Tag Archives: romance

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty – Akwaeke Emezi

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Akwaeke Emezi’s novel You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is not the book I thought it was going to be. What did I think it was going to be? Hmmm. Good question. Given the accolades (NYT Notable Book, NCAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work) and positive reviews, I thought I was going to get a relatively serious story about overcoming grief…with a side of romance. What I got was a straight-up romance novel ripped from the Erotica 101 handbook. And there’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s your thing…but it’s not really the sort of book I am interested in reading anymore. That’s on me, not on Emezi.

Twenty-nine year old Brooklyn-based visual artist Feyi Adekola is still grieving the tragic death of her husband, Jonah. It’s not something she likes to talk about; it was “an easy secret for Feyi to keep,” but she’s been stuck in this endless cycle of grief for the last five years. Her BFF Joy thinks it’s time she got back out there, and that’s how she meets Milan and then his friend, Nasir.

There’s an immediate connection between between Feyi and Nasir, and Feyi “felt like she was in the path of something, but she wasn’t sure what.” Still, she’s reluctant to move too quickly, and Nasir suggests that they be friends first, which suits her fine. A few weeks into the relationship, Nasir invites Feyi to fly to his family home in the Caribbean. Through his connections, he’s secured her a spot in a gallery show and besides, his father and sister live there and she could get to know them. It isn’t until they are on the plane that Nasir reveals that his father is Alim Blake, a celebrity chef with two Michelin stars.

As soon as Feyi sees Alim she feels, “a twinge of attraction unfurling in her stomach.” She can barely meet his eyes, let alone be in the same room with him. She and Nasir are not sleeping together, and it’s clear once she meets Alim that they never will.

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty leans into familiar romance conventions. Releasing breaths characters didn’t know they were holding and men commenting on how tight the women are — that sort of thing. There was one scene that actually made me burst out laughing. Feyi apparently didn’t know what julienning meant and…this is where my 24-year-old son said, “No, tell me he didn’t stand behind her and put his hands over hers to guide them!” He’s definitely not a romance reader, but he saw that one coming a mile away. So, yeah, this book is filled with the requisite romance writing quirks. Beautiful people in a beautiful setting eventually having beautiful, mind-blowing sex.

Perhaps I am cynical about romance now, but I am not sure that’s it. Alim and Feyi have a connection because Alim is also widowed, although his wife died 20 years ago. And sure, they talk about their loss and the impact it’s had on their lives, but mostly this is a book about Feyi wondering whether this thing she feels is real. Nasir soon becomes a bit player in the story because the heart wants what it wants.

I guess I like my romances to be a little less ripped from the Romance 101 playbook. More The Paper Palace than well….most of the spicy romance book on BookTok these days. That said, I suspect that loads of people will love this book. It wasn’t my cup of romantic tea, but I doubt I’m the book’s intended audience.

Romantic Comedy – Curtis Sittenfeld

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Someone once told me that I was the most romantic person they’d ever met. That was a long time ago; life has chipped away at my notion of “romance”. Not that I ever consumed a lot of romance in literature, but I really don’t read that much straight-up romance at all now. If I do read it, I prefer a little angst (or, a lot of angst, tbh) and I like my main characters to be a little scuffed up by life. Still, the hype for Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy was irresistible and so I picked up a copy.

Sally Milz, 36, writes sketches for a late-night comedy show The Night Owls (picture Saturday Night Live). When the novel opens, Sally is getting ready for the crazy week ahead which includes writing sketch outlines, pitching them, fine-tuning them, taking them to rehearsal and then the live show. This week’s guest is Noah Brewster, “a cheesily handsome, extremely successful singer-songwriter who specialized in cloying pop music and was known for dating models in their early twenties.”

Noah is doing double duty this week acting as musical guest and host, a gig he claims “has been a lifelong dream, ever since [he] was a middle school misfit sneaking down to the basement to watch [the show] after [his] parents went to bed.” When he asks Sally for some help with a sketch he wants to pitch, Sally obliges and in doing so discovers that there is more to Noah than his piercing blue eyes, surfer hair and chiseled body. This is the meet cute.

