It’s November! And the holiday season and food comas are on marching toward us.
Are you the type to dive into the fervor of the season, or more likely to curl up with a book and shun all contact?
Shana: I’m in the middle of Tempest by Beverly Jenkins. It might be my favorite Jenkins! It’s definitely has my new favorite Jenkins couple. The book opens with a fiery mail order bride shooting her intended, and it’s kept me continually entertained ever since. Clearly the groom got more than he bargained for.
Carrie: I’m reading John Eyre by Mimi Matthews ( A | BN | K ). Not great as a Jane Eyre retelling (it lacks the character development) but a super fun spooky gothic!
Elyse: I’m reading A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli ( A | BN | K ) and I’m loving it…that is when the cat lets me have my book.
Kiki: I was deeply craving audiobooks and none of the ones I had on hold looked like they were going to come in soon, so I borrowed two others. Only to have two of my holds come in. So I currently have like 48 hours of audiobooks to listen to, which I personally feel is an excellent problem to have. I’m just starting Down Comes The Night by Allison Saft which is a gothic YA.
So…whatcha reading? Tell us in the comments below!
I missed last time, so some more books than usual:
Annabeth Albert – Conventionally Yours
For a while there it seemed all I had the brain space for was queer road trip comedies. This one was cute, though I don’t really know anything about gamer culture and so I kept getting distracted by details. I appreciated how both characters worked on their individual issues as a way to be better for each other.
Courtney Milan – The Devil Comes Courting
I loved this. It was an unusual romance in a lot of ways, especially considering how much time the characters spend apart. But I actually liked that a lot: there’s no one size fits all for how a relationship works, or what people need or want. I *was* dismayed to realize I don’t remember anything at all from the previous books in this series, so the side plots and characters were rather a confusing blur to me. Guess I’ll have to go back and reread.
Felicia Davin – Thornfruit
I haven’t been reading as much fantasy as I used to, so it took me a while to get into this world. I kept getting distracted by practicalities (definitely the theme of this month’s books: I am being distracted by every little thing) , such as, if this is a world that doesn’t revolve (my understanding, I may have misunderstood), how did human life even *evolve* when half the planet is always dark and half is always light? One of those worldbuilding bits you just have to accept, but it stuck in my brain.
In any case, it was a good book with great characters. I already have the sequel on tap.
Everina Maxwell – Winter’s Orbit
I loved this as much as everybody said I would, but I think I was in a bad reading place and subsequently missed *a lot* of the plotty bits. A reread is imminent, perhaps over the holidays when I have a day off and can just sit down and immerse myself in the story.
Jayce Ellis – Learned Behaviors
I’m not a big fan of workplace romances, and so this one raised my hackles at a few points when it went way out of my comfort zone. Especially when they had sex in the office. I also (surprise) kept getting distracted by details…like how do they have such a tight turn around on a product launch without leaving any actual time for production? How does one character get an emergency flight on the day after Thanksgiving like it’s no big deal? I just can’t seem to lose myself in a story these days…
Anyway, all that said, I did like this but probably not enough to read more from the series.
Happy Saturday! It’s my busy season at work, and that may have factored into my missing the October Whatcha Readings. I think I was in a minor slump in October too? Anyway, up to start on a cake for a Friendsgiving, but first, some books!
Romance:
HER OTHER SECRET by HelenKay Dimon: I was craving some romantic suspense and this hit the spot for me for a number of reasons! First, grumpy/sunshine-y romantic pairing. Second, it’s set on a small island, where some of the danger comes from the weather and some of it comes from not knowing who to trust in the community. Third, it’s not a suspense where the hero is like an ex-Navy SEAL, nor is he a cop–I’ve certainly enjoyed books like those but wasn’t feeling it then–although he assists the island’s one police officer in investigating, so there are still procedural elements. Finally, there’s intrigue, but it’s not, like, a serial killer, and no children are in danger! The romance felt a little rushed, which is par for the course in many a suspense. I did read the sequel, THE SECRET SHE KEEPS, and liked that a little less, although I’d for sure read more books Dimon set on Whitaker Island. Not sure we’re getting any, since she’s currently writing thrillers.
ALMOST A SCANDAL by Elizabeth Essex: I’d put this on my TBR after an old podcast episode where Courtney Milan recommended it, and I liked it a lot! *Strong* competence from both the hero and the heroine–they know their ways around ships and my goodness, did Essex do the research–and I liked Sally and Col together. I liked the pacing for most of the way and then the final third felt a little off. Overall, though, I still liked it very much, and I’ll get to more of Essex’s work at some point.
DONUT FALL IN LOVE by Jackie Lau: loved this! It shares lots of themes with other Lau works–delicious food descriptions, experiences of grieving a parent, thoughtful discussions of Asian-Canadian identity, funny and complicated family dynamics–and I think she executed them all well here. (This may also be the longest work I’ve seen from her–her self-published works usually run a little shorter, so I’m glad the pacing all worked out!) Also, because I feel like I’ve been getting the bait-and-switch with lots of Berkley’s books lately, there *is* on-the-page sex in this one, more than once!
Non-romance:
WITCH HAT ATELIER VOL. 8 by Kamome Shirahama: I’ve really been enjoying this series (thanks, SB Sarah, for highlighting it!) and I was so pleased to see this installment discuss ableism! I will say, there was a cliffhanger at the end and I’m sad the next volume will probably be many more months.
AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES by Zitkala-Sa: This short collection of memoir, short stories and poems was republished in the last couple of years to highlight the works of Zitkala-Sa, the Yankton Dakota writer and activist. Content warning: she does share her experiences at one of the boarding schools used to forcibly assimilate Native American children, and many of the works (nonfiction and fiction) in this collection get at the pressures to carry on Native American culture and to assimilate or adapt to white culture. She’s very particular in places about wording that make it clear just what she wanted the reader to think/feel. Very good, very worth picking up.
SEVERAL PEOPLE ARE TYPING by Calvin Kasulke: this is a very funny satirical look at modern office culture in the form of a novel entirely composed of Slack messages, starting off when one employee of a marketing consulting firm has his consciousness sucked into Slack. It’s a fast read due to the format, and there were a few good twists.
UPROOTED by Naomi Novik: finally got around to reading this romantic fantasy, and I thought it was very, very good! The pacing does NOT let up until closer to the end. I also appreciated that Novik never tries to over-explain the magic system–my brain’s been too tired to remember rules. I see why this got so much acclaim! I could have used a touch more development in the romance subplot, though.
THE DONUT TRAP by Julie Tieu: note that I’m counting this as non-romance–there is a romantic arc, but I was expecting that to be the main plot point. Instead, the book was more New Adult Coming-Of-Age (but I feel like the New Adult label implies a certain level of on-the-page sexual content that is NOT here) and about the heroine navigating post-college life and figuring out how to better communicate with her parents. Tieu handled the complexities of the family issues very well, but I’d requested this from the library with the impression it would be *more* focused on the romance, so I kind of wished I’d stopped reading it earlier, because it’s not what *I* was in the mood for. I did finish it (skimming a bit), and I will say, some of the plot points were pretty predictable. Anyway, I feel like I should finally have learned my lesson about running *from* the label “romantic comedy” on book blurbs when I want a well-executed book actually focused on the romance.
@Heather M, I’m always extremely put off by workplace romances that involve in-office sex. I think Elyse had a review here of a Christina Lauren book where she had a comment about whatever poor custodial staff person was going to have to clean up after the in-office sex, and that’s what I always think about!
Whenever there’s a fifth Saturday in the month (as there was in October), making it three weeks between WAYR posts, I always have an overflowing list of books to discuss.
Part I
I thoroughly enjoyed Caitlin Crews’s latest HP, THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS, which I would describe as decidedly “minimalist,” seeing that the majority of the story takes place over a less-than-24-hour period between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and the bulk of the plot involves long conversations between the about-to-be-married-to-another-man heroine and her former lover—who had ended their passionate affair when the heroine had the effrontery to tell him that she loved him, but now can’t bear to see her walk down the aisle with another man. I liked the drawn out conversations between the h&h as they dissect everything that went wrong in their relationship and why; and I liked how each of them comes to understand that their expectations had mislead them once they began sharing the same space. In a couple of her previous HPs this year, Crews seemed to be playing with the notion of how utterly irredeemable she could make the heroes appear before their final redemption, but in THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS, Crews presents us with a hero who, while still somewhat brusque and overly confident in his world view, recognizes how caged he has become and wants to change before it’s too late and he is imprisoned forever in his emotional lock-down. However, this is very much a Crews HP, so we are not surprised by the heroine’s awful uncle, her cad of a fiancé, or the tragic death of her parents some years before; nor do we expect the self-made businessman hero to be other than the product of an utterly dysfunctional childhood. If you’re looking for angsty heartache, passionate love, plus a good Christmas morning grovel, I recommend THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS.
