CBR17 Book 18: "Tress of the Emerald Sea" by Brandon Sanderson

Page count: 479 pages

Audio book length: 12 hrs 27 mins

Rating: 4.5 stars

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Celestial (there is a big moon and several stars on the cover)

What if in The Princess Bride, Buttercup didn't sit at home and mourn for Westley when he was captured by pirates, but instead went off to try to rescue him? Of course, that would mean Buttercup had any agency at all in either the novel or the film, and she really doesn't. But if Buttercup was a young woman named Tress, from a barren and fairly desolate island, who washes windows at the duke's mansion and collects cups, with the only thing making her life worthwhile being her friendship with the duke's son (who pretends to be a gardener), and one day, Charlie, her best friend (who she's only recently discovered that she's also in love with) is taken away by his father to be married off (a poor window washer girl is not a suitable match for him)? Charlie promises to be so dreadfully boring to every suitable bride he meets that no one will want to marry him, and every time is rejected by another bride, he will write to her and send her another cup from his travels. 

However, after some months, the letters stop coming. Then the duke returns, but Charlie isn't with him. Charlie has been kidnapped by the Sorceress, and it doesn't seem like anyone cares except Tress. First, she needs to figure out how to get off the island (no one but the duke's family is ever allowed to leave). On the first ship she travels on, she meets a talking rat, who she takes with her when the ship is attacked by pirates. It's important to note that in this world, while there are ships and long voyages, the oceans are made up of spores that react very violently to the presence of any liquids. Very occasionally, the spore currents still for a time, and it's possible for brave, or exceedingly foolish, individuals to walk along on top of the spores. This is how Tress gets from the attacked ship onto the pirate vessel, where she gradually befriends more of the crew and works her way up in rank, despite the misgivings of the blood-thirsty pirate captain. 

Tress isn't entirely sure how she's going to help the motley crew of pirates from becoming exploited by their captain, and persuade them that they really want to assist her in travelling across the Crimson Sea to the Midnight Sea (the two most dangerous areas on the planet), and face the terrifying Socreress to rescue the boy she loves. But she knows that if she gives up, Charlie has no one coming for him, and that is unacceptable to her.

This is an adventure story with a plucky heroine, who keeps succeeding against all odds, sometimes because she just won't quit.While Tress has had a sheltered and rather uneventful life until she decides to leave the safety of her home to go off and rescue Charlie, she's not stupid, and her determination to get to him makes her face challenges that would make others quake. Occasionally, her lack of experience also makes her less afraid of dangers than she probably should be, since she just doesn't realise what the consequences of the potential threats. She's also kind-hearted and determined to help those who show her kindness along the way, even if it might delay her ultimate goal of getting to the Sorceress.

This is the first of the four secret projects that Brandon Sanderson announced that he wrote when he suddenly had a lot of extra downtime during the Pandemic. While most of us binged TV shows and perfected our sourdough loaves, Sanderson apparently wrote four entire novels, in addition to all the work he was already contracted for. The man is a machine! This led to probably the biggest Kickstarter campaign in history. Sanderson started writing this story for his wife, after wondering what The Princess Bride could have been like if the heroine wasn't just a passive player, having the plot happen to her. 

I didn't have the finances to get all four secret projects in hardback (not only did the books themselves cost quite a lot, but the shipping to Norway was incredibly expensive), so I only got Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, because these two books were the ones that looked the prettiest and most interesting to me. I did get digital and audio copies of all the other books, though, which allowed me to listen to parts of this in audiobook as well. 

Most of Sanderson's many many novels fit into a larger fictional universe called the Cosmere. That means that a lot of his books are vaguely interconnected. Since this book fits into the Cosmere, but there are more than twenty other works that come before it, I had this grand plan last year, to do a re-read of the Sanderson novels I had read (most of them a very long time ago now) and catch up on all the ones I hadn't read, so I'd be able to properly enjoy the various secret projects, and not be confused by the references. Sadly, this failed almost at the first hurdle, when I had finished the brilliant Mistborn, and then just couldn't get past the opening chapters of The Well of Ascencion, the next book in the series. Then this got selected as the February read in The Dark Corner, my real life book club, and it became clear that I was just going to have to ignore references to events or characters from other Cosmere books. 

One such character is Hoid, who narrates the story of Tress and Charlie to us readers. He has apparently appeared in a bunch of Sanderson's novels (some of which I have read, if the wiki article I read is correct - and I don't see why it wouldn't be) in various different guises. In this book, he's a cabin boy who has been cursed by The Sorceress (who is also a character from the wider Cosmere universe) becaue of a bet. He speaks and behaves nonsensically for much of the story because of this curse. Some of the members in my bookclub found the way the story was told (Hoid frequently breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader) incredibly annoying. The 2-3 people who didn't like the book cited Hoid's storytelling style and all three felt it wanted to be Pratchett, but didn't succeed. 

Most people, however, really liked the book, and since this was our February choice, we had a very interesting discussion about whether this could be classed as a romance, or whether it was more accurately a love story. The general consensus was that Tress' love for Charlie is completely central to the plot, it's the force that drives her to change her life and leave the island, it's what keeps her going even when things seem almost impossible, and that the book wouldn't work without the love story at its centre. We also agreed that if the book had been sold to us as a great romance, we would probably have been disappointed. 

Personally, I didn't find Hoid all that annoying, and very much like when I was reading To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, I decided to just enjoy the story on its own terms, and ignore any references that went over my head. Knowing that this was at least in part inspired by The Princess Bride (one of my favourite films, and books, I had fun seeing the many ways in which the story resembled, or subverted the plot of that story. 

As always, Sanderson's world building and approach to magic systems is fantastic, and even the ones who didn't like the book that much had to admit that the oceans of spores idea was great. If anything, there was quite a bit of grumbling because the book claimed there were twelve different kinds of spores, and we only got to learn about five of them in-story. The characters were interesting, and even the Pirate Captain, who by some could be seen as villainous, had very clear motivations and it was made obvious why she might have chosen to act as she did. Some of the bookclub members highlighted her as one of their favourite characters,

Reading Sanderson again did remind me that his writing has always worked for me, and gave me further motivation to actually continue my "Reading the Cosmere" project this year. I'm not going to try to give myself a set time limit this time, that clearly did NOT work, and he has such a big back catalogue of mostly very long books, but I do want to revisit some of the ones I read in the past, and continue the various series. The people who love Sanderson, love him SO much. I'm trying to focus on quality over quantity in my reading now, and not get freaked out if I don't get to read a set number of books per year, but rather focus on the things I read being enjoyable.

Finally, I wanted to end this review by mentioning how utterly gorgeous my Kickstarter-funded hardback is. It is illustrated throughout, with some beatiful drawings, and, as I discovered as I got further through the book, colour coded to which of the seas Tress finds herself at the time. When she travels the Emerald sea, the chapter headings and page numbers are in a beautiful green, when she travels into the Crimson sea, the colours change to red, and then to inky black when she crosses into the dreaded Midnight sea. Having such a pretty edition of the book makes the exorbitant cost of shipping sting slightly less. 

Judging a book by its cover: My hardback is a lovely, clothbound book with different textures for the patterns of the various elements of the cover. As far as I can tell, most of the editions of this book feature Tress and some varation on a giant moon on the cover, but I think this is one of the prettiest versions. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR17 Book 17: "The Wedding Party" by Jasmine Guillory

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Buzzword Title Challenge 25: Event

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Food or drink

Maddie and Theo are both best friends with Alexa (from The Wedding Date). Despite what the blurb tries to tell you, they are not enemies, they just dislike each other because of some unfortunate first impressions. Maddie thinks Theo is a pompous nerd who looks down on her for her career choice, while Theo thinks Maddie is shallow, fashion-obsessed and mean. After a night out, they drunkenly kiss each other and end up having sex, and very soon they are hooking up every chance they get (including making really bad excuses to see each other). They don't want anyone to find out about it, however, because they don't want Alexa to start match-making while she's busy planning her own wedding. Both agree that it's a temporary thing that will come to a natural end once Alexa's wedding is over, and they stop having to spend so much time together (they are both in the wedding party).

