Recommendations

Jun 02 2021

May 2021 Reading Roundup

So you may have noticed I missed this month’s What I’m Working On blog post. I have no good excuse, save that my writing life did not seem terribly thrilling to me this month. I’m debating moving that section to a bi-monthly or as-needed post, mostly because I tend to be a very scheduled individual in terms of work, so a lot of times in my head my schedule is: Write 30k on X novel this month. So, when I go to talk about what I’m doing, it feels a little like I’m just parroting my very boring schedule at you. The last thing I want to do is bore anyone to tears, and if I’m bored writing a post, I’m pretty sure you’ll be bored reading it.

Ahem, okay, so on with the Reading Roundup! I have been trying so, so hard to find new authors, and I am failing miserably. I started probably ten books this month that I just had to put down and couldn’t finish. I wasted three-quarters of the month on books I couldn’t finish. I am in an undeniable reading slump. SEND ME YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS. I can’t promise I’ll read them, but I will definitely go check them out.

Okay, so as always happens when I’m in a reading slump, I fall back on authors I know I love, whom I’ve been stockpiling books from for just such an occasion. Ergo, the selection is thin this month. As in, two authors, four books thin. But as my boss would say, “It is what it is.”

Crossing the Line/Breaking the Rules by Lucy Score

Okay, so if you missed my initial reading roundup where I discovered Lucy Score, let me take this moment to say I LOVE LUCY SCORE. Like, I’ve never fallen so hardcore in love with a contemporary romance author before. Her books are snort-inducing hilarious, transport me completely out of my ordinary life, and I am incapable of taking longer than 24 hours to read one of them.

THE DISCLAIMER: All Lucy Score books are steamy as fuck. If you’re going to dive into one, make sure that explicit sex and lots of it are things you like in a novel.

Okay, so Crossing the Line and Breaking the Rules are a duet, so I’m just reviewing them here together. If you like the falls-for-her-bodyguard trope done with typical Lucy freshness, this one’s for you!

In the first installment, Waverly Sinner is a movie star with a stalker problem, and Xavier Saint is her assigned bodyguard, who is absolutely immune to the starlets he protects. . .until he meets Waverly, of course. 🙂 Chock full of hilarity, rivalry, and smoking-hot attraction, Score once again crafts two great characters I’m rooting for the entire book.

I don’t want to do anything spoiler-y, so I won’t say much about the second book except to say that you will want to start it immediately upon finishing book one, and you’ll be happy you did.

Undercover Love by Lucy Score

Undercover Love was apparently Score’s debut novel! I guessed that it might be while reading it, but I wasn’t one-hundred percent certain, which is surprising in and of itself. I can usually spot a debut a mile away, but Score is just such a natural storyteller, and her characters always have the most amazing chemistry, that there were only a couple minor things that made me think it might have been the debut.

It’s a little shorter than her later novels, so if you’re looking for a faster read, this is a great option. Technically falls into the billionaire romance category, I suppose, though it’s not super in your face about the money thing. It’s there enough that if you like billionaire romance, it’ll scratch the itch, but also not so there that if you’re not super into billionaire romance (like me) it’s not going to put you off.

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

Queen of Shadows is the fourth installment in Maas’s Throne of Glass series. I read her A Court of Thorns and Roses series first, which I absolutely love, all though this series was her debut.

In full transparency, the first book in this series is one I might not have taken a chance on if I hadn’t read her other series first, but I’m glad I did. You really get to see Maas develop her writing as an author as the series progresses, and by the time you get to this book it’s all just flat-out amazing.

It’s a great series for anyone who likes traditional fantasy with a touch of fae. If you haven’t read the series and are interested, you’ll want to start with Throne of Glass.

Number of books I read this month I wouldn’t recommend: Zero, technically, but I started a veritable mountain of them I couldn’t finish.

May 04 2021

April 2021 Reading Roundup

This was one of those reading months where I finished several books I didn’t really like. I used to be the type of person who had to finish a book I started, whether I liked it or not. In recent years, I’ve come around much more to the idea that life’s too short to read books you aren’t really enjoying. But for some damn reason, this month I just insisted on finishing books I didn’t like, because I felt like I really should be enjoying them.

You know how it is. Everyone and their mother has recommended X book to you, and you finally give in and read it. You don’t like it. You don’t understand why everyone else likes it, so you keep powering through, convinced their must be something wrong with you because you Just Don’t Get It, and you’re certain that at some point, a chorus of angels will jump out of the book singing Hallelujah and you’ll finally understand the appeal.

