Book 7: Wanted, an Author by KJ Charles

This is a lovely little epilogue to Wanted, A Gentleman, which I enjoyed quite a bit. The story takes place the morning after Parliament voted to stop the transatlantic slave trade. Martin is still sleeping off the celebrations from the prior evening when Theo discovers another gentleman in the kitchen, who's actually looking to hire Theo to do a bit more writing of dirty books. Only the book he specifically wants to commission is one that involves the actual implied sexual encounters in gothic novels that is usually merely hinted at (especially when it involves two men, no matter how wicked they are).

This was quite clearly written as a little link to her newish book Band Sinister, which I have just started reading, but it was very nice to see both Theo and Martin, and I'm hoping they'll appear in that book as more than just a cameo as well.

Grade: B 

Books 5 and 6: Elegy and Swansong (The Magpie Ballads) by Vale Aida

I have decided to write about both of these books in one entry, since they're essentially one complete story told over two halves and I read both of them within the course of three days. The central character is Savonn Andalle, aka Silvertongue, whose father was the governor of Cassarah. Elegy, the first book, starts with the funeral of his father, who was killed by bandits...or was he? And his son is both the captain of the guard and also a former actor and, we learn, spy, whose loyalties and true motives are constantly at question.

There is also a mysterious and devastatingly handsome stranger named Dervain Teraille (who often goes by the names Red or the Empath), who has a very complicated past relationship with Savonn, two pairs of siblings who are tied up with both of them, a queen and her estranged sister who also has a secret, and lots of murder and intrigue. In short, it is a fairly classic historical fantasy with chapters ending on cliffhangers and misdirection about who is actually responsible for which death and why, but with the added (and welcome) intrigue that both of the main romances in the book are gay, and the intense friendship between two male characters while one is more or less exiled from his home is textually romantic rather than just heavily implied (and then handwaved away in the final act).

There's so much in these two books for me to like, and yet at the end of the day they didn't quite land for me as solidly as I wanted them to. Aspects of the plot felt referenced rather than developed for me; there were deaths that I knew should affect me greatly, but I hadn't had enough time to really care about the characters to actually feel anything. I liked being thrown right into the world and expected to keep up, but instead of working hard to piece everything together I found it all a bit predictable.

Grade: B

Book 4: In Case of Emergency by Keira Andrews

This is one of those romance novellas that has like four different tropes that I'm into and yet never fully commits to any of them and leaves me feeling more grumpy than anything else at the end of it.

One of those tropes is Christmas stories, which I love, even in January! Daniel is the solid, slightly boring dude who after years of being single is trying to shake things up this Christmas season by renting a chalet with his workplace hookup. This plan is complicated by the appearance of his former step-brother Cole (trope number two!) who Daniel hasn't seen in like ten years but had put Daniel's name down on his emergency contact when Cole started grad school in Daniel's city. So okay, Cole has a concussion and therefore can't be left alone and needs to come with Daniel to this chalet (so they can hit trope number three and get snowed in together).

The setup for all of this is fine, an unexpected meet cute/reunion from their past that has the added intrigue of former-pseudo incest. But the novella never really wants to get into the wrong-but-hot aspect of that stepbrother situation, and instead of the two of them being snowed in alone, first we have to deal with the workplace hookup being inexplicably terrible and inviting like five other people to this romantic chalet and only ever hooking up with Daniel in the first place as part of a bet (trope number four!). It's just this dumb conflict we have to wade through before getting to the actual romance between Cole and Daniel, that's delayed even further so Daniel can discuss his damage from his big relationship in college, and man. By the time the workplace hookup finally leaves and the two of them can just have Christmas together, it's hard to remember why the whole setup is even supposed to be compelling. I can deal with a lot of nonsense to get my Christmas romance novel happy ending, but this was the wrong kind of nonsense, for me.

Grade: C

Book 3: The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

This is a book that is simultaneously very, very well written and is culturally specific about details that I didn't even know would or could resonant with me as strongly as they would, while also not being the kind of story that I personally need or even especially want to read right now. I feel very conflicted!

The story is set in Montana in the early '90s, and begins just after Cameron's parents are killed in a car accident. One of her first reactions to this news is relief, because the big secret she's carrying around is that she and her female best friend have kissed, and now her parents will never know, and thank god. Cameron is three years older than I was during those years, and while I grew up in a very different area of the country, I definitely grew up in the same culture, both in terms of how her queerness interacted with the world and how she learned about what it meant to be a lesbian, and also in terms of what it generally felt like to be a teenager at that time, queer or straight. She has a summer girlfriend who's on a rival swim team, and that girlfriend teaches her about the specific counterculture that came out of the pacific northwest, and all I could think about was my personal equivalent of that girlfriend and how painfully real the whole thing felt.

