Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb Reading Notes

AHEM! So I've FINALLY gotten around to writing my reading roundup post for the months of September, October, November, December, January, and February. At the end of every month since September, I planned to write up my usual mini reviews, but things kept sliding away in a brain fog of pain, lassitude, and inability to focus. I have not written Morning Pages or in my Live Journal, both things I truly enjoy, or rather, enjoyed in the past. Neither have I kept up with my handwritten letter correspondence with dear friends, which I am really sad about. I'm sure they've been really worried. All I have been capable of is casual comments on social media every once in a while and endless scrolling of who-knows-what. I have barely been able to focus on reading.

Since October, chronic pain has had me whipped. Physical Therapy including massage three times a week is holding me together, body and soul. No answers from the doctors yet. I have further scans and tests and appointments scheduled as everyone hunts for an answer. In the meantime, I am spending quality time in bed, or on the couch on a better day, when I absolutely cannot force myself to be out and about and cheerful. Health is my only focus for this new year.

Now, it is the end of the second month of the new year, and I am finally mustering up the energy to get this post out. As a result, the post is rather on the longer side with reviews of fiction and romance.

The Shadow of a Queen by Heather B. Moore
Category: Historical Fiction
Comments: Moore truly knows how to set the stage on which her tale of historical fiction, based on true people and events, unfolds. Her deep research and skillful storytelling immerse you into the Victorian era and life in Queen Victoria's household. The story is mainly about Princess Louise, the sixth of Victoria's nine children, and it is as much about Louise as it is about Victoria and their private family life. [My Review]

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: This small book was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. I was pleased that the Booker Committee recognized the value of small books with modest stories among the doorstoppers and grand epics as worthy of the Prize. I was awed by Keegan's writing chops, and how smoothly and almost unknowably, she constructs a complex story, moving seamlessly from observant details to deep ideas. Set in Ireland in the 1980s, this is a story of a town controlled completely by the Catholic Church, and how the village folks are determined to walk on the right side of religion, despite horrific things happening under their noses. Amongst these, lives a man who was born to an unwed teenage mother who was taken in by one of the town's wealthiest of people and given a good education and start to life. The protagonist never forgot how lucky he and his mother had been, and chooses to do the right thing in spite of his wife's and townspeople's disapproval. Such emotional writing even though the protagonist is outwardly quite stoic.

Foster by Claire Keegan
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: My fascination with the above book led me to immediately buy this Ireland-set book from Book Depository, since the US version was going to be released later on. And I was amply rewarded for my impatience. It is likewise a small, initimate book, in which a monumental change happens in the life of a child, while on the surface, the child moves through each day filled with seemingly banal things. The inciting incidence is that an unwanted girl in a poor family with many children, a pregnant mother, and a wasteral of a father, is shunted off to the mother's sister's house for a few months. That is when she realized what it means to be brought up by a caring family. Beautiful writing!

A Dream Life by Claire Messud
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: Another small book of towering reputation from a fabulous writer, who the New Yorker calls one of our "greatest contemporary writers." In the 1970s, a middle class NYC family of modest means moves to Sydney because the man is ostensibly given a promotion, but in reality, is being sidelined by his company. His wife was vehemently opposed to the move, but their family of four has no choice. The story of their glittering socialite life then unfolds to the woman's utter disbelievement. She tries hard to fit in, to be one of them, but knows that the high class society only tolerates her. This gem of a book is her story and her choices in her new life in Sydney.

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: Razia Mirza is a Pakistani American growing up in 1980s Corona, a conservative, immigrant Muslim community in Queens surrounding the first Sunni mosque built in New York. Rehman’s masterful prose, peppered with Urdu phrases, evokes rich emotional and social nuances regarding a particularly sensitive divide between generations in a community of immigrants trying to hold on to their culture even as they make new lives for themselves in a new country. This was a brilliant book in how she constructed the story, the twist to Razia's story in the end, and above all, in what minute detail she brought twi. This is a YA story, but Rehman has written Razia's adult story in the book, titled Corona. [My Review]

Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: Divakaruni’s latest brilliant novel coincides with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the independence of India from British rule and its partition into India, Pakistan, and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). With great attention to detail regarding the political and religious upheaval this caused and its impact on ordinary citizens, Divakaruni tells a highly nuanced tale of a Hindu Bengali family living in the village of Ranipur near Calcutta (Kolkata). Divakaruni is superb in this book. She had always been a great storyteller, but in this highly emotional tale about a cause that is so dear to her, her writing really shines. [My Review]

Do You Take This Man by Denise Williams
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: In this book, Williams has crafted a fun enemies-to-lovers tale set in Asheville, North Carolina, featuring a no-nonsense divorce attorney who moonlights as a wedding officiant and a wedding planner who used to be a pro-football events manager. I really enjoy Williams' writing, especially, her characterization. This one quite up to the high benchmark she set in her earlier book.

Never Rescue a Rogue by Virginia Heath
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: Heath is carving a name for herself in historical rom-coms. I enjoyed her first book. This one is a frenemies-to-lovers story of an illegitimate duke and a clandestine journalist. Claiming to be a copyeditor at a newspaper, she is actually the anonymous Sentinel who sniffs out the illegal shenanigans of powerful people and brings them to justice through the power of her words. Gentle and kind, Giles Sinclair is the new duke of Harpenden, a hated title he associates with his late father, who always hated him. [My Review]

A Cosmic Kind of Love by Samantha Young
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: In Young’s (Fight or Flight, 2018) sweep-you-off-your-feet, tender-hearted romance, pink-haired Hallie Goodman loves her job organizing high-profile events all over New York. Her people-pleasing, conflict-avoiding ways have her constantly appeasing her selfish parents during their acrimonious divorce, while her ex’s scathing words still rankle. After a stint on the International Space Station, astronaut Captain Christopher Ortiz is back in New York. ince birth, his estranged, domineering father has kept him from his Mexican heritage, which he now wants to explore. This was an unusual story with characterization and plot. I recommend it.

The Rewind by Allison Winn Scotch
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This was such an unusual book. I had never read anything like it before. It is a second-chance rom-com set on a snowbound New England college campus at the turn of the millennium and told mainly through the internal monologues of the protagonists; actual dialogue is sparse. College sweethearts Frankie Harriman and Ezra Jones broke up before graduation and put the breadth of the country between them. Ten years later, they’re back on campus to celebrate the wedding of mutual friends. On the surface it is straightforward story, but it is the two protagonists' backstories and vulnerabilities where this book shines. [My Review]

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: I could wax lyrical for eons about Clayborn's Love Lettering. I found her next, Love At Sight, quite interesting, and this third one as well. Clayborn is a very good writer with great character work, but I kept feeling like her latter two books were crowdsourced or she was consulting people she had not consulted in her first book. I know most people loved all three of these books, but for me, the first one was so good, that my expectations were set high, and the other two didn't quite match that level of excellence. This is a story where two misfit protagonists grow up in a small town. She leaves for the glamor of Hollywood for work, and he scrapes together a successful business through the kindness and care of a benefactor. Now, she is back, and these two completely opposite strangers work on their past difficulties to forge a strong future together.

So This Is Christmas by Jenny Holiday
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: Holiday follows her popular Christmas books—A Princess for Christmas and Duke, Actually—set in the tiny, fictitious German-speaking alpine country of Eldovia with this story of the cupid behind those tales. This is a gentle romance between a strait-laced, traditional European man and a gregarious, ever-changing New Yorker. He is the royal equerry whereas she has been brought in to fix the problem of the main export company of Eldovia bleeding money. Clash? Of course, they do.

Where We End & Begin by Jane Igharo
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: I have loved all of Igharo's books. She is a talented writer and incorporates her Nigerian culture to go effect in setting stories in North America and Nigeria. Her stories are always complex and involve intricate emotional pitfalls for her two protagonists. They can, at times, flirt with the line between romance and women's fiction. This is romance and is a second-chance story between a Yoruba Nigerian boy/man and an Igbo girl/woman. They were sure they were destined to be together. And yet, when the girl goes off to America for college, he breaks off the relationship, staying back in Nigeria. Twelve years later, when she returns, life has completely changed for both of them, and yet, that old magical pull is still there. A memorable book. [My Review]

Lady Ludmilla's Accidental Letter by Sofi Laporte
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: This self-published author was one of my surprise finds in 2022. These days, I rarely take a chance on unknown self-pubbed authors, but the premise seemed too irresistible, and I am so glad I went with my gut feeling. Written in a trad Regency style with farcical and serious elements intermingled with laugh-out-loud moments, this was a wonderful book, and I shall be reading more of this author's work, in particular, Lucy and the Duke of Secrets. A lonely spinster deals with the circumestances of her dreary existence by a letter correspondence with someone who has become a dear friend with whom she has fallen in love, sight unseen. (Here is a fabulous case made for handwritten letters.) She decides to meet him and goes to London. And to her horror, she discovers that he is an inverterate rake.

The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel
Category: Fiction
Comments: This author was a surprise find of 2022 as well, thanks to a discussion about South Asian writers that I was following on Twitter. I am looking forward to her next book Scent of a Garden coming out in June. I'm not fond of the term "women's fiction," but this is about the heroine self-discovery and features some romantic elements towards the end. I would label this simply as "mainstream fiction." This was a debut book, but reads like a novel by an assured writer. She is a photo-journalist of repute, leading a roving, rootless life around the world. But her life is turned upside down when she inherits an apartment in Boston. And there begins her interactions with the quirky (to the nth degree) residents of the large Victorian house split into ownership apartments. They surround her with affection and are up in her business 24x7. At first, she balks at this encroachment into her privacy and is anxious about this house anchoring her down. But gradually, she changes and starts to build tentative roots.

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is one of the best books I read in 2022. I have enjoyed every single one of Jimenez' books. Her characters are so emotionally mature that they are able to calibrate themselves and empathize with others with a great degree of nuance. I can hardly wait to read her next April book. In this book, Jimenez has her characters truly grapple with small town versus big city living. Most of such type of books, gloss over the difficulties and has the city person move happily into the small town. But this book has them both contemplating life in the other person's milieu. She is an ER doctor in a big city, belonging to a wealthy family of high profile surgeons who have been involved in the same hospital for generations. Her father is disappointed that she only wants to be an ER doctor and not a surgeon and/or the board chairman. He is a talented carpenter and artist in wood who lives in a modest life in a small town, not far away from the big city. He is also ten years younger, which he is fine with but she isn't. Can she bring him into her world? Can she move into his world? Such a fabulous story. Highly recommended!

