Reading Update: 50%

“There’s four things a real man has to be able to do for a woman.” 

“Exactly how many man-lists do you have?” 

He let my wrist go and ticked the items off on his fingers. “Fix her car. Grill her a steak. Kick the ass of any guy who makes her cry. And fuck her so hard she wakes up half-crippled.”

I started the After Hours Buddy Read over on GoodReads and, well, I've read half the book already. McKenna can pull me in like no other. 

Review: Morning Glory

Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

WANTED—A HUSBAND. Need Healthy man of any age willing to work spread and share the place. See E. Dinsmore, top of Rock Creek Road

April's TBRChallenge theme was No Place Like Home, so I chose Morning Glory, a book on my tbr for decades. A drifter who's never had a home but works hard to make one with a widow, sounded like a perfect fit to the theme. The first half of this, I raced through. There's a prologue of a young mother bringing her baby home and her parents locking her up in the house because they're ashamed of her “sin”, it's 1917 and unwed mother's are not looked upon kindly. The story then quickly jumps to 1941 and to a drifter named Will about to be fired from a sawmill because it's found out that he served five years in prison for murdering a woman. I had to pause to imagine one of those graphics with arrows pointing at the book listing tropes, “Murderer!” “Shut-in recluse!”. 

Will Parker's eyes were drawn to her stomach as she rested a hand on it. He thought about how maybe there was more than one kind of prison. 

Will starving and having no money, decides that he will check out the widower at the edge town “Crazy Elly” and her newspaper ad asking for a husband. When I tell you, the pain of these two, gah. Will's constantly thinking, please let me stay, knowing he looks like a half-starved vagabond, who Elly knows, because he told her, that he served jail time for killing a woman but drawn to something warm in Elly's aura. The house and property are run down but Elly and her two small boys seem happy and for someone who was abandoned as a baby and on his own his whole life, Will can't help but want to be welcomed into that magic, even if Elly is pregnant with a third child. Elly for her part knows she needs help and is constantly thinking, please stay, even though she knows she's not pretty, has children and pregnant, run down farm, and is called “Crazy Elly” because of her past. They're both yearning for what the other can give and I honestly felt like a voyeur reading their relationship this first half as they slowly grew to trust one another. 

She was a good mother, a fine woman who'd been locked in a house and called crazy, and if he didn't tell her she wasn't, who would? 

The first half also gives a pov from a woman in town called Lula, who is said to run “hot” and wants Will but he rebuffs her because he knows those kind of women can lead to trouble because of his past. Readers do learn about the murder he went to jail for and it's, probably of course, nothing that makes him nonredeemable. Lula is that classic “other woman” villain that makes you uncomfortable reading because she's backed by a whole lot of slut-shaming, but it's, pretty obvious, why she's included and while she disappears for the majority of the middle of the story, her set-up comes into play for the last half. There's also a Miss Beasley, librarian, that was a great character (Mentally, I've given her a novella HEA with the lawyer) but, geez, yeah for women with facial hair being talked about but did the hair on her upper lip have to be mentioned, SO MANY times? Like, damn, give the gal a break. Anyway, by midpoint, Will and Elly have decided to marry and they have grown to the I love yous. I can say, even if it didn't feel over-the-top passionate (which can be considered better by some romance readers) I did believe they loved each other. Elly growing up locked up in her home, constantly being told she's a sin, until the law forced her grandparents (side question: I thought it was going to be directly said but am I the only one who thought her grandfather raped her mother and that was what was with the “drawn shades” business?) to let her go to school, but she was considered “crazy” because of her lack of socialization, and only getting befriended by her first husband (he died a'la Bridgerton, bee stings) had never really had a man care for her the way Will did, or turn her on. Will was never cared for either and had no one to care for, so when they meet, it's a pretty simple scenario of two people deserving love and finding the person that connects with them to give it. It felt real their feelings and why I said it gave a voyeuristic feeling for me. 

She smiled into the bluebird's painted eye, her own shining with delight. "A bluebird...imagine that." She pressed it to her heart and beamed at Will. "How did you know I like birds?" 

