Tag: friends to lovers

Review: Take a Hint, Dani Brown

I received the e-ARC of Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert from Netgalley in a giveaway by Avon Books.

I have to start by saying, I love Talia Hibbert. I unabashedly love everything she has written. Her heroines are the most interesting and her heroes are the swooniest. And her HEAs are the happiest and most satisfying. That being said, in this time of pandemic, I’ve mostly been reading paranormal and brief novellas so it took me a few tries to get through this one. But I’m so glad I kept trying.

It was a slow start for me because I couldn’t really identify with the heroine. Danika is confident (in most ways) and driven and a witch, like with crystals and charms and stuff. I’m not super driven and my inner monologue is variations on a theme of what a horrible, ugly person I am. (Working on it in therapy though.) So I can’t say I really “get” Dani. But I admire her for sure.

Then I got to the hero, Zafir, and he is just awesome. He’s tall and burly and has a beard. He reads romance novels and has a crush on Dani. He runs a sports club thing (Rugby, but all the sportsballs run together for me.) that teaches boys how to avoid toxic masculinity and express their emotions in healthy ways. He has anxiety and a history of depression. He gets it. He’s emotionally intelligent. And did I mention tall and burly?

They end up in a fake relationship that becomes friends with benefits that becomes a HEA. It’s funny and smart and just a joy to read. There’s a big romantic gesture and it’s just perfect.

What I loved the most was how Zaf accepted Dani and how she didn’t understand his acceptance because she’d never had anyone apart from her sisters and her BFF accept her before. She didn’t know how to deal with it. But she learned. And Zaf was patient with her.

And as always with Talia Hibbert, there were some great lines and phrases in this book. A couple of my favorites: Zaf to Dani, “I know what a chaos demon you are, and I think it’s great.” And “Maybe, before, you stumbled across people who only wanted bits and pieces of you. Never the whole package. Never enough.” And then there’s the love, “Zaf loved Dani in bold black-and-white, stark and completely unsubtle, no shades of gray to be found. He loved her absolutely and uncompromisingly.” GAH, So Perfect!

I give this book five heart-eye-emoji stars. And I can’t wait for the final Brown sister’s book, but I don’t know if a hero can get swoonier than Zaf or Red (from Get a Life, Chloe Brown). If you are waiting to read this series, get on it!

Review: 28 Dates

28 Dates by Stacey Lynn was cute and sweet. Caitlin and Jonas are friends with benefits but Jonas wants more. Caitlin is afraid of commitment and breaks it off. They remain friends, sort of. Caitlin’s boss asks her to test his dating app and Jonas joins without her knowing. They get matched and Jonas tries to win her heart via text, while watching her go on 28 dates with random dudes. Eventually Caitlin finds out the dude she likes from the app is Jonas. She’s not pissed that he sort of lied. She’s very wooed. Then HEA, baby. (Actually babies. Nice epilogue. I know a lot of people think baby epilogues are unnecessary. And they are. But I still like them.)

I felt like the book kind of glossed over Caitlin’s issues. She has parental problems and she just kind of magically gets over it after one conversation with her friend. And Jonas dates another girl after Caitlin rejects him at the beginning. He breaks up with the other woman before he starts going after the Heroine again, but I just don’t like any other woman drama.

I give this book 4 Stars. I enjoyed the writing style and the side characters. I will probably track down the other books in this series.

Oh, and I have to say, I freaking hated the cover on the ARC. I don’t know if it will end up being the final cover, but I’m guessing it will because it has the same look as another book in the series. It made me expect a very different book. I was happily surprised that the book didn’t deliver on the promise of the cover.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Reading this Week – June 9

  • Hardcore by Dakota Gray – m/f, workplace, sort of second chance. This was first person narration from the hero’s point of view, which I feel like is hard to do well. First person of anyone is hard to pull off, but I’m always impressed when the hero’s POV is done well and it was here. He was a dirty dude though. Wow.
  • Want Me by Neve Wilder – m/m, college. Definitely the most explicit m/m I’ve ever read, but it also had these moments of true sweetness from the two alpha bros who fell in love. Typically, I don’t love an alpha bro, much less two, but seeing these guys come together was lovely. So.Much.Sex. though. So if you’re looking for lots of plot and dialog, probably want to skip this one. I loved it though. I’ve already read it two more times.
  • Dedicated by Neve Wilder – m/m, workplace, friends to lovers – Another sweet one from this author. This one had more conflict and less sexytimes, but it was still really good.
  • Knight’s Fire by SJ Himes – m/m, paranormal, DRAGONS! I fucking love dragons. I don’t know why, but I do. This mythology was a little different. Rather than a human/dragon shifter, the dragon was a true shape shifter and could assume any shape. He preferred to assume the human shape so he could get it on with the knight. I’m looking forward to the next in the series, about their wedding and resolving the Big Bad.
  • Jericho Candelario’s Gay Debut by R. Cooper – m/m, friends to lovers, virgin hero – This was the sweetest, most precious (in the best sense of the word) love story. Jerry is my favorite. And I loved Lincoln’s dad bod.

Reread this week:

  • Band Sinister by KJ Charles – My #1 go-to comfort read. And fitting my theme of only reading LGBT books the rest of this month for Pride.

Review: That Kind of Guy

This cover gets all the heart eyes! They let the woman have non-concave stomach!

This is a m/f that features an interracial, age-gap couple with friends to lovers and a fake relationship. There was excellent representation of mental health and demisexuality, and there’s a giant, sweet dog.

Zach and Rae are friends and Rae is nervous to go to a writers’ conference because her ex will be there with his new wife and their baby. Zach decides she needs a fake boyfriend and he volunteers. They get to the hotel and *gasp* there’s only one bed! They both have lots of feelings. There’s a misunderstanding. They talk about it like adults. They live happily ever after. (Given the title of this blog, I don’t think that’s a spoiler.)

The relationship between Zach and Rae grows from friends to lovers slowly and organically, and it’s very believable. Zach admires Rae and she appreciates him for who he is. When they hurt each other, they apologize. And there were some awesome cameos of previous Ravenswood characters.

I give this book 5 Big Heart-Eye-Emoji Stars. I absolutely loved this book and it will probably go along with A Girl Like Her as one of my go-to comfort reads. I received an e-ARC of this book from the author. I am a major Talia Hibbert fangirl so I was really excited to get the chance to read this early. You need to go buy this book right now.