Tag: book review

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone’s Snow Place Like LA, a Christmas Notch in July novella ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: second chance romance; forced proximity; working with an ex; Christmas in July feels; mm romance; miscommunication and misunderstandings

Snow Place Like LA begins where Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone’s A Merry Little Meet Cute leaves us. Angel and Luca have enjoyed themselves thoroughly in Christmas Notch, but it’s time to return to the “real world,” and Luca is curious and anticipatory about his future with Angel. However, at the airport, at the last minute, Angel seems vague. The two separate with Angel going to Paris and Luca returning to Los Angeles. When Luca tries to connect with Angel via messaging and hears nothing, he doubts their connection. When he finds an incriminating photo on social media, he makes the heavy decision to block Angel, and he feels heartbroken.

Snow Place Like LA is a deliciously dirty rom-com highlighting the disastrous effects of misunderstandings and spur-of-the-moment actions. Set in the backdrop of Teddy Ray Flectcher’s “corn” business, Murphy and Simone use the epic Pretty Woman to craft moments of hilarity for their story. They incorporate many of the characters from the first book of the Christmas Notch series as a way to connect readers who loved that book to this expanding world. When Angel and Luca are forced to work on the “corn” version of Pretty Woman, Luca’s anger and heartbreak create tension in the story, but it never overwhelms its rom-com designation. Unfortunately, Angel and Luca cannot keep their hands off each other.

When Angel and Luca finally talk about their falling out, it becomes clear that there were misunderstandings. As these two reconcile, Murphy and Simone use Luca’s emotional journey to highlight the impact of past traumas on present-day choices. Luca shows us that feeling misunderstood and not being accepted by his family has left him to create walls with the people around him. He uses humor to mask his feelings. When he doesn’t feel “seen” by Angel as they leave Vermont, he recognizes it replicates his feelings to his family’s disinterest in him. Just when it feels as though they will find their happy ending, Angel has more news, and he invites Luca into a future with him. However, Luca’s love for the people who have loved and accepted him makes it difficult to choose Angel’s proposition. Murphy and Simone deftly walk us through Luca’s journey of self-awareness, and Angel and Luca find their happy ending.

Snow Place Like LA is irreverently funny. It’s impossible not to love Luca and Angel, and there are truths in this book that feel necessary for us to read and apply to our own lives. I cannot wait for more stories from Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone’s Christmas Notch series.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Devney Perry’s The Dandelion Diary, a 1001 Dark Nights romance ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: single dad; insta-attraction; teacher/parent; interconnected story

I am certain that Devney Perry’s Maysen Jar series is my sentimental favorite of her book list. The delicate gravity of her stories in The Birthday List and Letters to Molly socks you solidly in the stomach, and you can’t help but fall in love with her characters and their stories. That she, a couple of years later, gifts us with the delicious nibble of The Dandelion Diary, a 1001 Dark Nights novella, is a treasure to behold. Its perfection lies in its simplicity and its poignancy. The Dandelion Diary is an apt reminder of why I love this series so much. 

What is there to love about this nugget of a romance?

  • A protective single dad who adores his daughter. Perry hasn’t drawn her hero, Jeff, with too much complexity. He is a simple man living his life to love and care for his daughter. As you read, you can’t help but fall in love with him as he calls her “dandelion” and he treats her respectfully and fairly in all things. In the shadow of his complicated and tumultuous relationship with his ex-wife, he ensures his daughter is able to love her mother while being a respectful co-parent. Quite frankly, Jeff is a dream hero in all his rugged handsomeness.
  • Like Jeff’s characterization, Perry doesn’t craft Della to be anything more than Jeff’s soulmate. Through her journey, Perry wants her readers to think about the idea of being loved and treasured. Those truths have been missing in her life, at least until she meets Jeff. When she meets him, they complete each other, filling Della’s need to be adored and adding layers to Jeff’s complicated life. 
  • I love the easiness of Jeff and Della’s relationship in the shadow of its forbidden element. Perry creates the perfect tension between its forbidden nature and their responsibility to “do the right thing.” Perry doesn’t overwhelm her readers with the angst of this balance, rather she moves the story along by having her characters take responsibility for their actions.
  • As she does so well in all of her stories, Devney Perry ends The Dandelion Diary with a future brighter than first believed possible. There is beauty in the future lives of her characters, and she adds a touch of surprise as the finality to her romance.

The Dandelion Diary is quintessential Devney Perry. It’s a perfect addendum to her beautiful Maysen Jar series, gifting a little peek back into this world that we adore.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Kandi Steiner’s Meet Your Match ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: enemies to lovers; opposites attract; hockey romance; sports romance; forced proximity; workplace romance

After reading Kandi Steiner’s Meet Your Match, two things are very clear: Steiner is an impassioned and emphatic romance writer. Every word, every sentence, every plot point or beat is a pulse driving her readers into the rabid consumption of her story. Meet Your Match is dramatic and spicy and energized from the beginning to the end. 

