ONE DAY TO FALL BY THERESE BEHARRIE

"I see you. Not who I want you to be, or who I think you should be. I see you." 

Of all the taxis in all of Cape Town, Sophia Roux had to stumble into his.

She should be at her “perfect” sister’s bedside, awaiting the arrival of the newest member of her family. But the thought of spending hours at the hospital with her suffocating relatives has Sophia hailing the first taxi she sees. Only to realise too late that the man at the wheel of her getaway car is the most unpleasant one she’s ever had the misfortune to meet.

Parker Jones, the handsome yet surly driver in question, is used to dealing with baggage of the family variety. And it just so happens he’s in need of temporary escape from his own. Witty banter with a beautiful—if exasperating—woman while chauffeuring her around the city on a gorgeous spring day makes for an ideal break from reality.

But a lot can happen in twenty-four hours: babies can be born, family can reconnect. And maybe the most unlikely pair can fall in love.

Get it: amzn.to/2HMgj1G 


I can't explain how much this book has impacted my life. It's surprising that it takes place in one day because these characters experience so many emotions and situations, character development, important moments in their lives, falling in love, fights and so much more and it all happens in this one day. Everything felt incredibly natural, intrinsic and believable. Our couple meets when Sophia needs to leave the hospital where her sister is about to give birth, she hails a taxi and when she goes in she meets Parker. He was in the hospital too because his mother suffered an accident and he leave because he knows everything is about to change. From there, they go on multiple adventures around the town, they get to know each other, they have meaningful and deep conversations and they eventually have to deal with their lives outside of their interactions with each other. They go from having a really bad and complicated day to, at least, having a more interesting day.

One Day To Fall was written so beautifully, the way everything was constructed made me root for the characters and their lives outside of the romance from the beginning but their attraction and growing love might have been my favorite thing about this story. I don't see a lot of books where an author puts this much care in carefully building interactions between the two main characters and in how they communicate between the bubble that they're in during this day and the outside world. The complexity of their personalities and relationship that varied between hate to love and looking for distractions throughout this awful day managed to catch my attention and to kept me interested in knowing how everything was going to end up. I could honestly keep reading about their lives for ages. I want to know about their future and how they are going to grow. If this book would have a thousand more pages I would be really happy to read them. I would even anticipate them.

I don't think this is a book for everyone, but if it's for you, it has the capacity to grab you and hold you close and probably never let you go. I know one day romances is not something that everyone likes. It's also a slow book to get into. I would highly encourage everyone to give it a chance, because it's definitely a story that took me on a journey, that made me cry, laugh and believe in these character's narrative. It made me think about life and the change of relationships as you live, how complicated those changes are and how even though they are hard and they hurt in the process of healing or breaking, that process and those endings are worth it. The writing is absolute poetry and the intimate moments between them were full of chemistry and closeness. I really think their interactions and the way they were written made the entire book. I honestly think this is a piece of art that everyone should read.

CW: parent with dementia, mentions of death of a parent, side character giving birth.

Along for the Ride by Mimi Grace

Former hot mess Jolene Baxter is committed to doing better. It’s why she offered to help her sister and brother-in-law move across the country. However, her goodwill is tested when last minute changes—mainly her father ditching her for an all-expenses paid vacation—forces her to make the journey with a man who is the human version of a pebble in her shoe. Jason Akana operates on lists and bitter coffee, but none of those things will help him on a sixteen-hour trip with the most infuriating woman. Maybe they can get along and forget their heated confrontation five years ago at his best friend’s wedding…when pigs fly. But the addition of vehicle problems, an unplanned pit stop in a small town, and chemistry that inconveniently tags along, shifts their perspectives. And once the dust settles after their trip, a tentative friendship emerges. Will these two stubborn people successfully navigate the unexpected feelings that follow close behind? Or will they hit a roadblock before reaching happily ever after?
Content Warning:
1. Deceased parent (died long before the start of the book)
2. Verbally pushy person who's romantically interested in the heroine (NOT the hero)



Along for the Ride is a repeat the scenes in your head kind of book, a book that stays with you for weeks after you finished it. A book that you read, you finish, you read another book and you constantly go back to something that made you swoon, or made you think, or made you laugh. At least, that was the experience that I had with it. At the beginning, you had this trope of a road trip with two main characters who dislike each other but who have to cross the country together to help people they love that they have in common (her sister and his best friend are a couple). I went into this book thinking it was going to be just that and I got so much more. I got conversations that were deep and meaningful, I got a heist in the middle of the road trip that made them know each other better, I got them going back to their homes and reflecting on what had happened, and then after all that, Mimi Grace kept giving us more story. I also got classics that the road trip and hate to love tropes have like "there's only one bed" (for multiple nights!!!!), moments of fake relationship, knowing each other's music taste, moments of panic where they had to rely on each other, moments of laughter and happiness and all was done so beautifully. 

