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lady_ragnell) wrote2025-07-09 03:34 pm
lady_ragnell) wrote2025-07-09 03:34 pm
2025 Books, Post 7
One of my faster posts of the year! Which I credit entirely to airport reading, I had some long times of sitting waiting for flights in this period.
The Great Inscription of the Law Code of Gortyn by Adonis S. Vasilakis
Another one of those "read in little bits" books, a very short volume that I debated about including at all, but also I bought it in the gift shop in Gortyn in college and somehow never read it, so it did feel like an accomplishment! Anyway, clearly written for tourists and not always terribly well copy-edited or translated, but I was so caught by the law code inscribed into stone at the site, and it was really cool to learn what it actually said after all this time. Ought I have done it before? Perhaps. But I'm glad I at least did it now.
The Marquis Who Mustn't by Courtney Milan
I just needed something I could relax and enjoy, and this one was the perfect choice for it! If you like Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation and Faking It but want more intergenerational trauma and diversity and have it set in history, this is the book for you! (Though I recommend starting with the first in the series.) I appreciate Milan's commitment to finding different beats in the romance form, eschewing the "black moment" and finding different ways to get to an earned happy ending instead, it's really fun and refreshing to see. My favorite pure romance of the year so far by a country mile!
Confounding Oaths by Alexis Hall
Alexis Hall is such a good writer, and also one I unfortunately have to be in the right mood for! Especially this series, alas, the trick of Puck as narrator pretending not to get involved and the remove from the characters and lack of expressed sympathy for them is SUCH a good narrative trick but also it makes it harder for me to get invested in them as romances. Which is fine! As with Milan, I am so glad people are doing interesting things with the form, in an era when it sometimes feels like all that's available is a thousand identical options. It's just that I really need to remember that Hall's not the right choice for when I want an escapist romp, he's the right choice for when I want a high-attention romp.
Saint Mazie by Jamie Attenberg
A story told through the journals of a woman and interviews with the people who knew her and who found and interacted with her journals, known for being a bit of a wild thing in the 1910s-1930s in NYC and also being deeply involved with taking care of men badly impacted by the Wall Street Crash when the late 20s and 30s hit. I kept wanting there to be more of a frame story but I think I'd have liked it less if there were a frame story? Anyway, this was interesting and maybe didn't do 100% of what it wanted to do, but nonetheless it's nice to step out of my usual genres sometimes and this fit the bill!
The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg
A YA novel, and it was a lot of things but most interestingly to me it was a scathing critique of Disney Princess Culture and the sacrifices that have to be made behind the scenes to make the Happiest Place On Earth (through an examination of robot/cyborg/etc. ethics, no less). Like, it's not THAT deep, it's also very much A YA Novel, but it's a YA novel that made me think! There were some formally interesting parts, which I wish the book had devoted more of itself too, but overall, if the cover copy interests you or a teen in your life who would be less critical of it than I am, it's worth a shot. (To be clear, this is not a life-changing book, I think it's just surprising how much you can like something when you expect it to be mediocre at the VERY best but give it a shot anyway.)
The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
Mmm, this one needed more space and time to really do what it needed to do, I think? There were the seeds of some REALLY fun things in here, but it was trying to do way too many things all at once and thus skimmed over some of the most interesting beats and frictions. I think what this really wants to be is like a 10-episode streaming miniseries, which would take away some of the things I found more interesting but give better venue for the actual plot as presented. It had so many interesting moments and implications and possibilities! It just was a little glib about dealing with them in places, and I feel like another 50-100 pages or a lot more emotional density would have been required to make it really work for me as a book, when the current level of density and depth definitely feels more visual media for me. Ugh. I wanted to like it, it's got so many tropes that I enjoy. I think maybe this is a lesson to me in keeping my expectations the same whether a book has tropes I like mildly or ones I love, objectively this is exactly the same quality level as the Rothenberg if not better, it's just that I got my hopes up too far for it. (Also to be VERY fair this was the third book I was finishing in a long-ass day of travel. The circumstances may not have been kind.)
The Orb of Cairado by Katherine Addison
After being stung by The Tomb of Dragons earlier this year, I was a little wary of this one and then terribly relieved to enjoy it heaps! It was a nice self-contained adventure with some nice bits of worldbuilding and character arcs, a fun little adventure plot, and very little of the baggage of the Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy. Didn't have enough space to do much that was deep or expand out a few things I'd have liked to have seen more of, but was a reminder to me of why I like Addison and this world, anyway! With a side of Addison having some Feelings About Academia that she clearly needed to work out.
