Whatcha Reading? November 2019 Edition, Part One

Cute ginger cat is sleeping in the bed on warm blanket. Cold autumn or winter weekend while reading a book and drinking warm coffee or tea. Hygge concept. Text on the pages is not recognizable.We have reached November! Many of us at SBTB HQ have been groaning about reading slumps. Is something in the air?

Let’s get into what we’re reading now!

Shana: I just started a bunch of novels in a moment of book hangover desperation. The one I’m enjoying the most so far is White Whiskey Bargain by Jodie Slaughter ( A ). It’s a marriage of convenience plot between two super sexy moonshine smugglers in contemporary Kentucky.

Tara: I’m reading Sweetest Thing by Natasha West, which is an f/f enemies to lovers romance that takes place against the backdrop of a British competitive baking show. It starts off a bit shaky, but then gets way better about a third of the way in and is very cute.

In audio, I’m listening to One Walk in Winter by Georgia Beers ( A | BN ). It’s great, which isn’t a surprise because she’s one of my favs. It has a meet cute opening, followed by the revelation that one of the women is the new boss of the other at a small resort in New York State. Also, there is a sweet dog named Walter who is clearly the best boy.

Maya: In what I now realized is a bit on the nose reading considering I just did a cross-country move (including a solo cross-country drive with my two cats!), I read Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman, which I know Carrie reviewed a while back. I liked it, but it was a bit too angsty for me, so I’m aiming for something cheerful next. Also, I am very excited about a pie recipe book I just ordered called Sister Pie by Lisa Ludwinski. I’m planning to christen the oven at my new place with the toasted marshmallow butterscotch pie!

Sarah: I’m listening to A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) while I cross stitch and (I HOPE) finish the major project I’ve been working on this year. I love that as it gets dark earlier, I’m wrapped in blankets and listening to a book tell me how cold all the characters are while I’m warm and cozy.

Charlotte: I’m re-reading Elizabeth Boyle’s Lord Langley is Back in Town ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which I love because the hero and heroine are both older (their exact ages aren’t clear, but the heroine seems to be in her mid 30s and the hero is in his 40s). As I get older, my interest in 20 year old debutantes becomes less.

Claudia: Oh god, I feel like thumping my chest and saying “through my own fault” because I gave an author I was iffy about another chance and the book was terrible.

I need to detox somehow.

Sister Pie
A | BN | K | AB
Sarah: Might be time to break out some Tessa Dare.

Claudia: Yes, I think I need to re-read A Week to Be Wicked ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | Scribd ). That ought to do it.

Lara: There is almost nothing that A Week to Be Wicked cannot fix.

Claudia: Agreed, Lara.

Lara: I’m trying to think of a Plan B, just in case Dare fails you (which is impossible, but still)… and it might be Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me. I like the idea of a Romance First Aid kit.

Which I think is probably already a thing? (This podcast about how we create memories has me doubting ALL of mine).

Claudia: Ooh good idea to have a fallback — A Week to Be Wicked is often checked out in my library.

Can’t Escape Love
A | BN | K | AB
Aarya: I haven’t read anything in the last couple of days, but I’m determined to break that slump tonight. I think the problem is that I’m in a contemporary rut; I have so many contemporary arcs on my tbr. The more I read them, the less enthused I am about the subgenre (I love it, I just need a break). So to break the slump, I’m going back to my bread-and-butter: PNR and historical.

I want to try Alexis Hall’s Shadows & Dreams ( A | BN | K | G ), which is the second installment in a wonderful f/f urban fantasy series. The first book is snarky and has the perfect balance between mystery, romance, and action. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m going to try Mia Vincy’s A Beastly Kind of Earl ( A | BN | K | AB ); the previous book in that series has wonderful banter and I so desperately need to laugh right now.

Catherine: I just inhaled Can’t Escape Love by Alyssa Cole. It’s a novella in her Reluctant Royals series, and it’s just an adorable, low-conflict, fannish romance with a smart, disabled heroine and a sweet, neuro-atypical hero and it just melted me. So good.

Oh, and I read The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller after reading Aarya’s review here, and I loved it so much.

Empire of Sand
A | BN | K | AB
AJ: Ha, mine is an Aarya rec too! I just picked up Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri, which I’m hoping will bust me out of my current romance reading slump.

Aarya: I feel extremely powerful (and nervous that you won’t like the book!).

Sneezy: The Pasha of Cuisine by Saygin Ersin ( A | BN | K | G | AB )! As you might guess from the title, do NOT read on an empty stomach.

Elyse: I’m torn between reading some YA fantasy or The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell ( A | BN | K | G | AB ).

Amanda: I picked up Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) last night and I’m enjoying and I’m actually bummed I don’t have more reading time right now.

Which books have you finished so far this month?


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  1. Kit says:

    I too have found it hard to get into a book. Read another true life memoir (not romance so I won’t mention it) but that’s the only book I’ve completed. Doesn’t help that my two and a half year old has quit napping and now I can’t have an afternoon read!

  2. Lilaea says:

    I haven’t actually read anything new this month because I was looking for something very specific that doesn’t exist but I am waiting on Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory which is going to be delightful. I also reread my Sarah J Maas which is comforting in ways I cannot entirely articulate

  3. MirandaB says:

    Book 1 of the Emporer’s Edge series by Lindsey Buroker: Rollicking space opera, with maybe the beginnings of a romance. Amaranthe is awesome, as is the crew she assembles.

    Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken: As good as everyone said!

    All of a Winter’s Night by Phil Rickman: I re-read this to be ready for the new one, but now that’s been put off until April 2021. Boo!

    Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders: Another re-read to prepare for the next, which is hopefully coming out December 3. I really like this mystery, with its older, sensible heroine, who has great family relationships.

    Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss: Better than European Travel, which dragged. This one moves the story forward.

    Currently reading Lady of Perdition by Barbara Hambly (really good, and has Valentina from Day of the Dead) and Why Kill the Innocent by C.S. Harris.

  4. Vår says:

    Ooooh! I love the Watcha Readings! I get so many great tips!

    I understand I really should get some sort of system for cataloging what I’ve read. I listen to audio books (the reason why I unfortunately can’t enjoy the promising works by Elizabeth Boyle, seeing as the narrator ruins everything), and I just remove them from my unit (i.e. my iPhone) when I’m done. As it turns out, this system sucks.

