The C_ck Down the Block by Amy Award

 The C_ck Down the Block 

by Amy Award

My Rating:

Spice Rating: 

Blurb:

Always the nerdy girl, never the girlfriend~
Until her cocky best friend and his *ahem* rooster take charge.

Look, I've had it bad for the girl with all the curves next door forever. She turned me down in high school and since I'm not a total douchecanoe, I lusted after her all by myself in my shower, and we stayed just friends for years.

Now she's the adorkable librarian next door and I'm the star quarterback of the best pro football team in the league.
So when she asks me to be her fake date to her all-girls school reunion I am totally down to show her off to the mean girls who bullied her back then so they can see just how incredible she is.
I'll be the best boyfriend they've ever seen. The best fake boyfriend that is.

Until I find out from her slightly-stalkery classmates that she still has her v-card. I don't see how that is even possible. Not with how sexy and sweet she is. Could it be because she knows she belongs with me?

This curvy girl and football quarterback sports romance has a baddie plus-size woman who knows her own worth and a Bridgertons-meets-American-Football family you'll wish you were a part of.

My Review: 

The Cock Down the Block by Amy Award was such a fun, feel-good read, I absolutely loved it!

From the very first chapter, I was hooked. It’s playful, spicy, and just so easy to fly through. I’m obsessed with the titles in this series and I’m already excited to keep going and read the rest.

One of my favorite parts is how the author writes the plus-size FMC as confident, beautiful, and genuinely desired in a way that feels heartfelt and affirming. The romance is sweet, fun, and full of chemistry, and I loved watching their connection grow.

The side characters added so much personality too, especially the overprotective, chaotic energy around her and the whole entertaining family dynamic. It all made the story even more engaging and hard to put down.

Honestly, I devoured this book in a single day. It was light, entertaining, and exactly the kind of romance that leaves you smiling the whole time.

The Kings List by Jade Presley

 The Kings List 

by Jade Presley

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating: 🌶🌶🌶

Blurb:

Don't miss out on the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run in the U.S. and Canada only, a must-have for any book lover.

They said the trials were over.
They were wrong.

I survived the Choosing. I claimed my mates. I became immortal. But the kings weren’t finished with us yet.

Four princes. Four thrones. And a final season designed to decide if we’re worthy to rule. Every task is a test. Every smile is a lie. The people judge. The council votes. And the kings are waiting for us to fail.

I was never meant to be queen. I was an Ashlander who broke into a palace searching for her sister. Now I stand beside the Legends of Chaos, holding power the kingdom fears and love fierce enough to burn it all down.

To win the crowns, we’ll have to survive the Kings’ List.

Failure isn’t an option.

Because this time, we’re not just fighting for the throne―we’re fighting for each other.

My Review:

I have been waiting for this book, and I cannot wait to finally hold it in my hands! Second books in a series can be such a gamble, but Jade Pressley absolutely proves they don’t have to be. This sequel sticks the landing, and that ending? Completely unhinged in the best way.

This is why-choose romance done right. Rylee is balancing four very different love interests, and somehow holds it all together with strength, heart, and just the right amount of chaos. And yes… I have a favorite, Jax has my whole heart. Sigh.

What makes this book shine is Rylee herself. She goes through so much, but never loses her emotional core or her determination. Even when everything is falling apart, she keeps moving forward with love driving her every choice.

The fantasy elements stay lighter, which really works here. It keeps the pacing sharp and lets the relationships take center stage where they belong. And the spice? Definitely present, definitely fiery but it never takes over the story.

Overall, this sequel is addictive, emotional, and so much fun to read. If you love why-choose romance, strong heroines, and a world you never want to leave, this series is absolutely worth it.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

 I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating: 🫑 (I mean there is talk.)

Blurb:

Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

My Review:

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

I’m still not entirely sure this was a book for me. There was a lot to digest, and I’m left sitting with more questions than answers. It’s the kind of story that doesn’t really guide you or explain itself, so I kept trying to find meaning as I went, but I often felt a bit unmoored while reading.

Even now, I’m not fully sure what the ending was meant to convey, or if I was supposed to understand it in a clear way at all. It left me unsettled rather than satisfied, and I think that’s intentional, but it didn’t quite click for me in the way I expected it to.

That being said, I can see why it resonates with people. There’s something haunting about it that lingers after you finish, even if you’re not sure how to interpret it. It just wasn’t a fully comfortable or clear reading experience for me, and I’m still sitting with what I think I feel about it.

Claimed by the Cowboys by Melissa Huxley & Violet Braxe

 Claimed by the Cowboys 

by Melissa Huxley & Violet Braxe 

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating: 🌶🌶🌶 (Omegaverse, DUH!)

