Michelle Monárrez's Blog

Back when I still left my house to attend writer events, I attended a writer’s conference in Midland, Tx. I was waiting in line for the provided refreshments and a couple of fellow writers were discussing what was Science Fiction and what wasn’t. I don’t remember the full conversation, but one of their comments stuck with me. They said: “How can that be SciFi? It doesn’t even happen in space.”

This exchange got me thinking, SciFi doesn’t have to happen in space, right? There are plenty of stories with Earth settings that still count as part of this genre. Back then, I thought that as long as it had some sort of cool, plausible, and futuristic technology, then we could call it Science Fiction. And then, I started writing a novella set in the 80s without a trace of innovative tech. The story has some other speculative elements, but was that enough to call it SciFi?

I wondered then if my definition of Science Fiction was actually accurate.

I went on a search for a more accurate interpretation of SciFi and came across a very informative video Tale Foundry released in 2017. They did a deep dive into what Science Fiction is and how its definition has been an evasive topic for decades, but what stuck the most with me were the intricacies of the stigmatization of this genre.

Science Fiction has shifted its reputation across time. It’s gone from being a “not serious genre” to “high-brow literature” and back to “cheesy”. Perhaps these shifts in the public’s perception of Science Fiction make its definition so elusive.

Tale Foundry boiled the solution down to one sentence:

Science Fiction is any work with the presence of novum.

The word Novum is Latin for New Thing and is a term attributed to Science Fiction Croatian scholar Darko Suvin. He used this term to refer to cognitive estrangement, where something is familiar to the audience, but it’s made unfamiliar.

In terms of Fiction, we can say that Novum is “any fictional element that is not necessarily plausible, but is reconcilable with reality.”

Let’s take the idea of zombies, for example. There are Zombies in Fantasy who are brought back to life through spells and perhaps arts like necromancy. That idea of zombies is detached from reality. But what happens when a virus manufactured in a lab makes the dead come back to life? Here’s where Science Fiction and its novum come in: The concept of a virus is real and it tethers our idea of zombies to reality. The concept of a virus is familiar to us, the audience, but it’s made unfamiliar through the fictional idea of a virus bringing the dead back to life as monsters.

So now that we understand what novum is, we can use it to categorize a work under Science Fiction. Tale Foundry uses the concept of novum depending on how much novum rules the plot. If novum isn’t a major driving force for the plot or a key element of the setting, then the work is best categorized elsewhere. But if, like in Star Wars, the novum is everywhere in the setting while the magic of The Force drives the plot, then the work belongs in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

My favorite example of Science Fiction has to be the Thor movies. They are filled with concepts and tropes belonging to Fantasy, but there’s no real magic involved in the story. Instead of magic, there is novum attaching the setting of the Thor movies to reality through science, like the rainbow bridge guarded by Heimdall. This bridge might look magical, but it’s actually a wormhole.

In universes like the one presented in the Thor movies, science has become so advanced that it looks like magic. This concept of magical tech is backed by Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Science Fiction is harder to define than we thought. Its definition has been muddled and warped by the public’s perception of the genre, but we can always go back to the concept of “novum” to categorize a work of fiction.

⭐5/5

"Understandably, humans need to know what kind of book they are about to read, because time is money and money costs time and there’s no time like the present and all of that. They need to know if it is a love story. Or a murder story. Or a story about aliens. Perhaps the book they have in their hands is a war story. It wouldn’t be a surprise. And also, of course, there is the ultimate, all-important question: does it have a dog in it?"

We all have those hard days when all we want is to get home, get cozy, and have a comforting cup of our favorite hot drink, right?

Well, I recently finished reading The Humans by Matt Haig and realized this book is just that: a warm, comforting read that would heal a tired mind after a hard day.

The Humans quickly become one of my new favorites because of the lovable characters, unique premise, and the light-hearted comedic narrator's voice.

In spite of loving the book from page one, I took an exceptionally long time to finish this book. I've said before that I'm a slow reader, but two months to finish is a long time. I think it was just impossible not to want to savor the narrative. In its 285 pages, I highlighted 55 lines and bookmarked more than 25 passages. The narrative is so witty and the perfect balance between poetic and dry humor that was impossible not to want to bask on each of those lines.

I think I haven't loved a book quite like this in a very long time. There are so many themes and motifs in this story, but perhaps the biggest influences on the plot are mathematics and poetry. Who knew math and poetry could build a beautiful love story together?

