It’s Whatcha Reading time! From here on out Whatcha Reading posts will occur on the fourth Saturday of every month, instead of the third. Mark your calendars!
We’re nearly two months down in 2018 and we all hope your reader has been spectacular.
Redheadedgirl: I am read Alyssa Cole’s A Princess in Theory ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which is an EXCELLENT companion book to Black Panther.
And also The Decameron ( A | BN | K | G | AB ).
Elyse: I just finished Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams ( A | BN | K | AB ) which was okay. It didn’t knock my socks off.
Now I’m reading Hello Stranger by Lisa Kleypas ( A | BN | K | G | AB ).
And I totally agree that A Princess in Theory is amazing!
Amanda: I’m reading Firelight by Kristen Callihan ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and I fucking love it. I tweeted at her, asking if she’d ever get back into paranormal romance and she said yes, but she wasn’t sure when. I’m sensing a major book hangover when I’m done, but The Kiss Quotient is calling me.
Sarah: I’m reading Hot & Badgered ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which isn’t out until 3/28, so I’m a horrible person for talking about it. But sometimes, you want honey badger rage, and, well, I wanted honey badger rage. (It’s delicious!)
I’m also listening to a lot of audiobooks while I walk the dogs each day, so I re-listened to Act Like It by Lucy Parker ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) because it’s savory deliciousness, too.
Now I’ve started Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which I haven’t read, so the listening-first experience should be interesting.
In the audio queue I have The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner, too.
Elyse: Oh I loved Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging.
Sarah: I think it’s one of Amanda’s favorites, too.
Amanda: YES!
I glommed that whole series as a teen.
Sarah: The audiobook has this hilarious intro of “Listen, Yanks, I know you’re not going to understand some of this so there’s a glossary in the back.” which I found very funny
Amanda: There’s a movie too, though I haven’t seen it.
Sarah: Angus call of the Scottish wild!
Dear God the transphobia, though.
Amanda: In Angus? I haven’t read them in years so I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t hold up well.
Elyse: Yeah it’s been more than a decade I’d imagine.
Sarah: I snorted and cringed when she worried about her future as a “high flying executive lesbian.”
I’ve got this walk walk cringe cringe splutterlaugh routine going.
The narrator sounds like a 14 year old, “knowing everything” while being mistaken, and also like the voice of oppressive normality and homogenized expectations. I’m ashamed to recognize myself years and years ago while I’m also cringing and face palming at some of the things she says.
It’s a weird listening experience.
Update: I had to stop. I felt bad for the people she was mean or unkind to, and couldn’t listen. Folks who have read or listened to this one, should I keep going?
The Hanover Square Affair in audio is pretty nifty, in other news.
Carrie: I just finished Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) which is a retro science fiction adventure featuring, among other characters, the World’s Smallest Giant Robot.
Next up am reading Spineless by Juli Berwald, a nonfiction about jellyfish.
What have you read this month? Anything worth squeeing about? Let us know!
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Varying reads this month, but when they were good, they were very good.
Faves
– CREATURES OF WILL AND TEMPER by Molly Tanzer – a gender-bent, queer-bent take on THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY with swords and demons! It’s sexy and witty and I loveddddd it.
– AN UNSEEN ATTRACTION / AN UNNATURAL VICE / AN UNSUITABLE HEIR by KJ Charles – How does KJ Charles write relationships the way she does? HOW? I read these one after another and they were just. I felt all the things, all the ways, all the time. I adored VICE and HEIR, in particular, for the way they negotiated self and consent and sex. And omg, that enemies-to-lovers plot of VICE? Perfection.
– THE HAZEL WOOD by Melissa Albert – this is, like, a darker take on Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children and I was here for it!
– LUMBERJANES, VOL. 5: BAND TOGETHER by Noelle Stevenson & Shannon Watters – Mermaids! Bands! Mermaids in bands! Just lovely
Good
– ROBOTS VS. FAIRIES edited by Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe – Fairies for the win! I especially loved the Sarah Gailey and John Scalzi stories. I want to read Scalzi’s work now
– A GATHERING STORM by Joanna Chambers – m/m historical – I‘ve never read Chambers and based on this, I want to read more. A ghost hunting scientist and a reluctant property manager in 19th century Cornwall come together…all. my. catnip.
– SIDE JOBS: STORIES FROM THE DRESDEN FILES by Jim Butcher (audiobook) – last little bit of Dresden Files before the next short story collection, I guess… 🙁
– A MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN / A LETTER OF MARY by Laurie R. King – I love Mary Russel so much, I could *almost* do without Sherlock
– TIGANA by Guy Gavriel Kay – this was beautifully written but maybe I’m not in the epic fantasy mood because I didn’t love it like I thought I would
– TAKE THE LEAD by Alexis Daria – I really enjoyed this, especially the writing around the dancing and the communication the characters had around sex. I didn’t understand Stone’s extreme ties to his family’s show but that was a little thing
– AS I DESCENDED by Robin Talley (audiobook) – a queer retelling of Macbeth in a haunted boarding school! With a physically disabled lead! The writing is a little clunky, but how could I turn this down?
– HEIR TO THE EMPIRE by Timothy Zahn – my deep dive into Star Wars continues with one of the first Star Wars novels. I enjoyed it a lot, even if the idea of Luke marrying strikes me as odd. It’s okay, it’s a *legend*!
– BLACK SQUADRON (STAR WARS: POE DAMERON) by Charles Soule & Phil Noto – more Star Wars! Poe, I love you!
– A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONTMARAY by Michelle Cooper (audiobook) – this was a pleasant book, but it’s basically I CAPTURE THE CASTLE and the original is better
– PAYMENT IN BLOOD by Elizabeth George – a troop of actors! A dead writer! And an old estate! Solid mystery
Okay
– THE JANE AUSTEN PROJECT by Kathleen A. Flynn – time travel and Jane Austen and a search for a manuscript. I didn’t really get *why* the search was necessary and the characters were a little flat, but the idea was cool
– THE ESSEX SERPENT by Sarah Perry – another book I wasn’t in the mood for, but if you like dreamy writing, possible sea monsters and science-minded ladies, you might enjoy this!
– THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT by Hedda Hopper – the queen of old Hollywood gossip, this is Hopper’s memoir about the Stars. Read with a gallon of salt. Hopper’s assertion that she was “friends” with the stars she wrote about made me laugh more than once.
– THE SPRING GIRLS by Anna Todd – a modern retelling of Little Women, this just wasn’t written very well. Very info-dumpy, with strange character choices. I recommend THE LITTLE WOMEN LETTERS instead
Currently Reading
– THE PRINCESS DIARIST by Carrie Fisher (audiobook) – I’m almost done listening to this and is excellent. Fisher is raw and honest and listening to her writing about her affair with Harrison Ford (especially the diary section read by her daughter), is just… you want to grab 20 year-old Carrie and pull her out of that situation. It’s so uncomfortable and relatable and beautiful work. She absolutely deserved the posthumous Grammy.
I had a pretty good reading month, but once again added way too much to my tbr. I decided to try Scribd again since they went back to unlimited books instead of credits and they gave me a free month for coming back. So now I’m trying to binge as many as possible through there so I can get back to the books I actually own. Here’s the highlights of my reading month:
The Great:
DEAR FAHRENHEIT 451: LOVE AND HEARTBREAK IN THE STACKS: A LIBRARIAN’S LOVE LETTERS AND BREAKUP NOTES TO THE BOOKS IN HER LIFE by Annie Spence- I really adored this one. It’s a very short, fast read although my reading was slowed down by constantly putting the book down so I could add some of the books mentioned to my Goodreads TBR list and check to see if my library had them. The book consists of short letters to books Spence has read or dealt with in her job as a librarian. It’s witty and captures the magic of the relationships readers have with the books they read and how they can evolve over time and rereads. I share a lot of the same views on the books Spence and I had both read plus we share the same view of My So-Called Life-era Jared Leto. I can’t remember how this book first came to my notice. I think it may have been a Goodreads ad when it first came out, but it’s come up a lot in Reading Challenge group I’m in since one of the categories is a book about reading or writing. I had a totally different book picked out for that category, but I just kept hearing such good things about this one that I finally gave in and put it on hold at my library. I’m so glad I did even if my tbr has just gotten even more out of control.
THE SINS OF LORD LOCKWOOD by Meredith Duran- I don’t go onto Netgalley often since I don’t have a blog and I’m not a top Goodreads or Amazon reviewer so I don’t get approved for much. I happened to get an email about a ‘Read Now’ book by Kerrelyn Sparks, an author I’ve always meant to try, so then I decided to check out what else was available. I was so excited when I got approved to read this one. I’ve been waiting for Lockwood’s book since I read Duke of Shadows and it did not disappoint. I felt like this book was the best of both worlds. We get a light, sweet romance when Liam and Anna first meet and fall in love then an angst filled, emotionally involving romance once Liam returns from being kidnapped and thrown on a prison ship (this is literally page one and also mentioned in previous books in the series so not a spoiler) and they have to find their way back to the love they once had. Duran did an amazing job describing Liam’s depression and PTSD. I also loved how it examined how love can evolve and persevere even through hardships and the individuals in the relationship changing and growing.
The Good:
THE POWER by Naomi Alderman- I found this one very intriguing. It’s about women becoming the stronger sex and the effect that has on society. It didn’t quite blow me away the way I expected it to, but I’ve found myself thinking about it and its meaning many times since reading it.
THE TRUTH ABOUT CADS AND DUKES by Elisa Braden- I’ve heard great things about Braden so I had bought several of her books on sale, but hadn’t read any. I’m taking advantage of my Scribd subscription to read the books of hers that I don’t own so that’s why I read the second book in the series first. I really like Braden’s voice and this was a nice wallflower/uptight duke story.
BEGINNER’S LUCK by Kate Claybourn- A very solid romance with great characters including a heroine in the STEM field. I found the pacing to be off at times, but overall it was a cute story and promising debut.
HOW TO DATE YOUR DRAGON by Molly Harper- Not as good my favorites by Harper, but still an enjoyable read (or listen in this case since it’s an Audible exclusive).
Sarina Bowen- Due to the Scribd subscription I actually have access to all the Bowen books I don’t own so I’m reading out of order to finish those books first. I liked both BOUNTIFUL and BROOKLYNAIRE quite a bit.
