Book Review: "Always Only You" by Chloe Liese

It’s been several years since I first discovered her books, but I am utterly obsessed with Chloe Liese. Her Bergman Brothers series is so fantastic—full of love, serious steam, banter, family, and they each feature a character living with physical, emotional, or neurodiverse issues. Yet they never condescend or create an unfair power dynamic.

In Book 2 of the series (I also read Book 5, and I’m not apologizing for reading that one out of order), Ren is a successful pro hockey player. He’s also absolutely gorgeous, almost always smiling, willing to take being a role model seriously, and he is fiercely devoted to his family.

While Frankie, social media coordinator for Ren’s team, definitely appreciates his physical attributes, as a self-proclaimed grump, she can’t understand how someone can be so sunshiny all the time. She takes her job very seriously, and dating a player is certainly off-limits, but how can she be immune to Ren’s charms?

As their friendship starts to take on a more flirtatious tone, both would love to turn it into something more. But as someone on the autism spectrum who also deals with the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, Frankie is afraid to let her guard down and be honest with her feelings, because she knows that her problems will ultimately doom a relationship.

Liese has such a knack for creating complex and appealing characters that you root for, plus her descriptions make me want to see what they’d look like in real life! I loved this book so much, and cannot wait to read Book 3. It almost makes me want to have grown up with six siblings!! (Almost.)

Book Review: "Welcome Home, Stranger" by Kate Christensen

Bleak and emotional, but beautifully written, Welcome Home, Stranger is a story about the scars we bear from our family, the resentments and misunderstandings we never voice, and the feeling that our lives are headed in directions we never wanted or expected.

“There are two ways to look at your family. The first way, the so-called normal way, is that you owe them everything just because you’re related. But I believe that you owe them nothing even though you’re related. It’s not obligatory, it’s voluntary.”

Rachel is an award-winning environmental journalist who is more comfortable with research and science than interaction. When her estranged mother dies, she returns home to Maine for the first time in a number of years, she’s hit with a wall of unpleasant memories and the resentment of her sister Celeste, who cared for their mother in her last days.

Both sisters must come to terms with the loss of a woman who viewed her daughters as competition for her and pitted them against one another. Rachel is also dealing with the inevitable loss of her job, reuniting with an old boyfriend, and a health crisis for her ex-husband. Meanwhile, Celeste also wants more out of the life she’s feeling stifled in.

For a relatively short book, the pacing was a little slow. There’s so much crisis and angst in this book and very little to truly be joyful about, so it was difficult to read at times. But ultimately, I think the message the book conveyed was that there is always hope.

Book Review: "How We Named the Stars" by Andrés N. Ordorica

“I thought about how, for so much of my life, I’d survived by staying quiet, making myself small enough to fly under the radar. I decided then that I no longer wanted to be quiet. I wanted to be loud and colorful and every piece of myself at any one time.”

Daniel is a scholarship student at a prestigious college in upstate New York. He is the first in his family to go to college, and the pressure to live up to the hopes and expectations of his parents and grandfather, who left Mexico before he was born. Daniel is also ready to be the person he’s always known he should be, someone confident and comfortable with his sexuality.

It’s not long before their easy friendship evolves into something sexual, but Sam isn’t quite able to give Daniel all he wants from a relationship. At the end of freshman year they go their separate ways, and Daniel is without Sam. And when an unspeakable tragedy occurs, Daniel must figure out how to cope. So he spends the summer in Mexico with his grandfather, learning more about his late uncle Daniel, for whom he was named and who, it seems, was quite similar to him.

This was gorgeous, emotional, and so moving. It’s incredible that this is a debut novel. I honestly hadn't heard of this book until shortly before I picked it up, and I'm so thankful for that! I fell in love with everything it made me think and feel.

Book Review: "Emergency Contact" by Lauren Layne and Anthony Ledonne

It's Christmas in New York, a time almost everyone loves. Except Katherine, an exceptionally ambitious attorney, who is hoping this will be the year all of her hard work comes to fruition and she'll be made a partner. Trying to dodge the tourists clogging the streets, she winds up sustaining a concussion and getting rushed to the hospital.

But that's not the worst part, as when she wakes up in the hospital she discovers that she never updated her emergency contact information, so her ex-husband Tom gets the call. And as much as the end of their marriage was rancorous, Tom is a good guy, and wants to be sure that Katherine is okay. When the doctors say she can't be left alone for 48 hours, and needs help dealing with a wound in her back, the only solution is that she must travel with Tom to his family's home in Chicago for Christmas. While Katherine misses Tom's family (and they miss her), the last thing she wants is to be stuck with him, especially when she learns he's planning to propose to his girlfriend on Christmas Eve, which is a family tradition.