Here's a little bit more about this book:

Professor Martin was a very nice man, or so the alien imposter who now occupies his body will tell you. Sent to Earth to destroy evidence of the professor's discovery, he finds himself surrounded by these curious creatures called "the humans". The more he learns about these humans, the lives they lead, and Professor Martin's wife and son, the alien must choose between completing their mission and returning home or finding a new home right here on Earth.

What would you do for the sake of authenticity? When authors set to write a book, their primary objective is to tell a story, but that is rarely their only goal. A book that feels unauthentic could have a fatal faith in a reader’s hands. No one likes fake experiences or people that put up a front, so why would books be any different? For this reason, authors aim to deliver authentic reading experiences, no matter the length of their stories, genre, or their audience’s demographic.

Believe it or not, fiction books rely heavily on authenticity. If a reader sniffs a sense of fakeness, their suspension of disbelief will break and their reading experience will be less than optimal. For this reason, fiction writers may spend a sizeable chunk of their time doing research.

What has always impressed me is how far some fiction authors go for the sake of their stories. Not all research stays between books and silent hours at the library. They go as far as exposing themselves to uncomfortable and even dangerous situations.

For example, Richard Gonzales—author of Deer Dancer and Raza Rising—teaches a workshop about conducting field research and writing responsibly. In his workshop, he talked about the time he spent months living among the Yaqui natives in Sonora, Mexico. He said that in order to write about them accurately and be respectful of their culture; he had to expose himself to living among them. Never you mind about the discomfort of living in the true Mexican desert and the danger of cartel wars at the time.

I was in awe when I heard about his experiences conducting research and that made me think: what sort of research could I do in order to deliver a more realistic story? If only there was a way to describe my technology and its effects more accurately. Sure, writing the Refurbished saga has pushed me to research genetics, nanotechnology, the memory process, and medical trials. But all of that research stayed between me, the internet, and lots of books. As a SciFi author, I wasn’t sure that I could expose myself to many experiences that would help me understand my technology better.

The answer came to me in the shape of floating tanks.

A floating tank or sensory deprivation tank is a dark, lightproof, soundproof environment set at the same temperature as the body. As their name proclaims, their purpose is to cut a person off from as many sensory stimuli as possible. Experts claim the experience is meant to relax the user, alleviate muscle and joint pain, and combat the effects of anxiety.

These tanks might be perfect for SciFi writers for a few reasons…

1.       Did someone say zero gravity?

These tanks, on average, contain 200 gallons of water and 850 pounds of Epsom salt. The tanks are, on average, 8 feet long and 4 feet wide. These specs allow the user to float freely and experience fewer effects of gravity. This experience might be useful for writers focused on Hard SciFi, space voyages, and exploration stories.

2.       Utter darkness, utter silence

The tanks are pitch black and completely soundproof to isolate the user from any sensory distractions. People report that, during their time inside the tanks, they were unable to tell whether they had their eyes open or closed. The experience is unique for everyone, but time can move faster or slower inside the tanks because of the lack of stimuli from the outside world. Wouldn’t this be the perfect example of what a floating astronaut may feel in the infinite vacuum of space?

3.       Creativity boost

According to an article published in the European Journal of Integrative Medicine in 1992, there was a study that successfully enhanced creativity through the use of floatation tanks. Although the study lacked several control features and had a questionable pool of subjects, it can’t hurt to give float tanks a try to try to boost the mind into a more creative spectrum.

I didn’t get into the use of this tanks because of any of the reasons stated above. The reason I decided to use float tanks was a lot simpler: my characters’ journeys in Eisen Castle will depend on the use of sensory deprivation tanks and other cool technology that deprives them of outside stimuli.

I wanted to know what my characters would feel when using both forms of technology. I wanted to have an accurate idea of what kind of emotional responses I’d get from being in a dark and silent space. I was also a bit curious about how my ADHD brain would react to the lack of stimuli.

Contrary to what some experts suggest, the experience was far from relaxing for me. There was something really vulnerable about being inside that dark space with nothing on you but your thoughts. Time stretched and I was unable to tell how much longer I had to be in that space. Anxiety creeped in at the lack of sound. I could feel nothing, and I became extremely aware of my pulse. By the end of my floating session, I was exhausted and very hungry. I stepped out of the floating tank shaky and wired.

