As the wildcard middle sister, Sydney is more used to hearing words like chaotic and sarcastic to describe her than responsible. But when her family’s small-town bakery is selected for a business initiative to attract customers, she sees a chance to finally prove she’s more than just flaky pastries and quick comebacks.

What she doesn’t expect? To be partnered with the town’s newly renovated bar—or its broody, frustratingly attractive owner, Pierce. Especially not after overhearing him say he’s not interested.

After inheriting his late grandfather’s bar, Pierce is barely holding his head above water figuring out how to manage it—let alone the rest of his life. He doesn’t have time for distractions. Especially not ones with sharp wit, killer baking skills, and a habit of getting under his skin.

But as beer meets dessert and the lines between bickering and banter begin to blur, Sydney and Pierce find themselves mixing more than just business. As the town rallies behind their unlikely partnership, they need to decide if they’re willing to let go of old hurts—and take a chance on the kind of connection that doesn’t follow any recipe.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

“I’m sorry.” “What?” “I’m sorry—” He cups a hand to his ear. “One more time.” Oh, I get what he’s doing. He grins. “A Sydney Blackwell apology is so rare, I have to savor it.”

“You’re the sad spinster daughter who has to take care of our parents,” I tease. “I’m twenty-four,” she fires back. “That’s way too young to be a spinster.” I mock- frown at her. “Sounds like something a spinster would say.”

My Review:

Another amusing, fun, and engaging rom/com from the talented scribbler, Allie Winters. I adored these characters and am already looking forward to more of this series. The storylines were entertaining, well-paced, and kept me blissfully entertained with clever hits of wry humor and breath-stealing steam.

Derek Balfe proposed to Milly O’Shea at twenty.

She turned him down and left to build a career and a future that didn’t include him. Derek had no idea that it wasn’t purely Milly’s decision to decline but rather the influence of a meddling relative.

Now thirty-eight, Derek is a successful hotelier, divorced, and parenting two teenagers. His father is retiring soon and has asked Derek to take over the family business. He has a lot going on, and to add to it, Milly has moved back into town, more distractingly beautiful, shy and delicate than ever–and with a teenage daughter of her own in tow. Milly is close friends with Derek’s sister, so he can’t avoid running into her–but he is determined to ice her out.

That is, until their daughters meet at school and become inseparable. Derek has to deal with seeing Milly every week, sometimes daily. The more he’s around her, the more he realises that deep down she’s still the same girl he fell for all those years ago, and he begins to suspect that there was more to her rejecting his proposal than he’d always believed.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

What God with a dark sense of humour had decided to curse me now?

My Review:

This tasty tale was laced together with considerable angst, which ordinarily is not my jam, but I didn’t seem to mind as the characters were so well inhabited and endearing that I was willing to hang in there with them. The writing was absorbing, poignant, easy to follow, thoughtfully and perceptively parsed, and well-paced. L.H. Cosway has mad skills.

About the Author

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L.H. Cosway lives in Dublin, Ireland. Her inspiration to write comes from music. Her favourite things in life include writing stories, vintage clothing, dark cabaret music, food, musical comedy, and of course, books. She thinks that imperfect people are the most interesting kind. They tell the best stories. L.H. is represented by Louise Fury at The Bent Agency.

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Tawna lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, stepkids, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets. She loves hiking, snowshoeing, standup paddleboarding, and inventing excuses to sip wine on her back porch. She can peel a banana with her toes and loses an average of twenty pairs of eyeglasses per year. To find out more about Tawna and her books, visit www.tawnafenske.com.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I roll my eyes so hard I see spots.

I’ve never been a particularly touchy person, but something about Rylie has me constantly reaching for him like I’m a plant and he’s the sun.

My Review:

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this book as much as I did, as I had a hard time finding anything likable about the female main character; she was caustic and rather vile, and my distaste for her in the first half of the book was palpable. But she came around, and so did I. The primary and secondary characters were authentic and well-drawn, and realistically flawed. The writing was well-paced, well-honed, easy to follow, cleverly amusing, and smoking hot. The storylines kept me engaged and interested, even when I was annoyed and exasperated with Eva. I truly loved the ending beyond measure – girl-power!

Mazey Eddings is a bestselling author, dentist, and (most importantly) stage mom to her cats, Yaya and Zadie. She can most often be found reading romance novels under her weighted blanket and asking her husband to bring her snacks. She’s made it her personal mission in life to destigmatize mental health issues and write love stories for every brain. With roots in Ohio and Philadelphia, she now calls North Carolina home.

