It’s our first Whatcha Reading of the new year. Here’s how we’re kicking off 2026:
Lara: In a move that is surprising to no one in my life, I have just reread Heated Rivalry ( A | BN | K | AB ) and I’m toying with reading The Long Game again next, but I might need to try chill on the Ilya/Shane action because I’ve been plotting ways to make Ilya and Shane merch here in South Africa, so … perhaps time to switch gears and read something different. Anyone else find themselves very into this series?
Sarah: I am reading Trailbreaker by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare, ( A | BN ) book two in the Prairie Nightingale series – or, I’m about to start it. I had a ball reading the last one, so I’m very excited.
I just DNFd a book that I really wanted to like, and had to tell myself the slog was enough so I’m really excited to start something new
Elyse: I just finished Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. ( A | BN | K | AB ) It’s this wonderfully soothing read about how she lived in the country during lockdown and raised a baby hare that was abandoned with the intent of releasing into the wild. In turn the hare helped her realize that the pace of her life was causing her miss out on the present moment and helped her reconnect to nature.
Her writing is so gentle and evocative that it kind of puts you in a little trance.
Whatcha reading? Tell us in the comments!
I am continuing with the unhinged bingo reads. I’m currently working on a theory that there is AITA fodder in all romance novels, so I’m putting a spoiler with an AITA situation for all of the bingo relevant books. Some of them are better than others, but the point of the exercise is to see what I can come up with.
Structure of Love (Gay 4 Renovations Book 2) by AJ Sherwood (KU)
Bingo: Figures without facial features on the cover, AITA (spoiler)
I had read book one in this series (Style of Love) over the summer for that bingo card (Friends-to-lovers or Small town), and remembered liking it, so when this one popped up on my KU new releases and fit a bingo square, I figured it was worth checking out. It’s an adorable MM romcom between a structural engineer and a bar owner. The drama comes from their terrible families (homophobia, parentification). What I really appreciated was that the main characters wanted to fall in love. No, really, I’ve been caught in a such a rut of mafia, enemies-to-lovers, and HR nightmares that two characters that were actually happy to be falling in love felt weird.
Just Come Over: A Rugby Romance (Escape to New Zealand Book 12) by Rosalind James (KU)
Bingo: Pets other than cat/dog (rabbits), Romance meta-ness (Austen), AITA (spoiler), Start mid-series (at least, you could, but since I just read book 11, I probably shouldn’t)
Rugby coach and former All Black Rhys was attracted to his brother Dylan’s girlfriend when they first met a decade ago but didn’t act on it. Now, Zora is a widowed florist with an eight year old boy to raise on not quite enough money. That would be a perfectly reasonable setup, but wait, there’s more. Dylan left behind a six year old daughter whose mom just died and since Dylan gave his brother’s name when he met her mom, it’s Rhys’s name on the birth certificate. (Is that realistic? Eh, just roll with it.) If you like sports romances and cute kids mixed with a bit of NZ flair, this might work for you.
Glory in Death (In Death Book 2) by JD Robb (library)
Bingo: Swiss Army Knife Character (Former criminal now billionaire CEO Roarke), AITA (spoiler)
The second entry in the near future police procedural mysteries follows detective Eve Dallas as she investigates the murders of several high profile women while navigating her feelings for Roarke. Good for fans of Law & Order type shows and alpha heroes.
Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After Book 1) by Tessa Dare (KU)
Bingo: OG Cover replaced by illustrated, Pet other than cat/dog (ermine), Author Blurb (Julia Quinn quote on the cover), AITA (spoiler)
This one was a re-read for me, and I had forgotten how wacky this book is. How do you feel about a (Regency?) England with people live action role playing chivalrous knights and maidens based on a serial novel written by the female main character’s father? It’s sweet and funny, but the suspension of disbelief required is high.
A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (Lord Julian Mysteries Book 10) by Grace Burrowes (library)
Bingo: N/A (The romantic subplot does advance a little, so YMMV on whether this one counts for bingo.)
Lord Julian and friends investigate the disappearance of a young woman at the request of her suitor. It’s a good addition to this series of Regency-era mysteries.
A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor (Tempting Monsters Book 1) by Kathryn Moon (KU)
Bingo: Knotting (For the record, it’s hook shaped, but I’m going to rule that close enough since it retained the joined together aspect, but you do you), Social Media Made Me (mentioned on Podcast 697), AITA (spoiler)
Are you looking for a historical monstrous reverse harem romance with lots of spice and also some nice emotional connection? You might like to join Esther as she starts her new job at Rooksgrave Manor, a place where clients with special needs find companionship.
Lovely Corruption (previously published as Undercover Attraction) (The O’Malleys Book 5) by Katee Robert (KU)
Bingo: Free square, AITA (spoiler)
We continue the tale of the O’Malleys, a Boston organized crime family, and this time the focus is on Aiden who is coping with his new responsibilities as head of the family now that his dad has retired. Things are a bit rough, and while his siblings recent marriages have added stability, it has come at a personal cost. But he has a plan, and it starts with convincing former cop Charlie to pretend to be his fiance. The author’s Dark Olympus series has been favorably reviewed here, so if you are a fan of that, this has similar politics but the sex is less kinky. Even more relevant, the first book in the series was reviewed on the site.
– My headcanon for this series subtitles all the books after the first one from antagonist Dmitri Romanov’s POV. (He’s the head of a NY family who has been pushing to expand his power base.) They all get the same subtitle. “How the backstabbing O’Malleys fell in love and eff-ed up my plans”. He’s the MMC for the last book in the series, with the last unmarried O’Malley as the female lead. I’m hopeful that the subtitle will not need to change.
Ruthless Redemption (previously published as The Bastard’s Bargain) (The O’Malleys Book 6) by Katee Robert (KU)
Bingo: Free square, AITA (spoiler)
The last entry in The O’Malleys picks up where the last one left off. This one focuses on Dmitri Romanov, ruthless NY crime lord, and Keira O’Malley, the youngest sibling of the Boston family. Keira has been wandering through the background of the previous books, where we’ve watched her turn to self-destructive behaviors to (fail to) cope with events in book 1. It starts as a marriage of convenience to stabilize relations between NY and Boston, but we know where this is headed. This isn’t serious literature, but I find it entertaining.
Lord of Scoundrels (Scoundrels Book 3) by Loretta Chase (KU)
Amazon’s listing for this book gives the title as “Lord of Scoundrels: When a Determined Woman Saves Her Family from the Devil and Discovers Dangerous Passion”. Thank you SEO for that summary.
Bingo: Author Blurb (Julia Quinn), Social Media Made Me (Mentioned on the podcast, also one of the first books announced for JQ Editions), Character name sounds like a law firm (Look, I don’t know what a law firm is supposed to sound like. I’m basing this on (1) I would hire Sebastian Ballister, attorney-at-law, and (2) Ballister rhymes with barrister.), Start Mid-Series (I had forgotten or never knew this was part of a series until I checked the Amazon listing), Romance Meta-ness (he knows Lord Byron and she reads his epic poem Don Juan to him. Does that count?), AITA (spoiler)
I would like to give this book a gold star for “Most Bingo Categories Spotted In a Single Book”. I think this historical is well known enough that I don’t need to say much about it. It is product of its time, okay? Characters are sexist and misogynistic, and when it was written, we just accepted that. Plus, dude is a rake, and the book isn’t shy about it. (Thankfully, this is an AU where no one worries about STDs.) But otherwise, it’s very funny. The two main characters are the embodiment of “I don’t even like you, why do I want to kiss you?” Warning: The AITA scene that I’ve chosen is definitely a spoiler for this book.
Dark Lover (The Black Dagger Brotherhood Book 1) by JR Ward (library)
Bingo: Solved HaBO, Paranormal from 2000-2010 (pub. 2005), Social Media Made Me (mentioned on the podcast), AITA (spoiler)
Oh, 2000-2010 paranormal romance, you haven’t changed a bit. Still full of weirdly named, extra edgy, leather wearing vampires fighting the forces of evil. Are you a well written book? I mean, objectively speaking, no. But do I care? Also, no. Why not? Which part of extra leather clad vampires are you not here for? Look, this is not a subtle book and it is a product of its time, so don’t expect enlightened attitudes about sexuality or anything. (Example: The forces of evil are literally heartless and impotent.) But, there is some campy fun here if, like me, you find words like “shitkicker” inherently funny.
The Bastard’s Betrayal (Scandalous Scions Book 1) by Katee Robert (KU)
Bingo: Free square, AITA (spoiler)
When I realized that the next generation of the O’Malleys gets introduced in a book, I figured I’d better go ahead and read it before I forgot the plot of the previous books. This time we meet Rose, oldest daughter of Dmitri and Keira, and her love interest Dante, enforcer for some Italian family out west. He came to NY to do some recon, lied about his identity to get close to Rose, and things got real. The book opens with her finding out his real identity and her parents telling her that in order to make peace with the local Italians, there’s going to be a wedding and its not to Dante. I was entertained, but this sort of crazy isn’t for everyone.
