Reading Wednesday!

[oyceter]

What I've just read: Finally finished Cecilia Grant's first book and read the second (interesting new author, see review), which lead to a bit of a romance spree. Went through Sherry Thomas' Tempting the Bride, which I liked due to longing and unrequitedness and amnesia, though tbh, didn't really buy the hero's sudden non-taunting of the heroine even though I love it due to aforementioned angst. Read Meredith Duran's That Scandalous Summer (like the heroine, bleh for the hero, got really disinterested toward the middle and end) and her novella, Your Wicked Heart, which has a heroine who reminds me a great deal of Olympia from Laura Kinsale's Seize the Fire. Also, I think it has the hero I've liked best out of her books so far... I love Duran's prose and I love her heroines, but I frequently want to brain the heroes and get really lost during her plots. Then Rose Lerner's A Lily Among Thorns, which has an adorkable tailor hero who asks about clothes and fashion and can cook. Couldn't completely get into it, though, I think because the dialogue sounded too modern for me? (Then again, I know zero about Regency outside of romance novels.)

Finally finished Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, which I had been reading for so long that I forgot to include it on my "currently reading list" for the past few Wednesdays.

Also read Alaya Dawn Johnson's The Summer Prince, which I REALLY liked. The reviews on Goodreads seem to be very love it or hate it, though. Also, I rolled my eyes at the ones that were all "There's so much sex in this! Homosexuality and bisexuality is no big deal?!" and reviews complaining about too many original terms ("waka," "grande," etc.). I suspect I have very different expectations compared to the current YA SF audience?

...the length of this section correlates inversely with how much sleep I have been getting. orz

What I'm reading now: Still in the middle of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London. Probably something else I started months ago and promptly forgot?

What I'm reading next: Er, hopefully the book I'm reviewing for my Con or Bust offer. More realistically, probably a ton more romance novels.

Comments

[lnhammer]

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on Made to Stick.

---L.

[oyceter]

Mostly I enjoyed it as pop non-fiction. I wasn't particularly surprised by many of the examples and the concepts, and I wish there had been more examples outside the business world... frex, I could have used a whole book on stickiness and teaching methods.

[lnhammer]

I could have used a whole book on stickiness and teaching methods

Er, YES.

---L.

[mossybomb]

I went on a HR bender a year or so ago myself. Thomas and Duran started out as strong favourites, but Duran started to get nonsensical after a while: overly elaborate plots and that wandering density of prose that I always suspect is masking something the author would rather cover up. Then again, Thomas lost me at Delicious, which I always secretly hoped was satire and that one day she'd jump up and announce that to the world. Still waiting on that one.

Have you ever read Eloisa James? She's a cracker. Her desperate duchess series is very good (not uniformly, but there are some standouts in that series that I still read today, as entrenched as I am in slash now).

I've heard good things about Grant, might check her out!

[oyceter]

Oh, what bits about Delicious did you want to be satire?

I generally enjoy Thomas among the more recent batch of historical romance writers, particularly when her fictional buttons and mine align (we both seem to very much enjoy the unrequited angst and lots of past history thing), but she also seems to like noncon and dubcon WAY more than I do. Sigh.

I've read a fair amount of James, but for some reason, I have never really gotten into her. Though I did like the last of the Desperate Duchess books. I've also heard the current fairy tale books are pretty good, so I may check those out as well.

[mossybomb]

Oh, what bits about Delicious did you want to be satire?

The whole ridiculous business of having sex while lurking in doorways and pools of shadow to avoid identification. Titillating the first time, farcical the next five. Unless, of course, author was satirising the Clark Kenting trope. As mentioned, have so far been sadly disappointed at lack of that confirmation.

Yeah Thomas likes dubcon a lot. Not Quite a Husband is my favourite of hers, and I seem to remember it being quite a big thing in that book.

Re James: yeah I have to admit the promise of Villiers' book helped me through the DD series. I've read the first two fairytales books. Second one is basically a House AU, from memory.

[oyceter]

Ahahaha, I didn't even think about the whole suspension of disbelief for the sex without identification!