Hey hey! It’s time for the first Whatcha Reading of August!
Let’s get into it!
Claudia: I just finished At Summer’s End ( A | BN | K ) and taking a bit of time choosing my next one… Currently browsing a barbecue book I got from the library.
Catherine: I’m on a T. Kingfisher binge! Minor Mage ( A | BN | K ) which is set in the same universe as her Paladin romances. This is raising certain expectations which may or may not be met by the plot, but I’m enjoying the journey immensely.
Sneezy: I’m on yet another Beverly Jenkins binge. Her books are pets and snuggles for too sad and tired brains!!! Right now I’m on A Chance at Love. ( A | BN | K )
Elyse: I just finished Spoiler Alert and All the Feels by Olivia Dade ( A | BN | K ) and am awash in warm fuzzies
Carrie: I’m reading two very different books – the warm and feminist Love in Color by Bolu Babalola and the 1940’s super cynical noir Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham. ( A | BN | K )
Maya: I just finished the newest honey badger book — Breaking Badger by Shelly Laurenston. It was exactly what I needed and a perfect pairing with The Suicide Squad. Harley has big honey badger energy!!
Susan: …Oh my god that is the most perfect description of her I’ve ever seen.
I’m bouncing between two very tonally different books! One is Cherí, My Destiny, ( A | BN | K ) which is an m/m manga about the epic (and completely one-sided) rivalry between a patissiere and a sweet-maker, although I currently want someone to push the protagonist into a puddle. The other is The Girl From the Other Side by Nagabe, which is a slow, understated, weirdly beautiful horror manga about oppression and curses.
Sarah: Maya, I just started Breaking Badger, and it occurred to me that one of the reasons I can read this much violence (which otherwise would be a ‘nope’ for me) is that within the world, the characters, as shifters, can absorb a lot of damage so I know they’re going to be okay, AND they’re going to dish out just as much as they have to endure if not more. The ferocity is COMFORTING.
Tara: I’m reading Chemistry Lessons by Jae, ( A | BN | K ) which is a friends-to-lovers story where two best friends are clearly in a relationship and are in denial about it. It’s very cute. In audio, I’m listening to Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez ( A | BN | K ) and it’s equal parts excellent and infuriating. I really appreciate how it’s helping me understand the forces that shaped the evangelical context I grew up so I know the why behind so much of what was said.
Shana: I’m halfway into Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert. ( A | BN | K | AB )I would like to have the heroine’s brightly colored braids, please.
Kiki: I’m listening to The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan and really loving it. It’s unintentionally the second book with a relationship between a sex worker and a religious leader that I’ve read recently—the other being The Lord I Left by Scarlett Peckham (which made me cry more than once)
Catherine: I loved The Intimacy Experiment so much!
What books have kicked off your month? Let us know!
After my reading slump, I’ve read some rather excellent books the past couple of weeks!
GUNS OF THE DAWN, Adrian Tchaikovsky — Someone on this site recommended this some time ago and I cannot thank this person enough because this is now one of my favourite books! How did I not read this sooner??? I’ve heard this book described as “Elizabeth Bennett goes to war” which is… not wrong. Some parts are more Band of Brothers than Pride and Prejudice but Tchaikovsky handles the balls and visits as deftly as he handles scenes of jungle warfare.
The romance is very swoonworthy. Emily is a gentlewoman drafted in an increasingly desperate war and Mr. Northway is a bureaucrat with a penchant for underhanded dealings. Emily hates him due to some family history but they end up writing letters to each other and as Emily tells it: “He was seducing her in ink and she was being seduced.” *fans self*
DOGS OF WAR, Adrian Tchaikovsky — Rex is a bioengineered dog/human hybrid with a dog’s loyalty to some very bad people and superhuman abilities being asked to commit war crimes and afterwards, to testify in court about his actions. This book is about AI and what we owe to the things we create, about who gets to be called a person and everything that implies. However it is also about Rex, a big dog with a big heart. This book is excellent and it basically destroyed me.
JOHN EYRE, Mimi Matthews — A gender-bent retelling of Jane Eyre and Dracula. John is a tutor hired to teach two boys, wards of a Mrs. Rochester of Thornfield (aka one Bertha Mason). If you’ve read Jane Eyre and Dracula, there are no surprises here but John and Bertha are different enough from their Jane Eyre counterparts and react to their respective situations differently that it never feels like just a re-treading of the same plotlines with slightly altered character names.
SONGS IN URSA MAJOR, Emma Brodie — I’m halfway through this at the moment and enjoying it immensely. It’s loosely based on the relationship between Joni Mitchell and James Taylor in the 70’s. I don’t know much about Joni and JT so part of the fun for me is reading up on them and listening to some of their music.
Thanks to all my library holds coming in at once, and a trip to a bookstore, which I haven’t visited in a very long time, it feels like recently I’ve read All The Books. Especially compared to my sad reading output of this past year.
The Mercies – Karen Millwood Hargrave
In Norway in 1617 a storm kills almost all the men of an island, leaving the women to figure out things for themselves. Eventually, the king appoints a new governor and magistrate, leading to a witchcraft trial. Meanwhile, the magistrate’s young city wife falls for one of the women on the island.
This was based on events I’ve never heard of, which is always interesting to me. And it was a beautiful story. I wanted it to be more sapphic than it turned out, but maybe that’s bringing romance-novel sensibilities to lit fic.
Word By Word: the Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
An editor for Merriam Webster writes about her career as well as the history of dictionaries and language in general. I thought it was cleverly presented — each chapter focuses on one word, but relating to many larger contexts. If you’re a linguistics nerd or even casually interested in how language shapes culture and vice versa, you’ll find something you like here.
Rainbow Rowell- Any Way the Wind Blows
I wasn’t actually planning on reading this one, but once I got it I was sucked in. Rowell’s work is always fast-paced and wonderfully character driven. I wasn’t completely sold on the ending, I wanted something more conclusive for some of the plotlines, but overall it worked.
How to Find a Princess – Alyssa Cole
This one left me baffled. I enjoyed large stretches of it, but the ending seemed to come from literally nowhere and made absolutely no sense to me. It didn’t even give me a sense of HFN, much less HEA. I saw no way these characters could survive together five pages after the ending…I really, really needed at least an epilogue. Cole’s one of my favorite writers, but I guess they can’t all be winners.
DNF – Fifty Words For Rain by Asha Lemmie
I don’t usually include my DNFs here, but I wanted to mention this one because I did make it over 250 pages in, which was a lot of reading investment for a DNF. It’s about the illegitimate daughter of a Japanese aristocrat and a Black American GI in 1950s Japan, and her relationship with her older half-brother. The concept was really interesting and I *wanted* to like it so much, but there were so many things that kept getting in my way. One of my biggest pet peeves in writing is italicized foreign words. That was extremely overused here (and if the characters are Japanese, I’m going to assume most readers are going to accept that *they are speaking Japanese*, one does not have to keep writing arigatou to remind us) Ultimately, though, it was the unrelenting trauma that got to me, and I stopped after a scene of violence that while not graphically described, crossed a bridge to far for me.
I’m still reading light hearted stuff (ok mostly the Defenders series by Zoe Chant). I will try to branch out into some serious stuff but my brain doesn’t want to know!
Apart from that, I’ve read a couple of alien romances that for me have turned into duds. Sadly so, as they both showed promise
The first is Married To The Alien Doctor by Alma Nielsen. Loved the idea of humans not being the main players in the universe. It starts with a ship of women being guests (read: ransom deal) to the alliance race, basically a dictatorship where you’re forced to marry and follow the religion, with strict punishments for those who don’t. We follow one young woman as she assimulates into alliance life while training to be a telepathic doctor? Sounds interesting? Well unfortunately after getting 30% in I felt like I was reading a history book, there was very little character interaction, most conversations were summarised and the pace was very slow. The main protagonists had not even met before I gave up (it was a 500 page book so that was over 100 pages. Look I love sci fi with political intrigue but I need a little action.
