Wowee, it’s 2021 and our first Whatcha Reading post of the new year. The first week has really been something. At the Pink Palace, we hope you all are doing some restorative activities, especially if that includes reading!
Speaking of reading, we want to know what you’re enjoying!
Sarah: I finished the first Psy Changeling arc and have started Silver Silence. Of course by the time this goes up I will probably be nearing the end of the next one. Which means I should go check for it at the library!
Elyse: I am doing a reread of the Veronica Speedwell books.
After that it might be the Bridgerton series. My brain doesn’t want anything new right now.
Tara: I’m halfway through Network Effect by Martha Wells and that has been an emotional rollercoaster.
Carrie: I’m about to start From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty and I’m excited!
Sneezy: I speed read through the Worth Saga, not even pausing for the novellas just so I can find out what happens and how all the pieces fit. Now I’m going back to read it all properly, including the novellas.
After that, I’ll need a time machine so I can fine out what happens to @@@@ and *****. I also there to be a book about ~~~~~.
Lara: I’ve just started The Ballad of Hattie Taylor by Susan Andersen… As I’m on page 1, it’s way too early to tell how I’m going to feel about it. But this is a kind of milestone for me because it is the first non-reread (i.e. new-to-me) book that I’ve picked up in what feels like months. I’m ready for new things y’all!
Amanda: Heads up that there’s a rape scene!
Lara: Gah! Thank you for the head’s up!
Catherine: I have embarked on a reread of the Bridgerton series. The early Bridgertons were some of the first romances I read, and it’s interesting to see how they do and don’t hold up after nearly twenty years. The ones I thought were a bit dodgy then are definitely dodgier now… but The Viscount Who Loved Me ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | Scribd ) is still pretty good fun. And in between, I’m reading Jackie Lau’s Cider Bar Sisters novels, which are filling me with delight, especially His Grumpy Childhood Friend. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Shana: I just started Teach Me by Olivia Dade. It’s a thawing ice queen romance. I struggled with the beginning, because right now my tolerance for even minor injustices is nil, and apparently that includes talented teachers who are saddled with an incompetent administration. But now I’m loving the main characters.
Ellen: Not sure if I mentioned this last time but I’m reading Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison Allen, which is basically a supernatural Sherlock Holmes retelling. I’m really enjoying it–it’s creepy and suspenseful without being TOO gory but also charming and quite whimsical. The plot is very episodic and I’m reading it fairly slowly, to savor it. I also just read Ten Things I Hate About the Duke which was as delightful and sweet as advertised by the rest of the Bitchery. Definitely helped me through some holiday-adjacent stress!
Catherine: I have become such an Olivia Dade fan!
Shana: Me too! Isn’t she fantastic?
Catherine: Yes! Her heroes are so very sweet and her heroines are Not Here For Your Nonsense, and I love them all.
What are you reading? Tell us in the comments!
I’ve been reading even more manga than usual (print from various libraries, and digital from a KU trial)…romance-wise, I loved A SPRINGTIME WITH NINJAS by Narumi Hasegaki. Lonely heiress Benio has been forbidden to leave the family compound since childhood, thanks to the six-thousand year tradition that the first man to kiss her must marry her (I know, but stay with me). She puts her foot down and wants to attend high school, so she’s assigned a smartalecky teenaged ninja bodyguard named Tamaki to accompany her at all times. Turns out Tamaki is the boy she loved when they were both five, and has been pining for since he mysteriously left the compound. Just about every trope you can think of is featured, and unbelievably (aside from some rushed plotting in the finale), they all work. It’s really funny and sweet, and the modern-day settings really offset the medieval traditions in thoughtful and surprisingly critical ways. (It reminds me a bit of the movie CHINESE ODYSSEY 2002 with its cool bantering evenly-matched couple dynamic and madcap anachronisms.) Plus, ninjas! It’s complete in four volumes, which is a refreshing change. (I got hooked on teen soccer manga DAYS and have learned it’s a still-ongoing 21 volumes…damn, wish I’d tried Comixology Unlimited when they had 60-day trials. Anybody know if CU is worth it?)
Other KU finds include Tara Lain’s BETTER RED…I’ve always had a soft spot for her more magical/fairy tale m/m plotlines, and this one has a surprising amount of realism that grounds the story without making it too dark. I also loved the comic ROMEO X JULIEN: FIRST DATE by Mary Dumas, which turns the play’s storyline into a happily comedic modern-day gay love story in a fictitious Northern California city. Dumas incorporates Shakespearean dialogue and plotting in clever ways, and the balance between sweetness and explicit raunch reminds me of Tom Bouden’s best work. Romeo seems to have ace/demi leanings (potentially undermined by the instalove, but I know from experience that The Demisexual Shortcut is real, so I’ll give a pass), and Julien’s genderfluidity is also a bonus. It’s pretty pricey if you’re not on KU, but I would love to see what the print edition looks like.
