I had one job . . .
What did you read this week?
I had one job . . .
What did you read this week?
Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisherâs Weekly bestselling author and co-author of twenty-three novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives in a cottage in Pennsylvania, where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.
Find out more about Jenny’s published works by visiting JennyCrusie.com
183 Responses
I read the first three of the “Ring of Fire” sub-series – A MATTER OF SECURITY, MISSIONS OF SECURITY, SECURITY THREATS – by Bjorn Hasseler. I’ve lost track of the reread count
https://www.baen.com/allbooks/category/index/id/4783
Audible read Catherine Walsh’s SNOWED IN to me. I plan to follow that with FAKING IT. The difference is that I have the latter on my hard drive in a music subdirectory, so it won’t be interrupted by internet outages.
I watched JACKPOT! on Amazon Prime. It was… different. I noticed they have the “Lord of the Rings” movies and Hobbit movies. I might bring myself to watch them. Don’t ask my opinion of the books.
VARIATION ON A THEME Book 5, contributed Chapter 79: Momentous News and Chapter 80: Silver Linings, and Clouds. Still reading.
The LOTR movies are good but I wouldn’t recommend the Hobbit movies. Also, if you don’t like the books, I really wonder if you’d like the movies. It’ll be an interesting experiment. đ
I read the books as a teen. I didn’t like them. I much preferred the Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings.
I just finished an older book, Stay, by Allie Larkin. I’ve been following her online for years, and joined a group of creative folks on her patreon, so I figured I should finally read one of her books. I liked it, for the most part, and the ending was satisfying, but it took until almost the last chapter for the protagonist to get her act together, and for some of the less pleasant characters to be redeemed. On the other hand, there was a dog. In fact, the dog was my favorite character. She drunkenly orders a German shepherd puppy online, from Slovakia. When it shows up, it is huge, and only follows Slovakian commands. Plus there’s a sweet vet. So there’s that.
I just got not great news about my writing career–my Llewellyn editor told me that the marketing folks said they’re “oversaturated” with Deborah Blake titles, so they recommend me taking a few years off from writing for them. She suggested I try doing more fiction, as if I haven’t been banging my head against that wall for years. So the books that are coming out next year and the year after will be it. So I guess you can say I’m reading the handwriting on the wall.
Jenny, I don’t suppose Bob wants to rescue another author’s career? Nah, didn’t think so.
But I love your fiction books!
Thanks, Judy! Writing fiction is my main love, but it has just been a hard sell these last years. That’s why even Jenny turned to self-publishing. I may end up doing that myself, but I’m not very good at it, and I don’t have a Bob. Sadly, none of my cats has volunteered to take care of the business end.
I can so relate. And I love your books, Deb. They deserve to be published…
Maybe you can create an alter ego and pen name? Disappointing none the less
Lupe, As I understand it, pen names to reboot a career, as when John Hemry became Jack Campbell, or to keep anticipated poor sales from a book written out of love from torpedoing an existing good career, as with Harry Turtledove becoming H.N. Turteltaub for some books. were artifacts of the era of dominant big box stores, where books were ordered centrally by algorithm based on sales of the last book. I’ve been told it doesn’t work like that any more. Hence I’m not sure that such a reboot would help Deborah unless she switched genres or styles (say by writing grim noir) and wanted not to mislead existing readers.
Oh, good point. Maybe just publish as anonymous. Really capitalize on the mystique.
We’re sending my new fiction out to editors under a pseudonym, mostly because my previous fiction failed to sell well enough, and that’s what they look at first. The hope, as I understand it, is to have the editors and publishing folks really fall for the book, and be willing to put it out under a different name. But with the nonfiction, my name is part of what sells the books, so that’s not really a great option.
Well, my editor wrote back to clarify that she didn’t necessarily mean a few years, just to give it some time. Publishing, who would do such a crazy job?
Anyway – Deb – if you self publish you definitely don’t want to do it under another name. Use what you’ve built under your name for sure. I don’t know how costly they are but I think there are people you can pay to help you self publish or get setup to self publish.
I know at one point you had a foodie mystery or something that your publisher said no to as those aren’t current. I beg to differ. There are still people successfully publishing those & I bet yours is a good read.
This spring I took a six weeks long, super-detailed self-publishing class taught in the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime. I took the class because I heard great things about it from friends who took it last year. Maybe it will be taught again in 2025.
I’m not an aspiring mystery author, but in case anyone male thought the course, or other aspects, looked interesting, I will mention that (from what I’ve read, including in official handouts) despite its name Sisters in Crime does have male members, and even a subgroup Misters in Sisters.
Let me know if you hear about such a thing, although to be honest, I am so tired and my brain is so broken, it is hard for me to learn large chunks of new things.
Ahh! It sounds like you’re getting yanked around a bit, and you don’t deserve it.
Self-publishing isn’t nearly as scary as it sounds, and with a proven track record/name recognition you would probably do EXTREMELY well at it. If you want to chat more about it, reach out to me on Facebook and I can give you a birds-eye view of the process. That goes for anyone else thinking of jumping into that end of the pool.
Thanks Brenda, I’ve done a little bit of it. I put out the last couple of books in the Baba Yaga series when Berkley dropped it–the first one did one, the one after that, not so much. And I’m rereleasing the books I got the rights back to. I have a great cover artists, and someone who does the conversion and uploading, which helps. But once the books are up, I can’t seem to get any traction getting them noticed by readers, which is where it all falls apart. I’m everywhere online, I’ve got a newsletter and a Patreon, and still, nothing. So I’m not sure self-publishing is really a viable option for me.
Deborah, I noticed there’s a new platform – Ream – for direct contact between readers and authors. A. Demas mentioned it in her last newsletter and the guys on The Big Gay Fiction podcast (on Spotify) talked at length about it (I zoned out because I’m one of those who will not pay extra, I got teenagers that siphon off our cash efficiently enough).
Also, some authors are really very successful in handing out ARCs to those readers who have a good following themselves (see Saxon James): it creates a strong FOMO and pushes the info about upcoming releases so that interested readers hardly risk to miss their books. I’m not on booktok but that seems to very good for marketing.
I’m a tech-Neanderthal but with kiddo #2 going abroad by next week, I wanted to learn about (my so far non-existing) how-to-use-instagram so that she can keep up what’s up with her old folks if she wants.
I would be happy to branch out supporting arghink-authors đ
Deborah — my first exposure to the character Baba Yaga was as a child, and I recall Baba Yaga as a really witchy, arcane woman with forest and nature skills in addition to her mysterious powers which saved the days.
But my very favorite character was always the house on chicken legs. Is it possible for you to move, even briefly into that sort of direction? Maybe a relative of your contemporary characters? A hermit?
I don’t know, but I do remember loving that chicken-legged house when it stood up and walked away several miles at a time…. I recall it as being cranky, too. Always a plus…. đ
That’s a hilarious premise for the dog!
Publishing is so tough, Deborah. This is a hard thing to hear. Ugh. Maybe it is the universe telling you to write those fiction stories you have in your head and heart and see how they turn out on the page? Anyway, I know everyone here is rooting for you and your work.
Yay!
And Jenny, I am certain you had more than one job.
I didn’t finish anything worth noting this week. I dnfed some random things that had been hanging out on my kindle with promising premises but poor construction. At least I got the satisfaction of clearing something. I started some other things that I liked, but it’s too soon to truly recommend. Oh, I did try NJ Lysk finally and find them very addictive, although sadly lacking in audio options. Will peruse in the future.
I started re-reading the Stars of the Pack series, all your fault.
You are welcome! I have it downloaded, but will be working my way through Swipe for at least a week.
Typocally, I misread the title as Stars of the Puck series…
Well, it is Tammy. That would make a lot of sense.
WHAT A GREAT SERIES THAT WOULD BE!!
