#qotd💬

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🦇 It Happened One Summer Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD What's your go-to summer read?❓ 🦇 Hollywood's It-Girl Piper Bellinger is the paparazzi's beloved wild child. There's always the promise she'll go a bit too far for the Gram, including hosting a rooftop party that lands her in jail after a bad breakup. Hoping she'll learn some sense of responsibility, her wealthy step-father ships her off to her late father's dive bar in the small town of Westport. She's not there for five minutes before she meets grumpy sea captain Brendan, and the two instantly clash. Will Piper reconnect with her past (charting a course for a new future in the process) or can she get back to LA before the end of her three-month sentence?

💜 Despite how much my beloved Booksta girlies adore her writing, I honestly didn't know what to expect from Tessa Bailey (and I'm glad, because I love shaping my own opinions). From chapter one, there's this instantly familiar yet distinct voice that SCREAMS chick-flick rom-com (with Kesha playing at full volume in the background). Piper is Alexis from Schitt's Creek meets Elle Woods ala Legally Blonde. She's vibrant and bubbly and yes, a little ditzy, but after a few chapters, you start to love her for the heart behind it. Brendan is all salt water and deep grumbles, strong yet stuck in his ways. My latest concern with rom-coms lately has been a lack of chemistry. Too many books rush to the smut, forcing two characters to fit when they just don't. Chemistry sparks off the page pretty quickly between these two, though--not in lingering glances, but in actions. Brendan has memory foam installed over a bunkbed so Piper can stop bruising herself. He changes her locks because everyone in Westport has a key to her building. It's not insta-love (but once things progress, these two burn HOT), and I'm grateful for that.

💜 It's the underlying messages that bumped this up to a rare 3.5 stars. People have been putting Piper into a box for too long, telling her she's just like every other girl in LA, that she won't amount to more. Brendan shows her she has so much more to give than she realizes. We start adoring Piper through Brendan, and that's a powerful thing. Meanwhile, Piper recognizes her worth and accomplishes far more than she thought herself capable. There's an underlying theme of guilt and grief from both sides, too; Piper for her late father, and Brendan for his late wife. They heal together and end up stronger for it.

💙 It's the third act that made my star rating falter. Piper clinging to pieces of her past, that lingering what-if of falling back into her comfort zone and old ways--Brendan shouldn't have faulted her for that, turning it into a blowout fight when Piper admitted EARLIER that she didn't know what to do. After that, it's a number of conveniently placed obstacles that keep them apart. Piper's sudden decision to go back to LA felt out of place given her character development, too. Though it wasn't a full third-act breakup, it was enough to feel exhausting.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Emily Henry, Ali Hazelwood, and Hannah Grace.

✨ The Vibes ✨ ⚓ Small Town Romance ⚓ Contemporary Romance ⚓ Schitt's Creek Inspired ⚓ Grumpy/Sunshine ⚓ Opposites Attract ⚓ First in a Duology ⚓ He Falls First

💬 Quotes ❝ I can be in a room full of people that I know & still not feel like I belong. ❞ ❝ This girl. He'd be keeping her. There was no way around it. ❞ ❝ Apparently he enjoyed that now. Being confused & charmed & pulled apart over this woman. ❞ ❝ "I like the things that make you Piper. Don't go changing them now. ❞

[lisa-lostinlit]

✨ INTL GIVEAWAY ✨ 💬 Who’s your favorite superhero? To celebrate SDCC this week, I’m teaming up with featured Comic-Con author Alexandra Monir for a giveaway of her thrilling DC Icons novel, Black Canary: Breaking Silence!! Two winners will receive a signed & personalized copy of the book, plus an 11x17” poster signed by the author and the Eisner Award-winning cover illustrator, Jen Bartel! (Swipe to see the gorgeous poster!) RULES: • LIKE and SAVE this post • FOLLOW @lifeinlit & @alexandramonir • COMMENT answer to QOTD and tag a friend who might be interested FINE PRINT: • Giveaway will end July 24th @ midnight EST • Open Internationally • Must be 18 or have parents permission • Must be a public account so entries can be verified • Not affiliated with Instagram . . . h a s h t a g s : #blackcanary #blackcanarybreakingsilence #alexandramonir #yabooks #dccomics #yabookstagram #booksofinstagram #bookgram #booklovers #booknook #booknookstagram #bookish #bookishflatlay #flatlaytoday #bookphoto #bookpics #readersofinsta #readerforlife (at San Diego Comic-Con) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgRw7dguVDL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[vincentcatagainsttheworld]

