I’ve always believed in the power of a handwritten note and was delighted to discover this book. The title and cover alone drew me in and the description made this an auto preorder for me!

At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. I received a copy of this book for free but opinions are all my own.

📖 Maybe a Note Would Help by Kristen Tremonti Reiter

✍🏼 Pub Date: 4.28.26 | 165 Pages | Published by SheWritesPress

⭐️ Rating: 5/5

Quick Take: I loved it! I’m feeling so inspired by this book. Part memoir, part note writing guide, full stop inspirational. It’s a must read for anyone looking to make stronger connections with the loved ones in their lives.

Reading this made me reminisce and unlocked old memories; I used to be much better about sending thank you’s and notes to friends and family and I’d really like to get back into that.

So much of this books spoke to my soul and I’m excited to reignite my love of hand-written notes. I’m also planning to get back into journaling, though I think I’ll continue to journal digitally and then print them out into a book. I type almost as fast as I think and I write fairly slow and somewhat messy.

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🤔 Do you enjoy sending/receiving hand-written notes? Who was the last person you wrote a note to and what was the occasion?

🔖 Hand written notes • nonfiction • annotated books

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With joy from the stacks

In case you missed it, Heated Rivalry is EVERYWHERE and people are obsessed with the show and the actors - for good reason, have you seen HudCon?! 🔥😳😍 Important note; the show is based on the Game Changers series and the first book is Game Changer, not Heated Rivalry. I prefer to read a series in order so I’m glad I checked before stating this!

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📱 Game Changer by Rachel Reid (Heated Rivalry #1) ✨ ebook unlocked in Everand

⭐️ Rating: 4.5 stars, loved it!

🔗 Amazon | B&N | Bookshop | Libro.fm | Target | The Storygraph

Quick take: I used my first Everand unlock of the year on the ebook and loved it! I enjoyed it so much that I’m planning to use my monthly Everand unlock on the rest of the series and will eventually plan to buy physical copies if they do special editions or as a special boxed set once the full series is complete.

Read if you like (notes, tropes, & thoughts):

🔥 Super steamy

🔥 MM main character romance

🏒 Sports romance - hockey

🧋 Meet cute involving blueberry smoothies

🌈 Closeted to coming out

💕 Favorite supporting characters: Scott’s teammate Greg Huff, Kip’s best friend Elena

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

Check out my Substack blog for more bookish content, miscellaneous notes, and joyful finds!

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With joy from the stacks

Everyone has a unique story to tell, the threads of what makes you who you are, and there’s someone that wants to know your story. One of the things I’d like to work on is a memoir of sorts to leave for my daughter.

At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. I received a copy of this book for free but opinions are all my own.

📖 Life After Ambition by Amil Niazi ✨ 207 pages | Hardback copy gifted from Atria

⭐️ Rating: 4.5, Loved it

🔗 Amazon | B&N | Bookshop | Libro.fm | The Storygraph

Quick take: 4.5 loved it. Thoroughly enjoyed it, especially as a mom. Thoughtful, raw, and heartbreaking, yet hopeful and inspiring.

Read if you like (background, notes, & thoughts):

• Coming of age, experiencing racism, domestic violence, infertility struggles,

• Deep and heartbreaking yet also inspiring and humorous.

• Woman of color - Muslim woman that grew up in London and Canada

• Themes and content warning: Poverty, trauma, domestic violence, addiction. Infertility struggles.

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

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📱 Steal My Heart (Rosewood River #1) by Laura Pavlov | 359 pages ✨ ebook available in Kindle Unlimited

⭐️ Rating: 4.5, loved it!

🔗 Amazon | B&N | Bookshop | Target | The Storygraph

Quick take:

4.5 stars, loved it! Pretty darn steamy, not for the faint of heart. Enjoyed the overall story and writing style. First in a 6 book series available in KU that I’m planning to binge my way through!

