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Take Two, by Danielle Hawkins (2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A woman answers an SOS from her long-time ex‘s family, only to fall for her ex‘s brother.

Review: It‘s becoming increasingly hard for romances (or other light genre books) to stand out from the crowd, but this really blew me away. ⬇️

Hi @CarolynM so delighted with this fantastic #AuldLangSpine list! The 3 on the right side will be my starting point:
-Seascraper already own
-the 2 Chidgey novels were high on my list after reading Pet and I‘ve been eyeing Axeman for some time

The 4 listed with stars above I‘ve read and loved. (Human Failings) almost made my list.

The 5 along the bottom will be the “next up” to read into the year as I have easiest access to those.

Very late #BookReport for October. All good reads, In a Fishbone Church the standout.

I think Catherine Chidgey is my new favourite author. This is so different from The Axeman‘s Carnival, but just as good - such vivid characters! Multiple POVs of three generations of a New Zealand family living through the second half of the 20th century, capturing the changes in outlook and opportunities over the years. #NZfiction

Might have picked up a couple of books on my travels 😆 #NZFiction

This is a very dark and sad story about German people, living close to Buchenwald during WWII.
SS officials, their wives and kids, other people living in nearby Weimar. It is shocking and disgusting how all could ignore or even justify everything that happened right before their eyes.

The parallels with current times are clear and upsetting.

Here you go @merelybookish this is the very colourful childrens author Margaret Mahy who wrote over 100 picture books as well as a couple of dozen novels. She was also a librarian and dedicated to growing young readers. She would be the most well know author in NZ because everyone (around my age at least) grew up reading her books.

Meh. I like bodyguard romances, but this one just felt… I think maybe if I‘d read the first book, I‘d be able to follow better, but I am not interested in backtracking. It‘s fine, but certainly not the best rom I‘ve read this year.

2.75 stars | #romance

I mostly loved this. My beliefs include a) the British royal family are a bunch of colonizing shits hoarding wealth, b) ACAB, c) military service should not be glorified. It's not that this VERY sexy, funny, and romantic story about a royal bodyguard and a royal personal assistant is about those things, but they are in the background, not exactly condoned but neither are they questioned. Anyway, this couple is great, incredible chemistry!

Absolutely beautiful book for my first December #roll100 definitely not one for feeling festive but a really interesting and important tale of nazi Germany. Fantastic character development and really interesting plot.