I honestly thought I’d already reviewed all of these books, but according to Netgalley, I actually have not, so great news, y’all, I get to tell you about three category romances that you can pick up today if you so choose! I’m a big fan of category romances for those times when my brain is just like, “You want me to read HOW many pages?” My attention span is its own beast and I can only wrangle it so far. So sometimes, that results in me picking up a category romance and getting lost in it for a couple of hours and actually being able to finish a book. And these three were all pretty great breaks from reality. I did receive each of these from Netgalley and I think I mostly read the e-ARC proof of these three books.
The Return of His Caribbean Heiress by Lydia San Andres
Y’all, I loved this book. I wound up putting Unexpectedly Wed to the Heir, the following book in the series in my favorite 2024 releases, but this one is essentially tied with it. I absolutely adore Leo and Lucia. Essentially, the two of them met and were intrigued by one another just before Lucia went abroad with her sister and brother-in-law. The two stayed in touch via letters, until suddenly Leo stopped responding. Then when Lucia and family return home, she’s like, “wtf, Leo?” and he doesn’t have a great answer. And then the two of them get tangled up in a boat situation and wind up having to take refuge at Leo’s friends home and slowly they find their way back to one another. I also appreciated Lucia’s journey of finding her way back to playing music for the joy of it. This book was excellent, as the whole series has been and I highly, HIGHLY recommend.
A Little Bit of Love
by Synithia Williams
Deandre is a cop in this small North Carolina (maybe South?) town where there’s a bit of a divide between the nicer area and the more run down area that community members are working on restoring, hopefully without gentrification. Deandre also has a son who is acting out. He meets Sheri at a community event and the two of them wind up getting volunteered/they do volunteer to plan an event. As the two of them grow closer, Deandre’s son doesn’t necessarily appreciate Sheri’s presence.
What I enjoyed about this book is what I always appreciate and enjoy about Synithia Williams works. She is so great at creating a cast of characters that feel like real people. She is also pretty great at always bringing the drama, which makes all of her books so entertaining to read from. Ultimately though, this book wound up not being my favorite from her. Sheri and Deandre wound up being characters I forgot about pretty immediately and also, I’ve just read so many stories I’ve loved more from her. So overall, I would recommend this one, but only so you can get a taste of Williams and continue to devour her backlist and front list.
Lost in Little Havana
by Caridad Piñeiero
Essentially, this book is about Roni Lopez and Trey Gonzalez, both of whom are detectives. They’re also friends by way of a family friend type situation and Roni is down bad for Trey, but doesn’t want him to know. She’s also an Internal Affairs investigation and she sort of needs to look into Trey, but he can’t know that either. Anyway, there’s like a whole murder/trafficking of women type situation happening and they’re pretty sure a law enforcement officer is involved and that winds up meaning that Roni and Trey are spending a lot of time together.
As for my thoughts… Like, is this book bad? No, probably not. But does this book play fast and loose with how a criminal investigation looks? Yes. And if you’re me, that can be a challenging thing to read. I couldn’t turn my mind off enough to just let go and enjoy the book. (I’m unfortunately an attorney, but also a strong advocate for turning your brain off to enjoy a book.) So hopefully this one would work much better for you than it did me!
Closing Thoughts
Category romances truly do not get enough love so drop your favorite in the comments, please!
xx
firewhiskeyreader 