Hey all! It’s our first Whatcha Reading of 2022!
Check out which books we’re currently diving into!
Sarah: I finished 2021 by re-reading the Call of Crows series. I can’t imagine why I enjoyed reading a series where “Let rage be your guide” was a major theme. What a mystery.
Now I’m reading Cursed Luck by Kelley Armstrong ( A | BN | K | AB ) – a curse breaker teams up with a luck worker to un-curse a famous necklace.
Carrie: I’m reading the print version of Ice Planet Barbarians. ( A | BN ) I gather from the afterword that some changes were made when the print version was published and I’m liking it much more than I thought I would – a page turner for sure.
Shana: I just finished Role Model by Rachel Reid and I cried like a baby at the ending. My heart.
Catherine: I have just started reading A Most Unusual Duke by Susanna Allen, and so far it appears to be a traditional regency marriage of convenience renovation romance, only with werewolves and werebears and other werecreatures and . I’m enjoying the combination ‘we must restore this dusty manor to its former glory’ and ‘oh no, there is only one bed!’ with ‘and incidentally the butler is a turtle’.
The were stuff is all handled in such a prosaic, matter of fact fashion, which is making me chuckle.
Elyse: I just got Crash Site by Rachel Grant ( A | BN ) in the mail but haven’t started it yet.
Maya: I just finished The Kindred by Alechia Dow. Aliens that look like POC crash land in Florida and need to hide from royal assassins! Also they have a whole mind-speaking thing with each other! And their love is forbidden! The cover is gorgeous and the inside parts are pretty great, too!
I’m also listening to Archangel’s Prophecy by Nalini Singh. ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) I’m on book 11 out of 14 and will be totally bereft when I run out of books!
Susan: I’m reading Still Sick by Akashi, ( A | BN | K ) which is about an office worker whose coworker discovers she draws f/f fancomics. So far, it’s making me grin! I too would pray for the ground to swallow me if my coworkers found my fic, let alone read it in front of me .___.
So, whatcha reading in the new year? Tell us below!
I read Battle Royal by Lucy Parker. I really wish I’d liked it more than I did. I didn’t hate it, but I felt like there was way too much going on and I wish that there had been more about the elements that I did like – just a matter of personal taste.
Part 1
As I read Trish Doller’s FLOAT PLAN on December 30, I knew it was going to be the final book on my list of favorite books of 2021. It’s an elegantly-written, technically-detailed, emotionally-bracing story of living with grief and loss and finding a way forward beyond them. A woman, mourning the suicide of her fiancé, plans to sail his refurbished boat across the Caribbean, a trip they had planned together. En route, she hires a seaman who lost part of his leg in an accident; he believes that boat owners no longer employ him because they think his prosthetic leg hinders him (although it doesn’t). As the h&h chart their course—working together to keep the boat in seaworthy condition, island hopping, eating fresh-caught fish and local produce, and sleeping under the stars (if this book doesn’t make you want to visit the Caribbean, nothing will), they slowly come to terms with their losses and fall in love. Key quote: “I’m starting to understand how sadness and happiness can live side by side within a heart. And how that heart can keep on beating.” Excellent on all levels. Highly recommended.
Kate Canterbary’s THE WORST GUY is the latest in her Vital Signs series featuring medical professionals. It’s an antagonists-to-lovers romance between two surgeons (she’s reconstruction, he’s trauma) who end up in what amounts to couples therapy together to resolve their professional differences. There was a lot I liked about the story: the MCs are older (she’s 39, he’s 42), excellent at their jobs, and, as with FAR CRY (my favorite Canterbary), no attempt is made to completely smooth their rougher edges as they inch reluctantly toward love. Both MCs, in different ways, have significant issues with their fathers and (cw/tw) the heroine has a history of disordered eating and social anxiety. Canterbary is a great writer who excels at creating complicated characters whose professional competence often masks emotional insecurities. As is par for the course with Canterbary, THE WORST GUY features plenty of humor, friendship (especially between women, but between men too), social bonding, and the joy of really being “seen” by another person. However, there were a few things in the storyline that kept THE WORST GUY firmly in “like not love” territory. First, for people with the level of self-awareness the MCs reveal, the h&h spend a lot of time not acknowledging their attraction (beyond the physical) for one other. Second, there’s a lot (and I mean a lot) of what can only be termed hate-fucking in the book. I started to get impatient with the MCs every time their sexual activity ended with variations of “I hate you!” That being said, however, I do recommend THE WORST GUY, but would also recommend not making this your introduction to Canterbary’s universe. Read the Walsh Family books first, then branch out from there.
I think I enjoyed Penny Aimes’s well-written FOR THE LOVE OF APRIL FRENCH as much for its own-voices presentation of a trans woman navigating life and BDSM sex as I did for its surprisingly gentle (given the sexual context) romance between sub April and dom Dennis. Both April, as a trans woman, and Dennis, as a black man, have been otherized, exoticized, and marginalized because of who they are, and they face a world full of of micro- and macro-aggressions, so, when they first meet at a kink club, they are careful and respectful of each other. Their relationship accelerates quickly, even though (because of Dennis’s busy travel schedule) much of their time together consists of video chats. The narrative style of the book is also interesting: rather than the standard alternating chapters between the MCs’ POVs, most of the first half of the book shows the first six months of the relationship through April’s eyes, then the bulk of the second half of the book shows the same six months through Dennis’s—allowing us to see pivotal scenes from two different perspectives. I liked this refreshingly new look at both romance and kink (“There’s only so many ways to be kinky,” April observes, “no matter how hard we work at it”), there was, however, one element of the book that made April seem selfish and unsympathetic:
I found this element of the plot really detracted from April’s overall kindness and likability. All-in-all, however, this is a worthwhile book with MCs we don’t often encounter in romance. Recommended.
