We are approaching the end of August. How? When? Why?
I have this fear that we’ll get to December and then December will just keep going and 2020 will go on forever.
Anyway, should we get into the books?
Carrie: My daughter finally talked me into reading the Percy Jackson series, so I’m hooked on that. I am in the middle of Book Three, The Titan’s Curse. ( A | BN | K | AB ) Also I just started Rocket Science by Emily Mayer, ( A ) review pending. So far it has succeeded in making me want cheesecake desperately. In War and Peace, which I read at the speed of one – three chapters a day, Pierre is trying his best to be a good guy but failing because he’s not very bright, Natasha is pretty, Andrey is smitten but hasn’t realized it, Denisov is in the hospital, and Rostov is disappointed.
Elyse: We are currently fostering bottle baby kittens so I am reading Tiny but Mighty by Hannah Shaw. It was a gift from another foster family and it’s full of great info about kitten development
Shana: I’m currently escaping to the fantasy world of queer hockey. I’m reading Common Goal, ( A | BN | K | AB ) the newest book in Rachel Reid’s m/m series (out 9/21) . This one’s an age-gap slow burn with vegetarian goalie who loves yoga, quinoa, and cute bartenders. Next on my list is Out on the Ice by Kelly Farmer, ( A | BN | K | AB ) a f/f romance between current and retired hockey players, one of whom looks suspiciously like Meghan Rapinoe.
Tara: Shana, I’m reading Out on the Ice right now and I’m enjoying it! I’m at the point where I’m desperately hoping that this book sticks the landing.
In audio, I’m listening to The Roommate Arrangement by Jae. It’s an f/f fauxmance with a bubbly stand up comic and a grumpy ex-police officer who pretend to be a couple to get an affordable apartment in LA. I’m a couple of hours in the audiobook and it’s cute so far. I like how Lori Prince narrates it.
Claudia: Not having much luck lately. Bailed on Mr. Malcolm’s List, ( A | BN | K | AB ) sloughing through To Catch An Earl, but not excited about that one either.
Shana: I hope Out on the Ice lives up to its potential, Tara!
Catherine: We are in lockdown and there are trackworks happening around the clock on my street, so I’ve reverted to comfort reading. Just finished The Chocolate Touch by Laura Florand, ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | Scribd ) which has Paris and chocolate and a hero who is hilariously sure that he is terribly macho and bad and mean and all his employees just walk all over him and it’s adorable. (CW: the heroine has recently survived some pretty intense violence, though this isn’t described very graphically).
And now, because I was depressed by The Leadership documentary, I am reading Hold Me by Courtney Milan, which has some pretty good women in STEM wish fulfillment going on.
Sneezy: I’ve been having a LOT of trouble sticking with a book. I’ll be starting The Duke’s Princess Bride by Amalie Howard and Her Big City Neighbor by Jackie Lau ( A | BN | K | AB ) and see how that goes.
Tara: My library hold on Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo finally came through and ohhhhh my god, Maya was 100% right about this one. It’s on track to be one of the best books I’ve read this year.
Ellen: Thanks to the general chaos my brain just CANNOT decide what kind of book sounds good so I’ve been starting a bunch of books at once and then returning to whichever one is “sticking.” Using this method I’ve just read Fair, Bright, and Terrible by Elizabeth Kingston ( A | BN | K | AB ) and I liked it almost as much as the first book in the Welsh Blades series (high praise since Gwenllian was an UNPARALLELED heroine).
I’m also reading Last Song Before Night by Ilana C Myer ( A | BN | K | AB ) which so far seems like it is shaping up to be a feminist-tinged epic fantasy. I already feel quite invested in many of the characters which is very good because so often with fantasy books, even though I love the genre, there are 50 intersecting plotlines but I actually only care about like 2 of them and the rest are a slog. Also part of why I love fantasy romance so much–I know I’m not going to be asked to wade through 15 tangentially-related subplots. (edited)
Sarah: I’m currently reading Because Internet, about how the internet has changed our language. It is FASCINATING.
Elyse: I noticed a lot of the books I read in the past month were thrillers where revenge/justice was a huge theme, and I think my heart is seeking justice in the universe because I’m not feeling it in real life
Which books have you finished since our last Whatcha Reading? Let us know below!
I just finished How To Be A Tudor and How To Be A Victorian by Ruth Goodman which is a chronicle of a day in the life of people (mostly not nobility) in those eras through various topics. They are written in a really nice conversational style and I loved all the little details that you’d never think about (say, the differences in how people moved) and as the author is a Social/Domestic Historian you get to hear about a lot of things you might not otherwise. There was also Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire which is great cake! delicious! It’s just not my cake (I think my brain has a reflex against narratives in which pastel fairy story princess girls are evil which is entirely personal and not fair) and The Fall Of The House Of Byron in which we find out that basically every single Byron ever has been Extra.
Currently reading Empress Of The East by Leslie Pierce which is about Hurrem Sultan and I’m finding it a bit of a slog (which might be just my brain on this time of year) but also some fascinating facts (it’s for a research thing) so I’ll keep going.
I have a whole bunch of library holds I am waiting for though!
@Lilaea I totally get the not liking narratives where the fairy princess girls are evil, but I felt like in later books it all made sense. Not saying you should keep going if in general it wasn’t your cup of tea, but I really liked Jack and Jill’s books because I felt like they did the best with characterizations and was kind of meh on the others.
After a long week of Zoom trainings and setting up my classroom I wanted to relax tonight with a book and chose Jenny Holiday’s Paradise Cove. Oof. Between that and Beach Read I don’t trust light and airy covers AT ALL. It was a good book, but
**SPOILERS**
the heroine is one month out of a 5 year relationship when she meets the hero and the hero is struggling with the death of his infant son for the entire book, then the major conflict is that after her grandmother died of breast cancer the heroine forgets to take her birth control pills while she’s dealing with her grief over that and ends up pregnant and the hero reacts HORRIBLY. I HATE pregnancy being the conflict in romance novels, and there was just so much grief. Especially for a bright happy cover that showed a boat and a lovely little beach. The hero ended up going to grief counselling, but it was just said that he did at the end of the book. Up until the end of the conflict he was just wallowing in his sadness and pulling away from the heroine when he started to feel joy again bc he felt guilty. I wanted to see more growth from him before the last 5% of the book.
END SPOILERS.
It wasn’t a bad book by any means, but I feel like publishers are really doing books a disservice by marketing things as romcoms and/or making light happy covers for books that have a lot of heavy material. The little endorsement on the cover of Paradise Cove says something about the witty banter, which was also misleading bc it didn’t feel like the characters bantered much at all and more had deeper conversations that lead to them bonding. Beach Read at least had some romcom elements, but was ultimately also a book about grief. I think these marketing decisions lead to people being unsatisfied bc the book they get is so different than what they expect.
But I reread Tessa Dare’s Romancing the Duke so I could go to bed happy and pleased and feel good about it.
I’ve also been rereading the City Watch books by Terry Pratchett. Still love them SO MUCH. “Freedom without limits is just a word,” is a quote from Feet Of Clay that’s stuck with me for years, but has been on my mind a lot lately with all the mask stuff.
Read Deal With The Devil by Kit Rocha and knew I’d like it, but wasn’t expecting to LOVE it as much as I did. I’m already depressed I have to wait for the next one.
