It’s time for the second Whatcha Reading of May! How are you all liking the twice a month schedule? I hope it’s been a little easier to parse through the comments.
We’re back from BookLovers Con in New Orleans. If you weren’t able to attend, our live podcast we recorded is up on the site!
Carrie: I just finished an ARC of The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). Bronte sisters become detectives. Sounds awful, is actually fabulous.
Sarah: I got an announcement of that book the day I did a book event, and told folks at the event about it. There were room-wide gasps and grabby hands.
I’m glad it is good!
Carrie: I’m also about to start Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott ( A | BN | K | G | AB ).
Sarah: I just started A Touch of Forever by Jo Goodman, which is out in June. It’s a western American historical, and I fully and entirely own that the heroine’s waistcoat drew me to this book initially. Goodman writes in a style that is deliberate and detailed, so reading her books can feel like I’ve been dropped into a community and I get to eavesdrop and closely observe people’s words and actions, almost as if there’s a veneer of mystery over the whole story. “Who is that? Why are they acting like that? What’s with the thing he does with his hand while he’s drinking coffee?” The hero works for the railroad company and is surveying the land, which presents a mix of tension because to some that’s opportunity and growth, and to others it can mean disruption and loss.
Also, did I mention the heroine’s waistcoat?
Amanda: I’m getting ready to start Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). “Brother’s best friend” isn’t my favorite trope, but I really enjoy Bailey’s writing.
Elyse: I just finished A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and I have book hangover. I’m really torn on what to start next.
How has your reading month been? Tell us 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!
All the books I read these past two weeks were good, although not “fave” reads and woooo, I finished a GIANT CLASSIC.
– MIDDLEGAME by Seanan McGuire – sort of FRINGE meets THE LIBRARY OF MOUNT CHAR? It could be 50-100pgs shorter, but I do love a real out there take on alchemy
– BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON by Rebecca West – a classic of travel fiction, this recounts West’s travels through the Balkans in the late 1930’s. West is good at humor, history, and writing about the beauty around her but also puts huge speeches in the mouths of her characters, when everyone is just, like, drinking coffee. Some 1,200pgs, this took me so many days to finish.
– THE VANISHING STAIR by Maureen Johnson (audiobook) – another Agatha Christie-esque YA mystery and immediate sequel to TRULY DEVIOUS. An engaging listen.
– PALIMPSEST by Catherynne M. Valente – the most Valente Valente book I’ve read about a city that is visited and spread through sex. It’s weird and fascinating.
Currently Reading
– CITY OF JADE by Fonda Lee – hey, do you miss the Amberlough trilogy the way I do? Check this out! 2nd world fantasy, with real Godfather vibes. I’m really enjoying it and looking forward to JADE WAR out in July.
– WESTSIDE by W. M. Akers (audiobook) – Gaiman-esque Historical fantasy/mystery about a detective who solves small mysteries in a 1920’s NYC wherein half the city has been taken over by magic? Maybe?
I also finished a Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole. So good. And, That Kind of Guy by Talia Hibbert. These were both series-ending books that I almost liked more than the first totally amazing first books in their respective series.
Also fabulous: Burn Bright by Patricia Briggs. I love the way her Alpha and Omega series is suspenseful without being stressful and this was no exception. Plus, Charles is such a protective yet respectful hero. Yum.
I had two solid nonfiction reads this month:
The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renée Taylor. This was super self-affirming and managed to blend body positivity with social justice in such an appealing way. Not really breaking new ground, but I’m definitely glad I read it.
How to Date Men When You Hate Men by Blythe Roberson had many very funny feminist+romantic moments, but was a bit rambling and unfocused. I highly recommend reading a paper copy of this on public transportation, however. The men around you will look horrified and intrigued.
I’m more of a listener than a reader these days. There have been some memorable moments the last month.
I just found PENNY REID! Wow! So happy I could binge these – both Knitting in the City and Winston brothers (my fav!!). For me, Beard Science was the best, and the male narrator (Chris Brinkley) made me fall in love with all the Winston brothers, really. *sigh*
I’ve been looking forward to CHRISTINA LAUREN’s Unhoneymooners, but after reading some reviews I’ve been holding it up for a while. I so don’t want to be disappointed. In the mean time, I found…
STELLA RHYS. Whoah! I probably should have listened to these in order, but I didn’t, and it doesn’t really matter. I’ve been through Ex Games and Hothead (*fanning myself just by the thought*), and am atm thoroughly enjoying Sweet Spot.
Also, I started RHENNA MORGAN’s Men of Haven -series in the wrong order. I really loved Claim & Protect, and thought I should hear the whole series. It turns out the order really mattered in this case, though, but only because of the narrators. The stories are good, but once you’ve heard John Lane, the other narrator just won’t do.
Oh… And then I heard SALLY THORNE’s The Hating Game for probably the sixth time. Because it is the best.
The past two weeks have been really slow since I’ve been short-staffed at work for about a month now and just haven’t had the time.
Read: none
Reading: ONLY BELOVED by Mary Balogh
This is the final book in the Survivor’s Club series and of course it’s pretty good. However, while I love the fact that Dora and George are older romance protagonists, I think the book puts a little too much emphasis on that, particularly when it comes to Dora. Yes I get it she was a spinster and doesn’t have the glow of girlhood anymore .
DNF : THE BEAST of NIGHTFALL LODGE by S.A. Sidor. This book is so much as completely abandoned because it was bad , but more like in limbo because I like to read before bed and it’s a horror novel, which results in nightmares for me. Until I have more time to read in the day it will remain unread.
Man, I’ve been letting down the team. Last “Whatcha Reading?” I mentioned Prince on Paper and Dangerous Collaboration. I did finish both of those and I skim read “Shuffle, Repeat” by Jen Klein. Other than that, fanfic, fanfic, fanfic. Both reading and writing. Stupid Game of Thrones, I’ll just say that and leave it at that. I ranted enough last time.
So what did I think of my reads?
