Let’s close out November with another edition of Whatcha Reading! The holiday season usually goes either way in terms of reading: either you’re too busy to get any reading done or you’re making a large dent in your TBR.
Carrie: Lots and lots of Victorian Ghost Stories. Meanwhile, in War and Peace, Napoleon is making a very large mistake and Pierre has discovered Inner Peace.
EllenM: Still chugging along with my month of novellas! 2 recent winners were A Little Light Mischief by Cat Sebastian, ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) which was just a delicious morsel of everything I love about her books, and The Liars Dice by Jeannie Lin (you can bet I will be finishing the series as soon as Novella November is over!!).
Elyse: I’m rereading the Muderbot series.
Tara: I still need to read Murderbot. I almost said “I’ll read it over the holidays!” and then realized that I’m saying that about too many books.
I’m rereading Who We Could Be by Chelsea M. Cameron ( A | BN | K | AB ) because I loved it so much the first time and my attention span is garbage at the moment.
Lara: About all I’m capable of at the moment is the following: roughly 4 pages of a cosy mystery before I crash into a deep sleep. At the moment, the cosy mystery in rotation is Pressed to Death by Kirstin Weiss. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Shana: I’m stalled near the end of Didn’t Stay in Vegas by Chelsea M. Cameron, because the heroine’s happiness is starting to annoy me. So I started The Arrangement by Mary Balogh ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) where the grumpy hero is a better fit my current grinch-ness.
Claudia: I’m having an OK time halfway through The Duke Effect by Sophie Jordan. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I know it sounds like damning praise but these days, that’s saying quite a bit! I also finished A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins ( A | BN | K | AB ) and that was OK too.
Sarah: I am reading Second Chance on Cypress Lane by Reese Ryan. She’s my guest for an upcoming podcast interview. The heroine, a television reporter in New York, has a career implosion and returns to her Southern hometown on Holly Grove Island. A lot has changed there, and a lot has stayed the same, most notably her former boyfriend, Dexter, who also has a career change that brings him closer to home. There’s family drama, family secrets, friendship repair, life examination, second chance romance (like it says on the tin), and a lot of Southern food p0rn.
Shana: Are there biscuits? Please say yes!
Sneezy: I’m reading a shit ton of webtoons right now. All the pretty colours are giving me spoons I desperately need
Is anyone else reading Suitor Armor? The art is as cute as the PUNTASTIC name so far without being saccharine. At least not to me. Fairies and humans are at war, your girl is a fairy hiding in plain sight, and her SUIT’O ARMOUR is baby
I’ll also be cracking open The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Catherine: I’ve just finished Ten Things I Hate About The Duke, which is utterly delightful and funny and tender. I love a heroine who is fiercely intelligent and very angry and a hero who loves her for her intelligence and her anger and not in spite of it. And now I am torn in four directions, because there is the book I ought to be reviewing, but today’s mail contained the latest Phryne Fisher and Megan Whalen Turner’s Return of the Thief ( A | BN | K | AB ) and my email contained a Jackie Lau ARC AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO READ FOUR BOOKS AT ONCE SOMEONE HELP.
Honestly, if I don’t reactivate my membership of the Bad Decisions Book Club tonight, I will be very surprised.
What have you been reading during the holiday season?
Does anyone else ever find the Kindle feature letting you know how many hours you have left on the book a mixed blessing? I feel like sometimes it leads me to abandon a book b/c I think “I like this book, but I don’t like it enough to read it for 3 more hours of my life.” I know I can just turn it off and sometimes I do, but I find myself turning it back on again b/c I want to know. I’ve always been able to DNF a book with very little guilt, but this year it’s getting a little bit out of control. Of course, that could also be do to getting older (less life, still so many books to read) and just the current weirdness that is 2020. Anyways, that’s what I’m musing over today.
Everything was good, so I will go in order from favorite to least favorite 😉
The best thing I read this month was GOOD TALK by Mira Jacob. It’s a graphic novel memoir and a little hard to describe. It opens up with her young son (who is half Jewish/half East Indian) asking her difficult questions about race and racism in America. Then it jumps around in time to different conversations about race, bigotry and culture clashes with her family, friends, lovers and colleagues. What I appreciated was that she didn’t offer any easy solutions. She just spoke frankly with emotional depth and sometimes humor. Fair warning this book has a fair amount about Tr*mp and Tr*mp supporters. So if that’s something you don’t want to read about, I would skip.
TELLING TALES by Ann Cleeves. I said I was sick of celebrities and actors and going viral books and this was definitely *not* that. The second in the Vera Stanhope mystery series. Vera is an older, frumpy, brusque police detective. I love her. This time she is supposed to be checking on a cold case in a new town, but then new developments crop up, including a new dead body. The mystery wasn’t too hard to figure out, but I still enjoyed it. A little slow, but not too cutesy and not too grim, a hard mark to hit these days for mysteries. I definitely think you could read this without reading the 1st one first.
ONLY WHEN IT’S US by Chloe Liese. I loved this book! Two college students, one a female soccer player trying to make it in division 1 athletics, the other a grumpy lumberjack type who used to be a soccer player and has lost his hearing and is still coming to terms with his life changes. It had two of my favorite things – a hero that is more of an ordinary guy (not rich, not famous, etc) and a real genuine slow burn. So why is it number 3 even though I loved it? Well, a lot of the conflict is based on these two people communicating very poorly with each other. Like there would be almost no book if they talked to each other. It was kind of explained in universe, but I could see that pushing some people over the edge. The other big thing is there is a lot of emphasis on the hero getting cochlear implants and speaking “normally” again. I don’t know a lot about Deaf culture, but I know these choices are not without controversy and no alternatives were really explored in the book. It was presented as “either I do this or I will live my life very alone and no one will ever understand me or connect with me.” The characters learned a little bit of sign language to communicate, but there were no other Deaf characters and no real acknowledgment that Deaf culture exists. And this was on on college campus in LA, so I’m sure it does, in some form. I’m not saying the character should have made different choices, I’m just surprised it was presented in such a stark black and white way. To me, it was mildly frustrating. To someone else, it could be rage inducing I’m going to keep reading the series b/c there was enough Jill catnip sprinkled in for it to be very motivating, I just can’t give it unqualified recommendation.
THE VOTING BOOTH by Brandy Colbert. This was really charming. Two teenagers spend the day together as the heroine tries to make sure the hero gets his chance to vote. They are both Black and this does not shy away from hard subjects (Tr*mp is not mentioned by name but he is implied a lot), but it wasn’t super heavy mostly b/c it just takes over one day and the characters are just getting to know each other. I found it charming and I really liked both the characters. I would definitely read more by this author, I think it was weird to read *after* the election and of course, in the middle of a pandemic that the author could not have predicted whens he started writing this.
THE SWITCH by Beth O’Leary. I thought for sure this would be higher on my list. It ticked a lot of the right boxes. Funny and warm without being too cutsey. Older people portrayed with dignity. Male romantic interests that were grounded in reality. But looking back, I barely remember it? I think I was really, really looking forward to it (The waitlist at the library was insane) and then I enjoyed it, but wasn’t blown away. That may be more 2020’s fault than the book’s. THE FLATSHARE also had a bit more romance and I did kind of miss not having more of that, even though I was prepared for it.
A little bit of a mixed bag of late, but on the whole some decent books in the mix.
I enjoyed Mimi Matthews’s THE MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENT. Thought this was going to be a straight up marriage of convenience but both characters have rather traumatic back stories that make this more complex. My only complaint is that Matthews writes great chemistry (also true in GENTLEMAN JIM), but no on-page sexytimes.
I also like FROSTGILDED which is a short story add-on to Stephanie Burgis’s Harwood Spellbook series which I LOVE. (Alternative version of England with wizards and politicians and magic and fey. Burgis writes great dialogue/plots with the fey in particular. I just wish all the books were longer!)
