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: 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: 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: 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.

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.

Review: Her Naughty Holiday by Tiffany Reisz

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

HER NAUGHTY HOLIDAY [Amazon | The Book Depository] is the second book in Tiffany Reisz’s trio of holiday romance set around Lost Lake, Oregon, but please don’t think you need to read HER HALLOWEEN TREAT before you can dive into this Thanksgiving-focused offering. The books take place in the same general location and feature characters who’re at least casual acquaintances, but this is a series of standalones. If you’re no longer in a Halloweeny mood but Thanksgiving drama sounds perfect, you can leap in without the slightest reservation.

Clover Greene has just learned her family is set to converge on her place for Thanksgiving. Eep. She can’t stand to spend yet another holiday listening to everyone snark about how she’s still single, so she lets her teenage assistant, Ruthie, con her into asking Ruthie’s father, Erick, to pose as Clover’s fake boyfriend for the day. Clover and Erick have been fighting their attraction for close to a year, and the ruse gives them the perfect excuse to get to know one another better.

Things escalate. Quickly.

And awesomely.

Review: Her Halloween Treat by Tiffany Reisz

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

HER HALLOWEEN TREAT [Amazon | The Book Depository] is the first of three holiday romances by Tiffany Reisz, best known for her phenomenal Original Sinners books. Titled Men At Work, this new miniseries stars women who fall for men who’re very good with their hands.

Reisz, never content to do things the conventional way, has spread the series out over multiple autumnal and winter holidays instead of centering all three books on December. HER HALLOWEEN TREAT obviously takes place in the lead-up to Halloween, when the heroine plans to attend her brother's 80s themed costume wedding.

Joey thought she’d stop in and surprise her semi-long-distance boyfriend on her way from her current home in Hawaii to her childhood home in Oregon. Instead, she’s surprised--and devastated--to learn he’s always confined their relationship to her far-off state because he’s married. She gets the hell out of there as fast as she can and holes up in her family’s old cabin on Mount Hood, where fate presents her with an opportunity for rebound sex with a fit handyman.

Chris was close friends with Joey’s brother in high school, but she hasn’t seen him since. He’s the perfect choice for a quick and dirty fling: friendly, familiar, and oh-so sexy now he’s grown out of his teenage stoner phase. They agree to bang their way through to the wedding and deal with the good kind of pain when Joey heads home afterwards, but long-dormant feelings soon threaten to smash their careful plan.

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: Status Update by Annabeth Albert

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Noah Walters is exactly happy in the closet, but he’s not about to mess up his life as a field archaeologist and tenure track professor at a conservative Christian college for the sake of a little action. Abstinence seems like the best route all around, but it gets a whole lot harder when an oh-so-attractive game designer turns up on his RV’s doorstep.

Adrian trusted the wrong guy, and now he’s stranded in a Utah campground with no way home for Thanksgiving unless he throws himself on his mother’s well-meaning (if judgmental) mercy. Noah tells himself he only agrees to drive Adrian to save him that indignity--and okay, maybe to score exclusive access to the hot new game Adrian’s working on--but as the miles tick by he begins to wonder whether Adrian could be worth the risk to his carefully planned future.

OMG THIS BOOK IS SO AWESOME.

LIKE, SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY AWESOME.

At least part of my intense, must-tell-everyone response to STATUS UPDATE [Amazon] comes down to timing. I don’t read nearly enough romance these days, and I happened to open this particuar example just as my craving for the stuff reached its peak. Most of it, though, is down to Annabeth Albert’s fabulous feel for relationship dynamics and interest in the sort of details that render her protagonists in sharp relief.

Review: A Countess Below Stairs/The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson

Friends, there’s only one way a girl can possibly review A COUNTESS BELOW STAIRS (aka THE SECRET COUNTESS¹), Eva Ibbotson’s nonmagical historical fairy tale about an impoverished Russian countess who takes a job as a chambermaid and falls in requited love with the unattainable owner of the estate at which she works.

That’s right. We’re gonna gush.

The Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical Version (also the only version)

