This is the way The Bachelor ends…

This is the way The Bachelor ends…

This is the way The Bachelor ends…

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Finally we are at the end of our journey. Nick Viall, the 21st Bachelor, has to make a choice between two women: Raven Gates and Vanessa Grimaldi. Last week, after The Fantasy Suites, Nick sent Rachel Lindsay home – she’s the next Bachelorette and, I contend, the real winner here.

So who will get Nick’s final rose? IDGAF to be honest. I don’t believe for a second it’s going to work out between Nick and either woman. For one thing, this season has led me to believe that Nick has the IQ of an especially clever hamster. Even if that weren’t the case, Vanesssa is Canadian and has no inclination to move–and neither does Nick. Raven confessed before The Fantasy Suite that she’s never had an orgasm and she looked to Nick with such hope that it broke my heart. Based on her reaction the next day, I’m guessing her optimism was wasted.

Whatever happens I’m sure Nick will cry. And at some point impersonate a “drunk baby dinosaur.”

So while I’m not especially invested in the outcome of the show, I am 100% down for the ensuing train wreck. I’m sad to lose my crazysauce Monday addiction, but my liver needs a break.  I’ve got my Kraken rum and my Coke, and I’m ready to go folks.

Let’s get on with the show.

“I love them,  both of them,” Nick reflects in a voiceover in the opening moments of the show.

Sucks to be Nick.

Then Chris Harrison appears and says “Welcome to the historic live three hour finale of The Bachelor!”

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. I CANNOT DO THIS FOR ANOTHER THREE HOURS. LAST WEEK BROKE ME. I HAD THE BED SPINS.

He continues, “Later tonight something so unexpected, something so extraordinary, something that has never happened before in Bachelor history will take place right here on this stage! Trust me, you do not want to miss this!”

Well, that’s intriguing. I’m willing to accept two possible scenarios:

1. Raven and Vanessa admit they fell in love and run away together.
2. Murder.

Then we’re off to Rovaniemi, Finland.

Nick gives a brief intro of the region. “Rovaniemi is in the northern part of Finland, right below the Arctic Circle. And apparently Santa Claus lives here, which is pretty crazy.”

He’s so genuine about that last statement that I have no doubt that Nick believes Santa is real.

Nick’s family has joined him in Finland to meet the remaining two women. All of them seem exhausted with the whole process–remember Nick was rejected twice on reality TV before.

Nick’s little sister, who is amazing, tells Raven, “I hope he picks you. I mean, I haven’t seen the other girl…”

“You’re not gonna like her,” Raven says.

I love Raven so much.

Raven admits to Nick’s dad that Nick has not told her that he loves her yet.

Later his dad muses. “They can still stay no. Given his track record? It’s not the greatest…”

OUCH.

Later (after Raven is gone) Vanessa comes over. She tells Nick’s family about their zero-gravity date, when she got sick and threw up (AND NICK STILL FUCKING KISSED HER OMG NO) and tells them what a great caregiver he was.

“It was a feeling that I’ve been searching for, for the last three years,” she says tearfully.

Nausea?

Now Vanessa and Nick’s mom are totally choked up.

“I think this is when you chime in,” Nick’s sister tells him. “Because she’s having a moment.”

Nick is like, “Oh, wow. That’s an awesome story. Oh, wait. I was there!”

JK. Nick actually says, “Oh. Oh. I had a lot of fun. Um. But yeah. It was a great first date.”

Later Vanessa confesses to Nick’s mom (privately) that she’s concerned she’s not ready to be engaged to him. She loves Nick but again, she’s afraid of uprooting her AWESOME LIFE in Montreal to follow Nick to… IDK. Where do Dancing with the Stars cast members go to die? Is there a pasture somewhere in Southern California?

“Do you think love is enough to make a relationship last?” Vanessa asks Nick’s dad.

He tells her that it’s not. You need selflessness and compromise, too.

Then inexplicably Nick’s dad starts to cry. Huh. So it’s genetic.

Then Vanessa starts to cry.

Then I start to cry because THREE FUCKING HOURS.

Then it’s on to Nick and Vanessa’s last day together before THE FINAL DREADED ROSE CEREMONY.

The two of them go horseback riding in a snow covered forest and Vanessa has on the most amazing infinity scarf.

“I don’t know how to go faster,” Vanessa says.

“Just give him a little squeeze with your thighs,” Nick says. “You know how to do that.”

Vanessa chuckles but like in a way where you know she’s imaging stabbing him to death.

Then they stop at a cabin and guess who lives there? Santa Claus!

Santa greets them.

“I don’t speak Santa Claus,” Nick says, panicked.

That’s Finnish, Nick. He’s speaking Finnish.

Santa gives them a heart (ceramic, I think) with their portraits on it.

Later, sitting in front of a fire, Nick tells Vanessa, “I just want someone who can have that balance with me.”

“Do you think I could?” Vanessa asks.

“Well, you’re here,” he says.

My husband looks up from Fallout Shelter and says, “Wowwww. Just. Wow.”

Later they sit and talk and Vanessa confesses that she’s uncertain of their future. She wants Nick to propose to her because he can’t imagine life without her, not because he likes her better than Raven.

“Do you feel like you’re ready to propose?” she asks.

“I think the week’s not over,” he says. “And I think I have to use every moment to get there. Because you want it to be different and special, and so do I. And I don’t want to give it, as weird as it sounds, that much thought knowing that there’s still two people here.”

“See, I don’t like that answer,” Vanessa says.

“I know you don’t like that answer,” Nick says helpfully.

Jesus. It’s like he gets worse every single week.

“You could look at it a million different ways,” Nick says. “If you want to find a million different scenarios where you can try to de-rom, de-rom, un-rom…make it less romantic then you probably can.”

Then Vanessa starts sobbing.

“I know my gut is fighting me, pushing me to question things,” she says.

SOBBING AND FEAR. YUP THIS IS THE START OF A GREAT LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP.

Later that week it’s time for Nick and Raven’s final date. They go ice skating on a frozen pond. Unlike Vanessa, Raven seems to have no doubt that Nick will propose to her, and she’s pretty happy about it.  Nick is also noticeably less awful with her.

Then Nick surprises Raven by bringing three adorable husky puppies over for snuggles.

“This is officially the best day of my life!” Raven says while puppies lick her face.

Later over drinks, Raven tells Nick that she has no hesitation about getting engaged and that she loves him. “If you have any worry at all, I hope I can alleviate that by telling you that I’m ready, and I do love you, and it’s gonna be really easy for me that day if you get down on one knee,” she says.

Unlike Vanessa. Who was sobbing.

Cut to the next day and Nick staring pensively into a fire. There’s a knock on the door. It’s Neil Lane!

“I’m really rooting for you!” says Neil, who doesn’t want to refund another ring.

Then we cut to Vanessa peering out her window, wiping a tear from her eye. There’s ominous guitar music and a voiceover. “Within twenty-four hours of walking into my last date with Nick wanting to be engaged, things shifted for me to not wanting to be engaged. There’s still a lot of unknown factors that we haven’t really figured out together. Like there’s still another woman involved. Or where are we going to live? I mean I love my work, I love my students. I’m so close to my family. They’re my best friends. So who’s going to make the compromise?”

Contrast this with Raven getting ready, her own voiceover supplying her thoughts.