Guys, I give you permission not to finish that book. Don’t be me. Don’t read the book you hate and then wonder why you wasted that valuable time in your life. It’s okay. Taste is subjective (which is why I never point fingers and name titles of the books I don’t enjoy) and we’re all allowed to like what we like. Doesn’t mean you have to like what everyone else is liking.

Okay, off my high horse to report on the three books I read this month that I can actually recommend in good conscience.

Spark by Devon Monk

The West Hell Magic series is perfect if you’re looking for fun, well-written urban fantasy with little to no romance. Also perfect if you love hockey. I know absolutely nothing about hockey and this book made me want to go watch a hockey match. If I’m not mistaken, the author is a raging hockey fan.

This is one of those rare series where I actually liked the second book (this one) better than the first. Which is not to say Book 1, Hazard, isn’t good, because it totally is. They’re connected standalones about hockey players in the West Hell magic league, so the first book is about wizard Random Hazard (come on, how can you not love a book with a character named Random Hazard?) and Spark is about his best friend, werewolf Duncan.

I just really, really loved Duncan as the main character in this book. He is such a happy, goofy character, and his werewolf instincts make him super protective of his family, which is why he puts himself in a really bad position in order to protect Random.

At its core, this is a story about learning and accepting who you are, and understanding that it’s okay to ask for help. I highly recommend. While you can technically read this one without reading the first book, I always recommend starting at the beginning of a series.

Kobo | Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble

The Jaguar Knight by Ann Aguirre

The long-awaited conclusion to Aguirre’s shifter romance series, Ars Numina, finally came out in April! I’ve been waiting to find out what happened to Slay FOREVER.

So this will be more of a series review than a single book review, as I don’t want to give any spoilers to anyone who hasn’t read the first five. These are all connected standalones with an overarching theme that comes to fruition at the end of this book.

Set in a world with cat, bear, and wolf shifters, eldritch fae, and “monstrous” Golgoth shifters, the series starts at a tense time when the territories need to resign their peace treaty, and the Golgoth are threatening war on all the other territories.

Each book features a different pair of lovers finding each other, all from cross-cultural backgrounds except for the romance in the first book, which is two cat shifters from the same territory. As I’ve come to expect from Aguirre, the world-building is top-notch, the characters are well thought out, and the romance is sizzling.

I give the series all the stars. Especially since I’ve been waiting for Slay to get redeemed since he disappeared as a secondary character in Book 1. If you’ve been reading along, this conclusion is SO WORTH IT. If you haven’t been reading along and want to, start with The Leopard King.

Kobo | Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas is one of those authors it took me forever to actually pick up. Any time there’s a lot of hype around a series or author, and I didn’t read them before the hype happened, it’s hard for me to read them, because I’m always afraid I’ll be disappointed (ie, what happened with all the books I read this month I can’t rec).

But guys, I LOVE Maas’s Court series. I like her Throne of Glass series too, but they were a little harder for me to get into, and if you’re looking to start her books, I highly recommend starting with A Court of Thorns and Roses. These books are Fantasy, Fantasy/Romance about the fae.

This is technically the fourth book in the series. The first three focus on Feyre, and this book focuses on Feyre’s sister, Nesta. This is a mammoth of a book, and at its core, it’s a story about recovery and mental health. As you’ll know if you’ve read the first three, Nesta is a prickly character, and I wasn’t entirely convinced I could be made to like her, but there is so much to connect to in her character. She is very raw, and real, and I feel like everyone can learn so much from her.

Disclaimer: Smexy heat level goes WAY way up compared to previous books. Like, ratchets up x 1000.

Fun Fact: I met Sarah J. Maas once! No, she has no idea who I am. She was on tour for Queen of Shadows when I still worked at an indie bookstore, and had a signing there. The events coordinator neglected to tell her to come into the store through the back entrance, so I turned around at the registers and there was Sarah J. Maas. It was a good thing I hadn’t read her books then, or I probably would have fan-girled super hard. As it was, I just furtively herded her to the back of the store because I was terrified the throngs of her adoring fans would see and mob her, and then I would have to explain to someone how I allowed Sarah J. Maas to be mobbed by her fans. Based on the total two minutes I spent in her presence, she seems like a super chill, down-to-earth individual.

