Review: Game of Hearts by Cathy Yardley

3.5 stars
I received an ARC of this book from the author in response for an honest review. My opinion is my own. 

Game of Hearts is the third instalment in Cathy Yardley's Fandom Heart series, which began with one of my favourite books of 2016, Level Up. It was a cute, quick read with a great heroine, but I didn't love it quite as much as the two preceding books. 

After her brother falls and breaks his arm on one of his frequent holidays, mechanic Kyla hits breaking point with managing her family's auto shop alone. When an upcoming conventions provides her with the opportunity to get her dream costuming business off the ground, she makes the decision to bring in extra help for the auto shop: old family friend Jericho Salomon.

Jericho has no desire to come back to the home town that holds so many painful memories, but he owes Kyla's family a favour, so he tells the biker group he's a part of that he'll be away for a few weeks, and heads back to Snoqualmie. 

When I first read the blurb for Game of Hearts, I have to admit it made me nervous, since I'm not a big fan of the MC hero trope. But after the nuance of her last two books, I trusted Yardley to make it work, and she did. As a character, Jericho managed to embody the bad boy hero without comprising his moral integrity, which sits much better with me than the morally ambiguous hero. In fact, one of the major conflicts Jericho deals with is trying to suppress a revolt led by a member of the group wanting to move into more Sons of Anarchy territory.  

Yardley's previous heroines have been interesting, complex and independent women, and Kyla is no exception. As a female mechanic, she continually up against male customers who second-guess and patronise her as a female mechanic. Her way of handling this - being super chipper and doing Kegels - was both funny and relatable, and I think I might adopt it myself in my day-job, where Joe Bloggs frequently thinks he has a better handle on the healthcare system and medical stuff in general than a mere receptionist (read: a medical administrator who can work in over half a dozen capacities throughout the hospital, although there's nothing wrong with only being a receptionist). 

Another aspect of Kyla that I - and I suspect many other readers - found to be very realistic nuanced was her relationship with her brother. The lack of boundaries and continual giving on her side and taking is something that really closely and poignantly aped a lot of real-life familial relationships. Being my idealistic, total-HEA-craving self, I closed the book wishing we had seen a little bit more of a reckoning on this front, but on another level, I think that maybe that would take away from the realism of it. Maybe it's enough to know that - with Jericho as a support and circuit-breaker - Kyla and her brother will be able to achieve a more emotionally healthy relationship in the future.

Kyla and Jericho were both great, strong characters, and - while I was keen for them to get together - I didn't feel that the romantic arc was as strong as in the last two books. Some parts were as outstanding as always: the two are shown to be very sexually compatible (there are some hot sex scenes), and I liked the way Jericho supported and encouraged Kyla both with regards to her new business and her boundary setting. However, each was caught up with their individual conflict and character arc, which made it hard to see how they would actually function as a couple. This - together with the relatively late introduction of the romantic conflict and the Deus-ex-machina way it was solved - meant that I found the HEA less convincing or satisfying that in the other Fandom Hearts novels. 

As you can see, Yardley's previous work has left Game of Hearts with some pretty big shoes to fill. Even if I feel like it didn't quite achieve that, I still really enjoyed it, and I'd definitely recommend it, especially if geeky, funny and heart-warming contemporaries with great heroines are your thing. 

Best Reads of 2017: Part 1

It's almost the end of January, and - after a long, stressful end to the year on the academic front - I've finally got my ass into gear to publish my Best Reads. In 2016, I set this post up as my 5 best reviewed reads, 5 best un-reviewed reads and 5 best not published in 2016. Given the marked lack of reviewing in 2017 comparative with 2016, I was unable to do the same this time around. Instead, I've just chosen my best 15 books of the year.

As always, narrowing a year's reading to a handful of books is extremely difficult. I chose the featured books not just because they were outstanding, extremely enjoyable books, but also because they stuck in my mind for some reason. This may be originality or uniqueness of concept, outstanding execution and exquisite worldbuilding and/or characterisation. It is almost always a combination of all of the above, sometimes also accompanied by a sense that a book I loved hadn't been given its due when it came out, or in the end of year Round-Ups. 

So, without further ado, I present you with my 15 Best Reads of 2017. (This post was initially just the first half, but then I never got around to doing my second post, so I edited this one and collated them into one...in August).

1. The Future Chosen by Mina V. Esguerra
(m/f NA romance in fictionalised setting)

Technically, I'm cheating on this one: it was published in the last few days of 2016, but I couldn't bear to leave it off. It's the romance between two young political hopefuls in a fictional country where only one person from each 'family' is allowed to enter the public service, meaning that - in order to have a relationship - one of them would have to bow out of political life. When I reviewed it back in February, I called it "suspenseful and sweet and clever and just so good". To that, I would add, 'extremely feminist' and 'a nuanced portrayal of oligarchy and elitism'. 