💬QOTD: Which witchy power would you want? WitchWind💨 “The force of the wind kept rising, and with it my arms rose, too, shaping the air into a column that enclosed me as protectively as the duvet. On the other side of the disturbance, Matthew stood, one hand still extended, eyes fixed on mine. When I opened my mouth to warn him to stay away, nothing came out but frigid air.” -A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES WitchWater💦 “It wasn’t raining, despite the cloudy skies. The water was coming out of me. My tears fell normally but swelled as they dropped into globules the size of snowballs that hit the stone roof of the watchtower with a splash. My hair snaked over my shoulders in sheets of water that poured over the curves of my body. I opened my mouth to take a breath because the water streaming down my face was blocking my nose, and water gushed out in a torrent that tasted of the sea.” -A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES WitchFire🔥 “All hesitation gone, my right hand tightened and opened. A ball of fire arced from the extended tips of my left fingers. Juliette heard the explosion of flame and smelled the sulfur in the air. She turned, her nails withdrawing from the hole in Matthew’s chest. Disbelief showed in her eyes before the spitting ball of black, gold, and red enveloped her. Her hair caught fire first, and she reeled in panic. But I had anticipated her, and another ball of flame was waiting. She stepped right into it.” -A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES Time Travel⌛️ “Home, I thought. My heart tugged with longing. An unfamiliar bell tolled the hour. There was a warm touch of fire against my skin. The air filled with scents of lavender, beeswax, and ripe quince. “It’s time.” Together we lifted our feet and stepped into the unknown.” -A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES Cat https://www.instagram.com/p/CfKHeTCsKCs/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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𝗕𝗟𝝝𝝝𝗗𝗬 𝝠𝗠𝗘𝗡 💬

“𝙱𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑. 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎.” — 𝚄𝚐𝚘 𝙴𝚣𝚎

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#Be #careful #who you #make #memories #with. Those things can last a life time.” — #UgoEze

𝚂𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚔: A reculons by Flavien Berger, Rebeka Warrior

[mycafe101]

Let it go.. nothing in this world was promised or belonged to you anyway 💬☕️💕 - - - - - - - - - - - - #mycafe101 #blogger #bloggers#fashionblogger #styleblogger #fblogger#tamil #youtube #picoftheday #photooftheday#instagood #instadaily #odense #denmark #mondaymood #qotd #quotes #quoteoftheday #inspiration #quotesaboutlife #letgo #quotestagram #imagine #goodmorning #rupikaur @rupikaur_ #life #poetry #poetrygram — view on Instagram http://bit.ly/2wY7men

[wingedstarnine]

💬 #fridaythoughts 🦋 @softstarryskies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #quote #quotes #quoteoftheday #motivation #life #inspiration #success #inspirationalquotes #instagood #quotestoliveby #entrepreneur #motivationalquotes #art #poetry #photography #photooftheday #lifequotes #business #inspire #fitness #happy #quotestagram #lifestyle #qotd #poem #travel #truth #lovequotes #follow --- @softstarryskies (at Chai Ya Coffee?) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRGDmj0sGnN/?utm_medium=tumblr

[worldofdate]

Dating Memes- Link in bio Follow ( Tag a friend) The game of . . . . . ...

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The game of #Love . . . . . #life #wisdom #facebookdating #datingadvice #tipoftheday #lifequotes  #datingmemes #dating #dailyquotes #inspiration #datingtips #singlelife #relationships #explorepage #men #women #relationshipquotes #qotd #lifestyle #worth #knowyourworth #movingonquotes…

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#nocaptionneeded #loveconfessions💕 #potd❤ #qotd💬 #quoteforhim #wrotebyme #love💙 #ladympreciousman💕 #fazza #faz3💕 #f3 #sheikhhamdanbinmohammedbinrashidalmaktoum #cpofdubai👑

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🦇 Morbidly Yours Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD What do you want people to remember you for? ❓ ⚠ Trigger Warnings: Grief, Death, Car Accident, Ableism, Bullying, Body Horror, Child Death

🦇 Painfully shy Callum Flannelly would rather dive into an open grave than take a stranger to dinner. But he can only inherit the family undertaking business under one condition: He must marry before his 35th birthday. Texan animator Lark Thompson moved to Galway, Ireland, to restart her life and career, not be reminded of losing her husband by moving in next to a funeral home. Can Lark help Callum find The One, or has she been standing right in front of him all along?

💜 Ivy Fairbanks has done a wonderful job at developing vibrant, realistic characters who will, no doubt, steal your heart. Despite the grief and guilt weighing on her, Lark is a ray of sunshine, and there's no discounting the charm Callum is hiding behind his seemingly dark exterior. Initially, I worried they were TOO different for chemistry to spark between them, but the progression is easy and natural, the two of them bringing light to one another despite coming from very different, dark places. The little moments between them truly build into romance, making their friends-to-lovers progression both realistic and raw. You'll fall in love as they fall in love, feel your heart ache as their hearts ache, and watch both characters grow with every page. Beyond that, Fairbanks directs readers directly into Ireland, the setting's natural beauty and rich history seeping out of the page until you can't help but breathe in the scent of flowers blooming after a heavy rain. This book is a journey, both through Galway and its intense character growth. Callum's stutter is well-represented, as is his ace/demisexual orientation. As someone who is in love with a demi-goddess (hehe), I was glad to see it depicted so richly and honestly. Lark researching to understand Callum better was all too sweet.