OMG YOU GUYS this book is the best thing ever no seriously it is my FAVOURITE I know the little description up there makes it sound like an average romance but it is not IT IS PERFECT it’s one of the eight books I’ve love straight from the first word² to the last because it is so so so beautiful the prose is staggering Eva Ibbotson has this GIFT to reach straight into any given emotion and make it manifest so you don’t just read it you FEEL it I cried my way through the whole damned thing³ with some extra-intense wretched sobbing at the end⁴ Anna is so wonderful like she could easily be too perfect but she’s not because you REALLY SEE why everyone loves her and you love her too and her relationship with Rupert is so understated they mean so much to one another and they connect so beautifully but it’s all between the lines⁵ and it’s like that with every single character Ibbotson excels at showing by telling you meet a person and suddenly you know everything about them but it’s not overkill you WANT to know these things you LOVE them except the villain Muriel you don’t love her she is a terrible horrible person who’s all ableist⁶ and anti-Semitic⁷ and totally into eugenics which everyone initially thinks is about breeding chickens because Hitler hasn’t happened yet⁸ but it’s not she’s trying to make a master race OMG I HATE HER SO MUCH and you will too she does wrong by the Honourable Olive and NOBODY DOES WRONG BY THE HONOURABLE OLIVE AND GETS AWAY WITH IT⁸ and also there are a great many Russians and I’m still so bummed I can’t go to Russia perhaps the Russians are unrealistic but whatevs I love them so I don’t care if people don’t actually react to their changes in circumstance with such aplomb⁹ sometimes I call Murchie Pupsik¹⁰ and the Honourable Olive gets to hold Pupsik it’s a total awwwwww moment and don’t you even get me started on that fucking ball I will start bawling right here right now so help me bawling over a ball how appropriate is that DAMN I can’t even say enough about this book so I’m not even gonna try just believe me on this okay I acknowledge it’s not perfect because of Sebastien and the maids¹¹ but everything else about it is spot-on and I give it seven stars out of five because IT IS MY FAVOURITE BOOK PLEASE READ IT¹².

Review: Emma by Kaoru Mori

This review covers volumes one through seven.

Emma, a lovely maid, is inundated with prospective suitors, but no one catches her eye until she meets William Jones, the young scion of a wealthy family. Their mutual attraction is instantaneous, and it only grows deeper as they come to know one another. Forces are aligned against them, though, and the lovers must choose between the dictates of society and the pull of their own hearts.

Ah, the joys of class-straddling historical romance! EMMA is absolutely gorgeous on every level, my friends. Do yourself a favour: seek it out and devour it.

If you'd like some justification for this course of action, read on.

Kaoru Mori has a profound talent for illuminating the small, telling moments in her characters' lives. Dialogue often takes a back seat to body language and the sense of movement imparted by panels that flow organically into one another. We live each emotion alongside the characters, taking each beat as they process their often complicated feelings.

Review: Misbehaving by Tiffany Reisz

Beatriz's (almost) stress-free weekend at her sister's wedding becomes anything but when her editor begs her to review an erotic manual on the quick. Bea, sex-blogger extraordinaire, is the perfect person for the job, except for one not-so-small hitch: she lacks a partner with whom to test these fabulous positions.

Enter Ben, her sister's fiance's best friend and the reason her weekend is only almost stress-free. Five years ago, Bea propositioned Ben with less than ideal results. Ben, however, has always regretted turning Bea down, and he's not about to make that mistake again. The two of them embark on one hell of a review-a-thon, until a misunderstanding between the bride, the groom, and Bea's oh-so-helpful editor leaves them scrambling to save the wedding.

MISBEHAVING is a contemporary romcom retelling of Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING--which, I admit with much shame in my heart, I haven't read¹. If you're in the same boat as me, though, fear not! Reisz's version requires no familiarity with the original (though I'm sure it's much richer if you have Shakespeare under your belt). The story is comedy gold any way you come to it.

Review: Ember by Bettie Sharpe

Ember is fierce, proud, and in firm control of her heart--until she sets eyes on Prince Charming, whose curse compels everyone who sees him to love him.

Ember isn't about to let a spell force her to feel anything, let alone something as soul-destroying as love. A powerful witch, she embraces dark magics to ensure she never, ever falls under the Prince's sway again.

But a look can go both ways. Charming is determined to find the woman willing to resist his curse, and he is every bit as stubborn as Ember.

Let's get a big, fat disclaimer out of the way first off: laid out in its simplest form, EMBER sounds rapey. This is an enormous lie. This gorgeous, affecting novella is a testament to each person's right to choose what will happen to them, romantically or otherwise, and to spend their lives among people who've chosen them with love in their hearts.

Sharpe handles it so beautifully that this 32,000-word self-published novella remains the best thing I've read so far this year.

Review: A Matchless Romance by Christi Barth

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Tabitha Bell is determined to turn her new business, A Matchless Romance, into Chicago’s premiere matchmaking service--but she needs a few more clients to help her get off the ground. Enter Drew Watson, a game designer whose inability to talk to women has hampered him both personally and professionally. Tabitha initially sees Drew as a new kind of client, one who requires life coaching as much as romantic help, but she soon realizes he’s someone she could fall for. What’s a matchmaker to do when she’s the only person she wants her client to consider dating?

A MATCHLESS ROMANCE [Amazon | Scribd] is the fourth and final installment in Christi Barth’s Aisle Bound series, a loosely connected set of books about friends who work in Chicago’s wedding industry. I strongly encourage you to read the other three first, but that’s mostly because they’re awesome and you owe it to yourself. Tabitha is a late addition to the group, having made her off-screen entrance in the third book, so this one works perfectly well as a standalone if you don’t mind some totally obvious spoilers for the other titles (ie, who ends up together).