Both characters are absolute idiots when it comes to being honest with themselves about their feelings, and neither of them wants to confess their growing affection for the other, scared that because of their initial antipathy, the other one will reject them. So they keep spending their evenings together, eating SO MUCH takeaway pizza (seriously, it's ridiculous) and ending up in bed together. They are sure they are being very sneaky and that no one suspects a thing, when in fact, every single person who spends time with them (including Alexa) is fully aware of what is going on, and just waiting for them to mutually realise that they are perfect for one another. 

This was a fun read and reminded me that there are a bunch of books in this series that I own, but haven't ever got around to reading. This is why reading challenges are good - they force me to look through my TBR and my many, many owned, but unread books to rediscover stuff I bought years and years ago and completely forgot because there are always so many other shiny books out there to distract me. 

Judging a book by its cover: I really wish they'd used black for the whole title, instead of yellow for part of it, since the yellow against the bright purple background is much harder to read this way. Otherwise, it's a fairly unobjectionable cover. It features the protagonists drinking champagne, so I could use it for my reading challenge. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 16: "Scythe & Sparrow" by Brynne Weaver

Page count: 416 pages

Audio book length: 11 hrs 36 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Transportation

Doctor Fionn Kane is doing just fine in the little Nebraska town he retreated to after leaving his promising surgical career and ex-fiancee behind. He doesn't really want anything to do with the past-times of either of his brothers and is keeping his head down, running and working out when he's not working in his small medical clinic or the hospital. He also crochets. Then a beautiful woman with a severe leg injury ends up nearly unconscious on the floor of his clinic, asking him for help before she passes out. Fionn doesn't realise that despite his attempts to live a calm and uneventful life, chaos has just found him.

Rose Evans has worked at Silveria Circus for over a decade. She has a fortune telling booth, reading tarot cards for paying customers, and also rides her motorcycle every evening in death-defying stunts. She's also has a very particular interest in botany, and as the Sparrow, she has provided many a woman with the means to incapacitate or kill an abusive partner. Normally, she doesn't do any of the killing herself, but when an obviously terrified woman comes to her for a reading, and Rose is able to figure out where the family lives, she decides to take matters (and a baseball bat) into her own hands, to rid the family of their abusive husband/father. Except Rose seriously underestimates the rage and strength of the man she attacks, and ends up with a badly broken leg before she manages to jam some cocktail sticks in the guy's eye, giving her enough time to escape on her motorcycle. She locates the local clinic, desperate to find something for the pain, and passes out shortly after the handsome doctor finds her.

A circus performer with a broken leg can't do her job, so the travelling circus leaves Rose and her RV in Nebraska, planning to pick her up once she's had time to heal. On crutches, after the complicated break, Rose isn't able to mount the stairs to her RV. Fionn has a spare room in his house and surprises himself by inviting the intriguing woman to stay with him until she's had time to recover. Fionn is used to depriving himself of the things he truly desires, so staying away from Rose, his patient, should be fine, right?

Readers of the rest of Brynne Weaver's Ruinous Love trilogy, will have already met Fionn and Rose in Butcher & Blackbird (when Ronan and Sloane show up unexpectedly requiring medical help they can't really get from a hospital) and in Leather & Lark, where the final events left things looking pretty critical for Rose (spoiler: she doesn't die). Plot-wise, the events of this book start a while before Ronan and Sloane show up, and continues as a sequel to both previous books, so the readers can discover how Rose is pulled back from death's door. 

Having read the previous two books, I felt like I already had an idea of who Fionn and Rose were as characters, but it was nevertheless fun to see them more deeply developed. The reveal that Fionn crochets in his spare time, along with a bunch of small-town grannies was a very fun one. Unlike his brothers, Fionn has chosen to heal people rather than to unalive them, but he still feels immense guilt for the role he played in the demise of their abusive father, and has never felt able to confide in his brothers about this. Rose, on the other hand, seems to have quite a death toll that she facilitated by giving other women the means to be free of their abusers. It's only in this book that she decides to try to take a more active hand in murdering violent and unpleasant men, and because she is very impulsive, it rarely goes the way she plans. Poor Fionn has to get her out of trouble more than once. 

Rating the books of the trilogy, Leather & Lark is my least favourite, while Butcher & Blackbird remains my absolute favourite (none of the other books have made me that obsessed), putting Scythe & Sparrow firmly in the middle. Of the three, this is probably the book with the most mutual pining (while Ronan pines for years for Sloane, she's pretty oblivious to all of it), and our protagonists are very attracted to one another from the start, but not willing, or in some cases able, to act on it. In the last third of this book, Fionn and Rose are separated for much of it, and as a result, correspond in letters. As a result, I would probably say it's the most romantic of the three. 

This book has the same narrators as Leather & Lark and is once more a dual narration. I really like this kind of storytelling, and since the narrators also voiced Lark and Lachlan in the previous book, there is some nice continuity. 

In one of the two epilogues to this story, Ms. Weaver gives some hints towards what she's likely to be writing about next. It seems to be a spin-off of sorts from these books, and by now, I am enjoying her storytelling enough that I'll probably get the next one too.

Judging a book by its cover: I genuinely don't know why there is a scythe featured on the cover, as far as I recall, one is never used by any of the characters, protagonists or antagonists, and therefor it seems a bit unnecessary. All the other elements that we see in yellow and orange on the cover at least feature in the book at some point. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 15: "The King's Messenger" by Susanna Kearsley

Page count: 512 pages

Rating: 4 stars

StoryGraph Easy Reading Challenge 2025: All Alone - Read a stand-alone book

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC. My opinions are my own. 

It is 1613 and Prince Henry, James I's eldest son and heir has tragically died. Rumours whisper that it might not have been by natural causes. Queen Anna is distraught, and King James is determined to punish the guilty. 

Andrew Logan is one of the king's messengers and he's tasked with going to Scotland to apprehend Sir David Moray, Prince Henry's closest companion, and bring him safely to London to face 'trial'. Logan will not be travelling alone, along for the journey will also be an experienced scribe, Lawrence Westaway, who will write down anything that Moray says or does during the trip. Because Lawrence is elderly and of ill health, Westaway's daughter Phoebe will also accompany them. Complicating matters somewhat is the secret Logan needs to keep from everyone around him. He has the Second Sight, and can occasionally catch glimpses of things that will happen. In a time where the least unusual behaviour could have you accused of witchcraft, Logan dares not tell Phoebe that he can see her father's poor health will shortly lead to his death. 

While the queen is mourning her son, she doesn't necessarily believe Sir David is responsible for his death. She wants him brought safely to her so she can speak with him, Logan's orders are to bring him directly to the king. Logan suspects that by arresting Moray, he may be complicit in the man's demise. It doesn't help matters that Logan and Phoebe don't exactly get along. She believes him to be a brutish and uncivilised man, swayed by the words of others in her acquaintance. He believes her to be a judgemental snob who has coldly rejected any of his overtures of friendship since they were younger. 

The journey from Edinburgh to London is long, however, and the travellers spend a lot of time in each other's company. Logan arrests Sir David as his ship from France arrives in the port in Leith, and on their return journey to London, the group are also joined by a young stablehand who idolises Logan and wants to become a royal messenger like him. Sir David is obviously grieving the loss of Prince Henry deeply and it becomes obvious to everyone in the group almost immediately that he is an innocent man, and that taking him to London would be to commit an act of injustice. Their return to London will also be dangerous, as one of Sir David's Scottish kinsmen is pursuing them with a large band of his soldiers, determined to spirit his cousin away to safety.

