Happy Saturday! June is coming to a close. Here’s what we’re reading right now:
Lara: I’m reading a new-to-me Regency romance author: Rachel Griffiths. The book is called Just for the Season ( A | BN | K | AB ) and so far it’s a delight. Not a lot of historical detail which is usually not for me, but the heroine has such verve and bite, that I’m a fan anyway. Full review coming!
Claudia: Trying to continue with Amy Rose Bennett’s The Governess’s Guide to Spells and Managing Misfit Marquesses ( A | BN | K | AB ) but I don’t know. Not feeling it.
Sarah: I’m reading Scandal of the Summer by Alexandra Vasti ( A | BN | K | AB ) and it is CHARMING AF.
Amanda: Pregnancy has me all over the place. Two weekends ago, I read three books and then haven’t touched anything since. I also keep vacillating between dark romances and Why Choose romances.
At the top of my pile right now is Beautiful Venom by Rina Kent. ( A | BN )
Whatcha reading? Tell us in the comments!
It was so hot last night that I couldn’t sleep, so I started a reread of Anna Chronistic and the Scarab of Destiny. It’s just so much fun.
Out in the garden, I’ve been reading The Player’s Boy (Antonia Forest). I ordered the paperback the moment Girls Gone By announced they were doing a reprint a few years ago, but didn’t have the brain to actually read it. Our Hero Joins Shakespeare’s Company feels a bit overdone these days, but I’m reading this torn between stunned admiration of how Forest managed to get such a bowdlerisation-free portrait of the Elizabethan theatre past her editors and stunned admiration of the way she writes.
On vacation and mostly using Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart as my beach read (I’m not technically at a beach but vacation is a beach state of mind). It’s been recommended over and over to me by authors I like who adore it and cite it as an influence. I’ve been a little leery because fantasy about China written by a white man in the eighties but have decided to say screw it and enjoy the potentially problematic fave. The characters are fun and the prose is lovely and it’s bursting with charm! Annnd kinda sexist and orientalist because eighties. Eh. Still having a good time.
In between I’m getting started on Little Thieves, by Margaret Owen, because it’s part of a series under consideration for the Hugo Awards and I’m trying to vote responsibly and be Informed.
This is one of those weeks where I know I read things, but looking back on my e-reader, the books aren’t inspiring a lot of words. I think I’ll just focus on the past week, since those are all books that will count for bingo.
The Bride by Julie Garwood
Bingo: Non-Regency Historical, Scot, Fave Author, Rec, Flowers on the Cover (old paperback edition)
I loved this one when I first read it back in the 90’s, so even though I barely remembered the plot, I am looking at it through nostalgia colored glasses. I picked the ebook up on sale a few weeks ago, but when I realized it could count for so many bingo squares, it seemed like sign to move its position on Mt TBR to allow a summer start date. OK, so the first thing you need to know about this book is that it is very much a comedy from 1989. Do you remember 1989? Moonlighting and Dynasty were ending, while The Simpsons and Seinfeld were just getting started. Michael Jackson was the King of Pop and the New Kids on the Block were in town. Things have changed. So, when reading this book, when a character does something dumb, it is worth asking “Is this supposed to be funny?” Like, a lot of the humor comes from our medieval English heroine arriving in Scotland as the new bride of a powerful warlord without a clue what she’s gotten herself into and just forging on ahead without a consideration for differences in culture or practicality. She means well, but she’s infuriating in the “I’m pretty so I can get away with anything but I’m not perfect because I have a bad sense of direction” way. Then again, our hero’s default mode of communication is shouting and thinks that she’s beautiful when she’s angry so he spends most of their time together trying to piss her off. So, there are spots that are kind of cringe, but it’s good if you want a book that doesn’t take itself too seriously. (90’s me is terrified that my attempt to add context will scare you away from one of her favorites. It really is worth reading!)
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
Bingo: Vacation Spot, Contemporary, Maybe Food Industry
This 2021 romcom will likely work better for someone else, as I had a hard time relating to the female lead who is a 28-year-old “Party Princess” living her best life in LA on her stepdad’s money. The book starts with her breaking into a hotel pool to throw an unauthorized party, getting arrested, and being banished (with her sister) to her late father’s seaside hometown for three months to let things in LA calm down. There she learns that real personal connections make her happier than all the likes she used to get on instagram and falls in love with a local fisherman. The food industry bit relates to them fixing up their dad’s old bar to throw a party, but since we were 80% of the way through before anyone realized that they might need a liquor license to run a bar (and it was never brought up again), I wouldn’t call this a serious look at food industry. It was fine, but this girl needs a competent therapist and a life skills coach more than she needs a relationship. (28 year olds who can’t make their own dinner without setting something on fire hit me as more sad than funny, you know? Why do so many romance authors assume that “comically bad at cooking” is relatable? Is it the “I’m not perfect because I’m clumsy” for older readers? Does it help the readers feel superior to the characters? What’s going on?)
