August is almost over, which means we get to wrap up our second Whatcha Reading for the month!
Lara: For me, reading a historical romance is like pushing the reset button. So I’m in the early chapters of Sophie Irwin’s A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it’s doing the job. I just finished Only Bad Options by Jennifer Estep (which I loved) ( A | BN | K | AB ) and gearing up for The Heretic Royal by G.A. Aiken. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I’m dangerously excited for that book!
Shana: I just finished That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberly Lemming. ( A | BN | K ) Now I’m pouting because I’ve read all her books. Next up is Of Charms, Ghosts, and Grievances by Aliette de Bodard. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I must admit that I chose it entirely because I loved the cover.
Elyse: I just finished Fallen Star by Susannah Nix which has a former child star as the hero. I enjoyed it up until the end when the entire conflict is resolved in one conversation that frankly could have been a text. But if you want conflict light celebrity romance it might be your thing
Sarah: I’m reading The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it is charming af.
Sneezy: Is anyone still reading True Beauty? I looked ahead on the Korean version of the website and I have ants in my pants for the English version to update!
Tara: I’m reading Kissed by Her, ( A ) which is Chelsea Cameron’s latest. It’s an f/f contemporary that’s basically The Parent Trap, except the nanny and the wicked potential stepmother get together. I’m really enjoying it so far!
How are you wrapping up this month of reading? Let us know below!
TEN TRENDS TO SEDUCE YOUR BEST FRIEND by Penny Reid – B – Penny Reid does Ali Hazelwood. I really liked the first scene, where the reclusive bestselling author hero glomps on the heroine while she’s live-streaming a science demo and stirs up a viral sensation. (Inappropriate behavior? Yes, but I could envision how easily that moment could go viral, and I liked the hook.) But it turns out his inexplicable action is totally out of character with the hero’s personality in the rest of the book (or at least to the 85% mark, when the library grabbed it back from me). It’s as if Reid retained an early brainstorming idea and couldn’t bear to let it go. Meanwhile, I didn’t like the heroine’s endless dithering over the ethicality of boosting her online presence by producing TikTok videos using trending…erm, trends to suggest a fauxmance with the hero. Not only did her crisis of conscience create narrative drag, but it’s also only resolved when the hero chimes in with his wisdom to make her feel better about it. My problem with that? His input was identical to her female best friend’s, so a moment that I imagine was supposed to demonstrate the heroine’s growing trust in the hero instead feels like a Patriarchal Stamp of Approval and betrayal of feminism.
NEANDERTHAL SEEKS DUCHESS by Laney Hatcher – DNF – Laney Hatcher does Penny Reid doing an historical romance. The whole gimmick here is that this translates Reid’s Neanderthal Seeks Human to a nineteenth-century British setting and I just lost patience. The writing was a little arch, the history (as you can imagine) was fast-and-loose, and I was continually distracted by the title. In Reid’s original book, isn’t the *heroine* the titular “neanderthal”? Nevertheless, if this series reimagining makes it to Fiona’s book, I’ll still give that a try because I love a marriage in jeopardy romance.
LOVE ON THE BRAIN by Ali Hazelwood – C+ – Ali Hazelwood does Ali Hazelwood. Lots of criticism being directed at this novel because it follows the formula of every other published romance by Hazelwood, but that’s not really my problem with it. (I kind of love an author who sticks to a formula. That’s 60% why I imprinted on pre-2K Jayne Ann Krentz/Castle/Quick.) My issue here is that a book which postures a great deal about feminism in STEM…
1. This is pure Tim Hunt! We spent weeks roasting Hunt on twitter for this nonsense in 2015. #distractinglysexy
2. If anyone but the hero had done this, Hazelwood would have been all over the damage this sexist refusal does to the heroine’s studies/career, but we’re giving this guy a free pass because “romantic.”
But I absolutely adore the heroine’s research assistant, Rocío.
The romances I’ve read recently haven’t knocked my socks off, but I did really enjoy Ashley C. Ford’s memoir SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER. The content isn’t light (Ford’s father is in prison and her mom is abusive), but Ford is an extremely talented writer with a spare and deeply incisive style. (As someone who adores an em dash, a parenthetical, and the word “also,” I admire her writing a lot.) I’m not totally sure the narrative structure of the memoir holds together (it’s more a series of stories than a single, clear narrative), but the writing is so good I don’t really care.
Also really liked FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT—apparently I was in the mood for revenge on terrible ex-husbands. I kind of wish Finlay’s own ex-husband was a little less awful, but I really liked Finlay and her babysitter turned partner in crime, Vero, and am looking forward to reading the sequel.
On the romance front, I recently read two books (THE LAST WOLF by Maria Vale and THE EX TALK by Rachel Lynn Solomon) that share a common problem that I didn’t know was a problem for me: insecure heroines with a first person POV. As someone who likes brisk plots and competence porn, these set ups are just really frustrating to me, but hard to identify going in—I just want the heroine to get therapy/work out her shit so we can get on with things! I also didn’t love how Silver’s disability in THE LAST WOLF was handled—hero shows up and ah! It’s fixed!
Jasmine Guillory’s BY THE BOOK, a take on beauty and the beast, was okay. I really enjoyed WHILE WE WERE DATING, but the other Guillory books I’ve read haven’t quite worked for me—there’s something about her writing style that can seem thin? mundane? Like, her books are competent, but they don’t flow? There’s a lot in here about writing as a craft, often to the exclusion of the romance, which I didn’t mind but YMMV. I was also confused by the personal chef who also appears to be setting up Beau’s (the hero’s) foundation? Seems an odd combo of skills.
Up next: PERSUASION by Jane Austen, which I have never read before. I must say, Jane can really write a cutting line; I especially loved this:
He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him, by calling him “poor Richard,” been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.
Zing!
Rereading THE SMOKE THIEF by Shana Abé. Dragon shifters with an intermediate smoke form. Starts when they’re kids, and the the heroine runs away from their secret dragon shifter village before anyone finds out she’s the only girl who can shift, which makes her A Prize (AKA prisoner). Years later, the dragon shifter council is monitoring reports of a jewel thief in London that they think is one of their runaways whose risky behavior will expose them, so they lay a trap to catch and kill him. But lo! the thief turns out to be Miss Prize/Prisoner, and they can’t execute good breeding stock, at least not right away.
Shout out to the prose, which gives me a crystal clear sense of the surroundings without yammering on about description until my eyes glaze over, an achievement notable for its rarity. A+ detail selection.