– I’m not sure how it happened, but this is the second book in this post that features the female leading shooting the male lead.
I’ve just started The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore for the Twee small town bingo square, and I cannot shake the feeling that this book started as Stardew Valley fan fiction. Anyone able to confirm or deny?
My new year was going well. Then we got new management at work. I’ll just leave it at that to avoid leaving a trail of evidence on the internet. My reading has actually been fairly productive since I’m still working on finishing up a book bingo for my library. I have really embraced listening to novellas/other really short works to finish the challenge, so of course there was ROGUE PROCTOCOL by Martha Wells for some Murderbot. I got to say, I kept trying these and thinking “they’re okay, but I don’t seem to love them like everybody else.” This, 3 novellas in, was the first one I absolutely loved. I’m glad I stuck w/them. I read EXIT STRATEGY quickly and now Murderbot has become a part of the mother-son book club ;-).
Also in audio in no particular order
(read a new genre) – WHAT MOVES THE DEAD by T. Kingfisher, – excellent as always, about as close to horror as I’m comfortable getting.
(book turned into a movie) – TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis – fun w/a bittersweet ending. Well narrated by Donna Tartt, the author of THE SECRET HISTORY. Apparently it’s one of her favorite books.
(non-fiction) – THE FIRE NEXT TIME – by James Baldwin, scary how relevant it still is.
(read a book by a new to you author) – MURDER AT THE MUSEUM by Alasdair Beckett-King.- I only knew this guy as a Youtuber. This was a pleasant surprise. Sweet and silly middle grade. It reminded me a bit of MAC B, SPY KID, which is always a good thing. Bonus, it gently pokes fun at Hercule Poirot, one my favorite detectives of all time.
(read a book b/c you liked the cover art) – WHAT THE CHICKEN KNOWS by Sy Montgomery – little bit of science, little bit of memoir. Really interesting book, but makes me more sure than ever I don’t want to raise chickens.
(read a book written the year that you were born)- This was one of my few eyeball reading books – I went for DUEL OF HEARTS by Elizabeth Mansfield. It’s a trad regency, (yes, I’m that old). I have a bunch on my Kindle that I have tried to read and feel like they didn’t hold up. This was the first one in a while that I really liked. There were silly misunderstandings and The Other Woman, but it all fell w/in my tolerances. I liked that the OW was just a bit silly and shallow rather than truly evil and she got a bit of a set down, but wasn’t totally destroyed.
I’m reading FAN SERVICE by Rosie Danan and just having a great time which is saying something b/c I don’t usually like werewolf romances or celebrity romances. Sarah Maclean’s rave on Fated Mates sold me on it.This does have grumpy heroine, sunshine(ish) hero, so there’s that. Also a lot of genuine love for fandom, which I appreciate.
I’m reading ONE BY ONE by Ruth Ware. I love stories where characters end up stranded together and cut off from the outside world.
I have some other suspense/thriller books waiting on my TBR pile, including BLADE by Wendy Walker and LISTEN FOR THE LIE by Amy Tintera.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! 🙂
CAPTIVE PRINCE trilogy by C.S. Pascat
Just finished book 1 and I’m starting book 2. I kind of don’t know what to think about this series. The treatment of slavery in the book is extremely problematic. But I’m sick and my brain is only operating at half power, so I appreciate the fact that the series is keeping me distracted while I attempt to hack up a lung.
MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER by Adam Becker
This is turning out to be a very slow read for me because I can only take reading about our tech overlords in small doses. Executive summary of the first half of the book: our tech overlords have constructed an extremely bizarre, science-fiction-infused vision of the future that conveniently allows them to side-step the actual harm being caused by their products to actual people who exist right now.
ALL OF US MURDERERS by K.J. Charles
I read this book because it was written by K.J. Charles, but it’s not really my jam. The title is an accurate reflection of the book, which is full of horrible people doing terrible things in a desolate, gothic house surrounded by a 12-foot wall. The vibe didn’t really work for me, but I think that’s just my personal preference.
GAME CHANGERS series by Rachel Reid
@Lara – Yes. I’m not ready to leave the HEATED RIVALRY world, but I’ve re-read the entire series and I’ve watched the entire tv series through twice, so maybe it’s time to move on.
Not a lot of reading recently. I received the gift no one wants for Christmas: Influenza A. Surprisingly, not conducive to reading. Completely missed the last WAYR, so there’s some pre and some I can’t believe I still have this much mucus in my body recovering reads.
I finally got my hands on AWAKENED, the third book in Lauren Dane’s Diablo Lake trilogy, and was completely disappointed. Nothing happened. Nothing. Girl moves back to town, hooks up with boy. There’s been this big drawn out plot point running through the books and it resolves in two pages. TWO PAGES! And there are no big consequences.
Sherry Thomas’ THE LIBRARIANS was a delight. Four librarians working in a small local branch, all with secrets big and small. When not one, but two, patrons end up dead, can they work together to find the answers. I always like to see authors branch out and do it well.
Continuing in the mystery genre, I read the first two books in the Jennifer Cruisie/Bob Mayer Liz Danger collab: LAVENDER’S BLUE & REST IN PINK. Ghost writer Liz reluctantly returns to her home town after 15 years for her mother’s birthday. The trip starts out inauspiciously when she gets pulled over for speeding by a hot cop and goes down hill from there when it turns out she’s arrived in time for her former fiancé wedding to the richest girl on town. Lots of fun characters and a twisty plot involving political graft and family secrets. And an incorruptible hot cop who lives on a renovated streamliner diner down by the river.
Finished THE BLACK BIRD ORACLE from Deborah Harkness yesterday. The Bishop-de Claremont family are in New Haven preparing for a return to England when a most unusual invitation arrives via raven. A request from an great aunt Diana didn’t know she had to meet the Proctors, her father’s family. This is followed by a demand from the Congregation to submit the twins fir examination. Things get tense. New enemies appear, an old one reappears and a family bonds are mended. And lots of magic and genetics.
Currently reading COWBOY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE. Maisie Yates’ HAPPY AFTER ALL was on of favorite reads last year so I thought I’d give one of her cowboy books a try. Plus Christmas story. Unfortunately, it’s like the 5th book in a series and three chapters in I’m wondering if my series OCD is going to force me to put it aside while I find the other books.
TO SHAPE A DRAGON’S BREATH by Moniquill Blackgoose is an utterly delightful YA, which is practically an oxymoron for me. I dislike YA as a genre, unless it involves queer sex at magical boarding schools and alas explicit sex is apparently against the genre definition. However! Magical boarding school with queer romance is a pretty happy-making substitute, it turns out, in the right hands – which this is. I have a strong aversion to didactic literature, hence my issues with YA, but I have to say, if people *must* write morally improving tales for children, it is extremely refreshing to have them actually imparting decent values for a change. This is a phenomenally subversive response to the status quo propaganda that’s typically foisted on unsuspecting kids just looking for some decent entertainment. Plus, dragons! Worth making time for this one even if it’s not your reading preference, and if you genuinely like YA read it yesterday.
I might have even liked it more than AFTER HOURS AT DOORYARD BOOKS by Cat Sebastian, which was an absolutely excellent Cat Sebastian doing her Cat Sebastian thing, which is one of my favorite genres. Too short as they all are, but no one does an I’m not worthy pining so well. At least as much about making family as romance. Thoroughly delightful.
BLOOD SWEAT GLITTER by Iona Datt Sharma is a roller derby f/f romance, and it’s sweet and thoughtful and engaging. It’s also a novella, unfortunately, but I believe in the couple, which novella’s rarely accomplish. And I believe in them despite (extreme) opposites attract and them both (frequently) making terrible choices. Also, it’s one of the rare contemporaries set in a world in which the pandemic happened and has had lasting repercussions. I typically look for romance that’s more escapist, but if I have to read contemporary I am all the more impressed by an author who can combine realism and happiness. I have perhaps made it sound too gritty, it isn’t gritty exactly so much as it has more heft than I expected? It’s also quite funny.
If anyone wonders why I spend so much time reading genres I don’t particularly like and even actively dislike, it because far from struggling with towering tbr piles I am constantly running out of things to read. So I have no choice but to read outside my preferred genres (it’s KJ Charles, I would just read KJ Charles at this point but alas even her incredible productivity doesn’t run to 365 books a year). I would think if one was actually looking for a contemporary or sport romance or novella BLOOD SWEAT GLITTER would be heaven.
I’ve also been rereading the Ilona Andrews EDGE books because it has been long enough I have basically forgotten them. I love pretty much all of their books – even if there is a martial/military emphasis I could theoretically do without, something about the way they handle it, about the fantasy worlds they design, keeps me actively engaged and happy.
