Heck yeah! It’s October, my personal favorite month. And then, in my opinion, it’s all downhill from here. But let’s be honest, 2020 has been downhill since January.
We all love Whatcha Reading, where we can discuss good and bad books of the month, and get plenty of recommendations.
Carrie: In War and Peace, the French are advancing on Moscow! Their victory seems inevitable! I wonder how things will turn out! Also I just finished Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline ( A | BN | K | AB ) and I am NOT OK, MAN.
Catherine: Carrie, I am loving your War and Peace commentary. I’m a bit miserable at present, so I’m all over my comfort reads. Today it’s Hearts on Hold by Charish Reid, which is still utterly wonderful. I think Lucy Parker is next on the menu.
Elyse: I’m reading Vanishing Falls by Poppy Gee.
Sarah: I started reading two books which was not wise.
I started The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which is a mystery set in 1936 Singapore. The sleuth is Chen Su Lin, whose family would like to arrange her marriage so she is trying to find a job and some autonomy for herself.
But then I also started, because I am a big silly person, Ties that Tether by Jane Igharo. ( A | BN | K | AB ) The heroine, Azere, is also being encouraged most strongly to make a “proper” marriage to a Nigerian man (unintentional themed reading!) so of course she falls hard for a Spanish man named Rafael after a one night stand.
I like both so it’s book buffet time.
Claudia: I’m back in trouble again, trying to see which book sticks. I’ve started a few only to leave off around the 10% mark.
Shana: I’ve been playing library due date chicken, and mostly losing. I’m currently on a queer SFF kick and I have one day to finish The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco.
Carrie: Go Shana! You can do it! I believe in you!
Tara: I’m reading Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I started it a month ago and had a really hard time getting into it, but I happily had a breakthrough last night and am loving it.
In audio, I’m listening to We Have Always Been Here: a Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib. I was first interested when I heard it won the Canada Reads competition this year and then I saw Vivek Shraya raving about it on Twitter and knew I had to check it out. I’m not very far yet, but it’s excellent so far. Sneezy, I think you’d really love it.
Lara: I’m reading White Rabbit by London Miller at the moment. I chose it (as I choose most books) because of the cover… and I’m sticking around because I cannot even begin to imagine how the conflict in this story can be resolved. The hero and heroine come from diametrically opposed places and I’m here for it. Also, the hero is an anti-hero (maybe even an alphahole? too early to tell), which I haven’t read in a good long while.
Catherine: Oh my gosh, and I’ve just started Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade, and hellooooo bad decisions book club because there is no way I am stopping this tonight. It’s utterly brilliant and hilarious, especially if you have spent much time in fandom or reading fanfic.
And this is one in the morning Catherine back here to say that I finished Spoiler Alert and I have no regrets, because that honestly could not have been more my catnip if it had tried for a week with both hands. So much fun.
Shana: Yay! I’m glad you loved it Catherine.
Catherine: So much. Just enormous fun.
What have you read this month? Let us know!
I can’t tell if “I am NOT OK, MAN” is a compliment or not. But I will assume it is one because I just got done tearing through “Empire of Wild” too and think that it is some excellent horror — bloody and fierce and at times heartbreaking. Also we white folks don’t look good at all in this story from an indigenous perspective. The ending is not sunny at all but tone-perfect.
I still don’t feel like I’ve got my reading mojo back, but I have read a lot more than I have the last few months. Nothing blew me away, but finishing a book honestly feels like an accomplishment.
In order of enjoyment
The Trouble Series by Stephanie Tromly. TROUBLE IS A FRIEND OF MINE, etc. YA romantic mystery. The good? Quirky characters, great banter, fast paced mystery The bad? Lots of catty “mean girl” behavior, including from the heroine. I’ve seen some growth away from that in the last book, but I still find it offputting. Also lots of immature stuff about love triangles and jealousy. They are teenagers, though.
WHAT YOU WISH FOR by Katherine Center-I’ve never read this author before, but I felt this straddled a bit of the “women’s fiction” (blergh) romance divide. It seemed to be like a slightly edgy Hallmark movie and I mean that in the nicest way possible. The good? Hero that was not a school principal and kind of doofus at heart. Not alpha, not a Navy Seal vampire billionaire. A really interesting setting (Galveston Island in Texas).
One thing that wasn’t bad about it per se, but made it difficult to connect with was the main conflict was over the quirky, independent private school being corporatized and losing it’s charm. In today’s pandemic world where so many kids are struggling just to get any kind of education at all from an online forum and parents (and teachers!) are at wits’ end trying to juggle it all, I had a hard time having empathy with the terrible dilemma that the hallway walls might be painted gray. The coronavirus ruining reading enjoyment strikes again. I also found the heroine a bit of a manic pixie dream girl. It was very important that she be a free spirit, but sometimes she would make what I felt was a stupid decision and then wonder why everyone was mad at her. FYI the book also discusses a school shooting (the hero’s secret which could be seen a mile away and I did find plausible that the heroine could not figure out by googling) and the emotional impact, so it may not be for everyone. I would read this author again, fwiw.
HAMNET by Maggie O’Farrell. This is a reimagining of Shakespeare’s domestic life with a heavy emphasis on his wife, Anne/Agnes Hathaway’s POV and the loss of their child, Hamnet. So obviously warning for a child dying and the plague as well (which I know people may not want to read about). It’s literary fiction and a bit of magic realism in a blender. The good? Very well written and I feel like it takes a sledgehammer to a lot of the sexist assumptions about Shakespeare’s marriage. His wife was older than him and pregnant when they married, so clearly she was some sort of seductive harpy. They spent long stretches of their marriage apart, so he must not have loved her.
Well, you know what? We don’t know that. This book gives Agnes (as they call her here) a voice and it’s compelling. The book is definitely *not* a romance and her marriage with Shakespeare has a lot of ups and downs, but there is a level of love and respect between them that feels refreshing. The book broke a lot of the rules of what will usually make me put a book down – head hopping, present tens writing, time hopping for no real reason – and I still read it in a day. I guess that shows what you can get away with when you’re a really, really, really good writer. It was also short, which helped. So why is it so low on the list? Honestly as much as it engaged me on an intellectual level, I never was fully emotionally engaged. I think that’s literary fiction in general for me and honestly, this may sound heartless, but when I read historical fiction I sometimes have suspension of disbelief problems with how they write about grieving over death. I certainly think people in the past did grieve just as deeply as we do over the loss of loved ones, but they lived so much closer to death every day than we (I hope anyways) do that it must have felt different. And I think modern writers have a hard time capturing that.
WELL PLAYED by Jen Delucca – Ah, it so pains me to put this at the bottom of the list b/c I loved, loved, loved WELL MET (I called it my binkie for a while b/c I read it every night). This also had a trope I love, falling in love by letters, not in person. The heroine and hero were sweet, but I felt like the conflict was very weirdly paced? But if you’re in the mood for low conflict romance, it’s not bad, also heads up, it’s another no wedding, no baby epilogue contemporary romance, which I like to see and have decided it’s my official duty to shout out when I stumble across them. 😉 I like that that’s becoming more normal (at least in contemporaries). I *am* married and have children, but I in no way feel like you have to have either to have a happy romantic life and I certainly don’t think there’s any big rush. Especially considering how book romances move so quickly, over a period of a few weeks often. Let’s make moving into together or getting a puppy together the new romance epilogue normal!
