Hey, everyone! Here’s how we’re kicking off our reading this December:
Amanda: I’ve started The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, ( A | BN | K | AB ) which I picked for our inaugural workplace book club meeting.
Sarah: I have a veritable buffet of books that I am reading. Like a sampler. In historical, I’m reading Tall, Dark and December by Tracy Sumner. ( A ) In contemporary short I’m going to start Riding Nick by Suleikha Snyder. ( A | BN | K | AB ) And in fantasy, aim reading The Alpha of Bleake Isle by Kathryn Moon, ( A | BN ) which is apparently Omegaverse-adjacent so that’s fascinating
The end of year podcast interviews have been incredible for my TBR.
Elyse: I’ve been working my way through the story collection Under the Mistletoe on Kindle Unlimited. I just finished Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood.
I’m actually thinking of amending my reading goal for 2025 down because I feel like I consumed a lot of books this year but didn’t really process or enjoy a lot of them. I want to slow down and savor
I feel like I get sucked into a social media vortex of needing to read stuff and then I rush through it.
Shana: I have started and stopped so many books lately, and the only one that’s stuck is Grown Women by Sarai Johnson. ( A | BN | K | AB ) It’s a multigenerational story about mothers and their messy relationships with their daughters.
Kiki: I just picked up A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks by David Gibbins ( A | BN | K | AB ) from the library and am excited to get into it! I’ve been having a terrible time reading lately and am glad to be intrigued by something new.
Claudia: I just started Duchess Material by Emily Sullivan, ( A | BN | K | AB ) but too early to tell! I feel the holidays are already doing their thing with my head.
Whatcha reading? Let us know in the comments!
I picked up BEACH READ by Emily Henry a few days ago but I wasn’t expecting the parental illness & grief, which makes up a fair bit of the opening context, so I think I’ll set it aside for now as I was looking for an easier read.
Before that I read THE MINISTRY OF TIME by Kaliane Bradley, which features a love story, but is not a romance, despite some romance labelling. The premise is that the UK gov has “discovered” time travel and brings some people forward from history as an experiment. Each person is assigned a “bridge” to help them acclimatise, and the book follows one particular unnamed bridge. There’s some exploration of immigration, both in time from the travellers, and in geography from the narrator’s family. I felt the narrator often lacked insight, which did frustrate me. I feel like it would be a good book for a book club discussion, but not one I’d re-read.
I’ve progressed through several more RIVERS OF LONDON audiobooks (fantasy police procedurals, not romance), excellently narrated by Kobna as always, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the changes in Peter’s home life will affect his work.
Looking for some comfort/low stress, I re-read SHARDS OF HONOUR and PENRIC’S FOX, both by Lois McMaster-Bujold. I love how kindness is an integral part of Penric’s character, and the novella size is great for time limitations. I’ve been slowly pacing myself with LMB to draw out the enjoyment as long as possible. Shards is a romance, Penric’s Fox is not.
At the end of November I read YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang, another book that would probably be excellent for a book club discussion. The premise is that an Asian-American author dies, and a White author steals her completed manuscript and passes it off as her own. Both main characters were grey, in their actions and motivations, and there’s no easy answers at the end. It was an interesting look at the publishing industry, and it made me wonder how close to real-life it hewed.
I hope everyone is finding the books they seek as the end of the year draws near, and may we all find the time to read as we want over the holidays
This is the time of year when I re-read Kati Wilde’s Christmas trilogy: ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS, THE WEDDING NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and my all-the-feels favorite, SECRET SANTA. I love these books so much, angsty & sexy & romantic in equal measure. Re-reading them almost makes up for Kati’s upcoming Christmas romance, ONLY ONE BED, not dropping on its anticipated publication date.
I don’t read a lot of horror, paranormal, or historical romance, so reading Sally Malcolm’s NO MAN’S LAND, which is a clever combination of all three, was a bit of an anomaly for me, but after reading a rave review for it on All About Romance, I grabbed it from KU and consumed it over the course of a day. NO MAN’S LAND is set during WWI and confronts the obvious question: with the horrors of modern warfare, how much worse can ancient ghouls, awakened by the violence of the trenches, make things? And the answer is, apparently, a lot worse. Josef, a journalist and conscientious objector, works in a non-combat job at the front. He is interrupted while taken surreptitious photographs of the dead (which he hopes to publish in the socialist newspaper he works for) by Alex, an upper-class officer. Josef and Alex have an immediate connection, but both men are keeping secrets: Josef is trying to keep Alex from discovering his hidden camera, and Alex…well, he has more and darker secrets, including that Alex is not his actual name. When the men later reconnect in England, Josef eventually overcomes his natural skepticism and accepts that a ghoul is on the lose and it is up to Alex and the secret society of which he is a part to destroy it. The book contains some genuinely scary moments—especially when the men have to fight the ghoul in the London underground—along with some nice sexy-times between Josef and Alex. The book doesn’t try to rewrite social history by implying that Josef & Alex’s future together can be anything but clandestine and full of compromises, but the story does end on a hopeful note. I didn’t think NO MAN’S LAND would be my cup of tea, but I enjoyed it tremendously. Highly recommended.
Emmy Sanders’s TO CATCH A FIREFLY was recommended in last month’s WAYR and it sounded like my type of book—and it was! Angsty, sexy, deeply emotional, with a really strong sense of place (rural Nebraska) and one MC who is neurodiverse and experiences selective mutism. Ellis & Lucky meet as children when Lucky’s family moves next door to Ellis and his mother. The first section of the book follows the boys during their childhood adventures. These scenes, suffused with a golden glow of rosy nostalgia, reminded me very much of similar childhood scenes in Jesse H. Reign’s ROMEO FALLING. There’s such a timelessness to the boys’ youthful adventures and innocence that references to cell phones, texting, videogames, even television seem out-of-place. When the boys grow up, Ellis stays in Nebraska while Lucky (who is openly gay) travels the world as a photojournalist, never losing touch with Ellis (who finds his own creative outlet working with glass). Ellis is possible ace or aro, but Sanders does such of a good job of making him an individual, rather than a type, that his lack of interest in sex is simply a part of who he is. What was unusual about TO CATCH A FIREFLY was that once the MCs do finally get together, the story goes back in time to expand past incidents and reveal them in a new light. I would describe TO CATCH A FIREFLY as more emotional than angsty, with a story structure that doesn’t necessarily fit the romance novel template. Highly recommended.
Willow Dixon’s IT’S COMPLICATED is the second book in her Legacy Mechanics series of m/m romances, where at least one MC in each book works at the series title business. In IT’S COMPLICATED, Jamie & Isaac have been close friends and roommates for several years. Then a couple of incidents (one involving the wearing of a very tight mesh tank at a club) cause the guys to look at each other in a new way. As usual with Dixon’s books, the bi-awakening in IT’S COMPLICATED is accompanied with soul-searching and self-acceptance and absolutely no self-loathing. In addition, Dixon addresses conditions that trouble and exhaust her Millennial and GenZ characters, in this case, job instability and workplace dysfunction. “I’m tired of always playing catch up,” says Jamie when his banking job hours are cut back. Dixon’s books are sexy, insightful, and do confront the economic stagnation that many young people encounter today. Recommended.
Thea Verdone’s debut novel, NEVER LEAVE, NEVER LIE, is less a romance than it is a love story of an established couple coming to terms with the mental health struggles of one of them. I must issue some strong content warnings for the book, especially concerning severe depression and suicide ideation. However, if you feel comfortable reading a book with those themes, NEVER LEAVE, NEVER LIE does a good job of showing the devastation that untreated mental illness can cause and the energy and commitment required to get better. At the start of NEVER LEAVE, NEVER LIE, Alek & Ian have been partners in their professional and personal lives for several years. The couple have a house restoration business with Ian handling the construction side and Alek (an antiques dealer) sourcing the furnishings and fixtures. They live in an old Victorian house in the Pacific Northwest that they are in the process of renovating (the house, as it moves through various states of destruction and rehabilitation is clearly a symbol of the couple’s relationship). Trouble is on the horizon in the form of Alek’s refusal to discuss his past and Ian’s insistence that they must be honest with each other if their relationship is to survive. The couple come close to breaking up, but a bad accident that hospitalizes Alek given them a chance to reconnect and rebuilt. But if Alek is not willing to address his mental health, what hope do they have? I would not go into NEVER LEAVE, NEVER LIE expecting a traditional romance. Yes, there is an HEA, but the book is much more about the journey to personal and relationship health than it is about love developing between two people. Recommended—but take the content warnings seriously.
