Horse Talk Reviews

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian My rating: 5 of 5 stars I don't know what it is about baseball that makes it the perfect backdrop to a story equally about grief as it is romance but it does. Perhaps it is the inherent nostalgic romance of baseball or the skill of Cat Sebastian as a writer but this book was incredible. It felt like the spiritual successor to KD Casey's baseball books (highly recommend everyone read those) while being a completely new and refreshing take on baseball romance. Which it is very refreshing! One of my notes on this book is "weirdly refreshing about sports and homophobia??" because similarly to We Could Be So Good, the historical realism of being gay in mid-century New York - particularly as a well-known professional athlete- is absolutely present, the book is still incredibly hopeful and sweet. And the romance! It's an absolute masterclass on domestic slice of life slowburn. Eddie and Mark are ...

Lucky Bounce by Cait Nary My rating: 5 of 5 stars 5 stars Lucky Bounce is my favorite of Cait Nary's books so far. It's fun, fast-paced, has good hockey content, and I didn't even mind the kid (and i am not a big fan of kids in romance novels). The romance is great too - I was invested in the two main characters getting to know each other and eventually figuring it all out. There was some Personal Family Stuff with both dudes that wasn't really explored in depth or resolved at all but I don't enjoy family drama so I didn't mind that it kinda went nowhere.  The ending is probably my biggest complaint because it is A B R U P T. It seriously just ends with the world's most vague sentence and i kept trying to turn the page for more but nope. Nothing. If this was beefed up a bit it would be 5++++ stars lol. Still worth the read and a great addition to the annals of gay hockey romance. I received an ARC copy of this book from Ne...

Once a Rogue by Allie Therin My rating: 4 of 5 stars 3.5 stars rounded up This series is what I consider a popcorn read where you consume it without thinking too hard about it and everything works out and you remember almost nothing once you're finished. This book is no exception. I like Sebastian but Wesley can be kind of grating with his "im the worst man on the entire earth how can you POSSIBLY like me" stuff it, man, you are not the worst AT ALL. The magic is also rather convenient especially in this book (which it was very convenient in the whole series) but you know what? sometimes it's nice to know everything will be fine. I am looking forward to their next book and hopefully Wesley stops with the thinking he's some unloveable monster crap and lives his truth of being a cat dad and doting boyfriend to Sebastian. I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. ...

Prince and Bodyguard by Tavia Lark My rating: 4 of 5 stars 4 stars This was cute and had nice forehead kisses and caretaking but I do not remember nearly enough of the previous books to follow the intricacies of the political gambit parts. I also expected the series about the House Dire princes in the evil land of blood magic and dragons and whatnot to be darker but this was as light-hearted and neatly wrapped up as the previous series. Which is fine but a bit more evil angsty grit would be great! Of course, as always, it's a very readable and sweet book. Even if I couldn't remember who any of these people were lol. I received an ARC copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. View all my reviews

Famous for a Living by Melissa Ferguson My rating: 2 of 5 stars 2 stars I love a Hallmark movie romance plot as much as the next person but I require them to be at least a tiny bit original or, you know, accurate. This book was perfectly set up with Cat being a disgraced influencer who moved back to a small town (or into a national park her uncle was the...something of? Head ranger? Overlord?) and a hot mountain man guy who helped her survive her idiotic City girl impulses like improper footwear and driving a convertible Mercedes in the snow. Sounds great, right? Well you would be WRONG. This book, in the year 2023, requires you to believe: - mason jars were never popular and this influencer made them sell out across the country! I did not suffer through the hipster and Pioneer Woman eras where we made small batch pickles and poured carafes of water into mason jars for this crap. - a national park needs a City girl influencer to make them popular ...

Best Men by Sidney Karger My rating: 3 of 5 stars 2.5 stars rounded up A chaotic stream of consciousness liveblogging style book loosely disguised as a romance wherein the point of view character is a dude who is almost 40 but constantly drinks, never sleeps, has way too many inside jokes, eats diner food at all hours, and is generally Bad at Life. The book gave me a lot of sympathy heartburn and made me want to sit on my couch and talk to no one. The title is apt as the two main characters are both Best Men in the same wedding. Max, the POV character, is bad at wedding planning but is a huge baby about being left out, and Chasten is good at wedding planning and is a Grown Up and shenanigans ensue! Like, a LOT of shenanigans. Too many shenanigans. I needed this whole thing to be turned down like 10 or so notches. The word "gay-xpectations" was used. Approximately four hundred songs were mentioned by name, artist, and song lyric. Every offic...