“A Prince on Paper” by Alyssa Cole – Loved it. A plus read. I feel like it’s already gotten so much hype here, but I’m going to be boring and praise it some more. 😉 I think my favorite thing is it’s about a shy, timid heroine who grows? I related a lot to her feelings of not knowing if she’s strong enough to go after what she wants and wanting a life that is “not too big” and “not to small” and it was really satisfying to watch her figure that out in a realistic way. I feel like “mousy heroine” was such a stereotype for a while and it can be an annoying trope at times, but I like seeing the heroine get *stronger* in a way that is believable and right for her. It’s why “The Blue Castle” will always be one of my favorite books.It’s tricky to pull off in an adult contemporary, but this shows it can be done. Other things to love, fake relationship! Charming (redheaded!) prince who turns out to have so much depth under the surface! “Real” contemporary feel, or as real as it can be with a prince of made up country. I need to loop back and read “Can’t Escape Love.”
“A Dangerous Collaboration” by Deanna Raybourn. I really enjoyed this and then lost interest about 3/4s of the way through? I wish I could pinpoint what it was, maybe I felt like the mystery element wasn’t quite coming off. I still love the characters and writing and it may have been me b/c I was in a really weird place. I will definitely keep reading the series.
“Shuffle, Reapeat” by Jen Klein. Two kids who are opposites (b/c of course they are) have to carpool to high school in the morning and as they bicker over life and music tastes, they fall in love. I wanted to like this and it had charming moments, but there was a lot of drama with both of the characters significant others (one of my least favorite things in YA is how popular this trope is). I found the heroine kind of annoying, but that may be unfair to put on a teenage character, I do try to give them more leeway than adult characters in behavior, obviously. I also felt like the music choices and bickering/hate ended up not being not important?
It had that “surfacy” feel that some YAs have to me, which I don’t always mind if I like the characters and plot, but I really love authors like Jenny Han, Becky Albertalli, Nicola Yoon, Angie Thomas. I feel like when I read their books, they put as much time and dedication in “world building” their teen world (and side/supporting characters) as history or fantasy authors. This kind of stretched for that, but I didn’t quite feel like it got there. Just my 2 cents. Sorry if this came off as too ranty, but I’d been saving it for a rainy day (b/c I loved the premise) and was bummed when it fell flat.
So, I’m hoping to have a better reading report for next time, although I’m not going to lie, I’m really just rolling around unabashedly in fanfic with lots of fluffy feelings and sexy times. Even the dark moment in a romance novel feels a little too dark right now. (I actually had to take a break from a Prince on Paper and sternly remind myself it was going to have a happy ending to get myself to finish it).
Thank you to the person who recommended Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton series earlier this month. Absolutely what I needed to get out of my book slump.
This month, I’ve finished:
Red Sister, by Mark Lawrence
Assassin Nuns, nuff said. It went in directions I didn’t see coming. I’ve already bought the second book, Grey Sister.
Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire
This is about two siblings created by an alchemist to try and control… well, everything. (CW for a suicide attempt) I’ve been really looking forward to this book for awhile and it didn’t disappoint me.
After those two, I told myself I was going to read a nice fluffy romance, but instead read:
Star Wars: Master & Apprentice, by Claudia Gray
It’s a Star Wars book. I enjoyed it and it was nice to get a new EU book set during the prequel era.
Currently Reading:
The Bridge, by Iain Banks
This book is about a guy who ends up in a coma after a bad accident and finds himself in an odd city, built on a gigantic bridge, suffering from amnesia.
This is a reread. I remember liking it.
I’m marathon reading this weekend and just finished ‘Any Duchess Will Do’. (Absolutely loved it. It’s probably my new favorite Tessa Dare novel.) I’m going to start ‘Do You Want To Start A Scandal’ this morning.
I did order a few books this month:
‘The Governess Game’, by Tessa Dare.
‘Suddenly You’, by Lisa Kleypas.
(Hi, my name’s Crystal, and I’m a sucker for romance novel covers with pretty dresses, especially when they’re in my favorite colors.)
‘My Lady Jane’, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows.
(For when I’m in the mood for something different.)
‘An Offer From A Gentleman’, by Julia Quinn.
(I listened to the prologue on YouTube, and the stepmother sounded so horrible I just had to pick it up.)
‘Curiosity Thrilled The Cat’, by Sofie Kelly.
(This I bought for my mother because she doesn’t read enough and I wanted her to have a summer read. Though I may read it myself at some point because I’m curious about the cozy mystery genre.)
I love the new twice-monthly format (but I’m not sure my tbr list or book budget does—I’ve already added about six books from the above comments). Also, I notice that, although I’m writing about fewer books in each post, I still end up with a mammoth post. I suppose it’s like Parkinson’s Law but applied to books: What Are You Reading posts expand to the size required for their completion.
[CW: rape role-play] In Katie Porter’s HARD WAY, a couple is on the verge of divorce after eight years of marriage. Their relationship has been stretched to the breaking point by the long deployments of the fighter-pilot husband, the travel demands of the wife’s high-profile job as an attorney, and unshared secrets & desires. When the heroine (who is of Indian ancestry, which plays a part in the plot) finds herself responding to the kindness and consideration of a male coworker, she asks her husband for a divorce. This precipitates an avalanche of incredibly rough abduction and rape role-play sex; although, interestingly, it is not a magic bullet to getting the marriage back on track—the couple has much more hard emotional work to do, and no amount of faux kidnappings will change that. My benchmark for “consensual non-consent” stories is Cara McKenna’s duet, WILLING VICTIM & BRUTAL GAME, where much of a couple’s initial bonding takes place through sex games involving rape role-play. As in WV/BG, the heroine of HARD WAY consents to games during which, ostensibly, her power to choose is removed. But unlike McKenna’s characters, who are crystal clear about the line between fantasy and reality, the hero & heroine of HARD WAY spend a lot of time in a “gray area” where reality seems to provoke the fantasy—there are times when neither of them is really sure that they are indeed “playing” a game. Porter does an excellent job of parsing the thoughts and emotions of both the hero and heroine as they fight themselves, each other, and career & family expectations while trying to hold on to what made them fall in love in the first place. A very well-written book, but be forewarned: the role-play is intense and includes a lot of very physical fighting and filthy name-calling along with wild sex. HARD WAY is one of my favorite reads of 2019 (and I’ve found a new-to-me writer whose backlist I’m ready to glom), but I would not recommend it for anyone who might be triggered by these sort of role-play scenarios.