Despite loving Ruth Rendell’s stand-alone mysteries, I’d never read one of her Inspector Wexfords, so I’m reading No More Dying Then and really love it!
I’m also reading Sweetbitter, which I thought was going to be a 5* read, but thus far I’m almost done and very little has really happened other than the usual restaurant drinking/drugs/Kitchen Confidential/sleeping with staff stuff in a loop. I like the prose though.
I also am reading Dare Me by Megan Abbott and it’s just sort of one of those tedious awful people doing awful things thus far.
The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System vol 3 – Mo Xiang Tong Xu
I didn’t realize going in that this was the end of the story – there’s a fourth volume coming out, but it seems to be all the “web extras.” Overall, I liked this, but it’s still my third favorite out of MXTX’s work. It’s definitely a first novel, and you can see a lot of the tropes she will reuse again. This volume wasn’t as funny as the others, and I was satisfied how the story wrapped up.
The Language of Roses – Heather Rose Jones
A queering of Beauty & the Beast with an aromantic heroine? Hello, my catnip.
This has been on my list for a while and I finally, finally sat down to it. It was lovely. I liked the ways it diverged from the B&B formula while still having an air of classic fairytaleness to it. (fwiw I read Alys as ace in addition to aro but I’m not certain what the intentions were so that may be my own editoralizing.)
Manazuru – Hiromi Kawakami (trns Michael Emmerich)
Kei is a middle-aged woman who lives with her teen daughter and aging mother. She has a married lover. Her own husband disappeared twelve years ago. She is adrift, and haunted. (Whether literally or if the hauntings are a manifestation of her own mind are up to the reader to decide- I leaned towards the side of literally). One of the figures that haunts her leads her, again and again, to the little seaside town of Manazuru, where she tries to untangle her husband’s disappearance, her feelings about him, her daughter’s growing up and away from her, and all the things that make her a woman adrift.
This was a lovely, haunting (hah) little book. I saw it on a rec list of women in translation, and my library happened to have it. It was quite lyrical and dreamy – there’s an untethered feel, even the tenses change randomly and without warning. Which usually I would absolutely hate. But somehow it led to a real feeling of being in Kei’s troubled mind. There was also a sense of being out of time – published in 2010, but the only thing that felt “modern” was a few passing references to cell phones, otherwise it felt like it could have taken place any time from the 50s on, almost.
I’m almost at the end of Red, White, and Royal Blue. It’s fun, the epistolary elements are great. But single-POV present tense is wearing on me, and being in Alex’s head is a LOT sometimes. The boy has a very loud brain. Also I’m exhausted by 22 year olds. May have more to say about it next time once I’ve actually finished. Until then, I’m finding it enjoyable, with caveats.
J. T. Geissinger’s PEN PAL is an excellent mash-up of romance, psychological suspense, and supernatural/gothic horror. I’d never read anything by Geissinger before, but PEN PAL has made my list of favorite reads of 2022. While the book is dark and has a number of triggers, I recommend going into it without looking for spoilers because part of the enjoyment of the story is trying to anticipate its twists and turns. Most of the book is narrated by the recently-widowed Kayla, and right from the start something is odd about Kayla’s behavior: she doesn’t want to speak to anyone at her husband’s funeral and abruptly leaves as soon as the coffin has been lowered into the ground. Kayla is also vague about how her husband died and loses track of time and important facts; she’s the classic unreliable narrator of psychological suspense. Just after the funeral, Kayla receives a letter from an inmate at the state correctional facility. The inmate claims he knows Kayla and says he “will wait forever” for her, but she has never heard of him. Instead of alerting the authorities, Kayla writes a reply to the inmate (a failure of judgement that clearly indicates she is not in a good frame of mind), and a correspondence begins between the two; their letters are interspersed throughout the story. Kayla lives in a crumbling Victorian house imported directly from gothic horror: it has a leaky roof, flickering lights, creaking floorboards, and cabinets that open on their own. Kayla hires a man named Aiden to repair the house’s roof. Aiden is very much the jacked-up, tatted, uber-dominant smoke-show hero of dark/bdsm romance, and soon he and Kayla are in a hot sexual relationship with heavy emphasis on D/s. Aiden says all the right things about consent and using safe words, but something about him also feels off: his intense possessiveness raises all sorts of red flags, and his tendency to go radio silent when faced with uncomfortable situations also comes across as ominous, but Kayla is completely unfazed by such behavior and is blissfully happy with her new lover (but this does not stop her from exchanging progressively longer letters with her prison pen pal). Kayla’s romantic entanglements occur against a backdrop increasingly malevolent incidents involving the house, with objects moving and people appearing (and disappearing). I won’t go any further into the story, but if you’re looking for something “romance-adjacent” with a propulsive plot that will keep you guessing, I highly recommend PEN PAL.
Eliot Grayson’s A TOTALLY PLATONIC THING shares similarities with Grayson’s earlier THE ONE DECENT THING in that both books are m/m romances between roommates: one a gay man and the other a man who has previously always considered himself straight. In A TOTALLY PLATONIC THING, college sophomores Chris and Lucas have a “meet cute” in front of a pretzel cart on campus. Chris needs a place to live and Lucas needs a roommate, and so begins two years of platonic close-proximity. Both men continue to date others, but emotionally the two men begin to value each other way beyond the bounds of “normal” male friendship (they also begin to “cuddle up” while watching movies, including p0rn, but for a long time that is as far as the physical side of their relationship goes). One thing I really liked about PLATONIC is that Grayson did not shy away from showing some of Chris’s destructive tendencies—especially how he uses drinking, clubbing, and hooking-up as a way of dealing with abandonment issues—or how Lucas’s bafflement about being attracted to a man played out in some rather ambiguous behavior on his part. The book also features mild spanking kink which put me in mind of some of Misha Horne’s romances where spanking is sometimes used as a motivation for an MC to stay focused on personal goals. The book also catches up with Sebastian and Aiden from THE ONE DECENT THING (they’re getting married!). Although A TOTALLY PLATONIC THING wasn’t quite as strong as THE ONE DECENT THING, it’s still an entertaining read with serious undertones. Recommended.