2. Peter Darling by Austin Chant 
(m/m fantasy romance with trans MC)

This queer Peter Pan retelling was everything I never knew I needed. When he can no longer bear his life as Wendy Darling in the real world, Peter Pan flees back to his childhood refuge of Neverland, only to find that Captain Hook now inspires an entirely different set of feelings. The initially immature Peter and ennui-stricken Hook offset each other perfectly in a unique rendering of the enemies-to-lovers trope. Chant's Neverland is reminiscent of old Grimm fairytales, both in the trials and suffering the characters must face, and in the sense of hope and possibility offered by a world unfettered by mundane laws and boundaries. 

3. Pretty Face by Lucy Parker 
(m/f contemporary romance)

Parker's second foray into the London theatre world was just as thrilling and fulfilling as her first, the much-lauded Act Like It. I'm a sucker for characters snarking at one another to hide their attraction, and Pretty Face has that in spades, along with a heroine fighting against being pigeon-holed as a sexpot, a grumpy theatre director and an age-gap trope. 

4. Tempting Hymn by Jennifer Hallock 
(m/f historical romance)

The poignant and sweet romance between a missionary workman and a fallen Filipina nurse during American colonial rule in the Philippines, Tempting Hymn was another early-year review before I got dragged down into a vortex by university work. The heroine's story - that of being seduced, bearing an illegitimate child and trying to build a better life for herself and her child after being ostracised - is one of eternal relevance, as is Hallock's exploration of the differences between preaching the tenets of a faith, and living them. 


5. An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole 
(m/f historical romance)

I'm not alone in thinking that this was one of the most outstanding contributions of 2017. The story of Elle, a freedwoman who goes undercover as a slave in the South to spy for the Union during the Civil War, has garnered a lot of praise both inside and outside Romancelandia. That's how it should be, because it's an exquisitely crafted story with so much to say about relationships, race, gender, history and society. 

6. Beauty Like The Night by Joanna Bourne 
(m/f historical romance)

With her lyrical writing style, strong sense of historical place and continually strong central romances, it's hard to imagine Bourne releasing a book that isn't an instant favourite. In my opinion, the Spymasters series is unparalleled in its depictions of self-sufficient, strong heroines and the men who respect them, and - after following Sevie since her infancy - it was wonderful to see this youngest member of the Meeks Street family come into her own and meet her match. 

7. Small Change by Roan Parrish 
(m/f contemporary romance with bi MC)

In the last few months, Romancelandia has started talking about the "Cinnamon Roll hero", a term that calls up the caring and soft hero without implying he is anything less for his lack of alpha-ness. The hero of Small Change, Christopher, is - in my opinion - a total CinRo hero. He owns a sandwich shop, through which he meets Ginger, a prickly bisexual Jewish tattoo artist. Ginger and Christopher's two-steps-forward, one-step-back dynamic - in which Christopher shoulders most of the emotional labour as he attempts to sort through Ginger's relationship hang-ups - was unlike any other portrayal I'd ever read. I umm-ed and ahh-ed about including it because its nothing flashy, but in some ways it deserves its place here even more so for just being a quiet, emotional romance that so beautifully undercuts our cultural narratives about unlovable women and emotionally aloof men. 


8. The Truth of Things by Tasha L. Harrison

(m/f contemporary romance)

If I had to sum up The Truth of Things in one word, it would be 'powerful'. The central romance is between a cop struggling with the racism of his department and a photographer who finds herself the target of that racist brutality. To be honest, I can't really find too many more adjectives to describe it, because it was so many things at once. Just go read it. 

9. A Taste of Honey by Rose Lerner
(m/f historical romance)

Lerner's Lively St. Lemenston series is continually outstanding, and this novella in particular was a breath of fresh air. About a hesitant baker hero and his assertive and ambitious assistant, it's dirty, sweet and showcases the historical realities of the British working and artisan classes. 

10. An Unsuitable Heir by K. J. Charles

(m/non-binary historical romance)

Like Lerner, Charles is an auto-buy author for me, and this conclusion to her 'Sins of the Cities' series didn't disappoint. As always, both the mystery plot and the romance are beautifully crafted, and anyone who says that a non-binary main character is too 'modern' or 'ideological' can bog right off. Pen was gorgeous, and Mark so bloody sweet.

11. Hamilton's Battalion by Rose Lerner, Courtney Milan and Alyssa Cole

(m/f, m/m & f/f historical romances)

Not being American or particularly into musicals (with the exceptions of a few classics that I grew up with), the whole Hamilton thing has mostly passed me by. But that didn't mean that I couldn't enjoy these novellas set around Hamilton and the Revolutionary War. They were all gems, but my favourite was undoubtedly Rose Lerner's story of a cross-dressing female soldier who accidently comes into her husband, who believes her dead.

12. A Midnight Feast by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner

(m/f historical romance)

Throughout this series, set around a fictionalised version of the Space Race, readers have seen the dire state of astronaut Mitch Dunsford and his wife Maggie's marriage. This poignant novella is their second chance romance, and watching them try to untangle their misunderstandings and communication break-downs and work out where to go from here is both heart-breaking and heartening, if that makes any sense. 

