This is the second installment in the Brown sisters series. I kicked off last year with reading about Chloe Brown so it made sense to start the year with reading about Dani. And, oof, this one is so good. Dani and Zafir are both so awesome. Dani is an academic and Zafir is a former rugby player and current security guard at the university. Zafir suffers from anxiety and also started a charity that helps teach kids how to deal with their emotions called Tackle it. Following an incident during a fire drill where Zafir is photographed carrying Dani out of the building that goes viral, they decide to fake a relationship in order to capitalize on the viral photograph to raise money for Tackle it.
I love a good fake to real story and Dani felt like a very real character to me, as a fellow academic. I recognized her focus and excitement for her topic (and that feeling other people just not understanding.) Actually, I identified with a lot of Dani’s behavior in the novel. It’s both nice (and mortifying) to be seen.
Anyway, the story was amazing, the characters were fantastic and the spice was very spicy. This was so good. I whole heartedly recommend it.
An Absolute gimme of a theme for today, Valentine’s Day, but I couldn’t miss an opportunity to highlight some of our favorite romance novels for this addition of Weekend Reads. While it has gained popularity in recent years, especially with the advent of Booktok, I still feel Romance is a culturally slighted genre. It often centers women’s stories and/or more mundane topics of daily life and these are important and worthy things to include in our fiction. Also, there is the possibility of a little smut that isn’t super gratuitous because it contributes to the narrative, something you might not get in another genre like fantasy or mystery. St. Valentine risked his life for love and in honor of him here are some, admittedly much lower stakes, romantic tales to delight you this weekend.
This is one that both Beth and I enjoyed! Marcus Caster-Rupp is an actor in a popular TV series by day and an avid reader and writer of fan fiction by night. He uses it to explore his character and work through his frustrations with the adaptation of the source material for the small screen. April Whittier is a geologist by day and a Cosplayer and fan fiction writer by night. When April posts a picture of herself, a plus-sized woman, in her cosplay on social media, she gets all kinds of hate from dumbasses who think the ultimate flex wiill be if they tag Marcus and he comes into the comments and also dunks on April. But then he asks her out. And he means it. Marcus then also discovers that April is his beta-reader and his very best friend in the fic writing world. Sparks fly but can they survive the publicity and secrets? If you haven’t read this but you like cosplaying and fan fiction, this one is for you. Even if you aren’t into those things, Marcus and April are such a cute pair that this one is also for you.
Part of the Dangerous Damsels series, you have witches, pirates, flying houses, romance, hijinks…what’s not to love? When Beth finished this, she lent me her copy and I’m embarrassed to say that it has been on my bedside table for probably a year and a half now. Perhaps it will get bumped up that TBR queue this weekend!
Rhiannon is the CEO of a successful dating app and Samson is a former football player. They met once, through the app, and had a marvelous time for what it was, but nothing ever came of it. But now they are meeting again because Rhiannon wants to buy another dating site to grow her business and Samson is the new spokesperson and company representative that attends industry events. Can they both move forward in their lives? Are they both really feeling the vibes? And what happens when a former business-partner turned competitor throws his hat into the dating site purchase ring?
These characters were both so likable, with their flaws and their strengths. I needed to know what happened next in their story. I enjoyed the arc of this novel and if you want some cheeky fun with some really touching serious moments in a contemporary setting, this one is for you!
We here at Stacks hope you have a lovely Valentine’s Day! What are you planning on reading this weekend? Are you starting something new or are you finishing something up? Let us know in the comments!
This is an alternate history set in a world where magic exists and it can be spoken into existence by translators who find the magic in spaces between what words mean in 2 different languages. If you’ve ever learned another language, you are aware that exact translations where a word has the same meaning and connotations in two different languages are uncommon. The magic in this alternate history is based on that idea. Truly fluent speakers of languages can find the magic in pairs of words and they can do all sorts of things, like make carriage rides smoother or trains faster. Our hero, Robin Swift, is rescued from cholera that took his mother and the rest of his family in Canton by Professor Lovell, who takes him back to England and takes him on as a ward. Robin lives with the professor and learns Greek and Latin, all one day hoping to get to study at the translation institute at Oxford, where he will learn how to do magic.
This is a story of student revolution, the problems of colonialism, and resistance. It was thoughtful and poignant and I absolutely binged it. Robin must decide if he is going to continue to support the world as it is or if he is going to fight for a world that is fairer and more equitable. This was staggeringly good and I cannot recommend it enough.
This is a history book written for a general audience and it is about the United States and its territories. It explores why we have expanded, when we have expanded, how we’ve viewed territories, and the consequences of the views for both the people in the territories and the people at home.
I learned a lot reading this. I was aware that the U.S. still holds territories and that it has held more and different territories in the past, but hearing about how different territories have been treated and its connection to things like race and immigration rules was eye-opening. Thinking about things like citizenship has consequences for things like voting in national elections, so even if we don’t currently hold the all the territories we’ve historical held, this part of our history is still important because it does still impact us today. (If you’ll recall from the previous Presidential election where some of our citizenry were surprised to find that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but they can only vote in the presidential election if they live on the mainland.)
So, this was good and I would recommend it. I also recommend getting it as an audiobook. Luis Moreno’s narration is engaging and it carried me through places where dates and details may have stopped me if I had been reading if off a page.
This was so good! While This Poison Heart, book 1 in the series, was a bit of a mystery, this one is more of an adventure. Leaving where the first book left off, they are on a race against time to restore all the pieces of the deadly Absyrtus Heart in order for Briseis to save her Mom. In order to do this, Briseis must rely on blood relatives she didn’t know she had.
These books weave myth in with the modern I absolutely loved them. Briseis is a smart and thoughtful hero and I cheered for her the entire way. I absolutely recommend these! They were so good!
This one was a bit of a wild ride. So, our detective friends are called to a crime scene where a man, a longstanding pillar of the community and a Jewish Holocaust survivor, is found executed in his own home. Pia Kirchoff and Oliver von Bodenstein find out during the autopsy that the murder victim was not what he appeared. For one, he may not have been Jewish. They are left to ravel this mystery as more murders pile up.
What I liked about this one was that not only was the main narrative full of twists, but there were a number of interesting subplots that wove themselves around the main narrative. I was interested in the bigger picture question but also the interpersonal matters that arose in the narrative. However, the one thing that is stuck in my craw a bit is that these books don’t appear to be in their original order. This is listed as book 2 on audible and Snow White Must Die is listed as book 1. The narratives are mostly self-contained, but some of the character development and relationships are out of order. It was an annoyance, but overall it didn’t too badly impact my enjoyment of the story.
If you like detective stories and you are interested in tales about (fictional) international scandals, this was pretty good.
2 Women, So Many Books 