    Anyway: At the moment I’m listening to LOVE ON THE HORIZON by A.M. Madden. It’s about a young woman falling in love with her boss at a cruise ship, where they both work, and I’m half way through. The book is dual POV, but there’s only one narrator (Jim McCabe), and he is brilliant! The H is Italian, and McCabe does the best accent ever. *swoon*. Love this book so far!

    I already listened to the second book in the series – HOSTILE WORKPLACE – which has some seriously delicious grown-up-time in it, but there are parts of the book that made me feel… icky. There was just too much time spent before the H/h meet. Plus, the female narrator sounded weird.

    Fortunately, I listened to SHOCK JOCK (also by A.M. Madden) first, about a sex therapist with a radio show and his PA. It was sweet but forgettable.

    I also read these by Ella Maise: MARRIAGE FOR ONE about a marriage for property. Really liked this slow burn. And THE HARDEST FALL, which I liked, but the mail narrator made the h sound like a squirrel.

  5. Vår says:

    “Mail narrator”! Lol! Sry, it’s supposed to be “male narrator”. There really should be a way to edit one’s bloopers.

  6. Jill Q. says:

    I think this time of year, the holiday stress starts to pile on and it’s hard to focus on reading. That’s my excuse anyway. I’m also doing NANO (in a half-hearted way), trying to study Italian (trip in April) and I’ve started a new job. Verry busy around here. Which doesn’t mean I should really skip reading b/c it is one of my favorite modes of self care.

    Most of what I’ve been reading lately I’ve loved and I’ve also been very ready to DNF the books that do not “spark joy.” I still love to read physical paperbacks (sometimes), but then I hoard them in my small house with its small bookshelves and I have to go on a decluttering spree which feels freeing once I embrace it. I donate with abandon and have an excuse to get new books ;-). I really love that our area has lots of wee free libraries and used bookstores.

    ‘Oh, look, this historical mystery has a protagonist who adores Andrew Jackson and thinks he’s the greatest thing since ? (I don’t know what b/c it was before sliced bread). It’s very technically proficient and probably historically accurate. But Andrew Jackson was vile and there is no earthly reason I would need to/want to read about him in this fashion. Goodbye, book.’

    But, enough about that on with the good stuff.

    THE GOOD

    THE FLATSHARE by Beth O’Leary. I loved this! Epistolary romance between 2 characters sharing a flat without seeing each other. Big, big catnip for me. I felt like this was British and had a little bit more of women’s fiction and dare I say. . . chick lit flavor. But it still had enough romance that I felt like it gave me a bit of my romance reading mojo back. The heroine was a bit of quirky oddball, but I liked her. The hero was a nurse (yay! nurses!) and they definitely had an opposites attract thing that worked. The heroine does deal with an ex who is stalker with issues so heads up if that’s going to bother you.

    WELL MET by Jen Lucca. This was just so utterly charming. Heroine who moves to a small town to help her big sister falls in with the Ren Faire crowd. I really only got it b/c it got rave reviews. I’m not a big “small town” reader for romance (my small town was filled with meth addicts and racists, funny how they don’t end up in romances) I felt it lacked a little technical polish, but I loved the chemistry between the two characters. The small town aspect wasn’t too cutsey and annoying. I’m usually a read for the heroine reader and I liked Emily, but I fell hard for Simon. I loved that there was way for him to be an ordinary guy and a swaggering pirate.

    Sooo, for all their differences, I think the thing that these two books had in common was- fully realized worlds, banter, hero and heroine who are more ‘ordinary’ people. I didn’t feel like the setting or the characters were blatantly a ‘hook’ to sell the book. With either book, you couldn’t just take the author’s notes, hand it off to someone else and get a similar story. Everything felt deliberately chosen and attuned to the author’s voice. And as much as I love tropey ‘don’t overthink it’ stuff sometimes, I love this too. I would also love, love more heroes who are teachers and nurses (and no secret billionaires, please!).

    STILL GOOD

    PUMPKINHEADS by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks. This was also charming! YA graphic novel. Two high school friends spent their very last night at the pumpkin patch they work at goofing off, taking on new challenges, and maybe finding some love. I’m a sucker for a story that happens over the course of one day or one night and YA seems particularly well-suited for that. I got this to put myself in a fallish mood and it did the trick. Rainbow Rowell doesn’t always work for me, but she really did here.

    MOONCAKES by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu. A teenage witch and werewolf fall in love and fight crime! Actually, they fight an evil presence in their small town. I also got this to get in fallish Halloween mood and it was cute. I didn’t like it as much as PUMPKINHEADS. The two characters get together almost instantly with no internal conflict and I didn’t find the supernatural conflict very interesting. *But* the 7-year-old loved it! (Please read this book carefully before handing it over to a kid, it’s not super racy but it does touch on some adult stuff) He read it by himself and we read it together. It features a very diverse world that feels (mostly) positive and welcoming to different types of people and I’m always happy when I can find something like that for him that he enjoys (CARDBOARD KINGDOM was also a big hit in this house).

    SIMPLY UNFORGETTABLE by Mary Balogh. My lone audiobook of the month so far. This is going to sound like a slam, but it’s really not. I loved this book even though I mostly slept through it. I have been dealing with a lot of insomnia lately (waking up at 3 in the morning and unable to fall back asleep). One of my tricks is to listen to an audiobook for about an hour and if I don’t fall asleep, get up and do something. I had kind of burned out on Mary Balogh while bingeing on her traditional regencies a few years ago. But this was available from the library and Rosalyn Landor is one of my favorite narrators of all time. It really did the trick. A few minutes with Rosalyn reading to me and I was off to dreamland and I didn’t have to worry about anything too scary or upset happening (like when I fell asleep listening to a Game of Thrones book and had nightmares about direwolves chasing me all night long). The insomnia is still coming in spurts, so I may get the next one too. Until I can save up enough money to get Rosalyn Landor to come to my house and read me bedtime stories. Kidding (mostly).

  7. K.N.O’Rear says:

    Pretty good reading so far honestly.

    Read:
    THE FATAL FLAME by Lyndsay Faye.
    This was by far the weakest of Faye’s Timothy Wilde novel. It wasn’t bad necessarily , but it was defiantly the grimmest in the series. Now, it’s set in a gritty and realistic late 1840s New York, but unlike the others it had A very bittersweet ending. All the main characters are fine, but considering the epilogue is set in the 1850s the implications of what is on the way are palpable and puts their “happy” ending in some doubt. If that bothers you don’t read it.

