It’s June! Since we’re almost two weeks in, it’s time for our first Whatcha Reading of the month!
Claudia: The Intimacy Experiment! It’s working really well for me.
Sneezy: Still working my way slowly through Laziness Does Not Exist by Dr. Devon Price, and wheeeeeze.
Holy shit.
Romance wise, I’m reading City Kitty and Country Mouse by Alyssa Linn Palmer ( A | BN ) again.
Lara: I just finished rereading Tessa Dare’s A Week to be Wicked. It is even better the second (third?) time around!
Catherine: … I may still be reading all the Celia Lake books I can get my hands on, because lockdown sucks and so do cramps and grant season has been going for six months and shows no signs of stopping. But in between I read Jackie Lau’s The Professor Next Door which is funny and hot and extremely full of food porn, and I’m nearly through Cat Sebastian’s The Queer Principles of Kit Webb, which I am absolutely loving, but can’t quite put my finger on why it is working for me so perfectly.
Shana: I’m in the middle of Heartbeat Braves by Pamela Sanderson, ( A | BN | K ) a workplace romance set in an urban Native American community center. I’m always looking for nonprofit/NGO book settings, and this is probably the most spot-on depiction I’ve ever read. It’s really nailing the WILD office politics. A Board member is forcing you to hire their aimless, yet hot relative? Of course that’s a good idea.
Elyse: I’m between books at the moment. I’m not sure if I want a thriller or a rom-com.
Carrie: I’m reading The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters. I am very frustrated by extremely unwise decisions of the protagonist, but hypnotized by all the female rage and nature magic of the angry swamp hag variety (using ‘hag’ in the reclaiming sense).
Tara: I’m reading How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole and I’m pretty much fully in agreement with Shana’s recent review. I’ve also been listening to Blood, Sweat and Pixels by Jason Schreier, about video game development and it’s excellent. I’ll almost certainly be checking out his new follow-up.
Susan: I’m reading Rin Chupeco’s The Girl From The Well, ( A | BN | K ) because I’ve been desperately in the mood for something a little scary. The protagonist is a ghost girl hunting down murderers, and the things Rin Chupeco does with the narrative voice and these tropes are so great.
But my copy of The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri ( A | BN | K ) has arrived, so what if I just pre-booked myself into the Bad Decisions Book Club to devour them both?
What have you been reading? Let us know!
RACE THE SANDS by Sarah Beth Durst. People get reincarnated; the absolute worst people get reincarnated as monsters. Monster racing is a major sporting event, and the monster who wins the season gets a Get Out of This Incarnation Free card from the Morality Police, who are, of course, crooked af and all about amassing power. A rider and her trainer have personal needs to win, and victory becomes, of course, a fate-of-the-kingdom issue.
YAMPELLEC’S IDOL (Livi Talbot #5) by Skyla Dawn Cameron. Disgraced debutante/single mom/raider of tombs and friends are hired by her estranged mom to find an artifact in Peru. For those concerned about ethics, Livi’s character arc involves a conscious shift from highest bidder to rightful ownership, and she goes hard in that direction in this installment. Despite being very much not-a-series reader, this one is pressing all the right buttons and I still want more.
Started WIDDERSHINS by Jordan L. Hawk last night.
Re-reading The Book of Firsts by Karan K. Anders for the third time. All the manga/anime shoujo tropes I like, and a reverse harem setup, without the aspects that I can’t stand, and three hotter than hot guys who run the school. The new girl, Mika, agrees to a scandalous proposition for her own reasons, and what follows is all the manga drama and a lot of sex. What really makes this book for me is the building friendships and the way Mika and her boys handle the drama that gets thrown at them.
I missed the last WAYR so I have a lot of books to list today… I might skip some if the post gets too long ^^
I came off last WAYR riding high on Frederica, and I kept on with the Regency era with THE WEAVER TAKES A WIFE by Sheri Cobbs South. Light charming read. Simplistic, but charming.
Next was HALF SOUL by Olivia Atwater. Even more charming. Many thanks @GraceElizabeth, for recommanding Olivia Atwater. I loved the book, I loved the main characters personalities – the curmudgeon hero, and how he kept being taken aback by the heroine – and I loved the resolution ! I picked up Ten Thousand Stitches and I’m keeping it in reserve for when I need a sure thing.
The good book strike continued on with THE GOBLIN EMPEROR by Katherine Addison. Althought many things happen in this book, it felt actionless. It’s a fish out of water story (I always enjoy those – especially when the fish ends up king of the mountain) ; nothing exciting happens, but I always wanted to go back to the book and I had trouble putting it down. It must be due to great writing and a very endearing pov character. It made me want to read The Angel of Crows more than ever. (Sherlock!)
I also needed to liberate some boxes to store my ever-growing fabric stash, so I went back to sorting my boxes of old books and stumbled on DETAILS OF THE HUNT by Laura Baumbach. This was the first m/m book I ever read, like, 12 years ago. It’s literally Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack (even if he’s called another name for trademark sake, the cover is unmistakable) being kidnapped by a huge bounty hunter alien and brought ~700 years in the future on a space station. And then creating mayhem everywhere he goes while mating with said alien, who, of course, has weird doubled genitals. It bowled me over back then, but rereading it today, not so much. There’s a ton of cliches I can’t stomach anymore, like the un-nuanced right thinking medical officer, or the awkward English spoken by the alien (he learned English by watching mafioso movies from the 1940s… why??? This is the 26th century! Its like learning English today by reading Chaucer, and then watch everyone struggle to understand what the heck you’re saying). It’s still diverting, but so much less than what I remembered.
One memorable thing I did this month was burn a book. It was a rapey yaoi novel published back then by DMP, whose “hero” was a predatory vile cheating pedophile… I should have noted the title to warn everyone to stay away from it, although I think it’s not available anymore. As for the burning part, we were camping, the fire wood was damp, we’d run out of newspaper and needed more starter… in went the disgusting hero. It should have been cathartic, but you know what? It was not. I’m such a book lover, it went against the grain to destroy one, even one that gave me so many negative feels. It also made too much fluffy ashes we had to navigate the marshmallow through. (Next book that makes me feel like this, maybe I’ll try burying and planting flowers on top, see if the outcome, both emotional and practical, feels better.)
Ok, next read… I’m gonna skip… Skip that one also. Oh! U DON’T KNOW ME by Rakun. This m/m manhwa is good in so many ways. The drawings are gorgeous – Yoojin is totally my type, buff with deep black eyes… the main characters’ relationship is for me the best friends to lovers I’ve ever read, with each making plans of their own in line with their personalities. My caveat: Yoojin is most of the time a bit too quick to jump to conclusions; but it’s alleviated by Seyun’s willingness to rake him over the coals about it; their first sex scene might be triggering, but its worth going on with the story. What set this manhwa a cut above for me are the side characters, in a culture where homosexuality still seems to be taboo: Yoojin’s parents for one and most especially Seyun’s friends Sangchul and Sun Choi. Great manhwa, and one I’ve actually bought it thrice, first chapter by chapter on NetComics as it was being translated, then I bought the physical book, then the kindle when I couldn’t find the physical book (which is now found again). I especially love the last quarter of the book, with the extras ^^
I also re-started the Bedwyn series by Mary Balogh. I read the 2 prequels, ONE NIGHT FOR LOVE and A SUMMER TO REMEMBER. It’s been ages since I last read Mary Balogh, I had forgotten how thoughtful her characterisation is, her protagonists really do evolve over the course of a book. I think I enjoy her style more today than I did back then. My aim is to reach Wulfric, and I look forward to the build up through the siblings’ books that will make me so eager for his story. From what I remember, it will even have a satisfying landing.
