Can't-Wait Wednesday: Hotel of Secrets

Can't-Wait Wednesday is hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings and helps us spotlight upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating!

 

Hotel of Secrets

Diana Biller

Expected publication date: March 28, 2023

During ball season, anything can happen, even love.

It’s ball season in Vienna, and Maria Wallner only wants one thing: to restore her family’s hotel, the Hotel Wallner, to its former glory. She’s not going to let anything get in her way - not her parents’ three-decade-long affair; not seemingly-random attacks by masked assassins; and especially not the broad-shouldered American foreign agent who’s saved her life two times already. No matter how luscious his mouth is.

Eli Whittaker also only wants one thing: to find out who is selling American secret codes across Europe, arrest them, and go home to his sensible life in Washington, DC. He has one lead - a letter the culprit sent from a Viennese hotel. But when he arrives in Vienna, he is immediately swept up into a chaotic whirlwind of balls, spies, waltzes, and beautiful hotelkeepers who seem to constantly find themselves in danger. He disapproves of all of it! But his disapproval is tested as he slowly falls deeper into the chaos - and as his attraction to said hotelkeeper grows.  - from Goodreads
 

Michele's Monday Picks #1

Angela is so generous to let me pop in with a new little series, Michele’s Monday Picks! I’m not a blogger or bookstagrammer, but I love getting excited about new releases with the rest of you. Here I’ll be sharing new books I’m really looking forward to! 

 

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Do I Know You?

by Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka

Expected publication: January 24th, 2023

From Goodreads:

When a couple starts to feel like they're married to a stranger, a flirtatious game of pretend becomes the spark they need to reignite their relationship.

Eliza and Graham are anticipating an anything-but-sexy, weeklong getaway to celebrate their five-year anniversary. Nestled on the Northern California coastline, the resort prides itself on being a destination for those in love and those looking to find it. For Eliza and Graham, it might as well be a vacation with a roommate.

When a well-meaning guest mistakes Eliza and Graham for being single and introduces them at the hotel bar, they don't correct him. Suddenly, they're pretending to be perfect strangers and it's unexpectedly...fun? Eliza and Graham find themselves flirting like it's their first date, and waiting with butterflies in their stomach for the other to text back.

Everyone at the retreat can sense the electric chemistry between Eliza and Graham's alter egos. But when their scintillating game of roleplaying ends, will they still feel the heat?

I absolutely loved this duo’s adult debut, The Roughest Draft. I also love a marriage in trouble trope, so I’m hoping this one is a winner!

Is this a trope you enjoy? Do you think you’ll be picking this one up?

Can't-Wait Wednesday: Secretly Yours

Can't-Wait Wednesday is hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings and helps us spotlight upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating!

 

Secretly Yours

Tessa Bailey

Expected publication date: February 7, 2023

A steamy new rom-com about a starchy professor and the bubbly neighbor he clashes with at every turn...

Hallie Welch fell hard for Julian Vos at fourteen, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family's winery. Now the prodigal hottie has returned to their small town. When Hallie is hired to revamp the gardens on the Vos estate, she wonders if she'll finally get that smooch. But the grumpy professor isn't the teenager she remembers and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly. One wine-fueled girls' night later, Hallie can't shake the sense that she did something reckless--and then she remembers the drunken secret admirer letter she left for Julian. Oh shit.

On sabbatical from his ivy league job, Julian plans to write a novel. But having Hallie gardening right outside his window is the ultimate distraction. She's eccentric, chronically late, often literally covered in dirt--and so unbelievably beautiful, he can't focus on anything else. Until he finds an anonymous letter sent by a woman from his past. Even as Julian wonders about this admirer, he's sucked further into Hallie's orbit. Like the flowers she plants all over town, Hallie is a burst of color in Julian's gray-scale life. For a man who irons his socks and runs on tight schedules, her sunny chaotic energy makes zero sense. But there's something so familiar about her... and her very presence is turning his world upside down. - from Goodreads
 

Top Ten Tuesday: Series I'd Like to Start/Catch Up On/Finish

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.  This week's topic is series we'd like to start/catch up on/finish.  I am notoriously bad at starting series and not continuing/finishing them, so it wasn't a surprise when I went through my TBR and easily found 8 series I'm behind on (and 2 I'd like to start).  Pictured below are the books I'm up to in the series or need to start with.