Mary Balogh’s SLIGHTLY MARRIED was totally competent (a marriage of convenience to save the heroine’s inheritance from falling into the hands of a dastardly cousin), but not really my jam. Balogh’s more slow burn and the sex scenes in her books are kind of meh/not particularly creative.
Did not really understand all the love for THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA. Basically, government functionary is investigating an orphanage that houses children with extraordinary magical abilities. The parts with the kids are great and often very funny (Lucy aka the antichrist is a wonderful character), but a lot of the dialogue is very treacly on the topics of love and acceptance and the plot was entirely predictable. There were also some very speedy recoveries from childhood trauma that I found unrealistic to the point of disrespectful and I didn’t buy the romance angle.
Currently reading THIS EARL OF MINE by Kate Bateman based on the books on sale list. I like the hero and heroine, but there are occasional comments about the heroine’s wealth that set my teeth on edge. There’s a line that’s basically, “Being rich is just as hard as being poor” and I was like, “It bloody well is NOT!” Seems particularly tone deaf in the current climate and also this is a Regency—I know a lot of those romances tend to skate around the difficult elements of the time, but good heavens. Also, I am concerned about the title of the book—the hero is the younger brother, so I am worried that his brother is going to die soon. All that said! I like Georgie a lot so I am sticking with for the time being.
Next up: BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall and A DEADLY EDUCATION by Naomi Novik.
@Jill Q – I’ve been DNFing much more than usual this year, too! So many books just don’t hold my attention. Haven’t found that the time remaining countdown makes a difference for me, except that if it shows a very short time (say under an hour) I might soldier on just to see if the book gets any better.
I read a lot on the last 2 weeks. I unearthed my old Prince of Tennis mangas and hooked my boys on it. When I made the effort to be a good health-oriented parent and suggested outings, they turned me down because they wanted to read (^_^) Who am I to argue? We all settled down and read. It was bliss~~~ [Here, the ~ is used the Japanese way, ie elongating the last syllabe/word for cutesy-ness, and not in the ironical-sparkle-leftover way.] [I’m reading BECAUSE INTERNET by Gretchen McCulloch. It’s interesting as heck, I recommend it to everyone and ~please~ enjoy the side effect of becoming self conscious about how you write.]
While the kids tore through PoT, I was on HIS FAVORITE by Suzuki Tanaka, a BL (boys’ love) manga. In honor of the 11th volume coming out, I re-read the whole series. Taking in so much of it in one sitting, it struck me how… uncomfortable it is, under the silly antics. Tanaka likes to play with painful subjects (her collection of shorts in Love Hurts… well, they hurt) and in this series she goes all out playing with appearances and their effects. The seme for example, always attracted attention because of how he looked: he was reviled and bullied as the fat kid, and is now admired and deified as the perfect high school hunk (the school? What am I saying… The city! The country!! No – the world!!!). His emotinal gauges have become all wonky. The only one who always treated him the same no matter what he looked like was Yoshida, no wonder he latches on him the way he does. Then there’s ugly Yoshida and his ugly friends. A lot of characters use really offensive language, usually from good-looking girls blowing their caps at ugly-looking boys, and the mangaka lays it on really thick; I don’t read it as comic effect I rather see it as a denounciation of how your treatment changes depending on your appearance, and how ugly it makes one to use such language. On the other hand, sometimes the strong language is used as a power-taking initiative for the girls. The girls are really kick-ass in there, in every sense of the word (including in their langage), and very un-traditional… But hey, I’m getting rather heavy here. Did I mention His Favorite is a goofball romp with a really oddball couple at its core? It is! I love this series, I find Yoshida is the sweetest. How Tanaka often puts the readers’ expectations on their head also keep it fresh.
After the good buzz it gave me, I felt like DNFing lots of books, ultimately didn’t for some, and those books subsequently got better. (Mmmm. Did the books improve or did my lowered expectations allowed me to enjoy them more?)
Anyway, STRIPPED by Zoey Castile was the first. The hero is a male stripper and that’s unusual enough in an het romance, I was intrigued. While the hero was luscious – very much into the heroine and a bit vulnerable – I almost gave up at the beginning because the heroine was a mess with what seemed the worst work ethic. But I usually try to get through at least a third of a book before I DNF and it paid off here. Robyn grew on me, she owes up to ther mistakes and was finally a good match for her stripper. It was fluffy, I enjoyed myself and I did love the friendships – both girls’ and guys’, as well as how the guys were presented. I’ll look up the rest of the series.
Second was DEVEN AND THE DRAGON by Eliot Grayson. Fiora was definitely a cute gloomy dragon, Deven a genial epicurian, and they fit together well. However, this book made me realize that the older I get, the less tolerance I have for contrived subterfuge and let’s-keep-secrets attitudes. I thought of giving up, but I was already 2/3 of the way in, so I pushed to finish and the resolution was, in the end, very enjoyable. Fiora and Deven as a couple were fun and overbearingly loving family members swooping in often tip the balance the right way, for me.
The next one though I couldn’t power through. SPACE OPERA by Catherynne M. Valente. Overblown multi-adjectival baroque writing is entertaining for a page or ten but then it becomes intolerable. I almost, almost DNF a 10th in but then first contact was made, and I wanted at least to get a glimpse of intergalactic Eurovision so I… kept… on… until it finally dawned on me that there was barely a story to follow, just clever writing that tried very hard. I tried too to adjust my expectations and enjoy the ride, but the words diarrhea could not hold my attention. I finally gave up after realizing I’d just read 3 pages without taking in a word AND the narrator was still on the description that began 3 pages back T__T
Next I sooooo felt like a trashy read with no complex… Success achieved with RED HEIR by Lisa Henry and Sarah Honey! It was a romp that doesn’t take itself seriously, at all. Loth is a fun narrator, snarky and provocative. When a motley crew breaks into his prison-cell looking to rescue the red-haired lost prince, he jumps on the opportunity to be treated like royalty, nevermind that his cell companion is also red-haired. That same cell companion is the one that he comes (to his own surprise!) to care for. The rescuing band also holds together well except for Scott the idiot leader – he just becomes painful after a while and he certainly didn’t deserve all the bad treatment he got. All in all, the humour doesn’t fly high but it’s a cute-ish read.
I also kept on with the comfort reads rec league. THE LUCKIEST LADY IN LONDON by Sherry Thomas. The first part was excellent – the manipulations, the banter, the honesty – so good! If only the hero hadn’t next walked around with his head up his an*s. Yes, he grovelled but in the end, I was dissatisfied with her forgiveness, maybe because the groveling period was over so quickly – weeks passes but the narrative glosses over them so I, as a reader, did not have time to get over his stunt nor did I see him suffer. Still, this was my first Sherry Thomas, and I liked her style a lot, I’ll pick up more of her books.
Next was BAND SINISTER by K.J. Charles. It was described as Heyer-like, but m/m. And is true, there’s very much a Heyer feel for the first 10 pages or so (hello there Venetia and Sylvester-like plots). And then the rest of the book was very much not reminiscent of Georgette, at all. Oh, it was very, very good, but don’t expect Heyer vibes.
The rest of the time was taken up with fanfic. I like how sometimes fanfic lets itself be about nothing – just 2 characters going about their lives, no upheaval needed. Well written, it can be so soothing. I also like how it makes me look at canon differently 😉
I’m hankering for some Xmas reading up next. The snow’s here, everyone around is going all out with the Christmas decorations (including us!) and it’s putting me in the mood.
Wanted to mention two books that gave me hours of post reading contemplation:
KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND WEAR BEIGE by Kathleen Gilles Seidel.
