Hard Sell by Hudson Lin Book ARC Review Blog Tour

 welcome to this blog tour!!

Disclaimer: I received an ARC, but my thoughts are my own.

I ended up giving this a 3-4/5 stars (depending on the aspects I focused on).

So this is a second chance romance between a brother's best friend and best friend's little brother. One of them (the older guy) works for a company that buys companies in a way and the younger is an IT, sort of "fixing the company from a IT business point of view". I did enjoy their relationship and wished we had more romantic instances and conflict resolving scenes as both our MC's are adults, I wanted more realistic conversations in terms of their future and for them to talk about their relationship.

Our younger MC's brother was my least favorite character, he kept treating him as if he was a child and unable to take care of himself, he treats him as if he is his father. The pacing in the line of events does get weird at times, it is somewhat fast while also being simultaneously slow paced. After the main conflict, due to the older brother if we are quite honest (it was predictable), it is never addressed again, it happens because of a lack of communication and meddling from other people whom should have no bearings on the situation as our MCs are both full grown adults and it affects literally no one. 

I was super annoyed at how the main conflict was annoyed & how the timeline for the epilogue was set up.  We have no clue as when the epilogue is, how long after the main events  did the epilogue happen ?

Overall when we let go of the small issue it is a pretty fun read that was floating between a 3 and 4 stars for most of it. In the end a 3.75 rounded up to a 4 stars.

4/5 stars Bookarina.

Top Secret by Sabrina Bowen & Elle Kennedy Book Review M/M Romance

 

This book was good, while I definitely prefer their other work (the Him, Us duology) it was nice to get back to their jointed writing/work. 

I found myself, as always with their books, laughing and having a great time. I wanted more however, it felt a little short and like certain parts were missing to really make it a new favorite of mine, it simply wasn't as addictive or as romantic as I wanted it/expected it to be. 

The story truly begins when one of our MC's long time girlfriend wants to have a threesome with another guy. That's when under alias's our MCS begin their interaction and slow burn caring/being in lust with each other. The fact that one of them was in a relationship when it all began and (even though the gf asked for the threesome) did not tell his girlfriend he was sexting another guy with that purpose, rubbed me the wrong way. 

A good thing is that it is solved, fairly fast so there is not a truly 'cheating' plot to the book, just a feeling I had while reading those scenes.

They are coincidentally also both in the run for the "presidency" of their frat house and sort of enemies (but not really, a complicated situation explained in the book, which I won't touch on because Spoilers !) which makes things complicated since one of them is rich and the other a "living on scholarship" (and being a male stripper he is also bi, which thanks for the rep !) money. 

The storyline follows a pretty solid, bi MC and a MC that had a girlfriend and realizes he's attracted to men in college cliché which I personally don't mind (no worries not a gay for you, rather a oh did not know that about myself).

Overall, I had a good time reading it, but I am not certain I will ever re-read it fully, maybe some parts of it, but nothing stood out from it. To me this is more of a one-time great time read, than a will re-read this a couple of times.

4/5 stars 

Bookarina

The Tangleroot Palace: Stories by Marjorie Liu ARC Book Review

 

Disclaimer: I received an ARC, my thoughts are my own.

I went into this expecting a graphic novel, because this is how it had been presented to me, as a collection of short stories in a graphic novel format. Which is why I was so disappointed that it was simply a regular collection of short stories. 

I love Marjorie Liu's other work called Monstress, which is a graphic novel series, thus when I saw this on netgalley I knew I had to try to get my hands on this. The cover is gorgeous and has the same art as her other series, which is one of my favorite. These stories had what I love in her work which is amazing world building. 

TW: it is super gore and has some topics and scenes that could be preferable for some people to avoid this collection. some are implied such as rape.

It is an horror, fantasy, gory LGBT+ collection, the depictions are graphic in some instances and I loved how, in such a short a mount of pages, she managed to put so much without it feeling like it was going too fast.  While some of the stories are better than others, in my opinion, they are all at least a 3 stars and some are nearly a 5 stars.

They touch way, love, what we would give and be willing to do to be free and how trauma and events can change us. You will find in there all sorts of main characters, including a villain and a vampire. This was a nice collection that left me wanting full novels, her writing is captivating.

Overall I really enjoyed my time reading the stories one by one, in between books. If you love gore, fantasy, horror and amazing worldbuilding and characters this is for you !

3.75/5 stars.

Bookarina.