Book Club Pick #1: Smokescreens and Butterflies

Happy Tuesday, fellow readers!

Welcome back if you have been here before, and thank you for joining me. If you are new, welcome! This week we start on book club picks! The wonderful Angelina Kerner has set us up for several weeks with one book per week. Each is a novella so they are all quicker reads. This is great because the books fit in to any schedule.

Without further ado, I'd like you to join me in checking out Smokescreens and Butterflies by thw hostess herself, Angelina Kerner. This one is a dark romance novella.

First, we will get the trigger warnings out of the way.

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Trigger Warnings:

Mental and financial abuse

Isolation

Grooming

Kidnapping

Pedophilia

Sexual assault/physical assault

Lying

Divorce

Mentions of sexism

Death/Murder

On page sex

Alright! Here we go. I told you this was a dark romance. If you have read anything else by Angelina you will know that she tends to be lighter and have humor to her works. This was a darker dive for her and deals with some heavier topics. She did an outstanding job tackling those dark spaces.

Like all of her works, Smokescreens and Butterflies brings wonderful characters. Some you love and some you absolutely hate. Angelina brings us a couple of villains in this novella who readers would love to see very bad things happen to them. In contrast, she brings us a female main character that you can't help but love. You just want all the good things for her. Likewise can be said for the male main character. Because it is a novella, we don't get the luxury of very deep backstories, but each character is still flushed out beautifully enough that we get the idea of who they are. Angelina is a master of the snack equivalent of books. They are quick and satisfying.

Here is my official review:

Smokescreens and Butterflies is a quick run into some dark and deep themes with a sweet bit of romance. Definitely read the trigger warnings if you are sensitive. This one is darker than most of Angelina's work that I've read so far, but she does a great job with it, and as always she does wonderfully with her characters and pacing. I love that there is a music playlist included and the new cover is gorgeous. If you are looking for something dynamic but you don't have a lot of time to read, you definitely should pick this one up.

Yes, this one has a music playlist! There are some great songs on it too! Oh, and that cover! It got a glow up. It is gorgeous. Do yourself a favor and grab this novella today.

https://a.co/d/4rncS2h

Well fellow readers, that is it for me for this week. Please join me next week for the last week of August and the second pick from the book club. Until then, curl up with a good book.