Whatcha Reading? October 2022, Part Two

The woman in yellow coat jeans and boots sitting under the maple tree with a red book and cup of coffee or tea in fall city park on a warm day. Autumn golden leaves. Reading concept. Close up.We are wrapping up October, which means it’s our second Whatcha Reading of the month!

Carrie: I just finished The Brightest Star in Paris ( A | BN | K ) and I loved it despite feeling like it was at least two different books smooshed together!

Shana: I’ve read so many good books lately, hopefully I can continue this trend. Right now I’m reading You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I started it ages ago but the library “stole” it back. Now I’m sprinting to the finish. I adore ALL the characters.

Sarah: I’m reading Season of Love by Helena Greer. F/F romance with Jewish owner of a Christmas tree farm and the caretaker. The cover says, “It’s time to make the yuletide gay.”

Pretty effective pun-tastic Sarah trap, that is.

Season of Love
A | BN | K | AB
Shana: I just got so excited because this sounds awesome, ran to put it on hold, and my hold was already waiting for me.

Good job, past Shana. Are you liking it?

Sarah: Just started, but so far good!!

Elyse: I just started Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney. ( A | BN | K | AB )

It’s a vaguely Gothic locked room thriller/mystery.

Shana: Reporting back to say that I just spent every free moment of my day burning through You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty and this book slayed me. Damn. I cannot imagine world in which it’s not my favorite book of 2022.

Sneezy: I’m reading A Bookstore Romance. It’s a Korean comtemp fantasy webtoon, and so far it’s great!

Susan: I’m still reading The Ancient Magus’ Bride – ( A | BN | K | AB ) every volume takes me longer than I expect because I just want to linger with it

The Red Scholar’s Wake
A | BN | K | AB
But I’ve also started Aliette de Bodard’s newest book, The Red Scholar’s Wake, which is a Xuya-verse f/f romance about lesbian space pirates and it’s SO GOOD

One of the protagonists is a sentient space ship, and the descriptions of her are absolutely swoon-worthy.

(Xuya is her Vietnamese-inspired space opera setting, where there’s Confucian empires in space and sentient space ships, it’s great.)

So, whatcha reading? Let us know in the comments!

Comments are Closed

  1. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    I thoroughly enjoyed Annika Martin’s BUTT-DIALING THE BILLIONAIRE, the latest in her Billionaires of Manhattan series. By turns humorous, serious, heartwarming, and hot, BUTT-DIALING THE BILLIONAIRE features a heroine desperately trying to save the sportwear company where she is the lead designer. She and her found-family of fellow employees are unaware that the company is being undermined with an eye to destroying it. The hero—the newly-minted owner of the company and initially unaware of the plans to destroy it—goes undercover to uncover the identity of the employee who, courtesy of the titular butt-dial, was heard mocking him on a corporation-wide telephone call. Once he arrives at the company as a delivery driver (scenes describing his outdated 1990s appearance are hilarious), he begins to realize how disconnected he’s been from a lot of what’s been going on at the company. There’s some serious heat in the first half of the book as the hero (in his delivery driver disguise) and the heroine grow closer (have no fear: she knows his real identity before they get down to the actual deed), along with some understanding of how different types of childhood dysfunction have influenced their worldviews. Like all of Martin’s Billionaires of Manhattan series, BUTT-DIALING THE BILLIONAIRE is a sweet bon-bon of a book wrapped around a far more serious center. And it was also nice to see some of my own other favorite romance writers—Zoe York, Molly Fader (O’Keefe), Adriana Anders, Joanna Chambers—being thanked in Martin’s Acknowledgements. Highly recommended.

    Although Kate Canterbary is one of my favorite writers, I initially struggled with her latest, IN A JAM, a second-chance romance between two people who were friends (perhaps bordering on being more) in high school. Once I got through the rather dense first third of the book, the story moved much easier. The book is front-loaded with a lot of set-up, including a number of secondary characters (whom I’m sure will appear in their own future romances), but the story picks up after a slow start. After being dumped by her fiancé, school teacher Shay moves to the Rhode Island farm left to her by her late grandmother. There’s a condition in the will requiring Shay to marry within a year to keep the farm. What I liked about this aspect of the story was how quickly hero Noah—a lawyer & farmer, and Shay’s high school friend—dismantles it: telling Shay she could easily get that marriage condition overturned. Noah, busy running a farm/dairy/bakery, also has custody of his niece, a child with significant trauma in her background. Eventually, Noah & Shay do marry, but it’s not all smooth sailing. A lot of Canterbary’s hallmarks are here: an adventurous approach to food, drink, and enjoyment of same, a group of loving & supportive friends, MCs who exude competence and energy in their professional lives but tend to stumble where emotions are concerned, and plenty of hot sexy-times. Recommended—just hang on during the first 30% or so.

    Genevieve Turner’s COWBOY, KISS ME AT CHRISTMAS (part of her Cowboy Homecoming series of contemporary romances) is a cute Christmas novella with plenty of low-key humor that comes from understanding the romance tropes that the heroine Sasha loves (cowboys, enforced proximity, snowstorm, only one bed). However, Sasha soon discovers that driving her car into a snowbank during a blizzard, being rescued by taciturn cowboy Max, and having to share his tiny cabin while the snowstorm rages isn’t going to be the same as when these things happen in one of her beloved romance novels…or is it? Sasha & Max, snowed in through Christmas, warm up to each other as they decorate Max’s tiny cabin for the holidays and take care of a newborn calf. Incidentally, this is the second book I’ve read recently that features MCs snowbound with only one bed while caring for a newborn calf (the first was Rachel Ember’s completely different but just as good LONG WINTER). COWBOY, KISS ME AT CHRISTMAS is recommended to put you in the holiday spirit.

    I plucked an older (published in 2016) Maisey Yates title, LAST CHANCE REBEL, from Mount TBR, and found a beautifully written and melancholy story of two lonely people unwillingly connected by the scars one of them bears that witness the other’s poor decision-making. In LAST CHANCE REBEL, a woman, physically & emotionally scarred by a terrible automobile accident 17 years before, connects with the man whose reckless driving caused the accident. He’s spent the years since the accident drifting from job to job and trying (anonymously) to alleviate the heroine’s situation. The heroine, understandably, has grown into a rather prickly and isolated woman. When the MCs first meet, there’s an incredible amount of anger on the heroine’s part, and an acceptance on the hero’s part that he deserves the heroine’s enmity. This felt very realistic to me, as the heroine confronts the man who has caused her so much pain. But as the story progresses, both MCs begin to view the other in a more nuanced light: the heroine stops seeing the hero as nothing but a thoughtless teenager who caused the accident that injured her, and the hero stops seeing the heroine only as a victim of his entitled adolescence. Yates does a fabulous job with describing the way atonement, contrition, and forgiveness gradually morph into love. Yates is one of my “Queens of Angsty Heartache” and her style may not be for everyone, but I love it. LAST CHANCE REBEL is a lovely, melancholy story that made my list of favorite reads of 2022 (published in a prior year). Highly recommended.

    [CW/TW: suicide ideation] Amelia Wilde’s UPPER HAND, the sequel to POWER PLAY, continues the story of Gabriel Hill and Elise Bettancourt, whose complicated relationship dissolved unhappily at the end of the first book. UPPER HAND is infused with Gabriel’s suicide ideation: he is determined to infiltrate the nefarious consortium responsible for his parents’ death and kill everyone involved (killing himself in the process). But there’s still time for a reunion with Elise (whose estranged father heads the consortium), not to mention a flirtation (or more?) with Jacob, Gabriel’s former boyfriend who is also ready to join the consortium. But the consortium’s sexually-violent initiation rites (CW/TW: rape role-play, although the scenario is presented with ambiguity) leads to Gabriel deciding he wants a life with Elise, but is it too late for them? UPPER HAND is a dark romance with lots of triggers and, naturally, the de rigueur cliff-hanger ending. It’s well-written, but unless you like dark (really dark) romance, proceed at your own risk.

