We’re nearing the end of the month, which means it’s about that time where we all share what we’ve been reading. We can cheer our reading high points and commiserate over our reading low points. Let it all hang out! Reading-wise, at least.
Elyse: I am almost finished with I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara ( A | BN | K | AB ) on audio which is excellent.
RHG: I just started Hurts to Love You ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) last night, and fortunately for my sleeping habits, my Kindle battery died so I actually had to stop at a reasonable hour.
I am rereading Phantom of the Opera ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) (in translation, my French is limited to menus).
Elyse: I’m kind of in between non-audio books, mostly because I’m spoiled for choice. Per Amazon, Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles and The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) are going to hit my doorstep today so probably one of them will be next.
RHG: Oh, and I just finished Counting on a Countess by Eva Leigh.
Which I liked very much.
Carrie: I just finished How the Cowboy Was Won by Lori Wilde ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and tomorrow I’ll start Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which I am VERY excited about.
Amanda: I started The Alchemists of Loom and I’m enjoying it a lot. It’s fantasy with a badass, chip-on-her-shoulder heroine, a great friendship, and a dragon hero who wants to overthrow some royalty and hates wearing clothes.
Sarah: Blueberry dragon?
Amanda: BLUEBERRY DRAGON!
Earlier, I mentioned to the group that I was reading a fantasy with romantic elements and the heroine is swathed in all manner of clothes and the dragon hero is just letting things all hang out. He’s also a muted blue color. The heroine tells him to put on some dang clothes to avoid being noticed. “We can’t have you strolling around like a giant blueberry.” I snorted.
Elyse: Once I was waiting for a flight in the Atlanta airport and a little girl came running down the concourse screaming “no more pants!” Sat down and pulled her leggings off. I’ve never identified with someone more in an airport.
Sarah: GIRL YES.
Amanda: I bet that poor girl had to be wrestled into those things prior to arriving at the airport. PANTS ARE A PRISON!
Sarah: Boob jail and prison pants.
Amanda: I’m also listening to Wanderlust by Lauren Blakely on audio ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ). One of the narrators is Richard Armitage and yes, it’s very good. And then I’m toying with starting Acting Lessons by Katie Allen – a book I bought solely because the hero is wearing an eyepatch on the cover.
Sarah: Eep! Almost forgot!
I’m reading a library copy of Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). One thing I LOVE about the Montgomery County Public Library, and I imagine other library systems do this too: when you request that they purchase a book for their collection, you get to borrow it first. I requested a digital copy and poof! It appeared. Thank you, MCPL!
I’m working my way backwards through Rubin’s backlist, starting with the books on habit formation and The Four Tendencies (which I loved). Now I’m reading Happier At Home, which was inspired by The Happiness Project, which I haven’t read yet. I’m sure somewhere many series-order folks are snarling at me. Sorry!
I’m also listening to You and Me, Always by Jill Mansell ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), and to the second Captain Lacey book by Ashley Gardner. I may have to do a new spreadsheet for audiobook-to-listen tracking.
What have you been reading? Tell us all about it in the comments!
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I’m having a hard time concentrating on reading right now. This always seems to happen when I have several arcs and am trying to capitalize on a couple different reading subscription services before canceling. Luckily, I’ve been able to listen to quite a few books.
What I did manage to read/listen to:
Hard-Hitter, Pipe Dreams, and Keepsake by Sarina Bowen- All ones I really enjoyed. I’m whittling down my backlog of Bowen books slowly but surely.
A Brush with Shadows by Anna Lee Huber- I got this one from Penguin First to Read and it was another good installment in the series.
Why Kill the Innocent by C. S. Harris- Another one I got from Penguin First to Read. Thirteen books into this series and I’m enjoying it just as much as book one. I love Harris’s touches of real historical details paired with her great characters and interesting mysteries.
Getting Schooled by Emma Chase- This one was fine. I liked it while I was listening to it then promptly forgot all about it.
Accidental Sire by Molly Harper- This series is getting a little old, but I still found this one enjoyable enough.
Egomaniac by Vi Keeland- I enjoyed this one much more than I thought I would. It had good dialogue, sexual tension, and conflict.
Ready to Run by Lauren Layne- I found this one very cute. Layne has definitely become my go-to contemporary feel-good author.
Noelle Adams- I read/listened to several of Adams books. I find her books all solidly enjoyable with most being not super remarkable, but occasionally one stands out above the rest.
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann- This is one I read for a challenge I’m doing (for the true-crime prompt). It was an interesting and sad story that I knew absolutely nothing about.
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot- This was another challenge book (either for the author of a different ethnicity as you or a book of short stories/essays). I found this look into Mailhot’s childhood on a reservation in the Pacific Northwest and her struggle with bipolar 2 heartfelt and moving.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff- This was super cute and sweet. For a minute I almost thought I’d read it before, but it was just that I remembered certain lines from the movie version.
Right now I’ve picked back up Spartan Frost by Jennifer Estep that I had abandoned before since I couldn’t concentrate on it. So far it seems to be going a little better. I’m also working on the complete Miss Marple story collection one to two stories at a time. I have an arc of Kristan Higgins’s and Amanda Quick’s next books that I need to get to soon plus Lake of Silence by Anne Bishop which is a library book that’s due back soon. Hopefully I’ve finally pulled myself out of my slump so I can get all those done.
I just finished Lisa Kleypas’s Hello Stranger yesterday. I really liked chapters 7-24 (the book continues through chapter 25, alas). Garrett’s confidence in the face of Ethan’s constant retreat is refreshing, Ethan’s vulnerability re: his three father figures is heartbruising, and the contrast between Ethan’s romantic eloquence and Garrett’s curt pragmatism is charming. Also, Ethan and West Ravenel have their own bromance arc. There are many, many wonderful scenes with side characters. It’s a solid entry in the Ravenel series, though it’s not my favorite (Winterborne, Winterborne, Winterborne). I am so excited for the fifth installment, and I am burning with anticipation for the couple rumored to be featured in volume 6.
Unrelated to my opinion of the book, the experience of reading it will always be overshadowed by the impact of the SBTB review. I borrowed both the ebook and audio book from my library on release day. I always read the text first, but I found the introductory chapters somewhat alienating, so I set the book aside in the middle of chapter 5. When I resumed reading it two weeks later, all reference to India/gurus had been removed from the ebook, including:
1. Ethan’s martial arts training by an unnamed (older male) guru
2. a reference to Ethan learning to seduce both women and men for information (internal narration; not shared with Garrett)
3. the long passage re: sex training quoted in the SBTB review
4. a reference to the guru training him to regulate his breathing, used in Jenkyn’s office
There was a dangling reference left behind in the digital text:
1. Chapter 20: Ethan tells Garrett, “I still have 118 positions left to show you.” This alludes to the 120 positions from his excised dialogue with Garrett in chapter 8 about his sex training in India.
I was able to identify changes 2-4 because the audio file has yet to be similarly updated. I have eerie “The Commissar Vanishes” feelings about these edits. One unnerving aspect is that *I* hadn’t updated my Kindle file. The replacement file was pushed to my ipad app without my consent or knowledge. Since I returned to romance reading a little more than a year ago, I have been reading/purchasing ebooks only, and I am now strongly feeling the loss of the printed book as a trustworthy artefact. It’s ironic that technological advances have made texts more ephemeral and less reliable.
[Please note I am not criticizing the decision to edit out the offending material, though I do think valuable information about Ethan’s character was lost in passage #2 being removed. Had these passages never existed, I wouldn’t miss them at all. It’s just unsettling to know they were there, published, and then erased. Very post-truth era. If I didn’t follow SBTB, I wouldn’t even know why the text and audio files were different; the experience would have left me feeling gaslighted.]
Incidentally, Mary Jane Wells’ performance of the Ravenel series is a treat. She’s marvellously skilled with the characters’ unique voices. I encourage everyone who hasn’t listened to check out the audiobook of their favorite volume in the Ravenel series.
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater: 3rd of the 4 book Raven King series. This is not a standalone but is a good part of the series. I’m interested in how this ends and am probably checking book 4 out today.
Dream of the Dead by Phil Rickman: Next in the Merrily Watkins mystery series. Not outstanding, but good.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant: Very good thriller about killer mermaids. I’ve read enough thrillers that during the introductory passages, I made some pretty good guesses about who was going to make it. 🙂
Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F. C. Yee: Some of the fight scenes didn’t do much for me, but I LOL’d quite a bit at this book.
Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer: I’m reading this in combination with the next book in the list. It’s a quiet, relaxing sort of read.
The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss: The writing style is a little odd, but I’m enjoying it.