The other was a few novellas from the first books in saving the Cerastians by Dane Griggs. This was meant to be a little more light hearted than the previous book but still suffered from “Tell don’t show” syndrome. I felt like I was reading a diary from a teen and couldn’t tell one character from another. I did like that the alien from the second book was possibly on the autism spectrum (though never mentioned) but that was it. Pretty disappointing. Back to reading Zoe Chant, (Callan, if you must know).
So many, many books—it’s a two-parter this time for sure.
PART I
I loved, loved, loved ROLE MODEL, the fifth book in Rachel Reid’s Game Changer series of m/m hockey romances. It’s a candidate for my favorite book of 2021 and my second-favorite book of the series behind HEATED RIVALRY. ROLE MODEL is a grumpy/sunshine pairing between Troy, a deeply-closeted hockey player, and Harris, the out-and-proud social media manager for the team to which Troy has recently been traded. Reid does an excellent job with Troy—how the homophobia of his father and his former teammates has dictated the way he’s lived his life, how he’s tired of what he’s become and wants to change but is not sure how to do that, how alone he is, and how he slowly, step-by-step, reclaims his humanity and his essential self. (If I have even the slightest quibble about the book, it’s that Harris doesn’t have much of an arc; he basically begins and ends as the same person—a kind-hearted and decent cinnamon roll—although Troy brings enough angsty turmoil for two people, so perhaps Harris is exactly who he needs to be.) Although there are echoes of GAME CHANGER in ROLE MODEL, especially because the book tracks one hero’s journey to self-acceptance and coming out, Reid also addresses the important issues of (cw/tw) homophobia in sports, toxic masculinity, and why sexual assault allegations against male athletes are frequently ignored—all in a way that does not minimize their seriousness but never overwhelms the developing love story. Also, for those familiar with the Game Changer series, Ilya Rozanov (one of the heroes of HEATED RIVALRY) plays a key role here—and it now becomes clear that he has been a catalyst for change throughout the entire series. Highly-recommended, but you do need to read the rest of the series first—if only to see Ilya’s character arc.
There’s a vein of poignancy, almost melancholy, underlying the fluffy rom-com plot of Annika Martin’s JUST NOT THAT INTO BILLIONAIRES, the sixth in her Billionaires of Manhattan series. While trying to obtain an overseas visa, Francine, a ballet dancer, discovers that she is married—a drunken Vegas moment from ten years ago that never got undone. When she tracks down her husband, Benny, she discovers he’s now a billionaire tech titan—and, just coincidentally, he’s in need of a wife for a few weeks. Benny will sign the divorce papers if Francine will agree to be his “real fake” wife at some upcoming social events. And so begins a story of second-chances, re-evaluating the past, thinking about the choices we make now versus the choices we made back then, and making amends for what you cannot change. Francine & Benny are so good together: she bright and peppy, he’s serious and sarcastic, they’re both smart and both see news things in the other as they gradually tear down each other’s walls. The love story in JUST NOT THAT INTO BILLIONAIRES is wonderful, although I wish Martin had delved into Francine’s Filipino heritage a little more—it’s alluded to a few times, but not explored in any depth. Also, I felt the villain of the book was guilty of such awful crimes that they almost crushed the soufflé of the story. On the other hand, I loved the inclusion of New York’s Zaha Hadid building, which becomes almost a character itself in the story; and props to Martin for using the music of the Dave Matthews Band in a way that reminded me of how Slim Whitman’s music is used in “Mars Attacks.” Highly recommended.
Kati Wilde’s EVIL TWIN has all the elements of the other books in Kati’s Dead Lands fantasy series (brave determined heroine, honorable warrior hero, h&h at cross-purposes until they decide to unite to conquer a mutual enemy, hot sexy-times); however, as Kati notes in her content warnings, the heroine’s initial consent to sex is somewhat ambiguous because she believes she is consenting to one twin but is in bed with the other (this element resolves itself in a neat “twist,” but it’s there nonetheless). As usual, Kati packs a lot of action into a novella-length work—there is a fight for a kingdom, more than one “evil” twin, potions, magic spells, wards, scaling, and an army of the undead—along with ruminations on duality, the difference between being “nice” and being “kind” (spoiler alert: kindness trumps niceness every time), and what it means to “lift” someone up. Key quote: “A heart cannot be demanded or stolen or forced—love and trust must be given.” Recommended—but, to get the full flavor of the story, you should also read the other Dead Lands books.
It was interesting to read Maisey Yates’s latest HP, A BRIDE FOR THE LOST KING, right after reading EVIL TWIN because, although BRIDE is set in the world of credit cards, penthouses, jet airplanes, and haute couture, both books are seeped in the trappings of fantasy/fairy-tale. In BRIDE, a young woman (daughter of a con man) has been dedicated to protecting a prince who saved her life eight years ago. For this purpose, she has become an expert swordswoman and wielder of knives. The prince—kidnapped as a child and raised in the deep dark woods by a long-exiled population—intends to reclaim the throne held by his brother. He enlists the heroine as his fake fiancée to help smooth his rough edges. At first, the heroine is happy to perform this service, but as time passes, she sees the prince’s actions as little more than a scam the likes of which she associates with her ne’er-do-well father. We’ve had discussions in WAYR before about the almost-irredeemable HP hero and I found the hero of BRIDE to be amongst the most dislikable I’ve encountered because he is so coldly focused on wrong-doing (and is capable of justifying his every base action or desire) for so much of the book. However, much as I think Caitlin Crews does, Yates manages to redeem the hero by the end of the book. (Fun fact: Yates dedicates the book to Henry Cavill, who, in The Witcher, made her “think a lot about the virtues of sword fighting.”) Recommended—but keep in mind this is an HP, so angsty heartache is a given.
Although the title TWISTED GAMES, by new-to-me author Ana Huang, makes it sound like dark romance, it’s actually a nice slow-burn romance (taking place over the course of four years) between a European princess and her bodyguard, a former Navy SEAL. (Hot cover alert for cover model du jour & one of DiscoDollyDeb’s many AU boyfriends, turquoise-eyed Christoph Leitner.) In the first part of the book, there’s an element of antagonists-to-lovers between the princess who knows she inhabits “a life that was planned, not lived” and her bodyguard, but it arises organically from the couple’s backgrounds, functions, and expectations. I really liked how mature both MCs are: she’s been raised in a goldfish bowl and knows her every public move is monitored and dissected; he has a job to do and he has to remain hyper vigilant at all times. So even though there’s attraction between them, for a long time, it remains unacknowledged (leading to some nice scenes of longing glances, double-entendres, and unresolved sexual tension). In the second part of the book, after the couple have become secret lovers, the princess unexpectedly becomes heir to the kingdom and has to adjust to even more visibility along with the knowledge that she has to marry for political purposes, even while she is in love with her bodyguard. I enjoyed TWISTED GAMES, especially the consistent behavior of the h&h as they fall in love and then try to find a way to openly be together. Highly recommended.
I liked TWISTED GAMES so much, I tried the first book in the series, TWISTED LOVE (the heroines are friends and the time-lines overlap in the two books). This one features brother’s-best-friend and sunshine/grumpy tropes in the story of a Chinese-American photographer and a Russian-American businessman—who are connected in ways only the hero knows. Although I didn’t like TWISTED LOVE quite as much as TWISTED GAMES, it does feature on of my favorite, albeit problematic, premises: The hero begins a relationship with the heroine for reasons other than love (business, revenge), but during the course of the relationship, the hero realizes he does, indeed, love the heroine; except, the heroine learns the truth about how their relationship started and she is definitely not here for that bullshit. Cue the misery, heartache, and angst—until the hero’s mega-grovel and grand gesture. I’m looking forward to more books in this series from Huang: the heroines are part of a tight group of four friends and I’m assuming there will be two more books for the two other friends. Recommended.
