I can’t believe we are already done with the month of June and I’m just now getting a chance to sit down and write this blog post. Still not sure how life manages to get away from me, but as I always say, maybe one day I’ll be able to figure out a good scheduling system to be able to sit down and focus on what I love to do – write blog posts.
As I mentioned in last month’s book reviews, this month had a ton of Contemporary Romance novels get released, so this month was very heavy in that genre. It also had a ton of five start reads from me. I was able to read/listen to a thriller and a historical fiction in the mix this past month too. During the month of May, I did have a big trip to New York City planned and while I wasn’t able to get much reading during the week we were there, I was able to get a lot read while on the plane for 3+ hours.
Here are the books I read/listened to in May:
Yours Truly – Abby Jimenez
Dr. Briana is freshly divorced and her brother needs a new kidney. Dr. Jacob just transferred to the hospital and is starting off on the wrong foot. To make up for his bad first impression, he writes Bri a letter which begins a friendship. Then he learns he can give Bri the best gift, a kidney for her brother. She wants to pay him back by pretending to be his girlfriend for his brother’s wedding to his ex-girlfriend.
I’m officially obsessed with Abby Jimenez! I loved Part of Your World last year and was so excited to get back into this world she created with some of my favorite characters. This one had so many emotional & deep topics, which I love that it is Abby’s signature – divorced after spousal affair, social anxiety, kidney disease & caretaker, and more. So far I think this book will be my favorite romance of the year. Bri and Jacob are definitely my favorite literary couple of the year so far. Rating: 5/5
“Jacob made me feel safe. He was a like a living lullaby. A softly spoken word. The smell of coffee and toast in the morning or a cozy fleece blanket. The rain pouring on the roof on a day where you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything.”
Local Woman Missing – Mary Kubica
Shelby Tebow goes missing shortly after Meredith and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah go missing. These cases go cold until eleven years later, when Delilah returns. Now the town is trying to figure out what happened to her, but no one is prepared for the truth.
I loved this thriller and highly recommend it in audiobook format. It’s a multi-character/narrator, multi timeline that mainly focuses around a young girl, Delilah, except she’s never the narrator in the story. It’s everyone’s perspective of her story. Once the story really started moving and unfolding, the plot twists were incredible and very unpredictable. I highly recommend this one if you love domestic thrillers. Rating: 5/5
“Sometimes being scared makes you do things you didn’t know you could do.”
Happy Place – Emily Henry
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college. Only catch is that they broke up six months ago and haven’t’ told their friends. Now they have to fake a relationship for their annual friends trip because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together at this place.
Two of my favorite tropes in one book – fake dating and second-chance romance. I love figuring out why they broke up and seeing how they fix it. This one felt more emotional to me than Henry’s other books, but I also think it’s her most relatable story. Feeling trapped in any situation – job, relationship, or location, is something we al go through at some point in our lives. This is probably my favorite book by Emily Henry so far. I loved the best friend group and didn’t want to leave them behind at the end of the book. Rating: 5/5
“My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing one another so well you don’t need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud: noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now.”
The Friend Zone – Abby Jimenez
Kristen is keeping a big secret from everyone – she is facing a surgery that will make her unable to have children. Planning her best friends wedding, she meets the best man, Josh. They immediately hit it off, but the only catch is that he wants a big family. Trying to keep her distance from him proves to be harder than she expected.
I loved this book so much! Abby Jimenez is a queen of emotional romance that deals with the tough subject (as I mentioned in the above review). After reading her last two books, I knew I had to read the book series before those. My only dislike for this book is how long the miscommunication – or really lack of communication lasted in the story. I just wished they had talked everything out sooner. There was also a big plot twist towards the end of the book that had me in tears. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. Rating: 5/5
“I found my person. She was the foundation. She was the thing that all other things are built on. Everything was secondary to being with her. It didn’t matter where I worked or if I liked my job, where I lived or how many kids I had. My happiness, my sanity, my well-being – it all started with her. And now that I knew that, I didn’t want to just be her boyfriend – I wanted everything.”
Just The Nicest Couple – Mary Kubica
Jake Hayes is missing. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he’s blowing off steam at a friends’ house after their heated fight the night before. But then five days go by and Jake is nowhere to be found. Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance.
After reading Local Woman Missing, I was so excited to get right back into another book by Kubica. Unfortunately, the one was a miss for me with the last 20% of the book. I loved the concept of how you think you know what happens to Jake from the start and you spend the time figuring out where the past and present will connect. However, there was too many out of character moments at the end of the book for me to really love it. Rating: 4/5
“My imagination is my worst enemy in this moment.”
The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah
France 1939, Carriveau – Vianne is left alone with her daughter while her husband goes to the front. She doesn’t belive that Nazi’s will invade, until they do and one ends up living in her house. Her sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious 18-year-old who ends up joining the resistance after being betrayed by the boy she loves. Both are faced to make tough decisions in order to survive during this dark period of history.
TW: sexual violence in women and children, rape, racism, murder, torture, concentration camp, war themes. What a powerful story this book is. Realizing that I am very much a mood reader, I started this book at the wrong time and di not appreciate it. Taking a two month break from it, I decided to get back into it when I felt like the time was right. this book had me in tears by the end and the story has stayed with me since. Two sisters who are facing different challenges from the war, and yet both showed the resilience and decisions they had to make to survive. Rating: 5/5
“If I have learned anything in this long life of min, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war, we find out who we are.”
The True Love Experiment – Christina Lauren
Fizzy is a romance author who is struggling with her own love life. Connor Prince is a documentary filmmaker who finds himself forced to create a reality show to keep his job. A chance encounter finds Connor creating a show portraying Fizzy falling in love in front of the world. The only catch is that he has to meet all her crazy demands before she agrees to do it.
The Soulmate Equation is one of my favorite books by author duo Christina Lauren, so I was excited to jump back into the world of these characters. This sequel did not disappoint. I flew through the first half of the book on my plane ride back from NYC and was hooked until the end. Fizzy and Connor are both such loveable characters, both together and separately. I also loved that Christina Lauren still managed to sprinkle in the scientific elements from the first book in an organic way. Rating: 5/5
“Romance isn’t gratuitous bodice ripping. It can be, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but in the end romance isn’t about the fantasy of being wealthy or beautiful or even being tied to the bed. It’s about elevating stories of joy above stories of pain. It is about seeing yourself as the main character in a very interesting – or even quiet – life that is entirely yours to control.”
When In Rome – Sarah Adams
Amelia Rose is wanting a break before her big tour and decides to use inspiration from her favorite movie, Roman Holiday. So not only does she end up in Rome, Kentucky, but her car breaks down in front of grumpy resident, Noah Walker. Not wanting anything to do with this celebrity, he ends up offering his guest room to her while her car is being fixed and ends up seeing a different side of her than what the public sees.
This is my second Sarah Adams book to read and I’m officially a fan. I was drawn to this one because like Amelia, I am a huge Audrey Hepburn fan. This book has so many amazing tropes from small town romance, celebrity x normal person, and grumpy x sunshine. I fell in love with the town of Rome and I’m so excited to get to come back with the next book in the series. I just wish they didn’t keep going back and forth on being together to where by the time the big plot change came, I was bored with it and a little frustrated. Rating: 4/5
“I think we get hurt a lot in this life, but maybe it’s worth it because sometimes we will experience really amazing things too. Maybe not everything will end in hurt. But we’ll never know if we don’t try.”
melissaleighblog.com 