so cute I loved it!!!!

Last Chance Books -Kelsey Rodkey

Romance, bookstores, competition, enemies to lovers, Young Adult, fiction. 

Rating 10/10

Madeline loves her family’s owned bookstore B&M that has been passed on to the new generation to take over. Her dream is after college coming back to take over the store away from her aunt. However, the store isn’t doing so well and mostly because of the competition that’s across the street called The Prologue. Her short-term goal is to take down The Prologue. Jasper is intent on ruining the B&M yet he secretly loves Madeline but doesn’t want to come to terms with that reality. They pull some pranks on each other until he gets hit by a car forcing Madeline to be the good person and take him to the emergency room then to his house. She decides to wave the white flag of truce and realizes so much when reality hits. 

I was not expecting that. I was expecting the enemies to be lovers but this hit differently. The way that Jasper acts towards Madeline reminded me of children picking on each other that made me laugh. This novel was really cute and funny. I simply enjoyed reading this book and it was one of those one sitting types of reading. It might be just me that feels this way that this was a one-sitting type of novel. I read it in one sitting because I wanted to see where this was going with Jadeline. The author made a unique book centered around rivaling bookstores with romance thrown in. I differently this novel to read. It is fun and cute. 

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Phantom of the Opera meets Burlesque

Where Dreams Descend – Janella Angeles 

Young adult, retelling, burlesque, magic, shows, competition, mystery, fiction.

Rating 8/10

Kallia has been training and using her magic for basic tasks but she wants a challenge. Jack, her Master, doesn’t want her to leave where she resides even though he can’t really stop her from entering the competition for the Conquering Circus. She arrives at the audition when accidents and other people who are magicians go missing. Marco doesn’t like how Kallia is effortlessly skilled and tends to have chaotic control of her magic. This doesn’t stop her from wanting to compete. 

This was pretty good overall for a retellingish novel. I could tell it was inspired by Phantom of the Opera but this was fresh with a woman of color that added diversity and representation. I loved it. I loved the world that the author created and just wished that the pacing was a bit faster. It was slow at first and then it picked up some speed. The world building was excellently paced and enjoyed the characters. Can’t say more than that because otherwise it will spoil the good stuff.