It’s a new month so we’re back with a list of our Monthly Reads to share with each of you. This is where you’ll see what each of us has read and what our favorite books and our least favorite books of the month are. Check it out.
Casee
My July started off really slow, but it picked up around the last two weeks of the month. I read 8 books.
Rock Chick Redemption by Kristen Ashley | 4 out of 5
Knight by Kristen Ashley | 4.25 out of 5
Creed by Kristen Ashley | 4 out of 5
Raid by Kristen Ashley | 4.5 out of 5
Magic Binds by Ilona Andrews | 4.75 out of 5
Deacon by Kristen Ashley | 3.5 out of 5
Archangel’s Sun by Nalini Singh | 3.75 out of 5
Looking Inside by Beth Kery | 3.75 out of 5
As you can see, I went on a Kristen Ashley bender. Which I’m still on. My favorite book of the month was Raid by Kristen Ashley, followed closely by Knight by Kristen Ashley.
Holly
My reading in July started off great, but it tapered off around the middle of the month. I ended up finishing 14 books.
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James (audio) | 4 out of 5
Archangel’s Sun by Nalini Singh | 3.75 out of 5
Repeat by Kylie Scott (Reread) | 5 out of 5
The Perfect Rake (The Merridew Sisters #1) by Anne Gracie | 4 out of 5
My Darling Duke (Sinful Wallflowers #1) by Stacy Reid | 3.75 out of 5
One Fell Sweep (Inkeeper Chronicles #3) by Ilona Andrews (audio) (reread) | 4.5 out of 5
Marry in Scarlet (Marriage of Convenience #4) by Anne Gracie | 4 out of 5
Blind Date with a Book Boyfriend by Lucy Eden | 4.5 out of 5
Wildfire (Hidden Legacy #3) by Ilona Andrews (reread) | 4.5 out of 5
Games of the Heart (The ‘Burg #4) by Kristen Ashley (reread) | 3.75 out of 5
Golden Trail (The ‘Burg #3) by Kristen Ashley (reread) | 3.25 out of 5
Wishing for a Highlander (Highland Wishes #1) by Jessi Gage (audio) | 2.5 out of 5
Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick #0.5) by Kristen Ashley (reread) | 4.5 out of 5
The AI Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole (audio) | 4 out of 5
Song of Blood and Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles #1) by L. Penelope (audio) | DNF
My favorite read of the month was Blind Date with a Book Boyfriend by Lucy Eden. It was a quick, light read, but I smiled the entire way through it. My least favorite read was Wishing for a Highlander by Jessi Gage.
Giveaway Alert
Three lucky winners will choose their prize (one book) from any of the books we logged this month. If you want to be entered to win, leave a comment on this post telling us what your favorite – and least favorite – reads of the month were.
My favorite books this month were the Penric novellas by Lois McMaster Bujold as well as Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall.
I can’t tell you how many books I started but did not finish! They’ll count as my least favorite reads.
I read 30 books in July (obviously, being quarantined at home with nowhere to go has been good for my reading numbers). My favorite read was N.R. Walker’s Missing Pieces trilogy: PIECES OF YOU, PIECES OF ME, PIECES OF US. It’s an m/m romance about a long-time couple who basically have to start over when one of them wakesup from a terrible vehicle accident with severe physical injuries and retrograde amnesia that has wiped out all memories of his partner. It’s a lovely story about ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. The trilogy will undoubtedly be on my BEST OF 2020 list.
I DNF’d four books in July for various reasons—mostly I just wasn’t in the right mood and the book wasn’t grabbing me. Of the books I finished, however, my least favorite was RING AROUND THE ROSEY by L.A. Fiore & Anthony Dwayne. The premise was good (five adults reunite at the house where their parents died 20 years ago—and then strange things start happening), but the writing was so slap-dash, full of continuity errors, abrupt changes in point-of-view, and people acting completely out of character (or TSTL) to forward the plot. With a rigorous edit, the book could have been an excellent romance-horror hybrid—but it was let down by sloppy writing.
In the last month I read Irresistibly Yours by Lauren Layne, Hideaway by Nora Roberts, Daring and the Duke by Sarah Maclean and The Earl Meets His Fancy by Lorraine Heath. I enjoyed Lauren Layne’s book, but I was disappointed in the other three. Parts of Sarah Maclean’s book were good, but the heroines in this series are becoming more and more unrealistic. Now we’re to believe a female boxer can beat all her male opponents. That’s just not going to happen in any era.
My favorite was Ilona Andrews’ Ryder online serial until they had to stop. Otherwise I liked Abby Jimenez’s friend zone. I had been reading Kate Clayton’s redhead books but couldn’t get into the 2nd and 3rd in the series.
My least favorite read was a book called The Christmas Table. It was okay, and it turns out it was WF, not romance.
My favorite was the ARC of The Princess and the Rogue.
My TBR pile just got so so much bigger!!
I didn’t have any bad reads. I loved Penny Reid’s latest Engagement and Espionage in her Cletus and Jen mysteries and am almost done with the spinoff series in the Green Valley Chronicles. I also loved: Daring and the Duke (Sarah MacLean); The Devil of Downtown (Joanna Shupe); About a Rogue (Caroline Linden); and Lenora Bell’s School for Dukes series.
worst book: Magnolia Nights by Ashley Farley
The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay was interesting