    HB Lin’s erotic m/m romance, CHRISTIAN AND SEBASTIAN FALL IN LOVE, was a recent freebie download that surprised me with its emotional level. While Lin is not the smoothest prose stylist, I thought the story did some things very well. The MCs are both involved in the adult film industry, although Christian—now in his early 50s—has mostly left that career to focus on his personal training business, while much younger Sebastian uses OnlyFans and other forms of social media to monetize his content. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between Christian, whose career was dictated primarily by studios, and Sebastian, who is responsible for creating, distributing, and profiting from his own content. I also liked how matter-of-fact the book is about p*rn: it’s simply one of the ways the MCs make money, a job like any other. And I really like Lin’s ability to show that performing sex acts on camera for money and having an intimate relationship with someone away from the cameras are two completely different things. Key quote: “They were colleagues in an industry where emotions were best left at the door. Sex was complicated enough without money thrown into the mix. But when sex and money did mingle, the addition of emotions spelled disaster.” Lin’s ability to delve into the feelings of people who spend much of their time trying to suppress their emotions outweighed some rather clunky writing. Recommended.

    I liked CHRISTIAN & SEBASTIAN FALL IN LOVE enough to try the next book in Lin’s P*rn Stars Falling in Love series, NOEL & BELLAMY FALL IN LOVE. NABFIL answers a question I never thought I’d ask: what would HEATED RIVALRY be like if, instead of professional hockey players, Shane & Ilya were p*rn stars (and, in all honesty, if Rachel Reid were not so good a writer)? Noel & Bellamy work for competing studios and their rivalry has been intensified by social media (although I doubt that the race for the Best Newcomer—pardon the pun—at the Adult Entertainment Awards is quite on par with the drive to win the Calder Award in the NHL). The men are unaccountably attracted to each other even while participating in events that highlight their rivalry. Eventually Noel & Bellamy star together in a “hate fucking” video, but fans are unaware that the guys have actually fallen in love and are in a relationship together. What will happen when their relationship is “outed”, as it were? It’s really interesting how closely NABFIL hews to the HEATED RIVALRY/LONG GAME template: not only are both books about professional rivals who fall in love and, for a variety of reasons, can’t reveal their relationship, there are also some very similar scenes such as the guys exercising next to each other on treadmills, appearing as rivals in an ad campaign (I have no idea if p*rn stars actually get underwear endorsement deals the way Shane & Ilya have athletic wear endorsements), presenting an award together, and getting outed because they got indiscreet in public and were unknowingly recorded. I almost think you have to be familiar with HEATED RIVALRY and THE LONG GAME to fully get what’s going on in NOEL & BELLAMY FALL IN LOVE. Recommended, particularly for devotees of Rule 34.

  2. FashionablyEvil says:

    Actually traveled for work and saw people in person the other week. I’m still clearly out of practice because even though I’m an extrovert, after three days of seeing people, I just needed a nap/was too tired to read (although I concede that the “being pregnant” part of it may have also played a role.)

    SWORDHEART by T. Kingfisher. I don’t think I’ve read any T. Kingfisher I haven’t liked—her books are always like a warm hug (somehow even the horror ones?) because even though Bad Shit is/has happened the characters are doing their best and there’s always an excellent ensemble of supporting characters and quirky humor. Halla, a young-ish widow has been left her uncle’s estate and her horrible, grasping relatives want her to marry her pathetic, clammy-handed cousin so they can take it all away from her. Enter Sarkis, who is bound to a sword for his past misdeeds but who enters Halle’s service to help her escape from and thwart the dreadful relatives. They are helped along the way by Zane, a non-binary priest of the Rat, and Brindle, a gnole amidst various creepy things (encounters with bandits, priests of the Hanged Mother, and the Vagrant Hills from Kingfisher’s Clocktaur series.) It’s great.

    THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES—very HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA vibes from this one with the cutesiness and found family. There’s a plot twist that I didn’t mind from an overall story perspective, but didn’t love from the perspective of the characters’ emotional lives. Still, cozy and enjoyable.

    KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE. I know many others have read/discussed this recently and that Deanna Raybourn was on the podcast last week, so will just say that this is great and I need it to be a movie immediately. My only (minor) quibble is that I needed an afterward about all the art involved in the various jobs and heists.

  3. Heather M says:

    Kyung-sook Shin – The Court Dancer
    This is historical fiction about a Korean court dancer in the 1890s who marries the French legate and moves to Paris. Eventually she finds herself back in Korea right in the upheaval of the Japanese occupation.

    Its very different from the other Shin book I’ve read (Please Look After Mom) but very, very good. I could see it as an historical drama–in fact, due to time period more than anything else, it reminded me of the drama Mr. Sunshine. I was really drawn into the characters and relationships, and Shin is incisive when writing about racism, loneliness, love that fades but doesn’t end, mothers and daughters, loss.

    Alexandra Rowland – A Taste of Gold and Iron
    This was the second pick for my romance book club and I absolutely adored it. I don’t often read fantasy romance and I couldn’t really decide whether this felt more “fantasy” or “romance” or even if it matters. There’s a HEA which might fall into a HFN and back again (I don’t know if a sequel is planned but it FEELS like there’s more story due there, even though it clocked in at 500 pages). But forget the semantics of genre, it’s just a really great book.

    Of which I haven’t mentioned plot. Prince with anxiety falls in love with his straight-laced bodyguard. There’s a lot more to it than that, of course, but I’ll be here all day if I start. In some ways it felt very fanficcy (good ways). Also the cover is a definite cover awe candidate.

    Lily King – Five Tuesdays in Winter

    Short stories, which was just what I needed this week. And which I just finished 15 minutes ago because I’m playing library chicken. The kind of literary stories where not a ton outwardly happens but the interiority of characters is exquisitely rendered. I suspect I’ll have to let them marinate in my brain a little bit before I come to any real conclusions. But I could see myself coming back to these stories again.

  4. Ely says:

    I’ve always either forgotten or been too shy to post what I’m reading, so this is my first time. I’m travelling for work, stuck in a hotel, waiting on ‘vid test results before I can book my flight home and I need a break from YouTube, so here goes.

    THE WISTERIA SOCIETY OF LADY SCOUNDRELS (A-) – I can totally see why this wasn’t many people’s cup of tea (I amuse myself with my puns), but I freaking loved it. Loved the setting, the characters, the action, all of it. I struggled a little with the complete lack of morals of a lady’s pirate society, but decided to ascribe that feeling to internalised misogyny and moved on. The villain was suitably melodramatic, and there was all sorts of sacrificing for duty etc etc. It was glorious. From the first time the H/h meet, there are all sorts of pants feelings. I actually wasn’t irritated by the insta-lust, because they both acknowledged it to themselves and then kept on being sensible (within the definition of sensible in a truly ridiculous setting). I didn’t give it a perfect grade, because there was a LOT going on and it all started to get pretty rushed towards the end.

    THE UNDERTAKING OF HART AND MERCY (B+) – I think I wanted to love this more than I did. I thought Hart and Mercy were both fantastic characters, and I totally believed that they would start out as enemies and how they transformed into lovers. I think what really irritated me was the sheer number of secrets people kept. Don’t tell your sister/brother/father/friend was such a common phrase throughout this book, that I had no patience left for the big secret that temporarily impacted Hart and Mercy. It also just occurred to me that Mercy had no friends and only interacted with her family for most of the book. One of the main plot points, however, was about Hart learning to open up and care for people … but it wasn’t for Mercy. Weird.

    ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE HEX (B+) – This series continues to improve. This is book 4 and there are also some novellas (I think?). This could probably be read without reading previous novels, but there is an over-arching story and so a lot of the urgency of one of the major plot points would be missing. When a series has a different couple in each book, it’s often difficult for me to tell the difference between narrators – their internal voices all end up sounding the same. Not the case here. Lavinia didn’t have a clear personality to me in the earlier books, but was clearly her own person in this book. Gareth was also suitably broody and powerful. What was weird about this book was that Lavinia used her power once the entire time, and it had almost no effect. Throughout the story, Gareth’s inner monologue is all about how powerful he is and he’s a freak because of it etc etc, but it didn’t really end up being a plot point, somehow? CW: There’s a sex scene that is consensual but not fully informed (I don’t want to be too explicit, but the heroine agreed to something that she doesn’t really understand until during sex). It involves restraints and some bruising. Clear boundaries are established afterwards.

    THE TWISTED ONES (B+) – Aaaargh, why can I not quit T. Kingfisher’s horror books?! This was weird and interesting and scary and ./shiver. T. Kingfisher writes the kind of horror that gets into your head and sticks there. Not gory, but incredibly unsettling. The problem is that I recently read Skyla Dawn Cameron’s DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD which was a similar “woman settles deceased family member’s affairs in a remote house and shit starts to happen” book, and I liked DWELLER better. Apart from that same basic concept, they play out completely differently, but it was just too similar in my mind. One thing I appreciated was that the narrator assures her reader right from the beginning that the dog is ok. More books should do this.