💙 Normally, I have limited interest in a marriage of convenience plot, but it really works well here. You feel the pressure Callum is experiencing without it seeming like a hokey plot device. I also appreciate that both characters have both internal and external conflicts they need to resolve. That being said, I do think Lark's enemy comes off as a one-dimensional villain, when so many other characters live off the page. I've encountered coworkers who are willing to take credit for another person's work, throw someone under the bus, and bully to feel powerful, but honestly, there's usually a deeper reason motivating them. I also think we should have experienced more panic from Lark when she realized how Callum planned to fix the marriage problem. Instead we skip that scene and go straight into her finding a solution.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Tessa Bailey, Hanna Bonam-Young, and Tara DeWitt.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🪦 Dual POV 🌻 Contemporary Romance/Romantic Dramedy 🪦 Marriage of Convenience 🌻 Set in Ireland 🪦 Opposites Attract 🌻 Ace/Demisexual MMC (w/ a Stutter) 🪦 Forced Proximity/Neighbors 🌻 Friends-to-Lovers 🪦 Open Door Spice 🌻 First in a Series 🪦 Debut Novel

🦇 Major thanks to the author @IvyFairbanksBooks and publisher @putnambooks for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #MorbidlyYours

💬 Quotes ❝ Lark’s vibrance made me fall for her. Stifling it would be akin to plucking a wild, rare bloom, only to watch it wither under a bell jar. ❞ ❝ To love was to accept risk. In all honesty, the half-century old scooter was a thousand times safer than giving anyone my heart—and I’d done that months ago. ❞ ❝ My heart thumps like a drum, with the taste of your lips, the sweet breath in your lungs. I tried not to fall, but I had to succumb. ❞ ❝ Swear on this life, beside you I’ll stand. ❞ ❝ “Mo chuisle? It means ‘my pulse.’ I never quite understood it before, what it meant to have another person be the d-driving force behind the pump of your blood, but it’s true. Lark, your smile saved me like an emergency transfusion. Your laugh is the song my every blood cell dances to. Your touch revived me from darkness. You are my pulse. You make me feel alive even when I’m surrounded by death.” ❞ ❝ “I can’t b-b-believe you named my character Plague Rat.” “What can I say? You inspire me.” She shrugged. ❞ ❝ “Illusions aren’t lies. They’re gifts. They give the audience something to believe in,” she replied. “Help me put a little magic in the world.” ❞ ❝ “You’re absolutely gorgeous,” he murmured. “You say that after I take your glasses off?” I smiled. “I don’t need them to see you.” My heart swelled. He did see me, and it felt so right. ❞ ❝ In an interview, my animation hero Hayao Miyazaki once said that he strived to portray love as a relationship where two people mutually inspire each other to live. ❞ ❝ We would cherish the light and honor the darkness, together. ❞

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🦇 This Used to Be Us Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD What's something you've learned about love that you would want your younger self to hear? ❓ 🦇 Once fiercely in love, Dani and Alex can barely stand the sound of each other’s voice. In the wake of a fresh divorce, they decide to share a nesting apartment, swapping days there or with their two boys at home. The distance gives them the chance to reflect on the last two decades of their marriage—why they fell in love and why everything fell apart. Dani's collection of albums, covered in notes about their past, reminds them just how much love once bound them together. Are those reminders enough to lead them back toward love?

💜 I first encountered Renee Carlino's writing in 2013, when Sweet Thing was released, and have waited for something new since 2019, after The Last Post. To see her name on Netgalley for this book sparked a rush of excitement, like getting a call from an old friend after a few years of silence. Renee Carlino has always excelled at developing strong, emotionally bound relationships. The relationship between Dani and Alex is filled with history (some of which we get small glimpses of, via Dani's album collection and notes from their past). Dani is an emotionally driven character, and those emotions scream off the page; bitter resentment, heartache over a lost love, and everything in between. I had to put the book down a few times at the beginning, simply out of frustration.