Read if you like (notes, tropes, & thoughts):

• Small town with cowboy vibes: Rosewood River

• Tropes: workplace romance

• Touches on grief and loss, fear, anxiety attacks, therapy

• Juxtaposition of family dynamics - loving and caring vs wealthy and cold. Big loving family.

Series by Laura Pavlov

1. Blushing Series (2)

2. Rosewood River Series (6)

3. Magnolia Falls Series (5)

4. Cottonwood Cove Series (5)

5. Honey Mountain Series (5)

6. Willow Springs Series (5)

7. Montgomery Brothers (3)

8. A Love You More Rockstar Romance (3)

9. Shine Design Series (2)

10. The G.D Taylor Series with Willow Aster (5)

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

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After watching the second movie and discovering that she had written a nonfiction book, I knew I had to read it. I would’ve loved to have listened to the audio, but I’m so glad I read the physical book because I marked it up left and right.

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📖 Simply More by Cynthia Erivo | Hardback purchased B&N

⭐️ Rating: 5 stars - Loved it!

🔗 Amazon | B&N | Bookshop | Libro.fm | Target | The Storygraph

✍🏼 Quick Take: A beautiful reminder to look for the small joys in your everyday life. I absolutely loved this book and will never stop recommending it. If you’re the type to annotate books, I highly recommend buying a physical copy - my copy has over 35 quotes marked along with a dozen thought-provoking questions.

Read if you like (notes, tropes, & thoughts):

• Dedication: One of sweetest dedication pages ever. I could probably convince you to read this book by this dedication alone.

• Short chapters

• Entertaining insight. Authentic and raw.

• Queer, BIPOC nonfiction

• I love the letter she wrote to her younger self

• I love the way she has thought provoking questions throughout the book that are relevant to the theme or topic of the passage.

• I enjoyed the way the book was laid out and compared to running. I love how she writes about connecting with her body and the world around her while running. I’m not someone that enjoys running but I admire the strength and endurance that it takes.

• Topics: purpose and passion. Being true to yourself and who you are, authenticity. Perseverance.

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

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With joy from the stacks

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🎧 Dessert can save the World by Christina Tosi | 5 hr 17 min pub by Harmony - purchased in audible 2 for 1 sale in 2024

⭐️ 5 stars, loved it!

🔗 Amazon | B&N | Bookshop | LibroFM | Storygraph

✍🏼 Super Quick Take: Loved it, great listen!

Read if you like (notes, tropes, & thoughts):

• Themes: Celebration, care, and joy

• Care packages

• When you have everything you need, you can find joy in creating joy in others. This book made me smile left and right. Heartwarming and sweet.

• I love the milkshake moments!

• Loved the entire epilogue - I may need to buy a physical copy to have this on hand.

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

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I love the annual reading challenge poster and champagne flute and I love that they pivoted away from the messy new years streamer and went with a gold bell instead. The wrapped gifts in the box itself were just okay, thankfully the pretty hardback edition and fantastic story made up for it.

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📖 The Ordeals by Rachel Greenlaw | 368 pages ✨ OUABC hardback special NYE edition

⭐️ Rating: 5 stars, loved it!

🔗 Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org | Storygraph

✍🏼 Quick Take: I loved this book and am excited for the next one! Great world-building, interesting characters, had me on edge wanting to know what would happen next. Would make a fantastic movie!

Convincing you to read this book by the author’s dedication alone: To all those feeling powerless, who need to find themselves again.

Read if you like (notes, tropes, & thoughts):

✨ Romantasy, magic wielding, alchemy, werewolves, vampires

🔥 Slow burn, great chemistry, and steamy

💕 Rivals to friends / Rivals to lovers - Sophia and Alden

📓 College / Academy - Killmarth college for magic wielders

Themes and content/trigger warnings:

⚠️ Violence, death, loss of a loved one, off-page references to physical and mental abuse

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

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⭐️ Quick Take: Sophie Kinsella will always have a special place in my heart because I grew up loving the shopaholic series! Together with that series she’s written over 20 novels.

