The Comeback

The Comeback

By Lily Chu

 Who is Ariadne Hui?

• Laser-focused lawyer diligently climbing the corporate ladder
• The “perfect” daughter living out her father’s dream
• Shocking love interest of South Korea’s hottest star

Ariadne Hui thrives on routine. So what if everything in her life is planned down to the minute: That’s the way she likes it. If she’s going to make partner in Toronto’s most prestigious law firm, she needs to stay focused at all times.

But when she comes home after yet another soul-sucking day to find an unfamiliar, gorgeous man camped out in her living room, focus is the last thing on her mind. Especially when her roommate explains this is Choi Jihoon, her cousin freshly arrived from Seoul to mend a broken heart. He just needs a few weeks to rest and heal; Ari will barely even know he’s there. (Yeah, right.)

Jihoon is kindness and chaos personified, and it isn’t long before she’s falling, hard. But when one wrong step leads to a world-shaking truth, Ari finds herself thrust onto the world stage: not as the competent, steely lawyer she’s fought so hard to become, but as the mystery woman on the arm of a man the entire world claims to know. Now with her heart, her future, and her sense of self on the line, Ari will have to cut through all the pretty lies to find the truth of her relationship...and discover the Ariadne Hui she’s finally ready to be.

I was just idly scanning the 2024 prompts and realizing I'd just read something that totally qualified, through no intention of my own.  Serendipity!  However,  I have read like, three books in between (the two Robert Galbraiths and the Emily Wilde one) so my recollection is already a bit faded. I like to write the reviews as soon as possible afterwards, when it's fresh because it's too easy for me to forget. I was also considering whether Where the Dark Stands Still qualifies as an "enemies to lovers" since I read that out of turn too, but I wasn't sure whether they truly qualified as "enemies" from the get-go. 

[For a very mini review of Where the Dark Stands Still: fun, but seems like almost a complete knock-off of Uprooted? The author thanks Naomi Novik in the notes, so presumably she's aware of the influence, but a young woman who semi-accidentally falls in with a long-lived tree magician who is fighting creeping corruption in the woods? In an eastern-European (i.e., Polish) inspired setting? If you wanted to read two almost identical books, read these!]

Anyway, back to The Comeback: I have no idea how the book wound up on my potential read list but I checked it out because I was entertained by the idea that some korean pop star is hanging out undercover at his cousin's while this lawyer goes about her business.

[I'm pretty sure I also read Chu's The Stand-In, which I thought was... fine? I don't remember hating it, but I also don't really remember it at all, which I suppose is damning it with faint praise. I vaguely recall the premise, but the plot points described in the blurb don't ring a bell. The Comeback is more of the same: fun while you're in it, but easily forgotten.]

Back to business: a lot of the complaints are about Ari - she's wishy-washy, gets in her own way, too naive to be a 30-something, one review calls her "bitter, judgemental and close-minded" which I assume is because she initially thinks k-pop is for stupid, etc - or the melodrama in the last third of the book (some reviewers had no idea why there would be issues after Ari and Jihoon decide to get together, and one reviewer complained that Ari's valid objections to his intense superstardom were talked down, others complained about the multiple break-ups) but I really didn't have an issue with any of that. I felt like Ari, although certainly more of a "sit on the sidelines" kind of a person than most romantic heroines these days, made reasonable decisions for herself and her life. Certainly she didn't display any of the confidence that you'd hope to see in a 30 year old, but she also didn't feel like a teenager, just someone desperately unhappy in the wrong job and unable to imagine anything else.  I didn't feel like other characters were unfairly criticizing her for turning down the position of pop-star girlfriend - sure, you want your two friends to make it, but no one called her a coward for turning him down (that I can recall). The Big Misunderstanding here that in an effort to quell public interest in their relationship, Jihoon goes along with the idea that they're not dating  - and implies that she's some sort of stalker - doesn't feel like a cheap manipulation just to keep them apart. 

I don't know. I was never a fan of One Direction, but I was still appalled and taken aback by Liam Payne's young death. The hyper-scrutiny and public fascination and parasitical relationships that fans form with the stars is so skin-crawlingly weird, it was  interesting to read about it from the perspective of the girlfriend. 

I guess I just don't agree with all the negative reviews. Is it going to win the next Nobel Prize? No, but that's not the point. It was a fun, inoffensive foray into a modern day Cinderella story - handsome prince plucks a nobody out of obscurity and makes her his queen - and I wasn't spending too much time worrying about whether they'd get back together or whether Ari would get a new job doing tours once she's fired as an attorney. The conflicts didn't bother me, and the personalities didn't grate. To each their own.

20. A Book That Fills A 2024 Prompt You'd Like To Do Over (Or Try Out) [5: A Book About K-Pop]

You Are Here

You Are Here 

By David Nicholls

Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.

This was a charming palate cleanser after a couple of not great books, if by charming, you mean, "one of those books which talks about why marriages fail for the most depressing of reasons and it makes you worry about the state of your own union." Not that it did that... much, but reading about second chance romance always makes me feel like there's a target on my back: do the reasons the heroine's first relationship failed sound eerily similar to my life? Is my marriage happier - all the time or on average at least - than that of our hero and his first love?

I don't think I ever had that problem as a younger person, when a poor fit just meant you hadn't met the right person yet, but it bothers me now to read about marriages when both people intend and want the best, and love each other, and then gradually fall out of love. It's a scary presentiment of one potential future which terrifies in its banality and familiarity. 'It could happen to you!' goes the jingle about winning the lottery, but in an awful way, not at all desirable.

Luckily we spend more time developing Marnie and Michael's relationship than dwelling on mistakes of the past. Nicholls does a wonderful job writing conversations which feel realistic, especially for people just beginning to know each other, and possibly to feel more for each other: jokey, arch, tentative, short, building on the bases that the other lays out. Although we take their viewpoints in turn, and (which is often the case) the views are not so distinctive that you would immediately know who is narrating - again, something that only became more important to me when I saw how perfectly it could be executed in The Feast of the Goat - there's an apt comfort in the similarities, that they are compatible in their minds and feelings. You have to believe in their chemistry in order for the book to work, and you do.

It's also nice to read about a relationship which seems reasonable in its pacing: insta-love and immediate sexual attraction, as amusing as it is to picture on the page, seems shallow and fake compared to the slow unfolding of a person that happens more often in life. Ten days of constant company and you could start thinking about being in love. 

This is a romance, but it's written by a man and contains no actual sex, so it gets shelved in fiction and is taken seriously. But the heart of the story, in fact, the only part of the story, is the gradual opening up these two lonely people do so they can fall in love with each other. The ending tries too hard to distance itself from that premise: we leave off on the lovers tentatively planning to reunite, optimistic but early days yet. Just lean into it! Let's skip another year into the future and have them moved in together with a miracle baby on the way! You made us like these people, now let's see them get the happy ending they're longing for! 

Aside from anything else, I predict an increase in through hikes in the few years. I happen to like the idea of walking endlessly just to look at nature (whilst still enjoying a real bath and bed every night) but even those naturally opposed to the idea will find some inspiration here, I think. Nicholls manages to make even rainy misery sound like an adventure, and I suppose, with the right person, it is. Which is the whole point. 

42: A Book That Starts With The Letter Y

Whiteout

Whiteout

By: Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, Nicola Yoon, Dhonielle Clayton, Nic Stone, and Tiffany D. Jackson

Atlanta is blanketed with snow just before Christmas, but the warmth of young love just might melt the ice in this novel of Black joy, and cozy, sparkling romance—by the same unbeatable team of authors who wrote the New York Times bestseller Blackout!

As the city grinds to a halt, twelve teens band together to help a friend pull off the most epic apology of her life. But will they be able to make it happen, in spite of the storm?

No one is prepared for this whiteout. But then, we can't always prepare for the magical moments that change everything.

I chose this mostly because I'd enjoyed Blackout (or vaguely remember enjoying it) and I figured this would be an easy, enjoyable read. 

No. 

I hated this book. I have no idea how the same authors, using the same concept, could write something so much worse that I had to force myself to finish it, but somehow they managed. The book is a series of interconnecting stories, loosely grouped around the primary couple (Stevie and Sola's) efforts to reconcile after a fight and everyone else helping out in some way. 

