Miss Memory Lane: A Memoir by Colton Haynes (non spoiler review)

Date Started: July 17th 2022
Date Finished: August 2nd 2022

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:
A brutally honest and moving memoir of lust, abuse, addiction, stardom, and redemption from Arrow and Teen Wolf actor Colton Haynes.

Four years ago, Colton Haynes woke up in a hospital. He’d had two seizures, lost the sight in one eye, almost ruptured a kidney, and been put on an involuntary psychiatry hold. Not yet thirty, he knew he had to take stock of his life and make some serious changes if he wanted to see his next birthday.

As he worked towards sobriety, Haynes allowed himself to become vulnerable for the first time in years and with that, discovered profound self-awareness. He had millions of social media followers who constantly told him they loved him. But what would they think if they knew his true story? If they knew where he came from and the things he had done?

Now, Colton bravely pulls back the curtain on his life and career, revealing the incredible highs and devastating lows. From his unorthodox childhood in a small Kansas town, to coming to terms with his sexuality, he keeps nothing back.

By sixteen, he had been signed by the world’s top modeling agency and his face appeared on billboards. But he was still a broke, lonely, confused teenager, surrounded by people telling him he could be a star as long as he never let anyone see his true self. As his career in television took off, the stress of wearing so many masks and trying to please so many different people turned his use of drugs and alcohol into full-blown addiction.

A lyrical and intimate confession, apology, and cautionary tale, Miss Memory Lane is an unforgettable story of dreams deferred and dreams fulfilled; of a family torn apart and rebuilt; and of a man stepping into the light as no one but himself.

Review: This is the second celebrity memoir I’ve read and I normally don’t rate them either but Colton’s story deserved to be rated and it definitely made me a new fan of his after reading what he went through and what encouraged him to fight his own inner demons as well as the courage to come out and truly live the life he now has. And I hope this reaches everyone who felt like their lives was spiraling out of control to the point of no return but then they manage to take back said life and now they live their truth out loud and don’t let others tear them down even though other people still try to do so. Bravo Colton for letting us hear your truth even though it was ugly and beautiful at the same time. Highly recommend others to read this rather you’re going through it or not because it still really is worth your time and just maybe it’ll make you an even bigger fan of his or you just might find that you’d love to become a fan just like I have over the course of reading this heartbreakingly beautiful person’s story…

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

The Refiner by Kristy Marie (The Hands of the Potters #2) (non spoiler review)

Date Started: July 23rd 2022
Date Finished: July 26th 2022

Characters: Astor & Keagan

Rating: 5 🌟s
Synopsis:

Wealthy.
Entitled.
Monarch.
Dr. Astor Potter was everything I despised in a man.
It didn’t matter that he was my sister’s one-night stand or her closest colleague.
I wasn’t charmed by his philanthropy or the way he made babies laugh using those ridiculous voices.
Dr. Potter was cold, detached, and reeked of disdain.
Nothing mattered to him.
Not the messages I left.
Or the tears I shed.
Nothing brought him to life.
Until my sister died.
And I placed my newborn niece in his arms.
Her father’s arms.
He didn’t know about the baby.
Neither did I.
They say love can’t be born from hate and grief.
I’m inclined to agree.
But then he asked me to stay…

Review:
While I was reading The Refiner, I noticed that Kristy Marie sprinkled in some humor with her emotional scenes and then gave us a HEA that I absolutely adored between these characters. Once again Kristy, you have blown me away with your creativity in any situation that you put your characters in and that’s why I keep wanting to read every single release that you drop. To everyone whose looking for a dramedy filled with emotional elements and angsty elements with some steam sprinkled in, then you need to read Astor and Keagan’s story because it gives you all that and more.

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

The House Across The Lake by Riley Sager (non spoiler review)

Date Started: July 10th 2022
Date Finished: July 16th 2022

Characters: Casey Fletcher

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:

It looks like a familiar story: A woman reeling from a great loss with too much time on her hands and too much booze in her glass watches her neighbors, sees things she shouldn’t see, and starts to suspect the worst. But looks can be deceiving…

Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple living in the house across the lake.

Everything about the Royces seems perfect. Their marriage. Their house. The bucolic lake it sits beside. But when Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she discovers the darker truths lurking just beneath the surface of the Royces’ picture-perfect marriage. Truths no suspicious voyeur could begin to imagine–even with a few drinks under her belt.

Like Casey, you’ll think you know where this story is headed.

Think again.

Because once you open the door to obsession, you never know what you might find on the other side.

