I am no stranger to m/m hockey romances and I’ve reviewed a few here. This one has been on my TBR for a while and my library hold finally came in yesterday. Yes, I read it that quickly, folks. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I devoured it.

Ezekiel Boehm, or Zeke as he is more commonly known, is a gym teacher at a relatively posh private school. (The school is a Quaker one and has fantastic politics.) He’s also a huge hockey fan, specifically of Spencer McLeod. He owns four of his jerseys, he daydreams about him, he watches all his interviews. Serious fan. So who is the new child in his class? None other than Spencer’s five-year-old daughter.

The first part of the book involves Zeke trying his best not to freak out too badly that his idol is talking to him, inviting him to games, etc. It was tough at this stage to imagine Zeke being anything other than a starstruck fan. The book does a masterful job of showing the fan element slowly fading away and being replaced by a relationship of two equals.

The journey to that status is punctuated with some seriously witty banter. Zeke has a flair for the dramatic sometimes and Spencer’s mumbled, shy, on-the-surface-abrupt utterances are charming rather than annoying. Spencer’s emotions are primarily communicated in half smiles and blushes. It’s very endearing.

As for plot, this book focuses on small events that lead to love like when Zeke helps prepare Spencer for this turn at leading the reading circle. Or Zeke helping Spencer choose a dog to adopt. What this book did differently to others is that there’s no tension building up to a dark moment that tests their relationship or commitment. It just kind of ends. Before this book I would have sworn up and down that I don’t enjoy reading the dark moments of books, but this book has made me rethink that stance. I really missed some indication that their relationship can withstand a test of some sorts.

If you’re looking for a book that will make you swoon from the giddiness of falling in love, then this book will hit the spot. Just don’t be too surprised when it ends abruptly.

Gretchen Acorn is a fake spirit medium. Raised by a conman and from a long line of con artists, Gretchen is in the family business because conning people is the only way that she knows how to make a living. Something happened in her past, though (you find out towards the end of the book what it is) and her nascent conscience kicked into life. So acting as her own moral bulwark, she has The Rule: Always leave people better than when you found them.

Gretchen uses this rule as her guide in setting up her spirit medium business. At the start of the book, the business in DC is thriving and one of her best clients (who has made so much progress in her grief that Gretchen plans to slowly wean her client off sessions with her) pays her a princely sum to help a friend of hers with a ghost problem.

The friend in question is Charlie Waybill, a goat farmer struggling to sell his farm about an hour outside of DC. Gretchen expects Charlie to be as old as her client. But he isn’t. He’s her age and he’s hot. Right, so that’s complication the first.

Complication the second has a delicious twist of irony: the ghost is real and Gretchen can see him and communicate with him. The ghost wastes no time in telling her that there is a curse on the Waybill family: they will die if they try to sell the farm and be doomed to haunt the farm forever. So Gretchen’s task is clear: convince Charlie to keep the farm. What follows is rather a lot of emotional growth for Gretchen as she navigates interactions with Charlie, the ghost, and the goat farm using an entirely novel and scary approach: being honest.

The ghost, Everett Waybill (a long dead ancestor of Charlie’s) plays a bigger role than a secondary character usually does in a romance. He has a kind of smarmy charm, but he’s mostly a likable character so I didn’t mind too much having him take such a central role.

What this book does very well is show the gentle softening of Gretchen’s heart and the strengthening of her conscience. This is a gradual process with Gretchen wanting to be genuinely known but terrified of the consequences. While sometimes the plot didn’t quite make sense to me (for example, I could think of a million ways for Gretchen to prove to Charlie that Everett is real, but she used hardly any of them) by the end of the book, things had fallen into place so beautifully that I could look back fondly on the ride to get there. The chemistry between Gretchen and Charlie is there almost from the beginning. Their first meeting is rather rocky, and while their conversations sizzle with their attraction, it is paired with this bone deep growing towards each other, too.

I really enjoyed my time with this book and recommend it for anyone who enjoys a contemporary with a touch of the paranormal and a big dose of growth.

I am a sucker for an interesting premise and this book certainly has one. In this series, the female leads write for a newspaper for women, by women. Specifically, young women. In this book, it is the reviewer who takes centre stage.

Julia Addison works as a companion to a sort-of related aunt-in-law. On the side, she secretly pens her reviews of plays put on in London under the nom de plume Miss On Scene. The subject of one of her reviews, Ransom Blackadder (the alias for Lord Graham Dunstane), takes offence at something she says in her review. Graham decides to retaliate by writing a play called ‘The Poison Pen’.

Right, but how do the two real people meet? Julia’s employer/aunt-in-law hires a box at the theatre for the season. Only when they arrive, it is occupied by Graham. The box manager, thinking to make a quick buck, hired out Graham’s box because it is so rarely occupied. Graham reluctantly accepts the aunt-in-law’s suggestion that they share for the evening. While their alter egos might be engaged in a war of sorts (although all the anger really comes from Ransom), their true selves are intrigued by each other.

While this is book two in the series, I had no trouble following the story despite not reading book one. I did have other troubles though. Several times, especially towards the end of the book, I found myself going huh? Some things aren’t explained fully (like Graham’s proposal) and other things seem to come out of nowhere. I couldn’t quite relax into the story because I kept being bounced out of it.

