It’s that time again! We want to know what you’ve been reading!
Lara: I did a brave/stupid thing and started a book from Julie Anne Long’s back catalogue. Heroine is 17 and hero is 29! DNF!
Dear internet, I would like a list of older historical romances that I can read without plucking my eyes from my head. (Hit me up with links!)
Sarah: I am reading Tranquility by Tuesday, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which is about using nine key ideas to manage the feeling of schedule overwhelm. I like how they are rational and intentional about building a day, week, month etc. life that I enjoy.
What’s interesting to me is that because of the pandemic, I stopped doing much of anything out of the house. It’s been two, almost three years, and I needed the reminder that I can do things like plan a hike outside, and not endanger myself or others.
Elyse: I’m about a quarter of the way into Atlas Six by Olivie Blake which is a dark academia fantasy book. So far it’s really fun.
Amanda: It’s my current staff pick at the store!
AJ: I started The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal. I think I’d normally be into it, but I’m suffering book hangover from Ocean’s Echo ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it’s just not grabbing me. Chances I turn around and reread OE instead are not zero.
Carrie: I enjoyed Ordinary Monsters, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which I just finished. Alas, I did NOT enjoy finding out that there is a cliffhanger ending after over 600 pages.
Susan: My copy of Nagata Kabi’s latest autobiographical manga finally came in! My Wandering Warrior Existence ( A | BN | K | AB ) is her exploring dating for the first time, and I don’t know if I’m ready
So far it’s funny and reflective, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to hit like a truck made of emotions and brutal self-examination later.
Shana: I’m reading my first Christmas romance of the year, You’re a Mean One Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky.
Sarah: SHANA I HAVE A REC FOR YOU OMG.
Season of Love by Helena Greer ( A | BN | K | AB ) is adorable.
Butch lumberjack who manages a Christmas tree farm, and Jewish artist who returns to her family’s Christmas tree farm and oh my gosh. You’ll love it.
Shana: That is serious Shana-nip. I feel so seen!
Sarah: Shana. I am embarrassed I forgot to say something. I inhaled this in one day.
It is MADE of your catnip.
Shana: You did tell me! I just forgot in the haze of my ever growing TBR list.
So what are you reading? Let us know below!
THE RISE AND FALL of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland — finished it a couple of days ago and would recommend it to fans of time travel, witches, and… bureaucracy. It is NOT a romance, although there is a romantic subplot. A bit of warning, the beginning of the book is awesome, and really draws you in but there is a part in the middle that is told through memos, chat logs, presentations, etc. and while the idea behind it is to make fun of bureaucracy, it kind of drags, and I found myself skimming pages here and there. Thankfully, the book picks up again at one point and had me glued to the page for the last third.
Reading Alexis Henderson’s House of Hunger. Deliciously gothic. I’m not enjoying it quite as much as The Year of the Witching yet, but I’m only 50 pages in.
Recently finished Cat Sebastian’s The Missing Page, which I actually enjoyed even more than Hither, Page.
Reread Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue (I swear I love it more and more every time I read it).
Also read Lana Harper’s Payback’s a Witch, which was pretty enjoyable and cute, and Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake (not one of the author’s best).
I’ve had a lot of clangers lately but I loved SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS by Jenny Holiday and the latest in the Vera Stanhope mystery series, RISING TIDE.
A short list for me because Life (husband went to a conference and came home with Covid and between Election Day and fall break, the kiddo only had two days of school this week.) But! Two books I would definitely recommend:
A RAKE OF HIS OWN by AJ Lancaster. Part of the Stariel series (also recommended), but can be read as a stand-alone. Insecure botanist meets a dark and dramatic fae prince and they have to work together to solve a mystery. I wanted a bit more drama from the mystery (a scene where one of the MCs is taken hostage is resolved quickly/could have been played for a lot more angst and character development), but overall, adorable.
LEGENDBORN by Tracy Deonn. This book sucked me in almost immediately and while it has some issues with pacing and an (IMO) ill-conceived love triangle around the half-way mark, the ending is absolutely fabulous.
The set up: Bree, who has recently lost her mother under somewhat mysterious circumstances, is admitted to an early college program at UNC. Very quickly, there is a secret society (based on Arthurian legend) that she must infiltrate to learn the secrets of her mother’s death. The conflict is immediate, the issues with the secret society compelling, and the plot brisk as all get-out. The problem with the middle is that we have a major romance trope (insta-love; MCs, who are 16 and 18, fall in love in about a week) in a book that isn’t a romance which leads to a lot of, “Er, aren’t we rushing things/getting into unrealistic territory here…?” The insta-love interest is also the golden boy and, well, he’s a little boring. OBVIOUSLY, the darker love interest is much more compelling (we also get to learn a lot more about him and his arc.) I also found some of the explanation of the world/mythology to be somewhat confusing and I didn’t love the way Bree’s best friend, Alice, gets dropped for large portions of the middle.
But the ending? It’s great. I feel like perhaps I should have expected it, but the threads are woven together so well–Bree’s grief over losing her mother, in particular–that it all comes together brilliantly. Highly recommend.
Up next: Naomi Novik’s THE GOLDEN ENCLAVES. I’m getting close to the half way mark and right now it feels like a lot of wandering in the woods—there is an obvious Quest that needs to happen but right now we’re still in the “wandering around to find resources and allies” bit and I would like to just get to the quest!
Part 1
I grabbed Eris Adderly’s BASS-ACKWARDS (published in 2019) after reading a rave review for it on All About Romance. It’s a wonderful erotic romance that completely reframes the “woman agrees to have sex with her boss in exchange for the money she needs to help her family” trope that is so frequently featured in dark/billionaire romances (although, I should stress, there’s no getting around that being the set-up of the story, so if you just can’t with that, the book is not for you). The A.A.R. review also made a comparison between BASS-ACKWARDS and one of my all-time favorite romances, Cara McKenna’s classic, AFTER HOURS. Although BASS-ACKWARDS is completely different in style and tone from AFTER HOURS, the comparison is apt: the working-class milieu, the heroine who is the main source of support for her family, the older, dominant hero who reveals hidden emotional depths, and the hot sexy-times. The heroine, Christina, has worked for several years at an equipment rental business (Adderly does a good job of evoking the working environment, everything from the enormous sheds used for storage to the cracked plastic OPEN/CLOSED sign on the door to the tiny table shoved in a corner to double as break & lunch space). Her boss Bill (aka, “asshole Bill”) is a brusque, taciturn man who rarely speaks beyond the minimum required words. When Christina desperately needs a day off to take care of a court date for her hoarder of a grandfather, Bill shocks himself by offering Christina the day off in exchange for sex—and she shocks herself by accepting. So begins a relationship that initially seems purely transactional (unlike in many erotic romances, Christina does not have orgasms or really enjoy herself during her first few encounters with Bill); only as time goes on, does the relationship blossom on both the emotional and sexual levels. I loved everything about this most unexpected book: the setting, the characters, the authentic way the MCs gradually fell in love—all of it felt completely real and organic. BASS-ACKWARDS (subtitled A WRONG-WAY ROMANCE for good reason) is one of my favorite books of 2022 (published in a previous year). Highly recommended.
COWBOY, HOLD ME FOREVER by Genevieve Turner is the latest in her Cowboy Homecoming series of contemporary cowboy romances. Although it can be read as a standalone, I do recommend reading the other books in the series because all of the MCs and storylines are interconnected. In COWBOY, HOLD ME FOREVER, two rather lonely people (both of whom are the oldest sibling in their families and feel responsible for and in some ways distanced from their younger siblings) grow closer as they nurse an abandoned horse back to health (CW/TW: descriptions of the abandoned horse’s initial physical appearance). If you were ever a “horse girl” who read all the popular horse books and yearned for a horse of your own, this is a book for you: the heroine remembers her childhood longing for a horse; and, at the age of 35, she finally learns to care for and ride one. I would describe COWBOY, HOLD ME FOREVER, as a slow-burn: there are kisses and cuddles, but nothing beyond that for quite a while; Turner lets the emotional connection between the couple gradually build and drive their physical intimacy. For example, here’s the heroine’s description her first kiss with the hero: “…[it] felt like sharing a smile. A look across a room…This kiss was a wink, a shared joke, the kind of intimacy that she’d thought took years to generate. But it was happening right now.” Highly recommended.
