Alright y’all, we’ve got some good books to talk about today! Each of these books (Chaos by EJ Blaise, Out of Her League by Ava Rani, and The Summer of Lost Things by Jenn Bennett) released in May, with one caveat. Technically, Chaos came out last year, but it released in audio this year so I’m counting it as a 2026 release. I received the audio review copy of all three of these books via Netgalley from their respective publishers and that is how I read them, even though I also had an e-ARC of Out of Her League and The Summer of Lost Things. I am so excited to talk to you all about these three books though, so let’s go ahead and dive right in!
Chaos by EJ Blaise
Bloom, the first book in the Serenity Ranch series, was one of my favorite reads in 2024 so I was very excited when I realized Chaos was book two and it was available, finally, in audio. The book itself is also on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that. Anyway, essentially, this is about Lottie Jackson, an alcoholic who is estranged from her family, when some bad decisions and a car accident lead to her reconnecting with her family and winding up back at Serenity Ranch. There, she finds herself butting heads with and also being reluctantly intrigued by Finn Akello, one of the ranch hands at Serenity, who loves her family and seems to have been welcomed in, something she resents just a little. Lottie has to reckon with the fact that she is an alcoholic, the tense dynamic between her and her family members, and recover from her last relationship while remembering all of the things she loves about being around horses.
This book is for the girls with jagged edges and rage that they can’t quite figure out how to channel in a way that makes them palatable to other people. It’s for the horse girls. It’s for people who want real and raw and messy. I love the way Blaise puts emotion in her pages. These characters are so real and they make terrible decisions and say awful things and then they figure out how to make it right. I love this book a whole, whole lot. My heart hurts a bit from how much I loved it. I definitely recommend it. I think if you like Jen Devon’s Bend Toward the Sun, you might like this one too. It feels like a good tonal match.
Out of Her League by Ava Rani
I love Ava Rani’s writing so I was super excited about this one and I’m so glad it lived up to the hype I had for it in my head! Essentially, this is about Dr. Isabelle Mercado who discovers rather suddenly that her situationship that she was convinced would be there when she was ready for more is actually now engaged to someone who is not her. Now, Isa is not the petty sort, probably, mostly, but when the opportunity presents itself, she winds up having Austin Cade, a professional football (soccer) player pose as her boyfriend for the wedding events for her best friend’s extravagant wedding to billionaire Henry Amari (from The Heir). Did I mention that Austin Cade is her situationship’s favorite athlete? Yeah, she did a great job with that revenge.
But this story is actually so much more than just the fun fake dating elements. Isa is really torn between what she KNOWS she’s supposed to do surgery wise because of her parents’ expectations and what she wants, but in a way where she’s almost ignorant to what she wants. And Austin is trying to figure out what comes next after his retirement. He’s already moved from the UK to America, which didn’t make his agent very happy, but he wanted to be there for his deceased best friend’s wife and child. I love Austin, actually, like so much. And I think he is such a good partner for Isa.
All in all, this book was so much fun and the audiobook helped bring it to life for me. I really think the narrators did a great job. I really hope we get a book about Austin’s best friend’s widow as an aside. Idk if it’s coming, but Avon, consider this my plea that if Ava Rani proposes it that you buy it.
The Summer of Lost Things
by Jenn Bennett
The Summer of Lost Things was my first Jenn Bennett book and I would recommend it for people looking for an adventure romance with characters who are college aged/new adults. Paige has just finished her first year at Harvard and she’s back home for the summer, living at the house she lived in with her grandma who passed away just before starting Harvard/in her first semester. When she arrives home, two things are apparent: First, her house has been broken into. Second, someone was squatting in her house. Turns out the squatter was one of her former best friend’s, a guy who she has very complicated feelings about. There’s also been news that there was a piece of treasure found from this pirate that Paige is related to and after a brief period of time, these four friends are back together searching for treasure.
This book has some “plot twists” that I saw coming from a mile away, but I don’t necessarily think the plot twists are supposed to be hard to see coming because that isn’t necessarily what the book is about. At the same time though, this book is balancing the adventure/treasure searching and romance in a way that does feel slightly more weighted toward the adventure part. I enjoyed this book, the audiobook made it easy to listen to, but I don’t think I was necessarily the target audience, which I didn’t realize. Anyway, I would recommend this if you liked Raiders of the Lost Heart or Romancing Miss Stone OR for you to read those two if you liked this one!
Closing Thoughts
These three books were all around good reads! I hope I’ve been able to help you decide if they might be books that you want to pick up or not. Have you read any of them? Let me know!
xx
firewhiskeyreader 