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From the publisher:

Fall in love with this hilarious and heartwarming USA Today bestselling romantic comedy that LJ Shen calls “an absolute treat.”

Once again, I read the sequel before the original book. In this case, I have to plead ignorance. I knew there was another book by this author, but I didn’t research enough to find out that one is a sequel to the other. This is the first book, and I really wish I had read it first. So much so that once I finished it, I went back and read the second book again. It was no hardship, I loved that book and I loved this one as well. It just would have been so much better if I hadn’t known what was going to happen. As it was, I couldn’t put this book down until I got to where I knew it was going.

I don’t mean to sound so cryptic, but I don’t want to ruin this for anyone else. So do yourself a favor, read THIS book before The Happy Ever After Playlist. Consider yourself warned.

This is the debut novel of a Food Network baking champion. I don’t watch much Food Network anymore, and I rarely watch any of their competitions so I was not familiar with Abby Jimenez. Doesn’t matter, the content of the books is fairly baking-free, other than a cute shout out to her bakeries which I wouldn’t have noticed at all except I am that weirdo who reads every single page of a book, including dedications, author’s notes, etc.

Finally, to this book. It is a terrific debut, with well-developed characters and the type of restrained drama that never goes over the top, so it stays in the land of the believable. There are some very funny, laugh out loud scenes and some heartbreaking ones as well. The meet-cute is adorable, the secondary characters all play their parts to perfection, and there is enough heat to make it fun but not enough to scare away those who don’t want too much sex in their novels. And there is a dog.

I am a compulsive reader, but with this pandemic and all that encompasses, I have been having trouble reading. I have started probably half a dozen books, maybe more, (definitely more) that I couldn’t finish. Not because they weren’t good, but because I couldn’t concentrate. Abby Jimenez, I thank you for getting me back to reading again. It’s like these books restarted my reading brain or something. I read the second book, then the first, then the second again, and I’ve read a book a day since. Back to normal, so yay!

It’s not just me, either. A lot of people loved this book:

Read this book, then read this book. You’re welcome!

4/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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From the publisher:

From the USA Today bestselling author of The Friend Zone comes a fresh romantic comedy full of “fierce humor and fiercer heart” about one trouble-making dog who brings together two perfect strangers. (Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue)

Let me start by saying that I LOVED THIS BOOK. Yes, I’m shouting.

I’ve been having trouble reading lately, my mind wanders as I worry about everything and everyone. But this book sucked me in and I just about cried when I turned the last page. I wanted to stay with these characters – they are interesting and fun and damaged and thoroughly brought to life on the page. Sloan and Jason go through so much to get to their happily ever after, or in this case, “happy ever after,” that I just added them to my list of people I worry about until they got there. Did I mention how this book just completely sucked me in?

The meet-cute is a two-parter. Sloan finds a dog running around a busy road so she stops, and the next thing she knows, the dog has leapt through her sunroof and literally landed in her lap. He is a very well trained dog, and a breed I was not familiar with, and a hunting dog. The hunting stuff didn’t bother me at all, probably because there wasn’t any, just talk about Sloan’s blog of wild game recipes. But it was something that Jason and Sloan bonded over. She tries to find the owner and luckily, the dog, Tucker, is tagged. So she calls the number and leaves a message. Every day. For two weeks. By then she’s in love with Tucker and pissed at the owner and she decides the dog is now hers. And then Jason calls.

They get to know one another first by texting, and then by talking on the phone. Turns out Jason is halfway around the world, and Sloan agrees to give Tucker back if Jason can prove he loves the dog. Which he does. So the dog brings them together, and that kind of storyline always works for me. Weeks later, Jason comes home and they have their first real meeting, and fireworks. Sloan has been in a depression for two years, since her fiance died in a motorcycle/drunk driving accident. There is an author’s note at the end of the book about this type of depression that I had never heard of, and I’m glad she included it. And that is all I’m going to tell you about the story because YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!

The titular playlist is compiled from each chapter’s title, a song title, and band, and to be honest, I never heard of most of them. On occasion, I heard of the band but not the song, and one song but not the (fictional) singer. It didn’t matter in the least, although the author does provide the complete playlist at the end of the book for people who want to listen. I’m assuming it’s available on Spotify or Pandora or something?

