Ep. 147 - Try a Chapter: Choosing from 6 NEW Summer Romance Books to Read | No-Spice RomComs

The weather has warmed up, and I’m ready for some swoony, sizzling romances but without the spice. So I thought I would try six brand-new closed-door romcoms to see what I want to read. Come find out which book I chose to read in real time.

You can find the companion blog here.

Books I Try in This Episode:

• Just Friends by Haley Pham
• More Than Friends Denise Hunter
•  A Brewed Awakening by Pepper Basham
• The Shippers by Katherine Center
• Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan
• Brighter than Before by Courtney Walsh

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Transcript

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The weather has warmed up and I'm ready for some swoony, sizzling romances. So I thought I would try six brand new closed door rom-coms to see what I want to read. Come find out which book I chose to read in real time. Hey story lovers, it's time to unwind, relax, and get comfy cozy. You're listening to the Bookmarks and Blankets podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Matsudira. Each week I discuss my favorite forms of art, which are books, movies, and TV series. I also love talking about cozy living, cozy hobbies, and self-care tips. If you like reviews, recommendations, discussions, and a whole lot more, then you're in the right place. Join me with your favorite blanket, beverage, and snack, and let's get cozy together. Welcome or welcome back, my book friends. If you're new here, I'm so glad that you're here. My name is Kelly. And if you're a turning listener, welcome back. So I am back for another try a chapter episode. I have been reading a lot of heavy books recently, between contemporary fiction, historical, and fantasy. And now that summer is here, I really want to lighten things up with some rom-coms. So I have six brand new summer romance books that just came out this year. And I'm not sure what I want to read first. I feel like I'm probably gonna read all of these at some point, but I'm not sure what I want to read. So I thought I would put all six of these in this episode where I'm going to try a chapter. It also feels like it's been quite a while since I've read a contemporary romance. This is my favorite genre to read in, but I feel like I've been exploring so many other genres this year. I don't feel like I've read a lot of contemporary romance books so far this year. So I really want to hop into some summer rom-coms. And all of these authors except one are my favorites. I love five out of the six. The sixth one is a new to me author, and I really wanted to give her new book a chance. I know that all of these are closed doors, so we're not gonna have any spice or sex scenes. They may have some mild language, but I know that they're all gonna be free of spice, which that is the way I prefer to read my rom-coms. So I think I'm gonna keep the intro short. I'm so excited to hop into these books. Let me go to the logistics for those that are new. So I have chosen six books that I'm very excited to read. I will read the summary for each one, and then I will read the first sentence, and then I'm going to pause the recording. I'm gonna read the first chapter. Now, if there is a prologue, I will read the prologue with the first chapter. And if the first chapter is super short, then I'll read the first two chapters. Once I read the first chapter, I will come back, I will explain what's going on, my feeling so far of just reading that first chapter, and if I want to continue reading that book right now in this episode, because I am going to choose one book out of these six to do a real-time reaction episode. So this first half of the episode is gonna be me trying each chapter with each of these books, and then the second half of this episode is going to be the real-time reaction to the winner that I choose. So then I will read through and do just like I do my regular real-time reactions where I stop around the quarter mark, the halfway mark, and then finish it up and give you my final thoughts. So that's how this episode's gonna go. If you miss anything in this episode, I will have a companion blog. I always have a companion blog for every podcast episode that I do. I also encourage you to check out the cover art because the cover art for rom-coms are always so cute. The illustrated style is not always my favorite, but sometimes they can be really cute, and some of these are just beautiful. If you miss anything in the episode, if you want to learn more about these books, you can head over to the website, to the companion blog, and that's bookmarksthelter nblankets.com. You can learn more about everything over there. The link is always in the description. Also on my website, I have a blog I post every Tuesday and Thursday, and it is very seasonal. So I have book discussions, reading tips and tricks, book crafts, book lists, and right now I'm getting all my summer content up. So if you are interested in that kind of content, definitely check out the website every week. If you want to know what I'm reading in real time, I would love for you to follow me on Goodreads. I'm in there every single day. I read in multiple formats, in multiple genres, lots of different authors, different types of stories. It's whatever I'm in the mood to read. And you can always find out what kind of projects I'm working on. You might be able to put some themes together. But I would love for you to follow me over there and I post all of my written reviews on that platform as well. And then finally, if you've already gotten your hand on these brand new books, I would love to know your thoughts or what are some of your favorite summer romance books? I'm always looking to add to my never-ending TBR list. So I'd love for you to join me on social media. You can find me in all the places X or Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. I make graphics for this type of episode. So you can get in there and make a comment. All right, enough chit-chatting. Let's get to the best part because I am so ready for some lighthearted, fun, swoony, sizzling without the spice rom-coms because I am ready to hop into these. So here are the six books that I'm going to try in this episode. So let's get comfy, let's get cozy, and let's dive in. Okay, so I have these in order by release date. So I'm gonna go from the earliest to the most recent. And I will say that not only have I read from five of these authors already, and I love them. They're some of my favorites. I also have arcs for five of these six. So I need to read these anyway, just so that I can get my reviews posted as well. I am going to read all six of these unless I'm really turned off by them as I'm going through them. But I do plan to read all six of these this summer, but I do want to choose a winner for this episode where I do my real-time reaction. Okay, so three of these were on my June TBR summer book list. So if you've already listened to that most recent episode, I've already mentioned three of these, but don't skip ahead because I'm gonna take one book at a time. So I am gonna let you know the book. I'm gonna read the summary and then I am going to pause. I'm gonna read the chapter and then come back and let you know my thoughts, and then move on to the next book. So it is gonna be one book at a time. All right, so the first book is by the new author. So book number one is Just Friends by Haley Fam. This was released in March of this year and has a 3.54 on Goodreads. The description reads: This heartwarming and swoonworthy second chance romance about childhood friends reconnecting as adults is the highly anticipated debut novel from book talk icon Haley Fam. Blair and Declan were inseparable growing up, best friends who knew each other better than anyone else. But when an impulsive kiss took them from friends to something more, everything changed. Just as quickly as the romance started, one moment shattered it all, leaving them with nothing but heartbreak and silence. Now, four years later, Blair is back in their coastal hometown of Seabrook to support her mom and care for her great aunt Lottie as her health declines. To make ends meet, Blair applies to work at a coffee shop, only to discover it's managed by none other than Declan, the boy she loved, the boy she lost, the boy who still makes her heart race. As Blair's path keeps crossing with Declan's, old wounds resurface, secrets are revealed, and sparks reignite. But could their future ever be free of their past? Told in dual timelines that unravel the magic and pain of first love, just friends is a moving romantic story about second chances, the weight of dreams, and finding your way back to the people who feel like home. So I chose to add this book to the list because I was just gonna do the five books of the authors that I know. But I added the sixth book because I'm not sure if this is gonna be the book of the summer, but I have seen this book all over the place. I've seen so many people talking about it, and the author is a big-time book influencer. Personally, I've never heard of her. I've never watched anything of hers. I don't follow her, but she is a Xennial, a 20-something, who has huge amounts of followers all over social media. So she has almost 4 million subscribers on YouTube. She has over 2 million on TikTok and 1.5 million on Instagram. So she is a big, big book influencer. It looks like probably with more of the younger generation. I was looking through her YouTube channel and just looking at the titles and the types of books that she talks about. It does not look like our tastes align up, and I'm always hesitant to follow somebody who is a lot younger than me because I'm Jen X. I'm in my mid-40s. I definitely think differently. I choose different types of books. I don't like certain types of content in my books. I can be very picky and I'm just not sure if she's somebody that I would want to follow, but I may watch some of her videos just to see what she's like. But I saw one of my Christian booktubers pick up this book and she did a vlog about it. Now I haven't watched that because I didn't want anything to be spoiled and I didn't want to be influenced on the story. I'll probably watch that video when I'm done with this book. But she was okay reading it. She said there's no spice in this because she is pretty strict about choosing closed-door romances. So if it