The Wrong Vintage: A Marriage of Convenience Romance (The House of Alighieri Book 1) by Maya Alden
Bingo: Vacation Spot, Recently Published, Latest In Series
Maya Alden writes angsty contemporaries that feel like old soap operas with lots of rich families behaving badly, other woman drama, betrayals, and grovel. This one follows Alessia, the oldest Alighieri daughter, whose dream is to be the chief winemaker for her family’s wine empire, and her husband, Nico, who married her in order to gain the CEO position in her family’s company. And they haven’t seen each other since the wedding 6 months ago since he lives near the company headquarters, and she lives at one of the vineyards. But there have been rumors that he’s seeing far too much of the company’s PR head, who also happens to be a former girlfriend. Once they actually spend some time together, they realize that they want the marriage of convenience to succeed. This book is for someone who wants lots of descriptions of wine, wine making, and Italy, along with competent adults characters who make understandable mistakes and put in the work to make things right.
I read Time Loops and Meet Cutes by Jackie Lau. I thought it was pretty good. I don’t know if I’d classify it as romance or fantasy.
I listened to Temper by Layne Fargo. I liked it better than her other suspense title, They Never Learn. It’s definitely an ‘everybody sucks’ book though.
I’m currently reading the kingdoms by Natasha Pulley and am really enjoying it.
I continue to have more luck w/audio than eyeball reading, but that may start to change since I’m in the slow season at my job.
I listened to MURDER AT BRIGHTWELL by Ashley Weaver. Historical mystery w/a wealthy semi-estranged couple solving mysteries together in the 1930s. This is the first in the series. I tried it years ago and dnf b/c I found the philandering husband so annoying. But I ended up liking Weaver’s more recent Electra McDonnell series, so I decided to give this a try again. I did feel like the love triangle b/t the heroine, her husband and her ex fiance was silly and contrived, but I did enjoy it when I started imagining the caddish husband as Cary Grant. (I always tell my husband I don’t need a celebrity pass unless Cary Grant comes back from the dead).I will listen to the next one since the mystery was fairly well constructed and I’ve noticed the narrator for the next book, Alison Larkin, which is a huge step up from the narrator for the first book.
My other listen was A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER by Holly Jackson. This was a YA mystery that seemed inspired by one of the granddaddy of true crime podcasts, SERIAL. A teenage girl believes a boy in her small town and has been unjustly accused of murder and sets out to find the truth. The plot strained credibility at times but I feel like sometimes you can’t let too much reality get in the way of a good twist that feels both surprising and emotional. Heads up. An animal gets hurt. That’s not a dealbreaker for me and it was off page, but I know it is for some. I was a bit surprised to see it in a YA, even if this is a bit older YA (16-17) w/ other adult topics. I’ve already got the next one cued since I love a good epistolary story.
I finished DARK WATERS by Katherine Arden, the third book in a middle grade horror book series. It had been a while since I jumped in and I had a bit of a hard time remembering everything going on, but it came back to me. The kids are stranded on an island shrouded in mist. A monster is hunting them from the water and the island seems haunted. This is about the level of horror my mind can handle. Also w/my brain struggling to get into books, I wanted something short that I knew wouldn’t miss. This was a good pick for that. It did end on a cliffhanger and I plan to read the next one soon.
So as you can see if you made it this far, I haven’t been reading any romance 🙁 Nothing is hitting quite right, but maybe I will try SB Summer Bingo and see if something catches my fancy that way.
I finally remembered to write down some of the things I’ve been reading! I don’t keep track as a matter of course.
THE KEEPER OF MAGICAL THINGS- Julie Leong (can’t remember if I mentioned this before). Set in the same world as previous book but with different characters. Fantasy with a sweet sapphic romance. Not angsty but substantial and championing kindness and ordinary people.
Re-read of Patricia Briggs’s ALPHA AND OMEGA. I wish I could get into Briggs’ Mercy Thompson universe more, but it’s often too violent/stressful for me. But this short story of Anna and Charles’s first meeting is a reliable re-read.
Celia Lake’s newest, UNKNOWN DEPTHS. This one explores selkie communities in Scotland. M/F romance. Lake has created such an expansive world with intriguing nooks and crannies. Also read her collection of extra scenes, THE CHANGING DOOR.
I pulled out K. L. Noone’s M/M contemporary paranormal romance FROST & RAINE because I remembered liking it, and apparently her writing is exactly what my brain needs right now. She’s got a ton of books in Kobo Plus, so I dove in and have read: A FLOWERING OF INK, SNOWED IN, MIDWINTER FIRELIGHT, MIDWINTER MUSIC, MIDWINTER MARRIAGE, A VALENTINE FOR VIOLET, PIPPIN AND ROSE AND FIR, and the collection FLASHES. All M/M romance, different genres: fantasy, paranormal, contemporary, historical fantasy. I love her writing style, most of the stories are low-angst, and there’s a lot of joy runniing through them.
I am also re-reading Ilona Andrews’s THIS KINGDOM WILL NOT KILL ME, trying to read it slowly this time, and pick up what I missed in my first gobbling up of the book.