Problem #1 is the Stevie and Sola were the worst. And they behaved stupidly too!  After Stevie screws up, Sola insists on Stevie apologizing by midnight, but then refuses to look at any messages or phone calls from her. I assume it was necessary for dramatic reasons, but when you tell someone you're going to break up with them unless they apologize to you, ignoring their calls makes no fucking sense. On the other hand, Stevie is the one who showed up loopy from pain meds to her family's dinner, got kicked out for being so rude, and then hassled everyone she's ever met to do a bunch of favors for her last minute. And she responds to Sola's request that she apologize to her family members by... waiting at a baseball stadium after she has a friend shoot a bunch of drones in the sky? Is there a reason Stevie couldn't be waiting at Sola's house instead? It's not like Stevie's the one running the drones. She just happened to know someone willing to subvert their own work project for Stevie's demands.  And aside from the unlikelihood that all her friends are so incredibly desperate to help this young couple get back together that they literally trek through a blizzard to buy a bunch of junk like legos and stuffed animals and college rally wear, there's the whole "time Stevie used her mom's ID to get into the aquarium at night so she could have semi-public sex with her girlfriend" which is played like an incredibly sweet moment instead of the kinda gross and definitely inappropriate set-up it is. That's her mom's workplace, and I assume they've got cameras there. But young love, right? There's also allusions to Stevie not wanting to be called a girl but in Sola's chapter, she keeps referring to Stevie as "her" so that felt unexplained and confusing as well.

The other issue is that we start off with a bunch of the weaker storylines, so it puts you on the wrong footing right away. The second couple (Kaz and Porsha) we're introduced to are the aforementioned lego seekers, which includes a boy who has been bending over backwards for this girl, and the girl who apparently hasn't noticed this at all until a couple of mall-goers point it out to her. You want us to root for these guys? If they can't even communicate on an issue as commonplace as coming to dinner, how am I supposed to expect they'll ever be a functional couple? Plus this story had the most obnoxious use of slang, bruh. It's going to be dated within 12 months.

Then we've got another couple (ER and Van) who apparently are on a "break" but for reasons that seem hazy and irrelevant since, at the end of their chapter, the ex-/girlfriend says they didn't behave any differently when they were broken up anyway, so it was moot. Um, yay, I guess? The primary conflict in this chapter is because they run into another of the narrator's exes at the airport, which she acts like is the worst thing in the world apparently, but honestly I have very little sympathy for the narrator, since most of the conflict comes up because she picks up the phone to talk to her ex and then starts lying to her girlfriend about it. 

There's some cuter stories later, but my patience was already gone. Maybe I was just in a different mood when I read Blackout, but Whiteout got on all my nerves with how annoying these people were being in their relationships. So much anxiety, so little confidence! I know these are supposed to be teenagers and thus, idiots, but  it was really grating how many of the stories were some version of "this person I'm with isn't very considerate of me, but now that we've confessed our deep-seated love for each other, everything is great!"

I disliked Whiteout so much, I am now retroactively reconsidering my opinion of Blackout: maybe it's just as bad and I just didn't notice it when I read it last time. Aside from the varying levels of tolerance I had about the relationships, the logic of the stories was all over the place. There's the whole "why not just wait at Sola's house thing instead of making her dad drive her to the stadium" but also Sola digs an entire grave in her backyard to bury some lego flower set that Stevie made her...in the middle of a blizzard while wearing a dress because it reminded her of good times with Stevie. Sure, why not. And the idea that the gift shop at the aquarium just so happens to still be open at 10:30 pm (!!) so Ava and Mason's story can be slotted in there is ridiculous. {This is the same aquarium where Stevie told her mom she was picking up files from her mom's office for her, but instead planned a sexy picnic sex-surprise for her girlfriend. Do we think Ava and Mason know that's why Stevie is making them get a commemorative jellyfish gift?} And Jimi is busking outside a huge theater in the middle of a blizzard even though ostensibly, she's there to reunite with her bandmates and record a song? Outside? Because when Teo/Lil Kinsey shows up, it sounds like she wasn't even expecting to go inside at any point.

I was going to say something like, the best thing about this, is that I will not have to read it again, but that seems unnecessarily harsh. It wasn't terrible, but it definitely wasn't for me. 

47: A Book Of Interconnected Short Stories

The Ex Hex

The Ex Hex 

By Erin Sterling

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.

That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendant of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.

Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.

 This was firmly "fine"! Contemporary romances are not really my thing, although I do keep trying them for some reason, thinking that I'll enjoy them much more than I actually do.  But this one left a more favorable impression than most for me, probably because of the setting and details were just so...comforting.  Not that it was a soothing book, but more like it felt kind of nostalgic, like watching one of those old kids' movies about witches, like Halloweentown or Hocus Pocus, but you know, with some sex in it.  I will say that I think Hocus Pocus's greatest misstep was making Binx a cat for like, the whole movie!  Let's give the tweens something to sigh over!  Between him and Vincent Kartheiser in Masterminds, I had a type.  Look, floppy hair was in back then, I'm not making excuses.

Anyway, for adults who like witches, Rhys is a great update to Thackery Binx.  He's hot, he thinks the heroine walks on water, he's helpful, yada yada yada.  I mean, the characters themselves are not the point.  They're both kind of bland people, unexceptional and unexceptionable, I would say. They don't have a big misunderstanding (although how Rhys broke the betrothal which led to the break up in the first place - was that ever explained? Did I blink and miss it? I feel like that's a story there, right?), they cooperate well in their investigation - such as it is. They acknowledge they're both adults now, nothing but the burden of a long distance relationship is stopping them from banging boots now.  It's nice not to have that heavy angst. It's basically Hocus Pocus for all the ladies who were children when the movie came out.

Like I said, it's the scenery and details which keep you interested. I hate to say it, but I skimmed some of the dialogue between them (and missed some of the sex scenes) because they're just not that exciting when they're not in a haunted house, trying to capture a ghost, or whatnot.  But when they are? That's when the magic happens, haha.  Or at least, the good parts.  More talking cat, more angry tchotchkes, more ghosts and pumpkins and fall weather and pointy hats and burning candles and the color purple!   I will probably read the next one, having forgotten all about this book except that I vaguely liked it, but it's not a real priority. And it'll feel just like some comfortable pyjamas to cozy up into.

Anyway, not thrilling, not terrible, resoundingly "fine!"

 35: A Book with a Constellation on the Cover or in the Title

Accidentally Engaged

 Accidentally Engaged

By Farah Heron

When it comes to bread, Reena Manji knows exactly what she's doing. She treats her sourdough starters like (somewhat unruly) children. But when it comes to Reena's actual family—and their constant meddling in her life—well, that recipe always ends in disaster.

Now Reena's parents have found her yet another potential Good Muslim Husband. This one has the body of Captain America, a delicious British accent, and lives right across the hall. He's the perfect, mouthwatering temptation . . . and completely ruined by the unwelcome side dish of parental interference.

Reena refuses to marry anyone who works for her father. She won't be attracted to Nadim's sweet charm or gorgeous lopsided smile. That is, until the baking opportunity of a lifetime presents itself: a couples' cooking competition with the prize of her dreams. Reena will do anything to win—even asking Nadim to pretend they're engaged. But when it comes to love, baking your bread doesn't always mean you get to eat it too.

This one wasn't a keeper for me.  It was eh - alright - fine - but I probably won't remember much of it six months from now, and I'm not going back and picking up others in the series. Reena as a heroine is not my cup of tea.  Feeling perpetually harassed by her family and very much the failure she assumes the worst a lot (which, to be fair, is pointed out and addressed in the book) and it's kind of a downer in the book. Instead of celebrating the things she can do well - and I kept thinking she would transition over to a bakery job instead of finance and she just... never even considered it? despite having a food blog and applying for a bread scholarship - she just circles round and round the things she's unhappy about.  It's maybe a more honest approach, but not only is that not really the bread-and-butter of the romance genre, it married very weirdly with some of the more slapstick/cliche aspects of the genre, i.e., the cooking show videos, which seem to exist mainly as a plot device to get Reena and Nadim to realize how cute they are together than have any realism or introduce any real tension or obstacles for our couple.  