In the recent discussion about “priest romances,” Lora mentioned that Charlotte Stein had written one called FORBIDDEN. I was stunned that I did not know that Stein (one of my favorite writers of dark erotica) had written a priest romance (one of my favorite transgressive catnips), so I immediately downloaded FORBIDDEN (published in 2015), and I was not disappointed. In Stein’s trademark lush & dreamy prose, a young woman named Dot tells her story of being rescued from her abusive mother (whose obvious mental illness fixates on her daughter’s “sinful” nature) by Killian, a priest about to take his final vows. As Dot and Killian drive from Louisiana to Boston and stay at hotels along the way, their connection becomes more electric, full of the barest, accidental touches, and the deepest, most deliberate words—lots and lots of words: there’s not a writer who can touch Stein when it comes to how couples use words, interpret them, explain them, try to work around them, building to a crescendo when nothing more is happening that a hand being held. (Also, Stein’s story makes interesting use of the music of U2–although neither the band nor the song titles are ever identified.) In its exuberantly riotous prose, FORBIDDEN reminded me of two of Stein’s best books—THE PROFESSOR and SWEET AGONY. Recommended.
PART II
I’ve been reading the multi-author Midnight Dynasty series of books about two rival crime families, the Constantines and the Morellis, who live in a town—not far from New York City, based on how frequently characters drive there—called Bishop’s Landing. The series started last year with DARK FAIRY TALES (currently free in the Kindle Store) and has continued through several series (all of them dark, many of them fairy-tale retellings, most of them multi-volume trilogies, and—at least of the ones I’ve read—all with some connections, positive and negative, to the Catholic Church). This month, I finished M. O’Keefe’s contribution to Midnight Dynasty—her Dark Hearts trilogy (RUINED, BROKEN, UNTAMED) and read Amelia Wilde’s Beauty & the Beast trilogy (SECRET BEAST, HIDDEN BEAUTY, FALLEN ROSE), all discussed below. If you’d like more information about all the Midnight Dynasty books, check out Dangerous Press at http://www.dangerouspress.com and, according to their blurb, discover a universe “where enemies and lovers are often one and the same.”
UNTAMED by M. O’Keefe (Molly O’Keefe’s “dark romance” name) is the third and final book in her uber-angsty Dark Hearts trilogy. The heroine of the series is a young widow who begins to distrust the woman (the cool, manipulative Constantine matriarch) who has been her friend and mentor for years. The heroine has been on the run with a man who had previously been a fixer for said friend—but new information about his identity was revealed at the end of the previous book (BROKEN), so in UNTAMED the h&h return to Bishop’s Landing to uncover the secrets of the heroine’s unhappy, abusive marriage and how her late husband really died. I liked how the power dynamic kept shifting between the MCs and how the heroine really came into her own as a powerful woman determined to discover the truth others want to keep from her. Also interesting for the inclusion of an MFF sex scene, which is a first for an O’Keefe book as far as I can remember. Key quote: The heroine, musing about the hero, “[everything about him] was a trick of my heart seeing what it wanted.”
In Amelia Wilde’s Beauty & the Beast trilogy (SECRET BEAST, HIDDEN BEAUTY, FALLEN ROSE), the heroine is a Constantine, but, because of her father (very much an “absent-minded professor/inventor” type), she is not part of the wealthy and influential branch of the family. She tries to prevent her father from selling an invention to someone from the Morelli family and ends up trading her freedom for her father’s. The hero is known as “The Beast of Bishop’s Landing” and he is badly scared both emotionally and physically—and, unlike many scarred heroes, he acknowledges his constant pain which ebbs and flows but never goes away altogether. In addition to showing the toll that ceaseless pain has on the sufferer, what I thought Wilde did particularly well in the books (especially in FALLEN ROSE) was explore the concept of Stockholm Syndrome. I’ve often said that, as much as I like dark romance, there’s frequently an element of Stockholm Syndrome to how quickly the heroines capitulate to the heroes and fall in love with them. I really liked how the heroine had to re-examine everything that happened to her while she was living with “the Beast” and try to determine how much of her feelings for him were authentic and not the result of captivity. (As an aside, can we please stop with every heroine of dark romance loving JANE EYRE? I’m waiting for a heroine to say to the hero, “Thanks for this first edition of JANE EYRE, but I did tell you my all-time favorite book is A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, right?”) I liked Wilde’s B&TB trilogy, but it is very dark with quite a few triggers (violence, captivity, pain infliction), so YMMV.
I enjoyed Nyla K’s age-gap romance, TO BURN IN BRUTAL RAPTURE, about a young woman who has been in love with her father’s best friend & business partner since adolescence. I read the book with with two different mindsets: in one, I was remembering my teenage years, when crushes were so passionate, so overwhelming, so dramatic; in the other, I was the mother I am today—and very concerned for the teenage heroine of the book, whose obsessive love for a man 23 years her senior leads to some very bad decisions. One thing Nyla does incredibly well in this book is get inside the mind of smart, self-aware, but still hormonal and self-absorbed teen whose life has been upended since her mother’s death years before. I found it harder to get a read on the hero—who obviously should have known better—particularly early in the book when the heroine is not yet 18—as he cycles through denial, then justification, then indulgence, then guilt, rinse, repeat. (Also, there’s a very big twist that I won’t spoil—but it might be a little more obvious than Nyla, with all her online demands that no one spoil the book, thinks it is.) Yes, TO BURN IN BRUTAL RAPTURE is way too long (at least a fifth of the book could have been excised), but it’s also compulsively readable, even as you despair for the heroine and want to bludgeon the hero, but I can only recommend it for those who know they like this sort of dark, transgressive subject matter.
[CW/TW: many, including child abduction & sexual exploitation, abusive childhoods, murder of a spouse, child being treated for cancer] I’ve had Sloane Kennedy’s books on my tbr for years, but I just now got around to reading a couple of them: RETRIBUTION and ATONEMENT, published in 2016 & 2017, respectively. These are romantic suspense books featuring m/m pairings and interconnected characters. In RETRIBUTION, Hawke has been searching for his wife’s killers for a decade when he meets Tate, a young single father related to—and on the run from—the same killers. I especially liked the first half of RETRIBUTION as Hawke and Tate search for the killers and grow closer to each other (Hawke becoming especially confused about his feelings for the younger man). The second half featured quite a bit of violence, along with cancer treatments for Tate’s young son. Meanwhile, ATONEMENT features two men both trying to redress the mistakes of the past. One of them, Magnus (the grandfather of Tate’s son from RETRIBUTION) feels responsible for the death of his drug-addicted daughter; the other, Dante, is a Brazilian-American who, in a careless moment years before, allowed his young brother to be abducted. The two men team up to search for Dante’s missing brother—and grow closer in the process. Other than a noticeable tendency to end sentences with prepositions, Kennedy’s writing is solid and efficient—but reading the two books back-to-back brought out their similarities (tragic & abusive backstories, previously-straight hero who is baffled by his attraction to another man, enforced proximity, sexual tension, and then sexy-times where the confused hero is suddenly no longer confused). I don’t think I could read Kennedy’s books regularly—she loves to put her characters through the wringer, physically and emotionally—but as an occasional change of pace, I think they’re fine.
NON-ROMANCE
THE GOOD LIE by A. R. Torre (alternate pen name of romance writer Alessandra Torre) is a twisty psychological thriller exploring themes of trust, suspicion, belief, and lies (including lying by omission). THE GOOD LIE gripped me from the first page, but please keep in mind this is a thriller, so, although nothing is described in gory detail, all the triggers apply. There are three main storylines in THE GOOD LIE and Torre doing a good job of slowly pulling them together and creating twists that are both organic and shocking. Dr. Gwen Moore is a therapist who specializes in treating clients who have obsessive thoughts about killing their loved ones. When one of her patients—a pharmacist—commits suicide after his wife has a fatal heart attack, she wonders if he might have used his pharmaceutical knowledge to induce the heart attack. But when she considers the can of liability worms she might be opening if she shares her suspicions with law enforcement, she decides to remain silent. Meanwhile, a serial killer has been terrorizing the Los Angeles area—abducting high school boys and keeping them captive for a few weeks before killing them and dumping their mutilated corpses. However, the most recent victim manages to escape his captor. While the boy’s shifting story seems vague (even his mother thinks he’s lying), he identifies his captor as a high school science teacher—a man who adamantly denies he had anything to do with the killings. A prominent defense attorney—the father of one of the serial killer’s victims—steps forward to defend the accused killer pro bono. This attorney happens to be the same man with whom Gwen had a one-night stand. Then he hires Gwen to complete a psychological profile of the killer. How all these pieces fit together plays out over the course of the book. Despite a couple of minor loose ends that I think Torre should have either resolved or eliminated altogether, THE GOOD LIE is a compulsively readable thriller. Recommended.