“I’m extremely nervous but I’m also hopeful. I’ve been looking for someone like Nick for a long time. My whole adult life I’ve looked for the other piece of me. I see Nick as a father. I see him as a husband. I see him as everything I’ve ever wanted. I’ve never been the one to believe in fairytales, but I’m there now. I want to be engaged today.”

Nick meanwhile is freaking out in a lodge somewhere.

“This could all still blow up in my face,” he says.

Raven’s car pulls up to the lodge. Chris Harrison escorts her inside.

Raven tells Nick she’s ready, and she loves him. It’s clear from his horrified, teary expression that she’s not the one.

Oh, Jesus. Poor Raven.

Then Nick drops the, “I just don’t know if I’m in love” bomb.

Raven looks like she wants to throw up.  Or punch him.

“I’m just torn up inside. Letting you go,” Nick says.

“I’ll never regret standing here, telling you how I feel,” Raven says.

“I’ll miss you,” Nick says.

“I know,” Raven says.

HOLY SHIT SHE JUST HAN SOLO’D HIM.

Raven, Nick doesn’t deserve you. At. All.

Nick walks Raven to the car.

“I wish more than anything I could find love,” she says, defeated. “But I just don’t know that it’s possible. So why even look for something that’s not possible?”

Raven, I sincerely hope you find love, the love who can give you screaming, toe-curling orgasms. You deserve it. I hope you go to keep a husky puppy too.

Then Vanessa pulls up. Chris escorts her in.

Inside the lodge, Nick and Vanessa hold hands.

“Nick, when I’m with you, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I knew this kind of love existed. I just didn’t know it was going to happen for me, until I met you,” Vanessa says.

Nick drops down to one knee.

“Vanessa Grimaldi,” he says — except he mumbles so it comes out ‘Vernessa,’ “Will you, marry me?”

Vanessa, full on sobbing, says yes.

Cue happy music and wet kissing.

I burp really loud because the coke bubbles are irritating my tummy.

After Vanessa accepts the final rose (seriously, that’s a thing they do), they get in a sleigh pulled by a horse and ride away.

Oh, but we’re not done. Now it’s time for After the Final Rose where Chris Harrison better deliver on his promise to give me something shocking.

Nick comes out onto a stage somewhere in LA and sits down on a couch (successfully) to talk to Chris Harrison. Nick tells Chris that he empathizes with Raven, having been in her position twice.

I should point out that I’m now drunk enough that I’m pronouncing Raven “Raisin.”

Raven comes out on stage, looking fabulous.

Raven tells Nick she’s happy for him and that she wants the world for him. She’s way too gracious and good for this guy. Although she throws in one dig: “I’m really happy that you found your happy ending and that you weren’t rejected.”

Chris asks Raven what’s next for her. She says she’s going to be on Bachelor in Paradise.

No one on The Bachelor ever really goes home. Once you’re in, you’re in.

After the commercial break, Vanessa comes out and gives some insight into the surreal reality TV relationship they have. Like she and Nick didn’t have each other’s phone numbers when they got engaged. Also because of the nature of the show, they really couldn’t see each other until today (or risk spoiling the show) so they’ve spent a lot of time apart.

Vanessa also confesses that she didn’t watch the Fantasy Suites episode. Good choice.

“It’s like any real relationship,” she says.

Except not.

At all.

Nick reveals that he had to keep his final choice secret even from friends and family. He only told his parents.

“We’re still looking forward to our first normal moment,” Nick says.

“Are you guys getting married?” Chris asks.

“…we’re taking baby steps,” Vanessa hedges.

Then Vanessa reveals that she’s switching careers, opening a charity for people with learning disabilities. Nick, in comparison, is going on Dancing with the Stars.

So… no murder. No breakups.  WHERE IS MY SHOCKING, HISTORIC BACHELOR MOMENT CHRIS?

So then Rachel Lindsay comes out and they talk about her season, blah, blah, blah. She is wearing an AMAZING jumpsuit, though.

I have to frog my knitting a little because I’m buzzed.

At the end of her interview, Chris says, “What you don’t know is The Bachelorette starts now!”

Rachel gets to meet “a few of the guys vying for your heart!” per Chris Harrison.

The first guy out (I think it’s DeMario, I apologize if that’s spelled wrong, ABC isn’t giving me names) shows Rachel an engagement ring. Dude. Slow your roll.

Second dude, Blake, looks like a total Dude Bro. “You smell good,” he tells Rachel shyly.

Then we get Dean. Dean says, “I want you to know I’m ready to go black and I’ll never go back.”

Next is Eric (Erik? Aric? Again, sorry) who is sweet and charming and  I love him.

And then… that’s it. That was the historic moment, Chris? I stayed awake for this?

UGH.

So what do you think. Will Nick and Vanessa stay together?

More importantly, do you want me to recap The Bachelorette as well? And is Kraken rum tax deductible?

This HaBO comes is from Jessi, who is looking for what sounds like an erotic historical romance:

I’ve been trying to remember this book for a while. I’m hoping you can help.

It was about a woman who I think went to the French court as a spy; she hooks up with a nobleman in the court as her target. She resists him and never lets him bring her to orgasm, to keep him interested in her as part of her mission, and in the course of resisting him, he finally brings in his twin brother in his effort to satisfy her. I cannot remember anything else and I want to read it again.

Who else is insanely interested in this one?

It’s time for my favorite new feature: Stuff We Like, a monthly round up of things that are fun, useful, fantastic, and giving us all the happy. This month: A Beginner’s Guide to all things Tea!

In the last Stuff We Like post, we had a comment from Olivia suggesting a tea post aimed at beginners:

I feel like there would be a ton of great suggestions. It’s really hard to decide where to start.

A few of you echoed Olivia’s idea, so here we go!

Of course I had to turn to Elyse and Carrie for information. As you may have already heard if you listen to the podcast, I’m not much of a tea drinker, so this is as educational for me as it is for y’all.

Please note: some of these links include affiliate codes which send a percentage of your purchase back to the site at no extra cost to you. Thank you!

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Elyse: I drink a lot of tea. A LOT. And I’m pretty snobby about my teas, generally speaking. My first suggestion for tea drinkers is that loose leaf tea is the way to go. Most bagged teas are of a lower quality than loose leaf. When the tea is all ground up and in a paper bag, you’re going to get a cup of tea that tastes like dirt.

Some brands offer tea in pyramid shaped sachets, and if you need bagged tea, that’s the way to go. I recommend Tea Forte or Harney and Sons for that.

Basically you want a nice, long, unbroken tea leaf. Here’s what I’m talking about. This is what a tea leaf should look like:

This is what you get in bagged tea:

So what’s the big deal? Believe it or not those top leaves provide a really nice flavor. The grounds at the bottom are literally the dust leftover after the better tea leaves are shipped. It’s like drinking your favorite coffee after grinding fresh beans versus drinking something that’s been sitting in the pot for two days.

So, first, get better leaves, either loose leaf or in a pyramid sachet.

There are six different types of tea: black, green, oolong, white, red and herbal.

I drink mostly black tea. Black tea contains the most caffeine and should be steeped in water that’s just at a boil.

There are three types of black tea: Assam, Ceylon and Darjeeling. Breakfast blends are usually a combination of a few of these. I prefer Assam: it’s a malty, strong tea. Ceylon is a little mellower. Darjeeling always has a musky taste to me.

