It’s our second Whatcha Reading of the month, which means that April is nearly over! Let’s talk about some things we’ve been reading (or not!).
Elyse: I scored an advanced copy of It Girl by Ruth Ware ( A | BN | K | AB ) so I started it the moment it hit my Kindle.
Sarah: I am exhausted after Passover (chag sameach, folks, enjoy breaking Passover with all the carbs you can eat!) so I am reading magazines through my library. I’m happily reading back issues of Cross Stitcher, Real Simple, and some overseas magazines, and I’m slowly, slowly savoring my last ever issue of Bitch magazine.
Lara: I’ve been in a bit of a depressive slump and struggling to sleep. So I’ve had many hours to read but no energy to actually invest in a story. Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History by Tori Telfer to the rescue! The short stories of women killers in history held my attention, but I only needed to focus for short stretches. Perfect.
Shana: I just finished Light from Uncommon Stars. It was beautiful and inventive, but darker than I expected…I found the internalized transphobia really hard, and the moments of violence too. But it gets to a lovely place in the end. So now I’m just about to start Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday. I didn’t get around to reading it over Christmas but it’s never too late for a winter holiday romance. (edited)
Carrie: I just started The Hacienda by Isabel Canas, ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it’s not a slow burn story. Usually in a haunted house story thing build up but the hacienda in question is not messing around!
What are you reading? Tell us in the comments!
Currently on T. Kingfisher’s “Paladin’s Grace” and loving it so far, I have picked the second book in the series too. Before that, I read Penny Reid’s new book, “Tend Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend”. Her books are a bit of a hit and miss for me (some I absolutely love, others I can’t even finish) but I think this one might be her best one yet.
I read Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes. It’s a sequel to Rachel’s Holiday that was published back in the nineties. I related to that book for all sorts of reasons I won’t go into here, but if you’ve read it, you’ll know what I mean. <Again, Rachel was heartbreaking in places and very hard to read at times, but I can still relate to Rachel and some of her struggles.
I am currently reading The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman. It’s one of those books I always meant to read, but never got to. I love big, meaty books with thousands of characters and I’m really enjoying it.
In between, I read The Secret Bridesmaid by Katy Birchall. It was fun and cute (especially because we are in the middle of wedding planning in our family right now), but I found most of it pretty unbelievable. It was a fun escape, though.
Just one measly book, again! AN IMPROPER ARRANGEMENT by Kasey Michaels. Regency with some sexiness but in a lot of ways it was a throwback to the lighter, fluffier side of traditional regencies with silly over the top side characters and not a lot of conflict. It wasn’t perfect, but it was readable and I’m always pleasantly surprised when I can read something and find it at least pleasant (everything now seems to either grab me immediately or annoy the hell out of me). It was fine for what it was. I also remember there was a recent rec league where there is no big emotional conflict between the character once they’re together? This definitely fits that. There is a bad guy, but no big breakup or misunderstanding scenes.
My first ever hockey m/m was Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry which set a pretty high bar. Season’s Change by Cait Nary was my second and it is an absolute delight. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I have pre-ordered the next in the series and The Long Game drops on Tuesday, so all is good.
In other news, I am still enjoying Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane books. Now on book eight (of 12), Phoebe’s story and it’s one of my favourites so far.
Happy reading, all.
Part 1
I read new-to-me author Tal Bauer’s m/m romance, YOU AND ME, when Eliza recommended it in the last WAYR. It’s a friends-to-lovers/bi-awakening story between two men in their early forties: Landon, divorced and excommunicated from the Mormon Church when he came out, and Luke, a widower whose marriage was crumbling long before his wife died. The men meet and become fast friends when they are both volunteers for the booster club that supports their sons’ high school football team. I usually don’t care for the friends-to-lovers trope, but as I read YOU AND ME, I realized my dislike for the trope is rooted in the fact that generally when it’s used, the MCs have been friends for a long time at the start of the story, and I just find it hard to believe they’ve never before grasped that they had sexual feelings for each other. One of the refreshing things about YOU AND ME is that you see the two men meeting for the first time, becoming close friends, and then becoming more than that. Also, it’s often difficult to present truly good, kind, decent characters without making them tedious Pollyannas, but I think Bauer does an excellent job with Landon—an earnest and devoted man whom Bauer makes three-dimensional. YOU AND ME is a lovely story, beautiful written with strong characterizations. Not just Landon and Luke, but their teenage football-playing sons, Landon’s ex-wife who still imagines she can reconcile with him, Luke’s supportive boss, and the mothers in the booster club: Bauer makes them all human and relatable. (I had a harder time getting a take on Luke’s late wife who just came across as discontented and nasty.) I love this book and have placed it on my favorites of 2022 list. However, I do have one word of caution: Bauer puts a very positive spin on the entire ethos of Friday Night Lights/Texas high school football—there’s no exploration of the idea that the insistence on football above all else might contribute to a culture of exclusion and entitlement; so if you want to read a wonderful friend-to-lovers/bi-awakening story (and you’re ok with uncritical presentation of high school football and all that entails), I highly recommend YOU AND ME.