I’d read it in an instance for sure (since both you and Tammy would have rec’ded it) lol
I’ve been working on Simply Unforgettable, by Mary Balogh. It’s nice that both MCs feel overwhelming passion for the other. The male MC doesn’t get rejected often, so when the female does say no, he backs off, which is nice. He then gives her other opportunities to reject him. He’s not forced himself on her – which is great. I’ve not finished it yet, but I’m sure there is a HEA in my future.
Meanwhile, I just noticed that the National Library Service (the folks who serve the blind and disabled readers of the US) have the Liz Danger series in their collection. So, that’s great!
WooHoo! That is wonderful!! I’m glad they will get exposed to Jenny and Bob’s magic.
I DNFd a book that should have been right up my street but just didnât work for me. I so rarely leave a book unfinished, but I found it very difficult to separate the characters in dialogue, as there were few to no indicators as to who was speaking. Normally that doesnât bother me, and maybe my brain was having an off day, but I decided if it took me that long to work out who was saying what in never-ending conversations then it wasnât worth the time.
I finished Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan this morning. Itâs been on my shelf for a couple of years and I donât want to take it with me when I move house in the next few weeks, so I read it in preparation for it going to the charity shop. It made some interesting points about privilege and its sliding scale, and both the main characters were flawed but in a realistic way. I enjoyed it and it made me think, which is pretty much the holy grail of reading!
I then read the first two chapters of All The Feels by Olivia Dade on my lunch break – Iâve read it before, but as Iâve mentioned previously Iâve been trying so hard to cull the bookshelves so I have fewer books to transport, I needed a re-read and chose this because I think Iâll probably donate it after finishing⌠Itâs almost physically paining me to cull so many books, but Iâm trying to remember that I now work in a library and can gather books at will. It helps somewhat!
Annabel Monaghan, author of Nora Goes Off Script, has written a new book called Summer Romance. I won’t get into it too much to avoid spoilers, but her friends are telling her she needs to start dating again after her husband dumped her and he is just in town for the summer. It’s pretty good.
I also read two books in the in the Meant to Be series. They are all by different authors though and are meant to be retellings of fairy tales, which if I squint sideways at them I can kind of see it, but like Clueless is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma. I recommend ignoring that part of it. The two I read were pretty good though.
Kiss the Girl by Zoraida Cordova, is about a pop star fleeing from her tyrannical father/manager (with the full support of her sisters) and becoming the merchandise manager for the first national tour of an up and coming new band who don’t recognize her without her usual wig and makeup, and trying to not fall for the hot lead singer. Lots of fun characters in this one.
Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren, is about a home schooled girl from a survivalist family who is allowed to go to a local college after she aces all the entrance exams and earns a scholarship, but she has no actual experience with the modern world, despite having read every book in her small towns library. After a DNA test that the students of her biology class takes produces some surprising results she ends up on a road trip with the hot guy on campus. Also very good.
Thanks, I liked Nora goes off script so I might try the new one.
This was a strange reading week. It started off so well and is now sort of wallowing around in DNFs and only half-liked books.
I finished reading Jane Harperâs âThe Survivorsâ which I really enjoyed â not a romance but a mystery/thriller story set on the Tasmanian Coast. Very atmospheric and so well written. Iâm a latecomer to her books and I cannot believe it took me so long to read them. Loved them!
I then reread Alex Hallâs âPansiesâ and loved it as much as during all previous re-reads. Itâs a M/M contemporary romance in which the MCsâ relationship is all about working through a troubled past when one MC had bullied the other in school. It is a touching story and so well written. I loved it. The character development is lovely and while it has quite a bit of the signature Hall humor, it is in fact quite angsty and sad in places. This just made the HEA that much more satisfying to me but I can see that it might not be for everyone. I like this one every bit as much as Glitterland and For Real â they are all regular rereads. After that I had a serious book hangover which I think colored the rest of my reading this week.
I read an Avon Gale short story called âOld Acquaintanceâ â M/M story about a the meeting between a recently divorced (from a woman) man in his early 40s and his reciprocated insta-lust for a 22 year old student. I was just deciding to DNF it when it ended and I realized it was a short story/novella. Not likely to reread this one.
I read Swipe by TA Moore and again, it was only okay and I didnât get any feels like I did with the previous books in the Digging Up Bones series. This one was a M/M romance between an emergency room doctor and a biker gang member. I saw the twist almost immediately and that got me thinking about the biker MCâs poor decisions/choices which annoyed me a bit. I finished it but wonât be rereading it.
Finally I DNFâd Samatha Waylandâs Home and Away â M/M hockey adjacent romance between the owner of an EHL team and a player on the team. It took me a while to get used to the writing and this took me out of the story a lot. There was a strange jerkiness in the prose and it was short on description (except for what seemed like endless sex scenes) to the point that it read like a first draft waiting for some descriptions and transitions to be added in. Again, this might have been the fault of my hard-to-shake book hangover.
Iâve just started Once Persuaded, Twice Shy by Melodie Edwards. Itâs a modern day reworking of Jane Austenâs Persuasion and was recommended here (apologies, I donât remember who the Argher was who put me on to this oneâŚ) and so far so good. The fact that I am quite enjoying it must be a sign that the hangover is passing…
I’m looking forward to getting some inspiration from fellow Arghers on today’s GBT!
I’m listening to ‘Pansies’ for the first time and really enjoying it. Good reader too, which helps.
The narrator is wonderful, I agree!
He used to narrate KJ Charles earlier books.
Cornell Collins.
I read Whispers of the Deep by Emma Hamm, the book Lupe was reading last week. I think weâd both say the first half was better than the second â saggy middle problem. How the human woman and the mer-man (undine) connect and manage to communicate is actually quite interesting, although strictly for tentacle friends. Once they have sex, itâs more yawn-worthy. (I should insert a comment in here akin to âas in real lifeâ but not always and only for laughs so I will resist.). Anyway, I always think the best alien-human romances are Strange Love by Ann Aguirre and anything by Lyn Gala. This one wasnât as silly as Ruby Dixonâs Barbarian Planet series (silly but fun) but not up to that standard.
I also read the next in Katee Robertsâ Dark Olympus series, Midnight Ruin, which is the story of Eurydice, Orpheus and Charon â exploring a number of different relationship issues with someâŚshall we say unique solutions. Thoroughly enjoyable. Onto the next.
I would add Octavia Hyde to the alien romances, but her books are strictly tentacle friends only.
Octavia has a terrifically intelligent style of writing, but I find she is short on plot. It’s actually astonishing that she doesn’t apply that style to other genres – could be successful anywhere I think.
Definitely short on plot. I haven’t read anything else of hers besides the tentacles, but I would be willing to give it a try.
She’s only written the two books.
Boo. I thought so, but I haven’t checked for a while.
More re-reading for me this week, as all my holds at the library are still not ready. I’ve been re-reading the Penric stories. And I have a question. Does anyone know if Baen is planning to publish more Penric books in paper format? I have all of them on my Kindle, but I like paper books and buy them, when available.
So far Baen published 9 of the novellas, 3 per volume. But not the novel The Assassins of Thasalon and not the latest 3 novellas. Of course, there is a paper version of The Assassins from Subterranean Press, but it is too costly for me.
Then yesterday, for a change, I started Manhunting for the nth time. And I laughed as a loon just as I laughed the first time I read it years ago. Gosh, I love this book.
Olga, As I mentioned earlier, some Vorkosigan novels are now in Kindle as published by Spectrum Literarary Agency rather than Baen, which makes me wonder if Bujold and Baen have parted ways and she is taking rights back as contracts expire. If there was acrimony involved, Baen might not offer for print collections of Penric, which, if so, perhaps might appear from other publishers if anywhere. But I’m speculating on little evidence and could easily be wrong. Does anyone have hard information?
I have asked, “Baen has so far published 3 collections. There are 4 more stories. Will Baen be publishing another collection?” in Lois’s Miles to Go forum and in Toni Table forum. Toni Weisskopf is Baen Books Big Boss. I’ll watch for and report any answers.
Toni replied:
From the Miles to Go forum on Baen’s Bar:
Gary, Outstanding research and clarification!
