Review: Danced Close by Annabeth Albert

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Kendall, a genderqueer wedding planner, is in a bind. He’s committed to participating in a swing dance benefit in a few weeks, but his best friend has had to bow out of the event--and the dance lessons leading up to it--to deal with a family emergency. Kendall can’t give the benefit a miss or show up without a partner; not with his ex ready and waiting to sneer at him.

Enter Todd, a former competitive dancer and current assistant at one of the bakeries Kendall deals with. Todd agrees to help Kendall out, and the more they dance together the deeper their connection runs.

DANCED CLOSE [Amazon] is the sixth book in Albert’s Portland Heat series. The novellas all focus on small business owners and employees, and as with most romance series you do not need to read them in publication order. Newcomers can easily leap in here, though longtime readers will recognize Todd from his small role in BAKED FRESH and be glad to see cameos from a few other series couples.

Review: Geek Actually, Episodes One and Two

Review copies provided by the publisher.

GEEK ACTUALLY is the first general fiction offering from Serial Box, my favourite purveyor of episodic fiction. Pitched as “SEX AND THE CITY for the modern geek girl,” it follows five diverse women as they navigate life in general and geekdom in specific.

Michelle is an editor at a prestigious SFF publisher. Aditi is a fantasy writer with the potential to become a superstar. Taneesha’s a badass developer at a game company. Christina’s a production assistant on a post-apocalyptic TV show. And Elli is an uber-talented cosplayer with zero interested in life beyond fandom.

Writers Cathy Yardley, Melissa Blue, Rachel Stuhler, and Cecelia Tan launched the serial last week with its premiere episode, “WTF.” The second episode, “The Invisible Woman,” dropped this past Wednesday.

Serial Box kindly gave me the first four episodes to preview, and it was all I could do not to tear through them in one go. I had an especially hard time pausing after “The Invisible Woman” so I could write this intro-to-the-series post without letting my thoughts on the subsequent episodes creep in.

Because this is great stuff, people. I’m excited.

Review: Truth In the Dark by Amy Lane

Ooh, friends, I’m so in love with Amy Lane’s work. Not only does she write fabulous stories, but she’s got a hell of a narrative range. To date, I’ve read two of her sweet contemporary romances, one dark-as-hell SF offering, and TRUTH IN THE DARK [Amazon | Scribd], a fairy tale that straddles the line between these two extremes.

Naef, a young woodworker, has been tormented all his life because of his appearance, and he’s raised a prickly set of defenses against future hurt. The only people he’ll allow close to him are his sister and his mother. When said sister hesitates to marry her true love because it would mean leaving Naef on his own, her suitor proposes a solution to settle her fears. Naef will spend a year as companion to the suitor’s cousin, freeing his sister from worry while introducing Naef to an unusual community where he can start fresh.

The cousin in question turns out to be a man cursed with the shape of an anthropomorphic lion and saddled with the improbable name Aerie-Smith. Aerie-Smith’s got an island full of subjects whose animal forms are more confining than his own, and he promises Naef a home for a year if he’ll end his stint as companion by performing one regrettable act will not only secure Naef’s family’s future but also free everyone from their curse.

The resulting story is part “Beauty and the Beast,” part “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” And I cried so damned hard.

Review: Under the Rushes by Amy Lane

Going by the cover, I expected Amy Lane’s UNDER THE RUSHES [Amazon | Scribd] to be historical fantasy. Much to my surprise and delight, it's actually science fiction set on a distant world where the colonists have lost some of their founders’ technological prowess and redeveloped what remains into a system with a vaguely steampunk aesthetic. It has a lot in common with the baroque SF I always hope to stumble across, in which science fictional elements operate within an elaborate, highly stratified society.

A lot, but not everything. Because this isn’t just far-future SF: it’s a superhero novel!

Dorjan's been in martial disgrace ever since he took a civilian’s tip to heart and tried to prevent his province from starting a pointless war. Ten years on, he spends his days carefully steering the provincial leadership in his guise as Doltish and Disinterested Forum Master and his nights protecting the capital city as the Nyx, an armoured warrior who champions the most vulnerable elements of society. He's alone in this endeavour save for his genius inventor friend, Areau, who was tortured after his own disgrace and now demands soul-crushing things from Dorjan following each mission. Just as the pressure of dealing with Areau’s addictions becomes too much for Dorjan, he finds a solution in the form of two grateful rescuees--one of whom is the very boy who first alerted him to the corruption in his government, all grown up and determined to take an active role in the Nyx's endeavours.

