Tag: chick-lit

An Advanced Listening Copy Review of Switched by Sarah Ready

Switched
Series: Ghosted #2
Author: Sarah Ready

Narrators:
Kelsey Navarro Foster

James Anderson Foster
To Be Published: February 20, 2024
Audiobook: 10 hours 12 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To:  February 2-12, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Description:

For Serena Otaki, free-spirited Californian, life is simple. She loves smashing atoms at The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. She loves Star Trek, spicy tofu, and her cat, Captain Purrk. She loves her messy (slob-fest) apartment, her chaotic brand of organizing, and staying permanently, happily unattached.

Life is perfect. She has one true love—physics.
Loving a man isn’t in her future.

For Henry Joules, uptight Brit, life is simple. He loves making analog black holes, drinking piping hot tea, and organizing his pencil tray. He loves his family, red meat, and obsessively cleaning his spotless apartment.

Life is perfect. He has many loves—physics, family, friends. He can’t wait to find the woman of his dreams.
Love and marriage are in his future.

One perfect night Serena and Henry meet. Sparks fly, particles collide, the universe comes to a halt, and…

It was a mistake.
They’re too different.
It won’t work.

Love isn’t in their future.

Until an electric storm causes an unexpected event at the particle collider and suddenly—they’ve switched.

Serena is in Henry’s body.
Henry is in Serena’s body.

And both life and love are suddenly very, very complicated.

Jessica’s Review:

Wow, Jessica listened to another romance novel and really enjoyed it! This is the second in the Ghosted series. It isn’t necessary to have read Ghosted before this one because Jillian and Daniel’s story is mentioned in Switched, but I really do recommend it! Their story also continues since Switched happens after Ghosted.  So far in this series we have extremely smart FMCs (female main characters) with STEM careers, that are also nerdy but adorable.  It’s great to have strong female characters with this type of career!

To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in the book until Serena and Henry switched bodies. I think it was a ‘me’ thing with some things going on in my life. But once that switch happened the book took off for me. 

Switched is very entertaining and hilarious at times.  We see what happens when you are not just in another person’s body, but someone of the opposite gender! Both Serena and Henry have experiences as the opposite sex. And really, we do see that women really are the stronger gender! Full on hilarity ensues, I just don’t want to say what as a minor spoiler.  We do have a small amount of spice that I could have done without.  Remember…. I’ve figured out that I seem to be a ‘fade to black’/ ‘behind closed door’ romance reader.

Here are some of the tropes we have in Switched:
Fake Dating

One Night Stand
Forced Proximity

We have two narrators: Kelsey Navarro Foster and James Anderson Foster, who are married in ‘real life’! Kelsey did a fabulous job! She really captured everything with the characters down to the ‘bad English accent’ with Serena attempting to be Henry.  James only narrated for one chapter, and for that I was thankful as his voice for this chapter did not work for me. 

Sarah Ready is an author I discovered last year and Switched is the third book I have listened to from her, and I have enjoyed them all!  She’s an author I plan to read/listen to more. And with a third book in the Ghosted series coming out in July, I am ready for another book from her!  And for one who doesn’t really read much romance, that is saying something! And let me just say that the covers of the books in this series… It’s very tempting for me to want physical copies of them because they are just… Gorgeous!

Many thanks to the publisher for having these audiobooks available to listen to and reviewing!

Pre-Order Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

 

ARC Review: Bright Lights, Big Christmas by Mary Kay Andrews

Bright Lights, Big Christmas
Author: Mary Kay Andrews

To Be Published: September 26, 2023
288 Pages

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To:  August 20- September 3, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry’s ready to try to carve out a new corner for herself.

In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family,

And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable, dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?

Filled with family ties, both rekindled and new, and sparkling with Christmas magic, BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CHRISTMAS delivers everything Mary Kay Andrews fans adore, all tied up in a hilarious, romantic gem of a novel.

