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Spicy Trauma In Long Form. This is the third book directly in its series (fourth if you count its "backdoor pilot" book from another series where a key character + a few side characters to this book were all introduced) and is the longest by over 100 pages, according to Amazon's count... and that length shows here. Now, given that this is a habanero spicy book at times... maybe you want that length. Or maybe you're more a "motion of the ocean" type that would rather things just get to the point without a lot of extras. Either way, you've been warned about the extra girth here and you can now make your own decision based on your own preferences.

And yes, if sexual puns and innuendoes aren't your thing... you're really not going to like this book. As it i...

Another Solid Entrant Where Bratt's Heart Is Tattooed On Her Upper Arm With Her Sleeves Down. For a series that was *supposed* to end at Book 7 or so to now have doubled that speaks to just how popular it has become among fans of the author. That the new books continue to sell and continue to bring in new fans speaks to how well the author is crafting both each individual entry and the overall arc of the series. I know in my own reviews I've noted before the series was supposed to end at this book or that book or whatever, but at this poin...

Strong Tale Of The Travails Of Friendship After College. This is one of those tales where, as someone in his 40s who graduated college 20 yrs ago this year himself and who has maintained at least a couple of friendships since that era, I get it. Now, my friends and I were nowhere near as complicated as these ladies. There were no secret houses or anything remotely like that at our then-commuter school that was just on the cusp of creating its first actual dorms as I was graduating. Our football team was "still undefeated"... because it didn't exist yet. And yet, as I type this review just a couple of weeks before Selection Sunday 2025, there is a ...

Solid Laid Back Cozy Florida Mystery - With Magical Realism Tossed In. This is the book that exactly one person alive was capable of writing - particularly writing this well. That person being St. Augustine-based medical investigator and now pastor of a St. Augustine area church, Kent Holloway.

I've known Holloway for years. I first started reading his works when he began working as a coauthor with The New God Of Science Fiction Jeremy Robinson, and I've read most of his independent works since - even his nonfiction book I Swallowed A Goldfish, where he looks at his older day job (medical investigator) through the eyes of his newer one (pastor). I either know of or have read every project he names in the Author's Note at the end of this tale, and I was largely around when he was coming up with all of them. Living in Jacksonville myself for nearly a decade now, I even finally got a chance to meet Holloway in real life a couple of years ago now... when Robinson came to St. Augustine and brought his annual gathering of fans and colleagues, Robinsonfest, with him.

As noted in the Author's Note, years ago Holloway wrote a book called The Legend Of The Winterking. In its level of detail and blending of both fantasy and Christian lore - but with Holloway's own particular Christmas-focused bent to it - it really did seem capable of standing right up there with Lewis and Tolkien. As I don't read fantasy, I don't *know* this, but being familiar with the overall stories...

No Angels. No Demons. Only Humans. This is one of those tales that has a lot going against it - multiple perspectives, pretty well everyone is "unlikeable" at best, etc. And yet... that is the very *strength* of this particular tale.

I for one enjoy and even embrace tales where humanity is shown in all of its highs - and lows. Where people are shown to be exactly what they are - flawed creatures simply trying to live their lives the best they can. Where no matter how angelic someone appears, there is clearly a demon hiding just under t...

For this blog tour, we're looking at a fun, quirky scifi romance reminiscent of Eureka. For this blog tour, we're looking at Not You Again by Erin La Rosa.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookBub.com / BookHype.com / Goodreads.com / TheStoryGraph.com) and YouTube:

Romance Author Creates Eureka-Esque Scifi. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was proofreading The New God of Science Fiction Jeremy Robinson's late April 2026 release, Parallax, where he - a long time and prolific scifi author who has never really dabbled in romance at all - created a kick ass scifi action tale that was *also* a spicy romance book. Now, just a few books later, I'm reading a book by a more recently established romance author... who is introducing quirky scifi into her romance book. Interesting times, it seems. ;)

And this is absolutely a quirky scifi romance. To me, it gives off strong vibes of the now-long-dead Syfy show Eureka, where the entire town knows they are in a scifi tale and they all merrily do their own things within it. If your sense of humor is of the 'WTF' variety... this is absolutely going to be right up your alley.

And yes, speaking of things being 'up alleys' (groan, I know, sorry), if you're not a fan of spicy romance of the habanero, maybe even hotter, level... this book probably isn't going to be your thing. There isn't *much* of it... until there is. But when it is there, it is *there*.

And the ambiguity. Other than giving away that there is some here, all I'll note about it is that I appreciated it. Obviously, some readers have to have every possible thread buttoned up exactly so. I've never been one of those, so I appreciate books that don't do that since they are so rare.

Another thing that is going to be one of those that some will love and others will loathe is the seemingly forced LGBT inclusion here. I don't personally have strong feelings either direction on should it be here, shouldn't it be here, but it *did* feel a touch out of the blue and it never really added much to the story for me, but hey, maybe I'm the idiot here and it is the fact that sells the book for you. You do you there. Doesn't affect me in any way at all.

Ultimately, I did think that this book largely works quite well overall, and I absolutely LOVE that La Rosa was stretching herself so far here and making everything work as well as it did. That is absolutely a mark of a strong storyteller, and a brave one that can at least stretch the norms of her established genre and try different things within it that are far from cookier cutter. And that is something I will always applaud any author doing.

Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the "publisher details" - book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.

Chapter 1 Carly

Day 1

Carly Hart was what one former friend had called “an emotional basket case.” She cried openly, in public, with very little concern for who saw. And it wasn’t just big moments that caused her to tear up—a breakup, losing out on a job, having to fly out from LAX—but the little things, too. Like when she tripped on a sidewalk crack and accidentally squished a caterpillar, or the time she went to take a shower after a workout and the water came out cold instead of hot. Carly felt deeply without much effort. Crying was cathartic, natural and part of her way of life.

