Category: Book Review

Midnight Sun by Stephanie Meyer
833 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️ • No spice 😒

Did you ever read Twilight and think, “Wow, I’d love to know what Edward was thinking”? Dramatic sigh. Congrats, Stephanie Meyer heard your wish and answered it with 833 pages of pure, uncut, artisanal brooding.

Externally, Edward Cullen’s whole moody marble statue act is occasionally endearing, occasionally irritating. Internally? Hearing the full director’s commentary of his angst in real time is a psychological endurance sport. And for 833 pages? Lord, grant me the sweet release of true death. I genuinely assumed this brick would cover all four books. That would make sense. That’s an appropriate amount of internal torment for an entire saga. But no. It’s ALL for Twilight. All. Of. It. 🙄

I struggled. Not because it’s complex. Because at a certain point you stop caring about his self-loathing, martyr-flavored high-road nonsense. It was exhausting in the original series when we only had to visit his misery. Living inside it feels like being trapped in a Cold Topic on a loop.

Yes, yes, I know: if he’d turned Bella earlier, there’d be no Renesmee. But after that CGI baby in the movies, I’m not convinced that’s a tragedy. (And the Breaking Dawn Part 2 “battle” scene? IYKYK. Cinema crimes were committed.)

To be fair, you do get extra insight into what Edward does when Bella isn’t around: some boy time, hunting, vampire logistics, protective instincts. But mostly it’s him relentlessly auditing his own soul like the world’s thirstiest CPA of despair. Like… buddy. Are you okay? Was your dad an alcoholic? Do we need to get you into Al-Anon? It’s fine, truly, but the perfectionism is going to kill you. (Which, yes, is hilariously ironic. I laughed. Against my will.)

“People don’t just want to read Meyer’s books; they want to climb inside them and live there.” (Time) or “A literary phenomenon.” (The New York Times). Notice what’s missing? Actual praise for this book’s writing. It’s less “this is good” and more “the fandom is feral.” It’s like loving Star Wars while fully acknowledging the acting is… let’s say “brave.” (Fight me. 😇)

And that’s why Midnight Sun was a bestseller. Not because it’s great, but because nostalgia has hands and it grabbed us by the childhood. Hell, that’s why I read it. Also: it was on KU, so I didn’t even have to pay for the privilege of suffering. Small mercies.

Bottom line: you can skip this one. If you think Edward broods in Twilight, please understand: this is brooding with surround sound, bonus features, and an intermission where he broods about the fact that he broods. It’s worse than you can possibly imagine.

Tempests & Tea Leaves by Rachel Morgan
380 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️ (purely vibes, not thrust)

The world is divided by race and magic status, and half-fae, half-human Iris Starspun is sitting firmly at the bottom of the social heap. At nineteen, her magic finally arrives and it is, allegedly, useless. She can fold enchanted paper. Origami sorcery. Party trick tier. Her parents, ever the opportunists, see it as their last chance to brand her as “wife material” during Bloom Season and marry up before the family finances crumble. Iris would rather spontaneously combust than marry for status.

What is a regency romance without its own Mr Darcy? Enter Lord Jasvian Rowanwood, heir to the most powerful fae family in the isles. He is stern, serious, and deeply unimpressed with Iris’s “parlor trick” magic or the way her tongue is both sharp and frequently deployed.

His terrifyingly competent grandmother runs The Charmed Leaf Tea House, an enchanted tea shop that functions as a full supporting character with its own personality. She promptly appoints Iris as an apprentice, which means Iris and Jasvian are now trapped in extremely aesthetic proximity.

On top of Iris’s half-human “lesser” status, her smart mouth makes her a pariah to the mean girls and a delight to anyone with a functioning brain cell, including Jasvian’s younger sister. The dynamic is very Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. His taciturn, broody exterior is secretly and begrudgingly enthralled by her wit. Their magical letter exchanges are utterly charming and had me smiling like an idiot more often than not.

Sidebar, because I am who I am. This is a key tell of a MMC written by a woman. We know that a good man will adore a sharp, capable partner. The sad reality is that in the actual dating pool, those men are rarer than signed first editions. Spend five minutes near a red-pill “alpha,” and it’s obvious they don’t want a woman who can match them, they want an empty-headed, compliant emotional support blow-up doll who never questions them. Male fragility is a hell of a drug. Anyway.

