Book 84: A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecilia Grant

 Well, it's not gay, and it's not contemporary, but this was the Christmas romance novel I had been hoping for!!!!

This is an absolutely charming Regency historical romance novella that's the perfect length for its story, and so satisfying even while you of course know exactly how it has to resolve. In the days leading up to Christmas, Andrew Blackshear has gone to Lord Sharp in order to obtain a falcon. But he encounters his daughter Lucy instead, who is a free spirit and desperate to be a part of society beyond her father's home. She manipulates him into agreeing to take her to the house party she was invited to for Christmas, but then she drops off her maid, so she's unchaperoned, and then their carriage wheel breaks and they have an accident, so they have to rely on the kindness of a farmhouse in order to survive, which means posing as a married couple to save Lucy's reputation!

There is, of course, only one bed, and Lucy is the one who doesn't fear losing her reputation and Andrew is so moral and good, and you just like both of them so much and the situation resolves in exactly the amount of time you want it to. A delight, start to finish. 

Grade: A

Book 83: A Fortunate Blizzard by L.C. Chase

 The fifth and final gay Christmas romance novel of the year! This one is a classic snowed-in, there was only one bed setup, where flights out of Denver get canceled and so Trevor isn't able to fly home. Meanwhile Marc, a work-obsessed lawyer, is just trying to get home from the office but gets the last hotel room when the highways are shut down. He offers to share with Trevor, who is determined not to get involved emotionally with anyone because he has late stage kidney disease and only has a year to live unless he can find a transplant. 

I enjoyed this one, but it's again on the wrong side of "extremely serious issue" conflict, for me. And Marc doesn't really have much of an existence beyond lawyer who wants to make partner to make his family happy, except they disowned him for being gay, so. Not the worst snowed in together options out there, but not a winner for me, either. 

Grade: C

Book 82: Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

 WELL. A friend who has already read all of the Queen's Thief books was extremely excited for me to read this one, and it did not take me long to figure out why. 

This book takes place in a completely new location, and the point of view character, Kamet, is one we only met briefly in a previous book (The Queen of Attolia, I believe). It turns quickly into a road trip, and specifically a GAY LOVE STORY ROAD TRIP, with an Attolian whose name we only learn at the very end of the book, but the reader is very clearly intended to have figured out who he is before then. It's both a romp and also just a lovely examination of the existing world from a new point of view. As with every book in the series, there's a lot that both the reader and the point of view character don't know, and don't know they don't know, and the payoff of this book is just so delightful. Kamet is one of my new favorites of the series, and the Attolian is now a firm favorite forever. The entire series is a wonderful read, but this book alone would be worth reading four books to get to. 

Grade: A

Book 81: A Christmas Reunion by Nic Starr

 Number four of the gay Christmas romance novels! In this one, we have no fake boyfriends or chance meetings due to a snowstorm, but we do have returning home and seeing your old flame again, who's now your biggest enemy. 

Hunter is from a small town where his family owns basically everything, and he's the prodigal son returned. Aaron is the equivalent of a townie, and now has a small store downtown a la David Rose in Schitt's Creek. They were best friends in high school, until a dumb asshole got between them, and now that Hunter's back the sparks have started to fly again! 

I really liked the premise of this novel, but it kind of fell apart toward the end. I know that this is in part a preference I have that goes against romance novel standard beats, but it feels like in too many of them there is a big confession or the like that involves too many openly expressed feelings, if I am honest. My kingdom for a Christmas romance novel that has the right level of conflict/suspense that I am looking for! This one is fine, but not exactly what I was hoping for. 

Grade: C 

Book 80: Mr. Right Now by Annabeth Albert

 The third of my gay Christmas romance novels! Another fake boyfriends one, although this one is much less bonkers than "my boss needs to believe I'm happily engaged or I won't get promoted." This one is much more classic, in terms of "my relationship ended suddenly and rather than tell my family I'm single again, what if I just pretend that the hot gay neighbor I've been checking out since I moved in is my boyfriend, instead?" (It does get a BIT into "I will deceive my boss in order to get a raise through my family situation," but it's not nearly as front and center.)

Both Russ and Estaban are charming and likeable, although Estaban's cultural background feels painted on at times, and the book does the whole "Spanish in italics" thing. But the book falls apart a bit when the "conflict" between the two of them is over Russ not wanting to rebound and so forth, and while it's closer to a novella than a novel already, I found it a bit tedious by the end. 