I just finished watching 2GETHER the series, a Thai BL series on youtube, and the week end will be dedicated to the sequel, STILL 2GETHER. I can’t get over how cute this series is, despite its sometimes 80s teen movie vibe, the dodgy boy idol acting and the in your face product placement (so much so in fact it became a joke around here). What makes it work for me is the standoffish character who makes all those sublimely swoony/corny statements and gestures ; it fit well within the over-the-top storyline. The series had me smiling a lot… it even got me to squee a time or two.
Ouf. That’s a long post. There’s more, but I’m gonna stop here for your sakes!
THE WOLF AND THE WOODSMAN, Ava Reid. Set in magic Hungary and magic Finland, the outcast daughter of a pagan mother and a Jewish father teams up with a prince to journey to magic Finland to catch a bird to defeat said prince’s evil brother from usurping the throne. It’s unfortunate that this book has been marketed as ‘in the vein of Spinning Silver’ because it invites comparisons and this one always comes up short (I’m totally biased, Spinning Silver is one of my favourite books). Anyway, it’s an absorbing read in its own right and the blending of histories and myths from different regions is an interesting idea. The slow-burn romance is also really nice (the hero reminds me so much of Faramir). But the rest is not so great. The magic system is a bit arbitrary and there are no meaningful consequences to the characters’ choices so that by the end, none of the stakes seem to matter. Oh and in the acknowledgements, the author writes about listening to Hozier and Florence Welch while revising the book and honestly it shows (that’s a compliment btw).
LOVE AND FURY, Samantha Silva. I bought this book so fast once I saw the review by Carrie S! I have been forever griping about why we don’t have more historical fiction on Mary Wollstonecraft because, what a life. I can read all the excellent biographies on her of course but there was so much drama in her life that a fictionalised version just seems very fitting. The only other book I know similar to this one is Frances Sherwood’s Vindication and that had its own issues as well (TW: child and domestic abuse). The one thing I have against this book is that it is too short. The parts I’m most interested in—her life in London and later, Paris—aren’t really covered with a lot of depth. I think the Frances Sherwood book does a better job here. The point at which the author chose to end the book also feels arbitrary like she only had a page left to wrap things up. But for all that, I like the hopeful and optimistic tone this book takes on her life and legacy. After this I had to go and re-read the Lyndall Gordon bio.
Ack, my favorite post on SBTB! Overall, a good mix of things for me over the last few weeks.
I finished reading HIS GRUMPY CHILDHOOD FRIEND. I think this would have worked better for me not during the pandemic. There are all these cool bars and restaurants and my brain was constantly like, “But! But! Covid!!?” That said, I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series!
DUKE I’D LIKE TO F…I feel like the cover on this one misled me a little bit because I was not expecting a series of erotic short stories. Not that I minded! But the cover didn’t put me in mind of lots of sexytimes (though perhaps the title should have clued me in more…) My favorites of the bunch were the Nicola Davidson and the Sierra Simone. The Adriana Herrera was okay—there’s something about her writing style that doesn’t totally work for me—and the Eva Leigh and the Joanna Shupe had some issues. The Leigh is a governess/duke pairing (she’s 9 years older) and yet it didn’t quite feel transgressive enough. Like it takes a taboo premise and then is kind of vanilla? The Shupe one is well written but I was only able to ignore the age difference because it’s a short story. Otherwise, I couldn’t stomach it. (She’s 18, he’s 41, friends with her father, and he has a 16 year old son.) Anyway, a good anthology.
WEE FREE MEN and A HAT FULL OF SKY, the first two Tiffany Aching novels by Terry Pratchett. Wee Free Men made me laugh out loud and I really enjoy Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle. Someone recently compared these books to some of T. Kingfisher’s work (I think THE WIZARD’S GUIDE TO DEFENSIVE BAKING which is also fantastic), and I think the comparison works. Girls trying to make their way in a world filled with magic that tends to overlook them and their abilities even while they’re off saving the world. Highly enjoyable.
ONE DANCE WITH THE DUKE by Tessa Dare. This is one of her earlier books and definitely lacks the polish of some of her later work, but was still fun. (I read the whole thing on the day I was out sick from work.)
Currently reading the new Cat Sebastian, THE QUEER PRINCIPLES OF KIT WEBB. It’s enjoyable, although I wish it were a little brisker plot-wise. I’m on page 165 and I know there’s still a lot to come in terms of plot reveals (family and personal history, a heist, etc.)
Non-romance: CHAAT: RECIPES FROM THE KITCHENS, MARKETS, AND RAILWAYS OF INDIA by Maneet Chauhan and Jody Eddy. This is part travelogue/part memoir/mostly cookbook. I really enjoyed it for both the recipes (I clearly need to host a chaat* cocktail party!) and also the descriptions of the various regions in India
*chaat are small plates and snacks, roughly the Indian version of tapas
Because it’s been three weeks since the last WAYR and because I’ve read so many books in that time, I’m going to post in two parts to try to avoid a post so long that it’s consigned to “Your comment is awaiting moderation” limbo. Fingers crossed!
PART ONE:
Karla Sorenson’s FORBIDDEN is one of the best slow-burn romances I’ve read—a book where the reasons behind the gradual pace of the couple’s relationship proceed organically from the characters’ personalities and circumstances and not just because of the demands of the plot. FORBIDDEN is the fourth and final book in Sorenson’s Ward Sisters quartet; an earlier book in that series, FAKED (featuring the “wrong twin” trope), made my Favorite Books Read in 2021 list, and FORBIDDEN is equally good. The hero is a retired MMA fighter; he’s also widower with a young daughter: Sorenson does a great job of making their grief raw and believable without manipulative melodrama. The hero moves to Oregon to be closer to his family (he has four siblings—I’m assuming they will eventually feature in future books of a new series) and purchases a local gym. There he meets the rather prickly and self-contained manager—who is a kick-ass instructor and a decade younger than him (she’s also a virgin—a fact that she has been very careful not to disclose, especially not to her sisters, all of whom, younger or older than her, are in serious romantic relationships). Sorenson really stokes the erotic tension in FORBIDDEN, in scenes where nothing of an actual sexual nature takes place: a long scene where the h&h spar in the empty gym after closing time—every attempted/deflected blow, kick, or feint expressing an attraction to h&h cannot verbalize; or where the hero and heroine switch out a blown electrical fuse as they stand close together in a cramped utility closet; or where the heroine has to stay at the hero’s house after a fall—and he has to awaken her every couple of hours to be sure she doesn’t have a concussion. (And, yes, the fact that the hero is the heroine’s boss is addressed and not ignored.) Key quote: “It’s not about deserving….It’s not about being worthy or perfect. It’s about finding the right person and choosing them.” A favorite read of 2021. Highly recommended.
After finishing FORBIDDEN, I finally read FOCUSED, the first book in Sorenson’s Ward Sisters series (FOCUSED, FAKED, FLOORED, FORBIDDEN is the order; I read the books out-of-order—and each can be read as a stand-alone—but I’d recommend reading them in order if possible because characters do recur and action in one book carries over to the next). FOCUSED is the oldest Ward sister’s story. She reconnects with the man who was her neighbor and teenage crush a decade before—things between them did not end well back then. The hero is now a professional football player, newly transferred to the team where the heroine’s brother is a coach and the heroine works in the PR department. A camera crew is following the hero, filming a documentary about a player adjusting to a new team; the heroine is tasked with coordinating activities between the hero and the filmmakers—and, therefore, is thrown into the hero’s orbit. There is some initial antagonism between the couple which eventually gives way to mutual respect and attraction. Watching the couple gradually fall in love (sometimes literally through the lens of a camera) is a delight. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the Ward Sisters books and highly recommend the entire series.