After the sob fest of the previous posting I picked up MRS. NASH’S ASHES by Sarah Adler thinking road trip romance! I could give the Kleenex box a rest. But no. Former child star Millie made a promise to her elderly best friend, to somehow reunite her with her long-lost first love. Now she’s racing the clock to Florida with three teaspoons Mrs. Nash’s ashes. Enter Hollis, an acquaintance who white knights her out of an airport encounter with a creepy fan and then a place in his car when their flight is cancelled. This isn’t the first time he’s done this. He drove her home from a party on the worst night of her life. Hollis is surly and cynical (yes, my catnip) and wholly sceptical of Millie’s mission. Along the way there’s Italian/Mexican fusion food, a suicidal deer, quirky small town festivals and just one bed. Interspersed with their adventures is the story of Rosie and Elsie who meet when they’re both stationed on Key West during WWII. While much of the delightful rom-com here (And I do mean delightful. Oh, the banter!) this is also the story a story about about loss and grief. I laughed, I wept. I was delighted.
Now I’m working my way through THE RED WINTER by Cameron Sullivan. I have no idea how this ended up on my tbr, and I really need to start checking page counts. That being said, I’m sort of enjoying it? It’s a multi time line story of Professor Sebastian Grave who has been called back to Gévaudan to complete a task started 20 years, hunting down a rampaging beast that is terrorizing the lands of his former lover. Quelle surprise, while this story is full of magic, demons and angels features actual historical figures, most prominently Gilles de Rais, former military leader and contemporary of Jeanne d’Arc who was eventually executed for, among other things, the rape and murder of children. While that hasn’t happened, so far anyway, there is still A LOT of gruesome death in these pages. BE YE WARNED.
I have la Nora’s THE FINAL TARGET on deck. I’m sure I’ll need the palate cleanser.
I’m currently reading Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd. I love the MFC. She’s a no nonsense former nun. It takes place at a boarding house post WW2. It’s the first book of the Nora Breen investigates series and based on the first book, I will read the second.
I finished Ask for Andrea by Noelle Ihli. Talk about going through the gamut of emotions. I started off feeling hopelessness at the beginning to feeling hope by the end. I’d love for this to be a tv miniseries as long as it’s in the right hands.
I am reading FATHER MATERIAL by Alexis Hall. And I am laughing. Out loud. So, so much. Thank you Alexis Hall!
Recent reads have been fine, not great. Although I really liked Laura Piper Lee’s first two books (HANNAH TATE, BEYOND REPAIR and ZOE BRENNAN, FIRST CRUSH), her new novel POT SHOT, which she describes as a “stoner comedy,” didn’t hit the mark for me. The MMC was just too much of an a-hole for too much of the book–he’s even described by other characters as “Dr. A-hole”–and his redemption arc that’s crucial to making this a believable second-chance romance wasn’t convincing. The FMC was likable, though, and I appreciated her dedication to helping people with chronic illnesses find relief via medicinal cannabis alternatives to conventional approaches. I’m not a fan of stoner comedies in other media, so my low-enthusiasm response to this book is most likely a me problem. I still enjoy Lee’s writing style, and I’ll look forward to reading her next book when it’s available in fall.
I didn’t realize the two newest romances by Abby Jimenez were part of a new series featuring a group of shared characters, and I read them in reverse order. It didn’t matter a lot, other than needing to spend a few minutes figuring out the location logistics (are they in Minnesota or California?) for the two sets of MCs who appeared in both books. Overall, THE NIGHT WE MET (second book in the series) was frustrating for me. I liked MMC Chris and FMC Larissa and their numerous banter-filled shared experiences, but the plot dragged out Chris’s dilemma of “I have feelings for my best friend’s girlfriend” and I lost patience reading scene after scene where Chris put extreme amounts of time, effort, and sometimes money into covering up his best friend Mike’s shortcomings so Larissa wouldn’t find out the truth about Mike. In my view, Mike didn’t deserve Chris’s extensive and extended support, and it took Larissa way too long to admit which guy was really “the one” who cared for her.
The first book in the series, SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME, was a better, albeit heartrending, read. Much of the story revolves around the difficult experience of caring for a loved one with dementia, with the accompanying physical and emotional challenges recounted in detail. I’m familiar with this experience and admired the verisimilitude of Jimenez’s storytelling. The long-distance romance between the MCs was compelling, and great moments of banter and humor shared by the MCs helped mitigate the hardships.
A third entry in this series is scheduled for next year, promising a redemption story for Mike from THE NIGHT WE MET. I’m not sure I want more of Mike, but I like the extended friend group enough that I’ll likely read the next novel, too.
I read Haley Cass’s first self-published book, THOSE WHO WAIT, several years ago and greatly liked the character development, but I thought the nearly 600-page book could have used some pruning of many repetitive statements and scenes. I read a few more Cass novels and then stopped downloading her books because the need for trimming interfered with my enjoyment of these angst-filled sapphic stories. I picked up Cass’s new book, THE WHOLE TRUTH, after @Tara mentioned “loving it” in the last WAYR… and stopped halfway through because again, the pace of this 600-page book seemed annoyingly slow. However, I wanted to find out how the MCs (two country singer/songwriters) in this rivals-to-lovers story got to their HEA, so I skimmed the second half of the novel. Now I’m thinking about giving another Cass book a try. Maybe.
Not much reading to report. Read two Lisa Henry books recommended here, CHASE HOOPER LIKES IT HOT and CASH HOOPER SAVES A LIFE (Cash and Chase are twins). Preferred the first, but both were solid. M/M contemporary, past trauma.
