It’s our last Whatcha Reading of 2023! Can you believe it?! Here’s what we’re reading right now:
…
Sarah: I started the The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport ( A | BN | K ) and it is terrific so far.
Shana: I just finished Love in the Liner Notes by Katta Kis. It gave me a taste for angst so I’m reading Unnatural Fate by JR Gray. ( A ) It’s a m/m fated mates romance between a werewolf and a vampire on opposite sides of a war. So far, there’s a lot of hate sex.
Sarah: You know like nine different people read “a lot of hate sex” and immediately opened a new tab.
Shana: I hope they also like pining and moping!
Sneezy: I fell HARD into Bad Decisions Book Club when I started Guardians of the Lamb. I skipped a bunch of chapters (there are 150+ and counting so far) and I still did next to nothing over the weekend. It’s a thriller mystery, there is so much violence, murder and mayhem, there’s memory loss and cults, the art blows my mind, it needs ALL THE CONTENT WARNINGS and I have such a massive book hangover already I’m still basically a zombie.
This is SO far outside my reading zone, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. But it’s SO well done and I just HAVE to know what happens. It’s so good it beat out several webtoons I’ve been reading throughout the year for top three in my Best to Me in 2023 list.
Also this comic goes to show how bogus the no-sex rule is for phone apps. This webtoon is extremely violent, but because there’s no sex depected, it can be read on phone apps. I think stories like this with so much violence and gnarly content needs careful handling MUCH more than a fluffy smut.
Elyse: I’m currently in the midst of pre-holiday, down to the wire, gift knitting so I haven’t been reading much. I did listen to Hogfather by Terry Pratchett this weekend in the car on the way to and from family gatherings
Tara: I’ve been listening to The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte. I could do without some of his asides, but I’m learning a lot! It makes me want to go back to the dinosaur museum that’s a few hours away from me.
Sarah: Y’all have some SRS BSNS dinosaurs in Canada, too.
Tara: Oh for sure. And Alberta’s politics might suck, but our dinosaur museum is legit awesome and a must-see if you’re ever in the province.
What books are you reading to close out 2023? Tell us in the comments!
PALADIN’S FAITH is fantastic, which I was counting on but I am all the more grateful that I can count on Kingfisher for reliable excellence. Everything else I have been trying to read has wound up being terrible, and I currently don’t have much time for reading thanks to endless reality/family/moving situation -do not recommend.
Speaking to Kingfisher’s amazing talents, I also enjoyed the audio of A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES even though I hate horror, and audio books generally, and that narrator specifically was annoying. Well, that’s maybe 90% down to the author and maybe 10% down to being so tired of being stuck in a car that even audio books start to look doable. But no, because that desperation manifests as crankiness (more than usual crankiness) if the book isn’t amazing, so tl;dr Kingfisher is everything good.
Oh! Usually the everything good spot in my reading life is dominated by KJ Charles, and there was a epilogue to the Darling Adventures as a Xmas gift!!! I liked it, of course I liked it, but I am struggling to accept it as canon. There’s gonna have to be a far more involved redemption arc if I am going to buy into that!
I’m finishing out the year strong for romance and romance adjacent reading, which is good b/c this was not always a great year for romance reads for me.
Thank you to whoever recommended YOU, AGAIN by Kate Goldbeck! I loved it and would definitely agree it is more of a slow burn love story than a conventional romance. It’s funny while I was reading, I picked up on the WHEN HARRY MET SALLY vibes right away (which I loved!) but I kept getting this vague ‘this reads like fanfic’ vibe, which I couldn’t quite place. When I say that, it is never meant as a dig, just an acknowledgement that fanfic tropes and conventions tend to overlap romance tropes and conventions rather than having a 1 to 1 relationship. Anyways, when I read the acknowledgements at the end, a light bulb moment happened and I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it before. I definitely loved it as something a little different with messy, compelling characters and a HEA. I will keep an eye out for more by this author.