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: I started the year off with a bang with a book that is going to be one of the best of 2023 for me. Hazelwood's writing just clicks with me with her alternately quirky and serious characters, the tenderness and trust and understanding between them, and their unfailing support for each other. I know, last summer, when I read her entire backlist back-to-back, while I loved each book individually, I felt that the characterization was a bit repetitive, but I had also suspected that time and distance would make the next book exciting to read. And it turned out to be true. I enjoyed this book thoroughly. This book is a clash between a theoretical physicist adjunct professor and an experimental physicist tenured professor, set in Cambridge (Boston). He disapproves of theoretical physicists and has recommended another experimentalist for the dream job she is gunning for at MIT. Since her paycheck as an adjunct in non-existent, she supplements her income by offering her services as a fake girlfriend. This book contains more science than her previous books; that actually was a draw for me. Untangling their vulnerabilities and deep-seated views of self is where Hazelwood shines. Highly recommended!

Attribution by Lisa Moore
Category: Mystery
Comments: This is a very interesting art history-mystery novel. The author is an expert art collector and former fine art gallery owner. The art history discussion and how the provenance (or attribution) of a piece of art is established is fascinating. The book cover art is by Spanish Baroque artist Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez of the early 17th century. This is a contemporary book with an art history mystery at its base, which is fascinating. Overall, I wished the writing could've been better—debut book published by a vanity press that needed substantive editing—but it had good bones. I look forward to reading her next book.

Speechless by Lindsey Lanza
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: Selfishness sounds the death knell for a character because they are in it for themselves. When it is the heroine, the reader is expected to empathize with her despite her selfishness, and I cannot. This book started off brilliantly enough. She is a writer who found herself suddenly divorced. She has always felt left behind by the people in her life, and the resulting insecurity and low self-esteem coupled with crippling endometriosis, is sucking the joy out of her life. She survives her chronic illness through the love of her service dog and the glorious music of one composer. When her best friend from college asks her to move to LA to live with her, she jumps at the chance. And guess who is her seatmate? None other than the composer, who is extremely gorgeous and is afflicted with crippling social anxiety. They are so wonderful to and for each other in the first sections of the book. It all sounds good so far, but then it goes pear shaped. He pours all his love into her and gives her anything that she might possibly need, materially and emotionally. And she blows hot and cold constantly and takes and takes. The worst is after they make love, and it is amazing, she simply runs out of his house and disappears for two days. Yes, she has some emotional stuff to work on, but why doesn't she talk to him?? Instead, she goes to her friend's house and drowns her sorrows in drink and binge-watching for two days without a thought for him even though she knows his feelings are very much engaged. In the meantime, he has been frantic with worry wondering if she had an accident, where she was, etc. When she swans back, she is nowhere near as contrite as she should've been. This is unforgivable.

Rich in Your Love by Pippa Grant
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: The premise of this story is a common one in contemporary romance. To wit: Highly accomplished big city girl comes to small town and meets local man doing small town things and decides to throw in her lot with his. How that comes about is where the story is. This plot has been done remarkably well this year by a few authors already—that is why this book had to stand out, but, in fact, it stays mired in its trappings. It is trying to be chick-lot/rom-com, but the levity required for that (with its matching gravitas) is entirely missing. What comes across instead are ill-thought-out plot details that are summarily put down by the author and don’t make logical sense. Of course, romance is chockful of bonkers plots but those plots are coherent within the context of their stories. They make sense. This one doesn’t because the pieces don’t cohere into a whole. The biggest example of this is the heroine, who is the main POV character. The author tells you again and again how amazing she is, but the person on the page is an immature person whose left hand doesn’t quite know what her right hand is doing.

Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown by Valentine Low
Category: Nonfiction
Comments: I was intrigued by the title and curious about the behind-the-scenes tea. There was that, of course, and detailed explanations of how things work. It was interesting, but it was also boring and repetitive. I also felt manipulated at times, like I was supposed to buy in to his agenda that I found more about out when I read about him the web. However, it is a book royalists will enjoy—in small doses.

[Some of these books are eARCs from NetGalley and the others are either borrowed from the public library or I've bought them.]

Review: In the Shadow of a Queen by Heather B. Moore

Moore truly knows how to set the stage on which her tale of historical fiction, based on true people and events, unfolds. Her deep research and skillful storytelling immerse you into the Victorian era and life in Queen Victoria's household.

The story is about Princess Louise, the sixth of Victoria's nine children. The story starts out when she is a shy twelve-year-old understood only by her eldest brother, Bertie, the Prince of Wales. She is the typical middle child, oft forgotten and expected to be uncomplainingly dutiful. She is a creative who enjoys sketching and painting, but her true passion is sculpture. She longs to express herself in art and in politics, but she is perpetually cowed by her domineering, strong-willed mother.

This story is as much about Louise as it is about Victoria and their private family life before and especially in the aftermath of Victoria’s beloved husband, Prince Albert's untimely death. Recounted in a sequential fashion from when Louise was twelve to twenty-three, much of the story involves the severe restrictions placed on her and her siblings' lives by Victoria’s overwhelmingly exacting mourning. She is such a feared tyrant that marriage is the only way for her daughters to escape her oppressive presence.

When she marries, Louise is very lucky to have a loving husband who gives her all the freedom to be who she wants to be. Her flourishing in her marriage after all the repressions of her austere childhood is superbly shown by Moore.

Through the story and the extensive front and back matter of a family tree, detailed chapter notes, foreword and afterword, and so on, you truly get an in-depth look at Victoria and Louise's personalities, court life, British and European politics, and how the Victorian society was crafted.

[Note: Louise's art is on display in the UK even now and her notable contributions to society are a matter of public record.]

[Also Note: I received a print ARC from the publisher.]

Review: Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner

Jenner follows upon the success of her hugely popular Jane Austen Society (2020) with the 1950s London-based story, Bloomsbury Girls, about three shopgirls, a century-old bookshop, and much feuding between the male staff and the female staff to take ownership of the shop.

The servant girl, Evie Stone, from Jane Austen Society is now all grown up with a degree from Cambridge and has found her home among the rare books of Bloomsbury Books & Maps. Jenner says that Evie Stone is the only character inspired by real life: her own mother, who had to leave school at age fourteen, and her own daughter, who does eighteenth-century research for a university professor and his team.

Illustrious women of the publishing world, such as Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, George Orwell’s widow Sonia Blair, Peggy Guggenheim, and others make cameo appearances at the bookshop and at literary salons around London, setting the stage on which the three female employees, Grace Perkins, Vivien Lowry, and Evie Stone, build their dreams and careers.

Vivien Lowry is vivacious, self-confident, and very much single. She still mourns the loss of her aristocratic fiancé who was killed in action during World War II. She is reluctantly in charge of the cash register though her goal is to be Head of Fiction and replace some of the stuffy male-only titles with books by women. She is in a love-hate relationship with Alec McDonough, the current Head of Fiction.

Grace Perkins has worked at the shop the longest. She prefers keeping her head down at her bookkeeping and secretarial job in the backrooms of the shop. Her two sons are her joy. But her marriage is suffocating under her husband’s increasingly worsening mental health. Grace is always dutiful, but there are times when she wishes she could run away. Her only respite is Lord Baskin, the aristocratic owner of the shop who spends time with her and makes her laugh.

Evelyn “Evie” Stone is the shop’s newest and youngest employee who was hired based on her being in the first class of female students from Cambridge who were permitted to earn a degree. In her naïveté, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less accomplished male rival. She is determined to make a success of her secret project in London, which is to print notable works by women writers that have been lost to obscurity. The shop’s shy scientist in charge of the Science and Naturalism Department, Ashwin “Ash” Ramaswamy, opens her shy, innocent eyes to Indian culture and British racism. And to attraction.

As we saw in Jane Austen Society, and especially heightened in Bloomsbury Girls, Jenner skillfully imbues her characters with so much personality, you cannot help getting enmeshed in their vivid lives unfolding on the page. In both books, Jenner explores friendships and a coming together for a common cause; in other words, a life of meaning and purpose. Women in postwar London were not allowed to exhibit ambition and a career-focus, but that is exactly what the women in the story pursue. Stealth and much derring-do in the sale of a precious forgotten three-volume manuscript add color and drama to the narrative.

Bloomsbury Girls solidly situates Jenner as a writer of unforgettable and delightful historical fiction. If you are enamored with books and bookshops, then Jenner, who was an independent bookstore owner in Oakville, Ontario, is the perfect person to introduce Bloomsbury Books & Maps to you.

[Please note: The unabridged audiobook has been narrated by the esteemed British actress Juliet Stevenson, who has narrated many period audiobooks. No one does characters as distinctly and well as her.]

April & May Reading Notes

I didn't have very many books in April, so I thought to combine my April and May reading notes into one post. But holy cow! I read so many in May that this has turned out to be one long post. I did try to make every mini review as small as possible while still conveying a sense of the story. In some places, I have links to the full reviews. In many others, I couldn't link because the reviews are behind a paywall or they are supposed to be annonymous.

The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman
Category: Graphic Novel
Comments: A banned book that I read for a book club. We are moms from our old school who've continued to meet every month over Zoom. We read anti-oppression books by authors of every diversity featuring their thoughts and ideas on their diversity. Our goal is to emerge from the discussions with more clarity, respect, and insight into the issues facing those marginalized from the dominant groups in America.

This graphic novel is the author's Polish father's Holocaust survivor story of his experiences as faithfully written down by his son, an American. The Jewish people are depicted as mice and the Nazis as cats. The book was a visceral shock because it is a real story and all in dialogue narration. There isn't any distance of formal nonfiction prose, and while the narrator is even keel, that makes his truths all the more horrifying. The author does not give the reader any breaks and demands that you keep up with the intensity of the story.

Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World Retold by Bolu Babalola
Category: Literary Fiction Short Stories
Comments: This debut collection by Nigerian-British author Babalola has thirteen short folktales and myths with romantic elements of people largely from African legends focusing on Black empowerment. There are also story retellings from Greece and China. I adored this book and Babalola's writing and imaginative storytelling. In "Nefertiti," the Egyptian queen is a vigilante protecting women from patriarchal violence and oppression. In "Orin," both the protagonists are on terrible dates when they meet, and their easy conversation is a balm to their bruised spirits. "Ọṣun" is a Yoruba new adult love triangle tale, "Naleli" is a Lesothoian YA friends-to-lovers tale, and "Siya" is another warrior fantasy. Here is an example of Babalola's writing, which is why I adore this collection.

In those swim meets, she focused on the sound of the water smacking against her skin like a hand against the taut hide of a talking drum. Her swimming became a dance to a rhythm she was creating with the water. With each hip switch a hand sliced through the water till she was no longer just a body among bodies within a false aquatic body, tiled and sterile. No, she was the body, the only body, vibrant and heavy breathing. By the time the music stopped, she was over the finish line, alone. All they saw was an excellent athlete; only she knew that she was a dancer.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This spring has seen quite a few contemporary romance titles set in the publishing world. This one is about a literary agent shown as a "shark," and an editor who turned down her star client's previous book. They meet in a small town where her client has based her novels. He now wants to acquire her client's next book and they have to work together with the high maintenance author. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and loved Henry's writing style and characterization. [My Review]

A Scot is Not Enough by Gina Conkle
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: It was surprising how much I liked this book. In this sharp, brilliant Georgian romance, a Scottish Jacobite forever changes the trajectory of an upright English barrister’s life. It is a tale of political adversaries who are beguiled with each other in spite of everything pulling them apart. The mystery of the sgian-dubh adds intrigue, but it is Conkle’s prose and character work that make this romance so compelling. [My Review]

Good Morning, Love by Ashley Coleman
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is more women's fiction and the heroine's journey than romance though the happy-for-now ending is convincing. I learned so much by reading this book. It brims with authentic details of how music records are produced, how artists are discovered, and the life of a megastar from music industry professional Ashley M. Coleman. The hero is an R&B artist who has made it to the big leagues. The heroine works with artists at a creative agency, and in her spare time, she moonlights as a songwriter. She hopes to make it big in the industry. They meet because her boss is his publicist.

All Fired Up by Dylan Newton
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: I really liked this book. The heroine is a publicist at a publisher and frenetically juggles important authors. To-do lists are her superpower and her kryptonite. She moonlights as a ballet teacher. But stress is causing her insomnia and panic attacks, so she takes a leave of abscence and moves to her grandmother's small town to relax and help her grandmother. The hero is an ex-Marine, who now embodies a laidback surfer dude vibe. He really woos her with all his sweetness and patience. (CW: eating disorder, PTSD, survivor's guilt). [My Review]

The Accidental Pinup by Danielle Jackson
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is a fun, flirty look at the modeling and photography of lingerie. The protagonists are rival photographers competing for the same assignments. However, as a Black female photographer, she finds herself losing out to him repeatedly. She wants to photograph a national ad campaign so when she finds herself demoted to modeling with him being the photographer, it is the last straw...and the start of their relationship. There is a lot of groveling involved in the end.

From the Jump by Lacie Waldon
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: The coolest thing about this book is that part of it is set on a South African safari. I chose the book based on that and also because I had simiarly chosen her previous book, which was set on the Galápagos islands. This is a friends-to-lovers story of a traumatized heroine and a sweetheart of a hero, who also had a difficult childhood. She betrays his trust and there is much atonement for her in the end, and how their relationship survives is the heart of the story. (CW: unsheltered youth)

Lucie Yi is Not a Romantic by Lauren Ho
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: Frank talk about monthly cycles, IVF, and money are part of an unconventional co-parenting agreement in Malaysian author Ho’s sensitive portrayal of two people’s deep desire to be parents, but not being able to go the usual route of love and children with a committed partner. The story is set in Singapore and deals with a happy-for-now story of romance between the protagonists, temptation from her ex, and Singaporean society's disapprobation of a child out of wedlock. Ho skillfully applies humor to heighten and soften heartbreaking truths. [My Review]

For Butter or Worse by Erin La Rosa
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is an enemies-to-lovers story of a celebrity chef and the owner of a chain of family restaurants who are acrimonious co-hosts of a television cooking show. A flame-out is followed by unexpected, but well-publicized, almost snogging. Oops! Now, they are required to fake date to save their reputations. Under the breezy premise is a story of low self-esteem, mental health challenges, financial worries, and rediscovering who they are and who they want to be. Well done! (CW: panic attacks)

The Knight's Tempting Ally by Ella Matthews
Category: Medieval Romance
Comments: How I love a well-researched, well-executed medieval romance. This is a good example of that. She is the plain middle daughter with beuatiful sisters who has been repeatedly told that she is unmarriageable. In her teens, she was falsely beguiled by a man whom she thought loved her and wanted to marry her, so gave him her virginity, only to have him laugh at her and spurn her. She has convinced herself that she is destined to the nunnery. A good medieval usually has heavy politics as does this one. He is one of the King's Knights and has sworn to protect him and his reign. His childhood was tragic and he is "married" to his knight brothers. They meet at the king's court where there are rumblings over war with France. Thanks to Wendy Crutcher for recommending this.

Stirring up Love by Chandra Blumberg
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: I really admired the hero for seeking therapy to help him cope with his anxiety-riddled childhood of homelessnes and foster homes. He is still living in temporary housing and working every hour he can get as a chef, but he has big dreams. He wants to open a culinary school for those people society would sooner forget so they have a chance at a better future. She has grown up thinking she was always second-best but she works hard and has big dreams. She wants her small town to become a retail and entertainment hub. She is prickly and caring; he is kind and sweet—a wonderful enemies-to-lovers relationship. (CW: unsheltered youth, foster homes)

A Country Escape by Katie Fforde
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: Having grown up reading farm books by Enid Blyton, I jumped at the chance to read a romance set in the English farming countryside. The best thing about the book is how a newbie chef from London develops as a farmer managing hereditary livestock and selling the milk. She has innovative ways to make the broken down farm profitable through supper clubs and learning to make cheese to sell. She is on probation for a year. If she can make a go of the farm, then her elderly relative will let her inherit it. Of course, there is a dastardly villain relative who also wants the farm, and he comes in twirling his mustache. Then there is the wonderfully kind neighbor who is so easy on the eyes but with whom she is supposed to be at daggers drawn, according to her elderly relative. Instead, she is as drawn to him as he is to her. Fforde is talented in detailing her setting. You feel like you are on that farm with the heroine facing the challenges and experiencing the joys. If you're someone who enjoys the English countryside, this is a story not to be missed.

From Chai to Laddoos, From Bindis to Saris, From Dances to Epics, Here are Five South Asian Tales
Category: Children's Picture Books
[My Reviews]
—Ganesha's Sweet Tooth by Sanjay Patel & Emily Haynes, illustrated by Sanjay Patel
—Chaiwala! by Priti Birla Maheshwari, illustrated by Ashley Barron
—A Sari for Ammi by Mamta Nainy, illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat
—Dancing in Thatha's Footsteps by Srividya Venkat, illustrated by Kavita Ramchandran
—Bindu's Bindis by Supriya Kelkar, illustrated by Parvati Pillai

Five Picture Books to Celebrate Eid with Your Children
Category: Children's Picture Books
[My Reviews]
—One Wish: Fatima al-Fihri and the World's Oldest Univeristy by M.O. Yuksel, illustrated by Mariam Quraishi
—Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets: A Muslim Book of Shapes by Hena Khan, illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini
—One Sun and Countless Stars: A Muslim Book of Numbers by Hena Khan, illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini
—My Name is Bana by Bana Alabed, illustrated by Nez Riaz
—Beautifully Me by Nabel Noor, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

March Reading Notes

I am VERY excited to report that I have been accepted to study philosophy at the University of Oxford through their Department of Continuing Education. It's a four-year-long certificate program with most of the courses done online and one on campus (so cool!). The application process was rigorous and highly competitive. I agonized over the two essays I had to write, and I sweated through my socks and shirt during the Zoom interview for which I had practiced and practiced. So the acceptance was amazing. Many, many thanks to the three people who wrote me references and to my family for their advice and help in making my dream from when I was seventeen a reality decades later.

Had a lovely conversation with Stephan Lee on the world of K-Pop and his two books, K-Pop Confidential and K-Pop Revolution. Adriana Herrera is always a pleasure to talk to about her work, particularly, her newest, Caribbean Heiress in Paris.

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
Category: General Fiction
Comments: This was my favorite book this month. Museums all over the western world proudly showcase priceless art stolen from other countries through war and conquest, a side benefit of colonialism and imperialism. Many of those countries want their art and cultural identity back, but museums refuse to part with the pieces. Portrait of a Thief is based on the true story of Chinese art that has gone missing from western museums. The book is in response to the question: Who’s stealing the art? In this book, Stanford medical student and debut novelist, Grace D. Li, spins an intricate heist story juxtaposed with a pitch-perfect depiction of the complex nature of immigrant identity. [My Review]

By the Book by Jasmine Guillory
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: A starred review from me for Booklist. This winter and spring has seen multiple romance novels set in the publishing world like this one. What could a people-pleasing editorial assistant, one of very few African Americans working for this publishing house who is still living with her parents, have in common with a rich bad boy known for bar fights, fast cars, and dating supermodels? [My Review]

Kingscastle by Sophia Holloway
Category: Traditional Regency Romance
Comments: When I first set sight on the cover of Kingscastle, I knew I had to read it. I was pleased to see that the story lived up to the promise of Lee Avison’s cover design. Much in the same style as the Traditional Regency novels of the 1980s, Kingscastle is a quiet, character-driven story set in the countryside, complete with an imposing castle, a local vicar, a small village, torrents of rain, and a harridan of a beldame. I was tickled pink to discover that Holloway had given the hero the title “Athelney,” which is the name of the village that is best known for once being the fortress hiding place of my favorite king Alfred the Great. Holloway also writes medieval murder mysteries, and I wonder if she is just as fascinated with King Alfred as I am. [My Review]

Sari, Not Sari by Sonya Singh
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: Set in the world of Bollywood dancing, mehndi, and matchmaking aunties, this is a debut novel by Sonya Singh, a former entertainment reporter turned PR expert. This is a story of an Indian American woman who wasn't brought up steeped in her culture and finds that she is really missing that part of her identity. In a bid to regain that aspect of herself, she conspires with her client to attend his family's wedding while helping him break up with his girlfriend through her relationship breakup company.

