Review: It Had to Be a Duke

It Had to Be a Duke by Vivienne Lorret
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

“Because her grandson, the Duke of Longhurst, and I are engaged to be married.” 

Verity is the serious, plain, and at almost twenty-six years of age, spinster sister of the Hartley family. Her two younger sisters are beauties and with a scandal that had her father accused of masterminding a swindling deal and older brother that was forced to leave his architecture apprentice job to join a merchant ship, her prospects don't look too inviting. Which is why when her neighbor nemesis is mocking her again, Verity, the staid, responsible one, lies convincingly for the first time about being engaged to the Duke of Longhurst. 

“But it will still be a lie, all the same.” 

“Not for this week. I fully intend to treat you as I would if we were betrothed. Therefore”—his lungs expanded and contracted on a resigned breath—“Miss Hartley, for the next seven days, will you consent to be my betrothed?” 

Magnus is on the brink of finally righting his family's fortune after his father lost it all in the Hartley swindle with a betrothal to the Button King's daughter, Anna Snow. When a rumor reaches London that he is already engaged, Anna's father is, rightly, upset. Magnus promises to get things sorted out within a week and travels to the village that his grandmother and former bestfriend, Truman Hartley's family live. With his grandmother's advice of not looking like the jerk that breaks off the engagement that everyone seems to believe, when he confronts Verity about the lie, they both agree to act engaged for one week, before Verity will break it off. 

He wasn’t drawn to her out of a need to tame her. For some inexplicable reason, she had unleashed something wild inside of him. 

It had to Be a Duke is the start to the new Liar's Club series and with it's light angst and back and forth couple, it was a fun start. When Verity and Magnus are together, which was wonderfully for most of the book, they had an amusing chemistry with Verity pushing Magnus to his brink with either her word play with him or his protective nature over all the scrapes she gets herself into. They pretty much banter throughout the book and while I can see some thinking it goes on too long, I liked how each banter session had Magnus cracking just a little more. He can't let go because he thinks he needs to marry an heiress to refill his estate coffers and allow for his younger brother to come back home and “live the life he was promised” by their father. Magnus is pressured and guilt tripped by his mom and there is still that lingering animosity Magnus has for Verity's father. 

Verity hated the Duke of Longhurst. He was the most maddening, vexing man she had ever had the misfortune to know. 

After the week together in Verity's village, they shared a kiss, Magnus kind of hightails it back to London, still determined to marry his heiress. With some maneuvering by his grandmother, she and Verity go to London and there Magnus can't seem to get away from her, especially when Verity and Anna become good friends. Magnus has his issues and we get a better look at how Verity has her own, feeling like the always forgotten plain one due to men paying more attention to her sisters and a governess who liked to lock her in closets. Verity can't quite believe that Magnus would want her, it's a little comedy of errors when every time they're together Magnus is fighting his attraction and Verity thinks he's fighting the urge to throttle her. 

But, perhaps, he just didn’t want her to feel alone. 

The latter second half has the mystery of what really went down with the swindle deal and we get some danger, suspense, and mystery characters revealed and explained. There is an open door bedroom scene and an ending third act breakup that felt a little forced but I'll accept it because it did eventually lead to a pretty big grin inducing move by Magnus. 

And when she smiled up at him without the slightest degree of maidenly shyness, he knew he was too far gone to resist her. 

There were times where I really enjoyed this and times where I thought it started dragging. I just felt like the story wasn't quite shored up right, this did have a lot of little and big elements outside of the romance and I'm not sure they were structured or laid out cohesively, probably first in a series syndrome. There were plenty of series baiting characters, Anna and revealed mystery character and the story ending with Verity's sister's supposed to be made up betrothed viscount showing up at their house. 

It was just that, somewhere along the way, she had stopped hating him quite so much. And all this not hating him was making her heart ache. 

There was also a desk scene I don't want to forget to mention (Pushing back the chair, he stood in front of her. “You’ve made me waste a lot of ink, I hope you know.”) that was sweet with it's finally dawning on Verity what Magnus' feelings truly are when she finds some of his keepsakes and then steamy when he shows some of those feelings, very smile inducing. Even with some of my complaints, I did just plain enjoy the lighter angst relationship of these two, I'll always love a lead slowly breaking down for another lead.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

New historical romance series! 

Verity is sick of her snooty neighbor, and so, tells a little lie. A little lie claiming to be betrothed to a Duke. 

Verity, not even an Earl but a DUKE?!?! 😂 

Turns out this particular Duke was almost engaged, trying to save his estate from financial ruin. But now that's in jeopardy when it gets around he's already engaged. 

