Icon Tag: Contemporary

Review: It Ends With Us – Colleen Hoover

Review: It Ends With Us – Colleen Hoover

Yeah. It most definitely should end with them. It Ends with Us is a bit different from CoHo’s other stories with more mature characters. There are quite a few things that are similar too, though: the amazing writing, the character-driven story, and my tears… It Ends With Us is a very strong and necessary story. It deals with some pretty heavy subject matters, and I have actually already used it as an example of something important with a young woman I know… Lily Bloom is a very strong woman, and she has built so many walls around herself and her heart that she might have been completely impenetrable, but she wasn’t. The story itself starts with some chance encounters, and […]

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Review: If You Only Knew – Kristan Higgins

Review: If You Only Knew – Kristan Higgins

If You Only Knew is a cute read which still tackles some serious and heavy subjects – I loved the strong friendship between the sisters. If You Only Knew is a contemporary romance that I would definitely tag as realistic fiction, as it follows two sisters – Jenny and Rachel – through some of the upheavals of adult life. How to deal with things when it’s impossible to run to mom and dad, how to stay strong when all one wants to do is to curl into a small ball and cry. How to trust again after that trust has been completely torn apart by someone who should have known better. How to deal with secrets – both those within […]

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Review: Rock Wedding – Nalini Singh

Review: Rock Wedding – Nalini Singh

Rock Wedding is a toe-curlingly wonderful second-chance-at-love romance, and I loved everything about it! In the prior Rock Kiss books, Sarah and Abe were mentioned together, and it was obvious the end of their marriage happened because of Abe. In Rock Wedding, we finally got their full story, mostly told from Sarah’s perspective, and she totally and utterly broke my heart! She’s such a beautiful soul that has been through a lot of hard times and heartache, and she thought that with Abe, things would be different. And they were – for a while. Until Abe’s own demons became so ever-present he couldn’t keep them all on the inside of his heart anymore, and started spewing them out on Sarah […]

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Review: Leave Me – Gayle Forman

Review: Leave Me – Gayle Forman

Leave Me left me feeling a bit raw, with my emotions and my heartbeat just underneath the surface of my skin. In many ways, I was totally prepared to hate Maribeth, the main character in Leave Me. A 44-year-old mom of twins, a career woman, a wife, a friend, a daughter… One day, she was feeling out of sorts and it took until later the next day for her to figure out that she was having a heart attack. Which ended with her having open heart surgery and being out of it for a while, and recuperating in the hospital for a full week. Once back home, and really needing her husband to take care of her for a change, […]

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Review: Anything You Want – Geoff Herbach

Review: Anything You Want – Geoff Herbach

Anything You Want is a strange little story where the narration reads like a stream of consciousness from Taco’s point of view. Taco is the kind of youth that seems too naive and simple-minded to function fully in the real world. My 14-year-old boy is much more mature and critical than Taco was! And the fast pace where Taco shared every single thought going through his mind at the time was exhausting! If I had been in a room with Taco, I think I would have asked him to shut up after a couple of minutes, that’s how his word-debit (not to say word-womit) affected me! And don’t even get me started on his girlfriend, Maggie! At the start of […]

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Review: Don’t Tempt Me – Lori Foster

Review: Don’t Tempt Me – Lori Foster

Don’t Tempt Me is all about new beginnings, courage, friendship and family. Sometimes, you grow up with a great family surrounding you, other times, you just have to make your own family – surround yourself by people you love and who love you back. The latter was the case for Honor in Don’t Tempt Me. Because she moved to stay closer to her dying grand-dad, Honor really didn’t have much tame for herself. Between her job, going to the nursery home in the middle of the night and trying to do some work on her house, she was a very busy lady. She still managed to get closer to her neighbors little by little, though, in big part thanks to […]

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Review: Wild Swans – Jessica Spotswood

Review: Wild Swans – Jessica Spotswood

Realizing there’s more to family than first imagined is something Ivy has to do in Wild Swans, which is a tender story about truly growing up. Ivy has lived most of her life in a small town, where both she, and everyone else knows that her mom left her when she was very young. Since she was two, she’s never seen her mom, but she’s had a stable and good life with her grand-dad and some good friends. Wild Swans unfolds over the span of just a couple of weeks in the summer before Ivy’s senior year at high school, and she has a lot of choices to make about her future. Alex, her best friend and the boy next […]

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Review: The Purest Hook – Scarlett Cole

Review: The Purest Hook – Scarlett Cole

While The Purest Hook was very well written, I found it to be more predictable than the prior stories in the series, and that took away from my overall enjoyment of the hotness that was Pix and Dred. From the first Second Circle Tattoo book, I’ve been in love with this universe, the rugged characters who have hidden depths, and the nicely paced way Ms. Cole has to deliver her stories. I was very curious about Pix and her backstory, and it was definitely dark and gritty, which, in turn made me fall even harder for her 🙂 There were parts of the story that were supposed to be mysterious, though, and those were things I figured out within very […]

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Review: Sweet Little Lies – Jill Shalvis

Review: Sweet Little Lies – Jill Shalvis

Sweet Little Lies is a fantastic start to Shalvis’ new series. There is romance galore, as well as friendship, humor and loyalty as well. As soon as I started reading Sweet Little Lies, I knew I was going to fall in love with it! First of all, the romantic interest’s name is Finn *sighs* and he owns an Irish bar *double-sighs* and he’s loyal to a fault, strong and hardworking. Plus, he’s very easy on the eyes. The way Pru described him to me showed me I was going to love her as well. She’s been through a lot, none of it her won fault, and because she’s felt so much guilt over her parents’ mistakes, she’s made it her […]

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Review : The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware

Review : The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware

The Woman in Cabin 10 is a tightly written psychological thriller where part of the action happens on a small cruise boat… and it’s a chilling and sharp tale. Lo is one of those very flawed characters whom it’s impossible not to love. The Woman in Cabin 10 is a complex tale, where, after waking up to a burglar in her home, Lo gets the possibility to go on a luxury cruise for her work. Writing about how the rich and famous do vacation in the ice-cold waters off the coast of Norway. There’s a bit of a mystery surrounding Lo, she seems to be holding back -both in the narration and with her boyfriend whom she’s been with for […]

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