Master Halloween Bingo Post

It's that time of year again! Let's hope I have a better showing this year (I think I only have to beat 2 books read for last year 😭

The first call for today and I had the square! But I also started reading for the season with The Pumpkin Bride by Fiona Buttercup. 

Time for Fall and spooky season 👻

*Will play my usual way with coverall picture slowly revealed and only reading for squares as they’re called, UNLESS I have an ARC that is coming up on my reading schedule and will fit a still non-called square.

Currently Reading:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch 

 reading for square 

Bingo Squares with Books Read and their Review Links

#TBRChallenge Review: Heart of the West

Heart of the West by Penelope Williamson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion.

I started this a couple days before August 19, TBRChallenge day, and what a sweet summer child I was thinking I could finish it on time. First off, it's 700 some pages but pre-reading slump Whiskey could have done it! Slowly coming out of slumplandia Whiskey didn't have a hope, PLUS holy god was I not prepared for the encompassing this story was going to deliver. August's theme was Backlist Banger, I went to the ancient artifacts on my bookcase from the 1900s and picked an author I hadn't read since days of yore. I notoriously don't read the synopsis after I put a book on my tbr, no matter how many years it was shelved, but slump, so I flipped it over and read this was a historical set in the West and our female main character was going to lust after her brother-in-law. Sounds like a Backlist Banger! I went in expecting hot tension in the beginning and a husband getting trampled by buffalo by 20%. Y'all. What I got was a Louis L'Amour-esque epic but make it women's fiction and romance styled. This spanned 12 years (ok, after doing the math, this surprises me, would have said 30 years lol) and had a historical romance husband that lingered around late enough that when something does happen, you'd almost wish it hadn't.

"It's not a lot," her mother was saying in a strained whisper. "Not more than a hundred dollars. But it would be a good start for you, should you ever need to run away someday from this man you are running off with now."

This starts 1879 in Boston as seventeen year old Clementine is setting up to run-off with a cowboy. We get that pull you in with the sense of a little bit of danger as it's obvious Clementine fears her dad and with her mom coming in and quietly aiding her. There's some internal flashbacks by Clementine as she remembers her preacher father striking her and all around trying to smother her spirit and make her be who he thinks a girl/woman should be and observations by Clementine as she grew-up watching how her mother was around her father. When her mother hands Clementine her saved up money, your eyes are going to water because you'll think about hows/whys her mother didn't use the money to save herself. It's a common theme throughout this story, commentary on societal structures and how they benefit some and not others. It was mostly focused on speaking to sexism but out west where Clementine encounters Native Americans, fallen women, and different nationality mail order brides, there was some racism discussions too. There were a couple times I felt Clementine started to fall into the white savior role but there are numerous point-of-views in this story and all the characters I mentioned get pretty/decent full mini-stories played out to fruition that was pleasantly surprising.

Clementine Kennicutt looked back to the house, to the window of the room that had been hers for all of her life. A flickering light flashed once and was gone—her mother lifting a candle in a brief and lonely farewell.

When Clementine runs off with Gus McQueen, her cowboy she met on the Boston streets when he runs her over on a bike, we get more internal flashbacks to why she made this choice. With a fun historical tidbit we learn a maid in Clementine's house shared her five cent Wide Awake Library's Wild West series novels with her (there was a scene where Clem's father finds out and fires the maid where Clementine is crying saying “you're my friend” that made you hurt for her loneliness). So, Clem's a naive seventeen year old with allusions of what a wild west life will be like. Also, Gus is twenty-five and there was a cringe moment where he asks her age and makes a comment like “lord help me”, and if such age differences disturb you, well, there wouldn't be an ignoring that.

There ain't a man out here who wouldn't give his left ballock to be gettin' the cook, housekeeper, laundress, and all-round slave that you're gonna be to your man. Yup, slave and broodmare and bedmate all done up in the starchy trappings of an honest-to-God lady—Christ, the wonder of it stretches the mind." She hooted a laugh. "Dearie, you ain't only a rarity, you're a damned luxury!"