C.M. Nascosta’s PARTIES is the sequel to her GIRLS WEEKEND in which we followed the journeys of three female elves, co-workers and friends, who visited a resort village that has an open-minded hook-up vibe. PARTIES picks up some time after the end of GIRLS WEEKEND. Lurielle is happy in her relationship with orc Khash, if only she could banish the critical inner-voice of her mother, and the elf society in general, about both her weight and being in a relationship someone other than an elf. Meanwhile, upper-class Silva continues to have more casual connection with bar & restaurant-owner Tate (who has orc, elf, and fae ancestry), although she wants a deeper relationship, she’s not sure she can make Tate acceptable to her snobbish family. And glamorous Ris (the only one of the three friends to leave the original Girls Weekend without having met someone) continues to go on meaningless dates with males (of various species) for whom she feels no connection. It’s only when she re-visits the resort and meets Ainsley, an orc, that she finds someone with whom she can have a friends-with-benefits situation that seems to work for both of them. The interesting thing about Nascosta’s work is that once you accept her universe of humans, mythological creatures, and anthropormorphized animals living, working, interacting, and having relationships with each other, what happens seems very relatable (even if you don’t have lavender skin, pointed ears, tusks, horns, or scales). I will say that PARTIES is a little more angsty than previous stories I’ve read in Nascosta’s Monster Bait world. Lurielle wishes she could be comfortable with her body and her weight, but even with therapy she can’t seem to get beyond the constant criticism she hears in her head (this part of the book is a definite cw/tw if you struggle with body-image issues). Silva fantasizes about introducing Tate to her family, but his status as a someone who works in a bar (albeit as the owner), plus his not being “fully” elf, makes her reluctant to do so. Nascosta does a great job of letting us see both Silva’s kind-heartedness and her spoiled snobbery, her desire to live her own life but her inability to cut herself off from the material perks her family provides. And it’s obvious that Ris and Ainsley are perfect for each other, but they can’t see beyond their f-w-b arrangement (which includes seeing other people and attending a sex party together). Toward the end of the book, things take a rather melancholy turn: Lurielle begins to contemplate the consequences an elf (who tend to live three centuries) being married to an orc (who have life spans similar to that of humans). Silva struggles to understand Tate, who seems to simultaneously love her and push her away. Only Ris, in her f-w-b with Ainsley, seems happy. And then…oh no’s, cliffhanger ending!! There will be a third Girls Weekend book. I enjoyed PARTIES and recommend it, but it’s definitely not a book that can be read as a standalone. Read GIRLS WEEKEND first, then PARTIES, then the third book whenever it arrives.
Skye Warren’s BEHIND CLOSED DOORS is a romantic-suspense novella that is part of her Rochester universe but with different MCs. The heroine runs a B&B in coastal Maine. She also has an Etsy store where she makes scrapbooks from the family mementos customers send her. Themes of home, building a home, and what it means to have a home thread through the book as the hero (a CIA operative working undercover) arrives looking for information about the heroine’s late father. Warren manages to pack quite a bit of suspense (not to mention sexytimes) into this brief story. It’s not quite as dark as much of Warren’s work and has a bright HEA. It’s also a quick read (I finished it in a few hours). Recommended.
Maisey Yates’s ONCE UPON A COWBOY is a prequel novella to her Four Corners Ranch series of cowboy romances set in a ranching community in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a quick and tropey read featuring a young woman who arrives at the ranch of a local single dad to work as a nanny/housekeeper. There’s a Beauty-and-the-Beast element too because the hero is gruff and grumpy and bears the scars of his military service. ONCE UPON A COWBOY is not breaking any new ground in contemporary cowboy romance, but it’s competently written with engaging characters. My only complaint is that the book’s shorter length made it difficult to get into much detail about the dynamics of the family or the development of the h&h’s romance, but I’m looking forward to the full-length romances in the series. Recommended.
Part 2
Jennifer Hartmann was one of my “discoveries” last year, when I read her STILL BEATING and THE WRONG HEART, both well-written, uber-angsty, melancholy, coincidence-dependent stories that really put her characters through the wringer and reminded me somewhat of Aly Martinez’s work. Hartmann’s latest, THE THORNS REMAIN (co-written with Chelley St. Clair), is an OTT but compulsively-readable book about the long-term and unanticipated consequences of seeking revenge when a man sets out to seduce the wife of the man his own wife was having an affair with. In fact, as I was reading the book, the old saying, “When you start out on a mission of revenge, dig two graves,” kept going through my head. Evan discovers his wife is having an affair with Ben, leading to the end of Evan’s marriage. He then pursues a plan of revenge by seducing Josie, Ben’s wife. Evan intends to inflict on Ben the pain he (Evan) felt in discovering his own wife’s infidelity. But Evan’s plans backfire when he starts catching feelings for Josie, his intended “victim.” I think it’s best to go into THE THORNS REMAIN expecting an operatic level of melodramatic sentiment: Evan’s emotional responses are outsized and driven by internal motivations that he never examines in too much detail before acting on them. I also think the book works best if you don’t expect a standard “romance” (although there is, ultimately, a hard-earned HEA), but prepare for some wild swings in tone and action. In addition, there are a couple of upsetting elements of the story that you may want to be prepared for:
Evan refers to his ex-wife’s decision to terminate a pregnancy (something he discovered post-fact) as “murdering his child.” There is a trace of “abortion = evil” in the storyline, at least as it applies to Evan’s mindset.
This isn’t the type of book I can read all the time, but an occasional trip to the supernal highs and heartbreaking lows of this kind of love story is a great palette-cleanser. I don’t think THE THORNS REMAIN is quite as well-written as the other books I’ve read by Hartmann, but if you’re looking for a throw-back to those sturm-und-drang women’s books of the 1980s, it would definitely be a good choice.
Cordelia Kingsbridge’s five-book Seven of Spades romantic-suspense series (KILL GAME, TRICK ROLLER, CASH PLAYS, ONE-EYED ROYALS, and A CHIP AND A CHAIR) follows the partnership (both professional and personal) of Levi, a Las Vegas homicide detective, and Dominic, a private investigator/bounty hunter/bartender, as they pursue a fiendishly-clever serial killer dubbed the Seven of Spades. Levi (a high-strung Krav Maga expert) and Dominic (a much more low-key Army veteran) begin the series as antagonists. Both are openly gay but their initial antipathy smothers their mutual attraction, until events involving the Seven of Spades serial killer allow each of them to see the other in a different light. (I think it’s best not to question the illogical reach and astonishing technical skill of the Seven of Spades and just let the story wash over you as you read. This is not a series for those who find it difficult to suspend disbelief.) The course of true love does not run smooth for Levi & Dominic, and their relationship temporarily fractures mid-way through the series due to unresolved issues on both their parts: Levi has a severe trauma in his past and also suffers from depression and anger-management issues (for which he is in therapy); Dominic is a compulsive gambler who had been in recovery for several years when he had a significant relapse. There’s a lot going on in these books: outside of the hunt for the serial killer, there are subplots involving gang warfare, insurance fraud, sex-trafficking, and a neo-nazi cult that has inflitrated many levels of law enforcement. Although Kingsbridge’s writing sometimes leans more toward “tell” than “show,” she knows how to choreograph an action scene in a way that makes it almost cinematic; and I give her credit for presenting an inclusive universe in a sub-genre that is often overwhelmingly white & cis. I was not completely shocked by the final reveal of the Seven of Spades’s identity, which I had narrowed down by the end of the fourth book, but I enjoyed the rather rocky journey of Levi & Dominic from antagonists to lovers. I recommend these books, but, needless to say, when a storyline features a serial killer and assorted other criminal elements, along with MCs who have deep-seated mental health issues, there are lots of triggers, so read (or not) accordingly.