While not necessarily a romantic cynic, Sally is also aware of how these things go – romantic relationships in an industry filled with beautiful people. She has written a sketch called “The Danny Horst Rule”. Danny is another writer on the show and even though he is “like a little brother” to Sally, the fact that he recently started dating Annabel Lily, “a gorgeous, talented, world-famous movie star” has sent Sally into a bit tizzy. Danny is, according to Sally, a “schlub.”

He was pasty skinned and sleep-deprived and sarcastic. And, perhaps because he was male or perhaps because he was a decade younger than I was, he was a lot less self-consciously people-pleasing and a lot more recklessly crass.

How come a guy like that ends up with a woman like Annabelle? This “was the essence of [her] fury: that such couples would never exist with the genders switched, that a gorgeous male celebrity would never fall in love with an ordinary, dorky, unkempt woman. Never. No matter how clever she was.”

There seems to be chemistry between Sally and Noah – or is he just turning on the high-wattage charisma big stars seem to have? Sally can’t tell. They definitely have banter, but it’s not vacuous banter. Then, at the after-after party there is a moment when – and Sally knows exactly when it happens – that things change.

The Covid lock-down two years later puts Noah back in Sally’s orbit and their email exchange is one of my favourite parts of the book – and that’s saying something considering I loved all the parts of the book.

Romantic Comedy is often laugh-out-loud funny, but it is also a book that examines notions of celebrity, beauty, gender and the perils of social media. I loved Sally’s insecurities and interior monologue – at one point she tells Noah that she “feel[s] like [she’s] writing dialogue for the character of [her]self.” And I loved Noah. He was self-aware and smart and patient with Sally. They are kind of perfect together.

Even if, like me, you wouldn’t necessarily consider yourself a romance reader, I can whole-heartedly recommend this book.

Meet Me at the Lake – Carley Fortune

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Canadian writer Carley Fortune’s second novel, Meet Me at the Lake, doesn’t stray too far from the plot of her first book Every Summer After. In that book, childhood besties become more and are then separated by a bad decision, only to reunite many years later.

In this iteration, Fern Brookbanks meets Will Baker in Toronto just after she’s graduated with her BBA. He’s an artist who has been hired to paint a mural at the coffee shop where Fern works.

Guys this hot were the worst. Cocky, self-absorbed, dull. Plus, he was tall. Hot plus tall meant he’d be completely insufferable.

Except, Will is not insufferable; he’s actually pretty great. He suggests a tour of Toronto before he heads back to Vancouver and she heads home to Hunstville, where she’s about to start working at the family business, a resort on the lake. The problem is, Fern is at a crossroad. She is pretty sure that’s not what she wants to do, even though that’s where her boyfriend of four years, Jamie, is. She has different dreams.

There is definitely a spark between Fern and Will, and they agree to meet in Muskoka in one year – except Will doesn’t show. Well, he does show, actually: nine years late.

Fortune offers readers two timelines: the day Will and Fern spend together and then their reunion in present day. Will is nothing like Fern remembers him, except that he’s still tall and hot. Instead of being an artist, he’s some sort of consultant who was apparently hired by Fern’s mother Maggie, to help breathe new life into the resort. He is both Will and not Will, but Fern still feels the crazy chemistry she felt all those years ago. What’s a girl to do?

The things I liked about the book are the same things I liked about Every Summer After. Canadian settings (I have friends in Huntsville, though I have never been), and references just make me happy. There are some fun characters in the book; I particularly liked the Roses, a couple who have been coming to the resort Fern’s whole life and “have hosted a Sunday cocktail hour at Cabin 15” since Fern was born and Peter, the pastry chef and Fern’s surrogate father.

The story itself, vague details of running a lodge and lots of food talk, is mildly diverting. But that’s not why you read this sort of book anyway. We’re here for the romance and I am guessing, based on the book’s massive popularity — shooting to the top of the NYT’s best sellers list when it was released — that most everyone loves that aspect of it. Like with her first book, it just didn’t quite work for me.

But maybe that’s just me. I like angst. Will and Fern had a day, a really special day from all accounts, but then ten years later Fern is almost immediately ready to put that in the past because Will is there to work with her and she needs him to do that to save a business she didn’t even want anything to do with ten years ago –and yes, I get it people/circumstances change. And he’s tall. And hot. Their reunion just felt a little too easy and the bumps, when they arrive, come out of nowhere, and are all resolved with a little bit of familial exposition.

