I just finished Invisible No More - Embracing your read to recover from long covid and other complex chronic illnesses and here are my thoughts. Firstly, If I was planning on buying this… Putting the words ‘long covid’ in the title, would have been enough for me that I would have put it back. Include it in the book, great but trying to sell off a time that had the whole world divided and all the lies and turmoil.. I feel icky to be honest. Putting my feelings aside, I have RA so I cracked it open and sat down to read. As someone who put my RA into FULL REMISSION with some of the things the author talks about, I believe that what she has to say is valid, because I have lived it. I was on cancer meds to keep my immune system down. I was so ill. I was so sick I couldn’t walk, hold a fork. You can call it pseudoscience all you like but cancer drugs didn’t cure me. Moving my body even when my joints felt like crushed glass… helped me. Whole foods and finding the right vitamins for me. The cancer drugs made me so sick I had to come off them so lifestyle changes saved my life and my kidneys. Pharma is a bandaid and if you don’t want a real solution or aren’t willing to go in with an open mind… this book isn’t for you. Now a lot of the recommendations made are outrageously priced. How do you expect anyone to afford it and it’s not covered by insurance. Honestly I don’t know what this book was trying to accomplish but I don’t think it did what it was supposed to do. It was an interesting book, well reasoned and written but there's nothing here that can help anyone in my opinion without them already having their minds set on going this way. This book won’t guide anyone to make these choices. Real shame though. 3 stars Thank you to @stmartinspress for my gifted copy #nonfiction #bookreview #bookish #bookalorian #litdulterous #bookblog #readerblog #bookblogger #literaryinfluencer #bookinfluencer #smp #smpreader #booklover

I just finished Tell Me How You Really Feel by Betty Cayouette and here are my musings. Maeve and Finn have a hit podcast… All about sex and relationships… He has the star quality and she has the knowledge… They are about to be brought but they cannot be in the same room. Maeve feels betrayed and Finn wants to prove himself to her but can they get past themselves to be honest with each other… The way they are honest with their audience? I actually enjoyed this one more than others seemed to. I thought it was lighthearted and super fun! I did a lot of laughing which is exactly what I want from a rom-com. Now, I will confess there wasn’t much in the way of romance but I did like the build up. Friends with sexual chemistry is always a win for me. I wasn’t a fan of Finn. He was an epic nepo baby, a bit of a brat but I do think he balanced out with Maeve which pleased me immensely. Now I am well known for my hatred of miscommunication and honestly, they were both the issue here. She put the brakes on, asked for space for a set amount of time and then the time crept passed and still she didn’t give him an answer. She basically ghosted him. So when someone points this out… he asks, and she sends him to be with someone else. So he did. UGHHHHH. It is not my jam but there was enough good stuff that I could get past the miscommunication. I thought the writing was good and I will look for more from this author but I was hoping for a bit more. Maybe less drama and slightly more likeable characters then this would have been a true win. I bet the audio would have been great! 3.5 stars Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress #tellmehowyoureallyfeel #bettycayouette #romcom #romancereader #friendstolovers #secondchanceromance #netgalley #stmartinspress #bookreview #literaryinfluencer #ebook #bookalorian #booksbooksbooks #bookloversofig #booktokcanada #litdulterous

I just finished Friends with Benefits by Marisa Kanter and here are my thoughts! Evie has dreamt of this kind of fellowship.. With her medical issues, she needs insurance. Her friend Theo needs a new roommate that hits a certain wage threshold… They can fix each other's issues with a simple marriage of convenience.. What can go wrong? It’s cute! Warm and really emotional with a serious undertone of heat. This is my kind of friends to lovers read because the needs they have aren’t silly. These are real problems real people have and I am here all day long for it. I like how understated the romance is. That it isn’t all flashy. It was sweet. Cute inside jokes and quiet moments that really took the intimacy to a whole other level. I will say it was slow and I wish the story had moved a little quicker in spots but it was a really solid book. I did struggle connecting with Evie and Theo… They weren’t as robustly portrayed as I usually like in these kinds of books but… it actually worked quite well. I liked the disability rep and how well it was done. Read if you like: •Forced Proximity •Friends to Lovers •Marriage of Convenience •Childhood Friends It was almost 4 stars but the pace was not great! 3.75 stars Thank you @netgalley and @celadonbooks for my gifted copy #forcedproximity #friendswithbenefits #marriageofconvenience #celadonbooks #celadonreader #netgalley #kindlereader #kindlebooks #booklover #bookalorian #bookreview #bookblog #bookpodcast

