The new Smallhope and Pennyroyal book by Jodi Taylor dropped (that would be A Family Affair), and I devoured that after rereading the first book, but there are only two in the series. So hungry for more, I restarted the Time Police books. I think there are six of them, and I love Team Weird, so I’m dug in there for a while. I’m on Book Two now, Saving Time, so I have a ways to go, especially since I’m also doing the last revisions on Arresting Anna.
Somebody asked me today if I read books. It took me awhile to understand. Who the hell doesn’t read books???
Do you read books? If so, what books? Tell All.
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Did they know you *write* books??!!
Best thing I read this week was “Harmattan Season” by Tochi Onyebuchi (2025). I was expecting something noir from the opening, however there’s a surprising amount of grace to this story of magic, secrets and corruptions in this West African city colonised by the French. I ended up liking this a lot more than I expected, given that I found “Riot Baby” too angry and sad to be satisfying, and I don’t much like noir. Really seriously good and I’m so glad I picked this from the Igntye Finalist list to read.
Also read “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by Stephen Graham Jones (2025) and I surprised myself with my tolerance for gore. Mostly its history as horror, plus vampirism, in the 1870s and 1912. The frame story was less successful for me, and the modern section didn’t resolve perfectly, but that didn’t take away the power of the central story. Again I hadn’t really liked the previous book by Jones I read, “Mongrels”, so I’m glad I took a chance on this book. Winner of both the Nebula and the Bram Stoker Awards.
“The Road to Byron” by Isabelle Rowan is a good m/m novella about two friends taking a road trip after highschool. The romance was a little superfluous – it was more about the friendship and it got heavier than I was expecting, but still good.
Definitely need light relief after all that, and “this river runs to you” by sundiscus (2020) was a lovely low conflict, low angst, gentle “Untamed” fanfic, however I think it’s sufficiently AU that you could enjoy it without being familiar with canon. There are magical objects, dragons and a seriously sweet m/m love story with a very bewildered cursebreaker.
Best of the short fiction was “Whalesong” by Guan Un – an alternately sad and lovely ghost story. Free at https://psychopomp.com/deadlands/issue-38/whalesong/
Sigh – it should be *Ignyte* awards.
I’m re-reading Cinderella Deal… it’s comforting, familiar, very lovely and makes me happy. I should be sorting, tidying and cleaning… 🙁
“Very lovely and makes me happy” is how I feel, too, about most of Jennie’s books.
Aw, thanks, guys.
Cathy Maxwell and I were talking about what kind of drink our books would be, and I said mine would be chocolate milkshakes with Amaretto. I used to love those.
Thank you so much for posting about Smallhope and Pennyroyal! I finished it about two days after A Family Affair released so I grabbed that too. And that ending! And we will have to wait a whole year? Argh.
I know, aren’t they great?
I know that there’re plenty of non readers out there, especially non-book-readers but the rare periods of my life when I wasn’t reading books (and imo listening to audiobooky is reading books) were not the good times!
Hubby can only truely read fiction on holidays and nowadays even his time off is too busy. He reads newspaper articles instead, but extensively.
I wouldn’t say I can recommend the books I read lately or am reading as my only prerequisite is to spend time with likeable characters and stories with a HEA or HFN.
Thanks to another sales offer on audible I gave into temptation and got a couple of new book even though I still haven’t read all those I got in June…
So I listened to the whole Offsides series by JJ Mulder that I had frowned upon for a long time. But book 1 was free on audible and I got hooked. I guess those were her first books, they are far from perfect, but the guys are just nice (yep, and a bit one dimensionable). Main weakness of the series: insta love almost each time and not even a moment introspection/pondering when they fall for the “wrong” gender.
Listening niw: Lovd Lessins by Sarins Bowen. How to resist 8+ hours of listening for 3,16 Euro?
Also on the tlp (too listen pile): Copper Script and books 1+2 of CT Whistle’s shifter series that was recommended at a few places.
Currently reading and almost finished: Ex with Regrets by Con Riley. Sat in my KU for a looong time. I guess the blurb was a bit too convoluted but the book is not. Very very nice characters and for once no hockey players lol. Set in London. The author clearly loves Charles, MC of prior books who had A LOT of partners before we meet him in his own book. Now his Exes are a big friend group, the mc Vince is one of them, Dair kind of, too. Charles connects them with each other because Dair needs what Vince has to offer professionally (he’s moving furniture and clears houses etc). Both have to deal with grief, lack of funds, loneliness and betrayal but find friendship and so much more. Doesn’t sound exciting but reading their story somehow felt like a meditation: soothing. And a love letter to friendship imo. I’m at ca 70% but have glimpses into the last chapters and already know that I’ll not be disappointed.
Also still reading (at 30%): On Your Six by Eleonora Larsen. Two elite soldiers meet at a special training camp, don’t loose contact for years (I prefer slow burn over insta everything). It sucked me in in spite of me being really sceptical about the military: we need it, obvs, but especially these days I have a hard time trusting those in power (not sure in which time the story is set, but if it were set in the present I would have such a hard time following orders given by someone in charge I despise deeply and mistrust and don’t believe to have the good of the nation in mind). I like the characters and that we get so many layers if them. Spoilt myself reading the end but it only makes me want to read the whole, so that’s a big plus. There’ll be a book 2: curiosity raised.
And lastly, I’ve been distracted from reading The Prince and the Bodyguard by Nora PhoenixUSNot lustening to the audio. Yet (I live one narrator, don’t much like the other). Also skipped to the end and the epilogue feels much too kitschy. As if happiness for the Euro princes could only be found away from Europe (here: the US – I’d ragher sccept NZ, probably from first hand experience and them not having an evil orange and his henchmen). I’m sure I’m overreacting at the moment. But this pov plus an overabundance of mushy feelings – grrr…. (well, this doesn’t sound as if I’ll jump on finishing that book too soon).
