Whatcha Reading already?! I thought we did one of these just last week.
Most of you all know the drill by now. Sound off in the comments about what you’ve been reading lately!
Aarya: I recently finished Kit Rocha’s Deal with the Devil (out July 28) ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and enjoyed it. Sexy, exhilarating sci-fi road trip romance between two sets of found families (aka found family squared. They merge into a bigger found family and it’s so satisfying). I will say, it’s super weird to be reading dystopian fiction when our own reality is… * gestures at everything on fire. * There were some worldbuilding details that hit too close to home, and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Still, it’s a hell lot of fun and I’m already shipping the couples of future books in the series.
I also started Mina V. Esguerra’s So Forward. It’s an ice hockey player heroine/ice skater bi hero romance set in Manila. I’m trying desperately to savor it. I loved, loved, loved Kiss and Cry and the events of So Forward take place simultaneously to Kiss and Cry (Colin is Calinda’s brother). Fingers crossed that it lives up to ridiculously high expectations.
Elyse: I haven’t been able to focus on reading lately which bums me out. I have been knitting a lot and I’m loving 52 Weeks of Socks which I got when we first started quarantine. Socks are my favorite thing to knit and the book is huge and easy to read.
I’m including the link because I think you can only get it direct from them or through a yarn store.
It’s 52 patterns so the book is actually really reasonably priced since I usually pay around $3-5 for an individual pattern and I like how big the charts are.
Claudia: I recently resumed a knitting UFO but I’m getting upset I can’t remember the pattern right (pattern long misplaced) and it’s getting wonkier by the minute. I am thinking of unraveling it all, it will be just as therapeutic.
As for reading, I just finished Two Rogues Make a Right and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. The two heroes are in a sort of their own shelter-in-place orders and that was very relatable. I was surprised to enjoy it as much as I did since friends to lovers isn’t among my favorite tropes but I did, I had a smile on my face most of the time. CW: one of the main characters is seriously ill.
Elyse: I found that one really soothing as well, Claudia.
Shana: I loved it too, Claudia.
Also, that Mina Esguerra book sounds amazing, Aarya. Bi rep makes me happy.
Anyway, I just started reading Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory. ( A | BN | K | AB ) It’s about a Senator who meets a lawyer who just moved to L.A. and they start to fall for each other before figuring out who the other is. I had to force myself to put it down and go to sleep last night, which is a good sign.
Catherine: You can do that? An inability to put down the book and go to sleep is the number one reason I am perpetually tired by day…
I’ve just finished The Devil of Downtown by Joanna Shupe, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which I thoroughly enjoyed. Mulligan was so much fun in the previous book, and he lived up to my hopes in this one. And I’m just about to start The Lyon Sleeps Tonight, which I bought without so much as clicking on the blurb purely for the tag line ‘Sometimes love is just a whim away’. You’re welcome for the earworm. I shall report back on whether this was a wise decision…
Shana: Catherine, if it helps, I didn’t manage to actually push the book out of my hand until an hour after my bedtime.
Catherine: It’s good to know we aren’t alone…
EllenM: I’m reading Lord of the Last Heartbeat by May Peterson and enjoying it a lot so far. Incredibly atmospheric, queer beauty and the beast vibes!!
I also just read volume 1 of Knight of the Ice by Yayoi Ogawa ( A | BN | K | AB )and it might be my new favorite manga?! professional skating, otaku culture, fish out of water, rom-com—plus the characters are wonderful!!
Carrie: I’m really excited because in a few days I get to go up in a hot air balloon! To celebrate I’m reading Falling Upward by Richard Holmes which is about the early days of ballooning (non-fiction). I expect a more placid experience than the one had by the passengers of “The Giant,” a massive balloon (200 feet tall!) that on crash landing managed to nearly be hit by a train.
Tara: I’m reading Entangled by Melissa Brayden. It’s an f/f enemies-to-lovers romance between a vineyard owner and the manager of a new chain hotel manager. So far, I like the characters and the banter is great, but the vineyard owner doesn’t actually know that she’s going to hate her new crush yet. I’m expecting drama any minute now.
Maya: After a weekend of books that didn’t work for me and DNFs, I’m reading A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley, ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Scribd ) which Sneezy recommended because I mentioned that what got me out of my last book reading slump was reading all the Murderbot novellas (short stories FTW!). I’m loving this collection of short stories so far! And also my copy of A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane ( A | BN | K | AB ) just came in from my library so I look forward to joining the SBTB Squee Club soon!
Lara: I just finished rereading The Weaver Takes a Wife by Sherri Cobb South ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it was just as charming as it was the first time around.
So tell us, whatcha reading?
The last few days, I’ve read 4 Maiden Lane novels by Elizabeth Hoyt. I received Thief of Shadows in a surprise box from Love’s Sweet Arrow and decided to give it a try. I loved that book so much. Then, I read the next two books in the series (Duke of Midnight is definitely my favorite). I skipped Darling Beast because I didn’t like being in Lily’s head (I tried the sample first) and read Dearest Rogue instead. Trevillion and Phoebe were perfect together.
I listened to Off Base and Wheels Up by Annabeth Albert. I’ve read them before but this was my first time listening to them. Both books had a different narrator and I preferred the narrator for Off Base—the guy who read Wheels Up had a weird Bane speaking through his mask voice for Dustin’s thoughts and it really bugged me.
Currently, I’m listening to Infamous by Jenny Holiday. I love this book and the narrator is awesome. I’m also rereading Dance Upon the Air by Nora Roberts, which paired real well with Gaslighter by The Chicks.
I seem to have broken through a reading slump!!! And bless Olivia Dade for making it happen. I’ve had Teach Me for ~a year and finally opened it bc I was so depressed about applying for teaching jobs and was hopeful it could cheer me up. IT DID!!! Was so good, made me want to be a teacher again despite *waves hand* everything. Then I couldn’t wait at all for 40-Love from the library so I bought it. Also amazing. I don’t usually love age gap stuff, but it was written really well so Lukas seemed beyond his years in terms of life experience. I laughed and cried.
I also read all of her Lovestruck Librarians series. It’s out of print/weird digital rights stuff happening, but luckily my library had digital copies of all of the books. They were all pretty short. I could only find the page count for one of the books and it was 236 pages, so I assume everything else was about that. The books were a little too fast paced for me. There’s a review for Broken Resolutions on here that I feel was right on the money, for the most part for the novellas I didn’t believe in the HEA bc from meeting to major conflict to being in love just happened too fast. The exception was Ready To Fall. It was still fast, but I loved it. The heroine is a major drama queen and embraces it, the hero is a quiet grump who loves how bright and hilarious the drama queen is. I also sent several screenshots of quotes to my BFF and family while the heroine is complaining about the outdoors and how unsafe riding a bike feels and they all agreed the heroine echoed my well known feelings.