While not a romance (except that the backdrop is the main character’s son’s wedding), it had some of the most important parts of one, especially character growth, building friendships and hope for the future. The main character is a woman in her forties, an incredibly energetic, exceptionally competent and highly respected (emergency room? trauma? ICU?) nurse, divorced, mother of the groom and another son, and someone with ADHD. As a person with ADHD (undiagnosed until my late 50s), this book made so much sense of my childhood (“the black sheep” reading all night, and often, was the very least of my bad decisions way back then) and even many of my successes (professor, dept head) later on in life. I loved the book except for the presentation of two very negative female characters, who were needed for the story but who were not redeemable, although Seidel tried to make them so. I will probably read this one again.
UNTIL THE WORLD STOPS by L.A. Witt. This was the first book I’ve read that is set during the current pandemic. M/M, military characters, one of whom is discharged because of political differences with a higher up. Fake marriage (for fascinating reasons!) that turns real due to forced proximity in the pandemic. The book was a bit thinner than others of Witt’s, but I found it very thoughtful, and I’m glad to have read it. This is a piece that will stand as an ethnography of a very bizarre time.
Happy Saturday! I’m through my big work project and have been glad to relax the last couple of days, although I’m a bit groggy & grumpy this morning due to the building fire alarm going off in the middle of the night. (Not sure what’s going on with the system, but we’ve basically had one fire alarm a week for the past four weeks, and this isn’t the first one after many would be sleeping — I feel bad for all the parents.)
Romance:
HIS GRUMPY CHILDHOOD FRIEND by Jackie Lau was pretty cute — as you might expect from the title, it’s a grumpy one/sunshiney one pairing, and pretty low conflict–she averts a true bleak moment, which is nice for right now. As with the first Cider Bar Sisters book, lots of descriptions of delicious food, which is the best substitute for not having as much access to restaurants right now. I also liked how she played with the grumpy one/sunshiney one tropes and maybe inverted them a bit.
THE SWORD DANCER by Jeannie Lin was a delight for me — enemies-to-lovers, thief-being-chased, heist and investigatory elements all in a historical setting. I’ll probably be picking up the connected book/sequel in the series sooner rather than later.
Spent my American Thanksgiving morning on A MATCH MADE FOR THANKSGIVING by Jackie Lau, which was a cute, trope-y holiday novella (a rich playboy has Real Feelings for his one night stand!). As is typical of Lau (see above), lots of very nice food descriptions. I found the interfering family stuff to be humorous rather than upsetting, but YMMV.
Non-Romance:
ALL SYSTEMS RED by Martha Wells was a lot of fun–now a Murderbot fan!–and I’m bummed that the waitlist for the second one is so, so long at my library, so contemplating purchasing a copy, which will inevitably lead to purchasing all of them.
Currently reading CALLING BULLSHIT: THE ART OF SKEPTICISM IN A DATA-DRIVEN WORLD by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West. I never took any statistics classes in high school or college and kind of regret that, but rather than actually teaching the math, the book is dedicated to numerical literacy and how to evaluate the kinds of numbers that get thrown around in studies and headlines rather than accepting them as accurate takes on a particular situation. I’m reminded of Daniel Kahneman’s book THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, which summarizes a lot of the work he did with Amos Tversky to determine that people are poor intuitive statisticians, so CALLING BULLSHIT feels like it’s working to correct that by teaching people how to evaluate claims.
Hoping to have more reading time now that work should be calming down!
@Jill Q: if you haven’t seen them, the TV adaptations of Vera, with Brenda Blethyn in the title role, are very good, possibly a shade darker than the books. When she calls a suspect “Pet,” we know that person better watch out! Total comfort viewing for me.
Suggested drinking game for my WAYR post: take a shot every time I use the word “angst” or “angsty.” I’ve been doing that kind of reading.
I inhaled Megan Crane’s brilliant Edge Of series (published in 2016/2017), which consists of four novels (EDGE OF OBSESSION, EDGE OF TEMPTATION, EDGE OF CONTROL, and EDGE OF POWER), along with three novellas collectively titled EDGE OF RUIN. These books are erotic romances set in a dystopian future where rising sea levels have obliterated much of the world’s land masses and where the remaining enclaves are in mountainous areas or places previously far inland. The heroes of the books are all “Raiders,” part of a society that has elements of both the Viking and motorcycle club lifestyles: the seafaring, the loyalty and brotherhood, the free-spirited and enthusiastic sexual behavior, tattoos, rituals, an outlaw ethos but within a defined community. If you’re familiar with Crane from her many cowboy romances or Alaska Force novels (or if, like me, you’re more familiar with Crane as the Queen of the Angsty HPs, under her alternate pen name of Caitlin Crews), the level of both violence and explicit sex may be a surprise (standard CWs & TWs apply), but all of Crane’s/Crews’s trademark angst, heartache, and passion are still here. The books also possess excellent world-building with an overarching storyline about the Raiders’ attempts to reconnect the world to the old power grid and overthrow the system of priests and petty kings who control most of the world’s limited access to electricity (and, not coincidentally, rule over a society that sexually oppresses, exploits, and gaslights women). There’s a steampunk feel to the stories as almost everything is hand-made, repurposed, cobbled together from scraps, dark, flooded, or (in many places) lit only by fire. As one character observes, “…shit just happens in a jacked-up, leftover world.” All of the books are good and use a variety of tropes (enforced proximity, second chance, friend’s sibling, road trip, antagonists-to-lovers, fake relationship, enemy’s daughter, among others), but my favorite was EDGE OF TEMPTATION, featuring a grief-crazed Raider looking for a virgin to sacrifice in a blood ritual intended to bring back his dead, disloyal mate. He encounters a novice nun who is fleeing a church whose sole purpose seems to be to groom women to sexually serve the men who run the church. The nun has an intact hymen but is otherwise sexually experienced (particularly where blowjobs are concerned—that specific act being a prayer/sacrament in the church’s belief system). The couple begin their trek through the flooded world of North America (crossing the “Mississippi Sea” at one point), growing closer, but stymied by the knowledge that their relationship, such as it is, cannot be consummated (at least not with p-in-v sex because of the whole, ya know, virgin sacrifice thing) and will end once the Raider enacts the supposed magic spell. There’s a lot (and I do mean a lot) of quite intense bdsm in EDGE OF TEMPTATION (reminding me in some ways of Crews’s Dare release, TEMPT ME, from earlier this year), but I enjoyed the power dynamic of the couple, the gradual way the hero realizes that—even if the rackety magic could work—he doesn’t want to resuscitate his former mate, and how the heroine comes to understand her sexual nature as something apart from her church conditioning. Even though EDGE OF TEMPTATION is my favorite of the books, I highly recommend the entire Edge Of series.
I similarly devoured Juliana Stone’s uber-angsty SHAKE THE FROST in a single day. The latest in Stone’s long-running Crystal Lake series, SHAKE THE FROST features one of my all-time favorite tropes: a man in love with his late best friend’s widow. Stone really delivered the goods in this one: the hero and heroine have known each other since high school (they are now in their early thirties) when she started dating his best friend, ultimately marrying him. Stone unspools the backstory of a difficult marriage, marred by the husband’s ongoing infidelity, and of the complicated connection between the hero and heroine—a situation that becomes even more tangled when the husband/best friend dies after lingering in a coma for five years following a motorcycle accident. Add in an unplanned pregnancy, gossipy—sometimes even bitchy—Crystal Lake residents (if I have one quibble with the book, it’s that a couple of female characters are nothing but “mean girl” caricatures, even 15 years out of high school), and the revelation of a huge secret from the past, along with a satisfying HEA, and you have a perfect angsty bonbon for the holiday season. Recommended for those who, like me, really love the angst.
