Bombshell
Bombshell by Sarah MacLean is $2.99! This is the first book in a new series. Elyse gave it a B-:
Objectively I can look at this book and say that some readers may have an issue with how much time spent on the girl-gang scenes versus the romance, but also ONE OF THEM SPECIALIZES IN EXPLOSIONS. I think part of this imbalance is to set up the rest of the series, but the gang’s quest for justice was very heisty and fun.
New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean returns with a blazingly sexy, unapologetically feminist new series, Hell’s Belles, beginning with a bold, bombshell of a heroine, able to dispose of a scoundrel—or seduce one—in a single night.
After years of living as London’s brightest scandal, Lady Sesily Talbot has embraced the reputation and the freedom that comes with the title. No one looks twice when she lures a gentleman into the dark gardens beyond a Mayfair ballroom…and no one realizes those trysts are not what they seem.
No one, that is, but Caleb Calhoun, who has spent years trying not to notice his best friend’s beautiful, brash, brilliant sister. If you ask him, he’s been a saint about it, considering the way she looks at him…and the way she talks to him…and the way she’d felt in his arms during their one ill-advised kiss.
Except someone has to keep Sesily from tumbling into trouble during her dangerous late-night escapades, and maybe close proximity is exactly what Caleb needs to get this infuriating, outrageous woman out of his system. But now Caleb is the one in trouble, because he’s fast realizing that Sesily isn’t for forgetting…she’s forever. And forever isn’t something he can risk.
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RECOMMENDED: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin is $2.99! This is a Kindle Daily Deal. Elyse loved this book and gave it an A:
If you like immersive, action-driven fantasy and if you want a fantasy world that’s not Euro-centric–or if you just love a really, really good story–I cannot recommend The Fifth Season enough.
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
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We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Life’s Too Short
Life’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez is $2.99! This is the third book in The Friend Zone series, which can all be read as standalones. This one came out in April 2021 and Elyse mentioned it in Hide Your Wallet. All of Jimenez’s books pack an emotional bunch, so be ye warned.
A brilliant and touching romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of The Friend Zone and The Happy Ever After Playlist.
Vanessa lives life on her own terms — one day at a time, every day to its fullest. She isn’t willing to waste a moment or miss out on an experience when she has no idea whether she shares the same fatal genetic condition as her mother. Besides, she has way too much to do, traveling the globe and showing her millions of YouTube followers the joy in seizing every moment.
But after her half-sister suddenly leaves Vanessa in custody of her infant daughter, she is housebound, on mommy duty for the foreseeable future, and feeling totally out of her element.
The last person she expects to show up offering help is the unbelievably hot lawyer who lives next door, Adrian Copeland. After all, she barely knows him. But as they get closer, Vanessa realizes that her carefree ways and his need for a structured plan could never be compatible for the long term. Then again, she should know better than anyone that life’s too short to fear taking the biggest risk of all. . .
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We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Once and Future Witches
RECOMMENDED: The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow is $2.99! Carrie reviewed this one and gave it a B+:
Overall I loved reading this book. I literally gasped and clapped my hands over my mouth periodically, like a silent movie star. It’s so gripping, so beautifully written, and such a powerful homage to women’s voices and the need to unify against a common enemy.
In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.
But when the Eastwood sisters–James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna–join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.
There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.
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My issue with BOMBSHELL is that it felt thinly fleshed out both in the sense of emotions between the characters (not just the love interests) and descriptive world-building. Maybe that’s on me because I could never get into the Talbot sisters series and only skim read them previous to this. You have to start this at least somewhat intrigued by Sesily and I wasn’t.
But I loved the Underworld London descriptions in Bareknuckled Bastards and the Fallen Angel in Rules for Scoundrels and here it felt her like the characters were walking through lightly sketched sets, talking and lots of exciting things happening, but no real emotion. Just my 2 cents.I’m still intrigued by the other potential heroines so I haven’t given up yet.
Once and Future Witches was my favorite book of 2020. And also 2021 because nothing will convince me that wasn’t all one year.
