It’s another two-week reading summary, for oh so many reasons. I’m inserting links again and encourage you to check out any authors of interest. Buy direct if you can! Pay full price if you can! Book sales overall are down this year, GenAI output is up, and actual human authors need your support.
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Incidentally … where I refer to one of my own books, you can always find a link on this site. Check out the menu at top left for pages devoted to novels, novellas, shorts, and free reads.
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Week of August 16, 2026:
1. ‘How to be a Movie Star’ by TJ Klune. A sweet, funny, touching MM starring a neuroatypical demisexual actor whose love interest, a Chuck Tingle inspired writer living with anxiety & depression, hires him for an indie film.
2. [re-read] my own FM novel ‘Million Dollar Death,’ the one that really started my story universe ball rolling.
3. ‘Playing His Game’ by Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James. MM fake dating to save reputation scenario feat. a hockey player and the son of the team’s owners, mostly liked it, a little heavy on the hockey for me and omg someone’s parents are shitty.
4. ‘All These Years: A Hidden Wolves prequel novella’ by Kaje Harper. MM set in 1960 feat two former packmates / teenage BFFs, liked this a lot.
5. ‘The Start, 1904-1930 (Twentieth Century Journey)’ by William Shirer, a memoir/history by lifelong journalist/foreign correspondent. Long but well written & absorbing. The author also wrote the much more famous ‘Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ and, coming from someone who was on the scene, I expect it’s hair-raising.
6. [re-read] ‘The Trumpet of the Swan’ by E.B. White. Have loved this since the first time I read it, approximately 50 years ago.
7. ‘Operation Boyfriend’ by Zarah Detand. MM fake-boyfriends scenario with much more credible relationship arc than the usual, seeing as how both MCs are doctors at the same NYC hospital, know each other before the scam starts, have decent reasons for the attempt, have legit reasons to be wary of making it real, and have 2 months before the precipitating event to really get to know & like each other. The first sex scene is timely and lovely.
8. ‘Summer of Love’ by Lily Easton. MM feat. a closeted boxer and a ballet dancer who thought he was straight. If you enjoy shows of the Love Island genre, you might get a kick out of this. I think shows like that would be torture to participate in, so I shouldn’t have read this one (especially since the ballet angle was only a tease). The relationship work isn’t bad at all, but the setting made my skin crawl.
now for the Discovery of the Week:
9. ‘How to Have a Killer Time in DC’ by Sam Lumley. This was an absolute delight. A young gay autistic travel writer is sent by his San Francisco boss to research his first feature in Washington, D.C. and is met by his photographer, a very cute & appealing Black man. During their week’s itinerary they traumatically witness a violent death and end up investigating & solving it. Funny, sweet, I instantly followed the author and bought the sequel AT FULL PRICE.
10. ‘Coastal Views to Die For’ by Sam Lumley, in which Oliver the writer and Ricky the photographer are on a new assignment on the Oregon coast where members of the family mostly occupying their first location, a beachside B&B, are dropping like flies. Equally adorable and in this one they finish falling in love. Oliver gets a classic Christie summing-up scene. Our heroes find themselves in mortal peril in both books, but these qualify as cozy.
11. ‘The Corinthian’ by Georgette Heyer, which got sillier by the chapter but features likable MCs and was free of the stuff I’ve hated in some other GH titles.
12. ‘Red Rain’ by Bob Mayer. I really liked this. Excellent character work. By the 40% mark I was *feeling things* and deeply invested.
Week of August 23, 2026:
1. ‘Deep House’ by Jeremy Atherton Lin, a memoir + legal history + sociology; his life with his beloved from first meeting to civil partnership and beyond, strung on the timeline of gay rights and with an important thread on immigration. A great addition to the LGBTQ+ history library.
2. [re-read] my own MM novel ‘Drama Queen,’ the one about an actor and a physician assistant who meet on set.
