Tag: book review

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Sarina Bowen’s The New Guy ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: hockey romance; sports romance; neighbors turned lovers; hockey star and hockey trainer; mm romance

Sarina Bowen’s The New Guy is a fantastic addition to her Brooklyn Bruisers stories. Her newest book is satisfying as her characters, Hudson and Gavin, navigate professional sports life under the shadow of secrets. Bowen takes her time in drawing Hudson and Gavin together even though their chemistry is combustible from the moment they meet at the bar made famous throughout Bowen’s Brooklyn Bruisers/Brooklyn Hockey series. She carefully weaves in our favorite Brooklyn guys while introducing us to Gavin and Hudson, reminding us why we love these series so much. Even more, if she has the margin to write them, The New Guy provides a launching pad for a new series with a different hockey franchise. 

Through Gavin and Hudson’s stories, Bowen interrogates fear from the perspective of a widowed single father wanting something for himself while negotiating a new life in Brooklyn and a staid hockey player who has hidden his true self from the world, hoping to find a team who will keep him. This means The New Guy has Gavin and Hudson moving one step forward and three steps back for much of the book. While their attraction flies off the page, building any relationship between the two is fraught with lots of starts and stops. Bowen uses these spaces to develop more than their attraction as they learn about each other and themselves. She waxes poetic about facing and overcoming fears when she writes, “maybe there’s something holding you back, too. Maybe you’re dyslexic, or depressed or carrying around some burden I can’t see. Let me just tip you off that holding it in doesn’t make it go away. Please learn from my mistakes. The time and energy I’ve spent on my fear could have been put to better use…” Bowen reminds us that we stagnate if we don’t face our biggest challenges, and it becomes impossible to find an abundant life if we live in constant fear.

This truth, returning to past Brooklyn Bruisers players, and the sincerity, sweetness, and spiciness of Gavin and Hudson made for an engaging and entertaining read that made it impossible to put down.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Penelope Ward’s Toe the Line ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️


Penelope Ward’s Toe the Line is the epitome of epic romance. This book spans years and is a gorgeous mix of spice, heart-rending drama, and tug-a-war chemistry-laden moments. Penelope Ward has written a rich, angsty romance using the trials and tribulations of Noelle and Archie, as their timing misses over and over again. She reminds us that the stars align at the end of a romance to bring a fated couple together, but the journey forward is fraught with other relationships, missed opportunities, and fertility issues. Penelope Ward has dreamed up this epic romance into one that will tug at your heart and leave you satiated at the end. Just know that she will put you through your paces before you get there.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: K.K. Allen’s Blanket of Stars ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: opposites attract; forced proximity; virgin hero; MMC falls first; small-town romance; neighbors-to-friends-to-lovers

If you haven’t yet journeyed into K.K. Allen’s Camp Bexley series, right now is the perfect time to jump in. With her latest release in this series, Blanket of Stars, Allen deftly ends this series under the sparkle of stars reticent of a good romance. 

In this final book, we are introduced to Cayson Bexley, the youngest of the Bexley brothers, and quite frankly, he is the most innocent and empathic of the brothers. Even with his years in the Air Force, a usual masculine endeavor, there is something pure about Cayson, and it doesn’t make him a “beta-hero;” rather, he acts as a foil to his FMC’s typical boyfriend type. It creates this great complication and the ultimate struggle between Cayson and Olivia. K.K. Allen must reconcile Cayson’s immediate adoration and eventual love for Olivia, as she determines her worthiness of Cayson’s love. All of this is deliciously wrapped in a steam-fest that begins with Cayson’s innocence and ends with his control of their physical relationship. I know some readers might not appreciate a virginal hero; however, something about it feels female-forward, as Olivia teaches Cayson how to pleasure her. Allen is careful to balance a potential emasculation with Cayson’s growing confidence in the bedroom, so, while at first their experience is uneven, it eventually becomes a balanced partnership.

