Book 48: "Pride Comes Before a Fall" by Virginia Heath

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is on sale now.

Leopold "Leo" Sloane, the Duke of Debden, has dragged his two younger sisters to Bath in an attempt to keep them out of trouble. The youngest is crazy for any man in uniform, and the eldest snuck out of the house and got injured during a protest march. After saying some less-than-complimentary things to his mother about her ability to keep them in hand, she promptly goes on strike (good for her), returns to London and leaves Leo to handle them himself. Obviously, he cannot.

Portia Kendall discovered Mary Wollstonecraft's writing when she was sixteen, and has burned for reform and a better life for the downtrodden masses ever since. When she is given the job as assistant editor of Equitas, one of the foremost papers that champions reform, she rather impulsively quits her position as a governess in London to travel to Bath, only to discover that none of the people working for the paper actually get paid. They also have to keep their work secret, since the local constabulary and most of the magistrates consider their writing seditious and would like nothing more than to arrest everyone involved in running it. 

Portia despises the aristocracy, but she also needs a paying job, so when she sees the Duke of Debden is looking for a chaperone and social secretary for his sisters, she goes to the interview, but is kept waiting for so long that by the time it's her turn, she has given up any chance of actually getting the job, and is sharp and snarky and very honest during her conversation with the (far too handsome) duke, and is therefore shocked when he actually hires her. As it turns out, his younger sisters are both determined to give her hell, and she certainly earns her salary trying to keep them in line.

Once Portia discovers that Leo is one of the local magistrates, and that the constable most determined to bring Equitas down reports directly to him, she is tempted to resign her position. She can tell that for a nobleman, Leo is a lot more progressive than most of his peers, but he is very much at the top of the social class she is violently opposed to, which makes it all the more difficult that she finds herself increasingly more attracted to him, and her feelings seem to be reciprocated. 

This is the first novel I've read by Virginia Heath, but it's unlikely to be my last. There was a lot to like here, but also some things that annoyed me. 

Things I liked:

- Portia is a great heroine. She's intelligent, hard-working, principled and loyal to her cause, but also pragmatic enough to realise that you can't survive on political ideals alone. She is not deterred from her duties, even when Leo's sisters are being difficult little shrews.

- Portia writing essays to debate with herself on various things. 

- Leo's Mum is a delight. Good for her that she refused to stay and be criticised by her overly protective son.

- The dogs and cat were a fun addition.

- The plot took quite a few unexpected turns. 

Things I didn't like as much:

- Leo's extreme protectiveness and frankly unreasonable demands towards his female relatives and later, Portia. It's like Anthony Bridgerton in The Viscount Who Loved Me, but less charming (and Anthony behaves like a d*ck in a lot of that book, so that should tell you something). For a lot of the book, Leo is a total golden retriever, except when he's suddenly a very unreasonable, almost crazy dictator

- Leo's extreme dislike of his eldest sister's suitor, in particular

- While the goofy dogs and the psychotic cat were mostly a fun touch, they also contributed to some farcical elements that went a bit too far.

- Leo reading Portia's private writing.

- Much of the final bit, including the whole incident at Parliament. 

On the whole, this was an enjoyable read, and a blue-stocking heroine is always going to appeal to me. I may go back and read the previous two novels in the series next.

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.

CBR16 Book 36: "Leather & Lark" by Brynne Weaver

Page count: 400 pages

Audio book length: 12 hrs 15 mins

Rating: 3.5 stars

CBR16 Bingo: Bananas

Lark Montague and Lachlan Kane have an unfortunate first meeting, when Lark during Halloween has had an "accident" and needs a car and a body fished out of a lake. Lachlan is the man forced by his employer to come help her do this. Lachlan is in scuba gear, Lark is heavily made up in a Halloween costume. Lachlan chooses to force Lark into the car of his trunk to transport her unseen away from the incident site, not realising that Lark has intense claustrophobia. She breaks out of his trunk, and runs off. Lachlan's employer is NOT impressed, and any hopes Lachlan had of escaping his violent fixer jobs go up in smoke.

The two meet again when Lark's best friend Sloane and Lachlan's younger brother Rowan celebrate their engagement. They are initially very attracted to one another, but once Lark figures out exactly where she recognises Lachlan's voice from and confronts him about their previous encounter, any sexy time feelings they felt towards the other are as dead as one of Sloane and Rowan's serial killer victims. They try not to let their dislike show too much, as the people they care most about are about to get married, but the animosity between them is palpable.

Lark's dying aunt runs a very successful, but cut-throat cupcake empire. Apparently,  someone (they suspect a business rival) is killing off some of their associates. Lark's parents suspect Lachlan is the man doing the hits, and Lark hears them threatening not only to take out Lachlan as a defensive measure but both of his brothers as well. Lark will not let anything get in the way of Sloane's happiness, and when her aunt points out that her parents won't threaten anyone considered family, she hatches a plan. She and Lachlan will have to get married, and convince her parents that they are actually in love. 

