Review: When Gracie Met the Grump - Mariana Zapata - September 2022 For months, this chunky tome had been giving me the stink eye from my bookshelf, practically screaming "Read me!" But I'll admit, I was intimidated. Mariana Zapata has earned her reputation as the undisputed Queen of Slowburn Romance, and her books don't mess around – we're talking 600+ pages of pure, unadulterated tension before our leads even hold hands properly. True to form, When Gracie Met the Grump delivers exactly what Mariana Zapata fans expect: approximately 500 pages of sizzling foreplay, razor-sharp banter, and chemistry so thick you could cut it with a knife, before finally – finally – letting our characters crash together in the last 100 pages. And you know what? It works. Mariana Zapata's writing style is so engaging that the slowburn never feels like a drag. She's mastered the art of making readers desperate for that payoff. This particular story offers a fun twist on the ty...

Review: All Rhodes Lead Here - Mariana Zapata - April 2021 This book and others from this author have been on my TBR bookshelf for a while and I kept putting it off as readers had talked about how Mariana Zapata was the Queen of slow-burn romance and more often books that are all about slow-burn are the other sort of slow - slow paced and boring as nothing happens. However, that was not the case in All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana Zapata, as this book seemed to hold its own as though the romance was slow-burn and didn't happen till near the end of the book, the storyline was good enough that it carried most of the book. The book starts with our female MC finally standing up for herself and breaking free of the bonds she had for the past fourteen years. She has packed up, booked an Air BNB, and headed back to her hometown in the mountains of Colorado. When Aurora arrives, she discovers things aren't quite as they seem as the owner of the house doesn't know anything about her ...