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This is a Good Book Thursday: Bet Me

I’m reading Bet Me, a book I haven’t read in at least ten years, trying to figure out how my style has changed. You know, that’s a good romance. I couldn’t write that book now. Possibly I should be examining why. Or possibly I should just go on writing and stop second-guessing myself. Argh.

So what did you read this week?

116 Responses

  1. I’m reading “The Ministry of Time” and enjoying it, but there seems to be a lot of ominous foreshadowing.

  2. I read Paper Ghosts the latest by Sarah Addison Allen. It’s really good. Unlike some of her previous works she doesn’t create a world I want to live in but I’ll visit it with a reread I’m sure.
    The characters are complicated, lovable, good and bad. The plot is compelling. As always I loved her voice and passages like this one: “Real life could be turned into fiction. But fiction couldn’t be turned into real life, no matter how hard you tried.”

  3. You should quit second-guessing yourself and just write.

    The audiobook for Blame it on Rio, a rom-com by Suzanne Brockmann just came out. I laughed out loud reading the book a few years ago when it was new, but today I’m going to start listening to it.

      1. I love that series too. Probably my first mixed race romance, also depictions of depression and self harm. She was so ahead of her time.

    2. It must be fate, Tam – her newest book just popped up in my Kindle and it’s Icebound, a continuation of Bastien and Chloe’s story. Whee!

      1. I was so excited, until I noticed that there toad just finished a reread of “Black Ice” and was even prepared to preorder from Amazon, but there was no paperback of any size listed. Sigh. Maybe my patience will be rewarded with what I want later.

          1. Yeah, I found it. Now I have to find somebody with Amazon Prime who will order it for me. I can’t use my bil’s account anymore because they charge me for his monthly memberships whenever his payments are late. I will gladly pay someone local cash if they will order it on their account, but every time I tried to use a card on my BIL’s account, they list my card on his account and I had to close my account in order to get them to stop because everything is automated. It took me a year and a half to undo that mess and I don’t want to risk it again. I figure that if I give cash to whoever orders it for me, there is no way Amazon can confuse the 2 different cards.

      2. oh my gosh, yes!! I have it ready to read this weekend and am soooo excited, it sounds like it is going to be AMAZING

  5. Bet Me is one of my favorite books and I absolutely think you could write something like it again if you wanted. I also could be biased.
    I read Adversary to the Villain this week- still laugh out loud funny this series but I’m unsure of where the author is going with the twist. So not going to be in a hurry to pick up whatever comes next.

  6. I also loved Bet Me.

    Just do the best you can. We’re not any of us the same writers we were (blankety-blank) years ago.

    I’m finishing up Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher and I’m going to be really sorry when it’s over. Next up is Paper Ghosts, so I’m glad Judy likes it.

    I’m reading through the copy edits on my cozy, but that’s less reading and more saying, “Are you SURE we don’t need that comma there?” then shrugging.

  7. I’m rading Mary Ann Shaffer’s “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.” What an interesting book. It’s written in a succession of letters between different people after WWII. It’s fascinating.

    2. Loved that book, it was fascinating to see the arc of the story. It was quite emotional. I need to reread the book.

    3. I just lent the book to my lovely neighbour who’s got rather interested in this time period lately. Also gave her The Pianist, not really a novel but the novelization of the film iirc. Now I’m interested in her feedback.

  8. I reread E. L. Massey’s m/m ice hockey romances, starting with Like Real People Do, because I felt like finishing my ice hockey binge with a story where the hero came out and survived. I bought the latest one, Free from Falling, which I also enjoyed, though wasn’t entirely convinced by. It’s the most enjoyable transgender romance I’ve read so far, but I still found the character rather remote. The sex was off the page, but since it was really challenging for her, that didn’t really work. And I couldn’t imagine it, since I don’t know how her body had been altered.

    I switched to K. J. Charles’ Society of Gentlemen series, which I’m enjoying as usual. Interrupted by a new short story from theundiagnosable – https://archiveofourown.org/works/92665816?view_adult=true – which was hilarious (though crude).

    1. Thanks for the tip re the new story from the undiagnosable — I’m off to download it immediately!

  9. •Andre Norton, The Time Traders, 1958.

    In about 1982 (thus in the future as seen from 1958), our viewpoint character is petty criminal Ross Murdoch, who may still count as a juvenile delinquent, but if so must be on the point of aging out of the juvie system.  A judge gives Ross the choice of going either off to the recent founded Rehabilitation Service or of volunteering for a secret government project. The choice is obvious. Once tucked away in a remote secret base, Ross is told that government psychological tests have revealed that, although he is a misfit for most jobs in the modern world, the project has a niche that may turn him into a productive member of society.

    Previous to the early 1980s, the American and Soviet space programs have ended in a series of failures, but both sides have secretly invented time travel into the past. (It is hinted, but never stated, that the Soviets may have developed it first by reverse-engineering mysterious high-tech artifacts, and that the American spies stole time travel technology from them.) Now the Soviets seem to have discovered a rich source of advanced technology somewhere in the past. To avoid losing the Cold War, the American have to either get access to the same technology or to shut off the source.

    The Americans and reportedly their allies (although we see only one unambiguous allied non-American, and he turns out to be a Commie infiltrator) mount an operation to find the Soviet time travellers or their technology source. For unexplained reasons, nobody is worried about some utterly trivial action’s spawning consequences up the time stream (the butterfly effect), but only about things that could create an obvious anomaly. Both sides are anxious not to alter their common homewhen, a situation explicitly compared to the nuclear standoff. For more unexplained reasons, the Americans have decided that the Soviets may be lurking, in among other possible spacetime locations, in Bronze Age Europe circa 4000 BC.  The Americans have been at this search long enough to already have languages and backgrounds worked out, in this case using the cover of Beaker People traders. (The hypothesis that the Beaker Culture, characterized largely by a style of pottery, was spread by traders of one ethnicity is controversial, but still today is a viable possibility.) After training, Ross is to start out as a sort of apprentice Beaker trader and intelligence operative.  Complications rapidly ensue.