Bridgerton

Twisted Tales

Mary

The Arc of a Scythe

The Gilded Age Heiresses

Outlander

Winston Brothers

The Queen's Council

Kingsbridge

Common Threads

Nonfiction November 2022: Week 2 - Book Pairings

 

This week of Nonfiction November, hosted by Rennie at What's Nonfiction, is my favorite every year - fiction/nonfiction book pairings!  Pairings about people, places, or time periods inspire my reading throughout the year, and here are the pairings I've featured in 2022:

 

 

 

The Paris Edition

 

 

 The Heiress Edition

Sinking Ships

The Beekeeper Edition

What do you think of these pairings?

 

Romance Quick Reviews: The Meghan Quinn Edition

A Not So Meet Cute (2021)

Huxley is a businessman who needs to find a fiancée ASAP after telling a little white lie to a potential business partner.  Lottie is jokingly trolling Huxley's wealthy neighborhood hoping to score a rich husband when the two bump into each other, and they realize a fake relationship might be able to solve both their problems.  I wanted to love this book more than I did, although it wasn't a terrible read by any stretch of the imagination.  The fake relationship trope can be a fun one, although the addition here of a fake pregnancy kind of rubbed me the wrong way - I just couldn't see how there could be anything short of a cringe ending to that.  Huxley was... hard to like.  He's cold and distant - I get that this is a "contract" between him and Lottie, but a little more warmth and friendliness could have gone a long way.  Also, I get why he bought her a new wardrobe, but why all the skimpy underwear and pajamas that no one was going to see?  Lottie has already faded from my memory, but thankfully the side characters were amazing and really added some needed fun and humor to the story.  3 stars

Royally Not Ready (2022)

Lilly is shocked to find out that she's next-in-line to the throne of a country she's never heard of, but she's willing to take a chance to learn more about the mother she lost and where she came from.  Keller is tasked with training and teaching her; neither expect the sparks between them that quickly turn into something more.  I love royalty in my romance stories, and this was kind of like The Princess Diaries for a VERY adult audience.  Quinn actually had me chuckling out loud at the beginning of the book, as Lilly really pushes Keller's buttons, trying to get him to loosen up.  There's so much lust and sexual tension between the two, and the sex scenes are often and quite graphic.  I felt like the tone of the book changed once Lilly and Keller got together.  It lost some of the humor, but I liked seeing Lilly start to take things seriously and rely on Keller.  The story is a bit predictable, but I was still rooting for Lilly and her newly-found family.  4 stars

 

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Can't-Wait Wednesday: How To Sell A Haunted House

Can't-Wait Wednesday is hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings and helps us spotlight upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating!

 

How To Sell a Haunted House

Grady Hendrix

Expected publication date: January 17, 2023

Your past and your family can haunt you like nothing else… A hilarious and terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Final Girl Support Group.

Every childhood home is haunted, and each of us are possessed by our parents.

When their parents die at the tail end of the coronavirus pandemic, Louise and Mark Joyner are devastated but nothing can prepare them for how bad things are about to get. The two siblings are almost totally estranged, and couldn’t be more different. Now, however, they don’t have a choice but to get along. The virus has passed, and both of them are facing bank accounts ravaged by the economic meltdown. Their one asset? Their childhood home. They need to get it on the market as soon as possible because they need the money. Yet before her parents died they taped newspaper over the mirrors and nailed shut the attic door.

Sometimes we feel like puppets, controlled by our upbringing and our genes. Sometimes we feel like our parents treat us like toys, or playthings, or even dolls. The past can ground us, teach us, and keep us safe. It can also trap us, and bind us, and suffocate the life out of us. As disturbing events stack up in the house, Louise and Mark have to learn that sometimes the only way to break away from the past, sometimes the only way to sell a haunted house, is to burn it all down. - from Goodreads