Blogmas Day 7- 📚 5 Books on top of my TBR for 2022

Hello lovelies! 🥰

This is going up a day late, because my scatterbrained self forgot to click on “schedule” for yesterday’s post and I put it in my draft instead!

I love lists of books and going back to posts to see my own growth, and I’m hoping to do a “what are my thoughts” wrap-up on the books featured here and if they lived up to my expectations.

Reel by Kennedy Ryan

Synopsis: Award-Winning Wall Street Journal Bestselling author Kennedy Ryan launches a brand new series with a Hollywood tale of wild ambition, artistic obsession, and unrelenting love.

One moment in the spotlight.

For months I stood by, an understudy waiting in the wings, preparing for my time to shine.
I never imagined he would watch in the audience that night.
Canon Holt.
Famous film director.
Fascinating. Talented. Fine.
Before I could catch my breath, everything changed.
I went from backstage Broadway to center stage Hollywood.
From being unknown, to my name, Neevah Saint, on everyone’s lips.
Canon casts me in a star-studded Harlem Renaissance biopic, catapulting me into another stratosphere.
But stars shine brightest in the dead of night.
Forbidden attraction, scandal and circumstances beyond my control jeopardize my dream.
Could this one shot—the role of a lifetime, the love of a lifetime—cost me everything?

Why I want to read it: Hook Shot, is now on of my favourite romances ever (my review is coming up tomorrow!!) and I will read anything Kennedy Ryan writes. I love the fact that this is a Black romance and that it celebrates Black love but it's also set in Hollywood with all of its glamour and drama and I want that in my life. I'm so excited to read this!

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Synopsis: Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.
The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.
Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.
And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.
By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them... and what they will leave behind.

Why I want to read it: Is anyone surprised if I say Daisy Jones and The Six? No? Okay. I also loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I want to read the author's backlist so the question is: why haven't I read it yet??

The Maddest Obsession by Danielle Lori

Synopsis: Her dresses are too tight, her heels too tall. She laughs too loudly, eats without decorum, and mixes up most sayings in the book. Little do most know it’s just a sparkly disguise, there to hide one panic attack at a time.
Nobody can crack Gianna’s facade . . . no one anyway, until he comes along.
Most see a paragon of morality; a special agent upholding the law. In the New York underworld, others know him as a hustler, a killer, his nature as cold as the heart of ice in his chest. Christian Allister has always followed the life plan he’d envisioned in his youth, beneath the harsh lights of a frigid, damp cell. With a proclivity for order and the number three, he’s never been tempted to veer off course. But perhaps one should never say never . . .
One winter night and their lives intertwine. She hates him—his stone-cold demeanor, his arrogance and too-perceptive eye—but over the years, even as their games consist of insulting each other’s looks and intelligence, she begins to live to play with him.
Nowhere in Christian’s plans had he ever prepared for Gianna. She’s chaos embodied, not his type, and married, but none of that can stop his eyes from following her wherever she goes.
All along, she doesn’t even know that she’s his—his frustration, his fascination.
His maddest obsession.

Why I want to read it: I am new into the mafia romance genre, but I loved book one The Sweetest Oblivion (like, obsessed!!) and I heard book two was just as good, if not better so I'm very excited! 

Seven Days In June by Tia Williams

Synopsis: Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget and seven days to get it all back again... From the author of The Perfect Find, this is a witty, romantic, and sexy-as-hell new novel of two writers and their second chance at love.

Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone's surprise, shows up in New York.
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York's Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can't deny their chemistry-or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.
Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva's not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered. . .

With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual.

Why I want to read it: This is also a beautiful tale of Black love which my wonderful friend Oyinda, recommended and so far I have loved every single one of her recommendations!

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

art by Morgana Anagrom

Synopsis: Two sisters. One brutal murder. A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself… And an intoxicating romance.

Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.
Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked-princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems…

Why I want to read it:  I want to read it to satisfy my curiosity because it's so popular in the book community. I have also seen some serious mouth watering art of Wrath, the male interest (is it okay to sexualize fictional characters?) and it made me want to pick it up asap!!

What are you hoping to read *soon*? Let me know in the comments! 🥰