Review: Freckles by Amy Lane

Warning: FRECKLES [Amazon | Scribd] is quite possibly the cutest book ever. You will squee.

Carter's boyfriend just dumped him and the head of his law firm has got him working on a case that’s legally sound but morally reprehensible. He needs something positive in his life, and he gets it in the form of a tiny, fluffy puppy a kid hoists on him in a parking lot. Carter has no idea what to do with a puppy (if Freckles even is a dog and not a hamster, as her size suggests), so he rushes straight to the nearest pet store with a veterinarian attached and has the good fortune to meet Sandy, a vet tech who's willing to give the occasional cute, dog-loving lawyer some after hours help with the whole pet ownership thing.

Their relationship is sweet and mutually supportive, but it's the dog angle that sold me on this nominally holiday romance. (The Thanksgiving and Christmas bits are light enough that you can read this any time of year, as I did.) Freckles is a tiny Shih Tzu/Chihuahua cross, and I recognized so much of what Carter goes through as he adjusts to dog ownership and strives to be a good caregiver for her. I've had dogs all my life, barring an eighteen-month dogless stint when I was very young, but my wee Murchie is the first dog who's really been mine. He decided I was his person mere hours after we met, despite family plans to the contrary, and I spent a certain amount of time freaking out about how I was now responsible for this 2.5-pound fluffball who was brand new to the world and correspondingly lacking in common sense. I wanted to do right by him, and I was terrified he'd get sat on or stepped on or otherwise injured during one of his exploratory forays into the great unknown¹.

I still worry he'll get sat on or stepped on, especially since he's a bit too inclined to trust people will notice he's there and work around him. That's a dangerous attitude to adopt when you're still only 3.5 pounds and you're the same colour as the kitchen floor, y'know?

Review: Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

I had no choice but to read Becky Albertalli’s debut novel, SIMON VS THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA [Amazon | Scribd], in two sittings. (It would’ve been one, but I was too sleepy to keep going.) It won my love right from the first line, and kept on earning it as it took me deep into every facet of Simon’s wonderful, difficult, hopeful, beautiful life.

It will be on my Best of 2016 list. I’ll tell you that for free, spoilers for future posts be damned.

I loved it so much, and on such a visceral level, that I want to rant about it to the rooftops without the limitations of coherence, so we’re gonna take the short, gushy, ungrammatical route:

Review: Wrapped Together by Annabeth Albert

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Hollis hasn’t had much Christmas spirit since his parents died three years ago. It feels wrong to celebrate without them, no matter how much his sister and her extended family encourage him to join in, so he plans to spend the holidays working in his stationery store, hanging out with his cat, and rewatching SHERLOCK. Hollis's friend Sawyer knows Hollis can never resist a bet, though, and Sawyer is determined to reignite Hollis's holiday cheer with a series of wagers that can't help but make this Christmas extra special for both of them.

Romances where one person's down on Christmas and the other one's all, "Let me introduce you to the magic of the holiday season!" are my favourite. They give both parties plenty of opportunity to do fun things together and explore traditions new and old. In this case, Sawyer draws on his and Hollis's intense family connection (his twin brother is married to Hollis's twin sister) to concoct a slew of holiday enticements. He also convinces Hollis to participate in some Portland events that'll feel familiar even to non-Oregonians readers, like the local small business association's window decorating contest, Portland's official tree lighting ceremony, and a train ride through the Oregon Zoo's animal-shaped holiday lights.

Some holiday romances use the season as a rough framework on which to hang a relationship. It's winterish (or summerish in southern hemisphere romances), there're a few decorations floating around, and life is otherwise fairly normal. In contrast, WRAPPED TOGETHER goes all in with romance and Christmassy feel alike; a sure way to keep my attention glued to my ereader's screen around this time of year.

Planner Printables: Tremontaine Set

I got a Happy Planner in mid-September, and it's been quite the delight. My planner keeps me motivated and on task every day, and it helps endow my life with some much-needed colour during this most difficult of seasons.

I've also had a great time making useful stuff for it. Folders. Tracking cards. Paperclips. Charms and tassels.

Stickers felt like the logical next step.

Review: Looking For Group by Alexis Hall

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

It’s been ages since Drew actually had fun playing Heroes of Legend, his MMO, so he ragequits his high-ranked guild and joins a more casual group with a reputation for tolerance and friendship. His new guildmates include Solace, a Healer who spends a lot of time enjoying the game’s little details. Drew starts exploring the game world alongside Solace, and it’s not long before he’s got a major crush on this awesome girl--so it throws him when he learns Solace is a local boy named Kit. It doesn’t take him long to adjust, though, and the two begin dating offline and on; a fabulous arrangement, until Drew begins to worry about the sheer amount of time he and Kit spend in online spaces.

