An early work by Lucy Parker that's very sweet and low angst without being bland. This was exactly what I needed to read at the moment, evidenced by tAn early work by Lucy Parker that's very sweet and low angst without being bland. This was exactly what I needed to read at the moment, evidenced by the fact that I could't put it down (something that hasn't happened in nearly a month ...more
I have a hard time with romcoms a lot of the time because I don't... really like funny books? At least not the kind that feel like they're actively trI have a hard time with romcoms a lot of the time because I don't... really like funny books? At least not the kind that feel like they're actively trying to break beyond the occasional appreciative smirk into full-on sustained laughter. So when a funny book does get me, it feels like the exception to the rule, and if any author is an exception to just about every rule I've got, it's Alexis Hall.
The reason his brand of funny works for me is that the main characters and the way they relate to each other never feel like the punchline. There may be ridiculous conversations or side characters or what have you, but the things that actually matter are solid. The emotions are all real.
And that's true here as it always is. You've got two people who are messed up and neurotic in their own ways figuring out how to be together gradually under the guise of a fake boyfriend situation, and it just worked for me. I was invested in these people, I was IN IT. I couldn't put this freaking book down, which is saying a lot these days.
And yes, I laughed, because Hall does situational social comedy with the best of them (even though one character in particular reminded me a little too much of the too stupid to live beefcake secretary, Kevin, from the 2016 Ghostbusters movie) But what keeps me coming back to Hall's books is his ability to portray emotionally vulnerability and intimacy like few other authors can.
While this won't overtake For Real or Waiting For The Flood for the top spots in my heart, it was still super enjoyable and compulsively readable!...more
I was super excited to get an ARC of this, seeing as Roan Parrish is pretty much my favorite when it comes to romance. Sadly, though, I have to say thI was super excited to get an ARC of this, seeing as Roan Parrish is pretty much my favorite when it comes to romance. Sadly, though, I have to say this wasn't my favorite of hers overall.
Pluses: once I got into the story it flowed well and I devoured it in about a day or so. It also has Parrish's usual flair for portraying neurodiverse characters with a ton of compassion; I always like how each character meets the other where they're at, doesn't push their boundaries or try to make them into something they're not. I also enjoyed the references back to her earlier books.
Minuses: I found the overall story to be a bit too low angst for my tastes (verging on saccharine), and the set-up was strangely underdeveloped. Honestly, if this had been by an unknown author I would have been tempted to DNF it early on (I'm glad I didn't). Also, maybe I'm not enough of a dog lover to appreciate this? I had a really hard time keeping so many animals and their distinct personalities straight. Overall I don't think was bad, it just wasn't really my cup of tea....more
Like a sweetly sappy, PG-rated Hallmark movie. The first half is great and nicely crushy, but I eventually found it a little disappointing that the MCLike a sweetly sappy, PG-rated Hallmark movie. The first half is great and nicely crushy, but I eventually found it a little disappointing that the MC spends more time interacting with his best friend than with the love interest (by like a factor of 4). Also, while I identify with stories about people insecure about their weight, I found the level of ego boosting the love interest has to do to convince the MC that he indeed does find him attractive to be a little cringey....more
3.5 stars. Anyone who knows me could tell you that I categorically hate murder mysteries, so you would think that I'd love this for the fact that it's3.5 stars. Anyone who knows me could tell you that I categorically hate murder mysteries, so you would think that I'd love this for the fact that it's the only book by KJ Charles that DOESN'T contain a murder mystery. But the way she normally develops the romance amidst the crime and intrigue really works for me; she keeps the focus on the romance but uses the mystery as a way to move the story forward, to provide the unique circumstances that develop the main characters' connection.
So conversely, I think that the lack of mayhem here left it feeling a little meandering to me. I also found that a lot of the side characters kind of blurred together making pretty much impossible to keep them all straight (pun not intended, but delightful nonetheless), and there was a seemingly endless amount of talking that got to be a little wearing.
But I did enjoy it overall. I LOVED the central characters, and I found a lot of the ideas explored to be interesting. One thing all that extra narrative space allowed for is the exploration of some interesting ideas surrounding sex and sexuality (consent, the idea of sharing and giving pleasure rather than one person "taking" it, polyamory, different types of love being different but equal). There's also a lot going on here about the toxicity of moulding ones life around the opinions of others, and about finding your group of people who truly care about you and with whom you can be yourself (found family feels ftw!)