I have continued my journey down the Taylor Fitzpatrick AO3 rabbit hole, which is full of interconnected m/m hockey romances written in an elliptical always-show-never-tell style that is hers alone and perfectly connects with my catnip center. New episodes of ALWAYS IN TANDEM & STILL ALWAYS IN TANDEM are being uploaded and continue the fraught story of Georgie & Robbie (supporting characters in Fitzpatrick’s most recent traditionally-published work, BETWEEN THE TEETH), focusing on Georgie’s crushing depression, which has lasted for over a decade. I’m also loving the also unfinished CARDS ON THE TABLE, in which James & Holden, two of Georgie’s teammates, fall in love. The story is extremely romantic, with some gentle humor, and I hope the guys (one of whom is neurodiverse) get their HEA (anyone who has read Fitzpatrick’s THROWN OFF THE ICE knows she doesn’t necessarily feel constrained by the romance-mandatory HEA/HFN). I also read THROW UP YOUR FISTS, LOSE YOUR WITS (which is completed), a novella-length lovers-to-antagonists story between rival hockey players who fight on the ice and then fuck in secret. There’s no HEA in THROW UP YOUR FISTS, but I’m hoping one day Fitzpatrick will take the more sympathetic of the two MCs and give him another shot at love.
Hello Bitchery. Keeping it relatively short and sweet because I’m having so many problems uploading posts:
UNDER YOUR SPELL by LAURA WOOD (M/F contemporary) is straight onto my 2024 top ten list. An absolute charmer of a book; sexy, emotional and just an all-round joy. Strong family, especially sisterly, relationships are the icing on the cake. Excellent.
HAPPY AFTER ALL by MAISEY YATES (M/F contemporary).
My first by Ms Yates and based on this, I will be back for more. It’s very meta because the FMC is a romance novelist and the MMC writes thrillers, so lots of opportunity for cleverness. Content warning however: both leads are dealing with major grief issues and there is discussion of the cause. With lovely found family and a deep, deep connection between the central pair, it is very worth your time.
In other news, I have discovered ELSIE SILVER. I have powered through her Chestnut Springs series (M/F contemporary, cowboys!): I loved FLAWLESS, HEARTLESS, POWERLESS and RECKLESS. HOPELESS not so much (I didn’t like the power dynamic). However, that didn’t stop me moving onto others on her backlist.
And finally…I have been going old school with paperbacks from my TBR and have consumed all of MARY BALOGH’S SURVIVOR’S CLUB series and LISA KLEYPAS’s HATHAWAYS. Glorious.
Happy reading all.
Well, it’s been a rough season for reading, but we persist. Some books I enjoyed lately –
THEY CALLED US ENEMY by George Takei, a graphic novel memoir of his time in an internment camp during WWII as a very young boy. Very emotional, moving read and obviously also very sobering considering the moment the US is in right now. Bitches, when I tell you this book made me cry, it made me cry cry. Like cry so hard I felt dehydrated afterwards. I felt like Takei did a great job of threading the needle of showing how serious things were, but also giving you an idea of a child’s perspective on what was going on where there were moments of excitement and wonder. A bit like one of my favorite movies, HOPE AND GLORY. What I came away with was a respect for how hard his parents work to shield their children from the worst of going on and to build a community within the internment camps. Takei talks about his mom quite a bit, but Takei’s dad is really the central adult figure. It’s very humbling to read about how much they went through and how deeply Mr Takei still believed in democracy and the promise of the United States.
THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE by Louise Edrich, a children’s book about an Ojibwa girl in 1847 near Lake Superior. I approached this book with some trepidation b/c I’ve found Edrich’s work for adults beautiful but also on the more poetic, difficult to understand side. This was written for children though and the prose was more straightforward. It’s a book about the cycle of a year on the Ojibwa calendar and a lot of it is just the young girl’s daily life. There is some definite tragedy and difficulty in the story, but it ends on an uplifting note. I thought this might be something interesting to read in parallel with (or perhaps instead of) THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE books. There are even very soft cozy pencil illustrations that remind me of the Garth Williams illustrations from the LITTLE HOUSE books. I don’t know if I enjoyed it enough to keep going with the series, but I’m glad I read it.
HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS AND UNFAIRLY CUTE by Talia Hibbert. A young adult romance about two teenagers who have a love-hate thing going on get both involved in a prestigious outdoorsy scholarship competition. This book was good and had a lot of the HIbbert hallmarks (endearing fleshed out characters, clever banter) but didn’t hit the highs of the Brown sisters for me. Partially b/c I felt like it had a very episodic feel and in the later half the characters really leaned into the “we can’t get together b/c it’s our last year of school and we’re just going to break up and hate and resent each other.” I will be honest in real life, yes I get this is a big concern and something to consider in my YA fiction I prefer it to be glossed over. Give me the characters their happiness for now moment and let the reader decide if they make it work as adults or if they part ways amicably. I realize that might be the minority view, but that’s my preference. I feel like the Netflix film CANDY JAR handled that in a really cute way.
Many wishes for happy end of the year reading to all!
It’s been a rough couple reading weeks. I don’t have anything I can wholeheartedly recommend.
I mostly just bounced off things but did read a couple books that were …fine. If like me you are desperate for new books, the best of the not great is:
Freya Marske’s latest SWORDCROSSED is not in fact her latest but her first, although it’s only now being published. I wish I had realized, because it reads like juvenalia and I could have managed my expectations. It might be fanfic, but idk for what (Fence? I never read it but there’s a lot of supposedly fraught sword fighting). Also the tagline is wildly misleading. I skimmed a lot of the rather tedious world building so maybe I missed mitigating factors, but it’s “low stakes” and yet we’ve got characters who are supposed to be the primary support for their entire family without the necessary resources to do these jobs, leading to, among other things, panic attacks and not eating of food when there’s not enough to go around. Potential loss of income and housing for self and/or family, possible disinheritance and jail time don’t seem low stakes to me. Also, one of the leads hits the other in anger. Not in a bout, not consensually in bed, but to express his feelings. That isn’t low stakes either, but a dealbreaker. Instead it’s brushed aside as nbd or even possibly warranted. Overall, I found the characters pretty static and the exposition heavy handed, but Marske is a good enough writer that I still always wanted to keep reading. It’s not a bad book, it’s …fine.
Also in that category, but not even memorable enough for me to bitch about, I apparently read and was ok with FIRE SPELLS BETWEEN FRIENDS and THE SCHOLAR AND THE LAST FAERIE DOOR and FAUX HO HO. My guess is that these are all fairly cozy but also fairly tedious. I went back to read the description of TSatLFD because I had so little recollection of it, and I still can’t tell you what I thought of it beyond apparently having tagged it acceptable. I have a vague sense of it being a lot of that bullshit nostalgia for good olde school days that is incomprehensibly popular, but I can’t swear to it.
I am (obviously) a harsh grader. It’s hilarious how many things I read that I tag unacceptable. I know they can’t all be KJ Charles but wow I am pining for some new KJ Charles.
A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE by Peter S. Beagle
THE LAST UNICORN is one of my all-time favorites and I’ve been meaning to read more of his stuff. This one takes place in a cemetery where an old man lives and two ghosts fall in love and there’s a sarcastic raven who drops in from time to time. I can see how the nineteen-year-old who wrote this would later go on to write The Last Unicorn.
I just finished THE LIES I TELL by Julie Clark, which is about a con artist. It was really interesting and kind of scary how much info people can give/get just from a seemingly innocent conversation.
Up next, I’m hoping to check out THE TAKEDOWN by Carlie Walker; LONG LIVE EVIL by Sarah Rees Brennan; and HOW TO BECOME THE DARK LORD AND DIE TRYING by Django Wexler.
I’m also going to watch yet more holiday rom-coms.
I hope everyone is having a great holiday season. Cheers! 🙂
Things about this story that I didn’t like:
1. Almost the whole story was spent knowing that they were going to have a couple of whirlwind days of fun and then Matt was going to have to leave to rejoin his squad. That’s not a happy ending for me. It’s realistic, but if the ending isn’t happy, why am I going through all this angst?
2. I feel a little bad about this one, but there is a really weird note of veneration for the military and the sacrifice of military families that just didn’t land right with me. The story spent a lot of time dwelling on their hardships, and it got to the point where I felt the author was profiting from their pain. And this is such a weird response that I’m pretty sure it’s a me problem.
3. Using eggnog as a sexual aid. I like eggnog, but the thought of having sex after someone has tried to lick eggnog off my body fills me with an ick that I cannot get over. So sticky. So much chance of infection. So much laundry. Just no.
4. Matt gives the boys a surprise dog for Christmas. Well, really, he just gave his school teacher wife a huge additional daily responsibility that she did not ask for and did not want. And not a small dog, a German Shephard who had been trained to work for the military but was injured in the line of duty. To keep that dog entertained and healthy, you are talking about a couple of hours of active interaction every day. That’s just cruel.
5. Something about the writing style didn’t work for me. I found myself feeling bored partway through the story.
Where I might be wrong about this story:
1. What does it mean to have a happy ending? Matt is doing the job he loves and that provides him with fulfilment. Lindsey is satisfied with supporting Matt and raising their kids. Who am I to judge whether this a “happy” life for them? It wouldn’t work for me personally, but should I be judging the ending based on what would be happy for me or for the characters?
2. When reading a novella, should it be judged by the same standards in terms of story arc as a full novel? This novella is fleshing out a side character from a series of books. If I had approached this more as “this is a scene from a larger (but unwritten) romance” where the HEA will come later, maybe I would have been more satisfied with the story I did get.
