I have been on a truly splendiferous reading run lately.
In the past three months, I have read eight books I’ve given flat out As to–or five stars on Goodreads–and three more that are 4 star/B+s. I can’t remember the last time so many books have so delighted me. A few on my list haven’t come out yet–sorry!–but most have.
Here’s the list of the eight five star reads:
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. (We gave it a B+) This book changed the way I apprehend video games and I have recommended it to absolutely everyone I know. It’s not a spoiler to say that one of Zevin’s powerful insights into life is that, in video games, there isn’t truly any death. The writing here is spectacular–a scene toward the end of the novel is perhaps the most powerful writing I’ve read in eons–and the stories of Sam, Sadie, and Marx will make and break your heart over and over. Thus far this year, it’s the best book I’ve read which is saying something.
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. If you’ve ever read and/or seen Mystic River, you know Lehane is a crackling good storyteller. His mysteries are far more than just that. At their best, they illuminate the lives his characters–almost all Boston denizens in different eras–live. Small Mercies is every bit as good as Mystic River, perhaps better.
In the summer of 1974, in Southie (in Boston), Mary Pat Fennessy, a 42 year old white woman living in the projects, wakes up to find her daughter Jules, her last surviving family member, missing. The same night Jules vanishes, a young Black man is also found dead, in Southie, a place he has, in this time and place, no place being. Mary Pat–and a more riveting protagonist you will not find–is determined to find her daughter and will take on anyone to do it, even the Irish mob that runs her world.
Set against the real events of in the summer of 1974, when the city’s public schools were very suddenly ordered to desegregate, Small Mercies is both a superb thriller and an overwhelmingly wrenching portrait of the racism of its times. I could not put it down.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is worth reading just for one of its main narrators: Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living the last months of his life in “captivity” in the Sowell Bay Aquarium. This book is just lovely–it gladdened my heart, made me believe in the power of good, and entertained the hell out of me. A true gem.
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. This comes out in October and I’ll review it then. Put in on your TBRs for Fall!
Night in Eden by Candice Proctor. (We gave this a A.) Several people here recommended this and I’m so glad they did. It’s a great story showcasing a harrowing time in Australia’s founding history. The romance is swoony and the context, fascinating. I gave it to Dr. Feelgood to read and he also thought it was great.
Forever Your Rogue by Erin Langston. You know, from my recent review, I loved this new historical romance!
Homecoming by Kate Morton. Again, I recently reviewed this here.
Fortune Favors the Viscount by Caroline Linden. This comes out later this month and I have written a review that will run on the pub date. In it, I said, Fortune Favors the Viscount is a love story, a very very good love story. It’s well-written and I liked the plot but mostly, I loved the the romance between Nick and Emilia. I can’t wait to hear what you think of it!
How about you? What have you been reading lately? Any glorious reads? Let us know!
Candice Procter also writes the wonderful St. Cyr mysteries as C. S. Harris. Wonderful writer.
REALLY?!?! I cannot believe I didn’t know that!
Amazon.com page for Night in Eden has an “amazon.com review” that starts by pointing out that Candice Procter is sister to Penelope Williamson, a writer of HR westerns. Interesting tidbit if true . . .
Most of the good books I read I review here, but I’ll give a shout out to Ava Wilder’s Will They or Won’t They, which is out at the end of the month – a second chance romance between two TV stars who were together, then weren’t and who, years later, have to work together again. I don’t read much m/f CR, but I loved this one.
Tramps and Vagabonds by Aster Glenn Gray – is my June TBR Challenge choice, so watch this space for the review. Set in the 1930s during the Depression, it features two young men on the road, but is somehow infused with hope and goodness despite the settting.
I need to check the June Prompt, because as usual, I lost track of the time! 🙂
Forever Your Rogue is the only 5 star new book I have read in a LONG time.
So. Good.
I also read and enjoyed Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow a few months ago!
I somehow missed Megan Whalen Turner’s The Queen’s Thief series over these past 20+ years but that meant I got to read all of them in May (with no waiting!). All six were excellent – they are set in a sort of “like ancient Greece but not” world that reminded me of the world AJ Demas created for her romances. The first one (just titled The Thief) is a YA fantasy/adventure but in the second book the tone becomes much more adult. There are a few romances in the series, but romance is always secondary to adventure and the internal personal growth the characters have to do. They are just so good – superb prose, plotting, character, etc.