Searching my blog, it turns out I haven't actually read a single of Kearsley's novels since 2014 when I finished The Firebird. It surprised me that it's been so long, I remember the ones I read quite well and liked all three. She writes very well-researched and engaging historical fiction, sometimes with a light supernatural element, such as Andrew Logan's occasional glimpses into the future in this book. Based on the plot descriptions of this book online, I was expecting more of a suspense book, possibly something involving espionage - which is not the case. In some ways, it's a road trip novel, only the mode of transportation is horses, and it takes a considerable amount of time riding from Edinburgh to London, even when keeping a brisk pace because rebellious Scotsmen are in pursuit. I actually preferred this quieter story to the one I thought would be happening, so in my case, it worked out fine.

In several of the Kearsley books I read in the past, there are two parallell storylines, one set in the past, one in the present day. Here, it's all in the early 1600s, chiefly 1613, but several of the POV characters, like Sir David and Queen Anna have flashbacks to previous events, mostly concerning Prince Henry. There is absolutely romantic tension between Logan and Phoebe, but it's not exactly a sweeping love story that dominates the plot. It becomes clear to the reader (who gets to read the POV of both characters) that a lot of their mutual distrust and animosity comes from misunderstandings early on in their acquaintance (and in Phoebe's case, that she's listened to people who spread malicious gossip, some of which is clearly untrue). 

I was also worried, when I realised how much of this book deals with grief of losing a son (Sir David may not have fathered Prince Henry, but he cleary loved the young man as a son, probably much more than King James ever did), which since I became a mother is one of my biggest nightmares. Sir David and Queen Anna's flashbacks were sad, but thankfully there was nothing to emotionally destroy me.

The King's Messenger is out this week in the US. In the rest of the world, it's apparently been out since August 2024, so there are already lots of readers out there that share my view on the quality of this book. It was a lovely read, and made me determined to check out more of Kearsley's back catalogue before another decade passes.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 14 : "Two Friends in Marriage" by Jackie Lau

Page count: 233 pages

Rating: 3 stars

Disclaimer! This was an ARC sent to me by the author. My opinions are my own. 

During the Covid pandemic, it becomes very obvious to both Evan Mok and his friend Jane Yin how lonely they both are and how much they wish they had someone to share their lives with. They agree that if they are both still single after Jane's thirty-third birthday, they will get married and buy a house together. By the time Jane's birthday has passed, neither of them is in a romantic relationship, and both have pretty much given up on finding long-term happiness with anyone. So sticking to their pact seems like a good idea.

They pretend that they have been dating for a while, to avoid awkward questions from Evan's family. Jane doesn't really expect any questions from her side of the family. Her mother died of cancer when she was little (by turning thirty-three, Jane has now lived longer than her mother ever did), and once her father remarried, he seemed to entirely lose interest in Jane and her life. He claims he's too busy to make it to the wedding and she doesn't have much of a connection to her stepmother or younger half-siblings. So one of the benefits to Jane in marrying Evan is that she will actually have in-laws who seem to care. 

Once they find a house they like, their quiet life together seems to be going very well. Of course, it wouldn't be a proper marriage of convenience story if the two didn't start catching feelings for one another. Evan is bisexual and Jane is one of the friends he's known the longest. He never felt any attraction towards her before they got married and moved in together, but now he keeps having to fight feelings he's sure his quiet wife can't return. Jane, for her part, is asexual and has been happily celibate for nearly a decade. So she's even more surprised when she starts having pants feelings for her husband. Both are worried that they are going to hurt/upset/freak out their significant other by confessing these feelings - oh noes!

I don't think I've read a single Jackie Lau book that I didn't at least in parts enjoy, but some of her books are absolutely less to my taste than others. This is the third book in the Weddings with the Moks series (only one sibling left to pair up, now) and it's fine, but nothing more. While I like Evan's parents (this is now the third book where they have appeared), I didn't really connect with Evan or Jane, and as a result, I didn't really care what happened to them. There was nothing really drawing me into the story, and if this hadn't been an ARC that I felt a responsibility to finish and review, I possibly would have DNF'd it. 

It probably doesn't help that a couple of weeks before reading this, I read another "marriage pact" romance that worked for me on every single level, and which I had trouble putting down. In a Rush by Kate Canterbary had characters I adored, a great supporting cast, and a storyline that engaged me and kept me wanting to spend more time with them. Evan and Jane are both very aware that they're not very exciting people, and that seems to come across in the writing. Obviously, perfectly ordinary people deserve romance and their happy endings too, I just needed something more from this book to keep me entertained. 

I'm still looking forward to the final book in the series, hopefully Mok brother number 4's romance will be more to my tastes.

CBR17 Book 13: "Animal Farm" by George Orwell

Page count: 95 pages

Audio book length: 3 hrs 3 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Books Bingo 25: Banned Book

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Cover featuring an animal

On Manor Farm, somewhere in England, an old boar gathers all the animals in the barn and makes a powerful speech about how animals suffer at the hands of humans and should rise up and take power for themselves. Shortly after his death, the animals of Manor Farm do just that - they violently fight back when Farmer Jones and his farmhands try to control them and chase the farmer, his wife and all the other humans on the farm away. All animals will be equal, everyone will contribute to the farm to the best of their abilities, walking on two legs and using collars or human attire is forbidden, and no one will use the farmhouse anymore. The pigs manage to teach themselves to read and write and seven lofty commandments for the governing of Animal Farm are painted on the barn walls. Things seem very idyllic for the animals at first, but it doesn't take long before some of the animals take a more prominent role in the rule and governing of the farm, and as a result, decide that they deserve more than their allotted share of the resources. 

This is where I have to confess to never having read Animal Farm until this year when we're teaching it to the tenth-graders. Unlike Et dukkehjem, which I have read and taught a bunch of times, we never used this book on the curriculum before, and because I like to read for escapism and to avoid traumatic and depressing reading experiences, I've tried to stay away from George Orwell's novels. While it's not a long book, only a novella really, an allegory stuffed full of political satire isn't the easiest thing for rather sheltered Norwegian tenth-graders to process, and quite a few of our pupils are having a tough time with it. Of course, when we planned the curriculum for this year in August, none of us English teachers had any idea how much more relevant it was going to become (thanks for that, America), although the machinations of the pigs seem almost quaint compared to the geo-political nightmare taking place in the United States right now. 

I had to read up on Soviet/Russian history in the 20th Century after reading this, so as better to understand all the things the book alludes to, to then teach it to the kids. The ones who are generally interested in history and current events, seem to be getting a lot more out of the book than the others. Some of them are questioning why they have to read a book about a bunch of animals - hence the need to try to tell them the real-world events that inspired the book. It's going to be interesting to see what they think once we finish the book, it's not exactly a fun or heartwarming tale - rather than a depressing dystopian fable. 

I'm glad I read it, but it's deeply tragic that not only have we not learned anything from history and books such as this, but power-hungry despots with seemingly no grasp of actual decency are being allowed to do much worse as we speak. Poor Orwell is probably rolling in his grave. 

Judging a book by its cover: Red and black, very Communist colour scheme and the entire layout of the cover looks like a propaganda poster of some kind. The fateful windmill is front and centre, along with a slightly sinister-looking pig. There are countless editions of this book, and just as many different cover designs. I kind of like this one. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 12: "Deep End" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 464 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Buzzword Title Challenge 25: Water words

Warning! Mild spoilers for some plot points later in the review. 

Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling, both with her academic subjects at Stanford and her diving. While physically fully recovered from a bad accident a year ago, Scarlett has a block that prevents her from even attempting the type of dive that had her hospitalised and having to go through several surgeries to fix her broken body. She needs to get her grades up if she wants to get into med school, and she has reluctantly agreed to go to therapy to see if she can get past the mental block that is hindering her diving but doesn't really feel as if it's working. 