13. Wrong to Need You by Alisha Rai

(m/f contemporary romance)

Wrong To Need You was another popular favourite this year, and it's not hard to see why. Angsty forbiddden romance, long-time love...this hit all my buttons. 


14. Dance with Me by Alexis Daria

(m/f contemporary romance)

Alexis Daria's 2017 debut Take the Lead and the follow-up, Dance With Me, were strong contenders for the Best of list. In the end, I went with Dance With Me because I am a total sucker for Russian-speaking heroes and prickly heroines, not to mention women who are going to do this damn thing all by themselves, thank you very much. 

15. The Boys Next Door by Miranda Silver

(m/f/m erotica)

The Boys Next Door is probably my favourite erotica of all time. Eminently relatable characters, a solid plot, plus an off-the-scales heat rating. 

Review: Famous by Jenny Holiday

4 stars

I received an ARC of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is my own.

Jenny Holiday is one of the masters of the genre when it comes to earnest and heartwarming romances with considerate and self-aware heroes, and heroines who are strong, independent and - sometimes - a little emotionally closed-off. 

In her latest book, Famous, she tackles the rock-star romance, but flips the script: instead of the trope's traditional and much-loved jaded and world-weary rock-star hero, we have an art historian hero, and it's the Taylor-Swiftesque heroine who is worn out by her fame, and the pressure her managers place on her to keep churning out hit after hit. 

When Evan and Emmy first meet at a wedding, Evan is dealing with the fallout of his father's high-profile conviction for art fraud, while Emmy is about to move to Los Angeles to try and make it as a singer. As they part ways, he tells her: let me know if there is ever anything I can do for you. 

Seven years later and Emmy is Emerson Quinn, one of the biggest pop stars in the world. She's meant to be writing her next album, and her managers - deciding she should abandon her teenage fanbase and skew towards an older demographic - have hired "co-writers" to write her songs. Worn-out and unable to work in the conditions her managers insist on, Emmy escapes to the man who once offered her help.

Emmy shows up on Evan's doorstep at a precarious time for him. He's trying to make tenure at his small Midwestern college, and his family's background means he can't afford even a hint of scandal, let alone a big-name pop star hiding out in his house. But he also sees Emerson's vulnerability, and in the end he can't turn her away. As Emmy, with her new, anonymous look of sunglasses, baggy clothes and badly dyed hair, makes changes around Evan's house and charms the townsfolk, Evan finds it harder and harder to accept that this is Emmy's "Summer of No Men" before she returns to the high-paced pop star life. 

In some ways, Famous is what I think of as a quiet romance. This has to do with the levels and presentation of angst or conflict, and also the way main characters support one another, and are mindful of the other's wellbeing and emotional state. Both Evan and Emmy were vulnerable in their own ways: Evan is still dealing with the emotional legacy of his father's actions and how these affect his present and future, while Emmy is struggling with her lack of self-determination in her career.

On the other hand, the sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop - for Emmy to be recognised, for their idyllic time together to come to an end - but not knowing how this would come about, was incredibly suspenseful. It offset the domesticity of Evan and Emmy's life together well, and was one of my favourite aspects of the book.

I also loved the way Emmy related to her teenaged fans, and the teenaged characters in the book. It was refreshing to see teenagers' opinions being treated as legitimate, as opposed to the subject of scorn. 

Overall, Famous was a cute and well-done small-town-slash-rock-star romance. It was close to being a favourite within each of those tropes. Partially, that's because I'm not a big reader of either, but it's also because I'm yet to meet a Jenny Holiday book I haven't enjoyed, even if this wasn't amongst my very favourites. 

Review: Sight Unseen Anthology

Multiple ratings

The concept of this anthology was that well-known romance authors would each write a story outside of their usual genre, but their name would not be attached to it until some time after publication, leaving the reader to guess which author wrote which story. I thought the concept was clever and was executed well - although I am pretty sure I know the author of one story, I can only make guesses at the rest. 

Even though I auto-buy three of the five authors included in this anthology (Thomas, Barry and Satie), and regularly also read and enjoy Duran's books, I found the majority of stories (3/5) just okay. I've been thinking about this: on one hand, it's very common for anthologies to be a bit of a mixed bag, while, on the other, I think the experimental nature of the anthology could also be a contributing factor. Not having the authors name attached to their work means there's a lack of confirmation bias, because the reader can't go in thinking: 'I've loved all of this author's previous work, surely I will love this as well' and is thus more critical than they might otherwise be.

Nonetheless, I think that Sight Unseen is full of quick, interesting reads, and contains something for everyone, except maybe readers who heavily lean towards historical romance. The novelty factor also adds something fun and unique to the reading experience. 

Lost that Feeling - 3 stars
Before being captured as the leader of a rebellion, Alma used her magic to wipe her memory. When her fellow rebels break her out of the prison where she has been kept, she must relearn her place in this underground movement against the King, and begins to question her motives her wiping her memory, and her relationship to Driss, the man who helped her escape. 

