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!
I’m still reading THE TYRANT ALPHA’S REJECTED MATE. That is all.
Besides enjoying GIRLS WEEKEND by C.M. Nascosta and THE TYRANT ALPHA’S REJECTED MATE by Cate C. Wells, ORLEANS by Sherri L. Smith was my third outstanding read for this time period. ORLEANS is Sci-Fi about the Gulf States (and New Orleans, specifically) being walled off from the rest of the country due to a deadly virus infesting the area. Our heroine, Fen, has seven days to get the newborn baby of her dead leader out of the walled area before the baby becomes infected. Blood is all in this novel, since the different blood types respond to the fever differently, but the society is complex and we are shown snips from the past as Fen travels around Orleans after saving an outlander from the U.S. to help her on her quest. I did shed some tears during the read and was very surprised how sad I was to leave the world Smith built when I finished the book.
I also read ELECTRIC IDOL by Katee Robert (Loved it! The world-building is fabulous and I felt Robert really redeemed her hero), APPLES NEVER FALL by Liane Moriarty (twisty-ish with lots of rabbit holes, but overall not one I want to reread), and did reread MIDNIGHT RIOT by Ben Aaronovitch (still good, but I downranked this on my spreadsheet compared to the first time I read the book).
I have several books started that I hope to finish by the end of the month, all of them recommendations from either SBTB reviewers or the commenters. I hope you all enjoy your reading!
Based on a recommendation here I also read THE TRYANT ALPHA’S REJECTED WIFE and enjoyed it so much that I went looking for other books by Cate C Wells.
ARCHANGEL’S LIGHT by Nalini Singh wasn’t my favourite in the series, but an enjoyable read.
I have also been reading C S Poe’s Snow & Wiinter series and Heidi Hutchinson’s Double Blind Study series – both really good.
Happy Anniversary, Triple D!
@Heather M, thanks for the rec of The Library Book. I read everything by Susan Orlean in The New Yorker, and her recent series of obits are small masterpieces. But the most fun @SusanOrlean is when she’s drunk on Twitter. Or actually any time on Twitter.
@Deborah, I’ve been reading JAK since the 1980’s, and while her romantic suspense novels are not keepers for me like the older romances were, I still enjoy them. Yes, the love stories are underdeveloped, but knowing her character archetypes so well, I am probably filling in the romantic blanks for myself.
I read the late, great Miranda Neville’s final book “The Duke of Dark Desires”, which I had been kind of hoarding for years, because there aren’t any more after this one. It was excellent, it’s got a heroine who is out for revenge, masquerading as a governess for the hero. He’s a newly minted Duke, because all the closer heirs to the title have died off, and he’s been given custody of some relative’s orphaned children. The romance is slow-burn, and if you like your historicals angsty and dramatic I can highly recommend it. It’s the last in a quartet of books, but can be read as a standalone. CW for the heroine’s truly tragic backstory.
My other good read this month was “A Peculiar Combination” by Ashley Weaver, a World War II spy/suspense novel. I had initially confused Ashley Weaver with historical author Amanda Weaver, but once I started reading I realized my mistake, because the style was so different. In this book, the heroine is a safecracker, she comes from a family of small time career criminals. But when she is caught during a heist, she gets blackmailed into doing work for British intelligence. Good depiction of wartime London after Dunkirk but prior to the Blitzkreig. It’s the first of a series, and there are two potential candidates for a romantic element, but it could go either way.
And thank you everybody, I’ve got about 10 new books for my TBR!
I’ve FINALLY gotten around to reading ‘Again The Magic’, by Lisa Kleypas. (I’m going to be reading/re-reading a couple of series by other authors coming up, so I thought I better fit it in now before I get to the Hathaways.)
So far it’s not my absolute favorite Kleypas book, (it probably places in my Top 10), but I definitely see why other fans love it and McKenna so much. It has characters that I care about, but I wish they were more honest with those that they’re in love with.
@Karin, I’ve thought many times that long time readers of JAK, like myself, have an advantage over newer readers. I enjoy her a lot but having all those previous character archetypes walking around my long-term memory allows me to fill in all the subtext and nuance that her current romantic shorthand leaves out.
Well…
SOMETHING FABULOUS by Alexis Hall – just gobbled that up in no time. Fluffy, crazy m/m Regency trope-fest. I agree with other reviewers that Arabella is just a bit too much sometimes. The book is a little nuts, I admit, and Hall just piled everything on that he could. Still, I’ll be there for the sequel. If you like this kind of thing, but maybe a little less crazy, I heartily suggest KJ Charles’ BAND SINISTER (also called “like Heyer but gayer”). This is a favourite comfort read of mine – in the end I like this one a little more than Something Fabulous.
HEART2HEART Anthology (theme: “Never have I ever…”) – apparently this isn’t the first one. Found this by accident and preordered it. Lots of m/m short stories/novellas, usually around 50 pages each. Some worked better for me than others, some really managed pack a lot of feels into these short stories. There were about two that I really didn’t care for (one was extremely silly), so it wasn’t too bad. Nice bed-time reading one story per evening!
WINTERS ORBIT by Everina Maxwell – had this on my wishlist for a while after the great review here, so I grabbed it when it was a recent daily deal. I’m not much for science fiction, but hey, if all else works… Great world building etc., but I felt like the romance part got a bit short-changed in places versus all the other goings on, and there are some pacing issues with the romance itself. But I did like the two MCs and seeing them working things out together.