Julia is a difficult character to get a read on because she’s supposed to be this wide-eyed innocent, but she drops these saucy, worldly remarks. I suppose in real life that wouldn’t be so odd. People contain multitudes. But in the book world it meant that I felt I never quite got to know Julia all that well because I was often surprised by what she said. Graham is the grumpy, surly type which I usually enjoy reading, but in this instance it really brought home to me that if I had to interact with such a person in real life, I would cheerfully chuck him in the bin. At least for the first half of the book, the grumpiness came from a place of anger, which I don’t love. But also, the grumpiness seemed to be his sole defining characteristic for the first half of the book until he falls in love.

One final red flag for me. There are some transactional kisses in this. Graham agrees to let Julia watch the rehearsal if she kisses him. That she wanted to kiss him anyway is by the by. For me, I have no tolerance for transactional kisses no matter how teasing and sexy they’re supposed to be.

Based on this review, you’re probably surprised that I read the book in its entirety, but I did and I finished it in a couple days. Overall, it’s an okay read. If you’re needing an interesting premise inside a historical romance, I think this book might scratch that itch.

Sister Boniface Mysteries

by Jude Tinall

I think there is a fine art to creating cosy mystery television. It’s so easy to make the mystery predictable or even outright boring. But at the same time, you don’t want to make it so thrilling that it’s no longer cosy. In my mind, Sister Boniface Mysteries gets the balance just right.

In Great Slaughter (the name of this English village) in the early 1960s, Sister Boniface, a Catholic nun, works as a scientific advisor to the local police. She’s sincere, loves puns and has an endlessly curious mind which takes root in her laboratory at the convent.

She works with two police officers: Detective Inspector Sam Gillespie and Detective Sergeant Felix Livingstone who is on secondment from the Bermuda police. Sam is a bit of a maverick while Felix is a stickler for the rules. None of the hard-hitting, hard-boiled detective business here. We have cheerful chaps sincerely engaged in finding the guilty party through the most respectful of means.

I was in raptures when I learnt the name of the village. That self-aware nod to the ridiculously high body count really tickled me. Yes, there are rather a lot of murders for a village, but aren’t there always in this kind of show? When you indulge in a cosy mystery, you choose to suspend your disbelief for the duration and accept the improbable number of deaths, the sheer volume of perpetrators, and the sturdy, steady presence of the investigators.

While this is technically a spin-off of Father Brown, as the character of Sister Boniface was featured in one of the Father Brown episodes, it very much stands on its own.

The premise of each episode is always interesting. We have a local festival, a serial killer using the lonely hearts column, an avant-garde art exhibition, an intrigue of state secrets with a cabinet minister, a pop supergroup, a garden allotment, a national cooking competition and so many more!

There are two seasons so far, and the internet tells me that season 3 is underway. I’ve loved every episode so far. There are hints at a romantic subplot but this is very minor. I’m going to hide the fate of that subplot behind a spoiler, just in case, like me, you need to know how things end up.

If you need comfortable, casual viewing that’s interesting enough to keep you entertained while knitting a jersey with no end (at least, mine seems to be unending. So many parts!) then this is absolutely the series for you. I watch a few episodes every night and I look forward to them ever so much.

…

In the US, Sister Boniface Mysteries can be streamed on Britbox, or purchased by season or individually on Amazon, YouTube, AppleTV, and Roku.

I suspect mileage will vary significantly for readers of The Aristocrat. It’s going to depend a lot on how much emotion you want in your reading (this one has quite a bit). I kept raising my eyebrow at the heroine’s implausible perfection and that pulled me out of the story. 

Felicity lives in Narragansett with her foster mother. She’s enjoying a summer off before going to law school when two handsome Brits move into the house across the bay from her and she’s caught spying on one of them with binoculars. The Brits are Leo and his cousin Sigmund. Leo is enjoying a gap year of traveling around the US before he settles down to take over his father’s vast family business and meet his mother’s social expectations. This includes a marriage to “the right kind of woman” before he’s thirty. To add pressure to the situation, Leo’s father is dying of cancer and Leo wants his dad to see that Leo’s affairs are truly settled before he dies.

Felicity and Leo have a summer fling that turns into true love, which is a problem because Felicity is definitely not “the right kind of woman” from Leo’s mother’s perspective. She’s the orphaned daughter of a drug addict who was raised in the system. She’s also putting herself through law school in order to become a lawyer helping kids who are growing up in the foster system. She helps build an addition on the home of a foster family in town during her free time. She doesn’t have any vices, and honestly, she’s a little too perfect. 

The first section of the book is Leo and Felicity falling in love. The next section jumps ahead five years after Felicity has graduated. She’s cleaning out her late foster mother’s things and finds a letter from Leo professing his love and telling her that he won’t get married to his mom’s choice if she contacts him before the wedding. So instead of calling she flies to England (like you do) where she finds out the letter was older than she thought, and Leo is already married.

There is a lot of emotional conflict in this book. There’s the pressure Leo feels to please his dying father, the pressure Felicity feels to be the perfect example of a kid growing up in foster care (this really isn’t explored very much), and of course their forbidden love. In order for them to be together forever, Leo will have to break a third person’s heart.

