We are closing out September with our second Whatcha Reading of the month! So ready for spooky season already.
Carrie: In War and Peace, Russia and France are lining up to fight each other and bickering amongst the leaders is dull. Accurately dull, and appropriately scathing, but I am bored.
I just finished Mexican Gothic ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it was WONDERFUL.
Claudia: I’m almost caught up with the Kat Holloway Mysteries series by Jennifer Ashley and also reading fantasy romance because the past few days have been brutal. I’m in the first few pages of A Touch of Stone and Snow and hopeful it will be a true escape.
Lara: I just finished Celina Grace’s Murder at Merisham Lodge. ( A ) A low(ish)-intensity historical cosy mystery. Lovely!
Shana: Lara, I’m also reading a stress-free mystery! I’m in the middle of A Deadly Inside Scoop by Abby Colette. It’s a cozy mystery about a woman who takes over her family’s small town ice cream shop, and finds a dead stranger while foraging for snow. The ice cream descriptions are drool worthy, and I’m enjoying the quiet, slow pace, and close knit family. I think Amanda recommended it when we were looking for mysteries with women of color.
Elyse: I just picked up Don’t Look for Me by Wendy Walker. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Maya: I’m reading Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. It’s an interesting mix of magic that maps itself on the existing systems of oppression and the present day. The main character is a Black teen in the American south and so far the folks she meets in this particular subset of magic-havers are all white, old money types, so the existence of magic and access to magic is racialized and deeply intertwined with the history of slavery.
Because that’s not the lightest of reads, I’m still hanging out in Shelly Laurenston’s back catalog! I’ve started on the Pride series and am reading The Mane Event!! ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | Scribd ) Lion shifters!!!!
Tara: September has been complete garbage for my concentration, so I’m bouncing between 6 books and have also been reading Once Upon a Time fanfic. The books I’m enjoying the most are Wrong Number, Right Woman by Jae, ( A | BN | AB ) which is a slow burn f/f romance, and Burning Roses by S. L. Huang, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which is a Red Riding Hood retelling.
Catherine: Ok, now that it is officially out and ON MY KOBO I don’t feel mean saying that I’ve been reading and rereading The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan and it is my catnip. I love it to bits. And I relate to Chloe maybe a little bit too much.
In between Milan rereads, I’ve mostly been trying to catch up on my Netgalley obligations, with mixed results. The most interesting is certainly All Stirred Up by Brianne Moore, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which is a very foodie Persuasion retelling and it does a little bit too good a job of recreating the Elliot family for a modern era – so many utterly obnoxious characters! I do think it’s a very clever and well-written book, just not quite for me.
Ellen: I just finished You Had Me At Hola by Alexis Daria ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it was soooooo so so good!! It was funny, sexy, sweet, dramatic…everything! Now I’m reading Deal With The Devil by Kit Rocha and I can already sense there may be a Bad Decisions Book Club in my future…
Sneezy: I’ve started Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, and…I’m already terrified? Just not enough to stop reading???
Shana: Sneezy, my hold on When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole just came in. I anticipate joining you in being terrified.
Sarah: I’m listening to The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller. ( A | BN | K | AB ) It’s about creating kinder, fulfilling relationships, first by showing up for yourself, and then showing up for other people. It’s a terrific listen, (the narrator Robin Eller is SO good) but it’s also very thoughtful in asking me to consider what I do to replenish myself – especially right now when like so many people I’m running low.
Robin Eller also narrated Indigo and Vivid by Beverly Jenkins – she is superb.
Aarya: Since Latinx Heritage Month is from September 15 to October 15, I bumped up acclaimed Latinx reads to the top of my TBR. I recently finished Chanel Cleeton’s Next Year in Havana (dual timeline between 1959 Cuban Revolution and the present) ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and Aiden Thomas’s Cemetery Boys (trans brujo accidentally summons the wrong spirit and falls in love with him). ( A | BN | K | AB ) Despite not loving the romantic arcs, I really liked the political discussions in Next Year in Havana. The worldbuilding and rep were amazing in Cemetery Boys even though I had issues with the rushed ending.