The Mischievous Letters of the Marquise de Q by Felicia Davin
I enjoyed the first book in this series a lot and it's a terrible shame it took me this long to get to the second one! Especially in my Year of Epistolary which is only intermittently happening because I'm trying to ration things, whoops. Anyway, Davin wanted to write fantasy with high stakes but not world-changing stakes, so these books are harrowing, and they tend to be harrowing in a very personal way, with powerful people abusing that power in the worst kinds of ways. However, they are also unabashedly queer and full of people trying their best in complicated and strange circumstances, and the worldbuilding is fun, it's 1820s France and the magic is very ... mmm, Warehouse 13 but better? A rather niche comparison these days, but it's the best I've got. I think the third is out too, I'll look forward to reading it soon!
Adam and Evie's Matchmaking Tour by Nora Nguyen
A very competent contemporary romance, thank goodness! Didn't feel as samey as so many romcoms do. A woman, to inherit the house of her beloved aunt, has to go on a matchmaking tour in Vietnam, where she meets the grumpy CMO of the company running the tours. The chemistry is good, the secondary characters are good, the main characters are both offered other love interests and lives they could be happy with and in but still choose each other in the end, it's just overall really nice! There are a lot of endings that could have felt good, and the one Nguyen chose leaned a little bit more fairy tale than I felt like I could truly believe, but you know what, so often people try to force Realism when I want the fairy tale, I will HAPPILY take someone doing the opposite.
The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso
Had this sitting around for a while! Enjoyable, predictable in a fun way romance-wise while having lots of fun twists and turns plot-wise. I didn't mind the first person POV as much as I sometimes do. This is a party that ends up in a time loop that takes it further and further into chaotic realities while powerful entities treat the party as a gameboard for some pretty universal stakes, and I very much enjoyed the machinations and the character putting that together. The ending was maybe a bit pat, but eh, when have I ever minded things being pat before? I'm not sure I'll read further books in the series, which are apparently coming, but I enjoyed it for what it was, especially as an airplane book.
That's all for this time! I'm finally maybe kind of starting to get my shelves under control, so I'm going to try very hard to continue with that.
The Great Inscription of the Law Code of Gortyn by Adonis S. Vasilakis
Another one of those "read in little bits" books, a very short volume that I debated about including at all, but also I bought it in the gift shop in Gortyn in college and somehow never read it, so it did feel like an accomplishment! Anyway, clearly written for tourists and not always terribly well copy-edited or translated, but I was so caught by the law code inscribed into stone at the site, and it was really cool to learn what it actually said after all this time. Ought I have done it before? Perhaps. But I'm glad I at least did it now.
The Marquis Who Mustn't by Courtney Milan
I just needed something I could relax and enjoy, and this one was the perfect choice for it! If you like Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation and Faking It but want more intergenerational trauma and diversity and have it set in history, this is the book for you! (Though I recommend starting with the first in the series.) I appreciate Milan's commitment to finding different beats in the romance form, eschewing the "black moment" and finding different ways to get to an earned happy ending instead, it's really fun and refreshing to see. My favorite pure romance of the year so far by a country mile!
Confounding Oaths by Alexis Hall
Alexis Hall is such a good writer, and also one I unfortunately have to be in the right mood for! Especially this series, alas, the trick of Puck as narrator pretending not to get involved and the remove from the characters and lack of expressed sympathy for them is SUCH a good narrative trick but also it makes it harder for me to get invested in them as romances. Which is fine! As with Milan, I am so glad people are doing interesting things with the form, in an era when it sometimes feels like all that's available is a thousand identical options. It's just that I really need to remember that Hall's not the right choice for when I want an escapist romp, he's the right choice for when I want a high-attention romp.
Saint Mazie by Jamie Attenberg
A story told through the journals of a woman and interviews with the people who knew her and who found and interacted with her journals, known for being a bit of a wild thing in the 1910s-1930s in NYC and also being deeply involved with taking care of men badly impacted by the Wall Street Crash when the late 20s and 30s hit. I kept wanting there to be more of a frame story but I think I'd have liked it less if there were a frame story? Anyway, this was interesting and maybe didn't do 100% of what it wanted to do, but nonetheless it's nice to step out of my usual genres sometimes and this fit the bill!
