Tara: A few weeks ago, Sarah slacked me with the following: Tara Season of Love is so good It’s so freaking good. So, I did what any other smart person would do and started reading it. And guess what? She was completely and totally right. Sarah: I do like it when I’m right. Tara: Miriam Blum lives in Charleston with her fiancee, who she loves but is not in love with, and she’s weeks away … Continue reading Season of Love by Helena Greer
Friends, I have to tell you that Legends and Lattes is absolutely, utterly delightful. It was as comforting as the coffeehouse setting that the protagonist attempts to create. It’s a cinnamon roll of a book which, by the way, contains actual cinnamon rolls. I am in love. Our tale begins with our main character, an orc named Viv, seizing a magical thingamajig that brings luck. She promptly quits her life of breaking heads open for … Continue reading Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts is so much more than the book I thought I was getting. This book tells a lot of ghost stories, but it is also an examination of why so many ghost stories are by and/or about women and what they say about our culture and history. It’s also a critique of the business of Ghost Tours, demonstrating how they can exploit historical suffering at … Continue reading A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes
Okay, so first of all, I need us all to understand that I’m going to write this review without telling you much about what actually happens in the book. That’s because, and I’m not exaggerating when I say this, every single event is a spoiler. The plot of this series is a giant Gordian knot where each new revelation changes everything else you think you know, so you really can’t discuss any part of it … Continue reading Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
One of my favorite movies as a kid was The Creature from the Black Lagoon and I always felt bad for The Creature. Sea Creatures Prefer Redheads played into that nostalgia wonderfully. Opal Prince is a costume designer and make-up artist for Neptune pictures in 1947. She’s the genius behind Kel, the monster in The Kelp-Dweller from Fathoms Below. Kel is a mishmash of her own forbidden monstrous fantasy and her secret crush on the … Continue reading Sea Creatures Prefer Redheads by Brianne Gillen
Love in the Time of Serial Killers is an enjoyable book, but I struggle to classify it purely as a romance because so much of the novel is spent on the heroine overcoming her anxieties and struggling to move forward in her adult life. By contrast the hero really has no obstacles to overcome; he just has to wait for the heroine. Phoebe Walsh is busy working on her dissertation about rhetoric and genre theory … Continue reading Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson
The Change is a flawed novel, but by golly it sure cheered me up at times. This book is about three women in their late forties who develop magical powers and use them to avenge murdered young women. I’m forty-nine-and-a-half and my only perimenopausal superpower so far is the ability to give progressively less of a shit, and this book fit right in with my current mood. Unfortunately, the book was somewhat superficial and problematic … Continue reading The Change by Kirsten Miller
At this point, Laura Griffin’s books are a one-click purchase for me. I know that with her books I’m safe. I’ll have competent heroines, strong heroes and a great mystery. This book is no exception. Although, warning: there are cops. Ava Burch is a corporate lawyer who has moved to a small town in west Texas. She’s been given custody of her dad’s search-and-rescue dog and she’s set up a small law practice with her … Continue reading Vanishing Hour by Laura Griffin
The Spare Man is most frequently described as The Thin Man in space, and the cover copy does a better job of summarizing than I could: Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her … Continue reading The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal
This guest review is from Aidee. Aidee recently graduated from law school, where romance novels provided a much needed break from reading court opinions. She started reading romance in high school, but isn’t quite sure which was her first romance read—Jean M. Auel, Fern Michaels, or something that she has completely forgotten by now. She loves reading, writing, chocolate, tea, and listening to music, although not necessarily in that order. The books she keeps thinking … Continue reading Guest Review: Ruby Fever by Ilona Andrews
CW: emotional abuse by parents The first thing you need to know about Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club is that it will make you hungry. Sophie is a matchmaker in Toronto, and she loves food even more than romance. Sophie and her clients eat their way across the city, evocatively describing curry buns, guava candies, duck egg congee, nasi goreng, fruity pavlovas, and Krispy Kreme donuts. The second thing you should know is that while … Continue reading Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club by Roselle Lim
