bookish_kristina's reviews
1213 reviews

An emotional journey of forgiveness and found family

This was such a sweet but sometimes sad story of Lorna, a 43 yr old woman whose life has been dominated by her sister’s addiction and her toxic family dynamics. Lorna is full of rage and takes a mandatory sabbatical from work to seek help.

The family elements of this book were so well done and quite triggering for anyone who had to live in a house with a sibling with addiction and behavioural problems. The excuse making by the parents and the need to grow up and fend for yourself as an ignored child were palpable. I felt for Lorna, and was frustrated with Lorna for much of the book. 

But when she started to let herself feel and opened herself up to trusting new people it was so sweet. She is befriended by her eight year old neighbour Bean who wants to help her because he can get a scout bad for helping old people. He was such a ray of sunshine in this. Dealing with his own loss of his mother and neglect from his busy father, these two were an unlikely pair, but they took care of each other. It was very heartwarming. 

The only issues I have with this book were some of the set ups were trite, like she had to go forgive a list of people to fulfill part of her mother’s will, this could have been done differently and not in such a cliched way. Perhaps her mother merely left her a list or a letter asking her to move on from some things in her past rather than tying it to an illegal codicil. It made it seem too hallmarky for my liking. 
The second thing is sometimes when I read these women’s fictions about white women healing themselves its always in relation to gimmicky versions of south East Asian or East Asian spirituality done by white men with man buns. More authenticity would be nice here. I know lots of middle class white women do this and get all granola and new age and trust me, they drive me crazy in real life too, but it could have been done better with more research into the meaning of the therapies. 

But the found family, the personal journey and the open ended ending were hopeful and engaging and overall I enjoyed this. 


Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy, these are my honest thoughts.

A tame and sweet romance with an unconventional ending.

This book is very much about not fitting into society’s expectations and has a cast of characters who live on the margins. It shows that love, family and acceptance can be had in small pockets of the most restrictive world but also doesn’t pretend those restrictions don’t exist and aren’t completely unfair. But it does so in an almost conventional historical romance (except for the ending). 

It’s not a perfect book, it did need more plot. But I liked what the author was trying to do and see how she’s developed as an author from this book into her newer releases. They pack much more punch and are more cleverly woven than this. But still, this was an easy read with a nice message.

A slow to start but ultimately gripping thriller

Without any spoilers though, I have to admit the ending was disappointing. Lots of build up and suspense that didn’t work out in a way I wanted it. Maybe my expectations for a dramatic conclusion are too high but the author built it up significantly only to putter out. But I see the symbolism she was trying to achieve and overall this book was really engaging and the writing was atmospheric (mostly, sometimes I was a bit verbose). 

Book three in my goal of prioritizing Canadian authors for 2025.

This was fun!

Eight books into this series and she gives us a twisty mystery with extra snark and a decidedly pro-woman flavour. I dunno if Dianne was radicalized recently but this had a great undertone about men, power and motherhood that I loved. 

You know I love an anti-men agenda, and though George is a golden retriever ideal husband and the exception that proves the ‘not all men’ rule, Frances was the star of this show (she usually is) and she kept him in his place as her low-level sidekick. Maybe I’m the one who’s radicalized 🤔.

Anyway I enjoyed this and I’ll probably tone down this review at some point but I’m annoyed by the world right now and any book that speaks truth to power will make me happy. 

Thanks to NetGalley for the complimentary copy.

Lacklustre ending to the series 

There were so many things about this book that just did not land for me. The execution was muddled, the pacing was slow and the romance lacking. 
This book is a finale for not one but two series, and as a result, it was bogged down by side characters and cameos. And for a marriage of convenience, they didn’t get married until nearly the end. Very little time was spent with them together and I felt very little between them. The thing I could not get over was Stella saying she decided to fall in love with Teddy because she wanted love in her marriage. But they truly both married each other out of desperation and a need for both of them to live freely and independently from their domineering families. This could have been ok if we had enough time with them together building on that, but we didn’t. I still feel incomplete and like I don’t really have an idea of what their HEA looks like. 
Also the family drama on Stella’s side was a caricature of what Mimi usually writes. It was almost lazily inserted and not resolved. 
This is so unfortunate as I was highly anticipating this story. Overall this was just so very flat. It had moments of the style I like from Matthews but it really lacked emotion and angst. 
I’m rounding to three stars because it’s still a Mimi Matthews, and she is a very good writer. There were moments of great description and I could always tell I was reading one of hers, this one just wasn’t her best. 

I do appreciate the complimentary copy of this book and look forward to her next series, but this was just not it for me. 