I also wanted to talk a little about Driven to Distraction, bc it was very similar to one of my new favorite books, Take a Hint Dani Brown (TAHDB) by Talia Hibbert. Both books feature a smart heroine who doesn’t want a relationship bc she sees them as burdens and a hero who loves the idea of love, wants to settle down, and is majorly crushing on the heroine. In both books there is lots of relationship type stuff happening: together time, banter, sex, and emotional support, and eventually the heroine can admit that this is a good relationship and she wants it. The main difference is the conflict. In Driven to Distraction the heroine doesn’t want kids, the hero does, they break up, the hero takes care of his niece for a weekend and decides he doesn’t want kids after all. In TAHDB the conflict felt more natural to the characters.
**SPOILER**The heroine says yes, relationship=good but let’s take it slow, and the hero promptly tells her he’s in love with her and she’s perfect and she freaks out and leaves. She realizes she’s in the wrong and does the grand gesture and yes! Growth and HEA!
**End Spoiler**
The conflict felt more real and more solvable. Still love Olivia Dade, but I think her later works have improved A LOT over her beginning books (although I did still like them).
But oh, Take a Hint Dani Brown! It was perfect. Fake relationship!!! Romance-reading hero! So many feelings! So much appreciation for how smart the heroine is!!!! Reading this book was like the opposite of a panic attack. It made me feel like I had champagne blood and a butterfly heart and for a full 24 hours after I finished the book I was joyous with delight over Dani and Jaf’s love story. Everyone should read it.
In non-romance I read Catherine House. It was billed to me as a horror, but it’s a horror the same way Midsommar was a horror movie. Kind of dreamlike, you know something bad is happening but the heroine is also getting what she needs in a way and if you just ignore *that* it is almost like a utopia. I think the writing style was beautiful and really fit with how dissociated the heroine felt from everything and everyone around her. How even with people she loved there was a disconnectedness to how she thought about them, and that was particularly effective in nailing home how the heroine felt she didn’t really deserve to have people to love and it affected her relationships. Anyway, I recognize that it was a beautiful book, but again it was Midsommar, with your affection for the heroine and dread about what might happen slowly increasing throughout the entire story and I wanted something more like Scream or It where there was one big bad guy and he was definitely bad, no doubt about it.
I also read the alien sex planet books by Robin Lovett and I don’t know, I guess I found them kind of tame? Like, the sex planet just made people have a lot more sex, the planet itself didn’t get involved in the sex with like, weird branches or anything. The aliens were all very humanoid, there weren’t tentacles or prehensile penises or anything super crazy. I was just expecting more way out there stuff. I think the series could have easily been written as vampires and werewolves rather than aliens and pretty much everything would still work.
Read Harbor by Rebekah Weatherspoon, that was another 5 star read. I only wish it was longer, not bc it was too rushed or anything, just bc I loved it so much. The heroes were so perfect and so loving to the heroine it made me tear up. It was such a nice book, like a hug for my heart.
And I read The Boyfriend Project. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but like someone on here said, either in the review or comments, I didn’t really believe the couple was in love vs lust. I’ll check out the next book in the series, but I was glad it was a library book and I didn’t buy it.
I’m excited to go on vacation on Sunday and really focus on reading. There’s some good stuff coming out and I think I’m ready to use one of my Christmas gift cards to splurge on books! I also got hired to teach ELA, so celebrating by reading lots is also going to happen!
This has *not* been a good time for reading for me. A lot of DNF’ed books. However, I enjoyed
10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT PINKY by Sandhya Menon. Not my favorite in the “Dimple verse” books but it did have enemies to lovers and fake dating, so of course I was going to read it. It was low conflict in a way I needed.
500 MILES FROM YOU by Jenny Colgan. I’ve tried to read Jenny Colgan books before and failed, so I was really happy this third in the series worked for me. Two nurses, one in Scotland and one in London, trade places and start crushing on each other long distance. Sweet and at times a little much for suspension of disbelief, it still ended up working for me.
I also re-read BET ME by Jenny Crusie, sitting on a hammock on a porch. On a not terribly humid summer day. That was fun.
I’m reading Sugar Daddy, by Lisa Kleypas. I love it. It’s one of those unplanned times when a book just happens to come into your life when you need it the most.
I am about to start T. Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. I one-clicked so fast I didn’t realize it is YA. Very on-brand, it opens with a corpse. I am still hoping for gnoles!
Romance:
I just finished THE DEVIL OF DOWNTOWN by Joanna Shupe yesterday, which I liked alright but didn’t love. I liked when Justine & Mulligan went out to investigate things, and I really enjoyed Justine having to reestablish her boundaries with her sisters Mamie and Florence as an adult instead of just their baby sister. **MINOR SPOILER**: I was uncomfortable with a mention in the epilogue of Jane Addams, as she was involved in the eugenics movement. Many people in that time were, but it’s still hard for me to think about praising her social work with that context.
I did finish THE PRINCE OF BROADWAY by Joanna Shupe earlier this month, and it was my favorite of the Uptown Girls series.
I got into the Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs last month (never having read Mercy Thompson) and read HUNTING GROUND earlier this week. I like Anna & Charles together and I like the whodunnit/mystery element of their books so far. In a slow hold queue for the next one.
RAFE: A BUFF MALE NANNY by Rebekah Weatherspoon was really sweet — it was the first book I’d read of hers. I kind of wanted 20 more pages for a little more development of some minor conflicts, but it was very, very fluffy, I think the review on this site captures it well.
CHASING CASSANDRA by Lisa Kleypas was not working very well for me, and I’m still not sure of why that was. I do think her books have finally gotten to the recent enough history stage (much like Joanna Shupe’s) that it’s hard for me to separate the fantasy of the super wealthy hero from the robber barons who exploit their workers, and Tom Severin talking about building a vertically integrated railroad company was just too much. (It doesn’t help that Bezos and Musk have been in the news a lot recently, my tolerance for wealthy men in tech fields is at all-time lows.) I did finish this one. I want to reread a couple of the earlier Ravenel books, probably MARRYING WINTERBOURNE (though he may be too Bezos?), DEVIL IN SPRING and DEVIL’S DAUGHTER.
PARTY OF TWO by Jasmine Guillory was fantastic, I also almost joined the Bad Decisions Book Club while reading it. It was refreshing to see Max trying to take stock of the harm he’s done in the past and to make restitution for it. I was also glad to see Olivia struggling through the early phases of being self-employed, and she and Max worked well for me in terms of conflict & conflict resolution. I think it’s been my second favorite of her books so far, with THE PROPOSAL as my favorite.
Non-Romance:
TOKYO UENO STATION by Yu Miri, trans. Morgan Giles, was a fascinating character-driven history of the narrator and recent Japanese history. It was clever to time the release right before the (planned) Tokyo Olympics, as there’s a lot in the book about who lost out when the government made the Olympics bid. I will say, this is a bummer of a book, but it is very well-written.
I had never read FRANKENSTEIN, OR: THE MODERN PROMETHEUS by Mary Shelley, and wow was it not what I thought it would be at all based off of pop culture references. Very relevant for our times in terms of thinking through the effects of technological advancement. I can see how it led to later science fiction, as it did have me thinking a lot about society & technology. (Would Victor Frankenstein have been a Silicon Valley Tech Bro? Is Frankenstein’s Creature an incel? Is Captain Walton a union buster?)