The other book I read and loved (that was more of a conventional romance) is A PRINCESS FOR CHRISTMAS by Jenny Holiday, the 1st in her Christmas in Eldovia series. This is a self-described “Hallmark Christmas movies with sex” series and I find it absolutely delightful. They are self-aware without being mocking. I read these out of order not for any particular reason other than Jenny Holiday has been kind of hit or miss for me and I dragged my feet on getting started. But I loved the 2nd and 3rd book in this series (last Christmas) and snapped this one up when it was on sale and saved it for the holiday season.
This one is about Princess Marie of Eldovia who is in NYC at Christmas time to speak to the UN and through a series of rom com hijinks becomes good friends with a working-class Bronx cab driver, Leo. Yes, we have ROMAN HOLIDAY, but in New York and a happy ending. There’s snowball fights and cocoa tasting and a royal ball and little sister who feels real and not annoying. It sounds tropey and it is, but I feel like it’s just sprinkled in with enough real details to make it delightful. I’m definitely firmly on the Jenny Holiday train now and anxiously awaiting her book coming out in January, CANADIAN BOYFRIEND.
My last read of the year is ROLE PLAYING by Cathy Yardley. I think this has been recc’d quite a bit at Smart Bitches and maybe even reviewed? It is just as lovely as everyone has said. I love reading about older characters, love friends to lovers, and a heroine who is grumpy to a hero’s sunshine. The only caveat I would say (and I think a lot of people have said this) is the hero’s family is very mean and judgy and he doesn’t (imho) have good boundaries with them. I also liked the story that acknowledged that small towns are not cute and fun for everyone.
Merry Christmas to all celebrating and if you’re not a Christmas person,
My last comment cut off!
Merry Christmas to all celebrating and if you’re not a Christmas person, may you have a lovely easy slide into the New Year filled with all the things you desire!
I am also reading T. Kingfisher, but my copy of PALADIN’S FAITH hasn’t arrived yet (grrrr). I may have to break down and try the ebook, though I struggle with that format. I’m re-reading the Clocktower books while I wait impatiently, because I saw somewhere that there’s some cross-over and I don’t remember much about those stories. Grimehug the gnole is a continuing delight.
I just read Melissa Scott’s MASTER OF SAMAR (a KJ Charles recommendation), set in a Venice-like city, with magic and demons. I immediately ordered her WATER HORSE Horse, and I have her sci-fi duology FINDERS/FALLEN on the TBR stacks already.
I also finally read BOOKSHOPS & BONEDUST, and I think I liked it even more than the first book, because it reads like a love letter to books and bookstores and readers. Of course I expect to add more from today’s WAYR!
I’m hoping to have some time to read for fun this weekend. Lots of books waiting on my TBR pile, including THE CHARM BRACELET by Melissa Hill and THE LIBRARIAN OF CROOKED LANE by C.J. Archer.
Hope everyone has a great holiday season! 🙂
I’m rereading Murderbot. I finally got my DH into it as well. Don’t we all need some Murderbot at Christmas
I also started the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd.
Season’s Greetings to the Bitchery! However and whatever you celebrate, may your lives be filled with love, peace, joy, and—of course—good books!
TMI is a fun m/m/m Christmas romance that is a sequel (with different MCs) to last year’s ILYBSM (I Love You Both So Much) by Leslie McAdam, J.E. Birk, and Rachel Ember. Doug and Zeke are firefighters in their Vermont town; Doug is also the mayor (McAdam et. al. do a good job of showing how people often fulfill multiple civic jobs in small municipalities). Doug has always been straight and rather clueless about his sexuality. Zeke is bi and has been aware of his feelings for Doug for years, but he has never acted upon them. Into their dynamic enters Max, a journalist originally from the area but having left a decade ago (having been bullied mercilessly in high school, especially by Zeke’s twin brother—cw/tw, because that thread runs through the book). Max functions as a catalyst for Zeke and Doug to address their mutual feelings alongside their attraction to Max. Another thing I really liked about TMI is how Max—despite his manic-pixie-dream-boy element—is a thoughtful, caring person with a great deal of self-awareness and perception. There’s quite a bit going on in TMI (rival Christmas pageants, a kidnapped cow, a “hot fire-fighters” calendar, a young boy who would rather dance than play hockey, a declining local newspaper, the list goes on); I suggest just going with the flow and enjoying the story. Recommended.