Enh, it was free at least.

If this feels nostalgic to cheesy 1990s Harlequins, that’s because it is a cheesy 1990s Harlequin that the author has reissued. She’s made some updates, like throwing in a Taylor Swift reference and mentioning the internet, but she also has them discussing brochure design as a key marketing plan for a ski resort when social media has largely replaced brochures in all travel marketing. 
But aside from those minor nitpicks, it’s actually the mores and attitudes of this book that truly need updating. It’s still very much rooted in 1990 and feels like it was written by a boomer. Diet culture, ideas about ‘working moms’ (80% of mothers work in 2025, it’s not a rarity) and when she uses the term ‘hunk’ to describe the MMC, I died laughing. Lots more work needs to be done to call this book ‘updated’, it ain’t. It felt so very dated. This would be fine if I’d picked up a book knowing I was venturing into the past, but I feel duped as it’s marketed as recent. 

But it’s not a bad story, it’s a typical formula romance from decades ago, and as long as you go in knowing it’s Harlequin cheese, you can turn your brain off. The ending was silly though because it basically made the entire premise of the book pointless, and I dislike when authors do that.

Why set something up as a conflict only to have it mean nothing she becomes a silent investor in his heli-ski resort and he does huge expansions only to decide to become a rancher and sell the entire thing not three months later, da fuk?

Book two in my 2025 plan to prioritize Canadian authors 🇨🇦. I wish this had been set in Canada though, Canadian authors need to stop pandering to the American audience. I’m sure they don’t need every book set in the USA and will read a book set in Alberta, which has mountains, ranches and heli-ski resorts.

Not bad for a freebie

However its predictability and ‘rote-ness’ made it boring in the last half. I called the big bad/twist at the 20% point and just waited to be right (I was 😏). 
Overall this wasn’t bad. It was a fairly well crafted Heist, in the vein of National Treasure, and obviously an indie work, as it needed better beta reading for continuity and general plot editing. If you don’t read a lot of these, this one isn’t bad. If you’ve read a lot of suspense romance, this one will be less than exciting. The author followed an obvious formula but made the characters likeable and I enjoyed it enough that, if I can find the rest of the series at the library, I may continue. 

But I would have loved if this was more original, had more emotion and delved deeper into the two main characters. As it is it’s a pretty ok book, but I could easily tell how the story was going to go and the ending was a big disappointment so it does not make to four stars.

the villain’s motivation for faking his own death was because he didn’t get along with Scarlett’s mother (he was her fiancé), what in the actual fuck?

 


Book one in my goal to prioritize Canadian authors for 2025 🇨🇦. 

When the backdrop is way more interesting than the central story.

Who knew a story of a seditious newspaper and two people trying to write pornography would be boring? It’s weird that such a cool and original set up would not use it to its best advantage but instead would pivot to a very conventional long lost Duke story.

The first half of this book was so rough. It was boring and meandering, focussing on endless conversations and inner thoughts. There was a side plot and setting that could have been extremely interesting except very little focus was on them. I think this might have benefitted from being a full novel so the author could actually work on character development and story arc. As it was the pacing was so off and the narrative flipped at the 50% point and the book became about something else entirely. It almost felt like the author had written two separate books or abandoned the first story midway through.

The second half was much more fast paced and engaging but the originality was lost from the first half. And then the ending was abrupt and wrapped up very quickly. Just overall a badly paced novella.
The writing itself is very good and I like this author, but I can’t seem to get into this series. Her newer series was so good, perhaps she’s just hit her stride as an author recently and her backlist just isn’t it.

Like Julie & Julia but with lots of gay erasure

I don’t get why this author keeps bringing up known or highly suspected gay relationships between literary icons and never acknowledging that they were queer? It’s gotta be deliberate and is terrible gay erasure. I can’t tell if the author is trying to allude to it but is too cowardly to say it outright or if she’s actively trying to rewrite known history. Either way, in the current reality where many are trying to squash LGBTQ voices and also their very existence, this is really gross for me. 

That being said the story outside of the gay erasure was mediocre and kept introducing new conflicts. The hero was a liar who kept lying and then found new ways to lie and the heroine had brains slightly smarter than a bag of rocks.
As happens in so many women’s fiction or contemporary romance (and I don’t know which this one was trying to be), the conflicts were blown way out of proportion, easily resolved and depended very heavily on miscommunication and character stupidity. All of the conflicts kept dropping up and then amounting to nothing made this feel way too long, frustrating and ultimately pointless. 
All this soul searching for Emma to end up exactly where she was. Blah.