library metadata

Tepid: Reading note 105

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As AO3 is down, I needed a quick hit of romance cray-cray so I thought I would turn to an old and trusted author, Lynne Graham. As usual, there are spoilers, if Happily Ever After for a Mills & Boon novel can even be considered a spoiler.

A bride and groom embracing (real people not cartoon illustrations). The book title convers the bottom third of the book.

Lynne Graham’s Unveiling the Wrong Bride

The Blurb: Empty vows…explosive marriage bed!

Billionaire Tore Renzetti already considered his convenient wedding a farce, before he realised the wrong bride was at the altar! To honour his grandfather, Tore continues with the ceremony, furiously branding his new wife — who he knows just wants his fortune — with a fiery ceremonial kiss…

Bakery owner Violet would do anything to fund her mother’s life-saving treatment. Even standing in for her sister as Tore’s bride! Violet is bound to the Italian for three, passionless years, until that one kiss tempts her to renegotiate their marriage contract…

The title conveys the Wrong! Bride! trope, and this book has all the hallmarks of a classic Lynne Graham novel:

  • Twin sisters!
  • Marriage of Convenience!
  • Blindsided gazillionaire groom!
  • The wrong bride twin turns up!
  • Secret bebbies!
  • Angry Mediterranean man!
  • All women are money-grubbing whores!
  • But this one is an angel!
  • But I can’t let her know!
  • Weirdly (not) a virgin!
  • Oh dear she is divine!
  • She must never know I love her!
  • She has a heart of gold!
  • She knows how to manage my family!
  • She only agreed to the fake marriage to pay for her mother’s cancer treatment!
  • Money can’t buy me love!
  • He swoons!
  • She swoons!
  • And then they fell in love!
  • And live happily ever after.

Ultimately, the book does not deliver. Though Tore and Violet hate each other from the start due to Violet and her sister Tabitha having a last minute (fraternal) twin swapperoo on the wedding day. Understandably, Tore who is coerced (and obligated to his grandparents) to marry their chosen bride for him is apoplectic. This should have allowed for a lot more anger and a lot more heated discussions. However, no-one in this novel gets dragged. The hate is too weak. Everyone was too conciliatory, too kind, too understanding, and even the sense of evil flirty cousin causing jealousies didn’t resonate. Sadly, this story lacked the full punch of absurdity I expect from Lynne Graham, such as we saw in earlier classics such as The Sicilian’s Stolen Son and The Greek’s Chosen Son. There just was not enough revenge and anger resolution to satisfy my melodrama needs.

I also feel that when absurdity is not absurd enough, the sense of reality does not allow for the suspension of disbelief, as it is too grounded and much too close to our world. There is a devastating story about one of my father’s relatives who found himself at the altar marrying the wrong sister, and not the woman whose hand in marriage he had requested. He had approached his eventual father-in-law for a traditional proxy where the bride did not date him or even speak to him before the wedding. The father-in-law deliberately misunderstood which daughter the prospective groom had asked to marry. He was just a young man who had no family present to support him as it was wartime and he was separated from them and far from his home. He had no idea about the detailed information exchange required in a proxy marriage. He was forced to go through a wedding that he had not agreed upon.

I am devastated for the 22 year old with no father, no mother, and no-one to stand up for his interests. I am also devastated for the woman whose father used her to blindside the groom who raged against his marriage for the rest of his life. When he died, his sons told my dad that at least now their mother will get some peace.

Fiction tropes don’t occur in a void. Coerced marriages are not unheard of and nor are they romantic. They destroy lives. Truth is stranger and much more devastating than fiction.

Perhaps I was never going to enjoy this story.

Metadata

My Metadata: absurdist romance, alphabrute, arranged marriage, babies, bat-shit-crazy, castle, category, countryside, dancing, fake name trickery, fake wedding, family dynamics, gazillionaire, grandparents, italian, marriage-of-convenience, martyrdom-for-family, mills-and-boon, misery guts, romance, sex, veddy english, wedding.