Kati Wilde has been dealing with a number of personal challenges during the past year, and her output has slowed down as a result, so I was beyond thrilled to see a new book from her: THE STONEHEART BRIDE, part of her Dead Lands series of fantasy romances. THE STONEHEART BRIDE is of novella length and was published in conjunction with the “Read Me Romance” podcast. I suspect that word count limitations may have contributed to much of the story’s set-up being presented as exposition rather than explored through character interaction. None-the-less, if you’ve liked the other Dead Lands books (THE MIDWINTER MAIL-ORDER BRIDE, THE MIDNIGHT BRIDE, PRETTY BRIDE), you will enjoy THE STONEHEART BRIDE. Princess Flora is in love with Brom the Stonehearted, so she is crushed when she hears him reject her uncle’s offer of her hand in marriage. Naturally, things aren’t what they seem—and when Brom rescues Flora from ogres who have kidnapped her, the couple reunite, ironing out their misunderstandings and having plenty of sexy-times as they travel to Brom’s homeland. Despite its brevity, Kati manages to pack a lot of her trademark emotion and heat into the story. I’m so glad Kati is publishing new work again. Recommended.
Sometimes I just want to read a competently written romance that gets the tropes right—and that’s what I was looking for when I grabbed Samantha Christy’s UNTAKEN TWIN, which features the “man falls for his late-twin’s fiancée” trope. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the story which was emotionally deeper than I’d been expecting and also took an unanticipated turn about midway through, moving the book in a completely unforeseen direction. Ren and Cooper have never truly come to terms with the death of Chaz, Ren’s fiancé and Cooper’s identical twin. In the four years since Chaz died in a rock-climbing accident (cw/tw: there are flashbacks to Chaz’s death that might be upsetting to read), Ren & Cooper have both been mired in a complicated grief cycle, neither of them able to move forward. Ren has been living in Alaska, far from her New York state home, firmly suppressing her memories and heartache. Meanwhile, Cooper bounces from place to place, filming progressively more extreme sport stunts for his YouTube channel (“I’m not trying to die,” he asserts at one point, “but it would be okay if I did”). As Ren sees it, “We’re two sides of the same coin…I sit passively, waiting out my time until death eventually claims me. But Cooper—he’s actively seeking it.” When Ren’s father needs help running his restaurant/bar, Ren returns home, only to discover that Cooper—a broken arm temporarily preventing him from taping his exploits—is also working at the business. While the first half of the book revolves around Ren and Cooper gradually growing closer as they also try to come to terms with Chaz’s death, there is an event around the halfway point of the book that takes the story in a new direction, giving the story an extra dose of angst. I liked how Christy wove the two halves of the story together and how Ren & Cooper grappled with all the implications of what being a couple, given their complicated history, would mean. UNTAKEN TWIN is the first Samantha Christy book I’ve read, but I’ve now added her backlist to my TBR. Recommended.
Part 2
KING OF WRATH is the first book in Ana Huang’s new Kings of Sin series. It involves two people who get engaged for business reasons; they’re both aware that theirs is to be an arranged marriage, but only the hero knows the true circumstances behind the engagement, so there’s an interesting dynamic in that, while both MCs appear to be going into the marriage with eyes open, only one of them is in full possession of all the facts. The heroine is Chinese-American, the daughter of a prestigious jewelry designer; the hero is an Italian-American CEO who is several rungs about the heroine in terms of wealth and influence. I like the multi-ethnic aspect of the story—and how the cultural differences between h&h are worn lightly, not becoming fetishized or sole defining characteristics. I also liked that when the heroine becomes aware of why she and the hero are marrying, she has to make some hard choices—and the contrite hero doesn’t immediately make a slam-dunk transformation. “People couldn’t change entirely,” the heroine observes, “but effort mattered.” I liked Huang’s earlier Twisted series which focused on the post-college lives of four former roommates, and I think I’m going to enjoy the Kings of Sin series just as much. Recommended.
Amelia Wilde’s EXTORTION is the second book in her Controlling Interest trilogy about the relationship between a troubled CEO and his one-time secretary/P.A. EXTORTION (which comes after BLACKMAIL and before the upcoming COERCION) is very much a “middle” book in a trilogy: not a great deal happens, but we learn more about the background of both the hero and the heroine; spoiler: both are from dysfunctional families (as the hero notes, when you “literally fight your way to adulthood,” sometimes you “find that that’s all you can do”). EXTORTION cannot be read as a standalone—it links everything that happened in the first book to what will be resolved in the third. It’s also fairly dark with a huge power imbalance, so tread carefully and, if you’re inclined to read it, read BLACKMAIL first.
I started Alison Rhymes’s BRUTAL PLAY wondering how she was going to “rehabilitate” the heroine who was “the other woman” in BROKEN PLAY (the first book in the False Start series), but as the book continued I was more frustrated by the hero’s on-going cruelty toward the heroine and his failure to learn from his own mistakes than by the heroine’s (previous) decision to have an affair with a married man. The heroine gradually comes to terms with her awful upbringing: we get (CW/TW) descriptions of her childhood in a fundamentalist, polygamous compound, making the factors behind her affair understandable if not sympathetic. I don’t think BRUTAL PLAY will make much sense unless you read BROKEN PLAY first. BROKEN PLAY (one of my favorite books of 2022) was a nuanced story of a marriage torn apart by infidelity. BRUTAL PLAY reunites “the other woman” with her former boyfriend (also a secondary character in BROKEN PLAY). For the first half of BRUTAL PLAY, I wanted to kick the hero through a wall—his behavior toward the heroine was so mean-spirited, even as the heroine was trying hard to get her life back on track by working as a physical therapist and taking care of her younger sister (also removed from the polygamous cult). BRUTAL PLAY features some interesting analysis of the internalized cultural misogyny that makes forgiveness of an adulterous male more likely than forgiveness of the woman with whom he had an affair; as the heroine notes, the married man who broke his vows really was the “bigger villain…yet there he is, forgiven and loved, accepted,” while the heroine remains ostracized, with few friends. I really felt the heroine deserved better than the crumbs the hero was willing to toss at her—and I never truly believed his heart and spirit had been broken the way the heroine’s had. A lukewarm recommendation for BRUTAL PLAY, although I am looking forward to a future book about one of the book’s secondary characters: an actor whose self-destructive behavior resulted in his ex-fiancée being in a coma for months. I’ll be very interested in his redemption story.
[CW/TW: abduction, captivity, non-con/dub-con] I think my negative reaction to Eve Dangerfield’s VELVET CRUELTY is less because it’s an extremely dark romance and more because it simply doesn’t feel like an Eve Dangerfield book. I read plenty of dark romance, so it wasn’t the dark elements that made the book not work for me; it was more that I’ve always loved Dangerfield’s sex- & kink-positive writing, full of humor & heart & self-aware heroines. This book does not feature any of those elements; if I had read VELVET CRUELTY without knowing the author, I would never have guessed Dangerfield wrote it. VELVET CRUELTY (an uber-dark Snow White retelling) reads like something Natasha Knight would have written back in the early 2010s (before she eased into the less dark Mafia romances that she produces today): the heroine is an 18-year-old virgin, about to be married. She had been kept isolated by her stepmother (who is being paid by the future groom) so she is completely untouched. The heroine is not permitted to make any personal decisions about her life and accepts passively what she is told to do (for example, her stepmother’s monitoring of her weight and food intake—which is referred to in passing by the heroine as if it’s a normal thing). On her wedding day, the heroine is kidnapped by four men—all of whom want revenge against her fiancé: she is merely collateral damage. I can’t stress how dark and difficult this book is: abduction, captivity, physical violence, each of the men imposing his will (sexually and otherwise) in different ways onto the essentially helpless heroine. And flashbacks to the heroine’s childhood and teenage years don’t paint a happier picture because of how much her stepmother controlled every aspect of her life. Like so many dark romances, the book ends on a cliffhanger, but I am not very interested in following this story. Even for fans of Eve Dangerfield, I can’t recommend VELVET CRUELTY: it’s a let-down on many levels.
Trying to focus on books I can actually recommend that aren’t just KJ Charles rereads, and …there aren’t any. Again. I did read other things! my overdrive history informs me. They were all mediocre-bad utterly forgettable with the exception of Naomi Novik’s Golden Enclaves which was memorably disappointing.