I read Olivia Dade’s Sweetest in the Gale too, and it’s got me really excited to start teaching. I’m thinking of rereading one of her books the night before school starts, they just inspire me to want to be as amazing as the teachers in her books.
Also read Beautiful and Dirty by Katrina Jax. I liked it a lot but it has a cliff hanger ending, not an HEA. I have the next in the series queued up, but can’t bring myself to read it yet bc I’m afraid of another cliffhanger.
Not reading a whole lot lately though. Spending so much time on the computer is wearing me out in a very different way than being on my feet and active with kids did. I miss it. I’m going to try to read more this week in the evenings though, then once school actually starts who knows what will happen.
Have a lot of books on deck and preordered, so if I’ve got the energy I think this week is going to be a very good one!!!
Thanks bitchery for letting us know about THE QUARRY MASTER by Amanda Milo I’m ambivalent regarding Amanda Milo’s Stolen by Aliens series. This series has a couple of polyamour, one with antagonistic heroes – which I didn’t like – and the other had too many heroes to properly feel connected to any of them. The monogamous books were okay, but nothing up to par with CONTAGION, which is the bestest, funniest alien romance ever. EVER.
But The Quarry Master comes close. There’s a lot of the humor that makes Contagion so good. Many of Bash & Isla’s interactions read like a comedic duo — Bash is the funny one that keeps throwing curve balls, but he acts as (and is persuaded he is) the straight man. Made me LOL a lot. I also added an expression to my repertoire: ‘I told myself to stop thinking with my idiot-pipe and start using the grey matter between my horns.’ …Idiot-pipe! I love it.
Also reread Paradox trilogy by Rachel Bach. I still find it as good as before. Devi is awesome.
After so many people commented on how they liked RJ Blaine, it made me want to try agai . I went back to the starter pack and read SERIAL-KILLER PRINCESS. It was another confusing one. What’s the deal with her parents? I also had trouble with the morals. That the heroine goes all vigilantes and offs serial killers, I can suspend my belief to accept (I enjoyed the TV show Dexter after all). What I couldn’t get behind was how she lets one serial killer go on, a nurse in a geriatric home whose victims are her patients, ‘because it comes from a good place and that nurse only wants to end the families’ suffering’… BULL.SHIT. You don’t become a serial killer because you suffer of an overabundance of empathy… there was a serial killer nurse working in a nursing home in Ontario caught killing her patient some years ago. She was a very troubled individual with drug abuse problems and there was nothing wholesome or beneficial in how she thought and what she did. It was horrific and the families were NOT grateful!!! Serial killers are seriously sick individuals, their judgement can’t be anything but skewed and that made me seriously doubt the heroine mental health. It convinced me RJ Blain wasn’t for me despite the fact her zaniness was kinda fun and I kinda liked the hero in this one.
This month I also read THE BOOKISH LIFE OF NINA HILL by Abbi Waxman. The book starts good, with a great exergue :
Solitude is independence. —HERMANN HESSE
Independence is happiness. —SUSAN B. ANTHONY
Happiness is having your own library card. —SALLY BROWN, PEANUTS
(Haven’t seen such an alluring exergue since Robertson Davies’ ‘Fifth Business’.)
Nina is a factoid obsessed auburn-haired girl (yeah, made me think of ‘Neandertal Seeks Human’ too). She works in an independant bookstore: ‘It was heaven on earth. Now, if they could only get rid of the customers and lock the front doors, they’d really be onto something.’ Reminded me of that delightful book where the author imagined Elizabeth II becoming an addict reader until she eventually abdicts the crown in order to be able to read all the time, in peace. (Searching… searching… that’s it! ‘The Uncommon Reader’ by Alan Bennet.)
It’s written in omniscient narrator POV, and it works. The writing is quirky, with excellent imagery. Every third phrase gave me the urge to copy it to savor in a later moment. Lots of wry wit. Also, as all my it reminded me ofs indicates, its spiffy with intertextuality. It’s so fun – allusions send you down remembrance lanes, from Pride & Prejudice to Chandler Bing (Friends! I had actually forgotten it was his name). There’s also a ton of stuff that I’d never heard of, and I took notes to track some down.
Other good things in this book:
– she belongs to a book club called Book Bitches ;
– best wedding scene ever. I’d love to go to a wedding like that;
– the portrait of her father, who changes so much depending on who she talks to (while dead before the book begins, he ends up being the most layered character);
– the depiction of Los Angeles;
– lists and dayplanners.
On the other hand:
– Nina herself is not a sympathetic character. I realized while finishing the book that I didn’t really like her, I just thoroughly enjoyed how her story was written.
– She connects weirdly well with her biological family, it’s a bit uncanny and hints strongly of ‘nature beats nurture to the ground and buries its body’. I always cheered for nurture, personally.
– The use of the word ‘millenial’. It appears midway through then get used a lot afterwards. I’m sick of that word, and of ‘boomer’. (If Gen X, Y and whatever were as much bandied about, I’d be sick of them too.)
– how the ‘gay guy friend’ is described almost as a de rigueur accessory, you know, to help you choose your prom dress or some such thing because they’ve all got that good fashion taste thing going. *roll eyes*
That said, I’ll certainly reread this.
Then, THE CERULEAN SEA by TJ Klune. The only other TJ Klune I read was ‘Bear, Otter and the Kid’ ; my note about it was way too verbose. The first few pages of Cerulean Sea confirmed that note. As I started this book right on the heels of ‘The Bookish Life of Nina Hill’ with its swoon worthy smooth prose, it made for a particulary clunky start.
But then Linus was summoned from his desk (Row L, Desk 7, in the middle of 363 identical desks) by something called Extremely Upper Management – I was entertained enough that I got over it.
The story was cute, as were the characters. The children are weird and adorables. Linus is a well-drawn POV character: he’s straightlaced, all about rules & regulations, but leaks good soul and deprecation all over the place. Before his arrival on the island, no one ever bothered to notice that about him; everyone on the island, on the other hand, do.
Linus is delightful, but I struggled with boredom while reading. I found it very predictable. The ending is satisfying however. (This book, incidently, is firmly on the nurture side. )
69 MILLIONS THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU by Kira Archer. Their one upmanship has its (very) funny moments, but after a while, it’s like running empty. There’s no growth, just devising new tricks. And when things change between them, it feels more like a 180 than a progression.
I also found the hero hypocrite. He thinks to himself in earlier chapter that there’s a class difference between them (while admiting that thinking that way sucks ass, true, but he still thinks it and agrees with it). Then, when she later accuse him of seeing an involvement with her as slumming, he gets huffy and berates her until she feels all contrite. Argh! Also, he is a player, whatever his rationale that he’s not – everything in the narrative about his one night stands say so. Assume yourself, man! (As a side note, why is the woman he banged in the golf cabana got banned from the club, but not him? There were two of them in that cabana, he should be banned too, no? We’re in romancelandia, the manly billionnaire should get the same treatment as his sexual partners!!!) As for the heroine, she gobbles up his bullshit like it’s candy.
The preview for the next book showed a hero that seems to be the same kind of light a**hole paired with a heroine that would let him get away with it. It convinced me I probably won’t read another book by Kira Archer.
THE SURPRISE by Alice Ward.
Expectations not only work to drag me down when I find meh something I thought would be great, they also lift me up when something I thought would be lame turns out to be hey, not so bad, like The Surprise.
