Welcome to November! A brand new month of reading! Here’s how we’re kicking things off:
Lara: I just finished the utterly delightful Alis Hawkins book, A Bitter Remedy. ( A | BN | K ) Historical mystery with a fearsome female protagonist. Yes please!
Tara: I’m reading Tempted by the Bollywood Star by Sophia Singh Sasson and I’m really enjoying it! It’s a second-chance f/f romance between a closeted Bollywood star and a Hollywood producer, a decade after their initial kick at romance. I’m finding it especially fun because I’ve watched more than a dozen Hindi films this year, so I’m already fan casting one of the leads. CW for homophobia, but I find it makes a lot of sense and isn’t gratuitous a quarter of the way in.
Susan: I’m rereading The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco ( A | BN | K ) and it’s still so good. Okiku’s semi-omniscient perspective and the way the layout of words changes with her narration makes me so happy. And the chapters where Rin Chupeco just goes all in on the horror are amazing! Super evocative and disturbing.
Sarah: I just read System Collapse ( A | BN | K ) and have a happy book hangover. A big one.
Shana: I gobbled up Falling Back in Love with Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom ( A | BN | K ) and it was definitely my favorite poetry book that I’ve read this year.
Whatcha reading, folks? Let us know in the comments!
In between books a the moment. Just finished NIGHT OF THE MANNEQUINS by Stephen Graham Jones, which was… not what I expected. I kinda liked it, though.
Recent reads:
WELL, THAT WAS UNEXPECTED by Jesse Q. Sutanto. A really fun YA romance with a fake relationship plot set in Indonesia. Enjoyed the hell out of this one.
More YA: A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY by Brian D. Kennedy. Very sweet, although for a large portion of the book I was more invested in the individual storylines of the characters than the actual romance, but it came in stronger towards the end and I blinked away a tear or two when I finished the book. Very good.
SUBURBAN HELL by Maureen Kilmer. Pretty fun to read. I thought the author could have done more with the possession story, but overall I enjoyed it.
After quite a few false starts, I’ve found some good reads. FRESH BREWED MURDER by Emmeline Duncan and BOARD TO DEATH by CJ Connor were both fun cozy mysteries. Neither were particularly difficult to solve but they both had fairly endearing protagonists and fun worlds that were more diverse and grounded than most of the cozies I grew up with. They tackle some issues like homelessness and bigotry but with a light touch, which I appreciate but may not be for everyone. Also, no cop love interests are on the horizon in either book. Yay! The cop/sherriff boyfriend is a plot convenience that turns me off a lot of cozies. The protagonists also felt like young(er) people being written by actual younger people and not fake young people being written by people my age or older. No offense to Generation X and (elder) Millennials. . .
I also loved THE MARQUIS WHO MUSTN’T by Courtney Milan, another book in her Wedgeford Trials series. The actual trials are not a big part of this book, but you get to see a lot of the citizens of Wedgeford and their world. I loved the romantic couple in this book. The hero is the son of a con artist who is planning “the perfect fraud” and the heroine is the good daughter, always underestimated. She’s no determined to take “ambulance classes” (what we would think of as first aid) and nothing is going to stand in her way. Throw in a fake (real?) engagement and I’m there. I’ve given on the Worth Saga as too convoluted and frankly not very “romancy” so these are now my only Courtney Milan fix.
I’m a few chapters into The Marquis who Mustn’t by Courtney Milan. Unfortunately RL will get in the way before I can get back to reading tonight. Naomi and Kai are fantastic characters and so far , this is a wonderful read.
After several weeks of epic reads, including a couple of favorites books of 2023, I hit a patch of “just OK’ reads: books that retained my interest while I was reading them, but that didn’t make much of an overall impression—to the point that writing about them just a few days later, I’m struggling with what to say. Thank God, I’ve got Kati Wilde’s THE HARVEST BRIDE queued up next—if anything can get me out of the reading doldrums, it’s a new book from Kati!
Ana Huang’s KING OF GREED, the third book in her Kings of Sin series, is an angsty & tropey marriage-in-trouble/second-chance romance between Dominick, a driven billionaire who worked his way up from childhood poverty and dysfunction, and his wife Allesandra, who had supported her husband through his rise to the top but eventually felt so ignored and overlooked that she divorced him. Devastated Dominick is determined to win his ex-wife back and sets about trying to be the husband he once was. I liked that element of the story—especially because Allesandra is so ambivalent about trusting her former husband with her heart once again (key quote: after a post-divorce shag, Allesandra says tells Dominick, “Our sex life wasn’t an issue, but we can’t solve our issues with sex”). But it’s as if Huang didn’t trust the dynamic between her MCs to generate enough interest, and so she introduced a whole suspense sub-plot involving Dominick’s brother, which I felt dragged the book down because Huang really couldn’t decide if the brother was a good guy or a bad guy—and, by the end of the book, I was none-the-wiser either.
