It’s our first Whatcha Reading of December and that means there is only one more Whatcha Reading post left in 2019. Can you believe it? A whole year of books has flown by!
Let’s recap what we’ve been reading!
Catherine: I am reading Anna Chronistic and the Scarab of Destiny by Ankaret Wells, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which feels like the thing you would get if you crossed To Say Nothing of The Dog with Amelia Peabody. Time travel adventure with an eccentric and opinionated lady narrator who is a highly successful courtesan in 19th century Paris (though in fact she is more interested in women and has a bit of a thing with Helen of Troy) and would really rather not be dragged off on quests to sort out the timeline, because Paris is fun. The plot takes a while to get going, but one really doesn’t mind, because the narrative voice is delightful. Oh, and there are footnotes. I’m really enjoying this one.
Before that, I danced through Headliners by Lucy Parker which is an absolute treat and a delight and I can’t wait for you all to read it and love it too.
Sarah: I am reading And Dangerous to Know by Darcie Wilde, ( A | BN | K | AB ) the third book in the Rosalind Thorne mystery series, which comes out at the end of December. Next is Headliners and I’m So Very Excited to read it, especially knowing you liked it!
Shana: I’m having trouble digging into a book right now. I keep reading ebook samples that leave me feeling ambivalent about whether to buy the book. However, I just got Joanne Chang’s new cookbook, Pastry Love, and it is seriously beautiful. I can’t wait to bake up a storm.
Tara: I got hit by a reading slump real, real hard, so I’ve been rereading old favourites and I’m currently reading a Devil Wears Prada fanfic.
AJ: I’m in the middle of Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. I can only read it during the day, so it’s going slowly. You wouldn’t think mermaids would be scary for someone in a landlocked state, but hoo boy, yes they are. In between that I’m re-reading an old favorite, Priceless by Marne Davis Kellogg. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Ellen: I just finished The Wallflower Wager, which was adorable, and now I’m reading Searcher of the Dead by Nancy Herriman, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which is a Tudor-era mystery that I am really enjoying so far. It’s very rich and detailed and atmospheric. It feels very winter appropriate like I need to read it wrapped in a blanket in front of a fire drinking a hot beverage.
Susan: I’m finally reading Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran, which is queer fantasy about a young queen taking over a bankrupt and corrupt court, and hiring one of the palace accountants to be her spymaster. I’m only five chapters in and the accountant has already threatened to stab a man, it’s delightful.
Sarah: THIS SOUNDS VERY GOOD.
Susan: I’m enjoying it so much, I was very grouchy when I had to put it down to go to work.
Carrie: I am reading The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope ( A ) while I’m out and about which is most of the time, and Other Powers by Barbara Goldsmith in the bathroom. Other Powers in nonfiction about Victoria Woodhull and the link between the early American suffrage movement, spiritualism, and attitudes regarding sexuality.
Elyse: Right now I’m reading a bunch of holiday novellas so I can make my Goodreads Reading Challenge because the two things I’m best at are creating arbitrary goals for myself and torturing myself over them.
Carrie: WORD.
Aarya: I’m very tempted to set my goal for 1 book next year. It shows your percentage on the side, and I would feel exceptionally productive if I saw 1500% under the progress bar.
Tara: I need to actually update my Goodreads to see if I’ve hit my reading challenge or not. I’m almost afraid to though because I don’t have it in me to do a big push right now.
Aarya: I recently finished Lydia San Andres’s A Summer for Scandal. It’s an enemies-to-lovers historical romance set in the Caribbean. The heroine secretly writes a scandalous serial; the hero is a snobbish lit crit reviewer who wants to unmask her identity. I have mixed-to-positive feelings. The writing and world-building are lovely, but I never quite warmed up to the hero (he is supposed to be conflicted while attempting to ruin Emilia’s life!). Still, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a low-angst historical with witty antagonistic sparring and a historical setting that isn’t Europe (I love Europe! But I love reading outside it and there aren’t that many options).
My library ebook hold for Nalini Singh’s A Madness of Sunshine just came in ten minutes ago. Farewell, world. I’ll see you when I resurface.
Charlotte: I am reading Diarmuid McCulloch’s Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years ( A | BN | K | AB ) for a class at my church. And since it has a length befitting its title, I’ll be reading it approximately forever.