O, my! I am so going to check out your recommendations today! I have falling into this very dark hole without good reading material to keep me company, and it sucks! (The good thing, though, is that Norway has finally gotten cold enough to keep my fireplace lit, so it’s perfect for when I finally find the perfect book).
So I read SPOILER ALERT by Olivia Dade. I was so looking forward to that one, after reading about it here – and then all the great reviews on Goodreads. But I’m afraid I’m in the minority here (good for everyone else). It just didn’t do it for me. The H was a darling, but the whole body issue was just too much. It was like reading about a raksish rake raking around rakishly. I get it. She was fat. On the brighter side, I started reading fanfic, so yey for that 🙂
A few days ago, NEVER TEMPT A SCOT by Lauren Smith poppet up as a recommendation, so I read it and loved it. Later it dawned on me that I already read the first book in the series, WICKED DESIGNS. It’s been a while, and I vaguely remember the plot, but it clearly didn’t make that big of an impression on me, but I read the next book, HIS VICKED SEDUCTION yesterday. I liked. I am going to skip the third book in the series because I read the reviews on Goodreads, and I’m not in a place to read that right now, but WICKED RIVALS is on the top of my TBR pile as we speak. But I would love some contemporary first if I can find it.
Happy Saturday!
Romance:
I finished up my re-read of Sherry Thomas’s Lady Sherlock series–got through THE HOLLOW OF FEAR and THE ART OF THEFT just in time for my copy of MURDER ON COLD STREET to get in. I was deeply satisfied, and I am looking forward to seeing where she takes us in the sixth book.
THE DUKE WHO DIDN’T by Courtney Milan was the delight I thought it would be, the review on this site is pretty close to how I felt. Lots of good food descriptions, which turned out to be a theme in my romance reading this month. (Lady Sherlock never disappoints with the pastry discussion.)
I’LL BE THE ONE by Lyla Lee is a YA about a plus-size high school girl, Skye, who joins a K-pop singing and dancing reality TV competition (filmed in LA) and has to overcome rampant fatphobia from all quarters. So, CW, there is a really complicated relationship between the heroine and her mother regarding the heroine’s weight. By the start of the story, Skye is very unapologetic about her size, and she’s finding her voice in standing up to the people who make comments towards her. Despite this, it’s a really positive book overall, and her romance arc was extremely cute. I think some of the conflict fizzled a little towards the end, but overall the result is just lower-stakes reading, so it’s a great pick-me-up, I could barely put it down and plan to send it to a friend who loves K-pop and YA romance.
BITTERSWEET by Sarina Bowen was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the positive side, I loved the food descriptions, the details about both the hero and heroine’s careers, and the initial plot conflict (she’s representing a company that wants to underpay small farmers like the hero for their produce & goods) was great. I liked the alternating POVs, but I continue to not love first person narration in adult romance. Some of the conflict resolution felt a little unsatisfying for me. Also, I learned about myself that a hero calling a heroine “baby” repeatedly during sex really squicks me out. Not sure why, but self-knowledge is good!
Non-Romance:
Sarah Smarsh’s HEARTLAND: A MEMOIR OF WORKING HARD AND BEING BROKE IN THE RICHEST COUNTRY ON EARTH was very good. My favorite parts were the ones where she talks about the women in her family and the challenges they faced that trapped them in cyclical poverty. I like that Smarsh ties in her family’s personal struggles to larger policy problem, recognizing that even individual hard work can’t overcome systemic issues. (I preordered her book on Dolly Parton and working class women, which is out next week!)
More niche, I really liked Basho’s THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH AND OTHER TRAVEL SKETCHES (translated by Yuasa Nobuyuki, I do not read Japanese!), which was a nice way to mentally travel without physically traveling. I’ll have to take a few more nature walks to pause and really absorb what’s in front of me, even if I do not have the gift of writing haiku inspired by what I’ve seen.
On deck: UNCLAIMED by Courtney Milan is due at the library soon and I hope to start it this weekend! I also have Jenny Holiday’s IT TAKES TWO — I thought the first in her Bridesmaids Behaving Badly was decent but not my favorite. I’ve been trying to pick some contemporaries this year set around the chaos and ridiculousness of the modern wedding industry (THE WORST BEST MAN, HURTS TO LOVE YOU, NOT THAT KIND OF GUY, NOT THE GIRL YOU MARRY, if I hadn’t read it last year probably THE WEDDING PARTY) as a friend’s wedding plans were stressing me out even before the pandemic hit. The wedding is still on for later this month and in-person, which baffles me, and I will not be attending. I’m glad for romance novels to help me process things!
I haven’t read very much since the last WAYR. Between returning to work in the school system, the absurdist political theater we are unfortunately witnessing, and hurricane/flood prep (I live on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 35 miles north of New Orleans, and this is the sixth time this year we’ve been in the “cone” of a hurricane’s path—thank God there’s no such thing as climate change or this might be the tenth time we’ve been here), I just haven’t been able to devote as much time to reading. However, everything I read was engaging & entertaining (if not always objectively “good”), so that’s a plus.
CD Reiss’s CROWNE RULES is the third (and, apparently, final) book in her series about the siblings in the Crowne family. We’ve had antagonists-to-lovers in IRON CROWNE, fake relationship in CROWNE OF LIES, and now enforced proximity in CROWNE RULES—and, as always, Reiss finds a way to put her own spin on the trope. The heroine of CROWNE RULES is a designer fleeing a scandal. She goes to a friend’s off-the-grid family home in Cambria (California, not, as I first thought, Italy), unaware that the friend’s brother-in-law is also heading there. Surprise! The h&h are then forced to share the small house during cold, rainy weather—and they soon begin a sexual relationship featuring a D/s dynamic. The couple have known each other since high school when a brief teenage encounter in a “seven minutes in heaven”-type game had far-reaching consequences—perhaps more so for the hero than the heroine. I’ve read plenty of bdsm & D/s books where the sub/heroine thinks about her life & upbringing and tries to fathom why she likes what she likes, but generally dom/heroes tend to be completely at ease with their preferences, as if they simply came into the world knowing how to be a dom, and have no interest in self-analysis (very much the “unknowable” hero from old skool gothics); so CROWNE RULES was refreshingly in that it’s the dom/hero who thinks about his past and why he likes what he likes. His key takeaway: “dominance…put desire on an equal footing with contentment…I wanted something complicated and specific, dark and urgent.” But the h&h can’t stay locked away from the world in dominance & submission bliss forever. The heroine needs to figure out how her life became a tabloid fixture and the hero needs to get his business out of the hands of some very shadowy partners. CD Reiss writes smart & sexy books about smart & sexy people—and CROWNE RULES is no exception. I recommend the entire Crowne Family series.
