I may have slightly burned my beans 😭 but nothing Long's words can't help soothe.
I wasn't the biggest fan of the tastes going on here but again, slightly burned beans lol.
Sunday, August 22, 2021
Reading Update: 20%
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Review: Battle Royal
Battle Royal by Lucy ParkerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
3.5 stars
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Sylvie Fairchild was a contestant on a baking competition show, Operation Cake, where her tasty and whimsical bakes clashed with the uptight and proper style of judge Dominic De Vere. She was about to make the finals when her unicorn cake exploded and Dominic got a hoof to the head, he not so surprisingly voted her off. Four years later she has a patisserie shop called Sugar Fair right across the street from established De Vere's and has been asked to be one of the judges on Operation Cake. The friction is still there between Sylvie and Dominic but with the grumpy and sunshine clash, there is a gruff and soft attraction. With a reality show to judge, a royal wedding contract to win, bakery espionage, family drama, and other life realities to live, Sylvie and Dominic keep finding themselves drawn by outside and inside influences.
And just for that instant, beneath the unflappable chill, she saw a flash of startlement and something...else.
Battle Royal is first in the Palace Insiders series and that is why I'm going to cut it a little slack on the amount of story here; a new universe for readers is being built. Usually, romances seem to want to build the focus to be the destination, our leads finally being in love. This is much more about the journey. Yes, our leads have a romance you follow, see build, and eventually find their way to love but the destination doesn't have that firework or finally feeling to it, it's much more subdued. Now, the journey, that is where all the emotion is but again, kind of subdued and your enjoyment of this story and it's characters is going to depend on if you like quiet everyday (in the fiction sense) falling in love.
Powerful chemistry was quite a ride.
The beginning with Sylvie's cake exploding delivered on what I usually think of a cartoon cover, rom-com, but the rest of the story had a more mature feel with an almost ache to the tone. The pace is considerate, with the gradual growing closer Sylvie and Dominic as they spend time together and get to know one another. However, most of the story has the two leads in their heads, I missed some of their connection because of this, I wanted to see the thoughts and feelings expressed outwardly towards each other instead of being told the inner thoughts. There was a moment around the 50% mark that had Dominic texting Sylvie to tell her he was going to be late and making sure she was ok, sort of outwardly showing but we only get a little of Sylvie's thoughts on him checking in. I wanted to “see” them connecting more, instead of mentally getting the feelings from them.
It was probably slightly perverse to feel that growing warmth in his chest as she directed her list of grievances at him.
And yet here they were.
The more Sylvie stared daggers at him, the more inclined he was to pull her in.
I mentioned how there was a lot of story and if some threads don't come back in some way in the series, I'm going to want some edited out even more so that the focus could have been more on Sylvie and Dominic. The reality show they're judging actually shocked me in how much it wasn't in the story, what really took over the time was the investigation work they do in order to win the bid for a royal wedding cake. The royal wedding has them investigating the favored uncle of the princess engaged and this leads to a mystery romance tale involving the uncle, that I thought stole too much of the spotlight. I can see how it ties into the princess and her own situation but again, not the main couple I'm here for, but just expect a sort of secondary couple romance to steal story from our main couple. Sylvie also deals with a rival managing to somehow copy her recipes and frankly, I think this whole thread could have been cut-out, especially the two main characters involved in it. Unless these characters matter latter in the series, they honestly added nothing to this story and, again, detracted from the main couple. There's some family and childhood trauma from Dominic's side but I thought this padded his character nicely and I loved his younger sister Pet (Petunia). There was also some emotional pull from issues involving Sylvie's childhood friend but I wish we could have known him more and seen them together more to pad that thread, definitely could have pulled the rival bakery thread in favor of this.
However, the feeling of absolute faith that when the cracks started to appear, someone else would be crouching at your side, helping to bail out the water, and that you could do the same for them---
Pretty indescribable.