[/spoiler]
I decided not to continue with the novella collection, and proceeded to try MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT by Max Monroe, which was a DNF a couple of chapters in. The blurb described a best friend’s older brother workplace setup with some elements of using anonymous texting to get to know each other, which could work. This book might work for you if your idea of humor is an older gentleman saying the word pussycat repeatedly while asking the intern about what has gone wrong with the zoom meeting. I might have been able to get past that if I got the impression that the author had a clue about how corporations work (Why is a major meeting being run on a what seemed to be the CEO’s daughter’s personal laptop? Why is an intern at a major meeting with a new client that is discussing proprietary info?) or how a messaging app might work (No, I don’t actually think a purely anonymous personal connection app would work as a business model. I think it would become dick pick roulette). At this point, I did not have enough disbelief left to suspend. I found this one under “Best Sellers in Kindle Unlimited”, so I can only assume this book works for someone who isn’t me.
Part 1.
I spent most of the past few weeks stuck in a rut where nothing I read was really holding my attention. I’ll tell you what I tried, but I don’t know if my opinions on anything can be trusted right now. I’m also going to try to use spoiler tags to save you from some of my negativity.
Right after the last WAYR I read NOT THAT DUKE: A WOULD-BE WALLFLOWERS NOVEL by Eloisa James. It’s part of a series and the previous book is taking place in the same timeline as this book, so you see the courtship of the previous couple through their interactions with this couple. I think it would have helped if I had read that book first, but I don’t think it was required. As far a plot, there’s a duke who wants to marry Y, but Y is in love with the duke’s friend the earl, but it’s complicated and the subject of the previous book. Our heroine S is a bit dowdy and wears glasses, but she also has a large dowry and sufficiently aristocratic family tree to get invited to all the right parties and becomes friends of a sort with the duke. This one was fine. If you like books where the nice heroines triumph over mean girl characters, maybe this one will work for you.
That was followed by a holiday novella that just didn’t work for me, and I want to talk about it for a couple of reasons. First, I think that this story could work for someone. And second, talking about the bad bits can be fun. The story is EGGNOG MAKES HER EASY by Erin Nicholas (found in Like a TV Christmas Movie …That’s Rated R, available on Kindle Unlimited).
The Setup: Lindsey is a teacher in New Orleans with two boys, and she’s married to Matt who is a soldier in Afghanistan. She’s a member of a single parent’s support group (and the various members of this support group appear to be the subject of a series of books by the author, with this story coming in somewhere in the middle of the series). It’s Christmas-time and the support group is having its annual holiday party. A mysterious sexy Santa (white beard, red leather jacket, tight black t-shirt) walks in. The sexy Santa is of course Matt, here to surprise his family for the holidays.
1. Almost the whole story was spent knowing that they were going to have a couple of whirlwind days of fun and then Matt was going to have to leave to rejoin his squad. That’s not a happy ending for me. It’s realistic, but if the ending isn’t happy, why am I going through all this angst?
2. I feel a little bad about this one, but there is a really weird note of veneration for the military and the sacrifice of military families that just didn’t land right with me. The story spent a lot of time dwelling on their hardships, and it got to the point where I felt the author was profiting from their pain. And this is such a weird response that I’m pretty sure it’s a me problem.
3. Using eggnog as a sexual aid. I like eggnog, but the thought of having sex after someone has tried to lick eggnog off my body fills me with an ick that I cannot get over. So sticky. So much chance of infection. So much laundry. Just no.
4. Matt gives the boys a surprise dog for Christmas. Well, really, he just gave his school teacher wife a huge additional daily responsibility that she did not ask for and did not want. And not a small dog, a German Shephard who had been trained to work for the military but was injured in the line of duty. To keep that dog entertained and healthy, you are talking about a couple of hours of active interaction every day. That’s just cruel.
5. Something about the writing style didn’t work for me. I found myself feeling bored partway through the story.
Where I might be wrong about this story:
1. What does it mean to have a happy ending? Matt is doing the job he loves and that provides him with fulfilment. Lindsey is satisfied with supporting Matt and raising their kids. Who am I to judge whether this a “happy” life for them? It wouldn’t work for me personally, but should I be judging the ending based on what would be happy for me or for the characters?
2. When reading a novella, should it be judged by the same standards in terms of story arc as a full novel? This novella is fleshing out a side character from a series of books. If I had approached this more as “this is a scene from a larger (but unwritten) romance” where the HEA will come later, maybe I would have been more satisfied with the story I did get.
I decided not to continue with the novella collection, and proceeded to try MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT by Max Monroe, which was a DNF a couple of chapters in. The blurb described a best friend’s older brother workplace setup with some elements of using anonymous texting to get to know each other, which could work. This book might work for you if your idea of humor is an older gentleman saying the word pussycat repeatedly while asking the intern about what has gone wrong with the zoom meeting. I might have been able to get past that if I got the impression that the author had a clue about how corporations work (Why is a major meeting being run on a what seemed to be the CEO’s daughter’s personal laptop? Why is an intern at a major meeting with a new client that is discussing proprietary info?) or how a messaging app might work (No, I don’t actually think a purely anonymous personal connection app would work as a business model. I think it would become dick pick roulette). At this point, I did not have enough disbelief left to suspend. I found this one under “Best Sellers in Kindle Unlimited”, so I can only assume this book works for someone who isn’t me.
Part 2.
Next on the pile was PLOT TWIST: A NOVEL (The Hollywood Series Book 2) by Erin La Rosa. I have vague memories of liking the first book in the series, For Butter or Worse, so I was hopeful. This one is the story of the romance author sister of the main character in the first book, and her journey to figure out what is standing between her and her own HEA. She decides to contact her exes and ask them for their perspective. Along the way, she starts spending time with her landlord, who also happens to be her best friend’s older brother, and who is also trying to figure out his life. He’s a recovering alcoholic, and his family is a mess of unmet expectations. It was overall a decent story, though I think I preferred the first book in the series. Available on Kindle Unlimited. A couple of spoiler-y thoughts below.
One of stresses in the relationship is that the main couple doesn’t feel like they can tell his sister (her best friend) about their relationship, which is not something I relate to very well. As best as I can tell, the sister’s objection wasn’t even “you might hurt each other and I will feel divided loyalties” but rather “you are supposed to put ME first and not be your own people”. And, frankly, that sounds like a really exhausting relationship to try to maintain.
Something I did like:
I thought the author was really trying to handle the hero’s alcoholism in a sensitive way that respected how hard it can be to choose sobriety in a society that is constantly suggesting a drink.
I started reading MY FAVORITE HOLIDATE by Lauren Blakely, but paused at 44% because it wasn’t holding my attention. We’ve got a billionaire, a fake dating setup, and Christmas festivities, and I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure out why it wasn’t working for me.
The setup: Our heroine Fable is into her boss Wilder, but doesn’t think he’d be interested in someone like her. Her boss is into her, but can’t act on it because she’s his employee, and she is also dating his best friend’s cousin. Or she was until he cheated on her, leaving her without a date to her sister’s wedding. The sister that is marrying the best friend in like a month, where Fable is supposed to be the maid of honor and the now-ex is the best man. (The story starts in San Francisco, which, considering how interconnected everyone is, must be a much smaller town than I realized.)
1. The ex is awful. Like, really obnoxiously bad. To the point where Fable’s judgement has to be called into question for dating the guy.
2. The fake dating situation means that every time Wilder does something over the top nice for Fable, she brushes it off as “Well, he’s just trying to keep up appearances”. And, just, honey, no. Girl, you cannot be this dense. No one does this much just to keep up appearances.
3. What does he do? How about a surprise shopping spree… But, she didn’t tell him she was going shopping. And yes, it’s thoughtful, but it’s also kind of creepy that he knew what she was up to. Oh, how about the dress he bought her for the company Christmas party… that is in exactly the right size but he didn’t ask for her size. Thoughtful, sure. But also kind of creepy.
4. He’s constantly sending her presents. It’s nice, it’s thoughtful, it’s a wonderful fantasy of what would the ideal billionaire boyfriend do, and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s a little much. Too materialistic for a Christmas story maybe? Plus, that many gifts would make me feel awkward unless I could reciprocate, which she tries to do, but it places pressure and expectations on what is really a very young relationship.
5. If these two would just have an honest conversation, we’d be at the happy ending portion of the story already.
At this point I decided to try a different genre and read BOOKSHOPS AND BONEDUST by Travis Baldree, which a prequel story to his book Legends and Lattes. It’s the story of Viv, an orc, who works as a mercenary. Due to an injury, she’s forced to convalesce while the rest of the mercenaries continue the hunt for an evil necromancer without her. During her downtime she makes friends and tries to avoid trouble, with varying levels of success. It’s a cozy kind of book.
