Love Grind, the third in the MacLaine Girls novella trilogy by Shelly Ellis, is a wonderful, quick hit of HEA.

A Hidden Hope is the first in Laura Ambrose's Romancing the Page series of novellas. It's adorable and geeky and a bit angsty. It's also very specific. If you're a writer, blogger, librarian... or just really into books, I bet you'll like it.

When I heard that Lauren Blakely's latest contemporary romance was going to be recorded on audio with a full cast, my ears perked up and I smashed the preorder button. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, probably two a week on average. Since I read 250 books last year, that means that around 40% of my reading is on audio. (A lot of that isn't romance, of course.) All of this is to say that I was game to try something new.

Sally Thorne's debut hit novel, The Hating Game, was a polarizing book, but I came down on the side of really enjoying it. I liked it enough that I just looked past the issues and enjoyed the ride. That said, 99% Mine is not much like The Hating Game at all. I know that I'm a different reader than I was in 2016, when her first novel came out, so it fits that this book is different than Thorne's last. It's as though the book fits where I am now. Perhaps it'll fit for you, too.

This book came to me via a recommendation by author Cathy Pegau on Twitter and I'm so very happy we were both in the same digital space that day. I adore Hades and Persephone retellings, not only because Demeter/Ceres is my BFF, but also because Hades is the ultimate bad boy. When done properly, retellings make their relationship a forbidden romance rather than a forced abduction and well, I am here for that every day. 

When my daughter and I sat down to watch the Netflix reboot of the 80's cartoon, She-Ra, I knew it was created by the wonderful Noelle Stevenson (Nimona, Lumberjanes), and I knew she'd drawn her fiancee, Molly Ostertag (The Witch Boy) into "Princess Prom." Oh, and I knew that a bunch of grown men on the internet were annoyed that this version of She-Ra wasn't going to be half naked and drawn for the male gaze. Sold and sold.

New year, new books! Kick off your 2019 reading with some new romances! 

Silvia Moreno Garcia's The Beautiful Ones is a difficult book to categorize, blending fantasy, historical fiction, and romance into one complicated, character-driven novel. On the whole, I can't say that it made me "happy," but I did enjoy reading it. Fluff this is not.

This is a difficult book to review, because I had two completely different trains of thought going while I was reading. On one hand, it's an over-the-top romantic comedy, with a heroine doing some truly batty things that sound straight out of The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. On the other hand, the book doesn't deal well with mental illness, the reality of stalking, and/or actually building the romance between the two main characters.