While I was recapping my 2023 I came across a bunch of forgotten book reviews, and some of these books were so freaking good. Horrible right?! Honestly life can be so hectic that I often make my notes and carry on with some other tasks, chores, work or life as a mama, hoping to get back to it and some things get forgotten. It happens…
If you recall I was going to my first ever author signing event (as a reader) and I challenged myself to read as many as the authors as I could before I went. Because I had read more than I normally do I only managed to post about half of them, so here is the other half and if you want to read all about the challenge or the Wild and Windy event you can click the link here. Book Vacation.
Now you would think with all the stuff I have going on this would be a no brainer, but hey sometimes stuff falls through the crack, which is why I bought myself a fabulous planner to not only keep track of all my family stuff but also to be organized in my author life.
The Books
- Fluke- Adriana Locke
- Wrong for You- Harloe Rae
- The Right Wrong- Michelle Mankin
- Without A Hitch- Avery Maxwell
- The Wrong/Right Man- Aurora Rose Reynolds
- Maybe in Another Life- Taylor Jenkins Reid
I must have been on a wrong guy kick because 3 of these titles are similar and yet each book was so different.
The Reviews
All these books were great. My favourite book out of these title was Without A Hitch, but I’m going to give a quick overview of the books/tropes. Let’s start with my favourite.
Without A Hitch– Avery Maxwell
Clearly from the title this was a wedding themed book, but not in the sense you think it might be.
Love and lunacy. That’s what life is. You’re either blinded by love or torn apart by lunacy.
This has all the good stuff, fakes names, secret hook ups, billionaire romance, he falls first & spicy AF!!
Tilly, our heroine, is a PA among many other jobs including running a very popular wedding based blog, Love In The Lobby, under the pen name Abby Chambers. One of her research nights she over hears a bride complaining about her evil stepsister trying to ruin the wedding. Abby interjects herself into the conversation with some well to do advice and suddenly the bride is making Abby an offer she can’t refuse to be her bridesmaid wrangler for a whopping 20K!
All goes well until Abby meets a young hotel tycoon Lochlan Blaine who also doesn’t reveal his name as he’s trying to figure out what her angle is. They are opposite in every sense of the word. Abby wants love and her own fairytale ending, something that pretty much repulses him.
Lochlan is obsessed with her the minute he meets her and despite his cutthroat reputation he has a soft spot for her. Don’t you just love a he falls first…
**MUST READ and I want to give more but you should just read it!
Things to note- it’s a long read and there is a huge cast of characters which took me a minute to get around.
The Right Wrong Man- Michelle Mankin
Tropes: Rockstar, single mom, steamy, bad guy falls for good girl!! EVERY. DAMN. TIME. I read this book in a day.
Ben is our heavily flawed, alcoholic rockstar playboy who’s only real task is to perform and do it well. The groupies are just the perk. But one too many trashed hotel rooms and misguided anger lands him in hot water with his band mates and the tour company. He is forced to turn things around. The last thing he wants is to have an uptight, single mom, with baggage as the new manager/babysitter, but since it’s he’s band mates sister he has no choice.
Ben is exactly as Sierra expected, unruly, rude and self-absorbed or so she thinks until he befriends her son, Dylan, changing all of her views about him until she can only see all of the things she never had for herself and for her son. Ben wants nothing more than to be everything to them. (Go ahead and swoon).
I really love the way Ben takes on a father figure for Dylan and how he forces her to let him be a kid, instead of solely focusing on school with his horrible tutor which by the way I wanted to smack.
This story has a lot of character depth and backstory. It adds so much more to the romance to see what they have to overcome.
It is advertised as a modern retelling of sleeping beauty, which did catch my attention but I found it a little far fetched for that.
Fluke- Adriana Locke
I was born lacking a filter to prohibit myself from snapping back at assholes.
Pippa
Our leading lady Pippa is up for a big promotion at work, but so is her arch nemesis Chuck. When Chuck calls her out in the middle of the board room during her ‘couples workshop pitch’ as someone who knows nothing about what it should entail seeing as she is never been married (unlike him) it leaves her to tell a whopper of a lie that she was divorced, amicably. It caused a stir in the group but somehow she managed to pull it off and no one thought wiser… Until her boss tells her she needs to test out her own pitch and see if her ‘marriage retreat’ really could help save couples. What’s a girl to do? She places an ad looking for an ex-husband. (Brilliant!)
Her dear friend, local hottie and all around good guy Jess is more than willing to help Pippa out under one circumstance she has to give it an honest go and be with him for the duration of their retreat.
Pippa does everything she can to resist poor Jess but all it does is show her the kind of man he is. The one you don’t let get away.
I love all the brothers and their relationship plus how Pippa can handle her own with them.
This book was spicy, fun, filled with banter and small town vibes.
Maybe in Another Life- Taylor Jenkins Reid
The entire premise of this book had me right from the start. Dual timelines, what ifs? The book is about how a single choice can alter the path of life you were on. But which ending is the one that was supposed to be? This book was 100% sliding doors vibes and I loved that movie.
Hanna is our flawed heroine, let’s just say, has made some bad choices lately leaving her needing to relocate again. Something she is far too familiar with. So when her best friend, Gabby insists she moves back to LA and into her guestroom, Hanna agrees with the pretense of ‘just long enough to get my shit together’.
On her very first night back Gabby and her husband Mark arrange a welcome home party with some of Hanna’s old friends including her one true love, Ethan. The two seamlessly fit back together and at the end of the night she is left with a choice to either leave with Ethan or go home with Gabby. Hence where our story really starts… What happens with each decision is played out in parallel timelines.
I have to say that although I enjoyed the book there was some things I didn’t love. Like it was repetitive. I totally understand that it’s a simultaneous timeline so there are bound to be things that happen regardless of which path you’re on. but at some point if felt like was just re-reading what I just read in the last chapter and I found myself skipping over it.
This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I HATED the ending! I can’t say why that’s for you to decide if you like it or not, but I would love to hear you thoughts.
Wrong For You- Harloe Rae
Tropes- single dad, small town, grumpy/sunshine, second chance.
This book hit so many things. The spice, the banter, the little girl (swoon) such a good book!
Jake is our single dad to a 6 year old sweet as pie Sydney. He’s also a hot mechanic in the small town of Knox Creek (love the name). And although life isn’t perfect he doing the best he can raising his little girl which is about the only person he likes.
He’s closed off, guarded and holding a grudge about a lot of things including our feisty female lady, Harper, the ballet teacher and highschool ex.
Our main characters have some bad history when they dated in HS and instead of riding off in the college sunset together Jake dumps Harper when he finds out his ex is pregnant with his kid. Let’s say the break is not amicable and as highschool goes some nasty stuff gets said leaving scars on both our leads.
Jake would be more than happy to ignore Harper and keep on existing without her but unfortunately for him his daughter happens to love Harpers ballet class forcing the two of them to become closer than ever. Sydney has an instant connection to her and the more time they spend together their bonding, smashes and crashes through Jakes concrete walls around his heart.
The meh- some scenes were abrupt like the first sex scene, I was like wait… what? Talk about out of the blue and the fact that she said yes?! Uh, girl come on…
Final thoughts
Overall these books were fantastic and almost all of them indie authors! So show them some love and grab a copy! Who knows maybe you’ll find a new favourite!
All of these reads were found on Amazon.
What’s next on my bookshelf?
*Ladywood Readers Club is not sponsored. All reviews are based on my own opinions of the books, which I bought or uploaded from KU*
Madyn Rose 
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