Tag: Recommendsday

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Recommendsday: New Festive Reads 2023

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After last week’s not-new Christmas books, today I bring you some of the new festive books I’ve read so far this year in case you’re in the market for some last minute purchasing and reading before the big day. Because some of you may be more prepared for Christmas than I currently am!

A Holly Jolly Ever After by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy

This is the sequel to last year’s A Merry Little Meet Cute and is also set in Christmas Notch, Vermont (Hello ticking another state off my 50 States Challenge for the year!). This time our heroine is Winnie Baker a former child actress who managed to keep her career going into adulthood by maintaining her wholesome Christian image. Except now her perfect life has come falling down and now she’s going to reinvent herself in a steamy holiday movie. Her co-star is Kallum, former boyband star and now owner of a regional pizza chain who went viral after a sex tape leaked (and who you may remember from that first book) and who has some history with Winnie that means that it’s all a bit awkward. But when Winnie has trouble faking pleasure on screen she asks Kallum for help with research and you all know where this is going. Sex lessons for reasons is always a fun trope – and obviously it’s extremely not closed door. The premise is bonkers, but it was an entertaining read even if purity culture makes me really angry.

The Christmas Book Club by Sarah Morgan

This is this year’s Christmas Sarah Morgan, and I’m probably cheating by mentioning her again so soon after reminding you about the Snow Crystal series, but this is women’s fiction and those are straight up romances so I’m just going to go with it. This follows four women – three friends approaching their fortieth birthdays and taking a Christmas trip to a quaint inn in Vermont and the inn’s owner, a young widow with a little girl whose husband died while they were renovating the hotel together. Each woman is facing some sort of challenge in her life and the week at the inn will help them figure out what to do next. I think I would have liked less main characters and more focus on each storyline but then I’m often a bit like that and I don’t know which woman I would be happy to lose! This is quite low stress and very festive and perfect for a winter afternoon once you’ve got your presents wrapped!

The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict*

Early in December, crossword setter and grouch Edie receives a parcel in the post containing jigsaw pieces showing a crime scene and a note saying unless she solves the puzzle at least four people will die. Of course she starts investigating with the help of her nephew who is a police detective – until he starts to worry that she’s in danger and tries to shut her out of the investigation. But of course that’s not going to stop her. This is a murder mystery with some hidden clues in there that tie in for puzzlers, *but* don’t be deceived by the festive cover and colour scheme, it’s actually pretty dark. I was expecting/hoping for something Christmassy but with Thursday Murder club levels of grimness or something cozy crime adjacent, but if it wasn’t Christmas it would be a murder mystery with a dark and brooding cover, rather than an arty one. So not really a for me book, but I think it will appeal to a lot of people who like their crime a bit grimmer.

And that’s your lot today – I’ve got a couple more Christmas books I’m going to try and read this December, but who knows if that will actually happen, because I keep getting distracted away to other books!

Happy Reading!

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Recommendsday: Not New Festive Books

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It’s starting to feel proper Christmassy now, so it’s time for the festive reading recommendations. And I’ve broken it down into two again this year – the new releases for Christmas 2023 and books from previous years that I’ve read this year.

So lets start with Jeevanki Charika’s Picture Perfect, which has a heroine who needs to find her inspiration as a photographer again after a bad break up and a hero who needs someone to take on a group holiday to make his ex jealous and try to win her back. This is a fun and festive (New Year not Christmas!) fake relationship romance that sees the two characters become better versions of themselves as they pretend to be in a relationship. I found Vimal’s perspective to be quite stressful to read because of his issues with reading social cues (I was going to say social anxiety but I’m not quite sure that is quite what it is) but I really liked Niro as a character and I loved her passion for photography and the way that pretending to be Vimal’s girlfriend gave her the confidence to stand up for him and to come out of her shell. You might remember that Charika’s previous book Playing for Love was a BotW in 2022 and this has characters in common with that.