THE DRY by Jane Harper- Very well-written and the mystery kept me guessing. I’m looking forward to reading the second in the series.
The Okay:
THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN by Roshani Chokshi- I wanted to love this one so much, but I just liked it.
SHOOTING FOR THE STARS by Sarina Bowen- I liked both characters, but there wasn’t enough conflict to justify how long it took to resolve which affected the pacing.
DNF:
MAN CARD by Sarina Bowen and Tanya Eby- This wasn’t bad. I just wasn’t connecting to the characters, story, or humor and I’m trying to abandon these types of books early on because there’s just too many other books out there. I may eventually try to revisit it, but for now there’s just too many potentially great books in my tbr to waste time on one that wasn’t grabbing me.
I’m currently reading both DESPERATELY SEEKING A SCOUNDREL by Elisa Braden, which I’m not enjoying as much as Cads so far, and also THE LOST PLOT by Genevieve Cogman. I’m liking the Cogman book, but life keeps interfering with my ability to read more than a couple pages at a time. I’ve declared Saturday ‘reading only day’ so maybe I can finish both of these books tomorrow (well today, but I haven’t went to bed yet so I still consider it tomorrow).
Ruthie Knox’s MADLY: I was saving this until COMPLETELY finally came out because I like to have an unopened Ruthie Knox book to break into in case of emergency, and then I didn’t read it right away because WHAT IF THERE ARE TWO EMERGENCIES. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the necessity (for me) of friendliness in believable romantic relationships, and this book pushed all the right buttons. Lots of snickering, lots of swiping my leaky eyes with a blanket.
Cat Sebastian’s THE LAWRENCE BROWNE AFFAIR: This is my second Cat Sebastian book, and in both, the “bad” half of the couple has turned out to be a marshmallow. In this one, Georgie is absolutely adamant he’s a despicable criminal, but he is NOT HAVING Radnor’s neglectful father bullshit. These books are remarkably low angst, considering the acknowledgment that being gay could get them hanged. There are other conflicts to keep the story moving, but nothing that ever feels insurmountable, so good reads when you’re not looking to be chewing your cuticles over the fate of the protagonists.
Skyla Dawn Cameron’s THE SEAL OF SOLOMON: Tomb Raider with more teamwork/better relationships/more diversity and an enigmatic Korean tiger shifter. I had fun, so I wishlisted Book 2 for my tax refund not-on-sale mini splurge. If you’re “ugh” about the ethics of artifact theft in fantasy fiction, trigger warning for “ugh.”
C. Robert Cargill’s SEA OF RUST: People are gonna people. Here, their insistence on peopling led to being exterminated by robots—which, having been born (so to speak) of people, proceed to behave an awful lot like… people. Full on imperialist subjugation and murder in the name of manifest destiny and all that happy crap. I was very invested in the adventures of Brittle the Cannibal Robot and her rebel frenemies, but the frame as a whole was not beneficial to my prevailing feelings of doom, despair, and futility.
Craig Schaefer’s THE LONG WAY DOWN: Vegas-set UF with magic, murder, demons, porn, snuff, stolen souls, real estate development, zealots orchestrating the apocalypse, a controversial romance… It’s a lot, which is fine, but I had a disconnect with the protagonist. It’s not until late in the book that he does something harsh when there’s a Good Guy option available, and he just hadn’t been set up with enough moral ambiguity to make me believe he could do it without puking his guts out and crying for weeks later, but he’s over it after some curative sex (the Magic Hooha rides again!).
THE DJINN FALLS IN LOVE AND OTHER STORIES: Anthology, so mixed bag. Halfway through, faves are “Majnun” by Helene Wecker, about a djinn turned exorcist; and “Black Powder” by Maria Dahvana Headley, about a legendary storyteller’s quest to collect what she set free long ago (MAJOR trigger warning for a narrowly averted school shooting).
Jacob Tomsky’s HEADS IN BEDS: While I was a poorly paid healthcare worker, I was also often a poorly paid hotel worker. Given that 10 times the pay wouldn’t be adequate compensation to resist murdering 90% of the guests, the book didn’t have nearly enough swearing and bitterness to suit me.
Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward’s WRITING THE OTHER: $6 in ebook, which is a hell of a good investment to help your writing be less racist, ageist, ableist, sexist, xenophobic, LGBTQIA-phobic, and otherwise discriminatory, insensitive, and/or and erasing toward every person who isn’t your “default.” Can be read in an hour or two and includes writing exercises. The website (writingtheother.com) is full of additional resources that can be read for the outrageous price of free.
DNFs:
Ann Christopher’s RISK
Sally MacKenzie’s THE NAKED VISCOUNT
Tessa Bailey’s TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Carrie, I’m so excited you’re going to read Spineless! I read it a few weeks ago and thought it was so good, but I haven’t been able to convince anyone else to read it so that we can talk about it. “Please read this nonfiction book about jellyfish and also how fascinating the ocean is and why the anthropocene is a real thing” hasn’t managed to hook anyone I’ve talked to yet. I’ll be very interested on your thoughts on the book, if you share them. Happy reading!
Great!
Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn: Sort of a post-apocalyptic Midsomer Murders. Society fell about 100 years ago, everyone’s moved forward. They’re strict but not dystopic, pretty much “Let’s not have society fall AGAIN.” Then, there’s a murder.
Alice Network by Kate Quinn: OMG! So intense and awesome!! Interleaves a Post WWII story with women spying in WWI. I worship at the shrine of Eve Gardiner. Trigger warning for fairly graphic torture scene. Eve is introduced as having had all of her fingers broken in the past. We get to see how that happened.
Eh.
The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James: The ghost parts were ok, but I found the writing disjointed and Sarah didn’t do much for me.
DNF:
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik: I loved Uprooted, but Dragon read to me like a Boy’s Own Adventure story, only with dragons. Will and Temeraire don’t have any personality other than being perfect.
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. Is Marjorie possessed or mentally ill? This book is told from the POV of Marjorie’s 8-year-old sister, Merry. It’s won all kinds of awards and been options for a movie, but there were too many bodily fluids and graphic threats to small children for me to keep going.
I very much enjoyed Rose Lerner’s True Pretenses in which she took a very good look at the ambiguity and ambivalence in our relationships, particularly between siblings. This was the second in the Lively St Lemeston Regency series, which has been touted here. I wasn’t crazy about the first one, but this was good.
And I read a contemporary, The Princess Trap, by Talia Hibbert, which was quite fun. One of you warned me, rightly, that it wasn’t actually very English, most of it taking place in a faux-Scandinavian kingdom. But the dialogue was amusing and the characters sympathetic, even if the plotting seemed a bit extreme. No spoilers, but I particularly liked the hero’s sense of doubt and confusion through much of the story.
I also liked Molly O’Keefe’s Tempted, which was disappointingly short. I would have liked a full-length novel about these characters, but I realise it is one of a series of stories, and I suspect that several of the very interesting supporting characters are treated at greater depth in the series. Quite good writing about the period just after the American Civil War with a taste of its dirt and pain.
Elizabeth Kingston’s A Fallen Lady started off well, but was less successful, especially in its somewhat OTT plot. I finished it, but was disappointed. I started but DNF several other historical and contemporaries. North to You, by Tif Marcelo, which I suspect some of you would like, is about a couple of twenty-somethings in a western US city. She is a chef running a mobile restaurant.
I finally read Pam Rosenthal’s Almost a Gentleman, which I think one of you recommended ages ago. This is the one with the heroine who is not just a cross-dresser, but living as a man, with a carefully crafted persona as a dandy. I was dissatisfied with the first half or so, because I thought there was very little relationship development in the early stages, just an unexplained attraction between the parties. I still think there was much more of conflict to be explored, given the contrast between the earnest, dutiful gentleman farmer hero and the dandy who takes pleasure in ruining a reputation with a carefully chosen word. (Think Beau Brummell combined with the Vicomte de Valmont.)
I’ve just started Peter O’Donell’s The Cobra Trap, which collects the last short stories about Modesty Blaise, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, which for some reason I had not encountered before, and
Oliver Sacks’ Hallucinations which so far is not as enticing as some of his other work. I may not finish it.
Before the Fall — Noah Hawley. Mystery/thriller, I guess, but not in the traditional way. The focal point of the book is the crash of a small plane into the Atlantic. There are only 2 survivors, a child and an adult. The book switches back and forth in POV and time, but it’s skillfully done. Each individual on the plane has a life story to be told which shows how they ended up on that plane at that time; we also see how the two survivors cope with the emotional aftermath of the crash. Underlying it all is the mystery of what or who caused the crash.
Someone to Hold — Mary Balogh. You can always rely on Mary Balogh to produce quality, even if at times the pace is on the slower side. Cleo has just learned that her father was a bigamist: because he had a secret first wife and daughter, Cleo’s mother’s marriage to him was invalid, making Cleo and her sister “bastards.” Illegitimacy should make Cleo and her sister personae non grata in society, and it does (to an extent). Cleo decides to try to live life on her own terms, and takes a position as a teacher at an orphanage in Bath where she encounters an enigmatic painter. I enjoyed Cleo’s determination to make her own way in the world and her growth in the book, but the plot didn’t quite hang together for me. Cleo and her sister were well-protected by relatives, were given generous financial support and with one or two exceptions, didn’t seem to be shunned by society. They didn’t really suffer the dire consequences of illegitimacy which made Cleo’s reaction seem more like a fit of pique rather than a necessity. The ending seemed a bit too neat, but overall not a bad read.
Then it was fantasy-palooza. I whipped through Three Dark Crowns after seeing a review on here, about a set of triplets who are expected to have a Last-Sibling-Standing fight when they turn 16, with the survivor becoming queen. It is admittedly a dark premise and I wasn’t sure I’d make it through the book, but it sucked me in and I immediately read the sequel, One Dark Throne.The third book comes out later this year, so I will grab that as soon as it’s released.
Then after reading another review on here, I started The Queen of Blood, which takes place in a unique world in which nature is populated by spirits — tree spirits, water spirits, air spirits and so on. Humans live in treehouses perched above the forest floor and are constantly engaged in a struggle to keep the spirits under control. Again I wasn’t sure I would buy into the worldbuilding, but it absolutely sucked me in. Right now I’m in the middle of the sequel.