💙 While you SEE those emotions, you don't feel it. Every sentence of this story was Tell, not Show, making paragraphs blocky, sentences slatted. Despite the heavy mess of emotions in this book, you don't emotionally connect with either character. Instead, their animosity toward each other makes it difficult to even LIKE either of them. Given the way the story is set up, with Dani's notes on the albums, there's an amazing opportunity for flashbacks--to Show, rather than Tell us, how love can conquer all. We only get a few of those glimpses, and it's not enough. Instead, the present seems to drag them further apart, before rushing them back together without raw, emotional development. The story could have ended with one of the boys, writing their own note on one of the albums. While I love the full-circle concept of the last chapter, it doesn't feel as powerful or emotional as it could have been. What was one of my most anticipated books of the year is now one of the most disappointing.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🌸 Contemporary Fiction 🌸 Marriage/Divorce 🌸 Second Chance Romance 🌸 Miscommunication 🌸 TW: Miscarriage

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #ThisUsedtoBeUs

💬 Quotes ❝ In the beginning, Alex and I were like two opposite magnets in a drawer. My north to his south. We grew closer and closer together … until we fused. It was then that we became the same, too alike … too close. We were so close, so similar, we started to repel one another. We lost our identities & surrendered to being a couple. To being a mom & dad with no singular identities, no separateness, no autonomy. Now I’m seeing him again from the other side of the drawer and there are so many things I want to tell him. ❞ ❝ “You are my Times New Roman. The original, bold & classic.”❞

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 We Free the Stars Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite found family story? ❓ 🦇 Zafira and Nasir return to a ghostly Sultan’s Keep, low on resources and allies alike. The dark forest has fallen, but the kingdom teems with fear of the Lion of the Night’s return. As Nasir fights to command the dark power in his blood, Zafira fights against a very different darkness festering through her bond with the Jawarat. Can they defy the darkness surrounding them to find the light?

💜 My lovely romantasy readers. While we're all waiting for a certain dragon book, why not slip into a rich, vivid, Arabian-inspired epic fantasy that will HAVE YOU ON YOUR KNEES for an intense, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers ship? We Free the Stars (the second book in the Sands of Arawiya duology) provides all that AND SO MUCH MORE.

💜 Hafsah Faizal is an absolute MASTER at intricate, eloquent, powerful prose. Between the stunning setting, realistic characters, and absolute wit, you'll remain enthralled with every page. As our rag-tag found family "zumra" races to restore magic, you'll remain seeped in Arawiya's world and Faizal's spell-casting language. It's lyrical, action-packed, full of longing and loss. As captivating as the world-building and attention to detail are, it's the characters that bring this story to life. Many romantasy stories focus solely on the main ship, but Zafira's relationships with her sister, best friend, a daama book, and those she's lost weigh on her heavier than her father's cloak ever did. Those relationships are meaningful, still growing, capable of shattering with a single mistake--much as real relationships are.

💜 Zafira and Nasir have suffered so much, but still find one another in stolen moments that can steal your heart just as swiftly. The build from enemies to allies to the possibility of more is authentic, never rushed, leaving you craving more with every page yet never denying readers too long. The development is authentic; a dizzying, delightful slow-burn that never steals from the main story.

💙 Unfortunately, the second half of this duology relies deeply on miscommunication. Again, the characters internalize a LOT, causing the pacing to drag at certain points. Some points of conflict were avoidable, if only the zumra spoke to one another (instead of Zafira talking to a daama book that sasses back). The third part of the book, while sweet, felt a little unnecessary, dragging out scenes that could have been collected into an epilogue.

🦇 Recommended for all romantasy fans, namely fans of Ember in the Ashes, Rebel of the Sands, The Wrath & the Dawn, Spice Road, and The City of Brass.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🌙 Young Adult Epic Fantasy 🧭 Sands of Arawiya Duology 🏹 Magic ✨ Assassin/Huntress Enemies to Lovers 🌙 Lyrical and Spellbinding 🧭 Arab & Muslim Inspired/Writer 🏹 Triple POV ✨ "I came to kill you but fell for you" 🌙 Found Family 🧭 Royal Court/Political Intrigue 🏹 Slow Burn & Super Angsty

💬 Quotes ❝ “You seem to have no trouble being the end of me.” ❞ ❝ “Habibi. Hayati. Roohi. My love, my life, my soul, the words meant, but their meanings went deeper than that. Habibi was for friends and love that was real enough. Hayati was when love became an all-encompassing thing. Deeper and deeper, until one became the others life. Roohi was when a soul twined with its match and loved with the force of a thousand suns. When it slipped beneath the heart and tangled in the very fibres of an existence.” ❞ ❝ "You’re like a room full of books. Every time I see you, I discover something new.” ❞ ❝ They suffered alone. Quiet and brave. It was easy to believe that anyone who did not speak of suffering did not suffer. ❞ ❝ My bladed compass, sheathed in starlight. ❞ ❝ His compass. His queen. His life. ❞ ❝ He had been the Amir al-Maut until she had come and torn the monster to shreds with sharp words and coy glimpses. ❞ ❝ You’ll have me. No matter how thick the night, I will always be there to light your way. ❞ ❝ "They say the soul cannot rest until it finds its match. Then it ignites." ❞ ❝ “Do my people not deserve the freedom of yours? Do you know how it feels to stand beside others forged of the same flesh and bone and still be treated as inferior? As someone undeserving?” ❞

