Open Thread for Readers for August 2020
Misc / Need A Rec!book-pimp / Open Thread / Promotion10 Comments
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?
Gees, August is as good as here. I swear, 2020 has been 10 years long, but each week lasts only a minute. Never seen so many Fridays come so fast.
Books have been a constant in my life, always there and appreciated. They’ve taken on more importance and prominence now, as have the DA and SBTB communities. Coming here, browsing my library’s digital content, checking all my wish lists: these are the simple things that have helped. And watching all the Marvel Avenger movies in chronological story order. Thank you, all.
I’m re-reading WE RIDE UPON STICKS by Quan Barry for my book club this month. I love that the person who hosts (now via Zoom) gets to pick the book and this was my choice almost from the blurb. Highly recommended if 1989 girls’ field hockey and potentially witch-like power appeal to you.
Currently reading Jasmine Guillory’s PARTY OF TWO and enjoying it. Not this book specifically, although it’s there, but is the trend to create a very competent, highly suspicious female lead and pair her with a guy who is so clearly into her and she can’t see it? When the reader is told/shown a man is honorable and all things golden-retriever-like, it’s hard to understand a woman’s continued reluctance and distrust. Maybe this is a tables-turned set up, after all the years of men being commitment-phobic? And I realize she doesn’t see inside his head as we do, which is why I keep thinking, c’mon, believe him when he shows you who he is. Don’t assume he only wants a one-night fling. But this could all be just me, old and holed up too long.
Also reading (focus, what focus?) GATE OF DARKNESS, CIRCLE OF LIGHT by Tanya Huff. It’s an older book of hers, a real old-school fantasy set in contemporary Toronto with angels, Faire folk, a bard, a cat and so on. The best part is Rebecca, a developmentally disabled young woman who is so strong and so sure in her actions and understanding. I’ve read nearly everything of Huff’s and she has never disappointed me.
Finally, I read and loved Derek B. Miller’s AMERICAN BY DAY, a contemporary Oslo-set crime novel about an elderly American veteran and his efforts to save a young boy from kidnappers. This was unexpected, very smart, not the usual dour Scandinavian police procedural that makes me want to stay in bed forever. The female Chief Inspector appears in the second book (aptly titled NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT) when she travels to America in search of, iirc, her brother. I’m eager to read it.
Well. I didn’t intend to go on for so long. Cheers. Good talk. Carry on. I’ll see myself out.
Sad news – Olivia de Havilland died. Well she was 104 and died in her sleep, bless her. That’s the way to go. I feel the need to go watch “Captain Blood” or “The Adventures of Robin Hood now.” She also wrote a very funny book about when she met and married her French husband.
https://dearauthor.com/features/film-reviews/friday-film-review-captain-blood/
https://dearauthor.com/features/film-reviews/friday-film-review-robin-hood/
https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/review-every-frenchman-has-one-by-olivia-de-havilland/
104…wow! Rest in peace, Olivia de Havilland.
@Darlynne, my book group read AMERICAN BY DAY and NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT. I liked them both. Enjoy!
I spent some of July comfort rereading Zoe York’s Pine Harbour series. The books are set in a small Canadian town on the shore of Lake Huron; and in each romantic pairing at least one of the MCs is usually from one of the two main families in the area, most of whom work in first-responder, military, or construction jobs. Despite having a small-town vibe, the books do address some thornier issues: drug addiction, terminal illness, losing a spouse, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, family conflict. There’s angst, but it’s relatively low-key, and there’s a basic maturity and decency to the characters whether as friends, lovers, spouses, or relatives. There are eight books in the series and, while it helps to read them in order, each can be read as a stand-alone. A perfect blend of soothing tone with some serious subject matter. I especially liked LOVE IN A SANDSTORM in which a soldier, suffering from the physical and mental effects of a combat injury, reconnects with the woman he impulsively married shortly before he got hurt; it poses some really deep questions about what we owe to someone who is no longer the person we fell in love with.