After loving HARD WAY, I wanted to read the other books in Porter’s Vegas Top Guns series. There are five books in all (HARD WAY is the fourth) and, although characters do recur from book to book, each title is about a different couple and can be read as a stand-alone. In each book, at least one of the leads is a fighter pilot stationed at Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas. DOUBLE DOWN is the first book of the series. The hero trains fighter pilots. The heroine works at an art gallery (there’s an interesting subplot about a showing of E.J. Bellocq’s photographs of prostitutes in the Storyville section of New Orleans), but she also moonlights waiting tables—and that is how she meets the hero. They share a love of dress-up role-play, but the hero’s emotional lock-down makes things difficult. I enjoyed the book, but the hero’s secrecy and shame about what he wants sexually seemed outsized to the relatively minor kink the couple enjoy.
Skye Warren’s CONCERTO is the sequel to OVERTURE and the next in her North Security series. Now that the violin-prodigy heroine is of legal age, her relationship with her erstwhile guardian (and, now, lover) isn’t quite the transgressive thing it once was. The focus of this book is more on the thriller/suspense elements of the heroine’s attempted abduction while she is in rehearsals for an upcoming world tour. As she often does, Warren weaves a motif throughout the story—in the case of CONCERTO, it’s Alice through the Looking Glass, as the heroine attempts to stay safe while trying to learn more about the circumstances of her father’s death. Much of CONCERTO takes place in the fictional town of Tanglewood—the location of many of Warren’s stories—and a number of characters from previous Warren books make an appearance (especially Beatrix from ESCORT, who is now a mother and has more of a supporting role than a cameo). Like OVERTURE, CONCERTO ends with a cliffhanger. A third book, SONATA, is scheduled for release in August.
Katee Robert’s MAKE ME YOURS is a rather run-of-the-mill romance (published by Harlequin’s Dare line) about a one-night-stand that results in an unplanned pregnancy. The physical trainer heroine left me cold—snide, unpredictable, and always sabotaging her own happiness. Yes, she had a dysfunctional childhood, but I could never tell what the cyber-security expert hero saw in her; plus, his nickname for her is “minx”—ugh! As is often the case with the Dare line, the conflicts seemed both overblown and too easily resolved. (Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book was the blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment where the heroine admits that she considered terminating her pregnancy.) Not a terrible book, but not a particularly memorable one either. I have higher hopes for Robert’s upcoming DESPERATE MEASURES.
I’m full of rage for some odd reason, so my tolerance for bullshit is nonexistent and making reading a bit of a challenge. I thought an alien apocalypse book (FORSAKEN by Michael McBride) would be a nice bit of escapism and sashayed myself right into fictional colonialism and hijacking bodily autonomy (ah, the escape!). Naturally, it was a man (whose specialty is crop circles!) who had the startling revelation that bodies were being used for incubators and not any of the numerous women present (many of whom were also top-in-their-field scientists!) who, like me, would have identified a bunch of corpses with exploded abdomens as a hatchery IMMEDIATELY instead of halfway through the damn book after everybody was “surprised” by a swarm of monsters. WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE SEEN THAT COMING? So I rage-quit that one and made myself a note not to read anything else written by men for at least six months and maybe never.
SUMMER IN ORCUS by T. Kingfisher was, like everything else she writes, whimsical and horrifying and begging to be performed in a blanket fort on a rainy day. Baba Yaga comes to town in her chicken-legged house and sends 11-year-old Summer to another world to find her heart’s desire—the only problem being that Summer doesn’t know what that is when she’s dumped in a strange land with no guidance except a wisecracking pocket weasel. She accepts a quest to save a dying tree and ends up making the world a better place by means other than being a badass warrior.
In a similar vein, currently reading THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON by Kelly Barnhill, which is a whimsy bomb dropped on dark shit like the local government stealing babies to sacrifice to an evil forest witch they know doesn’t exist, but they uphold the tradition because superstitious fear and loss keep the peasants in line. Unbeknownst to them, a perfectly nice forest witch saves those babies every year and places them in homes where they’ll be cared for, until she accidentally enmagics one and decides it would be safer for everyone if she raised that baby herself.
Since “Whimsy Bomb Dropped On Really Dark Shit” seems to be the only thing working for me emotionally at the moment, I’m going to be bingeing Kingfisher and Barnhill for the next little while.
I recently finished GETTING HOT WITH THE SCOT by Melonie Johnson. Next up, I’m hoping to read EVERY LAST BREATH by Juno Rushdan.
I also want to check out A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES by Deborah Harkness. I’ve been watching the TV show. A little too much instalove in the show for me, but overall, I’m really enjoying it. I want to see how the book compares.
I actually finished a book this month!
NO ANOTHER FAMILY WEDDING by Jackie Lau, recommended by SBTB. So good. The heroine felt very real to me, the crazy family is hilarious and the ending was so satisfying. Ahhh *good book noise*
Picked up HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND as it’s next in the series but put it down pretty quickly. This heroine is very different and not working for me.
Other than those it’s been rereads and author blogs and internet rabbit holes…
@Ren Benton – speaking of binging Kingfisher, you’re in good company. Lois McMaster Bujold binged and blogged about it on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1667521730 I might reread Nine Goblins next.
Just finished The Last Snowfall by Kathleen Gilles Seidel. As far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing as a bad book by Seidel so I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Also read The Tokaido Road by Lucia St. Clare Robson. I’ve been wanting to read it for years (ever since I read the review here back in 2011), but never got around to it until a couple of weeks’ ago. I think I enjoyed it more today that I would have back then because I know a little bit about Japanese history and culture now. It was a great read and I recommend it whole-heartedly.
I’ve also been rereading a few old favourites. I’m in the middle of a major book purge and darned if some oldies-but-goodies haven’t resurfaced. A little off-topic here, but a discussion about book purges might be enlightening. How do you decide what is worth keeping? How tied are we to books that clutter up our shelves for non-reasons like “Nobody will know how smart I am if I don’t keep this on display”?
It’s been a meh month for my reading; a few DNFs, mostly meh books, but a few things I liked.
