CBR17 Book 32: "Manic Pixie Dream Earl" by Jenny Holiday

Page count: 320 pages

Audio book length: 11 hrs 15 mins

Rating: 3.5 stars

Thanks to Jenny Holiday, Netgalley and Tantor Audio for this ARC. My opinion is my own.

Edward "Effie" Astley, Viscount Featherfinch, is a poet and a terrible disappointment to his father. Thankfully, he's about to set off on the annual "Earl's trip" with his two best friends, who support him come what may. So they don't ask any questions when Effie asks them to help him store a broken printing press, nor why he's so preoccupied with letters from a Miss Evans. Effie doesn't really want to confess to having become infatuated with a non-aristocratic lady, who coincidentally thinks he's a woman too, called Euphemia. 

Miss Julianna Evans loves the magazine she publishes, but hates that her odious brother insists on weekly editorial meetings and keeps questioning every decision she makes, constantly cutting her budget. Normally, she's far too busy to ever consider taking a brief holiday, but when there is a delay at her printers, and the alternative is waiting impatiently at her sister's house, generally just being in the way, she impulsively decides that she's going to spend some of her hard-earned savings to go to Brighton to meet her best friend Euphemia, who she knows will be staying there with her friends. 

Brighton isn't a big enough place for Effie and Julianna to avoid each other for very long (nor would this be a particularly effective romance novel if they did). Considering Effie has been lying about his identity to Julianna for the past five years, she gets over the deceit remarkably quickly. Effie's two best buds also take it in their stride that their slightly unorthodox bestie is in love with a magazine publisher who is quite a few years his elder.

The publisher claims that this book is Ted Lasso meets Bridgerton meets The Hangover. I have complained in the past that absolutely everything set in the Regency era is now marketed towards "fans of Bridgerton", and I can only surmise that the Ted Lasso comparison is made because this book features non-toxic male friendships and guys who support each other in wholesome ways, while The Hangover is thrown in there because it's the most famous dudes on a road trip story out there, even now, sixteen years later. I despair at these sales pitches. 

There is a lot to like here. Effie is bisexual and has no problem admitting this to his friends, although his friends seem to have suspected him to be gay and/or asexual before he reveals his feelings for Julianna. There's the aforementioned non-toxic male friendships. We have an age gap, where the heroine is about a decade older than the hero (Effie is in his late twenties, Julianna is in her late thirties). Most of the book takes place in Brighton rather than London, and the more unusual location made for a nice change. 

Harry Frost does a good job with the narration of the book, but I find that about a month after finishing the story, I don't remember too much of the overall plot. While I've liked several of Jenny Holiday's contemporary romances, I'm not sure I liked her rather unusual take on the historical genre. Nevertheless, I already own Earl's Trip, the first book in the series, so I'll probably get round to reading it at some point. I also hope she gets round to writing about Effie's friend Olive in some future instalment, she was the most interesting supporting character here. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is rather busy, and features a number of people in various situations, not all of which take place in the actual story, unless my memory entirely fails me. I think there are too many things going on here. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 32: "Love Lettering" by Kate Clayborn

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Fonts (Meg's whole livelihood involves lettering, fonts, and calligraphy. Also, this was the first book on my TBR I could think of when I saw the bingo prompt.)

Meg Mackworth is known as "the Planner of Park Slope" and uses her hand lettering skills and creativity to design custom journals and planners for the rich and influential in New York City. Lately, she's really feeling the pressure of all the work and suffering from a creative block - not exactly a good thing when she's trying to complete the pitch of a lifetime. She's not sure why she keeps growing more and more estranged from her best friend and roommate. So when a former client shows up at the shop where she works and confronts her about the wedding program she designed for him and his fiancée, a beautifully decorated piece where she hid the word "mistake" from everyone, or so she believed. Reid Sutherland is a financial analyst who's excellent at spotting patterns, and he wants to know how Meg could be so sure that his relationship was doomed even before the wedding took place.

Meg obviously feels bad for Reid and admits that her action was rather unprofessional. She apologises and reckons that she's unlikely to ever see the handsome man again. She's surprised to hear that not only is he not married, but he's also shortly going to be leaving New York, claiming he never really liked it there. As Meg adores New York, she decides to apologise to Reid by trying to make him see the magic of the city, which she figures might help her find new inspiration for her work, as well. She plans a number of walking tours and invites Reid along. He not only agrees to come with her, but he also challenges her to little games and friendly competitions while they wander. The more time they spend with each other, the more their attraction grows. But is there any future for the two of them if Reid is going to be leaving the city soon? 