CW: sexual assault
I read KNOW MY NAME by Chanel Miller earlier this month and cried several times. I’m glad she was able to share her story after so many assumptions were made about her in the media and in internet comments. She’s a very gifted writer, and so, so brave and compassionate to share her vulnerabilities with everyone. I hope that one day she will bless us all with another book she’s written, as she is incredibly talented.
Who else here works in the (American) public school system? I’m sure I’m not the only one who, as opening day looms closer, gets the feeling that we’re all in some sort of demented PsychOps experiment (or an alternate universe orchestrated by Samuel Beckett): “There is no way you can safely do X, but you are being legally mandated to do X. Solve for X.”
Oh well, that’s for Future Deb to worry about. Now it’s time to talk about books.
For comfort rereads, I’ve been going back through Zoe York’s Pine Harbour series. The books are set in a small Canadian town on the shore of Lake Huron; and in each romantic pairing at least one of the MCs is usually from one of the two main families in the area: the Fosters or the Minellis, most of whom work in first-responder, military, or construction jobs. Despite having a small-town vibe, the books do address some thornier issues: drug addiction, terminal illness, losing a spouse, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, family conflict. There’s angst, but it’s relatively low-key, and there’s a basic maturity and decency to the characters whether as friends, lovers, spouses, or relatives. There are eight books in the series and, while it helps to read them in order, each can be read as a stand-alone. A perfect blend of soothing tone with some serious subject matter. I especially enjoyed my rereads of LOVE ON A SPRING MORNING (a widower with three young children falls for the woman renting a nearby house, unaware that she is a famous actress); LOVE ON THE RUN (a bodyguard falls for his client, a country singer with a controlling, gaslighting ex); and the especially good LOVE IN A SANDSTORM (a soldier, suffering from the physical and mental effects of a combat injury, reconnects with the woman he impulsively married shorty before he got hurt). I highly recommend the entire series.
And I was happy to see York has started a new series, also set in Pine Harbour but featuring a new family consisting of five brothers, the Kinkaids. In the first book of the series, RECKLESS AT HEART, all five brothers are introduced, but the book’s primary focus is on Owen, the oldest brother, a paramedic and single dad to an 18-year-old daughter, Becca, who is in her senior year of high school when she announces she is pregnant. Owen, who was himself a teenage parent, is worried that Becca doesn’t understand the hard times she will face in the future. Then he goes with Becca to her first prenatal appointment and finds himself unwillingly attracted to Kerry, the midwife treating his daughter. (Based on my reading of the Pine Harbour books and also Frey’s Barker’s A CHANGE IN TIDE, I’m guessing midwives are a more common and accepted fixture of the Canadian obstetrical scene than they are in the States.) There were many things I enjoyed about the book—especially Owen’s obvious love for his four younger brothers and the way Owen and his ex-wife, despite being divorced, unite to show love and support for their daughter on her motherhood journey—but if I have a complaint, it’s that the plot keeps Owen and Kerry apart for too long: it’s well past the 30% point before the two of them even have a long conversation; plus, the antagonism between them often feels somewhat manufactured. Still, I found RECKLESS AT HEART to be another one of York’s soothing reads about decent, mature people finding love. I will certainly be reading the next books in the series.
I hesitate to call Katie Porter’s MESSY a romance, even though there is a central love affair and the story includes both age-gap and rock-star tropes. I’d describe it more as a young woman’s journey from carrying the burdens of her father’s past to defining her own future. The heroine’s father was in a wildly successful rock band in the early 1990s; the band broke up before she was born, but she’s been raised with her father’s stories about those golden days and their aftermath. She is constrained by the world her father has created with his (selective) memories, anger, resentment, sexism, and hoarding behavior. When her father’s cancer becomes terminal, the heroine accompanies him back to England where he lives out his final days in the home of the person he blames most for the band’s implosion: its lead singer/songwriter—a man to whom the heroine is attracted (although it’s never really clear whether her attraction is for who he is now or for what he represents in her father’s history) and with whom she begins a relationship. MESSY is an accurate title for the book: the emotional entanglements are complicated; the h&h are not always honest with themselves or others about their motivations; there are memories of family and band dysfunction, drug addiction, abuse, cruelty, and excess—all of which have a bearing on the characters’ present-day behavior. And there’s a lot of physical mess too: the heroine’s father’s house, packed with the hoarded accumulations of a lifetime; the messes caused by the final stage of a terminal illness; and the visceral messiness of sex. Key quote: “Our broken pieces fit together, but we’ve found each other in the wrong universe. The wrong alignment of timelines.” Very well-written, but I’d describe MESSY as less a romance than a young woman’s coming to terms with (and breaking free from) the history that has shaped her life. Recommended, but not necessarily as a romance.
Tia Louise is a new-to-me author, but based on her PRINCE and PLAYER, I will be checking out her back-list. These books are royal romances with romantic suspense sensibilities (cw/tw for assassination attempts, kidnapping, and violence—some of it quite intense), and I thought Louise did a good job of balancing the more lighthearted and sexy elements of a royal romance with the darker side of romantic suspense. The overarching story concerns two sisters, Zelda and Ava, con artists who run casino scams (their backstory makes this career choice understandable if not admirable). When a scam gets exposed, Zelda is “persuaded” (well, blackmailed) into seducing Rowan, the crown prince of a small European monarchy (think, Monaco, with waaaay more palace intrigue). The blackmailer is the prince’s villainous uncle (who is connected to a nefarious cabal determined to take down the prince), and he concocts a suitable backstory for Zelda: she is supposedly the niece of the richest man in Texas. Ava comes along in the role of best friend. The only problem? When the women finally meet Rowan, he falls for Ava; meanwhile, instead of working her plan to seduce Rowan, Zelda starts falling for his brother, Cal. Key quote: “I don’t think desperate people always make smart decisions.” While PRINCE focuses more on Rowen & Ava and PLAYER is primarily about Zelda & Cal, neither book is a stand-alone, the two stories do overlap and must be read together. Recommended if you’re looking for a sexy, fast-paced story with a serious side. (Also, extra points for dreamy blue-eyed model, Travis S., used to advantage on both covers.)
I read two erotic romances from Katee Robert this month. In YOUR DAD WILL DO, a woman breaks up with her cheating fiancé and immediately shows up at his father’s house for “revenge sex.” While YOUR DAD WILL DO is full-on erotica, with a lot of DD/lg role-play thrown into the mix, there are some emotional nuances (although certainly nothing like Penelope Douglas’s sensitive exploration of a similar theme in BIRTHDAY GIRL) as the heroine has to work through her feelings for her ex and his father. On the other hand, Robert’s THE BEAST, while every bit as erotic, possesses a deeper emotional through-line than YOUR DAD WILL DO. THE BEAST is part of Robert’s Wicked Villains series: contemporary stories that are mash-ups of erotica, kink, sex clubs, the criminal underworld, dark fairy-tales, and copyright-dodging Disney-esque character names. The heroine of THE BEAST, Isabelle, is trying to persuade her former lovers, Beast and Gaeton, to help her hold on to her late father’s territory. In Robert’s reimagining, Beast is beautiful, but lethal and cruel, scarred physically and emotionally; Gaeton is more beast-like in his hulking appearance, but has a gentler spirit. Various permutations of an M/M/F menage (among other things) proceed, with previously “vanilla” Isabelle getting “topped” by the two men in exchange for their cooperation. Key quote: “Sometimes those wires get crossed, but I know what I want now.” I enjoyed the story of three people trying to figure out if they can make their three-way dynamic work, but if you’ve read any of the previous Wicked Villains books, you know that everything that happens—and I do mean everything—is described in ultra-explicit and blisteringly-hot detail. You have been warned.