I also just read Martha Well’s new book, Witch King. The first 40% was super confusing for me, but around the half-way mark I figured out what was going on and really ended up enjoying it. It’s a high fantasy mystery/adventure largely about the survivors of a genocidal war.
Also really enjoyed We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian.
Love the Whalen series. She’s such a stellar storyteller.
I’ve read several keeper-shelf favorites in the past few weeks. Ari Baran’s m/m hockey romance, GAME MISCONDUCT, is like a darker, rougher, grittier version of HEATED RIVALRY (antagonists on the ice, lovers in secret), along with elements of THROWN OFF THE ICE (the veteran/rookie dynamic), SEASON’S CHANGE (fear of being outed), and UNWRITTEN RULES/DIAMOND RING (mental health challenges), but with a tone all its own. I’m loving this trend of angsty m/m sports romances, and I wasn’t surprised that Baran thanked both K.D. Casey and Cait Nary in her Acknowledgments.
Another favorite read was Zoe York’s REBEL AT HEART, the fifth and final book in her Kinkaids of Pine Harbour series. It utilizes the “oops, we’re still married trope”. It’s about a couple, divorced several years, discovering that their divorce paperwork was never finalized. There’s a sense of melancholy as the MCs come to terms with missed opportunities and what they wish they had done differently during their brief marriage. A storm that leaves them snowbound together for a few days helps things along. The book is also seriously hot—the sex scenes are similar to the ones in the erotic romances York publishes as Ainsley Booth, with a little more spice than the generally more sedate romances she publishes as Zoe York.
Finally, I found Kelly Hunter’s Harlequin Presents, CINDERELLA AND THE OUTBACK BILLIONAIRE, to be one of the best-written books I’ve read this year. Vivid descriptions of the Australian Outback and nuanced character development make this book several cuts above the standard HP. Also, Hunter really leans into her premise, taking the first 20% of the book to setup the story of a man (whose self-piloted helicopter crashes during a dust storm) being rescued and kept alive by a botanist who was in the area documenting native plant species. I’m a big fan of HPs—and CINDERELLA AND THE OUTBACK BILLIONAIRE is one of the best I’ve read in a while.
Kelly Hunter is someone I read a lot of back in the day. I will check her out again.
I’m about to listen to the audio of the Baran – it’s got a great narrator (the same guy who narrated the final three in Reid’s Game Changers) so I’m looking forward to it.
I really enjoyed the sci-fi/fantasy, Only Bad Options by Jennifer Estep. I also enjoyed Annabel Monaghan’s Nora Goes Off Script and Sarah Lotz’s The Impossible Us. Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan was also good, but you all know about the last few of these since they were reviewed here.
My list includes one non-fiction too.
1. Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation: Tarantino is a brilliant director but he is also a big movie geek. This book is an exuberant, witty and pithy survey and analysis of movies that came out in the 70s including many B movies. Tarantino was just ten years old in 1970 when his mother started taking him to movies when she went on dates. In return for being quiet in the cinema hall, he was allowed to participate in noisy discussion of the film (even ask awkward questions) while driving back home. His knowledge of cinema is so encyclopedic, somebody once asked him if he attended film school and his answer was “no, I watch a lot of movies”.
2. Cecilia Rabess: Everything is Fine. It is a romance novel, but also a political one, that asks this tough question: Is love possible between a Black liberal woman and a white conservative man in the Trump era? Can love conquer divisions caused by ‘geography, history and contemporary socio-political reality’? The author’s answer is equivocal.
3. S.A. Cosby: Razorblade Tears. Two men, one black, one white, set out to find the killers of their gay sons and avenge their death. The sons were married to each other and were also surrogate parents to a four-year old girl. There is plenty of action with blood and gore amidst controlled mayhem and total obliteration (literally) of the killers. But the novel is not just about revenge. Both fathers had rejected their son’s homosexuality and marriage. Thus, it is also a story of guilt, grief, acceptance of their own failures and, absolution. The novel ends with this line: “The tears came again. This time they did not feel like razorblade. They felt like the long awaited answer to a mournful prayer for rain.”