Mackenzi Lee- The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
I found this book harder to like than The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, because I found Felicity harder to like than Monty, which immediately made me feel gross about my internalized misogyny. I was working so much through that back and forth that the book itself never quite gelled for me. Still. Asexual lady doctor, and pirates, and naturalists, and actual sea monsters! Even though Felicity didn’t quite connect with me, I dearly wish I’d had characters like her when I was a teen, because maybe it wouldn’t have taken me til I was freaking 30 to realize that no, I am not the only person in the world who doesn’t like kissing and isn’t interested in sex and asexuality is actually a thing that exists.
Alyssa Cole- Once Ghosted, Twice Shy
I kind of barely remember this one already. Whoops.
Joanna Shupe- A Notorious Vow
I liked the concept behind this (Deaf inventor/recluse; shy, awkward woman in need of escaping her awful, abusive fortune-hunter parents) but I absolutely hated the writing style. Stuck it out to the end but…Shupe just isn’t for me.
Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera- What If It’s Us
Cute YA romance between two boys who have a meet-cute and total instant attraction…but then proceed to screw it all up. So they try again. Over and over again.
As an adult who reads a lot of YA I know it’s really annoying when older readers complain about teen characters behaving like teenagers. I try not to be that person and to remember who these books are primarily for. But at the same time…there were a few points where these characters were way too teenager for me. It doesn’t have a HEA (which doesn’t bother me in YA, besides which this is a novel about a romance, not a romance novel)…but it kind of doesn’t have a HFN either? I don’t know, I’m still not sure about the ending. Still cute though.
Alyssa Cole- Can’t Escape Love
Okay I adored this and I wanted it to be so much longer. I enjoyed that it was a sweet, mostly conflict-free story…except that when the conflict did rear up, it was a small misunderstanding, easily talked out, resolved in like 3 pages. That didn’t quite work for me.
Steve Jackson- No Stone Unturned: the true story of NecroSearch International, the world’s premier forensic investigators
I heard about this book a long time ago on Forensic Files (in fact, I recognized all the cases mentioned from Forensic Files), and since it was available through my library’s new county system I decided to cross it off my list. It’s dated (not only do they have to explain the mere concept of DNA, they went into a really long explanation of this newfangled technology called GPS) and completely White (all the investigators, all the scientists, all the victims…actually I think everyone mentioned in the book was White), and very, very male. All that taken into account, I still think it was an interesting read. Learning about how scientists and even hobbyists from all kinds of fields started thinking of how to apply their knowledge to finding and bodies and preserving evidence, helping police change the way so many crimes were investigated and prosecuted. If you’re interested in true crime, you might like it.
Cat Sebastian- A Duke in Disguise
It was…fine. There was a *lot* going on in terms of the secretly-a-Duke plot and maybe in consequence that actual romance didn’t do a whole lot for me. Hopefully I’ll like it better on a reread.
Monica Hesse- The War Outside
YA, 1944, a German-American girl and a Japanese-American girl are interned at the Crystal City, Texas camp for “enemy aliens,” both because of things their fathers did or were suspected of doing. They become unlikely friends with a hint of a possibility that they could become more…until everything crashes down.
I really liked this one. Probably because of the time period, it gave me strong Code Name Verity vibes. It’s pretty short (the main action takes place over all of like a week), and it’s very sad. But I think it’s important. I didn’t know specifically about Crystal City, though I did know about America’s internment camps (no thanks to the public school system, which never taught us) and especially in a time like this when it’s starting to happen all over again…I don’t know, it just really reached me.
I read “Red, White & Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston and loved it SO MUCH. I’m currently waiting on an SBTB review for it so I can squee over it some more. I recommended it to two friends and several coworkers, so I have like 5 people who have either read it or are on the wait list to read it that I know personally. 🙂 I feel like the author’s next book (mentioned in an interview as being an f/f romance where they meet on the subway) set up Nora to have her own HEA, if it’s a sequel/continuation/part of the same universe as RWRB.
My only bookish resolution this year was to read at least one nonfiction book a month. This month’s book was NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE by Chris Voss, formerly the lead hostage negotiator for the FBI and I wish I could get every woman I know to read it. It draws on tenets of Behavioral Economics to give you solid negotiating techniques that can be applied to pretty much every situation in life, both business and personal. Best of all, it’s written in an easy to read, easy to digest conversational tone and includes fascinating anecdotes from the author’s career to illustrate his points. I so wish a book like this had existed when I started my career many years ago.
On the fiction side, I read two great UF books. CIRCLE OF THE MOON, by Faith Hunter, features a heroine who was raised in a religious cult but broke free of that and now works for a paranormal investigative team as she slowly discovers her own paranormal nature (she’s some kind of wood nymph, but a rather bloodthirsty one, not some gentle nature creature). This is the fourth book in the series, but I would recommend starting with the first, BLOOD OF THE EARTH as like many UFs, the whole series builds on previous events. I love how well this series shows the growth of the heroine, both in moving beyond her early conditioning in the cult and in her growing professional skill. It’s also a great example of a paranormal police procedural.
The other UF book that I loved was TWO WITCHES AND A WHISKEY by Annette Marie, the third book in a fun series featuring a 21 YO human heroine with some anger management issues who accidentally gets involved in a paranormal guild filled with witches, mages, sorcerers, etc. I love heroines with no quit in them and that’s the lead character to a T.
As for current books, I just finished POLARIS RISING, a SF Romance by Jessie Mihalik that’s been mentioned here before and was just as good as promised, and I’ve just started TEACH ME by Olivia Dade which is releasing next week. I’m only about 20% in and seriously in love with this book. The main characters are 40-something history teachers at a high school who’ve both been a bit battered by life and I can already tell that their romance is going to be swoon-worthy.
I really, really want to start making a dent in the pile of purchased ebooks on my kindle. But every time I start one it just seems like a struggle to find time to read. I thought maybe it was my head space but then I checked out Angel Martinez’s Offbeat Crimes: Lime Gelatin & other monsters from my library and now I’m up to book 6. Its paranormal m/m about a police precinct staffed with cops with weird or “broken” abilities. I’m loving it. This will be a re-read series because I’m reading them so fast I’m sure I’m missing jokes
I’ve had some good luck reading lately!!
