I loved everything. I want more small town in Kansas romances with interesting history lessons and ghosts and huge annoying but loving families and all of it!

I started this book July 25th and didn’t finish it until November 30th. I have never kept reading a book for four months but I just wasn’t willing to DNF this one. I wanted to know how it ended and so many people seemed to love it that I felt like I was missing something. I thought, maybe now wasn’t the right time but 4 months later and I guess this books just wasn’t for me.

In theory the romance, learning about a large family and their history, going on a journey with the MC as she navigates trauma within her family and a history of racism in her town, and solving a mystery with supernatural like elements is a recipe for an intriguing story. It did have its moments and the last few chapters really hit me in my feelings, especially with her family. I appreciated Alex’s strong will and commitment to protecting herself from the things that have harmed her but it was really tough reading through some of her interactions and cruel comments. She really knew how to deliver an emotional punch to people.

There was a lot going on inside the characters, among the family and within the town to unpack and as much as I wanted to I just found it really hard to stay present and everything somehow still felt too slow for me. As I finished the book I could see why people may love it so. I’m glad I stuck it through as I really needed those final chapters to tie up my feelings about it all but in the end it wasn’t the book for me.

Opposites attract, small town romance featuring an unlikeable heroine (at first) and an affection-starved academic. These two characters both feel so much, and have both been rejected, resulting in some strong defenses. Watching them learn to see each other, and be vulnerable, is wonderful.

Throw in some mystery and light paranormal action, add in a ton of light being cast on injustice, particularly of the systemic racism variety. You get a compelling, emotional (I cried a lot in third act), and super 🥵 romance.

Thanks to Bonkers Romance and the publisher for an eARC.

This was my first read by this author, but it surely won't be my last. There are far too many interracial romances that highlight gentrification (and not in an overwhelming way), and this book definitely fits the bill. The author did such a great job with this book in regards to that subject as well as the romance between the two main characters. It was such an enjoyable rivals to lovers romance. There were many times I had a lot of emotions throughout the story, especially as it relates to Alex and what she had to deal with. This author will be on my radar after this book

I received a copy of the book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving an honest review of my own thoughts and opinions.

What a pleasant surprise I found this book to be. It was steamy right in the beginning (nothing wrong with that)! But, the way the story was developed, I was all to happy to go on the journey with Alex and Jeremiah. It was a classic case of opposites attract. Jeremiah is this mild-mannered Clark Kent type and Alex is this fiery woman who know what she wants and has a takes no prisoners kind of attitude. Although the story did lag a bit in the middle, I enjoyed it!

This book was absolutely delighftul, Angelina M Lopez never misses, can't wait for the next book! Absolutely loved the chemistry between the two main characters

This book was steamy with a capital S. I’m not going to lie; it took me a while to get into this book because, at one point, Alex’s attitude and how she kept dismissing and thinking the worst of everyone pissed me off. But when they came back and put her in her place, I was like, "Yessss!" However, when her reasoning was finally revealed, I agreed with her and understood why she was so standoffish. One of my favorite scenes was with her dad at the end. I have to admit, I shed a little tear or two. My other favorite scene was when Mr. Professor showed her he was not with the shits in the hallway. This was a beautifully written story and I loved how it included family history, mystery, honesty, and love. If you like steamy enemies to lovers with a boss bitch attitude and a hot nerdy love interest, this is the book for you!

Thank you, NetGalley and Carina Press, for this e-book.

After a very public blowup at the bar she works at, star bartender Alex returns to her hometown of Freedom, Kansas. Assuming she’ll be able to take over the restaurant her family has owned for decades (with her two cousins who will each get a book I assume), she blazes back into the family with one heck of a chip on her shoulder.
Angelina M. Lopez writes “unlikeable” heroines and I adore them. Alex is the prickliest of cacti, using sex (and words) as a weapon against the gentle professor living above the restaurant who’s cultivated a great relationship with the town and her big Mexican-American family. She’s jealous, he’s hot, it’s A Problem.
Kicked out of town as a teen, Alex rightfully has grudges against a specific white family in town, as well as her own. When it comes to the restaurant, she’s up against gentrification and cultural expectations and it takes a long time for her to reconcile these issues within herself and the restaurant. This book is very much driven by Alex’s personal arc and Lopez did a great job using the restaurant as a metaphor for Alex - fixing the place up, modernizing while keeping her culture, readjusting to and working with a big, nosy family…
That said, while Jeremiah has much more of his stuff together, he gets a satisfying arc too and the romance is central. This doesn’t read as women’s fiction.
High steam, high angst, fat heroine who loves her body, very tall hero who also loves her body (why is he short on the cover?), messy family feels with a reconciliation arc, and a GHOST.
Strong yes from me.

