On the Shelf: June 2024

My reading tally for June is 22, making my year-to-date count 142. If I continue at this rate, my eyeballs might fall out of my head. Please keep me in your thoughts. Maybe send me a care package of Visine? (Would it be gauche to suggest dropping Visine money in my Ko-fi?)

Did Kindle Unlimited enable my coping mechanisms this month? You bet. Hence me devouring all seven books in Cara Devlin's Bow Street Duchess mystery series. My error on that front was that I read the spin-off eighth book first and then I had to go back to see what had happened prior. Rookie mistake for a seasoned reader. Because the ensuing rabbit hole was deep. Obviously I thoroughly enjoyed Audrey and Hugh's adventures. If you loved Miss Scarlet and the Duke on PBS, check this series out. The other new-to-me writer that I inhaled in June was Aydra Richards. Exit Pursued By a Baron sold me on title alone because lol, but then I read three more books because the actual stories are so well crafted. Author Chelsea Cameron noted on Twitter that Lady Diana's Lost Lord features the absolute best single dad in a historical and, yes, I concur.

The Reading Rundown

Murder at the Seven Dials by Cara Devlin (historical mystery, historical romance)
Death at Fournier Downs by Cara Devlin (historical mystery, historical romance)
Silence of Deceit by Cara Devlin (historical mystery, historical romance)
Penance for the Dead by Cara Devlin (historical mystery, historical romance)
Fatal By Design by Cara Devlin (historical mystery, historical romance)
Nature of the Crime by Cara Devlin (historical mystery, historical romance)
Taken to the Grave by Cara Devlin (historical mystery, historical romance)
The Lady's Last Mistake by Cara Devlin (historical romance)
Double Exposure by Rien Gray (queer romance, trans romance, romantic suspense)
The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden (horror)
How to Tame a Wild Rogue by Julie Anne Long (historical romance)
The Marquess Wins a Wife by Aydra Richards (historical romance)
Exit Pursued By a Baron by Aydra Richards (historical romance)
Lady Diana's Lost Lord by Aydra Richards (historical romance)

Backlist* titles & rereads: My foray into the past had me catching up on some unread titles from go-to-authors—like The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas, Two Little Lies by Liz Carlyle, and Elizabeth Hoyt's Dearest Rogue and Sweetest Scoundrel. Weirdly, I'm still not done with Maiden Lane, because I refuse to read Maximus' and Artemis' book. He's just too insufferable. I also reread my old paperback of Strangers by Dean R. Koontz and then steamed up my glasses with Roni Loren's very sexy Off the Clock and By the Hour. And I got walloped by Aydra Richards' His Forgotten Bride. If you love the angst Lorraine Heath brings, you'll want to give this one a shot. Have tissues on stand-by.

Currently reading: Change of Heart by Kate Canterbary and Follow Her Down by Victoria Helen Stone.

On the TBR/wish list
Blood Betrayal by Ausma Zehanat Khan
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
A Legend in the Baking by Jamie Wesley

*My cut-off point between frontlist and backlist titles is four years. Three years is still new. I don't know how I arrived at this arbitrary distinction.

On the Shelf: May 2024

I'm solidly at 120 books read as of May 31...and zero books written. Ah, well. Fortunately, all that time spent reading instead of writing was incredibly fulfilling. The Pairing by Casey McQuiston is, hands down, one of my best books of 2024. I'm kinda mad about how good it is. I could never write something like this. So many quotable lines. Paragraphs, even. I haven't read anything else by McQuiston and the Red White & Royal Blue movie didn't work for me, but Kit and Theo's travelogue is exquisitely done. I need a list of everything they ate and everywhere they went. Their emotional journey as exes finding their way back to each other is even more beautiful.  

Another book steeped in beauty and on my Best Of list? A Love Song for Ricki Wilde. I don't know if Tia Williams' latest counts as magical realism (I have no idea what exactly falls under that umbrella), but what I do know is that she crafts a gorgeous story for Ricki and Ezra that spans decades and it kept me turning the pages. There's also a cameo from her Seven Days in June characters, and I hope it'll delight other returning readers just like it did me!

