Seems like enemies-to-lovers is all the rage for most romances these days, and while it has never been a favorite of mine, I do want to read more of this trope to see if the problem I have is a me thing, or if the enemies-to-lovers’ books I have read simply haven’t done it for me. I’m sad to say that this book doesn’t get me closer to those answers. But, oddly, my issues with this steamy, sapphic enemies-to-lovers’ fantasy romance wasn’t the trope itself, but the world building. Set in a semi-urban fantasy, you have a kingdom torn in two (literally) where magic is determined by if a certain sentient house likes you enough to gift you magic. There’s a magic house for everything, and if you are gifted said magic, you’ll be given a tattoo so everyone knows you have Assassin guild magic, or mechanic magic, or rune magic, or herbal magic, or well, pretty much anything I guess because the world building never gets that defined. Everything felt a bit vague, and hurried, sacrificed mainly so we could be told more just how much our rivals turned enemies want to fight, and f*ck each other.

This was my first Edwardian historical fiction romance and I have to say, it was kind of charming. You still have the formal gowns and bodices of regency romances, the demure courtship practices, and the flowery language that makes historical fiction romances so delicious, but there are just enough modern touches (like cars) to give it a bit of a twist. In “Proper English” we follow Pat, who is about to embark on a new adventure with leaving her family home now that her brother is married. With no desire to marry a man, Pat needs to figure out what her new purpose is now that she’s not managing a household estate. She has dreams to open a shooting school for women, or perhaps becoming a lady’s companion, but nothing is grabbing her yet. She hopes that a house party where she can shoot and show off her marksmen skills with her brother, their family friend, and a few others will be just the break she needs to figure out what new direction her life will take. That’s until the house party gets crashed by her friends’ fiancée, and a slew of guests neither she nor her brother were expecting. As Pat’s passions kindle for Fen, a locked door “whodunit” murder mystery threatens to destroy not just her blossoming romance, but her brother and her friends' life as well. You’ll come to this book for the sapphic romance, but stay for the murder mystery, trust me.

It's no secret that the author leaned heavily on “You’ve Got Mail” in this book, she even has the characters say so at one point which was… something. But here we have a sapphic romance between a bookstore owner being evicted from the location she ran with her mother, and the property developer (and secret romance author) whose family business was the one to evict the cute, bubbly bookstore owner to begin with. These women communicate online, hiding their identities (for Rosie, it’s her full name, and for Jane it’s her name and the fact that writing romance books isn’t her day job), so when they discover that the woman they are crushing on online is the one causing them headaches off the screen, drama ensues. Or it should. This story is laced with so much sweetness and convenient, easy solutions that the delectable drama and tension that should come with two women falling for someone they shouldn’t due to their current circumstances never manifests.

The premise of this paranormal, urban fantasy romance sounds super cute, even if, admittedly, I wasn’t going to read this book. You see, I wanted to mainly read book 2 in this little series of “semi” stand alone romances, but then I found out how big of a role the main couple in book 2 play in “A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon”, and here we are. Mariel is a very powerful nature witch. This fact is never, ever hidden. Yet some how nature witches aren’t considered powerful? Or just not flashy enough to be deemed that impressive so Mariel struggles to gain her families approval. She struggles so much that she accidentally summons a demon when she means to summon flour, and now he can’t leave until he makes a deal for her soul. Queue the romcom hijinks with all the forced proximity, sunshine and grumpy love interests, and sort of enemies to lovers. Honestly there are so many tropes in this romance that it felt like the author was going through a check list at times, but that wouldn’t have bothered me if the FMC hadn’t done something to make me knock a whole star off this rating.

I’ll be the first to admit that “Act Your Age, Eve Brown” was, out of the Brown sister’s series, the one I was looking forward to reading the least. From the brief snippets I saw of Eve in Chloe and Dani’s books, she always kind of annoyed me. So, to say I was a bit apprehensive about her book would be putting it mildly, but man, did Eve prove me wrong just like she did to her family. Eve is a super sunshine character with certain… quirks. She’s so afraid of failing that she quits just as things start to get hard to avoid the stigma of being a failure. It’s terribly relatable, and her parents’ reaction to their twenty-six-year-old child “failing to launch” is totally understandable, too. That’s how Eve finds herself in the country interviewing, on a whim, for the chef position of an adorable bed and breakfast. Typical romance hijinks ensue, and Eve is forced to take the job, and take care of the owner who she hit with her car, out of guilt. I really enjoyed the kind of twist on the sunshine and grumpy love interests that came out of this too, because neither is happy or grumpy just for the sake of it, which is why Hibbert is my favorite romance author.