en-US Sun, 13 Apr 2025 15:38:07 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 211636065
On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face at a club one night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him.

In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home.]]> 96 Nghi Vo 1250362628 Becs 0 queer
There’s no such thing as forgetting. Not really.

Nick Carraway is haunted by ghosts. In this companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, Nghi Vo’s exceptional retelling of The Great Gatsby, Nick has published his book about the events of 1922 - but not able to move on from the memories, despite his best efforts at pretending. In a mere 110 pages Vo creates such an engrossing story about longing and heartbreak, identity, and searching for resolution.

I don’t think I breathed during the last few chapters.]]> 3.74 2025
author: Nghi Vo
name: Becs
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: queer
review:
ARC courtesy of NetGalley (thank you)

There’s no such thing as forgetting. Not really.

Nick Carraway is haunted by ghosts. In this companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, Nghi Vo’s exceptional retelling of The Great Gatsby, Nick has published his book about the events of 1922 - but not able to move on from the memories, despite his best efforts at pretending. In a mere 110 pages Vo creates such an engrossing story about longing and heartbreak, identity, and searching for resolution.

I don’t think I breathed during the last few chapters.
]]> 219484513 Actress and content creator Dylan Mulvaney’s honest account of her journey through girlhood

When Dylan Mulvaney came out as a woman online, she was a viral sensation almost overnight, emerging as a trailblazing voice on social media. Dylan’s personal coming-out story blossomed into a platform for advocacy and empowerment for trans people all over the world. Through her “Days of Girlhood�� series, she connected with followers by exploring what it means to be a girl, from experimenting with makeup to story times to spilling the tea about laser hair removal, while never shying away from discussing the transphobia she faced online. Nevertheless, she was determined to be a beacon of positivity.

But shortly after she celebrated day 365 of being a girl, it all came screeching to a halt when an innocuous post sparked a media firestorm and right-wing backlash she couldn’t have expected. Despite the vitriolic press and relentless paparazzi, Dylan was determined to remain loud and proud.

In Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer, Dylan pulls back the curtain of her “It Girl�� lifestyle with a witty and intimate reflection of her life pre- and post-transition. She covers everything from her first big break in theater to the first time her dad recognized her as a girl to how she handled scandals, cancellations, and . . . tucking. It’s both laugh-out-loud funny and powerfully honest—and is a love letter to everyone who stands up for queer joy.]]> 266 Dylan Mulvaney 141977039X Becs 0 currently-reading 4.13 2025
author: Dylan Mulvaney
name: Becs
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 22055262
Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.]]> 400 Victoria E. Schwab 0765376458 Becs 0 to-read 4.04 2015
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Becs
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50887097 A wondrous debut from an extraordinary new voice in nonfiction, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and—possibly—even murder.

David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.

Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.

When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool��a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.

Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist reads like a fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.]]> 225 Lulu Miller Becs 0 to-read 4.15 2020
author: Lulu Miller
name: Becs
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8127 Anne of Green Gables is also a wonderful portrait of a time, a place, a family�� and, most of all, love.

WITH AN AFTERWORD BY JENNIFER LEE CARELL]]> 320 L.M. Montgomery 0451528824 Becs 0
(not my first read or my last but the first tracked on GR)]]> 4.30 1908
author: L.M. Montgomery
name: Becs
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1908
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: love-may-have-physically-hugged, ya, series-love
review:
I love this book

(not my first read or my last but the first tracked on GR)
]]> 42397849
Burnout. Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body�� when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self��? How do you “lean in�� at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?

Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back. In these pages you’ll learn

�� what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation
�� how to manage the “monitor�� in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration
�� how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it
�� why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnout

With the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.�� Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.]]> 277 Emily Nagoski 198481706X Becs 0 to-read 3.93 2019
author: Emily Nagoski
name: Becs
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223766183 Living up to your kick-butt image as an elite monster wrestler is hard when you (maybe) want to kiss your hated rival. A fun enemies-to-lovers lesbian romantasy.

To the whole world, Athena Rainstorm is the most hated villain in Elite Monster Wrestling. Away from the boos and jeers that slice deep, she’s just Iris, a sensitive harpy who’s only ever wanted one thing: to spread her wings and win an elusive championship title.

Her fiercest rival is Lena, the perfect minotaur who has it all. With her toned, muscular physique and devastating looks, “Helen Stronghorn�� wins fights, fans, and adulation with the greatest of ease.

Their hatred for each other in and out of the ring is legend. But when the wrestlers are forced to spend time together prepping for the biggest event of the year, their masks begin to crack. They glimpse each other’s realities: the pressure of perfection crushing Lena and the childhood dream always just out of Iris’s reach.

Will their newfound understanding ruin their infamous rivalry in the ring? Because they still hate each other, right? Or…do they?]]> Elaine J. Daniels 3963249757 Becs 0 to-read 4.20 2025
author: Elaine J. Daniels
name: Becs
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59089704 What if you could take a vacation to your past?

With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn't just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it's her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?]]> 310 Emma Straub 052553900X Becs 0 to-read 3.78 2022
author: Emma Straub
name: Becs
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203164357 The stage is set. Marooned overnight by a snowstorm in a grand country house are a cast of characters and a setting that even Agatha Christie might recognize �� a vicar, an Army major, a Dowager, a sleuth and his sidekick - except that the sleuth is Jackson Brodie, and the ‘sidekick�� is DC Reggie Chase.

The crumbling house - Burton Makepeace and its chatelaine the Dowager Lady Milton - suffered the loss of their last remaining painting of any value, a Turner, some years ago. The housekeeper, Sophie, who disappeared the same night, is suspected of stealing it.

Jackson, a reluctant hostage to the snowstorm, has been investigating the theft of another The Woman with a Weasel, a portrait, taken from the house of an elderly widow, on the morning she died. The suspect this time is the widow’s carer, Melanie. Is this a coincidence or is there a connection? And what secrets does The Woman with a Weasel hold? The puzzle is Jackson’s to solve. And let’s not forget that a convicted murderer is on the run on the moors around Burton Makepeace.

All the while, in a bid to make money, Burton Makepeace is determined to keep hosting a shambolic Murder Mystery that acts as a backdrop while the real drama is being played out in the house.

A brilliantly plotted, supremely entertaining, and utterly compulsive tour de force from a great writer at the height of her powers.]]> 320 Kate Atkinson 0385547994 Becs 0 to-read 3.69 2024
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Becs
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18042822
Laura Kinsale personally chose the exceptional talent of Nicholas Boulton to narrate her classic romance Flowers from the Storm - cited by readers of The Washington Post and Glamour magazine as "one of the greatest love stories of all time" - creating a fresh and unique work that brings all the power and intensity of the original to audio.]]> Laura Kinsale Becs 5
2023: 2nd listen and I am still basically my original review. This was my first histrom (in 2022) and I must admit I'm pretty proud of myself that I picked a banger for my introduction. I still very much need a support group because I am often incoherent about it, but when I do move past all of the pure feels of: thee/thou; KITTENS; burn Maddygirl; thunderstorms and ghosts; I can occasionally coherently talk about the fascinating way Kinsale uses language throughout the book from the 19th century Quaker Plain Speech of Maddy Timms and the evolution of Christian Langland, the duke of Jervaulx's speech after he suffers from a stroke early in the book. It is a swoon worthy, angsty, page turner of a historical romance.

"We are impossible, an accident of time and place, worlds collided"

This remains my sole Kinsale and I must correct that in 2024 (let's try in 2025).

---
Original review 2022: This was excellent. Is there a support group for people who love this book and have so many feelings?]]> 4.16 1992
author: Laura Kinsale
name: Becs
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: romancelandia, disability, love-may-have-physically-hugged, hist-rom
review:
2025: Still the best.

2023: 2nd listen and I am still basically my original review. This was my first histrom (in 2022) and I must admit I'm pretty proud of myself that I picked a banger for my introduction. I still very much need a support group because I am often incoherent about it, but when I do move past all of the pure feels of: thee/thou; KITTENS; burn Maddygirl; thunderstorms and ghosts; I can occasionally coherently talk about the fascinating way Kinsale uses language throughout the book from the 19th century Quaker Plain Speech of Maddy Timms and the evolution of Christian Langland, the duke of Jervaulx's speech after he suffers from a stroke early in the book. It is a swoon worthy, angsty, page turner of a historical romance.

"We are impossible, an accident of time and place, worlds collided"

This remains my sole Kinsale and I must correct that in 2024 (let's try in 2025).

---
Original review 2022: This was excellent. Is there a support group for people who love this book and have so many feelings?
]]> 54811053 Funny, moving and truthful�� Quite

Claudia Winkleman’s warmth, humour, no-holds-barred attitude and smoky eye have made her the favourite broadcaster of millions and a much-loved household name.

In this, her first ever book, Claudia invites us all into her world. She shares her observations on topics such as the importance of melted cheese, why black coats are vital, how it’s never okay to have sex with someone who has an opinion on your date outfit, how nurses are our most precious national treasure, and why colourful clothing is only for the under 10s (if you’re reading this sporting a bright red jumper and you’re 9, great! If you’re older, sorry).

This is a love letter to life �� the real, sometimes messy kind. Quite celebrates friendship, the power of art, the highs and lows of parenting, and of course, how a good eyeliner can really save your life.

Heartfelt, wry and unmistakably Claudia, this book gets to the heart of what really matters.]]> 244 Claudia Winkleman Becs 0 to-read 4.04 2020
author: Claudia Winkleman
name: Becs
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199534697 A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry

Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?�� In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.

Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as “Blue Black.�� The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.

Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.]]> 256 Imani Perry 0062977393 Becs 0 to-read 4.33 2025
author: Imani Perry
name: Becs
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 267123 The Warden centers on Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity who is nevertheless in possession of an income from a charity far in excess of the sum devoted to the purposes of the foundation. On discovering this, young John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he regards as an abuse of privilege, despite the fact that he is in love with Mr. Harding's daughter Eleanor. It was a highly topical novel (a case regarding the misapplication of church funds was the scandalous subject of contemporary debate), but like other great Victorian novelists, Trollope uses the specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality]]> 336 Anthony Trollope 0192834088 Becs 0 to-read 3.75 1855
author: Anthony Trollope
name: Becs
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1855
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53310061 What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?

You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It's the biggest job yet for the family wedding business��"Don't leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!"—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie's perfect buttercream flowers.

But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy's great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?]]> 299 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593336739 Becs 0 to-read 3.67 2021
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Becs
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5941114 466 Tana French 0143115626 Becs 0 to-read 4.06 2008
author: Tana French
name: Becs
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208580624
WELCOME TO MAPLE BAY, NOVA SCOTIA

For nearly a century, people have ventured to the idyllic seaside town of Maple Bay in search of a legendary lost pirate treasure, but locals know there’s more than just gold buried in the sand. As the paths of three strangers converge in Maple Bay, the truth is about to be blown wide open. But not before the bodies start to pile up.

Peter Barnett is rapidly approaching 40 with little to show for it when a mysterious letter invites him to Maple Bay and the mansion his estranged family has called home for generations.

Seventeen-year-old Dandy Feltzen is isolated and adrift following the death of her beloved grandfather, until his final request and a tantalizing clue sets her on a mission to solve the mystery he spent his entire life chasing.

Cass Jones has given up on her dream of being a successful author when an unexpected opportunity lands in her a housesitting gig in remote Maple Bay, where she stumbles on the perfect subject matter for her breakout book—and the handsome sailor who might be just the person to help her research it.

Peter, Dandy and Cass have never met, but they’re on a collision course with each other and the mystery that has defined Maple Bay for two centuries, and none of them are prepared for the shocking truths that may or may not still be buried there.]]> 384 Tom Ryan 0802163637 Becs 0 to-read 3.74 2024
author: Tom Ryan
name: Becs
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 126675 397 Dorothy L. Sayers 0151658978 Becs 0 to-read 4.02 1934
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Becs
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 246225 240 Dorothy L. Sayers 0060809086 Becs 0 to-read 4.13 1930
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Becs
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 854757
But Fate has other plans, and it's not long before Min and Cal meet again. Soon, they're dealing with a jealous ex-boyfriend, Krispy Kreme donuts, a determined psychologist, chaos theory, a freakishly intelligent cat, Chicken Marsala, and more risky propositions than either of them ever dreamed of. Including the biggest gamble of all—true love.]]> 432 Jennifer Crusie 0312987854 Becs 0 to-read 3.93 2004
author: Jennifer Crusie
name: Becs
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 Becs 0 to-read 4.19 2019
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Becs
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9850375 257 P.G. Wodehouse 0393339785 Becs 0
Excellent insight into scarlet tights, shark encounters whilst aquaplaning, and beckoning pies.