As they did last year, S. Doyle, Molly O’Keefe, and Julie Kriss have once again teamed up to write a trilogy of connected Christmas romances, this year titled The Kringle Family Christmas, about three adult siblings—last name Kringle—who are trying to help their widowed father save the family business, a Christmas tree farm and inn. S. Doyle’s THE GRUMP WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS features the Kringle sister, an executive at a major insurance company, who falls for the guy who runs the family’s Christmas tree farm. I usually don’t care for S. Doyle’s writing style (her books always seem to feature heroines who are constantly monitoring their food intake), but I enjoyed THE GRUMP WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS—although I didn’t think either MC was particularly grumpy. Molly O’Keefe’s VERY MERRY MARRIED features a Kringle brother who discovers he got drunk-married in Vegas last year; when his showgirl wife shows up looking for a quickie divorce, he persuades her to stay and work at the inn for a few weeks. Will Christmas magic weave its spell for the couple? O’Keefe excels at sympathetic presentation of complicated women and I loved the heroine here—a good-hearted woman trying so hard (and completely failing) to imitate her gold-digging mother’s cynicism about men. (Also, extra points for non-judgmental references to breast implants.) In Julie Kriss’s JINGLE BELL BEARD, a woman hired to spearhead PR for the inn gets a second-chance with the remaining Kringle brother, now a professional hockey player, but once the boy whose heart she broke in high school. This was my favorite book of the three: a wonderful example of Kriss’s smooth, sweet, and sexy style. Although each book in the trilogy can be read as a standalone, I recommend all three.
MEET ME UNDER THE MISTLETOE is an anthology of 15 Christmas stories that are all related in some way to the Midnight Dynasty series about two powerful rival families—the Constantines and the Morellis—who love and hate each other in equal measure. Each story bears the title of a Christmas carol or popular song and all have some connection to a big Christmas ball being hosted by the Morelli family. As is almost always the case with anthologies, the stories are a bit of a mixed bag. Some, like Theodora Taylor’s THIS CHRISTMAS, have only the most tangential connection to Midnight Dynasty, with a hand-waving moment of “let’s attend this big Christmas party I got invited to” to connect it with the central storyline. Others, like Skye Warren’s HALLELUJAH, appear to be introducing a new Constantine-Morelli pairing (I fully expect Warren to publish a future book about the couple—they don’t get much further than second base in her story). Some of the stories are catch-ups with couples from authors’ previous books, such as Pam Godwin’s O HOLY NIGHT, which features the couple from her LESSONS IN SIN. My favorite stories in the anthology were Claire Contreras’s second-chance SANTA BABY, about a divorced couple who reconnect (cw/tw: they had a stillborn baby during their marriage); Maria Luis’s CAROL OF THE BELLS, an antagonists-to-lovers romance between a woman whose father is in prison and the FBI agent who put him there; and Katee Robert’s LAST CHRISTMAS, an erotic age-gap romance with a 47-year-old widowed heroine and a 27-year-old hero who is from the next generation of Robert’s O’Malley crime family. Although I was disappointed that there were no m/m pairings in the anthology, I thought all of the stories (with the possible exception of Jennika Snow’s rather porny and slap-dash IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR) were worth reading. Not necessarily something to read straight through, but a good choice to dip into when you need a quick palette cleanser between longer books.
OF SUNLIGHT AND STARDUST, co-written by Riley Hart & Christina Lee and published in 2018, is a deeply-moving dual-timeline story about two same-sex couples and their connection to a Michigan farmhouse and its partially-destroyed barn. It’s beautifully-written but parts of it are utterly gutting and will break your heart. In the contemporary storyline, Tanner is a lonely widower—he has purchased an old farmhouse that his late wife had always loved, but now he has no idea what to do with it. She had dreams of repairing the barn (which sustained massive damage in a long-ago fire), but Tanner is no handyman. Cole is a homeless ex-con hoping to find work in the area (in the early part of the book, I was reminded of LaVyrle Spencer’s MORNING GLORY, which also begins with the arrival of a homeless ex-con looking for work). Tanner hires Cole to repair the barn and do other work around the property. Hart & Lee do a great job with showing the loneliness of the two men and how very slowly a tentative friendship develops between them. While working in the barn, Cole discovers an old journal written in 1948 by a young man named Tom who lived on the farm with his family. Cole and Tanner begin reading the journal together; they don’t read the journal in one sitting, but parcel out reading the entries over a period of time. The journal reveals that Tom and his best friend Charlie were in love with each other: a story that parallels Tanner and Cole gradually falling in love (Cole is gay, but Tanner—until falling for Cole—has never had feelings for another man). As the two men read more of Tom’s journal, the tension about what happened in 1948 ratchets up: although Tom and Charlie have tried to be discreet about their feelings, there are rumors about their relationship in the small farming community where they live. The journal ends with the men planning to run away together, wanting to live in a big city where they wouldn’t have to be so guarded about their love (the book makes it clear, however, that even in the most metropolitan of cities, in 1948, Tom & Charlie would never be able to be completely open about their love). At this point, a slight paranormal element enters the story as both Tanner and Cole have the same dream about what happened to Tom and Charlie. I’m going to put the rest of my review behind a spoiler box. (CW/TW for what happens.)
Part II
I liked OF SUNLIGHT AND STARDUST so much, I picked up Riley Hart’s latest m/m romance, OFF LIMITS (the start of a new series called Secrets Kept). The premise was interesting: two men begin a texting relationship via a hookup app, unaware that they are former brothers-in-law. There’s a “You’ve Got Mail” element to that part of the story, but once the men do discover their connection, they keep telling themselves there can’t be anything more between them because of their complicated family history (before he came to terms with his sexuality, one man was married to the other man’s sister—the subsequent divorce led to a split between the men’s parents, who had once been friends and business partners). I thought the first half of the book had too much tell-not-show with way too many scenes of “we can’t do this—you were once married to my sister/I was once married to your sister.” Plus, if MCs are going to fall for each other based solely on their written texts, those texts have to do a lot of the emotional heavy-lifting, but—beyond being kinda flirty—the texts seemed rather basic with two people discussing their lives and carefully avoiding too much identifying information. Once the men become involved romantically, the book picks up, switching to an emphasis on how they are going to make a relationship work given the continued estrangement between their families. (This was also the first book I’ve read where, when discussing their health status, both MCs say they are on PrEP.) Recommended (more for the angsty second-half). Now I’m looking forward to the next book in the series—a stepbrother romance featuring a supporting character from OFF LIMITS.
One of my favorite tropes is when a man falls for his late-brother’s (or late-best-friend’s) widow. However, until I read Kelly Jamieson’s DANCING IN THE RAIN (first published in 2017, second edition published this year), reversing the genders of that trope had never had much appeal for me; but I really enjoyed this very angsty & emotional story of a woman who falls for the man who fathered her late-sister’s child. Perhaps I liked the book in part because the hero (a former professional hockey player now at loose ends because a bad knee forced him into early retirement) never had a long-term relationship with the heroine’s sister. He never knew about his daughter—the result of a college hookup he had with the heroine’s sister 12 years before (Jamieson makes it plausible that a couple having a drunken one-night-stand might not exchange full names and that a woman who doesn’t follow sports might never see a hockey player and realize he’s her child’s father). When the woman does finally recognize (and approach) the hero with the news that he has a tween daughter, there’s plenty of heartache involved: the woman is dying of cancer and she wants the hero to have some connection with his daughter, but her sister is going to be the young girl’s guardian when the girl’s mother passes away. Cue the angst, once the mother dies and hero & heroine have to make choices about the best way to co-parent the grieving young daughter/niece, even while they try to resist the fact that they are falling in love with each other. A very good book, especially if (like me) you enjoy stories on the melancholy end of the spectrum. However, there was one element of DANCING IN THE RAIN that irritated me: the book desperately needs to be re-edited to avoid quoting two different speakers in the same paragraph. There were so many times in the book where one character speaks at the beginning of a paragraph and then another character speaks within the same paragraph—leading to confusion about who exactly is speaking. But, proofreading concerns aside, I loved DANCING IN THE RAIN and will certainly be checking out Jamieson’s backlist. Recommended.