was okay for her to read, then I feel like it's okay for me to read. So I just wanted to see what this book is about. It is a debut book. I'm not expecting it to be anything spectacular, honestly. But good for this YouTuber who turned from social media influencer to an author. I mean, bravo to her for doing that. But I am curious to see what this is like, and I've seen so many people talk about it. So that's why this is on the list. So I got in line a while ago for the audiobook. So I do have the audiobook. I don't have the physical book. However, I went on to Amazon and luckily there is a read sample. So I'm able to pull up, and it looks like the whole first chapter is available through this sample. I'm going to read the first line because I try to do that in these types of episodes. So the first sentence says, The fear part only come when it's love. Aunt Lottie would always say in the kind of broken English others noticed that I never did. Okay, so it doesn't really tell us anything. But I think this reading sample has the entire first chapter. So I think I'm gonna go ahead and play the audiobook and I'm gonna read along, and then I will be back and let you know my thoughts after I read this first chapter. So I will be back soon. Hello, hello, my friends. So I am back. It was a pretty quick chapter. It wasn't very long. I will say that the narrator is doing a fine job. I'm listening to Sara Sue, I think is how you say that. She's doing a fine job, but the only thing is her voice sounds very, very young. So this sounds like a YA romance book. And I know that it's considered an adult book. I think the characters are in their early 20s, so I would probably consider this a new adult romance book. But the narrator's making them sound very young. So I keep thinking it's a teenage or a YA romance. So that was throwing me off a little bit. But I was able to follow along using the reading sample during this whole first chapter, and it didn't really give me much right now. Blair has come back to Cebra, California because her aunt is dying. She has stage four lung cancer. So it's actually kind of a Debbie Downer first chapter. So she gets into town and she goes to a bookstore first, and she sees somebody from high school that she recognizes, and they point her out. They're like, Oh, you're back. I thought you were in New York City. What are you doing back here? So she tells her about her aunt, and then we skip to her going home, and she sees her mom and her aunt, and her aunt is dying. And we learn a little bit about her aunt. So the family is Vietnamese, and her aunt fled Saigon when she was younger, and she came to America and she set up a convenience store, and the one store became two stores, and then it became seven stores. So her aunt has a chain of convenience stores, but now she's really sick and dying of cancer, and she basically is just seeing her family for the first time. It feels like maybe in a little bit since she's been back. That was basically it. We didn't see anything about Declan. There's no romance that started. So I don't really have a lot to go off of right now. I will say the writing is a bit better than I thought that it would be. It still kind of feels like a debut novel and it's very simplistic, easy to follow reading. It's nothing complex. I mean, it's just a light, fluffy rom-com. But sometimes when you have these new authors, sometimes the writing can read very amateur, but I'm not getting this right now. It does read just like a normal rom-com right now. So so far, so good. I do want to keep going with this story. I don't know if it's gonna be my winner in this episode, but I'm getting a little bit of a feel for what this is like, and it's not too bad. Alright, so we are going to match that book up to book number two is More Than Friends by Denise Hunter. This was released in April and has a 3.96 on Goodreads right now. The description reads Jenna Green has been very clear with her boyfriend. She is not ready for marriage. Too bad he didn't listen. Turns out a rejected proposal is a sure way to lose a boyfriend and a job. Because, yes, he's also been her boss. But it seems the firing has come at the perfect time. Back on there's some kind of island, I'm not even gonna try to pronounce this island name, but back on this island in Virginia, Jenna's widowed mom has returned from a cruise with a new boyfriend in tow. Something isn't right, and Jenna decides to return home to find out what's going on. Tyson Parker has a pretty great life. He's gainfully employed at his parents' bed and breakfast in the very home where he grew up with his three brothers right across the street from his best friend Jenna. He loves volunteering for the island's illustrious fire company and being one of the saltwater cowboys who cares for the island's wild ponies. If only he could have skipped the part where he married a two-timing woman. Still, he's elated to have his best friend back when Jenna returns to the island, even if it is only temporarily. And he's happy to help her figure out what her mom's suspicious new beau might be up to. But soon his feelings for Jenna begin to shift into something different. Jenna expected to enjoy visiting her mom, Tyson, and his whole family. She expected to feel closer to her deceased father on the island where the fowl they've named years ago now roams the wild salt marshes like its ancestors have for hundreds of years. What she didn't expect was for her feelings for her best friend to change, but she's always sworn she'd never date a firefighter. Plus, Tyson is fresh off of betrayal, and also there's that teensy commitment problem she seems to have. Would she even have the courage to finally give her heart away? And should they really risk their beautiful friendship in hopes they could someday be something more? Alright, so this definitely sounds like a friends to lovers trope. I am a really big fan of this trope, so this sounds very interesting to me. I have read three of Denise Hunter's books, and they've been four or five stars. She has a huge backlist that I'm trying to get through. And I know she write clean, closed door rom-coms, but also she is a Christian fiction author. So I think she kind of goes back and forth. I'm not sure if this is considered Christian fiction or not, but I know that this will definitely be closed door. So I actually have the arc to this. I have the audio and the digital. Since I have the digital arc, I can read the first sentence. And it says, When Jenna Green's boyfriend got down on Bend and Knee in the middle of their favorite upscale restaurant, she frowned in confusion. So that sounds interesting. We're gonna have some kind of drama-filled scene. I'm gonna go ahead and read the first chapter. I'm also gonna listen to it since I do have the audiobook, and then I will be back with my thoughts, and then I will choose between book one and two which one I want to continue with. All right, I will be back soon. Hello, my friends. Okay, so I am back. Oh my gosh, I am really enjoying this book so far. So I really like the narrator, Akim Churchill. And even though these are still, again, 20 somethings in this book, this doesn't sound quite like a YA like the first book. I really like this narrator. These are supposed to be people in their late 20s. So the main character, Jenna, she's 27. I'm really liking this so far. They were in the restaurant and Jason is proposing to Jenna, and she's looking around and she doesn't know how to answer, and she keeps telling herself in her head, you can hear her monologue in her head, just say yes. You can just say yes now and then take it back later. But she's just frozen by everything and everyone's staring at her. And we learn that the guy she's dating is actually the mayor's son. So his mom is the mayor of the town. So everybody knows who he is. I think everybody knows who they are. They've been together for two years, and she just can't seem to say yes to him. So she doesn't say anything. So he takes that as a no and he storms out of the restaurant and she goes after him and she tries to explain. She's like, Wait, you caught me off guard. I was gonna say yes. And he's like, I don't think you were. He's like, You're not ready for commitment. She's like, I just need some more time. And he's like, How much more time do you need? It's been two years. I want to get married, I want to have kids, and you don't. And so basically he breaks up with her, and then the kicker is that he leaves her there. He makes her take an Uber back home, and we find out that he's her boss and he fires her right there on the spot. So lots of drama in this very first chapter. This is definitely in my lead right now, and I absolutely want to keep reading this. I'm already hooked into this, and like I said, I really like the narrator. Okay, so More Than Friends by Denise Hunter is going to be in my lead, but we still have many more to get through. So we're gonna put this book up next to book number three, A Brood Awakening by Pepper Basham. This just released last month in early May. Actually, these next three books all came out in May, but we have early May, mid-May, and late May. So this was the first book, and this has a 4.08 on Goodreads right now. And the description reads: As a child, Daphne Austin fell in love with her grandmother's stories of England, perhaps to the point of romanticizing them a little too much. Now, as an adult, she inherited tea time, the only English tea room within a hundred miles of her Blue Ridge Mountain town. But keeping her tea and pastry shop afloat proves to be a continual struggle. Since losing her mother and then grandmother, Daphne's clung to the need for routine, predictability, and beautiful order, and her tea room shines at the epitome of her anglophile and obsessive tendencies. But her perfect world spirals into madness when an Englishman moves in next door and shatters all her Darcy daydreams with his loud music, questionable manners, and highly American interests. With an off the chart swing factor, he tempts to shatter her heart. Finley Dashwood left England to start over somewhere his ex wife's. Parents couldn't track him down and forced their parenting techniques on him. It was as if they wanted to make up for their daughter's neglect by suffocating him with control and unwanted affection. The unassuming town of Wisteria, North Carolina provides the perfect place to start over and even remake himself as the dashing