Happy Publication Week to Summer in the City, a collection of three romance novellas by Lori Wilde, Priscilla Oliveras, and Sarah Skilton! This anthology is available now in paperback or e-book.

My #anchoredheartssilverlining moment is that I had the chance to read this book early, thanks to @kensingtonbooks and @netgalley. I was excited because I really enjoyed Island Affair by Priscilla Oliveras and I really wanted to read more from her!

From the Publisher:

“Each connected novella in this fun, fresh Rom-Com anthology follows a different woman from a group of NYC friends whose plans to escape the summer heat with a fabulous girls-only weekend suddenly lose steam when an unexpected blackout cuts off power to all of Manhattan. But while the lights are out, enemies become lovers, acquaintances find they have more in common than a pack of matches, and the city really heats up!”

Here are my brief thoughts on the 3 novellas.

Night at the Museum by Lori Wilde
This one is cute and perfect for hopeless romantics. Two people who have been admiring each other from afar for weeks finally meet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and their connection blossoms.

Lights Out by Priscilla Oliveras
My favorite of the collection, this story features a musical theatre star and a theatre critic who knew each other when they were younger. I like this one because Oliveras really allows the characters to connect with each other and talk through their past and their present. Their connection was believable and fun. And @prisoliveras, I totally caught the Easter egg reference to Anamaría!!

Mind Games by Sarah Skilton
A magician and his ex-girlfriend face off at a performance, only to find that they are alone in a power outage. This story is angsty, and it was fun to see how she tried to take him down. I was uncomfortable about how the pair jumped back into a physical relationship without resolving their personal issues first.

I thought the power outage premise was a great idea full of romantic potential, and it was fun to see how the authors ran with it. I would love to read a story about the three girlfriends reuniting! Overall, this is a steamy, fun read that has a definite summer vibe.

A quick collection of novellas connected by 3 friends and a NY blackout but that doesn't need to be read in order.

*Night at the Museum by Lori Wilde
*Lights Out by Priscilla Oliveras
*​Mind Games by Sarah Skilton

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book received from the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Let me just say I absolutely ate this up. I wasn’t sure if I would have it read in time for pub date, but the second I started reading it, I knew that would definitely not be a problem

Ria Preston, Vanessa Ríos, and Alison Cahill, three best friends, planned a weekend girls’ trip to Sag Harbor. While they’re wrapping up their work weeks, an unexpected city-wide blackout threatens to darken (see what I did there? ) their plans. Each novella tells one of the women’s stories from that night.

Quick Synopsis of Each Novella:

Ria’s Story: Ria’s presentation on a painting she restored leads to a different kind of night at the museum when her neighborhood crush shows up.

Vanessa’s Story: Vanessa ends up reviewing more than the opening night of a musical starring her lifelong crush-turned-nemesis.

Alison’s Story: Alison’s plans to exact revenge on her college boyfriend at his debut magic show disappear along with the electricity.

I LOVED the way this book was set up-three separate novellas that were all connected by a central plot. I have never read anything quite like this before, but it was SO enjoyable. It’s hard to pick a favorite, because each novella was equally enjoyable and compelling! Ria’s Story: I really liked how the relationship between Ria and Vic went undeveloped for four months until the sudden plunge into darkness helped them take the first steps. Honestly, ever since I was a kid, I LOVED the blackouts that accompany our monsoon seasons- the forced interactions absent any kind of distractions tend to be pretty magical. Vanessa’s Story: oh. my. god. The musical nerd in me was screaming with every page of this novella! So many theatre references, and I LOVED the reviewer + Broadway star romance. Alison’s story: I was immediately drawn to this one when I realized it was about a woman seeking reverence after being shamed by a college boyfriend because of her intelligence. The fact that he regretted it all that time? Even better!

Super huge thank you for the advanced copy! I cannot recommend this one enough!

This collection of novellas follows three best friends as they each find themselves in romantic entanglements during a city-wide blackout in NYC.

Despite each novella being written by a different author, these three stories flowed together seamlessly. And I adored each of them. Each story has its own setting, its own unique storyline and a steamy romance, yet they were all connected. This is definitely a fun read and I will be looking for more from each of these authors.

The only downside for me is that I would have loved a 4th story with all of the friends together the next day. Hearing them rehash the events like we all love to do with our girl gangs. But when my biggest critique is wanting more, I think that shows this is definitely one to read.

Thank you to Kensington Books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

A collection of 3 fun, flirty novellas written by different authors that all take place on the same night during a power outage in NYC.