And yes, they get married despite knowing each other for all of what, two months (about 95% of which they acknowledged they were lying to each other about significant things)? Some of the belief in a happy ending is the suspension of disbelief about mundane life things, so having a depressed heroine is fine, but trying to pair it with a quickie wedding/elopement that magically solves all problems and it becomes a very hard sell. 

This might just be a personal pet peeve, but I had a very hard time remembering that Nadim had an English accent, even though they mentioned it every other page - they way he's written doesn't sound that English, I guess, which, YMMV, but was an unnecessary distraction. And the way he keeps referring to his being from Africa instead of Tanzania. I don't know any Tanzanians, but that seemed "sus" to me. Yes, I'm trying to pick up the newfangled slang. And the foot fetish! That absolutely did not work for me. Sure, fetishists need love too, but what a thing to introduce. This book takes some weird turns, for sure: foot fancying, orgies (not a joke), green card marriages. 

What did I like about it? Descriptions of food.  There's some recipes in the back that I actually wanted to try, except then I read them and it seemed like more work than I want to do, cooking-wise, at this stage of my life, i.e., I ain't cooking nothing when I got this baby hanging on me. 

I liked that everyone did disclose things (although, geez, what a family of hypocrites) and that even talking about some things that had been very hurtful (Reena telling her sister Saira that Saira's anti-fat screed had kiboshed her own book deal and blog) didn't wind up with people falling into each other's arm - which is also the case in real life when you tell someone you've been holding a grudge against them for months and months. 

Overall, I would have preferred something where the main characters are a little more self-confident, a little more adult, and a little less unnecessarily complicating things for themselves. I did think this quote was both amusing and a perfect summary of that: 

"Anderson, before we film the segment, Nadim and I have a confession. We weren't really engaged when we entered the contest." She explained everything, their parents setting them up, their refusal to be married, and the fake engagement to enter the contest.

Anderson frowned. "So you're not really married?"

"Yeah, we're married now, but we weren't engaged when we made the videos," Nadim said.

"So you weren't a couple back then?"

"No, we were a couple." Reena said. "Just not engaged."

Anderson shrugged. "You guys are making this more complicated than it needs to be. Your parents set you up, you were a couple, and now you're married. Sounds like you were engaged to me. I'd like to start in five minutes. Are you ready?"

18 - A Romance Novel by a BIPOC Author

 

 

In a Holidaze

In a Holidaze

By Christina Lauren

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this one, mostly because I wasn't entirely sure if the authors intended us to think that Mae and Andrew were endgame, or if it was supposed to be Mae and Theo.  Look, she made out with Theo in the first chapter, and like, every two or three chapters, someone would say that Theo's been pining after her.  Which, I know, is not an obligation for Mae to end up with him.  But Mae was pining after Andrew, and they ended up together, so what's different? So I spent a lot of time basically waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Without that suspense, I suspect I wouldn't have been so rapt in the book.  It was fine, but had none of the bite that I liked so much from The Unhoneymooners and now I guess I'm just going to chalk that one up as an anomaly, since I haven't really gotten the same enjoyable feel from their others.  

So basically Mae realizes she's in a time loop, decides that it's a sign she's meant to be with Andrew, confesses her feelings to him, they have sex a few times, she tells him she made out with his brother in another time, they fight and make up and everyone forgets (or politely ignores) what a nutcase she was that week when she was insisting she was in a time loop and then six months later she and Andrew get engaged.  I'm like that blinking guy gif.  Whoa, nelly! I mean, maybe you have known each other for the last twenty five years, but I think you could afford to wait more than two months before deciding to get hitched (the proposal took six months, but apparently Andrew asked for permission on their two month anniversary, which isn't eyebrow-raising AT ALL - we don't need to end romances on marriage or babies, it's fine if we take more than a few months to determine if this relationship is going to go the distance).  

I found myself tired of all the traditions - snowman making, tree buying, scavenger hunting, and it wasn't even my twenty-fifth time of doing them.  Maybe it's because I'm not reading this in December, but I was way over the Christmas feeling. 

The Happy Ever After Playlist

The Happy Ever After Playlist

By Abby Jimenez

Two years after losing her fiancé, Sloan Monroe still can't seem to get her life back on track. But one trouble-making pup with a "take me home" look in his eyes is about to change everything. With her new pet by her side, Sloan finally starts to feel more like herself. Then, after weeks of unanswered texts, Tucker's owner reaches out. He's a musician on tour in Australia. And bottom line: He wants Tucker back.

 

Well, Sloan's not about to give up her dog without a fight. But what if this Jason guy really loves Tucker? As their flirty texts turn into long calls, Sloan can't deny a connection. Jason is hot and nice and funny. There's no telling what could happen when they meet in person. The question is: With his music career on the rise, how long will Jason really stick around? And is it possible for Sloan to survive another heartbreak?

 

 I read the first book in this "series", The Friend Zone and really disliked it.  I thought the whole "infertile woman magically makes baby" just completely took the point of that book and wrenched its head off like a daisy.  Up to that point, it was fine, but as of that moment, I basically walked away from it.  To the extent that in this book, haha, I didn't actually remember that these were the same characters here as were in the The Friend Zone, and Sloan's fiance died in that book (in service to the plot device of "life is short, so let's bone").  Which is all to the better, since if I'd known that, I probably wouldn't have picked this one up.

But I did like it!  Well enough, at least.  I found both Sloan and Jason to be kind of unrelatable - Sloan is grief-stricken, yes, but she and Jason both go from 0 to 100 in basically two weeks: from online chatting to deciding to sell your house and travel the road with this guy?  I liked the part where they flirted and texted about the dog, but then as soon as Jason's back on the same continent, they basically ignore the dog and become that couple that drives everyone crazy because they insist on spending every single minute together being self-satisfied with how much in love they are.  That makes it sound like I hated the second part of the book, and I honestly didn't but I also didn't feel that bad when they ran into trouble and Jason decided that he had to sacrifice the relationship so Sloan would take care of herself, and the only way to break up would be by saying he was cheating on her.  That is the sign of people who revel in drama.  It was a little exhausting to read.  And now I'm sort of talking myself out of liking the book! Just break up!  This is not some Bronte novel where the heroine will die of consumption because you left her!  Why the need to salt the earth??

 

All I can say is that Sloan and Jason are characters that you do want nice things for - they both seem decent and hardworking people, who are total a-holes, but by golly, would I be so over them if I was a friend.  I wiped most of Kristen's character out of my mind after The Friend Zone but she's so pushy here, trying to get Sloan to bang her way out of grief that Sloan seems downright levelheaded by comparison.   And this is a person who, as I mentioned before, up and sells her house to tour with a musician after several weeks of dating.  

And not for nothing, but whatever happened to Tucker, the dog? He's basically dropped like a hot potato, and frankly, the explanation for how/why he jumped into Sloan's sun roof ("he's very energetic") was so thin it was transparent.  Justice for Tucker!  

Anyway, obviously this was a vast improvement on The Friend Zone, but still not something I'm planning to return to, nor do I expect to pick up the third, unless, as happened here, I forget about the earlier books and am persuaded by overwhelmingly positive reviews. 

Beach Read

Beach Read

By Emily Henry

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

Yet again, I was misled by a blurb and a cover.  Not that I mind! I actually liked the book this was more than the book I thought it would be (does that make sense? I was unsure about even reserving the book I thought it would be on my hold list).  But the jacket implies a frothy meet cute about two writers falling in love, whereas it's actually about two writers falling in love, but they've met before, and also both of them really need therapy. Now that I say that, I can see why they didn't go for that on the blurb.

We meet January holed up in a house in Michigan, which happens to be the previously unsuspected second home of her father who'd been having an affair.  Her struggles with that information (disclosed at his funeral, no less) are probably also the reason she can't write her next romance novel. Meanwhile, her new neighbor turns out to be an old college acquaintance from the same writing program, also struggling with writer's block about his next ("literary") novel.  We find out partway through that he's in the midst of a divorce, not to mention dealing with his traumatic childhood.

