new adult – chelsea usher

[Book Review] Meant to Be: If the Shoe Fits

Title: Meant to Be: If the Shoe Fits
Author: Julie Murphy
Genre: romance; humor; new adult; contemporary
Synopsis: (from Goodreads) After having just graduated with a degree in shoe design, and trying to get her feet on the ground, Cindy is working for her stepmother, who happens to be the executive producer of America’s favorite reality show, Before Midnight. When a spot on the show needs filling ASAP, Cindy volunteers, hoping it might help jump-start her fashion career, or at least give her something to do while her peers land jobs in the world of high fashion.

Turns out being the only plus size woman on a reality dating competition makes a splash, and soon Cindy becomes a body positivity icon for women everywhere. What she doesn’t expect? That she may just find inspiration-and love-in the process. Ultimately, Cindy learns that if the shoe doesn’t fit, maybe it’s time to design your own.

Review: 5/5 stars

It’s not often that the plus size girl gets a whole ass romance plot (and isn’t just a side character) but this one is good! Cinderella meets the Bachelor meets Devil Wears Prada.

The step family in this Cinderella tale isn’t terrible, the Bachelor isn’t terrible, and neither are all the women in the show. The fashion industry isn’t full of superficial 2D characters that hate on sight. There’s a lot of meaningful depth and love in the relationships and characters in this book. I enjoyed watching each of the characters – the main and the sides – get unraveled. They were all so different in personality and expression.

Lots of really strong storytelling and good messaging in this book with an amazing love story woven in there too. In this book, the plus size girl gets a HEA.

[Book Review] The Holiday Swap

Title: The Holiday Swap
Author: Maggie Knox
Genre: contemporary romance; christmas; fiction
Synopsis: (from Goodreads) A feel-good, holiday-themed romantic comedy about identical twins who switch lives in the days leading up to Christmas–perfect for fans of Christina Lauren’s In a Holidaze and Josie Silver’s One Day in December.

All they want for Christmas is a different life.

When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the L.A. set of her reality baking show, she loses a lot more than consciousness; she also loses her ability to taste and smell–both critical to her success as show judge. Meanwhile, Charlie’s identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family’s bustling bakery and dealing with her ex, who won’t get the memo that they’re over.

With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie asks Cass to do something they haven’t done since they were kids: switch places. Looking for her own escape from reality, Cass agrees. But temporarily trading lives proves more complicated than they imagined, especially when rugged firefighter Jake Greenman and gorgeous physician’s assistant Miguel Rodriguez are thrown into the mix. Will the twins’ identity swap be a recipe for disaster, or does it have all the right ingredients for getting their lives back on track?

Review: 1/5 stars

DNF

Got about 35% of the way through, couldn’t handle the twins that felt like strangers dynamic. Too Hallmark for me.

There were so many instances where the twins could have done X but did nothing instead. That made me mad in just the first 30% of the book. Like, they didn’t even tell each other everything the other needed to know in order to successfully complete the swap.

Loved the concept but not the follow through.

[Book Review] Priest

Title: Priest
Author: Sierra Simone
Genre: contemporary romance; erotica; new adult
Synopsis: (from Goodreads) There are many rules a priest can’t break.
A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot forsake his God.

I’ve always been good at following rules.
Until she came.
My name is Tyler Anselm Bell. I’m twenty-nine years old. Six months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again.
I am a priest and this is my confession.

***Priest is a standalone, full-length novel with an HEA. For mature audiences only.***

Review: 3/5 stars

** spoiler alert **

It was okay. I picked it up because it was (over)hyped on Twitter. I don’t regret it, necessarily, but it was just okay.

The storytelling and character development didn’t do it for me. There’s a small town parish, and then we meet the MCs and then the sex begins. And then there’s backstory. And then the drama. And then it ends with a sexy HEA. Idk. It fell into the smut too quickly (gasp) and it didn’t build up to any real conflict or character development to make it mean something.

But it seemingly TRIED to. So it wasn’t just smut for smuts sake.

Tyler’s character was very impulsive and for someone who had this higher calling, he was very “act first, beg forgiveness second” — like that was how it worked. Maybe it does? Idk. It didn’t do it for me. He’s so relatable and so hot and so manly and so godly. If he’s all these things he’s none of these things, and it’s proven false immediately.

Poppy had so much potential. She could have been this amazing character but instead she is just kind of meh. We’re told she is Ivy League. We’re told she did charity work. We’re told she did CPA work. We’re told she likes good sex. She doesn’t ever really grow as a character and she doesn’t ever unfold as a character. She just is. And then martyrs herself (sort of) for a man. BS.

I liked Millie. She was cool.

