Open Thread for Readers for May 2026
Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general? Post about it here!
When I posted my review about translating Shakespeare, I wondered about translations of romance books. I read one I enjoyed by Marie Vareille that had been recommended to me by a fluent French speaker
https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/review-i-dont-really-need-you-by-marie-vareille/
but does anyone have any other recommendations?
Hmm, I can’t say I’ve ever read romances in translation! I’m stumped.
At the suggestion of a friend, I read a couple of Heated Rivalry fanfics last month. I’m not a big fanfic reader and as i read them I realized why. It’s because one of my favorite aspects of reading fiction is getting to know the protagonists for the first time, and another is getting a whole story with a plot, start to finish. Nevertheless I really enjoyed one called “I Know Where to Draw the Line” by Magneticwave, and I recommend it. The author is very skilled and if they ever publish a book, I will seek it out.
I also read one that is hugely popular but didn’t work for me, “Home Economics” by Anonymous. It was filled with yearnings and I’ve seen it extolled for that by more than one person. I love yearning, but this was almost nothing but yearning and it made me realize that I need for a story to have a plot. The yearning has to be earned, also. I suppose you could say the TV show is where it was earned, but I wanted it to be earned on the page.
I’m curious about everyone’s experiences with fanfic. Do you read a lot of fanfic and if so what do you love about it? What is your favorite fandom and your favorite fics within it? Are there really popular fics whose appeal you don’t get? Really popular fics whose appeal you do get and that you want to recommend?
The only fan fic I read is by Taylor Fitzpatrick. She has traditionally published a number of m/m hockey romances (including the heartrending non-HEA, THROWN OFF THE ICE), but she has a huge number of fan fics on AO3 under the umbrella title YOU COULD MAKE A LIFE. There a long ongoing story called ALWAYS IN TANDEM that is a brilliant exploration of a long-term (often broken-up) relationship between two players, one of whom has severe undiagnosed (until recently) depression. So so good.
Also, I did finally watch HEATED RIVALRY. The catalyst being when one of my daughters (an avid reader but not of romance) showed up in a t-shirt featuring an illustration of a loon with the caption “Stupid Canadian Wolf-Bird” beneath it. “Is that a HEATED RIVALRY reference?” I asked. It was a bit chastening that she was surprised I even knew what HR was—and she was even more surprised when she discovered that I’d read all the books in the Game Changers series years ago as they were released. She effused about getting together with friends to binge-watch all six episodes and stopping midway through to make tuna melts. Apparently, this is a thing. As for me, I enjoyed the show very much once I let go of what Shane and Ilya looked like in my head and leaned into how they looked on screen. My one quibble was that the actor who played Kip looks nothing like the “pretty painted boyfriend” of GAME CHANGER, but that was a small thing in a extremely entertaining, well-written, and beautifully acted show.
I had no idea fan fiction existed until I started reading DA and SBTB. I haven’t read any – I choose books that have reviews or recommendations because my Tower of TBR will outlive me unless I kick up to reading three books daily for 14 months. Which is too much, even for me, and I live to read. Authors and publishers will also need to stop publishing for about 16 months. I actually made calculations! It is discouraging because I’ll never finish and also cheering because I’ll never run out of books to read.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Do Taylor Fitzpatrick’s AO3 fanfics have a happy ending or are they as heartrending as Thrown Off the Ice?
I have heard excellent things about Naomi Novik’s fanfics. Fun fact: she is not only a well-known and well-regarded (including by me) fantasy author, but also one of the founders of AO3. I will probably try some of hers at some point because I loved Spinning Silver, A Deadly Education, and The Summer War so much.
I’m so glad you watched and enjoyed the show! It took me a bit to get used to Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams’s appearance too, but the acting was wonderful IMO – Storrie really captured Ilya and Williams was an even better Shane than the one in my head. I also thought the music and lighting added so much. And I was pleased with how faithful the show was to the books and how much of the dialogue (including “Stupid Canadian wolf-bird”) was used.
I am looking forward (with a little trepidation) to Unrivaled. It sounds like there will be a fair bit of Troy and Harris in it, and I am excited for the Troy / Shane interactions.
