Mini-Reviews: More Short Erotic Reads

I had the laziest Sunday in recent memory.  How lazy?  I did nothing but read all day (OK, hold up - I did a load of laundry).  Part of the binge were three short, erotic stories.

First up is Flinch by L. Setterby, whose full-length erotic romance, Breathe, was one of my best reads in 2018.  I downloaded this story right after reading Breathe because I had to have more and...well, it was short and free (it's still free as of this posting - at least on Amazon).

David still isn't over his ex, so much so that she's a favorite topic of conversation when he sees his therapist.  David is a masochist and Ann-Marie...well, let's just say she's sweetness and light and David is filled with just enough self-loathing that the thought of corrupting her bothers him.  So because he can't talk about what he wants and needs from her, and she's annoyed that he doesn't trust her enough to open up to her, their relationship withers on the vine.  So it's complicated when he runs into her at a business conference.

This is a very short story - clocking in around 30 pages.  For that reason, it works as erotica.  As a romance?  It's hard to say.  I have no doubt David and Ann-Marie care for each other and are miserable apart - but in the long term can their relationship work?  I'd like to think so - but there's not enough of a word count here to definitively convince me.  But heroes like David aren't exactly thick on the ground in Romancelandia, so for that reason I'm calling this one successful. Plus it gives a good introduction to the author's voice if you've never read her before.

Final Grade = B

Under Her Uniform by Victoria Janssen is one of the slightly longer Spice Briefs and while I dug the setting, this is an instance where author "voice" didn't really click for me.  Isobel Hailey has disguised herself as a man ("Bob") to serve in the British Army during World War I.  Why?  The money is apparently good and she has a mother and younger sister to support.  She's having an affair with two men (one is bisexual, the other gay) who know she's really a woman, but otherwise it's secret.  So her lusting after Corporal Andrew Southey is really pointless.  But it all gets complicated when she's assigned to a top-secret mission and Southey is named her partner.

This one just didn't flow for me.  After I finished it I realized why.  Isobel was a secondary character in the full-length historical erotic paranormal, The Moonlight Mistress.  There's a number of characters on the page and it took me a while to settle in.  I think this is an instance where this short will work better as a companion piece to readers familiar with the full-length novel.  For me?  Janssen writes the setting very well (oh man, the trench scenes are really fantastic) - but otherwise it left me feeling pretty meh.

Final Grade = C

Ritual: Shibari by Saskia Walker was originally published by Spice Briefs in 2012 under the title Forbidden Ritual (which is the edition I had in my TBR).  Imogen is a high-powered executive having a torrid affair with her younger colleague, Giles.  She's submissive to his Dominant, but he knows she's holding back.  When Giles suggests shibari (rope bondage) she's initially hesitant, but ultimately succumbs - only to have her world rocked.

This story has been in my TBR for 7 years and a lot has changed in 7 years.  Namely female sub + male Dom = Wendy snoozefest.  I mean, it's been done.  Ad nauseam.  I'm bored with it.  Let's move on.  But....

Walker can write y'all.  She's probably one of the most under-appreciated, under the radar writers of erotic romance and she writes the hell out of this story.  Imogen is a powerful woman who loves her job and she's 40 (oh thank you baby Jesus!).  Giles is 8 years younger, totally smitten with her, and while he is a Dom, I never felt like he wanted to "break" her.  He wants her to soar - and he knows her holding herself back will keep that from happening.

Look, this still isn't my thing and I'm still pretty well over female sub, male Dom BDSM erotic romance, but this was a very well done short, erotic story.  It also reminds me why I tend to one-click Walker's books.

Final Grade = B

Mini-Reviews: A Mini Molly O'Keefe Glom

Outside of inhaling the shorts for this month's TBR Challenge, I've had trouble setting a reading rhythm at the start of 2019.  Case in point, after the Challenge I promptly DNF'ed two books.  When this happens I always fear that the problem is with me, so I decided to stop futzing around and read a Molly O'Keefe already.  It worked for me in January 2018, surely it can work one year later.  And it did.  While both Bad Neighbor and Baby, Come Back are full of problematic elements, I fell so hard into this world that I pulled out 24 hours later feeling a mixture of drunk and hungover.