And in non-romance, I have started a huge historical book, because I am a history nerd. I actually saw this recommended on KJ Charles’ blog and one look at the title already sold me, because this is all my history catnips:
THE BURGUNDIANS – A vanished Empire by Bart van Loo. A look at the history of the kingdom and then dukedom of Burgundy, with the main focus being on the dukedom from Phillip the Bold in the 14th century onwards, in which the Hundred Years War, Wars of the Roses, the Jeanne d’Arc story all play their roles and Burgundy became a state to reckon with, acquiring vast territories outside of the actual dukedom. It also looks at what a vital role this played in the history of the Low Countries and forming what later became the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as the fantastic art that was produced by mostly Flemish and Dutch artists at the time under the ducal patronage (another catnip for me!). And the language divide of modern-day Belgium? It goes all the way back to medieval Flanders… I’m about halfway through and it is entertaining and fascinating.
@Karin + @DonnaMarie – we might be seeing the difference between optimistic and pessimistic readers here. I too have been reading JAK since the 80s, and while I recognize the archetypes (though they’ve shifted a bit — her post-2K heroes seem less alpha to me), all I see when it comes to the romance is the gap between what used to be and what is now. My book is half empty 🙁
I feel like I’m in a reading slump because I’ve only read *checks notes* 5 books this month (and then I laugh at myself because 5 books in 14 days is still A LOT!) (and then I look at the books and 1 was a novella and 2 were graphic novels so those are all under 1 hr reads so I only read 2 novels in 2 weeks and that is very off for me) (And then I remember that I had my baby turn 2 (I made cake and we had a family party), finished a needlepoint for my niece, and celebrated Lunar New Year with my family…)
I read: The Wedding Setup by Sonali Dev, Friends Forever by Shannon Hale, The Ex Hex by Erin Stirling, Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon, and Himawari House by Harmony Becker. Of those 5 books, I loved Weather Girl the most. It was so good!
The best book I’ve read this month is The Maid by Nita Prose. The main character, who is neurodiverse, loves just about everything about being a maid and returning the rooms of the hotel back to a state of perfection. Her granny recently passed away. She is now learning to navigate life on her own and gets things wrong sometimes. She finds a body in one of her rooms and things really go wrong when she is accused of murder. I’ve been recommending this book to my family and friends.
Okay after years of depending on these posts to help me find great books (thank you everyone!), I made a new year’s resolution to start contributing to the comments at least a few times a year. It’s only taken a month and a half for me to post my first comment (and days after everyone else commented on this post) – but first steps are always the hardest. My other resolution is to reduce my massive TBR and library holds piles, and so the plan is that I must read at least 3 books from the TBR and library holds piles before I can add another. So, I’ve been pretty successful there, but the year is young and I may crack yet and the pile may begin to multiply massively again.
My reading results the last few weeks were mixed – I read Erin Sterling’s The Ex Hex, Alisha Rai’s Girl Gone Viral and First Comes Like, Olivia Dade’s All The Feels, Jessie Mihalik’s Hunt the Stars. I’m also reading Ilona Andrew’s new Innkeeper novella Sweep of the Heart – a new section is posted each Friday on their blog – it’s a marvelous way to start the weekend.
I really enjoyed Mihalik’s Hunt the Stars, the first book in her new sf romance trilogy. She is growing as a writer – the characters, plotting, and world-building felt just that much stronger. I loved how the two enemy squads slowly learned to trust each other. By the end it makes sense that the two squads have all decided to become one team working to together to prevent another war. I’m looking forward to next one in the series and I can see rereading this one.
I liked Dade’s All The Feels more than her previous book, Spoiler Alert. I thought the plot held together better and that the relationship between the MCs was better developed. It wasn’t a perfect book — Dade kept describing over and over the perceived unattractiveness of the female protagonist Lauren. A major part of the story is about the casual sexism and fat-phobia that Lauren deals with – the constant insertion of descriptions of her physical features into those scenes, undercut their effectiveness by shifting the focus from the sexism and fat-phobia to Lauren’s physical appearance. Girl Gone Viral and First Comes Like were also good. I enjoyed Girl Gone Viral slightly more that First Comes Like – the MCs just felt more grown up and HEA felt a bit more realistic. First Comes Like had several dangling plot threads that didn’t feel fully addressed to me and the ending felt a bit rushed. These 3 books were all library holds that showed up after months of waiting. All worth a read, but I can’t see rereading any of them.
The Ex Hex was also a library hold and I can’t explain why I bothered to finished it. Usually, these days, I DNF books that just don’t work for me – and this one was such a disappointment. The characters were underdeveloped, the plot non-existent, the world-building weak. There were some humorous set pieces, but the lack of narrative tension meant they were just weak “ha-ha” moments. The most unbelievable fantasy in the book was that it’s possible for the female protagonist, with just a MA in history, to make a living as a part-time, untenured instructor at a small liberal arts college – I don’t care if the college is run by witches or not – that just ain’t happening these days. What most part-time college/university instructors earn doesn’t keep them in ramen noodles, much less polka-dotted dresses. I also found it unbelievable that she had her own office. College and university office space wars are incredibly vicious and untenured, part-time staff are on the very bottom of the pecking order. One year I was assigned to an “office” (that I shared with another person) that was literally a storage space full of mops, brooms, broken AV equipment, one discarded desk and two broken chairs.
I also did a lot of rereading of various Andrews’ and Lucy Parker’s books. Most were even better than I remembered — the only exception was Parker’s very first book, Artistic Impressions, which she published under a different name – Elle Pierson. I found the MCs rather bland and the plot a bit too meandering. I ended up skimming through large chunks of it. I doubt that I’ll want to reread it again.