Despite its tacky cover (a man palming a woman’s rear end with one hand and holding an engagement ring with the other), Maya Hughes’s THE PROPOSAL is an inoffensive fake-relationship romance between an events planner and a former NFL player, each of whom have reasons to want to successfully stage a major event that their respective companies are coordinating together. She’s hoping for a promotion, he’s trying to save his late uncle’s business. There’s some initial antagonism between the two, but once the fake relationship (which they both enter into for…reasons) gets going, they each see the positive points and vulnerabilities of the other. Can sexy-times and true love be far behind? THE PROPOSAL is also the start of a new series, so there were a number of secondary characters being introduced throughout the story. Now, just a week after finishing it, I’m having difficulty differentiating THE PROPOSAL from any number of other fake relationship romances I’ve read in the past couple of years. THE PROPOSAL is perfectly fine book to while away a lazy afternoon (especially if fake relationship is your jam), but it’s definitely not Keeper Shelf material.
NON-ROMANCE
Toward the end of Marybeth Mayhew Whalen’s very good ONLY EVER HER, a character explains, “Tragedy doesn’t just happen to a person. It happens to a community.” 23 years ago, a small South Carolina town was devastated by the murder of a young single mother. A local man was found guilty of the crime, but new evidence exonerates him. On the same day the man is released from prison, the murdered woman’s daughter, Annie, now 26 and just a few days away from her wedding, disappears. Against the backdrop of the search for the missing woman, we see events from several points-of-view—Annie’s aunt, who raised her after her mother’s murder; her cousin, with whom Annie had a complicated sibling-like relationship; a high school acquaintance who now writes for the local paper; and the man who has loved Annie for years and with whom Annie had a special connection even though she was engaged to another man—and we learn that all of them have secrets and regrets, some involving Annie, some not. We see the start of at least two new romantic relationships—although whether they will stand the test of time is unsure. We also see relationships that have ended or are about to end. People are not always consistent, they move forward but are burdened by past events and actions. Whalen writes in a quiet style that lets the story unfurl at a deliberate pace, with information slowly slotting into place. There are no real twists or shocks, just the careful accumulation of detail until a full picture emerges of the missing woman, the people around her, and the community they call home. Highly recommended.
I was enjoying Minka Kent’s mystery-thriller, THE THINNEST AIR, until a huge plot-hole, big enough to drive a truck through, showed up around the 75% mark. Up until that point, the book had been tense and tightly plotted: when a woman goes missing, her sister begins her own investigation, discovering that the missing woman was keeping a lot of secrets. Told in alternating perspectives (the missing woman and her sister) in dual timelines (before and after the woman disappears), a portrait gradually emerges of a young woman, in a difficult marriage to a much older man, unsure if she wants to remain with her wealthy, distant husband. She turns to two other men for comfort and advice. But do any of the men in her life have anything to do with her disappearance? Meanwhile, the anxious, prickly sister has her own problems: she and her long-time boyfriend have recently separated and the string of coffee shops they co-own is experiencing financial trouble. She uncovers what appears to be an important clue as to the whereabouts of her sister. But this is where the enormous “Wait, what? How could happen?” moment occurs. The rest of the book and the unraveling of the mystery were serviceable, but the story was undoubtedly let down by that one plot point that should have been identified by a competent edit.
RING AROUND THE ROSEY by L.A. Fiore and Anthony Dwayne is a suspense novel with romance and horror elements. It has an intriguing premise: Twenty-two years after nine people were found dead at a house purchased as a retreat, five people (the victims’ now-adult children) meet to sell the house where the deaths occurred. As the five of them explore the long-vacant house, they find indications that it was being used for various forms of sex play—a fact which presents their parents, and their deaths, in a whole new light. Then things start happening: strange sensations, unexplained noises, misplaced items, locked doors, opened windows, baffling gifts, weird dolls, eerie music, a creepy movie reel from the 1960s. There’s a lot of tell-not-show in the book, but I was interested enough in what was happening to overlook the clumsy writing, sudden changes in points-of-view, abrupt alterations in tone, stereotypical characters (especially predatory females who are way over-the-top in expressing their hots for the uninterested hero), timeline blunders (Hello, Editor!), and incomprehensibly boneheaded TSTL decisions & actions by the main characters. Not an entirely terrible book, but certainly more interesting for the plot than for the way it was executed.
I read Mistress Spy by Pamela Mingle and it was good. It was very refreshing to read a historical that wasn’t set in London and didn’t have dukes/earls/etc. I recommend it. Almost A Scandal by Elizabeth Essex was good and another duke-free historical.
I did read a couple of romances that were just meh. I got While the Duke Was Sleeping by Sophie Jordan as a daily deal and it was so-so – the elements of the story were there, but it felt a bit unfinished. Tainted Evidence by Rachel Grant started off well but was not up to her usual standard. It felt somewhat paint-by-numbers and I didn’t enjoy it as much as earlier books in the series.
In non-romance: Murder on the Iditarod Trail by Sue Henry was a nice mystery, although dated in parts (the heroine listens to a Walkman…that takes me back!). The mystery was good and the Alaska setting was good too. I also liked The Aleppo Codex by Matti Friedman, which is something of a real-life mystery. It was a bit slow to start but then I couldn’t stop reading. I also read The Last Empire by Serhii Ploky about the fall of the USSR – another slow start that did get better, and I learnt a lot. His book on Chernobyl is good too.
Next up, I’ve got Tight Rope by Amanda Quick – another daily deal purchase – and Black Lace by Beverly Jenkins.
@JillQ I’ve read a few of Jenny Colgan books and there not really for me. I just find them very formulaic with the ‘old fish out of water’ heroine has to run a business in the sticks that some relative left them in their will. They have a run in with some guy who is obviously the love interest and the local’s don’t like her and her city ideas at first but warm to her by the end. But she is a very successful author so who am I to judge? The few I did read I found the hero bland and wanted her to end up with the other guy.
Speaking of formulaic, I am reading another alien romance that I bought on impulse (I bought it on the 15th of March so I’m blaming pre lockdown coronavirus anxiety here), it’s a body swap story which is a trope I hate so it could be a DNF (I hate doing this with books I bought) but I only have myself to blame.
Read a few Zoe Chants but only completed two (on KU) as I found them too short and fated mates got together too early (I think the best books wait until 50% before doing sexy time).
So that’s everything I’ve read in the last two weeks. Still haven’t found anything I want to stay up late and read, despite all the sleepless nights I’ve been having. That said, I’m keeping KU for another month, over here you can listen to certain titles on the subscription.
@Crystal F — I know folks love Kleypas’s historicals, but I adore her contemporary Travis series. SUGAR DADDY is my favorite out of the whole series.