Not since I read Anne Calhoun’s THE LIST have I finished a book truly wondering if the MCs’ HEA would last as much as I did when I finished BACK INTO IT, the fourth and final book in Eve Dangerfield’s Playing for Love series. My concerns have less to do with the MCs’ age-gap (the heroine is ten years older than the hero) than their diametrically-opposed upbringings and worldviews. There’s opposites-attract and then there’s “can this relationship be saved?” and I’m not sure which side of the coin the couple in BACK INTO IT will land on. That’s not to say BACK INTO IT is a bad book; it’s an immensely readable story with engaging, sex-positive characters. Cheryl is in her early-thirties, her life full of stresses: a terminally-ill mother, a wealthy father who wants nothing to do with her, a series of going-nowhere relationships with older men, and a dead-end job with a toxic boss. The bright spot in Cheryl’s life is her friendship with professional football player Patrick, who unbeknownst to Cheryl has been pining for her for years. The book moves back-and-forth in time to show how the relationship between the two has evolved over time. Initially, Patrick reads as too-good-to-be-true and Cheryl rather irritating in being her own worst enemy, but Dangerfield carefully introduces incidents and events that show Patrick isn’t quite the paragon he first seems and that Cheryl’s self-protective prickliness exists for a good reason. Much as I felt Calhoun pushing against the confines of romance in THE LIST, I felt equally that Dangerfield was trying hard to shoehorn her MCs into an HEA that would perhaps have been better as an HFN. Recommended, but be prepared to feel somewhat ambivalent about the ending.
Another book that clearly struggles against its ostensible genre is Skye Warren’s WHITE LIES, the second book in Warren’s Cirque du Miroirs trilogy about a woman who escapes her abusive father and small-town oppressiveness by joining the circus. Although well-written, I can hardly classify WHITE LIES as a romance, it’s more “romance-adjacent” while cataloguing the myriad ways misogyny and racism (the heroine is bi-racial) conspire to deny women—especially working-class women of color—their bodily autonomy and their right to be accepted as fully human. In WHITE LIES (which cannot be read as a stand-alone, it can only be read after the first book, RED FLAGS), Sienna returns unwillingly to her small Texas hometown where a “good ol’ boys” network colluded in protecting her now-dead father and continues to protect the man who has been stalking her since high school (it goes without saying that the book is full of triggers). Although Sienna’s lover, circus-owner Logan, understands how much Sienna has had to fight to simply exist, he cannot protect her from the entrenched status quo; and, by the end of the book, there’s a cliffhanger that takes away much of Logan’s own autonomy. Key quote: “It’s a pain all women know. The reality of being torn apart for their past, whether it was real or made up or the fear of it. Or knowing it could happen based on what’s happening between their legs, based on their gender, knowing that violence will be excused against their body by so many people who hear about it….” WHITE LIES isn’t an easy book to read. I recommend it (after reading RED FLAGS), but don’t go into it expecting a traditional romance.
A BILLION-DOLLAR HEIR FOR CHRISTMAS is the latest HP from Caitlin Crews. No one is surprised to discover this story involves an unplanned pregnancy following a brief passionate affair, a hasty marriage to ensure the legitimacy of the hero’s heir, an emotionally-shutdown hero, and a heroine who takes no crap and eventually shows the hero what it means to love and be loved. What is somewhat atypical for a Crews HP is the heroine’s age (30) and her non-virgin status when she first meets the hero. I liked A BILLION-DOLLAR HEIR FOR CHRISTMAS and found myself tearing up in the scene where it seems the hero is about to reject the heroine and the love she is offering. If you like HPs, A BILLION-DOLLAR HEIR FOR CHRISTMAS is a very good example of the type. Recommended.
Jackie Ashenden is another of my queens of angsty HPs, and her latest, HIS INNOCENT UNWRAPPED IN ICELAND (what a title!), a marriage-of-convenience story, did not disappoint. In addition to some vivid descriptions of Iceland’s natural beauty (the MCs go to the hero’s secluded Icelandic lodge for their honeymoon), all of Ashenden’s trademarks are here: lonely MCs whose upbringings (both hero & heroine were raised in foster care) have left them both emotionally uncertain, passionate sexual encounters (Ashenden’s HPs are probably the hottest of the line), tentative steps toward being open-hearted with each other, and learning to accept that, while we can’t change the past, we can limit the way we allow it to damage us going forward. There is a hand-wave to the Christmas season, but I feel HIS INNOCENT UNWRAPPED IN ICELAND could be read at any time of the year. Recommended.