@KatieC: I’m halfway through Moonflower Murders, the sequel to Magpie Murders. It’s the same format -story within a story- & I’m quite enjoying it. I do like Horowitz’s take on the English cozy mystery; if you didn’t know, he wrote scripts for Poirot & for Midsomer Murders, so he certainly knows his subgenre. I haven’t read his meta mysteries yet (The Word is Murder; The Sentence is Death), but they’re on my list.
Best wishes for your impending arrival!
My ADHD addled brain has been fighting against my putting anything new into it, so mostly it’s what am I TRYING to read rather than what am I reading. Argh.
Still, I got a couple things read so far in the new year. The first was, erm, uh, well… TRANS WIZARD HARRIET PORBER AND THE BAD BOY PARASAURALOPHUS, by Chuck Tingle. Look, I really enjoy Tingle actually, okay? He’s hilarious and also surprising compassionate in his writing. I came for the sex parody and stayed for the gentle thoughtful study on the creative process.
Next was PENRIC’S MISSION, by Lois McMaster Bujold. The third (or fourth? she doesn’t always write in chronological order and it confuses things) novella in the Penric and Desdemona series, set in the author’s World of Five Gods universe, about a boy who accidentally becomes bonded to a two hundred year old demon. I read the first three or so novellas in the series ages ago but for some reason I only barely started this one before getting distracted. But, this time I was able to stick, and I’m on to the next one, MIRA’S LAST DANCE. Hopefully I can keep the momentum going this time. I do like this world and these characters.
Upcoming on the Trying to Read list, PIRANESI by Susanna Clark, and THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN by C.L. Polk. Plus my vast kindle backlog which I will be rummaging desperately through in the faint hope something will take.
I believe that I have read some good books recently but all I can think about is the book I am enmeshed with currently: Untamed by Anna Cowan. It is like a fever dream and I can’t look away. I read it quickly at first to find out what happened. Everyone was damaged, some were beautiful, some were not, some were very self destructive, and pretty much everyone had the childhood from hell. The story was disjointed. The plot, well, what plot? but there was one. Now I am reading the second time through, slowly, lingering, watching what happens and how and why. It is still a fever dream and I still cannot look away. I went into a 24 hour on call/10 hour in house shift on almost no sleep because of this book. I almost missed my Covid shot because of this book. Would I recommend it? Depends on how much time you have to disappear into it.
Due to an unexpected, hella stressful personal event that took place at the very end of 2020 (happily turned out to be all fine but did give me a quick, LARGE dose of perspective) I ended the year with a comfort reread of the entire Hidden Legacy series by Ilona Andrews. That was my second time this year reading the full series and I regret nothing. Those books are like a prescription that contains everything I personally need for a happy reading experience. I only wish there were more! In the middle of my epic reread I also made time to read IN A HOLIDAZE by Christina Lauren and THE ROOMMATE by Rosie Danan, both of which I found meh in some parts and delightful in others. Overall both get a thumbs up from me. To start 2021 I have read CLEAN SWEEP, the first in Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper series. It was fine, but for me it didn’t have the magic (heh, no pun intended but OK) of the Hidden Legacy books. Also read a Harlequin Presents by Abby Green that was very well-written, THE MAID’S BEST-KEPT SECRET, and just last night I finished DEAL WITH THE DEVIL by Kit Rocha. I have not read any Kit Rocha before and enjoyed this one but weirdly, I found that the words seemed to enter my brain in what I can only describe as “tortured dystopian movie-hero voice” and I think that was a function of the writing style, maybe even the intent of the writing style, but I found it distracting. However I liked the characters and would definitely read the second in the series, but didn’t need to download it immediately or anything. Next up for me is a book called I GOT A MONSTER about a real-life scandal that involved the Baltimore City Police. I lived in Baltimore for years and still worked there up until November of this year, so this is super interesting for me. And because I am seemingly the only person in the world who has not yet read any Julia Quinn, I just purchased THE DUKE AND I and plan to start that next. I want to read it before watching the series on Netflix but am looking forward to both!
So far my year is going better on the reading front than it did last year. I read the first two Murderbot books, “All Systems Red” and “Artificial Condition”, on Sunday. I would have continued on, but am waiting on my library holds to arrive for those – there was a waitlist on the ebooks but not on the print books.
I also read volume 4 of “Satoko and Nada”, a cute 4-panel slice of life friendship manga. It’s cute and low stress, which is what I need.
I started on “Project Lina: Bringing Our Whole Selves to Islam” by Dr. Tamara Gray and Najiyah Diana Maxfield yesterday. I’m about 100 pages in and finding it wonderful – it’s all about bringing your whole self – your culture, your language, your food, your clothing, your background – to Islam and building a firm foundation of knowledge so that you can move forward confidently as a Muslim. It’s intended for converts, both new and those who’ve been Muslim for years, and is based on sound scholarship and life experience of both authors. Highly recommend it.
I’m reading the Bridgerton series, by Julia Quinn and breaking it up into two parts. (We don’t have streaming from Netflix, so this is my second option.)
Just started ‘The Viscount Who Loved Me’. Already I’m enjoying it more than ‘The Duke And I’. (I’m sorry to those who passionately love that book. It just wasn’t for me and that’s all I’m going to say on that.)