An Unlikely Time Traveler, A Queer Dating Odyssey, and Laura Wood's Newest Book!
Hello from London, where it’s sunny! In June! Sunny June days wouldn’t ordinarily merit exclamation points, but the weather over the last few weeks can be perfectly summed up by this very….emphatic video (i.e. NSFW, headphones in):
Otherwise, life around here has been uneventful, other than reading a string of delightful books. The downside of being on a hot streak with reading is that it makes it harder to actually, you know, massively overhaul my own book.
Which is due next month.
No, I don’t have fingernails anymore. Why do you ask?
Recently I read and loved…
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
This is one of those times that the book you are seeing in the window of every bookstore, reviewed in every paper, and recommended by every person you meet…is really just that good. An 1840s polar explorer is time traveled against his will to a near-future Britain and falls in love with the civil servant tasks with integrating him into the modern world. In case my one-sentence plot summary didn’t clue you in, this book is bonkers in the best possible way, and I belly-laughed pretty much every other page. It’s equal parts love story, fish-out-of-water comedy, sinister sci-fi thriller, and interrogation of the legacy of Empire.
Under Your Spell by Laura Wood
I actually read this book several months ago, and now that it’s finally coming out (tomorrow in the UK, next Tuesday in the US) I want to tell you about it! People, you need this absolutely delicious book in your life. It’s a sweet and tender forced proximity romance with the cinnamon roll rock star love interest of dreams, but it’s also a literally magical story about sisterhood and taking wild risks. It will also make you want to run away to the rugged Northumberland coast, like, yesterday.
Experienced by Kate Young
It’s impossible not to dive into this book, the same way the protagonist Bette jumps headlong into dating and sleeping with other women after her girlfriend insists she needs more experience. Bette’s odyssey is equally sexy and funny, including fourteen-minute voice notes from a lousy one-night stand and attempting to pick someone up over brunch. But Experienced is also such a deeply loving book, celebrating not just romantic love but platonic love, too. I desperately wanted to have a seat at Bette’s cozy lunches with her flatmates, and I relished the house parties and dance parties and the sheer joy everyone in the book takes in being alive and free.
I also enjoyed… Steak by Tim Hayward, This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune, The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren, The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl, Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur
And I drank…nothing new.
I’ve been doing the cocktail equivalent of comfort reading (comfort drinking does not have a good ring to it), reverting to the drinks I know and love both at home and out. But if you haven’t enjoyed a 50-50 vodka martini, a marmalade Hanky Panky, or a Boulevardier recently, I commend them to you. Though probably not all in the same evening, unless your attitude needs some pretty drastic adjusting…