    MASTER OF THE HUNT (B) – I always forget about Lisa Blackwood and then stumble across one of her books (usually through a sale), and I think “why on earth don’t I read more of her?”. My favourite is “Ishtar’s Blade” which I can’t even begin to describe because it’s so weird and I need to go re-read it. MASTER OF THE HUNT was clearly book 1 of a series – it ends on a cliffhanger – and I was sufficiently intrigued that I will get book 2. This book explored the kind of trust that is developed between enemies who have been tasked with observing each other for years, even to the extent of warning that “enemy” when their own side might inflict harm on them.

    CHAOS STATION (C+) – I read this M/M romance for my Sci-Fi book club. Holy misery porn, Batman. It was well written, had some great found family, but the misery. It never ended. Out of curiosity, I looked at the plot points for the next 2 books in the series, and it’s more misery for the main couple. I am 100% not in the right headspace for this kind of hardship right now, so YMMV.

    THE GOLDEN ENCLAVES (C+) – This one stings. Book 3 in one of my absolute favourite series, and I feel like Naomi Novik completely whiffed the landing. It was not a good book. El travelled to London, and saved the day. 2 hours later, she travelled to India and saved the day again. Then 2 hours later, she travelled to … you get the idea. The whole book felt like it was just a series of “and then”. The way some of the overarching plot points were wrapped up was absolutely outstanding – the pieces were laid out right from the beginning and they all made sense, you just had to look at them sideways. It was just that the rest of the story was blah. I hate when a final book takes a series from a constant re-read to I-never-want-to-read-this-again. Gah.

    Next up for me to read is BLITZ by Daniel O’Malley, book 3 in The Rook series. THE ROOK is one of my all time favourite books, but I deeply disliked book 2, STILETTO. So I’m willing to give book 3 a shot, but I have mixed emotions. I’ve been holding on to this rant for years, so even though I didn’t read STILETTO in the last 2 weeks, here it is: If you’re gonna use a deus ex machina, just call your character Deus Ex and bloody well be done with it. Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. The entire bloody book was people having meetings, discussing what was going to happen in the more interesting meetings … and then we never got to see what happened in the interesting meetings! I get that it was enemies to friends, which was lovely, but the few glimpses we had of Myfanwy just made it more obvious how tedious Odette and Felicity were. grrrrr. That was cathartic. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

    Now I can’t wait to see what everyone else is reading, so I can add even more books to my obscene TBR pile.

  5. kkw says:

    Nothing I hadn’t read before was exceptional, for exceptional everyone has to be aware that as far as I am concerned it’s all KJ Charles all the time over here. But there were a couple of books that I thought were at least a little better than average:

    I just finished Meryl Wilsner’s Mistakes Were Made and wow, they sure were. I was too tense to be able to enjoy the book as a romance, because the sneaking around aspect is anathema to me. The sex was hot despite that, so if the forbidden thing works for you as a concept you’ll want to check it out, but that’s not why I was invested. I hated so many other things about it, from how much they are drawn to one another’s confidence but that confidence is just a front, to the age difference that is presented as never a problem (how can it never be a problem???) to …just about everything, actually. If I never see the word smirk again that’ll be great. And yet I never thought of not finishing it or even putting it aside and reading something else temporarily. I think I really like Wilsner’s writing but hate their plots? Insanely readable even when I hated every choice everyone was making. I am thinking of it as a thriller more than a romance, despite the absolutely delightfully soppy hea.

    In a reversal from that, I liked Oak King Holly King for the (incredibly predictable) plot, but wow is the pacing slow and the prose purple. But y’know, gay fairy historical romance would have to work extremely hard to displease me, and this one was, if possible, even more enamored of its setting than I was. The descriptions and depictions of magical things were elaborate and lovely and…I keep wanting to say accurate?

    What else…oh I guess the Sarina Bowen collab Top Secret was better than average generally, although nothing special from them. Frat boy romance is a hard sell for me, I grew up in Boston, and it’s a lot like cops, where my brain is convinced they’re the villain even when a book wants them to be the hero. I can suspend my disbelief if given a convincing AU to work with, and this pretty much is. The characterization is a little thin and the plot meanders but it all keeps churning fast enough that I don’t mind. Fun banter, sprinkle of angst, lots of sex.

  6. I’m hoping to check out WHERE OCEANS BURN by Casey Bond and LEGENDBORN by Tracy Deoon.

    I also downloaded the PURELY PUMPKIN cookbook by Allison Day. I love pumpkin, although I have a bad habit of downloading cookbooks and then forgetting to look at them since I don’t have the print book sitting on my physical TBR pile.

    I’m also excited that MISS SCARLET AND THE DUKE is back for a new season on PBS.

  7. Lena Brassard says:

    @Ely: You sold me two books. Please don’t be shy about sharing!

    The only thing I’ve finished is The Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. (The dogs are not fine. I have an illustrated version, and there’s even a picture of one of the dogs being not-fine.)

    And I listened to a heap of audiobook samples and again concluded that’s not my medium. Lots of people availing themselves of the Google Books bot reader (the chutzpah of putting a price tag on speech-to-text that people can enable on their own devices for free…), but also lots of real humans who are nearly as toneless as the bots, intermingled with INAPPROPRIATELY!! PERKY!! narrators. I’ll try again when there’s a plugin that remixes everyone to sound like Florence Pugh.

  8. Big K says:

    Hey, Smart Bitches!
    Have not been able to read much lately due to work and exhaustion from work, so I am really looking forward to reading the recs here and maybe listening to a book while I get my knit on, as the kids say.
    Did read a couple of things. Found the Kathryn Moon books about the Sweet Omegaverse kind of odd. World building did not seem logical to me, just kind of an excuse for sex scenes. Read Lola & the Millionaires and Bad Alpha. Honestly, I love men, but does anyone want to be in a romantic relationship with a bunch of them? Or a bunch of any people? One or two, sure, but more than that? Seems more exhausting than sexy. Maybe I am too tired to enjoy the fantasy.
    Was meh about In A Jam by Kate Canterbary. Liked the plot and characters, but did not believe main characters really fell for each other. Plot moppet was handled well – seemed like a real kid, which can’t be easy to pull off. I’ve enjoyed other books of hers more.
    Have a great weekend, and thank you for sharing recommendations!

  9. Darlynne says:

    NONA THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir: Loved it, will probably never figure out all of it and I’m ok with that. Also in awe of the mind behind the series.

    THE BULLET THAT MISSED by Richard Osman: I love these characters so much and the group continues to grow. Hopefully there’s room for me in the retirement home.

    KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE by Deanna Raybourn: I liked this, perhaps not as much as the Bitchery, probably because of my deep affinity for Osman’s series. But, yes, bring on older women who figure shit out and then blow it up.

    EQUAL RITES by Terry Pratchet: Granny Weatherwax takes on a young female wizard; unheard of, unwelcome and way too powerful to be left on her own. Unseen University is the right place for her, but girls can’t be wizards, right?

    BLACK HEARTS by Doug Johnstone: The Skelf women–funeral directors and private investigators–return in the fourth book and I’m beginning to think the author hates his characters (not really, but geez). The anguish and terror from the first book still haven’t gone away or even lessened. Jenny is falling apart, Dorothy is hanging on, Hannah and Indy are hanging on to each other. Of course I’m in this for the long haul no matter what, just need to take a deep breath.

    POPPY JENKINS by Clare Ashton: Poppy is a total delight, just skirting the edge of too-good-to-be-true or Brigadoon. She’s stayed in her small village, running her family’s bakery and cafe, heartsick still for the best friend who left her abruptly at 16. This is a lovely FF romance, Poppy’s family and townspeople should bottle what they have. Things are not what they seem though and resolution with the long-gone friend isn’t easy or pain free. So very satisfying.

    TOO MUCH LIP by Melissa Lucashenko: The author won Australia’s 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance. The story is told from the POV of Kerry Salter, a queer Indigenous woman who returns unwillingly to her family’s home at news of her Pop’s impending death. What an eye opener, a story about a place and its people; the chaos of family, constant racism, the unwavering certainty of ancestors watching over them. Not an easy read, but darkly funny and completely worth it.