The All-Inclusive
 (The Jilted Brides Honeymoon Club Book 3)
by Tawna Fenske

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A sweet little virgin left at the altar by her brooding alpha hero.
Such a trite tale, right?
But it happened to me, so I’m ready to blow up the whole damn fairytale.
That’s not all I’ll be blowing, if you catch my drift.
Yes, I just made a sex joke. So what?
I’m done being the good girl.
My besties came to the Jilted Brides Honeymoon Club and had their wildest fantasies fulfilled.
Sign me up for the same, please.
So what if my only real fantasy was marrying my hot Navy SEAL sweetheart?
I still don’t get why he swears that would ruin my life.
Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?
Screw judgment.
I’m here at this exclusive, luxury resort with a menu of explicit choices
And dozens of men eager to satisfy my curiosity.
There’s even a package for virgins like me.
But what happens when the only man I’ve loved storms in to claim me for himself?
My real-life military hero has something to get off his chest.
And he’s got his hands all over mine.
But the secret he’s hidden so well all these years has the power to change us forever.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

You know it’s Portland when you have to specify which vegan strip club.

My Review:

 

Holy scorched sheets, this missive was atomically hot! This is the final installment of the series, and it was on fire from beginning to end; my Kindle was sweating, and so was I. There were multiple well-paced and relevant storylines with the plot featuring a dumped, repressed, chastity culture virgin bride who had been saving herself for her Marine fiancé/childhood sweetheart, who BTW, had been sampling a variety of wares elsewhere. Sparks flew, romance bloomed, snarky repartee was flung about, family issues were dealt with, and all had a much-anticipated and highly desired happy ending. Sigh, if only real life ran as smoothly as this was written.

About the Author 

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When Tawna Fenske finished her English lit degree at 22, she celebrated by filling a giant trash bag full of romance novels and dragging it everywhere until she’d read them all. Now she’s a RITA-nominated, USA Today bestselling author who writes humorous fiction, risqué romance, and heartwarming love stories with a quirky twist. Publishers Weekly has praised Tawna’s offbeat romances with multiple starred reviews and noted, “There’s something wonderfully relaxing about being immersed in a story filled with over-the-top characters in undeniably relatable situations. Heartache and humor go hand in hand.”

Tawna lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, stepkids, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets. She loves hiking, snowshoeing, standup paddleboarding, and inventing excuses to sip wine on her back porch. She can peel a banana with her toes and loses an average of twenty pairs of eyeglasses per year. To find out more about Tawna and her books, visit www.tawnafenske.com.

Favorite Quotes:

The morning is overcast. The air tastes like ocean and electricity.

Time passes. The sun moves like it has somewhere better to be.

My Review:

This tense and evocatively written missive had me tied up in knots from beginning to end. Britney King has mastered her craft and possesses hypnotically strong word voodoo. I know this for a fact as each time I resumed my perusal, I quickly tumbled back into the characters’ vortex and often found myself deeply disturbed while clenching my teeth, gripping my Kindle like a vise, and sitting hunched with my shoulders to my ears.

Yet I was riveted, as if entranced, and couldn’t stop reading this wickedly twisted tale, even if I’d wanted to… which I didn’t… and I worry what that says about me… I used to be so nice…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Despite their advantages, rich people were rarely ever cool, though they spent huge amounts of money trying to achieve it. And cool people were rarely rich because they were lazy, and part of being cool is not giving a f*. But rich people and cool people often interact because each has what the other wants.

He thought laws were made for people who weren’t smart enough to figure out how to break them.

Alex could feel his hands shaking; it felt like his blood had been replaced by some poisonous liquid made out of a combination of self-hatred and shame.

…her only plan was not to make any plans. To sleep late and keep the workouts light and go to the movies and take long walks and eat a little more than she should and drink a little more than she should and allow herself the beauty of boredom, the joy of unproductivity, the pleasure of being still.

My Review:

I fell into this cleverly penned tale and found it evocatively detailed, cunningly paced, highly entertaining, and delightfully snarky. I do loves me some witty snark, and this crafty scribbler has been quite gifted and generous with sprinkling it throughout his characters’ encounters and inner musings. The characters themselves are reprehensible, selfish, snobbish, and deeply flawed; in other words, realistically depicted for most of the upper class.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

“Sometimes you have to fight bad behavior with bad behavior. They won’t understand they did anything wrong if you take the high road.” She motions toward herself. “Come on. Take the low road with me.”

“You’re diabolical,” I tell her. “Evil overlord in the making.” She shrugs, looking pleased, even though it wasn’t a compliment. “It’s a gift.”

That was dinner? I thought it was a science experiment.

One of the things about living in a small town is you never have to deliver bad news, because everyone’s already heard it.

“Is he bad in bed?” she asks, then lowers her voice. “Does he have a micropenis?” Her question jars me enough that I stop crying. “You think that’s why I’m upset?” “I’d cry if my boyfriend had a micropenis,” Sydney says with a smirk.

My Review:

I gleefully bounced in my chair with unbridled delight as I read this highly amusing tale. The endearing characters were clever and quirky, and the author’s wit sparkled like a glitter ball. The emotional tone was well-balanced and hit all the feels between hits of giggle-snort worthy humor. I adore Allie Winters, her word voodoo is strong.