When it comes “city-girl/country-guy, opposites-attract, antagonists-to-lovers tropes in a story about a PR consultant who is helping a family business transform their profile while being blocked at every turn by the stubborn hero who likes things precisely as they are thank-you-very-much,” I have a very high bar because that is the exact plot of one of my all-time favorite romances, Melanie Harlow’s AFTER WE FALL; so I went into Serena Bell’s latest, MAKE ME WILDER, with high expectations because, in terms of tropes & set-up, MAKE ME WILDER and AFTER WE FALL are remarkably similar. MAKE ME WILDER is the start of a new series, Wilder Adventures, about five siblings who, together with their widowed mother, run an outdoor adventures company in the Pacific Northwest. The hero of MAKE ME WILDER is the oldest brother who is dead set against his mother’s plan to hire a New York-based PR professional to help the struggling company transition from offering rugged outdoor adventures to more of couples’ experiences and a destination wedding venue. The PR consultant heroine and the “I don’t want to change a thing” hero butt heads, even as they fight unwelcome attraction to each other and grudgingly begin to find things to admire, and eventually love, about each other. But, for all the similarities between the set-ups of AFTER WE FALL and MAKE ME WILDER, in style, tone, and execution, they could not be more different. I loved Bell’s rom-com-with-a-serious-center just as much as I love Harlow’s angstier and far more melancholy romance. An interesting comparison-contrast between the two books could be made—and it would show that two good writers can each take the same premise and create vastly different but equally good and readable, books. I highly recommend MAKE ME WILDER (and, of course, AFTER WE FALL).
Kelly Hunter’s long-awaited HP, PREGNANT IN THE KING’S PALACE, is the fourth and final book in her Claimed By A King quartet of royal romances—and, since the previous book was published in 2019, this one truly was long-awaited. PITKP is a second-chance romance between a king and a horse-breeder/trainer. When they were much younger (and the king was merely a prince), they had a teenage affair that ended badly. Based on the title of the book, it’s obvious that a pregnancy comes into the story, but this pregnancy is not so much unplanned as it is unanticipated as the king was declared sterile following an illness. Surprise! But what will the couple do now? A good book about adjusting expectations and following your heart—and I enjoyed visiting with characters from previous books in the Claimed By A King series (particularly the heroine’s brother, who is gay and has been in a relationship with another king’s uncle for several years). Recommended—but read the previous three books first.
There is a lot—and I do mean a lot—of talking in Caitlin Crews’s JUST ONE MORE NIGHT, her last title for the now-discontinued Dare line. The free-spirited American heroine and the Romanian art dealer (a former-gangster) hero meet in alleyway in Prague and then reconnect two years later to have plenty of sex and an equal amount of analytical conversation—although most of that centers on the hero proving that the sex-positive heroine isn’t very sex-positive at all, but just deathly afraid of intimacy and achievement. Although as well-written as any Crews book, JUST ONE MORE NIGHT, with its somewhat tedious heroine and its smug know-it-all hero, didn’t grab me at all. A rather lukewarm and dispiriting book to represent Crews’s swan song for the Dare line for which Crews has published some very interesting and entertaining books in the past.
Because the overarching theme of Ruth Cardello’s new series, The Lost Corisis, is the search for family members the Corisi family didn’t know they had, there’s an exhausting amount of family relationship information packed into the beginning of Cardello’s HE SAID ALWAYS, the first book in the series. Frankly, my eyes glazed at expositional scenes about who was related to whom and how. While searching for a lost relative, the hero meets the relative’s best friend and a nice relationship develops—with the heroine being a little cagier than the hero about their ultrafast connection, in part because of the secrecy required by her work in AI. There’s a lot of good things in HE SAID ALWAYS, particularly regarding family (biological and found), parenting, and being a supportive sibling/friend; however, one aspect of the book irritated me: the hero is working on technology that helps people have better understanding their bodies and sexual responses. A worthy enough goal, but in certain sex scenes, it it felt as if the hero was man-splaining the woman’s orgasms to her and that seemed all kinds of patriarchal nonsense. I think I would have liked the book a little more had the types of research the hero and heroine are conducting been reversed. Nonetheless, HE SAID ALWAYS is a good introduction to a new series. Key quote: “Lust is instant. Trust takes time.” Recommended.
The 11-book BEACH READ BOX SET was a freebie download a few weeks ago. I started with Kate Stewart’s SOMEONE ELSE’S OCEAN (2018) as I’ve liked a number of her books in the past and I was not disappointed. The heroine of SOMEONE ELSE’S OCEAN has fled a high-pressure life in Manhattan for St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where she works for a vacation rental agency and lives alone in a house by the ocean, managing her anxiety, panic attacks, and endometriosis to the best of her ability. (I can’t really address the anxiety or panic attacks, but Stewart’s descriptions of what it’s like to have endometriosis are spot-on.) The hero—dealing with the discovery that his 15-year-old daughter is not his biological child (not a spoiler—it’s in the first chapter of the book)—comes to stay in the next house. The h&h knew each other as children, but haven’t been in touch for over 20 years. There’s a slow-burn romance, both MCs entering into things with some reluctance because they are at different places in their life journeys. I liked that Stewart gave her MCs messy lives and somewhat prickly personalities (both of them angered me—not to mention each other—at different points in the story), and I really liked the heroine’s best friend, an older woman who has loved and lost but, despite heartache, stays positive about the possibility of falling in love again. Recommended.
PART TWO:
Another book in the BEACH READ BOX SET was Claire Kingsley’s BROKEN MILES (2018). I liked this second-chance romance between a divorced couple so much that I basically inhaled the subsequent four books in the Miles Family series (thank you, Kindle Unlimited). Although each romance is self-contained, there’s an overarching story in the books about attempts to save the Miles Family’s winery after the family patriarch absconds, leaving a trail of debt and children from a second, secret family in his wake. The second book, FORBIDDEN MILES features “the best friend’s little sister”—my least favorite trope—although the book is well-written, I didn’t like the behavior of the over-protective brother. However, that brother learns his lesson and totally redeems himself as the hero of the third book, RECKLESS MILES, which features what might best be described as “the virgin and the player” trope and includes a tall, curvy heroine abandoned at the altar by her worthless fiancé. The fourth book, HIDDEN MILES, is the darkest and angstiest of the series, with a scarred, agoraphobic veteran hero and a heroine getting out of an abusive relationship (cw/tw: at one point, the heroine is beaten badly enough by her ex to require hospitalization). The action in HIDDEN MILES is closer to romantic-suspense as the family grapples with the fallout from the criminal connections their imprisoned father has made. In the final book, GAINING MILES, the now-divorced family matriarch begins dating the winery’s long-time handyman—a man who has loved her from afar for many years—leading to a nice romance between two fifty-something MCs. I highly recommend the entire Miles Family series—and now I’ve added Kingsley’s backlist to my tbr because I just don’t have enough books on there already!
It’s amazing how much sex & kink Skye Warren manages to squeeze into her arranged-marriage novella, FINALE. There’s D/s, there’s MFF, there’s MFM, there’s total power exchange, there’s tying up, spanking, flogging. So you know what to expect in this story of a woman who runs her family’s hotel business (iirc, in previous North Security books, she was a concert pianist, but has now apparently been retconned to only playing piano as an amateur) and must marry an extremely wealthy Spanish nobleman for the infusion of cash her family’s business needs. Of course, the offset is that she must spend most of the story submitting to her husband’s dominance in a variety of ways—although she continues to run the hotel business, so multitasking FTW!
J. Kenner’s novella, MEMORIES OF YOU, is a rather bland addition to her Stark Security series. The h&h were childhood friends who lost touch during high school; they reconnect years later when the hero is assigned to be the heroine’s bodyguard to protect her from a stalker. Bodyguard-client romances are one of my catnips, so I was looking forward to MEMORIES OF YOU, but just a few days after finishing it, I’m already hard-pressed to remember much about it—except that the villain was obvious as soon as he showed up. It didn’t help that the chapters written from the heroine’s point-of-view were in first-person and the chapters written from the hero’s were in third-person—the frequent switching of narration type was very jarring. And the novella-length of the story didn’t allow for much emotional development and relied heavily on tell-not-show. I can only recommend MEMORIES OF YOU if you’re a J. Kenner/Stark Security completist. If you’re neither of those things, you won’t find much here.