So overall this is good and I enjoyed it, but I don't think it's one I'll be rereading on the regular....more
Look, romances that work hard to finagle their leads into actual healthy relationships are pretty much my main jam, but every so often I find that theLook, romances that work hard to finagle their leads into actual healthy relationships are pretty much my main jam, but every so often I find that the power balancing is too self consciously done. It feels belabored. It insists upon itself.
But again, it's KJ Charles so this is a minor quibble. In the end it's expertly plotted, the MCs make for a unique pair, blah blah blah. Forever a fave!...more
Pluses: the main character has fibromyalgia and the love interest is dealing with the effects of emotional3.5 stars? Lots of pluses and minuses here..
Pluses: the main character has fibromyalgia and the love interest is dealing with the effects of emotional abuse. Both issues are dealt with in very realistic ways and are never abandoned for the sake of plot convenience. It's very funny in a charmingly poky, chatty, British way. There's so much gentleness and kindness, which is great for 80% of the book.
Minuses: That other 20% of the book I really wanted it to drop some off the humor and gentleness and just THROW DOWN. It comes across as a bit twee. The stakes are absolute tissue paper. It feels a little lopsided with the male lead being the one to reach out and do everything over and over. He's SO understanding and SO kind and SO good looking and SO into taking care of every little thing.
Overall I wanted to like this more but I found it to be very put downable, and I skimmed the last quarter. It's sad because I'm stoked that Talia Hibbert is being published for real now because I think she's a great author overall, and she seems like an all around adorable human being!...more
5 full stars! I absolutely adored this book! It was so satisfying on so many levels for me - I honestly haven't quite felt this way about a historical5 full stars! I absolutely adored this book! It was so satisfying on so many levels for me - I honestly haven't quite felt this way about a historical romance since Courtney Milan's The Duchess War first opened that door for me (although KJ Charles and Cat Sebastian definitely get an honorable mention).
It was just so much more than I was expecting.
First, of course, it's a really wonderful, unique romance between a brilliant astronomer and a widowed countess. The whole time I was reading it I had my heart in my throat, hoping and wishing and waiting for these women, so stepped on by society, to find the love and connection they deserved. I'll take a quote from the book itself to say that it has a "sense of awe and wonder and delight, without being at all childish".
But beyond the romance, this book is also a fantastic character study of a woman who was emotionally abuse by her late husband and who is struggling to find her way forward in the years after his death. Watching her character arc as she changes and grows into herself was such a fucking treasure.
It's also about how women and people of color were systematically excluded from the sciences, and how they found ways to do the work anyway.
There's a discussion that comes up annoyingly often in The Discourse™ about realism in historical romance, and it's never used as a way to discuss how few Dukes there actually were in history, how unlikely it is that they would be rich, good-looking, feminist, and would be interested in falling in love with a plain, penniless woman. No, it's always used as a way to argue that LGBTQ+ folks and people of color don't deserve uncompromising happiness in romance.
And yet history is full of marginalized people who lived their lives and did amazing things, found happiness, etc. Why, in a romance novel, would we elide those stories and instead focus on the negative to the exclusion of all else? We certainly don't in straight, white romance.
So it is with the greatest joy that I say that this book is also about marginalized folks finding ways to connect to each other, to protect and support each other, to give each other the space and courage they need to become their authentic selves.
The books I've read that have been this satisfyingly feminist have mostly been hyper angry, "burn it to the ground!" sorts of stories. While I love me some Bitch Planet, I love that this manages to give me that feeling while focusing on building the world into something better.
And if all that wasn't enough, the writing is also really well done; it strikes the perfect balance between light and serious, between tightly crafted and emotional. It is remarkable how she was able to draw such a beautiful, healthy relationship without sacrificing the passion, romance, or overall sexiness.
