Oh. My. God, this book. How much do I love Satisfaction Guaranteed?! I was hooked right from the first few pages, where stiff, serious Cade sits out-of-place and uncomfortable at her free-spirited aunt’s funeral, and her aunt’s friend Selena opens her eulogy by talking about the deceased’s clit. Then I got to know Cade and Selena, and the more I read of them, the more I loved them, and longed for them to achieve their happily-ever-after. Satisfaction Guaranteed is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I absolutely, very highly, recommend reading it for yourself.

This book works on so many levels. Many opposites attract romances feature fun bickering and sexy personality clashes; the set-up of this novel shows from the get-go how much Cade and Selena’s relative strengths complement each other and combine them into a formidable team. Cade’s Aunt Ruth leaves her home and sex toy shop to both women. The shop is unfortunately very much in the red, and Cade and Selena have only a month to turn a profit before the properties need to be sold to pay off the debts. Cade has the financial literacy and business acumen; Selena has the product expertise and passion for the shop. Their differences causes them to butt heads early when Cade decides to streamline their inventory, and Selena argues that her decision lacks long-term vision, but even that argument shows how important both women’s perspectives are to making this business work.

A major theme in this novel is the importance of consent, and I absolutely love how Stetz-Waters shows how absolutely romantic and sexy this concept is. For example, Cade is insecure about her perceived lack of sexual prowess — she’s never had an orgasm, and her last sexual partner kicked her out because she sucked, and not in a good way. I’ve read many romance novels, where one character admits they’ve never had an orgasm, and the other promises they can give them one right then and there. I’ve never really thought too hard about that trope, until this book. When Cade admits she’s never had an orgasm, Selena simply says “You don’t have to,” and continues to pleasure her. I swear, that’s about the sexiest, most heartwarming moment I’ve read in a while, and seriously: more of this in novels, please!

I also love how consent is shown outside the bedroom. Selena is a super talented artist, but a traumatic relationship has made her give up her art. Cade, who runs her family’s art gallery, recognizes Selena’s talent at once, and can’t understand why she’d give it up. But there’s a moment where Cade basically says Selena doesn’t have to explain if she doesn’t want to, and it’s totally her choice whether or not she returns to painting. Throughout the novel, we see Cade engage in a friendly rivalry with a co-worker to find the next artist superstar, and Cade knows how valuable Selena’s paintings can be. But she never once pressures Selena to return to painting if she doesn’t want to. And again, I’ve often read romance novels where one of the main characters does push the other to use their talent, and I’ve always read that as simply a way for them to show their support. But Cade’s support for Selena’s decision to stop painting is so much sweeter, and makes Selena’s character arc in the latter half of the novel so much more powerful.

My absolute favourite scene involves Selena giving Cade a ride on her motorcycle. Cade’s never ridden a motorcycle before, and at first, she’s afraid Selena would zip around at top speed. Again, this is a trope I’ve read before, where the more cautious main character doesn’t realize how much they enjoy a wild activity until they try it. And again, Stetz-Waters turns this trope on its head, and makes the motorcycle ride sexy and sweet precisely because Selena takes it slow the whole time. She takes the time to teach Cade some non-verbal signals to ask her to slow down or stop, depending on Cade’s comfort level. Then she starts at a putter, and throughout the ride, continues to check in on Cade’s comfort, using hand signals to ask if the speed is okay, or if Cade wants her to speed up or slow down. It’s just an absolutely beautiful, heartwarming scene, and the moment when I went from liking them to all-out being in love with them. Selena and Cade are both wonderful people in their own right, and this scene beautifully encapsulates how together, they’re downright magical.

Do yourself a favour, and read this. The book has a good ending that, yes, made me all kilig to the bones, but I admit feeling a bit sad when the book ended. I want to read more of Cade and Selena, and I’m very much looking forward to checking out the author’s backlist!

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Thank you to Forever for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

Six friends attend their ten year college reunion, and are made to confront the truth behind a tragedy they’d all tried to leave behind. In college, a seventh friend, Heather, was murdered, and her boyfriend Jack was the prime suspect and immediately ostracized by his friends. But Jack was never convicted, and at the reunion, Heather’s younger brother Eric confronts the group, proclaims Jack’s innocence, and announces that the real murderer is among them.

In My Dreams I Hold A Knife is a good campus thriller. The story switches in time between the present-day reunion and the characters’ college years, and as the events leading up to Heather’s murder unfold, many secrets — and possible motives — are also revealed. I didn’t guess the murderer’s identity, nor did I guess their motivation, and the ending has the kind of ambiguous happiness that leaves the reader wondering if justice has been achieved.

I think I would have been a lot more captivated by this novel if I hadn’t read a similar campus thriller earlier this year that I thought was much stronger. The Girls Are All So Nice Here goes full throttle in giving us an anti-hero protagonist — Amb isn’t just unlikeable, at times she’s downright despicable, yet author Laurie Elizabeth Flynn manages to inject her with just enough humanity that you can’t help but feel for her a bit. As a result, that book is probably one of the most disquieting campus thrillers I’ve ever read. I called it bleak in my review and recommended allocating some time for self-care after reading, and that was because the story tore into my gut, and left me feeling disquiet throughout.