Lauren Blakely’s m/m ONE TIME ONLY is an ultra-hot read about the romance between a rock star and his bodyguard. I do think to get the most from this book you should first read ONE NIGHT ONLY (where the rock star has an m/f/m menage with the MCs) and MAYBE THIS TIME (about how the bodyguard was hired by the rock star and the escalating, but unspoken, attraction between the two men). In ONE TIME ONLY, 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—but this is Romancelandia, so you know that line will be crossed (repeatedly…despite the book’s title) and it’s gonna be molten hot when it does! One thing I found refreshingly realistic about ONE TIME ONLY is that it addressed the income disparity between the men: in a lot of romances, the fact that one MC is significantly wealthier than the other is either ignored or presented as extraordinarily fortuitous for the poorer partner. In ONE TIME ONLY, the bodyguard has some significant debts (the circumstances under which the debt was accrued form an important background element of the story), and he needs his job and the regular paycheck it provides; he doesn’t want to lose his livelihood by becoming known as someone who has relationships with his clients (he also knows the richer partner in a relationship usually emerges relatively unscathed if things go downhill). This conflict—and the different methods the two men used to resolve it—gave the book a surprising edge and made the ending that much sweeter. Recommended.
One of the fake relationship sub-tropes I really like is when the heroine agrees to be in a fake relationship and everything is going along swimmingly until she meets another man (generally, but not always, the fake fiancé’s brother or best friend) and sparks fly, but she can’t let him know her relationship with his brother/friend is fake. That set-up has the potential to bring all the delicious angst, and because it appeared to be the exact plot of Ruth Cardello’s IN THE HEIR, the book was a no-brainer one-click for me. However, while IN THE HEIR is a serviceable book, I was expecting something far angstier, with a lot more drama than it actually delivered. As it is, before the halfway point in the book, the fake relationship is over and the heroine is tentatively beginning a relationship with the older brother of her (now ex-) fake fiancé. The second half of the book is a nice slow-burn romance between the two as they navigate falling in love and also coming to terms with their dissimilar but equally dysfunctional childhoods (cw/tw: the heroine’s father was an abusive alcoholic and her mother an enabler; there’s nothing explicit in the book, but several references are made to the father’s physical violence). Also, IN THE HEIR is the first book in a series and there are a lot of secondary characters moving around in the background, getting set up for their future storylines. IN THE HEIR is not a terrible book, but it’s one that I was expecting to be a different thing entirely—and that muted my enjoyment of it.
MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz, a novel within a novel, is also a brilliant pastiche of Agatha Christie mysteries: the heroine is a book editor. (Horowitz wrote several of the scripts for the sublime Poirot tv series, so he knows very well how to do it). Very excited for the sequel MOONFLOWER MURDERS, which should be arriving next wk.
I’ve been enjoying noir for decades & have recently discovered feminist noir. QUEENPIN by Megan Abbott is deliciously hardboiled; next up on my list is MIAMI PURITY by Vicki Hendricks, complete with l’homme fatale.
I’m rereading PRE-RAPHAELITES IN LOVE by Gay Daly because EFFIE GRAY starts next wk on Netflix. I do enjoy a good Victorian scandal & the PRB were particularly good at behaving badly.
@hng23: I’d also recommend Abbott’s BURY ME DEEP, which is based on a true crime case from the Depression era. Abbott does such a good job of making the main character sympathetic (despite the mess she gets herself wrapped up in), it made me wish things had turned out differently for the real-life woman Abbott used as the inspiration for her book.
Overall it’s been a good reading month. I’m usually slow to DNF but this year has changed that, so I did have some DNFs this time around.
MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This was fabulous. Heroine goes to a very spooky house to rescue her cousin in 1950s Mexico. I think it’s listed as horror, but it’s more gothic horror. I am not a fan of gory books and this isn’t gory, so other skittish folk should feel reassured! The heroine is fantastic.
…AND HIS LOVELY WIFE by Connie Schultz. This is about a journalist’s experience with her husband’s successful political campaign. I enjoyed the writing style and it was very enlightening – campaigning sounds exhausting.
A FAKE GIRLFRIEND FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR by Jackie Lau. This was on the shorter side but it was pretty engaging. Two friends fake a relationship to help the hero with his family, and then things start to feel more real. There’s lots of good food descriptions and a fun, interfering family.
ESCAPE WITH A SCOUNDREL by Shelly Thacker. The hero and heroine meet after being arrested. They are shackled together for transportation to London and make their escape while stuck together. It was a fun historical. The only thing I didn’t like is that it’s set in the 1700s and the hero has spent time being a planter in South Carolina. Slavery is not discussed and it’s implied that he basically runs his own small plantation by himself…but it still felt somewhat squicky.
My sole DNF was DO YOU WANT TO START A SCANDAL by Tessa Dare. I have some Dare books that I like, but others that haven’t worked for me, and this was one of them. I’m not quite sure why and maybe I’ve read so many historicals that I’m getting pickier. Anyway, I gave up after a few chapters.
I’m bouncing between a few books right now: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF DIRT by Rick Morton about his family and life in rural Queensland, THE LAST WATCHMAN OF OLD CAIRO by Michael David Lukas about a family over the years in Cairo and California.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Added to my (never ending) TBR list. Thanks for the tip!
I’m hoping to read SAVE ME FROM DANGEROUS MEN by S. A. Lelchuk, along with HIDE AWAY by Jason Pinter.
I also have some more holiday books waiting on my TBR pile, including A TEXAS KIND OF CHRISTMAS by Jodi Thomas, Celia Bonaduce, and Rachael Miles.
I’m also hoping to binge out season 2 of VIRGIN RIVER on Netflix this weekend.
Hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend! 🙂
I’m reading Dreaming Of You, by Lisa Kleypas.
I really enjoyed Then Came You, so I’m hoping I’ll feel the same about this book. (Kind of surprised Then Came You doesn’t get ‘as much’ attention or mentions as Dreaming Of You.)
Hope everyone is safe and in a cozy, happy place. I know my brain is so relieved to read this weekend, and I hope the recommendations in this post do the same for you!
WRITTEN IN THE STARS Alexandria Bellefleur F/F contemporary – Delightful! Sexy, heartfelt, occasionally very funny, sexy, and well written. If you want to see two flawed, but interesting, attractive, nice women fall in love, this is your book. The secondary relationships were strong, the problematic familial tensions were acknowledged and worked on, though not magically fixed, and the humor was really solid. Will be buying AB’s next book, for sure.
THE DUKE I’D LIKE TO F. . . Joanne Shupe, Sierra Simone, Eva Leigh, Nicole Davidson, Andriana Herrera Historical novellas about F-ing dukes, as promised. Very strong anthology that tapped into some specific fantasies – older woman, younger duke? Check. Older duke, younger woman? Check. Wall flower and an experienced rake? Check. You get the picture. All the stories were hot and spicy, and well-constructed. Great book to pick up if your attention span and patience has been stretched thin by the pandemic.
THE LAST KISS Sally Malcolm M/M historical set during and right after WWI. The H/H’s relationship in this book was really beautiful. I truly believed in their deep friendship and love for each other. It felt historically accurate to me (no expertise here, though) and was quite detailed about what life was like for WWI soldiers, so proceed with caution if that might be too much for you. I will definitely be buying SM’s next book.
THE HEIRESS EFFECT Courtney Milan M/F historical romance. Great book. Great secondary romance, too. If you haven’t read this yet, I thought it was splendid. I also really appreciated the depiction of how illnesses like seizures in women were treated (heroine of secondary romance) and how complicated being Indian in Great Britain was during this period (hero of secondary romance). Again, I don’t have the historical chops to evaluate it, but it felt sincere and informed to me, and added layers to the book that made the conflict believable, so really important to the book overall. Going to keep digging in CM’s backlog. She’s consistently excellent.