And I SHOULD read the Squeaking Cleopatras (male actors in Elizabethan times) very, very soon. I might take it on our train trip to the Römerfestival in Abusina (Roman re-enactment at a Limes castle not too far away) – looking soooo forward to this trip, for oncd just the two of us, dh and I. I’ll muss habing the kids with us. Well, at least no one but hubby will suffer due to me hanging around/listening to the medicus for hours on end…
I can’t remember if I already told you about this, but The English Know Wool by Helen DeWitt is a novella-length satire on publishing. I liked the voices, especially that of the main character. (I read the book on paper,)
I read the first story in We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida. Now I’m trying to find a copy of the book (a friend brought it on an overnight visit. We read bits of each others’ books). A young man who is depressed and a failure at work visits a doctor he has heard about from a distant source. The doctor prescribes him a cat name Bee. Fun stuff ensues.
I let We’ll Prescribe go back to the library not terribly far into it. That’s not a full negative since I had other holds coming in all at once, but it didn’t really engage me in a hurry. Just the individual opinion of a non-cat-person.
The English Know Wool is such a delight. Highly recommend!
At least in the US, it’s The English Understand Wool. I just added it to my huge tbr list.
People don’t ask me if I read books but they do ask me if I read fiction. Usually I discover they go to all the trouble and time of reading books but they never read fiction (!). I don’t get it.
I read a (new to me) hockey MM author on A03 and have become obsessed with them so am now trying to devour everything they’ve written. This is the gateway drug: The Wingman. Slow burn, great character building, ton ‘o’ hockey (so yes Chacha1 it’s not for you) and solid writing. I could weep to have found a new great hockey author who is on an upward trajectory, especially with Taylor Fitzpatrick on her long exit from the craft. And here’s the link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/76141951/chapters/199254556
My dad instilled a love of reading in all his children but he will only read non-fiction, or in French, preferably both. He wants to learn, and feels his time is wasted otherwise. He is 97 and does not understand why anyone reads fiction, although he does like poetry.
Yes that is what people who only read non-fiction tell me – they want reading to be purpose based, not enjoyment based.
That sounds an awful lot like my relatives who don’t understand why I chose to write fiction.
As I may have mentioned before, both of my parents had once read fiction and therefore there were some fiction books around, but while I was growing up, they read almost nothing except huge numbers of periodicals. Especially the magazines that my mother read did contain a little fiction, but I’m unsure how much of it she read. Yet they encouraged my own reading, made sure I got a library card and drove me to the library before I was old enough to ride my bike there. My mother resumed reading fiction in retirement in Florida, largely old Readers Digest Condensed Books that she bought used.
My grandmother never read a book in her life as far as I could tell until she was in her ’80’s. And she then started reading romances. I was very curious and asked her how she was enjoying them. She said she was and then added: “But all that sex! I’m glad I never had to do any of that stuff.”
I didn’t have the courage to ask her exactly what ‘stuf’ she was referring to so it remains a mystery.
Oh Tammy: reminds me of my Nana. A grande dame, studied music and theology in Berlin between the wars, would have Mills and Boon novels posted restante to her pensione in Florence: “Trash? I love trash!” She’d warble. Though when she later learned of my life partner (POC), she sighed, “Poor girl, sex, sex, sex, all day long…” I never knew whether her sigh was one of pity or of envy…
Exactly! She also announced in her ’90’s that she “didn’t miss sex at all after 25 years without”. I said: “That doesn’t say much for Grandpa.”
My mother in law never read anything as far as I could tell until she moved to Florida at 62 and then she read Barbara Cartland. For those who have not read her, she had more or less normally paragraphed books and then she also wrote books which basically had one sentence per paragraph.
My daughter is the same. She reads non-fiction and poetry. She even writes poetry. But she doesn’t read fiction.
I don’t understand ruling out either. Both fiction and non-fiction books have changed my life. A while ago, it was popular on social media to publish a list of the ten books that had affected you the most in your life time. People never, ever, put a work of non-fiction on their personal list. Mine would be a mix of both. I find fiction is harder to compress to a list like that. The power of narrative has had an enormous effect on me, but it is spread out over thousands of books. Whereas it is easy for me to point to a handful of non-fiction books that were pivotal.
Thanks for the link, Tammy! I’ll give it a go – though not sure I’ll be up for too much hockey: I read ice hockey romances despite the sport rather than because of it. (My friends are stunned to learn I read any sports stories at all.)
I’ll be interested in what you think, Jane.
Thanks, Tammy, have already been over to AO3!
I’m nowhere near finished reading the *good* hockey authors (haven’t even started with TFP yet (yes, horror!), but who can resist a treasure find?
Tammy this Ao3 story is wonderful — thank you for finding it! I am only 3/4 of the way through but am already sure it is going to be a reread.
It’s because it’s so damned romantic. An important but sometimes missing criteria in romances.
Thanks for that hockey rec.
Here’s another really good one. Holding by MesserMoon. Lots of hockey, quite angry. It’s not complete but at 144k it will keep you going for a while. Updates every couple of weeks.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/68027701
*Angsty
Thanks, Frozen!!
Oooohhh I am always up for another hockey read.
Thanks Frozen. I will download it immediately. Perfect to help get through the long hockey-less summer!
I finished something new, but I ended up not liking it, so that is all I have to say about that.
Oh, and I listened to Lanyon’s Ghosted and that was fun. Not a favorite, but it got me through a slump. Good and solid.
And I started the third Tuyo book yesterday. I always feel like I am dipping a toe into these like an outdoor swimming pool because I am afraid they are going to be too brutal for me. Lots of death, but not so dark that I can’t handle it. And really good characters.
I read Red Rain and loved it.
I’m now rereading Lavender’s Blue, and the perspective re Vince is interesting!