News to him! 

Trying to save his reputation and estate, he finds the little liar, and she asks him to keep the lie for only a week. 

One week to pretend or week to make it all real? 

It Had to Be a Duke by Vivienne Lorret (Nov. 28th) preorder (Nov. 28th) link

BBQ Chicken Sweet Potato Bowls recipe

Review: Crashed

Crashed by Shiloh Walker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

She’d let her guard down only once. It had destroyed her, breaking her heart into such tiny pieces that she’d never been able to find them all. 

Fifth in the Barnes Brothers series, Crashed brings us the last Barnes brother romance. Travis fell in love hard when he was younger and as the story opens up, we get a look at text messages between him and a girl named Isabel that start when they're fifteen. It's a summer romance that grew to more as Isabel's family spends every year at their vacation home by Travis. Through the text messages, readers see Travis and Isabel stay committed to each other even while some looming cloud seems to come from Isabel as she tries to avoid talking about what is really going on with her family. When Travis is eighteen and Isabel turning soon, they come up with a plan to elope and flee to California for awhile, Isabel fearing her father's reaction. Travis knows her father is a U.S. District Attorney and Isabel fears him and has only stayed around to try and protect her younger twin sisters but Isabel has been keeping some important secrets. When an FBI agent lays some harsh facts on Travis but not the full truths, their young love goes up in flames. 

If it was the last thing he did in his life, Miles would fix what he’d done to these two. 

I haven't read the previous books in the series and I didn't spend a lot of time confused here, you'd just miss out on knowing Travis' brother's love stories; family dynamics get well laid out here and the brothers don't really come into the picture into the latter second half. A few tragic instances befall Isabel, she does talk about rape, losing a baby at birth, and infertility (there's also bullying to other characters) for content warnings. This is a second chance romance with the FBI agent, Miles, trying to fix his mistake of breaking these two apart. He was working a case against Isabel's father, human-trafficking, and Travis gets a bit caught in the cross-fire. On the day he and Isabel were supposed to runaway together, he sees something that has him thinking she's a liar and wasn't serious with him, he feels betrayed and never answers her text or phone calls. Isabel goes through the ringer for awhile, with dealing with the fallout of her father and going into witness protection as she helped give evidence against her father and a personal tormentor of hers named Stephen. A few years after the initial breakup, Miles tries to get these two together but hurts and pains still keep them cold. It isn't until ten years later they have their second chance. 

She still loved him. She’d never stopped. 

While Isabel went into witness protection and became a foster mom, Travis tries to ease the guilt for how he thinks he betrayed Isabel by going to work for Miles. He starts off working for the government and later as an independent contractor who goes in undercover and helps breakup human trafficking rings. It's a little bit of go along with it as his famous family and his well known face are discussed and how he had plastic surgery to make himself look less like them. When he gets severely injured and Miles sends him to his house on the coast to recuperate, his neighbor turns out to be Isabel. The rest of the story is them looking at each other with their hearts in their eyes and then deciding to get together fairly soon, they have an open door scene around midpoint of book. While there was some of that wonderful angst from the hurtful situations they went through and how their relationship was broken up, I would have liked if it had been gritted out longer. Their relationship almost seemed to take a backseat to Isabel's foster kids' dramas, I almost felt like I knew their characters better than the two that were supposed to be the main couple. The second half also brought in some suspense with a past danger rearing his ugly head and then Travis making up with his family that he had iced out for the last decade. 

There just wasn't enough continuous focus on the romantic relationship development for me but the ending did deliver a happily ever after bow ending. If you've been a reader of the series, you'll probably love seeing this last Barnes get his HEA and a possible tease for the series to spin-off with one of Isabel's sisters and an operator friend of Travis.

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Reading Update: Page 1

Happy Friday, all 🎉 

So, this book is 5th in a series! And guess what...I have not read any others in that series 🙃 

I saw the author's name on Netgalley and having read other books by them, just kind of one-clicked Want because Walker feeds into my angsty soul. 

This sounds like a second chance romance with two deeply hurt people and some possible romantic suspense. And if I really like this one, bonus four other brothers to read about! 

Let's get angsty! 

Crashed by Shiloh Walker purchase link

Chipotle Cheddar Chicken Meatloaf recipe

I LOVED this one! I added a lot more chipotle peppers for more spice and then when we had leftovers the next day, kind of made into a patty and ate in a bun. The flavor was majorly my jam and highly recommend!