@LML: I’ll never finish reading my digital library either, and what’s more I’ve lost interest in some of the older books that I bought on sale back when Jane was doing the Daily Deals posts. I bought so many! I also have hundreds of digital cookbooks. I use digital cookbooks all the time but still doubt I will make even one recipe out of each of them. :-(
@DiscoDollyDeb: Oh I forgot to say, re Kip, absolutely. And Scott too, he’s supposed to be a gorgeous blond god, and Francois Arnaud is a good actor but not a blond Adonis. On the whole though I think the show improved on Game Changer, which is my least favorite book in the series.
I also meant to say that I am happy for Rachel Reid, she deserves her good fortune.
@Janine: here’s the link to an old spreadsheet I found online. I think whoever put it together did do some time ago because there are other stories out there now and the BETWEEN THE TEETH trilogy has been published.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ABI-ESjriZXKWAIf04yzJXwy7ZHv_cJ9XIkA8qrfCsc/mobilebasic
To search for Taylor Fitzpatrick, look for Youcouldmakealife under Uncharacterized Fandoms.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Thanks! Do these stories have a happy ending?
@Janine: some do, some don’t. Other than THROWN OFF THE ICE, everything Fitzpatrick has published has an HEA. However, I read THROWN UP YOUR FISTS, LOSE YOUR WITS on AO3, and it has a downbeat ending, but I read elsewhere that one of the MCs in that story goes on to have an HEA with someone else in another story. Most of her universe is interconnected, so characters do pop up in different books/stories.
If you were to recommend just one of the Taylor Fitzpatrick books with the HEA, which would it be?
@Janine: I would say, YOU COULD MAKE A LIFE because it is, iirc, only one book. The Between the Teeth trilogy is great, but it’s three books (COMING IN FIRST PLACE, AND THEN, BETWEEN THE TEETH), and that’s a big commitment for a new-to-you author.
@Janine, I love to look at and read cookbooks (but not actually cook, how weird is that?), but not electronic editions. The photos aren’t always properly connected to the recipe. My former library had an amazing cookbook collection, adding new titles every month. *sigh*
I’m also not a big reader of fanfic, but one of my favorite recent books is “Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love”. It was one of far too many Draco/Hermione match-ups, but it was such fun and so clever that I enjoyed it immensely. Wanted to buy it as a book but it is only available online as far as I can tell.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Thank you! I will check it out.
@LML: I know a lot of people who feel that way about digital cookbooks. They work well for me because I have a tendency to spatter print cookbooks when I cook with them. Using my iPad makes me more careful. I can also prop it up more easiily (it has a keyboard case) and wipe it clean if (though this is rare) it gets a little spattered. And the cookbooks are a lot less expensive if bought when they go on sale. Plus, I lived in Los Angeles for many years and real estate there was at a premium. Digital cookbooks don’t have to be stored, and that allowed me to have more of them than would comfortably fit in a small apartment. The downside is that I ended up with too many.
@Susan/DC: Thanks. I’m not sure if I should read that one– I was not a Harry Potter fan and only got as far as a little into book three.
The author of DMATMOOBIL is Brigitte Knightley, who did publish a (different) Dramione book, The Irresistble Urge to Fall for Your Enemy. I haven’t read that one either so I can’t recommend or not recommend. If you read it, I’d love to hear what you thought.
I read both books, although I didn’t know they were written by the same person. Liked both but preferred the fanfic as I was so charmed by the conversations Draco had with himself as he protests a bit too much against his growing attraction to Hermione. The internal dialogue was smart and funny and exactly how I imagined someone would deny to himself what is obvious to everyone else (and would be obvious to him if it were happening to anyone else). Now that I know both works share an author, I can see the connections, although Osric’s struggle as he falls in love with Aurienne is not quite as amusing. Am waiting for the second half of the duology before making a final judgment.
@Susan/DC: Good to know, thanks. I had heard mixed reviews about the published book and now that I know you liked the fanfic better, I might try that.
I’ve never been able to get into fan fiction partly because, as Janine says, it feels patchy when it relies heavily on the original work and partly because a lot of it is not well written. I always think it must be what reading a publishers slush pile used to be like or like reading something from KU without a rec.
I have been dipping my toe in lately after hearing about and enjoying a fanfic of an obscure self published SFR novella, and it’s going only so-so. Apparently, my tastes are not mainstream enough because works I look up don’t tend to have a fandom. I’ve been persevering, though for some reason, and am reading a recommended Arthur/Merlin fanfic that reminds me of Hailey Turner’s Metahuman Files. So far, so good.