The best of a schmeh lot was probably A Merry Little Meet Cute which is… not as great as I hoped given the premise but totally average in the I like your average romance novel sense of average. It’s a pretty basic nonsensical holiday romance between a porn star and a boy band idol on the set of a holiday movie. The mashup of all the things is at least distracting. It is very extremely sex positive and wants to be sure you notice.
I also didn’t hate Celia Lake’s Goblin Fruit, which is exactly what you would get if you mixed that poem with Lord Peter Whimsy romance – and made it tragically insufficiently queer. Still enjoyable. But the missed opportunities, ugh.
Simon Feximal remains exactly what I want a book to be.
All the others including ones I read yesterday I can’t even remember, and I don’t want to dwell in negativity. But seriously, back to Golden Enclaves, wtf happened??? If someone who has read them all can help me out here, I have so many questions (all filed under the wtf rubric). I have loved her other books! That series seemed so promising initially! Everything off about it intensified, we’re really going to double down on national stereotyping? Ugh. Everything entertaining about it fizzled. The stakes were never real. I guess it doesn’t matter how you get mana that isn’t yours as long as people want to give it to you? Good news, we can fix magical capitalism without destroying the world though, great, great, we just need a bunch of super exceptional privileged high school cronies… to, uh, to decide to form a super secret cabal? What an excellent idea. They’ll just …hunt down and exterminate what’s left of society’s initial victims? Better to put the monsters out of their misery, yikes, we’re going there? But only some of the time???? And, sure, it would destroy everything for everyone if …less powerful kids did it? if anyone knew? I dunno. I also have a lot of questions about what the supervillain’s supercrime was because, I don’t want there to be too spoilery but like, it kinda seems to come down to maybe having an abortion but not entirely going through with it? and. yeah. fuckit. I don’t think anyone can make this ok.
Currently reading The Secret Heart by Erin Satie. I’m interested but can’t exactly say I’m enjoying it. The hero is a duke’s son with a crappy family who secretly does bare-knuckle boxing with railroad workers as a form of self-punishment for his missing sister. The heroine is 17 (sorry, Lara!), also with a crappy family, and secretly does ballet as her own form of escapism. Her father brought an injured ballerina into the house as his children’s governess/his mistress, and that woman spent years teaching the heroine everything she will ever need to know about men, so the heroine has the pragmatism of someone twice her age. It’s attempting perspectives that aren’t common, which I appreciate, but they’re just not sticking the landing for me. I’m at around 80% and although I know they’ll get back together (because Romance), I absolutely do not believe these two people will ever be happy together unless they run away to America separately, reinvent themselves, and serendipitously hook up ten years later or something. They understand each other, but they don’t seem to LIKE each other, which suggests to me that understanding is going to be weaponized forever.
I reread Catherine Called Birdy because I was considering watching the recent movie (but I probably won’t given the movie summary I read). It held up I will also reread the Midwife’s Apprentice soon.
I have to pick up a bunch of library holds this morning for several of this years holiday romances.
I’m hoping to start RULES OF REDEMPTION by T.A. White. I also have some more sci-fi books waiting on my TBR pile, including CHILLING EFFECT by Valerie Valdes.
I also want to start reading holiday romances, including SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS by Jenny Holiday and ONCE UPON A ROYAL CHRISTMAS by Teri Wilson.
Susanna Craig – Who’s That Earl
A miss for me, I’m afraid. It was pretty bog standard histrom with cartoonishly paper thin villains, coincidences that didn’t make sense, and a hero who every once in a while threw in an “och, lass” when we were supposed to remember he was Scottish. I didn’t believe the couple’s “first chance”, much less their second.
Alexis Hall – Husband Material.
I lost power for several hours due to tropical storm Nicole, so I sat by my little lantern and mainlined about 300 pages of this book, which I had started earlier in the week. I…have complicated feelings about it. There were many, many things I enjoyed. And I actually like where the characters got to in the end…but did they have to get their through the heternormative wedding complex and all its trappings? Homage to romcoms so, probably yes, but…I don’t know, I kind of wanted a different book for them. I also felt like they kept retreading the same arguments multiple times without moving forward which was frustrating. The book could have been 100 pages shorter. All that said though, I did enjoy it, otherwise I would have found something else to ruin my eyesight with during the power outage.
Terrible reading streak over the past few weeks, Smart Bitches, and “It’s me, it’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me.” I could not concentrate on anything other than work and the election. So I broke the glass and read FATED BLADES by Ilona Andrews. Which was, not surprisingly, excellent and very readable for my poor, exhausted, distracted brain. THANK YOU AGAIN, ILONA ANDREWS! I HOPE YOUR LIFE IS FILLED WITH UNEXPECTED TREATS AND SUNSHINEY FEELINGS THIS WEEKEND!
Now I am hoping to reset, and very much looking forward to the recommendations from all of you — I may even hit the physical book store (which is more than half an hour away, so it’s a whole thing). Please share! 🙂
“The Romance Recipe” by Ruby Barrett: F/f contemporary. Restaurant owner Amy Chambers hired head chef Sophie Brunet, a minor reality TV star, to take her business to the next level, but now the restaurant is struggling and Amy is worried her crush on Sophie is interfering with her judgment. Meanwhile, Sophie is struggling with the pressure of maintaining her social media fame after breaking up with her TV producer fiancé. They agree to appear on another show produced by Sophie’s ex, but most of the book isn’t about reality TV and focuses on Amy and Sophie trying to figure out a better way to work together and what kind of future they want, professionally and personally.
I was worried this would fall into the Overwhelmingly Sweet category like a lot of romances set in the food industry seem to, but this book definitely has a more realistic approach to how hard it is to keep a restaurant open, and one of the big themes is how Sophie’s desire to focus on cooking conflicts with the pressures on her to make a lot more money by becoming a TV personality or Instagram influencer. Sophie in particular is a great character, and I thought her coming-out-as-bi plotline and relationship with her ex were well done. (Amy’s external conflict with her withholding father feels a little tacked on by comparison.) I really loved Amy & Sophie’s relationship, which goes from sexual tension to romantic tension after they start sleeping together when neither is quite ready to admit they want a relationship. People are very negative atm about miscommunication in romance, and I get it, but I think this was an example of how two people struggling to communicate with each other can be a really effective and compelling plotline. Amy & Sophie felt like realistic flawed people, not hyper-immature and not examples of Good Relationship Skills either. There’s not one obvious thing they’re failing to say to each other, they just miss each other sometimes and it’s satisfying to see them start to truly understand each other. Definitely recommended.
(Side note that this is a book published this year, with a fairly realistic take on the restaurant industry, that doesn’t mention COVID. I think that was probably the right choice, but the happy ending definitely works better if you consciously think of it as taking place in an alternate universe where the pandemic didn’t happen and not, say, early 2019.)
“Rooting for You” by Roz Alexander: F/f contemporary. Fisch, a botanist with social anxiety, moved to an idyllic small town but is isolating herself from her neighbors; she ends up opening up to and falling for Jaeeun, a visiting photojournalist. Extremely low on plot and conflict — I feel like Alexander’s shorter novellas have had more, even though this was about 150 pages. I read this because Alexander has written butch characters and sexual dynamics that have worked for me in the past, but even though this is a rare butch/butch romance, there was simply not enough sexiness in this one to overcome my lack of interest in characters who have no real problems.
“Spectred Isle” by KJ Charles: M/m historical/fantasy. Disgraced archaeologist Saul Lazenby can only get a job as an assistant to an elderly, eccentric man who believes in magical conspiracies, which Saul definitely doesn’t. While he’s running all over London pursuing his boss’ ideas, he keeps running into Randolph Glyde, who turns out to be an arcanist connected to a very real magical organization. Set in the same world as “The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal” but a few years after that book ends. I enjoyed the romance and the characters a lot, and especially the worldbuilding — it reminds me a lot of “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.” This series is afaik on indefinite hiatus and Charles is now working with a mainstream publisher so idk if she will ever return to it, but it does resolve the characters’ arcs without cliffhangers.