  10. Escapeologist says:

    Hiya, how are you lovely snarky people doing today? It’s beautiful outside and I have no energy to get off the couch.

    My reading has been very moody, started lots of books that ultimately didn’t work for my mood. I did finish Shifters in the Night by Molly Harper and 3/4 of How to Flirt With a Naked Werewolf. Loved the author’s note about escaping into writing that werewolf story while stuck at her in-laws house for a week without power due to a blizzard. The book itself is fun, I really like the heroine and setting, and the spicy scenes are hot. It just feels a tad long maybe because I’m used to her novellas. Keeping this series and Mystic Bayou on the cozy-sexy-escapist-fun shelf.

    I just found out volume 2 is out for Lightfall: The Girl and the Galdurian, a graphic novel I enjoyed about a year ago so it’s time for a reread. Volume 1 is on hoopla, as are the Molly Harper books.

    Waiting on the hold shelf at the actual physical library: Pumpkinheads graphic novel written by Rainbow Rowell and illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks of Lumberjanes. Teenaged best friends working at the pumpkin patch, one shy and straightlaced, the other an agent of chaos, will shy guy finally ask out his crush? The sample was cute and bantery.

    Next up for the Terry Pratchett book club on tor.com – Carpe Jugulum, whereby the witches fight some creepy-ass seemingly unbeatable vampires. It should be read in order after the other witches books. I’ve only read it once and it got me in the feels, cause my girls went through A Lot (all ends well.)

  11. Anne says:

    A selection of Kindle reading for part two. Like others on here, I use my Kindle for nighttime reading and there’s a much broader spectrum of material on it than I would ever buy as as a physical book. I’ve only had my Kindle for a year and it has been a real eye opener as to the various genres in Romancelandia. I am finding things out about myself…

    Claire Kingsley’s Dirty Martini Running Club series has seen several instances of the Bad Decisions Book Club this month. Faking Ms. Right is the first (and to my mind the best): billionaire’s assistant has to pose as his live-in girlfriend – you know the rest… The author has created a world of very likeable characters which has drawn me in and had me one-clicking the other two (Falling For My Enemy and Marrying Mr Wrong), usually in the early hours of the morning. The fourth and final book is promised for early 2023. You can see the tropes from the titles. Recommended, if they are your catnip.

    And because I don’t seem to be able to stop myself hoovering up billionaire/office stories: The Billionaire’s Wake-Up-Call Girl (the placing of the hyphens is very important) by Annika Martin. Grumpy/sunshine, office assistant in need of her signing-on bonus poses as a wake-up service and phone sex ensues. Lightweight and with characters to root for, I enjoyed it for what it is.

    And then I went dark… Security Binds Her by Jennifer Bene was free and I was intrigued. I have dabbled in a few dark/BDSM romances but this first book, in a series of four, is probably my limit in terms of violence. Thalia is kidnapped to be turned into a sex slave, Stockholm Syndrome happens and the kidnapper also becomes obsessed. What has kept me one-clicking the series is that it becomes less dark but still very BDSM heavy. I am halfway through book three and there is no doubt I will finish all four. A learning experience.

    Staying dark, my first foray into Jodi Ellen Malpas with The Brit. Damaged bad boy businessman takes a rival’s equally damaged girlfriend hostage. I love forced proximity as a trope and you get it in spades here. I haven’t felt the need to buy any more of the Unlawful Men series but I did go for one of her historicals which was on offer and I look forward to how she approaches that.

    In actual books, I have returned to Kristen Callihan’s Darkest London series which is perfect autumnal reading. More about those next month. Happy reading all.

  12. Jess says:

    October has really flown by and I did not get to nearly all of the seasonally appropriate books I wanted to, so Halloween may be stretching into November for me. (Also I’m SO excited about “The Red Scholar’s Wake”!).

    Not much romance to report, but I just started “The Romance Recipe” by Ruby Barrett. The first chapter seems promising.

    “A Lady’s Desire” by Lily Maxton: f/f regency, short novella length. When Winifred’s husband dies and leaves her with his gambling debts, she’s reunited with her childhood best friend Sarah, who was her husband’s cousin and became distant after they got married. Win and Sarah both have to confront their old feelings for each other and why their friendship really ended. I was surprised by how much I liked this. Good pacing for a novella (which always works better when the characters have a history), although the ending was a little abrupt, and notably well-written sex scenes. This is one of those cases when an author has only written one f/f work and it’s significantly shorter than her other books (just like KJ Charles, Cat Sebastian, Courtney Milan, I could go on).

    “Vow of the Vigilante” by Leighton Greene: Continued skipping around in Greene’s m/m mafia romance series. This novella follows the same couple from the second book in the series and I wanted to see the resolution of their arc; fairly satisfying postscript although a lot of it is dedicated to setting up characters and plot threads for future books.

    “Man, Fuck This House” by Brian Asman: Short horror novel. I admittedly just read this because I thought the title was funny. The main character is a woman who just moved to a beautiful new house with her husband and two kids, but realizes there’s a presence in the house that seems to be trying to fulfill her unspoken wishes. Some of the horror works, but the humorous tone the author is going for really falls flat. Disappointing!

    “Family Business” by Jonathan Sims: Also horror. Diya, a woman grieving the death of her best friend, becomes the only non-family employee of Slough & Sons, actually owned by Frank Slough and his two daughters, which cleans up the scenes of recent deaths. When Diya begins seeing visions of how their “clients” died, she’s not sure if she’s losing her mind or if her employers are hiding something. The pacing of this book is a little off and it takes a long time for the beginning to feel like it’s leading somewhere (Sims is known for writing an episodic horror podcast and his previous book was more interconnected short stories than novel, and I think you can tell it’s a hard transition to writing one continuous story). But the creepiness of Diya’s job and her visions work together effectively, the characters are fun, and I liked the ending. Would recommend.

    “Confidence Man” by Maggie Haberman: NYT White House correspondent’s epic-length account of Trump’s life and presidency. I read this mostly because I wanted to judge for myself whether the criticism of Haberman, that she withheld information she should’ve written about at the time to sell books, felt fair. There are definitely a few instances of that, but this book is over 500 pages of incident, most of it pretty inconsequential, and you almost get the feeling Haberman didn’t realize which revelations were genuinely shocking. Overall somewhat interesting but of course not going to change anyone’s mind about Trump, lol.

  13. LML says:

    I hesitated to buy The Guncle because despite the cheery cover art, I anticipated gay-bashing. When the description mentioned it was an NPR book of the year and a semi-finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, I bought it and it was delightful. Frothy despite being grounded by serious issues.

    I found Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest to be fresh and engrossing, the characters seemed exactly like real people. The freshness was a surprise, because an amateur and a Detective solve a mystery. That’s been done. Ah, but this amateur is a psychic travel agent with a wonderful group of friends. I am anxious to read the next book, but not at $11.00 ebook price point. Publishers, really??

    I read the third and fourth books in Grace Burrowes’ Mischief in Mayfair series. Especially enjoyable following on the heels of a couple of bleh/meh books. I wish I had a literary vocabulary to describe books that are just … not up to the same level of writing as Burrowes, Jenkins, and so many other fine writers.

    From the blurb, I expected an ordinary story from The Stand-In but instead was riveted by the second chapter. The plot was creative and charming. I’m so glad I read it.

    Within a page or two I realized that The Lessons of Labradors begins in a pet loss therapy session and – whatever the electronic equivalent is to slamming a book shut, that’s what I did. I beloved, alas elderly, pet was sent to doggie heaven three weeks ago and that sorrow is raw.

    I’ve tried to start Along for the Ride twice, each time the bickering while loading up for the trip stops me. I understand that novels require conflict, but I suppose I’m not in the mood right now.

    I read the latest title in Emma Jameson’s series, Untrue Blue. Oh, I enjoy this series with main characters completely mismatched at at first and second glance. Age differences, social differences, but Tony is so stalwart in his love towards Kate, her brother, and her nephew. The mysteries are solid, but the family and friends relationships really seal the quality.

    I bought The Derby Girl when it was included in a “books on sale” post and finally got around to reading it. Recommend to everyone. Gretchen is a book character (Yes, fiction. I know.) that I would hope to meet and be friends with.

    I wish I had something to share with everyone that didn’t appear here at SBTB first, but … I don’t.