    It comes as no great surprise that the high tech derives from alien visitors to Earth in the past, but the aliens are mostly kept menacingly offstage. For an excessive number of times, Ross get captured by one group or another (Russians,  various Bronze Age tribes, aliens) and escapes. Another major defect is that in a few months of instruction at most, Ross learns a Beaker Trader language that must be at least as dissimilar to English as is Basque. If the plot required rapid learning, Norton should have introduced one of the handwavy rapid-language-teaching machines popular in sf in the 1950s. Finally, the only female characters with dialog in the whole novel are a few fairly minor tribeswomen, which seems extreme even for 1950s sf. Time Traders does have the virtue of setting up the second book in the series, Galactic Derelict, which I liked considerably better. Mildly recommended.

    This was a book discussed at my local sf book club. I own an early paperback edition and the novel is currently in the public domain (probably through failure to renew the copyright) and is in Gutenberg, but one of the club members had a 2000 Baen edition that made a sorry halfhearted attempt to revise the book’s chronology to set it in the future rather than circa 1982.

    2. I also loved Andre Norton. She had so many weird things in her SF books. Like relay computers! She must have read an article about relay computers once and decided that was the technology of the future. They were considered, but vacuum tubes were so much better and I don’t think any were seriously built. One hobbyist did build one and it is wonderful. In honour of my love of her oeuvre, my husband started building me a relay computer. He didn’t get past building an adder before other projects beckoned. It is a thing of beauty. It clacks away for many seconds, before giving you the sum of two (small) integers.

      I also love how Andre Norton’s spacemen carry things in the their pockets like a bit of string, a stubby pencil, or a pocket knife. What a boy in the 1940’s might have. And her galactic traders trade in gemstones, furs and spices. Which just highlights the true ridiculousness of space travel. There’s no objects that you could trade that would be worth the incredible cost of space travel.

      Against the background of that silliness, her characters are usually young men who yearn to find some goal that will give them worth in their own eyes. That’s why I can still enjoy her stories.

      1. Ruth, Much sf just goes unthinkingly with pretending that it’s sea travel, but the better authors make some effort at rationalization. First you have to posit incredibly cheap energy, and hyperdrive or equivalent. Possibly you posit a space elevator as a slightly less preposterous way of getting out of a planet’s gravity well. Trade from the better authors is mostly in lightweight luxury goods; starships are described as very, very, large, relying on economies of scale, etc. I agree that with known physics in the real world, it’s hard to imagine any sort of trade, instead possibly some voluntary sharing of information, likely only by radio or equivalent, with decades or centuries between messages and replies. But there’s only limited fun in that, although some books have used that premise.

  10. I finished 10 Things That Never Happened and loved it. I even bought a copy for my d-i-l because she loved Boyfriend Material.

    I just started reading We Chase Shadows by Richard Osman.

    I also printed out my current WIP because I felt as though I’d lost the plot somewhere–which is easy to do since I don’t write linear. So I’ve been reading that too. I’m hoping to get back on track so I can finish it.

  11. •Lindsey Devin, Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms, 2026.

    In the background of this novel, the usual urban fantasy paranatural types are out in the open, known to humans, but somehow human history on the novel’s timeline has chugged along pretty much unaltered from our own. Quinn Bradley is an underpaid legal intern hoping to be one of few chosen for a permanent job at a high-powered New York City law firm.  By an amazing coincidence (or Fate), she buys a pendant for $3.00 in her favorite secondhand store (which seems to be run by a private owner for at least a theoretical profit, and hence, contra the title, is not what is usually meant by a “thrift shop”). She does this at the very time that a wealthy dragon shifter is in the process of hiring her law firm to help him recover certain family heirlooms. These were lost some 250 years earlier in the Winged War between dragon- and phoenix-shifters, fought in Japan and probably elsewhere. The war drastically reduced the numbers of both species and left some shifters attempting to rebuild their lives as immigrants to the United States. Rafe Virelli is a very wealthy third-generation American of mixed dragon- and wolf-shifter heritage (but shifting as a dragon) and of Japanese, Irish, and Italian ethnicity. Shifters are very long lived, so despite the passage of time, it was Rafe’s grandmother, now deceased, who immigrated to escape the war. Mostly for his mother’s sake, Rafe is trying to recover for the family, whether by legal action or purchase, five heirlooms to which they have some sort of moral or legal claim.

    Naturally, Quinn’s pendant proves to be one of the heirlooms.  She uses it to barter for herself, in hopes of a career boost, a place on the legal team assigned to Rafe’s problem. Thanks to instant attraction, Rafe, as the client, makes sure that he and Quinn work closely together on the case. Further developments and romance ensue. More coincidences follow, including one so unlikely that I’d have a trouble blaming even Fate for it.

    Devin seems not to have thought her background through very carefully.  Shifters apparently share the appearance of the humans in their area of origin, so Japanese immigrants showing up in the United States in 1800 or so at the latest, a point when on our timeline Japan was still closed to foreigners, would have been quite a sight.

    For a long time this novel looked like a “call a rabbit a smeerp” story (or whatever the fantasy equivalent is), where the imaginative coloration is imposed, possibly for marketing purposes, on what as well could have been a realistic story, here one about a contemporary romance between a law intern and a billionaire descendant of refugees who is trying to recover family heirlooms lost in the Second World War. Finally, near the end, a situation does emerge with clearer fantasy elements, but I still see that delay as a flaw, or possibly a reason why this should have been rewritten as a non-fantasy romance without that situation.  Still, it was good enough that I went on to read a couple more Lindsey Devin novels, and while the others held my attention, this was the best of the lot.  Gary H. Was justified in recommending it.

