beate251's reviews
429 reviews

This is Frieda Klein novel 5.

You must read the books in order, they make no sense otherwise.

Sandy Holland case

This is Frieda Klein novel 4.

You must read the books in order, they make no sense otherwise.

Becky case

This is part of Under the Mistletoe, an Amazon Original Stories of five novellas by American romance authors.

It's not called a mincemeat pie, it's a mince pie!

Mrs Claus's Mincemeat Treats in a Mincemobile that looks like a hot dog van is the most American bastardisation of an inherently British thing, and I am NOT here for it.

Also, too spicy for me. The entire collection is like that and I don't know why. The Valentine's collection was a lot better in that respect, and in general.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for this ARC.

The Ionian Escape Hotel in sunny Kefalonia, Greece, welcomes new guests: disgraced actress Miranda Vallance, here to hide, and 82 year old terminally ill Evelyn Chambers, here to scatter the ashes of her dead wife. There is also Leonora Neale who we discover is the Nelly from Nelly's 1983 diary, where Nelly decided to stay in Kefalonia to work on a boat, until heartache forced her to return to the UK. Now she is back with her husband Frank, a celebrity chef who is rumoured to have behaved inappropriately with some female assistants which seems to be an ever so familiar tale right now.

This would be enough on its own but there are chapters dedicated to the receptionist, the office manager, the boss, the bartender and the cleaner, who doesn't even get a name. This is in theory a nice idea but it slows the story down too much and bogs it down with unnecessary side stories that add nothing too interesting.

This is a nice escapist and predictable read about second chances in a gorgeous setting with great landscape and food descriptions. I just wish it had kept to the main protagonists.

This is part of Under the Mistletoe, an Amazon Original Stories of five novellas by American romance authors.

This one was chugging along nicely until the drawn out sex scene at the end, using crude words and just generally being too spicy for me.
 
Also, how do you dream up the names Everleigh Dangerfield and Griffin Brantley? 😂

This is part of Under the Mistletoe, an Amazon Original Stories of five novellas by American romance authors.

This seems to be the best of the lot so far, although it's too spicy for me. But the story with two neighbours who have crushes on one another is cute.

This is part of Under the Mistletoe, an Amazon Original Stories of five novellas by American romance authors.

Eww. That was disgusting. 

I didn't like Luke at all. A dirty bear of a possessive farmer with coarse language, and more spice than I can handle. Just no. This author is not for me. Totally cringeworthy, and Luke shouldn't have been allowed a POV. Red flag central, he should have got his Jeans online.

This is part of Under the Mistletoe, an Amazon Original Stories of five novellas by American romance authors.

Unfortunately this is boring, clichéd, predictable as heck and full of annoying tropes like forced proximity, miscommunication and friends to enemies to lovers or whatever that was. It's also got more spice than I can handle. I didn't like Marc at all. I hate billionaire characters, suggesting that is what we want in a man - money. Also, she held him in her arms as a newborn baby - eww.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for this ARC.

Mira, 29, is a pain management therapist living in Naperville, Chicago. She is of Indian descent, and like all first-generation immigrants, her parents held her and her twin brother Rumi to impossibly high standards. She is supposed to do extremely well to justify the sacrifices her parents made for her, fulfil their dreams and never disappoint them and their narrow view on what a good life constitutes. When Rumi confesses he is gay, he is immediately disowned, teaching the siblings that love is conditional to them.

Mira has reacted by trying to be a good daughter and keeping the peace, especially after some initially undisclosed trauma when she was 17 and for which she was unfairly punished. She has managed to secure fiancé Druv, an ever so handsome and busy orthopedic surgeon, and preparations for the wedding in four months' time are in full swing.

When Druv is too busy to make their "engagement moon" to NYC, he suggests she go on her own. From the reactions of her parents one could think she'd left him and eloped, but Mira goes anyway, because her estranged brother lives there with his lovely fiancé Saket, and she wants to see him again and make up, even though her horrible, controlling parents try to forbid it.

On her way to the Empire State Building to relive a scene from Sleepless in Seattle, she falls and finds a ring on a broken chain, lost underneath a park bench. So begins an adventure spanning two continents and a lot of discoveries, trying to reunite the ring with its owner and learn its story. She is helped by Krish who got in touch after her social media appeal, and who seems to have a secret private reason for getting so involved and unlock secrets that have been kept for 40 years.

