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The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake by Rachel Linden

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


In full disclosure, I have no idea why I requested this from Netgalley and feel a bit guilty because it should have gone to someone who likes contemporary romance. I do not. I think it was the Italian setting (I've been getting into my roots lately) or the magic realism of the cookbook.

The blurb basically gives away most of the plot so I don't need to go over much of that. Jules leaves in a small apartment with her friend Drew and since Covid they've been making cooking videos, her cooking vintage recipes and him dancing in the background but when the tv show producers want only him, her dreams are dashed. To top it over her cookbook publisher wants their 10K advance back if she doesn't deliver on the recipes (they hated their first attempt and I'm SO eyeing that advance. While I never wrote a cookbook I can tell you my publisher never offered me an advance like that, perils of indie publishing I suppose)

Heartbroken, Jules' day gets worse when her overbearing mother wants her to take her half sister, Alex to Italy for the summer to visit Jules' nonna, who is not Alessandra's grandmother as she's a half sister Jules never bothered to get to know (Her mom should never have had one child let alone three). In fact my favorite moment is when Jules introduces Nonna Bruna to Alex calling her a half sister and Bruna verbally slaps her about it.

Jules has reasons for not going to Italy, her father, Bruna's son, died in Lake Garda there but she wants Nonna's recipes to save the day. Naturally she runs into her first love Nicolo, now a lawyer turned olive farmer who is trying to save the family olive farm. And weirdly enough Nonna's cookbook only shows one recipe at a time, whatever one you need most to make your heart's desire to come true that day. And of course the farm is in financial trouble too and needs new caretaker as Nonna and her brother in law Lorenzo too old at this point.

Not going to lie. I was going to give this a weak four star because I'm so out of my genre and that's not the book's fault. It's mine. However, I realized it wasn't the romance or the contemporary setting I didn't like much. It's Jules herself. Loved her sister and Nonna but Jules left me very meh and let me tell you why.

Let's start with money. Jules needs 10K back if she fails at the cookbook. Nonna needs money. But you can NOT keep crying poor if you give Jules not one, but two rich relatives. Mom's second husband is a blindingly rich surgeon but I can see why you wouldn't ask her for money. Jules' sister with the farm and six kids is married to a tech bro millionaire. While you can say there is no reason Sis should bail Jules out (how about nonna? Does she not care about her?) there is NO mention of Jules even thinking to ask. I got to the 50% mark and it never occurs to her to bring it up to her sister. Never occurs to her to ask her boutique farming sister how to work a farm in order to help nonna (and don't get me started on the whole flowy dress, picture perfect sister while working the farm. I've done this work and that doesn't fly). Just a simple sentence or two about why she doesn't want to ask her family for money to help would have helped but as is it's like how foolish are you to not ask your rich sister/mother for help?

Jules is incredibly selfish especially where Alessandra is concerned. So yes, I can see why she'd be upset about how her gold digging mother left her dad and remarried but that's not the girl's fault (and yes of course, this does happen in the real world) Jules' reason for being so indifferent to Alex is when Jules had to live with her stepdad and half sister after dad passed when she was 16 was Alex didn't bond with her. The girl was 2. Jules has been carrying a decade long grudge because a two year old didn't react the way she wanted her to. And she keeps being rather awful to her, making it clear Alex is a burden (until she realizes Alex's TikTok and photography savvy will help her career)

And Jules really makes zero character growth and has little agency until like the last 20% of the novel after everyone basically knocks sense into her (Nonna, Nicolo and Alex) after they're all fed up with her. The whole ending really is not her idea (it's Alex who comes through there) and while I'm not sure telling the world about this cookbook was smart, I was also disappointed in the idea that she had to choose Italy or LA. It's not like you shoot cooking shows 365. Never occurs to her to spent a month or two in LA and live in Italy....

I wanted so much more out of Jules and never got it. Notice I haven't mentioned Nicolo, mostly because he's stock romance love interest and in the days between me finishing this and me sitting down to review it, I've forgotten most of his scenes.



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Les Normaux: A Graphic Novel by Janine Janssen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


For me this was a 3.5 read rounded up. Why am I being a little hard on this popular webtoon? I'll get to that. I like the idea that all the magical beings live in an alternative world and apparently you can cross over to it and live if you're a human with magic. Sébastien, a gay demisexual Filipino young man, goes to alt-Paris to go to magic school with the support of his magical aunt (and zero support from his parents who are anti-magic and relatively homophobic too). He takes with him his bunny, Pierre (who has an active imaginary world)

At a club, Sébastien shares a drunken kiss with the hot Italian-Indian blue-skinned bisexual vampire Elia, only to find out they live in the same apartment. Clue up the embarrassment and slow-burn romance. Elia is a super model with a highly involved in his life (as in mapping out every second) family, wealthy, involved in the fashion world.