Light Up the Lamp by Kit Oliver My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3 stars Perhaps my expectations were way too high but this book did not live up to them. Let's set aside the absurd shithole-level arena and facilities for an NHL team that would never be allowed and the training camp with roughly 6 people in attendance and focus on the non-hockey parts. First of all, the miscommunication in here was off the charts. Poor Gil tries so hard but he only knows how to speak in hockey and no one helps him out at any point they only ever say "Oh, Gil" to him. Someone please help my buddy out and clearly explain the problems!!! How is he supposed to know anything at all he has one brain cell and it's dedicated to hockey and thinking "Sebastian" 500 times a second but he's so willing to try if only someone would guide him :( This made the entire book frustrating to read because the 80% breakup is Gil speaking in his single-minded hockey w...

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian My rating: 5 of 5 stars 5 stars I loved this book so much. It balanced a mostly vibes and very soft romance with just enough historical accuracy to give it an edge. It is also an incredibly timely book considering it's about the news and queer people existing and finding their communities in the 1950s and while a lot has changed for the better we are also regressing so it was nice to read something so sweet and happy and hopeful despite all the things working against them. As for the romance, the caretaking was an absolute delight with the grumpy one, Nick, being so soft for the sunshine one, Andy, and making him soup and keeping track of his keys and doing anything at all Andy needed him to. And yet again Cat gave me urban planning as a treat because it had just enough dumping on Robert Moses and all the crap he did to the city to entertain me but mostly focused on the neighborhoods and people of mid-century ...

The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores My rating: 2 of 5 stars DNF @ 53% 2 stars I really wanted to like this one because of the cover and the description which is why I read as much as I did but it was a huge letdown. I stopped caring at about the 15% mark, to be honest. None of it made any sense and it was going nowhere by the time I stopped. Like, this is about a witch and a vampire but the witch is way too angry and vengeful and the vampire is way too sheltered and naive and it was just boring to read. I kept the extra star because of the cover, mostly. I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. View all my reviews

Game Misconduct by Ari Baran My rating: 3 of 5 stars 2.5 stars rounded up This book was straight up baffling to read. The two main components of the book, the hockey and the romance, were equally weird and made me question if I knew anything at all about hockey or reading romance. To start, the hockey. I was initially ok with the idea of the two main characters being enforcers but they were Extreme Enforcers who fought multiple times every game. In the year of our lord 2023, hockey fighting and enforcers are barely a thing. The players in real life hockey who fight a lot have maybe 12-14 fights an entire season! What makes it even more confusing as a character choice is this is a league that's progressive enough to have a female hockey player. It makes no sense to have both of these be true at once and still have a homophobic league. As for the rest of the hockey it was all a little...off. Like words might be used in hockey but they were slightly...

Solomon's Crown by Natasha Siegel My rating: 5 of 5 stars 5 stars This book is low on historical accuracy but very high on vibes. It was such a compelling read and I could not put it down. It has some truly beautiful moments in it despite it being about two very problematic medieval kings getting it on throughout various castles and manors. I probably could have done without the political gambits and all the people dying in the background (or foreground in a few instances) so they could be together but it was also the 1100s so, like, stuff was weird. Honestly the less you think about this book and the more you vibe along with it the better off you'll be. I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. View all my reviews

Diamond Ring by K.D. Casey My rating: 5 of 5 stars KD absolutely nailed it with this one. Or, since it's a baseball book, knocked it out of the park? Whichever metaphor you choose this book was amazing, perfect, 10 out of 10, no notes. Like, how dare this book. It's amazing to see an already great writer improve upon their craft. All the things that bugged me from the first two books in this series were fixed and all the things I loved were still there. The writing struck the perfect balance of melancholy, baseball, romance, and character development which the dense and poetic writing style complements well. The other things I loved about the book: the two main characters, Jake and Alex; the baseball; the mental health rep; the linear storytelling; the more conclusive ending; less of the book dedicated to the first chance romance; the build up of the second chance romance; the baseball as a rebellion rep; the proper name pronunciation rep; the...

The Dragon and His Prince by Adara Wolf  and R Phoenix My rating: 2 of 5 stars This was unfortunately a let down for me. I was very excited for the sex pollen/aphrodisiac body fluids and double dicked dragon!! How fun! Alas. Having read both these authors individually before, I skipped the content warnings for a more fun surprise (this is very fun). I still suggest everyone else read them first, in the book and on the authors website. Now, to book: I was told by a friend to expect more of a fluffy dubcon fantasy book, relative to the authors’ individual works, and that was pretty spot on. Very not dark, cute dubcon via sex pollen. Well…yeah okay, that was about it for the book. I really liked Jade being super possessive of Larkin though, and calling him his treasure and gem all the time. So cute! I was settling in to have fun guessing who wrote which character, and then it was immediately obvious due to ellipses abuse in Larkin’s POV. So that was...