Lark promises Lachlan that she will get him free of his capricious and demanding employer if he helps her figure out who is killing her family's business associates. As it turns out, the guilty party isn't a business rival at all, but someone who wants very bad things to happen to both Lachlan and Lark. 

While not as wonderfully compelling as Butcher & Blackbird, the first book in the Ruinous Love trilogy, Leather & Lark was still a fun read (and listen), and I feel it fits into the "Bananas" square on the CBR16 Bingo card, because there is a leather working crime fixer, a cute folk singer who happens to have a side hustle murdering sexual predators, drugged cupcakes, serial killers getting married, murder victims being turned into crafts project, you name it. There is a long list of content warnings at the start of the book, although there's a lot less squicky stuff with eyeballs in this one. 

Considering I was entirely unprepared for how much I adored the first book, this book was unlikely to live up to my expectations. It was still a fun read, but I found neither Lark, nor Lachlan as charming and interesting as Rowan or dorkily insecure as Sloane (loved their cameo appearances in this book, though). Lark's aunt was a lovely supporting character, however. I had no need to immediately re-read this one, and while I might not want to revisit it in the future, I'm still very much looking forward to the third book in the series, where we get Rose and Fhion's story. 

Judging a book by its cover: I possibly like the turquoise and black better than the hot pink and black of the previous book, but the various objects representing the protagonists are less fun. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 13: "Bride" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 410 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: One-word title

CBR16 Sweet Books: Exciting (This was one of my most anticipated book releases of the first half of 2024)

Misery Lark is the only daughter of a powerful vampyre councilman, and for much of her life, she lived among human strangers as a diplomatic hostage, to maintain the fragile peace between vampyres and humans. To make her a bit less lonely, an orphan named Serena came to live with her, and now that Misery is all grown-up, Serena is her only friend. She also has a twin brother, but since she's lived away from him for so long, they don't really know each other particularly well.

Misery is no longer a hostage, but Serena has gone missing and Misery is desperate to find her friend. When her father wants to use her to secure another alliance, this one a rather fragile one with the volatile werewolves, her first instinct is to say no. But then she discovers the name of the new werewolf Alpha, Lowe Moreland, and remembers a clue she found in Serena's apartment. Convinced that the werewolves must have something to do with her BFF's disappearance, Misery agrees to marry a complete stranger, a man she won't even meet until the wedding ceremony. 

Early in their marriage, Misery is convinced that Lowe is disgusted by her, and he tries to keep his distance from her as much as possible. It's difficult for her to snoop around and investigate since there are guards watching her at all times. A lot of the werewolves are suspicious and distrustful of Misery, but Lowe's little sister seems delighted by her and takes any opportunity to spend time with her (much to Misery's initial annoyance, she has no idea how to relate to a child, let alone a constantly chirpy one). 

While Misery is a very skilled hacker, she sucks at subterfuge and sneaking around. She also fails to account for her husband's excellent sense of smell - it's not really difficult for him to tell when she's been snooping in his quarters. She's forced to tell him why she agreed to the marriage, and while he's never even heard of Serena, he promises to help her search for her friend. Once they start working together, Misery and Lowe obviously have to spend a lot more time together, and once they do, Misery is about to discover that the reason her husband has been keeping her at a distance isn't because he hates her - rather the opposite.

By now, it should be clear to readers of my reviews that I am a big fan of Ali Hazelwood. I've read everything she's published, and when I found out she was doing a paranormal, I nearly lost it. I keep joking that I'd like her to switch things up and finally write a book with a short, shy, introverted hero. A novel featuring werewolves and vampires was never going to have that. Of course, Lowe is big and imposing, he's an alpha werewolf. However, Misery is at least not a petite waif with some sort of chronic condition, she's described as nearly six feet tall, which is a bit of a change from Hazelwood's normally pocket-sized heroines. 

I am vaguely aware that there is something out there called the Omegaverse, but I haven't really wanted to mess up my search history by actually looking up what it entails, and as far as I'm aware. I also don't read fan fiction (far too little time to read actual books, I don't have time to get distracted by fan fic), but I have read a fair amount of paranormal romance, many MANY of them which feature shapeshifters and were-creatures of some form or another. Even so, I have never come across the concept of 'knotting' before this book. It wasn't like I didn't understand from the sexual situations described in this book entailed, but I had to go on the interwebs and look up where the term originated, and this is the first book where I can say I've come across its use. Gotta say I'm not a fan. Apart from that, I really enjoyed this book, even with the fated mate stuff that's clearly happening (just because Misery doesn't understand what's going on, and keeps misunderstanding all the conversations involving Lowe's mate, doesn't mean that it's not pretty obvious from pretty much the wedding ceremony to anyone who's read any paranormal romance at all).