There were a couple times in the beginning that I thought Dominic sunk into grumpy too far but when we get his childhood background, his cold exterior is given depth and the author plants enough little actions by him, like him always watching to make sure Sylvie got to her car late at night safe, even before they start to become friends, to let me warm up to him. This also might be an odd thing to mention but I liked, what I as an American identify as Englishisms (thank you Great British Bake Off for giving me a leg up here), it gave a sense of authenticity that I feel maybe gets changed or edited for American audiences.
So lightly, so easily, she could say things that he'd never forget.
I've read other books by this author and they have a tone and style that I like, it quietly reaches me, not unlike a Sonali Dev or Courtney Milan. This cover says rom-com to me but I would warn people to not go in looking for that tone. This was a mature, more about the journey than the destination, subdued, and quietly reaches you. It veered towards too many threads but maybe they'll play a part in the series. Sylvie and Dominic live up to their grumpy and sunshine and that is what I showed up for. The next in the series looks to be about Dominic's sister Pet and a royal personal protection officer. Y'all, this huge hulking quiet PPO gives tiny bright spirited Pet a teddy bear. SIGN ME UP.
Friday, August 13, 2021
Reading Update: Page 1
I really enjoyed London Celebrities, so I'm so excited to see where Lucy Parker takes this new series. Especially since the Great British Bakeoff on Netflix made 2019-20 bearable for me
🧁🍰🍩
Happy weekend, all!
1/2 teaspoon of mint extract worked great
And to let you in on a secret, the green color comes from Spinach!
Review: A Duke Worth Fighting For
A Duke Worth Fighting For by Christina BrittonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
1.7 stars
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
“Mrs. Kitteridge, are you proposing I hire you on as my...matchmaker?”
Third in the Isle of Synne series, A Duke Worth Fighting For brings together Margery, we meet her in book one as she's friends with the heroine, and newcomer Daniel, the Duke of Carlisle. I think you could comfortably start here, there's some time devoted to bringing back previous main couples and giving the reader glimpses into their continuing happily ever afters, but this was Margery and Daniel's story.
How did she do it? How did she put him at ease when by all rights he should be riddled with anxiety?
Margery is a widow who lost her husband in Waterloo four years ago and refuses to entertain the idea of love or marriage again because she sees it as a betrayal to their love. Daniel is severely scarred and walks with a limp because of injuries sustained at Waterloo, he was also a second son until his brother died three years ago and has some social anxiety and insecurity due to his appearance. The two are brought together by some conniving by Margery's grandmother and Daniel's mother and a recent attempt to blackmail Margery. Margery receives a letter claiming that her husband died fleeing the battle in Waterloo and if she doesn't pay up 100 pounds, the letter writer will sell the story to the papers. Margery has duke cousins and nobility in the family galore but she was cut-off from her father and had to elope with her husband because he came from simple origins; she doesn't want to have to beg for money. So, when Daniel admits he needs to find a wife but is socially inept, she offers to be his helper in Synne society and help him find a wife before he has to go to London, for the price of 100 pounds.
For one glorious moment he thought he saw a reflection of his own potent desire for her mirrored in her eyes.
With the story parameters set early on, it's only left to the characters to draw the reader in and I struggled with feeling any connections to them. Margery and Daniel felt like Regency paper dolls, they were mixed and matched with the very typical Regency dressing, especially Daniel. Daniel is a duke but this title was window dressing, he gets called “Your Grace” a couple times but any flushing out of responsibilities or powers with it are non-existent. The same with his PTSD from Waterloo and being a former soldier, he has some PTSD episodes but, window dressing. He also comes off very ineffectual, there's quiet, shy, and awkward but for a captain in the army who fought in Waterloo, he came off almost too unsure and bumbling. The only time I thought he showed any signs of life was when he stuck up for himself against his cousin Gregory, who bullied him as a child and now into adulthood and why Daniel wants to marry so Gregory can't inherit.