4. Brendan Slocum: The Violin Conspiracy. Set in the world of classical music, it is the story of a disadvantaged black youth who also happens to be a violin prodigy. His grandmother gives him a broken down old fiddle, which according to family legend was gifted to his great-great grandfather by his former owner/master. But the old violin turns out to be a Stradivarius and suddenly there are many claimants to the violin. including the descendants of the former slave owner. But the boy holds on to it and that combined with his prodigious talent opens many doors and puts him on the world’s stage. There is more to the story than what I have described. All in all, an engaging bildungsroman.
5. All of Stella Riley’s Civil War and Restoration novels. They are perfect combinations of history, mystery and romance.
I have not read any of Lehane’s books but Mystic River (the movie) was unforgettable. And, so was The Wire.
He wrote some of the scripts for the latter, mostly starting in the fourth season. He was the show for Black Bird which I found gripping.
I’ve read so many good books lately, it’s been wonderful. My favorite one is You, With a View by Jessica Joyce coming out in July. I just wrapped up Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros and loved it, which surprised me because I don’t normally read fantasy romance. Remarkably Bright Creatures was so special and heartwarming. My book club is reading it. I didn’t know about the new Caroline Linden book, Fortune Favors the Viscount and it looks really good! I love getting to see what everyone is reading!
My best reads of the past couple of months were books that have been reviewed here, like Until You by Briar Prescott (print), Defying Logic by Nicky James (print and audio), and A Gentelman’s Book of Vices by Jess Everlee (audio).
I’ve read quite a few good books, just not 5 stars books, like A Scandalous Kind of Duke by Mia Vency (audio), What Remains by Garrett Leigh (priint) and Bring Me Home by Annabeth Albert (print).
For lovely prose I enjoyed K.L. Noone’s The Magician (print).
A Scandalous Kind of Duke was very enjoyable.
Recently I read the Hillwilla trilogy by Melanie Forde and I loved it. The characters were all vividly real for me and Beatrice, the main character was a 55 year old woman which was great. Plus the characters included llamas and dogs – I learned a lot about llamas! I also loved how the author brought a setting -southern West Virginia to life. The series is available on KU and it is excellent.
I don’t know about glorious, but I read two very satisfying ends of series:
The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells by John Bierce
Waybound by Will Wight
Two complete series:
Cleaver’s Edge, Into the Fire, and Best Served Cold by Actus
Saving Supervillains through Saving Supervillains 5 by Bruce Sentar
And a wonderful start of another series:
Beware of Chicken 1 and Beware of Chicken 2 by Casualfarmer.
All are F&SF, mostly in the LitRPG, GameLit, and Cultivation spectrum.
The Emperor’s Bone Palace (Infernal War Saga #2) by Hailey Turner – Fantasy / LGBTQ+
Metahuman Files series by Hailey Turner (recommended by Caz) – SFF / MM
Chaos Station Series by Jenn Burke & Kelly Jensen – SFF / MM. Although I don’t always enjoy second-chance romance, the conflict between the main characters worked well in this series (there is a HEA).
Fate’s Arrow (Rising Wave #3) by Michelle Diener. A satisfying conclusion to the series. – Fantasy / MF
I Married A Beast (Prime Mating Agency #7) and I Married A Dryad (Prime Mating Agency #8) by Regine Abel – SFF / MF
I finally read The Pingkang Li/Lotus Palace Mysteries by Jeannie Lin and enjoyed them all very much. HR / MF
I’m most looking forward to reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.
We have an upcoming review of Fourth Wing!
Dabney, I read two of the books on your list. IMHO, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was wonderful while they were developing their first video game, but it quickly went downhill from there. The petty jealousy, immature behavior, the failure to talk honestly, etc all made me want to throw my Kindle at the wall. I did stick with it until the end, and it was redeemed somewhat. The writing was lovely, and there were layers of meaning throughout. I still don’t know how to grade it.