It was a good reading month for me! And will be looking for more fantasy fiction….I’ve read some of the obvious choices (e.g. Sarah Maas, the Tearling) so will be on the lookout for more reviews.
New-to-me writers (some exploring very dark themes) seemed to be my go-to during the recent cold snap. Well, it can’t always be secret babies, former SEALS, and friends-to-lovers.
It was Bad Decisions Book Club all the way with Sierra Simone’s PRIEST. I was unfamiliar with Simone, but PRIEST was a free download and I only had to read a few pages to know I was going to read the whole thing in one sitting—then I stayed up all night doing just that. It’s an incredibly-nuanced and thoughtful story of a Catholic priest who starts to question his vocation after he begins counseling and taking the confession of a woman who wants to join the church. The hero and heroine are both deeply-spiritual people, highly-articulate and self-aware, who fight against their mutual physical and emotional attraction, but eventually yield rapturously and shamefully to temptation. They know that what they are doing is a transgression, and they try to keep away from each other, but the pull of their desires is too strong. (I should note that if you are a devout/practicing Catholic, this may not be the book for you; there are scenes involving sex in church buildings which would undoubtedly be considered sacrilegious, and a passage where the hero conflates the spiritual characteristics associated with the Virgin Mary with the attributes of the heroine.) This is a story where the denial of and struggle against desire is almost as hot as the sexual activity itself (which is pretty damn hot). On her website, Sarah MacLean says of PRIEST, “As close to inspirational romance as erotic [romance] can get.” And she’s not wrong. Highly recommended.
MIDNIGHT MASS is the novella sequel to PRIEST. I don’t want to say too much about it because it might spoil the reading of PRIEST, but I will say it is as beautifully-written as the earlier book, takes the hero & heroine through an emotional roller-coaster that ends with a sign of hope. There’s also a heart-rending afterword from Simone in which she admits that she has experienced the same devastating event as the heroine does in the novella. Again, I don’t want to say too much, but I sympathized with Simone’s comments how she feels about something that seems to be de rigueur with at least half of the HEAs in romance novels today.
One evening, I got lost down the Romancelandia rabbit hole (as one does), clicking links from here and there when I came across a rave review from 2011 for a book called LA BONNE by Michele du Lully. I knew of neither the book nor the author, but the review was written by one of my favorite writers, Jill Sorensen. I figured if Jill liked a book enough to give it an “A”, I would give it a try. When I went to the kindle store, I discovered the book has been retitled THE PRINCE. It’s a contemporary erotic m/f/f romance—and I wish I’d known about it a few weeks ago when the Rec League was asking for books with bisexual heroines. The story involves a woman hired as a maid/chaperone for an 18-year-old heiress who is engaged to a Greek prince. The heiress is completely untouched and she and the maid start out sharing a few innocent “practice” kisses—but things between them heat up quickly. Meanwhile, when the maid meets the prince, they feel a strong attraction to each other. The maid’s job is to ensure that the young woman remains a virgin until her wedding night—perhaps by “distracting” the prince; but when the heiress and the maid join the prince on a Mediterranean cruise on his yacht, erotic currents flow between the three. (There’s an incredibly sexy scene where the heiress and the maid rub sunscreen on each other while the prince watches—nothing of an overtly-sexual nature occurs, but the dynamic between the three makes things hot.) The book has a dreamlike air—as if it’s set in another era (making the story’s references to things like digital cameras, tablet computers, and tabloid newspapers feel oddly anachronistic). The book is sexy, but there’s also a surprisingly level of emotion between the three characters—and quite a bit of angst as they try to figure out how they can possibly make their ménage work.
I tend to be ambivalent about books that are variations of a-woman-agrees-to-be-a-man’s-plaything-in-exchange-for-said-man-doing-something-to-benefit-one-of-the-woman’s-male-relatives. On the one hand, it gets the sexual set-up established quickly; but, on the other, it basically runs roughshod over any element of consent and also reinforces the notion that women must be more honorable and noble than the male relative who got into trouble in the first place. (Does anyone know of a romance novel where the heroine is approached to redeem a relative’s debt and says, “Fuck that! I’m not getting into bed with you to pay off my whacked-out, no-good step-father’s gambling debts. Go ahead and break his kneecaps already!”? ‘Cos I would so one-click that thing!) It’s odd, then, that I’ve read more than one book this month with that exact premise—and liked the books in question. It’s always the sign of a good writer when they can take a questionable trope and spin something worthwhile from it—and I found that to be the case first with A. Zavarelli’s BLEEDING HEARTS DUET (made up of two books titled respectively ECHO and STUTTER). A young woman becomes the sex slave of an anonymous man (she initially has to wear a blindfold in their encounters) in order to obtain evidence that her imprisoned brother did not cause the fatal car crash for which he is doing time. There’s a lot going on in these books: the plot is very twisty, the emotional pitch very angsty, the sex very rough, the family drama very high, and we don’t see anything from the hero’s point-of-view until the second book. Key quote: “It wasn’t about having the right answers. It was about being the right person.” Although nowhere near as good as Zavarelli’s excellent TAP LEFT, I still found BLEEDING HEARTS an interesting read and evidence that a good writer can take a worn out convention and create something fresh from it.
I liked Callie Harper’s UNLEASHED, which had a somewhat similar theme: a woman inherits her father’s debt-ridden ranch and appeals to one of her father’s former ranch hands, now a very wealthy man, for help. The hero and heroine have a history: when the heroine was in her late teens and the hero was a ranch hand in his early twenties, they shared a smoldering, somewhat sexual, but unconsummated, attraction (if incredible, unresolved sexual tension is your catnip, honey, does this book have it), and the book goes back and forth in time to show how that attraction played out then and informs the decisions the couple makes now. The hero says he will pay off the ranch’s debt in exchange for the heroine being his sub for a week. I enjoyed this book for a number of reasons, but I particularly liked how the emotional/non-physical elements of bdsm play (particularly for the sub) were emphasized—that it’s not all about clamps and handcuffs—that having the right partner and being on the same wavelength are incredibly important (the heroine acknowledges she would never be even remotely interested in doing with any other man what she does with the hero). I also liked how realistically Harper presented rural/ranch life and its limited opportunities for young, single women. In so many romances, small-town life is full of bustling businesses and new people (especially hot bachelors) moving into the vicinity all the time. In UNLEASHED, the heroine knows that the only available men in the area are ones she’s known all her life. My only mild criticisms are that the story drags in a few places and seems overly long, and the conflicts would be easily resolved if the couple would be completely honest with each other; but it’s still a very good read.
Then I basically inhaled Skye Warren’s Endgame trilogy: THE PAWN, THE KNIGHT, and THE CASTLE. A woman sells her virginity to the highest bidder in exchange for paying off her father’s debts; but there are dark undercurrents involving the woman’s long-dead mother, the mother’s diary, the men who loved her, the house she lived in, and the secrets held by the man who won the auction. Based on the series and book titles, it’s no surprise that the motif of a chess game runs through the books, but there are also several classical mythological themes in play too: the Minotaur, Pygmalion and Galatea, Helen of Troy, Pandora. Key quote: “Life isn’t about what you deserve, it’s about making the best of what you have.” But I also liked, “Blame without agency is a central theme for women in Greek literature.” And, I’d add, not just in Greek literature either. Extremely well-written and not afraid to go very, very dark.
[TW for…well, basically, everything.] Speaking of Skye Warren and very dark books, PRISONER is the first in the Criminals & Captives series by Annika Martin and Skye Warren. I would classify it more as psychological suspense/thriller as opposed to romance: it’s extremely dark, full of angst and violence, with very problematic consent issues. It’s also well-written with a propulsive plot that kept me turning the pages. The premise of the series (there have only been two books so far, but I’m assuming there will be more) is that a group of young boys were abducted, kept in a basement, and sexually abused by powerful, well-connected men for years. When the boys finally made their escape (as teenagers), they vowed to stay together and exact their vengeance on those who abducted and abused them. The time-frames are a bit hazy, but the group now appears to be in their late-twenties and have been planning and carrying out their retribution for a number of years. One of the group has been imprisoned on a trumped-up charge. When he breaks out, he takes with him a young woman who has been teaching a creative writing class at the prison. This is where issues of consent (or lack thereof) arise. The heroine has also experienced a traumatic childhood; she and the hero come together in what the French would term a folie-a-deux: each bringing out something in the other that they would not have experienced with anyone else. But there is no doubt the heroine’s consent is nebulous at best—and, sometimes, completely nonexistent (in one particularly hard-to-read scene, the hero roofies the heroine with animal sedatives, then rapes her). It’s hard to know exactly how much of the rather shaky happy ending is the result of soulmates finding each other and how much is Stockholm Syndrome on the part of the heroine. I would say, if you plan to read PRISONER, it’s best to think of it as a dark psychological thriller and not a romance at all.
I didn’t find HOSTAGE, the second book in the Criminals & Captives series, quite as problematic as PRISONER—at least not in terms of consent. There is, however, the fact that the hero (the leader of the group) meets the heroine when she is just 16–and he’s at least a decade older than she is. Although no penetrative sex takes place until the heroine is 18, there is occasional sexual activity between the hero and heroine for the two years before she becomes a legal adult; although the heroine consents to and enjoys this activity, there’s no doubt that, from a strictly legal point of view, the hero is committing statutory violations; plus a lot of the hero’s behavior toward the heroine rises to the level of stalking. There is a scene, though, that I found to be simultaneously sweet, sexy, and sad where the hero kisses the heroine for the first time and she realizes that he has never actually kissed before—that his sexual abuse as a child, and his use of women as an adult to quickly fulfill a physical urge, means he has never done something as basic as kiss someone he cares about. It’s a scene that clearly and quietly summarizes the huge emotional void in the hero’s life. As in PRISONER, the group continues to try to find the men responsible for imprisoning them as boys—and that story threads it way through HOSTAGE.