Jessica’s Review:

I absolutely loved MKA’s last Christmas novel The Santa Suit when it came out in 2021, and when I found out she had a new Christmas novel coming out in 2023, I knew I had to read it! (Honestly… I have to read any and all of her books!) Like always, MKA delivered! She brings the Christmas spirit and Christmas joy to the reader no matter what month the book was read. I was honestly worried about starting this book in August that would it be too early for me to get in the Christmas spirit. But NO, it didn’t! I swear as I was reading, I could smell the pine trees of Christmas! All I needed was cold temperatures and some hot cocoa! (Which will be coming very soon!) We don’t usually get snow here in Georgia, but I found myself wanting that as well even though I was reading the book in 90+ degree heat!

MKA can truly write and just captures the magic of the Christmas season! Bright Lights, Big Christmas deals with the Tolliver family who live in North Carolina. Every year they bring their family owned and grown Christmas trees to NYC and sell them for enormous prices. They are well known in the area and this Christmas we have Kerry taking her father’s place to help her brother Murphy sell the trees. Kerry is going through some life changes and finds herself growing to love the people and the neighborhood.  And we get a little Christmas romance with a single dad and his utterly adorable son Austin! MKA also gives us a little bit of a mystery as well!

This is such a sweet, fun, and fluffy read to get you in the Christmas spirit! It deals with family, friendships, romance, and holiday cheer! You can’t help but become attached to these characters.  And we have Spammy the vintage camper that Kerry and Murphy are living in which ends up being its own unique character with its own history in of itself!

If you are a fan of MKA and/ or Christmas stories in general, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Bright Lights, Big Christmas when it comes out on September 26th!

Many thanks to the publisher St Martin’s Press for granting me an arc to read, review and highly enjoy!

Pre-Order Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

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Audiobook Review: Forever Hold Your Peace by Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke

Forever Hold Your Peace
Authors:
Liz Fenton
Lisa Steinke
Narrator: Nan McNamara
Published: July 11, 2023
Audiobook: 9 hours 15 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To:  June 30- July 6, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Audiobook Description:

 Father of the Bride meets Bride Wars in Forever Hold Your Peace, in which two ex-best friends find themselves shockingly entangled after more than two decades apart, for fans of Good Company.

When their newly engaged kids ask all four divorced parents to meet each other over brunch, everyone RSVPs yes–secretly hoping someone at the table will get to the bottom of the bottomless mimosas fast enough to say what they’re all thinking: that this engagement, coming after a whirlwind romance between two people barely out of college, is too much too soon.

But at that brunch, it’s not the impulsive couple’s decisions that end up under the microscope, as it turns out June, mother of the bride, and Amy, mother of the groom, certainly do know each other–they’re ex-best-friends who haven’t spoken since their explosive falling out more than twenty-five years ago. Reeling from their unwanted reunion and eager to shift the spotlight off their past as decades-old secrets and rivalries come to light, the two moms battle it out for the prize of Most Enthusiastic About This Wedding.

But when their history—and their present-day shenanigans—threaten to crack the foundations of the happy couple’s future, June and Amy find themselves becoming unexpected allies in an all-hands-on-deck effort to get their kids (and themselves) a happily-ever-after two generations in the making.

Jessica’s Review:

This is the second book I have read from BFFs Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke and I have more of theirs on my TBR just waiting to be read! This is also their first book they have written in several years. If you follow them on social media you will know the story and their journey with that and their dedication of the novel to other authors.

It was a fun yet predictable beach read, but that’s how rom coms work. Yes, it was a mesh of Father of the Bride and Bride Wars!  If you like wedding rom com movies such as the previously mentioned Father of the Bride, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, (insert your favorite here, it WILL fit in with the others) then you will enjoy this book. I can even see it becoming a beloved wedding rom com movie.

The bride and groom are not the main focus of the novel but three of the parents and what happened in their past to destroy their friendship. The novel is about letting go, forgiveness, second chances and more! It is also done with humor, so the book is enjoyable. I will say this: Those mothers, OMG, they drove me crazy! I really thought ‘how old are we and how old are we acting’ several times.

The narration was very well done! I will look for more audiobooks narrated by Nan McNamara.

Fenton and Steinke tend to write thrillers, so you know they are on my list to read more of! This is far from a thriller and I also enjoyed it! I’m off to go see how many of their books I actually own now!

Many thanks to the publisher for granting me an copy to listen to and review! I enjoyed it!

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

 

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