I'm So (Not) Over You by Kosoko Jackson
While I like fake relationship, and I reallly like “we broke up but have worked on our issues and are not back together because there was never another for us,” there’s something about the way it all came together which fell a bit short of the mark. I did the thing which I know I shouldn’t do and tried to skim some reviews to see if someone managed to nail the issue I had in their review, and of course there’s a brilliant reviewer who […]
Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake
I liked this book, and all the things it was and wasn’t. Was: a sapphic, small town, reunited after many years but not in a “we used to date and I have alwayssssssss loooooooooovvvedddddddd youuuuuuuuu I haveeee alwayssss loved you I have etc” type of way. Multiple female friends! Satisfying takedown you know is coming because this is fiction, not real life, and rich people haven’t stacked the deck everywhere. Wasn’t: a barrel of baggage (not a thing I want! ymmv!)–there’s a frisson of it, […]
Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly
Hmm unfortunately I think this novel is better as very enjoyable lesson in non-binary pronoun usage than a non-caveat-ed romance novel. But that is for me, because aside from queer rep (which we always love to see! More of it! Everywhere! All the time!) there’s a lot of tropes here that I don’t particularly enjoy. I also think I’m not very into the trope of cooking shows as backdrop to romance. Or cooking as a backdrop to romance, especially when both players are in the […]
A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare
I read this, along with what feels like every other Tessa Dare book that people (Malin!) recommended, in a short span of time when I was sitting in India, where I had ended up after a very confusing day when we all thought my grandmother was going to pass away (she wasn’t! she is all fine! it was a hilarious expensive miscommunication!). What better way to spend an unexpected week away slash impromptu family reunion other than with a series of historical romances? The conceit […]
Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall
I realize there’s an entire subgenre of queer m/m-focus literature set in Ye Olde Times that has a soupçon of reality (like, there have always been queer people but there’s no Edwardian timeline in which they were openly walking about and getting married), some very specific tropes for characters (usually, seemingly-himbo + someone), and mile a minute sort of pity pitter patter pithy laugh lines. I think seemingly-himbo (the shimbo, we will call him) is probably my favorite foil to the more immediately interesting second […]
The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas
Real talk: after reading this, I’m waiting for the Lady Sherlock spin-off/novella which is nothing but Lord Ingram and Charlotte getting it on. Real-er talk: no, I can’t think of anything BUT getting to see Charlotte explore all of her uninhibited Victorian/Edwardian fantasies. That being said, I was sort of confused to pick this up. Tonally it seems so very different from the works of Thomas that I’ve read, and I’ve actually read quite a few given how many Lady Sherlock books there have been […]