Delightful. ]]> 4.29 1934
author: P.G. Wodehouse
name: Becs
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves:
review:
First time reading a Jeeves book and I don't know why I waited so long. This fit a much needed comfort/distraction bill for me.

Excellent insight into scarlet tights, shark encounters whilst aquaplaning, and beckoning pies.

Delightful.
]]> 52623750 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593189481.

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.]]> 241 Katherine May Becs 0 to-read 3.82 2020
author: Katherine May
name: Becs
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 193544852
Spirits are drawn to salt, be it blood or tears.

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the light of Roos' life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection.

Soon, Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon the death of her husband, where an ill woman haunts the halls, strange smells drift through the air, and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful festers in the manor, but still, the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable.

Then, someone is murdered.

Poor, alone, and with a history of 'hysterics', Roos is the obvious culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question, she'll have to prove who—or what—is at fault or lose everything she holds dear.

"A Sapphic seance of preternatural proportions, My Darling Dreadful Thing summons a stunning new literary voice to be reckoned with. Johanna van Veen reaches beyond the veil to conjure up a gothic shocker like no other."—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters

©2024 Johanna van Veen (P)2024 Tantor]]> 375 Johanna van Veen 1728281547 Becs 0 to-read 3.85 2024
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Becs
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212375023 From the author of Boyfriend Material comes the absurdist adventure of two friends determined to avoid marriage to unsuitable people as they race through Regency England to marry each other instead.

Sir Horley Comewithers isn’t particularly interested in getting married, especially when his match is a perfectly respectable young woman. Sir Horley is, after all, extravagantly gay. But he’s resigned to a fate there’s no point resisting—until a dear friend does it for him.

Arabella Tarleton has no interest in romance, but even she can see that Sir Horley’s nuptials are destined to end in a lifetime of misery. Well, not on her watch. And what are friends for, if not abducting you on your wedding night in an overdramatic attempt to save you from a terrible mistake?

Their journey to Gretna Green is a hodgepodge of colorful run-ins and near misses with questionable innkeepers, amateur highwaymen, overattentive writers, and scorned fiancées. Then again a bumpy road is better than an unhappy destination.

But when it comes to marriage, Belle and Sir Horley are about to discover that it’s not what you do or how you do it but the people who you choose to do it with that matter most.]]> 430 Alexis Hall 1662509421 Becs 5
Book 3 in Alexis Hall’s Something Something series makes me so very happy. All 3 of these delightful anachronistic Regency romps have provided so many laugh out loud moments, comfort, and exploration of relationships and identity. From his first appearance in Something Fabulous, Sir Horley Comewithers has been a favorite character: a scene stealer, charming, wickedly funny, and a true friend. In Something Extraordinary we pick up from where we left him at the end of book 2 (Something Spectacular), miserably engaged to a woman he does not want to marry in order to please his terrible aunt.

Enter Arabella Tarleton, very much over her too dramatic heroine era, now entering her eat cheese era - and most importantly build-a-life-she-wants-for-herself era. She is still a fan of ridiculous schemes (never completely gives up on some drama - she is a Tarleton after all) and concocts an abduction and elopement to Gretna Green. Their road trip includes some of my favorite moments in the book as they encounter questionable pies (Mrs. Lovett would approve), a run-in with “the worst highwayman in the history of larceny,�� and jilted fiancées.

Slight detour in my review here to discuss the bookseller. Flirting over rare books might be a very small sliver of romance readers but anyone who incorporates conversations about etching, books of hours, and sharing of books…well, ahem, I am here for it.

Right, back to the review. What’s lovely about Belle and Sir Horley’s book is their friendship. They create a queer platonic relationship that works best for them both - full of love, mutual respect, and friendship. Their discussions about friendship, pain, and loss are so moving. They also find what I think is the through line of this series the joy of living the life you want to live and with the people you love. And the ending is chef’s kiss.]]> 4.12 2024
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: hist-rom, queer, romancelandia, series-love
review:
ARC courtesy of NetGalley (thank you!)

Book 3 in Alexis Hall’s Something Something series makes me so very happy. All 3 of these delightful anachronistic Regency romps have provided so many laugh out loud moments, comfort, and exploration of relationships and identity. From his first appearance in Something Fabulous, Sir Horley Comewithers has been a favorite character: a scene stealer, charming, wickedly funny, and a true friend. In Something Extraordinary we pick up from where we left him at the end of book 2 (Something Spectacular), miserably engaged to a woman he does not want to marry in order to please his terrible aunt.

Enter Arabella Tarleton, very much over her too dramatic heroine era, now entering her eat cheese era - and most importantly build-a-life-she-wants-for-herself era. She is still a fan of ridiculous schemes (never completely gives up on some drama - she is a Tarleton after all) and concocts an abduction and elopement to Gretna Green. Their road trip includes some of my favorite moments in the book as they encounter questionable pies (Mrs. Lovett would approve), a run-in with “the worst highwayman in the history of larceny,�� and jilted fiancées.

Slight detour in my review here to discuss the bookseller. Flirting over rare books might be a very small sliver of romance readers but anyone who incorporates conversations about etching, books of hours, and sharing of books…well, ahem, I am here for it.

Right, back to the review. What’s lovely about Belle and Sir Horley’s book is their friendship. They create a queer platonic relationship that works best for them both - full of love, mutual respect, and friendship. Their discussions about friendship, pain, and loss are so moving. They also find what I think is the through line of this series the joy of living the life you want to live and with the people you love. And the ending is chef’s kiss.
]]> 59785460 The Manuscripts Men tells of twelve men and women, from the eleventh century to the twentieth, who all share an overwhelming obsession with illuminated manuscripts. The saint, the patron, the bookseller, the artist, the antiquary, the collector, the rabbi, the savant, the librarian, the editor, the forger and the curator had very different reasons for their passion, but manuscripts animated the lives of them all. Christopher de Hamel takes us into in their homes and workplaces, from the monasteries and synagogues of Normandy and Moravia to the universities of Germany and the museums of America, to chart a kinship of minds and to peer into these extraordinary lives among manuscripts. In the pages of his book, remarkable manuscripts tumble through the centuries, connecting a French prince and a Greek peasant and an Afro-American curator. This is a story about society and manuscripts, what manuscripts do for people, and why they mattered and still matter to us. It is also a story of greed, discovery and disaster and of the unquenchable joy in the greatest and most treasured books ever made.]]> 512 Christopher de Hamel 0241304377 Becs 0 to-read 4.27 2022
author: Christopher de Hamel
name: Becs
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18839 Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.]]> 336 Virginia Woolf 0141184272 Becs 0 to-read 3.88 1928
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Becs
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29744374
The idea for the book, which is entirely new, is to invite the reader into intimate conversations with twelve of the most famous manuscripts in existence and to explore with the author what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and sometimes about the modern world too. Christopher de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, collectors and the international community of manuscript scholars, showing us how he and his fellows piece together evidence to reach unexpected conclusions. He traces the elaborate journeys which these exceptionally precious artefacts have made through time and space, shows us how they have been copied, who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell), how they have been embroiled in politics and scholarly disputes, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and luxury and as symbols of national identity. The book touches on religion, art, literature, music, science and the history of taste.

Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts conveys the fascination and excitement of encountering some of the greatest works of art in our culture which, in the originals, are to most people completely inaccessible. At the end, we have a slightly different perspective on history and how we come by knowledge. It is a most unusual book.]]> 632 Christopher de Hamel 0241003040 Becs 0 to-read 4.43 2016
author: Christopher de Hamel
name: Becs
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 119073 552 Umberto Eco 0156001314 Becs 0 to-read 4.13 1980
author: Umberto Eco
name: Becs
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58690308 One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming....

Nora Stephens�� life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters�� trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 377 Emily Henry 0593334833 Becs 0 romancelandia
I am on record to loving an epistolary romance and I think flirting via email especially when you are in the same room is v sexy. And I definitely love “Please don’t apologize for letting me know you.�� Because oof- that's the bit that's the hardest, must squirmy, vulnerable making bit of it.]]> 4.09 2022
author: Emily Henry
name: Becs
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: romancelandia
review:
I edged this book forever but found the right moment in my weird book slump that has been 2024 - and really enjoyed it. My first Emily Henry and will definitely read more. Not all of it worked for me, but what worked - really worked.

I am on record to loving an epistolary romance and I think flirting via email especially when you are in the same room is v sexy. And I definitely love “Please don’t apologize for letting me know you.�� Because oof- that's the bit that's the hardest, must squirmy, vulnerable making bit of it.
]]> 49894829
For the past miserable year, Leo hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the powerful connection he and Will shared. So, when Leo moves to New York for college, he sweeps back into Will’s life, hopeful that they can pick up where they left off. What begins as a unique friendship soon burns with chemistry they can’t deny�� though Will certainly tries.

But Leo longs for more than friendship and hot sex. A romantic to his core, Leo wants passion, love, commitment—everything Will isn’t interested in giving. Will thinks romance is a cheesy fairytale and love is overrated. He likes his space and he’s happy with things just the way they are, thank you very much. Or is he? Because as he and Leo get more and more tangled up in each other’s lives, Will begins to act like maybe love is something he could feel after all.]]> Roan Parrish 1949749061 Becs 0 queer, romancelandia 3.74 2016
author: Roan Parrish
name: Becs
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: queer, romancelandia
review:

]]> 45032 488 Jane Austen Becs 0 to-read, bonnyxvalentine 3.86 1814
author: Jane Austen
name: Becs
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read, bonnyxvalentine
review:

]]> 50403464
In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy--the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering. Dozens of such books live on in the world's most famous libraries and museums. Dark Archives exhumes their origins and brings to life the doctors, murderers, innocents, and indigents whose lives are sewn together in this disquieting collection. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning with the ethics of their custodianship.

A librarian and journalist, Rosenbloom is a member of The Order of the Good Death and a cofounder of their Death Salon, a community that encourages conversations, scholarship, and art about mortality and mourning. In Dark Archives--captivating and macabre in all the right ways--she has crafted a narrative that is equal parts detective work, academic intrigue, history, and medical curiosity: a book as rare and thrilling as its subject.]]> 275 Megan Rosenbloom 0374134707 Becs 0 to-read 4.01 2020
author: Megan Rosenbloom
name: Becs
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214152206 From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, a page-turning literary adventure that introduces readers to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves.

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.

But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice�� came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.]]> 464 Rebecca Romney 1982190248 Becs 0 to-read 4.41 2025
author: Rebecca Romney
name: Becs
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22452529
Ancient, beautiful Manderley, between the rose garden and the sea, is the county's showpiece. Rebecca made it so - even a year after her death, Rebecca's influence still rules there. How can Maxim de Winter's shy new bride ever fill her place or escape her vital shadow?

A shadow that grows longer and darker as the brief summer fades, until, in a moment of climatic revelations, it threatens to eclipse Manderley and its inhabitants completely...]]> 376 Daphne du Maurier 0739416707 Becs 0 book-club
—���-
First read of this classic. I've seen the 1940 film several times and read analysis and queer theory about it but never actually read the book. I was really impressed how much I enjoyed reading this. Who'd have thought it!?