    Supernova by Marissa Meyer
    As always Meyer brought it and I enjoyed the book, but it had a few flaws.The beginning was slow, but it does have some fun character interactions , so that didn’t bother me nearly as much as the ending and I don’t the ending The ending of the story itself. It was fittingly epic , if not entirely earned, but still good. The problem was the epilogue, without spoiling anything it was the literary equivalent of a post credits scene, complete with a last minute reveal ( literally last minute like the last sentence of the last page of the book). It also single-handedly undid all the character development of the two leads. No epilogue has disappointed me that much since I finished Harry Potter. Like I said the book is still good, especially if you’re a Marissa Meyer fan, but maybe skip the epilogue until a sequel/spin-off is confirmed.

    Reading:
    Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England .
    So far I’m still enjoying it, but I still can’t recommend for anyone unless they need it for research purposes.

    Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas
    I finally got ahold of this at a Half Price books clearance sale( highly recommended btw I’d one pops up near you) . I can’t say it’s the best romance novel I’ve read(so far ), but I do agree with all the praise this novel gets and Sebastian is one of the best bad boys I’ve read. This books is definitely highly recommended if you haven’t read it already.

  8. Another Kate says:

    I’m on vacation (until Monday) and I’ve been able to get through a few books in and amongst traveling in England.

    I read (and loved) Cherish Hard – my first Nalini Singh since I don’t go for paranormal – and I’ve not got Rebel Hard signed out from Overdrive to help me ease back in to work.

    I also finally read (and loved) Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin – and wish that I had read it earlier!

    I read the first chapter of The Vixen and the Vet – I may go back to it but it didn’t grab me on first glance.

    A novella – One Sinful Night in Sao Paulo by Amber Belldene – left me wanting a longer story (this is loosely connected with her Hot Under the Collar series which I devoured and loved).

    Reckless in Texas by Kari Lynn Del scratched the “contemporary cowboys that are also feminist” itch that I had last month, and now I’m waiting for the other books in the series to go on sale (or for my local library to acquire paper or digital copies).

    And for something completely different, I’m half-way through a re-read of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens which counts as work reading even though I’m on vacation since I’m planning to structure our church’s four Advent services around this story.

  9. Crystal F. says:

    Yes, break out the Tessa Dare!

    At last I’ve gotten around to ‘The Duchess Deal’. (I finally got my copy back from the sister-in-law.)

    There’s nothing I can add except it deserves ALL the praise and positive reviews, and I should have read it sooner.

    I got a decent little chunk of ‘The Fiery Cross’ read. (Pro Tip: Tripping and falling down hard for the second time in a year and being ordered to stay in bed for several days will give you time to read big books.) (I’m okay, nothing broken.)

  10. Escapeologist says:

    @Jill Q.

    Audio books for insomnia! I woke up at 3 or 4 am this morning and listened to a bit of Lauren Fortgang narrating, worked like a charm. The book is from a charming middle grade series by Sheila Turnage starting with Three Times Lucky. Small town full of oddballs and regular folks, a girl detective, gentle humor, ahh so cozy and warm.

    I’ll have to try Rosalyn Landor. Sweet dreams to you!

  11. Jill Q. says:

    @Escapeologist, I love that series too! I haven’t finished it yet, maybe I will alternate with Rosalyn Landor.

  12. Gill says:

    Bit of a slump for me too. But I’m on holiday in benidorm. Currently reading the Cara Bristol latest

  13. SusanH says:

    I had two very good reads recently. The first was Victoria Thompson’s CITY OF SECRETS, which is the second book in a series about a former con artist in the early 1900s. The books should definitely be read in order. The first book was set during the Night of Terror at Occoquan, when suffragists were arrested and tortured for peacefully protesting outside of the White House. Both books feature Leverage-style cons, where our heroine and her friends (some grifters, some not) right wrongs outside of the law. I really felt that both books did an excellent job of looking at issues like early feminism without sounding like the characters are from our time period. They are very progressive for their time, but they still sound plausibly of their era. I also enjoyed how the women used misogyny for their own ends, knowing that a man would dismiss or overlook them and using that to their advantage. The third book in the series comes out this week, and I hope it will live up to the previous two.

    The second book I loved was WHAT THE WIND KNOWS by Amy Harmon. It’s a time travel book about a woman who goes back to the early 1920s in Ireland and finds herself caring for her now six year old grandfather and meeting key players in the Irish uprising (like Michael Collins). I think the book does a reasonable job of not pushing any particular agenda, but if you have strong opinions about the era, you might feel differently. I don’t know a great deal about the time period, so I enjoyed learning more. The book has a very satisfying love story in it, but I think it falls more on the “historical” side of historical romance.

    I also dove into holiday reading earlier than usual, probably because it’s been freezing and snow covered here since Halloween. I reread A CHRISTMAS GONE PERFECTLY WRONG, which is probably my favorite holiday historical romance. It’s sweet, funny, and entertaining, with just the right amount of Christmas. I particularly like the hero, who is a good, honorable man. It’s refreshing to read about a historical hero who isn’t a rake or a duke.

  14. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    Work on the house continues, plus I have a World Series hangover (I haz a sad for the Astros), but I was able to read a bit more these last two weeks than the two previous weeks.

    After reading the first three books in Kate Canterbary’s Walsh Family series, I continued my stroll through her backlist by reading book four, THE CORNERSTONE. What I really enjoy about the Walsh books I’ve read so far is how carefully Canterbary interweaves the timelines and stories of six siblings who run an architecture/restoration business in Boston. Each book focuses on a different couple (a Walsh sibling and his/her love interest), but also includes plenty of interaction with other members of the family; so we read a scene in an earlier book from one character’s point-of-view, only to read it again in a whole new light when we see it from a different character’s point-of-view in a subsequent book. I can’t give Canterbary high enough praise for how cleverly she keeps various plot points running through the books (there are a total of eight books in the series—and I do think they need to be read in order). THE CORNERSTONE is about the family’s oldest sister, a lawyer and also a caregiver to her siblings since she was nine (when their mother died and their father began his long decline into alcohol and abusive behavior—which is referenced but not described in detail, but might still be triggering) and unable to see herself outside of that role. She’s also competence porn personified; I was exhausted just reading about all the things she accomplished in a day. She meets a military man and they begin a hot-pants affair whenever he is stateside—but what will she do when things take an emotional turn and her lover wants to take care of her for a change? As she puts it, “I didn’t know how to be the person others worried about.” Highly recommended, but read the first three books first.

