Welcome back to Whatcha Reading! Hope this week has lifted your spirits in some way, with or without some good book noises.
Here’s what we’ve been reading lately:
Carrie: I just started Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells ( A | BN | K | AB ) and also Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind by Peter Godrey-Smith. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Shana: I’m reading Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, ( A | BN | K | AB ) the hosts of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast. It’s basically a memoir about the ups and downs of their friendship. Memoirs are my least favorite genre but so far I don’t hate this. I’m also reading Edge of Glory by Rachel Spangler, a f/f romance between an Olympic snowboarder and skier
Sarah: Shana, I LOVE Edge of Glory. Tara recommended it and wow did I like it.
Tara: Oh yes! I’ve read everything Rachel Spangler wrote and that’s my favourite by far.
Catherine: I’m rereading Faking It by Jennifer Crusie, ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) which is a gloriously hilarious rom com with heists and art fraud and complicated families and so many secret identities. It’s enormous fun, though I’m not at all sure the main premise makes sense after the big reveal.
Shana: Yay, I’m glad to hear all the love for Edge of Glory! Catherine, I just read Faking It thanks to Carrie, and I thought it was the perfect comfort read. But I agree that serious suspension of disbelief was needed.
Catherine: I mean, it’s a delight! Eve and Louise ! The many many closet scenes! The tiny tiny teeth! But just don’t look too closely at the plot…
Elyse: I haven’t been able to focus enough for a book. I’m doing a lot of TV knitting and sleeping a lot.
Tara: I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Songteller by Dolly Parton and I am loving it.
Lara: I’m indulging in The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon. ( A | BN | K | AB ) When talking about the book, Elyse mentioned competence porn and I was hooked. I only started the book last night, but so far I’m loving it!
Catherine: Ooh, that one was fun! I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it!
Claudia: Elyse, same here! So many DNFs.
Sarah: I’m reading Wolf Rain by Nalini Singh and am trying to savor it because I’m coming to the end of the published books in the series. I’m having trouble doing that because it’s so freaking good.
Sneezy: I’ve just started Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele, and I’m SUPER EXCITED FOR IT!! YES THE FUCK PLEASE ILLUSTRATE QUEER THEORIES IN PRETTY PICTURES, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT MY BRAIN CRAVES!
Ellen: I am currently reading Winter’s Orbit by Evelina Maxwell ( A | BN | K | AB ) and so far it is sooooo good and has al the sci-fi and romance tropes I love and I cannot wait to review it!!
What are you reading right now? Let us know below!
As someone said on the internet, it was wonderful to wake up Thursday morning and not turn to the news with the thought “oh my god, what insane thing did the president do or say overnight?”
This has not been a great start to the reading year so far. I feel like my reading taste is in flux, so I’m kind of flailing around trying to figure out what sounds good. One thing I’ve been doing is going through my Kindle and very systematically deleting old books that I’ve realized I’m never going to read. I’ve never been shy about DNFing a book, but I’ve been bad about not getting rid of those books b/c I think ‘maybe someday I’ll read it?’
But what I’ve realized is giving a mediocre book more time doesn’t help. The world changes, my taste changes and just knowing it is there on my Kindle adds a cluttered feeling with my mind. Even if it’s not downloaded, I often like to scroll through all my content to look for something to read and the DNFs sit there, mocking me. So I’ve been scrolling from old to new, opening up and reading a chapter or two (just to give each book one last chance) and delete, delete, delete. It’s very liberating. I’m also trying to use my Kindle more for library books (I love Libby!) and for books I can’t get elsewhere, so I feel like this will keep everything more organized.
I did manage to get some reading done this month.
THE GOOD
PALADIN’S GRACE by T. Kingfisher. This was just as charming as everyone said it was going to be! Fantasy, romance, but not too twee, not too earnest. I think what I especially loved is it wasn’t “one person is very special and will save the entire universe.” I really hate, hate that story and it means I can’t get into a lot of fantasy and sci-fi. Some stories I grant retroactive permission b/c they formed part of my childhood, but every time I stumble across a new story with that very over-the-top ‘Campbell Hero’s Journey’ plot line I think, “oh, we’re doing this again? Okay, bye.” Give me people just trying to sort through every day problems and a world that isn’t going to be saved, but maybe made a little better by the end of the book.
THE SEAGULL by Ann Cleeves. This was another in the Vera Stanhope mystery and I enjoyed it, but I think it suffered a bit from taking a break over the holidays. In December I was going through a Vera Stanhope book every few days and I was very immersed in the characters and the world. Here, little things would niggle at me and pull me out of the story. It was still enjoyable, I just wasn’t totally swept up.
THE MEH
MR. MALCOLM’S LIST by Suzanne Allain. This book was. . . fine? It was essentially a traditional regency, which is a genre I love and miss, but it got so much buzz that I had high expectations going in. The heroine gets involved in a scheme with a devious friend where she’s supposed to tempt the hero and break his heart, but she falls in love with him instead. There was a lot of scheming and hijinks which is not that unusual in regencies, but I found myself resolutely unamused for most of it. It was cute, but didn’t rise to level of “witty.” I did like that the scheming character was presented with sympathy and was given a shot at redemption by the end. I feel like a lot of older regencies went really hard on those characters in a way that sometimes feels icky to me now. I think part of the problem I was expecting too much. I also just wonder if my tastes have changed. I may go back and read some older Barbara Metzger, Elizabeth Mansfield, Marion Chesney, etc to find out.
A CHRISTMAS KNIGHT by Kate Hardy. A medical romance with a nurse practitioner heroine who has a son with autism (or Asperger’s as they call it in this older book)and a hero who is a doctor. The hero is wracked with guilt b/c he paralyzed his brother in a jousting accident. Yes, really (see title above). Hardy really loves to wring out the angst and guilt. The heroine also feels like she could never have a relationship b/c her son and his needs come first. I’m pretty much just going to copy my review from Wendy the Super Librarian II love her TBR challenge!)
— I’m not saying their feelings aren’t valid, but using other people’s disabilities just as props to create conflict has me feeling some kind of way in 2021. But it is a 10 + year old book and I’m not going to try to hold an older Harlequin (with a very short word count!) to the same standards I would have for a modern book. I was disgruntled, but I finished it. YMMV, as I always say.–
I feel like finishing it was an accomplishment and helped further cement my new policy of ‘delete the old books and set them free.’
I’m mostly about quilting these days. My sister had her baby last week and I decided to make them a quilt. The online tutorials are so numerous and well-done. I’m being sucked in. So so so many projects I want to make. My nephew’s quilt is almost done, I’m all of a flutter deciding what’s next.
Talking of babies, Katie C.’s girl must be born, yes? Congratulations!
Besides quilting blogs, quiltimg magazine and quilting books, I read BLOOD HEIR by Ilona Andrews. Loved it. Want more. There will be more. Yay!
Otherwise, most of my reading time is taken up by Proust. Fifteen minutes a day since Jan 1st, and I’m at 3% of In Search of Lost Time. At that rythm it’ll take me more than a year to get through but that’s okay, I like the way I’m reading it. It gives me the time to like it. Every night when I pick it up, I go back a couple of pages to remind myself what anecdote we’re on, and when I can’t pay attention anymore, I stop. I don’t want to force myself and become fed up. I want to keep liking it.
Outside of it I don’t feel like reading anything too involved. I read mangas. More specifically, yaoi. Rereads at that. I found out I still love BROTHER by Yuzuhi Ouga despite, um, many, um… problematic… stuff. Both the story and the art are full of vitality (and detailed; and not censored) and the pairing of the desperate brother with the clueless one works. They’re stepbothers btw. (It has to be specified bcs sometimes in manga, they aren’t.) Another one I rediscovered was APPLE AND HONEY and its sequel, APPLE AND HONEY: HIS ROSE COLORED LIFE by Hideyoshico. The drawing style is made of uneven lines, it gives a soft, unfocused feel that goes well with the way the story is presented; we’re not inundated with internal monologues, and there’s space left for the reader to fill with their interpretation, and the drawings support that. It’s sweet and reflective. I like that.
There were 6 or 7 other mangas I read, realized I never wanted to read again and pour into the give away box. @Jill: I’m with you on that – it’s very liberating! Declutter is awesome. Just like Don getting his access to social media cut off is.
