#smalltownromance

If only I knew what life held for me

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez

📚 Finished Reading: Part of Your World

📏 Length: 370 pages

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay. I finally decided to dip my toes into Abby Jimenez territory and 👏🏾👏🏾 why did no one tell me it was this cute?? (just kidding, all the reviews about her told me, but still) this is what I needed and didn’t know until after I closed the book.

I started with Part of Your World because it’s the first in the series, and let's just say… this book was the warmest hug I didn’t know I needed. After bingeing fantasy, horror and dark academia (you know my usual vibes), this was a refreshing change of pace, and I definitely needed it. I feel like I just got out of a cozy goat-filled cottage in the countryside which I actually liked as a city girl and was reminded that joy is a genre, too. I loved it!

What I Loved:

💘 Alexis is in her late thirties, and it shows in all the best ways. As someone also in her 30s, reading a grown, smart, messy character, who is still figuring things out, felt so satisfying. We don’t always get that in romance; it’s usually twenty-somethings in chaos, so this felt like a win for us grown girls with complicated lives with messy baggage. I’m always on the hunt for books like this.

💘 Daniel? Daniel. DANIEL. MY MAN!! The sweetest cinnamon roll of a man mixed with golden retriever vibes. A carpenter with a heart of gold, emotional intelligence, and goat babies?? Please. I was kicking my feet, reading the chemistry between Alexis and Daniel!. Squealing. Smiling like an idiot. His support of Alexis felt grounded and honest, not performative. He’s gentle but strong, emotionally available, and deeply rooted in his small town. Honestly, green flags everywhere!

💘 The yearning?? Broke me and made me shed silent tears! 🥺😭😭The slow burn between Alexis and Daniel had me in a chokehold. The socioeconomic and age gap between them wasn’t just a passing detail ; it was a real obstacle and watching Alexis try to label Daniel as just a fling. One word: Heartbreaking because all he really wanted her, only her and you could feel it while reading. I could feel how much they liked each other. She kept trying to push him away, but he kept showing up, soft, steady, patient, cooking for her and letting her steal his hoodie to carry a piece of him home to her chaotic world. It was hella sweet.

It reminded me so much of the song "My Favorite Clothes" by RINI😍😍 that bittersweet love where someone becomes your peace, and you don’t want to let them go, but still want them not to feel suffocated. Whenever I hear that song, I think of Daniel and his thoughts of wanting Alexis to choose herself… and maybe pick him too.… had me crying for a fictional man. 😂😭😭

💘 Multilayered storytelling. There was hella going on! Class differences, abusive exes, generational trauma, toxic family dynamics, burnout, and healing, but it never felt overwhelming or too much at once. Abby Jimenez weaved everything together so seamlessly. One minute I was giggling over a date gone wrong, the next I was like “Girlllll… this is therapy” 🫰🏾🫰🏾

This Book Felt Like:

🪟 An open window on a sunny morning

🛠️ A small town fairytale with power tools

🐐 Baby goats, homemade meals, and falling in love with someone who sees you

📺 A Hallmark movie but with laughs, spice, and feminist character arcs

This Book Gave Me:

🌟 Hope for second chances at love

💖 Cozy romance that doesn’t talk down to grown and successful women

🐐 A surprising love for goat babies (who would’ve thought?)

😂 hella giggles and tbh a couple of tearful sniffles

🛠️ Full permission to romanticize small town life and emotionally available carpenters with tattoos and flannel shirts. 🥰

Final Thoughts:

This book reminded me that choosing softness is a revolutionary act. Letting joy and care into your love and loving someone fully (and letting yourself be loved in return) is as powerful as any fantasy or epic battle I love to read. Part of Your World felt like choosing yourself over family legacy, expectations, and fear. It reminded me that healing doesn’t always look like staying in one place and letting family legacies define you; sometimes it's moving, building, resting, and letting the right people in. However, that looks to you.

I’m officially in my Abby Jimenez era and not mad at all about it. 😍😍

Cute Part of Your World art that I found 🥹🥹:

Source: Malyshka 💕

Source: Dana 💕

🗓️ oct 26th — candied apple/kisses.

honestly, i didn’t have time to write my original idea, so i whipped up as much fluff and friends-to-lovers sweetness as i could in an hour! 💋🍎

not only does it feel good to represent my latin culture in someway, but it’s also just ridiculously fun to write😭

it adds a layer of unseriousness/comedy that my books need given some of the more serious issues i write about.

