We have some more Lightning Reviews! Yay! This time, we have two very different novellas. One is a holiday contemporary romance and the other is steampunk, alternate goodness. Lastly, Carrie reads a book that might appeal to only the biggest of Wuthering Heights fans.
If you like friends-to-lovers romance and snowed-in sexytimes, then Snowlicious is going to be all your catnip. I found it to be sexy and cute, although I was a little confused by the hero’s actions. Best friends since high school, Mike and Thea have always had each other’s backs. When Thea, a florist, loses her spot decorating a Christmas tree for a high profile holiday competition, Mike sweeps in and gets her the slot of … Continue reading Snowlicious by Leigh LaValle
The Black God’s Drums is an awesome novella set in a steampunk, alternate history New Orleans. The narrator of the book, Creeper, is a homeless thirteen year old girl who dreams of becoming an airship pilot someday. She is also visited on a regular basis by Oya, the Yoruba goddess of wind and storms. Creeper befriends the captain of a visiting airship, hoping to earn the captain’s trust and secure a place onboard. Oya and Captain … Continue reading The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
Sophie Appersett is engaged to Edward (Ned) Sharpe. She’s the daughter of a baron; he’s a very wealthy merchant, and their alliance is built over a massive class chasm, one that she’s trying to cross with continued conversation, while he remains silent and withdrawn in all of their outings together. Sophie decides she’s not willing to continue the engagement because they don’t suit. She wants more for herself, and from his behavior she’s pretty sure … Continue reading A Holiday by Gaslight by Mimi Matthews
I saw a tweet from the author go by about this book just prior to release, highlighting the following aspects of the plot: …friends-to-lovers, witches, farmers, ladies being supportive of each other, and/or a slightly misanthropic lady-witch farmer wrestling with her feelings for her best friend while her coven supports her no matter what. I am indeed here for all of these things, so I bought the novella and read it immediately. This is the … Continue reading Spellbinding Love by Elizabeth Davis
I normally don’t devote an entire review to a novella, but One Wild Night had issues. GIF worthy issues. This is a celebrity romance, a sub-genre I’m always drawn to, but only seems to work out for me half the time. As SB Sarah has said, I’m interested in stories that feature public vs private lives. Movie stars, royalty, rock stars, all of that intrigues me. Now, I’d really like to read about celebrity romances with … Continue reading One Wild Night by A.L. Jackson and Rebecca Shea
One Night in Paris lured me into its clutches because it had “Paris” in the title. It looked like a nice stand-alone romance novella with which I could while away the hours that I spend in grocery store lines. I was mistaken. Reader, this is no moon! The call is coming from inside the house! Run for your lives! Run for it, Marty! While this review is listed as DNF, “Did Not Finish,” please know … Continue reading One Night In Paris by Kayla Perrin
This is an introductory novella to a series about women who all attended the MacLaine Performing Arts Academy in Washington D.C., and I’ll admit, I would have bought the novella on the strength of the cover alone. Isn’t it gorgeous? Bina MacLaine is the daughter of the founder of the Academy, and now that she’s an adult, she teaches dance there and manages a lot of the operations. She’s a year off a traumatically broken … Continue reading On Pointe by Shelly Ellis
I mentioned in a recent Whatcha Reading? post that I “struggled with the rapid pace of the emotional development” in this novella, and that I had a hard time buying the HEA between the characters. All true. I don’t like insta-love, and in a novella it is so difficult to convince me as a reader that two characters who have never met before have enough time together to create a believable ending wherein they’re together and all … Continue reading Broken Resolutions by Olivia Dade
Passing Strange is an odd but lovely novella that involves fantasy, history, art, and romance in 1940s San Francisco. It’s not very tightly constructed, but it does have a beautiful romance and a lovely, dreamlike tone. The story begins in the present day as Helen, an American woman of Japanese descent, sells an original art work by an artist known as Haskel. Haskel painted covers for pulp fiction novels and magazines, and over time the … Continue reading Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
H.P. Lovecraft was an incredibly influential writer of horror. He’s most famous for creating the Cthulhu Mythos, which involves a network of Gods that are utterly indifferent to the affairs of humanity. And as we’ve mentioned in other reviews, Lovecraft was, alas, incredibly racist even by the standards of his day. Since he lived from 1890 – 1937, that’s really saying something. He wasn’t keen on women either, and they seldom appear in his stories … Continue reading The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