Iris’s magic is much more powerful than anyone realizes, and it reacts with Jasvian’s magic in some quite explosive ways. Lady Rivenna, Jasvian’s grandmother and proprietress of The Charmed Leaf, becomes Iris’s sponsor, mentor, and quiet revolutionary. She nurtures Iris’s magic and nudges at the brittle prejudices that hold their rigid, hierarchical society together.

The worldbuilding and magic system are a treat, particularly if you have a soft spot for regency novels or an undying crush on Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. This feels like a very satisfying marriage of high fantasy and regency romance, blended into a world that is incredibly easy to slip into and stay inside.

There is a clear progressive undertone. Several characters are openly opposed to the anti-human and anti–half-fae prejudice baked into fae society. The story slowly chips away at classism and bigoted rhetoric while we drift through Bridgerton style balls, tea visits, promenades, and carefully chaperoned walks in the park.

Overall, I am thrilled to have found a book that stitches two of my favorite playgrounds together. The banter is everything. Iris is exactly the sort of saucy, Bennet-esque minx I adore, and Jasvian delivers that broody, emotionally constipated Darcy energy that makes every tiny crack in his façade feel like a religious experience. A brush of hands, a hand flex, a loaded look across a ballroom. Bliss.

Tempests & Tea Leaves is a delightful escape from reality. It is a no-spice novel, very in line with “proper” regency romance, so significantly tamer than Bridgerton, but with all the corsets, gowns, promenades, and tea you could want. Come for the vibes, the world, and the slow, simmering tension, not for the smut.

Possessive Heart by Brighton Walsh
332 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️

I am an absolute sucker for an obsessed, yearning MMC. In real life, that reads “please stop texting me from the parking lot.” On the page in Possessive Heart, it’s perfection.

Chase Lockhart has been gone-for-her since high school. Addison McKenzie is his best friend’s little sister, which slaps a big “do not touch” sign on her. Naturally, he ignores it. What starts as off-limits tension turns into a long-running secret hookup situation. She goes off to college, he goes to the NHL, and every time he comes home, he makes a pilgrimage to her bed like it’s a holy rite.

Then one day the sex-fest stops. No calls. No texts. Just ghosted. Addison always knew she would come second to hockey, but knowing it and having it grind your heart into paste are two different things. She walks away, or at least tries to. Meanwhile, Chase is out here with ten years of feelings, house plans, and a very stubborn conviction that she is his forever. The man has emotional receipts and no shame in presenting them.

I loved the yearning. I related hard to Addison’s doubts and internal chaos. She is not being “dramatic.” She is a woman doing emotional math and refusing to accept a man who only shows up when it is convenient. We love to see it.

My favorite part: there is no third act breakup. None. Zero. Do you hear the angels singing? There is third act drama, of course, because this is a romance novel, not a vibes-only Pinterest board, but we are spared the tedious “we must now pretend you two aren’t endgame for 40 pages” nonsense.

Chase is deeply possessive, but not in a dark, morally-gray, “might accidentally kill a guy” way. He is golden retriever feral. Tail wagging, teeth bared if anyone hurts her. If you want male yearning without full-blown restraining-order energy, Possessive Heart is an excellent choice.

File under:

• Golden retriever obsession, mild psycho tendencies, maximum payoff 💋
• Brother’s best friend
• Ten years of pining
• Secret hookups

One More Gift by Holly June Smith
160 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

If this were a Blumhouse film, the surprise visitor at the cabin would be a demon, not an ex-husband. Fortunately, this is smut, not horror, and instead of blood on the snow we get… bodies on the furniture.

What starts as a cozy little snowed-in getaway for our FMC and her new boyfriend turns into something far more intriguing when her ex-husband shows up and crashes the party. What should be the setup for jealousy and drama becomes a full-on holiday upgrade, as everyone in this tiny cabin decides that collaboration is better than competition. ⚔️

Staying friends with your ex is one thing. Staying really, really good friends while your current boyfriend also becomes very close with him? That’s a whole different candy cane.

The plot is loose and wildly unrealistic, but that’s part of the charm. This is not here to be a profound exploration of human dynamics; it’s here so you can watch three consenting adults make terrible, excellent choices in a snowed-in cabin.

Kink buffet includes tease & denial, breeding kink, bondage, anal play, and DP, all wrapped in warm festive depravity. This is not a “maybe it’s romance with some spice” situation. This is “I need to open a window and it’s December.”

The audiobook cranks the whole experience several notches higher. Holly June Smith clearly understands that listeners are obsessed with duet and multicast narration, and this production delivers. Three luscious British accents pouring filth directly into your ears is a public safety hazard in the best way.