What are you reading? Let us know in the comments!
Knew @DiscoDollyDeb would have some guidance! Agree with others – multiple authors in series can create uneven results. Will check out THE BASTARD by Julie Kriss though, thank you!
@Escapeologist, glad you enjoyed The Girl From the Diadem!
I’ve set myself a pandemic goal of working through a couple of cartons on unread books in my closet, some of which have been there for years. I’m pretty sure there’s a Stella Riley book in there, and from everyone’s comments, I need to dig that one out next.
I did find one hidden gem, “Charmed and Dangerous” by Jane Ashford. Ashford used to write Signet Regencies back in the day, and her longer historicals still have some of that flavor. This one was from the 1990’s, and I loved it. The heroine has been holed up in the country working as a governess for the last ten years after her family lost all their money. She gets invited by an old family friend to travel to Vienna while the Congress of Vienna is happening(the big treaty negotiation that took place at the end of the Napoleonic Wars) where she meets an former suitor who has spent the last decade as a spy and “fixer” for the British. She gets involved in his spy intrigues and then things take an unexpected turn, with them getting stranded together on a desert island, and then kidnapped. The heroine turns out to have a real knack for spying and handling herself in dicey situations, which the hero is loath to admit, but eventually he realizes that she’s extremely capable and intelligent. But it’s all written with such a light touch and low angst, which made it so much fun to read. My other favorite Ashford book is “The Bargain”, written in the 1980’s, and very, very funny. It was rereleased this year under a new title, “A Favor for the Prince”, so beware you don’t accidentally buy the same book twice.
I’m in the middle of “A Brush With Shadows”, Lady Darby mystery #6, and not finding it as engaging as some of the others, but I like the MCs so will continue with the series.
I’ve also been slowing working my way through several of Grace Calloway’s “Game of Dukes” books; “The Duke Identity”, “Enter the Duke” and “Regarding the Duke”. The reason I have so many half-read is because her books are usually super catnippy for me, so I autobuy whenever I see one on sale. But this series is not doing the trick right now. “The Duke Identity” is a Mafia princess/bodyguard plot, but with a London crime lord instead of Mafia because it’s the Victorian era. The 2nd is a secret baby plot, and the 3rd is revenge marriage AND amnesia plot. In case those are anybody’s jam.
Once the Ripped Bodice challenge was over, I kinda lost some reading steam!
Still, my latest reads:
– Clean Sweep: eh? It’s an interesting concept but I just couldn’t get over the idea of aliens having the same shitty gender stereotypes and roles as humans?
– Labyrinth vol 1: wasn’t into the art but I do like the idea of a backstory for Jareth!
– Who killed the homecoming queen?: fun RL Stine stuff!
– Perma Red: an incredibly interesting book, an #ownvoices book from am indigenous author. Girl grows up trying to escape the law and a man obsessed with her, whose mother may have done “love medicine” on her. Apparently the author based it on an aunt who was murdered while young – and gave her a happy ending instead. Reminded me of the equally brutal Ruby.
Currently reading:
– Chasing the milky way, which is so far… upsetting. MG fiction about a girl trying to build a robot, despite dealing with many challenges (being parentified, poverty, parental mental illness, bullying, grief)
– Steadfast: I loved Jude when reading Bittersweet so I skipped ahead to his book. Enjoying it but this is also a heavy read.
I’m watching Babysitters Club and That Girl to balance it out!
@Kareni
Glade you’re interested in MCA Hogarth – I have spent way too many Bad Decisions Book Club night with her books. My favorites are her Pelted Universe which fall into the Space Opera genre. The best starting places are either the Dreamhealers series or Earthrise.
I started with her Dreamhealer series, recommended in an SBTB post. It’s about two interstellar med students and follows their lives through school and beyond. That sounds so bland, but really isn’t. (m/m asexual).
The Earthrise series ( which I also loved) is a space adventure with a small crewed merchant space ship. There are rescues, space battles, bad trades, strange aliens, and elves (f/m).
