Whatcha Reading? November 2020 Edition, Part One

The woman in yellow coat jeans and boots sitting under the maple tree with a red book and cup of coffee or tea in fall city park on a warm day. Autumn golden leaves. Reading concept. Close up.We’ve made it past November 3rd. Let’s all rejoice, take a deep breath, and talk about books!

Claudia: Courtney Milan’s The Duke Who Didn’t, which I had completely neglected because it dropped from my library holds right on Nov. 3! It’s great to have some uninterrupted reading time again.

Sarah: I’m about to start A Lady Compromised, ( A | BN | K | AB ) part of the Rosalind Thorne mystery series by Darcie Wilde. I also (sorry!) have an advanced copy (I feel so shitty when I talk about ARCs, I’m sorry) for a April 2021 book called Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto that I’m told is screaming hilarious. I’m ready to shriek laugh.

Dial A for Aunties
A | BN | K | AB
Carrie: In War and Peace, Moscow is on fire and Rostov is torn between two lovers and feeling like a fool.

I just started The Price of Salt, a classic by Patricia Highsmith and it might be my new favorite Christmas story,

Tara: Sarah recommended Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam to me and my library hold finally came through. I’m very bad about spending too much time on social media and it’s really helping me challenge those behaviours and I really like what she has to say about creating moments.

Sarah: I love that book. It changed the way I think about my own time and the way I feel when I have nothing but white space for myself on my calendar.

The Wicked Hour
A | BN | K | AB
I’m so happy it’s working for you!

Elyse: I just started The Wicked Hour by Alice Blanchard. It’s the second in a procedural series set in a town similar to Salem, MA (a history of witch trials turned into a tourist industry). I liked the first book quite a lot because there’s a supernatural element woven in

You really have to read the first book, Trace of Evil, before this one.

Shana: I’ve been having trouble reading lately, but I’m nearing the end of Who We Could Be by Chelsea Cameron. Tara recommended it, and it’s been the perfect low-conflict comfort read. I don’t usually love friends to lovers, or coming out stories, but somehow I’m enjoying this one.

Who We Could Be
A | BN | K | AB
Catherine: I’m back on a Laura Florand binge, with Chase Me and Trust Me. ( A | BN | K | AB ) Everything else I’ve tried recently I’ve bounced out of within three chapters, and I had trouble even getting into these, so I don’t think the books are the issue here…

EllenM: I am trying to read a novella a day in November as I have sooooo many unread novellas on my kindle. Shameless plug but if anyone wants to follow along with my twitter micro-reviews: I’m @bookpriestess. the ones I’ve enjoyed most so far are The Dress of The Season by Kate Noble (super cute histrom novella dealing a lot with processing shared grief) and Silver Shark by Ilona Andrews (from the Kinsmen universe).  ( A | BN | K | AB )

Maya: I just finished How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon. ( A | BN | K | AB ) Over the last year, I’ve mostly only done nonfiction readings on race in response to racist incidents at my (now former) workplace so that I could be ready to support folks that were harmed AND those that were doing the harming. Obviously, that was a deeply exhausting existence. But, now that I’ve quit that job, I’m glad to finally have back the ability to read challenging, exhilarating, and heart breaking work for me alone.

Also, to balance out all that real worldness, I just read Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. I love me a good fairy tale and that is definitely one that is going to stick with me for awhile!

Sneezy: I’ve been on a murderous binge, rereading the Milla Vane titles over and over. If those books are prayer beads, I’d have cracked them at this point. In real life, I believe in restorative justice and healing. Currently in book life, I greatly appreciate the fantasy of a bossy, sarcastic horse who will fight zombies and crush skulls, a giant saber toothed snow cat whose idea of fun is clawing and biting a part the people who cross him while enjoying meat being butchered and cut up for it as his due, and overall vicious, poetic deaths.

The Dress of the Season
A | BN | K | AB
What can I say? Stress turns me into blood thirsty wench

In non-fiction, I’ve gone back to The Purpose of Power by Alicia Garza. ( A | BN | K | AB )

Susan: I’ve just finished The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite, and I enjoyed it so much! I can’t properly express how much I love it without writing an essay (Creators supporting each other! Bees! Printing presses! Roasting the “gals being pals” idea in a historically appropriate way!), but I am honestly grateful that I finally found the brain to read it.

And I’ve just started Katie O’Neill’s The Tea Dragon Tapestry, the last book in the Tea Dragon series, ( A | BN ) and it continues to be adorable and colourful. I definitely recommend looking at the art even if you don’t read the book, because it’s gorgeous.

What are you reading? Let us know!

Comments are Closed

  1. Ren Benton says:

    My patience lately is nonexistent (yesterday I DNF’d a short story I was otherwise enjoying over a single word that hulked out my pedantry), so I’ve finished reading two whole things in months, and one of them was a hate-finish!

    THE GOOD

    The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold was a whole class in setups and payoffs. There were parts that felt draggy, but I came to accept those parts were quietly planting bombs that would explode later because that was consistently the case. Not a fan of the nearly-double age difference in the romance, but at least Caz was at the opposite end of the spectrum from predatory behavior most of the time?

    THE BURN-IT-WITH-FIRE

    One evening when I needed to veg out, I watched a movie called The Lair of the White Worm, which announced in the opening credits it was based on a story of the same name by Bram Stoker. When the Scottish archaeologist who happened to be traveling with bagpipes, as you do, whipped a live mongoose and a vial of home-brewed antivenin out from under his kilt, I had to know how “based on” Stoker it could possibly be. Not much, as it turns out, and the campy 80s B-movie is a narrative masterpiece by comparison.

    If you ever need every anti-Black racist trope blatantly demonstrated in one source, this is the book. The cast is recycled from Dracula, with predictable outcomes (Ctrl+H, Lucy/Lilla, Replace All). Much of the “logic” of the “good guys” makes sense only if one presumes the “green miasma” is a gas leak impairing their cognitive function. It could have actually worked from a “demonizing a woman to justify murdering her and stealing her property” standpoint, but there is zero evidence in the text that Stoker was anything but fully invested in the “heroics” of his menfolk, who all live happily ever after following their lengthily premeditated crime. I now hate that man with the white-hot intensity most people reserve for Byron.

  2. Sydneysider says:

    I’ve been finding it a bit hard to concentrate on books, between work and everything going on in the world.

    THE GOOD
    Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien. This is the first in a series of mysteries. The heroine is back working in her family restaurant and investigates a murder that happened in the shopping complex housing the restaurant. The characters are good and the story is fun.

    The Chocolate Touch by Laura Florand. Chocolate, good food, Paris, what’s not to like?

    THE OK
    All I Am by Nicole Helm. The hero is very closed off and the heroine works for him after they reconnect at a local market. I felt somewhat uncomfortable with this because she’s working for him.

    Do You Want to Start A Scandal by Tessa Dare. I usually like her books, but I am struggling with this one. I may just be tiring of historicals.

  3. Kit says:

    I’ve not been reading a lot in the last couple of months and for a while I thought The pandemic anxiety had won. England is back in a month lockdown (less restrictions than last time though with schools still running and I can form a support bubble with one other household as a single parent.) So I’ve thrown myself into NaNoWriMo and I’m currently nearly 23k words in. I’ve been listening to a few Audiobooks of the chick lot variety (Not too much to concentrate on) but I’m finding them incredibly annoying. Not sure whether it’s the whiny protagonists or the presence of situation that are coming off as trivial in this time. One example is a character complaining that can’t go on a honeymoon because the travel company has gone under and she had such a stressful time organising a big wedding boo hoo! I can’t muster any sympathy for these people in the current situation. I’m going to listen to a historical romance next, I noticed that the Blacksmith Queen is available on loan, quite fancy listening to someone kicking the crap out of baddies for once.

    As for written stuff, I’ve just finished reading Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa. I enjoyed the character interaction but felt the backstory was a bit rushed, I’ll give it a B+ (and for once I want to read the sequel)

  4. Francesca says:

    I seem to be going through this weird phase where I enjoy the beginning of most new books I try, start feeling meh in the middle, and hate the ending.

    The Royal We and The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan both pulled me in. I liked the idea of an outsider trying to negotiate their way through associating with and eventually joining the royal family, but everything seemed to become too outlandish to me.

    I had the same problem with Beach Read by Emily Henry. I liked the set-up, but just became less and less interested in the main characters and their issues. Maybe it’s a case of real world problems taking up too much space in my head these days.

    On the bright side, I finally read Simple Jess by Pamela Morsi after wanting to read it for years. I found it really sweet.

