Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: April 27, 2021
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It’s the biggest job yet for the family wedding business—”Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!”—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream flowers.
But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy’s great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?
Dial A for Aunties follows Meddelin Chan, a woman who has a wedding business with her Chinese-Indonesian immigrant mother and three aunts. Her mother does the flowers, Big Aunt makes the cakes, Second Aunt does the bride’s makeup and Fourth Aunt provides entertainment. When Meddelin accidentally kills her blind date (!), the four women instantly and without question come together to help Meddelin dispose of the body.
Meddy and her family have a huge wedding they are working the day after Meddy’s date gone wrong. Her date’s body gets accidentally shipped to the wedding venue. What follows is a madcap adventure with Weekend at Bernie’s vibes.
Normally, I’m not a fan of madcap comedy – I hated Weekend at Bernie’s. However, it works in Dial A for Aunties. I think because it didn’t seem quite as ludicrous reading it as it would have seemed watching it on screen.
Jesse Q. Sutanto also wrote Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, which I loved. Dial A for Aunties is not quite as funny as that book is, but it is still funny, and I enjoyed it enough that I plan on reading the second book in the four-book series, Four Aunties and a Wedding soon.
Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: November 15, 2022
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Their love was supposed to last forever. But when life delivered blow after devastating blow, Yasmen and Josiah Wade found that love alone couldn’t solve or save everything.
It couldn’t save their marriage.
Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she’s is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving business together. Yet like magnets, they’re always drawn back to each other, and now they’re beginning to wonder if they’re truly ready to let go of everything they once had.
Soon, one stolen kiss leads to another…and then more. It’s hot. It’s illicit. It’s all good—until old wounds reopen. Is it too late for them to find forever? Or could they even be better, the second time around?
Before I Let Go is the first book in Kennedy Ryan’s Skyland series. It follows Yasmen and Josiah who got divorced two years ago after their marriage was rocked by tragedy. Their two children Kassim and Deja were both devastated by their divorce, especially their teenage daughter Deja.
After the divorce, Yasmen and Josiah continued to run Grits, the restaurant they own, together. When Josiah starts dating again, it brings up mixed emotions for Yasmen. She’s the one who asked for the divorce but now she’s wondering if she made a mistake.
Even though Before I Let Go is a romance, it deals with some serious issues surrounding grief and how different people deal with it. I enjoyed it. I appreciated the comic relief that Yasmen’s friends, Hendrix and Soledad provided. The next two books in the series are their stories.
I had the opportunity to hear Kennedy Ryan speak at an event hosted by my local romance bookstore. Her talk was inspiring. She puts a lot of thought and deep research into her books. I’m looking forward to reading more of them.
The Namaste Club by Asha Elias
Publisher: Harper Audio
Release Date: July 1, 2025
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Just inland from Florida’s sun-splashed Treasure Coast is the Namaste Club yoga center. An exclusive oasis of palms, lakes, and adorable guest villas, it’s perfect for getaways where Shakti, a serenely blond Instagram influencer, holds yoga retreats for well-heeled Miami ladies. The Namaste Club is a place of reflection, a place of release and redemption…or at least, that’s the sales pitch.
This weekend, however, is Transcendence Week, and a new bunch of South Florida burnouts have arrived. There’s Indira, fabulously wealthy after her divorce from the fast-frozen fruit king of Florida. There’s Indira’s bestie Jessica, also divorced and trying to get her groove back. There’s Barbara, heir to a massive family fortune, who’s taken a vow of silence for the retreat that will be sorely tested. And then there’s Carol Anne from Vero Beach, a happy tradwife and proud gun owner who recently did something…inadvisable; she’s just here while things cool off in her hometown.
And then, of course, there’s Daniel, the toned, man-bunned apprentice yoga instructor. He’s cute if you like that sort of thing. And many of the rich ladies do.
Last but not least, there’s Bubba, the retreat center’s resident twelve-foot American alligator. Before Transcendence Week is over, Bubba will have his moment of glory as well— when one of the visitors winds up in his jaws.
Who will be living their best life? Who will get their comeuppance?
The Namaste Club follows a motley crew of characters who come together for Transcendence Week at the Namaste Club. There are divorcee best friends Indira and Jessica, conservative gun-toter Carol Anne, Barbara, who’s chosen to take a vow of silence during the retreat, and Daniel, the hot yoga teacher in training. They are led by their young, blonde yoga instructor with a fake Indian accent, Shakti. They share the resort with a twelve-foot alligator named Bubba. By the end of the week, one of the attendees ends up dead in Bubba’s jaws.