Oh, I almost forgot: last WAYR I’d just begun RHAPSODY (The Butcher and the Violonist book 01) by Kenya Wright, from a cover snark. The one where the heroine has her back tatooed to look like a violin. It starts good, I was surprised. The heroine is a violonist, broke since the city symphonic orchestra was shut down. She lives in a made up city named Belladona, where her aunt owns a high-end brothel. To help her pay rent, her aunt offers her to be the live entertainment, with her Stradivarius (of course she has a Stradivarius. Don’t roll your eyes quite yet, it’s actually part of the plot). The brothel’s description is very cinematrographic. Think lush, over the top, decadent luxury. It’s a fantasy brothel, every worker is there of their own free will, they enjoy what they’re doing. It’s very sex positive actually. Then there’s the butcher. Of course he’s sinfully handsome but the heroine mostly fell in lust with him after she noticed how intently he watched her fingers on the violin and how he seemed to know the notes. She gets all these dire warnings about him but she’s fascinated. The first part is all from her pov and beyond the fact he’s clearly into her, it’s all her figuring out her attraction, her emotions. Then comes part II, and we get into his head. Oh boy. The book veers back into generic dark romance from there on, and becomes too over-the-top for me. At least, it send me to watch a lot of youtube video for the melodies, where I also stumbled on a cute and hilarious weird cat listening to classical music.
I feel like I’ve been making a lot more progress in my reading since November. Odd, that… Anyway,
The Good
THE WIZARD’S GUIDE TO DEFENSIVE BAKING. This book was so weird and so charming and delightful. It kind of reads as YA because the heroine, Mona, is 14, but there’s a dead body in a bakery on page one and it just gets weirder from there. But I loved it. Books that have something to say about trauma or adults/leaders not taking action when they could have speak to me at the moment (I’m sure for some reason…)
PALADIN’S GRACE, also by T. Kingfisher. It’s a romance but with a very high body count and some definite weirdness (the way the continued appearance of heads is eventually explained is rather creepy), but the found family and love shine through. Decidedly non-traditional as a romance, but all the better for it.
CASTE by Isabel Wilkerson. This book is great, if difficult to read in places, so I am proceeding slowly (because I can only read about so many lynchings without a break.)
The Meh/The Bad
A COURT OF FROST AND STARLIGHT by Sarah J. Maas. This is really only worth reading if you’re a completionist—nothing really happens and everyone is annoying. It’s basically a Christmas novella where everything about your family being a pain in the neck is rendered a bit too realistically. Also, there were some details that I found very annoying—apparently High Fae only get their periods twice a year so why does it really matter if Rhys stops taking his contraceptives anyway when it will be another six months before Feyre can get pregnant? And for heaven’s sake, you do not slice bread when it’s hot! It doesn’t work! Oh, and I know this happens in a lot of fantasy novels, but I still think it’s a bit creepy when one character is 21 and the other is a 500 year old immortal. I’m willing to go with it for the sake of the story, but can we please not dwell on that?
HENCH—decided this was a DNF last night. It’s too violent for me and I could really have done without the massively graphic depiction of a severely broken leg. Also, I don’t like the MC’s best friend and can authors please stop using Leviathan for their Big Bad name? I am so over it.
THE DUKE WHO DIDN’T—I know a lot of people loved this, but this was a DNF for me. Chloe was so annoying and I just couldn’t get over the fact that Jeremy lied by omission for NINE YEARS. I’m a firm believer that lies of omission are usually (always?) worse than the initial deception because there’s this ongoing betrayal of trust. It may just also be that Courtney Milan is not an author for me—I’ve now read seven of her books and only really liked one of them.
Anyone else feel as if they’ve finally left an abusive four-years-long relationship with a bullying, cowardly, gaslighting, lying, greedy, mean-spirited, narcissistic psychopath who has managed to convince half your family that he’s actually a good guy and you’re the problem and they just keep enabling him and telling you how bad you are? Wow—that’s a lot of hands raised.
And now, books—
If you had handed me a copy of M. O’Keefe’s STOLEN HEARTS without an author’s name on it, I would have sworn Skye Warren wrote it. While I knew STOLEN HEARTS would be dark (Molly O’Keefe seems to reserve “M. O’Keefe” for her darker books), what I wasn’t expecting was how much the style of STOLEN HEARTS would remind me of Skye Warren’s work. It’s all there: an innocent young women, trapped within a world of corruption and wealth, married against her will to a much older, powerful man [cw/tw: abusive marriage, miscarriages], finds herself unexpectedly widowed and unsure if she can trust anyone, least of all her mentor, an older woman who was her late mother’s best friend. The young widow also becomes fascinated with an enigmatic Irishman; he appears to be as taken with her as she is with him, although (much as in Warren’s books) the sexual activity between the two seems to be limited to occasional verbal sparring accompanied by slightly transgressive (no p-in-v) encounters. The book also features a lot of interior monologues as the heroine appraises what is happening around her and how her experiences have colored what she perceives; she senses (as does the reader) that her Irishman probably has ulterior motives, but she desires him nonetheless. Meanwhile, other threads weave around the heroine: she has a sister with on-going mental health issues (I liked how the sister was shown to be self-advocating and aware, despite periodic institutionalizations); this same sister seems to have connections with organized crime figures; the charitable foundation the heroine was strong-armed into directing is obviously a front for something more sinister; and, of course, there’s her on-going romantic “situation.” Also similar to many Skye Warren books, STOLEN HEARTS ends on a cliffhanger; I’m now awaiting BROKEN HEARTS, scheduled for April release. I recommend STOLEN HEARTS, but it is fairly dark and I have a feeling the next book may be even darker.
[cw/tw: homophobia] Sarina Bowen’s ROOMMATE is a smoothly-written m/m romance that makes full use of the opposites-attract and proximity tropes. The book is full of delicious food porn (one of the heroes is a baker) and appearances by many characters from the True North series, and it has much to say about being true to who you are, but it misses being a Keeper Shelf Squee for me because of a baffling last-minute plot point (more on that below). ROOMMATE is the story of two coworkers at a local coffee shop: Roderick, an extrovert who freely admits he has no filter, and Kieran, who might best be described as the “strong, silent type.” Whereas Roderick has been out since high school, Kieran, celibate for years and only aware in the abstract that he is attracted to men, thinks he might be asexual (he muses that he doesn’t think about sex a lot, but he seems to spend a lot of time NOT thinking about it). Roderick is homeless and needs a place to stay (there’s a heartbreaking scene where Roderick approaches his homophobic parents to ask if he can stay with them and they won’t even let him into the house because he refuses to “repent” of the “sin” of being gay). Kieran needs a roommate to help with expenses in the house he’s renting. So begins a sweet and sexy romance of roommates (and opposites) tentatively exploring their mutual attraction. Obviously, Roderick wins the sweepstakes in the awful parents department, but Kieran’s family is also full of tension, lies, and secrets—exacerbated by Kieran’s father’s clear preference for Kieran’s brother. As Roderick & Kieran’s relationship blossoms, Kieran also pursues his dream of becoming an artist. At around the 80% point of the book, I was thinking ROOMMATE would possibly be an early candidate for my favorite book of 2021, but then there was a scene that destroyed much of the goodwill the book had engendered up to that point: A priest from a local church (where Roderick’s parents are parishioners) talks to Roderick, breezily giving him all the reasons he (the priest) personally has no problem with Roderick being gay, but then admitting that, well, yes, Roderick and his partner could not get married in the priest’s church and the priest could not officiate at the wedding, but the priest would be glad to attend any wedding Roderick had elsewhere and, oh by the way, could Roderick please help serve 200 people dinner over at the church? (A church where, the priest has just verified, Roderick and his partner would not be welcome to wed.) And then, to make things even more mind-boggling, Roderick agrees to go to the church to help serve dinner! At a place where he’s just been told he’d only be welcome in a “love the sinner hate the sin” type situation. I couldn’t get my mind around why Bowen chose to include a scene where a gay character essentially agrees to provide free services to a church where his sexuality is deemed a “sin.” This inexplicable scene knocked down my assessment of ROOMMATE by several notches. I still recommend ROOMMATE for its love story, its exploration of different types of family dynamics, and the way Kieran gradually emerges from his shell, but you can safely skip the scene of “sure, I’ll perform free service for your homophobic church that refuses to acknowledge my humanity.”