The moment I learned LOOKING FOR GROUP [Amazon | Scribd] existed, I knew I had to read it. I adored Alexis Hall’s PROSPERITY and LIBERTY & OTHER STORIES, and I’ve recently discovered gaming stories delight me in the same way sports stories do. I don’t watch sports and I don’t game¹, but I love media about these topics because the people who engage in them do so with their whole souls. I’m always up for a story about someone who’s passionate about something, and it’s all the better if this passion plays out within a romance novel.

Because passion for games (or sports) easily feeds into passion of another sort, dontcha know.

Review: Connection Error by Annabeth Albert

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Josiah’s a programmer with ADHD and a powerful need to do well at his first big assignment as a project manager. Ryan’s a SEAL headed to a rehab hospital outside Washington, DC to finish his physiotherapy. Neither expects a lasting connection to form between them during their cross country flight, especially after Jos makes a huge mistake regarding Ryan’s disability, but a grounded plane and a night of gaming in a shared hotel room gives them a shot at a friendship with benefits--provided they can find a way to make their very different personalities mesh.

CONNECTION ERROR [Amazon] is Annabeth Albert’s third #gaymers novel, after STATUS UPDATE and BETA TEST. You don’t have to read the earlier books in order to enjoy this one, but I'll remind you yet again that they’re wonderful and you should give them a go at some point.

Even though I’ve gushed my heart out over all three books, I don’t think I’ve mentioned how much I love the role travel plays in this series. Each installment features a journey that makes it impossible for the characters to give up on each other when stuff gets awkward. They have to stay and work through their problems, and in doing so they build a strong foundation for the relationship we all know they're gonna have. In Jos and Ryan’s case, they begin as seatmates on a plane and take a number of shorter trips once they know each other better. Their travel arrangements place a major focus on accessibility, too, as Ryan uses a wheelchair and prosthetic legs.

Review: Beta Test by Annabeth Albert

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Tristan is determined to make a good impression at his first proper job, helping to market the game Space Villager. Too bad his concurrent hire, Ravi, is so slapdash. Ravi breezes into orientation in a very flash outfit, cracks jokes about hangovers, and--worst of all--proves to be exactly the kind of guy Tristan’s most prone to crushing on. Ravi’s not exactly thrilled with Tristan’s perpetually ironed wardrobe or his blandly colour-coded task lists, either, let alone the guy’s assertion Ravi is lazy. (Hello, he works sixty hour weeks and volunteers. What more does Tristan want?)

Tensions finally explode between them at an office party made even worse by an outbreak of food poisoning that ensures they’re the only two people who can prep the game’s booth for an important convdention. Eep. Neither one of them’s looking forward to a multi-day road trip in each other’s company, but it doesn't take them long to realize it could be exactly what they both need.

BETA TEST [Amazon | Scribd Audio] is the second book in Annabeth Albert’s #gaymers series, which focuses on the employees of a popular crowdfunded game. As is the case with most romance series, you don’t need to read the first book (STATUS UPDATE) to enjoy this one, though I’d definitely recommend checking out the earlier book as soon as you can because it's wonderful.

As is BETA TEST. Wonderful, wonderful wonderful!

I could copy and paste “wonderful” eighty more times, and it’d be the most accurate review I’ve ever written.

Further Gushing Re: Tremontaine Season Two

The new season of TREMONTAINE began yesterday, and I’ve made no secret of how excited I am. Continually tweeting my feels is all very well and good, but I wanted to provided y’all with a somewhat longer list of five reasons I’m jumping up and down in delight over this serial:

1. The Duchess is back

I love Diane de Tremontaine so. Frickin’. Much. As I said when I reviewed Season Two’s premiere episode, she’s a fabulous and compelling character because she acts in her own self interest; a motive female characters are seldom allowed to embrace. She’ll scheme and socialize and sleep her way to the top because it's the best way to promote her personal agenda, and damn how it affects anyone else. And if she can accomplish all her goals without ever letting anyone see how many strings she's pulled, so much the better.

She’s my favourite.

Review: Rag and Bone by KJ Charles

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

RAG AND BONE [Amazon | Scribd] is the fifth novel set in KJ Charles’s Charm of Magpies world; however, it’s a connected story rather than a sequel to the previous books. You can read it as a standalone, though you may find yourself wishing for a touch more background on the practitioners of London if you take that route.