If you’re a fan of a compassionate, thoughtful good guy hero and a heroine who has enough moxie for both of them, then you’ll love K.K. Allen’s exclamation point with Blanket of Stars. She took all the threads of this series and tied them into a bow of pure romance completion.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Lex Martin’s The Baby Blitz ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: Enemies to lovers; childhood friends; brother’s best friend; surprise baby; sports romance

Maggie and Olly bring all the spice to Lex Martin’s The Baby Blitz. This book has it all: the tension of enemies to lovers, the forbidden quality of a brother’s best friend, the angst of a surprise baby, and the underlying drive of a sports romance. Martin does an apt job of juggling Maggie and Olly’s story, highlighting the difficulty of balancing familial responsibilities with a complicated pregnancy, a football dream, and unexplored feelings from the past. The Baby Blitz is a constant tug-a-war of tension and chemistry as Maggie and Olly work toward their happy ending. After a laundry list of issues, Martin gifts her readers with the type of happy ending that will make you sigh. Olly and Maggie find their partnership, resolving their litany of issues. 

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Skye Warren’s Three to Get Ready ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Skye Warren’s conclusion to her Hughes series, Three to Get Ready, aptly wraps up the trilogy with a neat little bow. Much like the series’ first two books, Finn and Eva must navigate his family’s curse. Honestly, the resolution of Finn’s situation goes out with a fizzle. Yet, Warren accommodates that lack with a heart-warming, beautiful ending for Finn and Eva. I would have loved for this series to be a duet instead of a trilogy, and its storytelling would have been more concise. Three to Get Ready is requisite Skye Warren with plenty of spice, character, and heart.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Lucy Score’s Things We Hide From The Light ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: opposites-attract; forced proximity (next-door neighbors); brother’s long-time friend; romantic suspense; found family

“‘Tell me it’s worth it,’ I blurted out. 

‘What’s worth it?’ 

‘Letting someone in. Letting them get close enough that they could destroy you if they wanted to.’ 

‘I might sound like a goddamn greeting card, but it’s worth everything,’ he rasped.”

I know that one of my favorite messages in romance is the idea of needing to become vulnerable when falling in love. That internal fight shading the journey of an MMC and FMC is both delicious and compelling. And Lucy Score’s newest tome, Things We Hide From the Light draws on this message in a way that gobbles your heart. 

Score doesn’t leave it for just one of the characters; she weaves it into the stories of both Nash and Lina. Both of them initially fight against allowing the other into their emotional lives in any meaningful way. The book’s first half is a figurative tug-of-war between an overwhelming attraction to the other and a need to protect their hearts and souls. Score balances these conflicting emotions beautifully, giving us an inch and pulling us back a mile when these two opposites, Nash as the black and white officer of the law and Lina as the arbiter of the gray areas. Honestly, their journey is decadent, with Score offering up a five-course meal of story, character development, universe-building, emotion, and spice. Every turn of the page promises more investment into Nash and Lina’s story. 

What are the big takeaways?

Score is a wordsmith, threading words together into sentences weighted in their truth. 

Nothing is better than a “girl gang” in a romance story, and the combination of Naomi, Sloane, and Lina is a roundhouse kick of women’s power. When these three live on the page, the story is heightened. You find yourself either laughing or crying at their camaraderie. 

The bonus epilogue will legitimately give you a cavity. It’s sweet and heartfelt, and I left this book hating to leave Lina and Nash to their life. 

As I was reading, I reveled in the way that Score takes her time in telling Nash and Lina’s story, as well as the bigger story of the first two books: the one about Duncan Hugo. There is some resolution to it, BUT I don’t think it’s “done done.” I’m thankful that Lucy Score doesn’t feel the need to rush her story or character development, and there was no point in the book when I felt it was repetitive or redundant. Each cycle of Nash and Lina’s journey moved them closer to the abundant love neither really thought they’d find. Lucy Score allowed that space to build it. 

Mr. Studly Do-Right is a dreamboat, even when he’s dark. I love me a dark-to-light trope, and Score uses it brilliantly to allow Lina to shine. One of my other favorite parts of romance is how an FMC or MMC truly sees the other person. Score utilizes this trope to draw Nash out of the dark. Because Lina recognizes his pain due to her own past trauma, he can be seen and work towards healing. This truth plays beautifully into the developing vulnerability between Nash and Lina. 

One of the best moments of TWHFTL is a skydiving moment. It seems trivial, but Score uses it to impart an important life lesson, one needed for her characters and one needed for us. 

If you’re a dog lover, then Piper will steal your heart. She adds another layer to Score’s interrogation of being brave to love.