Just for December by Laura Jane Williams My rating: 1 of 5 stars 11/28/22: Review to come once the HarperCollins strike ends 2/16/2023: yay the strike has ended! (wtf harper collins u should be embarrassed by how long this took) Review time! --- DNF at 25% I am once again asking for your support in writing a happy fluffy christmas book!!! jesus christ. This has been the least christmassy reading journey I have ever had in my life, with this lovely (not) thing to cap it off. At least no one died? the bar is low. I don’t know what this trend in MF is where authors mix up “strong” FMCs with “heinous rude self-centered monster”, but here we are, yet again. Duke: Duke is introduced as the saddest boi, most sympathetic character, just got emotionally betrayed and wounded and still believes in love and is generally adorable and doing his job. Evie: Evi is introduced as a self sabotaging mean rude person who hates everything. She is an irredeemable asshole...

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune My rating: 5 of 5 stars Anticpated Publication Date: April 25, 2023 5 stars because holy crap, y'all If you go into this expecting a funny little book because it's a Pinocchio re-telling but with robots including a talking Roomba with anxiety you will definitely get that but you will also get an epic, emotional, and wonderful story about humanity, loneliness, forgiveness, and love. Like what the crap I don't know how it happened but it is a real journey. All the characters are fully developed and complex, even the robot vacuum. Or maybe especially the robot vacuum. There were lines which made me laugh and then a few pages later it was deep thoughts and emotions. I appreciated the levity because otherwise it would be Too Much. As it is, I will probably be thinking about these characters for a while. I should have expected a book about robots to do this to me since this is the same author who thought ...

The Gentleman's Book of Vices by Jess Everlee My rating: 2 of 5 stars This unfortunately ended up being a miss for me, on several counts. The salient points are that I felt like the characters were flat, they had no chemistry or emotion, the sex scenes were handled poorly, and the plot was frustrating to nonexistent. I think it had potential , but it was not realized here. Characters: I never felt like I got to know the characters at all. Any of the somewhat numerous cast. Charlie comes off as a self centered man child - this could be a starting point, but he never truly grows from it, jerking his fiancee around a lot with his dithering, so I just ended up not liking him at all. Miles…did we ever get any backstory on him, outside of a brief Ethan thing? I genuinely don’t think so. He’s just kind of there. Cardboard like. He didn’t feel consistent either, more like he was cobbled together of plot-convenient personalities. The smooth sommelier mome...

The King's Delight by Sarah Honey My rating: 4 of 5 stars 4 stars+ The King's Delight had all of my favorite things: 1. It was short and sweet 2. Low angst 3. Funny without being try hard 4. Under negotiated kink with zero daddy 5. Horse I really had a good time reading it. Sometimes you want a lowkey book with horses and some spanking. Not at the same time, um... Anyway, The King's Delight was also erratic's delight to read. Highly recommend! I received an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. View all my reviews

King's Ex by E.J. Russell My rating: 1 of 5 stars DNF at 57% My issues: • This book proceeds at a breakneck pace with no pauses until over halfway through, and it is honestly kind of exhausting to read. I need pauses more often than that, otherwise the urgency gets tiring. • The number one present “emotion” still, at almost 60%, is horny. Just horny. • The MCs don’t really know each other outside of said horny, and for some reason, once they’re forced into a room for 24 hours straight, they allegedly have conversations, but we skip right over those. Their connection is not believable. Instead, I have to read about their dithering and horniness again , rather than being shown any of these supposedly amazing conversations that would build a believable romance. • Honestly, maybe this one gets fixed later, but damn, they have hella boring powers. The other royals have like x-men level powers, and this dude just…doesn’t sweat. Sure, I’d love to have...

Wedding Dragon by Liv Rider My rating: 3 of 5 stars A cute fluffy fated mates dragon shifter book, exactly as advertised! A fun twist to the fake boyfriend trope, where the human mate shows up to a wedding with a fake boyfriend, and meets his fated dragon!  Anyway, Chris is the best character by far. I loved him so much. Followed by the internal dragon suggestions of dropping mean people in lakes.

Pretty Policeman by Fifer Rose My rating: 3 of 5 stars How could I resist such a premise!! I couldn’t. Luckily, I did not come to regret this total lack of self control. On the whole, this was entertaining read. With some editing and refocusing, it would have been an easy 4 star for me. • I enjoyed the aggressive caretaking by Damon in the beginning, and the silliness of their initial encounters and miscommunication/situation. • Micah was an amusing character to ride along with in the story, and I liked Tessa as a partner. • Far too many descriptions of things that don’t matter. I don’t need every single detail of every scene, could have shaved off a solid 150 pages and read a lot smoother. Having to skim large parts to get to the scenes actually advancing the story was a bit of a bummer. • Please, please, delete all the parentheses. If it’s relevant, it doesn’t need to be in parentheses. If it does, then just delete the sentence instead. • This felt...