Rebecca is a gothic psychological thriller with an unnamed female main character who marries a withdrawn widower, Maxim de Winter, and then returns to his vast English country estate Manderley to discover that he and it are haunted by the memory of the first wife, Rebecca. Page after page spent in the unreliable narrator's head with her perspective and the increasing claustrophobia and menace is SO GOOD. And even though I knew what was going to happen I was drawn in by the suspense and of course the exquisite Mrs. Danvers; grotesquely described in the book as having a white skull face and the source of Rebecca's voice in the book and her claim to Manderley. And all the English class system elements are fascinating.]]> 4.44 1938
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Becs
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: book-club
review:
Second read and as I look back over my first review - how confident I was about what happened. This time I am in utter absorbed confusion. What happened or what is the narrator trying to persuade me happened. I just don’t know. LOVED IT

—���-
First read of this classic. I've seen the 1940 film several times and read analysis and queer theory about it but never actually read the book. I was really impressed how much I enjoyed reading this. Who'd have thought it!?

Rebecca is a gothic psychological thriller with an unnamed female main character who marries a withdrawn widower, Maxim de Winter, and then returns to his vast English country estate Manderley to discover that he and it are haunted by the memory of the first wife, Rebecca. Page after page spent in the unreliable narrator's head with her perspective and the increasing claustrophobia and menace is SO GOOD. And even though I knew what was going to happen I was drawn in by the suspense and of course the exquisite Mrs. Danvers; grotesquely described in the book as having a white skull face and the source of Rebecca's voice in the book and her claim to Manderley. And all the English class system elements are fascinating.
]]> 55302933
A spellbinding tale of dark family secrets, magic and witches, and creatures of myth and the sea; of strong women and the men who seek to control them.]]> 337 A.G. Slatter Becs 0 to-read 3.95 2021
author: A.G. Slatter
name: Becs
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41219 A beautiful hardback edition of the Booker Prize-winning novel. A romance, a literary quest, a modern classic.

A pair of young scholars investigate the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story.]]> 555 A.S. Byatt 0679735909 Becs 0 to-read 3.89 1991
author: A.S. Byatt
name: Becs
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205519733
It’s rough, though, going back to South Shields now that they all know he’s a fully paid-up pansy. It’s the last place he’s expecting to pull. But Fen’s gorgeous, with his pink-tipped hair and hipster glasses, full of the sort of courage Alfie’s never had. It should be a one-night thing, but Alfie’s never met anyone like Fen before.

Except he has. At school, when Alfie was everything he was supposed to be, and Fen was the stubborn little gay boy who wouldn’t keep his head down. And now it’s a proper mess: Fen might have slept with Alfie, but he’ll probably never forgive him, and Fen’s got all this other stuff going on anyway, with his mam and her flower shop and the life he left down south.

Alfie just wants to make it right. But how can he, when all they’ve got in common is the nowhere town they both ran away from.]]> 512 Alexis Hall 172825132X Becs 5
The pure delight of the new editions of the Spires series has been revisiting characters and stories I adore with fresh eyes, rediscovering moments I have always found moving and hilarious, and being surprised by new insights from the magnificent author annotations and bonus materials (I had completely missed the Maureen/sunflower connection until this reading!) An absolute gift from the author and publisher.

Alfie Bell returns home to South Shields, England and after accidentally outing himself at a friend's wedding finds himself reuniting with someone from his past in the most unexpected of moments. Fen O'Donaghue is grieving, prickly, yet full of capacity for joy. Is this a one-night, one-week fling or something more? They stutter and stumble to find forgiveness, self acceptance and connection in the town they both wanted to escape. Hall deftly handles all the complexities with great care, gentleness, and humor. Their relationship is multilayered, intricate, and very very romantic.

I also found myself highlighting the same quotes (see below) but this one will always always crack me open: Again and again, learning those sleek lines like calligraphy, and the letter he shaped was Fen.

CW: Alexis Hall provides content guidance that is not exhaustive but may contain spoilers on website:

Re-reading my earlier reviews of this book I am still quite besotted with it for all of the reasons expressed below. And I hugged it again. And cried. ]]> 4.11 2016
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: romancelandia, love-may-have-physically-hugged, queer, series-love
review:
ARC review for 2024 edition (courtesy NetGalley, thank you!)

The pure delight of the new editions of the Spires series has been revisiting characters and stories I adore with fresh eyes, rediscovering moments I have always found moving and hilarious, and being surprised by new insights from the magnificent author annotations and bonus materials (I had completely missed the Maureen/sunflower connection until this reading!) An absolute gift from the author and publisher.

Alfie Bell returns home to South Shields, England and after accidentally outing himself at a friend's wedding finds himself reuniting with someone from his past in the most unexpected of moments. Fen O'Donaghue is grieving, prickly, yet full of capacity for joy. Is this a one-night, one-week fling or something more? They stutter and stumble to find forgiveness, self acceptance and connection in the town they both wanted to escape. Hall deftly handles all the complexities with great care, gentleness, and humor. Their relationship is multilayered, intricate, and very very romantic.

I also found myself highlighting the same quotes (see below) but this one will always always crack me open: Again and again, learning those sleek lines like calligraphy, and the letter he shaped was Fen.

CW: Alexis Hall provides content guidance that is not exhaustive but may contain spoilers on website:

Re-reading my earlier reviews of this book I am still quite besotted with it for all of the reasons expressed below. And I hugged it again. And cried.
]]> 15708563
This was the first novel completed by Austen, but was only published posthumously. It is a delightful, light-hearted comment by Austen on the reading and writing of novels.]]> 261 Jane Austen 1620112221 Becs 0 bonnyxvalentine 3.67 1817
author: Jane Austen
name: Becs
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1817
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: bonnyxvalentine
review:

]]> 59364153 From the star of Peacock’s Queer as Folk and the Netflix series Special comes a “funny, tender, and beautiful�� (Gary Janetti, New York Times bestselling author) novel following a gay TV writer with cerebral palsy as he fights addiction and searches for acceptance in an overwhelmingly ableist world.

Elliott appears to be living the dream as a successful TV writer with a doting boyfriend. But behind his Instagram filter of a life, he’s grappling with an intensifying alcohol addiction, he can’t seem to stop cheating on his boyfriend with various sex workers, and his cerebral palsy is making him feel like gay Shrek.

After falling down a rabbit hole of sex, drinking, and Hollywood backstabbing, Elliott decides to limp his way towards redemption. But facing your demons is easier said than done.

“With his singular voice and unforgettable wit�� (Steven Rowley, author of The Guncle), Ryan O’Connell presents a candid, biting, and refreshingly real commentary on gay life, laugh-out-loud exploration of self, and a rare insight into life as a person with disabilities.]]> 300 Ryan O'Connell 1982178604 Becs 4 queer, disability Book releases June 7, 2022

I really enjoyed this.

Elliott, is a white, gay man with cerebral palsy. He is a successful tv writer living in LA with his long-term “perfect�� boyfriend, Gus. But underneath the shiny perfection of this lifestyle is a messy reality. Elliott is a functioning alcoholic, dissatisfied with his relationship, struggling in a toxic work environment and ableist society. He begins cheating on Gus with sex workers and everything begins to spiral out of control. He works through self-loathing and self-destructive behaviors to find self-acceptance. Oh and did I mention it's funny? Very funny.

I am familiar with Ryan O’Connell from his Netflix series Special which I enjoyed very much (and one of the reasons I wanted to read this book) and some of the elements in Special are revisited in this book. I like O’Connell’s biting humor which is constant throughout the book despite the very serious issues Elliott experiences.

The most effective and moving moments for me in the book are when Ryan explores the intersectionality of disability and queer identity. How hard he has worked to be “acceptable�� in a world that has zero consideration for bodies like his - becoming the “crostini of disability�� forced to accept and be grateful for whatever comes his way.

It’s a quick read but that does not diminish how well it managed to be sexy, raunchy, deeply moving, funny, and hopeful. I think the audiobook narrated by O’Connell would be wonderful as well.

(Sidebar: As I was looking at other reviews for this book I was struck how a book written by and about a person with a disability does not appear to be tagged/categorized as such. No “disabled voices�� or “disability lit�� on ŷ������ or on NetGalley or Amazon. That’s disappointing and a glaring omission since this book is about being gay and disabled)]]> 3.90 2022
author: Ryan O'Connell
name: Becs
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: queer, disability
review:
ARC courtesy of NetGalley (thank you!)
Book releases June 7, 2022

I really enjoyed this.

Elliott, is a white, gay man with cerebral palsy. He is a successful tv writer living in LA with his long-term “perfect�� boyfriend, Gus. But underneath the shiny perfection of this lifestyle is a messy reality. Elliott is a functioning alcoholic, dissatisfied with his relationship, struggling in a toxic work environment and ableist society. He begins cheating on Gus with sex workers and everything begins to spiral out of control. He works through self-loathing and self-destructive behaviors to find self-acceptance. Oh and did I mention it's funny? Very funny.

I am familiar with Ryan O’Connell from his Netflix series Special which I enjoyed very much (and one of the reasons I wanted to read this book) and some of the elements in Special are revisited in this book. I like O’Connell’s biting humor which is constant throughout the book despite the very serious issues Elliott experiences.

The most effective and moving moments for me in the book are when Ryan explores the intersectionality of disability and queer identity. How hard he has worked to be “acceptable�� in a world that has zero consideration for bodies like his - becoming the “crostini of disability�� forced to accept and be grateful for whatever comes his way.

It’s a quick read but that does not diminish how well it managed to be sexy, raunchy, deeply moving, funny, and hopeful. I think the audiobook narrated by O’Connell would be wonderful as well.

(Sidebar: As I was looking at other reviews for this book I was struck how a book written by and about a person with a disability does not appear to be tagged/categorized as such. No “disabled voices�� or “disability lit�� on ŷ������ or on NetGalley or Amazon. That’s disappointing and a glaring omission since this book is about being gay and disabled)
]]> 58772870 Dee Ernst's Lucy Checks In is a delightful work of romantic comedy about a disgraced hotel manager who travels to Rennes to rebuild a hotel and her own life in the process.

Lucia Giannetti needs a fresh start. Once the hotel manager of a glamorous NYC hotel and intimately involved with the hotel’s owner, Lucy had her entire future planned out. But when the owner disappears, taking millions of dollars with him, Lucy's life as she knows it falls apart.

Two years later, forty-nine years old and unemployed, Lucy takes a job in Rennes, France to manage the Hotel Paradis. She pictures fur quilts and extravagant chandeliers, but what she finds is wildly different. Lucy is now in charge of turning the run-down, but charming hotel into a bustling tourist attraction. Between painting rooms, building a website, and getting to know Bing, the irritatingly attractive artist, Lucy finds an unexpected home. But can she succeed in bringing the Hotel Paradis to its former glory?

Witty and heartfelt, Lucy Checks In is an inspiring and feel-good novel about reclaiming your life, finding love, and creating a home in places you never thought possible.]]> 277 Dee Ernst 1250844592 Becs 3 romancelandia
A lighthearted, second-chance story about Lucia "Lucy" Giannetti, who at 49, is at a crossroads professionally and personally. Her career as a successful hotel manager has been destroyed after a scandal that forced her to move back in with her parents. She accepts a position as a manager in Rennes, France to help renovate a small family hotel, Hotel Paradis. As she renovates the small hotel, Lucy rediscovers her confidence and rebuilds her life.

The ownership/partnership of Hotel Paradis is overly complicated and several shared investors live as permanent residents at the hotel. These quirky side characters all have skills that are helpful for renovating the hotel which is convenient for the story - I think if I was living at the hotel my skill set would be - can make beds. Reader tolerance for the hotel reno section will vary, but I enjoy a good makeover montage moment and there are no major issues with the hotel it is very smooth sailing, basically a fantasy renovation.

There is a slow burn romance that develops between Lucy and Bing (David Bingham - one of the resident guests) and it is refreshing to read about 2 mature characters who have experienced love, have had their hearts broken, and are tentative about finding love again. But the real romance is between Lucy and Hotel Paradis and the connections she builds with the "family" at the hotel.

There's very little tension in the book and all of the issues are easily resolved. There are a few throwaway lines that felt off, and are not revisited in any substantial way and a few moments that are simply not developed. But overall, it was a breezy and entertaining read.

CW: off page death of family member, discussion of alcoholism]]> 3.91 2022
author: Dee Ernst
name: Becs
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/08
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: romancelandia
review:
ARC courtesy of St. Martin's Press (thank you!)

