minnaper's reviews
450 reviews

ARC received from the publisher via NetGalley.

Too Forward was the first book by Krystina Rivers that I've read. The writing was a pleasant surprise and I think I'll check out older books in the future.

Too Forward is a sports romance with one night to forever and woman in a suit tropes. It's a solid sapphic sports romance set during a WNBA season. For me it was a nice read with the main character being a pro athlete and the love interest being a marketing executive. Many times sports romances are between two athletes which are great, too, but Too Forward was a nice change of pace.

The story evolves around the main character's lack of confidence and low self-esteem, and it's about getting back to the top after being a bench warmer for 8 seasons. The novel is a story about finding your self worth and having your confidence back after an ACL injury almost a decade ago.

Jane Gray, the main character, was lovable and infuriating at the same time. The way she constantly put herself down was almost too much. Luckily she had her team captain and cheerleader Maya and one night stand Kinzie to help her. 

I'm not a fan of (adult) romances with only one POV. The writing and story building has to be superb for one POV to really work for me. Too Forward would have been, in my opinion, better with also Kinzie's POV. Now her character felt a bit flat. Since a lot of commentary (inner monologue) by Jane had a low self-esteem twist, the true Kinzie didn't really become familiar through Jane's POV. Second POV would have been interesting.

Thank you to the author for providing me the ARC version of the book in advance.

The Wrong Date Deal is one of the few sapphic romances where the love interest is _right_there_ from the start but the main character fumbles through unsuccessful dates with other people before realizing it. The Wrong Date Deal has dual POV so both are each other's love interest in this picture.

Like always with Jacqueline Ramsden books, the writing is enjoyable to read. The book kept me entertained from start to finish.

There's a lot of queer side characters with their own messy lives in addition to main characters' own messiness and past trauma. The cast is diverse. The book is a lot about found family.

Piper and August become first each other's support system, then friends and finally lovers. The romance is built on friendship and their evolving relationship. The novel is almost sloth burn but they get there in the end! And the first kiss is... chef's kiss.

I have only one thing about the book that I think was missing and the lack of it made the story feel a bit rushed in the end. Both MCs talked with their friends quite a lot about the possibility of there being more than friendship between them. I would have liked them to address the fact together and discuss it at some level before going from friends to dating. They both kind of came to that conclusion on their own but never talked about it properly. It could have been really short bit, a page or two.

What a wonderful enjoyable historical romance between an earl and his valet. Romance is set in the early 1800s England and has trans rep. Audiobook was great experience.

The story just got worse and worse. Maybe I'll finish it some day later but for now I'll mark it DNF.

ARC received from the author in advance.

Only Hope was different kind of novel, nothing I expected. The author has amazing range. After Ribbonwood I didn't expect to get to read soap operasque soft/light suspense romance. It took me a while to adjust to the unexpected genre but once I got settled, the story sucked me in. If I had had more time for reading, I would have binged the novel in two days - it was really entertaining! I loved especially Alison's inner monologue. :'D

I like Ruby Landers's style with multiple side characters in sort of large side plots. I really enjoyed the messiness of the friend group relationships. And who doesn't like to see an ice queen to melt? I also liked that Only Hope was slower burn after faster paced Ribbonwood. I like both medium and slow pacing of a romance novel and Ruby Landers does both well. 

I'll look forward reading more Gold Hill romances in the future. 

ARC received from the publisher via NetGalley.

Learning to Fall is a young adult debut novel set in the UK. It's about finding your true self and learning to cope with mental health issues. It has a love story plot on the side but the novel is more about coming to terms with yourself and falling in love with a sport and the community it comes with. And it's about roller derby. There's chronic illness rep (side character), bipoc love interest, trans and non-binary rep (side characters) in the novel. There are a lot of difficult and serious topics in the book, like alcohol abuse, mental health issues, and toxic family dynamics.

For me there was a bit too much roller derby in the book. For someone who has seen Whip It (2009) but basically does not know anything else about the sport, all the practice and scrimmage and game description were a bit boring. But most of those bits helped to build Casey as a character.

It was a good read and the novel was well written. Really well done debut. It would be great read especially for a teen reader.