Audiobook Review: As You Ice It by Emma St. Clair

🐾🐾🐾🐾 – He’s a hockey star with heart—she’s a single mom guarding hers. Love’s about to break the ice.

Review Date: November 4, 2025 | Release Date: October 21, 2025

As You Ice It by Emma St. Clair is a sweet, slow-burn sports romance that melts your heart faster than a puck in July. Camden Cole, professional hockey player and certified softie beneath all that muscle, collides—literally and emotionally—with Naomi, a single mom whose heart has learned to play defense.

Their story starts with an unexpected spark during Naomi’s short vacation, but life (and distance) quickly separate them. When fate spins them back together in the same small town, what was once a fleeting attraction becomes something far deeper. Camden isn’t just playing for Naomi—he’s showing up for her son, Liam, too, and those scenes will make even the iciest readers thaw.

Emma St. Clair crafts this story with her signature humor and heart. The banter sparkles, the family moments are genuinely touching, and the love story unfolds at a perfect closed-door pace. The chemistry is emotional first, physical second—making every hand brush and late-night confession count.

As an audiobook, Emily Ellet and Rock Engle’s dual narration brings extra charm. Ellet captures Naomi’s guarded tenderness perfectly, while Engle’s deep, patient voice embodies Camden’s warmth and sincerity. Together, they give listeners the kind of cozy, grin-through-the-chapters experience that makes folding laundry or walking your dog feel like prime romance time.

If you love hockey but crave more heart than heat, As You Ice It will absolutely score. It’s about second chances, chosen family, and finding someone who not only wants you—but shows up for your life exactly as it is.

Thanks to the author for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: And Then There Was You by Sophie Cousens

🐾🐾🐾🐾 – When your perfect match turns out to be too perfect… what if the real connection was human all along?

Review Date: November 2, 2025 | Release Date: November 18, 2025

Imagine you’re 31, back at home, job less glamorous than you dreamed, and your high-school/college self would probably roll her eyes at your current life. That’s Chloe Fairway’s starting point — and it’s both cringe and real in that wonderfully rom-com-meets-plate-spinning way.

Chloe’s journey kicks into gear when she signs up for a dating service and is matched with Rob: polite, smart, ideal. But the catch? Rob is not what he seems. I loved how the narrative uses the robot boyfriend concept not as a gimmick but as a mirror for Chloe’s internal questions: What does “perfect” look like? Do I want the version of me I planned, or the version I feel?

Sophie Cousens handles the tension between earnest growth and witty banter with her usual ease. Chloe’s voice is fun — she’s self-aware, a little chaotic, and endearing in her messiness. The spinning of past vs present (Sean Adler, the reunion) plays nicely into the broader theme of “are you where you thought you’d be?” — a trope that often reads hollow, but here it’s grounded in good character work.

Yet: the sci-fi layer pushes the book a bit away from cozy contemporary into something stranger. For readers who only want a traditional rom-com, it may feel jarring. And while the love triangle aspect adds complexity, I found it occasionally distracted from the emotional core — though I appreciated that Chloe didn’t magically arrive at self-acceptance overnight.

The final act brings clarity and warmth. By the time Chloe realises what she truly wants (not just in a partner, but for herself), the story lands a satisfying emotional beat. It’s not flawless, but it’s delightful.

Rating: ★★★★ ½ (4.5 out of 5) — because the novelty of the premise + character growth + rom-com heart outweigh the minor genre-shift awkwardness.

Thanks to NetGalley and Putnam for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillan

🐾🐾🐾🐾 – Where secrets burn brighter than truth itself.

Review Date: November 2, 2025 | Release Date: November 18, 2025

The Burning Library is the kind of thriller that creeps up on you—not with jump scares, but with quiet tension that tightens with every chapter. Gilly Macmillan trades her usual domestic settings for the gray skies and cloistered halls of Scotland’s Western Hebrides and St Andrews, where murder, manuscripts, and manipulation intertwine.

When elderly Eleanor Bruton’s body washes ashore, it looks like tragedy. But her death triggers the unspooling of a century-old secret—one buried inside an ancient manuscript and guarded by two rival women’s societies whose influence reaches into academia, politics, and beyond. At the heart of it all is Dr Anya Brown, a gifted translator whose career-making discovery drops her directly into their dangerous tug-of-war.

Macmillan excels at building tension through intellect rather than spectacle. The novel’s rhythm is steady and deliberate—inviting you to linger in the labyrinth of libraries, decoding clues alongside Anya and Detective Clio Spicer. Both women are compelling in different ways: one navigating the suffocating politics of academic ambition, the other wrestling with the limits of justice in a system ruled by secrecy.

While the dual timelines and multiple factions can feel dense early on, they ultimately pay off in a tightly wound reveal that questions who controls knowledge—and what happens when women refuse to stay in the background. It’s cerebral, intricate, and quietly haunting.

For readers who love slow-burn suspense, morally complex women, and puzzles that blur the line between scholarship and sin, The Burning Library delivers. It’s a reminder that power isn’t always loud—and that the stories we protect may one day consume us.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.