Hey all! It’s Whatcha Reading time. We want to hear all about what you’ve been digging into lately.
It’s a shorter one given recent events.
Claudia: I just started The Rebel and the Rake by Emily Sullivan, ( A | BN | K ) a new author for me. So far so good – Victorian spies.
Shana: I’m reading The Perfect Fake Date by Naima Simone. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I’ve DNFed a string of disappointing category romances lately, so it’s a relief to read a solid contemporary from Harlequin. This is an angsty friends to lovers about a plus-sized lingerie designer and the supportive best friend who is obviously in love with her.
What are you reading? Let us know!
In spite of my current aversion to everything to do with the ton, I quite liked Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater. I kind of wish it wasn’t a social-justice story that focused exclusively on rich people and their guilt. However, it was good for what it was in that respect. The real star of the show was the heroine Dora: I won’t forget her in a hurry. I think she may join the ranks of neurodiverse protagonists although her difference is magical in origin (I wonder how many neurodiverse readers thought her portrayal worked for them). She experiences emotions differently, and much less vividly, than other people, which causes her plenty of problems due to how people react to her and how they assume she needs to be fixed; it also has some effects she could really do without (such as her difficulty following a train of thought and disregarding irrelevant thoughts) and some effects that are downright useful (such as being levelheaded in every sort of difficult situation). One emotion she doesn’t experience at all is social embarrassment, giving her an enviable ability to cut short unpleasant interactions. She also has a most excellent line in dry wit, which she shares with her match Elias Wilder. The two of them really are excellently suited, also a study in contrasts as Elias is something of an explosive tangle of miserable emotions. The other good thing about this book is its portrayal of fairies who are dangerous and really disconcertingly strange, but disconcerting because of their distorted reflection of humanity. Anyhow, very much a recommended book.
The other thing I am reading at the moment is Stacy Schiff’s biography of Cleopatra [VII]. I do find Schiff’s abrupt writing style a little wearying (like a movie with too many jump cuts) but it’s a heck of a story. One thing I am convinced of, there needs to be some historical novels set in Hellenistic Alexandria (though probably before Cleopatra’s time, when the city was in decline).
Hi SBs, I’ve been missing from here for a while because work but this is my favorite part of this website so I’m going to try to do justice for those who comb this section for recs!
GOOD:
PROPER SCOUNDRELS by Allie Therin: M/M fantasy romance set in 1920s London, very enjoyable, sweetheart of a hero, but I did feel a little at sea since this is the first in a spinoff from a series I haven’t read.
PETER CABOT GETS LOST by Cat Sebastian: M/M road trip romance set in the 1960s, I really liked it. Might be one of my favorites by CS, and I love reading about the 60s in general. grumpy/sunshine hero, very little plot, but enjoyable nonetheless.
BATTLE ROYAL by Lucy Parker: M/F contemporary. I haven’t read LP much but my TBR had run dry and this got really good reviews. Lovely H and h, grown up relationship with grown up conversations, some very good banter, but an appalling level of sentimentality over the royals which I found a bit grating at times. A few too many plotlines, but I can see how theyre setting up the series. I recommend, because I really liked the primary romance.
TOTAL CREATIVE CONTROL by Joanna Chambers and Sally Malcolm, M/M contemporary, similar plot line to Lily Morton’s Rule Breaker but with a very different vibe. I really, really liked this, as was expected, because both these authors are wonderful. It’s sort of a romcom about boss/employee, but power dynamics are addressed very well and there’s a bit of angst too.
NOT SO GOOD:
Let me say first that I love Eve Dangerfield – although she is primarily known for writing kinky romances, I’ll admit a lot of the role playing and BDSM is out of my comfort zone and I read for her mostly for excellent character development, humor, quirkiness, and just, like a lot of intelligence. So I was looking forward to reading RETURN ALL – daddy kink, second chance m/f contemporary. But – the hero was a huge fail (insecure, misogynistic), the heroine hides a secret till the end unnecessarily, and I was left disappointed.
DNFS: MAKE ME WILDER (Serena Bell) – hero I’ve read a million times before, all I saw him do for the first few chapters was him trying to figure out how to bang the h, I peaced out. Also, NEON GODS by Katee Robert. I just feel like Lore Olympus has spoilt me for any other Hades/Persephone retelling, and also, I’ve realized, I just don’t enjoy first person narratives, I’m not sure why – so this could be a it’s not you, it’s me case.
Basically just waiting for Rachel Reid’s LONG GAME to come out because it’s genuinely my most anticipated book of the year.
Excited to read through the comments for new recs!
A couple of books that didn’t quite work for me and a couple that did:
SEVEN YEARS TO SIN by Sylvia Day–ooh boy, did I have problems with this one. I bought this based on a recent books on sale post/recommendations from readers. Parts of it were good I think it could have worked overall, but the premise is that the hero and heroine are sailing to Jamaica where they both own sugar plantations and the heroine literally owns slaves. The hero says that his workers are indentured servants and the heroine basically says, “oh, cool, I’ll think about that too.” I fully recognize that there’s historical accuracy in acknowledging that British wealth came from ruthless cruelty and exploitation, but there’s no interrogation of it at all. It’s just, “Cool! The plantation I inherited from my late husband is run by slaves! Is there a good place to bone?” I also was totally distracted by the fact that the sister’s hero is back in England with a seriously abusive husband. Honestly, the only thing that kept me reading was making sure that she was okay in the end. (CW: there’s both child and spousal abuse on page and described in past events in this book too. Also pretty graphic and awful pregnancy loss).
JACKDAW by KJ Charles–normally I adore KJ Charles, but, man, this one is pretty dark. It’s about Jonah (one of the quasi-bad guys from the Charm of Magpies series) and his lover, Ben. The set up is basically that the law catches up to them, Jonah escapes, and Ben has a really rough go of it (former cop ends up in prison for having sex with men; predictably, that does not go well). The main story arc is them figuring out how to be together after all the awful stuff that’s happened. I’ve always appreciated how Charles’s characters have real lives/bad experiences due to poverty and discrimination, but this one was a lot, including some really rough hate sex at the beginning. I don’t think I’m going to pick up the other two books in this series.
On the lighter side, ANY ROGUE WILL DO by Bethany Bennett was fun. I enjoyed Ethan and Lottie–neither of them really fits into society, but neither of them is particularly trying to. I also appreciated how transparent they are about their sexual desires–historicals can have a lot of hand wringing/attempts at historical accuracy about how sheltered women were, but honestly, that just drags me down when I’m reading. Give me people who are confident about their sexual desires and interests any day of the week. I was a little worried about how far the plot had gotten around the halfway mark (was dreading the Big Confrontation because Adults Have Forgotten that They Can Use Words), but then a villain emerges and said villainy drives the plot forward.
WEST END EARL also by Bethany Bennett—turns out this is the book in the series with the, “OMG, USE YOUR WORDS!!!” bit. I am also rather baffled by a key conflict in this book—the hero is supposed to marry a specific woman because his father made a bad bet, but I cannot for the life of me figure how the bet would be legally enforceable—it’s just a bet between two stupid aristocrats. Nevertheless, still fun.
THE MISSING PAGE by Cat Sebastian. This is the second book in the Page and Sommers series and is a version of the “wealthy relative dies and the family gathers for the reading of the will” story. I enjoyed the growth of James and Leo’s relationships as well as the other secondary characters and the resolution of the mystery of a missing relative.