With the recent death of Chuck E. Weiss (look him up, you young-uns), I was transported back over 40 years to when Rickie Lee Jones’s “Chuck E’s in Love” was a big hit. I always liked Rickie Lee (I think her cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” is even better than Joni MItchell’s—which is saying something) and believe that she never achieved the fame she deserved. I fell down the Rickie Lee/Tom Waits/Chuck E. Weiss rabbit hole and discovered that Rickie had recently published an autobiography, LAST CHANCE TEXACO, so I grabbed it from the library. I enjoyed Rickie’s episodic approach to writing about her life (she’s only a little older than I am and many of her musical touchstones from the sixties and seventies are mine too), and how family (even exceedingly dysfunctional ones, as hers was), friends, and lovers are all part of the blend that makes her who she is and contributed to her songwriting. This isn’t a “first this happened, then this happened” autobiography, it’s much more impressionistic than that. Recommended for Rickie Lee fans.
THE SOULMATE EQUATION by Christina Lauren – I’m still caught up in the spoiler-filled relationship paradox at the end of this book. It leaves me itchy and unsatisfied, but not enough to disregard the fun of the rest of this romance between a single-mom statistician matched by DNA analysis with the aloof geneticist who developed the algorithm for a new matchmaking app. I want to see a book set 25 years in the future, when couples are struggling against a genetic matchmaking score as a social norm. [A-]
PAIRING OFF by Elizabeth Harmon – A disgraced American pairs skater is teamed up with a Russian whose partner deserted him for a higher-profile competitor only 6 months before the Winter Games. Poor heroine could not catch a break from this author: her backstory is laden with misery and censure at every turn. I’m kind of surprised the hero’s former partner/girlfriend didn’t hire a member of the bratva to kneecap her. Keeping in mind that my knowledge of competitive figure skating starts and stops with Ice Castles and The Cutting Edge, I thought the skating universe was a well-developed and believable setting for the romance, though some readers might have a problem with the hero’s initial wishy-washiness re: his soon-to-be-former girlfriend. [B+]
THE NEXT MRS RUSSO by Jana Aston – This has to be a case of the best worst timing ever: the love interest is the divorced governor of New York. Fear not, horrified readers, because there’s very little romance in this romance. He’s just the objectified focus of her sexual desire (oh, irony) while the somewhat ditzy heroine expends more emotional energy on upcycling vintage fashions (the 90s were so long ago) and being bossed around by both her cat and the teenager who hangs out at her store. As a romance, this would earn a C rating for the lack of relationship-building between the protagonists; as breezy chicklit (if that’s still a genre), I give it a [B].(Honestly, I want to give it a B-, but I think that’s me being petty about the vintage remarks making me feel sooooo old.)
THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE by Lisa Kleypas – Of course everything I have to say about this is a spoiler. And contradictory. [B]
I think like a lot of people right now, I’ve got “The Delta Blues” things that are planned just a month or two from now are starting to feel like a mirage that is slipping farther and farther (and further and further too, I guess) into the distance as I approach them. Yes, I’m very grateful that my family is healthy, that we are not worried about food or shelter, but going back to “one foot in front of the other” after starting to tentatively make some real plans for the future is pretty disheartening, not going to lie. When I feel like this, reading gets really hard. The focus just isn’t there. And b/c I’ve been through this before now, I know better than to force it. I’m mostly reading fanfic and gazing dreamily at quilt patterns and quilt fabric.
I’m still trying to read lots of kids’ books with my younger son, so more Lumberjanes and now the Squirrel Girl books by Shannon Hale.
I read some categories for a challenge and they were okay, but not even special enough to mention here. I need to stop trying to read 90s categories b/c the trope, ‘we have unprotected sex, don’t talk about it ALL!, and of course we get pregnant, and magically our surprise baby brings us together after our black moment’ keeps happening and it always enrages me. It just does. I know for other people, it’s their jam and books are not moral tracts, but as someone who was a teenager and a young adult in the 90s/2000s, I’ll just say that it is so far from my lived experience and expectations about unprotected sex (and my friends’ experiences), it feels like another planet. Can’t relate and brain will not compute. It’s a shame, b/c I like 3/4s of a lot of these books and then the trope rears it’s head and I’m out. (This rant was actually much longer and I forced myself to edit it down).
On a better note, I really liked THE SUMMER JOB by Lizzy Dent. A bit of light fiction with lots of romance (kind of like Beth O’Leary. A woman decides to fake it as her best friend for the summer to get a job as a sommelier at a resort in Scotland. Yes, it is a big lie and she has to start spinning plates very quickly, but I felt like it was done well. Mostly, I just enjoyed reading about a beautiful resort in Scotland with lots of yummy food and wine.
I also really enjoyed THE GROUND BREAKING: AN AMERICAN CITY AND ITS SEARCH FOR JUSTICE by Scott Ellsworth. This was about the Tulsa massacre, but specifically it was about the aftermath, the cover-up, and how the city is now approaching its history, including recovering the bodies. So not a light topic. I will say the author is a white historian and this is not an impartial, distanced account, b/c the author is a Tulsa native and he’s been involved in researching the massacre since his masters’ thesis in the 70s. He talks a lot about how it was discussed when he was growing up, trying to connect with survivors and gain their trust, and what work others were doing at the same time to capture history before it was too late. I don’t think he does anything to inflate or exaggerate his part, but of course, I don’t have first hand experience to go from. It also ends on a bit of an unfinished note, I suspect b/c the book was rushed to coincide as closely with the anniversary as possible. As someone who really enjoys more personal/cultural history, I really enjoyed this as a meditation on what gets remembered, what gets forgotten and why. And how/if the people in the present can make it right.
I really enjoyed Celia Lake’s new book, Sailor’s Jewel. It’s set on a transatlantic crossing, on a shipping line owned by one of the families in the magical community and this time only transporting magical folk. There are no icebergs, but mystical creatures in the deeps. One of the main characters, Rhoe, played a big part in one of my favorites in the series, Carry On (this one is set pre-war). She is a delight here. It’s also closed-door, adding to that list.
I was going to squee about Role Model, but I can’t add much to what DDD has said except A, there’s a puppy and B, a (too-brief) cameo by Ryan (of Tough Guy) who is my favorite in the series. Those two things were the icing on my cinnamon role of delight.
Have been on vacation this past week, so plowing through a bunch of stuff:
DIAL A FOR AUNTIES. So, I think this book will work better if you know going in that it’s a totally bananas farce. I was expecting it to be more straight faced and it was…not. A dead body being hauled around, minor villains waiting in the wings, things not being what they seem? This book has you covered. All that said, the relationship between the h/h, Meddy and Nathan, totally pissed me off. She was a complete arse to him and the whole thing was resolved in one (one!) paragraph of dialogue. Not buying it. Also, the circumstances around the dead body seem to move from farcical mishap to actual manslaughter (though I admit I was skimming rapidly at that point, so maybe not. But given the ludicrousness of the rest of the plot, maybe not.)
WISTERIA SOCIETY OF LADY SCOUNDRELS. Swashbuckling, magical silliness. Looking forward to sequels with some of the secondary characters.
ROSALINE PALMER TAKES THE CAKE. I enjoy Alexis Hall; he writes good characters and particularly good dialogue, but I do wish that the parents in his books weren’t quite so awful all the time.
ACT YOUR AGE, EVE BROWN. Not my favorite of the Brown sisters novels, but totally competent and Talia Hibbert writes some very steamy scenes.