Skye Warren’s BEST KEPT SECRET is the third and final book (after PRIVATE PROPERTY and STRICT CONFIDENCE) of her Rochester Trilogy, which is a lose adaptation of JANE EYRE. In BEST KEPT SECRET, Jane Mendoza, former nanny to Beau Rochester’s niece & ward, Paige, returns to Maine to help uncover long-held secrets about Paige’s mother (the Bertha Mason character, although far from a madwoman) and continue her love affair with Beau. As the trilogy has progressed, the story’s links to JANE EYRE have become more tenuous and this final book has very little in common with its supposed inspiration; instead, the plot takes a hard turn toward police corruption and the illegal activities of Beau Rochester’s late brother, expanding the presence of secondary characters from the earlier two books. Key quote: “I can’t trust permanence when I’ve lived a temporary life.” The Rochester Trilogy is well-written but in a rather minor key for Warren. I think it would have been a more engaging read without the overt JANE EYRE references.
I just finished Olivia Dade’s ALL THE FEELS, and that accurately describes the book. ALL the feels, wow, I just loved it. I liked it better than the first one, SPOILER ALERT.
I’m currently reading some Grace Burrowes – THE LAST TRUE GENTLEMAN, I think, her titles all tend to run together for me – because I find her writing to be incredibly soothing. I’ve had a week of bad news including losing my dog suddenly on Sunday night, and will be leaning into comfort reads for a while.
That said, the next thing queued up is Naomi Novik’s THE LAST GRADUATE, which is probably not soothing *laugh* but I’ve really been looking forward to it.
Part 2
C.M. Nascosta’s GIRLS WEEKEND is set in the same universe as her MORNING GLORY MILKING FARM, which I read and enjoyed last year. Nascosta has created a world filled with humans, mythological creatures, monsters, and anthropomorphized insects who all co-exist in a society remarkably similar to our own (yoga classes, sororities, cell phones, condoms) but with inter-species sex. In GIRLS WEEKEND, three co-workers (all female elves) journey to a nudist village to have a wild weekend with the orcs who frequent the community. In addition to being wonderfully sex-positive, GIRLS WEEKEND very neatly presents as attractive physical traits that humans of our world might tend to view as otherwise (tusks, green skin, lavender skin, long pointed ears). Each of the elves has her own concerns: tall & willowy Ris is afraid that others will discover her upbringing was not the upper-class one she presents it as; short & curvy Lurielle (a supporting character in MORNING GLORY MILKING FARM) has been putting her life on hold until she can lose weight; and lovely Silva is crushed under the oppressive expectations of her family (apparently, elves can be terrible snobs—who knew?). Each elf wants to cut lose and have a joyous weekend involving lots of no-strings sex. Each elf will have an adventure and each will have to decide how much of that adventure she wants to retain back in her “real” life. I enjoyed GIRLS WEEKEND, but I think it suffered slightly from focusing on three female MCs (two of whom end up in relationships with males they meet during their weekend) instead of one. I assume there will be future books about these characters, especially the one who is still without a partner at the end of the book. Recommended.
Misha Horne’s erotic m/m romance, HOT MESS (published in 2020), is an interesting exploration of the complicated factors that influence the way sexual kink is expressed. London moves into a house he’s just purchased. While he feels this is the “adulting” thing to do, he’s overwhelmed by the thought of actually unpacking and living in his home, so for weeks he lives out of boxes while crushing on his super-competent house-flipper neighbor, Erik. Then a catalog addressed to Erik and featuring men in lingerie is accidentally delivered to London and thus begins a relationship based on a mutual & complementary appreciation for bratty-behavior/authority-figure role-play, spanking, and lingerie kinks. While there are a number of sex scenes in HOT MESS (this is an erotic romance, after all), I found the more interesting aspect of the book was how each man’s relationship to his home reflects the elements of his upbringing: London’s childhood of frequent moves makes him reluctant to approach home-ownership in a mature, responsible way; Erik’s childhood with his grandfather (also a house-flipper) makes him a careful, proud home-owner; London sees the decor of Erik’s well-maintained home and knows he both wants and needs the stability and care it represents; Erik sees the disorder and chaos of London’s home and knows London needs someone to care for him and help him step up to responsibility; and both of them process these desires through various facets of their preferred kinks. HOT MESS is well-written, emotional, and less about lingerie kink than the cover would indicate. Recommended.
NON-ROMANCE
Although Liane Moriarty’s THE HUSBAND’S SECRET was one of my favorite (non-romance) books of 2013, I’ve struggled to get into her subsequent books, but I thoroughly enjoyed her most recent novel, APPLES NEVER FALL—a twisty story of four adult siblings who begin to re-evaluate their childhood memories when their mother goes missing and their father is the prime suspect in her disappearance. As she did in THE HUSBAND’S SECRET, Moriarty moves action back and forth in time and keeps tight control of a labyrinthine plot where every turn peels back another layer to reveal a completely different view of what we think we already know. The bare-bones outline of the story (in light of their mother’s disappearance, each sibling views through new eyes incidents from their childhoods and their failures to achieve the tennis greatness their youths seemed to promise) doesn’t do justice to the cleverly-written, intricately-plotted, and carefully-constructed story Moriarty has created. Highly recommended.
