Because I am a person who derives energy and motivation from inventing goals and assigning them to myself as homework, January is a month in which I tend to be wildly energetic. Everyone else is lying in bed huddled up against the cold as they try to recover from the holiday season, while I charge around like the Energizer Bunny doing so many tasks it gives my mother a headache to hear about1 and being really, truly, genuinely annoying to my friends. But they have to deal with it because they know that the next time they want to make…
Leave a CommentTag: Cat Sebastian
It’s time again to write about romance novels! To my eternal sorrow, I always read fewer romance novels than I want to read, because they are much easier to get as ebooks, but I much prefer reading physical books. So if I check out five physical library books and five library ebooks, I will prioritize the five physical books and forget about the five ebooks. This is especially a problem if I want to read independent or self-published romances (which I do), which often don’t exist as print books at all. It’s a problem for which I have not yet…
1 CommentHappy Monday, friends! The Ex Talk, Rachel Solomon Here’s a twist on fake dating I’ve never seen before: Fake exes. In order to save their small public radio station, Shay Goldstein has to team up with the pretentious hotshot at her work, a man named Dominic Yun who’s beloved of their sexist boss and can’t stop talking about his master’s degree in journalism. They’ll be working on a podcast called The Ex Talk, where two exes discuss the world of relationships and dating, as well as their own unsuccessful relationship. Except Dominic and Shay have never dated; they’ve barely even…
Leave a CommentSo it turns out that 2020 was a pretty amazing reading year? I hadn’t really noticed because there were so many other things to occupy my brain, such as the quarantine and the election and the crumbling of American democracy, but in looking back at my reading spreadsheet I discovered that I had read a shocking number of books that needed a place on my Best Of list. There are, in fact, so many that it has necessitated me breaking this post down into two parts. This one covers my reading through like mid-June or something, and represents the number…
Leave a CommentCat Sebastian has become one of my go-to romance authors for just consistently tender romance content. (My favorite and most tenderest is The Ruin of a Rake, but they’re all terrific.) Her latest, Hither Page, is set between the wars in England and features a shell-shocked doctor who has retreated to a small English town to escape his memories of the war. Meanwhile the titular Leo Page has been sent to the small English town to investigate a suspicious murder and discover whether there’s any Spy Stuff afoot. Although I don’t tend to like romances that follow a single couple…
Leave a CommentIt’s Monday and we all probably all need some romance novels in our lives. Here are two new ones that you might want to pick up if you need something to get you through the holiday season. I received electronic copies of both of them from the publishers for review consideration, which did not influence my review because my good opinion is more costly than ebooks. Wrong to Need You, Alisha Rai (Goodreads link!) Sadia Ahmad owns a cafe, tends a bar, and raises her son. When her dead husband’s brother comes back to town after years of radio silence,…
5 CommentsIt’s time for another romance novels round-up! I have read some pretty m.f. great ones in the last month, and I bring them all to you for your delectation and delight. I frequently recommend Alyssa Cole’s Off the Grid series to romance newbies, particularly ones who are coming to romance from SFF. Her latest book, An Extraordinary Union, maintains everything I love about her earlier work, but this time with spies! Elle Burns is a former slave, former staple of the abolitionist circuit, and current spy for the Union. Her eidetic memory makes her a unique asset, and she’s posing…
14 Comments