I did a series post about Susan Mallery’s Happily Inc series a couple of weeks back, and Home Sweet Christmas this is a twin storyline Christmas romance set in another one of Mallery’s quirky small towns – this time Wishing Tree, the Christmas themed-town which is frankly bonkers, but still seems to work some how. One storyline has Camryn, who has moved back to the town that she grew up after the death of her mum and is newly responsible for her younger half sisters and the family’s gift wrapping business (just go with it). She’s trying to work out what her life and future looks like now and whether she wants to risk a relationship again. She starts a definitely temporary relationship with Jake, whose family own the local resort. The other has River, new to town and trying to find her place and put down some roots. Her friends persuade her to put her name in the hat for the town’s Snow Queen – and soon she’s doing events with Dylan, a hot local carpenter. Some of this really worked for me, but Jake’s mom crossed the boundary from strangely well informed and well placed and into manipulative and meddling and it really messed with my enjoyment of the rest of the book. I think there was probably too much plot on each story for them to both go into one book, but it was still a fun, easy Christmas read.

And finally let’s go for some classic crime, with another British Library Crime Classic holiday collection – this time A Surprise for Christmas. It’s got G K Chesterton, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham along with several other names you might recognise from other BLCC books. I’m not usually a big short story reader, but at Christmas I do quite like them, and it’s a nice way to find new authors to watch out for in the BLCC collection – I think that’s how I found Christiana Brand, but I wouldn’t swear to that.

Anyway, that’s your lot, happy festive reading!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: November Quick Reviews

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Well as you could probably see from the lists it was a bit of a re-read heavy month last month, but I’ve still got a couple of books to tell you about in the quick reviews before I go full on Christmas for the rest of December..

Luke and Billy Finally Get a Clue by Cat Sebastian

Cat Sebastian’s latest novella is a sports one and came out just as the baseball season was ending at the start of October. Luke and Billy have been team mates for years, but as the story opens Billy is worried sick about Luke who has gone awol after suffering a concussion during a game. But then Luke turns up at Billy’s cabin in the mountains and a storm rolls in trapping them there together. This is 100 pages of low peril romance as two people figure out that they’re both into each other. I wanted it to be longer, but that’s about my only complaint!

Captain Marvel, Vol 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More by Kelly Sue DeConnick et al

Making a rare foray into superhero comics, I read a Captain Marvel this month because it was in Kindle Unlimited and obviously there’s been another film featuring Captain Marvel come out recently and she’s on of the Marvel Universe that I know very little about. This is actually nearly ten years old (!) and sees Captain Marvel leave earth to try and return an alien woman to her home world and finding herself in the middle of the conflict with the Galactic Alliance. Not going to lie, I felt like I hadn’t read enough other Marvel comics to really understand all of the background to this – but the Guardians of the Galaxy showed up so that gave me enough context to be going along with. I did love the art though.

Fancy Meeting You Here by Julie Tieu

Cover of Fancy Meeting You Here

And finally, I gave this a mention in release week so I wanted to circle back around with an update now I’ve read it. And this has a people pleaser florist heroine who is basically incapable of saying no and setting boundaries with her friends and who ends up biting off way more than she can chew, and a hero who is her best friend’s brother and also a caterer. As you might be able to tell from that first sentence, I got a little annoyed that Elise was letting her friends put so much on her – and that they didn’t notice how over stretched she was – but the romance was actually pretty fun. I just wish people would have actual conversations sometimes because it would make life so much easier. But then it would also take away a lot of plot in books…

And that’s your lot, but a quick reminder before I go of the Books of the Month in November – which were Next Door Nemesis, Silver Lady, Devil in Winter and Somebody at the Door.

Happy Humpday!

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Reccomendsday: Cold Weather Reading

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It’s turned terribly cold here this week. The car is frozen in the mornings when I head for the station and I’ve caved in and cracked out the big coat. So today my recommendations are books ideal for reading while wrapped in a blanket, maybe in front of a fire, ignoring the cold outside.