I can’t believe I just discovered Ruthie Knox! How could she have slipped under my radar for so long? Her short story, STARTING OVER, was a freebie download and the first thing of hers I’d read. I loved it—an excellent story about pushing through hard times and not giving up in the face of downbeat economic reality. A lot of times in romance novels, the heroine’s business (cupcakes, coffee shop, bookstore, vintage clothing, farm-to-table restaurant, B&B, etc.) is an instant, rousing success and what few problems arise are on the staffing side (because business is so good, it’s hard to hire enough people) and are resolved quickly. In STARTING OVER, the heroine is about to lose her home and her business; she didn’t do much market research before she opened a high-end cheese shop in Wisconsin (if there’s one thing Wisconsin has enough of, it’s cheese) and purchased a fixer-upper that became a money pit. The man with whom she has a NSA relationship lost his remodeling company (and his wife) to a cousin and now runs a greasy-spoon diner while doing odd jobs on the side. How these two people, knocked down by decisions within their control and economic factors beyond it, decide to throw in their lot together was both realistic AND romantic.
I then checked out Knox’s four-book CAMELOT series (HOW TO MISBEHAVE, ALONG CAME TROUBLE, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, and MAKING IT LAST) about the lives and loves of three siblings whose parents own and manage an apartment complex in an Ohio college town. A nice blend of family drama (not too dysfunctional and lots of love), work and employment situations (very realistic about the need for people to have a way to earn money—even if it’s not their dream job), and solid, well-developed romances featuring emotionally-mature, thoughtful people who occasionally do or say the wrong thing but learn from their mistakes and are contrite (with sex scenes that are a nice balance of heat and emotion). As a long-married person myself, I especially liked MAKING IT LAST, which did a good job of showing how, with commitment, compromise, and communication, love and romance can last through the daily grind of kids, work, chores, money worries, and “life events” that all of us experience at some point.
(I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t mention something that bugged me about the Camelot books: the oddly objectifying/sexualized way women talk amongst themselves about each other’s men, even when those men are their own brothers. Shudder! Then there’s a horrible character who made me cringe every time she appeared: a grandmother—described as being a feminist who marched in the 1960s—who talks in sitcom cliches about older people having sex, ogles younger men, tells them to turn around so she can look at them from behind, and calls them “sweet cheeks”! Ugh, just ugh. Objectifying is so not being either sex-positive or feminist—and, worse, her behavior is accepted by those around her with amused, if exasperated, tolerance. I hope this character was a mistake on Knox’s part and not a true reflection of how she thinks an older feminist would behave.)
I know I’m late to the party, but I finally read Julie James’s THE THING ABOUT LOVE, which I liked but did not love the way I did my favorite of hers, SUDDENLY ONE SUMMER (although, with that book, I wish the heroine could get in a time machine, go back to 2015, and NOT buy a condo in Chicago’s Trump Tower). In THE THING ABOUT LOVE, I liked how James showed both sides of the couple’s rather antagonistic beginnings (while at the FBI training academy) and their slowly-developing feelings for each other, but there was also a lot of data about various types of government security and anti-terrorism agencies provided in long (and, unfortunately, eye-glazing) info-dumps. The love story was sweet, but there was just too much extraneous exposition for this to rank with my favorite James books.
BEAUTIFUL KILLER was another reliably-good entry in Sherilee Gray’s Lawless Kings series. A lonely jewelry maker (I would have loved a little more detail about her creative process) and a former SEAL with PTSD have what starts as a one-night stand that gradually evolves into a much deeper relationship. I liked the fact that it was the heroine who approached the hero and initiated their first night together and that hero eventually realizes he needs to get help in handling his PTSD, but I didn’t like how obvious the villain of the story was—you could spot him a mile away.
Mira Lyn Kelly’s category romance, THE S BEFORE THE EX, was quite good—and, oddly enough, put me in mind of a book that was popular in my teen years, MR. AND MRS. BO JO JONES: a young couple gets married because of an unplanned pregnancy; but what does the couple do when the pregnancy ends in a miscarriage? In the case of Kelly’s book, they go their separate ways, but don’t divorce—finally getting together nine years later to sign the papers…then, naturally, they discover that the sparks between them still fly.
After loving Kati Wilde’s GOING NOWHERE FAST last month, I read Wilde’s ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS (a detective and the woman he shielded from a gunman develop a relationship that enables her to finally stand up to her awful parents) and BEAUTY IN SPRING (an interesting—and ultra-sexy—take on Beauty & the Beast). Both books were good, but, being novellas, the emotional development and action had to be somewhat compressed. I think both books would have benefitted from expansion to novel length.
I’d never read anything by Lexi Blake, so I started with a free download, THE DOM WHO LOVED ME, the first in her Masters & Mercenaries series. On the plus side, it was nice to read about a heroine in her forties, a mother of college-age sons, competent in her job, who’s older than the hero and somewhat “plump”; even the crazy-sauce plot was fun, involving the FBI, CIA, Black Ops, rendition sites, military, former military, rogue agents, terrorists masquerading as eco-warriors, and bdsm (all of the good guys are doms). On the downside, there was a tremendous amount of “telling-not-showing” and characters just reeling off expository information—I gave Blake a pass on that because of this being the first book in a series, I’m sure she was trying to get her characters established in the readers’ minds. What was harder to shrug off was the way the main male characters know all about and discuss in detail each other’s sex lives, sex partners, and proclivities. Do alpha-male doms really dish amongst themselves like it’s 2002 and they’re Carrie Bradshaw & company? I’m doubting that. Most objectionable of all are two (presumably straight) male friends whose schtick involves posing as gay lovers in order to gain a woman’s friendship and then persuading her to join them for a ménage! (The only way this could even be slightly redeemable is if a future book reveals that these guys are both bi and really are lovers.) But what can I say? Despite my ambivalence about their tone, I plan to read more Lexi Blake books—undoubtedly as “guilty pleasures”.
I had to return Jill Shalvis’s INSTANT ATTRACTION to the library unfinished. This was more a “just ran out of time” than a conscious DNF decision, but I must say nothing about the characters or plot grabbed me—so I never felt compelled to finish the book before its due date. Perhaps another time.
I love it when I discover a new-to-me writer who has a big backlist; by the same token, I hate it when said new writer doesn’t click with me and the backlist must be foregone. Although I was intrigued by the blurb (defense attorney falls for his client—a woman accused of murdering her husband), Chantal Fernando’s SEDUCING THE DEFENDANT was a DNF for me. I’ll freely admit I’m not a lawyer or involved in law enforcement, but even I know that if a cop disappears, there will be plenty of investigation into his life regardless of whether the authorities think he’s still alive. In this book, it’s only after the policeman’s body is discovered—two years after he disappeared—that any investigation takes place. Add to that implausibility, dull writing and characters who do, say, or think illogical things and then comment, “I don’t know why I did/said/thought that,” and so I thought, “Well, I don’t know why I’m reading this the,” and just gave up.
:::saunters in to Everbody Wants To Rule The World, because it seems fitting for a kitty cat that will be in a gender-bent Kaz Brekker cosplay in a bit:::
This one is coming to you from a lady that is at her first con, which I’m mostly at because Claudia Gray and Jim Butcher are here. And yes, my daughter and I will be in cosplay. Like winners.
It’s not been a reading-heavy month, because work and school have been insanity and also, I’m smack-dab in the middle of a commitment read. I left off on Iron Gold by Pierce Brown and it was violent and twisty and great. He did some very interesting things with Darrow and Sevro and what the costs of constant war are on the psyche. Can’t wait for Dark Age. Then it was Artemis by Andy Weir, which I enjoyed for how quick and snarky it was, and I’m always here for a situation that someone has to science the shit out of, but Weir needs a little help on writing women. No one thinks that constantly about their own tits unless it’s that time of the month and they hurt like hell. After that it was Tempest by Beverly Jenkins, which was reliably excellent. I found the relationship between Anna and Regan to be the most interesting though. Nothing against Colton, but his reserve occasionally made the character get blown off the page by these gorgeous and awesome ladies. And now we come to The Undoing by Shelly Laurenston, which I’ve had on my Kindle for almost 2 years, and I’ve been saving for when I’m feeling ragey and my TBR is a point of shame. But since politics has basically turned me into Bruce Banner, when am I not ragey these days? It was hilarious and violent and I just loved it so much. Now we come to, well, now. I was finally emotionally ready for Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb. Again, I love Hobb, but the writing is dense and you have to commit. I will say this, I’m ready for the characters to get to their destination and start wrecking the scene, because epic fantasy is going to be epic. Welp, till next month. No mourners, no funerals.
This was a really productive reading month, but it was also kind of surreal b/c I had the flu.
My favorites in Audio
“The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss” by Max Wirestone. This was adorable and I loved the main character so much. I’m so glad I found the rec here. A
“The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion. I kind of wanted to not like this b/c I had already heard about how the depiction of the autism spectrum was cliche and simplistic, but honestly guys it won be over. And I felt like Rosie was a well-rounded character especially considering you never completely see her point of view. Fair warning, Don (the autistic character) is sometimes the butt of the joke in a cringey way. I fastforwarded some of those parts. A
The not quite as favorite in audio
“The Contract” by Melanie Moreland. This was like an old-skool HP on steroids. Alpha-hole boss and wimpy secretary in marriage of convenience (I will put up with a lot for a MOC story). It did hold my attention, although it was filled with convenient plot moments and got a little slow at the end. C+
“Prince of Midnight” by Laura Kinsale. I don’t know guys, sometimes I think I will get my romance card taken away b/c I don’t superlove Kinsale. She’s a beautiful writer who writes these great angsty heroes, but the plots are so strange and over the top for me. I kept thinking I was having flu hallucinations and then realized, no that’s the actual plot. Nicholas Boulton has an amazing with a sexy, beautiful voice, so I don’t regret listening to it. It’s hard to grade. Narrator A+ Story gets the WTF grade, so however you want to average that.