Brit Bennett’s THE VANISHING HALF is the story of light-skinned African-American twin girls and the long-term consequences of the decision by one of them to pass for white. The book has such a dreamy, timeless quality (even when the subject matter can be hard to read) that references to events such as the MLK & RFK assassinations or the AIDS epidemic seem unexpected—reminding us that the book is set firmly in the last half of the 20th century. In the mid-1950s, the teenage twins run away from their rural Louisiana hometown and go to New Orleans where one of them begins to pass for white and, eventually, leaves everyone from her old life behind, including her twin sister. Years later, the other twin, an abusive marriage behind her and her darker-complected daughter in tow, returns to the small town where she grew up. She stays and for decades is unaware that her “passing” twin is living in a tony section of Los Angeles with a wealthy husband and their blond-haired, blue-eyed child. The daughters of the twins—cousins, one black, one white—eventually meet, but theirs is a fractious connection, overwhelmed by the lie being lived by one of their mothers. There is also another type of passing in THE VANISHING HALF: one of the cousins falls in love with a trans man; for years he is unable to afford surgery or appropriate medications, “passing” for male by binding his breasts and taking whatever black-market hormones he can acquire. I enjoyed THE VANISHING HALF and recommend it, but the book does end on a rather unsettled note; don’t expect every plot line to be resolved and you will not be disappointed.
I have been indulging in some seasonal fare and discovered Jess Michaels by way of An Affair in Winter. I enjoyed the writing and the characters so much that I have bought book two: A Spring Deception. And hooray for me, she has a deep back catalogue!
Also snagged a couple of Ruby Dixons for my Kindle (I am UK based) in solidarity for her current @mazon issues.
I finished 2021 strong with the last minute read of JUST HAVEN’T MET YOU YET by Sophie Cousens. This was more light fiction with romantic elements than romance (think FLATSHARE) about Laura, a young woman raised by her widowed mother. Now Laura’s mother has passed away, her job and a lot of other things seem uncertain, and she pitches a writing assignment to her boss that she will go to Jersey (one of the Channel Islands, not the American state 😉 and write a piece on her parents’ grand love story. Of course when she gets there, it turns out her parents were much more complicated than she realizes and she starts to find her new, unexpected love story. What I liked about it – strong sense of place (reminded me of THE SUMMER JOB by Lizzy Dent), slow burn romance in the background, and a thoughtful examination of the stories we tell about love, both to other people and ourselves. It is definitely a bit chick-litty, but I thought it wasn’t too wacky. There was one moment of absolute farcical cringe, but it did pay off later and have a purpose, not just wackiness for wackiness sake. I’m already reading her next book and enjoying it, but I won’t rec it here till I’m done (I DNF a lot of things for very whimsical reasons that only make sense to me)
Thanks to Amanda for the rec of A PECULIAR COMBINATION by Ashley Weaver. It was just the kind of mystery I like (not too grim, not too cutesy) with a strong central female character. WWII safecracker gets roped into helping the government catch spies. Fun, fast read with some hints of romance. I’m already looking forward to the next one.
Other than that,I’ve been reading a lot, but it is very scattered (I think that’s been my energy coming into this year, unfortunately, I have a lot of it but it’s very hyper/unfocused).
I know we have some Smart Bitches who are fans of middle grade graphic novels, so I recommend the Goldie Vance series by Hope Larson and Brittney Williams. That’s one of my reads with the younger kind. A biracial teenage girl growing up in Florida in the 60s wants to be a detective and gets mixed up with all sorts of adventures at the resort her dad works at. There’s a light sci-fi element (so far) and a hint that she has a crush on another girl that could blossom into something more. Younger kid also really loves THE BABYSITTER’S LITTLE SISTER graphic novels by Katy Farina, which I could take or leave honestly, but that’s b/c I read the original versions when they were brand new. 😉 If you have a middle grade reader that likes lighthearted slice-of-life stories, it may be just the ticket.
I also read THE POWER OF FUN: HOW TO FEEL ALIVE AGAIN by Catherine Price because I liked her book HOW TO BREAK UP WITH YOUR PHONE (even though the best hands-on phone break up book is BORED AND BRILLIANT by Manoush Zomordi IMHO) and this book made me angry, but rather than rage-quitting I decided to read it carefully and think about what it was trying to tell me and why it provoked a visceral response. I think the hard thing is part of her definition of “true fun” is that it has a social aspect and that just (once again, long sigh) feels hard to accomplish. The thing is, she actually wrote this during the start of the pandemic and her tone is something like “wow, this was this really hard thing that we got though, but didn’t we all learn a lot?” And I’m just here in 2022, thinking “oh, honey. It’s not over.” I just canceled an NYC trip with a friend that we had really been looking forward to b/c her youngest is too young to be vaccinated and it just felt too risky at the moment. Anyways, it still has a lot of good points, so I’m glad I read it and actually plan to read it again and take more notes on it. We can always use an excuse to seek fun.
I just finished Olivia Dade’s ALL THE FEELS, and that accurately describes the book.
I’ve been plowing through AJ Lancaster’s Stariel series. I’m on what I believe is the last book in the series, THE KING OF FAERIE, and am slightly regretting my choice to mainline the whole thing. The problem is that in book 4, we are still rehashing the issues that were the primary problems in books 1-3 (Hetta is still adjusting to her role/isn’t terribly confident about certain things; her family doesn’t think Wyn is an appropriate partner for her and keeps playing the, “It’s gross to make me think about my sister/cousin having sex and you’d better make an honest woman of her!!!” card.) That said, I enjoy the fae/mortal politics and am looking forward to seeing all those threads wrapped up.