Narrators Evelyn Rose, John York, and Ryan Mairs absolutely do not disappoint. They turn a boring workday into, “I suddenly need to concentrate very hard on this… ‘data.’”

If you’re craving a quick, unapologetically smutty holiday romp with exes who are way too compatible and a boyfriend who’s very on board with group projects, One More Gift is exactly the filthy little present you’re looking for. 🎁🔥

A Very Krampus Holiday by Katee Robert
15 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

That’s right. Fifteen pages. One-five. So if you opened this expecting Great Expectations, that’s on you and your Victorian delusions.

What you do get is a filthy, depraved cannonball straight into Krampus smut that is absolutely the perfect starter shot for your holiday filth marathon. Think of it as a peppermint-flavored sin chaser.

This thing is outlandish in every direction. The spice? Unholy. If I wasn’t firmly on the naughty list before, Saint Nick has definitely filed a formal complaint now. For a story this short, the letter-to-spice ratio is obscene. Every consonant and vowel is doing overtime.

Katee, as always, shows up to do the Lord’s work and by “Lord” I mean whoever is in charge of panty-soaking demon degeneracy. I did not have “reconsidering two-horned monsters dragging me into the pits of hell” on my holiday bingo card, yet here we are. If it is only fifteen pages, maybe being dragged off screaming isn’t the worst way to spend an evening.

If you are craving longing, yearning, tender feelings, and holiday heartstring tugging, keep walking. This is not your cocoa-and-cuddles read.

If you want your brain gently concussed by “what in the kink exploration did I just agree to” smut, this might be exactly your flavor.

Also. It is fifteen. pages. Just take the win and let Krampus rearrange your holiday spirit. 🎄🔥

Bad Intentions by Mila Kane
454 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️¾

Bully romance: the genre where boys have the emotional range of a teaspoon and work it out by tormenting the girl they’re already in love with. Very enlightened. Very mature.

Here, we’ve got the classics.
Bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Awkward nerd.
Coach’s daughter.
“Love” at first sight, followed by 300+ pages of psychological dodgeball.

Lily is the sheltered, rejected nerd, wrapped in bubble wrap by her firmly middle-class parents who gave up their dreams because she was a whoopsie baby. That accidental-baby guilt coats everything she does. It hangs over the story like full-fat ice cream that leaves a waxy film on your tongue. You don’t forget it, and after a while, it’s less flavor and more… residue.

Her dream is simple: get as far away as possible, go to university on the opposite coast, and finally live a life that feels like hers instead of a repayment plan. That craving for independence is one of the most compelling parts of the book, even when the plot is doing the most.

Cayden is the textbook broken bad boy from the bad part of town. Trauma, abuse, cruelty, all wrapped in one broody, ragey package. Underneath it all, he just wants to be loved, of course, but he expresses that obsession with Lily in wildly unhealthy ways. When his past comes for her, his response is violent, dangerous, and exactly what you’d expect from a “dark” high school bully romance.

And that’s the thing. This is a high school hockey bully dark romance that stuffs in every single cringe cliché it can find, then goes back for seconds. Secret pain, cruel pranks, miscommunication, self-sacrifice, martyrdom, the whole buffet.

Which leaves me with the question I always circle back to with bully romance: was it worth it? Are 350-ish pages of humiliation, angst, and emotional gut-punches really balanced by maybe 100 pages of healing and happiness?

When you see that ratio in print, it hits different, doesn’t it? Because no. And no one in their right mind should tolerate that. Yet so many people do, on and off the page.

Stephen Chbosky wrote in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Filter this book through that lens and it stops being just “dark romance fun” and starts feeling a lot more disturbing. Bully romances like this don’t just flirt with that idea, they roll around in it.

So:
✅ Compulsively readable
✅ Emotional depth, especially around guilt and trauma
✅ Spice that serves the story instead of replacing it

But also:
❌ Heavy on cliché
❌ A lot of suffering for a relatively small window of joy
❌ A relationship that, in real life, would be a walking red flag parade

3.75 chili peppers for the spice, 4 stars for the execution… and a lingering unease that might stick with you longer than the happily ever after.

Holiday Hoax by Maggie Cole
408 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️

Fake marriages are such a flawless idea, right? No consequences, no emotional chaos, nobody catching feelings or getting caught in the lie. It’s practically an HR-approved life hack. 🙃

This one is classic spicy Hallmark:

• Grumpy billionaire MMC + sunshine FMC
• Fake marriage to appease the family
• Single bed, forced proximity, big city girl in a small town Christmas terrarium.

