recent romance reads for my dead dead heart

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Hi bookish friends!

How are you all? What’s been going on in your life? What have you been reading recently? I’ve been on a romance binge….. I have just been adoring reading some lighthearted, whimsical and fun romance books and I wanted to let you know why.

Just a side note, I wanted to really thank you all for reading and commenting and engaging with my posts! I know it takes me ages to respond to comments (I’m sorry!) but every single one is incredibly appreciated. I love being able to talk with you all!

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This past week I have read two really wonderful romance novels. I couldn’t help myself and I picked up 𝑯𝒂𝒍𝒇 𝒂 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒍 𝒃𝒚 𝑶𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒂 𝑨𝒕𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 last weekend. 𝑯𝒂𝒍𝒇 𝒂 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒍 is a historical romance fantasy novel and is the first book in the Regency Faerie Tales. Theodora ‘Dora’ Ettings had a relatively normal upbringing – her mother (and father?) died leaving her in the care of her Aunt. Unknowingly, Dora was actually supposed to be given to Lord Hallowvale as payment for her mother’s deal with the Faerie lord. As a result, Lord Hallowvale finds Dora as she is venturing alone in the forest (I think she was between the ages of 8-11) and steals half her soul. Only half though because Dora’s cousin, Vanessa, comes running and stabs the faerie with her iron scissors.

Dora continues living with half her soul, emotions not having much of an effect (or affect) on her. She feels slightly disconnected with her reality, having to perform in certain situations to maintain her facade as being a perfectly ordinary respectable young woman. When Dora and Vanessa (alongside Vanessa’s truly bitchy mother) head to London for the Season, they meet the Lord Sorcier, Elias Wilder. And then the story truly takes off.

This was what I would call a slightly cozy fantasy – there are stakes and they’re technically high stakes – but it’s just such a whimsical and charming story with charming characters and an adorable love story, that it felt cozy. The narrative itself does not just focus on the Dora’s half a soul situation – Dora and Elias work to figure out a mystery of a sleeping plague effecting only children from work houses. This added plotline was great – it enabled us to spend more time with Dora and other side characters. Basically, the story plodded on wonderfully and I had such a fantastic time.

My only ‘critique’ if you want to call it that is that the story was trying to do too much. The added plotline regarding the children and the workhouses was awesome but it was also attempting to be a commentary on the horrendousness of the work houses and their treatment of people and the complicitness of the elite and their deiberate ignorance of such. But the epilogue just briefly glosses over it – like, workhouses are still terrible and got even worse but at least there a two places children know they’ll be treated right! and that’s it. If you want to explore and critique a system, make it slightly more nuanced.

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The last romance novel I read this week was 𝑾𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒃𝒚 𝑨𝒍𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒂 𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒖𝒓, book one in the Written in the Stars series. This was just a great read. Darcy has a tenacious younger brother, Brendon, who keeps on setting her up on dates. Dates Darcy definitely does not want. But she continues to go on them just to appease her brother because she loves him so much. In comes Elle on a collision course, an astrologer who is the complete opposite to Darcy.

They literally ignite.

The sexual tension in this?! Top tier. TOP TIER. The sexual tension was visceral – Elle and Darcy lock eyes and BOOM, fireworks. But the date goes horribly and then Darcy lies to her brother which then results in Darcy and Elle fake dating to appease Brendon and Elle’s family.

This story explores the tenuous and sometimes tumultuous relationships between family, of parental expectations and feeling like you’re suffocating under the burden of not being enough. I really think 𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒖𝒓 did amazing in how she incorporated these very real discussions within the development of Elle and Darcy’s love story, whilst also touching on Darcy’s reasons for her reluctance in approaching a relationship and her own trauma associated with that.

I hate most third act conflicts in romance novels, and this wasn’t the worst I’ve ever read but it was annoying. It doesn’t last very long but I felt as though Elle was being particularly obtuse in regards to Darcy and how she emotes.

But overall, it was lighthearted and easy to read and I will be continuing the series.

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I’m also currently reading 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂 𝑺𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒕𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑳𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝑺𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒔 𝒃𝒚 𝑰𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒂 𝑯𝒐𝒍𝒕𝒐𝒏 and I’m literally having a blast. It is fucking fantastic. FANTASTIC. I might dedicate a post to this book and its sequel because I kind of want to scream about it.

Anyway! That’s all for today, friends.

Until next time, happy reading!

All the love,

allie

xx

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𝓽𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓮𝓻

𝓲𝓷𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓶

𝓰𝓸𝓸𝓭𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓼

𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓱

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