I enjoyed A FLIGHT OF MAGPIES (third/last book in KJ Charles’s A Charm of Magpies series) and MINOR MAGE, a standalone novella by T. Kingfisher. Oliver, the titular minor mage, has an armadillo familiar which I found to be totally charming. I also appreciate the way Kingfisher’s characters are focused on doing the right thing even when they have to muddle through and know they’ll make mistakes along the way.
A non-romance book, but potentially of interest to those who like historicals, food, and/or history in general: FOOD IN ENGLAND by Dorothy Hartley. First published in 1954, it’s a history of food and cooking in England. She traces the evolution of cooking technology (fires, stoves, etc.), the regional variation in English cuisine, and provides lots of recipes (Irish Moss Ginger Jelly or parsnip wine, anyone?). In contemporary parlance, I would call Hartley a Marxist–there’s a strong sense of “humans are being alienated from the means of production when they don’t farm,” but if nothing else she’s a staunch advocate of farming and agrarian life. Really fascinating and the sort of book that you can read in bits and pieces. Definitely recommend.
I missed the last WAYR so a bit longer than usual today:
K. J. Charles – Subtle Blood
I really enjoyed this series as a whole and this entry in particular.
Amanda Montell – Cultish: the Language of Fanaticism
I’m a big language nerd and I’m also fascinated by cults, so this book was right up my alley. It examines how cults – capital C and otherwise- use language to isolate, create in-group out-group think, make people feel special. It’s not just Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate, here, Montell also goes in depth into how social media tribes, MLM schemes, and political divides can be influenced by cultish language. A really great book.
Felicia Davin – Shadeboom
I was somewhat surprised at how much I enjoyed this queer fantasy series. I just haven’t been much on the fantasy train lately, but I really loved all three of these books, from the characters to the worldbuilding. I thought it was really well done how the relationship went from f/f to a polyamorous grouping. It felt very naturally developed over the series. I really liked this conclusion.
Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None
A while back there was a kindle sale on Agatha Christie and I realized I’d never actually read any of her books, so I scooped this one up. It was…ok. I know she’s basically the best selling author of all time, but I didn’t really see it in the prose, myself. I think Christie might be someone I appreciate more through movie and TV adaptations.
Erin McRae- The Art of Three
M/M/F a young actor gets into a relationship with his much older co-star and the co-star’s wife. I was kind of shocked at how boring this was. A LOT happens…and yet nothing actually seems to happen? It fell too hard on the ‘tell’ side of ‘show v. tell’ for me. Also all the sex was closed door, which is not necessarily a deal-breaker for me, but I had to shift my expectations because I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a thruple book before. I’m a big advocate of characters behaving like adults and having actual conversations to solve their problems, but it turns out there can be too much of a good thing, because it felt like this entire book was just one Meaningful Conversation after another. I longed for some spice or some drama.
Sarina Bowen – Goodbye Paradise
This has been on my list for a while and I’m glad I finally got to it. Two young men escape a cult (why yes I’m still in a cult mood) and re-start their lives on the outside, while navigating their relationship and love for each other that was forbidden in the place they grew up. I really loved this one, the character work was so well done. There was truly a dark moment at the end but I could see exactly how it came about through each character’s experience, and could see exactly how it would be solved, so I guess as a whole the book just…made sense? That’s more of a ringing endorsement than it might sound. I loved the found family aspect to this, and I thought it was well done how the cult experience gave each hero different problems to overcome, but in complementary and understandable ways. Very good.
I just lost library chicken with The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, Erica Ridley’s f/f Regency historical set in her Wynchester series, so I have another two months before I can finish the last 20%. I am having a hard part with how clueless one of our main characters is towards the other’s feelings, so I can’t recommend it overall. (Also the cover is maddening, as it shows two long-haired women in dresses and Tommy is clearly written as genderqueer with short hair and prefers male attire. I get that Hatchette wasn’t trying to hide the fact that it’s an f/f story, but ffs.)
@DDD I read Hot Mess on the basis of your rec, add really enjoyed it! As the boxes in the second bedroom (or the Room of Requirement as I call it) are taunting me, I really empathized with London’s Adulthood Imposter Syndrome.
I also just inhaled Jackie Lau’s Donut Fall in Love and it’s a lovely and comfortable story of two people learning how to relationship with each other, but not the first one of hers I’d recommend to a new reader. I did read her Bidding for the Bachelor right before the New Year, and that was delightful!
I’m reading THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Kit Rocha, and I’m looking forward to getting the third book in the series when it comes out later this year.
I also have several fantasy books waiting on the TBR pile, including A HEART OF BLOOD AND ASHES by Milla Vane and DANCE WITH THE FAE PRINCE by Elise Kova.
i also have some James Bond: Agent of Spectre comics to read. I was so disappointed in the new Bond movie, NO TIME TO DIE, but the various comics I’ve read have been really good.
I’ve blasted through a bunch of Agatha Christie’s Poirots already this year. I actually found And Then There Were None pretty bleak, @Heather M, but I love her Poirots and Marples. I still haven’t completed the canon of either of her most favorite detectives, but thus far I’ve read Peril at End House, Lord Edgware Dies, and Cards On the Table in 2022, and am currently finishing up Murder in Mesopotamia.