Ebook sales are hazardous to my wallet. LOL. I downloaded several books this week, including THE HARP OF KINGS by Juliet Marillier; NERON RISING by Keary Taylor; and THE PRINCESS DIARIST by Carrie Fisher.
I’m also on the hunt for new Christmas romances this year. Does anyone know of any historical western holiday romances coming out in 2020? I buy those for my mom every year. Any recommendations. Would be appreciated. Thanks! 🙂
I keep crying about missing Skate America this year but maybe reading more ice skating romances will help? So I picked up Kiss & Cry and so Forward, and got on the waitlist for Knight of the ice! Thank you for the recs!
Over the last 2 weeks I read the first 6 books of the Roswell High series. Why? Idk!!! But it’s fun and also bad.
Read TO HAVE AND TO HOAX, DUKE OF SIN, MANGOS AND MISTLETOE and TIKKA CHANCE ON ME and loveeeedd them.
Also read Destiny’s Captive and found it, sadly, disapointing. I kept waiting for things to pick up. At least it got me a Ripped Bodice square!
Also got a square for Bitter Spirits, which had so much potential but somehow did not fully work? Still, I loved the setting (Prohibition era SF) and the h (medium! Falls in love with a bootlegger!)
Quickly read The Silent Patient for my book club…I am not a fan of thrillers, but interesting characters made it easy to keep reading. Not only did I not guess the ending, I was still surprised after I finished it.
Liked A Good Duke Is Hard To Find by Christina Britton,
I just finished T. Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking – She has become an automatic buy for me – and this book was everything I needed right now. I found it fascinating how much it resonated thematically with current events, despite apparently having been written last decade (see Notes at the end of the book).
Also – there is a heartbreaking bit at the end that had me crying SO hard. But in a good way, you know? Just – warning, if you’re wired like me, maybe don’t finish it in public or anything.
I’m reading THE BOYFRIEND PROJECT right now, and really appreciating the characters. It seems to be structured a little differently than the average romance novel, which is refreshing. I’m at 30% so my opinions are subject to change.
Also reading, in non-fiction, The LIBRARY BOOK by Susan Orleans. Wow, this one’s great! Last summer I read Rachel Caine’s Great Library series, and THE LIBRARY BOOK, despite being nonfiction, has some of the same feels. Great storytelling.
I’ve challenged myself to get through a few books I’ve had stacked up on my shelf for at this point (rather embarrassingly) years, so to that end I’m attempting to read one chapter a day of The Tale of Genji. I picked it up from my library sale a long time ago and wow is it a doorstopper, but I figure 1 chapter a day is doable. It’s…definitely not something I’d usually read but it’s kind of an experiment for me as I’ve always been interested in the “it’s the first example of a real novel” angle. So far, it seems to be every chapter is about Genji falling in love yet another woman (or in one case, very distressingly, a little girl) and I’m having trouble telling people apart because they mostly have monikers derived from poetry I’m unfamiliar with instead of actual names but…it’s a project. And I kind of needed a project.
I’m also about halfway through Two Rogues Make a Right by Cat Sebastian and I am loving it. Torn between the desire to rush through to the end and make it last. For various reasons, Sebastian’s more recent books have felt to me like B-/C+ (still enjoyable but something lacking) where her earlier books have all been solid As, so I’m really glad that, so far at least, this one is hitting all my buttons just right.
@Triple D, my goddaughter is a teacher, a co-worker’s son is an elemtary school principle and another’s is a teacher. Three school districts, two states and not one solid plan for the future. Not. One. And let’s appreciate the irony of my goddaughter attending Zoom meetings about returning to the classroom because the administration doesn’t feel in person meetings are safe….
On to happier thoughts.
Last WYR I mentioned that Bringing Down the Duke was waiting for me at the GBPL. Bitchery, it was a delight. From Sebastian’s steadfast work to rebuild the family legacy, to his painfully dysfunctional relationship with his much younger brother. And Annabelle… she embodies everything Women’s Suffrage was working for. A penniless orphan, disowned by her father for a youthful mistake, dependent on the good will of an unappreciative male relative for whom she is basically a servant. But she is also smart and resilient. Best historical I’ve read in a while, probably since Mia Vincy’s debut. Really excited for the next book. We meet the hero of that one in this one, and he seemed really predatory. It will be interesting to see how she resolves that.
The McAvoy Sisters Book of Secrets is the first book by Molly O’Keefe writing as Molly Fader. In the dedication she says something along the lines of “it’s okay for you to read this one Dad”, so you know going in that the erotic elements of her other nom de plumes is absent. That’s not to say that the complexity of interpersonal relationships is any less compelling. Seventeen years ago the McAvoy family fell apart in the aftermath of violence. Now Lindy is back having learned that her mother has had a serious health crisis. The family business that Lindy always planned to take over and now run by her sister is fading. Her niece is dabbling in rebellion. Her sister is in denial about her postpartum depression. Her mother is unable to care for herself. There are thwarted dreams, a marriage in disarray, a teenage not really bad boy, a hot sheriff and oh, so many secrets. The emotional content of her writing is still there, just go in knowing there are no sexy times.
Picked up The Harlot Countess based on a sale post earlier this week. My interest in historicals is picking back up base on this and the Evie Dunmore book. Ten years ago society turned its back on Sophie based on a lie. Including the one person she thought would take her side. Sophie is a delight. She has built a life and career for herself in spite of Society’s disdain. I Found the characters to be interesting and the story compelling. The big bad’s motivation was a little questionable, surely Simon is not the only person he’s encountered who would elicit such enmity for his stated reasons. Still forgiveness is earned before it is granted, the problems of her reputation are not glossed over – no one believes that his goals and aspirations won’t be effected by it and love conquers all.
Started The Lovely War by Julie Barry this morning. This is another book that appeared on my reserve list with no recollection of how or who recommended it. I think I’m going to like it A LOT. It takes place during WWI, and is narrated by Aphrodite. Yes, that Aphrodite. I’m finding her voice so delightful that I started reading it out loud. This is pretty high praise. I used to compete in speech forensics in the way back days, and this is exactly the sort of piece I would have loved to take on the road.
Out of ny reading slump! *cheers* STRANGE LOVE by Ann Aguirre did it. Zylar makes the book. He is so sweet and honest and earnest. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about his journey from underdog with worth issue to in love with a terribly ugly female, and the confidence it gives him. He’s loving, he’s supporting, and he can’t believe his luck in having Beryl in his corner. He’s adorable.
Outside of the hero and heroine though, every character reads like a prop; they are so lifeless it’s a bit distracting. The world-building also feels more like a sketch than a cohesive world. But everything needed to support the couple’s romance is there, so it’s good. And there’s a talking dog, one every alien treats like it’s a sentient being on par with the human, so yeah… funny moments.
