Sure Shot by Sarina Bowen

Oh. I was so disappointed in the ending of this book. The rest of it was fine and a nice addition to the Brooklyn series but the ending was so out of place with the rest of the book and could have been skipped.

Years ago, Bess Beringer fell into some pretty good insta-lust with Mark "Tank" Tankiewicz. She ended it when another sports agent told her that it wasn't good optics for female agents to sleep with male clients. Tank wasn't her client but she still decided to break it off. Now, he's been traded to the Brooklyn Bruisers and he's met Bess again. She is the only bright spot in his trade since he just came from the arch-rival Houston team and his style of play is very different from the man he is replacing. But they're just going to keep things light. Right?

Three stars

This book came out May 12, 2020

Follows Moonlighter

Followed by Bombshells

Borrowed as ebook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

Matchmaking Mischief by A.R. Casella, Denise Grover Swank

I liked Willow, the sunshine-y baker, and I liked Alex, who was maybe a little bit of a grumpy/brooding writer, but I missed any sense of chemistry between them. Like most of the Bad Luck Club series, this book was fast, fun, and fluffy but the enjoyment was more in the friendships and the matchmaking than in the romance.

Alex met previous heroine Molly at a writer's retreat and she convinced him to come down to Asheville and live with Bear. She assured him that his writer's block would be solved. Instead, he gets caught up with Willow and her matchmaking antics.

Willow left her hometown and her family's legacy but can't help herself in trying to match up couples. Alex accidentally distracts one of the matches and she yells at him. Of course, out of character for the sunshine one. He is bemused at first but then decides to join Team Sunshine and starts working to get at least two of our favorite characters from the series together.

Three stars

This book came out

Follows Fraudulently Ever After

Followed by Bringing Down the House

Followed by new series starter Matchmaking the Billionaire

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Witch Please by Ann Aguirre

Living as a witch in a mundane world can be dificult. And Danica Waterhouse is navigating just fine, working in her family's fix-it shop (her talent is that she can make things work again, most of the examples are related to appliances). Then she meets baker Titus Winnaker and sparks fly. Almost literally. But Danica's grandmother has drummed into her that their family has a hex whereby, if they fall in love with a mundane, they will also lose their magic. Danica's own mother is pointed to as an example. 

While Danica is fighting her feelings Titus is also having issues. His mother died, his father remarried six months later and now the new wife is pregnant. But Danica helps him through that as well.

I liked the relationships that Danica and Titus had with Clementine (Danica's cousin) and Maya (Titus's sister). There was also some sequel bait with the rest of Danica's coven and potentially Titus's circle of friends -- also good relationship building there. It was a nice book with a nice balance of world building and relationship building which can be hard to do in a first book.

Three and a half stars

This book came out September 7, 2021

Followed by Boss Witch

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Not the Witch You Wed by April Asher, April Hunt

Violet Maxwell is in town for her sister's Witch Bond Announcement weekend celebration (engagement party). Not just her sister, one of her triplet sisters. So when she tries to bow out of some of the celebration with slightly younger sister Olive and they are then caught by Rose, she does feel some guilt. And that compounds the guilt she feels by not picking up her grandmother's place as the Prima Witch. Luckily, Violet was born a dud. No magic whatsoever. She still decides to go skiing with her sisters, even though she's not very good. In fact, she encounters Lincoln Thorne as she's laying in the snow after having fallen over while standing in place (it's not that hard to do, really...) While she doesn't recognize him, he sure as heck recognizes her. He's happy to see her and his Wolf (Lincoln's the Alpha of NAP, the North American Pack) is even more so because he's had a lot of downs in his life recently. He's trying to make it so that all shifters are on more equal footing but there is one particular man, Rose's fiance in fact, who is trying to undo all of his work. He also has a limited time before his thirty-third birthday. If he doesn't have a mate by then, he either has to step down from the Supernatural Council or accept a mate chosen by the Elders. He's also trying to dissolve the Elders but that's a whole other story. He's not quite resigned to fate but the chance of finding a partner who satisfies both he AND his animal are practically nil. 

Through mistakes and a lot of accidental relationship building, Violet and and Lincoln do end up together.  

There is a LOT of world building and so the first couple of chapters really do read like an info dump and that doesn't really even out but I still enjoyed the read. I'm tracking some of the characters for my own benefit because... there are a lot. 

Adrian -- Lincoln's friend, lion shifter

Vi's best friends -- Bax, Guardian Angel -- Harper, succubus coworker at Potion's Up, magic themed bar, Vi brewmaster, virgin, host of radio show Sexy Talk with Savannah They also work together at the Kid Command Center (B&GC for supes?)

Four stars

This book came out February 8, 2022

Followed by Not Your Ex's Hexes

ARC kindly provided by St. Martin's Press and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Wildfire by Ilona Andrews

Just because Nevada Baylor is a Prime doesn't mean that she's comfortable with her level of magic. Nor with the fact that her family is going to have to come out of hiding in order to avoid being put under her grandmother's family tree. And if life weren't complicated enough, she involved, like, involved-involved with Connor "Mad" Rogan. And his ex-fiancee's husband has gone missing so she's come to Connor for help.

This was maybe not as good as the previous two but only a little less weak. I didn't love all of the fiancee and Connor interactions (especially since he was so willfully dense about them) but overall a lovely addition to the series.

Three and a half stars

This book came out July 15, 2017

Follows White Hot

Followed by Diamond Fire

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Reread July 2022, September 2023, as Audible book February 2025

An Impossible Impostor by Deanna Raybourn

Veronica and Stoker are returning from Alpenwald with a thoroughly... distinctive... cheese and also a small child. The latter is Lady Cordelia's son though, because she is unmarried, she is pretending to have adopted the child. They are barely home when they are visited by Sir Hugo Montgomerie who has a personal request. This case also hits close to home for Veronica and causes her some pause. 

It seems Sir Hugo has a goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. Euphemia is above reproach (according to Sir Hugo) but it seems that her family is in an uproar because her long-lost brother Jonathon, heir to the family mansion, has returned. At least, a man claiming to be Jonathon has returned. But there are no family members who knew the man more recently still alive. In fact, one of the last people to see him was Veronica herself. 

So the two travel to the Hathaway estate and Veronica is shocked that she recognizes the man who appears. Of course, being Stoker and Veronica, there are layers upon layers and we learn more about Veronica's past than we knew before.

I don't really recommend this book to people who are new to the series but regular Raybourn readers will be delighted. We don't see as much growth from Stoker but there is a new mystery, a new Big Bad, mentions of science and history that are woven seamlessly into the story, and everything readers adore. 

Four stars

This book comes out February 15th, 2022

Follows An Unexpected Peril

Followed by A Sinister Revenge

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile

I honestly wasn't sure who Brandi Carlile was but the NPR Best Books of 2021 made it sound so good. And it really was. With the story of Carlile's life interwoven with songs that she wrote and that meant something to her, we learn about her own history from her own mouth. I highly recommend listening to the audibook because I just don't think reading it would be the same. Especially when so many of the stories are so personal including growing up so poor, working through her own fame, and falling in love with a good friend.

Four stars

This book came out April 6, 2021

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own