Blurb:

Sometimes all a heartbroken Omega could do was start over…

After the last year, I was a mess, thinking I was the problem, a broken Omega unable to give us everything we wanted. Well, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

With a shattered heart, I ran from them, finding my way into a new life with a roof over my head and an adorable little girl to care for. Life was looking up.

Montana, Dakota, Zeke, Clay and Blackwood ranch came into my life just when I needed them most.

But then our messy pasts collided, sending us into a stampede of chaos and unknowns.

Would our fragile, new relationship be strong enough to ride out the storm, or would our little pack in the making be in ruins when the dust settled?

Claimed by the Cowboys is a why choose standalone with pregnancy, bad exes and a rugged pack of cowboys!

My Review: 

I could read an omegaverse book a hundred times over and never get tired of it, and this one reminded me exactly why. There’s something so addictive about watching an omega fight their way out of a bad situation and finally find something better… something they actually deserve.

Going into this, I didn’t expect to be hit with some of the themes it explores. There were moments that felt heavier than your typical omegaverse read, and honestly, it caught me off guard, but in a good way. The emotional payoff? Completely worth it.

This story doesn’t shy away from difficult relationship dynamics things like cheating and infertility are woven into the plot so it definitely won’t be for everyone. But if you can push through those harder moments, there’s something really beautiful waiting on the other side. The kind of ending that feels earned.

And the romance? I ate it up. I loved the way the relationships developed, the way the MMCs fell for the FMC it felt consuming in the best way. Add in the steam, and I was fully invested.

Cute, emotional, and a little heavier than expected, but still so satisfying. I was absolutely in love by the end.

 Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating: 🫑

Blurb: 

All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands – that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper – an unlikely magical connection forms.

Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?

My Review:

My flabbers are truly gasted, I am still sitting in the quiet aftermath of this book, a little undone, a little softer than I was before I turned the first page. I went into this story almost blindly, the way I often do, guided only by the whisper of its presence everywhere I looked. I didn’t read the blurb. I didn’t prepare myself. I simply stepped into it, and somehow, it became everything I didn’t know my heart had been aching for.

There was a feeling that wrapped itself around me as I read, something delicate and almost forgotten. At the time, I couldn’t name it, and even now it slips through my fingers when I try to hold it too tightly. But if I had to try, I would call it this: the quiet, aching wonder of first love. Not just romance, but that deep, consuming yearning, the kind that feels both fragile and infinite all at once. The kind that lingers in your chest long after the moment has passed.

This story carries a love that feels rare in books now. It is not loud or forceful, but steady, achingly so. There is something profoundly beautiful about a man who loves without trying to possess, who chooses not to stand in the way of the woman he loves, even when it would be easier to ask her to stay. Instead, he follows. Not to control, not to change her path, but simply to be near her, to exist in the same world she does. And there is something so deeply moving about that kind of devotion, it feels selfless, reverent, almost sacred.

The love in this book feels timeless. It is soft and fierce in equal measure. It is the kind of love that doesn’t demand but gives. The kind that grows quietly, like roots beneath the surface, unseen but unbreakable. It made my chest ache in the best way, like remembering something you didn’t realize you had lost.

And now, I find myself hesitating at the edge of the second book. Not because I’m uninterested, but because I am. Because I don’t want this feeling to end. I want to linger here a little longer, in this fragile, beautiful space that this story created inside me.

All I can say is this: read it. Let yourself fall into it the way I did without expectations, without armor. Let it surprise you. Let it remind you what it feels like to yearn, to hope, to love in a way that feels both tender and endless.

 Until I die by Deidra Duncan

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating: 🌶🌶🌶

Blurb:

In the ruins of a nation, two enemies risk everything for a chance at justice... and each other.
After the Fracture, nothing is safe—not love, not truth, and certainly not women. In the ashes of the fallen United States, the New American Order has seized power, silencing dissent and enslaving the vulnerable. To stop the spread of their evil, Sophia Reeves has given everything to the Defiance, a resistance force battling the NAO, but now, her general has another command: become a contact for an enemy officer-turned-spy. She understands the sacrifice this order requires. Association with a Blood Colonel is a death sentence—especially for a woman.

He's just a name at first. A whisper in the dark. But week by week, Lucas Scott becomes something more—dangerously unreadable, brutally efficient, and far too human for a man embedded in a regime that breaks people like her. Sophia expects cruelty. She prepares for betrayal. What she finds is a man haunted by secrets, driven by grief, and willing to burn the whole world down for a hope he's barely clinging to.