Grade: C 

Book 79: Better Not Pout by Annabeth Albert

 The second of our gay Christmas romance novels, this one also takes place in upstate New York with a grumpy older guy and a younger energetic guy who has resigned himself to not finding love by staying in his home town. But this time the older guy is a military cop about to retire, and guys, it is really hard to read romance novels about cops these days!!! This author writes a lot of military romances, which I generally have an easier time with than cops, even military cops, but boy. 

In this story the conflict is that Nick, the cop, is going to move away after he retires, so his romance with Teddy, the social worker who plays Santa's elf for charity every year in the small town he grew up in, has a built-in expiration date. Which is fine, except we all know that Nick doesn't actually want to move away, etc. etc., and even for a Christmas romance novel the conflict feels pretty strained. Still, I did actually like both Teddy and Nick, the cop issue notwithstanding, even if I've generally enjoyed other books by this author more. 

Grade: C

Book 78: The Christmas Deal by Keira Andrews

 Here is the first of the (mostly gay) Christmas romance novels I am reading this December!!

This is a classic setup - we have one sad desperate lonely grumpy not-out queer dude who is in need of a place where he and his stepson can live, since he's out of work after he was injured on the job, and another out-but-single gay dude who got abandoned by his former boyfriend and is estranged by his entire family but has a giant beautiful home, and a boss who inexplicably will only promote people who have stable family lives (since employment laws don't exist in this version of upstate New York). Grumpy guy, whose name is Logan, meets abandoned guy, whose name is Seth, through his sister, who is Seth's coworker. 

The whole story progresses about as you expect a Christmas romance novel to, and I largely enjoyed it, except it was a bit heavier on the angst than I really wanted. Just an endless stream of homophobic family stuff and personal loss and a difficult stepson and by the end I wanted a much less heavy story than it was. But it certainly delivers on the trope, so if "fake boyfriends" is a surefire winner for you, I recommend this. 

Grade: C

Book 77: A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

 Book for in the Queen's Thief series! In many ways the most straightforward book so far; it overlaps with The King of Attolia a bit and in general would be completely unclear if you hadn't read the first three books in the series, but Sophos is also a comparatively straightforward point of view character and also personality in these books. Even when he is posing as a slave in order to survive to protect himself and the throne, he is extremely clear-cut as a character. The sleight of hand that exists in the narrative is much more upfront as well; he knows things that his internal monologue doesn't reveal to the reader, but that feels considerably less shocking, narratively, than the reveals in the first three books. 

None of the above is a complaint, however! I still really enjoyed this particular installment, even if it's not my favorite of the series so far. It was nice in many ways to read something this direct in its storytelling, and I'm still loving this entire world. 

Grade: A

Book 76: The King of Attolia by Megan Whelan Turner

 Boy!!! The third book in the Queen's Thief series, this one has the most DELIGHTFUL point of view character, Costis. He is a guard for the palace in Attolia, and his unreliable narrator is great in a totally different way to the first two books: because we know more about Gen and his relationship with Irene than he does, and so the dramatic irony of his interpretation of what's going on versus our suspicions makes the entire story fascinating. This is especially true because Costis is just so darn likeable, which means that even when he's completely wrong you still sympathize with him, and understand why he feels the way he does about what's happening. 

The plot of this story centers on how Gen can be accepted as the King of Attolia, without destroying the Queen's authority and allowing the barons to ferment dissent against her reign. And of course he goes about it in the most Thief-esque way possible, and makes sure that no one actually sees him for all that he is until it's too late (for them). It is an excellent third book of what I think of as being the first trilogy of two in this series. 

Grade: A

Book 75: A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson

 I bought this book basically knowing one and a half things about it: that it's gay and set in a vaguely historical setting. And both of those are true! The setting feels roughly like a Mediterranean/North African culture, and the main character is Aqib, the youngest son of a man who manages a menagerie for the court, and who lost a lot of status when he married Aqib's mother. For complicated reasons, the whole family depends on Aqib, who is beautiful and effeminate, to marry a high born woman and allow the entire family to rise in society again. But this becomes very complicated for Aqib when he meets Lucrio, a captain who is stationed in their city, and who Aqib falls deeply in love with the first night they meet. 

The structure of this book is really interesting, as is the way that language is used to distinguish the characters and their worlds, and the overall narrative thrust. I began to get quite worried about how the story would end, because you want Aqib and Lucrio to choose each other so much, but there is a lot that leads you to believe one or both of them may not. I really liked where it took us, although I could have done with even more focus on the love story, in some ways. A really lovely read, and an interesting follow up to Haunting in a lot of ways. 