THE BAD GUY Celia Aaron M/F contemporary where hero is supposed to be a sociopath that’s obsessed with her. I often like this kind of book (JANE DOE comes to mind) but this one was just silly, derivative, and felt abusive. YMMV.
SPOTLESS and BEATING RUBY Camilla Monk M/F contemporary suspense. I bought the whole series on sale, and thought, again, that OCD hitman who falls for his target would scratch that JANE DOE itch. It did not. Characters were wooden, plot was goofy and unbelievable. I soldiered on through the second one, hoping for improvement, but it just didn’t work for me.
Saw KJ Charles (All hail, KJC!) comment on twitter that the Guardian “best books of 2020” list did not include romance as a category. Very annoying and exhausting.
Screw them! On Wednesday SB Amanda included two top ten lists in her Links post. I went crazy yesterday and bought a bunch, as well as a few from this week’s Rec League post. I recommend you do the same, if you can swing it – you made it through Thanksgiving, the pandemic is raging here in the USA, and you’ve been working hard – you deserve a book! Or five!
At the beginning of the month I read a couple Reese Morrison. Second half of the month I continued with 2 more
Hummingbird and Kraken (Hummingbird Tales #1)
The Hummingbird’s Gift (Hummingbird Tales #1.5)
The premise is that flighty Declan, gets stuck in the middle of nowhere and asks for help from Geir (who happens to be a centuries old kraken shifter) The premise is so not my thing but I enjoyed Reese’s other books so much that I gave it a shot and these are so sweet! When Geir first settled where he did, he formed an alliance with a nearby native tribe. But over the years he has pulled back from engaging with them. He literally just sits down and stares for days at a time…until Declan comes along and helps him reengage with life and with his neighbors/family.
His Someone Special (Sammi Cee, Brittany Cournoyer): contemporary, daddy kink. Davis is down on his luck and interviews at the bar that Sarge owns. I really liked the side characters and how they stepped up to help Davis and would totally read more if they got their own stories.
Last night I read Jordan L. Hawk’s The Magician’s Angel. Its part of a multi author series called the Christmas Angel. A magical, wooden, painted Christmas angel helps its owners find love and then gets passed on to someone new. This one takes place in 1910, a vaudeville magician finds love in small town Iowa
Last Watcha Reading, @KatiM mentioned the graphic novel Sleepless, I was so sucked in and the art was so great! I read vol 1 and 2 one right after the other
I also read Alyssa Cole’s When no one is watching. It took a long time for me to get into it…but then at 50% mark I got hooked. There was literal gasping! And then I bought a copy to give at Christmas Time
I mentioned that I have 100 purchased, unread books on my kindle and got another scolding that I “have a problem” so I’m aiming to get that number lower this Christmas season.
Currently moving back and forth between Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun and Lindsay Ellis’s Axiom’s End. I haven’t done multiple books since my Kindle died. I find myself switching off whenever the plot gets too stressful. If you’ve ever had to manage a 90 yo parent’s health from 2000 miles away, you understand why I’m trying to mitigate stress in my reading – just not enough to not read the books. Both are really good. Black Sun draws a lot from pre-Columbian mythology so, if you’re looking for non-Eurocentric fantasy, give this an excellent choice. Axiom’s End is a fast paced first contact story featuring the daughter of a Julian Assange type character. Fast paced and with a very alien alien.
Next up, and a huge incentive for finishing the above books is Ready Player Two. I’m pretty excited for this one. I hope it leads to a Bad Decision Book Club outing.
I had reserved this weekend for Nalini Singh’s new Guild Hunter book, but I went to B&N on Tuesday and, as usual, they didn’t have it. One of the bestselling romance authors in the world, and they didn’t stock it. Sigh. Now I get to spend 45 minutes driving to the nearest independent bookseller. At least it’s a sunny small business Saturday.
A RAVEN’S HEART by K.C. Bateman- I enjoyed this immensely, even more than TO STEAL A HEART. A grade
OFF BASE by Annabeth Alberton audio, narrated by Tyler Stevens. Both the story and the narration were B-, good but not Wow! I plan to continue the series.
ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE by Belinda Missen didn’t do it for me. The male lead is an a-hole once too many times for me and the heroine just forgives him and we’re suppose to think he won’t do it again? C grade for the middle of the book which was pretty good.
A DANGEROUS KIND OF LADY by Mia Vincy on audio narrated by Kate Reading. A+ for narration; Reading is at the top of her game here. A for a tension-filled story with clever dialog and great characters. Vincy keeps the story moving along while keeping the angst at just the right level. Tugged at my heart.
THE DRESS OF SEASON, a novella by Kate Noble. Too unbelievable. It was a fine way to spend some time but didn’t sparkle.
BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall lived up to all the hype and then some. I listened on audio, and narrator Joe Jameson did a phenomenal job with over a dozen characters and accents, plus his inflections and delivery were perfect. He should get an award for this. Iloved the story and was surprised that it dealt with more weighty material than I was expecting. This is a laugh-out-loud funny book. This is my top contemporary book of 2020. A for story and A+ narration.
A DEAL WITH THE ELF KING by Elise Kova was a solid B effort. It felt more like a YA than an adult book. The pacing was a little uneven, and the danger factor was never allowed to really ratchet up, but I enjoyed it and will read more of her book.
@DiscoDollyDeb, I will NOT take you up on your drinking game ’cause I got some things to get done today :-), but I will look into the Lauren Blakely series you mentioned. I’ve heard good things about this one. Her m/f books haven’t wow’d me, but I’d like to try this m/m.
I’m taking advantage of my recent Kindle Unlimited subscription to read The Paladin Caper, book three in the series, and to check out some new cozy mystery authors.
I also downloaded all of Kate Ashwin’s Widdershins graphic novels from the author’s website there’s a discount if you get all of them, and I LOVE them.
:::Enter, stage right, full of turkey and pumpkin:::
It was yummy. Well, it popped off with Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis. This was one of those cases where I can recognize that the writing was good and that at the same time, it didn’t entirely work for me. The harder sci-fi rarely does, and I did not care for the main protagonist. I liked Ampersand fine, and thought it did some cool stuff with how people use language and how certain messages have to be translated in more than one way in order to make them effective. Then I went full crazy with All Scot and Bothered by Kerrigan Byrne. I’ve really enjoyed the two books I’ve read by her thus far, and am a sucker for Sunshine and Grumpy Trope. I also laughed at some of the parts about how badly she needed her glasses, because hot damn can I relate (I am as near-sighted as you get, and at the same time have to take them off to do close-up work or read, because my prescription is so strong that trying to read with them on gives me the headaches from hell itself, and the heroine talked about this exact thing). I followed that up with Two Rogues Make A Right by Cat Sebastian, which was just the sweetest, even though I wanted to swat those two heroes upside their dopey heads at times. USE YOUR WORDS, BOYS, YOU’RE BOTH ADORABLE. I especially liked Martin both coming to terms about doing what is best for his health and also still discovering his own talent and using it to be able to contribute effectively to his household, which was very important to him. Which brings us to now, in which I was holding onto The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett for specifically this weekend. I like to read Follett when I can really give the story the attention it deserves, and his Kingsbridge series is wholly my jam. I especially enjoy it when Ragna, the Norman princess, decides it’s time to kick some ass and take some names, and I always like that Follett will create some truly heinous villains, and then has them meet some satisfyingly gruesome end (I’m bloodthirsty in my reading, we know this already). Until next time, folks. Wrap yourselves in a blanket, and enjoy that night cheese. Or afternoon cheese, what is important is that cheese is good anytime.
