Hey hey!
It’s Whatcha Reading time, where we discuss the books we’re been loving (or maybe hating) in the past couple weeks.
Let’s get into it!
Sneezy: I just finished Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert, ( A | BN | K | AB ) and EVERYONE WAS RIGHT!! IT WAS EVERYTHING!!
Aarya: Last week I finished Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic (out June 30) ( A | BN | K | AB ) after Elyse’s recommendation. I loved it! Socialite Noemí Taboada travels to her ill cousin’s aid after receiving a concerning letter about hallucinations. When she reaches the isolated and gloomy house by the forest, Noemí discovers that her cousin’s English in-laws are not what they seem. This book is creepy AF, so be prepared for spine-tingling dread and gothic horror.
I’m also organizing my Ripped Bodice summer bingo squares. I’ve already read six squares, the most recent being Roshani Chokshi’s audible original Once More Upon a Time for “Accidentally in Wilderness” (it also fits for Only One Bed, Apple Orchard, and I’m on a Boat). It’s adorable and I recommend it. It’s a fairytale novella about no-longer-in-love married royals falling in love on an enchanted road trip.
Claudia: Oh gosh, I DNF’ed so may books over the last two weeks, and I am (or used to be) a completionist, if that’s a word! I’m reading Someone to Romance by Mary Balogh, which is coming out in a few months, and I think this one gelled as I am a quarter of the way past. I’m a Balogh fan (loved our recent guest post about her books) and it has been lovely to spend the last couple of evenings in the English countryside circa 1818, where the riskiest thing to do is to play a piano duet with a near stranger.
Elyse: I just started a Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane.
Sarah: I have a guest review for that book – Crystal really liked it!
Elyse: It’s very immersive. A really great combo of epic fantasy and romance.
Aarya: I have never read a Meljean Brook book and I need to change that.
(Vane being a pseudonym for Brook.)
Elyse: It’s very nostalgic for me because when I was too young to have a summer job I would spent my summer lounging and reading epic fantasy novels from the library.
Shana: I just reread Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole. I shouldn’t like this novella as much as I do, it’s a second chance romance mostly set in one day, Before Sunrise-style, and it has a ton of flashbacks. I usually hate both of those things. And yet, I love those pining, proud, and tender girls so much that I can easily ignore the voice saying, don’t you hate this? And the New York City setting is basically a character, and it made me miss it. (edited)
I also just started Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai, which I borrowed from Carrie.
Ok. Wait, can I just say that I think the beautiful cover of Once Ghosted, Twice Shy should be a poster that I can purchase for my wall? It that weird?
Sarah: IIRC, the couple is a couple in real life and you can see how much they like each other in the photo.
Amanda: I firmly believe romance covers should have print options. For a while, sourcebooks was doing little posters of their covers as part of ARC mailings. I have two of them framed and then a giant Jaci Burton cover courtesy of Berkley.
Aarya: I have a ridiculous fantasy that one day I’m going to own this beautiful beach house (or cabin in the snowy mountains, I’m not choosy) and there’s going to be this library with massive floor-to-wall windows and bookshelves. One wall will display a collage of pages from my favorite romance novels (like, the exact scene or quote I love) and another wall will have a collage of my favorite romance novel covers). Also, I want a chaise lounge.
My contribution to the conversation is that I, too, would like a print option for romance covers so I can make my fantasy collage.
Tara: I really liked Once Ghosted, Twice Shy too! I thought it was structured really well, weaving their first time at love with their second time.
I’m still bouncing around between a bunch of books because I can never sit and just read through nonfiction from beginning to end. So I’m still reading some of the ones I’ve mentioned previously and I’ve also started reading Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas. He talks about the idea of rich people and companies changing the world and solving all of its problems, and how letting them lead the charge is problematic because actually solving problems would mean dismantling the systems that gave them the power and wealth that they have. It’s a frustrating read, but very good, and especially interesting to read right now as companies are making their big donations.
On a much more fun note, I just finished The Adventurers by Bryce Oakley. It’s a really cute and funny age gap, f/f romance. The angst is super low, so it was a nice escape for a couple of days.