Rules for Engaging the Earl by Janna MacGregor
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: This is a story of childhood lovers being offered a second chance. As teens, both the hero and heroine were in love with each other, but he is tempted by the war office's appeal to his patriotism. Badly injured and scarred, he returns from the war a changed man, wary, distrustful, and convinced he will not make a good husband, father, or friend. She made a bad first marriage, and is now widowed with a baby daughter to raise. She asks her old friend to marry her trusting in his integrity and honor and is determined to be a supportive wife to him and make her second marriage a success. She believes that beneath the crusty exterior lies that generous-hearted boy she used to know and sets her heart on peeling back the layers to find him.

A Song Begins by Mary Burchell
Category: Vintage Contemporary Romance
Comments: I read this book as part of the Saturday Book Club read for this month. We had a controversial discussion with Burchell working very well for some readers and not at all for others. I read these vintage contemporary books as historical romance, so the social mores and culture makes sense. This is one of those rare books that gets the music world right. As a choral singer, I delighted in all the music details of the heroine who is plucked from an obscure English village by a world famous conductor who invests his time and effort in training her, while also paying for her housing and food and further study with another teacher in London. It is a patriarchical book that starts out with a huge power imbalance. To me, the power starts to balance out towards the end with the promise that the process will continue in their marriage. I enjoy Burchell's writing.

Under the Stars of Paris by Mary Burchell
Category: Vintage Contemporary Romance
Comments: After finishing the above book, I got into a conversation about Burchell that led to this book, and I was immediately tempted to re-read it. It, too, has the same power imbalance of wealthy, careworn, successful man and ingegue young woman. This is set in the fashion world, and like the above book is very well researched. Fans of Project Runway will appreciate the story. She is plucked out of a Parisian street by a fashion house as a stand-in for their injured top model. She instinctively know how to walk and carry off the clothes and makes a success as a model. He is the creative director of the fashion house and she becomes his creation. There's a secondary love interest who would make a plausible partner, but she is only interested in the seemingly unttainable hero.

Akbar and Birbal by Amita Sarin
Category: Children's Nonfiction & Fiction
Comments: I loved this book. Set in 16th century India, the stories are a mixture of real historical tales and fables of Akbar, the Mughal Emperor of India, and his trusted advisor, Birbal. Akbar was known as a benevolent ruler, bright and kind. Birbal was known as a brilliant, savvy vizier. The author has organized her book with a historical story followed by 1-3 fables based on that story. In each story, either citizens approach Akbar with problems or Akbar himself comes up with problems that Birbal is required to solve, which he does in witty, clever ways.

Shahrzad & the Angry King by Nahid Kazemi
Category: Children's Picture Book
Comments: This is another marvelous book in the pantheon of great books by celebrated family-owned publisher, Enchanted Lion Books. Drawing on her Persian heritage and expertise in visual art, Nahid Kazemi spins a magical story of her homeland. Storytelling is the backbone of our civilization, and throughout the ages, it has always been a powerful method of enacting societal change. Who does not know of Scheherazade and her one thousand and one stories to beguile her husband and stop him from executing her and fall in love with her? Her stories, such as Aladdin’s Lamp, Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and others live on to this day. In Shahrzad & the Angry King, Kazemi brings Scheherazade to life in the guise of a young girl named Shahrzad who loves to collect stories from the world around her. Her goal is to really understand people at a deep level. [My Review]

Kenny's Window by Maurice Sendak
Category: Children's Book
Comments: A standout line from the book: "A wish is halfway to wherever you want to go." Beautiful! My copy is a first printing from my library from 1956 and it has been barely read. Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are is stupendously popular, so I assumed that people would be scouring his backlist and forelist and everything would've gone back for multiple printings. So it is curious that this book from 1956 is still pristine. Looks like a hidden gem. The story is about a boy who wakes up from a dream remembering everything including seven philosophical questions he has to find answers to. He answers them in his own vastly creative ways with small parables. Do read philosopher Maria Popova's wonderful review of the book. She says everything that I might ever want to say better.

The Great Philosophers: The Lives and Ideas of History's Greatest Thinkers by Stephen Law
Category: Nonfiction
Comments: Superb book that explains the major philosophical ideas of the western world distilled into small bites. It links back and forth between ideas as contemporary and later philosophers dispute established theories. Each piece has a bio of a philosopher and explains the basic theories along with examples. Very thorough treatment for understanding by lay people. It has Buddhism and Confucianism in the beginning, but that is a bit of a pretense to be international, because there aren't other non-western philosophers later on. Discounting those two first entries, it is an excellent resource for an armchair philosopher.

February Reading Notes

It is already the 10th of the month, I am just now putting out my reading notes for last month. Where has the time vanished?

Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma
Category:Contemporary Romance
Comments: A starred review for Booklist. This is a fun, engaging, Taming of the Shrew-inspired rom-com about American Desi culture. She is a prickly lawyer living with his increasingly distant family and waiting for true love. He is a cardiologist who wants an arranged marriage because falling in love is stressful for the heart. They have a huge blowout fight on his talk show. How to rehabilitate their reputations and manage their family's expectations? [My Review]

By Any Other Name by Lauren Kate
Category:Contemporary Romance
Comments: Stories set in the publishing world are really popular this spring. This is set in NYC and brings the city to life, which was fun. The heroine's been promoted to editorial director and the star author of their publishing company now falls under her care. Only problem is that the author is way past the due date for her manuscript. The author is a real diva and a cipher—no one has ever met her. When our heroine meets her in person, she is shocked that she is a he. Legions of fans would be upset when, if, this were to get out. So what to, whether to, tell them? How to unblock his creativity and get him to finish his book? Some of the questions this book grapples with. This story has the most romantic proposal I have ever read. (My review in the Feb 15 issue of Booklist.)

Someone to Cherish by Mary Balogh
Category: Regency Romance
Comments: A lovely, quiet story by Balogh of two lonely souls finding in the other their reason for living. Lydia is recently widowed. Her former husband was a vicar, more devoted to his parish than his wife, and her life with him had been one of duty and loneliness. She is enamored with her new-found freedom and is loath to give it up to any man by marrying him. But she wonders about the intimate side of marriage. She wants to take a lover to discover for herself whether it is all that it is cracked up to be. Harry lost his earldom due to his father's bigamy and joined up to fight Napoléon. After being badly wounded, he has now become a gentleman farmer. He now seeks solitude by habit. Like many of Balogh's self-possessed heroines, Lydia takes charge of her destiny. She propositions Harry with an affair...as a balm against loneliness for both. I really liked Harry, his kindness, his thoughtfulness to everyone around him, but especially Lydia. She is like parched soil and soaks up his gentleness. I enjoyed seeing the rest of the Westmorland clan gathering around implicitly demonstrating to Lydia how strong the women are and how equal they are in their marriages.

The Burn Zone by Annabeth Albert
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is a high-octane book in terms of heat and action set in rural Oregon. The two men are a few years apart. One is a seasoned veteran smoke jumper and the younger one is a new recruit. Jacob's older brother was Linc's best friend and team member, and he has had a crush on Linc for years. Both men have had eyes for each other, but Jacob's family's homophobia had kept them both in the closet. This is a sort of an enemies-to-lovers story because Linc wants to keep Jacob safe, even from himself, at first. But then they fall into the classic romance trope of "let's have a brief affair to get it out of our systems." The story does a bit too much navel gazing with one of the "obstacles" keeping them apart being the age gap—ten years. No biggie, but this story makes it a biggie. The other source of tension is Linc's desire to keep his sexual identity a secret from people at work and others in his life. The author does an OK job of having Linc deal with this, though his blowing hot and cold goes on a tad too long.

Wild Rain by Beverly Jenkins
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: A low angst romance between a traumatized woman and a cinnamon roll hero who's a reporter coming into town to do a story on her brother. Spring is a denim-wearing, horse-riding rancher and Garrett is a bookish, formerly enslaved journalist. They meet in a blizzard where she saves his life. He doesn't fall off his horse, but he does fall in love with her. Jenkins does small town, low angst romances really well. Spring is the star of this Women Who Dare series. She's a straight shooter who brooks no nonsense, who hangs out in saloons and is not missish of her sexuality. The roles the two protagonists adopt are true to form. He is the more giving, more accepting person. She takes and usurps. He meets her more than halfway and does the heavy lifting in their relationship. She comes across as standoffish and even selfish at times. However, Jenkins does a superb job of showing Spring rising up to the challenge of her past and coming to terms with it and growing through that process. I really enjoyed this story.

The Wife He Needs by Brenda Jackson
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is the first book of her Westmoreland Legacy: The Outlaws series. I have read two of her other books, and this is similarly a book of grand gestures, high heat, and big emotions. It is a showy book that is not in my style. I love that Regan is the corporate pilot. She is tasked with getting the billionaire head honcho, Garth, on a two-week getaway to Spain with his date. The date is a no-show. But the trip still stands. Regan is the stand-in. Despite ten years having passed since his first wife died, Garth remains unconvinced that he can fall in love again. But his kids need a mother. What was to be a marriage of convenience is now getting mixed up with a lot of angst, heat, and feelings. She, on the other hand, has always had a soft spot for him, and their affair only convinces her the rightness of him being in her life. The twist in the tail is expected but well done. This is a fast-paced story like Jackson's other books.