Of these authors, I had only ever read Priscilla Oliveras before, and this felt like a really great introduction to both Lori Wilde and Sarah Skilton. While none of the novellas wowed me, each author had a distinct and interesting voice, and I found all of the conceits to be really charming. Of the three, I most enjoyed Priscilla Oliveras's. I'm a sucker for unrequited love/second chance, and my personal loves of both theatre and baseball made this one stand out for me.

Reading this during the pandemic, I did find a city-wide emergency that required everyone to stay inside with lots of people (and showcased 3 settings that have been shut down for over a year in the museum, the theatre, and the magic show) to be a little anxiety-provoking, but that has more to do with my own state of mind and the state of the world than with the stories themselves.

Overall, I think this is a strong introduction to all 3 of these authors, and is a good summer read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington for the ARC.

Enjoy the stories!

Three connected novellas about three friends planning a weekend in the Hamptons and their plans gets cancelled when the power goes out in New York City and they either meet someone or reconnect with someone from their past!

Summer in the City is worth reading because each of the novella are very different. An art restorer and a Wall Street guy, art critic and an actor/writer, art non-profit and a magician but each of the authors has a different story to tell about the romance between their characters and a night without power in the city that never sleeps.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Three short stories by different authors. Three friends finding love during a black out in New York. I enjoyed all the stories specially Lori Wilde's

Summer in the City is a collection of novellas, following three best friends during a night of a city-wide power outage.

Here are my individual novella reviews:

Night at the Museum by Lori Wilde (2⭐️)
This came across as insta-love which is something I am not a fan of. I didn’t feel like this was a believable story unfortunately.

Lights Out by Priscilla Oliveras (4⭐️)
As far as a novella goes, this felt like a slow burn. I love enemies-to-lovers and it’s even better finding out that both of them had crushes on each other in high school. I felt like it was a well-developed story and it was easy to see the progression in their relationship in the night they spent together.

Mind Games by Sarah Skilton (4⭐️)
I ended up enjoying this one the most. At first, I was intrigued by this story when I found out that the love interest was going to be an adult magician! But I loved the past and present and their story was sweet.

I do wish we had seen the friends outside get together in a small scene the next day. Especially since they were going to be meeting up after the night that made each of these novella’s happen.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Kensington Books for an advanced copy of Summer in the City by Lori Wilde, Priscilla Oliveras and Sarah Skilton.

This is a fun anthology with 3 novellas each from a different friends who are looking forward to a girls weekend, but the night before they leave they are all out on the town in Manhattan when a huge blackout strikes NYC.. What stories will they have for their friends later on?

These novellas were all different and fun. My favorite was Lights Out by Priscillas Oliveras, I love the second chance romance here and the idea of a musical based on Roberto Clemente's life.

My only wish was an epilogue or something that tied all 3 of these together at the end. We saw a few texts between the friends throughout, but since they were getting together I would have loved a few pages of them dishing out on their nights.

Summer in the City is a collection of three novellas, each featuring a trio of best friends. Each has an important night ahead of them and a city-wide power outage is the catalyst for their individual HEA/HFN's.
Night at the Museum ⭐️⭐️Unfortunately, this novella was not for me. I am not a fan of love at first sight without more meat to the relationship and Vic was not to my taste. Their romance seemed full of chemistry and little else, so my believability in their relationship was low.
Lights Out⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ With a little bit of unrequited love/some mutual hate, Vanessa and Mateo had their work cut out for them. Priscilla's deft hand made it feel like a fully fleshed novel as opposed to how a novella can often feel less than.
Mind Games ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Of the three, I enjoyed the third most. I've not read an adult magician hero and my nerdy heart loved the quirky descriptor. Second Chance is one of my favorite tropes and the flashbacks to the past were sweet and heartbreaking.
There is not much interaction between the three friends, which I would have loved to see. Maybe a brief chat or morning coffee run? I've only read a book by Priscilla before. I love that novella collections can introduce me to new-to-me authors in a quick, easy way.
Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts in this review are my own.

Summer in the City is three connected novellas that all take place on the same night in Manhattan. Novellas tend to be difficult for me to review because I like to see the romance build up or have some kind of history to their feelings, but with a novella things move along much quicker. This was still a fun book with a sexy, summer vibe.

Here are my individual novella reviews:
🖼 Night at the Museum by Lori Wilde (3⭐️)
This felt like insta-love, which I’m not a fan of. The character dialogue didn’t seem natural or believable. This story just fell flat for me.