Looking forward to seeing all the recommendations and hoping to get a lot of reading in this weekend! Wishing everyone happiness, health, and peace to read!
By and large I remain firmly in the cottage and on AO3 for “Heated Rivalry” fanfic, but I did start a new book last night while waiting for my phone to charge: “MateHub: Legend” by Marie Reynard. Too early to have a verdict, but so far I’m liking the author’s writing style (and it’s blissfully free of that first person POV that annoys me so much. Third person POV forever!).
@JillQ, ditto Cary Grant.
Just finished On the Way To the Wedding, by Julia Quinn last night. I was way more invested in the second half of it than the first.
I’m currently reading two books I found in the library room of the nursing facility I’m currently staying at – Cheyenne Princess, by Georgina Gentry, (which is an old school western HR with ALL the triggers, track down and read at your own risk), and The Bridges of Madison County, by Robert James Waller.
It’s hard to find anything here in the way of romance, especially HR, that isn’t Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts. There’s also one resident here who tears up the books and jigsaw puzzles pieces, so I feel like keeping what little I do find in my room. I’m the only resident here who reads.
@Crystal F.: That really makes me want to send you some books. I once had a 3-week stretch (while forward deployed) with no books and SO many hours outside of work. That was a rough 3 weeks.
June has been a fairly light reading month for me. An extended family visit mid-month put quite a dent in my book time. The peopling was actually pretty great, but I didn’t have the time or the concentration for much reading.
Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman
Bingo: Place you’d like to vacation
The first Mrs. Blossom mystery is a spin-off from the Tess Monaghan series which I read once upon a time. This enjoyable tale of a seeming innocent stumbling into jeopardy abroad features a mature, plus sized FMC travelling to Paris to meet her dearest friend for a cruise on the Seine. Muriel Blossom is a thoughtful, somewhat retiring widow spreading her wings after a financial windfall when she encounters an assortment of potentially shady characters. The challenge is deciding who is an actual threat and who is merely annoying. However, the real pleasure is the adult coming of age nature of this story. Recommended.
September Moon by Candice Proctor
Bingo: Place you’d like to vacation; Historical, not Regency
This novel wae first published in 1999 and offers the familiar tale of a young woman working as a governess for an attractive single dad in an unfamiliar environment. At the halfway point, the plot is fairly standard as Amanda struggles to win over the kids, keep her distance from dad, and adjust to drought stricken Australia. I have to say that despite all the pining between Amanda and Patrick, I found the yearning for rain far more compelling, though the landscape did reinforce the somewhat stifling emotional climate. The writing is good if somewhat overly ornamental whether describing people, land, relationships, or lifeways. I like descriptive language, but the frequently repetitive descriptions are tedious. It was okay, but I doubt I’d read it again.
Ecipse by Celia Lake
Bingo: Reread by favorite author
Eclipse is the first book I read by Celia Lake, after it was enthusiastically recommended by SB Sarah and others on the site. I find that it’s even better the second time around. Several years of reading the Albion books have added depth and dimension to my enjoyment of this reread. However, the high point of this cozy alt-history is the romance between Thesan and Isembard. This couple complements each other conversationally, intellectually, and emotionally, making their eventual pairing infinitely satisfying to the reader. While this book works quite well as a magical school story, the romance not only stands on its own merits, it also opens up a window to the culture of post-WWI Albion. It took a second reading for me to fully appreciate how well put together this novel truly is. Recommended.
Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan
The thing I like best about Annabel Monaghan is that she lets her character’s lives get messy. The thing I like least about Monaghan is that she lets her character’s lives get messy. Embracing the messy is, by definition, surrendering control and, inevitably, accepting stuff you cannot like. And I don’t especially like dual timelines or teen romance. I find the notion that teen heartbreak leads to self repression kind of trite. I also disliked the role that the FMC’s fiance is corkscrewed into. In the end I felt that this story was more about the FMC finding herself than finding love. Most of the plot twists were telegraphed and conventional–hence, not messy enough. What I did like was the rich ambiance of a beachy summer, the unfettered sense of youthful possibilities, and the eager celebration of creativity. Also, the writing was excellent.
The Nanny by Lana Ferguson
Bingo: Sex Worker; DNF @35%
I was happy to have found this to fulfill a bingo prompt, but I can kinda see where it’s going a mile away, and I’m not enjoying the trip. Life is too short to read books that don’t make me happy.
Hott, Hotter, Hottest by Serena Bell
The final Hott brother, Tucker, gets his story at last, and all the dangling story arcs are resolved with varying degrees of success. The author offers a content warning for on page danger, but it’s actually pretty mild. The sex is hot! as well as Hott, and there’s some pretty cool stuff about the nature of happiness and the role of therapy. All in all, a solid ending for a decent series.
Good at Being Alive by Elizabeth O’Roark
I started this book between one and two a.m., because I was too restless to settle after finishing my previous book. By the end of the first chapter, I’d experienced Bex’s humor and her heartbreak, and I knew I was going to love this book. After grabbing some zzzzs, I hunkered down for the day, with a romance that defied convention in every way. Bex and Theo’s journey is twisty, outrageous, and fundamentally kind, acknowledging that neither life nor love comes with guarantees, yet both are too precious to not brave the risk. This is the best thing I’ve read by this author and I’d recommend it without reservation.
