This weekend we're going on vacation – FINALLY the grown ups are going on vacation after the dudes had camp all summer. It was a shocking disappointment to the dudes that grown ups have to go to WORK in the summer. I think there should be grown up camp where we all go and live in cabins, eat smores and wear bug spray, and read books. Camp Drop Everything And Read! I love this idea.
So in addition to packing up all the stuff, and making sure the luggage isn't overweight, I've been advising Hubby on what books he'd like to read now that he's read all the Game of Thrones books twice. I know he has the Warren Littlefield book, Top of the Rock, ( A | BN | K | S ) on his Kindle. I have to go peek to see what else he bought. I still haven't found a romance that he'd enjoy – but I'm working on it. Slowly.
Are you taking an end-of-summer vacation, or are your families well into the back-to-school routine? My kids don't start school until about six years after Labor Day (it seems like it, anyway) so there's a tiny bit of summer left for us. What are you reading this weekend?
AND! In case you're looking for some historical romance, a bunch of Jacquie D'Alessandro novels are cheap digitally right now, plus The Duke and I, (which I have retitled for myself as My Conflicted Feelings About the Book and I):
- The Duke and I by Julia Quinn * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S | iBooks
- Sleepless at Midnight by Jacquie D'Alessandro * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S | iBooks
- Never a Lady by Jacquie D'Alessandro * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S | iBooks
- Not Quite a Gentleman by Jacquie D'Alessandro * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S | iBooks
- Confessions at Midnight by Jacquie D'Alessandro * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S | iBooks
- Who Will Take This Man? by Jacquie D'Alessandro * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S | iBooks
- Love and the Single Heiress by Jacquie D'Alessandro * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S | iBooks
In print, I’m currently reading Pearl S. Buck’s Pavilion of Women. I’m enjoying that one a lot, except I flipped to the end and realized there’s a good chance the ending will not appeal to me. Darn. Well, I’ll keep reading.
In e-format, I’m reading Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon. It’s f/f fantasy in which one of the characters is a princess and the other is her guardian. The guardian has lived as a young man for years, and the princess has no idea “he” is actually a “she.” I’m not enjoying this one quite as much, in part because it doesn’t fit my requirements as a romance reader. In order to deal with her feelings for the princess, the guardian sleeps with one of the maids a lot. No on-page sex, but still. I’d prefer her to just mentally lust for the princess.
The Bitchery rules! We leave this coming Friday for a week at the beach, and hubby hasn’t found any books he’s been interested in for a while, but he loves sf/f, so I will definitely point him at this thread and have him check out a few of them. Thanks everyone!!
My hubby inhaled all the Brockmann Troubleshooter books in a post Game of Thrones mood. Gave him a printout to stick in the cover of his Kindle so he knows what to read next. Outlander he stalled at about the fourth book, because he got confused as to which was next. I’d try the Aaronovitch (not romances) mentioned above. Has hubby done Patrick OBrian? (not romances either obviously.)
Oh, and I’ve had very good luck with hubby and Nora Roberts standalones.
I am currently midway through Wise Man’s Fear, and immediately thought of Rothfuss when you mentioned that your husband was in the market for some post-Martin fantasy. I hope the Rothfuss series was among the the books he ordered. My own spouse really loved the Leviathon trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. This series provides an abundance of YA steampunk goodness, though I must admit that Gerry (the spouse) is not an aficionado of the extremely dark and dramatic school of fantasy. Neither of us has read Martin, though the kid and her fiance are big fans. The fiance is getting Rothfuss for Christmas. However, everyone in the fam loved the Westerfeld books.
I am actually on a brief hiatus from Wise Man’s Fear. I’ve just finished Buroker’s Empire’s Edge, the purest definition of book crack I’ve yet to encounter! I expect to order the rest of the series, but hopefully will be able to restrain myself until I finish the Rothfuss. I’m just starting What Happens in London based on recommendations from an earlier posts. (I actually thought I was done with Quinn.) And I’m also reading Sacre Bleu! by Christopher Moore, since the library wants its back by the 4th.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Heyer sale, Cleo. I got “The Grand Sophy”, since it comes so highly recommended.
I’ve got a few of K.A. Mitchell’s books waiting their turn to be read on my Kindle, and I read “The Dickens with Love” because I have such a weakness for books about books—and a gay romance with books is just icing on the cake. 🙂 Willa Okati wrote another m/m story with one of the protagonists being a bookstore owner. It’s called “Lovers, Dreamers and Me”.
http://www.amazon.com/Lovers-D…
Lovers, and Dreamers and Me is on my wishlist – it’s been there for awhile. I’ve been on the fence about buying it – it sounds Gay for You and I don’t usually care for that trope. But I do like books about books and books about bookstores.
It looks like this is my weekend for picking up suggestions others are laying down, as I have just put my hands on Finding Nouf and Mr. Impossible.
I don’t consider myself much of a romance reader, but I’ve been checking out SBTB for about two years. Go figure. For the heck of it, here’s the list of books I’ve picked up because they sounded interesting and/or terrible:
Black Dagger Brotherhood. Read them all. Thoroughly enjoyed them all. (Yeah, I skim the ‘lesser’ portions, but who doesn’t?) The right amount of ridiculous for me.