    I thoroughly enjoyed Caitlin Crews’s latest HP, UNWRAPPING THE INNOCENT’S SECRET. The “secret” is, of course, a baby; well, actually, a child: the product of a torrid encounter six years before between a novice nun and a businessman recovering from an automobile accident at a clinic run by the convent. Now the man has returned to claim his child and marry the child’s mother (obviously no longer a nun). Yes, the plot is cuckoo-bananas, but Crews never acknowledges in any way that her story is wildly implausible, so her beautifully-written, careful, and serious dissection of the emotions of both the hero and the heroine makes the book compulsively readable. Here, for example, is the hero looking at his son for the first time: “He knew this child. He could see the shape of his own face in the smaller face before him. He could see his own mother’s nose. And he could see Cecilia too. And it had never occurred to Pascal before that children were the real ghosts, patchworks of the past made new—yet unlike the haunts of fiction, wholly uninterested in what had gone before them.” Any parent, looking at their child’s face, can relate to that. Highly recommended.

    Karina Halle’s THE ROYAL ROGUE is another of her royal romance series about the loves of various European princes and princesses (completely fictitious, even if their countries of origin are not). In THE ROYAL ROGUE, a Danish princess (sister of the title character from A NORDIC KING) has a fling with a prince from Monaco. Unplanned pregnancy alert! What will the prince (who has been in a supposedly long-term relationship with a Russian tennis player, a woman with her own secrets) and the princess (a divorcee and mother to a young daughter) do? The humor was a little broader in this book than in previous books I’ve read by Halle—and some of the complications felt a little manufactured—but (other than a rather odd, completely unnecessary passage that appeared to put a positive spin on Ernest Hemingway’s suicide) overall I enjoyed another visit with the royal families of Europe and their complicated romantic lives.

    I was completely unfamiliar with Melanie Moreland or her fake-relationship/antagonists-to-lovers romance, THE CONTRACT, when it popped upon my KU recommendations. Because obviously I don’t have enough books on my tbr already, I decided to give it a try. The book has one of the most initially unlikeable heroes I’ve recently encountered: a rude, demanding, dismissive, snobbish executive who (because of…reasons) has to enter into a fake relationship with his long-suffering PA. I think Moreland may have overdone the horribleness of the hero, but once the fake relationship begins, he starts to mellow. By contrast, the heroine is almost too good: kind-hearted, forbearing, thrifty, polite, with a strong family incentive to keep her head down at a dreadful job—and later to enter into the fake relationship. But once the couple begin “practicing” the appearance of a relationship, things get sweeter. Key quote: “…maybe what she needed all along was someone to hold her up, rather than tear her down.” With its earnest tone, hero’s redemption arc, and rather overlong storyline, THE CONTRACT put me in mind of some of Natasha Anders’s books (especially THE UNWANTED WIFE and THE HUSBAND’S REGRET). THE CONTRACT is a book that creeps up on you; by the end, I was surprised at how much I’d liked it.

    Speaking of “Billionaire must marry for…reasons and chooses his meek PA who accepts his proposal for…reasons”—it seemed to be a trope du jour for this month’s reading because I encountered it yet again in Clare Connelly’s latest HP, BRIDE BEHIND THE BILLION-DOLLAR VEIL. No baby—secret, epilogue, or otherwise—in this one, but in every other way, the book is very much a standard Harlequin Presents and there really isn’t much left to say. [Now, to go off on a tangent, are there certain words that take you right out of a story? Connelly (a writer I like and read a lot of) frequently uses the word “tummy” and, for some reason, that’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. For example, “She had butterflies in her tummy” or “Her tummy rumbled because she’d skipped breakfast.” I want to yell, “If you’re writing about anyone over the age of six, please refrain from referring to their stomach as their tummy.” For me, a word like “tummy” infantilizes a character—and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered Connelly using it in regards to a man’s anatomy (thank God—that would kill the book right there for me if she did), only to a woman’s. I know it’s a weird thing to latch on to, but I find myself editing as I go and replacing every instance of “tummy” with “stomach.” Ok, tangent/rant over.]

    Natasha Knight’s duet, COLLATERAL and DAMAGE, is very much cut from her standard template: a dark mafia romance with a forced/revenge marriage between a crime boss and the daughter of the man he holds responsible for his brother’s death. In some ways, the story put me in mind of Skye Warren—especially the young, socially-isolated heroine who is physically untouched but, due to the circumstances of her upbringing, has knowledge of the darker side of humanity beyond her age or innocence. I know dark mafia romances aren’t for everyone, but I liked COLLATERAL & DAMAGE well enough—although each book is rather short and the two could have easily been published as a single volume.

    I had to DNF Cara Dee’s THEIR BOY, about a committed couple who open their relationship to another partner. You would think a bdsm-m/m/m-ménage story would generate plenty of erotic heat, but the book is so focused on the ways three men incorporate Daddy/little kink into their everyday lives that, frankly, the sex scenes are a bit of a letdown. (I also think the use of the word “boy” in the title connotes all sorts of icky imagery, even though the word is only used in the bdsm/Daddy/little context and the “boy” in question is a fully-consenting, legal adult.) THEIR BOY is a sequel to Dee’s TOP PRIORITY, which I read a few months ago and is the next book in Dee’s The Game series. Supposedly, Dee is writing this series to explore how partners negotiate kink when their sexual proclivities do not align—but in the first two books I’ve read, I haven’t seen much evidence of “misalignment.” Plus, the title character of THEIR BOY got on my nerves. I understand that he is relatively young (22) and has been in a terrible accident that has left him badly scarred, but his ongoing, flighty, anxious interior monologue made him seem emotionally about 14 at most; and—while I know it’s part of the Daddy/little dynamic—I found his reverting to little boy talk and attitudes very off-putting. I’ll try to read Dee’s next book in the series, but if it’s not an improvement over this one, that will be it for me.