This story was heart-wrenching and brought me to tears. It was so raw and personal and I deeply appreciate that she shared this with the world.

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📖 ✨Review: What Does It Feel Like? A Novel By Sophie Kinsella✨ 129 pages

⭐️ 5 stars, forever favorite

Read if you like…

💖 Book of the Month picks

💖 Short quick read (129 pages)

💖 Emotional, raw, and deeply personal

Themes

💭 Cancer, illness, grief

Annotated quotes and thoughts

I made so many annotations and highlights - this book is a great reminder that grief and loss is something many are not prepared for. It was also a heartbreaking reminder of the importance of reviewing documents and making plans to have things settled and prepared for when you leave the world, because you never know when your time will be up.

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

✨ “My advice is to write the book you would like to read yourself… Write what you know and do it convincingly… Write the truth about life.”

✨Quote on having multiple children: ‘The work is multiplied, the worry is multiplied, the joy is multiplied, the love is multiplied.’

✨ “You have incurable cancer, my beautiful Eve. But you keep forgetting and I have to keep reminding you and these are the hardest moments of my life.”

✨ ‘It’s quite a full-time job, this being-I’ll business.’

✨ ‘Maybe pre-grief is a better term.’

✨ Quote on grief in relation to children: ‘Realistic yet optimistic and full of hope, which is basically how Eve feels when she’s not racked with guilt… Now she looks around at her beloved children’s faces, wondering if they’re OK, hoping that they’re resilient, wondering as she does approximately every five minutes how much longer she has on this earth and feeling — yet again — an overpowering guilt.’

✨ ‘I may never see you grow up, my beautiful girl, and I can’t bear it.’

✨ ‘I cycle through denial, despair, shock, grief, and then sometimes ridiculous happiness. I appreciate small pleasures so much more than I did, but then along comes the brutal knowledge again. Sometimes I contemplate dying and leaving my family and I can’t bear it. I wait until the house is empty, then cry ugly sobs, inconsolable, loud, keening and wailing, punching the bed with ineffectual, powerless fists…’

✨ ‘The way to get though radiotherapy: pretend your are at a fancy spa.’

✨ ‘All the way through, tell yourself that this treatment will flood your brain with healing and vanish any remaining cancerous debris. Manifest it to be true. Will it to be true. Make it to be true.’

✨ “Cancer is a buzzkill, what Roth the pills and the chemo and the dying.”

✨ ‘Ev laughs, because “luckily” is their family watch word. Tack it on to any gloomy sentence, and you can turn things around.’

✨ ‘She wants to tail and shout and hit thins. And she feels —yet again— consumed by guilt that she has been the cause of so much distress. She knows this cancer is not her fault— it’s just bad luck. But what she has learned is that you can feel guilty for having had bad luck.’

✨ ‘It warms her, to think of herself as part of a community, even if it’s not a community she would have chosen to join.’

✨ ‘And right at that moment, this is her only aim in life, the only happy ending she wants. Just to keep going.’

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At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. I received a copy of this book for free but opinions are all my own.

📖 Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate by Marisa Churchill | 396 pages by Page Street YA | Paperback arc gifted from the author and publisher

⭐️ 4.5 stars, loved it!

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

😍 Sweet dedication page

🪄 Spells and magic

📜 Chapter titles

🐾 kitties! Secret and sauce, how cute

💕 Coming of age, magical culinary boarding school

🏆 Includes a competition

😋 tons of yummy food references. Magical food too! Motivation muffins. Concentration cream donuts. Lol at the fruity mentos and caching a frog. Transparent pie. Peanut butter and banana (cute reference for their pairing)

📚 Huge library filled with over 100k, many cookbooks

✨ storage cellars full of magical ingredients!

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Favorite Quotes:

✨ Sometimes the ally you need is someone you’d least expect.

