yourbookishbff's reviews
587 reviews

Something Extraordinary by Alexis Hall

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

How to even review this. I absolutely love the premise - gay MMC and bi/pan and aromantic FMC mutually abduct each other into marriage of convenience that becomes more. It is a stunning reminder of how many shapes a happily-ever-after can take, and it is the only romance I've ever read with an aromantic lead. The queer platonic partnership is honestly breathtaking! And the satire! I would argue that this is more regency satire than regency romance, and I'm a-ok with that, because it feels like both a love letter to historical romance and a middle finger to cis and heteronormative stories. 

But will anyone aside from the Hall superfans and ARC readers make it to the 50% mark?! This is 400+ pages and felt (to me) like it could have been 200 pages shorter. The inner monologue detours, the dialogue detours, the freaking DETOURS, I was pulling my hair out. I love Hall's humor but when it's overdone and repetitive it becomes tedious to read. I almost DNF'd multiple times in the first half, despite beautiful prose and moments of really compelling emotional insight because the story arc felt buried under zany asides. The second half had more emotional heft (and felt more linear?), but ultimately it still took several detours to revisit characters from previous books that I wasn't invested in (I read this as a stand-alone, and if the other two in this series feel as disjointed as this one, I will probably call it one and done on this series).

I'm so grateful characters like this have on-page HEAs, and I just wish this had felt more intentional all the way through.

Thank you to the publisher (Montlake) and Netgalley for a complimentary ARC. 
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How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

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dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Stunning writing and emotional insight - and a heck of a dark premise. This won't be for everyone, but fortunately, Kuang isn't using trauma as a flashy third act reveal and lays out exactly what we'll be facing for these characters in the prologue, so readers can determine pretty quickly if they're in or out on this set-up. I appreciated the darkly comedic reflections on grief and the depictions of PTSD, depression and panic attacks as a very human part of the fall-out from tragedy (I particularly appreciate how emphasized therapy is for both characters in a story where codependence is the biggest risk to their HEA). There was a beat in the third act that had me wary for a bit, but Kuang made it work in the end. I would recommend Kuang to historical romance readers (you can just TELL from her prose that she's one of us) with a heavy emphasis on the content warnings. 
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Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Rake meets starchy FMC while literally [redacted] another woman (ope) and by the end he's weeping during sex and explicitly pledging his lifelong love and fidelity. You could say I loved him.

Half star removed for Thomas and all the stress he caused me during POV changes. You could say I loathed him.

Hoyt is funny and over-the-top (but so self-aware that it hits just right) and I am now fully invested in this series.
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Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is so wildly different from the vast majority of England-set HR that it's hard to describe! Gritty and dark, set largely in London's poorest districts, with a large cast of beer brewers, gin sellers, brothel owners, orphans and aristocratic outcasts. It has a compelling (and grisly) murder mystery paced alongside a class-difference romance, and while the romance was ultimately *fine* for me (just not overly emotional/memorable for some reason), I loved seeing this world introduced and look forward to continuing the series. 
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A Gentleman's Position by KJ Charles

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challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Holy character development. Richard is the starchiest starch to starch on page for me in a LONG while, and I was set up in books 1 and 2 to really loathe the man (so, naturally, I was rabid for his book and an opportunity to see him fully leveled). This accomplished everything I needed to root for him, and once again, KJC exemplified how class difference is done and done well. Richard and his valet, David Cyprian, face internal and external obstacles in their steep power imbalance and class divide, and I loved seeing how they fumble through it together, tripping over really common and necessary conflicts. This is a HARD power gap to navigate and by the end, I felt confident in their happily ever after. This installment leaned less on the engagement with conservative vs radical politics, but it DID bring our broader series-long conflict to a stressy and satisfying conclusion. This is just such a well-rounded series - my new favorite by KJC.
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A Seditious Affair by KJ Charles

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

This series is quickly becoming my favorite by KJC. Each book is engaging in a political dialogue often avoided entirely in HR. Typically when we have a Tory MMC, like Dominic, the grand gesture *is* that person's political conversion, or the underlying assumption is that they aren't *actually* politically conservative, but bound by family expectation/the crown/etc. That is not what KJC is doing here. She's setting up an honest-to-goodness Tory (Dominic) with a democratic radical and seditionist (Silas), and she's making them actually talk politics with each other for a large portion of the book. It's fascinating, empathic, compelling, and, at times, deeply uncomfortable. She's also using intimacy, kink and intentional power imbalance as an aid to character development, and her execution of consensual non-consent (CNC) and D/s is so well done. I don't seek out CNC but it felt *right* for these characters and what they were navigating, and I appreciated how clearly they were role-playing at all times, how well Silas took care of Dominic and how attuned each was to the other's consent and pleasure. Their interactions always felt safe and sex positive, and the way their intimacy helps each build self confidence is honestly beautiful. 

My loudest cheers, though, were for Silas's absolutely spot-on social critiques and insights. His commentary on charity, in particular, made me whoop:

"The Tory wanted to help, Silas could tell. Dominic was poised on the edge of offering money. He'd probably hand over enough to keep half of Ludgate warm, but Silas couldn't and wouldn't because it shouldn't be fucking charity that kept children from starving and the old folk from freezing, as if the country belong to the right by right and everyone else lived at their sufferance and by their whim."

"Everybody's cold out there, Tory. Everybody. And if you think it's enough for me that you make one man warm, you've not listened to a fucking word I've said."

An absolutely underrated and underhyped historical romance by KJC. Silas forever.
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A Fashionable Indulgence by KJ Charles

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I am so glad I finally picked up this series. KJC writes class difference so well, and the nuance in power imbalances here are perfectly executed. Julius is a wealthy aristocrat and a Tory and Harry a down-on-his-luck seditionist who just desperately wants to not be hungry and scared anymore, and somehow, they work beautifully. Where Julius could have been the more experienced of the two in all ways, his grief, loneliness and discomfort with affection give him more equal footing with Harry, who despite his history of abandonment and fear, has a soft, hopeful heart and a willingness to be vulnerable and generous in his love and loyalty. The introduction of our primary cast is delightfully complicated (I love mess!) and I cannot wait to see Dominic and Richard absolutely leveled. A perfect series start.
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Glory and the Master of Shadows by Grace Callaway

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emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

For as much as I didn't love the romance, I really enjoyed the mystery plot? The focus on the FMC's virginity/purity/innocence was grating to me and felt increasingly icky as the story progressed (especially with the age gap here). That said, I loved the backstory for the MMC and his revenge quest. Appreciated the author's note and thought it was a fun, original spin on Charlie's Angels, just wish the central romance was more compelling.
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A Man for Mrs. Claus by Rebekah Weatherspoon

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emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I really wanted to love this, but ultimately it just didn't hit as a romance for me. I don't love Bachelorette-style set-ups, and the side characters felt equally annoying and distracting for the page space they took up. I loved Weatherspoon's twist on a Santa origin story, and appreciated how sweet and reflective this was, but I had to push myself to finish it because I was bored. 
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Lord Dashwood Missed Out by Tessa Dare

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

I didn't love this. It's fun and lighthearted (and the FMC is wonderful!) but the MMC really phoned it in (even the present-day grand gesture didn't really hit for me because he was so abysmal in their flashback?). A nice snowed-in story that worked more as a comedy than as a romance for me.
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