Bad Neighbor finds our heroine, Charlotte, bailing out her beautiful, impulsive twin sister, Abby, yet again.  Their entire relationship has been like that.  Charlotte the mature, responsible one with social anxiety.  Abby, the one who skates through life on her looks, manipulating men along the way, and always going to her sister to bail her out with the heat gets too intense.  Well, Abby has done it now.  She's fallen for a bad man - a mob enforcer who she saw kill a man.  Charlotte, not even blinking an eye, prices her condo to sell, gives Abby half the money to take off, and moves into a seedy apartment complex near the airport.  That's where she meets her smoking hot new neighbor, Jesse, who puts the grump in grumpy asshole.  Who fights in underground MMA matches that are held in the complex's equally seedy basement.  Oh, and guess who is older brother is?  Yep.

The conflict does rely on an amazing coincidence, especially given the story takes place in the Bay Area, but I was able to roll with it.  O'Keefe has a knack for writing asshole heroes who aren't too far gone, and Jesse resides in the same zip code as Dylan from the Everything I Left Unsaid series.  Charlotte is innocence and light to Jesse's dark and scary - their respective baggage makes them a good fit as a couple and you understand why they are the way they are and why they would be attracted to each other.

After finishing Bad Neighbor, there was no way I wasn't starting Baby, Come Back right away, even though I knew it was going to be choppier waters.  Abby is on the run and Jesse's big brother (the mob enforcer), Jack, is determined to find her.  Jack was forced into the life to pay for his degenerate father's gambling debts and who he really is has been slowly eroding away.  This book opens prior to the events of Bad Neighbor, when Abby first meets Jack and does all the stupid crap girls like her always seem to do.

Ultimately it's my own baggage that kept me from enjoying this story as much as the first one.  Girls like Abby get on my last hot nerve.  Girls who play the part, manipulate, throw their hair around, because the gods have gifted them with beauty. Yes, society plays a part in this. And yes, for girls like Abby life isn't the sunshine and roses girls like me necessarily think it is. Time and again Jack tells her he's not a good guy.  Time and again she doesn't listen.  And when she's confronted with what Jack and her instincts have been telling her all along?  It's like some great big ol' shock to her.

Our hero murders a man.  He's a bad man.  A very, very bad man. But murder him he does. That's, um, a little hard for me to reconcile.  Looking at other reviews, it doesn't seem to have been as much of a problem for other readers.  Depending on the type of reader you are?  Mileage is gonna vary.

Anyway, once we're past the set-up then the book moves into Jack finding Abby and them working through "stuff" and hello happy ending.  Did I swallow it as a reader?  Well, I wanted to, so I did but....problematic.

I'm making this sound really gross.  It is...and yet it isn't.  Don't ask me how I'd grade this.  It sucked me in and I couldn't stop reading, but how does one recommend a book featuring a beautiful manipulator as a heroine and a murderer (even if you consider it justifiable homicide) as the hero.  I'm falling on the side of "liking this" because again, sucked in couldn't put it down, and at the end of the day it's totally OK to like problematic "stuff" if you're fully aware it's problematic.

Assigning one grade to the books as a pair: Final Grade = B.

Notable Unusual Historicals for January 2019

New Year, new you? Well, if you’ve already broken your resolutions, maybe not. But at least we can all look forward to a new year of historical romance. January brings us a long-awaited follow-up to a beloved late-1990s trilogy, a Wendy recommended reprint, an angsty new K.J. Charles (woot!), Vikings and an enemy-to-lovers story set against the backdrop of the Jacobite rebellion.

Any Old Diamonds by K.J. Charles 

Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes, the younger son of the Duke of Ilvar, holds a bitter grudge against his wealthy father. The Duke intends to give his Duchess a priceless diamond parure on their wedding anniversary—so Alec hires a pair of jewel thieves to steal it.  

The Duke's remote castle is a difficult target, and Alec needs a way to get the thieves in. Soldier-turned-criminal Jerry Crozier has the answer: he'll pose as a Society gentleman and become Alec's new best friend.  

But Jerry is a dangerous man: controlling, remote, and devastating. He effortlessly teases out the lonely young nobleman's most secret desires, and soon he's got Alec in his bed—and the palm of his hand.  