I do like classic crime, so also really liked K.J. Charles’s Slippery Creatures, too.
@Heather M, I pretty much lived on a steady diet of Agatha Christie from about 9 to 14. I’ve started to slowly re-reading them in the hopes I’ve forgotten the murderer and will be surprised and yeah, she’s definitely more a plot writer than a prose writer, so her stories adapt well. I would also say she’s not really a great character writer (in the modern sense) b/c her characters are pretty static and unchanging. I however, kind of love that about her? Like Hercule Poirot is always going to be Hercule Poirot. He’s not going to get caught up in stupid love triangle or suddenly get in a big dramatic fight with Hastings and they don’t speak to each other for two or three books.
One thing I feel like she doesn’t get enough credit is she does a good job closely observing the nuances of English class. I mean, I’m not saying she’s Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer, but she usually tosses off a few interesting observations. I love it when everyone around Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple is consistently underestimating them in ways that can be quite cruel at times (bigoted, sexist, ageist) and then at the last moment, they pull off solving the mystery. I’m petty enough to enjoy that.
If you want to read something really different and atmospheric by her there’s ENDLESS NIGHT and she has some really interesting short stories (some of them more experimental or creepy) like the character Harley Quin (no relation to the Marvel character and an anthology called THE LAST SEANCE.
Of course, it’s also okay to say “hmm, not for me” and move on. I’m not sure if I picked up Agatha Christie today I would love them like I did, but for a little girl Anglophile who could read well above her age but didn’t like that icky “sex and violence stuff”, they were perfect!
Currently reading and enjoying The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow. Just finished, and would recommend, Ray and the Cat Thing by Masha du Toit. Not a romance, described as a cosy fantasy, slight hint of romance maybe.
BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall – so witty and warm, enjoyed it so much in print and now I’m listening to the audiobook, both from the library. The SBTB review does a great job of covering the book’s strengths and content warnings, without any spoilers.
SPELLSWEPT by Stephanie Burgis, enjoyed the story and heroine. Technically a reread, it’s in the Underwater Ballroom Society anthology which I’ve had on my kindle long enough to forget plot details.
The How to Have Fun book mentioned above sounds similar to MIRANDA’S DAILY DOSE OF SUCH FUN, which I was reading daily in 2020. Some of the suggestions don’t translate well to quarantimes (things to do on your train commute or while waiting in line) but I still enjoyed it, she is a delightful human being.
Beautiful (Smart) Bitches! Happy New Year!
Not getting much reading time over here lately (grumble, grumble, grumble) but hopefully I turn that around this weekend.
I did read two things I wanted to discuss – one I enjoyed more than I thought I would, one I enjoyed less.
I really liked THE GEEK WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS by Annabeth Albert. M/M contemporary, grumpy/sunshine. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it did what it set out to do really well, mostly because we saw the evolution and insecurities of both main characters through their shifting points of view. I tend to like A.A.’s work, but this was one of their stronger offerings, IMO. Nice way to finish up your holiday reading with something light, yet emotionally satisfying.
I was less enthused by AMOR ACTUALLY, a series of short stories meant to reflect the different storylines of the movie LOVE ACTUALLY, but with all Latinx and more queer main characters. I was really excited about this – parts of the movie really get on my nerves, and the plots here dealt with most of those problems for me – but we just didn’t get enough of each story. The characters needed more development, and a little more time and heft. Almost everything happened within a couple of weeks, or there were references to the past, but little to no time spent there. So, really satisfying on some levels (loved the discussion of Buenos Noches traditions and food, for instance), but just needed more words to realize its full potential. Would be interested to hear what others thought.
Hope everyone is staying sane and safe in these challenging times, and I continue to really enjoy WAYR recommendations from all of you, so thank you!
Proper Scoundrels by Allie Therin. This is a spin off from the Magic in Manhattan trilogy – 1920s with magic universe. Lord Fine was Arthur’s former lover. Sebastian is recovering after being enthralled by blood magic for years. I see now that K.J. Charles left a goodreads review that includes “The English setting is a bit shonky, with Americanisms plus a fair few geographical and cultural bloopers (at one point a character eats a pork pie with gravy, which caused me to make alarming cat hairball noises)” LOL
A Very Genre Christmas by Kim Fielding. There is a rift and when it shifts beings from other dimensions (or literary characters?) appear in 1950s Oregon. P.I. Nick’s job is to figure out how to get them home. The story is a Christmas elf appears. Nick makes offhanded comments about beings he has helped and its fun to try to figure out which book/story they came from
Noble Metals by L.A. Witt. Steampunk during the gold rush in Alaska. (Dr.) John is trying to get to the gold fields, but he wants to look for platinum. Robert tried to get to Alaska with his brothers but got stuck in Seattle and is surviving by working as a prostitute. John hires Robert to help carry supplies. The setting/time was so fascinating. I kept pausing to google places, events and diseases.
The Mystery of the Spirits (Snow & Winter #5) by C.S. Poe. Sebastian is an antique dealer. Calvin is a cop. They fall in love and solve a crime a book. In this book they have been married for a year when someone starts killing psychics and leaving artifacts from the spiritualism movement with the bodies. I would go bankrupt in Sebastian’s antique shop, it sounds so cool.
@Heather M and @Jill Q — Echo everything Jill said (including reading everything Dame Agatha wrote when I was a kid)– Also, there is a book of Harley Quinn stories are that REALLY creepy and fantastic when read together.
I tell people to read the Hercule Poirot short stories and Miss Marple short stories — the full length novels drag sometimes.