In interspersed chapters, we get a beautiful and sensitively handled lesbian love story via 40 year old letters, that is connected to the ring which is one of an interlocking pair. Suru and Vasu lived in India, and homophobia was (still is?) very strong. I was soon rooting for those two to escape their narrow lives and disapproving, violent families.

The topic of "not having the life you wanted to have" is strong, whether it's because of frowned upon love, adoption or your own cowardice. Krish has been adopted 38 years ago in India, and he was taken out of his culture by a well-meaning white couple and transplanted into New York. His struggles with a feeling of abandonment and his loss of culture are evident. The search for the ring owner is very personal to him, and we find out why during the course of the search.

We learn a lot about Indian culture as well. I never knew how opulent weddings can be and how many clothes and bridal gowns are needed! The road trip through rural India is adventurous, and shows a real contrast to the diamond-encrusted opulence of wedding planning.

I thought this would be a light romance but it was so much more. It touched me deeply and I couldn't stop reading until I had finished this, until deep into the night. I loved Suru and Vasu and their heartrending letters, I loved Mira and her attempts to stand up to her parents, reunite with her deeply hurt brother and find out what she wants in life and going for it, and I loved Krish, trying to make sense of his beginnings and his feelings. Rumi was harder to love, as he lashed out when Mira tried to reconcile, but it was borne out of grief for the loss of his family.

I have to say I struggled to find much fault in Druv other than he's a workaholic, but he seemed to be patient, kind and understanding. Mira could have done a lot worse but it's not always about that. Sometimes you just want the grumpy journalist who doesn't even know his own culture and grapples with deep-seated feelings of abandonment, who takes you on a motorbike tour of New York, opens MoMa for you after hours and really SEES you.

“If returning to your old life will make you happy, I will be okay. As long as you feel seen and cared for, I’ll be okay. As long as no one makes you feel like you’re lucky to have them, I will be okay. As long as you promise to never put yourself away again, I will be okay....As long as I know you’re happy, I will be okay.”

However, I found the gay relationships portrayed with more conviction and feelings - Mira and Krish had a slow and kind of tame coming together, which was nice but it didn't convince quite in the same way as Suru and Vasu did.

Whoever designed the blue cover should be proud of themselves - the two rings and the couple on the motorbike riding through New York are spot on and very atmospheric. Such gorgeous artwork!

This is my first book by Sonali Dev but it won't be my last. If you are after a "brown" desi culture romance with depth, mystery, secrets, adventure and queer representation, this is for you. This book needs to have an LGBTQIA+ tag!

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for  this ARC.

This is the sequel to How To Kill Men and Get Away With It. It's a year later, Kitty Collins is happily shacked up with Charlie Chambers and has sworn off killing. Instead, she weekly attends Angry Women Anonymous, which is exactly how it sounds - women who have been given a hard time by toxic men gather to unload frustration. Kitty would love to kill the men in those women's lives but she won't because she's a new woman.

Unfortunately for her willpower, social media is full of misogynistic men displaying toxic masculinity of the ilk of Andrew Tate. One such bloke is someone calling himself Blaze Bundy, and for some unknown reason he targets Kitty in his videos. Who is he and what does he want with her? It'll be murder to find him.

Then her friend Tor gets involved with her therapist Dr Adrian Ward, she is being told about Max MacIntyre, a media personality who grooms young women, and her usually absent mother Carmella invites her to her wedding in France to a guy she's never heard of. Suddenly Kitty has her hands full.

I loved the first book which had a high body count. This one only manages three, as Kitty talks a lot about revenge but takes the first half of the book to get back into her groove, valiantly trying but ultimately failing to keep her bloodlust at bay. Also, I like the idea of revenge but not so much all the blood and gore, so whenever Kitty acted, I was first saying "Yay, finally!", closely followed by "Ewww!"

I liked how a mirror was held to how women are still treated in the legal system and how often misogynistic behaviour is ignored. The problem is real and the rage is real.

There were a lot of twists and turns but I thought the identity of Blaze Bundy was kind of predictable. However, this time Kitty got help from surprising quarters, and I was very ok with the happy endings for the Angry Women!

Recommended if you like books by C.J. Skuse, Julie Mae Cohen and Eve Kellman.

"The family that slays together stays together."