Lucas Blomquist is a world champion swimmer and has won multiple Olympic medals. He's one of Stanford's top aquatic athletes and the loyal boyfriend of Scarlett's diving teammate Penelope. When Lucas and Penelope quietly break up, however, Penelope drunkenly suggests that Lucas and Scarlett hook up, because "they're into the same thing", BDSM. While Lucas is apparently a great, loyal and caring boyfriend, sexually he and Penelope just aren't compatible, because Pen isn't into kink at all. Scarlett, however, is. After a few weeks of extreme awkwardness around both Pen and Lucas, she and Lucas actually communicate and discover that their kinks seem to be extremely well-matched. Scarlett is wary about starting anything with her friend's ex, but once she and Lucas spend more time together, she can't really help herself, and they agree on a mutually beneficial arrangement. 

For reasons known best to herself, Pen doesn't really want to publically break up with Lucas, so Scarlett and Lucas can't really be public with their hook-ups. Soon they are nevertheless spending a lot of time together, working for the same professor on a biology project, and getting more and more obsessed with one another. Scarlett's history with PTSD and her self-esteem issues make it difficult for her to trust anyone. Her growing friendship with Penelope also makes her unsure about her relationship with Lucas, are they really as over each other as they claim?

I understand that Ali Hazelwood's books aren't for everyone and that her writing style can be annoying. By now, it's becoming obvious that to me, her writing works perfectly for me, and with each new thing she publishes, I like her even more. I also love that as she becomes more successful as a writer, she publishes stories she's clearly wanted to write for a long time. She gets criticised for writing the same story over and over, and yes, she does have a tendency to feature huge, hulking guys and vulnerable petite heroines. Would I love for her to have a towering, Amazonian heroine and a short king hero in the future? Absolutely. But she's been changing up her formula more and more. In the last two years, she's written YA, and paranormal romance (book 2 is out in October!) and exploration of kink is getting more prominent in some of her books. I've seen some people say this is her best book to date, but I still think I prefer Not in Love and Love, Theoretically. Part of that is because Scarlett and Lucas both felt so young (this is definitely New Adult) and part of it is because of Penelope. 

Over on Threads, the algorithm has clearly realised that I like Ali Hazelwood, so I see a lot of posts about her writing, especially this new book. Penelope is clearly a divisive character, and without spoiling too much, her actions towards the end of the book are objectively shitty towards both Scarlett and Lucas. A lot of people seem to think that what she does is unforgivable and to some, her mere presence in the book, apparently ruined it for them. I liked that Hazelwood introduced a close female friendship between two characters who were both rather messed up (Scarlett and Penelope both have their issues), and as a result, mistakes were eventually made. 

I think that over the course of the story, some of Penelope's demands on both Scarlett and Lucas' time were a bit unreasonable, and personally, I would have told her to bugger off occasionally, but as they are written, that is not something Scarlett or Lucas would do. Scarlett's choice to eventually forgive Penelope is one of the things that made me like this book more. Female characters so easily fall into archetypes. The bitchy, sabotaging ex is such a stereotype in a lot of romances. Penelope is so much more than that. She is genuinely a great and supportive friend to Scarlett. She's happy that Scarlett and Lucas find a connection she wasn't able to have with him. When a series of events mean that her life is less than great, she says and does some pretty awful things. Does that mean that she's an utterly irredeemable character? Once again, these characters are young. They are in their early 20s, only starting out in life. I respect and like Hazelwood more for including a complicated friendship dynamic in the book and for letting Penelope be more multi-faceted than the standard jealous ex-girlfriend trope.

Scarlett is another of Hazelwood's vulnerable and skittish heroines. Because she used to be effortlessly good at a lot of things, like professional diving and academia, it's very difficult for her to adapt to life becoming more challenging. She has PTSD from the behaviour of her emotionally abusive and controlling father, which makes her very uneasy around most men. She has a great relationship with her stepmother, who is an important part of the great supporting cast of this novel. Scarlett doesn't really believe she deserves good things, so in her mind, her relationship with her perfect boyfriend specimen Lucas Blomquist is never going to be a lasting thing. Their hook-ups are only supposed to be temporary, and as she keeps catching deeper feelings, she struggles to accept them and own up to them.

Thankfully, Lucas really does seem to be the perfect man, almost annoyingly so. I really would have liked for him to have some sort of flaw, but no, he's understanding, and supportive, if a bit of a perfectionist, and from the descriptions of him, he looks like a mix between Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Phelps. I don't think Hazelwood has written a single book where the hero doesn't fall first, and that is also the case here. Because Lucas is also more emotionally mature, he is able to acknowledge his own feelings, while patiently waiting for Scarlett to catch up, giving her time and space to join him in being head over heels.

Lucas is also Swedish. The previous time I read a novel with a Swedish protagonist, Olivia Dade's Ship Wrecked, one recurring term of endearment drove me nuts and it annoyed me enough that I couldn't rate the book more than 4 stars. In this, there are some uses of Swedish, but they are actually accurate and suitable for the situation, so I wasn't bothered by them. The way Hazelwood describes Lucas and his brothers and the place they come from felt authentic to me as a Scandinavian. I suspect that the audiobook will be harder for me to get through, though, unless they have an actual Swede narrating Lucas' parts. 

As far as I can tell, not in any way being into kinky stuff (happily Asexual and celibate, over here), all the BDSM stuff covered in this book, from Lucas and Scarlett's lists when they compare what they are into, and throughout their relationship, is very respectfully and accurately described. The spice level seems to be getting a bit higher with each new Hazelwood, but I still think that a lot of readers would find this relatively mild, comparatively speaking. It's certainly not anything like, say, Christina Lauren's early romances (they've gone a lot more tame now) or anything by Kit Rocha, or Katee Robert. 

Judging a book by its cover: If my Threads feed is anything to go by, a lot of people have been clutching their pearls over the level of spice/smut in this book. With a cover like this, what are you expecting? Those are clearly not the hands of people who are just waving at each other. Personally, I love that there are no people on the cover, that way I'm free to picture the characters exactly as I want inside my head. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 11: "Et dukkehjem (A Doll's House)" by Henrik Ibsen

Page count: 100 pages

Rating: 5 stars

I don't know if a spoiler warning for a nearly 150-year-old play is necessary - but I will be revealing significant plot points when writing about this historical drama, so if you want to remain unspoiled, go read the play (it's only three acts, it's a relatively quick read) or watch a dramatisation, and come back when you're done. 

Nora and Torvald Helmer are a middle-class couple living in Christiania (what Oslo was named for a few centuries in the before times) in the late 1800s. They have three children, and some servants (a nanny and a parlour maid). The play takes place around Christmas and in the days following. This was a time when women didn't have any legal rights and the central conflict of this play comes about because Nora, in the past, took out a loan (forging her father's name on the contract to do so). She did it to save her husband's health but has always had to keep her illegal act a secret. Now her past is coming back to haunt her, with the man she borrowed money from, Krogstad, blackmailing her to keep his job. Nora needs to ensure Krogstad isn't fired, or he will tell her husband the truth, and the ensuing scandal could mean Torvald loses his new advantageous job as a bank manager. 

I honestly don't remember how many times I've read this play by now. I first read it in high school, with a Norwegian teacher who showed absolutely zero enthusiasm about the work, and as a result, I wasn't exactly impressed by it and remembered it as boring and pointless. Et dukkehjem/A Doll's House is now part of the curriculum in Norwegian for our tenth-graders at the school where I work and I myself have taught the play at least four times now. Unlike my high school teacher, who really just assigned us all the play to read with some accompanying work tasks (if I recall correctly), my colleagues and I read through the play act by act with the students, who take turns reading out the various parts, and we watch different dramatisations for the kids to compare and contrast. The last time I taught tenth grade, and again this time, we also showed them the first season of the Norwegian web series Skam as another comparison point, which they seemed to really like. I have no illusions that I'm instilling a great love of 19th Century realist literature in my pupils, but I'm hoping that some of them find their introduction and work with this play less off-putting than I did in school.