The previous quote was from an older thread, asking about reprints. Now I have responses from both Toni and Lois in their respective fora. Forums. Whatever. This is Lois’ reply:
I have just written a long comment discussing all the things I love about the Corinna Chapman series by Kerry Greenwood & then accidentally erased it before posting it. I am too cross to rewrite it.
I will just say, I’m having a stressful week & these books are going a long way toward destressing me and making me smile.
If you liked the Ms Fisher Mystery series, you’ll probably like these. Same writer, same voice. Completely different main character though still spunky & lovable. Different love story arc also. Better in my opinion. None of the annoying will they won’t they stuff.
I highly recommend these books.
I had followed the early Chapman books but then lost track. If I ever clear my TBR queue, I should see where I stopped and continue from there.
I have the first Corinna Chapman, Earthly Delights, on my TBR. Need to move it closer to the top.
Strangely I loved the Corinna Chapman books but really didn’t enjoy the Ms Fisher ones! Can absolutely recommend the Corinna Chapman ones though.
I prefer Corinna to Phryne myself. Wishing for a new Corinna! Kerry Greenwood, are you listening from Down Under?!?
Same here. I found the Corinna Chapman books first. The Phryne Fisher books, when I got to them, were nice, but I donât reread them regularly.
Earthly delights was delightful and made me want to bake some muffins. I donât love Corinna quite as much but her supporting cast is much deeper and that apartment building! I want to live there!
Attention fans of the hockey worlds of:
Taylor Fitzpatrick: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife
Catherine Cloud: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesameoldstreets/pseuds/thesameoldstreets/series
Superstition_hockey https://archiveofourown.org/series/413233
theundiagnosable: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theundiagnosable
Let me introduce you to something a little different but really great: Back Up There
https://archiveofourown.org/series/272113
It’s a fictional series about the (real) English Premier Ice Hockey League in the UK. As the author says, this is hockey a long way from the NHL. There has been drama and change in the real leagues, but in this universe, there are three main tiers (besides the national team, called Team GB, which is mentioned a few times): at the top, the Elite League, then the Premier League (also called the EPIHL or EPL), then the National Ice Hockey League (NIHL). Most of the stories take place in the Premier League, but not all, and some players move between leagues.
The biggest caveat is that it can be very confusing, because many of the characters on different teams have the same names, characters refer to other team names by their city or their team name, or they refer to the affiliate team in a different league like we know all of this by heart. However, you have something that I didn’t have, which is this extremely helpful site that I didn’t find until I had read everything: https://scribetuesday.wixsite.com/backupthere
The most helpful information is the rosters, under Characters. (The timeline is even better, but contains spoilers, whereas the only spoilers on the rosters are who got traded where.)
There’s a slight focus on the back-up goalies (hence the series name); they have a back-up goalie chat that appears throughout some stories, but really the stories are about everyone and everything. There’s drama, romance with a variety of types of relationship, family issues, mental health, team dynamics. Many players have other jobs, which they have to balance with heavy demands of practice and long bus rides. The main characters of one story reappear as opponents in the next story. It’s like a giant soap opera. (Very low heat, though, if that matters. It didn’t to me.)
Where to start:
You can just go in order, but the first few stories are short and don’t give the full flavor of the series.
The most accessible place to start would be:
Hector’s Boys https://archiveofourown.org/works/11857386/chapters/26770830
It covers a full season of one team, and everyone is introduced as they arrive. It’s also a great story. However, it’s a commitment: Multiple POVs, 130K words.
Another way to start would be with these three stories that kind of go together (~30K words):
It doesn’t count, at camp https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227549
Taking the Long Way Round https://archiveofourown.org/works/4611711/chapters/10510920
kämppisten https://archiveofourown.org/works/15720852/chapters/36544851
An interesting take on hurt/comfort in this AU story:
Feral https://archiveofourown.org/works/40862223/chapters/102637629
Other favorites include, Consequences, And The Little One Said / Glitter, and Puckdrop.
Enjoy!
I just posted a really long comment that didn’t appear, so I tried it again and got a message saying it was duplicate. Does that mean it’s in moderation? (Maybe for being too long?)
Were there multiple links? That always takes moderation, I’ve learned.
Yes, there were a ton of links.
My comments is about a hockey series on AO3 in case anyone is interested in coming back to find it.
I’ll be back!
Your comments on the hockey series are still not here… What was the Ao3 work you were commenting on?
(Extreme hockey deprivation going on here…)
Trying again to post my long comment, but with an added space in each URL to disguise the links.
Attention fans of the hockey worlds of:
Taylor Fitzpatrick:
https://archiveofourown. org/users/youcouldmakealife
Catherine Cloud:
https://archiveofourown. org/users/thesameoldstreets/pseuds/thesameoldstreets/series
Superstition_hockey
https://archiveofourown. org/series/413233
theundiagnosable:
https://archiveofourown. org/users/theundiagnosable
Let me introduce you to something a little different but really great: Back Up There
https://archiveofourown. org/series/272113
It’s a fictional series about the (real) English Premier Ice Hockey League in the UK. As the author says, this is hockey a long way from the NHL. There has been drama and change in the real leagues, but in this universe, there are three main tiers (besides the national team, called Team GB, which is mentioned a few times): at the top, the Elite League, then the Premier League (also called the EPIHL or EPL), then the National Ice Hockey League (NIHL). Most of the stories take place in the Premier League, but not all, and some players move between leagues.
The biggest caveat is that it can be very confusing, because many of the characters on different teams have the same names, characters refer to other team names by their city or their team name, or they refer to the affiliate team in a different league like we know all of this by heart. However, you have something that I didn’t have, which is this extremely helpful site that I didn’t find until I had read everything:
https://scribetuesday.wixsite. com/backupthere
The most helpful information is the rosters, under Characters. (The timeline is even better, but contains spoilers, whereas the only spoilers on the rosters are who got traded where.)
There’s a slight focus on the back-up goalies (hence the series name); they have a back-up goalie chat that appears throughout some stories, but really the stories are about everyone and everything. There’s drama, romance with a variety of types of relationship, family issues, mental health, team dynamics. Many players have other jobs, which they have to balance with heavy demands of practice and long bus rides. The main characters of one story reappear as opponents in the next story. It’s like a giant soap opera. (Very low heat, though, if that matters. It didn’t to me.)
Where to start:
You can just go in order, but the first few stories are short and don’t give the full flavor of the series.
The most accessible place to start would be:
Hector’s Boys
https://archiveofourown. org/works/11857386/chapters/26770830
It covers a full season of one team, and everyone is introduced as they arrive. It’s also a great story. However, it’s a commitment: Multiple POVs, 130K words.
Another way to start would be with these three stories that kind of go together (~30K words):
It doesn’t count, at camp https://archiveofourown. org/works/4227549
Taking the Long Way Round https://archiveofourown. org/works/4611711/chapters/10510920
kämppisten https://archiveofourown. org/works/15720852/chapters/36544851
An interesting take on hurt/comfort in this AU story:
Feral https://archiveofourown. org/works/40862223/chapters/102637629
Other favorites include, Consequences, And The Little One Said / Glitter, and Puckdrop.
Enjoy!
@Jen B waiting with bated breath for those links please!
Jen, I managed to erase (in the offline app I was using to make sure I saved it!) one fairly long comment, plus, for various reasons, a few shorter ones, so I’m glad that this one seems only to be in moderation. I don’t think the topic here would interest me, but as a general policy, I usually check back several times, either by looking at the Recent Posts listing or by doing a Find in Page on the date (today would be “st 22″â st for [Augu]st).
On reflection, I think that items sprung from moderation retain their original date, and because of that I’m not sure that either of the above methods of checking back would find them, although they would if somebody commented on the released post.
Thanks Patrick. I don’t have any problem navigating the site. I was just trying to understand why my comment didn’t get posted.
