yourbookishbff's reviews
590 reviews

Marriage of convenience with two genuinely good and earnest people with lots of secrets and unrequited desires?! This was so good, I flew through it. The tension between these two at the halfway point gave me the chest-achey feeling I crave, and the explosion in their slow-burning lust was just delicious. This fizzled for me a bit at the end - the declarations and conflict resolution just felt a little too tidy? But a small quibble for a book I inhaled.

I did not expect this to give me Romance Feelings, and it did? This felt like This Is How You Lose the Time War except it isn't epistolary and it's only half as confusing and it's somehow even darker. Vo's writing is so evocative and lush and I love it - this is borderline purple prose but it feels fitting in this unsettling reflection on love and judgement and violence. This is entirely character-driven, as time stops and starts and flashes back fairly seamlessly to show us glimpses of the people our main character has loved through her too-long life. Vitrine, you absolutely ruthless, heartsick creature, I love you (but please don't love me back).

A few of my favorite quotes:

" 'Mine,' she said, and then she turned to shout it to the city in a voice that could be heard only by the dead, the listening, and the cats."

"Vitrine loved her city like demons and cats may love things, with an eye towards ownership and the threat of small mayhem."

"This is how you break yourself into a thousand pieces that are all equally wrong and unloved."

"The bitterness rose up in his voice like the taste of clove through sugar candy, something sharp and significant. She liked him best with it, because sugar alone was so dull and plain and because once you have mixed a drop of clove into a vat of sugar, nothing in the world could take it out."

"I love you so, I love you best," she whispered, nipping firmly at his ear. "I will walk in you, and I will care for you, and I will bring the whole world to rejoice in you."

This was such a fun read! I loved watching our starchy lord humbled repeatedly by a group of unabashedly chaotic women in STEM, and I loved seeing Lettie finally get her due. I also really appreciated the execution for our main conflict - and felt the character development for Lord Greycliff was particularly well done - and I only wished we didn't get such a tidy wrap-up on the ancillary conflicts. I don't love forgiving villainous families/friends when it's unnecessary for the plotline and entirely unearned by the perpetrator. Really looking forward to the third book in the series and enjoying my time with the ladies of Athena's Retreat.

I am overwrought by how much I loved this. A perfect conclusion to Las Leonas and an urgently needed book for today's readers. Aurora has existed on the sidelines in the previous two stories, a voice of reason and practicality for her two friends, and the moment she's front-and-center, we suddenly realize just how little we knew about her. Apollo, though, has always noticed her, and his immediate obsession with her is honestly just so fun for series readers, because we know how often these characters have either been at odds or set up as uncomfortable allies. These two are equally ferocious in how they love and care for other people, and because of this, their chemistry is a five-alarm-fire from page one. Aurora won't let anyone stop her from doing what she feels is just and right, and Apollo is going to unalive anyone who looks at her the wrong way - it's so dang satisfying to read. 

The conflicts at the heart of this are both incredibly relevant - as evidenced by Herrera's insightful and rage-inducing author's note - and really anxiety-inducing, so please note content warnings before proceeding. Most refreshing, though, in the depiction of our female main character and her work as a healthcare provider for women (providing a variety of services, including surgical work, abortions, etc.) is how accurately the trauma is positioned. Abortion is rarely dealt with on page in romance, and when it is, it's often shown as being a source of pain or trauma in a character's backstory. The trauma here lies not in abortion itself, but in the ways in which other people control access to care, delivery of care and outcomes of care. We see again and again how Aurora's work - and her own experiences - give people confidence, freedom and agency. Abortion is healthcare and abortion is a stepping stone to a happily-ever-after. Aurora's story highlights, too, how necessary access to abortion and other forms of reproductive healthcare are for women of color, who have more life-threatening restrictions on their bodies than white women - then and now. It is so well done, and I want to shout from rooftops that the best reproductive justice storylines I've read in romance are in HISTORICAL romance, because our authors are simply doing it better (ok, stepping down from HR soapbox). 

Herrera does such a beautiful job balancing some heavy conflicts, including serious childhood trauma resulting from abuse and abandonment, with a high-heat love story. And these declarations! A contender for all-time favorite declaration of love and fidelity. Just incomparable. 

I do think this one probably hits best after reading the previous two, though I think readers could drop in here if they really, desperately wanted to. But why miss out on Luz and Manuela if you don't have to! Can't recommend this series enough. 

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for a complimentary advanced reader's copy.

A stunning conclusion to the trilogy and evidence of just how well-built this series is as a whole. This picks up right where we left off at the end of Oleander Sword, adding a few new POVs into our rotation right at the start and building out the ancillary conflicts at play in this stage of the war. Suri's writing is so lush, and her ability to build intensity through rapid POV changes and surrealist scenes is remarkable. Once again, the yaksa stole the show for me in this installment, keeping us unsettled while building out the God-lore of this universe. 