Or maybe not. Because as the plot thickens, betrayals, secrets, new loves, and old evils come to light. Now the jewel thief and the aristocrat must keep up the pretence, find their way through a maze of privilege and deceit, and confront the truth of what's between them...all without getting caught. 

To be honest, reading this blurb doesn’t exactly scream “Romance!” for me, so it’s a good thing Love in Panels has already published Eva’s review. I’m a sucker for angst and this book sounds like it’s positively swimming in it. Also, I love the way Charles evokes setting, so I’m all in.

Texas Legacy by Lorraine Heath 

For as long as he can remember, Rawley Cooper has loved Faith Leigh. But the cruelty of his childhood haunts him and he knows he’s undeserving of Faith. When she comes to him on the night of her nineteenth birthday, they both give into temptation. But the searing kiss reaffirms what he’s always known: he can’t have a lifetime of her in his arms. To protect his heart, he packs his things and heads west.  

Faith has always adored the boy her parents took in and raised. But she’s not certain she can ever forgive him for riding out of her life just when she needed him the most.
When an urgent telegram forces him to return six years later, Rawley discovers Faith is now a woman to be reckoned with.  

As old feelings are stirred back to life and new passions take hold, they both must confront secrets from their past or risk losing a legacy of love. 

Rawley was first introduced in Heath’s Texas trilogy, which means fans of that series have literally been begging for this story since 1999. I vividly remember reading the trilogy back-to-back-to-back in 2001 (I was traveling) but at this point, and many books later, Rawley has faded a bit (OK, a lot) from my memory. Crushing TBR Guilt keeps me from rereading, so I’m going to go into this one like a stand-alone and hope that Heath recaptures the magic.

Sent as the Viking’s Bride by Michelle Styles 

She’s the wife he doesn’t want…  

 …and the woman he needs!  

Desperate to escape her murderous brother-in-law and protect her young sister, Ragnhild agrees to marry an unknown warrior, and arrives penniless on his remote island. Only, Gunnar Olafson’s belief in love died with his family—he does not want a bride! But as yuletide approaches, Ragnhild transforms his isolated existence. Can she melt her Viking warrior’s frozen heart? 

A villainous brother-in-law, a wounded hero, a heroine in need of a safe haven and all out of options. Styles, who has written everything from ancient Rome to Regency, returns to Vikings, which is where she’s been the past several books.

The Highland Renegade by Amy Jarecki 

She is the daughter of his sworn enemy.
Famed for his fierceness, Laird Robert Grant is above all a loyal Highland clan chief. But when redcoats capture his rival's daughter, he sets aside their feud and races to her rescue. Aye, Janet Cameron is beautiful, cunning, and so very tempting, but a Cameron lass is the last woman he should ever desire.
He is her one hope of happiness. 

Janet refuses to meekly surrender, not even when surrounded by foes. She takes every chance to escape, first from the English soldiers and then from the wickedly handsome Robert. Yet with each day they spend together, his unexpected gallantry chips away at her reserve little by little. As danger and treachery loom, can she trust him enough to choose love over vengeance? 

An enemy-to-lovers story, this fifth book in Jarecki’s Lords of the Highlands series has piqued my interest thanks to review coverage I ran across at The Day Job. Library Journal calls it “beautifully done,” and that the “adventurous romance” is “greatly enhanced by an exquisite depiction of life in the early 18th-century Scottish Highlands.” A hopeful bit of teasing for readers who prefer their historicals to, well, read like historicals.

Winter Woman by Jenna Kernan 

She survived the winter alone…
After Cordelia Channing endures the lethal winter season alone in the Rocky Mountains, she is discovered by Thomas Nash, a solitary mountain man who wants only to hunt, trap and be left alone to grieve the woman he could not save. 

Cordelia aches to go east before winter but over the days and miles, Delia finds her battered spirit yearning for this self-reliant trapper, who stirs her longing and wakes her heart.  

With only few, vital months to hunt before the snows fly, Nash has no time to look after a woman. He is surprised as Delia transforms his life and gives him the second chance he never expected. But with fall approaching, she must face her resolve to escape another deadly winter, and he must confront his oath not to open his heart to love once more. 