Jen,
That business on navigation was not advice to you but assurance that some people do check back on old topics, and perhaps advice to anonymous newbies on how to do it. I hope that by now (8/26) Jenny has sprung your post.
This week I read all of the Taylor Fitzpatrick Between the Teeth series, I had read the first two (and loved them) before and I loved them again. When I go back to the best hockey writers I remember how good they are. Of course I also read the last in the trilogy which was recently published. Great! Have to decide where to start with her on AO3, but as people have noted here a few times, her stuff on AO3 is complicated. I was going to start with Impaired Judgement, but it appears Iâll either have to read on my phone or download 175 chapters/episodes⌠đŻ. Any thoughts from the AO3 experts? Or anyone?
On the subject of AO3, last week I read a new spit_kitten which was based on the Saki story Gabriel Ernest (except smuttier) so I reread the Saki story first. Great to get back to him as I hadnât read any in years, and I enjoyed cry-wolf too.
I also read âNever Leave, Never Lieâ by Thea Verdone (MM). This is quite dark with exploration of mental illness, so it is not for everyone. It starts with an established romance which is then falling apart. Also has house restoration (not cutesy). I liked it.
Finally, I read the last of the All For The Game original trilogy (there is now a 4th but it was written a while after the first three). I was ambivalent about the series when I read the second, and didnât think Iâd go back with it (it was quite violent and though tagged a romance after the 2nd book I didnât even know who would be in the romance). Book 3 progresses a romance (sort of) and was going along fine, as in I was happy reading about the complex relationships of the team who all have issues (and play a made up game, Exy) and there are various gang/revenge themes.. It was fine even if I couldnât keep track of it. Then it got very violent. I stuck with the first bit of that, and then skipped the rest of it (quite a few pages). Overall I am not really sure what I think of the series and whether Iâll read the 4th one, or if I would recommend it, though it is memorable enough so it has something going for it.
I have just started KJ Charles The Magpie Lord and I think I am going to love it!
On audio I am back to Alexis Hallâs Spires for the final one âPansiesâ I think it will be my second fave (after Glitterland). The reader is good, which is nice after my experience with For Real.
I can’t help with Impaired Judgement but I’ve downloaded/compiled a number of the shorter series that I can forward you in pdf form if you send me an email: tammy at hrtransformations dot com.
Thanks, that would be great. I’ll email you.
I downloaded Impaired Judgment in order from Ao3 only to find that all 175 chapters are there but in a totally random order. Once I have re-arranged them I will see if there is a way to get it to you as a packet. No promises at this point but stay tuned!
And thank you for reminding me that Taylor Fitzpatrick might just be the solution to the book-funk I have been in!
Thanks! Likewise if I find a solution I will pass it on.
Well, I spent a LOT of time trying to figure out this Impaired Judgment problem on my kindle and exploring ways to re-order the chapters and then perhaps export it. No go so far. Seems that the best solution is to slog through Ao3 and “rename” each download in numerical order at the beginning of the title in order to keep them sorted. I am going to give it a try re-downloading a handful every day until I get this in order.
But even then I haven’t found a way to export from my Kindle to another device that is not registered under my name. My thought had been to export to my laptop and then send it to you but it doesn’t seem to be possible.
Ugh!
Calibre I think would do it …
The really frustrating things is A03 is set-up to do this all automatically – no idea what Fitzpatrick is doing to get it so tangled.
I am so late to reply but I have to comment that a) The Magpie Lord is so great and I’m so jelly of you reading it for the first time
And I’m addicted to the Foxhole Court even though it is ridiculously violent, utterly ridiculous, plot holes you could sail a cruise ship through, but yet I still find it compulsive, even on second reading. Maybe it’s how high stakes she makes it seem? But yes, others mmv
I read another excellent bird-science book by Jennifer Ackerman, What An Owl Knows, and am somewhere in the middle of a book about roadside ecology that I keep having to take breaks from. It’s good, but intensely focused on roadkill…and as it turns out, I can only read about roadkill stats for about half a chapter at a time.
I only finished one work of fiction this week, a romance, and I sadly did not like it. Started promisingly but became increasingly ludicrous, and then the dog died. So that was a bust. I have a new T. Kingfisher on audiobook though, and hope to find time to listen to that soon.
I love Jennifer Ackerman’s books! I am currently reading her book “Birds by the Shore” about natural life on the Atlantic Coast and loving it. What an Owl Knows is next!
I don’t usually manage to get here on Thursdays, and the time I do…. well, I read two books lately that I was liking alot, and then something out of character (IMO) and/or unnecessary kind of spoiled each one of them. When I discussed with dear sister the one she had also read, she agreed point one was annoying, and when I complained about point two, I convinced her. I am not sorry I read them, but neither is going on the re-read pile. I was trying to hold out re-reading Rocky Start until closer to VNF comes out, but I needed something I could count on. I may have liked it even better this time.
Also rewarded myself with the third Lord Julian book by Grace Burrows. They are not perfect, but they are satisfying. I looked up the sandwich thing – Regency folk did eat sandwiches, but it sounds like not really the way Grace uses them. Small point – I have learned to look the other way when food is on her table!
Is anyone reading the Electra McDonnell series by Ashley Weaver? I liked the first one (though I have trepidation about the possible love interest) but the are kinda pricey for my pocket, so I would like to hear if the second one is worth the investment.
I really like the Lord Julian books. Somehow, I find them soothing.
I have also read all the Electra McDonnell books. The second one can be skipped in my opinion. The 3rd one is good. The 4th was good though I found Electra’s actions unsettling. I will keep reading because I want to find out the truth about her father’s murder.
I think there are at least 4 books in the series now. I think the series has lightened up as it went along, which is good because I found the guardianship/custody status of one of the characters a bit harrowing. I’ve enjoyed the series but prefer to order them from the library
Oh wait, is this the one where the main character is a thief? I mixed this up with another series involving a dating agency. But the same holds true; Iâve enjoyed the series but prefer to order them from the library. FYI, I see book 5 is coming out next June, but I think they solved the father’s murder in book 3 or 4. Would need to reorder from the library to confirm. Perhaps someone else here knows.
Lol, I see Mary answered your question while I was busy typing.
I love Lord Julian books. Read them all and enjoyed them. Now I’m eagerly waiting for the next one in the series. Some time in the fall, I think.
I read A Sorceress Comes to Call by Kingfisher, a dark regency-style fantasy loosely based on the Goose Girl fairy tale. Excellent and engrossing and creepy, but the author’s voice draws in the reader from page one. Even though the main narrator is a 14-year-old, there are three strong middle-aged women who have plenty of agency in opposing the female villain. Because of this, it feels somewhat on the same plane as Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons. Both books are similarly funny in their observations–and defiance–of society’s appropriate roles for women.
I haven’t managed to finish a single book this week, sigh.
Have started listening KJ Charles’ reading Secret Life of Country Gentlemen and didn’t spend enough time with manual work so not much progress.
For helping me falling asleep, I got the Egotistical Puckboy audiobook, a book I’ve read a couple of times already, so I know what I miss when I get knocked out after a few pages. I grew to like one narrator lot, but still dislike the other a lot: too agitated and I don’t much like the timbre of his voice. Hmpf.
Also I find the pronunciation of both the MCs names peculiar/very unfamiliar: Anton is very common in Germanic countrues, but it sounds very differently in the audio to what I’m used too. Interesting experience!
And I’ve finally started in earnest with Hot Target by Suzanne Brockmann. Quite a number of POVs. I very much like the MMC, Cosmo. And the humor.
Apart from that I was more busy preordering titles, eg the new Sarina Bowen (Last Guy on Earth, out early March 2025).
Ooh “Hot Target” and Cosmo are so good. Plus the Adam-Jules-Robin thing, excellent.
Yes, I also got the xmas title with Jules and Robin đ
There’s one in between that you need to get the full story of Robin-Jule, “Force of Nature”, if you haven’t already got it.
*Jules*
Oh thanks, will check it out!!
I’m also looking forward to Last Guy on Earth.
