False Confidence by Sophie Snow | Book Review

[ad/gifted - I received an eBook copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.]

Author & Title: False Confidence by Sophie Snow

My rating: 5/5

Publication date: 13th August 2024

Blurb:

From fake orgasms to fake nonchalance, Jasmine Cannon has spent so long playing pretend she has everyone convinced she’s the fun, chaotic friend without a care in the world. Everyone except her best friend’s new stepson, Liam Michaelson, that is.

Liam has wanted Jazz since the second he laid eyes on her, but when she agrees to be his fake date for his ex’s wedding, he doesn’t expect to fall into bed with her. Again. Not that he remembers much of the drunken hookup they’ve never talked about…

When Liam discovers Jazz hasn’t had an orgasm in a decade, he’s determined to be the one to get her there. But Jazz isn’t as carefree as she pretends, and working through her orgasm-block causes her perfectly crafted facade to crack.

After years of faking it, Jazz has finally found someone she wants to be real with—now she just has to learn how.

Review:

When I read Legally Binding, the first in the Spicy in Seattle series, I loved Maggie and Cal so much that I thought they would be hard to top. We met Jazz, Maggie's best friend, and Liam, Cal's son, in that book but I didn't expect to fall in love with them as much as I did. I would definitely advise reading Legally Binding before False Confidence.

The spice hits right from the prologue when the two have a one night stand following Cal and Maggie's wedding. Fast forward and Liam has been invited to his ex-girlfriend's wedding (to his ex-best friend who she cheated with) and in order to save face, Maggie recommends that he brings Jazz as his date, unaware of their night together. Jazz and Liam then enter into a mini fake dating scenario that turns into a spicy pact. Sophie Snow writes serious topics that pack and punch and the development of feelings very well. Jazz has her struggles but how she overcomes them with the help of Liam, her best friend Maggie and on her own is beautifully done.

There is a realistic friendship between Maggie and Jazz. Their arguments and Jazz's worries about Maggie's new married life and where she fits in feels very real. I enjoyed her personal development throughout the entirety of the novel. I loved hearing about Maggie's dynamic with her family in book one so I was pleased to have similar for Jazz.

Now for Liam. Can someone conjure him up in real life please? Sophie Snow is a character queen and I thought Cal was swoonworthy? It's in the Michaelson genes I guess. I said it for The Rule Of Three and Legally Binding and I will say it for False Confidence - those spicy scenes are top notch.

10/10. Perfection with a little bow on top. Bring on the next one! 

Honey by Isabel Banta | Blog Tour Book Review

[ad/gifted - I received an eBook copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.]

Author & Title: Honey by Isabel Banta 

My rating: 4/5

Publisher: Zaffre

Publication date: 25th June 2024

Blurb:

It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It's a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.

As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, she increasingly finds herself reduced to a body, a voice, an object. Surrounded by the wrong kind of people and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything, and one mistake can shatter a career.

Inspired by the starlets of the 90s and noughties who became as infamous for their personal lives as their hypersexualised music videos and lyrics, Honey is a novel about the journey from girlhood to womanhood and how far we are willing to go in the pursuit of love...

Review:

Honey tells the story of Amber Young in the nineties and early 2000s. Singing is the only thing she is good at. She enters a show called Star Search when she is young but loses to a boy called Wes who can't believe his luck, as he thinks Amber is a fantastic singer.

At the age of seventeen, Amber is put into a girl group called Cloud9. There, she becomes good friends with bandmate Gwen, and the Cloud9 girls open for boyband ETA, Wes's band.

The novel follows Amber leaving the band and making it as a solo artist. The vibe feels nostalgic and it focuses on the industry, tabloids, the sexualisation of female artists. She is competing against other female solo singers (including her best friend Gwen), her relationships are highly publicised, people online say things about her. 

There are some aspects of mixed media in there too and whilst I love that, I would have enjoyed an extra chapter on Amber now in her forties with her husband and child and how that came to be, rather than it being akin to a Wikipedia article.

I really enjoyed this book and it is a great, easy to read debut. 

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A massive thank you to Zaffre and Compulsive Readers for having me on the blog tour. You can find information on the other bloggers taking part in the tour in the graphic below.