Hazelwood has in the past had some characters appear in more than one of her STEM romances, but so far she doesn't really seem to do sequels. However, now that she's written this paranormal, I'm desperate for her to write at least one more book set in this world, preferably two. It seems pretty obvious, from the final scene in this book, that Serena is likely to get her own novel. I want one for Owen, Misery's twin brother, as well though, as he's an intriguing character from what we get to see of him in this book. I want to see what romantic match Hazelwood has in mind for him. 

Judging a book by its cover: Compared to Hazelwood's previous novels, which all have bright almost candy-coloured covers with the lovers in fairly traditional embraces, this is very monochrome. The black, white, grey, and red colour scheme here is clearly yet another nod/wink to Twilight, however, and I for one think it's a fun one. Could it have had a more interesting image? Possibly, but I really like the wolf in the background with the glowing eyes. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 6: "Winter's Orbit" by Everina Maxwell

Page count: 496 pages

Audio book length: 15 hrs 24 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Bingo Card: A book that's been on my shelf for more than a year

Prince Kiem, a minor royal in the Iskat Empire is called before the Emperor and told in no uncertain terms that he will be getting married to secure a valuable political alliance. The Empire is about to renegotiate its treaty agreements with all the planets in its dominion, and the representatives all have to be married to be accepted (that bit wasn't entirely clear to me). So Kiem has to marry his cousin Taam's widower, a Thean called Jainan. Oh, and he has to do it the day after he is told.

So the outgoing and exuberant Kiem, who has quite a reputation as a playboy and for getting into scrapes finds himself married to Jainan, a reserved and extremely polite man, his exact opposite. Jainan has multiple degrees and is knowledgeable about engineering and advanced mining techniques, Kiem barely made it through school without getting expelled. Kiem assumes Jainan is still grieving his partner of five years, so tries to keep his distance. Jainan is certainly still affected by memories of his former partner and also assumes that a handsome, charming man like Kiem could never be attracted to someone as quiet and boring as him.

Both men are actually very attracted to the other but keep misunderstanding each other's signals and therefore growing further apart. To add to the complications, it turns out that their hastily arranged marriage might also have been for nothing, as the other-worldly arbitrators might not even accept them as representatives. It turns out that there is suspicion that Prince Taam was murdered, and Jainan is the main suspect. There's also a whole bunch of unique alien artifacts that have been replaced with convincing fakes, making the arbitrators furious. If Kiem and Jainan can't figure out whether Taam was actually murdered, and if so, by whom, as well as help the Empire locate the stolen artifacts, the whole Empirial alliance could be dissolved and war is likely to break out.

I mostly really liked this, and it's narrated very well by Raphael Corkhill, who does a really good job of giving the characters distinctive voices and accents. However, it also made it clear that extreme slow burn just isn't the trope for me. Reading about two characters who clearly care for each other and find one another attractive, but keep misunderstanding the other for a large part of the story just annoys me. Drawn-out mutual pining might work for some readers, but to me, it decreases my enjoyment of the story. That's not to say that very good in-story reasons are given for the miscommunications. Being thrust into a marriage of convenience to a stranger isn't necessarily going to make for lots of honest and open conversations right off the bat, and given Jainen's previous marriage, it's no wonder he's careful and has difficulties trusting Kiem at first. 

The world-building in this story is nicely done, even though I didn't entirely understand how the various political alliances worked. The titles are all non-gendered, from Emperor to Prince to Count and so forth, no matter what gender identity the individual has. There's also a whole system of wearing wood or glass or flint to indicate which gender every individual is, and in the Thean culture, it involves tying scarves in different ways. The author possibly overdoes the explanation with the gender markers, it's repeated quite a few times throughout the story. Trust your readers, lady.

This book is full of political intrigue, there's a murder mystery, and there were clearly suspicious things going on with the mining operation that Prince Taam was involved in (so they have to figure out what that was all about too). Throughout the story, there are near-death experiences, having to trek through the wilderness (there's only ONE tent), someone gets abducted by villains and having to be rescued by a band of rag-tag heroes, as well as the arranged marriage and opposites attract tropes as previously mentioned. So the book has a lot going on. For me, it would have been better if the pining had been resolved earlier in the proceedings, but to each their own. 

I already have the sequel to this, Ocean's Echo, on my bookshelf, but having really enjoyed the audio version of this, I may end up having to get it in audio at some point soon as well. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is fine but I think it's also a bit non-descript. It's obviously a sci-fi novel, with strange vistas and multiple heavenly bodies in the sky. I don't know if I'm projecting about the colours of the bisexual flag being used in the title, but considering that this is an unashamedly queer romance, I would be surprised if it wasn't intentional. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read