It’s time for our monthly discussion of expensiveness, where we talk about what we’re reading, what we liked, and then buy more books because everyone has great recommendations.
Also – this is one of my favorite threads every month, so thank you for being part of it!
Sarah: I’m buffet-reading books and it’s not good. That’s usually a sign that I’m stressed and, well, yeah, that’s accurate.
I started listening to Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ) after about 46% of the Bitchery told me to get on it already. So I listened on a road trip and I’m probably 2/3 of the way done. The part where the book switches from an adventure/road trip/escape heist-type story to “Now we’re in the skyscraper introducing all the sequel bait” dropped the urgency for me, and I’m trying to find the time and energy to get back to it. Also I’m 99% sure I know what Pia is but it hasn’t been revealed yet. BUT STILL: DRAGON! YAY!
I’m also re-reading Come As You Are ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and am reveling in it like it’s made of flannel and sexxytimes. Sexy flannel times? Yeah. (I’m cold right now.)
And I’m about to dive headlong into Shelly Laurenston’s new series after many people whose opinions I respect a lot squeed about book 2 on Twitter. So Book 1 and book 2 are on my list for the long flight to RT.
What are you reading right now, possibly on the plane?
Redheadedgirl: I’m sleeping on the plane.
I just finished The Earl Takes All ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ) – the dead brother twin-switch one from Hide Your Wallet.
I will also be reading Virgins, the Outlander novella and Finding Fraser ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which… dude. We’ll see.
Amanda: I’m bringing three physical books for traveling purposes. Dirty by Kylie Scott ( A ), which I mentioned in the recent Hide Your Wallet and I’m very excited about.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire that one of our readers mentioned in the comments on Hide Your Wallet. I have a friend who works at Tor so he very nicely hooked me up. I’m surprised at how thin the book is so it should be a quick read.
And lastly, HOW NOT TO FAAAAALLLLLLL! I keep wanting to savor this one and I’m so excited. If you’re curious about the book, definitely check out the podcast we just did with Emily Nagoski because she reveals some pretty awesome and very sexy stuff about the book.
I have a three hour layover so I’m seeing some quality reading time – if I don’t get distracted by people watching, of course.
Redheadedgirl: I have an hour and 45 in Salt Lake, but I’m also getting up at 4am for a 6:15am flight.
Elyse: I’m reading Hold Your Breath ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which so far is a good blend of suspense and action. The heroine is on the cold water rescue team.
I have a direct flight hooray!
Redheadedgirl: I am SO JEALOUS.
Carrie: I think I will be reading The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish on the road to RT. It’s one of the first science fiction books ever written (1666). Right now I reading Mad Madge, which is Cavendish’s biography.
Oh, I also just bought Wishes by Jude Devereaux. ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
Sarah: I love that book. It’s ridiculous and old skool American historical but I love it
Redheadedgirl: It’s why one reads Jude Deveraux.
I am also reading Under the Sugar Sun by Jennifer Hallock ( A ), who I met at the last Boston meetup. She writes historical a set in the Philippines.
What about you? What are you reading? Are you traveling to RT and reading on the way? What books do you want to talk about?
By request, since we can’t link to every book you mention in the comments, here are bookstore links that help support the site with your purchases. If you use them, that’s wonderfully awesome of you, and if you’d prefer not to, no worries at all. Thank you so much for hanging out with us, and hopefully you found something good to read!
I also have to give a shout-out to Shelly Laurenston’s books – love all of her series, whether as Shelly or GA Aiken. I read both of the Calling series, just to catch up. I’ve also really enjoyed Sarra Manning’s early books “Unsticky” and “It Felt Like a Kiss” – so good that I may break into the pocketbook to pick them up.
Also read the latest installments of two of my favorite series – Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson and Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock. Loved them both, even though they were slower than the rest of their kin (probably the breath before running for their lives in the next volumes that will take forever to come out).
I have “All the Single Ladies” out of the library to read for Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge 2016.
Really love this thread – so many recommendations, so much information and fun! Thank you!
@Kate: I love the Temeraire audio books. I’m really going to miss this series, and Simon Vance. 🙁
I’m really loving the Call of Crows series too. The second book has nerdy book loving introverts, yay! I know some people aren’t digging it because the romance is not the main part of the story, just a piece of it, but I love it.
I had a pretty good reading month.
I read and loved KJ Charles’ A Gentleman’s Position and it was excellent (mm regency). Not a stand alone – you really need to read the whole trilogy, but it’s worth it. She does a really amazing job of writing about the aristocracy in way that reminds me that I actually don’t believe in most of what the nobility stood for but still makes me sympathize with her noble characters.
I read Knit Tight by Annabeth Albert, thanks to Elyse’s excellent review. I didn’t like it quite as much as she did because I had trouble accepting the hea – it seemed really rushed to me. But I loved the flirting and romance.
I also read A Rock and a Hardplace by Amy Jo Cousins – NA mm – it’s a boxset of the last two novels in her Bend or Break series. I really enjoyed both of them, although I wish I hadn’t read them back to back because they’re pretty similar.
I finally read Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton which is an odd mm pnr about a former child star who discovers a man trapped in a snow globe that no one else can see. I’ve seen it described as a ghost story but that’s not entirely true – the ghost in the snow globe isn’t actually a ghost. It does have a believable hea.
I’m halfway through Wickedly Dangerous by Deborah Blake – mf pnr and the first in her Baba Yaga series. I’m enjoying it. So far I’m liking it although the romance feels underdeveloped so far. I love that the heroine is so effortlessly and unapologetically kick ass.
Recently read two short novellas I really enjoyed. Rachel Lacey is one of my favorites and her new Only You has a wonderful second chance story and a cute kid. Really, he stole my heart. Hold on to Forever is an enemies to lovers story set in Roxanne St. Claire’s Barefoot Bay as part of a Kindle Worlds series. I think there are 11 books so far and I now understand the charm of Kindle Worlds. This particular story was by Maria Geraci, another favorite author, who has a lot of humor in her stories. I glommed her Whispering Bay series while recovering from surgery last year.
Most of my reading has been new books by some of my favorite historical authors, including To Lure a Proper Lady by Ashlyn MacNamara, Fortune Favors the Wicked by Theresa Romain, and of course, Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn. Happy times with my Kindle and coffee. I also enjoyed The Earl Next Door by Charis Michaels and Virtuous Scoundrel by Maggie Fenton. The Maggie Fenton book, mentioned here last month by Lisa (thank you!), is a great rompy read. I downloaded The Duke’s Holiday for this month’s Prime read and plan to read it next week.
Right now, I am reading Waking Up With the Duke by Lorraine Heath. Poor Mr. L heard a book report while we were driving to the farmer’s market this morning. I can’t wait to see how this one ends and I know Ms. Heath won’t disappoint. I’m at the part where Jayne is beginning to believe she is falling in love….
I get to to go to a real bookstore (yay, Barnes & Noble!) tomorrow, and meet up with a girlfriend and abuse her employee discount. I’m getting Come As You Are, The Obsession (La Nora) and because of Amanda, I need to get Every Heart a Doorway. We’ll see what happens when I finish reading the comments. Thankfully, I brought a bunch of stuff to the mainland that I’m not taking home, so I have suitcase space.
Diana Gabaldon said on FB that ‘Virgins’ might be out in physical form later this year or next. I’m just going to sit here and stare up at the calendar until then.
About to start ‘Drums of Autumn’, and re-read ‘The Lunar Chronicles’ when I’ll need to take breaks. I was given ‘Winter’ and ‘Fairest’ for Christmas and I need get around to them.
I finally read THE LEGEND OF LYON REDMOND after preordering it and then letting it sit unread in my Kindle for months– it was really good (although not my favorite) and I thought it was a little unbalanced with the past romance history overshadowing the current reunion romance.
I read TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT by Erika Kelly and wow did it bring all the feels for me. Loving this series so far.
I was a little disappointed in Jennifer Ashley’s WHITE LION. There was a lot of focus on the big picture stuff and I never quite felt like the main characters were fully realized.
Anxiously awaiting BOUNTY by Kristen Ashley — all the buzz is that it is old skool KA.
I’m in a complete rut– I’m working through the Maiden Lane series by Elizabeth Holt, but I also picked up a ton of books from the library and nothing’s quite grabbing me yet. I’ve got some manga (Wandering Son, Nana, and REmind) on the nightstand, as well as Spider-Woman, Darth Vader, and Lumberjanes (all recommended at ECCC last week).
Currently working on Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire– I loved Every Heart a Doorway, which made me pick it up. Goodreads says I also have Shrill by Lindy West, a Brandon Sanderson, and the new Karen Cushman open.
@Cristie.
OMG! The Cliffs of Night by Beatrice Brandon. I totally loved that book and completely forgot it’s existence until you mentioned it. I looked it up on Goodreads and remember this being one of my first “Gothic” like romance. Thanks for the happy reminder
I’ve had one of the better reading months I’ve had in awhile. My favorites of the month were:
MURDER OF CROWS & VISION IN SILVER by Anne Bishop (UF) — Super engrossing and I can’t wait for MARKED IN FLESH to come into my library.
TEMPTATIONS OF A WALLFLOWER by Eva Leigh (HR) — Conclusion to the Wicked Quills trilogy. The hero is a vicar and the heroine writes erotic novels.
INDIGO by Beverly Jenkins (HR) — Underground Railroad romance with a wonderful heroine and fascinating historical details.
MAGNATE by Joanna Shupe (HR) — Set in Gilded Age NYC. It features a grumpy millionaire hero and a heroine who wants to start a brokerage firm.