  5. Arijo says:

    I’m in a great reading stretch right now, no lemons! ^^ I read some more of UNCANNY MAGAZINE, sept-oct issue. Every story had something interesting going on, but the best was ANCHORAGE by Samantha Mills. WOW. It’s the kind of story that make you go oh, oh, oh. I immediately went in search for more, but it seems like Mills hasn’t published much, unfortunately. On her blog though, there’s a list of her favorite reads of 2019, which includes “Boiled Bones and Black Eggs” by Nghi Vo, the same author Martha Wells mentionned in the SBTB podcast. Thinking there must be something to this Nghi Vo, I got THE EMPRESS OF SALT AND FORTUNE… It was beautiful, like those old chinese watercolor, where a few carefully placed lines makes a whole landscape. Here, a few objects to support a network of relationships and in the background, a foreign empress belittled until she got her back emerge. It’s a short (124 p) but very satisfying read. BTW, the “Boiled Bones and Black Eggs” short story is free online on the Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine site (issue 275, april 2019). The food descriptions in it… mouah.

    Next, I went in a completely different direction with BONE RIDER by J. Fally. Someone here mentionned reading something about a foreign-entity-co-occupying-a-body, but ended with “it wasn’t as good as Bone Rider”. Since I like the premise, I started with the good one 😉 And it was good, there’s lot to like in it: an alien parasite turning into an ally/friend; a super badass obsessive boyfriend; bestest of childhood buddies; toughtful antagonists (I ended up liking them as much as the heroes).

    Then came the Rec League Comfort Reads and I’ve been binging on good books since then. ATTACHMENT by Rainbow Rowell. Aaaah, Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln. There’s no way a man as cute, as honest, as squeezable as you can exist in real life. I actually liked the Peeping Tom aspect of the story, and the one-sided sense of closeness it created. I also loved the falling in love sight unseen, and it’s now officialy a trope that makes me all tingly because it was also my favorite part of Becky Albertalli’s Simon and the Homosapiens Agenda.

    Another thing to happen this month: I’ve fallen into the suckhole that is Sherlock/Watson fanfic. A good fanfic can be soooo satisfying. (I now have to re-watch Inception hehe, there’s this Sherlock/Inception crossover waiting for me.)

    Then there was SPOTLESS by Camilla Monk. There are some really good moments in this story between a brainy girl and the hitman (with OCD) who got a contract on her. I’m even on to the 2nd book because I want to see the romance arc settled. After that, I’m not sure I’ll keep up with the series though, I don’t feel much chemistry between the characters… on the other hand, I do like the writing and the heroine. Well, we’ll see.

    Up next besides Inception: Luckiest Lady in London, A Week to be Wicked and Just Like Heaven. Interspersed with some pulpy fanfic because there’s only so much historical I can take in a row.

  6. G. says:

    I’ve never done this, but I do like perusing these threads every month, so I thought I’d give this a try. I’ll go in chronological order.

    What I’ve read so far:

    1) SPACE INVADERS by Nona Fernández. This is translated work. Nona Fernández is a Chilean writer. It’s a pretty short novella about memory, trauma and childhood under Pinochet’s regime. Beautifully written, neatly constructed. RECOMMENDED.

    2) DEATHLESS by Catherynne M. Valente. In short, ugh. It’s a Koschei Bessmertnyi retelling (it mixes in more Slavic folklore, tho) set in early 20th century Russia. It’s the first Valente I didn’t care for, even if I enjoyed her writing style here. It felt like a disneyfied version of historical events that eventually meant decades of occupation and strife for my country, and I just can’t with Valente romanticising that period. To be fair, as I’m not Russian, I can’t speak from that position, but I’ve seen Russians both liking it and disliking it. I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT, however.

    3) MURDER ON COLD STREET by Sherry Thomas. I’m a fan of Thomas, and I generally quite love this series, but this latest book seemed weaker. I think it’s just not as tight structurally. I did like it, still, so I do RECOMMEND it, the series and Thomas’s work in general.

    4) RETURN OF THE THIEF by Megan Whalen Turner. The conclusion to her long running series. IT WAS PURE HAPPINESS. But I didn’t expect anything else. RECOMMENDED!!!

    5) A PRETTY DECEIT by Anna Lee Huber. This is book 4 in a historical mystery series (post WW1) with a lady sleuth and some romance. It was a good addition to a solid series. RECOMMENDED.

    6) SIGNS PRECEDING THE END OF THE WORLD by Yuri Herrera. Also translated work. Herrera is a Mexican writer. It’s a short novella about a woman, who has to find her brother in order to deliver a message. To do that she has to cross the Mexico-US border. It isn’t a straightforwardly realist work, fyi. It reads like a fable. His writing is so so good, though. Forget stuff like “American Dirt”. (I’m still salty that it got translated into my mother tongue.) Read this instead. RECOMMENDED!!!

    7) MY LAST DUCHESS by Eloisa James. Sigh. Here’s the thing, James is very hit and miss for me. This one in particular could have been more of a hit, had it been a tad less ageist. In the end, it was enjoyable in a palate cleanser sort of way. DO I RECOMMEND? … EH. Maybe get it at the library, if you can. Or wait for a sale.

    8) THE GROWNUP by Gillian Flynn. Before this I’ve only read “Gone Girl”, and I didn’t like it. However, “The Grownup” was tight, twisty and fun. I thought it was a wonderful short story. While I have no desire to pick up her other novels, I hope she comes out with more short stories like this one. RECOMMENDED.

    What I’m reading now:

    9) THE LORD I LEFT by Scarlett Peckham. I just started it, so I don’t have anything to say here so far, but I have been saving this one for a rainy day, so to speak. I expect to like it at the very least, as I’ve read Peckham before and enjoyed myself quite a bit.

    So, a pretty good reading month so far, all in all.

  7. FashionablyEvil says:

    Some definite hits and some definite misses in my reading of late.

    Currently reading SOMEONE TO ROMANCE by Mary Balogh. I’ve read a few others in the Westcott series which is helpful at this point for understanding the backstory, even if I can’t keep track of all the specific sisters, cousins, and aunts running around. I like the way Balogh’s characters grow over the course of the book—they often start out a bit prickly and/or have made some bad decisions, but meet someone who helps them see things more clearly and loves them. They’re definitely slower paced and not steamy, but sometimes that works just fine for me.

    In non-romance, Jasper Fforde’s THE CONSTANT RABBIT and Beth O’Leary’s THE SWITCH both held my attention and interest right before the election which is saying something. The Fforde is a political satire with human-sized anthropomorphized rabbits. I’m not super up on British politics but the Brexit/Nigel Farage/UKIP connections are hard to miss—there’s a character named Nigel Smethwick who leads UKARP. This book manages to both offer thoughts on the ethical dimensions of veganism, ideas of social reciprocity, and also modesty clothing for human-sized male rabbits who don’t wear trousers. The latter had me laughing out loud and also questioning the merits of googling “how big is a rabbit’s penis?” I remain curious about how stoned Fforde is on a regular basis but I do love his sense of humor.

    I really loved THE SWITCH; I think the main thing for fans of THE FLATSHARE to know is that this isn’t a romance. It’s about a family learning to cope with a death and the relationships and communities we build that sustain us when times are tough. Anyway, it’s really lovely and loving, just not really a romance.

    I also liked Maya Rodale’s AN HEIRESS TO REMEMBER. The romance was fine, but Rodale clearly had a lot of fun researching the setting (NYC and the creation of department stores and what they meant for women’s independence and entrepreneurship) that really shines through.

    I started NK Jemisin’s THE CITY WE BECAME and the writing is AMAZING, but I was too distracted pre-election and worried about the direction the narrative might go to finish it. Will try picking it up again later.

    Did not care for THE DUKE, A LADY, AND A BABY. I found the toggling between the first and third person narratives to be jarring and unnecessary. There’s a villain who doesn’t really add much suspense other than increase the heroine’s anxiety in unhelpful ways and there’s no real conflict between the hero and heroine. (Also his name is Busick? Just no.) A key plot point is that Patience is a nursing mother. It’s been a minute, but I don’t think Riley really understand how breastfeeding works and I feel positive that Patience should have gotten mastitis at least twice.

    DNF’d SCANDALOUS by Minerva Spencer. I was kind of on the fence about the premise (former slave hero and white African missionary heroine), and the woman on the cover looks like Ivanka, but when I flipped to the end to decide if it was worth continuing there was this:

    “He’d thought he was a free man but, somewhere along the way, he’d become enslaved without even realizing it. This time it was chains of love, and he never wanted to break free.”

    I just…no.

