contemporary romance

Exploring Marriage Struggles in ‘Out of the Woods’

by Stefani

Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young

Published: January 28, 2025 by Dell

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Review:

High school sweethearts Sarah and Caleb Linwood have always been a sure thing. For the past seventeen years, they have had each other’s backs through all of life’s ups and downs, achievements, losses, stages, and phases.

But Sarah has begun to wonder… Who is she without her other half?

When she decides to take on a project of her own, a fundraising gala in memoriam of her late mother, Sarah wants nothing more than to prove to herself—and to everyone else—that she doesn’t need Caleb’s help to succeed. She’s still her mother’s daughter, after all. Independent and capable.

That is until the event fails and Caleb uninvitedly steps in to save the day.

The rift that follows unearths a decade of grievances between them and doubts begin to grow. Are they truly the same people they were when they got married at nineteen? Are they supposed to be?

In a desperate attempt to fix what they fear is near breaking, Sarah and Caleb make the spontaneous decision to join a grueling hiking trip intended to guide couples through rough patches.

Rating:

Review:

My success with books this week is 0 for 3. 3 books started, 3 books abandoned. I am in a slump that I hope doesn’t continue any further. I only made it about a quarter of the way through this one so the review should be short.

What I hoped to get: A cute little romance about a married couple who have lost each other in the years since their marriage and go on a retreat to find that cute, romantic love story again.

What I got: A rich, spoiled girl who regrets her life choices and decides that it is her husband’s fault that she is unhappy. Proceeds to drag him to a marriage retreat so she can further whine about her own choices.

I hated Sarah so much. Initially I had sympathy for her given the tragedy of her mother. But that sympathy disappeared the longer the book went on. She decided to be a stay at home wife and defers all of her decisions to her husband. She wants him to take charge because she didn’t feel worthy of being with him. So she defers to him for 15 years. And then the one time she decided that she didn’t want him to intervene, she blames him for over a decade of her unhappiness. Caleb is wonderful. He loves Sarah so deeply, and loved her mother too. He became part of their family and it was lovely. Hell, even when Sarah is threatening him with divorce he remembers to bring her Kindle on the retreat, with a portable charger AND remembers what she was reading. WTF?! This is the man she is dissatisfied with? Girl, get a therapist or leave that man alone!

Cozy Christmas Reads: All I Want is You Review

by Stefani

All I Want is You by Falon Ballard

Published: September 24, 2024 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

Bitter exes. Professional rivals. Just one bed.
What could go wrong?

Jessica Carrington always wanted her own happily ever after. But, until that happens, she spends her days as a small-time romance writer, penning satisfying Happily Ever Afters to soothe the heartache left by her ex-boyfriend Nick Matthews, a fellow romance writer and now her biggest rival, who has found success writing love stories without happy endings. It’s clearly what he’s good at, after all . . .

So, when their professional obligations find them snowed in – and forced to share a room! – at the same remote inn a few days before Christmas, Jess and Nick are both fuming. But what’s more fitting for two romantic writers in a slump? And when they realise the friction between them might be the only cure for their writer’s block, they decide to turn their frustration into fiction . . . and the pages start flying.

Jess can’t shake the feeling that Nick is the last guy on earth she should be falling for (again), but, as they both finally get back in their flow, is he actually all she wants for Christmas?

Rating:

Review:

The best word I can think of for this book is, it was cute. It was cute and cozy. It made me want to put up a Christmas tree. I really enjoyed the premise of these two being snowed in together and forced to work on a holiday romance book together. I enjoyed the idea of Jess and Nick initially being brought together by writing romance novels, but then they break up and Nick gains a lot more success while Jess is still waitressing to pay the bills. It was a good dynamic that not only brought in the heartbreak of the breakup, but also an element of professional rivalry and jealousy.

The biggest highlight for me in this book was Jess’s two best friends. Honestly, they are the two best friends that every girl needs. One quips, “Open your heart to love!” While the other chimes in with, “Close your legs for ex-boyfriends!” The two of them made me laugh so much. I want them to be my friends in real life.

I had two big drawbacks in this book. One was the flashbacks. We get a lot of flashbacks back to their best memories while they were dating. But all of them are sexual. Didn’t they have nice moments that didn’t include sex? They were together for multiple years so I have to imagine that they did. But we didn’t hear about any of them and so it made their connection seem mostly sexual when it was supposed to be about love.

My other big drawback was the dual POV. It just didn’t work for me in this instance. We hear not only Jess’ conflicted thoughts about still loving him but also being very angry with him and determined to keep her distance. But we also hear how Nick is still madly in love with her, almost from the beginning. There’s no mystery in how either of them are feeling, and so it ruined a bit of the fun for me. I would have rather been left guessing how Nick was feeling about Jess until later in the book. I think that would have worked better for this story.