A FASHIONABLE INDULGENCE/A SEDITIOUS AFFAIR by K.J. Charles (HR — M/M) — Finally started this series and it is as wonderful as others have said. I especially liked the political subplots.
Some okay reads I finished this month were LOVE IN THE TIME OF SCANDAL by Caroline Linden (cute, but I wanted more), BOUND BY FLAMES by Jeaniene Frost (heroine was awesome while the hero was a bit of a dick), BLOOD KISS by JR Ward (I liked the return of Butch/Marissa, but wanted more of the main couple).
I am currently reading SIX DEGREES OF SCANDAL by Caroline Linden, LEVELING THE FIELD by Megan Erickson, and HAMILTON: THE REVOLUTION.
I’ve been in a huge book funk lately. I’ve started and stopped so many books lately I can’t even keep track. But I am rereading Pride and Prejudice for one of my classes and it is still as good as I remember. It’s probably a good thing I have to read it because otherwise I probably wouldn’t be reading at all.
Some highlights of this month:
Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds by Joseph P. Laycock is an absolutely fascinating book which explores, by way of the D&D panic of the 80s, how imaginative role-playing games cobtribute to the mental life of players and how some strands of American culture would find this threatening — lots of history and very original ideas.
Kingfisher by Patricia McKillip is an addition to the modern tradtion of not-so-Christian interpretations of Arthurian stories, this one a Grail story. It’s a feast for mythology-lovers; I wrote a post in which I could barely begin talking about some of it.
Three Songs for Roxy by Caren Gussoff is linked stories involving aliens, of which my favorite was the first, “Free Bird”. The author is Roma and so is the family in this story; the main character, Kizzy, is an extraterrestrial whose birth parents left her to be raised by humans. But she doesn’t feel as much an outsider in the family as her sister Roxy does because of being a lesbian.
I am currently starting on Monstrous Little Voices: Tales from Shakespeare’s Fantasy World. More linked stories; the first one begins with Miranda, after a year of marriage to Ferdinand, realizing that she’s miserable and getting out of there to make her way to Titania’s court, and it’s pretty awesome.
I’m reading a backlist of awesomeness.
This would be the benefit of not reading romance novels for years.
So far:
Breathing Room – SEP
Crazy Thing Called Love – Molly O’Keefe
Not Another Bad Date – Rachel Gibson
Stormy Persuasion – Johanna Lindsey
Night of No Return – Sarah Morgan
The Sheikh and the Pregnant Bride – Susan Mallory
King of the Desert, Captive Bride – Jane Porter
Calling His Bluff – Amy Jo Cousins
And yes, I keep a list. Otherwise I wouldn’t know exactly what I had read in 2015, since that contained 167 books. 90 pages an hour while walking on the treadmill has a benefit.
My favorite used book store is closing so I’m trying to catch up on books I’ve missed out on in the last few years of craziness.
Re-read the Psy books from Nalini Singh and was in love with them until Kiss of Snow. I’ve read 3 more after and they just don’t hold me like the early ones did. I think mostly because I’m not invested into the Arrows like I was the Changelings.
Re-read the I-team series by Pamela Clare and again, was pretty disappointed with the last few in the series.
I’m wondering if maybe my tastes have changed, quality has declined, or a mix of the two.
Currently listening to Night Broken by Patricia Briggs on audio and loving it. I only wish every book in the series was an mp3 audiobook. It would make my daily commutes much more pleasant.
Next up is Lisa Kleypas’ backlist as well as new to me authors, Maya Rodale and Eva Leigh.
From the list above, I’m getting the impression that a lot of interesting book titles were and are set to be released this month. I can’t say I’ve read a lot but will definitely include some of these titles in my to-read list. Here’s a website where you’ll find other interesting titles: https://www.chatebooks.com/
Grace Draven’s Eidolon released, so of course I reread Radiance for full impact. Now immersed in Eidolon. *poofs*
I’m sorry you’re so stressed, Sarah. I hope you get some time to yourself and you feel better soon.
I finished Eidolon and am still mulling over my reaction to it. It’s a fascinating story, a great read, but I don’t know if it was a mistake to reread Radiance right before diving in… I do know that the “epilogue” in Radiance is actually an excerpt of Eidolon, without which Radiance would be totally standalone. Just putting that out there. And while I shelve Radiance as a fantasy romance, I shelve Eidolon as fantasy. I’m going to try Eidolon again in a few months, possibly as a standalone. Anyway, my thoughts are muddled. Eidolon was an anxiety-inducing heart-in-my-throat read and I can’t stop thinking about it. #bookhangover
I found the perfect book to take my mind off of Eidolon: Mira Grant’s Deadline (book 2 in her Newsflesh series). The adrenaline rushes! My heart pounding in my throat! People dying! Science fiction! Zombies! Medical thriller! Conspiracies! … It took me a week to read because I had to keep putting it aside and distracting myself with other books to calm my blood pressure. Totally worth it! Now I need to get my grubby mitts on book 3…