Reread Jayne Castle’s Rainshadow trilogy (there may be more, but I stopped at three), then a couple of contemporaries under her Jayne Ann Krentz name to remind me of her best writing, from the early nineties – Wildest Hearts and (even better) Hidden Talents.
I haven’t read those in years, but I remember loving “Wildest Hearts”. I always remembered the cloisonne elephant. Hmmm … wonder if I have a copy somewhere …
I just picked it up on Hoopla if you’re interested in e-books. What’s another addition to my wobbly stack of TBR e-books that I’ll get to eventually.
I was reading a lot of new-to-me books, but there post two weeks have mainly been rereading/relistening to Nalini Singh Pay-Changeling.
The week before, I listened to Theo of Golden for book group and enjoyed it, but it felt like what it is: a rambling first book that doesn’t quite make the point it hopes to. It’s got a lot of buzz and I wish good things for the author, because it’s sweet and heart wrenching.
I finished Sarina Bowen’s latest, Big Stick Energy, and it was a solid m/f hockey romance book with very little hockey – it’s summer and the team captain and admin are fake saying to go to a wedding to deal with their toxic families. Not spectacular like some of her earlier works, but good.
**fake Dating (autocorrect)
•Robert Conroy, Castro’s Bomb, 2011.
Castro’s Bomb is set at the tail end of 1962 and into 1963, immediately after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Several facts came to Western public attention only years after the crisis. One was that Fidel Castro, insanely enough, evidently had really been hoping for World War III, or at least some armed clash large enough to set off, as he thought, the World Socialist Revolution, and was angry about the peaceful resolution of the crisis, especially without him even being consulted. A second fact was that even after the Soviets had removed their offensive missiles from Cuba, nuclear-armed short range tactical missiles remained. In the real world, reportedly all of even the tactical missiles were withdrawn as well by December 1, 1962. From his introduction to this alternate-history novel, Conroy, writing in 2011, seems unaware of this early withdrawal date, but it doesn’t much matter, because a delayed withdrawal rather than later events could be regarded as the branch point.
Most of Conroy’s novels seem to hinge on someone’s making a riskier move than they did in real life. In the novel, rather than swallowing his ire, Castro contrives a way to get back at both his Soviet patrons and at the Americans. He launches a surprise attack on Christmas Day 1962 and occupies the American base at Guantanimo, and manages to steal from the Soviets four short-range missiles with nuclear warheads and their mobile launchers, intending to use them when the Americans invade to retake Guantanimo. He is confident that the Soviets will be backed into a situation where they have to support the Cubans, which will at a minimum restore Cuban independence and influence, and, who knows, perhaps the use of even low-yield tactical nukes will spark a conflict leading to the World Revolution.
I am not sure what safeguards the Soviets had built into their nuclear weapons by 1962, although I have read that they were minimal. Even so, on reflection I have trouble believing that Cubans untrained on the system, even having also captured the weapons’ manuals, could successfully arm and launch them, or, more to the point for the plot, that all the other actors in the crisis would believe that they could. But Conroy keeps things moving too quickly for much reflection by the reader.
The viewpoints are spread more widely than in early Conroy novels, including President Kennedy and other characters on the mainland; and in Cuba, a number of dispersed groups of free and imprisoned Americans, the Cuban military, and very displeased Soviet officials determined to get their nukes back and to put Castro back on his leash. Harry Turtledove’s alt hist novels almost invariably end with a situation worse than in the real world, even after a “happy” ending. By contrast, Conroy manages a fairly plausible finale that entails no major geopolitical changes and leaves the Cold War still in progress, but that still improves on our reality in a number of respects. The usual romance subplot also ends happily, of course. Recommended.
I’m reading and enjoying The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting. On the Kindle I’m reading The Diva Hosts a Murder, by Krista Davis (cozy mystery). This is one of the few cozy series I follow, and it’s pretty good, although I’m impatiently waiting to get to Red Rain when I’m done with it, lol.
In my professional life, I’m reading The Worst Edits Ever (sadly, not the title of a book) on my current cozy novel. The editor, who is new to me but seems very nice, and has 30 years experience in the industry, is changing words just to change words, and changing my voice in the process. As my beloved agent said, when I asked her to take a look and make sure I wasn’t overreacting, the woman is “taking all the the Deb out of a Deb Blake book.” Especially the humor. Argh. We’re going to deal with it, and I’m saying no to a lot of the changes, but as all the authors here will probably agree, it’s frustrating as hell. Because I write very cleanly, my edits are usually minimal. If you heard cursing yesterday, that was probably me, and I apologize.
To answer the question, I do know people who don’t read, and I can’t really wrap my mind around that. The one that really boggles me is when an author says they’re too busy writing to ever read. Didn’t the love of reading lead you to writing? Yeesh. (Sorry, I’m a little cranky today.)
I may have previously cited the general view of Horace Gold, editor of Galaxy in the fifties: Gold could turn a middling story into a good one, and could also turn a great story into a good one.
No apologies necessary for the cursing.
I’ve been lucky with most of my editors, but I had one (copy editor, not acquiring editor) who really didn’t get me, and I finally had to go over her head to let the acquiring editor know, and then I was able to just stet pretty much everything except punctuation fixes, knowing the acquiring editor would back me. But it’s frustrating and exhausting!
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an active author who now never reads, but I’ve seen a few who claim no longer to read within the genre that they write. Some even claim that this is to protect themselves from copying others. In rare cases this may even work, if an author had carved themself out a unique niche within the genre, but I think it mostly cuts them off from the “conversation” taking place within at least many genres, and it leaves them open to reinventing the wheel. Of course, no sane author reads only within their genre, or indeed only within fiction.
I’d be cranky, too, Deborah. Sorry you are having to deal with that kind of editing.
My agent talked to her and apparently I’m free to say no to anything. I’m going to be saying no a lot. Sigh.
