Naomi Novik knows how to write a freaking good fantasy novel. I’ve been thinking nonstop about A Deadly Education for the past week and have been frantically messaging speculation/theories to other readers. It’s the type of story that will exist rent-free in my brain for the foreseeable future. No matter how much I try, I can’t scrub it out because exciting details keep invading my mundane day-to-day thoughts. So let’s get right to it! I … Continue reading A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik →
CW: Suicide, Mental Illness Spooky season is upon us (my favorite season BTW) and if you are in the mood for something delightfully Gothic with horror elements, I recommend The Nesting. This book works perfectly as a Gothic thriller, is deeply creepy, and has an interesting take on environmentalism. The only thing that I wasn’t certain of was the treatment of the heroines’ mental illness. First of all, this is a very spooky book, so … Continue reading The Nesting by CJ Cooke →
Content warnings: Everyone in this book is reacting, one way or another, to the death of Susan’s mother at the start of the book. There is a character with disordered eating and she plays a large role in the book. Another character has untreated anxiety which manifests itself as hypochondria. There is also an enormous amount of snobbery and classism. 2020 seems to be the year for food-themed, contemporary re-tellings of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and … Continue reading All Stirred Up by Brianne Moore →
TW: Catfishing It’s a bad sign when I look at my list of things to read and review for the month, and think to myself, “I need to read that book next,” and then realize that I’ve already read it. Well Played did not leave a lasting mark upon me. It was an enjoyable book to read and it gave me the chance to attend a Renaissance Faire via imagination in a year when the … Continue reading Well Played by Jen DeLuca →
Eric is a 40-year-old hockey player with the New York Admirals. He eats clean, is deeply invested in daily yoga workouts and doesn’t drink. Kyle is a 25-year-old trust fund kid studying an MA in art history, but really, what he wants is to be a bartender. An unlikely pairing? Yup. But life pushes them together. They meet through mutual friends just as Eric is ready to admit to himself and others that he is … Continue reading Common Goal by Rachel Reid →
Despite being Canadian, I’ve never gotten into hockey. (Don’t tell my government. I don’t want my citizenship revoked.) And yet, I’m excited every time I see a new f/f hockey romance announced. I enjoyed the first 60% or so of this one, but unfortunately it didn’t hold up after that point, leaving me disappointed. Caro Cassidy is a retired professional hockey player in Chicago who’s been to a few Olympics. Now, she spends her days … Continue reading Out on the Ice by Kelly Farmer →
The new Netflix movie Enola Holmes has Sherlock Holmes, Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things, and suffragists, so it is relevant to our interests (Victoriana, feminism, actors who have been in geeky things). What follows is a joint running commentary and review by Tara and CarrieS, with additional input from Linden (age 16). The plot is that Enola Holmes, younger sister of Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mycroft Holmes (Sam Clafin, hiding his beauty behind a … Continue reading Movie Review: Enola Holmes →
The Roommate is a sex-positive, contemporary romance debut that has given me something I’ve been searching for : romantic leads who are involved in sex work (minus all of the shame and slut-shaming). I’m happy to say that The Roommate delivered on that front, and the romance was rather cute, too, despite being slightly different than what I was expecting. Clara is having a late-stage rebellious phase. She’s a socialite from a wealthy, conservative family … Continue reading The Roommate by Rosie Danan →
Content warning: racism, including the extra messy and painful kind that comes from people who love you and really ought to know better… The Duke Who Didn’t is a complete delight. It’s a low-tension friends-to-lovers story set in a small English village over the course of three very busy days. (All Chloe’s days are busy.) The village is notable for two things – first, it has a very high population of Chinese, half Chinese, and … Continue reading The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan →
I made a number of mistakes regarding this book. First, I read it after I received the ARC, which was months prior to release date. Though this makes me an Unintentional Scourge Among Book Publicists, I try to read ARCs as close to release as possible so that I can talk about a book when that book is available to buy, borrow, or request. As I joke often, I’m here to enable everyone else’s poor … Continue reading Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots →
Are you tired of reading about the same old straight, White vampires? Well, then good news! Because Vampires Never Get Old delivers 11 short stories that bring fresh takes on vampires. If you’ve been looking for queer vampires, or Black or Brown rep in your fanged fiction, this is definitely the book for you (and also maybe for the kiddo in your life, if you have any that are YA readers). Tara: This is a … Continue reading Vampires Never Get Old edited by Zoraida Cordova and Natalie C. Parker →
The Virgin and the Rogue is the sequel to The Duke’s Stolen Bride, a book I enjoyed immensely. Unfortunately I had a few issues with this novel, in part because the hero and heroine don’t spend as much of the book together as I would expect, and also because I doubted the heroine’s ability to consent the first time she engages in sexual activity with the hero. Charlotte Langely has spent her entire life making … Continue reading The Virgin and the Rogue by Sophie Jordan →
