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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Hi and much love to all of the SB’s! (I’ve been quiet but still lurking on occasion.)
Been slowly getting back to romance, but first a re-read and finishing up The Lunar Chronicles. I want to get to Heartless, also by Marissa Meyer. That beautiful hardcover edition keeps calling to me from my bookshelf.
I’ve been obsessed with Fangirl Musings YT channel this past week, and I ended up ordering three Tessa Dare books thanks to her videos. (When A Scot Ties The Knot, Romancing The Duke, and The Duchess Deal.)
I’ve also been collecting how-to-draw books, mostly by Mark Kistler and the late Lee J. Ames. (Weekdays are going to be devoted to artwork and sketching, weekends for reading. I think that’s the only way I’m going to be able to do both.)
i needed a bit of a break from romance so i’ve been reading The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey and it’s pretty great! i’m about halfway through.
and last week i went to Half Price Books and picked up a few new romances. i think i’m getting pretty into cowboys haha. i’ll probably read “Baby Drive South” by Stephanie Bond next.
Reading this month was somewhat interrupted (by work and sick cats) but good.
The Great: Black Jesus and Other Superheroes by Venita Blackburn. Short (or very short) freewheeling stories about all sorts of people struggling and surviving… the joy is the writing style. It doesn’t matter what Blackburn is talking about, I just want to hear her talk.
The Good: 1. The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge. Middle-grade story set in Victorian times with a girl who wants to be a paleontologist, encountering adults who are nearly all awful to her. Consistently interesting plot, and sucked me into the point-of-view of the main character so that I could sympathise with her thoughts even if I’m at a different life stage (for example, I could see from page 1 that she was never going to be able to win her father’s approval, but I didn’t get frustrated with her for the things she did trying). Loved the character arc of her mother (a parent who’s supportive but not perfect). 2. The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (came to my attention because of Cover Awe post here). Deep dive into time and place of Bombay and Calcutta circa 1920. Main character is a woman studying law and practicing as one of India’s first female solicitors; mystery plot in the household of three wives of one man who stay in purdah. A whole lot of explaining-stuff-to-foreigners woven in, which would probably exasperate someone who knew India, but for someone as ignorant as me, was well done. Very satisfying book on several levels. 3. Murmuration by TJ Klune. Science fiction with a very creepy figure-out-what’s-wrong-with-this-picture plot and an ambiguously-moral protagonist. Manages to sustain suspense and dread throughout, which is no mean feat; especially since it is a bit slow and repetitive in places. Lacking in the romance department because the main character’s love interest is kind of a cipher. The author claims the ending is a happy one, but I have doubts.
The Meh: Darkling by Brooklyn Ray. Paranormal with interesting premise (witch who’s hiding the fact that he comes from a family of necromancers who manipulate life-energy, angsty love story shadowed by the possiblity he may die) spoiled by overwrought writing.
Currently reading: “The Emotionless, in Love” by Jason Sanford. Sequel to a science-fiction novella that I loved (“Blood Grains Speak Through Memories”) so I have high hopes.
I’m in the middle of Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories at the moment. I finished the series adaptation (with Jason Isaacs in a rare good guy role) and loved it, so I wanted to read the books. He also recorded the audiobooks for Audible and it’s really making me consider getting a subscription. That, and Richard Armitage’s audiobooks – especially the romance novel he did (Lauren Blakely’s Wanderlust).
Don’t know how I missed that Amanda is listening to Wanderlust. Glad to hear that it’s good! Tumblr tags have mostly been moaning on about how he’s ~stooped so low~ to read romance and not “literary fiction”. Like, you all realize he 1) has read romance before (hello Georgette Heyer) and 2) is reading romance with potential French and sexy goings-on. I see no downside to this. Please stow your book snobbery and internalized misogyny.
I started the month reading The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren, which I absolutely loved. It was timely, considering the gun control debate going on right now. I was worried that it would be angsty, but it wasn’t. I loved the interactions between the hero and heroine. The whole Batman thing was cute. I just wish there were more scenes with the other women. I’m really looking forward to the second book.
I also read the first two stories in the anthology, Down the Rabbit Hole. It was just meh and had the weird distinction of the only romance to ever remind me of La Cittá del Sole, which I hadn’t thought about since college.