  12. I read and disliked The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett. (It is Stockett’s second novel, appearing seventeen years after her debut The Help in 2009.) Set in Mississippi in 1933, there are two converging story lines. Birdie is a very likable reliable woman and Meg is a bright abandoned child in an orphanage. All around both Birdie and Meg are other women who have had the worst luck and had some of the worst possible things happen to them especially if they were relying on a man. We get to see all the things the various women come up with to get by. It’s a fairly long book and I thought it could have used a good editor. The pace is glacial, it takes until a third of the way through until the premise get set up. (Even if you don’t read the liner notes, the title is a big hint about what is going to happen.) At that point I gave up and started reading from the end. I found it to be extremely Faulkneresque (?) which is not a complement coming from me. I’ve seen other reviews which really praised the audio book lauding the accents and virtuosity of the narrator. And the women are extremely resourceful and supportive of each other so I can understand how others could like it. I’m really hopeful that you all will do some reviews of this because I ‘m interested to see how you react to it.

    I read another weird one that was highly recommended. Sandwich by Catherine Newman was a stream of consciousness book set during a menopausal woman’s annual week in a cottage on Cape Cod with her husband, young adult children, and her parents. It was like eavesdropping on a personal conversation. Rocky hates being menopausal, is extremely nostalgic about her children and their long history at this beach cabin, and is extremely sentimental about her parents’ increasing frailties. In other words, she’s in the sandwich generation. I did read through to the end but did lots of skimming because Rocky is very repetitive. I rate it a “meh” because it was just a slice of life and I didn’t pick up any insights to improve my sandwich life. Since my preference is to escape to another place when I read this was too close to reality to really enjoy.

  13. •Lindsey Devin, Nobody Told Me Dragons Use Libraries, 2026.

    (The cover says this novel is by Lindsey Devin and Roxie Ray, but the title page and the the author bio list only Devin, so I’m going with that. Elsewhere,  the almost identical bio statements of Devin and Ray say respectively that Devin is the pseudonym of two coauthors and Ray is that of three.)

    On this timeline,  unlike that of Thrift Shops, most humans are being kept from awareness of the existence of the paranatural. Artemis Ripley is the head librarian of a small public library in Tarrytown.  On our timeline this would be the one in New York state, population about 11,000, but the small library in the novel somehow has a rare book room including several volumes on dragons in Spanish, including Atlas Ilustrado de Seres Mitológicos y También Gallinas (left untranslated in the novel, but presumably a sort of Easter egg joke: Illustrated Atlas of Mythological Beings, and Also Chickens). The one that interests Canadian dragon shifter Arthur Vantross, however is Recopilación de Linajes de Dragones Notables de este Milenio (the first word is Collection, and the rest I leave as an exercise). Arthur thinks that this extremely rare volume may help him to unravel a historical mystery.

    Arthur is trying to solve the puzzle of the gradual weakening over the years of the power of dragons, and suspects it has to do with an event of several centuries ago covered up even within the paranatural world.  Not yet knowing that Arthur is (1) a dragon and (2) filthy rich, Artemis is nonetheless attracted to him at first sight and Arthur reciprocates. Complications and romance follow.

    The novel has an unusually direct passage illustrating the difference between a genre romance novel and a general fantasy novel: “She was mortal. A human. And I was an alpha dragon with political obligations and a dwindling magic supply threatening my entire people. Yet my heart hammered harder when I thought about her than it did when I thought about what I might find in the book I was holding.”

    It pains my scholarly soul that Devin capitalizes the titles in Spanish as if they were in English, whereas the normal practice for books in Spanish is to use “sentence capitalization.” Nonetheless, it was an entertaining read and is mildly recommended.

    1. Absolutely no offense intented, but I’m *astounded* I’ve read the same books as you have this week, Patrick. 🙂

      I agree as per usual with your take on both *Dragon* books.

      1. Heather, No reason for offense! I did start with the recommendation of Gary H here for the first Devin.

  14. I loved Bet Me, but my favorite has to be Anyone But You. I’ll never get over Fred! Or maybe it’s Fast Women. So many good ones and they are all different. This one will be too.
    I’m reading The Chronicles of St. Mary’s (in order!) and a big thank you to everyone here who recommended Jodi Taylor.

    Happy birthday, Jenny! Nothing but good times ahead!

    1. But….death by swizzle stick! Bet Me is beyond awesome, while Anyone But You is just amazingly wonderful.

  15. That’s all that I’ve written up. I’m still running behind in writing things up despite DNFs, books not yet finished but to be, and other unreportable reading.

    Jenny, Bet Me came out in 2004 and was presumably written even earlier. I don’t think any of us are the same person we were that long ago. Some authors have written novels with much the same feel over a stretch that long, but I don’t think that has always been a plus, at least for anything beyond the pure entertainment level.

  16. Speaking of missing Arghers, as we were of Gary J and others, I don’t think we’ve heard from Mary Anne in Kentucky in a while.

  17. Best thing I read this week was “The Charlie Method” by Elle Kennedy (2025) – an m/f/m college romance. The FMC is leading a double life – perfect sorority girl by day and hooking up in secret, in this case with hockey guys (minimal actual hockey content btw). There’s a whole lot about adoption, about dealing with expectations and shame, and I loved that the FMC and one of the MMCs are science nerds. A really good book all around, plus nicely smutty.

    Almost as good was a Harry / Draco fanfic with a what-if time-slide plot – “Turn” by Saras_Girl (2013). Although I didn’t remember the inciting incident from canon and I haven’t seen “The Cursed Child”, it still worked really well. I really liked the space that a 300k story can give to all the characters including what it means to dissolve a marriage (Harry/Ginny) that’s no longer working and change directions when your kids are high school age.