[cw/tw: abduction, captivity, rape, attempted suicide] Jennifer Hartmann’s STILL BEATING reminded me in some ways of a book I read and loved a couple of years ago, Heather Orgeron’s & Kate Stewart’s HEARTBREAK WARFARE. The premise of the two books is very similar: after a man and a woman (not romantically involved) experience a terrible trauma together, they find it impossible to relate to anyone else but each other because no one else understands what they have been through—and, like HEARTBREAK WARFARE, parts of STILL BEATING are incredibly difficult to read, not just the circumstances of the trauma, but the aftermath, the challenging road to recovery, and how not all coping mechanisms are helpful. In STILL BEATING, a woman gets a ride home from a party with her sister’s fiancé—a man the heroine has known since high school and with whom she has a sort of teasing/joking/pranking relationship (the book’s blurb seems to indicate they are enemies, but I did not find the story supported this). On the drive home, they are abducted by a serial killer who keeps them chained in a basement—assaulted, degraded, raped. During the three weeks of their captivity, the couple grow closer as they realize they have to work together if they are to have a hope of getting out alive—and they do finally manage to free themselves (in bloody circumstances). All of this takes place in the first third of the book. The rest of the book deals with the aftermath of the trauma, how the hero & heroine have been completely changed by their shared experiences, how they continue to turn to each other, and how they try to cope with the horror by means healthy (regular therapy) and not (excessive drinking, overuse of sleeping pills, frantic, desperate sex that is neither comforting nor comfortable). There’s also the fact that while much of this is happening, the hero is still engaged to the heroine’s sister. STILL BEATING is by turns angsty, devastating, heartbreaking, life-affirming. Recovery comes in increments, along with the acceptance that trauma makes permanent changes to our outlooks, futures, and relationships with others, no matter how much we come to terms with what has happened. Overall, I have to give the edge to HEARTBREAK WARFARE—it’s a deeper and more profound book—but STILL BEATING is certainly worth reading if you are comfortable with the subject matter. Recommended—but please do not take the trigger warnings lightly.
[cw/tw: death of a child] Jewel E. Ann’s FOR LUCY is a second-chance romance that tells the very sad story of how a couple fell in love, married, had children, lost one of them, drifted apart, and then divorced. I know that death of a child is a hard-no for many readers—it usually is for me—but I thought Ann did a good job of incorporating the devastation and grief of losing a child into the story without it becoming maudlin or manipulative. The book goes back and forth in time—showing how the hero & heroine met and fell in love and the early, happy years of their marriage. There’s also a secret—shared by the hero and his teenage daughter, but kept from the heroine—regarding the death of the child. Key quote: “There is nothing absolute about our lives. Who we are lies in the space between always and never.” FOR LUCY is a well-written book, but, because of its theme, it’s not for everyone. Make your decision to read it (or not) accordingly.
Sybil Bartel has developed a template that almost all of her romantic-suspense books follow: a beyond-gonzo alpha hero (usually former military, now a civilian working for a military-adjacent security company), a brave heroine in serious trouble through no fault of her own, bad guys (domestic or foreign), lots of expensive technology, gadgets, and firepower used with gleeful abandon, and—oh yes—plenty of high-intensity D/s sex between the hero & heroine. Bartel’s latest, ALPHA, which introduces a new series called Alpha Elite Services, doesn’t deviate too far from the Bartel template—although ALPHA’s heroine is unusual in her job connections (I don’t want to spoil anything by going into too much detail). There are numerous triggers in ALPHA, particularly involving sex-trafficking and the loss of a family member in military combat—and for a good portion of the book, the hero & heroine are separated. I wouldn’t recommend reading ALPHA as your first introduction to Bartel’s world, but if you’re already familiar with her style, you’ll know what to expect in ALPHA.
NON-FICTION
THE STORYTELLING ANIMAL: HOW STORIES MAKE US HUMAN by Jonathan Gottschall popped up on my KU recommendations. It’s an interesting look into why humans tell stories—starting with little kids playing “let’s pretend” games and going through all the ways creating & consuming stories (including dreams, myths, books, movies, commercials, etc.) contribute to being human. Unsurprising to those of us here, Gottschall reports that studies show a strong link between reading fiction and being socially-aware and empathetic. However, Gottschall also discusses is how those very things that make us human—being predisposed to responding to fiction/stories and attempting to find patterns & meaning in random events—often makes us susceptible to believing conspiracy theories or falling prey to scams & cons. My only minor quibble with the book is that it was published almost a decade ago (2012) and so does not include much about the storytelling/fictions of social media “influencers” and their carefully-curated online stories about the way they supposedly live their lives. Overall, a thought-provoking read. Key quote (and very applicable to romance—or any genre fiction—reading): “People don’t go to story land because they want something startlingly new; they go because they want the old comforts of the universal story grammar.” Recommended.
Guys, I have broken through my slump! (Victory lap 🙂 I was almost at the pace of a book a day for a bit there, although I’ve slowed down. So excuse the ramble below. I’ve grouped roughly by genre b/c I had a lot of standout reads so far.(I’m trying really hard to DNF something that feels slightly mediocre).Lots of vacation stories, sailing and water stories. Not intentional, but it fits the season.
In my romance section –
These are probably tied for 1st place for the month so far. All of these romances were contemporary, most of them were funny. All of them were heroine-centric with fairly grounded male heroes (no billionaire Navy SEALs) and fairly slow-burn. Win, win, win for Jill 🙂
PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION by Emily Henry. Two friends with a Harry and Sally vibe try to recapture the magic by going on a vacation together like they used to in their younger years, even though they’ve been estranged for some time. I really liked how this handled jumping around it time so you got a full sense of the depth of their relationship.
TWICE SHY by Sarah Hogle. This was charming, charming, charming. Maybe a little bit more of a fairy tale than the others, but still with fairly grounded characters. A young woman without much family or real roots inherits a mansion (with a treasure!) from a distant relative and has to deal with a grumpy caretaker who has some social anxiety issues that means he has a hard time with romantic relationships. And if that’s too vague.
(SPOILER ALERT AND MY PERSONAL CATNIP ALERT !!!! – ********* 🙂
************************************he’s a virgin
**************************** END SPOILER ALERT)
THE INTIMACY EXPERIMENT by Rosie Donan. THE ROOMMATE didn’t work for me, but I was really intrigued by the idea of a rabbi hiring an intimacy/sexuality expert to offer classes and attract new people to his synagogue. It may have waved away some of the difficulty a rabbi would have dating someone who used to make a living as a sex worker, but I thought it was both respectful to sex workers and Judaism (from my perspective as a secular humanist YMMV) and it was much more slow-burn than I expected. I like slow-burn, so that was good! I also think the heroine was taller than the hero (in heels at least, which she rocked often) and I love when a story embraces that small detail. Give me my tall heroines and heroes that love their Amazon women 😉
FLOAT PLAN by Trish Doller. A little bit more melancholy/women’s fiction than the other ones, but it still had funny moments. The heroine is dealing with her fiance committing suicide before a Caribbean sailing trip they had planned together. She decides to go on the trip, but knowing she’s in over her head, hires an Irish sailor who is struggling to make a comeback after losing part of his leg in an accident. I felt like this didn’t shy away from some hard and ugly parts of grief and I appreciated that. There was romance, but there was also a lot of character growth for the heroine which I loved. This also had lots of detailed stuff about sailing which I totally loved b/c watching ROMANCING THE STONE has imprinted on me very strongly. Don’t worry people who actually sail and want to tell me all the ugly stuff, I have friends and family who sail and I’m well aware it is not the romantic fantasy it is often portrayed as in movies and TV. Besides, I have a husband and 1 child (of 2) who get boat sick, plane sick, car sick, train sick, you name it. So the chances of me getting into sailing as a hobby are zero (not even talking about the $$$ involved!)