Review: A Holly Jolly Ever After

A Holly Jolly Ever After by Julie Murphy
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

1.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

“My entire life, everyone else has defined Winnie Baker for me, but now, I want to define Winnie Baker for myself. I want to be a new Winnie.” 

Winnie grew-up as a child actress, groomed to be a Christian and Inspirational content darling. She also has narcolepsy, so when a photograph got out when she was a teenager of her passed out in a car, looking drunk, the team around her and her parents, rush her into marriage at eighteen with her boyfriend at the time. Now, years later, discovering her husband was having an affair, she's divorced but lost a movie deal with the Hope Channel. Needing money to pay them back, she signs onto a movie for the Hope After Dark part of their programming. The lead playing the dirty Santa Claus is none other than the guy who took the picture of her that started all the rumors. 

Kallum always had a crush on Winnie but as a member of a popular boy band, his reputation didn't fit in with her “good girl”. Now the owner of a budding pizza restaurant business, he's had a sex tape leaked and he was kind of forced to license it to get the money that was getting made from it. He knows his parents were embarrassed and his reputation for being a good time guy, he's ready to make some changes in his life. He can't believe his luck when he signs onto a movie and he may just get his chance with Winnie. 

“Will you help me?” I blurted. 

Second in the Christmas Notch series, you could just into the series here, like I did. Not knowing the exact tone of the series did have me a little shocked at how steamy the open door scenes were. The cover kind of gives off a sweet holiday story vibe, but I'm here to tell you that pinkies are going in b-holes in the first one-hundred pages or so. The whole concept is that Winnie was sexually repressed and is working through the indoctrinated shame she has grown up with, so when it becomes clear that she doesn't know how to fake an orgasm during one of the scenes she's filming for the movie, she eventually goes to Kallum to help her with “research”. If you're looking for more physical interaction between your leads than emotional, this would be for you. Since they kind of knew, at least of each other before, it's pretty much insta-lust and attraction. 

“Research,” he said. He made the word sound utterly filthy, and my stomach flipped right over at the sound of it. 

There's a little bit of holiday atmosphere, the film is being shot in a Hope Channel created Christmas town but there wasn't much to the movie aspect, a few shown, quick times of them filming (I found it strange it wasn't talked about at all that Kallum had no acting experience??). By the midway point they've slept together and while Winnie thinks Kallum is just his want no responsibilities persona, he's thinking he's in love with Winnie. At their end of filming, Kallum has an emergency he has to leave suddenly for and Winnie overhears a conversation that makes her think Kallum wasn't as into their relationship as she was. The story goes into Part 2 six weeks later where a bomb gets dropped on Winnie and she's fighting to keep her ex out of her life and her parents still trying to control her, while Kallum is fighting to show Winnie that he's a changed man and wants to be serious with her. 

There wasn't much of emotional depth here for me, therefore the numerous hot and heavy scenes had me skimming because they just felt explicit for explicit sakes, which could be someone's jam but didn't work for me. The latter second half also brought in a lot of characters, friends and family, the couple from book one, and obvious future main character bait. If you're looking for more hot and heavy and not sweet emotional in a holiday read, then this had more of those scenes than you can shake a candy cane at.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

It's November 1st, you know what that means! 

🎄❄️🎅 

Time to dip into some holiday romance! And yes, that is real snow for the background. It's like the weather knew 😭 

A former boy band member, Kallum has been living a quieter life as a pizza chain owner (Slice, Slice, Baby 🤣) but an old sex tape has suddenly gone viral. 

Winnie was a child actress that avoided the usual pitfalls and has transitioned to a stable adult acting career. So stable, she's actually ready to redefine herself with a sexy Santa biopic for the Hope Channel. 

Kallum's ready for the spotlight again and starring with his childhood crush is going to be something, especially when Winnie starts talking about pleasure research. 

A Holly Jolly Ever After by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone purchase link

Halloween Bingo 2023

BINGO!!!!!!

I did it! 

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

I had so much fun this year playing with and getting together again with the old BookLikes crew. I ended up reading the most books I ever have for Bingo this year thanks to my end of the month push for bingo. 

As always, thanks so much to Moonlight Reader for putting this together, you're truly amazing. 