ALL OR NOTHING by Rose Lerner—I’ve enjoyed Lerner’s books in the past, but there was a LOT crammed into this novella, including the hero/heroine’s arc which has a kink aspect that they’re trying to navigate, Maggie’s religious journey, Simon’s toxic ex, Simon’s professional struggles and some random secondary characters who don’t really get their due. It isn’t bad per se, but it’s a lot of conflict to cram into a novella.
Currently reading HALF A SOUL by Olivia Atwater—I love the heroine, Dora. Because she only has half a soul (the other half being stolen by a faerie lord in the opening scene), she doesn’t always react normally to situations, but she’s got a biting sense of wit and charm and a distinct voice that I really love. (Like Vasha, I’m interested to see how she reads to neurodivergent readers.) I also really like the hero, the Lord Sorcier, Elias, and two of the key secondary characters, Dora’s cousin Vanessa and Elias’s friend Albert. Excited for the rest of this and the sequels.
My reading continues to be scattered. I’m enjoying most of what I read, but I tend to pick it up, put it down, and start something else that I also am enjoying. Then before I know it, I’m trying to cycle through like 4 to 6 books, which is too much even for my brain that likes variety.
I think I may have been too ambitious with my reading goals this year (2 book challenges and one personal goal) and I”m going to have to let some go. I’ve already forced myself to cut down my hold lists at the libraries (plural) that I have cards with and I’m holding myself to checking out fewer books too.
I’m also trying to read more during the day in an intentional way (setting a timer while I drink my green tea and reading for 20 minutes) rather than trying to read here and there during the day in dribs and drabs. I’m hoping if I get more immersed in something, it will grab me and I’ll fully commit to finishing it rather than my constantly roving eye problem I have now.
I did read and enjoy (!) THE WEDDING RINGER by Kerry Rea. A young woman whose life has become a disaster gets hired by a complete stranger to pose as her bridesmaid.
I would say it was more fiction than romance, but there is a nice romance to it. I think there were two things I really appreciated. It was set in Columbus, Ohio, a place I’ve never lived, but know a little bit about and it’s just nice not to have it be NYC or LA (nothing wrong with those 2 places, I would just like to see more variety in city settings). And the other thing is that it really talked a lot about adult female friendship and how when your life can change, or when you change, your friendships change or you lose friends. It was definitely a lighter book, but I felt like it took female friendship and female loneliness seriously. I appreciated that and am not ashamed to admit it, the feels hit harder in these “emerging from pandemic times” that still feel uncertain and lonely.
MISS DELIGHTFUL by Grace Burrowes is a book I did not finish (way too much villain POV for me), but I thought it might be interesting to readers who liked the idea of a Grumpy x Grumpy pairing in a recent Rec League. I wouldn’t say the heroine is grumpy exactly, but she is a very non-nonsense, gets sh!t done, but takes no sh!t from anyone type of character. Miss Delightful is a cruel nickname that has been foisted on her. Everyone has written her off as a ‘hopeless spinster’ but the hero who is a Scottish war veteran (and very grumpy about some things) meets her and recognizes her as a fellow badass almost immediately, even when they’re still sniping with each other and arguing about things. I thought there was a real focus on their mutual respect growing into a romantic attraction, built on small kindnesses and little conversations. It was almost Carla Kelly like, which is high praise from me. Just yeah, waaaaaaay too much villain in there for my personal taste.
I’ve had a string of good luck with reading.
Evil Omega by S. Rodman. (a/b/o m/m with CW). Silas is a supervillain omega. Dean is a service top alpha. Silas has had some trauma in his past (and during the book that was brushed off entirely too easily) but Dean is so sweet and supportive.
Until His Soul Awakens by E.M. Lindsey. I don’t connect with E.M. Lindsey and would usually skip their books, but the characters in this one sounded super interesting. So although I only rated this 3/5 stars, someone else may love it. Inkaef was an Egyptian Priest with a deaf lover who became a grim reaper after his death. Anthony is a current day, deaf archeologist who is investigating artifacts from Inkaef’s life.
To Kiss a Frog Elizabeth Silver. Darius asks some fairy godmothers for help with his love life, the result is that every man he kisses who is NOT true love turns into a frog. I don’t often get mind visuals when I read, but I did for this and I laughed a lot
Ghost and the Hanged Man. This is part of the Tin Star Witches / Ruby Gulch multi-author book series. Historical Western m/m Paranormal. Ghost is a witch (with albinism?) who lives in a cave near Ruby Gulch. Penny travels to Ruby Gulch to try to find help for his dying mother. Very under developed characters, but since its such a niche genre I’ll read everything I can find
The Missing Page by Cat Sebastian. Other people have described this better than I can so I’ll just mention to bump it up again for anyone considering giving it a try. Very enjoyable.
The Devil of Pinesville (Critter Catchers #4) by Hank Edwards. Live long friends Demmy and Cody are trying to run a humane animal control business and navigate a new romance. Each book in the series moves their relationship along while they stumble into dealing with monsters.
I’m still slowly listening to the butchering art by Lindsey Fitzharris (I’m super interested in her upcoming The Facemaker)
And then finally, I got a kindle library copy of Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts. But the art is so interesting that I want to hold some pages up to my face to examine closely and my ipad is not cutting it, so I ordered a physical copy and I may pause until that arrives.
I’m continuing with my “read all the Poirot novels” project. (Except The Big Four, which is supposed to be terrible.) My current one is After the Funeral, but since it’s got the “read the will” conceit, I will dip into The Missing Page, based upon the recommendations above.
I also just finished Agatha Christie’s autobiography, which I highly recommend. Even if someone is just a casual Christie fan, it’s a fascinating window into Edwardian life/early 20s life, in her portraits of her grandmother and mother.
It really struck me how much and how little older people change–when her grandmother’s sight failed and she had to abandon her house, there was just reams and reams of STUFF to get rid of, all useless. Moth-eaten fabric never made into clothes, moldy jams and preserved foods, Victorian furniture that was too heavy to be fashionable but had once been worth a great deal. And her grandmother always wanted to read all the really salacious stories in the news and was convinced she was being poisoned by the help. It reminded me of my grandmother’s fascination with local news. And why I do periodic “death cleans.”
Read a lot of adequate books, and went back down my KJ Charles bolt hole. In an attempt (failed) not to reread her exclusively, I started with some of the ones I don’t like as much (including Jackdaw @FashionablyEvil, and Gilded Cage, also a second chance romance, I just don’t do well with that). Still the best books I read since the last post.
Otherwise, starting with the more enjoyable:
Lord of the white hell part 2. Loved. Delightful. I don’t enjoy reading about teenagers, unless, apparently, they’re fucking secretly while at magical boarding school. The pacing is painfully bad even if you’re largely indifferent to plot. Still recommend, start with 1, they’re really 1 book, which is annoying but they’re wordy enough I guess 1 book might be physically painful? Idk.
Glommed KA Mitchell’s Baltimore series. Really enjoyed…idk how to put it, the specificity? of the pairings. I didn’t mostly like the characters, but was always convinced they belonged together. All relationships I wouldn’t want any part in, but they’re perfect. That makes it extra feel good, like, yup, absolutely everyone deserves love, even these idiots. There’s someone for everyone, even that asshole. Abrupt endings, but I suppose it’s kind of refreshing in a world of ugh epilogues.
Fine?
Got around to The Rosie Project. Somehow simultaneously well written and horribly conceived? The end is a lazy mess, a self-acknowledged ransacking of crappy rom-com movies. Was it meant to be a parody indictment of the whole genre? Did not realize all the problems till the end, at least, so it was fun for a while.
Speaking of: The Affair of the Missing Letter. I don’t want a send up of queer lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes, I want queer lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes. It’s Alexis Hall, don’t get me wrong, I still liked it, but it’s clever at the expense of loving.
