Paper Pages

  (5/5 stars no crumbs left. Mmm-mmm-mmmm!) Immediately yes. Instantly Yes. Theo Silva? Oh. My. God. YES! Let’s get one thing straight, I know for a fact that this is not the reading order in the Chesnut Springs Series however I got the first book mixed up with this current one (#4) and I really tried to get into Flawless (#1) but I just couldn’t. Why? Because Winter Hamilton and Theo Silva made it very hard to do so. Like, I am reading Flawless on the side, it’s starting to get good but I binge read Reckless so quickly that it matched the only other books I’ve done that with; The Spanish Love Deception (Elena Armas) & King of Wrath (Ana Huang). Now I could do the mature thing and just read review everything in order but we don’t lie on this page so I’m keeping it real. Chesnut Springs is a small-town land made for rusty cow-boys all waiting for their women to drag them off their bull in their own unique way. The imagery the descriptions made in my mind was beyond any oth...

(Picture credits. Middle and top right; @zharasarts Instagram. Bottom right; @neural_art_v Instagram) If the bookish community can agree on one thing, it’s that they set high ass expectations. So high, that I’ve fell in love with the same man just in different fonts every time I’ve read a book. Let’s break it down. Now we’ve got two categories. The ones I want and the ones I just can’t stop thinking about. There’s a difference. If you’re a really bookish worm, you’ll figure it out. First up, Fox Thornton. Okay. I’m sure everyone crushes on him, right? It’s the first rom-com I picked up after a long time so Tessa Bailey had all the rights in the world to make me crumble. A player who falls for his best friend but let’s others perception of him pull him back? Sign me up. I want to be a Hannah Bellinger. Although I also had the hots for Brendan Taggart, everyone likes it a little rough around the edges. Everything about that man was written with the most delicate yet firm details. From hi...

  Movie adaptations of books. Hmm. Don’t judge me but I have both read and watched Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s a trilogy. I read all the books and watched all three movies. Now, A for effort but like a C- for effectiveness it had on my heart. I said it in my last book review and I’ll say it again – expecting some differences from book to movie is normal but expecting it to be exactly pitch perfect is just silly. She says whilst expecting the movie to be exactly like the book word to word, scene to scene. Talk about hypocrisy. Movies will never match the mind of a reader hence why I’m a little apprehensive – but still totally watching – It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover. I know. Three posts around the same author in one week – sue me. Justin Baldoni is the director of it as well as the one who will be portraying Ryle in the movie. I’ve seen a lot of behind the scenes thanks to things like Instagram and TikTok. It looks great and whilst I’m thankful for social media that gives us sn...

  Spontaneous. This is an unplanned, unfiltered, spontaneous post. If you check out my 2023 Book & Life Wrap Up post then you’ll know I decided it whilst writing that one. This isn’t a 'disrespecting authors' post or me diminishing their work. Think of it as I picked something different from the food menu instead of the usual but didn’t up liking it. Not for me. Definitely for someone else. It’s the new year so I’m limiting myself to two authors. 2023 was my introductory year to the Mafia/Made Men series. Plenty of authors write them but as we’ll discover later, not all of them get it right for my palette. To be completely fair I blame H.D. Carlton. Despite the  Cat & Mouse duo not being a mafia romance, it was the darkest level of dark. Reading that, then a mafia series that tries to be grungy just gives me the ick. Core Reilly. If I had to choose only two words to describe the books, I would say inconsistent and overbearing. I believe I’ve read 3 series – she’s...

                                                                   (Not today. You'll have to read the review to find out my rating) Here’s the thing about BookTok. There are times where I am so grateful that we live in the generation of it and there’s times – like now – where I think the purpose behind it is misinterpreted which is to sell genuinely good stuff. Not that this book wasn’t good stuff – it just wasn’t great. But hey, what’s life without a few hiccups? Or in this case, indigestion. The first thing I noticed about this book was how short it was. A lot happened in those few pages but it was significantly shorter that It Ends with Us. That alone, put me on alert. As for what was inside the book. Grab your copy of Colleen Hoover’s second-best seller, and let’s get through this together. Until I opened to th...

                                                                                (4.5/5 Stars) One word to describe this book? Altering. Why? Because for once, a book veered onto the one side of relationship not many authors want to talk about; abuse, negligence and horror. I was expecting something from this book but what I read, was not it. I cannot pinpoint why the experience was haunting despite me having read so many dark romances. I literally read and then re-read The Cat & Mouse Duo by H.D. Carlton. It doesn’t get much darker than that book peeps. I came to the conclusion that whereas Zade Meadows set his intentions right there, clear as day from the get go, Mr. Neurosurgeon did not. A twisted romance that hit home despite there not being a place for it do have such an effect. I ...

  Not this time. In true Vivian fashion, I'm going to make you read this post to find out what I loved the most. It's about elegance. Okay so hear me out, Nico Russo and Angelo Visconti are the same men but in different fonts……and I can’t live in my fictional world without them? Does that make sense? I don’t know. Either way let’s just say if there was a book by Danielle Lori collaborated with Somme Sketcher, I’m there. Nico Russo, Christian Allister and Ronan Markov were written by none other than Danielle Lori herself. Mmm-mmm-mmm. Let’s see how my little pathetic vanilla heart got on with these dark rom-coms. This series was a small step up from the dark romance radar when compared to Somme Sketcher’s series. Was it just as thrilling? Yes. Did I read it more than once? Most definitely. Do I envy every female character in both series day in and day out? Until my very last breath. Let’s dive into these 3 wonders. The Sweetest Oblivion staring Elena Abelli and Nico Russo....

  (4/5 Stars) Lauren Asher makes me want to move to Lake Wisteria. I haven’t loved a small town as much since Tessa Bailey first introduced me to the fisherman from Westport. Brendan Taggart & Fox Thornton ring any bells? Oh god. I rarely want this but I NEED Julian Lopez and Dahlia Muñoz to come to the big screens. One of those classic enemies to lover books you know. Starring an interior designer and billionaire builder of Lopez Luxury, this is a touching romance with infertility at the heart of Dahlia  and an unsolved grievance for Julian. Where do I begin? Dahlia and Julian have always had a complicated relationship since college. With Luis Lopez dying leaving a struggling Julian behind, he breaks things of with Dahlia, leaves Stanford (mistake number 1) who then is claimed out by his supposed friend Oliver Creswell all because Julian shut her out (mistake number 2). With one in San Francisco and the other living in the small town of Lake Wisteria, Julian is now tryi...