I started my reading year with SHOW DON’T TELL, a 2025 collection of short stories by Curtis Sittenfeld. Almost all of these stories examine selected moments in the lives of white, politically liberal, economically comfortable, Midwestern women in their 30s, 40s, or older, with one of the stories told from a male POV. Some of the lead characters are writers or artists but many are not. There’s humor in most of the stories but it’s often self-deprecating or sardonic, when characters are examining their own past or current foibles. As a New York Times article by Emma Goldberg said (3-8-25), Sittenfeld’s novels and short stories “mine the terrain of female self-consciousness and status anxiety across all life stages.” In this collection I especially liked “The Richest Babysitter In the World,” narrated by Kit, who is thinking back to her senior year of college when she was the babysitter for a couple clearly based on Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos at the time Amazon was just getting started, and “White Women LOL,” about a woman who inadvertently goes viral because of a less-than-graceful interaction (captured on video) with several Black couples at a restaurant, and then tries to re-ingratiate herself in her mixed race, upper class neighborhood. The final story in the collection, “Lost but Not Forgotten,” is an epilogue of sorts to Sittenfeld’s debut novel, PREP. This story revisits Lee Fiora, the teenage “fish out of water” from Indiana who attended an elite New England boarding school, while Lee is reconnecting with classmates at a 30-year reunion. Now I feel like I should re-read PREP. And reading a set of stories with ambiguous conclusions that left me pondering was good exercise for my holiday-decelerated brain.
For work-related reasons, I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction about Art History and Design History– one related item was the graphic novel BLOW UP! THE EXPLOSION OF CONTEMPORARY ART. This visual history examines “anti-art” movements from the early 20th century (starting with Marcel Duchamp and the Dada movement) to the early 21st century. It’s an accessible, non-comprehensive introduction to several artists and their non-traditional artwork.
Then I turned back to romance, because the news is too grim and I need the HEAs. The last book in the “When in Rome” series by Sarah Adams, IN YOUR DREAMS, was my favorite of the 4-book set. This story focuses on FMC Madison, an almost 30 year old who has returned to the small town of Rome, Kentucky, where her siblings and many friends live, after graduating from culinary school in New York. (Her older brother’s and her two sisters’ stories were told in the previous books of the series. I think this one can work as a stand-alone, but you’ll miss a few nuances of the overlapping tales of the Walker sibs and their significant others.) Madison is dealing with a severe lack of self-confidence (professionally and personally) as well as other unresolved issues but she accepts an unexpected job offer from MMC James, who is opening a restaurant on his farm near Rome and asks Madison to become the executive chef. James is reluctantly running the family farm now that his father is retired, and James also clashes regularly with his younger brother, Tommy, a successful, wealthy business consultant based in L.A. James has been pining for Madison for years, but thinks she just wants to be friends. Plus, he’s annoyed that Tommy is constantly flirting with Madison, both in person and via phone and text messages. I liked the characters in this book; the anxieties and triumphs for both Madison and James were credible and meaningful. All of the Walkers have been affected by the death of their parents when they were children, but Adams’ explanations of how the grief manifested and was handled didn’t work for me in all of the books of the series. I thought Madison’s journey made sense. Also, I particularly liked that the storytelling in this book didn’t spend as much time with the “quirky small town characters” who annoyed me in some of the prior entries in the series.
YOURS FOR THE SEASON, by Kate Cochrane, is the second book in Cochrane’s F/F “Puck Struck” universe that started with WAKE UP, NAT AND DARCY. The new book can be read as a stand-alone, even though the aforementioned Nat and Darcy make brief appearances. This novel is set in the Christmas season but the holiday isn’t a big element, other than to provide a reason for the MCs to be together in the small town in New Hampshire where both grew up. JT Cox is an Olympic-gold-medal-winning professional hockey player whose family of artists and professors doesn’t appreciate her athletic accomplishments. During the visit home, JT teams up with newly divorced Ali Porter (JT’s teenage crush, who JT didn’t know is bi) to participate in a holiday contest where the strongest competition is Ali’s ex-husband and his new girlfriend. JT also helps Ali get her new house (next door to JT’s parents’ home) in order by assisting with unpacking, painting, and assembling Ikea furniture. I considered DNFing this book multiple times– it’s nearly all third-person telling with very little showing, and the narration for both MCs is interminably repetitive. The same phrases are used continuously to describe why JT doesn’t want to spend time with her family and why Ali isn’t confident about asserting her needs. Also, Ali’s mother, who wants Ali to get back together with her ex, is one of the most annoying characters I’ve encountered in a romance. I finished the book, hoping the storyline would improve– but it didn’t. And no hockey games were played.
I just started Alexandria Bellefleur’s new book, PLAYING FOR KEEPS, and so far I’m liking it a lot. The side characters are a world famous pop singer and a professional football player who are starting to date (where in the world did that idea come from?) but the MCs are the publicists for the celebrities. I’m eager to continue this novel.
Happy reading new year, Bitchery!
@kkw: Just pointing out that “To Shape A Dragon’s Breath” isn’t YA. The main character is 15 and it’s set in a colonizer magical boarding school, but that doesn’t make it a YA book by default. The publisher and a lot of the promo describe it as a “coming-of-age story” and my library shelves it in adult fiction. I’m glad the author wasn’t shoved into the YA publishing box, since it’s so common for that to happen to women writing fantasy with teenaged protagonists. This gives her room to have Anequs grow up and act accordingly. I really loved it and am looking forward to the next one.
For what it’s worth, one of my readers compared my book PUBLIC OFFERING to ‘Heated Rivalry’ (without hockey). 🙂 That’s author A.Y. Caluen.
I am reading ‘One More Kiss: The Broadway Musical in the 1970s’ by Ethan Mordden. In my TBR is Pulitizer Prize winner ‘Less’ and its sequel by Andrew Sean Greer.
Just a side note: I’m amazed (and thrilled) at how much of a cultural phenomenon HEATED RIVALRY has become (I’m also amazed that there hasn’t been more of a backlash from the gatekeepers and pearl-clutchers—and for that I’m thankful). HR was one of the first—possibly the first—m/m romance I ever read, and it occupies a special place on my comfort re-read shelf. After the shit-show that 2025 was, it’s nice to see the year ended with the celebration of a gay romance!
Cate C. Wells’s SILENT FLAMES (part of a multi-author series called Dark & Silent Night) will undoubtedly be a polarizing book (as much of Wells’s work often is): not only is there on-page cheating, but the ending, while addressing both MCs’ dysfunctional upbringings and traumas, does not entirely resolve the issues that drove the couple apart in the first place. The Wells book that SILENT FLAMES most reminded me of is NICKY THE DRIVER, in which both MCs have so many issues that a “happy” relationship for them looks very different from a “normal” one. In SILENT FLAMES, Cora & Adrian have been married for five years and have two small children. Cora decides to surprise Adrian (a very wealthy business tycoon) by showing up unannounced with the children at his office one night when he is working late; but it is Cora who gets surprised when she discovers Adrian in flagrante delicto with a woman who works for him. The book then carefully analyzes both Cora’s and Adrian’s paths to that moment: Cora, raised in foster care and always searching for comfort and protection, married Adrian as much for security as for love, never letting Adrian see her real (in every sense of the word) self. Meanwhile, Adrian’s desire for the beautiful and younger Cora is understandable, but his wish to create a family where nothing bad ever happens is the product of his own insecurity and traumas (including a childhood kidnapping and indifferent if not abusive parents). I really liked how nuanced Wells is with every aspect of Cora’s and Adrian’s dynamics (including Adrian’s infidelity). I know cheating is a hard no for many readers, so SILENT FLAMES will definitely not be for everyone, but I enjoyed it very much. By now, most readers know if Wells is a writer for them; she certainly is for me. Highly recommended.
