It’s the first Whatcha Reading of the year! We know many of you have been looking forward to this post all month. If you’re new to the site, hi there! We’re so happy to have you! Whatcha Reading is a monthly post (typically the fourth Saturday of each month) to tell us all about what you’ve been reading. All the good stuff. All the bad stuff.[
Elyse: I just started The Conspiracy by Kat Martin ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). I’m totally in a romantic suspense/mystery mood lately
Amanda: I’m in the middle of Tripped Out by Lorelei James ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which is a novella romance between a scientist hero and a woman who runs a marijuana farm.
And then to break up my romance readers, I just picked up How to Date Men When You Hate Men ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) from my library. It’s a collection of memoir-ish essays.
I just love the title.
Carrie: I just finished reading a pile of graphic novels and am starting on the Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spaulding ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). I’m only on page 10, but it shows promise!
Sarah: I’m reading Burnout by the Nagoski sisters to prepare for a podcast interview. The book is out 3/26, but I have an early copy and I’m very excited to be reading this book.
What books have kicked off your year? Let us know in the comments!
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, we greatly appreciate it, and if you’d prefer not to, no worries. Thanks for being a part of SBTB and hopefully, you’ve found some great books to read!
It is below zero here, has been all week, will continue. Winter can go now. The books are good, though!
Faves
– KRISTEN LAVRANSDATTER by Sigrid Undset – I read this at the end of last year and it was a surprise, a Norwegian classic about the life of a medieval woman, her family, and her faith, a massive page-turner? But yes! I couldn’t stop reading and I loooved it.
– THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde – I reread a bunch of books last year and it was totally relaxing. So, I’ve decided to hit up Fforde’s backlist again. A good decision so far!
– SEDUCTION: SEX, LIES, AND STARDOM IN HOWARD HUGHES’S HOLLYWOOD by Karina Longworth – I love Longworth’s podcast, You Must Remember This, and this book has the same dry wit and thoughtful criticism.
– THE AU PAIR by Emma Rous – YESSSS. Family secrets! Conveniently named grand houses by the sea! Weird local lore! Perfect. I can’t wait to read Rous’s next book.
– THE GHOST WALL by Sarah Moss – a disturbing little book about a family “vacation” on an experimental archeology trip. Makes me want to read from Moss, but I can’t stop thinking about how disturbing it was.
– ALICE PAYNE ARRIVES by Kate Heartfield – a Tor novella about a time war and badass ladies and Regency England.
– OVER AND OVER AGAIN by Cole McCade – m/m romance with a significant age difference. This was sweet and quiet and hopeful. Also, they’re snowed in!
– THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark – much weirder than I assumed. Good, but, weird.
– ONCE GHOSTED, TWICE SHY by Alyssa Cole – I loved this but I wish it had been longer.
Good
– REND by Roan Parrish – I don’t think I’ve read a romance like this. A married couple who are happy but there are some cracks in the foundation. One goes on tour and the cracks widen. Then they come together again and work on it. I’d like to read more like this.
– EVELINA by Fanny Burney (audiobook) – I’ve wanted to read this forever, it’s a favorite of Austen’s after all, but I have trouble reading epistolary novels. So I went with the audiobook. The book is great but the audio is not. The accents are bad and Orson Scott Card is one of the narrators, bleh.
– THE CHILDREN’S BLIZZARD by David Laskin – Good about a terrible storm. It made me cry. It was rough.
– WHO IS VERA KELLY? by Rosalie Knecht (audiobook) – sort of an espionage novel, sort of a coming of age novel. I think I would have enjoyed more spy stuff.
– MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante – I wanted to like this so much more than I did. It was just flat. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.
– ONCE UPON A RIVER by Diane Setterfield – same, I guess.
Currently Reading
– BEFORE THE FALL by Noah Hawley (audiobook) – plane crashes into the sea. Why? What secrets did the passengers hold? So far, great on audio!
– SLAYER by Kiersten White – I’m just about to start this and I’m so excited! Give me all the Buffy spinoff novels!
Mirage by Somaiya Daud: My favourite book of 2019 thus far. I read something somewhere that it’s wonderful science fiction that feels like fantasy and like, own voices in space based around Arabic poetry! Sisterhood and amazing women and different kinds of bravery and warriors.
Of Fire & Stars by Audrey Coulthurst: QUEER LADY PRINCESSES WITH HORSES AND MAGIC. It has an interesting world premise but like I was honestly just going ‘lady princesses in love! HORSIES’ (it’s sort of the Sansa/Brienne fanfic I didn’t know I wanted).
I also read Bloodline by Claudia Gray which was good. Currently reading Seafire by Natalie Parker (all women ships crew out for revenge) and Girls Of Paper & Fire by Natasha Ngan which is based in an alt!Malaysia and I’m extremely intrigued by the premise.
This has been a pretty slow reading month for me due to school work.
THE ONE YOU FIGHT FOR by Roni Loren. CW/TNF for school shooting topic. Taryn’s sister died in the school shooting, Shaw’s brother was the shooter and his life was ruined as a result. Now he returns to his old home city under a different name to help his friend run a gym. Taryn becomes his client and doesn’t recognize him at first. She does know who is before plunging deep into the romance. Otherwise it would have been way too creepy). This is book 3 of the series and previous characters feature but this firmly stands on its own. Roni Loren is the master of creating nuanced wounded characters.
THE WICKED PRINCE by Holly Black. The delightful 2nd book of the series is full of Faery court intrigue. The main character, half-faery Jude, has the ear of the king of Faeries, her former bully and hate/love interest. She has to navigate the plots of the court, outside threats, deal with the King and her scheming father. And someone close to her is plotting betrayal. I can’t wait for book 3.
SUMMONED TO THIRTEENTH GRAVE by Darynda Jones. The conclusion of a good Urban Fantasy series. The attraction is still red hot between Charlie and Reyes, there is funny banter and gritty mystery of a dying little boy to solve (this is CW/TNF for some people). Oh and they also dealth with the end of the world. This was the weakest part of the book but the ending was satisfying nonetheless with a promise of more to come (I hope).
Re-read book 14, THE MEMORY OF LIGHT, the last book of Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. It concludes the stories of all the favourite characters and we get many PoVs from two wonderful characters, Pevara and Androl, who develop a mature age romance (she is 200+ and he is in his 50s, I think).
Re-read Ilona Andews urban fantasy/alien INNKEEPER series (3 books + Maud’s story on her website, 1st book is CLEAN SWEEP). This is my all time favourite UF series. It is so unique with an intergalactic inn that adusts itself to its owner Dina’s wishes and space werewolves and vampires. Every chapter is full of action and wondrous visuals. I would love someone to create a TV series out of this.
SAVE THE CAT WRITES A NOVEL by Jessica Brody. I love writing books and learning more about the craft and the stories I’m reading. This book offers a story recipe for the major turning points of the story (but it’s not formula or formulaic) and introduces the 10 different basic story types, not the same as traditional genres which are actually about the tone of the story and the emotions it evokes. Like drama, comedy, horror, thriller, fantasy and scifi (sense of wonder and big ideas, what if). Romance falls into Buddy Story type which also covers friendship and pet stories. Highly recommended if you’re interested in stories as a writer or reader.
Next I will read SUPER BETTER: How a gameful life can make you stronger, happier, braver and more resilient by Jane McGonigal. She is a game developer who believes that she skills we learn by playing games (burning motivation and resolve to finish the quest, co-operation, problem solving skills) can save the world when we direct those skills to solving the big problems of the world (like global warming, poverty etc)
In Super Better she tells how gaming skills helped her to survive and beat brain damage and depression.
Here’s her TED Talk about the subject: https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world
Yay! I love Whatcha Reading. I was the early bird last week 😉
I had a fairly productive, if not terribly interesting reading month. I did what I tend to do when I don’t know what to read, go to the library, scoop up a bunch of series I’ve dropped (usually mysteries) and then remember why I stopped reading them. I did finish most of them, so that’s good, but it was a pretty meh month. And I read fanfiction. Lots of fanfiction 😉
But first for BEST of the month –
SAGA: VOL 9 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. Ugh, this series hurts my heart. Sometimes I get a little lost in the storylines b/c I go so long between volumes, but it is worth it for all the feels.
THE BEST WORST HOLIDAY PARTY EVER by Olivia Waite. This was an adorable holiday novella that was really just a distilled meet cute. A listless forensic accountant is at his work party and his boss spills wine on him. He meets a woman training to be a sommelier. They help each other out. It was a little light soap bubble of a thing, but I loved that it was just ordinary people in the real world. I want more of that.