But it had been a week since her dad died and still, not a single tear. She’d imagined his funeral would be the thing that finally broke her. Yet, here she was, sitting in front of his casket, and . . . nothing. Flower arrangements lined the walls, white folding chairs were arranged in neat rows and a blown-up photo of her dad from thirty years ago with a film camera on one shoulder and a four-year-old Carly on the other was placed in front of the coffin. The evidence of her dad’s departure was all around, but still, none of this felt real.

Cry, she told herself, just like you’d write into a movie. Yes, if this were a scene she were drafting, the heroine would emit deep, guttural sobs, the camera would pan out and the screen would fade to black.

But this wasn’t one of her screenplays. There would be no swell of orchestral music, and no comforting hugs from a secondary character, apparently. Because no one else was there—the room was empty, except for her. Was she actually going to be the lone attendee at her dad’s service? Was this how Bruce Hart would be remembered?

A floorboard creaked and Carly stood, hopeful that a friend of her father’s had arrived, but it was just the funeral director.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said.

Adam. His name was Adam. Now she remembered. He was probably in his thirties, tall and lanky in a fitted blue shirt with a blazer and loose tie. His floppy red hair fell just above the sharp lines of his jaw. “It’s fine,” she said, but her voice was much softer than she’d ever heard it. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“Fine.”

“Can I get you anything?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” she managed to respond. “We’ll move outside in about twenty minutes, if that’s okay with you.” He clasped his hands, and she registered how his brown eyes had f lecks of honey in them.

Carly blinked. Outside, as in the burial. She gave a quick glance at the coffin, then studied her shoes. “Sure,” she said.

Though there was no way she’d be able to ...

More Primer Than Deep Dive. I read George's (nearly 20 yr old now) The Big Necessity near the start of 2025, so beginning the ending of 2025 with her latest release seems appropriate, right? ;) Like Necessity, this book takes George to several different places to talk to several different people and chronicle their lives and thoughts on the subject at hand - in this case, commercial fishing. Unlike Necessity, here George mostly stays in and around the British Isles, with a few ventures into other European areas such as Norway.

The overall text here is essentially 15 different essays, one per chapter, using wherever she...

Solid History Of A Well told Yet Unfocused On Era. The subtitle of this book speaks of the "untold story" of Gemini... which is a bit misleading. Anyone who knows most anything about NASA in the 1960s and/ or the Apollo missions knows a fair amount about the Gemini missions that created and proved the tech that made Apollo possible. What this book does is that it *centers* its focus on that exact period. (Literally, the central part of the book is specifically about Gemini, after an introduction discussing how we got to Gemini, including Mercury, and a back end that...

Math And History Nerds Will Love This. Solid History For Everyone Else Too. Ok, so I'm a dude that got a Computer Science degree 20 yrs ago and came within literally half a dozen classes of getting degrees in Mathematics and Secondary Mathematics Education at the same time... who also took HIST classes as electives just because they sounded interesting. In other words, this book may as well have been titled "Jeff Sexton Will Beg To Read This Book", because I damn near did. But clearly, I *am* the very math and history nerd that my title of this review above explicitly said would love this book.

Clocking in at 19% bibliography, it has a healthy enough backing so that it doesn't drop a star on that account, and really the only even quibble I have here is that in choosing to end in 19...

For this blog tour, we're looking at a solid women's fiction tale with a touch of romance where all four central characters are executed very well indeed. For this blog tour, we're looking at Otherwise Engaged by Susan Mallery.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookBub.com / BookHype.com / Goodreads.com / TheStoryGraph.com) and YouTube:

Solid Susan Mallery Women's Fiction (With A Touch Of Romance). With Susan Mallery, you know pretty well exactly what you're going to get. She basically has two styles, with a few wrinkles per style, and once you know which style and which wrinkle you're in... well, if you enjoy reading a lot of variations on the same thing and are looking for the kinds of books that are essentially the reading equivalent of TV you can simply zone out and enjoy and know you're not going to hit anything *too* complex or disturbing... Mallery is an author you're going to love. Which long time fans will already know, but the above explanation was more for those newer to her or perhaps who haven't read her books at all.

With this particular iteration, again, we're more on the women's fiction side, but even on this side of Mallery's writing, romance is never far from the scene - indeed, it will always be close enough that technically the books can be (and generally are) marketed as romance tales, even when the women's fiction side is actually more dominant in the overall story (as it is here).

Overall, I thought this was actually perhaps a touch more standout than typical Mallery, more dealing with the specifics at hand here that can't be discussed too much without going into spoiler territory. But she absolutely nails the women's fiction side, showing strong growth in each of her four central characters - not always easy to do with so many moving parts. So if you're looking for a solid escape this holiday season - and have some time to invest in this near almost 370 page book - well, here's yet another solid option.

Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the "publisher details" - book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.

How does the horse look?

Victoria Rogers pressed her good arm to her very bruised, almost broken ribs. “Dad, don’t,” she said, trying to stay as still as possible. “You can’t be funny. It already hurts to breathe. It wasn’t a horse.”

Her father frowned. “I was told you were thrown off a horse.” “I was thrown out of a truck.”

“Then how’d you get the black eyes?”

“The ground was a little bit pissy when I hit it and punched me back.”

There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t hurt. The good news was that now that the medical staff had determined she didn’t have a head injury, they were going to give her drugs to help with the pain. She’d already said she didn’t want any of that weak-ass pill stuff. She wanted a nurse to give her a shot of something t...