Non-Romance
THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME. This was a brisk beach read/thriller. (Man disappears and his wife suddenly realizes he’s not who she thought he was.) I wasn’t really emotionally invested in any of the characters and the ending works but I don’t love it. That said, it moves right along—finished it in less than 24 hours.
WHAT THE DEVIL KNOWS—the latest Sebastian St. Cyr mystery. I really enjoy Sebastian and his wife, Hero. This is another solid addition to the series with some interesting history about beer in Regency London mixed in.
HOOD FEMINISM by Mikki Kendall. I’ve known Kendall’s work from the earlier days of the feminist blogosphere where she was an active commenter and critic. This book is a series of essays and while I found it informative and thought provoking, I wish it had leaned more into being a personal narrative OR being more a work of research. It occupies this in-between space that’s harder to parse.
Currently reading THE CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR, the latest in the Maisie Dobbs series of mysteries.
Up next: THE HEIRESS GETS A DUKE by Harper St. George.
I can’t add much more about Role Model either ha ha. The lure of Ilya being in it (even as a minor character) was too much so I ordered it, read it, and then promptly ordered the rest of the series and devoured them all (I’m not really a sports romance person so I wasn’t sure how much I’d enjoy them despite Heated Rivalry being one of my keeper shelf books). I seriously hope the Long Game lives up to my internal hype and squee…
I read the latest Sebastian St Cyr book finally (by CS Harris) it continues to be a solid series I enjoy and preorder
I read Ex-Talk and enjoyed that. I enjoyed the public radio/podcast element. Did find the ending a little too…cheesy for my liking…and perhaps a bit unrealistic.
Also I really enjoyed Capture the Crown by Jennifer Estep. I really really invested in the (I presume) end game couple and would like to see how she does that realistically (within the universe she has created)
Happy Saturday! Woke up with an urge to clean (as opposed to resignation to it), so I’m going to ride that out for as long as that lasts.
Romance:
A DANCE WITH DANGER by Jeannie Lin: the second in her Lovers and Rebels series, this has some thematic echoes with her LIAR’S DICE/THE HIDDEN MOON books from the Pingkang Li Mysteries, with the heroine being somewhat sheltered and the hero having a criminal past. I liked it but didn’t love it as much as the first one, THE SWORD DANCER, which has more of my favorite tropes (enemies-to-lovers, thief/thief-catcher). I am hoping that perhaps one day Lin will write a book for Liu Yuan and Shifen!
THE HEIRESS GETS A DUKE by Harper St. George: I’d put this on my list after Amanda’s review on the site, definitely what I would term Big Kleypas Energy. I feel like St. George was mostly able to straddle this line between the fantasy of being as fabulously wealthy as the Crenshaws are while also making August *just* aware enough of class stuff to not be despicable. (At least, she cares about fair wages, more or less.) I didn’t love the last ~40 pages, but the majority of the book had a solid tension between August not wanting to give up her independence and also wanting to build a life with someone who respects her (Evan, who is deliciously oblivious to the ways he has already fallen for August as he ponders how he’ll convince her to marry him). I’ll probably pick up the second one in this series at some point, August’s sister Violet was showing some promise as a romance heroine. (I like a historical heroine who’s quieter but maybe no less rebellious than their louder sibling sometimes! Love to see how people quietly subvert the expectations society has of them.)
EXCUSE ME WHILE I UGLY CRY by Joya Goffney: really charming debut contemporary YA about Quinn, whose diary/journal full of lists of her secrets (some harmless, others very harmful to others) gets stolen by someone interested in blackmailing her. She teams up with Carter, the last person who had her diary, to figure out who took it. There’s some really great stuff in here about socioeconomic class, microaggressions/being a Black person in a majority white institution, how to be assertive, and dealing with the particular grief for a grandparent with dementia. I feel like some of the plot wrapped up a little too tidily at the end, but overall, the pacing worked nicely for me. I’ll be interested to see what Goffney publishes next.
HARD SELL by Hudson Lin: I’d picked this up after the podcast episode Sarah had with the author. There are a few quasi-taboo obstacles here to the relationship between Danny and Tobin, with the best friend’s sibling one taking up more space than the other one (a prospective investor should not be seeing someone consulting for the company he wants to buy…). I did like Danny and Tobin together, although there was a little more angst than I’d expected (that’s on me for ignoring the moody colors on the cover). The business details were fairly realistic to my experience, which is also why I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pick up the next one–too close for comfort in some ways.
Non-romance:
SUPERIOR: THE RETURN OF RACE SCIENCE by Angela Saini: great book that covers historical and modern race science trends (eugenics, AncestryDNA) and manages to explain the science for a lay audience without dumbing it down. Highly recommend for anyone who got an ancestry DNA test, or for anyone who’s found that trend vaguely unsettling and can’t articulate why.
WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FALLS FROM THE SKY by Lesley Nneka Arimah: strong collection of short stories with a variety of narrative styles & genres. Favorites included “Wild,” “Windfalls,” “Buchi’s Girls” and “What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky”
Up next:
I’m coming up soon on the library hold list for DEVIL IN DISGUISE by Lisa Kleypas, I’ll probably get to HARD KNOCKS by Ruby Lang and FILTHY ANIMALS by Brandon Taylor before the next Whatcha Reading.
I’m in a bit of a reading slump while I wait for some anticipated releases but Role Model was the first of those and I loved it! It was unputdownable for sure.
I’m not entirely sure what’s coming next but I’m looking forward to Helen Hoang’s next one and Sierra Simone’s Saint (in the same series as Priest) coming in late August and early September, respectfully.
I’ll second the recommendation for Superior. Very readable, very eye-opening.
I’m reading WINTER’S ORBIT by Everina Maxwell. Up next, I hope to read CHASING THE SHADOWS and DEFENDING THE GALAXY, both by Maria V. Snyder. If you are looking for YA and/or sci-fi, Snyder’s NAVIGATING THE STARS is excellent.
After loving LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION, I’ve been re-watching/bingeing the original seasons of LEVERAGE. I had forgotten how much fun the show is, and I love all the pop-culture references — like The Bank Shot Job episode, which I assume/hope is a reference to BANK SHOT by Donald E. Westlake. BANK SHOT is part of the Dortmunder series, a comic crime caper series about a group of quirky thieves, and it’s one of my all-time favorite series. Okay, I will quit gushing now. LOL.
Happy reading, everyone! 🙂
Bounced off four books for various petty reasons before settling in with Karen Lord’s REDEMPTION IN INDIGO. This is the second book of hers I’ve read (the other being THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS), and she seems to favor light humor and a gentle hand with conflict, which may be appealing to many folks right now. In this one, the main character has left her husband, not because he’s a violent brute but because he’s tiresome and embarrassing. (You don’t like him or feel sorry for him, but he’s not enough of a villain to arouse HATE.) The main character is gifted with a Chaos Stick, and the spirit this power was taken from wants it back, but after an initial threat doesn’t work, it becomes a road trip to show her why she wouldn’t WANT this power. That spirit doesn’t make a good first impression (much like the husband), but he’s not MOUSTACHE-TWIRLING EVIL!!!!!, so you get to follow along on a fun adventure with manipulative spirits, mystical Sisters, and giant spider tricksters without a lot of anxiety.
I dnf’d THE WOLF AND THE WOODSMAN by Ava Reid; I got nearly halfway in before I realized I just wasn’t enjoying it, skimming more and more, and it wasn’t worth it to finish. (Back to the library it went.) It seemed weirdly both YA and grimdark: Very violent, with animal death and self harm and gore all over the place all the time, yet lacking the kind of grounding detail of the adult fantasy books that I like. (I also found some of the “dark” content to be written in a way that seemed, to me, immaturely self indulgent/~edgy.)
I had initially liked the back and forth between the heroine and hero (supposed to be enemies to lovers) but then it felt more and more like a theological debate interspersed with lusty pants feelings and horrifying fairytale interludes that added nothing to the plot. It was trying to be Uprooted- and Spinning Silver-like but fell far short.