Is it cheating to start with Murder on the Orient Express? Because the train literally gets stuck in a snow drift on the night of the murder. It’s also one of my all time favourite murder mysteries for reasons that I can’t explain without spoiling the plot. And I know it’s nearly ninety years old and if you’ve only read one Agatha Christie it’s probably this one, but it’s so clever I don’t want to ruin it for any first timers even now!

A similar sort of age but completely different, Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca is creepy and atmospheric and for some reason just feels like a book to read as the nights are closing in and it gets dark early. Be grateful you don’t have a creepy house keeper watching your every move as the second Mrs de Winter discovers a few things her new husband hasn’t told her about.

And now for something much more recent, and a former Book of the Week back in 2019. Evvie Drake Starts Over was Linda Holmes’ debut novel and features a widowed older heroine and an injured baseball player in Maine. They have actual conversations, they seem to like each other and it’s just a big warm hug, despite the death in the backstory. Also a romance, but a very different end of the gene, I want to give a mention to Nora Roberts – I know sinner people like romantic suspense at this time of year, but I’m never a big romantic suspense reader, so I’m going for a straight up romance and The Next Always which features a heroine with kids, a bookstore and a possibly haunted hotel. Perfect for a rainy day and if you like it, it’s the first in the Inn at Boonsboro trilogy.

Now I know it has its issues, but there aren’t many books that have transported me to a world like Memoirs of a Geisha did. Arthur Golden’s novel is about the life of a young woman in Kyoto in the run up to the Second World War as she trains to become a Geisha. It’s much better than the movie was. I promise. Just writing this has made me want to read it again. And that’s your lot, i hope there’s something that appeals to you.

Happy humpday!

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Recommendsday: Books with Thanksgiving in them

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I was going to call this Thanksgiving books, but that’s actually not what this is about. It’s Thanksgiving in the US tomorrow, so today I’m talking about books that feature it somehow, somewhere. And not gonna lie, it was harder than I was expecting, but I did find some more books to read while I was writing this!

Steven Rowley’s The Editor featured in my Kennedy-adjacent books post – which means I should probably mention that today is also sixty years since JFK was assassinated in Dallas – and in it, when James is struggling to get the ending right, his editor – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis suggests needs to spend more time with his mother, and that sends him home for Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, in Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue, the traditional Turkey pardoning ceremony plays a key role in the early stages of the romance between first son Alex and his royal crush Prince Henry.

Jackie Wong’s A Match Made for Thanksgiving is set at Canadian Thanksgiving which was a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not letting that stop me including it here! Any way our hero is Nick, whose parents and grandparents have invited blind dates for him and his siblings, and his brother’s date turns to be Nick’s latest one-night stand, Lily, who he just can’t get out of his head… I loved the nicking meddling family in this and, total bonus, it’s the first in a series of linked novellas.

Now I was convinced that I’d read loads of Thanksgiving-set cozy crimes, but when it came down to it, I really struggled to find them in my book lists but there is a Thanksgiving book in Kathi Daley’s Tj Jenson series. I haven’t read Thanksgiving in Paradise, which is the tenth and final book in the series, but I have read seven of the others, so I’m going to take a chance in it! Daley also has Thanksgiving books in her other series, but I haven’t read any of them to vouch for the series or the specific books! Likewise Leslie Meier also has a couple of thanksgiving books in her Lucy Stone series, but I’ve had a patchy record with them.

And that’s your lot! There isn’t a Thanksgiving Meg Langslow (yet!) – no matter how convinced I was that there was, but maybe I can wish it into being? I leave you with my favourite ever Thanksgiving content from the brilliant Addams Family Values:

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Recommendsday: More Enemies to Lovers romances

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It’s nearly two years since my original Enemies to Lovers Recommendsday, and I’ve read a load more since, so today I’m back with another batch!

Lets start with The Hating Game by Sally Thorne I loved Thorne’s Second First Impressions and this was her debut novel (now also a movie) which features two rival PAs at a publishing company. I have a few issues with it but in the end they actually weren’t about what I was expecting – which was that their work rivalry would push my buttons for unprofessional pranks, but it actually didn’t because they didn’t sabotage each other. Lucinda does freak out a lot though and that did get on my nerves a bit so your mileage may vary, so generally for me – not as good as Second First Impressions, but still fun and worth reading.

