This round of mini-reviews is all m/f romance (*gasp*) with a sports romance, an erotic historical, and an erotic contemp with kink.

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.

This was part of my endeavor to try a lot of different historical romances by folks I’ve never read before, and The Dissolute Duke was a miss.

"Losing your glasses is one thing; losing your lover, who tumbles into your bed in the small hours and does magic on your floor, is another." Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night is a beautifully-written cozy mystery with a diverse cast and an undercurrent of magic that runs deep --through religion and tradition, found family and a quirky Christmas song. And at the center of the story is two wonderful long-term polyamorous relationships.

Told from two perspectives: Layla, a bi pathologist PoC who loves her wife and kids but is uncomfortable inside suburban life, and Nat, a blue-haired, genderqueer composer who runs charity that supports young queers. Nat and Layla are metamours who are uninterested in being friends. And the dislike between them is amplified when their strange and mysterious magician lover, Meraud, goes missing mid-spell, leaving only clues for them to find him. When they eventually they decide to work together, (For example, when they pose as an engaged couple to get into a church meeting and "Nat attempts a cisheteropatriarchal smile" Lol) they find a joy in each other that turns the ending into something that --while not romantic-- is totally totally sweet.

It's worth it alone for the excellent descriptions of what a real life house and headspace is like while raising young kids, but there are also AWESOME queer side characters that I hope we get to see in future books! If you're looking for a Romance arc, this isn't gonna hit the spot.. but it's delightful and charming and feels like a drop in the ocean of good queer content. It's the perfect read for an evening spent by the fireplace.

Content warnings: there's a couple mentions of Meraud liking to be tied up, marks on his wrists. It's never explicit, just flashes of memory relating to it. Nat was a foster kid, and we hear from some of the people at his charity, mention of what life as a foster child and queer youth in the foster system. There is also at some point a corpse discovered, that is believed to be Meraud but it is not.

With a short stay in NYC ahead of her, all Likotsi, Prince Thabiso’s head advisor & planner supreme, was simply looking for an enchanting woman to pass the the time with and instead fell hard and fast for Fabiola. But their whirlwind affair is derailed abruptly by a single phone call. Months later, their lives on vastly different tracks than before, their paths cross again. 

The Duke of Ivar cared little about his children’s feelings when he married his mistress shortly after his wife’s death. And in this case, time did nothing to improve their relationship – rather the opposite. The duke’s children now have even more reasons to hate their father. And one of them thinks that the duke should pay for what he’s done. And Alex is sure that the only way to get back at the Duke and the new Duchess is to take what they really care about – their jewels. Which is why he hires jewel thief Jerry Crozier. But to get the jewels, they have to get in his father’s castle. That means Alex has to get back in the good graces of his father which is not easy. It also means Alex and Jerry have to get to know each other so that they can pretend to be friends and give Alex a reason to invite Jerry along. Soon Alexander isn’t so sure if he’s just pretending… but there’s also the issue that not everybody was completely honest and there’s far more at stake than expected.

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.