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LAST YEAR I WAS READING…(April 7, 2021)

This meme was created by Reading Marie. It’s a great meme because it’s nice and easy to do.

Here are the rules:

Take your current read and compare it to what you reading this exact time last year. Which one do you like better? What is different about the books? Any special facts/things you want to make note of or bring attention to


This Year I Am Reading…

New York City, 1924

Once their paths cross, their worlds will never be the same.

Amazon Buy Links: Kindle  | Audiobook

A riveting Prohibition era novel about an Irish and an Italian brought together by a murder and drawn to each other by a magnetic attraction that defies society and religion. I actually just finished this. I have some niggles but I loved it. Full review soonish.


Last Year I Was Reading…

At only thirty-two, Bishop Stockley has lived a hard-knock life. His gang was his family, the streets his home. Until the crew he’d always called his brothers betrayed him. After doing five years in a federal prison, Bishop is back at his dad’s trailer and working for his landscaping company, thrust into a legit world where he’s no longer the alpha—a world where a criminal record is the least of his disadvantages, because Bishop can’t read or write. Illiteracy had never been an obstacle for him on the streets, he didn’t need to know how to read Moby Dick to survive, he needed to know how to read people… and that was a hustle he’d learned hard and fast. Now, he had to change his life.

Amazon Buy Links: Kindle | Audiobook

A highly enjoyable novel about one man’s struggle to rise above and be a better person while finding love along the way. This is one of the author’s best written work. You’ll find yourself rooting hard for Bishop and Edison.

My 4-star review here.


Two very different books today that were somehow tangentially connected. One is a historical novel about a group of criminals, the other is a contemporary romance novel about an ex-con. Both have an endearing romance that took its sweet time simmering.

The Venetian and the Rum Runner is an enemies to lovers novel about two men from opposing factions. This set in 1924 at the time when the Irish and Italian gangs had just ended their feuds and people still harbor grudges. Danny Moore, who leads a gang of petty thieves, was forced to work for Carmine Bataglia after the death of a notorious gangster. This gritty crime novel deftly interweaves religion, family, love, poverty and survival.

Bishop is a about an ex-con who had to build a life for himself after being released from prison. Unbeknownst to most people, Bishop struggled to read. He met the love of his life, Edison, when he was working as a landscape artist for the other man’s office. This is a very inspiring novel of one person’s quest to improve himself, not because he had a wonderful boyfriend, but because he owed it to himself.

These two slow burn stories are both equally worth the indulgence but when it comes to the ending, I prefer Bishop and Edison’s sugary and conclusive HEA to Danny and Carmine’s bittersweet but still very optimistic HFN.


I’m ending the post with a book I’m looking forward to reading.

A fox can set many traps to catch his target—but this one only needs one to catch his.

Amazon Buy Link: Kindle

Another A.E. Via for me. I am a huge fan of her Nothing Special series. She dropped a huge teaser for Fox and Bull in the previous books and here we’ll see if the wily Fox finally catches the elusive Bull.


What were you reading this time last year?

(I hope it’s as riveting as Morticia’s book)

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