Book 16: A Gentleman's Gentleman by TJ Alexander

This was recommended by someone I follow on bluesky, and at first glance it looked like a standard (and delightful!) m/m regency romance novel. And while it certainly is that, it's got a bit more going on as well. 

Christopher is a reclusive lord who doesn't want to be an active part of Society because he's got a secret: he's trans. But in order to secure his family seat and inheritance, he must marry before he turns 25. Which means he has to go to London, and no gentleman would travel without his valet, the titular gentleman's gentleman. And that is how he meets James Harding, who is far better at being a valet than Christopher is at being a lord. 

About 85% of the way through the novel I got a bit worried about how the various conflicts and romances would be resolved, but I shouldn't have been concerned. The book manages to pave the way to a future that felt both of the time and like it would actually make all parties involved happy. The romance at the center didn't have quite enough longing and suspense to be an all-timer for me, but I had a lovely time reading this. 

Grade: B

Reread: The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

Sometimes there's a book that does something intentionally and you know why it did it conceptually and you're still like yes but please give this to me???? And that is how I feel about this book and the lack of a map at the front. 

Every other book that GGK has written has a map at the start. It grounds you in this shared universe that he's created, which is essentially a fictional Europe and Middle East and North Africa that he can play with freely. And this book is about the version of Britain and the Vikings in 9th century or so, and I understand why the lack of a map reflects the mists and unknown glens and so on and so forth, but I would like to have my narrative bearing!!! 

Anyway. I love this book very much; many of Kay's books are about fathers and sons, and legacy, and above all else how chance encounters and timing changes the course of history, but this one has some of the most affecting scenes and develops those themes in ways that continue to stay with me. It's a book I reread hoping that I've misremembered some things about, so I don't have to experience that pain again, but by the end I'm so happy with where the story goes that I've accepted going through that pain. And there's a lot of hope in that. 

Grade: A 

Reread: Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay

I got stalled in this reread about 75% of the way through - I got to the point when it all begins to fall apart in the way that it simply has to fall apart, and weirdly I found it tough to experience this time around!! But I finally did, and it was as devastating and ultimately satisfying as it ever is. 

This book was the reason I specifically traveled to Ravenna to see some mosaics in person, which was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It gave me some of the language to explain why art and storytelling matter so much, even when (especially when) the world around us feels like it's imploding. And I find it comforting to know that humans have always just been trying to live our ordinary lives while greater machinations happen around us, and that there's still joy to be found in moments even during so much cruelty and terror. 

Grade: A 

Book 15: The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

A book club book! This is a charming fable that felt like it was an old fairy tale that I had somehow never heard of before. There's a river that has two giant willows on either side of it, and a land called Arcadia north of those willows, and two sisters who are part of the family that has sung to the willows that enables the roots to create and build grammar. It's a bit metaphorical! The first twenty pages of this novella are basically entirely without characters and plot! But once it gets going, I found the story really lovely, and the liminal spaces it explored to be deeply meaningful. I did wonder whether this was a story that began as a short story and then got filled out a bit, because it felt like there was a lot that went unsaid, and I couldn't entirely tell whether that was a story choice and whether that was a function of the size of the story. But all in all, I enjoyed this quite a bit!

Grade: B

Book 14: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

Sometimes books that are a cross between two different genres sound great but end up not quite jelling. And then other times you get a book like The Tainted Cup, which manages to create a whole fantasy world with giant sea creatures that invade a country and then set a compelling murder mystery inside it, with a classic eccentric detective and her beleaguered assistant who doesn't always know exactly what's going on or how important they are. 

It's just a really good read! I read the whole thing on a couch at a vacation house with my girlfriend and two friends and a very cute dog, and honestly what an ideal weekend. Can't wait to read book 2!!

Grade: A  

Book 13: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

A book club book! Although I've read it well in advance for once. 

I think I may have gone into this book with expectations that were too high--there's a lot about this time travel book to like, and I had a really nice time reading it. But I kept expecting either the relationships in the book to really wow me, or for the structure and worldbuilding of this specific time travel project to hit me harder, and instead it was just nice! I liked what it did with the historical event of the HMS Terror and what happened to the men searching for the Northwest Passage, but it never quite clicked into place with the current day story for me, and I never fell in love with the romance the way I was supposed to. 

Part of that is that the narrator felt a bit too opaque and naive for my liking, and while some of that is because of various reveals that occur in the final third of the book, that only compounded what didn't entirely work for me about her. It was all fine! But I had been hoping for something that made me swoon, and unfortunately it didn't.

Grade: B

Book 12: Under the Mistletoe with You by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

Look, sometimes you need to end March with a gay Christmas romance novel, okay?

This one has a lot to recommend for it - it's got a baker named Christopher who lives in a quaint Welsh village. He gets snowed in with the famous actor Nash Nadeau there under a fake name who was supposed to stay at Christopher's apartment while he went home for Christmas. They clash! There's only one bed! They have to figure out how to work together to help the village! Christopher hides that he knows who Nash is! 

This book is extremely cozy, and it's lovely to have a lead character who's trans and not have that be the big message of the book. But for me, the balance of small village pre-Christmas stuff to romance wasn't quite what I was looking for - the two leads didn't have the kind of chemistry I was hoping for, and while they each had personal obstacles they had to get past, it didn't feel like they found the answers in each other. Plus, and this is just a particular pet peeve for me, Nash never sounded like an American (or a Canadian who moved to LA when he was a teenager) to me. I'm sure that the reverse happens for British readers all the time, but I wish his dialogue and internal monologue had been more carefully written to be that of a non-British person. 

Grade: C