When Clem makes it to Gus' ranch in Montana, the rose colored glasses start to come off when she sees how rough the “town” and little cabin Gus' home is. And that he co-owns the ranch with his brother, Zach Rafferty. Which, when Clem first sees Zach he's looking like he walked off a Stetson's commercial, so, girl, same. There's that instant animosity between them that comes with sexual tension and not wanting/being able to act on and hating that you feel that way. Zach's constantly on her that she won't make it a year out there and that drives Clem even more to make it.

"I won't accept your different ways, Mr. McQueen. Not all of them."
A startled look came into his eyes; then his mouth tightened. "You will if I say you will."
"I won't."

With the years that this spans, you're going to be able to see and feel Clem's growth, her coming into her own. As she gets older and more experience seeing the world and mingling with people from all different walks of life, she starts to question things. Like, why can't she be friends with Hannah, the retired fallen lady who now owns the brothel? For his part, Gus is mostly blustering with his disapproval, they do have a blow out, but Clem's got a grit spirit and she always thinks back to how her father stifled her and she won't go back to the feeling.

"Oh, God, God, how could I have known, how could I have known? Up until that moment, you see, he was the closest thing I'd found to you."

Around 25% we get Clem and Zach cracking more under their attraction and it's that teeth gritting tense. You have that initial gut reaction of don't betray your husband and brother like that with the great layered character work of understanding why these two feel towards each other the way they do. Clem was too young to know herself, let alone who she could and want to love, and Zach has lived a life where he spent years not growing up with his brother and under the care of an awful father. Their personalities just go together better with both of them wanting to face the grit and Gus always turning away to not have to deal with the “hard” stuff. Clem's too strong for Gus and meets her match in Zach. It's not that Gus is necessarily “bad” but he's just not the right one for her, I appreciated the author not easy demonizing Gus, making this more taunt push and pull for the reader.

And she felt a rage at virtuous women like herself, who condemned their own kind for the things that were done to them by men.

Around 50% we jump to 1883 with Clem having given birth, a scene that binds her and Zach together even more and frays that rope that has them hanging on. There's also more of giving time to other side characters, Hannah and Zach have their own, sort-of, romance, Erlan the Chinese mail-order bride comes into the picture along with two brothers from Cornwall, and Gus and Zach's father makes some appearances, along with some other minor characters. There's dedicated time to their povs and stories.

"I always think of Montana as a he, for this is every bit a man's place, and you will hate him in the way that only a woman can hate a man. You will hate the wind and the dirt and the miserable cold winters, hate his harsh strength and his lawless, violent ways. And then one day you will realize that you have come to love him fiercely in the midst of all your hate. Love him in a way that only a woman can love a man..."

The setting was also huge in this, I wouldn't say it romanticizes American West pathos, but it did make me think of my own sod house ancestors and what those women endured. The characters and story show you the reality of how tough it was, child deaths, injuries, and the lack of rights but it also touches on the wrongness of how these settlers treated Native Americans and hunted food supplies to almost extinction for sport. It will get the conversations in your head going about they were gritty tough and they did awful things.

Zach's internal goodbye thoughts to Gus:
He thought sometimes that Gus was so stupid blind he couldn't track a fat sow through a snowdrift. He wanted to grab his brother by the scruff of his neck and shout into his face: You big, dumb son of a bitch. I want to fuck your wife. I eat, breathe, sleep, and fuck thoughts of fucking your wife, and if you weren't such a big, dumb son of a bitch you'd see it.

Zach's spoken goodbye to Clem:
"Clementine," he said, and her name came out of him broken and mangled. "My love for you won't stop with my leaving. Come an evenin' over the years, when you step outside your door and hear the wind blowing through the cottonwoods, that'll be me, thinking of you, whispering your name, and loving you."

Around 70% Zach realizes that rope is going to snap so in 1886, he leaves and we get more of Clem and Gus dynamics and trying to fit together when clearly Clem has just outgrown the marriage to him. But, circumstances being what they are, Clem makes it work and it's not to say there wasn't love between them, he just wasn't the best choice for her. There was also a quick little scene where the reader learns that Gus was aware of the reason for the tension between his wife and brother. I gasped, lol. But in true Gus character fashion, he just doesn't face it head on. Later on, Gus has this thought: “Sometimes he hated the strength he saw in her. Sometimes he thought he was married to a woman he didn't know, and didn't like.”
And I thought, bingo. “he hated the strength he saw in her.”