  8. Jill Q. says:

    I’ve had a hard time reading b/c. . . reasons. But I did finish –

    SPOILER ALERT by Olivia Dade. Contemporary romance with an unhappy actor (*cough* Nickolaj Coster-Waldau*cough*) on a show and a dedicated fan meet cute on Twitter, but they’re already secretly best buddies in an online fandom forum. I got this b/c I love secret identities, falling in love sight unseen type stories. I also might have a bit of a crush on NCW. Just saying. This was really cute, but I felt like it was a little bit “inside baseball” with it being based on the Braime fandom within Game on Thrones. A fandom I love, but still! The only really suspension of disbelief problem I had was that actors feel *that* territorial of their fictional characters to the point of writing fanfic. I think most good actors feel a connection to their characters, but they also recognize it’s a job and they’re collaborating with writers, directors, producers, etc to tell a story. They’re only one piece of the puzzle and they have to let it go, even if sometimes they’re right and the producers are wrong (oh boy, are they sometimes). Actors that get super invested probably burn out quickly. I also think I’m just getting sick of contemporaries about actors/celebrities and things going viral. Some of them really are well-written, but I just want something with ordinary people falling in love.

    ONE BY ONE by Ruth Ware. This was a “Then There Was None” type plot in a chalet in the Alps with an avalanche. It was “meh” for me. I really liked the setting, but I found a lot of the characters interchangeable (except for maybe the viewpoint characters). I’m also just more of a mystery reader than a thriller reader and while the suspense getting away from the killer part was well done, I just never care as much about that part. I’m not going to go back and reread it, but there’s parts where I suspect the author did not play fair with the reader. Another grumpy old reader thing, I’ sick of stories that revolve around apps. (What kicked off the plot was bickering over selling shares in a new hot app).

    I read books to take a break from the internet. If I wanted internet buzz/hype and celebrity gossip (and I occasionally do!), I could get that for free.

    So since I’m grumpy old reader, maybe I need to read more historical fiction? I’ve been having some success with nonficiton and biography too, but nothing is finished yet and I don’t want to jinx it.

  9. Pear says:

    So glad it’s Saturday! It’s my busy season at work and I just have to make it to Thursday and then I look forward to having more leisure time again.

    ROMANCE:

    SNAPPED by Alexa Martin is the most recent of her Playbook series, which I’ve previously mentioned I enjoy for the football vibes. I remember swiping some of my mother’s Susan Elizabeth Phillips Chicago Stars books as a teen, but I’m not sure I could read some of those again, as issues like CTE and racism in player compensation and treatment are now more widely understood despite having been present for some time. Anyway, Martin finally got into addressing football players kneeling as protest in this one, and I think she discussed it pretty well. I also appreciate that she wrote some of her own background into her biracial heroine Elliott, who was mostly raised by her white father after her Black mother passed away and thus absorbed some of her father’s racial “colorblindness” views. Elliott’s journey of educating herself and learning to stand up for her beliefs was really nice to see on page. The romance in this was a little weaker for me, and I think I sometimes struggle with what Amanda has mentioned in reviews when you only get the heroine POV. Overall, though, this was fun, and it was nice to see other characters from the series again. (I need more info on what Vonnie is doing now though!!!)

    SPOILER ALERT by Olivia Dade was very fun! I have a classics degree and was a little nervous there would be the wrong amount of Aeneid references (where my classics brain would engage and nitpick), but fortunately for me it wasn’t TOO into the weeds, and there were more jokes overall around fandom and the Game of Thrones HBO show. I enjoy the Scarlet Pimpernel plot for Marcus & his public persona, and his decisions to let April and eventually more people see who he really is were moving (see also: Jane from Courtney Milan’s THE HEIRESS EFFECT is one of my favorite heroines). I appreciate that the climactic parts take place at a Con, because of course they should. April, also a delight, and I’m heartened to see a heroine who on the page moves out of a job that she doesn’t like (for work and cultural fit reasons) and finds something where she thrives. Anyway, would recommend if the premise intrigues you, and I will read the one with Marcus’s costar as the hero next year.

    UNRAVELED by Courtney Milan was a pretty strong end to the Turner series. I liked Miranda and Smite together and how they slowly revealed themselves to one another. Also, the dog is delightful, I love a good fictional dog–did he make the recent Animals Rec League? The final portion of the book did more work for Smite (in his role in resolving the plot and his improving his relationship with his brother Ash) than it did for Miranda. The sentencing discretion stuff is super interesting, would recommend reading the RedHeadedGirl review for more on that.

    BURN BRIGHT by Patricia Briggs is the latest currently available Alpha and Omega book. It was nice to spend a little more time in the Montana werewolf community, though of course I love all the ones where Anna and Charles travel (especially since travel is not happening in my personal life right now). I will say there’s a bit of info-dumping near the beginning regarding something happening in the Mercy Thompson books, which I do not read and thus found confusing. I liked the part where Anna and Charles had to use their own particular abilities in tandem and hope to see more exploration of that in future books. Not sure how I feel about the ~who is the traitor~ subplot and how that was resolved, I need to decide if it made sense or felt like some internal misogyny on Briggs’s part. Looking forward to the next one coming out in the spring, especially since it looks like it’ll be set in Northern California, a place I have enjoyed visiting.

    Non-romance:
    GOOD AND MAD: THE REVOLUTIONARY POWER OF WOMEN’S ANGER by Rebecca Traister was, in retrospect, a weird choice for me to engage with around the election. But I’ve been running more as part of a 5k training plan leading up to Thanksgiving and thought an audio book (not a format I usually consume!) would be good for the slow runs. Silly of me, as parts of this made me angry and I ran faster than I meant to! Overall, I liked it, good assessment of how American women have used their (justified) anger to try and make systemic changes. The chapters discussing #MeToo were the best ones, I think, and I’d recommend those even if you don’t read the rest.

    BEFORE YOU SUFFOCATE YOUR OWN FOOL SELF: STORIES by Danielle Evans was an outstanding short story collection. Every one of them had an emotional impact and resonance, and I will pick up her new collection at some point.

    I don’t articulate well what I like about poetry, but two collections I recently read and vibed with are ANODYNE by Khadijah Queen and BARBIE CHANG by Victoria Chang.

    On deck:
    I’m slowly working through HOMEGOING by Yaa Gyasi, which is very good and unfortunately I keep thinking I’ll be more awake to read it right before bed than I have been. Hoping to read the new Cider Bar Sisters book by Jackie Lau — HIS GRUMPY CHILDHOOD FRIEND — soon, and I also will be reading her A MATCH MADE FOR THANKSGIVING soon because it’s almost American Thanksgiving (I, uh, did not realize how far off in date Canadian Thanksgiving is from American Thanksgiving).

  10. hng23 says:

    @Arijo: I can recommend THE ANGEL OF THE CROWS by Katherine Addison. It started out as Sherlock/Watson wingfic, then she changed the names (as one does) & published it. However, unlike some authors who have rejigged their fanfics & published, this author can actually write. (Katherine Addison is the nom de plume of Sarah Monette, an acclaimed fantasy writer.)

  11. Pear says:

    @G., I’ve enjoyed reading works in translation recently, so thank you for the SPACE INVADERS and SIGNS PRECEDING THE END OF THE WORLD recs!

    @FashionablyEvil, my jaw just DROPPED reading that quote from the Spencer book. I shouldn’t be shocked it got through the editing process after the year we’ve all seen, but I am definitely disappointed.

    @Jill Q., that’s a fair point about the actors in SPOILER ALERT taking their work really personally instead of just treating it as a job. I’m thinking about the blurring of boundaries between characters and actors on the part of fans and whether that encourages actors themselves to blur the boundaries, if that makes sense.

  12. Star says:

    I don’t usually post because I read so many books that it’s too much, but this time I’m making an exception because one of the books I read based on recommendations here, and I want to thank everyone who pitched it.

    A long time ago now, I read Mary Balogh’s SIMPLY and SLIGHTLY serieses. I’d liked the very first book but bounced off the rest (for reasons I no longer remember in detail) and had decided Balogh was not an author for me. But then Indiscreet, first book in her Horseman Trilogy, came up on a Daily Deals post, and a lot of people were saying that this is a book that genuinely presents the reality of the heroine’s experience as a woman unwillingly compromised by the hero and that has the hero eventually realise the full force of what he’s done to her. I realised I really wanted to read a book like that, so I decided to give Balogh another chance and picked it up.

    I often do not have the same experience with a book everyone else seems to. This time, I did. Indiscreet came out in 1997, but it’s the most #metoo positive book I’ve ever read. Rawleigh, the hero, decides that Catherine wants to have an affair with him on the basis of basically nothing (she smiles at him twice having mistaken him for his identical twin, her landlord with whom she is friendly) and then refuses to listen to her when she repeatedly tells him that she doesn’t want to. Eventually he gets angry and she gets compromised. It is always, at every moment, very clear that Catherine, while she is attracted to him, really does not want to have an affair with him, that she’s not teasing or playing games or wanting him to overcome her resistance. It’s also always clear that nothing that happens to her is her fault; she doesn’t always make the best decisions, but she’s trying the best she can and that should have been more than enough.