Kobo | Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Google Books

Mar 01 2021

February 2021 Reading Roundup

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 Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

This is one of those books that is just absolutely up there on another level. The writing, the world, the magic, and the characters are all amazing. It is also a very difficult book to read. I am not usually one to relay trigger warnings on books. That said, The Poppy War draws heavily on ancient Chinese history, specifically the Second Sino-Japanese War, and she pulls heavily from some of the worst atrocities that occurred in that war.

I want to note that absolutely nothing is gratuitous/for titillation factor. I feel the author brings attention to and attempts to deal with this unpleasant history, and work through the horrors and lasting impacts of war and war crimes. But if you are triggered at all by war/torture/rape/mutilation and a host of other things that are oft-overlooked facets of human history and aggression, I would not read this. I do not personally have these triggers but, even so, the hardest part of this novel to get through still makes me a little sick when I think about it. Mostly because I recognize that these are things that actually happened, that human beings actually did to each other.

This book is an absolutely stunning accomplishment. But go into it with fortitude if you aren’t used to reading this kind of thing.

Amazon | Kobo

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

If you love fairytale retellings, Naomi Novik’s Spinning SIlver is among the best of the best, in my opinion. And I feel like we rarely get Rumplestiltskin retellings (though maybe there are a host of them out there and I am missing them?).

This book pulled me in entirely, one of those where I chain-read it in a day and was then sad that it was gone. If you want something that will absolutely make you forget the world exists, I can’t recommend this enough. And if you love it and you haven’t read Novik’s Uprooted, do yourself a favor and go read that, too.

Amazon | Kobo

Would I Lie to the Duke by Eva Leigh

I am absolutely loving Leigh’s Union of the Rakes series. I read the first book back in December, and this one absolutely lived up to my expectations. It was funny, charming, and as I’ve come to expect from Leigh, the heroines are smart and clever, and the men respect them.

The male love interest, Noel, is possibly the sweetest fictional duke I’ve ever read, and believably so. Jess, the heroine, is a clever woman with a head for finances and investments, who is trying to save her family’s soap making business after a fire destroyed their workspace. She poses as a Lady to try and secure investors, but ends up falling in love with Noel. Noel is accustomed to people using him to get what they want, and thinks he’s finally found someone guileless in Jess, who sees him for the person he truly is beneath the title of duke.

If Jess doesn’t go through with her plan, she’ll lose her business and her family will be torn apart. But if she does go through with it, she’ll hurt a man who doesn’t deserve it, and lose the love she’s just found. I loved every moment of this book. The next in the series, Waiting for a Scot Like You, just released, and I have it next in line to read.

Amazon | Kobo

Number of books I read this month that didn’t make it into the corral: 3. It was that kind of reading month.

Feb 03 2021

January 2021 Reading Roundup

For various reasons, January was a bit of a rough month for me, so I didn’t get as much reading done as I’d intended. I’m always on a quest to find new authors I can add to my Must-Read list, and I started a lot of books I ended up having to admit I just couldn’t finish. However, I did find one awesome new author, so let me start with her:

Temporary Wife Temptation (Heirs of Hansol) by Jayci Lee

This was one of those books where, after furiously reading it as fast as possible, I was delighted to discover the two remaining books in the trilogy were already out, and I chain-read them as well. As I mentioned, January was a rough month for me, and I desperately needed a book where I loved the characters and the romance, but the stakes weren’t so high I was going to be ugly-crying in my room at any point.

This was that book. The main characters, Garrett and Natalie, have amazing chemistry, and felt like developed, fully realized characters, which can be difficult to do in the shorter book-lengths allotted to Harlequin imprints. I also usually find it difficult to buy the fake-marriage plot, but again, this author really knocked it out of the park with creating a believable plot, and characters whose motivations and personalities were such that I could see them making the choices they did.

If you’re looking for a quick, easy read with sizzling romance, great writing, and not too much heartbreak before we get to HEA, I highly recommend this book, and the entire Heirs of Hansol series.

I guess I should also point out–considering pretty much everything I read is fantasy or some sub-genre thereof–that this is a contemporary romance series. Usually I don’t get on too well with books set in everyday reality but, *shrugs shoulders,* if the book is good, the book is good.

Amazon | Kobo

Blood Heir by Ilona Andrews

All right, January was an Ilona Andrews release month, so you had to know this would be on here! As usual, I am already resisting the urge to immediately reread the entire book. I did not resist the urge to reread a few key scenes, which I may, or may not, have done multiple times already.

