Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Random House for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
In this warm, intimate novel, a woman celebrates the joy she finds in the ordinary things in life and discovers it’s never too late to start new adventures. By the New York Times bestselling author of The Story of Arthur Truluv and Open House
Florence “Flo” Greene is nearing the end of her life, and she decides to leave her house and an account of her life for Ruthie, the younger woman who grew up next door, moved away, and still is like a surrogate daughter. As Flo writes to Ruthie about the meaning of beloved things in her home and about events in her past, she also tries new adventures of her own. She intervenes in the lives of friends in her neighborhood.
Flo’s project has been to encourage Teresa, a wise but unconfident woman, to open her heart to romance. Flo goes to the library to get advice from Mimi, a librarian. She encourages Ruthie, who is contemplating divorce, to try again with her husband, by sharing a startling secret long buried about Flo’s own seemingly perfect husband and marriage.
In her final weeks, Flo leaves an indelible mark on others, as this moving novel celebrates life, change, and ways to discover new happiness, friendship, and love.
Content Warning:
Flo is 92 years old and she feels she’s nearing the end of her life so she writes a letter to Ruthie, who was the girl next door – the closest to a child Flo ever had. In the letter she tells Ruthie about things she’s learned about life, and her marriage.
There were a lot of parts of this that I found heart-warming, like how Flo is thinking about her past. Or her daily interactions with people. Also I liked how she wasn’t afraid to talk about some of her fears about dying and or how hopeful that maybe she would see her husband again in the afterlife.
It’s a very quick story and for the most part I was invested but other parts where I felt disconnected maybe because this isn’t the type of book I usually read.
Final Thoughts:
This is a very realistic look at an elderly woman at the end of her life and what she learned along the way in her journey through life. It’s not the usual genre I pick up to read, but overall I thought there were some heartfelt moments in this story that moved me. If you like literary fiction, definitely try this one out.
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme originally created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits, where every Friday, bloggers write discussion posts based on a weekly prompt and Dini @ dinipandareads has cohosted since the beginning of 2025.
Prompts: Immersive reading is when you simultaneously listen to an audiobook while reading the physical or digital book. Do you do any immersive reading? Do you prefer it or is it not for you? Do you think it’s a good way to get everything from a book? Is there a genre that is better to do this with? What are your recommendations for immersive reading?
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Immersive reading is when you simultaneously listen to an audiobook while reading the physical or digital book. Do you do any immersive reading?
Yes, but not all the time and I feel like I stumbled on this accidentally! Sometimes I would have an e-arc and wouldn’t feel in the mood to read it, but I feel an audiobooks gets the the ball rolling, it “reads” for me, so I request it when it’s available on NetGalley. Sometimes, I start off with the audiobook, switch to the ebook, and so forth…sometimes I do immersive reading with both.
Do you prefer it or is it not for you?
I think it just depends on the mood and if I have time to have the ebook open along with my audiobook. Sometimes I’m doing stuff while listening to my audiobook so I can’t do it.
Do you think it’s a good way to get everything from a book?
Oh totally! And it helps with strange names I don’t know how to pronounce – hearing the narrator say it is like a light bulb moment. Also, with audiobooks, I don’t catch everything, so immersive reading helps with that.
Is there a genre that is better to do this with? What are your recommendations for immersive reading?
I think this helps with detailed fantasy stories!
March 2026 Topics:
March 6: Women Who’ve Shaped Your Reading Life
Prompts: March is Women’s History Month and March 8 is also International Women’s Day. In honour of this month celebrating women, let’s talk about the women who’ve shaped our reading lives. Was there (or is there) a woman in your life who sparked your love for reading? Who was the first woman author you remember loving? Do you tend to read more books by women authors and do you think that’s for a reason?
Prompts: Immersive reading is when you simultaneously listen to an audiobook while reading the physical or digital book. Do you do any immersive reading? Do you prefer it or is it not for you? Do you think it’s a good way to get everything from a book? Is there a genre that is better to do this with? What are your recommendations for immersive reading?
