Posts tagged with romance
To Lure a Proper Lady, by Ashlyn MacNamara
When I reviewed a previous Ashlyn MacNamara book, I gave her writing a lukewarm but honest endorsement. Unfortunately, her upcoming novel To Lure A Proper Lady is the kind of hot mess that undoes a lot of preexisting goodwill...
At least it's creative.
And speaking of webtoons, this weekend I started reading Witch Workshop, the latest effort from Goong author So-Hee Park. (English-translated chapters are available here.) So far it's not as instantly charming as Goong, but it's worth reading for the magical curse besetting one of the main characters...
The Deal, The Mistake, and The Score, by Elle Kennedy
I recently read Elle Kennedy's The Deal, The Mistake, and The Score, a collection of fun, loosely-connected New Adult romances set in the college hockey world. In The Deal, aspiring singer Hannah Wells sets out to overcome a past trauma with some no-strings-attached sex with her new pal Garrett Graham, the captain of her school's championship-winning hockey team. In The Mistake, Garrett's teammate Logan...
By Possession, by Madeline Hunter
On a recent trip to the beach, I picked up a battered copy of Madeline Hunter's 2000 novel By Possession from a Little Free Library. As longtime readers of the site know, I rarely read pre-Regency romance novels (I can't get fully invested in any sex scene when I'm wondering when the participants last bathed), but hey: I'd already finished the books I brought with me, and the price was right...
Weekly Book Giveaway: By Possession, by Madeline Hunter
This week's Book Giveaway is Madeline Hunter's historical romance novel By Possession. Please note: I picked this particular edition out of a Little Free Library, and it is trashed. Totally readable, though, and at least we're recycling...
Cheese in the Trap, by Soonkki
Today we're going to review something a little different: an ongoing Korean webtoon by Soonkki called Cheese in the Trap. Normally I would wait to cover this kind of thing until it was finished and fully translated, but A) I'm not that patient, and B) this story is so interesting, you guys—it's totally worth the inconvenience of reading it online...
Autumn's Kiss, by Bella Thorne (and Elise Allen)
Once again, I am staggered to find myself endorsing a novel “written” by teen actress Bella Thorne (along with co-author Elise Allen, whose name only appears in teeny-tiny font on the title page). This is totally damning with faint praise, but Autumn's Kiss, the sequel to...
Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Dash & Lily's Book of Dares is the third collaboration between YA authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Once again, Cohn and Levithan have chosen to write about bored, too-clever teenagers, and—also once again—their story constantly veers between adorable and irritating as hell...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
One of my 2016 resolutions is to make a visible dent in the massive Wordcandy slush pile. I'm pretty good about getting rid of books we're never going to review (depressing memoirs, anything about eating disorders, and sequels to earlier books that we never received go right out the door, for example), but that still leaves hundreds of books...
Sleeping With Her Enemy, by Jenny Holiday
Jenny Holiday's novel Sleeping With Her Enemy is currently available as a $0.99 e-book. I'm not sure I'd be as enthusiastic about it if it had cost, say, $7.99, but at its current price it's an incredible bargain...
Winter, by Marissa Meyer
I love Sailor Moon fanfiction and I love retold fairytales. You'd think combining the two would be an automatic win for me, but Marissa Meyer's best-selling Lunar Chronicles series proves that there's no such thing as a surefire bet...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Winter, by Marissa Meyer
This week's Book Giveaway is Marissa Meyer's Winter, the final installment in the best-selling Lunar Chronicles. I wasn't thrilled when Meyer delayed releasing the final novel in her series in favor of a quickie origin story for the antagonist (and charged eighteen bucks for it, too!), but it's probably time for me to get over it...
These Shallow Graves, by Jennifer Donnelly
Jennifer Donnelly's These Shallow Graves is the kind of book you want to take on a plane: long, engrossing, and simultaneously fun yet intellectually challenging enough to distract you from the super irritating guy hogging the armrest...
Weekly Book Giveaway: These Shallow Graves, by Jennifer Donnelly
This week's Book Giveaway is Jennifer Donnelly's These Shallow Graves. Somewhat to my chagrin, it seems that this is not a book about zombie prom-goers*, but instead a combination of "dark mystery" and historically-accurate depiction of the Gilded Age. A full review will follow shortly...
