Antonia Bernardin

So, I used to think I was above the romance genre and then… in the last year or two I’ve discovered I’m really not.

I thought it’d be fun to compile a bunch of the ones I’ve read this year.

What are you in for with this list?

I like fluffy, predictable, happily ever afters. I don’t mind a bit of dark romance, trying that genre has been a bit trial and error but I’ve added all of those reads too.

Click the links in the list below to skip to a particular one you are interested in!

• Love Theoretically
• Spanish Deception
• Beach Read
• Love on the Brain
• Loathe to Love You
• Twisted series
• Den if Vipers
• Hooked
• Taunt her
• Fae’s Mate/ Fae’s Flight
• Love Hypothesis

Love Theoretically

Summary

Elsie lives a double life, adjunct professor by day, serial fake girlfriend by night. The fake dating thing is just a way to make a bit of extra cash and Elsie hopes she finally gives it all up with this new job at M.I.T and her career can finally get underway. Everything was going fine until her fake date’s handsome and suspicious brother, turns out to not only be one of the people on the hiring committee for her position but he also the person who wrote the infamous paper, which tanked the reputation of theoretical physicists everywhere and ruined the career of Elsie’s mentor. Not wanting to ‘out’ her sweet client to his brother, Elsie can’t explain herself to Jack Smith, causing him to dislike her almost as much as she dislikes him (or so she thinks). The other problem is, he’s immune to her social chameleon abilities, so Elsie constantly finds herself on the back foot but Jack stands in the way of a good salary, with health benefits – not quite her dream job but definitely better than where she’s at now, so she’s determined to best him.

Review

I enjoyed this book! I liked Elsie’s personality and I related to her people pleasing, social chameleon-ness a worrying amount to be honest. I also liked how these spicy scenes were constructed, as it wasn’t the usual partner-knows-immediately-the-right-way-to-please, but it showed them figuring things out, with consent chat and contraception chat. I know that doesn’t sound hot but the more of these romance books I’ve read, the more I find it’s better for representing real(ish) life and I just think it doesn’t hurt to include a little of that in a spicy way. I enjoy the whole steminist backdrop to Ali’s books, as it gives them a little more depth.

These books are what they say on the tin, cute romances, with a guaranteed happily ever after, perfect for a bit of easy reading.

Spanish Deception – Elena Armes

Summary

Catalina desperately needs a date to her sisters wedding, a date she may have fibbed about existing in a panic after she finds out her already-engaged ex will be there. When she laments to her best friend about her predicament, who not only overhears but then, astonishingly, offers to be her date? Erin Blackford, arch enemy number one in her company. Obviously, this is a crazy offer and Catalina doesn’t take him up on it… at first. As the wedding draws closer and she becomes desperate, they reach a deal. She will attend a big charity event with Erin, if he agrees to be her date at the wedding. Oh and also, he must convincingly act completely besotted by her and as though he’s her long term boyfriend, not just a date. Except, at the wedding he’s a little too convincing and Catalina finds the line between fake and real blurring as he begins to change her opinion on him as her arch nemesis. 

Review

So, firstly, I listened to this book as an audio and I think my only criticism of that is the narrator did not have a European Spanish accent, she used a Latino style Spanish accent. Given that a large part of Lina’s identity is her European/ Spanish roots, this seemed an odd thing to miss. 

I found the start of this book very slow but I really enjoyed it once the story got going. It’s cute, Erin’s devotion is blindingly obvious and it does start to get frustrating the MC doesn’t see it, I’m not a huge fan of the miscommunication trope though so this may just be personal preference. This spice in this is very low but there’s lot of fun simmering, tense moments. I liked all the little touches with Lina’s family and I liked her personality, she had a lot more character than some FMC’s do in these kind of books.