Hope to see everyone back next year and maybe even some more new faces :)

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Bingo squares and books (links to my review) read for them

The Carpathians - Lover Reborn by J.R. Ward

A Grimm Tale - The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie

Gothic - The Witches of Bone Hill by Ava Morgyn

Creepy Crawlies - Squelch by John Halkin

Splatter - Sweetpea by C.J. Skuse

Halloween - Three Kisses, One Midnight by Roshani Chokshi, Sandhya Menon, and Evelyn Skye 

Genre:  Horror - The Night House by Jo Nesbo

Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses - A River of Golden Bones by A.K. Mulford 

Relics and Curiosities - Breath of Magic by Teresa Mederios

Magical Realism - Not Your Crush's Cauldron by April Asher

When Mother Nature Strikes - Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

Raven middle square - The Princess of Thornwood Drive by Khalia Moreau

Plague and Disease - What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Home for the Horrordays - From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper

Revealed full coverall picture:

Happy I got the pumpkins and scary tree revealed but bummed the raven remained hidden.

Review: From Bad to Cursed

From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This worked for Home for the Horrordays because the town is looking forward to the Flower Moon Festival to celebrate Beltane, May Day. 

I read the first in the series, Payback's a Witch, and liked the fictional town of Thistle Grove where centuries ago, four witches came to America and founded the town. I wouldn't say it was absolutely necessary to read the first but you would get background on the family dynamics and how everything got flipped when a new witch takes over. We did meet Isidora and Rowan in the first and it was obvious that there was bad blood between them for some reason. 

All told from Isidaora's pov we come into the story when she is trying to summon a demon to blow off steam. Her family has the magic of dead things, so ghosts, demons, and the like. Her summoning doesn't exactly go to plan but she gets things back under control and goes to attend a ceremony where the Thorn's, Rowan's family, are beginning the celebration for Beltane. Rowan's family has the magic of living things but when his cousin is trying to bring life to plants she gets cursed/attacked by some dark magic and it looks like it could come from someone in Isidora's family. 

Head witch Emmy (female main character from book 1) picks Rowan to lead an investigation to find out who attacked the Thorns. Isidora's mom feels like it could be a witch hunt towards her family, so she appoints Isidora to head her own investigation. Giving us forced proximity as Isidora and Rowan have to work together. 

Isidora and Rowan are pretty much together this whole book, which was nice to see our leads together but I ended up missing some of the magic of the setting (town, friends, family) that I got in the first. Towards the middle it's revealed why these two are starchy towards one another and it was kind of meh and felt a little childish but Isidora was eighteen at the time and Rowan would have been early twenties, but seven years of animosity felt a bit much. I can't say I ever felt too much chemistry between the two, they do get an open door scene but even though they spent so much time together, there just wasn't the depth of emotion I was looking for. 

The ending delivers a reveal of who's behind the cursing and a we get some magical, ghost, demon, and witches little battle scene. Proper Halloweenie vibes for seasonal fun but I felt like the pace dragged for a lot of the book as I couldn't quite feel it between these two.

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Review: What Moves the Dead

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It did not try to escape. That was somehow the most horrible part of all. It crawled back to its position in the circle of hares and it sat up, despite half its skull being missing. It turned its head so that its remaining eye pointed at me and tucked its paws against its chest like all the others. Whatever looked out at me through that eye was not a hare. My nerve broke and I ran. 

First off, this isn't the sort of story you should read when your neighborhood is bunny central, no more morning tea saying softly good morning to them anymore. Inspired by Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Alex is back from the war and going to their friend's house in the country to check on childhood friends. They received a letter from Roderick claiming that his sister Madeline has fallen ill. When they get there, they meet Miss Potter in the country side studying mushrooms, as the area has a multitude of varieties, and a severally ill Madeline, not looking to great himself Roderick, and an American doctor. Alex likes to take the piss out of the doctor in their thoughts: I offered Denton my hand, because Americans will shake hands with the table if you don’t stop them. and Sometimes it’s hard to know if someone is insulting or just an American. So there's some touches of humor in the first half until things start to deteriorate. 

“I hear things now,” he said. “Everything. My own heartbeat. Other people’s breathing sounds like thunder. Sometimes I fancy I can hear the worms in the rafters.”

I have to say that I know the author is setting the scene and working to build the suspense but I still thought the first half read fairly slow and it was hard to put myself in the late 1800s mindset of not really knowing what was going on when the mushroom, fungi, and the like is dripping down the walls. I also thought it was a little too convenient that Miss Potter was in the neighborhood, an expert in the field to explain everything; unluckiest luckiest people in this house. This is a little shorter page count, 150ish pages, so while you're introduced to the characters and get some of their personality, Alex, who is telling the story all from their pov, is the only one you really get to know. At the halfway point, when things go south for Madeline, is where I thought the story really picked up. 

“What if I told you those were growing out of human skin?” 