I finished the new Nalini Singh Guild Hunter book in a couple of days – really enjoyed it even if the plague theme was a bit much right now! Not a ton of conflict between the leads which I’m into right now. GH tends to be a bit gruesome for my tastes but I love the characters. I also read Robyn Carr’s new Return to Virgin River. It was a little meh. Dunno, I love the idea of Virgin River, it is good wish fulfillment in These Times (so much lovely community!) and enjoyed most of the books in the series but in 2020 the fact that all the characters are STILL straight and white feels….intentional in a bad way. I reread Ilona Andrews’ White Hot too and that was much more satisfying.
Witchmark just came off my holds (read about here!) so I think that’s next.
@Pear CALLING BULLSHIT is such a great read. I feel like combating the spread of misinformation by giving people tools to evaluate claims is more important than math! This is the kind of thing I feel like needs to be in the basic curriculum?
Romance:
BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall was just wonderful. I do wish there had been some of the story told from Oliver’s POV… I’m curious to understand him more, I feel like I related to him – worried so much about ethics, managing his life with rules, empathetic but comes off stuffy…
BEACH READ was ok. Maybe I was in the wrong mood, but I read through it like, eh I mainly wish I could read the book that she is writing? It sounded more interesting than the actual story.
Nonfiction:
I picked up SHIT ACTUALLY by Lindy West on audio and it was light and fun and distracting. But it reminded me how much I enjoyed SHRILL so I ended up listening to that and then to THE WITCHES ARE COMING. I like Lindy’s voice, listening to her narrate is kind of like calling your friend and ending up spending 3 hours chatting but mostly listening to her rant about things she’s been thinking or processing.
DNF:
GLITTERLAND by Alexis Hall. I think I read this awhile back and after Boyfriend Material thought I’d go through Hall’s backlist. But… depression too real! Can not handle right now!
Since last time ~
— For my local book group, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. This was an interesting mix of nature writing and mystery; it’s the author’s first novel, but she’d already published three books about her work as a wildlife scientist in Africa. It was a gripping read with an ending that surprised me.
— Companion Pieces: Stories from the Old World and Beyond by Melissa F. Olson; it’s a compilation of stories that I quite enjoyed. I’d recommend this book to those who’ve already read books by the author.
— Killing Trail (A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery Book 1) by Margaret Mizushima; this is the first book in a mystery series and I enjoyed it.
— For my old book group that I was invited to rejoin via Zoom, I read Saturday by Ian McEwan. It was an incredibly introspective novel.
— the contemporary romance Lies and Lullabies (Hush Note Book 1) by Sarina Bowen which I enjoyed.
— Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher which was an enjoyable novella. The author says that she thinks of it as a children’s book; however, others feel otherwise. I can see that it has appeal over a wide range of ages.
— Plus a host of book samples.
My library has been bombarding me with new releases (happy problem) and I’ve had to delay delivery of several just to keep up.
WRITTEN IN THE STARS by Alexandria Bellefleur: Lovely all around.
SHIT, ACTUALLY by Lindy West: Great and funny takes on some classic movies.
WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING by Alyssa Cole: Buckle up for this must-read. Highly recommended, prepare to be outraged.
READY PLAYER TWO by Ernest Cline: I’ll begin by saying I really enjoyed this book. Wade still manages to be immature and stubborn, an astonishing feat considering the circumstances. A new quest, a truly dangerous adversary and, finally, the other characters get to play a larger, more meaningful role. There are still problems–I don’t recommend reading reviews if you can avoid it–but I am again a fan.
Currently reading LEGENDBORN by Tracy Deonn: The jury is still out. Our heroine “knows” a lot about something she’s never seen, but I’m sure all will be explained.
Latest author binge has been Maya Banks. The weird thing is that I’m not sure I like her books that much. The writing is repetitive and the character arcs often not especially believable. In the thrillers, the villains are moustache-twirling caricatures, the actual action is kind of anticlimactic and boring. (e.g., in JUST ONE TOUCH, the heroine is kidnapped (again) and there’s a good half-chapter of overwrought speechifying by a dozen characters about how much everyone cares about her and they’re her faaaaaamily). She does like to make her women suffer too. DARKEST BEFORE DAWN’s Mary-Sue of a heroine spends the entire story being either assaulted or sedated (seriously. Although it is interrupted by a mid-book bonk. Also, white saviour-ism). Her heroes are all the manliest ever male men who eat raw cows marinated in testosterone for breakfast and it gets a bit wearing when they insult each other by calling each other pussies, or other traditionally feminine traits. Yeah, yeah, girl things bad, but at the same time, they have zero emotional continence. They also refer to the female characters as ‘the women’, which, ick, but reflects the ‘protect the little woman’ theme that runs through so many of them. In SWEET SURRENDER, the h even says that men are becoming too ‘pc’ and emasculated which is why they’ve lost their place at the head of the household which, double ick. Treble ick. Ick to the power of infinity.
Also, all those holsters over bare skin on the covers – that’s going to chafe. You might want to put some zinc oxide cream on that.
And yet… I keep reading them. They’re like sour cream Pringles which aren’t my favourites and I’m just going to eat a couple because, you know, they’re there, then somehow I’m shaking the crumbs out of the bottom of the tube and feeling a bit gruesome.
DESPERATE MEASURES by Katee Roberts I wan’t sure how to feel about this. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but the ones with a crime background tend to make me uncomfortable. Probably a bit too murdery for me on the whole.
I can’t remember the title because I’ve lost the device on which I read my library ebooks, but a category by Shirley Jump. I’ve read this one a couple of times because it has a thoughtful take on a marriage that begins with less than ideal circumstances (an unplanned pregnancy) and how, although mostly successful, still has a thread of tension and regret woven through it that causes it to unravel when the reason for the marriage has left the nest.
The backstory is that when she got pregnant, the h had to shelve her plans to study, while her husband becomes a successful lawyer working all the hours God sends to please his unpleasable father. When their daughter leaves for university the h sets up her own small business despite her husband being less than enthusiastic. After she’s spent eighteen years bringing up their child and supporting his career, it’s cheesed her off no end that the support isn’t reciprocated and they’ve separated. I thought it teased out the conflicts really well – while her daughter is much loved and definitely not regretted, the h didn’t instantly have a personality wipe and lose any ambitions or thoughts beyond the domestic because she’s become a parent. When they actually start digging into their relationship, they realise how many unspoken fears and worries have driven their decisions.
SECRET SANTA by Kati Wilde. Short and filthy (in a good way) and very sweet. Low angst and the big mis lasts about thirty seconds.
ARTISTIC LICENSE by Elle Pierson (another pen-name of Lucy Parker). I read it straight through, thought it was funny and really well-written, and then couldn’t remember a darn thing about it five minutes later.
BAD NEIGHBOUR and BABY COME BACK by M. O’Keefe. Really enjoyed these two. Angsty and dark but with a sweetness running through them. I’d like to read about the Bates character, although there doesn’t seem to be a book about him.
I’ve got nothing this time but I do enjoy reading what everyone is reading! @Empress of Blandings I’ve only read one Maya Banks and unfortunately it was Mastered (it’s reviewed on SBTB I think it was a hard DNF) so I’m very reluctant to read any of her other books. For the record, I read it all the way through but it was very much hate reading a total train wreck of the book. The “Hero” does something to the heroine that I found irredeemable (massive TW and red flags for sexual abuse). The only good thing is that after #Metoo it is probably dated by now.
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these (being a first year teacher with everything online suuuucks), so I’m only going to do the highlights.
The Best:
A DEADLY EDUCATION by Naomi Novik (Fantasy/Horror/YA) – This had me in stitches. The heroine is so grumpy and cranky and vulnerable (emotionally, not physically) and I love her. And the hero. It has a different mood than Novik’s other books, but it worked SO WELL for me. There’s a lot more inner monologue than dialogue, but it worked for me. It makes sense in the book that the main character spends So Much time ruminating on the past. 10 stars!