I hope you get a chance to try the series, there are so few really well though out alternate universes out there. I’d compare it to the Liaden Universe By Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.
:::plunks down on a rainy morning:::
Very rainy, much rain. I left off on The Year of the Witching, which I really enjoyed in a “whoa, this is some brutality” kind of way. It ended on a note of hope, which I think was necessary in a book that contained so much darkness. I followed that up with Grown by Tiffany Jackson. Hoo boy, all the trigger and content warnings. Grooming, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, gaslighting, you name it, you probably need the warnings for it. It’s extremely well-done, in that it shows the insidious nature of grooming and how quickly a smart young girl can become fearful and abused. It’s both compulsively readable and hard to read, if that makes any sense whatsoever. It is highly worthy as a study of how Black girls are both sexualized and often blamed for their abuse. Then, because my brain had taken about as much darkness as it could for the time being, I went ahead and hopped into The Trials of Apollo: The Dark Prophecy by Rick Riordan. Even though it had been 4 years since I read the first in the series, my brain hopped back into that world without too much trouble. I liked Apollo’s petulant, but at least he’s learning and growing, voice a bit better this time around. It is interesting that we’re seeing a Greek god have to grow as a person, something he’s not always equipped to do as an immortal being. Also, still love me some Leo Valdez (hands down one of my favorite demigods). After this, I read The Lion’s Den by Katherine St. John. Sneaky read. I picked up quickly on the fact that the women in this book HATED each other. It was a bit Real Housewives-y, only with bonus murders. One thing I found interesting is that we’re almost seeing the formation of a possible serial killer in this book. I also enjoyed the resourcefulness and compassion of the protagonist. Now, I also needed to get in a romance for my Info Needs of Adults class (it’s Romance Week), so I read The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan, which was honestly a bit of brain comfort food, and I mean that in the best way. The characters weren’t constantly hurting each other, and while occasionally they needed to be a bit better at using their words, there was definite affection and humor in their interactions. Which brings us to today, in which it is time for SPOOKYTIMES and as such I’ve been holding onto When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole. I’m only a few pages in, but it’s a grabby one. Until next time, folks, get the skulls and the spider-webs set up in your yards. It’s beginning to look a lot like SPOOKY. Oh, and vote early if you can.
@Jeannette, thank you the added information. I read and enjoyed the first Dreamhealer book and look forward to reading more in that series. I will take a look at the Earthrise series.
Courtney Milan’s The duke who didn’t had me at this line….. “Was there anything in life more pleasurable than the sensation of striking a dark line through an item on one’s list with a pencil?” Chloe Fong is a girl after my own heart. I LOVED this book.
Finished Circe a few days ago and I believe it’s going to be made into a miniseries on HBO.
I’ve read books across the explicit-ness scale lately. There was an enjoyable canter through Lorelei James’s sexually liberated cowboys at one end, and a Marion Lennox with all bedroom doors firmly closed at the other.
The Marion Lennox – The Earl’s Convenient Wife – has a ‘having to marry to inherit’ storyline, with a particularly good scene where the hero, having behaved like a gigantic arse, has caused the heroine to storm off to her friends house. He fairly quickly recognises he’s behaved badly and goes to talk to her late at night. However, his attempt to wake her quietly by throwing gravel at her window starts the friend’s dog barking, which wakes the friend’s children who start crying, then his dogs start barking and his attempt to have a quiet chat ends up with half the village awake and offering judgement.
She does write dogs well: ‘…another shower [of gravel] hit the window and downstairs Maggie’s Labrador hit the front door and started barking, a bark that said terrorists and stun grenades were about to launch through the windows and a dog had to do its duty. Wake up and fight, the dog was saying to everyone in the house. No, make that everyone in the village.’
@DiscoDollyDeb your comment about the Tanzanian eco-tourism reminded me that Africa only seems to exist in Harlequin/M&B as a nebulous blob bracketed by Cape Town at one end, souks and reads at the other, and populated in between by giraffes and poor sick people acting as background for various selfless, sexy, traumatised medics. I admit to my shame I wouldn’t have noticed it once but learning is a wonderful thing.