Also, the author and apparently everyone who edited or helped out with this book seem to have zero real world knowledge of horses and horsemanship. It was almost embarrassing at times tbh.
Happily moved on to BREATH: THE NEW SCIENCE OF A LOST ART by James Nestor. I’ve struggled with breathing (I’m just bad at it) for most of my life, and this was really helpful in sorting out the rights and wrongs and what to work towards. I really appreciated how thoroughly the author investigated so many different aspects of scientific/medical and spiritual explorations of the subject, the clarity of the writing, and that he doesn’t tout anything as a cure-all (even as he’s thoroughly convincing of the importance and power of proper breathing) or insist that some promising ideas are fully proven when they’re not.
CW, though, for rare recounting of some awful animal experimentation (nothing the author took part in or approves of) and one brief description of attempted sexual assault.
I was able to get thru that stuff okay, though, and I highly recommend the book.
I just read Mira Grant’s FEED sequence for the first time, which turned out to be a good piece of timing. This world isn’t so much zombie-pandemic post-apocalypse as zombie-pandemic “normalish-life has to go on,” and some of the commentary on the way humans have adapted to their new normal felt eerie this year.
I also read T. Kingfisher’s Jackalope Wives and Other Stories, which she collected right around the time the White Rat universe started to coalesce, so I don’t think any of the stories are in that world – more of her Southwest-flavored and garden-y fantasy. The title story won the Nebula, and there’s another beautiful story about the same main character.
Just a heads up about a needed text correction: “Love in Color” is written by Bolu Babalola, not Boba.
Since last time, week by week ~
— Meet Me in Another Life: A Novel by Catriona Silvey; this was definitely an intriguing story that surprised me.
— reread Royally Screwed (The Royally Series Book 1) by Emma Chase; this happened to be a reread of convenience rather than design.
— Leonard (My Life as a Cat) by Carlie Sorosiak; this was a charming science fiction book intended for children which I liked (despite being well over the target age range).
— Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley. I enjoyed this fantasy.
— enjoyed reading Concealed: The Taellaneth – Book 1by Vanessa Nelson which is the first book in a five book fantasy series. I then went on to read books 2 – 4 (Revealed, Betrayed, and Tainted) in the same series.
— On a recent road trip, my husband and I listened to Lake Silence by Anne Bishop. We’d both read the book previously, but we enjoyed revisiting it in audio format.
— finished the fifth and final book in the fantasy series I’ve been reading ~ Cloaked: The Taellaneth – Book 5 by Vanessa Nelson. I don’t know if this is a series I’ll reread, but I definitely enjoyed it.
— Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik which is the second book in the Temeraire series. This fantasy series features dragons in the Napoleonic era and is best read in order. I enjoyed the book.
— Bonds of Brass: Book One of The Bloodright Trilogy by Emily Skrutskie. This was an enjoyable science fiction story with a surprising twist near the end.
— and many samples on my Kindle.
I have 32 in progress series, so August is the month where I tackle all the series that I just have one more book to read.
ACT YOUR AGE, EVE BROWN by Talia Hibbert. Hibbert’s books are by and large solid reads and AYAEB was no exception. Just the right amount of quirky and fun with depth. I still prefer Dani’s story of the three, but this book ranks number two in my enjoyment of the series. 4/5
THE EMPIRE OF GOLD by S.A. Chakraborty. This was exactly what I expected and not what I expected, since there was even more world building and character development than I had anticipated. This is the best book in the series and though I never rated any book higher than a 4.5 (5 stars are books I know I’ll reread at some point), the series is a five star for sure. I LOVED how it ended. I just found out a few days ago that a short story collection will be released next year and I’ve already placed a request for my library to purchase the new book.
A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE by Arkady Martine. This book had four POVs while the first book only had one, IRRC, so that took a while for me to get into. So many more characters and back stories and intrigue that it took me a while to get into the rhythm of the book. It wasn’t that I disliked any of it, just that wasn’t the story I’d expected to read. The sequel was definitely a solid four up until the ending which was pitch perfect. Oh my, I’m still squeeing about it. Martine did such a masterful job of ending each storyline satisfactorily while still leaving the potential for future books in this world. I loved it. 4.5/5
HOLY SISTER by Mark Lawrence. I rated this book 3/5 but the series is a solid 4 star for me. The mechanics of this book did not work for me at all, but the storyline and action scenes were on par with the first two. I also loved the ending of this series.
(DNF) BLOCK SHOT by Kennedy Ryan. I read and loved, loved, loved LONG SHOT, the first book in this series, last year which was my fave romance of 2020. I skipped ahead and read HOOK SHOT a few months later and was let down. I loved the MCs and I really enjoy Ryan’s writing, but holy shit batman, the external conflict was unncessary and much too drawn out. I read QUEEN MOVE later in 2020 and felt the same way, so I was wary of not liking BLOCK SHOT. Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing could prepare me for how much I LOATHED the hero, Jared. He reminds me of early Roarke from J.D. Robb’s IN DEATH series which was written in the mid-90s, not 2018! Jared’s confidence tipped over to unattractive arrogance and cockiness, and he has ZERO respect for others’ boundaries if they don’t suit his whims. I DNF’d about 40% into the book and he’d already mentioned twice that he didn’t care that the heroine, Banner, had a boyfriend; that Banner was the woman for him and, well, sorry to the bf but he’ll find another woman, surely. AM I SUPPOSED TO LIKE A MAN LIKE THIS? I DNF’d after Jared and Banner were driving back from a work event a few hours away when Jared makes a detour at a drive-in movie theatre. Banner asks him multiple times to take her home and he declines. (ARGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!) When Banner asks him why not, he says that he wants to spend time with her, so he will spend time with her so she should just eat the popcorn and watch the damn movie. Why my girl didn’t just unlock the door and call for an uber, I don’t know, but she just crosses her arm and watches the god-damn movie while quietly stewing about Jared’s nerve. I do not like pushy heroes and I do not like my heroines to be wet noodles. Also, I skimmed the last portion of this chapter and Jared ends up fingerbanging Banner in the car to a totally awesome orgasm. Cheating isn’t a trope that is an automatic turn off, with these two asshat MCs, you couldn’t pay me to read their HEA. I promptly deleted a free novella starring these two as well. Fuck off, Banner and Jared.
I have come to realize that KR isn’t an author I can just pick up and enjoy, so I’ll do better reading the lower star reviews of her books from now on.
Currently reading THE KINGDOM OF GODS by N.K. Jemisin. About a quarter of the way through, but I can already tell I’m going to enjoy this book. Such a palette cleanser from the anger-inducing BLOCK SHOT.
Add me to the “I read Role Model” crew. I went all Bad Decisions Book Club on it the night it came out and the following night so I could finish it. So what if I was dragging at work the next day? If I hadn’t preordered it months ago, Rachel Reid’s Insta book birthday post – “This is my new son. Be kind to him. He is so stupid.” – would have sold me on it. I think DiscoDollyDeb really nailed it in her review here – Troy wants to be a better person, but considering he’s always had jerks for friends and a huge jerk for a father, he doesn’t know how to go about changing. It’s very human of him to be that awkward as he relearns how to interact with people. Harris is a definite cinnamon roll, and Ilya is an eternal delight. Definitely taking the day off for “The Long Game” because trying to work while thinking about “Role Model” wasn’t fun.
I read “All the Young Men” by Ruth Coker Burks – a memoir about how she began helping young gay men dying of AIDS in 1986 and covers a 10-year span of her life. Really sad but beautiful book and the depth of compassion and love she had for these men – who were isolated and reviled by society, especially the “Christians” in her church – was really heartening. Lots of medical descriptions, so it’s not for anyone with a weak stomach when it comes to medical stuff.
Also read “Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating” by Adiba Jaigirdar – bisexual Muslim girl starts fake dating a classmate at her all-girls Catholic school because she wants to prove her bisexuality to her biphobia friends. Looks like a middle grade novel, but is definitely YA – lots of the F word in the first part of the book. I loved Hani’s devotion to her religion and how Ishu makes Hani think about friendship. If you can’t really be yourself around someone, are they actually your friend at all? I also liked how Ishu’s relationship with her sister was evolving into something better than it had been. Highly recommend for the nuanced portrayal of bisexuality and Muslim/South Asian identity in a majority white society.
