NEVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER.....2 BACHELORETTES TAKE DOWN A REALITY SHOW ROGUE (****)

 Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales (2022)

            So much I loved about this one, especially for its ambitious combination of multiple YA tropes........the frenzy of lives lived on social media, the scourge of reality shows with their calculated, fake reality, enemies-to-lovers and to top it off, queer romance rendered with equal amounts of tenderness, adorability and genuine heat. 

            And even better.....the whole package is seasoned with a razor sharp sense of humor that keeps things bubbling all the way to the end. 

             The girls we're rooting for, Maya and Skye, find themselves deliberately pitted against one another while contestants in a 'Bachelor' ripoff, a second chance romance' reality show Like the other girls on the show, they're exes of the falsely charming Jordy,  a lying duplicitous snake now freshly famous since his sister married into a royal family.

              Maya's joined the show strictly on a secret revenge quest, hoping to re-win Jordy for the sole purpose of  exposing him in public as a manipulative, sociopathic creep.  And Jordy, scheming for drama to pump up the ratings, throws Maya and Skye together as room mates,  the two girls he cheated on......simultaneously.no less.

               While the showrunners, arrange the usual contests and dates designed to woo back the loathsome Jordy, Maya and Skye's initial rivalry and animosity begins to. turn to........well, hardly need to describe anything more., do I?    Other than praising Sophie Gonzales's skill at making you root for (and sigh for) the two girls, hope and pray for Jordy's crushing comeuppance, and  laugh at some devastating, witty lines.

                While I've read any number of romcoms that try to keep a lot of stuff up in the air at the same time, "Never Ever"  does it right, does it funny, does it sexy and delivers a 4 star entertaining read. (****)

                (And you can never, ever ever have enough stories that feature a well deserved evisceration of reality shows....., so, bravo!)

A HARD DAY FOR A HANGOVER (AVAILABLE 12/6/22).(*****).... EVERYBODY NEEDS A LITTLE SUNSHINE.....

           

              Couldn't wait to give you an advance review of one that's going right to top of my list of Most Favorite Books Of The Year...

               And much, much thanks to NetGalley and publisher St. Martins Press for the advance read in exchange for an honest review. 

               SQ says grab it on Dec.6th, the day it hits the stores and put it immediately on your Holiday Gift List.....for yourself and everybody else.

               First, I'm utterly crushed, saddened and miserable at the thought that this book's the completion of Drynda Jones's Sunshine Vicram series.   Only a trilogy?  Nooooooooo........

                 Please, please, please don't let this be true.  Because it's practically criminal how much fun these books are.......at one moment laugh out loud funny and then next making a reader (along with the characters) close to tearing up with a bursting heart. 

               Not an easy task, and the ''Sunshine' books pull it off page after page......to the point where once I come to the end, I'm already counting the days until the next book comes out. ,

               That explains my depression at the thought of no more visits to the little town of Del Sol New Mexico, where Sheriff Sunshine Vicram and literally everyone else in the town wields a devastating, 
wickedly deadpan sense of humor. 

                 This quirky, oddball populace includes  Levi, Ravinder the mysterious, taciturn love of Sun's life, Quincy, her mountain-sized BFF deputy and most importantly Auri, her impossibly adorable 15 year old daughter, fiercely beloved by the entire town....(with the one exception of Auri's high school arch-nemesis mean girl....)

                I should point out though, that "A Hard Day For a Hangover"  would not read easily as a stand-alone, since so much of the story comes from the previous two books.  And you most definitely do NOT want to deprive yourself of all the laughs, surprises, thrills and throat-catching moments in the first two, (A Bad Day For Sunshine, A Good Day For Chardonnay)

                  "A Hard Day"   finds Sunshine once again coping with a myriad of mysteries, danger, aggravations and numerous nutty encounters with Del Sol's one-of-a-kind townsfolk. There's a serial rapist-murderer tossing girls into canyons below the highway, and the ongoing peril  of coping with Levi's criminal uncles, one of whom is a murderous local kingpin.  (And speaking of her forever lover Levi, the sexual heat generated between them approaches near nuclear levels....)