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Category:LitFic Audio
Comments:I was so excited when I heard that the divine Juliet Stevenson had finally narrated P & P. The minute I heard, I went up to Audible and re-upped my membership, bought the title, and promptly canceled my membership. Stevenson has done other Austen works, so I've always been puzzled why she hadn't done P & P. Whatever reason, I am glad she has finally narrated it. To call, Stevenson's reading a "narration," is doing it disservice. She "performs" it like a play, taking on very different and specific character voices based on their personalities. She clearly has read the book backwards and forwards and understands the story and the characters at a very deep level. I have read the book and watched the adaptations many times, yet, I discovered a few more details here that I had never noticed before, thanks to Stevenson. Highly recommended.

Threshold by Angela J. Reynolds
Category: Children's Middle Grade Fiction
Comments: Set along the coastline in Cape Breton, Threshold is a gorgeous meditation on the magic of friendship, if one only has the courage to reach for it. This friendship is the turning point in the life of a dreamy twelve-year-old girl, who is spending a lonely summer over at her aunt's house by the ocean, agonizing over her younger brother's health. "Will he die?" is a question that haunts her. But she has no one her age to share her worries with, until she meets someone who understands her perfectly. Threshold, a tale of friendship, family, and great derring-do, is a highly addictive read. Its compelling and engrossing nature is enhanced by the lyrical beauty of Reynolds’ prose. Highly recommended. [My Review]

–Alex's Good Fortune by Benson Shum
–Friends are Friends, Forever by Dane Liu, illustrated by Lynn Scurfield
–The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Sebastià Serra
–New Year by Mei Zihan, illustrated by Qin Leng, translated by Yan Yan
Category: Children's Picture Books
Comments: The joyous celebration of the Lunar New Year, observed in different countries throughout Asia, as a multiday holiday, is the most important time of the year for families to get together. The origins of the Lunar New Year festival are thousands of years old and are steeped in legends. These days, typical festivities, include religious ceremonies honoring ancestors, spring cleaning of houses, dances, parades, fireworks, special foods and red envelopes with money for children for good luck. In some parts of Asia, the celebration concludes with the Lantern Festival. These books will help your kids ring in the Year of the Tiger! [My Reviews]

November & December Reading Notes

I realized a week before Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, that Diwali was next week and I had a children's picture book on Diwali. I hurriedly emailed my editor and asked that if I could have the review to her by that evening, would she pretty please cherry on top print it in the newspaper next week? She was immensely kind and said she would squeeze it on to the paper. And she did!

I am really enjoying doing author interviews. Here are the ones for November and December: interview with Sarah MacLean and interview with Cat Sebastian. I also interviewed a picture book author, Rajani LaRocca, Lucy Parker, and Marguerite Kaye earlier this year. In the new year, I plan to interview a prominent Asian American author, which will be challenging because I'll be stepping out of my realm of expertise with that piece into the world of K-pop!

HERE is the list of my best romance novels for this year.

On to the reviews for November and December...

Love at First Spite by Anna E. Collins
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is a debut fast-paced novel set in Seattle. The opening scene has an unforgettable image of the heroine in a paintball-splattered white wedding gown. She's just been dumped, weeks before the wedding. But instead of wallowing in grief, she decides on detailed revenge against her ex. She buys a plot of land next to her ex's house and plans on ruining his peace and view by building a monstrosity, peopled with loud people. Only the stick-up-his-backside architect at her firm agrees to design her this house. There are plenty of laughs in this book and some outlandish doings in the heroine's "hastily decided upon but refined upon at leisure" plan. [CW: Meniere’s disease, an inner-ear disorder]

The Fastest Way to Fall by Denise Williams
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This a story of someone falling in love with a person who helps them feel strong and want to be stronger. This is not a story about weight loss or a paradigm shift to find love, but about learning to love who you are. He is the CEO of FitMe Fitness, a hugely popular, individualized, body positive lifestyle app. Through its clever matching algorithm, FitMe teams up each client with a professional coach who helps them meet their goals. She is a curvy woman whose goals are to jump out of a plane and to look and feel good naked. She refuses to allow being fat to define her. She teams up with a coworker to write immensely popular, dueling blog posts for the lifestyle magazine she works for about the entire fitness experience with two competing apps, FitMe and HottrYou. [CW: eating disorder, fatphobia, one instance of disordered eating and over-exercising putting someone in the hospital]. [My review is here.]

Someone Perfect by Mary Balogh
Category: Regency Romance
Comments: This is Balogh’s last novel in her fabulous Westcott series. The story is about two people, coming from very disparate backgrounds, who connect at an unanticipated and deeply emotional level. It is a master class in trust and fairness and honesty. How do you trust uninhibitedly, even in the face of opposing, seemingly true, facts? What does it mean to continually strive to bring light and joy to the other’s soul? Heart-to-heart, frank conversations is how their relationship develops, even when he proposes to her, and she refuses, and then he warns her he is planning to propose to her again. Their relationship is bracketed by the two proposals. [My review is here.]

Somewhere Above It All by Holli Fawcett Clayton
Category: Contemporary Romance Adventure
Comments: This is a debut book on grief and the indomitable courage it takes to come to terms with it. Even scaling Tanzania’s 19,341-foot treacherous Mount Kilimanjaro feels easier for the heroine. Writing with an assured hand, the author charts the emotional landscape as well as physical landscape with deep sensitivity and poignant detail. Ravaged by grief at the death of her dream of married life by the suicide of her opioid-addicted husband, the heroine is determined to put herself first after many years of despair. She is resolute in doing something that she could’ve never imagined herself doing—a grueling climb up to the oxygen-deprived Roof of Africa, Kilimanjaro. He is lead counsel for a pharmaceutical company and a rugged outdoorsman. He is grieving the suicide of his beloved older brother, who was also his best friend. Challenging the mountain is a way for him to get a grip on his grief. Leaving the past behind isn't easy for either of them. Yet, the mountain brings them closer together. This is not strictly a romance, more a heroine's journey, but the romance is a huge sub-plot. [My review is here.]

Once Upon a Winter's Eve by Tessa Dare
Category: Regency Romance
Comments: Dare's Spindle Cove series is touted by fans as her best, so I decided to dip my toes into Dare's writing with this novella. Her writing style is reminiscent of the old Julia Quinn novels: frothy, fun, with modern sensibilities, requiring large dollops of suspension of disbelief, but ultimately, satisfying and entertaining. Like Quinn, Dare quickly became very popular with readers, and now is a huge name in romance. Her Twitter presence has also garnered her more fans. I remember when she was a fledgling aspiring author. We were on the same Eloisa James message board and participated in a writing contest by Avon, possibly, the only contest they did. Many of today's current authors participated in that contest and were on that message board, including Courtney Milan, Jackie Barbosa, Manda Collins, Elyssa Patrick, and so many more. Many known readers and bloggers were also there. I don't know where Eloisa James found the time to manage her teaching career, her book career, and a message board, not to mention house and family. She did have some help from an author's assistant and a research assistant, but still, she made her presence felt on the board, and she was generous with her advice. I loved that board.

Spindle Cove is a place for bluestockings, spinsters, and those women with unusual interests. The heroine in this book is a talented linguist, speaking six languages fluently with the knowledge of others. She had been thwarted in love by her childhood friend who'd made love to her and departed England's shores with a curt note and no further communication. Now at the Christmas Ball a stranger crashes at her feet speaking a Celtic language that only she can decipher. As the night wears on, she realizes that he is a spy and her long, lost lover. What is she to do? Aid him or turn him in?

Royally Ever After: The Jilting of Lord Rothwick by Loretta Chase
Category: Regency Romance
Comments: As with all Chases, the minute you start her book, you sink into familiar Regency milieu of cultural and societal norms as established in the traditional Regencies. This short story is an oldie but a real goodie. He has been refused by her. For him, it is destitution with the baggage of his father's debts, the estate, and all the dependents upon his shoulders. For her, it is the heartache of loss of love. She loves him; she assumes he doesn't love her; but he does love her. The story takes place in the course of a day. The backstory is that they met when he decided that she was rich enough to tow him back from River Tick, so he started paying serious court to her, in the process defeating all her other suitors to win her hand. In the process, they both fall in love with each other, but each is certain their feelings are not returned. The story in the present is how they discover their feelings. Beautifully written!

The Earl Who Sees Her Beauty by Marguerite Kaye
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: Another author whose books feel true to the historical feel of the traditional Regencies I enjoy. And this one is beautifully written like the Chase above. She was heavily scarred as a young child diagonally across her back and diagonally across one cheek from forehead to mouth. She is considered an abomination by one and all, and she lurks in the shadows, covering her face with her hair and wearing a wide-brimmed bonnet and, sometimes, even a veil. She is mechanically brilliant and built a number of improvements in the former earl's house. The new earl wants nothing to do with the earldom; in fact, he wants to divest himself of all his responsibilities, sell everything, and donate the monies. When he spies her, he is struck by her beauty and she, by his. He truly always only sees her and the scars as part of her, not as obscuring a nondescript face, but as part of who she is. He accepts her wholly. The backstory to the earl is set in Greece and unusual. Impeccable research by Kaye and superlative writing. [I have to say that my fulsome praise is not coerced by my friendship with her by any way, but there you have the information anyway.]

Two Houses by Suleena Bibra
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: Bibra’s debut is an immensely fun enemies-to-lovers story of two auctioneers at rival art auction houses in New York. One of the best books of this month. My full review is on Booklist.

Christmas in Rose Bend by Naima Simone
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: In this book, prolific author Simone returns to the small, charming Massachusetts town of Rose Bend, the close-knit Dennison family, and their Kinsale Inn. A little less hyperbole, fewer pop culture references, and deeper emotional analysis would’ve made for a more powerful book. My full review is on Booklist.

Lizzie & Dante by Mary Bly AKA Eloisa James
Category: Mainstream Fiction
Comments: Like the kiss of a butterfly’s wings on a flower, Mary Bly has written this book with such tenderness. So much of the story mirrors Bly’s lived experience as a Shakespearean professor at Fordham University in New York, marrying an Italian man, and suffering the pain and indignity and fear of cancer. [CW: disordered eating, cancer, dying, death, funeral] This is not a romance, despite the title, but the novel has a large romance sub-plot. This novel is about Lizzie deciding how to live given her diagnosis of terminal cancer. Should she give up? Should she try one more round of experimental treatment? Should she do it for the men in her life? For herself? This book is all about asking deep, searching questions and discovering for herself who she wants to be. A beautiful, beautiful book. [My review is here.]