Next up was DARK CHRISTMAS: A BRATVA NEXT DOOR ROMANCE which is part of part of Silver Fox Daddies by K. C. Crowne. Look, I picked this book because sweet clearly wasn’t keeping my attention so I decided to overcorrect into something spicy. The set-up involves a baker, her hot older neighbor, and some sexy photos sent to the wrong address. This book was more or less what you’d expect from the title, and I feel obliged to point out that variations of the word “smirk” wer used 47 times in 278 ebook pages. (Kindle Unlimited)
I also read SIN & SNOWFLAKES: A MAFIA HOLIDAY ANTHOLOGY containing 10 novellas (581 ebook pages, Kindle Unlimited). The stories are all starting to blend together at this point, but were mostly fine. I recognize that Mafia themed stories are going to dark, with murder, kidnapping, and angsty no win situations. And these stories have plenty of that. Most of them, I felt like the authors wanted to explore mostly decent or at least narratively sympathetic people in difficult situations, and that can be interesting. The one by Posey Parks stood out for having main characters that were psychopaths and was my least favorite of the bunch. The other thing I noticed is that people in these mafia stories really do like to smirk a lot.
– Yuletide Pact by Jane Henry: Forbidden love, age gap, older leads, short: 0 smirks
– Promises Are Forever by K.C. Mills: Get married to keep from getting married: *16* smirks
– The Kingpin’s Christmas Wish by Landry Hill: Arranged marriage, good thing he’s hot: 2 smirks
– Made Man by Cate C. Wells: Forbidden teen love thwarted by mafia dad. started strong: 5 smirks
– And Peace on Earth by Aleksandr Voinov: M/M romance + rope: 0 smirks
– Mine To Keep by Cassie Verano: Assassin + 21 year old + blizzard: 8 smirks
– A Very Krampus Christmas by Arianna Fraser: Scottish mafia: 2 smirks
– Ruthless Mafia Boss: Love Forbidden by Posey Parks: Psychopathic Romeo and Juliet: *16* smirks
– A Contract Bride For Christmas: Arranged marriage: 5 smirks
– A De Luca Family Christmas Carol by Lucy Monroe: older couple remembers their relationship from arranged marriage to present day: 1 smirk
(Apologies for the copy-paste fail above.)
So, here I am, up much too early the morning after the office Christmas party (My poor feet) trying to remember where I left off…
Let’s start with the book I just finished. It made me finally break my New Year’s resolution of not returning books late to the GBPL. Totally worth it. THE TELLER OF SMALL FORTUNES by Julie Leong was such a panacea for the stress of the Thanksgiving to Christmas marathon. It’s the story of Tao, an immigrant who has never truly found her place in her new home, trying to escape her destiny. She travels from town to town telling small fortunes, little visions that might not give direct answers, but certainly clues to the future. One such vision brings her under the aegis of a former mercenary and his sort of ex-thief best friend who have be searching for the mercenary’s missing child. Add in a baker of misshapen pastries and a mangy cat and there you have a found family of the best kind. They have adventures. They have small dramas. They have setbacks and triumphs. They try to be kind to each other. But as we all know, destiny can only be put off for so long. Can Tao’s friends rescue her from the all-powerful mage guild, or is Tao’s destiny not quite what she expected? Just a beautiful story, and while some serious stuff is going on, there are also some brilliantly funny lines that make you laugh remembering them. The troll, good lord, the troll.
There was also Julie Soto’s NOT ANOTHER LOVE SONG. I don’t generally read books with characters this young anymore. I guess I have a hard time relating to the sort of life issues you encounter in your 20s. In this case, I think it made the story believable. There’s a level of naivety you have at that age that explains, in some part, characters inability to recognize the manipulations of those around them and their inability to break the cycle. The adults in their lives: parents, surrogate parents, mentors and managers all have their reasons to ignore, or perpetuate the abuse. And while it isn’t violent, it is abuse. Still it was lovely to read the way the relationship grew, how it effected their talents, and a insiders look at the performance of music. Problematic, but still very readable.
Which brings us to FERAL CREATURES, the sequel to Kira Jane Buxton’s HOLLOW KINGDOM. I was a little unsure about picking this one up. I love the first book, even though it had a most improbable ending. One that would make or break the next book. Could I suspend disbelief enough to enjoy this? Turns out, yes, yes I could. We left S.T. in the company of owls and his guardian eagle committing to raising the last MoFo on earth. S.T.’s voice is still acerbic and hilarious. His observations are sharply astute, but he is also flawed. Blind in his love for his MoFo, unwilling to address the questions her maturing intellect is asking. While Dee is more connected to the natural world than any human since we left the caves, she is still a human child, and behaves in ways that alienate her family and eventually destroy their home. S.T. has no choice but to try to get her back to his beloved Murder in Seattle. A Murder that has been strangely silent. Seattle is a changed place. The animals are in a battle to survive against the MoFos who have continued to mutate in new and horrifying ways, and they know Dee is out there. And they want her. Part dark uproarious humor, part creeping horror this was an epic adventure. And surprisingly, gave me a whole other appreciate for the late Big Jim who made a certain unfavorable impression in the first book, but a very different one through S.T.’s memories in this one.
I plan to dive into low stress Christmas reads for the next two weeks. If I ever finish putting the tree up….
It’s been an uneven couple of weeks for reading:
First the good: You With A View by Jessica Joyce (thanks @Amanda) and The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer were fun 4 star reads! I enjoyed them immensely! Pick them up (along with Joyce’s The Ex-Vows) and live your best quality romance reading life!
Now the bad: How to get a life in 10 Dates by Jenny L Howe was HORRIBLE. Bff is a creepy abuser, imo.
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst bored me to tears.
I DNF’d Not in My Book by Katie Holt after 20 pages because verbal abuse is not cute enemies to lovers banter.
Finally, I probably already mentioned it here but The Teller if Small Fortunes by Julie Leong was one of my three favorite books of the year. Sweet without being sentimental and cozy but with a plot.
Currently reading Just Some Stupid Love Story by Katelyn Doyle and The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right by Suzanne Allain. Wish me luck!
Happy reading to all!
@Sarah: Yes! I think my issue with “The Spellshop” was that I was always waiting for some actual shoe to drop. It was a bit TOO cozy/lacking in conflict for the situation that the MC found herself in. Also, I really do dislike the “new girl moves to town and makes instant deep and loyal connections with people who are then willing to risk their jobs/livelihoods/etc to back her up in her facedown with the Bad Guy like a month after she arrives” trope. Lady, they knew you as a kid, but they just met you and don’t actually know you at all, so why would they think you would just be able to fix everything? It’s such a peeve of mine (and also why “The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks” didn’t work for me, either).
I read “Catwoman: Nine Lives”, the newest GN in the ongoing comic series. It got a bit more back to Catwoman’s heisty roots, so I enjoyed it more than some of the other installments in this series run. Not as good as the Balent-era Catwoman of the 90s, but not bad.
I’m reading “Carol” by Patricia Highsmith and wondering if the way it’s written was kind of standard for midcentury fiction. I’m rather annoyed by the way the characters interact – it’s like they speak only in partial sentences and “yes/no” answers. I need to rewatch the movie, but I think I’ll end up liking the movie much more just because of Cate Blanchett.
I’m also reading “The Prison Healer” by Lynette Noni because it was highly recommended by folks in my FB book group. I’m enjoying it but not finding it as un-put-down-able as they said it was.
Recently finished “The Duke’s Sister and I” by Emma-Claire Sunday, a Harlequin Historical romance. I liked it, even if it was a little too obvious early on how the story was going to go. Made for a quick evening read, but I won’t reread it.
I just raced through FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK by Elissa Sussman. It’s a romance between an aging celebrity actor and a writer who interviewed him 10 years earlier, spent the weekend with him, and wrote a viral article. Everyone assumes they hooked up and she has never said. Now they are both divorced, his career is failing, and she is asked to interview him again, so they spend another weekend together…
Point (1) Celebrity romance is not my thing at all but this was SOOO good. It dealt with a lot of things like assumptions people make about celebrities and women. Point (2) I love how it breaks so many “rules” of romance but still works. Like the beats are completely different than usual; it follows a very interesting structure where we read part of her article about him, then see what really happened, and then see what happens in the present. Or, the main conflict keeping them apart is their misunderstandings about each other, but I never felt like “Just talk to each other!” The short timeline made the pace/reveals believable, and so much is kept secret from the reader that new bits of intrigue were constantly appearing.
This felt like a perfect book to me. If you like it, one with similarities is BRING ME BACK by Karen Booth, about a 40-year-old reporter interviewing her teen celebrity music idol.
(Now realizing maybe celebrity romance is my thing?)
Since last time I’ve read and loved a bunch of mostly holiday reads.
Standouts include:
Tracy Solheim’s TAKE ME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, the most recent (last?) in her Chances Inlet small-town contemporary series. Youngest McAlister Elinor is on the cusp of attaining a coveted promotion that she feels would cement her status as a successful grownup when she’s assigned the task of getting esteemed writer Everett West to finish up his long-awaited autobiography. Unfortunately for her that means trailing him to Chances Islet for the holidays where she can’t hope to avoid her former best friend, deputy sheriff Hayden Lovell. Ms Solheim’s writing kept me turning the pages, and this is a story about community and friendship as well as a satisfying romance.