I’m also reading Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik and Miryem is one of my favorite heroines in a loooong time.
Sneezy: I’ve just started A Fake Girlfriend for Chinese New Year by Jackie Lau, and it’s all sorts of feel good yummies so far!
I’ve also just cracked open Utopia for Realists ( A | BN | K | AB ). Since forever ago, I’ve been accused of being ‘idealistic,’ to which I always wanted to snarl, “NO I’M NOT! I REALISTICALLY RECOGNIZE THE REALY PROBLEMS WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH!” So the very existence and premise of this book fills me with glee.
Tara: I’m still reading fanfic, but I started listening to This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and I am in love with this book so hard that I might marry it. The whole spy vs spy, epistolary thing is working for me so well that I wanted to call in sick and just listen to the whole thing today.
Maya: I’ve been struggling to figure out how to make book reading a part of my new routine, but I’m listening right now to Lucky Suit by Lauren Blakely ( A | BN | K | AB ). It’s one of those Audible Originals that they gave away a few months ago. I’m struggling with the set up a bit because basically the heroine’s grandmother catfishes her granddaughter to get her to go on a date with a young man that the gran likes and it feels kinda paternalistic to me. That plus the grandma’s nonapology when she gets caught (she says “I’m sorry if…” a whole bunch) is leaving me a bit nonplussed about the whole story. And since I desperately want to hang out with all the cool kids here (and also want to pass this book around to my queer friends), I’m currently reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
What have you been reading this month? Let us know in the comments!
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I recommend the unabridged Venetia it’s wonderful!
Listened to Dressmaker series, Clara’s first, then the others in order. Loretta Chase is the best and having Kate Reading as narrator is the icing on the cake. I ended up DNF Vixen in Velvet and finishing it by skimming in print because I lost patience with the premise and I felt absolutely no affection for any of the characters. DPB and SiS were the best books. Loved the heroes Raven and Longbourne.
Read Barbara Metzger’s Father Christmas which started out great then took a left turn into Weirdsville before getting back on track.
Nalini Singh’s new book came into my hot little hands yesterday, but I am so busy right now, everyone is having their babies, holidays to prepare for and my boys are scattered for the first holiday EVER! Sniff, sniff.
Now that my months-long kitten medical drama is over, my reading levels are more or less back to normal, and so posting about what I’ve read is overwhelming again. Giving it a shot! but this might be the only time I attempt this.
Enemies Like You, by Joanne Chambers and Annika Martin, was recommended here ages ago. It’s an m/m enemies-to-lovers featuring an ex-military assassin on a suicide mission and his target’s bodyguard, who is initially disguised as a woman. They know they’re really supposed to be killing each other except… they can’t. So many things here could have gone badly wrong, but somehow the authors made it all work (for me, anyway), and I particularly loved that the less conventionally masculine hero was the sexually dominant one. This was a book that was exactly what I had wanted it to be, which is about the highest praise I can offer.
Then I read Cat Sebastian’s debut m/m historical trilogy, my first time reading Sebastian. It was okay? but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t heard so much praise for Sebastian. From all the rave reviews I’d read for her, I was expecting absolute brilliance, and these books were not brilliant. And I mean, that’s fine! Most books aren’t! These were well-written, I enjoyed reading them, and I will definitely read more of her work. They just didn’t live up to the hype, and that’s always a letdown.
Also a letdown was Beverly Jenkins’s Breathless, a historical set at a resort in Arizona run entirely by African-Americans. This was a rare Jenkins misfire for me. I usually really like her work; it’s impeccably researched, she’s got a way of bringing historical settings to life, and her heroines are unique and fabulous. But this time, I didn’t like the heroine so much, and that kind of ruined it for me because my one issue with Jenkins’s writing (ordinarily) is that her heroes all read very similar and therefore the romances are very similar. This book felt like it had less external plot than usual (although the history was as vivid as ever), so the romance was more central, and so the book didn’t really work for me. But I’m curious about the next book, featuring the heroine’s sister and her inexplicable plan to be a mail order bride. I liked the sister better than the heroine, so that’s promising?