And then she did the last thing he ever thought she would do: she wound her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
Margery was, fine as a character but still that Regency paper doll. Her storyline of being attracted to Daniel, not wanting to entertain ideas of marrying him because it would be a betrayal to her former husband, but then philosophizing that a short affair would be ok, was, fine. The ending, around 80%, focuses on Margery spending time with her husband's family and dealing with her father, issues I would have liked to have been dealt with much earlier so the ending could focus on her and Daniel. I think there was about 35 pages left when Daniel and Margery reunite but the focus still isn't fully on them when more time is taken up by negating a previous revelation, that was supposed to knock some emotion into the story, and thus, by negating it, I'm left to wonder, what was the point of it.
“Stay with me.”
He dragged in a ragged breath. “You need your rest.”
“I need you.”
Around 35% Daniel is already contemplating marrying Margery, by 50% they've started their affair, around 80% has more focus on Margery working through loving again and her grief over her husband, and then the very ending has a sex scene where Margery finally fully sees Daniels scars, I guess solidifying their love. Margery and especially Daniel he was a late 20s virgin but again, I'm not sure it fit and felt like window dressing were Regency paper dolls where personality traits and elements of their characters were just covered in window dressing. Where was the story, the complexities, the romance? This is the second recent newly published Regency where I found myself searching for anything to take notes on. As I've said, I've read a lot of this sub-genre, so if you're new to Regency and a fan of this series (even though I don't think there was much to the setting of the outside world), then you might enjoy this more than me and like the glimpse of former main couples playing with their children.
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Reading Update: Page 1
I'm a purple gal, so this cover is 💜😍💜
I added an extra tblsp of curry. My partner liked this one but there wasn't something about the taste that didn't jive with me, the soy sauce felt off in it for me :/
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Review: The Wildest Ride
The Wildest Ride by Marcella BellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
3.5 stars
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Tearing folks from their history was one of the ways to break them, so Lil's family had held on to theirs through their land---through cultural hostility, the dust bowl, outright deception, attempts to steal, and everything else that time and life had thrown their way.
After her granddad dies, Lilian Sorrow Island learns that he took out a reverse mortgage on their ranch, Swallowtail, and now that the bereavement period is over, they need to start making payments on the 1.2 million dollar loan. The ranch is barely getting by but her grandma has a plan, have Lil compete in the new PBRA Close Circuit tour, a reality tv rodeo, tournament style, two month competition that will award the all around winner 1 million dollars. Lil competed in the INFR and always dreamed of riding bulls in the PBR but they wouldn't accept women at the time. This is a chance to save her ranch and live out her dream.
Huge, rough, layered, and callused, they were the hands of a man who let go of something only when he was ready to.
The PBRA's most decorated cowboy, AJ Garza, has been on a retirement tour around the world for the last three years. When he learns the organization, CityBoyz, that took him in as a troubled youth, headed by Henry “The Old Man” and one of the best Black cowboys to compete in the PBRA, lost their biggest donor and needs money, he decides to come out of retirement and enter the closed circuit tour to win the prize money for them. Not knowing what to do with his life after rodeo, it's the perfect opportunity to stay in the game. After he watches the new guy, Lil Sorrow, get the highest score on the first competition of bronc riding, he's excited for the first real competition he's had in years. When the new guy turns out to be a woman, AJ finds himself drawn for a new reason.
She needed to take herself in hand. She had strict rules, both about rodeo cowboys and mixing work with pleasure, and all of them could be summed up in one word: no.
The Wildest Ride, is first in debut author Marcella Bell's Closed Circuit series and had the a love letter to the west feel of a Beverly Jenkins and the family and friends cast of characters and sexy loving moments of a Lori Foster. The setting and elements of rodeo are truly the fabric that becomes the backbone to the story, especially in the beginning. It's not really until 35% that the romance kicks in between Lil and AJ but I loved how the rodeo/ranching elements gave the story an overall stripped down feel.