Midnight Breed. Skimmed a few. Setup similar to BDB but more ‘straight’ (as straightforward as you can get with Alien Vampires From Outer Space) and ultimately kind of dull for me.
Dark Gold. I started reading, then I started skimming, then forget it. Ugh. Bad crazy.
Devil’s Bride Skimmed. I’m not sure why, I don’t recall not liking it. I started skimming, then I missed stuff, and then skimming momentum built up, and….
Bridgertons. Read most of them and Just Like Heaven and found them generally enjoyable except for that problem in the first one. I also had a disproportionate response to to a rather innocuous, insignificant line in one of the later ones. Someone (Hyacinth?) asks a servant to take her reticule upstairs to her room. Mind you, it’s a polite and not unreasonable request, but I got unreasonable and ALL CAPS about it. ARE YOUR LEGS BROKEN? TAKE YOUR OWN GODDAMN RETICULE UPSTAIRS! Perhaps I am not cut out for historicals. We’ll see what happens with the Chase.
Welcome to Temptation. After hearing lots of great things about Crusie, I picked this one from the Crusie books on the shelf at the library. Very enjoyable! Later got Bet Me, read a few chapters, got busy doing other things, oh look it’s due back at the library.
Another Life: A Memoir of Other People by Michael Korda. (This came up in a discussion of major plot errors, as editor Korda writes about Harold Robbins refusing to fix a book where he changed the main character’s name halfway through, IIRC.) Very enjoyable.
Brockmann’s SEALS/Troubleshooters. Read most of them. Couldn’t get into the new speculative fic one. Liked Infamous.
Decadent by Shayla Black due to the SBTB review (see “Greatest Hits”). Skim. Oy. Should have just stuck with reading the review.
In Death series. Read the first few. Liked the setup, but found the mysteries to be dull.
Shelly Laurenton’s Pride books and the Aiken Dragon books. Some goofy fun. I think I’ve had my fill of the dragons, though.
The Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne books. The review for One Was A Soldier caught my interest.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society owing to the recent discussion of epistolary novels.
I followed your name link and found out that Lois McMaster Bujold visited Finland and I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT IT! *sob* Woe is me! *wail*
(I’m listening to The Emperor’s Edge and enjoying myself immensely.)
*returns to sobbing, wailing and tearing of hair*
I just ordered Miss Wonderful after reading the Chase recommendations, so that’s on this list for later today.
I’m reading “Pure Filth.” I like to think of it as research for my next manuscript.
RE: Duke and I – the last third of the book killed it for me. 🙁 I seem to recall that Simon was also fall-over-whiskey-soaked drunk at that point too… Gross. Not sexy.
Another vote for Rothfuss…but the best sci-fi I’ve read lately has been Scot Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora. Fabulous. Also just read the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. Not in the same league, but very good and full of mythological references, etc.
How did you find The Emporer’s Edge in the iTunes store (saw your post over at SBTB? I can never successfully search for audio books, the results always return to iBooks.
Reading Much Ado About Magic by Shanna Swendson. It’s book 5 of Enchanted Inc. and looks like an e-book only. Just a chapter in, but it’s very good
OMG you guys, I finally read Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry (I know, I’m so behind) and it was so good. So, so, so good. The characters had a relationship that grew and changed (you know, like a real relationship!). They dealt with issues and made mistakes but acted like real people (not like people who only make asinine decisions because It Is Necessary For The Plot). There were bad things (lots of bad things) but it was not a Life Sucks And Then You Die kind of book. It made me cry. At the end, I had a happy smile on my face. You guys, it was so so good. Read it. Now.
Thanks for the recommend, Amy. I’m devoted to Lynsay Sands’ Argeneaus and have been randomly reading through Kerrelyn Sparks’ vampire series when I find one. They are the perfect thing to cheer one up; especially Sands, whose Argeneau family connections make a better series thread than the ongoing guerrilla war in Sparks’ series. I read The Lady is a Vamp as soon as it came out (a few weeks ago) and thought it was especially good.
This weekend, which has not been good for reading, I’ve been starting an old Patricia Rice (Blue Clouds) which I haven’t gotten far enough into to guess how good it is (though there are strong hints that it’s going to be OTT—and maybe not in a good way).
Podcasts.
I go to iTunes Store (from iTunes on my Mac in case it matters), search for Lindsay Buroker, choose podcasts …and find both The Emperor’s Edge and Dark Currents for free subscription.
I never thought of podcasts. And those have to be listened to on the Mac/PC, as far as I can tell. Thanks for the information.
Don’t forget the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson! It’s definitely close to some of the genre that your hubby seems to like. And like other people said, Rothfuss is amazing, too. Tell him to look out for Jay Kristoff, too, because Stormdancer seems pretty amazing!
XOXO Kim
Just finished re-reading “Shanna” by Kathleen Woodiwiss and am on to re-reading “Shadowheart” by Laura Kinsale. Both are on my yearly read list.