On the Shelf: November 2024

October was such an overstuffed reading month that November almost feels light in comparison. Not that 17 books is anything to dismiss. If you're keeping score, that brings my year-to-date total to 243. As I've said in past round-up posts, reading is/was definitely a coping mechanism--but, I swear, I did not start out intending to absorb this many books into my brain. It's just my go-to activity when I have quiet time. Given that I have no steady work at the moment and no social life, there's a lot of quiet time. Maybe I need more hobbies? Like baking. Jamie Wesley's A Legend in the Baking certainly made me consider it. (I concluded I'd rather eat baked goods than create them.) I've always loved her sports romances and this charming contemporary featuring football players who own a cupcake shop is another winner. Social media maven Sloane and accidental viral sensation August have been secretly pining for each other for years, and it's so fun as a reader to be like "Omg, you doofuses!" until they get their shit together.

I'm not gonna lie, cackling at the cluelessness of romance novel protagonists is a huge part of why I read them. There's something so satisfying about watching characters succumb to emotion, to see that lightbulb go on when they realize they love someone and can have that happiness. What would I even call that feeling? Nice schadenfreude? Taking joy in their misfortune but also rooting for them? (I did a good amount of snickering at Alex and Genevieve in What I Did For a Duke, for example.) Can I count that as a separate hobby from reading? Probably not.

The Reading Rundown
It Had to Be You by Eliza Jane Brazier (romantic suspense)
The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth (suspense/thriller, domestic suspense)
Say You'll Be Mine by Naina Kumar (contemporary romance)
Speak of the Devil by Charish Reid (erotic romance, novella)
A Legend in the Baking by Jamie Wesley (contemporary romance)

Backlist titles & rereads: I went all the way back into my Kindle library for Pearl by Kelly Rand, one of first the trans romances I ever read. And I stayed in reread mode with Nightfall by Anne Stuart, Devil in Winter and four of the Hathaways books by Lisa Kleypas, and What I Did For a Duke by Julie Anne Long. I'm slowly making my way through Julie Garwood's historical backlist—somehow, I only ever read two of her westerns—and I really enjoyed Honor's Splendour. I also read two Liz Caryles that I hadn't gotten to before, A Woman of Virtue and A Deal With the Devil. My last complete read of the month was Sea of Ruin by Pam Godwin. It's a dark romance set in the Golden Age of Piracy and it's accordingly violent and intense but with some compelling romantic geometry at its center.

Currently reading: The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter.

On the TBR/ wish list
If I Told You, I'd Have to Kiss You by Mae Marvel
The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri
Ne'er Duke Well by Alexandra Vasti