You can’t help but gobble Maven and Vince’s story from their meet-cute at the gala when Maven turns her nose up at an enigmatic, but enticing Vince, to the drama of their possible end. We learn through their journeys several lessons: never judge a book by its cover (a bit pedantic but an important reminder), past relationships can inflict traumas that undermine future relationships, people need to be honest with their feelings, and opposites can find a harmonious and beautiful happy ending.  

Steiner creates such delicious tension between Maven and Vince, one that pushes and pulls readers through their journeys. One minute, they can’t keep their hands off each other (and quite frankly, this book reads like one of Steiner’s spiciest), and the next minute, they struggle to find common ground. I love that Steiner makes them work for their happy ending. It is hard fought and almost lost in the end, but that’s the genius of Steiner’s storytelling: she doesn’t make her stories easy on her readers. It’s why her fan base is rabid for her romances. 

I’m “over the moon” for Steiner’s new series, the Kings of the Ice, because the potential for compelling romances has been set with Meet Your Match. She teases the next story at the end of this book, and I can’t wait for it to hit my greedy hands. Once again, Steiner has reminded us why she’s so beloved: she brings the drama and wills us to fall in love with her characters. And she does it beautifully.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Vi Keeland’s Something Unexpected ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: contemporary romance; enemies to lovers; hate to love; banter as foreplay; cinnamon roll hero; angsty

Vi Keeland is sneaky. Reading her blurbs for upcoming books is a bait-and-switch act. You believe you’re getting a rom-com, but 60% in, you realize her romances are more gut-punching than gut-laughing. 

Her newest book, Something Unexpected, is an unexpectedly emotional read that reminds you about the transitory nature of life. Wading through the enticing banter of her hero, Beck, and her heroine, Nora, their steamy chemistry, and their journey to falling in love, you’re met with the gravity of her story: that we must live each day to its fullest because we aren’t promised tomorrow. 

Keeland’s message is wrapped in the broad character development of Beck and Nora, an expected journey for each, and the requisite happy ending. Her prose is simple, but her story is the prize. 

One of the reasons I will always read a Vi Keeland romance is the knowledge that her stories will always be more: always 4 flame steamy, always starts with a hook that makes you want to read it, always a reminder that loving someone requires more than a first glance – love requires a depth that makes us uncomfortable, but always makes us better people.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Karla Sorensen’s One and Only ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: fake relationship; single dad; sports romance; slow burn

“I wanted her everywhere. All her sounds, every flicker of her eyes, and every smile, I wanted them inked on my skin and threaded through my veins.”

There is something very special about Karla Sorensen’s One and Only. Let me be clear: Sorensen is a must-read author for me because her style, her storytelling, her genius at crafting characters speaks to me as a reader. I can hear her characters and their story distinctly in my head, and the way she puts words together flows easily through my mind. I’ve loved her romances and especially adored Logan Ward, the ultimate book boyfriend, for his capacity to love his sisters and his eventual soulmate, Paige. I note all of this because her newest book has taken the top spot for my favorite Sorensen romance. Here’s why…

  1. The romance is nuanced in a way that shreds your heart. Everything feels understated and small, but the specter of it fills your soul. One and Only is a slow burn. Like…a really slow burn. Think, they finally give in to their chemistry at the 90-ish percentage mark. And it’s pure perfection. It’s exactly as it should be because Sorensen knows that her characters, Greer and Beckett, require the space of the story to find themselves while falling in love with each other.
  2. I’ve tried to understand why Sorensen’s romances captivate me, and One and Only helped me realize that her superpower is crafting small, quiet moments between her characters that shout out their attraction and chemistry in powerful, heartrending ways. Even with a big character such as Greer who takes up space with her spontaneity, the small moments between her and Beckett cause you to hold your breath and fall deeply in love with them. There’s a moment when Beckett shares his experience growing up with older parents and feeling minimized. He tells Greer how he’s insistent on wanting all the time with his daughter, Olive, because he wants to give her more than he had. In that moment, he recognizes how Greer takes his truth and holds it dear: “Greer’s attention never wavered, and I could see the way she tucked every word of my answer somewhere important. I wanted to know where she kept it. Where she locked it away. What question it answered in her mind. This answer, the biggest piece of who I was, mattered to her. And that, in turn, mattered to me.” This is a purely internal moment, and it causes you to hold your breath a little at Beckett’s gravity of interest in Greer. It’s here where love is created, and it jars you a little in all the best ways. Beckett is incredibly internal, and Sorensen uses it to draw her readers to his character.
  3. Beckett speaks few words, but his eventual choices breed a big love. That’s where I fell in love with him. It’s where he surpassed my love for Logan Ward. His integrity and his willingness to sacrifice Greer in order for them to have a future are what made me fall deeply for him. It’s hard to describe why it feels special to this story, but I think, in a world where it feels harder and harder to trust people, Sorensen plays with the idea of integrity through the fake relationship trope and rectifies it in a way that feels both devastating and promising in equal measure. That’s where she blew my mind and made me appreciate her even more as a writer.
  4. The tertiary relationships of One and Only are its foundation. They give Beckett and Olive a family, challenge Greer, add humor, and make me cry. The Wilder family is magical, and I won’t be okay when Tim dies. I know it’s a matter of time, but I’m not ready for it yet. Even more, there is the promise of more stories, and I can’t wait to reside in Ian, Parker, Cameron, or Poppy’s stories because Sorensen has constructed a family that we’d all love to belong to.