ABEL is the first book in Katee Robert’s new Sabine Valley series about seven brothers who were driven from their home years ago and have now returned to exact their revenge. Based on ABEL, the Sabine Valley books (I’m assuming there will be one for each brother) are similar to Robert’s earlier Wicked Villains series: mashups of contemporary erotic romance tropes combined with myth, fable, fantasy, and pop culture references, featuring a large cast of ethnically-diverse characters in a variety of gender pairings and triplings (is that a word?). ABEL begins with a quick setup of the Sabine Valley world, where three factions have been maintaining a uneasy peace until the arrival of the long-exiled Paine brothers throws all the existing alliances into disarray. In short order, each brother claims a “bride” in a political ceremony where more than one person can be a “bride” (and not necessarily female). Abel, the oldest brother, claims Harlow, who just happens to be the fiancée of Eli, Abel’s former best friend, now bitter enemy, the man he blames for his family’s exile. When Eli attempts to intervene, Abel claims him as a bride too. The relationship between Abel, Harlow, and Eli soon develops into an MMF menage where there’s plenty of hot sexytimes and political maneuvering. I like the way no one in this triad is completely sure of the other two and how each of them keep thinking of ways they can exploit the weaknesses of the others for their own advantage. Key quote: “We’ll fuck it [the menage] up. How can we not when we’re all still so new to the idea of happiness?” Robert does the dynamics of MMF menages particularly well (as in her Thalanian Dynasty series or in THE BEAST) and ABEL is no exception. I look forward to the rest of the Sabine Valley books (the next one, BRODERICK, features an MFF menage—that should be interesting). Recommended.
I don’t think I’ve read a romance before where the premise for the hero & heroine getting together is because the heroine initially believes the hero might be her half-brother and she wants to get information from him about her assumed father—but that’s how Maisey Yates begins THE RANCHER’S WAGER, the latest in her Gold Valley Winery series of contemporary cowboy romances, proving that you can always find something unexpected in a romance novel! Both the hero and heroine of THE RANCHER’S WAGER have ulterior motives when she wins his services as a ranch hand for a month in a charity poker game: he wants the opportunity to purchase her property and figures the best way to do that is to show her how hard and unending ranch work can be; meanwhile, in addition to discovering more about her father, the heroine wants the hero’s help in setting up a working ranch. I hasten to add that once the h&h learn that they are not related, they then discover (despite a decade-plus age gap) that they have much in common. I enjoyed THE RANCHER’S WAGER, but I do think I’d have liked it more if I’d read the previous books in the series and got a better handle on the various members of the two families involved and their inter-related history. Recommended—but read the previous two books first.
After loving Misha Horne’s LOOKING FOR TROUBLE earlier this month, I tried another one of her books, WORKING OUT THE KINKS. While not as good as LOOKING FOR TROUBLE, WORKING OUT THE KINKS was still an enjoyable m/m romance with spanking kink and a lot of emotional growth. Landon is a struggling musician in his late twenties. His dreams of rock ‘n’ roll glory are in the rear view as he (and his band of ever-changing personnel) play gigs at downscale bars doing cover versions of long-ago hits. Brett is a couple of years younger than Landon, unsure of anything in his life outside of what his wealthy, domineering father expects of him. When the guys were teenagers, Landon’s grifter/gold-digger mother was briefly married to Brett’s father. Nothing happened between Landon & Brett during the time they were stepbrothers, and the men have not seen each other for over ten years when they reconnect one evening when Brett seeks out Landon after a show. The relationship between Landon and Brett is initially entirely sexual with a D/s spanking/brat element. (As an aside, I think we could have an interesting conversation about how some things that we might find objectionable in m/f romance—such as the entire “being a brat requiring punishment” dynamic—are less of a problem in m/m romance; perhaps because gender politics don’t come into play?) As time goes on, the two men grow closer emotionally and each helps the other address different unresolved parental issues that have been preventing them from living fully-realized adult lives. I do think the book suffered from being told exclusively from Landon’s POV. I would have liked to have known what Brett was thinking, rather than just what he says to Landon. Also, Brett’s behavior early in the book really is appallingly bratty and, regardless of the reasons for it, that also mitigated my pleasure in the book. But overall I would recommend WORKING OUT THE KINKS for those who like m/m romance and are not opposed to a little kink alongside the heroes’ emotional evolution.
NON-ROMANCE
“Women were programmed to fight to be believed,” acknowledges Lila, the heroine of PRETTY LITTLE WIFE, a wonderfully twisty mystery by Darby Kane (romance and romantic-suspense writer, HelenKay Dimon, publishing under an alternate name), and Lila has thought hard about creating a narrative that will be believed because she has killed (or thinks she has killed) Aaron, her emotionally-abusive, isolating, gaslighting, unfaithful, predatory husband. Lila stages the scene to appear as if Aaron committed suicide in his car, then waits for the police to notify her of Aaron’s death. Just one problem: the car containing Aaron’s body and “evidence” of his suicide, disappears before it can be discovered—and now, instead of playing a grieving widow, Lila has to play the concerned wife of a missing husband. As the police—lead by a no-nonsense detective named Ginny—look into all aspects of Aaron’s & Lila’s lives and marriage, someone begins leaving notes for Lila; someone who clearly knows what she did. Is it Aaron—not quite as dead as Lila thought he was? Or is it someone else intent on playing cat-and-mouse with the increasingly anxious Lila? It’s hard to say more about this intricately-plotted, entertaining, and thoroughly feminist book without giving away the story, which (much like last year’s THE SUNDOWN MOTEL) is filtered solely through the female gaze (alternating between Lila’s and Ginny’s POVs). Kane does a fantastic job of defying reader expectations: trust me when I say you may think you know where the story is headed and then you’ll be thrown for a 180, in the best possible way. (There’s also a shout-out to the Bitchery’s own Sarah Wendell in the acknowledgments!) Highly recommended.
[Regarding triggers: My expectations for mysteries/psychological suspense are different than my expectations for romance, so while there were elements of PRETTY LITTLE WIFE that I would definitely label as triggers—both Lila and Aaron experienced horrible traumas in their childhoods, not to mention some of the things Aaron was getting up to before Lila discovered them—I found the presentation of these events (as opposed to the events themselves) to be relatively mild: they are mostly things that happened in the past and are not described in explicit detail, but they do include an accidental shooting death, a suicide, a number of murders, and the grooming & sexual abuse of underage girls.]
Tori Telfer- Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History
This was a fairly lightweight history of historical female serial killers. It explores dark subject matter and the psychological and cultural context of these deadly women, but with a certain humor and in a not-too gory or heavy way. I was already familiar with most of the killers profiled, but it was an interesting and quick read.
Alyssa Cole- How To Catch A Queen
I enjoyed this for the most part, though I never really got Shanti. Her motivations just didn’t make sense to me: she wants to be an influence for good, a philanthropist, change the world, and the only way she can conceive of doing this is by having the title of queen? I mean, can’t she just run a nonprofit? Cole does acknowledge the sort of absurdity of this, but it still took some doing to suspend my disbelief. I really understood Sanyu though, and I really appreciate the trend towards showing heroes dealing with anxiety and other mental health issued that have so long been coded female. Anyway, the plot was good, I cracked it pretty early on but liked how things come together. I don’t often read fake country/monarchy novels but I will read as many of these as Cole wants to put out.
And I’m almost finished with Heaven Official’s Blessing, another novel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, the author of The Untamed. It’s very long (“almost” done means I have 200 pages and change left to go) and it took me a while to get into it, but as of now I’m absolutely obsessed. A god and the ghost king who’s been in love with him for 800 years (the god is….slow to catch on to this) unraveling a bunch of corruption in the heavens. There’s an animated adaptation that I’m hoping to start once I finally manage to finish the book.
I can tell my brain is still stressed out because I’ve been reading multiple books at once, whereas during lower stress times, I’ll maybe only read a more dense nonfiction book with some romance to break it up. Sigh. I’ve been waiting since the inauguration to feel more relief and it’s just not flipping like a switch. I think some of the uncertainty is also around being a DC resident and not knowing how calm things will remain. (I’m not close to downtown!)