@HeatherM & others: ENDLESS NIGHT is my absolute favorite Christie—and it’s very atypical in that the narrator is working-class and the story has some noir elements. Of her more “traditional” mysteries, I think DEATH ON THE NILE is the best—there’s a sense of melancholy fatalism running through it. The mystery that best shows her amazing sleight-of-hand is DEATH IN THE CLOUDS, where the obvious clue to the killer’s identity is presented quite openly, but is slipped in so smoothly, it doesn’t even register. I disagree that Christie is not a good stylist, her prose is unobtrusive and quite soothing, and I think that was deliberate: the focus is on the elements of the mystery rather than on calling attention to the elegance of her writing. Yes, she was very much an upper-middle-class British woman of the early-to-mid-20th century and her writing reflects that, but she was brilliant with plotting and fair-play mysteries, hiding her clues in plain sight and generally surprising readers with her denouements. It’s true that the era and the social mindset that created her has passed, but she’s still an entertaining writer. I recommend readers at least try a couple of Christie’s books before giving up on her.
I tried reading a nonfiction because I thought Plucked sounded fascinating and would be a little frivolous. It is fascinating but utterly harrowing so I have been reading it in tiny bits. Like, the intro involves Guantanamo Bay; manage your expectations.
This need for extra comforting interstitial books has devolved into yet another reread of everything KJ Charles has written. The only problem with loving her books so much is how they’ve ruined me for everything else. I want to want to read other things but it doesn’t work out well. I am entertaining myself by adjusting the rankings of the relative hotness of all her couples, but I think I have settled on a definitive order.
Still making my way through Martha Wells backlist which isn’t as good as Murderbot, how could it be, but totally readable.
Several Sarina Bowen, and Talia Hibbert books, and a Lauren Dane book, all fine, my expectations were too high but that’s not their fault.
Slightly worse luck with a Rachel Reid book and a Lauren Blakely, I didn’t expect to love them and didn’t. But fine.
Better luck with Cat Sebastian’s Cabot books, I didn’t expect to like them as much as her others given the setting, but I did!
West End Earl proved unreadable, and so did that Ladies Wisteria Society thing by India Holton. Oh, and A Peculiar Combination. I keep failing to like Ashley Weaver- her books sound entirely perfect but feel basic. I read a Donna Leon mystery to clear my head and it was good but insufficiently comforting for my needs.
I am still making up my mind how to feel about You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo, it feels kinda like my pocket was picked. There were some fun things about it though.
I tried to read a Scottish historical and predictably bailed a couple pages in because I can’t with wee bairns but I feel still better just knowing there’s a Prince Charlie’s Angels series in existence.
I am re-reading a horror book, Tidepool, by Nicole Wilson.
A tiny, no-spoilers intro:
Sorrow’s brother goes missing, after a trip to the titular seaside town. She ventures there, looking for him.
The mystery surrounding his disappearance, proves to be more than fishy!
It’s available in hardback, paperback, and e-book. The e-book is on sale for 99 cents!
I’ve been enjoying J Benson’s Charismatics series, including the novelette A WRATH OF SPARROWS. It’s a fantastical AU that pairs well with Bujold’s Penric series, as both character sets face moral dilemmas along with action stories.
Between the Christie convos here and in another online community (someone had just finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and multiple people raved about it), I’ve been inspired to check out some of the offerings in my library’s ebook collection.
Finally reading Olivia Waite’s The Hellion’s Waltz. Slow going but it’s my fault.
Just read Machinehood, a near-ish future story about our relationship with technology and AI and whether development will end up helping humanity or worsening social stratification. Very good, a little bleak.
Over the past two weeks ~
— I read with pleasure Dearest Milton James by N.R. Walker; this is a contemporary romance that has an epistolary component. Also read the short follow on piece Dearest Malachi Keogh. These are male/male contemporary romances.
— Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki is a strange mix of aliens come to Earth who are running a doughnut store; a famous violin teacher who has promised seven souls to a demon and who is fast approaching the deadline to deliver the seventh; a young trans woman who has run away from an abusive home with her violin; and a variety of other characters including an AI. Strangely, it all works.
— read The Arrangement (Soulmates Book 1) by Felice Stevens which I enjoyed; this is another male/male contemporary romance.
— The Bridge Ladies: A Memoir by Betsy Lerner for my online book group. I enjoyed the book, and we had a lively discussion. Interestingly, my local book group will be discussing the same book in a couple of weeks, and I’m curious to see how different/similar the conversation will be.
QUESTION ~ did/do you or your parents play bridge?
— Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons) by Quenby Olson. This was a charming book; it’s a mix of a historical romance (with a heroine in her forties) and fantasy. It would be a fine read for a teen or an adult. I look forward to reading on in the series.
— reread Dark Horse (Class 5 Series Book 1) and Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) both by Michelle Diener. These are science fiction romances.
— enjoyed Sarina Bowen’s prequel Super Hot Wingman.
First book of the new year was MURDER AT KENSINGTON PALACE, the third Wrexford & Sloane, which I enjoyed immensely as their relationship is starting to turn overtly romantic, we get to met Charlotte’s aunt (the feisty gives no fucks aunt is who I aspire to be) and we may have just met a love interest for Sheffield. Books four and five are on my tbr pile, but they’ll have to wait as I am playing library chicken with way too many books, including the latest Charlotte Holmes.