PALADIN’S GRACE by T. Kingfisher (Fantasy/Romance)- I read a lot of her books and this was the best. There was pining and a hero and heroine who were both amazing at what they did and enough of a mystery that I really want to read the next book.
THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY by Trenton Lee Stewart (YA/Mystery) – This is a YA/Middle Grades book recommended by one of my students and I loved it. Very anti-capitalist. The main characters have to infiltrate an evil school and some of the little bits thrown in are hilarious. The students are required to do a chant about the free market that shows how stupid it is, the rules are non-nonsensical (but follow the same lines of logic as libertarian-ism) and so on. My student didn’t pick up on any of that, but it was delightful for me.
THE AWAKENING by Nora Roberts (Fantasy/Almost-romance)- I was looking forward to a new Para-Nora trilogy, and this is not that. It’s more like The One trilogy crossed with the Morrigan’s Cross trilogy. I still loved it, want to reread both other trilogies, and am really looking forward to the next book as this one ends on a cliff hanger. It almost reads like it should be the first half of a 1000+ page book rather than the first book of a trilogy if that makes sense.
THE TWELVE KINGDOMS by Jeffe Kennedy (Fantasy/Romance)- Cheating here and doing a series. I’m enjoying this series quite a bit. I’ve been itching for more/new to me paranormal romances and these are more fantasy than paranormal but it works. Standard fantasy romance fare, not great king, 3 beautiful princes, all that. The second book in the trilogy, Tears of the Rose, is hard to read bc the main character is grieving and raw and it’s both heart wrenching and eventually kind of annoying. Major content warnings for the third book, The Talon of the Hawk. The books are interesting, great world building, and the romances are lovely. I don’t know if this author is going to hit my auto-buy list yet, 5 books just isn’t enough to judge, but I’m continuing with her back list.
A STITCH IN TIME by Kelley Armstrong (Fantasy/Romance)- Loved this. It’s like a gentle-gothic romance, heavier on the romance than anything else. Is inspiring a Kelly Armstrong back list reread.
The Not Amazing but still Good –
THE 12 DUKES OF CHRISTMAS series by Erica Ridley (Historical Romance)- These books are lovely. Soft and sweet and still pack a punch of emotion, perfect holiday-ish romances. They’re pretty short, I’d say the angst level is medium, but there are lots of sweet and sappy moments. I’d be down for Hallmark to adapt all of these, they’d make for a cute and diverse movie series.
THE LION’S DEN by Katherine St. John (Mystery)- An overall decent mystery/suspense. I liked it, but didn’t love it. It made me look to see if Gillian Flynn or Elly Griffiths or someone had written anything new since I last checked before looking to see what else the author written. I’ll read her next one, but will likely wait until the library has it or it’s on sale.
The Books that Gave Me Pause –
DARK DESIRES series by Nina Croft (Paranormal/SciFi/Romance)- I’ve been craving paranormal romances lately, and this started to scratch the itch. Vampires and werewolves IN SPACE! Was chugging through the series nicely, when one of the main characters said something kind of bi phobic. Kept going, then more bi/homophobia so I quit. In general,bi and homophobia is BAD. Vampires being biphobic is wrong. Vampires being biphobic and homophobic IN SPACE is a nope. If your vampire can adapt to being a space ship pilot 2000 years after they were born, they’d better adapt to not making hateful “jokes”. I’m usually good at checking an author’s social media and all that before starting a new author, but this author didn’t have anything even vaguely political and I ignored that red flag. Never again!
THE TROUBLE WITH WITCHES by Kristen Painter (Paranormal Romance) – This was a DNF for me. Nothing terrible, just kind of boring and I didn’t believe the heroine was so unflappable about discovering she’s a witch from a family of witches. It felt like it was going for a Halloweentown vibe, but there’s a reason that’s a Disney Channel movie and not a series for adults. It just didn’t work for me.
@HeatherC-I had to laugh at your last paragraph-that someone mentioned “you had a problem” because you had 100 unread books. What some people call a problem, others call a luxury!! I was just thinking today I need to get my TBR pile in order, because especially library books are getting lost in the shuffle, but I love the feeling of having lots of books to read.
I’ve been reading a lot, and sadly feeling too lazy to go into much detail today. Some highlights are Rosalind James new book, Shame The Devil-the third in the series of the Portland Devils football team. I know I’ve mentioned numerous times she is an absolute favorite of mine. I ended up loving this one as well, at first I was a bit nervous because the heroine seems a bit too focused on her weight, but that resolves itself quickly. I’m dying for the novel about secondary characters Owen and Dyma. If you have a chance to watch, she has a wonderful video on her FB page where she answers questions from readers.
Someone to Honor and Someone to Romance by Mary Balogh. Always fun to dip into the Westcott series, but I feel like I need to Cliff Notes to refresh my memory on the family connections. This is a series I recommend reading from the beginning, although in each book she does give a background on how everyone is related. It is just so convoluted, that as a new reader I think I would be be irritated trying to figure out who is who. I especially loved Gil from Someone to Honor, he really appealed to me.
Also have been reading lots of Victoria Dahl, I printed her book list and have been working my way through it. Love her contemporary romances-I finished the Tumble Creek and Girl’s Night out series. Likable and capable heroines, sexy strong heroes-they are like potato chips, can’t eat (or read) just one.
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend!
I spent my entire Thanksgiving reading. I did all the prep the day before so just had to slide stuff into the oven every so often.
Started out the day with a re-read of Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman. I read this book back in March so I did some skimming so that I was ready for the second book Aurora Burning. Started this right after stuffing myself with way too much food and read straight through the rest of the day. I was so enthralled I didn’t even notice I drank the rest of the bottle of wine we had opened. K&K are probably my favorite YA sci-fi authors. I love how they develop characters and romances.
Last weekend was Alyssa Cole’s When No One Was Watching. Left me very stressed and pissed off. I hope Cole continues writing thrillers. I actually liked this better than some of her more straightforward romances.
I have Sleepless volume 2 queued up for tonight and then plan to start Diana Quincy’s Her Night with the Duke which I’ve heard really good things about.
Excellent: “The Prince” by Katherine Ashe. I struggled with it in the beginning, because the angst level was higher than what I was looking for, but I ultimately got caught up in the beautiful and lushly descriptive prose. The hero is an exiled ruler of small Middle Eastern kingdom, oh and he’s also an artist. The heroine is passing as a man so she can follow her passion, which is to attend medical school. There was lots more going on, and high stakes for both of them, so I had no idea how the author was going to get an HEA, but she pulled it off beautifully. Also, 300 pages of slow but very hot burn, if that’s your catnip.
Also excellent, a reread of Diane Farr’s “Once Upon a Christmas” which came up in the Ready, Set, Go: Scene Stealing Pets comments. The romance was sweet and touching, and Manegold the cat totally stole every scene he was in. It was no wonder that I remembered him, but not the title, author, or plot of the book.
Very Good: Anna Lee Huber’s Verity Kent post-WW I mystery series. I’ve been through 3 of them, 1 more to go and I’ll be caught up.
Good: “Her Night With the Duke” by Diana Quincy, historical with an Anglo-Arabic heroine. Familiar plot but strong character building.
Also good: Tessa Dare’s “Do You Want to Start a Scandal”, very cute and a fun read.
Mediocre: “Dashing Through the Snow”, a Christmas novella by Diane Farr, which I tried after reading her Christmas book mentioned above, but it’s nowhere near as good. I’m also finding “The Dress of the Season” by Kate Noble to be meh.
I’ve always had good luck with Anna Campbell’s Christmas themed novellas, so I picked up her new one, “The Highlander’s Christmas Countess” and it’s very promising so far, another cross-dressing heroine, this one is pretending to be a stable boy, MOC is on the horizon.