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: This is the best book I read this year. It won a Pulitzer prize, and I can see why. Erdrich brings her Native American heritage to bear in crafting a story where no detail is spurious, no emotion extraneous. It is based on an Indian (Erdrich uses this word) reservation and the driving force is the white government's desire to evict the residents and bring settlers in. The poverty on the reservation is horrifying and the lives lived are so desperate and so out-of-step with the rest of American culture and society. And yet, the beauty and dignity in the Native American culture and beliefs are not to be found elsewhere in the larger America.

According to this WaPo review: "Erdrich read a cache of letters written in the middle of the 20th century by her grandfather Patrick Gourneau. He had been chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Advisory Committee during the tribe’s modern-day fight for survival. The threat at that time was legal but as potentially disastrous as earlier assaults: In 1953, the U.S. House passed a resolution declaring that a number of tribes should be rapidly “freed from Federal supervision.” Beneath that glorious promise of emancipation lurked the government’s true plan: the unilateral abrogation of treaties, the wholesale termination of tribes’ rights and the abandonment of Native Americans already impoverished by centuries of genocidal policies. Reminded of that dark era and her grandfather's heroic role in saving the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, Erdrich knew she had found the inspiration for her next book."

Mangoes, Mischief, and Tales of Friendship by Chitra Soundar, illustrated by Uma Krishnaswamy
Category: Children's Chapter Book
Comments: Replete with humor and drama, this book is a collection of short stories reminiscent of stories of the 16th century Mughal Emperor Akbar and his advisor and confidant Birbal. The protagonists are two 10-year-old mischievous and precocious boys who courageously use their intellect to solve tricky problems in the king's court. The book is divided into two previously published smaller books: A Dollop of Ghee and a Pot of Wisdom and A Jar of Pickles and a Pinch of Justice. Each book has four stories of the boys' adventures in meting out justice and reprimands when the king is busy tending to other matters of his kingdom. [My review is here.]

Binny's Diwali by Thrity Umrigar, illustrated by Nidhi Chanani
Category: Children's Picture Book
Comments: Bright fairy lights, warm oil lamps, colorful powder designs, new clothes, sparkling jewelry, delicious sweets, savory snacks, and firecrackers...all make the season of Diwali a joyous occasion. While the multiday festival has Hindu religious notes, it is also a secular cultural celebration in which Indians of all faiths participate. Diwali, known as the Festival of Lights, celebrates the victory of good over evil, of hope over darkness. It is a reminder to observants to be good, kind, and brave. There are many legends associated with Diwali with roots deep into Indian mythology of thousands of years ago. Binny’s Diwali celebrates an Indian American girl’s desire to share her culture with her classmates, none of whom know about this festival. [My review is here.]

Category: Children's Picture & Board Books
Comments: A comfortable chair. A warm fire. Hot chocolate. Cuddles. And the perfect book. Here are stories perfect for cozy reading over the holidays. [My reviews are here.]
Sheepish (Wolf Under Cover) by Helen Yoon
The Smile Shop by Satoshi Kitamura
If I Were a Tree by Andrea Zimmerman, illustrated by Jing Jing Tsong
David Jumps In by Alan Woo, illustrated by Katty Maurey
From Maybe to Forever: An Adoption Story by M.L. Gold and N.V. Fong, illustrated by Jess Hong
The Little One by Kiyo Tanaka, translated by David Boyd
Baby Raccoon illustrated by Yu-Hsuan Huan
Baby Fox illustrated by Yu-Hsuan Huan
Paper Peek: Animals by Chihiro Takeuchi
I Can Be Anything: Guessing Game Book by Shinsuke Yoshitake

Review: Lizzie & Dante by Mary Bly

Like the kiss of a butterfly’s wings on a flower, Mary Bly has written Lizzie & Dante with such tenderness. So much of the story mirrors Bly’s lived experience as a Shakespearean professor at Fordham University in New York, marrying an Italian man, and suffering the pain and indignity and fear of cancer. And yet, the heroine emerges from this story a fully formed person in her own right.

Lizzie Delford is on the island of Elba in Italy living at the ultra-fancy Hotel Bonaparte (naturally!) with her best friend, Grey Thuston, and his lover, Hollywood megastar Rohan Das. Lizzie has stage three, incurable cancer and has been invited by Rohan on a luxurious vacation that she could’ve never afforded. In the midst of all her pain and pills, Lizzie enjoys the pampering, the beach, and the warmth of the sun on her skin. And she feels alive like she has not for a very long time. Bly has done an extraordinary job of showing Lizzie’s relationship with her illness. How the fear of pain and the irrevocable slide into further and further deterioration of quality of life are causing her to refuse experimental treatment and to give in to death waiting in the shadows. She exists in the liminal space between living and dying, a stasis of waiting. And yet, she is charmed by a man, voraciously attracted to him, uninhibitedly making love to him, falling in love with him—all life-affirming actions.

Dante Moretti is the father of a twelve-year-old girl. He is also a world celebrity chef whose private life is shrouded in mystery in the wider world. On the island of Elba, everyone knows Dante and his nondescript restaurant where one eats what one is served and dinner reservations, for even the wealthiest yacht owners, are many months out. Lizzie is unimpressed with Dante’s creations, though everyone with a pulse extolls their virtues. He is charmed by her refusal to kowtow to his talents. For a chef who refuses to make substitutions to his dishes, he makes a hamburger for her at her very first meal—his plebian American.

Unlike what the title implies, this is not a romance novel with a happy ever after—this is the heroine’s journey—but the romance between Lizzie and Dante is a large part of the story and the novel hums with the joy of their love. Right from the beginning when they meet on the beach, Lizzie and Dante exist on the verge of being in love. It takes tremendous courage for anyone to love someone, and especially for Lizzie to love Dante. As Lizzie says, “Pity is a terrible reason to start a relationship” and so she does not share her illness and its prognosis with him...until he eventually guesses. For her, there is no “falling in love”—love is an act of valor. You choose it by saying, here is someone I want to share a pillow with and smile across a candlelit dinner table with for all my days. For as Hannah Arendt has said, “Fearlessness is what love seeks.”

Lizzie and Grey met in their teens at their last foster mother’s house, and they have been an item ever since. Their love is intense and soul-binding. For a while, Lizzie thought they would even marry. But the evening when she thought he would propose, he came out to her as being gay. She was utterly devastated. And ran away from him to Europe for further studies. Grey, in turn, was devastated thinking she was rejecting his being gay and hence threw him away. He had thought they would continue as before, and nothing would change.

With great finesse, Bly lays out the complexity of Lizzie’s and Grey’s relationship and how, on Elba, it is compounded by Rohan’s presence in his life and Dante’s presence in her life. Lizzie and Grey are ex-lovers and love each other and yet are not in love with each other. There is a difference that Bly makes you appreciate—this is her skill in writing romances as Eloisa James coming to play. Grey argues that sex is not a definer of love and that his love for Lizzie is purer and all the more valuable than his for Rohan or Dante’s for her. He is fighting for her life and she, by refusing further treatment, was rejecting him all over again. She was not fighting for him.

The issue of further treatment is a complex conundrum for Lizzie. Part of her wants to reject it out of fear of having her hopes repeatedly dashed and out of fear of continued pain. Part of her wants to undergo it because of her love for Grey and Dante. It’s her decision. They don’t get to coerce her to do it. But should she do it for them? Does she owe them? These questions tease at her conscience all throughout the book. It is only when she decides to do it for herself that the decision feels right. As Lizzie says to Grey, “I’ll fight. I will do it all. Everything. And if...if it doesn’t work, it won’t be because I didn’t try to stay here. I promise.”

Lyrically spare and thematically lush, Lizzie & Dante is a sprawling yet intimate tale, rich in detail and images. Bringing her own rich life to the page, Bly has crafted a fictional story that stands on its own. Nobody could better understand Lizzie than Bly—her despair, her laughter, her singing, her very appreciation and sheer gratitude in being alive. There is a wise Shintō saying: “To be fully alive is to have an aesthetic perception of life because a major part of the world's goodness lies in its often unspeakable beauty.”

[Content Warnings: disordered eating, cancer, dying, death, funeral]

September & October Reading Notes

There are different types of editors. Some let your words stand for themselves, some pick and choose here and there and polish it up but leave most of it alone allowing your voice to shine through, some ask questions to force you to think deeper and more critically, and then there are others, who take your words and rewrite the piece in their own words while retaining some of your phrases and ideas/information. I was used to the first, am really appreciating the second and the third because they make me a better writer, and am bemused at the fourth because the end result doesn't sound like me; not my voice, not my style. Writing for different outlets is making me aware of such different editing styles.

Reckless by Selena Montgomery AKA Stacey Abrams
Category: Contemporary Romanctic Suspense
Comments: [A Starred Review for Booklist.] This was my first book by Stacey Abrams. I keep meaning to read her hugely popular mystery, but I have been a bit leery whether the book is popular because of the contents of the book or Abrams' name. However, this book has convinced me that she is an excellent writer. I am hoping Avon plans on publishing other of her Selena books. Reckless has a mystery as well as the romance, and both are very well paced. The heroine is a high profile celebrity defense attorney in Atlanta and he is a small-town sherriff in a small town in Georgia, who moved there from Chicago and finds that the small town suits him better. This small town is also where the heroine grew up, and moving back here to defend a client has her questioning her high-stress job in the big city. [My review is here.]

Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words by Annika Sharma
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: [A Starred Review for Booklist—it was on the cover of the Sept 15 issue and also a Review of the Day!] A strong cultural clash between a woman from India and a white man from Tenessee set in NYC and New Delhi. This is the first South Asian multicultural book I have read where one set of parents is based in India, so the clash is between conservative Indian Indian values and Southern Caucasian American values as opposed to Indian American and Caucasian American values in nothern cities, which are easier to meld. Sharma's work is pitch perfect here as she has her protagonists walking the tightrope between what their hearts desire and what their cultures demand of them. [My review is here.]