The snarky sarcastic tone (with hidden depths of heartfelt emotion) of S.E. Harmon’s The P.I. Guys duet totally hit my sweet spot. The books (STAY WITH ME and SO INTO YOU, second editions published in 2019) feature Mac and Drew, partners in a Miami-based private investigation firm. Mac is a former police officer, Drew is an Army veteran; the two are complete opposites: wisecracking Mac would rather be surfing than working (he has a friends-with-benefits setup with a local surfer) to the despair of the much more organized and locked-down Drew. Perhaps one reason the men work so well together is because they are both from broken families whose dysfunction has colored their world views completely. Each man is the hero of one of the books and, while each book can be read as a standalone, but they work better if read as a duet. In STAY WITH ME, Mac is hired to follow Jordan Channing’s fiancée (I liked how Harmon shows that much of P.I. work is essentially sitting for hours doing surveillance). Jordan has always been straight, but finds Mac attractive. As the case goes on, Jordan experiences a bi-awakening, which is troubling to Mac because his ex was bi and is now married to a woman. There will be angst before Mac & Jordan can achieve their HEA. In SO INTO YOU, Drew is being “shadowed” by famous screenwriter Noah who is trying to get some “authenticity” about private investigators for his next screenplay. The men are attracted to each other, but both have family issues: Drew’s unreliable father, newly released from prison, is staying with him; Noah, who grew up in foster care, has reconnected with his birth mother but never feels that he fits in with the family she had after giving him up. Needless to say, both men have trust issues and keep pushing each other away when they really want to get closer. Snarky, sweet, sexy, and emotional—both books are highly recommended.
Bootleg Springs is a six-book series co-written by Claire Kingsley (one of my favorite “discoveries” this year) and Lucy Score. Published in 2018 & 2019, the series has a number of elements in common some of Kingsley’s other series like the Miles Family or the Bailey Brothers: a large family of adult siblings, all of them in one way or another still working through childhood issues; a small-town setting; a central mystery that runs through the entire series; and a good balance between heat, humor, and emotion. The series is set in the West Virginia town of Bootleg Springs and focuses on the Bodine family, descendants of bootleggers and a central part of their little tourist town made popular by nearby hot springs. Each Bodine sibling, plus two of their good friends, is the MC of a romance featured in one of the six books (WHISKEY CHASER, SIDECAR CRUSH, MOONSHINE KISS, BOURBON BLISS, GIN FLING, and HIGHBALL RUSH), while the mystery of what happened to a teenage girl who went missing from the town 12 years before winds its way through the stories. I enjoyed the series, but I did have a few issue with the books, especially the misuse and overuse of “y’all” (I’ve lived in the south for over half my life and “y’all” is never used when addressing only one person; it’s sort of the equivalent of saying “you guys” and is only used when addressing two or more people, plus it’s not uttered in every other sentence as it seems to be in these books). The books also feature the ongoing slut-shaming of a local woman which, at certain points, gave the heroines a mean-girls vibe that didn’t work at all with their default modes of friendship, generosity, and kindness. And I did think the overriding mystery of what happened to the missing woman seemed a little too intense and downbeat for the more upbeat & romantic tone of the books. However, I do recommend the Bootleg Springs series—and please read the books in order to avoid spoilers.
One of my favorite transgressive romance catnips is when a female therapist becomes involved with one of her male patients. It’s sort of a gendered reversal of my equal affinity for priest romances in that both deal with people in positions where they absolutely should not be falling for the person they are falling for, but—fight the feeling though they might—fall anyway. Based on that, plus my enjoyment of dark romance, THE BRATVA’S HEIR, co-written by Jane Henry & Sophie Lark, should have been a trope-tastic delight for me: female prison therapist heroine; Bratva (Russian mafia) inmate hero (he’s a bad guy, but he’s not guilty of the crime for which he’s incarcerated); prison break; abduction; captivity; bdsm sexual dynamic; romantic feelings (or is it just Stockholm Syndrome? In Romancelandia one can never be sure). So, why did I come away from the book feeling so disgruntled? I think part of my problem with THE BRATVA’S HEIR was that the heroine had absolutely no power in the dynamic. I’m not just talking about the D/s sexual situations she found herself in with the hero, but simply from the beginning at the prison when she starts counseling the hero, she comes across as passive and powerless. A therapist heroine needs to be able to hold her own no matter how attractive she finds the hero. I contrast the docile heroine of THE BRATVA’S HEIR with the therapist heroine of Jill Sorenson’s RIDING DIRTY (the ne plus ultra of therapist-client romances, imho, and coincidentally another book where the hero is a convict) who sets up a situation where she plans to seduce the hero and use him for revenge—not very ethical, true, but she’s using her power in the dynamic to forward her agenda rather than be utterly compliant with the hero’s demands. In other words, there has to be some tension and friction as the h&h rub up against each other (and, no, that’s not a sexual reference—or, at least, not entirely a sexual reference). There was none of that in THE BRATVA’S HEIR. There was so much potential in the story for a really hot & transgressive romance, but instead I got yet another “she’s a natural submissive so I’ll give her what she really wants” dark romance. There’s nothing special here and I really can’t recommend THE BRATVA’S HEIR.
Did my first part go to Comment Moderation or do I need to repost? Perhaps it was too long?
George O’Connor’s OLYMPIANS series. Middle Grade to maybe Young Adult (those Olympians get kind of saucy) graphic novel series. Recommended by the 9-year-old, naturally. This one series where I feel like reading the afterword and footnotes really adds something.
WELL MATCHED by Jen Deluca – Well, this still wasn’t as good as WELL MET but that book (both reading and audio) has been my comfort blankie during our pandemic times, so maybe that’s not fair to hold up any book to that standard. I did read it in one day and really liked spending that time with Mitch and April, two characters that are separately great in the first book and definitely work together well as a couple. I loved that Mitch was “just” a gym teacher (b/c I don’t think anyone is “just” anybody). He didn’t turn out to secretly be a billionaire or a Navy SEAL or a vampire. Yes! Give me all the man next door heroes. I mean, he *does* look very hot and sexy in a kilt and is great around the house with repairs, but I appreciate heroes who are grounded in reality and I always want more. I’m also definitely going to listen to the audiobook when I get it from the library. Consider this my plug for Brittany Pressley who is a great narrator. The one weird detail that tripped me up is that April is an accountant and we hear almost nothing about her job. Yes, I know it’s not a glamorous job, but I still expected a few throw away references. This is def not a pandemic book, but maybe it felt easier to just gloss over that detail than flesh it out in a way that might date it. Also (!) this has a baby-free epilogue (April has a grown daughter) with no real mention of marriage or engagement in the future. I like that I’m seeing that more in contemporaries. I may not read the next in the series, but we’ll see. I feel like the author’s trying a little too hard to tie all the characters together when I’d really rather she just focused on the world of the Ren Faire (rather than feeling like she has to make everyone cousins, brothers, etc)
THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS by Ali Hazelwood – I put a hold on this at the library b/c it was getting a lot of buzz. Then I heard about the Reylo Adam Driver aspect (not my jam) and read the reviews that there was lot of lying to keep the plot going. And I got a copy and i put off reading it and i put off reading it. Finally I was like, I will read the first chapter to prove this is not for me and then I will return it to the library. And I loved it and devoured it in one night. Look, I’m not going to say this was a great book. But when you really want a bag of Cheetos, Cheetos are the most delicious thing on earth. I think what made it delicious for me is that I could see the fanfic roots of this in the best way possible. Not in the Reylo thing (I didn’t even see the last Star Wars movie) but in that the author totally steered right into tropes with absolute relish and glee in a way that I feel like lots of established writers feel is “unsophisticated.” I also really enjoyed the way the author slowly and carefully built the attraction between the characters. I don’t think the word demisexual was ever mentioned in the book (if it was, I missed it b/c I was reading so fast) but it was implied as something the heroine identified with. Demisexual is not a label I personally identify with, but I do prefer my romances to have a slow build and this one was delightful. I thought the lying to her friend was very silly, but I let it go b/c I was enjoying the story enough. I think the one nagging concern that I was left with after I scarfed down my Cheetos was that the power differential between them was so great. It wasn’t so much the age difference (it’s not that big a gap) or that he’s a professor and she’s a grad student. It’s that he is a very, very established professor with a MacArthur genius grant and she is just starting out in her career. I guess I’m a bit skeptical that they’ll end with a good work life balance but I will let it go for an evening’s entertainment. The hero certainly never acted in a way that made me feel like he disrespected her career, it is just more that sense of “I know how these things go . . .” (unfortunately)
HOW LUCKY by Will Leitch. First of this was written about a character who is in a wheelchair by a man who is not in a wheelchair, so I know right off that will be a no-go for some people. It is also about a woman being kidnapped, which is often a no go for me. But I was intrigued by the REAR WINDOWish premise and hearing the character had a strong voice and it delivered on both. I did feel at times a bit manipulated, but that often happens when a book is supposed to “tug on your heartstrings.” For the most part it was not mawkish or sentimental at all and the character Daniel is delightful in a very snarky, observant way.