Green tea comes from the same plant as black tea, but the leaves are processed differently. As a result it’s got about ½ the caffeine and more antioxidants. If you think green tea tastes like grass, you’re steeping it too long and your water is too hot. You don’t want boiling water–you want to to just be steaming. Steep it until you get a light yellow color. My favorite green is Sencha.

Oolong tea is a blend of black and green and has the best tea names – “gunpowder” and “iron goddess of mercy,” to name a few. Steep oolong like black tea, with water just boiling.

White tea is the mildest tea–it’s even less processed than green. I personally can’t drink it because it has no flavor to me. You want to steep it at water under a boil until you get a very pale yellow color.

Those are the actual “tea” teas. Herbal and red/rooibos tea actually come from different plants.

Herbal tea comes in a bajillion varieties and are made up of different plant blends–camomile, peppermint, hibiscus, etc. It’s almost always caffeine free and really just a matter of personal taste.

Red tea comes from the rooibos plant and has a mild smoky flavor. It’s caffeine free and very high in antioxidants. It’s also good for allergies and is a natural bronchodilator. You steep it in boiling water and you get a nice red color. Like black tea it takes milk or cream well.

Okay, that’s a lot of info.

Here’s a shopping guide to get you started.

It’s a little pricey, but Tea Forte’s tasting chest will give you the opportunity to try all kinds of tea from black to herbal. You also get sachets so you don’t need an infuser:

If the price point is too much, Harney and Sons sells sachets in 5 bag packages which will might be good for trying out what you like without making a big investment:

Once you find your favorites it’s much more economical to buy a tin or a bag of loose tea in your favorite flavor.

To steep loose tea you need an infuser, and oh, darn, there are so many to choose from, including adorable and charming options:

So much adorable. A LOCH NESS TEA INFUSER! 

And don’t forget – there are also adorable infusers on Etsy, too!

Okay, so what are my favorite teas?

Fava’s Winter Blend is my favorite black. It’s robust and has cinnamon, clove, orange and peppery flavors.

For a plain black I go with Golden Assam.

My favorite Oolong is Iron Goddess of Mercy and sometimes I shout at my staff while I’m drinking it, “Am I not merciful!?”

Like I said above, I go with a plain sencha for green tea. Green tea does come in all kinds of flavors though. Jasmine green is popular.

When I don’t want any caffeine I drink red tea. My husband who says tea tastes like “when my brother would push my face into the leaf pile while we were raking” actually likes red tea with honey.

Specifically, I like honey bush red.

CarrieS:

I love tea and I drink it all day, but I’m an unusual drinker in that I’m not snobby in the least. If it’s hot, I’ll drink it. My current favorite is The Republic of Tea’s Peppermint Chocolate. I’m not a mint fan, but the peppermint is just strong enough to give it some zing. It’s a bagged tea but so tasty.

I also like The Mighty Leaf’s Rooibos Tea and Teavana’s Joy tea.

The most unusual tea I ever had was Tundra Tea, also known as Labrador Tea. When I lived in Alaska I lived on the tundra, and we all made tea out a local plant (we just called it the Tundra Tea plant). It looks like a mini pine tree. The needles are said to be medicinal, although I’ve also heard that in very large qualities they are toxic. All I know is that the tea was wonderful for respiratory bugs. It was a bit like eucalyptus. Sometimes I would mix it with Lipton Tea for a softer flavor. I haven’t had it in 20 years (and as far as I know it’s not a product one can buy) but I still recall it fondly.

True fact: My husband and I met because he sent a friend of mine a wedding gift of tea collection. He mailed me some gunpowder tea and I mailed him a baggie of Tundra Tea. Many cups of tea and episodes of The X-Files later we got married and are still drinking tea together seventeen years later!

My advice to new tea drinkers is to try a lot of things and love what you love. Try loose leaf tea, try bagged tea, try different flavors. Apologize for nothing. I love an electric tea kettle because it doesn’t burn down the house, and I spend 99% of my tea drinking time drinking bagged tea from enormous coffee cups while multi-tasking. On the other hand, nothing is more classy and relaxing than a “real tea kettle” and then pouring the hot water into a china teapot, and then steeping your loose leaf tea and sipping it from a delicate cup.

Sarah: 

Amanda and I found some accessories to go with your tea-drinking, no matter what you’re doing. I mean, the fun part of new hobbies is the shopping, right?

The Sofia + Sam Multi Tasking Laptop Bed Tray is $40, and has room for a tablet, a phone, and a laptop up to 18 inches – Amanda is a little obsessed with this one.

And if you’re reading your paper books in the dark, this wedge light might be a huge help:

This handy-dandy tool is $13, and runs on 3 AAA size batteries.

And if you spike your tea with something a little stronger, may we suggest…

Drunk Crosswords by Francis Heaney and Brendan Emmett Quigley is a $5 spiral bound book – and the crossword fans in the reviews really liked it.

Or, if you’re a puzzle person, Amanda found ZELDA jigsaw puzzles!

There are a few different Zelda puzzles, too – this one is $12, and 550 pieces.

What about you? Are you a tea maven or a tea newbie? Any suggestions or ideas or questions? Please share in the comments! 

Amberlough is an intense fantasy spy novel that ends on a cliffhanger. It’s not a romance novel, but there is romance in it. It’s a novel in which none of the main characters seem especially tender or affectionate and yet everyone is motivated by love.

Amberlough is technically a fantasy novel in the sense that it takes place in an alternate world, but there are no magic spells or dragons (alas). The city of Amberlough is reminiscent of 1920’s Berlin, but using a fictional city and world allows the author to incorporate gay, poly, and interracial relationships (our hero’s lover, Aristide, has dark skin) without historical constraints. Residents of Amberlough do their best to get to work and buy food and enjoy the cabaret entertainment at The Bumble Bee Cabaret amidst increasingly violent riots and raids. The city is in the midst of an election year, and the fascist One State Party (the Ospies) is poised to seize power.

In the middle of all this drama is Cyril, a secret agent who is assigned to keep an eye on Ospie leadership. Cyril was traumatized by a previous mission and although his loyalty to his own organization has eroded, he fears and loathes the Ospie government that might replace it. His primary interest is his own safety and the safety of his lover, Aristide.

Aristide is a performer at the Bumble Bee who also smuggles drugs — the Bumble Bee is not what you might call a high-class institution, and performers don’t make much money. He presents himself as a shallow gold-digger but asks Cyril an awful lot of questions about his work. The third critical character is Aristide’s co-worker at the Bumble Bee, Cordelia. She is a drug-runner for Aristide, but when Cyril has to pass for heterosexual as part of his effort to infiltrate the Ospies, Aristide pays Cordelia to pose as Cyril’s mistress.

The epigraphs are quotes from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Cabaret, and that’s what this book is – a mash-up of the tawdry yet sparkly work of Cabaret and the hard-core, cynical world of espionage that vacillates between paper-pushing tedium and occasional episodes of brutal violence. The theatrical world of the Bumble Bee and the world in which Cyril does his spy business are alike in that they appear to be beautiful, sensuous, and glamorous to an outsider but are actually full of discomfort, tedium, boredom, and hard work. They are also alike in that even though the main characters are keenly aware of the grimy downsides of their professions, they can’t give those professions up.

The thing I found most interesting about this book was that even though all the characters are involved in political activities, their strongest motivation for their actions are personal relationships. I spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between Cyril and Aristide, which on its surface is purely sexual. It didn’t occur to me until the end of the book that they both actively conceal their feelings for reasons of safety on many levels, some of which aren’t clear until the end. Their words to each other are seductive, insulting, and generally untrue (they lie to each other constantly), but their actions belie a deep devotion that fuels almost all everything they do once things start to go wrong in their world.