I had an edit like that once. I screamed so loud my editor said, “Never mind, we’ll go back to the original.” I also had one in which the copy editor added italics and I didn’t catch it so it’s been in the published books for twenty years. Makes my skin crawl even now.
I feel your pain.
Having to stand up for yourself with something you have created from scratch and someone is changing is infuriating. Her job as Editor is to ensure it is readable not take the humour and you out of your book. You have every right to be cranky. Try and hold the line though – it is YOUR book and YOUR words not hers to play with.
Sending hugs and lot of good wishes
•Robert Conroy, 1920: America’s Great War, 2013. Conroy goes through some legerdemain to set up a situation where the arrangement proposed in the Zimmerman Telegram actually makes a degree of sense. First, the Germans quickly win the Great War by a victory at the Battle of the Marne in 1914, then shift forces for a speedy win on the Eastern Front, leading to their domination on the Continent and to neutrality on the part of the British. (This could plausibly have happened.) Next, Conroy posits that this timeline’s Woodrow Wilson is a more thoroughgoing pacifist than on our timeline, where Wilson’s neutrality was more a pragmatic matter of keeping out of the slaughter of the Great War. Thus alternate-Wilson cuts American Army and Naval strength, and does nothing to counter growing German influence in Mexico. The latter culminates in the stationing of many German troops there, ostensibly to support the Carranza administration in its domestic troubles. As on our timeline, Wilson suffers a stroke in 1919 that partly disables him, with his wife and other loyalists doing their best to conceal the extent of his incapacity and with decision-making in the White House largely paralyzed. On our timeline, Wilson, out of office after March 1921, lingered with much reduced capacity until 1924. Alternate-Wilson, however, manages to run for and, in November 1920, to win, a third term, to start in March 1921. (“Front porch campaigns,” where the Presidential candidates did not travel and made only limited appearances, were starting to fall out of fashion, but on our timeline Warren G. Harding won with one in 1920.) Recognizing that he might not survive that third term, alternate-Wilson had bypassed his current Vice President, the ineffectual Thomas Marshall, in favor of Robert Lansing, currently, in 1920, his Secretary of State. Then alternate-Wilson conveniently dies in late in 1920 and Marshall, realizing that he is out of his depth in the looming crisis, resigns, leaving Lansing (at the time by law as Secretary of State the next in line) to become President to fill out Wilson’s second term and then, as the elected Vice President on the Wilson ticket, to continue as Wilson’s successor in March 1921. (Conroy had likewise prematurely disposed of President McKinley to get Theodore Roosevelt quickly in office in his earlier novel _1901_. We never hear anything of Teddy Roosevelt in _1920_, so presumably on this timeline as on ours, he had died at age 60 in 1919.)
The German war plans had been laid back before alternate-Wilson’s death. Having defeated Russia in the Great War, Germany is now propping up the tottering tsarist regime against revolution. With the rest of Europe under German patronage, and Britain once again only a sea power stripped of a large army, and by geography lying too close to Germany and its satellites to have a free hand, the United States remains as the only potential rival to the German Empire. For a short time the Kaiser has a golden opportunity to take advantage of the way that alternate-Wilson had allowed the US armed forces to run down. If the Kaiser made no move soon, a military build-up was sure to set in eventually.
Kaiser Wilhelm intends to reduce the US to a secondary power by giving Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona back to Mexico, which had lost them only one human lifetime earlier, and keeping California as a colony or Imperial province for himself. Covert German sabotage on bridges and passes in the Rockies has closed off almost all high-volume freight passage to the West Coast; Canada, as part of the neutral British Empire, restricts use of the Canadian line running to the Pacific.
The German war plan is for Mexican troops to at least bog down the American forces east of the Rockies by attacking Texas, while the Germans, supported by their High Seas Fleet, quickly secure the economically and strategically important parts of California. Their goal is to push north at least past San Francisco (they may be willing to allow the US a rump in the north of the state) and to destroy the American military in the state. After that, if necessary, the Germans could shift troops to support the Mexicans in Texas and compel the Americans to negotiate a peace. For their part, the Americans must wait out the winter of 1920-21 before they can even start to repair the railroads in the Rockies. In the meantime, starting with the small peacetime regular Army, and with the state militias, which have barely begun reorganization into the more unified National Guard system, the Americans must hold off the Mexicans in Texas, delay the Germans in California, and mobilize and train an effective force to retake lost territory and bring the war to Mexico.
Besides having Mexico as a staging area and somewhat useful ally, the main German advantage is that at the time it was physically feasible to isolate California for six months or so, ideally long enough for the Germans to establish themselves so firmly that the Americans could dislodge them, if at all, only by absorbing unthinkable huge casualties. The German disadvantage is that without control of the Panama Canal, which the Americans inevitably would sabotage if in danger of losing, the Germans are operating at the end of a very long supply chain. European goods could be landed in ports on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, but there was no rail connection on Mexican territory from there to California. Cargo to Californian ports would have to be shipped either around Cape Horn or across the Pacific, where Germany has taken over de facto control of the French and Dutch colonies in Indochina and the East Indies.
Conroy has contrived an interesting and exciting situation, if one evoking a little less personal involvement in me than would be true if I had ever spent more than a few weeks in either Texas or California. Characterization is fairly good and this time we have two romances in the subplots. I do have a little trouble believing in one secret weapon that the Americans deploy, but even within the novel it is admitted that the design would not work more than once, and just maybe it might really do that much. Recommended.
According to a Yougov survey :
Besides the 40% of Americans who didn’t read any books in 2025, another 27% read one to four books. And 13% read five to nine books. That leaves 19% of Americans who read 10 or more books, including 9% who read 10 to 19 books, 6% who read 20 to 49 books, and 4% who say they read 50 or more books.
https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/53804-most-americans-didnt-read-many-books-in-2025
I find this terrifying . But at least we can all say we are in the top 4%.
I love that I’m in the top 4%!
Wow! That is sad.
