Promise Boys. Nick Brooks. 2023. Henry Holt & Co. 279 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] The beloved principal of Urban Promise Prep is dead from a single gunshot to the head. Three suspects — his own students — are in custody. While police work to find a motive for who would murder a man working to save so many at risk boys, the three students are seeing the futures they’ve worked for crumbling in front of them. Promise Boys follows J.B., Ramon, and Trey as they try to prove their innocence. To outsiders, they each appear to have a compelling motive to hurt Principal Moore, who seems to have a penchant for humiliating them under the guise of discipline. J.B. is described as quiet and smart, but with a size that intimidates and strength that hurts. Ramon is an aspiring entrepreneur whose affiliation with a local gang constantly asks him to choose between the life he wants and the reality he’s in. Trey has already been labelled a troublemaker, but the profile he brings to the school’s basketball team is hard to ignore. Almost immediately, the community erupts into a…

The Chemistry of Love. Sariah Wilson. 2023. Montlake. 347 pages. [Source: personal copy.] The Chemistry of Love was a no-brainer for me to check-out. I love a good fake relationship trope, and this one seemed especially messy.  Anna is a mousy cosmetic chemist who feels stuck in a role that doesn’t allow her to explore her innovative ideas for beauty products.  Instead, she’s stuck pining over one of her bosses, hoping he’ll figure out that she’s in love with him. Lucky for her, he’s got an older brother who’s the CEO of the company. One who’s hatched a plan to fake a relationship with Anna in a play against his competitive nature … for the sake of business, naturally. Sadly, my initial impressions of Anna were negative. In fact, I spent a nice chunk of the book actively disliking her, and questioning exactly how delusional she was for her views toward Craig. She also lacked assertion in her relationships at work and home, which made her come across as unreasonably weak and insecure. But what stood out to me was her obsession with her company CEO. She frequently references being in love with him, but she’d only had one substantive…

Chaos Theory. Nic Stone. 2023. Crown Books. 288 pages. [ARC provided courtesy of publisher via NetGalley for an unbiased review.] Nic Stone earned stars before I read the first line of the book. The transparency of her author’s note (I never read those, but read this one) and content warning was so endearing and a testament to who I imagine she is in her everyday life. Yes, she wants you to read her work but the reality of her acknowledging and ensuring you know this may be a mirror riddled with triggers was so-selfless. After swooning for a few moments, and taking the time to send a few “omg, I got it … you need to preorder this … the content warning was OMG,” messages I dove head first into Shelbi and Walter (can I call him that or will I get some random email that says “Andy to you”?). I always love Stone’s use of text messages in her books – it puts you fully in your YA mind and becomes a subtle reminder that in this day and age, that is the bulk of many peoples communication style. The characters were amazing, fully developed, with tons of Life…

Madam X. Niobia Bryant. 2023. Dafina. 320 pages. [ARC provided courtesy of publisher via NetGalley for an unbiased review.] Loved it! Have we read about Desdemona before?? I feel like I haven’t…if I’m right and this is a new character – I need some “flash book” books. The character was endearing and seemed to have enough history for a series on her past to be built. I love the self discovery and romance plot, mixed in with the mystery of who told. Felt like the reveal came out of nowhere, but overall, I enjoyed. 4 stars.

Where Love Blooms. Kimberly Brown. 2022. b. love publications. 284 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] The debut book of the Jareau Family novels starts with the eldest son, Jamison. A father of four, he was widowed at the birth of his youngest son. After more than two years of struggling as a single parent, he finally gives in by hiring a live-in nanny. All he expects is to get some live-in help in managing a household with four kids; what he gets is a battle to fight his attraction to his new, beautiful, nanny Aliveyah. This is certainly a trope I’ve seen (and enjoyed before), but it’s not super cliche here. There’s the obvious question around integrity of sleeping with your boss, but to her credit, Aliveyah is a professional focused on what’s best for the children involved. She’s great for them, readily stepping into a mother-ish role for the three older girls, and a mother figure for the toddler who has never known a mother. In her role, she also has to balance Jamison’s late wife’s own family in addition to Jamison’s — these interactions provide depth to the story as it confronts the grief that Jamison and his kids…