Current rereads with cozy winter vibes – Greenglass House, The Wind in the Willows, may dip into Moominland Midwinter next.
My top Webtoons of this year in fantasy – Suitor Armor, The Moth Prince; in comedy – Sunny and Rainy, Three in a Tree. All of these are fantasy with romantic elements. Most coins spent on Of Swamp and Sea, a supernatural adventure with romance. I like what I like.
Music – hoopla has Dolly Parton’s album Rockstar, 30 songs including awesome renditions of What’s Up with Linda Perry, Magic Man with Ann Wilson, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction with Pink and Brandi Carlile, Heartbreaker with Pat Benatar and so many more.
Wishing everyone a restful weekend and peaceful holiday times.
Some more light-ish reading…
EMMETT by L.C. Rosen (m/m contemporary). A modern, gay retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, set at a Los Angeles high school. This was relatively short and fun. It hits all the plot points of the original novel, but works well on it’s own. It was fun to see how the author adapted the story. It is mostly light, but there is an underlying more serious back story about Emmett’s mother and his dad is not the more comical figure that Emma’s seems to be. Emmett himself is worthy of the original – oblivious, a bit entiteled and his matchmaking attempts go just as wrong. Miles, the Knightley character had my full sympathy for all of Emmett’s obliviousness. I also loved the clever cover of the book.
CATERED ALL THE WAY – Annabeth Albert (m/m contemporary). Cute holiday fluff with a few very quick appearances by characters from other books by Albert. It also has all the tropes… best friend’s brother, SEAL, holidays, only one bed… If I have any criticism, it’s about the cover. Don’t like it at all, cartoony and it implies a level of slapstick that does not happen in the book. So don’t be put off by the cover ;-).
I’m trying to make my first read through of Murderbot last so I’m forcing myself to read a book between each Murderbot installment. I knew I’d love Murderbot so I’ve been collecting them and waiting for an “In Case of Emergency Break Glass” moment, and I’m so glad I did!
As for the other books, absoluted loved Unidentified by Colin Dickey. I picked it up because his Ghostland is one of my favorite non-fiction books ever, and was not disappointed. His careful, unflinching examination of what motivates us as a culture to reach for certain stories and tropes (It *could* be aliens. But could it also be… racism? How about sexism? Oooh, or colonialism!) absolutely fascinates me. And I say this as someone who has watched all 15 seasons of The Dead Files. His burning hot, absolutely savage take on people climbing Mt. Everest at the end of his Yeti section had me buying this book for a friend before I’d even finished.
Similarly, I’ve greatly enjoyed Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton. She’s the owner of Prune in NYC and this memoir came out over a decade ago. She’s a great writer, a genius with food, and a deeply flawed and complicated human being. Hamilton approaches life and makes choices that are the complete opposite of what I’ve done in similar circumstances and I’m utterly enthralled by her narration. She’s a lifelong diarist, which enables her to go back and explain in detail what the hell she was thinking and feeling at certain key points. I’ve read a couple reviews that the last 25% or so, when she focuses leas on her career and more on her adult family life, kind of drops off. I agree it’s a major shift, but I think that it’s still valuable and interesting. The whole book is about her as a person, not just her as a famous chef, and given that she has zero separation between work and life, it makes sense. Overall, I just can’t stop thinking about it. I’ll warn you, her skill with words means you WILL get hungry while reading!
I am also reading PALADIN’S FAITH and I’m noticing that Marguerite’s cleavage is to this book what Stephen’s gingerbread smell was to the first book… If I had a penny for every time her tatas are mentioned, I’d be able to actually buy this book, brand new, in hardcover!