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 Playing for Keeps Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD Soccer or baseball? ❓ 🦇 A baseball pitcher and umpire definitely aren't supposed to fall for each other, right? Especially not when star pitcher June and officiate-to-be Ivy are trying to go pro. Sometimes, life throws you a curveball, though. When Ivy is assigned as an umpire for June's elite club baseball team, they instantly clash on the field, only to find they have something in common: grief. Soon, they become enemies to friends to far more, despite the rules that prohibit them from dating each other. Will romance get in the way of them following their dreams?

💜 On the surface, Playing for Keeps seems like a fun, sweet young adult sapphic romance. The initial set-up gives us sharp, bittersweet enemies to lovers potential between a pitch and an umpire. Seems cute and fluffy, right? No one is that one-dimensional, though. Both Ivy and June are struggling with the loss of a loved one, balancing that on top of unrealistic expectations from their parents and the pressures they put on themselves to succeed. Add in the pressure you get from sports alone and it's enough to make anyone crumble. Ivy and June find happiness in each other, through stolen moments as they date in secret, wary that the conflict of interest between them will tear them apart. There's a potential for them to heal through one another, alongside one another, while learning how to navigate the external forces of loss while growing up.

💜 I loved that both Ivy and June were pursuing career paths that don't often make space for women. I would have liked to see more focus on that, though. It was sweet to see how the male players on the baseball team were quick to support June, but I expected to see more kickback (either from her team or other teams) to show (not tell us) how she struggled and still persevered.

💙 Unfortunately, the story is so rushed, so many scenes time-jumped, emotions mentioned but not illustrated, that you don't FEEL anything while reading this story. With the topic of grief, whether a character is processing it or trying to avoid it, readers should have an easy time sympathizing with the characters. Instead, the grief feels like a plot point, a reason for potential enemies to connect and eventually become more.

💙 Even with little jumps, the story lagged. Dugan has a tendency to pair selfless characters with less reasonable counterparts, which we certainly see between Ivy and June. Given that, it's difficult to root for both girls. Yes, they're both grieving, and yes, they both deserve happiness, but their actions are exhausting and (yes, I know it's YA) juvenile at times. Though the two girls had so much in common, the miscommunication trope constantly tugged them in opposite directions.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Some Girls Do, Home Field Advantage, and Cool for the Summer.

✨ The Vibes ✨ ⚾ Enemies to Lovers ⚾ Young Adult Romance ⚾ Sapphic Romance ⚾ Forbidden Love ⚾ Lesbian & Bi FMCs ⚾ Sports Romance ⚾ Grief ⚾ Pressure From Parents ⚾ Miscommunication

💬 Quotes ❝ Expecting it means I can prepare for it, plan for it, and figure out a way to keep my cool in its face. What I didn’t expect, though, was for there to be an extremely attractive girl throwing balls at about seventy-five billion miles per hour, striking out dumb boys left and right, like some kind of varsity, all-star Black Widow. ❞ ❝ There’s a lot of pressure on girls to conform, to become nice women, to do what’s expected. Smile more, whiten your teeth, lose the weight, don’t be too loud or too funny or too much. Make yourself less so the boys can feel like more. Don’t wear spaghetti straps or you might tempt them. Hold yourself accountable for the both of you, so they don’t have to. ❞

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

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🦇 This Is How You Lose the Time War Book Review

❓ #QOTD If you could travel to any time or place, where would you go? ❓ 🦇 Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. They have nothing in common, save that they're both the best, and they're alone.

🦇 What began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

💜 This novella burrowed soft seedlings deep within my bloodstream, sprouted saplings that tangled my mind in a war waged on time, and left me blossoming, tears brimming in my eyes. Red and Blue's slow burn, sapphic romance is compelling, imaginative, dizzying, and disastrous; a beautiful collaboration I hope will breed many more. Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone ensnare you from the first page; their prose takes root DEEP and stays. I'll be nursing this book hangover for a while yet. Once Red and Blue are mentally (and in some ways, physically) intertwined, they bloom purple, their dueling prose uniting into a timeless, ethereal poetry. No real world could contain this story, but the pages of this book did well to contain their love. It's difficult to say more without spoiling the story's potency. No review I could write, even given a thousand threads or lives, would do it justice.