Also lots and lots of cookie recipes. Starting to feel a little freaked out about Christmas cookie commitments to be honest. I’m happy we’re traveling for Thanksgiving and *not* Christmas, but I always like using those home Thanksgivings (where it’s just us) to prep for Christmas and no that time is whooshed awya.
It’s been a long time! I’ve been in a reading slump but am finally out of it.
VELVET WAS THE NIGHT by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. An excellent noir set in 1970s Mexico. Not a romance and the lead characters are an anti-heroine and an anti-hero.
A CONVENIENT FICTION by Mimi Matthews. It’s set in Victorian England and it was refreshingly free from dukes, earls, etc. It’s a slow burn and I enjoyed it.
ALL STIRRED UP by Brianne Moore. Lots of good food and a melancholy setting. It does feel true to the spirit of Persuasion.
THE THIEF by Michele Hauf. Both the hero and heroine are thieves (true to the title!). The book was decent but it felt a little rushed and I would have liked to have seen things fleshed out more.
PLAYBOOK by Tracy Ewens. This was a DNF for me. I couldn’t get into the story and found the description of the workplace not believable.
LAST SEEN ALONE by Laura Griffin. A solid suspenseful romance.
I’ve had some hits and misses lately,and I’ve done lots of rereading/listening for stress relief.
THE CHARM OFFENSIVE by Alison Cochrun didn’t work for me. Too many unpleasant characters, although I liked the MCs. I don’t like reality shows and I don’t like embarrassment played for humor.
TIC-TAC-MISTLETOE by N.R. Walker was okay. I have loved many N.R. Walker books (The Thomas Elkin Trilogy and the Red Dirt Heart series) but this was just meh. It would have been a decent novella.
REBEL by Sally Malcolm, a wonderful novella,and prequel to KING’S MAN, which I’m reading now, which is excellent!
CATALYST by Rachel Grant on audio-an enjoyable RS with good narration.
At present I am reading KING’SMAN, as I mentioned, and CHRISTMAS MOUNTAIN by GARRETT LEIGH. (CHRISTMAS MOUNTAIN is my “before bed” book. I always have a lower conflict/comfort book to relax with.) I’m enjoying both.
I’m also listening to ANY OLD DIAMONDS by KJ Charles, narrated by Cornell Collins. Excellent!
Last month I fell in love with REPEAT (rating: A-) and liked PAUSE, so I decided to read as much Kylie Scott as I could.
Stage Dive series: LICK, PLAY, LEAD, and DEEP + novellas STRONG, CLOSER, and LOVE SONG – Tropey (drunk Las Vegas wedding, fake relationship, ONS pregnancy) new adult rock star romances; I would give this whole series a strong B/B+ rating. LOVE SONG became my second-fave Scott title after REPEAT. Scott doesn’t always exercise it, but she has a talent for writing decent (ethical, kind, honorable) but flawed heroes. Non-milquetoast nice guys.
Dive Bar series: DIRTY, TWIST, and CHASER – Stage Dive adjacent, this series is set in Coeur d’Alene (home town of the Stage Dive band members) and the hero of the first book is a musician who toured with Stage Dive’s opening act. All DNFs for me. CHASER opens with the heroine running out on her wedding after she discovers her fiancé is gay and using her as a beard. Gay characters in het romance don’t need to be saints, but Scott keeps invoking them as mishaps in her heroines’ love lives (see also: heroine from LEAD, who cites a closeted gay man as one of her dating disasters). I need more positive gay rep from an author before a heroine starts spewing hatred at a gay couple. The hero from TWIST catfishes the heroine and then pouts about her supposed attraction to the brother he was masquerading as. And that brother — who was the most indifferent baby daddy ever in TWIST — redeems himself by falling in love with a seven-months-pregnant woman in CHASER. It’s as if Scott’s objective had been to pack the series with unpleasant protagonists, and she succeeded. DNF, no rating.
LIES – Think True Lies but with Keanu Reeves subbing for Arnold (look at the cover!). This was a delicious disaster. I loved the concept (woman breaks up with her lackluster fiancé only to discover he’s a secret agent when she’s conscripted into his spyjinks) and liked the characters, but the execution flopped. I couldn’t pin down the hero’s feelings for the heroine (he loves her and is shocked by the break-up, but did he fall in love with the patsy he picked as his cover or did he fall at first sight and construct the cover as an opportunity to be with her? different dynamics). There were trust issues that needed to be redressed, but Scott had difficulty balancing the action plot with the romance. And the darkest moment was an epic cliché. I want to rip this apart and stitch it back together as a better romance because I really like the idea of an “action romance” subgenre so much more than the ubiquitous romcom and romantic suspense. Rating: C
LOVE UNDER QUARANTINE (with Audrey Carlan) – I remember little about the romance and like nothing of what I do remember. But the book offers a quaint history of the early days of the pandemic, kind of like a 5th-grade history book 20 years from now. Melodramatic insensitivity alert: a side character dies from COVID-19 complications while on the phone with the hero, presumably to remind the readers that this is a deadly disease and not just an obstacle to Tinder meet-ups. Rating: D
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My Kindle Unlimited subscription is about to expire, so I’m working through my current borrows as fast as I can.
A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL by Elizabeth O’Roark – An aspiring author who has recently broken up with her first love/high school boyfriend (who is now a Hollywood heartthrob) is financially supporting her family in the wake of her father’s death, so she takes on a job as a temporary personal assistant to a workaholic, sexaholic plastic surgeon she despises. The banter is all sexual innuendo. It’s transparently obvious that the characters in the YA fantasy novel the heroine is writing are doppelgängers for the “real” people in the book. His backstory is 100% soap opera. But the heroine’s troubles — despite her glitzy life — were relatable, the writing is polished, and the romance engaging. Rating: B+
BROKEN EARTH by S.J. Sanders – An alien scavenger meets a strong woman struggling to survive on a post-apocalyptic earth. I wish there were less rape after the apocalypse. I get that some people will be reduced to savagery, but why not use cannibalism as a marker of inhumanity, so women can be savage, too? (I’ve been reading a lot of post-apocalyptic romance lately because I love the struggle to rebuild juxtaposed with the memories of what’s been lost…though, to be clear, that isn’t the focus of this story. This heroine is going to planet hop with her xenomorph lover. So long, Earth. Thanks for all the fish.) Rating: B
A DEAL WITH THE ELF KING and A DANCE WITH THE FAE PRINCE by Elise Kova – I wanted to love this series as much as I love the cover of the second book, but the stories felt too formulaic and the romance was lackluster. Still…pink butterfly wings! Rating: B-
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YAMAGUCHI-KUN ISN’T SO BAD vols 1-2 by Yuu Saiki – The plot is literally nothing but shyness. Satsuki is making her high school debut after having gone through middle school without even one male friend. The gimmick is that her classmate Yamaguchi has a “scary” face and speaks with a Kansai accent, so everyone is scared of him…except not. Reading manga again makes me feel all natsukashii, so I’m rating these early volumes A-.
I’ve been buying books for holiday presents more than reading lately. My mom is a big western fan, so she is getting MISTLETOE MIRACLES by Jodi Thomas and A COWBOY CHRISTMAS LEGEND by Linda Broday.
If anyone has any historical western recommendations (Christmas or otherwise), please let me know. I’m always looking for more of those for her.
I am hoping to get caught up on some series before the end of the year, like THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Kit Rocha.
I have also started my annual binge of holiday rom-com movies. I’m really excited for THE NINE KITTENS OF CHRISTMAS. The first/original movie, THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS, is really cute. 🙂
Some reliable entries from some favorite authors for me, plus one I really did not enjoy.
UNFIT TO PRINT by KJ Charles. Charles just works for me—I like her propensity for m/m, snappy dialogue, and good combos of optimists and realists. This one is also fun for its historical details about Victorian pornography.
BRYONY AND ROSES—this is T. Kingfisher’s retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It’s a novella and there there some elements (Bryony’s sisters, the villain, the romance) that I wished had a bit more screen time, but on the whole I quite enjoyed it.
THE LAST GRADUATE, the second book in Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series. Novik writes a FAST plot and I really like this one. The first book had some issues with race, but this one seems to have opted for generally glossing over the issue (I’m pretty sure the heroine is biracial; I don’t recall any mentions of that in this book) and focusing more on politics.