I probably looked at this book because of the ridiculous cover (naked tatooed gym bunny with a stethoscope? Really?) then probably bought it because of the secret baby trope, which I like in theory but rarely in execution. Anyway. I expected The Surprise to be bad, but instead found likeable characters that are toughtful and talk instead of reacting. There’s also the whole obstetric environnement (besides giving birth midway through the book, the heroine is a nurse on the delivery department) which I really enjoyed. I’m on a maternity leave, the delivery room is not far behind me and I liked reading about contractions, bleeding pads, breastfeeding and farting babies in a romance. A steamy one at that (I soooooo did not have her sex drive 2 months post partum…). The happy ending wrapped up quickly (to my growing concern – the couple was doing so well and we were only at the 25% mark, what contrived conflict would stretch the story to 100%?!) only to find out that there were 2 other stories in the book. I haven’t read them yet, but I liked The Surprise enough that I probably will.
The summer is ending, school will have started before the next Watcha Reading… I usually love this time of the year (I love school), and I’m excited despite it all this year too, but also so anxious (>_<) Stay safe everyone!
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack: 2020 won’t go on forever, because eventually there will be the heat death of the universe, or a quantum bubble of death. Be comforted. Mack is a physics professor at NCSU, and this book is all about the beginning of the cosmos and 5 theories about its eventual end. This book totally justifies eating the ice cream. I really did love it. Mack makes the concepts understandable and interesting and has a very engaging style. If she’d been an early professor of mine, I might have gone for a physics degree.
The Last Mrs. Summers by Rhys Bowen: This is such a takeoff on Rebecca that it’s practically plagarized. It was ok, although Georgie always finds something to complain about. Library book because I don’t spend money on these anymore.
Smoke and Mirrors and Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths: Second in the Mystery Men and first in the Ruth Galloway series. Both good. I want to live on the marsh, like Ruth. Somewhat violent.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black: Much darker and more violent than I’d expected, but the world build is good. I like Jude, but there’s a lot of ‘he’s only mean because he really likes you’, which I’m not a fan of. Still, Jude’s no pushover, and I’m interested in where it goes.
Gone to Darkness by Barbra Nickless: I’m reading this one right now, and it may be too dark for me. They’ve found and extremely violated body, and someone is stalking Sidney. I anticipate a lot of skipping of bad parts.
A Body in the Bathhouse by Lindsey Davis: Next Falco mystery for light reading. This is the one that introduces Flavia Albia, so I’m looking forward to her.
I haven’t commented on one of these posts in a while, mostly because the pandemic robbed me of my ability to read in the early months. I’m gradually starting to read a bit more, and with vacation starting on Monday I’m looking forward to even more reading time (including loading up a bunch of audiobooks for the 12-hour drive to my father’s house, then 12 hours home again).
Some of the books I’ve read over the summer have been:
“The Beautiful” – Renee Ahdieh – I read this one based on the SB Podcast interviews with her. PNR isn’t my thing, so I didn’t love it but I did finish it
“Tangled in Texas” – Kari Lynn Dell – I love her writing, I love this series, but I couldn’t get over the professional ethics violation at the heart of the main relationship. (As a former PT, I kept thinking of all the times she should have stepped back, or someone should have reported her to her professional board for crossing professional boundaries.)
“Glass Houses” – Lousie Penny – (mystery, not romance) – I’m enjoying this series, and just started the next one yesterday. When I finished Glass Houses, I felt literally shattered, and the book hangover lasted for days.
“All In” – Simona Ahrnstedt – it had been on my TBR since I read the review here on SBTB, and I’m glad that I finally read it. I’ve flagged the next ones in the series for future reading.
I didn’t read many new books this month, instead I found myself gravitating to unread books on my tbr that were published before covid—so that the lack of references to social distancing, masks, and quarantine was at least plausible.
One of the most refreshing things about Julie Kriss’s DIRTY TALK (the third of her Filthy Rich series) is its matter-of-fact tone about the difference between sex & intimacy and about how complicated it sometimes is for a woman to get her body and mind on the same wavelength so that she is able to have an orgasm with a partner. As the hero notes, “Women had a whole lot of complicated shit happening during sex where men were straightforward.” Sex and intimacy are two different things—a fact that seems obvious but has so far escaped the hero & heroine, both of whom have had plenty of sex, but neither of whom have ever experienced emotional intimacy (and, until she meets the hero, the heroine hasn’t had much luck with the whole “orgasm with a partner” thing either). The h&h are two high-powered people (she’s a CEO, he’s a partner in a Venture Capital group) with insane sexual chemistry. Neither of them are looking for anything permanent (they live on opposite coasts for one thing), so the “no-strings-attached-affair” it is. Oh, you poor, self-deluded couple: don’t you know no-strings-attached never works in Romancelandia? Kriss (a very underrated writer, imho) does a nice job in DIRTY TALK of showing a couple’s evolution from hot hook-ups to emotional intimacy and love. Recommended—although I do think it helps to have read the two previous books in the series to get some background on the main characters.
Kriss released a second book this month: HEARTBREAKER, part of the Cocky Hero Club: a series of books, written by different authors, inspired by romances written by Vi Keeland & Penelope Ward. HEARTBREAKER takes place in the same world as Keeland & Ward’s STUCK-UP SUIT (the h&h of that book make a few appearances in this book) and features a curvy singer-dancer heroine who lives in New York and dreams of achieving Adele-level fame but is instead working in a tedious office job. When she gets stuck in a malfunctioning elevator, the EMT who rescues her just happens to be the man who, ten years before, broke her heart when he stood her up on prom night. After initial surprise at seeing each other again, the two begin dating and, slowly, the true story of what happened on prom night finally emerges…along with eventual true love (and some bumps along the way…this IS a romance novel, after all). Kriss is one of my favorite romance writers and I believe she’s incapable of writing a bad book, but HEARTBREAKER had a bit of a by-the-numbers feel to it. Perhaps it’s because Kriss had to piggy-back her story onto the existing framework of STUCK-UP SUIT, but—despite very appealing MCs and some pleasant low-key humor—I didn’t feel this was a Kriss book: it was more like Kriss’s attempt at writing a Keeland & Ward book. HEARTBREAKER is in no way terrible, but if you can only read one Julie Kriss romance this month, read DIRTY TALK.
Ever since I read Kelly Hunter’s excellent MAGGIE’S RUN last year, I’ve been working my way through her backlist, including a number of the romances she’s written for Harlequin Presents. In an oblique way, Hunter’s HP, SHOCK HEIR FOR THE CROWN PRINCE, reminded me of Kate Stewart’s THE GUY ON THE LEFT, in that the heroes of both books have to accept the long-term consequences of their lies. The lying in THE GUY ON THE LEFT was far more overt—he lied about his age to an older woman and ended up fathering a child at age 18. In SHOCK HEIR, the hero’s lies are more of an omission—he neglects to tell the young woman with whom he has a whirlwind romance that he is a prince. Seven years later, he discovers that he is a father to a six-year-old daughter—and that he is still attracted to her mother. Palace intrigue commences, with the requisite HP-level of angst, all in Hunter’s smooth, crisp writing style. Hunter’s UNTOUCHED QUEEN BY ROYAL COMMAND, obviously another royal romance, is so full of the stuff of fairytale & fantasy (an ancient order of courtesans are bound by a centuries-old treaty to provide a specially-trained—but virgin— concubine for the king’s pleasure) that its modern elements—telephones, helicopters, advanced degrees from Oxford—seem anachronistic. Although there are no more sex scenes in this book than in other HPs, I found UNTOUCHED QUEEN to be one of Hunter’s sexiest books because of the constant background hum of sexual tension between the emotionally-repressed king and the accomplished, extremely clever courtesan who has been “gifted” to him.