    I’ve never read a romance before where the story agreed that the heroine’s “no” to the hero was a real “no,” that her underlying attraction to him did NOT justify his actions, and that his continued pursuit of her was wrong. I’ve also never read a romance before where the hero eventually comes to understand exactly what he had done to her and feel genuinely horrified and ashamed of himself. He does take a while to get there, and so I spent much of the book wanting to stab him, but the payoff when he does get there is worth it, and it needed to take him that long. I had some quibbles about the way a few things were handled near the end, but overall I was seriously impressed, both that the book dared to support the heroine’s “no” and that Balogh did, in the end, make Rawleigh a hero.

    THIS is what I want from my romance novels, and THIS is what I wish the post-#metoo romance landscape looked like.

    Huge thank you to those of you who chimed in about how good this book was. I had to buy a paperback copy as soon as I was done, which I’ve only done for one other book originally acquired as an ebook (Courtney Milan’s The Countess Conspiracy), and I picked up a lot of other Balogh titles too. Thank you so much!

  13. I’m hoping to read some holiday romances, including HIS PRINCESS BY CHRISTMAS by Therese Beharrie and THE TWELVE DOGS OF CHRISTMAS by Lizzie Shane.

    I’ve also been watching a ton of holiday romance movies. So far this year, I’ve enjoyed OPERATION CHRISTMAS DROP (Netflix) and CHRISTMAS WITH THE DARLINGS (Hallmark). I’m also looking forward to CHRISTMAS IN VIENNA tonight (Hallmark). The scenery looks gorgeous in that one.

  14. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    I don’t know about anyone else, but—cautiously optimistic as I am now—I won’t feel entirely relieved until January 21, 2021.

    [CW/TW: death of a child] During my recent involuntary hiatus from the internet and electronic devices (courtesy of Hurricane Zeta), I read some books at random from my enormous horde of second-hand Harlequin Presents paperbacks. The best of which was Maisey Yates’s 2016 release, CARIDES’S FORGOTTEN WIFE: beautifully written, incredibly angsty, and, in some places, utterly gutting. It also makes use of the amnesia trope and features two plot elements that are generally hard no’s for me: spousal infidelity and the death of a child. But as the late, great film critic Roger Ebert observed, any subject matter can be addressed in fiction, but the tone has to be right—and in CARIDES’S FORGOTTEN WIFE, Yates gets the tone exactly right. After a terrible automobile accident wipes out his memory, a man goes home to be cared for by his wife (the only thing he recognizes about her is her blue eyes). He is immediately puzzled by their living arrangements: why do they not only sleep in separate bedrooms, but in separate wings of their spacious house? Why did he marry such a young wife, at least a decade his junior? Why is she so diffident and uncertain, almost as if she doesn’t actually know him at all? The story of how this mismatched couple came to be married is gradually teased out over the course of the book where, as the hero’s memory returns in bits and pieces, a picture emerges of a man who uses alcohol and anonymous hook-ups to deaden the pain of loss. Yates is unafraid to make her hero initially close to irredeemable: a borderline alcoholic, a serial adulterer, selfish, and uncaring; but she’s also equally good at showing how the heroine’s uncritical, undemanding hero-worship of her husband has essentially enabled his behavior. I understand this will not be a book for everyone: in addition to the death of a child in the past, the hero starts out as pretty awful and the heroine little more than a doormat. But as the book continues, revelations and realizations paint a more nuanced portrait of two people shaped by circumstances to often be at cross-purposes—and I loved seeing how the hero starts to grasp how cruelly self-centered he’s been and how the heroine begins to stand up for herself and the life she wants. Key quotes: “A person isn’t cake. They can’t just exist to be a treat for you.” And, “I know you’ve suffered loss. I know you’ve suffered pain. But it doesn’t give you the right to put other people through hell while you protect yourself.” A book I selected at random during a power outage became one of my favorite reads of 2020. Highly recommended.

    If you’re willing to suspend disbelief & cynicism (which I always am for a good writer working a good story), you will enjoy Annika Martin’s RETURN BILLIONAIRE TO SENDER, the fifth and final book in her Billionaires of Manhattan series, all of which are rom-coms with serious centers. In this installment, the heroine is a shy mail carrier who, through a couple of coincidental encounters that Martin’s light touch makes plausible, is mistaken for a grumpy billionaire’s court-mandated “emotional intelligence coach.” The heroine’s only goal is to save her slated-for-demolition apartment building (which is owned by the billionaire and is full of found family—including the heroines of the previous Billionaires books) by making the hero acknowledge the humanity of the building’s tenants, but she finds herself falling further into her fake role even as she and the billionaire grow closer and really begin to “see” each other. As with all the books in the series, there’s a very painful breakup scene (one of Martin’s gifts as a writer is she makes us feel that pain from the perspectives of both MCs) before the joyful HEA. I do caution that if you have a low tolerance for an ongoing deception, this may not be the book for you, but I felt that Martin, as usual, makes both the conflicted heroine and the emotionally-baffled hero understandable; and, although the romance in SENDER is self-contained, the full arc of the story works best if you’ve read the previous books in the series. Recommended—with the proviso about the deception.

    Perhaps because I read Serena Bell’s SO CLOSE within a week of reading RETURN BILLIONAIRE TO SENDER, I saw some strong parallels in the stories: they both feature heroines determined to save a beloved piece of property from a wealthy developer’s plans; both billionaire heroes have dysfunctional family backgrounds; and, in both cases, the heroine requires the control-freak billionaire hero to “get to know” the property and its inhabitants before the sale/demolition. I’m giving the edge to Bell’s book because there’s no deception involved in the plot and also because the stakes are higher: unlike the hero in SENDER, the hero in SO CLOSE is in a difficult financial situation and needs the sale of the piece of property (a beach-front inn that he co-owns with his grandfather) in order to save his company and the jobs of his employees. Both books are well-written (Martin and Bell are excellent writers with firm control of their material), but the ways they implement their antagonists-to-lovers/grumpy-property-developer-hero-versus-idealistic-optimistic-heroine plots are completely different. An interesting comparison-contrast, with Bell winning by a hair.

    After I finished SO CLOSE, I read SO TRUE, the next book in Bell’s Tierney Bay series (the heroines of the two books are sisters—and, because they have three other siblings, I’m assuming Bell plans future books for each of them). SO TRUE is a more melancholy story than SO CLOSE, featuring a second-chance romance between a local woman and the man whose abrupt departure from town a decade before broke her heart. Now, after ten years of radio silence, he has returned to town looking for his younger brother—unaware than the woman he left behind has been working in his brother’s comic book & games store while his brother recovers from surgery. As is often the case in Bell’s books, both the hero and the heroine are working at jobs that, while they don’t actively hate them, don’t bring them joy—and, over the course of the book, as the h&h work together to renovate the brother’s shop, they begin to see where they might make changes in where their lives and careers are taking them. There’s also a slowly-revealed secret as to why the hero left town so suddenly ten years before—but, if you read between the lines, it’s pretty obviously fairly early in the book what happened. Sometimes second-chance romances don’t present much of the downside of what getting back together with an ex can mean—and I like that Bell shows that both the hero and especially the heroine are ambivalent about resuming their relationship. There’s a nice slow burn to their eventual reconciliation, along with both MCs having to grapple with the different types of limitations parental interference have placed on their lives. I’ve enjoyed every Serena Bell book I’ve read and SO TRUE is no exception. Recommended.

    Two of my favorite writers, Julie Kriss & Molly O’Keefe, have published related-but-stand-alone Christmas romances: MY FAKE CHRISTMAS FIANCÉ (Kriss) and HOW MY BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND STOLE CHRISTMAS (O’Keefe)—the hero of Kriss’s book and the heroine of O’Keefe’s are siblings. (There is a third book in the series, but it’s written by S. Doyle, a writer who just doesn’t click with me, so I skipped it.) In FAKE FIANCÉ, two people who run rival Christmas-decorations businesses discover that their fathers have sewn them up in a legally-binding commitment to marry and merge the two companies. After spending a year trying to extricate themselves from their engagement, the two finally agree to a marry on Christmas Eve—helped by their respect for each other’s work ethics and, not incidentally, their attraction to each other. They anticipate getting a quickie divorce, but you can guess how that plays out. All of Kriss’s hallmarks are here: a serious, almost nerdy, heroine; a hot but competent & sensitive hero; lots of heart and heat, along with some low-key humor. O’Keefe’s HOW MY BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND STOLE CHRISTMAS is just as good as MY FAKE CHRISTMAS FIANCÉ, but angstier and more melancholy in tone. The heroine has loved her brother’s best friend for years (unlike a lot of “little sister” romances, where it seems the pining MCs never actually interact, we actually do see this couple’s connection as long-time friends). The hero, a military veteran, reciprocates the heroine’s feelings, but is afraid his physical injuries and PTSD (for which he takes medication and practices a variety of coping strategies) will make it impossible for their relationship to work. When, unbeknownst to the heroine, the hero is hired to work in the shipping department where she is supervisor, their feelings can no longer be suppressed—although they try. Throw in two different but equally dysfunctional parental marriages, along with O’Keefe’s trademark hot-sexy-times-and-angsty-emotional style, and you’ve got a winner. I recommend both books.