🎭 Lights Out by Priscilla Oliveras (4⭐️)
Vanessa’s and Mateo’s slow burn story was sweet and spicy. This one is a second chance romance where the characters have distantly kept tabs on each other by their involvement in the Broadway theatre community. Vanessa is feisty and guarded, but Mateo’s gentlemanly qualities and sweet concern win her over moment by moment. I think I enjoyed this one more because the characters knew each other since high school and their feelings for each other developed in layers throughout the night of the story.

🎩 Mind Games by Sarah Skilton (4⭐️)
The story of Nick and Alison was also a second-chance romance. Nick’s magic show was fun to read about, I could easily picture the tricks as written. I felt the resolution came a little too easily, but again this has more to do with the novella style and not so much a reflection of the writing. I especially enjoyed the parts of the story that went back to their college relationship.

Together, these three stories were a fun way to read about a dark and steamy Manhattan night.

Thank you to @netgalley and @kensingtonbooks for a digital advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I love this anthology! Three friends, three different stories, the same blackout in New York.
Night at the Museum by Lori Wilde
When art restorer Ria Preston discovers her neighborhood crush, gregarious Wall Street advisor Vic Albright, is stuck overnight in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her, she can't resist taking him on a very private tour...
This one was my favorite. It´s sexy, witty and romantic. The chemistry between these two is amazing!
Lights Out by Priscilla Oliveras
Back in high school, Vanessa Ríos and Mateo Garza were theater troupe rivals. Now Mateo’s a rising Broadway star and Vanessa’s his most scathing critic. Cue a plot twist straight out of central casting: the two end up alone in his New York City apartment during the blackout, setting the stage for what could be their second act romance . . .
This story is sweet. I didn´t like Vanessa that much, but Mateo is really interesting. The dialogs are good and emotional.
Mind Games by Sarah Skilton
What happens in college stays in college--unless you never get over it. In fact, Alison has been waiting to take her revenge on Nick, once the hottest guy on campus, now the hottest guy on the rising magician's circuit. But her plans to sabotage his first show are upended by the power outage. That's when the real magic happens...
OMG this two. The sexual tension is everything. This one is shorter and maybe more intense, but really enjoyable!!
If you are looking for a sweet and romantic anthology, do yourself a favor and go for this one. I highly recommended.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Sometimes collections of novellas aren't very well connected, but this set is very well done! I love how both the 3 main female characters connect the stories but also the same exact night in the same city.

This was the first time I'd read anything by Wilde. I enjoyed her novella. It had a very unique meet cute if you will. I so liked how she tied everything together so well.

I've been a fan of Oliveras since I recently discovered her and now read everything she writes. I loved her novella and how she used a combination of musical theatre and baseball along with a boricua couple in a second chance love trope.

I didn't love the third novella as much. But the revenge trope isn't one I would normally pick up.

I'm glad I got to read another Oliveras novella and look forward to more from Wilde.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley. This is my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, Kensington Books, Lori Wilde, Priscilla Oliveras and Sarah Skilton for gifting me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Good Morning! Tell me something you’re looking forward to today!
*I’m excited for a nap. I’ve been looking forward to it since I woke up and the rainy, gloom outside my window just makes it that much more enticing!*
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Three best friends, three love stories, one dark night in New York City. I love novellas for the days I want to read but I’m not necessarily in the best mood to read. Quick, short stories you can read in an hour or two that leave you satisfied and ready to keep reading! Each author had their own ‘voice’ and it was unique to them but blended well with the other books!

This "anthology" contained three stories, each describing a romantic encounter during a blackout in Manhattan. The first, between an art restorer and a man looking to facilitate the purchase of art, who had been having serendipitous encounters all over the city but never talking previously, was probably my least favorite. I highly enjoyed the premise, but then The Big HurdleTM, the thing that drives the couple briefly apart, was just so dumb I couldn't fathom how the heroine could be so daft. The second story involved high school theater rivals and crushes reuniting at the Broadway opening of the male lead, while the female was a theater critic. Once again, there was a manufactured fight to briefly break the couple up that I thought was highly unnecessary, but I enjoyed these characters more. I think the third story was my favorite, with old college flames meeting again--the women for revenge, set to destroy the man's magic show. Yes, you read that right, he's a magician. That was just such a fun angle, I couldn't fail to enjoy it. Plus, The Big HurdleTM happened in the past and stayed in the past, and the present day story had a nice flow.

All three stories were light and fun, with a touch of steam--more than I had previously seen from Priscilla Oliveras, for sure--and I overall enjoyed them all. It was an extremely quick read, with each story taking me about 40 minutes, which is pretty on par for a novella (assume I read 2x as fast as average).

Thank you to Kensington Books for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4 stars - 7/10

DNF. Not enjoying this at all and I'd rather stop than force myself to finish (and give a low rating).

