sarahesterman's reviews
103 reviews

Prince Cheating Charming by Katie Landry

funny

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

There’s a long-held joke in the romance community (and especially among dark romance readers) that we’re ok with kidnapping, stalking, murder, etc etc, but cheating? Absolutely the fuck not. 

But something I’ve learned about my reading preferences over the last couple of years is that, while there are generally tropes I don’t prefer, there’s always at least one book or author who can really hit it out of the park for me. Enter Katie Landry and her cheating/revenge/grovel romances. 

I loved Prince Cheating Charming. Delilah kicked ass. Praise Saint Constance, the patron saint of vengeance, for giving her the confidence to get hers. Because she did. And Alexander did some good groveling. The grovel was so good I forgave him, which is pretty remarkable. 

Also, Landry’s writing is really funny. I will read any cheating romance she writes. 

(Let’s be friends on threads and bookstagram.) 

Dirty Rotten Cheating Husband: A Second Chance Romance by Katie Landry

funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

I will admit that there was a moment while reading A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske that I wondered if it could very well be draco/ron fanfic. That moment passed quickly as the plot progressed… but I can’t deny it was there. 

The tl;dr in this historical romantasy is that our delightfully himbo Robin (who has never known magic in his life) has just gotten a new job as, it turns out, a liaison to magic stuff. After meeting Edwin, his magical counterpart, they both decide it was clearly a mistake that they’ll rectify. And, of course, they plan to, but then Robin goes ahead and gets himself cursed on his way home from the boxing club that night. The baddies are looking for something they think Robin’s got, Robin’s got no clue what’s going on, and Edwin is the only one who can help him. Thus, an adventure to Edwin’s countryside home and mild chaos (and romance) ensues. 

Anyway, I loved this. As always, gay is in, gay is hot, I want some gay, gay it’s gonna be (a la Laszlo Cravensworth). And also extra because I love love love the golden retriever/black cat pairing in any capacity, and Robin and Edwin fit it perfectly. And gay romance set when it was illegal always hits extra hard, stakes-wise. 

I will say this story isn’t technically a standalone, though it seems later books in the trilogy follow different characters. The connecting story is not finished by the end of the book, but you do have a larger piece of the puzzle. And I want more pieces so I will likely continue reading. 

I did have one minor complaint (and it’s a spoiler):

If the three magical pieces were so dangerous that the original women keeping track of them decided they could never be brought together… then why didn’t they just drop in them in the ocean or something??? Why hold onto them where they could be found???? Feels like a plot hole to me.

 

Anyway, this was a delightfully cozy book that honestly felt perfect for the summer to fall transition. 

Let’s be friends on threads and bookstagram. 

Cuffing Season: A Steamy, Friends to Lovers, Holiday Romance Novella by Luna Whitney

3.75

I read Cuffing Season back in July (let’s just ignore that it’s September at time of writing, k thanks) in what turned out to be a small series of Christmas in July books. Anyway, I liked it! 

It’s a low stakes cozy holiday friends-to-lovers novella that you can finish in one sitting. It’s heavy in the feels but nothing so dramatic it’ll keep you up at night. 

His hand goes to my throat with a firm grasp, and I force my eyes open. “Grayson,” I say.

”Tell me,” he says, and his voice is pleading. “Tell me you hate me being with anyone else half as much as I hate when you have someone else. Tell me it drives you crazy to know it’s not you I’m coming home to. Tell me it hurts you even a little that it’s not me you wake up to, that it’s not me whose hands have memorized the feel of your body, whose lips have scorched every inch of your skin. Tell me that I’m not alone in this. Or tell me that I am, and we’ll never talk about this gain. I can’t hold this back any longer, Ava. Tell me something. Tell me anything. Just set me free from not knowing.”

Let’s be friends on threads and bookstagram.

Catching the Cowgirl by Lucy Darling

fast-paced

3.5

Small town meets the city, fish out of water, mysterious government job, instalust/instalove, spicy and sweet… chef’s kiss. 

Let’s be friends on threads and bookstagram. 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

challenging dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I knew My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh was going to be pretty fucking weird going into it. You see, I did my due diligence, read some reviews, and planned accordingly. 

Given that, I can tell you straight out that if you have depression or suicidal ideation: Take care of yourself and proceed (with the book and this review) with caution. 

The tl;dr is that the (very unlikable) narrator, who is privileged and slender and blonde and WASPy and hot—and tells the reader those things repeatedly—is supremely depressed but doesn’t have the words for that. It’s 2000, to be fair. (We’ve made great strides in de-stigmatizing mental health in the last 24 years, though we still have a ways to go.) Anyway, she gets it in her mind that all she needs is one solid year of sleep and then she’ll wake up a new person. Like continuous sleep. So she finds the world’s most irresponsible psychiatrist to get herself some drugs, and she tries to make it happen. 

Everybody is awful in this book—save for Reva, the unnamed narrator’s “best friend” (in quotes because she’s never treated well). Like no doubt Reva makes some poor choices, none of which made her unsympathetic to me. 

But the other characters we see suck. Dr. Tuttle is several lawsuits waiting to happen and is easily the worst person in this book, given how easily she hands out drugs to her clients. The narrator’s ex-boyfriend, Trevor, treats her poorly and SAs her (though the book doesn’t call it that). And Ping Xi, an artist she ends up associating with, is… something. 

