Romance Reviews: LUCY ON THE WILD SIDE & LIZZIE BLAKE’S BEST MISTAKE

September 19, 2022/18 Comments/by Suzanne

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Mine was super busy as my son is turning 15 this week and we started the celebration this weekend. Hard to believe he’s almost old enough to drive, but here we are! Anyway, I’m back today with a couple of fun romance novels I read and enjoyed recently.

Romance Reviews: LUCY ON THE WILD SIDE & LIZZIE BLAKE’S BEST MISTAKE

Lucy on the Wild Side Goodreads

Author: Kerry Rea

Publication Date: September 13, 2022

Publisher: Berkley Books

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Kerry Rea’s latest novel, Lucy on the Wild Side, follows Lucy Rourke, a primatologist who works closely with a troop of gorillas at the zoo where she works. Lucy is passionate about caring for these gorillas, thinks of them as family, and would love nothing more than to be promoted from junior keeper to a senior keeper position. She’s well on her way to that promotion until an unexpected obstacle lands in her path in the form of a popular wildlife-themed reality TV show and its sexy and charismatic host, Kai Bridges.

Lucy is heading a program where an infant gorilla who lost its entire troop to disease is now being introduced to Lucy’s gorillas in hopes of finding a surrogate mother and being accepted as a new member of their troop. It’s a difficult and delicate operation and Kai has decided he wants to follow Lucy and document the infant gorilla’s journey. There are just two problems: 1) Lucy vomits at even the thought of appearing on camera, and 2) after a contentious run-in with Kai as soon as he arrives at the zoo, Lucy decides she hates him and wants nothing to do with him. With her boss dangling that promotion over her head and telling her she needs to step out of her comfort zone, Lucy caves and agrees to work with Kai.

I adored everything about Lucy. I loved her passion and sense of devotion when it came to caring for the gorillas and I admired her determination with respect to achieving her career goals. I also loved how awkward she could be in social situations because it just made her all the more relatable, not to mention that some of the things she blurts out when she’s nervous are laugh out loud hilarious. I also felt tremendous sympathy for her though, especially when we learn that her celebrity mother wasn’t interested in being a parent and left Lucy to live with her grandmother. Being abandoned like that really did a number on Lucy’s emotions so she’s quite vulnerable and reluctant to let anyone get too close to her.

Even though Lucy hates him from the moment she meets him, Kai is a sweetheart. It’s clear that he is just as passionate about the animals he works with as Lucy is about her gorillas. The more Lucy sees him in action, the more she has to admit to herself that she might have misjudged him. It was so much fun watching Lucy and Kai work together, from those initial super awkward moments to more heartfelt moments as the two of them bond while observing the infant gorilla trying to find her place in this new family. I really loved watching their relationship change and grow, especially as Kai reveals that he has also been dealing with family baggage that has scarred him emotionally. I was rooting for them so hard to find in each other the love, support, and happiness they both deserved so much. And not only did Kai and Lucy have my heart, but so did those gorillas. They made me laugh, they made me cry, and it was easy to see why Lucy loved them so much.

I devoured Kerry Rea’s debut novel The Wedding Ringer in a day when I read it last year and loved every page of it, and I just had the same incredible reading experience with Lucy on the Wild Side. I opened it Saturday morning and by Saturday evening, I was crying happy tears and wishing I had another Rea novel to dive into. What else can I say except that Kerry Rea just flat out writes the kind of books I want to read. 5 STARS

Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2) Goodreads

Author: Mazey Eddings

Publication Date: September 6, 2022

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I adored Mazey Eddings debut novel A Brush with Love so when I heard that Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake was coming out, I couldn’t resist requesting it for review. Lizzie was a fun secondary character in A Brush with Love so I was excited to learn more about her.

When we first meet Lizzie, her life comes across as a chaotic mess. She’s chronically late for her job at a local bakery and once she finally gets there, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether she’ll make it through the day without setting the kitchen on fire. What she lacks in organization, however, she makes up for with her big heart. Lizzie has this bubbly personality and you can’t help but fall in love with her. I adored her from the moment we meet her and I also felt tremendous sympathy for her when she is fired from her job, because it’s clear that her daily struggles are due to ADHD and that she is working to try to control it. The ADHD representation, particularly those day-to-day struggles Lizzie experiences, also felt very realistic and I appreciated how well written it was. My sympathy and love for Lizzie only continued to grow as we learn that her family has never given her the support she needs and that this has led to her feeling that no one will ever love her because she’s just too chaotic and over the top.

Along comes Rake, the sexy Australian businessman Lizzie meets one night at a bar. Lizzie is only looking for a one-night stand but can’t deny that she’s attracted to Rake. Rake, who has also been burned in the love department, is only looking for a good time as well before he heads back to Australia, although he freely admits that he is captivated by Lizzie’s bubbly personality and everything about the way she sees the world around her. Their one night stand turns into two nights, and then thanks to an expired condom, soon after Rake leaves the country, Lizzie realizes she is pregnant. Rake is an easy character to love anyway, but my heart fully melted when Lizzie tells him about the pregnancy and he uproots his entire life to move to America and be a part of this baby’s life and help Lizzie in any way he can. Neither of them wants a relationship but they agree to live together so that they can co-parent.

I just loved everything about Lizzie and Rake together. Their attempts to keep things platonic were amusing, particularly when a popped air mattress awkwardly leads to them having to share a bed. The more they interact with one another and the more they work together to get things ready for the baby, the more it becomes clear how perfect they are for one another, whether they want to be in a relationship or not. And for those who like their romances steamy, Eddings definitely knows how to bring the heat so there are some steamy scenes as well.