Also, M&B writers and editors, ‘spewing’ and ‘groin’ are not sexy words. And for the love of God, it’s ‘laving’ (if you must) not ‘lathing’. The idea of lathing someone’s nipples actually makes me feel slightly ill.
Make My Wish Come True by Fiona Harper which I finished because it was well-written, but I was most annoyed by the ending. It’s about two sisters: frazzled single mum trying to be perfect, and the younger flibbertigibbet sister with a glam job that isn’t so glam, but has sort of sailed through life without too much difficulty otherwise. They swap so that the mum goes on a nice holiday and single sister looks after the kids.
The mum starts to relax and think about embarking on a holiday romance, while glam sister realises a few home truths, etc etc. But then the lovely holiday fling turns out to be a conman, and when she returns home, she finds that glam sister has snaffled up the attractive neighbour that the mum likes. The story ends for the mum with a tentative date with one of her kids’ teachers so she doesn’t even get a good solid happy ending. And that made me angry because she just gets such a shit deal all through the story. OK, she’s perfectionist and you’re meant to think she should loosen up, but she’s been trying to hold everything together for so long and even her lovely holiday is ruined because of this con artist. And of course everyone goes back to thinking how wonderful glam sister is.
Like I said, she writes well, and there are a few of hers I’ve liked, but I don’t think I’ll be obsessively hunting down her back catalogue.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Molly O’Keefe was good. The problems of the main couple and their families felt messy and real – they’re too complicated to get solved with a kiss and flowery declarations of love at the end, but I felt like they were on a good path. I’m reading The Sinner by the same author and while I’m not finding it as unputdownable, am still enjoying it very much.
I’m also attempting, and failing, to plough through a collection of academic essays about minor gods and their relationship to Christianity. I used to read this stuff all the time! And enjoyed it! And now I just feel like my brain cells are tiredly waving white flags.
Souks and RIADS. Not reads, RIADS.
Gnnnnargh! Autocorrect strikes again.
@Empress of Blandings (or anyone else) is THE SINNER by O’Keefe typical of her writing? I’m about 30% of the way in and the writing is very sparse and the character’s motivations seem odd. The townspeople are all caricatures at this point. But mainly, the writing is oddly spare, character motivations are oblique, and the atmosphere rather oppressive. I’m wondering if this is the usual. The main characters are burning for each other within pages, but I feel no chemistry between them.
@Carrie G I have only read those two books by O’Keefe, and The Sinner felt a lot more sparse and dry than Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Also, she didn’t seem to dig in as deeply to the characters. I still enjoyed it, just not as much.
@Stefanie Magura thank you for getting both of those books on my radar, adding them to my TBR! I am fortunate both are at my local library.
@Carrie G:
I just took a look on Audible and saw that the fourth in Brant’s Alec Halsey Mysteries came out recently on September 10th. It is also whispersysced with the Kindle edition. The narrator is different on this one.
@Carrie G: Molly O’Keefe has recently revised and republished two three-book series that she originally published through Harlequin’s Super Romance line in the early 2000s. SINNER is one of those books. I would say SINNER is probably more reflective of O’Keefe’s style over a decade ago. If you’d like to read something more reflective of her current style, I strongly recommend ONE LAST CHANCE, which is a gorgeously emotional novella about a man coming to the realization of how much he has contributed the breakdown of his marriage; MY WICKED PRINCE, a contemporary royal romance involving step-siblings; and the duet, BAD NEIGHBOR/BABY, COME BACK.
@Stefanie Magura
Matthew Lloyd Davies is also an excellent narrator, so that’s good! He’s narrated some of KJ Charles books that I’ve listened to. I’ve read the first Halsey book in print, but I was thinking of doing whispersync with the rest of them. Thank you!
@DiscoDollyDeb
Thank you for the recommendations. I feel out of step with most contemporary romances these days and I’m not sure why. I’m finding them difficult to like. I’ll give one of the ones you recommended a try.I think I’ll give up on The Sinner because I’m not enjoying it. Thanks again!