Winter Renshaw’s DEAR STRANGER, the third book in her Paper Cuts series of romances that all, in one way or another, revolve around the written word, is a smoothly written romance with a “You’ve Got Mail” premise that doesn’t quite stick the landing. Tenley & Brooks are rivals at the law firm where they work, both of them vying for a partnership. They are unaware that they have been matched on a dating app where they have to anonymously text each other for 90 days before they can meet or exchange pictures. During those 90 days, Tenley & Brooks not only grow closer on-line but also drop a lot of their workplace antagonism—without even knowing they are matched on the app. Unfortunately, they discover their identities about halfway through the book, and then the plot meanders for the remainder of the story. I also struggled with the inconsistent character of Brooks’s sister: one minute she’s an irresponsible parent who leaves her young son home alone to go partying with her friends, the next she’s a loving mother who dispenses words of wisdom to her brother and his girlfriend. Much like the character of the brother in KING OF GREED, the sister in DEAR STRANGER was both unnecessary and a drag on the storyline.
PREGNANT WITH HER ROYAL BOSS’S BABY is the latest HP from Jackie Ashenden. Perhaps the most interesting element of the story is that the hero (the monarch of an only-in-Romancelandia European kingdom) suffered a traumatic brain injury after a car accident years before and struggles with reading, writing, headaches, bright light, and controlling his emotions, particularly anger. When he discovers his long-time assistant is carrying his child, he insists she marry him, but she is also keeping a lot of secrets (secrets that, in order to be even slightly plausible, require not just hand-waving but arm- and leg-waving too). I thought the parts of the book that focused on how the hero deals with aspects of his TBI were interesting, but the heroine’s backstory (even for an HP) is so full of unbelievable circumstances that the magic of the overall love story was rather lost on me.
Like so many middle books in a trilogy, Amelia Wilde’s FLIGHT RISK tends to hover in a holding pattern. In FLIGHT RISK (the second book of Wilde’s Risk trilogy about a man who kidnaps the granddaughter of the judge he holds responsible for much of the loss and trauma he experienced during his childhood), Jameson and Lily are planning a real wedding to go along with their fake engagement in order to keep Lily away from her evil grandfather and the lengths he is willing to go to cover his corrupt judicial tracks. Much of the story takes place in Jameson’s brother’s home where everyone is helping to plan the wedding and characters from previous Wilde books make appearances along with their partners and children. The book ends on not one but two cliffhangers, so I’m very committed to reading the final book (not due until next May, alas), but FLIGHT RISK is less about advancing the story and more of a way to introduce readers to characters from other Wilde books.
Probably the most riveting book I read in the past two weeks is the extremely dark but well-written TWISTED OBSESSION by new-to-me author S. Massery. However, I found the book worked much better when read as a suspense-thriller rather than as a romance. As a romance, I had trouble with the morally-gray (to say the least) hero and the book’s absolute tsunami of triggers (please check the front of the book for more information). But I was totally engaged with the suspense element of the story: a woman with amnesia desperately tries to piece together the fragments of her past while attempting to outrun her stalker of an ex-husband and understand what role a decade-younger professional athlete played in her life. Massery does a great job of giving us just enough information to keep us reading but not enough to see the whole picture: the reader is as much in the dark as the heroine—and, like the heroine, we have to carefully put together a picture of her past with pieces that don’t always seem to fit. The ambiguous hero initially appears to want to help the heroine, but as his actions become more questionable, we wonder how “helpful” he is actually being. And the book has a couple of surprising twists. (Also, please note that despite having a hockey player hero—and being part of a series titled Hockey Gods—TWISTED OBSESSION is not a hockey romance: hockey plays a very background part of the plot and could just as easily have been any other professional sport.) TWISTED OBSESSION won’t be for all tastes—it’s very dark and really puts the heroine through the wringer—but if you’re looking for a suspense story involving an older heroine with amnesia, it might scratch that itch.
I just finished THE RECITAL by Gregg Hurwitz, which is a story in his Orphan X universe. Up next, I’m reading BEYOND THE EMPIRE by K. B. Wagers to finish out the Indranan War sci-fi series.
Waiting in my TBR pile are THE MALEVOLENT SEVEN by Sebastien de Castell, which sounds fun, and THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN bundle by Anne McCaffrey. Somehow, I have never read any of the Dragonrider books. Time to change that.
I’m also bingeing out all the holiday romcoms. 🙂
After a coversnark post, I went on a journey! It was for L Eveland’s LASSO’S AND LACE (MONSTERS IN MY BED) It was Cory’s comment of “it’s what the characters look like: a jackalope monster man and a femme twink with fading blue hair in a wheelchair” that caused me to look again (He’s in a wheelchair?) Then I started to look at all the covers. The covers in Goodreads are all the same quality, but it looks like the author has new, classier covers in Amazon (if monster romance covers can be classy) #2 SCALES AND SONG Goodread’s cover had a giant lizard man and I was hooked. And then when I went to my kindle, turned out past me had already bought #1 KISSED BY THE KRAMPUS!
So I’ve been cruising through L Eveland’s Monsters in my bed series and loving them.
On vacation I also read and enjoyed Cat Sebastian’s LUKE AND BILLY FINALLY GET A CLUE and Reese Morrison’s SMART ASS (The SPARK FILES)
First of: when I saw that there was a new Murderbot book I went to Amazon to one click that so hard and now have to wait until the 14th
But I’ve just finished A Rival Most Vial, which was fun. Lighthearted romp in a very Dungeon and Dragons like society about proprietors who supply the adventurers with all they need while adventuring. It’s a rival to lovers m/m romance and I loved the found family aspect!
