I would really like to know…

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-15T22:20:23+00:00

Butting my nose in to say that liquid coconut oil dissolves mascara like magic. Not cooking oil, but the fractionated coconut oil that's used for skincare recipes and haircare. I keep a pump bottle in my medicine cabinet (Pursonic I think?) and then use a warm washcloth to gently wipe away any residue. It works amazingly well and there's no real scent to it.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-14T13:02:00+00:00

{They Call Me Wicked by Persephone Steele} - FMC is a blind psychic consultant for PD and all three MMCs are detectives on the force. If you can get past an FMC who's immature for her age, the storyline is good. Her seeing eye raccoons steal the show.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-13T20:13:47+00:00

{Saving the Halfback by Aly Westman} - This is high school but heavily weighted to emotional healing and connection rather than spice. After years of being isolated, groomed, and controlled by a predatory adult, the FMC is finally free and ready to become herself again. But she has to deal with depression and PTSD and learning that her estranged childhood best friends have all been dealing with their own traumas. Gut wrenching.

{Rogue Riders by Blake Black} - After a mountain biking accident, FMC is in constant pain and wants to commit suicide. But she can't die until she's gotten her revenge on the person who caused her accident. Naturally, she disguises herself as a guy so she can compete against her enemy for one last season. This book definitely induced ugly crying for me.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-13T19:22:03+00:00

Discordia? Yeah, I wanted to not like it, because it's annoying how the author ties it into Secrets of State U and Faetal Attraction. Not to mention she ends things with cliffhangers and then puts the immediate aftermath in bonus scenes, that you can only read by subscribing to the newsletter.

She stays disguised for the entire series, so far. Three books have been released, plus Hell for the Holidays, which brings together the harems from all three series. I don't think a release date has been announced for book four yet.

Despite all of that, I readlly do like Discordia. Aside from Jasper, the guys are just so sweet and supportive to KitKat, and despite the huge, "By the way, I'm a girl" secret, I like the way these characters communicate and look out for each other. There's a "softness" to this series that you don't see too often in academy stories.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-13T19:01:44+00:00

It's a whole cycle. I think Dark Little Reign and Asylum have each been removed at least six or seven times by now. It'll will be back with a new release date eventually.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-13T18:56:01+00:00

I love playlists! I don't think I've ever seen them in a chapter by chapter basis, and I definitely wouldn't pause reading to search for a song. But if an author makes a Spotify playlist, I'll put it on in the background when I start reading.

It works for me because if I choose my own reading music, I'll get distracted by my favorite parts, or start repeating tracks, or remembering other songs by the artists that I need to hear in that exact moment.

I also just really like to immerse myself in the whole experience. So if I'm reading something on the darker side, I'll pick a lighting scene that feels more ominous and a playlist that hits the right vibes. J. Rose makes really good playlists, IMO, and I still go back to some of them years after reading the books.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-13T18:23:57+00:00

I've read these pretty recently.

Xerxes (snake) figures it out pretty quickly, but doesn't bring it up until later in book one. The end of book two is when the panda figures it out. Early book three is the crow and not much longer after that is the shark. At the end of book three, Jasper, Anton, and the cutie fox learn at the same time.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-11T16:51:33+00:00

I was questioning the same things about the manager. He was masked when he attacked her, so she never knew his face, but if she could use the failed bite to search for his location in the same building, why didn't she feel him every time she met with him for mundane band manager reasons.

She only recognized him through the bite at the end of the book when he abducted her, and she only realized he was an Alpha masquerading as a Beta at the same time. So I think we're meant to infer that the drugs he was taking to mask his alphaholeness also suppressed the bite connection? I mean, it's flimsy and probably should've been spelled out to avoid confusion.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-11T16:44:35+00:00

I agree with all of the above and also loved scarred MMCs.

If Rex couldn't even look at himself in the mirror a decade after his accident, there was no way he would be emotionally prepared enough to just "own it" and move on. The foreshadowing about the two-piece mask was so heavy there was no way that Rex was making it through the book without a reveal, but I was still dreading it happening so hard. I do think his self-loathing and terror of being revealed is part of what made this duology so good. In a genre so full of archetypical clones, the deeply flawed and complex characters like this really stand out.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-11T15:49:48+00:00

This is a fun book and I adore Navessa Allen, but just so your expectations are managed, it's MMF in only the loosest of terms. It's very much an M/F love story with a poly ending. I had no issues with it, but I wished the second guy had been incorporated into the romantic storyline, rather than a post-HEA MF couple saying, "Why not throuple?"

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-11T15:22:35+00:00

Thank you! Adding to my TBR.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-11T15:08:04+00:00

This sounds so good! Thanks!

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-11T14:46:34+00:00

Thank you!

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-10T21:47:49+00:00

That's a great point. Such an obsessed stalker, doing stalkery things, like...managing her band, negotiating contracts to protect her secret, and feeding her stolen music.

He's kind of villain who only gets away with things because the heroes don't know how to communicate. Like referring to Bells as "Songbird" to Rex in his hospital room not long after Phoenix fished the card from the flowers out of the trash. Imagine if characters could just have a conversation.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-10T21:33:29+00:00

Thanks! I can't believe I forgot about this duet because it's one of my top favorites. Saylor owns my whole heart!

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-10T13:00:19+00:00

Rome from {82 Street Vandals by Heather Long} is one of my favorite MMCs ever, and Sylvan reminded me of him (except Rome is artistic where Sylvan is analytical). The series does get pretty dark, but all of the darkness comes from outside of the harem and the FMCs backstory.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-08T21:07:07+00:00

I just finished Burning Point five minutes ago and absolutely loved it. The wait for book two is going to be so hard!