English restaurant owner of his earlier days, instead of the somewhat cynical recluse he'd truly become. With a shop ready for his use, an apartment for him and his daughter, and an acquaintance who owns the revered Wisteria Manor, now event planning center, Finn has everything he wants for a new beginning. Except maybe an understanding of the small town appalachian culture and the uptight perfectionist tea princess next door. At first, Finn finds the whimsical and notoriously optimistic shop owner humorous and somewhat annoying. But as she begins to invest in the life of his daughter, and he observes her authentic love for people of the town, Finn's heart opens to the terrifying possibility of a second chance at love. As they are forced to work together on a local celebrity wedding, their differences clash, sizzle, and finally begin to simmer into a unique complementary blend of sweet and savory. But just as hope blooms into possibility, a massive storm crashes into the little town, upturning all their plans and putting not only their budding romance, but the resilience of the tight-knit community to the test. That was a long summary, but that's typical Pepper Basham style, as I feel like all of her summaries are very long. But this is a Christian romance. So this is a Christian fiction author. She writes contemporary romance as well as Regency romance. I've read some Like It Scott. It was a contemporary rom-com. It was really good. I gave that four 4.5 stars. So I'm really looking forward to reading more by her. Again, I have this arc. I have the audiobook as well as the digital book. Okay, so I have the digital arc, and there's just one sentence and it says, ladies do not drool over cars. Okay, that doesn't tell me anything right now, but it looks like we're gonna have enemies to lovers and their pastry and restaurant owners. So I'm hoping for some good food descriptions. I'm hoping that this is very cozy. So I'm gonna read the first chapter and then I will be back with my thoughts. I will be back soon. Alright, my friends, I am back. Oh my gosh, this one is just as cute as the last one. I'm gonna have a really hard time choosing between these two. So I was listening to the audiobook as I was reading along. I really, really like the audiobook. It is a dual narration where we have a male and a female. So we have Anne-Marie Gideon and Christopher Ashman. And Christopher has an English accent, you guys. So of course I'm like, oh my gosh. I definitely love listening to audiobooks when characters have accents. So we're definitely getting that here. I'm really, really liking this right now. And I'm gonna have a really hard time choosing. But we meet Daphne and we find out that her mother and her grandmother have passed and she has inherited the tea time shop. And it's this little shop in this little remote mountain town in North Carolina. She is in her shop and then she sees this little British car outside. And her grandmother was British. So she grew up loving all things British, and then she sees this car outside, and she is spawning all over it. She wants to take a picture with it. She's looking inside of it, and she can imagine herself driving this in the English countryside. And then all of a sudden, a guy comes up behind her, and we meet Finn, and he is the owner of this car, and he has his English accent. She's fawning all over him. There's a lot of talk about how he looks physically, and she's swooning all over him, but then he kind of starts to rub her the wrong way, and he tells her that he is moving in to the building next door and he's opening a restaurant, and it's gonna have British cuisine, so fish and chips and other things like that. And they start talking, but then he starts to rub her the wrong way, and then she gets mad at him and she storms back inside her tea shop, and then he goes back inside the restaurant, and we find out that he has a little girl. She's six years old. Her name is Lucy. She's so cute. She's drawing pictures for her dad and his restaurant. She had a cleft lip and she's had multiple surgeries. She's been in speech therapy to correct it. So she has a little bit of a deformity there, but he's hoping that nobody will really notice or at least say anything. But he is really taken aback by Daphne, his neighbor, but he's also trying to figure out how he's gonna start all over again in a brand new country, in a brand new city and state that he knows nothing about. So we also learn that Harry, we haven't met him yet, but he is a character that was friends with Finn's late dad. And he is the owner of what once was a historical manor in town. Now it's this event center, and he's the one that persuaded Finn to move to America and to open up his restaurant here. He thinks this would be a really good location, and he's learning about the southern charm of this small town and just how life is in the south. We meet Jack, he's a photographer, but also a Jack of all trades, wink wink. He makes that joke and he needs help. So Jack's like, I'll have some friends from the church come over and help move things in for you guys because Finn and Lucy are going to live upstairs from the restaurant. So he needs help with the furniture when the moving people come. So he's just moving in and trying to figure out how he's gonna start over in this new southern town with this restaurant and his daughter. It's really, really cute. There are references to Downton Abbey, there's references to Jane Austen, specifically Pride and Prejudice, and I'm really liking it so far. I really like the narrators. I think they're doing a great job. I'm having a really hard time trying to decide between this book and the Denise Hunter book. I mean, I really like the single dad trope. I haven't read too many books like that. I think I'm gonna go with the pepper bashom. I think I'm gonna go with a brood awakening. So that's gonna be my leader right now. So we are halfway through this list. Let's move on to book number four is A Shippers by Catherine Senner. This was released in mid-May, and this has a 4.05 on Goodreads. And the description reads: After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, Jojo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister's destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of Little Pop Psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss, and who just happens to be a newly divorced wedding guest. And she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is her sister's a little busy being a bride at the moment. So Jojo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wingman. Cooper, who RSVP'd no but then showed up anyway. Cooper, who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper, who was, if she's honest, the worst heartbreak of Jojo's life. It's bliss for her to see him again, and it's agony too. And the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can't bring herself to ask. Shitboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood friends to lovers romance as Jojo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally at last figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way. No one does summer romance quite like Catherine Sutter. The shippers will take readers on the cruise of a lifetime, an a story wash with romantic longing, top-notch banter, long-held secrets, and true love rediscovered. So Catherine Senner is another romance author that I really, really love. I've read five of her books. I'm working my way through her backlist. She's got quite a bit of books to get through. She usually does have some mild language in her books, but I've never come across any spice. I'm hoping she continues to write this way and we don't have to deal with that. So again, I have the digital arc and the audiobook. I was able to grab the audiobook in my Libby Library app, but I also have the digital arc. And the first sentence says, Mrs. Richmond's wedding gown was itchy for one thing. Okay. So we have itchy fabric. Doesn't give us much to work with, but I'm excited to read about a romance on a cruise ship. I don't think I've ever read anything on a cruise ship. I have read romances on boats or other kind of yacht-like boats or ships, but I've never read anything with a cruise ship. So I'm very interested in this one. So I'm gonna go ahead and read the first chapter or listen to it, and then I will come back. Alright, my friends, I am back. That was a lot shorter than the last book. I forgot to let you know with the last book. That first chapter, the audiobook, was 45 minutes long. Now it didn't take me that long to listen to it because I sped it up to 1.5, but that was a really long chapter. Anyway, this one is not that long. There is an author note at the beginning of this audio, and I think it is the voice of Catherine Center, and she just talks about how much she loves love stories and how much she loves writing love stories and how they really can nourish us and help us physically. There are studies about how love could actually benefit us physiologically as well as mentally and emotionally. So that was a really nice way to enter into this book of hearing the author just gush about how much she loves love and how much she loves writing these love stories. But anyway, I really enjoyed this audiobook I was reading along with my digital arc. The narrator is Patty Murin, which she does a lot of Katherine Center's audiobooks, and I love this narrator. She's one of my favorites, so I'm definitely enjoying this. I'm already laughing out loud with this. This is really funny right off the bat. So we meet Jojo and she's getting ready to get married, and we find out that her future mother-in-law has planned everything. She didn't really have a say in much. She's wearing the dress that her mother-in-law picked out, and it's this gaudy, sounds like an awful looking wedding dress that is super lacy. It goes up to her neck, but it's creating a rash on her, and she's very, very itchy. She's got blisters on her feet because she's wearing brand new heels that again, future mother-in-law picked out for her. And everything was picked out. She's in this church, and the colors are very neutral and beige and boring, and nothing is what she wanted from the location and the venue to the caterers to the music, just everything was chosen for her. But her mom was like, that's okay, let's just go along with this. Because her sister is also getting married six weeks after her on a