Romance:
[CW: suspense featuring a cop hero] RECKLESS by Selena Montgomery: I bought this back in November after the Georgia results were called. I have not read a ton of suspense lately and did not realize until I got started that this was suspense! I liked that for a book published over ten years ago, it was ambivalent in places about policing. The heroine’s defense attorney competency had me making major heart eyes, and the sheriff hero didn’t come off like a jerk. (That said, if you’re still turned off of police officer main characters, maybe skip this.) I did think their relationship moved a little fast, but that’s not surprising given how much of the story was taken up with the smaller and larger suspense plots. I think there’s an overarching story about the sinister bad guy organization, at some point I’ll read the next book.
CRY WOLF by Patricia Briggs: a re-read for me; I’m discovering the Alpha and Omega series is oddly comforting for me. I’m more and more drawn to the concept around Anna’s Omega abilities making her not just nurturing but also protective of those around her (versus the typical werewolf aggression).
PASSION FAVORS THE BOLD by Theresa Romain: I had read FORTUNE FAVORS THE WICKED a while ago and liked it, so I finally got to the direct sequel! The concept around the Royal Mint theft is still intriguing, although I wish I’d waited less between books because I did not remember all of the details around where that left off. I did like Georgette and Hugo together for the most part, and the couple-teaming-up aspect is something that I always enjoy. They made sense as a couple, and I liked Georgette a lot as a heroine–decisive & bold in her actions while also maintaining a good sense of humor. The one minor qualm I had about this story is the age gap–Georgette is 20-going-on-21, Hugo is around 31 or so–and Hugo has known Georgette since she was younger as he’d check in on her for her older brother’s sake. There’s a line in the final chapter about him realizing he was checking in on her because *he* (Hugo) cared for her too, and it comes off a little squicky. (I wouldn’t say there are any grooming aspects to it–he literally just stopped in at her family’s book shop–but that comment did throw me at the end.)
CAPTURING THE SILKEN THIEF by Jeannie Lin: Oh this was a fun historical novella! I’m trying to pace myself on all of the Tang dynasty works she’s written that I haven’t read–I don’t want to run out too soon–and had picked up the Pingkang Li bundle. Jia and Cheng were a nice couple, even though the pacing of their relationship felt rushed to me, as most novellas do. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series!
A FAKE GIRLFRIEND FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR by Jackie Lau: I’ve been working through the Holiday with the Wongs series and wasn’t loving this one, but I think that may have been a reflection of my mood this past week (not great!). The food descriptions, as usual, were upsettingly good, and I think the family shenanigans in this installment were more loud-and-silly than manipulative. (The grandparents threaten to set up the hero Zach at Easter, so his choice in January to get a fake girlfriend for CNY feels less like a defensive response–that’s months away!) I thought Zach and Jo’s friends-to-lovers story worked very well for me–Jo was pining in secret, and Zach was oblivious. There’s a good subtext to their relationship around their previous broken engagements leading to both of them staying in holding patterns as a coping mechanism (Zach refusing to entertain the idea of a serious relationship ever again, Jo believing that her ex not prioritizing her means she doesn’t need to prioritize herself). Shifting out of these holding patterns fuels the shift from friends to lovers.
Non-Romance:
TALKING FROM 9 TO 5: WOMEN AND MEN AT WORK by Deborah Tannen: This is super old (I was reading the 2001 reissue of the 1994 original) and somewhat limited in scope (very focused on white collar workplaces featuring mostly white, cis people), but still has some very good analysis. (I also am one of few women in a white collar workplace filled mostly by men whose communication styles probably haven’t warped dramatically from the studies cited here.) I think where this is still really helpful is looking at conversation as *social ritual* and not just literally what people are saying, and how different styles & rituals perform different social functions. So in this view, people (often women) apologizing by taking on blame in the workplace, something that’s been criticized in popular media the last decade (“Ladies, stop apologizing!”), is part of a social ritual in which each side is allowing the other to save face by taking on blame. Of course, when this kind of style rubs up against more direct styles, there’s friction and misunderstanding! Some interesting ideas I’ll be thinking on.
HOW WE GET FREE: BLACK FEMINISM AND THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE, ed. Keeanga Yahmatta-Taylor: really great intro to the Combahee River Collective, & their famous Statement and interviews with the founders & current activists inspired by their work. I had not been familiar with the origin of “identity politics,” so that alone is worth the read. This is also great for anyone interested in histories of grassroots activism.
Currently reading:
PALACES FOR THE PEOPLE: HOW SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE CAN HELP FIGHT INEQUALITY, POLARIZATION, AND THE DECLINE OF CIVIC LIFE by Eric Klinengberg: gosh this makes me miss being inside of libraries! I’ve been thinking during the pandemic about shared public spaces and what makes a community, and I’m hoping this will help guide future engagement with community politics.
Alexa, play Feeling Good by Michael Buble. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day.
Yeah, I’m like a lot of others. Not waking up every morning to “Oh God, let me check on democracy real quick” has been relaxing.
Well, let’s see. After 10 Things I Hate About the Duke, I decided to head off to a galaxy far, far away (who could blame me, amiright?), and cracked open the copy of Star Wars: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule that I had just taken out of the library. It’s the first in their new High Republic series, which is set about a century before the events of The Phantom Menace. Therefore, the only Jedi they mentioned that I was familiar with was a certain little green dude that liked training younglings and was known to gleefully skip politically-advantageous ceremonies, which made me laugh. I really enjoyed it. What they’re doing that is really interesting is that, by pinpointing the viewpoints of several different Jedi, you got to see how they perceived and used the Force. For example, one character perceives it as music, and another perceives it as an endlessly deep sea that he wants to explore. Very fun, very interesting. Once I had finished that, my preorder of Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas was sitting on my Kindle, so of course, I had to go in on that. Thomas’s writing is just…it’s NUTS how good she is. Her voice is so distinct and smart and funny, and the empathy she writes with gives her stories a ton of dimension. Concrete Rose is the story of Maverick Carter, the father of Starr Carter from THUG. In this story, he’s not the middle 30s, highly protective, entrepreneurial, proud father we know in THUG. He’s a 17 yo kid who has entered the gang life that has already incarcerated his father, has just found he’s a father in his own right, and already has another kid on the way. At the same time, he’s also smart, hard-working, and fiercely loyal and loving of his friends and family. This book, along with THUG, should be required reading in schools. Loved it, I will follow Angie Thomas anywhere anytime. Once finished with that, I knew that my Overdrive loan on Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi was getting ready to expire in a few days, so I went ahead and read that one. That’s another one that needs to be taught in schools. It’s the story of two Ghanaian sisters in the 1700s that never meet, as they live in different villages, and the families. One girl is married to an English soldier and lives a life of comfort in the Cape Coast Castle. Below her in the dungeons of the castle, her sister is sold into slavery and sent to America. The story follows their descendants, all the way into the modern day. There is a lot packed into those relatively short 300ish pages, and the story moves quickly. The reader really has to pay attention in order to know whose descendant’s tale they are currently reading. It’s not an easy read, as the history of the intercontinental slave trade and both slavery and racism in America is not exactly a cheery subject, nor should someone try to make it so. But it is one to read and learn from. Which then brought us to the day before the Inauguration, an event I both looked forward to and also was very worried about. Which meant that I did what I often do in times of physical and emotional stress, which is I fired up a historical romance. I had Devil In Spring by Lisa Kleypas out of Overdrive. It was so sweet and funny, and exactly what I needed. I loved Gabriel and how all in he was on the idea of marrying Pandora, and also how much he loved the quirks that she herself believed were deal-breakers. I would have liked to see much more of how Pandora came up with and designed her board games, especially as she was based on the person who invented the game that we would come to know as Monopoly. But that’s a minor gripe at best. And that brings us to last night, which has me reading the 2nd in the Sebastian St. Cyr series, When Gods Die, by C.S. Harris. I liked the first one, but am already finding this one much more to my taste in terms of plotting and pacing, and I enjoy Sebastian’s watchfulness and ready skepticism. So until next time, my dudes, stay frosty.
I’m reading WINTER COUNTS by David Heska Wanbli Weiden.
