I’m so late posting this, it’s almost time for the next report!
1. ‘Lady Like’ by Mackenzi Lee. FF Regency with a lot of twists and unfortunately some of the same tics I didn’t like in Alexis Hall’s ‘something’ Regencies. I wouldn’t not recommend it – for those looking for FF Regency that is both hella queer and anachronistic, it’s fine – but for me, not a winner. (Note: this book shares a title with a show featuring drag queen Lady Camden that can be seen on Prime!)
2. [re-read] my own MM novella ‘Sugar Daddy,’ the one about an older man who meets a young doppelganger of his long-lost love.
3. ‘A Gentleman’s Gentleman’ by TJ Alexander. MM Georgian romance. Ahoy, spoiler ahead: both MCs are trans men. It’s a lovely slow-burn love story in which the titled MC chooses to leave it all behind to love on his own terms. Definitely recommended.
4. ‘Never After’ by Alexis Hall. This was not what I expected, and if I’d realized about the time setting, I could have adjusted my expectations. I’m glad I read it now because a story I’m working on also involves a country clergyman and I definitely want to steer clear of too many parallels. Beautifully written, as per Hall’s usual. If you love mid-19th-century-style tragic romances, have at it.
5. ‘And Then He Pressed Play: Track One’ by Robert Halliwell. An excellent MM YA romance. MC1 is a Canadian doing a school year in Ireland; MC2 is a local classmate. Loved everything about this and preordered the sequel.
6. ‘Jack’s on Fire’ by Owen Lach. Another MM YA romance, this one set in the US, and per the lengthy subtitle it’s explicitly a fairy tale. As such, it’s pretty satisfactory - from a low-point start, things gradually improve for the central character, ending with a triumphant moment and hopeful future. But a couple of authorial choices didn’t sit well with me and, while there is a sequel, I’m choosing not to read it.
6.5 ‘Sebastian Moran Gets Mauled by a Tiger’ by Kit Walker. Jay Moriarty book 2, which was not quite as entertaining for me as book 1 due to authorial choices, though I did like where Moran and Moriarty end up and will continue with the series.
7. ‘The 49 3/4 Year Old Virgin’ by Beck Lewis, MM contemporary. I technically read (skimmed) all of this but it needed a much stronger editorial hand.
8. [re-read] ‘Division Bells’ by Iona Datt Sharma, MM feat. a minister’s official and a new special advisor trying to get a bill through Parliament. Super geeky, sweet, slow burn, with on-the-job conflict, plus official’s ill-addressed grief for a lost friend + burnout from Brexit, and advisor’s family pressures. Love this book.
9. two disappointments by Ann Lister. ‘For All the Right Reasons,’ F/M feat. a rock photographer and the front man of a rock band, DNF at 3% which should tell you how much I didn’t like FMC or the fact that an introductory chapter jumped directly to a flashback I didn’t see the need for. … Then ‘Beat of his Own Drum,’ second-chance MM feat. the rock band’s drummer, several years on, as he’s coming out of rehab; the love interest is his drum tech. I am glad to know the job of drum tech exists but I did not learn what one *does.* Instead there was too much sex for me, a really long flashback setting up the initially contentious reconciliation scene, so much more sex that I skimmed to the end where there is a TO BE CONTINUED and I was annoyed.
10. ‘Eight Cousins’ by Louisa May Alcott, as a palate cleanser. A sweetly didactic 1875 novel which manages not to be infuriatingly preachy and also features a sympathetic portrayal of FMC Rose’s merchant uncle’s Chinese colleague. Rose’s adoptive father (another uncle) is quite the radical in some ways, I liked him too; though I do cringe at calling a 13-year-old a “little girl.”
11. ‘Rose in Bloom’ by Louisa May Alcott, the sequel, in which Rose is 20 going on 21 and due to inherit pots of money. The extended family all want her to marry one of her cousins. The eldest of those falls in love with Rose’s BFF/adopted sister (a foundling) instead, to family disapproval; they mournfully part and the BFF moves away to pursue a career as a singer. Meanwhile, the next eldest cousin has fallen for Rose but is a charming wastrel with a drinking problem who comes to a bad end. The *next* eldest is the one Rose read to for months in book 1, when he was confined to a dark room due to sunstroke / eye damage. He matures very nicely over both books, a budding poet and medical student, and a late bloomer who eventually falls for the very lovable Rose, who needs a minute to get her head around the changes. I liked the ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ message, the realistic if merciless disposal of the troubled charmer, the recurrence of the Chinese colleague and actually bringing him into the family/friends circle through marriage (there is stereotyping in the characterization and in others’ references to him, but his presence is pretty radical), and the patient development of both central love stories. The editing/typography of this one screams “OCR” but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.