@Deborah: On Amazon, under Your Account > Manage Content and Devices > Settings, there’s an option to turn Automatic Book Updates OFF. It’s on by default, and most people think about it for the first time only after they’re pushed an update that wipes out their un-backed-up notes.
Updates will still be available, marked with “update available” on your Content list. It’s a little more work when you want an update, but it’s the easiest way to preserve files you want left alone.
(Personally, I’m waiting for publishers to start replacing books with the message “You’ve had this book for five years/read it twice already. It’s time you bought it again.” It seems like something they’d do just because the ability exists, and haha NO.)
A slow reading month.
I reread Robin McKinley’s ‘Beauty’ and I still love it. (I love all of her books. ‘The Blue Sword’ will always be my favorite.)
Read Jessica Lemmon’s ‘Arm Candy’ and found it very meh. Neither of the main characters felt real to me and the conflict wasn’t very compelling.
I got a bunch of Mary Jo Putneys from the library a while ago and reread a couple of those before I finally had to return them – ‘The Rake’ which features a hero trying to stop drinking, and ‘Once a Rebel’, which takes place in a fictional kingdom on the Spain-Portugal border after Napoleon’s abdication but before Waterloo. She writes really strong heroines and wonderful heroes. The competence levels are high, the main characters have complex and important relationships outside of the main romance, and both of these novels featured a sweet secondary romance. I was sorry to return them!
I picked up Lauren Blakely’s ‘The Knocked Up Plan’ on sale. I’ve read many of her other books, including the Big Rock series, and enjoyed them. This one just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t buy into the main characters’ jobs or their relationship with each other prior to falling in to bed. And there was a scene that just completely pulled me out of the story – there’s either an engagement party or baby shower, something like that, and I realized that all of the characters in all of these books – the Big Rock series, The Hot One, The Sexy One, etc – they’re all friends, and they don’t seem to have a single POC in their circle of friends! The books are set in New York City, the most diverse city in the world! And yet all of these people live in this white bubble! I live in a small town in country Australia and there are people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds in my social circle. I just can’t believe that’s not possible in a series set in NYC. It’s some weird Seinfeldian, Friends alternate universe NYC with no people of color living there.
I’m reading ‘Animal Attraction’ by Jill Shalvis at the moment and enjoying it (except for the hero’s mocha skin).
Australian rules football season is just starting up again so that’s going to cut into my reading time!
The theme this month seemed to be a few new-to-me writers or trying a second (or third) book by writers who were recently new-to-me.
I thoroughly enjoyed Sarah Mayberry’s two companion books, HER BEST WORST MISTAKE and HOT ISLAND NIGHTS, about the romantic lives of two best friends. The two books take place in the same time-frame so in one book we see events through one friend’s eyes and in the other book we see some of those same events from the other friend’s perspective. The heroine in MISTAKE has always felt antagonism toward her best friend’s fiancé—she thinks he’s priggish and uptight, lacking spark or spontaneity. But when her friend abruptly cancels the wedding and heads to Australia to find her biological father, the heroine begins to see the jilted ex in a far sexier light. (One of the things Mayberry does particularly well is carefully dismantle the perceived eeuuww factor of a woman sleeping with her best friend’s former fiancé.) The heroine in NIGHTS is the best friend from MISTAKE. After breaking off her engagement (the first truly spontaneous act of her life), she flies to an Australian beach community to find her father but instead she connects with a handsome surfer who is struggling emotionally to recover from a fatal car accident he was in some months before. Both books can be read as standalones, but the reading experience is much richer if you read them both.
I inhaled Sierra Simone’s SINNER in two sittings. It’s the sequel to PRIEST (so far, my favorite read of 2018) and MIDNIGHT MASS (the hero in SINNER is the brother of the hero in the previous two books). A successful businessman in his mid-thirties, who turned his back on God and the Catholic Church after a family tragedy 15 years ago, begins what is supposed to be a short-term fling with a woman who is preparing to become a nun. There are many complications: the heroine is 21, much younger than the hero, and is the sister of his good friend, their families were very close until the aforementioned family tragedy, the hero’s mother is now dying of cancer, and the hero is a control freak who believes money will always ensure his desired outcome. In addition, the heroine is black and the book doesn’t shy away from some of the difficulties of interracial relationships: there’s an excellent scene at a large charity function where the hero realizes for the first time his own white male privilege and the numerous micro-aggressions a woman of color experiences every day. As with PRIEST and MIDNIGHT MASS, SINNER is a mix of incredibly hot sex and questing spirituality. And it’s the sign of a really good book when—even given that SINNER is a romance novel—right up until the last few pages, I truly wasn’t sure that the hero and heroine could achieve their HEA.
After reading Lexi Blake’s crazy-sauce mash-up of spies and bdsm in THE DOM WHO LOVED ME last month, I wasn’t prepared for the quiet emotional pull of Blake’s AWAY FROM ME. Yes, as in Blake’s Masters & Mercenaries series, there is a D/s couple and, yes, the sub is a somewhat “plump” (Blake’s word) woman, but this book is miles away from the espionage and skullduggery of the M&M books. After being with her dom for three years, the heroine ends their relationship. I don’t want to say anything about the reasons behind the heroine’s decision because that is an integral part of the plot, but when the couple reconnects almost a year later, the heroine isn’t sure she wants to return to their prior relationship despite their sexual chemistry. Although much of the story takes place in a “swingers’ resort” in the Caribbean and there is plenty of sex, the emphasis in the book is definitely on emotional growth, change, and how settling for one thing when you know you need something else is always soul-crushing.
But then I got right back on the doms & spies crazy train with Blake’s LOVE AND LET DIE—another in the Masters & Mercenaries series. What can I say? I’ve found a new guilty pleasure—and, since there’s at least 15 books in the series, I have plenty of material to indulge it. In this one, a dom marries his sub, the daughter of a Russian mafia kingpin. Just a few weeks later, the sub is murdered…well, not exactly murdered, because she shows up five years later ready to pick up the marriage and D/s dynamic right where they left off. Naturally, her husband/dom has some trouble with this, especially as spies and rogue agents from all over the world are now crawling out of the woodwork looking to finish the job they failed to do five years before. About one-fourth of this book is an extended scene that takes place in a Dallas bdsm club where the subs (all females) sit around in the ornate locker room knitting and chatting while the doms (all males) sit in the club and talk with one another about their sexual proclivities like Bubbie and her friends gossiping at the koffee klatch. Part of this scene involves the hero subjecting the heroine (with her consent, of course) to something called “fire play” which I assume is a real thing and seems to be both appallingly dangerous and, imho, completely unsexy.
Callie Harper’s UNLEASHED, which I read last month, was so angsty, full of complications and misunderstandings, that I was surprised at the much more light-hearted tone of UNTAMED, another of Harper’s books in the same Beg for It series about the Kavanaugh Brothers. UNTAMED is a fish-out-of-water/opposites-attract story about a reality television producer who, while scouting locations for a show about people living in small towns, encounters an incredibly hot furniture-maker. He lives a hermit-like existence is a rural Vermont community. Naturally, they’re attracted to each other and, just as naturally, there are complications. A nice romance, but I could have done with a little less “size-ism.” Yeah, the hero is really, um, big—we get it—you don’t have to tell us about it every time he gets nekkid.
As is my style when I discover a new-to-me author whose books I like, I then read several other other Callie Harper books: UNBELIEVABLE is about another Kavanaugh brother, a billionaire CEO, and his relationship with a woman who runs a bakery. This one has overt 50 Shades references but only relatively mild bdsm activity. UNDENIABLE is a second-chance/enforced-proximity romance with a hero from the wrong side of the tracks and a heroine who is the younger sister of the Kavanaugh brothers. ALL I NEED is in part a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast with elements of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Mary Poppins (!) thrown in: a young Scottish woman arrives at a remote, crumbling manor house to assume caretaker duties for the badly-injured owner of a whiskey distillery. ALL I WANT is a second-chance romance between a fire-fighter and a former ballerina who is trying to open a dance studio. The book has some interesting takes on the intersection of dance, body issues, and eating disorders. The plots of Harper’s books generally involve women who decide to change courses, pursue a new ambition, or revisit a deferred dream. The heroes are all alphas, but they meet their match in the heroines. (I was, however, thrown off in some of the books by Harper’s use of “cum”/“cuming” instead of “come”/“coming” in stories that have frequent recourse to those particular verbs. I think we can all agree that “cum” is redolent of cheap, tacky 1970s pornography and its use should be strictly forbidden in 21st-century romance novels.)