Objectively, the world-building in Lost that Feeling was great. I'm sure most people would have enjoyed it more than I did, but I have very been particularly interested in the kind classical fantasy setting that appears here. Given a strong romance arc - like in Grace Draven's work - I can sometimes let myself go and enjoy such settings, but there were only the slightest hints of romance between Alma and Driss. Having said that, I did like the open and hopeful ending, which reminded me of the teasing ending of a prequel novella, before the book actually dedicated to unravelling the hero and heroine's relationship.

A Clear View of You - 3 stars
Kate works as a psychic to pay off her student debts, even though she hates it and the whole thing is obviously bogus. But then North shows up, offering her an obscene amount of money if she'll use her 'skills' to help him locate an object. 

As a Fey, North knows that Kate has no psychic talent, but what she does have is a mother who is meddling with powers beyond her control. He needs Kate's help to gain entrance to the compound where her mother's so-called 'coven' live, and take back a Fey orb whose power is being misused, before it is too late.

Again, I liked the world-building and backstory of this one more than the romance. Kate has issues from growing up with a hippy mother who believes she is a witch, and just wants to lead a normal life. North is more of an enigma as a character, but the differentiation between the mundane and fey worlds were well-explained and -constructed. However, I wasn't convinced by the romance arc, and feel like the story would have benefited from being a bit longer, or having a bit more characterisation on North's part. 

Free - 3 stars
In small-town Montana, Wren's father and uncle run the local second-hand car dealership and a motorcycle club. She's sure that the club just a social thing for bored guys for like motorbikes and wearing leather jackets until the dealership's dorky part-time accountant, clues her into some suspicious stuff on the books. 

Brad has had it bad for Wren for ages, but she's the town's unofficial first daughter, not to mention the on-again/off-again relationship with one of the guys in the motorcycle club. But when he accidentally lets Wren in on what's going on behind the scenes, assuming she was already in the know, she begins to make her own investigations, and needs someone to turn to when she uncovers something unpleasant. 

Heroes in motorcycle clubs are currently all the rage, and Free used this trope in a creative way that I really appreciated. Making it MC-adjacent meant that the reader doesn't have to tackle the moral greyness or suspension of disbelief involved when the hero is actually a biker. The story was also very well written and paced. I considered giving it a higher ranking, but didn't, because Wren's portrayal of the dumb-blonde-with-smokin'-body portrayal rankled. There's nothing inherently sexist about it - in fact, it is a good example of Butler's concept of performative gender, but it was continually a point of focus in a way that centred the male gaze, and it dampened my enjoyment of the whole thing a bit. 

Chariot of Desire - 3.5 stars
The 70's were good to the legendary band Donjon, but as the 1980's roll around, the rock'n'roll lifestyle has taken its toll. Lead singer Donny has joined a Christian sect, and is thus unwilling to sing any of their backlist that contains immoral themes. So, basically, all of it. With the stress on the band reaching breaking point, Donny turns to the band's drummer, CJ, as they try to find a balance between Donny's religion and demons, CJ's standoffishness and the good of the band.

I found Chariot of Desire interesting and different, for a number of reasons. There's the mid-to-late 20th century setting (which I think is massively underused in romance), the use of religion and sectism and the fact that the main characters are past their prime and live (or lived) for sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. As with other stories in the anthology, there is an open ending without a definitive HFN or HEA, but for some reason it worked slightly better for me here, perhaps because it would have been too much of an about-face for the characters to commit to a relationship together. 

The Heart is a Universe - 5 stars
Every generation, on the planet of Pax Cara, a child is chosen and raised with the knowledge that, when they grow up, they will be a sacrifice to the old gods. With less than a month left until she must sacrifice herself, Vitalis is looking for a way out. A hero in his own right, Eleian of Terra Illustrata has watched the media coverage of Vitalis for many years. When they meet at an official function, he makes her a public offer of marriage. She accepts, but both of them are hiding things from the other, and the day of the sacrifice is growing ever closer. 

The Heart is a Universe was the anthology's stand-out story for me. The world-building, characterisation and plot were all amazing, and it several times it went in directions I genuinely did not expect. It has an unconventional HEA, and if someone else had told me about it, I would have scoffed and denied that anyone could ever pull that off, but somehow, the author does. 

Also, for those of you taking part it July's #RomBkLove on Twitter or elsewhere, yesterday's theme was "favourite Virgin Hero/Heroine", and many of us talked about our love for virgin heroes, and made some suggestions. I forgot to mention Eleian, but he is an awesome virgin hero, and I love the way this is worked into the story.

Concluding Thoughts
Looking back on what I've written, it strikes me that Sight Unseen is not just experimental in form, but is also pushing the romance boundaries in other ways, particularly in the way many of the endings do not fit genre conventions surrounding the HEA/HFN. That makes me feel bad about critiquing them, or - more accurately - critiquing some and accepting others. But I'm all about the HEA. 

Review: Ride Baby Ride by Vivian Arend

2 stars

Ride Baby Ride by Vivian Arend was a trope buffet: brother's best friend, amnesiac heroine and surprise pregnancy, to name the biggest three. But it's like when you arrive to the breakfast buffet 15 minutes before it closes, and are forced to make do with the one remaining crossiant, congealed baked beans and some tinned peaches, because that's all that's left. Not a particularly great combo, especially when you have to put them on a single plate, because they've started packing the dishes away. To unpack that terrible metaphor, I basically just felt like there were lots of different tropes and elements all smushed into one short novella, and they didn't have enough space to breathe. 