Review: This is my fourth book by this author and I gotta say, He definitely continues to amaze me with his writing chops and this book was no exception. It had me on a roller coaster and there were multiple moments that reminded me of some of his books in clue form especially the Lock Every Door clue which I hope people who had read that book notices. Now I need to read Final Girls and The Last Time I lied and I’ll be caught up. Now back to this book, I hope everyone picks it up and devours it as much as I did. Highly recommend that you do it before the year is up because you won’t be disappointed when you do read it, I’ll tell you that much. And the ending was wrapped up in a nice little bow. It’s a definite favorite of 2022 that’s for sure….

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

Neon Gods (Dark Olympus #1) by Katee Robert (non spoiler review)

Date Started: July 1st 2022
Date Finished: July 9th 2022

Characters: Hades & Persephone

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:

He was supposed to be a myth.
But from the moment I crossed the River Styx and fell under his dark spell… he was, quite simply, mine.

Society darling Persephone Dimitriou plans to flee the ultra-modern city of Olympus and start over far from the backstabbing politics of the Thirteen Houses. But all that’s ripped away when her mother ambushes her with an engagement to Zeus, the dangerous power behind their glittering city’s dark facade.

With no options left, Persephone flees to the forbidden undercity and makes a devil’s bargain with a man she once believed a myth… a man who awakens her to a world she never knew existed.

Hades has spent his life in the shadows, and he has no intention of stepping into the light. But when he finds that Persephone can offer a little slice of the revenge he’s spent years craving, it’s all the excuse he needs to help her—for a price. Yet every breathless night spent tangled together has given Hades a taste for Persephone, and he’ll go to war with Olympus itself to keep her close…

A modern retelling of Hades and Persephone that’s as sinful as it is sweet.

Review: This was my first time reading Katee Robert and I must say, the plot of Hades and Persephone’s dark love story was absolutely perfect and the smut was super hot throughout the book, but I personally loved how they liked to protect one another at costs. Highly recommend this author if you haven’t read anything by her yet and not to mention, I seriously cannot wait to read more from her in the future.

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (non spoiler review)

Date Started: June 7th 2022
Date Finished: June 30th 2022

Characters: August & Jane

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best pa. rt of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

Review:
This is my second book by this author so I listened to the audiobook from Libro.fm /read this book from my local library. First, I like to say, I loved the narrator, she was very great with the voices of each character in the book that was mentioned and of course talked throughout the story. August and Jane as love interests were pretty convincing and I saw how much each of them wanted one another but continued to fight it until they couldn’t anymore. The side characters were so likable and funny and wholesome. And the ending was just perfect for a LGBTQ+ romance with all the happiness that is brought to August and Jane. Once again Casey McQuiston, thanks for giving us yet another wholesome and beautiful love story and I can’t wait to read more from you in the future…

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

Stroke of Midnight (Cinderella Trilogy # 1) by K Webster (non spoiler review)

Date Started: June 1st 2022
Date Finished: June 6th 2022

Characters: Ash & Winston

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:
From USA Today bestselling author K Webster comes a brand new forbidden romance that’s going to leave you speechless.

Money can buy anything. And anyone.
As the head of the Constantine family, I’m used to people bowing to my will. Cruel, rigid, unyielding—I’m all those things.
When I discover the one woman who doesn’t wither under my gaze, but instead smiles right back at me, I’m intrigued. Ash Elliott needs cash, and I make her trade in crudeness and degradation for it.
I crave her tears, her moans, her submission. I pay for each one. And every time, she comes back for more.
When she challenges me with an offer of her own, I have to decide if I’m willing to give her far more than cold hard cash. But love can have deadly consequences when it comes from a Constantine. At the stroke of midnight, that choice may be lost for both of us.

Review:
Triggers: Sexual Assault by family member & playful degrading from male hero as well as horrible degrading by a family member.

This was my first introduction into K Webster’s writing and I thought this book was in my opinion a really good dark retelling of the children’s book Cinderella and I absolutely loved how protective Winston was of Ash even though the agreement was for her to get paid doing random if not weird things for money but as the story progresses, it becomes more than that which is also another reason I liked this book and the cliffhanger left me wanting more of their story and it’s a good thing that there are two more books left of this trilogy to still read.
Will I read more of this trilogy? Absolutely.
But will I read more books of K Webster in the future? Most definitely. But before I go, I just want to say that you seriously need to start this book today because it was just that freaking good of a dark romance.

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

Twisted Rage (Seige Series #2) by N. Isabelle Blanco (non spoiler review)

Date Started: May 23rd 2022
Date Finished: May 27th 2022

Characters: Andrew & Lexi

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:

The conclusion to the Dark Romance Siege Series!

This isn’t how our story ends.
No. This murder we’ve just committed?
This is how our story truly begins . . .