Currently reading THE DUKE UNDONE. Joanna Lowell is a knew to me author and be interested to see where she goes. There’s a nice little turn on the gaslighting trope wherein it’s the male protagonist who is the victim. The man has issues. Daddy issues. Mommy issues. PTSD issues. Self esteem issues. He’s been told for much of his life that he’s worthless. His inability to protect his sibling adds to the problem. The terms of his father’s will infantilizes him. He’s the hottest of hot messes who can’t seem to stop sabotaging himself. Can the love and support of a good woman save him? I’m sure it will, but first she paints a scandalous portrait that could ruin him, helps set him up for a fall and demands that he grow up and be a better man. And I’m only 2/3 of they way through.
My most recent romance read was “The Hellion’s Waltz” by Olivia Waite. Piano tuner/aspiring composer Sophie and her family are looking to start over after a scam almost cost them everything. She meets Maddie, a silk weaver who’s in the midst of planning a scam to take down a heartless local businessman. I’m sad to say I didn’t enjoy this as much as Waite’s previous books. You’d think this plot sets up a lot of conflict between the protagonists, but the cat-and-mouse dynamic is over quickly, and after that their relationship is essentially resolved, which didn’t really hold my interest. This site’s review was positive about how kind and community-minded these characters are; it’s purely a matter of taste, but those same elements made the book a little too sweet and angst-free for me.
Non-romance reads of interest:
“Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower” by Tamsyn Muir: A fun dark-fairy-tale style novella. Princess Floralinda is trapped at the top of a tower with dangerous creatures on each floor, and the princes trying to rescue her can’t even make it past the first dragon. The only way out is to fight her way down. I really enjoyed Muir’s writing style and it made me want to pick up Gideon the Ninth, even though I’ve been intimidated by the length and everyone I know who’s read it says it’s tough to understand the plot.
“The Cold Vanish” by Jon Sillman: Fascinating nonfiction book about the cases of people who disappear in public parks/forests without a trace. Not quite true crime, but I would recommend it for fans of that genre.
“The Need” by Helen Phillips: Molly is a paleontologist and mother of two young children who keeps finding strange artifacts at her dig site that almost seem to have come from another world. Then something else crosses over: a parallel version of Molly who lost her own children, and wants to share. This thriller/horror novel seems to have gotten very mixed reader reviews, but I loved it. Very atmospherically scary as well as a compelling exploration of motherhood.
@omphale and @donnamarie
If you put your kindle into airplane mode or turn off your WiFi, you won’t lose your library books even though your loan has expired I borrowed a bunch of books and then cancelled my Kindle Unlimited membership, and was able to keep and read all those books until I chose to send them back by hooking up to WiFi
Wait – how did it get to be this time already? I feel like 2022 has lunged from the gate to show its true colors, i.e, more of the same, especially as my Christmas holidays got submerged by family illnesses (not Covid – just some of the other plague-like germs currently circulating) and general discombobulation. So I’m thinking I just may take a quick dip into my huge bag of holiday romances before putting them away just as a reward for surviving (only managed one short story – Jennifer Ashley’s “A First-Footer for Lady Jane” which was quite delightful).
I ended last year and started this one with Lauren Willig’s BAND OF SISTERS, which was excellent. The story of a group of women volunteers, all alumnae of Smith College, who volunteered in France during the end of WWI, it was truly excellent. I listened to the audio, narrated by Julia Whelan, who was, as always, magnificent. Then I ditched three highly-praised books in quick succession, making me think the year would be a book disaster, but in desperation I turned to Kate Meader’s MAN DOWN, and my faith in a well-written HEA was restored. This morning I finished Elin Hilderbrand’s GOLDEN GIRL. I always feel sorta like I’m being conned or played when I spend time with one of her books, and did so with this one as well, but the story was interesting enough to keep me going until the end, and as usual, she wrung a tear or two out of me. Very meta, and I keep thinking I have to actually read her biography to see just how many games she’s playing with her readers.
Since I missed a few Watcha Readings, let me throw in that since my last report, I truly enjoyed Sonali Dev’s INCENSE AND SENSIBILITY and Jenny Holiday’s DUKE, ACTUALLY.
Hope 2022 is a good year for all, Bitchery!
@Wait,what? Very helpful, but they are actual books. I shall be tucking this useful bit of knowledge away for when I activate my Kindle Unlimited gift.
@DiscoDollyDeb I agree that Death on the Nile is probably Christie’s best (for me). I think many readers here who haven’t gotten deeply into her before would love it, and I agree that the setting and dark sense of romantic fatalism are wonderful. While not all of her characters are exactly complex, she clearly could when she wanted to–Five Little Pigs and Sad Cypress certainly have people who linger in the memory, long after closing the books.
Poirot doesn’t “do it” for me in quite the same way as Sherlock Holmes, but I do love him, especially when he goes into Little Father Poirot mode or goes all-out with this obsessive and compulsive quirks. And I also adore Miss Marple’s cynicism.
Not a lot to report since the last WAYR… holidays, family, seeing my best friend in person the first time since two years because of you-know-what… we raided several street libraries together and I made several orders based on my non-romance book wishlist. After one and a half years of reading not a lot else, I think I need to dive into more non-romance reading again.
Anyway, read one book on the history of sewing patterns and currently reading another one about it. I’m a nerd, sewer, vintage fashion aficionado and owner of a vintage sewing pattern shop, so it was time! I’m learning a lot of stuff I never knew!