Jax Calder’s COLLIDING HEARTS, the next book in her New Zealand-based Rainbow Redemption series of m/m romances, is a solid romance with a big twist that I did not see coming. The book opens with a prologue: Felix has been in a terrible automobile accident. A man who witnessed the crash stays with Felix, doing all he can (including talking with Felix for several hours to keep him conscious) until help arrives. When he is finally freed from the wreckage of his vehicle, Felix (severely injured and clinging to life by a thread) does not have a chance to get the name of his savior. The book then fast-forwards a year to a new Felix: he is badly scarred, has lost both his job in high-end fashion and his boyfriend (no great loss, as we subsequently come to witness), and has moved to Aukland to start training as a veterinary nurse. As Felix says of himself, “I’ve spent my life being the gorgeous twink who could pull off bratty behavior because of what I looked like…and I’ve subsequently learned that without my looks people are far less lenient about my tendency to act like a feral toddler.” Felix, still adjusting to his new reality, attends a Halloween party hiding his physical and emotional pain behind full makeup and a costume. There he meets and eventually hooks up with his neighbor, Jared, a paramedic. (I should say right here that the big twist in the story is NOT that Jared is the man who stayed with Felix after his accident—a fact that the men suss out pretty quickly.) The book then follows Felix & Jared as their relationship develops, both as friends and as lovers. At one point, Felix realizes that with Jared, “I’ve forgotten to monitor myself. Forgotten to make myself smaller and quieter. With Jared, it’s easy to accidentally be myself again.” The book also includes the gay soccer league that Jared (and characters in previous Rainbow Redemption books) is part of. As in Calder’s earlier BEAUTIFUL HEARTS, there is a big twist toward the end of COLLIDING HEARTS. I did not see the twist coming (other readers may be more perceptive than I am and twig it right away), and it reframed everything that had come before it. It also requires a great deal of soul-searching on Felix’s part to know if he will be able to continue his relationship with Jared. Because COLLIDING HEARTS is a romance, we know which way things will go, but I like that Calder gave the MCs time to come to terms with what had happened. Highly recommended.
Emmy Sanders’s SADDLE TO SUNUP is the next in her Darling Brothers series of m/m cowboy romances, this one featuring friends-to-lovers. I didn’t like it quite as much as I liked Sanders’s previous book, BRIM OVER BOOT (which was a chef’s kiss of the antagonists-to-lovers trope), but still found it a worthwhile read overall. In SADDLE TO SUNUP, Lawson is recently divorced and is a co-parenting his teenage daughter with his ex-wife. Missing his best friend, Oakley (himself just out of a relationship), “Law” drives to Kansas to bring “Oak” and his miniature cow (I fell down a rabbit hole there, looking at videos of incredibly cute dog-sized cattle) back to Montana. Oak has also recently broken up with his partner (we don’t know the partner’s gender, their name was “Stevie” and they are always referred to as they/them, but it’s clear that Oak is some shade of pansexual). Meanwhile, Law is trying to determine his own sexuality. He has always presumed he was straight, but his intimate life was never very fulfilling for him. Over the course of the book, Law determines that he is probably ace. I thought Sanders provided some good ace representation in the book: even in Law’s subsequent sexual relationship with Oak, Law is much more fired up by their emotional connection than their physical one (although Sanders provides plenty of that too). There were a couple of reasons that SADDLE TO SUNUP didn’t hit my sweet spot quite at much as BRIM OVER BOOT: partly, it’s just because I don’t like friends-to-lovers as much as I like antagonists-to-lovers; but also, it felt as if SADDLE TO SUNUP contained quite a bit of “filler,” with lots of long set-pieces (the guys chaperoning a high school trip, various meals at the family ranch) that covered a lot of pages but didn’t add significantly to the forward motion of the plot or character development. I do recommend SADDLE TO SUNUP—and I think it would be a great read if you’re looking for ace characters—but it feels a bit meh next to BRIM OVER BOOT.
Hey, everybody– I only have the energy to talk about books today, so here goes.
The Wicked by Thea Harrison
I decided to read this novella because I couldn’t remember reading it before. Hope springs eternal, but I had indeed read it, alas. I really miss new books in this series. Anyway, this was fine for a short urban fantasy novella, but didn’t make my socks go up and down.
The Scent of Happiness by Jordan Bloom
(Bingo: O-1, Niche hobby or career, soap making)
I found myself drawn into this story from the first couple of pages. The writing is cheerfully grounded in everyday reality, but there is an overlay of shiny enthusiasm and midwestern charm. I’d call it sweet, but it would imply no steam and that would be misleading. I loved how passionate Brooke, the FMC, is about her craft, and enjoyed the discussions of soap making and fragrance. (There is a LOT of sudsy detail.) Theo is not quite as appealing, but his time with Brooke transforms him from lawyerly to loverlike. Not all their choices are wise, but kindness and gentle humor alleviate the sting. I have to say that the level of almost supernatural nice in the big finale was a little cloying for my taste. As ever, YMMV.
Checking It Twice by Kendall Ryan
(Bingo: G-1, Mid-series, bk. 3, if I finish) DNF @67% No Bingo for me.
Hockey star needs a fake date for his family Christmas because ex-fiance ditched him for his bff, so he asks the team PR person to be his holiday plus one. She’s alone because: bad parents. Book isn’t terrible, but has no actual hockey and ALL the clichés. Sadly, I’m just not a Hallmark girlie. I’m waiting for a confrontation with the exes, but if there’s no drama, I’m outta there. (They’re sitting in first class en route home from Minnesota and they never even SAW the exes. Guess I’ll have to find another series to jump into.)
The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson
(Bingo: N-1, knotting)
This book was not what I expected it to be. Neither medical nor shifter romance are my thing, but needs must when the Bingo drives. The hospital scenes took place in the breakroom more than the emergency room, and the shifters were fully integrated in human society with no visible pack structure. I’d call it medical- and shifter-lite. This turned out to be more of a workplace rom-com than anything else. Still the MCs were a delight; the FMC especially had a funny, appealing voice, and the MMC was an adorable grouch. As for the knotting, there was lots of extremely spicy wolfy sex–more than I’m usually comfortable with in fact–but less of the entrapment vibe that comes with the fated mates thing. I’m looking forward to reading more by this author
Alchemical Reactions by Celia Lake
This short novella is a m/m closed door romance set in the run-up to Ursula Fortier’s wedding in 1947. The meandering story is tightened up in this short form, focusing on world building and personalities rather than complex plotting. While it is a pleasure revisiting favorite characters, I found that the story works fairly well on its own.
Ms. Renfield and the Inheritance Trap by Annika Martin
(Bingo: B-2? MsR=Swiss Army Knife?)
I think this is the first new urban fantasy that I’ve truly enjoyed in quite awhile, though it’s labeled “cozy paranormal mystery.” The FMC, Harriet (My name’s not Renfield.) Morgan is funny as hell, brilliant with data organization, and determined to keep the fangy MMC in his place. Ancient bloodsucker Alexandru makes being morally gray seem aspirational, but, like Harriet, he keeps his word. Basically, solving the mystery is necessary to keep Alexandru on his serial killer diet. [Insert bad Count Chocula joke here.] The supporting characters and the banter are all excellent. The mystery is solved satisfactorily, though not all the plot threads are neatly tied up. Happily, there will be a sequel this year and a little more of the romance arc. Personally, I cannot wait.
Heaven Forbid by Rosalind James
I was interested in reading this foray into historical romance because the post WWII decade is relatively unusual and because my late mother-in-law was a French war bride. There’s a lot of mid-century nostalgia here as well as domestic comedy from the same era. James also deals with serious issues of post-war bigotry, and her princess narrator dispenses a lot of cultural history in her very discursive voice. While this book did hold my interest, it did not fully work for me as a romance, being so intensely focused on Marguerite’s experiences. Recommended if you have an interest in the era.
Lady Avely’s Guide to Truth and Magic by Rosalie Oaks
I thought I’d read this for Bingo, because, based on my TBR, I am clearly “noun of stuff and things” averse. However, it doesn’t quite work. This Regency romance /paranormal/mystery mash up is quite cozy, mildly amusing, and fairly well written. Constant gothic-lite alarums and excursions are entertaining yet not terribly scary. The MCs, Judith and Dacian are likable, but the supporting cast aren’t notable for the depth of characterization. I enjoyed it, might read the series, but won’t reread.
The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal by Jodi Taylor
(Bingo: I-1 noun of stuff & things)
I think this comes closer to nos&t territory. What’s more, it’s the best book I’ve read this year! (Sort of like the Storm of the Century! in 2001.) This book just filled me up, satisfying all the needs that only books can fill. It’s a time traveling sci-fi adventure with one of those sneaky invisible romances. The reader knows it’s there even though one barely catches a glimpse until the big ta-dah! Also, the writing could not be more witty and stylish. Totally recommended.
Hello Bitchery. And in the interests of trying to be normal in the face of *all this*, Happy New Year to you all…
A (deliberately) very gentle reading start for me to 2026:
WAITING FOR THE FLOOD/CHASING THE LIGHT by ALEXIS HALL. M/M contemporary.
Alexis Hall is one of my favourite writers – he can make me laugh and cry all within a few pages and his descriptive prose is gorgeous. These are two related novellas (the latest versions have annotations by the author which are well worth reading), set in atmospheric, wintry Oxford, England. The sense of place is perfect and the protagonists are delicious. I guarantee you will be undone by Mr Froderick (just go with it). I saved these stories for a reading emergency and they hit the spot. All the stars. No notes.
Aiming to maintain the gentle mood, I then enjoyed AGENTS OF WINTER by ADA MARIA SOTO (companion to HIS QUIET AGENT) and OUR BRIGHT CHRISTMAS TOWN by ZARAH DETAND (an author I discovered very recently). Both books are low-angst M/M and highly recommended as comfort reads.