In my mystery section –
THE DO RIGHT by Lisa Sandlin – Thank you to whomever recommended this! Noir set in 1970s Texas with lots of fully fleshed interesting female characters. Good mystery too. I became disenchanted with noir in my 20s b/c the female characters were so cardboard usually. Even though it wasn’t a light book by any means, it felt relaxing to go back in time to no cell phones or 100% connectivity all the time. One of my faves of the month so far.
THE HUNTING PARTY by Lucy Foley An updated version of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE set in Scottish hunting lodge at Christmas time. Beautiful remote setting, but as always with these thrillers, most of the characters are horrible people (with a lot of focus on money and status) and the twists are never quite as good as I hope they are going to be. I definitely liked the atmosphere and I might read another book by her with adjusted expectations.
In my YA section –
THE LAKE EFFECT by Erin McCahan – This was a YA that was more coming of age than romance (although there was a little bit of that too). 100% mail POV which is often boring to me (sorry, man people but it’s true) but handled very skillfully here. Hero is a young man who comes from a family that has fallen from the upper class and he’s been pushed, pushed to succeed his whole life. He gets a summer job helping an eccentric older woman at her lake home and starts re-evaluate what’s really important in life. Fun banter, but also real emotions. Strong narrative voice.
SHIPPED by Meredith Tate This was described as YOU’VE GOT MAIL at a sci-fi con and they’re not wrong. It was maybe a little bit more tropey and formulaic than some of my other reads, but I still really enjoyed it as a quick read. It had the feel of a Netflix movie you watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
And the last minute oddball –
CURVEBALL Part 1 by Charlotte Stein – I almost feel like I shouldn’t include this b/c it’s only a novella, but I did just finish it last night. Quick and sexy, but I feel like it would have been better if I read it years ago? Curvy heroine and hero that comes off as a dirtbag, but of course there’s more than that. Good, not great. Fat positivity has come a long way in 6 years, let me just put it that way. The heroine was funny, which I liked but I had heard so many good things about Charlotte Stein, this let me down a little. Nothing really jumped out to me about the story. The characters were on a yacht in the Mediterranean, but aside from one snorkeling scene it barely mattered, but it was fine as a fast read before bed.
Greetings from [redacted Midwestern City], where I am visiting my grandmother for the first time since Thanksgiving 2019. Grateful for the opportunity to do so now that I am vaccinated, & will have to play some Dolly Parton in tribute later.
Romance:
UNMASKED BY THE MARQUESS by Cat Sebastian: excellent historical, loved Robin & Alastair together and I think Sebastian did a great job tying together the external & internal conflicts—I was in suspense on how everything would be resolved! Will have to pick up the third Regency Imposters book soon, and maybe read the second one again.
MIDNIGHT RESCUE by Elle Kennedy: (content warnings: violence, threat of rape, descriptions of past rape & assault, children in peril) mixed feelings on this; I was in the mood for a romantic suspense but maybe not this kind of suspense? (See: all the content warnings.). I liked that the heroine was physically tough, not just a tough hero, but wow did Kennedy give the heroine a shitty backstory in a lot of detail. There were some action movie cliche lines in here too. I did like the action scenes & pacing. I may read through to Isabel’s book.
FAKING IT by Jennifer Crusie: finally read this after it came up on the 2018 heists Rec League and it was so much fun! A series of small heists and cons, art forgery, classic Crusie shenanigans and humor. I had read WELCOME TO TEMPTATION before this at some point, and while I wouldn’t call it strictly necessary to read in order, I do think it added some helpful background.
THE PROFESSOR NEXT DOOR by Jackie Lau: another solid entry in the Cider Bar Sisters series, and yes, another hunger-inducing set of food descriptions. I liked Nicole as a heroine very much and liked her and David together. Vibe-wise, I think there is overlap with Lau’s shorter novella A BIG SURPRISE FOR VALENTINE’S DAY, if that helps. I think Catherine Heloise’s review covers the book very well! Also, I found Nicole’s grandmother Po Po’s desire to be a TikTok celebrity hilarious, exactly the kind of absurdity I would run far from if it were my grandmother and yet I devour that silliness in fiction.
Non-romance:
THE EATING INSTINCT: FOOD CULTURE, BODY IMAGE AND GUILT IN AMERICA by Virginia Sole-Smith: I’d gotten introduced to Sole-Smith’s newsletter, Burnt Toast, after she appeared in Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study, and this book was very very good. I had not seen so much information on what is actually substantively known about dieting in one place. Content warnings for disordered eating, body image problem, some other medical issues relating to food, and anti-fat bias (described, but Sole-Smith takes a position against this). Highly recommend!
NETWORK EFFECT by Martha Wells: aaaahhhh this had me in my feelings for days! Will be happy to read Fugitive Telemetry and that Wells is working on more Murderbots.
WHEREABOUTS: A NOVEL by Jhumpa Lahiri: as a longtime Jhumpa Lahiri fan, this fiction felt like a very different direction (as if she is writing an entirely different novel from having switched to Italian), and I liked it a great deal but did not love it.
Up next:
BLACK WATER SISTER by Zen Cho; ACUTE REACTIONS by Ruby Lang; HAPPY ENDINGS by Thien-Kim Lam
Hope everyone is well! Looking forward to digging into these recommendations! Enjoy the weekend!
I was in a weird slump where I was only reading fanfiction. But I downloaded 10 KU books and just started round robin chapter reading until one sucked me in enough to only focus on it.
Eliot Grayson Mismatched Mates: The mates aren’t so much mismatched as forced into it?
• The Alpha’s Warlock (4/5)
• Captive Mate (2/5) : there were points where I laughed but also it had some TW stuff. I almost didn’t finish it
• First Blood (3/5)
A.J. Sherwood Jon’s Mysteries. Jon is a psychic, Donavan looks like a thug but has a hero’s heart. They help the police solve crimes
• Jon’s Downright Ridiculous Shooting Case (4/5)
• Jon’s Crazy Head-Boppin’ Mystery (4/5)
Nora Phoenix No Surrender (4/5): Nora Phoenix’s writing just does it for me. Wander agrees to mentor Burke but then they discover that maybe Burke doesn’t want to be a Dom as he claims
Ariel Millar Carpe Noctem Cold Hard Ground (3/5) Dystopian Werewolf, I liked the world, didn’t like the couple
This weekend I’m reading
Kim Fielding Farview (Greynox to the Sea). “Victorian-era Britain, but with sprinkles of magic” Oliver runs from a smog filled city to a cottage overlooking the sea and meets Felix (who tells fun stories)
And I also picked up the Magic in Manhattan box deal.
Right now, I’m reading THE TERMINAL LIST by Jack Carr. I also have FORTUNE’S PAWN by Rachel Bach and THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET by Becky Chambers waiting on my TBR pile.
I also binged out the second half of LUPIN last night and want to find some of the books/stories to read. I enjoyed it, but I thought the first half/episodes were better. I always enjoy seeing how the heists/schemes come together, but I really don’t like how he treats/uses his friends/family. YMMV.
Happy weekend, everyone! 🙂
::::walks in, sits down cautiously:::
I got in a pretty nasty little rear-ender the other day in the car (hahaha, totally pushed me into a cop car, too, because just being hit wasn’t bad enough) I’ve only had since October (lolsob). My wheels are all jacked up, and I had some minor pain in the neck and lower back that I’m keeping an eye on, because the chucklehead who hit me never even hit his brakes, and I was at a dead stop, so I got a good jolt. As a result, I imagine that my weekend will be mostly reading and playing video games, because my husband has asked me to please take it easy until I go to the doctor, and I have no wheels.
