2025 Books - May!

On Wednesday, May 28th I finished my 100th book for the year!  Yes…that is a bit crazy!

1.  Thank You for Listening, Julia Whelan - A trusted reading friend recommended this book, and I'm happy to say that it was a delight.  Whelan is a much-loved audiobook narrator, and so it was a treat to read her romance about audiobook narrators.  In many ways, it was a love letter to the genre, and I really enjoyed it!

2.  Immortal, Sue Lynn Tan - Why did I wait so long after publication to read this?!  Tan is a must-buy author for me, and she never disappoints.  The plot was epic, the characters were sublime, and the romance was as dreamy as they come.  One of the things I love most about reading is how it transports us to other worlds and cultures, and I love exploring through folklore.  Bonus:  I really thought she was going one way with the ending, and was super happy/relieved when she didn't.  She's used that trick before, and it's not bad....but repeating in a second book would have annoyed me.  The ending was perfection.

3.  A Letter From the Lonesome Shore, Sylvie Cathrall - And of course, when I fell in love with book one I preordered book two and read it as soon as it hit my inbox.  Not quite as good as book one, but still an excellent read with a deeply satisfying ending.  Will always love epistolary novels!

4.  Ten Thousand Stitches, Olivia Atwater - Cinderella turned on its head.  Yay?  I wanted to love it, but it was a bit of a snooze.  I really enjoyed the first book in this series of Regency fairy tales, but may not finish it after this.  

5.  Slaying the Vampire Conqueror, Carissa Broadbent - Big, fat sigh.  This is the second standalone in the Crowns of Nyaxia series, and I really, really thought I would enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed the rest of the books so far.  But seriously.  I kept picking it up, reading a bit, and then putting it back down.  Is it a bad book?  Not at all.  I strongly suspect this was another case of wrong time for the right book, and I may have eaten it up at another time.  But also, it's not as good as the rest of the series.  

6.  Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame, Neon Yang - The first half of this month has been full of excellent books.  I love Yang, and they are yet another auto-buy for me.  Lol.  I preordered without even reading the description.  It's so, so good.  I figured out the twist ending perhaps sooner than I was meant to, but that's ok!  

7.  Greenteeth, Molly O'Neill (audio) - This was a recommendation from my friend Carrie at Skylark, and as I've said time and time again she never steers me wrong.  I ended up snagging an audio copy after buying the paperback, and am glad I listened.  It literally had one of the best epilogues I've ever read! 

8.  Happy Place, Emily Henry - At the end, I'm as sad about the vacation home being sold off as the characters were.  I loved the group dynamics and the exploration of friendship.  I loved watching Wynn and Harriet's relationship grow from the day they met through the end of the story.  I really, really want to vacation in Maine now.  Henry is another reliable writer, with enough drama and heartache to feel real and yet a glorious HEA in the end.  

9.  You, Again, Kate Goldback - This was an NPR Books We Love from either 2023 or 2022 that I decided to read on reviewing all of the Romance pages from past versions of that app.  Yes, it is an homage to When Harry Met Sally, but it's enough of it's own thing that I can be happy for the inspiration and not annoyed by the copy.  I'll admit to at first wondering what anyone could possibly find attractive about either Ari or Josh, but by the end they had completely won me over.  I loved the way the book would skip forward in time.  I love that both of them were knocked around by life a little bit and had to grow as humans.  Good stuff.  

10.  A Forty Year Kiss, Nickolas Butler - This was another book that Carrie of Skylark put in my hands when I asked her what I should read next.  This always works out extraordinarily well for me.  A 64 year old man reunites with the woman he was married briefly to 40 years ago, and they explore the possibility of a second chance.  It was absolutely glorious.  More and more I'm craving books with older protagonists who've lived a little, and this was just so beautifully done.  

11.  My Best Friend's Exorcism, Grady Hendrix (audio) - Lol, this is not winning any awards for originality, but it was really fun nevertheless.  I think the thing I appreciate the most about Hendrix is the way that he writes girls.  If I didn't know any better, I'd swear he was a woman writer, it's that good.  Nostalgic and fun, this book hit all of the marks of a typical 80's style exorcism movie.

12.  How To Sell a Haunted House, Grady Hendrix (audio) - Again, not winning any awards for originality, but still a darn good time.  Favorite part was the sibling relationship.  Did not like when the child got involved.   

13.  The Incandescent, Emily Tesh -  This may be my favorite Tesh book!  Weirdly, this dark academia book with higher stakes felt almost like a cozy fantasy.  Loved Saffy. Loved all of the details about the tedium of running a boarding school.  (I know that’s weird…but I thought it was really grounding.)  Loved the demons.  Loved the plot.  All good!  

14.  Strange New World, Vivian Shaw - Such a disappointment.  I love the Dr. Greta Helsing novels, and I was so excited when I discovered this was coming out.  BUT, for a book about Greta Helsing, it didn’t have much Greta Helsing in it.  Instead, it focused mostly on auxiliary characters from Heaven and Hell…and it wasn’t great.  If Shaw continues the series, fingers crossed the next book is way better.  

15.  Finding Your Voicer, Carolyn Sloan - My music teacher recommended this book a few years ago, and I had never read through the whole thing, so I finally did!!  Highly recommend if you are like me and had/have a serious mental block when it comes to singing.  

16.  The In-Between Bookstore, Edward Underhill - I found this on the Apple book sale page, and just decided to try it on a whim.  A trans man who’s at a crossroads in life goes home and meets his teenage self in the bookstore he once worked at.  I appreciated the emotional journey, and I loved that at the end he didn’t upend everything to stay in his small town but chose to return to the city and his found family.  Glad I read it.  

17.  Problematic Summer Romance, Ali Hazelwood - OK, so I’m not a favor of age-gap romances, but I love Hazelwood and I trust her writing.  Maya was chaotic, and I loved her energy.  Her relationship with Hark ended up being better than expected, and I have to say that I love the journey she was on with her career.  (Unexpected in Hazelwood’s STEM world!)  BUT, the best part of the book for me was that it continued Eli and Rue’s story from a previous book.  

18.  Holy Terrors, Margaret Owen - The perfect end to an amazing trilogy!  I’ve always loved these books because Vanya - well, she’s not the perfect and sweet heroine that you usually see in fantasy novels.  And in this book, she confronts her own demons time and time again.  As someone who deals with a lot of emotional baggage, I went through a lot of deep emotions as Vanya came to peace with herself.  And she  and Emeric are one of my favorite book couples.  Going to have to get physical copies of this series for my bookshelf! 

19.  First-Time Caller, B.K. Borison - Surprisingly enough, this recent release hit the Apple book sale page, so I snagged it.  Had been hearing so many good things about it, and was delighted when it exceeded my expectations.  This has been a fantastic month for romance novels, and it really ended on a high note.  (And a Sleepless in Seattle homage!)

Unfinished: 

1.  Longborn, Jo Walton - I celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Kiera Nightly version of Pride and Prejudice, and was so swept up that I immediately wanted to reread the P&P adjacent books that I own.  This is a lovely, lovely book....but ultimately it wasn't really what I wanted right now.