It’s about that time! Time to tell us what you’re reading!
Claudia: I just finished The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews, ( A | BN | K | AB ) coming out in October, and I enjoyed it. It’s a bit Beauty and the Beast meets The Blue Castle. It even kept me up way past my bedtime, which hadn’t happened in a long time, LOL. I was on a long reading slump in which I re-read a ton of my favorites and mourned that some of their authors haven’t had a new romance in a long time.
Shana: I’ve been burning my way through Olivia Dade’s and Sherry Thomas’s backlist lately. I just finished 40-Love, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which was fabulous, and now I’m reading Not Quite a Husband. ( A | K | G | AB | Au ) I have been forewarned about the dubcon issue in the book, so we’ll see.
Sneezy: I’ve just started Fierce Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff.
The title really resonates with me, because I’ve found a lot of times showing myself compassion requires a very high level of proactive energy. It is combative in that I’m fighting off old programming, but I’m needing to pull from much deeper within myself and actually put effort in instead of just reacting. I’m hoping the book affirms my feelings and expands my understanding
Carrie: I’m slogging through Flirting With Fifty ( A | BN | K | AB ) and Dopesick, two books that are failing to compel me for different reasons. And I just finished Comeuppance Served Cold by Marion Deeds, ( A | BN | K | AB ) a heist novel that was MUCH more satisfying!
Maya: I’m listening to The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod Weinstein. It’s like listening to my brilliant friend tell me all about her impressive and complex work in ways that make it accessible and engaging. She also is sitting honestly with the reality of how hard it is to work in a field (astrophysics!) that rigidly adheres to the mythos of the singular, brilliant white man being who advances the field. I also love that the author is struggling out loud with an issue I’m always thinking about as I am often one of the few (or only) in majority white spaces in my field — since I’ve managed to be fairly successful in those spaces, is my success rooting in me being compliant or am I here because I have been successfully resistant to the norms of my field? Have I succeeded because I have followed and appropriately navigated the rules of white supremacy and the patriarchy or am I here despite all those rules? Have I been coopted? Despite my intentions, does my work actually uphold and maintain the very systems of oppression that I actually want to dismantle? Anyway, read the book, it’s way more fun than watching me spiral! And there are quarks!!
Tara: I think I might finally be getting back on the reading train after a month of being joined at the hip with my Nintendo. I’m reading The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, which is exactly as lovely as everyone has been saying. Given the current, multi-pronged trashfire that is the world, it feels like the perfect story to hide in.
Elyse: I’m debating what to start next, romantic comedy or a thriller?
Maya: Romcom!!!! I think we all need a giggle right now.
What are you reading? Let us know in the comments!
@Deborah: I liked WEDDING AT THE RIVERVIEW INN slightly more than you did, but I think O’Keefe’s similarly-themed ONE LAST CHANCE (estranged spouses reunite initially for professional, as opposed to personal, reasons) is far superior with a much more self-aware hero who realizes how badly he has treated his wife.
I just finished O’Keefe’s most recent Riverview Inn romance, SECOND CHANCE AT THE RIVERVIEW INN and there’s a casual reference to the older couple introduced in WEDDING AT THE RIVERVIEW INN:
@Crystal
I really liked The Alienist but I have not watched the show despite the very fetching actors in it. I also couldn’t get through the sequel.
I am currently listening to THE FIVE by Hallie Rubenhold. The author has done her research into the lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. Women who were not prostitutes but homeless or poor. Polly was literate, her father was a printer and taught his children to read. Annie was also literate, as the cavalry had schools for children of the regiment. I’m still in Annie’s story. So far, both women had some advantages that other working class women of their time did not have.
Issues still present are the lack of affordable jobs and lack of affordable health care. In 125 years, some progress has been made, but not enough.
@DDD – agreed, O’Keefe’s One Last Chance is a significant improvement on the theme, primarily because (as you note) the hero becomes self-aware and shares responsibility for their split but also because the circumstances around the split are less tragic so his bout of cruelty feels less like kicking his ex when she’s down.
Very, very late — but I’ve missed commenting on the last few WAYR and I want to get back into it. So here’s some of the books I’ve read since I last commented.
Kamila Knows Best (Farah Heron) – I really enjoyed this Emma-inspired romance about Kamila Hussain, a successful accountant, who enjoys making those she love happy. Kamila loves helping small niche women-run business succeed and thrive, taking charmingly staged pictures of her costumed dog and posting them on Instagram for her dog’s many followers, and supporting her friends and community. Kamila is good at what she does, but she is often undervalued, even by those who love her (and even by herself), because she enjoys “pretty” and “girly” things from romantic Bollywood films to stylish clothes. This was terrific take on Emma and I think the best of Farah Heron’s romances so far (and I’ve liked them all).