THE HEART PRINCIPLE by Helen Hoang. I appreciated her author’s note about why she wrote the book she wrote, but I kind of wish the hero had been someone other than Quan so that Quan could have his own book with more time in the spotlight. Anna’s relationship with her sister also troubled me. There’s a type in romance where someone’s family of origin expresses their “love” in ways that I would call, at best, very limited, and, at worse, abusive. It always worries me when characters can’t/don’t see how damaging the dynamic is. This short passage illustrates what I mean:
“Then why are you always judging me and pressuring me to change? Why can’t you accept me the way I am?”
“That’s not how family works,” she says through her teeth. “I *get* to judge you and pressure you because I want what’s best for you.”
Anyway, really liked the book on the whole, but this variety of familial “love” makes me uneasy.
TOMMY CABOT WAS HERE and PETER CABOT GETS LOST by Cat Sebastian. I was glad I got Tommy Cabot out of the library because it turns out I’d already read it (it was previously published in the anthology HE’S COME UNDONE.) Peter Cabot also has my Cat Sebastian catnip—slow burn, not a lot of drama, just people learning and growing together. Looking forward to the next one in this series.
The one book I really did not like: PORTRAIT OF A SCOTSMAN by Evie Dunmore. The bones of this book are okay, but I feel like Dunmore shaped the story around the historical elements she wanted to discuss (Victorian art, social norms, labor rights, the suffrage movement) and the plot suffers for it as a result. And god, the heroine, Hattie, is an utter twit. She starts off somewhat sheltered and immature (okay), but she just gets worse as the story goes on. Incapable of asking questions, flouncing off when she doesn’t get her way, needing to somehow prove herself by running off to France. I couldn’t understand what Lucian saw in her.
Up next: I have three books in progress that I think I’ll eventually finish, but none of them are super grabbing me right now:
JOHN EYRE by Mimi Matthew’s—gender flipped retelling of Jane Eyre. It would probably help if my knowledge of Jane Eyre were built on more than having read THE EYRE AFFAIR and JANE STEELE.
MURDER AT KENSINGTON PALACE—this is the third Wrexford and Sloane mystery. Totally capable, although it doesn’t really pull me in.
SHADOW OF NIGHT, the second book in the DISCOVERY OF WITCHES series. They’re back in France and I’m kind of bored. (France in these books feels like the bits in Tolkien where characters are lost in the woods. Just get out of the woods/France!)
Happy weekend, Smart Bitches!
Thank you for all the great ideas for books over the last couple of weeks – I really needed them!
I started A MARVELOUS LIGHT by Freya Marske M/M set in an Edwardian London that has magic. I am really enjoying this so far – well written with vivid characters. I was right to pay for this book, and I am going to savor it all weekend.
I am also looking forward to CHAOS REIGNING by Jessie Mihalik, F/M sci fi romance, though less certain of success. I will let you know!
TWO MAN STATION by Lisa Henry, M/M set in rural, modern-day Australia. Meh. Lot of discussion of policing in a small town (which was made to sound really exhausting and dangerous) that kind of stressed me out. Flooding, armed, abusive husbands, on call all the time. I didn’t have energy for the romance, honestly, and I felt like they didn’t either.
FROST AND RAINE by K.L. Noone, M/M contemporary urban fantasy. Meh. They liked each other and it took them a year to start dating, but I still don’t know why. The whole book all I could think is, “Life is short, people – make a move!”
SPEAK OF THE DEMON and DANCE WITH THE DEMON by Stacia Stark M/F, urban fantasy. The MC is a poor man’s Kate Daniels from Ilona Andrews’ series. Will I read the next one? Probably, but it all feels a little paint by numbers. Hoping as the series progresses it will feel more original. To be fair, Kate Daniels got better each book, too.
SWORD DANCE by A.J. Demas – M/NB set in an ancient Greek-like culture. Very interesting. The writing is good, the characters and world are well built. It’s a very calm, political book, despite some violence (including an actual murder). As an exploration of falling in love with a non-binary person, I think it is excellent. It’s not performative – the concerns feel real and arise naturally out of the developing romance. As a cis, straight woman, it made me think and hopefully deepened my understanding of other people. Meanwhile, it’s solid, believable romance. The political intrigue did not quite work for me, but wasn’t terrible. I recommend this book.
MR. WILKINS AND THE LODGER by Adella J. Harris M/M historical (I think mid-1800s – maybe a little earlier) set in London. I liked this a lot. It was calm and gentle, but sweet and realistic. It is exactly what it says it is on the tin, and it is very well done. I recommend this one, too.
MORNING GLORY MILKING FARM by C.M. Nascosta F/M Monster contemporary. This book is bananas. It went there regarding sex work and falling in love with someone who is totally different than you (a minotaur) and it was relatively sexy. The author couldn’t quite decide if this whole thing was a joke or not – I think it needed another 100 pages to really dig into what loving a minotaur really means, honestly. Not everyone will like this book, but I did, and it was interesting!
Looking forward to all the recs! Keep them coming! Have a great weekend.
In October I was trying to read 2 books that I intellectually wanted to finish but just were not holding my attention and so they took FOREVER to get through. Now that they are done, I could pick up some romance again
Dearest Milton James by N.R. Walker. Colorful Malachi starts a new job at the Dead Letter Office and falls in love with his beige boss Julian (Sidenote, I totally get Julian’s clothes choices. A new friend walked into my living room once and said “Well, you like the color tan”). They work together to track down the writer of some letters that have been in the office since the 70s. This was so sweet. 4/5 stars. I really should read N.R. Walkers entire backlist
The Bachelor’s Valet by Arden Powell. Alphonse is being pressured to marry but he just wants his life to continue as it is with his valet, Jacobi. He’s such a himbo that it takes his new fiancé to point out that he’s in love with Jacobi. I would love to read this story again from Jacobi’s point of view. I had had a terrible day at work and this story just worked total magic to pull me out of my depressed headspace. 5/5 stars
The Botanist’s Apprentice by Arden Powell. Short story in same universe as Bachelor’s Valet. Eli starts an apprenticeship with Lord Harding working with dangerous, man-eating plants. I was more into the world building and the dangerous plants then the relationship but it was overall really fun quick read 4/5 stars
ALL IN by Simona Ahrnstedt, which was recommended recently on this site. I totally enjoyed it as an angsty soap opera packed with every trope imaginable. Billionaires! Long held grudges! Terrible secrets! Yachts! Alpha men! Dysfunctional families! And yet, if you go along for the ride, it somehow works.
GLITTERLAND by Alexis Hall. I discovered Alexis Hall by way of BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, which was fabulous. Some of his other books haven’t worked for me quite as well, but I loved Glitterland. Ash Winters is an over-educated, witty, and incompetent human being. Darian Taylor is sweet, generous, loving guy with the absolute _best_ accent. Seriously. You are in for a treat as your brain desperately tries to decipher what he’s saying. And somehow they fall in love, even though Darian is orange and Ash has the emotional maturity of a towel rod.
THE DATING PLAN by Sara Desai. This one has been on my library requests list for a while. Daisy is a senior software engineer (love it!) and Liam is a venture capitalist. I think the best part of this book is Daisy’s family. So many Aunties interfering with her life and pushing food on her in the best possible way. She is seriously surrounded by such a loving family. But, the romance. Liam was supposed to take Daisy to the prom, but disappeared off the face of the earth instead. Now he’s back 10 years later and he needs to get married to save his family’s distillery. Enter the engagement of convenience that has to look real enough to fool the lawyers. Daisy gets venture capital attention for the failing business she works for and less marriage pressure from all those Aunties. It’s a great setup with reasonably silly follow-through and a lovely ending.
Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday was supposed to be released last month but got pushed back to November and is releasing this coming Tuesday. A bit less Christmassy than the author’s entry last year, A Princess for Christmas, but still pretty much a Hallmark movie in a book. It included the development of a strong friendship between the MCs over the space of a year, making their romance that much more believable when they finally got together and I absolutely loved it.
I also read and enjoyed Heard It In A Love Song, by Tracey Garvis Graves, another book that featured the development of a strong friendship between the MCs before they got romantically involved. That’s a trope that always hits my sweet spot and was well-executed here, although there were a few too many flashbacks to former relationships. The female lead was a former singer with a cover band who’d given it up when she got married. Now divorced, she was rediscovering her joy in performing, which was also lovely to read.
My other reading this month has been mainly blood soaked (alien vampires arrive on Earth triggering societal breakdown and a post-apocalyptic world) or feel-good, holiday themed, and/or unmemorable, but I just started All the Feels by Olivia Dade which is absolutely NOT blood soaked or holiday themed and is memorable so far, so my weekend reading should be good.
I also really loved Arden Powell’s The Bachelor’s Valet (so frothy and funny and sweet and magical!), and I’m really enjoying Lana Harper’s Payback’s a Witch, which I’m halfway through right now. A great contemporary fantasy AND a really fun f/f romcom, both together!
