Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

Length: 369 Pages

Genres: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

"He loved Chloe. He loved Chloe like a blank canvas and a finished piece and all the exhilarating, painful, stop-and-start moments in between. He loved Chloe like tearing through the on his Triumph, feeling in motion when he couldn't feel alive inside. He loved Chloe like every she shot was a kiss and every kiss she gave him was a breadcrumb-sized piece of her heart in his hands."

Trigger Warnings in this book for mentions of mental and physical abuse

I'm on a real roll with my book choices lately! This is the second book I've rated five stars this year (I've had a rough year and I've only read four books) and also one of the most enjoyable romances I've ever read. 

Chloe Brown is determined to get a life after a near death experience brings her life into stark relief. Chloe has Fibromyalgia and along with that comes chronic pain and ritualistic remedies and lots of avoidance of things that could exacerbate her illness.Since she's been diagnosed she has lost not only many friends, but her ex-fiance, who didn't believe in her pain. She's created a safe cocoon of a life, but a boring one, too. So she does what any meticulous, detail orientated mind would - she makes a list of things that will give her a "life" - from riding on the back of a motorcycle to a drunken night out. 

Her first objective that she completes is to move out of her parents lush home, which she shares with youngest sister Eve and her glamorous "Gigi", Garnet. Chloe's new apartment and freedom is the first step in the right direction, but there's one annoying hitch in her plan. 

The superintendent of the building, Redford "Red" Morgan. Tall, red-headed, and tattooed, Red is everything that Chloe isn't. But once they get past their differences, all with the help of a fat gray cat named Smudge who helpfully gets stuck in a tree, Chloe and Red click. Little does Red know, he has already helped Chloe cross one item off her list: do something bad. She spies on him as he paints in his apartment, shirtless, and with a vigor that sets her on fire.

I cannot remember the last time I had so much fun reading a romance! Chloe is a perfect heroine, prickly and sarcastic, strong-willed and smart, and Red loves her for it. Red was absolutely swoon-worthy with his love of art and his dream to visit MoMA, his love for his mother and his gentleness. It was a breath of fresh air to see how much he respected her boundaries, always asking before making the next move and always seeking her consent and comfort. Red has problems of his own, all results of an abusive previous relationship, and when he's triggered by something that Chloe does they both react in the way of people that have been hurt before. But it doesn't take them long to talk things out like adults, and the way he left her little gifts of things she loved - sea salt chocolates, hair-scrunchies that won't snag her hair, and a plush toy that looks like Smudge, brought a smile to my face. The sex scenes were sensual and hot and full of the love between these two people, which made it all the better.

I cannot wait to pick up the next book that Talia has written which is about one of Chloe's sister, the bisexual uber-smart Dani! I loved the way she handled Chloe's illness (my mother has chronic pain as well) and Red toxic relationships and the steps he took to better himself. She's gone on my must-read authors list, for when I need something full of joy and as warm as a pair of fuzzy socks!

Book Review: The Animals at Lockwood Manor

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey
Length: 352 Pages
Genres: Historical Mystery, Historical Fiction, Gothic, LGBTQ
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

"In my dreams, there was a beast hunting me through the corridors on padded feet as I fled, dressing gown flapping behind me like the useless wings of a flightless bird. The beast was larger than a hound, too large for any mammal without hooves native to this island, and sometimes it was not a beast at all, but a woman with the claws of an animal and crazed eyes smeared with soot, who crawled out of a mirror dressed in white and trailed pale petals in her wake."

Trigger Warnings in this book for child abuse, sexual assault, and rape

I have been waiting to read this novel since I very first saw it, and let me tell you it did not let me down. This book is my favorite I've read of 2020 so far, and I think you should read it, too. It is everything I've dreamed of in a book for so long - ghosts, old mysterious estates with even more mysterious rooms, and most importantly, a slow and rewarding romance between the heroine and the troubled daughter of the house!

Hetty Cartwright is a loner, her dearest friends the taxidermied animals that she looks after at the Natural History Museum of London. But with the coming of WWII and the threat of bombs, they are no longer safe, so she follows them to their new home in the countryside at Lockwood Manor. The house is foreboding, the owner, Lord Lockwood, even more so, but beneath the dark shadows and secrets there is a glimmer of light - Lucy Lockwood, troubled as much as she is beautiful and kind. She is plagued by terrible nightmares, of a dead leveret from her childhood, a monster that chases her through the many rooms of the house, and most importantly, a blue room that doesn't exist. 

We get an insight into Lucy through chapters told by her and of her fear that she is just as mad as her mother was. This is not the first time Lucy has been unwell, but all of it dragged back up by the shocking death of her mother, who was plagued by ghosts both figurative and imagined, and her grandmother. 

Hetty is plagued by her own problems, both internal and external. I related to the character of Hetty more than I've ever related to another, and I felt every pain, joy, and shock as if it were my own.

I'm going through one of my hardest points in my life right now, and I struggle every day with my OCD, anxiety, and depression. Many of her fears were the same as mine: her fear of being alone but also seeking the familiar comfort of it, her feeling of being unworthy of Lucy or of love in general. I understood her loneliness as a woman who loved another woman in wartime Britain as much as I understand my own as a bisexual woman from a small Texas city. But unlike Hetty, who has no one in her life, her mother a cruel and distant memory, I do have family, who I love deeply and who support me. I was so sorry for her.

To add to her anxieties, some of the animals start going missing, the first victim the jaguar. And then a display of old hummingbirds, and some ivory. Hetty keeps feeling as if the animals have been rearranged in the room but can't be sure - is she imagining it, or is something more nefarious going on? As Hetty and Lucy grow closer, Lucy's problems come to the forefront. She is scared to leave Lockwood, but scared to stay, and Hetty is lost on how to help.

The end of this book was sweeter than I could have hoped for and made my heart ache, and did something else very important - it made me realize that we're all strange and sad in our own ways, but we all can find someone to be strange and sad with.

Jane Healey can write, and write well. I loved reading this book and was jealous as many times as I was delighted by her prose. She has secured herself a firm spot on my must-read list. The hardcover is so gorgeous I'm thinking about buying it, though I rarely buy physical copies any more!