Late to the party (that’s just how DiscoDollyDeb rolls), but I finally read the first two books in Alisha Rai’s Forbidden Hearts series—HATE TO WANT YOU, WRONG TO NEED YOU—about the interconnected lives and loves of ethnically-diverse (of Japanese, Hawaiian, English, Greek, and Pakistani ancestry) families whose personal and business lives were torn apart by a fatal car accident and subsequent fire ten years before. Now, those whose lives were shattered a decade ago must find a way to move forward. I’m probably the last person in Romancelandia to read these deeply-emotional books. I think the stories can be summed up by this line from WTNY: “There’s no such thing as being problem-free. You can really only hope for someone who’s able to share your problems with you.”
If I hadn’t read a rave review for Jade West’s BAIT, I would probably not have been interested in reading it. The premise—a couple meet online and start role-playing “consensual non-consent” pursuit, abduction, and rape fantasies—is not at all my catnip. But, despite some really rough, albeit consensual, sex, there’s a surprisingly deep emotional core to the story of two people, each with pain and heartbreak in their pasts, who must overcome many barriers to attain their HEA.
I loved A. Zavarelli’s THIEF, one of her Boston Underworld mafia romances. It’s dark, edgy, angsty, complicated, sexy, and violent (very, very violent—I could have done without a couple of the death scenes, no matter how deserving the characters were); it’s also the second book I’ve read this month featuring a ballerina with an eating disorder. The ballerina, the daughter of an Italian mob boss, is taken by a member of the Russian mafia as collateral for her father’s debt. There’s enforced proximity, complicated family connections, and bad fathers on both sides. The emotional pitch of the story is very high and the HEA is hard-won.
Holly Hart’s THE DEAL was a good romantic thriller. A blogger discovers a secret three billionaire CEOs share. When she gets pulled into the billionaires’ web, she puts her life and the life of one of the billionaires on the line. The endangered billionaire is a former soldier who suffers from PTSD, and book contains some of the best representations of PTSD I’ve read in fiction: dual perceptions, time slips, the feeling of being in two places at once—these impressions might not accurately reflect an actual PTSD episode, but in the book they feel very authentic.
I’ve commented before about how comforting I find the “Jackie Ashenden template”: regardless of the plot or location or the characters’ jobs or social status, in Ashenden’s books you can rely on handsome heroes who have astonishing eyes and smell like sandalwood, beautiful heroines who have astonishing eyes and smell like vanilla, dysfunctional upbringings with dead/distant/absent/abusive parents, the push & pull immense sexual attraction between the hero and heroine, and vulnerabilities that can only be healed by love. RAW POWER, the first book in Ashenden’s new 11th Hour series, hews closely to the template: a former marine, injured in combat, is hired to protect a senator’s daughter—and sparks fly. My only mild criticisms are that the ending is rather abrupt and we never discover what happens to the villain after he is uncovered. Maybe in a future book.
Last month, I said Sierra Simone’s PRIEST was the very rare book where the depiction of the struggle against giving into sexual desire was almost as hot as the sex itself. This month, I read Kati Wilde’s MC romance, FAKING IT ALL, which has similar scenes where the hero and heroine fight against their attraction for each other (until, of course, they can’t fight it any more). It’s an enforced proximity plot with mistaken identity thrown in: while the hero and heroine are sharing close quarters, the hero believes the heroine to be someone else—a married someone else—and the heroine has plenty of very good reasons to keep the hero believing she is the person the hero believes her to be; so, as a married woman supposedly in love with her husband, she can’t act on her attraction for the hero. The hero, in turn, does not want to get involved with a married woman, no matter how attractive he finds her. Great scenes of sexual tension as the hero & heroine try, for various reasons, not to fall into bed with each other.
There’s a lot going on (in a good way) in C.D. Reiss’s KING OF CODE. On the surface, it’s about a woman—a genius coder/hacker—who orchestrates the hack of an about-to-be-released-as-unhackable piece of software and what happens when the douchey-but-redeemable CEO of the software company comes to her crumbling, rust-belt town looking for the hacker he thinks must be a man. But beneath the surface, the book is about so many other things: the awful way women are treated in the coding/programming world, the entitlement of Silicon Valley executives, how the sexual power dynamic almost always favors men (and what happens when it doesn’t), how small towns wither when one major employer closes up, and how much obligation we should feel toward our fellow citizens. A challenging (in the best way) read where the romance is actually secondary to much of the rest of the story.
Katee Robert’s MISTAKEN BY FATE and BETTING ON FATE are bdsm-themed romances taking place in and around a club called Serve (there are a number of books in the Serve series written by various authors). MISTAKEN BY FATE is a second-chance romance between a dress designer and a former Army Ranger. BETTING ON FATE has an enemies-to-lovers plot featuring a couple who are business rivals chasing the same highly-coveted account. Both books are fast and sexy reads, but I must make a non-story-related observation: the heroine of BETTING ON FATE is black—and several references are made to her beautiful dark skin—but the model on the book’s cover does not have dark skin—I’m not even sure you would know she is supposed to be black. It’s rather disheartening, given all the recent discussions in Romancelandia regarding covers featuring people of color, to realize you’d never know the heroine of a book was black from looking at the cover.
I’m always ambivalent about romances where a woman reconnects with the guy who bullied her in high school—and Charlotte Stein’s NEVER SWEETER was no exception. Although the story is written with great attention to nuances of feeling, I’m not sure any woman who was bullied as mercilessly as the heroine in this book was (including one incident that required extended hospitalization) would be even remotely interested in socializing with the bully again.
I liked Stein’s NEVER BETTER more than NEVER SWEETER—this time the heroine is the best friend of the heroine of the previous book—however, the first chapter, where the heroine is attacked, should have a trigger warning. The bulk of the book is about the heroine learning to be happy again after the attack. The hero helps her—but he also possesses many dark secrets.
STAR STRUCK was the first Laurelin Paige book I’ve read. Despite a somewhat manufactured conflict (the now-successful heroine doesn’t want people to know she grew up as “trailer park trash” and avoids the working-class carpenter hero for that reason) and a lot of “telling-not-showing”, I liked the book, especially the dynamic between the H/h and the strong emphasis on consent.
I had to return Anna Del Mar’s THE ASSET to the library unfinished. I thought the story of a woman in hiding and a marine recovering physically and emotionally from combat injuries would be a faster read—especially because of the heroine’s affinity for animals and the marine’s wonderful service dog (who becomes a key character in the book). But the story just dragged and I couldn’t get into it; so I returned it with an “it’s not you, it’s me” apology.
I’ve fallen far behind on my 2018 Goodreads Challenge. Even though I keep buying books (I just can’t resist a good book deal!), I’ve only read a handful this year. I picked 100 books last year for my challenge and just made it under the clock. So, of course, this year I bumped it up to 120. Trying to make up for lost time, I decided to check out a bunch of graphic novels on Hoopla.
I zoomed through the first eight volumes of Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. I love this series and can’t wait to see where it goes next. The characters and storylines are great, and the artwork is amazing. I may end up purchasing them to have for my own collection.
I also tried the Jessica Jones: Alias graphic novels but did not enjoy them. I love the Netflix series and how the characters are written and portrayed on the show. But I couldn’t get into the graphic novel character. It felt very much written from a male perspective and I just didn’t connect as well to Jessica. So I gave up on it. Thankful, season two of the show just came out so I have that to enjoy.
I started reading Hello Stranger by Lisa Kleypas but got to the end of a chapter and put it down. I haven’t picked it up again. I was enjoying it, and when I grab it again I’ll probably read the rest in one sitting. That’s how I prefer to read these days. So I’m trying to set aside time for that but just haven’t felt compelled enough to continue yet.
I grabbed the novelization of The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus at the library but have been saving it to read after I’ve seen the movie first. I just watched the movie last week and loved it. So I’m going to dive into the novelization this weekend.
And I was lucky enough to receive an arc of Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston and have been saving it for this week when I’ll be pet-sitting for a friend’s cat. We are going to cuddle up on the couch and enjoy some quiet time together. He’s a little skittish around people, so it takes him some time to warm up and come out of hiding.
Also, I’ve been listening to a lot of Audible previews trying to decide how I want to use the three credits I have left after switching to an Inactive Light membership. So I’ll be reading these comments looking for any audiobooks the bitchery have enjoyed.
Question for the bitchery: Do you count graphic novels on your Goodreads Challenge?
@Marci I’ve counted graphic novels/manga towards my challenge in previous years!
I’m reading KINGS OF THE WYLD by Nicholas Eames. It’s an epic fantasy where mercenaries are like rock bands, complete with names, costumes, and more. A mercenary is trying to get his former “band” back together to save his daughter.
I’m also looking forward to getting NOT IF I SAVE YOU FIRST by Ally Carter next week. And I have a ton of books on my TBR pile, including THE LATE SHOW by Michael Connelly.
Man, I, thought this was next week!