3.5 stars, rounded up because Garrett Leigh is always there for when I need an angsty-but-not-melodramatic romance about damaged-but-essentially-good 3.5 stars, rounded up because Garrett Leigh is always there for when I need an angsty-but-not-melodramatic romance about damaged-but-essentially-good people that's not tragedy porn and that deals with tough subjects (addiction, poverty, mental illness, disability) in relatively sensitive ways. They're never my absolute favorite, but they reliably work for me and there's always a few I haven't read waiting in the wings....more
I really liked this one! It's a standalone fantasy set in Mexico in the 1920s, and it follows a young woman who's a servant in her grandfather's home I really liked this one! It's a standalone fantasy set in Mexico in the 1920s, and it follows a young woman who's a servant in her grandfather's home until one day when she's left behind while the rest of the household goes on a daytrip and she decides to open the locked chest that's always been at the foot of her grandfather's bed. Thinking to find gold or something to help her escape her life of drudgery, she instead ends up releasing the Mayan god Hun-Kamé and becoming inextricably linked with him until he can take back the throne of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, from his treacherous, power-hungry brother.
First off, I have to say that this has absolutely fascinating ideas and world-building-- just an amazing sense of place, both with the Mexican spin on the flapper-era as well as with all the interesting Mayan trappings. This inspired me to learn so much about the Yucatan, Mayan history, and the various Mexican wars and rebellions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Don't take that to mean that the book was confusing or a chore to read, though! I think it has just the right amount of exposition to give you the full picture of what was happening at any given moment. It's just that it made me realize how little I actually knew and how much I suddenly wanted to know!
It also got me thinking more than I expected it to, though it isn't a super complex or heavy book; it's just that there were a lot of ideas that captured my curiosity and gave me something to chew on. On top of Mexican history, it had me pondering differing views on what gods are and how they came to be, the idea of gods being place-specific and how that would interact with a new age of globalism, how modernity and shifting technologies effected people at the time, immortality and how it might affect an individual's attitudes about time and change.
It also made me think a lot about the ways in which non-Christian religious beliefs are often talked about, and how it's (sadly) notable that the author brings these gods and beliefs to life without treat them as cute little surface level fairytales. Indigenous religions are too often talked about in ways similar to if you said Christians believe a white, bearded man lives in the sky and grant wishes to those who talk nice to him, and that their most important ceremonial food is "hotdish". You take away all the context of the people's rich inner worlds and it all sounds silly.
The characters also felt very clear to me, namely the prickly, willful Casiopeia, lofty and commanding Hun-Kamé, and the piss-ant bully that is Casiopeia's cousin Martín. It's nice to see the way they all shift and change over the course of the book, particularly Hun-Kamé.
So, ok, there's so much good stuff going on here. What's stopping it from being a 5-star book? For me it came down to the writing style and pacing, which I think had both positive and negative aspects.
First of all, the book is written in a very matter-of-fact tone, which usually isn't my favorite style. It eventually won me over, though, because it does manage to have a surprisingly good sense of atmosphere, and the creatures, places, and objects are unique and macabre enough to stand on their own without any flowery adornment. I spent a while in the middle scenes just marveling at the author's skill at drawing some very specific scenes and character mannerisms with impressive brevity. Overall the writing really evokes the feeling of a myth or fairytale, and does it without feeling too distant from the characters, which is an incredibly hard line to walk.
As for the pacing, I found that it felt very measured in a way that made it hard for the story to ever gain any real momentum. The major confrontations and peak emotional moments were written in almost the exact same way as the rest of the book, so there was often no sense of passion or urgency, and the stakes felt kind of low. Like I understood intellectually that the stakes were actually super high, but it never felt that way. But on the other hand, though, there were moments where I appreciated that the story didn't go in the drama-filled direction I anticipated, so... pluses and minuses.
When it comes down to it, what I can say is that I ultimately found the conclusion to be very satisfying on a plot level but a bit dissatisfying on an an emotional one.
You know, though, my main "doorways" are definitely language and character (I love me some angst!), so I think that I'm generally a little more critical than a lot of people will be on these fronts. I will say that the fact that I still loved this as much as I did even with these specific weaknesses says a lot for this book. While it didn't get me in the heart the way that I might have hoped, it more than made up for it in the interesting ideas and unique, vibrant world, and I think that those who take it more for the journey than for a big emotional pay-off will get a lot out of it!...more
So beautiful and real, full of all the messy, wild joy, pain, uncertainty of being young and figuring yourself out and finding the people who make youSo beautiful and real, full of all the messy, wild joy, pain, uncertainty of being young and figuring yourself out and finding the people who make you feel free to be your whole self.