He knew. He knew. 

The second half is where things really slowed down for me. Pearl Harbor gets bombed and Will gets drafted. There's a couple chapters of letter writing between Will, Elly, and Miss Beasley and then a really great scene where Elly has to rush to see Will before he gets shipped to the Pacific. She's had the baby by now (the birth scene was something else with Will playing doctor) and while they managed to have sex once before he left for boot camp, these two are ramped up. I love how the author described their attraction, from how Will was sitting in the chair and Elly eyeing him up and Elly breastfeeding with Will seeing her exposed boob, could definitely feel the tension in the air. Will gets injured and he's eventually sent home after being medically discharged because of shrapnel in his leg. The townspeople view him differently and he gets the respect he's craved but he's also suffering from PTSD and that delivers some strain between him and Elly until he eventually opens up to her. We're at around 80% when Lula comes back into the picture and Will's suddenly arrested for her murder. The ending was the court case and Elly trying to help prove him innocent until the last 5% gives us the HEA. 

He wanted to take her close, cradle her head and rub her shoulder and say. "Tell me...tell me what it is that hurts so bad, then we'll work at getting you over it." 

The first half, a slower moving but pulling you in with these two and their hurts and pains, learning to come together but the second half was a slower moving left me kind of disinterested ending. I read this in almost one shot and kind of glad I did, because even though slower moving usually calls for savoring, pacing out, I feel like this would be one that would be hard to pick up again, so my two cents of advice. These two will linger with me because of how real they felt but I'm not sure I could recommended, maybe just the first half and that meet-up in Augusta. Hope springs eternal for a Donald Wade, Thomas, and Lizzy P. spin-off series! (Elly's kids) 

Guess what I'm watching tonight? (Hint: check out what's on Tubi)

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

Monday calls for a jazz up, so Firecracker Chicken dipping and a road romance! 

Logan and Rosemary were childhood bestfriends, but an incident in the summer before high school turned them bitter rivals. 

Which makes being teachers in their thirties at their hometown high school awkward. 

But when a former English teacher they both loved, only has a few months to live, they're forced together for a cross-country trip. 

I have a feeling this is going to be emotional, old hurts and buried deep feelings, all while forced proximity makes them deal with these issues. 

Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun purchase link

Firecracker Chicken Wraps recipe

Review: Orphia And Eurydicius

Orphia And Eurydicius by Elyse John
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

Snuffing out the voices of women. It was how they set up the game so that we would lose, even as we convinced ourselves that it was our fault. If we could shout for help, then we might take the hands of our sisters, swim ashore, and manage to win. 

Orphia and Eurydicius was a gender swapped Orpheus and Eurydice myth reimagining that had Orphia battling her father Apollo, men (gods and human), and systematic sexism. The beginning shows us an early twenties Orphia as she was taken by her father and placed on the Whispering Isles to learn combat and battle the men. This has lead to Orphia being looked at with some sneer in regards to, what is perceived in their society, as a more man like build, features, and mannerisms. Told she won't be able to leave until she beats the Prince, Orphia does have one friend Jason, who then introduces her to Eurydicius, a shield maker. 

What I was looking, I realised, was a man who appreciated my manner. The desire in his eyes mangled with awe and something surprisingly soft. 

Respect. That was the word. 

It's instant attraction between the two and he gives Orphia some confidence to explore her wanting to burst free poetry side. Even though it's one of her father's powers, Apollo has forbid Orphia to take up the lyre, so when she does, she understands the danger but can't contain that part of herself any longer. Apollo, of course, finds out and it's godly anger, he whisks Orphia away to Mt. Olympus and destroys the Isle, leaving Orphia to think Jason and Eurydicius are dead. With a new setting of Mt. Olympus, numerous gods and goddesses come into scene and it becomes apparent that the goddesses also live in a sexist world, their stories, only told by men, are skewed and told through a lens of sexism. Orphia learns her mother is Calliope, Chief of the Muses and Orphia was not given up by her but taken. With some help from Hera, Orphia gets her wish to tell poetry and goes to live with the Muses. 