Non-romance:
“Hallowe’en Party” by Agatha Christie: Poirot investigates the death of a thirteen-year-old girl who bragged at a Halloween party that she witnessed a murder: an obvious motive, but everyone says the girl is a habitual liar who couldn’t have seen what she claimed to. This is latest Poirot I’ve read (from the 1960s) and the tone feels notably more melancholy than the humor of the earlier books. Also kind of jarring to go from extremely opaque euphemism about gay people in some previous books to open speculation that a character might be a lesbian. Not my favorite Christie but still enjoyable!
“Our Wives Under The Sea” by Julia Armfield: Sort of a psychological horror novel? Miri’s wife Leah was supposed to be gone for three weeks on a deep sea research mission and was instead gone for six months. Miri thought she was dead, but when they reunite, Leah seems not just traumatized but changed in an uncanny way — silent and distant, barely eating, and obsessed with salt water. The book alternates between chapters set in the present from Miri’s point of view and in the past from Leah’s, but the Miri chapters are much longer and the book dwells on domestic unhappiness much more than Sea Horror. It’s really a book about grief, as Miri struggles to accept that the woman she loves is gone and care for the version of Leah that remains. I can’t say I found it entirely satisfying. The pacing is off and it could have been considerably shorter, and the resolution to what happened on the deep sea mission really fell flat for me. But Armfield undeniably writes really beautiful prose, and I’m still glad I read it.
“Wilding” by Isabella Tree: A memoir following the author and her husband’s decision to transform their inherited property, which was failing as a farm, into a wildlife preserve with as little human interference as possible. Lots of detail about conservation efforts in the UK, some of it interesting to an American non-specialist, some of it not so much. Made me more grateful for the US national parks system.
“Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors” by Edward Neidermeyer: Had been meaning to read for a while, now it’s timely since Elon Musk just bought Twitter. My conclusion after reading is that Tesla is basically a scam, lol.
Freya Marske’s A Restless Truth was probably as much fun for setting (an Atlantic crossing by ship) and the investigation in the story as for the romance. I have probably read the group-pornography-reading scene a dozen times, and sometimes I don’t have to stop and wipe the tears from my eyes when I do.
Happened to be in the right place right time when my library added Molly Horton Booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm, and Jamie Green’s Twelfth Grade Night to the collection. It’s set at a slightly magical high school and does a really nice job of adapting the beats and plot points of Twelfth Night, including a good use of the queer subtext.
I’m currently reading one A.J. Demas book, buying the next, repeat. Blew through Sword Dance and Saffron Alley and am now in the middle of Strong Wine. They’re all set in a world loosely based on the historical Mediterranean, following the developing relationship between a former soldier and a formerly enslaved eunuch spy. This might be a really really good read for people who like KJ Charles’ Think of England.
Lara–re old schools historical romances and their age differences. Actually that is historically accurate. Women generally married young. 14-15 to 17 was considered prime marriageable age. Men generally had to prove they could support their new wife so they were often older–sometimes much older. (True of my grandparents and many, many of my ancestors as I’ve traced them.) Young couples of similar age marrying without money was really risky since children can quickly and often.
ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT KISS by Elisa Braden was.a delightfully sweet novella. Starting with a series not letters between a secretary and her antiquities n expert boss, and moving on to a marriage of convenience (WHY would.her employer insist that he be the convenient bridegroom??) with a little mystery thrown in , it really was fun.
Kathryn Moon is known for her omega verse books, but I picked up THE BAKER’ S GUIDE RISKY RITUALS, and then THE KNITTER’ S GUIDE TO BANISHING BOYFRIENDS, bother in her Sweet Pea Mysteries series set in a town with a coven of 4 that Beelzebub has decided is too sweet to exist, so he send in a contingent of demons to fix that. As it turns out witches can subvert demons, who knew. I liked both and want the other 2 witches stories.
I picked up AGENT OF CHANGE and the sequal for a reread and a dip into the Liaden Universe, and it still works for me. Makes me want to pull out other old favorites, maybe Joanna Bourne…
Since the Christmas vibe seems to be vibing, the audio version of LITTLE DONKEY by Jody Taylor is always at the top of my list. It’s a short story, not the first book in her Frogmorton Farm series, but I didn’t mind not having the backstory. THIS IS A SQUEE for me; so human, LOL funny, touching and–based on references to the past–healing in the best possible way. I’m ready to listen again.
Megan Bannen’s THE UNDERTAKING OF HART AND MERCY was a win IMO. These wounded characters finding their way to each other in a really interesting fantasy world was believable and satisfying.
BRILLIANCE (first in a trilogy) by Marcus Sakey has been in my TBR pile forever. Finally got around to reading it and now I’m ready for the next. Some Brilliants, people born with different gifts, are considered terrorists and a real threat to normals. Nick Cooper is a Brilliant whose talent makes him very good at hunting other Brilliants. Predictably, nothing is what it seems, but the stakes and tension are quite high throughout.
I’ve missed the last two instalments due to a work trip, so I have a few books to cover! The trip meant no time to read except on the long flights, though I also managed to binge Our Flag Means Death on one of them! It’s so good, I can’t wait for the next season!
But on to books:
SIGNS OF SPRING – Rachel Ember. Next instalment in the m/m romance Wild Ones series, and this book again gave more back story and cleared up a few things that happened in the previous books. Part of it runs parallel to the previous book As the Tallgrass Grows. It has a dual timeline that took me a little time to get into, also the whole crime thing was a bit less my jam (and even less the violence, which is not frequent but bad when it happens), but it was satisfying, good HEA and a family reunion is finally on the horizon. I am guessing that will happen in the next book which is about the youngest brother. This is a great series, though my heart breaks every time thinking about what went wrong in this family. Definitely needs to be read in sequence.
BAD BISHOP – Layla Reyne. Book 2 in the m/m romance/mystery Perfect Play series, and there’s one more to come. To be honest, it’s all a little bonkers and I had a little trouble keeping up with all the strands and characters, as it’s been a few months since I read the last book, but I’m there for the feels!
TERRIBLY TRISTAN – Lisa Henry & Sarah Honey m/m romance. Last book in the Bad Boyfriends Inc. series. Sweet, funny, lots of great (queer) side characters, no huge conflict but a big reveal I didn’t quite see coming at the end (but it was very good!). So we get Tristan’s story, the guy who has a different man in his bed almost every night and who took over Bad Boyfriends from Harry. He’s still living at the terrible house with Harry and Jack though, and the other MC is the great-nephew of the owner of the house, who inherits it – and the sex shop that has also played a role before. Tristan turns out to be less superficial than he appears (of course), the house finally gets renovated by the end, and the Bad Boyfriend business goes on with characters whom we have also met before. And Tristan gets his guy. I won’t say more because *spoilers*. That one thing that is revealed at the end really is too good! Read it if you’re looking for something to make you feel good!
SHORT STACK Volume 2- Lily Morton. This is the second collection of short stories featuring characters from previous m/m romances by Morton. If you’ve read these books, I recommend getting this collection too. The stories really only make sense if you’ve read the books.
And in other news, there’s a new novella featuring Gabe and Dylan from Morton’s Rulebreaker coming out soon, Vowmaker. Can’t wait!!!
MORE THAN ENOUGH – Sloane Kennedy. Part of the Pelican Bay series, of which I haven’t read any other books. It sounded interesting and so I got it. Can be read as standalone, but there’s lots of characters that have been paired up in previous books obviously. One character has just got out from an emotionally abusive relationship and the other one is a war veteran who is at his lowest (so check for TW, this might not be for everybody). It wasn’t bad, but it has some issues for me, like the total insta-lust and insta-jealousy (despite the vet being at his lowest point) and how the baddie (the evil ex of the other MC) ends. Yes, it’s half an explanation why he was like he was, but I felt it was also a bit too easy a way out. I won’t say more so as not to spoil it for anyone.
ALL WHEEL DRIVE – Z.A. Maxfield. Part of a super long series (Blue Water Bay), another m/m romance. Not great – too much instrospection and I-want-but-I-don’t-want-to from the characters and not much else happening really in terms of story and so many references to characters from previous books. It just felt uneven.
HIDE AND SEEK – Josh Lanyon. A new m/m holiday mystery romance, and I really liked this one. A little reminiscent of the Pirate’s Cove series, but not as cosy. Ok, the small town is similar and feels just as cosy, but there’s more action and danger, and definitely sex, no closed doors here. Also best friends to lovers and lots and lots of feels! I could see this as the beginning of a new series, and I would really be down for more mystries featuring these two. After all, they want to get into the stolen art recovery business at the end!