I’m not sure why the experience was so uncomfortable for me. Perhaps I sicked myself out since I was already nervous about trying floating tanks out. I’ve read that hallucinations are possible due to the lack of stimuli and I was not too keen on that aspect. I also read that people who struggle with PTSD are more likely to have panic attacks and I was not looking forward to having my brain melt in a public place. Maybe my discomfort was just first-time-floater jitters, who knows.

In spite of the negative sensations, one thing is certain: I will do it again.  The experience ended up being valuable for research purposes. I know that I will have to experience this discomfort several times to get the right feelings and senses on the page. When it comes to authenticity, I now know what I’m willing to do in order to achieve it: I’m willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of my books.

⭐5/5

"He was asking for my permission to seal the kiss that lingered like a ghost on our lips."

As you probably know by now, I don't read romance often, but when I saw Ofelia Martinez was releasing a medical romance with Mexican-American representation, I had to pick it up. I’m new-ish at medical romances, but this book was definitely what the doctor ordered. It had all of my favorite elements: strong characters, emotional wounds, and escalating conflict.

When I put Remission in among my favorite Latinx books, I didn't do it because of the representation, or the spice, or the dark and handsome romantic interest. I put Remission among my favorites because of Carolina Ramirez.

Carolina was the sort of role model I needed to see in books growing up. She's a Mexican woman, curvy, beyond smart, and all-around chingona. I loved to read about a Mexican-American woman with a big heart and focused on her career that finds love among medical trials and life in Kansas City.

Ofelia Martinez delivered a romance story unlike any other I had read before and I'm so happy to be able to read the next installment on the Heartland Metro Hospital series.

Here's more about the book:

As Dr. Carolina Ramirez’s career is taking off, she gets incredible news. Dr. Hector Medina, the doctor she idolized as a teenager and whose research she used to design her cutting-edge clinical trial, is joining her team. As her boss.

But they say you should never meet your heroes, and Carolina is about to get far more than she bargained for. She knows a liaison with her boss is a bad idea. But in addition to the intellectual spark they share, there’s an undeniable physical connection between them she can’t seem to ignore.

Then it all goes wrong and instead of explaining himself, he skips town, nearly destroying her—and her career—in his wake.

Seven years later, he’s back and opening up old wounds she’d thought long healed. She’s recovered her career, her reputation, and her confidence despite his devastating betrayal. She should hate him. Instead, she finds herself drawn to him once again.

Why can’t she get him out of her head? And why does her body still react to him after so many years apart?

⭐0/5

También de este lado hay sueños. *sigh*

What can I say about this book that hasn't been said already? In spite of the publicity debacles and the negative reviews from my peers, I still wanted to form my own opinion about this book. I firmly believe that you can't accurately critique something if you haven't experienced it, so I knew I'd have to make myself read this book. I put it off for a year, cause I knew it would be hard to digest.

Welp, as someone who lived through the cartel wars while Ciudad Juárez was the most violence-stricken city in the world, I could not get past the first fifty pages. Triggering doesn't even begin to describe the first chapter. Mexican-American author and champion of the #DignidadLiteraria movement, David Bowles, said it better: this book is trauma porn.

The melodramatic tone, the poor prose, and the stereotypical commentary of Mexico just reminded me of the hot pile of garbage Narco-Media is. And don't get me started on the misuse of Spanglish. These characters are supposed to be Mexican natives, so the linguistic inaccuracies just feel like lazy writing and white editing.

What possessed Cummins to write this story? There are plenty of articles and interviews excusing her choice to write this book. They state she didn't want the people from the border to feel like a "faceless, brown mass". She decided to be our savior and give us a face.

No. Just no.

There are plenty of #OwnVoices books, poetry, memoirs, and art in general already doing this work. This just sounds like an excuse to capitalize on the industry’s fascination with Cartel Wars.

So am I saying that authors who identify as white and are just beginning to discover their Latinidad shouldn’t write about Latinx characters? Absolutely not! Authors can write outside their race, ethnicity, identities, and so on. They can absolutely do it, provided they do your research first and hire professional sensitivity readers. Now, I don't know if Cummins got sensitivity readers for this book, but from the first few lines, I highly doubt it.

And some people may say, “Aren’t you being too harsh? It’s just a book, it’s fiction.” I get it’s a fictitious story, but it is based on real-life pain and violence.

The point of writing Fiction is to deliver a message. As a writer, you weave the truth through your story with the hopes of making an impact on people’s minds. Big-name authors that have the amount of publishing back up as Cummins did have the ability to reach millions of people. And with great reach, comes great responsibility. Your words, your message, and your misconceptions will get imprinted on every reader that picks up your work.