Wolfsong by TJ Kune fairly adorable but painfully sloooooow werewolf romance. There are like three billion endless pointless pages of feelings and plot and irritating circular conversations, whoever edited it is a disgrace, but I was invested enough to wade through.
Aptly named Nothing Special by Jay Northcote.
A Keri Arthur UF series where I got through three books before discovering I had already read them all. Demonstrably not memorable and good enough.
Proper Scoundrels by Allie Therin I wouldn’t call it a standalone. Like the rest of the series, the truly sweet moments are well balanced out by the saccharine and, frankly, stupid ones.
Cruel Prince by Holly Black I don’t like but keep reading YA. Given this commitment to never learning, I am clearly in favor of stupidity. It’s fairy teenagers with no sex and very bad politics, and I put a hold on the next one.
Dnf
Against the Wall by Pippa Glencoe, entertaining premise – she falls for the hot neighbor she hears having fabulous sex all the time. I have heard a LOT of neighbor sex and it is not fun, but it’s definitely a part of nyc life so I was hoping this would be a more realistic nyc setting. Gotta be careful, wishing. Characters and narration were, in fact, realistically, unbearably, unpleasant and judgmental.
Count Your Lucky Stars Alexandria Bellefleure idk if I would care about these people if I had read the series, but it doesn’t seem possible. So much telling, and all of it lies. No one’s actions, not once, matched up with their characters as posited.
Celebrating my 33rd wedding anniversary this weekend. My husband and I were coworkers in 1986 when he came into my cubicle to ask me about a project. It was just after lunch and the book I’d been reading (Kate Chopin’s THE AWAKENING) was still sitting on my desk. He had read it, so we started talking about it and, voila!, a romance with a book-origin story was born!
Part 1
After loving Cate C. Wells’s THE TYRANT ALPHA’S REJECTED MATE (one of my favorite reads of 2021), I’m pleased to say that her HITTING THE WALL proves that TYRANT was not a fluke—HITTING THE WALL (the first in Wells’s Stonecut County series) has become my first five-star read of 2022: a well-written, gritty, and unsentimental story that focuses on the stark differences between wealth and poverty in a rural Pennsylvania community where a horse-breeding farm is one of the major employers and the family that owns the farm are powerful and accustomed to getting their way. When a pregnant 17-year-old is run out of town by the influential family of the baby’s father, he knows nothing of the pregnancy or what his family has done. When the heroine returns to town six years later, child in tow, the hero has to readjust his perception of the people he’s always loved and respected if he’s going to do right by the heroine and their child. While Wells doesn’t soften the effects of poverty and its adjacent ills (minimum wage jobs, living paycheck-to-paycheck, the impossibility of getting a few dollars ahead, limited access to healthcare, difficult interactions with schools and social services), HITTING THE WALL is no “capitalist rescue fantasy”: the heroine stands strong against the hero’s initial insistence that his family is decent and kind; and Wells’s presentation of the hero—who could have been just another clueless, entitled rich boy—is carefully nuanced. In fact, it’s the hero, rather than the heroine, who undergoes the most emotional growth in the story. (And, if you have a child who is serviced by an IEP and have ever suffered through a school meeting where it feels as if no one in the room is listening, you will completely relate to the heroine’s experiences with the public school system as she tries to get appropriate help for her daughter who is on the autism spectrum.) Highly recommended.
After finishing HITTING THE WALL, I dove right in to Wells’s second book in the Stonecut County series, AGAINST A WALL, which is tonally less angsty and more humorous than HITTING THE WALL (the heroes of the two books are brothers). I enjoyed AGAINST A WALL, but there are a number of incidents that could be triggering: the heroine has been stuck in a complicated grief cycle since her mother died a decade ago; she has a gaslighting ex; she has been the target of a harassment campaign because her father uncovered corruption in the Sheriff’s office (a plot point carried over from HITTING THE WALL); the hero bullied her in high school (I thought Wells did a good job with the “he teases you because he likes you” myth, while not dismantling it completely); the hero runs a business where he leads groups on hunts (hunting, guns, and taxidermy are presented in a completely neutral way throughout the book); and, during a hunting trip, one of the hero’s clients accidentally shoots the heroine (a flesh wound), an event which leads to the h&h reconnecting. I realize all of that makes the book sound heavier than it is—although it does address some difficult issues (key quote: “…people with power keep the power no matter what they do, and that is that, and that is what’s wrong with people”). I thought the best part of AGAINST A WALL is how Wells presents a flawed hero who wants to do better but doesn’t always have the emotional bandwidth to do so without occasional blunders: he’s imperfect, but not irredeemable. Recommended, but read HITTING THE WALL first.
One of the most interesting things about Caitlin Crews’s latest Harlequin Presents, THE SCANDAL THAT MADE HER HIS QUEEN, is that the loss of the heroine’s virginity to the hero—often a pivotal moment in the HP universe—has already occurred before the book opens. Naturally, this being an HP, the heroine’s single sexual experience has resulted in a pregnancy and, as the story starts, the now six-months-pregnant heroine arrives at the hero’s palace to demand that he support his child. The hero—another in a long line of Crews’s royal heroes who have a carefully-cultivated reputation for lassitude and decadence—upends the heroine’s expectations by demanding she marry him. The rest of the story concerns the couple trying to determine what kind of marriage they can have in light of their different but equally damaging upbringings. Key quotes: “Crowns and palaces do not protect anyone. Not from life.” And: “If you have any stake in this life at all, sooner or later, you mourn.” You know if you like Harlequin Presents’ angsty heartache (which, as always, Crews brings in droves), so make your decision to read accordingly.
I’m looking forward to reading HUNT THE STARS by Jessie Mihalik. I’m also making my way through the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. Up next is ROGUE PROTOCOL.
Other books waiting in the TBR pile include FIERCE KINGDOM by Gin Phillips; THE THIEF by Michele Hauf; and HER NAME IS KNIGHT by Yasmin Angoe.
I’m also looking forward to watching the ice dancing at the Olympics this weekend. It’s twizzle time! 🙂
Part 2
Full disclosure: I initially picked up new-to-me author Elizabeth O’Roark’s THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA because of its smoking hot cover—featuring latest addition to the DiscoDollyDeb alternate-universe reverse harem, Xavi Cortes, sporting a sexy scowl and very little else—but I found a poignant, if somewhat uneven, story of learning to come to terms with family dysfunction and let go of the past in order to embrace the future. The heroine is a pop singer with a reputation as “troubled.” She longs to write and perform her own songs, but feels trapped in the image her exploitive manager has created for her. Her emotionally-abusive family provides no support and ongoing panic and asthma attacks continue to be publicly misinterpreted as intoxication. When she is offered a chance by her ex (a self-indulgent and careless rock star) to join his family in Hawaii, she jumps at the chance—but there she must face her ex’s older, antagonistic brother while encountering a dysfunctional family dynamic, different from, but as equally damaging, as her own: a very sick and enabling mother, trapped in denial, along with a cold father who obviously favors his older son, and two brothers always at odds with each other. Over the course of the Hawaiian trip (O’Roark describes the natural beauty of the islands in lush, expressive language), the heroine grows closer to her ex’s brother and feels “seen” for the first time—giving her the courage to demand respect from the people around her and disconnect herself from her toxic career and awful family. A nice romance, but much more about a woman’s journey to reclaiming her true self. Recommended.
