Welcome back, all! We’re quickly approaching three dozen of these. Any time I go to compile Get Rec’d, I wonder if I’ve run out of good recs, but the answer is always nope. This time, I have a couple mysteries, some historical fiction, and a nature-focused picture book. How about you all? Get any good book recommendations lately? Have a title you want to shout about?
Welcome to Book Beat! Book Beat aims to highlight other books that we may hear about through friends, social media, or other sources. We could see a gorgeous ad! Or find a new-to-us author on a list of underrated romances! Think of Book Beat as Teen Beat or Tiger Beat, but for books. And no staples to open to get the fold-out poster.
RECOMMENDED: You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo is $2.99! Carrie read this one and gave it a B+:
I recommend this for fans of Farscape, Firefly, complicated relationships, and cooking shows. If found family and food are your thing, you will like this book, although please be aware that the lighthearted tone takes a temporary swivel into scary and sad when the pirates get involved.
Continue reading →
Ali Hazelwood has a new anthology in print, Loathe to Love You, and she joins me to talk about becoming a full-time writer and the development of the novellas in this anthology. And then I hit her with a series of silly questions. Woo hoo! Bring on the mayhem. Music: purple-planet.com
If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy is $1.99! This came out in August and is a Cinderella-inspired retelling. It also has a reality show element. I’m very excited about this updated Disney princess series. The next one will be written by Jasmine Guillory and is a Beauty & the Beast retelling.
Continue reading →
Jeevani Charika writes romcoms and women’s fiction about smart women and nice guy heroes, some of whom happen to be South Asian. She also writes romcoms as Rhoda Baxter. Her latest is Picture Perfect. Jeevani can be found on her website or on Twitter (@rhodabaxter). … I asked ChatGPT to outline a Christmas romcom – here’s what happened. There’s been quite a lot of interest in ChatGPT and some talk about how it’s going to … Continue reading Guest Post: I asked ChatGPT to Outline a Christmas RomCom →
Hello, everyone! It’s time for Wednesday Links! By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be on my way home for Orlando. I built a lightsaber at Galaxy’s Edge on Monday and my partner and I ate and drank our way around the world at Epcot on Tuesday. I’m sure there are photos on my instagram account (I’m writing this ahead of time! Hello from the past!). I also mentioned in a previous podcast that I’m … Continue reading Links: Witches, Fashion, & More →
Cowboy Come Home by Carly Bloom is $1.99, and includes a bonus novella. We mentioned Carly Bloom in our most recent Rec League about books with funny or silly sex scenes. This is book 2 in the Once Upon a Time in Texas series, and it has a 4+-star average on GoodReads. Have you read this one?
Continue reading →
Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake is a classic example of how a book that is otherwise OK can be utterly ruined by a few sentences near the end. If this review seems compartmentalized, it’s because the book has a lot of compartments, some of which are filled with great stuff (hot sex, self-actualization) and some of which are terrible (unfortunate implications about abortion). I’m going to deal with the terrible first so you don’t have to … Continue reading Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake by Mazey Eddings →
It’s time for another edition of Stuff We Like! This month: a few things that have made my life easier, including one I bought in 2011 and is still going. Want to see? Just click that image above or click right here, and come shop with us! And if you’d like to browse some more, we have a complete Stuff We Like archive, including past Gift Guides and other posts of our favorite items.
Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood, edited by Kwame Mbalia, is $1.99 as a KDD. This book was an immediate NYT bestseller, and is an anthology of stories with an intended audience of ages 9 and up. There are fantasy stories, comics, and poems from 17 Black male and non-binary authors. It has a 4+ star average on Goodreads, and I have just purchased a few copies as gifts.
Continue reading →