This is one of those romances that pretty much got rave reviews all over the place when it came out, and I didn't have the opportunity to read it back then but snapped it up in a sale, whereupon I of course promptly forgot about it, until the Bingo challenge came along and made me examine my digital library when planning my reading list. Having now finished it at last, I think it may be my favourite of Clayborn's books so far. 

I wouldn't describe the romance as angsty as such, but both Meg and Reid have some baggage to work through, and it turns out that the very private Reid has also been keeping some secrets from Meg that are revealed in the final act and complicate their relationship quite a bit. I'm not sure I was entirely happy with that whole plot strand, I thought it made things a bit too melodramatic. Apart from that, I liked the slow burn of Meg and Reid getting to know one another on their walks all over New York, and the little games they made up with letters and signs to pass the time. I also liked Meg's growing friendship with her movie star client (who I will insist in my head is Anne Hathaway, and you can't tell me any different) and the other found family friendships she had to support her. The most angsty aspect of this book was probably Meg's sort of relationship breakdown with her roommate, but I thought that was solved really well at the end of the book as well.

I'm glad I finally got round to reading this one. Clayborn is a good writer, and while she might not blow my socks off, I had a good time reading the book, and can recommend it for anyone wanting a cozy read. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is cute, but I think that a book that is so focused on writing and fonts could have a more exciting cover, featuring more interesting graphics. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 18: "Get a Life, Chloe Brown" by Talia Hibbert

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?

• Enjoy a drunken night out.
• Ride a motorcycle.
• Go camping.
• Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
• Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
• And... do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…

This is another one of those books that have come highly recommended on a number of blogs, as well as by a number of Cannonballers whose opinions I trust. It became available in an e-book sale at the start of March, and fit nicely with my #BlackHistoryMonth goal of reading more by and about black women (I'm fully aware of my privilege as a middle-class, middle-aged white woman and I know I still read far too many books both by and about mostly white characters with a very similar background to my own, but I am trying to expand my horizons, I really am), I dove right in.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown deserves all the positive reviews it's been getting. It's a lovely little romance, and it was even better for featuring a plus-size, chronically ill character, who at no point in the story is in any way suddenly magically healed by her romantic encounters, or made to feel like she's worth any less because she's ill. Since being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, she's lost a lot of her support network, including a boyfriend and most of her regular friends. She's been isolating herself for far too long, and after a near-death experience, she decides things need to change. She loves making lists (and they help her when her short term memory is muddled from the meds she frequently has to take) and she makes a special to-do-list. She moves into a new flat and immediately ends up in conflict with Redford, the handsome super of the building.

A few months later, she's had a few more mortifying encounters with Red (she's also spied on him painting at night), but not really made much progress with her "Get a Life" list. She offers to design a new website for Red in return for help with some of the items on the list. The two fairly quickly discover that the animosity that exists between them because of their first meetings are mainly down to misunderstandings, and it doesn't take long before they are fast friends, quickly moving towards something more.

Both Chloe and Red have supportive families, but emotional baggage from their pasts. While working together to cross off items on Chloe's list, it also becomes clear that Red needs to reevaluate his current choices and decide whether he wants to relaunch his painting career or do something else. It's very obvious that he's not content being a building superintendent. Of course, their pasts cause some friction along the way to the HEA but nothing that annoyed me too much, and there is suitable and appropriate groveling from the protagonist responsible.

This is the first in a series, with Chloe's younger sisters being the stars of the other books. While her sisters are nice supporting characters, one of them has an annoying quirk where she uses the wrong word and her sisters keep going "don't you mean ...?" A whole book with a heroine doing that is likely to drive me nuts. Nevertheless, based on this book, I will absolutely read more of Hibbert's books.

Judging a book by its cover: Whether I like it or not, the publishing world has clearly decided that cutesy cartoon covers are the standard for contemporary romance now, until the next trend comes along to replace it. This cover, though, I really like.  Chloe and Red look so cozy, and the reader can see that Chloe really is a big woman (which isn't really focused on in the story at all, another thing I really liked). The cat in the background is obviously also very appropriate.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.