Technically, it’s a two-week wrap-up – and it was a great two weeks! I posted my April wrap-up last week, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the two 5-star romances I reviewed last week. Both Unexpectedly Mine and Happy Place made my Best of April list, and they couldn’t be more different! Happy Place is heavy and emotional, while Unexpectedly Mine is light and spicy. Both are great reads!
Moving on to this week, I had a mix of 4 and 5-star reads, so I’m certainly not complaining. My favorite of the week was the sexual tension-filled Our Scorching Summer, which I devoured late into the night. It features tropes that aren’t usually my favorites, but was executed in a way that was incredibly engaging. It was fantastic! I also really enjoyed Accidental Attachment, the newest from Max Monroe. Perfect for (super) slow burn lovers who enjoy a low angst romance, it was a beefy, smile-inducing treat. I also liked If Only You, which was a slow burn, friends to lovers situation. Perhaps not my favorite from Chloe Liese, but still pretty solid. I found Melanie Harlow’s newest to be kinda forgettable, but I also had no trouble bingeing it in a day. Finally, I tried an emotional debut, The Ones We Fight For, which just wasn’t the right stylistic fit for me. I’m not a big 3rd person POV reader, so it was difficult for me to get into its slower pace. But the premise was great and the writing was solid, so I’m betting other readers will connect to it more.
With Mother’s Day on the horizon, it’s looking like a quieter release week, and I’m okay with that! I just got some of my anticipated releases from the library, and I’m looking forward to getting caught up a bit.
If you read my Teaser Thursday post (found here), you know that there are some exciting books on the way soon! I’ll have reviews going up throughout the week.
If you missed any of this week’s reviews, I’ve got the blurb and rating for each below. There’s also a link to my new release list.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Loved it
Nico Navarro and I are friends.
His signature grin and playfulness are charming, except when you’re on the receiving end of his self-absorbed personality. The worst part—he’s ridiculously gorgeous and he knows it. For years, I’ve dealt with Nico’s incessant flirting by keeping my occasional fantasies about him strictly between me, my keyboard, and my vibrator.
We’re both players and not interested in settling down. He’s never been in love, and I refuse to commit to someone again. Besides, Nico is my best friend’s brother-in-law, so he’s strictly off-limits.
Just. Friends.
But when I suddenly lose my job, fail a class, and a man faints inside me—yes, inside me—all rationality falls by the wayside.
One out-of-character decision later, I find myself on an international adventure with the irresponsible playboy. Our spontaneous vacation is filled with interrogations,a steamy arrangement, and the uncovering of my decade-long secret. I’m quickly becoming Nico’s new obsession and the rules I’ve kept to protect my heart start to crumble with each new lavish travel destination we visit.
Can I let myself love again or will our summer fling end up in flames?
Read the review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3or0eVI
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Easygoing slow burn 🎧
A successful writer accidentally sends her new (and super-dreamy) editor the wrong manuscript. Instead of the full-length paranormal novel she promised Longstrand Publishing, she sends the fan fiction she’s written about her crush…on him—including every detail of the hot, steamy “physical activity” she’s fantasized about happening between them.
And Chase Dawson may be the hottest man alive and a super-talented editor to boot, but he’s completely oblivious that he’s the star of the manuscript he just convinced his boss to green-light.
Brooke Baker has been through a lot in her thirty-one years of life.
A divorce.
A career change.
A move to New York City from “small-town” Ohio.
Not to mention, she has a bit of a medical condition that involves occasional fainting spells, mild embarrassment, and the companionship of her adorable service dog and canine sidekick, Benji.
But none of it has prepared her for this.
None of it prepared her for Chase Dawson.
Strong jaw, blue eyes, cut muscles, and a perfect swoop of superhero-worthy black hair, Chase’s features are those of a book boyfriend and then some. Obviously, Brooke would know—she literally filled an entire manuscript with it.
A manuscript no one was ever supposed to see.
Will she survive two months of revising and editing the sizzling romance she imagined with Chase in extremely close quarters with him? Or will the constant white lies and overwhelming attraction make her spontaneously combust?
Read the audiobook review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/40wZxYu
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Light and spicy
Emma
Since the man I thought I would be walking down the aisle with broke up with me, I’ve been focused on my business.
As the designer of Emma Belle Bridal Gowns, headlining the Blushing Bride Convention in Las Vegas has been the highlight of my year. And the legendary editor of The Dress magazine wants to feature me in their upcoming issue?
A dream come true.
And it’s my birthday! Nothing can get me down…except maybe my ex’s engagement splashed across social media.
What’s a girl to do other than drink a truck load of champagne and see a male revue show?
When a dancer pulls me up on stage, the chemistry between us is undeniable.
Forget holy matrimony, I’m going to lower my expectations for one night.
One night that just may last forever.
Griffin
One last night…
After twelve years raising my baby sister, Sophie, and dancing for Las Vegas’s top male revue in order to pay bills and ensure she graduates college, I’m ready to hang up my tearaway pants and start a new life.