Is it original? Not remotely. Is it comforting? Absolutely. You can practically set your watch by the third-act breakup and the “if we just had one honest conversation this book would be 200 pages shorter” miscommunication. If people in romance novels went to therapy and used “I” statements, half the genre would collapse overnight.

Sebastien Cartwright is your standard cold, hyper-structured billionaire with four failed engagements and the emotional range of a colorless spreadsheet. Daddy has decreed that if he doesn’t show up at the family ranch for December, big bro gets the CEO crown. Rich people succession crises are truly the silliest of high stakes.

Enter Georgia Peach. Yes, that is her actual name and yes, she is exactly what you think. She is weaponized sunshine with a mixing bowl, baking cupcakes that practically come with healing crystals baked in. Sebastien allegedly can’t stand her, except for the part where he definitely wants to rail her six ways from Sunday.

So he offers her a deal: pretend to be his wife for the month of December at the family ranch for a casual one million dollars. She says yes, after negotiating up from a mere $100k with the hot emotionally constipated billionaire. (tension foreshadowing? Yes, yes it is)

From there, everything unfolds exactly how you think it will. Feelings. Longing. Spice. Family chaos. The inevitable third-act breakup that feels less like drama and more like the author pulling the emergency brake because “we need conflict here.” I am so tired of third-act breakups that exist purely because no one can say, “Hey, can we talk about this like grown adults?”

The banter is… fine. Not scream-laugh funny, but there were several moments that made me smile. The characters lean hard into stereotype territory, which makes them easy to consume but hard to truly believe. It’s candy, not a meal.

Could this have been a novella? Yes. Did it need 408 pages? Absolutely not. But if you’re in the mood for a predictable, cozy, spicy holiday comfort read where you know exactly what you’re getting and you’re not asking for great literature, this will scratch that “spicy Hallmark” itch nicely.

Genre	Pages	Spice	Rating
Contemporary	560	2 chili peppers	3.75 stars

Review

This is not a reverse harem, it’s “all five brothers are in their feelings about the same girl” energy.

And yes, she is eighteen. Legally an adult, emotionally a feral kitten with a philosopher’s brain and a trauma file thicker than the book itself.

Let’s talk tone first. I was not ready for how deep this story dives into mental health, depression, and suicidal ideation. It is heavy. If you’ve lived with any of that, parts of this will land in your body, not just your brain. They did for me. The depiction is vivid and it absolutely strengthens the emotional stakes and character connection, but it also left me mopey and wrung out. Consider this your content warning and emotional prep.

The spice is present and accounted for, but it is not mindless “plot, what plot?” territory. It is stitched into the story in a way that makes sense for the characters and their mess of feelings. Think “low to medium heat with flavor” rather than “five-alarm smut.”

Now. The FMC.

This eighteen-year-old is quite possibly the most emotionally literate, insight-drenched heroine I have ever seen on a page. She is wise, compassionate, relentlessly self-aware, and has the interpersonal skills of a seasoned therapist who has survived three lifetimes. While actively navigating her own trauma.

Is it compelling? Yes.
Is it believable? Not even a little.

Her depth of understanding about people is so advanced it snapped my suspension of disbelief more than once. And it raised a bigger question for me: did she really need to be eighteen? Was that crucial to the story? In my opinion, no. Beyond some angst about age gaps with the brothers, her being a teenager feels unnecessary and, honestly, a little exhausting. The trend of dropping teenage girls into extremely adult emotional and sexual dynamics like this is starting to feel… icky.

Craft-wise, the book is solid. The plot is dense, the emotional connections are intense, and the dynamics within the family are rich and layered. When the spice shows up, it works, and it fits the emotional tone instead of hijacking it.

Page count, though.

Five Brothers clocks in at about 560 pages. Could this story have been told beautifully in 350? Absolutely. There are stretches that feel indulgent and unnecessary; an attempt to pack more drama and build more tension, which was not needed.

Final vibe:
A well-written, emotionally heavy, occasionally brilliant exploration of trauma, love, and obsession that also made me side-eye the age choices and wish someone had taken a red pen to about 200 pages.

Worth reading if you want:

• Intense mental health themes
• Messy, layered family dynamics
• Low-to-medium spice woven into a real plot

Approach with care if:

• Your attention span is not here for a 560-page emotional marathon
• Age-gap plus teenage FMC makes you uncomfortable
• You are sensitive to depictions of depression and suicidal ideation