A digital reprint that was first published by Harlequin Historical in 2003, I really enjoyed this story a lot when I read it back in 2005. Her preacher husband goes out hunting and ends up dead, leaving the heroine to survive winter alone in an isolated cabin. She’s found by peaceful Natives whose solution to finding a half-starved white woman is to take her to the only white guy they know - the trapper hero who isn’t much of a “people person.” A well-done romance and survival story, the setting is pre-Civil War (1835) isolated frontier and I ate it up.

What Unusual Historicals are you looking forward to this month?

Redefining Taking Your Reading Medicine

I think most readers of this blog are likely aware that I live in the United States and this past weekend was a holiday weekend (today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day).  Certainly not all, but there are a number of schools and libraries closed for the day, my employer being one, and I decided to take advantage of the long holiday weekend.  After glomming through four Spice Briefs for this month's TBR Challenge, I hadn't picked up anything to read in about a week and I didn't want to lose my momentum.  So of course this would the moment where I end up DNF'ing my next two potential reads - one after 10%, one after 25%.  Both were books that I was hoping to enjoy, that had very intriguing, thought-provoking plots, and yet both failed to engage me or muster up enough enthusiasm in me to keep reading.

So I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.  In January 2018, incredibly depressed that I hadn't read a single 5-Star romance in all of 2017, I vowed to start 2018 reading through backlist titles by an author who consistently works for me - Molly O'Keefe.  So, I did that again, and I ended up inhaling Bad Neighbor and Baby Come Back (a duology) in less than 24 hours.  Were these 5-Star reads?  No.  They're good reads, problematic in a lot of ways, but compelling to the point where I could not put down my Kindle.  I had to keep reading until I got to the final sentence.  Something about O'Keefe's style, voice, whatever you want to call it, clicks with me.  I haven't loved all the books I've read by her, and yet I fall right into her worlds and come out the other side half-dazed and a little drunk.

But I'm not here to sing the praises of Molly O'Keefe.  No, I'm here to talk about reading, how our society treats it, how we teach it to our children, and how despite the fact that reading is magic we, in the United States at least, are determined to suck every last bit of joy out of it.

We teach our children, from cradle to grave, that reading is the equivalent of taking your medicine.  You feel like crud, it tastes really gross, and you just wish someone would smother you with a pillow to put you out of your misery.  Instead we force you to read a book that, chances are, you find boring and dull.  We tell kids, either flat-out or subliminally, that they should only read certain books.  Books that society has ingrained in us are "smart" books.  Comic books aren't smart.  Graphic novels aren't smart.  Romance is definitely not smart.  High drama of the soap opera variety isn't smart.  Mystery and Science Fiction can be smart but only this short list of prescribed authors.

We teach our children to pass tests because that's how it was decided schools should get their funding, which is how we end up with the same list of assigned authors and books we're teaching our kids today that I was forced to read 25 years ago.

Am I saying that kids shouldn't have required reading?  No. There's still value in teaching Shakespeare.  What I'm saying is that we should allow our kids freedom of choice.  That freedom to walk into a library, pick up any book they fancy, whether we as adults think it's "too easy" or "too hard" or "too low-brow" or "too whatever."  Here's the thing, kids know their own minds.  If a book is "too easy?"  They'll probably set it aside.  If a book is "too hard?"  They'll probably set it aside and look for something else.  Kids are smart enough to tell anybody willing to listen who their favorite superhero is and why, and yet adults seem to think they can't do that with books?  Why, exactly?  Well, I'll tell you why:

Because generation after generation has been taught that reading is smart, but only certain books and authors are smart, the rest is trash, and smart cannot equal fun.  Ergo if you're having fun while reading you're doing it wrong and/or reading the wrong books/authors.  And if you're not white, not male, and not rich - then it's automatically suspect.  Serialized novels during the Victorian era? Trash. Paperback format? Trash. Romance novels?  Oh man, the trashiest trash that ever trashed.