Otherwise, still in my feral phase for all things HEATED RIVALRY and delighted by today’s announcement from RACHEL REID of the third Ilya/Shane book: UNRIVALED.
Happy reading all.
@C
Roark was the first person I thought of when I saw “Swiss Army Knife character” on the Bingo card. Also, Akso at 1am, everybody’s an asshole.
Romancing the Duke’s depiction of fan culture in the Regency was so bizarre to me, I kind of lost my taste for the author.
@chacha1
I really loved Less. It was one of my rare non-genre reads and so rewarding. The narrator’s voice teeters between second and third person and took some getting used to, but the writing is often just simply beautiful. I’ve had Less Is Lost on the tbr for awhile now, but I am too spoiled for choice.
Over the past two weeks ~
— read The Things We Water by Mariana Zapata which was an enjoyable romantic fantasy but a long read. The female lead has powers that are revealed throughout the course of the book; she was abandoned as an infant but raised by a loving (werewolf) couple. When the book begins, she is in need of a place to live as the puppy she took in a couple of years earlier has suddenly developed red eyes and a tail with a flame on its tip.
— read A Dream of Daisies by Lemi Young, a romance novella which had a rather fairytale feel to it. This was set in a small town in a world with male/male, male/female, and female/female pairings (perhaps triads, too); male pregnancy is also possible. One lead wishes for a child and partner so uses an old form of advertising his interest by leaving a bouquet with specific flowers on his steps. Men in the town who are interested in partnering with him leave their own floral messages in reply.
— quite enjoyed An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister which is a contemporary romance between two academics set in Australia. The book begins in the present day but ranges from the leads’ time in college, graduate school, and their post-graduate years as they look and compete for full time teaching positions in English Literature. The chapters alternate his and her viewpoints; his contain footnotes!
— read His Bewildered Mate by Brea Alepoú, but it’s not a book I’ll read again or recommend. This is a contemporary romance that starts when an elderly widow goes to a private investigation agency looking for help to find her missing cat, Mr. Fluffkins. She’s unaware that all the investigators are shifters. I enjoyed the first part of the story (before the leads meet) as the PI tries to find Mr. Fluffkins (aka Dillan) while the latter tries to find his way home. I’ll mention that Dillan is a very unusual ‘cat’ who has, for example, learned to read. Once the leads meet, the story becomes very one dimensional.
— I have now read The Measure three times. Initially I read it for fun. Then last year, I read it for my local book group. My third read was for my distant book group. I enjoyed it yet again. The book has a unique premise. One morning everyone on earth (aged 22 and up) receives a small box outside their home (or tent or cardboard box or…). All are engraved, in the recipient’s native tongue, with the words “the measure of your life lies within” and with the recipient’s name. Inside each box is a string. People soon learn that the length of one’s string reflects the length of one’s life. The story focuses on eight Americans — some have long strings, some have short strings, one has a very short string, and one has not opened her box — as well as what happens in the US and worldwide.
— quite enjoyed Grave Situation by Louisa Masters which is a fantasy in which a quest to find the chosen one takes place. The lead character is a very snarky mage who comes to be in possession of a sentient rock. Accompanying them on the quest is his twin sister who is a dragon rider, her dragon, a renowned healer, and a horse who does a little matchmaking. Normally I’m irked when an author uses contemporary language in a fantasy; however, it works here.
— read Cleat Chaser by Aimee Rivkin, a contemporary polyamorous romance between a previously well to do young woman whose father has suddenly lost all his money, the baseball player she marries (they both have reasons), and his new teammate who is a rival. This was a pleasant read,but I preferred one of the author’s earlier books.
— read a bookish magazine, Oh Reader Issue 020. I surprised myself by reading all the articles in this edition which I found in a local Little Free Library. One of the articles made me tear up.
— enjoyed Seven Sisters by Celia Lake; this 1920s era fantasy is set in a world where a number of people/families have magic. The female lead is asked by the male lead’s nephew to investigate some strange events taking place at his family’s home which also serves as a boarding house.
I neglected to state above that The Measure is by Nikki Erlick.
I splurged on paper copies of Melissa Scott & Jo Graham’s Order of the Air series (five books so far). I re-read the first, Lost Things, as soon as it arrived. I really enjoy these stories set in the late 1920s/early 1930s about a group of pilots (and one academic) dedicated to using their mystical powers to fight evil. Of course I love everything Melissa Scott writes at this point, and I’m still reading my way through her Astrient vignettes (new ones appear weekly on her Patreon).
I finally started Jen Williams’ The Ninth Rain off my TBR stack, fully expecting it to be a DNF, because I couldn’t get into her first series (The Copper Cat). I was very happy to be wrong, and I was completely immersed in the story. The second book in the trilogy (series title is Winnowing Flames) is on the way. I also asked for and received for Christmas the first book in a duology, Talonsister. I think this might be a Jen Williams reading year, because there is a second duology that caught my eye, The Sleepless (a love triangle where the two main leads share a body?!).
Also from the TBR shelves, I re-started Secret Voices, subtitled A Year of Women’s Diaries, edited by Sarah Gristwood. It has three or four excerpts for each day of the year, so I’m planning to read along through the year. There are several famous diaries included, but the editor acknowledges that there are a lack of published diaries by women of color, or even unpublished ones easily available. It’s been an interesting mix so far, and I expect I will be trying to find more by some of the women. I already have the last of three volumes of Nella Last’s Mass Observation diaries from the UK, I read the first two last year.
Currently I am reading Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum, which may have been recommended on a previous WAYR. It is labeled “The heartwarming Korean smash hit,” but so far it is more serious than I was expecting, with the bookstore owner dealing with emotional and psychological issues, as do her customers. Maybe from the cover I was expecting it to be a bit twee.
Happy reading, everyone – as always, I enjoying seeing what books other people are enjoying – or not!
Finally reading again and am blazing (ha) through Ilona Andrews’s HIDDEN LEGACY series. Will finish WHITE HOT over lunch shortly and so glad I thought to pick up my hold on WILDFIRE yesterday so I can just keep reading. At first I was trying to make sense of the magical details and action, but then decided, eh, just go with it and enjoy the characters and banter.
Currently reading Ali Hazlewood’s MATE which I am not enjoying quite as much as BRIDE, and Martha Wells’ WITCH KING which is inventive and excellent. And around these reading Ada Palmer’s INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE which very good and well written.
I recently finished PRAIRIE FIRES which is a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder and it was fantastic. So well written and researched, I loved it despite the fact I generally never want to read a biography. I didn’t know that much about that era of US history so I learned a lot. I also learned about Rose Wilder Lane who was really a mess and not a particularly good person. Highly recommended for anyone who read the Little House books over and over again as I did.
This has been a heavy nonfiction month for me and I also read SUPER AGERS by Eric Topol, about aging healthily. Other than a very rah-rah medical AI section towards the end I liked it, and have incorporated a few of his suggestions into my life.
Otherwise a mixed bag in fiction & romance since I last posted:
TENDER CRUELTY – 9th installment in Dark Olympus, this book could’ve been an email. Not a good installment. I don’t love hate sex and this book was full of it. I just want to know what happens already and I really don’t see how the set up for redeeming A Character is going to work successfully.
ONLY ROGUE ACTIONS – not as good as some of the earlier entries but a fun space opera romp. Pretty short.
ELEANORE OF AVIGNON – loved this long, lyrical book. Not much of a romance, just a little, but a really wonderful historical fiction about a young woman who wants to be a doctor during the time of the first Black Plague outbreak in Avignon. Highly recommend.
THE IRRESISTIBLE URGE TO FALL FOR YOUR ENEMY – I liked this! About half way through I started thinking it had Dramione vibes, after I finished I read some reviews and realized that yes, that was intentional. It was fun and I liked the magic system lot, eager to read the next one.
THE EVERLASTING – one of my top two books for 2025. LOVED this. So good, I’m still thinking about it a month later.
Pure enjoyment:
* Mary Balogh’s f/m historic romance REMEMBER THAT DAY. This is a romance about two very different characters (a military man from a noble family and a young woman raised in an orphanage adopted by her teachers) who are currently aiming toward other life partners, though why they fall for each other made total sense to me. I read some reviews complaining about various aspects about this novel, but I just went where it took me and loved it, the characters and the very busy world. The summer fete was so delightful!
* Rachel Reid’s HEATED RIVALRY & THE LONG GAME. My library was so kind to have HEATED RIVALRY among their “always available audiobooks” so I could read it while watching the show. I had tried THE LONG GAME a while back on WAYR recs and didn’t like it, DNFed having not realized it was the second book about the couple. This time I loved it. These books–and the show–are so beautifully constructed. Damn.