The second half had some great horror visuals, bunnies with heads half blown off getting up, crawling around, and eyeballing people, and other scenes did give me the creeps and will linger in my mind. I was thinking a two or three star rating and the second half bumped it up to four stars to almost 5. We do get an explanation as to what was going on, a horror taking care of business scene, and then an ending that does and doesn't quite sit well with you that everything will be all right now. If you've been missing episodes of The Last of Us, this would be a great quick story to tied you over.

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Review: Check & Mate

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.7 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

“I don't think you understand.” He holds my eyes. I think his throat moves. “I want to play chess with you, Mallory.” 

Told all from Mallory's point-of-view, Check & Mate is the story of a girl who's father took advantage of her amazing chess skills, left her and her family wrecked, then a chance comes back up for Mallory to fulfill her dreams, and little bit of falling in love along the way. After getting a glimpse of Mallory following along to who Nolan “Kingkiller” Sawyer is, a young “bad boy” dominating the chess world, the story jumps two years to Mallory being eighteen and Nolan twenty. When her bestfriend Easton begs her to join her team in a charity chess tournament, Mallory ends up winning it all when she beats the number one player in the world, Nolan. Nolan seems fascinated with her but she runs out before anyone can talk to her. Mallory doesn't want to give chess another chance to ruin her life again but when a woman who runs a chess training club offers to give her a paid fellowship for a year, Mallory can't turn down the money. 

There is a beautiful, indecipherable half smile on his lips. “You think I don't want you to know me?” 

This story was a lot of Mallory trying to reconcile, deal with, and heal from her family drama. She's always loved chess and with a father who was a grand master, he always encouraged and pushed but her mother didn't want her in ranked tournaments until she was sixteen. Readers get that Mallory blames herself for something that broke her family up, before her dad died he had left the family, but the reason doesn't get revealed until the later second half. It's a lot of Mallory putting the world on her shoulders, her mother suffers from chronic rheumatoid arthritis so she skips going to college to work and pay for the mortgage and help take care of her younger teen sisters. There are times in the middle where it's a bit martyr syndrome but that does get addressed towards the end. 

“Touch-take rule,” he murmurs. He stands, too. Every step back I take is one forward for him. 

“I---What?” 

“You touched me. Can't stop now. Touch-take rule.” 

While Mallory is stressing about her family, money, and trying to not fall back into loving chess as much as she did before, the chess champ of the world Nolan is hanging around on the sides. It takes a while for these two to really share page time and even though we don't get any of his pov, it's pretty obvious to readers that Nolan likes, has feelings for Mallory. I personally find it somewhat off-putting when the female main character actually, literally fears the main male character, a little a' la The Hating Game. Nolan grew-up in the chess world and when he younger, adolescent to teens, he threw tantrums and sometimes got a bit physical when he lost or got angry, it's stressed he hasn't acted out like that in years but he still has the “bad boy” of chess moniker because of it. Since we don't get his pov, we don't truly know what he is thinking and all we have are Mallory's thoughts and she worries that he is or could get really angry with her (she does fear physically) and while you could say it's in a romantic comedy tone of “I could kill them!” thought, it didn't read it that way, to me. I “know” as the reader this isn't the type of genre to have Nolan be truly “bad” but Mallory doesn't and I therefore can't feel the tingly anticipation of romance feelings I'm supposed to, with her literally fearing him. As always though, The Hating Game was extremely popular, your mileage may vary with this kind of beginning tone. 

“I hope,” I say, serious, “that you're going to like this as much as chess.” 

“I think,” he tells me with a small smile, “that I already do.” 

There was a good amount of chess talk in this, which definitely added to the setting and as even someone who watched Netflix's The Queen's Gambit, there was some new and cool things to read about. There's some drama with Mallory and the players she goes against, delivering some suspense and the thriller aspect of delivering on an ultimate goal ending of her and Nolan meeting up to play in the World Championships (Mallory won't play him for fun). The author devotes a good amount of time to addressing sexism in the chess world, Mallory's experience, some side characters that give their own high and low stories, and then the importance of seeing yourself in spaces that do their best to keep you out. 

My eyes begin to tear up, but I'm not sad. For the first time in a long, long while, I'm a million things, and sad is not any of them. 

The ending has a third act breakup with Mallory feeling some betrayal and then working through her issues with herself, friends and family, and Nolan but then ends abruptly when it gets the game we all were waiting for. The epilogue then comes in with a news article that answers any and all questions. This was more about Mallory's journey to me but did have romance (with a fade to black door slam scene). If you're a chess player who also likes New Adult fiction with some romance and want to read a story about a girl who realizes that she doesn't have to carry the world on her shoulders, this is one definitely in your lane.

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