Work in Progress by Kat MacKenzie
Bingo: Place you’d like to vacation
DNF @42%
I don’t really know how I stuck with this book so long. The heroine is seriously crushed, sporting the full trifecta of misery: loveless, jobless, & homeless. At least she isn’t running home with her tail between her legs, but impulsively booking a bus tour with a group of “cute” elderly ladies and a smirky Scottish tour guide isn’t the solution you think it is. The worst part of this book are the serial humiliation dumps on the hapless heroine, and the only reason I made it this far is the unfettered snark of her narration. But at ~42%, we run up against a rescue scenario, and I’m. Just. Done.
Hate Me Like You Mean It by Kyra Parsi
This romance is an unholy hybrid of second chance and enemies to lovers, featuring another tale of schoolyard besties gone astray illuminated by journal entries and the odd flashback. Though not my favorite tropes, these plotlines just seem to keep popping up, and most of the time it’s the main characters that make or break the book. In this case the life long prank competition between Alice and Dominic kept me on the verge of constant laughter that gradually segues into a deeper emotional response as the past slowly reveals itself. This is a masterful (and VERY spicy) interpretation of a seemingly standard story line that just gets better as the plot unfolds and meanders to its HEA. Heartily recommended.
I absolutely loved Bromantasy by Maire Roche. Two long time friends (who have feelings!) go on an adventure. I laughed so much in parts, but there were also touching moments. Adored the two MMC, and the side characters were a lot of fun too.
It was a very “quite good” (my B+/A- rating) couple of weeks.
Ditto @PamG on Elizabeth O’Roark’s GOOD AT BEING ALIVE.
I also really liked (all m/f contemporaries):
* Lauren Okie’s TROPESICK
* Ashley Poston’s THE SOMEDAY GARDEN (has her usual fantastical elements, which she somehow always makes charming)
* Tia William’s THE MISSED CONNECTION
* Kate Canterbury’s SHUCKED
Also liked Deidra Duncan’s LOVE AND OTHER SIDE EFFECTS
And Vol. 3 of THE UNSELECTED JOURNALS OF EMMA M. LION, which continues to be delightful as does my continuing D.E. Stevenson binge.
Over the past two weeks ~
— for my book group To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey. This novel recounts an American colonel’s exploration of an Alaskan river in the 1880s through his journal entries. The book contains letters, his wife’s diary, pictures of historic items, and more. The story also contains letters in the present between the colonel’s great-nephew and the museum curator in Alaska to whom he has sent all these documents. The story includes much that is inexplicable regarding the colonel’s interactions with the indigenous people. It was definitely an intriguing read.
— heard a very favorable mention of The Long Journey Home by HeartAway which is a LENGTHY fan fiction work related to Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary. It begins some 27 years after that book ends with Earth awaiting the arrival of the beetles. This work is not yet complete (though the author mentions that it is already longer than PHM at 158,068 words and with 26 chapters out of 31 completed). I enjoyed it very much and look forward to reading the remaining chapters. It is free to read on Archive of Our Own (AO3).
— spent some enjoyable time reading four short Project Hail Mary fan fiction pieces by HeartAway on AO3 ~
Under the Oak Tree
Lightning Round
Plausible Deniability
No Rest for the Wicked
Plus this one by a different author: A Star, A Memory by blithers
And
The Littlest Reader by Almadynis which is set in Anne Bishop’s world of The Others.
— fell down a fan fiction hole! Another enjoyable short piece pertaining to PHM ~
Breathe Hellfire by Pax_Kerbalica
And a short piece for the Touchstone series by Andrea K. Höst ~
Take a picture, it’ll last longer by SlashHat
Reread two fan fiction short stories set in the world of a favorite series (Lyn Gala’s Claimings series); I enjoyed them both. They were Deviations and Revelations, both by allonym.
— Finn by Angel Martinez is a contemporary paranormal romance featuring a very kind hearted man (an author) who rescues a naked man who he fears is about to jump from a bridge. That man is a fae who has been asleep for centuries. This is currently free for US Kindle readers.
— enjoyed Who Is Willing by M.C.A. Hogarth which is a science fiction novel set aboard a space ship. The non-human lead character is a lieutenant who has been newly assigned to the ship; she has a bitter history with another lieutenant already on board. This is set in a world with humans and also with many other aliens. This is currently free for US Kindle readers.
— read The Alpha and His King by Kiki Clark which features an alpha wolf shifter and a young man (himself protecting his younger siblings) who he rescues from abusive parents.
— Reread Prelude to Claimings, Tails, and Other Alien Artifacts by Lyn Gala which I enjoyed once again. This collection of short pieces is no longer available as a collection; I believe that the author incorporated the stories into her Claimings books when she republished the series.
— read lots of short fan fiction works on AO3.
Those that pertain to The Curse of Chalion by Bujold were ~
Clean Slate plus Illumination by shimotsuki; Tumors by selenite0; False Coin by dr_gradus; Grace in Memory by SunlitStone; Consummate by mrstater;The hour of love approaches by Kass; and Redemption by ScottWashburn.
