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If you missed my last KU article on Midnight Kisses, you can find it here.
It’s been a few weeks, and I have missed you. I hope you missed me too. I have another offering for you today, Bittersweet Memories. I will get into how much I loved it in a minute. I do want to apologize for not thinking. While looking up book recommendations on TikTok, it occurred to me that I should probably start putting in a spice level rating in these and possibly content warnings. Some of the stuff I read is incredibly spicy, and I can think of one that content warning would be appropriate to have it. I’m looking at you, Captured Highgate Preparatory Academy. But back to Bittersweet Memories.
This story is chef’s kiss. We meet Alanna and Silas on one of the worst days of their lives, their parents’ funeral. Alanna lost her mother and Silas, his father. The book is split between the past and the present. The POV goes back and forth between Alanna and Silas. Thankfully, Ms. Maura uses chapter beginnings to change the POV and lets us know who it is at the beginning of the chapter. The synopsis that is given on Amazon did not make sense when the book started, but it was so worth getting to that part.
My heart broke for Alanna and Silas multiple times, and I was outraged for Silas more than once. Catharine Maura is a masterful manipulator. She had me feeling all the feelings for them both. They met in sad circumstances for each of them. They lose touch and come back together a few years later and stay in each other’s gravitational pull from there on until tragedy strikes again. When they find each other’s gravitational pull once again, Alanna doesn’t recognize Silas at all. Even worse? She is dating his brother. It ends badly, which makes Silas happy. He plans to make her love him again. I don’t want to say more about the plot, though. I can easily go off on a tangent and will have to erase it and try again because of revealing too much.
The story is so sweet. I can’t say enough about my emotions in this story. I was rooting for them the whole time. I was proud of Silas and hopeful for Alanna. When the different tragedies hit, I was heartbroken for them. I was angry at characters and outraged at others, and even some others I was grateful for. One character I wanted to hit with my truck. You’ll know who it is when you read this. The writing, the actual grammar, and stuff were great. There are some books on here that you can tell aren’t edited as well as they should be, and my head picks up the mistakes while I am reading and focuses on them. What can I say? I am an editor too. Needless to say, I was happy. As you can tell, I love this book. I am going to look and see what else is on KU by Catharina Maura. I am incredibly impressed with her skill.
Now for the content warnings and spice-level business. This book really needs no content warning. Obviously, bad things happen otherwise, there would be no story, but I didn’t see anything that could trigger someone. The spice level is a one on a scale of five. There were a few scenes, and the scenes were nice and spicy, but it wasn’t overloaded with them or even full of them, but the placements made sense, and one in particular that I can think of was naughty.
Have you read Bittersweet Memories or something else by Catharina Maura? What are your thoughts? Do you have your own KU recommendations for me? Let me know in the comments below. I would to learn about books YOU love. I look forward to your suggestions. Until next time, have fun storming the castle!