    I also read f/f/m fantasy romance “Consort of Fire” / “Queen of Dreams” by Kit Rocha (2024). I really like the world-building, the Dream & the Void and the treaty marriage. However, I think I ran up against some cultural assumptions maybe? The FMCs have been sent to assassinate their draconic treaty husband and I just can’t see how fear for your own life justifies murder, and finally 200 pages in we get a throwaway explanation. Then when one of the FMCs decides that she’d rather die than kill, the other ignores her wishes and attempts the assassination and while FMC1 gets angry, the text seems to agree with FMC2 that saving a life is good enough justification to ignore that person’s stated wishes. Book 2 was on stronger ground and quite satisfying conclusion to the duo. Also nicely smutty 😊

    Best of the short fiction was “The Case of the Missing Lake” by Colby Devitt – more a model of how people might organise rather than a proper story, but I found it gently amusing and hopeful. Free at https://grist.org/climate-fiction/imagine2200-the-case-of-the-missing-lake/

    1. I’ve read a couple by Saras_Girl and found them pretty good. Not ‘turn’ though, so i will check it out.

      1. It was the first of hers I’ve read but won’t be the last 🙂

        Any others of hers you’d particularly recommend?

    2. Yuri, Most widespread religions, philosophies, and ethical systems in the real world posit that if we have souls surviving death at all, they’re immortal. (Buddhism is problematic here not only in aiming at annihilation but in asserting that the self is an illusion in the first place, making it unclear just what is being reincarnated, but aside from that religion.) Fantasy, however, often posits that we have souls surviving death and normally immortal, but that they can be destroyed. The blurb for Consort of Fire says that soul annihilation, not just death, threatens one character for failing the mission. This ought not to matter from a loftly enough ethical stance (wrong is wrong), but eternity is a long time, and anyhow some ethicists would lay most of the ethical burden on the person that laid the curse. We are getting into deep ethical waters here.

      1. Yup, very deep ethical waters and I agree the soul annihilation aspect does change it up a bit, and certainly it scares her lover FMC2. I happen to like philosophical moral arguments so I’d have liked to have seen it dealt with more fully, but I can certainly see an author / editor pulling it out of the story for fear it would annoy some readers.

        To me it feels like the tail end of a conversation or something half heard, to raise those moral questions and not address them directly, which is why I was wondering if I was missing a cultural conversation for which these positions are short-hand.

          1. To be clear there’s an awful lot of smut and angsting, which I quite enjoy, but I wouldn’t want to give the impression there’s more politics than there is, at least in the first book.

  18. I love Bet Me. It’s a great romance. I almost didn’t read it because of the premise, back in the day before I really knew you as an author.

    I’m torn as to whether you should analyze or write. I have the same trouble with my painting. It’s not what I want, and some of my earlier stuff was really good, but if I think too much about it I get paralyzed and don’t make anything new, which is unhelpful. I did talk to another artist and she told me to make a pro and con list about my recent works and that did help pinpoint some of the issues and give me some workable fixes.

    I do think that your earlier work was more fearless. Some of the more recent stuff feels like you are trying very hard not to have the main characters fall into certain patterns and tropes. Totally understandable, but it feels like maybe you are moving away rather than towards, if that makes sense? Min was so angry and full of energy, even if she doesn’t know it. Rose and Liz have been burned by life more, and are more hesitant. Not a bad thing, just different.

    I had a pretty good reading week. Well, listening. I am still hung over from reading-reading the last Nascosta and I can’t quite bring myself to start something new, knowing it won’t absorb me as much.

    But I listened to an early Lisa Henry about a rock star and a spy. Not perfect, but good. Better than a lot. Short, so the relationship didn’t have time to go super deep, but the seeds are there and both characters are good.

    And I listened to Linesman by Dunstal. Thank you, Tammy. It has just the right rhythm for working while listening. I got a little lost in the political maneuvering, because my mind wanders when I listen and work, but the vibes were very good. Calm, good people doing hard things. Just started the second in that series this morning.

    1. I think maybe the trick is to not create and analyze at the same time? Writing or painting and self-critique simultaneously is probably going to end in tears. Thinking before and after the working?

    2. I have to give credit to whoever recommended Linesman to me on Argh – Yuri? Frozen Pond? Gary H or Lian or LN? Am naming off all my sci fi friends.

      1. I missed this series Linesman somehow and have put it on my TBR.

        The title put me in mind of the Walter Miller novella The Lineman (no S). Very much of its time, but offering an insight into that time, among its other positives.

        Here is a fairly insightful review, except for the side swipe at R.A. Lafferty, who had more going for him theologically than the writer perceives.

        Novella Review: “The Lineman” by Walter M. Miller, Jr. – Science Fiction & Fantasy Remembrance https://share.google/YxGN45syAx0JLpLjS

      3. While I have read and loved the Linesman series I didn’t post about it here, since I read them before discovering Argh. I think I saw Liam post about them, and I may have added a ‘me too’ reply.

      5. I recommended Linesman at least once, but may have gotten the rec from someone else here. They are so good, it comes up often.

      1. I’ve read the Linesman trilogy three times since someone on argh suggested it. The first volume in particular is one of my favourite SF novels. Thank you to whomever.

  19. Bet Me is one of my faves. I can’t count how many times I’ve reread it.

    I am rereading some of what I call “comfort reads”. Currently, Nora’s Irish Trilogy.

  20. I can see that Bet Me is really solidly constructed, but I am deeply curious what you think you can’t do any more? Any elaborating on that topic is of intense interest to me. Although Deborah is also correct – none of us are making the work we were making n years ago, it has evolved as we’ve aged.

