Earl Grey Books

It’s been a while but it’s finally time for my next five most recent reads post! Woo, cue cheering! I’ve been in a huge reading slump since late February, so it took me quite a while until I actually had five books to talk about this time. But we’re going to jump into them now!

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

I was buddy reading this with one of my favourite humans in the entire world—the wonderful Inge. I could easily make this entire mini-review about how much I adore her but that’s not why we’re here today. So, I wasn’t sure about this book at all—it’s extremely hyped up and I very rarely like hyped books. But I LOVED this. Inge described it as “disgustingly adorable” and honestly, that hits the nail on the head. It was just super sweet and I loved both Olive and Adam and the dynamic between them. I’m just really into that grumpy/sunshine thing right now and I’ve always loved fake dating, so this was just a mix of everything perfect for me. I’d really love to talk about the smut and how realistic it is but I also know my dad and Pop sometimes read my posts (hi, I love you both if you’re here) but it was just spot on. This is easily going to be one of my favourites for this year and I’ve already ordered Ali Hazelwood’s next book—she’s definitely got herself a new fan!

Scoundrel of My Heart (Once Upon a Dukedom #1) by Lorraine Heath

This one will be a part of a bigger post, but I’m going to share my thoughts here anyway. I’ve read a few Lorraine Heath books in the past—I read the first two and a half books in her Sins for All Seasons books and then gave up. I still wanted to give her a chance with this one, but I don’t think I’ll continue. I don’t dislike her books, but they’ve all just been missing a spark for me. I felt the same about this one. I liked both Kathryn and Griff and their dynamic was sweet, but I just felt kind of blase about the whole thing. I think her books often sound incredible, even just looking at the synopsis for the rest of this series makes me interested in the other books, but they never follow through for me. I don’t even know what it is that stops me from loving them, maybe something in Heath’s writing style or the tropes that she uses—I don’t know, but the spark just isn’t there for me.

You Had Me At Hola by Alexis Daria

I’m definitely still on the contemporary romance train at the moment, and this is another favourite read for sure. This was just sweet and fun and it was just such a joy to read. I’m not usually interested in books in which the main characters are actors or musicians or anything like that—I think mostly because I don’t really get invested in real-life celebrities, but I actually really enjoyed that aspect. I think you can really feel the importance acting has in Jasmine and Ashton’s lives and it’s hard to not care for them. I loved their romance as well—it was really sweet. I was just genuinely so impressed by this. I’m trying so hard not to go out and buy everything Alexis Daria has ever written, at least until I’m off my book buying ban in a few days. I can absolutely see her becoming a new favourite romance author for me.

Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas

This was our February pick for the Last to Read book club that I cohost with my friends, Mel and Lana. Honestly, we were getting to the point where I didn’t think I’d finish this in time for our liveshow because it was taking me forever to read. It took me almost a month exactly to get through because I was just really struggling. At first, I was really drawn into the story—it’s all very mysterious, but the pacing is so terrible that by the time things actually started happening I was so done with the story. It wasn’t all bad—there were a couple of creepy moments that were kinda fun to read, but on the whole, this really didn’t grab my attention.

Enter A Murderer (Roderick Alleyn #2) by Ngaio Marsh

I’ve talked before about the fact that I’m not a crime/thriller reader outside of Agatha Christie, but Ngaio Marsh is making me think maybe I’m a big fan of murder mysteries written around the 20s to 60s/70s. This was my second of Marsh’s books and I’ve just been really impressed by both of them. I love that her writing is engaging and accessible and I really like the character of Inspector Alleyn so far. This is a pretty standard mystery really—a prop gun kills one of the actors mid-performance and so on, but it never felt overly cliche while I was reading it. There were so many different twists and turns that I was just fully engaged with the story—I wasn’t even really thinking about who the murderer was, I just wanted Marsh to take me on this journey and she certainly did. I’m so looking forward to reading book three in the series now!

Hopefully, there won’t be such a gap between this post and the next round-up. But in the meantime, have you read any of these? What have you finished lately?