Review: Love Overdue - Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus - July 2025 There’s something especially lovely about receiving a book as a birthday gift, and Love Overdue by Ali Berg and Michelle Klaus arrived in my hands courtesy of one of the Birthday Bookstagram groups I belong to. A paperback, a birthday present and a cute second-chance romance? It certainly sounded like a recipe for a cosy afternoon of reading. Lauren Green was once a frizzy-haired bookworm with big dreams of becoming a writer who got her heart broken . Twenty years later, she has swapped those writing dreams for a responsible life as vice principal of North Caulfield Primary School. Then Jamie Sultana the boy who broke her heart walks back into her life, and suddenly all those carefully shelved feelings aren't quite as forgotten as Lauren thought. I really enjoyed the second-chance romance aspect of this story. There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about reconnecting with someone who knew you when you were young, reme...

Review: The Second First Chance - Blakely Bennett - March 2016 We all have those months, don't we? The ones where nothing on your shelf seems to call to you, where you find yourself scrolling endlessly through your Kindle at midnight, jabbing hopefully at titles and praying something sticks. That was very much my life lately,  a proper reading slump that had me wondering if the magic had gone out of it entirely. And then a title caught my eye, and something just said yes. That's how I stumbled into The Second First Chance by Blakely Bennett, and I am ever so glad I did. This book pressed on a question I suspect many of us carry quietly in our hearts: what if you could have just a little more time with the person you love? Jayden's husband Callahan is killed in a car accident on their twentieth wedding anniversary, an ordinary crossing of a road that changes everything, forever. It is the kind of loss that hits you right in the chest as a reader, because it is...

Review: Love and Roses - Suzanne D. Williams - January 2014 You know those moments when you're scrolling through your Kindle, a cuppa going cold beside you, and you stumble across a book you'd completely forgotten was sitting there waiting for you? That was me with Love and Roses by Suzanne D Williams , a little hidden gem tucked away in my library, and I am so glad I clicked on it that day! I went into this one completely blind, no blurb refresh, no re-reading the synopsis, just diving straight in  and honestly, sometimes that's the very best way to read a book. What unfolded was such a sweet second-chance romance, and I mean sweet in the most wholesome, heartwarming way. We meet Ian, a man who believed he was happily married, until the devastating discovery that his wife had actually hired a hitman to have him killed. Thankfully, that hitman turned out to be an undercover cop , talk about dodging a bullet, quite literally! Ian does what so many of us do when life falls ...

Review: Revenge of a Chalet Girl - Book #5 Ski Season Series - Lorraine Wilson - December 2013 I picked this one up during yesterday's 24-hour readathon, sneaking in chapters whenever I could, and what a delightful escape it turned out to be! Amy's story starts in that awful place we've all seen friends (or ourselves) end up in, heartbroken and lost after being ghosted by someone she thought was her forever. Fast forward a few years, and she's finally taking control of her life, working as a chalet girl in the snowy mountains. It's meant to be her fresh start, her chance to heal. Then Josh walks through the door with a stag party, and suddenly all those carefully buried feelings come tumbling out like an avalanche. The premise hooked me immediately. What are the odds? But here's where it gets even messier Josh isn't just visiting, he's the groom-to-be, and his fiancée Juliet is living up to the "bridezilla" title in spectacular fashion. As ...

Title: All That Glitters Series: Raven Souls MC #4 Author: Candice Wright Genre: Dark MC Romance Tropes: Second Chance/Forced Proximity Stalker/Pregnancy Release Date: October 16, 2025 BLURB Life in a motorcycle club isn’t for everyone, but being a Raven is in my blood. The only things that matter to me are my brothers and my cut, then she walks into my life and rips up the playbook. I know I can’t keep her; club girls are for a good time, not a long time, so when the secret she’s been keeping lands at my feet like a bomb, I pull the pin, blowing up everything between us. The second I watch her walk away, I know I’ve made a mistake, but before I can fix it, she’s gone. Tracking her down is the easy part; realizing all the love she had for me has turned to hate, not so much. Right now, the closest we’ll get to a white picket fence is her impaling me on one. I know I hurt her, but I’m not ready to give up on us yet, so I’ll do what any self-respecting biker would do; I’ll st...

Review: Out of the Woods - Book #2 Out Series - Helena Bonham-Young - January 2025 I'll be honest with you all—contemporary romance has felt a bit blah to me lately. I've been in such a reading slump with the genre, picking up book after book only to set them down halfway through with a shrug. But then Out of the Woods came along and completely broke that spell. From the first few chapters, I was hooked, and more surprisingly, I found myself genuinely enjoying a romance novel again. What really got me about this story is how personal it felt. Sarah and Caleb are high school sweethearts who've been together for seventeen years, and there's something so real about watching them navigate that question we've all wondered at some point: Who am I outside of this relationship? Sarah's struggle to prove her independence while simultaneously loving her husband hit close to home for me. My own partner and I have been together for years, and I saw so much of our dynamic r...

Review: When Fire Whispers to the Storm - Gayatri Ram - July 2025 As a book reviewer, my inbox constantly overflows with submissions—books I'd likely never encounter on my own browsing adventures. Some end up abandoned in my DNF pile , but occasionally, I discover a diamond in the rough. Gayatri Ram's When Fire Whispers to the Storm falls firmly into the latter category. Timing couldn't have been more perfect for this read. After being snowed under with work for weeks, barely managing to surface for breaks while drowning in deadlines, I desperately needed something engaging yet manageable. Gayatri Ram's novel delivered exactly that—a swift, satisfying read that didn't demand more time than I could spare. What immediately captured my attention was the New Zealand setting . I'll admit, seeing my own backyard as the backdrop made me smile and kept me turning pages when exhaustion threatened to win.  The story introduces us to Mia and Darius, whose intense conn...

Review: My Almost Ex - Book #2 The Greene Family Series - Piper Rayne - April 2021 Staring at my overflowing bookshelf the other day, I felt that familiar paralysis of choice. Too many books, too little time – a problem entirely of my own making. But when my eyes landed on Piper Rayne's My Almost Ex , the decision was easy. I've never met a Piper Rayne book I didn't love, and her family sagas are particularly addictive. The promise of a big family means more books in the series – always a win in my book! What immediately drew me in was the amnesia trope, one of my absolute favorites in romance. There's something irresistible about characters rediscovering their love story, and Rayne delivers this beautifully. The story opens with Lucy Greene walking into a bar, expecting to see her husband Adam, only to be met with shocked faces. For Adam, this is devastating – Lucy walked out a year ago without explanation, and he's trying to move on with someone new. But Lucy ha...