On the Shelf: January 2025

The three frontlist books I read in January were all powerful in very different ways. I feel like Amazon's First Reads email tagged Sonali Dev's There's Something About Mira as a rom-com. Though it's funny at times, it's not a rom-com. It's very much a book about generational trauma and breaking cycles. I shed a few tears. Meanwhile, The Reformatory and All The Hearts You Eat made my breath catch and my heart pound—and inspired some shudders. Not just because of ghosts or vampires (and body horror), but because humans are worse than anything that goes in the bump in the night. Due and Piper's writing styles are very different, as are the stories themselves, but there's a devastating commonality at the core that feels even more relevant right now. Anti-Black racism and transphobia are evils that exist beyond the page. Those are the monsters we need to fight.

As for my backlist forays...whew. There are a lot of elements from older romance novels that just don't age well. Colonialism, casual racism, violence against women, underage heroines, etc. And yet I still reread a lot of those old problematic faves. I make allowances for elements in those books that I wouldn't accept in a book written today. I might have to unpack that in a longer blog post at some point. I also need to expound on Iris Johansen's utterly bonkers Wind Dancer series—after having a gummy and a glass of wine.

The Reading Rundown
There's Something About Mira by Sonali Dev (women's fiction, romance)
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (horror)
All the Hearts You Eat by Hailey Piper (horror)

Backlist titles & rereads: I tried to keep sticking to rereads from my Kindle library in January and for the most part I succeeded—starting off with The Perils of Pleasure and Beauty and the Spy by Julie Anne Long, Tarnished and Gilded by Karina Cooper, and The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James. A Woman Entangled by Cecilia Grant and Little Secrets by Megan Hart followed. But then my one-click finger slipped, thanks to Eileen Dreyer's hit-and-miss Drake's Rakes books: Barely a Lady, Never a Gentleman, Once a Rake, and Always a Temptress. I "punished" myself by rereading the trade paperback of my favorite Nora Roberts book: Honest Illusions. Then there was The Baron's Marriage Gamble by Theresa Romain, which was previously published as Season for Scandal, and another round with Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas. I pulled out the paperbacks again with The Wind Dancer and Storm Winds by Iris Johansen. Last, but not least, I checked out Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon via Libby and finally got around to Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

Currently reading: The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri.

On the TBR
No Ordinary Love by Myah Ariel
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn
Ready to Score by Jodie Slaughter