Book 36: Santa Daddy by Keira Andrews

My third Christmas romance of 2022! This one was right in the middle of the pack - it was a novella, so it didn't suffer in the same way that the second book did, and I did enjoy it, but it didn't quite hit my tropes the same way the first one did. This is about an older man finding love again 8 years after the death of his husband, and the guy who helps break him out of his shell again, and a lot of that is very good for me but I didn't quite buy the chemistry between these two characters in particular? Also I don't particularly have any feelings about sexy santa, which may help with this book, lol. 

Grade: C

Book 35: Merry Cherry Christmas by Keira Andrews

Okay, so the first Christmas romance I read this year was a novella, and then I picked up this one by the same author, and it's a novel, and man. I think it's just trying to be too much? The pace of the book is off, and the two big things that both characters are struggling with are both too slight and too significant to be dealt with in a book this size, and idk. Jeremy is a freshman in college who's been somewhat disowned by his family for coming out as gay, he's socially awkward, and he's never even kissed a guy. Max is a popular senior who plays football and is openly queer and confident, and they have a meet cute and then Max offers to be his no strings friends with benefits. Would you believe that feelings happen? Then Max invites him home for Christmas, and there are plot obstacles and a poor dude who gets in the middle and idk, it just doesn't quite work the way I wanted it to. Not a bad read, just not as good as other books by this same author. 

Grade: C

Book 34: Where the Lovelight Gleams by Keira Andrews

The first of my yearly gay Christmas romances! I enjoyed this one a lot, which is a tight little novella - frankly my preferred length for most Christmas romances - about two actors who are costars playing characters in love who end up spending Christmas together at a family cabin in Canada. One of the guys is out and knows he's in love with the other one, and the other guy is dating a woman but coming to terms with the fact that maybe he's not actually straight. He and his girlfriend break up, he comes to spend Christmas with his costar in Canada, and shenanigans ensue! The required third act conflict is a BIT over the top for me, but the classic hurt/comfort reconciliation is great, so overall I had a great time with this one. 

Grade: B

Book 33: Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather

I really enjoyed this novella!! It was such an interesting sci-fi space opera setup about a convent of nuns in a living spaceship traveling through the galaxy who discover that their larger leadership is corrupt. They respond in fascinating ways, and all of them have really compelling relationships with each other and dynamics and secrets, and idk! It's just WEIRD in exactly the way I want these kinds of speculative fiction novellas to be. 

Grade: A

Book 32: Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

The second book in the Rivers of London series! I liked this one, though not quite as much as the first one, which had the benefit of being the introduction to the world, while this one just expands on it and gets more into Peter's family history. Luckily, that story is still pretty good! Just slightly less memorable. 

Grade: B

Book 31: Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett

 Boy, this novella did not work for me. As is probably evident from the title, it's a story about Miranda from The Tempest living in Milan after the end of the play. This should really be my jam, or at least interesting to me. But both the story and the writing didn't capture me, and I felt really disappointed by it. This is just something that happens with books sometimes, and it's a bummer!

Grade: C

Book 30: A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

 A book club book! This is a fairly standard modern retelling/adaptation of a fairy tale, in this case Sleeping Beauty, in which the princess is a young woman named Zinnia who has a chronic, fatal illness. Her best friend sets up a birthday celebration for her that turns this into a portal fantasy, and she goes through a journey to potentially save both her life and the life of the princess she meets in that other universe. 

I enjoyed this novella, but I think I wanted/hoped for a bit more - there's an interaction in the portal section of the story that almost but not quite knocked my socks off, and it made me think that the story had gotten a bit held back in order to make it fit a more standard narrative. Basically I thought that this story could have been much weirder and broken more of the narrative expectations, and it would have felt both more cohesive to me and more interesting. But it was still a fun read. 

Grade: B