Caitlin Crews’s latest HP, WILLED TO WED HIM, is a relatively breezy read from the Queen of Angsty Heartache. As the title indicates, the h&h must marry to fulfill the terms of the heroine’s father’s will. The hero is the ultra-polished CEO of the father’s company; the heroine is the director of the small art museum funded by her family’s fortune. She is decidedly not the sleek & soigne woman the hero usually dates. The hero is also one of the proudest and most self-assured men Crews has ever penned (and that’s a large pool), and he is quite cruel to the heroine about her appearance; he is entirely focused on the thought of how impossible it would be for people to believe that a man like him would fall for a woman like her. The heroine does not let the hero’s criticism trouble her (which annoys him no end), even when he is hiring stylists and wardrobe consultants to ensure her appearance meets his exacting standards. There’s a nice turnabout as the heroine not only starts getting under the hero’s skin (there are two funny scenes where the heroine trolls the hero, one involving a huge potted plant and the other involving ceramic unicorns in rainbow colors), but also shows him that it is possible to live a freer, kinder, less judgmental life. Key quote: “…he wanted to live in the version of their story that…[she] was telling.” Recommended.
J. Kenner’s CHARMED BY YOU is a bodyguard-client romance set in her Stark Security universe. The heroine is a famous actress who has been receiving death threats about an event from her past. The hero is her assigned bodyguard from the Stark Security firm. Naturally, sparks fly. I usually enjoy Kenner’s work, and bodyguard-client is one of my favorite tropes, but I think CHARMED BY YOU suffered from being of novella length (it’s published as part of the 1001 Dark Nights franchise): info-dumps replaced more organic forms of exposition. Plus, the heroine’s “toughness” was communicated primarily by her being rude, yelling, and standing with her arms crossed in front of her (I kept waiting for her to stamp her foot). In addition, the villain was obvious from the moment they appeared on page. A quick read, but just a few days after finishing it, I’m having a hard time recalling much detail about the story. Recommended for J. Kenner/Stark Security completists only.
@FashionablyEvil: “As someone who adores an em dash, a parenthetical, and the word ‘also'”. I’m here for you, my dear!
I have been trying to read other genres, and also trying to find good new romances and it has… not been going well. The closest I got to liking something I haven’t read before was Ava Wilder’s How to Fake it in Hollywood which was extremely readable and engaging. I spent the beginning being like, wow, how is she going to redeem these characters, and that quickly became eh, the heroine will presumably grow up, whatever, but srsly wtf with this dude, there’s just no way. And I am very glad that tru luv doesn’t magically fix him, but a last second deus ex rehab was unearned, unseen, unbelievable, and wildly unsatisfying. At least I spent most of the book caring what was going to happen, even if it was theoretical rather than visceral interest.
I also wanted to mention The Blue Place, not a romance but a very tragic romantical lesbian noir that I thought would be entirely my thing only the relentless glorification of violence combined with some intense not like the othersing of the superior, Nordic protagonist was …idk the word here. Off-putting, unacceptable, terrifying? If it had been published by some guy in the 30s I would have been very impressed with it.
I do not know what I would do without KJ Charles’s books.
Currently reading ‘Any Duchess Will Do’ by Tessa Dare for the third time. Because I love Pauline’s character (and the payback scene in the bookstore) that much.
I’m torn as to whether to start Lisa Kleypas’s Hathaway series or the two books out so far in Sarah MacLean’s Hell’s Belle’s series next.
Everything I’ve read since AGAINST A WALL (which was great) has been MEH. A BRUSH OF DARKNESS, IMMORTAL MATCHMAKERS, INC., LEVEL UP, I LIKE YOU LIKE THAT, and A STRANGE AND STUBBORN ENDURANCE (read WINTER’S ORBIT by Everina Maxwell instead — it’s much better), and TO HER RESCUE were all readable, but disappointing. Everything felt like a cliche or just flat. However, I am REALLY enjoying THE UNDERTAKING OF HART AND MERCY by Megan Bannen.
Hope you are all well! Have a great weekend!
I enjoyed Marry Farmer’s A Touch of Romance. M/M historical. Marcus travels to NYC to report on the club scene for his London newspaper. Jasper works at one of the clubs, Jasper basically feels instalove and that freaks Marcus out. I very much dislike instalove so I loved that one of the MCs had the same reaction I do.
I’m looking forward to reading some sci-fi/dystopian books, including DANCE WITH THE DEVIL by Kit Rocha and STAR WARS: THE PRINCESS AND THE SCOUNDREL by Beth Revis.
I love royal-themed romances, so I’m hoping to check out ROYALLY NOT READY by Meghan Quinn. I also have THE ACCIDENTAL FIANCE by Christi Barth waiting on my TBR pile (fake dating is another one of my favorite tropes).
I am also sooo ready for fall. Bring on the autumn leaves, cool nights, s’mores, and pumpkin dessserts. LOL.
Happy reading, everyone! 🙂
I just finished THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES and I liked every bit of it except the epilogue which felt tacked on.
Next up: THE HELLION AND THE HERO by Emily Sullivan and THE AGATHAS.
I am also looking for someone to talk me out of reading BABEL by RF KUANG. Any takers?
Tanya Huff’s new book Into the Broken Lands. Similarities to some of her Peacekeeper books (quest, tentacled monsters, personal growth) but I was ok with that and found it gripping. Hannah Mathewson’s Witherward, which I enjoyed. Several nineteen-forties and fifties school stories, strong on salvation through hockey.
Right now I’m very much enjoying THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s a travel guide for the kind of Tolkien-esque land where every clichéd, half-decent fantasy story takes place and what to expect when you’re on your journey there.
Here’s an excerpt from the entry about STEW, which is often eaten in bad fantasy novels:
“Given the disturbed nature of life in this land, where in camp you are likely to be attacked without warning, and in an inn prone to be the center of a tavern brawl, stew seems to be an odd choice as staple food, since, on rough calculation, it takes forty times as long to prepare as steak. But it is clear the inhabitants have not yet discovered fast food.”
(Sorry for splitting up my post. Embarrassing mistake.)
“Served Hot” by Annabeth Albert: M/M contemporary romance. Robby is a coffee cart entrepreneur with a crush on regular customer David. David likes Robby, but is still grieving the death of his on-again off-again lover and isn’t sure he’s ready for a real relationship. I read this for a reading challenge where the prompt was to read a book with a cover cliche you’d usually avoid, which “cartoon cover with oversized food” definitely is for me. It was fine, competently written, but definitely reaffirmed that relatively low-angst contemporary romance is not what I’m looking for right now.