One of the blurbs for this book said that it’s White Lotus meets Nine Perfect Strangers and as fans of both, I have to agree. It’s got a serious murder mystery plot line that is interspersed with moments of hilarity. It wasn’t so funny as to be madcap, which I appreciated. I’m not a fan of screwball humor.
Like Nine Perfect Strangers, we know up front who was killed. Then the story goes back to the beginning of the week and goes from there, tracing what led up to the person’s death. It was well-plotted and took some surprising turns towards the end.
This is Asha Elias’s second book. Her first, Pink Glass Houses, is a satire about PTA moms. I’m definitely reading that soon. I think she may be the next Liane Moriarty!
Crash Test: A Novel by Amy James
Publisher: Avon/Harper Audio
Release Date: July 1, 2025
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Formula 1 meets Red, White, & Royal Blue in this contemporary romance in which an F1 phenom battling for the championship is sent spinning after his secret love is involved in a massive crash.
Twenty-four-year-old Formula 1 driver Travis Keeping is halfway through an incredible racing season, with the championship well within his sights. But when a massive crash in Formula 2 leaves driver Jacob Nichols in critical condition, Travis’s world is flipped upside down. No one knows, but he and Jacob have been dating for almost a year.
Now the only boy he’s ever loved is clinging to life, his F1 team can’t understand why his performance is faltering, and he’s locked in a cold war with Jacob’s parents, who want him as far away from their son as humanly possible. Travis is sure everything will get better when Jacob wakes up, but he soon realizes he’s underestimated Jacob’s parents’ influence on their son.
As the F1 season barrels on, Travis and Jacob find themselves alone and miserable on opposite sides of the globe. But with some new friends by their sides, both drivers will be pushed outside of their comfort zones and onto a journey of self-discovery—one that just might lead them back to each other in the end.
When Formula 2 driver Jacob Nichols is involved in a huge crash that leaves him in the ICU in critical condition, Formula 1 driver Travis Keeping’s first instinct is to run to his side. However, no one knows that he and Jacob know each other, let alone that they have been dating for the past year. Travis’s performance falters and his team can’t figure out why. Not only is he worried about Jacob, but also Jacob’s parents discover their relationship and manage to keep Travis away from Jacob by moving him back to his hometown so they can take care of him. Jacob is not happy that Travis outed him to his parents.
Jacob is Travis’s first love and he’s lonely and miserable without him. Can he convince Jacob that their love is worth fighting for?
I loved Crash Test. Travis reminded me of Roy Kent from Ted Lasso – gruff on the outside but secretly sensitive. I listened to the audiobook which has duet narration. The narrators for both Jacob and Travis are perfect for the characters. Patrick Zeller, who voices Travis has the sexiest voice. He reads the character with so much emotion in his voice; it’s more like listening to a radio play. I was truly amazed. Jacob’s character is carefree and that came across wonderfully in Gary Furlong’s reading.
Usually, I only listen to audiobooks when I’m doing something else, like driving or working out. This book captivated me so much that I listened to it while following along in my print copy before bed because I couldn’t stop.
Highly recommended.
July 2nd, 2025 in
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Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: February 4, 2025
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.
Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.
So, they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water…
Scarlett is an elite collegiate diver at Stanford. Her teammate Penelope confides in her that she broke up with her boyfriend Luk, an Olympic gold medal swimmer who is on the swim team at Standford, because he likes kinky sex and she doesn’t. Scarlett shares that she too likes kinky sex. At a party, a drunken Pen tells Scarlett and Luk that they should hook up because they have the same kinks. Awkward.
At first, Scarlett is not interested but she manages to work the fact that they like the same things into almost every conversation, making it even more awkward. If that were me, I’d never mention it again after Pen embarrassed me like that!
Luk might be interested in starting something up with Scarlett and they spend a very long time talking about it before anything actually happens. Scarlett alludes that whatever she’s into is scandalizing. However, when they eventually start hooking up – because of course they do, just look at the book cover – it’s not that kinky. No one even ties each other up! If you’re a dark romance reader, you will find this dusky, not dark. I don’t mind dusky but then why is all the build up like Scarlett the biggest perv ever? Do Ali Hazelwood fans have that delicate of sensibilities? As one, I say no.
It pains me to say that Deep End did not meet my expectations for an Ali Hazelwood romance. It was good but not great. Characters from her other books had cameos, which I always think is fun. I still recommend it, especially for her fans. Just know that it’s more of a four star, rather than five star read.