The thrill of expressing myself had driven me into fresh imaginings, until I could not see the risk I took. 

The middle of the story was a lot of Orphia spending time with different Muses and learning from them, always discussing how sexism comes into play. It's then learned that Jason and Eurydicius did not die on the Isle and we get some romance interludes, focuses on how Eurydicius likes to be lead by Orphia, exploring the general societal gender swapping, which eventually leads to them quietly and hurriedly married. While the story was mostly focusing on Orphia and introducing other characters through her journey, the second half begins with Orphia being betrayed into going with Jason on his quest (Argo, Golden Fleece) and separating from Eurydicius. I thought some of this veered a little bit too much into “see how much mythology research I did” and it felt less like Orphia's story. 

I wanted to tell stories of men who were soft when they were supposed to be hard; of women who were loud when they were supposed to be docile; of people of every nature who felt scarcely visible, and wished to make themselves whole through my stories. 

The ending brought us back to more of the love story and we get Orphia trying to rescue Eurydicius from the Underwold, the Underworld providing some good atmospheric setting. The vast majority of this followed the traditionally known myths, some events mixed around here and there but all told through a focus on sexism. A gender swapping adds some new angles and layers to this myth and if you're interested in some goddesses getting their due, some righteous anger, and challenging of sexist norms, then this could be a new one to pick up.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

It's a snow day Monday for me! Obviously, calls for soup and a book. 

Historical fiction, Greek mythology to start the week off.  

Orphia's a warrior who dreams of poetry and when a chance meeting with Eurydicius, a shield maker, gives her the courage to defy her father, it changes the course of history. 

Argonauts on quests, angry Gods, dragons, and fighting for love. I love a retelling, reimagining of an adventure tale! 

Orphia and Eurydicius by Elyse John preorder (April 2nd) link

Tomato Orzo Soup with Turkey Meatballs recipe

Review: The Emperor and the Endless Palace

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

No, the question is not whether fox spirits exist. The question is: If one comes for you, can you resist it? 

The Emperor and the Endless Palace was a drug and sex fueled Cloud Atlas like story woven from Chinese fables, mythology, and historical fiction. Following three timelines from individual point-of-views, Dong Xian 4 BCE, He Shican 1740, and River Present day, the reader is taken on a reincarnation journey as three souls are forever intertwined. 

“To put it as simply as possible, our souls are caught in an endless loop. No matter how many lifetimes we endure, we will not be released from an ancient curse. And once upon a lifetime, I made a promise to you that I would break it.” 

As the reader travels in and out of each time period, commonalities are revealed and a picture of tangled love and a magical force working to interfere becomes apparent. What is not always so apparent is which reincarnated soul belongs to whom and who are the souls that truly belong together. There's some initial good vs. evil going on but I liked how as the story went on, it does murky up some of that conventional thinking and shows the battles of temptations and freedom of will playing their part. 

Dong Xian, this whole time you thought that you were playing the game, only to realize you are the game. 

Each timeline, whether it was Dong trying to strategize for power and influence in the Emperor's Palace against the Emperor's grandmother and cousin, He Shican trying to find where he fits in life and escaping his father's disappointment and unrequited from a doctor who took care of him, or River exploring his sexuality and living out for the first time, provided inner workings and deeper layers into these souls. I thought Dong Xian's timeline was the most thought out and worked the best, He Shican's was the most fantastical and River's looped and jumped around a bit too much creating a “does this all make sense?”. 

And I don’t know how else to describe a bittersweet feeling inside me— in this moment that I meet him, I realize I might be lonely for the rest of my life. 

His name is Joey. 

I would consider this at least straddling the erotic line, sex, and drugs, are constantly playing their part. I don't think I could say I felt the, modern conventional, love between the souls but the endlessly drawn to feeling came through. The writing created an easy pace, if not the story always being clear, and I flew through this. If looking for a reincarnation story that plays with temptations and freedom of will, the setting and influence of Chinese fantasy and historical fiction make this an interesting one to pickup.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

What a busy week! I'm looking forward to snuggling inside reading and eating as a snow storm hits this weekend. 