I think this is a book for a reader who wants to have a lot of feels. I was frustrated with Felicity’s perfection sometimes, and the fact that she got a millionaire foster mom and had zero trauma from growing up with a drug addict mom or in the system. I felt like the heroine’s tragic backstory was used to make her more like a Cinderella character, and the plausible trauma that would come from being a child growing up in the system after her mom OD’s on drugs was never actually explored. It was like “insert tragic backstory here.” I think a reader more willing to overlook that will enjoy the book more. I did like The Aristocrat, but I think it’s going to work best for someone who wants more emotion in their reading than I set out looking for. 

I think I wouldn’t have been so disappointed in The Star and the Strange Moon had the premise not been so intriguing. This book had the potential to be so excellent, but the pacing was all over the place and most of the novel just dragged on while the best parts felt rushed.

In 1968, French-American actress Gemma Turner’s career was struggling. She’s starred in surfer movies that while popular aren’t exactly critically acclaimed. Now she has the chance to work with a French director on a new horror film, L’Etrange Lune that may reshape how the public thinks of her. Gemma finds the director, the set and circumstances around the film to be unusual and creepy.

Cut to the nineties. Christopher Kent is a young man searching for a purpose. His mother was mentally ill and he was removed to live with relatives, where he never really felt like he fit in. Prior to the era of podcasts and internet sleuthing, he becomes obsessed with the mystery around Gemma Turner. While filming L’Etrange Lune she vanished without a trace. Christopher studies cinematography which allows him to become closer to the Gemma mystery. In a wonderfully creepy twist he learns that every 10 years the only existing copy of the film is screened–and every single time it’s different even though that’s impossible.

I love a missing person mystery and the twist about the film changing every ten years was wonderfully weird and spooky. Unfortunately the execution of this book was all over the place. We spend way too much time with Gemma before she even gets to the film set, taking in lots of backstory that ultimately doesn’t impact the plot. It’s about halfway through the book that we even learn about the mysterious screenings and changing films.

There’s a lot loaded onto the front and back ends of this novel with most of the action and intrigue condensed into the middle. The result is that I had a hard time sticking with the book in the beginning, and then felt unsatisfied by the end. 

The concept of The Star and the Strange Moon was excellent, but the execution failed making most of the book a chore to get through. I think most readers will have to be very invested in finding out the ending to this story in order to stick with it.

A young woman, Utage Kinoshita, who loves the popular boy band F/ACE, has a job as a house cleaner. When she covers for a colleague who calls out, she discovers the assignment is for her favorite member of F/ACE, Tamon Fukuhara. However, Tamon’s charming, bad boy persona is fake and the poor guy is riddled with imposter syndrome and anxiety.

A lot of manga feature teenagers as the main characters; that’s the case with all of the manga I read recently. However, this one takes the characters to a hyperbolic level and I probably would have enjoyed this more if I were either younger (because I enjoyed similar manga like this in tone when I read a lot of them in high school) and/or related more to fan culture. I am a hater at heart and I can’t think of any piece of media or celebrity that I’m necessarily ride or die for.

I didn’t last very long with this one. Both Utage and Tamon are too exaggerated for me with Utage proclaiming that she wants to “live in Tamon’s mole” and Tamon frequently prostrating himself in front of Utage and weeping that he isn’t worthy of a fan like her.

I’m also not interested in celebrity romances as a whole. To be honest, that sort of relationship sounds exhausting. This one was definitely a mismatch, with an emphasis on “it’s not you, it’s me.”

I forgot where I heard about Yakuza Fiancé initially, but that cover was a strong motivator. Yoshino, the granddaughter of a crime boss in Osaka, and Kirishima, the grandson of a Yakuza boss in Tokyo are instructed to date (and possibly marry) to strengthen an alliance between the two families.

Yoshino is a bit of a fish out of water, leaving Osaka to live in Tokyo with the Miyama family. She transfers to Kirishima’s school and is honestly surprised by his gentle, easy-going demeanor. Surprise, it’s all a ruse!

Kirishima wants a woman that will “ruin his life” and treat him as “subhuman.” You can imagine my surprise when things took that particular turn. He admits to Yoshino that she’s too normal and if she wants to be of any use to the Miyama family, she should join one of their brothels. Yoshino is understandably taken aback and calls her grandfather, who suggests that she stick it out for a year, making Kirishima fall in love with her, and then crush his heart.

I liked seeing Yoshino build confidence and eventually stand up to Kirishima

The art style is a little too angular for my taste and it strangely had a lot of British words and slang like “knackered” and “bollocks.”

I’m on the fence about continuing this one: I looked ahead at the future volumes and

People also mention that the plot and romance get more convoluted and fucked up, which may or may not work for me. Going to noodle on this one, friends! In the meantime, happy to take suggestions for more adult romance manga suggestions!

Please check the content warnings before continuing as several of them are unavoidable when discussing the setup!

This manga is originally based on a series of Japanese light novels. They’ve been translated to English and even just reading the sample, it seems that the beginning of the manga follows the text closely.

Maomao was kidnapped from her job as an herbalist/apothecary in a red light district and is now forced to work as a maid in the inner court of the imperial palace. Because of her previous work, she’s also one of the few maids who can read and write. After saving the lives of the emperor’s heirs and his two favorite concubines, Maomao’s education, as well as her knowledge of poisons, harmful materials, etc. garners the attention of the Jinshi, a mysterious eunuch who seems to have close ties to the emperor. Maomao gets a promotion, serving as the food tester for one of the concubines.