I’ve also read The Luminous Dead and man, I read that at home in my living room during broad daylight and still felt soo claustrophobic! The atmosphere was very well done and I loved the unreliable narrator aspect of it. It has also kicked of a YouTube Cave Exploring gone wrong hyperfixation..
I’m now considering my next book choice and it will either be:
-a reread of A Marvelous Light as preparation for the other two books in the series
-Dead Silence, because I feel like maybe I want more creepy stories
-Broadway Butchery, because I enjoyed the other two in the series and am curious as to where the overlapping plot will go.
I have to finish whatever choice before the 14th though because nothing will come between me and a brand new Murderbot novel! Sorry kids..
@Jennifer Estep, I hope you enjoy the Dragonriders as I have. The are a core reading memory for me, and have lived on my keeper shelf for 50 years. They may actually be the first books entered on it.
My Kindle spelunking rendered Nicola Davidson’s THE DEVIL’S SUBMISSION. A second chance between and estranged married couple learning to embrace their true natures and trust each other with these natures and needs. Side eye for the titled MMC and his partners owning a sex club in Regency England, yet still being welcomed in polite society.
How Pamela Clare’s SOUL DEEP ended up at the tail end of my library is a mystery, but it was found and devoured. Thumbs up for the over 60 MMC, but a little disappointing that the FMC is so much younger. Still I do love how she writes romantic suspense.
Currently reading Lucy Score’s latest, THINGS WE LEFT BEHIND. It has led to not one, but two instances of Bad Decisions Book Club©. I started it as I was waiting for a procedure. It starts on a very sad note with the FMC getting ready for her father’s funeral. It suddenly occurred to me that red eyes and a sniffly nose was going to be problematic for the anesthesiology clearance. Then I ended up reading until three A.M. on a work night. Secret best friends in high school now bitter nemesis, Sloane and Lucian are still entangled due to their mutual friendships and his ongoing relationship with her parents. As we all know bickering leads to bantering which inevitably leads to sexy banter foreplay and on to let’s just do it and get it out of our systems. Because that always works. I’m wallowing in it!
I’m going to see Martha Wells at an event on Wednesday and the ticket includes a copy of System Collapse. I managed not to flip through the library copies as I processed them even though I wanted to ignore work and read it right then and there.
I picked up a vampire romance because I haven’t read one in forever. The Last True Vampire by Kate Baxter wasn’t very well written and a bit of a slog to get through. Some of the worldbuilding was interesting but I will not be continuing with that series.
Books, I’ve read some books:
A guidebook is the link between four books in the Kate Moore series I finished last night. The first, The Husband-Hunter’s Guide to London, finds Jane packed off from Assyria to England by the foreign office following her diplomat father’s death. Or is he dead?
In the second, A Lady’s Guide to Passion and Property, Lucy has inherited her father’s London inn. She has friends in London, who want her sell the inn and find love and less work-filled future. But Lucy feels a responsibility towards Tom, a blind and mentally damaged man who has been part of the household for her entire life.
At the beginning of the third book, A Spy’s Guide to Seduction, 28-year old Emily is feeling pressed by her mother, and declares to her married sister that she should wed the first imbecile she meets. And…I need to leave the next bit out to not spoil a delicious scene for you.
The series concludes with The Christmas Husband Hunt, neatly tying up loose threads as governess Harriet finds love. The marriage proposal is, as the saying around here goes, swoon-worthy.
I don’t know why we don’t read more about author Kate Moore here. I thought these books were well written, the story lines were well done if not startling new, scenes clearly visible in my mind, and the characters felt as if they could be real people.
I also read a book with lots and lots of words about what was happening but very little conversation. Is this what those of you with literary vocabularies call telling instead of showing? It made the reading of it a slog, so I admit to heavy skimming. I don’t recall the title, which is good because I’d rather write about books I enjoy, but not good to avoid future books by the author.
And yet, a different book made me crazy, referring to unmarried Lady Firstname and the same woman, still unmarried, as Lady Lastname. If her title came from her father, which is correct? This book had someone stating that “Uppers protected their own” which did not refer to dentures; a comment that a stolen child’s future was “too reprehensible to discuss”; and use of the expression double entendre that I still haven’t sorted out.
I read the second terrific mystery by Cherie Priest, Flight Risk. Oh, I hope the author writes more in this series! I enjoy reading about the characters of travel agent Leda, who has a determined curiosity to go along with her light psychic abilities, her friend Niki, police officer Grady, and a supporting cast of believable friends. The first mystery, Grave Reservations, found Leda meeting Grady after she changed his flight reservation without his permission. You can imagine why until you read this book.
Somehow I also squeezed in reading the second and third Thursday Murder Club books, which you all know about already. Once again: Thank You, authors (and SBTB)! You pull me through some challenging times.
Happy November! CHECK & MATE by Ali Hazelwood came out this week and did not disappoint. It is less spicy than her other books, perhaps because it is being marketed more as YA? But the romance is very satisfying as is the chess story line. To me, there were some moments that didn’t make a ton of sense – such as when her mentor beats her soundly even though no one else can seemingly beat her – but I was happy to go with the flow. I know nothing about chess, but this book definitely makes me feel I know at least a little more now.