MAKING UP by Lucy Parker – This has already been much recced here, so I’ll just say, it was adorable, I loved it, I can’t wait for the next one to come out. I put this in my “effortlessly contemporary” category, where the author makes it feel like they are in the real world. No 20 somethings are joking about Yoko Ono or “Who Shot J.R.?” I know this is my pet peeve, but I feel like it’s hard to do well, easy to spot when it goes wrong. Lucy Parker gets that right. The London Celebrities does have a bit more escapism with some wealthy people and well, celebrities, but it still feels fairly grounded.
TRANSCRIPTION by Kate Atkinson. A literary spy thriller in two different time periods, a mousy young secretary for MI5 during WWII and much more jaded radio producer for the BBC in the 1950s. The stories from timelines overlap and you begin to see why she is who she is. This was my only standout audio for the month and I really enjoyed it. It got mediocre reviews and started slow, but I liked it much better than LIFE AFTER LIFE, which got much better reviews, fwiw.
SEDUCED BY A PIRATE by Eloisa James. This was a cute novella that spun off the THE UGLY DUCKLING. Hero pirate returns home to his wife and their unconsummated marriage. More pirates, I’m in a piratical mood, I guess. There were some weird things to unpack about the heroine’s virginity and how the hero felt about it. Probably not historically inaccurate, but a “Your Mileage May Vary” sort of thing.
The “Okay” of the Month
BRYANT AND MAY: HALL OF MIRRORS by Christopher Fowler. This pains me to say, but this one was a bit uneven. I loved the idea of turning back the clock and visiting these characters when they were younger, but the actual mystery solution was very easy to spot.
TEN ARGUMENTS TO DELETE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS RIGHT NOW by Jaron Lanier, I liked this, even if like a lot of these books, it can come off as a bit extreme. I did walk away from twitter and “free” online news this year and reading this helped reinforce why. But I do still have an instagram account 😉 Short and a bit repetitive, but easily digestible.
THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and WINTER’S CHILD by Margaret Coel. This wrapped up the Wind River Mystery Series, set on an Arapaho reservation in Wyoming. The two detectives are a Jesuit priest and an Arapaho lawyer. I stopped reading these for the mysteries a long time ago (they’re pretty easy) but kept reading for the deep sense of place and how the past and present tied together. These were a both good. I especially like TMWFTE (way too long to type) and it’s story about Butch Cassidy. There is a bit of romantic tension between the priest and lawyer and I felt like it was resolved in an open ended but satisfying way.
And now for the “Meh” Lots of “meh” this month.
MUCH ADO ABOUT YOU by Eloisa James. Eloisa James once again confirms why she is so hit or miss with me. I felt like the “main couple” were barely in this and I was given very little reason to care about them. I loved the idea of the series, but I barely made it through this and DNF’ed the next one. I must always approach Eloisa James with caution (shrug). Her fairy tale series is her only consistent hit so far and it helps I love then narrator Susan Duerden.
MOURN TO YOUR DEAD by Deborah Crombie. Not terribly plausible English procedural from the 90s. I couldn’t believe how cozy and sympathetic the police got with the family of bereaved. Not that cops shouldn’t be rude, but aren’t family members the prime suspects? Hmmm. May check out more. We’ll see.
ANGEL WITH TWO FACES by Nicola Upson. Good writing, good setting, good mystery but I won’t spoil it but there was recent discussion about mystery stories being too dark and various themes being upsetting? Yeah, that. Lots of that. And the next book is about infant murder, so I may have to stop with this series.
QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES by Kerry Greenwood. Even for the Phryne Fisher mysteries, this one had a ludicrous coincidence. Maybe even more than one if I followed the story correctly. Still, I love Phryne and I don’t have much longer to go in the series, so I’ll keep at it. But these are ‘get to them when I get to them’ books. Not rush out and read them books.
There’s lots of exciting stuff on the pile, so hopefully next week will be better.
It was cold here so lots of good reading.
The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden. Re-read in anticipation of the third in the trilogy. I’m #2 on the library list and trying not to buy.
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. This was a book club pick for February. Very good.
The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay. Set in Bangalore and Kashmir. Naive girl from Bangalore goes to Kashmir in search of a family friend and not understanding the political situation there, makes a mess of people’s lives. I have recommended this one quite a bit.
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri. This book was recommended by the author of City of Brass on her really interesting Twitter feed. I enjoyed it,but a couple of times I found myself wondering if this was YA. Good though.
The Fifth Season by N.K.Jamison. Lots of world building in this first of a trilogy. Just picked up #2 from the library.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black.I was late to the game in reading this, but now I understand why so many love it. I have the book on hold at the library.
The Kingdom of Copper by S.A.Chakraborty. I’m halfway through and thinking this will be on my best list for the year! I’ll finish this weekend.
@Reeta R Sweet, another fan of Save the Cat Writes a Novel! I also found the book very helpful for my current WIP. I particularly loved the bits where she broke down all the beats in actual books. Happy writing!
Now then on to the rest of my month.
Read:
A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
This book had the worst case of 2nd book syndrome I have ever seen! Most of the plot was literally pointless to the rest of the series and didn’t do much in the way of character development either. Also The secondary protagonist, Delilah is the worst and she’s not even a villain. Not only does she straight-upcsend an innocent character to their death basically and steal their identity to enter a contest her victim spent years training for because she was that selfish , she’s telling people how little she’s like other girls CONSTANTLY! It doesn’t help that any other female character is underdeveloped, portrayed as shallow for liking girly things or a villain( the author is female btw). The only thing that prevented this book from landing on my DNF shelf is that the male leads are compelling and the world-building is good.
Darkest Night by Tara Thomas.
The biggest issue was that this was a short book, yet it had a lot of stuff going on it which muddles everything up into a bit of a mess. Despite this, the book would have been an okay if practically half the book was just extra stuff, not the book itself. This left a bad taste in my mouth because it just felt deceptive. Despite the cliffhanger at the end I probably won’t be continuing the rest of the series.
DNF :
Chaser by Kylie Scott
I’m putting this as the second section instead of the last one to illustrate that my reading month was not that great. I only got two chapters into this book before I dropped it like a hot potatoe. For strarters it was exclusively a hero narrated book which I have trouble getting behind, but that was entirely why I dropped it. The dialogue was really confusing and the narrator was incredibly inconsistent, so I just had to place it on my DNF shelf. I probably won’t pick up another Kylie Scott either.
Reading: The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter by Rod Duncan
This book and Save the Cat Writes a Novel saved this reading month for me. Basically this book follows a woman named Elizabeth who has a double life as a woman of Victorian society and her “twin brother” whose an information dealer/private investigator. One day a local duchess calls “ her twin” to look into the disappearance of the Dutchess’s actual brother. The case takes her to a circus where the brother was last seen and an interesting exploration of gender and the tragic life of the lower classes of England follows. Also there’s Steampunk, clever orphans, action, adventure and sleuthing. So far there are only hints of a love story to come, but I’m not even half way through the book, let alone the series, so I’m sure it will be expanded upon. Seriously pick up this book( and the rest of the series while your at it) if you can!
I’m happy to say I had several stand-out reads this month. The first was RAINY DAY SISTERS by Kate Hewitt, which is a women’s fiction with romantic elements about two women who, despite being half-sisters, barely know each other. When the younger sister experiences a few simultaneous personal disasters, the older sister surprises both of them by inviting her to come and stay with her. I really enjoyed reading about the sisters dealing with their pasts and coming to know each other.
Another favorite was DEAR MRS. BIRD by AJ Pearce, which I loved despite it being set in WWII, which I usually avoid. The story involves a young woman who is trying desperately to keep her chin up during the London Blitz. She believes she’s getting her dream job in journalism, only to discover that she will be typing letters for the advice column of a failing women’s magazine. She decides the columnist isn’t answering enough of the letters and takes things into her own hands. The story was funny, touching, and sad at times.
A third win for me was YOU by Caroline Kepnes, which is not at all a romance, even though the narrator strongly believes he is a romantic hero. After bingeing the Netflix/Lifetime series, which I found utterly fascinating, I had to try the original novel. It’s a bit different from the show, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It’s written in first-person present tense, which is normally a dealbreaker for me, but it really worked to give a sense of immediacy as we follow Joe’s charming, funny, completely pyschopathic thoughts. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of how easily romantic tropes can be twisted into something terrifying.
Finally, I read Nora Roberts’ SHELTER IN PLACE, which felt like a return to some of her better writing. Her last few books have been so lackluster; I suspect she lost interest in romance a while ago, but felt constrained to keep writing it for her fans/paychecks. The romance is a small part of the overall story, but the main plot was quite a page-turner. She made the choice to reveal the villain quite early in favor of setting up a cat and mouse game, which worked well for me. Trying to guess who the villain was wouldn’t have been as interesting as the focus on what the villain would do next and how our heroes would save the day.
I recently finished ACT LIKE IT by Lucy Parker, and I can see why everyone likes it so much. It was really fun, and I enjoyed the London theater setting. I’m looking forward to checking out the other books in the series.
