✿ The Unexpected Mess Of It All ✿ Gabrielle Tozer ✿

 

Release date 1st May 2024

From the YA Queen of Rom-com comes a funny and fraught 'enemies-to-will-they-won't-they' romance between family friends Jamila and Billy.

Jamila Dakhoul wants to escape her life.

Forget everything.

Forget that her only friends are strangers on the internet.

Forget she's stuck in a caravan after a fire destroyed her family's house.

Forget that Year 12 is a brutal hellhole where bullying is an Olympic sport.

Forget Billy Radcliffe once and for all.

But as Jamila tries to untangle the messy threads of her life on a weekend away with her family, it becomes clear that she can't outrun her past, no matter how hard she tries ...

A coming-of-age story about falling apart, starting over, and the people and places you can't live without from the award-winning author of Remind Me How This Ends, Can't Say it Went to Plan and The Intern.

 

Copy received from Harper Collins Australia for an honest review

Oh boy, did this book bring back memories of my high school experience!

I wasn't a loner, I had my tight friends group, and I had friends, but I was never going to be the popular kid, I was never going to be the best looking, the one invited to all the parties etc.

There was the mean girls, the guys who though they were god's gift, the pettiness and the bitchiness.

Put it this way - I loathed high school, except it was where I met my best friend, and decades later, she is still my BFFF.

Jamila and Billy's friendship is one that we have all had along the way.  Best friends, to no longer speaking to each other, with nostalgia brining friends back together.

So much is changing, but so much is still the same.

I could feel Jam's palpitations as thing happen in this book.  A similar sort of thing happened to me in high school, when someone I thought was a friend betrayed my trust, so I get her hesitance to involve herself in a lot of things.

I laughed out loud, it was funny a times, and poignant, and there is bit of Jamila in all of us.

 

 

 

Gabrielle Tozer is an award-winning author, freelance writer and editor based in regional New South Wales. She is the author of seven books, including Can't Say It Went to Plan, Remind Me How This Ends, Melody Trumpet, Peas and Quiet, Faking It and The Intern, which won the 2015 State Library of Victoria's Gold Inky Award.

Gabrielle's non-fiction piece 'Lessons in Growing Up' was recently featured in the Teacher, Teacher Anthology, edited by Megan Daley, while her short story 'The Feeling from Over Here' was in the award-winning Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology. Gabrielle loves sharing her passion for storytelling and creativity with readers and aspiring writers, and has appeared at numerous events, including the Sydney Writers' Festival, the Somerset Festival of Literature, StoryFest Out West and the Children's Book Council of Australia's national conference.

The Unexpected Mess of It All is Gabrielle's latest young adult novel, and she is currently collaborating on a trio of picture books with award-winning illustrator Sophie Beer.

🏳️‍🌈 Hot Streak 🏳️‍🌈 Beth Bolden 🏳️‍🌈

 

 

RELEASE DATE: 2ND MAY 2024

 

Young phenom pitcher Connor Clark doesn't want or need help anyone's help making it to the majors.

He's got a hot arm, and an even hotter temper.

So when his minor league team brings in seasoned catcher Jackson Evans to "handle" him, the two clash instantly.

But as the two battle for power, anger gives way to lust, and an awakening Connor didn't see coming.

If Jackson wants to be 'hands on,' they might as well enjoy it. But once again, the man makes Connor work for it. Just like he does on the field.

Only this time, the reward is so much sweeter. When Connor gives in to Jackson's coaching, and Jackson gives in to his attraction, they're instantly on a hot streak—on the field and in bed.

So hot that Connor finally gets that call to the majors he's always wanted.

But what's a pitcher to do without the catcher who owns his heart? Now all Connor needs is to convince Jackson they belong to each other forever, not just on a baseball diamond.

  

 

ARC received via Neon Rainbow Reviews for an honest review

A gay retelling of the movie Bull Durham - one of my favourite baseball movies, up there with the high brow Major League lol - let me at it!

It was the retelling that I didn't know I needed, but boy, did I need it!

I love how things with Connor and Jackson go from utter dislike to locked gazes across the field, the snark to fighting is foreplay, from I can't do this again and force proximity, to Connor's gaywakening.

And I am here for it.

As fun as the story is, it is also emotional, full of complex characters and storylines that kept me intrigued and eagerly turning the next page.

And I also like the snippets of people from Bolden's other series.

Yes, I really did enjoy this one.

And now I am off to watch Bull Durham... again.

 

 

 

 

A lifelong Oregonian, Beth Bolden recently moved to North Carolina with her supportive husband and their sweet kitten, Earl Grey. Beth still believes in Keeping Portland Weird, and intends to be just as weird in Raleigh.

Beth has been writing practically since she learned the alphabet. Unfortunately, her first foray into novel writing, titled Big Bear with Sparkly Earrings, wasn’t a bestseller, but hope springs eternal. She’s published forty-five novels and ten novellas.

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🌞 Emily Henry 🍷📚 FUNNY STORY 💛

 📚 Bianca ⭐ Janeane 📚

F U N N Y  S T O R Y

Emily Henry

• 23 April 2024

• standalone

★★★★★
4.9 Stars

A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads —Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

Daphne + Miles

Daphne should be on her honeymoon with Peter now.

But things went wrong somewhere.

And now she's stuck in Peter's little hometown. Living in a tiny apartment with Miles. Who is the ex of Peter's new girlfriend Petra.

Daphne and Miles are both grieving what they lost. They're sad and teary most days and nights. But then P+P's wedding invitation comes in the mail. And they're so RSVPing to that thing. And not only that ... why should Daphne and Miles sit around at home all sad and mopey? Let's start to live again! Let's start having fun again...

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO DAPHNE + MILES?

READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT ☺

Adorable!

Such a sweet book.

It starts all sad and grievy for Daphne and Miles. But then they start to get to know each other and things get better. Daphne starts to like the town and the people. She's not counting down the days until she can leave anymore.

Miles is so much more than what she always thought - or what Peter told her about him.

Daphne's job at the library is her absolute dream job. She starts making friends. She starts having her own life. Not the WE-life she had with Peter, where it was always only about him.

I just loved reading this.

Daphne and Miles are so perfect for each other. Both so broken and sad. And both not really ready for anything new. But at the same time so ready for their very own amazing happily ever after.

It was a really great book. Great cast of people. Great location. Just a very beautiful story!

I need to see this as a movie one day!

FUNNY STORY was such a sweet and adorable and funny love story. Run to your nearest book dealer for your own Miles - he'll be sold out in no time! ☺

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Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation, and Beach Read, as well as the forthcoming Happy Place. She lives and writes in Cincinnati and the part of Kentucky just beneath it.