Book Fiend

This lady gets me every. fucking. time.

It’s really not very often that romance novels have good writing — like, fiction good — and I get it because most people want a quick sugary fix with nothing too deep or complex, but man alive.

The depth, the vocabulary, the characterization, the humor — BK never strikes out. And all that, PLUS taut tension? PLUS fire smut??

10/10.

FUCK YES. I love reading about feminine rage 😌

The magic scenes in this were so sensual, so erotic, so implicit without being explicit 🙌🏻🙌🏻😍😍— (but also if I’m being honest I really wanted them to fuck)

The story in this was insane in the best way — the devil and a witch he creates and yet neither of them are the villains in the story? The way Samson slowly discovered himself was so perfect, and the way they sought revenge together was so romantic ❤️

Samson, I love you.

Was this book shameless single mom porn? Yes.

Did I care? Not one bit. 😎

Did it actually make me feel a little better about all my softness, both as a mom and of all the parts of my body? Embarrassingly, yes, lol

Super sweet, super fast read ❤️

I read this because my sister told me to and you know what? It wasn’t bad ❤️

The sex scene setups were slightly porny, and for a book where a girl has two boyfriends I was sad there was no DP (seems obvious when they are fucking all the time????) BUT it was sweet and cute and the writing wasn’t bad and I actually liked the corny as shit ending ❤️

Did I buy these for the covers? Yes.

Did these books have less than stellar writing? Yes.

Was it way too full of questions posed to the reader, exposition, and terrible “quirky” dialogue? Yes.

Did they both have some shoe-horned, extremely specific character traits written in a very obvious, performative ways meant to show inclusivity? Yes.

But did I read them both in two days because they were Halloween AND small town themed?

Yes.

Rating: 2/10

I really, really, really wanted to like this book.

An outlaw rides into town, coming for his long lost love who left him for another. He kills her husband, and then offers his hand in marriage as replacement. When she declines, he drags her into the street and kills her too — all while their daughter watches from underneath the floorboards of their general store.

15 years later — that girl grows up, becoming a bounty hunter whose main goal in life is to find and kill the man who killed her parents. The sheriff in town helps plant her in the outlaw’s household so she can get close enough to kill him….but instead, a love triangle forms.

just not pulling me in like good ole 300k ao3 gems do

I really love Beth O’Leary’s writing.

It’s such a great blend of fiction and romance, but what gets me every time is the way she tackles such complex emotions 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 Her books are always so much deeper than I think they are going to be and it’s honestly such a delight — it makes you think, leaves an impression on you, while at the same time being light and fluffy and easy to read.

The most surprising thing about this one was its romance storyline between two 70 year olds — it tackled things like grief and loneliness and second partners — and it really truly made me think a lot about how hard it would be to not only find someone at that age, but to also live with yourself? Isolation was such a main topic and I felt so much empathy for the characters while reading it.

There was such a great quote about how so many people think of old people as finding love “cute” in a really dismissive way, and it was so right — if a romance book has a grandma and a granddaughter in it, the granddaughters romance storyline always takes the main plot…and I was so pleasantly surprised to see this book turn that on its head ❤️

(Also Arnold really reminded me of Joel Miller finding love in his older age and I love that for me 😌)

This was disturbing af — 10/10 Halloween read, yet also 10/10 commentary on today’s society 😭

The style of this book was super cool — opening through one character’s eyes, and then switching halfway through to the other main character — and the side characters were fascinating in such a horrifying and disappointing way….the character of widow howlett was especially disturbing — she’s gonna stick with me for awhile.

The ease in which a woman could be named a witch??? the way they were treated by society after that??? the medical book that was written just to identify witches??? and all the ways people used the trial to settle petty grievances they had with the accused, not caring that they’ll literally be hung???

But MOST of all, the way this book was researched and told 😍😍

Okay so I followed an author hole and found this book and read the whole thing before I found an image of this dust jacket and I am SO MAD I DIDN’T SEE THIS FIRST 😭 because I’m down for any character that’s supposed to look like Aidan Turner

This was….a ride, lol

Vampire + student/professor + fated mates, with them finding each other every time she’s reincarnated? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP

I really wanted to like this book more, but it had way more of a….goofy? tone? than I would have expected? I wanted it to lean fully into the dark themes it kept talking about: immortality and loneliness, the angst of their previous lifetimes, the danger of the supernatural — but every time it balanced on the right side of those things, there would be some silly dialogue inserted or the characters would say something dumb to lighten the mood. Idk, I wasn’t into it

HOWEVER — the dark scenes were hot as fuck. Feeding and breeding and lack of control and “You’re mine across every timeline”??? That’s an always read for me ❤️

This book really surprised the hell out of me in the best way — childhood best friends to lovers, they met when they were nine in their small town and were inseparable ever since ❤️

I had zero expectations going into it, had no idea what the plot was, and it ended up having super fucking dark moments that I wasn’t expecting 😬, but the rest?

The rest was the softest, sweetest, quietest super fucking romantic romance that I’ve read in awhile ❤️

And it’s a series 😍

A literal kelli catnip checklist:

✅ an emotionally distant single dad

✅ a nanny

✅ bondage

I finished this book in a day….which tells you about the quality of this writing, lol. But am I mad??? No! Because how much did I really expect from it, let’s be real

Lazy writing for a lazy Saturday, with some sex scenes that made me clench ❤️

I don’t even know where to begin with this book…and I think that’s the problem? The plot was so threadbare — which is fine, but so were the characters? I think it was supposed to be about grief and a girl bucking traditional gender roles and putting herself first for once, but for most of the book she…didn’t?

Blah — boyfriend was an ass, his best friend was nicer (because he was in love with her the whole time), and I would have been rooting for their romance if the book didn’t continue flashbacks every other chapter until the end, resulting in a very confusing anti-climax.

Still read it all the way through though because cowboys 🤡

Pros:

Age Gap (which was also a sort of guardian/stepped into a parent-type role situation, which made it exponentially hotter)

Taboo AF (when the damn breaks, lemme tell you!!!) — so much sneaking around

One of the best grinding to completion scenes I’ve ever read

The care!! The trust!!

Flashbacks which were extremely well done

Cons:

If there is one pet peeve I have when it comes to age gap, it’s the gaslighting that occurs when the older person tries to be a dick on purpose to the younger one in hopes that they’ll scare them away — re: “You’re young, you don’t know what you feel”, or treating them super condescendingly when it comes to their feelings, which they ALSO share —

Rushed ending — like, breakneck