Also read “As A Man” by Paula Stone Williams. Before she came out, Paula lived as Paul, a long-time evangelical church builder and theologian. I really liked hearing her story and how she navigated changing relationships with her wife, kids, and grandkids after her transition. She talks a lot about cishet white Christian male privilege and how much she didn’t realize how prevalent misogyny and sexist microaggressions were in women’s daily lives. A very fast read, sometimes repetitive, but interesting to see a transgender woman coming to terms with white male privilege and even how her previous life impacts how she speaks and acts today.
I read “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”. It was powerful, I identified with so much, but I wasn’t satisfied by the ending – it was too abrupt to me.
I have been in a reading slump for so long and it feels really good to have finally broken out of it.
My best friend and I proposed a swap where we would each read a Beverly Jenkins book. She would read a historical, and I would read a contemporary; our reading tastes are normally opposite in this regard. She chose the first historical book I read, Indigo, and I chose the first book of the Blessings Series. While I can’t update you on her progress or thoughts, I loved Bring on the Blessings. I thought I would like it less than the historical novels I love, but I felt like I was just entering another part of her world. The references to characters from her historical works helped. I’m not sure why I waited so long.
@Sneezy:
I posted my comment before going back to read the article, so I was tickled to read of your Beverly Jenkins binge. Since I want to try to read the ?Blessings series when they are all on audio, I’m going to try to space them out, and read some of the historical books I have not in between.
@HeatherS, I’m so excited to hear that Ruth Coker Burks has a memoir out. Not that it will be fun read, but I think it’s amazing how quickly we forget. Maybe reading about someone else behaving with compassion during a time of terrible illness will give me more hope for the future. I remember hearing about her a few years ago on World AIDS Day and her story always stayed with me.
I read “Devil in Disguise” and agree with @Deborah that it’s much better if you’re a fan of the Wallflowers and previous Ravenel books. The main couple was fine, but it was great to see all the other familiar characters, and to have both the H&h coming from loving and supportive families. And to see a great sibling relationship between the heroine and her brother Luke. I just finished another book that had a great brother-sister relationship, “To Catch An Earl” by Kate Bateman. TCAE was a straight-up “To Catch a Thief” crime caper, with a jewel thief heroine, and very entertaining. Bateman makes great use of her knowledge of antique jewels.
Those 2 books were a nice change of pace because I seem to be coming off a string of books where the heroine’s brother was the main villain(An Unexpected Earl, Luck Be a Lady). An Unexpected Earl was 2nd chance romance between childhood sweethearts, if that’s your catnip.
I read Harper St. George’s 2nd book, “The Devil and the Heiress” which is Violet’s story. I liked it just a smidgen less than the first book, which was still a lot. And there is extended and extreme groveling by the hero, if that’s your thing.
Lastly I read a non-fiction book “Nomadland”. Am I one of the last people to read it? I tried to pass it on to a couple of people and it seemed like everyone I knew had already read it. I found it hard to put down, it was very compelling. It made me understand how people can find themselves in a financial dead end. If you’ve got any tendencies toward bag lady syndrome, this book will scare the crap out of you.
Role Model! I stayed up all night reading it (thank you summer vacation) and LOVED it. I wondered how Reid would handle having the formerly unlikeable character as the protagonist, but it was a wonderful, emotional read for me.
Cold Nose, Warm Heart and A Tail for Two by Mara Wells were great! She is a new to me author and I enjoyed these books centering on a historic building and the dog park that brings a Miami neighborhood together. Very much looking forward to the next book-Paws for Love.
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey was very good. I really liked the heroine, and the fish out of water storyline. Can’t wait for the sister’s book.
Breaking Free by Pamela Clare-I’m a big fan of hers, and didn’t realize she had a newer release. Very happy to revisit the setting and characters of her previous novels. I had to stop myself from doing a re-read of the other series, I had library books to get through. That is definitely on the agenda in the coming months. It’s described as a Colorado High Country and I-Team Crossover, and I love both those series.
Lots of other books, but these were some of the highlights!
My mistake- Paws For Love by Mara Wells is out!! I can’t believe I spaced that, it features a heroine who does greyhound rescue. So there are 3 books available, and for anyone who loves dogs-I think they are great reads. I met my first greyhound on a mountain hike, and I was blown away by how lovely the dog was. Those eyes! The series is called Fur Haven Dog Park, and I’m guessing there is another book coming that series I’m excited for.
I need to start taking reading notes instead of trying to do this off the top of my head!
It was a good reading half month for me, too.
I did some re-reading, Rae Carsons’ Fire and Thorns trilogy,still good, still really liked it.
New ones:
The Five Wishes of Mr Murray McBride. A centenarian who has outlived most of his family joins up with a ten year old in severe heart failure and the two of them try to get their bucket lists done. Not a romance but engrossing and heart warming. Would recommend you have some tissues at hand for a chapter or two.
The Winter Girls by Roger Stelljes. This is the second in the series but it was the one on sale so I started with it and it was fine as a stand-alone. Ex-FBI has moved to Michigan to be with her new lover who is also law enforcement. They get involved with two kidnappings that may be linked to sex trafficking. Fast paced, strong woman lead, dealing realistically with new relationship so kind of a romance in that way. I enjoyed it and will be looking for the rest of the series.
Even though I hate to pay full price, I did buy some of Nalini Singh’s Psy Changling series. Pretty reliable. I suspect most here have read them or know of them.
A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee. This was a great gothic, set in a girls’ boarding school supposedly founded by witches. Not a romance but excellent. And does what a gothic should, otherwise. Would truly recommend.
So, despite dealing with a flood of Halloween babies (last Halloween and now being birthed), I am reading more, and also finding myself with more energy, starting to really deal with things. It’s been been five years since the spouse died and all the number of years of stress and disaster before and since have started moving into the rear view mirror. Finally ready to have the new life I deserve, I think. So I want to thank the Bitchery because, whether you knew it or not, you were one of my strong supportive places that helped me through.
::::comes in humming some Fleetwood Mac because you’ve got to love a catalogue full of Stevie Nicks telling Lindsey Buckingham he ain’t shit:::
It feels like forever since the last one, and my reading has been…strange in terms of pacing. Two books that took me almost a week each, two books that I read overnight. It’s weird.
I decided to go old-skool and read For My Lady’s Heart by Lady Kinsale. The copy I had had the option of reading it in either a fairly close approximation of Old English or a more modern dialect that she had rewritten it in for easier reading. I’m a dumbass with a chip on my shoulder, so Old English it was. Which is why it took me awhile, since my brain was doing quite a lot of translation as I went along. It had some of the problems you run into with some of the old-skools (allusions to marital rape and beating your wife, which, yes, I understand, medieval, but also ick), but I did enjoy some of the characters, particularly Melanthe and Allegretto. I did, especially toward the end, really want to yell “USE YOUR WORDS…AND THEN YOUR SWORDS!!!”. This was probably at the point where I was kind of just wanting to be done with the book already (“I liked this book more 2 days ago” was something that I remarked to my husband). But still mostly a good time, especially if you like medievals. Then I read The Bitterroots by C.J. Box. I had not read any of Box’s stuff before, and it hit in the same spot in my brain that likes watching Yellowstone. I particularly enjoyed the women in the story, both the P.I. and her lawyer friend (the scene where the lawyer threatens some crooked cops brought me joy) and some of the more layered, duplicitous female characters that have decided that they have taken just enough shit from the men around them. After that I headed into The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu. I really enjoyed the main character and her sharp, intelligent voice, the Edinburgh setting, and some of the humor made me chuckle. I also liked the fact that while the world was built, it was very clear that, like the main character, we’ve only cracked the surface of it and have a lot to learn about it. That said, I was sick while reading it (I had a bastard of a sinus infection, which it definitely was, because I got tested for covid and was thankfully negative, thank you, Dolly Parton and Team Moderna), so I was having a terrible time focusing, and every time I started reading I’d fall asleep. Yesterday afternoon, I started The Return by Rachel Harrison and finished it about 1:30 this morning (I think it was about 12:30 where I was just like “45 minutes left in book…I guess we’re doing this then”). Full-on Bad Decisions Book Club. The story did a great job of weaving the characters’ backstories and the conflicts that happen within close friend groups with a scary monster story in which one of the friends is becoming a monster right in front of them. There was some very squicky body horror and some spooky haunting work happening. Really good, as new horror voices go, so hell yeah. Which brings us to now, in which I just cracked a library copy of Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride, the first in his Logan Macrae series. I was listening to Kevin Hearne talk about them, and Scottish detective mysteries sound right up my currently rather ghoulish alley. Do I know why ghoul seems to be the order for August? No, but I suspect it has to do with how much I hate the weather. So until next time, I recommend dancing around to Rebel Rebel while cleaning the kitchen. You’re still doing a chore, but we love to dance and we look divine.