My physical copy/Kindle favorites
“The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You” by Lily Anderson. Adorable modern YA version of ‘Much Ado About Nothing”. (The Kiwi webseries “Nothing Much to Do” is still my favorite modern YA interpretation, though. Everyone, go watch it on YouTube!) A
“Once Upon a Marquess” by Courtney Milan. The first historical Milan that was really grabbed me. A
“The Wedding Date” by Jasmine Guillory. I was afraid to read this b/c of all the hype, but it was cute, cute, cute A+
“The Baronet’s Wedding Engagement” by Jessica Hart. This was adorable. Hart classic grumpy hero, sweet heroine. Relationship of convenience. Yummy food and settings. Lovely, lovely. 2nd of a quartet of royalty romances by Tule Publishing (happens to have my favorite Harlequin authors of all time.) A
“Things I Should Have Known” by Claire LaZabelik. This was a YA about two kids who hate each other b/c their respective autistic siblings are trying out dating. And of course, the two that hate each other start to develop feelings for each other while dealing with the fact that they can’t control/protect their siblings forever. Not perfect, but cute A –
“Bryant and Mays and The Wild Chamber” by Christopher Fowler. I read this series for the characters I love (and I loved them here). I’m sure I completely bought the end. A-
“The Mandarin of Mayfair” by Patricia Veryan. This was the end of The Jeweled Men series and I had to read it (I’ve skipped around in this series) b/c it was about two characters that had been circling each other since the beginning of the series and the hero was part Chinese. It was cute and well-intentioned, but very dated. The suspense threads were wrapped up well. B
“Hajar’s Hidden Legacy” by Maisey Yates. This was a HP sheik “Beauty and the Beast” romance with a MOC. Does what it says on the tin. Sheik romances aren’t usually my thing, but I do love “Beauty and the Beast” romances, so I read it for my TBR challenge. It held my interest, but there is a lot of hand waving to make the story work. B
“Scales of Justice” by Ngaio Marsh. Classic era mystery set in small English town. I’ve read every Agatha Christie, so I’m trying to branch out. This one wasn’t bad, although I felt a bit lost sometimes. Both plot-wise and culture-wise. There was a lot of passive aggressive British class snobbery going on and I felt like it was going over my head. Of course, b/c I don’t live with it, that also makes it fun sometimes. B
“The Prince’s Bride” by Sophie Weston. This was the first in the royalty romances quartet. Prince and a commoner story This pains me b/c I love Weston. Not her best. She told a similar story much better under the name Sophie Page. C
Finished five books this month, DNFed another after about 200 pages, so not a bad month. Really need to read more romance.
The Grand Tour: or the Purloined Coronation Regalia, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Not as good as Sorcery and Cecelia, but fun. The set up to keep the epistolary format is really forced in this one though, since they’re traveling together, not writing to each other.
Dark in Death, by J.D. Robb. Due to BCCLS shooting itself in the foot, I could have kept this for nine weeks. (Not relevant, I’m just pissed at them for the ongoing lack of ILL.*) I enjoyed it, but I usually do. Nothing really stand out here.
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandell. Well written post apocalyptic fiction, but, the more I think about it, the more vaguely unsatisfying it seems. Idk, I didn’t really like one character who we spend time with and another one, who’s prominent in the beginning, just kind of disappears. We find out what happened to him, but it doesn’t really connect to the rest of the story.
Star Wars: A New Dawn, by John Jackson Miller. A decent SW book. If you don’t care about SW:Rebels, you probably won’t care about this book.
Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer. Wanted to read this before the movie came out. Short and very, very strange. I’ll probably see the movie and read the other two books.
My DNF was A Gathering of Shadows, by V.E. Schwab. Maybe it was my mood, maybe it was because I felt rushed, maybe it was because I was a bit meh on the first one, or maybe it was because she named the mysterious character who’s probably going to be a bad guy Alucard, but I just couldn’t finish this one.
Seriously, authors, can we lose Alucard as a name? (If you don’t understand why it annoys me, write it backwards.)
*Play Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)” here
I just finished PAIRING OFF by Elizabeth Harmon. Thanks again to everyone for all the Winter Olympic-themed reading suggestions. They have warmed the toe picks of my heart. 🙂
I also read THE DRIFTER by Nick Petrie, which is about a veteran who is trying to figure out what happened to one of his Marine friends. In some ways, it’s very similar to the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child (there’s even a quote from Child on the cover), but the hero has PTSD and can’t stand to be inside for more than a few minutes at a time. It was interesting, although the ending was little abrupt.
Books I finished:
1. Started The Arrangement by Mary Balogh last month and Finished, naturally it was a wonderful Feels Trip with two awesome characters and angst. Not sure it’s for everyone (who hasn’t read it yet) since there isn’t a lot of major conflicts either external or between the characters.
2. Wires and Nerve Volume 2: Gone Rogue by Marissa Meyer. I read this book in like two days since one it was a graphic novel and i’m A quick reader . Two I absolutely adore Marissa Meyer and especially her Lunar Chronicles series, so I gobbled the novel up. Saying that, I don’t think it was quite as good as the original Lunar Chronicles. I also recommend reading Wires and Nerve before her short story collection, Stars Above due to some spoilers in one of the anthology’s stories .
Currently Reading:
Sunset Embrace by Sandra Brown is ( as i’m sure most of you know ) an old skool classic meaning if you haven’t read it, it’s probably not for everyone. However, if you like melodramatic crazy sauce you might have fun with this one as I am.
Keeper by Kim Chance is a YA book I’ve been super excited to read ever since I first started following the author’s vlog. It’s a really cute book directed more to late middle school-early high school than the usually YA audience which is refreshing. The male love interest isn’t a creep as others tend to be . There’scalso a sweet female friendship that isn’t abandoned as soon as Mr. Mysterious Protector shows up. Lastly there’s no love triangle in sight. These are just some of the highlights and if they interest anyone pick up Keeper
DNF
Hazelwood by Melissa Albert is a fantasy YA that promises a portal fantasy , but doesn’t get to it until the last third of the book ( the rest is mostly non-magical stuff in present-day New York . He heroine is also super annoying, overly selfish and never suffers any consequences for terrible actions that deserve consequences or at least some calling out. I only got to about chapter nine ( the rest was found in reviews ) before I shelved it.
This has not been a great month for me in terms of volume – it’s been busy at work, plus a trip across the country and back again for an interview (which was successful!), and now the Olympics which I’m streaming whenever I’m home and awake.
That being said, I did read:
Not a Mistake (and I’m now half-way through Not Over Yet, with Not Another Rock Star queued up to read next) by Amber Belldene. The author is an Episcopal Priest and she writes the world that she knows. As someone who is going to be ordained in May (God willing), it is lovely to be able to see myself and my world in a novel; plus good (liberal, progressive, incarnational, relational) theology.
Fire on the Ice by Tamsen Parker (because of Elyse’s review). So much fun to read while the Olympics are on! I agree with what has been said about the uneven pacing of the book, but it was such a fast read that it didn’t really bother me. (I read and loved Craving Flight last year, and didn’t put two and two together to realize it was the same author until after I finished.)
I also started The Alice Network by Kate Quinn while I was traveling, but it didn’t grab my attention enough and I set it aside when I got home, and then my Overdrive term expired. I don’t want to call it a DNF though, since I suspect that I will go back and read it at some point; it just wasn’t the right time for me to be reading it now.
When we left Black Panther, I said to a friend that I would pay good money for an Alyssa Cole-penned tie-in novelization about the origins of Nakia and T’challa’s romance. I’d completely forgotten about A Princess in Theory and can’t wait to read it!
I’ve also started AN ENCHANTMENT OF RAVENS which is my first fantasy in a while. I like it quite a bit so far. I want to read Tanith Lee’s THE SILVER METAL LOVER next.
I’ve been crazed moving 400 miles to a new city in 2 weeks, so not as much reading as I would have liked.
Highlights include:
PURITY IN DEATH by JD Robb- I really do love this series and am amazed that 15 books in (only 30 to go! >.<) it is still so strong. There's only really been 1 or 2 duds so far, and this one was a fun take on an epidemic type story. I also liked that Roarke was less of an asshole than he often is in these books… maybe we're turning a corner in that area? I hope?
THE HAZEL WOOD by Melissa Albert- I absolutely loved this one! I think if you're expecting a typical YA fantasy, you'll probably be disappointed. But for me, I thought it was a super interesting take on a fairy tale retelling bildungsroman, so I was delighted. I'm side-eying them a little bit, though, because I thought this was a standalone and now it looks like it will be a series. Not sure about that… :/
Confusion/Disappointments:
ROOMIES by Christina Lauren- Aside from the pretty icky immigration aspect which was covered in SBTB's review, I just found the romance aspect to be oddly paced. I couldn't quite buy the love story because it seemed super slow then super rushed. However, I love Christina Lauren's voice, so overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this one. It just wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.
THE LAST WOLF by Maria Vale- Another one where I thought the romance part wasn't strong enough for the genre, but the world building was super interesting. I think if this was sold as a fantasy with very strong romantic elements, my expectations would have been better met. It's worth trying, though, if you're interested in an unusual shifter mythology.
Once I get settled in, I'm looking forward to gulping down FROM LUKOV WITH LOVE by Mariana Zapata in one go
Cranford.
I hate it. I liked North and South, didn’t like Mary Barton, now this. A collection of horribly depressing vignettes with no central narrative or god forbid a romance. Ugh.
I missed last month’s post due to working at a different location, overtime and the flu so just a quick hightlight of what I read in January: Knowing the Score by Kat Latham, Chasing Christmas Eve by Jill Shalvis, Delphine Dryden’s The Seduction Hypothesis, We Own Tonight by Corinne Michaels, By The Hour by Roni Loren, and Infraction by Rachel Van Dyken
February
–Dark In Death by JD Robb
–Take the Lead by Alexis Daria. A Dancing With the Stars type book. I really liked this one and bought the second book in the series as well.
–From Lukov With Love by Mariana Zapata. I got my ice skating fix before the Olympics started and then had to watch The Cutting Edge after reading this.
–L.H. Cosway–I love her books and I can’t one-click her books fast enough. She had a duet come out at the end of January and another the first week of February. A Crack in Everything and How the Light Gets In. I loved both books and if you haven’t read her books you should give her a shot.
–Autoboyography by Christina Lauren. A M/M Y/A romance. I was surprised I liked this one because I usually stay away from YA romances but on the other hand it’s Christina Lauren. I was a little late to the CL party but I really like their books
-Drunk Dial by Penelope Ward,Playing for Heart by Megan Erickson and American Queen by Sierra Simone. Books were just ok for me.