It’s been a busy reading period for me with some good recommendations. On the romance side, good reads include ART OF THE CHASE (F/F) by Jennifer Giacalone and THE VIBRANT YEARS by Sonali Dev. I did enjoy MORTAL FOLLIES by Alexis Hall but frankly it felt deliberately convoluted and could have easily been 100 pages shorter….Two non romance books that I liked are WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY by Michiko Aoyama and LOVE AND SAFFRON by Kim Fay.
Wow, how did we get here, LOL!
I read and really enjoyed Brigham Vaughn’s SCROOGE YOU, the last in the m/m multi-author Christmas Falls series, and it was excellent, and a terrific close to the series. Hot ginger baker meets a newly minted designer struggling to find work…
Jennifer Bernard’s THE WINTER WISH is a lovely novella in her Lake Bittersweet series (sort of a companion to THE DO-OVER, as the heroines are sisters). Annika, the responsible one, finds someone determined to let her sometimes be taken care of…
And re-read Rachel Reid’s TIME TO SHINE, which was terrific again.
Am binging Eve Langlais’s Bitten Point and Dragon Point series (thank you, Hoopla!)
Thank you, B*tchery, for all your excellent recs and reads!
THE HOUSEKEEPERS by Alex Hay: Very clever and complicated historical heist story with a bittersweet ending. Plans to steal the contents of an entire house during the party of the season was second only to the relationships reaffirmed and forged.
THE INHERITANCE GAMES by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: Easily the most frustrating and fascinating puzzle I’ve read. Teenage girl is named heir to the biggest fortune and business empire in Texas. The entire family is outraged and she has to work with four (eyeroll) brothers to solve clues left by their grandfather. It was a Bad Decisions Bookclub night that ended on a semi-cliffhanger. Frustrating and fascinating.
TITANIUM NOIR by Nick Harkaway: In an alternate universe, someone has murdered a Titan (a genetically enhanced super human) and our detective hero has to figure it what happened. Harkaway’s writing is superbly mind-bending and most of it is in the crime/thriller genre. His father was John Le Carre, which may explain a great deal.
I took Amazon up on its offer of three months of KU for .99 and I may never sleep again with 2.5 months to go:
DR. OFF LIMITS by Louise Bay
THE GRUMPY BILLIONAIRE by Annika Martin
IN A JAM by Kate Canterbary
THE CORNERSTONE by Kate Canterbary
I’ve really enjoyed just sinking into these books with characters I like a great deal.
@kkw – T Kingfisher is an autobuy/hold. I recently listened to her two interviews on the Talking Scared podcast (eps 9 & 99) and she’s delightful.
@Escapeologist – The Wind in the Willows is Peak Cozy Winter!
Just finished BLACK SHEEP by Rachel Harrison and while I liked this MC better than CACKLE, I think this author isn’t for me. Hoping to start EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett next.
I have read a lot of books since last posting a month or so ago, so I have whittled this list down to the ones I have most enjoyed (it’s still quite long!):
THE VIEW WAS EXHAUSTING by MIKAELLA CLEMENTS AND ONJULI DATTA
I absolutely floved this book – M/F, grownup fake dating, Hollywood glamour and plenty of yearning. Characters that really embed themselves in your psyche. Just gorgeous.
THE LAST KISS by SALLY MALCOLM. M/M, set just after WW1, slow burn, class differences, PTSD (or shell shock, as it was known then). Beautifully written; you really feel everything these characters feel, particularly their frustrations with the fact that they fought a war but at home it’s still the same old order in charge. It’s a very ‘English’ book (I say that as a Brit) and its melancholy atmosphere reminded me of the film Benediction from 2022 which focused on the war poets. Lovely.
ROSALINE PALMER TAKES THE CAKE and PARIS DAILLENCOURT IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE, the first two books in ALEXIS HALL’s Winner Bakes All LGBTQ series.
I’ve been saving these and read them back to back. I love Alexis Hall – one of the few writers who can make me laugh out loud. But he also brings ALL the emotion. Set in a fictional GBBO-style competition, the stories are linked by the show’s main cast but set in different seasons. Rosaline Palmer is our bi heroine and Paris Daillencourt is our anxious gay protagonist (he wouldn’t call himself a hero…).Beware Paris – he is A LOT – and his constant anxiety could be triggering for some readers. But he stayed with me long after I finished the book. There’s a third book due in 2024 which I have pre-ordered. I am running out of Mr Hall’s novels and that makes me a bit sad. I feel some re-reads coming on. I need his voice in my head.
