Book Review: Wicked And The Wallflower by Sarah MacLean

Author: Sarah MacLean
Series: The Bareknuckle Bastards #1
Audience: +18
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: June 19th 2018
My Rating: 5 Cups
Source: My Copy
Blurb (from Goodreads):

When Wicked Comes Calling…

When a mysterious stranger finds his way into her bedchamber and offers his help in landing a duke, Lady Felicity Faircloth agrees—on one condition. She’s seen enough of the world to believe in passion, and won’t accept a marriage without it.

The Wallflower Makes a Dangerous Bargain…

Bastard son of a duke and king of London’s dark streets, Devil has spent a lifetime wielding power and seizing opportunity, and the spinster wallflower is everything he needs to exact a revenge years in the making. All he must do is turn the plain little mouse into an irresistible temptress, set his trap, and destroy his enemy.

For the Promise of Passion…

But there’s nothing plain about Felicity Faircloth, who quickly decides she’d rather have Devil than another. Soon, Devil’s carefully laid plans are in chaos, and he must choose between everything he’s ever wanted…and the only thing he’s ever desired.

Ever since I was in the blog tour for the second book in this series, Brazen and the Beast, I’ve been meaning to read the Bareknuckle Bastards series. I loved the concept of the series so much, and from the glimpses I got about Devon and Felicity in that book, I knew their story was going to be special. This year I’ve promised myself to “pleasure-read” more, so what better time than now to read this trilogy? I’m glad I finally got to read Wicked and the Wallflower and I am here to tell you all about it.

Book Review: A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

Author: Kresley Cole
Series: Immortals After Dark #1
Audience: +18
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: September 29th 2015 by Pocket Books (first published March 28th 2006)
My Rating: 4 Cups
Source: My Copy
Blurb (from Goodreads):

In New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Kresley Cole’s sizzling series, a fierce werewolf and a bewitching vampire become unlikely soul mates whose passion will test the boundaries of life and death.

After enduring years of torture from the vampire horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he’s waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. Emmaline Troy is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him.

Sheltered Emmaline finally sets out to uncover the truth about her deceased parents—until a powerful Lykae claims her as his mate and forces her back to his ancestral Scottish castle. There, her fear of the Lykae—and their notorious dark desires—ebbs as he begins a slow, wicked seduction to sate her own dark cravings.

Yet when an ancient evil from her past resurfaces, will their desire deepen into a love that can bring a proud warrior to his knees and turn a gentle beauty into the fighter she was born to be?

I’ve decided that 2021 will be the year of rereads. I feel like this is a reward for myself for holding on to what little sanity I have left after the crazy year 2020 has been, and the way 2021 is continuing down the same path. And as such, I’m rereading Immortals After Dark by Kresley Cole, and also doing a buddy read of it with Jamsu @ Jamsudreams. I first read this series… I want to say around 2010-2011? so many, many, MANY years ago. Unlike all other paranormal and urban fantasy series, this is my first time rereading this series (kind of…you’ll see what I mean!), so it’s kind of like reading it for the first time again, but also knowing the general idea of each story. It’s strange. Anyway.

The reading experience is vastly different now than it was 10 years ago, and I’m here to tell you why. Let’s get started!

Top 5 Books With Awesome Memory Loss Plots

Hello everyone and welcome to the corner of awesomeness. Why awesomeness, you say? I’m glad you asked!! I have been playing around with this idea of sharing my favorite books with a certain plot or trope and it’s time I release this feature into the wild. I shall bless your TBRs with awesome books, all while your wallets shall curse me. It will be awesome!

Today I want to talk to you about memory loss plots. Listen. I used to be okay to this plot device. It’s something that a lot of people unfortunately go through, and it’s always very interesting to me to see how an author manages to write amnesia into the story, and the choices they make when they write about a character who suffers from amnesia. For the past year however, ever since I discovered the magic of Turkish Dizis (this is what their TV shows are called) I hear “memory loss plot” and my eye twitches madly.

Source: Tenor

Basically memory loss plots are now forever linked to pain, and big wishes of omg please end it, this is bad, I don’t want it. TAKE IT BACK! Sorry. I went to far there *winces*. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes!

