These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.
Heirs of Bone and Sea by Kay Adams
I think I listened to the audio book to Heirs of Bone and Sea because it was a part of the “what’s making me happy this week” segment on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. This was my first dual narrator audio book in a while. I liked it well enough. The world building is pretty light but the main story of a princess and a queen on the run was fun. Evhen, queen of Vodaerd and Princess Kalei of Marama are brought together when […]
Appetites & Vices by Felicia Grossman
Regency novel set literally anywhere other than the UK and with a Jewish heroine? Say no more. Plot: Ursula is an heiress to one of the largest banking empires in America, but she’s also Jewish and possibly a tiny bit on the spectrum so her social life is best characterized as non-existent. Fortunately, she has her giant brain, her dad, who ferociously supports her giant brain, and her quiet goy friend Hugo, who also enjoys running away from social situations to talk about books. Well, […]
The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
SPOILERS KINDA SORTA I went into this ready to love it, and mostly did. Grace is a sad and lonely woman whose son and husband have died. She’s convinced herself she’s undeserving of love, or fun, or of much of a life at all. She’s retreated into math (she’s a teacher) and is kinda just waiting for it to be over. Then she gets some crazy news regarding an inheritance, specifically of a small house on Ibiza, left to her by a former colleague she […]
In a Rush by Kate Canterbary
I love sports, and I love romance. On paper, the boom in sports romances in recent years seems to have been tailor made for me, but they have not really worked as a whole. Other than Liz Tomforde’s Windy City books, none of the sports romances I’ve picked up in the past few years have worked for me. I generally find them to be painfully predictable and boring, and as someone tragically familiar with transfer sagas, the whole team-as-found-family thing reads really exhausting to me. […]
All Fours by Miranda July
If you’ve been traipsing around the ‘new book recommendations’ corners of the internet that I frequent, you’ve likely already read the (very effective) hook for July’s latest novel: “A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey.” It certainly was effective on me, and I dived into this novel with reckless abandon. It’s […]
Spook Street by Mick Herron
Spook Street centres around David Cartwright, a spook (spy) emeritus who is now losing his memory, burdening his grandson River. River joined the Mi5 British intelligence service, following in grandpa’s footsteps, but became a laughing stock now resigned to a subunit in Slough House with the other “Slow Horse” agents with metaphorical egg on their faces. But there are other spooks, too. We meet a new Slow Horse named Coe, who has been so traumatized that he can’t stand human contact and can only listen […]