“Married to the Mobster” by Leighton Greene: M/M mafia romance. I read this partly to satisfy my desire for high angst and (melo)drama, partly because everyone on romance novel Reddit is always talking about mafia romance and I’ve never read one. Wealthy party boy Finch stumbles into saving mafia enforcer Luca’s life outside a nightclub and they have a one-night stand. Several years later, Luca is ordered to kill Finch to send a message to his rich father but refuses because he owes him a life debt. The solution Luca’s boss comes up with is that Luca and Finch should get married so the gang still has leverage over Finch’s father. Obviously this premise is pretty crazy and the book overall requires huge suspension of both moral standards and disbelief, which I’m sure is typical of the subgenre (this basically takes place in an alternate universe where law enforcement doesn’t do anything about organized crime). I’d say it falls into the “guilty pleasure” category, but I enjoyed it for what it is. I’m tempted to keep reading the series to get to the book where one MC is a mafia bodyguard and the other is studying to be a priest.
“A Prayer for the Crown-Shy” by Becky Chambers: Second book in Chambers’ Monk and Robot series. I love so many things about these novellas: great sense of atmosphere, thoughtful and optimistic tone, and lovely friendship between the main characters. I hope Chambers plans to spend more time in this world.
“Conversations with Friends” by Sally Rooney: Disaffected college student Frances and her ex-girlfriend/best friend Bobbi form a friendship with Melissa, a photographer and writer in her 30s. While Bobbi is contemptuous of Melissa’s actor husband Nick, Frances is infatuated with him and they start having an affair that tests the relationships between all four. Sally Rooney is a good writer, and I wasn’t bothered by her style of omitting quotation marks around dialogue; it added to the feeling of being in the head of a self-involved narrator. But it’s impossible to root for any of the relationships in this book. Frances and Nick’s relationship is toxic, Nick’s marriage to Melissa is awful, and Frances’ relationship with Bobbi is codependent. All the characters are basically using mutually using each other to various extents. If a book is going to be about bad relationships they should at least be interesting ones, and this didn’t cross that threshold for me, particularly since it has an discordant and unsatisfying ending.
“Black Sun” by Rebecca Roanhorse: The first book in an epic fantasy series with a setting based on the pre-Colombian Americas. I read the first few chapters a while ago and dropped off because it seemed like more dense worldbuilding than I was up for at the time, but I ended up feeling the opposite — that we never learned enough about how the fictional society functions for a plot based around political maneuvering to work. For example, what are the core beliefs of the church that’s so central to the plot and what does everyday worship look like? How does it affect gender roles that only women in the elite caste can be rulers, but anyone can be a warrior or priest? We never really learn. I was also frustrated by one of the POV characters, Naranpa, who’s the head of her city’s official religion but doesn’t feel smart or shrewd enough to hold that role and is constantly outmaneuvered by her subordinates. I liked the other two major POVs better, but probably won’t continue the series.
“Horns” by Joe Hill: A year after his girlfriend’s death, Ig Parrish is deeply depressed and still the primary suspect in her murder. One day he wakes up with devil’s horns and finds that strangers have started confessing their darkest desires to him. This is a horror novel by Stephen King’s son and almost shockingly similar to his style. Effective, suspenseful horror but with all the classic King quirks from small-town New England setting and extensive flashbacks to weird treatment of women and gratuitous racial slurs.
“The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter: Collection of spooky short stories based on fairy tales. Great prose, really loved it.
My access to Smart Bitches seems to be spotty. Doesn’t matter if it’s on my laptop or phone, Chrome or Firefox, so I’ll keep this short. I keep getting a weird access error. Sometimes when I click on the link and get the error right away, other times it’s when I try to read or leave a comment.
I would be remiss however not to recommend BIG FEELINGS: HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN THINGS ARE NOT OKAY by Liz Fosselin and Mollie West Duffy. I think a lot of fans of BURNOUT and LAZINESS DOES NOT EXIST will appreciate a lot of the emotions they talk unpack here.
Over the past two weeks ~
— finished the last of my library’s summer reading challenges which was to read a Dewey Decimal book below 300. I chose to read What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund which is rather ironic since I have aphantasia and see nothing when I read! It was a rather erudite but quick read; it’s not a book I envision rereading.
— reread with pleasure Confluence (A Linesman Novel Book 3) by S. K. Dunstall.
— reread On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington Book 1) by David Weber which I enjoyed once again. This is military science fiction.
— read with pleasure Ravenwood (Tanyth Fairport Adventures Book 1), Zypheria’s Call (Tanyth Fairport Adventures Book 2), and The Hermit of Lammas Wood (Tanyth Fairport Adventures Book 3) all by Nathan Lowell. I’d describe these as fantasy.
— enjoyed a reread of Quarter Share (Trader’s Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 1) by Nathan Lowell. This is science fiction slice of life. And now my husband is reading the series for the first time!
— I often like books with a time travel element and quite enjoyed This Time Tomorrow: A Novel by Emma Straub. Be aware that it focuses on the love an almost forty year old woman has for her father who is close to death in the present day.
— I’ve been rereading the science fiction romance Touchstone series and have finished Stray (which is FREE for Kindle readers), Lab Rat One, Caszandra, and Gratuitous Epilogue all by Andrea Höst. I enjoyed them all!
@Kareni: *waves from across the aphantasia clubhouse* That’s why it’s notable for me when an author solidly speaks to my conceptual brain without tons of useless-to-me visual description. I still don’t “see” it, but I know exactly what it’s like and would recognize it if I walked into it in meatspace or saw it on a real screen.
As mentioned in an earlier post this week, I’ve been reading THE CHOCOLATIER’S WIFE by Cindy Lynn Speer and finished it this morning sitting in the cool morning shade of my patio with a cup of coffee. Something I did all the time while I was taking care of my Dad, but have done exactly twice now in the 25 years I’ve had my townhouse. It was a delightful way to start the day, but I want more of these two characters. The main characters are betrothed as the result of a spell cast at the end of a war between their countries that determines an individual’s perfect spouse. Neither family is pleased to have their child linked to the backward people of another country, but William, at age seven when the spell finally provides a match, starts writing his intended letters determined to accept what fate decrees. Tasmin writes back – once she’s old enough to read and write. William has been putting off formalizing their relationship while he builds a new business, but Tasmin will not be stopped from coming to him when she receives word that he has been arrested. The way they work together once they are finally united is a delight. They are flirty with each other. They are supportive of each others’ work and goals even as they try to solve the murder of which William is accused. The mystery itself is nicely twisty. You think you know who the villian must be, but is it? The motive seems unrealistic, until it becomes something else. I found it charming.
Having found my copy of UNCHARTED, I limited myself to a couple of chapters a morning before work. It was what I’d expected from Adriana Anders in terms of character development and plot tension. And no, they don’t stop in middle of running for their lives in the unforgiving wilderness to indulge in sexy times, at least not until they’re in shelter and recovered somewhat from their various injuries. His morning wood is much less important than food and escape. And both the clever old lady and the very good dog come out alright in the end, so it’s got that going for it.