I will say Sébastien's friends and Elia's are fun. They're giving this story multiple side quests especially with Elia's one het friend and her Frankenstein new love interest. Elia is also well fleshed out. That just leaves Sébastien....

I'm not saying he's not fleshed out. It's just I find him not all that engaging as a character. Don't ask me why. I didn't hate him but I also didn't find myself caring all that much if he manages to fall in love with Elia. And that's sort of why it was a 3.5 read. Maybe if the story line goes on and he gains some confidence I'd like him more.

The art and the color scheme are stellar. It's certainly worth the read.



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Silver Lady by Mary Jo Putney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I got this from the publisher as part of a summer reading packet win last year and put it off as I'm not a romance reader. this is a 3.5 read for me but I rounded up since some of my issues are romance tropes that I know others like. I will give it this, Bran is as far from the toxic alpha male you often see as you can get. He's so sweet (as his brother Cade) that he borders on Larry Stu flawlessness.

Bran and Cade were both thrown out because they are 'gifted' and escape a baby farm (and since there are reviewers saying how unbelievable they are and they can't exist. Believe it. They were real though usually took younger kids than Bran or Cade. Margaret Waters a baby farmer was convicted of killing nearly 2 dozen kids) They are taken in by Lord and Lady Tremayne who were also gifted.

And for me here is problem number one and the largest of them. The plot is Merryn, the amnesiac gifted love interest was kidnapped and mind blocked by two people so they can exploit her gifts. Of course they would. Who wouldn't? In this world everyone knows about gifts and a lot of people despise/are afraid of them. I'm like who wouldn't want to use these gifts to their advantage. It made little sense other than Bran and Cade needed to be orphaned but not really.

Because that's the other main plot line. Bran's obnoxious father, Lord Penhalion, has lost all his heirs except Bran and he wants him back now. Maybe. Bran doesn't want to be Lord but his gift tells him to go to Cornwall anyhow.

Naturally he meets Merryn and I liked how that was handled. What I was less enthused with was how Merryn's amnesia was handled. She was infantilized, talking in one or two words. Amnesia doesn't work that way but later we learn gifts were involved. Gifts that kept involving to make the storyline work.

There was a bit of deus ex machina in this as well at the end that I found annoying. It definitely sets up the series which since there is like a dozen Tremayne kids they're all going to get the romance treatment (or at least Cade is, you can see it coming) The other romance trope that made me groan is that all of this takes place in less than two weeks and they're already racing to marry. Ugh. Yes I know love at first sight exists. In my world it always ends in a whirlwind too (I know one person where it didn't) so when that's your real life experience this trope just falls flat. You don't even know her yet. She barely knows herself. But you're SO in love. I found it a bit cringy.

I did like Bran, Cade and their sister Tamsyn. Merryn was all right. I'd have been much more interested if this was the siblings action adventure novel.



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A Rival Most Vial: Potioneering for Love and Profit by R.K. Ashwick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This resurgence of cozy fantasy is taking me back to the early 80s when we had quite a bit of it running around. I love it. There is something satisfying about the lower but personal stakes vs the big sweeping epics (not that I dislike them by any means).

Ambrose is a young half elf who is the premiere potioneer in town, the one all the adventuring parties come to see. He is stoic and has a found family in the other storekeepers in town (much more so than even he knows). Into this comes Eli a young new hotshot potioneer setting up right across the street from Ambrose. And there you have the titular rivalry and it launches right into the enemies to lovers trope, one of my least favorite romance tropes. For that matter I'm not a fan of romances but this came recced to me for a Popsugar challenge which is the only reason I picked this up.

And I'm glad I did. I loved this in spite of it relying heavily on things I traditionally do not care for.

After a huge blow out, Ambrose and Eli are selected by the mayor to work on a special potion for his spoiled daughter's birthday. Forced to work together, which they do not do easily, they learn that they made bad assumptions about each other and they make more sense together than they could have imagined.

We learn of Ambrose's tragic past and his jealousy over Eli's easy marketing/salesperson personality and his big, happy family. For Eli's side of things, we learn that this is a man who can't seem to find his path in life and he's super easily bored.