Others pertain to Project Hail Mary ~ Enrichment by alatarmaia4; My Mate and the Human They Didn’t Want by Acewithapaintbrush; The Greatest Act of Optimism, A Journey Unknown, Roots to Grow and Wings to Fly, The Wallpaper in my Heart (slowly, slowly peeling off, Watch your Colors Grow, Advection Fog all by Acewithapaintbrush; a name is a symphony plus ultrasonic blue by InsaneTrollLogic; and a longer work ~ Message in a Beetle by ConalltheLibrarian.
— ultimately enjoyed From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata which is a contemporary romance featuring two ice skaters. Initially though, I did not care for either of the main characters. This was a very slow burn romance.
— enjoyed Talk Sweetly to Me by Courtney which is a historical romance novella set in Victorian era England. It features a young woman who is incredibly talented in math and works as a computer (yes, human computers predated mechanical ones); she is also a woman of color whose father is a shopkeeper. The male lead is a columnist from a poor Irish farming family who has made a name for himself and who is a known rake. This had some witty math dialogue that even amused my math teaching husband.
While I have a number of books in the pipeline, I’ve only finished one book since the last WAYR—but it was a book so out-of-the-ordinary (and I’m not sure I mean that in a good way), and possibly not even a romance (although certainly marketed as one) that I just have to write about it—
These days it’s rare for me to encounter a book I have heard nothing about written by an author I’ve never heard of. It is even rarer for me to finish said book and not be sure that what I read was either (1) an existential literary novel masquerading as a romance novel, or (2) a romance novel written by someone who’s read a little too much Sartre, Pinter, Hemingway, and Compton-Burnett and hasn’t fully processed what they’ve read. But such as the case with River Arden’s AFTER HIS EULOGY, an m/m romance that popped up on my Kindle algorithm and intrigued me with a title that promised to either be about a character finding love again after the death of his partner or about a character faking his own death for reasons (I mean, you read enough romance novels and the titles begin to suggest that certain tropes are being explored). Well, I was wrong on both counts—although one character is presumed dead at the beginning of the book. It’s really impossible to write about AFTER HIS EULOGY in a traditional romance novel way. Yes, there is a relationship between two people (Reece, who has “died”, and Griffin, his boyfriend who tries to continue on with his life after the loss), but the style in which the story is told—short staccato repetitive sentences full of unattributed dialogue that makes it almost impossible to determine who is speaking, with ruminations on choices made by us or for us—removes it from the romance genre and puts it squarely in a literary fiction mode. Two years after Reece dies, Griffin—enrolled in a PhD program at a university far away from where he lived with Reece—encounters Reece (now called Reed and also in a PhD program) on campus. After some rather elliptical explanation, the men fall back into their previous relationship which involves, in large part, writing their various seminar papers and thinking about or discussing the choices they are making to be together. Here is a sample of how the book reads:
“I look at what I have written. I look at the sentence in the middle of the third page. The archive holds what it cannot say. I have not deleted it. The sentence does not belong in the response paper. The sentence is in the response paper anyway. I have decided the sentence is going to stay. It is not going to stay because it is a good sentence. It is a good sentence, but that is not the reason. It is going to stay because deleting it has begun to feel like deleting a fact, and I am not in the business of deleting facts right now. I am in the business of accumulating them.”
This is a representative sample of how the book is written: even when the characters are talking to each other, there are lines of dialog like, “I’m not picking you because picking you is safe. I’m picking you because picking you is what I want”, and “I am inside it. I am the disappeared. We are the disappeared. We are going to disappear. We have already disappeared once and we are going to do it again. I am the person trying to write the paper about disappearance from the inside of the disappearance. The paper is not a thing I can write. The paper assumes a position outside the thing. I am not outside the thing” (to which the other character responds, “Okay”). I think I continued reading because I was rather fascinated by whatever Arden thought they were doing—which absolutely was not writing a traditional romance. AFTER HIS EULOGY was unlike anything I’d read in the romance genre before—although that doesn’t necessarily mean it is a good book. Which begs the question, is AFTER HIS EULOGY a good book? I don’t think so. It is a romance in the sense that it is about two people who go on an emotional journey together and experience an HEA (of sorts), but the emotions of the characters are so internalized and so limited to expressions of existential dread and crisis, there’s never the feeling of joy and contentment that comes with reading a romance novel. The book also has some continuity errors and suffers (perhaps intentionally?) from a sameness of style in both the way the two MCs express themselves and how they live (there is absolutely no differentiation between the apartments in which the MCs live—and I was occasionally lost as to in whose home the current scene was set). All in all, I cannot recommend AFTER HIS EULOGY as a romance, so if you plan to read it, do so with your “literary fiction” brain engaged. A weird experience—after I finished it, I couldn’t get back to HOTT, HOTTER, HOTTEST fast enough, lol.
Incidentally, From Lukov with Love and Talk Sweetly to Me would both fulfill the Person’s Name in Title BINGO square.