Audiobooks are my way of getting out of reading slumps. I can put in my headphones and keep doing things, like taking a walk, laundry, errands, playing games on my tablet,etc. I even listen while I grocery shop (I have to have a good list and a familiar grocery store.) When I’m struggling with life, sometimes sitting down to read a print book doesn’t work.
I’ve recently been working my way through Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series on audio. They area great mental break, clever and often humorous.
Last night I finished Galaxies and Oceans by N.R. Walker on audio, narrated by Joel Leslie. It was excellent. In print I finished No Souvenirs by K.A.Mitchell. Both books are character driven stories with a lot of feels. Walker and Mitchell both are good at “show, don’t tell.” Both are m/m books.
Reading has been substantially slowed down this month by the amount of time I’ve spent in PowerPoint for work. Next weekend is a little vacation time so hopefully I’ll have some more time for reading!
Romance:
YOU’RE THE EARL THAT I WANT by Kelly Bowen: good: friends-to-lovers made sense, the woman the hero thought he should marry was never made a villain, good cameos from earlier characters in the series, and the pacing was decent for the historical suspense plot. Bad/not to my taste: the action in this one is not as justice-oriented as the first two in the series—there’s a slightly absurd bit with pro-Napoleon agents and medieval orders, as opposed to helping women out of abusive relationships or finding creative ways to make the rich pay their bills. I was also not fond of some of the heroine’s comments on British imperialism because the book overall has a more modern feel and yet those jarred me. I’m not a historical accuracy stickler, so seeing weird quasi-historical-but-not attitudes in main characters threw me.
THE WEDDING CRASHER by Mia Sosa: Another great contemporary from Mia Sosa! I liked the parallels and differences in Solange and Dean, and I thought the fake dating premise tracked with what I’ve heard of Big Law. Some minor pacing issues but nothing too bad. I enjoyed the DC setting as expected.
Non-romance:
THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD by Agatha Christie: the first Agatha Christie I’ve ever read—this was my partner’s pick for our next book to read at the same time. Very fun! Not sure when I’m likely to pick up another (or, frankly, where to go next), but I see the appeal (albeit, CW for casual 1920s British racism)
Up next:
Starting AFTER THE WEDDING by Courtney Milan today!
Anyone else ever get into a series and realize they may have over committed? I read the first book in Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series a while back and it was fine—big set up for an epic fantasy and a love triangle. I don’t enjoy love triangles (for heaven’s sake, just make a triad and give me hot MMF threesomes!), but it was fine. Picked up the second book, CROWN OF MIDNIGHT, and really like it—love triangle has been resolved, exploration of the Big Bad, good character development, etc. Maas kills off one character that I did not appreciate, but on the whole it’s great except it ends on a cliffhanger/big reveal about a character’s identity. So I got book three from the library and it is dragging. So I went to check to see how many books are in the series. Friends, the series is SEVEN books long. I would love to know what happens, but I can’t do seven books of pining, training montages, fights, and more bad guys. Also, Maas is super weird about bodies (rest assured, dear reader, that Caelena is always thin! Doesn’t matter if she’s been starving in a mine or serving as the king’s assassin and taking down bad guys left and right, she is thin, dear reader, she is thin!) and I’m over that.
Speaking of, cannot recommend Aubrey Gordon’s WHAT WE DON’T TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT FAT highly enough. You might know Gordon from her Maintenance Phase podcast or Your Fat Friend columns, and (unsurprisingly) this is her book on those topics. Gordon does a great job of reframing how we talk about fat, how cruel and dehumanizing it is, and how we can do better. Aside from folks interested in the topic, I actually think this will appeal to romance readers because, at its core, it’s about how we think of love and acceptance. Definitely recommend.
Other books in the mix this time around: T. Kingfisher’s THE SEVENTH BRIDE, which is more on the horror than romance end of her spectrum, although it does feature her hallmark of people working together to make the best of some bad circumstances (in this case, the seven brides of an evil dude). Solid in the female friendship vein, if not the romance one.
Also read Rose Lerner’s SWEET DISORDER which I liked. Lerner is a very capable writer, but this one didn’t totally gel for me. Like all the pieces are there and it should work, but it needs one more round of tightening?
Up next: Stephanie Burgis’s SCALES AND SENSIBILITY. Who doesn’t love a Regency with nasty relatives, deception, and pet dragons?
Hey, Bitches! I’ve got nothing to recommend this weekend. I made some attempts with some free books on Kindle, but honestly was too tired to dig into my TBR pile (which is actually quite impressive, dare I say glorious?). Hoping to do some yard work and reward myself with some books I’ve been saving. In the meantime, looking forward to checking out your recs and hope everyone is well!
I’m working my way through the Orphan X series by Gregg Hurwitz. Up next is THE NOWHERE MAN.
There are several more books waiting on my TBR pile, including ROCK HARD by Nalini Singh; A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING by Deanna Raybourn; and the RAKE I’D LIKE TO F… anthology.
I’m also hoping to watch some movies this weekend. Maybe THE ADAM PROJECT on Netflix. I’ve seen a lot of good reviews/comments about that one.
I was up at 5am this morning because my dog apparently got sick during the night and crapped all over the place. Poor girl is resting now. AO3 hit the spot with some good one-shots while she was getting her snuggles.
Audio has not been working for me lately. A couple of DNF when the story bogged down and I found myself not paying attention. One DNF was Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey and this one just irritated me. The heroine is dumped by her user boyfriend and all her friends are like he sucked, you were a doormat for him etc. But part of the plot is these same friends walking all over her objections to doing things she’s not comfortable with in an effort to expand her horizons. So she’s still a doormat and doing things because others want her too. If this book was a physical copy, it would have been thrown a few times.