Susan: Claudia, I’m in a similar boat! I keep picking things up and putting them down because either I can’t focus or because what I want is “the exact degree of pining and unspoken feelings that The Untamed has” and nothing’s hitting that for me.
I’m trying going hard into other genres to see if that fixes it, so I’m reading volume three of The Way of the Househusband, a comedy manga about a former yakuza who’s now retired to be a househusband and keeps approaching hazards (instagram rivals, roaches, pushy salesmen) as though they were rival gangs.
Maya: The Way of the Househusband sounds fun!! I spent the weekend reading Get a Life, Chloe Brown and Take a Hint, Dani Brown both by Talia Hibbert and I LOOOOOOOOOVED them. Kiki did an amazing review for Get a Life, Chloe Brown. Take a Hint has a fake relationship/friends to lovers between a Black bisexual PhD candidate and a former rugby player turned security guard who also runs a nonprofit for boys that teaches them how to express their feelings. Expect a squee-filled review soon!
EllenM: I am in major jumping-around-between books mode, but I think i’ve settled in to FINALLY continuing the Inheritance Trilogy by NK Jemisin—read the first book in college and really enjoyed it, have owned the omnibus forever and am pretty hooked again after including it in my most recent session of book-nibbling.
I also just devoured the first volume of 10 Dance, ( A | BN ) an m/m romance manga series about 2 ballroom dance champions in different styles. It’s superrrrr angsty and I love it and I think I need to order the rest of the series from the comic book shop stat.
Catherine: Like a lot of people, I’ve been bouncing between books, but I picked up Julie Anne Long’s What I Did for a Duke yesterday ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), to see if it fit the Rec League we are working on. And then it kind of stuck so I am having a lovely reread.
Also, the Hugo Award voter pack is out, so we are reading the novelettes aloud to each other this week. For He Can Creep, by Siobhan Carroll, is a delight if you like cats (and more so if you like 18th century poetry, but liking cats is enough). It’s about Jeoffry fighting the devil to save his human, and it is very, very cat. It’s available for free here.
(Not sure if a content warning is required because cats are injured in this book, while fighting the devil, but they are ultimately triumphant.)
Carrie: I just started reading War and Peace – if you read one chapter a day you finish in a year, or so I’m told! Also just finished This is How You Lose the Time War, which I loved despite being a little too stressed an loopy to give it my proper attention and consequently I’m not sure what happened. I’ve heard it’s a joy to re-read and I can totally picture that.
Maya: Lol, when I used to work with incarcerated people, I would read books with my clients and we would talk about them together. One client was really hyped on reading War and Peace and I was like noooooooooooooo, ok.
Carrie: One chapter a day is all I’m good for but thank goodness they are tiny short chapters.
Maya: I’m so impressed, I would not have the strength.
Carrie: I love this article on This is How you Lose the Time War.
Catherine: Oh gosh, I read War and Peace of my own volition in year ten because I was going through a Really Big Books phase. And I think I was affronted because my English teacher told me I wouldn’t like it or understand it. Red rag to a bull, really, and I suspect my English teacher knew it.
All I remember is that I quite liked it, but was unhappy with the way the women were treated. I suspect if even fifteen year old Catherine’s budding feminist sensibilities were outraged, 44 year old Catherine would not be pleased with a reread… I did enjoy the weird numerology bit about Napoleon being the Great Beast of the Revelation, though, so you have that to look forward to.
Elyse: Update: I stayed up all night reading A Heart of Blood and Ashes and it was soooooo good. I also need all of the coffees
What have you been reading?
@Vicky: “No Go” for you is “Transgressive Catnip” for me—lol. I like romances where female therapists fall for their male clients (oddly, if you reverse the genders, it leaves me cold…go figure), so I immediately added Dana Marton’s SILENT THREAT to my tbr—and discovered that it’s available on KU. Yay!
:::strolls in humming the Imperial March:::
What? I was watching The Clone Wars while cross-stitching. The husband and I just started it.
