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The Bromance Book Club
The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams is $2.99! This is a contemporary romance and the first in a series. Aarya gave this one a C+ and would recommend it with reservations:
The writing is polished, the grovel is so satisfying (I love desperate heroes at their wits’ end), and Thea has my permission to rule the world for eternity. Adams’s voice is magnetic; my eyes were glued on the page because the dialogue flowed seamlessly. Time stood still, and I was shocked to discover that four hours had whirled past after setting it down.
The first rule of book club:
You don’t talk about book club.Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott’s marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.
Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.
Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville’s top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it’ll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.
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Moon Called
RECOMMENDED: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs is $2.99! This is the first book in the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series and I really loved this book. Admittedly, I’m not caught up in the series and have only read the first three or four books, so maybe someone can add some thoughts on how the series unfolds, whether good or bad. Many people love the heroine because she’s a bit of a badass. However, some people feel like the first book is a little slow.
Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy’s next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she’s fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy’s connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water…
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The Iron Wyrm Affair
The Iron Wyrm Affair by Lilith Saintcrow is 99c! On a personal note, I loved her Jill Kismet urban fantasy series. This is the first book in the Bannon & Clare series and is more urban fantasy steampunk than a romance. Readers warn that it’s a shaky start to a good series, as the books do keep getting better and better. Any members of the Bitchery care to weigh in?
Archibald Clare is a detective of truly uncanny abilities—a mentath, capable of feats of deduction and logic that border on the supernatural. He is also abruptly, uniquely, the only unregistered mentath left alive in Londoninium. Someone has murdered the others and, if not for the timely intervention of the Prime sorceress Emma Bannon, there would have been no one left to stop… whatever is coming.
Mentaths and sorcerers are dying—or worse, being seduced into betraying Queen and Country. Bannon and Clare must uncover treachery, conspiracy, and sorcery of the blackest hue. And in a Britannia where magic has turned the Industrial Revolution on its head, time is short.
The game is afoot…
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Bringing Home the Bad Boy
Bringing Home the Bad Boy by Jessica Lemmon is 99c! This is a contemporary romance and the first in a series. The hero is a tattoo artist, single father, and a widower, and I just know that has to be someone’s catnip. The heroine also appears to be the best friend of the hero’s late wife, which I know isn’t everyone’s favorite trope. You have been forewarned.
The Bad Boy Is Back
Evan Downey needs a new beginning. Since the death of his wife five years ago, the brilliant tattoo artist has shut himself away in a prison of grief that not even his work can break him out of-and what’s worse, Evan knows his son Lyon is bearing the brunt of his seclusion. Moving back to the lake town of Evergreen Cove where he spent his childhood summers is his last chance for a fresh start.
Charlotte Harris knows she owes it to her best friend’s memory to help Evan and his son find their way again, but she can’t stop her traitorous heart from skipping a beat every time she looks into Evan’s mesmerizing eyes. Charlotte is determined to stay strictly in the Friend Zone-until a mind-blowing night knocks that plan by the wayside. Now, if they’re brave enough to let it, Charlotte and Evan might just find a love capable of healing their broken hearts . . .
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Catnip and what does it for us is such an idiosyncratic thing. One of my favorite tropes is a man falling for the widow of his late brother/best friend. All sorts of angsty goodness. But for some reason a woman falling for the widower of her late sister/best friend usually elicits a “meh.” You can’t eclampsia that.
Damn autocorrect: eclampsia = explain.
/Quarantine brain…and fingers!
Patricia Briggs is an auto-buy for me. Moon Called is a good introduction to her series. There is also an interconnected series, Alpha & Omega, which I think is even better than the Mercy Thompson series, but I enjoy both. Trying not to get too spoilery here: I have heard some people were turned off later books in the series because of some issues with how certain female characters were portrayed,and the fact that a male character had voted Republican (even though this is not a world like our own & has different issues). There is also violence in some books, including sexual assault and rape. One of the things I love about these books is the fact that things that happen continue to resonate in later books. Actions have consequences, and bad things continue to be dealt with many books later. There are werewolves, vampires, fae creatures, but to me these books are realistic in their depictions of human (and non-human) feelings and relationships. This is a great series, and I recommend reading all of the books.
Every time a new Briggs’ Mercy or Anna book comes out I not only read it several times but I also reread the series. The world keeps getting richer and more complicated. Even the secondary characters are real to me. It is probably best to start at the beginning if you are new to the series
I haven’t read Mercy Thompson since about book 6. They started coming out in hardcover first and the ebook was above my price point. By the time they dropped I had forgotten about them.