If close to 70% of US population does not read/ listen to any or very few books, that explains the many problems we have!
A lot of people get their narratives now from TV and movies, so it’s not as if they’re going without story. But yeah, sad.
I remember reading a statistic back in 1984 (it stuck with me) that 84% of Americans thought they’d write a book someday, even though most of that 84% of Americans didn’t read books. That boggled my mind.
I did several rereads this week including Jenny’s Tell Me Lies and still loved it! I also reread The Search by Nora Roberts and am halfway through a new Jennifer Probst called The Summer Between Us and enjoying it but probably not a reread. I also read a soon to be published book by a writer friend looking for a quote from me. Luckily I enjoyed the book.
I can’t imagine not reading! I feel naked without a book in my hand. I judge purses by what size book they can hold. LOL!
Tell Me Lies has always been one of my favorites. I re-read it regularly.
Mine, too, Olga.
I didn’t get much reading done this week, because we were driving up and down the east coast to go to my mom’s 89th birthday lunch. I am still working my way through the Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, and reread Crown of Dalemark.
I have started The Art Spy, the history of the woman who worked at the Jeu De Paume in WWII and secretly kept records of all the art the Germans stole so they can get it back. When my BFF was here the week before she added to my TBR and I to hers and then I also exchanged book ideas with my brother and with sister’s partner at the lunch.
I find I go through periods of fiction and periods of nonfiction…
My 86 yr old Mom saw her eye doctor on Monday and had a laser treatment that has greatly improved a “foggy” condition lingering from her cataract surgery. Since her two great pleasures in life are gardening and reading, this made for a very Good Book Week.
I started off my reading week with ‘Demon Next Door,’ a filthy little short by Eliot Grayson. 🙂 It’s sweet & hot and I would happily have read more of this story.
1. ‘Thirty Love’ by Tom Vellner, an excellent debut MM set in the world of pro tennis, in which the POV character is closeted. His love interest comes out during a career-making (or breaking) season. You know I hate sports, right? Well, this one features a nail-biting climax at the US Open. I stayed up too late to finish this and am happy to report both the sports plot and the love story plot have happy endings.
** finally binged ‘Heated Rivalry’ and damn, y’all. Hot as hell and delivered ALL the feels.
2. ‘Walking on Broken Paths’ by Amy Aislin, which features a hockey pro MC but it’s summer off-season so there’s no hockey on page. This MM contemporary deals with grief (both MCs) while delivering a nice slow-paced love story between men who were best friends in their youth, never faced up to whether they might have deeper feelings, but now have the time, leisure, and motivation to do so. For those who like reading about adults discovering that they can decide who they are as adults (i.e., adolescence is not inalterably prescriptive).
3. [re-read] my own dance-heavy MM novel ‘One Enchanted Evening,’ which I haven’t revisited for a while and in which I was pleased to rediscover some effective emotional scenes amongst all the ballroom & later-in-life sexytimes.
Yes I also enjoyed the Eliot Grayson short story.
Love that even after all the hype you still appreciated Heated Rivalry so much. Good to know that it can leap over the hurdle of high expectations.
I read A Basic Renovation by Sandra Antonelli a longish 2013 romance about a couple in their forties who meet up after she moves back to her hometown in New Mexico to renovate and flip a house. Lesley left 16 years ago after the annulment of her marriage to Dominic’s brother. The dysfunction in both families is pretty evident throughout the book with hatred pointed at Lesley and downright nastiness of her ex-MIL and belief of the lie by Dominic spread by his brother Terry. Lesley’s family is no prize either with her parents still trying to dictate her life, be home by ten, get rid of the motorcycle vibe. What saves this is the other characters, Lesley’s 92 YO grandfather, Dominic’s 16 YO son Kyle, friends and relatives on both sides. Also, a ton of comic relief so you can’t feel down throughout this book.
Also, it is written by a New Zealand author so be prepared for the misspellings s for a z, the extra u for example and maths for math. Just get over it.
I am surprised at how often writers from elsewhere in the Anglosphere, especially independents, set stories with American viewpoint characters in the US, and get things wrong, not only in spelling, but in referring to “car parks,” “lounges” meaning living rooms, “gingers” for redheads (this last, per previous discussion, possibly acceptable in parts of the US South), etc. (Canadians, living next door, share some of these American quirks and know enough to mimic the others.) I can see how foreign authors might decide they want to set stories in the US for the larger market, but I think they would be smarter to use a viewpoint character raised in their own country.
This is also very true in reverse when US authors set their stories in the UK. The smart ones do indeed use a US-raised viewpoint character
During a visit to Canada in 1994, I bought several British mystery novels (readily available there but not here) and was amazed to discover that the author was American by birth, since I could not detect it. (Perhaps a Briton could have.) This may have been early work by Kate Charles, although the summaries do not ring a bell. But her biography fits. She lives in the UK, unlike many other American authors setting mysteries in Britain. In sf, Connie Willis is or was notorious for local-color mistakes in her British-set works.
I like Kate Charles and had not realised she was not British, so well done her. Another American mystery writer who lived in the UK is Marian Babson, a great favourite of mine, she often used US-raised viewpoint characters, for example in the Trixie and Evangeline series, where her lead characters are a pair of ex-vaudeville actors.
I love Connie Willis’ work despite her bloopers.
Elizabeth George, maybe?
It’s always irritating. The “Road to Byron” kept using “college” instead of “uni” and given the author’s bio says she migrated to Australia from England as a small child, she should know that’s not Aussie usage. I assume someone tried to make it understandable to the USA market, which I find a lot more annoying than good faith errors.
That said, I usually manage to look past such things. I want books with different settings and characters with different backgrounds – and while I want authors to make an effort in researching such things, I don’t want them to feel the need to be post-doctoral fellows before writing a character with a different background.
