The Two of Us by Taylor A. Torres (Purchase)

Mara has no intention of returning home, facing what she ran away from, and coming back to a place that caused so much pain for her. However, when she learns her father's cancer is near the end, she decides it's time to go home. It's been seven years since she saw Ambrose and seven years since her terrible mistake and when she returns home, she quickly learns he's still living across the street and she might not be able to avoid him. Mara and Ambrose have many layers, they were childhood best friends and through the years they have a lot of history and love but there's also trauma. Their love story isn't over and readers will be turning the pages to see what happened and whether they be able to move forward. This book does deal with the death of a parent, it has small-town vibes and tragedy. We don't always make the right choices or say the right things during hard times, but life keeps moving on and we need to figure out how to proceed. I really enjoyed this book, and I think more people need to read it. It is available on Kindle Unlimited, and I encourage you to give this one a read. 4/5 rating.

The Love Wager by Lynn Painter (Purchase)

Lynn Painter has a backlist of titles, but I only heard of her books this year. I read Better Than the Movies and really enjoyed it. This was the second book that I read from her. The Love Wager is technically the second book in a series after Mr. Wrong Number but it was fine as a standalone novel, I never felt as though I was missing anything. In this book, our main character, Hallie is at an impasse. After a one-night stand, and running into a high school friend while bartending on the same night,  she decides she has to get her life together. She's had enough, and she wants more for herself. This temporary life needs to be temporary and if she doesn't do something it'll never change. After logging into a new dating app, she quickly finds the guy whom she snuck away from in his hotel room. They start communicating back and forth and their banter is great. They decide to enter the dating scene together, if the dates go bad they have each other to fall back on. They can always go have some tacos together. Jack and Hallie's friendship was so much fun, and obviously they fell for each other and I loved all of it. I rated it 4/5 stars, highly recommend and I do plan to continue her backlist. 

The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose (Purchase)

As a mood reader, I like to switch up my genres and after The Love Wager, I jumped into this thriller. We have Sarah Morgan who is a successful and powerful defense attorney and her husband, Adam who is a struggling writer. Sarah has been very focused on her career, and her husband has been away at their cottage trying to come up with his next novel. When a woman is found dead at their cottage, and Adam is accused of her murder, Sarah decides to defend Adam in the death of his mistress. She believes she's the only person who can help me. When I go into thrillers, I suspect everyone, I'm looking for those twists and I really enjoyed watching this one come together. It was a fast read, the writing was good and I would recommend this one. Another great read for fall, those cozy thriller vibes. I rated this one 4/5 stars as well. 

To Sir, with Love by Lauren Layne (Purchase)

This was a super cute, charming, feel-good romance, a "you've got mail" retelling. Gracie Cooper has put aside her dream of being a professional artist and she has taken over the family wine shop after her father passes. Her siblings don't help her, and she's essentially on her own. She finds little ways to incorporate her art at the shop, but at the end of the day she's running a wine shop and it's severely struggling. When Sebastian Andrew's offers to buy out the shop's location, Gracie refuses to even look at his offer. While her rivalry with Sebastian starts to heat up, she confides in an anonymous man on a dating app that she calls  "Sir." This was a predictable book but enjoyable nonetheless. I rated it 3/5 stars and would like to try more of Lauren Layne's books. I've heard good things about Passion on Park Avenue. 

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