When Katy breaks up with her low-life boyfriend Simon, Gage Jennick - a close friend of Katy's family - decides to make his move. It's far from ideal timing - he's  just about to leave for a gig on a oil field - but they spend the night together, and promise to continue the relationship when he returns. Except that, in the meanwhile, Katy has a car accident and loses her short-term memory, forgetting her night with Gage and situation with her ex-boyfriend. When she finds out she's pregnant, both step foward and claim to be the baby's father. Katy has to fit the pieces together, but that's hard to do when Gage is determined to win her back and prove to her that he doesn't just want her, but the baby and a long-term future as well.

There was a marked lack of development of Gage and Katy's relationship. At first, Katy is trying to hold him at bay and figure things out and and then, WHAM, they're going to spend their lives together. This was - at least in part - due to the time jumps littered throughout. Those also fell victim to my pet hate when it comes to time jumps: instead of 'two months later' or similar at the top of the chapters, it says 'November', thus requiring you to remember the month named at the previous time jump. For someone with a goldfish brain like mine, this is pretty much impossible, and I ended up skim-reading the first few pages after each time jump, looking for clues - like how much Katy's pregnancy had progressed - which would allow me to establish how much time had passed. 

There was also some toxic masculinity that interfered with my enjoyment of the story, as did the gigantic suspension of disbelief required to buy the way the external conflict comes to a climax. I'm not gonna spoil that, mainly because it's just so crazysauce I wouldn't even know where to begin, but there are some Goodreads reviews that talk about it if you are interested. 

Review: Follow Me into Darkness Anthology

Multiple ratings

In Germany at this time of year, as elsewhere across the globe, people celebrate Carnival, which here is called Karneval, Fasching or Fastnacht. The day I arrived was Weiberfastnacht, and it was the first day of the big festival in Cologne. Catching the train to the town where I am now living was a funny and wonderful experience, because many people were dressed up and getting into the celebratory mood, even though it was still early in the morning. Then, yesterday, I watched my social media as my friends back home in Sydney attended our Mardi Gras parade. All of this left me feeling a bit forlorn, because I had missed out on both set of celebrations. 

But then I remembered Follow Me into Darkness, an anthology of queer romances centred around Carnival that I'd been meaning to read, and which I devoured last night and this morning. It was a really mixed bag, as anthologies often are. Here are my thoughts: 

Hurricane by Santino Hassell - 3.5 stars

Two very different men find each other and explore New Orleans in one night during Carnival. The two heroes complemented each other well, but it's told entirely from one hero's (Zay's) perspective and I would have appreciated more insight into the other character, Keegan. 

If We Be Friends by J C Lillis - 4 stars

This was the stand-out in the anthology for me. Two teenaged cast-mates on a Hamlet-inspired TV show turn over a new leaf. Poignant, touching, and so much love for the unabashed and witty use of Shakespeare. 

Masked by J. R. Gray - 1.5 stars

God, I don't even know what to say about this one. I was riding high after If We Be Friends, and this brought me back to earth with a thud. Two childhood friends whose lives have gone in very different directions meet again when one comes to the aid of the other, who is being beaten up in a homophobic attack. Attacked hero wants to get it on with other hero, despite his injuries, and then there are a lot of artificial roadblocks put the way to prevent this, including a quest to find condoms and accidental cock-blocking by the beaten-up hero's lesbian beard wife (??!). I want to say that it's very cliched, but I'm also not comfortable making that assessment. 

It's supposedly set in Brazil, but who knows where because a city is never mentioned. I guess non-Western countries are just exotically cultured monoliths, so why bother? Also, I'm not sure if I missed something, but at the beginning a date of February 2000 is given and there's no apparent time-jump, yet the heroes have Kindles and iPhones??? /end snarky rant

The Queen's Reflection by Kris Ripper - 3 stars

The Queen's Reflection takes place in a fantasy world, which I would normally be fine with but the last story had minimal Carnival vibes, and it feels weird to have an anthology where two consecutive stories have only minimal connection to the prompt in real-world terms. Anyway, fantasy world is pretty standard, in terms of being medieval-inspired, until weird futuristic things like keystrips (essentially credit cards?) pop up. Stuff like this is just dropped in and not properly explained or connected to the existing world-building that has occurred. 

The female-assigned-at-birth main character, queen of the kingdom, has gender dysphoria, and fictional-world Carnival presents her with an opportunity to shed her skin and move around in disguise. Despite the fact that I started off with what I didn't like about this story, it was emotional, and the menage and self-discovery aspects work well.

Touched by Roan Parrish - 3.5 stars
Towards the end I thought Touched was for sure going to be 4 stars, and then it ripped my heart out with a very, very qualified HFN. The narrator, Phillippe, is a bar owner in prohibitionist New Orleans. When he touches people, he glimpses their futures, but during 1929's Carnival, his visions intensifies, and signal that something big is on the horizon. At the same time, he meets African-American trumpet player Claude, who he wants like no man or woman he's had before.

