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Shards of Glass by Michelle Sagara

4 out of 5 Stars  This story flows on from the events in Cast in Wisdom, book 15 of the so far 17 book series, The Chronicles of Elantra. In a sense, it is a side story in the series. It is about the university.  It would be very difficult to understand what on earth is going on without having read the earlier books. Sagara does not spoon-feed the reader. This series has some of the densest, richest world-building I have ever read. The characters are complex and nuanced. We don't see Kaylin in this story. The protagonists are Robin and Raven. They are quite different from Kaylin, the protagonist in the longer series. They are both interesting and likable people. The story is very much "What Is Going On? Why?" The story is satisfying, and a bit more about this world, the university, and the city is filled in. Interesting characters are added. I hope we see more of Robin, Raven and Giselle in subsequent books. Thank you Netgalley, for providing me with this advanced review ...
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All The Dead Shall Weep, a Gunnie Rose Novel by Charlaine Harris

 All The Dead Shall Weep This is book 5 of Charlaine Harris's Gunnie Rose series.  I have been reading Harris' work for decades. Netgalley kindly provided me with an ARC for review. Usually, when I finish a book, I can write a review fairly quickly. After finishing All the Dead Shall Weep, I was left thinking: "what was that? What do I say?" I decided to put it aside, reread it, and go from there. The book easily withstood a second reading within weeks of the first. In other words, it is an interesting enjoyable read. Unlike the earlier books, this one really was "an installment". The reading experience was very much "This is happening, and then suddenly this, and then suddenly this...What is Going On!?" Unlike the earlier books, events occur around Rose's settlement, so we see more interactions with Gunnie Rose, her family and the people around her. We also enjoy her and Felicia getting to know each other, and learning to work with and around ...
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Time To Shine by Rachel Reid

 I loved this book.  I asked Netgalley for this review copy because I have loved Rachel Reid's other hockey books. I am very glad I did! Having said that, this book has a very different "feel" from her game-changers books. As another reviewer has said, this world is much kinder and less homophobic than the world in that other series.  The two characters are well-rounded and absolutely delightful. If Reid wrote another book with them just talking about the phone book, (showing my age here) I'd pounce right on it. I hope she writes more books in this world, and that these guys appear in it.  She did something very difficult: she wrote a successful, sweet and touching romance between two guys with quite different sexualities and very other very real issues.  Reid knows her ice hockey. Recently there have been a plethora of ice-hockey romances where the author clearly had little engagement with the sport. Reid is not one of those authors.
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Only You

Only You (Coming of Age #3)  by Leta Blake  5 Stars The first two books in this series came out in 2016. They engrossed me utterly. How delighted I was, to learn that the final book was being released! The series is described as a "coming of age" story, not a romance. There are major relationship plots throughout the three books, but the story is about Peter's life as a whole, with his family, with his school, with his studies, his social life and so on.  This book starts immediately after the end of book 2. I had to quickly go back to book 2 to reread (for the third time) the last chunk of the book to understand what was going on. (While doing so I felt the strong need to reread the first two books again. I still plan to so soon). Only You is just as splendid and engrossing as the first two books. The joins are seamless, which is amazing given that this last book was written many years (7?) after the first two.  This is the story of Peter's first year at university,...
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The Prodigal Prince's Fake Fiancé

The Prodigal Prince's Fake Fiancé by Thursday Euclid and Clancy Nacht My rating: 2 of 5 stars ...I only kept skimming my way through this because it was free, and I kept waiting to enjoy it?  The authors depict the reality and vulnerability of being a trans guy very well I thought.  I didn't really enjoy this book because it didn't feel like the MCs were enjoying themselves. I was well shown, as a reader, that they were falling in love/were in love with each other, and enjoyed being together, but they were never happy about it. I REALLY did not like all the lying and deception. It's a fake fiancé book, which I knew, but I thought maybe being a couple of very rich people might make up for it. It didn't. There I was, flicking away at 50% of the book (getting that far took me a couple of days) ..."I'm so not enjoying this..." flick flick flick... Spoiler: One MC didn't tell the other anything about his family until 60% into the book. There was so much...
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Perfectly Mismatched (Pine Wood Falls #4)

Perfectly Mismatched by Sarah Havan My rating: 3 of 5 stars The content warnings for this one include sexual assault and prolonged ("natural") childbirth scenes. Pay attention to these warnings. The alpha in this one was pretty awful, as they so often are in this series.  Broadly speaking, the world-building of the entire series has been pretty good.  Again, the pregnancy and relationship development progress in parallel. There is an added plot element, the sexual assaults and aftermath. The characters are well depicted.  As through the whole series, the omegas are all slim and sensitive, and the alphas are all large and pretty awful. This book includes an awful shouty family (who are amoung the good guys, not the vilains). In this series the characters are all very pro "natural birth" by which they mean childbirth without pain killers and the minimum of medical intervention. The childbirth workers such as the doula, nurses, midwives and doctors are all cheerfully n...
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An Omega Kind of Love (Pine Wood Falls #3)

An Omega Kind of Love (Pine Wood Falls #3)  by Sarah_Havan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I liked this one better than the previous two, because I liked the two omegas. The Alphas tend to be a bit awful.  This book depicts the burgeoning relationship, the pregnancy and then the birth.  Havan notes "intense sex scenes" in the trigger warning at the beginning, but not the giving ("natural") birth scene at the end. You know, lots of prolonged screaming in agony. This series is a bit different from many mpreg series because it details the process of the pregnancy. Read 7 April 2023
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