So far as the series chronology goes, RAG AND BONE takes place after FLIGHT OF MAGPIES and concurrently with JACKDAW. There’s the occasional non-spoilery update on where the justiciars are at with that particular problem, but you can easily read this before that.

The book is a direct sequel to “A Queer Trade,” a novella that originally appeared in the CHARMED AND DANGEROUS anthology and has since been made available as a standalone. While I wouldn’t call the original story optional, I realized the connection so far into RAG AND BONE that I decided I’d do best to read the novella after I’d finished the novel. Waiting didn’t harm my enjoyment one bit and I doubt it'll harm yours.

Background: complete. Let’s talk about the book itself.

Crispin, a young practitioner, is horrified to learn he’s unwittingly spent the last decade training as a warlock and frustrated with how difficult it is to break the habits his evil master taught him. His boyfriend, Ned, is a source of solace from the contempt he faces from London’s less diabolical magicians, but his trips to Ned’s place become considerably less restful when Ned’s neighbour spontaneously combusts. Everything about the man’s death points towards a sinister janus jug, but the justiciar who arrives on the scene can find no trace of magic either in the room or on the jug itself. Unwilling to let his friend's death become a cold case, Ned investigates while Crispin delves into a new approach to magic that could push him towards the answer--if it doesn't take him way from Ned entirely.

Review: Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton

Thank goodness for people who gush about books on Twitter, and for everyone who RTs them. A couple months back, I witnessed a storm of enthusiasm for Marie Sexton's WINTER ORANGES [Amazon | The Book Depository | Scribd] and knew I had to read it.

Because y'all, this book is awesome right from the premise on up. Jason used to be a child star/teen hearthrob in the JTT mold, but these days he’s muddling along through an assortment of horror sequels and one-off TV guest spots. Despite this decline in his fortunes, he’s been the tabloids’ favourite mark ever since they caught him making out with his best friend Dylan a year back. Ugh. Desperate for some privacy and a little time to reevaluate his life, Jason buys a furnished house in a small Idaho town and decides to hole up there until at least New Year's.

His plans change somewhat when he discovers his new possessions include a cursed snow globe with a Civil-War-Era farmer attached. Ben hasn’t talked to anyone since his sister bound him to the snow globe a hundred and fifty years ago to prevent him from joining the army, and he’s beyond thrilled someone can actually see him. Jason is initially less thrilled to have an incorporeal person living above his garage, but once he accepts Ben is a) not a paparazzo on a mission and b) real, the two of them quickly become friends, and eventually boyfriends.

Which is super awkward because to outsiders, from the local sheriff to a deeply concerned Dylan to the photographers who eventually track Jason down, it looks like Jason’s holding long, involved conversations with himself.

Review: Dark Jem by Kelly Thompson and Sophie Campbell

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

DARK JEM [Amazon | The Book Depository] is the third volume of JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS, writer Kelly Thompson and artist Sophie Campbell’s take on the 80s icon. I must confess, I’ve been a bad Jem fan--I missed most of Volume Two, VIRAL. As per the comics tradition, though, this didn’t affect my enjoyment of DARK JEM. Yes, I’m sad I’ll have to read those vol 2 issues later than I might’ve done, but the story itself works perfectly well without them in the mix because Thompson and Campbell carefully seed their story with reminders as to the series’ overall premise and what’s happened in the recent past. I caught up easy-peasy and settled in to enjoy the ride.

Which is GREAT. Like, super-great. Like, all the Jemerrific goodness I loved in volume one with an extra dose of “let’s play with the wider comics tradition” in the mix. It delighted me and made me gasp in horror; my most favouritest combination, made all the better because it happened within one of my favourite comics.

The basic story is as follows: something’s wrong with Synergy, the AI the Holograms use to craft Jerrica’s stage persona and all their special effects. Really wrong. “Hey, let’s brainwash everyone,” wrong. Eep! Jerrica quickly falls under Synergy’s spell, and the other Holograms aren’t far behind her. With their new sound, they look set to infect everyone with Synergy’s pernicious virus and turn the world into a dark yet orderly hellscape.

Unless they can break Synergy's hold, round up a few helpers, and save everyone.

Review: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

I attempted to review the first three books of the Raven Cycle, with varying degrees of success, so I figure I ought to make an effort with the finale as well. Preserve some continuity and all that.

Plus, THE RAVEN KING forced me to expand my Top 12 list into a Top 16¹. It’s serious between us, y’all, and I’d like to mark the occasion.