I think my favorite thing about all this is how well it was written. I seriously thought I got to know the characters, their motivations and their flaws. Also what would unite them in the moments that they shared. They were put in sometimes super mundane situations but a lot of times they had to confront bizarre moments that I don't think would have worked if they wouldn't have been constructed in such a realistic way. I rooted for their relationship from beginning to end, even when they were insecure and they didn't know what they wanted. I wanted them to succeed in achieving everything they wanted. During the reading of this book I actually thought this story would be perfect as a movie because I could picture the scenes in my head so clearly. It had a beautiful and believable pace. 

In general, we got a lot of construction for the setting, the plot and the characters. We had a majority black cast with super different lives, jobs, interests. Their families and backstories made for hilarious and sometimes complex situations and I could feel what they were going through each step of the way. I was incredibly invested in their lives, the relationships that they had with their families and friends and with each other and I was super interested in the new characters that we were introduced along the way. I can't wait to read more from Mimi Grace since this was a fantastic debut. 

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Ice Cream Lover by Jackie Lau

"Because even though I'm a grumpy bastard who stomps all over people's dreams, sometimes I just want a cuddle, you know?" 


I hate ice cream. Ever since my fiancée left me at the altar and skewered me in her bestseller “Embrace Your Inner Ice Cream Sandwich: Finding the Positive You in a World of Negativity,” I haven’t been able to stomach the stuff.

Unfortunately, my five-year-old niece is a budding foodie and her favorite place in the world is Ginger Scoops, a cutesy Asian ice cream shop. Since I’ve been looking after my niece a lot lately, I’ve spent too much time there, sipping black coffee, refusing to eat ice cream, and trying not to look at the owner, Chloe Jenkins. Chloe is obnoxiously cheerful, and I can’t stand her. 


Naturally, I end up kissing her.


But I’ve sworn off women after the fiasco with my ex-fiancée, and I’m convinced I’m no good at relationships. Still, with Chloe I’m tempted to do the impossible: give love and ice cream another chance…



The premise of this book is a bit weird at first, a guy is left in the altar and then his ex fiance goes on to write a very famous book about "embracing your inner ice cream sandwich" and that's why he hates ice cream. This sounds incredibly funny and, like I said, a bit weird, but I'm a super big fan of Jackie Lau and when I went into this book I knew what I was about to read was going to be well written and from an unique perspective. And that was definitely what I got. Jackie Lau has a wonderful way of introducing you to characters that you immediately feel connected to. And it's true that we met some of these characters in the first book in the series but in this book I felt like I linked to them in a deeper level. I understood them even if they made decisions that were so different from the ones I would make and I felt like I knew them from the beginning. Like I mentioned, the hero in this story is Drew. A grumpy Chinese-Canadian guy who hates ice cream but who is taking care of his niece who loves food and specifically this new Asian ice cream shop that was opened by Chloe, our bisexual, biracial heroine who is following her new dream of managing this business, honoring her late mother's Chinese heritage. 

These two characters are opposites in a lot of ways but have a lot of things in common. They are very melancholic and emotional. They bring a lot of good things from each other. But Drew doesn't think he deserves to be with anyone because he will melt someone's "ice cream sandwich" (yes, her ex's book is self-help), he definitely had a lot of things to figure out. And Chloe as well. Also, there were a lot of people who hurt them and who managed to give them some really big insecurity issues. And seeing their development into being more independent and well rounded people was incredibly interesting. I also absolutely adored the descriptions of food and the ice creams and I am not at all an ice cream person. The ideas for the flavors and the intricate metaphors and connections that were made made me extremely happy. I adored her first book in the series The Ultimate Pi Day Party and this one was a wonderful companion and I loved seeing the characters from the first book in this one as well! 

As I mentioned, I adore how Jackie Lau writes. You can tell she actually really cares about her characters and gives them complex and multidimensional lives and personalities. Specially in the relationship that Chloe has with her family and the life that she has after the death of her mother. I always love how she writes her biracial heroines and how she writes about the lack of representation or the lack of a community that they can find of people who look and can have similar experiences to theirs. I appreciated that she added Michelle in this book, who talked about her experiences from another point of view and who saw herself in Chloe and that was a very important moment. Being biracial also impacts her relationship with her father and those conversations were some of the most captivating and profound in this book. Jackie Lau always makes me feel such a large range of emotions and manages to write sexy, adorable and complex couples but also beautiful family relationships and friendships and I can't wait to read more from her!