Ana Huang’s TWISTED HATE is the third in her Twisted series about four college friends and their lives & romances as they move into the working world. TWISTED HATE is an antagonists-to-lovers romance between the heroine and her best friend’s older brother (which is not as annoying a trope as “best friend’s younger sister,” but still not a favorite)—there’s also a instance of “only one bed” if we’re keeping track of tropes. TWISTED HATE was an entertaining read, although it didn’t grab me quite as much as the two previous books (TWISTED LOVE and TWISTED GAMES), plus to story seemed to cleave neatly into two very different parts: in the first part, the MCs’ antagonism coupled with their sexual attraction leads to an enemies-with-benefits situation. The second half of the story deals with the fallout from a sex tape and some criminal activity the heroine was coerced into when she was 18-years-old by her sleazy ex-boyfriend. It felt at times as if Hoang was trying to force two completely different stories/plots together. I still liked TWISTED HATE enough to look forward to the final book (TWISTED LIES, coming later this year). One last comment: although his ancestry plays little part in the story, the hero of TWISTED HATE is Chinese-American and the book’s cover model is swoony Simonas Pham.
I read five books in Maisey Yates’s Copper Ridge series as part of my gradual glom of her immense backlist. The five books are contemporary cowboy romances set in a ranching community in Oregon; they feature a variety of tropes, a nice balance of angst & steam, lovely descriptions of the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and MCs who have all had to surmount difficult childhoods with dead/distant/absent/abusive parents. In SHOULDA BEEN A COWBOY, a woman reconnects with her high school crush who is in town to settle his late father’s estate, including the building that houses the woman’s apartment and her business (a coffee shop). In PART TIME COWBOY, a woman returns to town to open a B&B on property owned by the family of the deputy sheriff who once arrested her (cw/tw: the heroine’s backstory includes a physically-abusive father). My favorite of the books was BROKEDOWN COWBOY which features the “woman loves her late best friend’s widower” trope. The story is suffused with melancholy and loss, but is ultimately hopeful. I really liked how the heroine decides she needs to stop being nothing but a convenient caretaker (“a wife without any of the benefits”) for the hero, who then has to decide for himself if he will get out of the cycle of alcohol and grief into which he has fallen. BAD NEWS COWBOY features one of my least-favorite tropes, “best friend’s little sister,” which I find sexist, patriarchal, and all kinds of creepy. Nonetheless, I thought Yates did a pretty good job of showing the different factors that drove the MCs’ personalities and actions, but, really, a 23-year-old heroine who has never even been kissed? What is this, a Harlequin Presents? A COPPER RIDGE CHRISTMAS is a novella featuring two MCs who have known each other since their teen years in the same foster home. 13 years later, they grow closer as they plan a Christmas party for their former foster parents, but will the harsh lessons of their childhoods (before foster care) stop the romance before it has a chance to flourish? I recommend all five books for those who like their cowboy romances with an extra helping of angst.
I enjoyed Isoellen’s two earlier 12 Sectors Omegaverse books, HER BROKEN ALPHA and CHOOSING HER ALPHA, so I grabbed her latest, HER TRUE ALPHA, as soon as it was released. In this novella, an unhappy, well-bred Omega learns some hard truths about her family as she discovers her “knotted mate” is rough-hewn Alpha from the primitive Sector 2. I like the steampunk-ish world Isoellen has created, and would recommend HER TRUE ALPHA to fans of m/f Alpha-Omega romance, however cw/tw: a major plot point of the book is the heroine’s infertility (a condition that appears to be spreading through the Omega population) and I would not recommend the book for anyone who has experienced pregnancy difficulties.
Whatcha reading, my lovelies?
I believe it’s been three weeks since the last WAYR, so my memory is a little dim about some of these, but I will do my best.
JUDGE DEE novellas by Lavie Tidhar. Not romances, but vampire stories in an alternate, medieval kind of world. If you like Murderbot, which I know you all do, I would recommend you check these out – they have a similar distant, yet totally engaging vibe. My only complaint is that there is not enough of them! Excellent.
CONVENTIONALLY YOURS by Annabeth Albert. M/M contemporary. Reread this and it is still excellent.
OUT OF CHARACTER by Annabeth Albert. M/M contemporary. Also excellent. Enjoy!
AN AFFAIR IN WINTER by Jess Michaels. Historical, M/F. Meh. You’ve read it before, but this one wasn’t done badly.
SING ANYWAY and OUR FAVORITE SONGS by Anita Kelly. LGBTA romance novellas. Loved both of these – not only excellent development of characters considering the brief format, but also KARAOKE! And AK really knows her music, which I really enjoyed. Both of them made me want to sing, honestly. Can’t wait to read more by this author.
HITTING THE WALL by Cate C. Wells. M/F romance contemporary. Hoped for the same dark magic I found in Run, Posy, Run, but this one was a little too realistic and kind of a bummer. Love was a little too insta for me, and the whole time I was reading it, all I could think about the hero was “What a maroon!” (in a Bugs Bunny voice, of course).
HATE F*@K by Ainsley Booth. DNF – just, really? Why do you love each other? Why is the hero so mean to everyone? Just didn’t work for me.
Trying to get into D’VAUGHN AND KRIS PLAN A WEDDING by Chencia C. Higgins. LGBTA contemporary, but I don’t buy the premise – the show doesn’t mesh with the characters’ inner motivation, and I can’t get beyond it. Are they trying to fool their family and win a prize? Or find actual love? Or come out? Rules of the competition and motivations just not ringing true for me. Maybe I am overtired? Does it get better? Should I hang in there?
If you are thinking, “I’m not going to post recs today,” remember, some of us are really excited to see them. As I say in work emails, “Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.”
I just finished Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik and it was a total comfort read. Road trip! Created family! Competence! A captain with a secret heart of gold.
I’m waiting on the new Sarah J Maas and Josie Silver books. I liked the last book in Maas’ series and I can’t resist Only One Bed. I am also thinking of picking up Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham because not enough books are coming out on 2/15. Clearly.
I have been pretty unhappy with a lot of the historical romance from the beginning of this year and DNF’d a ton of it putting me in a reading slump.
Currently I am trying NOT to finish (because it is so good) I Came As A Shadow by John Thompson which is an autobiography by one of the best coaches to ever coach.
WELCOME TO TEMPTATION (Jennifer Crusie), and AGAINST THE WALL (Cate C Wells)
SBTB, you have no idea how often my life is affected by posts on this site. To build a context for my reading of WTT and ATW, I have to confess that SB Sarah’s question, “Do you skip ahead in books,” caused as close to a full on panic attack as I’ve had for at least a year as I interrogated my own reading habits. The answer (yes, no, skim, speed-read, DNF, pre-vet, etc.) for me depends on which device in the book triggers (yep, that TRIGGERS!) a specific response (skim, skip, etc.), a response that depends, in turn, on the media I’m using. Physical books make skipping, jumping around, skimming, and speed reading possible; ebooks allow local skipping and with a lot of effort, jumping chapters; audiobooks are “turn it off now!” either to DNF or to get the e-version and do local skipping. But then I took a deep dive into the reasons that I would jump to the end, or skim, or skip, or DNF and suddenly I was addressing my own triggers in some detail. Eep. Talk about a deep dive into the abyss.
The only way out of my anxiety was to read a good book, so I took a look at some of the most highly rated suggestions recently posted on the site, and I chose WELCOME TO TEMPTATION (read with Libby) and AGAINST THE WALL (read on the Kindle app because it’s KU). Actually, these were overlapping reads, since I started ATW when I was about halfway through WTT. For me, reading two books simultaneously is another form of skipping around or postponing a DNF. When things get too angsty, I go to the other book for a bit of soul soothing, but it has to be a good book to do that.