STRANGER IN THE HOUSE – Josh Lanyon. A m/m mystery/romance novella. This for me needed more fleshing out (and it can be done even in novellas!), and the mystery wasn’t huge.
NIGHT & DAY – Rachel Ember. This was lovely, lots of feels. A newly single dad with a baby and a (male) night nanny come to help him out temporarily. Stories like this could get a bit squicky because of the power imbalance, but it’s well handled here. There’s lots of pining and “he’s hot but I shouldn’t be feeling that about him” before they finally give in – and then it doesn’t stay an employer/employee relationship, because other stuff happens too.
THE CHRISTMAS LEAP – Keira Andrews. A new m/m holiday romance by Andrews is always good news! This is set in the same universe as The Christmas Deal, as one of the MCs, Will, is a colleague of Seth, and the story starts with another of their company holiday retreats. Plus best friends to lovers, fake relationship, only one bed, bi awakening – lots of tropes that Andrews does well. Also, all the feels, as I expected, not much conflict, and since the second part of the story moves to Australia, we get a cameo of Liam and Cody from Flash Rip as well. And next up will be Connor’s story, Seth and Logan’s son who is now all grown up. If you’re looking for a holiday romance with lots of feels, this is it (and also The Christmas Deal). And it’s perfectly fine as a standalone.
PARIS DAILLENCOURT IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE – Alexis Hall. I only just started this. It’s cute so far, but it’s a lot to take sometimes, it’s all told from Paris’ view, and he is super anxious all the time. So this may not be for everyone due to this. But Tariq, the other MC is great and his four flatmates (all called Dave!) are a hoot – and so is Paris’ flatmate, the self-proclaimed fat Glaswegian sex goddess.
I haven’t posted in a while, so this covers more than a couple of weeks 🙂 And I have read a lot more, but don’t really remember them at this point. Not sure if that says more about my swiss-cheese brain, or the books. . .
The good:
The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison: I really enjoyed this book, though as it had been a while since I read The Witness for the Dead I had a few moments of “wait, who is this again?” but they didn’t last too long. I love Thara, he is such a kind, thoughtful, smart, caring person. I hope only good things for him in future books (I see there is another one in this series coming). I hope he is able to process his grief and find happiness in the future. And spoiler
Hunt the Stars and Eclipse the Moon by Jessie Mihalik: I’m liking this series much better than her Consortium Rebellion series. I read Polaris Rising from that series and was annoyed by the insta-lust and the fact that the hero called the heroine “darlin'” from the first time they met. What is he, a space cowboy? (see what I did there?) Anyhoo, back to Hunt and Eclipse 😉 I really enjoyed these books, and am looking forward to the next one. I feel as though the relationships followed a more realistic path, so the HEAs felt honest.
The Queen and the Cure by Amy Harmon: I read the first one in this series, The Bird and the Sword, a couple of years ago so I was a little hazy on the details but it didn’t really affect my enjoyment of Queen. Good characters, interesting world and magic system, good buildup to the final confrontation, though I felt the resolution to that confrontation was a little hand wavy. YMMV. Overall a very enjoyable series.
The Meh:
Avalon by Mindee Arnett: I was really looking forward to this book, so am disappointed that I didn’t like it better. It starts off pretty strongly with a good set-up and interesting characters, but then it feels like it sort of flounders around without really advancing the story much. There is a lot of telling not showing, as in we are told that our teenage mercenary heroes/heroines are the best in their fields but there isn’t much shown to back that assertion up. Their quest is interesting, but once we finally get going it sort of fizzles out quickly. I assume there will be further explanation of the resolution to their quest in the next book but I don’t care enough to read it. And spoiler with T/W for violence, injury, and brutality,
The DNF: The Rise of the Gladiator Trilogy by Cheree Alsop. Luckily this was from my KU trial subscription or I would be really mad! Started off strong with a space gladiator being broken out of prison by the female captain of a space ship, and then devolves into a Regency in Space story. Seriously. Our heroine goes from being a kickass captain of a space ship to a tearful miss who doesn’t know what to do. There is, well, it’s not quite insta-lust, maybe more like insta-“I trust him/her, even though I don’t know anything about him/her, I’m just drawn to him/her, even though I shouldn’t trust him/her,” lather, rinse, repeat. And somehow even in the future, where she can be the captain of a space ship, if she is left alone with a man it will ruin our heroine’s reputation and she won’t be respected by the space council or something? I don’t even know . . . I noped out at 19%. I keep looking for good sci-fi romances, and being disappointed. I think Michelle Diener’s Class Five series has set the bar too high!
I’m now reading Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty, and am very much enjoying it. I’m only at 14%, so fingers crossed!
Just read SAILOR’S DELIGHT by Rose Lerner and cannot gush over it enough! She blends the story with the time of year between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to move the characters forward with making life decisions and new choices. I cannot remember ever reading a historical romance with Jewish characters that so perfectly embeds ethno-religious traits into the story. Absolutely recommend.
After working my way through a celebrity novel that a friend gifted me (she’s a fan) and which read more like fanfic (the editor in me gritting her teeth at every misplaced word) I have moved on to THE DIABOLICAL MISS HYDE by Viola Carr and oh! I could eat that delicious prose with a spoon! So rich and atmospheric it feels like the London fog has been turned into smoky gelato. A lovely gender-flipped Victorian Gothic sidling into commentary on mental illness and forced conformity. Now I need to find the first book in the set (this is the second, but eminently readable on its own.)
Recent reads I loved
Last night insomnia had me up reading Amanda Gambill’s HONESTLY, I’M TOTALLY FAKING IT, about a young woman with a complicated background (grew up struggling poor, her single mother is now in prison) who is a personal assistant’s assistant who start working temporarily for a political consultant who is the son of an ambitious, successful, and somewhat hated senator. The consultant often works remotely and reportedly is never in his apartment, so one day the assistant takes a shower there and inadvertently walks in on him when he’s giving a live interview on the news and accidentally loses her towel. The consultant is brusk, demanding, impatient, a perfectionist, and well-known for firing staff (assistants particularly) on a moment’s notice. The ensuing viral video sets them up for a fake romance. While the fake romance is such a common setup, the strong and detailed characterization mades this an exceptional read for me. It left me feeling happy in an anxious night.
B.K. Borison’s LOVELIGHT FARMS was a somewhat quiet but strong rural romance where a young woman with a difficult childhood has bought a Christmas tree farm and is trying to get it to thrive despite some bad luck (are they accidents? rowdy kids? is there more to it?) who wants to portray her farm as a romantic, thriving place and gets her longtime best friend to pose as her boyfriend and partner in order to impress an influencer. Quietly delightful.
Recent reads I liked a lot
Kerry Rea’s LUCY ON THE WILD SIDE is the story of a zookeeper trying to get an orphaned gorilla adopted by the troop in her zoo, all complicated by a dashing, handsome animal adventure reality star who happens to be the son of the woman whose lifework with gorillas inspired her own devotion to them. Loved the competence porn here and the story even though I find gorillas kind of uncanny valley creepy, like I do clowns. (I know! It’s not their fault! When I was six I used to have nightmares about a gorilla trying to break into my house.)
Soniah Kamal’s UNMARRIAGEBLE is a Pride and Prejudice homage set in Pakistan in 2000 and I loved watching how the story played out in the context of that culture. So enjoyable!
I’m not a huge fan of heists and such, so I was surprised how much I enjoyed Alisa Rai’s PARTNERS IN CRIME. Exes find themselves kidnapped together and trying to escape her family’s con-man legacy.
I very much enjoyed Staci Hart’s Pride and Prejudice adjacent story, COMING UP ROSES, about The Bennet Brothers who are trying to rescue their mother’s family’s shower shop, aided by the current staff. The rakish youngest son has always liked one of their main designing florists but she hates him and he doesn’t know why. When they start falling for each other and get past this, his ex-wife arrives. Here again, the characterization hit me well and I especially enjoyed the depictions of the creative decorating the couple undertook to get people interested in the shop again. I’ll read the next two in this series for sure.
I’m also not particularly interested in Westerns and horse stories despite living in Montana for five years, but I recently started reading Elsie Silver, and her stories about horse racing (a series of four, of which I have two and am looking forward to the next two) and a bullrider and his rancher brother (the first two of a second series) really feel strong to me. I like the feisty female MCs (one is a jockey!) and the men whose lives they turn around.