I told myself I was going to save her.

I didn’t realize what a lie that was.

This neurosis has sunk in too deep. All it took was one glimpse of another man inside her for the beast that murdered Barnard to finish consuming me.

I’ve turned her into killer.

Just like me.

With every corroded, toxicity-infested sin laid bare between us, all that’s left is revenge.

And the chasm of diabolical need that tethers us.

A need to consume each other.
A need to make our enemies pay.
They stole seven years from us. Every ounce of sanity we had left.
Now, we’re going to steal everything from them.

Most of all, we won’t stop until every single one of them is dead.

I told myself I was going to save Lexi . . . in reality, I’ve finished ruining her.

And she would have it no other way.

Warning: this series is not for everyone. As the story progresses, dark themes are explored that might be a trigger for some. Please read at your own discretion. Definitely 18+.

Review:
Triggers: Mention of rape, drug usuage, Alcohol addiction & Suicidal thoughts and attempts and a mention of incesturous of a side character’s past.

Twisted Rage picks off where book 1 Twisted Heartbreak ended off and I gotta say the revenge plot of this book was dark amongst other things and you get in vivid detail of what Happened to Lexi about seven years ago so if you can’t handle the rape trigger then don’t start this duet, but if you’re okay with it then I highly recoomend you start this series right away. Before I go I just want to say that this book brings Andrew and Lexi even closer to one another in ways not many people would be okay with but nonetheless it was still a pleasurable to read if you like dark romances that are really dark in nature. And if you decide to give this duet a try then by all means get it now…

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

One More Night: A Second Chance Romance by J. Akridge (non spoiler review)

Date Started: May 14th 2022
Date Finished: May 16th 2022

Characters: Declan & Lou

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:
Fighting for love is hard, fighting against it is even harder.

Lou

I thought Declan Sanchez was supposed to be my forever, love just wasn’t enough for us. He left, and my life was crumbling around me.

Moving on from him wasn’t easy, but as the years passed it got easier.

So, when he walks back into my life, it feels like I am drowning all over again.

Declan

I didn’t want to let her go, but I had to. She deserved a life that I couldn’t give her. A life where she wasn’t waiting around to see if I’d survive another day in the military.

But after seeing her again, I’m determined to make her mine. I just have to prove that I’ll stay.

And that’s a promise I can’t keep.

Review: I love second chance romances and Declan and Lou’s was so good. I loved every second of it. Highly recommend.

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

Bank Shot (Hawks Series #3) by J. Akridge (non Spoiler Review

Date Started: May 17th 2019
Date Finished: May 18th 2022

Characters: Chris & Lydia

Rating: 4 🌟s

Synopsis:
Lydia Spencer isn’t looking for a relationship, at all. She has her hands full, raising her niece and being a full-time nurse at the local hospital. Her world revolves around Annie and work, nothing more. Which is why she was never expecting Chris Cole to walk into her life.

Chris Cole is ready for something more serious in his life. He’s got the home, the dog, the career, but where’s the woman of his dreams? A car accident leaves him hospitalized where he meets a sexy, redhead that smells like strawberries and makes him lose his thoughts. The pull he has to her is unlike anything he’s ever experienced.

Being a mother slows their relationship down, but Chris is willing to give it his all. When Annie’s life is threatened, Lydia has to make a decision that puts her own life at stake. Can Lydia and Chris make the Bank Shot? Or will they miss their chance at a happily ever after?

Review: I absolutely love basketball romances. I really loved Lydia and Chris. The romance was so good and this may be a third book in a series but can be read as a standalone. Highly recommend if you like sport romances.

Happy Reading Everyone 💙

King of Spades by Alta Hensley (Wonderland Trilogy #1) (non spoiler review)

Date Started: May 18th 2022
Date Finished: May 20th 2022

Characters: Nick & Lyriope

Rating: 5 🌟s

Synopsis:

Nick Hudson has a dangerous reputation.

That’s what I need if I’m going to survive.

Desperation makes me seek out a ruthlessly powerful billionaire.

I need protection.

He demands my virtue as payment.

I’m falling into a world of luxury and sin.

With every twist and turn, I need more.

Except this is not a man to love.

This is a man to fear.

His obsession grows. So does the threat, until I’m trapped in a world of depravity. I’ll need more than Nick’s strength to survive. I’m going to need his heart.

Review:
This is a dark retelling of Alice in Wonderland. It’s also my first book by this author as well and I gotta say, this was such a dark, but fun read. I loved Lyriope and Nick dynamic from the banter to the sexy times. And it leaves on a cliffhanger so I can’t wait to see what happens in Queen of Hearts coming July 5th.

Happy Reading Everyone 💙