  15. Vivi12 says:

    I’m in that weird mindset where you set aside books that you’ve started, and actually like?
    I did really like A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecilia Grant which has the “he has no Christmas spirit and must be tutored in it by the heroine” plot, but I liked the writing and it worked for me.
    I also enjoyed The Power of Three, a KU paranormal set on a planet of empaths who live in triads…
    Otherwise I re-read my way through lila Moon’s books and some of my favorite Liaden books by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller: Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change. I’m always looking for read alikes for these book, which are maybe SF adventure with strong romantic element…?
    One other new one – Spacer’s Cinderella, which Aarya mentioned somewhere – I liked it but wanted more internal conflict…

  16. Emily B says:

    After really not enjoying TIME SERVED by Juliana Keyes, I figured I wouldn’t bother with the others in the series, but then my library mentioned IN HER DEFENSE, and I do love a mean girl redemption when it’s done well, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I am so glad I did – I devoured this book. Super ambitious career driven woman forced to learn some balance, and a very sexy hero who just so happens to be willing to help her with that. I went right from this into the next book about her sister, THE GOOD FIGHT, which was another very career driven heroine. My only issue with these 2 was I didn’t feel like the heroes groveled enough after their big screw up, especially in IN HER DEFENSE.

    BROKEN BEAUTIFUL HEARTS by Kami Garcia was a just ok YA/NA. The heroine is a high schooler whose boyfriend causes a serious injury to her (so trigger warning for that), so her mother sends her to live with her uncle and 2 cousins. This one felt very teen soap opera, and while the heroine immediately rejected the abusive behavior of the boyfriend, I felt there were other relationships in the book that showed unhealthy/aggressive behaviors. I wouldn’t let teens read this one without a discussion of this.

    HOW TO HACK A HEARTBREAK by Kristin Rockaway. This was a super cute rom com about a woman who works for a tech startup, becomes fed up with all the sexism she has to deal with at work and disillusioned with dating on a Tinder like site, so she develops her own site where women can basically review their bad dates. This one reminded me a bit of Alisha Rai’s Right Swipe, but more just because of the similar subject matter. I loved the camaraderie of the female friends, and the feminist allyship of the male love interest.

    MOONLIGHTER by Sarina Bowen. I have to admit I wasn’t necessarily thrilled with Bowen’s turn towards a security/bodyguard series, as it’s not normally my thing, but I should have know better and trusted Bowen. I loved this one – more of a backdoor pilot to the new Company series, as the main hero is one of her Brooklyn Bruisers players and there’s a lot of other Bruisers present. Here, injured veteran player has to pretend to be billionaire cable mogul Alex’s boyfriend (Alex, who was Nate’s best friend from BROOKLYNAIRE, and also happens to be pregnant with no intention of the father being part of her baby’s life). I loved seeing all the former Bruiser heroes here, and despite my normal aversion to Security company book, I am chomping at the bit to read Max and Scout’s story.

    Currently reading A HIGHLANDER WALKS INTO A BAR, by Laura Trentham, the first in her small town romance Highland, GA series. Trentham is a new to me author (though she has a pretty large back catalog). So far this book is dragging for me a bit. It’s a cute premise – Heroine’s mom comes home from trip to Scotland with large dashing Scottish man as a souvenir, heroine is very suspicious, Scottish man’s nephew shows up to retrieve his uncle and is just as suspicious of the heroine and her mom. Oh, and they happen to live in a small southern town that’s obsessed with Scotland and puts on their own Highlander games every year. We’ll see if it gets better, so far I’m finding myself skimming a bit and wondering when anything is going to happen.

  17. Tina says:

    ANGEL IN A DEVIL’S ARMS – the 2nd book in Julie Anne Long’s Palace of rogue series. Loved it. I had soured on her Pennyroyal Green series after book 6. But I am loving this new series.

    THE FLATSHARE – by Beth O’Leary. Also Loved it. Odd premise that the author really makes work. The post-it note communication just takes it over the top for me. Listened on audio. Nicely performed

    POLARIS RISING – BY Jessie Mihalik – Just ok. I didn’t love it. It is a space opera with a lot of plot that needed a ‘HELLS YEAH!!’ moment that didn’t happen. To me it felt like it limped to an ending.

    A SONG FOR ARBONNE – by Guy Gavriel Kay – one of my 5-star favorites. It is a re-read via audiobook. The narrator is excellent.

    THE UNKNOWN AJAX – Georgette Heyer – another audio listen. A late Heyer discovery for me. This one is super fun. The main hero is the just the best and the story unpeels him layer by layer until the person you get in the end is very different from the person you first meet in the beginning, but only because Heyer deftly plays around with first impressions and assumptions. Also the narrator was fantastic.

  18. Star says:

    @DiscoDollyDeb — nope, it’s not just you. I have exactly the same reaction to “tummy” whenever I encounter it with an adult character… and yeah, those adult characters with tummys always do seem to be women.

    I don’t usually do these posts because I read enough that it becomes rapidly overwhelming, but since I decided leap on the anti-tummy wagon, I’ll give it a shot? This month I’ve read less than usual because of some sad stuff IRL, so it’s less daunting than usual.

    One of the sale posts recently had a Tessa Bailey book from her Clarkson siblings series, and it just happened that I was reading that series at the time. I loved the setup — four adult sibilngs on a big road trip! — but was extremely disappointed with the series. All of the relationships developed much too quickly; none of them felt very healthy; two of them felt actively toxic. But the thing that really killed it for me? The premise of the series is these four semi-estranged siblings reconnecting, but each sibling leaves the road trip after meeting their new partner… and yet, Bailey wanted me to believe that all that sibling bonding was happening anyway. I didn’t buy it. I wanted all the siblings together all the way through, with the new partner either joining the gang or idk the sibling doing the sane person thing and continuing on the trip while texting their new love incessantly like MOST PEOPLE DO. It was such a great premise and I’m so sad. But Bailey is a weird author for me.

    Then I started Eva Leigh’s London Underground trilogy, and am now finishing up the third book. (Does anyone else think the name of the series implies romance around the building of the London Underground? Or is that just me?) Each heroine in the trilogy is involved in something sketchy: swindling, smuggling, and sex club operation. They don’t know each other — the heroes do — and I’d have preferred a series with the concept “criminal heroines” be linked by heroine rather than hero. The trilogy is kind of uneven, but I’ve liked each book better than the one before, actually. The first one was bogged down by way too many repetitive internal monologues, and I felt the author was trying too hard to make the heroine “acceptable.” So far I’m loving the third one, though, although I’m only about a quarter in. Leigh is another mixed author for me. I love her commitment to showing positive consent, and I love what she tries to do with her stories, but she doesn’t usually quite manage to stick the landing. Still, she comes close enough that I keep reading her. And if this third book continues as it’s begun, it will be the best thing I’ve ever read by her, so fingers crossed.