The first volume is split into four chapters with each having its own little mystery or quest. It reminded me of a cozy mystery TV show, where most of the plot is self-contained, while personal relationships continue to deepen and develop. It also tapped into why I like things like anthologies because I can dip in and out without much of a time (or brain commitment). Maomao is grumpy, though she loves to nerd out on plants; she’s a compelling main character and I’m eager to know more about her life as an herbalist before coming to the inner court. I loved the detailed art style and also watching Maomao build this little community. For example, the concubines and fellow ladies-in-waiting conspire to make sure Maomao’s kidnappers receive little to no money, while paying her secretly under the table. She’s the star here and I want more of her smart deductions, mad scientist experimentations with herbs, and exasperated looks she gives Jinshi’s suspicious and nosey presence.

I do want to touch on the presence of eunuchs as I think there is language that could be taken as transphobic. A lot of emphasis is placed on a man’s identity being linked to his genitalia and losing that causes him to become more soft and feminine. No men, aside from the emperor, are allowed within the inner court unless they are eunuchs, given that the inner court is where all of the concubines live. However, I do want to be cognizant that the setting is based on imperial China and what may have been the reality of how people viewed eunuchs.

I initially picked this one up because of a possible romance between Maomao and Jinshi, but I honestly don’t even care about that now. The episodic mysteries and community of women have superseded that. I’ll certainly continue this series. As a bonus, an anime adaptation premiered in October!

When I first read the description of The City of Stardust, it seemed like a tempting amalgamation of things I love in a quasi-dark academia package. Things I heard and read alluded to a magical mystery, vengeful gods, and a forbidden romance. Yes, I can confirm the book had all of those things, but wow, did it take a lot of time to get things done.

Violet Everly knows her family is cursed. Once in a generation, the most talented of Everlys walks off into the night, never to be seen again. Her mother was supposed to do the same, but instead abandoned Violet around the age of ten in the hopes of finding answers and breaking the curse. For nearly a decade, Violet is raised in the care of her two uncles.

Violet’s mother and uncles are exiled scholars, beings who can wield magical keys to traverse between the scholar city of Fidelis and the rest of the world. Scholars have the innate ability to mold and use a mystical material called reveurite, which is made of stars, but rely on traveling to Earth for other important supplies due to the shortcomings of their wintry, fractured world.

Until she reaches her twenties, Violet is kept in the dark about most things. Her existence is meant to be kept secret, lest the powers that be have Violet fulfill the curse in her mother’s place. Spoiler alert (but not really): her existence is exposed and she has a year to find her mom or must offer herself up in her mom’s stead.

The writing really is beautiful, but sometimes turns into navel-gazing and I only felt interested in what was happening about 60% of the time. Lovely descriptions and waxing poetic about the stars does nothing to move things along and I want to stress that this is a book for meanderers. If you love a fantasy that takes its time and dips into small, inconsequential details of the world (a la Tolkein), you might really love what Summers has done here. If you want more of a story where no word or punctuation is wasted, you may feel frustrated at how the momentum drags.

I was motivated to see if Violet would meet her deadline and what would become of the Everly curse, but even after finishing and reflecting on the book, there were lingering feelings of being underwhelmed. Violet never stood out or took a firm shape in her personality, despite being the main character. The romance was rushed and was more a telling of big feelings rather than feeling them happen. I also think there was a much more interesting romantic candidate that could have been chosen.

While you’re in it and actively reading, it’s easy to find reasons to keep going and finish the story. Afterward, though, I’m more wishy-washy about the whole experience. I am the equivalent of the shrug emoji.

“Amanda, did you enjoy it?”

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess?

This book is CHARMING. C.H.A.R.M.I.N.G. I devoured it in just over a day and what a beautiful day it was.

Emily Wilde is a scholar of the fae, or ‘Folk’ as they’re called in the book. She’s serious, a bit curmudgeonly, dedicated to her studies, and utterly genius when it comes to studying and interacting with the Folk. The Folk are tricky and cunning, with some of them being outright gruesome and vicious.

In book one, Emily reluctantly works with Wendell Bambleby. He’s also a scholar of the Folk, and his carefree, charming personality are both the opposite of Emily’s, and serve to irritate her in the extreme.

For more on book one, there is an excellent guest review that can tell you more. You definitely do need to read book one before diving into this book.

In book two, Emily and Wendell plan a trip to the Swiss Alps to do a number of things:

1. Find a door to a faerie kingdom.
2. Solve the mystery of two scholars of the Folk who went missing decades earlier.
3. Work on the map of the faerie realm that Emily is writing.

There are two extra people joining them: Emily’s niece and the department head. They make lovely additions to the expedition, as both foils for Emily and Wendell and as characters in and of themselves.

There is another task that Emily alone needs to undertake:

This story is endlessly absorbing. For a while I really did live in a world in which the Folk are real and widely studied. The genius of the writing makes it all so vivid that I couldn’t help but believe. The footnotes are a particular favourite and gave me a distinct nostalgia for my years spent reading academic articles. (Although the content of these footnotes is a great deal more interesting than some of the dry articles I’ve had to read in the past).

