Review: Dethroning Crown - Lila Felix - October 2014 Crown Sterling is a soccer god. He has the world at his fingertips or so he thought. One wrong move on the field and everything unravels in an instant. An injury sidelines him, and just like that, the contracts are withdrawn, the sponsors disappear, and the money dries up. Crown finds himself in the middle of nowhere, living in his Uncle's apartment building , an Uncle he hasn't laid eyes on since childhood. Enter Lyra, his next-door neighbour. A model who has survived the nightmare of being stalked, she carries the weight of a scandal that sent ripples through her small town and changed the course of her life. Her relationship with her own reflection is complicated when your privacy can be violated at any moment, learning to feel safe in your own skin becomes its own battle. What unfolds is a story about two people on the edges of their own lives, finding each other and, in doing so, finding themselves. Can Crown and Lyr...

Review: All Her Little Lies - Becca Day - October 2022 After redundancy left me with unexpected free time and a desperate need for escapism, I found myself gravitating away from my usual romance reads toward something with more bite. Enter Becca Day's All Her Little Lies , a psychological thriller that delivers exactly the kind of dark family drama I was craving during this uncertain chapter of my life. The premise is deliciously twisted: when Alex discovers Hannah's body, her maternal instincts kick into overdrive—not to seek justice, but to protect her son Daniel at all costs. What follows is a masterclass in moral ambiguity as Alex makes the horrifying decision to clean up what she assumes is her son's crime scene and dispose of the body. It's the kind of split-second choice that makes you question what you'd do in her shoes, especially when unemployment has you contemplating your own capacity for desperate measures. Becca Day excels at crafting morally complex...

Review: Then Things Went Dark - Bea Fitzgerald - September 2024 A theme that I have always enjoyed reading for years is reality TV in books. I became a fan of this trope after reading years ago Dead Famous by Ben Elton which was a Big Brother-themed story with a murder. Ever since then, if I come across books with a similar theme I will give them a go. In Then Things Went Dark by Bea Fitzgerald which was a book exchange gift, we have six influencers or fifteen minutes of fame stars who need to either prove themselves or redeem themselves in society, and what better way to do that than on a reality TV set on a beautiful island and with an enticing prize pool of money. This show will push these contestants into revealing their deepest darkest secrets with the hope that the world will never hear them spying on their fellow contestants. On the island, there will be friendships formed, alliances made, sleeping with one another, and backstabbing of course. Nothing is sacred when the whole ...

Review: Lock Me Inside - Book #1 The Locked Duet - C. Hallman - November 2022 Lenora's life used to be great as she was on her way to becoming a successful gymnast and had a shot at the Olympics. That was until she had an accident that caused her to almost be paralyzed, she had to wear a back brace and have surgery on her spine. At school, she was bullied and made to look like a snob and someone too good for the rest of them. Two of her bullies were brothers Colt and Nixon. Now coming home from spending time with her grandmother, she is surprised to find out that her mother has moved in with her boss James Alistair, and is now engaged to her. The downside though is his sons are two of her bullies and the worst of them. Now Lenora is stuck in a home with two young men who are determined to break her in any way they can from physical and mental abuse. Lenora thinks though she has had the worst she can have happened, Colt and Nixon are nothing compared to their father and the horrors...

Review: The Pumpkin Spice Cafe - Book #1 Dream Harbour Series - Laurie Gilmore - August 2023 I had been so excited to read this series as it has been quite popular and also just screamed a cozy feel to it and OMG that's exactly what it was, this is the type of read that you can read without having to think too deeply about and was just a book version of a Hot Cocoa or in this case a Pumpkin Spice Latte. Jeanie was busy working in the city as a PA right until her boss had a heart attack. Jeanie realized that she had worked so hard and she had no friends, and if she died - nobody would come to find her until it was too late. This made her have an epiphany and headed to the small town where her Aunt Dorothy lived. Here in town, Aunt Dot owns The Pumpkin Spice Cafe and has decided to sell it to Jeanie while she goes off traveling. Strange things have been happening though with the cafe and when Jeanie talks to it at the town meeting, she is paired with the hot farmer aka Logan to do ...

Review: Game Changer - Book #6 The Field Party Series - Abbi Glines - March 2022 This year, I was determined to make my way through Abbi Glines's series The Field Party and I did so well with only one book left :). Game Changer was different than the ones previously as all of the others ended up with the two main character's romances becoming a solid thing and the whole act of foreverness. For Asa and Ezmita their story is one of first loves as the pair meet each other and have an amazing night almost saving each other as she stops him from jumping off a bridge and he tells her to be brave and talk to her parents about college. The pair then due to life's circumstances go their separate ways as Asa heads to New Mexico to stay with relatives and Ezmita gets on with her life and is now dating Brett Duncan. The year is 2020 and a time that none of us will ever forget, a time when a disease struck not just one country but the whole world, a disease that caused people to die, an...