She looked from one dear friend to another. Saphronie, in her satin whore's dress, with her tears inked permanently on her face for all the world to see and shudder over. Erlan, in her blue quilted Oriental robe and English croquet sandals, with her homesick eyes. And Clementine... Clementine, looking so very Bostonian in a plain black muslin mourning dress with a high, stiff cleric collar, looking so very sad. How different we all are, Hannah thought. And yet how much the same, in all our woman's sorrows and fears and vulnerabilities. In all our woman's strengths, to have endured what we have.

I really liked the women bonding in this and it's clear in the story that they all needed each other and the different strengths each one brought to the table to survive the west. Also, as a little bonus, our Hannah gets an HEA with a younger man. There was also great heart hurting commentary on motherhood: She is all that I once had it in me to be, Clementine often thought, before my father and life beat it out of me. And she worried for her little girl's future. She wished she could wrap Sarah up against the pain that was coming as easily as she had bundled her up against the cold. For as sure as night ended even the sunniest of days, life would try to break her daughter's spirit. The world was cruel to little girls who didn't want to please, and to grown-up women who bravely spoke out and went their own way.

"It's hard, Clementine. Hard for a man to look into a woman's eyes and see love lookin' back at him. And to know that when she's lookin' at him, she's seeing not what he is, but what he ought to be."

Like I mentioned in the beginning, what you go in immediately wanting to happen, doesn't until around 80% and I was more sad than I thought I would be, kudos to the author. It's not until 1891 that Zach returns, four years after Gus is gone and seven years gone total. There's a period of feeling out between the two, both have grown even more and I think some fear of finally might be able to act on such deep feelings. The end also jammed in some economic and environmental plot that I felt intruded on Clem and Zach time in a way but also felt so timely with how the women are the ones to step up and initiate change, a women's march 1890s style.
So yeah, this story was a lot and the chunk of Clem and Zach's relationship is going to be individual character internal with the reader having to feel what is not said (I think the author accomplished it, I felt that fraying rope). If you're looking for a historical western romance that feels like an epic, willing to go on many journeys with different characters, and take the time to watch a character grow from naive seventeen to coming into her own, this would be one to hunt up.

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Review: The Beast in Him

The Beast in Him by Shelly Laurenston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I liked how she started scratching him behind the ear with her hand and his leg almost started kicking. 

That's all I got, lol

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Review: Fatal Castle

Fatal Castle by David Boito
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Fatal Castle was a little bit of the movies Die Hard and The Rock for me. With point-of-views from Ashley, a twenty-something visiting her head of the Tower of London Yeoman Warders (Beefeater) father Clive, getting placed in the middle of a hostage/jewel heist scheme, we get thriller action with some relationship drama. 

This starts off with how the Koh-I-Noor diamond came to be given to Queen Victoria, with a little foreshadowing with the legend of it's curse. It then jumps to present time and how after her parents divorced Ashley chose to live with her mother in America and is now trying to reconnect with her father. There's all the different life experiences disconnects and misunderstood, with the complicated emotions of familial drama. 

The drama and emotion comes very close to being drowned out with the extensive focus on the setting, The Tower. I'm a history geek, but one who's read a few Tower historical facts books and the like, so while a few historical tidbits felt new, the constant listing and telling of all the historical trivia points started to get a bit intrusive to the actual story; it will be a very your mileage will vary. 

The action and villain were able to go along with, there were some moments Ashley's character slid into TSTL (too stupid too live) to continue the danger, but for the most part you'll probably enjoy the ride. I wished the personal interactions between characters had been given a little more filling out and given as much attention as the research, as the historical trivia started off fun but then got intrusive to the character drama and action plot. If you're into The Tower history, this setting will definitely be for you and you won't be disappointed in how it's medieval roots come back to life to take on the bad guys once again.