✨Real cooking is about intuition. You have to feel your way through the dish.

✨It has all felt disappointing, like biting into a steak cupcake.

✨Rumors are like shadows, they’re not easy to shake off.

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Quick take: What a fun magical fall romance - first in a new series by debut author that’s absolutely worth checking out. I’m already looking forward to the next one! It was included in KU but I loved it so much I need to buy a physical copy for my shelf.

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📱 The Autumn Leaf Bookshop by Kay Michaels ✨ included in KU | Loved it so much I’m going to buy a physical copy! - My Review

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

💕Sweet dedication page and sweet acknowledgements

⚠️Thoughtful authors content warning note

🍁Everly Hollows Book 1

🪄Magic, werewolves, trolls, Minotaur, gnomes. Gorgons. Elves. Fae. Vampires. Dryad. Siren. Orc. Pixies. Centaurs

📝Chapter titles

🥹Touches on grief in a sweet way

🥇Debut novel, first in a series

🔥 Steam factor: steamy! 🔥🔥🔥

🍁 Books set in Fall

🐉 Bookstore dragon

😍He falls first

🎶 Includes a playlist

Thought and notes:

• Filled with tons of yummy treats, drinks, and cocktails. This book will make you want a cup of tea or a yummy PSL.

• I adore the author’s writing style and I look forward to more!

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A Few of My Favorite Quotes:

✨ Books are more than stories. They are portals to another world lingering within the pages that can build you up, break you, and live in your head forever. They can change your life.

✨ A sleepy, enchanted town of real magic, where humans, monsters, and mythical creatures coexist. A maple-scented town where fall probably throws up on every storefront from August to October.

✨I love moments like this. The routine. The vibes. The Autumn Leaf is more than a bookshop. It’s a place of comfort to so many people.

✨ As much as I hate fall, he tastes like it. Like cool autumn air, strong coffee, and a hint of cinnamon. He tastes like a craving I never knew I had, especially for this season, but it’s something I’d give anything to keep.

✨“Books hold power. Stories have life. You sell them, you read them. I keep them safe. I love them as much as you do.”

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Quick take: Not my usual type of read but it’s good to step outside your comfort zone every now and then, and this was certainly the book to do it. A story about love and loss and everything in between. Thoroughly heartbreaking, while also being hopeful and intriguing.

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📱 Heart the Lover by Lily King ✨ Included in Everand | Loved it

📖 232 pages | available on Everand Premium

⭐️ 5 stars: I deliberated on my rating. I truly enjoyed it and I’m incredibly glad I read it but it might not be for everyone. However, it made me ugly cry and I feel like this is going to live rent free in my head for a while, so 5 stars it is!

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

🎓 College, senior year

📓 Literary fiction with romance

🌎 Secondary location Paris

⚠️ Unplanned pregnancy, adoption, cancer, illness

😭 Made me cry

Thought and notes:

• I laughed at the commentary about discussing classes based on the professor rather than the subject. As someone that graduated over a decade ago, I couldn’t tell you the name of a single professor. Though a few favorite high school teachers still stand out in my mind.

• Full of thoughtful observations and reflections, a farewell to youth. Intellectual and literary, and difficult topics. Thoughtful and in my opinion, unique. There’s a certain flow to the mundane that’s intriguing.

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

✨ All of literature rests on the promise that we change, we grow, have epiphanies, become better, understand our flaws.

✨I burst into tears. I run to my tiny room to read it. It is, as they always are, brilliant, erudite, distant, unapologetic; sweet and affectionate only in the last two sentences, like the turn at the end of a sonnet.

✨’Screw the calendar. What does a calendar know about love?’ (Re: age is just a number)

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At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. I received a copy of this book for free but opinions are all my own.