The do or die (career wise) situation gives them the opportunity for friendship and more. Ambrose and Eli are both interesting characters as are all the side characters. Ashwick has created a town I'd love to settle down in. This is what you hope all self pubbed works would be like. I will need to find more from her.



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Basil and Oregano by Melissa Capriglione

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I really wanted to rate this four star but man, that ending. It was so rushed and had problems that I'll get into later. I think some of the issues in this is because of the limits of traditional sequential art publishing. You have X number of pages, fit it in there or it doesn't get told. This might have been better as a webtoon where the pace could have been slowed down and the characters developed. So many of the characters are so underdeveloped they feel like they're there for diversity's sake and no other reason.

Our point of view character is Basil, a young girl who has to get Top Student rating or else her two dads get a 200K bill for her tuition. There is no explanation as to why a magical culinary school is priced so only multimillionaires can afford it and one of the weak parts of the final chapters are almost everyone is on scholarship so why aren't Basil's besties Villy (non-binary) and Addy (trans black girl) taking this more seriously? Why isn't everyone cutting each other's throats and not just Xynthia who is your typical mean girl. We have no idea until the end she's doing it because she can't afford school either. She just comes off as your typical high school snobby mean girl. In fact the only other mention we have of price is the coffee house girl who longs to go but can't afford it.

On day one Basil and her buddies meet up with the new student Arabella Oregano, daughter of a famous/rich magiculinary artist. Basil is immediately smitten with Arabella and the bulk of the graphic novel is divided between their cooking classes, their romance and Xynthia's snobby bitchery.

Until a) we find out Arabella's secret b)Xynthia and Basil find out too. Now Basil has to make a choice and if she chooses Arabella and it's discovered she'll be tossed out the competition and will need to come up with two hundred thousand dollars. Xynthia on the other hand decides she can't just go tell the teachers (why not we have no idea because this feels like something easily proven) but instead decides to take an elaborate revenge plot approach.

And this is where everything falls apart for me and why I couldn't go to 4 stars. I can live with Villy and Abby being half forgotten (sad but this is Basil and Arabella's romance saga so... still they should have been better developed) Xynthia's spell proves there's more than food magic out there so why is food magic so important to these kids? Arabella would rather cook the old fashioned way but no one does that any more. Why? Does everyone have some level of food magic? Then why is this school so crazy expensive?

I could live with that too but as expected Xynthia's spell goes horribly awry and people could have been killed. It's only because of Arabella that they don't. The teachers do squat all (other than to try to clear the food festival grounds to people aren't hurt and then...maybe they'll do something).

Okay consider there to be minor spoilers from here out The teachers DO have offensive magic but the students aren't at that level yet. Um WHY would a freaking chef need combat magic? And honestly how hard would it be to squirt hot pepper juice into someone's eyes? We see them doing similar things while cooking.

Now I expected Basil and Arabella to triumphant because this is a YA romance and they're our heroes but the final chapter is such a let down. Yes they succeed but NOTHING happens to Xynthia. Even before her lame apology to Basil (her family life is in turmoil and she can't afford this school either, which fine yes that will cause people to act out but it's also not an excuse for nearly killing people), she's right there are the end of festival/end of school term meeting. She faced zero consequences for her actions. Cue me screaming into the void. I get so tired of this. You do shitty things and people just shrug it off. Fine, Basil can be the bigger person and forgive but why did the school not expel Xynthia for nearly killing everyone at the festival or at least trying to ruin her competition so she could win?

And the other star-losing plot point is the school said oops no one won the festival (because it was ruined) no one gets top student so you ALL owe tuition. WTF? First off only 2 students top can get the scholarship (because you have to be top student in two quarters, see what I mean by why aren't more students out to destroy their classmates) and now everyone is on the hook for the money. The students revolt in a passionate why are you hurting your future by destroying us and the school goes hmm you're right, no tuition for anyone. What? laughs. This was so dumb. And all the wealthy donors sitting in at this festivity are all you know what, kids be right here I'll pay for them. And then the poor kid from the coffee house is there 'wooo I can go to this school now.' Why is she there? Is she catering this event? The end is such a hot mess.

There is a sweet epilogue though. Overall, this is sweet, cute and I'm glad I read it but the world building and pacing required some work. I really enjoyed the art. It fits the tone of the story and it's very well done. We also get a diversity of body types which we don't always see.



