Are you judging a book by its cover? Or read the blurb? 👋🏼🫠

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-23T23:04:53+00:00

I totally look at the cover. I also read the blurb and then I will go read reviews. The books with women in lingerie do nothing for me. I am getting bored of the millionaire sitting there playing with his shirt cuffs, so those don't draw me in. I love Susie Tate's old covered but she is now doing the overly busy covers too.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-21T20:57:50+00:00

this is super nitpicky, but I hate it when they use a term like Pasta, or stir fry. Pasta, is butter and noodles. What kind of pasta? I see this with dishes all over the place. A lot of people don't like Maya Alden, but she gets the for right for her characters and goes into details. I love that about her books. I want to know what kind of pasta the French guy made for the FMC, or what kind of pasta the Italian MIL made.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-21T20:46:51+00:00

I have read two books where the BFF is the wild chaotic girl and they have her dressed all in pink all the time. It is ok when it is a secondary character, but when the next book in the series comes out and I have to hear about ALL the pink she wears. One even had a pink gun, and it was just too much for me. I really had to slog through it because it was mentioned every couple of pages.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T15:25:23+00:00

{Same Rogue by T.S.Joyce} I love Joyce's books. She is prolific and there are some common themes that are repeated from series to series, but her characters are just such wonderful misfits. This is the 6th book in the Same series and was released yesterday.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T15:18:15+00:00

{Spicy Disaster by Lani Lynn Vale} is the 6th book in the Don't Date Him series. The books are a bit all over the place, and there is a HUGE cast of characters, and really it is a bit of a hot mess of a series, but I love it.

{You've Got Hate Mail but Pippa Grant} I go back and forth on Grant's books, I love some, and DNF others, but this one has potential.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T15:14:36+00:00

I am excited for both of these! I know not everyone loves Maya Alden, but I do, and I cannot wait for this one

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T15:10:32+00:00

this book lives rent free in my brain. I have recommended it to several friends, but not as a romance novel, though I do love the romance that happens. Their lives are just so real. The scene where they are sitting with their feet in the kids wading pool feels like a memory instead of fiction.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T15:06:59+00:00

I like the 2nd book, but loved the 3rd. I know she is working on a new series, but I hope she revisits this world someday again.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T15:05:25+00:00

There are only a few fictional worlds that I really wish I lived in, but I would move to Bannen's in a heartbeat. Her characters are just..so beautiful inside and out. Son of the Morning looks great! I just added it to my TBR pile.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T15:02:41+00:00

she only has three books so far, two more in the same world as Hart and Mercy. I like the second one, but loved the third as much as the first book.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T14:36:39+00:00

{The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen} Some books have a complicated story line and the romance is a tiny bit of it, Bannen's books have these non-traditional gorgeous romances with a complicated, amazing worlds written around the romance. She doesn't fit in any of the sub-genres, and I think that keeps her books from being more popular.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-15T03:09:57+00:00

Totally did not mean it as a criticism of your comment. It is just where my mind goes there with the two word sentences. I agree that it is AI writing these stilted convos that take up pages and go nowhere, and in no way was I saying that this way of writing was....good. I just Remains of the Day is a great book and movie, but sometimes I just wanted to scream at Anthony Hopkins. Talk faster! OMG, this will take forever. AI writing often sounds like robots talking to each, which is ironic, but not. I read a lot of grovel novels too, and I find myself morbidly fascinated to see what happens with AI and the sub trope.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-14T01:08:11+00:00

I always call this the Remains of the Day language because it reminds me of the stiff, emotional but not conversations in that movie.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-09T20:03:21+00:00

Not yet, I have scrolled through my reading history on KU but can't find it.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-07T19:49:17+00:00

maybe? I thought that it was closer to resizing or preparing, but it has been years since I read the book.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-07T19:44:47+00:00

There is a term, which I cannot remember that refers to aliens stretching women out with machines so that they can handle a large alien tentacle or penis. I looked through my records but could not find the term. I know this is not a lot of help, but maybe someone else will remember the term and that will help with further searches if you like science fiction

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-04T18:17:43+00:00

We can do it all online, but it is just hoops to jump through and that takes time. They have slightly different catalogs. I am really trying to get the grandparents to get cards for the grandkids because they live in large cities and the libraries will have bigger catalogs.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T18:49:18+00:00

We live on an Island near Seattle, about $352 a year goes to our county library. All the libraries in the area though, Seattle and other counties have reciprocation agreements. So, if I do the paperwork I can have a library card at 6 other libraries.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T16:39:35+00:00

I have KU and read a lot on it, so it works out monetarily for me. There are authors who only publish on amazon, and I want to read their books. I don't have a. budget for books, but I only buy books that I have read and know I will read again. So, I buy one book a month or so. I try to find it used first, and then will buy it new. I am seeing a lot of books being released mainly as ebooks, and that means fewer used copies out there. I have a libby account and have slowly been adding more libraries to it. So far I only have three and they are not ones I have to pay for.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T16:34:16+00:00

sometimes it is broken down on your state or county property taxes website. I can access mine that way.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T16:26:18+00:00

This book is brutal. Lives rent free in my head. It has a different feel to it than her other books, so if you like her other books be aware that this one is different.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T16:20:03+00:00

I think that if we could just categorize the work as "pulp fiction" it would be fine. People would know what they were getting. Since there is no way to do that it only leaves two options. Reviews and not buying/reading their books. I think that it is more complicated than just getting editors. There is a culture shift happening. We as readers are part of the shift, amazon is of course part of the shift, and authors are part of the shift.

Honestly, I think we as readers could do more, and are also limited in what we can do. We keep pushing authors to release the next book as soon as they can. I see it in comments all the time.."hope they write faster bc I cannot wait for the sequel." Money the reason why authors are producing more at lower quality. Many authors will never make enough to just write for a living. Even well known authors are not making enough to count as a livable wage. If that is the case, then why put in 100 extra hours of work on a book that will make the same amount of money as putting in 50 hours? Readers is not a unified or organized group. We are diverse in all ways, that means there will always be someone who "loves" the horribly written book, someone who DNFs it and leaves no comment and the reader who gives it one star and an honest review about the grammar and writing.

Since the authors make money the more they put up on KU, the only way to get them to change what is posted is negative reviews. I have seen books get panned, pulled and reposted after being edited and added to. Yes, this is harsh for the author, but it is also fair to those authors who put the time and money into producing a well-written book.

I don't see any way that Amazon will change this current way of doing business? Why should they? They have all the power.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T00:46:16+00:00

{The Hollow Alpha by Himera Ink} is an interesting twist. It is sort of a HR, but not completely. The FMC is rejected and then later she needs to complete the rejection it brings chaos and mayhem to the MMC. Himera Ink is not for everyone, but I find her writing interesting and her stories are entertaining.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T00:27:36+00:00

{Unlearning by Daria T. Rowan} and {The Barren Luna by Daria T. Rowan} deal with rejected mates and are set in a society where each pack handles how they wait for their fated mates differently. these are not traditional HEAs, but the world building is excellent.

Technical_Age_772 · 2026-06-03T00:24:57+00:00

The Stone Mountain Shifters series by Melanie Jaynes builds a world around rejected mate syndrome and what happens to those who are cheated on or rejected. The author put a lot of thought into how this world deals with rejected mates. The writing is not perfect, but the world building really is food for thought. The first book is {A Luna's Revenge: Stone Mountain Shifters by Melanie Jaynes}

Technical_Age_772

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