Yesterday, I dug BLINDSIDED by Eden Finley out of my kindle library. I remember enjoying this the first time I read it in 2020, but I honestly wasn’t really feeling it as much this time around. Nominally, the MCs are football players, but there is very little detail about games or training or really anything football related. I suspect the chemistry between the leads kept me interested the first time, but I need more than that if I’m going to reread the whole thing.
Lara’s excellent review of WED BY PROXY by Alice Coldbreath last month convinced me to give this new-to-me author a try, but it took a while to get to the top of my TBR pile. I feel as though most historical romance is set in the 1800s or maybe the 1700s, so it was nice to read one set in medieval times. The FMC begins the book escaping from her overbearing mother with the help of several pages. When she arrives at her husband’s door, he does not believe she is, in fact, the wife he married by proxy, so he installs her in a hunting lodge and fails to acknowledge her. This somehow escapes the FMC’s notice (?), but okay – she’s naive. They fall in love in spite of the MMC’s best efforts. Along the way, there is a fabulous forest witch, who really should have had a larger role, and some intrigue, but this is a book where not a lot actually happens. Recommend as a relatively low angst book with a little humor and an ending you can see a mile away.
Last week, I finished Amy Harmon’s THE UNKNOWN BELOVED, which seemed appropriately ghoulish for the end of October. I’m usually a Harmon fan, but this was a miss for me. The story centers around the mystery of a mass murderer in 1930s Cleveland, Ohio. I honestly ended up skipping over several pages when the MMC did a run down of all the ways the victims were mutilated. The whole story was really quite grim. Beyond the obvious suffering of the victims, both MCs suffer terrible losses before meeting each other. And the entire city of Cleveland, where the story is primarily set, is described in terms of poverty and crime. This is set during the Great Depression, so I understand that there was a lot of suffering, but I mean it’s just not what I’m personally looking for in a romance. YMMV.
I adored MOLLY MOLLOY AND THE ANGEL OF DEATH by Maria Vale. It’s amazingly inventive, funny at parts, and a love story with an unconventional HEA. Molly has had a lot of experience with death taking her loved ones, and then death becomes a character in her life due to some weird circumstances. And Dee, as she calls him, is actually a really complicated and interesting being who is fascinated by humans and never encountered one who can see him. The death industrial complex which is the afterlife as created by the author is intriguing, but it’s the story of the relationship between Dee and Molly, and the life that they construct, which is so compelling. I haven’t read a book that’s so though provoking a quite a while. I am now a huge Maria Vale fan. This time last week I hadn’t read anything by her – as of today I have read not only MOLLY MOLLOY but also a number of her shifter books, including THE LAST WOLF, A WOLF APART, FOREVER WOLF and SEASON OF THE WOLF. The shifter books are great as well, but MOLLY MOLLOY is next level. It’s sold out just about everywhere (Amazon, all the bookstores that I checked, as well as their distributors) but is available on ebook on Hoopla. Yay for the library!! Highly recommend.
WRECK THE HALLS by Tess Bailey was fun. I find that like some of her books and really don’t enjoy others. This was on the more enjoyable part of the continuum. Christmas romcom in NYC featuring the late twenties son and daughter of a famous female ’80s rock duo falling for each other. But the conflict seemed forced to me, with too much premised on adults not having pretty straightforward conversations with each other. Recommend.
Then I read KISS THE GIRL by Zoraida Cordova, and that was the rock & roll romance that I was looking for. And it’s a Little Mermaid retelling. A singer whose been a pop star since she was a child is now 25 and taking an unsanctioned break from stardom – no one recognizes her offstage because she performed in a wig and specific “look”, plus her awesome sisters provide ongoing cover by going out dressed like her and distracting the paparazzi. She ends up selling merch on the road with an indy band and falling for the lead singer. Totally swoony male lead, and a great group of characters from the six sisters to the all female members of the band. Fun times on the road with the indy band. And it starts and ends in NYC, so it fed my love of the Big Apple (or the Little Apple, as most is in Brooklyn). Highly recommend
Also highly recommend THORNHEDGE by T Kingfisher. A retelling of Sleeping Beauty that turns the entire fairy tale on its head. The “beauty” is evil, and the heroines (there are several in my view) are beings like a toadling and bog witches. And the “prince” is a real treat. Highly recommend.
Just popping in to say yay Murderbot! My bookshop called me yesterday night to say it’ll be in Monday or Tuesday and I’m so excited!
Right now I’m reading Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice. The world ends but an isolated Anishinaabe reservation community doesn’t know it yet, the old ways that governments/colonialism have tried to eradicate, as well as being able to survive with the substandard infrastructure their community has been allotted, ironically gives them certain advantages in a dystopian scenario. The pitch sounds like a thriller and I guess it is (ie, not even Winter is coming, Winter is HERE), but its tone is more slow and thoughtful.
After these two I’ll probably go pick up An Inconvenient Vow. If Lara’s review hadn’t already tipped me over the Amazon review “I love Jefree, what a toad” would have lol
Yay, Sarah! So glad to hear System Collapse gave happy book hangover. Every time one of her books comes out, I wonder if this is the one that’ll be a dud. Always relieved when it isn’t!