[There is one aspect of CROWNE RULES that, while I don’t think it rises to trigger warning territory, I do want to mention: when he was still a minor, the hero began a relationship with a much older married woman. Similar to the hero of Jackie Ashenden’s TAKING HIM, the hero of CROWNE RULES takes many years to accept that what he was involved in was a grooming & abuse situation, not a passionate love affair. However, unlike TAKING HIM, there are no detailed flashbacks to the abusive situation in CROWNE RULES, but it is a key element in the development of the plot.]
Caitlin Crews, one of my Harlequin Presents queens, really brings the angsty goodness in her latest, CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED. The hero is a king who has inherited the throne from his dissolute and corrupt father. The new king is determined to bring back his country’s respect for and confidence in the royal family, so he vows to behave in a way that never reflects poorly on the monarchy. As a result, his behavior is absolutely circumspect and his emotions are always on lockdown. A loathsome tabloid media mogul, using compromising photographs of the late king, blackmails the hero into marrying his (the mogul’s) daughter. The hero is unaware that his fiancée is not willingly part of her father’s blackmail, that she has only agreed to the marriage to protect her younger, blind sister. So begins an incredibly angsty story of two people reluctantly falling into passionate love against a backdrop of ongoing attempts to escape the influence of their horrible fathers. (I rarely have to issue warnings when discussing HPs, but cw/tw: the heroine’s father frequently hits her and threatens to hurt her sister if she doesn’t do what he wants; while the behavior of the hero’s father drove the hero’s mother to suicide.) With its characters torn between passion and duty, CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED is an excellent example of Crews’s HP style—and now I’m looking forward to the second book in the duet, where the heroine’s blind sister and the king’s younger brother get their own love story.
An alternate title for Molly O’Keefe’s CHRISTMAS AT THE RIVERVIEW INN could be RIVERVIEW INN: THE NEXT GENERATION, because the children of the heroes & heroines of the original Riverview Inn series are now in their teens & twenties and experiencing romances of their own. (Although O’Keefe revised and republished the series in the past year, the books were originally published in the early 2000s, which explains how a child in one of the books from last year is now 24.) If you’re familiar with the Riverview Inn series, the h&h in CHRISTMAS are Josie, stepdaughter of Max Mitchell, and Cameron, who worked in the inn’s kitchen for many years, until a “huge misunderstanding” led to him leaving the inn—and breaking teenage Josie’s heart (she thinks to herself that, “The great curveball fate had thrown her way was that she really believed she’d met [her one true love] when she was just a kid”). Now Josie & Cameron (early twenties and late twenties, respectively) find themselves back together at the Riverview Inn for Christmas for the first time in seven years. Can the couple overcome the memories and mistakes of the “huge misunderstanding” and find true love? If I have a quibble with CHRISTMAS AT THE RIVERVIEW INN, it’s that the misunderstanding that precipitated seven years of heartache is somewhat overblown—it was hard to believe it would cause almost a decade’s worth of estrangement. I would recommend CHRISTMAS AT THE RIVERVIEW INN for fans of Molly O’Keefe, especially if you’ve read the earlier books in the series and you don’t mind reading that the heroines from those previous books are now in their forties & fifties with gray in their hair.
I took a rare (for me) trip to the Omegaverse this month, reading Isoellen’s CHOOSING HER ALPHA and HER BROKEN ALPHA, which had been mentioned in a previous WAYR. Set in a dystopian landscape, these m/f romances involve Alpha heroes and “breeder” Omega females who live in a strictly hierarchical society where Alphas rule over betas, drones, and Omegas. Omegas are permitted to choose their Alphas—perhaps their single choice in a world where their value is entirely based on their breeding abilities and because their post-puberty lives are dictated by their genetically-engineered hormones. While I wouldn’t want to spend too much time in the Omegaverse, I did like the world-building in the two books and their very different heroines—the scrappy, resourceful heroine of CHOOSING and the gentle, smothered heroine of BROKEN—both of whom have difficult relationships with their mothers (abusive in CHOOSING, oppressive in BROKEN). The world Isoellen has created is full of violence (sexual and otherwise), so all the standard CWs & TWs apply. Imho, the Omegaverse is an acquired taste, but palatable in small doses.
Once in a while I’ll take a deep dive into my Kindle Unlimited recommendations and come up with something like Jessa Kane’s MY HUSBAND, MY STALKER. Objectively, it’s not very good—a triggery crazy-sauce story about a hitman who falls in insta-love/lust with a woman he sees on tv (she had been kidnapped by an obsessed coworker and was attending the kidnapper’s trial), with neither social context nor consistent behavior on the part of the characters. The hitman assumes the guise of an insurance salesman and quickly moves in on the heroine, who appears to fall into insta-love/lust right back (because any woman still recovering from being kidnapped would immediately open her home, heart, and body to a guy she’s just met). Of course, after they get married, the heroine becomes suspicious of her husband’s odd working hours and the fact that he never talks about his job. What will she do when she discovers that the man she met and married so hastily is just as obsessed with her as her crazed coworker? Yeah—it’s pretty damn bad—and yet, and yet…I found myself consuming it like a jar of roasted peanuts. Could I recommend MY HUSBAND, MY STALKER? Not without a long list of triggers and other cautions. But was it the quick what-the-fuck-did-I-just-read book I needed right now? Yes indeed.
Avril Tremayne is a fairly new discovery for me, and a good one as she balances humour and drama nicely. If you like Kelly Hunter, you might like this author. One bit in The Millionaire’s Proposition reminded me of an old SBTB post on unrealistic romance novel sex as this does the opposite; the hero, in an attempt to win back the heroine, tries to recreate the beach lovin’ scene from From Here to Eternity, and finds it a bit more abrasive than it looks on screen.
Also a couple by Lilian Darcy. She has what I’d describe as a ‘quiet’ style of writing, but with a nice dry sense of humour and teases out the complicated emotions of the characters.
I was bemused by His Longed-For Baby by Josie Metcalf. In this one, the doctor hero has got the (also doctor) heroine pregnant. Okay, the pregnancy reveal conversation is a bit muddled, but at no point does it occur to him that he could be the father despite having unprotected sex with her. I am thinking ‘oh, honey, you are meant to be a doctor but you are so dumb’.
Annoying: The hero of one book (name escapes me, it really wasn’t memorable) who has built his own company all by himself, his only assets a wealthy background, an excellent education and useful contacts. And he paid back the million dollars he borrowed to start it up with. Astounding to have started with so little and achieved so much!
Also annoying: when authors don’t trust the reader, especially when the sub-text is not particularly sub-textual. E.g. that old classic, “he looked at her with hunger in his eyes, BUT NOT FOR FOOD”. It’s the literary equivalent of being poked in the ribs and told ‘Did you see what I did there? Did you get it? Did you?’ I’ve just read a Sarah Morgan book which, while well-written did something similar – anything even slightly oblique or meaningful was put in italics – and I just wanted to nod reassuringly and say, yes, yes, I did get the significance there, please stop worrying.