Similarly, Cordelia is almost completely apolitical until she gets angry, and what makes her angry is when her home (the theater, not her apartment) and her friends are threatened. Cordelia is in non-sexual relationships with Cyril and Aristide and sexual but not romantic relationships with two other men. Cordelia also initially seems like a shallow person who, while not malicious, is primarily looking after her own interests and maintains little to no emotional connection to anyone else. However, because she is shamed for her active sex life and her lack of monogamy, her refusal to apologize for her sexual freedom and her refusal to give that freedom up is a hint of her intense capacity for self-respect, stubbornness, and steely rage, and that rage is triggered not by abstractions but by wrongs done to the people she cares about.

Some readers will be captivated by the Roaring 20’s aesthetic of the book. Some will be enthralled by the plot. I was most interested in the reminder that the personal is political, and the political is personal. The love story is hardly a hearts and flowers one, and the cliffhanger ending is maddening, but I ended the book wanting very much to read it all over again. I’d recommend this book to anyone who can tolerate violence, morally murky characters, and cliffhangers. Readers who like political thrillers and spy novels will adore it, and fans of the 1920’s will like it, too.

It’s Wednesday! If you’re in the Northeast, I hope you all made it through the lovely little blizzard we had yesterday. If you’re not, I still hope you made it through Tuesday like a champ!

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Cheerios is giving away wildflower seeds to help #BringBacktheBees! To receive your packet of seeds, just fill out this form. Cheerios is also working to turn their oat farms into bee habitats.

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Sarah is also hosting another Live Scream this Saturday, March 18 at 1:30pm EST!

Sarah: If you’d like recommendations or you’d like some advice, please feel free to email me. I have one advice email already, and am happy to add more, though please keep in mind I’m as full of it as anyone else.

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If you liked Carrie’s review of Fresh Romance Vol. 1, the team is back with a second volume! Also paired with their Kickstarter is an original graphic novel that’s a Romeo & Juliet retelling. I backed this project and I’m really looking forward to seeing what EMET comics does next.

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iGo Keyjuice Keyring

The iGo is an itty bitty tool that unfolds to one USB connection, plus a USB and a USB Micro, so you can plug your phone into your laptop, or into a portable battery. Excellent for tiny emergency kits, too.

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Continuing on the topic of diversity, author Brenda Jackson discusses her difficulties in becoming a bestselling author:

After being rejected by them a lot during the 1980s and early 90s, because there was no market for African American or black romances. Anything I did was almost automatically: “No thank you. We’re not interested.” The market was not interested until Kensington took a chance and came up with Arabesque, which was a line dedicated to black love, black romance. Just like anything else, everybody waited to see how the sales would do, and the sales went out the roof. And then other publishers started looking at black authors, and said, “Hey, they’re making money. Maybe we need to cash in?”

Check out the full interview and let me know what you think!

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For all our readers across the pond, did you attend the London Meet-Up? Weren’t able to make the first one, but want to attend in the future? Readers Maria and Anne have started a Goodreads group for coordinating future events and to keep track of all the books they talk about!

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This is probably my favorite video making the rounds this week. A Jack Russell terrier does horribly on an agility course, but he’s just so proud of himself anyway. Plus, the announcer is completely charmed by the dog’s infectious energy.

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Don’t forget to share what super cool things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!

Oh, how I loved The Devil’s Submission. I wished it were longer than just a novella.

First of all, it’s one of the few erotic romances, let alone historicals, that I’ve read that features a submissive hero.

And this is how that submissive hero is described:

“I mean look at you: disheveled, ink-spotted, spectacles…like an absentminded clerk. But you are the coldest of bastards. Reyburn is well rid of you. As is your runaway wife.”

Disheveled. Ink spotted. Glasses. With a forbidding demeanor.

The hero of this book is Lord Grayson “Devil” Deveraux. Grayson is a disgraced, disowned nobleman who has a lot of business sense. Since his family cast him out and cut him off, he went into business with two friends of his and opened an exclusive sex club. Like you do.

When the book opens, Devil’s “runaway” wife, Eliza, is looking to go back to him — mostly because her awful mother needs money. Grayson is a rich man and her momma isn’t above manipulating her daughter to get at it.

How terrible is Eliza’s mom? This is how she talks to her daughter:

“Because you are a twit. A brassy, outspoken hoyden who chose the wrong husband and then drove him away. I bet his mistress soothed him with quiet sweetness. Mrs. Lewis, wasn’t that her name?”

Screw you, lady.

The truth is that Devil does want a brassy, hoyden for a wife. Quiet sweetness is not at all what he’s looking for. When Devil was courting Eliza, they had a sexually charged encounter in a garden that lead to him having to propose. During said encounter, Eliza took the reins and basically commanded Devil to pleasure her. Once they were married, though, she tried to be the perfect, submissive wife that society tells her she has to be.

Devil needs to be dominated, a fact that shames him. It’s a secret even in the world of his sex club. In fact, he often assumes the role of a Dom because it’s what’s expected of him even though he absolutely loathes it. He had hoped he found the right partner in Eliza, but after they were married, the aggressive, commanding woman he sought out disappeared.

Now Eliza is back and is trying to figure out what drove the wedge between them. She enjoys the Domme role, something that she has to come to terms with, too, as it’s not at all socially acceptable or something that would be discussed in polite society. She’s basically trying to figure out her sexual inclinations with zero information and zero support.

A lot of the conflict between Devil and Eliza could have been solved through talking, but that didn’t bother me because it’s hard to talk about one’s sexual inclinations and desires, especially when they fall outside of society’s norms.

And really the not-talking at first made this book beautiful. When Eliza arrives, Devil hasn’t been taking care of himself and she swoops in and cares for him tenderly while still commanding him: “You’re going to take a bath now, then you’re going to eat this sandwich,” etc. It’s sort of like aftercare but before the sex.

Both Eliza and Devil have to change for this relationship to work, and all of that change isn’t just on Eliza’s part. She has a journey to go through–recognizing her own sexual desires, understanding her husband’s kink and claiming the sexuality she’s been repressing. Devil has to change too–in order for their relationship to work he actually has to communicate his wants and needs with her and get past his shame. There is kinky sex in this book, but all of it moves the story forward and facilitates that ultra important communication between the two characters. It’s healing via sex and communication, basically.

But the reason I loved The Devil’s Submission so much was that it depicts two adults finding comfort and joy together in a shared kink. It’s about a healthy exploration of sexuality and acceptance of the results of that exploration. Sex positivity for the win!

If you like your historicals steamy or are looking for a submissive hero, then definitely check out The Devil’s Submission.

NB: Instead of a book squee, we have a full blown author squee from LindsayRae!

Lindsay is a queer reader, writer, and news junkie living on the Florida Gulf Coast. She loves coffee, books, backpacking, cooking, circus arts, and winning at basically anything. You can follow her on Twitter (@lindsayraemyers).

…

My dear Bitchery,

I don’t think I need to observe that we are living in tough times. Mayhap we all need a little extra steel in our spines, a reminder that truth is worth risking and fighting for, patriotism is not just for nationalists, and, honestly, some extra escapism and sexy times.

So basically we need Pamela Clare.