Writing was a touch florid in places - really, I hate the overuse of adjectives in people's visions/dreams, it just kills me - but this had so much history and story packed in to such a little novella, and I did enjoy it immensely. Even with the soul-destroying ending.

Other thoughts
I know that in the U.S., Carnival is strongly associated with New Orleans, so I guess it makes sense that two of the five stories in this anthology would be set there. However, Carnival/Mardi Gras is something that occurs across the historical Christian - particularly Catholic - world, with many different associations. For example, in Australia, it has become completely divorced from his Lenten roots, and is solely celebrated as a LGBTQIA+ festival, while in many other places the two exist side-by-side, and in some (like Germany), it has virtually no connection to the LGBTQIA+ community. I would have liked to see both the relationship between Carnival, Christianity and queerness and Carnival as a worldwide phenomenon explored in more depth, or tackled more overtly. I also feel like questions of who Carnival is for could have been more drawn out, although Hassell's story did deal excellently with this theme in a horribly realistic fight between the heroes and some homophobic tourists.

Ultimately, I feel like the fictional world and Brazil-with-minimal-reference-to-setting-and-interaction-with-Carnival stories didn't pull their weight in terms of actually exploring Carnival. But, in the introduction, the authors talk about shedding metaphorical masks for physical ones, and how this can be freeing for LGBTQIA+ people. So perhaps the metaphoric representation of Carnival is more important than the physical representation, and as a cishet person and someone constantly stuck in academic analysis mode, I haven't been able to appreciate that as I should (The Queen's Reflection did pull it's weight in this regard. No comment on Brazil.)

NB: 

• Potential readers should be aware that some stories feature homophobic violence. 
• I've stuck with the 'Carnival' spelling for consistency and because it's the most internationally recognised (at least, Encyclopaedia Britiannica and Wikipedia both use this spelling), but the subtitle of the anthology actually uses 'Carnivale'. 
• I may as well take this chance to say that I don't know how active the blog will be in the next month or so - I have uni commitments over 8 hours a day, 6-7 days a week! 

Review: In at the Deep End by Penelope Janu

3 stars

In at the Deep End was a quirky Aussie romance by debut author Penelope Janu. I'd really been looking forward to this one, but I'm left feeling ambivalent, because, while I enjoyed the second half, I didn't connect to the first half.

Harriet 'Harry' Scott grew up in the public eye as the daughter of two globe-trotting conservationist documentary-makers. But an accident in her childhood has left her petrified of water. When the ship she is captaining - which was once her parent's but is now owned by the charitable foundation they set up - goes down in Antarctic waters, Per Amundsen comes to her rescue. He's a Commander in the Norwegian Navy, on loan to the Australian Navy, and he's unimpressed by Harriet's plight. The sinking of the The Watch has damaged Harry's reputation, but Per has lost his chance to undertake his research on the Antarctic ice shelves. 

Harry has a plan to put things right: the Scott Foundation will buy a new ship, and Per can use that for his research. But the foundation doesn't have the money. Although Harry's high profile and Per's scientific connections would help fundraising efforts, Per wants no part of it. He thinks that Harriet is incompetent, irresponsible and a danger to herself and others. When it becomes clear that the only way he will get what he wants is by working with her, Per places a condition on his involvement: Harriet must learn to swim. And, when Per takes charge of Harry's swimming lessons himself, sparks fly. 

The whole novel is written from Harriet's perspective. This gives the reader an awareness her phobia - which I thought was portrayed realistically and sympathetically, as were the other psychological matters the book dealt with - but it also means that, until late in the piece, the reader sees Per as Harriet sees him: as an uptight, overbearing pain-in-her-ass. 

This lack of insight into the hero was critical to me, because I had trouble relating to Harriet. She doodles in high-stakes meetings with lawyers, even when people are talking directly to her. In her day-job as a geography teacher, she seems to spend more time drawing pictures on the whiteboard or talking to her students about her personal life than teaching the curriculum. She's also massively clumsy, which never sits well with me. Some of her irrationality and juvenility can be attributed to her phobia, but not all of it. For example, about mid-way through the book, Harry elbows Per in the stomach, because he's holding her arm and she's having a panic attack. That's perfectly acceptable. But then, towards the end, she punches him - 3 times - because he's "frustrating and intractable" (loc. 4409). Not acceptable. The romance between the two is a very slow-burn, which I usually love, but characterisation here meant that I had trouble even getting to the point where the romance began to warm up. 

However, the second half, when Per and Harriet worked through their enmity, was nuanced and engaging. As Harriet and Per opened up to each other - particularly he to her, since we're already inside her head - I was better able to invest in their relationship. Their growing closeness allowed Per to be the kind of hero that I love, caring and compassionate. In fact, there were a few moments that gave me butterflies, especially around the way he handled consent and safe sex. 

