Review: The Roommate Subtest - Elia Winters - September 2026 I'll be honest with you, dear reader: there was a moment, somewhere in the middle of this book, where I set it down on the arm of the couch and genuinely considered not picking it back up. That's not a great sign for a review, I know. But stick with me, because something pulled me back in, and I think it's worth talking about why. The Roommate Subtext gives us Maggie St. Claire, a freelance journalist who's perfectly content admiring her roommate Blake from a respectable distance,  hot, nerdy, surrounded by an absurd jungle of houseplants he clearly loves more than is reasonable. It's cozy. It's domestic. It's the kind of set-up that makes you want to put the kettle on. Then Maggie lands an assignment to expose an anonymous online kinkster called The Scarlet Pimpernel, and suddenly sitting across the breakfast table from sweet, wholesome Blake gets a lot more complicated. Because Blake, botanist ...

Review: How To Reach Influencers: To Promote Your Self-Published Book (Book Marketing With a Bang!) - The Book Marketer - August 2022 Have you published your book, but are stuck with how to market yourself? As someone who isn't big on self-promoting, I struggle with promoting myself and my book blog - The Phantom Paragrapher. The same when I published my anthologies. This reference copy of How to Reach Influencers was an amazing read and held some great tips for even those who are just starting in the world of indie authors.  The other great part of this book is that it has a few sections on how to appropriately market yourself on various social media platforms like Instagram aka Bookstagram, Tiktok aka BookTok, and Youtube with Vlogging. It also contains several book influencers to follow and inspire you to go out into the scary world of book marketing on your own.  The Book Marketing with a Bang! series aims at helping new writers understand how to sell books and lots of ...

Synopsis: Ten Thousands I Love Yous - Lisa Slabach - February 2022 In this humorously touching novel by the critically acclaimed author of Degrees of Love, a woman is blindsided when her high school sweetheart abandons her after eighteen years of marriage. At sixteen, Kimberly Kirby thought the only thing she needed to be perfectly happy was to spend the rest of her life with Jay Braxton. Twenty years later, she still believes it. As they proudly watch their daughter, Haley, graduate from high school, she imagines her life is as perfect as anyone could reasonably expect. Jay is a formidable attorney, she a freelance writer, and their love as strong as ever. With Haley heading to UC Berkeley in the fall, Kimberly fantasizes about making love on the kitchen table. She has no clue that Jay's bags are already packed. Now divorced and determined to squelch her love for Jay, she accepts a gig writing a sex and dating blog for divorcees. As the Virgin Dater, she is on the hun...

Review: Smile and Look Pretty - Amanda Pellegrino - March 2022 I wasn't 100% sure what this book was about and whether I would enjoy it, but as I got into it I liked it. The book starts with Cate who has just landed her dream job as an assistant at a great publishing company. Of course, her dreams aren't all they are cracked up to be. The same as her friends are all in careers, they thought would be great stepping stones. On a whim one day at one of their weekly complaining sessions, Cate suggests writing a blog called Twentysomethings. Cate, Max, and Olivia are keen on their idea but Lauren who is the wannabe scriptwriter is worried that this could reflect badly for them and could jeopardize their jobs. As the book goes along and the website begins, the stories start to roll in and the submissions start to rise from females in the industries who have had bad bosses and feel like crap. Soon the website will become viral and what started as an idea will become a revolution for ...

2022: A Bookish World. As 2021, comes to an end and before I start fresh for 2022. I want to say thanks to all the amazing authors out there who keep pumping books out for us readers. Every year I discover new authors , read old favourites new stories. I also see many book blogs and tour companies finishing up as many go towards starting bookstagram accounts and vlogging their reviews. For me 2022 will celebrate in April - 1 year since I started my new job at Tauranga Hospital doing administrative work and I love it , it's a career , I never thought I would do as I did enjoy at one point in time - my job at the library but the past few months leading up to my leaving. I just couldn't do it anymore , I was getting miserable and feeling depressed and having dark thoughts. I was sent recently a job advertisement for a school library manager role and it shows how much I have grown and also sadly , how the library affected me as a year ago I would have jumped at applying for the ro...