A | BN | K | iB

Y’all. I couldn’t stop!

In fact I think this is one of those books I finished and then started reading again immediately. This book has all kinds of catnip: a sexy Puerto Rican Navy SEAL, a kick ass journalist heroine intent on dismantling jihadi stereotypes of Muslims despite being called out by an actual Muslim terrorist, a secret that’s genuinely important to be secret, and a great supporting cast of dimensional characters.

At some point I figured out that, gasp!, Striking Distance is actually book seven of an eight (soon-to-be-nine) part series. As the only romantic suspense, and one of the few contemporaries, I liked I was nervous that the other books wouldn’t be as good. While Striking Distance is still my favorite I found myself devouring the rest of the series too (and there are four novellas in addition to the eight novels) and enjoying it. The series centers around an investigative reporting unit at a newspaper in Denver, the I-Team. Clare has extensive journalism experience and it shows in both her research and her ability to capture the feel of a newsroom. Plus she definitely puts the suspense in “romantic suspense.” My sister just started reading this series and texted me mid-book so I could reassure her that the hero/ine was not going to die and there would be a HEA!

At some point I read a vignette dedicated to the “I-Team Facebook Group” and I was like, “A Facebook group?!” and immediately requested to join. The ladies in this group are fantastic and I quickly was implored to also read Clare’s historical novels.

YOU GUYS, SHE WRITES HISTORICALS TOO.

A | BN | K | iB

More recently she has started a new series of non-suspense contemporaries under the banner of Colorado High Country. If you’re more into Indiana Jones adventure than James Bond you will REALLY like these books. One of Clare’s strengths is a strong sense of place. Her I-Team series embraces its Denver location with occasional forays into the mountains but the High Country is solidly set in a mountain town with lots of hiking, rock climbing, and small town Colorado quirk. Plus obvi, some great high altitude sex.

A | BN | K | iB

Where to start:

Pamela Clare’s versatility is part of why I love her books. Start with the sub-genre you love most and then branch out!

Historicals: The Mackinnon’s Rangers series is set in the French and Indian War and the first book is Surrender ( A | BN | K | iB ).

Romantic Suspense: the I-Team series is worth reading in order but the second book Hard Evidence ( A | BN | K | iB ) is a fan favorite and I suggest starting there. If you like it, go ahead and read Extreme Exposure then devour the rest of the series!

Contemporary: Clare’s Colorado High Country series just added it’s third book Falling Hard ( A | BN | K | iB ) and I think it’s the best one yet! The books are interconnected but can stand alone. Read Falling Hard then go back and read Barely Breathing and Slow Burn.

Happy reading!

…

Have you read anything by Pamela Clare before? Tell us what books you’d recommend to the Bitchery!

Tamara Lush is an AP reporter, a longtime journalist, a romance author, and a recent recipient of the Amtrak writer’s residency! She traveled for over two weeks from Orlando to San Francisco by way of New York and Chicago, seeing much of the country while writing and meeting a ton of people. We talk about her work as a reporter, her decision to start writing romance, and about the people, places, and experiences she had as part of her writer’s residency. We talk about how journalism prepared her in part for the challenge of writing contemporary erotic romance, and what she’s working on, plus, as always, we find out what books she’s been reading.

A special note! Between March 15 – April 1 2017,  Tamara Lush’s book Tell Me a Story will be on sale!

Read the transcript →

Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:

During this episode we also discussed:

• The Amtrak Writer in Residence program
• The New York Post article about Tamara on the first part of her journey
• The continued adventures of “Florida Man.”

And you can find Tamara Lush on her website, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook.

If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes. You can also find us at PodcastPickle and on Stitcher, too. We also have a cool page for the podcast on iTunes.

More ways to sponsor:

Sponsor us through Patreon! (What is Patreon?)

What did you think of today's episode? Got ideas? Suggestions? You can talk to us on the blog entries for the podcast or talk to us on Facebook if that's where you hang out online. You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave us a message at our Google voice number: 201-371-3272. Please don't forget to give us a name and where you're calling from so we can work your message into an upcoming podcast.

Thanks for listening!

This Episode's Music

Our music in each episode is provided by Sassy Outwater, who is most excellent.

This podcast features a song called “Bunny for Breakfast,” and it’s by Peatbog Faeries from their CD Dust. You can find them at their website, at Amazon, or at iTunes.

Remember to subscribe to our podcast feed, find us on iTunes, via PodcastPickle, or on Stitcher.

NB: Tara Scott is back with another squee-worthy review! If you missed her previous squee of The Liberators of Willow Run, give it a read!

Tara reads a lot of lesbian romances. You can catch her regularly reviewing at The Lesbian Review and Curve Magazine and hear her talk about lesbian fiction (including romance) on her podcast Les Do Books. You can also hit her up for recommendations on Twitter (@taramdscott).

…

Sometimes you hear about a book and just know it has to be in your life, and Courting the Countess by Jenny Frame was exactly that for me. A rich girl/poor girl romance with a modern day countess and her housekeeper? Check. Thawing the ice queen (or taming the beast, if you prefer, since this countess is the most delicious butch)? Double check. The countess is also a professor and archaeologist? There aren’t enough checks in the world.

After watching her parents’ garbage fire of a marriage fall apart when she was a kid, Lady Henrietta “Harry” Knight learned a harsh lesson: never fall in love. She’s quite happy with no-strings sex from the women who are equally happy to oblige her, and it lets her focus on the true love of her life, archeology and Roman history. When her father, a truly hateful man, dies, Harry has to take up her position as Countess of Axedale, no matter how little she’s interested in all that it entails. Never one to shirk a promise, especially one made long ago to her grandfather, she takes a year’s sabbatical from her teaching position at Cambridge to restore Axedale Hall to the glory it held before her father’s neglect let it fall to shambles.

Annie Brannigan is the best and most sought-after housekeeper at the agency that employs her, moving from post to post with her 10 year old daughter Riley to take care of the rich and privileged. After so many moves, Riley doesn’t even try to make friends anymore, and Annie is hoping this latest gig in one of England’s oldest stately homes will make her history-loving girl happy. Except Harry isn’t happy to see Riley and is furious that the agency would send a family instead of a single woman. She immediately tries to send them away, and only begrudgingly agrees to let them stay when she learns no one else is available for at least a month.

Annie is like no other woman Harry’s ever dealt with before. She’s thoughtful and kind, yet strong enough to stand up to Harry when she’s being too rigid or pigheaded. She’s an excellent mom to Riley, knowing when and how to advocate for her needs, even going so far as asking Harry to come talk to her if Riley is too much, rather than rebuffing Riley directly. At the same time, Annie clearly has a gift for seeing the good in others, because she also encourages Riley that they need to teach Harry how to love and make friends. She and Riley truly do court that countess in every way that matters and my heart may have made a little leap when Annie baked Harry’s favourite childhood cookies. Riley is a great partner in crime for Annie and I was so pleased that the author made her a fully fledged character that rang true as a precocious child and not some impossibly awful distraction.

Courting the Countess is a gorgeous, perfectly paced romance with a delicious burn to it. As Harry warms up to Annie, she wants to race straight to the bedroom, and Annie’s having none of it. She knows her worth, she’s waiting for true love, and she knows Harry’s the woman for her. But how can it work when the woman for her doesn’t believe in love? Therein lies the angst bomb that had me texting the friend who recommended the book to me, possibly with a lot of caps and exclamation marks. Harry truly transforms by the end of the book, and every second of her journey had me transfixed.