    I was inspired by your descriptions of Tilda’s early work in Faking It, and tried to recreate some of that feeling in fabric – I posted them on Instsa. I told one kid that I am pleased with pieces of it, but the whole piece makes me uncomfortable? And I am still working out why.

  21. Bet Me is indeed a Very Good Romance. It is a regular (and frequent) reread for me along with most of your other books but specially Anyone But You and Fast Women.

    This week I read “The Wall of Winnipeg and Me” by Mariana Zapata. It’s a M/F very slow burn romance between a football player and his assistant; both have trauma(s) in their past. I really enjoyed it and though I got tired of descriptions of how very big the MMC was and a few other writing quirks (constant reference to the MMC’s irises – how they swept the room, or how they pinned the FMC’s eyes, and such) this story had all the feels and provided some good emotional payoff. Thank you Yuri and Lupe for recommending this author. I’ll check out more of Zapata’s backlist.

    After our recent Argh discussion about Cait Nary, I also reread “Contract Season” by Cait Nary, M/M romance between a hockey player and a country music star. I enjoyed it this time around even more than I remembered. It has a “fake dating” trope which is not my favorite but in this story it worked and was plausible enough that I could suspend my disbelief. It provided all the feels and was a good one to read as we head into hockey season.

    1. Mariana Zapata does very strange things with eyes! That is one of her quirks. I also am not keen on the poop humour.

  22. Quite a variety of books read this week.

    1. ‘Colton Gentry’s Third Act’ by Jeff Zentner, FM second-chance romance. POV character is an alcoholic country singer/songwriter who torpedoes his career with a few profanely anti-gun words at a concert not long after his best friend is killed in a mass shooting at a music event. His life implodes. After rehab, he retreats to hometown to live with his widowed mother and discovers that his high-school love is also back there running an upscale farm-to-table restaurant; she gives him a job. The relationship arc is terrific, also the arc of MMC discovering joy in using his creativity in a new medium. Some back-and-forth in the timeline, giving us the teenage love affair. I could have done without the epilogue but otherwise thought this was great.

    2. ‘The Ranch Hand Diaries: Second Act, First Rodeo’ by Dave Nygaard. MM comedy featuring an established couple, slice of life covering nearly a year of story time as both of them contend with one getting laid off (on his 55th birthday) and the other’s firm become the target of acquisition. Set in Colorado. Excellent friend group, supportive family, fantastic main relationship, very funny.

    3. [re-read] my own FM to FMM novella ‘A Secret Chord,’ the one about a jazz musician, her boyfriend, her tour manager, etc.

    4. ‘The Great Game: A Thriller’ by Arvind Ethan David. Considering the sources include the Raffles stories by E. W. Hornung, the Sherlock stories by A.C. Doyle, and the Tarzan stories by E.R. Burroughs, this should have been a lot more fun.

    5. ‘A Murder of Magpies’ by Judith Flanders. Mystery series starter that my mother recommended, and I didn’t hate it, but I would have if the MC’s missing friend had turned out to be actually murdered. The amateur sleuth is a professional editor (aided by her mother, a high-powered lawyer, and an actual CID detective with whom the editor begins a highly inappropriate relationship). The title has nothing to do with anything so I immediately jump to ‘trying to invoke KJ Charles’ who was of course an editor, but … no.

    6. ‘Five Dates from Hell’ by Alexander Young, whose name is so close to my original name that I had to try this. ‘A Gay Romantic Comedy’ and not actually a romance, because it’s truly the story of five dates that go variously wrong; the last one results in ‘let’s try this again’ rather than ‘let’s never see each other again.’ It is funny and the POV character develops well, there are some acute observations, but I rounded down for sloppy construction.

    7. [re-read] my own MM novella ‘Screw Your Courage,’ the one about a private-school teacher who falls for a ballet teacher and decides to come out at work, even if it costs him his job.

    8. [re-read] ‘Take the Lead’ by Alexis Daria, set in the world of reality TV. FMC is one of the pros on a dance competition, MMC is her partner, who’s on a ‘frontier living’ family reality show that is very fake. A lot of this is good but the MMC is on the pigheaded side and the FMC holds unjustified grudges.

    9. ‘Lucianus: An MM Fantasy Adventure’ by C. J. Beshara, in which a fearsome battlewizard executed for war crimes wakes up in the body of someone else, remembering his own horrible death, realizes that he’s been summoned by a living wizard for revenge purposes, and commences to follow the summoning’s compulsion alongside a stranger. A quest with romance-adjacent male bonding that is bound to end in loss because once the revenge is accomplished, the summoned wizard will die again. This reminded me of ‘The Amberlough Dossier’ which is a good thing. Both MCs are morally gray, there’s destruction & violence galore. While the character development is good and the conclusion leaves the door open to finding each other again (hey, magic) it is not a romance.

    1. I am a big fan of both Judith Andrews mysteries and her nonfiction. I love her middle age woman protagonist and the young Goth assistant —especially when together through great editing they manage to defeat the management consultants.

      2. Flanders fan here as well. The characters are fun and I enjoy the dialogue. Maybe give a second book a try, ChaCha1, and see if you like it any better?

  23. I also reread Bet Me this week and loved it all over again! It is just so funny and sweet, but with enough issues and tension to keep it interesting. I brought home the copy I found in a hostel to keep for occasions where emergency cheering up is needed. It’s about 20 years old I think, and there is something that almost seems lovely and innocent about it (and I mean that in a good way).

    I also read ‘Steadfast’ by Sarina Bowen, an MF in the True North series which was free a few weeks ago. Really enjoyed it. It is more serious and hard hitting than most in that series I think (I have started a couple but they are less compelling), dealing with serious addiction, bereavement and family struggles in a fairly full on way (not just as background to provide ‘character depth’). It is the second in the series but I am glad I read it first and so had no knowledge of the characters, both of whom are well drawn and appealing and their issues are believable.

