Peaches in the Rain by Aurelia L Imeri

June 16, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Peaches in the Rain by Aurelia L Imeri
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Romance, Poetry, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

What if the person you ruined is the only person who ever felt like home?

Dear reader, Orion did what people do when regret becomes too loud to ignore.

He went looking for the ghost he had spent a decade pretending not to love.

At Glasgow Airport, shaken by seven impossible weeks and a heart he can no longer control, Orion boards a flight back to London. Beside him sits Ava: anxious, wounded, funny, and far too perceptive for a stranger. As the plane claws through turbulence, their conversation becomes a confession.

There is L.

The woman he loved before he knew how to keep love safe. The woman he hurt. The woman whose voice still lives in the quiet rooms of his mind. The woman who may not be a fantasy after all.

Through airport fog, borrowed cars, rain-slicked A-roads and the brutal intimacy of things left unsaid, Peaches in the Rain asks whether love can return after the damage is done.

Is it delusion to still feel someone after ten years?

Or is it only delusion if they do not feel it too?

Raw, lyrical and painfully intimate, Peaches in the Rain is a novel about longing, guilt, second chances, and the dangerous hope that some love does not die.

It waits.

Regret is a heavy load to carry.

Orion and L both struggled to form and maintain emotionally healthy relationships. This isn’t something I typically find in romance novels, so I was eager to find out if one or both of them would develop the emotional and communication tools necessary to change this by either seeking professional help or finding the right workbook to help them figure out why they reacted the way that they did.

It would have been helpful to have more information about why these two characters should try to be romantically involved with each other for a second time. The stories Orion shared about the way he treated L disturbed me, and when I finished those scenes I hoped they’d both do quite a bit more healing before deciding whether to get back together. This is something I’m saying as a reader who virtually always roots for the main characters to live happily ever after, but in this particular case I didn’t have enough evidence that these two were good for each other at this precise moment in their lives.

I applaud the author for not wrapping up all of the loose ends of this romance the way such a thing would generally be written for this genre. There’s something to be said for playing around with the audience’s expectations of what should happen next and allowing the characters to develop naturally instead, even if it was in a direction that wasn’t particularly common. This was my first experience reading their work, and it has piqued my curiosity about what else they have already published or will publish in the near future.

Peaches in the Rain was a creative take on a difficult relationship.

Filed Under: Poetry, Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

Freedom Quest – A Love Story by Debora Masterson

June 12, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Freedom Quest – A Love Story by Debora Masterson
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Genre: Romance, Historical, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

FREEDOM QUEST: A Love Story follows Michael Griffin, a gifted musician whose journey through the Southern California music scene of the 1960s-80s becomes a cautionary tale about artistic integrity, the pursuit of stardom, and the cost of chasing dreams. From backing up strippers in North Beach, San Francisco, to nearly landing a Capitol Records deal, from fronting his band Freedom Quest to losing the love of his life, Grace, Michael’s story captures the raw reality of what it means to live and breathe music.

Their story begins in 1965, when an instant spark ignites between them in a San Fernando Valley music shop. As Michael chases his musical destiny amid the counterculture revolution, Grace becomes his anchor, his muse—and the love he can’t live without. But the struggle between artistic integrity and commercial success, betrayal, and the chaos of the times tear them apart, sending each down separate and often harrowing paths of self-discovery.

FREEDOM QUEST is a sweeping and emotional odyssey. A love story that survives separation, success, failure, and illness and reveals the redemptive power of music. At its heart lies a timeless truth that true love does exist.

True love is eternal.

I adored Ms. Masterson’s creative approach to the second chance romance trope. Micheal and Grace were young lovers who never quite got over each other even after life pulled them in wildly different directions. It was engrossing to see where they both ended up and how their paths continued to cross years after their first relationship disintegrated. The conflicts that kept them apart were realistic and understandable, but I also liked how nostalgic these characters were about those years and how much they wished that things had turned out better.