I also have ROOMMAID by Sariah Wilson; FROM BLOOD AND ASH by Jennifer L. Armentrout; and YOU HAD ME AT HOLA by Alexis Daria waiting on my TBR pile.
I’m also watching LUPIN on Netflix, which has made me want to check out the original stories.
Where did I leave off? Oh, yeah, THE PRINCESS KNIGHT. I always think it’s a little weird when writers have different nom de plumes but I find I like one nom better than the other(s). I always enjoy Shelley Laurenston, but tend to find the G.A.Aiken titles less entertaining. Not that I didn’t enjoy the book, just don’t read it thinking fantasy romance. We all know Gemma and Quinn are going to end up together, but the relationship building is oblique at best until they end up doing it three quarters of the way into the book preceded by zero sexual tension. It has more of scratching an itch feel. Honestly, the “romantic” plot could have been left out entirely without effecting the book. It’s a solid bawdy good time. Lots of humor, lots of camp, lots of female empowerment, lots of violence, and yes, you have to have read the first book, and yes that dragon hint has become a solid plot thread.
Then Keeland & Ward’s HAPPILY LETTER AFTER. It does not achieve the angsty plot twist of HATE NOTES, it’s more of a twee unrealistic coincidence that throws the characters into moral quandaries and some questionable actions that they all come clean about in reasonable ways. I thought about mentioning this one in the adopted main characters post earlier this week, but got distracted by life. A lot of the plot revolves around fertility issues. It starts with a cute set up. The widowed hero’s 10yo daughter writes an out of season letter to Santa c/o the magazine where Sadie works. Since she’s been handling the Dear Santa column for years it ends up on her desk. She is instantly drawn in due to their shared childhood tragedies. This leads to an improbable meet with the very attractive father. There are a couple time line issues which I will not elaborate on due to spoilers – except the obvious one of a 10yo still believing in Santa. I enjoyed it, even though I nearly sprained something rolling my eyes in a few spots.
This morning I finished JAK’s latest, ALL THE COLORS OF NIGHT. Speaking of authors with several nom de plumes (yes, I pretty much enjoy all her various identities). There’s something to be said for the comfort of picking up a book and knowing that you’re going to enjoy what’s coming based on 40 some years of experience. God lord, I’ve been reading JAK for 40 years. She’s back in the Fogg Lake series with the story of North who seems to be losing his psychic ability and Sierra who is working in the psychic antiquities field until she finds her true calling. Coincidently, North who works in security, also feels he hasn’t found his. Are they going to fall in love? Of course. Are they going to catch the bad guys? Of course they are. Are they going to clear his family name? Of course they are. Are they going to find their true callings? Do I need to say it. Total comfort read, which I absolutely needed this week, handled with the competency built on 40 years of storytelling. Thank you JAK, I needed this.
@DDD, thank you for a perfect summation of my feelings these last four year! Watching the Inauguration there were more than a few happy/relieved tears being shed in my living room.
This week I had the somewhat discombobulating reading experience of going immediately from a book that I deeply disliked to a book that will probably make my “Best Of” list this year. The book I disliked was TO CATCH A QUEEN by Alyssa Cole. I badly wanted to DNF, but I won it in a GR contest so I felt obligated to finish/review it. I loved her Reluctant Royals series so this reaction caught me by surprise. I found the book to be too steeped in patriarchy and toxic masculinity to be enjoyable, although I think at least part of my reaction was due to the current political climate and state of the world. I think (I hope?) the author was trying to show that it’s possible to change the world view of a person shaped by all of the choking toxicity he was raised with, but I found it painful and unsettling to read.
On the other, bright, side I then read SICK KIDS IN LOVE by Hannah Moscovitz and adored it. Don’t worry, it says right on the cover, “they don’t die in this one”. The MCs are both 16, Jewish, and live in NYC. They meet-cute in a hospital infusion room as they are both suffering from chronic illnesses that (hopefully) won’t kill them, but will mean that they are going to be sick and dealing with various symptoms for the rest of their lives. Although the book explores the debilitating effects of both illnesses, there is also so much fun and joy in their story. I loved how deftly the author balanced their physical challenges with the utter normalcy and exhilaration of falling in love for the first time. Another important theme in the book was that it was okay for Isabel to give herself permission to actually BE sick and not feel like she constantly had to pretend to be well in order to make others around her feel more comfortable with her illness.
A couple of other books I enjoyed the past few weeks were AT THE HEART OF IT by Tawna Fenske, an author I can always rely on for a good story and characters I can root for, and THE DUKE WHO DIDN’T by Courtney Milan. Interestingly, both books relied on deception as a major plot point, something I’m not that fond of, but in both books, my enjoyment of both of the main characters, individually and as a couple easily overcame that. I also had previously listened to the podcast with Courtney Milan so I had an idea of what she was trying to do dramatically in her book and I think that added to my enjoyment. I tend to alternate Fantasy or UF with romance, so next up will be either THE PRINCESS KNIGHT by GA Aiken or THE PRINCE OF SECRETS by AJ Lancaster (the second book in the Stariel series that was glowingly reviewed here a few weeks ago).
I had a ton of books I was planning to read but then 10 days ago I read one of Victoria Thompson’s GASLIGHT MYSTERY books and I’m hooked! I’ve now read seven of them and even though the quality is a bit uneven and some elements can be quite repetitive at times, the main characters Sarah and Frank are interesting enough to keep me reading and their (very) slow-burning romance is well-handled. The secondary characters are equally delightful although I wish the author would give us more glimpses into Frank’s home life with his cranky old mother and his deaf son. Unfortunately we get more scenes of society dinners that are boring as hell. I get that this is to emphasise why Sarah left her privileged life to be a midwife but that point has already been made many times.
Also I made two mistakes reading these books: first I read them in almost random order (starting with #7, then 16, 9, 1, 2, 12, and, 4 because I’m messy like that) which means the character and relationship developments didn’t have as much as impact as they should. And then I read them one after the other which really makes the repetitiveness more evident and the more annoying tropes stand out. My other complaint is that this series is so white. Of the seven books I’ve read I don’t think I encountered one Black character. This is really glaring especially because there are multiple instances where Sarah wants to rail against the prejudice shown by her rich society parents to members of New York’s immigrant communities. There are 24 of these books so I am hoping for more diverse characters soon.
Everything I’ve read or listened to has mostly been rereads. I read the latest Kristen Ashley, and now as I said on Twitter, I’ve broken my “In Case of Emergency” glass and brought out the big guns. Hailey Edwards’ Potentate of Atlanta series. Last time I read her (her Necromancy series of which this one is a spin-off) I read 6 books in 4 days. I’m not QUITE at that pace because I have a work-packed February, and also I’m sleeping an insane amount each day. I’m assuming it’s part of my PTSD recovery from the last 4 years. (And no. I’m not joking about PTSD. I think nearly all of us have it in some form.)
Hopefully 2021 means I can start reading new stuff again. Last year was almost all rereads. Very few new books, and probably 2/3 of those I DNF’d even though they were authors I loved and books I was enjoying. I just didn’t have the energy for anything new.
Thank you all for the great recommendations— this was a stressful week, so no reading to report, but can’t wait to dig into these! Hope everyone is staying safe!
I’m reading Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison. She’s a good writer, and I’m liking it but ‘Sherlock Holmes only in Steampunk London and he’s an angel’ required some getting used to.
The Hollow Places by T. R. Kingfisher. I’m assuming the same universe as The Twisted Ones, but it stands alone. After reading this book, if I found the Narnia wardrobe, I’d nuke it from space as the only way to be sure.
I’m hoping the ability to concentrate comes back eventually. The only thing stuck in my head is Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” and I’m about to shoot something with my red rubber ping-pong ball pistol. I did love those actual fireworks though. (NB: I can’t blame this on autocorrect, but every time I type fireworks, it comes out firewords. I’ll have to think about that.)
So few books, so little headspace.
OUTLAWED by Anna North. The Handmaid’s Tale with wagons, guns and ammo. Child-bearing is everything in this future world and woe to those who can’t, won’t, don’t want to conform with that or anything else, especially gender. Ada’s journey from outcast to is complicated, but ultimately rewarding. The book left me both sad and hopeful.
GENTLEMAN JIM by Mimi Matthews. What an absolute delight. The reader knows, of course, where the story is headed, but the journey was wonderful. A keeper for sure.