Okay. So if you’ve read the Kate Daniels series (in which case you probably know everything I’m about to say) this book is set in the Kate Daniels universe, and follows Kate’s adopted daughter, Julie, as she returns to Atlanta to try and stop a prophecy. If you haven’t read the Kate Daniels books, you absolutely can start with Blood Heir as an entry point into the universe, but as it takes place several years after the end of the other series, it will by necessity spoil certain series plot-lines of the Kate Daniels books. I do honestly feel like it doesn’t spoil too much, so if you’re thinking of entering the universe, I’d say go ahead and start here if you want to.

SO MANY GOOD THINGS IN THIS BOOK. When you have characters as badass as Kate and Curran were in the original series, it can be difficult to move on to new characters and make them just as exciting, but as usual, Ilona Andrews does not disappoint. I think one of the funnest things about this book was that, for reasons you will discover upon reading, Julie no longer looks like she used to, so when she returns to Atlanta, none of her old acquaintances recognize her, and it’s necessary for her to keep it that way. I am a sucker for characters interacting with people they know without those people knowing who they are (I don’t know why, but that trope really does it for me).

Julie has also leveled up magically since the KD books, as have certain other side characters I will not mention because I don’t want to spoil anything if you’re a KD reader. I’m now curious about who would win in a fight between Kate Daniels and Julie (theoretically, as obviously they are family and would not fight) and I’m not sure what the outcome would be. Before I read this book I would have said Kate, but I am no longer so sure.

I could ramble on all day about how much I loved this book but I will just stop here and say read it if you want to be happy. That’s it, that’s the review.

Amazon | Kobo

Vengeance in Death by JD Robb (In Death Book Six)

So at this point, it is no secret that JD Robb is the Queen of Romance herself, Nora Roberts, but if you’re unfamiliar with this particular series, it is basically futuristic sci-fi/romance/mystery. I’d never looked at it before because I didn’t realize it had the sci-fi element, and I don’t read a lot of general mystery, but at any rate, twitter informed me of the sci-fi part and I was like, sure, why not?

The In Death series follows homicide detective Eve Dallas, who in book one gets together with mysterious, hunky Irish billionaire Roarke who, by this book, still has no other name. Is Roarke his first name? His last name? WE DON’T KNOW. The series is up to 50+ books and counting, so it could be a long time before we find out, if we ever do.

So, when a series is this long-running I generally expect a lot of repetition, and I mean that in the best way possible. Murder mysteries tend to be very formulaic, and if I choose to embark on a lengthy series of such a nature, I am mostly there for the ambience, the familiar characters and witty repertoire, and I really couldn’t care less about who did it.

All of which is to say, I am legitimately wondering if Roarke is going to be implicated for, or at least tangentially connected to, every murder in the entire series and Eve spends fifty some-odd books proving his innocence again and again and let me tell you, I totally hope that’s the case. It’s a plot-line that will somehow never get old for me, and like, it’s Nora Roberts so I trust her and all that jazz. PLEASE NO ONE RUIN IT FOR ME. I would like to spend the next forty books or so wondering about it.

So, given how many books there are in this series I am not going to review every time I read one, as you’d all get very bored of me saying, “Another fantastic edition to the series in which Eve almost dies, but solves the murder and makes hot, passionate love to Roarke, whom she clears of all wrongdoing,” but I did want to throw it in the mix in case you, like me, were unaware of the sci-fi element to this particular series, and that sort of thing is your jam.

Amazon | Kobo

Number of books I read this month that didn’t make it into the corral: 1

Jan 02 2021

December Reading Roundup and Year-End Herd Count

Year-End Herd Count: Since it’s the end of the year, I also get to tally all the books that joined the herd this year, so here we go:

Fiction Books Read: 42

Novellas Read: 12 (Apparently this was the year of novellas?)

Audiobooks: 11

Nonfiction: 6

I was surprised to find my numbers pretty on-par for my average year-end totals, despite the craziness of 2020 itself, and deciding to start a business in the middle of a pandemic. I’m chalking it up as a win. I usually listen to a much larger volume of audiobooks, but they suffered this year because I mainlined pretty much every self-publishing podcast known to humankind, on top of the ones I already listen to. Do podcasts need to join the herd?! A question for 2021, perhaps. Okay, on to the Roundup.

The Queen’s Triumph (Rogue Queen Book 3) by Jessie Mihalik

Hey hey, the conclusion to The Rogue Queen trilogy arrived in December, and I obligingly devoured it. This is a must-be-read-in-order series, so start with The Queen’s Gambit if you’re interested, I promise not to do spoilers.