I didn’t hate this book. It was 50 pages too long, but it was easy to read. I didn’t feel annoyed when I was done reading, but I also didn’t feel that post-romance swoon. If you’re not going to break my heart — which is actually what I’d prefer — at least I don’t want to read Erotica 101. That’s mean: this book is definitely better than that, really, but it didn’t 100% scratch my romance itch even though I liked both main characters just fine. Still, a great book for your beach bag.

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute – Talia Hibbert

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I am not really a straight-up romance reader and if I do read them, I tend to like them angsty rather than sunny and sweet. Talia Hibbert’s first YA novel Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute definitely falls in the sweet category, but I am okay with that because this book is as charming as heck.

Seventeen-year-olds Celine Bangura and Bradley Graeme can barely stand the sight of each other. The two are classmates at Rosewood Academy, a school somewhere near Nottingham, England. Celine makes TikTok videos about UFOs and vaccines and has amassed a bit of a following. Brad is a football (aka soccer) player who hangs with the cool kids. Celine makes her disdain for Brad well known from the start.

People like them — “popular” people who think sports and looks and external approval are a valid replacement for actual personality — ironically don’t have the social skills to deal with anyone outside their golden circle. I should know.

Celine has “always believed he is fake and false and entirely made of earth-destroying plastic“.

Brad’s feelings regarding Celine are equally disdainful. She’s a “terrible, horrible person who I absolutely can’t stand.”

It wasn’t always been this way, though. Their mothers are besties and so were they until they were fourteen. Then something happened and now the two give each other the evil eye and if they do have to talk it’s only to trade pointed barbs.

An accident puts them in each other’s orbit again and then they both end up going for the same scholarship, which requires them to participate in a two-part survival course. Neither of them is particularly interested in the great outdoors, but both of them would benefit from the money for different reasons.

Celine is competitive and driven, especially by her need to shame her father who “ditched [her] for his second family ten years ago and [she hasn’t] seen him since.” Brad’s family could afford the tuition, but the scholarship means that he could afford single accommodations, which is something Brad desperately wants for reasons I won’t spoil here. Suffice to say, these teenagers — besides being really smart and funny — have baggage and secrets they are keeping from themselves, their families and even each other. They have built walls around themselves in order to protect themselves from the rough weather known as adolescence.

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is definitely tropey. There’s enemies-to-lovers, and close proximity, for sure. But in every other way, this is a refreshing, funny and sweet story of two teenagers trying to figure out what they want their lives to look like. I absolutely adored both of the main characters. Their banter was often laugh-out-loud funny and even though I knew what the outcome of this whole thing was going to be right from the very start I was delighted to go along for their swoony ride.

Highly recommended.

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Much Ado About You – Samantha Young

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Straight-up romance is not normally my go-to genre, mostly because I find it difficult to relate to the 25-35 year-old hotties who normally populate said stories. I am a romantic at heart, but I am also a divorced 61-year-old and I come to these stories with a lot of baggage. I guess I want the characters to have some baggage, too. A much younger colleague at school told me about Much Ado About You by Samantha Young and I liked the sound of it because the protagonist is bookish and the story takes place in Northern England.

Thirty-three-year-old Evie Starling has just had her heart broken: twice. First, the guy she’d been SnapChatting with for months ghosts her, and then she’s passed over – again – for a promotion at the magazine where she works. She’s had it with Chicago and decides to shake up her life by taking an extended holiday in Alnster, Northumberland. She chooses Alnster because she sees an ad for Much Ado About Books, a cozy bookshop with a flat above where you stay while you run the bookstore. (There is a bookstore in Scotland that actually does this and it sounds like a dream vacation to me, too!)

On day one she meets Roane Robson, “the most beautiful man [she’d] ever seen”. The attraction is immediate and the two quickly become, well, friends. Evie has sworn off men, and this whole trip is so that she can figure out what she wants to do with her life. She doesn’t have time for Roane’s thick, dark hair, broad shoulders, warm brown eyes, white smile: you get it, the guy’s sex on a stick.

Evie is less than perfect – at least in her estimation.

