Puck Me Secretly by Odette Stone (Review)

Like, half a star. 🤷‍♀️ A full review available via my website: www.hitchhikerbooks.com

Book Review: A Favor for a Favor by Helena Hunting

A full review is available via my website: www.hitchhikerbooks.com A lot of my memories of this book blend in with Colleen Hoover’s Ugly Love.

Hunting’s characterisation of the heroine as a flawed and wildly independent woman brings a breath of life to what would otherwise be just another “secret romance” story.

Reading Challenge

12 books behind on my Goodreads reading challenge.

Confidence I can complete the challenge by EOY: 0%

Scribd suddenly releasing x3.5 and x4 speeds

Confidence I can complete the challenge by EOY: 20%

Book Review: Quarantined by Drethi Anis

A full review is available via my website: www.hitchhikerbooks.com

Drethi Anis' debut novel is a bit rough around the edges, but is teeming with potential; this author is one to watch!

Hashtag ditto

I’m looking for the book community but I don’t think it’s as big on here?? Is anyone on book tumblr? (Bookblr? Booklr? What’s it called?) Send help and an instruction manual!

I’m obsessed with fantasy romance books and I just wanna talk about them a lot

Book Review: Just Between Us by Suzanne D Williams

This review was originally published on my website: www.hitchhikerbooks.com

Just Between Us by Suzanne D Williams is a student-teacher romance that promises to delve into the moral and psychological ramifications of a forbidden romance, but uses Christian themes as an excuse to never delve beyond the superficial.

Andrew Jai is a former Hockey Star who is forced into a teaching career following a sports accident. Leah Richmond has overcome dyslexia and has been awarded a full-ride college scholarship. Being at the top of her class she is asked to help Andrew update the class curriculum which involves the classic Romance tropes of late nights with close proximity.

Student-teacher romances are tricky to write at the best of times, but even more so when the student is underage or there is a big age gap, as is the case with this story (9 years age gap between Leah and Andrew). In these instances, there needs to be a deep level of commitment from the author to tell the story in a way that helps the reader feel that this forbidden romance is morally justified. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that there was even an attempt to do this in this book.

As with a lot of student-teacher romances, there is a classic breakup scene where the two protagonists spend time growing as people so that the relationship can flower into something other than a creepy older man dating a much young girl. But rather than spending the book on the protagonists’ inner battles which would ordinarily be reconciled with the break-up, Williams attempts to recreate this rather lazily with a “hey, I’ve found religion” thrown haphazardly on the end, which, with the exceptions of one brief mention in the middle of the book, feels more like last minute rewrite at an attempt to foreshadow the stuck-on ending.

This laissez-faire attempt at weighing Andrew and Leah’s relationship against modern standards extends through to Williams’ writing style which is disappointing. It is clear that Williams is a talented author, but she failed to hit the mark on this one. I think with a little more effort, this book could have truly been an amazing read.

Have you ever reached in to the depths of your creativity just to reply to a text message?

What’s worse is when that message is far more beautiful than anything you could have written with meaningful intent.

Fuck you, brain; learn to read the room.

This book is beautifully written and the story so delicately crafted. This speaks to my everything.

Book Review: Quarantined by Drethi Anis

This review was originally posted on my website www.hitchhikerbooks.com.

Drethi Anis' debut novel is a bit rough around the edges but is teeming with potential; this author is one to watch.

Quarantined is the first book by Drethi Anis Quarantine Series

The story follows Raven, who, having been abandoned by her parents, moves into the Sinclair household and under the guardianship of her best friend's older brother, Milo. Having gone through similar abandonment issues, Milo forms a close bond with Raven, which leads him to develop strong and inappropriate feelings towards his ward. What follows is a dark, psychological romance that leaves the reader conflicted as to whether a stolen innocence is the price of a Happily Ever After or the symptom of greater trauma. From the moment that this story begins we are swept up into a world of dubious consent and abuse, tropes of the dark romance genre. Had this book not been labelled as a COVID-19 novel, I would have walked away from the moment the prologue ended (a criticism of the genre rather than the author), but, not realising it was a dark romance at the time (naive of me, I know), the intrigue of a COVID-19 themed romance held my curiosity well enough to convince me to persist, and I am glad that I did.

The prologue is set in the present day where the Sinclair family must quarantine in their apartment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the following chapters, the story travels to the past to lay the foundation that leads to the prologue's events. This structure is not uncommon, but it is refreshing to see it used within the genre. Still, it is not without its flaws. The prologue lends itself to a series of inconsistencies that are difficult to reconcile. Things like how a woman on the verge of poverty can afford a designer pair of shoes are eventually explained away later on, but other things like a character wearing a halter dress, but having mace in her back pocket, can only be put down to error. Regardless of whether these inconsistencies were intentional or not, they are jarring and hinder immersion, which is sorely needed for the reader to persist through the intensity of the first scene. This is where the majority of my criticism ends.

Quarantined is complex and intriguing in a way that I have not had the pleasure of seeing in a long time within the romance genre. Anis' commitment to her characters, especially Milo, is comparable to that of a veteran author and is where Anis truly shines. Her portrayal of two people coping with abandonment in different ways is beautifully crafted and highlights how someone, with just a little push, can lose grip on reality and either give in to the taboo of their impulses or close themself off completely. I would have loved to have seen the author spend more time exploring this aspect of her characters. However, this would undoubtedly see Quarantined reclassified as a gothic novel rather than a dark romance.