Recent reads I liked
Lauren Blakely’s WANDERLUST and PART-TIME LOVER are set in Paris and I loved their depiction of the city, especially WANDERLUST, which made me feel like I was really there. I liked the too-perfect characters in both books, too, which I often don’t. (The most sexy! The most beautiful! Brilliant at their jobs! Zzzzz.)
Jamie Wesley’s FAKE IT TILL YOU BAKE IT is the story of a young woman trying to find her way after she crashes and burns on a get-engaged reality show and the cupcake-shop-owning football player she criticizes then starts working for (due to an interfering grandmother). They two start fake-dating when she’s cornered by internet haters. Competent and enjoyable, and I especially liked the depiction of the female MC and her challenges.
After reading about them here I read Robin D. Owens’ HEARTMATE and HEART CHANGE, and especially liked HEART CHANGE’s characters.
Madeline Hunter’s Wicked Series, HIS WICKED REPUTATION, TALL DARK AND WICKED, and THE WICKED DUKE were entertaining Regency reads. I liked the brothers’ complicated lives and how the heroines turned out to be the right women for them.
Beverly Jenkins’ NIGHT SONG was good but wasn’t as strong as her historicals usually are for me, but apparently this was her first. Still definitely worth reading!
The theme of this WAYR for all of my recently completed reading (with one exception) is “uneven.” I read a lot of books I considered page-turners with strong writing and characters, but so many of them had major problems.
Excellent:
The Prioress’ Tale by Margaret Frazer: Seventh in the Dame Frevisse Medieval England-set mystery, this was not excellent because of the murder mystery (the murder doesn’t take place until at least 3/4 through the book). Instead this is a fascinating look at Dame Frevisse’s faith and her struggles with the internal politics in her cloister. Out of the seven I have read so far, this is by far the strongest. This was also my exception to the uneven theme.
Very Good:
None
Good:
The Mangle Street Murders by M.R.C. Kasasian: This is the first in the historic Grower St Detective series set in Victorian England. As I am going to say with several of these books, this started so strong and then went off the tracks. Narrated by a young woman who found herself near penniless after the death of her father, she is taken in by an eccentric but brilliant detective. However, she observes things he doesn’t and asks questions he doesn’t ask – so they team up on an unusual murder. However the longer the book went on, the detective seems arrogant and aloof and not very smart at all. This makes you question all of his past supposed brilliance. And the final solution was so banana pants crazy, I decided I didn’t want to continue the series.
Kingdom of the Feared by Kerri Maniscalco: Third in the YA (I would argue that these are very much New Adult – the level of sexual content is scorching) series Kingdom of the Wicked, this too started off so strong and developed interesting themes. As someone says to the heroine about an enemy “In her story, you are the villain.” That really got me to thinking about how we write stories. It is interesting to think about someone we think about being the hero/heroine actually being a villain. Or perhaps both sides being villains or both heros, but then that thread was dropped. After a while the story just kind of petered out and by the last few pages I had lost interest.
The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi: The blurb of this book gave too much away and also gave too much credit to the villain of the book. The premise is a writer wrote 7 short stories representing the 7 possible permutations for a murder mystery many years ago. In the present day, an editor wants to republish them, but something seems off about the author. I thought I wasn’t a fan of short mysteries but this book changed my mind, the 7 stories were fantastic (with nods to classic murder mystery tales). But the resolution of the modern storyline was extremely unsatisfying.
Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey: I love Tessa Bailey – one of my favorite romance authors and a reason for many BDBC nights, but again this one was so uneven. This was a best friend’s little sister romance which I tend to like, but I know many hate. It is also a fake dating romance too. My problem was the ending – the conflict seemed blown out of proportion. And the hero’s big grovel was weird in the context of the book too. Not sure if I am going to read the second in the series which is a marriage in trouble. I may (gasp!) skip to the third book (not a decision I make lightly).
Meh:
None
The Bad:
None
Since last time ~
— enjoyed Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree which could be described as a cozy fantasy with a hint of sapphic romance and the creation of a family of friends.
— enjoyed Date Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 1) by E. M. Foner which was a fun and slightly silly science fiction novel.
— enjoyed the contemporary romance Digging Deep by Jay Hogan which is set in New Zealand and features a male midwife and a detective. I learned a lot about Crohn’s Disease while reading this. Be aware, too, that sad events happen with one delivery.
— for my distant bookgroup, I read The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. This was an intriguing novel about identical light skinned twins in the 1950s and their lives (and the lives of their daughters) after one of them leaves to pass as white.
— enjoyed the contemporary romance novella Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood.
— reread with pleasure two science fiction romances Dark Horse and Dark Deeds both by Michelle Diener. Also enjoyed Dark Ambitions, a novella which features characters from Dark Horse.
— Outcrossing (Mysterious Charm Book 1) by Celia Lake: I liked this 1920s era fantasy, but my copy (a document, perhaps an advanced reader’s copy?) had many sentence fragments and was missing a chapter. I suspect/hope that the published copy is more polished.
— the graphic novel Fangs by Sarah Andersen. This was a very quick and highly enjoyable read about a relationship between a vampire and a werewolf. I laughed a lot while reading this and shared quite a few snippets with my husband.
— Artifact Space by Miles Cameron which I’d describe as military science fiction featuring a young female main character. I almost put this aside in the first chapter, but I’m glad I persevered as I did enjoy it. I look forward to reading the next book when it is published. Incidentally, this is currently 99¢ for US Kindle readers.
— completed my reread of the Class 5 series with Dark Minds, Dark Matters, Dark Class, and the Dark Class Bonus Epilogue by Michelle Diener. I enjoyed them all.
@Scifiscientist – I also enjoyed SAILOR’S DELIGHT by Rose Lerner for the very same reason. Honestly, the romance was merely okay for me, but the world building was wonderful. As someone who isn’t Jewish, I feel as though I now have a much better understanding of what the High Holy Days are all about.
Like @Midge, I read PARIS DAILLENCOURT IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE by Alexis Hall. If anxiety is a trigger for you, definitely do not read this book. Paris is a huge mess and honestly kind of exhausting. But this is Alexis Hall, so the story line is well done. And there are some great moments, like Tariq’s father’s birthday party. All I can say is laser tag. Laser tag. Against 8-year-olds.
After seeing so many people swoon over The Murderbot Diaries series, I finally took the plunge and read ALL SYSTEMS READ by Martha Wells. It was fabulous! As were books 2 – 4. I assume book 5 is also amazing, but it’s still on hold for me at the library. Murderbot’s cynical evaluation of human stupidity and greed is marvelous, especially when at the same time they are so blind to their own motivations and emotional needs.
@Jess– I like the beginning of Hallowe’en Party and it’s got some atmospheric, weird riffs, although I don’t think the plotting hangs together that well, and the portrayal of the victim is pretty shockingly cruel. I’ve read so much Christie this past year!
I just finished I’m Glad My Mom Died. It was a gripping read–I read it in a day–but I did sort of have complex feelings about the book as a whole. (Link to my Goodreads review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5097793643?book_show_action=false)
I’m also rereading James Herriot’s ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, always a worthwhile experience and for more animal fun, have THE RESCUERS to read (I’ve seen the film but not read the book before).
I just this morning finished an ARC of Darynda Jones’s new book: A HARD DAY FOR A HANGOVER and it was FANTASTIC. It’s the third, and I believe the last, in a series which started with A BAD DAY FOR SUNSHINE. All three are good, although I finished the second fairly irritated at the quasi-cliffhanger, but now all is forgiven. I laughed, I cried, I gasped in fear, and I sighed in contentment. What more can one ask?
Other recent reads included ONCE UPON A ROYAL CHRISTMAS, by Terri Wilson, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I enjoyed SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS by Jenny Holiday far less than I had the first two in that series. It works fine as a stand-alone, but I’m glad I read the others first only because I probably wouldn’t seek them out on the basis of the third.
As I type I’m realizing I’ve spent a lot of hours recently on series: I gave up on RIVALS American Royals, the third in the set. I enjoyed Katharine McGee’s first two, but after several chapters of this volume, I just got tired of being yanked around by one silly conflict after another. I did, however, finish Fredrick Backman’s conclusion to his BearTown trilogy: THE WINNERS. I thought several times that it could have been told in fewer words, but it really was an amazing book and a heart-punch of a finale to a great series.