1. MIRAGE by Somaiya Daud. Loved it. Lush writing, strong heroine, fantastic audio narration, beautiful cultural details. It’s the first in a YA fantasy/futuristic series.
2. LAYOVER by Katrina Jackson. Contemporary romance. Smart, sexy, well-written novella featuring a travel blogger who hooks up with a hot gentleman who makes her want to stay.
3. TOUGH CUSTOMER by Sandra Brown. Romantic suspense. The hero is a grumpy detective in his 50s chasing after an old flame. I’ve been on a Sandra Brown audio binge, with mixed results but I can’t stop
4. I just started DECEPTION ISLAND by Brynn Kelly, and I’m enjoying it.
5. I also skim-read THE COURTESAN DUCHESS by Joanna Shupe. I’m a fan of her Gilded Age series, but I don’t like Regencies so I decided to skim and ended up really getting into it. Now I want to read the whole series.
6. SWORN TO SILENCE by Linda Castillo. Extremely grisly suspense, light on the romance. Solid serial killer story set in Amish country.
Very Good
Carrier, Gail – The 5th Gender. A M/? sci-fi set on a space station. I wanted more, much more of this universe.
Charles, KJ – Proper English (F/F) A fitting prequel to Think of England.
Good
Blake, Macy – Give Him Hell. Third in the M/M paranormal series and suffers from lots of stuff going on. I didn’t get a grasp on one of the heroes. Maybe it will improve upon rereading.
Boykin, Alma – Elizabeth of Starland Series. These are about life in a pre modern Europe like civilization set on another planet. The series starts with a girl becoming a soldier and continues with other tales on the same world. Five books in and still reading.
Burwell, Jalzia A. – Biomystic Security books 2-3. The series is getting better, moving up from ok to good. Book 3, which was a bunch of short scenes from the other characters viewpoints actually helped me like books 1-2 better. I’m stuck, almost in DNF territory, in book 4, so the jury is still out.
Derr, Megan – A Trilogy of Knights. Neat set of short stories with Derr’s trademark heroes.
Hawke, Susan – Team Alpha (Books 1-7); Alphabits (1). These are action packed shapeshifter M/M-preg light on the shapeshifter, heavy on the m-preg with fated mates. They are good beach reads.
OK
Price, Jordan Castillo – Quill Me Now & Trouble in Taco Town. Fluffy M/M urban fantasy. They almost moved too fast – I wanted more depth and further character development. The Taci Town had some plot holes, but some great characters nonetheless.
Also continuing my re-reading of Viola Grace’s Tales of the Citadel- lovely sci-fi novellas.
I haven’t read as much as usual this month because it has been so damn busy. Between finding out that I’m supposed to CLEAN my community (I’m a property manager) as well as working in the office and preparing everything for my chorus’s spring concert, I didn’t have a lot of time to read. I did listen to two Victoria Dahl books (Good Girls Don’t and Bas Boys Will) on Audible. They’re both fun reads, but I feel slightly sexist, which surprises me coming from Dahl. I also tried to read Pale as Death by Heather Graham, which is another one of her ghost books. The main characters both see ghosts and are investigating a Black Dahlia copycat in modern day LA. Unfortunately, the suspense wasn’t there and things just kind of happened. After 2 weeks of the book sitting on my dresser, I put it back on my bookshelf.
Currently, I am re-reading Julia Quinn’s Just Like Heaven. I love the Smythe-Smith books (except the last one, which was a hard DNF a few years ago). I’m hoping the Shondalabd Netflix show will include these characters and their stories as they do exist in the Bridgerton universe.
Sadly I am in a caregiver role these days so not much time to read…and when I do, I really want to have all the feels. How very lucky I happened on Stacy Finz Nugget series. I enjoy small town series with characters that are a bit more complex in life experiences than normally found and this series definitely has brought me a lot of reading pleasure the past few weeks. Maybe reminiscent a bit of Robyn Carr’ s earlier series.
So I am on book 8 and savoring each one!
I really need to give Jo Goodman a try–that waistcoat is everything.
@Francesca, if you enjoy modern boardgames, there is one called Tokaido that is very zen-like with lovely art. In app form,too.
@JenM, adding Chris Voss’ book to my list!
Thanks to Sarah’s recent rec of Sarah Morgan’s Harlequin Medicals, I read and enjoyed HIGH-ALTITUDE DOCTOR and then immediately devoured RESCUED BY HER RIVAL by Amalie Berlin (I swear Harlequin uses a bot to title its Medicals), a story about smokejumpers in training that I wanted to hug when it was done. Competence porn alert! Still in the catergory vibe, I’m currently on RESERVATIONS FOR TWO, a Superromance by Jennifer Lohmann and the douchey bro hero is seriously pissing me off, but I trust Lohmann enough to make it work… I hope.
My library hold just came in for Sarah Beth Durst’s THE DEEPEST BLUE, her newest in the Renthia world but not part of the series. The worldbuilding in these is fantastic: basically all of nature is controlled by spirits who are lurking about just waiting for an opportunity to wipe out humanity in a massive bloodbath. I recently read the first two books, THE QUEEN OF BLOOD and THE RELUCTANT QUEEN, but wasn’t engaged enough in that storyline to pick up the third right away.
Also just read Kate Atkinson’s THE TRANSCRIPTION. It was ok.
OMG, these wonderful recommendations! There’s a bag of Trader Joe’s Bamba on my left, glass of Cherry Pepsi on my right. All the tabs open to every bookstore and library. I’m ready.
@Lost Shadows: I am here for the assassin nuns, so is my library. Thank you!
@Ren Benton: “Whimsy Bomb Dropped On Really Dark Shit” is perfect. Barnhill is new to me and I am ready for that. Have you read Jen Williams’ NINTH RAIN? There is a hero, but he’s employed by an eccentric, older female explorer, and they’re both joined by a convent escapee who sets things on fire. The story, the things that happen are really dark and violent, but I was frequently delighted by these characters. Maybe this will qualify.
@JenM: Faith Hunter UF with a blood-thirsty wood nymph? Oh, yes. And thank you.