Okay, honestly this month has been all about wallowing in my nostalgic feelings about the X-Files revival, which means lots and lots of fanfiction. I watched it when it was originally on the air as a teenager and that along with romance novels shaped a lot of my my ideas of romance for better or worse. The revival has been disappointing, but it’s great to see the fandom come alive and write better stories for the Mulder and Scully I love and remember. #scullydeservedbetter
I’m leaving for the March for Our Lives rally in a few minutes, so this will be short.
The best of this month was –
“Taking Flight” by Tamsen Parker. “Curious Beginning” by Deanna Raybourn.
“Not Now,Not Ever” by Lily Anderson.
The mediocre of this month –
“Since the Surrender” by Julie Ann Long.
“Heroes are my Weakness” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
“The Castlemaine Murders” by Kerry Greenwood.
The bad
“This Love Story Will Self-Destruct” by Leslie Cohen. Ugh. This had so much hype and it felt self-indulgent to the extreme. The author wrote well about New York City and had some good dialogue but that’s it.
Finished :
1.Son of the Sheik by Ryshia Kennie.
This was a cute Harlequin Intrigue more about the Intrigue part rather than the couple part. Fittingly it ends on a more HFN note rather than HEA since they had more important things to deal with than their pants feelings. Also fair warning to those who don’t like children in peril the entire book focuses on protecting a little boy ( very little actually happens to him directly, but the threat is there throughout the book).
2. Everybody’s Talkin by Barbara Kaye
This book is a retro harlequin I found for like $2 at a used bookstore. It’s part of a long-running series( mostly written in the 90s) called Crystal Creek TX which focused on a Texas town near Austin full of colorful characters and their romances( kinda like the more modern Lucky Harbor series ). This one focused on the disappearance of an accoutant’s employer’s money and the banker who tried to solve it out of pride. It was short and sweet with some effective red herrings and a satisfying ending. The real draw is of course the characters, so pick it up if you can find it.
Currently reading:
A Silver Mirror by Roberta Gellis
So far this book is okay. If you’re a fan of Roberta Gellis and haven’t picked it up I wouldn’t go out of your way to find it. I find it enjoyable enough( so far) , but even without checking the original copy write date you can tell it was written at the same time as her more famous Rosalynd Chronicles series since this book’s heroine, Barbara sound exactly like Alinor and her daughters. It also doesn’t really do anything new or groundbreaking like some of her other books.
DNF:
Sunset Embrace by Sandra Brown
I’m all for old skool crazy sauce every now and then (that’s part of the reason I picked this one up), but this one was just unpleasant to read. The heroine was incredibly dumb and the hero did a few too many unforgivable things by the 80% mark and I just couldn’t finish the book . I hear it’s probably one of the worst Sandra Brown books ever written, so I would love to give her another chance. Any recommendations?
I just finished a memoir called Hillbilly Elegy, by JD Vance.The author was born to a hillbilly (his term) family in rural Kentucky, where his childhood exposed him to extreme poverty, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and a whole host of other things no child should have to experience. The book got a lot of press during the 2016 election because it purports to examine a certain class of American society (what many view as the Trump voter). I found the first part of the book to be fascinating as the author describes a rough childhood–poverty, domestic abuse–but also emphasizes the love of his grandparents and life lessons like loyalty to the family that helped him survive this tough upbringing. I’m from a coal mining town in NE Pennsylvania and could relate to a lot of what he said.
I did lose interest in the second part of the book, which I skimmed, which describes Vance’s later experiences in the Marines and law school. Some of it was the fact that his experiences were less different and less striking, but I also started agreeing with the author’s cultural/social pronouncements less. YMMV.
Romance-wise, I read Mr McHottie, which was a diverting quick read. I liked the characters, even though I thought they weren’t totally deep, and it was funny. Although I’m not a prude by any means, there was something about the graphic language (overuse?) that felt cringy.
Right now I’m reading A Shadow Bright and Burning (sorcerers! magicians! faeries! London!) and also The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett, a police procedural set in Norfolk. I’m liking both.
@Deborah, thank you for that update! It’s good to know the changes have already been made and hear how that impacted the story.
Having a better reading March after a couple of slow months.
I finally read Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands after months of good recs, and you should too. If you don’t believe me, believe Holly Black or Courtney Milan, two of the authors who were reading the original version on the author’s blog.
In Other Lands is a portal fantasy that starts out with its 13-year-old protagonist Elliott beginning school in the magical Borderlands. He’s prickly as a porcupine, very very smart, and has “never let them [or yourself] see you care” down to a science. He’s vicious and adorable, and there are adventures romantic and otherwise. Would probably be enjoyed by readers of Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On.
I felt like rereading Avoliot’s Course of Honour, an SF M/M arranged marriage story that was being recommended last year, so I’d be remiss not to mention that it’s available free at Archive of Our Own. Still fun on a second pass.
Seanan McGuire’s latest Incryptid book, Tricks for Free, was still a repositioning book in the series, but I liked it better than the last one, and I still like Antimony. This installment has more of the Crossroads content from the side series, and it looks like there will be Developments. Also an Aislinn mice novella, if you want the mice in their own viewpoint.
I’ll mention Livia Day’s cozy mysteries, A Trifle Dead and The Blackmail Blend, as they’re set in Tasmania and felt somewhat like Kerry Greenwood’s modern-day Corinna Chapman books. (Not the Phryne Fishers, sorry.) The lead’s romantic life doesn’t really work for me, but there’s other stuff to enjoy.
I’m one of the people who wanted to like Alyssa Cole’s A Princess in Theory more than I did, alas. I agree with comments that the two halves of the book didn’t mesh well, and I never warmed to the hero much.
I enjoyed J.D. Robb’s Dark in Death pretty well, on the other hand, and we briefly have Dallas and Peabody in a fabric and yarn store, so there’s that.
I’ve had a pretty good reading month:
I finished the Hot under Her Collar series by Amber Belldene (Not a Mistake, Not Over Yet, and Not Another Rock Star), and I can’t squee enough about them! Hot romance novels + good theology + set in my world (churchland) + good writing = Happy Kate!
I’m half-way through Hate To Want You (Alisha Rai) – it took me a while to get in to it, but I’m definitely hooked now.
My internship is almost finished, and I’m going to be packing up my car and driving across the country again at the beginning of May; so I decided that I have to stop reading library books and start reading books that I brought with me so that I don’t have to move them again. I used to have a boss who, twice a year or so, would give all of us books at our monthly staff meeting – this led to a stack of paperbacks that I would not necessarily have picked up on my own, but I felt obliged to read since they are there. From that stack this month, I read:
Memory’s Embrace (Linda Lael Miller) – so much Old Skool Crazy-sauce! So much plot! So little character development! So much questionable consent!
Last night I decided to DNF The Death Trade by Jack Higgins 50 pages in. Life is too short to read books that are poorly written with racist overtones.
So I picked up a book instead (not given to me by aforementioned former boss) by a fabulous blogger and occasional CBC guest – Fruit by Brian Francis. I’m only a few pages in, but I’m loving it so far.
This month started out strong and then I just ran out of steam and descended into major book funk territory and have been re reading old favorites like See Jane Score.
The Good:
Melanie Harlow’s Some Sort of Happy
I’m trying to read books that have been languishing in my TBR and I have several Harlow books in there. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I thought the hero’s issues were handled deftly and sensitively. I loved how he wasn’t magically cured by the heroine love at the end. It was also pretty sexy, funny and well written.
Elisa Braden’s Anything but a Gentleman
I enjoyed this one much less than the previous two but it was still a solid entry in an excellent series ( the only dud was the 3rd book, imo) It suffered from Insta love and there was a secondary interracial romance between the heroine ‘s sister and the hero’s best friend that was infinitely more interesting. I wish the author had made them the main couple.
Helena Hunting’s Pucked Off
I tried the first in this series and DNF’d it. I tried this one because it featured a friends to lovers trope and unrequited love. I enjoyed it but have no desire to read the rest.
Sophie Jordan’s Beautiful Lawman
This author is so uneven for me. Her books sound like so much my catnip but somehow they all end up being just meh. This one was one of the rare hits. I had some issues with it but overall it was satisfying. I’m always there for a stuffy hero and unsuitable heroine trope.
Penny Reid’s Marriage of Inconvenience
I’m not a fan of slow burns and this series has been just ok for me (unlike the Winston Brothers series which have all been amazing) but I just love this couple. The slow burn that started pretty much from book 1 continues in this book and it dragged. I wasn’t interested in the pharmaceutical shenanigans subplot and I thought the previous books characters appearances felt intrusive and not organic. There were several preachy and soapboxy monologues that were a little jarring. But it has PR’s signature humor, the two sex scenes were pretty steamy and I will always and forever be a fan of Dan and his potty mouth.