If you’re at all inclined to listen to audio books, I highly recommend picking up the audio version of this one. Nicola Victoria Vincent’s voice is perfect for this story and she truly does it justice. I tried listening to another book after I finished this one, but it ruined me so much that I had to pause the other so I could listen to Courting the Countess again.

I loved everything about this book and I have literally no complaints. If you like the sound of a wonderfully angsty contemporary lesbian romance with a hunky butch countess falling in love with her warm and loving housekeeper, then this is a run, don’t walk. Courting the Countess gave me everything I wanted and more and I can’t wait to read more Axedale books from this author in the future.

Whatcha Reading always seems to sneak up on us! You think your TBR is safe and then – BAM! – Whatcha Reading comes out! We all hope you’ve been enjoying some good books this month; definitely give us your recommendations in the comments. But if not, you’re always welcome to vent here about your latest frustrating read!

And if you’re in a slump, fingers cross that something in this post or in the comments will help get you out of it.

Carrie: I just started His Majesty’s Dragon ( A | K | G | iB | Au ), which, shockingly, I have never read.

Redheadedgirl: What? No!

That’s can’t possibly be true.

Carrie: It is!

A | BN | K | iB

Then I think I’m going to do an Alice Clayton binge read to get to her latest in the Hudson Valley series – Buns!

Elyse: I just finished Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza ( A | BN | K | iB ). It’s a YA space opera with a seriously badass heroine. Also there’s a lot of world building packed into a relatively short book.

Amanda: Was it good? It’s on my nightstand.

Elyse: Yes!

I’d give it a B+. But there is a cliffie.

Amanda: I know people hate cliffhangers and they can be frustrating, but I kind of like them because it gives me a clear indication that there’s going to be another book and more great writing (assuming you enjoyed the writing in the first place).

A | BN | K | iB

CROWS CROWS CROWS.

Amanda: I think I might try the Crows series as my next audiobook. My library has it.

Sarah: The Unyielding!

It’s terrific fun – and I’ve read the first two twice and listened to them once. The audiobooks are pretty good.

Elyse: SARAH STAHP

Amanda: Oh, another thing I’m excited to read is Snotgirl, Vol. 1 ( A | BN | K | iB ). The art is gorgeous and I’ve been wanting to start the series for a while. The trade volume came out last month. It’s about a fashion blogger who creates this perfect persona online, but offline her life is kind of a mess.

And she has snot green hair!

Elyse: I want the new Crows book NOW!

Redheadedgirl: I just finished reading Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (the 1861 version). Adulting guide for the 19th century! ( A | BN | K | iB )

And I’m reading Megan Frampton’s My Fair Duchess ( A | BN | K | iB ), which is a Pygmalion inspired historical, where the heroine unexpectedly becomes a Duchess in her own right (yes, that happened. rarely, but it happened), but has no idea how to Duchess, so the hero is sent by her godmother to help her learn the things she needs to know.

What about you? What are you reading lately? Anything you want to tell the whole wide internet about? Because you know we want to hear about it!

By request, since we can’t link to every book you mention in the comments, here are bookstore links that help support the site with your purchases. If you use them, thank you so much, and if you’d prefer not to, no worries. Thanks for being a part of SBTB and hopefully, you’ve found some great books to read!

I’m going to pay Lady Audley’s Secret the highest compliment I can pay a sensation novel: I kept finding great passages to bookmark but I didn’t bookmark them because I didn’t want to stop reading long enough to do so.

That made for a great reading experience but it will make for a superficial review considering all the meaty stuff in this book that we could happily analyze for days if I had just slowed down long enough to use some post-it notes instead of flipping pages like a squirrel on cocaine.

Lady Audley’s Secret was published in three-volume form in 1862, after initially being published as a serial story for magazines. It begins by introducing Lucy Graham, a young, beautiful governess, who marries the much older and very rich Sir Michael Audley. Everyone adores the new Lady Audley, who is sweet, beautiful, and passive (she is constantly described in infantilizing terms).

Everyone, that is, but Sir Audley’s grown-up daughter from a previous marriage. This daughter, Alicia, resents her stepmother for usurping Alicia’s role as lady of the house. Lady Audley and Alicia avoid each other, which is easy because the house is huge. Alicia spends a lot of time riding horses and wishing her cousin Robert would notice her (more about Robert presently), and Lady Audley spends most of her time hanging out with her maid and playing with her jewelry:

All her amusements were childish. She hated reading, or study of any kind, and loved society; rather than be alone she would admit Phoebe Marks [the maid] into her confidence, and loll on one of the sofas in her luxurious dressing room, discussing a new costume for some dinner party, or sit chattering to the girl, with her jewel box beside her, upon the satin cushions, and Sir Michael’s presents spread out in her lap, while she counted and admired her treasures.

The plot shifts to the city, where we meet Sir Audley’s lazy nephew, Robert, who becomes close friends with a man named George Talbot. George spent three years in Australia making shit tons of money before returning to England just in time to hear that his wife, who he had left behind in England, died just before his boat landed. Robert spends the next year trying to cheer George up. He takes George with him to visit the Audleys and when George mysteriously disappears mid-visit, Robert devotes himself to solving the mystery of George’s disappearance. Robert’s efforts take up most of the book.

Here are some topics I could have delved into if I weren’t too busy finding out what fresh hell was about to unfold:

1. AUSTRALIA!
2. Virgin/Whore paradoxes
3. Is Robert possibly attracted to George? Yes, he has a romance with George’s sister, but only after pointing out repeatedly that she is just like George in appearance and personality .
4. The definition of madness
5. Class mobility
6. The development of the modern detective novel
7. Gothic Noir. This has the look of Gothic (tapestries, insanity, secret passages, wandering around rambling houses in the dead of night with a candle) and the characters of Noir.

These are all important issues but I cannot address them because I was busy turning pages. We know from the title that Lady Audley has a Secret and if you cannot guess at least one of her secrets based on the above plot summary then clearly you have never read a book before, but there are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader occupied. I don’t want to go into detail because I don’t want to spoil anything.

Regarding romance – there is romance, but as befits Gothic Noir, it’s all pretty icky. Robert has a romance with George George’s angelic sister, and Alicia wants to have a romance with Robert, but Robert only sees her as a friend. Ostensibly that’s because Alicia is too much of a tomboy for Robert, who prefers to date angelic women who look just like his best guy friend. The modern reader will note that Robert and Alicia are also first cousins, but that was not unusual at the time.

Meanwhile, the whole story kicks into gear because Sir Michael falls for Lucy, which makes for a pragmatic and fond marriage made creepy by the fact that Lucy, while being Sir Michael’s wife, acts like a very stoned five-year-old.

The most interesting thing about this book is to wonder who Victorian readers would have sided with. I see this book as incredibly subversive, but perhaps Victorian readers took it at face value. It was wildly popular, touching on all kinds of anxieties about domestic life, the inner lives of women, upward mobility, and mental illness.

What keeps this book fun is the feeling that the reader never knows what move is coming next. What makes the book interesting is that every character’s true self becomes revealed, not only to the readers but also to themselves. It’s a story of façade versus reality, even in the case of minor characters. Lady Audley is not the only one with a secret! The novel is available in paperback or for .99 on Amazon (Ebook price). It’s not a romance, but I think fans of Victorian literature will love it as will readers who love crazysauce plots, noir, mysteries, the gothic style, and swooning. Enjoy!