At any rate, I actually read quite a few books this time. I started with The Nowhere Man by Gregg Hurwitz, which I greatly enjoyed. It very much improved on the first one, which I liked but had a few kinks to work out. Maybe, as a point of discretion, don’t try to rob a master assassin that jumped out of the game and is now playing avenging angel? Leave that dude alone. There was one point, after which the protagonist (“hero” is kind of a stretch here, he kills A LOT of people) has killed some of the bad guy’s henchmen, and the bad guy goes “You have got to stop trying to kill my men” and the protagonist just responds with “Trying?”. I cackled. Then I read The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur. Very nice central mystery, although I kind of saw the bad guy coming. I was very interested in the relationship between the two girls, which was very fraught, and one of them really had some thinking to do about why their relationship was the way it was and what her role was in repairing it. In addition, great setting, and since I didn’t know pretty much anything about 15th century Korean culture, there was a lot to learn. I followed that up with FireKeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. This was another one where there was a central mystery, and the culture the book is set in, this time early 21st century America/Canada, with the primary characters being Native Americans. There was a lot of commentary on the continuing treatment of indigenous people of North America, including tribal politics, the determination of who can be accepted into the tribe and the process of making that happen when the person is not accepted as a child, drug abuse and how the justice systems responds when Native Americans are involved, how the justice system is willing to use informants but not protect them in the process, and yeah, it was a lot of book. Very absorbing. CW: there is an on-page sexual assault later in the book, and the character flashes back to what happens multiple times. It’s not super-graphic, but it’s not glossed over, either. Stay safe. Then, because my brain was like asking for something slightly less, um, murder-y, I read Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall, which I loved. CW, again: hardly a spoiler, because Hall straight up put the content warning at the beginning of the book, there is an attempted sexual assault in this one, too, and a shitload of gaslighting. That said, again, loved it. My daughter is a HUGE Great British Bake-Off fan, so I was well-acquainted with the tropes being used and poked at. And there were a few parts, especially with a phallic bread sculpture, that I was laughing so hard I was honestly a bit afraid that I was going to pull something in my abdominals. My husband could hear me from across the house. Which brings us today, in which I just started The Siren by Katherine St. John. So far it’s reminding me of a soap opera, in which we have a bunch of very pretty and famous people behaving like unadulterated assholes at a gorgeous beach resort while they are shooting a movie there. So far, everyone has a bunch of secrets and history, this person is manipulating this person over there, I’m expecting a murder or two before we’re done. I honestly think Jackie Collins would have been over here like, “I’M SO PROUD OF YOU” and yes, that is a compliment. So until next time, may no one hit your very new cars and jolt you about like a drunk puppeteer.
@Arijo Ahh I love 2gether so much! After Still 2gether they even made a movie…though I don’t think an English subbed version are available (eventually, I hope). The product placement in Thai BL absolutely sends me. I’ve had to pause shows just to laugh about sheet masks or the chewy juice or whatever they’re selling.
Uh….books? What are those?
Wait. Actually I did manage to finish a book, The Song of Achilles. This was one that’s been on my radar for a very long time and I should have picked it up years ago, no idea why I didn’t. It was beautiful and one of those things that feels like it was written just for me.
I’m hoping this month I can finally pull the trigger and replace my ereader that up and died on me after less than a year. I’ve been sitting on a list of ebooks that I’m itching to read already, so, fingers crossed.
I’m meandering my way through One Last Stop. Charmed and it also makes me want pancakes, which is about what I expected. I don’t want to rush through it, because that will make it that much longer that I have to wait before I can read a Casey McQuiston novel for the first time again.
Over the past three weeks ~
— enjoyed rereading the entire Linesman trilogy ~ Linesman, Alliance, and Confluence by S. K. Dunstall.This is one of my favorite series.
— The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird; what a gripping yet sobering book. The story is set in 2025, and the world suffers a plague that kills 90% of males/Y-chromosome bearers. While reading, I wondered when it was written; I see from the author’s note that it was written between September 2018 and June 2019. It’s the author’s debut novel. When I was describing it to my husband, he said he wouldn’t be able to read it given parallels with real life. I don’t know if this is a book that I’d reread, but I recommend it. I will certainly look with interest at the author’s next book.
— quite enjoyed The Love Proof: A Novel by Madeleine Henry; I found it to be a quick read.
— enjoyed the most recent Murderbot novella, Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries Book 6) by Martha Wells; I might have been even happier were there more Sanctuary Moon!
— stayed up late and finished Dark Light (Elizabeth Cage, Book 2) by Jodi Taylor. I enjoyed it (but not quite as much as the first book); I look forward to reading the forthcoming third book in the series. This series definitely needs to be read in order.
— Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space (The Henry Gallant Saga Book 1) by H. Peter Alesso; it was a pleasant military science fiction read, but I don’t think I’m motivated to continue the eight book series.
— True Grit: A Novel by Charles Portis for my distant book group. This is the first time I’ve read the book, and I enjoyed it.
— I don’t often read nonfiction, but I do have to admit to having a fondness for books about books. I read When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning. I found the book informative and a quick read. I most enjoyed hearing how the books impacted individual servicemen.
— After hearing me mention it a time or ten, my husband read Stray (Touchstone Book 1) by Andrea K. Höst. (This book is currently FREE.) That prompted me to reread the book, too. I reread the entire Touchstone series and enjoyed revisiting all six entries.
— Enduring Fear by Jessica Wilberforce; I enjoyed this but I’m not sure if I’m motivated to continue.
— Runaway Fate: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel (Moonstone Cove Book 1) by Elizabeth Hunter; I enjoyed this and will likely read on if the sequels should appear on my Kindle. It sounds strange to say, but it was rather nice to see a happily married couple in a book.
— the final three books in a five book series: Time Taken, Time Turns, and Out of Time all by C.B. Lewis. Each book features a different m/m couple; however, there is a storyline that begins in the first book and concludes twenty year later in the fifth book. I enjoyed all the books, but I recommend reading the series in order.
— enjoyed rereading The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold.
So, hi everyone. It’s been a while. Flying back and forth to Arizona to be with my Dad has limited my time/energy/internet access for more than a quick comment.
I won’t be posting everything, just the recent things off the brand new Kindle that I put off buying for so long. There was a reread of Penny Watson’s A Taste of Heaven which I enjoyed a lot, but once again wanted about 100 more pages.
Garden Spells was probably one of the first downloads on my original Kindle. Maybe it’s a good thing it took this long because now I have her back list to look forward to. Allen is a bit Alice Hoffman lite, but that’s not a bad thing.
I finished The Watchmakers Daughter around 3am. I enjoyed it mostly. There are a lot of unanswered questions – but that’s one of the ways they get you to buy the next book, isn’t it? And it really defined abrupt ending. Still a commendable start, so I will be looking for the answers to be had in the rest of the series.
This morning I started my first Jackie Lau. I’m not immune to the many recs on this site, so I one clicked when Her Big City Neighbor when it was free the other day. So far so good. Plucky mc, grumpy love interest. Loves me a grumpy love interest.
@Crystal, sending healing thoughts your way.
I have had some happy reading recently. Much of it thanks to Smart Bitches and their sale notices, including the fact that they remind me to check the kindle daily deals. Though I may need to stop that as the TBR is growing exponentially.
I just finished A Dream of Death by Connie Berk. This is mostly a mystery though there is a thin (very thin) thread of romance. Kate from Ohio returns the to Scottish island where her husband grew up and where he died three years earlier. She finds herself surrounded by death again, this time murder. The mystery is interesting, the police are realistic, the dealing with grief is also realistic. Plus the prince over the sea. I did enjoy this one.