Following three different timelines, 4 BCE, 1740, and present day, two men are reborn, lifetime after lifetime. 

Twist and turns as their timelines are woven together with treachery and love. They're drawn together and constantly tested. 

How fascinating does this sound!?! I'm thinking of a kind of Cloud Atlas? Can't wait to dive in! 

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang preorder (March 26th) link

Lemon Pesto Pasta with Shrimp recipe

#TRBChallenge Review: Ice Planet Barbarians

Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

This months #TBRChallenge theme was Not in Kansas Anymore, Ice Planet Barbarians immediately came to my mind. The female main character in this is abducted by aliens and then crash lands on another alien planet and since this is erotic and she ends up going to town with an alien, it's a subgenre of romance that I don't frequently dabble in. The heroine and I, Not in Kansas Anymore! 

First off, just let me say this: 

Y'all. Wut. 

That off my chest... 

It wasn’t a monster come to eat me. It was this monster. Who’s come to eat me out. 

Georgie wakes up groggy and confused, only to find out that she has been abducted by aliens. She's on a space ship in a holding cell with other young women and talking with one named Liz, she learns they are all young, healthy, and women who don't have any close familial ties from earth. The women in the holding cell seem to be “extras” as there are other women unconscious in pods. 

Ok, I'm with you. 

Then when another woman wakes up, she starts screaming, causing the other women to try and quiet her down, they're scared. The abducting aliens come into the room and grab the screaming woman and proceed to rape her repeatedly in the room in front of the other women. It's a very early scene and incredibly cringe worthy as the tone of this scene of rape did not fit in with what turns out to be a romance – erotic story; the way the whole thing was treated created a wonky vibe for me. 

Georgie is an intrepid heroine, she sets a plan to get the aliens to come into the holding cell and then the women will attack and, I guess, try to take over the ship (??). The plan involves throwing the women's poop and pee bucket on the alien coming into the cell to stun it and then attack. The pee and poop gets thrown, covering Georige too, but as she's trying to battle the alien, the women abandon her in fear and don't help. Fortunately, the ship gets some problem with it at that moment and the aliens decide to ditch the prisoner pod and Georgie and the other women are now crash landed on an alien planet. 

A lot of the women survive the crash but they're weak, cold, and starting to starve. One of the women was tagged with an interpreter sort of device to her ear (convenient!) and she heard the aliens say they were dumping them but going to come back for them with another ship. So pee and poop (I'm going to keep bringing this up) covered Georgie is sort of volunteered and picked to leave the ship to search for help. The world is close enough to Earth that Georgie can breath the air but it's temp is extremely cold. Just when she thinks she's going to freeze to death, she gets caught in a snare and a ribbed for her pleasure alien comes to the rescue. 

We do get Vektal's pov, which I liked and helped to add to the humorous, winking at the reader that this is kind of ridiculous, tone of the story. On Vektal's planet, you need to accept a worm like thing into your body, or you'll die from the atmosphere and this worm like thing makes your eyes glow and picks out your soulmate for you (convenient!). It starts rattling/purring at the first sight of Georgie. So, naturally, Vektal begins eating out Georgie (who is covered in pee and poop) as she's still passed out from being in the snare. Georgie wakes up to what Vektal is doing to her and we get this line: “It’s ticklish and it makes me squirm and I should be screaming no, help, rape and instead, I have the giggles.” 

Ok, I'm not really with you anymore. 

Do you all see what I mean about cringing and wonky vibes in a winking humor, romance – erotic tone story delivering this line? 

Georige's intrepid and smart (and still covered in pee and poop) and decides that Vektal is her best bet. They have a language barrier but kind of communicate enough to get some things across. Vektal's driving need is to feed and take care of Georgie, who he sees as his soulmate, while Georgie is trying to just not anger him and get him to go back up the mountain to help rescue the other women. Georgie bathes off the pee and poop! (I'm sorry, but I could not forget this and it ruined any chance I had of getting into the story up to this point until it was dealt with) 

Vektal's dick is basically a Rabbit 7000 and after some sex, Georgie's starting to get attached to the big blue horned, tailed guy. A snow storm has them going to “The Cave of the Elders” which turns out to be a space ship that wrecked centuries ago and stranded Vektal's people on the plant. Georgie learns this because she some how activates the ship's computer who tells her all this and uploads Vektal's language to her brain so she can communicate with him (convenient!). 