If 2016-2018 has taught us anything it's that life is short and people should take joy where they can find it.  You know where I find it?  In genre fiction.  A mystery novel will give me a sense of justice in a world where justice doesn't always prevail and a romance novel is going to be filled with love, light and a joyful happy ending in a world where endings aren't always happy.  Life is short and frankly, it can suck.  Why do I want to spend my short, sometimes sucky life, on reading something that isn't bringing me joy?  The answer is...I don't.

Find your joy.  There's a big wide world of publishing out there with a whole lot of people writing all sorts of stories.  Stories to get lost in.  Stories to reaffirm your soul.  Sample it like a Las Vegas buffet, find your joy, give yourself permission to stop reading books that aren't bringing you joy.  Stop apologizing, stop feeling guilty, stop feeling like you shouldn't like something as pure as a book, as a good story, grab hold of the brass ring and don't let go.

Medicine is supposed to make you feel better.

#TBRChallenge 2019: Wendy Goes On A Spice Briefs Bender

Work has been busy to start the new year which has resulted in lagging reading mojo.  How lagging?  Let's just say that sustaining my attention span for a category length romance for this month's challenge was too much for me.  No, I needed to go really short - and thanks to Harlequin for mucking up their ebook delivery system, I discovered a small pile of Spice Briefs languishing in my TBR.  This line no longer exists, in part because Harlequin's pricing on the shorts was terrible at the time (over $2 for stories that clocked in on the high end of 50 pages) and also because the line never was clearly defined.  In other words: sometimes you got erotica and sometimes you got erotic romance.  That's fine by me since I read both, but Harlequin largely caters to romance readers so...yeah.  No surprise Spice Briefs folded even though I did my best to single-handedly keep it going.  So it was on a lazy Saturday afternoon that I found myself inhaling four of them back-to-back-to-back-to-back and feeling more than slightly drunk from the fallout.

The Revolutionary Mistress by Leia Rice is all sorts of problematic, is definitely erotica, and I enjoyed every minute of it (don't judge).  With the French Revolution bubbling to full boil, Mariette is a tavern barmaid who has had to resort to prostituting herself to earn any sort of living. Then she meets Rene, and our girl falls hard and fast.  But danger lurks in the form a Sebastian, a regular customer who has her ensnared in his revolutionary activities.

For such a short story (around 50 pages), the author does an excellent job with developing her setting with all the tension you would expect for a story set during the French Revolution.  It ends happily in the respect that the heroine is safe and she's going to be on the receiving end of what will surely be months, if not years, of incredible sex - so while a stretch to consider this a romance, it's definitely what I would consider female-centered erotica.  My only real quibble is that Mariette is what I call a reactionary heroine.  Stuff happens, she reacts.  She never really takes matters into her own hands and for most of this story she's at the whims of men.  Could I understand that given the world she was living in?  Yes. But I can't help thinking what this story could have been had Mariette been a more wily sort of character.

Final Grade = B-

The Lady's Bargain by Leslie Dicken was less successful for me, largely because the heroine does something unbelievably stupid and because the hero is a cad.  Lady Christine Claybourne needs to stay unmarried until her next birthday, only one month away, in order to inherit the only home she's ever known. So when her uncle arranges her betrothal, she runs away and poses as a shy governess.  She's discovered by William Preston, Lord Kingston, her betrothed's younger brother.  Turns out she inadvertently accepted a governess post in her future father-in-law's home. She ran away from a guy she doesn't want to marry only to end up at his parents' house. Seriously.

Here's the thing, I get the girl doesn't want to marry - but she basically prostitutes herself to the "hero" to keep her secret and the brother she is engaged to?  Yes, he wants her dowry (because of course he does), but it's not like the guy is a horrible monster.  So you've got William cuckolding his brother, the heroine determined to go through with the marriage after one night of passion with William because she's in lurve and realizes either way she's destined to be alone forever so what does it all matter anyway, and the author tries to spin it all out as a great love match romance.  Nah, not buying.  On the bright side? The sex scenes are very well written.

Final Grade = D+

Tuscan Seduction by Amber Carlsbad was very well written but ultimately not very satisfying because of it's brevity.  Gina has come to the realization that she is wasting her youth, so she breaks up with her steady, older (read: boring) beau, quits her job that she won't miss, and takes off to Italy.  She meets Carlo on the train, sparks fly, and we get a hot sex with a hot stranger story.