It’s time for another YouTube Live Broadcast, which I’ve been calling a “Live Scream,” though I don’t actually scream. At 1:30pm ET, I’ll be live from my desk chair, very likely accompanied by cats and possibly one or both dogs!

On the agenda:

• I’m going to read Diary of a Wombat, possibly in my semi-passable Australian accent
• I’ll be reading the first chapter of a romance I’m really enjoying
• I’ll be reading an email from someone who asked me for advice and asked if I’d answer via the Live Scream (sure! No problem!)
• I’ll be giving recommendations for those who ask, and sharing what’s coming up on the site, too.

The window below will go live when I do, so you can head over to YouTube or you can watch here. (If you’re on YouTube, though, there’s a text chat so you can ask questions, heckle me, or request recommendations.)

Talk to you soon!

ETA: I’m sorry about the last minute switch. Clearly Google Hangouts on Air doesn’t agree with my computer. Thank you to everyone who joined me!

So there’s a little movie coming out this month. You probably haven’t heard about it because the publicity has been REALLY low-key. The live action Beauty and the Beast? Ring a bell? No? It’s okay – we’ll be covering it, don’t you worry.

As has been mentioned, Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairytale. It works so well as a Romance archetypical story, so I was VERY excited at this offering.

Penguin has a compendium of stories that fall into the same folklore classification as the original French version of Beauty and the Beast, which is “The Search for a Lost Husband.” They have also, in the interest of fairness, included stories in which the woman is the animal- The Man in the Quest for the Lost Wife. (Also noted in the introduction: the very name of these classifications reduces the female protagonist’s agency and very existence.)

The tales start in Ancient Greece with Europa and the Bull, noting that Europa comes off much better from her encounter with Zeus’ thunderdick than most because Hera was apparently not paying attention at the time, and Cupid and Psyche, and move through India, Iran, Scandinavia, Bolivia, Alaska – basically every culture has some version of an animal spouse tale.

Tatar collected 37 different tales, and separated them into four categories: Model Couples in Ancient Times, Charismatic Couples in the Popular Imagination, Animals Grooms, and Animal Brides. She sources each tale in the back of the book and not with the tale, which I think would make more sense, as someone who cares deeply about sources. I know there are people who care considerably less who don’t want their reading interrupted by bibliography. Tatar also did a few of the translations (French and German) and had to reconstruct a few tales from fractured sources.

The stories are all great, and getting the full gamut of versions of my most beloved story is wonderful. There are some that I would not have thought would go in a similar class as “Beauty and the Beast” – The Swan Maidens, for example.

I think my favorite of the stories that I already knew has to be “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” I remember a beautiful illustrated version from my childhood (and there’s like, seven different versions on Amazon and I don’t remember which one was mine! How can I pass on the right version to my nephew? Life is HARD!). It’s a Scandinavian tale about a girl who is “encouraged” by her father to marry a polar bear (her family would get riches if she did). Of course, the polar bear isn’t really a polar bear, he’s a man that’s been enchanted to be a polar bear by day, and a man by night, and if the girl managed to make it a year without finding out, then the spell would have been broken.

But fairy tale heroines aren’t great at “do this thing and don’t ask questions” so she finds out, and he must go to the witch that enchanted him. The heroine can save him only if she goes east of the sun and west of the moon.

There’s a version of the “Magical animal takes off her cloak of feathers and is a beautiful human-looking woman so human douchebag dude steals the cloak and forces a marriage” story that’s Hindu-Persian in origin that I enjoyed a lot. I always like those stories because they usually end with the douchebag sad and alone. “I thought she loved me! Why wouldn’t a relationship that began with theft and coercion end well?”  There’s also a Greek version where a fisherman catches a turtle, and he doesn’t discover that she’s also a woman until she’s cleaned his house, and that ends well for them – he ends up as King.

If you have an interest in folklore and tales from around the world, and in comparing and contrasting similar stories across cultures, I highly recommend this anthology.

Amazon has four pages of Kindle Daily Deals today, all of which are New York Times bestselling books. There’s The Book of Joy, which was mention on a previous podcast, Hamilton: The Revolution that Redheadedgirl reviewed, plus plenty of nonfiction, mysteries, and more. If you browse through the entire collection, comment below with which books you’d recommend!

His Majesty’s Dragon

RECOMMENDED: His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik is $1.99! Carrie mentioned she started reading this in yesterday’s Whatcha Reading and there were many comments about how great this book is. We also have an early review of this book by Candy, who says it’s “utterly goddamn awesome.”

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature.

Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

This book is on sale at:

 

 

 

Barely Breathing

Barely Breathing by Pamela Clare is 99c! If you need a reason to start a book by Clare, check out the guest squee we ran last week! This book has a small town second chance romance, with the added catnip of some friends with benefits action. Readers felt the hero and heroine had great chemistry, but there was a lot of telling instead of showing.

A hot contemporary romance from the author of the acclaimed I-Team series…

Lexi Jewell left Scarlet Springs twelve years ago, vowing never to return to the small Colorado mountain town where she grew up. Now, here she is—over thirty, out of a job and with little choice but to move back in with her eccentric father. Lexi knows it’s just a matter of time before she runs into Austin Taylor, her first boyfriend and her first heartbreak. She’s determined to show him she’s over him—until he steps out of a pickup truck and back into her life, looking sexy as hell in his mountain ranger uniform.

As far as Austin is concerned, Lexi can turn her snazzy little convertible around and drive back to Chicago. After all, she ripped his teenage heart to pieces and turned her back on the town he loves. But from the moment he sees her again, he can’t get her out of his mind. Even her smile messes with his head.

When an evening of conversation turns into something else, Lexi and Austin agree to be friends—with benefits. But as Lexi starts making plans to return to the big city, Austin realizes he’ll lose her a second time unless he can show her that what she’s searching for has been right here all along.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

This book is on sale at:

 

 

 

Rose Daughter

Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley is 99c at Amazon! There’s no price-matching yet, but this is a sale that may be on its way out. This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Readers say that McKinley’s Beauty is a better take on the retelling, but others loved the character relationships in the book. It has a 3.7-star rating on Goodreads.

Award-winning author Robin McKinley returns to one of our most enduring fairy tales to tell an enthralling story of love and redemption

Once upon a time, a wealthy merchant had three daughters . . . and when the merchant’s business failed, he and his three daughters left their grand house in the city and moved to a tiny cottage buried deep in the countryside. The youngest daughter, Beauty, is fascinated by the long, thorny stems of an unknown plant that overwhelms the neglected cottage, and she tends it until, the following summer, its rich, fragrant flowers are the most glorious things the sisters have ever seen: roses.

An old woman tells Beauty: “Roses are for love. Not . . . silly sweethearts’ love but the love that makes you and keeps you whole. . . . There’s an old folk-tale . . . there aren’t many roses around any more because they need more love than people have to give ’em . . . and the only thing that’ll stand in for love is magic, though it ain’t as good.”

There’s no magic in the town of Longchance, but, the old woman adds, Beauty may not know that this is the result of a sorcerers’ battle that happened many years ago, a battle that left a monster, or perhaps a beast, in an enchanted palace somewhere in the deep forest . . . and a curse concerning a family of three sisters.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

This book is on sale at:

 

 

 

The Trouble with Being Wicked

The Trouble with Being Wicked by Emma Locke is 99c! This historical romance has a heroine hiding her identity and a viscount who lives next door. Readers enjoyed the emotional moments, but found the hero to be kind of a jerk. This is the first book in the Wicked Girls series. Some of the other books are free and you can grab all six titles for less than $12! 