Meredith Duran The Sins of Lord Lockwood
I’m so there for a tortured hero and Lockwood is as tortured as they come. This was a solid read though I thought Lockwood’s repeated and often ugly attempts to keep his wife in the dark about what really happened to him dragged on for much
too long.His cruelty was off putting and I didn’t think he groveled enough. But I loved the heroine to itty bitty pieces.
Tahereh Mafi Restore Me
This the 4th book in a YA dystopian series that I enjoy even though it’s riddled with problems. However, the love interest is so swooningly romantic that I overlook the slow pacing, immature dialogue (It is YA, I know) and lack of world building.
The DNF
I can’t believe I’m about to type this but I could not get through the first few chapters in Loretta Chase’s A Knight in Shining Armor. The set up just felt so farcical and I’m just in a angsty sort of reading mood lately.
I can’t give up on it and will try again with the audio book.
Jackie Ashende’s Sin for Me
I usually love her books but this hero and the premise was a huge turn off. There was a very disturbing sex scene with the virginal heroine that made me see red.
Vanessa Kelly’s Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard
In the surface this was all of my catnip: reluctant hero who isn’t titled and a heroine he Must Not Touch lest she be contaminated with his dark emo-ness. Alas, the pacing was glacial and the heroine’s coddling of her brothers hideously irresponsible actions (that put her life in danger) and her mother’s idiocy made her seem like the proverbial doormat.
And I know I’m in the minority here but I put down Alyssa Cole’s A Princess in Theory and have yet to pick it back up. The hero came off as a creeper and I’m not there for that right now.
I am assiduously working through the TBR ebooks on my kindle app. I decided to list alphabetically by author and for each title not a mystery I read the description and figured out if I had already read it. Next I determined if it was part of a series to keep or a title to discard. Going through one or two letters of the alphabet at a time, the books I “needed” to read rose to the top of Recent sort and I read them before moving on to the next letter.
There was a lot of dreck, and some wonderful surprises. One of the surprises was Dear Mr. Knightly by Katherine Reay. An endearing and emotional story, told in part through letters between an adult orphan and her benefactor using the alias Mr. Knightly.
In The Ex Lottery by Kim Sanders, by using the dates she was dumped by her previous three boyfriends, the heroine wins a big lottery and goes to Ireland. Chased by all three ex boyfriends. It was a lot of fun to read.
I read The Story Guy by Mary Ann Rivers. A lawyer who cares for his severely disabled adult sister falls in love with a librarian. The push-pull of the responsibility he carried for his sister and his desire to be free to love his librarian was achingly strong.
The Whiskey Tide by M.Ruth Myers was excellent. An “upper class” woman whose family was left penniless after an uncle borrowed from and failed to repay her father turns to rum-running with the help of an immigrant fisherman. And falls in love. Of course. M.Ruth Myers also writes a great mystery series, the first of which is No Game for a Dame (currently free).
In Fast Forward by Juliet Madison an aspiring model wakes up on the morning of her 25th birthday and finds herself at her 50th birthday. The plot is creative and well done.
Astor Place Vintage was interesting in that I felt like I was reading two good novels simultaneously. The heroine, who purchases vintage clothes for resale in her NYC shop, finds a diary.
A touching story from Rita Kuehn, Peripheral View, finds a woman who has spent her entire adult life in assisted living due to uncontrolled epilepsy and an nasty sister. She falls in love and must overcome her sister’s control to be able to marry.
I’m going to call Sealed With a Kiss by Rachel Lucas perfect chick lit (with apologies to those of you who dislike the term) — funny and charming. Heroine, dumped by boyfriend, simultaneously becomes homeless. Instead of moving in with mom, she takes a job on a small island off the coast of Scotland.
I’m reading Wicked Intentions. It’s a bit dark for my tastes, but I’m so damn curious about the hero and what his deal is, I’m plowing through it.
Happy Saturday!
@SB Sarah
Real life bearded dragon freaking out (in a good way) over eating blueberries — priceless.
–The Unleashing by Shelly Laurenston. I finally read it and I loved it. It didn’t really feel like a romance to me and that was ok because the relationships between the women was great.
–The Stroke of Midnight by Tara Sivec. She has a new series coming out based on the Disney princess’ of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. If you have never read Tara she writes all kinds of books but her comedies are the best. I liked this one but Jed Had to Die is still my favorite
–I finally finished up the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren with the novella Beautiful Boss and full-length book Beautiful. Looking forward to Love and Other Words when it comes out.
–One Too Many by Jade West. An Indecent proposal typebook. I love her books but probably not everybody’s cup of tea. Sadly her partner passed away during her release week.
–Marriage of Inconvenience by Penny Reid. Last book (maybe) in her Knitting in the City series. I was so sad to see it end that I decided to do a reread of the series (and actually all of her books). I hardly ever reread because I have so many other books to read. Her and L.H. Cosway are teasing readers with a new rugby book too. I need this now.
–Matchmaker’s Playbook by Rachel Van Dyken. I love Rachel Van Dyken’s books even though I haven’t read all of them yet. Matchmaker’s Playbook was good and so was the movie on Passionflix.
–Playboy Pilot by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward. Really like the books they write together
–Buns by Alice Clayton. I am finally caught up with all her books. I need a new one
–Dirty Dancing at Devil’s Leap by Julie Ann Long. Like her contemporary books. Really need to try her Pennyroyal Green series.
–Wrong to Need You by Alisha Rai–Just finished this like 5 minutes ago. It was ok. Didn’t think it was as good as the first book in the series. Part of the problem is that its been awhile since I read the first one and I can’t completely remember the family drama and I was kind of confused.
I was already in a reading slump when I contracted The Cold From Hell Thanksgiving weekend. When I’m really sick I tend to re-read, usually a stack of mysteries by a single author, but this time that felt like too much fetching and carrying, and since Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles and the Hidden Legacy series were RIGHT THERE, I mostly read those over and over for a solid month. And after all that I still like them! Fortunately they’ve started Maud’s novella on their blog, so I’ve had that to look forward to. I even got months behind on SBTB, if you can believe it. I finally got caught up, literally, last night. Man, I missed some really fine discussion threads, gift recommendations, etc., too. Because I’ve been so far behind, I’m dumping several months’ worth of reading on all y’all. Sorry.
Anyway I finally started reading new stuff again. Some I liked, some I was disappointed in. I know a lot of folks here luuuuurved A STUDY IN SCARLET WOMEN. I was…underwhelmed. I liked how she tried to work in as many details from The Canon as she could, but there needed to be less ruining of the heroine and more detecting by the heroine. Part of the problem is that the author boxed herself in with her choice of heroine and setting. Because of her gender and position in society, Charlotte couldn’t actively do a lot of her own investigating, which makes all of the Holmes references ultimately superficial.
I also read Bobbie Ann Mason’s GIRL SLEUTH: ON THE TRAIL OF NANCY DREW, JUDY BOLTON, AND CHERRY AMES. I’m going to ignore the chapters on Honey Bunch and The Bobbsey Twins, since they don’t have much if anything to do with the book’s thesis. But she begins by showing how much Nancy Drew widened the horizons for girls to be active, independent, and adventurous, since most early literature for girls consisted of them having tea parties for their dollies. Then she undercuts her argument at the end by saying that Nancy really wasn’t such a feminist icon after all, but a agent for the status quo. I was left feeling both flummoxed and disappointed.
I also picked up THE UNFORTUNATE DECISION OF DAHLIA MOSS, I think because of a recommendation here. Yes, it was funny, and I enjoyed the author/Dahlia’s voice, even though I’m not a gamer, and a lot of the gaming references went right over my head. But, I guess I’m too old for this because I wanted to smack these…kids…upside the head and say “Grow up and get a life!”
When I was ready to read something new, but short, I picked up Bill Bryson’s SHAKESPEARE: THE WORLD AS STAGE.
It’s part of a series called “Eminent lives”, “brief biographies by distinguished authors on canonical figures”. It was well-written, as you’d expect from Bryson, and very informative, but I guess part of the “brief” stuff was that the publishers didn’t feel the need to spring for illustrations. Since I needed illustrations, I found a picture-laden book called simply SHAKESPEARE that turned out to be written by Anthony Burgess, and it turns out Burgess has some of his own interesting opinions on old Will.