There were times when I wished for more character development in this book. Michael’s life was filled with romance, adventure, and, in some phases, deep trauma, and I kept hoping he’d go into more detail about how they influenced him not only in those particular moments but also decades later as he began reflecting on what he had and hadn’t accomplished. While I still wish his innermost thoughts had been given more time to shine, the author’s note after the final chapter softened my opinion on this. I highly recommend taking a moment to look back at some of those scenes with a fresh perspective after reading it as it does put certain plot twists in a new light!

The ending was what made this tale so memorable in my opinion. Kudos to the author for being willing to take risks with this genre that stayed true to both her characters as well as to the decades-long journeys they’d just undertaken. This sort of writing that stretches the boundaries of what love could look like and how it can transform a character’s life no matter how many plot twists have already appeared is why I continue to include romance in the types of books I read.

I didn’t want Freedom Quest – A Love Story to end. It was beautiful.

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Movie Review: Remarkably Bright Creatures

June 8, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Title: Remarkably Bright Creatures
Writers: Olivia Newman and John Whittington
Director: Olivia Newman
Starring: Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, and Colm Meaney
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars (6 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

A widow who works at a local aquarium finds joy again when she forms an unlikely bond with a giant Pacific octopus and a wayward young man who comes to town in search of family. Together, they uncover a mystery that will lead them to a life-changing discovery and restore their sense of wonder.

Loneliness is a heavy burden to carry.

Some of the best scenes were the ones that explored how quickly news can spread in a small town and what happens when gossip doesn’t match what actually occurred. It rang true to life in my experience, and I enjoyed watching the characters react to the stories that were either being spread about them or that they were spreading about their friends and neighbors. Some of them liked this process far more than others did, and my opinions of all of them shifted for the better or the worse depending on how they handled this topic.

I did find the character development flat, especially when it came to the protagonists. Even given the tragic backstories of certain characters, I struggled to connect to them due to the limited amount of information that was shared about them outside of the painful events they were processing. As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, I wasn’t able to do so thanks to this issue.

The magical realism was handled nicely. While the vast majority of the storyline was rooted in realistic conflicts and events, there were a few moments that were slightly outside of the realm of possibility in our world. These scenes were handled so sensitivity and creatively that I could easily imagine them really occurring which is exactly what I love to see in this sub-genre. The ordinary experiences of the characters in the vast majority of their lives only made those rare deviations from the norm all the more spectacular.

Remarkably Bright Creatures made me smile.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings, Movie Review, Television Show Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Wine Cellar by Chris Hart

June 4, 2026 By Leave a Comment


The Wine Cellar by Chris Hart
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Contemporary, Historical
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

She inherited a house she had never seen. She did not know what waited under it.

When Dr. Rosaria “Rosie” Conti loses the grandmother she barely knew, she also inherits a stone masseria in the hills outside Ragusa – a property no one in her family knew existed, kept in silence for more than eighty years. Burned out from emergency medicine and grieving more than she can name, Rosie travels to Sicily to settle the estate and walk away.

Then she finds the wine cellar beneath the kitchen floor. And the bottle dated 1943. And the man waiting on the other side of one impossible swallow.

Salvatore “Turi” Valenti is an OSS operative working with Sicilian partisans behind German lines during Operation Husky – an Italian-American from Brooklyn living between three names and one war he may not survive. The cellar that brings Rosie to him will only open ten times. After that, the door closes for good.

As Rosie crosses again and again into a country at war, she discovers that her grandmother’s silence held more than grief – and that the choice waiting for her at the bottom of the bottle is not whether to love a man eighty-three years out of reach, but what she is willing to leave behind to stay.

Some love stories are not bound by time.

Love is everywhere.

This was a great example of how to include complex world building into a tale that was fast-paced and didn’t have space for lengthy descriptions. The author made every sentence count, and within a few pages I could imagine Sicily in exquisite detail that included all five senses during both the World War II era as well as today.