Love & Other Disasters (Anita Kelly): I’m torn about this book. This is the first F/NB romance that I’ve read and I really loved aspects of the story a lot, but found other aspects disappointing. The book is in 3rd person, but it is tight 3rd person, alternating between the 2 protags, Dahlia, a recently divorced bi/pansexual woman, and London, a nonbinary person. I thought how Kelly unspools London’s backstory was thoughtful and nuanced – definitely the strength of this novel. And overall, I liked Dahlia and London as a couple. But the main plot thread – the reality cooking show contest – was seriously underdeveloped, and felt strangely unimportant. Although the protags each state that they really, really need to win; there is no tension over the fact that they both can’t win or over the perceived consequences of losing (even the conflicts with the other contestants are understated). When the inevitable (temporary) breakup occurred, it felt staged and unbelievable because the stakes just hadn’t been there. The reconciliation was also too rushed – and the papering over of the real potential problems for the pair (including their very unequal financial situations) made it harder for me to believe in the HFN/HEA.
Kiss Hard (Nalini Singh): The final book in Singh’s contemporary series about the four Bishop-Esera brothers. This is Danny’s and Catie’s story. Danny is the youngest brother and a star New Zealand rugby player, while Catie is a double amputee and Paralympian silver-medalist sprinter. About a decade earlier Catie’s half-sister, Issa, married Sailor Bishop, Danny’s half-brother in a previous book in the series, Cherish Hard. Catie and Danny have had a teasing, competitive, relationship since that time. Like Benedict and Beatrice whenever they meet, there is a merry war of words and an insistence that they do not like each other, no not at all. Of course this is not true — Danny and Catie quickly realize that they are very attracted to each other. The tension in this book rests in whether they both can overcome their different internal insecurities about who they are and their place in the world. Danny’s insecurities are more about himself – all of his brothers are super achievers and even though he knows he is good and that his family loves him, he’s not sure that he good enough or that he is worthy enough. Catie’s insecurities are more relationship-driven, she has a hard time committing because both of her parents have often disappointed her. Neither has even been abusive and both love her in their own ways, but she has learned that she can’t depend on them to provide her with the unconditional love and emotional support that a child wants and needs from a parent. This is definitely a low-angst, low-conflict love story, so some people might find it slow. I liked it and especially like Singh’s nuanced presentation of Catie as smart determined individual – who is also amazing athlete and a double amputee.
The Love Hypothesis (Ali Hazelwood): I knew going into this book that it was a reworked Reylo fan fiction and that it also had a student/prof romance – so I should have known better. I was hoping that these potential difficulties would be mitigated by the fact that the heroine was a STEM grad student. But no dice – this book really needed at least one more thorough rewrite – the hero and heroine were thinly constructed; the carefully diverse cast of secondary characters that surrounded them existed only to help the protags get together. I mean this literally – I don’t think the protags, Olive or Adam, ever voluntarily decided to go on date or kiss or take the next step in their relationship, unless first pushed to do it by someone else. Not a good sign for a romance. And so much of the humour felt forced – in the prologue for example, it’s not enough that Olive and Adam first meet when Olive is making a campus visit and he is kind to her during a moment when she is uncertain about whether she deserves to be in such prestigious program. No, this scene has to be wackily humorous – she’s wearing dud contacts that make her eyes water and blind her. She has wandered into the wrong bathroom in the faculty building and is thoroughly humiliated at first when Adam finds her. But although he is grumpy at first, he ends up encouraging her. She doesn’t realize it (because she couldn’t see him), but he too was blinded by her dazzling wit or something, and secretly remembers her when 2 years later, she grabs him and kisses/assaults him without warning in the same building (although this time they are in a hallway and not in the bathroom). It’s all supposed to be funny, but it just felt obvious and painfully silly. Scene after scene felt exhausting because they were all trying so hard to be clever and often failing. And I found it downright uncomfortable that in book where the villain tries to control the heroine by telling her that if she doesn’t sleep with him, he will steal her research and claim it as his own, the author makes the decision to claim for the hero some traits, which belong not to the fictional character Kylo Ren, but rather that belong to Adam Driver, the real human actor who played Kylo Ren.
Her Favorite Rebound (Jackie Lau): I really like Jackie Lau and have read I think all her books. This one was a good, pleasant read, but not her strongest. I found the whole the ending where the racist evil neo-liberal billionaire ex tries to get the heroine back by making wasteful grand gestures a bit silly.
Lightning in a Mirror (Jayne Ann Krentz): A comfort read as JAK in all her guises is for me. But if you haven’t been reading in JAK/AQ/JC universe over last few years, I’m not sure you’d get much out of this book.
I finally read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which I loved (despite a few qualms about one or two aspects of the plot and relationships.) I am rereading The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip, a gorgeously-written fantasy that I highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t read it—or hasn’t read it in a while. (McKillip died on May 6, at the age of 74; my rereading of this book is in part a way to honor and remember her.)
I have also reading my way through some historical romance review copies. I finished How to Be a Wallflower by Eloisa James (finished), which was lots of fun, and I’m halfway through Desperately Seeking a Duchess by Christi Caldwell, which is competently written and has likeable characters but is still not quite doing it for me, for reasons I can’t pin down.
On audio, I finished listening to Frogkisser! by Garth Nix. It’s an absolutely delightful MG fantasy, great for all-family listening if you have a road trip scheduled this summer. Currently, I’m listening to Caroline Criado Perez’s nonfiction book, Invisible Women, about how gender data gaps combine with the widespread assumption that men (usually white men) are the human “norm” to affect women’s work (paid and unpaid), technology use, medical care and outcomes, safety, and so much more. It’s fascinating, informative (so. many. statistics!), eye-opening, and infuriating.