Grade: B 

Book 74: The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark

This novella was a free download from Tor this fall, which tend to be extremely hit or miss for me--sometimes I discover a new author I really love, and other times it's more of an exercise for my speculative fiction reading brain. This definitely falls into the first category for me! 

It's set in Cairo at the turn of the 20th century, but it's a Cairo that exists in a world where magic was released about forty years prior, and obviously everything changed. We follow two spiritual investigators, basically, who are a crime solving team mired in bureaucracy. The writing is delightful and the set up is extremely interesting, and all of this is done to the backdrop of women fighting for their right to vote, and revolution occurring all around. The team of Hamed and Onsi are a classic pair of the older, more established investigator being paired with the young, enthusiastic, fresh out of university recruit, and the way they navigate the mystery and the city and everything in between is extremely enjoyable. A very fun read. 

Grade: B

Book 73: The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

The second book in the Queen's Thief series, this one really threw me for a loop! Just. After the shock and disorientation of the unreliable narrator of the first book, the second book really doubled down on that for this one, and I genuinely was not expecting basically any of the twists or turns that got us anywhere. 

After the events of The Thief, Gen is now back with his Queen and in her kingdom, except he's also being sent out on missions constantly. And finally, the Queen of Attolia captures him, after he steals from her one too many times. Rather than executing him, she cuts off his hand, thereby destroying his identity, and things go from there. I am still not entirely sure how we got from that beginning to the ending, but I do know that it worked, which is part of what made it so compelling. I'm currently just getting to the end of the sequel to this book, and it's a trip attempting to put myself back into that mindset again. A great read!

Grade: A

Book 72: Nevertheless She Persisted Anthology

This is an anthology of flashfiction published by Tor that takes its inspiration from Elizabeth Warren and the famous "Nevertheless She Persisted" moment of 2017. Each story jumps off from that phrase and tells a story of resistance, of hope, of despair, of rage. I liked the concept very much, and they were all interesting takes on a project like this, but none of them stuck with me for as long as I would have liked. Worth reading, but I was hoping for a bit more. 

Grade: B

Book 71: Drive by Daniel H. Pink

A pop psychology book! I read a ton of these ten or fifteen years ago and then, much like memoirs, that genre began to feel a bit played out for me. This was a book I had read the first fifty or so pages of at some point and then never finished. And now I have! It was both very interesting, and slightly discouraging. The basic gist of it is that the things we tend to think should motivate people--direct monetary rewards and fear of punishment, primarily--are actually extremely unsuccessful except under very specific situations, and this applies basically equally to tasks we can take some intrinsic pleasure or satisfaction from, and ones that are mindless drudgery. We crave the innate reward of learning something or otherwise creating from the former kind of work, and value autonomy and control, rather than threat of punishment or a reward incentive, from the latter. Paying a kid to read more rarely works, but allowing a kid to select the kinds of books they want to read quite possibly will. 

The reason I found this book discouraging is because so little of our society is set up with any of these concepts in mind. Our entire economy is one big punishment/reward system, even the 'good' jobs that allow either for expression or autonomy. This fall has felt like one big flashlight on problems we seem able to recognize and yet not solve, and this book just made that feel even more obvious. It was hard to know how to apply much if any of what the book was suggesting, even if it did give me a greater appreciation for why I love doing puzzles for no 'reason' or write for free. A good book, if not one with a clearly identifiable next step. 

Grade: A 

Book 70: The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

This is the sort of book that I initially started this blog four and a half years ago for - I have owned The Thief for so long that I can't even remember where I got it. I'm 90% sure that it was a Christmas present, but when and from whom is truly lost to time. But I always wanted to read it, I just...never got around to it. Well, I finally did, and just in time for the sixth and final book in the series to have been published!

So there's this thief, you see, and he's imprisoned in a king's prison, and then released under the conditions that he has to go help someone steal something that's impossible to steal: a mythical artifact. It becomes clear fairly early on that the narrator is extremely unreliable, both in terms of what the narrative omits and also how information is presented, and the reveals are extremely well done and satisfying. I think this is a book that will reward a reread a lot. The setting is very much a pseudo-Ancient Greece, with a mythology that is clearly inspired by the same region, and overall there's a vague Guy Gavriel Kay approach to history here, which to the probable surprise of no one works very well for me. It is also a wonderful first book to a series because while I was very enthusiastic about starting the next one in the series, it also stands alone extremely well, and I really enjoyed having it exist on its own. If you are also like me and have only been hearing abut this series referred to as The Queen's Thief but haven't read it yet, I really recommend it! 