I originally picked this book up directly after having read another release by Oliveras, but I’d never read the other two authors. I’ll definitely be checking out their other works though.
Three friends, three romances, and one night in NYC. I really enjoyed how the great city of NYC was its own kind of main character between all three novellas.
These are definitely quick reads, and I’d definitely recommend them for a trip to the beach.

In this collection of three novellas, a group of girlfriends go out on the town in NYC with separate plans for their Friday nights, before heading out of the city the next day for a girls weekend. But their plans are all thwarted when a black out ripples across the city, setting off a chain of events that none of the ladies saw coming.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM by Lori Wilde
Art restorer Ria Preston has spent the past four months watching "Mr. Gorgeous" from afar, crushing hard. The pair both end up at the Met on the same evening. Victor to impress new clients and Ria to give a presentation about the restoration of her latest labor of love. The blackout puts the pair in close quarters with lots of sparks.

LIGHTS OUT by Priscilla Oliveras
Vanessa Rios is at opening night of Clemente: Legend & Hero to review the play, starring Mateo Garza, a former high school rival. Years before, Vanessa posted a scathing review of Mateo's previous play, which went viral. With the blackout essentially ruining opening night, Mateo puts his perceived ego aside to rescue Vanessa from a dangerous commotion in the theatre alleyway. Can the two see past their shared history in order to heal?

MIND GAMES by Sarah Skilton
Alison is on a mission. Forced to change colleges after Nick completely embarrasses her their senior year, she is hell bent on dishing out revenge when Nick comes through NYC with his magic show. Posed as a heckler, Alison wants to ruin his show and his chances of a future as the next great magician.

This was a really fun collection of novellas! I loved how each author dealt with the blackout completely differently and how it played out in the specific character's stories. Wilde, Oliveras, and Skilton all did an excellent job building background with the couples so nothing felt too instant with the attraction, especially with the short novella format. The stories fit together, even though they were written by three separate authors. The couples had fantastic chemistry and the plots were surprisingly deep and emotional for their short lengths. Each story as had their own unique surprises that I enjoyed tremendously.

As with all novellas, I always wish that they are longer. Sometimes the resolution feels a tad too quick, but that is just my own issue with novellas and their lengths.

Thank you to Kensington and NetGalley for the advanced copy! All opinions are my own.

I knew this was an anthology going in so I was prepared for short stories and was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the stories. So often anthologies are a mixed bag of good and okay stories, but all three of these short stories were wonderful. I felt like the first two were written for me and the third I went into a bit skeptically, but Sarah pulled it off. Each story takes place in the same 24 hours during a blackout in New York and the women are all friends with each other. As the book is an anthology, it's only fair to discuss each story individually.

Night at the Museum by Lori Wilde – An art restorer for the Met and a Wall Street bro who have admired each other from afar meet at an event at the Met and spend the night in the museum during a blackout. Working in the Met's art restoration department has been my dream job so this story was always going to delight me. I loved Lori's writing style for this story. When we are introduced to both Ria and Vic their words and thoughts are mirrors of each other while the specific phrasing ties back to both their jobs. It was a very fun parallel that drew me in instantly.

Lights Out by Priscilla Oliveras – An actor takes care of the theater critic who has gave him a bad review in a previous show after she injures herself during the blackout, but that's not all, they were each other's theater workshop crushes. My second favorite thing about New York after the Met is Broadway, so to have that be the focus of this was just delightful. Priscilla has such a distinct voice. I loved the character's Spanglish and it felt very authentic for Latinx characters to think and speak this way. I also loved that they kept themselves busy by quizzing each other on obscure Broadway trivia. Once again, I felt like this story was written especially for me.

Mind Games by Sarah Skilton – A woman attempts to sabotage her ex as he auditions to be a magician at a hotel but the circumstances of their breakup several years ago were more complicated than she was aware of which she learns while trapped in the hotel with him during the blackout. I hate magic. When I say that I went into this story skeptically I mean I literally went in hating the hero because he is magician. In nine short chapters Sarah was able to weave a story with a lot of emotional depth that had me rooting for him by the end, which was no easy feat.

Overall I enjoyed the anthology. Is it perfect? No, but what anthology is. I would have happily read a full length book about any of these couples.

Thank you to the authors and Kensington Books for providing me an ARC via NetGalley.

Blog post and Bookstagram post coming May 26, 2021.

Novellas can be hit or miss for me because I struggle with getting to know the characters enough to create a connection with their stories. However, I loved these short Summer themed love stories and am eager to find more work to read by each other.