From Scratch is the sort of fluffy wish-fulfillment I needed this week. The plot is straightforward: three people go to a town called Seaport (not anywhere near the sea) to start over. They find each other and fall in love. The reasons to like this book lie not within a complex plot - they’re with the characters.

More mini-reviews! These books weren't terribly successful for our team.

Back during #RomBkLove, a group of very passionate readers were simply aghast that I hadn't read A.C. Arthur's paranormal romances yet. I knew A.C. Arthur for her Kimani books - contemporary romances and, most recently, a series of royals with some truly great covers. I immediately hopped over to her website, only to realize that she's written many paranormal romances and I had no idea where to start. When I met her at the RWA conference in July, I asked if she'd be willing to do an interview... and here we are!

We've got something really special to share with you today: all four covers for the upcoming f/f celebrity series, Rose & Thorns! Rose & Thorns is a series of interconnected standalone novels all involving the Rose & Thorns Ladies' Social Clubs, a decades-old social club for ladies who like other ladies. 

The Thorns is in NYC, and the Rose is in LA, and they are sister clubs on the East & West coast. Vanessa North's book takes place almost exclusively in NYC at the Thorns, another in LA at The Rose, and the others jet back and forth between the two!

This round of mini-reviews is a very mixed bag. An f/nb epic fantasy romance, a m/m romantic fantasy/mystery, and a gothic m/f historical with BDSM elements.

I really enjoyed The Last Wolf, so I was excited to read about one of the "Offland" wolves in Maria Vale's second novel. My conclusion, after reading A Wolf Apart, is that this book isn't for me. As I noted in that first review, Vale's pacing is a bit different than the romance novels I'm used to, which threw me at first but was fine once I settled in. This one never quite found its romance novel footing, however, missing some beats that I needed in order to believe the romance between the two main characters. I also wanted to slap the hero most of the time, but more on that later.

Woooooooo August! 'Tis the season for peaches and school/office supplies, so get yourself some fancy Post-Its, a smoothie and some wonderful books.

Here's the thing about 2018: I have a NEED for rom-coms and really absurd paranormal or sci-fi bananapants books. I don't want to read about someone's emotional journey through depression and how they learned to love life and blah blah blah. I need to get the hell out of present day United States of America.

I don’t need to tell you that books are the best, especially those with kissing. But sometimes? Sometimes my budget tells me that I need to slow my book-buying roll.

I was so excited to see a commercial f/f romantic comedy that I pre-ordered When Katie Met Cassidy, Camille Perri's second novel. It was pitched as laugh-out-loud funny, romantic, sexy, and thought-provoking, so even though I was wary of the Gay-For-You premise, I had high expectations. One of the things that Gay-For-You often signals is that a character is actually bisexual (or bi and demi) and as a bisexual reader, I am always on the hunt for representation in fiction.

The book let me down.