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The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


My library set up unrealized expectations shelving this in fantasy as it's magic realism/romance which is so not my thing. Also it suffered a bit in comparison to another book I was reading at the same time with the same set up, an all female family where everyone has magic. Except apparently Harlow, the lead in this story. All of her family have the name of the flower they embodied whispered to their mother's by one of the old goddesses in Mexican/Aztec culture. Everyone but Harlow, whose name means heap of stones so she believes she's magicless.

And when her world collapses after losing her dream job and realizing her fiance is both a bit misogynistic and racist, she flees home to the titular hacienda in Mexico where her family grows amazing flowers, makes normal flower arrangements and for a select clientele uses magic to assist them. They encourage Harlow to lick her wounds and finally write that book they all know will be so amazing (based on what I have no idea)

Harlow reminds me of that person in the writing group, you know the one. Every writing group has one, the one who can't write because they don't have the right space/the stars aren't aligning/the time of year is wrong etc etc. So she does a lot of whining about it. Harlow whines about a lot of things.

And then comes Ben, the uber hot guy from Canada whose grandparents knew Harlow's grandparents and had met at the hacienda. Ben's tall dark mystery and did I mention hot? No, don't worry Harlow will...like every chapter. Just once I'd like to see a romance where they're average but they're smart or funny or make the other person's life better for being there instead of OOOOO soooo hooooottttt. So Harlow and the cliche are very obviously going to get together and I'm not being overly harsh here. Ben is never really allow to grow much beyond the tall dark and handsome cliche. the most unique thing about him is yes he's a millionaire (or will be once he inherits) son of a hotel empire and all he wants to do is make boutique hotels that support the environment or blend into it or something.

Magic hijinks ensues with much angst. I had mentally checked out by the end. Honestly if romance is your thing, you'll probably like this. For someone who came for the fantasy elements I was disappointed.



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Camp Arcanum by Josef Matulich

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I got this from the author several Ohioana book fests ago and it should have been right up my alley with a renn setting (kind of) and Paganism but I had some serious issues with some of this. Marc Sindri is a contractor hired to clear a large wooden area in Arcanum Ohio which has a large pagan population to make a renn fair. He has a very short time frame for this project and he's assisted by his two employees (friends?) Michael the gay artist and Eleazar, the over-sexed jongleur. As they set up their encampment of Airstream campers, they run into Brenwyn the head witch in town.

The first half of this book is the budding relationship between Brenwyn and Marc where he doesn't believe in magic but the reader knows her magic is very much real. What we learn quickly is Marc fears schizophrenia which claimed the life of his brother (content warning, suicide) It doesn't help that Brenwyn starts talking about Qliphotic beings which is what his brother was terrified of. they are from Kabbalah but Marc didn't know that. Also in town is the wealthy wizard Jeremiah, who wants to bring some cosmic horror into the world.

I almost wished Matulich had spent more time on Jeremiah and his plans because it would have been more interesting that way. I didn't care for Brenwyn and Marc's relationship and I think that's down to some heavy duty stereotypes especially for Marc. He's a 'man's man' that rough and rugged 'real man' vibe that I find so off-putting. I really wanted to slap him into next week. He's all about power tools but really he IS a tool.

In both senses of the word and that's the problem. In the jerk sense of it, he drives me nuts and in the working side of things, Marc is a magically tool. His noumena acts like a magically booster which is why Jeremiah wants to use but and taunts Marc that that is the reason Brenwyn wants him.

Naturally rather than talk to her about whether or not this is true, he tells her to piss off and nearly dooms everyone. Eye roll. And honestly if any man spoke to me like he did, I wouldn't be hiding out in my shop/home weeping and moaning about it like she did. That would be a man I'd cut out viciously. Also the blurb calls this a love triangle. I disagree (or at least it's only in Jeremiah's head) because Brenwyn is 100% over him. Speaking of love, Brenwyn and Marc start saying it way too fast for me, like after one true (and disastrous) date.

I can also see hints of Ash (Evil Dead) in Marc, especially with his choice of a shovel to go after demons and cosmic horrors. There is supposed to be humor in this, and there is some, especially if you like bro-humor. It wasn't a bad story, more like not-a-me story.



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I'm in Love with Mothman by Paige Lavoie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The irony here is I used to live in the Orlando Florida area and now I'm the neighbor of the Mothman just like our protagonist Heather i.e. HoneyLatte. Heather grew up online. Her mother was the original Online Mommy Influencer who has morphed into a different online personality now that Heather is a grown woman. Heather had no choice but to follow in her mom's footsteps but at the opening of the novel she's fed up. She wants to unplug and live a 'normal' life.

