Jane Litte's Blog, page 64

REVIEW: The Stand-Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau

A bridesmaid and groomsman put their differences aside to get their friends down the aisle in this opposites-attract steamy romantic comedy.

They say to never meet your heroes, but when Vivian Liao’s roommate gets engaged to her favorite actor’s costar, she has no choice but to come face-to-face with Melvin Lee again. He’s just as funny and handsome as he is on-screen…but thinks she is a snob and a sellout. It’s none of his business how she chooses to live her life, no matter how charismatic h...

REVIEW: Archangel’s Resurrection by Nalini Singh

Dear Ms. Singh,

We met Alexander in Archangel’s Enigma, when he awakened after centuries of Sleeping to find that his son had been killed but he had a young grandson named after him, Xander. Zanaya is a more recent addition to the cast; though younger than Alexander, she woke from a longer sleep, around the time of Archangel’s War. But almost as soon as she did, we saw that she and Alexander had once loved, and that even centuries later that spark was still there. Archangel’s Resurrection, the f...

REVIEW: Into the Riverlands (The Singing Hills Cycle Book 3) by Nghi Vo

The Ignyte and Locus Award finalist, and Crawford and Hugo Award-winning series continues as Chih finds themself in the riverlands, home to near-immortal warriors and ancient feuds

Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ...

INTERVIEW: Nalini Singh on Archangel’s Resurrection, Her Series, and Her Love of Books

I’ve been reading Nalini Singh’s riveting books for sixteen years, and am a big fan of several of them. She has published a lot of novels across a variety of genres, with a remarkable degree of consistency. In this interview, we talk about these topics and more (including my recent favorite couple, Illium and Aodhan!). –Janine

Amazon BN Kobo Book Depository Google

Alexander and Zanaya’s story, Archangel’s Resurrection, is coming out tomorrow. What can you tell readers about the book, and their roma...

Jayne’s Cute Kids Books List

SumoPuppy by David Biedrzycki

A funny and read-aloud worthy sequel to the best-selling SumoKitty brings two unlikely friends together in this hilarious dog-meets-cat adventure perfect for pet lovers.

SumoKitty has taken on an apprentice–but can this eager puppy truly learn the ways of a feline?

SumoKitty tries his best to teach an eager but undisciplined puppy the feline ways of catching mice. But this rambunctious newcomer doesn’t seem cut out for the job. She drools, snores, and chases awa...

CONVERSATION: Redemptions that Worked or Failed for Us

Yesterday we held a conversation about redemption and reparation in the genre. Today we talk about the book redemptions that worked or didn’t work for us.
 

Janine: What are some examples of books where redemption or reparation felt sincere, meaningful and satisfying? What are examples of books where you felt all the apologies in the world wouldn’t make something okay, or where you didn’t understand how character X could take character Y back after all they’d done?
 

Effective Reparations

Janine...

Reading List by Jennie for April through June 2022

My 2022 reading slump continues; I don’t have much for “what I’ve been reading” for the second quarter in a row. I did read and review Steadfast, The No Show, You Were Made to Be Mine, and Sea of Tranquility, the latter two with Janine. Other than that, I read these four books:

The Poor Clare by Elizabeth Gaskell

This was a strange story. I thought it was a novella going in, but it’s more of a longish short story. Wikipedia says it’s a “gothic ghost story”, but there’s not really any ghost. Rath...

CONVERSATION: Redemption and Reparation in Romance

A couple of weeks before Yom Kippur, Judaism’s Day of Atonement, I started this conversation about redemption and reparation in the genre. I’ve scrapped my original intro because the Yom Kippur is well past, so I’ll just say that Rose (once a DA reviewer) joined us for this one and she’ll be doing that in the future, too. And that tomorrow we’ll be running a post discussing specific examples of fictional reparations that worked or failed for us.
 

Janine: Any trope can be executed well or poorl...

REVIEW: Lavender House: A Novel by Lev AC Rosen

A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist

Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret – but it’s not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they’ve needed to keep other...

REVIEW: Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

Dear Meryl Wilsner,

I really enjoyed your debut, Something to Talk About, and when I read about your new contemporary romance, Mistakes Were Made, I got really excited. It has a trope I’m really fond of, May/December (not everyone’s cuppa I know, but I really like it when it’s well executed), as well as a messy situation, which is another trope I’m drawn to.

In this case the messy situation is that Cassie Klein, a senior at her Virginia college (so probably twenty-one) picks up an attractive ol...