📖 Road Trip with a Vampire by Jenna Levine | 383 pages | paperback gifted from Berkley

⭐️ 4.5, Loved it, a great end to the series

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

🧛🏼🧙🏼Vampires and witches

🚘 Road trip

🛏️ Only one bed trope

🫂 Forced proximity

🧠 Amnesia with details slowly coming back

🕰️ Dual timeline but well done

📚 Third in a series but could be read as a standalone

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

✨ There was something about a voice like his that made me want to do bad things.

✨ My heart doesn’t beat anymore, but it can still break.

✨ I hadn’t had a real home in so long. Not until I met you. Now that I know what it’s like to be with you, I don’t think I can go back to any sort of existence without you in it.

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With joy from the stacks

I loved this book! It was a relatively quick read for a 500 page book, probably because it was engaging and captured my attention. Highly recommend it to those that enjoy romance and will always include it on a Fall recommended reading list.

At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. Note: many of the books featured were received as gifted free copies from publishers.

📖 If it Makes You Happy by Julie Olivia 497 pages | paperback copy gifted from Berkley Romance

⭐️ 5 stars, loved it!

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

⚠️ Thoughtful author content warning

🍁 Books set in Fall

🎵 Books with a Playlist

🐾 Books with dogs

🔥 A little steamy

🤣 Made me laugh

🌏 Location: Vermont

🏘️ Small Town Romance

🕰️ Set in 1997

Thought and notes:

• I’m in Gilmore Girls rewatch mode, and thus I’m in a small-town romance in Fall mood and this sounds like the perfect book to pick up!

• Slow burn that gets a little steamy about 3/4 in but I love that it’s not the focus or the whole point. Appreciate the overall intimacy and perspective of finding someone that loves and appreciates you for who you are.

• Dual perspective with a cute third perspective in the epilogue

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

✨ He smells like cinnamon and vanilla — the organic cologne of a working baker.

✨ “Men don’t have to worry about getting older. You get more… refined with age. And we women get cast as witches and hags.”

✨ Dreams never go away. That whole saying about loving someone enough to let them go is true.

✨ Sometimes, you have to do the silly, irrationally scary things.

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Say hello to a new forever favorite and can I say, I hope it becomes a movie one day?! Thrilled to be able to dive right into book 2! Wonderful world building, great chemistry, enchanting and engaging; I found myself quickly tearing through this. One of the fastest over 400 page books I’ve ever read and I loved every minute of it.

At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. Note: many of the books featured were received as gifted free copies from publishers.

📖 Servant of Earth by Sarah Hawley | 450 pages pub Ace / Berkley

⭐️ 5 stars loved it so much!

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

⚠️ Thoughtful author content warning

💘 Romantasy; fairies, fae, asrai, pixies +

📝 Themes/plot: winter solstice sacrifice

🔥 Steamy

🤣 Made me laugh

😭 Made me cry

Thought and notes:

• I went in relatively blind and was ready for the magic; I was excited to have a gorgeous book in my hands by an author I’ve enjoyed before!

• Earth, Fire, Light, Illusion, Void, and Blood: “We worship the magic itself… we worship the six Sacred Shards it originally came from.”

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

✨ Hunger is the most efficient way to lower one’s standards.

✨ I had escaped the bog, but I was still surrounded by monsters.

✨I wanted to move like that: like silk and lightening, like elegant death.

✨ “A lot of things in life aren’t fair, but all we can do is get through them as best we can and try to make the world better.”

✨ What do you want? To be loved. To be touched. To be free. Then do it.

✨ It would be a reminder that not everything had to be difficult, and that sometimes the solutions to my problems were right under my nose.

✨You are Blood House reborn.

✨ Hope was what we made it. I wasn’t going to wait for someone else to create that future for me. I was going to seize it with my own two hands, then carve it into a shape I wanted.Check out my Substack blog for more bookish content, miscellaneous notes, and joyful finds!

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🎧 Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve by Drew Afualo - listed for free on Libby!