[Book Review] A Spell of Rowans

Title: A Spell of Rowans
Author: Byrd Nash
Genre: fiction; fantasy; paranormal mystery; contemporary romance;
Synopsis: (from Goodreads) Raised by a narcissistic mother, the Rowan children’s magical talents were twisted to fit her needs. When Rachel dies, her children must confront the past to have a future.

Rachel Rowan could sniff out secrets and her antique shop, Rosemary Thyme, was a front to torment the residents of Grimsby. When she dies, her children are faced with the deadly fallout of blackmail, murder, and magic.

Victoria, whose empathic talent knows everyone’s hidden feelings; Philippa, whose glamour can bewitch; and Liam, the brother who touches objects to reveal their secrets, all find themselves in danger.

When her autistic brother is arrested, Vic needs to discover the truth to set him free.

A successful art restorer in the big city, Vic’s made a career of ignoring her past and hiding her strange powers. But with Rachel’s death, she must gamble away her secrets to face down forces determined to destroy her and her siblings.

And that hometown boy she dumped way back? He’s in Grimsby, and knows the truth about her.

Review: 5/5 stars

Content warnings: childhood abuse, neglect, violence, and trauma; rehashed childhood trauma as an adult; assault; attempted rape.

Nash has created one of my favorite books of 2021. This book is an exciting magical mystery that could easily be turned into the next Netflix series. I enjoyed the characters, the sibling dynamic, and the plot development from page 1 all the way until the end. Even the short epilogue was great!

The Rowan family story is told through a first person perspective, so we get Vic, the middle daughter’s account of the goings on after her mother’s death— but there’s so much more to it than an old woman dying.

Death is only the beginning of this entire plot line. It just gets better as mysteries are unraveled and new characters are introduced. Vic as two siblings, Pip and Liam, who are also trying to survive after their mother’s legacy. Enter Hunter, a big city lawyer, and Reed, an FBI agent / Vic’s high school boyfriend and then things get interesting.

There always seems to be a few characters that can’t get past an old grudge, like a decade’s old grudge right? Well, that’s Reed’s dad— the town’s old chief of police.

Everyone knows everyone, but no one knows anyone’s truth, and that’s what makes this book so, so good. There’s mystery, murder, betrayal, love, and intrigue until the very end.

I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Review] the sun and her flowers by Rupi Kaur

Title: the sun and her flowers
Author: Rupi Kaur
Genre: poetry; feminism; nonfiction; adult; contemporary; romance; health; mental health; cultural; women’s literature
Syposis: (from Goodreads) A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.

Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.

Review:

2 Stars
CW: sexual assault

Full disclosure. I have not read Milk & Honey. I do not regularly read poetry. (As in weekly, or even bi-weekly, or even on a consistent basis.) I do not buy poetry anthologies. I do not typically look out for poetry reads, but here I am, rating one?

What right do I have to rate one? Well, I’m using my same scale. For me, a two star book means that the I finished it, it was okay, but it’s not something I’m going to actively recommend to others or put in my classroom library. So yeah; it was alright.

I think the problem for me was that there’s a lot of hype for Milk & Honey and then I went into this hoping to get something spectacular and wasn’t blown away. And I’ll admit that wasn’t fair of me to do. I know that out the gate. I also, even though I hate it, have this idea in my head that poetry should also BE something, you know? That it should always mean something profound and spectacular. That’s not to say there weren’t some really wonderful, even powerful poems, but it wasn’t something I find myself wanting to talk about after.

There were so many poems in there that were just… like, words on a page to me. And like, maybe Kaur’s point is to revolutionize poetry, to like every-person it, and in that, I get some of it. But, it just didn’t fit my style of reading, and so I stand by my review, even though I rarely review poetry. Here are some of the specifics from the book I’d like to discuss:

There were two poems in particular; one about consent and one about sexual assault that stood out. So much of poetry, historically and even today is this lofty thing, but Kaur, in these two poems specifically makes her intention clear and precise. The one about assault, untitled, begins “at home at night / I filled the bathtub with scorching water / …I picked pine needles from my hair / … I wept / …I found bits of him on bits of me” (Kaur).

The way she breaks down the sexual assault is tragic, but is, in my opinion, intentionally simple. The speaker is reduced to the remains of the event. It’s powerful and heartbreaking. And at the end, the girl “prayed” (Kaur). Because like, what else can you do after something horrible like that happens to you? The emotional response I was left with, regardless of how “simple” the words on the page were was heavy. This was a weighted poem and I was left with all of the emotions and unrest of the theme.

The one about consent is called “how can I verbalize consent as an adult if I was never taught as a child” and illustrates this pretty intense scenario and asks that very difficult question of its readers with its title.

The opening line is “no was a bad word in my home / no was met with the lash / erased from our vocabulary” (Kaur 1-3). The poem continues with the image of the speaker being sexually assaulted. She then says, “I heard no pounding her fist on the roof of my mouth / begging me to let her out / But I had not put up the exit sign” (Kaur 12-15). This is another really strong message in an accessible way. It can start, or maybe continue, a conversation that needs to be had without a person having to dissect a difficult poem to figure out a way to do so.