Library Metadata: I have searched both local and national libraries across Australia, the USA and the UK and cannot find a library record associated with this book which contains any subject heading descriptors.

Sloppy.

Lush Life: Reading Note 103

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Here is my September TBR challenge review. A few reviews ago, I wrote about Cat Sebastian’s roadtrip romance Peter Cabot Gets Lost, and here is another roadtrip romance by Cat Sebastian this one being her first contemporary novel. As usual, there are lots and lots of spoilers so don’t bother reading if your like surprises.

Book cover for Cat Sebastian's Star Shipped. Pop art in style. Two cartoon drawn handsome men about to kiss under student lights, in front of a green screen. Primary colours. Great cover.

Cat Sebastian’s Star Shipped

The Blurb: Simon and Charlie, actors on a long-running sci-fi show, can’t stand one another. Charlie is impetuous, outgoing, and basically feral, and Simon thinks he should have stayed in reality television where he belongs. They’ve spent the better part of a decade quarreling over the spotlight and pretty much everything else, and everybody in the industry knows it. Now that Simon’s contract is finally done, he can move to New York, start fresh with work he actually likes, and get away from Charlie.

Simon’s only problem is that people might assume he’s been pushed off the show due to being impossible to work with. And he is kind of difficult to work with. He doesn’t get along with people—unlike Charlie, who somehow tricked everyone on the show into adoring him despite some outrageously bad on-set behavior during the show’s first season. Simon would rather never have to see Charlie again, but reluctantly agrees to stage a very public friendship during the short time before he moves. When Charlie has to leave town to deal with a family emergency, this means Simon comes along. Their road trip brings Simon to places he would never have willingly chosen to visit—and he finds he’s actually not having a terrible time.

The more he gets to know Charlie, the more Simon suspects he’s underestimated his former coworker. Simon also realizes that after seven years, Charlie might know him better than anyone ever has. Even stranger, Charlie seems to be starting to actually like him, despite knowing him so well. Still, Simon is about to move three thousand miles away, so whatever’s starting between him and Charlie can’t really amount to anything… right?

In Star Shipped, long-term costars who can barely stand each other, Simon Devereaux and Charlie Blake have been acting together in a Star Trek-y TV series for 7 years. Simon is a complete snob who feels that Charlie lowers the tone of their show as Charlie is a former reality TV star – a bit of shirtless, pretty boy muscles – eye candy for the viewers. Charlie is younger, extroverted, a people pleaser and fun. Charlie is a puppy dog who “accumulates friendships like some kind of snowball of extroversion, always gathering and never letting go”. Meanwhile, Simon is introverted, anxious, suffers from debilitating migraines, has one friend Jaime and his dog, and Simon behaves like a dickhead and isn’t anywhere near as insightful as he thinks he is. Grumpy Simon’s the opposite to Charlie which being co-leading men in the sci-fi series makes life tense for them and their friends even though it makes great TV propelling lots of fandom shippers. Despite his disdain, there are occasional moments with Simon acknowledging that “Charlie learns his lines faster than anyone Simon’s worked with and he’s quick on his feet” and other such asides.

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Freedom: Reading Note 101

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Another day, another TBR Challenge catch up post, this one has the theme of Freedom for the month of July. This one bothered me because it was a five-star love-it read yet I only had a handful of notes from when I read it. I had to borrow it again just to write this review. The usual warnings that there are many spoilers ahead.

book cover for Ava Wilder's Some Kind of Famous. Greek grass, a blue ute/pick-up truck, a male/female couple embracing, white peaked mountains in the background and a pink clear sky

Ava Wilder’s Some Kind of Famous

Blurb: It’s been a decade since Merritt Valentine’s peak as a celebrated singer-songwriter… and her subsequent career-ending mental breakdown. Since then, she’s abandoned the glitz of Los Angeles to move in with her sister, Olivia, in the sleepy Colorado ski town of Crested Peak, hoping to heal her lingering emotional wounds of the spotlight.