Other books by Ali Hazelwood I’ve reviewed:
The Love Hypothosis
Love, Theoretically
Check & Mate
Bride
Not In Love
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera
Publisher: Celadon Books
Publication date: March 5, 2024
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life.
But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast “Listen for the Lie,” and its too-good looking host Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one that did it.
The truth is out there, if we just listen.
Lucy has lived in California for the past five years. She left her hometown after her best friend Savvy was murdered. On that night, Lucy was found wandering the streets, covered in Savvy’s blood. The town assumes she is the murderer but unfortunately, Lucy can’t remember anything about that night.
Ben Owens, a true crime podcaster, decides to investigate Savvy’s murder. Lucy’s grandma convinces her to come back to town under the guise that she’s having a birthday party for herself. Once Lucy gets back to town, she quickly figures out the real reason her grandma wanted her to come back is that Ben is also in town. Grandma wants Lucy to help him prove that she didn’t do it.
When this book first came out last year, there was a lot of hype around it. I read it back then and thought it was okay but not amazing. Probably because the hype had gotten my expectations too high. My friends on BookTok said that the audiobook was better, so I gave it a listen. I agree that it was mostly better on audio. The book has excerpts from Ben’s podcast throughout and for the audiobook, they are recorded as if you are listening to a real podcast. That part was really well done. However, Lucy has voices in her head, probably due to the brain injury she suffered the night of Savvy’s murder. The narrator uses a really annoying voice for them that was like fingernails on a chalkboard in my ear.
Overall, I enjoyed this book more on audiobook. It raised it up from athree-and-a-half-star book to a four-star book. Having some distance from the hype helped raise my rating as well. Recommended – as an audiobook.
June 3rd, 2025 in
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A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: August 6, 2024
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles––a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.”
Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn’t risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.” So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme choice: stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.
Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman’s race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.
Tia grew up in a conservative mega church, where she met her husband, Allen. She married him right out of high school. Soon after they wed, he joined an even more conservative patriarchal Christian movement that was all about wives submitting to their husbands. It was part of the quiverfull movement that the Duggars are also a part of, although it wasn’t the same church as them. The idea is to have a “quiverfull” of children to be God’s soldiers and hopefully eventually outnumber all of the sinners in the world.
Tia’s church also believed in the Goddred method of raising children to be obedient. That included “blanket training” that starts when the child is just a baby. They are punished every time they try to roll or crawl off their blanket on the floor so that eventually, they will stay on the blanket. (Michelle Duggar also promotes this method of teaching children to obey.)
Tia’s husband and the church itself became worse and worse over time. The leadership openly condoned and encouraged husbands to spank their wives to get them to obey. Her husband was more than happy to follow this protocol.
Something in Tia told her that this was not right. She never blanket trained her infants and she went against the advice of the other mothers in the church who believed babies would become spoiled if you picked them up and/or fed them whenever they cried.
Eventually, Tia began processing her growing disillusionment with the church through blogging and connecting with other women in her situation through a message board called Trapdoor. Even so, it took her years to work up the courage to take her children and leave. And even more years to process her religious trauma.
I enjoy books about cults, and I believe that religious fundamentalism is basically a cult. It’s fascinating to me how many women in Tia’s circle believed whole heartedly that their husbands should control them and they should submit blindly to them. And they mentored Tia (or at least tried to) to be the same way as them. They are already living in the way the project 2025 proponents want everyone in the country to live.
Tia is a strong woman and I’m glad to have read her journey out of religious patriarchy. She is featured in the Amazon documentary Shiny Happy People, which I hope to watch soon to learn even more about her and her former community.
Lies She Told by Cate Holahan
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Publication date : July 10, 2018
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Liza Cole, a once-successful novelist whose career has seen better days, has one month to write the thriller that could land her back on the bestseller list. Meanwhile, she’s struggling to start a family, but her husband is distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. As stresses weigh her down in her professional and personal lives, Liza escapes into writing the chilling exploits of her latest heroine, Beth.
Beth, a new mother, suspects her husband is cheating on her while she’s home caring for their newborn. Angry and betrayed, she aims to catch him in the act and make him pay for shattering the illusion of their perfect life. But before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s tossing the body of her husband’s mistress into the East River.
Then, the lines between Liza’s fiction and her reality eerily blur. Nick’s body is dragged from the East River, and Liza’s husband is arrested for his murder. Before her deadline is up, Liza will have to face up to the truths about the people around her, including her own. If she doesn’t, the end of her heroine’s story could be the end of her own.