Dear Author has reviewed the last few books, and there are apparently some revelations (for the worse) for major characters that are inconsistent with the way they had been portrayed to that point.
@DiscoDollyDeb – Catnip is so fascinating! “Friend/sibling’s ex-partner” is serious major catnip for me, regardless of gender, and also whether the relationship ended due to breakup/divorce or death. In most cases, I have a hypothesis for why a trope works or doesn’t, but the best I’ve been able to do for this one is “idk it just sounds like such a gloriously bad idea.”
I read this one a few years ago, and remember thinking the relationship seemed unhealthy to me, but I don’t remember the details.
I liked the sound of The Iron Warm Affair, clicked through — and discovered it’s already sitting in my digital TBR pile. I think I’ll be starting it today.
Like any series, I’ve liked some of the Mercy Thompson books more than others, but it’s still one of my overall favorites. One of my quibbles with several past books has been that there was too much rehashing of old issues and not enough forward momentum on key fronts. Book #12 was recently released and I’ve read the ebook and listened to the audiobook. I’m happy to say it was pretty satisfying and, by the end, it was clear there are a lot of new possibilities on the horizon.
Just a quick note on Moon Called specifically–at the beginning of the book someone is called an “illegal”. My patience the day I read Moon Called was particularly low and so I DNFed based on that. I wanted to be sure folks that are sensitive the use of that type of language are aware!
I… have issues with the Mercy Thompson series and the main character/setting internalized misogyny. There is a lot of abusive behaviour that is defended and justified with “He’s an Alpha”.
These books literally make me uncomfortable, not just because misogyny exists – but because the main character accepts and justifies it, as well as a sleuth of aggressive and abusive behaviours from the main love interest.
“Puppy Christmas”, the 2nd book in Lucy Gilmore’s Forever Home series, is $1.99 on Amazon (US).
Queenie, me too! Finally, someone else said it! I thought I was the only one.
I loved the Kate Daniels series so I tried really hard to get into Mercy Thompson books, because several people here and elsewhere recommended them as similar. But the misogyny and the heroine’s easy acceptance of it is not for me.
I say it on every Mercy Thompson post, but big CN for sexual assault if you continue with the books. It’s not handled badly per se, but it’s unnecessary to the plot and upset me, and it is explored in some depth. Full disclosure though, I’m in the same camp as Queenie and OK above, and found the hero’s alpha characterisation really off-putting. YMMV!
I JUST started reading the Mercy Thompson books in the last week. I’m on book 6 right now-River Marked. I have been staying up way too late reading these. I listened to the novella Alpha and Omega this morning. I wanted a break from the Mercy books, and started reading Cry Wolf only to realize I had to be missing something. Luckily my library had the audiobook for the story. Briggs is a very engaging writer, and her world building is great. I love Mercy, she is a mechanic and loves her job, and is such a loyal person.
I’m only halfway through the series, but I don’t feel like Mercy had an easy acceptance of the misogyny at all. It seems like she fought pretty hard not to be a part of the werewolf world. I don’t want to say anymore, because I was completely unspoiled going into the series, and don’t want to ruin things for any other new readers.
As other people have mentioned, CW for violence, and sexual assault.
Amazon has the first four books in Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series on sale today for 2.99. I know these are older books but I thought I would mention it in case anyone else was interested after watching the recent Netflix series.
I’d agree with Maureen. There is a lot of misogyny IN the world of Mercy Thompson, but I never had the sense that she was ok with it. A lot of her choices leading up to the start of the series are based on getting away from that, and fighting back against it. I love some books more than others, but overall it’s really solid writing, with a lot of exploration of how the elements of supernatural involvement play out across culture and politics and people’s lives in really interesting ways.
And particularly in later books, there are also strong themes of fighting against misogyny and prejudice – in a world where these things DO exist, how do you live? What choices do you make? How do you respond? How do you make change? It’s actually one of the things I’ve loved, that as the series goes on, a lot of these “alpha” tropes get explored and picked apart.
I have to agree that Mercy Thompson lives in a world with misogyny, much like our own, but I never felt she accepted it, and one of the things I like is how the Alpha fights his alpha tendencies for her. I didn’t think I’d like these at all for various reasons, but once I started I went through all of them in, oh, two weeks max.
I love the world building–and not just because I’m a Washington state local, but that, like another commenter said, both people’s actions and the world they live in have ongoing consequences.
My only complaint is Briggs seems to fall into the trap of all other women (with one giant, lovely exception) hate the heroine, so she has no female friends. It would be nice to see that change going forward.