What I’m Reading

I hope everyone has been having a great new year, so far. I haven’t done a “what I’m reading” segment in a long time, so I thought I’d info dump. This post is a little longer than the usual what I read offering because it’s been so long, and I read a lot in December.

What I’m reading in January:

I ordered a copy of this instead of getting it from the library, mostly because I can see myself reading it more than once down the road. One thing I really need to do for 2022 is focus on becoming a better writer. I need to do it for my readers. This book is always touted on Reddit to be one of the best writing books on the market.

I’m only putting my own book out here because you know that I’m reading this if you follow me on Goodreads. It’s the first book I’ve marked as read in 2022. Basically, I spent the first day of New Years editing this in final form. I don’t know why, but I can look at the screen a million times and not catch things. I always order a print proof from Amazon and go through it with a highlighter for final edit. So that’s what I’m doing this weekend.

Ranger Danger by L.A. Wayward – this does not have a cover yet, so I couldn’t put the picture out here. It’s a romance ARC that I don’t remember signing up for, but L.A. sent it to me. I must have agreed to read it at some point. Hell, I’m 45 and wake up some days wondering what season it is, so it’s entirely possible that I signed up and just forgot. Wheels are starting to fall off of the bus here, folks.

BOTM book for January: The Maid

This book was an add-on to my box with another book that I probably won’t get to until next month. Anyone read it? I’ll read this after I’m finished with On Writing, and I’m kind of excited about getting to it.

Joe Hagen is a guy in my writing group that writes horror with different nuances. We try to read each other’s work since we’re some of the only ones in our group with work available out in the world. He read Arson. Now, I’m going to stop and talk about that for a second. I read his book The Layover and will start on this one later this month. I’m reading horror, which is not usually my genre unless I’m in the mood for it…but that poor gentleman read Arson for me.

He’s a nice, older middle-aged man that writes in retirement. So, imagine your papaw reading an erotic romance book with a threesome scene. That nice, quiet man read Arson. He messaged me on Instagram and told me he had it playing on his Alexa. His wife was probably walking around wondering, “What the actual fresh hell is he listening to?”

I knew he was reading it/listening to it and hadn’t seen him at Write Club for a few weeks. When I finally did, I quickly set up my laptop next to some other ladies at a different table because, honestly ya’ll, I was terrified of what he was going to say about “the scene.”

About 15 minutes into Write Club, he taps my shoulder so nicely and talks to me about what a great job I did with world building and the superhero aspect, about he knew there would be a water character after the amp got dumped out and just wondered which one it would be until the epilogue. Then he said, “It was awfully sticky, but I liked the superhero story more than the sticky scenes.”

There you have it. Arson = sticky

I may end up reading this in February, but I wanted to put it out here because I’m so damn horny for this book. If I get it in January, I’ll seriously drop everyting for this book. If you listened to my most recent podcast, I had Torri Heat on to talk about her Demon Entanglements books. We got to talking about what she had coming soon. When she told me the idea of this, I knew I had to get on this ARC team. I cannot wait for this one.

What I Read in December:

Holy shit, ya’ll. If you like Hallmark Christmas movies, GET this book. If you only read them at Christmas, put it on the to-read list for next year. I loved this book. If you’re a lovely person and like lovely Christmas books, you’ll adore this one. I couldn’t put it down. There are sex scenes in this, so just a heads up. A lot of sweet Christmas books like this don’t have the spice. This has spice, and it’s damn good.

I read the first one and liked it, so I asked to ARC this. This one was an even better story. Addison Laine writes suspense romance, and she’s great at world building this small Australian town where all of the brothers live. This one followed Hunter and his love interest, Avalon, and I adored Avalon’s character.

I needed some shorter books so that I could finish my goal of reading 100 books this year. (At the end of November, I still had 10 books to read. I read the books on this post and also a few obscure poetry books from the library.) I loved Priest, so I picked up Sierra Simone’s mm novella. This one just wasn’t my cup of tea, and that’s OK. However, I did want to post this because there a lot of Sierra Simone fans that may not know she has a mm novella out.

BOTM Book for December: The Holiday Swap

I’m not sure why this one is getting such bad reviews. Talk about a Hallmark Christmas movie! The only reason I think it’s getting downvoted in reviews is there is absolutely no steamy scenes in this, which I admit that I did miss. Romance readers have come to expect at least one sex scene, even if it’s closed door. This is a very pure, sweet romance book, even if the concept has been done a million times before. I actually liked it becuase it was a cute story, and the authors (it’s two women writing as Maggie Knox) have an almost Jennifer Weiner-ish writing style.

Maybe Jennifer Weiner is on my mind after reading this one in early December.

Holy Shitake. Do not read this if you’re looking for a light read with no angst. This cover looks like a nice beach read or something. I guess it’s nice if you dig rape survivors leaving a trail of revenge across her rapists’ lives and families. I gotta say, I was routing for her. If you’ve read it, I think we all were. Fuck, this was an amazing and HARD book. I stopped reading Weiner after I was one of the people that saw that awful post she made on social media about Glennon Doyle a few years ago. She took it down within minutes and wrote a quick apology, but I saw. It was an awful tirade against another female author that was catty (with personal attacks, not just constructive criticism of her work) and had no place on social media or in public at all. I stopped reading her then but saw this at the library one day when I was wandering around. With this book, I forgive Jennifer Weiner.

Have an hour? Remember, I needed to read some shorter books to get to my reading goal, so I picked up the newest from Lizzie Stanley. As far as unique ideas go, I feel like this hit a home run. Basically, a woman with poontang size issues falls for a guy with peepee size issues. Both of them know about their own size issues and their dating lives haven’t exactly gone to plan until they meet each other. They then fret and worry about how the other one will deal with the size issues. This book shows that there truly is a lid for every pot.

Did you read any of the above? Hit the comments below and let me know your thoughts. Happy reading!!!