For long-time fantasy readers, Suri's intentional focus on female agency in every single story line is so refreshing - in a literary world where women are so often sidelined to martyrdom or romantic plotlines, we see in Suri's world what it looks like when men deliver on these fantasy expectations. What does it look like when men sacrifice themselves for an empress, when men express unrequited love and longing, when men are at the center of emotional court politics and manipulation? And more important, what does it look like for women to direct generals, for women to negotiate international alliances, for women to claim God-power, for women to reject self-sacrifice, for women to live (gasp) selfishly? This genre is so dominated by male writers, that it is exciting to see authors like Suri subverting so many of the classic epic fantasy devices for her purposes, and then putting at the very center a heart-wrenching sapphic love story. 

Cannot recommend this series highly enough - it's dark, unsettling, romantic and adventurous, and it will satisfy those who love seeing immortals meddling in human chaos. So, so good. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for a complimentary advanced reader copy.

First: props to Danica Nava for writing the riskiest premise for a debut rom com I've ever seen - in a market that is unkind to "unlikeable" female main characters and constantly maligns miscommunication-style plot devices, she delivers a female main character who builds a skyscraper of lies for 95% of the book. It's a bold choice, and I applaud her for it. And while I didn't mind the lies as much as I thought I might (Ember's got her reasons, and the author's note adds a lot of context here), I did find the workplace conflicts - specifically the spot-on depiction of corporate politics - incredibly anxiety-inducing. I actually set this down for days with no intention of returning to it, simply because I was stressed for Ember. That said, I ultimately pushed through, and I'm SO glad I did, because Nava rounds out this conflict so well, and delivers a resolution that feels very authentic for these characters.

I really can't get past the workplace scenes. Nava's depiction of corporate life is so surreally accurate - satirized possibly at a few points, but only barely - that I felt both deeply validated and deeply angry reading it. Also noteworthy is how rare it is to actually see working class main characters - in a market where so many of the stand-out rom coms literally feature lake houses (why?!), a female main character with her TV propped on a cardboard box and a job working at the bowling alley is so REAL. We need more!! 

This isn't going to be for everyone - the conflicts are stressful and the inner monologue leans cheesy, but I'm so grateful it exists - for its representation of Indigenous main characters, working class people, corporate chaos, and so much more.

This, like every Dare I've read, was so fun. She finds a way to always pack an emotional gut punch about midway through, when some not-so-lighthearted trauma shows up, and this was no exception. This was a delightful childhood friends-to-lovers-but-she's-engaged-to-his-brother romp, and while I wished for a bit more of their initial storyline to show up on page in some way, I still had a great time watching them finally choose one another. It's always "I love you" and never "I filled an entire room in your castle with cake just for you," sigh.

I am SO glad I returned to this. I originally eyeballed this one and DNF'd just over halfway through. I returned to it on audio, having heard fantastic reviews of the narration, and it really brought this story to life for me. I loved the deep dive into the sapphic artist community in France during this era, the examination of the kinds of agency a woman might take for herself - and the limits even then. Cora is seemingly on top of the world as a wealthy widowed Duchess, and yet, she can't claim happiness or partnership for herself without risking a trade empire and reputation she built through personal sacrifice. Manuela has some advantage - namely, valuable land - and yet can't trade it for what she really wants, independence from her family's expectations. The push-and-pull between these two felt so visceral, and I loved how Herrera forced both to do some internal reckoning to achieve a happily-ever-after. Highly recommend on audio - can't wait for Aurora's story in book three!

I really struggled through this one. I loved the premise and was really enjoying the non-traditional romantic set-up for our two main characters - one the servant to a courtesan and the other a highborn, spoiled nobleman who is either truly a fool or just playacting as one for unknown reasons - but their arc hit some really frustrating points for me, including a pretty upsetting sex scene where the female main character disassociates through the experience and the male main character is oblivious, and an overly extended concubine conflict that had me gritting my teeth. Their romance in the second half involved a lot of exposition, where Lin told us about their revelations without really showing us their growth, and it was hard for me to root for them (Yue-ying deserved so much better). I also started to lose interest in the murder mystery about halfway through and had to really push myself to finish this. My least favorite of Lin's books I've read so far, but I'm going to continue the series in hopes I find the other character dynamics more compelling!

This is an excellent collection of essays, interviews and other materials detailing the work and philosophy of Mariame Kaba, prison abolitionist and Chicago-based community organizer. Her decision to document her work and to record her name in history is a powerful one, and I'm grateful for her time and generosity in making this collection. It's a powerful reminder that organizers like Kaba have been at work for years, through every presidential administration and shift in public discourse and attention, that they are there long after network cameras leave. Kaba's reflections on individual campaigns were humbling, as I recall media attention for each, but did not know the resolution to many of them (a reminder of my privilege in being only selectively aware). I also really appreciated her efforts to define and contextualize the abolitionist movement and mindset, her push to examine our assumptions about feelings of "safety" and "security," and her reminders that the movement is weakened when it is diluted into prison and police "reform." I highly recommend this as a starting point for anyone interested in learning more about abolitionist movements.