On to a few Pomplamoosifying elements of WTT and ATW. I was amazed at how similar the two books were in the treatment of small towns: these were not cutesy, Hallmarkesque small towns despite initial appearances (although the phallic pink water tower introduced in the first scene of WTT could go either way). In both books, the highly nuanced and extremely flawed characters, major and minor, stumbled through discovery of their own failings, their own misperceptions AND those of family, friends, and enemies in their increasingly less-than-idyllic towns. By the end of both books, with the slimy underbellies of the towns irretrievably exposed, the main characters did get their hard-won HEAs, despite the increasing problems around them. Both Crusie and Wells kept their main (and other) characters flawed to the end — people ARE flawed to the end IRL — but what made both books so exceptional was the characters’ tortuous journey to better understanding of their own and others’ motivations for earlier actions and their ability to change themselves based on that knowledge. HEAs are about the possibility of moving forward and growing as a team, in solidarity, knowing that the other has one’s back. Reading WTT and ATW together thoroughly dissolved my (triggered) funk that has me stopped cold at 3% into the audiobook of Ilona Andrews’ WILDFIRE, a book that I read a couple years ago and that, ironically, I was listening to as a comfort read. It isn’t at the moment, but WTT and ATW were.
@DDD, thanks for the summary of HITTING THE WALL. I had read that a couple of months ago and it was excellent. AGAINST THE WALL didn’t really strike me as lighter than HTW, it just dealt with a different set of issues in the same awful context that you outlined so beautifully. In AGAINST THE WALL, Wells managed to make an “asshole idiot” a redeemable asshole idiot without losing sight of the larger issues around him. I would never have thought it could be done.
Did I snag an ARC of “The Long Game” by Rachel Reid from NetGalley? Yes. Did I read it in one day? Also yes.
Y’ALL.
THE VINEYARD AT PAINTED MOON – by Susan Mallery. I am a sucker for messy family drama soapy stories. This one the family owns and runs a California Vineyard.
STAY WITH ME – By Alexandria House. Yet another book brimful with messy family dynamics. I liked the heroine was a natural hair vlogger. But I especially liked that character progression of the hero. He is cocky and full of himself. One review on GR said they liked seeing him ‘dismantled’ by the heroine. And it is true.
FORREST FOR THE TREES – by Kilby Blades. Besides messy family dynamics, one thing I am a sucker for is 1) competence porn at work and 2) unusual (in romance) jobs. In this one the heroine is a black federal forest ranger. I was immediately fascinated. Also there is a lot of workplace stuff we get to see. The hero is a federal fire marshal. The book is a nice blend of mystery/workplace dynamics and romance. The romance is a slow burn and doesn’t really kick in until about 2/3 into the book, but when it does it is great.
Besides that I am doing a group re-read of Suzanne Brockmann’s TROUBLESHOOTERS series. I usually read the first six books when I do a re-read and jump around after that, not all the books after the first six-book arc keep my interest. And I’ll probably do that again. But it is nice to hang out with Tom, Kelly, ALyssa, Sam, Jules, Robin et. al. again
@HeatherS omgomgomg YOURE jealous
@HeatherS SO JEALOUS (but also happy for you!) I’ve had a pending request at NetGalley since the day it went up, I don’t know how it works because I’m new to it and my request for The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes came through within a day! And everyday I just go and stare at the pending request and will it to be approved
John Eyre – Mimi Matthews
I have a weakness for genderswaps: any time, any place, any story. Ok, yes, granted binary thinking on gender, but I still find it a fascinating way to get fresh views on a story and characters who are at least to an extent archetypal. (And yes, I wrote many of them back in my writing days.) Anyway, John Eyre is genderswapped Jane Eyre plus Dracula and I kinda thought it was brilliant. Also learned about box beds, which are my new nightmare fuel.
Something about John Eyre got me into an all-things-Eyre mood, so not only did I rewatch the 2011 movie with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, I then dived into a reread of Lindsay Faye’s Jane Steele. This particular reworking is Jane Eyre + serial murder. Loved it the first time and happy to find that I love it still.
Susan Orlean – The Library Book
My first nonfiction of the year, this has a rather tree-ringed plot, one level about a maybe-arson/maybe-not that led to the most destructive library fire in US history, one level about the history of that library, the LA public library (specifically Central Branch), and a third level about libraries in general. This made me really miss my old library job, and wish I could get back into that world. It was quite a lovely paen to libraries and the people who make them, shepherd them, and love them. I really enjoyed this, and imagine many people here would feel the same.
I’m currently about 40% through “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” by Malinda Lo; I don’t usually read YA and this is my first book by Lo, but I picked it up because of a particular interest in the time period. So far it’s very successful as a coming-of-age historical novel; I’ll reserve judgement on how I feel about the romance between Lily and Kath, which isn’t the major focus yet.
“Passing Strange” by Ellen Klages: Like “Telegraph Club,” this is also a historical novel involving San Francisco’s lesbian community, but it didn’t work for me. This falls somewhere on the fantasy/magical realism spectrum, and the magic just wasn’t integrated into the world in a way that made sense. Because I didn’t understand what this book was going for until the last couple of chapters, and because the characters aren’t particularly developed, it feels more like a long short story than a short novel.
“The Perks of Loving a Wallflower” by Erica Ripley: I’m going to complain about this book, so let me start off by saying that I mostly enjoyed it. This is an extremely escapist novel, but if you’re willing to put in the suspension of disbelief, it is a lot of fun. Tommy and Phillipa are lovable characters who have triumphant, satisfying character arcs; the Wynchester family and Phillipa’s circle of studious friends are fun to read about; and the romance is sweet; and the book is very readable.
As other commentators have pointed out, the cover portrays two feminine women, but Tommy is gender-non-conforming and wears women’s clothes when not in disguise in maybe one scene. I didn’t think Ridley’s portrayal of Tommy was “bad,” per say, it is sensitive and Ridley clearly thought a lot about how to write a character who would be called in modern terms butch or non-binary. However, in a romance novel, it’s a bit strange to read about a character like this and not get the vibe that the author really understands what is appealing to women who are sexually attracted to people like Tommy. It doesn’t feel authentic, and there’s a reluctance to translate the dynamic between Tommy and very feminine Phillipa to anything in the bedroom in a way that felt — not exactly false, but a kind of failure to provide the fantasy and eroticism women reading heterosexual romance can expect, I think. It just felt kind of generic, as if the writer wasn’t really sure how to approach the sex or even Phillipa’s attraction to Tommy. (Both of the characters are also so unsure and nervous around each other that they feel very young, which could contribute to this.) Obviously Ridley has written a million other novels and they’re all m/f (I haven’t read any of them), so while it’s nice to see an author realize that in a series about a bunch of siblings, not all of them would be straight, it also feels like she’s way outside her comfort zone.
“It Takes Two to Tumble” by Cat Sebastian: Not a lot to say about this other than it was a really fun read! Loosely based on The Sound of Music. This was around CS that was very successful in giving two characters with very different perspectives and priorities a happy ending, which I love.
“Matzo Match” by Roz Alexander: A butch/femme romance novella featuring Jewish characters and set during Passover. Like a lot of holiday romances this was light, fluffy and a little bit corny, but it was also very sexy. Definitely written by and for people who understand why butch women are desirable, and not afraid of a little wish fulfillment (I mean, the love interest is a hot, older, divorced butch woodworker). I preferred Alexander’s other novella, “Higher,” in terms of storytelling, but I like their writing a lot.
“Verity” by Colleen Hoover: This is marketed as romantic suspense; I wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking for satisfying romance. I can’t say much without spoilers, but this twist ending was SO bonkers. Not a good read, but one that’s fun to complain to friends about.
