A lot of romance. Like, a lot a lot. I got this Ultimate Romance Reading Challenge in at the store and obviously I had to test it out. Turns out that while assigned reading is not my favorite, cute little trinkets and toys are enough to get me to play along. Inside this big ole book-shaped-thing are little envelopes with reading prompts written on them. Once you read the book (or complete the task), then you can open the envelope and get your prize! It’s my favorite. I’m such a child.

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The Roommate Risk by Talia Hibbert
Order the paperback here (or stop in, we’ve got a copy at Twice Told Tales)
Download the audiobook here (but always wear your headphones)

Talia Hibbert is probably my favorite singular romance author. The stories are always excellent. The characters are always three-dimensional characters with whole entire minds, hearts, and bodies. The spice is spicy. She’s all around perfect.

Okay but this one is a little different. It’s a short little thing! 286 pages. The audiobook is a mere 9 hours long and if I had to guess, I’d say that about 6 of those hours are dedicated strictly to sex scenes. This little thing exists for a purpose. And that purpose is not necessarily to tell a well rounded story–if you catch my drift. I did not know that when I picked this up. I’d give it 4/5 spice flames. It is abundant.

But the story, sparse as it is, is so cute! It’s a friends-to-lovers (my personal favorite) story about Jasmine–who has a terrible flood in her apartment and has to move in with her platonic bestie, Rahul, who has oops had a crush on her since the day they met in college. There are chapters that go back in time so we can get a feel for how long this mans has been pining–and the pining! OH THE PINING! THE ANGST! It was real. Six thousand out of five stars. Loved this lil thing!

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
Order your hardcover copy here (or I’m going to have them stocked at TTT for a while so just stop in and try your luck).
Download the audiobook here.

My only not-romance book of the month and boy am I glad I made space for it (even if I don’t get a little treat for reading it)! I loved this book so much. It reminded me of my hometown in such a goooood way!

This takes place in a small town in the south where a vocal minority has strong-armed their way into the libraries to have dozens of books banned. The person at the helm of this crusade? Lula Dean. She decides that to make up for the books she’s had removed from the library, she’ll set up a Little Free Library in her front yard with all the books she approves of! What Lula doesn’t know is that a local prankster has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula’s library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. In the ensuing chapters, we get to learn all about the citizens of this town and what happens for them as they find themselves reading these books!

What I loved about this is that there are so many more level-headed, free-thinking people in this town than you’d think. More than they expected, I think. That’s what reminds me of the town where I live. I hear so many people describe this town as “conservative, close-minded, bigoted”. And suuuure. We’ve got our people like that. But all day every day I meet people who don’t hold those values–I know because they come into my store! Most of them don’t know each other. Many of them think they’re alone in their values in this area but they’re not. Not at all. I wish there was a way to mobilize them and let them know. They’re all so close to running into one another!
Anyway, the people in this town mobilized. And it was so glorious to witness.

Happy Medium by Sarah Adler
Order the paperback here (or at TTT).
Download the audiobook here (it’s read by Mara Wilson–yeah, Matilda!)

This book was perfectly cute. More or less a retelling of Ghost if you ask me. Gretchen Acorn is a fake medium–a con-artist but a con-artist with a heart of gold. She has a rule to leave everyone better than she found them. Even still, she’s starting to feel the pull to get into honest work. That is until one of her richest clients sends her on a mission to exorcise a friend’s goat farm–and makes her an offer she literally can’t afford to refuse. She gets to the farm expecting to burn some things, chant some things, and then take her check and go home but what happens instead is that somehow, there actually is a ghost haunting this farm. And turns our Gretchen is the only one who can see it.

Things I loved: Gretchen was charming. Charlie was hot and broody. The scene where they’re playing pool was swoony and fun. EVERETT THE GHOST WAS FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS. I want a movie version of this book just so I can fall in love with Everett over and over again.

Things I didn’t love: the goat birthing scene I could have done without. And this book did contain some of my absolute pet-peeves of romance books (a stupid misunderstanding in the final 1/4 of the book that threatens to derail everything when if one person just said anything at all, the problem would be solved). Overall, not my favorite but I’m certainly not mad I read it.

I get a lot of people who come into the shop who are looking for books that are mindless–aren’t bad but aren’t too good either because they want to relax their brains. And this is the book I will recommend to them. I’d give it 3/5 spicy units. There’s one or two sexy bits but they aren’t too overwhelming or overshadow the story.

Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb
Get the paperback here (or at TTT).
Download the audiobook here.

I can’t believe that I read this book (before this book I had no interest in bird watching whatsoever) but more than that, I can’t believe I loved it! I only chose this book because it fulfilled the “read a book with a main character who is much older than you” requirement. They kept talking about how she was middle-aged and she had a daughter who was a senior in high school so I assumed she was much older than me but then at the end of the book I learned she’s only about 18 months older than me. So… here we are. WOOPS! I claimed my prize anyway.

Celeste is in her “year of yes” and she’s trying everything. Yadda yadda yadda she ends up partnered with this hot, scruffy stranger named John for the annual birding competition (whoever finds the most birds wins!). Also she’s pretending to be his girlfriend. I could explain why but it’s a little complicated and does it matter anyway? The fake dating trope almost never makes sense anyway (except in Funny Story–I would have done it too).

Turns out John is an expert birder and he kinda makes Celeste fall in love with it, too. He made ME curious about what the birds are that live in my own backyard. I wish he could come teach me about them! But alas he is fictional.

I liked these people. They were older and they didn’t have stupid reasons for not wanting to get together for real. Celeste just got out of a divorce where she felt like she completely lost her identity and is nervous to jump back into that again. GIRL I GET IT! Hold onto yourself! Anyway, I adored this book.

There’s no sex in this book until the back 1/3 and then that’s preeeeetty much all it is (except for a very satisfying grand gesture). “Middle aged” sex! With aching backs and everything! We love to see it!

Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
Order your paperback here.
Download the audiobook here.

OH! This was so cute. I’ve been putting off reading this book for years because I didn’t want to close up the Brown Sisters trilogy in my mind.

Eve Brown is for anyone who spent their 20’s (or hell, even later) feeling like they were trying on identities: moving from job to job or hobby to hobby and never really finding anything that stuck or felt right. I felt that way–I still feel that way sometimes even though by now I know better.

Another lovely aspect of this storyline is the way that she discovers that she might be somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum and the way that opens up such freedom for her to accept and love herself as she is.

In true Talia Hibert fashion, the spice… is… spicing. So be mindful of that. And also, the story is excellent! I love all of the Brown Sisters so much!