I read the Dark Fairy Tales that @DiscoDollyDeb mentioned a couple of Whatcha Reading’s ago. It was my first foray into the slightly darker stuff, and I thought I’d enjoy it but instead felt a bit icky afterwards. My favourite was the Skye Warren one, but some of the others… well, let’s say I think I’ve found my personal line in the sand with the ‘Murder! Is! Sexy!’ ones. Maybe I need to work up to them a bit? I’d be interested to hear of recommendations that are a bit more angsty than, say, Jackie Ashenden (who I like a lot), but nobody has to slash an artery to get themselves off. I’ve read a couple of Julie Kriss samples and they look interesting.
The Billionaire’s Wake-Up-Call Girl by Annika Martin. A fun light fun read. The heroine is trying to survive her probationary period at work and ends up pretending to be a wake-up-call service for the hero. This goes well beyond a brief good morning and a recap of the weather forecast. If I had a complaint, it’s that the pacing doesn’t quite work. The calls go from insulting-but-fun to phone sex a bit too quickly and a Big Scary Problem that I thought was going to be a big part of the plot just sort of gets off-handedly dealt with. Bit that made me laugh out loud: ‘ He pauses only long enough to yank off my skirt and obliterate what’s left of my poor panties. With clumsy movements, I take off my bra and toss it out of ripping range. Because, bra shopping.’
Can’t Hurry Love by Megan O’Keefe. Was fine. Felt like there was a lot to be resolved by the end, but everything pulled together.
Royal romances from Marion Lennox and Kelly Hunter. All gently, enjoyably bananapants.
The Kelly Hunter books, Convenient Bride for the King and Shock Heir for the Crown Prince, were also quite thoughtful about how people try to negotiate their roles and identities in the pressure-cooker of public life. (Bit from Convenient Bride I had to read out loud whether anyone wanted me to or not: Princess Moriana who’s stayed a virgin in anticipation of her arranged marriage that’s been called off, and regretting the lack of passion in her life: “He got a nineteen-year-old pregnant when he was twenty-three. You know what I was doing at twenty-three? Taking dancing lessons so that I could feel the touch of someone’s hand.’ Her brother, a king: ‘I thought they were fencing lessons.’ Moriana: ‘Same thing. Maybe I wanted to feel a little prick.’)
Also, a side-character is bisexual, and I don’t know how good his representation is but the text never seems to treat his sexuality as something wrong with him, but as something that’s caused him trouble because of how he’s been treated by others. So that was nice.
Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry. Really good. I’d read Hot Island Nights, the story that runs concurrently to this and really liked it, but liked this one even more.
I’m liking the Baldwin Village Series by Jackie Lau. I’ve also started A Match Made for Thanksgiving by the same author, but haven’t managed to get to the end I’m finding the writing falls a bit more flat on this one – a bit too much telling and not enough showing for me perhaps.
@Amanda — I feel like “it’s all downhill from here” is the perfect summary of 2020.
I masked up and ventured out to the bookstore yesterday. I was hoping there would be a big display of holiday romances (not yet), but I did pick up MISTLETOE AND MR. RIGHT by Sarah Morgenthaler and THE TWELVE DOGS OF CHRISTMAS by Lizzie Shayne.
Also, does anyone know of any historical western holiday romances coming out this year? I’m looking for holiday gifts for my mom. I found one — THE COWBOY WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS with Jodi Thomas, Sharla Lovelace, and Scarlett Dunn — but I’m looking for some more. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks! 🙂
Have been reading several of Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series. I really liked the first one, WICKED INTENTIONS, but the others I’ve been reading have been okay (I’m reading them in the order they go, but don’t have all the books in the series—just going with what the library has). I remain deeply unclear on why I finished SCANDALOUS DESIRES (ridiculous set up, the heroine is the hero’s savior at a level I felt uncomfortable with, there are two weird plot twists with the hero’s nemesis, and some of the euphemisms in the sex scenes are beyond.)
That said, something about Hoyt is compulsively readable and I’ve also read DARLING BEAST (not logged in Goodreads because while I’m not embarrassed about reading romance, that title is a bit much for me) and am on to DUKE OF SIN. Oh, and also read DUKE OF MIDNIGHT. (Too many dukes!)
Next up is going to be NK Jemisin’s THE CITY WE BECAME because I can only do so many dukes and so many bad euphemisms. The opening line is an homage to Walt Whitman, so I think I am on solid ground there!
I haven’t posted in one of these in awhile so I’m going to include some of my Sept reads.
Best read of the fall so far is Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray. M/M historical slow burn bi romance between two low level Cold War spies – one FBI and one presumed KGB. Set in 1959/60 and 1976 and a little in 1992. Can’t say enough good things about this book or author. Janine and Sirius did a lovely joint review at DA.
I’ve been mostly reading fluffy mm and queer romance.
Red Heir by Lisa Henry and Impossibly Fond by Tanya Chris are both silly mm fantasies that I enjoyed more than I expected. If you enjoyed the humor in Shrek but thought it needed more gay sex, these are the books for you.
I enjoyed Awkward Love by Riley Hart (mm, NA, IR set in Atlanta) but didn’t adore it like I adored the first in the series, Stupid Love.
I also finished A Man Called Ove – a Swedish bestseller I got for Christmas maybe 5 years ago. I think your ability to enjoy this book will depend on your ability to appreciate the humor of a cranky, lonely man deciding to commit suicide after getting laid off (a few months after his wife’s death) and getting interrupted in increasingly outrageous ways over the course of 3 weeks by his new neighbors. And also your willingness to get the humanizing back story of the Swedish equivalent of That Guy in your neighborhood, the one shouting to get off his lawn. It actually is a lovely story of grief and connection and redemption but it’s probably not for everyone.
I am slowly reading My Grandmother’s Hands; Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem for an accountability / book group. It’s very good and challenging.
October it is, and I feel like reading glauque and/or Halloween stuff.
I started with A LITTLE FAMILIAR by R. Cooper.
I have a problem with stories about long-time pining. Over the years, it comes with countless little hurts. They can’t help but accumulate and aggregate… How to get over years of slights so easily? Isn’t there a bit if ressentiment left there to poison things ?
So, yeah, I couldn’t fully commit to enjoying this story. I liked the slow pacing, the emphasis on growing things, the homemade stuff, the witchcraft, preparing for both Samhain and Halloween… but the years of miscommunication, I could not get over.
That said, I liked the author’s style enough to try something else of them. HOW TO (NOT) TRAIN A FIRECAT was a much better fit for me. The miscommunication was also a theme, but with everything else going on around the MCs, here it made sense. The characters were also a lot less passive and that was another big plus… as were the firecats!
TUESDAY MOONEY TALKS TO GHOST by Kate Racculia.
This book has lots of things I like: offbeat, peculiar characters (with weird names) ; clues and mysteries to solve ; a touch of paranormal. And yet, I found myself not enjoying it that much. Was it because there’s too many POV characters (four!), so when we come back to some, it’s been so long we seen him/her, we feel disconnected? Or was it how the treasure hunt so quickly takes a back seat to all the characters’ woes? The back cover promised an adventure with “Tuesday and her oddball team” but it turned out to be characters working mostly independently and commiting little bits of meanness to each other. (At least they’re ultimately all decent and know how to say I’m sorry.)