cruise ship. So her parents have a lot to cover between the two weddings of their two daughters. So her mom was thinking, well, if your future mother-in-law is just gonna cover everything, then let's just let her do that and let's go along with it. So it's really funny the monologue that's going on in Jojo's head. And she's starting to get really cold feet. She's not really sure if she wants to go through with this marriage. She's very hesitant, but then she's talking herself into it and is like, no, I really do want to get married, and this is gonna be my future. So she gets ready and then all of a sudden she has to go to the bathroom. And I'm like, oh my god, that would totally be me. I would be totally ready to walk down the aisle and then be like, oh wait, stop, I have to pee. So she has to go to the bathroom and they have to stall because the organist is playing, and she talks about how she doesn't like the organ, and it's just a really funny scene. So she does her business, she gets ready to walk down the aisle, and then all of a sudden, there's a man that shows up. He has a rucksack on, he's very shaggy haired, big beard, and she realizes it's her childhood friend Cooper, who had said he was not going to come to her wedding and that she should dump this boyfriend and he's boycotting her wedding. So that's what happens at the end of the chapter is he crashes her wedding and tells her to stop. So I was kind of getting some movie references. First, when she was talking about how nothing is the way she wanted for her wedding, and she's just forced into all this. I was getting my big fat Greek wedding out of that. And then when the guy shows up at the end, I was getting the graduate when he shows up at that woman's wedding that he was into. So I was definitely getting some references to some other romance movies, but it was definitely making me laugh. I want to know what's gonna happen next. But do I like this better than a brood awakening? I'm trying to think between the two. I'm not a big fan of the romance trope Enemies to Lovers, but because it's an English single dad and it's a tea pastry shop versus a restaurant, I think I'm still leaning towards the pepper basham book over this one. As much as I really was enjoying this and I was laughing out loud, and I definitely want to know what's gonna happen next. I think a brood awakening is still going to be my number one for right now. So I'm gonna stick with that one, but we're gonna put that up against book number five is Dolly All the Time by Annabelle Monaghan. This was just released a few weeks ago at the end of May. This has a 4.53 on Goodreads, and the description says, if they begin by pretending, can they end with something real? Dolly Brick has never met a problem she couldn't solve. Not when her mom left her when she was 12, and not at 39 when she moves with her son back to Whitfield, Rhode Island for the summer to keep her dad and brother from losing the family home. So when she comes across Stuart Whitfield, annoyingly handsome scion of the Whitfield family with a flat tire and at the wrong end of a very public, very humiliating breakup, it's in her nature to help. But Stuart's proposed arrangement ends up being more than either of them bargain for. Because as public dinners and high society benefits turn into sunset boat rides and swinging on the porch, Dolly starts to feel something more than helpful. She's never relied on anyone besides herself. Can she really start now? I love Annabelle Mottahan. She is another favorite romance author or rom-com writer. I've read all of her adult novels. I think she has some YA that I haven't read yet, but I've read all of her adult books. So once I read this one, this will put me back to zero. And all of her books have been four and five stars. She usually writes summer romances. So when I think of summer romance, she's one of the top authors that I think of. And usually her books are always released in May every year. Again, I have the digital arc for this one. And then I got in line really early to listen to the Julia Whalen audiobook. And I am so excited to hear from Julia Whalen because she is one of my all-time favorite audio narrators. And I feel like I haven't listened to a book that's been narrated by her in a little bit. So I'm very excited. So the first sentence of chapter one says, good sports. This is a recorded line. How can I help you? Okay. That doesn't tell me anything right now. But I'm gonna go ahead and pause and read the first chapter and then come back and let you know my thoughts. I'll be back soon. Alright, I am back. So this is interesting. For the first time that I've read an Annabelle Monaghan book, I feel like there was a lot of info dumping in this very first chapter. And it was kind of a long chapter. The audio was 27 minutes for the first chapter. It didn't take me that long because I had it sped up. I had it at 1.5, but there was so much info dumping that I actually slowed it down to 1.4 so that I could take it all in. There were times I actually paused the audio to just go back and reread some passages because I feel like there was just a lot of information thrown at us. So that was a little different that I wasn't expecting. But Billy Whalen, oh, she's my favorite for a reason. I love listening to her. Her voice is just so silky smooth. I could listen to her read the ingredients on a cereal box. I mean, she could read anything to me, and I love listening to her. But she's doing a great job. So this does take place in the New England area. So Dolly lives in Boston, but her dad and her brother live in Rhode Island. So we are in that area, and Julie Whalen does have that Boston accent that she's giving to the character. So that's one thing that I love about her, is that she can do so many different types of accents from foreign to just different types, depending on where they are in the US. So she definitely has that New England accent for these characters. Definitely immersive. So we meet Dolly and she is a single parent. She has a 13-year-old son, Gus. I don't love that name, but anyway, she is a teacher and it's summertime. I think it's June. She goes and helps her dad, who has a fish store in Rhode Island. Her great-grandfather started this fish store. So they fell seafood, fish, shrimp, things like that. And she goes down to help him during her summertime off because she's a teacher. We just learn a little bit about her backstory. She also has a younger sister and a brother. And she is helping out at the fish store, but then she has to take a call. And she also does little odds and ends jobs. So she was doing like some customer service on the phone. It says she also does some Uber rides. So it sounds like in the off season, when she's not teaching, she has these odds and ends jobs and she also helps her dad out. And her son also helps out in the fish house as well. So that's pretty much the majority of the first chapter. But then towards the end, the fish store is about ready to close, but they have a lot of shrimp that needs to be delivered to the Whitfields. And the Whitfields are a very, very rich family in town. They own Whitfield Industries. Like these are real estate moguls. So it's a very, very rich family that everybody knows who they are. So she has to go up to the big house, so some big mansion estate type house. And she has to deliver the shrimp to them. So she rides her bike to the Whitfield's house and she goes around to the side and she gives them the delivery. And on her way out and leaving the estate, she sees a Range Rover on the side of the road that has a flat tire. And who gets out is Stuart Whitfield. I think he's the oldest son and he's the most handsome. He's the hottest of all the Whitfields. So he asks her, as she's starting to ride past him, Hey, do you have a phone charger? Because my phone died and I need to call somebody to help me with my flat tire. And she's like, But I'm on a bike. I don't have a phone charger. So she's like, Do you just want to use my phone? And he's like, sure. But then he's like, Oh, I don't know my assistant's phone number. And since his phone is dead, he can't look it up. So she says, You've never changed a tire, have you? And he said, Well, no, because he's you have fancy pants, never has to do any of that laborious work. So she ends up changing his tire for him. And while they're talking, he introduces himself. She introduces herself. And she says that she knows of him. And I guess when they were younger, they were on some little league team and she She struck him out. But obviously he doesn't remember her, but she remembers him. And she has a friend that loves to watch the Whitfields because they're the prominent rich family of town. Like basically celebrity status. He's like, I'm just having a really bad day. Can we just get this done so that I can go home? And while she's changing the tire, a car comes up, stops, yells out at him, and snaps a picture and then drives off. So we have paparazzi around. So that's how big and prominent this family is. And he just gets even grumpier. And he says, Ugh, this is all I need. My day can't get any worse. She makes a comment and he says, You haven't seen the papers yet, have you? So he pulls out the paper from his car and shows her that his fiancee was seen kissing a Yankee baseball player. So she's like, Oh, are you guys breaking up and what's going on with that? And he doesn't really answer. And she finishes doing his tire, and then he thanks her and he wants to pay her for it. And she's like, Don't worry about it. It's on the house. And then she bikes back to her dad's place. So that was all of chapter one, is we see a little bit of interaction between them, and we're just learning more about Dolly and her family and her situation. So while I enjoyed it, it's only the first chapter and not much really happened. If I'm comparing it to a brood awakening, I'm not sure if this beats out a brood awakening just because the interaction between Stuart and Dolly, I wasn't really feeling much right now. There wasn't any super witty banter. There is some cursing already in the book, which I don't love. I mean, there was an F-bomb dropped. So in the first chapter, we're already getting swearing. So I don't love that. And the vibes that I'm getting right now, I think this is gonna be interesting. It's definitely the average working woman and the rich guy. We've got that trope going on. And then we have the single