I’ve also been reading some James Bond and Winter Solider/Hawkeye/Black Widow comics.
Up next from the TBR pile will probably be IT TAKES TWO by Jenny Holiday and THE FRAME-UP by Meghan Scott Molin.
I’ve read SEVENTEEN BOOKS this month (freelance work has been dead since the end of the year and the job market locally is grim, so lots of free time between panic attacks), but I can’t discuss several of them because they were contest-judging obligations, which is probably for the best because WHOADAMN would most of the things I was forced to read blister your eyeballs, and I do not mean that in the “omg so hot” sense.
THE GOOD
Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine: The “Woman Survives Against Overwhelming Odds” story I needed at this point.
Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig: The “Woman Takes Destiny into Her Own Hands and Chokes the Crap Out of It” story I needed at this point.
The Impossible Girl by Lydia Kang: Cross-dressing resurrectionist gothic mystery with a little bit of romance.
Dawn by Octavia Butler: There’s a reason she’s a legend. Gave me a lot of food for thought about stuff outside of the book.
Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson: I was rooting so hard for the long-suffering protagonist, right up to the point where I started wondering if the whole thing was a con. CW for child death.
DNF
Hello Kitty Must Die by Angela S. Choi: Protagonists don’t have to be “likable,” but this one was too despicable to voluntarily spend time with.
A Study in Honor by Claire O’Dell: I had a lot of issues with this, but mostly it was boring, with barely a suggestion of a plot halfway through.
Body on Baker Street by Vicki Delany and The Cracked Spine by Paige Shelton: I had numerous writer-brain complaints about both of these, many of which non-writers might consider nitpicky, but if I’m picking nits, there’s an overwhelming infestation and/or there’s not enough story underneath to engage me.
I also fully read an apocalypse anthology unimaginatively titled The End of the World, but I have some kind of genetic predisposition to hate short stories and anthologies, so it was a slog. Only 6 out of 19 stories warrant my positive opinion. Some of them were first published as far back as 1944, so if you’re a SF story fan, you may have already read most of them elsewhere.
Caitlin Crews/Megan Crane and new favorite Sybil Bartel made up the bulk of my reading this month, with a few other books (and a couple of rant-worthy DNFs) thrown in for good measure.
Published in December, REINDEER GAMES is an anthology of Christmas/snowbound/enforced-proximity short stories by nine different writers. I was really looking forward to this collection because it features new works by some of my favorites authors. I didn’t read all nine stories, but the ones I did read are a bit of a mixed-bag. As is often the case with romance short stories, many of the ideas and plot points would benefit from being expanded to novel length. The best of the bunch was Adriana Anders’s SAVED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN: enforced-proximity done absolutely right as a curvy heroine and a reclusive hero wait out a blizzard in his cozy cabin. Ainsley Booth’s STUCK is also very good: a second-chance romance between two people (who haven’t seen each other for ten years) stranded by a snowstorm. I really liked Booth’s sex-positive erotica-writing heroine who is unafraid to articulate exactly what she wants. The story also includes a line that perfectly encapsulates the way one partner should be when dominating (with consent) the other: “I’ll be gentle with her, in spirit if not in body.” Charlotte Stein’s WAITING IN VAIN bothered me because of problematic consent when the hero initially shows up unannounced and uninvited in the heroine’s bedroom on Christmas Eve. Eve Dangerfield’s DYSFUNCTIONAL features a waitress who finds her three years of (voluntarily) celibacy ending when she’s locked in a room with a man whose family is buying the restaurant where she works. As much as I love Dangerfield’s writing, this story felt more like a rough draft than a finished product—the characters needed more development and there were a lot of sloppy spelling errors.
I knew from the very first page that I was going to love Jackie Ashenden’s latest, KING’S RULE, and I tore through it in an afternoon. It’s the second book in her Kings of Sydney series, published by Harlequin’s Dare line. I’ve had issues with the Dare books in the past, but KING’S RULE is one of the best I’ve read from them. So much Ashenden catnip: The hero and heroine are step-siblings who simultaneously hate and desire each other—a situation that only gets worse (or better, depending on your perspective) when the heroine takes a temporary position as the hero’s personal assistant. For various reason, the h&h are both lonely and isolated people. They both have the Ashenden-requisite astonishing eyes, unique fragrances, family secrets, and bad parents. Throw in hot sex (much of it of a D/s nature), emotional complications, and angst—and we have a cracklingly good example of the “Ashenden template.” Highly-recommended, although I’d suggest reading KING’S PRICE, the first book in the series, to start.
I continued my stroll through Sybil Bartel’s back-catalog of Miami-based super-alpha bodyguards & security specialists with RECKLESS, which features the bodyguard/woman-being-stalked trope. The book has an opposites-attract theme: the hero is a working-class guy, raised with his many brothers by a widowed mother in straightened circumstances; the heroine is a polished Greek-American “princess” from a small (fictional) European principality. Then I read MERCILESS where a woman, attempting to flee an abusive relationship, has a one-night-stand with a Marine who is about to redeploy. Three years later, the now former Marine sees the woman with a small child—who looks just like him. Angsty complications commence! The hero of Bartel’s NEIL is a former Danish Special Forces operative, nicknamed “Viking” by the heroine (a single mom with some really bad Baby-Daddy drama). When he’s not quoting Shakespeare or proverbs, Neil is pretty much monosyllabic. I liked that while the heroine wants a better life for herself and her son, she doesn’t want to be beholden to a rich and powerful man for it. And I liked that Neil wasn’t magically transformed by luuurve—he remains the strong & silent type throughout the entire book. And another plus: the plot also includes…AMNESIA!
TALON was the first of Bartel’s books that I didn’t find to be a smooth, quick read. It has a rather convoluted plot involving motorcycle gangs and drug cartels; and, although technically a stand-alone, this was also the first Bartel book I’ve read that was heavily reliant on knowing what occurred in a previous book to get the full frame of the story. Plus, the quiet, passive heroine is a bit of a cypher (the book is written entirely from the hero’s POV), so she was upstaged by another female character—the ballsy and brash woman who works at the hero’s surf shop. That woman is in turn the heroine of Bartel’s ANDRE, where we discover she is an escapee from a religious cult. This in turn leads us to another book, CALLAN, where the hero is also a cult escapee. He meets—and feels an immediate attraction to—his newly-discovered step-sister. CALLAN is my favorite Bartel book so far and has some similarities with Sarina Bowen’s KEEPSAKE, in that both of the heroes were raised in a cult and, initially, view the world through the cult’s framework and have some difficulty relating to life on the outside.
In Caitlin Crews’s HP romance, THE BRIDE’S BABY OF SHAME, a proper upper-class English woman, a few weeks away from an arranged marriage, falls into insta-love/lust with an Italian race car driver. She loses her heart—and her virginity—to him. But, oh noes!—a week before the wedding she discovers she is pregnant! What will she do? Extra servings of angst in this one. Crews’s latest HP, HIS BOUGHT VIRGIN BRIDE, is very much a standard HP: a self-made gazillionaire marries the sheltered daughter of an ancient blue-blooded family. Once they leave the isolated Spanish island where they spend their honeymoon, interference by family—along with differences of class, upbringing, and outlook—threaten the passion they have shared.
There was more this month from the prolific Caitlin Crews: UNDONE is the new book in her Hotel Temptation series for Harlequin’s Dare line. I really liked UNLEASHED, the first book in the series, which I read a couple of months ago. UNDONE isn’t quite as good as UNLEASHED but it’s still an entertaining read. The heroine is an uptight, workaholic Canadian attorney (she’s also Black—although, other than references to her lovely dark skin and soft curls, her race plays no part in the story). She discovers her fiancé and her best friend are having an affair. The wedding is cancelled, but the heroine decides to take the honeymoon alone (honeymooning alone after a bad breakup seems to be Romancelandia’s trope-du-jour). At a boutique hotel on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, she meets a handsome American handyman and promptly (and uncharacteristically) begins a no-strings-attached affair with him. Of course, the handyman hero (the half-brother of the hero of UNLEASHED) has many secrets. Some very hot sex scenes in this one; along with an interesting subtext about the difference between telling an outright lie versus simply allowing someone to believe an incorrect assumption—and whether the latter is more defensible than the former.
Even more Caitlin Crews, this time under her alternate pen name, Megan Crane: SEAL’S HONOR is the first of her new Alaska Force novels, about a group of veterans (all from different branches of the military) who live in the remote reaches of Alaska and form a de facto security squad. In this book, a woman—the hero’s former childhood neighbor—shows up looking for help after witnessing her roommate’s murder and believing herself to be next on the murderers’ list. Both the romance and the murder-mystery were rather perfunctory in this one, plus there’s a lot of “first book in a series” syndrome with the introduction of many supporting characters and their backgrounds, but I think I’ll continue with the series (the next book is due in May) because of the fact that each of the men in the force is dealing with some sort of angsty emotional pain and because of Crane’s beautiful descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness.
