Hello, everyone!
I was recently blessed to get an hour of KJ Charles time for an interview. Throughout our discussion, she dropped several book recommendations, especially titles that she’s loving right now. I am now imparting those onto you!
Get any good book recommendations lately? Let us know in the comments!
The Last Woman on Earth
I was lamenting the lack of morally gray heroines in romance and Charles immediately put this on my radar. I’m thinking of maybe doing a Rec League in the future.
Nicky believes three things that aren’t true. She thinks the apocalypse was a horrible accident. She assumes her dream of being a journalist died with most of humanity. And she’s sure that she’s straight. She’s about to meet someone who’ll make her question all three – it’s a shame she’s the worst woman in what’s left of the world.
Three years ago, life as Nicky knew it ended when a mystery virus turned a tenth of humans into nocturnal, feral monsters, and everyone else into their prey. Now she’s found a new normal in a survivor community near York. That is until Meredith Hind appears, with her own private army, thinly veiled threats and a challenge for investigate the real origin of the apocalypse.
Meredith’s ruthless, manipulative and infuriatingly sure of herself. Nicky knows that getting involved with her is a terrible mistake, she just can’t seem to stop making it. But Meredith’s a woman with secrets, and if Nicky can’t learn them in time, she may not live to regret it.
The Last Woman on Earth begins a new trilogy about post-apocalyptic monsters, deep platonic friendships and a very complicated romantic one.
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We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Last Woman on Earth by Bex Benjamin
My Usual and You
This is what Charles called a “grown up” romance. The characters are in their 40s and the heroine doesn’t let others dictate on what she should or shouldn’t do in her life in terms of relationships, career, etc.
What should Erika San Ignacio be doing at her age of 41? The answer has always whatever she wants, actually. No matter what anyone else says. She’s the only non-lawyer in her family’s three generations of lawyers. She has a dating life of flings and non-exclusivity—happy and ready to be single and the favorite tita, for life. And she quit her senior-level corporate job in the middle of a national lockdown to help her best friend fulfill a dream to open a small cafe.
Turns out, the drastic career change might be a good idea after all. The cafe is thriving, she’s enjoying being a cashier and business partner, and the handsome customer who works nearby is a daily highlight, a harmless crush she never speaks to. Life is steady all of a sudden, not demanding and complicated. She’s into it.
What could disturb this peace? Just the favorite customer asking her out on a date, and wanting more. Just the corporate world trying to lure her away from the dream she helped build, with reminders of career goals from the past. When thinking about the life she wants for herself at this age, are these distractions she should say no to—or new challenges to take on?
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!My Usual and You by Mina Esguerra
Snake-Eater
Cozy folk horror that Charles said had her laughing for several minutes.
From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award–winning author T. Kingfisher comes an enthralling contemporary fantasy seeped in horror about a woman trying to escape her past by moving to the remote US desert—only to find herself beholden to the wrath of a vengeful god.
With only a few dollars to her name and her beloved dog Copper by her side, Selena flees her past in the city to claim her late aunt’s house in the desert town of Quartz Creek. The scorpions and spiders are better than what she left behind.
Because in Quartz Creek, there’s a strange beauty to everything, from the landscape to new friends, and more blue sky than Selena’s ever seen. But something lurks beneath the surface. Like the desert gods and spirits lingering outside Selena’s house at night, keeping watch. Mostly benevolent, says her neighbor Grandma Billy. That doesn’t ease the prickly sense that one of them watches too closely and wants something from Selena she can’t begin to imagine. And when Selena’s search for answers leads her to journal entries that her aunt left behind, she discovers a sinister truth about her new home: It’s the haunting grounds of an ancient god known simply as “Snake-Eater,” who her late aunt made a promise to that remains unfulfilled.
Snake-Eater has taken a liking to Selena, an obsession of sorts that turns sinister. And now that Selena is the new owner of his home, he’s hell-bent on collecting everything he’s owed.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher
There Is No Antimemetics Division
Charles mentioned this one is really trippy. It reminds me of one of my favorite games, Control.
Humanity is under assault by malevolent “antimemes”—ideas that attack memory, identity, and the fabric of reality itself—in this wickedly brainbending tale of science-fiction horror, an entirely reimagined and expanded version of the beloved online novel.
They’re all around us, hiding in plain sight.
One could be in the room with you, now, just to your left. You could be seeing it right now—but from this second to the next, you’ll forget that you did. If you managed to jot down a note, the paper would look blank to you afterwards.
These entities can feed on your most cherished memories, the things that make you you—and you’ll never even know anything changed.
They can turn you into a living ghost—make it so that you’re standing next to your spouse, screaming in their ear, and they won’t know you’re there.
They are the perfect predators, equipped with the ultimate camouflage—the ability to wipe out memories of their own existence.
And they aren’t just feeding on us. They’re invading.
But how do you fight an enemy when you can never even know that you’re at war? How do you contain something you can’t record or remember?
Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