Then DEEP BLUE and WHITEOUT by Adriana Anders. It’s been a while since I read romantic suspense; I stopped because there was too much suspense and not enough romance for me. My reading meter’s changed though, because I much preferred the action parts of the stories this time around. (I was single back when Linda Howard was the queen of RS; now, I’m in a relationship and on a maternity leave with my 3rd baby… Enough romance already! Give me run-for-my-life jeopardy instead! )
Not that the romance is bad. In Deep Blue, I liked how Eric is portrayed – his own self-image is that of an useless retired old man (…he’s 41!) but when comes the time to act, he’s organized, ruthless and so very competent. But even then, he stays very cautious around Zoe, always gauging if yes, she’s really really into him? As if he can’t believe it, haha! That dichotomy tickled me the right way, as did his enjoyment of being with Zoe once he got into his head that they might be in a RELATIONSHIP.
But, despite the good romance part, I still preferred the action parts. All together, it makes for a very good story.
Whiteout is the same, except more. The adversity is relentless. And Ford, ‘the man who’d never met a conversation he couldn’t turn awkward’, is even less articulate than his brother. And Angel — she’s not a super anything, just a regular you-and-me, but once the trials start…her determination, her grit… she’s a true heroine in every sense of the word.
REBORN YESTERDAY by Tessa Bailey. Ginny is off-beat, sincere, quirky and I’d love to be her friend. She’s a mortician, and her relationship to death and grieving is… an inspiration. She also loves old movies, she makes her own clothes and I’m sure she uses vintage patterns to make all her dresses. Her connection to Jonas is instant and she embraces it, like the optimist that she is.
Jonas feels the same pull, and it’s very sweet to read about. Then we learn it’s a mating thing after all, and bouts of uncontrollable jealousy and high-handedness ensue. It’s a bit jarring. But I can like a fated trope, and Ginny acts so flustered and funny, I quickly got over it and went back to enjoying their interactions. Besides, how to resist a hero that tells the heroine beautifully how marvelous she is, then ends with ‘You’re a godess among fruit flies’… *snort*
I read a lot of T. Kingfisher this month too! MINOR MAGE, which I liked a lot (it’s a kids book, the hero is 12) and the Clocktaur War duology, which was good (I’m not sure T. Kingfisher can write something I won’t like) but I did not enjoy as much as Paladin’s Grace. I kinda see it as the prototype for Paladin’s Grace.
Right now I’m reading the ‘Old Man’s War’ sci-fi series by John Scalzi. Good sci-fi. Nothing extraordinary profound or exciting, just… engrossing. Satisfying reading.
Good sennight everyone! Thank you for commenting, there’s always a lot of good recc to pick up
Fair as a Star by Mimi Matthews. This was a lovely, lovely book. My hist-rom reading has dwindled A LOT in recent years to new works by Mary Balogh, Stella Riley, Beverly Jenkins and Jo Goodman and some comfort re-reads. So it is nice to discover a new-to-me author whose voice just works for me.
Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory. This is probably my favorite of her since The Wedding Date. She definitely has mastered the meet cute. And I liked the romantic conflict in this one.
The Honey Don’t List By Christina Lauren. I liked this a lot more than most. I came to these authors late, only this year having read The Unhoneymooners and John And Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating.
What You Wish For By Katherine Center. She has just come across my radar. I really liked this. Total feel good ending. Now I need to hunt up some of her other books.
Office Hours by Katrina Jackson. The author nailed the whole academic thing for a new tenure track professor. But I didn’t love,love this because I don’t feel like the heroine got to really breathe during the whole book. She was so stressed out and it stressed me out.
re-read Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer on audio. It is still such a good book. The audiobook narration was excellent.
Death Comes to London by Catherine Lloyd. Nice mystery/romance with likable characters.
If these Walls could Talk by Lucy Worsely: Very high-level overview of a history of the home. Interesting enough, but I’ve read a lot of the material before. Amanda Vickery’s ‘At Home in Georgian London’ is better.
Night Country by Melissa Albert. I agree with those who say it isn’t as good as Hazel Wood. I like it, but there’s not the ‘what is going on’ factor.
My summer of YA reading is in full swing with a few other reads thrown in for good measure!
Excellent:
The Selection by Kierra Cass: The premise of this YA is basically based on The Bachelor (this is the first in a series of five) – in a dystopian future where the USA is now a monarchy and there is a caste system in place, 35 young women are “selected” to go the the royal palace and compete for the hand of the crown prince. I could totally see where this wouldn’t work for some – there were some mean girls and cattiness and the whole premise revolves around fighting for one dude, oh and there is a love triangle between the MC and the prince and the boy she left behind. But I totally inhaled this thing – it had glamour and some danger, and a palace and it was just what I needed during this pandemic. Because this is the first in the series, there are no resolutions to the main storylines.
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro: I think someone else commented on this book in the last WAYR and didn’t care for it because there is a romantic on-again, off-again plot with Holmes and Watson, but as we always say someone’s yuck is someone else’s yum. I loved the modern day extension of the Holmes and Watson story. Charlotte Holmes and James Watson meet while attending the same boarding school in Connecticut, a murder happens, and the game is afoot. Someone is using plot points from Sherlock Holmes stories in an effort to frame the two of them. Don’t be fooled though – this is pretty dark including drug use, rape in the backstory, depression, and extrajudicial means of handling guilty parties. I adored this too because Watson absolutely pines for Holmes, worshipping the ground she walks on and I love a good hero who pines. This is the first in the series and I am already reading the second.
Very Good:
The Elite by Kierra Cass: The second in the The Selection series, this one didn’t quite live up to the thrill of the first although it still had its high points. In this book (and in the third book which I am currently reading), there are three issues which drive me a little batty sometimes – there are a lot of plot holes including very stupid choices by both the prince and MC, there are a lot more complicated world building storylines introduced which sometimes detract from the main story, AND the prince and MC run really hot and cold towards each other – this is YA, so I get that this is supposed to have a lot of drama, but sometimes I found it a little too much.
Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi: The first in a YA series centered in a post-apocalyptic world around a young woman who grew up sheltered and protected in a Pod (like a bio -dome) and a boy who grew up in the outside world. Some of those who grew up in the outside have super senses and the hero of the story has two. They meet when the heroine is kicked out of her pod and has to learn how to survive. The hero helps her because she can, in turn, help him rescue his nephew – taken by the pod dwellers. This is a survival tale and a romance. It started slow for me and I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it, but as the book went on and the characters became more fleshed out and the world more detailed, I really enjoyed it. I plan to start the second in the series tonight. CW – at the beginning, the heroine refers to the hero as a “savage” because that is what she has been taught to believe.
Good:
America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money by Steve and Annette Economides: I find that even though I consider myself a very organized person (although less so since having our first child), I still love to read and learn about organization methods. In the same vein, even though I consider myself very knowledgeable about personal finance, I still like to read books about personal finance. It is a way to learn something new and keep you on the right track. This is a good basic book about budgeting, saving, how to cut spending, how to teach kids about money, etc. Although some of it is dated (a couple of pages are devoted to saving money on your long distance service – will my son even understand what the phrase long distance service means??? Now I feel old), there were a lot of good tips and tricks on how to live frugally and why it is a great benefit to do so.