Then I read Dating by the Numbers, a Harlequin from the now-defunct Superromance line by Jennifer Lohmann, in which a nerdy data analyst tries to figure out why her online dating algorithm isn’t working for her while falling for a blue-collar co-worker who definitely doesn’t pass her algorithm. I had trepidations about it at first because of the Smart Nerd Heroine, as in my experience, Smart Nerd Heroines usually read more like stereotypes than people. But this was a glorious exception! This heroine really felt like a real person! She was awesome, and I adored her. The book was light but not shallow, if that makes sense, and I enjoyed it immensely.
Then I had another pleasant surprise: Piper Drake’s five-book romantic suspense series about ex-military people and their service dogs. It’s really two series; the first three books are set at a military-dog-training facility outside Philadelphia, and the next two are set with a search-and-rescue team in Hawai’i. These books read exactly like action films, but action films where the women are interesting and competent and the cast is delightfully diverse. There are two Latino heroes and three Asian heroines, and the next book (coming out this month) features a black hero and a heroine from Hong Kong. I will never want to reread these, but I enjoyed them.
Then I read Cheris Hodges’s trilogy about rumours. The first book, Rumor Has It, was awesome. The heroine is a PR guru whose best friend from college is running for state senate; she just successfully matched him up with her other best friend/sorority sister. But then she catches him cheating. So she tries to convince his opponent in the primaries to use the dirt, but the opponent, our hero, is the Nicest Person Ever and refuses, and they fall in love and it’s all a huge mess. I loved everything about the hero and heroine and their relationship. The hero is proooobably a little too good to be true?, but he was just so lovely that I didn’t care, and better yet, the author knows he’s too good to be true and allows that to contribute to the Terrible Mess that the characters are enmeshed in. Also Hodges gets bonus points for including serious real-life and topical issues seriously but without any soapboxes.
Unfortunately, the other two books didn’t work as well, mostly because the two heroes both come off as sketchy assholes in their initial interactions with the heroines, and I never really got over that. The heroine from the second book is the sorority sister of the previous heroine who got cheated on. I loved her, her friendship with the first heroine, and watching her put her life back together, but I just never warmed to the hero and the romantic plotline was weak. I’d rather have just read about the women being awesome. The third book I gave up on. Hodges can write awesome female characters, but she doesn’t always give them heroes that deserve them.
Then I read Jennifer Snow’s Her Holiday Fling, a Harlequin Blaze in which strangers on a plane to Hawai’i agree to a fake relationship For Reasons. This one had a few bloops, and then a weirdly tone-deaf ending that docked it some points, but it has so many elements that I crave in romance novels and am not used to seeing that it also won a lot of bonus points that it probably wouldn’t have won were those elements more common. This is a story about two flawed but good-hearted thirtysomethings who have both put off relationships because they’re so invested in their careers. In particular, the heroine, a divorce attorney, starts the book off not wanting to marry or have kids, and at the end of the book, she’s still not sure she wants to marry! The ending is beautifully ambiguous in that the reader is free to imagine the couple marrying or having a Four Weddings and a Funeral style committed non-marriage; both imho are supported by the text. And no babies. Also appreciated: the hero, a cop, asks his longtime happily-married co-worker for advice at one point, and the guy’s like, “We’re great together, but we’d be okay on our own, too, and that’s why we work.” I’m not used to hearing that in romance novels, but I approve, so any grade I assigned this book would probably be inflated.
Then I read Terra Little’s Road to Temptation, a Harlequin Kimani romance that is decidedly greater than the sum of its parts. The heroine and her identical twin run a PI business that is kind of a front for helping domestic violence victims start new lives; the hero is an ex-military something or other. The hero was kind of a jerk; the romance was extremely underdeveloped apart from the sex; there was waaaaaay too much going on for two hundred pages. And yet… somehow it really worked for me? The author managed to give her leads enough chemistry to sell their relationship even though the story itself really shouldn’t have held together.