@KatiM – I am really looking forward to WHEN NO ONE WAS WATCHING!! I am glad to hear that Alyssa Cole’s thrillers are as strong as her romances!
On the reading list – finished the reread of GIDEON THE NINTH so I could have everything fresh in my mind going into HARROW THE NINTH, and I am really glad I did. HARROW was an incredibly disorienting read (in a really good way). Without spoiling too much, just know that the novel drops you right into the deep end, in the same tight perspective as GIDEON THE NINTH, but does a lot of shifting of time and voice – a large chunk of the book is written in second person. It was actually pretty unsettling, and took some pushing to get through the first third of the book, but the payoff was definitely worth it! Just know that even though the narrative and some of the stylistic choices may seem odd, they are really well motivated by the character and the situation, and once the threads tie back together, the end of the book just starts running like a roller-coaster.
I also finished out the MURDERBOT series, because I really wanted to listen to the podcast interview with Martha Wells, but didn’t want to go there before I’d finished NETWORK EFFECT. Both the books and the interview were definitely satisfying and rewarding. I don’t think that I’ve reread them as often as Sarah, but my copies of the novellas definitely have more than their share of highlights and notes, because every time I go back to Murderbot, I get more insight into what it means to really own your identity and your relationships to the people around you.
On the nonfiction front, I thoroughly enjoyed THE WITCHES ARE COMING, and I have Lindy West’s other two books sitting near the top of my TBR pile, and I loved loved loved Gail Carringer’s THE HEROINE’S JOURNEY. I am a sucker for examining how stories are made, and this is a beautiful exploration and explanation of the undervalued and underappreciated counterpoint to the Hero’s Journey. She shows how genres like romance, cozy mysteries, and other “feminine coded” narratives have a mythic subtext about discovering meaning and identity through connection with others (the HEA). It is really readable (I devoured it in only about a day), and her pop culture examples are perfectly on point.
Following that, I decided to explore some of her fiction work, and pulled the first book of the PARASOL PROTECTORATE (SOULLESS) off my TBR pile. I really enjoyed the humor, enjoyed spending time with the heroine, and liked the fun “mash up” dynamic of historical romance, steampunk, and urban fantasy. Unfortunately, I have gotten spoiled to reading books in a tight third person, which really immerses you in the perspective of an individual character. She wrote this series in third person omniscient, and the first time I “heard” the thoughts of a second character in a scene, it really threw me off. I liked the concept of the novel enough to push through it, and went on and grabbed the second book from the library and finished it as well, but I think I’m tapping out after that. I just really prefer the point of view staying closer to the individual characters, especially in emotionally driven material like romance or urban fantasy. That being said, I cannot recommend THE HEROINE’S JOURNEY enough, though! I had it on pre-order, and was waiting for almost two months for it to come in, and it did not disappoint.
Towards the end of my first pregnancy, I really dug into mystery reading and now that I am about 6 weeks (or less – eek) from delivering our second child, I am reading mysteries again!
Excellent:
None
Very Good:
O Jerusalem by Laurie King: Although this is the fifth book in the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, it actually takes place between the first and second book and I think for that very reason it was my least favorite of the series so far. I liked the character growth and development we saw in the first four books and this felt like an abrupt step backward. That being said, the mystery was still very good and the setting a character itself.
Good:
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware: The narrator on a media tour of a new luxury cruise line thinks she sees and hears a murder, but the security staff on the boat says everyone is accounted for. This was my mystery book club’s most recent selection and we all agreed that there were so many plot holes that we spent almost our whole discussion bringing them up. That being said it was still a real page turner that kept me reading despite the plot issues. It also raised some important points about women’s stories not being believed or taken seriously.
Meh:
The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux: first published in 1908 and first in a series, this sleuth (Joseph Rouletabille) is billed as the French Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, one of the major clues comes when Rouletabille overhears something at a party. This ruined the whole “he is so much more brilliant than everyone around him thing.”
The Bad:
None
@Kate C: I remember all of the pregnancy, childbirth, and baby books you were posting about during your first pregnancy—it seems as if it were just a few months ago—and now you’re about to have your second baby. Congratulations and best wishes!
I tried the first few Ruth Ware books, but (despite interesting premises) they were so full of plot holes and “busyness” about cell phones and who had service and who was using whose phone to send text messages, etc., that I finally just gave up. I know there are readers who really enjoy her books, but her style just isn’t for me.
@ KatiM, being left “stress and pissed off” isn’t generally a high recommendation for a book. 🙂 I gather this is a great thriller,but with the general stress level of my life I’ll pass. Maybe 2021 will allow me a little more emotional bandwidth for high stress books.
And kudos to you for planning your Thanksgiving Day to allow relaxation and reading! I had a relaxing day, too, and that’s definitely something to be grateful for.
@Alexandra: I’m about 2/3 into MALFUNCTION by Nina Croft, the Origins story of Dark Desire series. I was eager for this one, a mix of scifi, mystery and romance (a police investigation in space! With hidden paranormals!) But I’m struggling with it, it doesn’t take off. The investigation is amateur (lots of trailing strings left everywhere for the characters that they just DON’T PICK UP… idiots!) and on the romance side, the flirting consists of the hero leering at the heroine’s breasts. Your comment is helping me – I’m done with this story. Thanks!
@Carrie G I totally understand your feelings. I had forgotten that I had placed the book on hold or else I might have waited until next year to read it. It is really good and it is a fast read. But it is definitely a ripped from the headlines novel, hence the stress.
When I open my nook to see what I read on that, the Absolute Best Dump Cake Cookbook from Rockridge Press comes up. Yes, it’s a great book, very useful but not much on plot. I was inspired by a pumpkin dump cake on Tiktok to use up all the frozen fruit that has been sitting in the freezer and this book helped me do it.
Also, along that line, a number of comfort re-reads on nook, kindle, and real paper. The Understatement of the Year by Sarina Bowen, M/M new adult hockey romance. Wild Country by Anne Bishop, young woman deputy in the Other’s universe, replaying a classic western. The Adventurers by Jane Aiken Hodge, historical with two young women on their own after first the French and then the Russians ransacking their home as Napoleon retreats across Europe. I love this book.
I also read Paladin’s Grace by T Kingfisher three times because I didn’t want to stop reading it. Fantasy in an interesting world with romance between two not-so-young, scarred by life, real people who do not believe that they will find a happy ending nor deserve one. Plus perfume. Highly recommend.
After the Climb by Kristen Ashley. A couple in their early 50s, after having been apart for twenty-some year, now divorced from other partners, almost done raising their children, are reunited. Also both very successful and very rich, so if you want a glimpse at never having to worry if your kids spend a thousand dollars on booze, this is your book. I did read it and enjoy it.
Open House by Kate Sise is a mystery. A young woman died 10 years earlier, thought to be an accident, now looks like not. Her sister, a first year med student, pushes and becomes involved with the investigation. With flashbacks to the older, deceased sister. I enjoyed it until the epilogue. My usual medical rant – it is not realistic for your heroine to go from first year med student to forensic pathologist in five years!
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. So interesting and weird and located in Baja, where I went a time or two as a young adult (though not to that area). Silver mines and town are real per google. And the glimpse into society of the past century. And, well, I don’t want to spoil but the horror struck me as not completely impossible from a scientific viewpoint. Also recommend.
@DiscoDollyDeb – thank you! Our son is 13-1/2 months old so nothing like being married for 11 years before deciding we did want to have kids, married another year before he came and now deciding to have a second very quickly. It has been a crazy ride since he was born! And add 2020 on top of that – what a roller coaster!
I apparently have only read one book in the past 2 weeks (I have no sense of time these days).
Really loved Hot Mess by Misha Horne – her new m/m erotic romance with spanking, sexy underwear and home repair.