                   And to add to her woes, daughter Auri, to Sun's everlasting outrage (but barely contained secret admiration) is as fearless and relentless a sleuth as her mom......which inevitably puts Auri in the crosshairs of her quarry and in harrowing need of rescuing.

.
                   While there's no real stunning revelations as to where the where the evil lies, you don't read this series for the twists anyway.  The page turning comes from the laughs, the blink-back-the-tears stuff and the joys of hanging out with a whole bunch of unforgettable characters.  who never stop making making you smile.  

For me, that's an automatic 5 stars(*****).......and a heartfelt prayer that this series goes way, way beyond a trilogy. Here's hopin'........

       

THE PRISONER.....A YOUNG GIRL'S ARRANGED MARRIAGE, KIDNAPPING AND TANGLED AFTERMATH.....(**)

 The Prisoner by B.A. Paris (2022)

Well, honestly, as much as I've enjoyed staying up late with previous B.A. Paris thrillers, this one ended up as a disappointment.

                I was completely on board and riveted with the book's first half, with alternating before/during/after chapters detailing  a young woman's rocky backstory and her ordeal as a kidnap victim.

 
                Amelie, a suddenly orphaned French teenager, bravely decides to hit the road on her own, managing to make her way to London. In a fortunate turn of events, she finds a group of women who offer her employment, friendship and even mentoring..

                But then in an unfortunate turn of events, she unwisely enters a devil's marriage bargain to secure money for a law school education. Her husband of convenience is the odious Ned Hawthorne, a wealthy, spoiled rotten heir to his philanthropist father's fortune.......and a toxic, sociopathic abuser and rapist of women.  

                Amelie and Ned find themselves abducted for ransom and held separately.....but by whom?  And what if Ned's imperious billionaire dad doesn't feel like coughing up a ransom for both of them?

                 For non-spoiler purposes  I can only speak vaguely about the slow, far-fetched and downright tedious second half of the book, which deals with the aftermath of the first half.

                 Some twists and turns appear along this slow road to the story's wrap-up, finally finishing in a long, long laborious account of the confounding motives and behaviors of all the major participants. This sort of  resembles one of those Hercule Poirot accounts of the who, what and why of everything, but nothing of the revelations come across as particularly clever or believable. 

                 A page-turning, gangbusters first half for sure, but for me, the rest of "The Prisoner" devolved into at best, a 2 star read. (**)

DEAD AND GONDOLA.........A MOUNTAINTOP BOOKSHOP TO DIE FOR...(WHICH SOMEBODY DID) ****

 Dead And Gondola by Ann Claire (2022)

                I don't know how any cozy aficionado could resist all the elements in play here. 

                 First off, an absolute to-die-for bookstore situated on a ski resort nestled on a Colorado mountaintop......and thrillingly accessed by gondolas. The bookstore itself?  Literally a chalet stocked with floor to ceiling bookshelves. It's run by sisters Ellie and Meg Christie, mystery lovers but with no relation we know of  to you-know who. But there is in fact a famous, beloved Agatha at the store -  the sisters'  Siamese cat and a full time social media celebrity sensation. 

                  Naturally you'll find 'The Book Chalet' in a scenic little town populated with with quirky residents, some ornery, some funny, some adorable, some a mixture of all those qualities at once. And yes, maybe more than a few of them possess motives for murdering that mysterious guy found dead on a gondola......right after he visited the bookstore..  What more could you want if you're looking to cozy up with a cozy on a chilly, crisp night?

                   As Ellie and Meg launch their inevitable amateur investigation, clues, suspects and twists abound, along with that essential  necessity we crave in a such a book,   fresh baked desserts.  All the cozy components appear, which author Ann Claire handles with just the right amounts of mystery and wit. (One of the things I most appreciated here - the book not going overboard with any labored, strained attempts at comedy.)

                   A town full of book lovers, a richly stocked bookstore to feed their needs, and a murder and disappearance to fuel their suspicions and sleuthings....what a perfect recipe.. . I wanted to throw on my heaviest winter jacket fly out there and see if the Christies needed any more help at the store. So I guess that's what you'd call a 4 star cozy****). Most definitely looking forward to future installments.