That said, it is a good book, with lots of things to enjoy. Decently written – there were lots of well-turned phrases. Boston feels true and lived in (I actually recognized the city!). We go deep into each POV characters psyche, and those are interesting trips. The end is a crescendo of fun weirdness. But… *shrugs* I wish I could’ve liked it more. I wanted to like it more.
Right now I’m reading HOLLOW KINGDOM by Kira Jane Buxton. Zombie apocalypse as seen by a crow. Hmmm. I’m not won over. I’ll see.
In between, non-halloween reads:
Anthology PETS IN SPACE 4. Average/Good. I came away with 2 authors to check out: Pauline Baird Jones (CYBORG’S REVENGE: Project Enterprise Series. MCs were humans who became robots who are now cyborg characters; they have to relearn how to be human while going on a kamikaze mission), and Alexis Glynn Latner (WINTER’S PRINCE: Starways Series. Story in scifi Winter Fair. The pet is a unicorn. Loved the setting, the characters had depth.)
THE ALPHA’S SECRET FAMILY by Jessie Lane.
I picked that one from the last cover snark – y’know, the guy with the raised eyebrow? I went and checked the book, because I had to know why he looked so dumbfounded. The blurb mentionned a pregant woman with amnesia (yup, “Pregnesia” got me that way too), and the book was FREE, so of course I got it. Well, it wasn’t bad bad, but it wasn’t really good either. Their becoming a couple was easy and angst free and kinda cute. Then *jump forward* they’re an established couple *jump forward* she has her accident *jump forward* she wakes 2 months later an amnesiac and right about there, the book turned bleh. The hero spends the rest of the story sitting in his house brooding, while we’re told what happened/what’s happening instead of being shown, and there’s all these time jumps… I swear, every chapter began with ‘A week later’. I also was disappointed about how there’s no build up around the amnesia or their second meeting – it’s all very fuss-free and bland. In the end, the story doesn’t have much to do with the cover… unfortunately.
And lastly cute and funny SIMON AND THE HOMO-SAPIENS AGENDA by Becky Albertalli. (How come I never heard of it before? There’s even a movie!) This is about a teen wading through coming out of the closet. Really NOT COOL things happen in the book, but Simon is such a happy-go-lucky guy with die hard friends and a loving family, there’s barely any angst. Simon is clueless and rather self-centered (then again, what teenager isn’t?) but not disagreeably so – more like oh-you-cute-puppy so. I also really, really liked the secret correspondents thing.
One caveat: Simon’s pseudonym is Jacques. Because the game ‘Simon Says’ in french is ‘Jacques Dit’… except IT IS NOT. It’s JEAN Dit. In French, Jean (pronounced a bit like the second syllable of pungent) is a guy name; I can see why Simon would use Jacques instead… but then don’t use the “Simon Says” saying. Find another pseudonym, one with an ACCURATE explanation!
@Empress of Blandings: I’m adding Avril Tremayne and Lilian Darcy to my tbr—I haven’t read either of them, but because I like Kelly Hunter as much as you do, I have a feeling I’ll enjoy them too. As for the Dark Fairy Tales, I agree that some of them were waaaay to dark for me (and I think I mentioned that in my WAYR post). I like dark, but more on the mafia/mob/crime/anti-hero end of the spectrum, rather than the sort of “sharps & blood play” stuff that came up in some of those fairy tales. If you want to try somewhat dark, Skye Warren is good and I also like Natasha Knight, Cora Reilly, and A. Zavarelli—although beware that some of their stuff can get very dark. Since you like Annika Martin and Skye Warren, try the dark duet, CAPTIVE and PRISONER, they co-wrote together (all standard triggers apply). You might also check out the four romantic suspense books Martin published under the name Carolyn Crane. I keep hoping she’ll continue that series, but nothing so far. For angsty without being too dark, I love Caitlin Crews, especially her HPs (in fact, I just read her new one, CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED, and thought it was very good—I wrote about it in my WAYR post today which, alas, is sitting in “Your comment is awaiting moderation” limbo right now). I also like Clare Connelly—although her work can be inconsistent and some of the power imbalances between h&h seem insurmountable, even for HPs where poor virgin heroines and older experienced billionaire heroes abound—but I love Connelly’s (non-HP) Montebellos series. You might also try my favorites Kati Wilde (GOING NOWHERE FAST, SECRET SANTA, THE MIDWINTER MAIL ORDER BRIDE) and CD Reiss (the rather dark Edge series, the brighter Crowne family or King of Code series). My romance reading motto is, “I like dark and angsty. It doesn’t always have to be dark, but it almost always has to be angsty.”
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim – this gem was recommended on tor.com on Jo Walton’s reading list. Written in 1921 so it’s widely available for free, my library apps had multiple editions, as well as the lovely 1991 movie adaptation. Escape to a beautiful place with wonderfully drawn characters. I related hard to the women worn out from doing things for others (see Burnout by the Nagoski sisters). Happy endings distributed in heaping handfuls.
Withering Tights by Louise Rennison – I had tried to read this series years ago but it was too different from the beloved Georgia Nicolson series (Angus Thongs and Snogging). This time around it’s sticking better. The humor is gentler, the heroine quieter, there are wonderfully weird theater people.
Burn For Me and White Hot by Ilona Andrews – this series has been getting great reviews but for me it’s a mixed bag. I like the magic system and the powerful women, dislike the violence, meh on the men.
Comfort rereads and audiobooks as usual. Highlight of those was sharing with my kid the battle poetry from Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. “That was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul”
@DiscoDollyDeb– Stay safe!!
@Empress of Blandings– I loved those two Sarah Mayberry books. And I agree about Lau’s Match Made at Thanksgiving, plus for me, the family dynamics were just too irritating. Grandmothers wanting to talk about your sex life does not make me laugh. Since it’s the same family, I doubt I’ll continue the series.
@Escapeologist– Enchanted April was made into a wonderful movie. You might want to check it out.
I always have an audiobook and a print book going so I can “read”even when I’m busy doing other things.
This month I’ve DNF most of the print books I started. I just couldn’t find the right fit. I’m one of the rare people that didn’t click with My Christmas Number One. It’s very well written and I think most people will enjoy it. I just found it too put-downable. The only print book I finished was Special Gifts, an early Anne Stuart. It was fine, but didn’t have the polish of her later books. I’d recommend people just jump on to her Ice series.
I’ve had better luck in audiobooks. I’m trying to listen to as many as possible before Audible Escape ends on Nov 1st.
Think of England by KJ Charles was wonderful, although I enjoyed her A Charm of Magpies series even more. The narrator for this book wasn’t great, but the one for the Magpie books is.
More Than a Mistress by Balogh was a fail. I didn’t like much about it. Rosalyn Landor is a good narrator, but she fails to save the book.
A suggestion on a FB group led me to a series by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy, Him, <b/Us, and the novella Epic. I admit I haven’t enjoyed a contemporary book as much in a long time. Th stories are emotional, funny, and sweet, and they feel genuine. These are m/m books with a hockey background. The narrators, Teddy Hamilton and Jacob Morgan, are exceptionally talented.