“Uni” would be the norm in the UK also, but I agree with you. I once attended a talk by an author who felt it was necessary to be fluent in all the native languages of all the characters in a book, including dialects and historical versions of the language if the setting was in the past. No surprise then, that it took her a very long time to write a book. Also no surprise that her books, while deeply authentic were often not very readable.
Wouldn’t it be possible to ask a language sensitivity reader (aka a native of the country the story is set in) to check the manuscript?
I know some authors ask friends to weed out glaring mistakes.
A good editor and/or oroof reader should find those, too.
All good questions why doesn’t an editor pick up on this? Could be the writer does not want their work tampered with. I was once told by an author that it is her book and she will do what she pleases. So, I considered myself put in my place. Or the place she wants me in.
Ooooh can I have that job? Pretty please?
Yuri, I’d volunteer too!!
Also, Mary, quite a number of authors seem to develop that attitute once they’ve reached a certain level of success. The books get huge, the fun for readers doesn’t automatically increase…
Mary, As Dodo says, some authors are sufficiently profitable to their publisher that they can refuse all edits and still have their work accepted. On the other hand, as I said, even traditional publishers edit texts less than they once did, and self-published authors probably are not edited at all unless they are profitable enough to hire a freelance editor (those do exist) and also see the need for it.
I’m pretty sure in this case that it was the editor / publisher who wanted to use Americanised language in order to make it more marketable. And if it does increase sales then I, regrettably, understand – people need to eat. I rather suspect that its a myth, like no-one will buy female action figures, but I could be wrong.
This wrong-dialect problem sometimes occurs with traditionally published works (I gather that cutbacks mean that traditional publishers spend much less effort on polishing text than they once did [Deborah Blake’s recent editor obviously excepted]), but I notice it most in self-published ones. It’s certainly possible, and these days not that hard, to find beta readers from the country where a novel is set and ask them to flag any dialect errors, but not every author bothers to do so. I don’t think I’ve ever bailed out of a work purely over this sort of problem, but it has diminished my enjoyment of some novels.
I just read A Summer Between Us a new book by Jennifer Probst. She set it in Hawaii but she kept calling shave ice shaved ice. Just visit Hawaii once to learn that it’s never shaved ice but always shave ice. It threw me out of the story every time she did it.
I’ve pulled a nonfiction book off the shelf, and am wading through that. The Plantagenets – The warrior Kings and Queens who made England by Dan Jones. It’s very engaging, but I can tell when I’m tired as I keep re-reading the same sentence. It will take me a while.
I will say that I learned that Richard I died of gangrene. Yuck!
I’m jumping around stuff on AO3, including one of the most popular Harry Potter fics ‘Manacled’ which is really good and really dark, great plotting and characters (Dramione). But I take little breaks from it and read lighter stuff in between. No link as it has been taken down but am sure you can find it!
On audio my ‘Hands of the Emperor’ (Victoria Goddard) binge has slowed as Kip and the emperor are both too perfect at present. Anything Kip has done as a public servant has been unequivocally good, he never compromises and everyone recognizes how amazing and how moral he is. I would like a few more flaws (and if we are getting into public service stuff, some more on the actual complexities of policy making…I work as a public servant which might be why it frustrates me a bit). But I will keep going and hopefully there will be some plot again soon (I’m mid way through) . Perhaps the author is setting up the perfect character so that when he makes mistakes or does something bad it is more dramatic??? Seems unlikely but I kind of hope it is true.
While on a break I relistened to KJ Charles ‘Slippery Creatures’ 1920s England. So good.
I really like Kip’s relationship with his antagonist (the prince whose name escapes me) and I think that thread is nicely resolved but not in any dramatic manner! If you want drama, this is not the book for you!
Agreed – if you’re halfway through and the book isn’t singing for you then it’s probably not the right book for you and that’s OK 😉
I listen to books at work more than I read physical books now. Too many distractions at home. Most of the books I listen to come from recommendations here. Thank you all. The most recent one I listened to was A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. This one I can’t remember if someone else recommended or if I found it looking for something else. I enjoyed it, it had adventure and romance. Making my way through the Heated Rivalry series as they become available. Thank goodness no one can hear what I’m listening to at work!
Autobiographies are another big category for me lately. I like hearing people tell their stories. Barack and Michelle Obama, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Prince Harry’s books were all enjoyable.
Shelly,
if /when you pick up the HR audios, please be aware that the narrator of books 1-3 is, let’s say, not quite good with accents (and narration). I was drawn to the fact that finally I found a deep baritone but honestly I wish someone else had got the job. Or that I’d never listened.
Cooper North for book 4-6 is imho much better though after watching the show, he cannot compete with the wonderful, distinctly more melodic Ilya I’ve got in my inner ear nowv(that sounds kind of gross).
I’m reading The Dogwalker’s Detective Agency by Michael Hogan, a debut contemporary cozy perfect for dog lovers. The doggy characters are quite the variety and utterly charming. The writing could be crisper, but the short chapters impel me along with the mystery and the amateur sleuths.
I put aside Betting the Scot by Jennifer Trethewey, a 2018 romance I must have gotten for free from a conference. The conflict is based on a constant stream of misunderstandings, and the heroine makes so many mistakes she’s bordering on TSTL. I may just DNF it since I have other, probably more interesting library books waiting.
I’m rereading Travis Baldree’s trilogy, and partway through the second book, which is a prequel, I realized it works very well. It’s a standalone, too. So that answers the question from last week about prequels.
I have also read the beginnings of two non-fiction books: The Let Them Theory, by Mel Robbins, and Self-Led, by Seth Kopald. Let Them is basically about minding your own business, and not getting upset about what other people are doing, or if they are including you. Self-Led is about understanding your own motivations for things, based on Family Systems theory. It’s helpful in finding one’s own triggers that may not be obvious, and in honing your motivations. I’m dealing more closely with grandchildren, now, and trying not to be judgmental. Not easy, as my DIL is very laissez faire about child-raising. I’m being a grumpy old person.