This is very, very brief.  It's basically an interlude between two characters that morphs into them deciding to spend more time together once the train ride concludes.  It works as erotica, but not really as a separate stand-alone story.  Honestly?  This would have been right at home in a Cleis Press anthology, and was even written like it.  Not bad, not great, just sort of there.

Final Grade = C

I had originally planned to just read three shorts for this month's Challenge, but I was well and truly drunk at this point and just didn't know when to quit.  So that's how I came to read The Devilish Duke by Alice Gaines, which led me to sobering up quickly.

Miss Rosalind Weaver's father is a degenerate gambler who wants to sell his daughter into marriage to a man she cannot abide. So her answer is to arrive on the Duke of Fallon's doorstep (he had also asked for her hand, but was outbid by the odious guy) and propose they marry. She'll give him the heir he desperately wants (Fallon's got two dead wives under his belt...) and she doesn't have to marry the odious lecher.  He agrees, but wants to sample the goods first.

The author is shooting for romance here, but instead readers are regaled with Sex and Crazy.  The "Crazy" comes in the form Dead Wife #2's Evil Sister who the hero had a menage a trois with - and yes, of course the sisters were incestuous.  There's also the backhanded comment the hero makes about Dead Wife #1 being frigid, dying in childbirth, and the baby (a girl) dying a few days later.  He makes a snide comment about being happy "at the time" that the baby died so he could start over.  What. A. Prince.

Not.

And after that I'm supposed to believe he's a great guy and he's got this great love match, finally, with Rosalind and OF COURSE we get a childbirth epilogue where OF COURSE Rosalind squirts out a baby boy and WENDY MAD! WENDY SMASH!

Look, were girls devalued during historical times?  Heck, we're devalued now!  Doesn't mean I want to read about it and it doesn't mean I want the author to give the hero a free pass over it.

Final Grade = F

Not a good way to end my gorging at the Spice Briefs trough, but it did succeed in getting me to sober up.  Plus reading so many shorts in a row helped kick start the mojo.  Not a rousing success, but I'll take it.

Reminder: #TBRChallenge Day Is January 16!

Hey, hey, hey!  For those participating in the 2019 #TBRChallenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due"on Wednesday, January 16.  This month's theme is We Love Short Shorts! (examples: novellas, short stories, category-length romance).

A reminder that, as always, the themes are completely optional.  If you don't feel like reading short, that's OK!  The goal is to read something, anything, that has been languishing in your TBR.

If you're participating on social media, please remember to use the #TBRChallenge hashtag so people can follow along.

And it's not too late to sign up!  Simply leave a comment on this reminder post.

You can learn about the challenge and check out the full list of blogging participants on the information page.

Reading Year in Review 2018

I think we all can agree that 2018 was a dumpster fire of a year and yet, somehow, I managed to get through 95 books.  My reading goal is always 100, so while I did fall short, 95 is the most I've managed to get through since 2014 (when I read an incredible 119).  Here's how it all broke down (and yes, I count DNFs):

5 Stars (A Grade) = 7

4 Stars (B Grade) = 27

3 Stars (C Grades, includes some "low B-") = 38

2 Stars (D Grades) = 10

1 Star (F Grades) = 3

DNF (Did Not Finish) = 10

Audiobooks = 28

My A grades were up this year (although pretty consistent from previous years - I rarely assign 5-Stars in the double digits), my DNFs were up a smidge, my audiobook numbers were down (shorter work commute after I moved last year!), and my C grades outpaced my B grades (which is not great).  But, I'll take it.  This was the most productive reading year I've had in a dog's age.

Now, for what everybody cares about: the books!  A reminder that this is a recap of what I loved and read during 2018, but not necessarily books published in 2018.  I'm perpetually behind, so most of my Best Of list will be books that will, hopefully, be lurking in TBRs already or easy to score at your local library.

Note: Title links will take you to full reviews

The Romance:

Burn Down the Night (2016) and Wait For It (2017) by Molly O'Keefe - After not a single romance garnered an A grade from me in 2017, I vowed to start off 2018 on the right foot - with an author who consistently works for me.  The final two books in a quartet series, Burn Down the Night gives me the closest thing I've read to a true Bad Girl Heroine in the genre and Wait For It is an example of an Asshole Hero done right.  I didn't read these books so much as inhale them.