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Review: Beauty Tempts the Beast

Beauty Tempts the Beast by Lorraine Heath
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

“I want you to teach me how to be a seductress.” 

There are only so many options when your father is accused of plotting to assassinate the Queen, and Lady Althea Stanwick has become nothing if pragmatic. Her two brothers are delving into the shadowy depths as they try to prove their father was innocent, leaving Althea to know she needs to fend for herself. When Benedict Trewlove, the owner of a brothel, saves her from a man, she decides to strike a deal with him. If Ben successfully teaches her how to become a mistress for a Lord protector, she'll pay him two thousand dollars, money he needs to set-up the women in the brothel and finally get out of the business. 

Give me one more night, Thea. We’ll make it last. 

This is the sixth and final installment of the Sins for All Seasons series that starred the Trewloves, children given over to Ettie Trewlove for abandonment or protection. This started off with a quick scene showing a woman dropping Ben off as a baby, promising to return, but then ultimately jumping years into the future as the woman never came back for him. There's some dual intrigue with Althea's brothers being spin-off series bait as the issues with their father seem not to be so cut and dry and Ben finally getting some answers to who that mysterious woman was that night who dropped him off. Before the halfway mark these two were already saying their “I love yous” and planning on getting married. The third act breakup does its job with some derailment tied into Ben's past and future but nothing that hit too emotionally as the characters didn't dwell too long. This felt more like a sedately toned book with Althea being more quietly contemplative over losing her status in the nobility and Ben had made a loving and comfortable life for himself, even with the mystery of his past. The epilogue delivers for readers of the series with a revisit to characters and some wrapped up feel, while leading you into the next series and Althea's brothers search for the truth about their father and getting their birthrights back.

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Review: The Backup Plan

The Backup Plan by Jill Shalvis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

And now she, a woman who owned little but the big, fat chip on her shoulder, also owned one-third of the Last Chance Inn and all its surrounding property. 

The Back-up Plan was a story of when you can't run from your past anymore and have to face old hurts. Alice grew-up on the Wild West Last Chance Inn with her father, brother Will, and pseudo-grandmother. She fixed cars with her father and brother, had a bestfriend in her brother's girlfriend Lauren, and was crushing hard on the Inn's help Knox. When her brother crashes his car, one Alice had just fixed the brakes on, and dies, she can't take the pain and leaves the ranch and all her relationships behind the first chance she gets. Four years later, she's called back when Eleanor (pseudo-gram) dies and she's listed as an inheritor of the ranch, along with two other people she never wanted to face again. 

“I don’t want to be alone in the end.” The look in her eyes, the soft, mesmerizing mix of vulnerability, pain, and stubbornness got him right in the heart. 

“So change the ending of your story.” 

This had the Shalvis charm along with some deeper emotional hurts, with the death of her brother and Knox's emotional issues stemming from having an alcoholic mother, and Lauren having a town keeping her in the grieving “widow” role. You'll get povs from all three characters and a mini-bonus romance between Lauren and a new person to town. The forced proximity plot was a romance genre special with all having to meet will requirements that keep them from being able to leave right away and not sell the ranch immediately. This forces Alice to have to sit in her grief and discomfort and have those hard conversations with Knox and Lauren. The romance had some sparking moments but the fixing the relationship between Alice and Lauren had more emotional depth moments to me. With all three having character work to do individually and together, there wasn't a lot of time to focus down deep into one aspect but if you're looking for a Shalvis special of charm, funny, and some heat, this wouldn't be a bad beach read pick-up with it's old hurts, secrets, and finding a way back to each other and an epilogue that delivers on some happy favorite elements.

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Review: Pride and Pemberley: A Novel Inspired by Jane Austen

Pride and Pemberley: A Novel Inspired by Jane Austen by Dee Garretson
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 

Did I want this? 