In an unintentional continuation of a theme the next book up was SOMETHING WILDER from Christina Lauren. A bit of a departure from their usual fare. These characters have been through some shit and lost themselves and each other. Lily and Leo fell in love when he worked her family ranch one summer, but circumstances parted them leaving him confused and heartbroken and Lily bitter and all but broken. A decade later they are reunited when he is booked on a backcountry adventure trip lead by the girl he left behind. But all is not as it seems with Leo’s annual brocation, and they find themselves in the backcountry on a mission to find a lost treasure and running for their lives. Good stuff.
Next up is ORDINARY MONSTERS from J.M. Miro. Set in late 1800s, it’s about children with unusual powers and a female detective who is employed to find escort them to a mysterious Institute for their “protection”. I have a feeling Charles Xavier is not who’s waiting for them at the end of the journey.
@JillQ, me too!!!. I thought it was just my difficult relationship with technology a la Sam Neill in Jurassic Park.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir – currently halfway through after bad decisions book club last night and this morning, had to tear myself away because humans need to eat in this house. Science is awesome, humans and other life forms being kind is even more awesome.
All 5 of the Heartstrikers books by Rachel Aaron. This is how you write a series. Worldbuilding unfolds along with the characters’ journeys, the series is actually finished as opposed to being dragged out.
Kissed by Magic by Erica Ridley. Funny, fluffy, the characters are kind to each other and also banter a lot, it really worked for me. Fairytale retellings are my catnip.
The Rake Mistake by Erica Ridley – it was on hoopla so I grabbed it not realizing it’s a novella in the middle of a series I haven’t read. Fun enough to make me want to try the series but would not recommend it as a starting point, lol.
A Mirror Mended by Alix Harrow – a darker fairytale reworking that turns the familiar story upside down. Should be read in order after A Spindle Splintered.
The Girl From The Sea by Molly Ostertag – graphic novel, beautiful artwork and a sweet f/f romance appropriate for young teens, my 13 year old loved it too.
@Jess: “I’m tempted to keep reading the series to get to the book where one MC is a mafia bodyguard and the other is studying to be a priest.” M/M, mafia, bodyguard, priest–it’s like someone plugged directly into my catnip center! I had to go immediately and find it. It’s titled SEDUCED BY A SINNER and it’s available on KU. Onto the never-ending tbr it goes.
@JillQ @DonnaMarie Me three! It’s really frustrating especially on a day like today, when I want to see what everyone is reading.
I spent the last week besotted with Audrey Faye’s Ghost Mountain Shifters series. It’s 8 books so far, and available on KU, but after finishing the first (Alpha) I ordered paper copies to hoard (and re-read Alpha in paper when it arrived). These are lovely stories that have jumped to the head of my comfort read list. They aren’t romances but there are romance stories in them, even a bit of a fated-mated story (with tons of consent). The series is really a serial story of a pack healing from a deeply evil alpha and his minions. It doesn’t linger on the trauma, or rather it doesn’t make the characters relive the trauma. There is joy and healing and new births and rebirths, and so much food and knitting, in a found family with queer characters and diverse characters, with a giant middle finger to patriarchy and toxic masculinity. One little dominant pup has Downs, another born late in the story can shift genders at will. The stories are all first-person present tense narration, shifting between a variety of characters, so it’s a lot to keep track of. But I just love this series so much, and I see more of Audrey Faye’s books on KU, so I have high hopes of them too.
I also read Nalini Singh’s latest Psy-Changeling, Storm Echo, which I didn’t like as much as I expected. Part of that might be from bad-decisions book club reading too fast, but the ending didn’t make sense to me. I did appreciate being back in San Francisco with the cats, and catching up with the ocelots rescued in Allegiance of Honor.
In addition, I found the Heartstopper books and Jackie Lau’s His Grumpy Childhood friend excellent comfort reads. I’ve just started The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, and Susanna Allen’s latest A Duke at the Door arrived in the mail.
Been in the middle of a move & starting a new job, but I still managed a little “me” time to read:
-THE BLOOD OF FLOWERS, Anita Amirrezvani. Historical fiction. I’d read this before–I have a physical copy–and remembered it as a Romance, but it’s not at all. 1600’s Iran; after her father dies the unnamed MC and her mother move to the city of Isfahan to live with relatives. The MC falls in love with the city and the art of carpet-weaving (the title being a reference to the dyes used in the wool), even coming up with the idea of starting a women’s only carpet workshop to help other impoverished women, but money troubles in her new household pressure her family to sell her into a short-term marriage contract as little more than a concubine. There’s a lot of sex and the idea that she could possibly learn to love her husband, but as a heads up for the Romance readers out there–that’s not what happens. There’s a great feeling of place and time, and it makes me hungry every time I read what they’re eating, but it’s a brutal sort of life where friends and relatives are conniving and at any moment there could be feast or famine. The MC gets beaten more than once but still loves the people who beat her with no hesitation because they were, in her mind, in the right; the idea of a woman doing business with men is scandalous and risks the MC’s reputation; privileged people do unfair things and never get their divine comeuppance. I love the historical setting and I want the MC to live Happily Ever After (on her own terms), but it’s not the love story I thought I remembered.
-BOOTLEGACY, Rachel Astor. Free Kindle ebook, historical romance. Prohibition era US, teenage Sadie and her friend sneak out to a speakeasy where she meets a gangster named Frankie. Other reviews say this one is clean. I don’t want to be mean about someone’s hard work, especially when I got it for free, but at the same time it’s a book out there in public and I have opinions on it–it reads like fanfiction or a Wattpad story, and I don’t mean either one as a compliment. Multiple spelling & grammar errors in the 30%-ish I’ve read so far; some plot holes (ex. Friend’s last name changes every time it’s mentioned). Heroine is a “Good Girl” in the way which means “incapable of making a decision but always ready to whine about how everyone is going to get in trouble.” Hero is a “Bad Boy,” meaning “gets away with stuff he shouldn’t get away with but then acts sad and claims he had no choice even though he did.” Their romance is based on locking eyes across a room & Friend saying they must be in love. Hero is pushy in ‘romantic’ ways like forcing Heroine to dance with him or picking her up and carrying her; Heroine complains about society forcing her to act a certain way but never seems to notice Hero does the same. Characters act how the scene wants them to act, often in bizarrely specific ways [ex: Heroine will think some unlikely thing, then Friend or Hero will say “I bet you’re thinking of (exact thing)” so that Heroine can get flustered]. The setting has nothing particularly Jazz Age beyond mentioning a speakeasy and pinstripe suits. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn there’s a version with the Heroine listed as [Y/N] and the Hero as someone’s favorite boy band member. I’ll DNF eventually but I keep opening it up to marvel at the Wattpadiness of it all.