Lopez’s romance—about a Mexican-American community in Kansas, featuring a prickly chef and poindexter professor—is as steamy as it is political, beautiful, and heartfelt.

I included this title in my summer/fall preview for Book & Film Globe: https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/nine-books-to-escape-with-for-fall/

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

After Hours On Milagro Street is a enemies to partners to lovers. Alex (Alejandra) has moved back home after iconically quitting her job to take over the family business as the badass bartender she is. Jeremiah, the hot, nerdy professor doesn't have much roots but has found a place with Alex's family and their community.
And while they start with a bang, their relationship turns explosive as in they don't trust each other but can't resist each other.

In the midst of the sparks coming off of these two, there's a story of family, feeling alone and being pushed away, rich history about a Mexican-American community, and traditions. There's even a treasure hunt, a ghost that's timing will make you chuckle, and a bunch of family humor.

I can't promise you will like Alex and Jeremiah from page one. I can almost guarantee you won't. But they grow on you and on each other. We understand where Alex strong attitude and reflex for a fight comes. And we can appreciate Jeremiah's desire to belong somewhere when he sticks out and what his role is as a white man in a community of color.

This was such an amazing read!

Spice 3/5

This was a wonderfully easy read. I loved the fast chapters and the quick intro to all the characters. I thought Alex was hilarious at times, her personality just jumps off the page. Jeremiah was a little more subdued next to Alex but I liked his charm.

The land, the family, the neighborhood and community - I loved learning about it all. There were some steamy parts that surprised me. I was expecting some but the spice was pretty high on this one. All in all, it was cute and I liked it!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

✨ Review ✨ After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez

In the main plot, Alex (Alejandra) Torres, a big shot, bad bitch bartender from Chicago, blows into town to save her grandmother's bar. She quite literally bangs into Jeremiah Post, a local professor who's renting a room above the bar. Alex quickly learns that Jeremiah wants to turn the bar into a museum about the local Mexican American population that has for decades lived on Milagro Street, the barrio in their town. There's a super steamy romance here between Alex and Jeremiah that persists throughout.

There's a lot going on in this book, so I'll try to summarize some of the subthreads here:
⭕️ there are ghosts haunting the bar and some light magical realism running throughout
⭕️ there's great history about the traqueros, Mexican American railroad workers that came to settle in the Midwest -- it definitely peaked my historian interest
⭕️ there are great discussions about historic preservation, community, stakeholders and appropriation throughout this book (my historian heart was again cheering for this)
⭕️ there's a mystery at play as Jeremiah and Alex team up to search for hidden documents, uncovering secrets about the town and its founders

I liked this book and many of its threads though it was a bit overwhelming in length and all of the pieces happening within. It's definitely a romance worth reading if you want to juggle interesting subplots throughout!

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Genre: m/f romance, steamy, enemies-to-lovers
Location: small-town Kansas
Pub Date: out now

Thanks to Carina Press, Harlequin, and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

I struggled with this book. It took me about 3 weeks to finish it. I really enjoyed learning about Mexican colonias and the history with the train tracks, but I could not connect with the story. I did not like their first encounter because it felt like he did not want to hook up, and she pushed him into it. I kept thinking that if this had been the other way around, it would be considered problematic. I also do not buy these two together, although the fmc was a well-rounded character, I don't think the mmc was as well developed. He wears a fedora for god's sake! Who wears a fedora nowadays? Plus we never got his full story, and it did not make a lot of sense.

Something that bothered me about the book that took me a couple of weeks to pinpoint was that for every POC character we are told they are POC, but not for the white characters. I don't like the implication that white is the default. I mean I wasn't 100% sure the mmc was white until towards end and after confirming with another reader, same with the fmc's father. We get a physical description that I am guessing we are supposed to assume means he is white, but you can be white and Latinx. Considering how much weight the fmc put on her Latinx identity, it felt weird that it is never explicitly mentioned whether her father is white or not.

Lastly, one of my biggest pet peeves is when another language is added to a book and it is wrong. I don't care as much if dialogue is not grammatically correct or if it seems off, but the name of the Mexican society they find in a Mexican newspaper was wrong and that really threw me off. The book called it "Sociedad de Mexicanas Senoras y Senoritas" but it should be "Sociedad de Senoras y Senoritas Mexicanas."

