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Honestly, I have no idea where this sudden burst of reading my past due ARCs came from, but I’m not going to complain. In this post, I’m reviewing three 2024 releases that you may not want to miss! First up will be In a Not So Perfect World by Neely Tubati Alexander, which made me laugh out loud a lot and also get so anxious I had to turn off the audiobook because I hate conflict. Then we’ll cover The Devil in Blue Jeans by Stacey Kennedy, which kicked off a trilogy that I’m really keen to continue reading. And finally, finishing off a trilogy is Not Here to Make Friends by Jodi McAlister, which is a trilogy I had so much fun with and need more people to read and shout about it. As always, I received these ARCs from their respective publishers via Netgalley and read all three as audiobooks I purchased myself on Libro.fm. Shout out to Libro!

In a Not So Perfect World
by Neely Tubati Alexander

A few weeks ago one of my friends asked me for rom com recommendations without a lot of spice and I kind of struggled because while it’s easy to make me laugh, I’m pretty reluctant to describe a book as a romantic comedy these days. And despite the set up, I still don’t want you to go into this book thinking it’s all light and fluffy. BUT what it did do for me was provide me with one of the most hilarious scenes that had me full blown cackling on my way to work and given how much work has sucked in the last couple of weeks, I will take that win.

As for what In a Not So Perfect World is about, essentially it follows Sloane Cooper who is trying to get a very competitive job as a video game designer at this prestigious company. She’s also trying to get over her ex-boyfriend/almost fiancé. For romance reasons, she winds up going on this trip to Turks and Caicos with her across the hall neighbor for about a week, during which time she has to resist him and also design a whole game.

I had so much fun with Sloane and Charlie in Turks and Caicos. That part was absolutely brilliant. I struggled with some of the content about the fact that Sloane was behind on her rent and was interviewing for some truly heinous dude bros who wouldn’t know an HR violation if you spelled it out for them like they were 5. But the romance between Sloane and Charlie was really, really lovely despite it starting out as something fake. I really adored getting to know both of them, through this single POV romance. This solidified Alexander as an author I’ll continue watching and reading from whenever there’s a book from that doesn’t interfere with my ability to pretend real life doesn’t exist. (Which is to say that her 2025 release is about lawyers and I’m trying to pretend my job doesn’t exist.)

The Devil in Blue Jeans
by Stacey Kennedy

I had an up and down relationship with The Devil in Blue Jeans. I really love books that are about women starting over to make their lives the way they want it to be and that is the premise of this book. Charly and her two best friends move to a small town in Montana to open a bar and basically press refresh on their lives. Charly just caught her fiancé cheating on her back in Arizona and the other two friends are dealing with their own stuff, so off to Montana they go. Meanwhile, in Montana, they encounter a trio of cowboys, including Jaxon, who is immediately intrigued by Charly.

The thing about this book is that despite in being Dual POV, it’s very much Charly’s story. And to some extent, I think it might have been better served as a single POV. Because Charly’s trust issues are well-founded, but when you’re also in Jaxon’s head, it is so annoying to watch her constantly listen to other people’s opinions about him when those opinions don’t seem based in fact. I wanted this book to end when Jaxon and Charly got together “officially” the first time, but for some reason that was only halfway through the book and it just kept going. But, by the end of it, I was enjoying myself enough to be really intrigued about the next book in the series. So, if you’re looking for a small town cowboy romance, this one isn’t a bad pick!

Not Here to Make Friends
by Jodi McAlister

Despite not always loving a book based on reality dating type shows, I will always be intrigued about them, which is why when I came across Not Here to Make Friends, I pressed request immediately. And then I proceeded to procrastinate on the actual reading of it for way too long. However, in the last month or so I have read all three books in this series (Marry Me, Juliet) and they are everything. I do think book two, Can I Steal You for a Second? is probably my favorite, but the way these books build on one another is just so excellent. Technically, each of these books can stand alone, but they all center around the same season of Marry Me, Juliet that takes place during the pandemic in Australia. This particular installment finally answers so many questions that I had during both of the first two books because the connection between Lily Fireball (contestant) and Murray (producer) was so intriguing! If you’ve not read the first two books yet, then let me just say, love you, bye, because I need you to go read those two before you learn anything more about this book.

Now, I’m assuming that you’re continuing to read this because you have read the first two books in this series and if that’s the case, please share with me all of your thoughts because I really did have the best time. This final book in the trilogy (although if it turns out there are more, I will not be upset, just saying!) was such an incredible installment. Lily and Murray have such a complicated relationship, one where they’ve been best friends for so long, and they’ve wanted to be more, but the sort of right person wrong time situation that worked for me from this perspective. Then Lily went through something awful and disappeared for a year from Murray’s life and when she shows back up, it’s as a contestant on Marry Me, Juliet, pretending to be 25 and a wanna be influencer. Getting to know both Lily and Murray was so interesting. They are both a little morally grey in the way I feel like most reality tv producers have to be and I absolutely adored that interplay. These characters are not ones that I feel like we get to read about very often and so I had a lot of fun. If Caleb Krychek is one of your favorite leading men in the Psy-Changeling series, you should give this book a shot, honestly.

Anyway, all this raving about the series to say, I had so much fun with this and I think I might need physical copies to go with my audiobooks on my shelves because I want to shove these books into everyone’s hands. If you’ve read them, please talk to me about them!!

Closing Thoughts

I think it’s clear that this set of three books had an overall winner in my book, of Not Here to Make Friends, but honestly, the three books were a pretty good set. Have you read any of them? Let me know!

xx