What with one thing and another, they decide to take each other out on expeditions to get the other out of their comfort zone (Gus takes January to interview previous cult members, January takes Gus to the state fair, basically).   And naturally, we find out Gus actually kind of pined for January when they were in school together - it's sweet.  Anyway, I thought it would be a lot more treacly than it was.  And honestly, there was a bunch more writing going on than I assumed there would be - ha, it feels like half the time, the characters' jobs are just background noise, but here they're front and center.  

It was very much not a "loll around on the beach and trade sunscreen tips while flirting" but more of a "you tell me what's bothering you and I'll tell you what's bothering me, and maybe we can both move past it" kind of book, and I liked that.  It felt very Midwestern summer (humidity and storms, Fourth of July pool parties, etc) and the romance between the two doesn't feel forced or shallow.  It probably helps that the book does take place over several months, and you do get that feeling of time passing (albeit hazily).  

I agree with other reviewers that the secondary characters are minimally fleshed out, but who needs secondary characters, anyway?  This is the rare "romance" book where I actually found myself highlighting quotes (for example, one about the enjoyment of reading) that I found particularly profound/poignant.  That was a rare quality, for me, and even if we got less lighthearted as the book went on, I still found it to be a good summer read, preferably when it's warm, but raining outside.  I wouldn't call it a beach read, but definitely the thing when your whole day is ahead of you and your only plans are to curl up and listen to the rain with the windows open. 

 

Ten Second Reviews

The Worst Best Man

By Mia Sosa

Left-at-the-alter wedding planner Lina is offered an opportunity to join a corporate hotel team that would alleviate her financial and business worries.  But she has to compete for the position - and her partner in the competition is the brother of her ex-fiance.

Man, I hate to be be hard on this one, since it's not that bad, but it also wasn't my jam.  It felt like it had very little substance, even though the set-up is delightfully juicy: left-at-the-altar Lina becomes unwillingly attracted to the brother and best man who convinced her ex to leave? But the book doesn't even stick to that depth, revealing in the final chapters that the brother didn't actually urge the ex to leave Lina, the ex just made it up.  And then the book sort of ends, after detonating that bomb, and I know it's years later, but uh, we're not going to explore what the hell that was all about, I guess.  Ex-fiance is let off the hook with a handwave, even though it makes him an objectively HUGE asshole, and brother is fully redeemed, even though honestly, he didn't need to be.  

Anyway, they meet, they hate, they bang, etc etc, and why does sex in modern romances feel so much more coarse than in historicals? Just me? Anyway, Lina gets the job, happy ever afters for all involved, except me, because this book talks about food and desserts a LOT, and right now I have a really bad sweet tooth except that my doctor just told me I should be eating more APPLES to avoid constipation with all the iron I'm taking. Great.   

 

Why My Cat is More Impressive Than Your Baby

By Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal)

A book of comics from the creator of The Oatmeal, and for a one-time flip through and lighthearted look at cat/dog/baby stereotypes, it was pretty fun.  I though it was amusing, but not worth buying or reading more than once.  It's a lot of " my cat is evil and mysterious but also delightful" and "babies are disgusting" so you know, pretty standard.   My husband, on the other hand, is still raving about it a week later and already bought three copies - one to keep and two to give away, so definitely there's an audience for it! To be fair, he's also particularly enamored of one of the more bodily humor based cartoons, which is not as much my jam.  To each their own!

 

 

Shipped

Shipped

By Angie Hockman

Between taking night classes for her MBA and her demanding day job at a cruise line, marketing manager Henley Evans barely has time for herself, let alone family, friends, or dating. But when she’s shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams, all her sacrifices finally seem worth it.

The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Although they’ve never met in person, their epic email battles are the stuff of office legend.

Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos—best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands...together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.

With her career dreams in her sights and a growing attraction to the competition, Henley begins questioning her life choices. Because what’s the point of working all the time if you never actually live?

 

This is another of those workplace rom-coms where the prospective couple is vying for the same job, which always makes me a little nervous - there's gonna be some tricky maneuvering to make sure everyone gets their happy ending, and I didn't love that part of The Hating Game.  But I was persuaded because of the strong focus on the Galapagos, which was definitely the best part of the book.  

I liked it well enough, and it was a super fast read, so I finished the whole book one night after dinner, but  I never went back to re-read any parts, you know? It was cute, and amusing, but light.  Also, no explicit sex scenes, if you're curious.  Implicit!  

We get the entire book from Henley's perspective, which is for the best, since she comes off as more the "wronger" than the "wronged" in the initial (and subsequent) interactions with Graeme, especially once we get his side of the story.  From his perspective, I'm not entirely sure what her attraction would be.  

And I know that the whole plot of the book is about two people vying for the same job, but all that stuff with her boss and the big denouement was, eh, not that fun.  The cruise trip was much more entertaining, and I wish we'd had a week longer of that, and less time back at the office at the end.  Plus, three different men have taken credit for her projects in her work career? That's... majestically unlucky.  I also thought her and her sister's relationship was a little bit off.  She loves her, but thinks she's a failure, sure, okay, I'm on board, but then this whole plan of her sister's to get Graeme too distracted for the competition is just blown off like it's just another day in the Evans household and all is quickly forgiven.  And then we come out into a hard left when we find out her sister is being abused.  Jeez, it just kept getting weirder and weirder.  And a little 27 Dresses of it all.  

Anyway, it's fun, breezy, and light, and don't think too hard about it and you'll have a good time! And also desire to book a cruise asap. 

 

 

Dear Mr. Knightley

Dear Mr. Knightley

By Katherine Reay

Sam is, to say the least, bookish. An English major of the highest order, her diet has always been Austen, Dickens, and Shakespeare. The problem is, both her prose and conversation tend to be more Elizabeth Bennet than Samantha Moore.

But life for the twenty-three-year-old orphan is about to get stranger than fiction. An anonymous, Dickensian benefactor (calling himself Mr. Knightley) offers to put Sam through Northwestern University's prestigious Medill School of Journalism. There is only one catch: Sam must write frequent letters to the mysterious donor, detailing her progress.

As Sam's memory mingles with that of eligible novelist Alex Powell, her letters to Mr. Knightley become increasingly confessional. While Alex draws Sam into a world of warmth and literature that feels like it's straight out of a book, old secrets are drawn to light. And as Sam learns to love and trust Alex and herself, she learns once again how quickly trust can be broken.

I wasn't immediately drawn into this book, but thought I'd give it a chance, you know.  It had that feel of "downtrodden orphan suddenly experiences good fortune" a la Mandy or Daddy Longlegs or Anne of Green Gables and those can be fun.  I honestly don't know if it would have been okay if it hadn't been set in Chicago, but it was, and now here I am, not even finished with the book, and already typing out my feelings because I'm so annoyed.  

This book felt like it was written by someone who had no idea what Chicago is like, and reading the author biography, maybe this is unfair, but she sounds like some rich white person who went to school at Northwestern (in Evanston, a pretty rich, white town) and now lives in a fancy fucking suburb and thinks she knows Chicago because she knows the restaurants that rich, white people eat at downtown, and she knows the North Side (the "good parts" of Chicago). 

Example 1: Everytime Sam takes the train somewhere, or walks around in a neighborhood other than the north side, she's either beaten, threatened, or harassed.  This shit was RIDICULOUS.  She literally takes cabs from downtown to Evanston because she can't take the train anymore.  This is some weird-ass tourist fear bullshit.  This insane reactionary attitude about the public transportation is making me see red.  That's just made up fear-mongering. If you've grown up in Chicago, you get fucking used to the bus (never mentioned, haha, probably because only people who actually live here take the bus and Reay's just a damn sightseer) and the train, and you have your protection - attitude, keys, loud voice, pepper spray, whatever - to draw on if you get singled out, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you just keep your damn head down and it's FINE.  Not to mention that anyone who'd been in an abusive home would, I assume, have even more experience doing this. And of course, all of her Chicago friends, Kyle and Cara, also get beaten too, because no one who lives here can possibly go without getting attacked.