March 20: Portrayals of Women in Books
Prompts:We’ve previously talked about underrepresented women and women in STEM in books, but let’s take a look at portrayals of women in books. Do you think portrayals of women have changed over time? Are ambitious women portrayed differently than ambitious men? Are “unlikable” female characters judged more harshly? Are girls and women written more complexly in books today? Share some of your favourite books featuring complex empowered women being unapologetically themselves!
Prompts:Do you prefer reading about characters who are in a similar life stage as you (age, career, relationships, etc.)? Has your preference changed as you’ve gotten older? Have you ever re-read a book and experienced it completely differently because you were in a different stage of life? Do you think books come into our lives at the ‘right time’ and are there any books you think you’d feel differently about if you were younger or older?
Title: Eternal is the Night (The Cursed Realm Saga, #1)
Author: Alayna Ravenwood
Format: eBook (NetGalley)
Pages: 524
Publication Date: 3/12/26 (ebook); 9/16/26 (Paperback and Hardcover)
Publisher: Aurelia Press
Categories: New Adult, Mystery, Romance, Portal Fantasy, Dark Academia
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Aurelia Press for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
An elite private college. Missing Initiates. A truth that will change everything.
Twenty-year-old Anna was already different before her mother was murdered—and before she vanished for a year she can’t remember. When her former mentor returns, Anna embarks on a dangerous journey to Nightfall Castle, the mysterious private college her mother once attended, desperate for answers about her past—and the dormant power she’s ignored her entire life.
But Nightfall is not an ordinary college.
Something is terribly wrong within the castle’s ancient corridors. Initiates are disappearing, and the Aurkai—Nightfall’s most elite—know more than they’re willing to say. Blake, the most alluring and dangerous of the Aurkai, may be the key to uncovering Nightfall’s secrets—or the reason she never escapes them.
As the danger closes in, Anna realizes she may be next, and the truth behind Nightfall may cost her everything.
Discover the truth hidden within Nightfall Castle in this dark, seductive debut of The Cursed Realm Saga.
Content Warning: sexual harassment, violence, death
+~ I thought this story started off pretty good. Told in two POVs, Anna and Blake, but mostly Anna’s – Anna is a 20 year old, who lost her mom, and she lost her memories of a whole year. Sounds very mysterious. Also, her guardian (mom’s friend), Derrick, has been training her all her life to fight. To fight what though? She knows something is different about her and her life. And he shows up again to tell her she needs to go to a place called Nightfall which is a mysterious college, it’s for her protection. And this is my biggest issue with the whole book – I was never sure of anything and not in a good, gripping way. Everything is a mystery but the execution didn’t work for me, I was getting frustrated and tired of being fed breadcrumbs. I needed some answers to all the questions being brought up in the first half, some is explained in the second half but by then I lost some interest. But there is magic eventually and more.
+~ This story has a big cast of characters. For the most part I like Anna, she’s strong and determined. Something is special about her – that’s another mystery. She meets some new students, Isabella becoming the closest one too her. Blake the MMC is okay, kind of bland. I would have loved a little more character depth. I think the ones that really stood out to me were Melanie and Malakai because they are the villainous twins.
+~ It’s dark academia with the usual topics of study – history and combat. And I read a lot of dark academia so there was nothing really new here. Anna’s combat training was fun to read but then some of her classmates start to go missing and it’s hard for her to get any answers about them because people don’t remember them or the Aurkai are tight-lipped about everything (so frustrating). There are some twists and turns that I enjoyed…but why were they having a play in the middle of the story when more pressing things were happening? That play kind of took me out of the story for a little bit.
+~ The romance between Anna and Blake was sort of a slow burn, but I felt like she fell too fast and I just wanted more build-up. There is a spicy scene but even that was just okay to me.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I think this has lots of potential because it’s addictive – it has all the things I like in a dark academia fantasy but some of the execution just didn’t work for me. I’d love more character depth, and less of questions without answers because it left me frustrated. And I love a mystery, but there has to be someone other than Melanie telling Anna the truth. The romance was okay but I want more. Hopefully, book two can deliver a story with more depth and answers to questions brought up in this book.