A lighthearted, second-chance story about Lucia "Lucy" Giannetti, who at 49, is at a crossroads professionally and personally. Her career as a successful hotel manager has been destroyed after a scandal that forced her to move back in with her parents. She accepts a position as a manager in Rennes, France to help renovate a small family hotel, Hotel Paradis. As she renovates the small hotel, Lucy rediscovers her confidence and rebuilds her life.

The ownership/partnership of Hotel Paradis is overly complicated and several shared investors live as permanent residents at the hotel. These quirky side characters all have skills that are helpful for renovating the hotel which is convenient for the story - I think if I was living at the hotel my skill set would be - can make beds. Reader tolerance for the hotel reno section will vary, but I enjoy a good makeover montage moment and there are no major issues with the hotel it is very smooth sailing, basically a fantasy renovation.

There is a slow burn romance that develops between Lucy and Bing (David Bingham - one of the resident guests) and it is refreshing to read about 2 mature characters who have experienced love, have had their hearts broken, and are tentative about finding love again. But the real romance is between Lucy and Hotel Paradis and the connections she builds with the "family" at the hotel.

There's very little tension in the book and all of the issues are easily resolved. There are a few throwaway lines that felt off, and are not revisited in any substantial way and a few moments that are simply not developed. But overall, it was a breezy and entertaining read.

CW: off page death of family member, discussion of alcoholism
]]> 57898460
A first-year dental student with a family legacy to contend with, Dan doesn’t have the same passion for pulling teeth that Harper does. Though he finds himself falling for her, he is willing to play by Harper’s rules.

So with the greatest of intentions and the poorest of follow-throughs, the two set out to be “just friends.�� But as they get to know each other better, Harper fears that trading fillings for feelings may make her lose control and can't risk her carefully ordered life coming undone, no matter how drool-worthy Dan is.

Blood, gore, and extra-long roots? No problem. The idea of falling in love? Torture.]]> 331 Mazey Eddings 1250805996 Becs 0 romancelandia
Content warnings: the author provides a really good dear reader statement with potential triggers including sexism, ableist language, depictions of anxiety, panic attacks.

I enjoyed this book so very much. It is a dual POV rom-com with a slow burn romance. The two MC are both in dental school: Harper Horowitz is in her final year and Dan Craige (yes!) is in his first year. They have a very charming meet cute moment and are both freaking adorable and I was invested in them from the beginning.

I genuinely laughed out loud during the book and was charmed by their romance. As Harper and Dan get to know each other they bond over mutual hatred of classmates “was anything hotter and more validating than hating the same people?�� I mean, I think I’m probably an evilist for liking that so much but yes, agree.

Harper and Dan’s interactions felt genuine and I liked the balance of their romance building with the fun of being with someone you like. Teasing, jokes, silliness. Harper has general anxiety disorder and her experiences and panic attacks were handled very accurately and sensitively. I recognized my own experience with anxiety, sometimes too often, but I think that demonstrates how effective the writing is in this book <3

I received an ARC from NetGalley of this book which comes out March 1, 2022. This is a debut book by Mazey Eddings and I really look forward to more from her!]]> 3.79 2022
author: Mazey Eddings
name: Becs
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/05
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: romancelandia
review:
Source of book: NetGalley (thank you!)

Content warnings: the author provides a really good dear reader statement with potential triggers including sexism, ableist language, depictions of anxiety, panic attacks.

I enjoyed this book so very much. It is a dual POV rom-com with a slow burn romance. The two MC are both in dental school: Harper Horowitz is in her final year and Dan Craige (yes!) is in his first year. They have a very charming meet cute moment and are both freaking adorable and I was invested in them from the beginning.

I genuinely laughed out loud during the book and was charmed by their romance. As Harper and Dan get to know each other they bond over mutual hatred of classmates “was anything hotter and more validating than hating the same people?�� I mean, I think I’m probably an evilist for liking that so much but yes, agree.

Harper and Dan’s interactions felt genuine and I liked the balance of their romance building with the fun of being with someone you like. Teasing, jokes, silliness. Harper has general anxiety disorder and her experiences and panic attacks were handled very accurately and sensitively. I recognized my own experience with anxiety, sometimes too often, but I think that demonstrates how effective the writing is in this book <3

I received an ARC from NetGalley of this book which comes out March 1, 2022. This is a debut book by Mazey Eddings and I really look forward to more from her!
]]> 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.�� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.�� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Becs 0 to-read 3.87 2024
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Becs
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211003835 Something has to give... Could it be her heart?

Connie has always distrusted nice guys. In her experience, they’re just waiting to reveal some horrible secret. And then she meets big, adorable, Henry Samuel Beckett—editor extraordinaire, lover of bow ties, sweet and so cheery she struggles to believe he’s real.

Until Henry Samuel Beckett—or Beck, as he’s known to most—tells her the secret underneath his sunny surface: He’s been single all his life. But in a moment of panic, he’s told everyone at his publishing house that he’s married. And when Connie, an aspiring writer herself, can’t help defending him, she ends up being the fake wife he doesn’t actually have.

When they head off on a writing retreat, surrounded by people convinced this must be a ruse, both of them can't help but agree. Until they share their first kiss, their first touch, their first time in only one bed. Side by side, every night, as the simmering tension builds…Connie starts to wonder if this might be real after all.]]> 304 Charlotte Stein 1250867975 Becs 0 to-read 3.58
author: Charlotte Stein
name: Becs
average rating: 3.58
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 210325230 Politics can make spectacular bedfellows��

Prickly newspaperman’s widow Phoebe Sparks has vowed never to marry again. Unfortunately, the election in Lively St. Lemeston is hotly contested, and the little town’s charter gives Phoebe the right to make her husband a voter—if she had one.

The Honorable Nicholas Dymond has vowed never to get involved in his family's aristocratic politicking. But now his army career is over for good, his leg and his self-confidence both shattered in the war. Helping his little brother win an election could be just what the doctor ordered.

So Nick decamps to the country, under strict orders to marry Phoebe off to somebody before the polls open. He’s intrigued by the lovely widow from the moment she shuts the door in his face.

Phoebe is determined not to be persuaded by the handsome earl’s son, no matter how charming he is. But when disaster strikes her young sister, she is forced to consider selling her vote—and her hand—to the highest bidder.

As election intrigue grows, Phoebe and Nick are brought face to face with their own deepest desires and forced to decide which vows are worth keeping, and which must be broken...

Contains elections, confections, and a number of erections.]]> 386 Rose Lerner Becs 0 3.52 2014
author: Rose Lerner
name: Becs
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves: romancelandia, hist-rom, to-read
review:

]]> 204223193 Lost goals make way for new dreams. Two enemies must face their cold past and find new warmth in this wintry, forced proximity rom-com from Kris Ripper, author of Book Boyfriend.

Aspiring investigative reporter Des Cleary had dreams of a better world—one more accepting of people like him—when he broke the story of Orion Broderick’s relationship. A story that kicked Orion out of the soccer halls of fame and sent him careening into obscurity. Racked with shame, Des abandoned his own career for good.

Now working at an LA marketing firm, Des gets a daunting recruit Orion for a Pride campaign aiming to get LGBTQI+ kids into sports. But this is no shot at redemption—how could Des ever make up for what he’s done?

Des finds Orion’s cabin in the snowcapped mountains. His strategy? Keep it professional and get out quick. Nature has other plans. Snowed in together, Des and Orion have a chance to address past wrongs and lost goals. Time and shame have changed them both, but winter has a way of clearing the way for fresh beginnings.]]> 284 Kris Ripper 1662522703 Becs 0 queer, romancelandia
cw: public outing of MC; suicidal ideation

I really really enjoyed this. Kris Ripper’s writing always works for me and I loved Des’s rapid fire, spirally inner voice - will always relate to a character who cannot think of quippy one-liners in the moment but kills at 3 am AND has to make a 73-point turn in someone’s driveway to avoid hitting anything. Strongly relate.

The premise of this enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity rom-com is really interesting choice: 3 years prior to the book's setting, Des Cleary publicly outed a soccer player, Orion Broderick, in his university newspaper. It destroyed Orion’s career; and Des, filled with remorse and regret, retreated from writing and is now working in brand management. When his company decides to recruit Orion for a Pride campaign, Des’s boss sends him to find the now very private Orion in the California mountains.

The public outing is despicable and for many a HARD NO, and I will admit that I didn’t really like Des for the first few chapters. He is regretful about his actions, but also very much “on the job/don’t fuck this up�� as he locates Orion and attempts to persuade him to sign on with the campaign. But, BUT the unexpected snow storm that forces Des to stay in Orion’s cabin and spend time together is one of my favorite tropes and Ripper does an excellent job unpacking Des’s motivations and regrets and Orion’s justifiable mistrust. And it might not work for many readers, but it did for me. Partly because Des is devastated by his actions and because he is completely inept in an adorable way. He charmed me, so I’m not surprised he charmed Orion. There’s also a dog. In a storm. Cuteness engaged.

I also love a book that explores what happens when you wrong someone else but want to make amends and interrogate your past motivations. To change and try again. (shrugs) I like that.]]> 3.91 2024
author: Kris Ripper
name: Becs
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: queer, romancelandia
review:
(ARC courtesy of NetGalley, thank you)

cw: public outing of MC; suicidal ideation

I really really enjoyed this. Kris Ripper’s writing always works for me and I loved Des’s rapid fire, spirally inner voice - will always relate to a character who cannot think of quippy one-liners in the moment but kills at 3 am AND has to make a 73-point turn in someone’s driveway to avoid hitting anything. Strongly relate.

The premise of this enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity rom-com is really interesting choice: 3 years prior to the book's setting, Des Cleary publicly outed a soccer player, Orion Broderick, in his university newspaper. It destroyed Orion’s career; and Des, filled with remorse and regret, retreated from writing and is now working in brand management. When his company decides to recruit Orion for a Pride campaign, Des’s boss sends him to find the now very private Orion in the California mountains.

The public outing is despicable and for many a HARD NO, and I will admit that I didn’t really like Des for the first few chapters. He is regretful about his actions, but also very much “on the job/don’t fuck this up�� as he locates Orion and attempts to persuade him to sign on with the campaign. But, BUT the unexpected snow storm that forces Des to stay in Orion’s cabin and spend time together is one of my favorite tropes and Ripper does an excellent job unpacking Des’s motivations and regrets and Orion’s justifiable mistrust. And it might not work for many readers, but it did for me. Partly because Des is devastated by his actions and because he is completely inept in an adorable way. He charmed me, so I’m not surprised he charmed Orion. There’s also a dog. In a storm. Cuteness engaged.

I also love a book that explores what happens when you wrong someone else but want to make amends and interrogate your past motivations. To change and try again. (shrugs) I like that.
]]> 195790787 In this steamy Regency romp, Lady Selina is determined to find the Duke of Stanhope the perfect wife―the only problem is she's starting to think that might be her.

Peter Kent―newly inherited Duke of Stanhope and recently of New Orleans, Louisiana―must become respectable. Between his radical politics and the time he interrupted a minor royal wedding with a flock of sheep―not his fault!―he’s developed a scandalous reputation at odds with his goal of becoming guardian to his half siblings. For help, he turns to the cleverest and most managing woman of his acquaintance, Lady Selina Ravenscroft.

Selina is society’s most proper debutante, save one tiny secret: she runs an erotic circulating library for women. When Peter asks for her help, she suggests courtship and marriage to a lady of unimpeachable reputation. (Which is to say, definitely not herself.)

But matchmaking doesn’t go according to plan. Peter’s siblings run rampant on Bond Street. Selina ends up in the Serpentine. And worst of all, the scorching chemistry between Peter and Selina proves impossible to resist. For the disreputable duke and his unpredictable matchmaker, falling in love just might be the ultimate scandal.]]> 352 Alexandra Vasti 1250910943 Becs 0 hist-rom, romancelandia
Peter Kent has unexpectedly become the Duke of Stanhope. An outsider from Louisiana, with a fondness for radical politics ]]> 3.81 2024
author: Alexandra Vasti
name: Becs
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: hist-rom, romancelandia
review:
ARC courtesy of NetGalley (thank you)

Peter Kent has unexpectedly become the Duke of Stanhope. An outsider from Louisiana, with a fondness for radical politics
]]> 141270038 For fans of Rachel Lynn Solomon and Alice Oseman, this swoony, fast-paced romance stars a teen who falls in love with the lead singer of America's most popular boy band during a whirlwind summer tour.

