3.5 stars I think the fact that I read this book in a feverish cram session over the course of two days (to prepare for the CBR8 Book Club discussion) had a lot to do with how much I enjoyed it, which is to say that by necessity, I skimmed over anything that just wasn’t jumping out as MEGA IMPORTANT and, in real-time, was kind of minimizing how much of that material existed or how often that happened. In hindsight, it was actually rather frequently. […]
A safe space for spoilers
Just throwing this out there right off the bat… this review is gonna have spoilers in it. They will be unavoidable, and the entire review is going to assume that you have also read this book, because I need a safe space to discuss the ending and what that means retroactively about the series and for my feelings in general. If you’re looking for a general sense of how much I recommend this book, I point you toward my four star rating and encourage you […]
An utterly ridiculous cover for a book that’s more about probability than rippling abs
I really like the cut of Cecilia Grant’s jib. Her romances read as refreshingly simple, high on practicality and low on histrionics. The leads each have set out to accomplish something, and they find that the other has complementary skills and therefore can help each other achieve their goals. Along the way, their respect for each others’ talents becomes admiration and love. It’s not romantic, in the traditional sense of the genre, with wind-swept hair and rain-soaked gowns and proclamations of love on cliff-tops. But […]
The Other Blahter
3.5 stars (very mild spoilers herein) If I could sum this book up, it would be with the appropriately trite “interesting, but not memorable.” The Other Daughter follows Rachel Woodley, and, look, I’m just going to go with the Goodreads description on this one because it’s already pretty succinct: “Raised in a poor yet genteel household, Rachel Woodley is working in France as a governess when she receives news that her mother has died, suddenly. Grief-stricken, she returns to the small town in England where […]
An extended grumble with a few facepalms and at least one out loud “WHY”
After two of her books, I have a very complicated relationship with Sonali Dev. It would be very, very easy if I could just say “I don’t like her books,” and move on. Instead, I’m in the potentially masochistic position of still wanting to read her work, but I just desperately want it to be better. I want to respect the hero. I want him to respect the heroine. I don’t want to read how he lies and hides things from her, or how he […]
Unnecessary “I liked this” headline
As a reviewer, I get to a point with authors I love — and as much as I hate to segregate out certain authors, this is especially pronounced with genre authors who proudly inhabit a particular niche — where I can’t really go too deeply into what I love about their books without feeling like I am repeating myself. I talk about how and why they excel at characterization, the themes that they tend to explore really well, their excellent scene-setting, reliable pacing, and effective […]
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