@footiepjs: Wow, lucky you. Enjoy every moment.
Speaking of Murderbot, I finished my re-read of all six books and assorted shorts. Tuesday is less far away than it seems right now, pretty sure I can hold on.
THE PUZZLE MASTER by Danielle Trussoni (solving the God Puzzle could lead to the end of the world) should have been my catnip, but I wasn’t in the right mood and grew tired of all the hints about how terrifying everything was going to be. Failure to launch, DNF.
Since last time ~
— an enjoyable novella, Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher. It’s a sleeping beauty tale but told from a unique perspective.
— Miss Lockharte’s Letters by Barbara Metzger was a regency era romance. The heroine, believing she is about to die, writes a half dozen letters (of thanks, blame, regrets) which precipitate all manner of events. I could quibble at part of the ending, but overall I liked it very much.
— Ripples by Jasmine O’Hea is a newly released young adult fantasy. This story with travel/character switching between two near identical towns required a healthy suspension of disbelief, but it clearly had something appealing as I read it to the end (says the person who often gives up on books on pages one, ten, or fifty).
— enjoyed the picture book, Ten-Word Tiny Tales: To Inspire and Unsettle by Joseph Coelho. This took all of about ten minutes to read, but it was fun to read the short stories and see the illustrations by 21 artists.
— For my book group, I read The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway. My childhood years in Australia were very different from the author’s, but it was neat to see some commonalities. The book covers the author’s life into her twenties. She went on to become the first female president of Smith College.
— read with pleasure Lavender House (Evander Mills Book 1) by Lev AC Rosen. This noir-ish mystery set in 1950s San Francisco features a recently fired detective (found in a raid on a gay bar) who is hired to find the killer of a wealthy woman. The titular Lavender House is the home of a small enclave of mostly gay people. (Trigger warning for violence.) I will happily read more in this series.
— enjoyed the historical romance, Sauce for the Gander (The Marstone Series Book 1) by Jayne Davis, in which the hero and heroine are forced into marriage by their fathers. I would happily read more by this author.
— reread the science fiction novel Ascending (The Vardeshi Saga Book 1) by Meg Pechenick. This deals with a second (rather than first) contact between an alien culture and earth; it focuses on a young woman who is selected to travel to the aliens’ homeworld.
— reread the sequel to the book I mentioned above, Bright Shards by Meg Pechenick, and quite enjoyed it. The first book, Ascending, was published in 2018 and this second book was published in 2019; sadly, the promised third book has yet to materialize.
@DDD: your “… not just hand-waving but arm- and leg-waving too)” made me laugh. I’ve read a number of similar books.
DESERT ICE by Rose Maefair is a m/m fantasy romance where the conflict is created by circumstances that will be a hard no for a lot of people (so will the snark worthy cover, which doesn’t represent the story at all). It starts when a mage goes to a slave market to find a warrior who will help protect his embattled city in exchange for freedom. The warrior he finds has a ‘condition’ on his sale that makes that impossible. From there, it’s a very tortured path to HEA but I found the characters engaging and the world-building and magic interesting.
A nonfiction book, AI SUPERPOWERS: CHINA, SILICON VALLEY, AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER by Kai-Fu Lee (former President of Google China). The book covers a lot, including economic changes AI is driving, the responsibilities that the US and China have to manage/control the changes and why China is likely to be the next tech-innovation superpower. It’s fascinating and more than a little disturbing.
@HeatherC: I recommend Lily Mayne’s MONSTROUS series for monster romance fans. There are 7 books in the series and it’s best to read them in order.
Not a lot to report on this time…
10 THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED – Alexis Hall (m/m contemporary). I liked this! This is Hall getting back into the wider universe of Boyfriend Material. This was fun and offered lots of feels, though it took a moment to get the romance going. Amnesia is not a trope I am into, but I trusted that Hall would make something more or less believable out of this and he did. My only quibble is, Sam holds an enormous lot of things back about his family and his past, and whilst by the end I could totally see why he’d been doing what he did – and of course it explained a few other things too like his attitude towards family in general and Jonathan’s in particular, but I would have liked to have seen him talk about it.
HOW TO CATCH A DUKE – Grace Burrowes (m/f Regency). I plucked this from my TBR pile, I guess I bought this upon some recommendation, can’t remember, though I’ve read a couple of other Burrowes books before, though not recently. Anyway, I decided to go through my TBR and landed there. This is book 6 of a series of 7 and there’s an intriguing family history going on, so whilst I was ok reading this on it’s own, it’s probably better to read these in sequence. I got so curious about the family story that I now went back and bought book one which is set something like 10 years earlier. After my recent other experience with a Regency that totally threw me due to much too modern dialogue etc., this felt pleasantly ok. The story is not quite your typical Regency, or the characters aren’t, which made it interesting, but it felt by and large right. There’s a lot of talk about extramarital affairs (in the past) and some characters including the male MC being bisexual. They only talk about it in private, but their partners take it in stride, which I don’t know if in reality that would have happened, but I guess people with all sorts of attitudes towards that have existed throughout history and within this story I think it was well done. It’s also one of those books where not a lot really happens in terms of action. And the MCs talk a lot. This might not be everybody’s cup of tea, for me it worked, also how besides their attraction to each other, they also built a friendship. Also, there’s one bit at the end that I didn’t see coming and that surprised me. Again, I am glad it didn’t end as badly as the other one did and I think I may be back on a bit of a Regency reading streak!