At five foot ten, I was tall. In my four-inch heels, that put me at six foot two. But I didn’t think that was what bothered some guys. I had plentiful boobs, an ass, hips, and although I had a waist, it wasn’t super trim. Neither was my belly. Either guys loved my tall voluptuousness, or they labeled me fat.

As Evie settles into small town life, she and Roane settle into an easy friendship. That’s all they can be because Evie claims that that’s all she wants, although she certainly enjoys the eye candy that Roane provides her. The rest of the townsfolk welcome her with open arms – mostly. Evie loves running the bookshop and she loves getting into everyone’s business, so it would appear that this is a good move for her.

But, of course, the path of true love never did run smooth. Once her core starts throbbing for Roane, there’s no turning back. And once that line is crossed – although Young takes her time getting these two naked – it can’t just be smooth sailing. I found the reasons for their separation a little contrived, but you know as soon as this book starts how it’s all going to work out so whatever.

As far as romance goes, this is sweet, readable, with just a tad of tropey spice. I liked Evie and Roane; they were a great couple. I loved the setting and her bookstore gig is my dream. Did all the pieces fit together just a little too perfectly? Probably. But I don’t think you read this sort of book looking for angst.

Seven Days in June – Tia Williams

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I flew through the first 100 pages of Tia Williams’s novel Seven Days in June. Was this going to be 2022’s The Paper Palace? I wondered.

Nope.

Eva Mercy is the author of the best selling erotica series Cursed. She’s a single mom living with her 12-year-old daughter Audre in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Except for the fact that the fifteenth installment of her witch – in – love – with – a – vampire series is due on her publisher’s desk in a week and she’s run out of steam, she has a fabulous life. Well, she does suffer from debilitating migraines and she does have a complicated relationship with her mother, Lizette. But otherwise, life’s good.

Then, there’s Shane Hall, reclusive award-winning author who now spends his time trying to mentor at-risk youth, giving them the support he never had as a kid. He’s recently sober and as part of his recovery, he feels there is one wrong he has to right and it concerns Eva.

He decides the best thing to do is ambush her — after fifteen years — at the State of the Black Author event.

When a horror-movie character sees a ghost, she emits a bloodcurdling shriek. Claws at her cheeks. Runs for her life. Eva was trapped onstage in broad view of New York’s literary community, so she did none of those things. Instead, her hands went completely slack, and her microphone slipped to the floor with a heavy thunk.

For Eva, this was “the moment she’d always feared” but also “the moment she’d always anticipated.” Although he is still devastatingly beautiful — because of course he is — seeing Shane again shoots Eva straight back to twelfth grade, which is the last time she’d seen him.

Look, I have zero complaints about well-written romance novels. There was lots to like about Seven Days in June. I liked that it was set in NYC; I liked the fandom aspect of Eva’s novels; I liked Audre even though she sounded more like a grown-ass woman than a twelve year old.

Once Eva and Shane are reunited, it’s just a sex romp, really because — sure — two hot thirty-somethings are going to get “groiny” with one another because they have chemistry and feelings and history. But where’s the tension?

Their week together as high school seniors was meant to be some big meeting of the souls, but it was mostly a drug and alcohol fueled week crashing in someone’s empty mansion. I mean, is that the stuff epic romances are made of? Something happened that week, but it’s explained with a phone call. That was one of my issues with this book, actually, all the plot points that just felt like a way for the story to pivot. Ty. Eva’s family ring. For me, the book tried too hard to be more than the sum of its parts.

Seven Days in June is a sometimes funny, decently-written romance about two beautiful people who have sex. A lot. It is not ground-breaking.

The Kiss Quotient – Helen Hoang

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Stella Lane is a task-oriented, intelligent, wealthy single 30-year-old. If it weren’t for her mother badgering her about settling down, Stella might have been content to focus on her career as an econometrician. (Yeah, I’d never heard of it either. It’s a person who uses “statistics and calculus to model economic systems.”) Stella has had exactly three sexual encounters in her life, each more disappointing than the last.

Her latest sexual experience had been with one of her mother’s blind dates. He’d been good looking – she had to give him that – but his sense of humor had confused her. […] When he straight-out asked her if she wanted to have sex with him, she’d been caught completely off guard. Because she hated to say no, she’d said yes. There’d been kissing, which she didn’t enjoy. He’d tasted like the lamb he’d had for dinner. She didn’t like lamb.

