I finished up another batch of romance books and knew I had to squeeze these in before the end of the year. There’s something so comforting about a good romance book and here are some great picks to end 2023. It’s kind of a mixed bag this time, so definitely read for a variety of feels. Make it to the end for one of my favorite tropes! Keep reading for mini reviews of For Never & Always, The Fake Mate, The Roommate Pact, The Referral Program, and Always Only You.
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Always Only You by Chloe Liese
Ren has known Frankie Zeferino was a woman worth waiting for since the moment they met. She’s a master of deadpan delivery, has a secret heart of gold, and a rare one-dimpled smile that makes his knees go weak. But as long as Frankie’s the team’s social media manager, she’s off limits.
Frankie is a self-admittedly blunt, grumbly grump, but even she isn’t immune to sunshiney Ren Bergman. Who could be, when he’s a six-foot-three hunk of happy with a hockey player’s physique? Maybe in the past, Frankie would have gone for a guy like him, but since being burned too many times by people who learn about her diagnoses and see a problem, not a person, she’s wised up.
After waiting years for the right time to make his move, Ren learns Frankie plans to leave the team to pursue a new career. But what he didn’t anticipate is how hard he’ll have to work to convince her to let him have his shot at winning her heart.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Okay so first up, the elephant in the room. While there is an author letter at the beginning about all the numerous references to the works of JK Rowling, I felt like with these new paperback releases in 2023 we could have done the quick edits to remove them. Just something to know before you go into Always Only You. Now, I haven’t read the first Bergman Brother story, but this one has inspired me to read the entire series. I loved the representation of chronic pain and autism, but also the chemistry and character development of Frankie and Ren.
What better praise is there? I loved the character development is almost immediate and jumps off the page. It’s detailed, nuanced, quirky, and adorable all at once. I can’t pick a character I loved more Frankie who is falling fast and poised to bolt. Or Ren who is a Shakespeare obsessed gentle giant and determined to never leave. It’s a match made it heaven and just talking about it again leaves me swooning. Always Only You is a story about respecting someone and allowing them to make a choice, to not jump in thinking we’re doing the right thing.
Find Always Only You on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.
For Never & Always by Helena Greer
Hannah Rosenstein should be after a lonely childhood of traipsing all over the world, she finally has a home as the co-owner of destination inn Carrigan’s All Year. But her thoughts keep coming back to Levi “Blue” her first love, worst heartbreak, and now, thanks to her great-aunt’s meddling will, absentee business partner.
When Levi left Carrigan’s, he had good intentions. As the queer son of the inn’s cook and groundskeeper, he never quite fit in their small town and desperately wanted to prove himself. Now that he’s a celebrity chef, he’s ready to come home and make amends. Only his return goes nothing like he his family’s angry with him, his best friend is dating his nemesis, and Hannah just wants him to leave. Again .
Levi sees his chance when a VIP bride agrees to book Carrigan’s—if he’s the chef. He’ll happily cook for the wedding, and in exchange, Hannah will give him five dates to win her back. Only Hannah doesn’t trust this new Levi, and Levi’s coming to realize Hannah’s grown too. But if they find the courage to learn from the past . . . they just might discover the love of your life is worth waiting for.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
I just want to start this review by saying that this is technically a companion novel and not billed as a sequel, but it feels more like a sequel. I think to really get a good sense of the character group and the dynamics you’d have to read Seasons of Love. While I know that it’s not always mandatory, but for this one I believe it is. You just don’t know enough about all these histories and backgrounds without it which allow you to truly see Hannah and Levi in this world.
While I’m normally a fan of second chance romances, especially with a secret wedding thrown in the mix, I wasn’t sure about this one even till the end. The TLDR of Hannah and Levi is that for most of the books they seem like their future paths, the essence of who they are, are diametrically opposed. We have someone who used to have to travel a lot, but just kind of wants to sink into a stable sense of home. At the same time we also have someone who hates the home he grew up in and doesn’t want to be there. Seems like a problem?
Overall,
And while For Never & Always is a swoony romance, even at the end I wasn’t sure how much I bought the HEA. There’s so much history to wade through, this distance of who they were and who they are now. It’s also all wrapped up in Levi’s feelings about home and Cass that by the end I just wasn’t sure? For me, it was missing a bit of the individual character development I loved in Seasons of Love to tip it over the edge for me even with the ending. That being said, the theme of relationships always needing work even when it’s right and you want it is one I admire.
Find For Never & Always on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.
The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson
Mackenzie Carter has had some very bad dates lately. Model train experts, mansplainers, guys weirdly obsessed with her tail—she hasn’t had a successful date in months. Only a year out of residency, her grandmother’s obsession with Mackenzie finding the perfect mate to settle down with threatens to drive Mackenzie barking mad. Out of options, it feels like a small thing to tell her grandmother that she’s met someone. That is, until she blurts out the name of the first man she sees and the last man she would ever date: Noah Taylor, the big bad wolf of Denver General.