  14. Deborah says:

    BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall – B+ – Last weekend, when every detail was fresh, I would have written paragraphs about this book. This weekend, I’ll just offer up Carrie S’s spot-on review with a particular emphasis on “it fits the rom-com structure more than romance.” My favorite part of the book was Luc’s relationship with his dotty coworkers at CRAPP. (I re-read the knock-knock joke scene the way I return to other novels to read angsty or romantic touchstones.) But what didn’t work for me was the premise of Luc’s “e-list celebrity.” Carrie makes it sound so reasonable in the review, but the idea of public interest in the private life of the mostly unremarkable son of a couple of quasi-has-been rock stars is alien to me. I’m going to assume there’s a thriving gossip culture chewing through the lives of people who don’t seek the spotlight and I am both naive and happier for not knowing of its existence. Also, while I found the birthday party intermittently hilarious, please don’t invite a vegetarian to a meal at your home unless you are prepared to feed him (aka Oliver’s friends are awful hosts).

    THANK YOU FOR LISTENING by Julia Whelan – B+ – The insights on fiction, publishing, audiobook production, and happily ever afters are all A+. The writing is excellent. But I went in looking for a romance and felt like I got women’s fiction (see: chapter 6). The romance was overshadowed by the heroine’s relationship with her (former-and-forever) best friend, her family, and her career.

    After finding the romance in two genuinely excellent books lacking, I went into a deep think/funk about romance. Can I no longer read the genre? Has my heart turned to stone? Why do I viscerally Not Want so many of the titles that regularly populate Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list? If I were a young reader today, is this the genre I would have landed on? What path would have brought a 13-year-old me to romance in the 21st century?

    Then I re-read a bunch of books that restored me to my happy place:
    FAMILY MAN by Jayne Ann Krentz
    IT HAPPENED ONE AUTUMN, DEVIL IN WINTER, DEVIL IN SPRING by Lisa Kleypas
    ACT LIKE IT by Lucy Parker
    THE TYRANT ALPHA’S REJECTED MATE by Cate C Wells

    Perhaps because I usually read within rather than between Kleypas’s various series, this was the first time I noticed how many scenarios she recycles (à la Jayne Ann Krentz). I was specifically struck by how the contract negotiation scene from Chasing Cassandra was initially proposed (though swiftly abandoned in favor of More Sex) in It Happened One Autumn.

  15. JenM says:

    Since I gravitate toward witchy reads this time of year, I recently picked up HEX APPEAL by Kate Johnson. This book effectively straddled the line between straight paranormal and romance for me. Plenty of fun and quirky world building – the witches at the center of the story live in a quirky old house that remakes itself depending on their moods, and there are lots of other whimsical touches. There’s also a spell in place that makes people unable to find or even remember the house or the witches, unless they really need them. Needless to say, dating is a bit challenging in this environment and the heroine hasn’t had much luck at it until the American descendant of a 1600’s era witch-hunter inherits a house in the village. Strange happenings and romance quickly ensue.

    I also read THE HOLIDAY TRAP by Roan Parrish. The lead characters are queer, but otherwise, it’s similar to the plot of the movie The Holiday. Two people needing to get away from their current lives swap their respective houses in Maine and New Orleans over the holidays and end up much happier in their new environments then they ever were in their old ones. The book is light on traditional holiday trappings and instead focuses on the life changing nature of the swap for both of them. It’s a dual timeline/narration which puts some readers off, but I enjoyed both of the protaganists and their stories equally and felt enough time was devoted to both of them.

  16. chacha1 says:

    I usually don’t comment on the monthly whatcha reading because in any given month I read 30+ books and trying to select the one or few to mention is argh. But I just re-read MAYBE THIS TIME by Jennifer Crusie, and I’ll mention it because this is October and it’s a ghost story.

    I was prompted to re-read by a discussion on Crusie’s blog where she said she doesn’t think it’s a romance, and my recollection was that it very much was, so I needed to read it again. And I contend that it *IS* very much a romance. A second-chance, grown-up romance that happens to be built around a ghost story.

    The opening scene: Andie & North see each other again after 10 years; the meeting causes a disturbance in the force. Romance hook accomplished. Then they aren’t in the same room together again till 60% of the way through the book, but they are constantly thinking & talking & fantasizing about each other. Remembering and missing and wishing. When they do get in the same room it’s as allies. North really wants a do-over; Andie needs him to understand exactly what went wrong before. As they try to address a situation that’s more dangerous than North at first believes, both tired & scared & regretful & shaken, the barricades crumble. The happy ending is both thoroughly earned and thoroughly credible.

    It was the perfect time for me to re-read this book and I think everybody else should, too. Happy Halloween. 🙂

  17. Lynn S says:

    It’s October so I try to read some Halloween or fall/Halloween adjacent books. Last year I read THE EX-HEX by Erin Sterling and read the sequel THE KISS CURSE this month. I really love this series! It takes place in a Halloween touristy town in the Georgia mountains but there are ties to a family in Wales. The romance works but there is also a mystery and a threat. But it’s not scary or too much. I would just characterize the Graves Glen series as “cozy Halloween”. I also think The Kiss Curse was even better than the first book.

    Currently I am reading THE WIDOW OF ROSE HOUSE by Diana Biller. It’s a ghost story in the Hudson Bay in the late 1800s. I am a third in, and really enjoying it! There’s a review of the book here that contains all the content warnings.

    I am definitely interested in Halloween/fall romance recommendations. There aren’t a ton if you compare it to Christmas so I am always adding to my list of potential books for this time of year!

  18. Heather C says:

    @Ely I (accidentally) took THE TWISTED ONES on a vacation….where I was staying alone in a cabin in the woods, I was scared to look out the window once the sun went down!

    Rose Lerner’s Sailor’s Delight (m\m historical 5/5 stars) Jewish bookkeeper Elie is in love with British Navy client Augustus. But Augustus is supposed to be getting married soon. I usually only read m\m but with the 2 Rose Lerner stories Ive read, I’m ready to branch out and try the rest of her back list

    Merry Farmer’s A Touch of Tenderness (m\m historical 4/5 stars) Noah crosses the Atlantic to try to find his lost love, but his lost love really ran away and has moved on. Beckett befriends Noah and they try to boost each other up to pursue their love interests. Beckett doesn’t realize that Noah is bi-polar. The story mentions historical treatments for mental illness (which were bad) and ends on a resigned but hopeful note. Noah will always be bi-polar but Beckett wants to support where he can

  19. Neile says:

    Ditto Shana on YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY. I read this a few months ago and it has really stuck with me. A powerful read.

    I just finished Penny’s Reid’s FOLK AROUND AND FIND OUT and loved it. Interesting story about a divorced mother of four and the valley’s inherited-wealth rebel who runs The Pink Pony strip club. I loved how he falls for her and for her kids. So charming.

    The rest of my recent reading was more mixed, though overall I was glad to have read all of them. Maybe I was in a quibbly mood?

    While I really liked Jane Igharo’s first two novels, WHERE WE END & BEGIN didn’t work for me so well. This was a rich girl poor boy story set mostly in Nigeria. I found both the characters and their situation interesting, but both MCs took actions (or inactions) that didn’t seem believable to me, or at least were so unforgivable that I as a reader couldn’t forgive them (and I’m usually pretty good about seeing where characters are coming from when they do/don’t do important things). Ah well. I’ll still continue to seek out Igharo’s stories. And I still was glad I read this despite my disbelief.

    J. Saman’s LOVE TO TEMPT YOU and PROMISE TO LOVE YOU are two of her rock romances (the last two in a quartet I’ve quite enjoyed). I’m a sucker for these and becoming a sucker for J. Saman’s work.

    I enjoyed Ivy Owens’ SCANDALIZED quite a lot. There has been criticism about these because the author is one half of Christina Lauren and apparently that didn’t come out right away even when Christina Lauren recommended the book, but also there has been criticism because the male MC is a Korean-American-British actor on the rise. The female MC is a white childhood friend of his sister’s and a rising journalist chasing a club scandal story. The more I think about this one the more I realize that I found in it. Interesting complexities in how things played out in the character’s complicated lives.

    Eva Leigh’s HOW THE WALLFLOWER WAS WON was enjoyable. The rake must marry within a certain frame of time and the wallflower must marry in order to join a learned society that will have a large impact on an upcoming education bill. They’re attracted to each so why not go ahead? I enjoyed the way these two cared for each other.

    Elle Kennedy’s BAD GIRL REPUTATION is about the reformed bad girl returning to her home town after her mother dies and trying to stay away from the bad boy she’s loved since forever in order not to mess up her life again. He’s perplexed. I especially liked that these were real people with jobs.