    Also reading a bunch of non-fiction books about how to spot manipulative, narcissitic, and generally toxic people, and what to do about them.

  19. DonanMarie says:

    @Vivu12, A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong is my annual
    before bed read on Christmas day. It’s the perfect reward for the long active week that precedes it.

    Daylight savings time is kicking my ass a little (I just cracked my egg into my coffee cup), so the reads are few.

    Finished The Art of Theft this morning. I didn’t love it as much as the previous books, but that’s not to say I didn’t love it. There were just A LOT of points of view and plot points to keep up with. Also, there was a thread that I imagine will be resolved in the next book regarding Charlotte’s burgeoning figure. Or I’m just reading too much into an observation on Ash’s part. Now I get to listen to Sarah’s interview. I held off because I didn’t want to hear anything about the book before I finished it.

    Next up is Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer. I’ve been on a bit of a fantasy kick lately. It was a major part of my reading life back in high school and college, but somehow fell by the wayside. Maybe it was the dirth of female writers? Anyway, thanks to authors like Grace Draven and Anne Bishop, it is back on my front burner, and I’m looking forward to this one.

  20. Amy M. says:

    Not to book shame the stalwart writers at this fine site but it puzzles me that people could get into a fall book slump. The releases are always so good this time of year! Summer and spring are always leaner book times for me. Here’s what I have enjoyed recently:
    1. The Last Girl Child by Amy Harmon – This is an interesting mix of fantasy, historical romance, and a tiny dose of general spirituality (not Christian-based mostly). This was a satisfying book about a quasi-Viking community cursed with no daughters, though I wish there had been more focus on the titular last-born girl.
    2. Promise of Darkness by Bec McMaster – This is the first in a planned series about a fae kingdom with one princess promised as a hostage to a mysterious ruler. I liked the world-building though I guarantee you will figure out the big twist long before the heroine does.

  21. Harmonyb says:

    I feel like I’ve been slowly crawling out of my slump this month.

    The Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken – as amazing as everyone has said. Some reviews cautioned about the book being very violent and dark so I was a bit hesitant, however I should have just trusted this author. It is violent, but it’s not dark, just super snarky. It was exactly what I’d expect from Aiken and I loved it.

    Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean – this was my first Sarah MacLean and I can’t wait to read more. I never gravitate towards historicals but I almost always really enjoy them when I read them. This book was just delightful and I absolutely loved Hattie. I need more full-figured heroines who are determined to grab their life and future by the horns (no, I’m not projecting, why do you ask?).

    Bear, Otter and the Kid by T.J. Klune – I liked this book but it isn’t my favourite of his work. It does have plenty of strong found families, which Klune is adept at creating, and while I don’t normally enjoy children in my romances I really liked the kid.

    99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne – Confession: I borrowed this from the library shortly after it was released but allowed myself to be swayed by reviews that claimed it wasn’t as good as her debut The Hating Game, which I loved. I tried again this week and now I’m annoyed I waited so long. Thorne’s writing is absolutely beautiful and I particularly loved the sibling relationship that she depicted – it’s complicated and messy and while they’re the person who can hurt you the most they’re also the only person who really gets you and will have your back no matter what.

    Aurora Blazing by Jessie Mihalik – Loved, loved, loved! I always worry, when reading the next book in a series that follows a different couple, that I won’t like the new characters as much. A large part of my enjoyment of Polaris Rising was that Ada was so strong and capable and just damn competent. Her sister Bianca in Aurora is just as competent but she has different strengths and capabilities and still manages to get shit done while healing from past trauma. It is utterly delicious and its taking all my will power not to immediately dive into a reread of both.

    @Vår – As someone who loves cataloguing what I read I highly recommend the spreadsheet that SBTB shared at the beginning of the year. I can’t currently search for and link to it but I’m really hoping we get a 2020 version. I swear half of my reading enjoyment is entering the book details on the spreadsheet and then heading over to Goodreads to log it there as well (which I also recommend).

  22. Connie says:

    I think it was on this thread that someone recommended Mimi Matthews. Whoever it was thank you very much! I have read all three of THE PARISH ORPHANS OF DEVON series and am looking forward to the upcoming fourth.

  23. Connie says:

    I also worked my way through Kelly Armstrong‘s Rockton series. Also anxiously awaiting the fifth book. Not sure but I think it was also recommended on this thread. Keep those recommendations coming

  24. HeatherS says:

    I read “If You Give A Pig The White House” by Faye Knouse. Yes, it’s a parody for adults, based on “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”. I needed a chuckle. The illustrations are funny, but the fact that real behaviors have been recounted in the text are not; it’s just embarrassing that this is reality. I asked my library to order it; they did (6 copies), but then they had to order more (12 more) when the wait list did a flying leap over the 100 hold request mark. There are almost 150 people waiting for it. This delights me to no end.

    I’m kind of annoyed that I was reading “Back To September” by Melissa Brayden, and I was chugging right along through it the night I started it, but then I put it down to go to sleep and I haven’t picked it back up.

    Reading slump is not just you lovely SBTB reviewers. I think mine can be attributed to the fact that I am really tired because work has been a beast for at least a month, and I just don’t have the brain cells to focus on reading anything fun once I get home.

    I think I might go for a comfort re-read. “Red, White & Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston is beckoning me for a third read through; it’s the bookish equivalent of a woobie for me, since I will carry my work copy (yes, I bought a copy specifically to keep at work) around from desk to desk with me on the days when I need a little mental/emotional support/comfort. I might also read “Circe” by Madeline Miller again, because I was looking through my FB timeline history and it has all my posts from election day 2016 and I’m right back in the mindset of female rage.

    I don’t know how I can continue to be both angry and tired, but there we are. Is it 2020 yet?

  25. Margaret says:

    @ Jill Q – Rosalyn Landor is always perfect for the historicals she narrates, although since I do not suffer from insomnia, I would never start listening at night:) I just listened to her read Mary Balogh’s Someone to Love and Someone to Hold and found them both to be perfect antidotes to what confronts us in the real world.

    And while Eloisa James’ and Tessa Bailey’s latests failed to thrill me, I was delighted to discover Susannah Nix’s Remedial Rocket Science. And from the “what in the world took me so long department,” I finally read and loved The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King.