The Brightest Star in Paris by Diana Biller
Category: Contemporary Paranormal Romance
Comments: This book was a wow book for me. My first Biller, and I plan to pick up her first. In this gorgeously written romance, Diana Biller provides a fascinating view into the psychological makeup of two haunted lovers, where one is literally haunted. Yes, there are ghosts in this book. This is a stunning novel of tender emotions amid harsh circumstances. The romance is set in 1878 France, seven years after the horrific events of the siege of Paris and the Paris Commune. It’s an unusual setting for a romance, full of great strife and turmoil, and Biller provides readers with a fabulous immersion into that place and time. The heroine is a prima ballerina with the Paris Opera Ballet. The hero and heroine met 12 years ago in a whirlwind summer romance, but she broke it off. Now he is back and determined to rekindle their romance, yet she sends him away again. He realizes that he has to let her go so she can decide if they are meant to be together. This book is very much her journey from living a rigid life of conformity and denial into one of acceptance and courage and in charge of her happiness. [My review is here.]

Battle Royal by Lucy Parker
The Royals Next Door by Karina Halle
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: [This was a double review for BookPage.] In Battle Royal, the pastry chef heroine and the princess bond over her wedding cake. In The Royals Next Door, the school teacher heroine befriends the royal duchess, whose character is greatly influenced by Meghan Markle, as a neighbor. Both pairs of women quickly become bosom bows. Both books are enemies-to-lovers romance stories. Parker's hero is a competing pastry chef, whereas Halle's hero is the royal couple's chief bodyguard. There is much angst between the couples and much tenderness from the heroes. All four characters have had traumatic pasts that are sensitively portrayed. I really enjoyed both stories. Be prepared for a new direction in Parker's style from her London Celebrities books. [My review is here.]

Meet Me in London by Georgia Toffolo
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: [Reviewed for Booklist.] Toffolo, known as Toff, is a big British TV personality. This book was previously published in the UK and is Toffolo's debut book for the US market. It was very well-received in the UK. Set in London, it's a heartwarming story about love between a barkeep, who moonlights as a fashion designer, and the reluctant heir to a billion-pound department store empire. This is a fake fiancée story where she serves as his conscience to pay his privilege forward and he serves as a deep, abiding support in her struggles with her inability to have children. An immersive London setting would've made this story better.

Never Fall for Your Fiancée by Virginia Heath
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: [Reviewed for Booklist.] Fans of Heath’s Harlequin Historicals will enjoy this first installment in her Merriwell Sisters series, a historical rom-com. This is possibly my first historical rom-com written in the modern style. Of course, it displays the deep period knowledge that Heath has. The heroine is a woodcut engraver and illustrator barely eking out a living for herself and her two sisters. Enter a nobleman thinking her perfect as her fake fiancée to bamboozle his mother and get her off his back about marrying.

Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: This short novel is a sequel to Sebastian's novella Tommy Cabot Was Here. This is an m/m story set in the 1960s and unfolds over the course of a cross-country journey by car from Boston to LA. Peter is the son of a super wealthy Massachussetts family of politicians, with his father running for president. All his life, he has been considered the family's disappointment. He never measures up to their drive and ambition; and they don't yet know that he is gay. Throughout his four years of college, he has lusted after his classmate Caleb, the one who has it all together. Or so it seems. Caleb comes from poverty and through dint of scholarships and sheer hard work has made it through an Ivy League university. Now, he has landed a prestigious job at LA Times as a journalist. But he just has to get there, and he has very little money left, and his ride skipped out on him, and he is stuck...and in tears. Spying Caleb on the side of the road, Peter jumps to his aid and offers to drive him to LA—mentally consigning his father's campaign to the flames. His family thinks very low of him, and he just plans on pleasing himself from now on. Peter is all laconic charm, bending over backwards to please. Caleb is grumpy, prickly, and has a chip on his shoulder about money and paying his share. The heart of the story is how they grow together and become more of themselves through the belief and support of the other in them. They each believe that the other is wonderful in every which way. And a journey that was supposed to take days becomes a life-long committment. Tender and fierce, this book is what romance is all about. Highly recommended!

Rescuing Lord Inglewood by Sally Britton
Category: Traditional Historical Romance
Comments: This was a Saturday Book Club read, and it wasn't very successful. I wonder whether "middling" books become "not great," because of the slow reading, the deep attention to detail, and the discussion with multiple people, thereby sundering the magic from the book. Maybe if I had read it all in one gulp, I would've enjoyed it more because I would've become caught up in it. The book started out well enough with our intrepid heroine rescuing the hero by bodily throwing herself over him to protect him from a falling statue. The hero tries to save her reputation, but circumstances, rumor, and innuendo means they have to marry. MOC!! My favorite trope...only when both the protagonists are mature. In this case, the hero decides to make the best of it. He is officious and a bit high-handed, for sure, but his heart is in the right place and his intentions are kind. She, on the other hand, is stuck in her childhood and makes the hero pay for his slights over and over again with immature and inexplicable behavior. It was understandble for a bit, but quickly became tiresome. I was #TeamHero.

The Lovely And Dangerous Launch Of Lucy Cavanagh by Stacy Peterson
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: [Reviewed for Foreword Reviews. Foreword Reviews magazine goes out librarians and booksellers and carries reviews of indie books.] I don't know how much I am allowed to say here about it, so I won't say much other than the book was a bit of a mess in terms of storyline, characters, plot, pacing, and writing craft. Pity. It started out strong with a heroine taking a courageous step in leaving her wealthy home in New York City and heading out on a perilous journey by herself to her aunt in San Francisco. It is a story set in 19th century Wild West Americana and is a tale of the heroine's journey, physical and emotional.

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: This was a chapter sample. I wanted to see what the brouhaha was all about because this book received 67 (!!) reviews in reputable outlets before two weeks post publication were out. An Observation: From reading LitHub and now this piece, I realize that tiny, particular details are so important these days. To me, they seem like persnickity details that probably don't matter; but there is "literary" value these days to detailing everything and juxtaposing non-coherent details one on top of the other. As far as this book goes: I enjoyed the writing. I am intrigued by the premise. And I have FOMO. It's on my list to read over the Holidays.

The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer
Category: Nonfiction
Comments: Pico Iyer is one of the greatest of writers and philosophers living today. (He'd be the first to disavow this approbation.) He has written countless articles, essays, reviews, books and so on, edging ever closer to philosophy. His book about His Holiness the Dalai Lama is one of my treasured books. So I was really curious about his thoughts on stillness—periodic pauses in one's life. From His Holiness, Leonard Cohen, Thoreau, and the masters at the temples in Kyoto, Iyer has come away with a deep and vast knowledge of self that is integrated in all that he is and does. His writing is the easiest way for outsiders to observe this. This book came from the TED Talk he gave on this subject a few years ago. It's a slim hardcover—only 70-odd pages—but it is packed with wisdom.

—The Unexpected Friend: A Rohingya Children’s Story by Raya Rahman, illustrated by Inshra Sakhawat Russell
—Sugar in Milk by Thirty Umrigar, illustrated by Khoa Le
Category: Children's Picture Books
Comments: Children suffer the most when people are displaced from their homes through natural means and/or human depredations and violence. Without their volition and against their wishes, they are uprooted from the safety and security of their homes and made to undergo harsh circumstances in faraway lands. And yet, their trauma and their stories often go untold. These two books seek to redress that disregard. [My reviews are here.]

—Where Three Oceans Meet by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan
—Seven Golden Rings by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan
—Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat
—The Secret Code Inside You: all about your DNA by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Steven Salerno
Category: Children's Picture Books
Comments: This year is a banner year for author Rajani LaRocca. She has two middle grade novels publishing as well as four picture books for children. I was highly curious how LaRocca does it all given her busy career as a doctor. All four of her picture books are Indian-themed and range from tales for the very young to older children. Her repertoire is large in terms of the stories she tells and the writing style. Her favorites are books where math and science are embedded into the stories. I cannot wait to see what she has in store next year. This is one author to watch. [My interview and reviews are here.]

March Reading Notes

I am continuing apace with my exploration of audio books. As mentioned earlier, listening in the car works best for me. Sitting in a chair to listen, inevitably puts me to sleep. Before I started listening to books, I had no idea how vital a narrator is to how interesting a book is. The writer's skill matters of course but the performer's is just as important.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Category: Nonfiction
Comments: This book has been a fascinating read thus far. I am in two book clubs for the same book, and depending on the composition of the book group, different aspects of the readings have been highlighted. For me, comparing and contrasting the caste system in the US with the caste system in India has been an interesting exercise. People forget how much privilege they have until they have to grapple with something like this, and realize that so much of what goes on right in front of your nose, you are compeltely impervious to and do not notice its effect on others. I have listened to the author talk in a couple of talks. Brilliant thinker and brilliant book. It should required reading for all incoming college freshman.

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: [CW: self harm, anxiety] Grace Porter has a newly minted doctorate in astronomy from Portland. Eleven years of dogged hard work and weekends and summers sacrificed to research and achieving new and newer heights in her pursuit of perfection have left her burnt out. Job search has been heartbreaking as she realizes that the field of her dreams is rejecting her Black heritage. Whereas her father, the Colonel, has pushed and prodded her and expected perfection from her emotionally and academically, her mother only wants her to be happy and fulfilled in whatever she chooses to pursue.

Grace wishes she could disappear in the orange groves of her childhood home in Florida. Problems don’t disappear even if you choose to hide, but taking a break is definitely called for every once in a while, before you splinter into tiny particles and get scattered among the stars. In a bid to shore her spirits up, Grace goes off to Las Vegas with her dearest friends. And there, one night, she meets a girl with stars in her eyes and roses in her cheeks; they get drunk; they get married; and they buy a lock together with matching keys and rings. After a night together, the girl leaves behind a love note to her Honey Girl with a calling card and a photo.

Yuki Yamamoto is a Japanese American child of immigrant parents living in NYC. She is a medieval history major who waitresses for her living needs and assuages her lonely soul and those of others in a late night radio show called Are You There? My review is here.