I thoroughly enjoyed Suleikha Snyder’s TIKKA CHANCE ON ME which I read after SBTB’s very favorable review. I don’t think there’s much I can add to that review’s discussion of the relationship between an Indian-American woman (who dropped out of grad school to help in her parents’ restaurant when her mother got sick) and a local “bad boy” who became an enforcer for a motorcycle gang, so I’m going to address something I wasn’t expecting but I appreciated very much: Snyder’s willingness to address the dreadful politics of much motorcycle club culture—the racism, the white nationalism, the quasi-fascist bullying and violence. I’ve read my share of MC romances and (other than Kati Wilde, who has created an incredibly inclusive and open club in her Hellfire Riders series by contrasting their members to those of other clubs), politics are rarely addressed, so Snyder’s approach was as refreshing as it was unexpected. Also, TCOM is a sexy story with great chemistry between the leads. Highly-recommended.
Back in the day, I read everything Jennifer Blake (aka Patricia Maxwell) published. She started out writing Gothics and then moved to bodice-rippers, mostly set in antebellum Louisiana. Her early historicals, while well-written with thoughtful heroines and lots of surrounding detail, also, unfortunately, had some cringeworthy representations of slaves along with rapey (albeit contrite) heroes. (In Blake’s later books, sexual activity between heroes and heroines was always fully consensual.) Somewhere in the mid-nineties, my tastes changed and, with the exception of an occasional book, I stopped reading her. So it was with a bit of nostalgia that I decided to try Blake’s 2012 contemporary, THE TUSCAN’S REVENGE WEDDING, and was pleasantly surprised by both how much I enjoyed it and how much like a Harlequin Presents it was: There’s an Italian billionaire and an American woman who enters his orbit when her brother and his sister are injured together in a car accident. There’s a beautiful Tuscan villa and lovely descriptions of the surrounding countryside. There’s warm and rather euphemistic romantic encounters. There’s a typical HP level of angst, mostly involving the hero’s conflating responsibility for some things with control of all things. I liked that the heroine of TTRW was older and more experienced than a standard HP heroine and that she was already established in a job and a profession. And I liked the sensitive and inclusive portrayal of a secondary character who has Down Syndrome. All-in-all, a good read—and possibly a gateway to reading more of Blake’s contemporary romances.
[CW: rape, violence] I was so ambivalent about Pam Godwin’s KNOTTED, I had to think for a while after I finished it as to whether I was thumbs-up or thumbs-down—and I still have to say I can’t whole-heartedly either recommend or condemn the book. There’s no doubt Godwin is a talented writer, and there’s no doubt that I enjoy my share of dark reads, but the story—about teenage lovers torn apart by rape, violence, murder, and nefarious goings-on in an Oklahoma ranching community—was so dark it was often hard to read and could definitely be triggering. I especially disliked the hero with his patronizing, mansplaining “I know what’s best for you even if you don’t like it” treatment of the traumatized heroine. And I absolutely hated the heroine’s total lack of agency; of course, she had no control over her rape, but even her recovery takes place in accordance with the hero’s wishes and timelines (and, conveniently for him, also in tune with his sexual kinks); and for years the heroine is denied the full story behind her assault, even though several people close to her have always known the facts. I wanted there to be a point where the heroine chose to seek professional counseling rather than rely on the questionable methods of a rancher in his early twenties who got his information about processing traumatic events from on-line sources. All that being said, however, I’ll probably read on because I’m still interested in how the story will play out in subsequent books in the trilogy. So, a positive endorsement of sorts, I suppose.
I DNF’d two books this month and I’m going to rant about my reasons for tapping out on both of them. The first DNF was Jenny Holiday’s SAVING THE CEO (I already posted a modified rant about this on SMEXY, so apologies for the duplication). This was the first Holiday I’ve tried and I’ve read positive reviews of some of her other books, but in SAVING THE CEO she used my least favorite authorial device: presenting secondary female characters in a negative light so the heroine can shine brighter in comparison—which, in this case, means the heroine’s coworkers at a very upscale restaurant are criticized for highlighting their hair, having manicures, and looking “trim” in their uniforms. I didn’t feel much sympathy for the heroine whose hair refused to stay in a bun and whose uniform was too tight—she was so obviously meant to be a diamond in the rough compared to those well-groomed mean girls who do their nails and wear appropriately-sized clothes. Also—as someone who put herself through college on waitress money—I couldn’t understand the heroine not either memorizing or at least jotting down the dinner specials. Her inability to recall the specials is an early plot point—but isn’t knowing them supposed to be part of her job? Apparently we’re supposed to think she’s on a higher moral plane by not doing her job correctly. But it was when the heroine—with no supporting evidence—smugly assured herself that she was the only restaurant employee who knew who Ebenezer Scrooge was, I knew I’d had enough. Writers, please give us reasons to like your heroines, not just reasons to (presumably) hate the women around them.
The other DNF was Elle Kennedy’s FEELING HOT where, within the first few pages, the hero’s dick is described variously as “a baseball bat,” “granite,” “aching,” “a monstrous bulge,” and the good ol’ reliable “hard as a rock.” Jeez dude, we get it—you’re horny and you have a big boner! But when the most interesting thing about a male character is his cock (I can’t remember his name, but I know on page two his hard-on was making his pants feel too tight), even in an erotic romance, that’s simultaneously too much (about his genitals) and not enough (about anything else that might make him intriguing). Well, it’s either that or I’m getting to be a real fuddy-duddy in my old age because, even to discover what new erection-related adjectives Kennedy could come up with, I just couldn’t make myself turn another page.
I’ve already DNF’d one book, so I feel like this year’s not off to the greatest reading start. But it’s not all bad.
I decided to do a Tana French reread when I heard about the upcoming TV show, and I’ve already burned my way through In the Woods and The Likeness. I think I might skip Frank’s book. Because ugh. Frank.
Finished up The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie which I’d started back in December. It’s about the Spanish conquest of Peru and it’s…a lot. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, honestly. Although I did feel I learned a lot about a time period I wasn’t at all familiar with.
And for the rest I’ve been reading a lot of YA for work. Kind of a mixed bag, there, but I’m about halfway through I’ll Give You the Sun and I’m absolutely in love with it so far.
I’ve been reading Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series. Some are good, some are stunning, and I can’t read more than one or two at a time. I just finished reading The Duchess War by Courtney Milan, based entirely on her tweet about the meet cute.
I’ve got a new job, so my reading time is vastly curtailed. Darn those adult responsibilities.
I did a bunch of rereads this month because that was what I was in the mood for.
Loved:
Love Christina Lauren’s JOSH AND HAZEL’S GUIDE TO NOT DATING but DNF (it was a reread) MY FAVORITE HALF NIGHT STAND because I forgot how cringey and awful it is when the hero realizes the heroine is lying to him in a pretty serious way. I wasn’t up to that angst this week.
Read Kendra Elliot’s A MERCIFUL FATE which is her new release in the Mercy Thompson series, and I enjoyed it. I mentioned on here a week or two ago that I am always reluctant to start these books (I think because it’s not my usual genre) but I always end up speeding through, and this was no different. I definitely didn’t predict the bad guy in this one.
NIGHTCHASER by Amanda Bouchet. I’m convinced now that SB Amanda and I have similar tastes because I really enjoy whenever I read one of her recs. I liked A PROMISE OF FIRE too and reread that after Nightchaser, but didn’t continue to reread the whole series.
FIRELIGHT by Kristen Callihan. This was a lot of fun. I’d read and DNF the fifth (I think) book in this series a while back and didn’t realize it until I went to put the next one on hold. So the first is much better, or maybe it’s one of those series where you have to read it in order. This one is steampunk historical romance with some fantasy elements. The romance hits a lot of my buttons: age difference, “arranged”ish marriage, falling in love with a spouse after the wedding.
Pretty Good:
The OFF-CAMPUS series by Elle Kennedy. I saw the first one was free and really enjoyed it (THE DEAL). It features a young woman who has been raped in the past and wants to learn to enjoy sex, and of course ends up falling for the ripped hockey player that helps her out. The rest I enjoyed enough to keep going but I probably could have stopped at THE DEAL and not felt I missed anything.
WARRIOR OF THE WORLD by Jeffe Kennedy. After PAGES OF THE MIND, Kennedy became an auto-purchase author for me, and I don’t regret it, but this series of hers just isn’t my favorite. It features elephants and a former princess turned badass warrior, though.
MANAGED and IDOL by Kristen Callihan. Managed might actually be a “love” for me but I was kind of let down by Idol. I read them backwards. And don’t have a burning desire to read the last book in the series. I guess I don’t really love the rock star romance thing, and Managed features the manager and social media manager of the band instead of the actual players, so it doesn’t quite fall into the rock star thing. Cute love stories either way though.