I still have 14 books that I’m currently reading according to Goodreads and the only one really clicking is Thrawn Ascendancy Chaos Rising by Timothy Zahn. It’s a reread but I’m catching details I missed the first time around.
Next is Go Hex Yourself by Jessica Clare.
I loved LEGENDS & LATTES by Travis Baldree; the simple, hopeful story of a female orc and her determination to build a new life/business was exactly what I needed.
T. L. Huchu’s THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD, the first in the Edinburgh Nights series, was awesome and refreshing. Ropa is trying to hold her small family together in a post-apocalyptic Edinburgh using her skill as a ghost talker. Her Zimbabwean grandmother is the family’s backbone and heart, such a great character. Ropa has been asked by a ghost to learn more about what’s really going on in her city and why children are disappearing. Highly recommended.
HONEYTRAP by Aster Glenn Gray combined Cold War agents–one Russian and one American–to quietly find out who took a shot at Khrushchev’s train during his visit to the US. While the atmosphere was great, the story is about a relationship that cannot be built on trust, but absolutely must be. The book spans years and really captures the tension prevalent at the time between two countries and these two men. Sweet, sad, hopeful all at the same time. Another highly recommended.
The Liaden space opera series by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee has long been in my TBR. The recommendation was to start with AGENT OF CHANGE, number nine in this universe. I wasn’t lost exactly, but this was a real example of show-don’t-tell. So much backstory I didn’t have about a ruthless Agent of Change and an ex-mercenary meant I read carefully. Ultimately I enjoyed it and am curious now to find out how Val Con, our hero, went from being a respected First-in Scout to a killer.
Finally read the first three of Annika Martin’s Billionaire series and THE HOSTAGE BARGAIN. Lots of fun between the covers in all, I will read more about the billionaires because they were the perfect escape.
I pulled A Bride for the Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath out of my TBR pile and it hit the spot. I’ve been glomming Coldbreath’s backlist with pleasure. This one is a Victorian historical, with another one in the same series (more to come, I think). Most of her backlist is set in a fantasy medieval-type kingdom, but there’s no prominent magic or creatures—I think this is just so no one has to worry about historical accuracy. They’re all so far marriage-of-convenience (different set-ups) with caring alphas and heroines I can root for, all of which is apparently exactly what I need right now.
I’m re-reading the Castles Ever After series by Tessa Dare. (And currently reading Say Yes To the Marquess for the very first time.) I loved Romancing the Duke even more the second time around.
This series is exactly what my brain needed, since most of the titles I’ve read so far this year have been 3 star reads.
I started Skye Warren’s AUDITION, but set it aside. She’s a ballet dancer. So much catnip you’d think that would keep me invested, but no. I started THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, but set it aside. It isn’t engaging me the way the first Mercenary Librarians book did.
Then I just gave in and fished NETWORK EFFORT from the bedside pile. I’ve been ignoring it. I did’t want to read it. There aren’t any more books after this one. I don’t know how I feel about saying goodbye to my soul mate for the unforeseeable future. I wasn’t quite sure at the beginning. I thought SecUnit’s voice was a little off, but that didn’t last long and now he’s joining forces with ART to kick some ass. You don’t mess with a Murderbot’s friends. Goodwill Librarian posited the scenario on her Facebook page of having your wedding planned by the characters in the book you are currently reading, and I realized I would be totally at happy with anything SecUnit and ART came up with.
After I finish the previously mentioned set asides there is quite the attractive selection of library chicken books on the bedside pile. Can I finish Nalini Singh’s QUIET IN HER BONES, Kelley Armstrong’s A STRANGER IN TOWN, and Jayne Castle/JAK’s GUILD BOSS in the next two weeks? I’m supposed to be painting the two walls I had repaired a couple weeks ago. I’ve been waiting for good enough weather to work with the windows open. The sun is out and predicted to stay out, and it’s supposed to be 80 degrees (and it’s already almost 70). Do I paint or answer the siren call of my lounger from the patio? I suppose if I finish this post and get started I could do both.
What to do? What to do?
I have read a ton! I am burning up the rubber in KU. Still doing a lot of Harlequin Presents, am refining and making a list of favorite authors, definitely down the Sheikh/billionaire rabbit hole and loving what Caitlin Crews, Jackie Ashenden, Lynne Graham, etc., do with the emotional work, too.
In this line, I read Return of the Outback Billionaire by Kelly Hunter from a WYR recommendation and really liked it. The billionaire has been in prison for killing a man who was stalking the heroine. And, yes, I believe the young woman’s testimony would have been discounted. Now he is back and trying to reintegrate in to society. She has been a virtual recluse due to trauma. Their correspondence helped them both and now they are tentatively working toward a relationship. And there is a deep dark secret.
I have also drifted into vintage romance. Lucy Walker’s outback series set in the 1950s. I remember reading some of them as a teen and still love them. Very laid back, very simmer under the surface. Young woman and older strong silent type, not much kissing and no sex on page. Sweet and Faraway is the most recent one I read and I enjoyed it a lot.
Vintage nurse romance, also, with Lucilla Andrews. Young nurses with house officers or consultants in London hospitals in the 1950s. Also a lot of hidden simmer and very little physical contact. Enjoying these, also, and wishing they were in paperback so I could give them to my mom who graduated nursing school in 1949. I just finished The Long Voyage which is set on a cruise ship and enjoyed it a lot.
At Wit’s End by Kenzie Reed about enemies forced into a marriage of convenience to end a feud, contemporary, funny, really helped me understand that I really do not enjoy most humorous romances. The characters are unappealing or too quirky, the situations are often obviously a set-up. So, although I did not enjoy it much, I am glad I read it because I learned more about myself.
I’m reading Lie for a Lie by Helena Hunting which was recommended in a YouTube video (lots of videos featuring book recs by troupe.). My Amazon wish grew a lot watching various videos.. but did find quite a few titles in Kindle Unlimited.This is a one night stand rec. it is also a sports romance which is a series (all in KU)
Struggling to connect with any new books. Finished a couple that were due back at the library:
My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand et al – mostly enjoyed the humor and friendships, beware some intense potentially triggering parts. I didn’t know much details about the historical events it’s based on and hoo boy, medieval court politics is gross. The humor helps but still. There is a sweet romance.