Their alliance is a fragile one, forged in shadow and drenched in danger. But as the Defiance grows closer to victory, their missions become deadlier, and the line between duty and desire blurs. Beneath the shadow of escalating war, Sophia and Lucas must decide what they're willing to sacrifice for a cause that might already be lost—and for a love they were never meant to find.

Hauntingly raw and achingly romantic, UNTIL I DIE is a story of rebellion, redemption, and the unbreakable will to love in a world that has forgotten how.

My Review:

I picked this book up because I’ve been craving a good dystopian novel, the kind that pulls you into a broken world and doesn’t let you breathe until the very last page. What I got was… not what I expected. And honestly? I still don’t know what I was expecting, but this book completely blindsided me in the best and most unsettling way.

This is a standalone that somehow manages to pack in action, tension, and a forbidden romance that feels both reckless and inevitable. From the start, there’s this underlying sense of unease that builds with every chapter. The world itself is harsh and politically charged, and it doesn’t shy away from mirroring themes that feel uncomfortably close to the reality we’re living in right now. At times, it feels less like fiction and more like a warning.

The romance? Absolutely wild. The kind that makes you question every decision the characters make while also completely understanding why they make them. It’s messy, intense, and forbidden in a way that raises the stakes of everything else happening around them. You’re constantly torn between rooting for them and bracing yourself for the fallout.

And then there are the darker themes moments that genuinely made my stomach turn. This isn’t a light dystopian read. It pushes boundaries, digs into uncomfortable territory, and forces you to sit with it long after you’ve put the book down. One big thing I took away from this book is that no matter what side, women are used. We are treated like property. Expendable.

Going into this, I truly had no idea what I was getting into. It caught me off guard, challenged me, and lingered in my mind far longer than I expected. Now that I’ve had time to sit with it, I can say this was a solid four-star read for me, chaotic, thought-provoking, and impossible to ignore.

 Barbarian Prize by Ruby Dixon

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊⯨

Spice Level: 🌶🌶

Blurb:

It’s hard being the most popular girl on the ice planet. The alien men are falling all over themselves to impress me in the hopes that I’ll take them to my furs. But they don’t know my secrets – none of them do. And they don’t realize that behind my smile, I just wish they’d go away.

I don’t want any of them. I want someone else – someone with a gorgeous blue body, big horns, and the most intense gaze ever. He’s the only one that knows the truth. Maybe with him, I can work through my fears of the past…. but I’m pretty sure he wants more than just friendship.

He wants forever, and I’m not sure I can give it.

My Review: 

There’s just something about returning to Not-Hoth that feels like coming home and Barbarian’s Prize by Ruby Dixon delivered exactly the kind of emotional escape I didn’t even realize I needed.

By the time you hit book five in a series, you might expect things to start feeling repetitive, but somehow, this world only gets richer. I’ve actually made a habit of saving an Ice Planet Barbarians book for when I’m feeling off, and once again, it proved to be the perfect comfort read. There’s something so satisfying about stepping back into this icy, alien world where, despite all odds, love always finds a way.

Tiffany’s story hit differently in the best way. Her journey isn’t just about survival or romance, it’s about acceptance, healing, and redefining what “home” really means. Being stranded on a planet that couldn’t be further from Earth forces her to confront a reality she never chose… but maybe, just maybe, can still embrace. And honestly, when that reality includes giant blue aliens who are utterly devoted to their mates? There are worse fates.

But what makes this story stand out is that it doesn’t shy away from the harder stuff. Tiffany’s struggle is deeply personal. Her desperation to resonate, to belong, to build a family, it’s all complicated by the fact that her body quite literally stands in the way. The IUD becomes more than just a plot device; it symbolizes the disconnect she feels, not just physically, but emotionally. And layered on top of that is her trauma, her fear of touch, and the internal battle she faces trying to reconcile her past with the possibility of a future.

That emotional depth is what really elevated this book for me. Yes, it has all the things we love about this series, the devotion, the intensity, the absolute worship these alien men have for their women, but it also makes you feel. Tiffany’s story isn’t easy, but it’s powerful, and watching her slowly open up, trust, and heal made the payoff that much more satisfying.

And as always, one of the most beautiful aspects of this series is the strength of the women. Each of them has lost everything, yet they continue to fight, adapt, and carve out a life on Not-Hoth. The resilience it takes to turn a frozen, alien planet into a home is incredible, and seeing that through Tiffany’s eyes made it feel even more impactful.

I loved this book just as much as the others maybe even a little more. It’s emotional, comforting, and surprisingly deep for a series that, on the surface, is about alien romance. If you’ve ever been curious about dipping your toes into monster romance, I genuinely believe Ruby Dixon is one of the best places to start.