–I went on a Sarina Bowen binge so I could be caught up when Brooklynaire came out. So I read Keepsake, Pipe Dreams, Bountiful and finally Brooklynaire. I don’t normally binge read authors but I was glad I did. They were all great.
–Remedial Rocket Science by Susannah Nix. Nerd Alert slow burn book. This was the first book I have read by this author. It was recommended in an Author’s facebook group and maybe here. I loved this book and immediately bought the second book in the series. I think the 3rd one comes out in March.
Up Next: The Unleashing by Shelly Laurenston, The Matchmaker’s Playbook by Rachel Van Dyken so I can be ready for the movie when it comes out on Passionflix March 15th. I need to read Forever My Girl by Heidi McLaughlin so I can watch that movie as well eventually. This week Jade West and Tara Sivec have new books out. The following week Penny Reid’s Marriage of Inconvenience finally comes out. I actually took the day off of work so I can read the last book in her Knitting in the City series. Happy Reading!
I’m trying to control my book buying, at least until I get my tax return, so I’ve been looking for books on Hoopla to enjoy.
I checked out The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton because of that gorgeous cover. A group of girls that have the ability to control beauty like a commodity is an intriguing concept I want to read more about.
Also grabbed In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, which also has a great cover. It sounds like “what if you got to go to Hogwarts but hated it?” Grumpy, sarcastic teen anti-hero is not a story I usually gravitate to. But the reviews said it’s funny, so I’m hoping it has a I Hate Fairyland vibe.
I was lucky enough to get an early look at Aliette de Bodard’s novella The Tea Master and the Detective, which is a delicate Holmes/Watson pastiche set in her wonderful Xuya SF universe. The Xuya universe we see is mostly not-quite-Vietnamese inflected, and there are many stories available online for free, and I enjoyed this one a lot.
Jennifer Kloester’s biography Georgette Heyer was full of great tidbits, some of which I could’ve known if I’d bothered. Heyer published The Black Moth at nineteen, and basically never stopped publishing from then to her death, for instance.
There’s lots to best encounter in context, but I’ll mention my favorite “huh” moment – Kloester points out that Frederica was written after Heyer had grandchildren in her life, and if there’s another Heyer that has the same roles for fleshed-out, on-screen children (as opposed to young adults or babies), I’m not remembering it.
Finally, I finished my note-taking way through David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. The revised edition has some unnecessary padding, and I agree with the complaint that the book is centered for someone who has a lot of flunkies.
But the best ideas are excellent, and it’s been a helpful part of my task-management overhaul, after my previous system collapsed under two years and counting of overworked, understaffed chaos at work. This + bujo + enhanced task/project tracking can’t fix the basic issues, but I’m far more confident that I’m handling the situation as well as possible.
This month sucked hairy monkey balls with sick kids and worst of all a sick husband! (strep, ear infections, sinus surgery, tonsillectomy) so thank the universe for books!
Jennifer McQuiston’s Diary of an Accidental Wallflower
Class differences, beta hero who’s a doctor! This book was my catnip galore. Alas, it was a letdown. The MC’s had zero chemistry, the heroine was an insufferable snob for most of the book and her change of heart was too sudden to be believable. The only saving grace was the hero who was adorable. C-
Elisa Braden’s When a Girl Loves an Earl
Beauty and the Beast trope. The heroine is the one pursuing a very reluctant hero in this one which was an interesting take. I love Braden’s voice and have devoured every book I’ve read in this series. This one had its problems but the sheer romance and stellar writing had me overlooking the few quibbles I had. A-
Elisa Braden’s Twelve Nights as His Mistress
Older MC’s, both widowed. The conflict was flimsy but as it was a novella it wasn’t a huge detraction. Quick, steamy read. A-
Lisa Kleypas Dream Lake
In keeping with my resolution to read books that had been languishing in my TBR forever. I picked this one up and found it way more enjoyable than the last book Crystal Cove, which I read first for some reason. This series is Kleypas weakest IMO. I think if she had committed to the magical elements it would have worked better but she seemed very wishy washy about it, and the result was a not so believable world where people have pretty useless magical abilities. The romance in this one was pretty low key but I’m a sucker for a hero who has hit rock bottom. B-
Holly Black’s Cruel Prince
I had a hard time getting into this one. So much of the plot was devoted to the politics of the Fae world which was not very interesting. I also hate fantasy worlds where everything and everyone is evil and dangerous. It was just relentlessly dark and the heroine didn’t have one friend that she truly trusted, not even her sisters. Still, I couldn’t stop reading so I hate read the rest of it and there was this twist ending that kind of blew my mind and now I can’t wait for the next book. C
Elisa Braden’s Confessions of a Dangerous Lord
Continuing my Braden glom. I devoured this one but I found it uneven and the conflict in the romance was resolved rather early on so the rest dragged a bit. Not one of my favorites in the series but still a pretty good friends to lovers story. B
Sarina Bowen’s Broolynaire
I think the hype surrounding certain books sometimes affects my enjoyment of them. This one was so hyped in my head that it isn’t surprising it didn’t live up to my expectations. I loved Becca’s character in the previous books but here she wasn’t very likeable until the last half of the bokk. Her inner thoughts were, especially on other women, very mean-girl like which seemed out of character. Nate was better but didn’t knock my socks off. Overall, it was a good read but lacked that emotional payoff I was expecting after all the build up. B-
Talia Hibbert Undone by the Ex Con
Short but packing a surprising emotional punch. There was a lot of telling and not showing but I still really enjoyed the ballerina heroine who was prim, rich and stuffy and the hero who was silent, grumpy, dark and an ex con from the wrong side of the tracks. Class differences and opposites attract so basically all of the catnip. It was delicious. B+
I also re read Kleypas Ravenel series in preparation for the next book. I still loathed Kathleen, the heroine from Cold Hearted Rake, but enjoyed Pandora from Devil in Spring this time where I was pretty meh on her before.
Currently reading
Loretta Chase’s A Duke in Shining Armor, Elisa Braden’s Anything but a Gentleman and Talia Hibbert’s The Princess Trap.
„The Hanover Square Affair“ is currently free on Kindle, so I just one-clicked and will be joining CelineB‘s „only reading saturday“-club
This is my first post, so be kind. According to Goodreads, I have read 6 books this month. The only ones worth mentioning are by Emily Foster: How Not to Fall and How Not to Let Go (also, The Drowning Eyes). Emily Foster is Emily Nagoski IRL, a sex educator and researcher and author of the sexuality book Come As You Are. So what’s it like when a sex educator writes a romance novel? Pretty hot, actually. In some ways it’s as if she decided to rewrite Fifty Shades of Gray with consent and contraception. But, trust me, plenty hot. The sequel’s kind of anticlimactic as the couple resolves their problems and has some external challenges. But they get their HEA. Emily Nagoski has a TEDx talk, if you are curious about who she is.
Re: Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging: I’m not sure how it holds up for an adult reading it and I wouldn’t feel bad for not continuing. Per Wikipedia the first book came out in 1999 and they came out every year or two until 2009. I associate the entire series with summer camp: one of the girls had a couple of the books, and when you’re at sleepaway camp for six weeks your standards are “whatever is available” and so we all passed around books all the time. Those books were really popular and I know we read them different years but I would say I was reading them around ages 12-15, so around 2002-2005. They were still coming out and we were all the same age as the protagonist and dealing with many of the same things. I had no desire to go back and reread them when I was an older teen.
One positive TMI thing about the books: it seemed like every other YA book I read the protagonist was complaining about how she was not developing a chest. Georgia was complaining about how her chest was too big, and they did the “pencil test” in one of the books which we all promptly discussed (could your chest hold up a pencil without a bra). (You got to know people very well at all-girls summer camp.) My development was much more like Georgia’s than the other YA protagonists and I really appreciated having a character I could identify with in that way. It is such a fraught topic in middle school/early high school. I identified with Georgia Nicholson more than Mia Thermopolis so I liked having the option.
THE INFAMOUS MISS RODRIGUEZ by Lydia San Andres: Spanish Caribbean historical m/f romance with wonderful characters and setting and and and! Look at the cover — it makes me so happy.
TRIBUTE ACT by Joanna Chambers: Contemporary m/m romance and TRIBUTE ACT by Joanna Chambers: New to me author and new favorite. I love how she writes characters — such sensitivity.
AN UNNATURAL VICE by KJ Charles: m/m romance: Just what KateB said! I heart KJ Charles.
SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA by Becky Albertalli: Audiobook with wonderful narration by Michael Crouch: At times I feel too motherly to read YA, because it triggers so much worry if the characters are taking risks or they’re not treated kindly — but this book just made me swoon with the sweetness of first love, and cry a little about the bravery LGBTQUIA++ kids have to have.
SOME SORT OF HAPPY by Melanie Harlow. f/m romance: Wonderful representation of an anxiety disorder, especially the issue of intrusive thoughts. I was a little less here for the romance but I’m not sure why. The heroine had some ideas about other female characters that left me kind of bummed. With her former boss, she described her as looking like a witch with her shrewd eyes… And her boss really hadn’t done anything completely cruel or anything so I was like –?? And then the heroine referred to the hero’s ex fiancee as a tart. The hero had broken up with his ex fiancee, and she had done nothing wrong, they just were not meant to be. This kind of internal labeling of other women just hurts my heart when I read it. I can get not liking your boss. I can relate to retrospective jealousy. But let’s not call each other witches and tarts, we’re better than that.
ALL SYSTEMS RED by Martha Wells. Murderbot is bae. I flipping loved this little book so darn much I had to return it to the library, and I’m like, I miss you ‘bot. Miss you so. Darn. MUCH.
BINTI by Nnendi Okorafor: Amazing science fiction, even if you don’t care for the genre, check out BINTI. The exploration of family and culture and leaving home — so, so much depth and richness of storytelling here. And Binit is such a heroine.
BORDERLINE and PHANTOM PAINS by Mishell Baker: I put off reading these as I was worried they’d be a little dark for me. Part of self care for me is trying to read books that support my mental health and sometimes I have to hold off on reading certain stuff. Turns out? Perfect timing. I loved these books. Representation of mental illness and chronic pain and disability done so right, and just a kick ass heroine.