parent because she has a son. So I am interested in this. I don't know if it's beating out to single parents with Pepper Bashan's books. I have two single parents going against each other right now. I think I liked the banter and the setup in a brood awakening better. I definitely feel with Annabelle Monaghan's book, I'm very immersed. I feel like I'm in the New England area, especially with the accent. It's summertime. I can feel that. But if I'm looking at the whole of the story and what's really interesting me, I think I'm gonna stay with a brood awakening. I think that's still gonna be my number one choice because I just really like to banter between the two of the characters, and I mean the English accent, you guys. There's something about an English accent I just love to hear. So I'm gonna stick with the Pepper Basham book. Okay, so we're gonna move on to my final book. So the last book in this list is Brighter Than Before by Courtney Walsh. And this book literally just came out a few days ago on June 9th. And right now on Goodreads, this has a 4.35. The description reads, Claire did not plan to end up mid-40s with a daughter studying in London, and the unfortunate discovery that her husband is not the man she thought he was. In fact, he's the exact opposite of a faithful, loyal, kind, and good-hearted spouse. And the discovery of his real nature and lack of remorse leads her to do what she never thought she would do: divorce him. After a year of wallowing before hitting rock bottom in public, unfortunately, Claire realizes she needs to finally answer the question her therapist asked her all those months, what do you really want? It was a question she couldn't answer then, but now she knows it's time to figure it out. It's the turning point that leads Claire to change her life, and not just a little, but a lot. She sells her house in Denver and moves to the city that's always had her heart, Chicago. With the help of noisy neighbors, new friends, and a daughter who sets her up on a dating site from across the ocean, Claire begins to answer that big important question by figuring out what she wants and how to live life on her own terms. Courtney Walsh is one of my all-time favorite romance writers. I know with her books, there is gonna be no swearing, no spice. She never has any of her characters die. There's never any cancer. They are more light-hearted rom-coms, but again, she is an author that gives depth to her characters. So they can be light and fluffy, but they also do have emotional depth to them. They don't ever feel super heavy because, again, she doesn't have fatal diseases and death and loss and things like that. But she does tackle other types of themes and messages that always resonate with me and that I can relate to. So I just absolutely love, love, love her books. I've read seven of her books so far, and I'm working my way through her backlist. Again, I will read anything that this woman writes. She is probably my all-time favorite romance author right now. So I did receive an arc. So I have the digital arc. I also have the audiobook, and the audiobook is narrated by Patty Muren. I've already heard from her with Catherine Center. So I love this narrator. She's one of my favorites. So I'm very excited to listen to her again. I know she's gonna do a fabulous job because she always does. So I am very excited, and we have a woman in her 40s. And I forgot to mention in the Annabelle Monaghan book, Dolly is I think 39. So she's almost 40. So the first part of this list, the characters, the main female protagonists in the first four books were all in their 20s. But now with these last two books, we are getting older characters either in their late 30s or early 40s. So it is nice to have some older characters. And I feel like with older characters, that we get more mature behavior, more mature relationships. And as somebody who is in my mid-40s, I really like to read about older characters. It's not that I don't like rom-coms about young 20-year-olds, but it is definitely different than reading about characters falling in love in their 40s compared to characters falling in love in their 20s. And I just know that I'm don't have to worry about anything with Courtney Walsh's books and that I'm going to get mature relationships that most likely will not have the miscommunication trope that we all don't like. It's not gonna be Insta Love that has one that I really don't like. So I know there's gonna be certain types of tropes that I really don't ever have to worry about reading with this author. So I'm very excited. All right, so let me stop rambling. Let me read the first sentence and it says it was the mac and cheese that brought me here. Okay. I love mac and cheese. I love me some mac and cheese, especially with some bacon on it. Ooh, if you've ever had the crispy onions, like the French's crispy onions, put that on some mac and cheese with some bacon. And then if you like a little heat, put a little bit of sriracha on it. Oh, it's so good. Anyway, I'm making myself hungry here. So it doesn't really tell me too much, but I'm gonna go ahead and read the first chapter, and then I will be back with my thoughts. Alright, you guys, I am back, and oh my gosh, I am laughing so much about this first chapter. I have been laughing out loud. It is so funny. So we meet Claire. She is at a country club and she is in the back of the parking lot. But we learn that before she got there, how did she get there? She went to go to the gas station to pick up some milk to make some mac and cheese. But she ended up just buying a bunch of junk food, like some Swiss rolls and Cheetos and a Dr. Pepper. So she was getting back in her car and just about ready to start eating her junk food when she saw a couple that she knew and they were all dressed up and they stopped at the gas station. And she remembered, oh my gosh, I totally forgot. Tonight is the annual charity gala. So every year there's a charity gala at this country club that they put on to make money for a children's hospital. And she completely forgot that it was that night. So her kind of crazy brain is thinking, I need to go see what's going on over there because she used to be on the gala committee, and she was very curious what they put together for this year and how it was decorated inside. So she ends up going over to the country club, and this is where she starts out in the first part of the chapter. Is she in the country club. Now she is Miss Frumpy. She's not doing well. She's having a very cozy, comfy night. She's in her sweatshirts, she's eating her junk food, she's got a ball cap on, she has sunglasses on, so people can't recognize her. So we find out that her husband, John, had cheated on her, and he is still with the woman that he cheated on her with. And he seems to be from a very up-to-do family. She was kind of the average, your middle class person, but he seems to be a bit more of the upper class. And she feels like her in-laws, especially her mother-in-law, always kind of look down on her. She never felt like she really fit in with his crowd and everything. But she did her best to do her part and to try to fit in and to look the part. And part of that was being on this Gallic committee. So she's sitting there and she's watching all her former friends show up, and then she sees her ex-husband show up. And the woman that he's with, the woman that he cheated on, he's with her, and she thinks that she sees something on her hand. So she's like, Oh my gosh, are they engaged now? And then she sees her ex-in-laws show up. So all these people are showing up. And of course, her curiosity is starting to get the better of her. And her little lunatic brain, and she calls it that in the book. It's really funny. What's going on? Well, she's in flip-flops and it's the middle of February. So I think we're in Colorado right now because she references Denver sports teams and that they used to have tickets for these sports events at this gala that you could, I think it's like a silent auction or something. So I think we're in Colorado right now, and she said it just snowed the night before, so there's snow on the ground, and she's in flip-flops. It's February, but she's very curious to see what's going on. So she gets really close, and the only way she can really be inconspicuous and kind of hide from everybody to still see what's going on is by getting into the fountain that's in front of the country club. And this is where it gets so funny that she actually slips and falls in the fountain, and her ex-husband comes out, and a small group gathers. He is like, Claire, what are you doing here? And then more people start to come out. And it is the funniest scene because she is the frumpy, soggy mess now, just ripping wet. She's not supposed to be there. It's just really awkward, and she got caught. And now she's telling herself, oh my gosh, I thought I was at rock bottom before, but this is really what rock bottom feels like now. So that's where it stops. So I really, really enjoyed this first chapter. I really like Patty Muir and the way she's delivering everything. It gives it even more humor. I was chuckling and laughing throughout this whole first chapter. I am very curious to see what's going to happen next. So I have another single parent. So I have three single parent stories in this episode. Honestly, I didn't even realize when I was putting this together that it had three books with this trope in it. So again, I'm putting up a single parent against a single parent. So we have a brood awakening versus brighter than before. And trying to still kind of gauge my way of which I like better. I was laughing so much with this Courtney Walsh book, but we didn't really get any interaction with anybody outside of just seeing her ex-husband, and there wasn't really any words exchanged. The Pepper Basham story, we're seeing the banter between Daphne and Finn. But I don't know. This was so funny, and I'm dying to know what happens next. How does she get herself out of this situation? So she has the crowd of these fancy high-class people being her at a rock bottom, soaking wet in her frumpy outfit, Cheeto stained hands, hair's a mess. Oh my gosh. It was so funny. But I really liked the banter between Finn and Daphne, and of course, that English accent. And I think in the Pepper Basham book, I think the child might be younger. But I don't know. I haven't met the child in the Courtney Walsh book. Her