My one definite standalone came, I think, from a Bitchery recommendation near Halloween, when–if memory serves me correctly–there was some debate over whether or not Jennie Crusie’s MAYBE THIS TIME was a romance. I had somehow never read it, but I inhaled it with great speed and delight, and I’m firmly in the “Yes, of COURSE it’s a romance camp” – and a good one, at that.
:::walks in humming “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac:::
It’s a good thing I love that song, because every time that commercial airs I spend the next 6 hours humming it.
Let’s see, I started off with Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting by Roseanne A. Brown. It’s from Rick Riordan’s imprint and revolves around Ghanaian mythology. It had a great voice, a very engaging protagonist, and I always enjoy a book steeped in mythology that I’m not overly familiar with (holdover from being a kid that GLOMMED Greek myths). Pro-tip: use the pronunciation guide/glossary in the back. There were plenty of words that I frankly would have been completely wrong about had I been reading aloud. Then I jumped into a Michael Connelly from awhile back, The Reversal. I only started reading Connelly a couple years ago, but he works great a comfort read. Super-competent, well-paced, and I particularly enjoy Mickey’s Haller’s defense attorney shenanigans. Particularly funny here was that he was acting as a special prosecutor, and was very weirded out to be on the opposite side of the table. I tend to like Haller just a bit more than his brother Harry Bosch, although I enjoy both. After that, I cracked the seal on On Rotation by Shirlene Obuobi. It’s about a young med student that is the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, and her personal and professional experiences as she is going through her clinical rotations, particularly her romance with a young man that she meets during this time. Again, very nice use of humor, particularly the footnotes throughout the book, because med students do love their footnotes, the romance is sweet, if often fraught. Both characters tend to not communication overly well and hurt each other because of it, but they try to do better with each crack-up. And the medical stuff was REALLY good (as it should be, since the author is herself a doctor), as was the portrayal of the pressures of being the first-generation offspring of immigrants and how minorities are treated in medical settings. Then it was time for some more Orphan X, so I read Prodigal Son by Gregg Hurwitz. I always enjoy Evan and his exploits as he makes sure some bad people get what’s coming to them. It’s interesting that this book came along for me at this time, because boy, did the sociopathic techbro villain remind me of a certain Twitter CEO. I also saw one of the main twists coming a mile away, although I don’t really think the author was trying super-hard to hide it. It was a logical jump, is what I’m saying. Which brings us to today, in which I spent quite a bit of day glaring distrustfully at my Kindle app, since I was having a hard time making a decision. I think I’ve finally settled on Dark Horse, the next one in Orphan X, simply because Prodigal Son ended with someone figuratively hanging on a cliff, and that simply cannot stand. Can’t say a whole lot about it, since I’m only like 5 pages in. So until next time, Ah-aaah-AH.
@Joy: I’m not sure about that data about age of first marriage. Per the Census Bureau, in 1900 the age distribution for women is pretty evenly divided from ages 14 – 24, but the largest cluster of women didn’t get married till 25 or so. In other years the number of women who married quite young was large, but the number who married at 25-29 a bit larger. And I seem to remember reading that immediately post-WWII the age people married dropped dramatically and did not represent historical practice. OTOH, they definitely married earlier than people today.
As for books read, the most memorable was THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END by Adam Silvera. The story is set in a New York City very much like the real NYC, but it takes place in a world where people get a call from Death Cast on the day they will die. They don’t know how or exactly when, just that it will happen within 24 hours. On another thread (and maybe a different blog) someone complained that the title of Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series was something of a spoiler. That title is actually somewhat ambiguous. This book’s title, however, gives no apologies for being a massive spoiler for how the story arc ends. Mateo and Ruben, despite being only teenagers, each get the call in the first chapters of the book. Your heart breaks for them and cheers as they try to capture a lifetime in a day. I thought Silvera quite cleverly connected various characters and showed how their paths intersected with M&R and other characters in the past and on the fateful day. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep reading as I came to care for these two boys and didn’t want to get to the foretold ending, but I did, and it was worth it.
MARPLE, by various authors. Contains 12 short mysteries, with Miss Jane Marple as the unassuming spinster from St Mary Mead who solves them. Well-known mystery/thriller writers (Val McDermid, Ruth Ware, Alyssa Cole, etc) do their own riff on Agatha Christie’s character. As with most anthologies, some are more successful than others. Some were quite clever (especially liked the one with the novelist who is planning a murder as the story opens). Glad I read it but overall I’m glad it was a library book, as it’s not something I will reread.
THE WISTERIA SOCIETY OF LADY SCOUNDRELS by India Holton. Cecilia is the ideal Victorian lady. She is also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria crime sorority, she flies houses around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. At first the humor was a bit forced and exhausting as it tried too hard and didn’t let up. Plus there were a number of logical inconsistencies with the plot and how a proper Victorian lady thief should act, not to mention an OTT villain. But gradually the pace eased a bit, and the banter between Cecilia and her beau, Ned, a would-be assassin who has been hired by several different people to kill her, is quite funny. Liked it enough that I’ve put the sequel on hold at the library and look forward to reading it.
Since the last WAYR, my reading has been up and down. I stalled out with books by two authors upon whom I can usually depend for consistent reads – The Stand-Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau and The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher. Both books began to really bog down for me in their middle sections and I ended up wandering off and reading other stuff instead. I’ll probably finish both later, but right now they are not speaking to me.
I did finish A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting by Sophie Irwin and Butt-Dialing the Billionaire by Annika Martin. A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting read like a fluffy, history-light trad Regency from the 1980s, mildly gussied up for the 21st century (the hero suffers somewhat from PTSD caused by his experiences at Waterloo, the heroine defends her fortune-hunting on the grounds of the lack of economic opportunities for women). She and the hero of course clash over her need to marry someone rich, but for some very hand-wavey reasons, he agrees to help in her hunt. Nice but not especially memorable.
Butt-Dialing the Billionaire was a more successful read to me – it’s the 7th book in Annika Martin’s Billionaire series – which finds a group of young women (who mostly live in the same apartment building near Times Square) pairing up with a bunch of hot young billionaires (the billionaires do not necessarily know each other and do not live in the same building). These are fairly light-hearted books (as you might guess from the premise for the series); although Martin does weave in some serious themes and backstories to establish dramatic tension. Butt-Dialing the Billionaire is an office romance with a twist – the hero, who recently inherited a large multinational conglomerate that includes the heroine’s workplace, a small, failing apparel company, goes undercover to work as a lowly office gopher in the heroine’s workplace. He’s trying to find out who made fun of him after he gave a live speech over teleconferencing system to all the companies he now owns. This initial set-up is weak, but the book really perks up once the hero (in his over-the-top disguise that includes lovingly described 90s shirts and a large fake mole) joins the heroine and her band of loyal teammates. I like the reasons that Martin uses to explain why the company is failing – it’s a good obstacle that can’t be overcome by the hero just throwing money at the problem. He can’t just go it alone to solve the business problem, he needs to work with and trust others. However, I thought this all was undercut by how the hero reacts on personal level when the evil boss bullies and harasses the heroine and her team. The hero has a history of parental abuse and of reacting in anger and violently when someone else behaves badly. And as in the past, the hero loses his temper and reacts violently when, near the end, the evil boss acts like a jerk. The story sits uneasily with this violent moment. The consequences for the hero are minimized and there is no acknowledgment that hero might need to learn not only to trust others, but also to control his temper. I liked the heroine, the team at the fashion company, and the plot about why the company was failing, but felt the book didn’t quite stick the landing because of the wobbles in the hero’s arc.
When I finished Butt-Dialing the Billionaire, I started a reread of the other books in the Billionaire series. Have reread the first three: Most Eligible Billionaire; The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl; and Breaking the Billionaire’s Rules. Am now reading The Billionaire’s Fake Fiancée. Still all enjoyable reads.
Lots of books that were just fine these last two weeks. I think I’m still in a blue mood and have less patience for people, both real and fictional.
My first “Yay” read was volume 47 of SKIP BEAT by Yoshiki Nakamura. I even did a re-read of number 46. Talk about a slow burn that is finally paying off. I love the main characters and seeing how Kyoko develops professionally and personally.