I also read Tessa Dare’s One Dance with a Duke and enjoyed it a lot. Ditto The Bride Test by Helen Hoang. This is a back story and culture we don’t see all that often. Some of the sales notifications – thanks.
DiscoDollyDeb recommended Caitlin Crews Her Deal with the Greek Devil. She was right, it was rough to read and I did wonder how they would redeem the hero. But Crews pulled it off and I liked it enough to find the first book, The Secret that Can’t Be Hidden, and read that. Also liked it.
Catherynne Valente’s Deathless was also great. Might be a romance, certainly is a riff on Russian history of the early last century and on Russian fairy tales. It is not necessarily light reading but it is good and the writing is good.
Heaven’s Crooked Finger by Hank Early is not a romance though our hero does get together with a kick-ass WOC cop. It is about the son of a cult leader in Georgia (think snake dancers) returning after many years to his hometown and dealing with issues of his daddy’s cult and his childhood. Plus murder. Some content warnings but cults are one of my catnips and this did not disappoint.
I got The Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) Starter Pack by RJ Blain and read the first book, Playing with Fire. It was so over the top! Every magical thing you can imagine gets thrown into the pot and stirred. Some of it did make me laugh.
The Bitchery also has alerted me to two Nalini Singh books, both of which I, of course, one-clicked. Ms. Singh is a very reliable writer for me and, though I am reading out of order in her Pay world books, I am able to make sense and follow along. I read Wolf Rain and loved it, the heroine finally freed from abuse and captivity and finding her own agency while being pursued (romantically) by a Wolf. I am now in the middle of reading Silver Silence, an earlier book, with a Pay heroine being wooed by a Bear. Liking it so far.
Karan K Anders’ The Book of Firsts is really not my jam in a lot of ways, but I whipped right through it and loved all the relationships among the characters.
Jen Wang’s Stargazing is a middle-grade graphic novel about friendship, and I loved the art, especially the sequences of dancing and what they showed about changes in the main character’s self-confidence.
I would have to say I hoped for a lot more from Roni Loren’s The Ones Who Got Away series. Surviving a school shooting seems like more than enough drama for a person’s life, and I felt like several of these used additional drama as plot shortcuts, versus character/relationship development.
Yukito Ayatsuji’s The Decagon House Murders is a really well-done golden-age style locked-room mystery.
Claire Legrand’s Sawkill Girls, a YA fantasy about three girls caught up in a missing-girls case on an island, surprised me. The capsule description I read conveyed the characters and situation accurately, but the relationships still didn’t play out anything like I expected from that description. It wrapped up with a lot of standard beats without feeling stale to me. One of the main characters is ace, for those looking for representation.
I am reading Love at Last by Delaney Cameron a sweet clean read. I bought the whole Finding Love series Anyway, it is a childhood friends meet up again. Also read a Christian romance where the characters are in their 50s. So You think You want a second chance by Elizabeth Maddrey.
I think with the mass shootings, continued fighting and politicalization of vaccine that has divided family and friends I crave a sweet escape lately.
I
@HeatherM, re: Thai product placement. What kills me is how they have the actors say stuff like “Tomorrow is a big day for you, you need to have clear and beautiful skin” while his friend swallows a capsule that apparently gives clear and beautiful skin… when this same line of dialogue comes up 3 times in as many episodes, I can’t help but laugh! It sounds so ridiculous!
I saw the preview for the 2gether movie and I wonder if it’s really set 10 years in the future… I’m very eager for it (Go subbing, go!)
@Crystal: Rest, rest, rest. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
So many books.
THE LANGUAGE OF SECRETS by Ausma Zehanat Khan: Second in the series about a Toronto detective team that handles “minority-sensitive” cases. Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty are still dealing with the fallout from their previous case, now focusing on suspicions of an attack planned through a local mosque. I am so fond of these characters, the insight into Islam and how one navigates a political, religious and social minefield. This book is based on the real story of the Toronto 18, but THE UNQUIET DEAD should be read first.
FATED by Benedict Jacka: “It was a slow day, so I was reading a book at my desk and seeing into the future.” Color me hooked and surprised, *I* had no idea what to expect, and found an engaging urban fantasy. Alex Verus is a diviner who owns a London magic shop, eschews the magic intelligentsia and has a support system of other cursed/magical creatures. He’s pursued by powerful people who want him to locate an artifact hidden in the British Museum. A twisty, complicated plot with likable characters.
THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON by Saladin Ahmed: A sword and sorcery tale set in the kingdoms of the Crescent Moon where a cruel Khalif and the Falcon Prince fight for control, while at the same time, someone is raising deadly ghuls. The heroes are an elderly ghul hunter, his Dervish apprentice and a group of friends determined to save their city. Awesome.
HARLEY MERLIN AND THE SECRET COVEN by Bella Forrest: A young, untrained magical is discovered by a coven of witches and warlocks, and then saves the world after one week of training, while angering a lot of powerful people. I don’t know. I enjoyed it, but am convinced this must have been Harry Potter fanfic at some point.
SOLOMON’S SEAL by Skyla Dawn Cameron: Thanks to Ren Benton’s enthusiasm for the series, it was time to read the first and I was not disappointed. Livi Talbot is way more complicated than her debutante-single mom-treasure hunter description seemed at first blush. The Pulse revealed hidden powers in people and activated mystical artifacts, which a client wants Livi to retrieve asap. Another unexpected story and heroine, a thoroughly enjoyable/horror-filled adventure.
CODE RUNNER by Rosie Claverton: Book Two in the Amy Lane series about a genius hacker who never leaves her home, aided by former-felon employee Jason, as she helps the London police solve crimes. As implausible as this may sound, it actually works really well. Amy is trapped indoors for serious reasons, Jason wants to protect Amy and get past his criminal background. Makes me want to become a grey-hat hacker.
Books I Should Have Read Long Ago Since Everyone Here Talks About Them:
THE EMPRESS OF SALT AND FORTUNE by Nghi Vo: Finally, and I get it, all the praise for this book. Amazing.
PENRIC’S DEMON by Lois McMaster Bujold: Also finally, and I look forward to more of Penric and Desdemona. And the lion, the other women and the mare.
@Darlynne: Argh, the Amy Lane series takes place in Cardiff.
@Crystal – glad you’re taking it easy – continue to do so and heal up quickly!
” Maybe, as a point of discretion, don’t try to rob a master assassin that jumped out of the game and is now playing avenging angel? Leave that dude alone.”
omg. LOL! SO HORD.
And.. yeah. Just doesn’t seem like the kinda guy you want to mess with. SO many other people out there who are way easier to rob… but where’s the fun in that? It’s definitely in my TBR pile, thanks!
Right now I’m reading “A Marriage of Equals” by Elizabeth Rolls. Rolls is a longtime Harlequin Historical author, and I’ve liked her previous books but the 2 most recent ones are really outstanding. This book’s heroine is based on the real life Dido Elizabeth Belle. It’s got lots of action, high stakes, and well developed characters, all done within the page limitations of an HH series book, so there is no unnecessary padding. CW for descriptions of violence and cruelty(during flashbacks to the h’s early childhood in slavery), and attempted kidnapping. There is a connected book preceding this one, “His Convenient Marchioness” which I recommend reading first, because there are several characters who reappear in “A Marriage of Equals”. HCM is great on its own merits, with older MCs(heroine in her 30’s and hero pushing 50).
Aside from that, my library wishlisted books have been coming in, so I read the latest Murderbot, which was lots of fun, it had a great little murder mystery plot; the latest C.S. Harris mystery, which was excellent; and the latest Amanda Quick book set in 1930’s California, The Lady Has a Past. Same formula as the previous ones, and I’m not sick of it yet.
I also read Balogh’s “Someone to Romance” which started off slow, but turned out to be quite engaging Much time is spent with characters who came from previous books in the series, and I had to keep flipping back to the family tree in the front to remember who is who. But because its Mary Balogh, they are all so loveable, you don’t mind seeing them again. I am looking forward to the next one which will have MCs who are not nobility.