There were times when I wished for more information about the budding romance between Rosie and Turi. Life in the 1940s was quite different than it is today, especially for a woman. It surprised me a little that the main character didn’t think about how rare it was for women to become doctors eighty years ago and how her life might change for the worse if she decided to remain in the past. Developing the romance even further would have given the protagonist a solid reason to make this decision, and I would have gone for a full five-star rating if this had occurred due to how well written the rest of it was.

The descriptions of how Rosie treated common injuries and illnesses in a world that didn’t yet have widespread access to antibiotics or other modern medical advancements were among my favorite scenes. This would have been tricky enough during peace time, but during a war it was even more daunting due to how limited certain supplies could be and how dangerous it was to travel some nights. I also enjoyed seeing how these scenes explored Rosie’s calm personality and the relationships she built with people who trusted her to help them during some of the worst moments of their lives.

I didn’t want The Wine Cellar to end. What a heartwarming read!

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Two Lives With You by Lauren Ho

June 2, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Two Lives With You by Lauren Ho
Publisher: Mindy’s Book Studio
Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

What if they never married? For an overwhelmed husband and wife, that what-if wish comes true in an emotional and bittersweet novel about choices, sacrifice, and the love that they might lose forever.

When Dana and Nigel got married, they had such promise. After sixteen years, the cracks are showing.

Dana is a burned-out ER nurse, and Nigel is a recently unemployed stay-at-home dad whose professional identity is disappearing. Questioning the directions their lives have taken, Dana and Nigel are each granted a wish from a mysterious stranger. For one week they can escape the pressure of their lives in favor of ones in which they never married.

Waking up in an alternate reality where their youthful, individual dreams have come true is, at first, a marvel. When they meet by chance in Bali, Dana recognizes Nigel instantly, but he feels only an inexplicable connection to this stranger. And they discover there’s a catch to their wishes.

Returning to normal—and to the long-haul love they vowed would be forever—won’t be as easy as they thought. As the clock ticks down, Dana and Nigel face an impossible choice that will test the very foundation of their relationship and alter their lives forever.

Perfection is a myth.

Romantic relationships evolve over time, especially when a couple decides to have kids, encounters health problems, or struggles to find work among many other potential stressors in life. There simply aren’t enough romance novels about characters in these busy and sometimes difficult stages of life for my tastes, so I was thrilled to read something about a relationship that has weathered multiple storms and no longer feels quite the same as it used to. While I don’t want to give away any spoilers, I can say that this realistic approach to romance for people who are no longer college aged was refreshing and I loved seeing how Nigel and Dana explored their past together as they contemplated their possible futures as well.

I would have preferred to see more attention paid to character development. While I could easily describe Dana and Nigel’s professions and what they thought of their work on their best days as well as their worst ones, explaining what their personalities were like or how they grew and changed as a result of their magical experiences would be trickier. There were moments that briefly focused on this topics, but not to the extent I’d hope to find in a full-length novel. As much as I enjoyed the storyline itself, I needed a deeper understanding of who these two characters were as individuals in order to select a higher rating.

With that being said, I loved the fantasy and paranormal subplots of this tale. They were well developed and blended beautifully into the main romantic storyline due to how reliant the two protagonists were on figuring out the spell that bound them in order to repair their marriage and hopefully return to their original reality. This was a great example of how to blend these genres together in ways that honor all of them equally.

Two Lives with You was romantic and heartwarming.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Love Across Time by Beth Ford

June 1, 2026 By 2 Comments


Love Across Time by Beth Ford
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Historical
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Ashley and Thomas, a medieval knight, are in 1377 England, escaping from present-day immigration authorities intent on capturing Thomas. Having fled to the past to ensure their togetherness, Ashley is faced with adapting to fourteenth-century life, while Thomas, new to his title as Baron after his older brother’s death, is called to Parliament, encountering enemies there and at court as he struggles to build his own alliances.