    And from the “why don’t you read the reviews more carefully, idiot” department: it took me a while to get into American Royals, but when I finally did, I really quite liked it. Too bad I hadn’t realized it wasn’t a stand-alone!!! Arghhh.

    I listened to a debut author: Shaylin Gandhi’s By the Light of Embers which was both beautiful and heart-wrenching.

    Finally, at the moment I am drowning in an abundance of riches! Reading on paper Christina Lauren’s Twice in a Blue Moon, Evie Dunmore’s Bringing Down the Duke, Angelina Lopez’s Lush Money, and listening to Polaris Rising. Whew! Nothing like trying to avoid reality . . .

  26. I’m reading The Five by Hallie Rubehold and Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse. Enjoying them both so far.

  27. Kate says:

    @Vivi12 – I do that all the time. Sometimes I am really enjoying a book but just not in the mood for it right now.

    @Star – every time I hear “London Underground” I think of the Tube and yes, I would be first in line for that series!

    I’m having a serious reading hangover after finishing CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein last weekend. While it was not a perfect book, it has definitely stuck with me. I started the follow up but didn’t want to read about more torture.

    Code Name Verity was an impulse purchase at a used bookshop in LA while I was there emergency dogsitting for a friend. I’d brought along WINTERSMITH, the third book in the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett, after inhaling the first two, but had trouble getting into this one. The library hardcover was difficult to curl up with so I stopped into the bookshop to see if they had the paperback (nope), and ended up with Verity instead. Still can’t get into WINTERSMITH and returned it to the library when I got home.

    My library audio hold of SAVE ME THE PLUMS by Ruth Reichl just downloaded this morning, so I have high hopes for that.

  28. Crystal says:

    :::dances in to Goodbye Earl, because Country Lady Murder is never not fun:::

    Left off on The Outsider. I liked it, but think that it could have lost about 100 pages in the middle and been a stronger book. It picked up when the seemingly neuroatypical detective (both my kids are on the spectrum, so I tend to have antennae for neurodiverse characters) Holly Gibney showed up. She was one of the best parts of the book, especially her explanations for why she chooses certain kinds of weaponry while eschewing others and what kind of supports she needs in order to do her job effectively. Then I followed it up with The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller. I really enjoyed that one. I liked that Alva’s trauma was not erased by choosing to love someone, but that it did inform her well-earned caution where that is concerned. Sam’s family was adorable (sniff I smell sequel-bait) and I liked what a good-natured, hyper-intelligent puppy he was. By then, SPOOKYSEASON had come to an end, so I fired up The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys. It was romantic and epic and lush and heart-wrenching all at once. It is set in the 1950s during the Franco regime, which is not a historical setting you see often (if at all), and involves the relationship that develops between a young Texan man visiting the Castellana Hilton (one of the first international hotels in Spain, and yeah, probably those Hiltons, at a guess), and a young Spanish woman that works there. The oppression and threat of the Franco regime is a constant presence, despite the bright beauty of the setting, and the young woman, while a joyful, intelligent sort, lives in constant fear of what happens if her actions are discovered (and this doesn’t even mean just her attraction to an American). You should just go read it right now. Which brings us to today, in which I am nose-deep into The Toll by Neal Shusterman, the latest and final in his Arc of a Scythe series. It’s brutal and clever, and Shusterman sticks some very cutting commentary on what people do with power into the text. This entire series is just so damn clever. Until next time, folks, if the cat decides you’re their chew toy, go with it.

  29. Allison says:

    City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett was sitting on my never-finished shelf, so I started this month by rereading the first two (City of Stairs and City of Blades) and then FINALLY got into City of Miracles, and it was a wonderful end to a great trilogy! Note: this is not a romance, except in the most extreme margins of the story, and very few characters get a HEA.

  30. AmyS says:

    I’m not sure if I am in a slump as I am not demanding that I find reading time, or I am just finding too many other things to do right now. I have not been reading as many books as I usually do and my TBR pile is not going to read itself, so I have to get back on track. So, so, so many books need to be read.

    I have finished and liked:
    THE DUGOUT by Meghan Quinn — actually I liked the first 3/4 of the book a lot and then the conflict kind of aggravated me. I don’t read many NA books, probably because that age group could be my children at this point and their drama can be a bit immature feeling to me. However, this was my first book by Quinn and I did find her banter funny, so I think I will look at more by her.
    REUNION by Neve Wilder —this is a novella length MM romance in the Ace’s Wild connected series with a friends to lovers trope that I always like. There is a fair bit of food-themed sexy times, if that is your thing. (I am thinking that novella length books may be what I need to focus on right now, because long books are making me anxious to move on in my current state of so much to do.)
    CRAZY FOR LOVING YOU by Pippa Grant — this is the last book in a connected romcom series of four books about women billionaires finding their matches. I find the women being billionaires a fresh take and found this book a typical fun, feel good time that Pippa is known to write. I have not read the previous books in the series and feel it is easily readable as a stand alone.

  31. Nicolette says:

    E-mails. I’m trying to find my cat. Turned out she joined a cat association, or cat colony, and they patrol the closest restaurants near my home.

    I am not up for cat books or even fabulous Cat Sebastian at the moment. But I’m okay with reading anything to get my mind off cat posters.

  32. Allison R-B says:

    @Jill Q, “I’m not a big “small town” reader for romance (my small town was filled with meth addicts and racists, funny how they don’t end up in romances)”
    This! I’m not big on the fetishizing of small-town life. Most of the time it bears no resemblance to the communities I’ve lived in. I liked Well Met a lot, because the logistics of the faire were just shaky & seat-of-the-pants enough to ring true, without being a total buzzkill for the romance.

    I’ve dnf’d a bunch of erotic fiction in the last month. I would get a couple of chapters in, and then throw up my hands at sloppy editing, paper-thin characterization, or conflict that hinged on the protagonists lacking communication skills.

    I’m heading into comfort reading season: time to reread some faves. Forests of the Heart by Charles de Lint & Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers are two that qualify as romance if I squint a bit.

  33. Wait, what? says:

    I’m currently reading Soulless by Gail Carriger and really enjoying it – despite not being a fan of vampires or werewolves! As a general rule I won’t even try a sample of a PNR if it’s vampire or were-creature related, but for some reason I thought I’d give this one a try, and boy am I glad I did! Love the snappy dialogue, and it is very well written overall. I’m sensitive to word usage and punctuation errors, and so far nothing has occurred to jar me out of the story.

