The Good Ones are Taken

"The perfect partner who's also your best friend? That's goals." ~ 70%

Maggie wants to find her Prince Charming and a date to her friends' weddings so she tries online dating. As the maid of honor in both weddings, she is tasked with finding a date along with bridal party duties. After finding frogs, she meets a handsome doctor that might be the one.

Meanwhile, her male best friend Garrett points out all the red flags and encourages her to keep looking for the right match. Maggie just wants him to be happy for her but things come to a head when Garrett admits he can't if he's not with her. When he blurts out his feelings, Maggie has to choose between a friendship and a seemingly perfect guy.

The Good Ones are Taken is a friends-to-lovers rom-com that is perfect for spring reading. Taj McCoy knows how to hook a reader into a slow burn romance that will make you blush, giggle and root for a happy ending. The characters are like your best friends IRL. Pour a fruity adult beverage, open the windows for a breeze and enjoy this cutesy comedic book. 

Happy Early Pub Day, Taj McCoy! The Good Ones are Taken will be available Tuesday, April 23.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: The Good Ones are Taken
Author: Taj McCoy
Published: April 2024
Pages: 295
Edition: Galley
Genre: Romance Comedy
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤

Sistahs Be Readin' Book Club

Series Sunday: If Only I Had Told Her

Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read an installment of a series.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

My Series Sunday pick is If Only I Had Told Her, the follow-up to If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin. Finn has always been in love with Autumn. She's not just the girl next door. She's more than his mother's best friend's daughter. It is obvious to everyone but Autumn. Even Finn's best friend, Jack, cannot deny their chemistry when seeing them together. But Jack wants to protect Finn from heartache if the feelings aren't reciprocated.

"Not wanting to be dead isn't quite the same as wanting to be alive. There's a gray space in between where one knows the desire to keep breathing should lie but is coolly absent. This is the space I occupy." ~ pg. 283

We already know how the story ends. Especially if you've read If He Had Been With Me. It is an extremely sad love story. But this follow-up is mostly Finn's point of view; if only he had told Autumn how he felt, things may have ended differently.

Do you want a good cry? Do you want to feel nostalgic? Are you in the mood for fictional grief? Say less. Add If Only I Had Told Her to your reading list. Told in three different perspectives (which I usually hate but this story could be told no other way), this love story brims with truth and tragedy. A beautiful tale Laura Nowlin told.

Title: If Only I Had Told Her

Author: Laura Nowlin

Published: February 2024

Pages: 416

Edition: Paperback

Genre: Romance

Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"I have big dreams and big goals. But also big limitations, which means I'll never reach the big goals unless I have the wisdom to recognize the chains that bind me."

~ Diary of a Dying Girl from the journals of Mallory Smith

A Calamity of Souls

"Law is blind if you colored, honey. It don't see us, no how, no way." ~ pg. 48

Set in the south 1968, a racially-charged murder case brings a duo of white and Black lawyers against an unfair justice system to defend a wrongfully-accused Black man. A wealthy white couple is found brutally murdered in their home. Jerome Washington, a Black man, is found at the scene and immediately arrested. 

Jack Lee, a white lawyer, has never handled a murder case let alone fought racism but decides to represent Jerome. Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago that has argued in the Supreme Court. She has the experience and attention of the media to partner with Lee in a legal battle against the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The stage is set and the hard-to-read novel really begins. What follows is a string of events and revelations far greater than the outcome of a murder trial. Baldacci revisits the Civil Rights era in this fictional mystery. Interestingly published during a sensitive time in real life.

"You let coloreds start thinkin' they're equal to us, then where are we white folks?" ~ pg. 98

David Baldacci is one of those authors that I will read whatever he releases. Auto-add to TBR! I know a good read awaits. I know the mystery will grip me from beginning to end. However, A Calamity of Souls is unlike his other novels. A little too To Kill a Mockingbird-ish.

Given the topic, I expected to feel empathetic toward the main Black character but never quite connected. The sub-characters were almost more developed. The courtroom drama was underwhelming. The ending way too predictable. I understand A Calamity of Souls was over a decade in the writing but it could have been fine tuned a bit more.

Happy Early Pub Day, David Baldacci! A Calamity of Souls will be available Tuesday, April 16.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: A Calamity of Souls
Author: David Baldacci
Published: April 2024
Pages: 438
Edition: Galley
Genre: Historical Mystery
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 

Ella

"She could levitate on top of a note, sustain it and ride away on it." ~ 71%

You think of one woman when you hear the name "Ella" and that's Ms. Ella Fitzgerald, the famous singer and dancer of the 20th century. Debut novel Ella is a fictional retelling of her early years. When her mother dies, 15-year-old Ella leads a fast life of working for the mob, being incarcerated and dancing for pennies in Harlem. Finally in November 1934, she appears on Amateur Night at the Apollo. Older and wiser, she becomes the Ella we have come to know.

Ella is an okay read but could have been more substantial for a debut. I cannot quite pinpoint what disinterested me early on. Perhaps it was the writing style (nonfictional narrative rather than dialogue) or the imbalance of the highs and lows of Ella's life. I was not familiar with the deets of her teenage years so this part was interesting but overpowered her triumphant years. While I appreciate adversity, I would have appreciated the novel if she were celebrated more.

Happy Early Pub Day, Diane Richards! Ella will be available Tuesday, May 7.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: Ella
Author: Diane Richards
Published: May 2024
Pages: 294
Edition: Galley
Genre: Biographical Fiction
Rating: 🖤 🖤

Series Sunday: Iron Flame

(The Empyrean #2) 

Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read an installment of a series.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

My Series Sunday pick is Iron Flame, the second book in the Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros. No one expected Violet Sorrengail to make it past Threshing yet here she is second year at Basgiath War College. It is full of pain, a test of endurance and a fight for power. Violet's body may be frail but her wit and will of iron is unmatched.

"Magic requires balance." ~ pg. 564

Does a book make you call off work for a bereavement day? Does a book cause you angst? What book has you giving a knowing nod to strangers when you see them reading it in public? Does a book make you literally throw it across the room then leave it sitting overnight? Only to wake up, be reminded of its ending and step over it? IRON MUTHAF'N FLAME! 

I was not into fantasy before The Empyrean series but I am oh so glad to be here. If I thought I loved me some dragons before, they are my spirit animals now. Once again, Rebecca Yarros had me saying fuck bedtime to read until the wee hours. I jumped down rabbit holes for hours on BookTok to find fellow readers and watch reaction videos. I discussed this book with any and everybody both online and IRL! My head is still swirling with reactions and theories.

Just like Fourth Wing, instead of me saying more, I am going to share my live updates and favorite quotes of Iron Flame then let you decide whether it is worth adding to your TBR. I will be waiting here to welcome you aboard The Empyrean fly or die skies. And best believe, I pre-ordered the special edition of The Empyrean book 3 titled Onyx Storm expected to be published 01.21.2025.

Title: Iron Flame

Author: Rebecca Yarros

Published: November 2023

Pages: 640

Edition: Hardcover

Genre: Romantasy

Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