Ashley’s work at a monastic hospital is deemed “miraculous” but draws unwanted attention as potential witchcraft. Meanwhile, becoming embroiled in a political movement, she realizes too late it’s a plot against the King.

How can Ashley conform to social expectations, counter the plot, and still keep her relationship with Thomas, in all the turmoil?

Even true love has its limits.

I adored the way this novel explored what romance can be like after a couple has settled into life together and things are no longer quite as fresh and exciting. That is a stage of life that can be tricky at times, but it can also encourage two people to eventually fall even more deeply for each other as they practice solving conflicts and putting each other first even when they disagree about something important. As someone who had not read the first book in this series yet, I quickly began rooting for these two to resolve their differences and figure out how to blend their cultures and personalities together. They seemed so well-suited for each other despite the rough spots.

There were a few times when I struggled with the pacing, especially as it pertained to the stretches of time that Ashley and Thomas spent at Lydiard, his estate. She still had so much to learn about life in England in 1377 that I sometimes found myself wishing she‘d use these quieter moments to ask him more questions about everything from how currency worked in that era to what the social etiquette back then was for people of their station. This would have given Ashley a deeper understanding of just how different life was back then as well as keep my interest levels high enough to justify the five-star reading I wanted to give this piece.

The ending was well done and satisfactory. It made me feel as though the characters were wrapping things up while in good places in their lives while still leaving room for future adventures if the author ever decides to write them. I also appreciated how they approached the logical next steps in their lives after their biggest conflicts had been resolved. That final scene fit both the characters and their setting nicely which was especially remarkable given the many personal and cultural differences between Thomas and Ashley.

This is part of a series, but it can also be read as a standalone work.

Love Across Time was sweet and romantic.

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Death by Coconut by Susie Black

May 25, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Death by Coconut by Susie Black
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Obnoxious Mystique Swimwear sales rep Simon Posnick was universally despised by competitors and customers alike. So the question wasn’t who wanted the lying, cheating scoundrel dead. The question was who didn’t. Mariel Levine, Laurie’s Fashions’ swimsuit buyer and Holly Schlivnik’s career mentor, is wrongly arrested for murdering Posnick by impaling him with the jagged edge of a coconut shell at the base of his skull. The wisecracking, irreverent President of Mermaid Swimwear jumps into action to uncover the real killer. But the treacherous trail holds more dangerous human predators than the alligators and black pythons in the Everglades. Everything turns out differently than amateur sleuth Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a vengeful killer.

He might have been a jerk, but he still didn’t deserve to die.

I was pleased by the character development that has happened since Death By Sample Size introduced Holly Schlivnik to the world. She has matured in all sorts of wonderful ways since I first met her, and her experiences solving the previous mysteries have clearly played a part in her personal growth. This made me want to go back and catch up on the titles in this seriesI haven’t read yet to discover more details about how that all occurred.

While the beginning and ending were fairly fast paced, I did find the middle portion’s pacing to be slower and sometimes uneven in certain places. This lead to my interest in the plot wavering for a while due to the reduced number of events that were leading the protagonist to the truth. If not for that issue, I would have given this a full five-star rating as everything else about it was memorable and entertaining.

The romantic subplot was woven into this tale beautifully. I especially appreciated how Holly balanced the role she played in trying to find the murderer with her attention to her private life. She’s a character I’ve grown attached to and was rooting for as she tried to make time for work, romance, and a lot of sleuthing along the way. My fingers are crossed we’ll get even more details about her personal life in the future.

This is the seventh instalment in the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, but it can be read as a standalone work as well.

Death by Coconut kept me guessing until the end.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

One Night of Passion by Elizabeth Boyle

May 22, 2026 By Leave a Comment


One Night of Passion by Elizabeth Boyle
Publication: Avon Books
Gene: Historical, Romance
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Mistflower

They Met At London’s Notorious Cyprian’s Ball . . .