GOING NOWHERE FAST by KATI WILDE. This book is HOT. My first Kati Wilde. Won’t be my last*. Road trip, forced proximity, best friend’s older brother. Need I say more?
99% MINE by SALLY THORNE. Her second novel and very different in tone to her first (The Hating Game), with an almost dreamlike quality at times. The FMC is quite a dark individual and the MMC is to die for. Childhood friends to lovers, brother’s best friend. I have read three Sally Thorne books now and despite its popularity, THG comes in a pretty distant third place for me. Ms Thorne is more than that.
THE REFUSAL by EVE M RILEY. M/F billionaire workplace story. I was very invested in this – it’s brimming over with sexual tension and I really fell for the MMC. It’s the first of a series and I will definitely be reading the remaining two books. It won quite a bunch of awards when it came out (2021) and I can understand why – it’s very compelling.
And finally… I am not generally a fan of small town romance but I will admit to having read all three of LUCY SCORE’s KNOCKEMOUT books this year. I resisted their ubiquity for a while but then picked them up in the supermarket (where no-one knows me…). They are very addictive and I have to hand it to her, she spins a good story. Everyone is too quirky to be true and emotions are constantly high, with some suspect alphahole behaviour from the men involved but suspend belief and they are pretty satisfying.
Currently immersing myself in some seasonally appropriate smut (*thank you @DDD for the Kati Wilde trilogy rec last time out!) ‘Tis the season after all. Happy holidays all, see you in 2024.
Happy Holidays to all who celebrate, and a restful long weekend for those who don’t!
I finished HUNT ON DARK WATERS by Katee Robert last night. I really enjoyed it, I did swoon over Bowen-what a sweetheart!
EVERY DUKE HAS HIS DAY by Suzanne Enoch was a fun romp. A case of mistaken identity among poodles, then some dognapping, and the quest to get things sorted out brings two very different people together.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST HEART by Jo Segura-new to me author, I think her debut novel? Archeologists on a site in Mexico, it was hard to go to work after this library hold came through. This author will be on my radar, she does a great job with setting.
:::walks in to the sounds of Bing Crosby and David Bowie, because I will be in love with Bowie until the day I die:::
* A quick note: I saw the messages of sympathy on last WAYR regarding the cat we had lost only that day. Thank you. We are adjusting, and we miss her. Eventually, when particularly my daughter is ready (Gabby was very much her baby), I’m sure we’ll be bringing another goblin into our home. We have a lot of love to give, and we love our kittehs.
I’m on my winter break (I work for a university, this is one of the perks. I’d love to say I’m reading, but the truth is that I’m gaming my face off and playing God of War like I’m being paid. Since my husband likes watching me play, he’s pretty entertained. That said, I had been holding on to The Reformatory by Tananarive Due until I was on break, because I really wanted to give it full attention. I live a county over from The Dozier School, which is what Due based the story on, with the goal of giving a great-uncle that died there the voice and honor he was denied in his short life. It might have been the best thing I’ve read this year. Scary in every measure, with such heartbreaking awareness of the fact that the evil that men do can be scarier than anything supernatural. But there is a thread of hope, too. The last line of the book will probably stay with me for awhile. Because I am a believer in taking care of your brain, I decided to go with something funny after, which is why I’m now reading Next-Door Nemesis by Alexa Martin. It’s an E2L setup, with two people that can’t stand each other (yeah, right, we know how this goes) that become rival candidates for president of a homeowner association. So far, the snark is super-working for me. So until next time, peace on Earth, can it be.
Over the past two weeks ~
— I quite enjoyed Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount. This is a fun book for book lovers for browsing or for reading in its entirety; you definitely should go with a paper copy. I very much like author/illustrator Jane Mount’s bookshelf art and her Ideal Bookshelf book.
— very much enjoyed the contemporary fantasy An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka which is about a young man developing his magical talents while also working odd jobs to pay his rent and keep his cat fed. His situation changes (not for the better) when an unknown cousin arrives on his doorstep. I look forward to reading on in this new series. (Content warning for cruelty to animals.)
