Happy February, everyone! Even though it’s almost over and it’s a rather short month, I’m sure we’ve all been getting some reading time in, especially with winter refusing to go away. Be warned that this post is hazardous on your book budget, so careful with the one-clicking!
Amanda: I’m not actively reading anything right now because I’ve been in a weird slump, staring listlessly at my TBR pile. However, I’ve picked out two books that I really want to start soon. Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Scribd ) – I’m really loving dark romances lately and it comes highly recommend. Sarah thinks I’ll really like it and it was recently free! So why not.
The other is Sweet Seduction by Daire St. Denis. I’ve never read a category romance before and the plot of this one is calling to me like a siren! The heroine is a baker and mistakes the hero for a famous food critic. However, the food critic in question is actually the hero’s twin brother.
Carrie: Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset! ( A | BN )
Sarah: I have Artistic License by Elle Pierson on my reader because Mandy from Smexybooks said Elle Pierson is a nom de plume for Lucy Parker. She wrote this book I hardly have ever talked about at all called Act Like It.
Nowhere But Home by Liza Palmer ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) was on sale recently and I grabbed that like it was on fire, which now that I think of it would be a really interesting way to program an ebook.
And I have a weird pair of books on my TBR. Years before my grandmother died in in 2006, she told me how much she loved Anthony Trollope, and that she had most of his books in print. She loaned me one, which I can’t put my hands on now (boxes still unpacked two months after we moved? OF COURSE) but I’m pretty sure is Barchester Towers ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | Scribd ).
I also have ebooks of Miss Mackenzie ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Scribd ) and The Way We Live Now ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Scribd ), but if anyone wants to recommend a Trollope for the romance fan (That might be my favorite phrase ever) I welcome the suggestion!
Elyse: I am currently reading The Widow by Fiona Barton ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ). I just started it and haven’t really formed an opinion yet
Sarah: People are hyperventilating over that book.
Elyse: I’m also reading Carter and Lovecraft ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au )and I cannot tell you how much it delights me that Lovecraft’s descendant is a black woman. This book is a horror/fantasy/noir set around a RI bookstore. Catnip alert!
Redheadedgirl: Joanne Shupe’s Magnate, the first full-length book in her new Knickerboxer series.
Elyse: I’m so on board for that series.
Amanda: I was actually curious about that one, RHG. Let me know how it is!
Redheadedgirl: The Vicar’s Frozen Heart by Karyn Gerrard( A | BN | K | G | AB ). And The English Housewife, by Gervase Markham ( A | BN ). Wanna know how to cure the flux?
Elyse: Yes.
Redheadedgirl: One of the remdies starts with mercury, so….
Elyse: Nope
Redheadedgirl: Oh, Amanda, The English Housewife is a 1615 cookbook/household management guide.
Amanda: I want to know about the “household management” portion.
Redheadedgirl: Medical remedies, how to preserve food, how to dye fabrics, “containing the inward and outward virtues which ought to be in a complete woman…”
Making various kinds of booze. Stuff like that.
Carrie: Every virtuous woman can make booze.
What have you been reading? What were the hits and misses in your TBR pile this month?
By request, since we can’t link to every book you mention in the comments, here are bookstore links that help support the site with your purchases. If you use them, that’s wonderfully awesome of you, and if you’d prefer not to, no worries at all. Thank you so much for hanging out with us, and hopefully you found something good to read!
@Squimbelina: “Almost Like Being In Love” is one of my favorite books! As in, “Marooned on a Desert Island With Only 10 Books to Read For the Rest of Your Life” keeper level. Steve is on FB, and when I messaged him to gush about how much I love the book and begged for him to sign it, he was lovely and obliging and gave me his address. He signed it and promptly returned it and it is most definitely on the “It’s Mine, My Own, My Preciousssssss” shelf now. 😀
Also, I started on the Dreamspun Desires title “The Stolen Suitor” (a contemporary m/m romance between a poor-but-smart-and-sweet guy and the rich merchant’s son – also has a hetero side romance) and I stayed up way too late last night reading. Even now I was reading bits of it in math class (because I don’t have an exam on Thursday or anything). This book is pretty much why I love romance in general. It’s got the meet cute, the meddling mother, secrets, that breathless first blush of attraction, hot sexytimes, and is just working for me in All The Ways right now. I am loving it so much. I want to give copies to everyone! lol Bonus: when you buy the paperback from Dreamspinner Press, you get the ebook version for free. (This goes for all of their paperbacks.) They tend to have sales pretty regularly on their paperbacks, too, which makes it an even better deal.
I finished “Bad Romeo” and thank god. I was annoyed by that for at least half of the book. It should have hit all my cat nip buttons, but instead it was just people being angsty and not really talking and going on and on and on about sex but never having sex and GAH. Stupid. It was a cliff hanger, too. Trust me, these are not people that need 800 pages to have their story told. 400 pages of nothing was plenty. It was on my Kindle, else I might have chucked it across the room.
In non-romance, I read “Princes at War” about the British Royal Family. Boy, everyone’s pretty lucky that the Duke of Windsor abdicated, huh? WWII would have been very different if he’d stayed on the throne. All presented very factually; I actually would have appreciated a bit more juicy gossip.
I had a weird reading month, and am trying to get back on the bandwagon as well as read more for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge (thanks for the great recommendations for the science, essay, food memoir and mental illness categories!). Already clicked thru on other recommendations, and put yet more on my “to be read from the library when I can check more out” list. You all are the best!
I read the first two Rick Riordan books (Lightning Thief and Sea of Monsters) for Read Harder – and absolutely loved them. Will be finishing the series and beyond.
Read Mr. Churchill’s secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal (not really a romance, but there were some touching moments from the side characters – maybe romantic suspense mystery series?) – fascinating look at WWII. Second one is on my waiting to be read shelf.
Little House Living, a make-your-own guide by Merissa Alink. Might try some of her recipes.
Mercury Striking by Rebecca Zanetti – great neartime dystopian read with romance and more realistic view of what happens with the power goes out! Wish the series was complete already!
I’ve been reading the Sarah Graves’ Home Repair mystery series with Jacobia Tiptree (up to #4) on my Fire, and the Maiden Lane series (reading #7) on my Kindle.
Finished Robin D. Owens’ latest Ghost Talker – nice addition to the series and I like the MCs, as well as Bujolds’ Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (Cornelia!).
I read Faith Hunter’s Blood in Her Veins (well, the short stories I didn’t already have – all are really good, though) and finally finished Blakely’s Big Rock.
Hmmm, not as bad as I thought. Still, need to read more!
Reading Desire’s Edge by Eve Berlin (Eden Bradley) and really loving it so far. A little over halfway done!