The Queen’s Triumph is everything you want in the conclusion to this series. From the romance side, we as readers have waited patiently for the main characters to finally get it on. Cue sex. Lots and lots of hot, passionate sex. I was very pleased with this, along with all the snark about said activities from Samara’s friends. From the science fiction side, that revenge you’ve been waiting for is finally served, but oh my god did Mihalik deliver it in the most tense way possible. Like, every time you think it is the last time something will go wrong for the characters, just look at the remaining page count in the book and realize that things are going to go wrong again.

Overall, great sex. great space station setting, and really cool fun battles on said space station. REVENGE. I was pleased. One always worries about the finale to a series but here, there is nothing to fear.

Amazon | Kobo

A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes Book 4) by Sabaa Tahir

Here is my usual disclaimer that this is the last book in a series that should be read sequentially, I will not do spoilers, and if you haven’t read it and are interested you should start with An Ember in the Ashes.

Okay, so I know all of the internet has long beat me to the punch of talking about how their hearts were destroyed by this book but, like, is there a support group for those of us just finishing the novel who are NOT OKAY? My favorite character, who I most identify with, had their heart absolutely annihilated, like full-on destroyed, and I may never recover, even if the glimmer of hope at the end of the novel indicates that said character probably will.

Truly masterfully crafted. I always worry about the end book in a series, and especially the final battle in fantasy novels, and I will just say that this one did not go where I thought it was going to go. Like, nowhere near where I thought it would go, and this was good. Heartbreaking, soul-crushing, possibly life-altering, but also good.

It feels like the end of an era, but we must all somehow find the strength to go on. “May death claim me first” (*sobs*, you will understand when you get there).

Amazon | Kobo

The Silent Places by Skyla Dawn Cameron

Cameron’s books are like that really really hot person who blinds you so much that when you try to talk to them (or about them, in the case of books) you forget what words are. If I actually tried to do justice to my feelings I’d sit around all day and never write a review, so I’m just going to do the best I can.

For my overused descriptive words, this book is amazing. Spellbinding, but also haunting. Excellent as a thriller, but so much more than that, too. It struck a deep chord within me, verbalizing all the calculations women constantly have to make around men regarding safety, and how nearly impossible it is for many people to escape domestic violence.

I feel like one of the truly wonderful things this book does is take every moment where you had to be extra-cautious, every moment you got a weird feeling about someone and decided to adjust your actions to account for a potential threat, and lets the reader know, Hey. Good instincts there. It shouldn’t be this way, but all too often, it is.

So often people (women, for certain, but by no means is it wholly gender restricted) are told we overreact to the way people treat us, the things they say, but the truth is, our bodies give us warning signs for a reason, but we are often conditioned to ignore those signs. I want to give this book to every woman I know, and then everyone else I know, because really I think everyone should read it.

Okay, now that I’ve bungled this review and failed to express how truly fantastic this book is, take pity on me and go read it.

Amazon | Kobo

My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh

For some reason, y’all, I have been hitting the historical romance genre up a lot more than usual. Okay, it’s Courtney Milan’s fault, her books got me hooked. Anyways, My Fake Rake is a wonderful, delightful romp. If you need some good laughs and historical is your jam, give it a try. Gender-swapping the oh-my-god-we-took-off-this-character’s-glasses-and-gave-them-nice-clothes-and-now-they-are-HOT trope (yes, I really did string that many hyphens together to modify the word trope because I can’t get away with doing this in my actual novels), I enjoyed absolutely every line of this book.

Basically, the heroine (Grace) needs a husband, but no one will look twice at her because she’s super smart and into science, so she decides to fashion her other science friend (Sebastian) into a fake rake to shower public attention on her to make other men notice her. So usually when this trope is done, the person making over the other person legitimately did not realize said person was attractive/worthy of affection/had good qualities before their outer appearance changed and this. . .does not work for me. Like, if you were that clueless beforehand, why would we want our bravely-made-over person to grant you their affections? Fortunately, in My Fake Rake, Grace did realize these things about Sebastian pre-makeover, and was interested, she just thought Sebastian wasn’t interested in her.

Cue the hysterical journey of two science-minded, socially clueless people trying to make one of them fashionable (luckily, a non-clueless person comes along to help them out before they embarrass themselves too much). The book had just the perfect amount of back-and-forth yearning, wherein each person wants the other but thinks the other doesn’t want them, which is so one of my favorite romantic plot devices. Ten out of ten, highly recommend.

Amazon | Kobo

Number of books I read this month that didn’t make it into the corral: 0