DNF: HOT AND BADGERED by Shelly Laurenston. I know a lot of people (Sarah!) on here love this and her. I did love Call of Crows a lot. I ended up stopping this book because the energy was just so… chaotic and frantic. The three main women were very! quirky! and things were always! happening! I didn’t hate it but was definitely in the mood for a chiller read at that time. I think that’s when I started looking for rereads.
I picked up 20 ebooks at the end of year Amazon sale with my Christmas gift cards with the intent of trying authors that I hadn’t read before. Most of what I bought was YA fantasy because YA fantasy is so much better now than it was when I was a teen.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas: This was actually a reread that I wanted to do because I’m planning on finishing the series before spring. I had previously picked up the second book and only got 80 pages into it because I couldn’t remember what had occurred in this book. I really enjoyed this and it was the perfect thing to read after Christmas. It goes fast, the characters are interesting and I love the world-building.
The Hunter, The Highlander and The Duke by Kerrigan Byrne. I thought The Hunter was weak but The Highlander was awesome. I flew through that book. Liam and Mena were great characters and I loved their romance. The Duke was kind of inbetween the two as far as quality and even though I just read it a few weeks ago, I don’t really remember much about it. Now reading The Scot Beds His Wife.
Caraval and Legendary by Stephanie Garber. I loved both these books. I loved the characters. I loved the setting. I loved that even after the second book I’m not sure if Legend is really Legend. I loved the dresses. This series has a lovely otherworldly feel and I’m really looking forward to the last book in May.
No Prince for Riley, Jack’s Ever After and Fangs by Anna Katmore. Katmore is not the best writer but I really enjoy her books. They are always light romances, the characters suit their ages and it is always a happy ever after. All three were soothing and perfect to read by tending sick kids.
The Other Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn. There were parts where I had laugh out loud moments, but the ending of this book was really weak. Quinn has been hit and miss for me ever since the Smythe-Smith quartet and this book was more of a miss.
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel. I don’t even know how to rate this book or review it. It’s disturbing on so many levels, the whodunit was obvious, but I stayed up reading it (sick kids struck again) and I liked it? Maybe? Trigger warning as the book is about sexual assault.
When a Duke Loves a Woman by Lorraine Heath. The kids gave me their virus so I read this in one day while sick in bed. It was boring but it didn’t require heavy thinking so it was ok? I guess? It didn’t really stick with me and I’m not sure I’ll continue with the rest of the series.
My Plain Jane by Hand, Ashton, and Meadows. I loved this book. I have never made it through Jane Eyre so this was good enough for me. I enjoyed Charlotte Bronte as a character and glad that she got the HEA.
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. This was another reread in preparation for King of Scars coming out this month. I love the Grishaverse and I love the vividness of Bardugo’s writing.
Graphic Novels Xmen Gold Vol 5, Teen Titans Vol 2 and Vol 3 and Titans: The Lazarus Contract. I enjoyed all 4 of these volumes and they give me what I need. I’m all in for the WTFery. Currently reading Raven: Daughter of Darkness Vol 1.
The Truth About Love and Dukes and The Trouble with True Love by Laura Lee Guhrke. I thought the first book was ho hum and Henry and Irene didn’t really grab me. But I really liked the second one with Clara and Rex. I liked how they became friends first and that friendship really made the book for me.
Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas. I swear this book was the bane of my existence. I started it 3 times. And third time was the charm. I flew through 200 pages in one night and didn’t look back. I ended up really loving it once I got past the first 30%. I’m on board with where Maas took her characters and I’ll finish out the series this spring.
Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas. This felt like more of a fill in book for The Hathaways series, but I enjoyed it. Klepyas is always soothing for me. I have book 3 on hold at the library but I’m really looking forward to book 4.
Lady Be Bad by Megan Frampton. This book was just bad. I returned the other two in the series back tot he library unread.
Endless Water, Starless Sky by Rosamund Hodge. This was the second book in Hodge’s retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet is a trained soldier and the magic that has been instilled in her makes her avenge any killings of her clansmen. And there are revenants due to a failed magical undertaking hundreds of years ago. I really like the unusual take on R&J but this fell flat to me and the ending was rather drab and too perfect.
Prince of Dreams by Lisa Kleypas. Meh. This read old skool and I don’t enjoy super alpha heroes. The whole second part of the book was straight up WTFery.
@KateB – I love Kristin Lavransdatter! There’s a movie version which I didn’t like nearly as much as the book.
I read a few standouts, two set in new magical worlds:
SNOWSPELLED one of the daily deals recently set in a world with female politicians and the (more emotional) men are magicians. The family relationships are lovely and supportive and there’s a tall dark talented ex fiance at a house party snowed in by a magical snowstorm.
OUTCROSSING is set in another magical world in which class differences and availability of magic schooling, not just magical talent affect a person.
I agree with Mary about Jefferson Kennedy’s WARRIOR OF the WORLD, not as good as some of her previous books, and the books are so short it seems like they could just be combined into one book.
DNF Avery Flynn’s MUFFINTOP. I couldn’t finish this book! The heroine was plus sized but that seemed to be the only interesting thing about her. Every thought she or any other person hard about her had to do with her size or shape. Nope, not for me in spite of being fairly substantial myself.
Waiting to read: LOVING THE SECRET Billionaire – I started it and liked it so much I decided to wait until I had time to just read without distractions!
READ:
Sierra Simone’s PRIEST and the follow up novella MIDNIGHT MASS. I loved PRIEST a lot – amazing how she wove the sexual and spiritual, and a lovely treatise on the spirituality of love. I also just really liked the hero and heroine. I read the novella because I just wanted more of them, but in general I don’t read follow up novellas because I hate to see the couple go through more hardships after their HEA. While it was sexy and lovely in places this one just cemented my feelings on that because even though I did like their second HEA, it was seriously heartbreaking at parts.
CURRENTLY READING:
THE BOYFRIEND by Abigail Barnette. The first book in the series (THE BOSS) is one of my favorites and I’ve reread it multiple times but overall the series is a little hit or miss for me because of all the heartbreak and angst both hero and heroine go through. This book gets more into the MMF territory previous books began to explore and I’m not sure it’s working for me because I love the original couple so much and I’m not sure if I believe the build up to adding the third partner. But I still
Love all the characters enough that I’ll eventually finish it.
A COURT OF WINGS AND RUIN by Sarah J Maas. Slowly making my way through this one with a friend. The whole series has gone in fits and starts for me. Just as I’m starting to get bored, something really engrossing happens and sucks me back in.
I’ve had a good reading year, so far, though five of them were rereads:
New:
Girls of Paper and Fire, by Natasha Ngan- YA fantasy with a forbidden f/f romance. Started this one late last year. I liked it, especially the romance, but the story setup involves a lot of abusive aspects. (MC is part of a harem)
The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang- Fantasy. MC goes to an exclusive academy to train to be a soldier. I liked it, especially the east Asian setting, but it’s a bit slow at the beginning and pretty brutal near the end. (Pretty much all the TWs for probably the last 1/3)
The Consuming Fire, by John Scalzi- SF, sequel to The Collapsing Empire. If you liked the first book, you’ll like this. Went places I didn’t expect, yet was pretty much what I expected.
In An Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire. I liked it, but didn’t love it. I don’t seem to like the prequel books in this series as much the ones set at the school.
Canal Dreams, by Iain Banks. This book is crap. Not even fun crap. Apparently, even the author realized it was.
Rereads:
The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks. This is kind of a coming of age story, meets gothic horror. (Isolated house and messed up family with all kinds of secrets) I like this book, but I’m not sure the revaluation at the end has aged well. (Warning: Frank is a really messed up individual who murders small animals and children)
Every Heart a Doorway/Down Among the Sticks and Bones/Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire. I still really enjoyed all of these.
Of Mice and Magic, by Ursula Vernon. I love this series and don’t care that these are children’s books.
Currently Reading:
Bellewether, by Susanna Kearsley. Contemporary romance with, historical parts. This a bit slow, imo, but things seem to be picking up in the historical parts. Sadly, it’s been made pretty clear, in the present day part, that that couple aren’t going to get a HEA.
@DiscoDolly I haven’t read Saving the CEO yet (it’s sitting on my kindle), but it sounds very different than the Holiday books so don’t write her off completely!
