firewhiskeyreader

I feel like I’ve thought my reading has been off for a while now, but June really pulled a “hold my beer” on that thought. I read a grand total of 11 books and a lot of times reading really felt like pulling teeth. But I really enjoyed a lot of what I read so I’m excited to get a chance to talk about these books in the reviews I hope I’ll post soon, if I haven’t posted them already.

Books Read in June by Star Rating

5 Stars

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• Wall by Cate C. Wells
• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
• Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas
• It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey (ARC Review)
• Second Chance Love Song by Jessica Lemon (ARC Review coming)
• Going Nowhere Fast by Kati Wilde

4 Stars

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• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
• Beautiful Player by Christina Lauren
• Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews

3 Stars

• Harbor by Rebekah Weatherspoon

2 Stars

• Guardian in the Storm by Carla Cassidy – ARC Review coming

Statistics

• Total Books Read: 11
• Format Consumed: Physical (3), Ebook (6), Audiobook (2)
• Source: Owned (2), Hauled (5), ARCs (3), and Borrowed (1)
• 4 Authors of Color
• 2 Books with LGBTQIA+ Representation (or three depending on how you count them. I counted The Secret Lives of Church Ladies because several of the short stories included sapphic characters as main characters and Harbor due to two main characters being into more than one gender. You could argue that there is a prominent character in The Revival of Opal & Nev who gets enough page time for me to count him, but he isn’t a titular character or the narrator so I opted against it. However, if you are looking specifically for that representation, it does exist within those pages.)

My Posts from June

• May Wrap Up
• #SpringIntoLoveBingo Wrap Up
• Reading Three of My Most Anticipated Books of June: Malibu Rising, One Last Stop, and Neon Gods
• ARC Reviews: The Soulmate Equation, The Hellion’s Waltz, and It Happened One Summer
• Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag

Posts from Around the Internet

• I adored this post from Amber (du livre) about rom coms that actually lived up to the name! I’m easy to please in terms of humor because I laugh often, but even I will admit that I’m confused by how casually we slap the label on books these days.
• Did you see this incredible post from Nick that’s got 100+ romance books coming out in the next six months so your wallet and TBR can cry like mine? (At this point, if you’re not following Nick avidly, I’m not sure how I can help you, but I had to also mention my love of this post of You’ve Got Mail inspired books too!)
• This 15 Best of the Year so Far post from Jeeves Reads has a lot of books that were not even on my radar, and three books I also loved this year (Make It Sweet, Twice Shy, and Ever After Always).
• Dani shared her Most Anticipated Books of Summer!
• Charlotte’s thoughtful deep dives are some of my favorite bookish content and this fascinating look at book descriptions was incredibly engaging. Then she followed up with other front matter and the work it does, which speaks to me so much as a person who adores dedications in books. And then finally, Charlotte does a deep dive on the one-click and it was marvelous.
• Melanie and Melinda’s deep dive into Branded by Fire was brilliant as always.
• Jacque’s combination of Sarah MacLean novels and songs from Red by Taylor Swift was, unsurprisingly, one of my favorite things from the announcement day that ended me.
• And finally, I adored this interview with Nalini Singh that Books Like Whoa conducted!

There are so many more posts around the internet that I could really spend a much longer amount of time directing you to, but instead, I’ll ask you to share either your favorite post of someone else’s or your favorite post you made!

xx