The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper DONE I just finished The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper and here are my thoughts. Tildy Barrows is the bead curator at a beautiful library in San Francisco… The library is on the verge of closing from bankruptcy and Tildy is bereft.. That is until she finds 2 never seen before dollhouses.. Tildy knows that this could be what the library has been looking for to help bring in people to see the exhibit but the more Tildy digs for clues, the more she realizes that some secrets should remain buried. I wanted to love it. I really did but it missed the mark for me a bit. Too many POVs for my liking and it wasn’t as exciting as I was hoping for. I was hoping for more from the mystery but it was straddling timelines and POVs and it was too messy for my tastes. Now the audiobook was done really well and I could more or less keep up with who was who but it could have been the best book of the year for me… It should have been but the story was too muddled. Too much going on but nothing really happening. SIGHH! I did love Tildy but the romance they had for her was boring and flat. The pace was too slow and it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I did like it… I just didn’t love it. 3.5 stars

I just finished The Night Birds by Christopher Golden and here are my musings… Ruby never expected her night to include a dead sister, a nephew she didn’t know she had, a frightened woman who claims to be a witch running from an ancient evil.. She definitely didn’t expect the one place she would run to would be to the man who broke her heart… But evil is lurking and they want the baby and they will stop at nothing to get him… OK if you don’t know Christopher Golden… Are you really a horror reader? It is a horror thriller, I know it seems to be labeled as a thriller but it has some excellent horror tones to it and I said what I said. First off the setting is dark dark dark!!! It was so ominous I loved it. Charlie took Ruby and her charges to a secret location.. A half sunk freighter… Genius right? Trouble is they are running from a cult with dark magic and it freaked me the heck OUT! The witches need the baby to sacrifice him and the mother (Ruby’s sister) and the girlfriend are doing everything they can to protect him. It was a ride and a half. It was fast paced, it was mildly terrifying and I couldn’t put it down. Now It isn’t character driven which I know can be an issue for some readers but it didn’t detract from the story because all the magic is in the ambience… It’s all in the details.. Imagine if a book was a dark misty moor… This would be it. It has all the elements you need for a really great horror thriller that keeps the story moving. The ending was the bee's knees…. I highly recommend this book! 4.5 stars Thank you to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for my gifted copy #thenightbirds #christophergolden #horrorreader #horrorread #horrorthriller #booklover #tbr #bookloversofig #igreader #bookstagrammer #booktokcanada #bookishcontent #booktalk #bookalorian

I just finished The Names by Florence Knapp and here are my thoughts. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet or would it? Imagine how one subtle change would change the course of your life and it was something as simple as what name you were given… So the Names had a really interesting premise. It’s 3 consecutive timelines. 3 alternate universes based on what a little baby boy is named. It sounded phenomenal! There were definitely some excellent moments in the book and I was really sucked in. Other points I was bored stiff and almost DNF’d it. I really do not believe a name could change someone's destiny this drastically so that was already a bit of a stretch but the writing was quite lovely and each section held together really well. I didn’t like the huge jumps in time… I think that was my biggest beef to be honest. I felt like we just got the flow going and then we missed a big chunk of time. I thought the ending was clever and I can see what the author was trying to do and they nearly succeeded. There were just a few things that didn’t work for me. Having said that, I often find books like this work better as audio so I will be giving the audiobook a go in the near future. 3.5 stars Thank you @netgalley and @penguinrandomca for my gifted copy #thenames #jennaspick #florenceknapp #penguinrandomca #historicalfiction #alternativereality #kindlerreader #readersofig #igbooks #bookalorian #booktalk #booksbooksbooks #readreadread #readingallday