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
My kids have Spring Break next week – so my hubby and my son are going to Osaka, Japan on Saturday which means it’s just me and my daughter left behind. But the weather is supposed to be kind of yucky here – rain, flash floods and high winds. 😕 Hopefully for not all of Spring Break!
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Please check out her website for more TTT topics!
This week’s topic is: Book Titles Featuring Ordinal Numbers
Book Titles With Numbers
I’m tweaking this a little bit because the ordinal numbers topic was kind of hard to do – or I am just too lazy to look for them! So here are titles with a number in them!
Brighter Than Nine by. June CL Tan
The Only One Left by. Riley Sager
The Legend of the Nine-Tailed Fox by. Katrina Kwan
Seven Deadly Thorns by. Amber Hamilton
The Seven Year Slip by. Ashley Poston
Three Shattered Souls by. Mai Corland
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by. Taylor Jenkins Reid
February 3: Book Covers Featuring Cool/Pretty/Unique/etc. Typography (Typography is the art of arranging letters so they look visually appealing and more interesting than, for example, the body text of this blog post you’re reading now. I did a similar post to this a few years ago, so if you need inspiration on what I’m talking about click here to have a look.) February 10: Love/Valentine’s Freebie February 17: Books for Armchair Travelers (Submitted by Laurie C @ Bay State Reader’s Advisory) February 24: Quotes From/About Books (Share book quotes you love, quotes about being a reader, etc.)
March 3: Genre Freebie (Pick a genre and build a list around it. You could do historical fiction featuring strong female leads, contemporary romance set in foreign countries, mysteries starring unreliable narrators, lyrical fiction books in verse, historical romance featuring pirates, Gothic novels with birds on the cover, etc. There are so many options!) March 10: Book Titles Featuring Ordinal Numbers (Ordinal numbers are numbers that define an item’s place in a series. For example: first, second, third, fourth, tenth, fourteenth, thirty-third, one hundredth, etc.) (submitted by Joanne @ Portobello Book Blog) March 17: Green Book Covers (In honor of St. Patrick’s Day today!) March 24: Books on My Spring 2026 To-Read List March 31: Buzzwords or Phrases That Make Me Want to Read (or Avoid) a Book (These words or phrases can be in the title, synopsis, marketing materials, reviews, author blurbs, etc. and immediately pique your interest or immediately make you say “NOPE”. Examples include: fae, forbidden romance, morally grey characters, unreliable narrator, found family, magical worlds, love triangle, marriage of convenience, dark academia, stranded, dragons, dual points of view, starting over, etc.)
The thrilling sequel to Soul of Shadow, a contemporary romantasy for fans of Twilight, and Teen Wolf, where love, magic, gods, and monsters collide with devastating consequences – featuring beautiful color, designed endpapers and a foil case stamp for a stunning package.
I will make myself strong. I will find Elias. I will kill Elias. I will never trust a boy with my heart again.
These are the vows Charlie Hudson made the day after Elias Everhart betrayed her, nearly killing everyone she loves most. One month later, revenge is still her priority, even as she navigates a harsh new reality: one where her brother and friends can now see Asgard, making them just as susceptible to its dazzling delights – and deadly dangers – as she is.
But when two bodies turn up in the forest outside town, and Elias waltzes back into her life with an offer to help find out what’s happening, Charlie finds herself accepting his offer—but only because feigning an alliance is her best chance to figure out how to kill him. And if it feels like the more time she spends with him, the more her heart softens, it must be a trick of the unusually warm fall air. Because there’s no way she would make the grave mistake of falling for Elias Everhart twice… right?
Emma Noyes’s Heart of Mischief will have readers falling in love – and falling apart – and loving every minute of it.
Allegra Hart has been working her whole life to achieve one goal: become a principal ballerina. When her director starts holding auditions for the lead role in the company’s latest production, Allegra sees this as her chance—maybe her last chance.