Suffice it to say, my opinion on this play has changed massively from my first reading of it (probably because I didn't really pay attention to it when it was one of many assigned texts). Ibsen himself claimed not to have set out to write a feminist rallying cry, but the drama remains relevant and extremely popular to this day (Ibsen remains one of the most dramatized playwrights worldwide, after Shakespeare). Nora's change from a sheltered, rather naive housewife to a woman determined to put herself first, sacrificing everything to discover who she really is, even knowing how difficult it will be is really impressive, especially given the time it was written. Torvald really is an absolutely insufferable misogynist (he's utterly odious and I had forgotten that not only does he speak to Nora appallingly, but he also mansplains why knitting is unfeminine to her friend Mrs Linde, as well), who is given several chances to redeem himself, and consistently fails at it. He sees Nora as a decorative object, a sweet plaything and constantly belittles and rebukes her if she tries to talk about anything non-frivolous. The only one who sees at least some parts of the true Nora is Doctor Rank, her husband's best friend, who would probably have made her a much better husband, had she met him first. Part of the tragedy of this play is that it's quite clear that Nora loves her idiot of a husband until his true character is finally revealed and it becomes impossible for her to lie to herself any longer. 

By the end of the play, having had it proven without a shadow of a doubt that her husband will never see her as anything but an air-headed object, Nora makes the choice to leave her family behind (it's not like she'd ever be granted custody of her children, anyway), because she cannot live the lie that she has discovered her marriage is. This was a hugely shocking finale at the time of the play's release, so much so that in Germany, Ibsen was forced to write an alternate ending, where Nora changes her mind and stays with Torvald, after all. It is rumoured that he originally considered this for the play in the first place until his wife exclaimed "Either Nora leaves, or I do." 

I cannot in good conscience rate this play any lower than 5 stars. It's a classic for a reason. I used to prefer Hedda Gabler, but the protagonist of that play is just so mean. Re-reading it yet again, I was also struck by what a massive undertaking it must be for any actress portraying Nora. In the three-act play, there is literally one short scene in the third act where Nora isn't present on stage and has most of the lines. No wonder it must be a gift of a part for an actress to play. 

Judging a book by its cover: My thin paperback copy of the play is a pleasing shade of purple, with a grumpy-looking cartoon Ibsen glowering from one side.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 10: "Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales" by Heather Fawcett

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Books Bingo 2025: A fantasy book by a female author

Buzzword Cover Challenge 2025: Contains books

Spoiler warning! This is book 3 in the series and not the best place to start reading. This book will contain spoilers for the previous books in the series. Start at the beginning, with Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries. 

Intrepid professor of dryadology (faerie scholar) Emily Wilde is facing her most challenging adventure yet - reclaiming the rather terrifying faerie kingdom of Silva Lupi, where her former academic rival, now impending husband, Wendell Bambleby (not his faerie name) is the rightful king. Emily loves Wendell, and doesn't regret her decision to marry him, but isn't entirely sure about becoming queen of a merciless and dangerous faerie realm. Nevertheless, the project offers up unique opportunities to further her research and writing, and Wendell has worked for so long to get back to his home. 

His wicked stepmother, who killed most of Wendell's family and stole the throne, has vanished. Emily successfully poisoned her towards the end of the previous book, but the lady isn't entirely dead yet, and has in addition managed to use her magical connection to the land to place a deadly curse on Silva Lupi, which keeps poisoning larger and larger areas. Emily's research suggests that the only way to break the curse is either to find and kill the former queen or for Wendell to sacrifice his life for the realm. Obviously, the latter option isn't very appealing to either of them. 

I'm not going to lie, I have been waiting for this book pretty much since I closed the covers to Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands, the previous book in the series. Our Emily has come such a long way since she was trying (and failing) to communicate with the sceptical villagers in Ljosland. Now she has a number of friends, family members and allies to assist her in her quest to free Wendell and his kingdom from the quest left by his stepmother. While she loves Wendell, seeing him fully embrace his faerie powers and the changes that brings takes some adjustments. She also struggles with the idea of herself as queen, a role she feels wholly unfit for. 

Did this book live up to my expectations? Not entirely, but after finishing the book, I see that my expectations of the story were unlikely to ever be satisfied. I had been hoping for more romance between Wendell and Emily, but the romantic subplot of these books has always been light, and I'm not sure why I didn't expect Wendell to be sidelined in the plot for much of the book, while Emily did what she's best at, researching and investigating folklore and faerie stories, and then of course, throwing herself into ridiculously dangerous situations to save the people she cares about. This was a very fitting and adventurous chapter in Emily's story, I shouldn't have suddenly expected the series to go down paths with more romance. Not to say there isn't romance here - some of Wendell's romantic gestures towards Emily are absolutely lovely (and show how very well he knows his grumpy intended). Emily, on her side, literally challenges death for his sake. 

As far as I'm aware, this is the third and final book in the Emily Wilde trilogy, and it's a very fitting end for Emily and Wendell. Fawcett nevertheless leaves the ending open-ended enough that she will be able to return to this imaginative world at some point in the future, should she choose to do so. 

Judging a book by its cover: Yet again, I think the UK cover is much prettier than the US one, although I wish it wasn't quite so pink. It also looks deceptively cute and quirky, considering how dark some of the themes explored in the book are. I'm not sure this cover entirely sells the story. Then again, I also hope people don't start a series with book 3, so even with the pastel pink cover, most readers know that Emily's adventures can go dark places. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 9: "In a Rush" by Kate Canterbary

Page count: 480 pages

Rating: 5 stars

This was an ARC sent to me by the author. My opinions are my own, and I loved the book so much that I pre-ordered a copy as soon as I'd finished reading it. 

 

Emmeline "Emme" Ahlborg catches her boyfriend, the man she was hoping was going to propose to her, in the act, sleeping with another woman (when Emme shows up on his doorstep with home-cooked food). She's devastated, and what's worse, he's a groomsman in the wedding of her best friend (to whom she's the maid of honour) so it's not like she's going to be able to avoid seeing him. Not one to cause trouble or mess with her friend's wedding plans, Emme swallows down her discomfort and hopes to find a suitable revenge date to bring to the wedding.

During a dinner with her best friend from high school, Ryan Ralston, now a hot shot professional quarterback, he listens in both horror and sympathy to her recounting the events of her break-up and makes an unusual suggestion. He reminds her of the pact they made back in high school, that if they were still single when they turned thirty, they would marry each other. Ryan just turned thirty, and Emme will be thirty in a few months. She needs a revenge date, he has an image problem and needs a wife to reassure society at large that he's a reliable and stable guy who's worth doing business with. He claims that their long friendship and history together will make the story believable, not just to the press and his business partners, but to her friends and family. What Ryan isn't telling Emme is that she's the only woman he'd ever consider marrying because he's loved her since high school, he just never had the guts to tell her. 

After some deliberation, Emme agrees to the plan, on the condition that Ryan helps find her stepsister/roommate an internship. They agree to fake date for a few months before actually marrying, to make the story more convincing. Emme has had a series of dreadful relationships and clearly isn't used to being taken care of or appreciated. Ryan, on the other hand, who finally sees his chance to win her heart (and has also listened to all her sob stories over the years) pulls out all the stops to pamper and spoil his "fake" girlfriend, at least as much as she'll let him. She refuses to move out of her cramped and ramshackle apartment and won't really accept all the gifts he tries to shower her with.

As is always the case with the fake dating/marriage of convenience trope, the lines between platonic and romantic fade gradually. In this case, the only one in Ryan's life who doesn't know that he's head over heels for her seems to be Emme herself, so one part of the couple is already hopelessly in love and just waiting for the other to reciprocate. 

