{"id":3774,"date":"2025-08-07T21:31:50","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=3774"},"modified":"2025-08-07T21:31:50","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:31:50","slug":"monthly-features-july-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=3774","title":{"rendered":"Monthly Features \u2013 July 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MATE: A Novel in Twenty Games by Robert Castle<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.<\/p>\n

Synopsis: <\/strong>MATE: a novel in twenty games deals with marriage as a chess game. What distinguishes MATE from other stories and novels about the life and death of a relationship is its radical correlation of the actions of a husband and wife to chess moves. The logic of the novel suggests: chess is war reduced to a game; marriage is chess; marriage is war. That is the tragedy\u2014marriage, as a human institution and human desire, is innately tragic. In marriage, one or the other partner feel obliged to annihilate the other in a struggle for\u2026what? This is the central question and riddle of MATE.<\/p>\n

Summary: <\/strong>Overall, sharp, exhausting, and wickedly funny,\u00a0MATE<\/em>\u00a0argues that when love turns into a tournament, the best most of us can hope for is a well-fought draw\u2014and maybe a laugh at the post-game press conference.<\/p>\n

See the full review here: MATE<\/em><\/a>
Purchase here<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Hearing My Secrets by Julie L. James<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.<\/p>\n

Synopsis: <\/strong>At first glance, Marion Andrews would seem to have it all. She\u2019s just been promoted at her job at the top home design magazine where she\u2019s worked for a few years on the creative team, and she\u2019s earned it, even after a few blunders. Her personality and work ethic have taken her far, but not everything is as it seems in her personal life.<\/p>\n

Marion\u2019s been hiding her biggest insecurity for years, and now that she\u2019s working closer with her handsome and austere boss, Mr. Shaler, she\u2019s never felt more unsure about whether or not she should reveal it. Mr. Shaler isn\u2019t as intimidating as Marion thought and she never expected things between them to be quite so friendly.<\/p>\n

During her transition in her new position, she meets Charlie, a stranger who insinuates he knows things about her past. Charlie keeps popping up in her life, revealing more each time, and getting closer to Marion in every way.<\/p>\n

Caught between her tragic past and her dramatic present life, Marion realizes she doesn\u2019t have control over everything and has to find a way to navigate how she can \u201chave it all\u201d without the unforeseen drama that comes with it.<\/p>\n

Summary: <\/strong>Overall,\u00a0 this book is full of warmth, wit, and an eye for every day beauty. It offers a slow-burning romance wrapped in emotional honesty, making it a refreshingly grounded and relatable read. If you like romance with a splash of comedy, then this book could be for you.<\/p>\n

See the full review here: Hearing My Secrets<\/em><\/a>
Purchase here<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MATE: A Novel in Twenty Games by Robert Castle I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion. Synopsis: MATE: a novel in twenty games deals with marriage as a chess game. What distinguishes MATE from other stories and novels about the life and death of a relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}