* Ditto @PamG’s comments on Celia Lake’s M/M romance novella, ALCHEMICAL REACTIONS.
Mostly enjoyed a lot:
* Penny Reid’s Fundamentals of Biology f/m contemporary romance series, EVOLUTION, REPRODUCTION, and INHERITANCE. I love Penny Reid. My only complaint is that I felt it would have been stronger if it had been compressed just a little. Still, I loved hanging with her unique characters.
* Didn’t quite enjoy Nora Dahla’s f/m second-chance contemporary BACKSLIDE and much as her PICK-UP.
Mostly enjoyed a lot & plan to continue the series:
* Eloisa James’s f/m historic romance, MIDNIGHT PLEASURES. I didn’t think I liked Eloisa James, having bounced off her Wilde and fairy tales series, but I read a couple of her recent ones and liked them, and so tried this and liked it a lot
* Rachel Schneider’s f/m romantic fantasy METAL SLINGER. This one spends a lot of time in travel but I enjoyed the slow burn and especially the twist and so now an anxiously awaiting the next book in the series. I *think* this one is meant to be a duology.
* Tracy Deonn’s romantic YA fantasy, LEGENDBORN–what a great mix/clash of standard “special one” fantasy and Black folklore. So good.
Slow burn to favourite authors:
Some authors I’ve loved immediately but I’ve realized that there are authors I needed to learn how to read to really enjoy them, which meant reading more than one book before I really fell for their writing but now I trust and love them. Of course initially they have to intrigue me enough to do that. Reading Celia Lake’s books has been one of those. Aspects of the books–how the characters think and relate to one another are somewhat unique to this author and my love for her writing built as I read more of her work until now it’s just wholly enjoyment.
Penny Reid and Kristen Callihan are other authors I had the same experience with. All three of these are autobuy for me.
Also read and found enjoyable: Sangu Bandanna’s A WITCH’S GUIDE TO MAGICAL INNKEEPING; Kimberly Bea’s fantasy THE CHANGELING QUEEN (about the faery queen who tries to keep Tam Lin); J.T. Geissinger’s Gothic fantasy romance, BLACKTHORN.
And @DiscoDollyDeb, read and enjoyed Cate C. Wells’s SILENT FLAMES–thanks for the heads up about this one.
I went on a trip to visit family last week, so I feel like I’m having a delayed New Year start. Which is fine, I guess, but makes me feel a little out of sync.
I’ve spent the last several months fully immersed in Ilona Andrews Hidden Legacy series. I’d read all the other series from this author and somehow missed this one. I read them all and immediately started book 1 over and read them again. So it’s been hard to leave that world and read something different. But while at the airport (BNA), I stopped in Parnassus Books, determined to find something.
Excavations by Kate Myers was what I grabbed, going off nothing more than the cover, the back blurb, and a quick flip through the pages. The book deities were smiling on me because it was perfect, absolutely wonderful. 5 stars. I was only halfway through before I was already excited to reread it.
I had watched Heated Rivalry a few weeks ago, so I also read book 1 on my trip. In general, I don’t like to watch something after I’ve read the book, but doing it the other way around is great. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
I snagged The Dogs of Venice, a novella by Steven Rowley, at the library yesterday and that was a lovely quick read. Now I’m trying to find my next thing.
I DNF What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon. It just didn’t do it for me. The characters names drove me bonkers, one of those tiny little things that I couldn’t get past after a few chapters.
I’m just starting Sheepdogs, by Elliot Ackerman and I’m not sure I’m in the mood for dramatic/tense right now, so I might pick up something more gentle.
On the nonfiction side of things, I’m reading Love in a F*cked up World by Dean Spade and it’s amazing. I like to read poetry before turning out the lights at night and I’m reading A Maze Me, by Naomi Shihab Nye.
I’m a big believer in the right book at the right time. Back in 2010 I acquired and read 80% of Sherry Thomas historical romance. I have had “ Ravishing the Heiress” on my bookshelf for YEARS. For whatever reason picked it up after Xmas and DEVOURED IT. I was so obsessed I read all the novellas too! I have just gotten “ Tempting the Bride” from the library. BUT I’m stalling reading it because I know it’s her last historical . I really started my love of historicals in 2006. This has encouraged me to go back and read some from that era. I still have some Carolyn Jewel on my shelf might do that. Any recs for historicals like Sherry Thomas?
So, picking up where I left off from last time…
I finished BODY CHECK by Brigham Vaughn, the second book in the Scoring Chances series about the fictional Boston Harriers hockey team (M/M, hockey romance). This one features GM Gavin and yoga/Pilates instructor, Dakota, who decide to be “not-really-friends with benefits” after Gavin bails on a hookup one too many times. It was pretty good even if I didn’t like it as much as the first one, but there were things I loved—like Dakota being a top! I’ve read a lot of M/M romances where Dakota, as a vegan/yoga instructor would be written as the bottom, but not here. Not only that, but when Gavin tells him that he prefers to top as well, Dakota doesn’t back down and agree to bottom—so they have to figure out how sex is going to work for them (which they do, of course). I wasn’t entirely sold on Gavin’s backstory with his twin brother, but since I knew Thad was getting his own book, I didn’t quibble about it as much as I might’ve otherwise.
Next up in the series was SLEW FOOT, which features D-men Mickey and Rafe. Mickey’s good but struggles to gel with anyone he’s partnered with, so the team trades for Rafe, who’s desperate to leave Minnesota after a difficult breakup with one of his teammates. Rafe swears he’s not going to fall in love with a teammate ever again, which is why he spends so much of the book fighting his feelings for Mickey. Too much of the book, if you ask me, which is why this is my least favorite of the four that have been published so far. Mickey and Rafe as characters were fine, but the storyline was kind of boring.
Then there was DELAYED PENALTY, which is Thad’s story. Thad works as part of the team’s social media crew, while Graham’s one of the Harriers’ star offensive weapons. The two think of themselves as just good friends until one night, when clowning around leads to an unexpected kiss that neither can stop thinking about. Graham’s always believed he was straight, but his feelings for Thad become too much for him to deny. They decide to start dating, but there are two problems: Thad only got his job by blackmailing Gavin and was warned that he’d be out if he got involved with any of the players, while Graham’s mother is running for district attorney back home—and did I mention that Thad’s an ex-con? This book was my favorite of the series to date. Thad’s a complicated character—a foolish decision made when he and Gavin were eighteen led to him spending ten years in prison and drove a wedge between them that’s lasted nearly twenty-five years. They’re slowly rebuilding their relationship, but it’s definitely not an easy road. Graham may not have the complexity Thad does, but he’s exactly what Thad needs—someone who accepts him for everything he is, good and bad, which is something Thad’s never really had.
Finally, for the Unhinged Bingo Card, I read SPOILER ALERT by Olivia Dade (clearly a stand-in for a real life celebrity). This is the story of a famous actor who asks out a fan after she posts a pic of herself cosplaying as half of her favorite couple on his television show and ends up getting a lot of negative attention because she’s plus-sized. The twist in this story is that the actor has secretly been dealing with his frustration about the show by writing fanfic that would ruin his career if anyone finds out what he’s done—and the fan is his beta reader. I’ve tried writing my mixed emotions about this book several times and keep deleting what I’ve written. I’ll leave it at this: I’m in the fandom of the ship (Jaime/Brienne) Dade used as inspiration for the book, so while there are parts of the story I found amusing, there were other parts that made me cringe. If she’d done a better job of filing off the serial numbers of what’s so obviously a self-insert RPF, I might’ve enjoyed it more because I’m always on board for a book that blasts the GoT ending and imagines how the actors might’ve dealt with their frustration. I got through it, but I don’t think I’ll read the other two books in the series.
What am I currently reading? THE LAST GUY ON EARTH by Sarina Bowen (Bingo entry: Start mid-series); GAME CHANGER by Rachel Reid (because aren’t we all reading that series? Oh, and Bingo entry: OG cover was replaced by an illustrated one); and I’m listening to STORY OF A MURDER by Hallie Rubenhold on audio.
Just started reading Sense & Sensibility for the first time. Unfortunately, I didn’t get anywhere close to finishing it before tonight’s read-a-long live-show discussion on YouTube, but I’m going to finish it anyway just for the heck of it. (They’re covering Then Came You, by Lisa Kleypas tomorrow afternoon. I will definitely be more prepared for that discussion.)
Also currently reading A Little Princess, and A Brief History of Unicorns, by the Magical Unicorn Society, which has beautiful artwork.
After the week I’ve had, it might be time for a mini book shopping spree.
(Add me to the list of newbs who are just now hearing about Heated Rivalry, and are also wondering why the pearl-clutchers aren’t raising a stink yet.)
