Happy New Year! It’s our first Whatcha Reading of 2025. Here’s how we’re kicking things off:
Sarah: I received an absurd number of recommendations from the podcast community. I am currently reading AJ Sherwood’s The Tribulations of Ross Young, Supernat PA. ( A ) I love competent, organized characters who are valued for their competence and organization. A true catnip of mine
Shana: I’m reading Ten Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall ( A | BN | K ) and it’s making me laugh.
Elyse: I just started The Sinners All Bow on audio. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I loved the narrator and author’s podcast Tenfold More Wicked before it retired so I’m already very familiar with her voice. The book is historical true crime about the murder that inspired The Scarlet Letter.
Carrie: I’m about halfway through The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap ( A | BN | K | AB ) and enjoying it’s gothic mix of history, horror, thriller, and romance.
Tara: I started Lady Eve’s Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow ( A | BN | K | AB ) last night and it’s really fun so far.
Amanda: On audio for my stitch along, I’m listening to The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren. ( A | BN | K | AB )
I was also highly motivated to grab Bass Ackwards by Eris Adderly after a cryptic and enthusiastic recommendation from a colleague (Hi, Jane!). I was advised to keep an open mind and not look up too much stuff!
Whatcha reading right now? Let us know in the comments!
I got SO MANY BOOKS for Christmas! Started off the year with Silver Lady by Mary Jo Putney which a friend sent me an ARC of as a gift. I hadn’t read Putney before; I didn’t know she wrote paranormal so that was a pleasant surprise. A little more YA than I usually read, and featuring the most condensed and understated sex scene I have ever read, but so far quite enjoyable.
@PamG, The Talisman Ring has always been my favorite Heyer; it’s just got everything that makes a Heyer, she was really at the top of her game there.
@JenM – If you want to read some Draco/Hermione fanfic that is totally different from the one you read, try DRACO MALFOY AND THE MORTIFYING ORDEAL OF BEING IN LOVE. I was charmed by it and found it clever and engaging. The author, isthisselfcare (aka DMATMOOBIL), posted it to AO3. I recommend it because sometimes we need books that aren’t total darkness and gloom and they all die at the end (although last year I read Adam Silvera’s THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END and liked it).
So far this year I’ve read four books:
My favorite of the four was Ally Carter’s THE MOST WONDERFUL CRIME OF THE YEAR, a mystery, a romance, and a holiday book. I liked her BLONDE IDENTITY a bit more, but this one is also sharp and funny. Carter definitely does good banter.
I know that others loved Allison Saft’s A FRAGILE ENCHANTMENT and Alexandra Vasti’s IN WHICH WINNIE HALIFAX IS UTTERLY RUINED but I felt a bit more meh about them. The former felt so YA to me in terms of the hero and heroine’s thoughts, characterization, and actions. They are quite young (18 and 20), but I got a bit tired of Niamh rushing into what even she often categorized as “the worst decision/action” ever. And as far as I can tell the issue of her illness was never resolved (it if was, someone please tell me because I totally missed it). I liked the Vasti book more, and certainly liked Winnie and Spencer, but it was a novella and I thought too much time was spent on sex to the detriment of other aspects of the story. There were hints of things that could have been more developed if more page space was devoted to explaining how a black man came to be pastor in a small Welsh village (instead of mentioning it only in passing) or how Winnie would run her business as countess (or even if she would continue to run it). And I was puzzled about why it was so complicated to get the necklaces back to their rightful owners. When Winnie first tells Spencer about the necklaces and her plans, he asks her why she just doesn’t send them by post – a very good question. Winnie might not have addresses, but they all belong to peers, and couldn’t she just look up their principal seats in Debretts? Not to mention that lack of consummation wasn’t sufficient justification for annulment; you had to show that the marriage couldn’t be consummated.
I’m reading RECKLESS HEARTS by Jax Calder. Calder is one of my favourite m/m authors – especially the Sporting Secrets series. But this one is a little meh for me. I’m finding the characters inconsistent – one MC went from being unable to utter a single word in the other MC’s presence to assertively pursuing him within about 10 pages. The other MC had some trauma to work through, and I think the other guy was supposed to see through his perfect-guy facade, but honestly all the other guy thinks is “He’s so hot, I can’t believe he’s with me right now”.
I’m not even half way through, but I’m just not really invested in this couple. I’ll keep reading, but it’s definitely not my favourite Jax Calder book.
I relate to the folks who get too intense about reading challenges at the beginning of the year. I’m doing the Read Harder and the Free Black Women’s Library challenges this year (like I do every year).
I just finished A Short History of Trans Misogyny by Jules Gill-Peterson and it was excellent.
I’m most of the way through A Sorceress Comes to Call and really enjoying it. I discovered T. Kingfisher last year and love her writing. This one is too creepy to read in the evenings, though, so I’m also listening to Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne (this was one of my recommendations from Amanda!).
I recently finished Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade and enjoyed it. It didn’t knock my socks off, but it was pretty good. And I read my first Beverly Jenkins – To Catch a Raven. I can see why she’s so well-loved.
I also read the three books in Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Cowboys of California series and I loved them. Especially A Thorn in the Saddle, the third book. It was silly and fun, but also doing some really interesting things, I think, in how Jesse’s anger issues were responded to by the other characters. I read a lot of abolitionist theory, but it’s something else to see a non-carceral approach to Black men’s anger presented in a romance novel. Nobody was making excuses for him, but they understood him, and cared for him, and helped him figure himself out. I loved it.
I started the year off with The Match by Sarah Adams and Gouda Friends by Cathy Yardly. Now I am working on The Enemy by Sarah Adams, and then Temple of Swoon by Jo Segura.
@PamG, Balogh actually did another book that started off with a one-night stand, it’s THE NOTORIOUS RAKE. I’ll have to check out A CHRISTMAS BRIDE.
I’m happy to report that I finished several books! I read DRIVEN by Eve Kenin(who also writes as Eve Silver). It’s set in a dystopian future, the MCs are ice truckers in the Arctic. Lots of violence but I quite enjoyed it.
The Elizabeth Hoyt podcast was so great, it made me want to reread the Maiden Lane series. I finished WICKED INTENTIONS but the second Maiden Lane book was on hold at my library, so instead I borrowed HOT, a contemporary that Hoyt wrote under her Julia Harper nom de plume. It’s very funny, the heroine sort-of but not really, robs a bank. Completely different vibe from her historicals.