[CW/TW: death of a child] Although it was published several years ago, Mia Sheridan’s DANE’S STORM was one of my favorite books read this year and since then—as with Kelly Hunter—I’ve been working my way through Sheridan’s backlist. One thing I’ve discovered: as beautifully-written, well-researched, and emotional as they are, Sheridan’s books are not for bingeing—she really puts her characters through the wringer and there’s only so much heartache (albeit with an HEA) I can read in one block of time. Another thing—in a couple of the Sheridan books I’ve read, the heroine has lost a child (I believe Sheridan has also lost a child) and, if reading about that would be upsetting to you, you should check the plot synopses and reviews of each book carefully before reading. In BRANDT’S RETURN, the heroine has lost both her husband and child in a horrific crime in which she too almost died. Several years later, she is working as a secretary for a man who owns a large horse-training farm in Kentucky, and she spends as much time as possible with the horses, having been helped immensely by “equine therapy.” In a plot development anyone who has ever read an HP will see coming, the farm owner’s estranged son shows up, convinced that the heroine is a gold-digger out for his father’s wealth. It takes a while, but the hero begins to see the heroine is no money-grubber and that he is very attracted to her. In most books, this through-line would be plot enough, but not in Sheridan’s universe. While the heroine is falling for the hero, she is also discovering that her late husband was keeping some dangerous secrets. Meanwhile, the hero has to re-evaluate his memories of his parents’ marriage and the circumstances under which he left home for good over a decade before. Throw in a whiskey distillery fallen into disrepair, clashes with a business rival, a friend’s unraveling marriage, and a car trunk full of cash, among other disruptions, and you have classic Mia Sheridan: intricately-plotted, emotionally-wrenching, and satisfyingly wrapped up with a hard-achieved HEA.
Ella James’s well-written, but overly-long, SLOTH is perhaps more successful as a puzzle than as a romance. The book begins with prologue: an exchange of letters between two people, we don’t know who they are or how they relate to each other, but we know one of them has suffered a terrible loss. It’s also clear that they don’t know each other’s full names or addresses and that they are using a third-party to deliver mail to one another. Then the setting shifts to a small southern college—pay attention to the dates at the beginnings of the chapters because the story occasionally shifts its time-frame—where a sorority sister is selling marijuana at various campus events (the book is completely unapologetic about pot dealing and usage, so decide in advance if that won’t work for you) until she is confronted by another student who runs a larger operation, including a grow house, and wants her to work for him. While the heroine is learning the details of the hero’s operation, the couple begin a sexual relationship, much of it involving bdsm (there are a lot of rather repetitious and OTT sex scenes in SLOTH and I found myself skipping them after a while). We also learn more about the backstories of the h&h and clues are gradually dropped as to how the lives of the h&h have been connected in the past and the meaning of those letters in the prologue (although it is well past the 70% point of the book before all these connections become clear). I found the last fifth of the book dragged quite a bit with several “false endings.” (There is also an Afterword from James that puts SLOTH in a far more personal light—but which would spoil the central revelation of the book if I say much more about it.) Key quote: “We’re made with holes inside our souls. The only way to survive is to fill them. I think the catch is, you don’t get to choose with what.”
As much as I like Sybil Bartel, I didn’t care for SHAMELESS, the latest in her long-running Alpha Bodyguards series; I found it to be a rare misfire for the usually reliable Bartel. First off, both the hero and heroine are completely unlikeable. The hero (like many Bartel heroes, he’s a former Marine now working for Miami-based security company) is crude and vulgar, throwing around the c-word and fantasizing openly about the heroine (his new client) within a few moments of greeting her. The hero is 36—and his overtly-sexualized perception of the 19-year-old heroine made their age gap feel even skeevier than the 17-year age difference would ordinarily warrant. The heroine, fresh from a stint in rehab, seems to have learned nothing from her mandated therapy sessions and acts out in ways that are perhaps meant to make us feel sympathy for her as an obviously neglected “poor little rich girl” but which instead had me rolling my eyes. Secondly, part of the plot involves the reappearance of the hero’s former lover—who is presented in an utterly nuance-free way as the psycho-bitch-ex (with an Italian accent, no less). She’s on the run from her mafia-boss husband—which means the hero and heroine are on the run too, all the way up into the mountains (presumably the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia, but the story’s geography is a bit hazy). Generally speaking, I’m there for “enforced proximity between a bodyguard & client in a snowbound mountain cabin,” but, because of the unappealing nature of the MCs, SHAMELESS failed to activate my catnip center. I hope Bartel rights the ship with her next book. [One note: the hero of SHAMELESS has a lot of genital piercings. Do not google “Reverse Prince Albert”—I’m speaking from experience here.]
Warning: Modified rant ahead! Sarina Bowen has long been one of my favorite romance writers, especially her True North series, but recently I’ve found her books palling a little. I don’t know if my tastes have changed or if her writing style has (probably a combination of both), but when I started OVERNIGHT SENSATION (a Brooklyn Bruisers hockey romance that had been unread on my kindle for a while), I found myself irritated by both the 20-year-old heroine (an intern with the Brooklyn Bruisers hockey team) and her overly-controlling father (the Commissioner of the NHL). In fact, all of my sympathy was with the hero, who is Latinx and one of the few minority players in professional hockey, and whose emotional entanglement with memories of his late girlfriend make it easy for him to be financially manipulated by the girlfriend’s alcoholic mother. The heroine was far too young and spoiled for my tastes (apparently, we’re supposed to see her reckless driving of the hero’s car at 100 mph as a sign of her joie de vivre); and her father’s crude attempts at controlling her behavior by forcing her to do menial chores for the team and not allowing her to access the money in her trust fund seemed nothing more than ham-handed bullying. Also, the book has disagreeable subtext about how appalling it is that a pretty young blonde girl has to work shitty minimum-wage jobs that require her to have side hustles to make ends meet, leave her fatigued, and make it impossible for her to find an affordable apartment in a “nice” neighborhood (hello—welcome to the real world for many people). And don’t get me started on all the things wrong with the female owner of the team asking the heroine to “go undercover” to expose the sleazy guy who supervises the “Ice Girls.” Shouldn’t a good team owner (male or female) have a legal, less dangerous way of dealing with an employee exhibiting inappropriate behavior? I guess we’re supposed to find the heroine “plucky” and industrious because she succeeds without a trust fund (like, oh, I don’t know, 99.99% of the rest of the world), but there was so much textural privilege in the book, I could hardly finish it. Key quote (and not in a good way): “I have a lifetime’s practice appeasing men.” Stick with the earlier books in the series or, better yet, re-read STEADFAST or KEEPSAKE.