A Spindle Splintered by Alix Harrow – it lives up to the blurb of spiderverse with princesses. The paper edition has lots of classic Grimm fairy tale illustrations in black and white, the effect is quite spooky. Not a romance, mostly about the heroine’s journey to save herself, though there is a romantic subplot for another character. I liked this spin on the story and the hopeful ending. And it’s short, big plus for my attention span these days.
Trying again The Ten Thousand Doors of January, so far it’s a lot of sad backstory, might try skipping ahead to see if it picks up. It might just be Not For Me.
Anthologies – The Book of Magic and the Book of Swords, recent fantasy short stories edited by Gardner Dozois. So far enjoyed a Robin Hobb story, looking forward to trying the Kate Elliott and some other big names.
STUCK WITH YOU by Ali Hazelwood, narrated by Meg Sylvan – [A-] – I really enjoyed this audiobook. Environmentally-conscious engineer gets stuck in an elevator with the one night stand she had ghosted. Like its predecessor (Under One Roof), this novella is 50% tropey set-up and 50% sex scene…or at least that’s what it felt like to my ears. Hazelwood’s strengths are her cinnamon roll heroes, her supportive female friendships, and awkward pining; her weaknesses are her judgmental heroines and a certain lack of variety in her characters/plots.
THE HEIR APPARENT’S REJECTED MATE by Cate C. Wells – [B+] – The romance wasn’t as good as the first book in the series, but Wells’ worldbuilding is stellar and I look forward to learning more about the history of the five packs in book 3. Except for the obsession with rank and the hero’s rejection of the heroine resulting from his devotion to duty, almost everything here is the opposite of The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate. Thematically, this is very similar to Wells’s Hitting the Wall (hero essentially brainwashed by his family begins to see the error of their ways through the heroine’s eyes).
THE PARTY CRASHER by Sophie Kinsella – [B] – Romance-adjacent rather than romance. Alienated from her father by his new girlfriend, the heroine sneaks back into her family home during a “house cooling” party to reclaim some symbolically significant Russian nesting dolls and overhears various conversations that re-order her world. I just love the dynamics of eavesdropping: the spying aspect is so powerful, but the inability to respond is not.
FALLING STARS by Sara Madderson – [B] – This is apparently inspired by Taylor Swift/Tom Hiddleston, except the heroine’s an actress not a singer and she and the recovering addict hero who dumped her via a tweet are now starring in a Bridgerton-esque miniseries.
THE RHYTHM METHOD by Kylie Scott – [B-] – A novella in the Stage Dive series, dealing with the characters from Lick having their first child. I had trouble getting past the heroine giving birth without having known she was pregnant, and I think the book needed to be twice as long to deal with the hero’s response.
IN A NEW YORK MINUTE by Kate Spencer – [C+]- Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with this book. The main characters and their romance were bland. (The lesbian side characters, on the other hand, were awesome.)
THE NO-SHOW by Beth O’Leary – [C] – I’m convinced the cover art and descriptive copy are part of a deliberate campaign of misdirection, and it was a bad marketing choice. The book’s topics are too weighty to bait-and-switch the reader like that. In fact, the whole “romantic whodunit” premise is a bad match for the actual story. There’s no room for the reader to enjoy being clever here when everyone is so miserable. Inappropriate marketing aside, I just didn’t like the male protagonist enough for the story to work. (Still loving the clever spoiler on the front cover, though.)
I’ve had four 4-star books in the last two weeks, all very different in tone.
D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins is a fun FF romance set in a reality TV show world where two woman (one Black, one AfroLatina) meet and fall in love over the 6 weeks of the show. It was only my desire for a little more about the other contestants that knocked it down to four stars. (TW for a scene with colorism and homophobia).
Gouda Friends by Cathy Yardley is a cheesy friends-to-lovers romance (cheesy because the heroine loves cheese and there are many, many cheese puns). There is a gaslighting ex, nasty bosses, and a predatory gold digger for the hero and heroine to deal with. There is a strong vibe of O’ Henry’s “Gift of the Magi” in the happy ending.
The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters Balli Kaur Jaswal is not a romance but the story of three very different Sikh sisters traveling to India to fulfill their mother’s dying wishes. Besides the grief at their mother’s recent death, each is dealing with serious problems with their families or careers that they are unable or unwilling to share with their sisters.
They Do It With Mirrors by Agatha Christie was a reread of an old favorite. I’ve always been a fan of the Miss Marple books, and this is a good post-war example. This is a mystery, but as with many Miss Marple books, there are romantic elements on the side. In this case, it is a young couple who married quickly during the war and have to discover if they are really compatible.
A few of the books I’ve loved recently:
– Double Vision by Elizabeth Hunter, a new paranormal women’s fiction series set in Palm Springs. Her pwf books feature smart, mature women in their 40’s and 50’s who suddenly develop psychic powers and have to figure out how to deal with them. In this one, the MC, a 50+, high powered real estate agent who recently suffered a heart attack, goes to a new listing, discovers a dead body, and that she can now see and talk to his, as well as other, ghosts. The Palm Springs setting was perfect, both glamorous and hippy dippy and she finds friendship and romance along the way.
– Life’s Too Short for White Walls by Liz Flaherty, an underrated romance writer who used to publish through Harlequin and writes emotional and heartfelt stories. This one also features older characters starting a new chapter in their lives.
– The Wedding Crasher by Mia Sosa was a fun and flirty fake dating romance with serious undertones, and I loved that both partners had a fairly equal amount of growing to do before they could truly commit to a relationship. I also loved that they were up front about their arrangement to the people who were important to them rather than trying to hide it from everyone.
– The Folk Haven series by Lauren Connolly (first book, Seduced by a Selkie), is set in a small lakefront GA town settled by mythics, where they can live under the radar and have relatively normal lives. The first couple of books feature a family of selkies finding their fated mates and have adorable, cinnamon roll heroes and strong heroines.