Been logging time in the Bad Decisions Book Club thanks to 10 THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED by Alexis Hall. The audio narration is *chef’s kiss*, I’ve been reading a chapter of the ebook then listening to the audio of that same chapter to fully enjoy the perfect comedy delivery and adorable accent. Except it’s never just one more chapter, and I need sleep, so I’m trying to hold off. Also the book timeline is approaching Christmas and I am still in Autumn Mode *cough*denial*cough*
By the way, Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall is free on Kindle for Amazon prime reads, I grabbed it for a reread.
Graphic novels/comics:
HEAVY VINYL from Boom Studios via hoopla – the year is 1998, our heroine is just an average teen girl working at the record shop where everyone else is SUPER COOL (all-female employees and owner), then their favorite rock band’s frontwoman goes missing and supernatural shenanigans ensue, of course the kickass girls save the day. There’s a bit of F/F romance too. I just found out there is a Volume 2: Y2K and clicked it so fast.
FLYING WITCH #1 – manga, slice of life, cozy, no stress, just vibes. There’s a plot but it’s very slow relaxed pace, good for unwinding. There’s a bunch more volumes at my library so I’m staying on this train and seeing where it goes.
TIDESONG by Wendy Xu – cute graphic novel, I’d say tween/teen and up. It has magic and dragons, heroine coming of age / figuring herself out and standing up to family. The art style reminds me a bit of The Tea Dragon Society but the stakes are higher here.
OF SWAMP AND SEA on Webtoon – Season 2 is wrapping up, I spent coins to read the final episodes faster, 10/10 worth it. M/F supernatural set in the 1920s with monsters and pirates, realistic characters, All The Feels, a developing romance where both people grow and learn from each other, and the art is beautiful. Lots of cliffhangers though. CW for violence, guns, assault, death of parent.
I’ve listened to books 1 and 2 in Charlie Adhara’s (m/m) series about werewolves and am enjoying how grumpy Cooper is. It’s throwing me off a little that the narrator did the Magic in Manhattan series, but I’m adding the third book to my hold list anyway. While waiting for that one, I’ve started listening to Corsairs: Bethia by Ruby Dixon.
I’m also re-reading Strange love by Anne Aguirre. I didn’t realize there were more books in that world and I’ve forgotten a lot of what happened in the first book.
First The GOOD:
TEN THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED by Alexis Hall. Excellent read and such a relief after my poor reaction to Husband Material. Sam the main character was just your average joe with a heart whose running a bed and bath store. Our other main character is the owner of the chain who doesn’t seem to do well with people. I really liked the light heartedness of this story.
STARTER VILLAIN by John Scalzi. Scalzi can write excellent science fiction and this was one of them. Main character, Charlie is asked to speak at the funeral of his rich Uncle Jake that he hasn’t seen since he was five. When most of the guests show up in dark suits with bulges Charlie thinks uncle Jake might have been into more than making money with parking lots. When one of them pulls a knife and tries to stab the corpse he gets dragged into Jakes “business” more than he would like.
LIAR CITY by Allie Theron. Theron is known for her Magic in Manhattan Series which I shamelessly abandoned when the second book didn’t hold my interest. This is a contemporary setting and I loved it. There is magic held by a very select few people who are empaths. They can read your emotions and there is backlash and prejudice against them. They are pacifists and react horribly to violence so when a murder occurs that seems to be by an empath it’s a big deal. Loved loved this.
HEART OF WINTER by Lauren Gilley. I loved this first fantasy book of the series. The world is diverse and well thought out. Oliver (the main hero) is a bastard cousin whose male relatives have died in a recent war. With only legitimate females left the family sends one north to a barbarian country to offer marriage and hopefully use of their army. Only the Norther King Erik will only offer marriage to one of his nephews. Seems Erik likes the look of Oliver better. Good times. I also liked the second book. The third and fourth books frustrated me because the story arc pacing is glacial. Holding out hope for the fifth book on my TBR. Overall liking THE DRAKE CHRONICLES.
WE COULD BE SO GOOD by Cat Sebastian. Loved this newspaper reporter story about Andy the owner’s son whose never run anything and is terrified of ruining his father’s newspaper business. Nick is the hardened newspaper reporter who gives Andy a helping hand. Their relationship was so loving and thoughtful.
JUST OK: Vow Maker by Lily Morton. a bit of a yawn actually.
I’M YOUR BUY by Sarina Bowen. Pleasant and better than the first one.
THE DAMNING STONE by T.J.KLUNE. Really disliked this one. Tried to listen on audible but it was THAT bad for me.
THE AMAZING ALPHA TAU BOYFRIEND PROJECT: Adorable premise that turned awful for me. All those “Bro” references and the absolute cluelessness by the main character were a turn off for me.
The work life has been on one, including moving offices, so the reading hasn’t been quite as robust. But I’m about to come up on my extended time off for the holidays and we do love everything about that.
