THE TYRANT ALPHA’S REJECTED MATE by Cate C. His childhood might make his behavior more understandable, but it doesn’t make him a compelling romantic lead for me. Yes, even if he had a terrible childhood. His love for his biological daughter and his desire to occasionally rein in his fellow Wraiths does not somehow redeem him for being a key part of an organization that (spoiler alert from other novels!) has tortured and murdered people for decades. Second, Repo just didn’t do it for me as a romantic lead. First, I’ve read all the Winston Brothers novels and the Solving for Pie novels, but I couldn’t remember enough details and ended up being a bit confused in places, which was annoying. So far it’s fine, although I’m not sure if I would want to continue with the other six books in the series.īEARD IN HIDING by Penny Reid: unsatisfying even though Reid is an auto-buy for me. I (mostly) liked her COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES series so decided to give this one a try. I stepped away from it for a couple weeks and found I had no desire to pick it back up. It has a weird angle on race that I can’t quite put my finger on, but I think the short version is that Harrow gives short shrift to how a non-white girl would have been treated in the beginning of the 1900s, especially when she’s in Kentucky.ĭecided to DNF SHADOW OF NIGHT, the second book in the Discovery of Witches series. I felt like this worked best when it was focused on the doors and the attempts to escape from the bad guys. THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY by Alix Harrow. I learned a lot here and it definitely made me think about how I interact with wild animals. Roach writes great popular science books (BONK and STIFF about the science of sex and what happens to human cadavers, respectively, are both fabulous) and this one is about humans’ interactions with wildlife. Oh! And there’s an absolutely FABULOUS interview between Laymon and Tressie McMillan Cottom on the Ezra Klein Show (Tressie is guest hosting) about what it means to revise art and what it means to be a responsible artist and in dialogue with the world around you. I’ve been thinking about it since I finished it. Laymon grew up in Mississippi with an abusive mother and there’s just so much in here about trauma, love, social pressure, violence, and a sense of home and how much all of those things shape you.

This memoir (as the title clearly says!) is pretty heavy. I’m enjoying the evolution of the characters’ relationships and the found family angle. This is the third Wrexford and Sloane mystery. I’ve just realized that nothing I’ve read over the last couple of weeks has been a straight up romance, but I would consider them mostly romance adjacent?

Nightvine by Felicia Davin