Just back from my last therapy session! Next comes ambulatory surgery, yet to be scheduled, 1 to 2 months off.
Michael Mammay, Planetside. Harper Voyager, 2018. This was the waiting-room book that I mentioned earlier. Here we have the fairly rare case where it worked out well to pick a book at random off a library shelf. The one thing I knew in its favor going in was that it had a blurb from Jack Campbell, an author with a good track record for me. Even that blurb was mostly unreadable through library stickers on the back cover. Planetside is the authorâs debut novel. Considering that, it is remarkably well written, both in style and structure. Per the acknowledgements, before publication it did get materially revised in response to feedback from various quarters.
The plot combines sf mystery with military sf: At the behest of an old friend, now a general high in Space Command, crusty, hard-drinking Colonel Butler is pulled from a teaching billet and travels to Capra Three to investigate the mysterious disappearance in action of a lieutenant who happens to be the son of a high political figure, a connection drawing official attention to an MIA case that otherwise would have been shrugged off. The plot thickens from there, both with ground-combat incidents and detective-type ones. Something is being covered up with high level support back home, and a willingness to see soldiers killed planetside in the combat zone to aid the deception.
Pretty far into the story, I wondered if it wasn’t a Bat Durston (i.e., a story from another genre with only the names and scenery changed to make it look like sf). It seemed that it could as well have been set in Afghanistan (where the author had served, as he had in other hotspots). Then significant sfnal elements appeared. Some of them looked rather arm-wavy, but not entirely inconceivable for fictional purposes. Other elements of the resolution depend on its turning out that the large military space station where Butler is temporarily working has resources for which I recalled no basis having been established. Thinking that possibly I had missed a key sentence or two, I downloaded the softcopy version from KU and did a word search. Very late in the game, there’s a bit of hint given. I think that aspect could have been handled better.
The book is a bit more cynical and noir than I usually prefer, but the author brings it off. I have an interlibrary loan request in for the first sequel. Planetside is not labeled as the start of a series, and it ties up enough knots that it could easily stand alone. As it turned out, it seems to have started a successful career. It is now part of a series with three sequels and another one forthcoming. Mammay has also published two unrelated novels with Harper Voyager and yet another independently.
Courtney Milan, The Duke Who Didn’t, 2020. I mentioned earlier that I was reading this novel. I enjoyed it, although as Yuri said, it seems to take place in an alternate universe where 19th century Britain was just slightly kinder and gentler, and, I might add, less racist, than on our timeline. I canât remember what of Milan’s I’ve already read, but whatever it was, I liked this better. I had been aware of Milan for many years, particularly since she repeatedly was mentioned on the former Australian podcast Galactic Suburbia, but I somehow had formed the impression that she was an author less commercially successful than she actually is, as I discovered by finally reading the interesting article on her in Wikipedia.
I have started the first sequel to The Duke Who Didn’t, The Marquis Who Mustn’t. I’m not yet finished, but I’ve found a likely error. The protagonist has a con man father. Our hero explains that his father took him to the US “back before it was closed to Chinese people.” But the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act “made exceptions for merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplomats,” per Wikipedia. It was aimed at Chinese laborers and permanent immigrants. Our hero’s father was posing as a traveling Chinese nobleman. The Exclusion Act was still a disgusting, racist piece of prejudice, but it seemingly would not have applied here even if it had been in effect. (I suppose Milan could respond that our hero was a preteen and early teen at the time and had had nothing to do with the US since then, and had simply got his facts wrong.)
Catherine Walsh, Snowed In, 2023. The novel was recommended on this site. I especially enjoyed the Irish local color. If Walsh is accurately depicting the situation, religion has almost totally disappeared from Irish society (as other sources have also suggested).  Although somehow the two weddings depicted in this book both still manage to take place in a church, presumably Catholic (there’s a priest, so it’s that or, improbably, the [Anglican] Church of Ireland). Completely aside from the spiritual aspects, there is no mention whatever of all the waiting and red tape that a Catholic wedding entails. (Moreover, one wedding involves emigrants who surely can’t plausibly claim to be still members of the Irish parish where the wedding is held, so that on top of the normal red tape, permissions from two bishops, one abroad, would also have to be obtained.)
Catherine Walsh, Holiday Romance, 2022. Since I liked Snowed In and still felt the need for light reading, I went back to the first novel in the series. I liked it too, but less so, and I skipped some bits, both because there were a confusing number of temporal shifts and because I did not enjoy the long detailing of a huge (and a bit implausible) effort to schedule and then catch flights or other transportation to evade a huge storm centered in the mid-Atlantic. (It reminded me a bit of Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, which already had been done.) I think I would have preferred the way the story seemed to be shaping up at first, namely as a friends-to-lovers story taking place entirely in Chicago after the protagonists had had their scheduled flight to Ireland canceled.
We did encounter one very devout landlady on our trip to Ireland, plus a couple of well-used shrines. I was a bit surprised by Snowed In, too: it lacked a flavour Iâm used to in Irish romcoms, and which I donât like, where dishonesty seems accepted. Itâs put me off them for years, but I was probably unfortunate in the books I read. So this one was a relief in that way; it felt much more modern.
Patrick, glad you ended up liking the Milan . I’ve always liked Milan’s work so I find it difficult to judge what other people might like!
Yuri, My own recommendations often fail to get much response, and at times I’m surprised at what does (for instance, which of my book-club nominations get voted in). Not to mention series that I liked that never finish because they didn’t attract enough other readers to suit the publisher.
I’ve been listening to Publishing Rodeo and it becomes pretty obvious that getting a viable level of readership is down to the marketing – which is all in the publisher’s control. What makes a global bestseller is more mysterious.
Yuri, Enough publicity probably will get any novel an appreciable first reading (even I read L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth and Newt Gingrich’s 1945), but I don’t think it will sustain an entire series. If the first book is not good, readership will drop, and the tendency probably is for series, especially from debut authors (David Feintuch, for example), either to drop off in quality or to keep recycling the same once-novel ideas. I suppose an argument could be made that if you make a big enough initial splash, even the constantly declining sales of the sequels may still see you through a series, but I still doubt that publicity will help much once you’ve had your shot at the readership’s attention. Granted, my evidence is only that of a long-time observer, especially of science fiction.
You probably have a point. However, to some extent the sequel drop off is a self-fulfilling prophecy with print runs being smaller and a smaller marketing budgets.
I’m totally blanking on the author but there was at least one best-selling series where the publisher had signed a multi-book deal (as in 7 or so) and therefore when the sales for the sequel dipped, they put a lot of marketing behind it and as a result the last few books sold very well.
Plus my impression from self-published authors is they don’t get anywhere near the same drop-off in a series as Big 5 published authors do – on the other hand they don’t have the same high point in sales either.
I really liked Planetside and its first two sequels. I’m glad to hear there’s another one coming out.
I started Snowed In and was happy to find it was set in Ireland, but it is very non specific (about places, so far anyway) apart from Dublin and Cork. I’ll report back when I finish as to whether I think it is authentic.
Even though religion is a lot less important than before, and mass attendance is way lower, lots of people still marry in a church (first time round, it’s not allowed for subsequent weddings!).
Frozen, It wasn’t so much the Catholic church wedding that drew my attention, as the complete lack of mention of all the time-consuming pre-wedding business that entails. The author did leave enough time in the timeline to accomplish all that, but I think she was deliberately skating over it to look as much as the setting would allow like a standard American 100% secular romance novel (with maybe a token quickie church wedding in an obliging Protestant church for tradition’s sake [not that all Protestant churches are so obliging] ).
I should have said weddings plural. If Frozen is still reading, she has not yet gotten to the second one, where more of the timeline happens within the novel.
I returned a bagful of books to the library — half of which I’d read, bit by bit in bed at night, and half I thought ‘ what the hell, I’m never going to finish mysteries in tiny doses late at night’ and tossed in the bag.