Oh I feel you Jan! My kids don’t bathe their 10 month old baby every day…It is difficult for me NOT to say yuck!
I realize babies don’t get dirty, but for me it is essential, calming, and just natural.
But mouth zipped, we go on!
Finished Fast Women – an absolute delight. On to Bob’s Red Rain. Wow, what a book! I realized that some authors have a few characters that they write over an over. They change the main character’s hair color and seem to think it is a new character, but no, it’s one of the same few that they always write. Jenny, Bob and other great writers create new characters with different views, habits, motivations and even values, that live for us as real people. We believe in them and each is distinct and real in their own way. What a gift!
Read one of the best historical romances I have read in a while: “The Very Definition of Love,” by Sophie Benoit. Great characters, laugh out loud funny, and smart. This gives me hope for the future of the genre.
I would like your views if you have read Nightingale or The Women, both by Kristen Hannah. My cousin recommended them and they sound intense. I can’t quite tell from the reviews if I want to buy them. Can anybody help me out with this?
I’m reading Sandwich by Catherine Newman and I love it so far. It had me ugly laughing in my car outside the therapist’s office – eyes streaming, nose running, hiccupping laughs – I was getting some funny looks for sure, I probably looked tragic, but the book is so great I truly didn’t care. I was really pleased to find two characters who are flawed but, so far, good people. Which hopefully means the upcoming conflict will be organic and believable, and have me rooting for them. This blog is now my main source for book recs, thank you!
I’m zipping through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (in audio; really excellent narrator), but they take a bit of a dark turn in the fourth book, which makes lots of sense in terms of storytelling, and raises the stakes, but it was a bit intense (even as the comic relief of Princess Donut confronting her fear of water was excellent), so I’m going to take a break before tackling the next one.
Not sure what I’ll read next. There’s a new T Kingfisher book coming out later this month (Daggerbound), and the new Lady Sherlock comes out the end of September, but I can’t go that long without reading a book! I was thinking about the second Retired Assassin book, but my library doesn’t have it in audiobook yet.
On a personal note, the new, fourth (and probably final) book in my Garlic Farm Mysteries came out on Tuesday if anyone’s interested: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GSX53H8J
Congratulations!
In the past week, I tried a couple new to my library books, but nothing worked. Then I started re-reading Sharon Shinn’s Elemental Blessings series and, as always, enjoyed them. I’m on book #4, Unquiet Land now. Not sure if I’ll re-read #5, Whispering Wood, afterwards. She wrote it years later than the first 4, and I didn’t like it as much.
I just gave the first one, Troubled Waters to my goddaughter for her birthday, am hoping she loves it!
I’m reading classic Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë again and loving it. I’m glad she signed with a publisher in 1800s even though she had to use a male pseudonym: Currer Bell.
Jenny’s story reminds me of the Bill Hicks routine about the waitress who asked him what he was reading for… Had to go and watch it. Lord knows what he’d make of the state of the world if he was still with us.
Having been downed by an infection last weekend (much better now thanks to antibiotics), I put everything else aside and listened to Heyer’s The Grand Sophy read by Louise Jameson who made a pretty good job of it. One of my favourite comfort reads.
Previously I had finished Gelato Forever by Lynn Joseph which I could not like as much as Jo Walton did though I acknowledge that it was rather more grounded in real life for students than many such books.
But the heroine was abominably perfect in every way except in maintaining a ridiculous deception by omission for just about the entire length of the book; there are reasons and excuses, but really she’s supposed to be 24 not 15 and I could not buy into it.
It was still an enjoyable read (I mean, it’s about Gelato, how could that go wrong?) but I can’t see myself picking up the follow up books about her 4 sisters who judging by the titles look like they will all eventually travel the world and find love through food.
I have enjoyed Liz Williams’ books for some years having first read her Inspector Chen novels, which are supernatural detective mysteries set between Singapore and hell. So I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get round to her Fallow Sisters novels.
Comet Weather blew me away. It’s a fantasy rooted in British myth and stuffed full of ghosts, monsters and other worlds. I had a great deal of trouble putting it down. It is infused with the spirit of British fantasies of the past while remaining completely its own original thing. There are a number of direct references to the Narnia books by CS Lewis but the hints and echoes I picked up on this first read lnclude:
Elizabeth Hand
Robert Holdstock
Graham Joyce
JRRTolkien
Alexandra Raife
Phil Rickman
William Blake
Phillippa Pearce
Lucy M Boston
EE Nesbit
Eleanor Fargeon
Alan Garner
Susan Cooper
PL Travers.
I can’t wait to re-read it (once I’ve read all the others of course) but despite containing oodles of all the things I love best it wasn’t quite perfect for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on yet, but which would include maybe being just a tad over-rich in the ingredient and not tidying all the ends up to my satisfaction. This might all be resolved when I get to book 4…
And I forgot to say that about half way through Gelato Forever, there is a scene where she lists some famous occupants of a florentine graveyard and includes “American writer, Elizabeth Barrett Browning”. I was foaming at the mouth, and it could be that this coloured my reading of the rest of the book. It certainly made me question any factual statements.
I really enjoyed Widow’s Bay on Apple (especially Patricia!) so I’m doing a relisten of Tanya Huff’s Direct Descendent which is also about a small town with a lot of Dark Secrets (but considerably cozier ).
Over the weekend I managed to finish a book that someone here on Argh recommended, Truly, Medley, Deeply by Kate Watson. Yes, that’s Medley, not Madly. It’s the fifth in a romance series, which means that there are books about the other characters in her friend group The Janes. In this case one of The Janes, an early thirties lawyer, started posting her songs on YouTube while never showing her face, or anything else about her, and since her childhood was spent as the daughter of a formerly famous country music star, and her lead guitarist, she had a lot of training and some significant talent. After she went viral she signed with a music label and is about to embark on her first tour, and she’s selling out before anyone has seen her play live. Her monitor engineer falls out and she desperately needs a new one and the brother of a friend used to run sound for a famous band, and desperately needs money for his father’s operation. But he has secrets and she has trust issues.