Let’s see, when last we met, I was reading Circe by Madeline Miller, which, as I suspected I would, I LOVED. So feminist and magical. Then I hopped into the Nora Roberts, Hideaway. It was pretty good, had a good hook and interesting characters, with the heroine ending up a particularly interesting field. There was, however, some race stuff that I don’t know if I would have noticed had I not been reading it immediately after the murder of George Floyd. I kind of hate myself for the fact that I am not sure if I would noticed it prior, but I can fully say a few scenes and characters hit me as kind of tone-deaf and clumsily handled, which is a weird thing to say about someone whose been in the game as long as Roberts, but nonetheless. Mileage may vary as a result. After that, I just wanted something sweet and funny and started The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams. It was SO. VERY. FUNNY. The banter between the bros was gold. And the part where they all admitted that while reading the books, they all heard a smartass British guy in their heads…I swear my stomach hurt. I did like that we had a hero actively doing the work to be a better husband and lover, although, as has been mentioned before, there a were a few moments where I thought at both husband and wife “HIE THEE TO A THERAPIST”. Still, really enjoyed it. Then I went nose-deep into Beach Read by Emily Henry, and again, banter for days. When the heroine asked the hero how people like his “circle-jerk Hemingway fanfiction” nearly made spit out my drink. I also really enjoyed how supportive they both ended up being of each other and their writing, and how even while trying new things, they both became more cognizant of maintaining what made their writing theirs. By this time, I was kind of ready for outer space, so I fired up The Last Emperox by John Scalzi, the final volume of his Interdependency series. Really enjoyed it. I’m not always the best audience for space opera, but the political gamesmanship in these books are top-notch. That said, the ending was bittersweet at best, arguably somewhat sad at worst, but hey, Kiva Lagos rules and is worth the price of admission all by her profane self. Which brings us to today, in which I am reading The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. It took me a bit to get my head back into Morgensten’s style (that third person present tense can be hard for me), but man, can she do IMAGERY. Her writing is immersive and almost musical, at least to me. And the fairy tales throughout the book…HAPPY SIGH. It’s on the slow side, so if you can’t deal with a slow pace and frequent side quests, not sure this will work for you, but it’s just so PRETTY. So until next time, my dudes, let me be real clear. Black lives matter, and Happy Pride.
The House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune) is a lovely fuzzy blanket of a book that I highly recommend, and not just because I was one of those children who had spiders in my brain and regularly dug graves (for Barbies). Don’t I wish I was there indeed.
Deathless Divide (Justina Ireland) was even better than Dread Nation. IIRC, only Jane had a POV in the first book, and since she didn’t like Katherine all that much, neither did we. In this book the POV alternates between the two of them and Katherine is a hoot. You want to look good while fighting zombies! Also Ireland really does a wonderful job giving each character a unique voice. So often when there are multiple 1st person POVs the writing is exactly the same, but Jane and Katherine both narrate differently. It’s not super obvious, like say Blackthorn and Grim, but it’s there. I loved this book!
I read The Worst Best Man (Mia Sosa) and liked it so much I immediately followed with the Sosa’s Love on Cue series. I liked Crashing Into Her the best out of all, and have added dancy punchy arm movements to my fast walking as inspired by Eva.
Did you know there’s a whole genre of Swedish books about old people having adventures? Me neither, but my mom, who is 94, read The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared ( Jonas Jonasson) and she really liked it so I read it too and it is very cute and silly.
I read Alpha Night (Nalini Singh) and really liked it. i was worried it was going to be like Mercy and Indigo’s books with a lot of talk about women shifters having to find more dominant men shifters and there was NONE of that and I was so happy.
I read and reread other books but I’m not going to go into all of them, except to add that I’ve read jill Mansell before and liked her ok and so I got Unexpected Consequences of Love and holy fork was it awful. Not one but two guys who won’t take no for an answer, one of whom tracks down his target’s emotionally abusive ex (to find out what’s wrong with her since of course there is something wrong with her or she’d say yes) and brings them together so she’ll have closure and be fixed and it works and he’s the hero and god it was the worst. this is a warning do not read. But do read the Klune it is the best.
As always, I am really enjoying reading this thread. Thank you, Bitchery, for your insight and recommendations.