Remarkably Bright Creatures, on the other hand, started strong and stayed strong throughout. It lacked the depth of TTT, but it was consistently good. And what can I say about Marcellus, the octopus? He is absolutely one of my favorite characters ever— funny, sarcastic, superior, and utterly remarkable. In the terrific audiobook a man narrated Marcellus, and the woman narrated everyone else. The guy who did Marcellus knocked it out of the park.
Of recent reads, I would recommend the following, which were all very good but did not hit the glorious mark for me, which is a high bar. The last is a lovely m/m romance series.
The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
The Agency series by Ada Maria Soto. His Quiet Agent is the first. One of the characters is asexual, so there is no sex, but the love they have for one another is palpable.
I felt they behaved true to how they were written in T and T and T. I didn’t like the way they behaved but it seemed valid in the context of the story. And by the end, they’d grown up so it worked for me.
I, too, listened to the audio of Remarkably Bright Creatures (I think it was last year), and really enjoyed Michael Urie’s voice for Marcellus. Marin Ireland (actress in Sneaky Pete if you’ve ever seen that show) narrates the other PoVs.
I’m so happy to see the Ada Marie Soto here! I loved His Quiet Agent and have been waiting to hear more from this author. Thank you for mentioning it.
I haven’t been reading romance this year. Below are my most memorable / favorite reads outside of romance:
–The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (listened to audio narrated by the the always reliably good Cassandra Campbell). A beautiful tale of an unlikely friendship between a housekeeper and a professor who suffered brain damage after a car accident and can only remember up to 2 hrs in the present time. The friendship eventually extends to the professor befriending the housekeeper’s son and mutual love for Japanese baseball. Events take place in 1990s Japan.
–Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori and Children of Otori trilogies. I’ve always wanted to try this historical fantasy series set in feudal Japan, and it lived up to all the good things I’ve heard about it. It’s a brutal world with many tragic events, but beautifully written.
–Tuyo series by Rachel Neumeier. A tale of unexpected friendship that develops between two very different societies that start out in conflict with one another but eventually become allies to defeat a greater enemy that threatens both societies. The heart of the book is a father-son / mentor-mentee type of relationship that develops between a young warrior from the tribal/clan society and the warleader of the southern empire who spares the young warrior’s life when he is left as a sacrifice to acknowledge defeat to their enemy. Another book in this series comes out this summer, and I’m very much looking forward to it. I’ve come to care about so many characters in this series!
–Tales of the Magatama — so far only 2 books translated in English — by Noriko Ogiwara. The first book, Dragon Sword and Wind Child, is set during the mythic/ founding days of Japan and is the tale of a union between a child of darkness with a child of light. The 2nd book, Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince, takes place many generations later (so both these books can stand alone), and according to the author is a retelling of Yamato Takeru, the archetypal Japanese hero (whom I’d never heard of, so was interesting to learn about and discover how it differs from yet also has some parallels with western myths). The author also wrote a 3rd book, which I presume also can stand on its own, but it hasn’t been translated into English so will remain on my wishlist.
As usual, I’m late to the game here but I really enjoyed two on your list Dabney: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Forever Your Rogue. I’ll be checking out the Proctor (who I’ve not read) and the Linden for sure and perhaps several others.
It isn’t new but I recently read This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel (2017). The author is the parent of a trans child and she has written a work of fiction about a family of 5 that discovers its youngest child may be transgender. The book covers the family’s journey from about age 5 to about 10 in the life of this child. I was both moved (by the myriad issues such a situation presents for everyone in and around this child’s life) and totally blown away by the author’s use of humor to ground this story. I found myself chuckling and/or laughing out loud throughout this book; and I can’t recommend it enough.
I always say Caroline Linden never misses, so I’m looking forward to reading her latest.
My latest A just went to Thank you For Sharing by Rachel Runya-Katz. Beautiful, realistic story about emerging from pain and conflict into love. I won’t spoil the review when it comes out in September by saying more.
Just finished Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies. A powerful book on lives stuck in poverty, hopelessness and racist hate. One of the subtexts in the novel is that hound children are without prejudice and bias and they learn racism and other forms of biases from the adults at home and in schools.
*young children
I recommend that book all the time.