All in all, it was a cute little romance. It was easy and fun to read. So break out the peppermint mocha, put on your fuzzy slippers and have a Christmasy read.

New Releases Wednesday – July 24, 2024

by Stefani

There was no upcoming releases post on Sunday because it was my littlest’s birthday! He’s officially a threenager now, and we spent the day playing with his new toys, going out for a Happy Meal and generally having an amazing day. So, let’s pick up with this week’s new releases. I think I found something to appeal to everyone. Tell me what you have your eye on.

Ne’er Duke Well by Alexandra Vasti

Published: July 23, 2024 by Griffin

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

In this steamy Regency romp, Lady Selina is determined to find the Duke of Stanhope the perfect wife―the only problem is she’s starting to think that might be her.

Peter Kent―newly inherited Duke of Stanhope and recently of New Orleans, Louisiana―must become respectable. Between his radical politics and the time he interrupted a minor royal wedding with a flock of sheep―not his fault!―he’s developed a scandalous reputation at odds with his goal of becoming guardian to his half siblings. For help, he turns to the cleverest and most managing woman of his acquaintance, Lady Selina Ravenscroft.

Selina is society’s most proper debutante, save one tiny secret: she runs an erotic circulating library for women. When Peter asks for her help, she suggests courtship and marriage to a lady of unimpeachable reputation. (Which is to say, definitely not herself.)

But matchmaking doesn’t go according to plan. Peter’s siblings run rampant on Bond Street. Selina ends up in the Serpentine. And worst of all, the scorching chemistry between Peter and Selina proves impossible to resist. For the disreputable duke and his unpredictable matchmaker, falling in love just might be the ultimate scandal.

In the Lonely Hours by Shannon Morgan

Published: July 23, 2024 by Kensington

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

In a bewitchingly melancholy, thrillingly modern ghost story for readers of Eve Chase, Megan Shepherd, and Lisa Jewell, the new inhabitants of a centuries-old castle perched on a remote island in northwest Scotland must confront its tragic and terrifying history…

On a small island in a remote corner of northwest Scotland lies Maundrell castle, owned by its wealthy namesake family for centuries—until now. Edwina Nunn is shocked to learn a relative she never heard of has bequeathed the castle and its land to her. What awaits Edie and her teenage daughter, Neve, is even more startling, for the castle is home to a multitude of ghosts.

Yet there’s a strange beauty in the austere architecture and the eerie, bloody waters of Loch na Scáthanna, the Lake of Shadows. Beguiled by a frightened ghost who gazes longingly out of the castle’s windows, Edie and Neve are drawn to the legends shrouding the island and the mystery of the Maundrell Red—a priceless diamond that disappeared decades before.

Is the gem really cursed, and the cause of the family tragedies that have all occurred on Samhain—Scottish Halloween? As Samhain approaches once more, Edie and Neve race to peel back the dark secrets entwining the living and the dead—a twisted story of bitter cruelty and hidden love—or they will become another Maundrell tragedy trapped in the lonely hours .

Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

Published: July 20, 2024 by Penguin

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

To hell with love, this goddess has other plans…

Thousands of years ago, the gods told a lie: how Persephone was a pawn in the politics of other gods. How Hades kidnapped Persephone to be his bride. How her mother, Demeter, was so distraught she caused the Earth to start dying.

The real story is much more interesting.

Persephone wasn’t taken to hell: she jumped. There was no way she was going to be married off to some smug god more in love with himself than her.

Now all she has to do is convince the Underworld’s annoyingly sexy, arrogant and frankly rude ruler, Hades, to fall in line with her plan. A plan that will shake Mount Olympus to its very core.

But consequences can be deadly, especially when you’re already in hell . . .

New Releases Wednesday – July 17, 2024

by Stefani

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

Published: July 16, 2024 by Ballantine Books

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Published: July 16, 2024 by Viking

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.

They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides; the Saracen Knight; and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.

The Keeper of Stars by Buck Turner

Published: July 16, 2024 by Page & Vine

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Who says you can’t rewrite the stars?

1962—Twelve years removed from the summer when she first gave her heart away, Dr. Elizabeth (Ellie) Spencer, Professor of Astronomy at Indiana University, receives a mysterious package that has her asking that very question.

Inside the unmarked box is a novel written by Ellie’s first love, Jack Bennett. It tells the story of a young man and woman who meet at the water’s edge and fall madly in love, only to have their romance cut short by forces beyond their control. Ellie quickly realizes this is no ordinary story; it’s their story. Captivated by Jack’s words, she immerses herself in the pages, reliving the adventures they shared that magical summer. To her astonishment, hidden among the tales of star-gazing and stolen kisses is a detail that has her questioning everything.

Seeking answers, Ellie turns to her sister for help, but before they can get to the bottom of the mystery, news reaches them of their aunt’s death, sending Ellie back to the water’s edge with the hopes of finding the truth and rewriting the stars.

