definitely, possibly, maybe

the love scam is part rom-com, part caper, and rake tarbell is the perfect hero for this kind of story. he's rich but also ridiculous, and when he gets caught up in lilith and claire's shenanigans, well zany things happen.  this story is fizzy and charming, but there's not a lot of substance here. the plot is fun, the cast engaging, but i personally prefer a bit more heft.  still the perfect book to read while relaxing by the pool. **the love scam will publish on august 4, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/st. martin's press in exchange for my honest review. 

this scavenger hunt story pits two rivals against each other and the rest of their senior class in a night that will change everything. today tonight tomorrow  finds rowan and neil—usually at the one and two spots in their class—having just learned that neil has come out on top in the valedictorian race.  rowan, therefore, has one last chance to beat him. every year the junior class organizes a citywide scavenger hunt called howl. and rowan wants to win. but when her classmates target her and neil, they find themselves teaming up, and along the way learning that there is more to their rival than they ever knew.  this is one of those young adult stories that perfectly captures the feelings of the end of high school. that sense that time is running out, but also the exhilarating feeling of everything that lies in wait just beyond the bend.  **today tonight tomorrow will publish on july 28, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/simon & schust...

i totally picked the friend scheme  up (or rather requested the book) based on the cover. something about it appealed to me. if i had known that it was a retelling of one of my least favorite shakespearan plays, maybe i'd have reconsidered.  i'm just not a huge romeo & juliet  fan, and i think because this is a retelling of a play, one of the literary conceits the author uses is a lot of dialogue. like a lot of dialogue. and it's fine, i guess, but i also find that this keeps the reader at some distance, and i generally prefer a mix of dialogue and inner thoughts and physical details to ground the story. and it's not that they were missing exactly, but...i don't know.  this might also be a retelling but let's just say that it doesn't end the way the original does. this isn't a tragedy. it's just surprisingly insubstantial at the end,  **the friend scheme will publish on july 28, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/macmil...

as the follow up to waite's the lady's guide to celestial mechanics , the care and feeding of waspish widows  is an excellent second entry in the feminine pursuits series.  agatha griffin, a widowed mother trying to keep her printing business afloat while taxes are on the rise and censorship is rampant. so when she finds a nest of bees in a warehouse it's a pretty big problem. so when penelope, a beautiful beekeeper, comes on the scene to help agatha get rid of the problem, the connection and friendship that blossoms between them is unexpected.  penelope has a long-absent husband, and england is ruled by a queen who is consumed by the idea of modesty so the women risk quite a bit in exploring their relationship further,  but what they find in each other is well worth it. this was so worth the read.  **the care and feeding of waspish widows will publish on july 28, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/harper collins (avon) in exchange for...

i adore jenny holiday. i love her on twitter. i love her books. even when she kills me with second-chance romances. paradise cove  is the kind of second chance romance i love though. it's about finding love after grief. i love stories that tackle this. there's something about breaking a character's heart and finding a way to rebuild it.  i adored this story. i was excited to get back to matchmaker bay, but seriously, i loved paradise cove  so much. nora and jack go through so much but at the end of the day what they find in each other is everything i love about romance.  just, do yourself a favor and pick up this series. or anything by jenny. honestly.  **paradise cove will publish on july 28, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/grand central publishing (forever) in exchange for my honest review. 

the mall  is like mallrats  in book form to some degree. so totally 90s in feel. the nostalgia is real. i'm not always a fan of stories that take place in the recent past. and in this case, i'm not convinced that it couldn't have worked in the here and now, except for the fact that the here and now is an insane pandemic where no one is hanging out at a mall and online shopping is the only game in town.  so for sweeping me away to the good old days, to the days where i spent time at the mall with my friends and we didn't have cell phones and social media to perform for, the mall  was the perfect escape.  **the mall will publish on july 28, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/wednesday books in exchange for my honest review. 

book two in the hotshot series, high heat , finds garrick recovering from the harrowing accident that served as the climax for book one. and so, it's less sexy firefighters and more about a man who is learning to live a new normal and accept a reality where he won't be able to perform the job he loves in the same way anymore. or really perform many tasks in the same way anymore. it's kind of heavy, and while the love story that he shares with rain is incredible, the support and compassion and true understanding between them is really lovely. it's at times overshadowed by the extent of injury garrick is recovering from. it's well worth the read, and i'm looking forward to the next book in the series. but i didn't enjoy it quite as much as book one, but it was still really good. i appreciated all the realism and all the amazing disability rep, i guess i don't know what i was really expecting. this wasn't quite it. **high heat will publish on july...

danae is maybe wound a little bit tight. she conditionally got the promotion she'd been angling for, she's leading a boat tour-slash-teambuilding exercise with her colleagues for a week, and the captain of the ship isn't responding to her emails. to be fair to josh, danae sends a lot of emails. but he did the whole corporate world thing and the whole marriage and divorce thing and now wants to spend his days on the open sea.  he doesn't expect to connect with the inflexible woman who's been hounding him with final updates to their cruise schedule. but when she lets down her guard, danae is warm and charming. when he gets her to slow down she can appreciate that there is beauty and peace in not always striving. and josh learns that not all commitment is a bad thing, and there is something to be said about tying yourself to the person who sparks joy every time you see them.  sailing at sunset  is a lovely, sweet romance. **sailing at sunset will publish on july 21, 20...

i was so looking forward to more than maybe . but i was also really nervous because i loved you'd be mine . and you just never know with second books. and i still don't know. because i certainly loved luke and vada and their relationship, but maybe this book wasn't quite for me.  but as much as i love books about music, i think i love books that are about the making of music. the way sound and words play together to make music on the page. this book was about music, but about songs and bands and stuff i actually find really boring. i don't listen to music this way. i don't hear lyrics. i feel things when i listen to music. the words to a song don't matter to me as much as the way i feel about it. so i don't remember the names to songs or the bands that played them. i would never identify people based on songs, and i think the issue is that using that as a descriptor makes it hard as a reader who doesn't have the same musical knowledge nor the interest. i...

dirty tactics  tackles the best friend's younger sister trope in steamy style, and reagan and zac have all kinds of chemistry. i have no objection to that, at all. i think there's all sorts of interesting conflicts to be had when you have all sorts of history and some real stakes in that friendships are not something people want to give up on or endanger. friend breakups are worse than romance breakups, after all. this story was more character-driven than plot-driven, and it makes sense, but here's the thing. i am just not a flashback fan. and there were enough of them here that just pulled me out of the action. i don't see the point of "showing" me a whole scene that isn't actually pushing the plot forward. i don't know. this is a very personal pet peeve, and comes into play with books like this, where the characters have a lot of history.  **dirty tactics will publish on july 20, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/carina pr...