✨ 4 stars, enjoyed it

🔗 Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Hello Joyful Readers!

I don’t take many notes when I listen to audiobooks, so I’m coming at you with a short and sweet review.

At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. Note: many of the books featured were received as gifted free copies from publishers.

Quick Take:

I’ll be honest, I had never heard of Drew before I found an available audiobook copy in Libby but the title and cover image immediately captured my attention. I really enjoyed the book and loved that she narrated it.

Do you enjoy listening to audiobooks?

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

🗣️ Strong, opinionated woman that stands up for women and fems being bullied by terrible men

🏳️‍🌈 Positive space for queer people

🥺 Touches on some really sensitive heavy topics in a thoughtful way

🤰🏽Touches on pregnancy scare and perspective on why being pro choice is incredibly important

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Check out my favorite finds on my Shop My affiliate page: books from B&N, books from Book of the Month, audiobooks from Librofm, and fun finds from Etsy, Wayfair, Michael’s, Nordstrom, Marshall’s, Sur La Table, and World Market.

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📖 Soul of Shadow by Emma Noyes | OUABC Box Edition 347 pages

⭐️ 4.5 stars, loved it

🔗 Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Hello Joyful Readers!

I purchased two copies of this book from two different subscription boxes. I snagged a copy for $1 (plus shipping) from Allstora from signing up for a trial Romantasy membership (and yessss if you didn’t already know, Emma Noyes has a book club!) It’s a pretty hardcover with purple sprayed edges.

I also purchased a special edition box from Once Upon a Book Club Box and it’s absolutely gorgeous — it’s so beautiful I almost couldn’t bring myself to crack it open but then I told myself books are meant to be enjoyed and savored and immediately opened it up to enjoy. And how tragic would it be to leave such a lovely book all lonely by its (not quite) lonesome self? So I now own two beautiful copies.

Also, Ares joined my photoshoot - enjoy! 🐾

At no cost to you I may receive a commission for items purchased through links. Note: many of the books featured were received as gifted free copies from publishers.

Quick Take:

I loved the book and am excited that it’s the first in a series! I’m officially in the grove on Halloween and witchy reads and this was the perfect read to get me there.

Are you a fan of witchy YA reads?

The background / tropes / read if you enjoy:

✨ Special hardback edition with sprayed edges and beautiful metallic purple details. It also came with a signed book plate (literally the best!) and a OUABC quote with dear reader note.

📕 Romantasy

⚠️ Warnings in beginning: gun violence, disappearances/murder, death of a sibling

💙 Cute dedication

🌎 Location small fictional beach town vibes town; Silver Shores near Lake Michigan

✨ Norse mythology themes woven throughout the entire story

💕 Fake dating

🩶 morally grey MMC

🌈 lgbtq friendly - includes a queer character

📺 for fans of supernatural / spooky / witchy YA with a hint of twisted romance - references to Wednesday, Lucifer, New Girl, The Originals, and the Witcher

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Thought and notes:

💜 The Dear Reader letter (and signed book plate of course!) is one of my favorite things about getting OUABC Boxes. I love getting additional insight from the author about the inspiration behind their story.

A paid subscription costs less than a latte once a month. If my writing brings you joy, I’d appreciate you supporting my work!

Favorite Quotes:

‘It was that fluttering in her chest again. Like a hummingbird had awoken in her breastbone, its delicate wings sending shivers around her body.’

OUABC Box Gift Spoilers

• Pg56 - a 6 pack of book annotation highlighters. Definitely useful

• Pg89 cute decorative ‘book gnome in the home’ how silly but cute

• Pg317 metal silver book mask feather. Kind of fun and it’ll go on my shelf as décor

• Pg344 - a deck of cards - book club conversation cards, how fun!

• All of the gifts were a win for this box!