    You might call Kate Canterbary’s m/m romance, ORIENTATION, “Walsh Family adjacent.” Although both MCs are teachers at the Boston-area school run by Lauren Walsh, ORIENTATION is a stand-alone story and you do not have to be familiar with Canterbary’s Walsh Family series (although I’d never discourage anyone from reading those excellent books). Max is Bayside School’s P.E. teacher & coach. He split from his cheating boyfriend a year ago and is still recovering from the after-effects of that bad relationship. On the first work day of the school year, Max meets the new Science teacher, the meticulously neat Jory (the physical appearances of the two men—big & blond Max versus slim & dark Jory—reminded me of the MCs of Canterbary’s MISSING IN ACTION, Wes & Tom, who incidentally make cameo appearances in ORIENTATION). Both Max & Jory feel an immediate attraction, but, while Max initially tries to hurry things along (I had to smile at how many different places he took Jory on their hectic first date), Jory is far more circumspect. He suffers from low-level anxiety and requires longer time periods to adjust to new experiences and circumstances. And so, over the course of a school year, Max and Jory gradually grow closer while dating, socializing with friends (a fun and loyal crew—I hope Canterbary has future books planned for them), and having occasional sexy-times (both MCs live in circumstances that make sleepovers a bit challenging). Key quote: “Love opened its arms to anxiety and fear and all the other broken bits we carried with us and said, ‘You can put that down now.’” A very nice slow-burn romance. Recommended.

    Lauren Blakely’s MAYBE THIS TIME is a prequel to her upcoming m/m romance, ONE TIME ONLY, about the relationship between a rock star and his bodyguard. Blakely has said that the story in MAYBE THIS TIME—about how the bodyguard was hired by the rock star and the escalating, but unspoken, attraction between the two men—will not be part of ONE TIME ONLY, that this is just the set-up for the longer book. Although there is no actual sex between the two men in MAYBE THIS TIME, the sexual tension is palpable—and hot! The rock star knows he shouldn’t cross the employer-employee line, just as the bodyguard knows he shouldn’t cross the bodyguard-client line. I’ve said it before and I’ll undoubtedly say it again, but sometimes in a romance novel the fight against giving into desire can be just as hot as the desire itself. Now I can’t wait for November 18 when ONE TIME ONLY drops and I can get the full story of the relationship between these two guys.

    While I liked Caitlin Crews’s latest HP, HIS SCANDALOUS CHRISTMAS PRINCESS, I think the book was more interesting for the way Crews presented the world of the blind heroine than for the love story itself, which is pretty much the standard “playboy prince who is hiding the pain of a dysfunctional upbringing beneath his charming exterior meets his match in a woman who is also hiding a similar pain of her own” arranged-marriage/royal-romance HP plot. In the chapters from the heroine’s POV, there are obviously no visually-descriptive passages, but Crews focuses on what the heroine perceives through her senses of hearing, touch, taste, and smell—and, because the heroine’s sensory universe is rich in what she does experience, there is no lack in the descriptions. It was unusual to read a romance where you don’t get the heroine’s visual breakdown of the hero’s looks—the color of his eyes and hair, his facial features and expressions, how his body (with or without clothes) looks—but instead perceive the hero the way the heroine does: through his tones of voice, his scent, and how he feels when she touches him (there’s a quite sexy scene where all the heroine is doing is touching the hero’s face, and most of the book’s sex scenes are from the heroine’s perspective). As usual, Crews brings the angst, the pain, and the passion (this is an HP after all), but it’s the way Crews presents the tough-tender heroine’s world that really places HIS SCANDALOUS CHRISTMAS PRINCESS a cut above.

    Clare Connelly’s BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN is the sixth book in her Montebellos series about a group of siblings & cousins from a large Italian-Greek family. (I thought this was the final book, but apparently there’s an estranged relative who will get his own book in 2021.) BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN features the enforced-proximity-in-a-snowbound-house-in-the-mountains (in this case, the Italian Alps) trope as an Australian cookbook author runs off the road during a snowstorm and has to take shelter with the reclusive man who lives alone in the only inhabited house for miles. This man hold himself responsible for an accident that killed the woman he loved seven years before and is determined to stay isolated from his family and the world as a form of punishment/penance. I really liked the heroine—who has experienced her own share of loss and unhappiness, but still faces life with an upbeat spirit. I was less enthralled with the grumpy hero—his self-punishment also involves punishing others by being rude, insulting, and demeaning. I enjoyed the book to a degree, but would have liked it better had the hero brought a little more self-awareness to the proceedings.

  15. Carrie G says:

    KJ Charles had a hit and a miss for me. I loved THE BAND SINISTER on audio, but dropped THE SUGARED GAME about 20% of the way in. Kim is repeatedly hurtful to Will and I can’t stand it. Maybe when the last book comes out he will grovel enough to make up for it, but we’ll see.

    I tried five popular contemporaries on audio with mixed results. DIRTY EXES by Rachel Van Dyken was a no due to uber whiny heroine. DIRTY LETTERS by Vi Keenland and Penelope Ward got a low grade due to serious slut-shaming by man-whore hero. BOUNTIFUL by Sarena Bowen was pretty good, as was OFF BASE by Annabeth Albert. The best was THE BILLIONAIRE’s WAKE-UP-CALL GIRL by Annika Martin.

    A WEEK TO BE WICKED by Tessa Dare was delightful on audio. Just the escape I needed last week. I also reread A KISS FOR MIDWINTER by Courtney Milan and loved it even more the second time. Another winner, also on audio, was A RAVEN’S HEART by KC Bateman. It was an exciting road-trip romance with lots of simmering passion and great snark between the leads.

    Right now I’m reading ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE by Belinda Missen and listening to A DANGEROUS KIND OF LADY by Mia Vincy.

  16. G. says:

    @Pear, hope you enjoy them 🙂

  17. Heather C says:

    @Francesca,I really liked Simple Jess, For the longest time I kept it downloaded on my kindle app for emergency rereads. It was one of the few books that I had set, imagined story ideas of scenes from their future (but when I reread I usually skip any scenes with the secondary romantic couple, I hated those)

    This month I read Reese Morrison Love Languages duology: these are m/m, BDSM but with an added: the MCs are transgender, gender fluid and Deaf and so communicate in ASL. I thought it was so interesting and jumped over to youtube to learn about cueing for lip readers and sign names. And it had discussions of how to communicate safe words during scenes

    And I found out that a manga I was obsessed with years ago had an english release, so I’ve been rereading Candy Color Paradox.

  18. Empress of Blandings says:

    REVELATIONS OF HIS RUNAWAY BRIDE by Kali Anthony. Enjoyed this very much. A woman is blackmailed into marrying to keep her half-brother safe, while the groom is using the marriage to get revenge on her horrible family. The h is spiky and defensive, and the H assumes she’s trying to escape the marriage because she’s a bratty rich girl who’s simply changed her mind about the wedding. Of course the relationship moves past its cold and antagonistic start, as the H starts to care more and more for her, realising that the way she acts is because she’s hurting and defensive, and it’s lovely to see her gain confidence and strength (cw for some self-harm – nothing extreme but still).

    A whole bunch of Susan Mallerys, set in a town called Fool’s Gold. Low angst, nice and soothing, pleasantly unlikely (does any small town hold such a high concentration of retired sports stars and rich business owners?) I quite like that there aren’t too many out-and-out villains. Eg, one book (sorry, have motored through so many I don’t recall which) where when the h first meets the H, he’s not interested in her because he’s obsessed with an artist. The artist is a bit of a caricature, but is a self-centred force of nature rather than a true antagonist. But she’s also self-aware enough to know that she’s running after something fundamental that’s missing from her life, and is sad because she doesn’t know how to find it. Notable for very bad first sex experience for the heroine – nothing scary, just not orgasmic sparkles and rainbows because he’s drunk and hurting after being dumped by the artist lady. I read a collection of sheik books she wrote – kind of similar and the writing was a bit flat, but again, I liked her characters (one where the h, who wants to be a stay-at-home mother is talking to a career diplomat who’s childless by choice. Neither choice is denigrated, and both admit to doubts about trying to match up to ideas about womanhood).