THE LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE HACKS: How to make your life happier, healthier and more beautiful by Yumi Sakugawa: Speaking of self care, this is a lovely book with darling illustrations about taking care of yourself. It felt a little young for me, but still very a genuinely nice read.
A DISTANT HEART by Sonali Dev: DNF just because as I began it I realized I needed to read the first book in the series, d’oh! But I can’t wait, it looks amazing.
I love reading about what everyone is reading!! Thank you SBTB for having this series and for well, everything you do. x
Oops — The two books by Joanna Chambers were A GATHERING STORM and TRIBUTE ACT — Sorry! TRIBUTE ACT is contemporary m/m romance, and A GATHERING STORM is historical m/m romance, and both wonderful enough to read twice. 🙂
You know, I just automatically open amazon.com when I start looking at this monthly feature. Not that I plan to buy a lot of books, but, you know, just in case.
I re-read Sarina Bowen’s Ivy Years series, which I love. Now re-reading Rookie Move and wondering if I love it as much as the others. Also wondering if I want the next book in the series.
Read Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming thanks to a recommendation from the Bitchery and did enjoy it a great deal, brought up some issues that I continue to deal with which was useful, too.
The Dreamquest of Vellitt Roe by Kij Johnson was good. Lovecraftian in a very clever way. Interesting transition between the worlds. Great women characters.
Currently, finally reading Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas which my grandson highly recommended. I am enjoying it so far though sometimes I wanted to yell at the heroine for her decisions. I did understand why she was making them, though.
OK, those are the Nook books.
On the kindle, I read Pretty Face by Lucy Parker and am now joining the throngs who are singing the praises. It was great. Read it twice in three days.
I also did like The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren and am looking forward to the next book in the series.
I read Twist of Faith by Ellen Green. This is a psychological thriller about a young woman looking for her birth mother who was murdered when she was very small. As she searches, people die. It was interesting and there were some twists I did not foresee.
I also read Ink Witch by Lindsey Fairleigh. A friend was curious and I got to it before she did. The premise was intriguing. Magical tattoos, Egyptian pantheon, kick-ass heroine who is estranged from her family. The first chapter was fun though mostly set-up, showing us the ass-kickiing and how everyone was in love with the young lady. Then it went on as a kind of standard urban fantasy. I liked it well enough and do not think it did as much as it could have with the premise.
I also got the Practice Perfect series by Ruby Lang and am 2 chapters into the first book, Acute Reactions. My reactions ranged from thinking about throwing the kindle, “maybe I should live tweet this,” “no, I will review it when I get my blog going again this summer.” As a physician, I enjoy reading books about the medical field, if they get things right. I enjoy it enough that I can suspend a little disbelief. However, in the first chapter – what medical school takes 6 years? Unless you are doing MD/PhD which she did not. To say nothing of getting the allergy training wrong. Plus insta-lust for a patient – well, that happens (even to me) and you either always have a chaperone for their visits or you gently refer them elsewhere. That was chapter one. Then we are introduced to her absolute lack of knowledge of how to run a practice! Hello, bank loans? (I actually did this as a very young doc, I know these things.) Hello, public lectures? Hello, decent social media presence? I realize that many docs are not as savvy and still. Anyhow, that is where I have stalled. Halfway through chapter 2.
It has been a crazy month with my family in the hospital so thank god for books to get me through!
The Duchess Deal— this was my first Tessa Dare and why did I wait so long to read her books?!? I loved everything about this book—the hero and heroines connection, the Beauty and the Beast retelling, the female friendships, the cat- highly recommend!
Wall banger— also my first Alice Clayton book and will not be my last. Was unsure how much I would like it at first but I love that Simon and Caroline went from hating each other to developing a really nice friendship. Hate to love is one of my favorite tropes. Very funny and also loved the cat in this one too!
American Fire: Love Arson and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse. This is nonfiction about a series of fires in a particular county in Virginia and the ultimate conviction of the couple who started the fires. The author does a really great job of telling you about the investigators, what life in the county was like and about the couples relationship and it’s ultimate destruction. Would recommend on audio.
Take the lead by Alexis Daria (OWN voices—author is Latina). If you watch Dancing with the Stars you should read this book. The heroine is a Latina dancer on the show but doesn’t want to be seen as a stereotype who sleeps with her partners or uses relationships to get ahead. The hero is on a survival reality show with his family in Alaska and hates being in front of the camera. Their chemistry is great and while the hero’s relationship with his family isn’t explored as much as I would like the conflcit felt very real to me.
The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig. This is the third book in her Pink Carnation series and I enjoyed it just as much as the first two. This series is definitely a comfort read for me and would highly recommend.
I’m always on the lookout for romances with unsympathetic heroines and I hit the jackpot this month. First, I read GROUPIE by ME Carter, which I mainly picked up because it featured a virgin hero, but quickly discovered that it also featured a heroine who would probably be considered to be the unsympathetic other woman in any other book. She’s in her early 20’s, unabashedly loves sex and sports and considers herself to be a groupie for a local soccer team. She has sex with various players on the team frequently and considers them all to be just friends. The thing is, she’s pretty oblivious to the fact that many of these guys are either married or in relationships. She’s not actively trying to get them to cheat, she just doesn’t care if they are, because after all, she’s not the one breaking any vows. Anyway, a new rookie player is added to the team, he falls for her, she falls for him, lots of angst ensues over the fact that she’s previously slept with a bunch of his teammates. This book is definitely not for everyone, and contains sex scenes that are not at all sexy, but I loved it.
After that, I read THE LEARNING HOURS by Sara Ney. This one was an NA featuring a star wrestler who transfers in his junior year to a new college. He’s an absolute sweetheart, but is also big, raw and described as not very good-looking (and also very close to a virgin). His teammates haze him by posting his picture and phone number up around campus with a comment that he needs to get laid. The heroine initially texts him as a joke (as do many other girls) and she’s a pretty unsympathetic character – willing to use her attractiveness to manipulate guys, spoiled, rather shallow. She keeps texting him, mainly because she’s pissed that he tries to blow her off, and they start hanging out together. The more time she spends with him, the more attractive he becomes to her, and the more she realizes how shallow and somewhat mean she’s been in the past. This is another one that I can see many people disliking, but again, I loved it. It features college students acting pretty juvenile, so definitely not for anyone who doesn’t like NA.
Finally, my favorite book of the month was another of Tamsen Parker’s Snow and Ice Games books, ON THE BRINK OF PASSION. This won’t be released till March. It features a pairs figure skating team that decides to start sleeping together while they are competing in a big competition. This book was so good, but once again, not for everyone (seems to be a common theme with my favorite books this month LOL). The sex scenes initially are cringeworthy and almost painful to read. The heroine comes off as cold and controlling and she basically offers to have sex with the hero mainly because she doesn’t want to be disturbed in the middle of the night if he hooks up with another athlete (they are sharing a room due to a scheduling mishap). She previously lost her long-time partner/husband and now is completely closed off to all emotion. As the book goes on, she so wants to open up to her partner, but she’s so afraid of experiencing all of that pain and hurt again, so she keeps pushing him away, while he just keeps falling deeper and deeper in love with her. Lots of yearning in this book.
In spite of binging 24/7 on Olympics coverage, I’m still up for more sports romance, so I’ve also got Pairing Off by Elizabeth Harmon, and Crossing the Ice by Jennifer Comeaux queued up and ready to go.
I re-read Sherry Thomas’ DELICIOUS, NOT QUITE A HUSBAND AND HIS AT NIGHT. NQaH lacked a heroine I could love, but Leo the hero was absolutely wonderful! HaN is one of my favorite romances from Thomas, I love love love Penny!
I listened to LINCOLN AT THE BARDO and Hillary Clinton’s memoir WHAT HAPPENED, both were incredible audiobooks.
From recs here I read SCARLET FEATHER by Maeve Binchy and ASSASSIN’S APPRENTICE by Robin Hobbs. Good reading to be sure.
Molly MacRae’s mystery PLAID AND PLAGIARISM was awful as were the four books in the VICTORIAN BOOKSHOP series by Kate Parker.
I also re-read the MAD MORELANDS by Candace Camp to prepare for her new book about one of the twins Alexander. HIS SINFUL TOUCH was disappointing, because I had high expectations for “The Greats”. Now SCANDALOUS by Camp was a terrific read, she is very hit and miss with me. I’ve read most of her back list this year and I’m always surprised at her inconsistency.
INVINCIBLE SUMMER by Alice Adams was about four friends from university who weave back and forth into each other lives after graduating. Narcissistic and annoying characters that were a waste of time.
On deck Meredith Duran’s THE SINS OF LORD LOCKWOOD……FINALLY!!
I have read a lot but I have been trying to figure out where to bring this up because I am still chewing on it. Which is a good time to stop and suggest a TW for school shootings.
So. Roni Loren is an automatic read for me. A few weeks ago I read The Ones Who Got Away even though I was a little concerned about how I would react in regard to content (I used to be a HS teacher, the week after Columbine I was in the middle of a student panic lock down based on shooting rumors on our campus). But like I said, automatic read. So I went ahead. It surprised me – more angst, less sex than I am used to from her but it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it. And then. Yeah, you all know what happened.
I can’t let go of all of these questions I have about how I am feeling about the idea that school shootings are so fucking (thats ok right?) familiar that they are an element in romance – angsty romance but still romance. And I think I am just too close to it but it has totally changed my experience of that book. Like I wouldn’t read it now. I don’t think I will read the follow up.
Since then I read The Female of the Species. YA, uber intense but AMAZING! – I am working on a book about reading YA as a feminist and this was a ton of grist for the mill so to speak.
When Dimple Met Rishi (YA) which was a palate cleanser and completely delightful. Great YA romance – and I know some of you all have a problem with YA romance because of the reality of the HEA in YA is sort of skewed – love to talk about that more some day – but if you like YA this is such a great sweet romance.
(Oh and I saw Call me by your name last night and my friend and I had totally different takes on the ending based on how we read romance in coming of age)
Also YA: Love, Hate and Other Filters, and the Speak graphic novel.
Bad decisions Book Club – finishing up Kristen Ashley’s Unfinsihed Hero Series with Raid, Deacon, and almost though Sebring. My SO is gone so it was 3:30 am reading nights and work on Saturday (which I am taking a break from) while I did that. I needed a little KA alpha f’ed up male – not sure why but it worked for me.