– Tanked by Mia Hopkins, and releasing this coming Tuesday, is the first romance I’ve read where Covid is fully integrated into the book’s narrative. It’s the final book in a trilogy following three Latinx brothers in East LA. The first two books (Trashed and Thirsty) were written pre-pandemic and featured the two older brothers, former gang members and ex-cons who open a brewery and meet their life partners. This book features the youngest brother, and fully acknowledges Covid’s effect on businesses and people in marginalized communities. The two MCs had a one night stand 3 years ago, then she ghosted him for personal reasons. They run into each other again at a vaccination clinic hosted by the job re-entry program she works at (she’s a social worker). The book is very steamy and heartfelt and I highly recommend it.
I haven’t read much of interest during the last fortnight, but as ever, I’m enjoying everyone else’s notes!
I just re-read the entire Bedwyn saga because it’s been, oh, five years? And I needed that family dynamic along with Balogh’s lovely character building. Now I’m reading a Regency: “Lady Margaret’s Mystery Gentleman”. The heroine has just figured out who this mystery gentleman is and we’re only a quarter of the way through the book, so onto the next mystery plot point. . . .
I read Mary Lancaster’s Pleasure Garden series, I continue to find her plots creative and characters interesting. This series has at its center a down-market Vauxhall and includes a married woman abandoned on the night of her wedding; a young woman who hides a young man escaped from Newgate (humor involving young siblings and large puppy tucked into in this one); widow being harassed by her husband’s family to give up her son; and a case of found and mistaken identity.
Cecelia Burke’s series Devil You Know was next, following a recommendation here. I consider How to Love a Duke in Ten Days the best of the three. The second book veered into melodrama and the intimacy went on and on. At one point I wondered to myself if the series was written early in Mary Lancaster’s career…then I realized that wasn’t reading Mary Lancaster. I miss seeing the author’s name on each page as with written books.
I wandered into a short mystery series, beginning with Murder on Port Meadow. The stories and character development were excellent, but publisher, please – a book cannot simultaneously be a cozy British mystery and a Crime Thriller. I didn’t find them to be cosy or thrillers, but good solid mysteries with development of the relationship among recurring characters. Strong female friendships and a love interest, all following adoption of a large dog. The main character had serious family trauma and it was a pleasure to watch her incrementally reclaim her life through the series.
Another series which begins with Murder at Wedgewood Manor was interesting in part due to its setting following WWI. It begins in Egypt, moves to England, and the third book, not out yet, is on a ship traveling from England to the United States. The series character is American and it is always interesting to me when people from different countries are placed in a country none are native to. For this reason, my preference is for the book set in Egypt.
Yesterday I began and am enjoying a contemporary, Consider Me by Becka Mac. Ice Hockey!
Week by week ~
— A Peculiar Combination: An Electra McDonnell Novel by Ashley Weaver; this was an enjoyable mystery featuring a safe cracker set in world war two England. It also happens to be on sale for $2.99 for US Kindle readers.
— enjoyed the historical romance Someone Perfect (The Westcott Series Book 9) by Mary Balogh.
— reread Quarter Share Book 1 of 6: Trader’s Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper by Nathan Lowell which I enjoyed once again. One of the nice things about this space opera series is that it does not include battles; rather it’s about day to day life on board a trading ship.
— read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and was one-more-chaptering until I finished the book at midnight. I very much enjoyed it (well, excerpt for the parts that made me sad). I received my PhD in Chemistry in the latter eighties, and the book reminded me of how grateful I need to be for women of earlier decades who fought battles that I did not. There is a very good review at Dear Author.
— Rescue You (Dogwood County Book 1) by Elysia Whisler was a very enjoyable contemporary novel featuring two romances. Much of the story centers around a dog rescue so fair warning that abuse to dogs features in the story.
— enjoyed the contemporary male/male romance, When All the World Sleeps by J.A. Rock and Lisa Henry, which had a lot of dark moments. One of the characters had murdered someone in his sleep.
— reread with pleasure Transcendence and the companion work Luffs both by Shay Savage. These have a young woman who travels from the present day to a prehistoric time.
— enjoyed the male/male fantasy Winter of the Owl by Iris Foxglove, and would happily read more by the author.
— continued my Doyle/Acton reread with Murder in Material Gain and Murder in Immunity both by Anne Cleeland.
— Scales and Sensibility (Regency Dragons Book 1) by Stephanie Burgis was an entertaining regency era romantic fantasy. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.
— enjoyed the lighthearted science fiction novel The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi; it’s my first book by this author and I would happily read more.
— an enjoyable alternate universe romance, The UnTied Kingdom by Kate Johnson. Interestingly, I see that the book has been rewritten and re-released with a new cover. Now I can’t help but wonder how my version differs
Finished AJ Demas’ Sword Dance Trilogy with STRONG WINE. Overall, I enjoyed this series (m/m in an alternate ancient-Greece-ish universe). I liked the overarching plot, the bit of mystery and how the MCs talked about their fears and misunderstandings, so that no Big Misunderstanding could happen. I would just have liked to see the two of them be together a bit more overall, without all the stuff that was coming between them.
PEOPLE LIKE US and A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE by Ruby Moone – m/m Regency. I’ve read most of Moone’s historicals, some novellas, some novels and she knows how to put all the feels into them and then some. Hurt/comfort is also a regular feature. I liked these two as well, which are both in her Winsford Green series (they’re perfectly fine if read on their own though). Liked them especially for all the feels, even if one of the MCs in People Like Us was a bit too insistent in not believing that he had something good that could last… If there’s one thing to say, these books are set in the “real” world, where m/m sex was punishable, but they all end up in Winsford Green which has, if you want to quibble about that, a few too many queer and understanding inhabitants – feels a little fairy tale-ish at the end. But it was what I needed, with work being difficult and demanding.
JILTED JAREN by Nora Phoenix – bought upon recommendation in comments here. Lovely, definitely ALLLLL the feels, made me blubber a few times. I was waiting for the big misunderstanding/conflict which didn’t come – which I was glad for. I will skip the next two books though I think… Hadley’s book has the billionaire-and-his-PA trope (billionaires are so NOT my thing) and Lagan’s is a professor-student thing, plus by the sound of the blurb, some (daddy?) kink. Not feeling that either.