Meh:
None
The Bad:
Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal: The first in the Maggie Hope mystery/spy series set in WWII England, I read this one for my mystery book club. I found the plot holes in this one to be huge and gaping. Both the characters and the situations they were put in were terribly, terribly unrealistic. And the author would sometimes dump WWII history into the middle of the story in a clunky and very distracting way. I think every soap opera and spy novel cliche was written into this one book. Also, although I applaud the fact that there were two LGBTQIA+ characters in the book, I found it very disingenuous not to include how dangerous it was at this time particularly for gay men who could be and were criminally prosecuted. Especially in a book that mentioned Alan Turing several times, it rang very false to make it seem like gay men could live without real fear of persecution. However, for as much as I disliked the book, our book club had a very interesting and in depth virtual discussion about it!
I want to read Two Rogues make a right, but I worry I don’t remember enough about the first 2 books in the trilogy, so I feel like I have to re-read those first and that is a page count too high right now
My highest rated read this round was Refuge for a Rogue by L.S. Young: m/m american old west historical. Newly hired teacher falls in love with the town’s book keeper (except the book keeper is a former con man and sex worker)
An arc of Shana Galen’s “The Earl’s Excellent Adventure.” Very chirpy so far.
This has been a non-romance kind of month for me. I’m currently reading REAMDE by Neal Stevenson. This book is crazy, with so many plot elements my mind is reeling. And, it’s super long, which I didn’t realize until I’d been reading for some time and noticed I was only 8% into the book. But I’m thoroughly engaged so I’m gonna stick it out.
Immediately before that by pure coincidence I read another book by an author named (basically) Stevenson, in this case Bryan Stephenson, just Mercy. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Please read it if you haven’t and then contact your elected representatives and ask for criminal justice reform.
I’m listening to Angel Mage, by Garth Nix, enjoying it. And in particular I like the way so, so, so many of the characters are women, including in roles where it turns out I don’t expect women, like security roles. It’s making me question my own assumptions whenever I have that “oh!” reaction.
Sigh. I got my Stevensons/Stephensons mixed up, sorry.
@Maya Robin McKinley is one of my favorites. If novellas are feeling right right now, I’d recommend ANGELS OF DARKNESS collection with Nlini Singh, Illona Andrews, Sharon Shinn and Meljean Brook. Love each of the novellas but especially the Shinn.
@DiscoDollyDeb my brother n law is a professor at a smallish university and is going crazy because he’s being asked to create 3 contingency lesson plans (the university wants to keep its options open…) I’m not an educator but I’m going through a mid life career change and working on a bachelors degree (always interesting to be a student with people I could realistically have given birth to…) and the place I’m going also has not announced firm plans for fall yet. I really feel for everyone stuck with the impossible task of planning for this fall.
I am reading the BURNING COVE series by Amanda Quick, currently on TIGHTROPE. It’s super comforting. I used to read AQ/JAK all the time but got burned out maybe 5 years ago. But coming back it’s so nice. All the beats are familiar but feel fresh to me.
I picked up the complete paperback series of the WALLFLOWERS by Kleypas but stalled out in IT HAPPENED ONE AUTUMN. I knows it’s a highly recommended series but I’m thinking maybe I need to pick it back up when I’m feeling… different.
I read Deerskin by Robin McKinley, and enjoyed it. The tone of the book, at least in my head, was very fairy tale-esque. Even though it was told through the perspective of the main character, it felt as though it was being narrated by someone else. It needs CW/TW for sexual assault and illness/injury to animals though. They are on page, but not overly graphic. The injury to animals is not caused by human action or malice.
I DNF The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells. I don’t know if it was me or the book. I think I’m just not in the mood for angst, and it seemed like we were headed for a bunch of it before long. And I get aggravated by characters feeling like they don’t fit in, but then rejecting overtures of friendliness made by people who have been nothing but kind to them.
I am currently reading the second book in the Clocktaur Wars series by T Kingfisher. So far I’m really enjoying it! I love the humor and snark, and the romantic element is done well. Just the right amount of longing and feeling as if the object of their affection couldn’t possibly be interested, with little snippets of communication thrown in. I’m very curious about the Clockwork boys, and knowing who created them and why. And I love the gnoles! I previously read Swordheart, which I just loved, and loved the gnole in that book too. They are such funny, honest souls!
* The Highlander’s Excellent Adventure, sorry! Earls on the brain!
Love and Other Scandals by Caroline Linden was mentioned recently in a books on sale post here. Got it from hoopla yesterday and inhaled it in record time. Thanks to everyone who recommended this!
@Escapeologist – I did the same and now am wondering why I never tried her before.
I’m looking for something not Romance to read. Something SF/F or UF that’s character driven and not grim. I know it’s shocking to me too. I think I just need a periodic break from the emotionality of Romance.
Someone mentioned Nathan Lowell in the butler post and I read and mostly enjoyed his SF series. I mean, I rolled my eyes at how attractive the MC was to women but it was otherwise pretty good. I stopped at the book where a Bad Thing happens. (Incidentally, I read the reviews for that book and was amused/surprised by the male reviewers who complained about what happened and gave it low stars.)
I’m also slowly working my way through the Alex Verus series and really liking it so far. I only hope it doesn’t tank or get depressing as it comes to a close. I usually like to read series that are complete so I can check for that.
So I’m looking for books like those. I’m going to try the Dresden books. I remember reading the first one back in the day and don’t remember why I didn’t continue with the series. It may be that my tastes have changed.
I loved PARADISE COVE by Jenny Holiday. It’s releasing this coming Tuesday and is the second in her Matchmaker Bay series. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, MERMAID INN, but this one is even better. There’s a lovely friendship at the core of the hero and heroine’s relationship, plenty of sparks, and laughter, but also a bittersweet element as the hero slowly deals with his grief over the loss of his young son 3 yrs previous. I find Jenny Holiday does a really good job at giving a story some emotional heft while at the same time keeping it light enough to balance out the stronger emotions.
In the pure escapism vein, I tore through THE QUARRY MASTER by Amanda Milo, a new novel in her Stolen By An Alien series. This series is pretty bonkers in the usual alien abduction SF Romance way but it’s the kind of bonkers that I love and since I hadn’t known she was releasing a new novel, I have to admit I squeeed loudly, then immediately dropped everything to read it. I also read and enjoyed THE BROMANCE BOOK CLUB by Lyssa Kay Adams.
Finally, I’m finishing HOLLYWOOD PARK, an autobiography by Mikel Jollett, the lead singer of an Indie rock group called The Airborne Toxic Event (who have one of my all-time fav songs, Sometime Around Midnight). Until he was 5 yrs old, Mikel was raised in a “school” that was really like an orphanage in the Synanon cult, which was infamous in the 1970’s. His mother finally “escaped” with him and his brother, but his mother was mentally ill so his childhood was an absolute fustercluck until he finally started living permanently with his father, an junior high drop-out, ex-con, and reformed heroin addict, who had his own demons, but still stepped up as a father. He inspired Mikel to escape his background and strive for more, including graduating from Stanford University. The book itself is compulsively readable and he is a very talented and lyrical writer.
@myself – I was trying to figure out a common denominator in the series I mentioned and I think it’s that both MCs read like MacGyvers to me.
@MaryK if you’re talking about the Dresden files, book one was a hard DNF for me. I found the MC misogynistic and since it was first person POV I found it unreadable. However, it’s been said the character improves after a couple of books, so maybe give the first book a miss?