So I was waiting for the autobiography of Randy Rainbow I’d ordered, and decided to re-read a Rivers of London novella — “What Abigail did that Summer.” A mystery, but without the murder part. Just a sweet snapshot of a nice character from series MC Peter’s London contacts until it isn’t, and I got caught up in the dangerous second half & woke up from it at midnight (not from sleep, just the trance of a book you can’t put down. It was kind of terrifying but ended well. Love this series.
By the way, if you’ve never listened to Randy Rainbow’s online musical theater satires of political topics, you might check him out. I adore his wit, his verbal inventiveness & fluency, and his voice. If you have no background in current US politics, you might still enjoy these. (on YouTube & elsewhere).
Randy is wonderful. So clever.
Randy is hilarious and wonderful. His satires always make me laugh.
Does anyone on here read the Sparks and Bainbridge mystery series by Allison Montclair that started with The Right Sort of Man? Just after WWII, two women, a former intelligence agent and a widowed society woman with a small child, open a marriage bureau and get tangled up in murders and other mysteries. The seventh book, Murder at the White Palace, just came out; I’m about halfway through, and it’s just as good as the others. They’re well written and cover a lot of interesting ground about society, class, changing roles for women, as well as good mysteries and great development arcs for our main characters.
Also, did someone on here recommend the M/M (high heat) romance (!) series by Onley James about the family of seven adopted psychopaths who were raised to kill bad people? (The first book is Unhinged. They’re all on Hoopla.) The books feature more gore than I would prefer, but I definitely got engaged with the characters. The author is a former nurse at a psych hospital, and she says writing the books is like therapy for her. It’s interesting to see how she manages to get HEAs for everyone, and especially how she gets the non-psychopath partners to accept the “love” of their psychopath.
Tammy has been recommending Marina Viviancos forever, but I haven’t dug in to her work because I can’t get her books on any of my library apps. However, by signing up for her newsletter I got a free short M/M book that I really liked, Spy on Me (20K words). Highly recommend.
What’s really funny is that book is one of the Vivancos books I don’t actually like. Lol!
I may end up liking the others better too! I definitely love spy stories, so that may be why I liked this one so much.
I haven’t tried her yet. Which would you say is a good one to start with?
Hmmm, she is tentacle friend adjacent. Writes almost all her books in the a/b/o ‘verse. Not sure it would be your jam, Christina. Although her hockey series might work for you, because hockey.
Hmm I think you may be right about that not being quite my thing. I’ll check out the hockey ones and put on TBR. Thanks!
Me to, so far I am not keen on the a/b/o idea (never say never) but for the moment I’ll stick to Hockey.
Obvs I meant ‘Me too’ (not to). I’m a bit nervous about grammatical errors here đł!
Donât be! We all make them in our rush to discuss books here. My standby excuse: I am not a native speaker đ
Same here, LN!
I often cringe when re-reading my posts.
Be it that I belatedly see the grammatical errir or a wrong typo because my finger hit the wrong button (I mostly type on the mobile). But I also don’t want to flood the forum with corrections as with my level of errors it’d be a flood.
I love the Sparks and Bainbridge novels. I especially loved the ending to the second book. That had to be the best ‘gather all the parties involved together so we can announce the solution’ scene in a mystery!
The Sparks and Bainbridge series is the one I got mixed up with the Electra McDonnell series (see far above). They’re both set in WWII London. Was racking my brains trying to recall the details so thank you, Jen B, for providing the answer unasked! Lol!
I read the first Onley James book and agree with your take. I don’t care for the gore, but enjoyed the characters.
I really appreciated the lack of angst, to the point of being funny. No one is conflicted or bothered with the mission. I wasn’t compelled to instantly pick up the next one, but I may read another again someday.
Jen B, I adore the Sparks and Bainbridge series. They’re so well written and so character driven. Thanks for letting us know that there’s a new one.
I haven’t DNFd any books this week. I’ve read some really unremarkable ones, though. Consoling myself with Hands of the Emperor.
Hands of the Emperor (I love that book) put me on my current exploration of Polynesian navigation practices. If you want to start somewhere, try M. R. O’Connor’s book Wayfinding – it talks about humans in general and how they figure out where they are and where they want to go, and also explores several indigenous navigation practices, which are fascinating!
I reread – and really enjoyed – K. J. Charlesâ Society of Gentlemen series (m/m Regency, more angsty than her recent ones, but still great fun). Then Catherine Walshâs Snowed In: very light but fun, though itâs another story that tied up too neatly at the end, so I havenât tried any others by her. Will look out for them in the library.
Just reread The Hookup by Jax Calder, which is another fluffy (m/m) romcom. Now on to an Eli Easton which Iâve also completely forgotten.
I’ve been re-reading J. D. Robb, and should probably stop, as Eve is starting to get on my nerves. (It’s the rudeness to anyone who she sees as getting in the way of an investigation, even a doorman)
While on holiday, I read all of Ellis Peters’ Felse Mysteries. Taking place over fifteen years or so, real time and in book chronology, they start with a Detective Sergeant in a small English town tripping over his first murder. The leads are pretty evenly divided between the Detective and his son, with his wife getting a few books, and I found that they formed a pleasing circle: the last book also features a too-clever adolescent getting involved.
I think Eve gets more polite in later books. Happiness and Roarke have smoothed some of her edges.
I’ve been reading Shanna Swendson’s Little Ridding cozy fantasy series (Tea and Empathy; Bread and Burglary). It’s similar to The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst.
I read the first one and really liked it.
I read Hello Stranger by Katherine Center and loved it. I am now reading The Rom-Commers by Center and enjoying it but not devouring it like I did Hello Stranger but I could definitely recommend both.
Ah. I was still on the fence about the Rom-Commers after reading the sample. But I really liked Hello Stranger and didn’t realize it was the same author.
Same author but The Rom-Commers didn’t “capture” me the way Hello Stranger did. With Hello Stranger I couldn’t wait to get back to reading it and with this one it’s like oh yeah, I need to finish that one. I’m not sure why some stories and characters speak to me more than others. It doesn’t mean the other book was any less.
Other than engineering reports, I read some almost good books, plus a stack Seanan McGuire’s shorts and re-reads in preparation for #14 in her October Daye series “A Killing Frost” which was wonderful, laugh-out-loud funny, poignant and romantic. I am very glad I had already read the post-book novella as it gave depth to the ending. On to book #15!
“Accidentally Engaged” by Farah Heron was a delightful surprise and new-to-me author courtesy of KJ Charles’ Year’s Best list a few years ago. A Canadian fake-dating/arranged marriage between adult children of Gujarati Tanzanian parents. Very much enjoyed it.
“First Frost” by Sarah Addison Allen rounded out my week’s best reads. I was a bit nervous about picking it up given how much I liked “Garden Spells”, but while I didn’t love it quite as much it was still lovely to re-visit these characters, and the importance of friendship and family as much as romance.
I read The Three Body Problem by Cixxin Liu whose plot is this: Chinese dissidents contact a more developed planet than ours. But, that’s not what the book is really about. It’s about the Chinese people, their collective terror of those in power and their subsequent rage against those in power. Waves of terror, then rage, define Chinese history over eons. Then again, I may have misunderstood the entire book.
I rereread The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope which I love.
I read Rex Stout’s Where There’s a Will. My advice is to go with other Nero Wolf titles.
Elizabeth, An interesting take on 3 Body Problem. I read it (needing two tries to finish), but I never formed any particular theories.
Interestingly, a group that I’m in (not the book club) has an astrophysicist among its members, and although I gather that he liked the book well enough on the whole, he tore it to shreds on astrophysics grounds. (Liu is an engineer but not an astrophysicist. ) Although there is no general solution to the 3-body problem, there are often specific solutions, and in his expert opinion a planet in the Alpha-Beta-Proxima Centauri system would behave nothing like what is depicted.
Reading sf, or indeed any sort of fiction, touching on a field in which one has expert knowledge can often require a lot of shrugging-off. I’ve already ranted here about mistakes concerning Russian language, Russian history, and so forth.
