Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Goodreads take: First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?
my take: 4.5 out of 5. I loved this book. IT took me a while to read it I thought it was not going to be great. But after hearing so much about it and the library kindly giving me a copy I figured why not! I’m so glad I did. It is a well crafter and super sweet romance with all the wonderful background of the tabloids/media and the intricacies of being global phenomenoms. I think the characters which could have totally been stereotyped where very nuanced and I fell deeply for both. Oh I want to see this movie now!
It All Comes Down to This by Therese Anne Fowler
Goodreads blurb: Meet the Geller sisters: Beck, Claire, and Sophie, a trio of strong-minded women whose pragmatic, widowed mother, Marti, will be dying soon. Marti has ensured that her modest estate is easy for her family once she’s gone––including a provision that the family’s summer cottage on Mount Desert Island, Maine, must be sold, the proceeds split equally between the three girls.
Beck, the eldest, is a freelance journalist whose marriage looks more like a sibling bond than a passionate partnership. In fact, her husband is hiding a troubling truth about his love life. For Beck, the Maine cottage has been essential to her secret wish to write a novel––and to remake the terms of her relationship.
Despite her accomplishments as a pediatric cardiologist, Claire, the middle daughter, has always felt like the Geller misfit. Recently divorced, Claire’s unrequited love for the wrong man is slowly destroying her, and she’s finding that her expertise on matters of the heart unfortunately doesn’t extend to her own.
Youngest daughter Sophie appears to live an Instagram-ready life, filled with glamorous work and travel, celebrities, fashion, art, and sex. In reality, her existence is a cash-strapped house of cards that may tumble at any moment.
But when C.J. Reynolds, an enigmatic southerner with his own hidden past enters the picture, the future of the Maine cottage––and of the sisters themselves––will take on an entirely new dimension.
This is an ARC review thanks to a gift from the publisher, the book comes out June 7th, 2022
My Take: 3.75 out of 5. This one is a hard one to pin point. I really enjoyed the ending, and how it all ties up, but the first 50% of the book dragged. It could have been shorter and more to the point as it just made me not understand what we were doing or where we are going to. I think I found with this book the opposite of with the Paper Palace. I really enjoyed the destination and not the journey, where as in that one I loved the journey and fell flat of the destination. I also think there were too many characters and not enough happening, and it really did not make sense to have so much of CJ, let alone involve him even in the description. I think the story was about the sisters, why give him so much protagonism?. It is an interesting family saga, a good character exploration but really there are better books.
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
Goodreads blurb: Like an avenging, purple-haired Jedi bringing balance to the mansplained universe, Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project–a literal dream come true after years scraping by on the crumbs of academia–Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.
Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. And sure, he caught her in his powerfully corded arms like a romance novel hero when she accidentally damseled in distress on her first day in the lab. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school–archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.
Now, her equipment is missing, the staff is ignoring her, and Bee finds her floundering career in somewhat of a pickle. Perhaps it’s her occipital cortex playing tricks on her, but Bee could swear she can see Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas…devouring her with those eyes. And the possibilities have all her neurons firing. But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there’s only one question that matters: What will Bee K�nigswasser
This is an ARC review thanks to a gift from the publisher, the book comes out August 23, 2022
My take: 4.25 out of 5. First of all can we discuss how excited I was to get this ARC? I gushed at my love for her other book The Love Hypothesis, so you can imagine the thrill. It took me a day to read it! It is a really cute and good book and its a quick and exciting read but it is not as good as the LH for me, which was a solid 5 out of 5 and i devoured. What was to love? The characters were super likeable and I enjoyed how their similarities were exposed little by little. Also, the You’ve got Mail aspect was amazing. Love the STEM of it all, and smart women kicking ass! What were some of the issues? Here, I feel the predictability factor was of the charts. I knew exactly what was going to happen. Also their blindness to each other more than appealing at some points became just obvious stubbornness. A very solid a lovely romcom, just not the new 5 star I was hoping for.
Tati's Tidbits 