    Although, a weird thing I’ve noticed about the sheik stories, and not just Mallery’s: so many have the big official wedding in a church. And I’m thinking that that’s probably not very typical for your average middle-eastern sheikdom.

    THE BAD GUY – Celia Aaron. This was recommended for me in a previous Whatcha Reading. A woman in a relationship is kidnapped by her boyfriend’s boss who’s become obsessed with her. It wasn’t as dark as the Skye Warren book I read recently, and some aspects didn’t quite gel for me (some chapters are from her boyfriend’s point of view, and guessed that Aaron was playing with the idea of ‘who’s the REAL monster here?’ but his characterisation came across as a bit cartoonish) but overall I enjoyed it very much.

    CONQUERING HIS VIRGIN QUEEN by Pippa Roscoe. A second chance romance that begins with the h meeting her estranged husband at a function. He explains that he needs her back in order to help secure his rule of his kingdom, but the h isn’t keen, partly because she was driven away in the first place by the H’s horrible family and his cold behaviour. This was a bit different because the reconciliation takes place over one night, and I thought it was very well done.

    @DiscoDollyDeb I liked that Maisey Yates very much. As you say, she made a terrible person redeemable, and the way that the h finally starts to take her life into her own hands is great.

  19. Empress of Blandings says:

    Oh, and sorry for the double post but just remembered I DNFed a book because the main character was called Analie and I just could not get past that.

  20. Big K says:

    Yippee! WAYR! I hope you are all keeping it together, and that having to reimagine Thanksgiving (if you live here in the USA, or in Canada) isn’t making you too upset. It has made some of my extended crew a little sad and tense, but we all hope to stay apart so we can come together again in the future. Good luck negotiating these times with your own loved ones!
    So I am especially thankful for books! As always!
    Listening to the THURSDAY MURDER CLUB. Have not listened to a book for years, and I am really enjoying it. It’s a perfect candidate for listening, because the narrator is British (I love a British accent) and the plot is engaging enough to keep my listening brain engaged, but not confused. Highly recommend!
    Enjoyed FIX IT UP and IN A FIX by Mary Calmes. M/M contemporary with one H being a “fixer.” Not particularly believable books, but enjoyable and moved right along. Lots of sexy-times, and a lot of sweetness. IN A FIX was a little insta-lust/love for my taste, but sometimes I am in the mood for that.
    SPIRAL OF NEED and WHEN HE’S DARK by Suzanne Wright – Meh. For some reason I like Wright’s demon books better than her shifter books. The demon world is a little more unique and I like the fated mates/anchors/pack thing better in that world than this one. I finished them both, thinking it might just be I chose the wrong one in the series, but I would read the other series if you are going to try one of hers (Dark In You Series – I liked BURN and BLAZE, and then they taper off, quality-wise).
    Halfway through THE BIG TOW by Ann McMan. F/F contemporary about schoolteacher and attorney who start working for a repo company. Beginning was great, finding it slow going now. They are a little too stupid about the real world for such smart people? Also, I’m ready for them to jump each other, and not believing it would take this long. Good writing, and vivid characters, though, so give it a shot. Looking forward to the rest of it.
    REAL MURDERS: AN AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERY by Charlaine Harris was really not to my taste. Harris is hit or miss for me – I liked the True Blood books until I just couldn’t take it anymore (how many times can a lady get beat up that badly?) and I thought the last one (which I skipped over a bunch to get to, so I would know what happened to Sookie) was really unsatisfying. I did like her Midnight books a lot – especially the first and third. This was just yucky. I love the way Harris makes her characters real by showing that they do stuff real people do – like sunbathing, or cleaning their kitchen – but I just didn’t like the person Aurora is, so it didn’t work for me. She seemed like a woman from a by-gone era that I don’t want to visit, and I wish didn’t ever exist, and was certainly not how I lived in 1990 (when the book was published). I won’t be reading the rest.
    Finally, THE RIPPER AFFAIR (Bannon & Clare, #3) was well written with a good plot, but ultimately unsatisfying. Paranormal/steampunk/Victorian England reimagining criminal investigation (not a romance) with excellent world building and characters, but the character keep you at arm’s length. It’s realistic, but after all of the murders are resolved, the emotional issues weren’t tied up neatly, just left to dangle. All three books did this, but I thought we’d have more resolution in this one, so I am unsatisfied. I also was a little annoyed by the way the author handled the name/legacy element. She stated in a note after the book that it is more important to remember the woman killed than the serial killer, and listed the victim’s names, which I appreciate. Yet, she did call the book “The RIPPER Affair,” so she was capitalizing on that connection to draw in readers. I’m OK with that, but it was not necessary (in real life we are pretty sure that the real serial killer was not a necromancer – this is not a historical reenactment) so why go there at all? Regardless, series was well done, if not fantastic, in my opinion.
    Stay safe and hope you have a wonderful weekend of reading! Thanks for all the great reading suggestions!

  21. KatiM says:

    Rather a mixed bag for me. I didn’t read anything but number crunching tweets from 11/3-11/7.

    I did finish Sleepless by Sarah Vaughn. I can’t remember where I found the recommendation for this graphic novel, but I absolutely adored it. Poppy is the illegitimate daughter of the former king and she has a sleepless knight who is sworn to her. After the king’s death, Poppy is targeted by assassins and she doesn’t know who has ordered her death. Cyrenic the knight who doesn’t sleep is busy trying to foil further attempts while also fighting off his attraction to Poppy. After I finished it, I immediately downloaded Volume 2 on Hoopla.

    Also finished The Hundredth Queen by Emily King. This book was a bit hit and miss. It suffered from the instalove trope a bit, but I did really like Kalinda and Deven.

    Air Awakens by Elise Kova took me forever to get through. It wasn’t boring and it was totally my jam, but I blame real world events. I do like Kova’s writing style and Vhalla was an engaging character. The entire series is available on Kindle Unlimited.

    Fatality in F by Alexia Gordon. 4th book in the Gethsemane Brown mystery series. I do like this series and this one was fun to read. But I honestly have no memory of this one.

    Currently reading Spellbound After Midnight by Jenna Collett. This one had a really fun premise and I’m about 70% of the way through it. It centers around a witch who cast the spell for Cinderella and then Cinderella gets murdered at the ball and the witch teams up with the royal detective to solve the case. It has a very modern feel while set within a fairy tale world and I was initially skeptical about that, but it’s a ton of fun.

  22. Heather M says:

    I read Greenwode by J. Tullos Hennig. Queer Robin Hood reimagining; it was…fine. As with many books I’m getting through this year, I just find it overwhelmingly…fine. Not good, not bad, I’ll probably not read the sequel. Ah well.

    Still working my way through The Tale of Genji. 500 pages to go! Oof. So, a lot of really bad things happen to women in this book. There is a *lot* of rape, though of course it’s not presented in those terms. Of course it was written 1000 years ago. I did not go into this expecting high feminist ideals or anything. But it’s certainly enraging in many ways. I’m still sticking with it though, and the thing is it’s not a bad book, just very, very difficult in many ways.

    Other than that: well, I can barely sit down to a book these days, but I sure can knock out 100,000 word fanfics like they’re nothing. So, lots of fanfic. I also started reading Heaven Official’s Blessing, which is another novel by the author of The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (The Untamed). It looks like it also just had an anime that started recently, so maybe one day soon I’ll be able to watch that.

    Not A Book, But Hey, Who Cares For Rules Here? : So, I recently found out that there’s going to be a Thai remake of Boys Over Flowers starring two of my favorite Thai actors, and that got me thinking I really should finally sit down and watch the Korean Boys Over Flowers, and it. Is. Amazing. I mean, not *good* by any real measure. But great. It is spectacularly cheesy, incredibly over the top, has the best/worst/possibly the most horrifying hair I’ve ever seen on TV (The curls! The platinum blonde mullet!) and is just so funny. I’m only about halfway through, so I can’t give a full unqualified recommendation, but it’s full of romance tropes (at heart it is Rich Boy/Poor Girl) and I’m really enjoying it.

  23. LML says:

    I kindly suggest you stop whatever you’re doing or planning on doing to read The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. It was everything good: smart, funny, poignant, brave, happy. I’ve probably read 300 books this year – many of which are wonderful (& aren’t you glad I don’t write about them all here?) but this is my Best of 2020. I read its review but … full price, not in budget…and then it appeared in Books on Sale (thanks, Amanda!).