Example 2: Name dropping  and pill popping.  No, wait, no pill popping, just name dropping.  I felt a vague disquiet early in the book when she's referencing neighborhoods and shit, like it all felt off somehow, you know?, but halfway through, she make an egregious error about where something is located that I am personally familiar with and I was like, "This shit is wrong."  I mean, the premise is that Sam is from Chicago, right? How is that possible when she talks about it like it's a foreign country? Why name drop these neighborhoods so aggressively if you're gonna be so wrong? It would have been better not to mention locations at all! Then I could have filled in the blanks of where she's at, but it's like Reay just heard these names and didn't bother looking up what the actual character of these places are. Chicago has a hundred neighborhoods, some good, some bad, and yes, it can change in the space of a few blocks.  I can feel myself getting angry, and honestly, I know I sound like a crazy person, but the real indignity is not that she's getting it so wrong, but that she's using the city like some crime-filled backdrop for Sam's elevation and that's not right.  Chicago is a lot of things, and it deserves more than just to be some cheap shorthand.

It's like Reay wanted us to know how much research she did so she name drops Chicago restaurants like it's going out of style, and all of these places are, again, rich white people places, north side places.  Sam's geographic locations (including Grace House, where she begins the book) when she's in her orphans state are incredibly vague, but as soon as she meets up with all these suburban assholes we get incredibly specific.  Not to mention, all these places are fucking expensive.  Sure, she's going on dates with wealthy guys, but honestly, she never takes her foster kid friend Kyle out for like, $10 pizza? Or those semi dubious "chicken-fish" places? And never a qualm about the menu prices? Which brings me to my next point:

Example 3: This book sounds like it was written like someone who was never poor.  A specific example: Sam gets broken up with, and goes home and watches "two Austen movies, ate a whole pizza and an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's", then, not even like two chapters laters, tells Alex that she never went into the cookie aisle because she couldn't afford it growing up.  Bitch, you can afford Ben and Jerry's!  I'm sorry, you have NO MONEY and yet you're buying the fancy ass $4 pints of ice cream? You're going out to eat at Spago and Spiaggia and Billy Goat Tavern? You're taking cabs all over the damn place? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Is this what someone who has never been poor thinks it's like? At one point, Alex surprises her by wanting to go running, so she goes to Fleet Feet (*rolls eyes*) with him, and lets him buy her shoes and shorts and who knows what else (no mention of needing a dang sports bra, I see, what a freaking fantasy world) and never a qualm!  

And for ~plot reasons~ Kyle manages to get adopted in like, two months, which, I don't think you can even get a court date in less than two months in Cook County, let alone go through the adoption process.  Damn.  And haha, she thinks the Chicago Marathon would be cancelled because it's windy and rainy? Lol, I can think of one race cancelled (mid-race, because who knows what the weather will be like the day before) and that was because it was like, 95 degrees and 100% humidity and people were passing out.  The racing season begins when it is still like, 35 degrees in the daytime, and the races start before the sun is up.  Not to mention, I don't know where Sam is running mile 20 that she's on Lake Shore Drive hearing the sound of waves crashing, but I think she's going the wrong way.  Mile 20 is like, in Chinatown.

Anyway, aside from that, I never really connected with Sam, and thought the plot was all very telegraphed. Except for that marriage proposal. Man, nothing says "good idea" like proposing to someone who has never gone on a date with you. 

Gentleman Jim

 

Gentleman Jim

By Mimi Matthews

She couldn't forget...

Wealthy squire's daughter Margaret Honeywell was always meant to marry her neighbor, Frederick Burton-Smythe, but it's bastard-born Nicholas Seaton who has her heart. Raised alongside her on her father's estate, Nicholas is the rumored son of notorious highwayman Gentleman Jim. When Fred frames him for theft, Nicholas escapes into the night, vowing to find his legendary sire. But Nicholas never returns. A decade later, he's long been presumed dead.

He wouldn't forgive...

After years spent on the continent, John Beresford, Viscount St. Clare has finally come home to England. Tall, blond, and dangerous, he's on a mission to restore his family's honor. If he can mete out a bit of revenge along the way, so much the better. But he hasn't reckoned for Maggie Honeywell. She's bold and beautiful—and entirely convinced he's someone else.

As danger closes in, St. Clare is torn between love and vengeance. Will he sacrifice one to gain the other? Or with a little luck—and a lot of daring—will he find a way to have them both?

Eh, this one was emphatically fine, but not my favorite of Matthews' stuff. Which is weird, since it doesn't have the Victorian overtones of her other (Victorian) novels, which are the parts I tend to like the least, but here the relationship between the main characters had basically already happened and developed off-screen, and this was just a look at them overcoming exterior obstacles, which isn't as much of my jam.  I also really didn't like Margaret's interactions with Fred, since her plan was basically appeasement, which was both doomed to failure, and unpleasant to read. 

I don't think it's a HUGE spoiler to say that St. Clare the aristocrat and Nicholas, Margaret's first love, are in fact the same person, just, you know, doing a bad job of moving on past his early childhood traumas.  Matthews notes that this was inspired quite a bit by Count of Monte Cristo, which I can see.  Certainly the innocent who is wrongfully accused and forced to leave his beloved, returns years later, wealthy, powerful, and with some vengeance in mind, is pretty familiar.  Maybe too familiar? Part of my beef with the book is that a lot of the resolutions to the plot points (were his parents actually married???) were telegraphed so clearly that I found myself almost skimming the conflict sections since they held no mystery or tension for me.  What I was super invested in was Margaret's friend Jane's crush on Mattingly, which involved like, six paragraphs of the book, but took on outsize importance for me.  I hope they get their own story next!

It also felt weirdly out of period at points.  Maybe I've just been conditioned to the Jane Austen regency era, but all the discussion of Margaret as a pistol-wielding, horse-riding daredevil, not to mention the highwaymen and mustache-twirling villains felt like this was supposed to be set in a completely different era.  For me, it kind of evoked Tom Hawke/The Link Boys, by Constance Fecher, which is set in the early 1600s, but even a more Dickensian 1800s would fit, or Sid Fleischman, although I have no idea when those were supposed to be set.  By the way, Tom Hawke is awesome and it should come back into print!  My copy is literally bound together with scotch tape.    

Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating 

By Christina Lauren

Hazel Camille Bradford knows she’s a lot to take—and frankly, most men aren’t up to the challenge. If her army of pets and thrill for the absurd don’t send them running, her lack of filter means she’ll say exactly the wrong thing in a delicate moment. Their loss. She’s a good soul in search of honest fun.

Josh Im has known Hazel since college, where her zany playfulness proved completely incompatible with his mellow restraint. From the first night they met—when she gracelessly threw up on his shoes—to when she sent him an unintelligible email while in a post-surgical haze, Josh has always thought of Hazel more as a spectacle than a peer. But now, ten years later, after a cheating girlfriend has turned his life upside down, going out with Hazel is a breath of fresh air.

Not that Josh and Hazel date. At least, not each other. Because setting each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates means there’s nothing between them...right?

 

It's interesting to see how much slower I read when I get into a slump. I had a good head of steam built up, and now I'm basically a week out, just limping my way through books.  Alas, this one was not the one to get me back in the game.  I really just did not get along with this book, and it was really disappointing, too, since I'd enjoyed The Unhoneymooners so much last year, and I was not expecting to like that as much as I did. I thought reading a good author's backlist would net me some good reading, and I was WRONG.  I'd already reserved another one by them though (Holidaze), and I'll keep that hold, so when I do get to read it we'll see which one is the fluke - the good or the bad.

Anyway, I didn't like Hazel, I found nothing interesting about Josh, and I felt the book ended in a really weird place, literally, in the car on the way to the doctor, to see if Hazel was having a miscarriage (there's an epilogue, like seven years later though, so we do find out what happened, but seriously, way to just skip over a hugely emotional revelation).  

