Reviews: MIXED SIGNALS & BRUTAL PRINCE
Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Apologies if you tried to visit my blog this past week and it was down. I’ve been dealing with some technical issues off and on this week and it’s always challenging to troubleshoot when you’re not super tech savvy. I finally reached out to my host provider yesterday and hope that the problem is now resolved. Anyway, back to the books. Today I’m sharing my thoughts on two very different romances, one sweet and one dark. The main thing these two books have in common is that they are both being reissued by new publishers.
Mixed Signals (Lovelight) Goodreads
Author: B.K. Borison
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
Publisher: Berkley
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Mixed Signals is the third installment in B.K. Borison’s Lovelight Farms series and it might just be my favorite yet.
Layla Dupree is the best baker in town, but while she may win when it comes to baked goods, she is having no luck whatsoever when it comes to her love life. When we meet her, her latest date is such a disaster that the jerk actually ghosts her at the restaurant and sticks her with the bill. Layla is an absolute sweetheart and all she really wants is a nice guy who treats her right and makes her heart flutter. What she doesn’t realize is that guy not only exists, but he has been coming to her bakery every day and ordering a single croissant just so that he has an excuse to interact with her as often as possible.
Caleb Alvarez has been in love with Layla forever but has never made his feelings known. He is also an absolute golden retriever of a book boyfriend. He’s currently working as a substitute teacher because he actually got fired from the police department for being too nice, haha. I really adored this guy and thought he was perfect for Layla from the moment we meet him. When this story opens, Caleb runs into Layla after her disastrous date. They chat, and after he shares with her that his love life is also a mess, the two of them come up with a plan to fake date for a month. Caleb’s goal is to renew Layla’s faith in men, and in exchange, Layla will rate Caleb’s dating game and give him pointers as needed.
Caleb and Layla’s time together is incredible. The entire time they’re going through with this platonic fake dating plan, it’s pretty clear they have amazing chemistry and that it gets harder and harder to fight that attraction. We already know Caleb doesn’t want to, but what about Layla? Isn’t Caleb exactly the kind of guy she has been dreaming of?
The perfect blend of sweet and spicy, Mixed Signals is a delightful small town, friends to lovers romance that will have you both swooning and smiling as you watch this sweetest of couples find their way to one another. I loved coming back to Inglewild and Lovelight Farms again, and Layla and Caleb’s story just captured my whole heart. I really hope we get more books in this heartwarming series. 4 STARS
Brutal Prince (Brutal Birthright, #1) Goodreads
Author: Sophie Lark
Publication Date: July 25, 2023
Publisher: Sourcebooks Bloom Books
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Brutal Prince is the first book in Sophie Lark’s Brutal Birthright series. This was my first time reading a mafia romance so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I was not at all disappointed.
The story follows Aida Gallo and Callum Griffin. They are sworn enemies from rival mafia families, but when a mishap involving Aida sneaking into the Griffin home leads to an accidental fire and destruction of priceless property, the two families decide that the best way Aida can make amends for her mistakes is to enter into a fake marriage with Callum and thus build an alliance between the two families. Everyone seems thrilled with the idea, that is except for Aida and Callum, who would much rather kill each other.
It took me a while to warm up to Callum. He’s stiff, arrogant, and ruthless, and he’s downright abusive to Aida in their early scenes. I liked Aida right away though. She’s fierce, scrappy, and much smarter than her own family gives her credit for being. She also doesn’t put up with any of Callum’s abuse, dishing it back at him as fast as he can dole it out. Even though it’s a bit darker than what I’m used to reading when I read romance, it was a wild ride and I did love to watch the sparks fly between then and I loved it even more once their relationship started to change.
I was expecting violence since this is a mafia romance, and while there is some, it was milder than what I had braced myself for, which was good for me. What I wasn’t expecting though was for the story to be so fun, like I actually found myself laughing out loud at some of the hilarious pranks these two pulled on each other in the beginning of this forced relationship.
I’m not entirely convinced that mafia romance is for me since I’m a rom com girl at heart, but I cannot deny that Brutal Prince entertained me from start to finish and that I’m most definitely interested in continuing the series. 4 STARS
Top Ten Tuesday – Books With One-Word Titles
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Books With One-Word Titles. One-word titles often impress me because it seems nearly impossible to perfectly capture the essence of the hundreds and hundreds of pages they’ve written with a single word and yet some of the most powerful book titles I can think of are just a single word. I’ve already shared some of my favorite one-word titles in an earlier TTT post so today I thought I’d share some of the ones I found on my TBR. I tried not to pick any that were just the main character’s name, but instead chose ones I thought conveyed the overall vibe of the book.
One-Word Book Titles That are on my TBR
* * * * *
Do any of these titles stand out to you?
Reviews: THE DANE OF MY EXISTENCE & YOU, WITH A VIEW
Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I took a few days off from work and used the time to get caught up on my sleep and to dive into some wonderful reads. Today I’m back to share my thoughts on two of my favorite reads from this past week. As you can probably guess from the title and cover of the first one, it’s full of Shakespearean goodness, and the second one is a gem of a book that I still cannot believe is actually a debut.