Life in Crested Peak would be uncomplicated if not for Merritt’s inconvenient crush on the local contractor and handyman, Nikolaos Petrakis. Niko is disarmingly handsome and too kind-hearted to ever be right for the complex and prickly Merritt. Though tempting, a fling with Niko would only bring the kind of drama Merritt has vowed to leave behind.

After his last heartbreak, Niko is done dating his fellow townies. Still, he can’t shake his fascination with the brilliant Merritt, even as he heeds their mutual friends’ warnings to steer clear of her chaos. But when Merritt needs help fixing up a house of her own, Niko is glad to be the only man for the job.

As the two spend more time together, their mutual attraction sparking a deeper connection than either one expects, they’re forced to confront the idea that they may have underestimated each other– and themselves.

This book opens to a scene where hot mess, super famous musician Merritt Valentine who has been sheltering with her twin sister in a mountain town for the last two years, trying to valiantly recover from a trail of destructive behaviour, self-sabotages when her sister hints at her moving out to Merritt’s own home in the coming year (for good baby reasons). Merritt needs to find a contractor to take on her home higher up in the mountains. Queue local jack-of-all-trades Nikolaos Petrakis who “was so beautiful he was almost boring, rescued only by a handful of jolie laid imperfections”. Through a series of house consultations, trips to trade shops, and dinners at their local bar, Merritt and Niko talk, laugh, belt out ABBA songs (also adoring the movie Mamma Mia!), indulge in rhythmless dancing (a delightful scene) and develop a rapport while trying very hard to keep from hooking up. But this is a romance, and of course they cross that line. Sex between the two of the brings about an even deeper understanding of how they are in their local community together, especially as this relationship has a deadline with Niko planning on permanently moving away to another part of the country. But their connection is too strong, their approaches to life problems so similar, and their tolerance for differences bring them close together.

This was not an easy coming together. Merritt had many mental health issues. And through a lot of therapy and help, she had come to a stage of coping with life. Merritt seems to think that she isn’t worthy of a good life and good relationships due to her past responses:

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Pride: Reading Note 100

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Though my 100th note seems like a huge achievement, I want to point out that I only started the note series in 2019, 10 years after I started my blog. I still want to give it some attention, and as SuperLibrarian Wendy’s TBR Challenge theme for June is Pride, I am going to discuss one of Rachel Reid’s lesser known books The Shots You Take released in 2025. Once again, I reveal all, there are spoilers galore. If you want no surprises, do not keep reading.

Rachel Reid’s The Shots You Take

A sweet and sexy hockey romance about two ex-teammates and former best friends with benefits who are about to discover whether you can ever really have a second chance. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid.

After moving back to his hometown ten years ago, Riley Tuck thought he had left his major league hockey career—and his broken heart—far behind. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes, it brings ex-teammate and former best friend with benefits Adam Sheppard back into his life.

Coming to the small town of Avery River, Nova Scotia, might have been a mistake. Adam’s not sure he’ll ever win back Riley’s trust after the way they left things—and the attention he’s getting as a huge hockey star isn’t exactly helping. Yet the chemistry that crackles between them is undeniable, even now.

As Adam helps Riley navigate his grief, long-buried feelings start to resurface. But they’ll have to square off with their complicated past if they’re going to have a real shot at a new beginning.

After waiting 3 months on my library holds queue, this book came through for me on Monday and I accidently read it in the one day.

I have no notes.

No notes at all.

I was so far lost reading through the this page-turner novel, a second-chance at love romance for former best-friends and superstar hockey players Riley and Adam. The novel starts at the funeral of Riley’s beloved father who has just died suddenly and unexpectedly. Riley is wracked with grief in the church where he sees Adam turn up to attend the funeral service. As the story unfolds, we find out that Riley and Adam were drafted together as young (and dumb and poorly equipped to deal with life) adults who lived in a shared apartment together while they played hockey in Toronto. In their third(?)/fourth(?) year of playing, Adam gets drunk enough to start having sex with (gay) Riley who has been deeply in love with him for a long time. None of these are spoilers as they are revealed early in the story, as is the unsurprising denial of love from Adam who continues to claim to be straight, who gets married and has children with (his now ex-wife) Maggie. Newly divorced and out Adam is finally ready to court Riley, but Riley had left playing professional hockey 12 years earlier, devastated by Adam’s rejection, devastated by their actions after a cup win, devastated enough to move to another team, and so devastated that he spiralled into harmful and damaging mental health behaviour. Riley left hockey and returned home to recover, and Adam’s reappearance unwillingly brings all the memories and emotions to the fore.

