-
Real Men Knit
RECOMMENDED: Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson is $2.99! Shana and Carrie jointly reviewed this one and gave it a B:
This is a character-focused book and is all about the romance between Jesse and Kerry, as well as the importance of family, friendship, and community. Also there’s a lot of knitting.
When their foster-turned-adoptive mother suddenly dies, four brothers struggle to keep open the doors of her beloved Harlem knitting shop.
Jesse Strong is known for two things: his devotion to his adoptive mom, Mama Joy, and his reputation for breaking hearts. When Mama Joy unexpectedly passes away, he and his brothers have different plans for what to do with Strong Knits, their neighborhood knitting store. Jesse wants to keep the store open. His brothers want to tie off loose ends and close shop….
Part-time shop employee Kerry Fuller has kept her crush on Jesse a secret. When she overhears his impassioned plea to his brothers to keep the knitting shop open, she volunteers to help. Unlike Jesse, Kerry knows the “knitty-gritty” of the business, and together they make plans to reinvent Strong Knits for a new generation.
But the more time they spend together, the stronger the chemistry builds between them. Kerry, knowing Jesse’s history, doesn’t believe their relationship can last longer than she can knit one, purl two. But Jesse is determined to prove to her that he can be the man for her forever and always. After all, real men knit.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
The Wee Free Men
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett is $1.99! I feel like Pratchett is some choice reading right about now. What do you think? This is book thirty (yes, thirty!) in the Discworld series, but it’s the first book in the Tiffany Aching spinoff.
A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality . . .
Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men.
Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself. . . .
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
Find on Scribd →This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Miss Wonderful
Miss Wonderful by Loretta Chase is $1.99! This is the first book in the Carsington Brothers series, which I know is beloved here. Which book in the series is your favorite? Do you think they hold up?
Alistair Carsington really wishes he didn’t love women quite so much. To escape his worst impulses, he sets out for a place far from civilization: Derbyshire – in winter!
Once there, he hopes to avoid all temptation, and repay the friend who saved his life on the fields of Waterloo. But this noble aim drops him straight into opposition with Miss Mirabel Oldridge, a woman every bit as intelligent, obstinate, and devious as he – and maddeningly irresistible.
Mirabel Oldridge already has her hands full keeping her brilliant and aggravatingly eccentric father out of trouble.
The last thing she needs is a stunningly attractive and overbright aristocrat reminding her she has a heart – not to mention a body he claims is so stylishly clothed that undressing her is practically a civic duty.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Hot and Badgered
Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston is $1.99 and a Kindle Daily Deal! This is the first book in the Honey Badger Chronicles. Sarah read this one and gave it a B grade:
Among my favorite things about Laurenston’s writing is how very affirming and inspiring and a whole lot of fun it is, because angry, fearless women make room for themselves, they get shit done, and they’re the heroines. More honey badgers, please.
It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late.
Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!
Don't want to miss an ebook sale? Sign up for our newsletter, and you'll get the week's available deals each Friday.
The Wee Free Men was actually my first Pratchett, and while I was occasionally aware there was an in-joke I wasn’t getting, I wasn’t at all lost. I’m actually glad I started at Book 30(!!!) because I subsequently read Book 1, didn’t like it at all, and never would have read another if that had been my first impression, which would have been a shame because I quite like Tiffany, Death, and Granny Weatherwax.
You can definitely start at Wee Free Men without any of the other Discworld books. It’s a standalone sub-series if that makes sense. Set in the same universe but with a brand new protagonist and storyline.
Pratchett improved his craft a lot over the years. I wouldn’t recommend book 1 as a starting point, more like background reading for completists.
Also, that ebook cover is not the best. There are no wee free men on it! or witches! Here is a better visual https://www.discworldemporium.com/posters-prints/712-the-chalk-print
Sacred Sins by Nora Roberts, originally published in 1987, is an old favorite that still sits on my shelf. It’s on sale for $1.99 for US Kindle readers.
I just got the Pratchett. I’ve been wondering where to start with the Discworld books, so thanks for the help! And here’s a vote for the Chase. I haven’t reread it recently, but now I think I will. One thing I do remember distinctly is that there’s a lot of running humor about the heroine’s really terrible taste in clothes. She’s always picking the most unflattering possible colors of cuts. Of course the hero is a finicky dandy who learns to see her poor choices as an endearing quirk. It helps that she doesn’t have a trace of shame about any of it and also doesn’t notice that her true love is a snappy dresser until someone points it out to her at the end of the novel. I don’t think I’m explaining it very well, and there are serious elements of the plot having to do with PTSD (his) and transportation. But I really love this whole series partly because I find all of the books very funny.
OMG, the audio version of TWFM is an absolute delight. This was my introduction to Pratchett as well, was unimpressed by TCoM, and I went on to devour every Tiffany book.
Another vote for WEE FREE MEN (Crivens!)
I liked the hero and heroine in MISS WONDERFUL but found the villain very one-note and the resolution between the hero and his best friend insufficient (owing to best friend’s relationship with the villain.) I haven’t read a lot of Chase’s book, but I do find her a bit odd when it comes to male friendships.
@Laura George (and anyone else wanting to get into Discworld) – Wee Free Men is a good place to start if you’re new to Pratchett but for the wider Discworld series, there are some good reading order suggestion lists and diagrams out there if you do some googling. As Lena/Ren said, starting with the actual first book is NOT generally recommended, the first couple are by far the weakest.
Discworld is more like a universe than a series really – everything’s set in the same world and there’s some overlaps and some chronology to it but most of it can stand on its own reasonably well. There’s also sort of miniseries within the series that focus on the different groups – one set of books focuses on the witches, one on the city watch, some on the wizards university, and others – and then some outside those as well.
The city watch books are my favorite by far (I think Guards! Guards! was my first, but Jingo and Night Watch are my favorites), and I think they give a nice introduction to the city/world and the lore and general vibe, but all of them are wonderful.
My son as a teen was a good reader, but a reluctant one, unless it was a video game guide. He absolutely devoured Wee Free Men, loving every minute of it. If you have such a child in your life, they might have the same reaction. (He then read Good Omens, which he also loved.)
I also recommend skipping the early Discworld books! The book that hooked me on Terry Pratchett was Wyrd Sisters, the first of the Lancre witch books, and the Tiffany Aching books can be read as a successor to the witch books. The Truth, followed by Going Postal, is another good entry point to the later Ankh-Morpork books.
MISS WONDERFUL was witty and charming. I loved the intelligent heroine and heroic hero. Not my favorite Loretta Chase, but certainly a worthy HR read.