Lil has lived the majority of her life on the ranch, raised by her grandparents after her teenage mom refused to name the cowboy who got her pregnant and then ends up dying when Lil is four years old. The pain of feeling abandoned has made her develop trust issues, especially with men. Her grandma and the other two who help on the ranch, cousin Tommy and ranch hand Piper, are the only people she lets in. Lil is our grumpy and AJ is our sunshine. AJ grew-up in Houston and after his father died, he had anger issues that had his mom sending him to CityBoyz, an inner city youth program, there he learned a love for rodeo and a natural talent for it. He's thirty-six to Lil's twenty-seven and has vast experience in dealing with the press and whole song and dance involved with a reality tv show. Lil grew-up watching AJ and had a crush on him but she's the real rancher to his “city boy” and AJ still has some things to learn in that arena. They constantly are neck and neck in the competitions, keeping them aware of each other.
She sighed in his ear, whispering back, willing to be open and soft in another language, “Apurate, vaquero, he estado esperandote a toda mi vida.”
The closed circuit tournament worked to keep these two together but pace of the competition felt a little disjointed at times. The competition isn't the main focus, it intermittently gets focused on and for it being the glue that holds our couple together, it never fully fit right for me. What I did enjoy a lot was how easy, sweet, and sexily taunting AJ could be with Lil and how her grumpiness delighted and egged him on. Lil's tough but AJ teasingly coaxing her out of her cocoon created some sweet scenes. There's not a ton of bedroom scenes but the author takes her time when they are there and I found them all the better for it, more of that stripped down feeling.
He took a step closer and she tilted her chin up to keep eye contact. “Stop this foolishness,” he said. “Take me home with you.”
Something sharp and scared flashed through her eyes but was gone in an instant. “You won't stay.”
He leaned in bringing his lips closer to hers, and she strained up toward him, even if she wasn't aware of it.
“I will.” He spoke softly, his mouth only inches from hers.
This felt more like a story, an experience, that I let myself sink into, there's substantial aspects to capture your heart and mind; Lil's Muscogee heritage, family drama, history with INFR and PBRA, and Lil being a woman competing. Individually Lil outshone AJ for me a bit but he's what made them shine as a couple. There were some conversations that I thought were repeated and slowed down the story in the middle, a late reveal that didn't get the time needed to feel emotionally satisfying, and a, somewhat, abrupt ending. This is first in a series, so the CityBoyz storyline is probably going to be the continuing connection but for how heedful the rest of the story was paced, it made the ending feel rushed. This was an impressive debut that felt stripped down in its quietness, I felt the blood, sweat, tears, and skill in rodeo and ranching, my eyes watered out of nowhere with Lil fighting to remind everyone that “girls had try”, and the grumpy/sunshine romance delivered the sweet. There are a couple secondary characters that I'm hoping will get their own books in this series (Piper, please!), I'm pretty sure I caught a tease for AJ's friend Diablo and the rodeo queen Sierra and I'll definitely be in line to read them. Also, make sure to read the author's note at the end.
Monday, August 9, 2021
50%
This has a cowboy in a low-slung towel, alert!
Sunday, August 8, 2021
Reading Update: 5%
Happy Sunday, everyone!
Having some late lunch, having trouble looking away from this cover, and ready to read about cowboys 🤠
Loved the dressing, seasoned chicken and chickpeas with BBQ seasoning
Review: Pirate's Golden Promise
Pirate's Golden Promise by Lynette VinetMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
This was originally published in 1988 under the title “Love's Golden Promise” and reissued for Kindle in 2013. I'm guessing “Love's” was changed to “Pirate's” because of keyword, algorithm shenanigans. A ship on the cover or Pirate in the title, well...
Y'all, within the first six or so paragraphs I was introduced to this man who loved this girl, had to marry her older sister for money, keeps the younger sister as mistress and impregnates her (don't worry older sis was impregnated 8yrs ago), the sister's father disinherits everyone because he's not about mess (don't blame him), the younger sister dies in childbirth but not before making the sister impregnator (I know this isn't a word) promise to raise her daughter as if she was legitimate, making everyone lie and say the older sister is the baby's mother.