Most of my reading has been in Italian lately (I feel like I’m finally past beginner), but I really enjoyed
The Honey Don’t List by Christina Lauren. I saw some comments that Carey’s relationship with the Tripps was too awful to read about, but I enjoyed it in the sense of watching her break away, find love, and become more her own person. My friends and I had a lot of bad bosses in our 20s (Devil Wears Prada felt like a documentary, let’s put it that way) so it felt relatable to me.
Also it had an ending where the couple are together and definitely a team but there is no real discussion of marriage or kids. Not that those things are discussed and taken off the table, just that it doesn’t have to come up b/c they’re in early days of their relationship. I appreciated there wasn’t any unrealistic rush to get to some arbitrary milestones and I thought it might be nice for people who want baby-free (or marriage free!) romance.
I decided this month that I needed to actively diversify my reading, or rather I needed to find books that weren’t the same authors being touted by bookshops and online campaigns. Which, good for those writers – get your bank while you can – but I need more than what White Writer Joe or Josephine Soap is producing right now. I already know what it’s like to live here as a white Irish person, and I know what our stories and myths are like. I want to be enthralled by other cultures and their tales and mythologies!
So I started with GIRL, SERPENT, THORN and I was mightily impressed with it on a lot of levels. So much love for this book.
Then I moved onto THE BEAUTIFUL by Renée Ahdieh and I liked it a lot. I found it very atmospheric without being hit over the head by RESEARCH. And I liked how the story was set in New Orleans but it felt contained because of the small group of characters it followed. Which is why I think I didn’t like the sequel THE DAMNED as much. It opened up the story and gave the characters some backstories that felt a bit…like it wasn’t offering anything new. We’ve seen characters in other stories go through these same beats and changes. I think I’d have liked it more if I hadn’t been so happy with the small world in the first book. (As always, I am aware that YA books are not written with someone my age in mind and were I my teen self, I would have been Hells Yeah to the second book probably).
Right now I’m reading An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir and I’m like it a lot. I’m lucky that I have friends who will recommend such books to me and very lucky to have a robust library reserves system that’s back up and running again.
I also have The Year of the Witching in my TBR pile as well as the City of Brass trilogy. I’m taking a break from romances at the moment. I may have OD’d on them slightly the past few months but no regrets because they were there when I really needed them. If I come through this year with my mental state somewhat intact, it will be because I was able to hide in romances when things got tough.
On the romance side, I’m hoping to check out TEMPORARY WIFE TEMPTATION by Jayci Lee; THE SUMMER SET by Aimee Agresti; and YOU LUCKY DOG by Julia London.
On the fantasy side, I’m hoping to check out THE GHOSTS OF SHERWOOD by Carrie Vaughn. I love Robin Hood-themed stories.
TV-wise, I’m continuing by binge of MISS FISHER’S MURDER MYSTERIES, which is great. I love all the banter, and the clothes are absolutely gorgeous. 🙂
Have been in a bit of a book slump recently that was happily broken by Jackie Lau’s ICE CREAM LOVER (a recent book on sale here.) There’s not a lot of nuance around the set up (hero was left at the altar several years ago and his ex-fiancée has written a self-help book with ice cream as the central metaphor. Hero hates ice cream. Naturally, the heroine owns an ice cream shop. They basically say all of this flat out at the beginning.) But then the plot gets going and I just loved the whole thing. Chloe and Drew are both trying to figure out who they are, especially in relation to their families and I really enjoyed that journey. Plus, Drew’s 6 year old niece Michelle is a rare non-plot moppet in a romance. There’s also a running joke about a unicorn named Havarti Sparkles that consistently made me laugh. Oh, and the sex is HOT. (Masturbation and sex toys are underused in romances, IMO.) Definitely recommend.
Also read Loretta Chase’s A DUKE IN SHINING ARMOR. The premise (bride runs away on her wedding day with the groom’s best friend—who she doesn’t really know.) I think this COULD have maybe worked if the bride and best friend had more of a backstory or if the bride and groom were clearly ill-suited and they both made that clear, but I wasn’t sold on either of those points. Oh, and the ending made me want to bang my head against the wall. I won’t spoil it except to say that it had a flavor of toxic masculinity to it that I really didn’t like.
I was hoping I would like THE BOYFRIEND PROJECT more than I did—premise (friends who meet because they realize they’re all dating the same guy. Black computer programmer and bi-racial Black/Korean undercover investigator looking into money laundering through her firm) seemed really promising, but I got bogged down in all the details about Austin (sometimes the characters can just go to a park without it being named!) and the company offices and the denouement felt really rushed and incomplete.
I read BECAUSE INTERNET a while back and it’s fantastic—I learned a lot about online language and communication, including why a period at the end of a text message can feel so ominous.
@Jennifer Estep—I adore Miss Fisher. The season 2 premiere with the fan dance is my go-to pick me up. Phryne’s performance, the looks on Jack, Hugh, Cec, and Bert’s faces are PERFECTION.
(I know the movie was not well reviewed here, and while it’s not as good as the tv series, I still think it’s a B-/C+ as opposed to the F it got here.)
Romance:
NOT QUITE A HUSBAND by Sherry Thomas came in from the library, and I faintly remembered reading it in ~2015 but didn’t retain much. I don’t read a ton of Reunited Lovers, and as others have noted, there are some Consent Issues going on in this book that really soured me on it. The period details and settings were really well-researched, and I do appreciate the Bryony/Leo dynamic as a predecessor for Thomas’s Charlotte Holmes series and Charlotte/Ingram. Overall, maybe a C+ from me.
YOU HAD ME AT HOLA by Alexis Daria worked VERY well for me, definitely A-/B+ material. Jasmine & Ash were lovely together, and their story-within-a-story of the telenovela was fun while enhancing their relationship for me. I enjoyed the diversity of immigrant/children of immigrant stories being told here.
WELCOME TO TEMPTATION by Jennifer Crusie came in from the library and I read that as well. Crusie’s slightly bananas plots are often compelling even when I don’t actually love the couple, as was the case here. (Bet Me is still my favorite Crusie, with Agnes & The Hitman as second place.) I’m glad I read this though, as my mother had the sequel FAKING IT lying around and I’d picked that up, so I’ll be reading that one of these days.
Non-Romance:
THE SOURCE OF SELF-REGARD by Toni Morrison is a selection of her essays, speeches and other nonfiction writings, which I’d picked up in Feb 2019 when it released and had not yet started until earlier this month. As a fan of her fiction writing, I hadn’t read her nonfiction before, and wow was I unprepared for the emotional punches. I read these somewhat slowly overall because Morrison’s writing seems so deliberate down to the selection of each word, and she’s discussing some serious topics within. My favorites were probably in the final section where she discussed writing, including going into detail on some of her written works. I’m glad I have many more of her fiction books to read, and having read these essays will enhance some of those readings for me. Definitely not light reading, and I feel lucky to have shared any time on Earth with Toni Morrison.
Forgot, I am currently re-reading BONDS OF JUSTICE by Nalini Singh (it fits for the Psychics Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo square & probably also works for Violet Eyes, as Sophia is described as having blue-violet eyes a few times), which is a favorite Psy-Changeling of mine. I like Max & Sophia together, there are procedural elements, and the subplot about Sophia’s shields feels more fresh than later Psy-health-crisis subplots in the series. I think the idea of the J-Psy designation facing what’s essentially awful, awful burnout reads as logical. I’m having a slight recovery period from my own ongoing Plague Year burnout, so reading this isn’t leaving me in despair.