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With joy from the stacks

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📖 Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

⭐️ 4 stars - important read

🎧🦻🏼 Audiobook available in Everand

Notes & Reading Thoughts:

Whoa this was a wild listen. The author hooked me in at the beginning with her almost death experience in her childhood and captured my attention throughout. I enjoyed that this was narrated by the author and though it was interesting, it was a heavy read.

I didn’t take notes while reading (I tend to forget when I’m listening to audio) but I can say that I cringed during so much of this book and was actually relieved when it was over because I wouldn’t have to hear more about the atrocious actions and internal workings of the Facebook team. It’s absolutely disgusting what went on behind the scenes and the way that people in the C-Suite at Facebook ran things with such blatant disregard for the human beings at their company and for so many people around the world that use Facebook.

In a nutshell:

It’s an important read and I appreciate that this book was written; I imagine it will be put on many ‘banned book lists’ if not already.

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🎧🦻🏼Survival of the Thickest by Michelle Buteau | Listened to audio on Libro.fm

⭐️ Loved it

The background and notes:

🤣 Made me laugh - this book had me laughing out loud right from the very beginning

Thoughts and notes:

This book was equal parts laugh out loud funny and emotionally touching. 100% absolutely recommend the audiobook version because it’s narrated by the author and it adds so much extra entertainment factor to the overall story.

Important Topics Discussed:

👩🏽 The author is Haitian and Jamaican and talks about racism. One of the things that stood out to me was the annoying need some people have to find out one’s cultural background so they can put them in a box.

⚠️ TW: miscarriage

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📖 Ice Ice Maybe by Rich Amooi | 307 pages ebook on KU

⭐️ Loved it!

The background /tropes / read if you enjoy:

😂 Books with humorous note from the author

🏒 Sports romance - NHL San Diego Sea Lions

🌏 Location: San Diego, CA ✈️ travel for games to… Vegas, Nashville

🤣 Made me laugh

🤞🏼💰 Fake Dating

😋 Lots of yummy food references; surf and turf burrito, lobster bisque, crab cakes, charred octopus, truffle mac and cheese, stuffed mushrooms, sushi, charcuterie boards, juicy prime rib, Hattie b’s hot chicken

🗣️ Witty banter

⚠️ TW: Stress and heart attack

Thoughts and notes:

I was in the mood for a fun rom-com. Who better to turn to than the king of rom-coms and to go with a hockey themed one?!

Important theme of the importance of family, taking time to recharge, and bringing out the best in others. This was a non-steamy romance but with fantastic chemistry and hilarious witty banter. Rich Amooi continues to hit it out of the park. I’ve never read a book of his that I haven’t loved and I need to read more of his backlist because he’s got a ton I haven’t read yet!

5 stars loved it! Sweet rom-com that will keep you laughing the whole way through.

Lists: fake dating, hockey, laugh out loud, witty banter, great chemistry, clever writing

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Book Review

📖 Not Safe For Work by Lindsey Lanza

✍🏼 334 pages

⭐️ 4.5 stars - loved it!

📱 Available on KU

Genre: Romance

Steam 🥵: a little steamy but mostly fade to black

Tropes:Fake Dating | Workplace Romance | He Fell First | Miscommunication (but I promise not in a bad way!) | Only One Bed

Rep: Jewish author with Own Voices rep

Location: San Francisco

Themes: the importance of being true to yourself and finding people that love and appreciate you for who you are

Notes:

✔️ Contains a series playlist

✔️ Includes a cute map in the front

✔️ Love the authors dedication at the beginning

✔️ Alternates chapters from Olivia and Gavin

✔️ A hedgehog named Churro

✔️ Argentinian MMC

Notes & Reading Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book! So glad it was available in KU. Loved and would recommend. The miscommunication trope threw me for a bit and it went a different way than I initially expected, which was a nice surprise.

Other books:

I read and loved A Little Magic, and I discovered most of her books are available on KU, so I’m on a mission to read her backlist! Supporting Jewish authors sharing Jewish joy and great stories; I’m here for it.