I’m still reading less than usual, but here’s what I read:
99 PERCENT MINE by Sally Thorne- I got an ARC of this from Edelweiss. I regret to say I didn’t love this one. It was okay, but something was missing for me. I liked so much about the heroine and I liked what was shown of the hero, but I really could have used his POV to connect to him more. I felt like there was a lot of backstory, things the heroine was dealing with from her past, that were brought up but never fully dealt with. I also didn’t like the way two smaller conflicts (not the main conflict) were handled. I thought they were just written off without fully dealing with the situation. My other problem was the heroine is a twin and she’s always felt overshadowed by her more charismatic, outgoing twin brother. I found this sympathetic, but when the twin shows up, the story seems to get better. The dialogue is closer to that of THE HATING GAME once he shows up, snappier and funnier so I basically had the same reaction everyone else does when encountering the twins. I think this makes it sound like I liked it less than I did. All of these problems were small things that just had the effect of not quite letting me get pulled into the story as much as I would like yet I never felt like not finishing it or that the story was outright bad. It may be a victim of my too high expectations and it may be one where other people’s mileage will vary.
WHEN WE LEFT CUBA BY Chanel Cleeton- I got my ARC from Penguin Next to Read. I just adored this book. I would say it’s women’s fiction not romance. I loved Cleeton’s writing style. The characters, history, and setting were well-done and engaging. I’m regretting returning her NEXT YEAR IN HAVANA to the library before reading it then passing up a chance to buy it on sale. I highly recommend finding this one when it comes out in April.
THE PROPOSAL by Jasmine Guillory- Sweet, fun read with great characters
MY SISTER THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite- I enjoyed this satirical novel about a woman dealing with her murderous sister. It was quirky and different, just what I needed at the time I read it.
MY FAVORITE HALF-NIGHT STAND by Christina Lauren- I loved this one so much! The hero and the heroine were both so relatable. They were flawed, but still sympathetic and so funny. Highly recommend this book.
THE INCENDARIES by R.O. Kwon- I read this book for my local newspaper’s yearly book challenge fitting the category of a book with a character different than you (I guess they got tired of coming up with categories because doesn’t that fit just about every book?). It’s set at a private, fictional college and deals with a former evangelical character whose abandoned his faith and his relationship with a Korean-American women who gets drawn into a cult. Some of the storyline felt unrealistic to me being from a conservative area surrounded by a certain viewpoint, I found it hard to believe that the nation’s overall reaction to an event would be the way it was in the book because similar things were thought of very differently in by the majority in my area. I did enjoy the book despite finding both characters unlikeable. It was a fast read that I found interesting and had me thinking for a long time after finishing it.
THE HOLLOW OF FEAR by Sherry Thomas- Great installment in the Charlotte Holmes series
FOR THE DUKE’S EYES ONLY by Lenora Bell- I have overall been less enthusiastic about Bell’s books than the romance community on a whole, but I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s a childhood friends to enemies to lovers story and I liked the chemistry between the characters. I must warn that Bell’s books are not for readers concerned with historical accuracy.
AS YOU WISH by Cary Elwes- I’m planning a Princess Bride rewatch after finishing this delightful memoir about the making of the movie
I’m currently four books behind on my Goodreads challenge even after changing it from 200 to 150 so I really need to get over this slump soon. Right now I’m reading and enjoying Kelly Bowen’s LAST NIGHT WITH THE EARL then I have ARCHENEMIES by Marissa Meyer to read before I have to return it to the library.
Currently reading: “Witches of New York.” Interesting enough to keep me engaged thus far. Has kind of a female “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” vibe, but I had a lot of problems with said book, so we’ll see.
Recently finished, on recommendations from the Bitchery: “My One and Only Duke.” Witty and smart. I’ll be looking for more Grace Burrows. “The Duke I Tempted.” A little more angsty than I was looking for, but still worthwhile. I liked Poppy a lot. “A Study in Honor.” Ren, I’m glad I’m not the only one who found it be a mixed bag. Black, queer, female Watson and Holmes? Sign me up! But alas, no sign of a plot shows up until more than halfway through and there are some tired stereotypes about all veterans being horrifically traumatized and downtrodden. Worse for me is the fact that the Holmes analog is a controlling and manipulative so-and-so, and really never called out on it–if that character were male, I’d call them an alphahole.
DNF – “A Notorious Vow.” Started out well enough, and I liked the idea of a hero with a hearing disability, but the heroine seemed to get progressively more timid, almost pathologically so, and I just couldn’t stick with it.
Well my brain was clearly going faster than my typing hands so I feel the need to correct the first part of my comment for clarity and since I left out part of her name.
@DiscoDollyDeb I haven’t read Saving the CEO yet (it’s sitting on my kindle), but it sounds very different than the Holiday books I’ve read so don’t write her off completely!
I really need to reread/edit my comments before hitting post.
It’s been a really good couple months of reading for me. Some highlights include:
– A HEART IN A BODY IN THE WORLD by Deb Caletti… One of my fav YA contemporary novels I’ve ever read. This is the book I would give to any woman who has experienced violence because of their gender. It’s about grief, PTSD, using your body when you can’t say what you need to say, and ultimately not allowing violence to silence you. A weeper, but beautifully written
– LUNA AND THE LIE by Mariana Zapata… Maybe my favorite grovel ever? I think this was somewhat a return to form for Zapata from the last couple
– TRAIL OF LIGHTNING by Rebecca Roanhorse… Something to fill the Kate Daniels sized hole in my heart now that the main series in that universe has wrapped up! This is darker and more innovative in terms of pacing & underlying plot mechanics. I cannot wait for the sequel
– THE POPPY WAR by RF Kuang… Hooboy, ALL of the CWs!! Very grim dark fantasy with a military boarding school + retelling of the Rape of Nanking. I think this deals thematically with female rage in a way that is really compelling, but ye warned – very different pacing from the first half to the second, which was a deal breaker for some
– BAD BLOOD by John Carreyrou… Superb investigative reporting into arguably the biggest scam since Enron? Yes, please. This is nonfiction that reads like a novel
– THE WOLF IN THE WHALE by Jordanna Max Brodsky… Viking + Inuit fantasy romance with non-binary protagonist? YES QUEEN! This lives up the premise, though again, warning that the pacing is somewhat off. It also needs some serious CWs (it reminded me somewhat of Phoenix Unbound in terms of some seriously fucked up backstories that are a key part of the main characters’ internal/emotional development)
and finally – THE MIDWINTER MAIL ORDER BRIDE by Kati Wilde… This is parodic barbarian fantasy romance (pretty sure the hero’s boner never actually goes away in the entire multi-week trip they’re on?) that manages to still have a seriously intriguing fantasy world/magic system. Also a warlord hero who is EXTREMELY consent focused, thrilled to perform cunnilingus, and is apparently aware that the #metoo movement happened in our world. I had so much fun with this one & can’t wait for the follow up… also that cover is everything. And the heroine refers to herself as a “dong addled maiden.” *mic drop*
OK, this happened: I DNF’d a book. I can’t remember the last time this happened. I have read some pretty crappy books in my time due to the Swiss Family Robinson Theory, but I just couldn’t. I had a feeling my recently resurrected Kindle would die a certain death by drywall if I continued.
Sisters in Love by Melissa Foster started with a meet cute – he accidentally elbows her in the nose. Unfortunately he ogles another woman while apologizing to the her. It goes completely down hill from there. I shut it down when immediately after he comes to her for a counseling session (surprise! he doesn’t know she’s the psychologist he scheduled an appointment with), she calls her sister to tell her. Apparently, it doesn’t violate patient confidentiality as long as you don’t tell your sister what he wanted to talk about. It was bad enough that she let him insist on having the session when they’ve had not one, but two acrimonious, encounters prior to this. I just couldn’t do it.
On the other hand, all other books this month were very satisfying:
Lethal White by Robert Galbr- we all know it’s actually J.K. Rowling – is more proof that gritty grown up mysteries are also her forte.
This Fallen Prey by Kelley Armstrong. Another twisty Rocton mystery which leaves A LOT of questions for the next book.
And lest everyone think I’ve been slacking on the romance:
Of Blood and Bone the latest in Nora Roberts’ post apocalyptic trilogy, has the middle book/setting up the big finish feel, but is still engrossing. Can we see the 3rd book romance coming? Yes, we can.
Lest you think I’ve been slacking on the romance:
Hate Notes Vi Keeland & Penelope Ward lived up to the word of mouth. Favorite romance read of the year, all four weeks of it.
Diablo Lake: Protected by Lauren Dane. Perfect read for a road trip to Ohio. Witches, werewolves, friends & family support & conflict, smexy times. All the stuff I love in a Lauren Dane book.
The Passion of Patrick MacNeill by Virginia Kantra was lovely. I haven’t read anything by her in a loooooong time & I’m wondering why the hell not.
And this morning I finished Anna Lee Huber’s A Study In Death. I’d lost track of the Lady Darby mysteries and am happy to say this was the perfect curl up with book for a VERY cold Saturday morning.
Now I’m off to make more cocoa and start another book. Maybe I’ll finally read that latest Guildhunter that keeps getting pushed aside, or maybe I’ll brave the subzero tundra & grab the latest JAK from the GBPL drive thru. Decisions, decisions.