Hazel bugged because she was so determined that she was "wacky" and "embarrassing".  Honestly, the things she did? Weren't all that wacky or embarrassing (but definitely annoying in some cases, and in other cases, hard to believe this girl has a full time adult job!), so hearing that it was THIS BIG THING hanging over her head just got grating and annoying. Let's count them up: 

• Moving in with Josh when her apartment floods: not super wacky, mostly discourteous, especially when she breaks his lock and leaves a mess. I mean, he could have told her no, but he's pretty much an area rug for this book, so.
• Having multiple "unusual" pets - well, they disappeared for most of the book, so that's not really wacky. Plus, who in the city hasn't dreamed of chickens? Actually having chickens is a whole 'nother story, but she didn't have chickens, she just asked about having them. Not wacky.
• Uh, dancing at a music festival. Not that wacky, even if she was the only one dancing in that spot. Sounded more like mid-twenties self-absorption than wackiness.
• Telling her best friend she banged her brother in front of said bangee and best friend's husband. DUMB, and again, pretty self-absorbed, but not "wacky" so much as, socially inept.
• Getting artsy craftsy and making messes in the kitchen. She's a third grade teacher, come on, not wacky.
• Wearing knee high socks and a golf hat to mini-golf. Uh, different, I guess, but whatever. People really care a lot less about you than you do yourself. If you're out there wearing suspenders and clown shoes playing mini-golf, no one really cares, unless you're taking too long to play through because you can't walk in your oversized shoes.

Anyway, all this about Hazel being SO DIFFERENT AND EXUBERANT really felt forced, and like if Hazel just got over her own hangups for one minute, she wouldn't have any trouble finding a guy who liked her regardless. Mostly I was like, "once Hazel isn't in her twenties anymore, she won't have the energy for all this performance".  Josh didn't feel "special" it just felt like he was there at the right time. Part of the problem may be that our only outside view of Hazel is from Josh's perspective, and he really doesn't seem to think she's that wacky either, so her whole complex feels really overblown.

And let's talk about Josh! I mean, he had no personality, aside from "hot" and "not an asshole" (hey, I mean, that's a great standard to have, but also: low). Hazel decides he's her new best friend because... why? He seems like he has it together? I mean, everyone does, in comparison.  Also, he saw her getting fucked on the couch by his roommate in college? Uh, that's weird.  I guess we're just... glossing over that, then.  And not to say that you can only have sex with the designated hero/ine of the book, but if hero or heroine sees the other having sex with person C, then I think it would behoove the authors to at least get that from the watcher's perspective, at least to do the bare minimum of "it was so hot it made me uncomfortable and I had to force myself not to think about it anymore" or something.  Instead, Josh's participation in this was pretty much: "drunk, slutty girl from college turns up years later as my sister's friend, insists I am her best friend, then we drunk-bang when I'm getting over my cheating ex, even though we have been setting each other up with other people and continue to do so after banging." Josh is basically Passive McPassiveson. I never get the sense that he actually really likes her, just that she's there and she won't go away and she's not a complete dick (again, low standard).

And finally, the storyline! First of all, what a weird, asshole-y thing to do, keep going on blind dates with people even though you're banging the other guy at the table secretly.  That's gross to the people you're setting up.  And this whole, "we had sex twice and now Hazel is pregnant even though she said she had it covered, except now she might be miscarrying" was particularly unpleasant to me. I already mentioned how abrupt the ending scene was; the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth though: you don't have your shit together enough to just TELL this person you're fucking that you like him, but now you're pregnant, so a baby will solve everything!  Great plan! You've known each other all of three months, and he just got out of a long term relationship, why not have a child together! All of this just seems like 24 year old antics and I am way too tired for that BS.  As ouch as it would have been, I would have preferred to have seen her miscarry, talk with Josh, then decide yeah, we're in it for the long haul.

Anyway, change of pace coming up! Let's hope I get out of this rut and stop being so grumpy about books.

Ten Second Reviews

Romancing the Duke

By Tessa Dare

As the daughter of a famed author, Isolde Ophelia Goodnight grew up on tales of brave knights and fair maidens. She never doubted romance would be in her future, too. The storybooks offered endless possibilities.

And as she grew older, Izzy crossed them off. One by one by one.

• Ugly duckling turned swan?
• Abducted by handsome highwayman?
• Rescued from drudgery by charming prince?

No, no, and . . . Heh.

Now Izzy's given up yearning for romance. She'll settle for a roof over her head. What fairy tales are left over for an impoverished twenty-six year-old woman who's never even been kissed?

This one.

 

This one grew on me, as I don't really like "zany" romances, and this one started out that way, with a bedraggled destitute lady camping out at an abandoned castle with a blind duke with some type of wolf -dog mix and a ferret.  Oh, yes, very likely (don't you know that realism is required in all romance novels?).  I was getting close to DNFing, but since I'd actually used up a legitimate hold for it, I figured I should at least finish, and it got better as it went on.  Companions showed up, things settled down some, though the tone was still very much "Disney-fied historical romance", but by the end of it, I wasn't mad.  Was it really my jam? Absolutely not, I will not be re-reading it.  But it did feel "mostly harmless".   Basically, a bunch of kooky people find each other, decide that friendship is more important than proving sanity, catch a lucky break because one of the sanity-hearing officers likes some books the woman's father published, and they all live happily ever after. 

 

 

 

The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown

By Suzanne Enoch, Karen Hawkins, Mia Ryan, and Julia Quinn

 

Lady Whistledown Tells All!

When the scandalous actions of his beautiful fiancée are recorded in Lady Whistledown's column, a concerned groom-to-be rushes back to London to win his lady's heart once and forever, in Suzanne Enoch's enchanting romantic gem.

Karen Hawkins captivates with an enduring story of a handsome rogue whose lifelong friendship — and his heart — are tested when the lovely lady in question sets her cap for someone else.

A dazzling and delightful tale by Mia Ryan has a young woman cast out of her home by an insufferable yet charming marquis — who intends to take possession not only of the house ... but its former occupant as well!

Society is abuzz when the Season's most promising debutante is jilted by her intended — only to be swept away by the deceitful rogue's dashing older brother — in New York Times bestseller Julia Quinn's witty, charming, and heartfelt tale.

 

Did I check this out because Bridgerton is all the rage, and The Viscount Who Loved Me is totally unavailable at the library? Yes, there are 14 people for each of the 21 copies my library has, meaning that if I checked it out, I could expect it in mmm, perhaps seven months, and even that is a workaround, because they aren't stocking the second book solo, it's only available in a set of the first three in the series.  I like Bridgerton okay, certainly not as much as some people (and not as much as my mother, who appears to be using it as a method of mood-stabilizers during COVID) but the second's plotline was the only one that appealed to me to read.  Anyway, so this was a distant second choice!

Although all the stories are interlinked (and take place at the same activities, set in London from about January 26th to February 15th, 1814, serendipitously), with the different authors, there's some definite changes in quality from story to story.  For example, Quinn's is obviously the best (due to both her authorly experience and it being her characters, so I would have assumed it), then Enoch, Hawkins, and finally Ryan is a -very- distant fourth.  I think I skipped most of that one, it was so scattershot and nonsensical.  Some of them would have been more satisfying as stand-alone novels - I think Quinn's in particular could have withstood longer treatment, and Hawkins had a great premise, but the character seemed to realize they loved each other in a very all-of-a-sudden! way that felt rushed and necessary for Moving the Story Along reasons than a natural pace.  And although it felt clever at first, by the fourth time we've revisited the same two "group" scenes from various characters' perspectives - one at the theater and one with several characters falling over in a snowbank while ice-skating, it mostly felt tedious.  Overall, not a terrible waste of an afternoon, but not really all that exciting either.  

What I really need is a good author who is NOT ON HOLD FOR SEVEN MONTHS.  Unfortunately, I found like, two that I like consistently, and I read all theirs and now it's even harder to get books because of the Bridgerton phenomenon, so I'm reduced to trawling recommendation lists and reading the zany ones or my second choices. God forbid I actually have to buy my romance novels as opposed to getting them free a the library or second hand at a used booksale behind my mother's back and then smuggled home illicitly. 

The Work of Art

The Work of Art 

By Mimi Matthews

Hidden away in rural Devonshire, Phyllida Satterthwaite has always been considered more odd than beautiful. But in London, her oddity has made her a sensation. Far worse, it's caught the eye of the sinister Duke of Moreland—a notorious art collector obsessed with acquiring one-of-a-kind treasures. To escape the duke's clutches, she's going to need a little help.

Captain Arthur Heywood's days of heroism are long past. Grievously injured in the Peninsular War, he can no longer walk unaided, let alone shoot a pistol. What use can he possibly be to a damsel in distress? He has nothing left to offer except his good name.