Liza is a romantic thriller author who’s in a bit of a writer’s slump. When her editor presses her for an outline of her latest book, she balks. She doesn’t like outlines. Instead, she tells him she will deliver the finished book in one month.
At the same time, her husband has grown distant after his best friend went missing a month ago. Liza has been undergoing fertility treatments that are not working and having an absent husband is not helping on that front.
Lies She Told alternates between Liza’s real life and the novel she’s writing about Beth, a new mom whose husband may be cheating on her.
This book started out slowly. At one point, I was wondering why it’s classified as a thriller – there were no thrills. It finally picked up in the last few chapters and then it was twist after twist.
I picked up this book when I was in a bit of a reading slump and I was hoping for an unputdownable thriller. I enjoyed this book, but it wasn’t as much of a page turner as I was hoping it would be.
Flirting with Disaster by Naina Kumar
Publisher: Dell
Publication Date: January 14, 2025
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
It’s been years since Meena separated from her husband, Nikhil . . . years since they first laid eyes on each other in their home state of Texas, years since they spontaneously wed in Las Vegas and she felt true happiness. Now a high-powered lawyer on Capitol Hill and ready to move on (at least, she thinks so) with another successful lawyer, Shake, Meena has returned to Texas. This time, finally to obtain a divorce.
But there’s one thing Meena didn’t account for: a hurricane forming in the Gulf, veering right toward them and giving them no choice but to hunker down in the home they had built together. Suddenly, she finds herself trapped amid gale-force winds and pelting rain with the man she once loved.
As they spend more time together, Meena begins to remember everything that drew her to Nikhil: his small-town charm, his thoughtful nature . . . his absurdly good looks. But being with Shake makes sense to her. He’s steady, ambitious, and wants exactly what she wants. So she’ll stick to her plan, come hell or high water. But will her windswept heart make the right choice, once the eye passes over and the storm settles?
With sharp observations about second chances at love, ambition and Indian American identity, and with characters who share an undeniable chemistry, Flirting with Disaster is a modern romance with the sensibility of a classic.
Meena and Nikhil got married on a whim in Las Vegas after dating just a short time. Within a year they were separated but never legally divorced. Flash forward six years and Meena wants to make the divorce official. Her current boyfriend has given her an ultimatum – make the divorce legal or they’re through.
Meena lives in Washington DC and Nikhil lives in Texas. Meena’s been trying to get him to sign the divorce papers long distance with no luck. Finally, she decides to go to Texas and make him sign them. She arrives as, unbeknownst to her, a hurricane is brewing. It’s too late to evacuate – all flights out have been canceled, and all the hotels are booked. Meena is forced to hunker down with Nikhil. Will being trapped with Nikhil for several days cause them to rekindle their romance?
Flirting with Disaster wasn’t quite as sweet as Kumar’s first book, Say You’ll Be Mine. I loved that book though – it would be hard to top. However, I did enjoy Flirting with Disaster. It would be a good beach read with summer coming up. Recommended.
April 26th, 2025 in
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Bride by Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: February 6, 2024
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis.
Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again…
Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was….
Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she’s ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.
Bride is Ali Hazelwood’s first foray into paranormal romance. I was skeptical going in – not because I didn’t think she’d do a good job, but because I haven’t read paranormal romance in so long, I didn’t know if I would still like it. Turns out, I do!
Bride follows Misery, a Vampyre who has been passing as human and living in the human world for the past few years. Her father, who is head of the Vampyre council, calls her home and tells her she has to marry Lowe Moreland, the Alpha Were. She will live with him in Were territory and another Were will marry a Vampyre and live in Vampyre territory. This arrangement is supposed to ensure peace between the two factions, as a betrayal by the Vampyres would get Misery killed and vice versa. It’s mutually assured destruction.
Of course, an attraction forms between Misery and Lowe but it’s complicated. Their marriage was supposed to be all business – Weres and Vampyres do not get romantically involved. And how would the physical aspect even work? The interspecies intimacy was a little weird but still very spicy and well-written.
I thoroughly enjoyed Bride. Misery has the same dry sense of humor that her female protagonists are known for, and I loved the banter between her and Lowe. Lowe has a younger sister that Misery, to her chagrin, grows to like, and their relationship is cute.
A sequel to Bride called Mate is due out in October. I can’t wait! Highly recommended.
Other books by Ali Hazelwood I’ve reviewed:
The Love Hypothosis
Love, Theoretically
Check & Mate
Not In Love
April 23rd, 2025 in
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