I highly recommend Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake to anyone who enjoys romance novels that are filled with humor, heart and heat, and that feature lovable characters who will tug at your heartstrings. 4 STARS

Thriller Thursday Reviews: The Curfew & Watch Out for Her

September 15, 2022/14 Comments/by Sharon

Sharon here with another edition of Thriller Thursday. I hope everyone is having a great week. This week I am reviewing The Curfew by T.M. Logan and Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey. Both were very good reads.

Thriller Thursday Reviews: The Curfew & Watch Out for Her

The Curfew Goodreads

Author: T.M. Logan

Publication Date: March 17, 2022

Publisher: Zaffre

I have enjoyed every book I have read by T.M. Logan and The Curfew was no different. The story follows the Boyd family, Andy, Laura and their children, sixteen-year-old Connor and twelve-year-old Harriet and explores the lengths any parent would go to keep their children safe.

Andy and Laura’s son Connor is a good kid. He gets good grades, has never been in trouble and is always home by curfew, which is why when Connor texted them at midnight on a Saturday night in June that he was home, they didn’t think to check his room and make sure. But Connor was not home. He had gone to the woods to party with four friends. Five teenagers went into the woods, but only four came out. When the police questioned Connor the next day about the missing teen, Connor clammed up and his parents lied and told the police that he was home at midnight. And so sets off the mystery of what happened in the woods and where is the missing teenager.

I loved the mystery of this book. My sleuth brain went right to work trying to figure out what happened. As bits of information were revealed, my suspect pool increased. I did not trust any one and kept flip flopping on what I thought happened and who I thought did it. The book is told from the POV of Andy as he tries to piece together what happened and help his son Connor, who is at the top of the police suspect list. In addition to Andy’s POV, we also get chapters from each of the teenagers that were in the woods that night. I liked having those chapters thrown in, as they gave more information of what was going on and also added to the mystery of what happened.

I loved how realistic Logan wrote the teenagers in this book. They were not all goody two shoes; they each were dealing with things that teenagers do. At first, I was so frustrated with Connor because he would not tell the police or his parents anything and would just get closed off and grumpy and retreat to his bedroom when they tried to push him for answers. But then I thought, that is exactly how a teenager would act.

My favorite character in the book was Harriet. She is on the autism spectrum and even though her parents tried to not get her involved in what was going on, she made sure she was. She loves her brother and wants to do whatever she can to keep him out of trouble. She is an IT expert, and she uses that knowledge to gather information to help Connor. I loved her determination.

The Curfew kept me guessing throughout. T.M. Logan did a great job of slowly increasing the tension and suspense, to an ending that I did not see coming and had me on the edge of my seat. 4 Stars

Watch Out for Her Goodreads

Author: Samantha M. Bailey

Publication Date: April 26, 2022

Publisher: Simon Schuster

While Samantha M. Bailey’s latest novel, Watch Out for Her, is a great psychological thriller, it is also a story about trust and wanting to belong to a family.

The story follows Sarah Goldman and Holly Monroe. Sarah and her husband Daniel hire twenty two-year old Holly to watch their six-year-old son Jacob for the summer. Jacob adores Holly, so Sarah now has the free time to take up photography again, which she loves but had put on hold when Jacob was born. Holly lost her mother when she was a baby, and in Sarah she has found the mother figure she has always longed for. What starts out as a perfect arrangement soon turns into a nightmare that has Sarah, Daniel and Jacob leaving their home in Vancouver and moving to Toronto. Sarah just wants to put the summer behind her and start new. But as soon as they move into their new home, Sarah finds hidden cameras placed all over the house and then she starts getting threatening text messages from an unknown number. Sarah thinks she knows who is behind all this and she will do whatever she has to to keep her family safe.

This book is told in a dual timeline. We get Sarah’s POV in the present as she and her family are trying to settle into their new home in Toronto. Sarah has never been one to trust easily, and after the incident of the past summer, it is even harder for her to trust anyone. Given her trust issues, it also made me not trust anyone. I was suspicious of her overly friendly next-door neighbor and the creepy neighbor across the street. This timeline had me on the edge of my seat.

The second timeline is from the past summer and is told from Holly’s POV. To me this timeline was more laid back as we get the backstory on Holly and the events that lead up to what happened to force Sarah and her family to flee Vancouver. I really did like Holly and had great sympathy for her. Holly only ever wanted to feel like she belonged to a family. Her father and stepmother used her to get wealthy men to back her father’s pharmaceutical company. So when she bonded with Sarah, it felt like the mother she has always wanted and decided she would do anything to keep her found family together.

I liked having the different atmospheres in each timeline. When I was reading Sarah’s timeline I was on high alert and could feel the tension and suspense. And then when I was reading Holly’s timeline, I was able to relax a bit. Yes, there was still suspense but just not as intense.

As the book progressed the tension increased to an ending that had me on the edge of my seat. I did have one thing figured out, but there were a couple of twists that caught me off guard. 3 ½ stars

Top Ten Tuesday: Ahoy Mateys! Ten Books with “Sea” in the Title

September 13, 2022/42 Comments/by Suzanne

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 Geographical Terms in the Title (for example: mountain, island, latitude/longitude, ash, bay, beach, border, canyon, cape, city, cliff, coast, country, desert, epicenter, hamlet, highway, jungle, ocean, park, sea, shore, tide, valley, etc. When I started looking on my shelves for books that fit the topic, I noticed that half the titles I found had the word “sea” in them, so I took that as a sign and set out to find five more “sea” titles. Below is what I came up with.