The catch? The director wants someone with sex appeal, and he doesn’t think she’s up to the task. Determined to prove him wrong, Allegra enlists the help of the lead dancer of an all-male revue, Cord Donovan, a classically trained dancer who is also the sexiest man she’s ever met. In exchange for lessons on how to ramp up her sex appeal, she promises to help Cord choreograph a new partner piece for his show.
As they practice their moves on and off the stage, Allegra and Cord find themselves battling a growing attraction, all the more illicit because Cord has sworn to never partner with a ballerina. Allegra is determined not to let a man derail her career, but what if she could have both love and success? Or will her involvement with Cord jeopardize everything she’s worked for?
The world has moved on. With the missing death god restored to the underworld, it appears that equilibrium has been regained. But the Nothing continues to threaten the underworld – and the mortal realm.
Trapped in Hell, Zizi fights the takeover of his soul by Four’s. As he begins to access Four’s memories, he discovers a tragic love story that could be the key to keeping the mortal realm safe. Now, Zizi must defy his fate and escape Hell once more.
On the surface, Rui’s life has changed as she is hailed a hero by the Exorcist Guild. But she soon discovers the spell Zizi was forced to create is transforming innocent humans into vicious Hybrid Revenants. With the help of the other cadets, she vows to stop them.
Now magicless, Yiran watches, hungrier than ever, until he begins a dangerous dalliance with Yuki, hoping the Hybrid will recover Yiran’s magic. And when he discovers a dark family secret, he must decide what he stands for – before it’s too late.
The night’s chaos left us breathless. Now the real nightmare begins.
A second dragon has awoken–her heart tainted and her power commandeered by two ruthless highbloods whose cruelty knows no bounds.
My dearest friend teetered on the brink of death. A dragon saved her, but now she’s tied to him in a way I can scarcely understand. What will this new bond do to the woman I’ve come to love as a sister?
And then there’s Blake. Once my relentless tormentor—he betrayed me again, nearly condemning Nyxaris to a cursed, stone-cold fate. Now something has shifted in him. His gray eyes hide a secret he’s desperate to keep.
I saved Blake’s life, despite everything. Yet now my every heartbeat questions where we go from here.
With Bloodwing Academy in turmoil and a new headmaster no one saw coming, only one thing is This is going to be one hell of a term.
At Bloodwing Academy, power comes with blood, and betrayal is as common as ambition. This dark fantasy series tackles mature themes. Readers are advised to consult the trigger warnings before embarking on this intense, morally gray/black journey through the realm of Sangratha!
To err is human. To avenge is Divine. Every person Harlow Carrenwell kisses dies immediately, and that’s the way she likes it. The poison-lipped youngest daughter of Lunameade’s magical founding family has used her power to annihilate their opposition.
Her first husband is in the ground. Her new betrothed is next.
But the merry widow has a secret. When she’s not acting as an assassin at her parents’ whims, she moonlights as a vigilante for abused women in their walled-off city.
Meet a man. Lure him in. Kill him with a kiss. Until one night Harlow kisses a mark and he doesn’t die.
Worse, her invincible partner in passion is her new betrothed, Henry Havenwood, and now he knows about her double life. Instead of selling her out and bringing the rival families to blows, he does something much more sinister—whisks her away to wed in his wild mountain fort.
Harlow doesn’t trust Henry, but the only way to protect her family and the city of Lunameade is to figure out what his family is planning.
Cursed with a husband she can’t kill and trapped in a fort miles of vampire-infested woods from home, Harlow’s survival requires her to do the impossible: Make the man who knows she’s a killer fall in love with her anyway.