At the same time, though, this was a 6-star read. 5 stars is my “I loved it to the point of incoherence and/or verbosity” rating. 6 stars dials the incoherence angle right the hell up, especially when we’re talking about a highly anticipated finale I really, really don’t want to spoil for y’all.

So we’re taking the Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical route, with the understanding that I might imply some stuff about the other three books but I won’t get all, “OMG LEMME DESCRIBE THIS EXTREMELY VITAL SCENE” on you.

Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

A couple years back, Rainbow Rowell wrote a contemporary YA novel called FANGIRL. I talked about it at great length because I loved it deep in my soul, and I’m bringing it up again now because CARRY ON has a vital connection to that earlier work. Cath, FANGIRL’s protagonist, is a popular fanfic writer hard at work on CARRY ON, SIMON, her own conclusion to the bestselling Simon Snow series. Said series follows a young wizard through his eight years of schooling, in which he faces off against both a dark force called the Insidious Humdrum and his own possibly vampiric roommate, Baz.

In Cath’s version, Simon and Baz fall in love instead of (or maybe as well as) killing each other in the Grand Denouement, as events are trending towards in the source text from which Cath takes her inspiratioin.

Rainbow Rowell’s CARRY ON isn’t Cath’s fic. Nor is it the canon series conclusion Cath finally gets to read at the end of FANGIRL. Rather, it’s Rowell’s take on the idea of a young adult fantasy series ender that brings the protagonist into a new kind of conflict with the antagonist.

And it all happens without the previous seven books in the series, since no one who's liable to read CARRY ON really needs them. We all know how children's fantasy series work, so we can guess most of what's happened prior to this. Besides, Rowell slots in all the relevant details as the current book’s plot demands.

Regarding Recent Events on The 100

This post contains spoilers for The 100 S3E7, “Thirteen”.

Yes, friends. Spoilers. Big ones.

Go read something else if necessary.

Okay? You’re prepared?

Right. The spoilers start now.

Review: Goldenfire by A.F.E. Smith

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley, at the author’s request.

GOLDENFIRE [Amazon] is the sequel to DARKHAVEN, a debut I enjoyed but had some issues with. I try to give any promising series at least two volumes, though, so when A.F.E. Smith reached out to see if I’d like a review copy of GOLDENFIRE, I jumped right on it.

Or as "on it" as I could, given my current mercurial reading mood. It took me almost two months to start the book, but once I did I crammed it into my eyeballs as fast my reading speed would allow.

GOLDENFIRE opens about three years after the events of DARKHAVEN. Ayla Nightshade has consolidated her rule while her partner, Tomas Caraway, takes care of her security arrangements, in large part via his new training program for fighters who want to become part of Ayla’s elite guard, the Helm. But when Caraway receives word that an assassin has targeted Ayla with the one weapon that may harm a Changer like her--a pistol--the latest crop of prospective Helm members becomes the weakest place in his line of defense.

And books like this one are why I stick to my two-volumes-or-bust policy. GOLDENFIRE is so. Frickin’. Good.

Really. Smith has taken everything I liked about DARKHAVEN and ramped it up the max, even as she challenges established (and overdone) fantasy tropes. GOLDENFIRE takes a decidedly modern view of the genre, but reading it gave me the same thrill I experienced as a youngster encountering adult-marketed fantasy for the first time.

Review: Commercial Suicide by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie et al

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

COMMERCIAL SUICIDE [Amazon | The Book Depository | comiXology] is the third volume of THE WICKED + THE DIVINE. You’ll enjoy it so much more if you’ve read the first two volumes that I’ll strongly urge the newcomers you to take a step back and start with THE FAUST ACT and FANDEMONIUM before you even consider reading this one. Comics are naturally structured so you can get something out of a single issue, if that's all you've got on hand, but THE WICKED + THE DIVINE is a puzzle series from top to toe. It encourages readers to question the premise on every level as they assemble the wider picture for themselves. That’s a tough trick to perform if you don’t have all the pieces in front of you.

While the text gives us enough clues that we can easily engage in rampant speculation and draw some damned good conclusions, concrete confirmation is slow in coming. Even the definite answers to the questions we’ve been asking for multiple issues bring a slew of new questions along with them, giving the reader another reason to want to view the whole thing in its entirety. THE WICKED + THE DIVINE is fascinating and interactive; flashy and entertaining on the surface, but with a deeper core for those who choose to explore it.

Not unlike fandom itself. Hmmmm.