The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston:
I was intrigued by the concept of this book - young woman inherits apartment from aunt and discovers it sometimes sends her seven years into the past, where she meets the man who was living there then, but only sees him intermittently.
And the execution was largely well done. I often find I struggle with books that are set in the real world with a fantastical twist, especially if the characters don't respond to the weirdness in the way you'd expect. But here, the stage was set well but the protagonist properly freaked out the first time it happened. And the way the story was woven together mostly worked.
This is a 'proper' romance book, though, where there's no story left if you take the romance aspect out of it - and I'm coming to conclusion that I generally want more from a book than that. It did start to feel repetitive and as if it was being unnecessarily dragged out by the halfway point - and I have to admit I did listen to most of the second half on double speed, just to find out what happened.
I wasn't overly keen on some aspects when the timelines started overlapping. And the death knell for being on board with the relationship was when, after the first time they had sex, the male love interest leaned down and whispered, "Good girl" in the protagonist's ear...
I also felt like the grief aspect of the story didn't have a proper throughline, which meant it lost some of its impact along the way. And, not wanting to spoil anything - I would recommend checking the content warnings.
Still, I slowed the audiobook back down to normal speed again for the very end, which I felt worked pretty well and almost got me in the feels.
So, a bit tricky to rate, as I can't say I was fully invested, but I did want to see it through and was glad I did.


Almost A Crime by Penny Vincenzi:
I've read seven other Penny Vincenzi books in the last ten months and really enjoyed all but two of them. I was hoping this would be on the positive side - and it was! I know what to expect from these books now - hundreds and hundreds of pages of rich, privileged, often despicable people, doing largely terrible things to each other, but in a wildly compelling and highly entertaining way - occasionally with a bit of real emotion thrown in to keep me fully engaged.
And that is absolutely what I got from this book. It's got adultery, betrayal, complex family dynamics, problematic relationships, breakdowns, political shenanigans - you name it!
There's also a lot to do with trauma and motherhood, which is a common theme for this author - and I would definitely check the content warnings before diving in.
It dipped a bit around halfway, when everything I'd expected to happen had already occurred and I was worried the second half would be really dragged out - but then it went in multiple really surprising directions and I was very satisfied with how everything turned out in the end.
One thing I found interesting was that the main 'reveal' was really obvious to me right from the start - but then I realised it wasn't meant to be a mystery for the reader. It was more a case of the tension building around anticipating how the characters would react when they found out the truth - and that was done very effectively.


The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson:
The first page of this book is an extended in-joke about the opening line of Anna Karenina, so the author sets out her stall early...
It's about a very pretentious, very dysfunctional family, made up of largely unlikeable characters - which can go either way for me.
The central figure, Ray Hanrahan, is absolutely appalling and most of the other characters spend all their time bending over backwards to placate and appease him, which I found quite difficult to read. I was initially keen to carry on, to find out whether any of them managed to escape him by the end. But the desperation and unnecessary self-sacrifice got too much - weirdly managing to be both painfully realistic and also ridiculously unrealistic at the same time.
I struggled to reach my prescribed 50 pages (to give a book time to hook me in) and then gave up.