DECK THE PALMS by Annabeth Albert is the latest in her Christmas universe, and is a warm and joyful story about reconsidered first impressions, full of well-crafted characters. I really enjoyed this.
RL Merrill’s PINUPS AND PUPPIES and ONCE UPON A GOTH DOG SOLSTICE are both part of one of her universes and are lovely LGBQT+ romances between former military personnel and regular people and show some of the adjustment to civilian life. I loved the fantastic supporting characters in these as well, and would happily read a lot more about these couples and the people around them.
Maryann Jordan’s SISCO is the second in her Lighthouse Security Investigations Montana series, and is another excellent suspenseful story with romance at the core. Keeper Sisco Aguilar meets single mother Lenore Keller by chance at the local hospital, and their lives are forever changed. A great addition to her series.
Amy Lane’s CHRISMYTHS is a sweet after-the-HEA story about Andy and Eli. Eli is a shelter director, and Andy is from small-town Vermont. Eli’s past has given him trust issues, and Andy’s annual holiday trip home to appease his mother strains their relationship a bit. Loved how their story plays out, and this is very much full of Christmas spirit.
Avery Cockburn’s THE CHRISTMAS CURSE is about Martin Gibson and Anthony Bello. Ms Cockburn has a created two very real-feeling people doing their best to manage their fears and bring hope and joy to the season. A fun holiday read with the loveliest dog!
I’ve mostly been keeping up with the m/m Christmas Falls releases, and they are definitely a super fun holiday binge! The stories each reflect the author’s personal style but they’ve all done a fantastic job with using the setting and crossover characters so that it feels like a very cohesive universe and experience. Definite thumbs up from me!
Wishing everyone continued great reads and warm and wonderful time with loved ones this month!
@C, super interesting to read some of your thoughts on Erin Nicholas’s EGGNOG MAKES HER EASY, as I am an admitted fangirl and tend to love her writing.
Also, I had the benefit of having loved the other books in the series and having more confidence that Lindsey was well supported by their community and that he wasn’t just dropping in on a whim and then running back to his glamorized life while she continued to slog along, LOL. That part, of course, is understandably not as easy to get from a novella.
I hope you’ll have a chance to try some of her other writing at some point–I love that often her characters aren’t “just” anything–they communicate better and model better how I hope relationships and friendships can be, not just how they often are.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
The Memory Palace by Nate DiMeo: a collection of true short stories, great for anybody who loves short stories, history, literary fiction, wonder… DiMeo is the host of the podcast The Memory Palace, where each episode is 5-15 minutes of a tiny little vignette from history, told in a very literary fashion. I adore his work, and I highly recommend his book.
My favourite read during this time was H.G. Parry’s historical fantasy novel THE MAGICIAN’S DAUGHTER, where a young woman raised in isolation on a magically hidden island off the coast of Ireland has to travel to rescue the magician who raised her who has disappeared. It’s a truly magical-feeling read, the second I’ve read by H.G. Parry and now I need to track down all the rest, because like the first one (her most recent THE SCHOLAR AND THE LAST FAERIE DOOR) this was rich, inventive, had captivating imperfect but charming characters and intriguing world building, and an overall great, immersive feel to the book.
Other than THE MAGICIAN’S DAUGHTER this was a somewhat less exciting reading time, though one quite positive and unexpected pleasure was discovering Madison Wright. She writes gentle but passionate MF contemporary romance. Her books are closed door, but she captures emotional pining and physical attraction better than so many open door books which I honestly didn’t think was possible. She makes me care about these relationships. Really enjoyed ONLY IN YOUR DREAMS and especially recommend that and the previous book in this series, the grumpy/sunshine OFF THE BEATEN PATH.
Continuing to enjoy my audio re-reads of Devon Monk’s paranormal fantasy Allie Beckstrom seres.
Somewhat disappointing–just not as engaging as previous books I’ve read by these 3 authors:
– Lana Ferguson’s LOCH AND KEY MF contemporary fantasy (a romance with the Loch Ness monster!) picked up toward to the end for me. For a while I thought I might DNF, though any book set in Scotland gets extra chances from me particularly in audio format so I persevered and ended up liking this, though mostly for the MMC’s accent.
– I don’t know if I just wasn’t in the right mood or not, but I liked the previous 2.5 books in Ainsley Booth’s MF hockey series Off The Ice more than THE REBOUND PLAN. It didn’t engage me as much as I’d come to expect from the others, though I did like the characters.
– I was also less charmed than I’d expected by Debbie Johnson’s contemporary MF romance A VERY IRISH CHRISTMAS–perfectly pleasant but we didn’t get enough of the MMC for it to have quite enough lift off for me.
@kkw, I’m sorry THE SCHOLAR AND THE LAST FAERIE DOOR didn’t work for you. I loved the academic setting and characters and got lost in the world.
@Jane, I second you on FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK–I loved it, too, and now I will look into BRING ME BACK.
I can be a sucker for good celebrity romance. And sometimes bad.
Best of my recent reads was LAST NIGHT AT THE LOCAL (featured in a recent “Cover Awe”) by Sarah Grunder Ruiz, a new-to-me author. I was delighted by the story of Raine, an American medical school dropout traveling around Europe, making a living as a street musician, and Jack, the Irish bar owner who helps her by offering her a job at his pub after nearly all of her possessions are stolen. Raine has ADHD and (somewhat related) low self-esteem; Jack struggles with serious OCD that manifests through continuous intrusive and violent thoughts. But this book isn’t about “people coping with neurodivergent conditions”; it’s a sweet, slow-burn romance with fully developed characters who support each other and also grow individually, in numerous ways. I learned when I finished the book that it’s the third in a series with interconnected characters, so I expect to be reading the other Ruiz entries soon.
Also read three books by new-to-me author Amanda Elliot— starting with BEST SERVED HOT and then LOVE YOU A LATKE (one of @SBSarah’s New York Times recs). I liked Elliott’s take on contemporary, not-particularly-observant Jewish FMCs—especially in LOVE YOU A LATKE, where a significant amount of the plot revolves around planning a Hanukkah-themed festival for a small town in Vermont, hoping to attract visitors who might be intrigued by an alternative to Christmas festivals and thus provide a needed economic boost to the town.
Not sure I need to summarize since @SBSarah already did in her NYTimes roundup, but here goes anyway: FMC Abby Cohen teams up with MMC Seth Abrams, the only other Jew in her vicinity and an annoyingly cheerful customer at the coffee shop Abby owns. Tropes include antagonist-to-lover, grumpy vs sunshine (although some childhood trauma factors into Abby’s prickly demeanor), and fake dating—plus only one bed. Most of the plot involves the eight days of Hanukkah that Abby spends as Seth’s fake girlfriend during a visit with his parents in NYC, while she also scouts out ideas and vendors for the Vermont festival. The storyline draws some interesting parallels between the Hanukkah story of resisting the adversaries who tried to upend the religious and cultural heritage of ancient Jews and the contemporary dilemmas faced by both Abby and Seth. The character voices are fun (including Seth’s parents and friend group that the fake couple hangs with) and the resolution is touching.
BEST SERVED HOT is an enemies-to-lovers plot, with lots of great food descriptions in the story of online restaurant reviewer Julie Zimmerman and her unexpected working partnership with traditional media restaurant reviewer Bennett Richard Macalester Wright. There’s a lot in this story beyond romance— Jewish vs WASP heritage, class status & privilege vs “making your own way,” and more.
I just finished Elliot’s first book in this loosely related set, SADIE ON A PLATE. Again, there are great food descriptions in a plot focused on a “Top Chef” like reality show, where Sadie’s “on a plate” identity is based on demonstrating that Jewish cuisine can be much more than matzo balls and pastrami sandwiches. I didn’t find the romance as compelling as in Elliott’s more recent books, but all of the characters were intriguing—even the chefs who were Sadie’s competitors.
I also finished a couple of sapphic sports-themed novels (both free from Kindle Unlimited). PLAYMAKER by Lauren Gallagher involves two pro hockey players in an enemies-to-lovers storyline. Sabrina comes from a famous hockey family– dad and brother are pros also; as a result, some teammates, fans, and media seem to believe hockey opportunities were bestowed on her rather than earned. Lila is coming back from injury and is distressed when she learns Sabrina will be joining her on the league’s newest expansion team. I considered DNFing this one because the writing was so repetitive—in the first 30% or so of the book, any thought either woman had seemed to be restated far too many times in nearly the same words every time, which was tiresome. However, I hung in for the rest of the book, which was slightly more satisfying.
TAKE A CHANCE by Claire Highton-Stevenson was a better read, and also a Christmas romance. In this British-set story, Sammy-Jo (aka SJ) is a pro football (soccer) player who rescues Daisy after Daisy’s car breaks down on a cold and snowy night. I’ve read lots of Highton-Stevenson (going back to her days writing “Rizzoli & Isles” fan fic); all of her books are pleasing in the moment but generally not stories that linger in my memory. TAKE A CHANCE is a spin-off of LAST CHANCE, also set in the world of women’s pro soccer, and the two books share some characters. But I didn’t remember that I’d read LAST CHANCE until I’d finished SJ ‘s and Daisy’s story, which worked fine as a stand-alone.