TOTAL CREATIVE CONTROL by Joanna Chambers & Sally Malcolm. I’ve mentioned this in other posts already. Just loved it. Yes, workplace romance, but the boss actually has rules he sticks to (like no office romance), though both MCs are secretly pining for each other (and let’s be honest, they really are in love with each other, not that they’d admit it!). It takes a a terrible weekend retreat organised by the pretentious baddy for things to get unexpectedly emotional and to boil over. Cue conflict, secrets revealed, but they work it out. The moment when Lewis finally gets it is just awesome. And (sorry, small *spoiler*) they don’t stay boss and employee. I loved it – pining, feels, humour… Looks like there might be further books, I am guessing about some of the side characters.
MR. RIGHT NOW and THE GEEK WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS (that one’s brand new), both by Annabeth Albert. Pure feel-good holiday fluff – I guess I needed these, work’s been hard enough.
More holiday-reading – Leta Blake’s MR FROSTY PANTS, MR NAUGHTY LIST, MR JINGLE BELLS – not just fluff, definitely angst and some very serious issues, but also lots of feels. Number one and three have the most angst and issues (homophobia from other characters in both and references to drug addiction in Jingle Bells), Naughty List features a bit of BDSM. They can be read as standalone, but it’s kind of nice seeing the other characters again.
This has been a good month so far. I’ve started a lot of books, but haven’t finished many due to time constraints and figure skating comps taking up the weekends.
Currently reading The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White. I did listen to the Guinevere Deception to get the details of the first book before embarking on the second. Guinevere and Mordred are just it for me. I’m reading Camelot Betrayal slowly because I don’t want to miss any details.
Also listened to The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. This book is just so effing good. Five effing stars. I loved Michael and Stella so much. I hated to say goodbye when the book ended.
Picked up my copies of books 2,3,4 of the manga series Something’s Wrong With Us yesterday and I’m halfway through book 2 already. I think I’m going to tell my husband to just get me copies of what’s been released so far because I’m all over this series.
And I also started Dune last week after seeing the movie. Holy forking shirtballs, that movie was amazing. Up there with my favorites like original Star Wars and LOTR. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack while I work. I’m only a couple of chapters into the book.
Still binging on whatever looks interesting on KU, with mixed results. Here’s what is worth mentioning:
A Rogue’s & Gentlemen’s Christmas by Emma Leech; 3 sweet and sexy holiday novellas, I eat these like popcorn, quite enjoyable.
Deadly Engagement by Lucinda Brant; Georgian historical mystery, lots of violence and angst. I will continue the series, the MC is very compelling.
Michelle Diener’s Class 5 sci-fi romance series, I read #3 Dark Minds and #4 Dark Matters. They all have basically the same plot, Earth women kidnapped by aliens, and then befriend a powerful AI. Formulaic and full of catnip, if you like one you’ll like them all.
I also made a detour into print, with Murder Most Fair by Anna Lee Huber.
I am now reading The Crusader’s Heart, a medieval romance by Claire Delacroix. I really liked the previous one in the series, The Crusader’s Bride. I’m not sure if this one will be as good, but the historical details are quite well done, and the settings are unusual. The heroine of this one is a courtesan/prostitute in Venice.
OK, I read PRIME MINISTER by Ainsley Booth and Sadie Haller. I know that the H & h being the Canadian PM and an intern was a big no for a lot of people because of the power imbalance between the two. I was going to say the power imbalance coupled with recent scandals but, well, *waves broadly at history*.
However, for whatever reason, I don’t find it off-putting. Probably, I’ve had my sensibilities blunted by too many Harlequin/M&Bs with asshat heroes pressuring heroines into all sorts of extremely unhealthy relationships before twu luv saves the day. I expect there are all sorts of theses about the intersection between societal pressure and expectations and personal preferences and turn-ons and -offs in romance and if there aren’t there should be because I’d be interested in that.
The characters do talk about the differences in their situations, and what the optics and actual consequences are likely to be. While the problematic elements aren’t deeply dug into, and the big obstacles turn out to be quite small speed-bumps, they are acknowledged at least, and the h & H try to keep their pants feelings in their pants. Also, it’s funny and well-written and the sex is hot.
Also BROOKLYNAIRE by Sarina Bowen, which also has a boss/underling situation. This is one with a valued employee and employer who are also friends who have both been suffering unrequited love/lust for years. Definitely recommend – again, it’s well-written, and funny and I raced through it.
Also, tried a few Amanda Quick regencies, MISTRESS, SEDUCTION and SURRENDER. Mostly good fun and would read more, although I might have a break because they felt a bit same-y when read three in a row. Are all her heroines unconventional and outspoken? Surrender was the one that wasn’t mostly good fun, as the heroine who has vowed never to marry is pressured into marriage by a man who needs her fortune. All the rights she’s had to direct her life have suddenly been taken from her, and having him dictate to her had my shoulders up round my ears. Probably rather accurate, but not comfortable to read.
The PM discussion on SBTB last week made me think about what I do find difficult to deal with. I think emotional abuse is one of them – probably because I’m neurodiverse and I have enough trouble reading signals from other people, so the idea of being trapped and manipulated by someone who’s purposefully scrambling those signals further is one I find extremely unsettling. I think this is why I found THE FLATMATE by Beth O’Leary a little uncomfortable. It was worth soldiering on, though, because it’s so very good. The set-up is that two people share a flat – one working night-shifts, the other working during the day – so that they never meet, and communicate through post-it notes on the fridge. Except, of course, they do meet…
It’s full of kindness and support and humour, which meant that I managed to deal with the plot line about the h finally escaping her horrible gaslighting ex. But it wouldn’t have felt like such a good read without it. I felt that emotional states were really well described – the way someone cries, or the way they feel when they’re scared – felt very real. OK, the plot is a bit convenient (h’s friends just happen to have the skills to help the H’s brother), but I very much did not mind.
Our library system finally has some Lois McMaster Bujold. Only in audio form, alas, and none of the sci-fi. PENRIC’S DEMON was great – I loved the developing relationships between Penric and Desdemona (all of her!) and I do like Bujold’s heroes and heroines – people who quite often don’t think that much of themselves, but still manage to be extraordinary.
THE CURSE OF CHALION I didn’t finish, though. The narrator didn’t quite work for me, and I found that I wasn’t rushing back to start listening again, so a DNF but that wasn’t the fault of the actual story.
Just finished:
HONEYTRAP by Aster Glenn Gray – I loved loved loved this book. It’s so much more than the book blurb. Funny and sweet and sad and lots of road trip Americana and Cold War era vibes.
BOMBSHELL by Sarah Maclean – This was a meh read for me, and I know I’m in the minority as many readers really like this book. I was bored despite the fact that – or maybe because! – there is a lot going on in this book. I think I’m also a little exhausted by needing to remember characters that may or may not have been in prior series (and I haven’t read her 9 Rules etc series). There were some twists that were disappointing or didn’t make sense and the end was a jumbled mess. It may be that I’m just not in the right place for her writing lately. I did this one in audiobook (*heart* Mary Jane Wells), and I think it would’ve been a DNF for me if I’d read instead of listened.
Sloooowly working through WHEN A DUKE LOVES A WOMAN by Lorraine Heath and STARLIGHT by Lisa Henry. I like them both but other books have distracted me away from them. I do think the first book was the high point of the Lisa Henry series, but I’m a bit of a completionist and I do love the MCs.
After that I have UNCHARTED by Adriana Anders and A TWIST OF FATE by Kelley Armstrong up next.
Since last time, week by week ~
— read An Accidental Death: A DC Smith Investigation Series, Book 1 by Peter Grainger and quite enjoyed it. Sadly, neither of my libraries has the follow on books.
— the contemporary romance Off the Leash (White House Protection Force Book 1) by M. L. Buchman; this was an enjoyable read that featured a chocolatier hero (who knits) and a dog handler who is part of the Secret Service. Be prepared to want chocolate if you read this!
— The Other Me by Sarah Zachrich Jeng which I enjoyed; this was an intriguing science fiction read that left me pondering what ifs in my own life.
— The Last Watch (The Divide Series Book 1) by J. S. Dewes; this science fiction novel kept my interest. I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’ll read the sequel.
— Into the Labyrinth: Mage Errant Book 1 by John Bierce; this fantasy was a quick and fun read. It’s a coming of age story set in an academy for mages.
— and the next in the series, Jewel of the Endless Erg: Mage Errant Book 2 by John Bierce which I enjoyed. I’d describe this as a young adult fantasy.