The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg
A YA novel, and it was a lot of things but most interestingly to me it was a scathing critique of Disney Princess Culture and the sacrifices that have to be made behind the scenes to make the Happiest Place On Earth (through an examination of robot/cyborg/etc. ethics, no less). Like, it's not THAT deep, it's also very much A YA Novel, but it's a YA novel that made me think! There were some formally interesting parts, which I wish the book had devoted more of itself too, but overall, if the cover copy interests you or a teen in your life who would be less critical of it than I am, it's worth a shot. (To be clear, this is not a life-changing book, I think it's just surprising how much you can like something when you expect it to be mediocre at the VERY best but give it a shot anyway.)
The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
Mmm, this one needed more space and time to really do what it needed to do, I think? There were the seeds of some REALLY fun things in here, but it was trying to do way too many things all at once and thus skimmed over some of the most interesting beats and frictions. I think what this really wants to be is like a 10-episode streaming miniseries, which would take away some of the things I found more interesting but give better venue for the actual plot as presented. It had so many interesting moments and implications and possibilities! It just was a little glib about dealing with them in places, and I feel like another 50-100 pages or a lot more emotional density would have been required to make it really work for me as a book, when the current level of density and depth definitely feels more visual media for me. Ugh. I wanted to like it, it's got so many tropes that I enjoy. I think maybe this is a lesson to me in keeping my expectations the same whether a book has tropes I like mildly or ones I love, objectively this is exactly the same quality level as the Rothenberg if not better, it's just that I got my hopes up too far for it. (Also to be VERY fair this was the third book I was finishing in a long-ass day of travel. The circumstances may not have been kind.)
The Orb of Cairado by Katherine Addison
After being stung by The Tomb of Dragons earlier this year, I was a little wary of this one and then terribly relieved to enjoy it heaps! It was a nice self-contained adventure with some nice bits of worldbuilding and character arcs, a fun little adventure plot, and very little of the baggage of the Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy. Didn't have enough space to do much that was deep or expand out a few things I'd have liked to have seen more of, but was a reminder to me of why I like Addison and this world, anyway! With a side of Addison having some Feelings About Academia that she clearly needed to work out.
The Mischievous Letters of the Marquise de Q by Felicia Davin
I enjoyed the first book in this series a lot and it's a terrible shame it took me this long to get to the second one! Especially in my Year of Epistolary which is only intermittently happening because I'm trying to ration things, whoops. Anyway, Davin wanted to write fantasy with high stakes but not world-changing stakes, so these books are harrowing, and they tend to be harrowing in a very personal way, with powerful people abusing that power in the worst kinds of ways. However, they are also unabashedly queer and full of people trying their best in complicated and strange circumstances, and the worldbuilding is fun, it's 1820s France and the magic is very ... mmm, Warehouse 13 but better? A rather niche comparison these days, but it's the best I've got. I think the third is out too, I'll look forward to reading it soon!
Adam and Evie's Matchmaking Tour by Nora Nguyen
A very competent contemporary romance, thank goodness! Didn't feel as samey as so many romcoms do. A woman, to inherit the house of her beloved aunt, has to go on a matchmaking tour in Vietnam, where she meets the grumpy CMO of the company running the tours. The chemistry is good, the secondary characters are good, the main characters are both offered other love interests and lives they could be happy with and in but still choose each other in the end, it's just overall really nice! There are a lot of endings that could have felt good, and the one Nguyen chose leaned a little bit more fairy tale than I felt like I could truly believe, but you know what, so often people try to force Realism when I want the fairy tale, I will HAPPILY take someone doing the opposite.
The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso
Had this sitting around for a while! Enjoyable, predictable in a fun way romance-wise while having lots of fun twists and turns plot-wise. I didn't mind the first person POV as much as I sometimes do. This is a party that ends up in a time loop that takes it further and further into chaotic realities while powerful entities treat the party as a gameboard for some pretty universal stakes, and I very much enjoyed the machinations and the character putting that together. The ending was maybe a bit pat, but eh, when have I ever minded things being pat before? I'm not sure I'll read further books in the series, which are apparently coming, but I enjoyed it for what it was, especially as an airplane book.
That's all for this time! I'm finally maybe kind of starting to get my shelves under control, so I'm going to try very hard to continue with that.
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I appreciate Milan's commitment to finding different beats in the romance form Yes, I've been loving this about Milan's more recent books! It makes a nice change from the third-act breakup.
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