The Dane of My Existence (A Bard's Rest Romance, #2) Goodreads
Author: Jessica Martin
Publication Date: July 4, 2023
Publisher: Berkley
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Jessica Martin’s For the Love of the Bard was one of my favorite summer reads last year so I was excited to get my hands on a copy of her latest novel, The Dane of My Existence. This latest novel takes us back to the charming, Shakespeare-obsessed town of Bard’s Rest, New Hampshire, and reunites us with the close-knit Barnes family. I adored this town and this family, so it was great to be back with them, although the focus this time is on oldest sister, Portia, who we briefly met in the first book.
Portia left Bard’s Rest years ago to pursue a career as a big shot corporate attorney. She has returned home because she’s currently taking a company-mandated sabbatical before she moves to Boston to manage one of her firm’s satellite offices. Portia considers herself an “ice queen” as she is career-driven and has little interest in relationships and/or dating. She’s also much less enthusiastic about Shakespeare than her family and most of the other residents of Bard’s Rest. I’ll admit that it took a few chapters for me to really warm up to her, but once I did, I loved her, especially when she realizes that there’s a real estate developer threatening Bard’s Rest and goes to the mat to try to save the town.
I also very much enjoyed Benjamin Dane, the hot shot commercial developer Portia goes toe to toe with. She fully expects to take him down with little trouble, but he surprises her by being equally skilled when it comes to strategizing and outmaneuvering the competition. At first I really wanted to hate him since he poses a threat to this charming little town, but it becomes clear early on that there’s a lot more to Ben Dane than meets the eye. I loved watching Portia and Ben verbally spar, but I also liked it when he catches her off guard because he isn’t the arrogant alpha-male she was expecting. Watching their relationship evolve from a rivalry to one of trust and openness really made this an enjoyable read for me and I was eager to see if they would get past being on opposite sides of this real estate drama.
Aside from enjoying getting to know Portia better and seeing her fall into a relationship she didn’t see coming, I also just really loved being back in Bard’s Rest. If you’re a Gilmore Girls fan, imagine Stars Hollow but with quirky Shakespeare enthusiasts as residents, loads of fun Shakespearean references and puns sprinkled about, and a huge Shakespeare festival that takes place every year. I loved the town so much and was disappointed to learn that it didn’t really exist in real life because I totally would have visited there!
If you’re in the mood for a fun rivals to lovers romance filled with witty banter, Shakespearean references, and all the small town and close knit family vibes, I highly recommend both For the Love of the Bard and The Dane of My Existence. 4 STARS
You, with a View Goodreads
Author: Jessica Joyce
Publication Date: July 11, 2023
Publisher: Berkley
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
You, With a View by Jessica Joyce follows Noelle, who has recently lost her beloved grandmother, and is still struggling with her grief. When she moves back in with her parents after losing her job, Noelle comes across several decades-old photos of her grandmother and a man who was definitely not Noelle’s grandfather. Tucked in with the photos is a love letter. Noelle becomes obsessed with finding out who this mystery man is and uses the photos and the letter to create a TikTok video in hopes of someone recognizing him. To her shock and amazement, her video goes viral and the grandson of the man in the photos reaches out to her. Noelle is even more shocked when they meet up and the grandson turns out to be Theo, her old high school arch nemesis!
The story had my emotions all over the place because even though I was heartbroken for Noelle as she mourned the loss of her grandmother, I truly laughed out loud as soon as she and Theo reignited their old rivalry. It’s so obvious they have feelings for one another no matter how hard they try to pretend otherwise, so it was a lot of fun watching them finally realize it for themselves. I love a good enemies to lovers story and this one was fantastic!
As much as I loved watching Noelle and Theo and their evolving relationship though, it was Theo’s grandfather Paul who truly grabbed me by the heartstrings. He can see how much Noelle is hurting and offers to show her even more photos of her grandmother and tell her the story of their relationship and how they were planning to elope. When they find an old roadmap of a honeymoon trip Paul and Noelle’s grandmother had planned but never took, Noelle, Paul, and Theo all decide to go on the road trip together.
If you’ve followed my reviews for a while now, you know I love to read road trip stories and this is one of the best ones I’ve ever read. It has plenty of road trip shenanigans that kept me laughing my way through the pages, but it’s also just such a wonderful bonding experience for Noelle, Theo, and Paul. Paul continues to share the story of his relationship with Noelle’s grandmother, this time sharing letters that she had written him. I thought it was beautiful watching that relationship unfold at the same time that we’re watching Noelle and Theo realize their own feelings for one another. For those who like steam in their romance reads, there’s a bit of that as well.
You, With a View is one of the best debut novels I’ve read in a long time. I honestly selected it to read because I loved the cover, but I was truly blown away by the depth of the story inside. It’s one of those wonderful books that will make you laugh, make you cry, and will just wrap you up in a warm hug. I think this one is going to stick with me for a long time. 5 STARS