ANGEL SIX ECHO by Robert Appleton. Military sci-fi love story, apparently I needed this in my life. A woman trained as a child to be a soldier/weapon (echoes of Helena in Orphan Black) finds a real life with a loving school teacher. He decides to fight in the intergalactic war she has given up and unforgivable things are said. The story starts here; he enlists, she dons the alien armor that could destroy her, and breaks all the laws to save him and his squad, at the same time she’s pursued by authorities who think she’s a saboteur. Whew. There’s a lot of military tactics and three POVs, but honestly, I enjoyed this so much. The ending? What ending? Not a cliffhanger, just … worth it.
Now reading: No idea.
Oops. Apparently I’ve just learned how to use the beginning spoiler tag. “Ada’s journey from outcase to “spoiler” is complicated …” is what that sentence should have read.
The only book I’ve finished this month is A WIZARD’S GUIDE TO DEFENSIVE BAKING, by T. Kingfisher. I highly recommend it if you don’t mind your high fantasy not being super serious.
I’ve almost finished THE RADIUM GIRLS, by Kate Moore. Nonfiction and depressing as hell, especially for how little big business has changed since the 1920s.
Every January, I set a goal of reading books that have been sitting on my kindle for awhile, because I regularly buy books on sale and then don’t read them right away. This year, I started with Robyn Carr’s Sullivan’s Crossing series. There are 5 books so far and I enjoyed them. The setting is a small town in Colorado and was a great place to escape.
I also read Blood Heir by Ilona Andrews in the midst of my Sullivan’s Crossing reading streak and it was a nice break from Colorado. I was happy to revisit so many old characters, but the end came quickly and I felt that there were a lot of unresolved plot points. I’m glad to hear that there will be more books.
I just finished Dream Chaser by Kristin Ashley, which was also delightful and made me want to revisit the cookbook that she published last year.
Not sure what I will start next, although I may do some searching for some of Amanda Gorman’s writing, because I was so moved by her inaugural poem. What a talent!
Yesterday @Hope and @Sue the Bookie mentioned An Elderly Lady is up to No Good and I surprised myself by buying it and by enjoying it despite being no fan of main character assassins in mystery or romance. The elderly main character led others into easily and frequently dismissing her as being “less” due to her age.
Lick, by Kylie Scott, was included in Books on Sale last week and despite 45 of my fellow SBs agreeing that “got black-out drunk and woke up married” should be over, I enjoyed it and thought it was a great story. I also bought and read the three subsequent books in the series because the characters were interesting people and I wanted everyone to find their HEA. I enjoyed the way the author continued the appearance of earlier couples in each book without info dumping.
Yes, a huge relief not to worry about daily dumpster fires!
THE WORST DUKE IN THE WORLD by Lisa Berne. Only a 1/3 of the way in but enjoying all the feels! Humor, pig eating blancmange, attraction (not instant lust, not that I don’t mind that, either). Beta Duke, horrible father but lives his life caring about the people around him (take that Simon Bassett!) and equally charming son by now dead first wife. Our heroine arrives to the nearby family as a long lost relative, who has her own sense of self and improvement. Mean sister of the Duke of will undoubtedly toss all sorts of monkey wrenches. Hope the rest lives up to the first part!
BTW, if Alpha guys are your things, Louise Bay’s “Royal Series”, five books for 99 cents. I’ve read some of them, and liked only some of them.
Fugitive Telemetry! I’m so jealous!
I love the prequel to FAKING IT – Jennifer Crusie’s WELCOME TO TEMPTATION. I’ve read it over and over, and I still burble with laughter at some of the dialogue. I can’t help it.
I just read Ilona Andrews’ BLOOD HEIR and had a huge rant about it to my sister, who was also disappointed. The narrator did not feel like Julie Olsen. She felt like Kate 2.0, buffed up to a ridiculous degree, already possessing all the knowledge and power and mentors which Kate spent nine books painfully acquiring while getting her ass kicked and her bad knee hammered. We missed all the in-between story where Julie was levelling up from a teen to an uber-sorcerer-warrior, and so it’s hard to feel worried for her when it turns out that she can just perform ancient Babylonian spells or summon up magic devices at the drop of a hat.
I think I found this particularly disappointing, because these authors usually do a good job differentiating their narrators – for example, Andrea, Kate’s best friend, does not sound like Kate when you’re reading her stories. Nevada and Catalina Baylor feel like very different protagonists too.
What I am reading on paper is The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow and I am loving it so far. What I started on kindle is Mrs. Perivale and the Blue Crystal by Dash Hoffman. It may be me but I am not getting into it. It sounded like my catnip: elderly woman on fated quest in an alternate world. But I didn’t realize that elderly, in this case, was that close to my age! Plus I am glad all her cats are coming with her but I am not feeling their personalities yet. And the creatures remind me of blue ewoks for some reason. So I am going to let this sit for a bit.
I just finished Her Accidental Prince by Holly Rayner. It takes the getting married while blackout drunk and puts a girl from New Jersey with the Prince of what would be Iceland if they had a royal family, casinos for tourists, and somewhat better weather. Cute and fun but not deep.
Also read a short by C L Polk (who I now realize I have followed on twitter for a while). THis is St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid. It’s an urban fantasy f/f, I enjoyed it a lot.
Arden by Melody Anne. High school principal whose wealthy gangster dad left her family years ago is being threatened as she tries to clean up her new small town school and is helped by one of the teachers who is secretly a billionaire. Um, it was OK but some suspension of disbelief was needed.
The Housekeeper by Natalie Barei is a trope I am seeing a lot recently. A girl changes her name and looks, becomes someone’s housekeeper for possibly nefarious reasons, gets enmeshed in the family. This one has a bit more of a twist and was a decent read.
Nora Robert’s Hideaway. I hate to say this but it was not compelling. I have been reading bits and pieces off and on, imagine I will finish it eventually.
I’ve been on a massive reading kick lately, to avoid work, sadly. First up, the good:
Cat Sebastian is currently running a reading group for FOR MY LADY’S HEART by Laura Kinsale on Twitter (look up the hashtag #Melanthe) and I decided to read it although I’m not the biggest fan of medieval romances or Laura Kinsale for that matter. But I absolutely loved it, and thought it was so masterfully done. Truly captures what romantic love would have looked like in the medieval era with religious overtones, chivalric codes, court intrigue, violence and drama. With the exception of an awful mention of [CW: marital rape] in the beginning of the book, our hero has beta vibes and the heroine is an ice queen princess who learns to be vulnerable.I thought the book was more than a romance, it was also a sweeping epic in the style of fantasy novels.
I also read PALADIN’s GRACE by T. Kingfisher and the hero actually kind of reminded me of Ruck, the hero from For My Lady’s Heart! Without all the Kinsale intensity of course. But a sweet and honorable warrior type who respects the heroine and is deeply committed to being a knight. I didn’t love it, but I really, really liked it. And I liked the creepy elements of the mystery too.
I’ve also been reading a lot of m/m lately: I ended up going through a lot of Joanna Chamber’s backlist. The Enlightenment series was really good, a historical series set in Scotland where the HEA only takes place at the end of a three book arc and has a great opposites attract vibe. Angsty too (one of the MCs is tortured about his sexual preferences for men, but he learns to overcome this through the series). I followed that with her Gentleman Wolf duology, which I also really loved but which also made me a bit upset. The angst was INTENSE and while I loved one of the heroes, I feel the other doesn’t grovel enough in the second book which sees their HEA. I still think it was beautiful, especially because I don’t usually care for werewolf stories. But she does a wonderful job of weaving in enough historical detail to make it a blend of historical and paranormal.
I also read RULE BREAKER by Lily Morton, a contemporary office m/m romance which I really really liked. It was funny, sexy and a bit angsty, where one of the heroes has a lot of growing up to do and the other is a man who has a lot of love to give.
The not so good:
After reading FOR MY LADY’S HEART, I had to read about Allegretto in his book SHADOWHEART, the most intriguing side character from FMLH. I did end up reading the whole book, because the second half ended up being better than the first half. But I wasn’t really feeling it. There’s an S&M dynamic in the book which makes sense from the hero’s point of view, but not so much from the heroine’s. And I feel the whole tortured hero thing almost becomes a caricature by the end. As in FMLH, I thought the court intrigue was really well done. But otherwise, I didn’t enjoy this the way I did FMLH.