Right now I’m reading Orientation by Gregory Ashe and listening to Good Boy, a book with a secondary character from Us as the main character. It’s cute so far, but without the same spark from the other books.
I had one book stand out recently, YOURS TO KEEP, by Lauren Layne. Her books are often filled with big city ambiance, but in this book, the hero, a star baseball shortstop facing a potentially career ending injury, goes back to his upstate NY home town to recuperate and potentially reconnect with his HS sweetheart at a 10 yr reunion. Instead, on his first day home, he runs into his former lab partner, who never left town and is now the HS biology teacher. Much to both of their surprise, they find themselves suddenly noticing the other in ways they never did in HS. In addition to the banter and the warm-hearted feel of the book, I loved that it didn’t go the usual route of either the hero or heroine having had an unrequited crush or a former romantic relationship, so they didn’t have any old baggage and could just enjoy each other as the adults they’ve become.
I’m currently reading SUCKS TO BE ME by Kristen Painter, part of the Paranormal Women’s Fiction group, that features women in their 40’s and 50’s as lead characters encountering the paranormal after previously living totally “normal” lives. I’ve read several others from this group and loved them. So far, so good with this one, which features a mob widow who unexpectedly gets turned into vampire. It’s so refreshing to have unattached women closer to my own age as the main characters in a paranormal. Also, these books are perfect for autumn and Halloween with witches, ghosts, etc. I believe one of them even features a sidekick that’s an animated skeleton.
Hey, Bitchery! So happy everyone is sharing their reading for the past couple of weeks.
Work has been crazy busy these past couple of weeks, so my reading time has been almost non-existent (People try and get me to read weighty non-fiction for fun, and I try to explain to them that that part of my brain already has permanent tenants). Also engaged in a certain amount of “doom/hope” scrolling on twitter, not gonna lie, for obvious reasons.
My thirteen year old discovered Georgette Heyer this past week, and is now a huge fan. I think that means: a) There is hope for the future of romance writing and mankind; b) If I want to be a good mother, I am kind of forced to buy all the Heyer books I have denied myself in the past, regardless of the cost, right?
I did read CHARMS AND DEATH AND EXPLOSIONS, by Honor Raconteur, (#2 of Shinagami Detective Series) not a romance, paranormal detective story. Really read like a case study – there was little to no emotional depth or development, which was a shame, because I love the set up and there are more books. Feel like this author does so many things well, and I keep hoping the next book will get them to the next level.
Re-read Penny Reid’s NEANDERTHAL SEEKS HUMAN. Her books are comfort “REIDs” for me (see what I did there?). Some of them don’t work for me, but when they do, I love them.
DNF THE LOVE STUDY by Kris Ripper. Sounded like my catnip (I like the BOYFRIEND PROJECT, which used a similar trope) but I was just too conscious I was reading a book the whole time. Maybe I am worn out. Or the characters were just cardboard cutouts. Will try again when I have more mental bandwidth.
Hope everyone is safe and sound! Enjoy your Octobers! Going to go buy Heyer’s books — remind me of the best ones if you have favorites, please, so I can parent responsibly! 🙂
@DiscoDollyDeb, hope you enjoy those – the two Lilian Darcy’s I read were quite quiet and understated, but dryly funny (little moments such as when one H & h go for a coffee and h has a latte while H ‘asserts his masculinity’ with a black coffee.
And thank you for the suggestions! Going book shopping! I do like Caitlin Crews – there’s been the odd occasion where the ‘hero’ has been too awful even for me (one about a gloomy & overbearing ex-footballer/fashion house exec springs to mind) but she usually pulls off that angsty redemption arc very nicely, and I’ve liked most of Clare Connelly’s books too.
@Carrie G, family dynamics do seem to feature a lot in Lau’s books – just as well I don’t mind them too much!
To Shana – I will forever remember you as the person who coined my constant state of ‘library due date chicken’. I am cool and awesome, not disorganized!!
Huzzah!!
I have been buying books like a drunken sailor, all I’m missing is the ill-advised shore leave tattoo. Still holding out hope that I’ll read them one day.
AXIOM’S END by Lindsay Ellis. In an alternate 2007, extraterrestrials have been with us for decades, living in a secure/benign government facility. Truth, lies, it’s all coming out–interesting leadup to the 2008 financial crisis, triggered by this revelation–and a young woman becomes the intermediary between humans and visitors. I really enjoyed this, partly because humans didn’t act like complete barbarians for a change. The ability to communicate and understand was paramount, which meant opportunity to learn. The ending is appropriate and bittersweet, the tangled road to reach it quite satisfying.
TROUBLED BLOOD by Robert Galbraith. Another twisty UK crime novel, this one (finally) with some much-needed emotional work by the two protagonists. I enjoy this series a great deal.
THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY by Alix E. Harrow. DNF. It’s not you, it’s me. I just couldn’t plow through more than a third.
THE JACKAL by J.R. Ward. Everything you’ve come to expect.
Currently reading THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB by Richard Osman. Completely charming and probably not going where I’ve been lulled into thinking it will.
@Darlynne: as Schopenhauer said, “We buy books in the hope we will live long enough to read them.”
@Jennifer Estep – I’ve come across an anthology with Carla Kelly that’s Christmas historical western, but I don’t think it’s new.
Disappointed by TOOLS OF AN ENGAGEMENT by Tessa Bailey. The Stager in the family house flipping business decides she wants to flip her own house. She seems to have little knowledge of what it entails. Her foreman/love interest has done construction for a year. I have little knowledge of construction beyond a kitchen update, but she’s tiling a roof at night in the rain? How did she get the tiles up there? Shingles are heavy enough. Sigh. I wanted her to be more competent, to really earn that flip! I know it’s romanceland, but for a “grounded” romance I alsmost expected bluebirds and mice to finish the flip for her.
On the other hand, BILLIONAIRE’S FAKE FIANCEE by Annika Martin was filled with improbabilities but I didn’t care. The banter was fun, they were fun, light hearted crazy sauce.
For more serious crazy sauce, ALL SCOT AND BOTHERED by Kerrigan Bryne. It was in the good not great category. She is supposed a brilliant math theorist but we don’t see any of it in play. There is also a squicky brother ownership issue. Plus not a fan of the punny titles.
MY KIND OF EARL by Vivienne Lorret. A sweet, sexy romance with a super smart (and displays it!) heroine and the hero who mostly appreciates her. Perfect afternoon read!
I have the latest Christina Lauren, IN A HOLIDAZE and Sherry Thomas’ Charlotte Holmes, MURDER ON COLD STREET waiting for me if my family, work, and home don’t get in the way!
Sorry! ALL SCOT AND BOTHERED had “brothel” issue, not “brother”.
This is not even remotely related to WAYR, but I don’t know where would be the appropriate place to raise this issue so I apologize most sincerely!
So, does anyone else have a problem with this site constantly reloading? I will be happily reading along, my screen goes blank, and I get the notice “there was a problem with this website so it was reloaded.” I’m reading on an older iPad, if that makes a difference. Any assistance is greatly appreciated! If there’s a FAQ or troubleshooting page that I haven’t seen, I would gladly check it out if you can point me in that direction.