I didn’t feel like digging out my old stand-by Christmas reads–like MARIAN’S CHRISTMAS WISH–too long–so I read a whole stack from my collection of Christmas picture books (THE CHRISTMAS CAT, DANCE IN THE DESERT, FATHER CHRISTMAS, etc.). Yes, I was that sick. But after Christmas…there’s a line in a Christmas song about how “there’ll be scary ghost stories, and tales of the glories of Christmases long long ago” that I always wondered about, since my Christmases had never included ghost stories, A CHRISTMAS CAROL excepted. Then I happened upon a little book by Jerome K. Jerome, originally published in 1891, called AFTER SUPPER GHOST STORIES. According to him, “whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories.” In this case it is a small group of gentlemen gathered round a punch bowl and telling each other increasingly incoherent and ultimately hilarious stories. This little book is splendidly illustrated with period drawings, and it looks as though the entire thing was lifted whole from those Edwardian illustrated magazines like The Strand.
And finally, something I can wholeheartedly recommend. I was wandering through Barnes & Noble with a coupon in my hot little hand, looking for something to use it on. A display of graphic novels caught my eye, and I picked up one called RAT QUEENS: VOLUME ONE: SASS AND SORCERY. From the back, “They’re a pack of booze guzzling, death dealing battle maidens-for-hire and they’re in the business of killing all the gods’ creatures for profit. Meet Hannah the rockabilly elven mage, Violet the hipster dwarven fighter, Dee the atheist human cleric, and Betty the hippy smidgen thief. These women know how to party. They swear, experiment with drugs, talk openly about their sexual misadventures…oh, and they beat the living crap out of everyone in sight.” The blurbs call them “Sex in the city” meets “Lord of the Rings.” Me, I’d say they’d fit right into G.A. Aiken’s Dragonkin series (and who’s to say that this isn’t happening in the town next to Anwyll’s castle?) But I didn’t think of that till later. What immediately struck me, because of the graphic novel format and because I’d just finished “#7: A Bird’s eye view”, was that the combination of strong female friendships and weird happenings made think of what might happen when the Lumberjanes grow up. Plus, the artwork is gorgeous.
I’ve actually not had as much time to read as I usually do. Our local Public Defenders’ office does a volunteer investigator intern program that I’ve been selected for. Interesting stuff.
So, I’ve finished the first science fiction trilogy by K. B. Wagers, BEYOND THE EMPIRE which I adored! She will be exploring more of this universe and I cannot wait. The heroine is a former princess who, after her father was murdered, ran away from home to find his killers. She becomes a mercenary gunrunner, falls in love and loses the man she loves. Then almost 20 years later, she is pulled back home to become the Empress as all the other heirs have been murdered. The culture is female based with men taking a lesser role. There is an India vibe that is so fascinating as well. The world-building is extraordinary.
Stumbled accidentally on Julia Ann Walker’s Black Knights Inc series with HELL ON WHEELS. I was actually looking for an entirely different book, one that involved demons and ice skating, (possibly hockey?) They are a group of Special Ops men and women who are hiding in plain sight as a custom motorcycle factory in Chicago. In this first installment, Nate “Ghost” Weller has always kept the sister of his best friend and partner, Alisa Morgan, at arms’ length. But she’s being followed and needs the help of the Knights to find out why. Danger and angst, humor and love, all of which has me eager for more. I’m currently reading the second in the series, IN RIDES TROUBLE. Because really, bikes and tough military men? Win win win!!
I turned on KU this month, so I have been hoovering through series this month.
The first two Wilde books by Lucy Lennox were good. They’re a spin-off if her Made Marian books, the first worked better for me than the second
Books two and three in Sara Ney’s How to Date a Douchebag series were meh for me. The heroes from former books are still jerks, which really kind of ruins their books for me. Especially in the third one, where the hero is a genuinely nice guy who gets hazed pretty hard by his teammates, including the “heroes” of the first two books, and they say some pretty disgusting things to the heroines of the next books. You don’t get to just be nice to your girlfriends! You’re supposed to learn things!
Also read the most current Sloane Kennedy and finished Ella Frank’s Trust series. I mostly skimmed the final book in the Trust series, tbh. It felt unnecessary. Stopped reading Dye Hard Holiday by Aimee Nicole Walker, the heroes now feel like caricatures of themselves.
I’m currently rereading Beautiful Player by Christina Lauren, it’s just as great as I recalled.
Up next is either Wilde Fire by Lucy Lennox or the Assassins Boxed set two by Toni Aleo (sports series, the set is currently a steal at $0.99!)
@Booklovingirl: I LOVE THIS SO MUCH OH MY GOSH. Thank you!
@Kristen
Did you know Robin McKinley’s blog is back up? We were starting to fear the worst but she’s back online with her hilariously crotchety blog. So glad she’s okay and starting to write again.
Starting Bone Music by Christopher Rice. I have enjoyed much of his previous work so we will see where this goes. It’s the start of a series so some set-up, I think. Expect I will like it. Not a romance. Involves serial killers and a chemically altered angry girl who has too much experience with such.
I did enjoy From Lukov With Love by Mariana Zapata. Fun, grumpy heroine which is a bit of a change. She also has a learning disability and a father who does not believe in learning disabilities. Good to see this addressed.
I also enjoyed Not a Mistake by Amber Belldene. Will most likely get the next book in this series.
I finally bought Rock Wedding by Nalini Singh. It was very different to the other books in the Rock Kiss series. Almost all the conflict was internal with the H/h renegotiating their relationship. Lots of emphasis on honesty and they did use their words. Lots of fantasy dressing up and weddings, too. I liked what they did with Basil, too.
Some recent reads here starting with the more recent and going back in time ~
–- enjoyed Shadow’s Edge: Psychic Detective Mysteries by S.C. Wynne, a mystery romance featuring two men one of whom is (surprise!) a psychic. There were a few elements that strained credulity, but overall it was a fun story (if you look past the fact that a number of young men were getting killed).
–quite enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers) by Becky Chambers which is the second in a series and plan to continue reading more by this author. I found this book to be very different than the first book; it had a far less complex storyline. I think it could stand alone.
— an older Mary Balogh story “The Forbidden Daffodils” in a collection of historical romances entitled Blossoms; it was a pleasant read.
— the contemporary male/male romance Loud and Clear by Aidan Wayne. This could be described as a sweet romance.
— the male/male contemporary story Standby by Kim Fielding. I like this author’s works; however, this one fell short of my favorites. Incidentally, a compilation of other stories by the author is currently free for Kindle readers: The Sacrifice and Other Stories by Kim Fielding, https://www.amazon.com/Sacrifice-Other-Stories-Kim-Fielding-ebook/dp/B0180W71RY/ref=la_B006FN2T78_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521910607&sr=1-1&refinements=p_82%3AB006FN2T78
— continued my reading of Emma Jameson’s Lord and Lady Hetheridge series with Black & Blue (Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series Book 4) and Blue Blooded (Lord & Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series Book 5). I am now up to date with the series with the exception of book two. (The first book in the series Ice Blue (Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series Book 1) remains free to Kindle readers.) I’d recommend reading this series in order.
— re-read Anne Bishop’s Lake Silence (The World of the Others) which I enjoyed once again.
— a quick non-fiction book that I enjoyed: Do Geese See God?: A Palindrome Anthology by William Irvine with illustrations by Steven Guarnaccia
— Robin D. Owen’s Heart Sight (A Celta Novel). This is the fifteenth book in this fantasy series, and I believe I’ve read them all. It was an enjoyable book but it’s probably not a story I’ll rush to re-read.
— The Woman Left Behind: A Novel by Linda Howard. While I enjoyed the book, I don’t think this is a book I’ll be re-reading as I didn’t really feel a connection with the characters.
— re-read Making Faces by Amy Harmon which I enjoyed once more even though it did have me crying. Are you familiar with the idiom “stealing the show”? In Making Faces, it’s a character who is neither the hero nor the heroine that steals the show. I think I read for him as much as for the leads.
— Burn Bright (Alpha and Omega) by Patricia Briggs. The storyline was fairly complex, and I could wish there had been more time spent on the relationship between the two leads; however, I enjoyed it nonetheless. And, yes, I was surprised at the identity of the traitor.
— dipped into Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child’s Education by Susan Wise Bauer. I enjoyed what I read; I’d recommend this book to parents with school age and younger children.
— enjoyed Josh Lanyon’s male/male contemporary mystery The Mermaid Murders (The Art of Murder Book 1) and would happily read more in the series.
— Ice Blue (Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series Book 1) and
Something Blue (Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series Book 3) by Emma Jameson
— TJ Klune’s Murmuration was a gripping read. My husband could probably tell you about it as I kept talking about the book with him as I read. I’d describe the story as eerie but not scary; I don’t want to say too much about it as it has surprising developments. This is a book I’ll definitely be re-reading. It’s a male/male romance.
— Steal the Stars: A Novel by Nat Cassidy was another intriguing story. I didn’t really care about any of the characters; however, the storyline kept me reading. It’s a novelization of the science fiction podcast of the same name.
— Switchback: A Nightshades Novel by Melissa F. Olson. I enjoyed the book, but I think I liked the first in the series more. Even so, I will happily read on in the series.