This is what dreams are made of.

Every teenager in America knows eighteen-year-old Felix Song, the lead singer of the most popular boy band since One Direction. Unfortunately, Natalie Nielsen is no exception. Though she thinks of him more as an annoying rich kid from her hometown than a heartthrob.

Uninterested in stardom, Natalie dreams of honoring her late dad’s legacy and making a positive impact on her beloved Deaf community by revamping her family’s run-down Deaf Center. The issue? She has no money. When Felix's little sister's hearing loss begins to accelerate, he gives Natalie a generous job offer that would help secure the Center’s future: but she must accompany him on tour this summer to teach him ASL.

What begins as a professional arrangement soon morphs into stolen kisses and late-night rendezvous. But as their connection deepens, so do the risks—and when their relationship suddenly takes center stage, it’s not only their hearts, but Felix’s career on the line. Between relentless public scrutiny, contractual obligations, and meddling band members, Natalie must decide if their dreams can co-exist in the spotlight.]]> 352 Sydney Langford Becs 0 to-read 4.95 2026
author: Sydney Langford
name: Becs
average rating: 4.95
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 201107025 Two disabled, queer teens find belonging in this poignant platonic love story about singing, signing, and solidarity.

CASEY KOWALSKI once dreamed of becoming a professional singer. Then the universe threw her a life-altering curveball�� sudden, permanent, and profound hearing loss—just before her family's move from Portland to Miami. Now, she's learning to navigate the world as a Deaf-Hard of Hearing person while trying to conceal her hearing loss from her new schoolmates.

HAYDEN GONZÁLEZ-ROSSI is also keeping secrets. Three generations of González men have risen to stardom on the soccer field, and Hayden knows his family expects him to follow in their footsteps, but he wants to quit soccer and pursue a career on Broadway. If only his Generalized Anxiety Disorder didn't send him into a debilitating spiral over the thought of telling the truth.

Casey and Hayden are both determined to hide who they really are. But when they cross paths at school, they bond over their shared love of music and their mutual feeling that they don't belong, and the secrets come spilling out. Their friendship is the beating heart of this dual-perspective story featuring thoughtful disability representation, nuanced queer identities, and a lovably quirky supporting cast.]]> 320 Sydney Langford 0823456242 Becs 0 to-read 4.21 2024
author: Sydney Langford
name: Becs
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Becs 0 sci-fi-fantasy 4.37 2020
author: T.J. Klune
name: Becs
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/06/18
date added: 2024/08/04
shelves: sci-fi-fantasy
review:

]]> 39929418
Anxious to hasten matters, Kitty engineered an engagement to Jack's carefree cousin Freddy, hoping thereby to make Jack jealous. But Freddy turned out to be harder to handle than Kitty anticipated-- and man enough to light the fuse that exploded her carefully laid plans.]]> 366 Georgette Heyer Becs 0 hist-rom, romancelandia opinions on fashion, and do not speak French (no offense to the French).

“I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons- but one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons!”]]> 4.45 1953
author: Georgette Heyer
name: Becs
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/27
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: hist-rom, romancelandia
review:
Bring me all the romantic heroes who remain true to themselves: problem solvers, reliable, kindhearted, have opinions on fashion, and do not speak French (no offense to the French).

“I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons- but one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons!��
]]> 27696
Vanessa is propelled to Vienna by the shocking discovery. In her charge is young Timothy Lacy, who also has urgent problems to solve. But her hunt for answers only leads to more sinister questions in a mysterious world of white stallions of Vienna. But what promises to be no more than a delicate personal mission turns out to involve the security forces of three countries, two dead men, a circus and its colourful personnel. And what waits for Vanessa in the shadows is more terrifying than anything she has ever encountered.]]> 384 Mary Stewart 006074748X Becs 0 to-read 4.02 1965
author: Mary Stewart
name: Becs
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27695
When lovely Linda Martin first arrives at Château Valmy as an English governess to the nine-year-old Count Philippe de Valmy, the opulence and history surrounding her seems like a wondrous, ecstatic dream. But a palpable terror is crouching in the shadows. Philippe's uncle, Léon de Valmy, is the epitome of charm, yet dynamic and arrogant, his paralysis little hindrance as he moves noiselessly in his wheelchair from room to room. Only his son Raoul, a handsome, sardonic man who drives himself and his car with equally reckless abandon, seems able to stand up to him. To Linda, Raoul is an enigma, though irresistibly attracted to him, she senses some dark twist in his nature. When an accident deep in the woods nearly kills Linda's innocent charge, she begins to wonder if someone has deadly plans for the young count.]]> 352 Mary Stewart 1556526180 Becs 0 to-read 4.01 1958
author: Mary Stewart
name: Becs
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 347698 334 Kate Grenville 1841959146 Becs 0 to-read 3.79 2005
author: Kate Grenville
name: Becs
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32106 272 Georgette Heyer 0099474425 Becs 0 to-read 3.63 1934
author: Georgette Heyer
name: Becs
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215547926 From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a new heartwarming fantasy rom-com with an opposites-attract twist set in the delightful world of Tanria.

Immortal demigod Rosie Fox has been patrolling Tanria for decades, but lately, the job has been losing its luster. After one hundred and fifty-seven years of being alive, everything is beginning to lose its luster. When Rosie dies (again) by electrocution (again) after poking around inside a portal choked with shadowy thorns only she can see, she feels stuck in the rut that is her unending life.

Thanks to Rosie’s meddling, the portal’s inventor, Dr. Adam Lee, must come in person to repair the damage. When all the portals begin to break down, he declares an emergency evacuation of Tanria. In the mad rush to get out, Rosie and Adam end up trapped inside the Mist. Together.

And uptight Adam Lee in his bespoke menswear seems to know a lot more about what’s happening than he lets on��.

Rosie is determined to crack the shell of his cool exterior. But the more she learns about Adam, the more she realizes that they both have personal histories as tangled and thorny as the plant that has them trapped inside the Mist. Maybe two people who have found themselves stuck in this life can find a way to unstick each other �� just when their time on this earth seems to be running out.]]> 432 Megan Bannen 0316568279 Becs 0 to-read 4.46 2025
author: Megan Bannen
name: Becs
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 198385737
The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd �� spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist �� accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past �� riddled with grief and shame �� has never seemed so far away.

But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something ancient and beastly �� which she calls the grey dog �� is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory begins to fail. Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, and begins to wonder which is more dangerous: the grey dog, or herself.]]> 400 Elliott Gish 177041732X Becs 0 to-read 3.86 2024
author: Elliott Gish
name: Becs
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61126612
Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings.

For Regan, people are predictable and tedious, including and perhaps especially herself. She copes with the dreariness of existence by living impulsively, imagining a new, alternate timeline being created in the wake of every rash decision.

To Aldo, the world feels disturbingly chaotic. He gets through his days by erecting a wall of routine: a backbeat of rules and formulas that keep him going. Without them, the entire framework of his existence would collapse.

For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability—until the two meet. Could six conversations with a stranger be the variable that shakes up the entire simulation?

From Olivie Blake, the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six, comes an intimate and contemporary study of time, space, and the nature of love. Alone with You in the Ether explores what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you're not broken.]]> 288 Olivie Blake 1250888166 Becs 0 to-read 3.69 2020
author: Olivie Blake
name: Becs
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123036004 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]> 307 Amanda Peters 1646221958 Becs 0 to-read 4.04 2023
author: Amanda Peters
name: Becs
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61885131 Heartstopper meets A Knight’s Tale in this queer medieval rom-com YA debut about love, friendship, and being brave enough to change the course of history.

It’s been hundreds of years since King Arthur’s reign. His descendant, Arthur, a future Lord and general gadabout, has been betrothed to Gwendoline, the quick-witted, short-tempered princess of England, since birth. The only thing they can agree on is that they despise each other.

They’re forced to spend the summer together at Camelot in the run-up to their nuptials, and within 24 hours, Gwen has discovered Arthur kissing a boy, and Arthur has gone digging for Gwen's childhood diary and found confessions about her crush on the kingdom's only lady knight, Bridget Leclair.

Realizing they might make better allies than enemies, Gwen and Art make a reluctant pact to cover for each other, and as things heat up at the annual royal tournament, Gwen is swept off her feet by her knight, and Arthur takes an interest in Gwen's royal brother. Lex Croucher's Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is chock full of sword-fighting, found family, and romantic shenanigans destined to make readers fall in love.]]> 416 Lex Croucher 1250847214 Becs 4 queer, romancelandia
...we are ever growing and inconstant, but always striving to become more ourselves with each passing year]]> 3.96 2023
author: Lex Croucher
name: Becs
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/13
date added: 2024/07/07
shelves: queer, romancelandia
review:
I allowed this to sit on my NetGalley shelf for far too long and I am truly sorry because once I started reading - I could not stop. Such a fun, charming, rollicking read. Filled with characters who I cared and rooted for - especially when they self-sabotage and are ineffectual. And all the respect for solid as they come "secondary characters" Agnes and Sidney.

...we are ever growing and inconstant, but always striving to become more ourselves with each passing year
]]> 31361284 **Author note: In Vino is a Spires Universe extra �� but it’s not currently available as the entire Spires series has found a new home at Sourcebooks! Ahhh!**

A novella about Jasper, a character from FOR REAL. A giveaway to folks who sign up for Hall's mailing list.]]> 26 Alexis Hall Becs 0 queer, series-love 4.05 2016
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves: queer, series-love
review:

]]> 51178326 An enthralling and steaming romance between a widowed lady and a Scot on the run—who may have connections to one of London's most noble families.

Lady Merritt Sterling, a strong-willed young widow who’s running her late husband’s shipping company, knows London society is dying to catch her in a scandal. So far, she’s been too smart to provide them with one. But then she meets Keir MacRae, a rough-and-rugged Scottish whisky distiller, and all her sensible plans vanish like smoke. They couldn’t be more different, but their attraction is powerful, raw and irresistible.

From the moment Keir MacRae arrives in London, he has two goals. One: don’t fall in love with the dazzling Lady Merritt Sterling. Two: avoid being killed.

So far, neither of those is going well.

Keir doesn’t know why someone wants him dead until fate reveals his secret connection to one of England’s most powerful families. His world is thrown into upheaval, and the only one he trusts is Merritt. Their passion blazes with an intensity Merritt has never known before, making her long for the one thing she can’t have from Keir MacRae: forever. As danger draws closer, she’ll do whatever it takes to save the man she loves . . . even knowing he might be the devil in disguise.]]> 384 Lisa Kleypas 0062371975 Becs 0 3.90 2021
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves: hist-rom, romancelandia, series-love
review:

]]> 44285731 Everything has a price.

Railway magnate Tom Severin is wealthy and powerful enough to satisfy any desire as soon as it arises. Anything—or anyone—is his for the asking. It should be simple to find the perfect wife—and from his first glimpse of Lady Cassandra Ravenel, he’s determined to have her. But the beautiful and quick-witted Cassandra is equally determined to marry for love—the one thing he can’t give.

Everything except her.

Severin is the most compelling and attractive man Cassandra has ever met, even if his heart is frozen. But she has no interest in living in the fast-paced world of a ruthless man who always plays to win. When a newfound enemy nearly destroys Cassandra’s reputation, Severin seizes the opportunity he’s been waiting for. As always, he gets what he wants—or does he? There’s one lesson Tom Severin has yet to learn from his new bride: never underestimate a Ravenel.

The chase for Cassandra’s hand may be over. But the chase for her heart has only just begun . . .]]> 384 Lisa Kleypas 0062371959 Becs 0 4.08 2020
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/21
date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: hist-rom, romancelandia, series-love
review:

]]> 40404706 A scintillating tale of a beautiful, young widow who finds passion with the one man she shouldn't . . .

Although beautiful young widow Phoebe, Lady Clare, has never met West Ravenel, she knows one thing for certain: he's a mean, rotten bully. Back in boarding school, he made her late husband's life a misery, and she'll never forgive him for it. But when Phoebe attends a family wedding, she encounters a dashing and impossibly charming stranger who sends a fire-and-ice jolt of attraction through her. And then he introduces himself—as none other than West Ravenel.