So I thought I’d spend part of August reading some of the “spicier” books York publishes under her alternate pen name, Ainsley Booth. I’ve read and loved Booth’s Forbidden Bodyguards series, but I had yet to read her Frisky Beavers erotic romances (co-written with Sadie Haller). When I saw the entire series is now available on KU, I grabbed them. There are four main books in the series—PRIME MINISTER, DOCTOR BAD BOY, FULL MOUNTIE, and MR. HAT TRICK—along with a number of associated novellas & short stories. The books are centered around (fictional) Canadian political, cultural, and sports figures. Based on PRIME MINISTER (which I’m halfway through), the stories are sexy (with a bit of kink thrown in) with some humor to undercut things getting too serious.
I was having a substantial spiritual and emotional block during the pandemic. I couldn’t read, couldn’t knit, house has hit new levels of squalor. Just weeks of time becoming bent and vague as all I did was work from home and then idly fuck aorund on the internet being vaguely dissatisfied with everything while eating all my feelings. This ended with a lot of tight pants and ennui. And not in the sexy bad girl way of tight pants and ennui. More like middle aged middle management and mom type gives up on everything. I seem to have broken through with some books that had really joyful endings, after a good helping of angst to get where they needed to go. Thank goodness. Also, I deleted facebook from my phone today so maybe I’ll get back to other things I’ve neglected.
My commitment to myself this year was to read from a more diverse authorship. More BIPOC and LGBT+ voices in particular. This is much easier to do in Romancelandia than it is in the world of Mysteries. There are hordes of recommendations on Twitter for romance. It’s amazing.
Because I am somewhat dim, I got Boyfriend Material and Boyfriend Project conflated in my mind, but both were really really good. I love the 2 Grumps in Love theme of Boyfriend Material. (Please Rec More Grumps In Love, any gender identity or orientation allowed). I loved the female friendships of Boyfriend Project and the nearly unresolvable conflict of interest. So I highly endorse both of these. I also loved Talia Hibberts’ latest installment, Take a Hint, Dani Brown, though I thought the heroine took a long time to get her shit together. Her issues seemed very much in line with the untrusting heroine thing that Darlynne spoke of above.
@AnnaM: Gosh, I can so relate on the days mushing together and to “giving up on everything.“ My apartment looks like a disaster zone at the moment.
I went thought a “grumpy hero” list on Goodreads and found some grumpy character books I’ve enjoyed in the past. Not all of these are grumpy hero, a few are grumpy heroine since the list jogged my memory about some books that aren’t on it.
Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai
Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray
Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas
Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas
Slightly Married by Mary Balogh
Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh
Someone to Honor by Mary Balogh
The Understatement of the Year by Sarina Bowen
Night in Eden by Candice Proctor
Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh
Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh
Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh
A Fallen Lady by Elizabeth Kingston
The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long
What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long
A Champion’s Heart by Piper Huguley
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews (follow up with Wildfire and then White Hot)
The Jade Temptress by Jeannie Lin
The Dangerous Viscount by Miranda Neville
The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville
Confessions from an Arranged Marriage by Miranda Neville
The Importance of Being Wicked by Miranda Neville
The Duke of Dark Desires by Miranda Neville
Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry
I, too, can identify, @AnnaM; I’m glad that you’ve turned a corner.
A couple more grumpy hero romances for you to consider ~
Making Faces by Amy Harmon (Expect to cry.)
The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata
@AnnaM: I really enjoyed FAR CRY by Kate Canterbary. It has a gruff/grumpy hero and a prickly, strong-willed heroine. The best part is that they are not magically transformed into different people by love. They might become better people, but their essential personalities remain the same.
I’ve also noticed than in a lot of Beauty and the Beast retellings, the Beast is on the gruff/grumpy side. (I read mostly contemporaries, but I’m sure it’s true of historicals too.) One of my favorites is Jackie Ashenden’s THE BILLIONAIRE BEAST. It is a billionaire & workplace romance, which I know isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the hero is agoraphobic and the heroine is trying to pay her comatose fiancé’s medical bills. Angst for days!
@AnnaM: We hear you and we are here for you. The dust bunnies have become sentient and somebody who cares is going to have to deal with them, and it’s not me. Treat yourself kindly.
For another grumpy hero, I really liked Penny Watson’s APPLES SHOULD BE RED novella. The main characters are 59 and 62, complete opposites, and it works beautifully. Currently .99 at Amazon.
@Darlynne: I loved that novella and Tom really is a grumpy old bastard. Be aware that there was discussion about a term that he used in the book.
https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-a-reviews/a-minus-reviews/review-apples-should-be-red-by-penny-watson/