Fwiw regarding Simone St. James, I have read all her purely historical books (as opposed to the ones with two storylines, one historical and one present) and I absolutely loved them. I think I stayed up until 4 am to read them several nights in a row. I had that sort of bleary-eyed book hangover every day and then gleefully went on and did it again with the next book until I ran out of books. So, I highly recommend them! (Many of them with the same theme – characters with PTSD from WWI, ghosts as literal characters AND ghosts as a metaphor for other issues… which I thought was done really well.)
I have to thank whoever recommend My Year of Saying No by Maxine Morrey on last months WAYR thread. I picked up that one based on their description, and then promptly splurged and bought ALL of Maxine Morrey’s books afterward (I guess I’m realizing a theme with my reading tendencies while writing this comment). They are all British rom coms, think 1 out of 5 chili peppers in terms of steam factor but delightfully funny and low stakes. My favorite of them all was Around the World with My Ex, a second chance romance that involved a travel journalist trying to win a big job while her ex tags along as photographer. It was really sweet and well done. These books were basically the box of chocolates that I really needed to eat in one sitting to escape from more serious reading and self-educating going on right now. (Trying to do lots of that as well.)
Maxine Morrey led me to discover Jenny Colgan, who also writes British rom coms but with a bit more seriousness to them–once or twice they made me cry. Again, low on the chili pepper scale, but simply wonderful in terms of character and humor, and I like the surly heroes that blossom in these pages. My ultimate favorite was The Bookshop on the Corner, which is actually about a bookmobile run by Nina who decides to start her life over in rural Scotland. It’s a book about a book lover, which is lovely, and the romance absolutely hit the spot for me. I finished it with MAJOR GOOD BOOK NOISE and immediately went back to read my favorite parts.
Finally, I highly recommend The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon. I loved the competence porn in the heroine – she is absolutely fantastic at her work, and she knows it, which was utterly refreshing and inspiring to read. As a bonus, lots of delicious food porn, and a great sense of place in Austin as well. I’ve never been to Austin, but I love books that make you feel as if you are visiting wherever they are while you’re reading them. This really did that well. And the talk about female friendships in this book is not overselling it – I fell in love with the friend group here. Can’t wait to read more in the series!
Take care, Bitchery, and as always, thank you for your lovely recs.
I’m not a strict completist, but I’ve found myself lately skim reading books that are interesting, yet not interesting enough to read word for word, but I still want to find out what happens. Time I could be reading something I really like.
IN THE DARK WITH A DUKE by Christi Caldwell. I liked the previous book, but this one didn’t grab me in the same way (actually read, not just skim read). M/F historical.
WORST BEST MAN, by Lucy Score, funny rom-com. M/F contemporary. Crazy sauce fun, but also a couple trying to be together. (There is income inequality between couple, but he does not “save” her).
THE WRITE ESCAPE by Charis Reid. M/f contemporary. Though I am not a fan of “I caught my fiance cheating on me just be the wedding and now I am going to immediately fall in love with someone else” trope (granted, I have not been in that position but it seems so whiplashy). But somehow it worked! I liked both of them and the story unfolded in a natural way, even though the ending had a lot of star aligning.
DUKE BY ANY OTHER NAME by Grace Burrowes. M/F historical. Just started it, but enjoying it already! Nothing better when you know at once that book is going to do it for you!
Also reading War and Peace on the “chapter a day” plan. I actually wish I were reading it as part of a class because I can tell there is a lot going on with the cultural context that I am missing. One thing to be aware of…you will not get to Napoleon’s attack on Russia, which is purportedly the big centerpiece of the plot, until page SIX HUNDRED. Tolstoy is not an author in a hurry. I’m enjoying it, tho, it reminds me of a more cynical Dickens.
Also just finished “The Moment of Everything” by Shelly King. It has romance in it, but is not itself a romance–about a woman who gets laid off in Silicon Valley and has to find a new path for herself that involves a used book store. It was a very nice Saturday afternoon read since I’m having trouble concentrating on the serious stuff.
Finished THE SECRETS OF SIR RICHARD KENWORTHY by Julia Quinn and I have to say while I am a big Quinn fangirl I got rather huffy about this book. The hero is a nice enough person but just the fact that he decides The Only Proper Solution To The Issue without consulting any of the women personally involved made him the sort of Managing Gentleman that I want to whack upside the head with their own book. In my opinion there was Insufficient Grovel.