    1. I picked up Steadfast when it was free. I’ll be sure to read it. And with everyone rereading Bet Me, I need to read it again too. Along with Maybe This Time which I have read 3 or 4 times but am itching to read it again.

    2. I remember liking “Steadfast” too. I liked that whole series, although the last couple are languishing on my tbr.

      One of the things I liked about “Bittersweet” was the MMC balancing multiple products, a lot of debt and risk, and with a chemical degree to underpin his cider-making. I’ve worked with farmers, and he felt very much part of that younger generation trying to innovate. Must re-read 🙂

  24. The two family dinner scenes in Bet Me are still re-reads for me. I love that book.

    I listed to Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England’s Kings and Queens written and narrated by David Mitchell, the actor from Ludwig. It took me a while to get into it because I’d heard it was sarcastic but it’s actually biting which isn’t my favourite tone. He doesn’t have any remarkable new theories or even views of that history and some of his facts are not as up to date as they could be, but he does have some funny things to say and he makes the history accessible. So I’d give it a 7 out of 10.

    Note: I saw Elsinore at TIFF, starring Andrew Scott giving a virtuoso performance as Ian Charleson (lead actor in Chariots of Fire) playing Hamlet at the National while he is sick with AIDS. Says he’d rather die of Hamlet than AIDS. Also with Olivia Colman as his doctor but honestly, Scott eclipses her. An incredible film.

    1. I started looking things up to jog my memory on Ian Charleson, and I noted that the runner whom he portrayed in Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell, had a life almost as short, dying in a Japanese internment camp at age 43 in 1945.  I also noted that Charleson instructed his AIDs to be revealed posthumously in 1990, while in 1992 Asimov still feared for prejudice against his family and had his own cause of death covered up.

      1. And here’s a factoid: I had a boyfriend for three years whose father was interred in the same Japanese camp as a child and was taught by Eric Liddell. Also, Liddell’s widow retired in Ontario.

  25. I love Bet Me. I’m pretty sure I reread it relatively recently (like since Covid), and it still holds up.

    I finally finished the Plantagenets history. I’m thinking it took me a month to get through it, reading probably 5-10 pages each evening. I’m glad I read it, I learned a lot – and I’m also glad I have an English history buff in the family that will welcome this book with open arms! Now on to hopefully something fun!

  26. Bet Me and Anyone But You are both on my comfort audio list so I listen to them regularly. In one way they couldn’t be written today because the world is so changed from then. Groups of friends hanging out in a bar weekly and doing some mingling? Not how things are done today. But normal people with their personal insecurities finding others who can love and support them is hopefully still do-able. Look at the denizens of Rocky Start. Quite a lot of quirky stone cold killers but still accepted. I think Max is a main recipient of this. He was accepted and valued there. And Poppy was wise enough to realize that while Darius was an outstanding guy, he didn’t value who she authentically was. So the theme of accepting who you are is woven into Crusie and Crusie/Mayer books still being written today. And I eagerly anticipate the next installment!

  27. I love all Jenny’s work, especially her earlier books with either little or no violence (but LOVE Getting Rid of Bradley—I’ll remind you on my behalf that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”). I very much like her books with Bob, despite the occasional too-graphic violence, and I reread all her/their books on rotation with others in-between, EXCEPT Crazy for You, which I find too upsetting—I’m such a chicken heart!
    Can’t wait for Arresting Anna!! 🙂

  28. Bet Me was indeed a very good romance. I don’t analyze things I read and watch, because I consume for enjoyment. Things that make me happy I consider a success, and you have had more books be a success than any other author I have read. Life changes things, and I’m not the same person I was when I first read Bet Me. I relate more to Rose at this time in my life. I am happy you continue to write, I hope it brings more joy than angst.

    Last week I listened to Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillan. Set in Portland, Oregon a real estate appraiser is surprised by her father who was released from prison after 17 years. A bit predictable but enjoyable. I liked that there were two readers for the daughter and the father. I loved the male voice, I forgot who it was though. Next audiobook for work today is The Cinderella Deal. Thanks for the joy.

  29. Life was too hectic to immerse myself in readkng. So I sort of read Hone Ice by Saxon James: pro hockey player learns that his highschool sweatheart has dies in a car accident and only now does he learn that she had his baby 14 years ago. His bff from youth who had ghosted him since college graduation turns out to be said kids hockey coach. They reconnect, the reasons for ghosting are cleared, the romance can commence. The teen is nicely prickly, the new dad nicely clueless, but I haven’t been in the right headspace for the topics. Even if the ex-gf and bff kept their secrets to not stop him from going pro – it’s not ok to leave him in the dark and why would the girl ruin her life (no good education, financial hardship etc)?
    I skipped a lot in the middle because hhe story couldn’t keep my interest. Which might hsve been just me ag the moment.
    One thing gho in Saxon James’ books: players never really have to do a lot of training in the sunmer which I doubt: Jj Peterka, Grubauer, Samanski etc came to Munich for summer training (with Jack Eichel in tow???) – our new facilitues are taht good now!!

    I ‘ve tried a couple of audible books for frew with subscription and only got into on Riley’s His Horizon. Still listening. Same with Copper Script by KJ Charles. It might work better as eye-reading, maybe it would feel less bleak? I very much like hhe concept tho of the guy doung graphology with extra layers.
    On our 20 hr train journey r(we arrived yesterday night) I chose something more shallow – Stephanie Alves’ Risk Taker. Brick of a book. Not sure if I like it – a find by dd who hasn’t finished the book.
    I might finish the book on tomorrow’s journey back home. I also brought a non fiction book about Shakespeare. It depends on the vibe on the train if I feel like reading something high brow or trivial. I’m nerveous enough that probably the latter. First time navigating the way down th Manchester airport on my own… without the kids moral support…

    1. So the 20 hour train trip was you and your son going to England (Durham, I think you said?) from Munich to drop him off for some sort of course and you’re on your way back, flying from Manchester, after only one full day in country? Seems a surprisingly short stay after the trouble and expense of getting there, if I have that right.