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb:

Nothing good happens after dark...

Nice one, Rowan. Couldn’t stay home for one night...and now my best friend’s dead.

Not just dead. She looks like she had the life sucked out of her. And the puzzle pieces are starting to come together in a way that looks all sorts of dangerous.

To top it off, I’m pretty sure I’m fired — and I may be going insane. Who in their right mind starts to think their parents were killed by vampires?

So, when I rescue a hunky cowboy with a taste for the jugular, it’s kind of the least of my troubles. Except Sylas Loughty is my best friend’s boyfriend.

And not even he can protect me from an age-old vendetta that’s about to come down on my head.

Turns out the bloodlust is...catching.

This is book 1 in the paranormal dark romance Georgetown Vampires trilogy by Kira Bates. Featuring murder, magic and a love that was meant-to-be, this is a slice of steam you’ll want to sink your teeth into.

Click ‘buy now’ to find out what happens in Georgetown after dark!

Review:

What's a girl to do when vampires invade your small town and the turn you... and the only person you can rely on is your dead best friend's hot cowboy boyfriend... who is also a vampire and who you might be falling for. Rowan and Liddy are best friends, they adore and love each other, Liddy has a boyfriend of six months, Sylas, whom she's been attached to the hip to. Sylas and Rowan tolerate each other. When a mysterious attack happens in town and Sylas tells Rowan and Liddy to hunker down and stay safe... Rowan may have left Liddy to go on a date... only to come back home the next day to find Liddy completely drained of blood. Rowan knows what caused this: vampires. Rowan has a secret, her parents were murdered by vampires but nobody believes her. Rowan goes to find Sylas only to discover he's been turned into a vampire as well as his brother and friend... and they might have taken a bite from Rowan and turned her into a vampire. Rowan is determined to find what vampire killed Liddy and get revenge while wrestling with her feelings for Sylas as they spend more time together... oh and they're both being haunted by Liddy. Sylas and Rowan know they shouldn't be so drawn to one another but they can't help it.... but first they have to find the vampires after them and why a certain Vampire Queen might be hunting down Rowan in particular. Can they survive the vampires in town and have their happily ever after? This is the first book in a series and it's definitely a fun paranormal romance read filled with hot vampire cowboys, a murder mystery, and romance! Its a fun read and the romance is nicely built. I like the way Rowan and Sylas communicate with one another and support each other while figuring out their new situation. It's definitely an interesting start to a series and I am curious where the next book goes!

Release Date: January 21,2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

"Nora."He just barely smiles. “You’re in books. Of course you don’t have a life. None of us do. There’s always something too good to read."

"Sometimes, even when you start with the last page and you think you know everything, a book finds a way to surprise you."

"The last-page ache. The deep breath in after you’ve set the book aside."

"That’s the thing about women. There’s no good way to be one. Wear your emotions on your sleeve and you’re hysterical. Keep them tucked away where your boyfriend doesn’t have to tend to them and you’re a heartless bitch."

"If I had to pick one person to be in my corner, it’d be you. Every time."

"So if you’re the ‘wrong kind of woman,’ then I’m the wrong kind of man."

"Those were the endings I found solace in. The ones that said, Yes, you have lost something, but maybe, someday, you’ll find something too."

“How do you do that?” His brow furrows. “Do what?” “Say the right thing.” The corner of his mouth quirks. “No one thinks that.” “I do.” His lashes splay across his cheeks as his gaze drops. “Maybe I just say the right thing for you."

"I know,” he says. “I can read you like a book."

"You fucking undo me."

"Maybe its possible to have more than one home. Maybe it’s possible to belong in a hundred different ways to a hundred different people and places."

"Some books you don’t read so much as live, and finishing one of those always makes me think of ascending from a scuba dive. Like if I surface too fast I might get the bends."

"Just because not everyone gets you doesn't mean you're wrong."

"A good bookstore,” Charlie says, “is like an airport where you don’t have to take your shoes off."

"A reminder that there are things in life so valuable that you must risk the pain of losing them for the joy of briefly having them."