Thank you for your comment, Patrick. I know nothing about science (I majored in Medieval Studies in college), so I guessed that the basic stuff would be on target and the long range stuff would be speculative. (My favorite bit of science is to add baking soda to vinegar. Always adore the fizz!)
Elizabeth, I knew a fair amount for a layperson about science, and did not detect the problems either. Several of the other people at the meeting were scientists, but with specialties other than astrophysics, and even they seemed surprised. (Other portions of Liu’s science, as far as I know, is pretty arm-wavy, but not flatly contradicted by known science.)
One of the funniest conversations I ever heard was an astrophysicist and a social scientist pulling apart “Project Hail Mary”, making various asides about also needing a linguist. Doesn’t make it any less an fun ride of a book, but I’m glad I listened to that after rather than beforehand.
And of course sometimes scientific thought changes. I remember in one of Charlie Jane Anders’ books that she mentioned that her premise had been disproved by astrophysicists between when she wrote it and when it got published. Ouch!
Perilous Guard is one of all time favorite books. The Sherwood Ring , also by Elizabeth Marie Pope, is very different but delightful. Big comfort reads for me, particularly TSR.
Yes. I have bought both in paper, partly for me and partly for any possible grandchildren. My poor kids will get boxes and boxes of their own books if they ever have kids but these are the only books I specifically bought for theoretical grandkids
I couldn’t get into anything else, so ended up rereading/relistening all three of KJ Charles’ Will Darling books. As you do…
And now I’m in the middle of Ali Hazelwood’s Love Hypothesis.
And my new book is out!
Phillipa Lodge, Chill. New Adult friend group
Congrats – are you going to do an argh author post?
Congratulations on the new book, regardless of the penname spelling. đ
Congrats on the new book!
Congrats on the new release!
I can’t spell my pen name: Philippa Lodge
A couple of disappointments this week. Fortunately, they were both very cheap.
1. ‘Bloom’ by N.R. Walker, short M/M contemporary featuring a florist and a personal shopper / stylist / stager. Quite a bit of good banter, very Australian, sweet low-conflict relationship plus an unusually matter-of-fact treatment of anal sex / topping/ STD risk via a broken-condom scare. Probably won’t re-read, but enjoyed it.
1.5 ‘Love Potion No. 69’ by Lynn Michaels, which I picked up for cheap because of the title. Short story. Porn built around a magic cookbook and utterly forgettable characters.
2. ‘Between Perfect and Real’ by Ray Stoeve. Seattle-set YA about a trans boy during senior year of high school. I would re-read this in combination with other, similar books I’ve enjoyed this year, so rounded up to 5.
3. ‘Red Nails, Black Skates: Gender, Cash, and Pleasure On and Off the Ice’ by Erica Rand. Dense & long yet very readable, rounded up to 5 for this academic & personal look at amateur but serious figure skating.
4. DNF at 49% so you can’t say I didn’t give it a fair shake. ‘Rival Princes’ by Jaxon Knight. Two theme-park character actors in a baseless rivalry, insta-lust, We Can’t Communicate, I was so bored.
5. ‘I Changed My Mind’ by L.A. Witt, memoir, subtitle: My Journey from Infertile to Childfree. This woman has definitely been given unwanted advice waaaayyyy too often. Recommended for anyone who doesn’t understand why women don’t all want to be pregnant / have babies / give up twenty years of their lives to childkeeping.
6. ‘The Last Boyfriends Rules for Revenge’ by Matthew Hubbard. Very good YA M/M set in Alabama featuring a trio of friends who start the book with romantic disappointments and end it as nationally famous leaders of an activist movement against queer erasure policies in schools.
7. ‘Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating’s Olympic Gold Medals’ by Christine Brennan, a career sports journalist. This centers on the 1992-1998 period that ended with the Lipinski/Kwan upset in Nagano. Lots of detail, many vignettes, one shudders at the terrible conditions in which the Russian skaters lived & worked (one of them has a groin injury that, with proper treatment and therapy, could have been resolved in three months. Instead, because Russia, it is a career-ender). Not all stories are resolved, but the breadth of it was pretty impressive.
8. ‘Powered by Ghosts’ by Kaje Harper, #2 in her necromancer series; in which MCs face a ghoul, one acquires a familiar, and they attach a couple of allies.
8.5 ‘Bound by Memories’ by Kaje Harper, #3, a novella in which a tree-lot poltergeist is led to peace and the household negotiates Christmas.
9. ‘Charm City Rocks’ by Matthew Norman, a really sweet F/M music-centered midlife love story featuring a Baltimore piano teacher, the rock & roll drummer he crushed on as a young man, his college-bound son, his ex, her husband, the rocker’s ex-husband & daughter, and the difficulties (real & imagined) of turning a few weeks’ fling into something more like forever. POV chapters from almost everybody were not at all hard to follow and non-MC chapters added emotional heft. Sincere 5 stars.
Lots of Ann Cleeves and Laurie R. King.
Finished A SORCERESS COMES TO CALL by T. Kingfisher–fabulous as always. Then started THE SPELLSHOP by Sarah Beth Durst, another writer who never disappoints. I’m a happy reader.
I brought Nora Roberts ‘Mind Games’. I was flying to Baltimore to visit my son. It took 6 days. I can read,(skim) any book I love in a day. (Then I reread it the next day and much more carefully. I’ve missed some major plot points because I have to finish and it’s 3 am). A 12 year old mind melds with a psychopath when he kills her parents.
We spent 1 day in DC and I found a book on clearance at the Smithsonian, ‘Hollywood; An Oral History’. A fabulous book for travel. Bits of interviews with everyone from Hollywood, Cameramen to directors and actors-mainly the 30’s-50’s. Great gossip and a fair amount of history. Easy to put down and pick up.
I’ve been sick, so a LOT of reading. Nettle and Bone, which I absolutely adored. Kingfisher does this sort of stuff so well.
Top Secret by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. It started off annoying me, because rich kids at college aren’t particularly interesting, but then it got good and I ended up really liking it.
I reread Boyfriend Material and loved it all over again. Then I read Husband Material for the first time, and while I recognise that it’s not as good as the first book, it was fun to spend time with these characters again.
Entreat Me by Grace Draven, a take on Beauty and the Beast. I really liked it EXCEPT HER CHARACTERS KEEPING WINKING AT EACH OTHER. It’s not quite as bad as smirking, but I find it immensely off-putting. Do real people wink at each other all the time? I don’t think so. I wish she’d stop it.
Now I’m working my way through The Art of Murder Books 1-3 by Josh Lanyon, and enjoying them a lot.
Plus I’m no longer sick, which feels much better.
Glad you’re feeling better Lian. It’s horrible being sick.
It really is, isn’t it. Mind you, I medicated myself so thoroughly with everything possible that I recovered much more quickly than I expected to!
Where as I keep getting better, and then catching someone else’s cold when I finally venture out – very frustrating! But thankfully its all been low level so far for me so could be much worse.
Are you back home yet? I can’t imagine being sick during a book tour which I understand from various folks can be pretty grueling.
Yes, I’m back home Yuri. I managed to get back on my feet to do the last two days of the book tour, which I was really pleased about. The other good thing was that the place I was staying – an airbnb – was quiet and private with lots of sunlight, a really comfortable bed and a brilliant shower, so it was no great hardship being stuck there, even when I was feeling grim.
That’s awful, getting sick again almost straight away! I do hope you manage to stay well this time around.
The little things do help!
Hopefully, both of you get fine soon, nit just well, and stay that way. Best wishes!!
One time I had what I took to be a horrendous cold while on a business trip, only to “miraculously” recover as soon as I got home. In retrospect, I decided that it was probably an allergic reaction, most likely to something wafting in from remodeling work happening in another part of the meeting venue. Also in retrospect, long after a different trip I began to wonder if I have a relatively mild cat allergy. I had a similar quick recovery from a “cold” after visiting friends who bedded me down on the floor in a room much visited by their cat.