The big problem here is Heather has jack in the way of real world skills, nothing but the scads of money she's made. She comes north and buys the first crappy cabin in the woods she finds, honestly believing it'll be just like the cottage core stuff she sees online. I mean she doesn't even check to see if the roof is sound (it's not). In fact, Heather is rather annoying in general.

She goes into town to the general store (why there and not to the Piggly Wiggly, dollar general or family dollars that dotted this area in abundance, I'm chalking it up to author choice and/or hasn't really looked up the setting, more on that in a bit.) and runs into the owners, a lesbian couple whom she bonds with instantly. They own a farm as well and provide a lot of the locally grown stuff in the store. One of them has a brother, Chris, who is a cryptid hunter who is after, naturally, The Mothman.

Of course, The Mothman crashes into her life (quite literally) and as Heather takes care of the injured cryptid what normally happens in a romance novel, happens. Of course, he does have a more human form and since he is one of those legends that doesn't have much going on outside of the initial report and him being a 'harbinger spirit' it's a wide open field for Lavoie to make up some backstory for him.

I had two rather large disappointments with this story. One, Chris. He starts off as a half-assed potential love interest who seems genuinely concerned about Heather being out in the deep woods by herself and having no idea how to handle a house (or a cryptid for that matter) but it was like half way into the book Lavoie decided, oh right I don't have any conflict let's make Chris jealous, bullying and outrightly nasty. (Personally I think he should have been the hapless cryptid hunter and her overbearing mom could have filled that role because half Heather's story is stepping out of Mom's shadow. That would have made sense storytelling wise). The ending for him (and the story in general) just didn't work for me at all.

Secondly it feels obvious that Lavoie loves the legend of The Mothman (even working in his original descriptions as The Owlman) but it felt like she spent no time at all researching Point Pleasant. If this was the 90s, I'd be more forgiving. But you can pull up Google Earth for free and scope out a place. There is so much information on towns online that it seems a shame that to a local the lack of research is so glaring. Could we argue Heather is being melodramatic bemoaning it's a hundred miles to the nearest Wal-Mart? Sure. On the other hand, it's like 5 miles across the Silver Bridge to the one in Gallipolis (and about 30 to the ones in Jackson and Barboursville). There is literally no sense at all we're in Point Pleasant. The setting was wasted and that's a shame. Heck there wasn't even a mention of The Mothman Festival (I'm sitting here typing this wearing a T-shirt from that festival)

I'm side eyeing the twist at the end. There will be a sequel and as much as I like helping my local bookstore (which had this prominently displayed) I don't think I'd buy the next one (maybe if the library had it)



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Diamonds & Dirt by Stephanie LaVigne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This short novel was a freebie and for that it wasn't bad. The problem was it wasn't really mysterious enough to be a mystery nor romantic enough to be a romance. Caitlyn left small town Tennesse for Chicago and has been doing well in high end real estate though her last romance tanked. She gets a call from her Grandparents' lawyer to come home because her grandparents have retired and gone on a trip around the world and left her their music hall.

Right there I'm annoyed AF. What kind of grandparents don't talk to their grandchild about something like this and expect her to drop her career and move home? Yeah I know it's the plot of half the movies on the Hallmark channel. It's why I don't watch it. So she goes home to the dying town of Fox HIll where everyone is selling out to a mysterious farming company that is a) doing no farming and b) is buying in-town businesses where you couldn't possible grow a crop. Worse the music hall is in great disrepair (thanks Grandma).

Caitlyn almost immediately reconnects with her BFF from high school, Reba and Reba's brother, Kurt who run one of the few extant businesses, a diner. Caitlyn decides she needs to fix the music hall before selling it and you can guess the Hallmarky tropes that follow. Kurt, who was in love with her since h.s. reluctantly starts helping because he knows she'll go back to the big city and he doesn't want his heart broken. Caitlyn will be seduced by the folksy town she escaped and want to return. So yeah pretty paint by numbers that way.

The mystery is why is this big business buying up all the town and what can they do to stop it and how exactly is Grandma's lawyer involved. As mysteries go, it's not much of one and the end of it is ridiculous. MINOR SPOILER: Using your phone to track someone okay great but to do it over several hundred miles over days? Yeah not so much.

The characters were likable enough but I wasn't that taken in by the story or it's HFN ending.

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