I don’t want to say too much about how their adventure unfolds, so I’m keeping things brief. The plot is a delight with little twists and big twists and reveals aplenty. Each chapter is an entry in Emily’s journal and I’d often need to tell myself that she was writing the entry after the events I was reading about so she was safe and I didn’t need to panic.

For an immersive story, rich in detail and gloriously charming, give this book a go (after book one). It is such a great series so far!

I’m a sucker for a historical mystery with an angry female lead. Can’t resist. Must read immediately. Fortunately, I discovered this series of books with exactly this type of sleuth on offer.

Rhiannon ‘Non’ Vaughan is auditing some lectures at Oxford in 1881. Women aren’t allowed to attend all lectures, write exams or attain degrees, but Non is determined to do as much as she can nonetheless. Non is a fearsome young Welsh woman studying the Welsh language and it chafes that she has to be ‘respectful’ and ‘respectable’ while women’s presence at Oxford is so tenuous. She’s determined to show that she’s just as capable as her male peers, but she’s perpetually made to be small. And boy, she hates that. And I love her.

Basil Rice is a Jesus College fellow, very secretly gay and a friend of Non and her family. One of his students dies unexpectedly and while the Oxford police force isn’t fully up and running yet, the principal of Jesus College asks Basil to figure out what happened before the inquest so that they can protect the college from any scandal. Not noble motives, sure. But it opens the door to an interesting mystery, especially once Non inserts herself into affairs (against everyone’s better judgement, it must be said).

Perhaps one of my favourite things about this book is how vivid the picture of the victim, Sidney Parker, is. So much is revealed and layer by layer, the picture grows ever more detailed. Sidney is a tangible presence in the story and not simply a plot moppet or a faceless victim. He has quirks and personality and challenges. He’s a well-rounded character for all that he isn’t alive during proceedings.

I won’t say too much about the mystery element of things because I would need to hide the whole thing behind spoiler tags. There are some very suspenseful moments, especially towards the end of the book. But building up to that, Basil and Non do their investigating separately so bits and pieces are revealed in a variety of ways which keeps things interesting during the ‘quieter’ chapters.

Aside from Non, the real star of this story is the rich historical detail. I had my eyes opened to the ‘patent remedies’ that were advertised so widely during the Victorian era. I gained a new appreciation for how Oxford ran at that time (and probably still does to some degree). The supporting characters are just as rich as the historical detail and I enjoyed them immensely too, especially Non’s second cousin and chaperone, Lily. Speaking of, there is a potential love interest for Non, but that romantic subplot is very minor and not quite certain by the end of the book.

If you’re looking for a historical mystery rich in detail and heart, then I think you’ll really enjoy this book. In the meantime, I shall be eagerly awaiting book two’s arrival.

At this point we’ve reviewed so many Courtney Milan books on this site that the reviews are kind of a foregone conclusion – you know the book is going to get a good grade, the question is just – how good? My answer for The Marquis Who Mustn’t is: Very Good, especially if you are in the mood for pure heartwarming material. Evil is vanquished. Wrongs are righted. Apologies are made. And of course, love wins.

What I appreciate most about Courtney Milan is that she makes every book fresh. Common themes run through her work but I never feel like I’m reading the same thing with a new cover. Milan always provides something new for the reader to geek out over. In this book, it’s pottery. In the last book, it was brown sauce, something I didn’t know I could geek out over (but I totally did).There’s also always layers and layers of character development in her books. In this case, I expected a powerful romance. I did not expect an even more powerful depiction of a mother/daughter relationship that moved me right down to my core.

Aside from the relationships that the protagonists, Naomi and Kai, have with their relatives and their fellow villagers, my favorite aspect of this romance is that Naomi and Kai are not interested in changing one another, and they have a kind of trust mingled with boundaries that one rarely sees in fiction or in life. In many cases as the plot progresses, something is set up to be a dealbreaker, but when the protagonists encounter these potential deal breakers they tend to react with, “OK, I accept this new thing I’ve learned about you, and I will incorporate it into my life under my terms.” It leads to a fascinating dynamic and loads of interesting and moving character growth.

No one who reads Milan, or this site, will be surprised to see an A grade here. If this is your first Milan, I’d suggest starting with the first Wedgeford Trial book, The Duke Who Didn’t. However, The Marquis Who Mustn’t is a solid stand alone. It’s a great romance, it involves people who solve problems creatively and in interesting and unexpected ways, it has history and art, it has complicated family dynamics, it explores historical diversity in England, and, as I mentioned a long time ago in this sentence, it has a whopping good love story. Full squee for this installment in a long line of squee-worthy books.

Man, I should have known better. Venus Merriwell was annoying as hell in the first book, but she was less annoying in the second, so I did hold out hope that she would be an interesting protagonist in her book. Alas! Alack! Woe! She was not. I still read the whole thing, though.

Venus Merriwell’s great passion in life is the orphanage that she runs with her partners. They need to expand and with a bequest from a recently deceased benefactor, she has her eye on the building next door. There’s a snag in the form of Galahad Sinclair, a family friend, who snapped up those buildings before Venus even realised that they were available for sale. Moreover, there is some nefarious activity but that’s not Galahad’s doing (it’s a long boring story), but Galahad is who Venus blames. They had a pretty fractious relationship up to this point (again, long story), and they had been softening towards each other again, but the sale of these properties really sets the cat amongst the pigeons. For this book to make any sense, you need to have read books 1 and 2 in the series.