Beach Read – Emily Henry

Summary

January winds up temporarily moving into the cabin her father bought to have his affair in, something she only discovers at his funeral. She’s broke, experiencing the worst writers block she’s ever had and questioning everything she ever believed about love and romance. To her dismay she realises she’s moved into a cabin next door to her college rival, Gus, who is also a published writer. Through a series of incidents the two end up around each other enough to realise they are both experiencing crippling writing block, so they decide to set each other the challenge of swapping genres. Gus will have to write a fluffy romance and January will have to write a gritty realism novel. As part of the bet they go on learning expeditions to to teach the other about their genre, January has to come up with romance meet cute scenarios and Gus takes her on research trips into the cult he is writing about. Slowly, they discover that there was more to the other than they thought and well… you know the rest!

Review

I loved this book and, dare I say it, I actually enjoyed it more than a lot of the Ali Hazelwood’s I have read. This just had so much more… depth to it? The characters felt so real and the third act miscommunication felt like how a real genuine misunderstanding would go, instead of it just being two stupid adults not having a fucking conversation. I really liked the backdrop of their writing against the story and how the FMC being a romance writer meant the author could almost break the fourth wall a little bit, by wryly pointing out when she found herself in the same ridiculous situations as the MC’s in romance books. 

I will definitely be on the hunt for some more Emily Henry novels after reading this!

Love on the Brain – Ali Hazelwood

Summary

Bee’s career in neuroscience has stagnated, until she gets the opportunity of a lift time, working for NASA to develop a helmet designed to optimise an astronaut’s ability to concentrate. Only, she arrives to discover the guy from her grad school lab, who absolutely hated her back then, will be running the lab in partnership with her. Bee has hope when Levi seems different to how he was in school, more personable, well liked by his colleagues and he is mostly civil with her. Until her lab equipment does not arrive and he reprimands her for not dressing professionally. Furious, Bee finally chews him out and threatens to go to the department head, despite Levi’s insistence that it won’t be a good idea. Somehow, Levi beats her to the supervisors office and Bee is about to barge in and say her piece when she realises Levi is defending her and demanding her lab equipment. From there, they strike an un-easy truce, until the day Bee get stuck in a graveyard after dark and only has Levi to call for rescue. She is forced to stay over night at his place and it’s then Bee realises she may have misunderstood a lot about Levi.

All the while Bee is posting on her steminist twitter account and messaging with a fellow women in stem supporter. They anonymously talk about their professional frustrations… such as the lab co-lead whose being a massive camel dick, and the women that the other account is love with who recently joined his team but he believes she’s married and hates him so he can’t act on his feelings.

Review

You know what? I might even prefer this book the most out of three Ali Hazelwood books I’ve read. Bee is just… cool, in a nerdy kind of way. Her character has some real depth, between the facts about famous women scientists sprinkled throughout her narration, her quirky internal monologue and the way she always blurts out what she’s thinking, she felt very real. I loved the little extra details like her demonic little gen z lab assistant and Levi’s extra interests outside of work. The whole messaging each other over twitter about one another thing is a little contrived but I don’t think it took away from the narrative. Also, there was no incredibly predictable third act misunderstanding this time, which was refreshing.

So for a fluffy romance, I actually got a whole bit of plot that I actually enjoyed!

Loathe to Love You – Ali Hazelwood

Summary

This is a book made up of three different novellas, each following one of three girls in a friendship group. 

The first is a forced proximity, enemies to lovers tale, where an environmental engineer is left half of a property in the will of her supervisor, only to discover that the other half is owned by her nephew, a blunt (but hot!), big oil lawyer. Their hatred turns to a truce, which turns to friendship, which eventually becomes more. 

The second follows an environmental engineer, flashing between the present, where she is trapped in a lift with the hot, nordic partner in the competing architecture firm in her building and the past, when they hooked up. She hates him because she believes he betrayed her but as they are stuck together in the lift, she discovers that maybe she was mistaken.

The final story follows a Nasa engineer, who finds herself working with a guy she almost hooked up with a few years ago and now he’s blocking her project at every turn, or so she thinks. The story flashes between the present, where she is stuck in an icy crevasse, after going out in unsafe weather to test her prototype in the arctic and her (so called) nemesis is the only one prepared to rescue her, to the past, detailing their original encounter and their ‘feud’ when working together.