In Beach Read by Emily Henry, Augustus and January are maybe more misunderstood rivals than they are enemies, because he is a Serious Writer of Proper Fiction and she writes best selling romances. They’re spending the summer living next door to each other at the beach and in an attempt to tackle both of their writers blocks, they challenge each other to switch genres… Anyway, there are complicated families and a warning for parental deaths in the backstories, but this is still a delightful feel good romance where two people discover that they really like hanging around with each other and that being together makes their lives better. Swoony. Oh and Henry’s Book Lovers would also fit this genre too.

Ali Hazelwood’s Love Hypothesis got a mention in the last post on this topic, but her Love on the Brain also fits this trope – the heroine of that finds that the downside of her dream job at Nasa is that she has to work with her grad school arch-nemesis. It’s another teeny tiny heroine and Great Big Hero, but your mileage on that may be different to mine, which I think is coloured by the fact that I’m 5’10! I will never be tired of competency porn though, and Bee (and Levi) are very, very good at their jobs. I was expecting one strand of the plot to be A Bigger Thing in the resolution, but actually the whole of the end wrapped up very quickly – but it was very satisfying.

And before I wrap this up, I want to give a mention to Mia Sosa’s Worst Best Man which I did also touch on in my romances with weddings post in the summer but would also fit for this.

Enjoy!

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Recommendsday: November Kindle Offers

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It’s only the 8th, but it’s already Kindle offer o’clock, because I did the quick reviews last Wednesday on the 1st. It always slightly throws me when this happens, but that’s because I’m a creature of habit and I don’t like change! Anyway, on with the offers.

And a lot of them are distinctly Christmassy – A Holly Jolly Ever After by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy is brand new and is the second (of a planned three I think) books set in Christmas Notch – I read the first one last year and bought this one while writing this post! Lyssa Kay Adams‘ A Very Merry Bromance is also 99p, as is Trisha Ashley‘s The Magic of Christmas.

If you don’t want Christmas vibes yet, then Elissa Sussman‘s Once More With Feeling, one of my favourite books of the year is 99p, Jenny Colgan’s summer book from this year is on offer and The Summer Skies is the first with a fresh batch of characters too. And in excellent news for me personally, the latest Katherine Center Hello, Stranger is 99 – and I bought that one while writing this too! Also on offer is one of the new autumn romances that I keep seeing everywhere – Meryl Wilsner’s Cleat Cute. In other (relatively) new releases, the latest in Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary’s book, The Good, The Bad and the History is 99p. Dying in the Wool, which is the first in Frances Brody’s Kate Shackleton series is 99p as well, as is Shady Hollow, the first in Juneau Black’s slightly weird cozy crime series where the characters are animals. Or are they?

I haven’t read this one, but Rhys Bowen’s latest World War Two-set novel (as opposed to her historical mystery series) is also on offer this month – it’s called The Paris Assignment and features a woman spying in France to try and avenge the death of her son.

This month’s Peter Wimsey is Gaudy Night, which is maybe edging towards my favourite at this point, even if it has probably the least Peter of any of them – and it’s notable because I know I own the kindle of Gaudy Night, but its still offering me the option to buy it so they must finally have updated the Kindle edition, which is probably a good thing as the one I have has slightly weird formatting. In other authors that I love, Curtis Sittenfeld‘s American Wife is 99p this month, as is Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont.

On the historical romance front, the Julia Quinn is On a Night Like This from the Smythe-Smith series and the novelisation that goes with the Queen Charlotte Netflix series. Tthe Georgette Heyer is The Corinthian – which is one of her hero helping a heroine running away stories. And one of the books that my Romance Facebook group always raves about, Lisa Kleypas’s Devil in Winter, is also 99p – I bought it because although I’ve read the follow up, Devil in Spring, I haven’t read the original and it’s meant to be a classic. One I have read and that I love (as you know) is the first in Sarah MacLean‘s Rules of Scoundrels series, A Rogue by Any Other Name, is 99p – and you should totally read it – check my Series I Love post for the reasons why!