Really enjoyed Mia Vincy’s A DANGEROUS KIND OF LADY (third in the series even though it goes first chronologically.) Vincy writes great witty banter and I wish her books were that the whole way through (they all have a more emotional arc in the second half, which I don’t like as much, but the first half is so good I’m sticking around.) Also enjoyed DARING AND THE DUKE by Sarah MacLean, although I don’t always love the violence angle of Bareknuckle Bastards.
Speaking of violence: finished, but had serious problems with Beverly Jenkins’s DESTINY’S EMBRACE and Lisa Kleypas’s DREAMING OF YOU. The premise of Destiny’s Embrace is that a woman who has spent *30 years* being physically and emotionally abused by her mother moves to California, meets a guy, and is happily married 2 weeks later (there’s no plot reason for the rushed relationship.) There’s a lot of other interpersonal violence (three instances where the heroine physically attacks the hero, two brawls involving the hero). It was just way too much, especially combined with the heroine’s backstory. The Kleypas one is apparently a fan favorite, but it’s way too much “bad man saved by the love of a good woman,” and the Madonna/whore stuff is a bit much. I feel like Kleypas will throw in a nod to feminism in her books but never really buys it/it feels like the character is putting on airs when they say it.
@Pear—I had problems with the fat shaming in Chasing Cassandra. I get why Kleypas included it, but it really left a bad taste in my mouth.
@MaryK: I highly recommend The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison & its brand new sequel, The Witness For The Dead. The (elf) Emperor & his sons die & his fifth son, the hidden away half-goblin Maia, inherits. Lovely lovely writing.
I should have added that these are high fantasy, not urban fantasy like the Dresdens.
YAY! WAYR! I haven’t read any of the recommendations yet, so sorry if I am redundant to what is said above. We had a weird, COVID style high school graduation today (standing in the field, separated by 6 feet – felt like we were going to be beamed up to space) and I just saw this. My reading:
BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, Alex Hall M/M Excellent! Best book I’ve read yet by Hall (and I thought his others were pretty good). Very funny, very sweet, nice emotional arc. Everything you’ve heard here already. I am sending it to a friend today – it’s that good (also, sexytimes off-page, which makes it easier to send to people with different comfort levels for that stuff)!
THE ANGEL OF THE CROWS, Katherine Addison, LGBT representation, but not a romance. Interesting! I am very conflicted on this book. Like THE GOBLIN EMPEROR, Addison wrote it well, and while the characters leaned heavily on Doyle’s (the Dr. Watson character in this book was named Dr. Doyle, for instance) Addison developed them well. There were some interesting quirks in the world building. There was actually very little explanation, it was kind of “that’s how this world is,” which Addison handled very well, and I liked it.
However, this is fanfiction, not an entirely new novel, in my opinion, if you care about that distinction. Most of the plot was directly from various Sherlock Holmes stories, and while there were differences in who did what, as someone who knows those stories well, I was disappointed by how derivative it was. That being said, a lot of the imperialism/colonialism/racism/sexism, etc., that is woven into Doyle’s books was called out and questioned in different ways here, so I did enjoy that. Those values still governed how this version of Victorian England worked, but the book challenged a lot of it by creating characters that were at odds with prevailing mores. I’d recommend it, but I think people will enjoy it more if they know what they’re getting into, and have a close relationship with the original stories. Would love to know if anyone who doesn’t know these stories liked the book anyway – maybe I am totally wrong for those folks? Regardless, I will definitely read Addison’s next book, whatever it is.
MURDERBOT by Martha Wells – Good Sci Fi novel. I agree with what everyone has already said about these stories and recent novel here – solid, interesting, and a nice read in these crazy times.
SHADOWS by Suzanne Wright – Paranormal M/F romance. It was OK. I thought I’d enjoy this book more, because I wanted to read the story of these characters, who appeared in earlier books. It’s kind of hard to tell them from the H/H in the last books, and they have gotten A LOT darker (content warnings for child abuse, child death, violence, torture – it’s just too much for me). I don’t think that most of the violence added to the book, honestly. I read this series because it was fated mate-ish fluff, so I’m not loving the direction it’s taken. YMMV.
Thanks everyone who shared their reading here! I am ready to jump into something new this evening after the rigors of mask wearing in the hot sun. 🙂 Hope everyone is safe and healthy!
@MaryK – For SFF I can recommend the Linesman series by SK Dunstall, Richard Parry’s Ezeroc War series (though I have only read the first four so far), and the Finder series by Suzanne Palmer.
@MaryK
I left out a word! These aren’t grim, because I can’t handle grim
I picked up My Lady Notorious by No Beverly and really liked it. Cross dressing both male to female and female to male, a lady kidnapping a soldier/gentleman, good banter, it was fun and I thought I’d found an author I liked , and with a backlist! Instead when I started the next 2 there was no consent and no respect of the heroine by the hero, I couldn’t read on. Maybe it just varies by book?
I’m currently reading Alive Coldbreath’s Forsaken Bride, which is …ok. The heroine is a bit wimpy, so.it’s hard to see what the hero sees.in her other than expediency, but she seems to be coming into her own at least a little…I preferred The Unlovely Bride and Her Baseborn Bridegroom.
Miss Wonderful by Loretta Chase was fun and bantery, light in the way I needed in these in light times.
Astounding book exactly right for me right now: Fredrik Backman’s “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.” Not romance at all, but lessons on how to deal with the weirdness of life, of people, through the eyes of a very smart almost eight-year old. One of the best lessons is that “people who are shits aren’t always shits, and people who aren’t shits can sometimes be shits.” Nobody is perfect and death happens. It sounds grim, and it is — but it also isn’t. As the sole caretaker of my lovely husband dealing with terminal cancer in these strange times, this book somehow hit exactly the right tone for me. Yes one can use the truth of fairy tales (even made up fairy tales!) to make sense of reality. Thank you Universe for books!
Ever since ‘Boyfriend Material’ landed I’ve been on an Alexis Hall binge. I had that on pre-order because of the review here, so thanks. 🙂 How much did I like it? Well, I’ve bought and read all of the Spires titles and ‘Looking for Group.’ Have read ‘Boyfriend Material,’ ‘For Real,’ and ‘Waiting for the Flood’ twice. Am shortly going to be re-reading ‘Glitterland.’ Favorite new-to-me author of 2020.
Aside from that I’ve read ‘Hold Me’ by Courtney Milan, which I liked very much, and have to try to remember to go looking for ‘Find Me’ which she teased at the end but which doesn’t appear to be out yet, boo.
Also: ‘The Astonishing Mistakes of Dahlia Moss’ and ‘The Questionable Behavior of Dahlia Moss’ by Max Wirestone. Very funny geek-private-eye adventures.
DNF’d ‘The Depth of Beauty’ by A. B. Michaels, which I got because of the early-1900s San Francisco setting and a recommendation somewhere. But 20% in, nothing was happening, and I didn’t care enough about the characters to wait and see if anything was ever going to happen. 🙁
And finally, much Good Book Noise was made about ‘Six Wakes’ by Mur Lafferty. Very clever and very satisfying; 10/10, will read again.