According to Venus, her fatal flaw is that she’s a terrible judge of character. She supported her father in book one, and he was clearly a toad. She adored some of her suitors, but they were also toads. She does not adore Galahad Sinclair. Yes, she had been changing her opinion of Galahad, but finding out about this building sale puts them right back to square one. For Venus, this just reinforces her belief that she’s a terrible judge of character. (Side note: I agree with her)

This book was meh. There were some sweet moments and some lovely frisson at times, but for the most part? Meh. There are some inconsistencies in this book that bother me. Venus is painted as a pious character who abhors gambling. At least, that’s the impression she gives throughout the series and it’s certainly the impression she gives Galahad. But she herself is a card-counting fiend who remains unbeaten in the family. She freely gambles with her relatives, but takes a holier-than-thou approach to gambling outside of the home. She is forever whining about the orphanage’s lack of funds, but she now has ostentatiously wealthy relatives. Why does she not get money from them? This is never explained. In the first few pages of the novel, such a deliciously rich plot was offered up and I had such high hopes that it would deliver. Unfortunately, Venus’ perpetually pouty bottom lip and her tendency to judge meant that it all became rather repetitive and one-note – “woe is me, Galahad is evil, harrumph.”

I’m a real sucker for enemies-to-lovers and I think that’s what kept me going in this book – my love for the trope rather than my love for this book. I had rather enjoyed the first two books in the series, so I wanted to complete it, but I wish I hadn’t because now it’s left a distinct taste of meh in my mouth. I realise I sound a lot grumpier than the grade might usually indicate, but the missed opportunities here put me in Grouch Town, population: me. The book itself is … fine. Sigh.

TW: Violence, violence to animals, death of parent

Night of the Witch is part historical fantasy and part paranormal romance. It’s the first book in a series, but doesn’t really end on a cliff hanger and the romance gets a full arc by the end, so it’s fine as a standalone. I enjoyed the supernatural element of this book, but I really enjoyed the historical aspect as it was a time period I hadn’t read much about previously.

Set during the European witch trials in Germany, this novel follows Fritzi, a young witch who loses her entire coven to the hexenjȁgers, or witch hunters. After a brutal attack sees Fritzi’s mother, a coven elder, burned alive, she makes it her mission to save the one witch the hexenjȁgers let live and took hostage. Fritzi is traumatized and on her own, yet somehow must rescue her ten-year-old cousin from the hexenjȁger’s fortified base of operations.

Otto is a hexenjȁger like his father before him, but he’s harboring a secret. He doesn’t believe in magic or witches, and he sees the church’s witch hunts as a thinly veiled means to keep the population, especially troublesome women, in check. He plans to destroy the hexenjȁgers from the inside out, but Fritzi disrupts his plan and he’s shocked to discover her magic is real. Together the two of them work out a plan to rescue the witches (and those accused of witchcraft) from the clutches of the sociopathic Commander Kirch, while simultaneously navigating their forbidden attraction to each other.

I’ve read a lot of paranormal romance and fiction in general, but this was the first book I ever read set during the European witch trials. I found the medieval setting, and its link to real history, fascinating. On a personal note, much of this book was set in Trier, which was extra cool because I’ve been there. Honestly, so many historical witchy books are set in/around Salem, so this was a neat departure, and I didn’t even know these witch trials had occurred.

The book does a good job of blending a lot of action (Frizti and Otto have a lot to do to bring down Kirch), fantasy/paranormal elements, and romance. The world building around how magic and witchcraft work is solid and creates a good base for other books to be set in this world. The romance-while-doing-all-the-things was charming too, although I sometimes wondered at how long Otto and Fritzi went between bathing when things got heated (they crawl through sewers, y’all). 

Occasionally the action felt a little stalled amid the exposition and world-building, but it wasn’t enough to tamper my enjoyment of the book. If you’re looking for a paranormal romance with a unique setting, then I highly recommend Night of the Witch. 

Sparrow Hill Road was a 4 1/2 star Top Pick in the May 2014 RT Book Reviews magazine that Amanda and I recapped, and I was curious, in part because I didn’t recognize it. I know McGuire’s other series (Adam really likes the October Daye books) but this one had escaped my knowledge. I found the audiobook, narrated by Amy Landon, at my library, and I inhaled it. I got so much done because I would invent chores to keep listening.

The book is a collection of short stories that form a cohesive whole, and form a time- and narrative-jumping puzzle. The organization of the world in which Rose hitchhikes is reflected by the organization of the chapters and sections of her story: in Rose’s world, she can interact with the Daylight, or the living world, but also drops down into the Twilight, a world only accessed by the dead, ghosts, and other similar beings. Time passes at a different rate in the Twilight, and sometimes Rose will resurface having spent a few minutes in the Twilight while in the Daylight, years have passed.