I just finished The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean and I’m going to try to finish up Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating. I’m also re-reading the Goosebumps series by RL Stine for fun.
Reading is still slow going this year, things I would have blown through in a few days in years previous are taking me weeks instead. All I’ve gotten to since the last WAYR is Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. I still have about 200 pages to go, but so far I enjoy it a lot. On the one hand, do I really need a nearly 600 page tome about a fictional sixties rock band? Eh. But on the other, Mitchell is one of my top tier favorite authors, I’ll read basically anything he writes. His prose just transports me somewhere. So anyway, I like it.
So, I woke up at 4am the night after my birthday unable to fall back asleep with thoughts of “how did I get this old and still have no retirement plan?” running like a hamster on a wheel through my brain. Thank you 2008 and corona virus. Happily I had just picked up The Summer Deal from the GBPL. Why don’t I read more Jill Shalvis? WHY? For some reason she falls off my radar for years, but then I see a blurb or an ad and find myself marveling at how lovely a writer she is. I feel like they’re marketing as more chick lit than romance, but it’s romance. Even better it’s a twofer romance. Down and out Brynn returns home after her “boyfriend” cleans her out and disappears. To make matters worse she runs into her summer camp crush who kissed her and ghosted a decade ago. Eli is best friends with Brynn’s nemesis, Kelsey, who made her miserable all those summers. In a Romancelandia twist, it turns out that Kelsey needs something possibly only Brynn can give her. There’s lovely family and found family elements, mean girl redemption, and naked men on the porch. I REALLY need to read more Jill Shalvis.
Currently I’m reading Kreeland and Ward’s Dirty Letters and enjoying it immensely. Unlike Hate Notes, there isn’t a big tonal shift half way through the book. The characters’ issues are right up front. Luca and Griffin were childhood pen pals. Despite the odds, they built a deep abiding friendship over a decade of letters mailed back and forth across the Atlantic. Then life happened. Luca suffered a tragedy that made her agoraphobic. She retreated from life and from Griffin just when he needed her most. Fast forward a decade and Luca finds a letter from Griffin while cleaning out her deceased father’s house. It’s recent with a California return address. Dare she reach out? Will her old friend forgive her? So far it’s lovely, and complicated. Griffin’s life definitely doesn’t lend itself to the needs of a woman who lives in fear of crowds, enclosed spaces and the outside world in general. Really liking the hell out of both characters.
I’ve only managed to read 1 book this month and it was Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon. My reading only slowed a little bit at the beginning of the pandemic but now I struggle to settle on any book. I’ve pushed aside everything I have been looking forward to (I’ll save it for later) and I’m reading Webtoons instead. The short, episodic format and lots of great artwork is working for me. And if I’m obsessively waiting on updates for my favorites…well, nothing about this year is normal so I’m ok with it.
@Pear: one of my favorite exchanges about reading was when Oprah Winfrey was interviewing Toni Morrison. Oprah said to Morrison something like, “I’m sure you realize that sometimes your prose is very complicated and readers have to slow down and go back and re-read passages several times to get their full meaning.” To which Morrison replied, “Yes. That’s why it’s called reading.”
I’ve enjoyed my Adventure Through Category Romance Held By My Library System. The bananas sturm-und-drang ones were fun, but the true place in my heart is for ones with a dryer sense of humour, where the characters behave thoughtfully rather than playing spin-the-wheel-of-extreme-reactions and storming off whenever someone’s about to explain the sticky bit of the plot.
Marion Lennox was a good find for me. I think someone in some comments ages ago mentioned that there is sometimes a line that makes you fall for a book, and she did this for me. I can’t find the book (about a circus performer whose troupe is about to be foreclosed on by the hero) which after he’s helped recapture some loose animals, has this line: ‘”Goodnight, then,” she said, and she clung to her camel. A girl had to hold onto something.’
She also has a nice line in gently subverting some of the tropes, for example in Mardie and the City Surgeon, where the hero comes back to the small town and assumes the heroine has been moping around in a sort of stasis for the last ten years, and it turns out that she’s had a happy marriage and a rewarding job and she tells him what he can do with his assumptions. A couple do include child death which I usually wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but it’s done sensitively and gently.
The only thing I didn’t like is that her antagonists don’t get the comeuppance I’d like. I always thought I was quite a nice person but there’s something about unrepentant baddies not getting their desserts that makes me come over all ‘I shall trample my enemies and drink blood from their skulls’ which is a bit disturbing.
I also felt Liz Fielding fell into this category, except for one where everyone gaslights the heroine like mad, although the h. has the spine of a dead jellyfish so I did feel like she deserved him by the end. Also memorable were a couple of Lucy Monroe books with accidental pregnancies and while the writing was pretty functional, the heroes, instead of being all sneery and threatening the woman into marriage, were basically, ‘well, I don’t know why you insist on this love nonsense, but in the meantime I shall make breakfast so you don’t feel ill, and ensure you have snacks and adequate sleep’ which I was charmed by.
I enjoyed The Lark Shall Sing and The Corner Shop by Elizabeth Cadell – these date from, I think, the 1950s and are very light, easy reads. Ridiculous amounts of coincidence but there was something nice and comfortable about them, so I didn’t mind at all.
Also, a book about Egon Schiele’s landscapes, and I’ve just started Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh which is lovely writing. I’ve got Jackie Lau’s Baldwin Village series lined up, which I meant to read before and got sidetracked from.
I have seldom been as disappointed in a book as I was in DEAL WITH THE DEVIL by Kit Rocha. Assured by the hype that we were talking about mercenary librarians, I started with that expectation. OK, there are mercenaries, but this is not at all about librarians and books; it is pants-feelings, insta lust and beautiful people fighting bad guys, which is fine. But now I need to find some real mercenary librarians.
Maria Vale’s The Legend of All Wolves series is everything I could want. I inhaled the first three books and the fourth is due on the 25th. What a great society of wolves she’s built, so realistic, if that doesn’t sound impossible. Emotional, satisfying, difficult and intense.
THE LIGHT BRIGADE by Kameron Hurley was outstanding and mind-bending. War is business and corporate soldiers are broken into “light” to travel millions of light years in seconds. Time and perception become increasingly skewed and terrifying. The resolution is pitch perfect. Highly recommended.
Tamsyn Muir’s HARROW THE NINTH will forever be one of my favorite reads. This is not GIDEON, so don’t go looking for the same experience. Harrow is the ultimate unreliable narrator, for many reasons, and confusion reigns for at least half of the book. Don’t give up, please. The journey is worth every second.
Now I’m re-reading SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT by Derek Landy and THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING by Catherynne M. Valente, because who doesn’t need girl-centered fantasy these days? Stay well, everyone.
@Empress of Blandings, you are speaking my language! You’ve named two of my favorite comfort reads. Have you tried Sophie Weston and Jessica Hart? They both have warm, lovely voices. Neither is sadly writing much category these days.
I also like Anne McAllister (although I personally pass on her cowboy books) and some Jennifer Greene for their distinctive voices although I haven’t read their older books post #Metoo and I can’t swear they hold up. Some other authors I’ve love that have (mostly) fallen off the Harlequin radar but you might find at the library – Fiona Harper, Ally Blake, and Fiona Lowe. Lots of Fionas at Harlequin…
I also have a very soft spot in my heart for Lucy Gordon’s Harlequin (Tender) Romances with her Italian heroes. She is married to an Italian man and lived in Italy for years and she takes more time fleshing out her Italian locations and heroes more than most Harlequins with “Generic Alpha Italian #3” (okay, off my soapbox now). I know she’s written Harlequin Presents but I don’t read a lot of them and couldn’t comment on what they’re like.