Review

These are cute, short and sweet novellas. They have the classic ‘third act misunderstanding’ of romance novels but it’s not too protracted or drawn out due to how short the stories are. I liked the whole ‘steminist’ angle and I think it added a bit of depth to what would have been very shallow stories.

These are super cute, they are what they are say on the tin, they are nice, fluffy romances.

Twisted Series – Ana Huang

(Specifically- this review is for book one, but you can find the rest on my site)

Summary 

Ava has always been intimidated by her brother Josh’s best-friend, Alex; a cold, calculated genius who Josh had been bringing to thanksgiving dinner for the last 8 years. When her brother goes overseas for Doctors Without Borders type program, he asks Alex to watch out for his baby sister, to which Alex reluctantly agrees. Ava isn’t happy about it but is determined to make the best of it and tries to get to know Alex better, which quickly becomes a challenge set by her friends: ‘make Alex show emotions’. Alex is totally focused on revenge against his parents murderer, accruing power, blackmail, connections, companies and wealth, all in pursuit of revenge. So when a girl who is sunshine personified begins to get under his skin, he finds himself reluctantly losing sight of the goal that has consumed him for more than ten years. Neither can resist the other, but will Ava drag him form the darkness, or will Alex bring her down with him?

Review

You know what, I fully went into this book expecting it to be a bit crap. I wanted a romance book with a bit of a ‘morally grey’ love interest, and a few good tropes, for an easy read. But, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! It does play with some tropes quite well and walks the line of a ‘dark’ love interest, who is not borderline abusive like some can be, quite smoothly. Not only that, but the romance in it is believable. You can feel the passion and understand why the FMC is willing to overlook his… dodgier business practices. The spicy scenes are good and they also have a little bit of consent and contraception chat, as well as ‘tap out’ codes for any rough play (again, differing it from other ‘dark romances’ I’ve read where the MMC is basically abusive, a FMC is only consenting in her inner monologue, after the fact).

I would genuinely recommend this to a romance genre fan

Den of Vipers

Summary 

The Vipers own this town and when one of the people in debt to them offers up his daughter in payment, they have to accept in order to make an example of him. But with Roxy they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, she’s no damsel in distress and so when they come to ‘collect’ her from the dive bar she owns, she sends them packing with her trusty bat. The Vipers claim her eventually though and Roxy is imprisoned with them in their luxury apartment, they plan to make her their plaything but she’s not going to make it easy to keep her, despite her growing attraction to these four gorgeous, dangerous men. Against their will, all four guys and Roxy feel drawn to one another, seeing their darkest parts reflected in the other and, while a turf war flares up between gangs, they realise that this girl may be more than just a debt, she might be their salvation. 

Review

Honestly, my feelings about this book have gone back and forth, to the point where almost did not finish it. The first 200 pages are incredibly slow and I think the book could’ve ended about 200 pages before it did, the middle 200 is what saved it. I don’t love this attempt you find often in dark romance books to give each character their tragic backstory TM to justify the ‘darker’ aspects of the romance, both for the reason the MMC is behaving the way they do and why the FMC accepts it. This book spends a lot of time monologuing about their back stories and the many revelations on all the characters ‘journeys’. Basically, in this book they are either fucking or doing therapy with each other, and here and there you might find some plot. 

However, kudos to author because they somehow did make me care about these characters towards the end and the spicy scenes are genuinely spicy (although the repeated use of the word ‘cream’ in reference the FMC’s… enjoyment, was a little much for me). 

In conclusion… this was a book? I can’t necessarily recommend it but I also didn’t hate it? 

I would for sure check the trigger warnings before reading though.

Hooked

Summary 

James (Hook) has one goal in mind, revenge on the man who took his family from him. He worked hard to build his reputation, power and money to defeat the demons of his past. When his nemesis’s daughter walks into his bar, sweet and innocent, James sees his opportunity to get his revenge. Little did he know that he would feel so deeply for the daughter of his enemy, or how those close to him would betray him.