For me, Quarantined was an accidental trip down the rabbit hole of the dark romance genre, and, the complexity of each of the protagonists is enough to have me looking forward to reading the second book in the series, Isolation, despite my apprehension towards this romance sub-genre in general.

If you're yet to delve into the world of dark romance but are curious, consider giving this one a go. You'll be less worried about trying to find redeemable qualities in the tortured hero and more interested in how two

Maximum Spice 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶

Only 40% through, and still some of the best-written smut I have read in a very long time. Reverse harem meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Book Review: The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom

This review was originally published on my website: www.hitchhikerbooks.com

Well, it’s another morally simplistic Young Adult novel; Scott Bergstrom’s The Cruelty is one person’s obnoxious attempt at reforming what is normally a beautifully diverse and eclectic genre.

I initially didn’t know how to feel about this book; on one hand, Bergstrom’s writing style is solid and well crafted, but on the other hand, it feels as though the book is tiptoeing between the young adult and spy thriller genres. This inability to confidently blend the two genres leaves the reader feeling removed from the entire story.

Despite his solid writing style, Bergstrom still has much to learn in the way of plot. Rather than creating an interconnected web of characters and plot elements, the story fell over like dominos in so far as the story could not progress until one storyline was reconciled, furthermore leaving reader motivation dwindling.

The main character also leaves the reader wanting. As much as I would have loved to have loved the Heroine, Gwendolyn, I found very little to connect with due to a lack of character development. Her actions are rarely explained and quite often contradict each other. This made the ending fizzle. What was supposed to conclude on a teenage girl becoming a hardened spy became just a change of clothes; same person different outfit.

I doubt that I will read the sequel as I am disappointed by the book itself and the author’s comments on what he perceived as morally complicated Young Adult books. Mr Bergstrom, just because you decided to write a book in a niche sub-genre of Young Adult, does not immediately entitle you to call your book “Morally Complicated”. Comparatively speaking, I have read 100-page Mills and Boon novels that have proven to be more morally complicated than your two-bit attempt at a Young Adult Spy Thriller. But please prove me wrong.

Anyone else bone-achingly tired of romance books using the miscommunication troupe as an alternative to character development?

Just a note: resolved misunderstanding is not the same as character development. Having your main story people use their speaky words to make mix-up go away does not make for a level up.

Book Review: Seducing Fortune by Brinda Berry

This review was originally published on my website: www.hitchhikerbooks.com

Seducing Fortune by Brinda Berry reads like a high school showcase of improv theatre. It is comical in its clumsiness and lacks any continuity. In short, I would rather stick a pine cone up my arse than read another word of this drivel.

This book found its way onto my kindle when it was offered as a free download. Seducing Fortune is the third and final book in Berry’s Serendipity series. The story follows Emerson, an ex-stripper, who is attempting to navigate handling multiple jobs, attending college, falling for Dylan (her boss), as well as traversing the problems that come with having a father convicted of treason and the subsequent FBI investigation into her life. There is also a sister to look after and a stalker in the mix. (I swear I did not make up this synopsis).

I initially attempted to read this back in 2017 and it ended up on my DNF shelf. Then in 2020, I decided to try again as I had no recollection as to why I never finished it. I really wish I hadn’t. Berry’s characters are hollow to the point where this book is neither character nor plot-driven, but author-driven. Assuming I didn’t miss a section where everyone ingested psychedelics and suffered psychotic-breaks, the absence of character motivation has the protagonists making delusional decisions that have no foundation in reality; so you want to commit espionage? Was Saturn not in your stars? Did a rhinoceros fart and cause an earthquake in Azerbaijan? Or maybe it was Wednesday and someone didn’t wear pink?

***Spoiler*** Case in point: the FBI investigation sub-plot. A storyline that is so incredible that it has Dylan attempting to convince his close friend to commit treason just so that the leading lady isn’t mildly inconvenienced. A few pages later it is revealed that Toby (the third point in a poorly constructed love triangle) was planted into Emerson’s life as part of the investigation. Emerson’s response to this comes in the form of flirting and sarcastic quips. ***End Spoiler***

Having never read any of Berry’s previous works, I cannot attest to her integrity as a romance author, but this book reads as though she wanted to write a book that spanned multiple romance sub-genres but lacked the conviction to do so due to an impending deadline. The pacing of this book stalls at multiple points and relies entirely on the author to chopper-drop new elements or characters into the story to keep it going.

Furthermore, the book’s overall tension (and I use the word tension quite wrongly) is held together on the assumption that the characters never speak to each other for longer than 10 minutes, which is precisely what happens. Had the two leading characters sat down to talk in length at any point, the single strand of hair holding this story together would have disintegrated.

Reading this book is like being on the edge of group gossip; the story that you make up in your head with the information available to you is much better than the truth. So, if you enjoy never really knowing what is going on, being nauseated by character action, and continually asking questions like “Who the Fuck is Bailey?”, then this book just may be for you.