@HeatherS ha, that explains why I liked a YA book – it is not in fact YA. I was so proud of myself, too. Makes no difference, really, since coming of age/Bildungsroman are also off putting to me, so I can still pretend to be broadening my horizons here.
(I really appreciate people who mark their reads as KU so I know that I can’t access them!)
New Year is not starting out great for reading. My BFF suggested we read A RARE FIND together, so I started it and then it turned out they won’t be able to read it. I was enjoying it so far, so I hope I can pick it up again soon.
I have not managed to finish any GAME CHANGERS books aside from HEATED RIVALRY, but I tried COMMON GOAL. The non-hockey player is adorable but I think the age gap might be too much for me, and both characters feel a bit shallow. I loved both of Reid’s more recent hockey romances, though. I reread Ari Baran’s DELAY OF GAME and GAME MISCONDUCT and I loved them even more the second time through. Apparently they have a new book coming out soon!!!
I started THE WATCHMAKER OF FILIGREE STREET, but had some misgivings and after reading Goodreads reviews, decided to abandon it. Maybe I’ll try one of Pulley’s later books, though.
I decided to start THE SHUTTLE by Frances Hodgson Burnett and it’s great so far! Also downloaded a bunch of other popular Project Gutenberg romances and I’ll update if any of them are worth reading.
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri – ff
4.5 stars – I enjoyed this immersive queer fantasy but didn’t love it quite as much as The Jasmine Throne.
Bingo: Niche business or hobby (also Book in a book)
Atoms Never Touch by micha cárdenas
3.5 stars – Queer, feminist cyberpunk novel. Instead of being set in a dystopian future, it’s set, more or less, in our dystopian present, with different technology. I enjoyed it but the writing style was a little hard to get into.
Pretty Pucked by Olivia M. Green
3 stars – Cute, low stakes Sapphic romance with waaay too much pining and not enough communicating.
The two MCs meet through a work thing and they become friends. Flirty friends. Flirty friends who keep wondering if the other one is really flirting with them. At first I enjoyed it but it went on too long and I got impatient for one of them to actually say something, instead of just resolving to say something and then backing down.
And also, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but not enough hockey to actually call this a hockey romance. One of the MCs is a hockey player but it’s barely mentioned.
SBTB unhinged bingo 2025: 1st person book copy. Also illustration with no faces.
And of course, I reread Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid. I’m in the minority in that I don’t much care for the book but I did love the tv show. I’m astounded by how the show could be such a faithful adaptation and also take the story to the next level.
Bingo: OG cover replaced with illustration. Also – maybe AITA?
Iam so glad you asked. I now have a data base of books I have read since the first of this year. Thanks for the download. My first database ever. So.
Prior to the end of the year, I read the Dark and Stormy series. The first was SILENT VOW by Maya Alden and it was much better written than some of her very early works, less old school. Hitman falls for his intended victim. I liked it. The second was VEILED SILENCE by Eve Black who I had not read before. Marriage in trouble. A lot of trouble. He grovels fairly well. I liked it a lot and will read other books by Ms. Black. The third was SILENT PROMISES by Christine Michelle. They were together as teens, he cheated on her. She disappeared. Now he’s found her and so has her mob boss dad. Ny least favorite of the series. But OK. The fourth was SILENT FLAMES by Cate C Wells. Another marriage in deep trouble. But it turns out, neither was honest going into the relationship. She and her daughters walk in on him cheating. And craziness, literally, ensues. I really liked this one. Two broken people who had been putting on a good show dealing with the collapse of the relationship and themselves and trying to find a way to reconnect. Loved it. YMMV
BOUGHT BACK BY MY EX’S COMPANY by Ava Jackson. She was fired for something that was not her fault, blacklisted, by her boyfriend and his company. She is now working at a start-up that his company buys. Because he still loves her and is will to forgive what he thinks she did. This is not her happy face. I did enjoy the read, though.
I also discovered Rosa Lucas and read her Billionaire Brit series all of which I loved. LOVE TO LOATHE HIM is the first. The HR head accidently shares her diary with the CEO, about how she loathes him and still fantasizes. He has always thought she was hot. He says he values her honesty but IRL he does not always trust her. DARE TO LOVE ME, he was the aristocratic boy growing up and she was the housekeeper’s much younger daughter. Now they “meet cute” when his nephew uses his house for a tinder date with her. oops. He’s a surgeon and she sells garden tools on a shopping network. I thought the class issues made a lot of sense. NOT MINE TO LOVE, she is a programmer who is brilliant but very low self-esteem and he is CEO of a hotel company about to have the program she worked on go live. He’s also BFFs with her brother. I liked seeing her improve her confidence. The Scottish setting was also good.
And one I did not like as much. VOWS OF DECEIT by RJ Wolemas. He is cheating and she sets him up to be exposed publicly. She does not take him back but goes on to be with someone else. So I guess that makes it a romance? The story was intriguing. But I did not enjoy the writing; it was choppy. And the first half, working up to the revenge, dragged on and on.
Anyhow, hope you are all surviving 2026. Gotta say, not much of this was on my bingo card.
:::walks in, looks around, gestures helplessly:::
HOW are we only 10 days into this year?
Okay, minor nervous meltdowns aside…since last time, I appear to be on a bit of a historical fiction tear. I imagine that we can source this to :::gestures at everything helplessly again:::. Since last time, I got in on the latest Stacey Lee, Heiress of Nowhere. It involves an orphaned young woman that grows up on Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest. She’s got an uncanny ability to communicate with the orcas that live around the island and ends up suddenly inheriting, well, everything on the island due to her benefactor/father figure being gruesomely murdered. It’s got a nice little mystery, in both the murders that kick off the book and the main character trying to investigate her own origins, and how those investigations converge. Then it was Murder In Manhattan by Julie Mulhern. I really liked the characters and how she incorporated real-life historical figures (it probably took me longer than it should have to figure out that “Dotty” was Dorothy Parker). Which brings us to now, in which I’ve just started If Looks Could Kill by Julie Berry. It takes the Medusa myth and plonks it down in 19th century NYC, wherein a certain Saucy Jack has come to America and is stalking new hunting ground, and being stalked in his own right. I am very much in a “let’s have some bad things happen to bad men” state of mind at the moment, and all the reviews said I should get that out of this. So until next time, seriously, let’s have bad things happen to bad men.
Happy New Year!
Just finished EARLY CRUSH by Alexandra Vasti. First five star book of the year – M/F regency. Excellent characters and very sweet and spicy.
Looking forward to all of your recs! Happy reading in 2026!
The E.M.M.A. Effect, book two in a series. But, it’s so different from the first. The first had time travel. This one has a STEM gal with a computer algorithm taking over. Both have a Jane Austen modern theme, but they work, connected by a hockey team.
@Libraryladyl
When I was reading Sherry Thomas’s historical romances, I was also reading Meredith Duran’s books, Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series, Courtney Milan’s earlier work, Loretta Chase’s earlier work including the Carsington series, and Julie Anne Long’s Pennyroyal Green series. I also like JAL’s current Palace of Rogues series. These are all authors I picked up due to SB-TB.
I will say that while Thomas’s books have some of the most beautiful writing of any I’ve encountered in historical romance, the other five authors all gave me equal pleasure. Most are Regency era/19th century, but the Maiden Lane series is Georgian, I believe.
@Azure
I read the Olivia Dade series you mentioned, and I have to say that the third book, Ship Wrecked was my favorite by a lot, with two really strong MCs. IIRC, Each book worked fairly well as a standalone. That said, I never watched GoT so I would be unlikely to spot problems with the derivative.
You guys I have stumbled on to my new obsession read and am totally down the rabbit hole of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower. I am on volume 5 of 8 and will 1000% feel bereft when I get to the end. Emma is fantastic, as is Young Hawkes and the Reprobate 10, Niall Pierce, Rowland (childhood nemesis turned sun god), and the Duke of Islington, not to mention the amazing setting of St. Crispins, which I really want to live in and embrace all of its quirks. No official romance so far (Emma is mourning her first love Maxwell who died) but I cannot recommend highly enough, the writing and story and characters are sooo good. (Aside from Cousin Archibald, but stick with it to spite him, ok?)
I FINALLY finished The Count of Monte Cristo shortly before the new year (and followed it up by binge watching Gankutsuou with my boyfriend, which was an excellent adaptation but I was saddened that they straightwashed Eugenie). I’m currently wading into The Raven Scholar which is intriguing but stressful; I’d really like bad things to stop happening to PoV characters long enough for me to take a breath. I might need a cozy book as a parallel read along to give me some respite if it carries on in this vein.