💙 I've made a mess of highlighting this one, each line lending to the next. However, I will say there are some references that left me unable to fully appreciate a well-written line (my own problem, really). I would have appreciated more information about the time war, the Agency, and the Garden, but it's not really necessary when the story's true focus is the blossoming rivals-to-lovers slow burn romance between our protagonists.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Killing Eve (imagine them as time-traveling pen pals and you have Red and Blue's story).

✨ The Vibes ✨ ❤️ Time Travel 💙 Sapphic Romance ❤️ Steven Universe Vibes 💙 Sci-Fi ❤️ Rivals to Lovers 💙 Slow Burn ❤️ Poetic Prose

💬 Quotes ❝ There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? ❞ ❝ I want to be a body for you. I want to chase you, find you, I want to be eluded and teased and adored; I want to be defeated and victorious—I want you to cut me, sharpen me. I want to drink tea beside you in ten years or a thousand. ❞ ❝ Listen to me—I am your echo. I would rather break the world than lose you. ❞ ❝ I have built a you within me, or you have. I wonder what of me there is in you. ❞ ❝ I love you. If you’ve come this far, that’s all I can say. I love you and Iove you and I love you, on battlefields, in shadows, in fading ink, on cold ice splashed with the blood of seals. In the rings of trees. In the wreckage of a planet crumbling to space. In bubbling water. In bee stings and dragonfly wings, in stars. In the depths of lonely woods where I wandered in my youth, staring up—and even then you watched me. You slid back through my life, and I have known you since before I knew you. ❞ ❝ Dearest, deepest Blue— At the end as at the start, and through all the in-betweens, I love you. ❞ ❝ “Some things matter more than winning.” ❞

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🦇 Late Bloomer Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite type of flower? ❓ 🦇 After winning the lottery, Opal Devlin puts all her money in a failing flower farm, only to find an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Boden already living there. Though she's unable to find her grandmother's will, Pepper claims she's the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms. While they agree to cohabitate, Opal and Pepper clash at every turn. Can something softer blossom between these polar opposites, allowing a new dream to take root and grow?

💜 Oh. My. (Sappho.) Goddess. You may think you know Mazey Eddings' writing style, but I assure you, you do not. Many of us read The Plus One and/or Tily in Technicolor last year, but truly, Eddings has far exceeded herself with this one. As a neurodiverse author, Eddings' stories often have some element of neurodiversity / mental health, shining a light on the different ways people's brains work while embracing those differences through beautiful, realistic characters. Opal and Pepper are no different, both on the spectrum yet unique in their behaviors and view of the world. These women are not predictable, pre-programmed components of a story; they are ever-blooming, learning how to plant roots alongside one another, share sunlight, and rise despite being different species. Both plants, growing and adapting to different elements, yet very much the same. While Opal and Pepper have always struggled to fit in with the world around them, they manage to cultivate a safe, healthy garden for one another.

💜 This is one of those overwhelming, layered, awe-inspiring sapphic stories that will tug at your heartstrings long after you read it. Eddings' language leaps off the page, making it a little reminiscent of One Last Stop (be still, my little sapphic heart). I've beyond annotated Late Bloomer, when I'm usually selective about choosing quotes. You don't just see love blossom between these two women; you feel it. It made me smile, laugh, get all messy and misty-eyed. As I said, neither woman is predictable. Opal feels directionless at the story's start, allowing her (fake) best friend and (on/off) ex to step all over her. I expected her to be the wallflower, especially with the BITE we see from Pepper (pun unintended) in her first chapter, but the two balance each other out. When Pepper feels uncertain or anxious, Opal steps forward, bold and unwavering. When Opal begins to crumble, Pepper holds her up. They support each other, never allowing the other to wilt.

💙 Unfortunately, this book relies heavily on miscommunication. Both women are eager to hide their real feelings at the risk of scaring the other. That lack of communication continues until almost the last chapter.

🦇 Recommended for fans of One Last Stop and Imogen, Obviously. Side note: please, please read the author's note. Good goddess.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🌼 Neurodivergency/Autism Spectrum 🌸 Sapphic Romance 🌷 Grief/Healing 🌹 Forced Proximity ⚡ Spicy/First Time 🪻 Cottage Core Vibes 🪻 One Bed ⚡ Touch Her and You Die 🌹 Dual POV 🌷 Miscommunication 🌸 Flower Competition 🌻 Grumpy/Sunshine

🦇 Major thanks to the author @mazeyeddings and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #LateBloomer