HE PUT HER ON A PEDESTAL
When Celeste Gray arrives in the sleepy village of Brixcombe-on-the-Bay, she thinks she’s one step closer to leaving her notorious past behind. She even suspects the deliciously handsome—if somewhat stuffy—viscount next door is developing a tendre for her. That is, until the day Ashlin Lancester learns she’s not the unassuming spinster she’s pretending to be.

NOW SHE HAS FARTHER TO FALL
After a decade of proving he is nothing like his profligate father, Ash is horrified to have given his heart to a Cyprian. He launches a campaign to prove his attraction is nothing more than a sordid reaction he can’t control. But he soon learns that unlike his father, he can’t find comfort in the arms of just any woman. He needs Celeste. When he takes her as his mistress, he’s still not satisfied, and the many late nights in her arms only make him want more…

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

This book is on sale at:

 

 

 

A | BN | K | iB

Here’s the description of the novel:

With shades of The Lovely Bones combined with the guilty pleasure of a pirate romance: a novel about two sisters coming of age in the 1950s, and what happens when one of them disappears.

Neave and Lilly Terhune couldn’t be more different. Lilly is a beauty who runs through men like water. Neave, having been told at an early age by their mother that she will not be able to get by on her looks, always has her head in a book. Her favorite is The Pirate Lover, a romance novel about a young woman who refuses marriage to the highest bidder and instead escapes to the high seas where she meets the love of her life.

During WWII, when the men are gone, both sisters start working. But when the servicemen return and take back their jobs, Neave and Lilly are left with few options besides marriage. But they have other ideas. They start to build a makeup business (think Avon in its early days) and soon have a hit on their hands. But just as their business is truly taking off, Lilly disappears and Neave must figure out what happened. Luckily, she has Lilly’s assistance helping from above, even if she doesn’t know it quite yet.

Alternating between the sisters’ story and that of Neave’s beloved Pirate Lover book, Sharon Pywell shows how all romantic relationships have dark undercurrents, how even the most cerebral amongst us can enjoy a swashbuckling, page-turning romance, and how sometimes the guiltiest of pleasures might contain essential kernels of truth.

There’s romance, historical fiction, and female friendships! I can also vouch that the cover is really pretty in person.

To enter to win, leave a comment and tell us what you love about being a romance reader. Is it the stories of strong women? Is it the community? Let us know!

Standard disclaimers apply: We are not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Open to U.S. and Canadian where permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18 and ready to bury your nose in a good book. While the Terhune sisters above might have a secret love of pirates, all heroes are appreciated here! Life lessons learned by reading romance are always encouraged. Comments will close Friday, Monday 24, 2017 around noon ET, and winners will be announced shortly thereafter.

Good luck to everyone!

Everyone, I think…I think I’m an audiobook convert.

Last summer, Elyse wrote a Lightning Review of Sleeping Giants, a scifi novel with a scientist heroine, an interesting cast of characters, and epistolary elements. Definitely check out her review! Just as Elyse did in her review, my plot points will be minimal because the book has a lot of twists and turns. Instead, I’m going to focus on how Sleeping Giants functions as an audiobook and why you should be putting it in your earholes immediately.

Sleeping Giants opens with a young Rose Franklin who, while taking her new bike for a spin, discovers a giant hole where a huge metal hand is buried. Cut several years later and Rose is a physicist working on figuring out what this hand is and what it means. She’s assembled a team – pilots, linguists, geneticists, etc.

All but the prologue is told through a series of interviews and logs. The interviewer is a mysterious unknown man (hereafter called Unknown Narrator or UN) and man, is he a wily one.

Because the book is just one interview after another, being recorded by UN, it feels a lot like a radio drama since everything is dialogue. And I loved it.

Before Sleeping Giants, I had never been able to successfully listen to an audiobook. My mind wandered or other things competed for my attention. Since starting to cross stitch, I need background noise. There’s no way I can stitch in silence. Sometimes, I listen to podcasts, but I catch up on new episodes rather quickly and one of my 2017 goals is to read more. I didn’t meet my Goodreads Reading Challenge last year, so I’m making a more concerted effort to have daily reading time.

I asked for audiobook suggestions on Twitter and author Bree Bridges suggested Sleeping Giants because it felt more like a drama than someone reading to you, and she was completely right! The back and forth of voices and characters was just what I needed to keep me engaged and prevent me from zoning out. I only had to backtrack once for missing something.

The UN was really what made the audiobook for me. I’m unsure of who did the voice. Googling has only show me a list of the entire cast and not who voiced what character. But whoever did UN’s narration was amazing. He reminds me a lot of The Smoking Man from The X-Files, but sassier. You never really know his motivations and you can practically hear the knowing smirk in his voice. His interactions with the Assistant to the President of the United States are my favorite, given their antagonistic relationship. You can also hear him slowly become attached to Rose and her team. It’s amazing how he conveys these emotions, just with his voice.

What I really liked about the audio format is that it prevented me from accidentally peeking ahead. Sometimes, as readers, we’ll catch something farther down the page or flip ahead to count page numbers and see something we shouldn’t. Because I can’t do that with audio unless I deliberately skip ahead, each twist packed a punch because I truly didn’t see things coming. Whether that’s more of a testament to the writing over the format, or a bit of both, I’m not sure.

I think the most frustrating thing for me was how…slow things felt. The audiobook clocks in at eight and a half hours for 304 pages. It took me nearly a week to get through the audiobook, as I only listened to it while cross stitching. If I had read the physical book, I could have finished it much sooner. I know you can increase the speed, but I’m not quite ready for that yet. I tried bumping it up to 1.25x and I had a moment of panic because just that little bit was too much for me as an audiobook newbie.

I’m not sure if it was the book itself or if I was just impatient with how long things were taking, but the book felt slow in some parts and the momentum seemed to wane. The interviews were still interesting because I wanted to know what UN would say and do next to further his mysterious goals, but I was less rapt around the middle to three-quarters mark than I was at the beginning and end. And while the UN’s narration was great, other characters’ voice acting wasn’t as strong, especially the mysterious and cruel Balkan geneticist. The character has a stutter and the performance felt rather forced. But the character herself is a bit secretive, so I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn later on that the stutter was fake.

The next book in the series, Waking Gods, comes out April 4th. If you haven’t finished the first book, I caution you not to read the sequel’s description as it does contain a spoiler. But because I loved Sleeping Giants so much an audio, there’s no way I’m just going to simply read the next book. Audio or bust for me. There’s something about hearing an emotion in a character’s voice or capturing their personalities simply by their narration, given the lack of straight exposition. At times, it made me giddy. Others, I gasped in surprise. It was like watching (or listening?) to a movie and you had no clue what was next. And while I’m sure the second book will be a great read, I desperately want to return the Unknown Narrator’s mysterious and slightly amused voice, to smirk at Kara’s exasperated sarcasm, and of course, to hear the accent of Québécois Vincent.

As for my audiobook journey, I have no clue what to listen to next. Books with various narrators will probably appeal more to me than a single narrator, with maybe the exception of funny nonfiction. If you have any suggestions, definitely drop them in the comments below!