Tore through Mercy by Sara Cate, part of the Salacious Players Club series. Women dominants are thin on the ground, it’s almost refreshing when one turns up. I was strongly reminded (in a good way!) of Elia Winters’s Tied Score. More Dommes, please.
I finally finished Accidental Pinup. I’m not sure what the MCs saw in each other; they kind of just fell into a relationship. There was soooo much telling and not showing and it needed a stricter editor than it had.
Read Dance with the Devil. The Mercenary Librarians books are spaced far enough apart for me to forget who’s who and what’s what. I always forget to familiarize myself with the story before reading the new one.
Now I’m between books and at a bit of a loss as to what to read next.
@footiepjs: There was a Rec League a few years ago for books featuring Dommes:
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2018/05/rec-league-dommes/
DEATH AT THE DEEP DIVE – Josh Lanyon. Weirdly, this is book 7 in the series, and book 6 is slated to appear in a few weeks. Don’t know what’s been happening there. Anyway, this was enjoyable and it took up some things from book 5, but it was a bit weird to remember that this is supposed to be months later. But I liked it better than book 5, and Ellery and Jack are moving another step along with their relationship. This was just the kind of fluffy-ish (despite the mystery) read I needed.
GRAVITY – Tal Bauer. Ice hockey romance between two players who end up on the same team. Bauer is good when he does the feels, and from the blurb it sounded great, but the execution kind of lets it down. I can’t say how realistic other ice hockey romances are, and the only others I know are Rachel Reid’s, but in comparison this one felt really unrealistic in more than one place, the pacing seemed weird and… it just didn’t quite work. It’s a lovely romance, but the leads get in with eachother quickly, then spend some time being mad at eachother, spend a day together and suddenly it’s all good betweent them. They are being beyond obvious even while they keep thinking “we have to keep it quiet”, and their team members all see it, but say nothing and are all ok with it. Yes, it would be nice if the real world were like that, but it’s not, and whilst romances are per se not alway super realistic, but this just felt too fairytale-ish. And the mistakes in the French bits of dialogue (it’s set in Montreal) are too stupid and too obvious. Even a simple spell checker would have picked this up!!! If you’re going to do that because you like French so much, then do it properly please. This really, really grated. It’s not like nobody in this world who reads in English doesn’t also understand French.
AWFULLY AMBROSE and HORRIBLY HARRY by Lisa Henry & Sarah Honey. These were fun m/m romances. The premise is a group of students renting a run-down house in Sydney and one of them having a little side business in being a bad boyfriend for hire. As in, your parents don’t like who you’re dating? Have dinner with them and the really, really bad fake boyfriend and they’ll like anybody else you bring home! It starts with Ambrose, who started this whole thing more by accident, to help a friend out. He meets Liam, who sees him in action as bad boyfriend first and then gets the truth from the friend who hired Ambrose. Liam actually needs a nice boyfriend to show off so that his parents will leave him alone – he actually doesn’t want to date but they can’t stop trying to pair him off with someone. That plan of course backfires spectacularly – because Ambrose is too nice, gets invited for a holiday weekend with the family, and the two catch feelings. This was fun, though it also has some serious undertones, like Ambroses mother and his worries about her, and the fact that Liam’s mother especially needs to let him live his own life. So Ambrose moves out of the terrible house to live with Liam at the end of his book.
That leaves Harry and Tristan at the house. Harry takes over the bad boyfriend business in his book because they still need to make ends meet, and thanks to a not-so-meet-cute, Jack, the brother of one of Harry’s “dates” moves in and those two get together in the end. This one was very fluffy, funny, and all around feel good. Harry and Jack are just cute together. Ok, the description of the secondhand shop where Harry buys his terribly boyfriend outfits is a bit over the top, but the descriptions of said outfits are a hoot. There’s a very eyecatching peacock print suit involved! Though connected, these books are totally ok to be read on their own. In fact, I read Harry’s first, and I didn’t feel I’d missed anything, though Ambrose and Liam make a quick appearance.
The last book, Terribly Tristan, will come out this autumn and it will be Tristan’s story, who so far mostly showed up by taking a different guy home seemingly every night – and always forgetting their names… I will definitely be getting this one as well.
And now I have just finished HOME GROWN TALENT by Joanna Chambers & Sally Malcolm. This is the follow up to Total Creative Control, and it’s just as good. Has all the feels, a bit of angst, some funny bits – and some very steamy sex scenes. This is the story of Owen, Lewis’ older brother, and Mason, who Lewis breaks up with in the first book. Again, it’s set in the world of media/TV and there’s a similarly manipulative baddie, so that may feel a bit same-ish, but it’s defintely a different story and very much their story though Lewis and Aaron turn up and are there for Owen when things go south. Owen and Lewis have a conversation that they should have had years ago and realise they are maybe not as different as they thought. The story also shows why Lewis and Mason just couldn’t have worked out. I liked how this book took up these threads from the first book, but still, if you want to, it’s fine as a standalone.
There will at least be a third book in the series – about Jay and Tag. After book one, I actually thought these two might be up next. Owen and Mason wouldn’t have been an obvious choice for me, but they are perfect together.
First I read Julia’s Whelan’s THANK YOU FOR LISTENING as an ebook and then I listened to it. I loved it both times. It’s about an actor who gets disfigured in an accident and becomes an audiobook narrator who connects with a stranger while she’s at a conference and they get Snowed In for a night! Can’t tell too much else without spoiling it. This is a lovely, complicated story with lovely, complicated characters. Highly recommend.
Currently reading and loving Beverly Jenkins’ TO CATCH A RAVEN. About halfway through and it’s typical excellent Jenkins.
Someone on Goodreads said that Jessica Topper’s LOUDER THAN LOVE is the best rockstar romance ever and I love rockstar romances (yeah, I know) so I immediately bought it and felt I was in good hands. Something about the assurance of the writing. This one is about a has-been rockstar who is hiding out but gets dragged back into real life by a single-mother small-town librarian, and yeah I love it enough to read the other’s entire ouevre. LOUDER THAN LOVE was definitely the best. SOFTER THAN STEEL also good. Really liked the non-rockstar DICTATORSHIP OF THE DRESS but the followup COURTSHIP OF THE CAKE could have been great but was confusing.
