kj468's reviews
380 reviews

I loved the ghost aspects of this book. The plot was great, and I loved the ghost characters. The human characters were great too.

The romance was good, though I felt like a lot of their relationship happened off page, especially the part where they went from dating to being ready to say I love you. Granted, there was a lot of ghost related plot happening during that time so I get that the author had to make some choices. By the end of the book, I felt a bit lackluster about the couple, purely because I hadn’t seen them together as a couple very much. 

I listened to the audiobook and the narration was great. I will definitely continue the series & do so on audio 

I wasn’t loving this but was powering through because it was an ARC… and then the mc went over to the LI’s apartment and the FIRST thing the mc notices, decoration-wise, is a model of General Lee. Whether the author meant the confederate general or the dukes of hazard car with the confederate flag painted on top (and named for the confederate general), I don’t care. Huge red flag either way. Just because your story takes place in the south doesn’t mean you have to have your characters have confederacy memorabilia 😬😬😬 

Some other things I noted before I dnf’d: 

It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t really vibe with it personally. I’ve read the others in the series, so I knew Madden was a nudist, but turns out that as the MC I just… didn’t click with it. 

I  found the book to continuously hit the same interpersonal strife over and over for the majority of the book (

Penn feeling abandoned by Madden, Madden not showing his feelings for Penn enough because hours used to burying them

).  I usually love friends to lovers but this one just wasn’t for me. Partially, I think that’s because I love the yearning part, and they get together around the

30

% mark, and then the relationship challenges weren’t ones I vibed with. Lots of miscommunication too, which got on my nerves. 

Overall, I think this is not an objectively bad book and probably will be enjoyed a lot more by people who aren’t me 

Dnf when the one guy threw paint  on the glorious carving the other guy had worked hard on. That’s so disrespectful? That’s not a prank war, it’s just rude and destructive. 

Also I’ve been fairly bored and it’s taken me a while to get through 20%. I haven’t read many other books in the series (just one) so I was feeling pretty bogged down with all the characters. 

This is such a sweet, cozy hug of a book! It's full of wonderful characters, both the MC, love interest, and the whole town of side characters. The vibes are kind of witchy-farming sim in book form, plus it takes place in autumn in England! Great trans MC rep, plus awesome side character rep of aro/ace & autism. The author drew the cover + illustrations for every single chapter and they're all stunning! Such a great addition to a lovely book :) 

I'm biased because I edited this book, but I would have read it anyway and really enjoyed it! 

Such a fun read. One of my favorite tropes is “everyone knew they were in love before they did” and this book has it by the thousands. Lots of fun team and family moments with that. Very strong friends to lovers, little drama, supportive team/management/families which is always nice. Definitely enjoyed and will likely reread! 

Not my favorite of the series. I didn’t really feel the chemistry between the MCs and didn’t really get what they actually like about each other, other than thinking the other one hot and having a crush on him for years. The epilogue cemented my rating — it started off with Knox talking about how glad he is that they aren’t together all the time during the season because they kill each other because of their living-together habits and that put a bad taste in my mouth. Like, I don’t want to go into an epilogue and hear about any problems that would make me question the longevity of their relationship? They later tried to spin it as “the honeymoon period is over” but it just didn’t work for me. 

I love most of the books in this series, with a couple exceptions, and I think this is one of those exceptions. 

I really enjoyed reading this book, especially the first 70%. There was a lot that worked, especially the pining, flirting, and the slightly forbidden aspect due to the fact that the LI was the brother's best friend/best friend's little brother. I liked both MCs, as well as all the brothers (and am excited the the other books in the series will focus on the other brothers!).

One of my favorite parts was the depiction of Alec's (the younger MC) unhappiness with the life course he was set on, both with his school and major. As someone who once worked hard to set myself on a life path that required a lot of skill, time, and effort and then realized I hated it and had to extricate myself from it, I related to a lot of his feelings, turmoil, and reluctance to do anything about it for a long time. That said, I wish we'd got to see a bit more of him setting up his new life on page, rather than having a lot of it happen off page and then told to us in the epilogue. I also liked the ADHD and Mexican representation with Alec. 

There's a significant amount of miscommunication and lack of communication, and most problems could be addressed by the MCs having a couple of difficult conversations (both with each other and other people in their life), but I think the author does a good job setting the precedent for why those conversations are unattainably hard for the MCs to have for a lot of the book; I'm a confrontation-averse person and often need an outside impetus to spur me into having those kinds of conversations, just like the MCs here. But if those are tropes you hate, this might not be the book for you.

The author clearly took care to make the age gap fun and sexy but not problematic. That said, there were a couple of moments where I felt uncomfortable, though I think they were situational and unavoidable for me and no amount of careful writing could have deterred them. The older MC has known the younger MC since the younger MC was born (he remembers when the younger MC's mom was pregnant), and everyone references this fact a lot throughout the book. Sometimes it was hard to not feel skeeved out by that, even though the author made it very clear that the older MC had no romantic or sexual feelings about the younger MC until the younger MC was 21.

For me, I think where this book fell from being a 4.5 or 5 star book to a 4 star book was the last 25%. I was disappointed by how little we got to see of the MCs actually being together (about 12% I think, including epilogue). I wanted to revel in the new dynamics of Theo with Alec's family and see how their day-to-day relationship looks, but we only get a glimpse of those in the epilogue, which takes place almost a year later. Also, the third act drama was dramatic, which was fine, but felt a bit like a deus ex machina. There did need to be an impetus for change, but so my qualm isn't necessarily with that. I think again, my problem is that the satisfactory conclusions were rushed quite a lot. I would have much more enjoyed getting to savor the characters coming to them and then living them out. I think the book would have been better if the events of last 25% took up the last 40% of the book -- I don't even think I'd cut anything from the beginning, just have a long af book, it's fine.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, will absolutely and enthusiastically read the other books in the series when they are released (which seem like will focus on the other King brothers, who I loved). I had a few qualms that prevented me from rating it higher, but it's still a book I would recommend and very well might buy a physical copy of when possible.

tropes & representation: Mexican MC, ADHD MC, oral fixation, brother's best friend/best friend's brother, virgin x experienced, athlete (soccer) 

leave it to cat sebastian to make a story about highway robbery fucking beautiful. 

I was really excited about the premise of this book, adorable cover, huge lover of queer historical fiction... but I'm sorry to say that I was just incredibly bored. I read 50% of it, and every time I picked it up between 30-50% was honestly a struggle to get myself to do so. I didn't find the drama of the book compelling, there wasn't a ton of chemistry between the two MCs in my opinion, and things weren't moving fast enough. I didn't come in expecting an epic adventure or super high romance, but I didn't expect to be *bored*. 

Their spatting isn't fun; I was often bored by the content of their spats, instead of finding it fun and banter-y. I'm not even sure why they are rivals/enemies at the beginning? The seem to just be completely inept at getting through a conversation without inadvertently offending the other. The extortionist, to the best of my understanding, is a slimy queer guy who has hooked up with both of them and is trying to expose both MCs as queer, so that's an unfun dose of the persecution of queer people I wasn't expecting. I hoped for fun meddling cousin antics but didn't find there to be much of that. Maybe there is later in the book, but I'm too bogged down by the gross villain to get there. 

I think perhaps this isn't a bad book -- certainly lots of people seem to love it -- but I'm not sure the summary did a great job of preparing me for what the book actually is, and therefore left me expecting something else and disappointed. 

Maybe someday I'll come back to give this book a second chance, but for now, life is too short to finish books I'm not enjoying.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this eARC.