Review: Pride’s Children by Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

by Stefani

Pride’s Children: Purgatory by Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

Published: March 31, 2015 by Trilka Press

Buy this book: Amazon / Thriftbooks

Rating:

Synopsis:

WHAT YOU DO WITH AN OBSESSION COUNTS

“I, KARENNA ELIZABETH Ashe, being of sound mind, do… But that’s it, isn’t it? Being here proves I am not of sound mind…”

So begins Book 1 of the Pride’s Children trilogy: Kary immediately regrets the misplaced sense of noblesse oblige which compels her to appear, live on national television—at exorbitant personal cost.

What she cannot anticipate is an entanglement with Hollywood that may destroy her carefully-constructed solitudinarian life.

A contemporary mainstream love story, in the epic tradition of Jane Eyre, and Dorothy L. Sayers’ four-novel bond between Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Pride’s Children starts with a very public chance encounter, and will eventually stretch over three separate continents.

Review:

***Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for a review. Thank you Alicia and I’m sorry it took me so long. ***

This book and I had an interesting journey. At first I struggled with the writing style. It’s a combination of literary fiction and stream of consciousness writing. I found myself putting the book down and wondering if, perhaps, it just wasn’t my style. And then I would pick it up again. And again. And again. It became my comfort book.

The characters are what make this a great book. Andrew is delightfully witty and smarmy. He’s very likeable, I instantly knew why Kary was so drawn to him. I was drawn to him! Kary was a thoughtful character. I understood her reluctance to engage with Andrew but was frustrated by it at the same time. More than once, I announced, “Kary, let the man do something nice for you! He likes you, I know you haven’t noticed!” Bianca was probably my least favorite character. I found her one dimensional. She is there to provide a stumbling block to the romance, but since no one paid attention to her, she was rather inconsequential. Perhaps she will play a more active role in the next book.

The plot was delightful. It was clear, concise, and the perfect vehicle to take our characters from one place to another. I found the level of detail about film sets and the writing process quite refreshing. It felt authentic. The only place that the plot lagged was in the middle. I got the sense that I was waiting for the “big moment” to happen. That moment eventually happened, but it took a while to get there.

Overall, this book was a fun and emotional journey. I recommend it if you’re a fan of literary fiction and character driven plots.

Reading Progress Updates

by Stefani

I have a lot of in progress reading going on, so thought I would put out some of my thoughts.

Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor

Goodreads

Progress: Page 46 of 310

Synopsis: 1878- The Lyceum Theatre, London. Three extraordinary people begin their life together, a life that will be full of drama, transformation, passionate and painful devotion to art and to one another. Henry Irving, the Chief, is the volcanic leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry is the most lauded and desired actress of her generation, outspoken and generous of heart; and ever following along behind them in the shadows is the unremarkable theatre manager, Bram Stoker. Fresh from life in Dublin as a clerk, Bram may seem the least colourful of the trio but he is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the London streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration. But the Chief is determined that nothing will get in the way of his manager?s devotion to the Lyceum and to himself. And both men are enchanted by the beauty and boldness of the elusive Ellen. This exceptional novel explores the complexities of love that stands dangerously outside social convention, the restlessness of creativity, and the experiences that led to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural tale of all time.

Thoughts so far: It took me awhile to get on board with this story. I didn’t really enjoy the writing style and had a hard time figuring out what I was being told. But once I got past that I am quite enjoying the look at a young Bram Stoker.

Pride’s Children: Purgatory by Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

Goodreads

Progress: Page 52 of 490

Synopsis: WHAT YOU DO WITH AN OBSESSION COUNTS

“I, KARENNA ELIZABETH Ashe, being of sound mind, do… But that’s it, isn’t it? Being here proves I am not of sound mind…”

So begins Book 1 of the Pride’s Children trilogy: Kary immediately regrets the misplaced sense of noblesse oblige which compels her to appear, live on national television—at exorbitant personal cost.

What she cannot anticipate is an entanglement with Hollywood that may destroy her carefully-constructed solitudinarian life.

A contemporary mainstream love story, in the epic tradition of Jane Eyre, and Dorothy L. Sayers’ four-novel bond between Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Pride’s Children starts with a very public chance encounter, and will eventually stretch over three separate continents.

Thoughts so far: This was another one that the writing style took me a little while to jump into to and I was a bit concerned that maybe the story just wasn’t for me. It didn’t take long though for me to catch up and really start to enjoy myself. I adore Andrew. He is quirky, funny, smarmy and just so much fun.

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Goodreads

Progress: Page 78 of 340 pages

Synopsis: Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

The can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.

Thoughts so far: This story seems strange to me so far. A double suicide, an abandoned baby, missing house residents and then suddenly it all comes together for an inheritance at the house where it all went down. It’s been okay so far, but nothing is blowing my socks off yet.