And that’s your lot for this month – I hope this post hasn’t cost you as much money as it cost me

Happy Humpday!

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Recommendsday: October Quick Reviews

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Pinch, punch etc. Just the two for the quick reviews this month because it’s been a fairly re-read heavy month and I’ve already written about a lot of the new and new-to-me stuff! But hey, two is better than nothing right?

Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian Farr

Well this was a lot of fun. It’s both a musical mystery and a story told entirely through correspondence so that makes it a touch different to a lot of the other Golden Age Murder mysteries that you might come across. Our victim is a much-disliked conductor shot dead mid performance, seemingly without anyone seeing anything amiss until he keeled over. Our Detective is DI Alan Hope and the story is told thorugh the letters that he sends to his wife about the case – and the documents he includes in with that – which are a mix of letters from suspects, newspaper clippings and other similar items. It’s a really clever way of doing things – and it’s a shame that Farr never wrote any more, although I suspect it would not be an easy trick to pull off more than once. If you know a bit about music you’ll be able to follow this – I think if you know more about music than I do (grade 6ish clarinet and piano, bad at music theory) then you’ll get even more out of it. How it would work for a non-musician I don’t know!

A Lady’s Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin

As you might remember I read and really enjoyed Irwin’s first book when it came out last year, and so I’ve now come back to report in on her latest. My main critique of the first book was that there was just so. much. plot going on but that it moved so fast that you didn’t notice it. This second book doesn’t work as well – or at least didn’t for me – and the main culprits (I think) are that firstly that the two love interests in the heroine’s love triangle are both not great (at 50% I was wondering if we were going to get a late arriving third contender) and secondly that the heroine is just… hard to root for. She is both a pushover and ridiculously foolhardy by turns and it just gets very wearing really quite fast. And then – like the first book – it’s got a lot of plot, which leaves not a lot of time for it all to be resolved satisfactorily and when you don’t love the main characters you notice that. There’s a big revelation at more than 80% through that there is not time for a redemption for and the final resolution and reveal is just… too much too quickly. I’m sad I didn’t enjoy it more to be honest.

And of course there was a lot of other stuff too – including To Swoon and to Spar, Duke, Actually, 10 Things that Never Happened, Three Times a Countess and lots of Romances – M/m and on reality shows.

Happy Humpday!

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Recommendsday: Romances set on reality TV shows

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This week’s Recommendsay is another in my occasional series of recommendations based on romance tropes. Well sort of. I’m not sure that reality shows are actually a full on trope, but I’ve read a bunch of them now so I’m claiming it. What most of them have in common is that the hero or heroine is falling in love with someone that they shouldn’t – in the ones on dating shows they’re usually falling for a producer rather than one of the contestants. But I’m not sure what that counts as as a trope – falling for the wrong person maybe? Or forbidden love? Anyway, to the books

I’m starting with the book that sparked the idea for this post – The Love Rematch by Kay Marie*, which came out last week and is currently in Kindle Unlimited. Emily finds herself as the lead on a TV dating show (think the Bachelorette) after her mum goes on breakfast TV begging America to find her daughter a boyfriend. It’s not until she gets to the show that she finds out that one of the producers is Jake, the boy who broke her heart when he left her without a word just as they had finished high school. She’s determined to get revenge on him by showing him how happy she can be without him (and launching her jewellery brand by wearing it on the show) and he’s trying to get a promotion. But it’s a romance novel so of course they’re not as over each other as they think they are. I really enjoyed this – although it took a bit of a surprising turn at the end, which I think needed more time to work out, and the epilogue wasn’t really an epilogue – more of a final chapter just set a year later. But I read it in a couple of days once I really got into it and it was fun. And obviously made me want to write this post!