name's Amelia. She has a daughter, and I'm not sure how old the daughter is. We haven't met her yet. We just know she has a daughter. Hmm. And I don't want to just go with Courtney Walsh just because she is my favorite author. There is a bias there, and I'm fully aware of that. This is so hard. I mean, I don't know why I'm struggling so much because I'm gonna be reading all of these books anyway. So I'll be getting through them. I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do a real-time reaction to for this episode. I think I'm gonna stick with Pepper Basham. So I'm gonna declare A Brood Awakening by Pepper Basham. That's gonna be the winner, which I'm actually really surprised because I really thought it would be Courtney Walsh or Annabelle Monaghan. But I'm gonna go with the Pepper Basham book. I just really, really like the banter between Daphne and Finn. And it's about two restaurants in Appalachia. We have the English accent, the little girl is so cute and has an accent. So I think that's what I'm gonna go with. If I had to rank these in order, I would say my first choice, obviously, we know what that is. My second choice would be Brighter Than Before by Courtney Walsh. My third choice would be The Shippers by Catherine Senner. My fourth choice would be Dolly All the Time by Annabelle Monaghan. Then my fifth choice would be More Than Friends by Denise Hunter. And then last would be Just Friends by Hailey Pham. So that's how I would rank them. I don't know if I'll necessarily read them in that order, but I am gonna get to all six of these books this summer at some point. So definitely be sure to check back to my website because even if I don't make a podcast episode talking about these books, I will have my written reviews on my website. I will also have them on Goodreads. So definitely follow me over there or check back to my website and I will have their written reviews as I go through these books. But right now, we are gonna continue with a brood awakening. So I'm going to keep reading and then when I get around the 25-30% mark, I will check back in with you. Okay, I will be back soon. Oh my gosh, you guys! I am loving this book so far. I am at the 30% mark of Brood Awakening by Pepper Basham. It is just the sweetest, cutest, most wholesome little story. It's absolutely feeling like a Hallmark movie, and that's okay. I love these types of stories. Sometimes you just want something fluffy and lighthearted, and it's just really feeling like that. I am listening to the audiobook. As I mentioned, there are two narrators. Anne Marie Gideon is the female narrator, and Christopher Ashman is our Englishman, and they are both doing a fantastic job. This is a little bit of a longer rom-com. It's almost a 14-hour audiobook. So I feel like that's a little long for a romance story. And I'm not really liking that the chapters are really, really long. Some chapters are 30 minutes, 45 minutes, some are on the little shorter side, about 15 to 18 minutes. But it is hard to just want to listen to a little bit if I've got other things going on. But if I want to listen to an entire chapter, I may have to dedicate 30 minutes or 40 minutes to it. And I like when the chapters are shorter. So I don't really like that aspect. And then here and there, because I do have the digital arc, I have been reading along with the audio, but for the most part, I am just listening while I'm doing other things like working. But it is really, really cute. I am really enjoying learning more about Finn and his daughter Lucy, and learning more about Daphne. And it's just this really fun enemies to more type of trope. They're not true enemies, but there is this rivalry because Daphne has her tea and bakery shop, and then Finn is opening up his British pub. And one thing that I really think is funny is that Finn doesn't like tea. It's almost like, oh my gosh, you're British. How do you not like tea? But he prefers black coffee. So there's this whole little thing between them that she's a tea shop owner and he doesn't like tea being English, and he's all about beer and black coffee. It's really funny that they kind of go back and forth about that. So there is quite a bit of bickering or banter. It's not really arguing, but Finn is definitely rubbing Daphne the wrong way. It is so funny. I'm laughing here and there. It's just very, very cute. There's no language, there's no spice, and it's just nice to listen to a wholesome book. And it's just making me grin from ear to ear. We're learning more about both of the characters. Daphne has a brother, Jack. So we meet Jack and he's kind of the handyman around town. And we just learned that Jack agreed to help Finn with, I think, some plumbing or some things in the pub that need to be fixed up before it's opened. And of course, Daphne is, hey, clutch my pearls. What is my brother doing working for you? Because they have this rivalry going between the two. But it's a really cute rivalry because she kind of goes after him and he goes after her, but then she'll go over there and she brought scones one morning for breakfast as kind of an apology, but then they got back into it again, and there was some banter and some bickering back and forth. And then he came over and he was trying to smooth things over, but then they got into it again. It's like every time they try to apologize and smooth things over with each other, something else is brought up. So it's really cute, it's really fun. We're learning that Daphne took over this shot from her grandmother. So she has these expectations on herself that the shop needs to be like how her grandmother ran it. And there is a point where Jack is talking to her and he's like, But it's your tea shop now. You can just run it however you want to run it. Put your flair on it, put your spit on it. And she is trying different recipes. So we do get some food and drink descriptions. So I really like that. She's trying different baked goods, different tea blends. And we are meeting some more characters around town. So some of the older ladies are showing up. There is a worker that works with Daphne. Her name's Rosemary. So we are getting some interaction with some side characters. And then we also on Finn's side were meeting Harry. Harry is this black English man that he was over in England and he fell for this white country girl. So then he came over with her back to America. And I think he's been well received, even though they're an interracial couple. I don't think that's really been a thing, but it was mentioned. But we meet his wife and we see him interacting with Finn and Lucy. And it's just this really found family element that I'm getting right now between certain groups of people and the townspeople. There's also some social media, I guess, captions that are being said. So Daphne will post on social media, and then Finn comes in and they're kind of having this online war with each other. So it's not just in person because they're next door to each other, but it's also online. So that's kind of a lot of fun. And then we also have other businesses that have been posting online and other community members, and they're always like saying, hashtag this, hashtag that. That's a little annoying to keep hearing that on the audio, but it's usually at the beginning of a chapter that it'll be some kind of announcement or it'll be some kind of social media post by a couple people, and then they include their hashtags. So it definitely is going to date itself, I feel, with the time of now and social media. That's an aspect of the story I don't really care for. I feel like that could be removed from the story. We're not missing anything. I don't know why that was included, but I'm guessing because of the online battle that we're now seeing between Finn and Daphne. Maybe it's just another element of this rivalry that they have with each other. It is cute, but I honestly don't care. About the social media post that could be completely removed and it wouldn't hurt the story at all. But not really much is happening right now. Finn is just preparing his pub to open. He's calling it the Green Dragon. He had his daughter help him name it. So we're gonna have the green dragon next door to tea time. It's just really interesting to see country life in a small town and then just building your business and trying to open the doors for Finn. And for Daphne, I think she's just trying to keep her shop open because I think she might be a little bit in debt or behind on some payments. So she's trying to just keep her store open and then Finn is trying to open his. So it's really, really cute. Not a lot is happening at the 30% mark. I'm hoping things start to pick up as far as any action scenes. We're definitely don't have any kind of spark romance happening. I mean, there's some grinning, some smirking, some little side eyes. So I think we have a little bit of flirtation going on, but there's really nothing romantic yet. I think the characters just really need to get to know each other better before the sparks really start to fly. I'm really waiting for the pub to open and for more things to start happening so that we get some good interaction and banter between the two businesses as well as between the two owners and seeing some more of the side characters come in, the townspeople. They're definitely meddling, and you got the older women and they're trying to play matchmaker. So it's just really cute and fun right now. But that's my thoughts. I really am enjoying it. So I'm gonna go ahead and get to the halfway point, and then I will stop and let you know what's going on. All right, I will be back soon. I hope everybody is doing well. I am back for my second check-in. I am loving this story so much, you guys. It is so cute, it is so heartwhelming. I'm even tearing up. It is just pulling all of the emotional heartstrings right now. It is so sweet. It's definitely playing out like a hallmark movie. And I am around 60% into the book now. I love this so much. The playful rivalry, the witty banter, the fun, cutesy flirting. Oh my gosh. And then Finn with his daughter. It just has everything. It has everything that I want in a rom-com. I am definitely feeling the five-star vibe at this point. I just am having such a great time. I look forward to turning on the audiobook, and I just love these characters so much. So I don't want to give too much away of what's happening in the plot, but we actually are getting more