Again, I was left with these really powerful emotions, feeling the weight of this poem in my heart and honestly, in my body after reading, really grappling with it. Her words do have power.

Not all of poems are about tough topics. In fact, a lot of them aren’t. Some are about sunflowers and rainbows. Some are about self-acceptance and self-love. All of her poems are easily accessible. I think she has a really strong balance of putting the harder to swallow poems in between these easily, smaller ones.

Another that I really liked was about the heart. She writes, “what is stronger / than the human heart / which shatters over and over / and still lives” (Kaur). So simple, honest, but true.

And really, I think it’s the truth in Kaur’s poetry that got her the hype. She isn’t saying a lot of big things, new things, revolutionary things. She isn’t saything anything in a new way, it’s just stripped back, raw, and true.

At the end of the day, 2 stars overall.

[Review] House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)

Title: House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
Author: Sarah J Maas
Genre: fantasy; new adult; adult; romance; mystery; series
Synopsis: (from Goodreads) Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life—working hard all day and partying all night—until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.

Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose—to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.

As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion—one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.

Review: 3 Stars

Spoiler content warning! Proceed with caution!

Like many others, I preordered this book and waited with bated breath. Then tore into it the moment it arrived. And then. I wasn’t dazzled? Like, it took over 100 pages for me to get into it and even then, the only reason I kept reading at all was because it was an SJM book. Here’s the good news— it got better over time!

While I never truly fell in love with any of her characters (maybe a few side characters) I did really enjoy the plot by the middle. I loved the bare bones of it: a murder mystery whodunit. I liked that SJM gave us little pieces that kept coming back up throughout the book (Bryce going to the Istros and seeing something creepy, Danika and Bryce getting caught up in something scary when Danika says she loves Bryce, Hunt’s backstory with Shahar, Jesiba’s whole character in general, Fury) that kept the plot moving.

There were a few plot twists that I definitely expected:

Micah — duh.
Hypaxia, obviously.
“What blinds an Oracle?” (471)

But I found that I didn’t care too much that I saw them coming because it kept the story going, just like the little clues. It was well done.

I really liked the world building in this book. SJM wrote unique and distinct subsets of Lunathion and it was brilliant. SJM’s writing style changed depending on where we were in Crescent City. I really loved that. My heart raced when they were in the Meat Market. Sentences seemed shorter. When Bryce and Hunt were at the shooting range, there was a carefree feel to the writing that made me feel like the characters. The energy and time put into this element of the book is clear. Moonwood, FiRo, the Gallery — each territory is its own space, and it’s so wonderfully done.

Another thing I love about SJM is how she goes about creating a new mythos in each book series. It’s clear she’s setting her readers up for a new series too. Before even jumping into the book, readers are given a preview on the “Houses of Midgard” so we’re aware that we’ll be diving right in. At the very bottom of this page, it says, “Sprites were kicked out of their House as a result of their participation in the Fall, and are now considered Lowers, though many of them refuse to accept this.” This preview lets us all know that we’re in for something bigger, but I for one, didn’t expect the amount of the Fall storyline that we got in this book too.

Overall, in terms of worldbuilding, I felt like I was thrown into the deep end — (literally every mythical beast will appear, any animal can be a shifter — can we talk about the magpie shifter at the market? omggg — every scary creature you’ve ever heard of is in there too, and angels, fae, and mermaids will be in here also) but I knew how to swim, so… I dealt with it.

That being said, her characters were not fun. Like. From Bryce to Hunt to all of them, it was tough to care about literally any of them. I get that SJM wanted to write an adult fantasy book but having her main heroine be the jaded party girl was not easy to read. I think I understood the intention — hide who you truly are and watch people show you their true colors — right? But in my opinion, that went on too long. Bryce’s grief was palpable and parts of that felt so real and so raw, and I truly go that. Those pages were tense and hard to read for the right reasons. But so much of Bryce was hard to read for the wrong reasons.

And don’t get me started on Hunt. With his brooding “tortured soul” thing? It was just really rough to read for SO MANY pages.

Bryce is very anti- alphahole the whole book, but then, on a DIME, she turns around and attempts to give up everything for Hunt. Her entire character is built on this idea of not giving up herself for a man, and then she sells herself to Jesiba for him? Tries to sell herself to Sandriel for him? After everything he did to her — it’s like antithetical to her character. I still don’t understand it as a plot point.

Some of the other characters were also like… kind of like character cliché shells to me. Like Ruhn, Bryce’s overbearing-yet-essential-skill-having parents, the friends who just give up on her when everything with Danika goes down.