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Tropetastic: Reading Note 97

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I have been lost to my blogging world since March when I had the good fortune to watch and then read Heated Rivalry. My first post for this topic was a review on Heated Rivalry which then turned into a partial academic paper where I am now sitting on 800 words and a 20 slide presentation with nowhere to present it1. So instead, I am going to write about the road trip romance trope for Wendy SuperLibrarian’s TBR Challenge for March in October. Don’t mind me and my lateness. Also a reminder that I always have spoilers. Look away if you don’t want to know what happens at the end.

Cat Sebastian’s Peter Cabot Gets Lost.

The Blurb and Content notes taken straight from the author’s website:

Summer 1960:

After years of scraping by, Caleb Murphy has graduated from college and is finally getting to start a new life. Except he suddenly has no way to get from Boston to Los Angeles. Then, to add to his misery, there’s perfect, privileged Peter Cabot offering to drive him. Caleb can’t refuse, even though the idea of spending a week in the car with a man whose luggage probably costs more than everything Caleb owns makes him want to scream.

Peter Cabot would do pretty much anything to skip out on his father’s presidential campaign, including driving across the country with a classmate who can’t stand him. After all, he’s had plenty of practice with people not liking him much—his own family, for example. The farther Peter gets from his family’s expectations, the more he starts to think about what he really wants, and the more certain he becomes that what he wants is more time with prickly, grumpy Caleb Murphy. As they put more miles between themselves and their pasts, they both start to imagine a future where they can have things they never thought possible. Content notes available2.

The road trip is a romance in its own right, with the changeable settings, navigating the landscape. Then add to the road trip love and the coming together of two people who find themselves in forced proximity with all the joys and tensions that come from being in a car. The romance road trip is the modern day Odyssey, a heroes’ journey both to a destination and to finding their sense of self and sense of connection while fighting off the Cyclops and the Laistrygenians. Unlike the wine-dark sea—antiquity’s water superhighway—in the modern day version, the romance is grounded, it is earth based, trees, deserts, lakes, mountains, terra firma, soil beneath their feet, tar for the tyre treads. The modern roadtrip, just like in the Odyssey, culminating with the love proposition, the conviction and reliability of the marriage bed, a journey worthy of courtship3. Cat Sebastian affirms the role of the roadtrip as a narrative choice in this book, writing that “travelling across the country to be with a lover is a venerable tradition”, and for Peter and Caleb, this is story is centred on their own queer journey together.

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TBR Challenge – Still here: Reading note 95 and Observation Note 119

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I am still here but in my own rushed interpretation of the SuperWendy’s TBR challenge, I am posting super-late (so late that it is February). I have also decided to change up my book review template this year, including a discussion of each book’s metadata, so it may get a bit technical in my tiny corner of the internet. And just a tad ranty and sweary.

Book cover: has a pink sky and a green gabled house with a green fence. A blond man on one side of the fence and a woman with a fox at her feet reading a book on the other side of the fence.

Sangu Mandanna’s A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping

Blurb: “Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps her great-aunt run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests’ shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for the future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power…. Enter Luke Larsen, a handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark winter evening and might just know how to unlock the spell’s secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing. Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone…and that the weird, wonderful family she’s made might be the best magic of all”.

I felt like I waited forever for my library hold to come through to me. I placed it in July 2025 just to receive it in January 2026. I really enjoy magic (and witch) books set in the real world. I have no patience for trying to read through other worlds being built while also trying to understand a plot. Set in very pretty Lancashire in the UK, the titular inn is quaint with splendid gardens in abundance.

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