Episode 137

Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around!

1:48 – What we’re reading
5:45 – What we’re something elsing: ANARCHY EDITION
9:27 – Recap of Summer 2020 book preview
11:41 – Fall 2020 book preview
24:00 – Alisha Rai’s Girl Gone Viral

And here’s a list of everything we talked about!

A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende
Deal with the Devil, Kit Rocha
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, Roseanne A. Brown
Burn, Patrick Ness
The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness
Taskmaster
The Magnus Archives
Little Eyes, Samanta Schweblin, trans. Megan McDowell
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin, trans. Megan McDowell
Take a Hint, Dani Brown, Talia Hibbert
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, Roseanne G. Brown
Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall
Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Gin Jenny’s picks

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
Stranger Faces, Namwali Serpell
This Is All Your Fault, Aminah Mae Safi
Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
Phoenix Extravagant, Yoon Ha Lee
Serena Says, Tanita Davis

Whiskey Jenny’s picks

His Only Wife, Peace Adzo Medie
Smash It, Francina Simone
David Tung Can’t Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College, Ed Lin
If the Boot Fits, Rebekah Weatherspoon
The Bad Muslim Discount, Syed M. Masood

The Old Drift, Namwali Serpell
Nutshell, Ian McEwan
Rafe, a Buff Male Nanny, Rebekah Weatherspoon
Peas and Carrots, Tanita Davis
Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
Missionaries, Phil Klay
Redeployment, Phil Klay
Girl Gone Viral, Alisha Rai

the saga of Alisha Rai’s viral tweet (link)

the story of Plane Bae (link)

a zoo escape drill (link)

Pretty as a Picture, Elizabeth Little

You can get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. As a brand new feature, you can also follow me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Storygraph! If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry

Transcript is coming soon!

The post PODCAST – Episode 137 – Fall Book Preview and Alisha Rai’s Girl Gone Viral appeared first on Reading the End.

Tumblr’s not dead — no! It is aliiiiiiiive!

China has blocked fanfiction site AO3 for Chinese users. The migration of Chinese fans to AO3 was a big story in 2019, with the Archive working hard to accommodate a large volume of new fans. To understand more about the migration patterns of Chinese fandom, read this!

Whatever happened to the tech guy who took a million dollar paycut and raised the minimum salary at his company to $70K?

This is a heartbreaking personal essay about replacing one’s abusive parents with new, better ones.

Asexuality has been described as the first identity the internet created, but it existed long, long before the internet.

Turns out internet trolls aren’t new: The early twentieth century was a banner era for people writing nasty anonymous letters. I did not know this and now understand why in English classes I read several very unsettling mid-century short stories about poison-pen letters.

Here’s what’s happening with Barnes & Noble since James Daunt’s hedge fund took it over.

I follow Alisha Rai on Twitter, and the ongoing saga of the cake pops tweet has been quite wild to witness.

This is a close reading of the prologue of The Secret History, which will surely make you want to reread The Secret History, which you should definitely do. Wouldn’t it be nice to read about murderous Latin students, rather than coronavirus? (Yes, it would be nice.)

Crispy and crunchy are NOT the same thing, and one of them has a whole-ass industry devoted to making it occur in foods.

A fortnight from now, I promise I will have a more robust links round-up. In the meantime, I hope you will remember to wash your hands upon entering a new location and again just before leaving. If you are sickly, I wish you health and protection by the herd. If you are healthy, it is now your job to protect the sick and vulnerable amongst you, and you must do that by not going on trips and avoiding gatherings and washing your hands for twenty full seconds every time. Thank you for being prosocial!

The post A Link Round-Up of Things to Read Whilst You’re Working Remotely appeared first on Reading the End.

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, Sadia’s tidy world is thrown into disarray. Then they bang. A bunch. (Wrong to Need You is the second in Alisha Rai’s wonderfully angsty Forbidden Hearts series, but as with most romance serieses, you can read this one without reading the first one first.)

My favorite thing about Wrong to Need You is that Alisha Rai draws on tropes I love — a strong silent type for the hero, a stalwart single mom for the heroine, a resounding come-back-to-small-town-and-face-the-past plotline — and puts them in service of an emotionally satisfying story of two people trying to find their way. As in Hate to Want You, Rai gives her characters genuine flaws and struggles, which can’t be brushed aside by some good sex. The obstacles that stand in the way of Jackson and Sadia’s happily ever after are internal, but no less real: Each of the protagonists has to grapple with themselves and their past before they’re able to embrace the possibility of a real relationship.

Rai also includes an excellent cast of secondary characters. The Kane and Chandler families make their appearance again in this book, and Sadia has family of her own: Loving, if sometimes pushy, parents, and four sisters who adore and support her, even as they have their own ideas about the choices Sadia should be making. Watching Alisha Rai flesh out the town and residents that populate the pages of her Forbidden Hearts series has been a treat, and Wrong to Need You delivered an eminently satisfying romance that left me eager for Eve’s story.

PS I love it when romance novels set you up for what the next one’s going to be. It’s like the end of Nancy Drew mysteries. I love it. It’s the best. This has not been sarcasm.

It Takes Two to Tumble, Cat Sebastian

Much as I might like to try to summarize Cat Sebastian’s latest historical romance (Goodreads link!), she has already written what is perhaps the world’s most perfect summary of any romance novel ever. I give you:

It Takes Two to Tumble is the story of a free spirited vicar and a grumpy sea captain.  It’s basically a gay, regency Sound of Music, with far fewer children and no musical numbers.

Yep. The vicar, Ben Sedgewick, comes from free-spirited parents who lived without regard to the niceties and rituals of regency England. In some ways this was great — his father doesn’t much mind that Ben prefers men — and in other ways, it left Ben and his siblings adrift to manage for themselves. As an adult, Ben wants a life of comfort and predictability.

The sea captain, Phillip Dacre, plans to stop home just long enough to acquire a suitable tutor for his three children, now that their mother has passed away. But the children are running wild, and the vicar who’s minding them (by climbing trees with them and doing fractions about how to divide their evening pie) keeps making him see things in a new light.

It Takes Two to Tumble is — typically for Cat Sebastian — an immensely sweet romance novel in which the principal characters achieve happiness by having lots of honest conversations with each other. Phillip is mourning the loss of someone he never confessed his love to; Ben is engaged to his closest friend, Alice, who he fears will be alone in the world if Ben follows his heart and cries off from the marriage. Both of them are devoted to the Dacre children, but neither can see his way clear to making a life with them — in spite of the children’s obvious need for stability. There are also ducklings.

All in all, I tend to prefer a scootch more angst in my romance novels than It Takes Two to Tumble offered. But if you are on the hunt for something sweet and frank and open, hit up Cat Sebastian’s latest. It comes out on December 12th.

The post Angst and Ducklings: A Tiny Romance Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.