Georgiana Escott has one night to find the perfect man to ruin her and leave her with a tattered reputation so she can avoid an arranged marriage to an aging, despicable roue. With a misstep, she tumbles into the arms of the disgraced and dashing Lord Danvers. But Georgie doesn’t know that the lover she has enticed to follow her into the night and the stranger she holds responsible for her misfortunes are in the same . . .

When Lord Danvers find himself entangled with a tempting Cyprian, his secret mission to expose a dangerous spy goes awry. Yet once he starts to unmasked this bewitching lady, he realizes the seductress who claims his heart may be the traitor he seeks. Mistrust makes them adversaries in a perilous game—but how can he dismiss his obsession with her when one night of passion entwined their lives forever?

I haven’t been inspired to write a book review in almost a year. I’ve read many books since then, but none made me want to sit down and tell people why they absolutely should read it—until now. I just finished One Night of Passion by Elizabeth Boyle, a library find that completely swept me away.

I feel like I’d been starving for a book like this without even realizing how hungry I was until I started reading it. Once I opened this thirst-quenching novel, I couldn’t put it down for fear of going back to the reading slump I’d been stuck in before. Even after finishing the epilogue, I still didn’t want to close the book—and by then it was 2:00 in the morning with my alarm set for 6:00 a.m. for work.

To be fully transparent, I’ve been lazy about sitting down to write reviews lately. I debated whether I really wanted to spend the time and mental energy writing one, but this book compelled me to do it because it was just that good.

The storytelling felt like watching a movie without commercials—smooth, immersive, and impossible to pause. The plot flowed effortlessly, pulling me from one chapter to the next. When I finally did force myself to put the book down for the night, I ended up dreaming about the hero, Captain Danvers. I honestly can’t remember the last time I read a hero worthy of the title “book boyfriend.” He was handsome, intelligent, romantic, and brave—the kind of character that makes you want to be rescued by him yourself.

The heroine, Georgie, was equally entertaining. She was every bit the lady who could pack a punch—quite literally. She was a delightful damsel in distress who made me laugh out loud several times throughout the story. I found her personality incredibly relatable because of her strong will and determination once she set her mind on something.

And the chemistry between Georgie and Captain Danvers? Absolutely palpable. Their witty banter was one of my favorite parts of the novel, especially because of the timing and circumstances in which it happened. Watching their romance slowly evolve was pure delight.

The character development throughout the entire cast was wonderfully done. The mix of heroes, villains, and morally questionable characters all played important roles in the constantly twisting plot. I know I already said it, but I truly could not put this book down—even though I knew I should because it was a work night. I was completely riveted, turning pages nonstop with every new revelation. The storytelling made me feel like I was part of the adventure myself. I never once felt sleepy because there was simply no good stopping point.

One of the strongest parts of the story was how unpredictable it was. I had absolutely no idea who the traitor was. Near the end, I was reading faster and faster, second-guessing every theory I had—and in the end, it wasn’t who I expected at all.

The epilogue tied everything together perfectly with a beautiful finishing touch. I loved this entire journey from beginning to end and felt compelled to recommend it to others immediately. This is absolutely a “keeper shelf” book for me—one I can easily see myself rereading a second or even third time.

The best part? I discovered this is the first book in the Danvers Family series. I honestly can’t believe my luck finding it in the library’s honor book section. I will definitely be reading the rest of the series.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

Heritage Mountain by Karen Black

May 20, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Heritage Mountain by Karen Black
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Romance, Cozy Mystery, Action/Adventure, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

In a world where the mystical and the actual coexist, adventure, romance, and a touch of mystery unfold. Set in the majestic Adirondack mountains, when Marco Cason leads an expedition to explore the history of the mountain wilderness, he doesn’t know his colleagues are guardians of the fae.