      1. Yes, Patrick, 20 hrs by train (green travel), one day in Durham, then back home.
        And yes, I’m a helicopter mom.
        Also, a desk/inbox full of work is waiting at home, and a business trip next week – only 6 hours by train to Hamburg if everything goes according to plan.

      2. Yes, Patrick, 20 hrs by train (green travel), one day in Durham, then back home.
        And yes, I’m a helicopter mom.
        Also, a desk/inbox full of work is waiting at home, and a business trip next week – only 6 hours by train to Hamburg if everything goes according to plan.
        But the trip was pure quality time with my son, so I don’t regret neither the time nor the expenses. My colleague did the same with her sister who starts her Master’s in Wales.
        Though I do hope bot zo get stranded in Manchester due to an air control chaos like she was last week.

        1. Dodo, Good luck with the plane flight, and with getting through the work awaiting yo and the second trip. You’ve got a lot on your plate.

          1. Thanks, Patrick!
            Iarrived hone safely and almost on time.
            Machester Airport was an interesting experience. Fewer international travelers, more locals. A stag party obviously heading to the Oktoberfest (started yesterday), the groom in a parody of pur traditional dress, one mate in a flight attendant’s dress rather chic). Two guys in Lederhosen. A fight among sine Brits in the aisle after landing … the very slum and young flight attendant managing to calm everyone down. Impressive.

  30. I’ve had a terrible time finding something to read, or listen to. T. Kingfisher’s Paladin and Clocktauer books have filled the void nicely, so I’m on a run of listening to those.

    I regularly read Bet Me, I love the friend groups. I also love the books your write with Bob, once again with groups of friends, blood family and found family.

  31. This week I read The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts, the lastest Marlow Murder Club book. Very fun and complex. I love Suzie and her plain-speaking, bull-in-the-china-shop approach to their puzzles. Each of the women has their special skills and connections.

    Currently reading Daggerbound by Kingfisher and loving it. So many funny conversations, both internal and spoken, among the characters. Kingfisher is wonderfully creative with her character inventions, too.

  32. Hmm, I was just thinking about what book I should read or reread. I have a list of books to reread every year. Sometimes twice. Truly I was thinking it was time for a Bet Me reread. Often read some favourite scenes in the books. For instance, the scene in the dress shop with Linc and Min looking in the mirror at the new dress and glass of wine, the dinner scenes, such great scenes in the book.

    Have a lovely day, Jenny.

  33. I don’t consider myself qualified to judge the quality of Bet Me as a romance, I just enjoyed the hell out of the characters. My favorite Crusie’s are Welcome to Temptation and Faking It, neither of which I read until later. Bet Me is quite possibly third.

    I think Bet Me was the second Crusie that I read, after Fast Women. Then Crazy for You, Tell Me Lies and Trust Me on This. Then I found used copies of Manhunting and Getting Rid of Bradley online. It wasn’t until after I found Argh and people kept talking about Welcome to Temptation that I tracked a copy down and read it. All of which are the first romances I ever read.

    My mother had gothic romances lying around the house, but when I tried to read them they were dreck. And my grandmother read Harlequin romances, mostly about nurses falling in love with handsome doctors, who were assholes, so not only badly written but stupid and unlikable characters. So Jennifer Crusie books were my first evidence that, after 40 years of reading, that romances might not all be complete dreck.

    1. The odd thing about Harlequins is that there are a few good books in there that managed to adhere to the strict guidelines. Including 7 Crusies! But I only found some of the good ones by searching on authors I knew. For a brief time (1975–77), the publisher of Harlequin had a non-romance sf series, Laser Books, of which much the same could be said. But the editor of that line, Roger Elwood had a tangled career in many respects, and possibly Harlequin would have had better luck with Laser under a different editor.

      1. There are some excellent category romances out there – but I find them very mixed and the average lower, so its a bit luck of the draw. I tend to prefer other lines, but sometimes there’s nothing quite as delicious as the absurd melodrama of an HP.

        As always YMMV 🙂

  34. I went looking for the backlist of an author I’d only discovered long after she started (Kelley Armstrong) and found her first published book. I didn’t know it was her first book when I picked it up (looked that up later), but I could tell it had to be early in her career. There was a ton and a half of infodump/backstory, and the storytelling structure faltered in the middle, but I could see the potential for growing into a better storyteller over time (as she did).

    It reminded me of the experience of reading my first Pratchett book—The Colour of Magic—in the sense that I could see the beginnings of incredible storytelling skills, while acknowledging that it’s not his best, and I can see why most readers are better off not starting at the beginning and reading Discworld chronologically.

    For Watching Wednesday, I watched the PBS/BBC series, Bergerac. The plot was a bit predictable, but the performances were outstanding, and I really enjoyed Zoe Wanamaker as Bergerac’s mother-in-law. There’s a second (and maybe third eventually) series, but I’m guessing it won’t be available in the US (UK already has it) until next summer.

  37. Bet Me had me looking up recipes for Chicken Marsala and making it, before I went Pescatarian. I skip all the psychological stuff on rereads, but I remember when those theories were in the headlines. I reread it recently because everyone was mentioning the family dinners ,and my mind kept going to the restaurant dinner in Strange Bedpersons, which is hilarious. Of course, you’ve changed. So has the world you live in. It’s OK.