Jessica, the protagonist of In My Dreams, pales in comparison. She’s both unlikeable and sympathetic, but more in the mould of what you’d expect for this genre. She’s not as wealthy as her classmates, which makes her insecure and resentful, and she wants to fulfill her father’s dreams, which makes her ruthless in her ambition. She’s a complex, well-written character, but not one that will stick in your mind months after you finish reading the book. (Ironically, her main insecurity is that she’s often overlooked and forgotten, so maybe the author did her job too well?) It’s mostly that she’s exactly the type of protagonist that I expected, down to her having a quasi-love triangle with the golden boy and the bad boy. That’s all fine, but it’s also a bit of a disappointment after The Girls took me so much by surprise.

There was also something almost workmanlike with the reveals. The story is structured so that the set piece moment — where all the suspects are in a room with the detective figure (in this case, Eric) — happens about halfway through. Eric pretty much goes around the room, mentioning a clue, then pointing out that a particular suspect or the other is now revealed to have a motive. In classic mysteries, this set up works because it all happens within a few pages, so as the reader, you’re treated to a dazzling array of sleights of hand before the detective reveals who the killer actually is.

But this book spaces it out over several chapters, with interludes from the perspectives of each suspect. This format works in that it gives each suspect their time in the spotlight, and their opportunity to explain their actions. But the sleight of hand dazzle is lost, and by the third or so suspect, it’s already fairly obvious that the reveal is going to turn out to be a fairly minor one. That being said, the spacing out of reveals succeeds in showing us why each of the friends is somewhat complicit in the murder, even though not all of them are technically guilty of the crime.

I also like how the book delves into the lives of all these characters, and shows us what they’re dealing with, beyond the trauma of the actual murder. There’s an almost Rashomon-like feel to how each of the suspects gets to say their piece, and while the execution fell a bit flat for me, I like the broadness of perspective the story provides on the crime.

The ending, as I said, was unexpected, at least to me. I’m not sure how I feel about the way it ended, but in a way that this uncertainty is a positive. The author does give us a firm resolution and insight into all the secrets surrounding Heather’s murder, but I don’t know if I would say the ending is a happy one necessarily. I still feel that a character got away with murder, and I thought that was a nice, slightly uneasy, note to end on.

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Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Once Upon A Puppy has so many of the elements I usually love in a romance – adorable dog, fake dating, and an uptight grumpy hero who’s soft and squishy at heart. It ultimately fell a bit flat for me, but to be honest, I can’t pinpoint a specific reason why, other than the book never quite hooked me.

On paper, it’s exactly the kind of book I usually fall heads over heels in love with, squeeing over, and unable to put down. Yet it took me almost a month to finish it, and finishing it was more might-as-well than OMG-I-can’t-wait-to-keep-reading. I liked Deenie and Connor enough, but never quite fell in love with them. And Max, adorable and rambunctious as he was, seemed to disappear once the story got going, which is kinda meh — if you’re going to make an animal the catalyst for your romance, do it with your whole chest like Abby Jimenez and Jill Shalvis do. The romance is a bit slow-paced, with more heart than heat, but I’ve enjoyed sweet and slow-burn romances before. The side characters are interesting — I was especially intrigued by Deenie’s relationship with her sister (which I felt was underdeveloped here) and Connor’s relationship with his mom — but again, not quite compelling enough to hook me where the main characters fall short.

Deenie took me a while to warm up to — I guess I’m more like Connor than I thought. When she wrinkled her nose at the contract Connor drew up for their dog-training arrangement, I was Team Connor all the way, since that’s a work arrangement, and I would hate my dog trainer to just have a key to my home and come in whenever they choose. Still, Deenie eventually won me over with her devotion to Aunt Bitty. I also love how Connor recognizes that she isn’t actually flaky, and is actually uber-responsible and dependable, and just hates external validations of her commitments.

I also like how both Deenie and Connor have their own past hurts to overcome — Deenie with her overbearing family who doesn’t approve of her free-spiritedness, Connor with his runaway bride and his belief that he needs to be perfect to be loved. I like how the side characters show that Deenie and Connor’s perceptions may not be super accurate of reality (Deenie’s sister loves her deeply despite not fully understanding her choices, and Connor’s mom loves him unconditionally). And I like how what Deenie and Connor see as their own weaknesses and reasons for not belonging (Deenie’s sparkle amidst her staid family, Connor’s seriousness amongst his more social bosses), the other recognizes as their uniqueness and strength. Deenie and Connor both feel they have to mask themselves to fit in, while they each recognize that the other shouldn’t mask at all but rather be fully themselves. I like that.

Overall, the book fell kinda flat for me, but it does have a lot of the elements I usually adore in romance, and the writing is solid, so I’m chalking this up as a ‘not for me’ or perhaps, ‘not the right time’, and I may check out this author again in future. I like how Deenie and Connor make each other better, and how they help each other realize how they’re wonderful just the way they are.

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Thank you to Forever and Netgalley for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.