Not so Fast by Karen Booth I just finished Not so Fast by Karen Booth and here are my thoughts. I think I just started my formula-1 era... Mia is an F-1 fan and she hosts a podcast all about it... She spends her time tearing one of the favourite drivers, Xander, to shreds.. His season is in the toilet and she doesn't pull punches but when they meet at the track... She comes to understand that it is easy to criticize when you are not behind the wheel and there is more to the driver than meets the eye. It was cute. It was a sweet romance. Yes it is a bit enemies to lovers but it is remedied pretty quickly when they start spending time together. I like that a girl is knowledgeable about driving and the author did an awesome job of giving us a low key run down on F-1 without sounding like a ted talks. It was an interesting audiobook, the narrator did a good job with the narration but I kinda wished I had read it myself... Maybe I still will! I loved the writing and the storyline. Mia was actually very likeable. I did think the ending when she talks to that other driver and he relaxes around Xander was a bit silly. He didn't believe Xander, why would he believe her? Not believable but whatever. I really enjoyed it 4 stars #notsofast #karenbooth #formula1romance #romancebook #romancereader #romance #bookreview #bookalorian #audibooks #audiobooklovers #readerofig #litdulterouswhore #enemiestolovers

I just finished Insignificant Others by Sarah Jio and here are my musings. Lena Westbrook is heartbroken when her boyfriend of 2 years doesn’t propose to her like she thought he was going to. She runs home to her aunt and when she wakes up the next day, she finds herself in Paris… Married to a man she doesn’t know.. Every night when she goes to bed she wakes up in another timeline with another man…. She realizes each man is a missed opportunity from her life and she gets to see if any of these men were really as significant as her imagination believed… I kinda liked the time slipping. It was really cool! Imagine being able to live for one day a missed opportunity that plagued you. It would be wild. What I loved the most is that Lena didn’t really go looking for the one… She was really looking to find herself and that was the beauty of this book for me. It was really well written and I loved Lena. She was a bit of a workaholic and her life felt scripted. It was awesome watching her test drive the lives and careers she could have had. I loved it. 4.5 stars

I just finished Unlikely Neighbors by Renee Daniel Flagler and here are my thoughts on it. After a small health scare, Holland knows she needs to start living her life in a bigger way. Just as she is about to move herself to Charleston something major happens. An aunt she didn’t know she had, passed away and left her a house… In Brooklyn. For Holland, an adopted child, the allure of some family history is too great to pass up but what she doesn’t expect to find is Noble, a CEO for a drinks company who has been pushed out by his board for someone with more experience.. The two didn’t anticipate finding something so tempting to land in each other's laps. OK this one was the breakout audiobook for me. It was brilliant! I enjoyed the ever loving heck out of it. Kudos to the narrators because you bought the sizzle. It wasn’t just a cute romance, it had some real heat to it too. Neither of them were looking for a connection but they both needed the connection. Holland found a blood relative she didn’t know she had and she finds all kinds of things out about the family she grew up without and it was heartbreaking but healing ya know. Noble started his business a decade ago and then gets ousted by his board. You may be thinking… DANG that's horrific but really, it gave him the opportunity to start actually living and I loved it. He made a killing off his hard work and now he gets to reap the rewards. The book isn’t just romance. It’s about finding oneself again and learning who you are. It’s about living and loving in equal measures. It was an amazing book and I highly recommend it. 4.5 stars #unlikelyneighbors #reneedanielflagler #romance #audiobook #audioreader #romancebook #romancereader #booklover #bookalorian