For all those who have been raving about Tal Bauer’s You and Me… I can recommend JOCK by him, which is super cute as well. I don’t like all of Bauer’s books and some I know I won’t get, but Jock was one of my discoveries last year that I really liked. The follow-up, Quarterback, not so much for various reasons. He also does a lot of thrillers, I read two of those, Murder Between Us had a great love story (and a fantastic start of it especially), but the thriller and the MCs almost being killed nearly let me nope out. And I refuse to read the sequel after reading the blurb. I don’t want these two characters in more danger… Never Stay Gone – again, loved the love story, the thriller part – a lot less. So my mileage varies with Bauer. But I will get You & Me, but I’m pacing myself as I have a business trip with lots of long flights coming up!
In non-romance reading… finished THE HABSBURGS by Martyn Rady in my on-going history neard reading. Very good, but definitely focused on the political side and less on the interesting characters of the various emperors and their families. Don’t read this if that’s what interests your. Also slightly prone to dismissing some less important characters too quickly with inaccurate remarks (see archduke Ludwig Viktor – his comments on him were definitely off, yes, he was gay, but neither was he serial cross-dresser nor was he imprisoned because he was gay). The last few chapters starting with the revolutions of 1848 are super interesting though, because what happened then had so much influence on all that happened in the 20th century in that region. Especially 1848 – I had no idea!
DAS KUNSTEIDENE MÄDCHEN by Irmgard Keun – this is a German classic I guess. Written in 1931 in ferst-person POV about a young woman from working class background who wants to make it big in Berlin and become a star. Very unusual writing style, but funny, interesting and heart-breaking. Keun came from a better-off background but clearly knew what she was writing about and had probably met enough young women like her protagonist Doris. Highly recommendable, though I doubt it would work in translation, as it is written in such a unique way.
I went into Beth O’Leary’s THE NO-SHOW knowing the main premise, and I’m so glad I did. Knowing the hero’s back story let me appreciate his heart and messiness throughout and really made the story work for me. I could appreciate how Beth O’Leary set it all up without being mad at her for the authorial manipulation, which is something I hate. Thank god for people who are willing to spoil in their reviews! I really enjoyed the story, and knowing what was going on and what had happened made it a truly rich story for me without feeling like I had to read it twice.
I loved Penny Reid’s TEN TRENDS TO SEDUCE YOUR BEST FRIEND. I don’t get these challenges because I don’t get the attraction of watching these things, but I loved the interactions between the characters and watching Win fall for Byron. I loved seeing Byron get what he wanted.
I just fell into Abby Jimenez’s PART OF YOUR WORLD with that wonderful warm-bath feeling where you feel you’re in good authorial hands from the start. Loving it so far. About a third the way through.
Other recent reads:
• Denise Williams’s THE LOVE CONNECTION. I like the way she sets up connections between people and deepens them. She’s already become a autobuy.
• Mazey Eddings’s A BRUSH WITH LOVE, which I liked though the H was maybe a little too perfect and the h a little too intensely messed up to believe in the novel’s timeframe, but I guess that’s a gimmee, because I did believe they could make it work eventually.
• Sarah Lotz’s THE IMPOSSIBLE US was pretty great, too. Very real-feeling characters in an impossible situation. I believed in them and their SF situation, though maybe not that it was resolvable, boy I loved the alternate world where Trump never happened. Damn.
• Also dependably loved Sarina Bowen’s SHENANIGANS. Her books are reliably warming and a pleasure to read though in my non-reading life I have zero interest in sports.
• Also enjoyed Mia Sosa’s THE WEDDING CRASHER. I know some people here have a mixed experience with her books, but I’ve enjoyed both of the two recent ones.
And…I’m actually supposed to be writing my own work and not reviews right now, but thanks everyone for taking the time to share your comments. I love reading these!
Just finished Penny Reid’s TEN TRENDS TO SEDUCE YOUR BEST FRIEND and thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoy a slow burn romance and Penny Reid always has interesting characters and plots. It did get a little wordy and draggy in a few spots but overall a 5 star read
Right before I read MAGNOLIA INN by Anne-Marie Meyer, a new author for me. In contrast to Reid’s book, characters were not fully formed and although the plot had promise, it wasn’t well written with a lot of repetition of phrases and descriptions. It wasn’t bad ( 3 star for me) but it made me really appreciate Penny Reid’s skilled story telling so much more.
And finally, did some catching up on 3 Sarina Bowen books… SHENANIGANS, WAYLAID and BOYFRIEND. All 3 were excellent but like with Reid, I find Bowen’s world building, characters and story lines all well done. Clearly I have a type of author I like!
“A Gentleman Never Keeps Score” by Cat Sebastian: Hartley Sedgwick’s godfather left him all the money he needed to become a proper gentleman, but he’s left adrift when a scandal ostracizes him from polite society. Sam Fox, a pub owner and former boxer, resolves to help his friend Kate by stealing a scandalous portrait of her — that was was owned by Hartley’s godfather. Cat Sebastian does a great job with romances where the leads start out with completely different priorities (Sam hates polite society, Hartley can’t imagine what his life looks like outside of it). This book has a similar premise and romantic dynamic to “The Queer Principles of Kit Webb,” and while that’s definitely superior as a novel — Sebastian’s writing of plot and secondary characters has improved — this was very good.
“The Unbinding of Mary Reade” by Miriam McNamara: Okay, I read this because I watched and loved “Our Flag Means Death” on HBO and went looking for F/F pirate romances. I was intrigued by this one because it’s based (very loosely, it turns out) on the lives of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, both of whom sailed as pirates while disguised as men.
This book is definitely not the torrid pirate romance I was looking for and is more of a coming-of-age borderline-YA novel. In this version, Mary Reade has been dressing as a boy since childhood to protect herself and her mother. Now working as a sailor, she’s hoping to make it to Nassau to reunite with her best friend and crush Nat, a boy who has no idea Mark is actually Mary. When Mary falls in with a crew of pirates, she’s shocked to see a woman serving openly: the captain’s lover, Anne Bonny. As she gets closer to Anne, Mary finds herself at risk of both having her secret exposed and being the target of the captain’s jealousy. This isn’t what I was looking to read and it doesn’t fully work — Anne is a poorly developed character, the romance isn’t very compelling, and the characters do hardly any actual piracy. I enjoyed the parts of the story that were about Mary triumphing over a narrow gender and class system but felt there was a lot of lost potential overall.