I saw this on Kindle Unlimited and saw it had good reviews so I wanted to try it out. Here are my thoughts:
+ There are 2 POVs in this story, Harlow and Henry. Harlow is from a ruling family of magic users. What makes them the top family of magic users is they are the only ones who can see magic – which comes in the form of auras. I thought Harlow’s family was interesting because they are all under the thumb of their father. Harlow’s parents are not the affectionate type – their goal, to stay in power and they use their children for that purpose. But you can tell Harlow is close to some of her siblings – mostly, Aidia and Kellen. Everyone else, we don’t know much about and I believe there are 8 children in the family. Henry is from a place everyone thought was destroyed years ago. In this story, there are magic users and non-magic users. Non-magic users pay a blood tithe so that the elite magic users can protect the city but the public is getting tired of the demand for tithes and now there is a rebellion trying to take her family down. Also in this world, there is a forest with creatures called the Drained (basically vampire monsters).
+~ There is a lot of female rage in this story and a theme of women being abused. It gets dark. There are a few twists, turns, political intrigue, secrets, betrayals, magic, and vampires. But there were parts of the story that I felt some of the twists and turns didn’t have a punch like I was expecting. Also Henry was contradictory – he’s all for not controlling a woman, but then picks out her clothing. He’s a nice guy and is all about consent but he also wants her to behave in his society because his image matters. Pacing was a little off also and it’s a long book.
+ I love that Harlow is 30 – we need more older heroines. Harlow has been honed into a weapon for her family. Her power? A deadly poison kiss. Harlow is moonlighting as the Poison Vixen, a woman going around the kingdom, killing men (but not just any men – abusers, etc…). Things change when her parents marry her off again but to a man from a stronghold they thought was annihilated 10 years ago by the Drained. Harlow has attitude and keeps Henry on his toes. She is rage in disguise and I liked her a lot because I knew all of her bravado came from something traumatic. She was always in survival mode. And as the story goes we learn what made her this way and I found it so heartbreaking.
+ I loved Harlow’s relationship with her best-friend/sister, Aidia. I felt like that was the most emotional part of the story – the relationship between the siblings. There is a lot of trauma, lots of grief that both Harlow and Henry have to navigate because of their love for their sisters.
+~ I for the most part enjoyed the romance between Harlow and Henry. Both are motivated by different things and are thrust into this arranged marriage. I love the banter between them because Harlow has attitude and she keeps Henry on his toes for sure. I think the two of them are fun together because of it. Desire is there from the start but it was a slow burn – but once they give into their desires, it’s very spicy, and where the dark romance part comes into play. Voyeurism is big in this one, and I’m not sure how I feel about it? I don’t know that it did anything for me maybe because of the circumstances. For me, I was missing an emotional connection between them during the spice scenes and I get it, they are enemies, they both have ulterior motives, and it was just a physical act, but I wanted to see more emotion. I think that was the thing I felt was kind of missing between them…both are reluctant to fall in love, they don’t believe in it, they’ve been hurt badly, they are both playing the other. Also I don’t think I loved Henry as much as I wanted to, he didn’t handle some situations very well.
Final Thoughts:
I loved beginning, the middle kind of slowed down, and the ending was good. I know it’s a romantasy and this is mostly about Harlow and Henry’s enemies to lovers romance, which had fun banter but the emotional part I loved about this story was between Harlow and her sister Aidia. Their story made me cry. The whole story tackles trauma, abuse and grief. The romance is a slow burn but the spicy scenes are very spicy, if you like voyeurism – this one is for you 🤭. Harlow is an FMC, 30 years old, with lots of rage and I loved her attitude because I get it girl, I get it! I enjoyed the political intrigue but I did feel at times it didn’t pack the punch I was expecting. Though I had some issues with it, I still enjoyed it!