West is a man with a tarnished past. No apologies, no excuses. However, from the moment he meets Phoebe, West is consumed by irresistible desire . . . not to mention the bitter awareness that a woman like her is far out of his reach. What West doesn't bargain on is that Phoebe is no straitlaced aristocratic lady. She's the daughter of a strong-willed wallflower who long ago eloped with Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent—the most devilishly wicked rake in England.

Before long, Phoebe sets out to seduce the man who has awakened her fiery nature and shown her unimaginable pleasure. Will their overwhelming passion be enough to overcome the obstacles of the past? Only the devil's daughter knows.]]> 375 Lisa Kleypas 0062371932 Becs 0 hist-rom, series-love 4.10 2019
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/18
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves: hist-rom, series-love
review:

]]> 34379276 A woman who defies her time.

Dr. Garrett Gibson, the only female physician in England, is as daring and independent as any man—why not take her pleasures like one? Yet she has never been tempted to embark on an affair, until now. Ethan Ransom, a former detective for Scotland Yard, is as gallant as he is secretive, a rumored assassin whose true loyalties are a mystery. For one exhilarating night, they give in to their potent attraction before becoming strangers again.

A man who breaks every rule.

As a Ravenel by-blow spurned by his father, Ethan has little interest in polite society, yet he is captivated by the bold and beautiful Garrett. Despite their vow to resist each other after that sublime night, she is soon drawn into his most dangerous assignment yet. When the mission goes wrong, it will take all of Garrett's skill and courage to save him. As they face the menace of a treacherous government plot, Ethan is willing to take any risk for the love of the most extraordinary woman he's ever known.]]> 400 Lisa Kleypas 0062371894 Becs 0 hist-rom, series-love 3.99 2018
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/15
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves: hist-rom, series-love
review:
“The first moment I saw you, I knew you were my share of the world. Iʹve always loved you." HELP.
]]> 30179647
Most debutantes dream of finding a husband. Lady Pandora Ravenel has different plans. The ambitious young beauty would much rather stay at home and plot out her new board game business than take part in the London Season. But one night at a glittering society ball, she’s ensnared in a scandal with a wickedly handsome stranger.

A cynical rake

After years of evading marital traps with ease, Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, has finally been caught by a rebellious girl who couldn’t be less suitable. In fact, she wants nothing to do with him. But Gabriel finds the high-spirited Pandora irresistible. He’ll do whatever it takes to possess her, even if their marriage of convenience turns out to be the devil’s own bargain.

A perilous plot

After succumbing to Gabriel’s skilled and sensuous persuasion, Pandora agrees to become his bride. But soon she discovers that her entrepreneurial endeavors have accidentally involved her in a dangerous conspiracy–and only her husband can keep her safe. As Gabriel protects her from their unknown adversaries, they realize their devil’s bargain may just turn out to be a match made in heaven.]]> 384 Lisa Kleypas Becs 0 hist-rom, series-love 4.05 2017
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/12
date added: 2024/06/12
shelves: hist-rom, series-love
review:
Dragon needs his own book. That is all. I am patient.
]]> 114166 A devil's bargain.

Desperate to escape her scheming relatives, Evangeline Jenner has sought the help of the most infamous scoundrel in London. A marriage of convenience is the only solution.

No one would have ever paired the shy, stammering wallflower with the sinfully handsome viscount. It quickly becomes clear, however, that Evie is a woman of hidden strength—and Sebastian desires her more than any woman he's ever known.

Determined to win her husband's elusive heart, Evie dares to strike a bargain with the devil: if Sebastian can stay celibate for three months, she will allow him into her bed. When Evie is threatened by a vengeful enemy from the past, Sebastian vows to do whatever it takes to protect his wife . . . even at the expense of his own life.

Together they will defy their perilous fate, for the sake of all-consuming love.]]> 368 Lisa Kleypas Becs 0 to-read 4.22 2006
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 197036064 512 Alexis Hall 172825129X Becs 5
For Real is extraordinarily special to me. It was not my first Alexis Hall book, but this intimate, emotional story is the book that tipped me into ‘must-read-everything-written-by-AJH' territory.

Laurie (37), an experienced and jaded sub meets Toby (19), an inexperienced dom. Laurie is completely over the kink scene, and has all his emotional guards up. Toby Finch is fiercely confident that he is a dom and that he wants Laurie but is also a bit lost and questioning how to get what he wants. They miscommunicate, fuck things up, but find ways to be extremely vulnerable and open with each other. It is such a beautifully emotional story and I’ve read it so many times. Each time I discover something new that cracks me open afresh. The book has heavy kink that never feels gratuitous, each moment an opportunity for Laurie and Toby to explore and share their desires and develop their relationship.

Each of the Spires re-releases includes bonus material with author annotations which are wonderful insights into the creation of the book. Did Toby's reference and Hall's annotation send me on a Walter Benjamin deep dive? Yes, yes it did. There is also a bonus short story In Vino with the super messy and awful Jasper Leigh. SO GOOD.]]> 4.06 2015
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/09
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: love-may-have-physically-hugged, romancelandia, queer, series-love
review:
(2024 re-release ARC courtesy of NetGalley, thank you!)

For Real is extraordinarily special to me. It was not my first Alexis Hall book, but this intimate, emotional story is the book that tipped me into ‘must-read-everything-written-by-AJH' territory.

Laurie (37), an experienced and jaded sub meets Toby (19), an inexperienced dom. Laurie is completely over the kink scene, and has all his emotional guards up. Toby Finch is fiercely confident that he is a dom and that he wants Laurie but is also a bit lost and questioning how to get what he wants. They miscommunicate, fuck things up, but find ways to be extremely vulnerable and open with each other. It is such a beautifully emotional story and I’ve read it so many times. Each time I discover something new that cracks me open afresh. The book has heavy kink that never feels gratuitous, each moment an opportunity for Laurie and Toby to explore and share their desires and develop their relationship.

Each of the Spires re-releases includes bonus material with author annotations which are wonderful insights into the creation of the book. Did Toby's reference and Hall's annotation send me on a Walter Benjamin deep dive? Yes, yes it did. There is also a bonus short story In Vino with the super messy and awful Jasper Leigh. SO GOOD.
]]> 201627007 From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a heartwarming fantasy with a best friends-to-lovers rom com twist--When Harry Met Sally, but with dragons!—set in the delightful demigod and donut-filled world of Tanria.

The entire town of Eternity was shocked when widowed, middle-aged Twyla Banneker partnered up with her neighbor and best friend, Frank Ellis, to join the Tanrian Marshals. Eight years later, Twyla and Frank are still patrolling the dangerous land of Tanria, the former prison of the Old Gods.

Twyla might look like a small town mom who brings cheesy potatoes to funerals and whips up a batch of cookies for the school bake sale, but her rewarding career in law enforcement has been a welcome change from the domestic grind of mom life, despite the misgivings of her grown children.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) a recent decrease in on-the-job peril has made Twyla and Frank's job a lot safer ... and a lot less exciting. So when they discover the body of one of their fellow marshals covered in liquid glitter--and Frank finds himself the inadvertent foster dad to a baby dragon--they are more than happy to be back on the beat.

Soon, the friends wind up ensnared in a nefarious plot that goes far deeper than any lucrative Tanrian mineshaft. But as the danger closes in and Twyla and Frank's investigation becomes more complicated, so does their easy friendship. And Twyla starts to realize that her true soul mate might just be the person who has lived next door all along...]]> 377 Megan Bannen 0316568252 Becs 0 to-read 4.16 2024
author: Megan Bannen
name: Becs
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 26242354 A ruthless tycoon.

Savage ambition has brought common-born Rhys Winterborne vast wealth and success. In business and beyond, Rhys gets exactly what he wants. And from the moment he meets the shy, aristocratic Lady Helen Ravenel, he is determined to possess her. If he must take her virtue to ensure she marries him, so much the better . . .

A sheltered beauty.

Helen has had little contact with the glittering, cynical world of London society. Yet Rhys’s determined seduction awakens an intense mutual passion. Helen’s gentle upbringing belies a stubborn conviction that only she can tame her unruly husband. As Rhys’s enemies conspire against them, Helen must trust him with her darkest secret. The risks are unthinkable . . . the reward, a lifetime of incomparable bliss.

And it all begins with . . . marrying Mr. Winterborne]]> 380 Lisa Kleypas 0062371843 Becs 0 hist-rom, series-love
RHYS WINTERBORNE.]]> 4.07 2016
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/08
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: hist-rom, series-love
review:
“My heart only beats as an echo of yours.��

RHYS WINTERBORNE.
]]> 425377
Tough-minded Jessica Trent's sole intention is to free her nitwit brother from the destructive influence of Sebastian Ballister, the notorious Marquess of Dain. She never expects to desire the arrogant, amoral cad. And when Dain's reciprocal passion places them in a scandalously compromising, and public, position, Jessica is left with no choice but to seek satisfaction...

LORD OF SCOUNDRELS

Damn the minx for tempting him, kissing him... and then forcing him to salvage her reputation! Lord Dain can't wait to put the infuriating bluestocking in her place—and in some amorous position. And if that means marriage, so be it!—though Sebastian is less than certain he can continue to remain aloof... and steel his heart to the sensuous, headstrong lady's considerable charms.
]]> 375 Loretta Chase Becs 0 to-read 4.08 1995
author: Loretta Chase
name: Becs
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 24431358 A twist of fate.

Devon Ravenel, London's most wickedly charming rake, has just inherited an earldom. But his powerful new rank in society comes with unwanted responsibilities . . . and more than a few surprises. His estate is saddled with debt, and the late earl's three innocent sisters are still occupying the house—along with Kathleen, Lady Trenear, a beautiful young widow whose sharp wit and determination are a match for Devon's own.

A clash of wills.

Kathleen knows better than to trust a ruthless scoundrel like Devon. But the fiery attraction between them is impossible to deny—and from the first moment Devon holds her in his arms, he vows to do whatever it takes to possess her. As Kathleen finds herself yielding to his skillfully erotic seduction, only one question remains: can she keep from surrendering her heart to the most dangerous man she's ever known?]]> 419 Lisa Kleypas Becs 0 hist-rom 3.82 2015
author: Lisa Kleypas
name: Becs
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/06/01
shelves: hist-rom
review:
I chaotically started this series with Devil’s Daughter (book 5) and then went back to the beginning with Cold-Hearted Rake. A solid introduction to the characters and set up for future plot lines, not my favorite MCs, but continue to love West. On to book 2.
]]> 32758901 "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.�� Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.]]> 144 Martha Wells Becs 4 book-club, sci-fi-fantasy 4.11 2017
author: Martha Wells
name: Becs
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves: book-club, sci-fi-fantasy
review:

]]> 55169019
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She's also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Nghi Vo's debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.]]> 260 Nghi Vo 1250784786 Becs 5 Under the wrack and wreck of what had come before, the sky was new, and I reached for it with a yearning eager hand.

This book is exceptional. I read it after a re-read of The Great Gatsby, a book that I never felt strongly about - it exists in my mind as that book I read in high school, something careless people, something green light. But, this wonderful retelling from Nghi Vo elevates the original into a vibrant, magical, and emotional story.

Jordan Baker was brought to the US from Vietnam, by her adoptive parents and raised in a privileged family in Kentucky, but she is always viewed as “other�� and “exotic.�� Tolerated at the fringes of society, she is a keen observer of the relationships and events unfolding around her. Just on the inside but always an outsider. She begins a relationship with Nick Carraway and the major elements of TGG unfold to its devastating conclusion, but Jordan JORDAN is the center of this story and I was captivated by her and her story as it is revealed.

Magical elements are woven into the fabric of this world, creating moments that are subtle or beautiful to the terrifying and heart-stopping.

It took me (ahem) a month to attempt to write anything coherent about this book - and my takeaway is still OMG. THIS BOOK. But now, with additional words.]]> 3.53 2021
author: Nghi Vo
name: Becs
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/20
date added: 2024/05/21
shelves: love-may-have-physically-hugged, queer
review:
Under the wrack and wreck of what had come before, the sky was new, and I reached for it with a yearning eager hand.