In One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London, Bea also finds herself as the lead in a dating show, this time not because her mum volunteered her, but because she wrote a blog complaining about the lack of body diversity in dating shows. When i wrote about this three years (!) ago, I said not to go into it expecting at traditional romance, because it’s more complicated than that – for all that it has a happily ever after. But I’m still including it here becuase I think if you read it you would like the Kay Marie, and vice versa.

Not set on a dating show, but on a show that’s basically Bake Off lightly disguised, Rosaline Palmer takes the Cake by Alexis Hall (yes I know, I wrote about Hall’s new book last week, but sue me, this fits!) has a single mum breaking away from parental expectations to compete on a TV cooking contest and finding herself in a love triangle (sort of) with two of the other contestants. This isn’t as straight forward a romance as some of Hall’s other contemporary romances, but you do get a happily ever after even if you’re left guessing who it’s going to be with for a while.

It’s only a few months since The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren was BotW so I can’t really justify writing about it in massive detail again here, but trust me when I say that it also fits this prompt – and is probably the closest to The Love Rematch and also more successful in execution than that is. And an honourable mention to Battle Royal by Lucy Parker, which isn’t actually set on a reality show, but that is where the hero an heroine first crossed swords.

Happy Reading!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: M/m romances

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This inspired by the chat thread I have with my friend Tom, who I’ve been trading recommendations with for a while now after he read Red, White and Royal Blue and wanted more! I’ve been working on it for a while, but as yesterday’s Book of the Week was the new Alexis Hall, (yes he’s the person I already recommended it to) I thought now was the time to let it loose on the world.

Let’s start with the Timothy Janovsky, which I also read last week and am also lending to Tom. This has a time travel gimmick/device and although it didn’t work as well for me as The Seven Year Slip did, that was because I found the hero, Nolan, incredibly hard to like. But I know I’m a massive grump at the moment on that front, so other people may love it. Nolan is a wannabe standup comedian who blows off his sister’s wedding reception and disappoints his family, while also leaving his best friend and crush in the lurch (see what I mean about hard to like?!), after arguing with everyone he wishes on some crystals before bed and wakes up seven years later a massive success but with friends and family still ignoring him. Thus begins his quest to fix it all and get back to his “real” life. And that’s the point where Nolan starts to get better, but it does take a while to get there!

In The Problem with Perfect by Philip William Stover, Ethan is the mastermind behind style icon, influencer and TV star Chase and their TV bosses think they’re a couple. They’re very much not, and when Chase (and his ego) walks out and leaves the country ahead of a major Pride event he’s due to be fronting, Ethan hunts down Chase’s twin brother Beau and persuades him to take Chase’s place. You know where this is going. I loved the side characters, but didn’t think the main romance was quite as satisfying or well-resolved as it should have been because it all wraps up super, super fast.

If you read the Stover and like it, then you might also like Best Men by Sidney Karger (or at least like it more than I did!), which is another book set around a wedding – Max’s best friend Paige is getting married and wants him to be her Man of Honor. This throws him into close contact with the groom’s brother Chasten who is basically his complete opposite and they have to learn to work together. I had a bunch of issues with this – lack of sympathetic characters, not enough time with Max and Chasten together to understand why they might want to be a couple, constant references to Max being the “gay best friend” but I can see from Goodreads that other people have really enjoyed it because they found it much, much funnier than I did!

It’s a short story, but I wanted to include A Thief in the Night by K J Charles, a historical romance where a highwayman turns valet and ends up caught up in a plot to steal a priceless bracelet. It’s linked to Charles’ The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting which I’ve mentioned here before and also would fit into this post if you want some more historical M/m romance.

And of course there are also a whole stack of previous BotWs to mention too – as well as 10 Things that Never Happened, there’s We Could Be So Good from last month, Fake Dates and Mooncakes, Boyfriend Material and Husband Material (more Alexis Hall!), and finally, I mentioned Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjaming Alire Saenez in the last Quick Reviews too.

Happy Reading!