Welcome back to another edition of the Reading Roundup, where I herd all of the books I read this month into a corral and rate them on things like attractiveness, form, substance, and generally just how fun they were to hang out with.
I don’t say mean things about books, so if read something I wouldn’t recommend, I don’t list it. For transparency’s sake, I will disclose the number of books I read that didn’t make it into the corral at the end of the post.
The Brothers Sinister by Courtney Milan
Okay, so I finished off the last three books and two novellas in the Brothers Sinister series I started last month, and they are every bit as delightful as the first ones. I honestly can’t even pick a favorite, which is very rare for me when reading a series of standalones. Milan’s heroines are all so different from each other, and yet I love each one of them.
A lot of times when I read historical fiction I like the male love interest, but the women tend to be very stock characters who have no personal ambitions. Though the male love interests in these books are admittedly pretty great (as they should be), what I really love is how fleshed-out the female protagonists are. Milan’s women really push the bounds of the historical romance protagonist, while keeping to the expectations that readers of the genre love. This series is such a phenomenal value, I really can’t recommend it enough.
Widdershins (Whyborne and Griffin #1) by Jordan L. Hawk
I’m so happy to have finally found another great paranormal romance series! It meets both my criteria, as I have to have both an engaging romance and a really well-built world with cool magic. Too many times I try to pick up a new PR only to find it’s 99.9% romance and the plot is terrible with the magic thrown in as a paper-thin afterthought. Not so with Widdershins.
For my first criteria, Whyborne and Griffin are an utterly adorable couple, with Whyborne being everything I want out of the intellectual nerd character who fears he will never be loved. Griffin is properly masculine and brooding and I adore every moment of them interacting.
For my second criteria, magic is very much integral to the plot. We are given great monsters, secret societies, a budding mage in our very own dear Whyborne, and possibly world-ending consequences should our heroes fail.
Hawk’s writing is excellent and the book clips along without ever dragging. I hope the rest of the series is just as good as this one.
Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill
If you like fairy tales, fairy tale retellings, and anything in between, read this! I can’t think of any way to describe it better than just. . . beautiful. Hauntingly, ethereally beautiful.
As the subtitle indicates, it’s a mix of poetry and short stories, and each one has that magical, almost surreal feel that I associate with authors like Neil Gaiman, Dianna Wynne Jones, and Catherynne M. Valente.
The illustrations in the book are also absolutely gorgeous, and maybe it’s just the cover but I feel like it’s the perfect book to read going into the winter season. And thinking about that, for some reason, makes me want to reread Naomi Novik’s Uprooted and Spinning Silver, which are also great books if you like fairy tales and just generally badass writing.
Number of books I read this month that didn’t make it into the corral: 3