— also quite enjoyed the contemporary romance Forget Me Not by Julie Soto about a wedding planner and florist who are forced to work together several years after having broken up. This was written with scenes in the past and present.
— enjoyed the historical romance novella “The Mender” by Carla Kelly which can be found in this anthology, All Regency Collection by Anna Elliott and others. The story features a young American Quaker woman who is accompanying her cousin on his ship when they encounter the aftermath of a battle; she is asked to assist an injured ship’s surgeon on an English vessel.
— read the contemporary motorcycle club romance novella, Dizzy by Cate C. Wells. This was an enjoyable read, but it’s not a book I’ll likely reread.
— read Cate C. Well’s paranormal romance novella, The Stone Wolf’s Rejected Mate, which I enjoyed.
— enjoyed Art and Joy: Best Friends Forever by Danielle Krysa; this is a children’s picture book about not letting your inner critic silence your creativity.
— enjoyed the historical romance novella A Rogue Meets a Scandalous Lady by Jennifer Ashley. It can be found in Dukes for Dessert by Jennifer Ashley and others, an 800 page plus anthology that is currently 99¢ for US Kindle readers.
— enjoyed the male/male contemporary fantasy romance, The Muffin Man by Kim Fielding. This has two settings: a fantasy world where a prince (who would rather be a baker) is sent to rescue a princess knowing he will die in the attempt and a pandemic era California (with masks and social distancing) where a lonely advertising specialist makes a wish for happiness.
— very much enjoyed the contemporary novel Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death by Maria Vale in which a young woman meets Death and forms a relationship with him. It was both funny and poignant. I’ve enjoyed a number of other books by this author, but this one was quite different. I will certainly look with interest at her future books.
Slowly and with determination working my way through The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. It’s not a hard read but it’s a LONG read, which does not play nice with my ADHD. But it seems like the kind of story I’d love, in a similar vein to The Goblin Emperor, optimistic and gentle. It’ll take me extra time and work to stick with a story for that long, but I think it’ll be worth it.
I just came on to say that I’m absolutely one of the nine who immediately opened a new tab.
Just popping in to say “Happy Holidays.” It’s been a few months since I’ve posted, but I didn’t want to let 2023 end without thanking everyone for all your terrific book recommendations and insights.
I reread T. Kingfisher’s PALADIN’S GRACE, and skimmed through PALADIN’S STRENGTH and PALADIN’S HOPE before I read PALADIN’S FAITH since there been a 2-year hiatus in the series. And then after reading PALADIN’S FAITH, I skimmed through THE WONDER ENGINE (the second volume of the Clocktaur War). All these books are interrelated, but like Lois McMaster Bujold, Kingfisher sets things up so that you don’t need to have read all the books to understand the one you are currently reading — although reading all the others definitely deepens your understanding of the events going on in the most recent book. (The only exception to this rule is the two books of the Clocktaur War series – they really are two volumes of the same, very long story and should be read in order.) Kingfisher reminds me of Bujold in other ways; both have created a world where religion and the existence of the gods is taken seriously. Both write about adults, being adults, which often means being too painfully aware of your limitations and inadequacies and yet still living your life and doing your job the best you can. Both also write wonderful secondary characters who have their own lives and choices – they are not just there to serve as background support for the main couple.
I gave my husband the first 6 Murderbot books for Christmas, which works out really well. I’m pretty sure he will love the series and I’ve only read the first 3 – so I now will be able to read the next three without waiting for months for them at the library. A win for everyone involved.
May 2024 be a great year of reading for everyone!
I have been so busy with the holidays that I have hardly had time to read for the last few weeks, but I’m currently in the middle of my every-two-or-three-years reread of WINTER SOLSTICE by Rosamunde Pilcher. It’s such a warm and ultimately comforting Christmastime read.
My husband and I are nearly finished with the audiobook of PHASERS ON STUN! HOW THE MAKING (AND REMAKING) OF STAR TREK CHANGED THE WORLD. We bonded over Star Trek when we were first dating, and we are loving this look at the show’s interactions with our culture and society over the decades.