💬 Quotes ❝ I’m constantly trying to define myself, to fit nicely and neatly into the boxes and spaces I attempt to occupy. All I’ve ever really wanted to do was belong. Somewhere. Anywhere. ❞ ❝ Slowly, she leans toward me, and my heart pounds so violently in my chest that my head swims. Is she . . . It almost seems like she’s going to press that smile to my mouth. Teach me how it tastes. ❞ ❝ I gave up perfection in any other aspect of my life long ago. It’s simply not possible with a brain like mine. But my art is different; it’s the better version of me, the one I wish people could know me by. ❞ ❝ Ah. There’s the you I missed. ❞ ❝ I used to stress over finding a label that fit me. Lesbian. Bisexual. Pan. Demi . . . I’ve filtered through them all many times over, none ever feeling quite right. Just say queer and move on with your life, Diksha finally told me late one night after what was probably my sixth sexual identity crisis of my early twenties. But what does that mean? I’d wailed, draining more boxed wine into my plastic cup. My brain loves order and labels and concise frameworks to understand things, and not knowing where I fit feels unbearable. It means you’re you, and only you get to decide who you like and when you like them, Tal had said from their chair in the corner. The name of your feelings isn’t anyone’s business but yours. ❞ ❝ But instead, she reaches out to me— opening her hand like a flower unfurling its petals to the sun. I stare at it. The ink stains and calluses and chipped nails and bitten cuticles. For a moment, that hand looks like a second chance. ❞ ❝ Fuck anything and anyone that made you have to survive instead of live. You deserve a life so peaceful it feels deliciously boring. A life filled with flowers and sunny days and people that show you all the time that you’re valued and worthy. You deserve it all.” ❞ ❝ “Her poems spoke softly— as intimately as confessions between lovers—about the terrible, wonderful ache of being in love.” ❞ ❝ Messy and radiant and ours. ❞

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🦇 How to Plot a Payback Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite sitcom? ❓ 🦇 Even after adjusting career paths and crossing an ocean, screenwriter Finn Masters just can't manage to escape his childhood nemesis. Now he has to work with her on the set of Neighbors, one of Hollywood's longest-running, highest-rated sitcoms. Shining star Lavender Rhodes is completely unaware that she ruined his relationship and destroyed his acting career, though there is something about Finn that keeps pulling her into his orbit. As Finn plots his payback, will he recognize why Lavender is so universally adored...and even fall a little himself?

💜 Melissa Ferguson's prose is sharp, witty, playful, and engaging all in one go. Once you fall into the story, there's no getting out until the end. What seems like a fun little romcom is actually brimming with important messages. As his plot to get payback fails over and OVER, Finn starts to see Lavender in a new light. This story is a prime example of how someone can play the villain in our stories, only for us to appear as a background character. The ending (pre-epilogue) was brilliant and sweet; proof of how much Finn has learned about Lavender once he truly got dragged into her orbit.

💙 While this is a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, we don't actually FEEL the emotions bubble and boil over. It's difficult to develop any emotional connection with either main character. Maybe seeing every moment Lavender unintentionally ruined Finn's life as a flashback, instead of as a brief account from Finn, would have added that emotional depth. While this was a slow burn, the actual falling is so sudden that it feels out of place, only for readers to get whisked into a happily-ever-after epilogue. My biggest problem (you've heard this before) was everything related to the sitcom. My gf works in film and the inaccuracies pulled me out of the story every time (no set can survive with so FEW PAs).

🦇 Recommended for fans of Falon Ballard and Ava Wilder.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🎬 (One-Sided) Enemies to Lovers ⭐️ Hollywood/Workplace Romance 🎬 Forced Proximity ⭐️ Slowburn 🎬 Grumpy/Sunshine ⭐️ Hijinks

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

💬 Quotes ❝ Still, that’s how a story grows: from mistakes that cause consequences that cause realizations. And from digging out of holes. ❞ ❝ Because people can admire the sketch of a perfect person on paper, but they relate to, they love, they hate, they weep for, they root for three-dimensional people with both virtues and vices who grow out of the page. Ashley Krane was too perfect. She needed to become alive. ❞ ❝ She’s so good at ruining my life that of course I should’ve suspected she could ruin my payback. ❞ ❝ “Here’s the thing, Lavender. If there’s one thing I’ve learned of late, it’s that dreams can shift, can change. They grow and evolve into new and different dreams— sometimes fashioned by outside forces, sometimes by change of heart. I’ve learned, from you actually, how my dreams could change due to external forces. And it’s not a bad thing. But this time, it’s a mix. I saw an opportunity, and I reached for it. Sure, I’m going back to a detective series. But I’d do it again in a minute. Because you are my bigger dream now. I don’t care what I’m writing, so long as I get to share my days with you.” ❞

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🦇 Fall For Him Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite rom-com (film or book)? ❓ 🦇 Falling through his hot neighbor's ceiling and landing directly into his bed probably wouldn't make Derek Chang hate Dylan Gallagher any less, especially with a poorly timed "It's Raining Men" joke. Though Dylan focuses all his ADHD hyper-fixation energy on getting the repair job done as quickly as possible—avoiding doing anything stupid like acting on his very inconvenient crush—Derek tries to ignore that the tattooed nerd sleeping on the couch is surprisingly witty, smart, and kind, despite the long-term grudge Derek’s been holding against him. But will squeezing all their emotional baggage plus a dog into a tiny one-bedroom apartment be a major disaster…or just prove they’re made for each other? Fall for Him combines banter, hijinks, and heart in a story of finding out what it means to fix things after your life crumbles.