I loved SINNER by Sierra Simone. On the surface I should have hated the setup–religion/faith, practically-virgin younger heroine, cynical runaround older hero–and there I was, devouring every word and thinking deeply about what it all meant. Thrilled to know I’d already purchased PRIEST and that there are (I think) more.
Stumbled upon Craig Schaefer who has many series concerning black magic, Faustian bargains, all manner of hellish stuff, plus a new book, GHOSTS OF GOTHAM, which is about a lost Poe manuscript. This guy can write.
Finishing Tanya Huff’s VALOR series before heading into her PEACEKEEPER series. Space opera, people. A female Marine Gunnery Sargent who is all the things I want to be when I grow up.
Also finished THE SISTERHOOD by Helen Bryan. Fierce, feminist nuns in Spain, before Constantine, through the Inquisition and beyond, who are guarding an important secret, but more importantly, protecting and nurturing women. This was a book club choice and I was hesitant, but was hopping up and down in joy very quickly.
I’m seeing a pattern in my reading, says Captain Obvious. Dark, feminist, angry, bonus for nuns.
I finally read Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a wonderful evocation of time and place with great characters.
Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity was tough but good.
The Calculating Stars turned out to be my favorite to date by Mary Robinette Kowal.
I bounced off the last Alyssa Cole I tried to read, but I inhaled Can’t Escape Love and only regret that it was a novella. Great protagonists I would gladly have spent more time with.
John Kenney’s Love Poems for Married People was a quick fun read – my favorite title was “When are you planning to turn off your Kindle?” which should give you the sense of the collection.
Right now I’m re-reading Andrea K. Höst’s Hunted. Intrigue in a fantasy world with a protagonist inspired by Heyer heroines. If I become a billionaire I’m going to become Höst’s patron so she can write us more books.
Oh, and Proper English. Did I mention KJ Charles’ Proper English earlier this month? Read it, and then re-read Think of England.
@DiscoDollyDeb – every month, I add at least one book outside my comfort zone to my TBRs thanks to your comments.
@Francesca – angst about book purging is my LIFE. I’d love it if SBTB posted some insights and (consequently) provided a space for discussion of the process.
As for what I’ve been reading…I just ended a 3-month promotional subscription to Kindle Unlimited. (I read 80+ books for 99¢. I like that math.) SBTB even had this well-timed post on the good stuff to be found in KU, but I wasted most of the three months hate-reading indie books with crappy scenarios or immature characters. I approached each and every one of them with a tiny smidgen of trust that the author was going to make a good faith attempt to redeem a seemingly unredeemable scenario and drag an believable HEA (or HFN) ending out of the muck, but it mostly felt like I was reading hurt/comfort fanfic that skipped over the comfort part. (Thanks to Amazon’s upsell carousel, I was exposed to a huge number of new adult books where some college-aged male gets miffed at his girlfriend and proceeds to sleep with half the campus to punish her, leading to baby mama drama complication when the protagonists are arbitrarily ready to reunite. So this is a thing.)
One reason I prioritized the cr*p — beyond the cheap emotional thrills — is that I knew I wouldn’t have to commit to any of them. I could skim, DNF, or miss huge chunks of “plot” without the guilt of feeling like I wasn’t giving a good book a proper chance. But as a result of my procrastination, I had to race through some positive KU recs in the past two days. Without a doubt, the two best KU reads I had in those three months were
A WICKED KIND OF HUSBAND by Mia Vincy – late-Victorian historical romance about a marriage of convenience where the husband and wife only have a relationship on paper until they collide in London and get to know one another. I found the narration, the characterization, the dialogue all delightful. Both main characters are smart and lively and managing and damaged-but-coping. What was a bit off-putting to me was the feeling that I was supposed to be able to diagnose all the characters (main and side) according to the DSM-V through their dysfunctional behavior. Nevertheless, this was a rare example of a book where the theme “everybody’s damaged” didn’t bother me. I didn’t feel as if I was reading battling tragic backstories, just people dealing with life. It’s no longer available in KU, but I recommend a read if the title pops up on sale or you find it at your library. (Which I’m going to do, because I had to speed-read this and I’m wondering if I skipped right over an explanation for why so many people in the hero’s family have gentile-popular but traditionally Hebrew names (Joshua, Isaac, Miriam, Rachel). Was his mother Jewish?)
HEAT STROKE by Tessa Bailey – charming m/m romance about a fitness buff in denial of his sexuality who can’t stay away from the hardworking, openly gay trivia buff who has been through this before with a confused/questioning straight guy and has no intention of going through that again. The summer Long Island beach setting makes me strangely nostalgic for my youth, even though I’m a West Coast girl. Anyway, I thought I was burned out on Tessa Bailey, but I’m going to read the m/f books in this series because the family relationships are awesome and everyone is working so hard but still has time for fun.
Outside of KU, I tried to read TIGHTROPE, the latest Burning Cove book by Amanda Quick. I know this is rude, but I’m calling ghostwriter on this series because the prose is merely workmanlike (the dialogue is so flat), but the worldbuilding — by which I mean the reuse of characters from previous books in the series — is multiples better than anything I’ve seen from JAK before. Burning Cove is populated with familiar faces who do things completely consistent with the things they did in their own books and can still be distinguished from the protagonists in the current book. I just wish I was interested in the things they’re doing.
Books read here ~
— for my book group: Island of a Thousand Mirrors: A Novel by Nayomi Munaweera. I found it an easy read, but it was a sad story that made me cry. Sadder still when one realizes that Sri Lanka is still plagued with violence.
— Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga) by Lois McMaster Bujold. I look forward to reading more in the series.
— enjoyed the paranormal male/male mystery The Wolf at the Door (Big Bad Wolf Book 1) by Charlie Adhara.
— an art project book. It was a light and quick read and I intend to do one of the projects. Tattoo a Banana: And Other Ways to Turn Anything and Everything into Art by Phil Hansen.
— Vacant (Mindspace Investigations Book 4) by Alex Hughes; this is the fourth book in an urban fantasy series which I enjoyed.
— The Stars Blue Yonder (The Outback Stars Book 3) by Sandra McDonald; this is from a series that must be read in order, so I do not recommend beginning with this book. I enjoyed the entire series which was an interesting blend of science fiction, fantasy, and some Australian aborigine myth.