The Inside Track by Tamsen Parker


Nick Fischer is a screw-up; everyone knows it and they’re not afraid to tell him so. The only thing he’s got going for him is that he plays a reliable rhythm guitar for License to Game, and his big fat bulldog, Princess Fiona, is so ugly she’s cute. Dempsey Lawrence is a former child star turned financial advisor, and while she’s curious about the hot mess of a man who’s her co-panelist for a presentation on financial literacy, she has no intention of pursuing anything with him. Too loud, too crass, too wild, Nick is altogether too much. Plus, he’s famous, and she is so over stardom and everything that comes with it. Except that when Dempsey gives Nick an inch, he takes a mile, and she finds that she doesn’t mind so much. Until Nick brings the pitfalls of stardom to Dempsey’s doorstep, then all the attraction in the world might not be enough to promise a happily ever after.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43792892-the-inside-track
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L2HGXSF/


The Inside Track was nothing like what I imagined I would find in this book. In general I'm a bit wary of books about music stars, but this was deep and intricate and it explored important emotions that made me cry and feel profoundly at so many points. At the beginning I must admit that it was difficult to get into because Nick had ADHD and you don't know that when his narration starts but his mind goes at a million miles an hour and it reads like that; without giving you time to think. It doesn't make a lot of sense in the combination of the sentences. But once you get into it, you understands how he thinks and how he talks just like Dempsey does. I know it's a love or hate thing that not everyone is going to get into but I would say give it an opportunity before you dismiss it. This book has two main characters who are dealing with their own mental health in their own way. As I said before, Nick has ADHD. He's funny, goofy and definitely brings the lighter part of the relationship (which doesn't mean he's better, he just takes things differently). Also, he has a dog! He can't focus on one thing at the time, but he does his best to help Dempsey in any way he can. I loved him as a hero and as an individual character. 

Dempsey felt like his complete opposite. She's introverted, darker and more complex. She has an anxiety disorder and is dealing with agoraphobia and trauma. Even though I can't talk about the representation with Nick's ADHD, I really related to everything that happened to her. Not the fame part, obviously. But I thought her anxiety and agoraphobia were amazingly written. Her dark places reminded me some of my darkest places and made me feel all those emotions that I talked about before. I absolutely adored how she let herself feel those emotions and how she knew how to get herself out of there when it was necessary. She knew herself in the way you know your mind when you've had a mental illness for years and you know when you're having a bad day, a good day and how you're going to feel better or worse. That felt very realistic to me and well written and researched even though they were in this not so common setting of fame and fortune. 

Their relationship was one of my favourite parts of this book. The way that they let themselves be however they wanted to be but also called themselves out when it was necessary was beautiful. I loved the domesticity that we experienced between them, their friends and the dog. There was a real chance here to go over the top and Tamsen Parker didn't go there and I appreciated that. I loved how she respected her characters and gave them time and space to grow and heal and be better people. I absolutely adored the writing, the metaphors and the way the situations and emotions were constructed. This is a very unique book that will stay in my mind for a very long time. 



Crashing Into Her by Mia Sosa

"Every night before bed, I think about what she looks like when she's aroused, the noises she makes when she comes, what she tastes like. It's my new nighttime routine: shower, brush my teeth, think about Eva, lights out."
Relationships are a thing of the past for Eva Montgomery. Her current motto? You can’t spell “manipulative” without man. But Eva has needs, and a one-night-stand at her best friend’s wedding is the perfect way to kick off her new approach to singledom. Then a job opportunity puts her in the same city with the guy she can’t forget . . .

Anthony Castillo is a perpetual bachelor—no strings, just flings—a status he maintains by being honest about his intentions and never looking back. So why is he still thinking about the firecracker of a woman who rocked his world at his cousin’s wedding? It’s a question he refuses to answer, until she comes crashing back into his life, taking his emotional walls down with her.

When her father doubts her ability to make it in LA, Eva vows to go big and prove him wrong. With her athletic background, she’s an ideal candidate for stunt work. But first she’ll need training, and the instructor is none other than her former hookup, Anthony Castillo. Except he’s not as cocky as she remembers and he’s definitely still sexy as sin. The only problem is . . . Anthony doesn’t want her anywhere near his stunt school—or his heart.