Careless Whispers by Synithia Williams
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: [CW: miscarriage, wealthy tobacco company] Parenting has such an impact on how a child grows up into the adult the world sees. One child in this story was brought up to be tough as all heck and giving no way to any softness, and the other child was brought up in a loving family where all feelings were allowed to have free rein. Both adults are driven to succeed, but for one adult, there is never any other way of life, whereas the other one has realized that a fast-paced life is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Elaina Robidoux was trained from birth to one day assume control of Robidoux Tobacco and Robidoux Holdings. From leading boardroom meetings of directors to orchestrating her politician brother’s events, from being a socialite to a ruthless businesswoman, Elaina does it all. Growing up, she had been starved of love and acceptance by her parents, and in her adulthood, she finds herself seeking connections that ultimately fail to give her the love she is attempting to find. As a result, she considers herself unlovable and incapable of loving, pathetic and lonely. She is tired of being strong all the time, but being strong is all she knows.

Alex Tyson has joined his large family in Jackson Falls in a bid to slow down his life. His pedal-to-the-metal way of life leads to him having a heart attack at a very young age. It serves as a wake-up call that his life in New York City is killing him. So he packs everything up and heads south to Jackson Falls to become head of research and development at Robidoux Holdings. Unfortunately for him, he proceeds to clash with Elaina on a regular basis. My review is here.

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: [CW: Previously enslaved character and mention of enslavement. References to emotional and financial abuse of spouses and children.] KJ Charles continues to write book after book of near perfection. Every time I think, she can’t get better, she does.

Sir John Hartlebury “Hart” is a baronet, a prosaic member of the Upper Ten Thousand with a good-sized property, and also a tradesman efficiently managing his sister’s brewery. He is a large man with a large voice, who cannot be bothered to temper his views or mind his manners when in company. He retains an avuncular interest in the future of his niece, wanting her to acquire some town bronze, while safeguarding her fortune from the hands of fortune hunters.

Robin Loxleigh is a gazetted fortune hunter. He and his sister, Marianne, make no bones about them being down on their luck and from a small village in Nottinghamshire, here in London to make advantageous marriages. They charmingly cozen everyone into thinking them to be harmless, so Society casts a benign eye over their machinations.

Robin and Hart meet when Robin inveigles himself into the notice of Hart’s niece. Hart is instantly suspicious of Robin’s background and motives and sets detectives into digging up dirt on him. In town, he keeps an eagle eye on him and his doings. Deciding to corner Robin into a tight spot, Hart destroys him over a game of piquet to the tune of four thousand odd pounds. The next day, Robin arrives at Hart’s house penitent and defiant over his inability to pay. He leaves with an unholy bargain: his body for a month in exchange for forgiveness of his debt. That entire scene of negotiation is a master class in the subtle use of words juxtaposed with the shifting undercurrents of the unsaid. My review is here.

Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell, performed by Prunella Scales
Category: Literary Fiction
Comments: I abandoned this book partway through. I just couldn't stand the performer. There are many characters in this story and so much of the story is all in conversation, and Scales just isn't up to the heft of this book. I have read the book and watched the miniseries, so I am familiar with the story, and yet, I was bored by Scales' characterization and had a difficult time figuring out who was who. Scales has a bland voice for the omniscent narration and has a tendency to mumble toward the en of sentences. In addition, she did not have much animation and differentiation in the tone and color and style of voices for the different characters. All in all, a disappointing narration.

One thing that listening to the story as opposed to reading the book or watching the miniseries brought up for me was Gaskell's peculiarity, or perhaps it was in literature in the Victorian times, in how her characters' perceive death and their lack of sensibility or emotions surrounding it. There is some sadness, some shock, but life as usual moves on pretty quickly. People died, and ho hum. I found this true in North & South by Gaskell as well, and I find it off-putting. Perhaps there is extreme sensibility in the unsaid that I am supposed to get and am not. Perhaps this is an incorrect reading of Gaskell. Anyway. It didn't work for me.

Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachael Joyce, performed by Juliet Stevenson
Category: Historical Literary Fiction
Comments: What a decided pleasure to be listening to Juliet Stevenson read this book. I chose this book primarily because of her, and then also because the story reminded me of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I loved. I am about a third of the way through and thanks to Stevenson am following along really well. Stevenson is a treasure.

A middle-aged woman decides to throw in the towel and leave the teaching job she hates and the modest circumspect life she is leading to travel halfway around the world to New Caledonia in this post WWII story. She is on the search of the elusive golden beatle that she's been fascinated with since she learned about it at her father's knee. Her dream has gotten tarnished over the years, but never abadoned. Now she drags it out, spiffs it up with spit and polish, throws all her money at it, and finds herself on a ship steaming away to New Caledonia with an improbable and suspicious assistant and a stalker with PTSD.

This book embodies the type of heroine with whom I have some difficulty. I saw her type in Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant as well. These are taciturn, very emotionally subdued women, by circumstance, for whom we are supposed to feel sorry and have sympathy. In general, my interest is immediately peaked by the quiet ones, because they usually have much more going on for them, especially because it is not visible. However, the protagonists of both these books assume that the other protagonists have to give and give while they take and take. The little they do give is to be received with gratitude and be considered sufficient. This is the dynamic that both the authors set up for their protagonists. While both Joyce's and Grant's stories are marvelously written and the heroines are superbly drawn, I find that my sympathies are with the other protagonists, not the heroines. Those other protagonists deserve more from life than what the heroines are handing to them. Anyway. Despite these misgivings, I am going to continue on with the book to see where it leads.

Forbidden by Jo Beverley
Category: Historical Romance
Comments: I am now part of a new Twitter book club called The Saturday Book Club with @willaful, @janetetennessee, @regency_gal, @growlycub, and @emmelnie. Forbidden is our first book. We are JoBev fans, so this was an enthusiastic choice. You can tell the caliber of the writer JoBev was from the opening pages. This is a re-read for me, but it has been so long since I last read it, as part of a binge-read of all of JoBev's works, that I have forgotten most of the story other than hazy recollections. We've had two rousing discussions for chapters 1-6, and I look forward to discussing the rest of the book in April, three chapters a week.

The Bluestocking Duchess by Julia Justiss
Category: Regency Romance
Comments: This was a disappointing Justiss novel. Usually, I really like her work, but not this one. There was far too much navel-gazing and retreading of the same concerns throughout the novel without much forward movement. Another issue I had with the book was lack of sexual tension even though there was constant noticing of the facial charms of the other. The anticipation of a kiss or no kiss was used as sexual tension, but again a lack of forward motion there made the anticipation deflate for the reader. Here are the main issues concerning the protagonists.

She is an ancient Greek scholar but believes that no one knows of her expertise. She think she manages to even fool her father and brother despite actually doing a fair bit of the translation work. She is convinced that marriage would mean the end of her scholarship. So she is determined to be a spinster lady's companion. I was not sure how this would enable her to continue the work that "defines her." As a result, while she really wants to kiss the hero, she really does not want to marry him.

He has been newly elevated to a duke's heir. He really wants to kiss her but that would be dishonorable. Marrying her has never occurred to him because despite being attracted to her, his one brush with romance in the past has turned him off romance, even though it seemed like a rather innocuous experience to me. As a duke's heir, he is expected to marry well, and the daughter of the duke's librarian ain't cutting it. He wants to do his duty to the title and let the duke choose his bride but he really wants to kiss her.

Every time they think of wanting to kiss the other person, they retread the above. And frustratingly, I didn't get much of a look into their thoughts—how are they changing how they look at their lives and what they can to get what they want. Yes, of course, there's a HEA at the end of the book so there is forward progress in their relationship towards the end but they stay mired in these ruminations for far too long. Disappointing! I look forward to Justiss' next book because I really like her writing.

Dial 'A' for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: I had been looking forward to reading this book ever since I first read the back cover copy. The author's introduction/author's note at the beginning of the book solidified my impression that this was going to be a good book. I enjoyed the dual timelines between the heroine's college life and current life, both progressing along in the story, and I enjoyed the prologue setup, though it was entirely telling rather than showing. On to the story and what caused me to rate it two stars.

I was uncomfortable with how after graduating from college, Meddie breaks up with the love-of-her-life (and the hero of this story) Nathan. She has made up her mind that she cannot abandon her mother and aunts and move away from home. So when Nathan gets the job in NYC, she tells him that she has stopped loving him, all so he wouldn't sacrifice his NYC job for her. He is utterly shocked. It is one thing to be self-sacrificing, but quite another to lie like that and break his heart. Why did she not opt for an honest conversation where she lays out all the reasons she cannot move? Instead, she chooses to break up with him in the worst way possible. He had hoped to marry her. I thought she was very insensitive to his feelings and immature in how she handled the situation.

My belief in her immaturity was solidified by what happens with her ill-fated date with Jake.

Yes, Jake is totally behaving like a creep and a threat to her in the car, and she is justified in being scared by his behavior. But tasering him while he is driving fast is a surefire way to getting both of them badly hurt or killed. Luckily for her, despite the car wrapping around a tree, she is OK and her car is dented but OK, but Jake is so badly hurt that she thinks he is dead. I was then horrified that instead of using his phone to call 911; or walking to get help; or somehow maneuvering him out of the way on the roadside, driving to get help, and returning with the help, she stuffs him in the trunk of her car.

Then she drives home to her mother and lets her mother and aunts take care of her and the situation. She shows no maturity even at 26, no remorse, and no conscience. I read in horrified fascination as she, her mother, and her aunts all eat and joke and laugh while Jake lies unconscious or dead in the car trunk. Then they drive him over and put him in a cooler, which the next day, gets put on a boat to an island, and so on.

I know we are supposed to be laughing along with all these shenanigans, but my sympathies were all with Jake and none with Meddie. I kept on hoping Jake would wake up soon and go on home, chastened by what has happened to him. Instead, the horror kept going on. I had hoped so much from this book. The author paints a wonderful picture of her aunties at the beginning, and I had hoped they would do madcap stuff, which they did, except, I did not want them do to it with a "dead" body. That was just not funny.

(BTW for a 5'2" petite girl to lift a deadweight grown man, who outweighs her by a lot and is much taller than her, is impossible. So that whole thing of her moving him from the driver's seat into the trunk is completely unbelievable. I know we're supposed to suspend disbelief at this point, but it is a bridge too far for me. Implausible things I can take in stride, but this is impossible.)