    What I liked most about Sarah Echavarre Smith’s THE BOY WITH THE BOOKSTORE was the complex family debt/guilt/love behind h’s life choices. I also liked that the bookstore owner was the H and not the h for a change. Also, the h was a Filipino-American baker and the treats sounded amazing. I appreciated their move from attraction to deeper feelings.

    Sarah Hogle’s JUST LIKE MAGIC was charming but the fantasy was overall a little too fantastic for me. (Ironic, since for 20 years I mostly read speculative YA and adult fiction. Ah well.) If you like Christmas and are in a mood to be charmed and like redemption stories about spoiled OTT rich influencers I do recommend it. A lot of the magic here was delightful and funny and there were some great family dynamics.

    Tara Sivec’s FIRST AND TENSION is part of a series I’ve been listening to and quite enjoying, and even though for some reason the first one worked less well for me the rest so far have been great fun. They’re great light books with enough depth to make them interesting and enough humour to make listening to them something to look forward to. Sivec doesn’t always work for me (I bailed on her fairy tale series) but really like these. Sports boys and spunky small town/island women who have real jobs and friends despite the island being a little too perfect.

  20. Kareni says:

    Since last time ~

    — quite enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid which I read for my distant book group.
    — read a new contemporary romance that I won in a giveaway ~ Did Not Finish by Nicola Marsh. This had a few issues but overall was a pleasant enough read; I don’t see rereading it though.
    — read Retribution: A Gripping Paranormal Thriller (The Psychic Detective Kate Pierce Crime Thriller Series Book 1) by C. M. Sutter. Gripping is a bit generous, but I did finish the book! I don’t imagine I will reread it.

    — quite enjoyed Paranoid Mage by Inadvisably Compelled; it’s urban fantasy featuring a (surprise!) paranoid mage and was initially released on Royal Road as a web novel thus the unusual author name.
    — The Midnight Library: A Novel by Matt Haig for my local book group. This had an intriguing storyline as The Midnight Library is a space between life and death where a woman is able to sample lives she might have lived.
    — the science fiction novel Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings featured characters from two different timelines. This took me several weeks to read as I would put it down and then continue on a week later. I enjoyed it but did not find it ultra compelling.
    — read and enjoyed the paranormal romance Storm Echo by Nalini Singh. I’d stopped reading books set in this world (perhaps five or so books ago) because there seemed to be more attention given to the politics/world and less attention given to the main characters. I felt that this book more heavily focused on the characters, and I liked that.
    — quite enjoyed Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn which is about four female assassins who are targeted on their retirement cruise after forty years in the business. Many might like this book, but I think that women over fifty would particularly enjoy it.

  21. Emily B says:

    MAGGIE MOVES ON by Lucy Score was a fun rom com-ish story about a woman who flips houses for an online show and the landscape architect she falls for. The house renovation stuff was great if you love that kind of thing. I thought the hero came on a little strong honestly, but he won me over in the end. The secondary characters here were also really great. Lucy has a fun voice, and I’ve enjoyed her stand-alones more than her earlier series.

    I finally read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND OTHER FLAVORS by Sonali Dev after having it on my TBR forever. As the first book in a series of Austen retellings about a large, prominent Indian-American family in California, there was a lot of exposition and character building that unfortunately left less room for the main romance. I didn’t love the heroine, whose motivations for her actions always felt a bit murky, and I do wish the romance was a little more front and center, but it won me over in the end. Also, the hero is a chef, and there is so much delicious sounding food. I would give the next book in the series a chance.

    I had read a lot of hype for Suzanne Park, and picked up LOATHE YOU AT FIRST SIGHT, about a female video game designer at a very bro-culture type company, and honestly hated it. The main character was awful, seemed to hate everyone including one of her female friends (this is actually described in the book as something normal, but really just came off as sort of “not like other girls” and was annoying). The romance is basically nonexistent (which is fine! I like women’s fiction where the romance is more of a subplot when it’s done well), there is absolutely no chemistry between the romantic leads. There’s another male character the heroine shares an office with who she, of course, also hates, and I kept wondering if he was who she was going to end up with. The whole thing is just kind of nonsensical, and I got the feeling I was supposed to come away with this really feminist take on gaming, but I just hated the whole thing.

    MAD ABOUT YOU by Mhairi McFarlane is an example of a story where the romance is definitely a small subplot but that’s still compelling for romance readers. McFarlane excels at these sort of quarter to third life crisis type stories. The main character has some relationship trauma in her past that comes to the forefront just as she’s gotten out of a different dead end relationship, and she works through it with the help of her friends and her new roommate (who maybe could be something more). That sounds like nothing happens, but McFarlane has such a funny, distinct voice and that’s what makes her books so enjoyable.

    MORE THAN YOU’LL EVER KNOW by Katie Guttierez is NOT a romance, but was so so good it really stuck with me. The first main character is a true crime writer living in Austin who stumbles across the decades old story of a woman in Laredo who lived a double life, with a husband and kids in the US and another husband in Mexico City. When her secret was uncovered, one husband killed the other – or did he? The book goes back and forth between the two womens’ perspectives as the writer interviews the older woman, and also back in time as the woman tells her story. The mystery element is compelling, but there’s also so much about the ways we’re impacted by trauma and the spaces women are allowed to make for ourselves in the world and expectations placed on us. It was really excellent.

    LOVE SCENES by Bridget Morrisey was a surprisingly touching enemies-to-lovers story about an actress from a Hollywood family of actors who gets cast opposite a former co-star who made a decidedly terrible impression the first time around. The romance is really lovely, and feels very real, which I find is not always the case with enemies to lovers, though we only get the heroine’s perspective, and it’s pretty clear the hero never hated her. The heroine also has to work through her family expectations and how her upbringing has affected her relationships. The large Hollywood family is also well fleshed out, and I found myself wanting to know more about all them.

  22. Katie C. says:

    Football is on TV so my reading has seemed to really fall off. With very rare exceptions, I read every night BUT the amount I read each night varies greatly.

    Excellent:
    The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make by Ron Lieber: I am trying to get a big head start on both learning about saving for, selecting and applying to college (since I graduated college 17 years ago – yikes) for our two toddlers. The author is a personal finance writer for the New York Times and this book is just packed full of great information – both data and anecdotes/specific examples.

    Very Good:
    None

    Good:
    The Penguin Pool Murder by Stuart Palmer: Written and set in the 1930’s, “spinster” school teacher Hildegarde Withers finds a dead body during a field trip to the New York Aquarium. She is confident the police are on the wrong trail and investigates. I can totally see how this was made into a successful movie franchise in the 30’s and if I ever find the time would love to watch it. The murderer was obvious about halfway through the book and some of the plot was totally outlandish. But I was really happy with the end of the book (for the main character’s arc) and so I think I am going to pretend it was a standalone, rather than the first in a series (I peeked at the descriptions of the next couple of books and decided to stop). CW: Casual use of ethnic and ableist slurs

    In the Market For Murder by T.E. Kinsey: Second in the early 20th century-set Lady Hardcastle mystery series, a local farmer slumps over dead at a tavern while eating his lunch and poison is suspected. I struggled with this book a bit because the dialogue felt a little too snappy and the main characters just a bit too clever. It is balanced right on the edge of continuing the series and dropping it, so I decided I will continue and try book 3 at some point.

    Meh:
    None

    The Bad:
    None

  23. DeborahT says:

    I just finished Attractive Forces by Jax Calder – a YA m/m romance which I thoroughly enjoyed. For anybody who enjoys m/m sports romances, I highly recommend her adult New Zealand rugby series starting with Playing Offside. She hasn’t disappointed me yet.

  24. LisaM says:

    I read Chandra Blumberg’s Digging Up Love and enjoyed both the baking and the archaeology. I have the next book in the series, Stirring Up Love, from the library – my hold came in with Julia Whelan’s Thank You for Listening.

    On the non-romance shelf, I read The Spare Man and didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected. I found the ship’s setting and the large cast of characters/suspects confusing – it felt like lots of moving pieces that I had trouble tracking. I also wanted at least some backstory on Tesla and Shal. They’re on their honeymoon, but there is no reference at all (that I remember) even to the wedding.