Finally, I read Sarah MacLean’s Scandals trilogy, and… I don’t know, she’s a complicated author for me. She’s a strong writer with talent, strong enough that I’m mostly willing to forgive her for having too modern a touch (emphasis on “mostly”), but I often feel like her authorial hand shows too much, and this trilogy was a good example. The first book, The Rogue Not Taken, confused me. For most of the first two-thirds or so of the book, I was enjoying it while also feeling inexplicably bothered by something. Liked the leads, liked the secondary characters I was supposed to like, liked the relationship… but something was off. I never figured out what that was, though, because the last quarter of the book fell apart so disastrously that it actually pissed me off. This part, at least, was definitely because the author decided to make her characters do stupid things that felt contrived to make the story go a certain way. The second book, A Scot in the Dark, was an absolute mess. The heroine was all over the place; I wanted to sympathise with her, but she didn’t feel solid enough. The hero spends all his time either being an asshole or whining that he’s Just A Brute, and I couldn’t feel any sympathy for him because his solution to absolutely everything involves violence of some kind, and therefore yes, dude, you ARE a brute, maybe quit yanking doors off hinges and hitting people? And then the entire book consisted of everyone running around in circles while I inwardly yelled “WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING” because nothing made any sense! I liked some of the secondary characters but ARGH.
And then The Day of the Duchess, I don’t even know. In all honesty, I think it was easily the best of the series from a technical standpoint, mostly because MacLean showed more restraint than usual and allowed her characters to behave more organically, so the plot was coherent and generally everything made sense. But it was too hard to root for the romance after seeing the hero’s behaviour through the rest of the series. His epiphany at the end was nice, but it was too little too late. I think I’d have liked this much better had I not read the other books, but even then, there were a lot of undertones that bothered me — like, I was supposed to find it romantic that he kept searching for her, but instead I kept thinking about how some abusers will not let their victims go.
It is cold and dreary outside and warm and festively decorated for the holidays on the inside, which it means it is the perfect time to cozy up and read AND post to Whatcha Reading?!
Excellent:
Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five by John Medina: a thoughtful, well-researched book about the biological basis AND the influence parents have on that biology for intelligence, happiness & emotional health, moral thinking & action, and sleep. I highly recommend if you have young children.
Very Good:
Sweet Revenge by Andrea Penrose: This is the first in a historical mystery series with a light thread of romance. You know how sometimes you really enjoy a book even though it has a boatload of problems? That was the case in this book – the hero inexplicably trusts the heroine moments after meeting her even though that means putting his life on the line, the heroine goes undercover in the Ton as a fictitious noble woman (really? and for all those peers where lineage and name is everything NO ONE thinks to look her up Debrett’s Peerage or inquire about a title they have never heard of???), the villains are one-dimensional, and there are several info dumps. That being said I still loved the heroine – skilled in hand to hand combat and tough as all get out and the hero – struggling with an addiction to laudanum after a war injury, but smart and generally skeptical (except when it come to the heroine), but very fair. And I loved the developing relationship between the two. I added the second in the series to my TBR.
Good:
None:
Meh:
Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed and Why It Still Matters by Andrew Grumbel & Roger G. Charles: I read this for my two-person Father/Daughter book club. I visited the Oklahoma City bombing museum and memorial two years ago and was interested in this book after reading a glowing review. Unfortunately, while the topic is so important – who else in the Far Right had advanced knowledge or and possibly gave assistance to McVeigh and Nichols – the book’s structure was a mess and difficult to follow. And while I learned a lot about mistakes made by the government while investigating the case, this book planted a lot of seeds about possible co-conspirators, but didn’t seem to draw very strong conclusions.
The Bad:
None
I am so envious of some of the ARCs that you’re mentioning. January can’t come soon enough. In the meanwhile, I am re-reading the Hidden Legacy books for reasons. I am also reading for the first time “A Very Merry Princess” by Susan Mallery which is predictably for Mallery quite charming in the characters connecting to each other (although as a horsey person, I’m not fully sold on the equestrian elements so far). I just finished “Unmask Me if You Can” by Shana Galen which has a lot of past trauma in the characters’ stories, especially the heroine’s, and “Kiss Me at Christmas” by Valerie Bowman which was frothy, fun, and featured a mature heroine (coming up on 30 which is refreshing for a historical) and wears its series back-story fairly lightly.
I finished Kate Canterbary’s Walsh series, and then read her Talbot Cove series. One of my favorite finds of this year (once again, thank you DiscoDollyDeb)-I love her books. Many of them have me laughing out loud-great dialogue and wonderful story lines.