I started off the year with the Clockwork Boys books by T. Kingfisher – mentioned here some weeks ago – and omg I loved them! Highly recommended.
Now I’m reading Bec McMaster’s London Steampunk books – the second set with titles that are plays on movie names. I read the first group a few years ago. Easy entertaining reading and a good escape from the news.
I’m listening to Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor. It’s a sequel and a really creative fantasy.
I finished 2018 very strong and am off to a pretty good reading start this year too! I finished so many books between last month’s Whatcha Reading and this month’s.
Excellent:
Marry Christmas by Jane Goodger: MOC between an American heiress and a poor but titled hero. The heroine thinks she is in love with someone else. I just absolutely inhaled this thing.
A Christmas Scandal by Jane Goodger: The hero and heroine for this book were secondary characters in Marry Christmas. I absolutely adored the heroine – everyone thought she was always just happy and bubbly, but the hero saw the multitude of layers to her.
Living With Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Guide to Maximizing Brain Health and Reducing Risk of Dementia by Nicole D. Anderson, Kelly J. Murphy, and Angela K. Troyer: Someone close to me has been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment and I read this book along with that person’s spouse. It has great information on prognosis as well steps to reduce the chances it will turn into dementia.
A Holiday by Gaslight by Mimi Matthews: I absolutely adore romances with class differences – this has a wealthy hero of a lower class background and a genteel but impoverished heroine. I know Carrie S. reviewed this and found some of the secondary characters immature, but especially in the case of the heroine’s sister I found her young and spoiled, but still redeemable. And the title is really important – a significant portion of the book does revolve around gaslight.
Very Good:
The Christmas Cottage by Samantha Chase: I loved this second chance romance between the heroine and her best friend’s older brother. Very cute and cozy.
Handmade Holidays by Nathan Burgoine: A m/m novella about found family and the importance of tradition with that found family.
A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie: I read this for my mystery bookclub. While it is the fifth book in the Miss Marple series, it is the first that I have read. The beginning was slow, but the ending was very twisty and satisfying.
Christmas with Her Secret Prince by Nina Singh: This was a very cute Cinderella-like tale of a diner waitress who has an accident (literally) with the prince of a small country. There is even a ball and two Fairy Godmother-like diner owners.
Good:
Greek Tycoon’s Mistletoe Proposal by Kandy Shepherd: A decent Christmas version of the fake relationship trope.
In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue by Lauren Weber: First, this was a history of thriftiness in America from the Revolution through World War II – how the trendiness of saving, reusing, and making do waxed and waned. The last part covered people currently pursuing a less wasteful lifestyle especially those that do it more to reduce their environmental impact than just to save money.
Meh:
Filthy Scrooge by Taryn Quinn: The hero asks the heroine for sex in exchange for him helping her with her business. I tried to get past that although the squick factor was very high at the beginning because of the power differential. But at the end the hero became a super asshole towards the heroine and there was just not nearly enough grovel to make up for that. And the hero’s backstory, I just wanted to tell him to grow up – we’ve all had our heartbroken at one point buddy!
New Year for the Crown Prince by Meredith Webber: A Harlequin Medical romance set in Australia at Christmas. I loved the setting because it was such a flip for us in the northern hemisphere – scorching summer for Christmas. This did get dark in places (this book has several CWs) and I didn’t totally buy the chemistry between the hero and heroine.
Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters: A standalone “mystery” of ghosts and small town secrets complete with a cast of quirky eccentric characters. There was way too much going on for my taste.
Bad:
Dashing Through the Snow by Debbie Macomber: Oh, how I hated this book. Maybe I am just not the audience for madcap/screwball/slapstick Christmas romance. All of the characters in this book seemed to have the opposite of any common sense or intelligence. And multiple times I wanted to tell these characters – “That is not how any of this works.”
It has been a good month. So far, I have liked all the books I have read.
HOSED by Pippa Grant and Lili Valente — a rom-com, heavy on the com, with a hot small-town firefighter hero getting hooked on a sex toy company owner’s sister. She had a thing for him in high school that turned to hate. The cover is worth the price of admission.
TUFF ENOUGH by Samantha A Cole — this is a suspense, which I do not read much of because I am not a fan of violence in romance, but this one was not too explicit and had a dog side story. I love the heroes that have a love for animals.
KATIE’S HIGHLANDER by Maeve Greyson — my first time travel in a long time and my first book by Greyson. It has a favorite scenario where the Highland Protectors travel forward in time and then Druid meddling sends them back in time….all the way to 10th century. Quite a difference from today.
ILLEGALLY YOURS by Kate Meader — I’m a fan of Meader’s and liked this quite a bit. I have to go back to read the first in the series because divorce attorneys finding love is great. The British hero in this story, Lucas, may need a little patience from the reader, but he is worth the trouble. I’m eager for the next in the series.
PRICKED by Winter Renshaw — I love Renshaw’s writing because she successfully takes me to places I typically do not choose to go. This is an uber opposites-attract new adult story. I have continued to think about it even as I have moved on to another book. If I didn’t have so many books that need to be read right now, I would go back and read Pricked again.
Every Fourth Saturday with the Bitchery—watch my tbr list grow and my disposable income shrink.
@KateB: Orson Scott Card narrating Fanny Burney? To quote Amy Winehouse, what kind of fuckery is this? (If you haven’t read Burney’s account of her mastectomy—she had one of the first documented procedures—performed without anesthesia! It’s hard to read, but she went on to live a full life, including having a child. Hate to see a straight-up, unapologetic homophobe like Card have anything to do with her legacy.
@K.N.ORear: THE BULLET-CATCHER’S DAUGHTER sounds like it has some similarities with Sarah Walters’s TIPPING THE VELVET, including the Victorian setting and women finding greater freedom when disguised as men. Have you read it?
@HeatherM: THE LIKENESS is my favorite Tana French book, perhaps because the protagonist is female. Frank is a more sympathetic character in “his” book, FAITHFUL PLACE. You discover some things about his past that make his personality more understandable. I didn’t care much for French’s attempt at the “troubled teenage girls” genre, THE SECRET PLACE, though.
@Adrienne: I love PRIEST! My favorite read of 2018. I liked, but did not love, MIDNIGHT MASS. There’s a third book, SINNER, about Tyler’s older brother, who renounced his faith when their sister died. It’s good, but Tyler only appears briefly and, iirc, Poppy isn’t in it at all.
@CelineB: I’ve read so many positive reviews of Jenny Holiday’s book, I was so disappointed with SAVING THE CEO. However, I try not to give up on a writer before I’ve tried at least a couple of their books because even the greatest writer won’t knock one out of the park every time. I think I’ll give one of Holiday’s Bridesmaids books a try.
@Mara (aka Bookslikewhoa): So glad you liked THE MIDWINTER MAIL-ORDER BRIDE. IMHO, Kati Wilde doesn’t get the love and respect she deserves for the incredibly good world building in her books. Plus she does such a great job with novella-length works, which is hard to do because character development and plot points have to be condensed. Her novels are also very good. I’ve been waiting for her next MC romance, LOSING IT ALL, since the summer…and still no sign of it. (By the way, all of Wilde’s heroes are super-alphas, but with enough self-awareness to avoid alpha-hole territory.)
I inhaled Andrea K. Höst’s The Starfighter Invitation over the holidays. It’s near-future set right at the introduction of a highly immersive MMORG so good that – maybe it’s aliens? Might be one to wait until there’s a sequel, unless you’re a Höst fanatic like me, but there are some nice understated details with the protagonist’s grandmother and other characters. Insert my usual comment that Stray (the first in Höst’s most popular series) is always-free at most etailers.
Loved the male lead in Jackie Lau’s Grumpy Fake Boyfriend.
Trying to remember where I heard of Ada Maria Soto’s understated M/M novella His Quiet Agent. A KJ Charles rec, maybe? It was a delightful read, anyway. A secret agent (the analysis/paperwork kind) on his third lateral transfer tries to play the friends/politics game, creeps out most of his new colleagues, and eventually makes a couple of friends.
For me, T. Kingfisher’s Swordheart wasn’t quite as awesome as the Clocktaur Wars. Which is to say I devoured it and frequently laughed and loved the characters and want to read the sequels – but you need to read The Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine even more.
My reading year has gotten off to a bang.
I reactivated my romance package subscription and promptly blew through two Beverley Jenkins titles: Always and Forever and the Taming of Jessie Rose, both of which I loved. I explained the first book to my mom as Westward the Women, but post civil war and with African American characters. Westward the Women is a movie from the 1950’s about a wagon train of mail order brides. I’ve never seen it, but mom loves it. Jessie Rose is about the brother of the first book and his romance with a female ranch owner. I’m looking forward to reading the other books I’ve checked out from her, which include books about supporting characters from the first book of hers I read, Indigo.