The next book I read was Come Sundown by Nora Roberts. It wasn’t even meh. I’m starting to think I need to break up with La Nora. None of her recent books have done it for me and I’ve even started to fall behind on the In Death novels. Everything she’s published recently seems to be missing something—they don’t even sound like her any more. I’m honestly wondering if someone is ghost writing for her.
After finishing Sundown, I read the YA, Queens of Geek. I thought it was cute and I enjoyed both the relationships between Taylor and Jamie and Charlie and Alyssa, but I didn’t care for the first persion narration. I also felt lije it could have been a little bit longer. For being a short book it dealt with some heavy stuff: Charlie’s bisexuality and her relationship with her ex boyfriend, Taylor’s anxiety, and mental illness. The pop culture references were awesome, though.
I’m currently rereading the Key Trilogy by Nora Roberts, which is about 1000x better than Come Sundown, and reenforces my feeling that she has a ghost writer.
I have been having no luck with books this month. Possibly because I’ve been having no luck with March in general.
Well, that’s not *quite* true. I did finish NOW I RISE, the second book in Kiersten White’s historical AU trilogy about a female Vlad the Impaler. I thought it was pretty great and look forward to the end of the series. But since then…meh.
EXPOSED, a series of novellas centering on guys posing naked for a literacy calendar- picked this up cause I like many of the authors, and a few stories in its…fine. Nothing has knocked my socks off. Some of the stories are suffering from a visible lack of copyediting that is making me grind my teeth in frustration. And of course there’s always the problem with romance novellas of having to make a relationship work in 80 pages or so.
THE BONE WITCH by Rin Chupeco. YA, fantasy. Think I’m going to have to DNF this one. It has a lot of cool concepts and worldbuilding behind it, but I find it strangely boring. And I think I’m about to get to the part in the plot where she’s attracted to a boy with all the personality of cold toast, with a hint of love triangle waiting in the wings. So. Not sure how long I’ll stick it out.
THE HALF-DROWNED KING by Linnea Hartsuyker. Another one that should hit all my buttons (VIKINGS), but just isn’t working for some reason. It just feels very, very slow. This might be one I come back to later, when I’m in a different mood.
MINDHUNTER John E. Douglas. I picked this up because I’m a true crime junkie, and also I eventually want to watch the Netflix series. When he finally started talking about profiling specific crimes, it picked up. But WOW is this a portrait of White, Cis, Male privilege, especially for the first hundred pages or so. At first I kept trying to justify it– “Well, it was written in the 90s, of course it’s dated,” “Well, this guy is from another time” and finally I realized, no, that’s bullshit, this guy is an entitled asshole and I needed to acknowledge it. He may be brilliant, or at least very good at what he does, but he’s also an asshole. I’ll probably at least finish this one, cause I paid for it rather than go to the library, but there are a lot of problematic elements.
A few highlights from the last 2 months:
Two Man Station by Lisa Henry – mm contemporary about two policemen in a small town in a remote part of the Australian outback. So, so good. One of her best imo – really evocative and compelling. Not too angsty or dark by Lisa Henry standards but there is bullying, domestic violence (off page, in the past for one MC and they deal with a couple dv cases) and there’s some job related violence on page, including a shooting.
Throwing Stones by Avery Cockburn (AKA Jeri Smith-Ready) – m/m curling romance. Spin off of her Glasgow Lads m/m soccer/football series. I liked the romance and I enjoyed learning more about curling and as a bonus, I think I may have figured out that I have ADHD as a result of reading it. So yeah.
Avon Gale’s Scoring Chances mm hockey series – I kind of inhaled this series. The books vary widely in tone – some are NA-ish and some have older protags, some are low angst and some are off the charts angsty. I didn’t love every book but I’m addicted to the series.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells – SF – my first Martha Wells. I enjoyed this story of a cyborg security unit who becomes sentient and just wants to be left alone to watch their soaps.
I just finished a half-dozen mystery novels by Joy Ellis – they were free on Kindle Unlimited – and then read Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds, which was really good. I’m now reading Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira and Death Below Stairs by Jennifer Ashley.
Since I graduated from undergrad and finally got employed in December, reading has taken a backburner to figuring out what it means to regain a social life and figure out what I want to do. It’s, needless to say, rather wild and I wish I was reading more than I have been.