Stella figures she needs practice in the sex department, and so she hires an escort, Michael Phan, a Vietnamese-Swedish hunk, to teach her the ropes — so to speak. For Stella, Michael is “by far the finest male specimen she’d ever laid eyes on.” For Michael, Stella is quite unlike anyone he’s ever met.

The hook for Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient is that Stella is on the autism spectrum. She doesn’t like loud noises, strong scents, any disruption to the routine that makes her feel safe. She says what she thinks and has trouble reading social cues. Career-wise, she’s respected and successful, but as she tells Michael on their first date “I’m awful at…what you do. But I want to get better. I think I can get better if someone would teach me.”

I doubt you will ever meet two characters as sweet and wholesome as Stella and Michael and yet the sex in this book is on the face-fanning steamy side. Turns out, Michael is extremely good at his job, but more than that, he genuinely likes Stella and as their relationship morphs from a pay-for-sex gig into friendship things start to get complicated for the both of them. Suddenly, Michael is taking Stella home to meet his family and revealing his private life in a way that is very unprofessional. I’m not sure the complication at the end was necessary (after all, everyone and their dog could see these two were CRAZY for each other) but it hardly matters because at that point you’ll be all-in.

The Kiss Quotient is smut with two delightful central characters and if that’s your thing, enjoy.

Red, White & Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston

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Everyone and their dog got really squishy over Casey McQuiston’s frothy romance Red, White & Royal Blue when it came out in 2019. This New Adult debut tells the story of Alex Claremont-Diaz, 21, and Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, 23. Although they’ve been in each other’s orbit for years, they hate each other; well, at least, Alex hates Henry. It’s problematic because Alex’s mother is the president of the United States, and Henry’s grandmother is the Queen of England. Yes, this is a fantasy. In every category.

When the novel begins, Alex is just wrapping up his final year of university, determined that he is “not going to be the youngest elected congressman in modern history without earning it.” Alex is academically brilliant and politically savvy, but perhaps not quite so clever when it comes to his personal life. He and his older sister, June, spend their free time flipping through the tabloids to see what the world is saying about them, or hanging with their best friend, Nora, the Vice President’s granddaughter. The three of them are known collectively as the White House Trio.

When the Claremont-Diazs are invited to attend the wedding of Henry’s older brother, Philip, it’s clear that there is some rivalry between Alex and Henry.

The tabloids – the world – decided to cast Alex as the American equivalent of Prince Henry from day one, since the White House Trio is the closest thing America has to royalty. It has never seemed fair. Alex’s image is all charisma and genius and smirking wit, thoughtful interviews and the cover of GQ at eighteen. Henry’s is placid smiles and gentle chivalry and generic charity appearances, a perfectly blank Prince Charming canvas.

When that acrimony lands them on top of the eight-tier wedding cake, it causes an international incident that must be squashed with a carefully constructed ruse: Henry and Alex will act like they are best friends instead of mortal enemies. It’s, of course, a trope as old as time. Turns out, though, that these two have a lot more in common than they thought, and that’s when things get interesting.

Although Red, White & Royal Blue takes a little bit to get going, once it picks up steam there’s, well, plenty of it. Henry is disgustingly handsome, thoughtful, intelligent and kind. And a little bit damaged, too. That’s kind of a given in most romance novels, isn’t it? When Henry finally makes a move, it causes a ripple effect, not the least of which is a sexual crisis for Alex. I mean, he’s straight, right? Um, not so much.

I really enjoyed this book. It was sweet, funny, and romantic. Alex and Henry are adorable, truly. I think the book probably caused such a stir because when it was released Trump was still in office and this book imagines a kinder, gentler and much, much saner post-Obama world. It’s kinda hard to find fault with that. It’s fluffy, for sure, but it’s also a book that promotes the idea that we can live in a world that treats people with respect, that acknowledges and supports their choices, and one that doesn’t care as much about sexual orientation. When Alex’s mom is running for re-election, her competition is a far-right jerk, and the election comes down to Texas (where the Claremont-Diazs are from). I mean, Texas always votes red, right? See, fantasy.

