Holding The Reins by Paisley Hope | Book Review

Title & Author: Holding The Reins by Paisley Hope

My rating: 4/5

Publisher: Evermore

Publication date: 15th August 2024

Tropes:

• Protective MMC

• Small town

• Brother's best friend

• Workplace romance

• Retired ice hockey player 

• He falls first

• Part-time cowboy 

Blurb:

Nash Carter. Retired ice hockey player and part time cowboy. Also my brother’s best friend and therefore strictly off limits.

Despite the fact he can’t stop staring at me like I’m his favourite snack. And I...like it?

After finally escaping the toxic relationship that consumed most of my adult life, I thought I’d sworn off men.

Then Nash hired me to work for him. And somehow we ended up spending the night together.

It was only supposed to happen once. But now that I’ve had a taste, there’s no way I’m walking away.

All I have to do to give us a shot? Take a deep breathe and let go of the reins...

Review:

Two of my favourite genres are cowboy romance and ice hockey romance and this is both of those rolled into one.

There is nothing I love more than starting a new book series and finding characters to fall in love with. After living in Seattle for the best part of a decade, CeCe Rae Ashby is back home in Kentucky after discovering her fiancé's infidelity.

Nash Carter, her brother's best friend, is back home too after retiring from the NHL and he now runs the leisure centre and local bar. Nash has been close with CeCe's family for years after a tragic accident in his teens when her family took him in.

I absolutely loved this. It was funny right from the start with a lot of emotion, with Nash's trauma from witnessing his parents death and CeCe's father passing. It is a gorgeous slow burn and what I love about the brother's best friend trope is that moment when they finally get found out.

The Magdalene Stones Murders by J. M. Simpson | Book Review

[ad/gifted - I received an eARC of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.]

Title & Author: The Magdalene Stones Murders by J. M. Simpson

My rating: 5/5

Publication date: 5th March 2026

Blurb:

Murder in a sacred place.

When Joe Ripley, the local fire chief, attends a house fire, he finds his friend Gina Murray has been burnt alive in a clear case of murder. DS Scott Hansen, still new to the area, is called in to investigate. Returning from a call out, the local mountain rescue team discover a body laid out in a sacred stone ring. The body has been placed reverently. Local legend holds the stones holy as the ghost of Mary Magdalene has been rumoured to have appeared by them. Folklore says she is protecting something sacrosanct.

Alastair Brown is reported missing by his sister after she finds blood and signs of a struggle at his property. Puzzled, Scott looks for clues as to why he would suddenly disappear while he investigates the other two deaths. Clues lead him to Cameron Hunter, the owner of the largest resort in the area who has plans to expand his empire further. When Alastair is found dead on the standing stones by the stone ring, Scott realises there may be a link between all three killings and discovers that two very different obsessions have led to three murders.

Review:

You know when people say, "if she writes it, I'll read it"? That's exactly how I feel about J. M. Simpson. I adored every book in the Castleby series and felt the exact same with The Ophelia Murders, the first in this Whistler's Peak series. The Magdalene Stones Murders is a direct follow on from the first book so I really recommend reading that first to get a feel for their characters and connections.

The first thing that draws me into a J. M. Simpson book is the atmospheric descriptions, you instantly feel like you are there. It is so meticulously planned and plotted. I love a thriller where we are drip fed information so we have sort of an idea of what's happening, but there are still twists, especially those ones towards the end, that made my jaw drop. I felt on edge at points, couldn't wait for some people to get their comeuppance (I'm looking at you Mark Wallis) and I was desperate to see how it would all come together.

The books in the Whistler's Peak series have been inspired by paintings, and I absolutely love this idea as a theme. I loved getting back with these characters, Simpson always writes them fantastically, to the point where although it is a thriller with a crime element running through it, you really care about this group of people and their lives.

Someone option this for TV please! 

•••

Thank you to Hygge Book Tours for having me on this blog tour. 

Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg | Book Review

[ad/gifted - I received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

Title & Author: Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg 

My rating: 4/5

Publisher: Scribner

Publication date: 26th February 2026 

Blurb: 

Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She’s behind on rent for her bathroom-less studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she’s being plagued by perpetual, spiking stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plant propagations to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle_dell to fundraise $14,000 for a week of private life support for Daisy.

In the dungeon of her stream, Dell is in control, banishing those who don’t abide by her terms of engagement and steadily rising up the platform’s ranks with her sympathetic story and angry-funny screen presence. On a dare, she discovers that she has a talent for eating spicy food, and her streaming fame explodes as her pepper consumption graduates from jalapeño to habanero to ghost. Finally, Dell is good at something―but as her behavior becomes riskier and riskier and a troll-turned-incel threatens to expose her dark past, Dell must reckon with what her digital life ignores, and what real redemption means.

Review:

I love weird girl fiction and as soon as I saw that this was recommended for fans of Big Swiss, I knew this was a book for me.

Our main character Dell is unlikable but I love that and it worked so well for this story. After being fired from her low wage job at a juice bar, she discovers that money can be made from livestreaming. She is aiming to raise $14,000 to cover the private medical bills of keeping her younger sister on life support.