Let’s see, on audio I’m listening to A Fatal Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum by Emma Southon. It’s hilarious, as Southon herself reads it, and merrily calls out the sheer assholishness of the vast majority of the more powerful Romans and their penchant for killing each other super dead, and how our fascination with their behavior tends to directly parallel our current true crime fascination. A great listen while I’m playing Powerwash Simulator (just got to the washroom, the carousel nearly broke me). I also fished around in the Netgalley queue and came out with At First Spite by Olivia Dade. I won’t say too much, because it doesn’t come out until February, but there is a lovely portrayal of the care of someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis, and I loved the way the community rallied around that person and helped them out of the dark. I also enjoyed the subplot about the, er, monster-f*cking audiobooks (not a spoiler, it’s in the cover copy). Was literally chuckling out loud at those parts. Also, the hero is INCREDIBLY HOT OH MY GOD. Then I went into It Happened One Fight by Maureen Lee Lenker. I like Lenker’s ew.com columns, and her writing style and clear affection for Old Hollywood came through. Someone on Goodreads accurately described it as “Clark Gable/Joan Crawford fanfic”, which is both fair and not necessarily a criticism, at least from me. I did feel like it went a bit too long, and it could have lost about 50 pages and felt like a better read to me. Now I’ve fished back into Netgalley and am reading Murder Road by Simone St. James. I’m really enjoying her style, especially the way she weaves in the supernatural elements around a central mystery. Also loving the time setting, since I was a teen in the 90s, this is set in 1995, and my brain loves a nostalgia moment (look, my Spotify is a lot of Garbage, Radiohead, and 90s mixes, a bit concerned that my Wrapped list for this year is going to come with a flannel shirt). So until next time, I hope your mom also makes the good brussel sprouts for Thanksgiving.
So Kobo Plus just launched in Sweden. What did I do? I re-read Patricia Rice’s Family Genius series. These books are a decade old and tiny bit dated, but I really enjoyed them. The best way to describe them is cozy spy mysteries. Full with action, drama and a slow burn romance between Ana and Graham.
Then I caught up on Eve Langlais A lion’s pride series and I liked them, but I also was reminded of why I stopped reading her books. Next up: I have no idea! I added a bunch of books that I wanted to read, but I have no idea if I will actually read them.
Honestly, I am just happy that I am out of my Viola Grace obsession. Let’s just call her books… enjoyable but flawed. (I am still trying to figure out why I liked them so much.)
I read a couple books I got from various free book events.
Let Love Rule by Frances M. Thompson, m/f queer contemporary
4.5 stars. Really enjoyed this bi4bi opposites attract romance by a new to me author. Emotionally satisfying, relatively low conflict – and the protagonists help each other sort out their families (which is one of my favorite things in romance).
How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow (f/f contemporary YA)
4.5 stars. Delightful YA/NA Sapphic romance between two first-year college students spending winter break in Washington DC. Despite the blurb, I wouldn’t call it an enemies to lovers rom-com – more like the Sapphic, Jewish awkward teen version of a Hallmark Christmas movie. And I mean that as a compliment.
It’s told from the first person POV of Shani, a nerdy, anxious Jewish lesbian. I think your enjoyment of the book will depend on whether you can handle her anxious, overthinking narration. Read the sample. Your enjoyment may also depend on whether you can handle the stress of reading such an accurate portrayal of what it’s like to be 18 years old – complete with poor impulse control and crazy mood swings. (This may just be me and my middle aged sensibilities).
Mer Made (Black Trans Fairy Tales #2) by S.T. Lynn (f/f fantasy novella)
3.5 stars. Cute queer and trans reimagining of The Little Mermaid. There were some typos and editing issues that took me out of the story. I’d recommend this for fans of the movie who wondered why the heck Ariel wanted to leave her underwater home.
Crazy Together by Marie Sexton (mm contemporary)
3.5 stars. Perfectly adequate mm holiday romance. I enjoyed the set up a lot but thought the execution was a little weak.
I got annoyed by all of the previous couples and sequel bait characters showing up. There were two couples from other random Marie Sexton books, who apparently just showed up at this Idaho B&B to impart wise advice to our heroes. There were other shout outs to other MS books – one of the MCs lives in Tucker Springs (location of a different shared world mm series) and his college boyfriend was Cole, from the Coda books.
Oy, how on earth are we a couple weeks into November??
I really liked LA Witt’s BURNER ACCOUNT, a standalone m/m hockey romance between a couple guys who meet online while posting about issues they feel strongly about, and get to know each other while trash-talking and fighting ignorance the best they can. While they’ve been friends for years, they have never met in person, and don’t even know each other’s real names. When they finally agree to meet, their connection is as magnetic as it’s always been, only better. I think LA Witt’s done a great job with Isaiah and Tanner’s characters, and I found their story engaging from the start. Their friends and families are important and funny, and the on-ice action is also intense and entertaining.
POOLE is the seventh in Maryann Jordan’s Lighthouse Security Investigations West Coast romantic suspense series. Frederick Poole agrees to stop to check on a custom security system his company designed for a high-end client. Patricia Burrows, the electrician, is not who he was expecting, but Tricia turns out to be exactly who he didn’t realize he’d been looking for all along. An entertaining and page-turning at-first-sight story.