McQuiston’s book is big-hearted, well-written, smart, and optimistic. No wonder it’s the perfect antidote for an imperfect world.

More Than Words – Mia Sheridan

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I’ll admit it; I have a ‘type’ (of romance story I like). Mia Sheridan’s novel More Than Words should have ticked every single box, but when I was finished reading I just felt sort of ‘meh’ about the whole thing. I have a feeling though, it’s me not the book. Maybe I am just over romance.

Jessica Cresswell is a dreamy eleven-year-old when she meets Callen Hayes in an abandoned rail car.

A boy sat leaning against the far wall, his long legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles, his eyes shut. My heat galloped in my chest. Who is he? One of the streetlamps cast a glow into the shadowy interior, enough for me to see that the boy’s lip was bloody and his eye swollen. […] He was a prince. A…broken prince.

For the next few months, Callen and Jessica meet and dream and play make-believe and then, after one sweet kiss, Callen disappears.

Ten years later, Callen is the Sexiest Man in Music and Jessie is a cocktail waitress, but only until she lands her dream gig of translating historical documents. (Yes, apparently that’s someone’s dream job.) Her dream has landed her in Paris; Callen’s there, too, to claim a big award and fate lands them in the same place at the same time in an “in all the gin joints in all the towns in all the word [he] walks into mine” sorta way.

Of course, Jessie recognizes him. Callen’s reaction is more, hmmm, physical and less, OMG, I remember you. “My heart jumped, a buzz of electricity shooting down my spine, and I frowned, surprised by my reaction….God, I couldn’t stop staring at her.” See, Callen’s one of those “bad” boys. He drinks to excess and sleeps around and cares for no one. He’s a jerk but, of course, not an irredeemable jerk because then we wouldn’t be as desperate for these two to get together as Sheridan wants us to be. Really, he’s just misunderstood.

When they finally do connect – in another convenient twist of fate – Jessie is reluctant to give Callen the time of day. And he’s intent on proving that he is still the boy she once knew and cared for.

There’s nothing wrong with More Than Words. The writing is decent. There are some tender moments that ring true. It’s the fairy tale, right? Maybe I am just old and cynical and no longer believe. Perhaps these characters, both in their early twenties, are just too young for me to relate to. Either way, the book was not my cup of tea, but I suspect many others would love it to bits.

Hotel for the Lost – Suzanne Young

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Audrey has had a tough go. Her mother recently died; her older brother, Daniel, is barely speaking to her, and her father is so fed up he’s shipping her off to spend the summer with her maternal grandmother. This is how Audrey and her family ends up at Hotel Ruby, the creepy setting in Suzanne Young’s gothic romance Hotel for the Lost.

There’s a pathway into the trees, a road covered in debris of broken branches. I’m about to ask my father where the hell he’s going when a set of open iron gates appear in front of us. They’re ornate and oversize. Beautiful. Golden lights wrap their way up the tree trunks and illuminate the drive, now cleared.

…

Here, in the middle of nowhere, is a grand building – lit up at 3 a.m. like it’s New Year’s Eve. A white stone front, huge archway with ivy crawling up the walls.

Hotel Ruby is not like other hotels. For one thing, their stay there mellows Audrey’s dad out and one night turns into three. For another, there’s a massive party held in the ballroom nightly, but it’s by invitation only and Audrey is not invited. And then there’s Elias, the hot, strangely old-fashioned guy whose “smile is absolutely disarming in the most wonderful way.”

Audrey’s stay at Hotel Ruby gives her an opportunity to reflect on her mother’s death (something she has struggled to come to terms with). It also gives her the chance to see her father in a new light and to attempt to work through her complicated feelings for Ryan, the boy she recently dumped. Mostly, though, she wanders the strangely labyrinthine halls of the hotel, snogging Elias and trying to figure out why the place feels so strange.

Part of that strangeness has to do with Kenneth, the hotel’s uber-creepy concierge. And then there’s Audrey’s hallucinations, which become more pronounced the longer she’s at the hotel.

I think Hotel for the Lost had a lot of (often unrealized) potential, and the novel definitely picked up steam in the latter half. I think readers who enjoy a little bit of “what the heck is going on” will enjoy the story’s twists and turns, and anyone who enjoys romance will be rooting for Eli and Audrey.