If you’re like me, and you like challenging yourself and you love the angst and the pain that some authors put their characters through, I am here to share with you my favorite books with memory loss plots. Buckle up, everyone, take out your wishlists, your choice of beverage, and let’s begin!

The Sunday Post #24: Welcome March!

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.   

This week was uneventful. As anticipated, lockdown will be a thing, starting tomorrow. I’m only happy that it seems the weather is finally getting warmer so I can go back to staying in the garden and read. I can finally achieve my “disconnect from tech for a few hours a day” goal. Except for bringing my Spotify with me because how do people manage to not put on some music while reading? Other than that… nothing really big.

Book Review: Devil In Winter by Lisa Kleypas

Author: Lisa Kleypas
Series: Wallflowers #3
Audience: +18
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: February 28th 2006
My Rating: 5 Cups
Source: My Copy
Blurb (from Goodreads):

Four young ladies enter London society and band together to each find a husband. Has the third “Wallflower” now met her match?

A Devil’s Bargain

Easily the shyest Wallflower, Evangeline Jenner stands to become the wealthiest, once her inheritance comes due. Because she must first escape the clutches of her unscrupulous relatives, Evie has approached the rake Viscount St. Vincent with a most outrageous proposition: marriage!

Sebastian’s reputation is so dangerous that thirty seconds alone with him will ruin any maiden’s good name. Still, this bewitching chit appeared, unchaperoned, on his doorstep to offer her hand. Certainly an aristocrat with a fine eye for beauty could do far worse.

But Evie’s proposal comes with a condition: no lovemaking after their wedding night. She will never become just another of the dashing libertine’s callously discarded broken hearts—which means Sebastian will simply have to work harder at his seductions… or perhaps surrender his own heart for the very first time in the name of true love.

I will be honest with you guys, I picked up this book right after I finished It Happened One Autumn because I was really curious about how exactly Kleypas would go about redeeming Sebastian. But when I picked it up, and I was texting about this to my friends who were patiently reading all my ecstatic reaction texts (there a lot of them, trust me). I went into reading this book fully prepared to hate Sebastian from start to finish. One of the ladies actually dared me to say when exactly I forgave Sebastian and dammit….it was damned quick, man. I was also very lucky that before I started, the awesometastic A. Perveen @ Sarāb-e-Sukhan offered to buddy read it with me. Did I ever say all of the ladies were right when they said I’d end up loving this guy? Because they were. Anyway. Let’s get started, because I have a feeling this will take a while.

February 2021 Wrap-Up

Well…we’re done with February. I have no clue where this month went. I took a slower pace at reading this month, and I’m happy with that to be honest. I still read every day, but I didn’t try to get to a certain amount of books read this month. There were a few books that were also just a little more emotionally draining than I initially anticipated, which is why I took a slower pace at reading this month.

I’m thankful that spring is starting to make herself known, so I’ve been able in the last week to stay outside and read. I seem to start having the same problem as last year, which is to not be able to really focus on reading indoors, so having the nicer weather come is fantastic, because it’s just me, my comfy garden chair, my book, and my dog.

Let’s look at how February went, shall we?

Top Ten Tuesday: Female Characters I Love That Have Really Awesome Jobs

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

You guys have NO idea how happy I am for today’s prompt. The original topic is “Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had” and I started writing just about that, but then I realized it morphed into me talking about the female characters that hold those jobs. So uh…yeah. Here’s the thing: when I was a teenager there weren’t many books for my age group that I wanted to read, or even that were focusing on girls. And because I was a teen in the early 2000s, in a country that was still very much stuck in the middle ages in terms of gender roles, I had the misfortune of actually not catching the wonderful trend in YA books now with powerful female characters holding very good jobs. So I turned to romance novels. And there a world opened up. Because it was through romance books that I learned that if I put my mind to it, I could be anything I ever wanted: astronaut, rocket scientist, doctor, school teacher, ANYTHING. So to those like me who are bombarded by “but girls can’t do that” or “that’s a man’s job” craptastic ideas, this post is for you!