+ It’s wild times in the news these days and I’m losing myself in books because of it. 😞
+ I got caught in a lock down at my daughter’s school on Thursday. It was 5 minutes to the final ringing, I heard police sirens around the area, but that isn’t new. The school opened the side gate for parents to come in and then the bell started ringing, but 5 times. Teachers then were telling us parents to get inside a room because there was a lock down happening. I think my first thought was why are they doing a lock down drill 5 minutes prior to the end of school? No…the teacher or staff who had her walkie talkie said police were in pursuit of some guy and he climbed the fence at the front of the school. It barely lasted 10 minutes, but I had to text my son I’d be late to pick him up at his school (he was freaking out), and all I could think about was how I was so close to my daughter who was a building away yet still so far from her and I wanted to protect her. I did NOT like those thoughts…the police said they got him (I heard on the walkie), it was all clear but we had to wait for the all clear bell. Us parents went to our kids classrooms, and when my daughter’s teacher opened the door some of the boys ran out laughing but saying “whoa that was scary!”, and the girls…two girls were bawling their eyes out. Other girls had tear streaks and I just was anxious to see my daughter, saw her and she was okay and I gave her the biggest hug. As we walked through campus I saw girls with tears on their faces, I heard parents and grandparents explaining to kids how the school kept them inside to keep them safe. I heard a mom tell her daughter she almost cried (the mom).
My daughter seemed “fine” but I thought maybe it didn’t hit her yet? Because watching your classmates cry – I know it scared her – but she was trying to keep everything normal. In the car ride home, she said some of the kids grabbed their scissors, in case someone came through their barricaded door. These are 3rd graders! 😞. The were hiding under their desks trying to stay very quiet. 💔 At dinner time my daughter’s emotions spilled out – she was frustrated with something and then burst into tears. So we talked about it, I told her I was in the next building waiting to get to her and that I know how scary that was. I told her they did such a good job and the drills helped them prepare for a moment like this. This is their world…and it’s a scary one! I will say though, the school was very prepared and worked fast when that 5 bell system rang – especially because it was almost final bell, they got all of us parents into rooms and locked that door fast. I will say as parents in the room (4 of us and 2 staff) we failed at barricading the door. We didn’t do that at all. A parent even joked if we need to get under the table and we just did the nervous laugh thing.
Also, I gotta give it up to teachers and school staff. Their lives are on the line teaching in this day and age. I’m just glad everyone was safe and it wasn’t a worse situation! But it reminded me things can happen in the blink of an eye.
+ Bruno Mars is on repeat – I gotta learn all the songs before the concert in 5 weeks! So excited!
+ Also Olivia Rodrigo made a cover of the song called The Book of Love – for the HELP (2) album created by War Child UK. War Child works in 14 countries – from Gaza to Ukraine, Lebanon to Sudan – to protect, educate, and stand up for the rights of children living through war. All proceeds and donations from HELP(2) support the War Child Alliance’s work around the world.
Check out the song below, it’s such a beautiful song 🥹 and don’t forget to give the album a listen!
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Power flows through the ancient halls of Avalon University like a neverending flood. Admission to the elite institution enables students to hone their magic under the watchful eye of their icy headmaster.
Summer Tuatha De Daanan planned to slide through her tenure at Avalon, unnoticed and inconspicuous. She has no interest in learning more about her past or why someone applied to the school on her behalf. Her emotional walls keep everyone at bay, and her sharp tongue makes people give her a wide berth. Yet, despite her best attempts, her emotional armor begins to melt from her feral vampire roommate to the angelic senior who is never dissuaded by her feigning disinterest. Maybe this could be good for her, a new life. Yet, dark secrets lurk in the halls of Avalon, and soon those same halls are drenched in blood.
Summer finds herself as the obsession of the sadistic stalker with the Seven lessons to learn. With the help of her new friends, she races against the clock to solve the mystery, hoping to save lives and catch the killer before it’s too late.
Content Warning: violence, death
I saw this on Kindle Unlimited and saw it was dark academia and took a chance on it. Here are my thoughts:
~ Right off the bat, I will say this book did not have to be 1026 pages – although on my ipad where I was reading it, it said 703 pages. This book didn’t have to be anything above 350 pages, or less. I really wish someone took a scalpel to this story and I don’t mean that in a bad way. There was a story but it was hard to find it with all the extra fluff.