I don’t know much about the life of rock stars. I am not especially interested in pop culture. I don’t know who most of the people are in People Magazine these days. So I was kind of surprised by how much I loved this book. Maybe it is based on someone famous, I have no idea and it doesn’t matter.

Jimenez has written a terrific story that is bound for my best books of the year list. Don’t miss it!

4/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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From the publisher:

Where can you turn when the world turns against you? When Elizabeth Barnes’ life fell apart she never imagined that she’d be rescued by a new friend on four paws.

The plan was simple: Elizabeth would ignore the fact that she was unjustly fired from her dream job, fly across the pond to settle an unexpected inheritance in her father’s home country and quickly return to reclaim her position among the Silicon Valley elite.

But when Elizabeth stumbles upon an abandoned puppy, she’s shocked to realize that her brief trip to England might turn into an extended stay. Her strict itinerary is upended completely by the pup’s dogged devotion, and soon the loveable puppy helps her to connect with a tight-knit community of new friends on two legs and four, from the aunt and uncle she didn’t know existed, to a grumpy coffee shop owner to two very opinionated sheep. Along the way Elizabeth is confronted by long-kept family secrets, hard truths about her former life and a new romance that might lead her to question everything she knows about love. Because sometimes rescue magic happens on both ends of the leash.

Is this not the cutest cover ever?? The book is just as cute, especially if you like British romcoms –  and I do.

Elizabeth, or Bess as she is automatically christened in the UK, is a social media driven, San Francisco start-up, worker bee at the top of her game. Until she gives an interview and spills the tea, as it were. It costs her everything, her job, her stock options, her reason for being. So when a relative she never heard of tells her she has an inheritance, she figures why not and hops across the pond.

She never figured on falling in love – with her new family, the small, country town, the puppy she rescues, or the best looking man she’s ever seen. These characters – including the animals – come to life on the page, as does the location, and I never wanted to leave. But alas, I eventually had to turn the last page.

If you want a feel good read, and right now I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t, do yourself a favor and spend a few hours with this lovely book. Highly recommended!

4/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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Bad Bachelors Series, Book 1

From the publisher:

Everybody’s talking about the hot new app reviewing New York’s most eligible bachelors. But why focus on prince charming when you can read the latest dirt on the lowest-ranked “Bad Bachelors”―NYC’s most notorious bad boys.

If one more person mentions Bad Bachelors to Reed McMahon, someone’s gonna get hurt. A PR whiz, Reed is known as an ‘image fixer’ but his womanizing ways have caught up with him. What he needs is a PR miracle of his own.

When Reed strolls into Darcy Greer’s workplace offering to help save the struggling library, she isn’t buying it. The prickly Brooklynite knows Reed is exactly the kind of guy she should avoid. But the library does need his help. But as she reluctantly works with Reed, she realizes there’s more to a man than his reputation. Maybe, just maybe Bad Bachelor #1 is THE one for her.

This story had an interesting premise, a new app that gives women the chance to post reviews of men they have dated, sort of like Yelp for dating. The setting is Manhattan, which was the part I had to overlook for this. In a city that populated, the app works like it is in a small town in upstate NY. Sort of odd, but maybe that’s just me. Suspend your disbelief and go with it.

Darcy is a librarian, but not really stereotypical. Okay, she is an introvert and she loves books, but she’s also young and tatted up, much like several librarians I know. So maybe hipster stereotypical? Oh, and she lives in Park Slope. So a well-paid librarian? But I digress, these details are not really important. What is important is that she is a well-developed character, and her enemy to lover hunk is as well.

Reed is the number one Bad Bachelor on the app. There are so many horrible reviews about him that it starts to affect his job. He loses his biggest client and his boss is breathing down his neck. He goes online and reads the reviews, recognizes some of the women but also realizes some of them are completely fictitious, he never went where they say he went and so forth. He decides to try and find out who is running this app and why they are targeting him.

Meanwhile, he has been voluntold to help the library with its fundraising. He has to work with Darcy, and they are coming from two different worlds. He is used to fancy parties and raising thousands of dollars; she is used to asking for donations from library patrons and raising hundreds, if that. They clash but there is also an attraction there, and soon Darcy has wormed her way into Reed’s life, and he finds himself enjoying it. Until everything goes sideways.

No worries, this is a romance so they reach their happily ever after but not until there have some hot sex, fights and eventually makeup. This was a one night read for me and I am looking forward to the next book in this series.

4/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™