Did Jeanine Cummins deliver the face she thought we needed? No. She delivered stereotypes, armed Mexican men acting like animals, and manicured violence for a True-Crime-obsessed culture.

This book and the controversy around it just make me think that there are some stories, some words, and some experiences that are not for us to tell. When it comes to race and ethnicity, sometimes, the best thing we can do to help is to check our privilege and be quiet.

I've talked about my creative process and about how I stay productive before, but what about when the will to do something we love doesn't come naturally?

As much as I love my projects and my characters, some days I don't feel like showing up in front of my keyboard. And some bad days, not even my writing routine can save me from the dread I feel just at the thought of sitting in front of a blank page. But there's something that keeps me going.

There's always a reason that pushes us to pursue our dreams, and it's far more complicated than we initially think. At the beginning of 2021, my self-publishing coach advised me to dig five levels deeper into myself to find the real reason behind my writing. What ignites the need for writing inside me? Why do I need to write? Why do I continue to show up every morning in front of my keyboard, even when I don't feel like it?

That's when I came up with a phrase that summarizes my "why" to its most basic self: Decolonize The Avengers.

Don't get me wrong: You know I love superheroes. You know I love SciFi. But you and I both know that these industries could do better to represent us.
Where are the Latinx superheroes and space adventurers? Not on the big screen among the Captain Americans and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Where can I find an unconventional POC leading the charge to save the universe? Not in the big comic book arcs.
Why? Because we are still the quirky best friends, the calvary, the sidekicks.

The work to include the BIPOC culture has started, but is it enough? I think not.

Turns out this is why I write. I seek to do my part to put BIPOC people on the big maps of SciFi and Superhero Fiction. Representation matters. It's our tool to share with the world our cultures, our colors, and our life experiences. When people see diversity in entertainment, it normalizes our existence in all spaces.

So, when would I feel like we have been represented?

When being Latinx isn't reduced to just speaking Spanglish.
When BIPOC creators are accepted in all spaces.
When the industry stops padding themselves on the back after adding four BIPOC to a sixteen-person cast of heroes.
When we all feel seen.

⭐4/5 ARC review: The Guardians' Daughter

Two hands appear on the side of my arms and move snakelike onto my shoulders. Emerald Blaze whispers in my ear, "I made a choice... and you need to as well."

The day her parents were murder, Ember swore to never trust heroes again. A powerful prodigy, Ember is set on forging a life away from the hero path that took her parents from her, but will this path cost her a chance at love?

Aiden wasn't looking for love, just a chance to do some good. What he found instead was a captivating young woman tied to the most painful secret of his past. Can he keep the mistakes of his past a secret to protect her?

Ember embarks on a journey to find herself, but Aiden's secret may have her second-guessing everything. Will these heroes in training conquer the wounds of their past and give love a chance?

Superpowers, secrets, and romance, The Guardians' Daughter is our first taste of The Stalwarth Chronicles. For fans of My Hero Academia and Young Justice, TGA is a fantastical superhero romance packed with creativity. I came to this book with high expectations and McPherson delivered! I’m a character-driven reader, so I enjoyed the characters of this story the most. The protagonists—Ember and Aiden—are complex, flawed characters that grow as the story moves along. My favorite journey was Aiden’s since I identified with his personality and his drive the most. The secondary characters were also a joy to read. I appreciate the attention to detail that McPherson put into crafting all her characters. I of course loved Lime and I’m excited to read more about him on The Adventures of Lime.

The universe of this book was a nice surprise! What I love about superhero fiction is that all authors approach universe creation in unique ways. McPherson went with a comic book vibe that I really enjoyed: most people in her world have superpowers and not everyone chooses to take on the hero path. This premise makes for some creative abilities that I had not seen in a book before.

Overall, this was a great debut novel, and the only reason I don’t give it the full 5 stars is because I felt the narrative could have used a bit more polishing around passive voice and distancing language, but that is just the nitpick writer in me. If you enjoy romance, superpowers, mental health themes with a dash of mystery, then I would recommend you check this book out.

The Guardian’s Daughter is out for pre-orders now. Find out more at A.M. McPherson website.

P.S. Thank you to A.M. McPherson for considering me for her ARC readers and for the free copy of her book! I hope we get to see Aiden and Ember again soon!

⭐5/5

“The walls speak to me. They tell me secrets. Don’t listen to them, press your hands against your ears.”