I’m continuing my run of good reading luck with 3 more books I really enjoyed.
For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes – B/B+
Compelling, refreshing and fluffy take on the millionaire dom BDSM romance between a bi trans white submissive white woman and a cis straight dom Black man. Both h/h felt like real 30 somethings and I genuinely enjoyed spending time with them. I had an issue with the big misunderstanding but overall, this was just a delightful debut.
D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins – 4.5 stars / A-
I loved this ff fake dating for a reality tv show so much. It was the tropey, ridiculously over the top but emotionally satisfying read that I needed. D’Vaughn and Kris meet when they’re paired together in a reality tv competition. They have 6 weeks to plan a wedding and convince their families that it’s real – if they make it through all the challenges and get to the wedding ceremony, they can either get married or win a million dollars (not both). Because this is a romance, it’s pretty obvious they’re going to fall for each other, but it’s a fun ride getting to the HEA. I am a sucker for romances where the h/h help each other with their families and the family scenes in this were delightful.
A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske – 4.5 stars / A-
I wasn’t sure this would live up to the hype, but I really loved this immersive fantasy / suspense / mm romance set in Edwardian England. I love magical AU versions of historical Great Britain – from Sorcery and Cecelia to KJ Charles’ Charm of Magpie series to Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown series – and this is a really good one. A couple of the minor plot points felt contrived to me, but overall I was just swept away.
@Sarah, I have been evangelizing for I Came As a Shadow for a few months now. Not a romance (it’s the autobiography of John Thompson, coach of Georgetown University’s men’s basketball team from 1972-1999). I’m the most casual of basketball fans, but I thought it was a great read. It covers things like race, religion, mentorship, coaching, perseverance in ways that just really hit home for me. And I found Thompson’s ‘voice’ on the page to be very engaging. I have recommended it to so many people. Anyone in the Bitchery who is up for something different should check it out!
Like @Jennifer Estep, I am working my way through the Murderbot Diaries. I’ll picking up EXIT STRATEGY when I return ROUGE PROTOCOL to the GBPL. It is not overstating it too much to say that I have found my soulmate. Keep your billionaires, alpha werewolves and military heroes. I’ll take the anti-social video addict who just can’t stop doing the right thing.
Also finished Beth O’Leary’s ROAD TRIP. I think I may not be in a place where I can appreciate the missteps of youthful love and self-actualization. On the whole it was a good read, and there was a lot of growth going on between the H/h, between the H and his best friend, between the h and her sister and all the combos in between, but unlike her previous books, I just couldn’t feel the spark I needed to achieve total immersion in the story.
T. Kingfisher, Paladin’s Hope – plenty of gnoles in this one, yay! Go read the rest if you haven’t already, then read this.
Murder Most Actual, Alexis Hall – the trope-y mystery pieces and the relationship pieces didn’t always mesh perfectly, but I liked the story of a couple at the point where staying together is work. (This is a Kobo exclusive.)
Iron Widow, Xiran Jay Zhao – a bit Hunger Games with mecha and lots and lots of rage. Leaned harder into the YA tropes than I expected, even as it was bending some of them.
The Sleep Fix, Diane Macedo – may be worth a look. Organized around different types of sleep issues, with lots of things to try and without “do what I do, it’s the only answer.”
Young Avengers, Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie – I’m not a huge comics person, but Gillen has probably become my favorite creator. (They also have a series The Wicked + The Divine mulling celebrity culture, with some great visuals.) This is teen supers from Marvel, and leans into the YAness in a really enjoyable way. A good kid Loki, if that piques your interest.
I read BETWEEN the DEVIL and a DUKE by Kelly Bowen. I am sometimes torn about her books; I tend to like her writing and characters, but will be pulled out of the book by an attitude or turn of phrase that is so clearly modern that I get side tracked thinking about it, and about why somebody saying “Are we good?” is beyond the pale, but not a duke marrying a governess, or even the multitude of young hot dukes. Anyway, this one worked for me.
The heroine is a savant with numbers and can count cards, the hero a mysterious gaming hell owner who may also be a spy and an assassin, but has a weakness for this particular brilliant and beautiful woman, and a family’s missing fortune made this a book I couldn’t put down. Along with the heroine I was horrified by her wastrel drunk irresponsible brother, though I would have lost patience with him long before she did, I didn’t guess the mystery early, which I loved. I also liked the first book in the series, about a woman who is a fixer for people of the ton who need potential embarrassments to go away, DUKE of MY HEART.
I just finished reading an ARC of a romantic fantasy novel I loved SO MUCH that I’m going to evangelize about it here even though it won’t be out until August – Sangu Mandanna’s The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Imagine the girls from Ballet Shoes having magic as their gift. The heroine of the book is a sunshine-y (but secretly deeply lonely) Mary Poppins kind of figure who comes to their isolated house just to be their temporary tutor…but falls in love with their grumpy adopted dad and becomes a part of their whole wonderful extended found family. (The romance is really swoonworthy, but the emotional arc as she finds a real family and home is just as powerful, if not even more so!) The whole book just *sparkled* with magic and joy and fun, it was so charming but also so heartfelt, and I loved every moment of it. I read an e-ARC, but I’ve now preordered a paperback copy AND an ebook copy too, because it’s definitely going to be a regular comfort re-read for me.
@DonnaMarie — Yes! Much like Murderbot, I just want to enjoy my media and have people quit doing silly things and leave me alone. LOL.
I also loved MB’s snarky banter with the other ship in the second book. I hope ART is in some of the future books.
@GradStudentEscapist – thanks for the review of Total Creative Control. I’ve been eyeing it because I tend to like Joanna Chambers but I tend to dislike boss/employee romances. May look a little closer now.
@Jennifer Estep – yes! Murderbot is truly the most relatable character I’ve read in years. And there’s more ART eventually – not in the novellas but in the full length novel (and it’s great!)
I love the Murderbot Diaries but I have a perhaps-overblown hangup about it: I don’t like referring to everyone’s favorite SecUnit as “Murderbot,” a name it privately gave itself at a very dark time, believing itself to be a murderer and fearing it’s not able to do anything else. I don’t see how the name could be reclaimed in a positive way and I don’t see that happening in the books.
“Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off” was the blurb for YOU SEXY THING by Cat Rambo, a space opera about retired and weary soldiers trying to keep their intergalactic restaurant going. Surprisingly, with my hopes so high, the book was a huge success for me. The characters, even the ship, were such a pleasure, the story way more complicated and dark than the blurb would indicate. I am here for a second book because there must be.
A DARK MATTER by Doug Johnston is the third in his Edinburgh-set series, wherein three generations of the Skelf women continue the family tradition of funeral home and private investigation. Their personal lives have been upended throughout the series, but rather like from a crucible, they emerge stronger, more certain and clearer about who and what they are.
Finally read K. B. Wagers’ A PALE LIGHT IN THE DARK, the first of two books so far. Very much like Becky Chambers’ books, but with deep space rescues by the Near-Earth Orbital Guard. The NeoG–an arm of the military that gets no respect from Navy or Marines–does the hard work and in the process discovers something wrong with the medication keeping everyone alive for longer. As with Chambers, the crew and its found family are the real story, as is the annual Boarding Game between services. Come for the pew-pew-pew, stay for the so satisfying developments. Highly recommended.
Almost forget: A MARVELLOUS LIGHT by Freya Marske was exactly that.
After reading a couple of Alice Coldwater’s Brides of Karadok a few months ago, I intended on reading the rest interspersed with other books so I wouldn’t get sick of them. That didn’t happen but in the past couple of weeks I’ve read the other two in that series and now I’m almost finished with the earlier series with the Vawdrey brothers.