I’m still not over One and Only. Beckett’s silent strength and Greer’s fierce love have burrowed spaces into my heart. As I think about the sweet bonus epilogue and the beauty of their journey, I don’t want to move on from them. Hopefully, we will see them again in future Wilder family books, but it’s a testament to Karla Sorensen’s gift that we hate to leave her stories. That we’d love to live in the day-to-day of Beckett and Greer always.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Lauren Connolly’s Letter Late Than Never, a Smartypants Romance and book 3 of Green Valley Heroes ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: high school crush; love from afar; second chance romance; small town romance

Lauren Connolly’s Letter Late Than Never is a wonderful addition to Smartypants Romance’s Green Valley Heroes series. I found myself lost in her story as Gwen and Sebastian recognize their feelings for each other. Unlike other Smartypants Romance stories, Connolly’s Letter Late Than Never is more nuanced in its messaging. Gwen struggles with believing she can have what she wants, namely Sebastian in this story. The choices other’s made for her in the past influence her present, and she struggles to accept more from Sebastian. That she’s worthy of it. And through Sebastian’s characterization, Connolly highlights the impact of working in a trauma-filled world and the post-traumatic consequences of it: anxiety and panic attacks. Placing that struggle as Sebastian’s journey highlights discussions about masculinity, trauma, and therapy in an underserved population. 

Connolly has crafted a compelling romance in Letter Late Than Never that is sweet and spicy in equal measure. Sebastian’s realization about Gwen and Gwen’s reticence to accept his interest in her make for a story that engages the reader through to its sweet happy ending. 

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Lexi Blake writing as Sophie Oak’s Unexpected Bliss ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: part of an expanded universe; MFM; FMC with past trauma; small-town romance; found family

There is a long list of reasons I enjoy Lexi Blake’s writing as Sophie Oak’s Unexpected Bliss, book 13, in her Nights in Bliss series. I’ll give you the reasons in a moment, but it’s important to underscore the heart of this story: Blake’s own experience infused into her FMC, Elisa’s journey. One of the main reasons I love teaching writing is the promise of learning about the writer through their story-telling. Our filters (past experiences, values, upbringing, etc) find purchase in our writing. When it’s soulful and filled with pain, we, the reader, feel it too, and in many instances, we find the author’s experience reflecting our own. This creates a tether to the story that adds profundity to it. It’s why we cry or laugh or feel butterflies in our stomachs because we find a little bit of ourselves in it. Blake’s bravery in offering bits of her story through Elisa’s journey makes Unexpected Bliss compelling and thoughtful and passionate, and I loved every moment of it. It’s brave. It’s insightful. And it tugs at your heart. That’s just the start. Here are the other reasons I loved this story:

  1. Elisa perfectly balances the literal and sometimes brooding Hale and the charming, stubborn Van. Where Hale and Van struggle, Elisa excels. The three have been crafted to complete each other.
  2. Elisa’s connection to Mel. Mel’s character has challenged the veracity of aliens if you’ve “lived” in Bliss through the pages of Blake’s romances. In this book, Mel and Elisa find something in the other that they didn’t know what missing.
  3. I love a found family trope, and it’s beautifully constructed in this story.
  4. The expanded universe of Bliss is always a treasure. Blake gifts her readers with a trove of past characters, which means you spend a lot of time getting caught up with the various couples. Even more, the next generation infuses the pages of this book. 
  5. While Blake follows her usual story pattern (two of the throuple recognize their love for each other while the third believes they don’t have a future together), it doesn’t matter because we know they’re headed for a happy ending, and we’re treated to some delicious spice while they figure it out.

