Genre: Adult Fiction, Romance, F/F, Erotica, LGBTQI

WOW! Just, WOW!! That's all I can say after reading the latest instalment within the Pink Bean Series by Harper Bliss.

When I finished Everything Between Us, after only 48 hours of starting to read it, I remember trying to analyse all the emotions that were running through me throughout my journey alongside Josephine and Caitlin, and I was staggered at what I found.

I was exhausted. I was drained. I was happy. I was sad. I felt love. I felt heartache. I felt confident. I felt dejection. Inevitably I was transformed.

After reading this book, I feel like a different person. I have been able to not only relate to aspects of what Josephine was saying in her book, but I lived it with her. I have experienced her transformation in her self-confidence, that I can only use to help my own.

I feel from this that actually the writing of it was more of a therapeutic and emotional account than the previous two books in the series, and this does shine through with the amount of raw emotion within it. You cannot write something like this if you haven't experienced aspects of it yourself. Thank you for sharing this Harper, this is something truly special.

Josephine, as a character, really hit-home for me. It was like reading about a kindred spirit in her thought processes. I liked how she developed throughout the book and at the end I was brought to tears with happiness at how she had almost done a full-circle and how much she had grown.

However, I cannot forget Caitlin, she was inspirational in the way she conducted herself with Jo - and I admire that of her. To be such a positive catalyst of change in someone's life is one of the greatest gifts that she could have given Jo.

Also, there were introductions of other characters within this novel, hopefully meaning that the Pink Bean series is far from finished - interesting. I am certainly interested to know, and Harper was quite coy about this within this novel, about the development of Amber and Martha's liaisons - this could be a potential idea for Pink Bean #4.

I gave this a whopping five out of five stars purely for the way it made me feel during and after reading it. I learned a lot from this book, to which I am eternally thankful to Harper. In the end - I just loved everything about it, from start to finish.

​Definitely a must read - what are you waiting for...

Genre: F/F, Adult Fiction, Romance, Erotica, LGBTQI

So, I decided to give Lydia Rose another chance after reading Trust In Me and I must say - I was still very disappointed.

I really do like Rose's ideas - they have huge potential, but the end product is far from polished.

​The dialogue within Summer of Dreams left me exasperated - the conversations the characters were having are not believable. They would come out with things and I would throw my hands up in the air in frustration. The tone of the dialogue needed to be much more colloquial and natural.

For me, this made the narrative very predictable, which puts a black mark against this, which is a shame. As I mentioned above the plot and idea of this book were good and I enjoyed the idea of it, i.e the escape of one life to the beginning of another. This could have worked with a lot more thought and polishing of the dialogue.

​I did like the characters, but their dialogue didn't make them believable as individuals. Their backgrounds and the description was good - I liked the flow of the narration and the way that 

My reasoning behind the two out of five stars is all the things mentioned above. I'm sorry Lydia, I wanted to try and give this more, but I could not. I will take a break from Lydia's books for now, but may revisit them at some point.

Genre: Poetry

The Woman Who Was Not There is a collection of poetry that tackles some very deep topic areas.

I purchased this book after watching Raymond Antrobus' video review of it on YouTube (#RayRecommends) - see below, and I must say I wasn't disappointed.

​Joelle cleverly utilises poetical and literary devices, such as; rhyming couplets, oxymorons, alliteration, similes and metaphors - in order to create extremely vivid imagery.

​Each piece is so deep and dark and tells such a powerful and poingoint story that I was completely absorbed from start to finish.

Throughout every verse I could picture Joelle on stage passionately performing them in her unique style. Below is a piece from the book called 'No Mans Land' performed by Joelle.

Joelle is a key poet in demonstrating against the man within a world torn with social change. She works with refugees, incarcerated prisoners and individuals who live in some of the roughest areas in London - she's the catalyst for their voices, she makes them get heard.

I gave this book four out of five stars purely for the planning that you would need to do when you are about to read this collection, and I highly recommend you do give this a go, therefore I would put aside a decent amount of time to completely absorb yourself in this book.

Awesome stuff Joelle - I cannot wait to see what you come up with next...

Genre: Romance, Adult Fiction, F/F, Erotica, LGBTQI

Something True encompasses the narrative of two very unlikely people meeting and falling in love.

However, it's not that straight forward - actually it delves much deeper than that. In one instance it explores how elements of our 'day-to-day' life can prevent us from being our 'true' selves. In the other it examines the lost potential of a life lived to help benefit others.

Karelia cleverly weaves this into the narrative so that we do not even notice it, which makes it subtle, but also adds context to the individual characters and their backstory.

Personally for me, it was refreshing to see an F/F romance novel clearly using the Butch lesbian persona - strangely when reading previous novels this has not been the case, it has usually been the story of two femmes, which is good, but I feel like it gets repetitive so it was really enjoyable to have the inclusion of this persona.

As you can probably guess from the paragraph above, I really liked the character of Tate, she was like a breath of fresh-air within the F/F genre, not only with her being a butch, but her whole persona. It was clear that she is the type of person that is so loyal she will do anything to help out those she really cares about.

​I liked her as a heroine, it was like an oxymoron, with her being the one everyone turns too in order to 'fix' things, but it was actually her that needed saving, but no-one could see that. I was routing for her the entire way through the book.
 
The reason for me giving this only four out of five stars is that in certain parts the book picked up pace and then slowed a little, which put me on a rollercoaster ride when reading this.

Also, the whole heroine aspect in the Romance genre seemed to make certain elements of this book a little predictable, however, there were also quite a few unexpected twists and turns along the way. So, not all bad.

An idea for another edition in the Out In Portland series could be Maggie and Lils story, we were not given too much on their history in this book, so I think there is definitely a good opportunity to tell their story. Just a thought...

​Genre: Poetry

So, I must point out by saying that the Witches of Aira Falls collection of poetry is clearly geared at an older child/young teen. When opening the front cover I had no idea what to expect from this book, but I must say - I was very pleasantly surprised.

Joanna has done this extremely well, as the style is rhythmic, but easy to read and visualise.

While reading this book I could clearly get a grasp to what the characters were like and their differences were clearly defined - the use of adverbs, similes and metaphors were used very effectively to achieve this.

The structure of the pieces of verse in this book isn't overly complex, as there are no difficult rhyming schemes or intricate and elaborate words being used, which goes to show that this collection is aimed at a young audience.

However, this does not mean that an older audience would not enjoy it and get as much out of it - essentially it's a collection for anyone and everyone, which I like.

From the outset of this book it is clear that the objective is not simply to pass on verse simply for the sake of doing so, oh no, this book has a purpose - to educate.

This book is very engaging for the reader, as towards the end of the book they are asked to get involved, either by composing their own poem or by drawing their own pictures, which is certainly new and innovative - so kudos to you Joanna.

I gave this book four out of five stars in the main because at the end of the book I was left with wanting to know more, which is not a bad thing - it's always good to keep the reader wanting more, I'm just impatient. I am very intrigued to see how this collection develops...