This book is exceptional. I read it after a re-read of The Great Gatsby, a book that I never felt strongly about - it exists in my mind as that book I read in high school, something careless people, something green light. But, this wonderful retelling from Nghi Vo elevates the original into a vibrant, magical, and emotional story.

Jordan Baker was brought to the US from Vietnam, by her adoptive parents and raised in a privileged family in Kentucky, but she is always viewed as “other�� and “exotic.�� Tolerated at the fringes of society, she is a keen observer of the relationships and events unfolding around her. Just on the inside but always an outsider. She begins a relationship with Nick Carraway and the major elements of TGG unfold to its devastating conclusion, but Jordan JORDAN is the center of this story and I was captivated by her and her story as it is revealed.

Magical elements are woven into the fabric of this world, creating moments that are subtle or beautiful to the terrifying and heart-stopping.

It took me (ahem) a month to attempt to write anything coherent about this book - and my takeaway is still OMG. THIS BOOK. But now, with additional words.
]]> 176299271 A nobleman must work with a dashing soldier to save his sister from a mystical bargain gone wrong, diving into a world of malicious fey, enigmatic cults, and treacherous magic in this irresistible romance from the bestselling author of Boyfriend Material.

The year is 1815, and Mr. John Caesar is determined to orchestrate a successful coming-out for his younger sister, Mary. Despite his best efforts, he is thwarted by the various interventions of a ragtag regiment of soldiers, a mysterious military cult, and a malicious fairy godmother.

When Mary is cursed by the fair folk, the dandyish Mr. Caesar is forced to work with the stolidly working-class—yet inescapably heroic—Captain James to rescue her. While Mr. Caesar is no stranger to dallying with soldiers, until now he's never expected one to stay. Or wanted one to. But even if the captain felt the same, there'd be no chance of anything lasting between them. After all, he and Mr. Caesar come from different worlds.

And lately, other worlds are the last thing either of them want to be dealing with . . .]]> 416 Alexis Hall 139961651X Becs 0
I continue to be an avid reader of Puck's scribbles ]]> 3.85 2024
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/20
date added: 2024/05/21
shelves: hist-rom, romancelandia, queer
review:
ARC - review to come but spoiler:

I continue to be an avid reader of Puck's scribbles
]]> 78295354 A novel about a down-on-his-luck gay man working out how he fits into the world, making up for lost time, and opening himself up to life's possibilities
Danny Scudd is absolutely fine. He always dreamed of escaping the small-town life of his parents' fish-and-chip shop, moving to London, and becoming a journalist. And, after five years in the city, his career isn't exactly awful, and his relationship with pretentious Tobbs isn't exactly unfulfilling. Certainly his limited-edition Dolly Parton vinyls and many (maybe too many) house plants are hitting the spot. But his world is flipped upside down when a visit to the local clinic reveals that Tobbs might not have been exactly faithful. In fact, Tobbs claims they were never operating under the "heteronormative paradigm" of monogamy to begin with. Oh, and Danny's flatmates are unceremoniously evicting him because they want to start a family. It's all going quite well.

Newly single and with nowhere to live, Danny is forced to move in with his best friend, Jacob, a flamboyant nonbinary artist whom he's known since childhood, and their eccentric group of friends living in an East London "commune." What follows is a colorful voyage of discovery through modern queer life, dating, work, and lots of therapy--all places Danny has always been too afraid to fully explore. Upon realizing just how little he knows about himself and his sexuality, he careens from one questionable decision (and man) to another, relying on his inscrutable new therapist and housemates to help him face the demons he's spent his entire life trying to repress. Is he really fine, after all?]]> 11 Henry Fry 0593505166 Becs 0 queer, romancelandia, to-read 3.17 2022
author: Henry Fry
name: Becs
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/21
shelves: queer, romancelandia, to-read
review:

]]> 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats�� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge��: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as ��1847�� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,�� “Spotify,�� and “the collapse of the British Empire.�� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Becs 0 to-read 3.54 2024
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Becs
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17380041 ��
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
��
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants�� hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.

Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.��]]> 332 Jo Baker 0385351232 Becs 0 to-read 3.63 2013
author: Jo Baker
name: Becs
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51190882
Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

Librarian Note: Older cover of B07VH6Y4JD.]]> 119 Nghi Vo Becs 0 to-read 3.91 2020
author: Nghi Vo
name: Becs
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211183186 Alexis Hall Becs 0 to-read 5.00
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199373754 A nobleman must work with a dashing soldier to save his sister from a mystical bargain gone wrong, diving into a world of malicious fey, enigmatic cults, and treacherous magic in this irresistible romance from the bestselling author of Boyfriend Material.

The year is 1815, and Mr. John Caesar is determined to orchestrate a successful coming-out for his younger sister, Mary. Despite his best efforts, he is thwarted by the various interventions of a ragtag regiment of soldiers, a mysterious military cult, and a malicious fairy godmother.

When Mary is cursed by the fair folk, the dandyish Mr. Caesar is forced to work with the stolidly working-class—yet inescapably heroic—Captain James to rescue her. While Mr. Caesar is no stranger to dallying with soldiers, until now he's never expected one to stay. Or wanted one to. But even if the captain felt the same, there'd be no chance of anything lasting between them. After all, he and Mr. Caesar come from different worlds.

And lately, other worlds are the last thing either of them want to be dealing with . . .]]> 448 Alexis Hall 0593497589 Becs 0 to-read 3.60 2024
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58772710 The memoirs of Mary Rodgers Guettel--writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and "a woman who tried everything."



"What am I, bologna?" Mary Rodgers Guettel (1931-2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman.

Shy is the story of how it all happened: how Mary grew from an angry child, constrained by privilege and a parent's overwhelming talent, to become not just a theater star but also a renowned author of books for young people (including the classic Freaky Friday) and, in a final grand turn, a doyenne of philanthropy and the Chairman of the Juilliard School.

But in telling these stories--with copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from her coauthor, Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times--Shy also tells another, about a woman liberating herself from disapproving parents and pervasive sexism to find art and romance on her own terms.

Both an eyewitness report from the Golden Age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life, Shy is, above all, a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don't make anymore--and never did. They make themselves.]]> 480 Mary Rodgers 0374298629 Becs 0 to-read 4.21 2022
author: Mary Rodgers
name: Becs
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11938752
Theophilus Mirkwood ought to be insulted. Should be appalled. But how can he resist this siren in widow’s weeds, whose offer is simply too outrageously tempting to decline? Determined she’ll get her money’s worth, Theo endeavors to awaken this shamefully neglected beauty to the pleasures of the flesh—only to find her dead set against taking any enjoyment in the scandalous bargain. Surely she can’t resist him forever. But could a lady’s sweet surrender open their hearts to the most unexpected arrival of all . . . love?]]> 346 Cecilia Grant 0553593838 Becs 0 to-read 3.68 2011
author: Cecilia Grant
name: Becs
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27160670 Sometimes you can't find the right man till you find the wrong one.

Will Derrie likes girls but he isn’t honest with them; he wants kinky sex and lots of it. When Hugh offers to dominate him, no sex required, Will realizes it might not be so easy to separate the two.

Hugh Reynolds holds the world at arm's length. He lives alone, works alone, and he thinks he's as happy as he'll ever be. But Will gets under his skin and once he's gone, Hugh realizes he doesn’t want to go it alone forever.

Truman Jennings hits on a cute guy at a conference and he’s smitten by the end of their first date. Hugh's not the kindest or the easiest boyfriend Truman's ever had, but he brings one thing to their relationship that no one else kinky, adventurous, sweetly submissive Will.

Three men. Three sides to love, and intimacy, and laughter. Three people who don't know what they're looking for...until they find it in each other.]]> 322 Kris Ripper Becs 5
]]> 4.03 2014
author: Kris Ripper
name: Becs
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/24
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves: series-love, romancelandia, queer
review:
I can't remember how many times I've read this book. what is time anyway? I love this book.


]]> 60754391 In the past, the universe is a glitterball I hold in the palm of my hand.

In the past, I am brilliant and I am happy and my every tomorrow is madness.

In the past, I am soaring, and falling, and breaking, and lost.

And now, there is only this.

Once the golden boy of the English literary scene, now a clinically depressed writer of pulp crime fiction, Ash Winters has given up on hope, happiness, and―most of all―himself. He lives his life between the cycles of his illness, haunted by the ghosts of other people's expectations.

Then a chance encounter throws him into the path of Essex-born Darian Taylor. Flashy and loud, radiant and full of life, Darian couldn't be more different...and yet he makes Ash laugh, reminding him of what it's like to step beyond the boundaries of his anxiety. But Ash has been living in his own shadow for so long that he can no longer see a way out. Can a man who doesn't trust himself ever trust in happiness? And how can someone who doesn't believe in happiness ever fight for his own?]]> 336 Alexis Hall 1728265282 Becs 5
-----

May 2022 re-read/listen review: This review is really just a space for me to spill my feelings. There are much better, more articulate reviews of this book. But basically I am all emotions.

I didn't write anything about this book the first time I read it and it's still hard for me to write now because a lot of my love for Glitterland is because of elements that I recognize in myself and elements I actively distrust in romance but am also drawn to. I am basically a cynic with a soft underbelly of hope that there can be a completely earnest, sincere character who gives their hearts to a self-loathing, scared character. When this type appears in a romance I am always ready to pounce and pick them apart for their unrealistic "too good to be true" traits. But when it works it is glorious. And it works in Glitterland. I love Darian, the endearing, true to himself, glitter pirate and Ash with his sarcasm and intellectual snobbery attempting to conceal his vulnerabilities and fears.

This is a gorgeously written book and so moving with literary allusions and pop culture references sprinkled throughout. Just one example is a reference to one of my favorite poems by Philip Larkin: "infinitely blue as the promise of high windows"

Books that have characters expressing that love is given, not earned absolutely make my heart sing because I want to believe it. That the person who loves you sees all parts of you and gives their heart to you. This book. This book.

And listening to the audiobook and Nicholas Boulton's talent with accents and tone is just bliss. I started saying "babes" this week which has resulted in delight and sweet smiles from my British partner <3]]> 3.82 2013
author: Alexis Hall
name: Becs
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/23
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves: romancelandia, love-may-have-physically-hugged, series-love, queer
review:
2024 updated edition/updated audiobook/all the things. This book really finds the cracks in my very cynical heart and put in scaffolding that is made of supports that are glittery, blue horizons, bloody terrified but going for it, and knowing that it may not be a HEA but it will be real and honest. And still terrifying.

-----

May 2022 re-read/listen review: This review is really just a space for me to spill my feelings. There are much better, more articulate reviews of this book. But basically I am all emotions.

I didn't write anything about this book the first time I read it and it's still hard for me to write now because a lot of my love for Glitterland is because of elements that I recognize in myself and elements I actively distrust in romance but am also drawn to. I am basically a cynic with a soft underbelly of hope that there can be a completely earnest, sincere character who gives their hearts to a self-loathing, scared character. When this type appears in a romance I am always ready to pounce and pick them apart for their unrealistic "too good to be true" traits. But when it works it is glorious. And it works in Glitterland. I love Darian, the endearing, true to himself, glitter pirate and Ash with his sarcasm and intellectual snobbery attempting to conceal his vulnerabilities and fears.

This is a gorgeously written book and so moving with literary allusions and pop culture references sprinkled throughout. Just one example is a reference to one of my favorite poems by Philip Larkin: "infinitely blue as the promise of high windows"

Books that have characters expressing that love is given, not earned absolutely make my heart sing because I want to believe it. That the person who loves you sees all parts of you and gives their heart to you. This book. This book.

And listening to the audiobook and Nicholas Boulton's talent with accents and tone is just bliss. I started saying "babes" this week which has resulted in delight and sweet smiles from my British partner <3
]]> 53305764 This sequel to the contemporary fantasy��Only a Monster will take Joan deeper into the monster world, where treacherous secrets and even more danger await.

Despite all of the odds, Joan achieved the impossible. She reset the timeline, saved her family –��and destroyed the hero, Nick.