CW: racism on page, alcoholic parent, child neglect

I knew from the first chapter After Hours was going to be a RIDE and oh wow it surely was. From the stranger bang in the dark bar, with maybe a ghost causing chaos, to Alex and her huge family and professor Jeremiah with his suspenders and waistcoat and glasses, what fun I had reading this steamy contemporary romance with a hint of a mystery and big found family feels.

I love the midwestern setting, learning the history of the Mexican immigrants to that era, how they lived in boxcars. Truly so many great details and rich character development!

The steam is also exceptionally fun, and even if I personally hate 🤡, I was not expecting THAT moment and it made me laugh so hard.

I do wish Jeremiah was a bit more fleshed out as a character beyond being a professor, super BIG, and secretly rich.

Read with my Fight Club.

Thank you to the publisher for the advance review copy.
11 likes

3.5 Stars. When Alex returns to her hometown in Kansas she and her sisters approach their grandmother to take over the family bar, only to learn that their grandmother is entertaining offers from other parties. One of the interested parties is Jeremiah, the college professor renting a room above the bar, who Alex hooked up with on her first night back in town. The pair both working to save the bar but for different reasons.

I was drawn to this book by the gorgeous cover which is even more incredible to look at in person. I really liked both Alex and Jeremiah and the fact that both had noble reasons for wanting to save the bar. I do think that Alex was a much more full character than Jeremiah. While we did have his POV I found myself wishing that I knew more about him and his history. I did like that we got a lot of Mexican-American history, which is so rare in a small town mid-west romance. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this was an open-door and steamy novel.

Thank you to Harlequin, Carina Press, and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored this book - I have been a fan of Angelina M. Lopez since her debut with Lush Money and am always looking forward to her next book. And boy oh boy does this new series DELIVER.

Alex & Jeremiah were the perfect combo - I absolutely loved their "meet cute" and the fact that this truly pops off at 3% in. I'm not sure how Angelina manages the steaminess and reality so perfectly well.

As a white cis-het woman, there are so many elements of this book that I can't possibly fathom but I love that Angelina takes the time to tell the beautiful stories that she does. And not only that, she gives the background characters enough meat to make you intrigued without drawing attention from the leads of the book. I am already ready for the next book!

Thank you so much to Netgalley & Carina for an early ARC

I’m crying. In the club. This book was EVERYTHING. High intensity doesn’t even begin to cover it. From the sparks that you can see flying between Jeremiah and Alex to the honest-to-god hidden treasure I devoured this book. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. This book did not have a bad bop. Romance aside (and an absolutely phenomenal romance at that), learning about Freedom, Kansas and the rich immigrant history there was one of my favorite parts of this. Loretta is a strong and fierce matriarch and what I wouldn’t give for a hug from my abuela right now like one of hers. The treasure hunt that led to a “we can’t have each other until after we trust each other” pact made the romance absolutely delicious. This book was tasty (in more ways than one) and I cannot wait to keep screaming about it.

I had a hard time with this book and didn't end up finishing it. I didn't believe in the characters, I didn't much enjoy the writing and I definitely didn't believe in the romance. Even though I admired Alex at times, she also got on my nerves quite a bit - maybe because I'm not a confrontational person? I don't know. Jeremiah though? Total bore. He felt like he was just there to move the plot forward or something.

That said, I understand why people like this book - the heroine is a strong, smart and fierce woman who takes no shit from anyone. She's the angry one with probably every right to be so. It's enemies to hate-banging and opposites attract. It's not judging someone by their appearance. It's family and history, culture and community. It just wasn't for me.

/ Denise

I really, really enjoyed this book!

Alex comes back to her hometown to turn around her grandmother's bar, Loretta's. She finds out she has to compete against a rich developer and Jeremiah - a college professor who is her grandmother's boarder who wants the space for a history museum. She immediately has sparks with Jeremiah (like, immediately in the first chapter) but they get off to a rocky start. Eventually they need to team up to save Loretta's and preserve Alex's family's history in the process.

I love history and low-key supernatural, and this was the perfect amount of each. I loved Alex and Jeremiah's journey together. All in all, a fun read!

By turns hilarious, hot, and heartfelt. This is an epic story of love, family, and how to heal from your past. Parts of this story are incredibly emotional and almost painful to read. After Hours, explores the historic and present racism black and brown communities face with clarity, insight, and a heap of graceful sorrow. I loved the heart of this book and found the story surprising and engaging. If you love steamy romance with plenty of plot twists, this is for you.