It was almost like the plot took all of SJM’s attention and then she just pulled character cards that she started working on but hadn’t finished yet. It’s almost like she plans on filling out the character traits in the subsequent books in the series.

At the end of the day, I still:

read all 800+ pages

still enjoyed:

the banter between Bryce and Tharion
Bryce telling off Ithan and the wolves
Hunt telling off Amelie
Bryce’s dynamic with Lehabah and Syrinx

still cried when:

“My friends are behind me, and I will protect them” (702) and “My friends are with me and I am not afraid” (703).
“I forgave him a long time ago… I just didn’t know how to tell him” (735).
“Light it up, Bryce” (764).

and will still buy the next one.

Red, White & Royal Blue Review

41150487._SY475_ Title: Red, White & Royal Blue
Author: Casey McQuiston
Genre: romance; contemporary; LGBT; new adult; fiction
Synopsis: (from Goodreads): What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?

Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn’t always diplomatic.

Review: 4 Stars

Casey McQuiston’s 2019 romance was as funny as it was tender. It was sweet and kind but also witty and full of banter and sexy flirting from the millennial characters McQuiston created. It was so well done too. All of the millennial / gen z generation characters felt fully dimensional. In fact, the characters that fell flat for me were the older generation. The ones I didn’t really care about, even if they were the ones apparently leading the nation. *shrug*

Alex and Henry had me from Cakegate. Their energy was electric. From the moment Henry called Alex out and was like, “you’re the one always coming to seek me out, Alex,” I was hooked on them.

When McQuiston wrote in the banter from the people following them on internet, the newspaper, Twitter, on Buzzfeed, etc. I felt like it literally could have been me. Particularly the “OMG just make out already” comments after their first television filming.

But it’s not just about their snark and witty repartee. It’s also about their tender moments and their private email exchanges. I loved how they sent excerpts from actual letters in history. I loved how that began with Hamilton and John Laurens. It was a fun, and particularly pop culturally relevant way to start their love story.

The author was, in my opinion, particularly brilliant with how she allowed their love story to unfold. The clandestine meetings, their secret texts, their private emails, their innuendos, and the help of the seven people they trust. It just works. It helps build the suspense but also brings with it this reminder that it has to end. Logically, as a reader, I knew somehow they would get exposed, and from some of the repeated phrases, I guessed (SEE! I CAN GUESS THE ENDINGS!!! TAKE THAT LAST TWO BOOKS) correctly. It was a really volatile coming out for both of them and it felt like a real invasion of their privacy, but I really like how they all handled it.

I don’t have any experience with this, so I can’t speak to whether McQuiston handled this with grace and empathy, but I thought Alex and Henry were strong and brave AF. They stood up to the MF Queen of England for Christ’s sake.

The LGBT representation in this book was awesome. Nora and Alex pulling it out for the bi team, Amy for the trans community, Henry and Raf for the gay community, Cash for the pan community, and then all the other characters as strong allies. (I don’t think I missed anyone, but I’m writing this review without the book to skim through, so if I am, please comment below).

Getting back to the older generation for a second, they all seemed so flat. The only one that really gave me anything was Alex’s dad. When they were in Texas for their weekend away from the world, I really loved how the father just accepts Alex. He even teases him and calls himself the patron saint of genderless bathrooms in California I think.

But they have a good conversation about how it’s different when it’s your own kid, which I think is a good distinction to have. Oscar (dad) says it isn’t any different for him, and Alex is his kid and he loves him just the same— but it really is for some parents. I’ve heard parents say that they’re okay with it as long as it isn’t THEIR kid. (Gross, btw)

So for Oscar and Alex to have this conversation, it’s pretty cool.

POTUS has a moment of humanity when she kicked her staff out and asked if Alex was okay, but other than that, she was just a politician, through and through.

I think in general, the book is one written in response to what happened in the last election. It’s a HEA, and it’s FICTION, so it’s not this super realistic account of what could happen tomorrow. This was one of the concerns I read about when I got the book— “it’s too unrealistic, it would never happen” — in my opinion, that’s why it’s uh, FICTION? And that’s also why I like it. It’s the dream election for 2019, that’s what makes it good.

The POTUS is also a Democrat, so the politics mentioned in the book, naturally, swing left too, but that didn’t bother me either. I figured that would be the case so I didn’t get caught off guard by it.

Another criticism I read was about how Henry hates the monarchy while still benefitting from it. I lol’d at that. Henry’s character literally struggles with being part of an empire built on genocide and war the whole book, going so far as to never spend any of that money. I liked his character development. I don’t really understand the criticism I guess. *shrug*

Overall, this book is driven by more than just Henry and Alex. It’s also Nora and June and Pez and Amy and Cash and Bea and supported by the POTUS and a double agent (triple agent?) and a senator and two protective agents who care deeply, even if they pretend they don’t.

It was an idealistic HEA and I loved it. Pick it up today.