Now rereading Heartstone by Elle Katherine White just to see if it is still as charming as I thought it was the first time and so far it is holding up.
I too have been struggling over the last weeks to concentrate on Anything.
After reading Tangle of Need (#11 Psi-Changeling series) by Nalini Singh (4*), I fell into opening and closing many books… but finally fell into Well Met by Jen DeLuca (5*), centred around a Renaissance Fair, and a cinnamon roll in the shape of an English teacher with a penchant for being a pirate, was exactly what was missing from my life. It was the escapism that I needed!
Finished listening to Siege and Storm (#2 Grisha series by Leigh Bardugo), 4* for this YA fantasy, a series reread to continue on with the spinoffs.
And now, I’m currently powering through Lover Awakened (#3 Black Dagger Brotherhood, JR Ward), of which I’m very late to the party – and actually, this is the first book of this series that I feel as though I’m finally a fan. Dark, heavy, violent, and needs all the content warnings.
And listening to Lauren Layne’s Yours In Scandal, A light fluffy listen to counter the dark and heavy Lover Awakened.
Tried reading Stevermer’s Glass Magician, because I loved her previous books, but ended up as a DNF, just didn’t catch my interest.
Read Kingfisher’s Swordheart immediately after her Paladin’s Grace. Since I am neither a buxom woman with an ample behind nor attracted to same, the endlessly repeated descriptions of the voluptuous figures of the heroines were (to me, YMMV) dull when read back to back. My favorite parts of Swordheart were Zale, Brindle, and the not-possessed finch.
Went on a week long R Cooper binge– she writes M/M. Read 2 contemporary novellas: Medium, Sweet, Extra Shot of Geek; and Dancing Lessons. Both were cute and sweet, quick reads. Also read 4 of her paranormal Beings in Love books: The Firebird and Other Stories (anthology, historical/contemporary, trolls, fairies, firebirds, imps, werewolves, etcetera, lots of characters who expect to be alone finding love, oddly dialogue heavy, but sweet.), Little Wolf (fated mates, history of abuse, found family), His Mossy Boy (coming out, biphobia/homophobia and other bias, addiction, abusive family, found family), A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate (fated mates, high school crush).
Currently reading A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.
Several of the Beings in Love books feature small town police, and I found I felt almost guilty reading about cop heroes. Is anyone else feeling this?
A pretty good reading month for me so far. I enjoyed “Whiteout”(Adriana Anders). I read an older book called “The Corner Shop” by Elizabeth Cadell. Very amusing, with a vivid cast of characters. The heroine throws over a perfectly respectable fiance for a scruffy absent-minded professor type. This is my first book by Cadell, she died several decades ago, but left behind dozens of books, so it’s nice to know I have that whole oeuvre to fall back on if I run out of reading material.
I read a couple of real throwback medievals, “The Braeswood Tapestry” by Robyn Carr(she wrote some medievals way back before Virgin River) and “My Gallant Enemy” by Rexanne Becnel. Both problematic, but I’m a sucker for the medieval castle life(shrugs). I love reading about the food, the weaponry, the clothes, everything.
Even a free Amazon book I picked up is turning out to be better than expected. “Seeing Miss Heartstone” by Nichole Van is a twist on the Cyrano
de Bergerac plot. A lord who goes to India to rebuild his fortune has a mysterious, anonymous investor in his business ventures. They correspond for years, the anonymous partner gives him excellent advice, and they make lots of money & become great friends via letters. Little does he know the partner is not a man, but a young woman who is brilliant at business. Her father left her an independent fortune, but she hides behind an alias because her hands-on involvement in money matters is not acceptable for a woman.
Lastly, I picked up a Theresa Romain book I’ve had on my TBR for a couple of years. Maybe I skipped over it because it’s not part of any series? Anyway, “Lady Rogue” is delightful. The heroine is the widowed daughter of a marquess, the hero is a police officer aka Bow Street runner. A cross-class plot setup I always enjoy, and Romain makes their relationship so tender.
@Kareni thank you for the recommendation!