Other recent likes: Mia Hopkins’ DEEP DOWN, Sarah Grunder Ruiz’s LUCK AND LAST RESORTS, Mhairi McFarlane’s MAD ABOUT YOU, Jan Devon’s BEND TOWARD THE SUN, Alexis Hall’s HUSBAND MATERIAL which made me laugh our loud, and FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK. I did like THE ACCIDENTAL PINUP.
What I’m planning to read – Martha Wells’ Witch King is finally up for preorder. I have preordered. Now I will attempt to put it out of my mind for another 9 months.
Just finished Ruby Fever by Ilona Andrews, which released earlier this week. I rarely buy new releases, so this was a treat and did not disappoint. I even enjoyed the epilogue and I’m not usually an epilogue fan.
I also read The Suite Spot, by Trish Doller, which I bought because the description interested me in the sale post. It is partially set in Ohio, near Cedar Point. Since I lived in Ohio back in the late 1980s and the 1990s, the description intrigued me. I enjoyed the book and will look for more by this author. Single mom, nerdy hero who brews craft beer and hires the mom to help him set up his brewery/resort on an island in Lake Erie.
I read the latest book in Cherise Sinclair’s Wild Hunt Legacy series, which features a wolf-shifter heroine, who has appeared in previous books. It was nice to read about her getting an HEA and the book includes brief appearances by some of the characters in prior books in the series.
On the audiobook front, I picked up several Kristin Ashley books — from her Rock Chick series and Burg series, because I could add the audio to my existing kindle version for 1.99. I’m slowly working my way through them (I listen to audio books to fall asleep and only books that I’ve already read, so I don’t get so interested in the narration that I can’t fall asleep). The narrator for the Rock Chick books is very good. I also just finished listening to Make it Sweet by Kristen Callihan and enjoyed it as well. Both narrators were quite good.
Not sure what to start next. I definitely have book hangover from Ruby Fever.
Since Ruby Fever by Ilona Andrews was finally released this week, I first tore into the second book in the series, Emerald Blaze, and am now racing through Ruby Fever. As always, the Andrews never fail to hit my reading sweet spot.
I also read a charming women’s fiction, Lucy Checks In, by Dee Ernst. It’s the second book she’s written set in France, with the first, Maggie Finds Her Muse, set in Paris, and this one in Rennes, a smallish city in Brittany. Both feature MCs in their late 40s facing professional challenges and discovering a new path for their lives in France.
Is no one talking about RUBY FEVER by Ilona Andrews? I know there are Ilona Andrews fans here. Confession: I had to read the book twice through in order to follow the plot line. Did anyone else have this issue? There are just a looooooot of characters at this point and I’m not always great at remembering who is who. There were a bunch of new characters (hello Russian prince and approximately a million new Arkan baddies) and a lot of cameos or near cameos from old characters. So the plot was rather busy. But still, I enjoyed it enough to read it twice in a row!
Like @Midge, I read HOME GROWN TALENT by Joanna Chambers and Sally Malcom. I absolutely adored book 1, TOTAL CREATIVE CONTROL, so I was really looking forward to this one. But I must say that I didn’t like HOME GROWN TALENT quite as much. I liked the chemistry between the two leads. That was really great. I liked the two characters a lot. But I did not like the way Mason basically spends the entire book making Owen a little uncomfortable so that he (Mason) can improve his social media/influencer standing. And Owen goes along with it because he’s infatuated with Mason. That’s kind of the plot, really. Yes, Mason has his moment of revelation, but I’m not sure he gets that it wasn’t just the pineapple.
Like @Deborah, I read LOVE ON THE BRAIN by Ali Hazelwood this week. Definitely agree that there is a certain sameness to her male romantic leads. But I had fun. I did. I enjoy the fact that the characters in her books seem to actually know the subject matter they are working in. There are so many novels filled with “experts” who don’t actually know anything. As a STEM Ph.D. myself, I really appreciate that authenticity.
@Lena Brassard/Ren Benton, I am happy to share the aphantasia clubhouse with you. Others are welcome, too!
@LisaM, you are definitely making me want to read Audrey Faye’s Ghost Mountain Shifters!
:::flops in to the sound of college football, or as I like to think of it, “napping season”:::
Turned on the game for the hubs, because I am nice. Let’s see, I bounced Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn up to the top of my list, and it was EVERYTHING, I want 10 of it. Four women who have been working as professional assassins for 4 decades, and some bozo thinks he can try to have them offed as they approach their well-deserved retirements without repercussions? Oh, you deserve what’s coming your way, boo. There were creative kills, mostly of men that DESERVE IT, plenty of snark, and a lot of the rage that can only be felt by older women who ran out fucks to give at least 20 years ago. There were several lines that made me do actual real-life spit takes (watch your Diet Cokes). Then I went into A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet. Another book chock-full of female rage. I had a problem with the hero for some of the book, in that he spent a lot of it holding the heroine hostage. But I liked the fantasy setting, especially the Greek mythology trappings (you know ya girl’s entire being is owned by the video game Hades), and there was enough progression in the relationship to make me more amenable to the hero. Which brings us to now, in which I’m reading Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones. It is the sequel to My Heart Is A Chainsaw, and Jade, now calling herself Jennifer, is out of prison and processing a ton of trauma from the Indian Lake Massacre in the first book (which some people still suspect her of being responsible for) when a new slasher, a prolific serial killers by the name of Dark Mill South, comes to her town and immediately starts offing the locals in various gory and creative ways. As usual, Jennifer uses her unique knowledge of slashers and Final Girls to navigate the situation. I made the mistake of starting it last night around 10:30 PM when I had to work at an event this morning. Us professionals call this a “less than wise decision”. So until next time, keep an eye out for the Final Girl. She might be you.
Gotta say that I am happier with my reading now that I am being conscious about what I don’t like. Comedic romances almost never work for me. Do not like cheating. No cliffhangers. Not into Mafia. Not really into nonconsensual relations, in general. Etc. There are occasional exceptions but not many.
I attempted Mr. McHottie by Pippa Grant and, really, it helped me solidify my stand on comedy based romance. YMMV.
Help Me Remember by Corrine Michaels. She witnessed a murder, was injured, has amnesia, is trying to figure out what happened. Police say no one can tell her any of her memories because they don’t want them contaminated, Really had to suspend disbelief on that but it was OK. People who have never had to deal with post-concussive amnesia may like this better.