I read Lauren Layne’s IRRESISTABLY YOURS after it was on sale this week as mentioned here, but I was really grossed out by the gender dynamics. The H/h dynamic was very “she’s not like other girls, she loves to eat and she hates makes up and she loves sports and she’s so tiny and cute even though she’s stuffing her face with food 24/7 and also she has such little sexual experience but she loves giving me oral”…. ugh. It’s okay to wear make up. Honestly her character reminded me of this absolutely brilliant monologue from Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl about “cool girls” which is a take down of the tropes we see in this book (see here: https://genius.com/Gillian-flynn-gone-girl-cool-girl-monologue-book-annotated”
After enjoying Rule Breaker, I also went on a Lily Morton backlist binge and read BEST MAN and DEAL MAKER (both m/m contemporary). BEST MAN was just… okay, kind of forgettable, unnecessary drama around an ex at the end, and DEAL MAKER was just too sweet and saccharine for me to handle. I like some edge in my books, and these books didn’t really have that. Her epilogues tend to be so over the top happy I found myself rolling my eyes and taken out of the story a bit.
Lastly, I don’t know why I did this because I have a serious problem with cop/law enforcement romances, but I read SOMETHING ABOUT YOU by Julie James. I read it through but I HATED IT. I was basically hate-reading it throughout. What makes me really mad about these kinds of books is how the cop/FBI whatever heroes are not only heroes but that the whole culture of law enforcement is shown in a heroic light too. That’s just not cutting it for me in 2021 and I would love to see a blogpost on this topic the way we’ve seen so many conversations on representation, consent and sex positivity in romances over the last few years.
@FashionablyEvil: I tried reading the new Courtney Milan too and also DNF, I don’t know why but I’ve realized her books don’t do it for me either, which is weird because her politics are always on point but her characters never quite capture me.
My favorite read of this month so far has been Alexandria Bellefleur’s Written in the Stars. It’s just the bubbliest, sweetest rom-com I’ve read in so long, it’s f/f, and I loooooved it! Can’t wait for the next book in that series.
I’m not sure where I left off last time, but in the past two weeks I’ve read through the first 5 books in Sheri Cobb South’s John Pickett mysteries. They are an entertaining way to spend a few hours.
I also listened to books 2 and 3 of the Dressmaker series (Scandal Wears Satin and Vixen in Velvet) by Loretta Chase, narrated by Kate Reading. Rollicking good fun on audio. Reading get’s Chase’s characters and her writing and her narration brings everything up a notch.
I also listened to The Governess Game by Tessa Dare. this is a ok book brought up to really fun by an excellent narration by Mary Jane Wells.
I read the final book in Lily Morton’s Mixed Messages series, Risk Taker. Not as good as Rule Breaker, but still enjoyable. Also finished The Marvelous and Amazing Blue Billings by this author. It’s a fun ghost story book with great characters and a creepy mystery.
Glitterland by Alexis Hall is narrated by Nicholas Boulton, who narrates all of Laura Kinsale’s books. His voice is sex on a stick. He’s wonderful with this incredibly emotional story of a man with bi-polar disorder finding love in an unexpected place. There is definitely Hall’s trademark humor, but the look at mental illness is serious and well-done.
The real standout so far this month was The Black Madonna by Stella Riley, narrated by Alex Wyndham. This is the first book in the Roundheads and Cavaliers series about the English Civil Wars. Incredible storytelling and history with a romance. Unputdownable–I finished the 20+ hour book in 48 hours. Wyndham’s narration was excellent, as always.
My one big fail for the month was A Cold Dark Place by Toni Anderson, narrated by Eric G Dove. It’s a romantic suspense with shady government dealings and government sanctioned vigilante-ism. We’re supposed to be ok with it all. After an impassioned defense of the death penalty by one character, Anderson gives lip-service to the idea that vigilante-ism isn’t justice, but then goes ahead and resolves both the mystery and the problem of a future for the h/h by relying on highly illegal actions by law enforcement, including the FBI. I’m wary of reading anything else by this author.
In the past few weeks, I’ve become obsessed with epic fantasy (again). I just finished reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson (Book 1 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen) and Nicholas Eames’ Kings of the Wyld (The Band book 1). I’m 3/4 into The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan (Book 3 of the Wheel of Time series). And yesterday I started The Last Sun by KD Edwards (Bk 1 of The Tarot Sequence).
I’m still reading Christmas books. Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater (Jumper in the UK). Saucier than the Hallmark movie. Set in the UK.
Just finished Love at the Icicle Cafe`.
I finished the Malazan Book of the Fallen! Ten books, 10K+ pages, 3.5 million words. It was easily the most memorable reading experience I’ve had in years, and I am simultaneously immensely glad to have read it and quite relieved that it is done. Better yet, it ended well. I think I cried more or less every minute or so for the last two hundred pages. Because I have entirely too many things to say about it, I am not going to say anything else.
Now I am going to read something that is not the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
@DDD, I read and enjoyed Misha Horne’s Looking for Trouble based on your review, and am now reading Working Out the Kinks and like it too. I also read a couple of her novellas, and didn’t like Old School Discipline – both heroes were opaque to me and I can’t relate to true masochism – but did like several others, especially Naughty AF, a Christmas/step brother/spanking story.
I picked up Tessa Dare’s Any Duchess Will Do on sale, but it was a rare miss for me among her books. Neither main character really interested me, and the plot is of a duke forced by his mother to choose any woman in the tea room/ pub at Spindle Cove, to train as his duchess. He chose the serving maid, and then made a deal with her to pay her to fail. It seemed really ungenerous to expect her to make a fool of herself in front of a bunch of rich nobility. I was so disappointed I picked up Do You Want to Start a Scandal, which was blurbed in the back, and was excited to find it immediately charming and laugh out loud funny, as I remembered.
I have the newest Charlie Adhara queued up and am halfway through Zoe Castille’s Hired.
@Mikou: I loooved K.D. Edwards’ The Last Sun and The Hanged Man. I often check to see if there’s a publishing date for book 3. If you end up liking it as much as I did, there’s 2 free novelettes you can get – The Sunken Mall and Tarot Sequence: Scenes From Quarantines. The links for download are in the Goodreads book descriptions.
I read and really enjoyed THE BEAST OF BESWICK by Amalie Howard. It was the first book I’ve read from Howard and I’m happy to discover a new author to enjoy. I’m looking forward to the next book about the heroine’s sister.
It’s been hard to decide what I want to read next. I thought I was getting tired of historical romances, but I find the thought of tackling contemporary or fantasy too much for my brain right now. So I grabbed Sally MacKenzie’s DUCHESS OF LOVE series from Overdrive. They were fine but not anything I’d be interested in re-reading in the future. I mostly enjoyed the scenes when we got to see the Duchess of Love and her Duke and see glimpses of their long, happy marriage. Their sons’ love stories held much less interest for me.
Now I’m finally getting around to starting Julie Anne Long’s PENNYROYAL GREEN series. I’ve been collecting the ebooks for years but hadn’t started any and thought now was a good time. It’s not going great so far. It took me a long time to get interested in the first book. I’d find myself reading a chapter and then putting it aside to do something else. I did end up liking the first in the series, THE PERILS OF PLEASURE, enough that I started the second. But it’s been even harder for me to get into LIKE NO OTHER LOVER. I sat it aside about a week ago and haven’t been interested in picking it up again. I don’t dislike the hero or heroine, but something about the writing just isn’t working for me. I know PENNYROYAL GREEN is a beloved series of a lot of romance fans. Maybe I’m expecting too much from it? I want something that I can dive into for the next couple cold months and was hoping this series would do the trick. Hopefully book three will be the one that sucks me into the PENNYROYAL GREEN world and makes me want to keep visiting there for the cold winter weeks ahead. February is my least favorite month and I need something fun to look forward to reading.
The Truth About Dukes by Grace Burrowes: Was ok. The third in the series (Forever and A Duke) remains my absolute favorite, followed by the first, My One and Only Duke. The books about the sisters Althea and Constance (this one and the one before it) were my least favorite but still eminently readable. The one thing I loved about The Truth About Dukes was how the vicar, Constance’s daughter’s adopted father wasn’t made into a token villain but turned out to be have dimensionality. I am really looking forward to Lord Stephen’s story!