Some highlights:
HUNGER by Roxane Gay – Currently reading, absolutely phenomenal. A harrowing memoir of Gay’s time dealing with eating, life as a fat queer woman of color, and how we seek to find answers to things that we may never have answers for, such as our desires and our habits. It’s spectacular and anyone who has not lived in a fat body should read it to understand exactly how complicated it can be.
AGAIN THE MAGIC by Lisa Kleypas – I wanted a feel-good romance and Kleypas delivered. I think the dual romance element made me less in love with it compared to some of her other books (although it took me a while to read it so that didn’t help) but the secondary romance that addressed alcoholism really stuck with me with its romantic moments. Kleypas has this keen ability to write something that COULD be so twee (especially in dialogue) that she transcends into an utterly magical moment.
SURPASSING CERTAINTY by Janet Mock – A memoir about Janet Mock’s 20’s, a follow-up of sorts to REDEFINING REALNESS. Both are some of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. Her life as a trans woman of color has been really fascinating, and Mock is unapologetic about herself in this one. I think the pair stands as a great piece of art and commentary on today’s world.
I’ve also watched THE ANCIENT MAGUS BRIDE and finally saw the last episode which went up yesterday. Romance fans MUST watch this anime (it’s on Crunchyroll.) It’s about a girl known as a “Sleigh Beggy” which means her body is fragile but contains powerful magic. Her father disappears and her mother dies of suicide leaving her shuttled between unloving family members. She considers ending her life but instead sells herself at a magical auction. The hero, a magician that is part demon, part human, purchases her so she becomes his apprentice and potential bride. It’s very dark (TW for lots of discussion about suicide and depression) and the premise is very dark as well, but the result is a story that’s very magical, sweet, and about the heroine learning about her love and worth in a community of people she meets. The romance is very sweet and the hero is not an asshole at all, so it’s Beauty and the Beast without some of the stickier elements (and there’s consent and it’s a very non-physical romance)
Just finished Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan, which was excellent as usual. IMHO he’s better than Rowling, if only in the representation front — it appears he is setting up the hero for a relationshp with a genderfluid character which I felt was handled pretty well, as he is able to accept both sides of them with equal fervor.
Just starting Star Wars Aftermath by Chuck Wendig, which shows the Empire and Rebellion scrabbling to gain the upper hand in the wake of Palpatine’s death and the Death Star’s destruction. It’s a little tricky to follow as it’s alternating between several character threads, but so far so good.
I love these! It’s always fun to see what other people are reading! So, in honor of Women’s History month I chose a title featuring a historical and strong woman….but of course it had to have some scandal in it too.
The Secret Life of Mrs. London is the perfect combination! It’s about the wife of famed writer Jack London. Charmian London’s story is about the personal sacrifices she made for her husbands career, her fierce feminist views/adventures as well as a VERY intriguing love triangle between herself, her husband and Houdini! I highly recommend this one, I found it at http://www.rebecca-rosenberg.com.
I haven’t read that many new books this month – I’ve been busy, running and being social, neither of which are conducive to curling up with my Kindle. I’ve been reading some old favorites: The Oracle Glass by Judith Merkle Riley (historical fiction set in the court of Louis the Sun King) and Paris in Love (Eloisa James’ memoir about her family’s sabbatical year in Paris).
Excellent:
-Undone by You by Kate Meader; m/m hockey romance. I feel like I’ve done nothing but recommend this book to everyone in every online book group that I’m in, but it was incredible and I can’t stop talking about it. It wasn’t my first foray into m/m, but this was just SO good!! Meader has definitely moved up on my list of authors – I’m anxiously awaiting the next Chicago Rebels book!!
-Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody mysteries. I finally (!) read all of these from December through late February, and while the individual stories were a little uneven, the series as a whole was amazing. I may have to go back and reread a few of them so I can pick out my favorites to buy.
Good:
-A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. I wanted to love this, and I did enjoy, but I couldn’t do more than like it. I loved the heroine, but someone up above referenced the mismatch of the two halves of the book, and I think that was a major factor. I’m looking forward to the next one, though!
-An Ex for Christmas by Lauren Layne. I thought it was cute, if a little repetitive.
Currently:
Hello Stranger by Lisa Kleypas. I can’t decide if I’m not enjoying the story because of the SBTB review or if it’s because I haven’t been enjoying her writing lately. I’m disappointed, but I’ll soldier on. Hopefully her next two releases make up for the rest of the Ravenels.
