It’s the last Wednesday of Pride month and so it’s time for some pride month reccs before it’s too late.
How to Fake It In Society by K J Charles
This was one of my purchases while writing the offers post and it was so much fun. Titus Pilcrow is a younger son who’s been making his own way in the world as a shopkeeper, right up until he marries a wealthy woman on her deathbed. Now he’s got more money than he could have dreamed of – and suddenly people are coming out of the woodwork to try and get a share of it. The Comte de Valois is one of them. Nico was courting the woman that Titus married until not long before her death – and he really needed that money. So he inveigles himself into Titus’s life to help him accustom himself to his new life – and to try and make some money out of it. Except that he finds himself liking Titus a lot more than he expected. I read this in no time at all – started it on the train to work, carried on reading it at lunchtime, then on the train home and finished it in the evening. K J Charles does a really good line in Adventurers – see also The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting – and I love that as a trope in romances (See also The Masqueraders) and I only wish I’d been able to pace myself and made it last longer!
The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas DiDomezio
I’ve had four goes at writing the plot summary for this – and all of them have been unsatisfactory. But basically Domenic is caught in between his childhood best friend Patrick and Patrick’s fiancée Kate who is now maybe a closer friend that Patrick. Domenic is invited to both the stag do and the hen party and both Patrick and Kate want him to be on their side and report back (or lie if necessary). Domenic is also just broken up with his own fiancé and had to cancel his own wedding. Unexpectedly at the bachelor party is Bucky, a professional golfer and possibly Dom’s replacement as Patrick’s best friend – who was meant to be playing in a PGA tournament that weekend but is “injured”. I didn’t really like any of the characters much – especially not Domenic, who is A Lot. He’s living a life he doesn’t want, not at all over his childhood issues and is such a people pleasing doormat I wanted to shake him. At least 90 percent of his problems are of his own making – and add on to that that he keeps getting drunk and spilling other people’s secrets and it’s just really hard to have any sympathy with him. I’m not going to lie, I read this in an evening, but the more I think about it, the less I like it and the more it annoys me – which is a shame because I really liked the blurb for this – and also for some of DiDomizio’s other books which I’m now not sure I want to risk!
Puck by Samantha Allen*
Puck is a reality show producer on a dating show called Homewreckers, where they specialise in putting couples together and then ripping them apart again. So when the go to their college best friend Mia’s wedding to the man Puck is convinced is the wrong guy, they decide to deploy the skills from their day job to stop the wedding. The only person standing in their way is Robyn, the maid of honour and Mia’s new bestie. This is described as Midsummer Night’s Dream inspired and yes there are two couples who Puck is meddling with so that all checks out. The problem really is that Puck isn’t really very likeable and that the romantic plot for them seems shoe-horned in as a bit of an afterthought. Robyn and Puck seem to be hate banging more than anything else as they barely exchange a pleasant word with each other. I do wonder if the romance was addd to try and expand the potential readership (we romance readers sure are voracious) because the rest of the plot definitely more well developed even if I didn’t really enjoy it.
And that’s your lot – I’m sorry it’s a bit of a mixed bag in terms of whether I liked them or not, but as with so many books, your mileage may vary. The common theme between The Gay Best Friend and Puck Hard to Like Main Characters and my tolerance for that is low at the moment. But if you are better with that than me at the moment, then I think The Gay Best Friend is the one to try – it’s sort of rich people problems adjacent and Dom has at least maintained his friendships, which Puck really hasn’t.
Happy Humpday!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 