  24. DonnaMarie says:

    Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors and PRACTICAL MAGIC one of my desert island books, so a prequel, even one that takes place three centuries before the original, was read some trepidation. MAGIC LESSONS is the story of Maria Owens, found abandoned shortly after her birth in a snowy field by wise woman and the crow who becomes her familiar. Maria is the source of the curse that causes so much heartache and trouble in PRACTICAL MAGIC, cast as she is about to drowned for a witch condemned by the man who fathered her child. I should have had faith. Romance, revenge, redemption and feminism. It read like poetry, not unusual for Hoffman, and provided a theme we should all strive for: Never watch another woman burn. There’s more, but the last lines of a book should be experienced by the reader, not a reviewer.

    Since the last WAYR there’s also been A DEADLY EDUCATION form Naomi Novik. The Temeraire books have earned her my loyalty, so I’m willing to let this series develop. It’s the story of an unpopular girl finding her way at magic school, a place where all wizards are dumped when they turn 14. Sure it sounds Hogwartsish, if Hogwarts pulled you in whether you want to be there or not and doesn’t let you go, while actively trying to kill you, until you graduate. I’m looking forward to seeing how El deals with her senior year now that she’s a “hero”.

    Then there was HIDEAWAY, a sneak release from Nora Roberts. I’m usually on top of her new releases, but didn’t notice this one until right before. I don’t review her books, because even the mediocre ones are more readable than a lot of other stuff out there. I will say that calling this one romantic suspense is a stretch as the h/h don’t start their relationship until about 2/3 through the book. Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s not particularly suspenseful when you know who the villain is and how they’re doing it. Also, just ignoring the horrible mother is not a satisfying resolution. The high road is fine in real life, but in my fantasy life bad people deserve a crunchy end. In the la Nora pantheon this would be a 3/5.

    This morning I finished WELL PLAYED, by Jen DeLuca. I didn’t like it as much as WELL MET. Honestly, except for the email/text exchanges, I skimmed a lot of the middle of the book. Once they were face to face and the relationship, was on a semi-honest footing, it was sweet. Thumbs up for putting away the phone and living in the real world. Plus dragoncat.

    Currently reading A DUKE A LADY AND A BABY and have the same issue as @Fashionably Evil. the jumping perspective is wearing.

    Next up is Rebecca Roanhorse’s latest, BLACK SUN. I have been enjoying her Sixth World series and am excited to see where this new sci-fi series takes us.

  25. FashionablyEvil says:

    @Pear—that quote is the actual end of the book! I share your bafflement that it got through editing. It strikes me as the sort of thing you think is clever (bringing the story full circle!) when you first write it but then realize that, no, it’s just dreadful and you should immediately delete it and feel ashamed for having written it in the first place.

  26. Jcp says:

    I have been reading the Blesings series by Shraron Sala. The novella that starts the series ;Count Your Blessings is free on Kindle.

    What a Gentleman Wants and A Rake’s Guide to Seduction both by Caroline Linden were also enijoyable.

  27. JenM says:

    I picked up HENCH by Natalie Zina Walschots, but unfortunately my reaction to the book was exactly the opposite of glowing. If it hadn’t been an ebook, it would have been slammed hard against the wall several times. That’s not to say that it isn’t a good book. Once I understood my reaction and made the decision that I was going to finish it, I was easily caught up in the story. I thought the characterizations and plot were an interesting twist on the whole superhero mythology, although TW for an unnecessarily gruesome scene at the end of the book.

    My problem with the book was that Anna, the “hench”, never once took responsibility for her own actions that placed her in harm’s way in the first place. She was working for a villain! Whether she admitted it or not, she was contributing. Sure, the superheroes were committing collateral damage, but she was working for the villains who made superheroes necessary. To me, it seemed just like what lots of people are currently doing IRL – “hey, this is good for my personal pocketbook, so I’ll ignore the long-term consequences”. Or “I’m just a low-level functionary. I’ll ignore the evil happening all around me because I’m just doing my job!!!”. This is how evil takes hold – as the famous quote says, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. Since this is top of mind for me right now, the book rubbed me raw.

    On a happier note, I read MR FIXER UPPER by Lucy Score, which had plenty of competence and workplace respect between the hero and heroine, and I just picked up my library hold for SPOILER ALERT by Olivia Dade

  28. Ren Benton says:

    @JenM: THANK YOU. I was leery of the whole premise of Hench for exactly that reason.

  29. Arijo says:

    @hng23: thanks for the recommendation! I actually like Sarah Monette! Katherine Addison already was on my to read list, but now she’ll jump towards the top, especially if there’s some Sherlock-like goodness in there.

  30. Vicki says:

    Just finished the Love All Year holiday romance collection edited by Hallie Alexander. I really enjoyed it, some more than others but all good. Diverse holidays and main characters. Some authors who were new to me but who I am looking up and adding to my TBR list.

    I also enjoyed Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan. Continued to enjoy Understatement of the Year by Sarina Bowen as a comfort re-read. And am working on The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker which is nicely written and so on target for me, now that I am completely out of my storage and am living with way too much stuff.

    I am working on The Liar by Nora Roberts and not enjoying it much. Ongoing discussion with myself about DNFing. The heroine is not pulling me in, family and friends are not all that nice, not getting much of a feeling for the hero. Plus, it’s set in the Cute South world and I really am not a fan of that place. I will read dark/gothic South. Greg Iles, for instance, and Caitlin Kiernan (highly recommend her if you have not read any of her stuff).

    I had hoped I would like Postcards from Asgard by Amalia Dillon and maybe I will in the future. But I am finding that, while I want stories that celebrate my Icelandic and Asatru heritage, I want them to not have too many errors.

    Happy reading to all of you and forward into the overgrown TBR wilds.

  31. SusanH says:

    @Vicki – The Liar isn’t one of my favorite Nora Roberts. I remember it feeling like a retread of other, better books by her.

    After months of re-reading, I managed to finish several books that were either new releases or just new to me. My favorite was THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE by VE Schwab. It is not a romance, but it is a beautifully written, poetic book about art, memory, and the impact of one life.

    I also greatly enjoyed MY CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE by Leonie Mack, which I think was recently recommended by DiscoDollyDeb. I particularly liked the atypical setting – part of the novel takes place in the hero’s native country of Colombia. Since I have very little knowledge of Colombia, I enjoyed reading about their holiday traditions. I also felt the author did an excellent job of showing the realities of living with PTSD and anxiety.

    Finally, I read Judith Ivory’s THE PROPOSITION, which was published in the late 90’s. It’s a very unusual reverse Pygmalion featuring a rat-catcher as the hero. I can’t think of another novel like it. I didn’t love the ending, but the rest of it was so funny and entertaining that I’m willing to ignore the last chapter and pretend their happily ever after took a slightly different form.

  32. TinaNoir says:

    IN A HOLIDAZE by Christina Lauren – time loop romance a la Ground Hog day. Was LOL in places, very romantic in others. Very light and fun. I especially loved the lived-in feeling the family/friend-group relationships had. Listened on audio and it was wonderfully narrated.

    THE WEDDING PARTY – by Jasmine Guillory – in keeping with my light and fun theme that seems to be all that I can handle these days. And I gravitate toward this author’s lively, multicultural, professional characters who navigate their various social and political spaces.

    BURNING FOR AUTUMN – by Freya Barker. I think this author is rather underrated. She always writes couples who are a little older, more lived in. I liked this contemporary romance that was coupled with light suspense. Also I love a prickly heroine and the one in this one was definitely that.

    TORN – by Lauren Dane. There are low conflict romances and there are no conflict romances. This had no conflict whatsoever. The H&H meet up in chapter one. They are hot for each other,. They go for it and are happily talking about how cool/awesome the other one is from almost the jump. Thassit. There was no plot or romantic tension at all. I usually am not a friend of he third act ‘black moment’ or last minute must bomb thrown in as one final conflict for the H&H that seem necessary for romances, but I was praying for it to happen here. Nothing. So this one was a rather meh.

    IF YOU HEAR HER – by Shiloh Walker. First in a suspense trilogy about. serial killer where the identity of the killer isn’t revealed until the final book. Each book features a different couple although all the characters appear in each book. I read the series back around the time the last book came out in 2012. And came across this as I was browsing in my kindle library so I was ripe for a re-read. This first book is a great intro to the story and features a blind heroine who is a chef. I also remember loving the fact that this author’s depiction of small town life wasn’t that it was some Mayberry utopia but probably veered a little closer to what I’ve experienced living in a small town.

    BEACH READ – by Emily Henry – This was actually a DNF for me. I didn’t care about the hero or heroine or their issues and the story never managed to engage me. So I gave up at about 35% in.

