I don't have any pithy for August, so let's just get into some books releasing this month!
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Heartbreak for Hire falls solidly in the middle of the pack for me. It's an interesting premise: a woman who works as a professional heartbreaker falls for one of the people she's been hired to take down. Because it turns out that not all the women who hire the company are doing it because they've actually been hurt, some just want to eliminate a rival.
Seven Days in June was everything I was promised. It's heartbreaking and funny and raw and so so romantic. There's a lot of intense content, so please heed those CWs if you need 'em.
Satisfaction Guaranteed is an opposites-attract contemporary WLW romance between a free-spirited artist/sex toy salesperson and a buttoned-up accountant/gallery manager. When Cade Elgin's aunt passes away and leaves her half of her sex toy store and house, Cade plans to sell it and move on with her life. But there are two major problems. First, there's the fact that the house has two mortgages and the shop is in so much debt that the "inheritance" is really just a few hundred thousand dollars of negative money. Second, there's Selena. Selena is a non-practicing painter who has been renting from Cade's late aunt and also working in the shop. She's the other inheritor and she really doesn't want to sell. Cade being a numbers person wants to just clean her hands of the whole mess, but Selena talks her into giving it one big try.
What the Hex was so much fun! Listened to it in one afternoon because it made my ears so happy.
More mini-reviews! Reviews of Ariadne, Blade of Secrets, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, The Wolf and the Woodsman, Black Water Sister and Some Girls Do. This is a really mixed selection: a Greek myth retelling, a YA fantasy, a short story collection, two adult fantasy novels and a YA contemporary romance.
Rating refresher! Categories are based on whether or not I recommend them to fellow readers - DNF (Did Not Finish), Pass, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), Read it Eventually, Read it Soon.
July! Popsicles and brownouts and days so hot your fingers slip on your ereader. July is frequently a slower month for book releases as it follows the intense push in May and June to get all those "beach reads" out. But as you'll see, there are still a lot of books coming out this month, so let's get to it!
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I was excited to read Sweethand ever since N.G. Peltier shared the blurb and cover, so I preordered it and then gleefully downloaded an audio review copy when that option came up. The premise: enemies-to-lovers with a music producer and a baker who have to work together as best man and maid of honor at a wedding? It's like 5 kinds of Suzanne catnip. Besides, from the minute I read this f/f PNR flash fiction on her site, I was eager for more of her work. It's delightfully queer and steamy.
More mini-reviews! Reviews of The Soulmate Equation, Second First Impressions, People We Meet on Vacation, Reborn Yesterday, Deal With the Elf King and From Blood and Ash. That's a whole lot of straight white people books, three of them fantasy and three of them contemporary.
I'd like to note here that more than half of these reads were at least in part for reader advisory at the library where I work. I'm now the "romance person" which means I'm choosing what to add to our tiny collection and patrons come to me for recommendations. This is great! But I've got to read buzzy books and sometimes they're aggressively fine. It is what it is.
Rating refresher! Categories are based on whether or not I recommend them to fellow readers - DNF (Did Not Finish), Pass, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), Read it Eventually, Read it Soon.
Before I talk about The Queer Principles of Kit Webb, you should know that I'm friendly with Cat Sebastian and that I received an audio copy of this book from the publisher for review. I did, however, preorder a copy of my own because I want this loveliness sitting on my bookshelf.
