Every romance reader has a handful of gateway drug romance novels. When a non-romance reader asks me for recs, I’ve got a few in my back pocket that I think are pretty friendly to newbies. Very high on that list is Cecilia Grant’s novella A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong, which is about a very buttoned-up gentleman that just wants to buy a falcon, and a woman who wants to go to a house party. It has many good things about it — if you haven’t read it, I recommend buying it and reading it immediately! — but one of my…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
Remember a long time ago when you first read Donna Tartt’s debut novel The Secret History? Remember how you were like, blown away by it? And then some time went by and maybe you sort of forgot or didn’t trust the memory of how wildly in love with it you were? Especially because the books you read the year you studied abroad all feel like a weird fever dream because you were terribly depressed that year (like the time you read The Time Traveler’s Wife and were so consumed by grief that you literally couldn’t get out of bed for…
1 CommentThe coronavirus situation sure does continue to continue, doesn’t it? I hope everyone who is reading this and all your families are doing okay on health and okay on money, and that you have plenty of nice things to keep your head above water in the midst of all these terrible things. Suzanne Walker considers the disability narrative (such as it is) in the otherwise really fun show The Witcher. No one knows anything, and everyone’s mad. Anne Helen Peterson continuing to bring truly excellent reporting on the human elements of the pandemic. Ancient monks struggled with isolation, too. Naomi…
Leave a CommentWho here has seen Harvey, anyone? The old movie where Jimmy Stewart has an invisible friend that is a six-foot-tall rabbit named Harvey, and this friendship causes some anxiety to his friends and relations? I ask because there’s a scene late in the movie where Jimmy Stewart says, “In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.” A of all, I am pleased to have quoted him. Secondly, this moment from the movie Harvey exactly sums up my approach to language. For years…
Leave a CommentI recently began reading fairy tales to my little nephew, on the grounds that everyone should know fairy tales and he hasn’t really experienced them before. He was either into it or giving a good impression of being into it because he’s very into me: We read “Snow White” first and then he picked out “Rumpelstiltskin” and “The Frog Prince” from my book, and on another day he asked me for a story and I told him “Rapunzel.” It should be noted that there are no positive messages in any of these stories. The couple in “Rumpelstiltskin” allegedly live happily…
Leave a CommentThis is a transcript of a conversation between KM Szpara, author of Docile, and NK Jemisin, author of numerous books but most recently The City We Became. Video of the interview can be found here. I am posting the transcript on behalf of the friend who made it (who wishes to remain anonymous), because it’s the only place I’ve really seen where anyone involved in this book has addressed its racial issues in any capacity. Docile is set in a near-future alt-America where, according to its author, racism does not exist. It is about debt slavery in the city of…
Leave a CommentWELL my friends, we are now a full month into full coronavirus pandemic mode, and I hope that you are all hanging in there. Have we all sort of recognized that we’re going to be inside until the end of May? That’s how I’m reading the situation, but please weigh in if you feel differently. I know officially the end of April is when this stops, but like. Will it? No. Probably not. I am having my toddler godson over to my house later today to PARTY PARTY PARTY, and our agenda includes playing on my main bed, which goes…
Leave a CommentHello, quarantined listeners! It’s us, the quarantined podcasters! We apologize for the audio of this episode, which is not of the high quality to which you have become accustomed. This is because one of us didn’t have a good-quality mic (we are procuring one!) and one of us did have a good quality mic but failed to use it when recording in Zencastr because we, and by we I mean I, Gin Jenny, are gently losing our wits. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below, or download it directly to take with you on the go! Episode…
Leave a CommentSince the death of the Maha, the Ambha Empire has been breaking down. The Emperor is near death, and his sons are preparing to fight to inherit his throne. Arwa is the only survivor of a fearsome supernatural massacre that killed her husband and everyone else at Darez Fort, and she has come to make her life at the widows’ refuge in Numriha. But once she’s there, she realizes that her Amrithi blood — inheritance from the biological mother she never knew; evidence that she is not the good Ambhan noblewoman she has always claimed to be — could help…
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