“Where the Wild Ladies Are” by Aoko Matsuda (translated by Polly Barton): A collection of story stories featuring modern takes on Japanese folklore and ghost stories. I really enjoyed this; a quick read, funny, and memorably strange.
“Evil Under the Sun” by Agatha Christie: Another enjoyable Poirot mystery with a great twist ending. It must be noted that Agatha was REALLY not a feminist and it definitely shows in this one.
@Deborah – “THE NO-SHOW by Beth O’Leary – [C] – I’m convinced the cover art and descriptive copy are part of a deliberate campaign of misdirection . . .” I agree, but it seems to have been a successful marketing choice* that’s taking advantage of Romance’s trend toward trade paperbacks with homogeneous covers. It’s getting a lot of positive reviews a la Nicholas Sparks. The publisher and retailers are calling it a romance and no one’s pushing back.
*I’m very bitter about this. I’ve been hoping the book tanks but I don’t think it will. I suspect we’ll seem more and more misdirection.
I’m finally getting to Stieg Larsen’s Millennium Trilogy and it’s making me sad I waited so long! They are excellent, although the romance is the definition of slow burn and is going nowhere fast.
This week: read “Pulp” by Robin Talley, “Burn For Me” and “White Hot” by Ilona Andrews, and some manga – “She and Her Cat” and “Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen” 1-3.
Still eating leftover lamb from Easter. At least this year we didn’t wind up with both a large Easter lamb and a large Easter ham, which happened once.
Reading (well into) the ARC of Nalingi Singh’s STORM ECHO. Strongly recommended re-read: Allegiance of Honor. Previous book in series that this one most reminds me of: Alpha Night. This one is set mostly in San Francisco – our couple consists of Silver Mercant’s cousin Ivan, and a changeling he hasn’t been able to get out of his head for a year and a half.
:::walks in to the song from The Owl House:::
We’ve been watching it in my house like it is our job. My 15 yo is OBSESSED.
Well, let’s see. I started things off this round with The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis, which is, I kid you not, a YA retelling of Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”. It involves two former friends, and after the mysterious disappearance of one of the girl’s parents, she kidnaps and holds her former bestie prisoner to question her about it. There’s also a Tiger King type roadside zoo, chapters told from the perspective of the panther that escapes from it in free verse, a mysterious virus that strikes all of the goers at a party, an orangutan, and basically, if you remember any of the weird shit from Poe’s stories, quite a lot of it is in there. It was bonkers. So bonkers. Then I read The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James and it was amazing. I loved the story being told in alternate timelines and the conceit of the heroine being a true crime blogger as a way of dealing with her own trauma, as well as the complicated, unapologetically bitchy maybe-killer that agrees to become the subject of her writing. Also, murderous ghosts. It had a lot of balls to keep in the air, and it worked. Now I’m reading a book that I’m pretty sure that I’m going to quit on, not because it’s bad, but it’s just not where my head is at. So until next time, I’m probably playing Lego Skywalker Saga until my brain accepts something (I started off Prequel Trilogy, and have just started Original Trilogy, so it shouldn’t take long).
I’m partway into C.S.E. Cooney’s Dark Breakers. It’s absolutely gorgeous prose about three interconnected worlds all meeting in one house in alt-universe Gilded Age Newport RI. Not sure yet if these stories count as romance in the love sense, but the whole arc is full of romance in another. This is the kind of book you read by firelight with a glass of wine in hand.
@Maeve– that sounds familiar. Is that another book in the same universe (and house) as the same author’s Desdemona & the Deep? Really enjoyed Desdemona and have been hoping for more in the same world.
@Merle: Yes it is!
@Vicki, when you mentioned vintage nurse romance it really took me back to the 1980’s. I used to share a summer beach house with a couple of nurses, and one of their favorite things was to pick up old nurse romances at yard sales and thrift stores, and read them out loud, laughing hysterically at how unrealistic they were, medically and otherwise. It was pre-internet, and I don’t think there wasn’t even a TV in the house, so that was one of our primary forms of entertainment.
This month I read THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS, and it was wonderful in every way. Fake relationship ahoy! I loved it. I guess I’ll be checking out Ali Hazelwood’s backlist. Then a sci-fi trilogy called Combined Operations by Dorothy Grant. I liked the first one, GOING BALLISTIC, but by the time I got to the last one, A PERFECT DAY WITH EXPLOSIONS, I was getting vibes about the author’s politics that I didn’t like. It’s supposed to be sometime in the future, yet people are still using oil as an energy source, and fighting wars over it? Plus gender relations seemed to be stuck somewhere back in the 20th century. TW for extreme violence to the heroine in A PERFECT DAY. Really there was not much sci-fi there, it was romantic suspense transposed to a different planet. I also read HUNT THE STARS by Jessie Mihalik, which was much better sci-fi. And as others have noted, it had great explicit consent. Kind of a Firefly plot, with the heroine captaining a motley crew on her rundown spaceship for hire.
On the historical side, I read IN BED WITH A SPY by Alyssa Alexander. It was very suspenseful, the heroine was fierce and wielded a mean sword. It’s part of the SPY IN THE TON series, all 4 of which I enjoyed, although I read them out of order.
I stumbled upon Joyce Harman, who has a series of traditional closed door Regencies, starting with A FEATHER TO FLY WITH. It was funny and an absolute delight. The heroine comes from a family of con artists. It’s a found family, only one of them is actually related to her by blood. They have a slightly illegal scheme to make their fortune, and everyone has a role to play, even her 10 year old brother. The hero is a beta Duke, who is only interested in his scientific endeavors and is somewhat socially inept. There are 4 more books in the series, and so far I’ve only gotten to the second one, REGENCY ROAD TRIP. It was also a fun read, and if you’re looking for older protagonists, the H and h were both pushing 60. The series is on KU.
@MaryK re: The No-Show – I was initially surprised to hear that. I would have expected a more negative response, since I don’t think the tone of the book would be a welcome surprise to anyone expecting something frothier. But then I remembered that this is O’Leary’s fourth (?) book, and The Road Trip (the only other book of hers I’ve read) offered a similar trajectory of fun premise followed by weighty subject matter. So perhaps fewer people are being misled than I thought. Her fanbase is going to know from the start that the contents won’t match the tin.