I also really enjoyed the fact that In at the Deep End was set in Sydney, where I live. I can't help but feel a connection to a book that references and describes familiar places like the Quadrangle at USyd, the HMAS Penguin at Balmoral and Royal North Shore Hospital, which I have always known like the back of my hand, first because it was my dad's workplace, and then because it was my own. 

Because of my background in health care (and my general pedantry), I was pulled out of the story several times because of the artistic license taken with medical matters. While there's nothing wrong with that, and I doubt it will bother anyone else, I can't help but issue a PSA: if someone has hypothermia, don't massage or rub or massage their body or extremities. Best case scenario, you'll send the patient into worse shock and severely chaff their skin. Worst case scenario, you've got a cardiac arrest on your hands. 

Harriet's reminiscences about her childhood travelling the world also made me quite uncomfortable, because they were continually exoticising and primitivising other cultures: 

When I was fifteen I spent weeks living with him in stilted huts on the banks of rivers in South-East Asia. The village women forced me to eat even though their own children were far skinnier than I was. The following year...we catalogued the wildebeest migration from the Serengeti in Kenya to the Masai-Mara in Kenya. A few months after that we spent the summer on horseback with Mongolian herdsmen on China's Silk Road. (loc. 317) 

There's a lot of footage of Drew and me dancing together--with Ghanaian drummers, North American boot-scooters, Turkish belly dancers. He used to say that he only got into trouble when I wasn't dancing with him, like the time he waltzed with a dictator's mistress in Cuba, and did the tango with a Geisha in Japan. (loc. 2079)

Paragraphs like these occur throughout the book, and I suppose their purpose is to highlight Harriet's experiences across the world growing up, but they brought nothing to the story. In fact, they often interrupted the narrative flow, and the way people and their lives are made into props in Harriet's 'adventurous' life left me feeling a little bit off. 

Because I did have such disparate feelings about different parts of this book, I've been struggling with this review for a long time. I've had trouble putting everything into words, so this isn't a particularly eloquent or coherent review. It's very rant-y for something that I ended up giving 3 stars to, but I was just so damn ambivalent about everything. I'd think of something I disliked and lower my rating, then remember something that worked for me and bump it back up. In the end, I went with 3 stars, but it's one of those cases where I think people should make up their own minds. Almost all other reviews have been favourable, so if it sounds like something that's up your alley, give it a go. Maybe it's just me, and you'll have an easier time with it.

Review: Stealing Mr. Right by Tamara Morgan

4 stars
Release Date: 7/3/16
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is my own.

Tamara Morgan's website describes Stealing Mr. Right as "Ocean's Eleven meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith", and that's pretty spot-on. The synopsis says:

I'm a wanted jewel thief. He's FBI.What's that saying? Keep your friends close...and your husband closer.   Being married to a federal agent certainly has its perks.

1. I just love the way that man looks in a suit.
2. This way I always know what the enemy is up to.

Spending my days lifting jewels and my nights tracking the Bureau should have been a genius plan. But the closer I get to Grant Emerson, the more dangerous this feels. With two million dollars' worth of diamonds on the line, I can't afford to fall for my own husband.  

It turns out that the only thing worse than having a mortal enemy is being married to one. Because in our game of theft and seduction, only one of us will come out on top. Good thing a cat burglar always lands on her feet.

One thing the blurb doesn't make clear - and that really reminded me of Mr. and Mrs. Smith - is that the narrator, Penelope Blue, and her husband Grant both entered their relationship knowing the other's identity but unaware of their motives. It's an elaborate game of bluff and double bluff, where they both maintain the fiction that Penelope is a dance teacher, and that the close bonds she has with her fellow thieves are more than friendship.

I loved Penelope as a character. Her humour and flexible morals reminded me of Stephanie Plum or Isabel Spellman, heroines from other romantic comedy series that deal with the criminal world. But Penelope differs in that she falls firmly on the wrong side of the law. She's a wonderful antiheroine, she's undoubtedly strong, but her upbringing and ambiguous relationship with Grant also mean that she is emotionally vulnerable. 

Somehow, despite the moral ambiguity surrounding his relationship with Penelope, Grant comes across as a stand-up guy and swoonworthy hero. He's the kind of hero that's my catnip: honourable, but just dishonourable enough. 

His courtship with Penelope - courtship is an old-fashioned word, but it somehow seems appropriate, given the way Grant restrains himself and declares his intentions - is told through flashbacks that are interspersed with what is happening in their present-day marriage. Because of this, Stealing Mr. Right simultaneously feels like a romance novel, where the hero and heroine are feeling each other out, and long-running romantic comedy series with established love interests, like the ones I mentioned earlier. 

From the next book in the series, currently available for pre-order on Amazon, I gather that there will be two more books about Grant and Penelope. It would have been nice to know this going in - or even to have some confirmation that this is indeed the case - but Stealing Mr. Right still functions well as a standalone and has a HFN. 