I absolutely loved this book. It worked for me on every level. Emme is a great heroine who clearly deserves the world, and Ryan is just the man to give it to her. Her parents had an acrimonious divorce and both of her parents have had a series of unsuccessful relationships. Now Emme has a very supportive stepmother, but because of her mother's bitterness and vitriol, it's difficult for Emme to accept this woman's love and affection. She's estranged from her father and doesn't seem to ever have had a decent boyfriend. She works as a teacher (so of course I would love her), and is so loyal to her friends that she's willing to put up with the awkwardness of seeing her ex (and his new fiancee, the woman he cheated on her with) at a number of pre-wedding events. 

If Ryan has any flaws at all, it must be his refusal to confess his real feelings towards Emme. In every other respect, he seems to be perfect. He's a talented athlete, a good friend, a loving son and brother, and great with kids. He worships the ground Emme walks on, and wants to use all his wealth and resources to make her life better. 

This book features characters that apparently first appeared in In a Jam, and mentions characters and places from Shucked. If I'm brutally honest, this book could probably have been a bit shorter, but on the other hand, I am hard-pressed to see which bits should have been left out. This is only my third Canterbary novel ever, but I really like her writing style and am glad she has a big back catalogue I can choose from while I wait for her next book to come out. 

Judging a book by its cover: Not exactly the most exciting cover for this one. Also not entirely sure why it's showing what I'm assuming is part of a football field, since Ryan's career as a football player mostly takes place off-page, so to speak. 

Crossposted by Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 8: "Earl Crush" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Nowhere Books Bingo 25: Book about a road trip or travelling

Disclaimer! This was an ARC granted to me from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley. My opinions are my own. 

Lydia Hope-Wallace is a wallflower, and perfectly happy to remain so, because she has crippling social anxiety and tends to throw up if forced to interact too much with people outside her immediate family or friends. She's been secretly writing seditious pamphlets and publishing them anonymously for the past three years, and for almost as long, she has been corresponding with a man she believes to be the Earl of Strathrannnoch. When she discovers that Strathrannoch castle is pretty much falling down and the earldom has no funds to fix this with, she rather impulsively decides to go see her penpal and offer him a marriage of convenience. Lydia may be a wallflower, but she's also the second richest heiress on the marriage mart, and all those buckets of money that come with her hand in marriage should be enough to restore any mouldering old castle and struggling estate.

Unfortunately, when she arrives in Scotland, her pragmatic and sensible friend Georgiana in tow, she discovers that Arthur Baird, the Earl of Strathrannoch, has no idea who she is. It turns out that it's Arthur's younger brother who has been writing to Lydia for all these years, and he's currently gone missing, having stolen one of Arthur's inventions to boot. Arthur isn't entirely sure what to do with the beautiful flustered redhead on his doorstep, let alone why she might be proposing to marry him, but Lydia is his best chance at trying to track down his missing brother, who might be wanting to use Arthur's invention (a telescopic rifle sight) for nefarious means. So while she's initially mortified and tries to run away, he's able to persuade her to help him locate his brother. 

What follows is a road trip romp, involving zebras, awkward house parties, Arthur and Lydia having to pretend to be married, lying to family friends, and lying to Lydia's brother, who suddenly shows up in Scotland under an assumed name, possibly treasonous French people, spies, a possible plot against the Duke of Wellington and more. There is a whole lot of travelling from Scotland to London or from London to Scotland at speeds that seem implausible to me, and the rigours of travel mostly being ignored in service of the light-hearted plot. 

Arthur is convinced Lydia is in love with his brother (she's not, she really did want to offer him a platonic marriage of convenience so he could use her money). Lydia is cripplingly shy and struggles in any social situation, and doesn't think anyone could ever want her. Both are madly attracted to the other, but it takes some time for them to realise this and act on their feelings. Once they do, there's a fair amount of smexy times, including outside in what seems to be rather a cold forest grove. There's a lot of pining and angst from both characters, even after they've actually started acting on their pants feelings, culminating in Arthur doing something truly stupid towards the end of the book (it's OK, he grovels and makes it all better after a while). 

As well as the reappearance of characters the reader may have met in Ne'er Duke Well (Selina and her husband, as well as Georgiana), there is a rather large supporting cast, including the lovely retainers at Arthur's castle, who keep conspiring to make sure he and Lydia end up together, Lydia's four older brothers and even her rather meddlesome mother are all a lot of fun. This was an entertaining book, but there seemed to be too many shenanigans and a bit too much "he/she couldn't possibly love ME" for it to be one that I see myself revisiting for comfort rereads. I'm very excited for the third book in the series, though, where Georgiana finally meets her (sapphic) match. That's not out until September, sadly.

Judging a book by its cover: I like that while the cover for Ne'er Duke Well was mostly in blue and green, here there is a lot of violet and purple to complement the green. What I don't like is how tiny the guy in the carriage is. Arthur is described as a big hulking giant of a man so many times throughout the book, this guy looks perfectly normal-sized. Disappointing. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 7: "Ne'er Duke Well" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 354 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: Recommended by a friend (see, Des, I finally read it!)

Buzzwords 2025 Cover Challenge: Foliage

Peter Kent has lived most of his life in America, and certainly never expected to inherit a dukedom. Now he's the Duke of Stanhope and desperately trying to be granted custody of his younger half-siblings, both of whom treat him with disdain and claim they are perfectly happy living with their decrepit guardian. It doesn't help his case that Peter's inexperience with English high society keeps inadvertently landing him in scandalous situations. He needs help to rehabilitate his reputation and turns to the cleverest woman he knows.

Lady Selina Ravenscroft has an impeccable pedigree and a flawless reputation because no one knows that she organises and runs a circulating library of erotic literature for women. The way to clean up Peter's somewhat shaky image would be for him to court and preferably marry a thoroughly respectable woman, preferably before the court hearing about the custody of his siblings. Selina quickly makes a list of three perfectly suitable young women and tries to coach Peter on how best to court them. Unfortunately, the only woman Peter feels any sort of interest in is Selina, and the more time they spend together, trying to make him fall for another woman, the more certain he becomes that the only woman he wants to marry is her. 

My friend Desdemona has been nagging me to read Alexandra Vasti for absolutely ages, since long before this novel was even published. I did take her advice and read the first of Vasti's Halifax Hellions novellas last year and enjoyed it, but then got distracted by something else shiny on my ever-expanding TBR list, and I never got around to reading any more. When I was granted an ARC of Vasti's second novel through NetGalley (so exciting!), it seemed natural to read this one first. As far as I understand, that novel's heroine is Selina's best friend Lydia (also the name of my best friend!), who here features as one of Peter's potential brides-to-be. Unfortunately, Lydia has crippling social anxiety, frequently vomits in potted plants at balls, and can't seem to manage to speak to anyone outside her immediate family and friends - so doesn't really respond too well to Peter's advances. Plus, it's obvious to her and everyone who sees them together that Peter is mad for Selina, and he doesn't have eyes for anyone else when she's nearby.

There were several scenes in this book that felt a bit farcical, but I enjoyed the chemistry and banter between Peter and Selina enough to overlook a lot of it. Peter's half-siblings are given enough characterisation to not just be plot moppets, and his determination to become their guardian and give them safe and happy lives is explained once the reader is given insight into his past and the half-sibling he lost while growing up in America. I love a nursing back-to-health scene in a romance, but not really involving potentially dying children - that's just a bummer all-round. 

The supporting cast, featuring Selina's family members (her twin brother Will only appears in letters they exchange - he's off being a soldier, mourning his dead wife and child), and her various friends who she tries to set Peter up with, are mostly a delight. I would not be surprised to see all of them in future novels of Vasti's, finding their own HEAs. I also liked that there was no actual villain in this story. The baron who is set to judge the court hearing is portrayed as stern and concerned with traditional values, but he clearly adores his wife and seems somewhat concerned that Peter may not be up for the task of raising headstrong children (which, considering his townhouse barely has furniture when Selina first moves in(!) is a fair thing to be concerned about. 