Breathe (2016) by L. Setterby - My contest judging this year was largely meh, but holy hell where has this book been all my life?!  A perfect example of starting a book, reading the first sentence, and just falling head over feet right into the world.  I'm so hooked that I downloaded the Wattpad app to read the next book in the series (still being released in weekly installments as I write up this post).

An Extraordinary Union (2017) by Alyssa Cole - A historical romance with legit high stakes conflict.  I loved this heroine so much I'm thinking of taking the Gone Fishin' sign off of my ovaries.

The Tycoon's Socialite Bride (2014) by Tracey Livesay - Here it is, the best category romance I read this year.  Livesay hit all her emotional beats, right on time.  I loved the heroine's family baggage and the hero bent on revenge but not needlessly cruel (although this one does rip your guts out in parts).  Don't think you like category romance?  Try this one.  It's damn near magical.

Indigo (1996) by Beverly Jenkins - Arguably the book that Jenkins is best known for, and it's easy to see why.  She puts so much into this story, addressing racism, colorism, and sexism, without preaching from the pulpit or losing sight of the romance.  Also, I've always felt that Jenkins' strength (well, besides her dynamite heroines) is her world-building.  The community she creates in this story, using the Underground Railroad as a backdrop, was so well done.

The Soldier Prince (2018) by Aarti V. Raman - This is my cracktastic read of the year, basically a category romance about a former Black Ops-style soldier, who is really a prince, who falls in love with a struggling college student waiting tables in a New York City deli.  This one is full of ALL THE TROPES and I couldn't get enough of it.  Raman needs to publish the next book in this series, like, yesterday.

Delicious Temptation (2015) by Sabrina Sol - Believable baggage (seriously, families can be the worst), and I loved the East LA family bakery backdrop.  Is it because I live in southern California and know the area?  Maybe.  Because Sol writes it so very well.  My runner up for best category read of the year.

Not Romance, Still Awesome:

The Broken Girls (2018) by Simone St. James - It's to the point now where I'm a squee'ing unreasonable fangirl for Simone St. James, but seriously, I loved this one.  A time slip novel with converging 1950 and 2014 plot treads and a nice "romantic elements" secondary thread involving the 2014 heroine and her cop boyfriend.  

Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow - A long book (47 hours on audio!), this one is worth the time investment.  Grant's life exemplifies the old "truth is stranger than fiction" adage.  That this man, basically a failure is every other aspect of his life, defeated the Confederacy, saved the Union, and became President is simply remarkable.  This is my new Read A Book Already book.  Plus, I learned stuff.  Which is always nice when reading non-fiction.

Jane Doe (2018) by Victoria Helen Stone - The revenge thriller I didn't know I needed.  A cool, methodical heroine who exacts her revenge against the worst sort of hypocritical DudeBro.  I loved every blessed minute of it.

Charlesgate Confidential (2018) by Scott Von Doviak - A crime novel set in Boston with three converging timelines. It did take a while for me to sink into this story and I did have to read about the damn Red Sox way too much for my liking, but this one is excellent.  Excellent world building.  Excellent mystery.  Interesting characters.  It kept me guessing all the way to the end.

Comfort Read/Author of 2018:

Marcia Muller - Every reader I know has what they call "comfort reading."  Either a favorite book or author, maybe a favorite genre.  For me, that's mystery.  I fell in love with reading via mysteries.  I devoured them as a teen, so there's a really high nostalgia factor at play here.  Given what a mess 2018 was, it's probably not surprising that I read 14 books in the Sharon McCone series this year.  I got through books 3 - 15 and one short story collection this year, in a mix of audio and print.  Technically these were all rereads for me, revisiting books I first read or listened to on audio as a teenager and in my early 20s.  Yes, some held up better than others, but the world building! The character arcs! I wanted to read more in the series this year, but other obligations have kept me from them.  I plan to pick up again with book 16 in 2019.

And that's my Year In Review for 2018.  I'm quite pleased with myself, but continue to hope for bigger and better in 2019.  The goal, once again, is 100 books.  Let's see if I make it.