Every time I read one of Mia Sosa's books, I fall more and more in love with the way she writes and constructs the pacing of the plot. This is something that I've seen only in a few other authors and that is that she keeps me on my toes, she doesn't create the normal plot that we see in romance where the characters meet, sleep together, fall in love, something happens and they fight at the 70 or 80% mark and they get back together. No, she constructs her own pacing and I love that. Even though Pretending He's Mine is still my favorite from her and one of my favorite romances ever, this one is very close. She gave us moments that are imprinted in my mind and that I can't stop thinking about. That reggaeton scene was one of my favorite things that I've ever read just because it was so hot and original but it also had a nostalgic factor that reminded me of a lot of scenes of romantic comedies where dancing brought two characters together even when they didn't want that. 

I absolutely adored the characters as individuals. Eva was smart and intriguing and I was constantly interested in what she was going to do next. She was ambitious and I loved the determination that she had to prove herself to her father. She's a character with flaws, with lots of courage, with lots of goals and spirits and she makes you root for her all the way. Anthony shares a lot of her qualities. He's headstrong and spirited and intelligent. He also wants to prove himself and is full of flaws. None of them want to be in a relationship but they're very attracted to each other. They want their one night stand to be just that and that makes their meetings so much more entreating. I love how they call each other out on their bullshit when they need to and how they keep each other on their toes. 

The most amazing thing for me about this book is the chemistry between them. They're one of the best couples that I've read. I love how they think they're super different between them but in reality they're the perfect match. Their sex scenes were some of the hottest scenes that I've read. Also, their discussions about life and family were really interesting to read, they didn't try to hide their feelings and they worked together through them, they helped each other out with the problems that they had to figure out especially with their families and you can tell they were good for each other. The fact that they were friends before being together made me so happy! And I adored the descriptions of food! This was a brilliant series that definitely goes to my favorites and Mia Sosa goes to my favorite authors list!!



My Fake Canadian Wife by M. Hollis

“Why was it so hard to find good mainstream media where you could see two girls falling in love with a happy ending? Even harder if I wanted to find stories with black girls. Brazilian black girls falling in love? Mostly, I’d only found them in indie and self-published books. Maybe it would be easier to enjoy more media if everything I tried to watch didn’t look as white as the walls of my apartment.”
When Dora receives a letter from the immigration service in Canada saying she will be deported soon, as her visa is expiring, a friend suggests she marry a woman. Since she doesn’t currently have a girlfriend, faking a relationship might be her only option since she can’t muster the desire to return to school for advanced photograph studies.
Abby is a reserved librarian who seems enthusiastic about helping with the marriage plan. As the two girls get to know each other through dates in snowy Toronto and meeting Abby’s family for Christmas, Dora starts to wonder how much of this relationship they are faking and how much is real.




If there's something I can tell you is that I can always count on M. Hollis to write adorable, heart-warming, sapphic stories with interesting characters and plots. The idea for this book is definitely what made me interested in it in the first place. It's an own voices book about a lesbian, Brazilian girl who is an aspiring photographer. She moves to Canada to pursue a new life but when her visa expires she has to find a new way to stay in the country. After analyzing a lot of options she encounters her coworker's best friend, Abby, who is a pansexual librarian and who wants to marry Dora to help her stay in the country. They start hanging out so they can learn about each other before they officially marry and they even spend Christmas at Abby's place with her family, faking a relationship. 

This is a gorgeously written book. As I said, I always love how M. Hollis constructs cute and interesting f/f relationships. I love how she isn't afraid to write harrowing and challenging situations in the middle of her fluffiness and how the resolutions aren't always what you expect them to be. I think this book in particular is written from such a personal place for her and I could feel that through the pages. I appreciated what she had to say about the topics that were touched here. I also felt that she held these characters close to her heart and that she wrote them with a lot of love and care. I adore the awkwardness that they had at the beginning and how realistic it felt when they didn't know what to say to each other but also the slow progression into a friendship and then a relationship. 

The problem that I had with this novella is one that I had with her other books as well and that's that they're too short. In this one, I couldn't fall completely in love with the relationship because we didn't see a lot of it. We were supposed to know that they were talking and getting close but it was all in a montage rather than a deep descriptions of feelings and that's just a preference but I like to see the falling in love part more than the beginning and the resolution. I didn't mind very much because I knew going in that it was a novella, but I still was left wanting more. I would have liked to see more from Abby as well since I liked her character a lot because of the dichotomies of being shy but also super upfront when needed. Overall, this was a very beautiful story and I adored seeing what we got from their relationship. I would definitely recommend this if you're looking for something soft, fluffy and easy to read! 

I was sent this book as an advanced copy by the author for reviewing purposes, but all opinions are my own.



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