This has been a great month of reading for me so far… weirdly, I’ve been on the exact same path as SB Sarah, in that I read THE FOUR TENDENCIES by Gretchen Rubin last month & have been working my way backwards through her oeuvre as they have become available from the library ever since. My fav so far is BETTER THAN BEFORE, and the only one I have left is the original, which is THE HAPPINESS PROJECT.
I really enjoyed TRULY DEVIOUS by Maureen Johnson, though I’m sad it was so cliffhangery. I’m excited to keep going in that trilogy. And even more antsy for her to wrap up her Shades of London series :).
The things I’m gushing about this month are EVERY HEART A DOORWAY by Seanan McGuire (SUCH a great example of how short fiction can pack a wallop when done well), IMITATION IN DEATH by JD Robb (I love seeing the character relationships continue to develop… I laughed & cried in this one), and CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE by Tomi Adeyemi. Guys. Guys. GUYS. This book. It is destroying me in the best possible way… I’m so jealous of the young readers who get to read this as the intended audience. It’s a rare YA that is totally living up to the hype. So good!
I just finished INK: A Love Story on 7th and Main by Elizabeth Hunter. It’s the start of her new contemporary series. Small town independent bookstore owner heroine and tattoo artist hero. It’s totally my catnip. Two opposites attract and a tight knit group of friends who are supportive and add to the storyline and understanding of the characters. On the whole I enjoyed it a lot. I’m looking forward to seeing the other characters who were introduced get their HEA. The tension between the hero and heroine might have been resolved a bit too quickly at the end but it was still really good.
With six municipal libraries now powering my Overdrive, I have to keep a Google spreadsheet to track all of the books I have checked out. The first thing I did when I acquired each new library card was look in their Overdrive catalog for anything on my Amazon wishlists. Then I started browsing and encountered — send help — Harlequin Presents. I have now read (almost) all the Lynne Graham ever, omg. Here is what I have learned:
1. The unjustly accused virgin sacrificing herself for unworthy family members while held in disdain by a mistrusting lover is 100% my teenage psyche. Now I don’t know if I was drawn to these in the 90s because of that or if reading HP as a teen shaped my cerebral pathways.
2. Half of all HPs are entitled “The Mediterranean Billionaire’s Virgin Mistress’s Secret Baby.” In addition to being a functional way to screen out sheikh/fake royalty romances (which make up the other half), the cheesy titles form an impenetrable wall of irony around HPland. You either make it past the barrier and are One of Us, or you are locked outside.
3. I take immense pleasure in processing romances as data. I noticed this when I first came back to romance and reread all the Stephanie James/Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle/Amanda Quick books I had stored for 16 years. The more I read, the more connections I could make between character types and plot points and tropes. But I like JAK. The Lynne Graham thing came to me more as a drinking game: one sip for “I thought you were on the pill,” two sips for “I forgot to use a condom,” and three sips for a busted condom. Also, England is entirely populated by impoverished virgins, single mothers, and Mediterranean billionaires.
Other than Harlequins (so, so many), I have been reading Laura Lee Guhrke. Most discussions of LLG seem to put forward Then He Kissed Her or Guilty Pleasures as her best work. Since I liked but did not love Then He Kissed Her, I decided to try Guilty Pleasures and found it smoother and more conventional, but I think Then He Kissed Her is the fresher work. The more I read Guhrke, the more I recognize that her protagonists’ tragic emotional backstories don’t engage me on an emotional level. They just seem separate from the characters somehow. Anyway, Guilty Pleasures includes a side character with a broken marriage, so I had to read the sequel to see the marriage fixed. The Marriage Bed may be the most insidious historical romance novel ever written. To be clear: I hated it. I do not recommend it. I am trying to put it in my mental box of forgotten things. In The Marriage Bed, a wife who has been humiliated by her husband’s very public affairs eventually overcomes that humiliation not because her husband apologizes but because she begins to feel compassion for these women who loved her husband but were not loved by him in return. He never apologizes to her for her actions, and the book ends with him delivering an apology to another woman entirely (who also deserved the apology, but…his wife??) If I leave this book to fester in my head, it could contaminate every rake romance I have ever read. I need to banish it from my memory. (Also, the ending is awful. Please don’t let my horror inspire you to check out the novel for yourself. If you are curious for spoilers, it is sufficient to read the Goodreads reviews.)