Again, my apologies for the way way off topic post!
@Escapologist – I love Withering Tights! (But the main character is no Georgia). The series is v fun as an audiobook.
I’m 1/3 of the way into We Ride Upon Sticks in audio, I think based on a rec here. It’s third person plural narration works surprisingly well as an audio book.
The Honey don’t list (audio) – fun, light, but I couldn’t tell you what the conflict was about.
Lady in Waiting – memoir by one of QEII’s ladies in waiting. Fascinating look at the aristocracy in the post war era.
The Duke Who didn’t – I saved this for after a rough bit at work and it was the delicious balm I needed.
I was so happy to hear Ovidia Yu mentioned in this week’s *excellent* podcast with Martha Wells (seriously, so good). I enjoy her modern stories, but this new series set in 1930s Singapore is so good – and then the latest, set during the Japanese occupation in World War II, takes the story to a whole new level.
I’m not a huge fan of the “reformed rake” trope, yet somehow it was featured in both romances I’ve read so far this month! Also, both of the reformed rakes were named Tristan! Strange how that happens sometimes. Anyway, A ROGUE OF ONE’S OWN by Evie Dunmore was…fine. I just wasn’t excited about the characters or the aforementioned trope. But I do like the author’s writing and look forward to her next book.
I read THE VISCOUNT AND THE VICAR’S DAUGHTER by Mimi Matthews shortly thereafter, and liked it a bit better, although that’s probably because the novella length made the story move more quickly. I really enjoy Matthews in general, but this isn’t one of her best.
I’m currently reading a non-romance, Mary Doria Russell’s THE SPARROW. I’ve just started it but have high hopes, since I really loved DOC and EPITAPH. Also, you can’t beat the premise — Jesuits in space!
@Shana, do you do the trick where you turn off the Wifi on your reading device so the library can’t snatch your book back on the due date?
@Wait, what?, I’ve got a 1st generation iPad mini, and certain websites, including Amazon, do reload continuously. Sometimes my Kindle app freezes for a minute or two. But I read SBTB on my laptop anyway.
Not a lot of reading to report. I read “Expectations” by Frances Murray, which is a P&P sequel/fanfic. She captures Austen’s writing style pretty well, we get to see all the familiar characters, she kills off a couple of them, and marries off a few others. Very light pleasant reading.
I very much enjoyed “A Devil of a Duke” by Madeline Hunter. The heroine is a former thief, which has certainly been done many times before. But where Hunter shines is in depicting male characters and male friendships, how men talk and act when they’re together.
Just bought HONEYTRAP based on the above recommendation.
@KitBee, I remember loving THE SPARROW when I read it long ago.
I have been reading a ton of M/M contemporary including basically all of Jay Hogan’s books. (Will be re-reading UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL soon; it’s romantic suspense, which is usually not my thing, but I got very invested.)
This week read SYNCOPATION and REFRACTION by Jodi Payne & Ba Torguta, both are solid contemporaries about art and artists, complete with the unhealthy behaviors that often accompany creativity.
And this morning finished re-reading THE SPIRAL PATH by Mary Jo Putney. Which I personally consider her best book and one of the best contemporaries I’ve ever read.
Hard to believe it’s already time for WAYR. Feels like I just posted on this topic.
Currently reading The Rogue to Ruin by Vivienne Lorret. This is the 3rd book in the Misadventures in Matchmaking and while I am enjoying the story, I would have liked to see more of the war that Ainsley declared on Reed’s gentleman’s club.
Also reading Ruthless Gods which I’m pretty sure I was reading last month. It’s still good and I love the cosmic horror aspects. Serefin is stealing the show away from Nadya. Really looking forward to book 3.
And because I tend to read multiple books at once, I started Air Awakens by Elise Kova. It’s giving me Sherwood Smith vibes so of course I already love it.
@Big K: younger, my favorites Heyer titles were ‘Arabella’, ‘Frederica’ and ‘The Corinthian’. Then later on, while still very much loving my old favs, I developped a taste for ‘The Grand Sophy’, ‘Cotillon’ and especially ‘The Foundling’.
I know of all her regency books, Heyer had a special fondness for ‘Friday’s Child’.
Of her murder mysteries, I have a sweet spot for ‘Behold, Here’s Poison’… mainly because of the romance subplot, hehe.
Happy hours of reading for you and your daughter!
:::dances in to “Cry Little Sister” a complete banger from the greatest vampire movie ever made, yeah I said it, fight me:::
God, I love spooky season, although this entire year has been one big haunted house, soooo….
I kicked off my spooky season when we left off with When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole, which I LOVED. It had such a great sense of creeping dread and the barbed humor was top-notch, and I greatly enjoyed the very sneaky ending. Then the new Dresden came out, Battle Ground, by Jim Butcher, which was MUCH better than Peace Talks. I maintain that both books would have been stronger as one book, but nonetheless. It was very action-oriented, and was a bit dense. There was some really good setup for future books (Drakul hey gurl hey) and at least one major character death that is going to have consequences for days. Which brings us to now, in which I am almost done with A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. I really enjoy the narrator (a grouchy would-be dark sorceress) and the world, but if you’re a reader that enjoys a lot of plot, you should probably go in aware that the book doesn’t really have a lot of plot until almost 3/4 of the way through when the characters establish a mission that must be accomplished in order to assure that at least some of them survive. Up until then, it’s really a series of vignettes about daily life in Scary Magic School. There’s still some action, because on an average day in this school, you’ll encounter at least 3 to 5 things that might be trying to kill you, but not much in the way of driving plot. After I get done typing this up, I’m going to go polish it off. I’ve got Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade, which looks adorable, up next. Until next time, wrap yourselves in the souls of the unquiet dead…they’re cozy.
I missed the last WAYR and, yet, I still cannot believe WAYR is already here again.
Excellent:
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas: The second in the YA fantasy Throne of Glass series, this was even better than the first. While I felt like the first book did read fairly YA with a competition to the death and a love triangle, this second book read straight up fantasy to me with lots of detailed world-building and interesting characters.
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas: The third in the above-named series, this one started a little slow for me with the introduction of a lot of new characters, but by about the 40% mark I was fully invested in those characters as much as the originals.
Very Good:
None
Good:
The Boy’s Tale by Margaret Frazer: The fifth in the Dame Frevisse mystery series set in 1400’s England – I appreciated this entry because the last two had taken place outside of the convent, but this one returned there. Therefore, it was like a country manor mystery with a limited list of suspects and the continuation of internal politics and plot lines.
A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole: The second in the Civil War-set romance series, The Loyal League – this one pairs a healer heroine of color who spies for the North and helps assist those on the Underground Railroad with a Northern counter-intelligence soldier. It took me until about halfway through to really get into the book.
