Falling Back in Love in a Hurricane, Skating for Gold Medals, and an Accidentally Dry-ish January

Plus - two outrageous people falling in love against their will

Hi, team. It’s been a strange, distracted month. Between my big edit deadline for Love Walked In, preparing for a colonoscopy (precautionary because of a family history of cancer, I am fine, don’t worry), the dumpster fire that is the news, and catching two nasty colds in three weeks, I feel like I’ve been struggling to get a foothold in much of anything. I’ve largely been reading for self-soothing purposes, and drinking booze hasn’t been that appealing recently. (Botivo continues to be a great N/A option for those seeking something flavorsome and refreshing without too much sweetness.) But I have read some bangers, and I wanted to share them with you before I go on vacation with friends for a few days to eat my body weight in Breton seafood and crepes.

Recently I read and loved…

Ten Things I Hate About the Duke by Loretta Chase

If you read the back cover copy for this book and think “Meh,” you were exactly like me two weeks ago. All I can say is: read an excerpt. Yes, this story is definitely inspired by The Taming of the Shrew/10 Things I Hate About You, but there is a depth and richness to Cassandra and Ashmont that I wasn’t expecting at all. Ten Things is a sharp, funny slow burn, but also a moving story of two people who are both outwardly outrageous in their own ways, but the outrageousness hides deep wells of fear and loneliness. I genuinely rooted for these two to let each other in.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo

Daisy Jones and the Six blended with Wuthering Heights and set in the world of competitive ice dance! Oh yeah, this novel is just as delicious and OTT as it sounds, full of high emotion and cutthroat competition and the struggles and absurdities of being part of an extraordinarily niche, very highly strung sport. Even if you didn’t grow up watching figure skating on TV in the 1990s with your major fan parent (meeee!), this is a book that will totally suck you in.

Flirting with Disaster by Naina Kumar

I have always thought that second-chance/marriage in trouble romances are some of the hardest to get right. How do you convey all of the prior history that drove the couple apart, while also convincing the reader that this time, they’re definitely going to stay together for keeps? Well, Flirting with Disaster absolutely nails it. It helps that our separated MCs Meena and Nikhil are in the ultimate forced proximity situation, forced to hide together in the home they used to share as a massive hurricane bears down on Houston. But Kumar also has meticulously crafted two complex, messy, and very realistic people, who aren’t dramatic or ridiculous but made mistakes out of fear and insecurity, and their coming together is a slow, fragile, careful thing as the wind howls outside.

And I drank…not much new?

i.e. the occasional Negroni and Hanky Panky. But mostly tea, cough syrup, and fruit punch and mango-flavored colonoscopy prep, which were…*shudders*.

But I’m excited for cider in Brittany later this week! I’ve also booked myself a weeklong writing break in València late next month - more winter sun, fewer distractions. I’m very much looking forward to sipping vermut after putting down lots of words, fingers crossed.