Okay, I’ll stop there, but I just wanted to say I like your taste 😉
Catherine – I loved Hold Me. I love smart women and I love how my brain feels when the details are good.
This month, I did re-read Robert’s Undercurrents as a comfort read. It was OK but not quite as comforting as I had hoped. OTOH, I am in the process of making the teen put together a go-bag in case the fires get too close (don’t think they will) so am even more stressed than usual. Especially since my car died (alternator) and the lovely AAA man who came to help had been up since two am, evacuating. Tried to give him all our drinks and clean blankets from the trunk.
Just finished The House That Walked Between Worlds by Jenny Schwartz. Baba Yaga adjacent, obviously, and that is one of my catnip. This is a first book so lots of explanations, done well without too much info dump, and obviously setting up world and characters for the future. It also seemed like a lot of wish fulfillment stuff. I enjoyed it enough to want to read the next one.
I started The Whisper of Trees by Nicholas Cook, which is nicely written. However, a couple chapters in, I realized it was going to be kind of sad and decided to save for some later day.
I did read Ice Cream Lover by Jackie Lau. Another Baldwin Village book. It was cute, the. child involved was precocious but not really a plot moppet. Not her greatest but very readable.
Currently having a go at Nalini Siingh’s Guild Hunder series with book one, Angels’ Blood. About four chapters in and willing to keep going.
Gotta say, we really got the E ticket ride this year. Hang on, folks, and keep reading.
I read Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis which I found fascinating, but not always easy. Lots of government lying and paranoia and hard stuff but also the heart of the book is about communication which I loved. Also read the new T. Kingfisher, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, which had some hard parts. Young people taking on too much, adults who didn’t do their job but also some lovely parts that made me want to bake. The Deep by Rivers Solomon is a novella that feels much longer with how much is in it and is a powerful read about trauma and grief and how we’re better when we work together.
I’ve been reading through the Rat Queens’ comics and have mixed feelings about the big decision/turning point. The emotional hit doesn’t feel as powerful as I think its meant to. But I do have the last volume left, maybe that will work. All the characters are great and I love the take on fantasy but everything around Hannah doesn’t completely work for me.
Two books that I’m in the middle of but haven’t finished are Forged in Fire and Stars, a YA fantasy that I really like for how it looks at how culture and belief can be changed by trauma and invasion. Also another one where I enjoy the main characters perspective and view on everything as she’s trying to fit herself into this story of great destiny.
I started Red, White and Royal Blue that I bought during an ebook sale but haven’t picked it up again. The writing is good but when I hit the point that it went from friendship to more lusty, it threw me off a bit. I’m still having the issue of how only having one point of view makes it harder for me to completely buy the romance. I had the same issue with Boyfriend Material. But the writing also pulled me so its one I think that when I start reading I’ll finish it quickly.
Then I have a couple of library holds including To Have and to Hoax to pick up soon. In the meantime, I’m also rereading a Rumpole of the Bailey book that I found in my local little free library. I read all of the Rumpole books when I was younger as I grew up watching the show and read a lot of mysteries. I’ve found its a good bedtime book as it doesn’t keep me up.
I heard so many good things about BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall here and elsewhere that I couldn’t wait to get it from my library. I started it and soon thought, “this isn’t for me.” But I went back and reread reviews and decided to keep at it. It was SO worth it. Beautifully done, though a tiny part of me kept thinking: “this should have been written by a guy. Why are so many of the m/m stories written by women?” But I digress and apologize if that was insensitive.
And a totally new-to-me author was Susan Fanetti. Turns out she’s written lots of books that members of the bitchery might know, but I listened to CARRY THE WORLD and was blown away by its quiet beauty. It’s the story of a rural traveling librarian in the late 1930s and it was wonderful.
I also loved CHERISHING THE CAPTAIN by Elise Marion. It’s the second in her Men at Arms series about veterans returning from service in the Crimean War and the women who fight for their love in spite of the burdens they bring home from war.
I’m currently in the middle of MY DEAR HAMILTON by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. Yes, of course I was inspired by watching “Hamilton” when it came on tv, but the book is great.
A ton of library holds came in last week, so I’ve been wallowing in a wide variety of books. My favorite was Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West, a debut novel about the bonds of friendship being tested after Ruby’s mother is murdered. Also enjoyed Half Moon Bay by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman (deputy coroner investing cold cases involving missing and dead babies), The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (sequel to the Royal We) and I Was Told It Would Get Easier by Abbi Waxman (mother and teenage daughter on college tour). Jeff Abbott’s Never Ask Me started well but took a hard left turn into crazy town.
Romance:
I read A HEART OF BLOOD AND ASHES which has been thoroughly reviewed 🙂 Very enjoyable and incredible worldbuilding! So excited to have something from Meljean again. It both felt super of the times in the sensibility but also a throw back to Old Skool a bit in the FEELS. This is one where the hero is going to be incredibly suspicious of the heroine the whole way through and he never *quite* redeems himself through actions IMO the way she does over and over. I don’t distrust the HEA per se, but I felt the hero would talk about how he had changed/come to a new understanding rather than showing it, which I remember feeling a lot about older historicals.
I read the KINGMAKER duo by Kennedy Ryan after hearing her on Sarah McLean’s Podcast and thought it was really special. I was so impressed by the depth of research for a contemp, the care she spent toward Native characters, and the balls to the wall plot!!
I then started LONG SHOT also by Kennedy Ryan and it didn’t land for me the way the other series did. I appreciated the respect with which she depicted her character who experiences abuse & trauma– and I know that’s what she wanted to explore– but for me, the book started at the wrong point. We see so much of the DV but not as much of the healing before shes’s back with the Hero who is also arranging her life (but this time in a good/healing way, we’re meant to trust) and I just wanted Iris to be on her own. I actually haven’t finished it yet so I don’t know where that goes, but that’s where I am with it now.
I also read another book suggested by Kennedy on the podcast– Night in Eden by Candice Proctor. This one is set in Australia as it’s being settled but is mostly a penal colony. Again, the research on this one was incredible–and I would love to read more books set in this period– but I did noooot trust the hero. The threat of sexual violence is constant in this book both by the heroine’s status (basically an indentured servant) and frankly, from the hero. The author indicates that they have a very strong attraction to each other, but I didn’t feel that she showed any real care or consideration from the hero that would make the heroine feel safe/loved by him. Her strong attraction to him seemed more like a way to convince herself she was safe/gain safety through their connection, if that makes sense.
Not Romance:
I read 1 & 2 of the Murderbot Diaries– thanks for the rec!! Loved them and handed them to my DH before I send them back to the library. I would compare them a bit to a wallpaper historical in some of the worldbuilding, but still so fun and a great palate cleanser.
@Margaret: Alexis Hall is a man.
@DiscoDollyDeb – Oh heavens, thank you. Why, oh why can’t I learn to keep my uninformed mouth shut.
Yay! I love WAYR! Looking forward to digging into everything you’ve been digging into!
