4.5-Star Archives - The Litertarian

Book Review:: Leave Before I Love You | Max Monroe

If you are looking for a bit of a harrowing love story, look no further than author duo Max Monroe’s newest release Leave Before I Love You.

Leave Before I Love You by Max Monroe Book Cover

Avery and Henry get stuck traveling solo on what was supposed to be a big group trip. They’ve known one another forever had have had a few fly-by romantic interactions, but he’s her brother’s best friend, and she’s got every guy she could ever want. Henry, who is an adrenaline junkie who literally founded a company based around it, persuades Avery to go skydiving with him. He promises everything will be fine, but that was before the pilot has a massive heart attack and the plane falls into a dive. Avery and Henry have to jump early and frantically, leaving them far off course, on a deserted island.

I love this kind of incredibly dramatic and tension heavy novel with Big Trauma in act one that leads to a trauma bond that binds the two characters together inexorably. My other two recs in this sub-genre are at the bottom of this post.

However, Henry kind of gets a bad deal, because he is stranded with a carbon copy of Shannon from Lost (if you know, you know). Avery is worse than useless. She’s a plastic barbie Miami girl whose greatest talent is spending daddy’s apparently endless money. There’s a little bit of depth to her eventually, but for me, it was still pretty darn shallow. I wish she wasn’t quite as much of a caricature, but I guess it works for what they were after.

If this book was another hundred or two pages longer, I’d still be happy. There was a lot of backstory with Henry I feel like I could have enjoyed exploring between his two parents and how he got into such a very specific and incredible industry. But the story is complete and pretty wonderful as it is.

This is my second Max Monroe novel, and this was very different than the other title I read (Oops, I’ve Fallen), but it’s clear this writing team is very good at what they do. I’m looking forward to reading more of their stuff!

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: Leave Before I Love You
Author:: Max Monroe
Genre:: Contemporary Romance
Publisher:: Indie
Length:: 300 pages
Audio Length:: 9h 25m
Audiobook Narrator:: Will Damron & M.K. Blackwood
Published:: July 24th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 4.5-Stars

If you liked this book, check out…

Swept Away | Beth O’Leary
Still Beating | Jennifer Hartmann

Book Review:: All the Words We Know | Bruce Nash

Talk about a one-of-a-kind mystery novel! All the Words We Know by Bruce Nash is a fever dream of an experience. Readers are inside the mind of a mentally deteriorating woman who lives in an assisted living facility where something just isn’t right. Do her conspiratorial ideas have any basis? Or is her unwell mind playing tricks on her as she edges closer to the last ending?

All the Words We Know by Bruce Nash Book Cover

I’ve never read a book quite like this one. Stream of consciousness through the lens of someone who can’t remember words in most of her thoughts. It’s a little disorienting at the beginning, but as things ramped up, I found I couldn’t ‘look away’.

Rosie is frequently visited by her two children, who seem concerned at her state of health. She has forgotten almost everything about her life, and it was so interesting and heartbreaking as hell to experience her, in real time, remember she was once in love, that she was once a person who was loved, once upon a time.

It’s a terrifying premise. In a place that has full control of you (including your medications), when you are so helpless…gah. The elderly are so vulnerable, and this novel made me feel for them more than ever.

This is what we know (probably): Someone died falling from a window, others are also dying (it is an end of life facility), Rosie has forgotten the password to her accounts, and her son loves her very much. We also know that the doctor in charge is telling her son how concerned he is for her recent behavior and decline, her medications are adjusted, and she has this deep resounding feeling of something not being right, and not knowing why.

Wow. For a book where I didn’t know what the heck was going on 100% of the time, it was quite impressive. I’m inclined to dock a star or two for how difficult it was to stay grounded in a novel where everything is so disjointed and garbled, and it is quite repetitive, but I think I’ll stick to 5, because I am blown away by the concept and it was consistent all the way through.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: All the Words We Know
Author:: Bruce Nash
Genre:: Mystery
Publisher:: Atria
Length:: 240 pages
Audio Length:: 7h 46m
Audiobook Narrator:: Abbe Holmes
Published:: July 1st, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 4.5-Stars

If you liked this book, check out…

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife | Anna Johnston
Counting Miracles | Nicholas Sparks
The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
Every Moment Since | Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

Book Review:: Catch and Keep | Erin Hahn

She’s been fishing her whole life, but she’s finally ready to be caught.

This week I read a nice little palette cleanser romance, Erin Hahn’s new book Catch & Keep.

Catch and Keep by Erin Hahn Book Cover, Cute couple sitting at the end of a dock with a dog next to them. Fall foliage in the background. Illustrated.

When Maron’s boyfriend of a single year proposes in front of all her friends and family, she throws up on him and runs from California to Wisconsin, to the lake she grew up around. Her fishing mentor left her his old property (now in shambles), and she decided to tackle that project for awhile to get away from deuchetard. At the resort by the lake, Maron runs into his brother’s best friend, single-dad Josiah. Since the property is in worse shape than she thought, he lets her stay in one of the resort cabins in exchange for her running some fishing tours for their customers, a symbiotic relationship that leaves them spending quite a lot of time together.

I wonder how it ends, guys!

This is the only book I can remember…ever…wanting to give a half star rating to (on Fable, I did). I liked this book so much, except for one thing: the antagonistic characters were just too dumb (Ian and Kylie). If they would have been more realistic, I think this would have been a five-star read.

One of my favorite things about this story was how Maron fell for Jo’s kids, too. Maybe harder than she did for him. And Josiah is such a good dad. The way they fell into their relationship felt very natural and organic and I was all in for it.

The whole thing is kind of glazed in this film of escapism. It didn’t feel super realistic to me, more escapist. I think I’ve been reading too much romance! But it’s exactly what’s popular right now, for sure. It doesn’t look like this is technically part of a series, but I read the first book with characters mentioned in this one (Built to Last), and I have to say I liked this one far better. It was really nice. It’s also nice when you get an advanced readers copy of a book you already have on pre-order too 🙂

Erin Hahn, you have my thanks for this one, and I’ll certainly be keeping my eye on you!

Details

Title:: Catch and Keep
Author:: Erin Hahn
Genre:: Contemporary Romance
Publisher:: St. Martin’s Griffin
Length:: 320 pages
Audio Length:: 9h 6m
Audiobook Narrator:: Zura Johnson & Michal Normal Johnson
Audiobook Publisher:: Spotify Audiobooks
Published:: October 15th, 2024
The Litertarian Rating:: 4.5-Stars
Spice Rating:: 3 (a few explicit scenes)