And then last weekend I watched the Hallmark Hanukkah/Christmas movie “Leah’s Perfect Gift,” and noticed that it was based on a book titled LEAH’S PERFECT CHRISTMAS, which I was happy to discover in my Kindle library. I hope the author, Catherine Beck (also writing as Caitlin Rozakis) received a meaningful payment for her idea— a Jewish woman who goes to her Christian boyfriend’s home to celebrate Christmas with his family and experiences their extremely rigid rules about how the festivities should be carried out. Lots of changes from book to movie, but a fun romance in both formats.
Also, while reading @SBSarah’s NYTimes article, I learned from the byline that she wrote a Hanukkah romance novella I didn’t know about (I’m relatively new here at SBTB), so now I’m reading LIGHTING THE FLAMES, and enjoying it!
HARD LINE and ROUGH TRADE, books 2 and 3 in Sidney Bell’s Woodbury Boys m/m romance series. The books follow three young men, with varying degrees of trauma, who met in a residential treatment facility. I read the first book a long time ago and liked it but didn’t feel any urgency to finish the series. I usually find the quality goes down over the course of a series but that wasn’t true here. HARD LINE has the meek, privileged, anguished Tobias finally standing up for himself after his best friend (Ghost) goes missing. He hires a PI, refuses to stay on the side lines and surprises himself with how good it feels. He also discovers his pain kink through moderately steamy D/s scenes with the PI who has his own issues.
ROUGH TRADE was the hardest to put down – Ghost had suffered horrific abuse as a child and survived by developing protective mechanisms that were heart breaking. He is forced to go into hiding and gets help from a cop who’s dealing with the fall-out from a good deed punished. Their relationship evolves as they deal with very bad people – disbelief had to be suspended for some of the action but I thought they got to their HEA in a believable way.
THE WILL DARLING ADVENTURES trilogy by KJ Charles (m/m romance set in the 1920s between a retired soldier and a very complicated lord). I’m one of those very rare people who has not read KJ Charles’ entire catalog, or even most of it (I know, what is wrong with me?). It’s probably for the best because I find that current events have me desperate for distraction. I see a lot of KJ Charles in my immediate future.
@Jane to pursue your new-found love of celebrity romance, I would recommend ELISSA SUSSMAN’S second book, ONCE MORE WITH FEELING. Just as good as the first. Also two by AVA WILDER: HOW TO FAKE IT IN HOLLYWOOD and WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY? All proper ‘grownup’ stories.
@flchen1 I’ll try her again after I get out of this reading funk. At the moment, it’s taking literal guns to keep my attention on the page, which really isn’t my usual headspace.
Just finished INCENSE AND SENSIBILITY by Sonali Dev. I was afraid it would be a DNF because it involves an election and I’m still a little raw, but I really loved and related to the characters who are all emotionally wounded in some deep ways and using their own inadequate means to cope. I really rooted for the MCs because it was clear how much better their lives were with each other in them. There were a couple of loose ends that did not get tied up and her take on hepatitis was way off but I only noticed that because I have had personal experience with it and anyone who hasn’t wouldn’t know the difference. All in all a really great read, recommend.
Currently rereading The Lady Chosen by Stephanie Lauren to decide whether it’s a keeper, and thinking “Why haven’t I read more of her books?” I should.
@ella, A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE is one of my fave Beagles. The Norma Terris Theater put on a pre-Broadway trial run of a musical based on the book many years ago, and I was so sorry it never went to Broadway because it was positively brilliant.
@Neile – THE SCHOLAR AND THE LAST FAERIE DOOR *did* work for me though! I didn’t mean to make it sound like it didn’t. I was trying to say, these books are not like, drop everything and read this now books, but if you don’t have already a huge pile of to be read books (or are looking to make it larger), these ones totally work. I know adequate, acceptable, fine are all terms that come off as damning with faint praise, but that’s not how I mean it. I like your average romance novel!
I mostly don’t talk about all the books I read that don’t work for me because life is too short. I read several hundred books a year, and I forget most of them immediately, but I like most of them just fine. Maybe I should say satisfactory rather than acceptable? Satisfying?
So I don’t remember any details about this one, and I know I didn’t *love it* but not why. My best guess is because of my anti-YA bias. That I thought it was fine despite disliking school stories as a category, which speaks well of the book.
@C, hugs! I’m so sorry–it’s so frustrating to be in a reading funk. I do hope you find the right read or combination to shake it off!
@kkw, I think we all just have different language to talk about how much particular books matter to us, and of course we all have our own tastes and different scales. I only talk about books that are better than average and up for me. I don’t mention books that I would rate as average or lower, mostly because I’m trying to train myself not to finish them. I totally agree with you that life is too short.
Also, my memory is too full of books as I’m constantly reading much of the day now that I’ve discovered audiobooks. When I first thought of the books I’ve read recently I couldn’t remember what THE MAGICIAN’S DAUGHTER was about–then I glanced at the synopsis and had a rush of the remembered enjoyment I got from reading it.
Speaking of which today I just DNFed Kate Riordan’s SANDITON. I didn’t finish the miniseries, either, but had planned to until now. There was no Jane Austen flavour there at all. Anything that might have been there was overlaid with too many mean characters, with none of Austen’s gentle humour and understanding about them.
Over the past three weeks ~
— read Regency Royal Navy Christmas by Carla Kelly which I quite enjoyed. I only remembered the last story which I knew I had read previously. I was surprised that I wouldn’t have read this collection of historical romance novellas previously, so I searched the board. I posted about it in March 2020 several days before my husband’s surgery for cancer. No wonder I didn’t remember it!
— read with pleasure Fox of Fox Hall by R. Cooper. This was a fantasy romance in a different but vaguely medieval world, one where people have tails. Fox, a commoner, is the king’s singer/entertainer/plain speaker and (past?) bedmate. The other lead is a knight renowned for having killed a dragon. I enjoyed this story.
— also enjoyed Splendor’s Orbit by Jina S. Bazzar, a space opera which features a captain with secrets who is hired to transport three individuals (also with secrets) to their home world. This is the first in a series, and I would happily read on.
— enjoyed a reread of In Love and War by Carla Kelly which is a collection of historical romance novellas.
— enjoyed two stories: “If I had the Chance” by E.M. Lindsey from the anthology Snowed In by Kiki Clark plus Transfer Wizard by Tavia Lark.
— Risk Taker by Lily Morton was an enjoyable contemporary romance featuring two men who met in their teens when their parents were briefly married; they remained good friends after their parents divorced. One is a lawyer; the other is a photojournalist returning home after a serious injury.
— read Playground Games, a contemporary romance novella also by Lily Morton. This featured two British teachers on a school skiing trip. It had some amusing scenes as one attempted to court the other.
— quite enjoyed A Very Genre Christmas by Kim Fielding which was set in post WW2 New York in a world in which a rift occasionally transfers people or other living things from their world to ours. The lead characters are a private eye who helps most of these travelers find a way back to their own world and one of Santa’s elves who traveled here via the rift. It was fun trying to identify other travelers from the author’s descriptions.
— very much enjoyed On the Ice by Amy Aislin, a fairly contemporary romance featuring two hockey players in 2008 (one in college, one playing professionally). One of the players is demisexual so this was a slow burn romance with a goodly amount of time spent with the characters getting to know each other.
— enjoyed browsing through Big Ideas, Little Pictures: Explaining the world one sketch at a time by Jono Hey. It led to some discussion between my husband and me.
— found a free anthology, LGBTQ+ Romance Deals Anthology — Contemporary Romance. I tried or read every story; the story I most enjoyed was ‘Do Better’ by Kaje Harper about a football player hiding his sexuality and the man he has secretly been with for several years.
— read Convenient Christmas Brides: An Anthology by Carla Kelly, Louise Allen, and Laurie Benson which is a collection of three regency romances involving marriage. I most enjoyed the story by Carla Kelly which involved an engagement of convenience.
— I don’t often read non-fiction, but I was intrigued when I heard mention of Do I Know You?: A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination by Sadie Dingfelder. This was entertaining and informative (and also rather scary when you hear how the author got her drivers license). Recognizing people has never been my strong suit, but Dingfelder comes to learn that she is genuinely faceblind and discusses what that means and how she copes. She also discusses her aphantasia (an inability to visualize) and poor memory of her past, both are things we have in common, as well as her lack of stereovision. I would read more by this author.
Reading THE WOMAN IN BLACK by Susan Hill, a 1983 historical horror novel(la). The narrator meanders at first, positioning the main events at 2 removes in the past via passing mentions. Then his dormant trauma from them is triggered by spooky stories at Xmas Eve, prompting him to try to heal himself by writing it all out — and hooking me. (I’m only 2 chapters in.)
Also slowly reading TRANSGENDER HISTORY, 2nd ed. by Susan Stryker.
Read EXTRA FOCUS by Jesse J. Anderson, a quick primer/help guide on ADHD. Seemed good to me, and wonderfully succinct.
