Review Round Up ~ June 19

New Releases:

Kiwi Strong by Rosalind James

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review Copy Provided by Author

Rosalind James is an author I’ve been reading for a while now and I can count on her to craft thoughtful, provocative stories that tackle potentially difficult topics with grace and humor. Kiwi Strong is no exception.

We’ve met Daisy before as a secondary character, but didn’t know her well until now. Daisy is an interesting combination of tough, determined, gentle, loving, smart, and naive all at the same time. Circumstances connect her with Gray, a former All Black battling a few demons of his own.

The story behind Kiwi Strong is unique and let’s us see the complexities of Daisy’s history, how she is determined to help her sisters, and how she learns to lean on others to accomplish her goals. The budding connection with Gray is sweet and let’s us see how both characters evolve to support each other and redefine what strong really means.

A dynamic secondary cast features Daisy’s sisters, Gray’s mum and several main characters from James’s previous works. These additions, along with the strong story telling make for a compelling read that I couldn’t put down.

Amazon

TBR Reads:

Say You Want Me by Corinne Michaels

My rating: 4 of 5 stars - Would Recommend to a Friend

Paperback purchased to read

Say You Want Me is a book that has been in my wish list for a while and I finally got a paperback version during the most recent LIFT (2020) auction. I have been curious about this story since meeting Angie and Wyatt many moons ago while reading Zach and Paisley’s book.

For the first half (nearly 2/3) this was a typical surprise pregnancy book with a complication of geography. He lives in rural Tennessee, she was a city girl from Philadelphia. I enjoyed getting to see these two get to know each other as friends and then more. I liked both Wyatt and Angie and was really rooting for them to have a happily ever after. I loved how feelings were developed/changed and how the town of Bell Buckle worked to make Angie want to stay.

Since we are keeping this spoiler free, I won’t describe the conflict of the story. I’m just going to say that it was not what I expected it to be and I was very annoyed with Ms Michales when I left for work because she ripped these poor characters to pieces. I appreciated that Ms Michaels didn’t go the expected route and I feel like emotions of the situation were genuine in how they were presented.

Say You Want Me is the second of the Hennington brother books, but it’s very much a stand-alone. Zach and Paisley (book 1) and Trent (book 3) are secondary characters here, but knowing what’s happening with them is not critical to appreciating what is going on between Wyatt and Angie.

Amazon

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