She streams for a week straight and quickly learns that people will pay to see her do strange things such as eat five habanero peppers or set her arm on fire. Soon, the livestream view count races up, Dell can't quite keep track of her viewers now but she recognises the ones who have been there from the start. But she made a mistake at the beginning of the stream and one viewer delves a little deeper into Dell's real life. 

I loved the writing style and how the urgency comes across, especially within the Carolina Reaper eating challenge that Dell takes part in. I am only touching on the basics of the novel, it does run much deeper but I feel like you should go in blind.

The author described it as for people who are chronically online, about the joys of being watched but the terror of being truly seen and that's just perfect. 

I can't wait to read more from this author.

Every Reason Why by Sophie Hamilton | Book Review

[ad/gifted - I received an eARC of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

Title & Author: Every Reason Why by Sophie Hamilton

My rating: 5/5

Publisher: Montlake/Amazon Publishing

Publication date: 16th February 2026

Blurb:

Leah’s never truly known what it means to feel at home until she settles at Amity Court. But Jackson Hale wants to take it all away.

When Jackson inherits the historic mansion from his grandmother, Esther Hale, the last thing he needs is her bizarre final request: to allow Leah Raven, Esther’s perky tenant, to stay there until the house is sold. It’s infuriating and he doesn’t want her company.

Leah’s found a sanctuary within the walls of Amity Court, and she isn’t going to let some frustrated city businessman cash in his inheritance without resistance—not while there’s so much pleasure to be had in ruffling his feathers.

Although Jackson has learned not to rely on anyone, Leah, with her sunny smiles and silly jokes, soon starts to make that feel like a lonely choice. Forced to live side by side, the walls between them begin to crumble.

But with Jackson’s controlling father pressuring him to sell and a loan shark threatening not only the family business but Leah as well, the two will have to decide what matters more: the security of the lives they’ve built independently, or the chance at something real together.

Sometimes home isn’t a place—it’s finding the person brave enough to see who you really are.

Review:

Ugh I just loved this book so much.

Every Reason Why is the second book in the Pine Springs series and while you don't need to have read the first one, I highly recommend that you do because I loved it also.

When Esther Hale passes away, her grandson Jackson inherits her home, Amity Court. Jackson begrudgingly works for his father's development company and has always been compared to his late brother Dominic. With his father making some bad business decisions, Jackson plans to spruce up Amity Court and get it on the market. The only problem is, Esther's tenant Leah Raven who has been tasked with working on Esther's novel.

What I love about Hamilton's books are the depth. Jackson, the grump, and Leah, the bright, sunny one both have their own troubles. Leah has never really had somewhere that felt like home and now Amity will be taken from her. Jackson will never hold a candle to Dominic in the eyes of his family.

The relationship and how it develops between these two is beautiful. There is a really gorgeous caretaking scene which was probably one of my favourite takes on that trope and the pacing worked so well. I believed that Jackson was warming to Leah and it felt real. 

This is a romance but as a thriller and crime lover, I always enjoy when that genre is incorporated too. All in all, it gave me everything I wanted and Leah is such a strong character who I want to be friends with! 

Bring on the next one! 

He's The Devil by Tobi Coventry | Book Review

[ad/gifted - I received a proof copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.]

Title & Author: He's The Devil by Tobi Coventry 

My rating: 4/5

Publisher: 4th Estate

Publication date: 12th February 2026

Blurb:

Simon has always been a good boy. He’s invariably employee of the month at the seasonal small plates restaurant where he works, he neurotically tidies his home, he keeps on top of repairs on behalf of his twenty-something, permanently-abroad landlord and tries to do right by everyone. But when his best and only friend, Josh, moves out of their shared flat, Simon is lonelier than ever – until in moves a new flatmate, the strange (and strangely sexy) Massimo.

But Massimo’s brought something with him. Odd sounds emerge from Massimo’s room, smells of earth and meat drift through the corridor and Simon’s nights fill with disturbing and tantalising dreams. Massimo is awakening something in Simon, something wild and exciting and horrifying that could be the end of him – or maybe a new beginning. But whatever’s in Massimo, whatever’s in the flat, isn’t finished. It wants more...

Review:

It only took me about five pages into this until I thought, "I'm really going to enjoy this." The writing style was just fantastic.

Think of He's The Devil as a queer modern horror novel where your new flatmate is housing a demon that wants to possess you. 

Our main character Simon, is an unlikeable one but that absolutely did not put me off because I enjoyed the story so much. Simon wants to try his best to be a 'good boy', he works his restaurant job but doesn't really have a lot of friends. His friend and roommate Josh moves out and it feels quite clear that their relationship is a bit one-sided. Simon thinks of Josh and tries to contact him a lot but Josh gives nothing back. 

An Italian man called Massimo comes to live with Simon as recommended by Josh but strange things start to happen around the flat and it is apparent that not all are as it seems with him. I genuinely started to feel a bit crazy reading about Simon trying to work out what was going on. There is dark humour, gross depictions and really everything I look for in a horror novel.

I couldn't put this down and I just wanted to see how it would end because I could not guess it at all, but to me it was perfect and satisfying.