Noah Taylor, interventional cardiologist and all around grump, has spent his entire life hiding what he is. With outdated stigmas surrounding unmated alphas that have people wondering if they still howl at the moon, Noah has been careful to keep his designation under wraps. It’s worked for years, until an anonymous tip has everything coming to light. Noah is left with two options: come clean to the board and risk his career—or find himself a mate. The chatty, overly friendly ER doctor asking him to be her fake boyfriend on the same day he’s called to meet the board has to be kismet, right?
Mackenzie will keep her grandmother off her back, and Noah will get a chance to prove he can continue to work without a real mate—a mutually beneficial business transaction, they both rationalize. But when the fake-mate act turns into a very real friends-with-benefits arrangement, lines start to blur, and they quickly realize love is a whole different kind of animal.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
The Fake Mate plays with supernatural beings – werewolves – and introduces fake dating, office romance, and grumpy meets sunshine. And I fell for it. This dual POV story was steamy and charming. While to be honest I’m not sure what Mackenzie was getting out of it because she seems like a sunny angel, I can see the broody appeal of Noah. If you love those tropes of grumpy characters who are secretly all soft if the right person sees through and makes the effort, this is for you. Plus it has some interesting *ahem* anatomy.
The Fake Mate was just overall such a fun read. There’s the perfect level of swooning which melts your heart. Plus I am always a sucker for the perfect heroine to melt the heart of the grump. No matter how many times I read it gets me every time! But I think what also made me like The Fake Mate was the way it talks about finding someone who will fight for you. A partnership where you both fight for each other. To know that you give someone all the information, allow them to make their own choices, not just to try to protect someone. It’s a common theme in stories, but this one has a satisfying resolution to this theme.
Find The Fake Mate on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.
The Referral Program by Shamara Ray
Dylan and her best friends are in their mid-thirties and have never been married. Back in college, they could not have imagined being single with no prospects for husbands at this stage in their lives.
At a monthly gathering, the ladies discuss the possibilities of being alone for the rest of their lives. While the friends talk about their futures and the fears that come along with it, they hatch a plan. They resolve to start a program where each woman has to refer a good man for a friend to date.
As the friends embark upon the Referral Program, they discover things about themselves and each other they weren’t aware existed. Relationships are put to the test as Dylan and her girls come to terms with their current realities and futures that may or may not include friends or husbands.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Firstly, the premise of the referral program is something I love. Talk about a modern solution for dating. For these friends, at the end of their patience, they decide to set each other up with a series of friends and family members. But what they quickly learn is that there can be downsides to setting someone up with someone we know. That people can really get hurt. The narration style of The Referral Program allows little glimpses into all of Dylan’s friends with a few moments of their date’s thoughts.
But unfortunately this combined made it feel fast paced, but also a bit shallow. I wanted to sink deeper into the perspectives of each of Dylan’s friends to see a bit more introspection. Maybe that’s just a personal preference of mine, but I connect better to characters with a bit more introspection so I can put myself in their places. There’s also a whole host of side characters and these glimpses tended to detract a bit from my main focus.
Overall,
That being said, I appreciated the way The Referral Program features a whole host of characters that explore preferences, limitations, and boundaries. It encapsulates the feelings of dating of having to get to know someone and to see if their quirks, their opinions, are deal breakers. Find The Referral Program on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.
The Roommate Pact by Allison Ashley
The proposition is simple: if ER nurse Claire Harper and her roommate, firefighter Graham Scott, are still single by the time they’re forty, they’ll take the proverbial plunge together…as friends with benefits. Maybe it’s the wine, but in the moment, Claire figures the pact is a safe-enough deal, considering she hasn’t had much luck in love and he’s in no rush to settle down. Like, at all. Besides, there’s no way she could ever really fall for Graham and his thrill-seeking ways. Not after what happened to her father…
Just as things begin to heat up way before the proposed deadline, Graham’s injured in a serious rock-climbing accident—and he needs Claire’s help to heal. She’ll do whatever it takes to nurse him back to health…even if it means moving into Graham’s bed and putting up with his little dog who hates her. But with this no-strings arrangement taking a complicated turn, keeping “for now” from turning into “forever” isn’t as easy as they’d planned.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
The Roommate Pact has one of my favorite tropes – emails and letters. A good letter in a romance book will always get me and this one made my heart swoon. What’s better than emails except writing them to the void, confessing our feelings, wondering if someone will ever read them. There’s just something so romantic about it in and of itself. All the things we expose when we write a letter – swoons. But even more so, the chemistry between Claire and Graham is electric.
We love a good friends with benefits who develop feelings. The “Oh we can’t kiss again” scenes always hit. But I think what I loved about The Roommate Pact besides the dual POV was that you can see two characters who seem so opposite who have to work to find this middle ground. To know that we can’t change someone, but we can see how we are more alike than we thought, how we can’t control everything in our life, but who makes it worth it at the end of the day. To find someone we run to get home to, someone who makes the stress and the worry all worth it, the chaos of the world.
Find The Roommate Pact on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.