Book Chat with Kendra Shannon

Welcome back to Lit Happens with Sid. Now we are gonna get into it with someone who is very known across like the bookstagram community as well as Metro Detroit when it comes to books. Kendra Shannon. Kendra how are you? I'm doing so good. How are you? I'm doing good. So I was so happy when you sent me an email. I was like girl where have you been on my life? When you were like hey like I'm well known in the area if you ever need somebody to chit chat with. And so you do it all. So you are very good when it comes to events. You're very good at She's amazing. I mean she's literally one of my favorite authors. I love her. I feel like one of my biggest bragging points is that Kennedy Ryan and Tia Williams like know I exist and follow me. Yeah. So I just don't need anything else. Yeah. I feel the same with Tia Williams. When I chatted with her like just so you know fair warning I might have a fangirl moment throughout this. So if my voice gets high pitch don't blame me. You like don't even need any other guests after that. Exactly. Like that's a wrap. And so Kendra tell us a little bit about who you are and where your love for reading really started. Yeah. So I've always been a reader since I literally learned how to read. My parents were I was literally one of those advanced reading kids when in the summertime when I wasn't playing outside. My parents had us reading books and writing book reports. Okay. So like definitely education was important and so I just kind of kept reading over time and I over time got more and more into romance and so I kind of found my love for romance and one day I just decided actually after finishing a Kennedy Ryan book that you know probably gonna talk about I was like I need to talk about this with somebody. And so that's when I was like I'm just gonna go ahead and start my page. Back in 2020 I feel like book talk was like really on the rise and so I was like I want to do that and here we are. And you're doing great things and you're like well like I said well-versed when it comes to recommendations when it comes to reviews and your reviews are very honest with like a book with you don't. Yes I try to be honest. Where you really get that love from like your other followers and your fans pretty much because they're like okay I know I can trust her and it kind of gauges a reaction or whether they would like the book or not. And I know a couple of your favorite ones one of them is Kennedy Ryan, The Kingsmaker. So tell us a little bit about what you love so much about this book. Yeah so this is definitely an underrated series I say it all the time I meet so many people who have never read The Kingsmaker series and I'm like how because this series literally has everything. It's second chance, soulmates, star-crossed lovers, forbidden romance. There's a little bit of an age gap in there and it's a duology plus one extra book and it follows Lennox who is Native American and she grew up on a reservation her mom is Native American her dad is white and one day her mom goes to this protest and ends up never coming back and she doesn't know what happened to her mom she never saw her mom again and so her mom kind of dedicated her life to activism for Native Americans and so Lennox then takes that and says okay like this happened to my mom and so Kennedy Ryan really sheds a light on a real issue that Native American women go missing and a lot of their cases go cold and so it's a really wonderful book Kennedy Ryan is always gonna make sure that you learn something in the midst of you know reading her books and so one of her biggest competitors that she's always protesting is this corporation Cade Corporation I'll just call it that and she meets this guy at one of the protests they end up in jail together they have this electric moment but then they don't see each other for years and then they see each other again and what she doesn't know is that this man is the son of the corporation that she's always protesting against so you kind of get to I know so you get to read their story it's like super angsty and like if you just like to feel those like emotions on page like those characters are like very real you definitely need to read that series yeah I love it so much and I just went to all romance bookstore oh yeah read my lips in Birmingham yeah yeah and I went the other day with one of my best friends Ashley who's like a book nerd like me and when I tell you like they had the physical copies of like books that you see on tik-tok or that you might only be able to find on like Kindle or if you order on Amazon and I picked up a Kennedy Ryan not that I need any more books right now but it's called until I'm yours have you read oh yeah that's from her first book series right like it's like a blue cover green cover pink yeah I read I have that next on on my list I'll let you know please like I love reading updates like I love that and that series also I will tell you is like also super angsty it's like you need someone to rant to yeah like I said she just needs to build a machine and we could just build me from like her books and I feel like the world would be a much better place a much better place yeah and then another one of your favorites was awake at dawn and so now even though you liked it I'm gonna flip you up a little bit okay what would you say is a pro and con with this book oh my gosh you can't you can't do that to me you just you simply can't because I actually legitimately love this book so much okay um this book is the second book in the wildflower series it's called indie author Amelie Reese she's literally one of my most favorites but this is a sports romance which is different from the rest of the books in the series which is just like contemporary romance so like if you like especially like football romance I would definitely go for this book now the thing about this book some people may not like pregnancy romances okay I personally do but in this one she's pregnant but he's not the father oh okay it's one of those yeah okay so he is kind of like known for being like a womanizer and she is his best friend's sister there's like brother's best friend and he finds out that she's pregnant she is an ice skating coach but she like loses her job and then she needs a place to stay so she's kind of like in this tough spot and she doesn't want her family to know she's kind of wants to figure it out on her own of course and so right so he's like no come stay with me like I want to help you and he's always had this like secret crush on her as well so he's like you know not only do I want to be with you but I also want to take care of this child so it's a really cute story like I can't even say anything negative about it like it's not what's the age group in that book um I think probably like in their 20s okay I thought it was a teen book I'm like you want to play you want to play baby daddy and you in your teens yeah they're they're definitely more mature than that so okay there we go so that might not be bad and I know my sports romance is like really big right now it is really big from like ice skating and hockey yeah everything else like they love that so this is a nice little twist yeah like he's kind of doing it to like help her out yeah there might not be any love there at the beginning yeah absolutely and there's like a really cute dog in the story and normally I will say I don't really care about pets and books okay but I point you know but this one I was like okay this is so cute like my cute and cuddly yeah exactly you also have a bookish business I do and so tell the people about it and where they yeah so you can follow me on instagram at Kendra reads with love and that's where in my bio you can find my links to everything I do have author services with love author services and you know authors always need help whether you're a traditionally published author an indie author you always need that extra help if you need someone to help you make graphics if you just need operational support I am that person so if you are someone who's like man I really don't feel like making a social media graphic or I really got to make some content but I don't feel like it I can help you do that and so I've been fortunate enough to work with a lot of like black and BIPOC authors which is like where my passion is so it's just been great and I've been working with you know Aiden Thomas who's a New York Times best-selling author and he has a new book coming out in September so it's just been amazing so that is where you can find me and I think it's pretty awesome that you are doing what you love and it all revolves around books yeah and I really like that you're not only promoting reading but you're also helping authors out there just anybody that is within like the book community and so Kendra you know I will always have you back you always have a spot so we can chat about books and so before I let you go is there anything else that you would like to say to fellow book lovers out there? Hey if you love to read then definitely read don't think that nobody reads anymore there's so many readers you can definitely find your community if you're someone who's like man I want to get in the book space you definitely can don't be afraid to step out there go to a book event because there's so many people to me and yeah I just have I'm so glad that I found this community so thank you so much for having me. Of course and Kendra thank you so much for coming in and like I said you guys like she said you can follow her she has recommendations any events she's your girl your go-to person so Kendra again thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. Of course and we'll be right back after a quick break.