Just finished my latest read this afternoon, which was an ARC of Mazywood by Tananarive Due. Her 2023 book The Reformatory was probably my favorite book that I read that year. This one was also excellent. It starts with a young girl that makes a wish, and the wish comes true, but you have to be careful what you wish for. The book has dual timelines, as the young girl grows up to be a Hollywood star, first as a child in the 20s and then as a young woman, and we also follow her grandson, who is a modern-day Hollywood screenwriter. I’m VERY partial to a Golden Age of Hollywood story, and since the leads in this book are Black, we also get a lot of information about the challenges of being a Black person working in an extremely racist studio system (we also get cameos from Clark Gable, Hattie McDaniel, Lena Horne, and Sammy Davis, Jr., among others). Years later, her grandson takes his wife and daughters to the ski lodge she founded with her Hollywood money, where something is waiting for them. The pacing bogged a bit in the middle, but overall, REALLY good read. Due remains damn good at this. Haven’t settled on my next book, since I have the usual TBR embarrassment of riches. But I am seeing Supergirl tomorrow, so I have that going for me.
I’ve only recently started participating in these and, boy, it’s difficult to find the time to do it twice a month. I applaud those of you who have faithfully written month after month.
So, to catch up.
DEAD SILENCE by SA Barnes—this is a sci-fi/horror/paranormal match up, which, if you know me, is the least likely thing I would read. However, I credit SBTB with broadening my horizons, and also it was recommended by my boss, whose judgment I usually trust, even if we don’t always read the same things. Anyway, I ended up really liking this. A ragtag maintenance crew in space hears a distress signal. They reluctantly investigate and discover a luxury spaceship that disappeared 20 years ago. The writing is great and I was rooting for the main character the whole time.
THE JACKAL’S MISTRESS by Chris Bohjalian—I do not really care for Civil War set stories, but this one was recommended by my BF and I felt obligated to try it. The writing is great and the story is engrossing but do not believe the marketing that this is an “epic love story.” It emphatically is not. I also thought there was a gaping hole of not using the wordplay/multiple meaning of “mistress” in this story.
ANATOMY OF AN ALIBI by Ashley Elston—Eh. This was nothing special in the world of psychological thrillers.
THE NAME GAME by Beth O’Leary—Her books are hit or miss for me. I was warned by the SBTB review that this one had a banger of a twist. Even knowing that, I was completely lost for a couple of chapters at the end. I enjoyed this one until then and wasn’t as mad as I was about THE NO-SHOW, so I guess it’s a win?
A MATTER OF TEMPTATION by Lorraine Heath—I’ve been on a Heath kick for about a year. I read this one because it fit the mistaken/hidden identity theme for my library’s romance book club. I could not resist the evil-twin-steals-the-dukedom plot of this one but in the end, it was just meh.
ONLY BELOVED by Mary Balogh—I’ve finally finished the Survivors’ Club but man, this was tough to get through. There was no plot and no conflict and SPOILER—the older couple end up spitting out babies just like all the other Survivors. You disappointed me here, Mary.
PLATFORM DECAY by Martha Wells—yes, SBTB also talked me into this series years ago despite me not being a big sci-fi fan. Needless to say, I loved the latest one.
THE NIGHT WE MET by Abby Jimenez—I love her later books but this… I don’t even know what this was. If you separate the romance out, it’s pretty good, though there are some glaring flaws. But yeah, the fact the heroine is in a relationship with someone else for most of the book and the very fact that they were surely having sex is just airbrushed away, infuriated me. I am not sure I can read the next one.
THE POTTING SHED MURDER by Paula Sutton—also an SBTB rec. I’m not a huge cozy fan, which is probably why I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I thought I would. But kudos to the author for stepping outside the lily-white cozy world.
DEEP TIDE by Laura Griffin—I loved the first two books in this series but the last two have nigh been unreadable. The hero’s personality here is FBI agent who can reveal nothing about his case, nor himself apparently. I have no idea how the couple fell in love over a handful of encounters where he reveals nothing about himself and she’s just a scared ninny.
Not much to report– still finding too many books that don’t work for me.
Unfortunately, the 2nd book (KING FORETOLD) of Jaci Lee’s Korean mythology based fantasy romance trilogy that started with NINE TAILED was a DNF. The FMC is rejecting the MMC to protect him but they are still colleagues so she is constantly ruminating on how much she loves him but has to hurt him. This got tiresome, as did her endless worry about whether she would fail in the big fight. I also checked the last few pages of book 3 to see how it ended, and was very disappointed about some things. I enjoyed book 1, so this was a let down.
I was very intrigued to spot a romantasy novella (is it legal for a romantasy to be less than 400 pages?)– WHERE DREAMS FALL, by R.L. Caulder. I liked the heroine, the world building was interesting, and the story moved at a good clip, but at the very end the MMC suddenly seemed needlessly idiotic, so I may not continue the series.
NINE GOBLINS by T. Kingfisher was delightful from beginning to end. Kinda wish it wasn’t a stand-alone– I’d like more time with the characters.
SAMANTHA SPUK: PARANORMAL WEDDING PLANNER, by Aleese Lin, is classed as a romance at my library, but is really more of a silly fantasy. (I’m hoping for a sequel to get us to an HEA.) FMC is trying to escape the paranormal adjacent legacy of her family by being as normal and bland as possible. Her plans to start an accounting job in NYC are derailed by the death of her grandmother in Salem, and she finds herself trapped there by her grandmother’s will. She stumbles into work as a paranormal wedding planner. The various characters and odd paranormal weddings are entertaining, even for someone like me with no interest in weddings.