The description of Life’s Too Short made me tear up…don’t think I could read this one in our new after times
Island Queen by Vanessa Riley is $1.99 – not a romance but a historical novel, talked about in a recent podcast
…actually I just looked it up and it was a year ago lol …so, semi recent https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast/455-history-engineering-and-air-fryers-with-vanessa-riley/
@Dreamingintrees I agree 100% !!
I tried Bombshell and couldn’t get past the fact that I was expected to believe that any female member of the ton was referred to as Sexily, full stop, and then that such a person would still be received. I can deal with a fair amount of historical wobbly wobbly, and love heisty stuff and mystery stuff and adventure-y stuff, but the heroine going by Sexily? I think my eyes rolled back in my head before the end of the first chapter at the fifth use of the name and I had to DNF.
At Amazon US today:
A SONG FOR A NEW DAY by Sarah Pinsker is $4.99, about 1/3 its usual price. A fellow sci-fi friend highly recommended it, winner of the Nebula and possibly the most awkwardly-worded blurb:
After a global pandemic makes public gatherings illegal and concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music—and for one chance at human connection.
THE FINE ART OF INVISIBLE DETECTING by Robert Goddard is $1.99. I enjoyed this so much, quite different from Goddard’s other books:
An unlikely heroine. An even more unlikely detective. And a cold case that’s resurfacing with deadly consequences.
WHISTLE: A NEW GOTHAM CITY HERO (2021) by E. Lockhart is $5.99. This graphic novel was reviewed favorably here, sorry I don’t remember by whom, but you can search the reviews. The price is less than half the original.
Amazon UK readers:
THIS IS THE NIGHT THEY COME FOR YOU by Robert Goddard is .99 GBP today, down from 10.99. Not a follow-up (AFAIK) to THE FINE ART OF INVISIBLE DETECTING, this story is set in Algiers and getting good reviews. For that price, I snapped it up immediately:
On a stifling afternoon at Police HQ in Algiers, Superintendent Taleb, coasting towards retirement, with not even an air-conditioned office to show for his long years of service, is handed a ticking time bomb of a case which will take him deep into Algeria’s troubled past and its fraught relationship with France.
I am so bad at summarizing books, even the ones I love, it seemed wiser to use the publishers’ own words.
BOMBSHELL is actually my favorite of MacLean’s books, although I would have preferred more time with the gang of women and less time with Sesily and Caleb who were just not that interesting. (Also, could do without any more doors closing with a snick or phrases like, “he moaned his pleasure” or “she sighed her relief.” JUST SAY IT THE NORMAL WAY, SARAH!)
THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES was a DNF for me despite the fact that I really liked some of Harrow’s other books—I think I probably picked it up at the wrong point in the pandemic because I think the sisters came from an abusive family and I just couldn’t handle that just then.
I like some of Sarah Maclean’s earlier books, but her insistence on writing heroines who are always the Most Empowered gets on my nerves. I’m in favor of women being captains of industry or queens of the underworld etc but like . . . don’t they get tired? I get tired going to the grocery store.
I have loved many McLean books but Bombshell was not one of them. Could not make myself believe or care, I found it unreadable to the point that I tried it a few different occasions in case I was just in a mood, before accepting that the book put me in that mood.
Abby Jimenez is not for me, not in a way that makes me mad, but in the same way that idk, Meryl Streep movies have never been what I look for in a movie, or the horror genre is not something I can handle.
Really enjoyed the other two though.
Currently FREE in the US, young adult m/m romance ~
Signs by Anna Martin
https://www.amazon.com/Signs-Anna-Martin-ebook/dp/B0846DYQHT/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=Signs+by+Anna+Martin&qid=1652055631&sr=8-1
@Jill Q. I started on the other end of the spectrum, by which I mean I was very invested in Sesily going into Bombshell. I’ve been waiting for her book for a long time and was so excited to read it…but I also didn’t love it, and I had pretty much the same complaints you had. I loved the Talbot sisters, and I was disappointed because the world in Bombshell felt thin. I also didn’t feel like Sesily really stole the show and had her usual big presence, though. I wish the author hadn’t used her to bridge across the series if her book was going to be so heavy on setup.
Once and Future Witches is my pick here!