I checked the author’s website and book 5 of Brides of Karadok is due out this month. These all kind of run the same way with the couples getting together quickly and then learning how to get along. It’s all very predictable but I like the way the characters are written.
@Big K – I adored Out of Character and Conventionally Yours. Wish she would write more in this series.
I read THE INVISIBLE GODDESS by AC Dawn after listening to the beginning of last week’s podcast and loved it. Easy one-sitting read. Has anyone read the other in the duology or anything else by this author?
Currently reading THE SECRET, BOOK & SCONE SOCIETY by Ellery Adams an no that is not a comma error though it bugged the shit out of me until I got to the explanation. It’s not bad so far and the friend who passed it along assures me the other books get better. A not-very-cozy mystery with romantic elements.
Also reading WITCHES OF AMERICA by Alex Mar, a memoir about a journalist who decides to study witchcraft after setting out to do a documentary film about it.
I waited patiently for Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne to go on sale. I wish I hadn’t waited, it touched such a note of deep-seated pleasure with me. I feel the publisher’s blurb does not do justice to the unfolding of the story or the internal journeys of the characters. Once upon a time I voiced no criticism about an assigned reading in English 101 and my professor told me that a review without recognizing areas of possible improvement showed lack of critical thinking on my part. At the time, in some awe of her PhD, I took this idea for truth. Having since acquired an education myself, I’m not so sure that professor was correct. But just in case, I’ll say this: friction with an off-page family member was resolved in a sentence or two at the end. Otherwise, pure squee. I sent an ebook to one friend and suggested it to another. I will buy a physical copy to have around me.
Lucy Score’s Things We Never Got Over was great, with just enough friction between characters to move the story along and just enough character growth to feel real. I enjoyed it tremendously and recommend it unreservedly.
I enjoyed Mariana Zapata’s From Lukov with Love, and her Wait For It. I do enjoy Zapata’s books, those slow burns make the resolution so, so sweet. I think From Lukov with Love is my favorite of the two. Maybe. The heroes were much nicer people from the beginning than I recall the hero of The Wall of Winnipeg and Me being.
Under the influence of a respected online romance reviewer (not here), who recently gave rave reviews to the third book in two different trilogies, I read Jayne Ann Krentz’s THE VANISHING and Shana Galen’s THIRD SON’S a CHARM, as both books were the first in their respective series. Egads. JAK’s book was fine. The mystery was interesting enough, the romance adequate, and the build-up for the next installment probably enough to bring most readers along for the ride. I’ll read it if it ends up in my lap, but I probably won’t seek it out anytime soon. Unfortunately, my eyes began to seriously ache from all the rolling they did while trying to get through the Galen book. I know readers love her. I know she’s been a respected, traditionally published author for years, but merciful heavens. I actually abandoned the book with about 20 pages left; I just felt that my life was too short to waste another minute on such silliness, particularly the love scenes.
In the positive column, since I last got around to commenting on Watcha Reading, Maggie Shipstead’s GREAT CIRCLE was phenomenal. I found the beginning a little slow and might have abandoned it except for all the great reviews I’d read and my own personal admiration for her earlier work, ASTONISH ME. It’s definitely worth hanging in, if anyone else finds the beginning a bit sluggish or confusing. And for simple, romantic, pleasure both Cathy Maxwell’s HIS SECRET MISTRESS and Nan Reinhardt’s A SMALL TOWN CHRISTMAS were delightful (although I never came around to thinking the title of Maxwell’s book was right for the story).
LIGHTNING IN A MIRROR by Jayne Ann Krentz – [B] – I estimate that Krentz has been writing strictly romantic suspense since ~2003, yet I still read and grieve over how neutered the romantic relationships in her novels have become. I read this at the same time I was listening to JAK’s vintage SWEET FORTUNE on audio, and the contrast between a relationship that is actually developed and a relationship that just exists on paper couldn’t have been clearer. In SWEET FORTUNE, the relationship informs the plot and the plot informs the relationship. In LIGHTNING, the protagonists could have been platonic acquaintances and absolutely nothing about their motivations or actions (except the sex, of course) would have changed. Since I’m not an aficionado of romantic suspense (obviously), I do wonder if I’m missing JAK exercising the same commanding mastery of tropes in her post-2K books that she once displayed across her romantic ouevre.
HER TRUE ALPHA by Isoellen – [C+] – Excellent worldbuilding but zero romance in this novella-length entry in Isoellen’s 12 Sectors series. I was intrigued by how unlikeable the snobbish heroine was, even in her suffering.
THE MAGNATE’S MANIFESTO (Harlequin Presents) by Jennifer Hayward – [D+] – I can’t get past the ripped-from-the headlines premise of a Silicon Valley CEO who promotes a female executive for PR reasons because a “humorous” sexist manifesto he wrote and shared with friends after his latest break-up got leaked to the press. Contrasting the misogynistic “hero” with a sexually aggressive “villain” who assaults the heroine does absolutely nothing to redeem him. (“Hey, he may be a chauvinist abusing his white male privilege but at least he’s not a rapist” isn’t an endorsement in contemporary romance.)
SILVER DISH by Tarin Lex – [D] – I rarely read the freebies I pick up at Amazon (though I couldn’t believe Cate C. Wells’ The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate came up free this week at Amazon. Stop giving away your best books, Ms Wells! You deserve to earn a living from these), but this novella stood out as a reconciliation romance between middle-aged divorcees brought together for their 28-year-old daughter’s wedding. What a flopping disappointment. The appeal of a second chance romance is in dealing with the issues that separated the couple in the first place. Instead we get insta-reunion sex between a couple who haven’t seen each other for 18 years, with no reference to their shared past or how their lives may have changed in the generation they’ve been apart. Plus, just to make sure I would really detest the book, they reunite the night before their daughter’s wedding because the helpless heroine is frightened or confused by something at the rustic cabin she rented so she immediately calls her ex for help. You know, the guy she hasn’t seen for 18 years. Lady, if you can’t handle a cabin in the woods on your own, stay in the freakin’ hotel your daughter booked. Have the self-reliance to back up your choices.
YAMAGUCHI-KUN ISN’T SO BAD vol. 5 (manga) by Saiki Yuu – [A-] – This series is going to visit every adorable shoujo manga cliche ever. I veer between nostalgia, second-hand embarrassment, and melty delight as the heroine navigates her excessive shyness.
Since last time ~
— continued my reread of Andrea Höst’s Touchstone series with Lab Rat One, Caszandra, Gratuitous Epilogue, In Arcadia, and Snow Day. I enjoyed revisiting this science fiction series. The first book, Stray, is FREE for Kindle readers in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.
— The Lost Book of Adana Moreau: A Novel by Michael Zapata for my distant book group. This was an intriguing read that started like a fairy tale but then went all over the place; it bopped around from the 1920s to 2005 and then to the 1930s and back. It had a lot of sadness.
— Masquerade in Lodi (Penric & Desdemona) by Lois McMaster Bujold which I quite enjoyed. If you choose to read this fantasy series, you should begin with Penric’s Demon.
— the young adult science fiction Earth Girl by Janet Edwards which I quite enjoyed. This had an intriguing premise; it was set on Earth in 2788 at a time when most of the inhabitants are handicapped. They are considered handicapped because they cannot survive on the other planets that humanity has settled. I would like to read on in the series but my library has only this book…sigh.
— quite enjoyed the contemporary romance, All the Feels by Olivia Dade.