"Painfully real" is probably a good way to describe the entire book, for me, even the second half which goes in a very different direction than my own life did (or that I expected the book to go; I essentially got spoiled for the second half by an article describing the movie version of this story, which impacted my reading of it quite a bit). I spent most of the book bracing myself for what might happen to her next, betrayal or violence or intense loneliness or loss of self. I don't want to get too deep into the plot, but I found the ending to be both deeply affecting and beautiful and right, and yet also not enough: it stops at precisely the correct moment for this coming of age story to end, but I was desperate to know how her life continues. I could only read it as an adult needing to know how she turned out, and in some ways I know too much about the specific ways things were hard for queer youth in the '90s to content myself with the idea that it would simply get better for her. I think it could--it did for me and many of my friends--but I really wanted the narrative to tell me how, and that's not an answer this novel was going to provide. It's the right ending for this story, but not for me, I think.

Grade: B

Book 2: Mr. Winterbourne's Christmas by Joanna Chambers

This is the sequel to Introducing Mr. Winterbourne, and it's the reason I read both of the books, and man I wish that this Christmas novella had hit the spot for me more!

The story picks up more or less where we left off, in that it's eighteen months later and Lysander has been living with and working for Adam during that whole time. But neither of them are certain of the other's feelings, Lysander because he doesn't know if Adam just likes having him work there and Adam because he doesn't know if Lysander feels obligated because he's technically his employer. The Earl invites Adam to join the Winterbourne family for the holidays, theoretically because he's the brother of the Earl's son-in-law but actually because he needs more money from him and wants Lysander to return home to manage the Winterbourne estate instead of the Freeman family. Add to this an old friend of Lysander who may have felt more for Lysander than he ever realized and some ill-advised kissing in the garden and there's a whole lot of plot but not very much in the way of stakes, because literally everything can be neatly solved by just having a conversation or two (and by being far less self-destructive and/or dumb when it comes to being obvious about your gay love affair). I still like Adam and Lysander quite a bit, and there's a clear next couple being lined up for any sequels, but I was hoping for more on the conflict front than 'I don't know how he feels because I refuse to have any conversation about feelings whatsoever.'

Grade: C

Book 1: Introducing Mr. Winterbourne by Joanna Chambers

The first book I read this year was really more of a novella, which I read entirely so that I could read its sequel, which is Christmas-themed. (Yes, I know it's January. I got very behind on all of my holiday-related tasks last year.) It is a sweet enough story on its own, though!

The titular Mr. Winterbourne is Lysander, the youngest son of an earl who has mismanaged the family estate and is now deeply in debt. Lysander's sister is engaged to the son of a wealthy mill owner, who can settle the family debts but is also not of their class. His father instructs Lysander to show Adam Freeman, the older brother of Lysander's sister's fiance, around London and essentially placate him.

Lysander is a delightful fop with secret depth, and Adam is a very nice rich man who nevertheless is constantly disrespected and so he doesn't attempt to hide his disdain for the aristocracy in turn. There's a delightful fencing bout between the two of them, and the resolution of Lysander becoming Adam's estate manager after his father refuses to allow Lysander to manage the Winterbourne estate is both satisfying and reasonably believable, in terms of giving them a permanent happy ending. A very nice little romance if you're not in the mood for much drama or angst.

Grade: B

2019 Master List

Hey, look at this! I'm posting my master list for the year and it's still January. Progress!

Last year I read 41 books, which didn't come close to the 96 books I had on my list, but was far more than the 12 I read in 2017. And this year I have 77 books on the to read list, so I am slowly but surely chipping away at this pile. My goal for this year is to read all of them, or about two books per week, with the understanding that I will inevitably acquire new books I also want to read and my book club should start up again in a couple of months and so getting that number up to 104 is pretty realistic. Especially since I already have 29 books in my 'want to read' tab on iBooks, which I haven't included in this list because I don't actually have those books yet. There's a lot out there to read! I also want to do three (possibly four) deliberate rereads: it's been almost three years (!) since I read the Lymond Chronicles for the first time, so I want to do that, and I want to reread all of Guy Gavriel Kay's books (especially since his new one is coming out in May), and I want to reread the Graceling series, and I possibly want to finish the Anne of Green Gables series and read her other books, too. Oh and I want to reread Uprooted and Spinning Silver. Depending on how fast I actually manage to read this year, those rereads may count toward the 104 or they may not. But below the cut are the new to me books I intend to read this year, with some of them becoming an annual tradition at this point.