I missed the last couple of Whatcha Readings, so I’ll start with December. I read THE MOST WONDERFUL CRIME OF THE YEAR by Ally Carter, and it was pretty entertaining. It’s a locked-door mystery romcom, set during the Christmas season in an isolated English mansion. Then I read several historical mysteries in Sheri Cobb South’s John Pickett series, namely FAMILY PLOT, DINNER MOST DEADLY, THE WAITING GAME, and TOO HOT TO HANDEL. These books are all humorous, with a slow-developing cross-class romance between a Bow Street runner and a Viscount’s widow. Her writing is delightful enough to take your mind off whatever is going on(waves arms around).
I also enjoyed an old Regency romance by Carola Dunn, THE MISER’S SISTER.
I’ve often turned to D.E. Stevenson as a comfort read, but the last book I tried by her was anything but! THE YOUNG CLEMENTINA started off so depressing I almost DNF’d it. There are lots of sad events, then a last minute HEA but the MCs spend barely any time together. I can’t really recommend it.
So far in January, I’ve read an ARC of Julia Justiss’s THE NEW EARL’S CONVENIENT WIFE. She’s a long time Harlequin Historical line author, and this was your typical friends-to-lovers Regency romance with mild spice.
MR. PICKWICK’S GUIDE TO MARRIAGEABLE YOUNG LADIES by Jill Beene was free at Amazon last week so I picked it up on a whim, and it is much better than I expected. I am thoroughly enjoying this story of a woman who is left without family or money. Rather than become a governess or servant, she makes ends meet by writing and publishing the guide of the title under the Mr. Pickwick pseudonym. She still has a friend who is part of society, who gives her cast-off dresses, and brings her along to attend society events, so she can get the information she needs to write the guide. But after attracting the attention of a Duke, her anonymity is in danger. This would have been enough to go on with in to make an enjoyable book, but I’m now at the 3/4 mark, and a kidnapping plot has popped up! I recommend this book if you enjoy historicals, it’s no longer free but it is on KU.
I also read 2 short sci-fi/fantasy novellas by Michelle Diener, BREAKING OUT PART I and PART II. More reworking of the MCs escaping from captivity, a trope she revisits frequently. Either you like it or you don’t, and I never get tired of a prison escape.
Haven’t been here in a while, as I was away travelling most of November and early December. I’ll try to wrap all the stuff I read up in a few posts:
AFTER HOURS AT DOORYARD BOOKS – Cat Sebastian, m/m set in the 60s. Loved this, just what I needed. Some say all vibes no plot. I would say, not a huge plot, but things do happen. It’s more about the characters and the emotional journey they’re on and how they change, get better. Found family elements. And how to find a place that fits you in a shitty world. Check out the CW – though most of that is in the past and not actually happening on page.
OUTRUN THE RAIN, INTO THE TEMPEST, TOUCH THE LIGHTNING – NR Walker, m/m contemporary. I had these on my TBR for a while and finally read them. There’s also a prequel novella that features another couple that turns up as side characters: SECOND CHANCE AT FIRST LOVE. This one can be read on it’s own, the other three books need to be read in order – they’re shortish and I would say they would make more sense as one book IMHO. There are no cliffhangers at the end of each book and I would say the first one ends with an HEA, though rather abruptly and no epilogue – that one only follows at the end of book three. These are set in the north of Australia’s Northern Territory, Darwin and Kakadu National Park. Knowing these places, this was an important draw for me to read them, and I like Walker’s books. The description of the nature and it’s forces is great – our heroes are a hobby storm chaser and a fulminologist. There are some terrifying scenes, especially in book three (cue bad decisions book club), but they’re fine in the end and I did like these and there are some great side characters. The one thing that I didn’t like is that Tully’s family, for all his appearance, of course owns a super successful company and they’ve got those big fancy houses and all the money you can throw at things if needed. It’s just so unnecessary but convenient for some plot points. This is something that I find I can accept less these days.
THE KITE, THE BAIT, THE TEAM – NR Walker, m/m contemporary/action/thriller. I went in for more NR Walker after the others. These are all connected, could be read on their own but I would suggest reading in order. Secret agents/hired assassins types in secenarios that I would not call realistic. Lots of super duper tech in the background, lots of violence and characters going from insta-lust to love very quickly. They’re also not very long books so things have to go fast. The last book features an already established couple that showed up at the end of book two, and the idea seems to be to just put them in danger… I read them all in the end because I was curious as to what happens next. Much as I love some of Walkers books, these were not my usual cup of tea.
TALLOWWOOD, THE KITE & TALLOWWOOD CHRISTMAS CROSSOVER – NR Walker, m/m contemporary murder mystery. Tallowwood was a good murder mystery, though the solution veered a little much into “everybody was behind it” in the end. It has a jaded cold case investigator and a younger, enthusiastic small town cop who find that their cases connect. The second book is novella that crosses over with The Kite and really only makes sense if you’ve read these two books.
THE STATION – Keira Andrews, m/m historical. Another one off my TBR, featuring a typical Andrews trope: age gap. It’s a thing in many of her books, and the younger MC is usually around 19/20 and the older one in his 30s or late 20s, so YMMV on this. Here it’s ok from my view, and it’s also an adveture story set in the 19th century with our heroes being convicted for transportation from England to Australia and then the main plot happening in Australia. It’s ok, though there are some elements I would question, like the main baddie really being put in his place forever at the end and the depiction of the Indigenous characters. Yes, we see them through the lens of 19th century Europeans, but it still left me with an aftertaste. I think this could have been done better – or they didn’t have to be Indigenous. Not that I don’t want Indigenous characters, but either do them right and let them be there as real people with a real purpose and not just for plot reasons, or leave it.
TO TEMPT A TROUBLED EARL, TO DEFEND A DAMAGED DUKE, TO BEGUILE A BANISHED LORD – Fearne Hill m/m historical. This is a sort of Regency prequel to Hill’s modern-set Rossingley series. That one features the current earl of Rossingley in book one (the only one I read in that series) and this newer series features his ancestor and his family and friends. I was in the mind of a bit of Regency m/m, so I dove in. They can be read on their own I would say, but there are connected characters and the Earl from book one keeps popping up in the other books, so reading them in order is more fun. They all feature sort of similar-ish couples, each with a big dark-haired MC and a smaller, light-haired, more fem type as the other MC. That said, books 1 and 2 also mix a commoner with a nobleman (book 2 is also a second chance romance), whilst book 3 is more focusing on the nobility and has an age gap couple along the lines of what Andrews does. They were ok, though book 2’s title is misleading IMHO, and book 3 features to me unnecessary dramatics and the reason for the older MC, who is the antagonist in book 2 for turning that way is too easily explained…
MERRY AND BRIGHT – NR Walker, m/m contemporary. This is Walker’s newes entry in her continuing Christmas series. I haven’t read the other ones, the characters from those obviously popped up in the story, but it was easy to read this one without having read the other one. This one features an asexual MC and the other MC is autistic and touch-averse. I think these themes were treated well in this story, and for all the issued the MCs had in the past due to their not conforming to mainstream views of sexualilty, the story was very cute and felt the right amount of cosy. Just what I needed whilst the world news was a complete sh**show.
SILK & SAND and SILVER & GOLD, Katherine Diane’s MM Fantasy Romance Duology. Seth is an arcanist on a mission, Raider is a charming nomadic trader Seth hires to get him across a desert to find his target. It goes as you’d expect for this genre but the plot was twisty and the characters appealing. Moderate steam and both characters had experienced trauma with Raider’s being quite horrific.
@kkw, I think you were looking for queer romance that is not contemporary. These aren’t new (2024, I think) but they are definitely an escape from reality.
HOW TO STAND UP TO A DICTATOR by Maria Ressa, who won a Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Dmitry Muratov for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” She was also recognized for her work actively fighting fake news. A lot of her fame comes from the work she’s done as co-founder of Rappler, an online news site. The government of the Philippines has prosecuted personally and Rappler, ordering it shut down (court has since reversed that). This is not a dry primer on tactics, she shows you how she’s done it through her life and work. Amazing.
I have not watched HR, mostly because I looked at the actors and thought they looked like they’re about the same size and I remember Ilya being much bigger. Based on the sheer number of glowing recommendations here, I may give it a shot.
@JT Alexis – ymmv, but the actor who plays Ilya plays him with so much swagger that I didn’t notice the lack of size difference
I read “Oath of the Wolf” by Elisabeth Wheatley – fantasy romance, very well-written and compelling story, sequel to “Tears of the Wolf”. She’s also a history buff, so she does her research and it shows.
Forgot one more…
ACT LIKE IT – Lucy Parker, m/f contemporary. Finally bought it when it was on sale last year, as this received so much praise here. And it was worth it! I don’t read a lot of m/f and even less contemporary, but this one was a lot of fun with the right amount of feels. Cleverly written, with a relatable female lead (even though I know nothing about the theatre business or being an actress) and a grumpy male MC who’s really a good guy underneath it all.
@Midge: if you haven’t read N.R. Walker’s Missing Pieces Trilogy, I strongly recommend it. Excellent use of the amnesia trope.