+ The things I did like? Summer is a Freshman at Avalon University – lots of different species go there: fae, angels, vampires, shifters, sorcerers, etc…they are there to hone their magic. So I expected the typical dark academia story and we do get that: there is sex, there is romance, there is drama and also a serial killer? I liked Summer’s (a fae) new friendship with Alice (a vampire), and seeing them grow into best-friends. I liked the Morningstar brothers, especially Connor who becomes Summer’s boyfriend – he’s good and a he’s a golden retriever. I even liked some of the silly relationship drama. A lot of this story made me laugh because some things were getting ridiculous!
~ But why are these characters 27-30 years old and act like teenagers? Why didn’t they just make them 18-21? There was no need to make them older unless it’s because of the spicy scenes? 🤷🏻♀️. Speaking of characters – there is a mystery character that I hope will be revealed in book two.
+~ Summer, the FMC, has a secret past. It’s so secret and troubling for her, she doesn’t even want to talk about being a Fae. Apparently their realm has been wiped off the face of the planet or realm world. So we basically learn nothing about her. I know she loves sex with Connor, because they have it every other chapter and there is….almost 80+ chapters?! She loves when men think she is hot, even though she loves Connor. She does love Alice, and that was a relationship I did like seeing grow. She has power she hasn’t tapped into yet. But yeah…I was fine that she was needy and needed attention, but…I wish their relationship didn’t drag out for 700 pages.
~ The romance started out cute. Connor is a good guy, and I think he’s why I kept reading because a good guy like him is hard to find in books. He’s a unicorn – he doesn’t get jealous? Like…what? And look I like my MMC’s bad, and filled with trauma…so Connor was actually refreshing. Maybe boring, but I thought it was cute how much he loved Summer. And okay so she’s never been loved and he has the perfect family full of love, but what was up with her flirting with other guys? If that’s the case, then make it a reverse-harem! Let her explore, let Connor be open to it …but that’s not how this story goes and this girl is making emotional connections with someone online she calls Stranger? Just…NO. Even though he sounds intriguing. I was ready to be all in on Connor and Summer’s love story if she just didn’t search for more, in other guys. Connor was done dirty and he didn’t deserve it. But the romance was 95% of this book! It’s about Connor and Summer dating, having lots of sex, and moving on to talking about marriage. Also, Summer’s nickname for Connor is “Big Guy” and she says it a lot. I didn’t mind him calling her Babe all the time, but the Big Guy was said way too much. Another issue I had…the spicy scenes, it was quantity over quality. This story made me wish for a good quality, creative, steamy scene instead of all the ones we got.
~ So there is a mystery serial killer on the loose? Nothing much happens with that storyline except halfway into the book, and a little more at the end. There is no urgency and Summer is always leaving the safety of her dorm, to venture out for a jog alone even though she knows someone is out there killing girls that look like her. The story could have been tighter and maybe the threat of a killer more thrilling if a lot of the fluff was cut out.
+ Speaking of Connor – the ending is emotional, and I was surprised how much I felt about him, since I almost DNF’d the book a few times. Why didn’t I DNF? I actually wanted to see if something would happen in the story, other than the romance portion of the story. 😅 And the story is so easy to consume since it’s light on the world-building. Also maybe I wanted to torture myself and couldn’t believe how many times this couple had spicy scenes or how many times Summer said Big Guy so I had to see it through to the end. 😂
Final Thoughts:
This story needed major editing, because it didn’t need to be as long as it is. I also needed more depth from the characters and it would be nice if they acted their age (which is supposed to be late 20’s/early thirties). I kept reading because I wanted to see if something would actually happen with the serial killer, but most of this book was about Summer and Connor’s romance which moved fast and had spicy scenes every other chapter. Yet, I was bored with the spice. And then Summer talking to other guys and flirting with them even though she is so in love with Connor? Yeah….poor Connor. My 2.5 stars goes to Connor, the friendship with Alice and the ending where we finally get some action. It does end with a cliffhanger though…so am I reading book two? Most likely – but will I DNF it if it is as long as this one and she’s trying to figure out how she feels about three guys, then maybe! 😅.
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 