Fascial Fitness by Robert Schleip, Johanna Bayer

This book showed up as available in my library and I thought it looked interesting so I clicked. It's an interesting book that I think may have been translated or written by someone for whom English is not a first language because there are some odd word choices. That can make it difficult to interpret some of the exercises but there are pictures that will help you figure them out. 

An interesting read, especially the information about the fascia and why it's so gosh darn important to do the exercises and to just move in order to keep your fascia working optimally.

Three stars

This book came out July 6, 2021

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Cultish by Amanda Montell

It took me a little bit to get into this book, but once I did, I really enjoyed Montell's writings. She grew up with a father who had escaped a cult and his stories fascinated her. She feels like growing up with parents like that meant that she had a better chance of identifying a cult. I really liked that she mentioned that it is usually optimistic people who end up staying in cults, not under or overly educated people (though those two things seem to help). 

In her talking about cults, she touches on Jonestown (and the fact that a-the people drank Flavoraid and b-most didn't want to drink it) and how that happened.  There is also discussion of the Heaven's Gate group. Both times, she talks about how, viewing people as being in cults seems to dehumanize them, that others can judge them based on that. However, it is easier than many people think to join a cult. Reductive language, creating a we/they attitude, shaming people for wanting to leave are all tactics. Of course, there are things that could be argued whether or not they are cults: MLMs, CrossFit, QAnon.

Four stars

This book came out June 15, 2021

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Remember Love by Mary Balogh

While growing up together, everyone thought that Gwyneth Rhys would grow up to marry her next-door neighbor. What no one realized was that she was in love with his older brother, Devlin Ware. One magical night they kissed and promised to be together. That was the same night that Devlin discovered a secret about his family that led to his banishment. 

Six years later, after a lifetime of being in the army, Devlin is back and is now the Earl of Stratton. Everything has changed and Gwyn is on the cusp of being engaged. But can old love be rekindled? Or did it never die?

The first part of this book was So Slow. Even slower than most Balogh novels. But in the second part, it picked up and was a better Balogh flow. 

Four stars

This book comes out July 12, 2022

Followed by Remember Me

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Reunion by Meghan Quinn

Three siblings are heading home for their parents' anniversary, each with their own issues. Oldest brother Ford is a workaholic who doesn't see his secretary, Larkin, as a love interest until they return to their home town. Middle brother Cooper would like to help if only his siblings would listen. Oh, and he slept with his ex-wife's best friend... and would like to again. Youngest Palmer doesn't want to admit that her life as a travel blogger (influencer?) is over. She gets drunk her first night back home and breaks her arm, getting her in touch with her old crush Beau (also Larkin's brother).

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, the set up, getting to see the characters, etc. I didn't mind the fact that all of the relationships were really only a third of the book because they were engaging. The second half, however, dragged. There was just so much quarreling and missed connections that it got to be a slog to finish the book.

Three stars

This book came out February 22, 2022

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas

A second generation of Wallflowers is on the loose. Pandora Ravenel grew up in a household where girls were not valued. She and her sisters were pretty much allowed to grow up feral (really? Even if boys were the prime offspring, girls needed to be married off so they would have had at least a nanny or something) so she never learned she was supposed to be stupid and interested in marriage. Instead, she wants to market her board games and run an industry. Of course, if she gets married, all of her property will automatically become her husband's.

Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, though super-eligible, isn't really ready to get married. He's too busy being ashamed of himself for banging a married woman because she's tied him to her with super-kinky sex (or so we're told.) But all of that falls away when he accidentally compromises Pandora and immediately falls in love. No, really, he pretty much decides that, after five minutes of conversation, she will be his wife. And then he gets upset because her family doesn't immediately force her to marry him. So they all get invited to Evie and Sebastian's country house (my faves from the Wallflower series) where they get to know each other better. 

And then the story starts to get really crowded with Gabriel's ex (and, even though he was all angsty about his "dark side," Pandora's innocence makes him learn to love vanilla sex again (?)) and a plot to blow up the aristocracy.

Overall a nice book with just a few to many things included as well as a few thing not really explained.

Three and a half stars

This book came out February 21, 2017

Follows Devil in Disguise

Followed by Hello Stranger

Hard copy I didn't keep

Opinions are my own

A Borrowed Boyfriend by Angela R. Casella

Casella has begun this new series with a corker that is just as fun and enjoyable as her previous books. I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series.

Nicole and Damien are back, working to implement their plans to right wrongs and be fairy godmothers to those who have been kicked in the pants by life. Marnie Jones is sure one of those people having gone viral for tripping on her wedding gown after her groom announced, at the altar, that he could no longer marry her. It became huge because her sister is an actress on a long-running series of a teen detective (and her sister hasn't been a teen for a good long time.) Marnie one night tells her sister that she is doing just fine, dating a new man. 

Nicole and Damien decide to help her find that man. Overhearing their conversation, Griffin, co-owner of a bar with the two of them, volunteers himself as tribute. He saw Marnie earlier and is entranced. She is entirely too good for him (tragic backstory alert!) but he decides to take his chance.

There were a few sticking points in this book and it does, as Casella's books do, push the bounds of wacky but I did enjoy it thoroughly.

Four stars

This book came out June 9, 2022

Followed by A Stolen Suit

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

The Meaning of Love by Stephanie Laurens

We saw when Melissa and Julian met, she was fifteen and he was twenty-two. They recognized that they were meant for each other but they were both so young and the age gap was... ew. Now Melissa is twenty-three, about to be on the shelf, and Julian is thirty and has succeeded his father as earl. Neither believes the other to be unmarried. But they are. And they meet again at a ball. Well, Melissa is trying to avoid Julian by going out into the garden with a man she doesn't realize is his cousin, Gordon. Gordon, who needs money, decides that will be the time to try and take advantage of her but she saves herself and then Julian intervenes. When he intervenes, a torrid embrace occurs and the two are discovered. Well, an engagement is announced. But the two do something startling in a romance book and talk about it and decide to take the time of their engagement to decide whether they should actually suit. And that would be fine except someone just keeps trying to kill Julian. And trying to kill Julian. Then a little trying to kill Melissa. And then trying to kill Julian. There is Just So Much Attempted Killing. it was overly wrought. Otherwise, a normal story in the Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Chronicles series, fast, fun, and fluffy.

Three stars

This book came out October 14, 2022

Follows Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Intrigue

Borrowed as audiobook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own