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. They both have real issues, including he’s a music snob and she writes and sings country-pop songs.
How are you doing this week, Gary? I have been thinking about you.
Thank you Tammy. I’m surviving. The memorial service was Wednesday, and it was good, but hard. My parents and best friend went home on Friday. They offered to stay longer but at that point my brain had turned to mush. Things will get better.
I’m glad to hear you’re coping, Gary. I’m working on the Kate Watson book that you recommended.
On Rotation by Shirlene Obuobi. A romance between a Ghanaian American cardiologist, who’s getting a lot of pressure from her parents, and a visual artist, who is not at all the sort of person she’s supposed to bring home. There were a few too many footnotes for me, mostly explaining medical things, but I still enjoyed the book a lot. Dealing with family, career and gen fears about life and love.
I reread The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne, which was very satisfying. Then read the new TA Moore book, Down to the Bone. IMO this is the best one in the trilogy, partly because Javi was such an arsehole for the first two books, and in this one he is still a bit of one, but is clearly tryingto be a reasonable human.
That’s so funny because I thought the other two books were better – but yes appreciated Javi in this book.
For me, it was a mix of Javi trying to be a better person, and the fact that the stakes were so high. Regardless, it was a very satisfying ending to the trilogy. Sounds as if she might be bringing them back at some stage, however.
Have you read any of her other books, Tammy? Anything you’d recommend?
I have read ALL of her books! If you’re looking for dystopian future then the Dog Days series is excellent – definitely dark. If you want something more along the lines of the Bones series then Shift Work is good with a paranormal element. The Island Confidential series is a light fun. My favourite stand-alones are Swipe (a cameo from the Bones series), Take the Edge Off and Every Other Weekend (a stupid and not relevant title).
Oh lovely, thank you!
Christina and Lupe have also read some of her books so they may want to weigh in here.
I finished The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas – a non fiction book about Old European Deities. I took my time reading it as some of it was so thought provoking. Really enjoyed it and am now reading another book by her which is mostly photos and drawings of archaeological artifacts from the palaeolithic and neolithic periods which support the Living Goddesses book.
I didn’t finish two books:-
The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown – because it infuriated me. Like all his books it was a bit breathless (no one ever stops to go to the loo, eat, have a cuppa, or anything human like that – just endless running and doing) , and for a change in this book they ate and visited the loo. However, in the last quarter of this highly charge thriller the MFC and MMC are in a building which is about to blow up, there is a man with a gun in the building looking for them and they have this looooong (10 page) conversation! Couldn’t bear it. I’m a lover of suspense but that just snapped my last nerve. I skimmed it to make sure they escaped and handed it back to the library.
The other was a non-fiction The Story of Art without Men by Katy Hessel. It was very interesting and split into art periods, which was handy because I lost interest when we got to modern art (which I am not a huge fan of but can sometimes appreciate). There were picture examples of each female artist discussed and I was impressed by some of it but handed it back when I stopped liking the pictures!
re read the Beiderbecke Affair by Alan Plater – it is the first in a trilogy (but the kind where you can read them as stand alone. It was turned into a TV series here but I read the books first. It hasn’t dated too badly and made me laugh. Lots of red herrings and northern humour, set in the outskirts of Leeds.
A bit late but wanted to share a new short story from The Retired Assassin’s Guide author Naomi Kuttner. I’ve signed up for her email updates and this new story was waiting in my inbox this morning. It features Dante, being so very Dante, in a little vignette shortly after the events of book two, Orchid Hunting.
I’m so jealous that you have A Family Affair. Amazon tells me it will be November 10! Since (mumble mumble) I’d never heard of the author until I saw the recommendation here, I’m still going through her backlist. Such a tough life, ha.
Happy to hear I’m in the 4% readers (averaging about 50-60 books a year). Most of my reads are audiobooks (while commuting, cooking for a community fridge and felting).
Currently reading:
Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases by Paul Holes – I’m about 60% through as of this morning. Very interesting. It mixes both his professional and personal lives.
Ender’s Game (Ender’s Saga #1) by Orson Scott Card – narrators include Harlan Ellison (SF author), David Birney (actor) and Scott Brick (I know it will be a great listen when he’s listed as a narrator). I was about halfway through before I had to return the book and waiting for my turn on the hold list. Ender’s Game is a 2013 movie with Harrison Ford (the book was published in 1985). I’d seen the movie years ago and wanted to read the book. No idea it was part of a series.
Here a couple of my most recent finishes:
The Goodbye Man by Jeffrey Deaver – met him at a writers conference a while back. I’d already been a fan of his books. Loved hearing him as a GoH, session speaker and was lucky enough to have him at the same table for dinner at the conference (still smiling about that one).
Changes by Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files #12) – found this book series by way of the tv series The Dresden Files. James Marsters is the narrator. Sigh, force me to listen to his voice for hours? Yes, please!!
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn – Kate is one of my friends from my Maryland Romance Writer days (a while back). Loved this book and will read all of her others! I’m so proud of her and how much she’s accomplished.
Gangsters vs Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America by Michael Benson – this was the one that surprised me the most. It has some details we heard of through news media and school. Many references to familiar public figures and lots of surprising connections to other people, places and events.
I remember reading Kate Quinn’s “Daughters of Rome” (2011) a few years back and really enjoyed it. It followed a group of women in 69 AD, the Year of the Four Emperors. Meant to read more but didn’t quite get around to it yet 🙂
Unfortunately, seeing the movie has spoiled things that are surprises in Ender’s Game. When you get there, you’ll see that the ending also differs.
I put Gangsters vs Nazis on my long the list.
Autocorrect! Tbr list.