— Anne Bishop’s Lake Silence is a book I will certainly be re-reading. However, I’ll admit to liking the linked series beginning with Written in Red more.
— re-read S. K. Dunstall’s Confluence which I enjoyed once more.
— re-read with pleasure the male/male contemporary romance Astounding! by Kim Fielding.
— read and enjoyed All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells which has been nominated for the Nebula in the Best Novella category. I’m hoping that this might be the start of a series in which case I would definitely like to read on. Ah, I see it’s actually number one of four with the next episode due out later this year.
— re-read with pleasure Anne Cleeland’s Murder In Thrall, Murder in Retribution, Murder in Hindsight, Murder in Containment, Murder in All Honour, and Murder in Shadow. I then went on to read the author’s newly released Murder in Misdirection which I enjoyed but whose Kindle edition was poorly formatted.
— re-read Linesman (A Linesman Novel) by S. K. Dunstall
— and The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson. This was a quick and worthwhile read. (Now I only need to actually implement some of these ideas!)
So many excellent reads this month! I need to find a book to read right now though, I’m kinda wavering through a bunch.
Faves
– THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin (audiobook) – intimately written and painfully relevant to today
– UNDER THE PENDULUM SUN by Jeannette Ng – if JANE EYRE, JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORREL, LABYRINTH, and CRIMSON PEAK had a baby and that baby subsisted solely on apocryphal Christian theology and acid, that would be this book
– THE BROKEN GIRLS by Simone St. James – a different direction for St. James, dual timelines, the setting is Vermont, but there’s still ghosts and a mystery! And there’s great female friendships!
– EDGE OF GLORY by Rachel Spangler – f/f contemporary romance. I loved how they communicated like adults. Even in the romance’s low point, they still talked like adults who were dealing with a real problem.
– NOT MY FATHER’S SON by Alan Cumming (audiobook) – oof. This book is a punch in the gut. Trigger warning for familial abuse. But Cumming is so honest and so full of warmth and humor, it’s really worth listening to
– DUSK OR DARK OR DAWN OR DAY / TRICKS FOR FREE by Seanan McGuire – the first is a fresh take on ghosts and the second is her newest Incrypted novel, characteristically full of humor and heart and inventiveness. And theme parks!
– ANGEL by Elizabeth Taylor – the life of romance writer at the turn of the last century. It’s darkly funny and Angel is… singular. Also, not that Elizabeth Taylor
– HOW TO BANG A BILLIONAIRE / HOW TO BLOW IT WITH A BILLIONAIRE by Alexis Hall – m/m contemporary – Hall’s take on 50 Shades, complete with tripping and a red room. But Hall addresses things like consent and self awareness and there’s no stalking!
– FORCE OF NATURE by Jane Harper – SO GOOD! A company’s team building adventure in Australia’s wilderness goes wrong when one employee fails to return…
Good
– EROTIC STORIES FOR PUNJABI WIDOWS by Bali Kaur Jaswal (audiobook) – funny, sweet, the mystery was a little unbalanced, but I really enjoyed the rest of it
– LUMBERJANES, VOL. 6: SINK OR SWIM by Shannon Watters & Noelle Stevenson – oh, these comics make me smile!
– DAPHNE DU MAURIER AND HER SISTERS by Jane Dunn – I love Du Maurier’s writing and I knew nothing about her sisters, so this was an engaging read
– A PRINCESS IN THEORY by Alyssa Cole – loved the heroine, loved her best friend, loved the hero’s girl Friday, didn’t love the hero’s reasoning or actions when it came to acquainting himself with the heroine
– I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK: ONE WOMAN’S OBSESSIVE SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER by Michelle McNamara – Intense, and very sad, knowing the author died when this was only half finished, but her writing is incredible
– WHITE HOUSES by Amy Bloom – a fictional look at the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickcock. The writing was good, but I wish the structure had been different
– THE MOOR by Laurie R. King – a pretty dull installment in the series, even if the setting was pretty great.
– BABYLON BERLIN by Volker Kutscher – I just don’t have a lot of patience for the noir male detective these days. Do plan on watching the show, though!
Currently Reading
– STAR WARS: FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW edited by Ben Acker (audiobook) – short stories about side characters and moments in A NEW HOPE. Delightful so far.
Have I mentioned before that this is my favorite post of the month? Probably, but it doesn’t hurt to say it again.
Not as great of a month quality-wise as last month, but at least I am still more or less on track to reach my reading goal for the year (even though I am slightly behind pace to meet my stretch goal).
Excellent:
None
Very Good:
Want You by Stacy Finz – this is the second in the Garner Brothers series and I had to put it on the top of my TBR because it had a couple of my catnips – the hero has secretly been in love with the heroine for years and there are class differences (well-off hero, working-class heroine). In addition, the heroine was the on-again, off-again girlfriend of the hero’s younger brother! While it didn’t rock my world, I felt the characters were solidly drawn as was the setting and the angst level was very low.
Spend ’til the End by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns: This is an intriguing personal finance book with suggestions from a very well-respected economist that go against a lot of the conventional wisdom. I liked it because it made me think a lot, but there was not enough in-depth discussion or evidence provided for each concept in the book.
Hue 1968 by Mark Bowden: I read this for my Father/Daughter bookclub with my Dad (its just the two of us in the club – ha!). He served in the Marines in Vietnam and fought in this urban battle fifty years ago last month. It helped me learn more about a portion of my dad’s past that he hasn’t always talked a lot about. The only reason I didn’t put this under Excellent is that a lot of people were introduced in the book and some were never really followed up on and then others were mentioned again like 100 pages later, so I had to look in the index after asking myself – who was that again?
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle: I read this for bookclub with my best friend from high school. I loved the physics in the book, but thought a lot of the backstory and details could have been explained a little bit more even though I know this is a children’s book. I am hoping to catch the movie before it leaves the theater.
The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn: this is the fourth in the Chet and Bernie series – narrated by Chet the K-9 partner to PI Bernie. First, Chet, as always, is funny as hell. But I didn’t put this in excellent because I felt there were a lot of repeat elements from the third book. I think perhaps I read them too close together and just need to leave a slightly longer gap before starting the fifth one.
Good:
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: I had been chipping away at this long novel about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn for months. I have mixed feelings about it. The style was somewhat off-putting to me (the author calls it “close” third-person). And, I feel, a fairly high amount of knowledge of this time period is required to be able to fully follow and understand all of the nuances of the story (I had a basic understanding, but not nearly the level required for this book). BUT, it was also a very compelling read. The characters were fully fleshed out and the machinations at court made the plot intriguing. This is the first in the trilogy and was such a time commitment, that I don’t think I will try the second.
Meh:
I’ve Got My Duke to Keep Me Warm by Kelly Bowen: I am fine with insta-lust in a plot, but insta-love is a big no-no for me and this book had loads of it. TW for spousal abuse in the heroine’s backstory.
Command Control by Sara Jane Stone: I liked the characters in the book – the heroine is an erotica writer and the hero is a Army Ranger widower. But the plot didn’t do much for me – the heroine is trying to hide out in a small town from the paparazzi who are trying to reveal the real identity of the author a best-selling erotica series. And a movie deal hinges on her keeping it a secret until she herself reveals her identity on national morning TV. I don’t know, it just seemed off as a plot.
The Bad:
A Ghost in the Machine by Caroline Graham: This is the seventh book in the Inspector Barnaby series. I read this only because it was the selection of the mystery bookclub I am in, but I wouldn’t have read it otherwise because I read the first in the series and hated it. First, I am not sure that I would categorize this as a mystery – I would more say it is an attempt at literary fiction with a mystery woven into the plot. Second, all of the women characters seemed caricatures – unloving mother, unintelligent spinster, young femme fatale, shrill wife or abusive diva. Ick – no thanks.
So many good books being mentioned! My TBR is growing, as per usual.
I went on a science fiction romance kick this month after picking up Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair when it was on sale (thanks, SBTB!). I loved it and proceeded to read all the rest of her books ASAP. Games of Command was one of my favorites, along with Gabriel’s Ghost and An Accidental Goddess. In each case, I loved the fact that the heroes were not alphaholes and had been secretly pining for their lovers for a while. The pining always gets me. I love a hero who is weak for his heroine almost right away and then dedicates himself to swaying her. Bonus points for awesome side characters…
Now that I’ve read through Sinclair’s bibliography, I’m on the hunt for more SF romance with no alphaholes… I’ll keep an eye on the Bitchery!
@ Deborah – thanks for sharing your thoughts on Hello Stranger. Sounds like a knee-jerk editing job was done on the electronic version. Experiences build character, in real life or fiction, and now a part of Ethan is lost when perhaps the story could have been better told through editing. I am going to look for the first edition of the paper book on this one.