My intentions were to protect Emma, a captivating and tipsy woman at the show, from doing something she regrets. With chemistry neither of us can deny, the night takes an unexpected turn and we find ourselves waking up married.
It happens. We’ll correct our mistakes and move on.
But with a viral wedding video, our nuptials end up on Page Six, and Emma needs me in New York to play the part of doting new husband for a career-boosting interview.
I’ll play the part, do what she asks, then we’ll part ways.
Emma’s smart, enchanting and beautiful…and completely unexpected.
But right now, I have nothing to offer a woman like her, let alone forever.
Read the review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/41B22uc
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Angsty and emotional 🎧
A couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
Read the audiobook review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Ko3iKO
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pretty good 🎧
Brace yourself for longing, laughter, and a swoony slow-burn in this brother’s best friend sports romance about scoring the love of your life when you least expect to.
Ziggy
I’m the youngest player on the National Soccer team, the baby of my family, and thoroughly sick of being underestimated, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. Which is where my brother’s best friend and teammate, the infamous Sebastian Gauthier, comes in.
Seb needs to rehab his reputation. I want to give mine an edge. So I propose a fake friendship with real benefits: spending time in the public eye, my good-girl image and his bad-boy notoriety rubbing off on each other. He’s my devious, dark-haired fantasy come to life, but his destructive ways make it easy to keep him in the (fake) friend zone. Or so I thought, until I start to see the heart of gold he’s been hiding beneath that sinister surface…
Sebastian
Like any self-respecting reprobate, I’ve been spiraling downward, and finally I’ve hit rock bottom. My hockey career and sponsorships are in jeopardy, and while I’m not ready to actually reform my ways, I’m happy to pretend that I have, to secure the life I’m on the brink of losing.
So when my best friend’s sister, Ziggy Bergman, proposes a public “friendship” to revamp our reputations, it’s an offer I can’t refuse. Up till now, I’ve stayed away from Ren’s sweet, shy little sister to avoid any risk of ruining my one good friendship. But I reassure myself there’s no risk in our scheme. I’ll fake a friendship with Ziggy, fix my reputation, and get back to hockey, the one and only thing I love. At least, it was, until what began as a transactional arrangement became the most loving relationship I’ve ever known.
If Only You is a brother’s best friend, (fake) friends with benefits to friends to lovers romance about a bighearted, quietly fierce soccer star on the autism spectrum, and a thoroughly unprincipled, almost irredeemable hockey player who has celiac disease. Complete with an absurd level of mutual pining, meddling family and friends, and a spicy slow burn, this standalone is the sixth in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.
Read the audiobook review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/40i6Wv6
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Popcorn read 🎧
Yes, I’m a single dad who needs a nanny for the summer.
But hire the stranded runaway bride who shows up on my doorstep in a wedding gown with no references, no skills, and no experience?
No one is that desperate.
Except within twenty-four hours, down-on-her-luck Veronica Sutton manages to charm my kids, my family, and half the population of Cherry Tree Harbor into believing she’s perfect for the job.
And for me.
It’s not that I can’t see the appeal–those baby blue eyes? The endless legs? That mouth made for trouble? But I’ve got enough on my plate, raising two kids on my own and keeping the family business alive. I don’t have the time or the inclination to fall for an outspoken city girl.
So I should have kept my hands to myself.
Holding her in my arms was a big mistake. Even worse? Spending the night together. She ignites a possessive fire in me that I’m finding hard to snuff out.
But the most unforgivable? Growing attached to the sound of her laugh, the scent of her skin, and the way her body wraps around mine in the dark.
At the end of the summer, she’ll be gone.
And if I’m not careful, she might run away with my heart.
Read the audiobook review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/42Aj0d8
Mini Review
Walker Hartrick was the epitome of a free bird with a devil-may-care attitude until tragedy struck his family and he was thrown into guardianship over his nieces and nephews. To make matters worse, the daughter of the man who destroyed everything he ever cared about moved back to Archwood, Oregon. She’s a reminder of what he lost and the ever-growing list of his failures.
The one person he should never pursue.
Talia Cohen, one half of a failed engagement and new grocery store owner, upended her entire life to move back to her childhood town with its fair share of dark memories. A change of pace was what she wanted—a new life away from the one she’d built in New York City that had come crumbling to the ground. Answering for the sins of her father and continually running into the one person who was adamant about wanting nothing to do with her wasn’t high on her list.
Falling for him was never the plan.
Read the mini review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3FxrfN1
Check out this week’s new releases here.
Follow Jeeves on social media!
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases
Jeeves Reads Romance 
I listened to Happy Place and I think I cried for four hours of it. I loved it and hated it all at the same time! Lol.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I totally get that, it’s intense! I was so invested in their relationship – it was really emotional.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think all of the friendship drama got to me too. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, normally I wouldn’t be that into the friend drama, but it was pretty important to the story!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s awesome having so many great reads. I loved Happy Place.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m happy to hear that! It’s an intense read.
LikeLike