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?
I didn’t know there’s a new Phryne book!! Just pre-ordered, since it’s not out in the US until next June. Very annoying to wait that long, but a gift to future me. Thanks!
I’ve been rereading favorites as we headed into, and out of, the stress of a socially-distanced Thanksgiving. A DEADLY EDUCATION by Naomi Novik is just amazing and I’ve read it three times in the last two months. Not much romance, more like a very snarky friendship between people who don’t know how to do friendship. GIDEON THE NINTH and HARROW THE NINTH are also not really romances, but are dark and snarky and weird and lift my spirits. I got my husband to read them too, so we could talk about plot twists and it’s been very satisfying. BEAUTY by Robin McKindly is a pure, sweet, YA romance that I can blow through in one evening without staying up past my bedtime. Then I rediscovered Laura Florand’s “Chocolate” series while scrolling through my Kindle app, and have now reread THE CHOCOLATE TOUCH and am in the middle of SUN KISSED.