Similarly, the individual stories jump forward and back in time, and the larger narrative threads will sometimes leap ahead and other times move forward in tiny increments. I really liked listening to the stories because the time jumps were easier for my brain to follow, I think, in audio rather than in text. There are tiny pieces of information in early stories that become extremely important later, and I was delighted every time I thought a character or piece of information would be more crucial in a future scene, and I was right. Also, the narration was excellent.

Because she is a hitchhiking ghost, Rose’s compulsion is to keep moving, to find another ride to whatever destination she has in mind, or is being pulled towards. Sometimes she ends up guiding a newly-dead person to the afterlife or saving them from a fatal accident. Some stories reveal how Rose senses a person’s imminent death, and some are about the larger quest that haunts her: avoiding Bobby Cross, the man who ran her off the road and caused her death. The book has three sections, and there’s a progression to Rose’s narration as she’s dead longer and spends more time among the modern living. She died as a 16 year old in the 50s and she’s permanently 16; by the time the book progresses to the final sections, which take place around 2015, Rose is more crass, more prone to anger and sarcasm, and more prone to be matter of fact about sex. When her narration changed, especially at the start of Part III: Scary Stories, I was a little startled, but it made some sense when I thought about it. The change is Rose’s perspective is subtle until it’s not.

This was a perfect read for this time of year, when the sun is getting lower in the sky and the light is changing. Sparrow Hill Road is built from ghost story layered upon ghost story, starting with Rose’s own ghostly origins. If you’ve ever heard a story about a young girl hitchhiking, borrowing a coat or a jacket, then disappearing when the driver reaches the address she gave (or when the driver is found in the wreckage of their car, dead and alone) leaving the borrowed coat behind, then you’ve heard the legend upon which Rose is based.

But embellishing the legend with motivation and reason – why is she hitchhiking? Where is she going? Why does she turn up in different places, always borrowing a jacket, always disappearing? – locates Rose in a larger universe of folklore, with different mythologies rubbing up against one another. There are lots of different ways from many different cultures to describe the dead; they all live together here.

The aspect of this book I appreciated most and am still thinking about, was that a lot of the tension in each story, and in the book overall, is about stasis and change: Rose is forever 16, sometimes stuck in the prom dress she died in, but she’s also changing. The worlds around her, the Daylight and the Twilight, change and yet remain the same, much like the legends about Rose. The details may change, but the core of the ghost story – the hitchhiker, the jacket, the road, the disappearance – remain constant. There is always death; there is always life.

I was so happy to have discovered (re-discovered?) this book (thanks RT!). It was spooky and thoughtful, hopeful, clever, and exactly the right level of haunting. It’s a series, so its got some unfinished narratives both large and minuscule, and there were developments in the last section that I wished there had been much, much more of, but that’s part of the enticement to keep reading into the next book.

My friend recommended this book to me and I have to tell you I was hooked from the moment I read the blurb:

‘Thrice wedded, but never bedded’.

I MEAN! YES PLEASE!

This book scratched an itch that I thought I’d never be able to reach. I grew up on books by Jilly Cooper, specifically the series where the main character’s name was the title of the book. These were tempestuous novels with slammed doors and groveling and intense feelings, but I know these books don’t at all hold up. I desperately wanted to read a tempestuous novel but one that wouldn’t make me cringe or rage because of dubious consent, controlling behaviour, and the like. Alice Coldbreath seems to have gifted the world with just that kind of book!

Mathilde’s mom is a powerful courtier in the newly united country of Karadok. Mathilde has been married off legally for political reasons three times. The first two were very old men and she only met them a couple times in all before they died. The third time was to a leader from the recently-conquered north, Lord Guy Martindale. It’s part of a peace treaty, but the two never actually meet before signing the wedding papers, and they don’t meet for the first four years of their marriage.

Mathilde grows frustrated with her sheltered life at court and so runs away (with the help of a few pages) to go to her husband, Guy. The journey nearly ends in disaster when Mathilde and her page friend Robin are chucked in jail, but Guy saves the day when he vouches for both of them. He installs them in the hunting lodge – as though she was a mistress and not his wife – for he doesn’t believe that she is his wife. You can see what the third act issue is going to be!

This is a more progressive version of the books that I grew up reading. Delicate, wide-eyed virgin who is finding her more spirited side paired with a gruff, alpha-male type who is protective and very large. Except, in this book, while Mathilde has the endearing naivete of Amy Adams’ character in Enchanted, she does seduce Guy using the tips in the illustrated erotica that the local witch gives her for inspiration. Guy is pretty alpha, yes, but he’s a proponent of enthusiastic consent and he does some world-class, A-grade grovelling in the last third of the book supplicating himself at Mathilde’s feet. Literally. Repeatedly.

It’s difficult to put into words why I love this book, when all my brain and heart want to do is flail from pillar to post exclaiming that I love it, but I shall endeavour to be more articulate than that. I love that this book revisits old archetypes in a way that is so much more palatable than those classics from the 80s and 90s. I love that Mathilde’s naivete is so believable and earnest that it’s impossible not to love her. But she never becomes a sickly sweet figure. She is discovering that her little teeth bite (literally). Guy is initially a bit flat, but as he meets Mathilde and grows more in love with her, his personality blossoms. The writing is so immersive that for the hours that I was reading this book, I completely forgot about my nagging to-do list and as soon as the budget permits I shall be buying this series en masse.