When Georgie is now able to tell Vektal about the other women, he is ecstatic, his people are dying because lack of available females. However, Georgie makes him promise that the women will have a choice in accepting their “soulmates” or not and since Vektal is the chief of their group (convenient!), he agrees. They go to Vektal's home to pick up more guys and then go to rescue the women. 

At the crashed spaceship they deal with the abductor aliens coming back and then decide if they're going to stay on this planet, accept the worm like thing, or fly?? Vektal's cave of elders space ship back to Earth???? Staying, is obviously, the more convenient choice. The story leaves with someone else being a soulmate and ample women and big blue guys to eventually soulmate up for future books in the series. Vektal and Georgie's relationship is sort of there if you want sex and a little bit of friendship connection and the worldbuilding is sort of there if you want a couple paragraphs of alien lore. I would have rated this higher as a romance erotic story, it's quick and gets the job done but that rape scene and Georgie's thoughts, really jarred that feeling for me (not to mention the continued existence of Georgie covered in pee and poop).

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Review: Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty by Judith Ivory
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars 

This will always be the HE BROKE DOWN THE DAMN DOOR TO GET TO HER book to me. 

An older former courtesan/mistress and the up and coming scholar that refuses to go away, fall in love despite the challenges. 

Beginning has a vague vibe of screwball comedy, the middle has hot chemistry/building friendship, later second half has a villain trying to mess things up for them, and then the ending returns to some screwball comedy vibes to deliver the HEA. 

I buddy read this so for my thoughts and comments on it Sleeping Beauty buddy read This author always gets me talking, she's so good at depicting love in all it's highs and lows and never fails at the emotion. 

The pacing did feel off in the later second half but this is a rich story if you like the plot working to enrich the romance, which did make some moments feel a little slow. 

Read this solely for their first sex scene but stick around for all those little emotional moments that can hit you right in the heart. Then go to the buddy read and talk about it with me because I'll never tire of discussing this!

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Review: The Enemy at Home

The Enemy at Home by Kevin O'Brien
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

The Enemy at Home was a World War II story that took a popular historical fiction time period but placed readers in a nontypical place. The story centers Nora, a late thirties woman living in Seattle taking care of her teenager son, preteen daughter, and starting a job at a Boeing B-17 plant. Her husband is a doctor in the military and somewhere in Northern Africa and she has a brother in the Navy currently recovering from an injury in San Diego. The story divulges Nora's background through her povs, thinking about her mother's mental illness, having to be raised by her grandparents, and then feeling guilty for leaving her younger brother when she got married and moved away. Nora seems an average woman of her time, dealing with ration cards, racism from having to do with a Japanese-American couple she rented a garage apartment to, single mother, and sexism in the workplace. An new fear gets added when a serial killer seems to be attacking and killing woman plant workers. 

It was interesting to read a home front WWII story and the author did a good job of including all those specific big and small time period additives, especially Japanese-American interment camps. The first half was more about getting readers into Nora's life and introducing characters. There were povs from the victims of the serial killer, to bring in that ominous threat, when in the second half it becomes the main storyline. 

The author did a credible job of supplying redherrings to keep readers guessing and looking for clues, it doesn't become crystal clear who the serial killer is until the latter second half, even though you will have some guesses. Nora's strained relationship with her son is a big worry for her and I thought in favor of keeping this vibe, the character of the son was left too broadstrokes. Other secondary characters did their part with adding but not distracting to the world and story. The ending delivered a bit too perfect stars aligning to have things work out a certain way and took away from some of it's impact, a decrescendo of, well, life goes on. If you were looking for a homefront WWII, this would deliver on setting and atmosphere, with an added bonus of serial killer mystery plot.

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