Lastly, so much library access has expanded my selection of audiobooks:
I fell in love with Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game all over again thanks to Katie Schorr’s talented narration. Schorr has a youthful voice that is perfect for this new adultish romance. I’m surprised I’ve never encountered any criticism for how very immature these two characters are with one another, but Thorne perfectly captures the intense, obsessive, giddy feelings of falling in love.
Kate Reading’s performance of Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels is universally praised. It is so perfect that I am reluctant to listen to her narration of any of Chase’s other works (I had Dukes Prefer Blondes queued) because I don’t want THAT voice to be used for anyone but the incomparable Jessica Trent.
I am not as fond of Renee Raudman’s narration of Ilona Andrews Burn for Me. While the slow southwestern drawl may be appropriate to the setting, this is the first time I ever listened to an audiobook on 1.5 speed because I couldn’t take the standard pace. Also, listening reminded me how much I hate the way any other woman who expresses a romantic, sexual, or marital interest in Rogan is portrayed as weak, desperate, or slutty. Nevada Baylor doesn’t need a shallow foil to be awesome.
I am currently listening to Amy McFadden’s narration of Jayne Ann Krentz’s Silver Linings. Like Schorr, McFadden has a wonderfully youthful, optimistic yet wry voice that served her well in performing JAK’s Hidden Talents and Camilla Monk’s Spotless series. When I listen to it here, I like to pretend that the Silver Linings characters are younger than their given ages (she: 30, he: 40) because the book just works better for me imagining that they are young and stupid. I seriously need the heroine to be no more than 23 when she decided that sleeping with her sister’s ex-fiance and begging him to marry her the day before he left Seattle for the South Seas was a good idea.
I read the first 4 books in the Pepper Martin mysteries by Casey Daniels. I like me a good ghost mystery, but Pepper is annoying. She’s shallow, vain, and obsessed with her boobs; she mentions them (or their size, which is 38C and whydoIrememberthat?) at least a dozen times per book. Apparently the men around her have never seen boobs, since they all ogle her. I am half convinced the series is really written by a guy, because unless they hurt, are uncomfortable (sweat or need to remove bra), or we’re bra shopping, women just don’t think about their boobs that much.
Also annoyed by the fact that not boffing a woman who has just been hit in the head and is bleeding or who was nearly strangled is apparently worthy of a gold star. There is nothing sexy about someone being injured.
@Deborah, interesting to read your thoughts on Guhrke. I’ve been keeping an eye out for Guilty Pleasures for a few months now because the premise sounds interesting.
Since my earlier post I’ve read another middle grade that I liked a lot: Nightbird by Alice Hoffman. I haven’t been able to get into the few adult novels of hers that I’ve tried and didn’t even know she wrote for younger readers, but this one was enjoyable and made me crave tea and pie. Inspired to read more baking-related stories I picked up Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan and am loving it so far.
I read … a lot. And I don’t keep very good track of what I’ve read. But I just finished Samantha Chase’s SHAUGHNESSY series (good but not great). I’ve been listening to a lot of Susan Elizabeth Phillips on audio books, both ones I’ve read and ones I haven’t. Rosalind James’s latest New Zealand rugby players book (JUST SAY HELL NO) — enjoyable as always. Also enjoying Lucy Stone’s BLUE MOON series for the quirky characters and LG O’Connors CAUGHT UP IN LOVE series. The first two books of Adriana Locke’s GIBSON BOYS series. Suzanne Halliday’s CUPID IN HEELS was cute. I have Jewel E Ann’s UNDENIABLY YOU sitting in my TBR folder. I really want to read it because the Jack and Jill series was unputdownable, but I’m also dreading it because J&J was also very intense (I ended up skimming part of the last book because it was too gruesome).
Because you all talk a lot about them, I’ve tried a couple of historicals recently (Mary Balogh’s THE IDEAL WIFE, for example). Although they make for a nice change of pace, I can’t see reading too many of them, as they all seem to be the same to me (the conflict in the relationship being based in some kind of “society will not approve” and/or “I must marry someone more appropriate (either socially or financially)”). Plus anachronisms make me crazy. For example, did you know that the word “sex” wasn’t used to mean sexual intercourse until the 20th century (I’m talking to you, Mary Balogh!)?