I did a re-read of Alisha Rai’s books-always a pleasure!
Can’t remember if I mentioned this last month-but Eva Leigh is a new to me author, of course mentioned here-I loved My Fake Rake, I was totally on board with the glasses off, “oh, you are so handsome” theme. I think because the heroine had already acknowledged she was attracted to him, that his body was of interest to her, but she didn’t want to mess with the friendship. I CANNOT wait for the next in this series. I also read her Counting on a Countess, which was enjoyable. I put as many books of her as I could find on hold at my library-there is quite a wait list.
Very excited for Headliners by Lucy Parker! I feel next year will be full of good releases!
Thanks to some time off over Thanksgiving, I did a fair amount of reading (compared to my usual pace) since the last post. First was Get a Life, Chloe Brown. Hmm. Not sure what to say about this book. I thought the writing was fantastic and I loved the hero. But I HATED the heroine. She does something at the very beginning of the book, not even on the page, just mentioned in passing, and I thought it was so irredeemably awful that I just couldn’t get into the story after that and ended up skimming the last half just to get closure. I would definitely try more from that author but Chloe Brown herself did not work for me. Then came Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore. LOVED. Like easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. The heroine was great, the backstory with the women’s suffrage issue was interesting, and the story just moved along at a great pace. I stayed up way past a time that made any kind of sense so I could finish it. Next was Well Met by Jen DeLuca. This was cute. I thought the Renaissance Festival setting was so unique. And finally, I’m now reading Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, after listening to the Fated Mates episode about it. It’s interesting–the heroine is a teeny bit of a Mary Sue but also amazing, and the hero is a brute but you know that deep down there’s something… But there is something about this book that is taking me forever to finish it. I think the language is flowery/formal in a way that may be more historically correct but takes me personally out of the story just a bit. I’m excited for what I have up next, including the JR Ward Christmas novella and a Harlequin Presents set in Iceland (!) but I feel like I need to finish Lord of Scoundrels first, so I’m doing my best!
I just finished NOT THE GIRL YOU MARRY by Andie Christopher and it’s my favorite book of the past month! I was nervous about both h/h starting off the relationship lying to each other, but the story made it work.
Tried SWORDHEART again, for the second time, and put it down again after a few chapters. Must be me, because everyone seems to like it. I loved her CLOCKWORK BOYS books, not sure why this one isn’t clicking.
Read and enjoyed ANGEL IN DEVIL’S ARMS by Julie Anne Long.
Liked the BROMANCE BOOK CLUB okay, but skimmed a bunch because both characters spend too much time hand-wringing while trying hard to avoid doing anything about it.
Really liked the BEAST OF BESWICK by Amalie Howard – kind of reminded me of A WICKED KIND OF HUSBAND, which I also liked – I’m kind of on a beauty and the beast kick, I guess. Speaking of that trope, the Kingpin of Camelot by Cassandra Gannon is the absolute best book with that them for me. Hilarious, sweet, and kind of hot.
@OK – I loved Kingpin of Camelot! It has a bizarre premise and plot that I’d normally roll my eyes at, but Ilona Andrews rec’d it a while back and I almost always like her rec’s so I tried the sample and was hooked.
I recently read and loved Pathfinder’s Way by T. A. White. It’s a fantasy novel with a heroine tangles with a barbarian horde plot which I’m a sucker for. It reminded me a lot of Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan. I wanted a little more foreshadowing of the hero’s feelings but otherwise it was close to perfect. The heroine is very competent.
I’ve been wanting to read fantasy lately and have gone through a lot of samples looking for what I think of as romance-adjacent books – character driven with happy endings. They aren’t easy to come by.
@MaryK, have you tried The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison? You might like it.
@Kareni – I’ve read it and liked it though I had trouble with the elaborate naming conventions. I’ve been looking into some older titles from authors like Carol Berg and Patricia Bray. No verdict on those yet.
@MaryK – Lois McMaster Bujold writes excellent romance-adjacent fantasy. The Sharing Knife series are some of my all time favorites. The Hallowed Hunt is set in the world of the Five Gods but stands alone.
@OK – I loved Clockwork Boys too, and expected Swordheart to be similar, but it’s not. Took me a year to get over that expectation and enjoy the book for what it is.