The Reading Rundown

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur (contemporary romance, LGBTQ+ romance)
Death in the Spires by KJ Charles (historical mystery)
Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison (horror)
Rival Radio by Kathryn Nolan (contemporary romance)
Red in Tooth and Claw by Lish McBride (out 10/8, western, young adult, horror)
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston (out 8/6, contemporary romance, LGBTQ+ romance)
Rent: Paid in Full by Jesse H. Reign (erotic romance, LGBTQ+ romance)

In Which Margo Halifax Earns Her Shocking Reputation by Alexandra Vasti (historical romance)
In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti (historical romance)
In Which Winnie Halifax is Utterly Ruined by Alexandra Vasti (historical romance)
Mister Magic by Kiersten White (horror)
A Love Song For Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams (contemporary romance)

Backlist titles & rereads: I know, I know. I read more Grace Callaway. Shocker. This time it was The Viscount Always Knocks Twice and Never Say Never to an Earl. I'd somehow skipped the Beyond Possession novella by Kit Rocha during my series reread in March, so I rectified that error. And then I crawled into a reread of Anne Bishop's Others series and didn't come out until I was done. Five titles in six days. And those aren't short, breezy, books. They're as dense as the forest that hides Namid's teeth and claws. lol. Naturally, I went right back to historical romance afterward with rereads of Say Yes to the Marquess and Do You Want to Start a Scandal? by Tessa Dare. Then I capped off the month with My False Heart, One Little Sin, and Three Little Secrets by Liz Carlyle.

Currently reading: Dearest Rogue by Elizabeth Hoyt and Double Exposure by Rien Gray.

On the TBR/wish list
Just Some Stupid Love Story by Katelyn Doyle
Blood Betrayal by Ausma Zehanat Khan
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeepingby Sangu Mandanna
A Legend in the Baking by Jamie Wesley

On the Shelf: April 2024

Look who finally got to all her ARCs! Tackling my treasure trove of upcoming front-list titles in April didn't quite get me to 100 books read this year so far—I'm sitting at 95—but I'm betting I'll hit it by the second week of this month, if not earlier. I actually deliberately backed off of finishing my last few books, because I've been concerned about the rate at which I'm going. At what point does media consumption go from healthy coping mechanism to unhealthy? I don't know. What I do know is that at least I'm coping with some very good stories written by extremely talented authors! 

Sara Desai's follow-up to last year's heist romance, To Have and To Heist, did not disappoint! Most of the "rom-coms" coming out these days are neither roms nor coms, but 'Til Heist Do Us Part is delightfully, deliciously, both. I want these two books to be turned into a movie or limited streaming series so badly, because the banter and hijinks are pitch perfect. Haunted Ever After, by Jen DeLuca, also brings a fair amount of comedy with the romance, but it's the ghostly components and the coastal Florida setting that really ground Cassie and Nick's love story. The book also left me wanting to try Cassie's favorite Publix sub. We do not have Publix in the Midwest. Sadness!

The Reading Rundown
Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca (out 8/13, contemporary romance)
'Til Heist Do Us Part by Sara Desai (out 8/20, contemporary romance, rom-com)
Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (noir, historical suspense/mystery)
The Curious Secrets of Yesterday by Namrata Patel (out 6/1, women's fiction, mainstream fiction)
Pardon My Frenchie by Farrah Rochon (out 6/4, contemporary romance)
Murder Road by Simone St. James (horror, suspense, mystery)

Backlist titles & rereads: I started out with rereads of some dark romance antecedents: Shadow Lover by Anne Stuart and Riding Dirty and Shooting Dirty by Jill Sorenson. Then I dove into the three VIP books by Kristen Callihan that I hadn't yet read. Alas, Idol and Managed weren't for me. Exposed was my fave of the lot. And of course I had my obligatory serving of emotional support historicals. Comfort rereads of A Lady's Lesson in Scandal by Meredith Duran, Lady X's Cowboy by Zoe Archer, and What a Scoundrel Wants by Carrie Lofty. A stop on the Callaway Express with The Lady Who Came in From the Cold. Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas. Some Like it Wicked, Some Like it Wild, After Midnight, The Vampire Who Loved Me, and Yours Until Dawn by Teresa Medeiros. I was kinda bummed because that last one in the Medeiros marathon fizzled out for me. I picked up a much-touted BDSM romance from more than a decade ago as a palate cleanser: Cherise Sinclair's Club Shadowlands. 

Currently reading: The Pairing by Casey McQuiston and Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur. 

On the TBR/wish list
Death in the Spires by KJ Charles
Blood Betrayal by Ausma Zehanat Khan
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams