Rachel Reads & Reviews

Catherine Hapka Interview

Catherine Hapka is one of the most prolific authors you may not know you know. Writing over 100 books as herself, and as a ghostwriter from the S.A.S.S. series to Nancy Drew, Star Power, HTTYD and more, she graciously took the time to answer my questions about her start, what makes a ghostwriter, and what’s…

rachelbeerwoman

July 31, 2025

Interview

#children’slit, #disneyhyperion, #emeryeverafter, #ghostwriter, #ghostwriting, #harpercollins, #IPs, #nancydrew, #rachelreads&reviews, #simon&schuster, #sweetvalley, #theacircuit, #thehardyboys, #thesaddleclub

Instructions for Dancing Review

Evie Thomas doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually. As…

rachelbeerwoman

July 30, 2025

Reviews

#comingofage, #contemporaryromance, #delcourtpress, #instructionsfordancing, #magicalrealism, #magicalrealisn, #nicolayoon, #penguinrandomhouse, #rachelreads&reviews, #realisticfiction, #YA

Ranking The Wedgeford Trials

Courtney Milan does it again! I wrote in my ranking for Milan’s Turner trilogy that Milan is a rare romance author who nixes the miscommunication trope that plague so many couples. Rather she subverts the status quo and has the couple communicate like mature adults while maintaining the suspense of internal/external forces threatening their coupledom.…

rachelbeerwoman

July 29, 2025

Rankings

#asianmcs, #avonromance, #courtneymilan, #historicalfiction, #historicalromance, #rachelreads&reviews, #thedukewhodidn’t, #theearlwhoisn’t, #themarquiswhomusn’t, #thewedgefordtrials

Speak Review

The first ten lies they tell you in high school. “Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say.” From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted…

rachelbeerwoman

July 27, 2025

Reviews

#lauriehalseanderson, #rachelreads&reviews, #realisticfiction, #speak, #YA

Three Girls in the City

Horse girls may be more familiar with Jeanne Betancourt for her popular Pony Pals series, here she takes a different slice of life approach with, as the title says, Three Girls in the City. The premise is as follows: NYC, 2002. Three 13 year-old girls meet at a summer photo Carolyn, fresh from Wyoming, motherless…

rachelbeerwoman

July 26, 2025

Book Suggestions, Book/Author Highlight

#blackandwhite, #closeup, #comingofage, #exposed, #jeannebetancourt, #middlegrade, #rachelreads&reviews, #realisticfiction, #scholastic, #selfportrait, #threegirlsinthecity

Ranking Lively St. Lemons

Lively St. Lemons is a small village with intense political rivalries between the Whigs and Tories. But that’s a side note to the intricacies of the population therein. 1. Sweet Disorder: Phoebe Sparks is such a unique heroine in the historical romance genre. She’s plus-sized, hot-tempered, has intense maternal desire, and a dirty mind. She…

rachelbeerwoman

July 25, 2025

Rankings

#atasteofhoney, #falsepretenses, #historicalromance, #listentothemoon, #livelyst.lemons, #rachelreads&reviews, #roselerner, #sweetdisorder

My Sister the Vampire

Yes, I return to the world of early 2000s nostalgia with this series-My Sister the Vampire. This time I read all eighteen books. Here’s the initial premise. When Olivia Abbott moves to town, she’s excited to join the cheerleading team and make new friends. Then she meets Ivy Vega. At first, Ivy, pale and dressed…

rachelbeerwoman

July 23, 2025

Book Suggestions, Book/Author Highlight

#fangsforthememories, #harpercollins, #middlegrade, #mysisterthevampire, #rachelreads&reviews, #scholastic, #siennamercer, #spooktacular, #supernatural, #vampires

Twisted Tales: Cruel Truth Review

What if Anita and Cruella were best friends? It’s 1953, and teenage Anita Weatherby and her family have just moved to a booming postwar London. While her older sister settles right in, to the delight of their parents, Anita finds their new school—and her academic rival, Roger Radcliffe—daunting. Nothing seems to be going Anita’s way…

rachelbeerwoman

July 11, 2025

Reviews

#crueltruth, #disneyhyperion, #jencalonita, #onehundredandonedalmatians, #rachelreads&reviews, #twistedtales, #YA

Book Highlight: Goddesses

As I mentioned in a previous post that part of quarter-life crisis is finding and reading books from my childhood, this is one I never had read but I remember being intrigued by the cover long long ago. Finally, I have read it. Three goddesses, banished to earth by their dad, Zeus (yeah, that Zeus)……

rachelbeerwoman

July 10, 2025

Book/Author Highlight

#cleahantman, #goddesses, #greekmythology, #harpercollins, #heavensent, #loveorfate, #lowergrade, #musesonthemove, #threegirlsandagod

The Singular Life of Aria Patel Review

Aria Patel likes stability, certainty, predictability. It’s why she’s so into science. It’s why she dumped her boyfriend before they went to different colleges because the odds were that something would go wrong, eventually. In a life that’s already so chaotic, why obsess over complicated relationships and shadowy unknowns when the scientific method gives you direction and a straight…

rachelbeerwoman

July 2, 2025

Reviews

#contemporaryromance, #hachettebookgroup, #littlebrownbooksforyoungreaders, #multiverse, #rachelreads&reviews, #realisticfiction, #samiraahmed, #sciencefiction, #thesingularlifeofariapatel, #YA