— read and enjoyed the first book in a series by a favorite author: American Witch by Thea Harrison.
— Skin and Bone (Digging Up Bones Book 2) by TA Moore which I enjoyed reading despite the bloodshed. This is a male/male romance.
— a mystery that I enjoyed; admittedly, I did have a few quibbles. The Scent of Murder (A Jazz Ramsey Mystery)
— began but did not finish a book with a very curious storyline; it was a tad too weird for me! Larque on the Wing by Nancy Springer.
Oh, fudge. I confused the setting of A WICKED KIND OF HUSBAND with the Camille Oster books I also read this week. Vincy’s setting isn’t late Victorian, but probably pre-Victorian nineteenth-century England. I’ll take 50% of the blame for poor speed-reading skills, but leave the author 50% of the blame for inadequate historical markers. (Still: a recommended read.)
I read Where We Land by Abigail Barnette this week when I was sick and hands down it is the most realistic contemporary romance I’ve ever read. Highly recommended.
Also read Always Never You by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka. This is YA romance and I loved it. I read the entire book yesterday and carried it with me when I had to take my son to baseball practice. I loved how the main character Megan was so confident and her friendship with Owen was just lovely.
Okay, so right now, and I’m not just saying this to suck up, I’m currently reading Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels by SARAH WENDELL!!!!!!! It had me laughing out loud while sitting in the parent section at my daughter’s gymnastics class (the part about bouncing a yak off a hero’s left buttock). Loving it!
This month, in romance, I’ve read:
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. LOVED IT. I think it’s physically impossible for Ms. Crusie to write anything other than amazing amazingness.
Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren. Loved it. I adored Elliot and wish I could rewind my childhood to have an Elliot of my own, or at least a closet that doubled as a library. Either one.
Just the Way You Are by Ann Roth. Ehhhhhhhh. This had a LOT of issues for me. I wrote up a fairly lengthy review on my blog; the specifics are too long to get into here, but suffice it to say, handshakes aren’t just for people who have masters’ degrees, continually referring to gossipy, slut-shaming women as ‘wonderful friends’ will never convince me of their wonderfulness, and a cranberry processing facility is NOT a cranberry factory, yo.
Landline by Rainbow Rowell, which is kind of romancey. I didn’t like it as much as I enjoyed Fangirl, and I didn’t get Neal’s appeal.
Behind the Scenes by Dahlia Adler, an author I learned about from the SBTB podcast! LOVED this. She writes like her upbeat personality and I was hooked from page one.
@Deborah: From one Deborah to another, thank you!
I just read TJ Klune’s Why We Fight https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43865374-why-we-fight.
It’s the 4th book in Klune’s very funny At First Sight series. All the books in the series feature over-the-top slapstick, Liberally studded with intense emotion. Why We Fight is by far my favorite, with Corey/Kori balancing work, family, & a forbidden desire for their temporary boss/former hot professor. So much pining! So much silliness! The HEA’s for the found family in this series are heart-melting.
@Jennifer Estep: Definitely read “A Discovery of witches” The TV series cut stuff out and condensed other stuff, which I understand–it’s a long book. What annoyed me is that some of the shortcuts they did were to pad the parts of minor characters Gillian and Satu–neither of whom are the good guys!) And Ysabeau, Matthew’s mom, is supposed to look younger than him–like a young Catherine Deneuve.
I find it curious that sometimes while my reading doesn’t repeat, it does rhyme. I finally got through “City of dark magic” by Magnus Flyte. What was curious is that I had just re-read “Shadow of night”, the sequel to “A Discovery of witches”, which features a time-travelling witch and vampire chasing after a lost alchemical book in 1591 Prague. It’s partly set in Prague Castle, where the famous alchemist Dr. John Dee and his assistant Edward Kelley tried to make the Philosopher’s Stone for Emperor Rudolf II. “City of dark magic” is set in modern Prague Castle, but there is time slippage, alchemists, a four-hundred-year-old dwarf, and lots of intrigue involving the time just after Rudolf’s death. The plot also involves a time-travel drug contained in Beethoven’s toenails (really!), the current prince’s scheming relatives, the Infant of Prague, and a child prodigy. I have to say that the best subplot involved a ruthless politician/former KGB agent with an eye on the White House. At the end she falls into a convenient portal to hell (there’s a LOT going on in this book-probably too much.) My first thought when I finished the book was that there’s never a hell portal around when you need one.
I read and liked Patricia Briggs’ “Storm cursed”, but I expected to.
For nonfiction I read Susan Hill’s “Howard’s End in on the landing: a year of reading from home.” The author decided to not buy or borrow any books for a year, but just read what she had in the house (and she only reads paper). She seems to have one of those rambling 19th century English houses with three storys and lots of nooks and crannies and spare rooms to put up bookshelves, and she must have a LOT of books and bookcases. (In one chapter she mentions that she has been going through a bookcase that holds 733 books!) There’s no real organization to the book, just as there seems to be no organization to her collection; she wanders through the house, picking up books to read, and then writing about what she’s read. She says, “but if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books, as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA.” Interesting thought.
I am also making my way through Jane & Michael Stern’s “500 things to eat before it’s too late and the very best place to eat them.” Read more than about 10 pages of it, and you find yourself in front of the fridge, desperately trying to find something as good as the dish you just read about.
@Darlynne, regarding Faith Hunter’s Soulwood series, it is set in the same world as her Jane Yellowrock series but I don’t feel you need to have read that in order to enjoy Soulwood. I haven’t read the other series but I’m enjoying the heck out of this one anyway. I’m sure I’m missing some of the nuances and particularly in the most recent book there’s a quite a bit of back story crossover in regards to the head of Nell’s crime fighting unit, who appears in both series. If you prefer to read books in order though, it might bother you.
Just finished “Because You’re Mine” by Lisa Kleypas and while I’m usually a big Kleypas fan, this must be one of her earlier books because it somehow read more like fanfic to me. I was not at all fond of the heroine who was very Pollyanna Marisu and could cure everyone’s problems (except her own) with a simple conversation, and the hero gets a big NSG (Non-Sufficient Grovel) stamp from me for being a dick to the heroine throughout the book and getting forgiven just for explaining WHY he was being a dick – no, wait, HE doesn’t explain, SHE figures it out in one of her miraculous conversations. Sigh.
