Can’t Get Enough. Kennedy Ryan. 2025. Forever. 448 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for an unbiased review, and I was dancing a whole jig at the “invite” to read it after missing the “read now”. I’d only been stalking the author and site for months. Since the beginning of the Skyland series, I’ve been saying “Ken...

The Soulmate Project. Reese Ryan. 2024. Forever. 304 pages. [Source: Public library.] I’m a sucker for a friends to lovers story, so The Soulmate Project was right up my alley. The book starts with a New Year’s Eve love confession by “girl next door” Emerie to her best friend Nicholas. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go as planned and he doesn’t return her affections. Instead of ringing in the new year in a new relationship...

Church Girl. Naima Simone. 2024. Afterglow Books. 264 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] Admittedly, the cover of Church Girl drew me in, and the story held my interest. Aaliyah is a runaway bride who left her small Alabama hometown to get out from under the thumb of her bishop father. She convinces her cousin to take her back to Chicago, where she’s planning to reinvent herse...

Stuck Wit’ Chu. Olivia Shaw-Reel. 2020. 149 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] Stuck Wit’ Chu is essentially a story about a broken marriage and a couple at a crossroads. Keith and Marlow have been married over a decade, are parents to three young children, and have somehow lost their way. They’re navigating the Covid-19 pandemic while facing their own crisis at home, and the book follows their attempt to figure otu whether to s...

Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known. George M. Johnson. 2024. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 127 pages. [Source: Public library.] The Harlem Renaissance was a remarkable period in American history, but was pivotal within Black America. The “New Negro Movement” launched the careers of countless scholars, photographers, musicians, and dancers and ushered in a rebirth of racial pride and solidarity, in addition to le...

Something Like Love

Something Like Love. Christina C. Jones. 2017. Warm Hues Media. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] “He’s just a guy; she’s just a girl. They’re just falling in love.” Spoken by the author herself in a pre-release video message, these words are a very apt description for the plot of Something Like Love.  The story, which is the sixth book in the Serendipitous Love series, takes a refreshing look at love and s...

Love and Vandalism

Love and Vandalism.  Laurie Boyle Crompton. 2017. 366 pages. Sourcefire Books. [Source: ARC provided courtesy of NetGalley.] They had me at graffiti.  They kept me with this heartbreaking/uplifting story. Rory is the town’s secret vandal. She’s been tagging lions under the cover of night, somehow dodging the watchful eye of her sergeant father who’s forbidden her from art. She’s remained anonymous until Hayes ...

To Me I Wed

To Me I Wed. K.M. Jackson. 2017. 368 pages. Dafina. [Source: ARC provided couresty of NetGalley.] Lily is great at her job – she plans exciting events, whether weddings or birthday parties.  However, no matter how happy she says she is with her single-hood, being asked when she’s the next to get hitched is getting old.  What better way to shut up the critics with a spectacular wedding … to herself? To Me I Wed has a...

Sin of a Woman

Sin of a Woman. Kimberla Lawson Roby. 2017. 320 pages. Grand Central Publishing. [Source: ARC provided courtesy of NetGalley.] Without question, Kimberla Lawson Roby’s Curtis Black series books are always masterfully written in comparison to her other works. Unfortunately, Sin of a Woman failed to reach the relatively high bar. It’s intriguing that she elected to almost duplicate the plot of the most recent saga of Dillon B...

One Night

One Night. Eric Jerome Dickey. 2015. 370 pages. Dutton. [Source: public library.] I consider myself an Eric Jerome Dickey fan that’s fallen off the wagon.  I began reading his novels in my early 20s, and after I read Chasing Destiny, Genevieve, and Pleasure, he could do no wrong in my eyes. I’ve since expanded what I read, so it’s been a few years since I checked for him.  I was surfing my public library’s audi...