Searching for clues about ancient societies that inhabited the Adirondacks centuries before, the team delves into legends, navigates ancient maps, and learns that folklore about magical clans is based on facts. When a pixie introduces herself to Maria, the expedition takes a different path. The guardians realize the mountain is filled with mystical clans whose homes are under attack. Negligent use of dynamite, illegal mining, and disregard for nature and the environment has destroyed much of their habitat. It has also cost lives.

Faced with the truth about the existence of magical beings, Marco is forced to reevaluate everything he believed. Still, he becomes a central force when he battles beside the fae to save Heritage Mountain as elves, stargazers, and goliaths fill the pages and the explorers unite with the supernatural creatures to save the mountain from invaders whose greed is destroying their territory.

Themes of friendship, conservation, love, and acceptance flourish, as well as a heavy dose of karma.

The mountains are full of possibilities.

Romance and fantasy are often combined into the same plot, so I wasn’t too surprised to see that happen here. While the latter definitely took up more space, the occasional romantic moments scattered here and there provided additional depth to the characters and gave them some tender experiences interspersed among more serious and sometimes even dangerous ones. I think using this form of love sparingly but purposefully was a great decision for this universe.

The slow pacing and repetition made it difficult for my interest level to remain high even though I was quite curious about this book when I requested it. While I did feel as though I had a good understanding of who everyone was in the large cast of characters, introducing so many of them meant that the protagonists needed to repeat their reasons for being on Heritage mountain and, in some cases, their abilities to see or communicate with mystical beings over and over again. Unfortunately, this only slowed down the storyline even more and made it harder for me to remain highly invested in what was happening.

There was plenty of attention paid to the world building which made this a satisfying read in that regard. I wasn’t aware this was part of a series when I began the first chapter, but it worked pretty well as a standalone piece given the explanations of what seemed to be the most important events of past books. It was especially interesting to me to find out what the various types of magical beings thought of each other and how they organized their societies in order to remain hidden in a world filled with nosy and sometimes destructive humans.

Heritage Mountain was filled with wonder.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Dear Missing Friend by Susan McGuirk

May 19, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Dear Missing Friend by Susan McGuirk
Publisher: Sea Crow Press
Genre: Romance, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Three hearts. Countless letters. One impossible choice.

Through letters exchanged across oceans and Manhattan streets, Irish immigrant Catherine McGuirk navigates love, ambition, and heartbreak. Torn between her seafaring husband, the suitor she once refused, and her own dreams, Catherine’s fate unfolds in an intimate, epistolary saga of passion, resilience, and 19th-century life.

Not all choices are equal ones.

Being an immigrant requires courage and the hope that that things will improve. Some of the most memorable passages were the ones that described the prejudice Irish people faced when they came to the United States in the 1800s as well as how Catherine and her loved ones pushed through their struggles to find housing, employment, and a sense of community in cities and towns that were anything but accepting of them. These sections were written tenderly and with so much sympathy for all of the hard times this family experienced as a result of their social class and ethnicity.

I struggled with the slow pacing of this novel, especially in the beginning as the characters were being introduced. Since not everyone’s relationship to the protagonist was explained immediately, this only made those passages trickier to get through. This is something I’m saying as a reader who enjoyed the plot in general and was hoping to choose a much higher rating for it. I simply needed things to unfold a little faster and with a bit more attention paid to how everyone knew each other.

The realistic and bittersweet ending fit the characters and the era they lived in perfectly. While this was a work of fiction, it was loosely inspired by the life of author’s great-aunt. There was a section at the end that shared some of the research Ms. McGuirk did about her family tree in the 1800s and this relative in particular. I love it when historical fiction authors use real life as inspiration for their work, and despite my struggles with the pacing I thought this was a good example of how to use a few historical records to imagine what might have happened generations ago that was never written down. Life was incredibly difficult back then for the vast majority of people, and I liked the fact that this was acknowledged as Catherine lived out her days.

Dear Missing Friend was thoughtful.

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