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...

  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 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...

  Ella Maise. An author I don’t feel too sure about. I never write reviews about books I don’t 100% love. I’ve read my fair share with only ‘Marriage For One’ being my favorite. Now Jack Hawthorne falling head over heels then marrying Rose Coleson despite knowing its going to blow up into his face? That I can deal with. Everything else? I’ll pass. I’ve read most, if not all, of her books. ‘ Charlie, Love and Clichés ’ was enticing at first but just got so repetitive. Charlie was a character I related to so much – I understand the feeling of being treated as a lackey. Going out of your way to help someone else but still getting treated with so much disrespect whilst dealing with your own demons is difficult. It is so demeaning for the individual going through it, so when Charlie finds her happy new start with William  Carter, it makes me feel full circle too. Somewhere throughout the book, it just became so predictable that I almost didn’t finish it safe to say I won’t read...

  My first review of 2024 in true Vivian fashion. The final duo I read of 2023 probably after the rest of booktok delivered on it. Sorry guys. Ah. Another duo. So let me tell you about the time my friend got me not one but two signed books from Tessa Bailey herself, one of them being an ARC, for my birthday. Any guesses which book was the ARC? It was none other than ‘Secretly yours’. I died, went to heaven, looked at the ARC and died again. There are not enough words in the English Dictionary to describe the feelings I went through when I opened that package but when I got over my initial shock, I rolled my tongue back into my mouth, got my snacks and began reading the story of stuffy Julian Vos and unpredictable Hallie Welch. This series consists of  Secretly Yours and Unfortunately Yours. Both can be read as standalones but like why do that. This series is set in the world of wine aka Napa Valley. There is something about Napa Valley – it makes me all cozy inside. If I h...