It is without a doubt that I will read whatever Lucy Score has cooked up. Just as she did with Things We Never Got Over, she has written her heart into Things We Hide From The Light. As readers, it behooves us to take it to heart, reminding ourselves that loving bravely will make us better people.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Kandi Steiner’s Hail Mary ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: second chance romance; forced proximity; enemies to lovers; sports romance; neighbors to roommates; slow burn; angsty tension; new adult college romance

Kandi Steiner’s Hail Mary is a masterclass in enemies to lovers, second chance, sports romance. Attempting to find the words to describe the fearlessness of Steiner’s writing is difficult. There is great intentionality in her storytelling which creates in her readers a rabid fandom and adoration over her books.. Initial reviews pour out high praise for Hail Mary for good reason. Just as her MMC Leo Hernandez catches a hail mary pass attempt in a crucial game against their rival, Steiner’s book is the hail mary ending of her Red Zone Rivals series. Like most hail mary passes, this book is a thing of beauty, inspiring big emotions in its readers. If you do nothing else right now, grab this one. Here’s why:

Steiner writes the heck out of a sports romance. She mixes in real football with off-the-field shenanigans. She doesn’t overwhelm her readers with the sport; instead, she sprinkles it over the relational journey of Leo and Mary. 

The pacing of Hail Mary pulls the reader in and keeps them engaged. Steiner creates delicious tension through the first half as Leo and Mary negotiate past wrongs. This is where Steiner shines. For me, Chapters 22 and 23 are the chef’s kiss as they bring Mary and Leo’s attraction and disdain to a boil. After that, the story finds its cruising speed as Leo and Mary’s attraction evolves into more. In each step of her story, Steiner dictates her readers’ emotions, winding heartache and humor, pain and pleasure together into a story that clings to you days later. 

Even though Hail Mary can be quantified by so many tropes, two truths are foundational to this book: the Red Zone Rivals community adds depth and breadth to sports romance and two, romance can be more: bigger than second chances, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, sports romance. In this romance, Steiner uses Mary’s characterization to spotlight autonomy in two ways: personal choices vs. parental expectations and the consequences of $exual harassment for its victim. These messages underpin Leo and Mary’s romance, and they suggest that authors can write romance that marries steam with social responsibility. Steiner doesn’t overwhelm her readers with these messages; instead, she deftly weaves them within a story that is an emotional and $exual powerhouse (I think the spice level of Hail Mary and Blind Side are tied).

Don’t miss on Kandi Steiner’s Hail Mary or its predecessors. This series is some of my favorite sports romances of the past year. Leo and Mary’s story simply offers up a stellar ending to this spectacular series. 

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Kylie Scott’s End of Story ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: Friends to lovers; Forced Proximity; Ex’s best friend; soulmates

Kylie Scott’s End of Story is a romance between loosely-defined friends who fight their attraction because the MMC is the best friend of the FMC’s ex. This romance, for me, feels like a departure from Scott’s usual fare. Readers who come to her looking for her famous Stage Dive, Larsen Brothers, or West Hollywood flavor might be shocked by End of Story. This is some paranormal meets rom-com banter between two people who are fighting their chemistry. And even after ending this story, I’m still unsure of my feelings about it overall. 

Let’s begin with the cons first:

  1. It’s a slow burn that feels slow for the first third of it. Other reviewers noted how easily they moved through the story. It took me a bit to get through it. 
  2. The impetus for their eventual connection seems a bit silly. I don’t think the prequel story, Beginning of the End, sets up enough chemistry for Susie and Lars. Therefore, the reason for their chemistry in End of Story isn’t initially believable to me. 
  3. I think a dual POV might have helped the credibility of their attraction.
  4. It took me most of the book to engage with Lars and Susie.

Now, for the pros:

  1. Once Susie and Lars found their groove, they are adorable and sweet, very rom-commy.
  2. The ending is poignant, and while the book was slow for me at the beginning, the ending left me with a smile.
  3. Lars’s brother, Tone, and Susie’s best friend, Cleo, add some layers to Susie and Lars’s connection.
  4. Kylie Scott writes a d-bag villain well with Susie’s -ex Austin. You love to hate him in End of Story. 
  5. A little over halfway through the book, the story picks up, and the attraction you hope to feel finds its pacing, specifically after Lars lands himself in the hospital. I enjoyed the book more as Lars and Susie fall more deeply in love. 
  6. The turning point of the story at Lars and Tone’s parents’ anniversary party is the highlight of the book besides the final chapter and epilogue. 