Can a marriage of convenience save Philly from the vengeful duke? Or will life with Arthur put her—and her heart—in more danger than ever?

Mimi Matthews has done a bunch of early Victorian romance-mysteries (like REAL GENTLE on the mystery) and I am not ashamed to say I've read and enjoyed them all.  Some are better than others, definitely, but  - and especially after that LAST book - they're nice palate cleansers about decent people, no bombast, with a bit pining, some marriage of convenience tropes, a little gothic undertone, and a happy ending. I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, but honestly it's not.  For some reason her other books were mostly available but I had to wait like four months for this one, so I'm happy to say it was worth the wait! 

This is a pretty laid back romance; it's whatever it is when all the sex happens off the page - I can never remember if that's "closed door" or "open door" although thinking on it now, it would have to be closed door, right? Open door is like, peering into the room.  Unless they mean "closed door" like, this is what happens behind closed doors, and open doors is like, "Make sure you teenagers keep your doors open when your boyfriend is over!"  I think I just talked myself back into doubt.  Of course, no amount of logic can get me past "on the wagon" and "off the wagon" - I know what they mean, but no idea why.  

Anyway, I'm trying to think of nice ways to describe this that don't sound dismissive - basically a young woman with several large dogs gets pushed into an unwelcome marriage proposal and ends up with a lamed ex-soldier who is also a bit of a country mouse.  They basically elope and then spend the rest of the book waiting for the other shoe to drop.  And yes, there is a villain or two, but the story is mostly about two very lonely people who have found someone else who just gets them. And sometimes that's all you need.  I've found it a hallmark of Matthews' books that there isn't all this Sturm und Drang that you see in so many romances, Big Misunderstandings! Love Triangles! Jealousy! Despite the Victorian setting and the supposedly dastardly villains, these are really soothing stories. 

The Hidden Moon

The Hidden Moon

By Jeannie Lin

A well-to-do lady in the later years of the Tang Dynasty investigates a murder with imperial connections with the help of a street-wise scoundrel. 

This one I liked very much at the outset, not least because of the location and time of the setting, which I don't have much exposure to.  It made me look up Tang Dynasty clothing styles!  However, the main character, Wei wei, wasn't that compelling to me, and I kinda wished we'd focused more on the political intrigues than the romance.  Although I can see objectively why Gao might like her (educated, beautiful, headstrong) her personality just never quite meshed for me. I ended up moving through the back half of the book fairly quickly.

I liked Magistrate Li quite a lot - he may not be as swashbuckling as Gao, but I like a guy who does his job well and honorably.  That's sometimes the problem in these books - since the author knows they're doing a series, they make the side characters too compelling.  Here, the third character in this love triangle (even though neither Li nor Wei Wei wants to get married to each other) was, to me, more worth following than the two mains.  Perhaps he'll have his own story someday! 

 And even though it was the basis for the connection and romance, the murder investigation got wrapped up so quickly I thought it was a fake out, and at least one story-line seemed like it got dropped completely (so the last assassin that Magistrate Li and Gao were going to draw out by using themselves as targets was... non existent? And we never really find out if the nephew was a co-conspirator or snitch? The other person meeting with Song Yi was.... not someone important to the plot?).  The murder was also a little hard to follow because of my unfamiliarity with Imperial China's social structure and laws - motives and relationships could have been explained a little more for my taste.

Ten Second Reviews

Note that Seven Days of Us and Monstrous Beauty were read in 2019, while Gilded Web was in 2021.

Seven Days of Us

By Francesca Hornak

 

Family gathers together to quarantine for the holidays, with unexpected secrets coming to light.

This was a different kind of predictable - in fact the least predictable thing about it is how much I was won over by the end.  In the beginning, everyone is kind of awful: lies abound, just plain unhappiness, and Jesse planning to just crash into his biological father's life like a bomb was driving me crazy. How could everyone be encouraging this? It's not hard! If your purported father does not respond to your email, HE DOESN'T WANT TO SEE YOU.  I mean, that's pretty much true of everybody, don't just invite yourself places.   But somehow all the contrived craziness cancels itself out and the end is a sweet family holiday story: Jesse's accepted, Emma's cancer is less scary, Andrew's leaving his soul-sucking job, Olivia has a baby (and a dead boyfriend, man, THAT I didn't expect (except I kinda did, because I kept checking to see how long it would go for and saw spoilers, whoops)) and the youngest girl's engagement is over, conveniently bothering her for approximately one and one-half days, just long enough to stir up drama between the family, but not long enough that we start to feel like the relationship was anything but a plot digression.

Monstrous Beauty
By Elizabeth Fama

Mermaid falls in love with land dweller, setting off a chain of events and ghostly curses down the generations. 

This one was....fine.  A young woman in New England finds a ghost (without realizing it) and is drawn to him, only to have to figure out her family's connection with a three/four person murder a couple hundred years ago and - wait, let me try to work this out (with spoilers!).  So the mermaid likes this guy and accidentally drowns him, so the next guy she likes she realizes she needs like human lungs for, so after she's caught and raped by Olaf (the mermaid gets a really shitty deal in this whole thing) she takes his lungs, but then she's pregnant so she gives the baby up and it's adopted by Olaf's terrible wife? Who also accuses her of killing Olaf? (somehow Olaf and his awful wife are the only people smart enough to realize she's a mermaid) and then lures her to the church for murder, except that the mermaid kills Olaf's wife (and also the minister and the little girl who was watching the mermaid's adopted baby also die, because why not) and then somehow the mermaid's husband gives up his life for hers, but she doesn't want him to die so the mermaid takes the baby's soul and gives it to... him?  This part is the most confusing: did her husband die? Did she die? Apparently the husband sticks around as a ghost, and she just...melts? Unclear. And then everytime the baby (or her daughters) has a baby, the mother dies because there is too much soul for the world? Also unclear.  

 

Gilded Web

By Mary Balogh 

Woman in regency England is mistakenly kidnapped and has to marry or face scandal.

This was fine, I guess, ugh.  Mary Balogh is generally alright, but I realized partly through this one that I'd read the third book of this series earlier in 2020 and hated it (mostly because of how awful the hero was - he is literally super mean to his wife for the entire book except at the very end, when he finds out she's pregnant.  Yeah, that's a keeper).  This started out VERY over the top (fake kidnapping! mistaken identity! shenanigans!) but the hero and heroine turned out to be fairly buttoned up and quiet people, so it wasn't too crazy.  I didn't really feel the need for the different viewpoints - I think we get through three or four of the side characters, in addition to the mains, and none of them were that compelling - and it started dragging after the halfway mark.  Plus, the struggle is resolved by the heroine deciding that as long as the hero was willing to call off the engagement, then that means she has enough autonomy to stay in the marriage.  But all of her points are still valid! They're just impossible to solve in regency England under the conditions she was in. Well, not a blazing start to the new year, but we gotta start somewhere!

Queen of Nothing

Queen of Nothing

By Holly Black

 He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne

Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power.

Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan's betrayal. She bides her time determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril.

Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines she becomes ensnared in the conflict's bloody politics.

And, when a dormant yet powerful curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity...

I was so excited to read this I decided to get it immediately from the library instead of waiting until 2020 when it would have qualified as a "Author with Flora or Fauna in the their Name" category.  Anyway, before I get to the review, I have to say something.  I will sometimes spend a little time thinking about my review before I actually sit down to type it, and I think it took me less then ten minutes to start wondering about fairy dicks.  Okay, bear with me: they (the fairies, not the dicks) have tails and wings and are like, random different sizes, but they all have human compatible dicks?  Shouldn't this, AT THE MOST, be like a donkey-horse → mule situation? (Also, sidebar, I totally forgot what the name of the hybrid animal was just now, I remembered that JENNY is a female donkey, but not what a mule is, le sigh).  I say this not as a critique against Queen of Nothing, which certainly didn't invent human-elf fucking, but you know, I spent a lot more time thinking about the actual compatibility of penises than I thought I would going in.

Anyway, that's it! That's the review!