of a plot now. Because before we were just being introduced to the characters and seeing how Daphne is trying to keep her tea shop afloat, and Finn comes in and he's trying to open up his British pub, and we have this playful rivalry going back and forth. But now things are getting a little serious because there is this local celebrity couple that are getting married, and their caterer, something happened where now they need a caterer. So now there's this competition between Daphne and Finn because they both work with food. They're both, I guess, chefs. She's more of a bakery and he's more of the chef, but they both want the job because not only would that bring in some money for them, but really it would help with their marketing and get their businesses in the social media aspect seen more because apparently the woman that's getting married, she is this beauty lifestyle vlogger, blogger, and she's got 30 million people on social media. So they just think it'll be really good for business if they can get their names in this woman's social media, it would help their business to be known and help their marketing. So that's really the biggest reason why they're both competing. And what's really funny is Daphne makes up some food and the bride to be is falling in love with her food and really wants to go with Daphne, but then the groom has been trying Finn's food that he's cooking up and he really wants to go with Finn. So now we have the bride and the groom kind of going at it because they both want somebody else. They haven't decided on just one person. They have differing opinions right now, so there's a conflict between the bride and the groom, which is kind of funny. So that whole subplot is going on right now about this competition between them of who's gonna get the catering job. So that's a lot of fun, and I'm really enjoying that. And then we are starting to see some more serious moments between Finn and Daphne. So there is a moment where Finn is with his daughter, it's late at night, and she gets a bloody nose. And because they're just moving into their place, they don't have everything delivered there yet. And so he needs help with her bloody nose. So he goes over to Daphne's because she lives close by. Daphne, of course, helps them, and they actually end up staying the night because she's like, Well, if anything happens and you need supplies, I have all of that here. You might as well just stay here. So we are seeing them in some more serious moments, and you can tell that their hearts are both starting to open up towards each other. Now, what really grabbed my heartstrings, and I don't think I mentioned this before, but Finn's daughter had a cluffed lip. I think she was born that way, and she's had multiple surgeries, and you can still see a scar on her lip, around her nose area, and she does have a speech impediment that she has worked with some speech therapists, but she still, as the kids say, talks kind of funny. There is a moment where she goes to school because she's only six or seven years old, and the kids don't understand why she talks so funny. Not only is she British, but she has a speech impediment because of her cleft lip. And she's getting bullied at school. She had this one girl that wasn't really bullying her, but just asking a lot of questions. I think it just made Lucy feel very uncomfortable. But then there were some boys on the bus that were giving her a hard time. So Lucy comes home from school, and Daphne is outside and sees her all upset and distraught and says, Why don't you come inside, sweetheart? Let's talk about this and you can tell me what's going on. So then Lucy tells her what happened at school. And the way that Daphne comes in and helps her and supports her and makes her feel better. It is so heartwarming. And Finn is working on his pub, and there's part of the building. I think you can see through there's some holes or something. He's in the middle of construction with his building, and so he can see and hear Daphne interact with his daughter. He's kind of eavesdropping of like, oh my gosh, what happened? He can hear what happened from them talking, and then he sees how Daphne comes in and is just so tender and loving with Lucy and just really helping her out, making her feel better, teaching her a really good life lesson. It was the sweetest, most tender moment. I'm crying. I'm sitting here just tears coming down. I'm not sobbing, but it was just so heartfelt because even with a fictional character, you just don't want to hear about kids being bullied, especially from a birth deformity that they have no control over and just how cruel kids can be. I mean, I understand they don't understand what's going on and they have questions, but then just the mean children that pick on her and say things, it's just so heartbreaking. And you're hearing Lucy talk about it from her perspective, and it just makes you really feel for the character. And then the way Daphne comes in like a mother, she's very nurturing, she's very loving. It was just such a heartfelt moment, and that's where we see Finn completely fall for Daphne. He is starting to really be head over heels for her. The way he sees her interacting with his daughter, and that she has come to her rescue a couple times now, and he's like, I don't really see this as a rivalry anymore. I don't want this to be a rivalry between us. He wants to know how I can win over Daphne? How can I win her heart? This is no longer really about their rivalry or this competition. He wants to be with Daphne, and I love that so much. He falls first, and I just think it is so sweet. And then you can tell that Daphne, when she sees Finn interacting with his daughter, I mean, she's starting to fall for him too. But I think it's more he's falling first and falling harder for her. I love that so much, and I just can't wait to finish this. And we do learn more about some other characters. I don't want to spoil anything, but you learn something about Daphne's brother. And he also has his own birth deformity that he's experienced and he can relate to Lucy, and Lucy doesn't feel quite alone. And we also learn why Daphne and Jack, their dad, left when they were really young, and that also opens Finn's heart up more to Daphne because he understands why she acts the way she did because her dad abandoned her, and then her grandma died, and just things that she's been through. We're starting to learn more about the characters and their backstory. We also learn more about Finn and his backstory, and he interacts with Harry a little bit more, and we see their interaction and their relationship growing stronger. So we are seeing more side characters come in and seeing some of those relationships. I love the small town feel that we're getting. It does feel very cozy, and it's also just very playful with this rivalry and the banter, and now we have this competition. So there's just so many things that I'm loving about this book. I'm so glad that I chose this and definitely feeling five-star vibes right now. So that's where I'm at. I don't have much more to say. I'm just gushing over this book. Again, no language, no spice. It's a Christian fiction book, so that's not gonna have any of this in it. There isn't a lot of faith elements, though, I will say. I mean, God is mentioned here and there, and even Daphne brings up God to Lucy when they're having the whole conversation about the bullying. I do like the Christian perspective. I do like the faith elements. I wish there was a little bit more. I feel like we're not getting a lot of the faith elements. It is on the lighter side, and I would like to see a little bit more since it is a Christian fiction. But I don't know. If you like Christian fiction and you like the faith elements on the lighter side, then you'd really like this because it's definitely not in your face or preachy or anything like that. But it is there. You can tell that this is a Christian fiction. It's just, I wish we had a little bit more of it that would play a part in the story. But that's just a very small critique. Otherwise, I don't really have any other critiques. It's just very heartwarming. It's making me feel all the good fuzzy feelings with light, fluffy rom-coms. I'm just really, really enjoying this right now. Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and finish this up, and then I'll come back and give you my final thoughts, and then we will wrap up this long episode. All right, I will talk with you soon. I am back and I have finished A Brood Awakening by Pepper Basham. I absolutely love, love, love, love, love and adored this clean, closed door Christian romance story. I will say this was not just five stars. This is a six-star book. I absolutely gushed over this book. Oh my heart. I have been gushing, I have been swooning. There were some happy tears that I had towards the end. I can't recommend this enough. And I will say that by far, this is my favorite right now. I have not found anything that has beat this. We will see what happens in the second half of the year, but I loved this book so much. This is only my third book that I've read by this author. I read another contemporary romance that was adult, and then I read a contemporary romance that was YA. Those were 4.5 stars and five stars. So this author is definitely on a roll with me, and I want to pick up everything that she's written. Now I do know that she writes more than contemporary romance, she writes historical romance as well. So I do want to try that genre. But there are some other contemporary romances that she's written, and a bunch of her books are on Kindle Unlimited. So if you're a member and you're interested in this author, she does have a lot of books over on KU. She has like 40 books, so she has a big backlist, but I definitely want to start going through them. So I'm not gonna talk too much about the plot of what happened in the second part of the book. I usually don't do that in these episodes, so I don't want to spoil anything. But what I will say is I really love how in the beginning we had Finn and Daphne, and they had this banter bicker between each other. They had this rival, and it was just really between the two of them. But then as the story goes along, it actually gets bigger and it starts involving more people, and then it starts involving this town. So I loved the small town cozy vibes that you get with this mountain appalachian town in North Carolina, and