I also finally got around to reading Stella Riley’s The Marigold Chain and loved it. I think Riley is a bit underrated and I’m looking forward to beginning her series of Georgian set historical romances. I also checked out some historicals by Sylvia Day which looked interesting.
In non-romance reading, my best friend and I have an informal book club, and we’re reading Michelle Obama’s book. While I was interested in reading it, it wasn’t on the top of my list, so I was surprised by how much I’m enjoying it. Next will be my pick, which is the Crazy Asians trilogy, which I have wanted to read after loving the movie of the first book.
A bit hampered in the reading department due to having only one eye functional for close vision right now (the other cataract surgery coming up next week) but did get through Tamara Morgan’s STEALING MR RIGHT which I have to say I really enjoyed. I am not much of a contemporary reader but the concept (professional jewel thief married to an FBI agent) was interesting and I must say well executed. It was an ARC I picked up as a freebie at RT Atlanta so my copy has some extra behind-the-scenes chapters, and I have to agree keeping the POV entirely with the heroine makes it a much stronger story and ups the suspense. I will say that some of the conclusions the heroine jumps to and holds as fact are questionable, but considering that most of the backstory establishing her thought processes took place when she was fourteen, I can reasonably view them as the sort of thing an angsty, self-absorbed teen would come up with. YMMV. But it is fun watching her trying to decide who to trust, how much to trust them, and who’s manipulating who.
Currently reading MERELY A MARRIAGE by Jo Beverly, which is turning out to be one of those books that would be very short if only the heroine would just talk to SOMEBODY — ANYBODY about all her inner angst; not even the hero, just her mom, SOMEBODY — rather than jumping to conclusions and trying to manipulate everyone else’s life. Losing patience with her rapidly.
I just finished Barbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe and I loved it. It’s about a woman who is taking over her father’s drug trade in rural Northern California and she essentially tries to burn it to the ground while also protecting the people she loves and the refuge she runs for women who are victims of domestic violence. It’s definitely NOT a romance but has a satisfying everything is getting better type of ending. (Beware, this should have all the trigger warnings including explicit violence and kids.)
@DiscoDollyDeb
I’m haven’t read TIPPING THE VELVET, I’ll have to look into it. Thanks
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik was wonderful. I don’t love quiiite as much as uprooted because the plot gets a little rambly in the second half of the book, but I love all the women, especially Miryem. Pay what you owe, indeed.
Archenemies by Marissa Meyer: B grade, I’ll be interested in where book 3 goes.
Dark State by Charles Stross: The latest in his Merchant Princes series. You CANNOT read these out of order, but it’s a really good series.
Defiant Heir by Melissa Caruso: I still of Amalia, the Mage, and La Contessa. I still think the Lieutenant is really boring.
Murder in Thrall by Ann Cleeland: WTF is this? By 2014, shouldn’t the ‘stalking is romantic’ thing be over? Even if Doyle’s secret empathy power lets her know ‘he would never hurt her’? I could have almost hand-waved it, if Doyle was ‘the one girl in all the world’ for Acton and the behavior was uncharacteristic. However, at the end of the book, he casually mentions the ‘couple of sexual harassment settlements’ he’s made, and at this point, ok, he’s an asshole.
And I should really look at what I write. That was supposed to say Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. And usually my mom doesn’t seem interested in what romance novels I’m reading, although she doesn’t say I shouldn’t read them. So the fact that she asked the name of Always and Forever based on my description is a positive sign.
Now that we have moved and we have the restraining order, things are a little calmer. Still not in my usual reading mode, though. Lots of re-reads. Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale is always calming for some reason. I think the voice of the heroine is soothing. Reread Girl of Fire and Thorns. Currently re-reading The Engagement Game by Jenny Holiday. I love this couple.
I had trouble getting into The Other Alcott but think I will try again in a couple months. Also The Start of Something Good by Jennifer Probst. Just not clicking with the characters.
I did read Close to the Bone by Kendra Elliot. This is novella size as is the series, I think. The right size for me right now. Interesting about bones found on an island where two gils have disappeared. FBI agent on sick leave gets involved. Her BFF is local police. Some romance. No cliffhanger really and I expect I will read the rest of the series.
Also I Am the Lion by Rachelle Lauro. The heroine is an author who is unable to leave her house initially. We are dealing with anxiety here, too, and this was a good read from that standpoint. OTOH, just because you have fears and anxieties does not mean that someone is not trying to kill you. At least, in this book.
One more thing: Alex Windham is a great narrator! Anything he reads is worth a listen.
It has been so hot here in eastern Australia for most of January; this is a long weekend and it will easily top 40 degrees C today yet again (whatever that is in Fahrenheit). I can’t do anything outside before about 7pm on days like this so what else to do but read?
I’m nine books into this year and it’s been a mix of genres. I enjoyed rereading Dorothy L Sayers’ The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club after a gap of 20 years. I appreciated the quality of Sayers’ writing and the sombre post-WWI setting more than I did when I was younger.
Tamara Allen’s Invitation to the Dance is a MM historical notable for its stong sense of time and place and a certain delicacy in its description of the characters’ feelings. It was a lovely change from the usual style of MM romances, which fill up too many pages with sex, IMO.
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, written and narrated by Adam Rutherford was a long but fascinating non-fiction audiobook. Rutherford is a genetics professor and BBC science broadcaster. I learned so much from the book (which explodes a lot of popular myths about DNA and ancestry) and Rutherford has the most gorgeous voice!
I’m currently reading Mia Vincy’s historical A Wicked Kind of Husband (free for KU subscribers) after a recommendation from someone’s best of 2019 list and from the first page it grabbed me. I don’t know if the plot will turn out to be anything too different from the norm but the writing sparkles with wit and style without seeming to try too hard.
My reads since mid/late December:
Diamond Fire by Ilona Andrews.
Talk Sweetly To Me by Courtney Milan.
Linesman by SK Dunstall.
Two Ruined Christmas Eves by McHart – okay.
Once Upon a Winter’s Eve by Dare.
Picture This by Molly Bang.
Christmas Visit by Marshall Thornton.
Flame by Jo Goodman.
Summerfield’s Angel by Kim Fielding.
Dangerous by Minerva Spencer.
The Christmas Curse by Ruby Moone.
The Other Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
Alliance by SK Dunstall.
Tried but did not finish – Stars Now Unclaimed. City of Broken Magic. Girl from Everywhere. Companion to Wolves. Mirror Empire.
— the graphic novel Luisa Now and Then by Carole Maurel and Mariko Tamaki. It was an intriguing read but the elder Luisa was not the most pleasant of characters.
— Reread SK Dunstall’s Confluence for the nth time. I enjoyed it yet again.
— Detour by Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore was a contemporary romance which I quite enjoyed. It had me laughing aloud several times despite the dark backstory each character had.
— Nora Roberts’ Of Blood and Bone: Chronicles of The One, Book 2. I found this less dark than the first book in the trilogy, but it’s still not my favourite series by the author. I do intend to read the next volume when it’s released.
–a reread of the historical romance novella The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan.
— As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl by John Colapinto for my book group; it was a sad read, but we had a lively discussion
— The dystopian story The Space Between the Stars; I found it easy to read despite its subject.
— the graphic novel On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden; overall I enjoyed this, but there were definitely times where I had no clue what was going on.
— an enjoyable picture book P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter.
— enjoyed Carla Kelly’s historical romance Miss Whittier Makes a List which features a young American Quaker and a British sea captain.
— Rick R. Reed’s Sky Full of Mysteries. This is a story (a romance?) that kept me guessing as to the resolution.
— enjoyed rereading Anne Bishops’ Written in Red once again.
— my first reread of SK Dunstall’s Stars Uncharted. I’d enjoyed the book initially, but my pleasure was dimmed because I had wanted more of the world that the authors had created in their first trilogy. I enjoyed this read more.
@oceanjasper:
That’s 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
Just popping in to say I picked up one of Rosalind James’ (Maōri own voices) Escape to New Zealand books on a SB comments rec, and very much enjoyed it. Adults adulting, stand alone story but in an expansive and close-knit world, good New Zealand and rugby setting but if you don’t care much about rugby you’ll still get it. I can see myself dipping back in and out of the other 12(!) books when I need a break.
I also read Seanan McGuire’s In an Absent Dream—the Goblin Market is about economics so no CWs required (this worried me as a long-time scholar of Christina Rossetti!) I wonder if this sets us up for another redemption story like we got in Beneath the Sugar Sky, but in any case, it was very sad in a very correct/just/neat way (it’s a strong reason world).
I enjoyed Ursula Vernon’s Swordheart—and am even more excited about the sequels that are coming up.
Finally, I’m about to read a Stacey Abrams’ (of the Georgia gubanatorial election!) novel—she writes as Selena Montgomery. I’m starting with Secrets and Lies.