An isolated mansion, a family cloaked in fleeting riches and hushed voices, and a brave socialite drawn to expose their terrible secrets.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly wed cousin begging to be saved from terrible doom, Mexico City’s most glamorous debutante and socialite, Noemí Taboada, heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She doesn’t know what she’ll find at High Place, but she’s on a mission to find out if her cousin’s claims result from sickness or mistreatment from her new husband, a handsome yet mysterious Englishman.

Something doesn’t sit well with Noemí upon her arrival to High Place. The English family is inhospitable; their strict rules and hushed conversations make her suspicious. Ignoring any warnings to keep to herself, Noemí digs deeper to unearth the family’s secrets of violence and madness. She isn’t afraid of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; nor of his father, the ancient patriarch with an unsettling fascination for Noemí.

But perhaps Noemí should be afraid. Afraid of the house that she may soon find impossible to ever leave.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of my favorite authors. She delivers exceptional experiences across multiple genres, so when I saw she had written a Gothic Horror, I was beyond excited.

Mexican Gothic has the air and scenery of Wuthering Heights with a lasting sense of fear from a Stephen King’s book. Once again, Moreno-Garcia gave us a cast of unique characters along with a championing protagonist who I couldn’t but root for from the start. It’s rare for me to get absorbed into a narrative in a way that I cannot stop thinking about it. Noemí and her misadventures followed me through my days and, when the sun went down, a sense of unease would settle in my chest. The horror is suggestive, unsettling, and ghastly, but it doesn’t feature excessive gore or torture. Nevertheless, High Place and its secrets gave me nightmares, and yet, I couldn’t stop reading.

I took this book with me on a trip to Mexico. One night, I fell asleep in my childhood home reading a specially unsettling chapter. I woke up at 3 AM to the incessant barking of the neighbor’s dogs. My mind went to the local tale of an apparition: a tall man, garbed in dark clothes, that calls out to pedestrians on the corner of my neighborhood. A fear of the supernatural I hadn’t felt since I was a child assaulted me and all I could think about was of Noemí and the horrors she was living in that mansion, sequestered up a foggy mountain.

I can’t pinpoint why exactly this book affected me so. Perhaps it was the closeness to my country and how well our culture is depicted in this read. Or perhaps it’s the fact that I saw a part of myself in Noemí, who learned rebellion as a young girl while muttering the rosary. I don’t know what it is, but this story has climbed to my favorite read of 2021 and I don’t see it climbing down any time soon.

Besides celebrating Pride Month, June also celebrates audiobooks all month long. June was baptized Audiobook Appreciation Month with the goal of increasing awareness and engagement with the format. Audiobooks might not be the “traditional” way of reading, but if you were to tell me you listen to audiobooks, I would consider you a reader all the same. Audiobooks help make reading more accessible. They help people with impaired vision, attention span issues, or literacy issues. They’re also a great tool for those who need help to get acclimated to a new language. Audiobooks set me on the path to bilingualism. They fed my love for literature and introduced me to the new world of American Lit.

Even after becoming fluent in English, I have continued listening to audiobooks. I’ve found that while some stories are meant to be read, some are meant to be listened. The level of production some audiobooks get today—with multiple narrators to represent different points of view, music, and even sound effects—makes many stories a delightful experience.

To pay tribute to Audiobook Appreciation Month, I’m sharing my required listening list of audiobooks.

CW: Sexual assault, teen homelessness, drug and gun violence.

Russell Banks’s modern classic redefines the young antihero archetype. The story expertly narrated by Kirby Heyborne, introduces us to Chappie, a punk teenager living with his mother and abusive stepfather in an upstate New York trailer park who has slipped into drugs and petty crime. In anti-heroic fashion, Chappie carves a new identity for himself by getting a crossed-bones tattoo and taking a new name: The Bone.

Looking for a way out of his abusive household, The Bone runs away and finds dangerous refuge with a gang of bikers and thieves. But this gang of hardened criminals proves to be just a pit stop in the Bone’s journey.

After abandoning the biker gang and navigating the world and its hardships, the Bone meets I-Man, an exiled Rastafarian who takes him in an adventure that spans from Middle America to the ganja-growing mountains of Jamaica. The Bone descends in an amazing journey back to redemption through a world of magic, violence, and betrayal.

Written by Ayn Rand and narrated by the smooth voice of Christopher Hurt The Fountainhead is a modern classic that takes the reader through a philosophical journey for individualism.