— enjoyed the contemporary male/male fantasy romance Blindspot (Daydream, Colorado Book 1) by A. M. Rose.
— very much enjoyed a reread of the science fiction m/m/+ romance Bone Rider by J. Fally; this book has a lot of violence but also tenderness.
— read Fireworks by Sarina Bowen; I enjoyed this but it is not amongst my favorites of the author’s works. The story is darker than one might expect from the description.
— enjoyed the historical romance novella The Threefold Tie by Aster Glenn Gray which featured a polyamorous relationship. I learned some information about the Oneida Community which the characters visited and discussed. It was a religious group that believed in communal property and practiced group marriage from 1848 to 1881; when it disbanded the community became a company that many know today for its silverware.
— enjoyed The Book of Firsts by Karan K Anders (a pen name of author Andrea K. Höst). This is explicit and very unlike Höst’s usual young adult novels thus the different name.
Working away from home has lead to a lot more reading. I have been binging Kate Canterbary’s back list. Underneath It All, The Space Between, Necessary Restorations, The Cornerstone, The Spire, Preservation so far. I have enjoyed them, some more than others. Really liked The Spire which is Erin’s story of an impulsive long distance marriage with a surgeon. Almost elegiac. It may become a comfort read. Also really liked Preservation with Riley and a GI surgeon, partly because I just really liked Gastro Girl. I would recommend these and most of them are great as standalone though better if you already know the characters.
I also just finished Walk of Shame by Lauren Layne and really liked that one, too. A social influencer sort of young woman and the grumpy (though I suspect a little neuro-atypical) lawyer in her building. How they start getting to know and care for (literally care for when “flu” breaks out) each other is a fun story. Would recommend.
Some old Harlequins: Crowning His Convenient Princess by Maisey Yates, Secrets of His Forbidden Cinderella by Caitlin Crews, Redeemed by His Stolen Bride by Abby Green, and A Shocking Proposal in Sicily by Rachel Thomas. I liked them all. Not a ton of heat but a lot of angst – a couple “business” marriages, some accidental babies, some infertility. Nicely handled.
Not a romance: Fallen Angels by Gunnar Staalesen. Nordic noir, an older book. A group of schoolmates reconnect at a funeral, death occurs, our hero who is a PI investigates. It was OK but somewhat depressing. I enjoyed the look at life in Norway (I have a cousin there so that was interesting) and the story held my interest.
Now reading Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell and enjoying it so far. Arranged marriage with a newly widowed man from a subordinate planet and one of the Emperor’s grandsons who is thought of as a playboy. I really liked the prince, he has a good heart and tries but keeps falling over his college reputation and also sometimes just messing up. I am expecting growth in the upcoming chapters.
I have just hoovered up Yours Until Dawn, by Teresa Medeiros, in one sitting. The first of hers I’ve read and it won’t be the last. A clever and entertaining story.
My other, recent ‘one sitting’ (overnight!) was His Valet, by SM LaViolette. I am just starting to dip into LGBTQ stories and this one had me hooked. Coincidentally, I had just enjoyed Scandalous, by Minerva Spencer, not realising they are the same person. Further orders already placed for both.
And the hype for Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid tempted me in and it’s all true. Loved it and now gagging for (sorry/not sorry) the sequel.
February is ticking along quite nicely, I’d say…
Paladin’s Grace – I’m reading the series out of order, started with the second one Paladin’s Strength which I loved to bits. This one is good, though not my favorite, I felt it needed a little more fluffy to balance out the sad and scary plot points. It does set up the other books in the series, there’s some backstory for Paladin’s Hope that might get me to read that despite the creepy morbid first chapter.
About a quarter of the way into Conventionally Yours, so far it’s a little more angsty and less nerdy than I hoped, I keep hearing good reviews so maybe skipping ahead is the way to go.
Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman, book 6 The Secret Chapter – too much plot and political intrigue, not enough heart. The series started out with some romance in the mix, now it seems to have fallen by the wayside. Time for me to jump ship.
Graphic novels – Camp Spirit and What If We Were… by Axelle Lenoir through hoopla. The first is set at a summer camp in Canada in the 90s, there’s slow burn f/f romance, some paranormal spookiness, like a more grown up Lumberjanes. The second one is more a collection of short vignettes with a slight plot thread going through them. Both books were funny and refreshing with just enough sweetness.
Not so great – Wynd by James Tynion – the magic and pretty art pulled me in but it turned out too violent for me, also two of my favorite female characters got killed off way too quickly. There’s a romantic subplot but I’m not hopeful it will lead to anything anytime soon. Oh well, back to browsing more graphic novels and cozy fantasy recs.
Happy reading everyone!
:::saunters regally in to In The Blood from Hades:::
Tis a banger.
Anyway, I went from reading not a whole bunch of books to apparently just going on a complete tear. The brain wants what it wants, yanno?
I started with Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston. Remember that first time you read Harry Potter, when we were young and innocent and the author had not said many harmful and unnecessary things? This will give you that same feeling. It’s in the same vein (young teen finds out their magical and has to navigate the magical world), but with the added complication of our protagonist being a Black girl. Amari deals with racist micro and macro aggressions throughout the story and has that compounded with the fact that she is not the acceptable kind of magical and that community make harmful assumptions about her as a result. Given the current, ah, climate around books that deal frankly with race relations, I imagine some people would feel uncomfortable with this book and those people should take a long hard look at themselves, but I digress. The book is smart and funny and I loved it. Then I read Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn and it was BONKERS. It had gladiators, a slave that becomes a famous singer, political intrigue, a sociopathic heiress, a sociopathic Caesar, and basically it was a soap opera set against ancient Rome and it was NUTS and I glommed it. Um, TW/CW, one of the main characters being a slave means that she was treated as a young female slave would be, in that she is both physically and sexually abused. After that I read Hellbent by Gregg Hurwitz, the third book in the Orphan X series. I liked the way the story moved forward in this, especially in the fact that Evan was given something of a foil: a young female Orphan that he is tasked with protecting, and she is a blast. She LOVES messing with him, and is, in her own way, just as tough and brilliant as he is. Then I cracked the glass on Teach Me by Olivia Dade, which I had been saving for when I needed something sweet and funny. I thought the hero was such a sweet cinnamon roll and I liked just how GONE he was over the heroine. Seeing her open herself to him was very sweet. And then, well, I thought I was going to hang onto I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys for a bit, and I was SILLY. It just batted those story lashes at me coyly, and that was it. Sepetys is just so damn GOOD at historical fiction. I knew little to nothing about the Romanian youth revolution that toppled the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, and this book was riveting. It really drove home how abused the Romanian people were during this period, and how paranoid people were, as you never knew who was informing to the secret police (the Securitate). The main character is a clever, curious young man that is interested in writing and history and the pretty girl in his classes, and is coerced into informing on the son of a diplomat that befriends him. Sepetys is great at putting you right there, describing the cold, bare buildings, the long lines to buy cooking oil, the constant sense of churning dread over just talking to a friend, and taste of an illicit Coca-Cola. Again, GREAT. Which (finally) brings us to now, in which I’m smack-dab in You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen McManus. I enjoy her teenage suspense thrillers way too much my own good. This one is a riff on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in which 3 HS seniors that used to be best friends but drifted apart over the years find themselves trying to recreate the middle school skip day that initially brought them together. And then they stumble on the murder of a classmate, like you do, and at least two of them (so far) might have had motives for murder. McManus is always smart and twisty, and I tend to love her characters (I just want to protect these little bbs, even if they are bbs with SECRETS). So on that note, put your dancing shoes on, because I’m taking my daughter to DWTS Live (her birthday present was tickets to the show).