Two “dog” books come first to mind for this month’s reading. Every Dog Has His Day by Jenn McKinlay had Rufus the red Poodle steal my heart. The romance was good, too, although the heroine receiving sex advice via text from brand new friends was a bit icky to this lady of a certain age. I also read Survive the Night by Katie Ruggle which had really compelling hero and heroines, both human and canine, even though parts of the story required some suspension of disbelief. The hero rescues animals as well as being a small-town officer of the law. Sigh.
I am currently reading The Duke Who Knew Too Much by Grace Callaway. I am about 60% through the book, and finally, the Duke is thinking with his brain instead of his groin about the naive heroine! He’s very dominant in and out of bed and it has gotten him in trouble. Has taken forever for me to read this book since I had been working at my corporate offices doing some coaching and mentoring. As usual, I didn’t get to spend as much time snuggled in my hotel room and reading as I had hoped.
Next up is The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory which the library placed on my Kindle today. After that, one of my business travel selections that didn’t get read, The First Kiss of Spring by Emily March.
It’s been a stressful few weeks (anxiety and depression stuff, on top of college) so I’m currently re-reading Dark Prince by Christine Feehan. Despite my love/hate relationship with the series (I could rant about So. Many. Things. In those books.) she’s one of my comfort read authors.
:::walks in with a few tears in her eyes because Found/Tonight:::
March came and went quickly, but that might be because I feel like I spent all of it on the road. In the past month, I traveled four hours to take my daughter to the DWTS tour, went to my first con (I got to meet Claudia Gray and Jim Butcher, and cosplayed for at least part of the day as Kaz Brekker, my daughter was Eleven), and went to Universal twice (Wizarding World of Harry Potter FTW). Some of these trips mean I got a lot of reading done, because, hey, what else are you going to do on a bus full of fifth graders for six hours (I kid, they were well-behaved)?
Let’s see, I left off on Assassin’s Fate, which was just as heartbreaking as you would expect and really ended the only way it could have. Now I just need to know if I get to continue reading the adventures of Bee Farseer. After that, I blew through Dark In Death by J.D. Robb, which was a solid entry in a solid series. I greatly enjoyed how she snuck some rather snarky commentary on fandom and how authors are sometimes treated by their readers. Then I read A Princess In Theory by Alyssa Cole, which I enjoyed the hell out of. I could have used just a bit more SCIENCE, but that’s a personal preference, the story and central romance were great, and I enjoyed a lot of the humor (“this motherf^%$er”). Then I got to read Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman, which, if you haven’t read the Arc of a Scythe series, seriously, drop what you’re doing and go live your best life. It was just…WOW. Eloquent, right? I love his writing to an unreasonable degree. I followed that up with Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson, and I really enjoyed both the mystery structure (especially the flashbacks) and the mysterious boarding school aspects. Ends on what feels a lot like a cliffhanger, though, so keep that in mind if cliffhangers are a no-no for you. Upon finishing that, it was time to dive headfirst into Obsidio by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman, and how I do love the Illuminae series . It’s just done so cleverly in terms of both its epistolary formatting and the way it uses illustrations. Also, my husband was treated to me giggling every time Ella Malikov gave herself a new titles in the ship’s logs (I’m pretty sure “Ayatollah of Rocknrolla” was my favorite). Then, because my mood has been nothing if not violent of late (politics makes a girl ragey) and I’m really looking forward to Hot and Badgered (Hufflepuff Swagger), I read The Unyielding by Shelly Laurenston, which was, as per usual, super fun. Finally (you know you thought it), I’m capping off the month with A Duke In Shining Armor by Loretta Chase, since I read a bunch of arguably very violent books in quick succession, and wanted some romantic comedy before I read Children of Blood and Bone (spoiler alert for what I’m probably reading next). It’s my first Loretta Chase (yes, I know, bad llama), and I have to say, her sexy stuff? It’s REAL sexy. I’m enjoying it. Welp, till next month, keep your shoes tied and your pizza sauce spicy.
@ Varian : I hope that you feel better very soon and that your college stuff feels manageable, too. Comfort rereads are just right during times of overwhelm. 🙂
I second the recommendation of Murderbot by Martha Wells. I read a library copy then ordered it along with Harbors of the Sun, the last book in her Raksura series. I need to reread the earlier book before I start it.
I also read a collection of short fantasy stories by Jane Yolen from the library called The Emerald Circus that I really liked. I got the latest Alexia Gordon mystery called A Killing in C Sharp continuing her Gethsemane Brown, an American musician of color who is rebuilding her life in Ireland with the help of a ghost amidst a number of murders.
@roserita I read The Girl Sleuth when the reprint came out in the mis-90s and was also underwhelmed by the author’s overall thesis, though I don’t remember exactly which parts failed to resonate. It’s still on my shelf so might be due for a reread.
My reading slump continues, and the only book I’ve managed to start and finish recently was Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix, a very suspenseful young-end YA about a girl in an early American village who discovers it’s actually a living history museum in contemporary times. I’d not heard of the author before but it was recommended in the comments of a Jezebel post about the recent Laura Ingalls Wilder bio, Prairie Fires. I plan to get more Haddix books from the library soon, as fast-moving, slightly creepy YA seems to be all I can hang with at the moment.
I gave myself a concussion and can’t read or look at screens (pity me!) so I’m definitely not here commenting. Ok I am but I’m planning on reading it all later, I swear.
I was scared to read Year One by Nora Roberts because I heard it was so different than everything else she’s written, but I finally read it this month! It was definitely different, but I still loved it. I don’t think it will be a comfort read ever, but it was still super amazing and I wish a book club near me would read it so I had someone to talk about it with.
Also read:
– Seducing Cinderella by Gina Maxwell was okay. A super insecure woman trades physical therapy for learning how to attract men from her brother’s BFF. I thought I loved makeovers in books, but it turns out I really just love when characters go shopping in books. The book featured a clumsy heroine who is secretly super hot and only the hero can see how hot she is until he gives her a makeover. There were parts of the book that were good, but overall it just didn’t click for me. I DNFed the second book in the series, and in both books the characters felt really immature. It was tolerable in Seducing Cinderella but just too much in Rules of Entanglement.
– Down Among the Sticks and Bones and Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire. I really liked Down Among the Sticks and Bones, was meh on Beneath the Sugar Sky. The former was very character focused, the latter not so much. It felt like Beneath the Sugar Sky was written to give everyone from Every Heart a Doorway a happy ending.
– The Lingerie Shop and The Training Session by Joey Hill. These were fine. Didn’t love them, didn’t hate them.
– I reread the first 3 books in Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series, then read Dating-ish and A Marriage of Inconvenience. I really like Dating-ish. I think this was another case of character driven vs plot driven books by the same author, and I pretty much always prefer character driven books. The pharmaceutical company shenanigans in A Marriage of Inconvenience detracted from the overall story for me, I wanted more Kat and Dan and less intrigue and villainous cousin.
I also reread a lot, looking for comfort and a mental break. I reread Nora Roberts’ Key Trilogy and Circle Trilogy, and all the Kate Daniels books and the Hidden Legacy trilogy by Ilona Andrews, Alisha Rai’s Be+Stay my Fantasy (not my favorite of hers, but still good) and The Bedroom Games and Hate to Want You and Wrong to Need You. Someone on Twitter just posted that Hurts to Love You is already on the shelves at their B&N today and I’m considering moseying on over there to see if my B&N did the same thing even though I preordered the Kindle version.
I read “Hello Stranger”, having been early on the library’s reserve list. It’s interesting reading it in light of the SBTB review, knowing that the ebook has already been changed. This hardback hasn’t.
I also borrowed Jennifer McQuiston’s The Perks of Loving a Scoundrel, which was really intriguing in seeking to redeem a fellow who seemed totally irredeemable at first light. I wasn’t entirely sold but it was still a rollicking romantic adventure.
Now I’m rereading Shades of Milk and Honey while I look for my misplaced copies of books four and five in the series. So many books!
OMG. I might totally buy Acting Lessons for that cute eyepatch hottie.
And another Jill Mansell that I haven’t read yet? I always buy them on sale.. should I wait? Argh.
I want to leave feedback here, or somewhere. The new format to view the book (the /bookinfo/ URL) is really confusing to find the order links. Just wanted to let you know. There is a big ad banner – usually bright pink SBTB ‘Real our Review’ banner which makes me think of an ad, so I ignore it… and the buy links are super small. I was super confused for about a week (2 or 3 clicks to bookinfo pages). I feel like the “buy it now” links would be MUCH better seen above the “Share On” links and right under the description. Just some feedback from a Usability Specialist (in my own head).
Cheers.