    I woke up from the surgery on Tuesday seeing ONE of everything!!!!! i see some things double, still, at some distances, but that is normal, and I expect will change. The brain has to adjust. I am so grateful and happy to see better! I have to apply two kinds of drops and an ointment several times a day, and that ointment is like looking through fog for a while. Thanks to everyone who sent up prayers and good energy. The surgeon corrected the muscles in one eye to fix the problem, so I only have to dose that eye. It was cool enough to walk this morning, after a good rain, here in the desert. All is well.

    I reread Rocky Start and Very Nice Funerals, and had nightmares last night about people hurting each other and trying to kill each other. But the characters who are “peaceful” are great! Rose, Betty, Coral, the kids, and Max and Luke are so deep, under the surface of violence and striving to survive. On to The Honey Pot Plot.

    1. Delighted your sight is better. I’m sure your brain will adapt – it took mine nearly six weeks to process the radically different views from each eye after my first cataract op as one reality (had to wait a few more weeks for the second eye to be done, but at least I could drive again once my brain got with the programme).

    2. Jan, Very pleased at the surgical success.

      I know the blur. I myself got put on an OTC ointment for one eye, although mine clears up after maybe 20 mins or less and I only have to do it once a day. Is your ointment just during healing or permanent? Seems like not a huge price to pay for single vision even if the latter.

    4. Great news! So glad the surgery went well.

      I think I just winged it on the chicken Marsala after reading the description in the book. So delicious. I might have to buy some marsala!

    5. So happy to hear it went well Jan. I’m sure it is a huge relief to you. Thank you for the update. Sending hugs

  38. I like Bet Me and reread it occasionally, as I do most of Jenny’s books.
    Reread is also a code word for my reading in the past week. I reread Stariel series by A.J. Lancaster. I love this series and have reread it several times already. I’m now in the middle of book 4, The King of Faerie and enjoying it.
    Lancaster’s characters are all sharply defined, all different from each other. I can’t name many writers who can do that so well. Her books are such a comfort read for me, all of them, not just this series. She hasn’t written too many, but I hope more are forthcoming.

  39. Of course you couldn’t write Bet Me now. You are not the same person you were then, and the world has changed almost out of recognition. That doesn’t mean you are not still a fabulous writer. We are all harder on ourselves than we need to be. You are a different writer but your skill is still very much there.

  40. Bet Me was my gateway dru… er …. Crusie book. Still love it, still reread it. But I think it’s like the well known saying about never stepping into the same river twice. You can’t write the same book twice, for much the same reason. At least if you’re a good writer that grows and you’re not just mimeographing your previous books, lol. That being said, Arghers clearly love your current work, Jenny, and can’t wait to see your next one, and that includes me. As for recent books, I’ve been enjoying Daggerbound and am excited we’ll see Angharad’s story next year as well as multiple other new Kingfisher/Vernons. Right now I’m rereading Meg Cabot’s Heather Wells series about a former pop star turned NYC college residence hall director who solves murders. I have a soft spot for Heather who is smart and a survivor despite getting shafted by her family, her boyfriend, and her record company.

      1. A little more info for you, Patrick M., Meg Cabot is kmown for YA and younger books (she did The Princess Diaries series). She’s also done straight up adult romance. But this is a murder mystery series (the dorm that our MC presides over becomes known as Death Dorm, for obvious reasons). Our MC Heather Wells is, I think, 29, which seems to fall outside the YA genre. In addition, the language may be youthful and lighthearted but the themes are often mature. I’m not sure if Cabot’s writing style is everyone’s jam. But if that description still sounds like something you’d be interested in, Patrick M., the first book is called Size 12 is Not Fat. Good luck with your Mount TBR!

  42. I finished EH Lupton’s Wisconsin Gothic series (what’s out so far). They’re m/m fantasy romance set in 1969-72. The first books are one couple and then there’s one with another couple, then back to the first couple. I really enjoyed them

    1. And there’s some sort of bug in Argh or my phone and every so often, it gives me an ad for thinning hair which covers what I’m writing. If I keep writing, the box comes back. It’s very odd

      Anyway…

      Bet Me is one of my favorites. Faking it is probably my most favorite. I reread all of them a few years ago, but am due for another read.

  43. I managed to finish The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston despite not being in the mood for it. It took me several days as I would read a chapter or two and then put it down for a day or so before picking it back up again.

  44. Am part way through Magical Bodies by Freya Marske and between this and Cinderhouse I’m moving her in my mental autobuy. Wonderful world building and engaging characters. Highly recommend even if I haven’t finished it yet.

  45. I’m doing a re-read of Maybe This Time because GHOSTS and the start of spooky season! Now I feel like I should do a re-read of Bet Me right after! And then probably Faking It after that since it’s my fave.

  46. I am replying here to the Friday funny, since there was no Post Comment box, there. Thanks for the laughs. Suggestion: become cosy with a vampire.

    Where are those people, now? They are hilarious and silly, and we need them back.

  47. I read Bet Me for the first time when I was about 21 and it totally blew me away – she was hot but not skinny! She was sarcastic but still sweet! She made sweatpants sexy! Groundbreaking for me at the time as all the women in my social circle were waxed, snatched, tinted, taut and augmented. I had never read a romance with a flawed lead, and I had also never tried Chicken Marsala, so Bet Me knocked my socks off. 22 years later I still look in the mirror and think, I’m not chubby, I am soft & round & hot like Min! 🙂 That book has given me more than 20 years of body positivity

  49. So after this post about Bet Me, I went back and reread it. Still great. But then I reread the Rocky Start series. And I thought that was great too. I don’t think there’s anything to secondguess yourself about, Jenny! And I very much appreciate the turn you and Bob have taken from straight up romance to stories with a little (or a lot) more action.

About the Author

Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s 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

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