as she wants, no needs to be loved. She came across as a little needy. Combine that with Ashton’s “secret” and the fact that he supports his entire family back in Puerto Rico to me would make it seem kind of a problematic set-up to a romance, but somehow the author made it work and I really liked the conclusion to their romance. It was the leading up to it that I found just a tad frustrating. This was the reason for my giving it only four stars, but the narration deserves a five for sure!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase this audiobook!* You Had Me At Hola

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This Chick Read: Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone

Lenny has been completely lost since her best friend died of cancer. She’s avoiding both her parents and the apartment where she and her friend lived. She carries with her a laminated card filled with a “live again” list which her grief keeps her from checking off. She takes what’s to be a short term job as a nanny for a single mom and her daughter Ainsley. She’s counting on those days to distract her from her sadness, but what she doesn’t figure in is the grumpy uncle who shows up determined to be a part of Ainsley’s life and ends up becoming Lenny’s rock.

I am used to Cara Bastone’s novels making me laugh and even shedding a tear or two, but this one struck my heart. Grumpy Miles recognizes Lenny’s grief because he too has had to overcome his fears and feelings. Once he’s figured her out, he shows up everywhere for her, becomes her friend, and helps her get through that “live again” list. This novel was one of those great slow burn novels that allow you to get to know the main characters and really come to love them before they actually love each other.

The secondary plot of this book is Miles’ own story about how he’s trying to connect and build a relationship with his half sister Reese and his niece Ainsley. This too is a slow build of discovery and romance, albeit between a small family who learns to lean on each other. I loved this story as much as the main love story, it held just as much weight.

Cara Bastone’s novels, for me, are almost always perfect. This one is a great example of some exceptional writing. Enjoy!

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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

Click this link to purchase this book!* Promise Me Sunshine

Copyright 2025 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: Back After This by Linda Holmes

Cecily Foster loves making podcasts, but after a disastrous relationship with a colleague who broke her heart and stole her ideas she’s stayed out of the limelight, producing work instead of being the host. When her boss offers her the chance of a lifetime hosting a podcast with an influencer Cecily hesitates. She would have to put her personal life out in the ether, going on dates that Eliza deems appropriate. Cecily is not looking for love but if doing this podcast will save some of her co-workers jobs she’s willing to put her pride on the line.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this story. It seems like writing about podcasts is all the rage right now and I’ve read a couple of good romance novels similar to this story but once I started I realized how different this authors writing was from the other stories I’ve read about podcasters. Cecily’s life was kind of at a crossroads, but she’s stuck in a rut working behind the scenes instead of going after what she really wants. Despite not wanting to put her love life on-air and being a little skeptical about whether Eliza has a background to give advice on love, she gives in. Her conflicting feelings only grow when she meets someone on her own and likes him better than any of the men she’s set up with she gains insight into her own feelings.

Back After This isn’t a romance novel as much as it’s a novel about self exploration and I think it works. At first Cecily seemed kind of altruistic- if she does the podcast she saves her friends jobs. I get it, you love your team, but if her character didn’t have some growth through the novel I probably wouldn’t have stuck with continuing to the end. Although I really did love the hot waiter. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

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

Click this link to purchase this book!* Back After This

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This Chick Read: Book Boyfriend by Emily Wibberley and Austin Sigemund-Broka

As a lover of romantasy novels I was excited to see this synopsis about a young woman, unlucky in love, who loses herself in her favorite romantic fantasy novels Elytheum. In a fantasy world your dreams of the perfect man are delivered via fiction, keeping the hope alive that someday you’ll find your own hero, albeit unwinged. When Jennifer gets dumped by her current boyfriend, her week is free for her to go live out her fantasies at an immersive Elytheum event. She hopes to leave all her real world troubles behind, but when she gets to the event she discovers her work nemesis wearing leather. Scott is determined to solve his own relationship troubles and is determined to turn himself into a perfect book boyfriend. Jennifer wants nothing to do with Scott yet he keeps turning up and the notes he’s taking seem to be working in his favor.

There were some really fun elements to this story. Who wouldn’t want to immerse themselves in their favorite fantasy world, including their dream boyfriend? My hand is raised right along with yours! There were some cute moments where Jennifer is living out her dream, meeting people and making friends, but there were moments where it felt like the author’s leaned a little too hard into the fantasy taking me out of the story. I struggled with some chapters where the story felt a little cumbersome and the budding relationship was more antagonistic than frenemy. The story was a little problematic for me and I had trouble feeling good about Jennifer and Scott as a couple.

There were some happier moments. I loved that Jennifer, who seems to have trouble making friends and meeting people, seemed to be in her element. She put herself out there and really let herself enjoy the experience with a new group of non-judgemental friends. Those scenes were great and I loved the women helping women theme but unfortunately this was a romance novel and I couldn’t get past not liking this pairing as a couple. Maybe you’ll feel different? ❤️❤️❤️❤️

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

Click this link to purchase this book!* Book Boyfriend

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

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This Chick Read: First-Time Caller by B. K. Borison

Aiden Valentine is a little jade when it comes to love, which is why his Baltimore call-in radio show has been suffering in the ratings lately. Things look up when a child calls in on behalf of her mother asking him for love advice and when Lucie Stone gets on the phone their conversation is heartfelt and speaks to his audience, going viral. His station manager takes advantage of a good thing and invites Lucie onto his show temporarily, with the premise that they’d help her find a match. What Lucie doesn’t count on is that her perfect match may be sitting right next to her.

Based loosely on the movie Sleepless in Seattle, First-Time Caller gives you all the same warm and fuzzies as the movie and even more heart. Aiden’s jaded view on love was built into his back story and revealed in increments while Lucie’s need for that happily ever after falls in line with what all little girls dream of having in their future. It wasn’t until her daughter calls in to the radio station that she takes a good look at her life and realizes that yes, something is missing and that dream she has had won’t happen unless she takes chances and leaves her safe place, home with her daughter. I loved reading about Aiden and Lucie’s journey, their self-discoveries seemed realistic and not so outrageous giving more impact to the story.

You can’t help but love a book with great side characters- the charming daughter, the lovable ex, the manager with a mushy heart, and the work friends who root for your happy ending. This book had all of the above and those characters helped deliver a loving, warm romance where the happy ending was guaranteed. I could read this book over and over. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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

Click this link to purchase this book!* First-Time Caller

Copyright 2025 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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