We get a little bit of Cinderella with the sister imprenator doting on his illegitimate daughter, thus making the wife and legitimate daughter hate her. In fact, when illegitimate baby Wynter was born, her half-sister Lucy, who was SEVEN at the time, had this to say:
Leaning over the sleeping Wynter, she said, “One day your prettiness won’t be enough, little baby. I’ll make sure of it.”
We fast forward to Wynter's seventeenth birthday, get introduced to the stable boy Fletcher who is her bestfriend and in love with her and learn that Wynter Loves a Lord Adam. At her birthday party she learns that Adam is going to ask for hand in marriage, he shows a little bit of his rapey side, and she gets rescued from a Captain Cort Van Linden. The captain is a bit too Man for this seventeen year old and even though she gets lost making out with him, she flounces away.
Scorned wife ain't having Wynter marry Lord Adam because her daughter Lucy wants him and wife wants his inheritance, he's their second cousin and got the inheritance that no mess daddy refused to give to daughters. She threatens to tell everyone about Wynter's illegitimacy but sister impregnator ruins her plans by telling Wynter, who is shocked but fairly whatevs to the situation. Wynter also tells Lord Adam who doesn't care as long as her money is still intact, he got bills to pay.
Anyway, as dads are wont to do in these situations, he dies and forgot to (or is evil stepmothers at work?) write in Wynter into his will, as she is illegitimate, Lucy stands to inherit everything. Lucy gets the money and then gets Lord Adam, because bills but Adam wants to keep Wynter as his mistress. Wynter doesn't want to repeat history so she looks for an escape.
She first turns to Captain Van Linden, they had another make-out shesh when she was out riding and asks him for money to buy her childhood home. He says sure but she has to go with him on his ship for one year. “For one year you’re to sail on my ship, eat beside me, share my quarters at night, and I don’t mean only to sleep there. The life of a sea captain is very lonely.” Her fear of his too much Man and that Ah-mazing offer has her refusing him in only the way a seventeen year old bodice ripper girl can.
She then turns to her stable boy bestie Fletch who has a plan to travel to America as an indentured servant and make his fortune. Remember how I said the author took the time to change the title, well, I wish they had taken the time to go back through this story and edit it because, I kid you not, this is a line Fletch says: Do you know there are slaves in Virginia? Have you ever heard of such a thing? But, aye, if one needs slaves to be rich, I’ll get me some.”
What in the holy hell??? Wynter ends up marrying this paragon of virtue and they travel to America. ***Spoiler***Fletch ends up dying, so he's pretty much a throw away character, this line did not need to be in here and why the hell it was included, I'll never know.***End Spoiler***
On the ship to America, it gets attacked by pirates and guess who the pirate is! Captain Van Linden.
So, Fletch gets conveniently disposed of, I didn't cry for him, and then a storm hits, Wynter ends up banging her head and gets the goofiest form of amnesia I have ever read. She thinks she and the Captain are married. Y'all. This was around the 30% mark and after all this, I just started skim/speed reading. Van Linden makes everyone go along with her married thing, he Loves her, I guess??
Captain Morgan gets thrown into the story, part two takes us to New Amsterdam, every dude wants Wynter, Van Linden is a gentle pirate, they have a baby, people try to break up their marriage, and basic bodice ripper drama ensues for most of part 2. There really wasn't any depth to characters, the beginning, especially felt like everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off and part two was more bodice ripper family drama.
Verdict: not a hidden gem.
View all my reviews
View all my reviews
Saturday, August 7, 2021
Reading Update: Page 1
It's Kindle Freebie month!
I have a, umm, less than judicial one-click decision making for Kindle freebies.
Random Number Generator has decided to start this wild ride with a pirate book. Ahoy, mateys!
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