HOW TO FIND YOUR WAY IN THE DARK by Derek B. Miller: This is a prequel to AMERICAN BY DAY, the first book in which we met Sheldon Horowitz. Less a crime novel than the other books (still crimes, however), this focuses on Sheldon’s life as a kid in upstate New York in the early 30s. It is a thoughtful, funny story about growing up Jewish in a world that doesn’t want you, in a family that’s suffered many losses, and how you square both with living your life. Sheldon and his best friend Lenny are geniuses in so many ways, so wonderfully clever. I cannot wait to see what they get up to next.
SOURDOUGH by Robin Sloane: A comment on Tor’s website mentioned this as a comfort read and while that was a stretch for me, goodness, this story was fun. Lois is an overworked, exhausted robotics programmer in SF who stumbles upon an underground delivery-only restaurant that makes the most amazing sourdough bread. Things happen and Lois becomes the caregiver for the mysterious starter and her world completely changes. Would that such a thing happened for everyone.
BLACK SUN by Rebecca Roanhorse: I kept putting off reading this for unknown reasons and am so glad I finally gave in. I’m not even sure where to start. This book has everything: pre-colonial history, magic, brutality, a foretold eclipse, people working so hard to amend for their past and change the future. I cared so much about the characters. Highly recommended.
EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WILL SOMEDAY BE DEAD by Emily Austin: Anxiety-prone Gilda’s life is a mess when she stumbles into a job as the undercover atheist-lesbian receptionist at a Catholic church; she’s pretty sure she’ll be fired when they learn her secrets. Everyone in this book has issues and some are able to work through them by the end. Gilda’s anxiety almost did a number on mine, but I regret nothing and enjoyed the ride.
WHEN YOU READ THIS by Mary Adkins: Deceased and deeply-lamented Iris shares her final thoughts and wishes with her boss and her elder sister through notes, emails, blog posts, etc. Neither is coping at all with her death and it’s a long road to any kind of acceptance and resolution. At times frustrated with those two in the FFS variety, I appreciated Iris in every way and hope I will get my shit together one day before it’s too late.
There maybe a part two, stay tuned for developments.
@Lily – thank you for catching that! Fixed!
I started reading Stella Riley’s Georgian-set Rockcliffe novels this week and I’m loving them. I have been drifting away from historicals because the current trends seem to be to put modern characters and issues in costume, which isn’t interesting to me. I want to be immersed in a different time, place, and mindset when I read historical novels. If I want current thoughts or characters, I can read contemporaries. Riley puts a lot of historical detail in her books, and writes characters who feel believably 18th century.
I’d say that if you like Joanna Bourne, Mimi Matthews, or Mary Balogh, you may like these.
@ SusanH. Stella Riley is “the bomb” in historical. I adore Rockcliffe and if you like audio the narration by Alex Wyndham is exceptional.
Soulstar is the 3rd book in C.L. Polk’s The Kingston Cycle (Witchmark, Stormsong). These books are particularly amazing because only the first (Witchmark) deals with stopping a country-wide structural atrocity. The second and third books are all about fixing the problems that result and it is very messy and inspiring. None of the books feature a M/F romance. The first is M/M, the second F/F, and the third F/NB. Definitely recommended.
My library hold for Jennifer Ashley’s Death at the Crystal Palace came through. This was delightful but never read these while you’re hungry!
And on an unrelated note, I’m at a virtual SF convention this weekend that had an interview with Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher. Apparently the 3rd Paladin book is at her editor and she hopes to release it within the next month or two!
Agree with @Deborah and @Karin about the DEVIL IN DISGUISE book. Using my free two months of Kindle Unlimited to catch up on the latest Kate Canterbury book, BELLE AND THE BEARD. Not as in love the central characters but love how she writes about siblings and friendships, I want to hangout with them. Also read some Max Monroe, contemporary RomCom. One of the books has a billionaire buying flowers to send to his Mom, whom he loves, in a Manhattan florist shop and spends $50! Really! I don’t think you can buy flowers and have them shipped for that amount with a Groupon! Stuff like that completely takes me out of the book.
@SusanH I always feel uneasy reading regency romances, not just because of the modern people in costumes factor but I’ve read a few where there’s been anachronisms and even a few where American terms have snuck in! One even mentioned biscuits and gravy (I screamed at that one!).
@Maeve I saw that the publication of T. Kingfisher’s Nettle and Bone has been pushed back into 2022. I was hoping everything was OK, and if she has been writing a new Paladin book, it seems so!
I have tried to post this twice yesterday and it hasn’t shown up:
THE DIRE DAYS OF WILLOWWEEP MANOR by Shaenon K. Garrity & Christopher Baldwin: a YA graphic novel about a modern fan of gothic romance who finds herself transported into a gothic setting. Fast, funny, and very self-aware. It felt like catnip for the SBTB readership. (I’ve been waiting for one of these threads to share it)
Speaking of gothic, A LESSON IN VENGEANCE by Victoria Lee is described as sapphic dark academia. Very atmospheric, but the boarding school setting felt off to me. From the characters’ levels of experience to their homework assignments, it all felt more collegiate than high-school.
Currently reading THE INFINITE NOISE by Lauren Shippen because Tor.com was giving away the ebook. Modern YA high-school m/m where one of the protagonists happens to have empathic powers. YA romance often dials the emotions up to 11, and this one even moreso.
@Susan H:
I can recommend If you’re looking for a historical setting not often explored in historical romance, Stella Riley’s historical romances set in the 17th century, A Splendid Defiance and the Marigold Chain. Defiance is set during the English Civil Wars, and Marigold Chain is set afterwards during the restoration of the monarchy in the 1660’s. There’s also her Roundheads And Cavaliers series which is also set during the English Civil Wars, but is more historical fiction with romance. Also each book is considerably longer, about 600 pages, compared to the romances which are maybe 300 apiece. A Splendid Defiance is affiliated with, but not part of this series since they share characters as well as a historical setting. Heading back to the 18th century, Riley also has a spin-off series, currently in progress, which is related to Rockliffe.
@Stefanie Magura – Thanks for the suggestions! I am so happy that she has written so many books, but I need to pace myself. I’m nearing the end of the third Rockcliffe and telling myself to slow down a little so I don’t run out of them too quickly. On the other hand, I suspect they will hold up well as re-reads. I did buy one of the Roundheads books because it was only a few dollars. I’m saving it for when I’m in the mood for more history in my historical romance. If anyone has suggestions for similar authors, I’d love to hear them.
I am currently struggling through the audiobook of Emily Henry’s “People We Meet on Vacation”. I really enjoyed Emily Henry’s previous book “Beach Read” and Julia Whelan does a superb job narrating both of them but I can’t stand the main character/narrator Poppy. We’re switching between several timelines and she is tolerable in the present one but insufferable in most of the past timelines. Everything about her screams “extrovert” and I would probably fling myself into the ocean if I had to go on a vacation with her. I am only about a third in so I’m still hoping for some improvement/character development (at least in the present timeline, I’ve given up on the past timelines).