This was a fun little romance, and a heroine who takes it upon herself to educate the women of the ton in matters of sexuality, to ensure that they're not woefully unprepared for married life is impossible not to admire. 

Judging a book by its cover: If there have to be animated covers (and what romance doesn't have those these days?), at least it's nice to see one that tries to depict something close to a scene that actually appears in the novel. Not that the character supposed to be Selina looks like she just took a swim in a river. So points deducted for that. I do like all the blues and greens on the cover - they please the eye.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR17 Book 6: "My Inconvenient Duke" by Loretta Chase

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: A book that takes place entirely outside the US

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. My views are my own. 

Spoiler warning! Because some of the issues I have with this book can't really be addressed without me spoiling some parts of the plot, skip the parts of the review I've marked with spoiler tags until you've actually finished the book.

While this is the third book in the series, most of the action takes place before the events in A Duke in Shining Armor and Ten Things I Hate About the Duke. You don't need to have read either of the two other books to enjoy this one, in fact, I would say you might enjoy this one more without prior knowledge of those stories. 

Lady Alice Ancaster has known Giles Lyon, the eighth Duke of Blackwood, since long before he was a duke. They first met when she was eleven and he was thirteen, and he was one of her brother's best friends and partners in crime. By the time she was seventeen and he was nineteen, there was a clear infatuation between them, and they shared one very memorable kiss. Knowing that Alice deserved someone better, and fully aware that he wasn't ready to give up his wild and reckless ways with his two bosom buddies, Blackwood chose to leave it with that one kiss and studiously avoided Alice thereafter. 

Eight years later, their drunken antics take an almost fatal turn, after they play with a loaded pistol and the duke of Ripley, Alice's brother only barely escapes a shot to the head. Alice is furious with Blackwood for letting things go so far (of the three Dis-graces, he is reckoned as the most sensible one). She declares that she hates him, and only a few days later, she sets off to London determined to find a husband. The idiotic stunt proves to Alice just how likely is that her brother will die unfortunately young and their loathsome cousin, Lord Worbury will inherit both the title and the estate. Worbory hates Alice because she and her best friend Cassandra beat him up for torturing a kitten when they were younger, and he hates Ripley and his friends for looking on. Worbury is already living beyond his means, promising his creditors money once he becomes the next Duke of Ripley.

Alice's aunt, Lady Julia, orders Ripley, Blackwood and Ashmont to stay far away from London while Alice tries to find a suitable husband. While Alice has lived a perfectly respectable life, the presence of her dissolute brother and his best friends will make it more difficult for her. Ripley and Ashmont dutifully agree, but Blackwood is unhappy with the idea of leaving Alice alone in London with Worbury still lurking about, so he stays behind to sort out some financial affairs (or so he claims).

Of course, after a series of chaotic events, involving the odious Worbury, a scruffy street urchin in need (whom readers will recognise from the previous two books in the series, not to mention in a slightly cleaner guise in The Dressmakers series), dealings with the criminal underworld, and then Ripley's sudden and unexplained disappearance, Blackwood and Alice have spent so much time travelling about unchaperoned with one another that Alice is likely to be at the centre of a terrible scandal, unless she and Blackwood marry. So they decide to do so (it doesn't hurt that deep down they have loved each other for over a decade) and for a blissful six months, their marriage seems like it will always be harmonious. That is, until the Duke of Ashmont gets himself into even more trouble than usual, and Blackwood has to go off to save him from himself. 

SPOILERS START HERE:

For two books now, Loretta Chase has been dropping hints about the marriage of Lady Alice Ancaster and the Duke of Blackwood, a union which so shocked polite society. In A Duke in Shining Armor, they appear to be estranged, but having gone back and looked at all the mentions of Alice, some of those hints may have been a bit misleading. Having also gone back and looked at Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, I don't understand why Cassandra, Alice's very best friend in the whole world, a person she refers to as a sister not in blood, wouldn't know the truth about Alice and Blackwood's marriage. Alice and Cassandra correspond regularly, and I don't understand why Alice wouldn't have told her friend that she and Blackwood had to spend more time apart because Ashmont was so out of control he had to have someone sensible accompanying him. Everyone who knew the three dukes would have understood why such a thing would be necessary. That most of society didn't know the truth about the Duke and Duchess of Blackwood's supposed estrangement doesn't seem strange at all, but why would Alice have kept the truth about her actually really happy marriage from her friend?

Obviously, it's because Chase wrote this book last, and can't really go back and rewrite her previous book for the details to fit in better. It is just frustrating that after two books setting up the strange and sudden marriage of Alice and Blackwood, and then their estrangement and supposed enmity, it turns out that nope, there's nothing. It feels deeply anti-climactic to have waited since 2017(!) to find out the truth about Alice and Blackwood, only to discover that their marriage was fine. They married because they loved each other, somewhat suddenly to avoid a scandal, and got along splendidly, with the exception of a few rows, where they realised their mistake and apologised to one another before it could ever become a big deal. I shouldn't be disappointed in a book because there isn't enough drama, and two very enjoyable characters have a happy marriage. But I was led to believe that there would be drama - and now I feel short-changed. 

END SPOILERS

The release of a new Loretta Chase book is always a treat, and it's difficult to describe my delight when I was granted a NetGalley ARC for this back in November. Obviously, I read the book almost instantly and had to re-read it now to remind myself of the plot details before I wrote my review.

Loretta Chase has written some absolute classics, including Lord of Scoundrels, which is 30 years old this year. It's a book I have read multiple times, but never actually reviewed (must absolutely rectify that later this year). I happen to think two other books in the series are better, and I've re-read them more often, but that does not take away from the fact that it's a great book, with a stupendous heroine. Chase has also written a lot of books that are fine when you read them, but a bit more forgettable once you put them down. This, sadly, is one of the latter ones. There's nothing wrong with it, as such, but having first read it right after my re-read of Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, which is a full five-star read and so very perfect, this paled in comparison. There's the issue that I mentioned in my spoiler section, and there's the fact that Alice and Blackwood running around after a street urchin seems to take up far too much of the plot, both in the first and last quarter of the book. 

It should be noted, that Loretta Chase is a queen of the romance genre for a reason, and even a not-perfect book by her is worth your time. Some of the things that annoy me about this book won't matter at all if this is the first book in the series you read. While writing this review and finding books to link to, I also discovered that there's a short story, featuring Lord Lovedon (who is Alice's main suitor in this, before it becomes obvious to everyone, including her, that Blackwood is the only man she could possibly be happy with). So now I've got more Loretta Chase to read. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover differs from the other two in the series, in that on those books, there is a woman seen from the back, apparently running away or towards something. Here, the woman on the cover, who I guess is supposed to be Alice, is happily wandering about the garden, wearing a dress looking nothing like 1830s fashion (which to be fair, was awful, so well done cover designers). She's probably a lot happier, dreamily drifting along since her marriage came about in a much less dramatic way than that of Olivia Hightower or her best friend Cassandra. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 5: "Stargate - en julefortelling" (Brightly Shining) by Ingvild H. Rishøi

Page count: 144 pages

Audiobook length: 2 hrs 38 mins

Rating: 3 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: Local author (the story takes place about 15 minutes from where I work)

It is impossible for me to review this book without spoiling parts of it, so if you don't want to know how it ends, and why I can't rate this book higher, skip the paragraphs I've highlighted. 

Ten-year-old Ronja and her sixteen-year-old sister Melissa are used to disappointments, living alone with a father who only occasionally sobers up long enough to hold down a job for a month or two. They're used to pretending they've forgotten their food at home and taking care of themselves. Close to Christmas, it looks like this year, their luck may change when their dad gets a job selling Christmas trees. Sadly, it doesn't take long before he returns to the local pubs and Melissa takes the job instead (at much less pay, of course). Since Ronja ends up spending her afternoons near her sister, she's soon recruited to look pitiful and round up customers for Christmas wreaths and decorative pine branches, for an added share of the profits. While the owner of the stand seems ok with turning a blind eye to Melissa's being barely old enough to work, he's not going to risk his business by outright using child labour, so every time he comes around for an inspection, Ronja has to make herself scarce.