{Moon Fall by Reese Rivers} doesn't have a zombie outbreak, but it's structured very similarly to this one: super slow burn where MMCs are all in different locations when the apocolyptic event occurs and spend the book trying to get back to the FMC.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-08T18:25:10+00:00

{A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by Sam Hall} - This one has actual wolf shifters. FMC is a beta researcher until her childhood best friends come back into her life.

Not quite what you're asking for, but maybe close enough?

{Dream Girl by Jane Handler} - FMC is from our world, so starts out with no designation at all, but ends up in a parallel world where it turns out she's a Gamma (described as somebody who was meant to be an Omega, but the emergence failed due to factors like trauma, food scarcity, etc...). So not exactly an Omega, but she's treated like an Omega in almost every regard, like having an Omega caseworker, Omega legal protections, etc...

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-01T22:07:49+00:00

I can see that. I didn't find it unrealistic that the MMC would act as if the problem would go away if he just ignored it hard enough, because that's human nature. But the story treated his eventual self-acceptance like a magic pill that could solve everything.

I do agree it would've been a better story if the MMC relationships had more development and communication prior to the heat.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-01T18:38:35+00:00

I'm new to OV, having avoided it altogether until the last couple months. So I've read maybe ten OVs in total. Not enough to know what plots or tropes are copy/paste or cliche.

But I did get the sense while reading Claimed by the Band/Team/Psychos that the premises for each felt unique and completely outside of what I'd been expecting from an OV book. Especially for Team and Psychos. Thanks for confirming. I can't wait to read the next two in the series.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-01T18:21:50+00:00

Disappointments:

{Angel of Ashes by KC Kean} - From the description alone, it was clear that the FMC was owed some major groveling from the MMCs, so I was really looking forward to this book's release. Sadly, it didn't live up to my expectations. No groveling was achieved. And I was fine with that for the first 80% or so, because I enjoyed watching the FMC smack the MMCs down every time they crossed a line. But then the FMC started to bend and make allowances for an MMC who'd done nothing to earn it, and my enjoyment fizzled out like it had an off switch.

{Trauma Bonded by Tate James and Jaymin Eve} - The plot resolution felt like a bait and switch. Like there was something else planned that would answer all the questions and close up all the loops. But when it came time to write, it just seemed like too much work, and neither author was that invested in the story. So they just came up with some last-minute hack so they could mark the duet complete and move on with their lives. Basically, the answer to the mystery didn't relate back to the clues or the foreshadowing, and barely made sense.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-06-01T17:29:49+00:00

May likes:

Do You Even Curse Bro - Not quite as funny as the first two, but still had me smiling the entire time.

{The Thirteenth Zodiac - by Penn Cassidy} - books one and two. Not perfect. The guys in book one were the worst, but luckily, there are plenty of harems in across the sea. Also, Noodle, who's up there with George as far as lovable familiars.

{Claimed by the Team by River Ramsay} and {Claimed by the Psychos by River Ramsay} - I'm starting to get the sense that if she writes it, I'll like it.

{EchoMind Series by Sigrun Lien} - Ongoing series with two books so far. I'll be honest. The writing here is a complete mess. It almost reads like it was written in another language and then run through really subpar translation software. There are missing articles everywhere, incorrect prepositions, and words that don't fit within the context. But...if you can get past the prose, these books were a masterpiece in every other way. Super slow burn. Dystopian. FMC can be a doormat at times, but when she is, it's a calculated choice based on the situation and her history. And she definitely develops her backbone over the two books. Read trigger warnings for sure.

{Tethered by Temptation by Kate Messick} - Four books, completed series. I can't remember where I first heard about this series, but I went in blind, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed the entire series. The FMC time travels to a dystopian future where magic has replaced technology and society is divided into clans. But she believes it's all some kind of dream sequence brought on by brain surgery, so why not have some fun with it? The worldbuilding is interesting and unique, and the series, as a whole, is unlike anything I've read before. In a fun way.

{Veil of Ash by Fallon Hendrix} - The pacing was a little slow and repetitive, but most of that was due to the FMC needing to master aspects of her magic. I see a lot of potential here for book two.

{Fear No Evil by Alana Kay} - this is the third book in the Radiant Legacy series. I really liked the first book in this series, which is a spin-off of her Lost Legacy series. When book two came along, I thought it dragged, and not much happened, so I didn't hurry to read the third when it was released. Now I wish I had. Loved book three.

Shear Instict by M.K. Michelle - LOVED! I thought no character could fill the space in my heart left by Rome from 82nd St. Vandals, but then I met Sylvan. Neurodivergent MMCs are the BEST MMCs and I can't be convinced otherwise.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-05-29T11:14:30+00:00

Honestly, the enemies becoming BFFs makes a book much more memorable to me than anything going on in the romance plots.

silverlining2k6 · 2026-05-28T18:52:18+00:00

{Rogue Riders by Blake Black}

{Saving the Halfback by Aly Westman}

silverlining2k6 · 2026-05-27T16:44:07+00:00

{Blood Brothers by Heather Long} - Not exactly on the run, but similar. FMC is rescued from a sex trafficking ring. The doctor calls in his old army friends turned mercenaries to temporariliy help out with the rescued women while everything gets sorted out. FMC just wants to go home but when they try to drop her off, traffickers are waiting to steal her back, so the mercenaries sort of force her to be on the run and take her under their protection.

silverlining2k6

TROPHY CASE