Harisa
The main character was just unlikable, and I felt so bad for her half-sister. Not as enjoyable as Tan's other novels because the narrator was just not someone I was rooting for.
I feel like a traitor to my heritage but this one didn't work for me. I definitely learned new things and I really enjoyed that aspect of it but this wasn't really a story. Just a statement of a bunch of facts. The main character didn't work for me and ultimately I'm not a huge fan of coming of age novels with young boys as our MC so maybe its a me thing.
A bunch of his novels are on audible plus right now to try though!
2.5.
I remember now that I HAVE picked up this series before and DNFd this book. See? This is why sometimes it pays to read series out of order LOL. I really did not like this hero, Lucan. He was annoying and I respect nothing about him. I see some people like the hot and cold stuff but I found him weak and rolled my eyes way too many times.
Even the central mystery completely revolves around him (which leave me wondering who this Dragos guy is in book 7 and how he ties into the larger mystery) and honestly I hate this dude. He wasn't this annoying in book 7 so I'm hoping he's not central in the rest of the books because if he is I may skip and go directly to book 8 and stop there.
For now I'm going to go to the prequel and check out Gideon's story!
I happen to agree with most of the other disappointed reviewers on here. This is dragging on, and while I get her new powers brought on the plot point in this book the “big bad” to use Buffy speak was such a let down. The end scene too? Wow was that boring.
I will say the cliffhanger did leave me wanting to read the next one though ahhah.
3.5/4. Honestly, this was at a 2 until the last 30%.
The ending was great and I wish we got more of that plotline earlier on. However, overall, this book successfully avoided super annoying romance tropes AND Christian fiction tropes so that was good. We had an ambitious woman who didn't give up her ambition after she met the hero. That alone earns it an extra star.
This really did feel almost like a prologue? An intro to Stephanie Plum. I'll be reading the second one to see if I can give it a try.
2.5 because I'm a nice person.
Listen, the love story between Aiden and Erin was good, it was cute! I liked a lot of it, it was well done, as was the character development between Aiden and Erin. I was even willing to looking forward the ignorant remarks made about lawyers being “the opposite of nurturing” and the comments about a Estates/tax lawyer not being able to be cute. I rolled my eyes, was annoyed enough to share with my friends (one who is interested in becoming an estates/tax lawyer and is VERY cute) but that wouldn't have been enough to put it so low.
HOWEVER, the NUMEROUS subplots got to be way too much in themselves. There were so many subplots and they were SO weird. One or two ~different~ subplots to get the author's agenda about surrogacy, adoption, menopause, or mental health issues would have been enough but THIS many? Chill. It took away from the story and got weird at times. TMI to the max.
Finally, the kicker, was the extremely rude comments made about Eastern Europeans who grew up in a “turbulent region” and therefore are now con people and crazy because that's what the environment made them. The worst part of this comment is that this particular woman/man were from Bosnia, and if the author took some time to know Bosnian politics she would see why this is SO offensive. Maybe being Eastern European myself and the fact that the “bad guy” has the same name as my late grandfather makes me bias enough to have you ignore how offensive this plot point is but like the Serbians committed genocide against the Bosnians and that's why it was so “turbulent” so how you gonna victim blame and stereotype an entire ethnicity like that? Not okay.
Gorgeous cover. Great writing. But overall anti climatic. More of a general fiction than thriller or horror.
I love that she is a former attorney. I think that is so cool and her career is #goals for me. I like her as an author, and am excited to continue to read and listen to her novels. Hopefully she doesn't disappoint :P.
With that being said, I really enjoyed this novel. It is a regular romance novel. No real mystery involved but still fun, cute, light hearted, and extremely entertaining.
Didn't give it 5 stars because it really did bother me that her friends were so fawned over by her but her best friends fiancé then husband was so not in the picture. I found that weird.
I thought this was just okay, but it was interesting and engaging. It got a little frustrating how much could've been explained because people were keeping secrets (even though that was also explained) and the pacing was a little slow at parts. Overall interesting though and way better than Addie LaRue (the writing style very much reminded me of it).
If I'm being completely objective this is a 4.5.
But ugh, the way Nora Roberts writes friendships and small towns...irresistible.
Idk whats wrong with me I am such a grump.
I love the side characters here but am not totally enamored with Eve and Roarke. I really struggled with this mystery and the mystery itself was super super interesting this felt soooo long and it felt sooo long for Eve to make real progress on the case. When I know who the red herring is and it takes the defective until the last 5 percent to figure it out thats annoying, not fun.
I've heard the mysteries themselves get better around book 10 but we will see it I stick around. I will say if this wasn't audio I would've probably DNFd. Def feels like a SVU episode on audio haha and I don't always like every episode of that so maybe I need to be more patient with this series.
The nature vs nurture debate kept getting repeated over and over without making a real headway but maybe thats a bigger topic on this series. The ending also pissed me off bc it was way too abrupt. Ultimately did not work for me.
This was really good! A very good classic historical romance novel if you know what you're getting into.
This one wasn't as strong as the other ones. The romance was harder to get into, but I have a hard time with second change/widows anyway so that's possible.
BUT I appreciated the readers note re: the medical issues presented in the novels. I really wish JQ would've done the same for the “melancholy” in “To Sir Phillip with Love.”
I really enjoyed this. A really interesting story relating a haunting to DV. I thought this was really unique and a good read. I liked the mother/daughter dynamic exploration as well.
This was just okay. I think it took on too much with family dynamics + traumatic romantic history for both of them + career stuff in just way too short of a page count.
I kept looking this book up to figure out what the genre is and a take on a film noir is a great description. This was very good and just a total ride.
I actually didn't think this was as bas as everyone else! It was interesting. I thought the main character had a few too many internal spirals that became boring and far too long. Being in her head was annoying after a certain point but overall an interesting read.
This had everything I love in a book. Great writing, a sci fi element, a mystery element all in a general fiction book that explores society, motherhood, and government work!
I'm actually very surprised by how much I liked this but I really did!! Great pacing and well written