    I gave up on Seanan McGuire’s latest October Daye book, Be the Serpent. It felt mean-spirited, but it was the on-page death of a child (and the implied deaths of dozens more) that proved the proverbial last straw. I knew from GR pre-release reviews that there was a major reveal in this book, but I saw no content warnings anywhere about the gruesome death. There was a comment here at one point about an author breaking a reader’s trust, and I feel like McGuire did that here for me. I had some qualms after the body horror in this summer’s Spelunking Through Hell (also without CWs), and I should have paid attention.

    I’m currently reading Louisa Morgan’s The Witch’s Kind off my TBR stacks. It reminds me of Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells, and I am waiting for the evil gaslighting husband to meet his deserved end. (I already checked to be sure I didn’t need to brace for an unhappy ending.) I needed a quick dose of happiness last night, so I followed DDD’s recommendation of HB Lin’s Christian & Sebastian Fall in Love and enjoyed it. I may keep the sequels in reserve.

  25. cat_blue says:

    Starting MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia for the second time; I hadn’t gotten far the first time when life got in the way. The writing style doesn’t really work for me but I’ve heard so many good things that I want to give it a fair shake. A spoiled young woman who’s determined to prove herself pays a visit on her sickly cousin at a remote, creepy old house in the hills. Mysterious goings-on are going on.

    Re-read ANNIHILATION by Jeff Van Der Meer and started AUTHORITY (2nd book in the same series) for spooky season. Not romances; scifi/horror. A mysterious “Area X” on the coast was suddenly wiped clean of human civilization and a strange invisible boundary sprang up around it, blocking easy access. ANNIHILATION focuses on the most recent expedition into Area X, a group of four women with different skillsets intent on discovering…well, anything. Things go off the rails quickly and all the discoveries made only raise even more questions, especially about the true purpose of the expedition. AUTHORITY focuses on the Southern Reach, the crumbling bureaucratic agency studying the area, and John Rodriguez–preferred nickname “Control”–who was brought in from the outside as the new director. The last expedition has returned, including members who should not have, and the agency has strange and almost ritualistic ways of dealing with the information they do and do not receive.

    My TBR pile has grown out of control lately with free ebook offerings that I sip and sample for a few pages before forgetting all about, so I’m technically reading many, many more but I couldn’t tell you about them for the life of me…

  26. Alli says:

    This has been my month of reading science fiction murder mysteries. Highly recommend the Locked Tomb series (NONA THE NINTH is the most recent) and SIX WAKES and STATION ETERNITY by Mur Lafferty. Currently reading THE SPARE MAN by Mary Robinette Kowal and liking it thus far. Also read THE GOLDEN ENCLAVES by Naomi Novik (hot damn, that was good) and just picked up BLITZ by Daniel O’Malley

  27. Crystal says:

    YESSSS, SPOOKY SEASON.

    Anyway, I’m working on Funny You Don’t Look Autistic by Michael McCreary for work. I am leading a book study on it, and it’s both a great source of information and fun to read in terms of voice and humor. McCreary is a stand-up comedian and actor that is diagnosed with autism, and he is able to bring the voice and perspective that you can only get from someone that is on the spectrum themselves. On the “not for work/spooky fiction” side, I read Rust In the Root by Justina Ireland. I’m glad I overlooked the reviews that mentioned steampunk (my brain absolutely does not do steampunk), as it was fantastic. Ireland is a deft hand at writing fantastical alt-histories that nonetheless point at our own history and don’t let us off the hook for the catastrophes and atrocities in that history. There are also cryptids in this book’s America, and well, one of them is a baby and is MY FAVORITE. There’s also really good world-building, both from the fashioning of an America that had magic, and how the magic system itself operates. Also, not as a steampunk-y as advertised, at least not to my brain. I then moved on to Big Bad by Lily Anderson, a Buffy novel that has a bunch of alternate-dimension versions of the show’s iconic villains team up to take down the Slayer before she can end their universe. It reads like the fanfiction it is, in that it is quick-paced and revels in fun references that a dedicated Buffy fan will see coming, but I don’t know that I bought all of the character choices. More on that at a later date. Which brings us to now, in that my nose is aimed squarely at Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire. At the end of Imaginary Numbers, Sarah Zellaby (everyone’s most lovable telepathic wasp) had saved the world but also transported herself, her friends, and a chunk of a university to an alternate dimension that has wasp zombies, flying millipedes the size of blimps, and at least three suns. She also accidentally erased all of her friend’s memories of her. I assume most of this book will be her trying to survive and get everyone home. So far, the book has a had a lot of recap and also her having to assure her friends that she won’t try to kill them. I always find the InCryptid books a fun read, as they have action and humor and cute widdle cryptids. So until next time, KIDNAP THE SANDY CLAWS, THROW HIM IN A BOX, BURY HIM FOR NINETY THEN SEE IF HE TALKS. Because it’s Halloween, when else can you do that?

  28. RoseRead says:

    @ Shana, I completely agree with you re YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY by Akwaeke Emezi. I’m repeating myself, as I posted about it during the summer, but I think it was one of my favorite reads of 2022, regardless of genre.

    @DDD, thank you for putting into words exactly what I was feeling about Kate Canterbary’s IN A JAM. I too ended up really enjoying the book and it’s a potential re-read for me, but for the first third or so I was wondering why I wasn’t loving it as much as I love her other work. But I did end up really enjoying it, and also recommend it.

    I finished Foz Meadows’ A STRANGE AND STUBBORN ENDURANCE yesterday and I loved it. Fantasy romance involving a political marriage between two noblemen from different countries trying to broker peace. One of the countries is prudish and Victorian about everything including gender role and sexuality, and the other country is the exact opposite. The young man from the backwards country, through an interesting turn of events that I won’t spoil, ends up going to the more accepting country for the political marriage and finds a wonderful new world where he can be himself. Political opponents in the new country try to undermine the marriage. The marriage of convenience blossoms into real respect and love as the two noblemen partner to solve the mystery of who is committing violence to undermine their union. It turns so many tropes upside down. Very immersive.

    Clair Kann’s the ROMANTIC AGENDA was one of the first romances that I’ve read that really focuses on an ace character. The main character is a really fun person, and I found her level of comfort in communicating her needs, treating her wardrobe and jewelry as a way to express herself, and loving who she is to be so refreshing. In that way it’s similar to YOU MADE OF FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY, although ultimately the heroines of those two books are very different. Both books are very vivid and at least to me painted a lot of pictures in my brain. This book was recommended to me by the great folks at Little District Books in Washington DC, a bookstore centered on LGBTQ+ stories. I don’t know that I would have picked this up without their recommendation, so shout out to all the great booksellers out there who convince us to try new things!

    I also really enjoyed FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK by Elissa Sussman. Another Hollywood romance (I feel like that’s some sort of subgenre in romance in 2022, including BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA and HOW TO FAKE IT IN HOLLYWOOD), although this one was a bit different in that it involves an actor and a reporter who spends a bunch of time with him to write an in-depth profile on him for a publication similar to Vanity Fair. They almost connect on romantic level but then things go awry, ten years passes, and then the find themselves reconnecting. The back-and-forth in time worked well, and I found this story affecting in ways that surprised me. I will say that I think that the book suffers from having an unattractive cover. That aside, I recommend.

    Outside of the romance category, I really enjoyed DRUNK ON ALL YOUR STRANGE NEW WORDS by Eddie Robson. Science fiction involving a race of aliens who have diplomats on earth and who only speak telepathically. Some humans with very specific talents and training can communicate with them and serve as interpreters, but a side effect for those humans is that after an extended time of translating they temporarily experience symptoms similar to inebriation. The protagonist is such a translator, and the diplomat to whom she’s assigned is murdered while she is asleep in his residence recovering from a long bout of translating. She then has to solve the mystery in part to clear herself. Great world building and so creative and well written.

  29. Susan/DC says:

    JANE STEELE, Lyndsay Faye – Carrie reviewed it here and said everything I would say, but better.
    https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/jane-steele-lyndsay-faye/

    CATCHER IN THE RYE, J.D. Salinger – Read this many, many years ago, when I was a lot closer to Holden Caulfield’s age (16) than I am now. Back then, I probably identified with his teenage contempt as he sees the world in absolutes and labels pretty much everyone “morons” or “phonies”. He takes a literal journey through bleak train stations, seedy hotels, and lounges where he tries to scrounge drinks but mostly is recognized for the underage man-child that he is. By the end of the book I’d developed more patience and saw the poignance in his story as he starts his metaphysical journey to a more mature state (although, to be sure, he’s still far from mature). There were a couple of scenes where he shows a surprising empathy and awareness of the way the girls in the book are treated by the boys; surprising because of when the book was written and because Salinger didn’t have the best reputation for his relationships with women.