Thanks to Lucy Parker for helping me out of my book reading slump. Re-reading Act Like It did the ticket. I love that story so much. Grumpy Richard, LOL! Then I went on to race through the Royal Ambition collection of old Marion Chesney/M.C. Beaton books – very uneven but definitely full of that old skool Regency vibe I remember from the time even if I don’t think I read any of these back in the day.
I also ripped through What a Dragon Should Know before I had to return that to the library. Weird pacing made it feel super-slow at the start but the last third galloped at typical G.A. Aiken crazy-pants pacing. Now I’m reading Make It Sweet by Kristen Callihan and opening up Aiken’s next Dragon Kin book, so that’s all you’ll hear from me for a while!
Lots of books lately! Mostly not great luck though. THE GILDED ONES was fantastic, best of the bunch. Jen Deluca’s WELL MET, which I liked quite a bit (pulled me out of a bad mood) and WELL PLAYED, which I did not like – I liked Stacey but could not get over the big lie. Not cool. TO KISS A THIEF – meh. I didn’t like the hero. BOYFRIEND MATERIAL was too cringey and became a DNF. Patricia Briggs’ WILD SIGN was good but maybe too horror for my taste. Have started GIDEON THE NINTH but not sure….might be too gory? Does it get less gruesome than the beginning?
Hopefully better luck this month?
I’m enjoying a lovely long vacation along with my birthday so have been reading lots of good stuff. I’m slowly working my way through Laziness Doesn’t Exist and wow, that book is amazing and full of thought provoking ideas. Many of them I knew intellectually but the way the author writes has me actually going oh, I get it.
I’ve also finally had a chance to read an author that’s been on my to-read list since I worked at a maritime museum, Joan Druett. I found one of her books, A Watery Grave, a murder mystery set on the 1838 expedition with a half-Maori main character that was incredibly well done. That prompted me to go back and reread Sea of Glory, Philbrick’s nonfiction about the 1838 expedition and then read Island of the Lost by Druett about two shipwrecks on Auckland Island. Druett has a lovely big back catalog that I’m looking forward to exploring.
Thanks to holds working on my side, I was able to get Mister Impossible, the newest book in the Dreamer series by Maggie Stiefvater and its a strange book, compelling and hard to put down. The main drawback was its very much the second book of a trilogy so the ending left me with many questions.
Also due to library luck, I was able to get The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, the newest Becky Chambers’ book which was incredible. I love her writing. I read The Hallowed Hunt, a Bujold Five Gods’ book that I thought I’d read but hadn’t. That’s a great world and that book especially reads like something T. Kingfisher writes with mystery and magic. And I read Into the Dark, one of the Star Wars High Republic books by Claudia Gray that was very good, hard to put down though the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I would have liked.
It feels good to have time to read and to know that I’ve actually got a new temp library job waiting for me when I go home.
I started and stopped a bunch of books this past half-month but two novels got me out of my frustration.
BLACK WATER SISTER by Zen Cho was featured in a Cover Awe here. And the contents easily live up to the cover. It’s a fast-reading novel about a young woman, American child of Malaysian immigrants, who goes with them back to their country, locking herself into a role as their perpetual emotional caretaker, unable to tell them anything she thinks might upset them, not least that she is a lesbian whose girlfriend is expecting her to come live together in Singapore. And then her dead grandmother’s ghost speaks to her, drawing her into a tangle of angry ghosts, vengeful gods, family secrets, and unexpected kinship with women who suffered silently, stewed with unexpressed rage, and lashed out after they were dead. Is she going to be another silent participant in the cycle of secret violence, or is there another way? What will it cost her? Engrossing, and easily one of the best books I’ve read this year.
Before that, there was PHOENIX EXTRAVAGANT by Yoon Ha Lee. A very queer fantasy AU take on Japan’s 1910 annexation of Korea, told through the eyes of Jebi, an artist who is just trying to keep their head down and find a job in the markets of shifting modern taste; they’re hired by the occupiers’ Ministry of Armaments, and begin to resist when they find out why the Ministry is interested in art. The other major roles are played by a dragon automaton (great character this) and by the swordswoman tasked with supervising Jebi — there are uncertain loyalties, there are escape attempts and violence, and art for art’s sake suffers, but is not entirely lost. Extremely interesting. As a Westerner I couldn’t help being intrigued by the glimpses of Westerners through the eyes of someone to whom they’re wholly unfamiliar.
I really expected to love STONE AND STEEL by Eboni Dunbar but it was a disappointment. A fantasy novella whose main character, Aaliyah, is the head of the armies for her sister/lover, Odessa, who killed the old king and became queen several years earlier. Odessa has always dominated Aaliyah but Aaliyah comes to see that her sister’s love of power is not good for their country and that she has many more friends and allies than her sister. It’s a simple (sometimes simplistic) story, told without nuance. But at least it does have a pleasing style, with a noticeably Black sensibility to it.
@Mintaka14 and @Lace, I just read a sample of Karan K Anders’ The Book of Firsts. It’s quite different from the author’s Andrea K. Höst books! I look forward to reading more.
Just wondering if anyone can be bothered to read the latest offering/rehash of fifty shades? Word is it’s 700+ pages long! Good for a wobbly table I suppose? Perhaps it’ll burn better?
On another note I’ve got another free KU membership for three months so I read Act Your Age by Eve Dangerfield. Despite the Daddy kink element I found it engaging from the start. Even the secondary characters were well developed and interesting (unusual in romances where in some books they may as well be cardboard cut outs). I have to earn you that some of the sex scenes may be triggering (though it is consensual) and there’s emotional abuse from the MC’s family. Also one of the characters uses ablelist language (the MC has Adhd) but it is in context with the character. A major downside with reading this type of book is the odd recommendations you get afterward on your kindle. You have been warned…
Apart from that the usual sci fi romances where the heroine is supposed to be intelligent but then refuses to wear some item of clothing that will protect her because: it’s ugly! Then I eye roll when she gets bitten by some alien beastie that wouldn’t happen if she’d worn it in the first place. In the time of Covid mask wearing, reading this is just irritating.
Oh, Dear Bitchery, I haven’t had time to make up a list as I’m on the final lap of the school year, but I’ve taken the time to read through all your recommendations and once again, my wallet has suffered. Thanks, you guys. I hope to put some of the great books I’ve mostly listened to the last few months on the next WAYR.
Just finishing up To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. Amazing all that woman managed to get right about the future, from the Great Pandemic to Millenial hairstyles. I understand she was also just given a Lifetime Service Award by SFWA.
The television gods (specifically Rose Matafeo) have blessed us what we’ve been asking for since time immemorial. An ACTUAL romance tv series that ends on a SATISFYING HFN.
I balk when people compare female driven television to Fleabag- it’s a gender not a genre, I know, I KNOW… but here I go: STARSTRUCK feels like Chewing Gum, Crashing and Fleabag but as a ROM-COM!
I NEED Romancelandia to pick up the the torch for STARSTRUCK as one of our own because I want to read think pieces and twitter threads on the way the show interrogates the “manic pixie dream girl” trope without ever using the term. An argument crescendo’s with Matafeo’s delivery of the line, “you’re boring and I can’t make you interesting”. I gasped. I wish Katherine Hepburn had gotten to throw that at Carey Grant in Bringing Up Baby.
And it’s been picked up for a second season!
Reading has be difficult lately because work has been so busy that I fall asleep so early, but I did just finish THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD by TL Huchu and absolutely loved it.
@Jill Q: I love Lisa Sandlin’s Delpha Wade books! I’ve re-read them several times already since I encountered from an old WAYR post. And according to the author’s FB page, there’s a third book in the works!
Love Pamela Sanderson!