— reread Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. This is a short modern classic (about 200 pages), but it’s sentence after (frequently long) sentence with no chapters or breaks between paragraphs. Several of the other group members mentioned finding it challenging/a slog. I can’t really disagree!
— continued with the young adult series and read A Traitor in Skyhold: Mage Errant Book 3 by John Bierce; I enjoyed it but may take a break to read other things.
— Someone to Cherish (The Westcott Series Book 8) by Mary Balogh. I came very close to abandoning the book in chapter one; however, I’m glad that I continued on as I did enjoy it. Why did I almost give it up? This is book eight in a series and each book features a different couple in the greater Westcott family; I’ve read several of the earlier books. Chapter one featured a huge crowd from those earlier books plotting the hero’s future; all were named (there must have been two dozen or more) and it was tiresome. My suggestion if you read this book is to begin with chapter two.
— reread Carla Kelly’s Christmas Collection which I enjoyed once again.
Just finished MIDNIGHT AT THE BLACKBIRD CAFE by Heather Webber and it was fine. I liked the characters and that the magical elements weren’t a huge focus of the plot, but one character had an abrupt change of heart that didn’t feel earned and there were several unresolved plot threads. TBF, I was listening to the audio mostly at bedtime so may have missed some details.
Trying to decide what to read next and am leaning toward BONDS OF JUSTICE by Nalini Singh, but honestly might just stare vacantly at Hallmark movies for a few days.
I absolutely adored “Donut Fall in Love” by Jackie Lau and will file that in my Kindle’s “re-read” folder. He’s an actor, she’s a baker, they both help each other work through things and find love while I read about deliciousness. What’s not to love?
I also greatly enjoyed “Love, Comment, Subscribe” by Cathy Yardley – a contemporary involving Youtube creators who go from semi-estranged old friends to collaborators and lovers.
I’m sort of stalled on “Outrageously in Love” by Jen Morris, a contemporary romance where the heroine decides to shake-off her bookworm, homebody persona and embrace some wildness. I need to get back into it – it’s cute so far, but I got distracted by my epic re-read of Mariana Zapata’s “From Lukov With Love” – a perennial comfort read of slow-burn romance.
I can’t mention some other media I’m consuming at the moment because Yuletide, but that’s also been fun. I got a free two-months subscription to KU which I probably won’t renew, so I need to zip through and find all the other books there that are must-reads for the rest of 2021.
@Jennifer Estep, would a recommendation for an angsty historical western romance work for your mother? If yes, I’ll recommend Jo Goodman’s Marry Me. (Trigger warnings galore)
I read and enjoyed Beyond the Bases by Kaylee Ryan. Rising young baseball star meets struggling single mother. It was a very sweet book. The kid was realistic. The hero, maybe a little too perfect but not enough to bother me.
I started Appetite for Innocence by Lucinda Berry, about a serial kidnapper that targets young teen girls. And DNF’ed partly because I just wasn’t feeling it and partly because some of it did not make sense to me. I may give it another go later, not sure.
Penric’s Fox by Lois Bujold. Another reliable interesting read.
Re-read Ocean Light by Nalini Singh. One of my favorites of the series and not too explicit to read at work. In the nursery, surrounded by the wages of sex. Now starting to re-read Alpha Night, also a favorite. The hero reminds me of one of my ex-boyfriends, an emotionally restricted psychiatrist who was inexplicably hot. Ah, youth!
Also reading, in an actual book, Riley Sager’s The Last Time I Lied. I am enjoying the story about an artist returning to the summer camp where she, as a teen, was the only witness to the disappearance of her three bunkmates. I also really want to buy one of her paintings.
It appears that the first part of my WAYR post disappeared into the ether, so at the risk of duplication, I’m going to repost. Sorry, if this ends up being a repeat:
I thoroughly enjoyed Caitlin Crews’s latest HP, THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS, which I would describe as decidedly “minimalist,” seeing that the majority of the story takes place over a less-than-24-hour period between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and the bulk of the plot involves long conversations between the about-to-be-married-to-another-man heroine and her former lover—who had ended their passionate affair when the heroine had the effrontery to tell him that she loved him, but now can’t bear to see her walk down the aisle with another man. I liked the drawn out conversations between the h&h as they dissect everything that went wrong in their relationship and why; and I liked how each of them comes to understand that their expectations had mislead them once they began sharing the same space. In a couple of her previous HPs this year, Crews seemed to be playing with the notion of how utterly irredeemable she could make the heroes appear before their final redemption, but in THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS, Crews presents us with a hero who, while still somewhat brusque and overly confident in his world view, recognizes how caged he has become and wants to change before it’s too late and he is imprisoned forever in his emotional lock-down. However, this is very much a Crews HP, so we are not surprised by the heroine’s awful uncle, her cad of a fiancé, or the tragic death of her parents some years before; nor do we expect the self-made businessman hero to be other than the product of an utterly dysfunctional childhood. If you’re looking for angsty heartache, passionate love, plus a good Christmas morning grovel, I recommend THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS.
As they did last year, S. Doyle, Molly O’Keefe, and Julie Kriss have once again teamed up to write a trilogy of connected Christmas romances, this year titled The Kringle Family Christmas, about three adult siblings—last name Kringle—who are trying to help their widowed father save the family business, a Christmas tree farm and inn. S. Doyle’s THE GRUMP WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS features the Kringle sister, an executive at a major insurance company, who falls for the guy who runs the family’s Christmas tree farm. I usually don’t care for S. Doyle’s writing style (her books always seem to feature heroines who are constantly monitoring their food intake), but I enjoyed THE GRUMP WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS—although I didn’t think either MC was particularly grumpy. Molly O’Keefe’s VERY MERRY MARRIED features a Kringle brother who discovers he got drunk-married in Vegas last year; when his showgirl wife shows up looking for a quickie divorce, he persuades her to stay and work at the inn for a few weeks. Will Christmas magic weave its spell for the couple? O’Keefe excels at sympathetic presentation of complicated women and I loved the heroine here—a good-hearted woman trying so hard (and completely failing) to imitate her gold-digging mother’s cynicism about men. (Also, extra points for non-judgmental references to breast implants.) In Julie Kriss’s JINGLE BELL BEARD, a woman hired to spearhead PR for the inn gets a second-chance with the remaining Kringle brother, now a professional hockey player, but once the boy whose heart she broke in high school. This was my favorite book of the three: a wonderful example of Kriss’s smooth, sweet, and sexy style. Although each book in the trilogy can be read as a standalone, I recommend all three.
I have been buying and finishing new books! It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!
Tea and Sympathetic Magic and The Frost Fair Affair by Tansy Rayner Roberts – magic, mystery, tea, snarky ladies, good fluffy fun. (available in kindle unlimited)
Penric’s Fox – I’m very behind on this series, love the author but my anxiety brain can only handle small doses of murder and peril.
Graphic novels: (intended for the kid but best laid plans and all that)
Lightfall: The Girl and the Galdurian by Tim Probert
– beautiful art, the fantasy setting really comes to life and the main characters are adorable. The plot is interesting but the book ends in the middle of the quest – didn’t realize it was vol.1 of a planned series. vol.2 is available for preorder.
A Cat Story by Ursula Husted
– the kind of book your quirky old art teacher might make. Many famous works of art in the background, nice story, cats, what more do ya need.
Dungeon Critters by Natalie Riess and Sara Goetter
– DNF this one, it was due back at the library and I wasn’t in the right mood for it. Punny, goofy, colorful, the art style didn’t really grab me but I can see the appeal for younger readers (how do you do, fellow kids)
“Ghost” books read over Halloween weekend:
Tuesday Mooney Talks To Ghosts – the mystery held my interest, snarky protagonist, the audio narrator delivers all the jokes perfectly. Some content warnings for grief, abusive family, and a murder or two.
The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing – middle grade mystery, comfort reread via audio, same excellent narrator as the above.
Once Ghosted, Twice Shy – it’s as lovely as everyone says.
Happy reading everyone!
Re: Lois McMaster Bujold – for @Empress of Blandings and anyone else curious to try her sci-fi books – I’ve found many of them in paperback at library sales. Most of them work as standalones.
I’ve been reading “Jane Austen At Home” by Lucy Worsley; it’s a biography on Jane Austen centered around the places she lived and how she felt about them. I’m in a very home-making mood, so I’m all about things related to home, homemaking, etc, lately.
I picked up “Honey Girl” by Morgan Rogers the other day and have been reading that. It’s got a very magical realist/manic pixie dream girl vibe that reminds me of Casey McQuiston’s “One Last Stop” (which I put down and have yet to pick up again. At this rate I’ll have to start it over because I will have forgotten everything that happened in it.).