Speaking of which, the blurb labels this a standalone novel, but other reviewers have said that this book should actually be read after the Vawdrey brothers series. This is my first Alice Coldbreath novel and I adjusted with ease to the world and existing characters, but I am now keen to go back and start with book 1 of the Vawdrey series and work my way through from there. I loved how it updated older, familiar archetypes, I loved how absorbing it was to read, and I can’t wait for more.

I read this book in a day. A delicious day. A work day! In between meetings and emails I was reading this book. (Sorry, boss.)

Landon Stackhouse, a hockey goaltender, has been called up from the Calgary farm team to play in the NHL as a backup goalie due to an injury. He’s riddled with anxiety in so many ways and tends to stick to himself. Casey Hicks, a star winger on the team, isn’t deterred, however. He loves talking to people and welcoming them to the team. That he hates being alone is just by the by. Landon is due to be in Calgary for a bit longer than anticipated and so Casey offers one of his spare rooms up to Landon.

This is a niche reference, but I see Casey Hicks as a fictionalised version of a South African rugby player – Faf de Klerk. This is how he celebrated South Africa winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup: wearing only SA-flag underwear, drinking out of the trophy and shaking hands with Prince Harry, bold as you please. Sadly there’s no GIF or video encapsulating all of this, but if you google it, you’ll see the general vibe and look that Faf/Casey has.

Or maybe not quite, because Casey is scared of being alone in the dark. Like can’t-sleep scared. But put Casey in a room with someone and he sleeps like a baby. The dark is no longer scary. Meanwhile, Landon’s anxiety ratchets up before matches where he’s the starting goalie. When he feels that way, he sits in the dark with an old goalie mask on and meditates because he too cannot fall asleep. Put Landon in a room with someone else and he also sleeps like a baby. You see where this is going?

I spend 80% of my day being an anxious wreck about unlikely things like the building collapsing on me, so you would think that I’d be more supportive of characters with anxiety. But Landon and Casey’s anxieties so neatly ‘cancel’ each other out. Put them in a room together and magically their matching anxieties cease to be a problem. Colour me unimpressed, but I’ve not met someone with anxiety for whom the fix is so easy and so mutually satisfactory. In my experience, anxiety is never so conveniently managed, especially the kind of anxiety that will not let me sleep one wink. The anxiety as written feels too much like a plot moppet. You have to actively suspend your disbelief to buy into it.

I very much appreciated the amount of communication between them, particularly during sex scenes. Landon has a very low sex drive and he’s not even sure if he’s gay. He’s a virgin and has had no inclination to change that. Until Casey. Their sex is hot, in part because there is a lot more talk about consent. Casey checks in with Landon often while they’re trysting and they have open and rather hot conversations about what they like and don’t like. And if you’re a frequent reader of m/m hockey romances, I’ll let you know that there was no homophobia to overcome/deal with in this novel.

If you’re prepared to do a bit of heavy lifting when it comes to suspending your disbelief about mental health issues, this is an immersive story with an emotionally satisfying ending. I liked both characters, and while I struggled to fully appreciate the ease with which they dealt with their own anxieties, I had a lovely day not-entirely-working while reading this book.

Let’s start with the fact that I adore KJ Charles’ books. All of them. So I was well-positioned to love this one, especially as I had adored the first book in this series, which Carrie reviewed. Book two didn’t quite have the complexity of that first book, but I still loved this story and devoured it quickly.

Rufus, a major in the army, has found out that he is in fact an earl, specifically the Earl of Oxney on the edges of Romney Marsh where this series is set. Once the news is out, Rufus gets it from all sides. The man who expected to be named earl has challenged his legitimacy in court and does not accept its findings that Rufus is the earl. Another complication enters the chat when Luke Doomsday appears at the manor. Luke has a story about how he might be the legitimate earl. But how true is that story?

Rufus is a straightforward man who is honest to his very core. Luke is open to a scheme and a plot and a manipulation, but is he manipulating Rufus? What does he actually want? There’s an ulterior motive there. Rufus also has a temper on him; he’s protective and loyal and utterly caught up in Luke Doomsday. Luke very much feels the same. But he’s got himself in a nasty tangle with his lies. The relationship between Rufus and Luke before the lies are exposed is vigorous, sexy and a bit thrilling. They’re deeply enamoured of each other. But can those feelings persist through Luke’s revelations?

For me, the best part of this book was the conversations between Luke and Rufus, both in the bedroom and outside of it. There was such a profound connection between the two, that it was easy for me to be swept away by it. Rufus is exactly who he appears to be. He’s open and vulnerable with Luke despite himself and his ideas of right and wrong. The man is just so good.

Put that up against Luke’s apparent scheming ways which are underpinned by something a lot more real. In terms of plot, this felt more of an extension of book one’s rather complicated plot than a plot of its own. The mystery element of the plot is drawn entirely from book one and the emotional growth required by Luke is also drawn directly from book one. Despite this reliance on the prior novel, the connection between Luke and Rufus was so full and rich that I didn’t really miss a more complex plot. If you haven’t read book one, then read book one and two close together. I think you’ll find it a rewarding project.

I don’t know if there’s a book three coming, but I desperately hope there is because this series with its setting of a marsh run by smugglers turned legitimate business people and their grey morals is just fantastic!