3. ‘Annabel: A Novel’ by Kathleen Winter, which came up for me on BookBub and I’m glad I didn’t pay full price. Basically hated this “literary” treatment of an intersex child born in 1968 in a subsistence village in Labrador. Some reviewer called it enchanting; they must love books in which everything bad that could possibly happen to a person, happens. I call it enraging. Wrote a review about it which has yet to post; AMZ may have buried it. They’re doing that a lot. If it never publishes, I’ll post it here. Suffice to say, if you’re looking for a book in which an intersex main character is treated with compassion and respect, this is not that book.
4. palate cleansers: ‘The Best Night of the Year’ a short from D.P. Clarence, and re-read my own ‘Ember Cast.’
5. ‘English Country Life 1780-1830’ by E.W. Bovill. A terrific resource for the history shelf.
6. ‘Chase Hooper Likes it Hot’ by Lisa Henry & Sarah Honey. I suspect they needed to write this to get to the next in series but it’s not a super credible ‘this will work’ resolution for one nice guy and one absolute dumpster fire who needs about 5 years of therapy before he’ll be a fit partner. (The backstory made clear his reasons for being a mess, and I empathize, but he’s still a mess.)
7. ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’ by Andie Elliott, a short story linked to her novel ‘I Could Write a Book’ which I loved. The short: two guys trapped in an elevator at a wedding neither of them wants to attend, much less be in the party for. I could happily have read a lot more of their story. Looking forward to more from this author.
8. ‘Fadeout’ by Joseph Hansen. First of his Dave Brandstetter mysteries, set in the late 1960s in California, a very good noir-style whodunit starring a gay insurance investigator grieving the death of his longtime partner while sussing out an apparent accident that … wasn’t. The solution has to do with gay identity and relationships, and it’s sad, but the book ends with the MC in a somewhat better place and the victim’s survivor likewise.
9. ‘All an Act’ by Leslie McAdam. I liked this one a lot. MM starring 18 yr old high school classmates, next door neighbors who were once the closest of friends. MC1 is pansexual, out, artistic, nonconforming; MC2 is gay, closeted, class president quarterback living in a state of chronic anxiety and depression including self-harm due to abusive home environment. The relationship develops beautifully and the story unfolds without haste, putting the work on the page where I want it. Note, while these are young MCs, it’s a serious and adult book that includes sex on the page.
10. ‘This Time Together’ by national treasure Carol Burnett, 2nd of her 3 memoirs, funny and full of good (gentle, affectionate, and respectful) dish.
11. ‘Sylvia’s Second Act’ by Hilary Yablon. General fiction featuring a 63 yr old woman who’s passively allowed her husband to control and then wreck their financial life, which she doesn’t discover until she’s facing off with him about finding him in bed with another woman from their Florida retirement community. Her recovery is sufficiently difficult (involving a move to NYC) to be credible and she’s likeable enough to believe in the help she gets. Some funny stuff, a lot of “omfg take some responsibility for your own adulthood.”
12. ‘About to Fall’ by Ash Jackson. MM featuring two Canadian figure skaters who’ve been pitted against each other by their federation, the press, and social media all their lives. MC1: 21, golden boy and heir apparent of his uncle/coach, who is the last Canadian man to win gold and is also a complete dick; MC2: 23, rich Asian parents, nonconformist style, takes no shit. MC1 has been mashed into a professional shape so constricting and self-denying that he’s recovering from a sleeping pill overdose that may or may not (he’s working on it in therapy) have been a genuine suicide attempt. MC2 turns up at the rink unexpectedly, the asshole coach having taken him on after original longtime coach had to step back … asshole having given MC1 not even a word of heads-up. We hate that guy. Lots to unpack here, really well done, this book deserves a much better cover. Completely different approach and focus from my own figure skating book (TOTALLY THROWN), and dealing with different conflicts/pressures, so I’m not even bitter about how good it is.
13. [re-read] my own MM novella ‘Breathing Space,’ the one about a bereaved accountant who builds 1:12 scale miniature rooms finding new love with a miniatures painter. (free!)
14. ‘Shakespeare’s Freedom’ by Stephen Greenblatt. Rice University Campbell Lectures discussing beauty, hatred, autonomy etc in the works.