Review

Look, this book is what it is, it’s a dark romance, the main character is not supposed to be redeemable- the author is veryyyy clear on that. As an easy read, not to be taken too seriously, this book is a good read, it kept me entertained on my plane ride. I will say, part of where James is cold and analytical, it didn’t translate well in the *spicy* scenes, which were all narrated from his point of view, because then a lot of his actions in those scenes are told in the same calculated way and it took some of the passion out of it. 

I will keep reading this series, however, as they are on Kindle Unlimited, they are good short read on the Kindle when I’m commuting and stuff. Definitely check out the trigger warnings before you read this one.

Taunt Her

Summary

Ace is the bad boy from the wrong side of town but when his rich uncle decides to suddenly take in he and his brothers, after years of letting them live in squalor but it’s an offer Ace can’t refuse because he wants his brothers to have a better life. However, he finds that he cannot let go of the past and decides that the preppy, rich, daughter of his uncle’s girlfriend, whom his uncle openly dotes on, will be the perfect tool for his revenge. Remy finds that she can’t resist the new ‘alpha hole’ at the school, she knows she shouldn’t trust him but she just can’t hep it.

Review

Okay, so, first of all, apart from how the book ends, he genuinely does not bully her. He’s a dick to everyone else and he’s a little controlling but he does not bully her. There’s some weird turning up and waiting for her in her bedroom type shenanigans (maybe the author was a twilight fan…?) but I wouldn’t put this in the same category as the bully romance in Zodiac Academy for example. Second of all… look, it was an easy listen and maybe it doesn’t need to be deeper than that… it was okay, it entertained me while I was working, do with that what you will.

Fae’s Mate and Fae’s Flight

Summary

The first book opens with Seki serving a customer at her bakery before they both experience a strange sensation and suddenly find themselves in an Autumnal woods, next to two beings they quickly discover are Fae and 10 other humans. The Prince of the Autumn court and the Prince of the Summer court used their combined power in attempt to pull through the Autumn Court Prince’s mate. Instead, they seem to have pulled through 11 other humans alongside her. The first book switches between Seki and The High Lord of the Autumn Court points of view and both quickly realise there is some kind of magnetic attraction between the two of them and they begin to wonder if the Autumn Court Prince’s mate wasn’t the only mate pulled through. With magic draining from the Fae realm without a single mated pair in over century, they soon realise there is hope yet for all the courts.

The second books follows a group of the 12 humans who are taken to the Summer court to share the burden of feeding and housing them, where it soon seems there may be more fated mates pairings on the horizon.

Review

I really enjoyed these books, they are short, cute, fun reads. There’s great romances in both books and, in a nice turn of events for romance/ fantasy tale, there’s no long drawn out build up, as soon as the characters realise they are fated, their relationships fall into place quite naturally, which is refreshing compared to most books I’ve read with this trope. I had a nasty cold when I read these and it was exactly the kind of comfort read I was in need of!

Love Hypothesis – Ali Hazelwood

Summary 

The story proper begins with Olive, a 3rd year phd student, kissing the first random man she sees in the hallway, to help support the lie she told her friend about being on a date; so that her friend would finally feel comfortable dating Olive’s ex that she was clearly in love with. To her dismay, Olive realises she has kissed Adam Carlsen, a formidable professor who leads another lab in her building. To make matters worse, Olive’s friend still doesn’t buy it, so she comes to Adam with a deal, a fake relationship that benefits both of them; helping to convince her friend that she’s moved on and helping to convince the board that Adam isn’t a flight risk for leaving the university by showing him in a settled relationship. As part of their ruse, they have public ‘dates’, where they begrudgingly find themselves getting to know one another, with Adam offering unwavering support to Olive in her academic career,. This comes to a climax at a huge conference where she is set to present. When things don’t go well at the conference, their fake relationship suddenly doesn’t feel so fake…

Review

I really enjoyed this book! It’s cute, it’s slow burn, the character’s are lovable, it’s great! It is just, a simple, fluffy romance but the whole backdrop of the world of academia gives it some great depth. It does rely fairly heavily on the miscommunication trope, which isn’t aways my favourite thing but, I also really love a fake dating trope, so the whole thing balances itself out in the end!