Read the first (and only) three of a sports series by Jiffy Kate. The Rookie and the Rock Star. He is sweet and innocent and red hot as a ball player. She is a child star, now rock star, exploited by those around her. They meet cute and try to make it work. The Ace and the Assistant. He is star pitcher whose life is out of control after a bad divorce; she comes in to made sense of his day to day finances and media, etc. They have a brief encounter and they decide that is not appropriate. But, pregnancy. The Setup and the Substitute by Jiffy Kate. He is a single dad pitcher, she is a substitute at his daughter’s school and comes to nanny for him. Although he is her boss, I didn’t feel that the relationship was too inappropriate. The addicted ex-wife was not completely vilified. I enjoyed this series and would read more if there were more.
Jack Kingsley by Nina Levine. I loved the rest of the series but hesitated on this due to possible cheating. The hero is dealing with bipolar with comorbid substance use disorder but is now in treatment. I actually liked that mental health was dealt with. It really is time to destigmatize this. And I did enjoy this book also.
Mortal Secrets by Isa Medina. This is paranormal, not romance, and the start of a series that I will probably finish. Heroine is hiding her angel half which is much scarier than usual and would make her a target, is failing at her attempts to join the Hunters, has found family she cares for. Lots of plot. I enjoyed it.
Everything is Mine by Ruth Lillegraven. Murder in Norway. Good writing and plot. But why do I keep trying to read Nordic noir? I guess I need to add that to my no-go list.
Thank you, everyone! I love reading about what you all are finding captivating or not!
@Midge, I’ve also been really enjoying the Bad Boyfriends series! They’re just so warm and make me laugh!
I’m working my way through Erin Nicholas’s Bad Boys of the Bayou series—it’s a surprise series release of eight books set in the fictional town of Bad, Louisiana. These are fun, hot, sometimes emotional reads. It’s been a delicious binge.
And Naima Simone’s Black Sheep Bargain is a standout finale to her Billionaires of Boston series about half brothers who only learn of their connection after their father’s death.
@Neile: I’m with you: THANK YOU FOR LISTENING was fantastic! I listened to it first and then immediately ordered a paper copy to keep. And I loved @Sarah’s podcast interview with its author, Julia Whelan. I read a few other things that left me saying, “meh”: THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME by Allison Winn Scotch and STAY AWAKE by Megan Goldin among them. I usually go crazy for Gabrielle Zevin’s work; I just finished TOMORROW, TOMORROW, and TOMORROW, and while I found much to admire in it and learned a lot about gaming, it didn’t evoke joy. We need to put our heads together and find a way to keep Julia Whelan going 24/7 so she can continue to both narrate and write!
It has been awhile since I last posted to WAYR and I have finished so much, so here we go!
Excellent:
How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber & Julie King: Highly recommended for anyone with kids in this age group – different approaches to use when communicating and then very specific examples of them in practice.
Very Good:
Mouth to Mouth by Tessa Bailey: First in the Beach Kingdom series, this was a New Adult romance between ex-con (for good and noble reason, of course) hero and young fresh-faced 18 year-old very sheltered heroine now out in the world and about to start college. One of my favorite tropes is a hero who doesn’t think he is good enough for a heroine and I love Bailey – so, in general, the book worked for me. I will say that while I could accept some of the hero’s very alpha behavior in a romance novel, it would not be healthy or acceptable in real life. (TW: violent homophobia in back story)
Heat Stroke by Tessa Bailey (Beach Kingdom #2): One hero is a very bookish teacher (brother to the hero of Mouth to Mouth) and the other hero is a brash gym rat. The second hero starts the book knowing that he is fascinated with our other hero, but doesn’t think he is gay. A large part of this story is the second hero struggling with his own sexuality. I thought the conflict at the end felt forced and then was wrapped up too neatly, but overall really enjoyed it most especially the opposites attract aspect. (CW: homophobia)
Dissolution by CJ Sansom: The first in the Matthew Shardlake mystery series set during the English Reformation, our MC is sent to a monastery by Thomas Cromwell to investigate the murder of a government official. Shardlake is also there because Cromwell is working to have monasteries across England “voluntarily” dissolve and he wants the dirt on this one. While it started out slow, there were plenty of interesting characters and twists and turns.
Good:
Emerald Blaze by Ilona Andrews: Book #5 of the Hidden Legacy series, while still very readable, Alessandro and Catalina lack the tension and chemistry of Rogan and Nevada from books 1-3.
Work Clean: The Life-Changing Power of Mise-en-Place to Organize Your Life, Work and Mind by Dan Charnas: The first two thirds of the book really shined when explaining how chefs think and how they set up and execute their processes. But the book fell apart in the last third when the author created his own system based on these principals – I found no use in that system, but lots to think about and use in my own way from the first part.
Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee: I think this book could have benefitted with photos and also with more concrete everyday practical suggestions, but I still enjoyed the tour through the world of joy.
Meh:
Pursued for the Viscount’s Vengeance by Sarah Mallory: what is say on the tin – the first 2/3 of the book was fine, but I did enjoy how things were resolved at the end.
Enchanting the Lady by Kathryne Kennedy: First in the Relics of Merlin historical fantasy romance series, this started out so well – the hero pursuing the heroine as part of his investigation into the lost relics of Merlin while the heroine thinks it is only because they had an instant connection. It all fell apart in the last part of the book where there was not enough explanation or grovel from the hero and too many stupid decisions by the heroine.
The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale: Historical fiction set in 1750’s England, the main character leaves her small town for London. Through sheer luck she becomes apprenticed to a fireworks maker. All the CWs apply here – on-page rape, attempted sexual assault, unwanted pregnancy, infanticide (not by MC), suicidal ideation, plus more so read with caution.
The Bad:
Sink or Swim by Tessa Bailey: Third in the Beach Kingdom series, I absolutely loathed the story line in this – the reason why the hero felt he was not worthy of the heroine and then the way he “solved” the problem – the solution was gross and unacceptable and the original problem felt like a very bad authorial choice of plot line to keep the best-friends-from-childhood hero and heroine apart. I tried not to let this terrible book ruin the whole series, but the characters I liked in the first two books were dragged into this mess. Extremely disappointed.
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny: I am going to voice what I think may be a very unpopular opinion, but I think the Chief Inspector Ganache series (this is #3) might be pretty terrible. A large part of why I stick with a mystery series is that I like the main characters and I have pretty much decided there are no characters in these books I want to spend time with. Second, since the first book the murders and mysteries have gotten more and more outlandish and the final denouements more ridiculous.