I may or may not have sobbed like a little baby in the end... Ok, I totally did. I can't believe I just spent 800 pages absolutely falling in love with this group of London college kids, these living breathing characters that are currently taking up so much space in my brain, and I still want more. That's not to say that the book in any way left me hanging, though, because I feel completely and utterly satisfied right now!
I've heard people talk about how certain characters feel like friends and how they just want to go back and visit them, but I have never quite experienced that until now. Oh, I just love them all so much! and I love how intensely emotional it was while never, ever falling into melodrama. Just, whoo... This one just really worked for me.
I really liked Liz Jacob's Christmas at the Wellends, but it was just a little short thing, and I think she truly had a chance to shine here in long form. I cannot flipping wait to read more by her!!...more
First I'll say that I loved this. It reminded me so much of college and all its intricate, intense relationships and social anxiety. Very realistic.
SFirst I'll say that I loved this. It reminded me so much of college and all its intricate, intense relationships and social anxiety. Very realistic.
Second I'll say it's not what I expected since I thought it would be a pretty traditional romance, and while it does end up being that to some degree, mostly it's a coming if age story, both for the main male lead and, to a lesser extent, his close new female friend.
Third, I'm knocking a star of because this in the first half of a book and now I have to go pay $6.99 for the rest of it. Which I will absolutely do. But this doesn't stand on its own, and it cuts off in a really strange place. Shrug. On to part 2!...more
Hallelujah! This was a balm to my soul after a string of less than stellar romances, with its blissfully clear, unique, internally consistent characteHallelujah! This was a balm to my soul after a string of less than stellar romances, with its blissfully clear, unique, internally consistent characters and relationships.
Cheese and CRACKERS, KJ Charles is good. I'm only rating it down a star because it was a bit shorter than I really wanted....more
I found the exact same pluses and minuses here as I did in the other books I've read by R Cooper. Pluses- really endearing, goodhearted, well-drawn chI found the exact same pluses and minuses here as I did in the other books I've read by R Cooper. Pluses- really endearing, goodhearted, well-drawn characters, a VERY intense and poignant sense of longing that's eventually followed by a very satisfying union. Plus/minus- insightful writing that leaves so much to inference that it's at times beautifully subtle, and at other times super confusing. Minus- there's a point where the internal conflict isn't enough to fully explain why they still haven't gotten together.
Overall I really adore her books, but I think I need to leave a bit of time between readings going forward....more
Hot damn! This one might be my favorite KJ Charles book yet! Lots of intrigue and Thieving For Mighty Justice, a heart meltingly lovely romance, and sHot damn! This one might be my favorite KJ Charles book yet! Lots of intrigue and Thieving For Mighty Justice, a heart meltingly lovely romance, and some of the steamiest scenes of power negotiation I've read. Overall the whole thing really kept me on my toes!...more
Edit: I knocked this down from 3 to 2 stars because I get a slight queasy feeling when I think of it a week and a half later.
2.5 stars. Sweet romance Edit: I knocked this down from 3 to 2 stars because I get a slight queasy feeling when I think of it a week and a half later.
2.5 stars. Sweet romance with likable characters, but I didn't love that there was more sex before they reached a point of intimacy than after, and I thought the problems all got solved with the flick of a switch. It ended rather abruptly, too. Just not super satisfying overall....more
There were aspects of this that I really loved (the characters and their connection were very strong), but I found it to be almost painfully repetitivThere were aspects of this that I really loved (the characters and their connection were very strong), but I found it to be almost painfully repetitive. The wording used to describe the obstacles feels like it's on rails; like the female lead repeatedly reminds you that "I can't have a relationship because I fall into depression every 5 years," Or "soon I'll stop being able to enjoy anything," using these phrases almost verbatim what feels like dozens of times.
That being said, I did enjoy this overall and I'll definitely be reading more of Jackie Lau's books, particularly because I loved her first book, Grumpy Fake Boyfriend. I do find it interesting that this has a significantly better rating than GFB... the ratings on this here website are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯...more
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