@DiscoDollyDeb
Based only on the passages you quoted, I commend your persistence. I’m pretty sure I’d have Invoked the DNF option in a hot minute, unless I read it as pure parody. (And not of romance.)
I have an alternative view of Jimenez’s The Night We Met, which I binge listened to this week. I loved it for all the reasons that frustrated other romance readers, maybe because I’m often frustrated by contemporary romance trends at present. And I had sworn off Jimenez after the last two FMCs I read from her (Brianna and Vanessa) infuriated me with their selfish dramas. I started this one warily because the premise appealed to me, but it soon had me hooked.
I loved the fact that this book doesn’t dwell on physical attraction to the detriment of emotional connection, and the characters don’t become a couple until close the end of the book (usually this happens far too early for me and then the book drags on endlessly). Chris has a genuine dilemma in that Mike is his best friend (and with no family at all, friends are essential in his life)so his silent pining is not pointless dithering for the sake of page count. And Zachary Webber’s narration makes any book more romantic.
My other read this week showcased all the flaws Jimenez avoided. L A Witt’s hockey romance Over the Line, which at 550 pages I knew would require a lot of skimming, was the most drawn-out pile of nothing I’ve bothered to finish. The characters (lonely gay veteran hockey superstar and silver fox bisexual father of his rookie teammate) get together pretty quickly but keep their relationship secret due to concern about how the teammate/son will react. They worry about this for about 300 pages, during which time almost nothing happens.
Unlike Chris in the other book, they could resolve everything by just speaking up. The ending is very telegraphed and totally not worth the endless agonising, and by the end I still didn’t feel like I knew much about the main characters at all.
Always late to the party, I’ve started the Archangel series by Nalini Singh. When I saw promo for the most recent (and last in the series) publication, I wondered what all the fuss was about. So far I’m about 7 books in, and loving every page. Can’t believe I hadn’t read anything by her before. I like to try new-to-me authors during summer, as I usually travel then, and it’s fun to search used-book-stores wherever I go, for the back catalogs. I did that a couple of summers ago with Ilona Andrew’s Kate Daniels series; the summer just flew by as my collection grew and grew.
@oceanjasper, I can appreciate your take on THE NIGHT WE MET, especially regarding the emotion-forward tone. I’m glad you enjoyed it. However, I still think Jimenez was trying to pull a veil over the heroine’s sexual relationship with her boyfriend so that it wouldn’t upset the reader. And I found it even more odd that while Chris doesn’t think about Larissa’s sexual relationship at all, Larissa is the one to get squicked out about sleeping in a room next to Chris and his new girlfriend. I just found the non-existence of sex to be very unrealistic, especially when Jimenez does such a great job of making her characters have real-life issues and problems.
@DDD, I suppose you considered that River Arden might not be human. Those sentences could equally be philosophical attempts or AI.
@LML: you could be right—I can almost see the book being produced by A.I. with a prompt like “romance novel—but make it existential” or “romance novel—but written by Samuel Beckett”, etc. I’m sad that all this A.I. slop floating around makes us suspicious of new books or new writers, but alas that is our brave new world.
@ DejaDrew
The ending of The Bridge of Birds still makes me cry; it’s lovely.
If you want an own-voices book with interaction with gods, I recommend Zen Cho’s Black Water Sister.
Read and enjoyed Nora Roberts’ The Final Target. I’m much less interested in home decorating than she is (and have very different taste); but much enjoyed an FMC who is a writer and glimpses of how that works from day to day. As often, the community and family are a draw. While I liked the complexities of the villains in Hidden Nature a bit more than TFT’s villain, there were interesting factors there, too. – mostly how riches enable evil on a larger scale. And I really liked the ending.
@JillQ Netflix made a series out of Good Girl’s Guide. Haven’t read the book but the series was good. Season 2 came out recently — haven’t seen it yet.
Readingwise, I’ve been on a historical fiction binge.
THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT by Maggie O’Farrell. O’Farrell is such a great writer. This book is loosely based on Lucretia Medici, but the author builds on what we know about Medici to create a fascinating story of a teenage bride married to a much older man for political reasons.
THE KING’S MESSENGER by Susanna Kearsley. Set in 1613 Scotland, it traces the journey of a messenger of King James, with intrigue and subplots including a romantic one. Really enjoyed this one too.
REGENERATION by Pat Barker. Set in the WW1 era, in a convalescent hospital for soldiers with PTSD, known then as shell shock. Very character-driven.
I had lost a lot of reading mojo for a while but I’ve been feeling a bit better lately (thanks, Benlysta!) and have been working my way through some great historical fiction recs on Threads.
@HeatherS, awww, it’s the thought that counts. 🙂 ❤️
What I would really love is to at least have my Tessa Dare and Lisa Kleypas books with me. (And the classics I bought before having to leave our home.)
My sister-in-law led me to believe she had all this room in their basement for my books, and now she says they’re only keeping five boxes.
And when I asked for her to bring the Ravenels, she brought the first three, skipped some in the middle, and brought the last book. /facepalm/ I’m starting to wonder if I should just re-buy my books at this point.