    @MirandaB – Book 1 of the Emporer’s Edge series by Lindsey Buroker: Rollicking space opera, with maybe the beginnings of a romance. Amaranthe is awesome, as is the crew she assembles.

    I read the whole Emperor’s Edge series and really enjoyed it, but have to quibble just a bit 🙂 I would class it as steampunk, not space opera. For a space opera series by Lindsay Buroker, try the Fallen Empire series. It is equally enjoyable, imho, with some great dialogue and characters.

  34. Vicki says:

    Not reading all that much right now. In the soap opera of my life, the kiddo was re-admitted for an exacerbation of the bipolar, complete with overdose, and a week later I lost my job for taking too much sick time, though I took no time off with this episode. So the reading I am doing now is job applications.

    I have managed some books, though.

    City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong. I loved it. All sorts of catnip in this story of two women who need to disappear and find a city that caters to such. The heroine is a police officer and seems competent. There is a mystery and a romance. I did feel that the BFF didn’t get much page time for her importance in the story. Still loved it. Trying to decide if I should read the next; I hate when book 2 does not live up to book one. Also, she is a new to me author and I am being tempted by her back last.

    Also read Your Perfect Year by Charlotte Lucas. An uptight businessman finds a diary and searches for the owner. We also see the life of the person who gifted the diary to the person who lost it. Interesting and a nice romance. Lots of growth and change for the characters.

    Sweet Baby by Sharon Sala. A soman who grew up in foster care begins having flashbacks to the childhood she can’t remember and ends up finding out what happened to her parents. A little unrealistic in terms of the support and coincidences but did hold my interest.

    Tried re-reading Rainsong by Phyllis Witney – I lover her in high school and college but found that this one, at least, did not stand up. Naive heroine isolated by her much-older husband who then suicides and she allows herself to be shipped off to an isolated mansion. Um, the plot put that way has potential but this felt dated and almost like a paint by numbers thing.

    I am also comfort re-reading Anne Bishop’s The Others series. And binge-watching Criminal Minds (to my surprise). Don’t know why but it seems to work for getting my mind off things and also feeling better.

  35. Pre-Successful Indie says:

    I’m a slow reader, but I was knocked out with the flu and attendant minor ailments all week, so I caught up a bit. Tuesday/Wednesday in particular was a blur of making myself nibble at saltines, playing mindless mobile games, and reading Gideon the Ninth. (Hooray, my library got several more copies!) Not the best choice when dealing with nausea! Still liked it!

    Also finished what I was reading previously, The Mapmaker’s War by Ronlyn Domingue. I am not sure how I feel about this book. Unlike a lot of the Goodreads reviews, I am on board with the odd typography (ex. not using quotation marks for dialogue) and being in second person. However, in a book about how a woman struggles to get free of her cultural limitations / the patriarchy, more than one part of the plot revolves around sexual assault. And… okay, grittiness, okay, showing how awful Fantasy Kingdom 1 was for contrast against the utopian community in Fantasy Land 2. I don’t know.

    I feel disappointed that it’s such a go-to motivation, even in books that are trying to reach beyond the norm in other ways. But like I said, that’s just an unformed, hard to really explain feeling. Like, don’t we have other options for plots? No? Okay then, I guess. You’re the pros.

    44 books left on the TBR (not counting library stuff); 9 more in my reading challenge for the year. I kind of want to crack into The Priory of the Orange Tree next, but it looks long, and I don’t want to
    run any further behind. haha. Something shorter first.

  36. Scene Stealer says:

    I DNF the 4th book in the Bluewater Billionaires series, “Crazy for Loving You,” by Pippa Grant. The series started off so strong with Lucy Score. The 2nd book was okay, but didn’t rate a re-read and the last 2 books featured heroines that were unrecognizable from Lucy’s book. I wish that she had written the whole series.

  37. Lynn says:

    @Vivi12
    I love the Liaden series!!
    I got hooked when I asked for suggestions on books similar to Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series.
    So, if you are looking for Liaden-like titles, you might want to try Bujold — start with Cordelia’s Honor (also broken up into two titles Shards of Honor and Barrayar)

  38. Jeannette says:

    Like many, More re- reading than new this month.

    Very Good
    Charles KJ – ANY OLD DIAMONDS – This has been sitting on my kindle since January and was the highlight of my months reading so far.

    Milo, Amanda – continued reading the Captured by an Alien series and the last two. BLIND FALL and BETHS STABLE are my favorites to date. Sadly you do need to read the first part of the series to enjoy them thoroughly.

    Good
    Easton, Eli- FALLING DOWN. A nice contemporary set in the White Mountains at just this time of year. A lovely fall read, although TW for suicidal thoughts.

    Re-read of two series which stood up well to rereading both with plot and characters:

    Easton, Eli- HOWL AT THE MOON series. Dog shifters and a little town run by them.

    Gray, CW – HOBSON HILLS OMEGAS series. Small town contemporary romances, with lots of kids and pets. Oh and MPreg, adding to the baby count. Refreshing to have protagonists who are plumbers, teachers, and brewmasters.

  39. JenM says:

    Last time, I had just started EVVIE DRAKE STARTS OVER, by Linda Holmes but was finding it a bit slow at the beginning as the title character seemed mired in guilt. Happily, it picked up and by the end, I really loved it. I think I am so used to the fast pace insta-love of typical contemporary romances that I find it hard to slow down and appreciate the ones that take the time to actually develop a friendship first as this book did. Also, both main characters in the book had experienced significant loss (him, his beloved career in baseball, her, the diminishment of her selfhood from her husband’s emotional abuse), so it makes sense that it took them awhile to move on.

    I also picked up THE VAGINA BIBLE by Jen Gunther after hearing about it here. As a former L&D nurse, I was probably more familiar with the subject matter than most, but I picked up a few useful tidbits and I would highly recommend it to everyone, no matter what gender they are.

    After reading quite a few contemporaries lately, I think I need a break and will probably pick up an urban fantasy to cleanse my palette. I have WICKED WINGS, the latest in Keri Arthur’s Lizzie Grace UfF series waiting for me, but might also try TAMING DEMONS FOR BEGINNERS, a spin-off of Annette Marie’s fun Guild Codex series.

  40. Kareni says:

    @Vicki, sending positive thoughts for you and your kiddo.

    Sending good thoughts to all who are facing challenges.

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