And a few ARCS for books releasing this week–
Mari Carr’s NAUGHTY AND NICE is the introductory novella for Matt Russo and Liza Moretti’s story in her utterly delicious Italian Stallions series. Matt and Liza’s families have some antagonistic history between them, but working together on a foundation helping women and children allows them to see the good they each accomplish, and view the other with respect, however grudging. The tension between them escalates to the point of ignition, and it changes them permanently. Can’t wait for the rest of their story in TEMPTED AND TAKEN.
Kelly Jamieson’s MERRY PUCKING CHRISTMAS is part of her Bears Hockey series. Player Nils Axelsson and accountant Harley Reid is a bit of insta-love, though neither is ready to call it that. They meet when Harley accepts her aunt’s invitation to celebrate the season with her in NYC, and getting away from her recent divorce and her ex’s new relationship sound like a great idea. Nils and Harley are a charming pair.
DELAY OF GAME by Ari Baran has been on my wishlist since I first read GAME MISCONDUCT. This is a teammates to friends to lovers, and I loved it. On the surface, Zach and Nate might not seem to have much in common. Nate is the solid player who has worked his way up to team captain, never quite believing his success or his place. Zach seems to have been born to be a superstar, except for his massive tumble after a Cup win, when his off ice behavior resulted in his being traded. In reality, they fit together beautifully, and they find their friendship and connection improves them both.
I loved watching these two bumble their way into the relationship of their dreams, where neither of them really knows the way but are innocently finding how truly magical life can be together with someone who understands and someone who inspires trust and comfort. While they definitely struggle with communicating clearly at times, that also was written in a way that felt so realistic and relatable, almost painfully so. Ari Baran lets us into these guys’ heads and hearts beautifully. A keeper for me.
@JillQ, @Kris, excited to hear that Courtney Milan’s new release is a good one. The cover alone made me one-click.
And @DiscoDollyDeb, I’m super excited to have Kati Wilde’s newest on my ereader too!
Happy November reading, everyone!!
@Jennifer Estep, the Dragonriders series is literally a formative read for me and I think I read it at least 100 times as a young teenager. Her Harper Hall series is also great. Having just done a big reread of these last year I will say that my adult self could see that the romance in Dragonflight starts out SUPER problematically, but Anne McCaffrey’s world-building is absolutely top-notch.
I’ve had a very up and down reading month. I read THE FOXGLOVE KING by Hannah Whitten and it was…fine? The FMC was cool but both of the MMC’s were super annoying and it felt like 80% of the plot happened in the last 20% of the book. I also read DIVINE RIVALS by Rebecca Ross and although her writing is absolutely beautiful, I didn’t realize this was going to end on a huge cliffhanger. Overall this book had a much more somber tone and didn’t seem to quite have the magic of her other duology (A RIVER ENCHANGED and A FIRE ENDLESS). Then I reread the first two books in Sarah MacLean’s Hells Belles series in preparation for KNOCKOUT, the newest installment. I love her books but tend to get so caught up in the action/plot that they almost work better for me on the second read, when already knowing what happens allows me to slow down and savor the romance. Things are looking good for this month’s reading so far–in addition to KNOCKOUT, I just got off the library hold list for ONE DARK WINDOW by Rachel Gillig and am 9% in and can already tell this is going to be a good one.
@Jennifer Estep – I’d love to hear more about what you think of the Pern books. I have such a long history with them, I’m always curious about how they land the first time with someone.
I loved, loved, loved them as a young teen. Then I read one in my early twenties that made me hulk-rage-mad – I was just so shocked that an author I’d loved wrote such misogynist crap!!! And then in my 40s I did a memorial re-read of the first 6 Pern books and landed somewhere between my two younger selves. I think the early Pern books were definitely ahead of their time and are behind ours in terms of the portrayal of women, sex, queerness and gender roles.
Missed this due to family drama and a busy 24 hour nursery shift. But, I did read series from two authors this last couple weeks and really enjoyed them.
The first was Elsie Silver’s Chestnut Springs series. A new to me, Canadian author. A ranch family in a small town south of Calgary, the first book FLAWLESS follows one of the brothers, a bull rider whose image needs buffing, and the daughter of his agent, sent to keep him in line. Great story as they get to know each other, learn to care for themselves and each other, deal with backstory trauma, h especially. Would recommend. The rest are good, too. I actually started with the last one in that series, HOPELESS. H has PTSD and significant service related injuries, h is the town outcast who draws him out of his shell. Nicely done. Then on to the Gold Rush series, also really well done. I especially liked FRONT RUNNER with the Canadian-Indian woman veterinarian and the intially irredeemable race horse owner. She totally pulls it off.
I had previously read some Catherine Cowles and enjoyed it, finished her Lost and Found series, liked it. Her book are somewhat formulaic in that the h is always in significant peril near the end and saved by H and his friends. I still enjoyed them all and would recommend this series as a fun read.
@LML, thanks for the reminder about Kate Moore. I read her Sons of Sin series probably over a decade ago, and then she just fell off my radar.
@Kareni, I love The Road From Coorain, it’s one of my all time keeper books!
@Karin: have you read the sequels? If yes, how do they compare?
@Kareni, I have True North, and it’s in my TBR pile, but I haven’t read it yet, go figure!