The Spinster and the Rake by Anne Stuart: This was written in 1982 and republished recently (with updates). This may have been suggested in a somewhat recent Rec League on a bet/wager on seduction. It has a few unusual features for a historical, a heroine who is 30, hero who is 40+ AND has salt and pepper hair. Other Anne Stuart books that I have read have had heros who border on, if are not outright, villains, but while this hero is a rake I wouldn’t categorize him as a villain which is kind of why I had picked up an Anne Stuart book for that delicious angst and darkness – where you are desperately rooting for the hero, but at the same time not exactly sure that you like him or trust him. This also read like an early work – some of the secondary characters were very shallow and some plot lines not fully developed.
Meh:
None
The Bad:
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier: I know that this is a classic, but I hated it. Our mystery book club read this and it did generate a lively discussion. I would either like to read a telling from Rebecca’s viewpoint where she is shown as misunderstood and persecuted by her husband rather than the sociopath that she is portrayed as here OR a gender-flipped story – I think this would read a lot differently if it was a woman who killed her emotionally abusive and controlling husband than a man killing his wife.
@ Pear: I read Sarah Smarsh’s book right after reading J.D. Vance’s “The Hillbilly Elegy” and much preferred Smarsh. Vance’s book was an interesting memoir, but I think Smarsh was much better at delineating the larger reasons for the dysfunctional outcomes within their families that each author describes. Per Vance, it all comes down to personal responsibility. Per Smarsh, it’s a complicated web of personal responsibility plus larger political, economic, and social issues. Have to say, I think she’s right.
As for my reading, tried to read “Dark Aemilia” by Sally O’Reilly, a story of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. However, I found it melodramatic and overwrought so didn’t finish. The witches and wizardry and accounts of the plague did not fit my mood while in the midst of our own plague, so YMMV.
What did fit my mood was my discovery of Stella Riley. I’ve now almost finished her Rockliffe series, and they are great fun. She is VG at showing, not telling. Too many authors tell you someone is clever and witty, but you believe her descriptions because she has her heroes and heroines do clever things and engage in actual witty conversations. She’s also good at fitting the characters from the various books into the other books in a believable way. You get to follow the developments in their lives without feeling they are distracting from the main H/h. Plus these are set in the late 18th C, so the men be quite manly but get to wear clothes that are just as pretty as the women’s, and a man leaving his hair unpowdered can itself send a message.
Good Heyers. My personal favourites:
Cotillion (adorable hero, brilliant trope-breaking, possibly best Heyer ever)
False Colours (romp with twins. For some reason I rather like the B-plot with the feckless mama and her stout-but-likeable beau).
Frederica (I love how the hero finds himself taking on her family)
and the first one I loved: Venetia (bookworm rescues rake)
If we’re picking Heyers, I’m going to nominate Devil’s Cub, The Unknown Ajax and The Toll-Gate.
I’m also impelled to mention a modern M/M Regency romp by K J Charles: Band Sinister. There’s a reason the one-line description is “Heyer but gayer”: I read it without many preconceptions (it was my first KJC out of…all of them), with increasing delight as I saw the Heyer tropes neatly queered, starting with a likeable ingenue who isn’t the protagonist (that’s her brother) and going on to a completely lovely story.
(Only possibly not aim M/Ms at very young daughters. Our crowd of dissipated rouées (in terms of fiction) is fine).
The month-long challenge I was participating in on a different site ended with reading a book that you’d had for more than a year. I read several.
–The first four Claiming series books that feature Liam and Ondry are amongst my favorites, so I was interested in reading more by author Lyn Gala. I began Tap-Dancing the Minefields (on TBR since 2019) soon after getting it but did not read on; I’m glad to have completed it but have mixed feelings. I was thinking ‘just one more chapter’ until well after midnight, so the story grabbed me; on the other hand, some aspects seemed foolish and characters magically knew information without having been informed. One surprise was that the alien ship in this story bears marked similarities to the ship in the author’s fifth Claimings book. I don’t know if there is supposed to be a connection or whether the author simply reused some fine world building.
–I’d enjoyed several of the Christmas Angel series so decided to read Shrewd Angel by Anyta Sunday (on TBR since 2019). It’s a modern day retelling of the Taming of the Shrew thus the clever title. Sadly, I gave up after reading more than a quarter of the book as it was too silly for my current mood.
–I enjoyed the story Haunted by Irene Preston and Liz Rancourt (on TBR since 2018) which featured a detective turned insurance investigator plus a historian starring in a show about hoaxes. It’s FREE for Kindle readers. I would happily read more by these authors; this story is a standalone in the Hours of the Night series.
–False Engagement (Marrying Men Book 1) by Hollis Shiloh (on TBR since 2018) was a short work in an alternate regency setting where marriages between men and with multiple spouses was the norm. It featured two men who had been childhood friends then lovers and who had parted after a fight. It was an okay read. Currently FREE for Kindle readers.
–I quite liked N.R. Walker’s Imago (on TBR since 2017) which was set in Tasmania and featured a bowtie wearing nerdy butterfly specialist on the hunt for a new specimen and a park ranger.
–Soothsayer by Cari Z. (on TBR since 2017) was my favorite of the week’s books. The main characters were Cillian, for whom the book is named, Sören, and an Icelandic land spirit who is possessing Sören’s body. It’s a complicated story but an interesting one. It makes me want to reread J. Fally’s Bonerider which has some similarities.
–I also enjoyed Blue Notes by Shira Anthony (on my TBR since 2014!) which featured a lot of music and good food. Jason, NYC lawyer, flies to Paris when he discovers his fiancee has been unfaithful. He soon encounters Jules, a talented and struggling violinist, and feelings develop.
— also read a new book which I won in a Goodreads giveaway, Once Dishonored: An Empowering & Thrilling Historical Regency Romance Book (Rogues Redeemed 5) by Mary Jo Putney. I enjoyed the book, but I will say that it strained credulity a time or two.
**
— At the Slightest Sound: a military paranormal romance (Shadowforce: Psi Book 1) by M. L. Buchman. It was a pleasant read but not my favorite from the author. I would, however, read on in the series.
— enjoyed The Orphans of Raspay: A Penric and Desdemona novella in the World of the Five Gods (Penric & Desdemona Book 7) by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is a series that is best read in order.
— the contemporary romance Spoiler Alert: A Novel by Olivia Dade which I very much enjoyed, even when it made me cry.
— The Book of Two Ways: A Novel by Jodi Picoult. I’ve read quite a few books by this author, and she almost always manages to surprise me in some way. This book was no exception. It was incredibly well researched; I learned about Egyptian death practices and hieroglyphics, quantum physics, and death doulas. I enjoyed it, but I could imagine some might dislike the end.
@Katie C I genuinely believed Rebecca was the monster she was made out to be.
@Arijo, I am French and my version of « Simon says » was « Jacques a dit » not « Jean dit » or « Jacques dit » in the present tense. We would say it very fast so it sounded like one word, ie jacadi which incidentally is a well known French children clothes brand. Personally, I have never heard of « Jean dit » :).
As for what I have been reading, well, quite a few things mentioned already so I won’t go into those.
I will say though that I am currently in the middle of Anna Butler’s Taking shield m/m series which I am enjoying very much even though I think there is at times not enough action for a proper military sf series or alternatively not enough romance for a romance sf series.