  33. Darlynne says:

    @JenM (#27): Although I really liked HENCH, I completely understand your reaction to the villains. Moral ambiguity–although in this case, outright villainy–is a trope I’m fascinated by, particularly if the author can make me care about such characters. I have to think what it says about me that my first reaction to your comment was, “Wait, THEY (the heroes) started it.” Kind of startling, really.

    THE DUKE WHO DIDN’T by Courtney Milan: Am I the only reader who, based on the cover, didn’t know this was a historical romance? That completely threw me and it took a long time to see what everyone raved about.

    THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE by V.E. Schwab: Such a twisty, tangled read, one of my favorites this year. A very satisfying plot and an unexpected ending were just what I needed.

    COLD IN THE EARTH by Aline Templeto: A good addition to Scottish police procedurals. DI Marjory Fleming has to deal with a cattle virus decimating her rural Galloway farming community. Add in the case of a missing woman, a body, long-ignored obsessions and enmities, and nothing is the same. I plan to read the next in the series.

    FORBIDDEN PROMISES by Synithia Williams: Talk about dysfunction. The wealthy Robidoux family is all that, complicated by youngest daughter India’s secret, years-long love for her sister’s ex-husband. I didn’t expect such complicated dynamics, but Williams makes it work in a very believable way. Thanksgiving in that house will be awkward for sure.

    RED SISTER by Mark Lawrence: My love for this book is vast and deep. It is also quite violent and heartbreaking, but similar to Naomi Novik’s A DEADLY EDUCATION, this group of warrior nuns/students triumph, mostly. The next book is GREY SISTER and I am eager to get my hands on it. Apparently the struggle to overcome everything resonates right now. Go figure.

    Currently reading TWO ROGUES MAKE A RIGHT by Cat Sebastian, the lovely, deep breath you all recommended and I needed this week. Thank you.

  34. Kareni says:

    @Arijo, I’m glad to learn that you enjoyed BONE RIDER by J. Fally. (And I had to think hard to remember the book to which I compared it!)

  35. Karen H near Tampa says:

    @HeatherM: You’re the first person I know other than me who has read “The Tale of Genji.” Of course, I read it 30 years ago when I was much younger and although always a feminist, not always a particularly aware one. I also read it as the first published novel, and one written by a woman, and for the historical aspects (I can be really good about ignoring the bad stuff sometimes). By the time I read Rosemary Rogers’ Ginny & Steve series in the 1990s, however, I was very aware of things and could not believe that anybody thought those books were a love story (I think I finally gave up in or just after the 3rd book in disgust at the behavior of both main characters).
    On another note, I did like “Hench” but I didn’t take it too seriously and I think that helped.

  36. Kareni says:

    Since last time ~

    — reread Confluence (A Linesman Novel Book 3) by SK Dunstall which I enjoyed once again.
    — read some 140 pages of Blood of a Gladiator (Leonidas the Gladiator Mysteries Book 1) by Ashley Gardner; I have decided to put it aside. While I’ve enjoyed many other books by the author, this one is not speaking to me. Too bad!
    — reread the m/m contemporary romance Illumination by Rowan Speedwell
    — The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite was an enjoyable historical romance; it’s the second in a series but stands alone well. I learned about beekeeping, English history of 1820, and the (negligible) rights of married women of the time.

    — read Boundary Haunted (Boundary Magic) by Melissa F. Olson. You’d need to read the series in order as this volume builds on its predecessors.
    — the novella Bloodsick: An Old World Tale by Melissa F. Olson. It’s in the same world as the book I mentioned above, but it stands alone. You can read it for FREE in The Witching Hour: 10 Enchanting Novels Featuring Witches, Wizards, Vampires, Shifters, Ghosts, Fae, and More!
    — the contemporary romance You Lucky Dog by Julia London; it was entertaining and made me laugh aloud a few times.
    — a reread of Anne Bishop’s Lake Silence (The World of the Others); I enjoyed it once again.

    — The Roommate by Rosie Danan. I was trying to decide whether or not to describe this as a romance since I’m not used to romances that include a Readers guide. In any event, the book is self described as a contemporary romance and I enjoyed it.
    — the contemporary romance Well Met by Jen DeLuca; it was an enjoyable read.
    — Written on His Skin by Simone Stark, a novella which I enjoyed. This was Winner: Best Novella of 2017, Romance Writers of America, Erotic Romance Chapter. It was recommended in a comment here.
    — quite enjoyed Refuge: An Intergalactic Space Opera Series (Tradepoint Saga Book 1) by JJ Blacklocke and look forward to reading the next book in the series which is due in January. The only downside was that there were a few too many tears (in the book, not from me!).
    — The previous book inspired me to read the free prequel which I obtained by signing up for the author’s newsletter. If interested, go to http://www.jjblacklocke.com ….Venna (Tradepoint Saga, Prequel) by JJ Blacklocke.
    — read with pleasure Michelle Diener’s new novella, The Rising Wave, which is available in the 1351 page multi author anthology Warlords, Witches and Wolves: A Fantasy Realms Anthology. Said anthology is currently selling for 99¢ for Kindle readers.
    — read and enjoyed Glass Tidings: A MM Holiday Romance by Amy Jo Cousins; this story had more depth than many other stories I’ve recently read. It is yet another 99¢ deal for Kindle readers.

    Happy reading all!

  37. MeMe says:

    These posts are great. Nice to see I’m not alone in finding it really hard to stick on anything right now. Formally inoffensive tropes and archetypes are getting books DNF’d with alacrity. In the summer I was still trying really hard to push through but now I gleefully toss them aside with great force.

    I CAN NOT with the rich heroine who’s so mad she’s not getting the nepotism she deserves that she must plucky her way into business on her own- DNF:
    -Brazen and the Beast by Sarah Maclean
    -Secret Crush Seduction by Jayci Lee
    -The Prince of Broadway

    Other books DNF’d without compunction:

    My Christmas Number One by Leonie Mack- The heroine is a pop/rock musician asked to do a duet with a latinx musician from Columbia. Her complete ignorance of the genre and resistance to working with this musician didn’t make me think “what a wacky opposites attract set-up” it screamed, “heroine is racist and bad at her job if she doesn’t follow her own industry and disdains one of the most popular genres in the world.”

    Forbidden Promises by Synithia Williams
    I may actually go back to this one at some point BUT the heroine must return to the fold of her dysfunctional rich family to help her brother’s political campaign. 1) the idea that ANYONE would care if one of the sisters of a candidate isn’t pouting in the background at fundraisers is a stretch but 2) we’re told that the brother MUST win because he really cares about helping people THE FAMILY WEALTH IS TOBACCO $.

    Actually finished:
    Agnes and the Hitman (Crusie audiobooks are available on scribd!)

    Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall- SO GOOD!! Feels like a good Hugh Grant movie but centering the gay friend. I made my non-romance friends buddy read the audiobook with me and we all enjoyed. I think it works as a gateway drug into the genre.

    My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas- SO GOOD I don’t know why I slept on this one. The Shelf Love Podcast on Transculturalism & Wuxia in My Beautiful Enemy is a great companion piece but kind of hilarious because I finished the book wishing the hero had been punished more and they finish the podcast talking about how the hero is punished too much.

    You Had Me At Hola- I get how much everyone seems to love this one BUT the heroine does something towards the end that blew up all of the good will built through the novel. Part of the fantasy of the book is the diverse woman-run non-toxic workplace (as someone who’s worked on film sets for the last decade, this unicorn needs to be protected at all costs because I’ve never seen it in the wild). Spoiler: the heroine decides to quit and put all of these lovely people out of work because she fucked a co-worker she knows nothing about and he doesn’t love her back. IDGAF about the HEA, I’m still pissed.

  38. regencyfan93 says:

    I’ve re-read the BEAR, OTTER, AND THE KID series by TJ Klune. The series covers a decade or more of relationships and family. The themes of found family and the brother relationship are so strong.

    Lately, there has been a lot of re-reading. So many new books come out, but with a re-read, I know what to expect and I don’t have to read something I won’t like.

  39. Vicki says:

    @DiscoDollyDeb

    I am sitting here with tears rolling down my cheeks, absolutely destroyed. In the best possible way. You made Carides’ Forgotten Wife sound like some of my catnip so I went off and one clicked and read it all in an afternoon. The house went to heck, the kiddo is apparently off in Sacramento somewhere, and I have just kept reading. There were a few places I found a little problematic. For instance, one of the things I talk to families about is the enormous personality changes you can see post-concussion. However, this whole thing was handled well. Thanks for the recommendation.

  40. regencyfan93 says:

    @Francesca, I haven’t read Simple Jess in a while, that will be another re-read. Thank you for the reminder.

    The author conveyed the feeling of village, where everyone knows each other and there are distinct personalities.

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