💜 I was fortunate enough to read Andie Burke's debut (and this story's predecessor), Fly With Me, last year, but I didn't expect THIS. Fall For Him is so much more than an enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, gay rom-com continuation. There's no list of tropes that can contain the banter, hijinks, mental health rep, and heart within this story. There's so much grief, healing, and love within this story, matched by wit, banter, and fun, descriptive prose. All of it grabs and holds readers with the same beautiful intensity of an old-school rom-com. Andie Burke's writing has truly BLOSSOMED between Fly With Me and Fall For Him; a feat I'm always glad to see a year after discovering a debut author.

💜 Since I can't contain it all in a concise little paragraph, here's What I Loved: ✨ The mental health rep (including the misconception that someone is rude or antisocial or weird when really they're trying to manage a condition). ✨ Derek's outrage on Dylan's behalf, then fiercely standing up against Dylan's family. ✨ The. Bat. Man. ✨ Felicity, my quippy, hilarious, bisexual babe, and her Depraved Shenanigans. ✨ Jodi, just entirely, my demisexual, forest nymph queen. Andie Burke. Please. Please tell me the next book is Jodi & Felicity (my two emotional support gingers). PLEASE. ✨ All the home reno/construction puns. ✨ All the nerd references (the crack in Amy Pond's wall!) ✨ Every character description. Seriously. ESPECIALLY the boys describing each other pre-kiss. And after kiss. ✨ All the quippy, silly banter. ✨ Light blue scrubs. ✨ "Stupid, lovesick, radiant joy." / "Kay." ✨ The older sibling protective/fix-it mentality. ✨ Loving broken things.

💙 By now, you know miscommunication and third-act breakups are among my least favorite story elements. However, this story STARTS with miscommunication; one moment seen from different perspectives that's therefore misconstrued. After realizing that, Derek actively tries to keep that miscommunication from breaking them. He's one of the first MCs I've seen that tries to avoid a third-act breakup before it happens. I do wish we'd lingered in that moment a little longer, seen it happen differently instead of time-jumping to a week later, but it doesn't shatter the story the way third-act breakups often do. I will say I did cry at the end of this one, so the conclusion amplifies emotions in a way that works.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Red, White, & Royal Blue or Boyfriend Material.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🔨 Mental Health/ADHD Rep 🫀 Contemporary Rom-Com 🖱 Enemies to Lovers 🩺 Forced Proximity ❤‍🩹 Grief Rep/Healing 🐕 Animal Companion 🧠 2nd in a Duology 💙 Dual POV

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #FallForHim

💬 Quotes ❝ I love that English uses the word falling to describe the initial rush of love, capturing the stomach-sinking danger of opening your heart over a chasm of what if. That anyone could love all those deep-inside, messy, jagged bits we try to hide from even ourselves feels like the greatest impossibility. But after all, it’s the impact with the ground that hurts, not the fall, so I guess that’s why the best partners are the ones who cushion us. ❞ ❝ Much like a home renovation project wherein hidden, expensive disasters are created when you try to fix the cosmetic parts only, sometimes you have to break things down entirely before anything gets repaired. ❞ ❝ I wrote it at a time when I needed a reminder that people who feel like their bodies and minds and souls are being held together by caffeine and off-brand Scotch tape deserve to find and can find their person. Because when the ground beneath our feet is crumbling in every possible sense, sometimes we don’t just need a safe place to land. We need a safe place to fall. ❞ ❝ Breaking something sometimes doesn’t mean you’re broken. ❞ ❝ Awkward social interactions created small fractures in his mental armor. Every crack allowed old insecurities to slide right back into his brain. ❞ ❝ That smile did things to Derek. Things he’d rather not admit. ❞ ❝ “I looked for you when I woke up.” ❞ ❝ In his personal experience, every time he invited someone into knowing about his sexual identity, it felt like a small test with big stakes. It was like whispering Are you going to be comfortable with my existence? into a void and just hoping what came out didn’t attack you. ❞ ❝ You deserve stupid, lovesick, radiant joy. ❞ ❝ “I think Felicity wakes up each day and chooses violence.” “You’re not wrong.” ❞ ❝ “Do not ever let someone make you feel that small again. Because you, Dylan Gallagher, are not fucking small.” ❞ ❝ Because if he broke down, how could he still be the one who fixed things? ❞