Anyways – if any of you all have thoughts on The Ones Who got Away in light of Parkland I am curious.
So I’ve had a surprisingly good month so far. I wound up signing up for KU again because I noticed several authors I followed being available there.
I finished:
— Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers. Continuing my classic mystery trend for the year, I added a Sayers to my earlier Christie. It was almost of the reverse of the Strong Poison which opened with a long trial scene, this ended with one.
— Two books by Nicola Davidson on people’s recs — Devil’s Submission and To Tame a Wicked Widow both featuring one half that was more dominant than expected. I liked them both, the explicit language sometimes felt at odds with the rest, but not sure why.
— Mina V Esguerra’s My Imaginary Ex. First Romanceclass book and I really loved it. Reminded me a little of “When Harry Met Sally” for some reason in the way we saw them date other people but still maintain their strong friendship throughout. And ex-girlfriends that weren’t crazy/denigrated/etc!
— Mary Balogh’s The Suitor which I bought back when I first discovered her. Fairly slow for a short story. The Almacks’ waltz question was a feature point.
It seens I an making up for all the books I didn’t read last year (I’m up to 19 for the year).
The Good:
Edge of Darkness. By Karen Rose: this is Adam and Meredith’s book, which I had been looking forward to since the last book was released. I enjoyed it, but was annoyed at how easy it was to figure out the killer’s identity.
Hacking IT by Kimberly Dean: this was more novella than full novel, but you wouldn’t know it. It actually felt like a full novel! Like Edge of Darkness, I figured out the mystery way too easily, but everything else about it was so good.
About That Kiss by Jill Shalvis: i read 60% of this book in one day, despite working a full day. It was that good.
The Meh:
His Sinful Touch by Candace Camp: this was the first new book in the Mad Morelands series she nce 2005. I enjoyed seeing the old characters back again and the fact that this book takes place in the later Victorian Era (I believe it is 1890 or 1891). I had two issues with this book, though. The heroine suffers from complete retrograde amnesia (she doesn’t even know her name), which as well all know is incredibly rare. I also didn’t like how the paranormal aspects were used more as a deus ex machina than they were in the earlier books.
Ace of Spades by Sandra Owens: I nearly gave up on this book at the 40% mark because I was having a hard time getting into it. This might be because I somehow missed the first teo books in the series and didn’t have the connection to the characters that others would have. I also figured out the killer’s identity really easily (as soon as he was introduced, I wrote a note on my kindle edition that I’d bet $100 that he sas the killer). It did get better, although the first sex scene was extremely boring and part of the reason I almost fave up on it.
The What Did I Just Read:
Valentine Kisses by Ann B. Harrison: This was a novella I picked up on Netgalley for Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, it straight up did not make sense. The heroine, a celebrity chef on the Food Network, has a stalker, so she is sent to live in a small cottage with no protection in the same town where her sister lives. She takes selfies with the locals and doesn’t once think that those pictures will probably be on Instagram within minutes and everyone will know where she is. I had other issues, but being TSTL was enough that I noped out of this at about the 25% mark.
It’s a slow reading month.
I’m currently reading EMMA EVER AFTER by Brigid Coady (Bisexual hero in a chicklit book! Good stuff. Enjoying it so far).
Just finished reading LIVING IN THE PAST by Jane Lovering (Timeslip. Loved it) and THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas (Totally blew me away).
Also, WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI by Sandhya Menon (I wish this book had been around when I was a teen. Indian protagonists whose problems are NOT about being Indian!).
@Mary Ann: I loved that particular Roni Loren book and reviewed it on the site. However, I get what you mean. I was asked for some recommendations recently, and I purposefully left that one off the list. For anyone particularly sensitive to this sorts of tragedies, I would advise against reading it while mass shootings are still fresh in the news.
I know this sounds horrible, but it seems like it’s the reality that we live in now, but I would say read the book during a lull in awful news days.
I wasn’t ready to settle into a long book so I picked books from my TBR that were shorter in page count. Mine are all m/m
Peter Darling (Chant, Austin) – 5 stars
Sheep’s Clothing (Gregory, Elin) – 3 starts
The Reluctant Berserker( Beecroft, Alex) – 4 stars: I got this on sale and almost didn’t purchase it at all. Then I shuffled it to the back of my pile. I enjoyed it so much more then I expected.
Illegal Contact (Hassell, Santino ) – 4 stars: This was my first of this author and I really had to restrain myself from running out and buying his back list.
Caroline’s Heart(Chant, Austin) – 3 stars
Would it be ok to love you? (Tasukada, Amy) – 3 stars
Will & Patrick wake up married (Blake, Leta)- 3 stars
and 3 other 2 star books
I reread Cat Sebastian’s THE LAWRENCE BROWNE AFFAIR
and finally….I picked up To Marry an English Lord from Lorraine Heath’s suggestion. I can already tell I will finish it quickly
@C I read Joanna Chambers A GATHERING STORM last month and really liked it
@Rhoda – you might also take a look at Love, Hate, and Other Filters – more intense than Dimple and Rishi but also Indian-American narrator, and while arguably some of the issues are more about being Indian -American (particularly a Muslim rather than Hindu as dimple/rishi) it is also about relationships.
@Amanda you wrote you were worried about it (school shooting) being a gimmick and that it wasn’t. I couldn’t agree more, I think that it is why it uncomfortably stayed with me beyond the initial reading, and before the Parkland shooting. It felt real to me, authentic. And yes, it is going to be harder to be someone not impacted by gun violence. There was just a deeper sense of reality than I was expecting. If you look at my post you see I can go for the intense at times (this site also reviewed female of the species for instance so you can see what that is all about). I just can’t get the Loren out of my mind, and there is a spine tingle that goes with it. I think this is because it was unexpected combined with a school shooting not 2.5 weeks later. Ultimately I would recommend it, but with a whole lot of caution and distance – not within weeks of a tragedy. As clearly you were also thinking.
I just finished A Wrinkle In TIme. One of those books I missed as a kid. I just started His Perfect Partner by Priscilla Oliveiras. Eagerly awaiting A Princess In Theory to download to my Kindle.
I regret to say that I’m currently gobbling up Phryne Fisher mysteries by Kerry Greenwood. This is the literary equivalent of binging on Belly Flops: just one more … no, just one more after that … aw, heck, lemme grab a couple more after that. I’m reading in random order based on whatever happens to be on the library shelves, meaning that I’ve not yet read Cocaine Blues, the first in the series, reviewed here a few years back. When I saw there was one called Ruddy Gore I knew I need look no further.
For me the shark-jumping came early on (in my reading, not in the series chronology) with Raisins and Almonds, featuring a lot of Jewish immigrant characters speaking like parodies of Leo Rosten–because, it turns out, the author used The Joys of Yiddish as one of her sources. I love this book dearly, and used to own it, but it would not have occurred to me to use it as a linguistic template. The effect put me powerfully in mind of Mark Twain’s introduction to English as She is Spoke: “It is not a fraud who speaks in … the author’s Preface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose conscience is at rest, a man who believes he has done a high and worthy work for his nation and his generation, and is well pleased with his performance”. Mutatis mutandis.
</rant>
When all else fails, I’ve still got Grimm’s fairy tales half-finished on the side of the bed, so if I accidentally finish a book and am not quite ready to go to sleep, there’s always something to fall back on.
And, having read the first 38 posts on this page, my library list has already grown somewhat. So there’s that.
I had a pretty solid reading month, I’m happy to say.
I really enjoyed TAKE THE LEAD by Alexis Daria despite not being interested in reality tv. My only real knowledge of Dances with the Stars is watching Lindsey Stirling’s dances from this past season on YouTube with my 9 year old violin-playing fangirl of a daughter, but I think I liked the fictionalized look at reality tv every bit as much as the romance.
I almost gave up on SOME SORT OF HAPPY by Melanie Harlow early on, but I’m very glad I stuck with it. The hero struggles seriously with OCD, which gives him frightening, violent thoughts. I wasn’t sure I could spend much time in his head and still root for an HEA, but the author really made it work. I particularly liked how careful she was to not have the hero be magically cured by love. She focused on the process of living with his condition rather than an unbelievable instant fix.
I also surprised myself with how much I enjoyed THE YEAR WE HID AWAY by Sarina Bowen. I find NA hard to read, particularly when the heroine is the same age as my oldest child. I confess I skimmed/skipped the sex scenes because it felt awkward. The novel did suffer from convenient solutions to big problems, particularly one character who is introduced primarily to help fix everything, but I really came to care about the hero and heroine.
I read my first Mary Stewart novel, NINE COACHES WAITING, this month and it was great fun. She has a lovely way with words, and the descriptions of France made me long to travel again. It was very much in the vein of Jane Eyre, so I recommend it when someone is in the mood for a good tale of a governess in Gothic peril.
A DISTANT HEART by Sonali Dev was a mixed bag for me. I love her writing and characters, but I’m not a big fan of novels which spend a lot of time on flashbacks. I probably would have liked it better if I knew going in that half the book would be spent in the past.
I also had a few DNF’s/less successful books:
I downloaded a Sally Mackenzie bundle which all had titles like THE NAKED EARL. The first one I tried seemed very lighthearted and fun until early on a character is raped and murdered on the page. I don’t read romance for rape and murder, so I DNF’d.
I also tried Catherine Gayle’s Portland Storm box set, but I couldn’t get through more than a few chapters. The hero just annoyed me too much, starting with him putting down a $50 bill because “that was the smallest he had”. Who still carries giant bills to impress people? Carry a debit card like everyone else. Then he explained how beautiful the heroine is because she didn’t wear makeup or fix her hair or whatever, and I’m really over that “made-up girls are artificial and horrible but YOU are natural and beautiful” thing.
I really wanted to love Vicki Pettersson’s THE TAKEN, which has an absolutely gorgeous cover and a setup that greatly appealed to me. Unfortunately, the execution wasn’t as good as the idea of a modern rockabilly girl meeting a 50’s detective turned angel-of-sorts. The characters never really came alive for me, and the villain did something extremely poorly motivated that gave the heroes far too much information. However, it appears to be free on Kindle right now if someone else would like to give it a try.