When I picked up this book, I was looking for weird lit fic. I got it. While some things didn’t work for me—the ending was dissatisfying and the SA scene with Trevor honestly didn’t need to be there—the book did make me feel something. Namely, it made me feel relief that my depression has never been so bad I wanted to literally sleep a year away. 

Let’s be friends on threads and bookstagram. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Suicide

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale

3.5

On the whole, I really liked Cassandra in Reverse. We read it for book club in July, and given it was the first book we’d read that I liked in a few months, I was relieved. 

From the beginning, it’s clear that Cassandra is autistic. I am not autistic, so I can’t speak to the accuracy of the representation, but the portrayal of ableism in general was spot-on. I also appreciated Cassandra’s self-awareness as she continued to go back and tweak things. She seemed to have some sense of responsibility when she realized she was affecting other peoples’ lives, and even guilt over manipulating things. 

But the problem with time travel stories is I’m always going to be trying to make sense of the how. Though I read this before The Ministry of Time (I’ve been behind in review writing, le sigh)—and also they are very different books—I was better able to accept the why and how there than I was here, simply because the narrator told me to accept it. 

In this one, though, we’re not given a reason for her sudden ability to go back in time. I kept expecting one—or an end to her abilities—it never comes. In some ways that was refreshing (I didn’t end up dissecting the reason to death), but it was also frustrating. 

Because if Cassandra is able to go back in time and change things not just in her life but in the people around hers, we have three possibilities: 1) other people have this ability, as well, 2) she’s creating parallel universes with each change she makes, or 3) she’s the only person who can do this and thus she is the center of the universe. 

And maybe it’s not that deep. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But I could not get that out of my head. 

I also hated the end of the book, but that’s another story. 

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Knot My Type by Evie Mitchell

3.0

The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood

2.0

After hearing such good things about The Love of My Afterlife, I expected something different than what it was. While I don’t believe books can be “overhyped”—taste is subjective—I just thought it was going to be a different book altogether. 

And it’s not that I didn’t read the blurb, because I did! I was definitely expecting a paranormal rom com. Which I guess it is, in a way. But I wasn’t expecting so much of the humor to be based on the heroine absolutely and completely humiliating herself. I don’t generally find that sort of thing funny. I don’t want to laugh at the heroine getting into ridiculously embarrassing situations, I want to root for her and have the humor come from external situations or dialogue. 

I did, however, like the found family and community aspects. But even that at times felt unbelievable. But most unbelievable (despite the whole afterlife thing) was the end. Spoiler, but

there’s no way that man would have been allowed out of the hospital the day he woke up form a 12-week coma. He would’ve had a feeding tube!! It made no sense. Even if he seemed in perfect health, they would’ve kept him for observation for several days. No sense was made. None at all. 

Anyway, it wasn’t for me. 

Let’s be friends on booksta and threads. 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

adventurous challenging funny hopeful mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It’s been almost 10 days since I finished The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley and I’m still not entirely sure what to say about it. 

I mean, I liked it. It was weird, which I tend to like. The writing was… odd… at points, not quite purple prose but filled with strange metaphors that made things fuzzier rather than clearer. But given that fuzziness served the feeling of the text and the story, I assume it was done on purpose. 

There was some romance, though I wouldn’t classify the book as a romance, given there was no clear happy ending for the couple. (The book is being adapted to a BBC miniseries, so I’m curious if the ending will change at all.) 

There was also humor, though in a dry British sort of way. For instance, our protagonist describes a colleague ordering a drink at a bar: “She came back with a glass of chilled red wine, which I hadn’t realized was a drink you could get on purpose.” 

Overall, I guess I’d say it was a vibe. 

I can see what some people don’t like about it, though. You’re very much getting a one-sided narrative that takes place in the not-so-distant future about bringing people from the past forward into the future—and much of the book is them just vibing day-to-day while learning bits and pieces about the politics of the situation. 

While some stuff is definitely happening in the outside world, a lot of what’s going on is in our unnamed protagonist’s head (and it took me way too long to realize we didn’t know her name). I imagine—for some—it could feel slow, maybe boring. And when you’re already feeling that way the weird metaphors and similes (of which there were many) might feel weirder. 

A few examples of sections I highlighted and simply wrote “what” in my kindle note: 

Quentin treated me with an impatient familiarity, as if we were both sticky and were leaving streaks on each other.

He would build sentences around the rooms where burnt and broken things squatted, and I would never be able to see the damage for the bars.

I had a feeling like I’d always assumed I was a real girl but someone had flicked me in the eye and it had produced no pain, only a glassy click: I was just a doll, with no more inner intelligence than a bottle of water.

And then there’s the moment when I learned that Gore was a real person in real-life history, and I realized that this book is maybe a self-insert fanfic about a historical character—and that confused things further. But not too much, clearly, because all of the weirdness worked for me, and I maybe even liked it more because of it?
 
I will say that romance readers looking for a fun time travel romance will likely be disappointed given the open-ended ending, but if you like sci fi and lit fic, I’d say it’s a good choice.

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