Patrick, my husband caught a “cold” once when we stayed with friends, but miraculously got so much better each time we ventured out into the cold winter air. Turned out he had an allergic reaction to Lancelot, the resident cat. Not every cat has the same allergic effect. Lancelot, who was very cuddly towards dh, sure did.
The Art of Murder Books are my top of my go-to rereads when I’m feeling low. I love those characters as much as Lanyon’s Adrien English series which I sort of know by heart now and still reread.
Glad you’re well again!!
Thanks Christina! It’s so nice to have books like this to wallow in when one is feeling sick, isn’t it.
I finished Behind Every Good Man by Sarah Goodman Confino quickly because I couldn’t put it down. Set in USA in 1962 (JFK is President) and a woman finds her husband in a compromising position with his secretary. He is a campaign manager for a Senator trying to get elected and the wife decides to work for the competition. Very funny rom-com. Also the election dirty tricks etc had some resonance for the current election.
Re-read of Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen and loved it all over again – now on the Keeper shelf.
Also a re-read from the library Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts – turns out I remembered absolutely nothing about it! Starts with a mass-shooting in a shopping mall and then years later the survivors are getting picked off one at a time. Nice romance and very cute dog.
“Behind Every Good Man” goes on the tbr- sounds fun!
I’m back after a book slump. I read the Mafia Syndicate series by Lucy Monroe which was pretty good.
I read Cynthia St Aubin’s book 1 from Dr Matilda’s case files. It’s about a psychologist who deals with mythological beings.
I finished Dirty Thirty by Janet Evanovich and it was disappointing. Neat premise, poor execution.
I tried the Meg series by Donna Andrews but could not get into it. The main character didn’t work for me.
I read Rocky Start and am waiting eagerly for the next one. I loved Mags, Molly and the death celebration.
I didn’t like the Donna Andrews series until I was about 3 books in, and now I am a devoted fan. I ended up reading much of her back list out of order which oddly made everything come together happily for me.
I’ve heard such good things about the series I’ll probably give it another try. I’ll try to read it out of order. That really works some times đ
I read it well out of order myself, not by plan but by what was on the library shelf. Eventually I got serious enough about them to look up the correct order and to try to plug holes. I may still have missed some of ones and I may not be up to date. I also liked her earlier Turing Hopper series with an AI detective.
That should have been “some of the earlier ones” …
Hello! All the comments are so interesting about how publishing works, finishing/not finishing books, nonfiction reads. Here’s what I’ve read lately:
AJ Demas/Sword Dance trilogy. Got the rec originally from this group – much thanks. What a great, realistic, love all the characters series of books with interesting alternate ancient world building. A soldier and a dancer meet, face intrigues, and fall in love. Sensitive portrayal of Non binary/Male leads.
First Dates and Birthday Cakes/Isabel Murray. Also a very recent rec from here – thank you – I’ve seeking her other works now. Light romantic comedy, M/M leads.
Reflections/Seanan MacGuire. This is the 2nd of a duology beginning with Indexing. For lovers of fairy tale re-tellings. Secret agency that stops fairy tale narratives from taking over humanity – to give a very quick sketch. A “snow white” and a “shoemaker’s elf” work together and fall in love but I would call this a urban fantasy/action arc with romance, vs a romance. One can see the seedlings for author’s later Doorways works.
The Beautiful Ones/Silvia Moreno-Garcia. What a lovely lovely book. M/F romance with light magical realism, beautifully written. Young woman in her first season meets slightly older man and falls for him – both have ability to make objects move which puts them on the outskirts of polite society. He also is caught up in a lost love obsession with another woman in a very Gatsby-esque way. BUT there is a lot of character growth and realization, and she turns over the tropes in a great way. Some “villains” grow and change, some do not, but you get their POVs so you get their motivations. There is a HEA.
And finally in the great Christie Re-Read: Three Blind Mice story collection. Christie’s short stories are terrific, IMO, but this collection pulled stories from other collections so nothing new here.
Anyone have other Isabel Murray or Seanan MacGuire recs? Opinions?
I have no recs for you but reference to “Snow White” reminded me I saw something about a new Disney update and thought NOOOOOOOO.
There is absolutely nothing about the “classic” Snow White movie that is not cringe. It’s a terrible story. Let’s not try to update it. Ugh.
“Indexing”/”Reflections” are very interesting reads, although not my favorite Seanan McGuire books. I really like the way she looks at the monomyth and interrogates Snow White and other fairy stories. There are some echoes of the Tradition in Lackey’s Godmother stories, but its much darker. I agree that you can see echoes of these themes in her later work, including Wayward Children, but also in October Daye where Snow White turns up as a villain (plus the Sea Witch etc).
Also by Seanan McGuire you might like “Middlegame” which is thoroughly twisty and engages in the power of narrative. My favorite books are in the Wayward Children series and October Daye, but my favorite series of hers is Incryptid which is a lot more fun, although even that has some dark sections. My absolute favorite thing she’s written is a 2016 short story “Hello, Hello” available at https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/hello-hello/
Thank you, Yuri! Hello-Hello is a great story.
The only books I’ve read by Seanan MacGuire are her Velveteen VS. series. I started reading them because Marion George Harmon got her permission to include a couple of crossover stories in Team-Ups and Crossovers (Wearing the Cape Book 6).
I’ve been meaning to read more of her work.
Velveteen is great! I wish she would write more of those.
I like the October Daye series and the Incryptid series by McGuire but those are very different from the Doorways series.
FYI, October Daye is half human-half fae. She lives near San Francisco. She’s akin to a private investigator of fae mysteries. As for the Incryptid series, it is about the various members of a family whose mission is to protect cryptids from an organization that wants to exterminate all cryptids, even those peacefully living their lives among humans. I find them to be more lighthearted and fun than McGuire’s other series, including the Doorways series.
On an old topic, I needed my reach extender tool to grab my copy of Dean King’s A Sea of Words, 1995, a glossary of Patrick O’Brian sea fiction, and it does include “titivate.” So I’m not the only one to associate the verb with his work. Getting the book back on the shelf may be a project for another day!
I read 84 Charing Cross Road. Short, sweet, and gave me ideas for nonfiction to read. That was a woman who loved books. But I am confused. How is it that she could order food to be sent to people in Britain but they couldnât do it themselves ? Or was it just so expensive that they didnât? She doesnât seem to have been very well off herself.
This is a fairly well known aspect of postwar British life. As the (Labour) government tried to pay off war debt and (I imagine) pay for imported goods for reconstruction, they imposed draconian currency controls and ordinary Britons had no usable currency to pay for importing much of anything. There were well established services by which Americans (and I presume others) could order, say, Danish ham and cheeses to be sent from Denmark to Britain to benefit any Brits they happened to know or admire. Plus goods directly from the US. Related is the origin of the term “care package,” although those evidently were only for Continental countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARE_Package?wprov=sfla1
Very interesting Patrick. I had just assumed it was a gift, something a little indulgent that someone might be able to buy for themselves but wouldn’t, but hadn’t thought about post-war shortages.
There was also rationing of goods – meat, butter, even clothing, well into the late 50’s here.
Loved 84 Charing Cross Road, the bookshop has gone but there is a blue plaque on the wall where the shop used to be (it is still a shop but something else entirely last time i was there).
Think it ended in the early fifties, in fact: about a couple of years before I was born, so c.1954.
I just started Rocky Start and I love it so far! About a quarter of the way in!!
THANK YOU for writing more about Alice and Carter… and hopefully lots of ghosts!! Can’t wait to read those stories!!
Had no idea that Bob wrote two sequels to Agnes and The Hitman, which is one of my ALL TIME favorite books (up there with Dogs & Goddesses)!!! I’m almost afraid to read them because I love Agnes and the Hitman so much, but I know you wouldn’t let anything bad be published about our Cranky Agnes, and I trust Bob’s talent too, so I’m in. Downloaded them yesterday and will start them once I finish Rocky Start!
Have a great day, and THANK YOU for sharing your genius!!