If you love MFM romances and you’ve never been to Bliss, Colorado, today’s the day to start. If you’ve been to Bliss, but you’ve yet to grab Unexpected Bliss, it’s like pulling on your favorite sweater on a chilly day: it leaves you feeling warm and satisfied until the very end

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Lauren Rowe’s Hacker in Love ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: contemporary romance; blind date; rom-com

I don’t think I’ve read a romance where the MMC and FMC are adorable from their meet-cute. Lauren Rowe’s expanded billionaire and rock-star universe inspires good romances. Her newest offering, Hacker in Love, was created for her fans, and she gifted Henn and Hannah to them. From the moment they meet, it’s clear they’re soulmates, and much of Hacker in Love is them falling heavily in lust and love with each other. Here’s the thing. I love Henn and Hannah’s journey, BUTTTT..and I hate to say this because I adore Lauren Rowe, Hacker in Love feels like filler. Yikes! I hate saying it. This book is steamy, and Henn and Hannah are clearly soulmates, but Hacker in Love feels like what Solo was to the Star Wars universe. It fills gaps and summarizes plotlines from the other stories in the universe. As such, at times, it feels disjointed. The tension of the story is Henn’s secretive life. As it gets doled out over the space of the story, Hannah’s story feels uneven. They’re soulmates, yet he doesn’t fully trust her until almost the very end of the story. It feels inconsistent with their journeys. I love Lauren Rowe, so I wanted to love this story, but I didn’t. I appreciated it for what it was: a love letter to the fans as they waited for Rowe to find her writing voice again. Was hanging out again with many of Rowe’s favorite characters wonderful? Yes. Did Hannah and Henn give me a cavity from their sugar and spice relationship? For sure. Would I want to read their story again? Probably not. Lauren Rowe filled the gaps with Henn’s story, but I’m not sure that they needed filling.

In love and romance,


Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Allie Winters’s Can’t Fight It, a Smartypants Romance ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: friends to lovers; opposites attract; slow burn; close/forced proximity; college romance; new adult romance; contemporary romance; STEM FMC

Allie Winters’s Can’t Fight It is a bit of a revelation. There are some tropes that don’t entice me as much as others, namely friends to lovers and sometimes slow-burn (specifically when the pacing is off). However, with Winters’s newest Smartypants Romance book, I found Winters’s pacing appropriate and chemistry-inducing. I was compelled forward through Winters’s romance as her main characters, Tessa and Austin, navigate moving past first impressions (Tessa is initially frightened by Austin’s large stature), learn the complexities of each other, move through life (she’s a student researcher/future grad student and he’s a boxer turned eventual business person), and fall in love. What grounds their story is their mutual respect for each other which begins as neighbors turned friends but eventually becomes attraction due to Austin’s protection and kindness for Tessa. Winters crafts Austin to be physically overwhelming, but he has the biggest heart and shows unending kindness towards Tessa. And Tessa becomes Austin’s motivation to consider more for his life. She impresses on him to stand up for himself with his father and challenge himself to attend school. Before there is love and attraction between Tessa and Austin, they are the other’s biggest ally. And this is why I fell in love with their story. 

Readers should know that this is a serious slow-burn romance. In fact, Can’t Fight It is a romance between introverts, but it felt real to me. There are several lessons to be learned from this story: overcoming fear (literal and perceived); accepting that failure is a part of the learning process; and recognizing that loving and protecting someone doesn’t make them a burden; it’s a byproduct of one’s love for the other. Smartypants Romance continues to tell compelling stories.

In love and romance,


Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: runaway bride; single dad; dad of twins; forced proximity; grump/sunshine; opposites attract

“It’s me choosing you —- just you. As you are.”

Thus far, in the month of May, Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love is my favorite romance book. This is part Runaway Bride, Sound of Music, and Notting Hill. Two tropes that instantly grab my attention are found in this book: single dad and grump/sunshine. And Austin, Harlow’s MMC, is drawn as deliciously hot, but a grumpyumpleton to his core. Harlow balances his curmudgeon nature with two precocious twins and a family who humbles him daily. Her FMC, Veronica aka Roni, challenges him, through her sunny disposition, to recognize his self-sacrifice and consider choosing his dreams. Conversely, Austin helps Roni recognize the importance of expecting people to love her on her terms. As they work through their separate issues, Harlow infuses spice and humor, sweetness and challenge to engage her readers’ feelings, and the combination of these things causes the reader to gobble the book. At least, I did. Austin and Roni excited me, and I didn’t realize that I’d been missing the draw of reading until I fell into Austin ad Roni’s story. I felt indignant for Roni’s betrayal, cheered Austin’s sister when she decided to invite Roni to be a nanny for Austin’s children, grew annoyed with Austin’s instant judgment of Roni, became elated when Roni showed her beautiful soul, was titillated by Austin and Roni’s chemistry, and grew emotional as both Austin and Roni recognized that he needed to choose himself and his dreams and she needed to be chosen period. 

Grab Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love if you need something to read that feeds your soul. This book will make you laugh, become misty-eyed, and fog your glasses all in one pass. This book is a total homerun.

In love and romance,

Professor A