Grade: A

Book 69: We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

This is one of those books that I took out from the library after hearing about it...somewhere, probably because it's gay and YA (or close) and well, that is how I roll. And it was both of those things, but it's also about grief and trying to figure out who you are when your link to your past is suddenly gone, and the space between what you've been told and what's the truth grows wider and wider. 

It's also a book about an unreliable narrator, and telling a story with tension so you keep reading it in order to find out what the Thing was, why we're in the place in the present that the story is about, and it's extremely well-done and effective, but also the structure felt stronger to me than the actual story at times. I did desperately want to know how Marin had ended up where she was (alone, a freshman in college with no family and nothing tethering her to anything), but the explanation felt both too big and also not big enough, somehow. It was hard for me to not poke holes in it, which isn't a great way to go into a story. 

Still, the language was beautiful, and the specificity of her college town and life in the Mission back in San Francisco both rang extremely true for me. I just wanted a bit more oomph from the eventual reveal. 

Grade: B

Book 68: The Sugared Game by KJ Charles

I had an interesting time with this book! Primarily because it is a classic middle book of a trilogy in a lot of ways, where there has to be continuing existing conflict, and especially when it's a romance trilogy where the main pairing have already met and gotten together to some degree in book one--there has to be a reason they haven't gotten to the happily ever after yet, and are stuck at happily for now, and that's hard. 

It's especially hard, I think, in a series like this, where the central conflict of the first book is that Kim is keeping secrets from Will, and while not every issue would be resolved if he just stopped doing that, so many of them would be that it feels increasingly convoluted that he won't come clean and just tell him what's going on. It's slightly better in some ways that he's keeping secrets from everyone, not just Will, but man. 

Having said all that, I still really enjoyed this book! The dynamic between Will and Kim is so good, the sex is extremely hot, the commentary on the Bright Young Things is very funny, and Phoebe and Maisie are delightful. It just felt like it went back to the well of undisclosed secrets and unreliable narrators one (or two) too many times, for my liking. I'm definitely looking forward to the final book of the trilogy, though.

Grade: B

Book 67: Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles

A delightful start to a new KJ Charles trilogy! I enjoyed so many elements of this novel - the main character inheriting a bookshop after the Great War, Will's difficulties figuring out how he fit into life in England again, those issues becoming even more complicated when he's suddenly in the middle of a mystery of great importance, and then a man with more to his past (and present) than is initially obvious stepping into his life. Kim and Will have a dynamic that basically lets this author do what she does best: a forthright and damaged Englishman dealing with someone who cannot tell the truth about themselves for a variety of reasons, but who desperately wishes he could about this person in particular. 

There is a wonderful supporting cast to this story as well, and the central mystery is grounded in the era and complicated and all that, but truly this is the sort of book that promises a situation where one of them ends up in a tricky situation and the other comes to rescue him, while still not entirely telling him the truth about the matter, and it's all so good. I read this during a very difficult week, and it was a wonderful and desperately needed distraction. 

Grade: A

Book 66: Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

 A book club book! I knew nothing about this, other than the title, and it really knocked me back on my heels. It's a story about Ella, a young Black girl, whose brother Kev is born during the Rodney King riots. It follows them and their mother as they leave South Central for Harlem, and then Kev's incarceration in Rikers, and his release to a place called Watts. Ella has a Thing, where she can feel and sense the violence that's coming for people, and the story is somewhere between magical realism and sci-fi and dystopia, but really it's just classic speculative fiction. 

It made me think for obvious reasons of The Deep, and how narratives can pull apart trauma, and create a new narrative, and what that requires. It was also deeply affecting to read this book that was written in 2019 now, in a post-George Floyd world, because it was a pre- and current and post-Rodney King world before it was that, and it was an Emmet Till world before that one, and so on. But I wonder how ready I would have been to have read this book even a year ago, to say nothing of ten years ago, given where the narrative lands. This book will stay with me. 

Grade: A 

Book 65: A Duke in Disguise by Cat Sebastian

 This book was...fine? It's a historical with a female publisher, her brother who keeps writing seditious papers, and her oldest friend who she's clearly interested in, and who's clearly interested in her, but they can't let themselves to be together, for...reasons? And then they send her brother away to America so he'll be safe, and the oldest friend finds out he's not a bastard but rather he's a secret Duke, and now they really can't be together? Except there's never a really compelling explanation for why any of the wrenches thrown into their relationship are actual problems, and so as a result the actual relationship itself has very little tension, and I don't know. Not my favorite. 

Grade: C