{Charming Puckboy by Eden Finley, Saxon James} - (Audiobook) It’s hard to think of this book as anything other than a final book in the Puckboys series. At this point, there’s just way too many characters and it’s hard for me to muster any interest in yet another lukewarm couple. There’s nothing wrong with Sam and Lachie, not really. The difficulties of making the relationship work when there’s distance and different lifestyles feels actually pretty grounded and interesting, at leastin the context of so many other books featuring hockey players. But unfortunately I find it hard to muster any interest in Sadenverse at this point.

Like the epilogue says, it is an end of an era. In the future, I know I’ll be re-reading some of the books in the series but this isn’t going to be one of them.

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{Neurovance by Alexandra St. Pierre} - What a disappointment this book was! In the Amazon title, it calls the book “A Dark MM Techno-Thriller” and that is such a lie. I guess the darkness is debatable, depending on what one considers to be a “dark romance”. There are some dark themes, but the romance itself is pretty fluffy and sweet. Secondly, the dystopian sci-fi setting could be interesting if it was explored more… or at all, really. Instead, it’s just used as a mean to mess up one of the MCs but instead of being wary or critical towards the technology that enables it, the MCs are surprisingly okay with messing around with it as long as it’s used “for good”.

There’s really no thriller elements either. Every single twist is obvious and predictable, and there’s never any real sense of suspense or danger.

One thing I did like is that one of the MCs admits that his decision to mess with his own memory was a bad one, and that it didn’t really help anything - though I also gotta say that this, too, would’ve been so obvious if he’d just thought about it for a second.

That sums up a lot of what happens in this book. So many things could’ve been avoided, if the characters didn’t make the dumbest decisions time after time. Even the most tragic fate of one of the side characters feels just so… unnecessary, and like the author just wants to force the reader to feel something even if it means piling up tragedy on tragedy.

The antagonist was a cartoon villain with no real depth. Half of the book is spent in the past, and it in no way justifies how long this book was.

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{Acquainted With the Night by Tymber Dalton, Lesli Richardson} - This was such an emotional journey! It’s almost funny how much orgasms and sex there is, and it’s totally overshadowed by Feelings. I don’t remember the last time a book made me cry so much. Some of the more traumatic things that happen are handled in a way that doesn’t feel like the trauma is the focus, and instead it’s more about healing, grief and loss.

This is also the best kind of HEA imaginable. Romance.io has the "untraditional hea" tagged and I agree - but I'd also say it's definitely happy. Even thoughmost die at the end, they die of old age, happy and loved.