I’m listening to The Sun-Bearer Trials. I’m enjoying the world but am frustrated with a few of the characters. I believe it’s YA and that’s not my usual genre.
Age of Marriage – part of my graduate work involved research on western european marriage patterns – I worked mostly on late medieval and early modern marriage patterns, but I know a bit about 19th and 20th centuries. In general figuring out marriage patterns is fairly complicated: factors that influence the age at first marriage include the spouses’ social standing; the cultural/religious expectations of the era; demography, general economic conditions, and women’s education. But in very general terms the western European pattern of marriage since the late medieval is marked by large numbers of companionate marriages (the age gap between partners on average is not that large) and women’s first marriages occurring at a relatively late age.* (Women’s age at first marriage is considered more important than men’s because it correlates more strongly to birth rates. Usually the higher age of first marriage is for women, the lower a country’s birth rate.)
This pattern is definitely showing up in many regions of western Europe by the late medieval era (there is still a fair bit of discussion about how fair back it goes) and it is one of the things that makes western european culture at this time different from many other societies. I don’t think there’s yet a definite consensus on why this marriage pattern developed in western Europe at this particular time, although there are many theories.
We do know that by late middle ages many working-class women (who of course were the majority of the women out there) could and did participate in the paid labour economy and that just like men, they tried to put aside part of their wages for their future marriage. But working class women moving into the paid economy and delaying their marriage in order to improve their economic situation is only part of the story since even middle-class and upper class women (who did not have to work for their living) were increasingly marrying later and later.
What do I mean by a later age of first marriage — well that’s a bit tricky to work out but through much of the late medieval and early modern era it is estimated that many women did not marry until early 20s and in certain times/regions not until their late 20s. Also this is not a linear progression, the age of first marriage fluctuated then as it does now (e.g., it was higher in the late 18th century in England and lower in the early 19th century), but overall the pattern is consistent – compare to other societies (and other time periods in western European history) western european women married at a later age and there was a narrower age gap between the partners.
This marriage pattern of companionate marriages and late first marriages for women often comes as surprise to many people because we are so used to hearing stories about the opposite type of marriages in historical fiction, but marriages, where there is a big age gap or where women marry young were usually driven by very particular sets of social or economic or demographic circumstances, and the reality is that the larger trend was towards companionate marriages and late first marriages for women in western europe when compared to other societies. My understanding that in America from the colonial era through at least the early decades of 19th century the first marriages of white (european) female settlers and their female descendants did occur early than their European counterparts (I can’t recall if the age gap was greater between partners or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was). From what I remember part of the reason for this earlier age of first marriages for women was because immigration from Europe skewed male and thus there were more marriageable men looking for partners than there were women. So when a woman came on the marriage mart she was likely to be snatched up as quickly as possible by an eager suitor.
*Other aspects of this pattern are that a significant proportion of women remained unmarried and newly married couples often established households separate from their parents.
@Kathryn: THANK YOU. The thing I miss most about the birdsite is historians responding to “but historical accuracy” gotchas with “I’M SO HAPPY YOU BROUGHT UP THAT SPECIFIC MYTH THAT IS MY SPECIALTY! Here’s a book-length thread of alternating citations and GIFs illuminating both the well-documented reality of that situation and the propaganda machine behind making you believe otherwise.”
(And then a sociologist picking it up with “Now let’s unpack why people today are so eager to see THAT ‘historical accuracy’ but never want to think about maternal/infant morality and venereal disease!”)
@Lena Brassard—venereal disease has always been what gives me pause when it comes to the reformed rake trope. I’ve read several where the hero had had SO MANY partners (including sex workers) and I was like, “Okay, but he obviously must have several STIs and we’re just going to pretend like he doesn’t because all that practice means he’s good at banging? I see.”
@FashionablyEvil: “Excuse you, condoms aren’t a recent invention!” Great! Let’s talk about who could afford such a luxury item, who was responsible for cleaning those reusable cock socks, and how many men were willing to wear them, keeping in mind how many modern men with access to relatively inexpensive, disposable, barely-there condoms whine about using them. *heavy sigh*
See also complaints that any feminist inclinations aren’t “historically accurate” because women in The Before Times were all blissfully ignorant that they were being treated unfairly and any minute increments of progress occurred spontaneously one day rather than as a result of generations of speaking out (that necessarily continue to this day because progress is actively opposed!). *HEAVY SIGH*
@Katie C. I agree totally on the Mangle Street Murders! I picked it up at a street library and thought this might be a series to follow, but it totally went off the tracks. Too bad for a great idea!
@kkw—your comment spurred me to finish THE GOLDEN ENCLAVES and I don’t think you missed anything. The whole ending seems to be “capitalism/exploitation=bad! but only sort of! and the people who perpetrate the worst of it get off scot free!”
I was also not sure what to make of the villain’s choices that led them to being the ultimate villain. I couldn’t quite work out how the sacrifice they made for power, as described, could have had the impact that it did.
(Also, an odd complaint: Novik needs to use more commas. She has all these stray modifiers that could do with being set off by commas.)
On Kindle, I seem to be on a billionaire/office romance kick. I opened Olivia Hayle’s Think Outside the Boss (the first in her New York Billionaires series), expecting it to be a lightweight, sex-on-the-desk bonkathon. How wrong I was. It’s a lovely, slow burn, ‘proper’ love story and I was enchanted by it. The MCs have an encounter at an exclusive sex party and then he turns out to be her new boss – you can see how I was misled by this synopsis – but then it develops into a grown-up relationship. I have now (by staying up far too late)avidly consumed the whole (five-book) series and they all stand up to scrutiny. Each story is different, compelling and romantic and I am very pleased to have discovered this author. I have another couple of her standalones on my wish list, awaiting offers. She’s also generous with the free bonus stories.
I also read the first two (of eight!) of Abigail Barnette’s The Boss series. A BDSM, age-gap, boss/assistant relationship, so plenty of tropes to choose from. I enjoyed them: entertaining, plenty of steam and much more story than the blurb might suggest but I don’t think I have the energy for such a long series. I may come back for book three which features the two main protagonists, after ‘suitable rest’…
In paper and ink, I enjoyed Susanna Allen’s A Duke at the Door – the third in the Shapeshifters of the Beau Monde series. I have read and enjoyed the first two: A Wolf in Duke’s Clothing and A Most Unusual Duke, having been hooked in by a review that described the former as “Bridgerton but werewolves”. Her writing style is quite formal and stylised but it works for these stories and her large cast of (mostly shifter) characters is entertaining, endearing and often slyly funny. I’m all in for the next one.
Loved, loved, loved Alexis Hall’s A Lady for a Duke. I’ve been saving it up for when I had time to give it proper attention and it was so worth it. Such gorgeous writing. So much angst. I am consistently entertained by all of Hall’s (very varied) books. What a talent. I’m about to embark upon Husband Material which came up on Kindle offer this week. I am carefully parcelling out his back catalogue, as I know I will be bereft once I have read them all. Same applies to KJ Charles and Cat Sebastian.
Also still powering through Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax series and Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark oeuvre. Enjoying both but Ann Aguirre more.
Happy reading all.
@FashionablyEvil oh good! I mean …not good that you also found the book disappointing, but I hadn’t seen that you were reading it until after I had posted, in part because I was dithering about potential spoilers and had just decided that I was probably the last big fan of the series to have only just gotten around to reading the thing anyway. So I am glad it wasn’t a problem, and also for the solidarity. I know they can’t all be winners, but yikes.
I haven’t been excited about anything new lately, so I went on a reread spree (which to be fair, I do a lot).
This time it was old Harlequin and Silhouettes that I loved in the early 90’s. I managed to track down a handful of old titles, and ugh, my taste has definitely changed.
So last week I decided to cheer myself up by re-reading a series I absolutely love – the Woodbury Boys series by Sydney Bell. It’s a dark suspense m/m trilogy with good writing and unlikely friendships between damaged men. While the romance is definitely front and centre, I feel like the developing relationships are more of a supporting factor in the growth of the characters.
Currently reading The Subway Slayings by C.S. Poe. And super excited for the new Fearne Hill book, Cloud Ten, due out later this month. She’s jumped right up to the top of my favourite romance authors list in the past year.