But her success has come at a terrible cost.

She alone remembers what happened. Now, Aaron, her hard-won friend �� and maybe more –��is an enemy, trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn’t even know her name. Only Joan remembers that there is a ruthless and dangerous enemy still out there.

When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world as a fugitive, she finds herself on the run with Nick �� as Aaron closes in.

As the danger rises –��and Nick gets perilously closer to discovering the truth of what Joan did to him –��Joan discovers a secret of her own. One that threatens everyone she loves.

Torn between love and family and monstrous choices, Joan must find a way to re-gather her old allies to face down the deadliest of enemies, and to save the timeline itself.

Vanessa Len’s stunning��Only a Monster��trilogy continues with this second instalment, a thrilling journey where a secret past threatens to unravel everyone's future.]]> 528 Vanessa Len 1529380146 Becs 0 to-read 4.04 2023
author: Vanessa Len
name: Becs
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 182762109 fixes��everything. She’s a domestic goddess who's never met a party she couldn't host or a charge she couldn't lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette��for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes��poof��in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion.

But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost.��She's too��busy keeping a roof over her daughters' heads and food on the table.��And in the process of saving them all, Soledad rediscovers herself. From the ashes of a life burned to the ground, something bold and new can rise.

But then an unlikely man enters the picture—the forbidden one, the one she shouldn't want but can't seem to resist. She's lost it all before and refuses to repeat her��mistakes. Can she trust him? Can she trust��herself?

After all she's lost . . .and found . . .can she be brave enough to make room for what could be?]]> 416 Kennedy Ryan 1538706822 Becs 0 to-read 4.37 2024
author: Kennedy Ryan
name: Becs
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58541623
Content guidance: This is a story about long-distance relationships and ethical nonmonogamy. It features tender sadomasochism, vampire bloodplay, breathplay, consensual sex between three adults, and a happy ending.]]> 14 S.T. Gibson Becs 0 3.80 2021
author: S.T. Gibson
name: Becs
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/17
date added: 2024/03/17
shelves: book-club, gothic-horror-do-i-read-this-now, queer
review:

]]> 60521937
This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.

Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.]]> 292 S.T. Gibson 0316501077 Becs 4 3.91 2021
author: S.T. Gibson
name: Becs
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/17
date added: 2024/03/17
shelves: gothic-horror-do-i-read-this-now, queer, book-club
review:

]]> 61111274 A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher--her female teacher--she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can't yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don't matter, and it's easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?

From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own--ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant.

This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya's childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one's own life.]]> 284 Lamya H. 0593448766 Becs 0 to-read 4.47 2023
author: Lamya H.
name: Becs
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208918808 Don't miss the second thrilling Regency romance in the Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune series by KJ Charles...

The Duke of Severn is one of the greatest men in Britain.

He's also short, quiet, and unimpressive. And now he's been robbed, after indulging in one rash night with a strange man who stole the heirloom Severn ring from his finger. The Duke has to get it back, and he can't let anyone know how he lost it. So when his cousin bets that he couldn't survive without his privilege and title, the Duke grasps the opportunity to hunt down his ring-incognito.

Life as an ordinary person is terrifying...until the anonymous Duke meets Daizell Charnage, a disgraced gentleman, and hires him to help. Racing across the country in search of the thief, the Duke and Daizell fall into scrapes, into trouble-and in love.

Daizell has been excluded from polite society, his name tainted by his father's crimes and his own misbehaviour. Now he dares to dream of a life somewhere out of sight with the quiet gentleman who's stolen his heart. He doesn't know that his lover is a hugely rich public figure with half a dozen titles. And when he finds out, it will risk everything they have...]]> 336 K.J. Charles 1398715794 Becs 0 to-read 4.19 2024
author: K.J. Charles
name: Becs
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 181037645
When a duke discovers the woman he loves was tricked into marrying another, the master chess player makes the now-widowed Viscountess the highest-stakes wager of his life in a last-ditch effort to win her affection: he will find husbands for her two sisters—or depart forever. Thus begins a sparkling new series from acclaimed author Vanessa Riley.

Georgina Wilcox, a wallflower with hidden musical talents, is furious when her reclusive older sister—the recently widowed Viscountess—refuses sorely needed help from the Duke of Torrance, the only gentleman who has shown kindness to the bereft Wilcox sisters. Georgina decides to get back at her sister and shock the Viscountess by kissing the first willing stranger she meets in the enchanting gardens of Anya House. Unfortunately, her sister is not the sole witness. A group of reporters and the ton’s leading gossips catch Georgina in a passionate embrace with a reticent composer, Lord Mark Sebastian.

The third son of an influential marquis, the tongue-tied Mark is determined to keep the scandal from ruining Georgina’s reputation and his own prospects of winning the celebrated Harlbert’s Prize for music. Under the guise of private voice lessons, the two embark on a daring gamble to fool the ton into believing that their feigned courtship is honorable while bolstering Georgina’s singing genius to captivate potential suitors. Sexist cartoons, family rivalries, and an upcoming ball test the fake couple’s resolve. Will their sudden fiery collaboration—and growing attraction—prove there’s nothing false about a first kiss and scandalously irresistible temptation?]]> 336 Vanessa Riley 1420154850 Becs 0 to-read 3.46 2024
author: Vanessa Riley
name: Becs
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127281421
When grumpy ex-footballer Alfie Harding gets badgered into selling his memoirs, he knows he’s never going to be able to write them. He hates revealing a single thing about himself, is allergic to most emotions, and can’t imagine doing a good job of putting pen to paper.

And so in walks curvy, cheery, cute as heck ghostwriter Mabel Willicker, who knows just how to sunshine and sass her way into getting every little detail out of Alfie. They banter and bicker their way to writing his life story, both of them sure they’ll never be anything other than at odds.

But after their business arrangement is mistaken for a budding romance, the pair have to pretend to be an item for a public who’s ravenous for more of this Cinderella story. Or at least, it feels like it’s pretend―until each slow burn step in their fake relationship sparks a heat neither can control. Now they just have to is this sizzling chemistry just for show? Or something so real it might just give them their fairytale ending?]]> 336 Charlotte Stein 1250867932 Becs 0 to-read 3.34 2024
author: Charlotte Stein
name: Becs
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 179546799
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.
Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle—an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood—without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. When Gaunt's family asks him to enlist to forestall the anti-German sentiment they face, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. To Gaunt's horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will be next.
An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.]]> 400 Alice Winn 0593467841 Becs 0 to-read 4.53 2023
author: Alice Winn
name: Becs
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54333710 The gorgeous 75th-anniversary edition of Brideshead Revisited, the novel selected by Modern Library as one of the 100 best of the century.��

The wellsprings of desire and the impediments to love come brilliantly into focus in Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece—a novel that immerses us in the glittering and seductive world of English aristocracy in the waning days of the empire.

Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities. At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh's early satiric explorations and reveals him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity.]]> 432 Evelyn Waugh 0316242101 Becs 0 3.98 1945
author: Evelyn Waugh
name: Becs
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/28
date added: 2024/01/29
shelves:
review:
I don't know how I feel about this book - well I do, on this first read, I think as a book it is endlessly fascinating, and at times I enjoyed just being in the world - book 1 with its idyllic view of youth, privilege, and romance "drowning in honey, stingless." I mean, I would love to just stay in book 1. But the conclusion just didn’t quite work for me. BUT, that has not stopped me from wanting to do very deep dives in all of the references, themes, and connections sprinkled throughout the book. Plus my first read of this book has been greatly enhanced with the group I read it with - I have benefitted from everyone's insights and that experience is beyond any star rating.
]]> 127305688
In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships, including the idea that sex is a defining feature of partnership and that people who raise kids together should be in a romantic relationship. Platonic partners from different walks of life—spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more—reveal the freedom and challenges of embracing a relationship model that society doesn't recognize. And they show that orienting your world around friends isn't just the stuff of daydreams and episodes of The Golden Girls, but possible in real life.

Based on years of original reporting and drawing on striking social science research, Cohen argues that we make romantic relationships more fragile by expecting too much of them, while we undermine friendships by expecting too little of them. She traces how, throughout history, our society hasn’t always fixated on marriage as the greatest source of meaning, or even love. At a time when many Americans are spending large stretches of their lives single, widowed or divorced, or feeling the effects of the "loneliness epidemic," Cohen makes the case that one model of a flourishing adulthood—lifelong romantic partnership—isn't enough. A rousing and incisive book, The Other Significant Others challenges us to ask what we want from our relationships—not just what we’re supposed to want—and transforms how we define a fulfilling life.]]> 320 Rhaina Cohen 1250280915 Becs 0 to-read 3.92 2024
author: Rhaina Cohen
name: Becs
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43682552 From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

“People don’t just happen,�� writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The ‘I�� it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, ‘I am no longer yours.�� ��

Haunted and haunting, Jones’s memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

Blending poetry and prose, Jones has developed a style that is equal parts sensual, beautiful, and powerful—a voice that’s by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one of a kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.]]> 192 Saeed Jones 1501132733 Becs 0 to-read 4.27 2019
author: Saeed Jones
name: Becs
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60418994 Pierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author of Prelude to Bruise and How We Fight for Our Lives confronts our everyday apocalypses.

In haunted poems glinting with laughter, Saeed Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a mourning son and the collective grief bearing down on all of us.��

Drawing from memoir, fiction, and persona, Jones confronts the everyday perils of white supremacy with a finely tuned poetic ear, identifying moments that seem routine even as they open chasms of hurt. Viewing himself as an unreliable narrator, Jones looks outward to understand what’s within, bringing forth cultural icons like Little Richard, Paul Mooney, Aretha Franklin and Diahann Carroll to illuminate how long and how perilously we’ve been living on top of fault lines. As these poems seek ways to love and survive through America’s existential threats, Jones ushers his readers toward the realization that the end of the world is already here—and the apocalypse is a state of being.]]> 104 Saeed Jones Becs 0 book-club 4.34 2022
author: Saeed Jones
name: Becs
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/14
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves: book-club
review:
“You don’t get to decide when an experience is done with you.��
]]> 197511201 Patrick O'Hara is called back to his guncle duties . . . This time for a big family wedding in Italy.

Patrick O’Hara is back. It’s been five years since his summer as his niece Maisie and nephew Grant’s caretaker after their mother’s passing. The kids are back in Connecticut with their dad, and Patrick has relocated to New York to remain close by and relaunch his dormant acting career. After the run of his second successful sit-com comes to a close, Patrick feels on top of the world . . . professionally. But some things have had to take a back seat. Looking down both barrels at fifty, Patrick is single again after breaking things off with Emory. But at least he has a family to lean on. Until that family needs to again lean on him.

When Patrick's brother, Greg, announces he’s getting remarried in Italy, Maisie and Grant are not thrilled. Patrick feels drawn to take the two back under his wing. As they travel through Europe on their way to the wedding, Patrick tries his best to help them understand love, much as he once helped them comprehend grief. But when they arrive in Italy, Patrick is overextended managing a groom with cold feet; his sister, Clara, flirting with guests left and right; a growing rivalry with the kids�� charming soon-to-be-launt (lesbian aunt), and two moody young teens trying to adjust to a new normal, all culminating in a disastrous rehearsal dinner.

Can Patrick save the day? Will teaching the kids about love help him repair his own love life? Can the change of scenery help Patrick come to terms with finally growing up?

Gracing the work with his signature blend of humor and heart, Steven Rowley charms with a beloved story about the complicated bonds of family, love, and what it takes to rediscover yourself, even at the ripe age of fifty.]]> 320 Steven Rowley 0593540468 Becs 0 3.90 2024
author: Steven Rowley
name: Becs
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 350684
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.]]> 736 Judith McNaught 1416530711 Becs 0 to-read 4.11 1985
author: Judith McNaught
name: Becs
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54508798
So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules�� ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting—even if temporary—isn’t solved with treats and jokes, Patrick’s eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you’re unfailingly human.]]> 326 Steven Rowley 0525542280 Becs 0 book-club, queer 4.09 2021
author: Steven Rowley
name: Becs
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/02
date added: 2024/01/02
shelves: book-club, queer
review:

]]>