Howard Roark is a gifted architect who navigates in his own terms through a society that praises conformity above creativity. His genius and ability to create for the pure delight of his own work and on no other terms makes him a target and earns him the resentment of those around him. Rand’s provocative novel presents the one of the most challenging ideas in all of fiction: man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress.

Ender’s Game is one of the most elaborate productions for an audiobook that I’ve come across. With music and the talented voices of Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison, and Gabrielle de Cuir, this audiobook is one of the most immersive stories I’ve ever listened to.

Winner of the 1985 Nebula Award and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is a modern classic among the Sci-Fi genre. The book follows the story of a brilliant boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives a normal life in a distant future where governments breed and train child geniuses as soldiers in order to develop a defense against a hostile alien race.

After being drafted for the orbiting Battle School, Ender’s skills earn him respect and high scores in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. But Battle School also comes with its challenges that leave Ender grappling with loneliness, rivalry from his peers, and paralyzing fear of the alien invaders. Can Ender truly become the general Earth needs?

What if X-Men, instead of becoming superheroes, decided to spend some time in therapy? Lauren Shippen’s popular and award-winning podcast The Bright Sessions answers this question and gifted us a book based on the podcast series.

Briggon Snow brings 16-year-old Caleb Michaels to life. He’s got the looks, he’s got the popularity of being the running back for the football team, but he’s also got a secret. Caleb is an Atypical, an individual with enhanced abilities. Caleb’s powers are not like what you’d seen in your regular comic books, Caleb’s ability is extreme empathy: he feels the emotions of everyone around him. Being a teenage empath in high school is hard enough, but Caleb’s ability gets harder to control when gets pulled into the emotional orbit of one of his classmates, Adam—voiced by James Fouhey.

Adam’s feelings are all-consuming and a heavy weight on an already struggling Caleb, but there’s something about Adam’s feelings that Caleb can’t quite understand. There’s a connection between them that Caleb cannot help but want to explore. Caleb's therapist, Dr. Bright, encourages Caleb to explore this connection by befriending Adam. As he and Adam grow closer, Caleb learns more about his ability, himself, his therapist - who seems to know a lot more than she lets on - and just how dangerous being an Atypical can be.

 There are so many other great audiobooks out there that deserve to be explored. The format is often snubbed by some hard-core readers who might not consider audiobooks really books, but I’m all for listening to a story once in a while. Audiobooks made literature in English more accessible for me and helped me overcome the challenges that come with being a dyslexic reader, so the format will always hold a special place in my heart.

⭐4/5: You Had Me at Hola, Alexis Daria

“Um, hola.”

Hola. Those first deep, fluid syllables of his greeting had sent a thrill through her.

After a messy public breakup and having her name blasted all over gossip media boards, soap opera actress Jasmine Lin swears to put love on the back burner and prioritize her career. She has a new job at her natal New York City and the opportunity to blast off as a leading actress. She can't mess this up, so she comes up with a Leading Lady plan that should keep her on track. The plan is based on three simple principles:

Leading Ladies do not end up on tabloid covers.

Leading Ladies don't need a man to be happy.

Leading Ladies do not rebound with their costars.

Sticking to her new plan should be easy, that is until a casting shake-up pairs her up with telenovela hunk Ashton Suárez.

After private rehearsing turns up the heat between them, Jasmine and Ashton find themselves in a behind-the-scenes telenovela romance of their own. Will Jasmine stick to her Leading Lady plan? Or will she continue to be drawn to introvert guarded Ashton?

This book was everything that I needed from a romance! I don't pick up romance books often. I tend to gravitate more towards Sci-Fi and Thrillers, but I wanted to read something fun that would make me feel happy and if I could find all that with a dash of BIPOC representation, then I'd be golden. Well, You Had Me at Hola surely delivered on all my expectations!

For fans of Jane the Virgin and Betty la fea, Daria's book takes Latinx representation to another level. This story balances perfectly the worlds of soap operas and telenovelas and touches beautifully on how the entertainment business can be more inclusive. I also enjoyed the use of Spanish throughout the book. It's not often that I see bilingualism so accurately represented.

The romantic story is absolutely amazing. The friendship, the tender moments, the falling in love in spite of professionalism, the S3X! It was all perfect. The romantic arch hit all the spots for me and I only give it a four-star review because there were some scenes where the narrator took me out of the moment. Other than that, I highly recommend the book if you want a sweet and spicy romance.