    TRUE GENTLEMEN, by Grace Burrowes – this is actually a series of related books. So far I’ve read the first 3 and will probably read them all. They are classic, straightforward romances and sometimes I need that to balance what is going on in the Real World. Plus the 3rd in the series (“Will’s True Wish”) has some lovely comments about the dogs that are central to the story.

  30. HeatherS says:

    I read “Read Between The Lines” by Rachel Lacey and was totally charmed by it. I loved both of the main characters (Rosie and Jane), I loved how it was clearly inspired by “You’ve Got Mail”, and thought the pacing was excellent – there was enough time in the story for the main characters to feasibly fall in love.

    I quickly followed that up with the second book, “No Rings Allowed”, and found it entirely too insta-love for my taste. I’m supposed to believe that these characters go from being total strangers to madly in love in all of two weeks? It was nice to get to see Rosie and Jane again and see them being happy together.

  31. Stefanie Magura says:

    I think I mentioned this book several posts back, but I’m going to mention it again, since I just finished reading it. I did what my parents normally do, and read before going to bed, which meant that I finished it in a couple months as opposed to a week or a few days. Having said that, If you are into books about music history, you have got to read Billy Bragg’s book about Skiffle music called Roots, Radicals, and Rockers. The book is written in such a way that the readers know the author knows his subject. And honestly, I shouldn’t have been surprised since the author, a musician of some renown, similarly mixes folk and punk among other genres to create his music, and not unlike punk, Skiffle was created using what people had on hand for instruments like washboards. Also, this book covers a period in British music history which is normally seen as a footnote in other writings. For instance, The Beatles got their start playing this kind of music. Of course, they weren’t called that at that point, and they hadn’t settled on their final line-up, but you may get the idea. The only thing I wish were the case is that this book was available in audio commercially. I think with good narration and maybe a bit of incidental background music to evoke that time and the type of music discussed, I think it could work.

  32. Kathryn says:

    It’s been at least 2 months since I last commented – family and life in general kept me otherwise occupied. The good news is that I was able to find time in all of life’s general chaos to read. The even better news — I’m just going to review a few of those books in this posting – otherwise I’d be writing at least until the next WAYR.

    I went on a mystery plus binge over the past couple of months, reading Katherine Addison’s The Witness for the Dead (mystery plus fantasy); Garth Nixon’s The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (mystery plus alternate Earth history); Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Spare Man (mystery plus science fiction); Muir Lafferty’s Station Eternity (mystery plus science fiction) and Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr Wickham (mystery plus Austen). They were all fun reads. The mystery elements ranged from not all that important compared to the fantastical hijinks (Station Eternity and The Left-Handed Booksellers) to serviceable but less interesting than other aspects of the story (Witness, Spare Man, Murder of Mr Wickham).

    Of all of these I think Gray’s Murder of Mr Wickham was the probably the most successful in its aim – which was to create an Agatha Christie house-party mystery involving most of Austen’s happily-paired couples: Emma and Knightley, Elizabeth and Darcy, Anne and Wentworth, Fanny and Edmund, Marianne and Brandon. Gray clearly knows Austen and captures really well the differences in temperament and personality of each character. It’s also nice to see a nuanced treatment of Fanny (the heroine of Mansfield Park)– she’s probably the most difficult Austen heroine for many readers now to understand (or like), but Gray manages to find a way of showing how Fanny can be conceived sympathetically by a modern audience. There is also a hint of romance between the two amateur sleuths – Juliet Tilney (whose parents Catherine and Henry Tilney are not at the house party) and Jonathan Darcy (the oldest son of Elizabeth and Darcy and who appears to be on the spectrum). Recommended especially for those who enjoy cozy mysteries and Jane Austen.

    One of the films that I think is better than the book is The Thin Man (1934), a b/w pre-Code movie starring William Powell and Myna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. The book written by Dashiell Hammett is good, but the film is better because Powell and Loy have such terrific chemistry together. Kowal’s The Spare Man is a rift on The Thin Man (film and book) – only instead of being set in prohibition-era New York during Nick and Nora’s winter holiday visit, it is on a spaceship heading to Mars during the honeymoon of the H/h. (The book cover is gorgeous and plays with all sorts of visual motifs from the film.) I love how Kowal reworks some of the plot points from the original works into her story in new ways. And I love, love Gimlet, the heroine’s service dog—Kowal makes him adorable, but in a believable dog-like way. I also thought that Kowal did a good job of describing how the heroine, the sole survivor of a horrible engineering accident that severely damaged her spine, manages her physical pain and PTSD incidents with the help of Gimlet. (I did however hate the heroine’s first name, Tesla since these days, Tesla as a name evokes the image of a bad-acting, privileged, libertarian dude bro rather than an underappreciated engineering genius from the late 19th-early 20th centuries.) Overall I liked this book, but I thought the story was too shaggy in places. I would also liked to have seen more personal moments between Tesla and her guy Shal. One of the reasons that The Thin Man movie works so well is that it has lots of small personal moments between Nick and Nora that illustrate how strong their relationship is and how much they enjoy each other. There’s not enough of those moments in The Spare Man and that’s too bad. Oh — and like both versions of The Thin Man, there’s lots of alcoholic cocktails on offer. And while Kowal offers the recipes for both non-alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails at the start of each chapter, I don’t recall anyone in the story ever asking for a non-alcoholic cocktail. Recommended especially if you’ve enjoyed The Thin Man book or movie.

    Now that the last book is out, I’ve started Naomi Novik’s Scholomance trilogy. I didn’t know a lot about the series except that it was about a school that was out to kill its magical students and that the unpopular and prickly heroine was an anti-Harry Potter (and very like Novik’s grumpy heroines in Spinning Silver and Uprooted). I don’t think the Harry Potter comparison is really correct – Novik and Rowling are using their magical school settings to explore very different themes and questions. After finishing the first book, A Deadly Education, my first thought literally was that this series appears to be Novick’s response not so much to Harry Potter, but rather to Le Guin’s short story: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” I even went digging around on the internet and apparently there is an interview where Novik’s does talk about Omelas as an influence. This is a story that asks what price must be paid for personal happiness, for a safe home, for a stable society, for personal power. El, the heroine is named after Tolkien’s Galadriel, the Elvish ruler who refuses the Frodo’s gift of the One Ring, because she knows that while the One Ring will make her powerful, it will also corrupt and destroy her. El, like her namesake, refuses to give into temptation and take up practising dark magic, no matter how attractive it might be at times. And although I found El’s insistence on her inherent badness and prickliness tiresome at times (Galadriel only gives one speech renouncing temptation in the LOTR, El does so numerous times); I, nonetheless, really enjoyed this book and have picked up the next one, The Last Graduate. There is a romance in this book, but it’s very much a subplot.

    Other books I read that were good, but I think this post is long enough: Only Bad Options, Jennifer Estep; Sweetwater & The Witch, Jayne Castle; Nettle & Bone, T. Kingfisher; Storm Echo, Nalini Singh; Snowed In for Christmas, Sarah Morgan

    Decent reads: Flying Solo, Linda Holmes, Anchored Hearts, Priscilla Oliveras; Call Me Maybe, Cara Bastone.

  33. Lisa L says:

    Just had a snort laugh – I placed a hold on the Season of Love e-book at my library, and it usually shows similar recommended reads that are currently available. All of them were bonnet busters!! Um, Christian historical romances are not what I would think would pop up 😉

  34. Lena Brassard says:

    @Lisa L: The algorithm is a fusty old pearl-clutcher issuing a digital “y’all need Jesus”?

  35. Lisa L says:

    @Lena Brassard Thank you for another snort laugh!!

  36. Stefanie Magura says:

    @Kathryn:

    Go to SBSarah’s review for the Spare Man and look at the comments. There’s an interesting discussion about the heroin’s name. Regarding the Thin Man Movie, I hope I can actually fit it into my Christmas viewing this year, even though it’s not really one of those, but does if I remember correctly have a funny Christmas dinner scene. To be honest, at least one of the movies I watch as part of my viewing are known more for having a famous Christmas scene instead of having a story about the holiday. I haven’t seen The Thin Man in several years so I may not be remembering correctly.

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