Reading Lady Derring Takes a Lover is like starting a new relationship. Everything is super awesome and wrapped in a blissful glow but then a few weeks pass and you start to notice that maybe your hot new date has some annoying habits, but that’s OK, because no one is perfect. What I’m saying here is that I was passionately in love with this book, but realized later that it’s not actually perfect, but still good. … Continue reading Lady Derring Takes a Lover by Julie Anne Long →
Reviewing Romain is a tricky proposition for me because her writing works so well on my brain, and on my emotions. I’ve talked about getting the “chest tingles” when a line or a piece of dialogue hits me dead center in the squishy feels, and this book had plenty of those. Romain excels at writing deliberate, careful moments between the characters so that a scene that seems unimportant at first later carries additional meaning and emotional … Continue reading Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain →
I’ve been reading a lot of nonfiction lately, especially books that focus on cultural or sociological analysis and the arduous work of reframing how we talk about and examine people, events, groups, or all of the above. Good and Mad is a wonderful example and I highlighted the absolute crap out of it. I expect the file I sent back to the library was glad to get away from me. I enjoyed it in a cathartic … Continue reading Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister →
This is a contemporary romance novella between a glasses-wearing scientist hero and a heroine who co-founded a marijuana dispensary and grow house. The unconventional occupation of the heroine and the fact the hero wears glasses are the two main reasons why I picked this one up. The romance is really cute, as the hero and heroine start out having a playfully antagonistic relationship at work. It’s really the novella format that sells everything short. I … Continue reading Tripped Out by Lorelei James →
She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge is the first book in a new British procedural series, and I think it will be a great match for fans of Tana French. In 1983, seven teenage friends go camping, and the youngest among them, Aurora Jackson, disappears in the middle of the night. At the time, Jonah Sheens is a young police officer. Jump forward thirty-five years, and Jonah is a Detective Chief Inspector when Aurora’s … Continue reading She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge →
I’m a fan of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books, so I was excited to see she was releasing a standalone mystery. To my disappointment, The Witch Elm has a great premise, but shaky execution. The book opens with our narrator, Toby, going home after a night out with the lads. Toby is described as one of those guys who manages to navigate the stickiest of situations without suffering any consequences–case in point, he’s recently massively screwed … Continue reading The Witch Elm by Tana French →
The Summer of Jodi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles) is a body-positive f/f contemporary romance/rom-com set in L.A. This book is a light, fast read with plenty of humor, and with an angst level that is appropriate but never too heavy or whiny. The story is narrated by Abby Ives, who is seventeen. Abby is gay, which is an issue for absolutely no one except her mother, who seems to hope Abby will … Continue reading The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding →
I’ve always loved Beauty and the Beast stories. I have a whole rant about how the point of the story is that even though Beauty might grow to like the Beast while she is his captive, she doesn’t love him until he releases her. Some adaptations work with this idea better than others. The Beast’s Heart does a remarkable job of including the poetry of the story while omitting some of its more problematic elements. … Continue reading The Beast’s Heart by Leife Shallcross →
Susan Grant has written some of my favorite science fiction romance novels. Alas, Your Planet or Mine (soon to be reprinted as Guardian Alien) is not one of them. Basically, this is a bodyguard romance with Cavin, an alien, protecting Jana, a human, from an alien assassin while trying to stop an invasion of Earth without torpedoing Jana’s political career. The story is set in Sacramento during the early 2000s. Jana Jasper, a State Senator, comes … Continue reading Your Planet or Mine by Susan Grant →
It has come to my attention that there is a romance series about a kraken shifter and a unicorn shifter. I feel it my responsibility to investigate these things and ask the required questions, such as, “But HOW, tho?” I do it it for you, Bitches, and for the sake of SCIENCE, which isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions. It turns out that this series, the Wriggle and Sparkle series, is extremely adorable. The … Continue reading Wriggle & Sparkle by Megan Derr →
I am always looking for new female voices in crime fiction, and I picked up Leona: The Die is Cast with every expectation of being thrilled. It’s a Scandinavian mystery about a series of baffling bank robberies and it features a diverse heroine. It turns out that this book was not at all what I was expecting, and in order to articulate that, I’m going to need to spoil some things. If you want to … Continue reading Leona: The Die is Cast by Jenny Rogneby →