Cold-Hearted Rake, by Lisa Kleypas
Lisa Kleypas's latest historical romance, Cold-Hearted Rake, checks quite a few of my preferred boxes: there's a strong focus on money, a period-appropriate (well, more or less) wariness about sex, and a celebration of family support systems. Unfortunately, the actual romance falls a little flat, but even sub-par Kleypas novels are well worth reading...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Cold-Hearted Rake, by Lisa Kleypas
This week's Book Giveaway is Lisa Kleypas's newest historical, Cold-Hearted Rake. Judging by that cover art, this is perhaps the least Halloween-appropriate giveaway ever, but if it helps, I will totally be eating candy while I read it. A review will follow shortly...
Lookin' forward to it.
According to THR, actresses Lauren Graham and Mae Whitman (who worked together on the TV drama Parenthood) are teaming up to adapt The Royal We, the book by Go Fug Yourself co-creators Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks, for CBS Films...
The Masked Truth, by Kelley Armstrong
Kelley Armstrong's standalone novel The Masked Truth is the YA version of the movie Speed: instantly absorbing, action-packed, and blessed with Grade-A chemistry between its two leads...
Historical romances with routine bathing
There's an interesting article (with a terrible, misleading title) over on Jezebel: "The Regency Romance: How Jane Austen (Kinda) Created a New Subgenre". The article has less to do with Austen than Georgette Heyer...
Silver Eve, by Sandra Waugh
Last year's Lark Rising was a delight—a dreamy, thoughtful classic fantasy novel aimed at middle- and high-school readers, with a complex heroine and compelling larger world. The novel wasn't perfect (it was too short to do full justice to the material, leaving large sections underdeveloped), but...
Reawakened, by Colleen Houck
Several people have compared Colleen Houck's new novel Reawakened to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books. Both are aimed at younger teens, feature a mixture of human and demigod characters, and rely on a lot of PG-13 action sequences to push their plots along. Unfortunately, Reawakened doesn't share Riordan's greatest strength: his ability to create relatable characters, no matter how over-the-top their abilities or adventures...
Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead
This is going to sound a little random, but Rebecca Stead's Goodbye Stranger reminds me of a young-reader take on Jennifer Crusie's wonderful romance novel Bet Me. Both books focus on the various forms of love (familial, platonic, romantic), and both are simultaneously incredibly sweet and unexpectedly profound...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead
This week's Book Giveaway is Rebecca Stead's Goodbye Stranger. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm already impressed by Stead's ability to capture the overwhelming emotional messiness of being a middle-schooler...
Oh, the cover art
Hey, finally! At long last, NPR has released the list they compiled of 100 Swoon-Worthy Romances. I've been waiting for this all summer, and I'm genuinely impressed by a lot of their choices...
And Then Everything Unraveled, by Jennifer Sturman
I feel like I've been complaining about this a lot recently, but seriously, authors: if your book is a series installment, you need to make that clear from the start. I really liked Jennifer Sturman's debut YA novel And Then Everything Unraveled, but I was not best pleased to discover that it was only half of a story...
Flirting in Italian, by Lauren Henderson
Lauren Henderson's 2012 novel Flirting in Italian is jam-packed with things I enjoy: girl bonding, travel, mystery, romance, and telenovela-worthy birth secrets. It's close to the perfect summer beach read—apart from one jarring flaw...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Flirting in Italian, by Lauren Henderson
After staring long and hard at the book I meant to review today (Laurell K. Hamilton's Dead Ice), I decided to skip it favor of something else. Anything else. I just can't face Laurell this early in the week, particularly not when the book in question seems to kick off on an exceptionally disgusting note, even for her...
The Liar, by Nora Roberts
After her most recent—and truly terrible—series, I was ready to give up on Nora Roberts forever, but her latest standalone novel, The Liar, is the kind of satisfying, sturdy, girl-power effort that drags me right back in. Curse you, Nora Roberts, and your ability to wrest away my hard-earned spare cash...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Liar, by Nora Roberts
Okay, I'm giving Nora Roberts one more shot: this week our Book Giveaway is her recent standalone novel The Liar. We'll have to see where it ranks on her scale of shameless self-replication. My hopes aren't high, but Roberts has surprised me before...
Blood Magick, by Nora Roberts
It's official: Nora Roberts's writing has reached peak laziness. Not only has she used these characters and situations before, she's used them before in this exact same combination. Seriously, if you want to read Blood Magick, just pick up a copy of her 2002 novel Face the Fire—it's the same story, but half the price...