Haha, just kidding, I will put the dicks to bed and talk about the rest of the book.  Like, 98% of it is not about dicks.  Maybe 97%, because Taryn gets knocked up, which also involved dicks, but offscreen.  Who else (raise your hands) thought that Taryn's pregnancy was going to be relevant at some point?  Because I definitely did.  I thought that was a big old Chekhov's Baby, ready to go off at any moment.  But it went nowhere!  Again, not really a critique, just pointin' out.

This did feel like a really short book though - much shorter than books 1 or 2; and some of that may be because the story is even more straightforward now (no huge betrayals or double crosses that I can remember, although I cannot be relied on to be accurate in this regard), and we have just a few action scenes seems like, before we get to the denouement.  Honestly, that is my biggest complaint - feels too short, ends too soon, want more drama, more angst, more reunion scenes with Cardan, more everything!  This is one where I kinda hope she ends up writing maybe another series set in this world, or some short stories about Jude et al, because I enjoyed my time with her.  Except her name, which I don't love and always makes me start singing the Beatles song, and it's distracting and annoying. AND IT'S DOING IT AGAIN.  What a sapfest that song is.  Anyway.  I enjoyed this book, the series, and the resolution.  Two thumbs up.  And one dick.

Stormswift

Stormswift

By Madeleine Brent

The year is 1897. Deep in the mountain wilderness of the Hindu Kush, a seventeen year-old English girl is brought to the primitive tribal kingdom of Shul to be sold as a slave. Her ordeal endures for two long years before at last there comes the chance of escape to Lalla, as she is called, who believes herself to be Jemimah Lawley, heiress to the great house and estates of Witchwood in the county of Surrey. On the hazardous journey of escape across Afghanistan with a man who hates her, she hears for the first time a name that will later echo menacingly in her life... the name Stormswift. Once home, she faces the shock of being compelled to doubt her own identity. Is she truly Jemimah Lawley, or is she suffering from a delusion caused by her degrading ordeal as Lalla of Shul? Soon she is plunged into a new world, where she finds there are others who, like herself, are perhaps not what they seem to be. Life in England brings her strange adventures and a touching friendship, but also the heartbreak of love without hope. In these pages Madeleine Brent has woven a tale of many surprises as mystery after mystery unfolds, but strangest of all is the mystery which causes Lalla of Shul to return to the barbaric land of her captivity, there to encounter the dark shadows of death and disaster before she at last finds the happiness she believed could never be hers.

So I've written about Brent before, and I maintain that as far as rip-rollicking adventure stories with fun heroines, they are delightful.  For example, in Stormswift, we encounter Jemimah Lawley, aka "Lalla" aka "Mim" first as a captured slave in 1881 Kafiristan, what is now known as Nuristan, a province in Northeastern Afghanistan.  In short order she assists her fellow Greek slave with a birth, gets sold to a mad prince, and escapes with a peddler, Kassim, who surprise, surprise, is more than what he seems.  Specifically, an English spy who promptly gets shot up by his Russian counterpart.  After removing the bullet from Kassim and burying the dead Russian, Jemimah manages to get both their butts back to the embassy in Herat (and by the way, tracking down her route in this first part of the book was pretty fun.  So much traveling through parts of the world I rarely engage with!).

P.S. I know the description says 1897, I don't know where they came up with that - Jemimah's parents were massacred at Bala Hissar in 1879, and she was held for two years before escaping, clearly putting her the timeline of the book in the early 1880s.  

Then, she's shipped back to England, where she discovers that an imposter has taken her place after her two-year kidnapping sojourn, so she joins a Punch and Judy traveling show run by this "hilarious" guy and his Romany girlfriend.  Except then the Romany girlfriend's ex-boyfriend tracks them down and beats up Punch and Jemimah, and offers to marry his ex-girlfriend, so she leaves with him.  And we're only like, barely halfway into this and haven't even been introduced to like, the main villain!

So it turns out Punch is actually a lord, and has a nice house with a relatively nice mom, who puts them both up until Jemimah is framed for the theft of a ~mysteriously important~ locket so she goes to live with Anne/Melanie, who turns out to be married to KASSIM, who turns out to be BEST FRIENDS with PUNCH, who turns out to be in LOVE with ANNE, who turns out to be a BITCH.

AND THEN, Jemimah realizes that the guy in the locket is her old friend the Greek slave, and Anne is murdered, and they all set off for Afghanistan.

So I remembered why I wasn't as big a fan of this one, and it is for two reasons: one is that Jemimah decides she loves Lord Punch, who, let's be honest here, is a real doofus.  I mean, you have mysterious, sexy Kassim, who rescued her from Afghanistan and refuses to sleep with his awful wife, and then on the other hand, you have goofy ass "Henry", who is fucking some rando when they first meet, and hates having to be rich, so he keeps running off, but makes sure to keep his hand securely in the trust fund pocket, so he doesn't actually have to face any consequences of being poor, or actually having to, you know, "work" for a living.  But Henry is "funny" so she just decides he's the one for her even though his big life plan at the end of the book is to run off and bum around on a Mississippi Steamboat, like Mark Twain.  By the way, did you know that Mark Twain had a younger brother who he convinced to work on steamboats with him, and his brother died at age 20 when the boiler exploded and Mark Twain always felt himself responsible?  Now you do.

I mean, I know Kassim keeps getting himself shot, and that's not really the mark of a super successful spy, but seriously, I think Brent had to kill him just to prevent all his readers being like, "Hey!" Obviously Kassim is the superior choice here.  I mean, Henry is just the worst.  His only redeeming quality is that he's like, 100% on board with Jemimah actually being Jemimah (and not a fraud pretending to be Jemimah) although he had a leg up on everyone else because Kassim vouched for her to begin with.

And second, like Anne/Melanie is supposed to be this extraordinary Harpy-like person, but she's frankly just kind of a bad person.  She has affairs, she blackmails her lovers, a couple of them threaten to commit suicide, she employs a burglar.  It's all pretty tame.   For real, when I was re-reading this, I was like, "Oh, yeah, her Sanctuary, that's where she has those drug binges and orgies." But it's not!  It's just like, regular adultery, no drugs whatsoever.  And just one dude at a time.  Too much build-up, she falls really short by comparison. 

That all said, if you want a genuinely fun, fast-paced story about a young woman who overcomes massacres, rape, slavery, snipers, boat rides, false accusations, doofy young men, impersonators, gypsies, two-faced women, and the awful burden of having money, Stormswift is the book for you!

Ten Second Reviws

Edenbrooke

By Julianne Donaldson

Marianne goes to spend some time in the country, visiting friends that her more beautiful and talented twin sister has made, battling highwaymen, fortune hunters, catty women and flirty men. For as silly as some (most?) of Edenbrooke is, I have to confess that when Marianne overheard Philip "complaining" about her and making it sound like he hated her guts (even though we all knew it was actually the complete opposite) something deep in the reptilian, instinctual part of my brain went "Mmm, good".  The heart wants what it wants.  And my heart wants contrived situations in which two people in love think that the other person hates them.  Angst, what a delight! Anyway, 'tis a very silly, slight book, but man, sometimes that's kind of what you need. 

Darkdawn

By Jay Kristoff

For some reason all my formatting is fucking up today (like just moving things on its own) so we'll see how long I can stand it.  Long story short: if you've read this far, you may as well read Darkdawn.  It's good enough.  I read (and liked) the first one, but it definitely didn't seem like we were going to be getting into a whole thing about the Moon in book one.  Mostly it seemed like a pretty straight-forward revenge tale.  Not that there's anything wrong with the Moon, it just seems like we took a hard left somewhere.  Anyway, this book is mostly a road trip, and there is a lot (far too much for my taste) of bantering/griping/star-crossed romance.  Plus, people die like every few chapters, which takes some of the emotion out of all the deaths.  And I don't think that's intentional. Anyway, the bad guy gets super powerful on dark magic but is defeated anyway, Mia's little brother decides he can love this mysterious, murderous sister he doesn't remember who drags him all over creation, narrowly escaping death multiple times and who insists on calling him a different name and telling him he's adopted,  somehow the person that Mia loves comes back from  the dead (no, the other one) to live happily ever after, and the moon is back in the sky and only one sun, so even though like 90% of the people who met/helped Mia along the way are dead, yay? Boo on the changed solar system though, I thought three suns was cool.