SPOILERS START HERE:

Ingvild H. Rishøi wrote this Christmas novella back in 2021, and while it sold well, it didn't become an instant sell-out until it was translated into English. After singer Dua Lipa raved about it in her Instagram stories and said she'd be buying it as a Christmas present for several loved ones, and then Oprah Winfrey included it among her best books of 2024. Since the Norwegian press wrote enthusiastically about this (as they do about any Norwegian thing that becomes popular internationally), suddenly bookshops all over Norway kept selling out their copies, and the book needed to be reprinted more than once.View Spoiler » Having now listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author herself, I can see why it's become very popular. I was mentally bracing myself for the book because I have a hard time reading about alcoholic parents (my own father having been one until I was ten - now he hasn't drunk a drop for 35 years), and if I'd been paying attention more closely, the multiple mentions of H.C. Andersen's The Little Match Girl throughout should have given me an idea of what to expect. I read for escapism, and to feel good, and am in no way a fan of books with sad and tear-jerking endings. I keep seeing the plot of this book described as poignant and heart-warming, and I don't see what's heart-warming about dead kids. 

Yes, it's lovely when for a brief while, the girls appear to be making enough money to possibly have a proper Christmas (even though Melissa has to work something like 10 hours a day, pretty much every second she's not in school). It's nice that their elderly neighbour comes to support Ronja during her school's Christmas concert and pretends to be her grandfather so the mean girls can't snipe at her. But just before Christmas, everything starts going horribly wrong. Their almost constantly drunk dad has dragged his drinking buddies home with him, Ronja is badly sick with a fever, the supportive neighbour is away, and the owner of the Christmas tree stand has discovered that Melissa and the other employee have been making money on the side, so fires them without paying them a dime. The writer doesn't straight-out say that the girls die while curled up under a Christmas tree in a massive winter storm, but them waking up in a magical forest just a short, idyllic walk from the cabin they've kept dreaming about throughout the story certainly seems like some "reunited with grandmother" bullshit while the little Match Girl freezes to death on a Danish street corner.

SPOILERS END HERE

I'm very glad that something from Norway that isn't dark and grisly crime fiction is becoming a publishing success and wish the author nothing but good luck, but this story was not for me. They've apparently turned it into a movie, being released at the end of October this year (just in time for people to be depressed while going to the cinema too), so I have no doubt the book will keep selling. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover of the edition my co-worker lent me was just a plain red book with title and author name in gold, accompanied by a Christmas tree topped by a star. The English version seems to feature a snow-covered tree in a winter landscape, which doesn't exactly convey the tone of the story. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR17 Book 4: "Kvit Norsk Mann" (White Norwegian Man) by Brynjulf Jung Tjønn

Page count: 93 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Bingo 2025: A poetry collection

The author of this poetry collection was adopted from South Korea by a childless Norwegian couple when he was three years old. Throughout this rather short, but very impactful poetry collection, he writes about his constant feeling of exclusion and lack of belonging. As a child of Asian descent in a small western Norwegian village surrounded by white people, he obviously stood out among the other children. Adopted by farmers to take over their farm when they grew old, he turned out to be entirely unfit for the task, with his grass allergy, lactose intolerance and breaking out into a rash every time he touched the wool of the sheep on the farm. Many of the poems deal with his feelings of inadequacy because he was brought to Norway from the other side of the world, named for his grandfather and unable to continue the long family tradition of farming. 

Even as an adult, he never really feels like he fits in, as despite him growing up in Norway, people keep asking him "Where are you really from?", confusing his identity with other Asian people, side-eyeing his relationship with his white girlfriend (then wife). He writes absolutely heart-breaking poems referencing three young Norwegians with a non-white background (two of them adopted like him) who died in racially motivated killings. He doesn't feel like he properly fits in in Norway, but has no actual connection to Korea either. 

Back in 2021, I read a short essay collection by a woman whose mother is Norwegian and whose father is Gambian. While reading these poems, I kept being reminded of the short and brutally honest ways in which Lundestad Joof shared the difficulties she keeps facing as a biracial woman in Norway. Both authors explore the difficulties of being non-white in an almost overwhelmingly white country, which for all its progressive views, excellent social benefits and efforts towards inclusivity, still has a long way to go before the majority of the population gets over its often very unintentional racism. 

Since I'm currently teaching 10th graders, I am absolutely going to have them compare and contrast some of these texts, hopefully giving them more perspectives on contemporary life for a lot of minorities in Norway. If I'm lucky, some of them might even come up with some clever stuff to impress whomever is grading their final exams in a few months. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is very stark and simple, with a black background and only the title of the book and the name of the author featured. In class, the students had to discuss the colour choices here: the title "Kvit Norsk Mann" is in yellow - the colour the author describes himself as in several of the poems, while the name of the author is in white - the colour the author claims he always aspired to be growing up. I doubt these colour choices are coincidental. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 3: "Bookshops & Bonedust" by Travis Baldree

Page count: 356 pages

Audiobook length: 8 hrs, 1 min

Rating: 3.5 stars

Buzzwords 2025 Title Challenge: Contains punctuation

Twenty years before the events in Legends & Lattes, Viv is a young and relatively inexperienced mercenary, who gets badly injured fighting undead monsters while hunting for a powerful necromancer. Her mercenary band leave her in the quiet and mostly empty seaside town of Murk to heal up and recuperate. She worries that the group are going to leave her there, but thankfully, to take her mind off her fears, she encounters the local bookshop owner, who manages to persuade her (Viv has never exactly been a big reader) to buy a book, which she is surprised that she can barely put down. 

Soon a beautiful friendship is born. Viv spends most of her days hanging out in Fern the Ratkin's rather run-down store, trying to help her come up with ways to make the place a bit less dilapidated and more inviting to customers. Fern keeps giving Viv new books, and after having eagerly completed a few, Viv stops trying to pretend that reading isn't for her. There are some added complications involving a fierce gnome fishing for an invitation to Rackham, Viv's employer; a suspicious city guard captain, and the discovery of the corpse of the sinister fellow who Viv got into a very public fight with after he was rude to Fern's pet. 

Viv also befriends the local bakery owner, a cheerful dwarf who keeps bribing Viv with delicious baked goods. They develop the chastest of romances, which basically amounts to them talking walks, feeding the fish and holding hands occasionally. Both know that Viv isn't going to be staying in Murk for very long, so their flirtation has a definite end date. 

While Viv is worried that her time in Murk is going to be too uneventful and boring, some strange artefacts left behind by the dead fellow on the beach, turn out to be rather exciting and may have links to the necromancer that Viv's mercenary band were hunting. 

This was the December pick for my IRL book club, and we met in early January to discuss it. While most people liked it, a few people disliked it because they felt it was just too bland and uneventful to really hold their attention. Most of the readers agreed that the book was not without its flaws, but you don't read a book like this when you want to be overly critical and therefore they weren't too bothered. This, like Legends & Lattes is like candy for your brain, and the occasional plot inconsistency or lack of consistent world-building shouldn't distract from the silly cosiness of the read. The majority of us were in agreement that we liked Legends & Lattes more, and a few of the flaws with this book came from the fact that it was a prequel and therefore hampered by a few things already established in Baldree's first book. 

One of the readers pointed out that the way the book depicts what a great experience reading can be, and the way it opens Viv's eyes to adventures and new perspectives through reading is very pedagogical, and that a book where so much of the plot centres around books, how great hanging out in a bookshop, and reading can be, it will hopefully get more reluctant readers to try more books. Which can only be a good thing. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover of my paperback copy of this is in the same style as that of the first book, with more seaside elements and the mysterious book Viv finds very much the focal point. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.