Wouldn't you know it, though? Tom and Katherine confront obstacle after obstacle trying to get from New York to Chicago. Everything that can go wrong will, and Katherine is desperate to be available in case her boss calls to promote her to partner. While tensions run high as the two replay old arguments that led to their divorce, Katherine tries to be as helpful as possible in helping Tom get home in time to propose. But of course, the more time they spend together, the more their old feelings for one another ignite. What's more possible: a second chance at love, or a completely fresh start?

Lauren Layne has become an auto-buy author for me, and I love the way she balances romance, humor, and banter, and she creates really memorable characters. In Emergency Contact, she teamed up with her real-life husband (and high school sweetheart), comedian Anthony Ledonne, and the end result was definitely both "rom" and "com." Can't wait for her next book!

Book Review: "Listen for the Lie" by Amy Tintera

Maybe I needed some time away from reading thrillers to appreciate them, because this month I have read some fantastic ones! Many thanks to Celadon Books for the advance copy of this one!

Several years ago following a wedding, Lucy is found wandering around, covered in blood, and her best friend Savvy is dead. Lucy has no memory of what happened but her family and much of her hometown is convinced that she murdered Savvy. With no way to prove her innocence (or guilt), Lucy heads to Los Angeles to start a new life.

And then her purported involvement in Savvy’s death becomes the topic of a true crime podcast. The host seems pretty convinced of Lucy’s guilt. When she returns home for the first time since the murder, nearly everyone agrees. But when she meets Ben, the handsome (and immensely smug) podcast host, she’s determined to help him find the truth—even if it proves her guilt.

As she struggles to remember what happened that night, she finds that no one has been entirely honest about what they know or what they saw. While painful memories are dredged up, there’s still enough uncertainty for Lucy to wonder if she might really be guilty.

This was such a fantastic book. Lucy is snarky and flawed and amazing, and there are so many times that I really had no idea what the ending would be. You will definitely want to read this!

The book publishes 3/5.

Book Review: "The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue

I’ve been wanting to read this since it came out last year, and I’m so glad I finally did. What a great book!

Rachel is a university student in Cork city who takes a job at a bookstore. It is there she meets James, who is effortlessly funny and always good for a laugh or even a shoulder to cry on. It’s not long before they become inseparable best friends, moving in together and helping each other through the everyday angst in their lives.

When Rachel develops a crush on Fred Byrne, one of her professors, it is James who comes up with a scheme by which she can seduce him. But things don’t work out the way they planned, and events are set into motion that have a ripple effect on all of their lives, as well as the life of Deenie, Fred’s wife.

The Rachel Incident mostly takes place in the late 2000s and early 2010s, as Ireland deals with the recession as well as the fight for abortion rights. At times it flashes forward to the present, with Rachel’s narration giving some clues to the future, but leaving most of it for you to unfold.

There’s nothing quite like the angst and stress of your early 20s, navigating love, sex, relationships, career plans, and family. This book so accurately captures those emotions, the drunken nights, the arguments over nothing, the fear you’ll be left behind by life and love. It’s so beautifully written, and though it is more of a slow-burn, character-driven novel, I felt very invested in the story.

Book Review: "Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix" by Gabe Cole Novoa

As many of you know, I love a good retelling, and boy, did I absolutely love this one! This book is part of a series called Remixed Classics, in which authors from marginalized backgrounds reinterpret classic works through their own cultural lens to subvert the overwhelming cishet, white, and male canon. (Two years ago, Self-Made Boys, a retelling of The Great Gatsby, was in my top 5 favorite books.)

Oliver Bennet longs for a life different than the one he is stuck in, a life away from gowns, corsets, and the pressures of society. Because Oliver is known to the majority of his family and friends as Elizabeth, and he is expected to dance at balls, flirt coquettishly, and act like a lady, in order to attract a suitable husband. Oliver has no desire to live his life as someone he is not; he cannot imagine life married to someone who wants to suppress his true identity and his spirit.

While his mother is desperate to marry off all of her daughters, Oliver resists every attempt. Sometimes he is able to sneak out of his house dressed in the way he feels most comfortable, as a young gentleman. And on one of his outings, he runs into Darcy, the handsome young man who is a close friend of Bingley, of whom Oliver's sister Jane is enamored. Oliver is shocked that Darcy is sensitive, intelligent, and enjoyable company, especially since he was rude to "Elizabeth" at a ball.

The more time Oliver spends with Darcy, the more he starts to believe he might be able to have the life—and love—he truly wants. But as some suitors become more persistent, and even threaten to reveal Oliver's true identity to his family, he has to decide whether to follow his heart and risk disgracing his family, or living the life that society expects "Elizabeth" to.

I am a huge fan of Pride & Prejudice and this "remix" hit all of the right notes. Gabe Cole Novoa did such an incredible job with this book. My heart swelled, I got teared up, and immediately needed to watch the film version of the original book, in which Colin Firth looked immensely delicious. Many thanks to NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for an advance copy of the book!