If I had to name the one thing that I loved best about Stealing Mr. Right, it would be the all-round depth of emotion Morgan manages to convey, the kind that makes your chest feel tight. Partly, this is because the relationships she has crafted between the characters are so messily real and evoke so much emotion. I've read four or five of Morgan's books now, and, as I said in my review of The Derby Girl, this seems to be a consistent strength of hers, as is the acerbic wit she gives her heroines. These similarities mean that, while Stealing Mr. Right might seem to be a change of direction, it will still appeal to fans of her comedic contemporary romances, while also drawing in news readers of romantic suspense, chick-lit and serialised romantic comedies.

Review: The Future Chosen by Mina V. Esguerra

4.5 stars

*MINOR SPOILER ALERT*

Like many people, I started 2017 uneasy about the world political environment, and I chose my first read of the new year - Mina V. Esguerra's The Future Chosen - because I liked the subtitle 'a political romance'. I wanted that alternate political reality where I was sure that everything was going to be okay. However, I didn't anticipate how invested I would be in the process of getting to that HEA; it's a month later, and I'm still recovering from this star-crossed romance.

To prevent political dynasties, the fictional country of Isla has a law where only one person from each family can hold political office, and Lourdes and Andres both have their families' political ambitions resting on their shoulders. They should be thinking about their bright political futures - and they are - but they are also thinking about each other, which is a problem: the only way they could be together is if one of them gave up their place in politics. Since neither is willing to do so, they're at an impasse. There's no point pursuing a relationship that's going nowhere - especially one that could destroy their careers - but somehow they just can't seem to give each other up. 

Starting with Andres and Lourdes' time in a school for future public servants, The Future Chosen is relayed in a series of short-ish installments, with time-jumps in between. We see Lourdes and Andres together, going their separate ways, and then finding their way back to each other again. 

Partly because of the episodic narrative structure and time jumps, Esguerra uses the introduction to warn the reader that The Future Chosen is different to her other works, and she's right. I am a big fan of Esguerra's contemporaries, but here she has constructed something that feels high-stakes in a way that I have rarely encountered. I loved the suspense of not knowing how everything was all going to play out (even though I'm usually the kind of person who reads the back page to make sure that things turns out alright!). Maybe this change of tone won't work for everyone, but it certainly did for me. 

I think I was able to immerse myself so completely in Lourdes and Andres' romance because it had a fictional setting - which gave it some distance from the overwhelming hopelessness that can accompany the real world - and yet it was also relevant and familiar. Esguerra is clear that the nation-state of Isla is not the Philippines, but there were some similarities. However, the idea of an anti-dynasty law, while having particular resonance in the Philippines, is also one of universal relevance: think the Kennedys, the Nehru-Gandhis, Trump appointing Jared Kushner as his advisor. 

Esguerra conducts an extremely nuanced discussion around her anti-dynasty law, called the Mayo-Matias law. As the old saying goes, one man's utopia is another one's dystopia, and the certainly has dystopic undertones for Andres and Lourdes' freedom to choose their partners and careers. There is also the question of whether it exchanges one type of gatekeeping for political positions for others. Andres muses that:

While the law that prevented him and Lourdes from marrying, once they were elected, had its staunch supporters, it was also a law that made their democracy less…democratic. It prescribed a path for public officials, defined the qualifications, in ways that could be abused, and that excluded some of the nation’s best and brightest. It was a program that was meant to level the playing field but Andres believed it bred, programmed, rewarded certain types of individuals. 

The counterpoint to that view is provided right at the beginning of the novel:

Mayo-Matias Law has not kept power, money, and fame away from those who may abuse it, but we know what it has done—it has restored our trust in those who serve us....We will not find better candidates by lowering the score requirements, allowing privately educated entrants, or by amending the law in any way. Give an inch, and we let in doubt. We erode what MML has given us: faith in public servants. 

There was one last aspect of The Future Chosen that I absolutely adored, and that was the way it was unconstrained by gender stereotypes. When a couple's career ambitions come into conflict in the real world, it is often the woman who makes the sacrifice. Here, there was not even the slightest hint that - as the woman - Lourdes would or should be the one to give up her career in favour of Andres' (although, admittedly, perhaps this is because it is a decision that doesn't just affect her, but would require a political freeze to be placed on her whole family). If anything, Lourdes has a stronger claim to having a political career, given that she is a granddaughter of a former president, while Andres' family have only held middling-level positions. Of the two of them, Lourdes is also the more pragmatic and unemotional, while Andres is the one upset by their parting of ways, and more invested in their relationship.

But it's possible I was even more invested than Andres. The Future Chosen was suspenseful and sweet and clever and just so good, and I didn't want it to end. The ending is more of a HFN with hope for a HEA than an actual HEA, which makes sense, because the characters haven't entirely overcome everything keeping them apart. Even though I understand that and I think - objectively - it was the right decision, I still feel a slight lack of closure from that little question mark hanging over Andres and Lourdes future. That's my problem, though, and not the book's. 

I really hope that Esguerra expands this world (although I'm not sure that she will, because this was inspired by discussion around an anti-dynasty law in the Philippines). The world-building is so strong, the tone worked so well for me, and - of course - it would mean that we could see Andres and Lourdes further in the future.