Moving on to the final book in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath series, “Empire’s End” and looking forward to more Sinjir Rath-Velus snarky goodness.
The amount of good books calling my name from “the pile” is currently overwhelming. I have not had nearly enough time this month to read because of too much life stuff happening with end-of-school and gardening!
My favorite book I read in the last two weeks is ESCAPING CAMP ROOSEVELT by Bryan T. Clark. It is a M/M with a more gritty and serious story revolving around homelessness that I generally do not pick. But I was engaged and spent more time than I had available reading it. I would add a CW for sex work and childhood abuse.
I also read TOP SECRET by Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen, and HOLDING OUT by Serena Bell. I found both of these books to have some great parts and then some just ok parts. But on a whole, I liked them both.
Yesterday I finished The Wicked Boy, a nonfiction book about murder in Victorian London by Kate Summerscale who also wrote The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher. It was an interesting read that covered a lot of cultural and social ground but it also didn’t feel like there was some central idea behind it. More she was interested and did the research and wrote a book, which can work but left me feeling eh about it.
I read My Steadfast Heart by Jo Goodman, an ebook that’s been sitting in my TBR pile for a while and had very mixed feelings about it. I don’t understand where the title comes from at all. Goodman’s a great writer at setting up characters and a detailed world but the pacing of the romance was off. The characters start off almost enemies and there’s a lot of abuse referenced and on the page, which the hero ends up kind of mirroring with the heroine. I never really felt like there was a proper acknowledgement from the hero that he took away some of the heroine’s choices. I think I’ll end up trying at least one more of her books because the book bothered me so much due to the depth of the characters and their world. Her style and story choices reminded me of Mary Balogh, Loretta Chase and Meredith Duran which is why I want to try her again as those are some of my favorite authors.
I’ve been rereading a couple of Jeeves and Wooster books before bed, they’re silly and fairly relaxing for me.
I’ve read two Star Wars’ books this month; Master and Apprentice which I really enjoyed for the deep dive into Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and Phasma that was interesting and darker.
The Afterward was amazing and a book that made me so happy, but I’ve yet to not like an E.K. Johnston book. I really like how she writes characters and their worlds. She knows how to create groups of friends and interactions that feel real.
Oh and another nonfiction book called Shattered Air about a lightning strike at Half-Dome on Yosemite. I’ve been reading disaster books on mountains and such and this was a really good one of the genre. The author did a good job telling the stories everyone involved and not passing a lot of judgement.
I’m not sure what I’m going to read next, possibly try some Kate Elliot and maybe some MG and YA. I’m in the interview stage of two different school librarian jobs and since I’ve been working in a college library, need to keep my YA knowledge up to date. I’ve also got a Terry Pratchett that I want to reread so I’ll see.
Earlier this month I read “Her Perfect Partner” by Priscilla Oliveras, which I liked, and which reminded me of a Harlequin Superromance without being a Superromance: it’s kisses-only and there’s a lot of time spent with both the heroine’s family and with the hero’s young daughter. More recently, Alyssa Cole’s “Can’t Escape Love.” My only quibble was that its ending felt rushed, as the endings of Alyssa Cole’s books often do for me, but I still plan to read “A Prince on Paper” to finish the series. Mostly, though, I’ve been in the mood for history. I read “Blood Roses” by Kathryn Warner, about the houses of Lancaster and York before the Wars of the Roses, because Rachel Hawkins recommended it on Twitter. Then I enjoyed a reread of “The Wives of Henry VIII” by Antonia Fraser. Now I’m reading “The Phantom Tree” by Nicola Cornick. Since it’s about Mary Seymour, the daughter of Queen Catherine Parr, and involves Tudor time travel, it’s the perfect novel for me right now.
:::tucks and rolls in::: Wow, May. Just wow. You were WAY too extra, start to finish.
I’d go into all the books I’ve read since last time, but it was pretty much Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. I enjoyed the SPAAAACE of it all, and it had an intriguing mystery aspect to it, and the characters, especially as they got to know each other, had some really nice chemistry. Fin is my kiiiiind of an a-hole baby. But due to some family stuff, it took me awhile to read, because, well, family stuff. I’m also listening to Born A Crime by Trevor Noah, and it’s so funny and heartfelt, and his love for his family is in every word he says, and God, I know so little about apartheid, so I’m glad this book exists, because these are really weird times, and we need all the cautionary tales we can get. Which brings us to today, in which the end of a certain TV show (I had my issues with this season, but I will say this: the one person that absolutely deserved to run a kingdom did take a throne) put me in the mood for a big, doorstop historical epic, so I went with Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. I enjoy his books, and for big, sprawling, historical epics being epic, he’s a reliable bet. Until next month, guys, order the dessert and buy the book.
Flew through Graceling and Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore and really enjoyed them both. Is there a genre or tag for “slightly prickly hero and heroine who are totally smart and actually totally into each other who have cool adventures”? (Examples: Veronica and Stoker in Deanna Raybourn’s books, Conall and Alexia in Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, Katsa and Po in Graceling.)
Currently waiting for Ruth Reichl’s next book Save Me the Plums. I love her writing—even though she’s a food writer and memoirist, I think there’s something about her writing that would appeal to romance readers—evocative, even sensual descriptions of food and charming characters. Her books always give me these really vivid dreams (and make me want to spend my entire income on food).
I just finished ICE CREAM LOVER by Jackie Lau. I appreciated that the couple met in ways that couples often meet but not often found in romances. He came into her ice cream shop with his niece. They noticed each other. Came back several times. Got to know each other. There is the atypical to life plot point and the “I’m not good enough for you” issues but still I like the people.
At the same time I was reading JOSH AND HAZEL’S GUIDE TO NOT DATING” by Christina Lauren. A sweet friends to lovers trope. What I really liked about it was that Hazel knew what her personality was like and wasn’t going to change it (Yesss!), but not sure how well they meshed long term. Neither of them was “wrong” or “right”. The basic question EVERY couple considers not how well they may look on paper.