Pride and Pemberley was a story inspired by Jane Austen's characters where American Libby Darcy inherits her grandmother's bed and breakfast estate in England. Libby's recently out of a relationship where her ex still acts as if they'll get back together and trying to find her herself as her law career never got it's footing after she failed the bar exam and she constantly is fighting negative thoughts about herself that are fueled by her mother's emotionally abusive comments to her. Libby dreams of revitalizing the bed and breakfast and with a wedding with a high profile couple, she might just be able to make her dream come true. 

With a lost contact childhood friend, Davin de Bourgh showing up to be the landscape architect, we have our mild and not too focused on romance with misunderstandings, pride, and prejudice. Libby's sisters also make some sideline showings along with with some Bingley's playing a little villain role and a ghost Lady searching for a pig. This was really about Libby trying to decide what she was going to do in life with problems and obstacles popping up in regards to fixing up the estate in time for the wedding, with some relationship navigating. A lot of the middle of the story got lost in house issues minutiae for me with it picking up a bit towards the end as Davin and Libby's romance entered the story more. It was more of “hey, I misunderstood this about you and now we can be together because we like each other” quick, mild interaction but for the tone of the overall story, it fit. If you enjoyed the original characters and want another glimpse of them and looking for a mild trip into fixing up an estate and growing into yourself, this could be a pick in the Austen world.

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Review: Holiday Ever After: One Snowy Night/Holiday Wishes/Mistletoe in Paradise

Holiday Ever After: One Snowy Night/Holiday Wishes/Mistletoe in Paradise by Jill Shalvis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

I love to read a snowy holiday book in the summer!
Three short stories that fit into Shalvis' Heartbreaker Bay series, which I've read four books in (close enough!) were short, varying degrees of enjoyment, quick hits.

One Snowy Night 3 stars

Fate or Karma or whatever was in charge of such things was a cruel master, having her first crush of all people, the one guy on the entire planet who made her feel like that young, neglected, bullied, unwanted teen all over again, be the only smart ride home tonight.

Not for the “Just Talk About It!” crowd. A misunderstanding event that happened between our two leads, Rory and Max, in high-school, had Max angry at Rory and Rory avoiding going home for years. She finally makes a promise to herself that she'll make it home for Christmas but a snow storm leaves her stranded on the highway. Fortunately for us readers, Max is also headed home and we're off with some forced proximity.

Rory crushed on Max in high-school, so those feelings flare up and while Max feels betrayed by her from the high-school incident he also has the feels for her. We get some hotel play and misunderstanding resolving but the I love yous arrived too fast for any deep emotional hit.

Bonus: Carl the doberman

Holiday Wishes 2.5 stars

>They’d tutored each other, the perennial bad boy and the perennial good girl, and then one night they’d been each other’s world in the back of her dad’s pickup on the bluffs of Marin Headlands.

Charlotte has just lost her dad to cancer and she's about to close the Inn she runs down for two weeks and escape to Cabo. Unfortunately for her, she's about to get snowed in with a wedding party, a wedding party who includes her high-school love Sean. They'd slept together and Charlotte had told him she loved him but Sean had just lost his parents, added in with Charlotte was moving, Sean decides to cut the chord and not respond to her calls or letters. Now, years, later, Charlotte's acting like she doesn't know him and Sean is ready to admit to feelings he should have years ago.

I didn't quite feel their connection, a lot hinges on the reader believing that they had a deep, close relationship when they were in high-school and that building block never held the weight for me. Charlotte is coming off her own canceled wedding, with Sean deep in the whirlwind of his brother's and that made me think they were getting swept up into the moment.

Mistletoe in Paradise 2.5 stars

When he opened his eyes and whispered her name, she lost herself in him, completely. Just as when she was with him like this, she also felt . . . found.

Wrapping up our second-chance romances, this had more emotional turmoil for our leads, Hannah and James, to work through. Hannah's charter boat step-dad hosts her mom's bestfriend family that had two sons every year. Just as Hannah and James are old enough to realize their romantic feelings, James' brother dies and shatters both their worlds. James asks Hannah to travel the world with him but Hannah needs stability at that time and they don't speak for years. It's when Hannah is pushed by her mom to deliver divorce papers to her step-dad and James' parents are delayed that they're forced to finally spend alone time together on the charter and talk out their feelings.