If you’re a Kylie Scott fan, you should definitely read this story. If you’ve never read her before, I’d begin with her Stage Dive series. Once you recognize her capacity to shift between stories, then grab End of Story and appreciate her rom-com sense. 
In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Rebecca Jenshak’s Wild Ever After, a Wildcat Hockey romance ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: marriage of convenience; cinnamon roll male character; hockey romance; sports romance

By my estimation, there are several ways to entice one’s readers. For me, formulate a romance with a cinnamon roll main male character to fall for an untrusting, somewhat neurotic main female character using the mechanism of a fake marriage or some type of forced proximity. If you add some sports romance to it, more power to the author. This is precisely the genius of Rebecca Jenshak’s Wild Ever After. For me, Jenshak’s newest story in her Wildcat Hockey series is my favorite thus far because Declan is a dream, an unassuming thoughtful hero who adores his heroine, Jade, beyond a measure she can understand. From their chemistry to the struggles of their marriage of convenience to the community of friends to which they belong, Wild Ever After entices its reader.

Highlights:

Declan’s growing adoration for Jade inspires her to begin to trust a significant other. Honestly, Declan doesn’t have to do much to build this trust other than see Jade and care for her in ways that her mother wasn’t always good at doing. When he makes his home her home, it’s a pure swoon fest.

Declan’s background should have made him “hard”; instead, it allows him to grow an EQ that makes him the perfect cinnamon roll hero.

Jade’s journey from needing status to realizing her favorite “space” is with Declan. Jade begins the story chasing “clout,” a common societal goal; yet, as she researches how people love and she is loved by Declan, she recognizes her true happiness. She moves from cold to hot with Declan as she struggles with finding this truth. In the end, Jenshak places her exactly where she should be, making for a story that makes you sigh with happiness.

The community of Wildcat hockey friends continues to entertain in this book. For one, Jenshak gives us updates, but she also hints at future stories. By the end of Wild Ever After, you know the next book’s main characters. Even more, the support of this community adds layers to Jade and Declan’s romance. 

From start to finish, Rebecca Jenshak’s Wild Ever After reminds her readers of the difficulty of love. Both Declan and Jade must learn to trust and become vulnerable with each other after pasts filled with reasons to avoid these. In the end, these two are fated, and their happy ending is exactly what we expect of romancelandia. 

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Jewel E. Ann’s Before Us ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

“Love is not good at chasing expectations. It thrives on acceptance.”

Jewel E. Ann’s Before Us is a poignant, heart-rending story about timing and soulmates. As I sit here trying to put this review together, the phrase “hits and misses” keeps running through my mind. Many of Jewel E. Ann’s (who I will refer to as JEA for the duration of this review) play with timing. Her characters oftentimes aren’t “meant to be” during a specific time and place, so she separates them and brings them back together when “the time is right.” But really she isn’t noting a “right” time; she’s simply challenging us to consider the options of life. 

In Before Us, JEA challenges us to consider soulmates. Are we fated for one person for the rest of our lives? Or is it possible to love different people with the same gravity of love at different moments? In fact, she shows us this clearly in this book, and you don’t ever doubt the veracity of it. She is careful in her construction of this, though. Her choices about timing, I think, are why I adore her stories. She knows her readers and intentionally crafts a chronology that allows us to accept tropes such as cheating (that trope isn’t in this story) or her MMC marrying her FMC shortly after the death of his wife. She deftly highlights the difficulty of perception in an incredibly uncomfortable moment in the story. She doesn’t allow her characters to “get away” with their choices; JEA metes out consequences for them. So it creates this lovely balance between reality and fiction.

In Before Us, JEA challenges us with the idea of dreams. What is a dream? Can dreams change as life happens? Should one character usurp another character’s dreams? What about one character supposing they know the dreams of the other character better than they know it for themselves? I found Zach and Emersyn’s journey around this idea most frustrating but necessary. I wanted to scream at Zach to stop sacrificing and take for himself. The tension of his choices compelled me through the story, however. 

I just want to stop right here. I have too many words to describe why readers should read Jewel E. Ann’s Before Us, and they seem insufficient. Emersyn’s story is the reality of our world. Young people are homeless and have to sacrifice for basic needs…and it’s all here in this book. Zach’s journey illustrates the grief process. How does one process the death of a loved one? Even more, how does one love someone who is terminally ill, having to make choices that feel devastating so they can find peace? It’s all here. All that is lovely and painful and life-affirming is in Before Us. Jewel E. Ann once again shows us why she is a beloved author in the world of romance through her beautiful storytelling in this book. 

In love and romance,

Professor A