@HeatherS my Spellshop issue was that, besides having no conflict, plenty of people were nice but no one except the plant was actually kind. That the writer didn’t know the difference was an annoyance to me.
I picked up PONY CONFIDENTIAL on some of the Smart Bitches’ recommendations. Jumping into that one next.
I also have a few literary fiction titles cued up:
AWAY (Amy Bloom) — Rereading this compact novel that is devastating and uplifting and absolute perfection.
JAMES — Percival Everett’s National Book Award winner that tells Jim’s side of the journey down the Mississippi with Huck Finn.
YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES (Enrigue) — Reimagines the power dynamic between Montezuma and Cortes.
To balance the lit fic, I’ve been having fun with some Kindle Unlimited romances from Pippa Grant and Penny Reid, who would both be auto-buys for me if they weren’t already included in KU:
Pippa Grant’s SNOWED IN WITH MR. HEARTBREAKER
Penny Reid’s ALL FOLKED UP, from the offshoot of the Winston Brothers series
I started off with THE DIAMOND EYE by Kate Quinn which had been sitting in the TBR pile (sometimes I hold off on a book by an author I really like as a treat for myself). Really like the main storyline but I thought the sniper-wants-to-shoot FDR storyline was annoying and unnecessary.
I finally got off the hold list for THE GOD OF THE WOODS by Liz Moore. This was well-done and gripping but left me very sad. Trigger warnings for that one — child death, missing child, emotional abuse.
I read A FAR CRY FROM KENSINGTON by Muriel Sparks, which also has been sitting on the TBR pile for a loooooong time. It was short and delightful, with a main character whose voice is funny and quirky.
I’m currently in the middle of YOU ARE HERE by David Nicholls which started out a little slow but I’m liking more as I get into it.
:::plops in:::
Just one more week of work for the year, and I’m going to a cabin in Tennessee the day after Christmas. As one does.
I started things off with Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn, the sequel to Killers of a Certain Age. One thing I really appreciate in these two books is the way these women weaponize their invisibility. They know that a lot of folks aren’t looking at them very hard due to their being in the latter end of middle age, and they use that to enter places people don’t necessarily expect them to be. They also just don’t have, like, a single eff to give for others’ opinions, which is inspiring, especially right now. Then I cracked open The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Garcia-Moreno, which has been sitting on my Kindle for a few months with its ridiculously gorgeous cover, waiting for the right moment, which it was. I’m a sucker for an Old Hollywood story, especially when you bring in the “swords and sandals movies” (look, I remember watching The Ten Commandments every Easter) and the machinations of the studio system when they decided they were going to invent a star. I also really appreciated the building dread throughout the book, because you knew that at some point, some elements were going to clash into each other and disaster would ensue, but they way it was done was careful and artful, which just made the dread worse. Then I went back into the “been sitting on my Kindle for a few months” cache, and yoinked out another book with ridiculously gorgeous cover art, A Drop of Venom by Sajni Patel. This is a YA retelling of the Medusa story, but set against Southeast Asian mythology. It’s from the Rick Riordan Presents imprint, but IS NOT middle-grade (can’t emphasize that one enough). TW/CW, and Riordan addresses this in his foreword: this book contains on-page sexual violence. It’s not super-explicit, but it also doesn’t leave any doubt as to what has occurred, contains the victim’s perspective of what is happening, and the main character has to deal with that trauma and its effects on her for the rest of the book. Take care of your brains. That said, it is likely one of my favorite things I read this year. It asks what makes a being a monster, and frankly, there are some BEAUTIFUL takedowns of evil and gross men throughout this book, as the main character embraces her monsterhood and decides it’s time to use her power to make some horrible people pay and protect both herself and others who need it. It is feminist and furious, and anyone who has read any of my other posts knows I love a book where evil men are getting wrecked. I finished it at approximately 12:15 this morning, so I have not yet moved on the my next read (though if the next book in the series was either already out or I had an ARC, I’d probably be putting into my eyeballs right the hell now). So until next time, may the hot chocolate not burn your mouth and the weather be at least somewhat seasonably cold.
@EC Spurlock: A stage adaptation of A Fine and Private Place sounds fantastic. I still live in hope that a live-action Last Unicorn will happen.
@AnneUK Thanks for the recs–added to the list!
@Neile One may recognize strong Duran Duran vibes in BRING ME BACK if one is of a certain age (the author has confirmed that this was her dream crush band as a youngster). I hope you like it!
Well, it’s that time of year again. Hope your holidays rock and your good times roll. And here are my December readings.
A Taste of Italian Sunshine by Leonie Mack
Leonie Mack once again offers a sparkling romance in a charming setting–this time the Prosecco producing region of Italy. Jenn Park is a wine expert with a highly sensitive (allergic to fizz) and well educated nose who has been sent to the Prosecco region to find the best wines for her elite hotel group. It takes time and a farm boy, Tiziano, to teach her that wine is more than alcohol and a bunch of fancy technical terms. As they make the rounds of wineries–large and small–their journey illuminates deeply buried truths for them individually and as a couple. Yet another excellent comfort read.
In Italy for Love by Leonie Mack
This appears to be the end for me and Ms Mack–at least for the moment. I must admit I’m ready for a break. Again we have a tender romance in an appealing setting with heavy underpinnings of angst. My biggest problem with this one is that Julia’s ex never gets his much deserved comeuppance. Also Alex’s about face was a little too easy. Could be I’m just burnt out on sparkling + charming. Could also be described as angsty romance in a gritty setting to tell the truth, but that’s all to the good. One of the things I like best about Mack is the way she respects work but doesn’t romanticize it.
Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan
Several recent mentions of this book inspired me to reread it. I knew I’d enjoyed it and the title gave me warm fuzzies, but couldn’t quite recall details. Anyway, I’m very glad I picked it up again, so thanks, Bitchery. This is a busy book, with a large cast of complicated characters contributing to a slightly unfocused and sometimes messy storyline, and it’s also pretty meta with lots of bookish, romance- and audiobook-specific navel gazing. The protagonists are adorable and funny with a sigh-worthy romance arc. I deeply appreciate a romance that acknowledges an HEA is never monolithic or immutable, but faith in the future and trust in love itself make the risks and imperfections worthwhile.
Dark Horse by Michelle Diener
After many raves from the Bitchery’s Sci-Fi fans, I picked up the first book in the Class 5 series. In it, a kidnap victim from earth allies with an enslaved AI on an alien ship in order to engineer a mutual rescue. In the course of their escape, they encounter another less hostile group who take them in. Military and political machinations ensue. A romance develops between earth woman and captain rescuer. The science is squishy and a mite shallow, but the world building and adventure is very entertaining, There are references to torture, some deaths, and a bit of pew-pew-pew, but mostly it’s off the page. Same for most of the sex. Aliens are pretty humanoid–no horns, tentacles, weird tongues, or gaudy skin. It’s low stress and imma read book 2 next.
Dark Deeds by Michelle Diener
So, book 2 in this series is pretty much constructed of the same elements as book 1. It has the same features and flaws with perhaps a tetch more Mary Sue than the first book. Still wicked entertaining though. On to book 3.
Dark Minds by Michelle Diener
By the time I got into Book 3, it was obvious that the relationships between the Earthlings and Class 5 Thinking Systems were far more significant than between Earthlings and Grihans (the most “human” aliens). The romance seems like window dressing. The plots are mostly alternating cycles of jeopardy and badassery–gripping but ultimately forgettable. Oh well, on to the fourth installment.
Dark Matters by Michelle Diener
This fourth entry in the Class 5 series finds yet another Earth woman on the run from the Tecran military, this time on the Tecran home world. She also acquires a Grih captain and a Class 5 AI as allies in her flight. This episode is a little different from the previous books, since the action is mostly planetside, and the enemy is right there and pretty uniformly nasty. Also kind of stupid. And irrational. Might be time for a break.
The Wedding Bait by Adele Buck
Straightforward and well-written novella featuring an older couple fake dating for a wedding. Really likable protagonists in a well constructed gem of a story. I got this title from a recent Rec League for mature adult romances, and I’m looking forward to more from this author.
Dragon Shifter Christmas by Zoe Chant
This book consists of a pair of hallmarkian Dragon romances in one volume. Though these are full length novels, the endings kind of dragged once the HEAs were locked in. The writing and character development are decent, but the side characters are a little one dimensional and the second book features a hundred pound, scaled plot moppet. Not bad, but I don’t expect to reread, as neither hallmark nor Christmas is really my thing. I blame the dragons.
Come as You Are by Jess K. Hardy
Boy, that last Rec League is the gift that keeps on giving. This first book in the Bluebird Basin series is cherce. Madigan is a former rocker and a recovering addict who runs a sober house for men in Red Falls, Montana. Ashley is the woman who runs a struggling family ski resort under siege from her corporate shill ex. When she reluctantly contracts with the sober house to provide workers during snow season, she and Madigan work together to overcome their biases and achieve their overlapping goals. While the details of their lives are all about the nitty gritty of ordinary life, perhaps the best feature that these characters share is their fundamental honesty and their fragile yet steady openess to change. I really loved this book about the struggles of grown-*ss adults, and the value of love in times of stress. This book was positive without being sentimental, has a new home in my Comfort Reads folder, and is destined for enthusiastic rereading.