I love the small community. They all get in on this, and it is so much fun. I know I said earlier that I didn't like the social media posts, and they're saying, tag this, hashtag that. I actually started looking forward to those parts of the chapter. Usually they were at the beginning of each chapter, or maybe not every single chapter, but most chapters. It was kind of annoying at first, but as the town got more and more involved, and more people started commenting and getting in this rivalry, and we had who is team Daphne, who is team Finn, and you have this competition that they're both in now trying to get this local celebrity wedding that they need to cater to bring more awareness and create more excitement for their shops. And the town just really grabs hold of these characters, and I just love how they're commenting on their relationship and their rivalry. It just became bigger than the couple, and I think I started liking it more, even the rivalry between them when it started including the whole town. So that was a really, really fun aspect. I also really loved the food descriptions because I am a foodie. Anytime there are food descriptions and books, I love it. And when you have a baker and a restaurant owner, they're coming up with different clever ideas and recipes, and there are food descriptions. So definitely don't read this when you're hungry because this will make you even hungrier. But I love all of the food descriptions. I loved the side characters that we have. They kind of meddle a little bit, but I loved getting to know our quirky side characters. It just really felt like a whole close-knit community. And I just love those vibes. And then, of course, the romance itself, it does get serious. There are some scenes where Finn needs Daphne's help, and then Daphne needs Finn's help. So it really is this frenemies kind of, it's not a true enemies to mour or true rivalship. I mean, they are rivals, but I think it's all in good fun, and you can kind of tell. There's nothing malicious. It never felt like they're really trying to harm each other. I think it really was all in good fun. You do find out who wins the catering position at the end. There is also a natural disaster that happens towards the end that obviously brings the whole town closer together. I'm not gonna describe anything about that. But when I read summaries to books, I don't always remember what the story is about. And I believe that this natural disaster was mentioned in the summary, but I totally forgot about it. So when that happened towards the end, I was a little shocked. I was like, oh, we've got this natural disaster going on. And I completely forgot. So I guess that was maybe good for me that I wasn't expecting that. It was a nice little twist. You got to learn more about the characters and how they handle situations like that. And then just the very, very end, it was so satisfying. It was so sweet. I loved Lucy, Finn's little daughter with her little speech impediment. I love how Daphne came in and was helping Finn with her in certain situations. I just loved seeing the bond being created between Lucy and Daphne. Of course, the romance is so swoony and very sweet and heartfelt, and it does go a little bit deeper below the surface. It's not just a light, fluffy rom-com. There is some deeper issues going on. Each of our characters are dealing with certain things. There is just so much that I loved about this. There are a lot of references to Jane Austen because Daphne loves all things British. Her grandmother was British and she likes Jane Austen. Now, I've only read one Jane Austen book. I've seen all the movies, but I don't remember all of the characters. So I think a lot of those references were kind of lost on me. But if you're a big Jane Austen fan and you are very familiar with the stories and the characters, you'll probably pick up on more of those references and really enjoy those. Unfortunately for me, I didn't know who she was talking about half the time because I don't remember the characters and I haven't read the books. But there are a lot of mentions to Jane Austen. There are just some little pop culture references also thrown in there that were really nice. There was just so much to this, and you just got so many vibes. You got the cozy vibes, you got the swoony vibes, you get the found family, you have the community aspect. I just fell in love with these characters. Then you have the narrators. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook. I would highly recommend the audiobook, especially because you've got the British accent for Finn. And you have the single dad tro and you have an adorable child, and it's so much witty banter and playfulness. I just loved so much about this. So I'm gonna quit gushing about it. But this was absolutely five stars for me. Go pick this up of my reading journey this year. This has definitely been a highlight. And like I said, this is my absolute favorite rom-com that I've read so far this year. So we will see what happens if anything can top this. But I'm so glad that I chose this one out of all of the six books because this was just such a complete winner for me. And it just checked off every box that I wanted. Again, no language, no spice, completely clean. It was just such a joy to read this. Now, I didn't quite get summer vibes. If you want something that's truly set during the summertime, because I think this is late summer going into autumn, is when this is set because they do talk about a harvest festival. So I would say it's maybe a good transitional from summer to fall book. It definitely would still be a great beach read if you want to read it during the summertime. I mean, I'm reading it in the middle of June, and it felt totally fine to pick this up. But just to let you know when this actually takes place in the story, that I believe it's late summer transitioning into fall. All right. So those were my thoughts on a brood awakening, and I am just so glad that I chose this romance book. And you know how I feel about one of them, five stars. I am very excited to read all of the others, and I can guarantee you that I will read the other five books this summer. In fact, I will be very transparent that I have been working on this episode for a few weeks now, and I did get the audiobooks to a couple of these other through my library app, and I had to listen to those because they were expiring. So I have already read a few of these other books on this list. So if you want to read my thoughts, I do have the written reviews up on the website. So you can either click in the description and go to the companion blog. And in each book profile, there is a button that says read my review, and you can read my written review, or if you follow me on Goodreads, you'll probably see that I already posted those on Goodreads. So just to let you know, a few of those are already up. So if you want to know my thoughts on a couple of these others, then you can go read my written review, and then there are a couple other There's I still have in my queue that I need to get to, but I absolutely will get to them this year. Again, I said all of these are arcs but one. So there are a couple more that I still need to read and get my reviews up because they are advanced reading copies. So I'm actually gonna get to all six of these this summer, which makes me really happy because, like I said, all but one I have read from before and are just some of my favorite, favorite rom-com writers of all time. So highly recommend checking all of these out. I just love summertime. I love the light-hearted, fun rom-com. But as you can see, I also choose books that do have some depth. They're not just light, fluffy reads. You do get those feelings, but there is some emotional depth. And some of them do deal with some heavier topics, but they're not gonna weigh you down. It's still light-hearted fun, witty banter, swoony romances. Some of them will have language, but they will all be closed door because that is what I prefer to read. But I hope you enjoy this episode. I love making these episodes because it does give me a chance to check out some books and see what I'm truly interested in reading. So if you like these try-a-chapter episodes, stay tuned. I'm gonna have a lot more coming up. I've already got a few ideas in my mind that I want to start working on soon. So I might have a few more coming later this year. And if you like real-time reaction episodes like I did with a brood awakening, I will have more of those types of episodes. And of course, you can always check back on the podcast to see what I'm posting. If you want more summertime books, I have book lists and TBR lists all over my website. So you can go to the website and check in the podcast and the blog sections, and you'll be able to sort by topic and you can see what I have posted from past years. So there's lots of fun stuff over on the website. If you're looking for more summertime books, I have thrillers, there's more romance, I've got historical, there's middle grade, so all kind of fun stuff on there. But if you are here to the very end, thank you so much for sticking around, hanging out with me today. I hope you enjoyed listening to me talk about these books, and I hope I've inspired you to check out some of these authors, check out some of these brand new books, and if you do read them, hop on social media, let me know what you thought. I would love to know if you liked them, if you didn't like them, what your thoughts are. So I would love to engage with you over there. All right, I think that's all I have for this episode. Until next time, my sweet friends, happy reading. Well, that's all I have for this episode. If you missed anything, you can find the companion blog on my website at bookmarksandblankets.com. That's bookmarksthelter nblankets.com. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please consider subscribing to the podcast so you don't miss any episodes. Also, if you feel called to do so, please share this podcast with others who you think may be interested in this type of show. Or if you have a few minutes, I'd love for you to write a quick review. This helps me reach more people, and I would greatly appreciate it. If you would like to support the show even more, you can join my Patreon community at patreon.comslash bookmarks and blankets. Until next time, my friends, please remember to take care of yourself and always stay cozy.