Just got back from vacation, where I went down a weird Amanda Milo, Stolen by the Alien series rabbit hole. I didn’t exactly like them, but they were like Cheetos – I couldn’t stop consuming them. I’d finish one, and then be like, “now I have to read what happened to the blind woman who was also kidnapped by a hot alien,” and off I’d go to the next. Excellent prescription if you are feeling stupidly anxious (vacations make me a little nuts) — just what the doctor ordered. Too silly to grade, really.
Finally finished GIDEON THE NINTH – Tamsyn Muir — not a romance — B. Characters and set up were great, but story and players didn’t really evolve – just a lot of action out of nowhere in the last 20 pages. I will definitely read more by this author, because I love her voice and ideas, but I hope for more character growth or plot in the future. Definitely worth a read, regardless.
Read two by Lilith Saintcrow, a new to me author, THE IRON WYRM AFFAIR, and THE RED PLAGUE AFFAIR, Not romance, B+. I think the plague part was too much for me right now, hence me turning the alien books above. Good world, good characters, lots of action. If they weren’t pretty dark, and if they had a little more evolution in the characters, they’d be pretty perfect for me. Like the take on Victorian England – keeps some very compelling/harsh aspects of that time period, and then gives them a paranormal twist.
OUT ON THE SERVE by Lane Hayes, m/m contemporary romance. DNF – It just didn’t work for me.
DIRTY LETTERS by Penelope Ward – m/f contemporary romance, rockstar and agora phobic C. I’ve read this set up before (seriously – you wouldn’t think I would have) but done better.
FANTASTIC FLUKE – by Sam Burns – m/m paranormal — DNF, skipped around. I wanted to like this, but the world and its magic didn’t really make sense and the characters felt very two dimensional.
SLIPPERY CREATURES – by K.J. Charles. m/m 1920’s domestic espionage novel (?) set in London. A. Loved it — as you have already heard on this site, it’s fantastic. Can’t wait to read the next one. I want to go to K.J. Charles’ neighborhood, and walk around telling people to be quiet so she can be undisturbed while she’s writing. I would give barking dogs treats and steal police sirens for this woman. I would bring her meals and babysit her children. If you haven’t read all her books yet, you are in for a treat!
Stay safe! Thank you for all the recs!
@margaret:
Alexis Hall is a guy. Or that’s how he chooses to identify at least.
@Margaret: and @DiscoDollyDeb:
It seems I echoed the first comment without realizing. My apologies.
“I’ve been starting a bunch of books at once and then returning to whichever one is ‘sticking.'” Relatable. It’s not really new for me, because AD/HD, but the general chaos hasn’t helped.
I just finished and enjoyed Rebekah Weatherspoon’s A COWBOY TO REMEMBER (currently $1.99, plus it’s on KU), which I’d been avoiding because of personal experience with TBI and amnesia, but it was done well. I’ve also been reading (and rec) the very-much-not-a-romance MAGICAL NEGRO: POEMS by Morgan Parker. It makes me really emotional, so I only read like two or three poems at a time. To balance it out with some fluff, I just started Rebel Carter’s HONOR AND DESIRE. It could use some good copyediting, but I’m having fun.
After reading more of the other comments, just want to add my two cents about DEAL WITH THE DEVIL. Yeah, it wasn’t as bookish as I’d expected, but I appreciated the focus on the other essential services that their library provides, the community of it all, plus the whole bringing-the-found-family-together-at-the-beginning-of-the-series thing. I think/hope we’ll get more bookishness in the follow-ups!
I have been going crazy with stuff that’s happening in my hometown (this is the US, of course it’s nuts) but at least I did have time to take my mind far away by reading Emily Tesh’s Drowned Country. When needing to remind oneself that this too shall pass, it’s perfect. I wrote a long comment hoping to start a discussion but was too late and got no replies. Anyone else wants to talk about that duology, I’d like to hear.
Its been a while since I posted for this, so here I go.
Read 1.THE BLACK SWAN by Mercedes Lackey
TW: on-page rape
This book was okay. While it was a pretty good retelling of Swan Lake the only character I really liked was Odile who was protagonist, but there are two other narrators that I’m not crazy about, including Prince Siegfried who is the rapist I warned about. He has a redemption arc, but I still don’t find him super likable. Also, the word g*psy is used. Even if you absolutely adore Mercedes Lackey or Swan Lake I recommend giving this one a skip.
2. WITH HEART by Dorothy Garlock.
TW: Child endangerment(no deaths, but a huge conflict revolves around selling babies birthed by unwed mothers. Nothing graphic or on screen, but I know this particular plot will bother some people). Some slut-shaming since this book is older.
Caveats aside I really enjoyed this book, but I enjoy Dorothy Garlock in general and the plot is interesting. Basically the story is set in 1938 Oklahoma and follows the heroine, Kathleen who moves to a small Oklahoma town to work for the newspaper and tries to expose the corrupt doctor who basically runs the town. Naturally, that leads to trouble and the book starts with her car being hijacked so two of the doctor’s minions can menace the heroine and scare her away. She’s rescued by the hero and lots of flirting and miscommunication ensues. It’s better than it sounds, I swear(if the warnings at the start don’t bug you). One last thing, although WITH HEART can be read as a standalone, the hero’s character arc started way back in book two of the four-book Dolan brothers series(this is book four), so reading the whole series will be more rewarding.
Reading: THE SERPENT’S SHADOW by Mercedes Lackey.
I’m only in about chapter two, but this book is much better than THE BLACK SWAN. Supposedly, it’s a Snow White retelling, but I really don’t see it yet. None the less it’s a fascinating book. The story follows a biracial, 25-year-old, doctor named Maya who has to flee India after her mother dies of illness and her father dies under far more mysterious circumstances. She finds herself in the Edwardian era England where she sets up a clinic for women who are dealing with things like unplanned pregnancies while learning magic and solving the mystery behind her father’s death. Really interesting so far and highly recommended.
I’ve also read several fan works in the Sims 3 challenge/Simlit community. Nothing spectacular, but I nice change of pace every now and then.
@Vasha my hold on that will be up in about four weeks 😀 but then my hold on “Silver in the Wood” will take about five more weeks after. Will the waiting kill me? Should I suspend my hold on “Drowned Country”?
Just about finished with Heyer’s VENETIA which — turned out to have a dynamic very relevant to my own current WIP… >_>
Meanwhile I suddenly dropped off the cliff into Depression for no apparent reason so no telling when I will climb out of that pit or what I’ll manage to do while trying.
I read “The Girl From the Diadem”, which somebody here recced last month. It was not what I was expecting, but it was a nice surprise, Edwardian era fake engagement, romcom, with a Jeeves and Wooster vibe. The romance part was not that strong, but a lot of fun nevertheless.
I picked up an old Jo Beverly book, “Tempting Fortune” which was on sale. One of her Malloren series, and I forgot how long and meaty those books were. Georgian era, so the men are wearing lace and earrings and high-heeled shoes. The heroine has a lot of agency, so it held up well.
My library hold of “A Royal Affair”, Sparks & Bainbridge mystery #2, just came through, so that’s what I’m reading now.
@DiscoDollyDeb, I’m laughing, as I have not seen that interview and it’s extremely in line with the 350 pages of Toni Morrison’s writing that I just read. Thank you!
@ EC Spurlock – big hugs! I’ve been there, hope you’re getting what you need to manage it. ♡