Lips Like Sugar by Jess K. Hardy
I enjoyed this second book in the Bluebird Basin series, but it didn’t grab me the way the first did. Lips Like Sugar features Cole, Madigan’s best friend and former drummer, and Mira, local baker and cake artist. Cole and Mira do not expect to be fake dating at the wedding, nor do they expect to be thinking of each other once Cole returns to Seattle. Radically different lives and complicated family demands place them on separate trajectories until the needs of his friend bring Cole back to Red Falls to help out with the sobriety house. Reunited, he and Mira cannot deny their growing attraction despite the end date on their relationship. Clearly maturity does not smooth the course of true love, as our protagonists try to sort out what their hearts really want. I felt that a lot of the conflict in this was much more internal than the previous book, but the solutions were external events that triggered aha moments. Not a bad thing, but not my thing. Definitely a worthwhile read, though.
Quiet Longing by L H Cosway
Cosway is generally an autobuy for me though I don’t always read her stuff. I decided to pause this one about a quarter in, when I realized that I was quietly longing for something–anything–to happen. The second book in the Quiet Love series is just what it sounds like: ordinary people with ordinary struggles falling in love amidst ordinary angst (in Ireland.) There is absolutely nothing wrong with this book and both protagonists are quite likable. Still I wasn’t enjoying reading this, at least partly because the characters were an extremely young group of new adults. Definitely a case of ymmv.
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
There’s a reason this book is dedicated to Jane, Charlotte, Georgette, and Dorothy.
A reread of one of my favorite authors, this light space opera/rom-com never fails to make me laugh out loud. This time around, I marveled at how very busy this book is. There is an intricate plot with tons of action that evokes all the emotions in their turn. Yet at the end of the book you are left with a great deal to ponder. Bujold is like Pratchett: funny as hell but so wise.
Burning Up by Sarah Mayberry
Back in reread mode, I find myself marveling at how well Mayberry’s books have held up since the oughts. This Harlequin Blaze offering is set in Australia and involves a FMC who is a chef for the injured movie star MMC. Both have losses in their pasts that need to be dealt with before they are truly free to be together. There is lots of steam (maybe a bit too much for me) and Mayberry’s characteristically down-to-earth take on work, which I never get enough of. If you can find it in print, it’s still worth a read.
A Night of Scandal by Sarah Morgan
Another reread, this short, older category romance has similar MCs and themes to Burning Up, It is also the first book in the Notorious Wolfes series which has multipe authors. I picked it up on sale some time ago because I was reading Morgan at the time. The MMC is a wounded asshat, but I really like the hard-working costume designer FMC. The MCs and their romance are pretty dramatic, and there’s at least one scene with ambiguous consent. While it didn’t upset me, I can’t guarantee that the book holds up for everyone over time.
The Proposal by Mary Balogh
After two sexy little categories, I felt the need for some substance and more deliberate pacing, and you can hardly do better than Survivor’s Club for that. No matter what’s trendy in bookish circles, I always have a fondness for a well-written Regency. The survivors in this series are battered but not broken, and–best of all–are pretty much whinge-free. Such a pleasure to follow each of them as they seek happines with a special person. They also have a wonderful circle of friends with a strong found family vibe. This first in the series is Hugo and Gwen’s story, two appealing characters with a class divide to be overcome. And I. . . am here for it.
The Arrangement by Mary Balogh
When I think about a reread within the Survivor’s Club series, I always think about this book first. It’s not the sort of book I think I like most of the time, yet it always makes me happy. Kindness is the central value of this story, and the result is warm and tender and soothing. The MMC is a blind veteran and the FMC is the self-effacing orphan who rescues him from her predatory cousin and finds herself swept into a marriage of convenience. Vincent and Sophie transcend all the trite fairy tale tropes to achieve a truly balanced relationship with no need for manufactured drama.
Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh
This fourth book of the Survivor’s Club is another one of my favorites. Flavian and Agnes embark on yet another impulsive marriage and must deal with another set of personal issues in order to find their way together. I found Flavian’s particular set of symptoms (TBI) and his memory issues especially interesting. There is a suggestion of unexplained darkness in Flavian’s past that adds a layer of mystery to the plot. Agnes is able to cope primarily because she is fundamentally honest and straightforward, and she tackles problems head on. Yet another satisfying read.
Elemental Truths by Celia Lake (mild spoilers)
Now that I’ve completed the Mysterious Fields trilogy, I have to say I’m sorry it isn’t a duology. Book three had way too much inexplicable padding. Having killed off the evil bridegroom in the second book, the author proceeded to drag out Thessaly’s entanglement with his nasty fam through the entirety of this book. The magic was the usual unholy offspring of Rube Goldberg and L. Frank Baum and was frustratingly nebulous. I’d really looked forward to having the three deaths and other mysteries in the previous books unravelled; instead there was a ridiculously spiraling body count. If you go to the trouble of giving your central couple a set of problems to overcome at the beginning of their relationship and then just kill almost every one who isn’t on their side, that’s just wrong. I usually enjoy Celia Lake, but when the unmotivated wtf-ery reaches these levels, you can no longer call it cozy.
Having some difficulty finding satisfactory books to read – even my usual rereads are letting me down.
I’m almost at the end of the “Brides of Karadok” series by Alice Coldbreath: Finishing up AN INCONVENIENT VOW after reading HER BRIDEGROOM BOUGHT AND PAID FOR, THE CONSOLATION PRIZE and THE UNLOVELY BRIDE; next up, THE FAVORITE which puts an end to this series of medieval fantasy set in the land of Karadok that my mind continually tells me looks like England. The aftermath of a war that reunifies the country runs through the jousting and marriage of conveniences that frame the stories of related knights. No weak FMCs here!
Turned back to this series after finishing Coldbreath’s Victorian Prizefighters series (A BRIDE FOR THE PRIZEFIGHTER, A SUBSTITUTE WIFE FOR THE PRIZEFIGHTER (my favorite), and A CONTRACTED SPOUSE FOR THE PRIZEFIGHTER). Really enjoyed this series set among the middle and working class of Victorian England (not wholly historically accurate and there is a bunch of insta-love, but the whole thing worked for me).
Just finished ELEMENTAL TRUTH by Celia Lake (interrupted the regularly scheduled reading to do so), and . . . I think I may need to reread the trilogy together to see how I feel. I usually love Lake’s books right out of the gate, but this one gives me pause.
Bought several recommendations from the comments and hope to get back on track of loving what I read soon! Happy Holidays!
Having a bit of trouble remembering what I’ve read and liked. Tuesday I had to put my cat to sleep, after 18 years together, so I am in a fog of grief.
RUMOR HAS IT by Cat Rambo, the 3rd of the Disco Space Opera series that began with YOU SEXY THING had some of the same fun elements as the original, but also the same grimness. The crew seem to be adding another relentless enemy with each book. I will probably read the next book to make sure everyone is OK, but all the enemies kind of stress me out.
THE CYBERNETIC TEA SHOP by Meredith Katz is a very short novella about an asexual wandering tech person and an aging AI developing a relationship. I enjoyed it, but not enough to look for other books by the same author. I can also see why some asexual folks take issue with the portrayal of an asexual character having a HEA with an AI, given the way asexuals are sometimes portrayed as alien/inhuman.
After enjoying the first 2 mysteries I read by Seishi Yokomizo, I DNF’d THE INUGAMI CURSE. All the male characters reacted to every event by sweating heavily, which was described in almost exactly the same way every time (ick). The writing overall felt sloppy, repetitive, and sort of generic. Disappointing.
MAKE ME A MIXTAPE by Jennifer Whiteford is partly a romance but also partly a story of the FMC dealing with her past. Allie was in a punk band in her teens and early twenties and has spent a decade blaming herself for the way the band broke up. She’s mostly given up music. During a coffee delivery for the cafe where she works, she meets a former fan who recognizes her and slowly convinces her to become his friend and finally talk about her band and what happened. I really enjoyed this and hope to see more from the author (it’s her debut).
WITCH OF WILD THINGS and the sequel LIGHTNING IN HER HANDS, by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland are romances about the Flores sisters, Mexican American witches living in a small Virginia town. Each sister has a magical gift: Sage communicates with and controls plants, Teal’s emotions change the weather (but she cannot control her gift). Both sisters are traumatized by their mother abandoning them when they were small (7 and 5 years old) and their youngest sister dying 8 years ago. Their romances develop alongside them rebuilding their relationships with each other and the rest of their family. Both sisters blame themselves a lot, and Teal’s self-loathing in particular can be hard to read, but they do find happy endings. Their small town has a large and diverse Latine population (Dominican, Cuban, Puerto Rican…), unlike some of the extra-white small towns in some other witch romances. The Flores family are the only local magic users, and there are no other supernaturals. I would read more by this author.