It hasn’t been much of a reading month for me, but it seems like that’s generally the case. I went home and spaced in front of yet another viewing of the 1995 BBC P&P the other day, and I suspect I might do that again today. Reading takes brain energy I just don’t have lately.
PRIME MINISTER is currently free in Canada. Even so I one-clicked nervously – how well did the authors do their research? A power imbalance I can handle, but they better get our parliamentary system right.
I just finished Under the whispering door by TJ Klune and it was a fantastic book that will have me thinking for days to come. It was a book about grief, found family and what we do with the time we have left. I definitely cried while reading this book. It made me fell all the feelings.
I just started reading Act your age Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert so looking forward for a fun, romantic read. I’m also reading the 5th book in the Murderbot series by Margaret Weis (hoping to finish all of them by the end of the year)
Non fiction wise I am listening to both Beautiful country by Qian Julie Wang and Girly drinks by Mallory O’Meara.
Kareni — Thanks for the recommendation!
@Eliza: Both authors are Canadian, which implies some familiarity with the way our govt works; at least I didn’t notice any glaring errors.
Not sure when I last chimed in on WAYR, so sorry if I repeat myself. I’ve gotten back into reading YA and children’s fiction recently. Just finished the 2nd of a children’s mystery series about an utterly obnoxious 14 year old cooking genius chef solving mysteries by his super sense of smell. The first is Neil Flambe and the Marco Polo Murders, and in addition to lots of food/cooking they also incorporate interesting history and lots of humor. I also highly recommend Katie Zhao’s children’s fantasy Dragon Warrior and sequel Fallen Hero, about the adventures of a 12 year old girl brought up in a Chinese demon fighting group in San Francisco, involving lots of Chinese mythology. Love the author’s sense of humor. There’s light romance in both series.
Adult Fiction: Enjoyed Nalini Singh’s Last Guard, although way she described the hero’s voice (lots words like grit and grinding) didn’t work for me at all. Probably just me.
Very mixed feelings about When Sorrows Come, the latest October Daye novel by Seanan McGuire. I still like the world and care about the characters, but as someone non-neurotypical, the way Toby never seems to be on quite the same page as everyone else, does things differently and doesn’t always “get” stuff, and is continually berated by all her friends for this, feels painfully close to home. Not saying she is meant to be neurodivergent, just an analogous experience.
Also read Cast in Conflict, the latest in Michelle Sagara’s Chronicles of Elantra with many of the same feelings about Kaylin and how she is treated. In both cases, the different ways these heroines think and act often save the day, but everyone else is mostly focused on how they didn’t save the day the Right and Normal way.
If you like urban fantasy with unusual heroines, I recommend Monkey Around by Jadie Jang. It’s set in San Francisco during the Occupy Movement there, with an activist barista heroine modeled on the Monkey King from Journey to the West, and various other creatures drawn from different Asian mythologies, also a strong Chicano element. There isn’t a romance, but possibly the start of what could be one if she develops it into a series.
Haven’t had much luck with romance lately. I’ve been reading Dair Devil by Lucinda Brant (featured in a recent Cover Awe), but I’m 2/3 through and the relationship is easy and great, so expect the author to start throwing in big obstacles, and I’m not in the mood. Shame, because I like the characters and the Georgian setting. Hoping y’all will recommend something awesome that miraculously doesn’t have a 3 month hold wait at the library.
Tempest is ALSO one of my fave Jenkins <3 <3 <3
@Janice, *fist bump re: Yuletide*
I read Katherine Grant's The Husband Plot this month, and I liked that it really engaged the issue of race in Regency Britain in the upper classes, particularly the idea that those of us who don't encounter racism because we're white are often naive about its reaches. I really liked both MCs, and the way they had to navigate their relationship. I struggled with some of the questions the book puts forth in a way that I wanted to, and was a little disappointed at the ways in which some of them were resolved to serve the HEA. Don't get me wrong, it's a Romance, I agree that there has to be an HEA and that for that to happen, some of those questions have to GET resolved, but I felt it was possible for the resolution of some of them to be a bit more grey without breaking the genre rules.
I'm currently reading Danan's Intimacy Experiment, which is an interesting experience. It's a good book, I like who both MCs are, I like the tensions between them and how those are negotiated. (Well, okay, with one exception, I really didn't like that Ethan asked Naomi to help him find someone to date as a way to deal with his awkwardness around her. I realize it wasn't an intentional lie or anything, but it felt like a mind game to me, and that bothered me. I was extremely glad when that plotline resolved, because it was squicking me out.) Anyhoodle, my point is, on a level playing field, this is a very good book.
I'm finding it hard, though, because it's bringing home something that I've suspected for a long time and that has become more and more clear in the past couple of years, which is that it's not so much that there's no good Jewish representation in media (I mean, don't get me wrong: there's not a lot), but rather, that my experience of Judaism (American conservative, synagogue-affiliated) is SO NICHE, that even when the representation is well done, and recognizable to most other non-Orth American Jews, I find myself being like "well…I mean, okay, I know THAT feeling," like once every seven scenes. I've asked other people who are romance readers at my shul to read it so I have people to talk with about it who can understand where I'm coming from. But if you're a Reform or secular American Jew, or someone who just wants to see good American Reform Jewish rep, it's probably one of the best pieces I've ever seen.
@Merle:
Dare Devil is third or fourth in a series called the Roxton Family Saga if that matters.
Happy November!
@Jennifer Estep, my recommendation for western novels are those by Carla Kelly – they tend to be more thoughtful than adventurous, but they take you to parts of western history not generally covered by most writers (e.g. Yellowstone Park in COURTING CARRIE IN WONDERLAND or a Utah mining town in MY LOVING VIGIL KEEPING).
GREAT
A PERFECT DAY WITH EXPLOSIONS, by DOROTHY GRANT (M/F Sci-Fi) Story between a young welder and the somewhat ex-soldier that she meets in a dress shop. My favorite of this series is still the first, GOING BALLISTIC, which is pure competence porn, but this latest is a great addition.
WAIT FOR ME SERIES, by KRIS JACEN (M/M Contemporary Military). This series came alive with such different couples over the different books. And they tend to talk – if not to each other, to friends (which is refreshing).
VERY GOOD
BLUE SOLACE SERIES, by C.W. GRAY (M/Mpreg Sci-Fi with Pets) A re-read that holds up. Take one hardboiled mercenary captain and add a runaway historian with pets (including llama) and watch the worlds change. And, well, every Yusef the Terrible needs a lucky baby bunny sweater. These aren’t hard sci-fi or pure comedy but very sweet with an overarching storyline and an ever growing cast of characters, children, and pets.
LOVE LANGUAGE, by Reese Morrison (M/M Contemporary) An older widower sub and a younger dom. Just a lovely falling in love story.
THE LIGHTS OF KNOCKBRIDGE LANE, by ROAN PARRISH (M/M Contemporary). I liked this better than the second of the series.
SHADES OF HENRY, by AMY LANE (M/M Contemporary). Interesting story between an ex-soldier and a doctor acting as ‘dorm parents’ for a flophouse apartment for porn stars. Its nicely character driven, although I could have wished to see changes in the Doctor’s character, but I guess his growth happened in earlier books in earlier series (which I am now going to find to read).
SOUL OF THE DESERT, by MARIA SCHNEIDER (YAish Contemporary Historical Fiction) A story about a young new yorker in New Mexico in the later 1970s. Also read the companion non-fiction compiled blog, THERE’S A ROAD HERE SOMEWHERE.
WAIT FOR ME, by DEBORAH MITFORD (Non-Fiction Autobiography). Picked up by mistake and enjoyed reading it. Story of the life of the Duchess of Devonshire, youngest of the Mitford sisters. An interesting look on the 20th Century, which shows how things have (and haven’t) changed.
GOOD
APEX INVESTIGATION SERIES, by JULIA TALBOT (M/M contemporary shifters). Shifters in a private investigator business.
DATES OF OUR LIVES SERIES, by LORELEI HART (M/M contemporary shifters). The series ranged from very good to so-so among the different couples.
SO-SO
CREA SERIES by J.D. LIGHT (M/M Shifters). This series is like popcorn. No nutritional value, but lots of fun to gobble up.
DARKWOOD SERIES, by Craig Cameron, Joe Satoria, & A.W. Scott (M/M Vampire). This series was not as good as I wanted it to be. Good setups, but the stories were missing depth.
KEYSTONE ALPHAS SERIES, by ASHE MOON (M/M Harem YA contemporary). I feel there should be at least one more book in this series – it feels incomplete, and there are plot lines dropped. I
There is a book zero in this Roxton Family Saga series which Amazon has listed as book eight for some reason. It is meant to be read as a prequel though. You’d get what I mean by seeing the title for that book.