Definitely had the emotional grief meat in this one, the brother death and then Hannah dealing with how she feels her step-dad's love is conditional, both those weighty things edged out the romance to me. I'm not sure I believed in their hashing out, making their romance feel a little bereft to me.

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Review: Married to the Mafia

Married to the Mafia by Lucy Smoke
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

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

If I want to continue to act as his second— and soon, his son’s— then I need to form a “family” of my own— starting with a wife. 

If I could borrow a thought from Logan Roy for a second, I love you romance but you're not always serious. Y'all. I'm a little too long in the tooth, in both age and romance genre reading, to, umm, appreciate this. Look, I know, it's right there in the title for (most) seriousness to go out the window but, y'all. Daisy is a broke recent college grad who is filling in for her roommate at her catering job when she walks in on a group of mafia men standing around a dead body. The dead body? The bride. The mafia men's solution to her walking in on the scene? She must now marry the bride-less mafia man. 

“You’re a barely contained little psychopath,” he tells me. 

This was marketed as “Dark romance”. I guess there was a murder? The vibes of the tone were more comedy of errors to me, joking dark instead of emotionally/psychological dark. What is really going to your-milage-may-vary, is Daisy's “inner psycho b*tch”, which constantly gets a pov and never stops. It's at once over-the-top, intrusive, and incredibly annoying and Daisy cherry-on-tops it all with an ending TSTL moment to really have her grinding my gears. This was dual pov but Giulio was pretty much copy and paste mafia dude and even though they had a wild meet-cute, the depth was far from depth-ing. 

There was some approaching plot with a rat in the family and solving who murdered the bride and some series baiting secondary characters but definitely approach this with the unseriousness it gives right back.

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Review: It Happened One Summer

It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

He was a set-in-his-ways fisherman. She was a rich, adventurous socialite. 

The “for Schitt's Creek fans” had some ringing true as Piper, a late twenties socialite starts to feel the creep of social media fame fading away. With a step-father that is over her aimlessness, he tells her about the bar her deceased father left her and her sister in the “wilds” of Washington. Needing a place to lay low out of the lime light and figure out what she wants to do with her life, Piper, and accompanied by her sister Hannah, heads to her father's hometown in hopes of learning more about her father and herself. 

“Which girl are you? The girl in the pictures or the one sitting next to me?” 

“Both, I think,” she said after a pause. 

This was a Tessa Bailey standard (maybe even a little more top tier to me) and you'll get that sexy, sparking, and entertaining usual, with some more emotional. I much appreciated that Piper had vulnerability, lack of self-confidence, front and center to combat the instant dislike that could be brought from a at first-take vacuous socialite. Pairing her with the grumpy widowed (for 7yrs) Brendan hit just right for me. She was the breath of fresh air, shake-up that he needed and he was the solid foundation she needed, I love pairs like that. 

And in that moment, Brendan saw right through her. Saw what she was doing. Making tonight about sex. Trying to keep things casual. Categorizing him as a friend with benefits. With a less determined man, she would have succeeded, too. 

The plot “trapping” Piper in the Washington town, her step-father says he won't pay anymore of her bills until she can prove to him that she can run her father's bar for 3 months will have you going along with it because the ride was just fun. I wasn't totally on board at first with her sister Hannah joining her, questioned reasoning, forcing a secondary character for series bait, but as the story went on, while I not totally lost the not necessary, her character started to also feel very essential (if that makes any sense). 

This girl. He’d be keeping her. There was no way around it. 

Adding in Piper looking for strength and confidence in herself by gaining knowledge and an emotional connection to her birth father was Bailey digging for emotional depth I much appreciated it; I think there were a couple moments that will have eyes watering for some. My heart really liked Brendan taking Piper out on his boat to help understand his job more and work to, while not completely, ally some fear she had in relation to how her father died. This was a deep topic and while we don't sink completely into the trauma of dating a man who works the same job you father died from, it at least was broached for deeper relationship connection. This was all about accepting yourself and finding someone who loves you for you and I enjoyed this little treat of a story. (Now when does the movie/tv show adaption come out? Because NEED)

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