The Ten Things I Hate About The Duke by Loretta Chase: this was swoon-worthy. there’s something about a hero who respects his would-be-partner right from the start, facilitating her shenanigans, and realizing how he wants to be a better person too, that is just way too romantic. there’s something about a heroine who knows herself, and is not ready to settle for anything less than what she knows she’s worth, that’s just way too romantic. I loved this book!
Roses For Christmas by Betty Neels: Ahh Neels. This was a perfect Neels. The Christmas didn’t feature hugely in the story but there was lots of snow which did make me feel winters, and was perfect for reading in this cold, cold season!
How The Universe Got Its Revenge by M.K. Eason: Meh. I loved the first in the duology but this . . . I’d say avoid. I kept thinking there has to be a twist, there has to be a way that the veeks will turn out to be something other than pure villains. By which I mean there will be some exploration of their motives, culture, whatever. . . nada. I read it but skipped parts to find out what happens plot-wise. Was an ok read for me.
I can’t remember where I had left off on the last WAYR and I’m too lazy to go look.
I decided this was the year that I would give Ilona Andrews a shot since everyone loves their books. I read through the first three Kate Daniels books and I was like eh? They were ok. I’m not really feeling this Kate and Curran vibe…LKH did it better with the first few Anita Blake books…I like the world building, but these plots aren’t grabbing me, etc. And then I opened book 4 Magic Bleeds and I am just zooming through it and I finally get why people love this series.
I also read the Andrea and Raphael novella Magic Mourns and I love Andrea’s voice. I love Andrea and Raphael together.❤ I actually like Andrea more than Kate and while I want to dive into her book immediately, I am being good and reading everything in order.
I also started Light of the Jedi. I’ve been so excited about a new era in Star Wars and I’m looking forward to getting time with no interruptions to fully immerse myself in this new world.
Murder on Black Swan Lane by Andrea Penrose. I lost track of who was doing what to whom and why. Also, I found the Cockney slang a bit much. I feel like writing dialect is a bit like putting pepper in food – a little goes a long way. And not everything has to be written down exactly phonetically as it’s spoken (I found Hagrid in HP very hard to read for that reason. It got a bit wearing after a while)
Nevertheless, I did enjoy it, and liked the slowly developing relationship between the leads. Not a romance, exactly, but the potential is there and I’ve got a hold on the next one at the library.
The Heir From Nowhere by Trish Morey – the working-class h is implanted with the wrong embryo at a fertility clinic, cue being dumped by unfaithful ratbag husband. She contacts the H to let him know that she’s carrying his baby, which she plans to hand over and leave. As they get to know each other, she struggles not to get attached to the baby, or the H, and the H has to overcome his prejudices and fears from his own background and romantic history. Low angst, but again, was nice to watch them warm up to each other.
Nikki and the Lone Wolf and Mardie and the City Surgeon both by Marion Lennox. Nikki of the first book moves next door to a miserable sod who is rude to her. However, he does recognise that he’s being horrible, and why (as a self-defense mechanism after surviving a difficult childhood and marriage) and isn’t too angry and arrogant to apologise to her. It takes a while – he repeatedly pushes her away as she gets under his armour, but he supports her and his community and she’s able to see the goodness he has inside him too.
Mardie, of the second book, I’ve mentioned before. The H & h’s went out with each other as teenagers, but broke up when the H left to go to medical school, and was dismissive about the art she loved doing. When he returns for a school reunion, he meets her again, still living and working on the same farm, and assumes she’s just stagnated and pined away for him. It’s great to see him keep discovering that she’s not the sad country mouse he thinks she is, but has a varied and satisfying life. A bit uncomfortable because the H has worked in Africa, but it’s not very specific. Just a big hot place where children need eye surgery (that’s his job) which is not great to read. If it wasn’t for that, I’d love this story unreservedly.
One thing I like a lot about Lennox: she has women working in traditionally male jobs, eg on fishing boats, as dry stone wallers, sheep shearers and farmers – but it’s rarely made a big thing of – no ‘oooh, they are so tough being in a man’s world’. They’re just there, being good at things.
The Italian’s Redemption by Jackie Ashenden. I read this fairly recently and was a bit meh about it, but I re-read it and enjoyed it a lot more. I think I was going through a bit of a sad patch which affected my reading at that time.
A couple of Kelly Hunters. Cracking the Dating Code which title my phone app cuts off so it ‘Cracking the Dating Cod’ and Flirting with Intent.
These are both from a series about a family of gorgeous, wealthy, adrenaline-junkie geniuses working for the Australian Secret Service. The characters verge on being too perfect, but Hunter’s snappy, funny writing, and sparky dialogue saves them from being unbearable.
AUGH! Don’t tease us with the ARC of Fugitive Telemetry! I had brief heart palpitations until I figured out, no, it still isn’t available to the masses until the end of April.
I read the first 4 Murderbot books and enjoyed them more than I expected.
I also read “The Happily Ever After” by Avi Steinberg. For a book that was supposed to be a man discovering romances and the romance community and learning to write it, there was a awful lot of male literary navel gazing. He kept talking about Tolstoy, Flaubert, etc, and their books and all these classics where it ends badly for the heroines. He did take note of issues where sexism comes into play against the genre, but never manages to have his light bulb moment on precisely why the issues are issues. He mentioned very few actual (female) romance authors by name. He also got really hung up on writing gothic romance and I can’t believe his romance editor friend didn’t tell him that’s largely been a dead subgenre for like 50 years. I wanted to like this book far more than I actually did.
I loved Our DArkest Night by Jennifer Robson set in WWII about a Jewish woman who pretends to be married to a Christian farmer in Italy.
I’ am almost done with Once in a Blue Moon by Sharon sala. I love Blesings ga.
Meh
I finnaly finished Becoming by Michelle Obama. It was well written but I felt like i knew everything already.
I read Too Much and Never Enough by Mary Trump. Why didn’t she write it 4 years ago.
Been reading less since becoming obsessed with the game Seekers Notes. Since last posting in WAYR, I read and enjoyed the first 2 Crown Colony series mysteries by Ovidia Yu (The Frangipani Tree Mystery and The Betel Nut Tree Mystery). Thanks to whoever here brought them to my attention. Just re-read Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, which was perhaps even funnier than when I first read it 30 years ago.
Since last time ~
— a reread of SK Dunstall’s Linesman which I enjoyed once again.
— Wild Sky by Zaya Feli is a rather lengthy m/m fantasy which I quite enjoyed. I’ll be looking with interest at what else this author might write.
— In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren. I found this contemporary romance to be a really fun read; I did a lot of laughing.
— Stray and Lab Rat One by Andrea K. Höst are books one and two in the Touchstone series. (Stray is currently FREE for Kindle readers.) This science fiction series was recommended to me long ago; in fact, I see that I’ve owned it since mid-2014. It’s a fine read for teens as well as adults. I enjoyed it and plan to read on in the series. The books are written in diary format.
— I enjoyed Michelle Diener’s Class 5 story “Dark Ambitions” which is in a 1499 page anthology, Pets in Space 5.
— I very much enjoyed a recently published collection of short works in one of my favorite series: Kensho (Claimings) by Lyn Gala.
— The Address: A Novel by Fiona Davis which I read for my local book group. I mostly enjoyed it (there were times of dread); however, there were a number of elements that strained credulity.
— I returned to the series I was reading the previous week with Caszandra (Touchstone Book 3) by Andrea K Höst which I enjoyed. Because this series is written in diary form with short entries, it’s dangerously easy to keep “one more chaptering” until it’s nearly midnight. Ask me how I know!
— then Gratuitous Epilogue (Touchstone Book 4) by Andrea K Höst. While the first three books covered one year in near daily diary entries, this book spanned one year in monthly diary entries. I enjoyed it.
— In Arcadia (Touchstone Book 5) by Andrea K Höst: unlike the first four books which were written in diary format, this book was written in the third person and focused on a new character. It could stand alone; however, I think it is best read after the other books. I enjoyed it.
A reminder that the first book in this series is FREE for Kindle readers, Stray (Touchstone Book 1).