As to romance, I just finished KISS AND CRY, Keira Andrews’ latest. Of course I couldn’t wait! And it delivered on all that I expected. Cute enemies-to-lovers story, lots of feels, cameos from Sam and Etienne (Only One Bed) – and even Dev and Misha from Cold War show up. One could already see in Only One Bed that Theo is probably not as terrible as Henry makes him out to be. There is a little bit of conflict, but it’s resolved in case of Henry’s bad experience in the past (and yes, I suspected the wrong guy, just like Theo!). As to Theo’s mother, she is and remains terrible and everything you’d expect a bad skating mom to be.
Happy New Year! Think I missed the last Whatcha Reading or two, so a smattering of December reads are below.
Romance:
Of the various Christmas/holiday novels & novellas I read in December, my favorites were probably GLASS TIDINGS by Amy Jo Cousins (lots of really tender found family stuff and two loners opening up their worlds to include more people) and MISSING CHRISTMAS by Kate Clayborn (friends-to-lovers + snowed in, a little too short honestly).
For January, I’m trying to read more historicals, so I started with SWEET DISORDER by Rose Lerner–a new to me author! I loved so much about this one: Phoebe and Nick are a delight, the pleasures and perils of living in a small town, the political subplot and the complicated family relationships. Looking forward to reading the rest of the Lively St. Lemeston series at some point!
MISS WONDERFUL by Loretta Chase: from the Carsington Brothers series, MR. IMPOSSIBLE is one of my desert island keeper books, so I’m not sure how I hadn’t read this one before. I liked this very much, as it was lovely reading the seemingly unsolvable conflict between Alastair and Mirabel and how they worked through that. I like Chase’s supporting characters, and I liked the Derbyshire setting. I think her more recent works have had more complex and nuanced villains than some of her earlier works, but the villain wasn’t totally unbelievable.
NON-ROMANCE:
Caught up at the end of December on Ovidia Yu’s Crown Colony series by reading THE MIMOSA TREE MYSTERY and THE CANNONBALL TREE MYSTERY. I continue to enjoy the series, although the latest two books are now caught up to the Japanese invasion of Singapore during WWII, so the setting feels more fraught than the more holding-pattern British colony setting of the first three. I think there’s a sixth book coming out later this year, looking forward to it!
To read:
I just got THE EMPIRE OF GOLD by S.A. Chakraborty from the library, so I’ll be starting that this weekend. I thought the second book of the trilogy, THE KINGDOM OF COPPER, was even better than the first, so I’m looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy!
Read and thoroughly enjoyed THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE by Richard Osman, the second book in the Thursday Murder Club series. As good or better than the first, IMO.
I’m halfway through THE 1619 PROJECT by Nikole Hannah-Jones. The most important book I will ever read, highly recommended for those willing to face hard and terrible truths.
I’ve got 14 rounds of chemo to complete so I plan on finishing the Murderbot series. After that, I’ll dip into my KJ Charles pile and then it’s Harry Potter for the win.
@Kris: Best of luck with the chemo.
As for Agatha Christie, I think one of her strengths is her ability to portray a sense of evil and the impact of murder on everyone. It is not merely the loss of the victim but the chaos that ensues and the loss of trust and faith which ripple from the central crime — these affect innocent and guilty alike (one of her books is even called “Ordeal by Innocence”). Christie was able to convey all this without descriptions of torture or violence, and it’s one of the reasons I still enjoy reading her, despite some of the negative aspects of her being very much a woman of her time and class.
@Kris, best wishes as you undergo chemo; Murderbot sounds like a fine companion.
@Stacey, my sympathy on the loss of your dog.
I binged the entirety of the Whyborne and Griffin series by Jordan L. Hawk. Take the Lovecraftian mythos, make everything extremely gay, and put in a bunch of very supportive found-family characters. It has the feel of the Indiana Jones movies in book form and I loved it.
CW for a parent who starts out as awful to his gay, misfit son and becomes much less awful over the course of the series.
@Kris, good luck with the chemo.
@Heather M @ Jill Q @Susan/DC: I love vintage British crime, so I’m ploughing my way through THE LIBRARY OF CLASSIC ENGLISH MYSTERIES (available through my library. 90 (!!!) titles from the 1920s to the 60s-70s, by various authors. Dated, of course, but they will give you a picture of English society through the various decades.
:::looks around tiredly:::
Oof, this year is off to a START, lemme tell ya.
Anyway, I decided to start the year off by terrifying myself, so I read Never by Ken Follett. He took a break from the Pillars of the Earth series to write a painstaking narrative about how easy it would be for WWIII to occur. I liked the characters, and it had some great intrigue, but yeah, you get to feel some nice creeping dread as little events chip away at peace until finally some bombs start dropping. Then I read Bold Fortune by M.M. Crane, which I wish I had liked more. It had a great setting with rural Alaska, and the two main characters were both smart and curious, but nothing happened in this book. And the main conflict toward the end of the book seemed a bit shoehorned in. I think I kept reading just for the setting, honestly. I could see it working for a reader that needed something low-stakes/low-conflict, but that wasn’t where my head was at. Which brings us to nowish, wherein I started Aurora’s End by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff last night. I have definitely figured out that I like this writing team together more than I tend to apart. The writing style is a lot more loose and funny, and the characters get into some great scrapes. Also, Finian, my sweet little big-eyed disaster baby. So until next time, take care of yourselves, because it feels like there are a lot of things try to eat our faces.
Just started reading Canterbary’s WORST GUY and the hero reminds me of Roy Kent from Ted Lasso (which means I’m enjoying this!)