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 is as deep (oh god) (crap) in the series as it is, you probably should have picked up on that by now, but maybe you picked this up thinking it could be read standalone. While it technically *can* be – its story isn’t directly intertwined with any other – the characters from the other books all play roles to some degree or another here, including one scene in particular here detailing in even more explicit detail a common event among all three tales… and other that is more background to the other books, finally fully explained here.
For those who are looking for solid romance tales with some laughs (including various animals that nearly steal the scene in most scenes they are in) and a ton of heart and you can handle cursing at at least the sailor level (programmers curse more, for what that’s worth) and the aforementioned habanero spice level, this entire series is excellent.
This particular entry, with as much trauma as is detailed on both main characters… maybe the extra girth was needed. Maybe it wasn’t. I’m honestly torn, as I *want* to say it wasn’t needed… but there are also no clearly extraneous scenes here. Every scene was done well and every scene works together in its sequence to tell a richly developed story of two traumatized people slowly coming together over a period of time, and it really works on so many levels that even though I *want* to say the extra length wasn’t needed, I also can’t really defend that position by citing anything that could have been cut and this book work as well as it does here.
Thus, the best I can say is prepare yourself for the extra length… and have fun with it. The conclusion reveals that we’ve got one more book left in this series, and it is the one person we haven’t really heard from yet… who becomes very obvious through the course of this tale that they’ve got their own story to (finally) tell. I for one can’t wait to see what happens there.
Very much recommended.
This review of Honeymoon Phase by Amy Daws was originally written on November 23, 2025.