lady_ragnell | 2026 Books, Post 2

Reading fairly speedily! Definitely fell off a little on having quite so many that are relevant to my interests as the first post, but I'm also doing really well at taking control of my TBR shelves after I got very overwhelmed by them.

If the Boot Fits by Rebekah Weatherspoon

I like Weatherspoon, I always forget that and then I read one of hers! This was a fun little Hollywood Cinderella retelling, nothing very deep, but an enjoyable winter read if you're into that kind of thing. Though really the Cinderella of it all is done within the first couple chapters and then it's just a man being very besotted and the woman being unsure if it's a good idea. Weatherspoon has such an interesting tendency to have minor characters that feel like she's setting up other romances or checking in on past romances that then don't exist--the love interest's brothers have books about them, but there are at least two other couples in the book where I was baffled to find that she hadn't written books about them nor did she seem to intend to.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

A reread, though from long ago! Someone from work very kindly gifted me a copy, so I reread it, of course, and I really do enjoy it a lot! There's a lot of fun worldbuilding, I love it when stories have music in them intimately, and everything is allowed to be a lot messier than I feel like YA can sometimes trend to (which sounds wrong, YA is very messy as a genre, I just can't phrase it better than that right now). Anyway, this has made me want to read more Hartman, especially since I hear good things about Tess of the Road, so I'll look out for more from her!

The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

I think I read this after reading someone's review of it here on DW? Anyway, I can be hit or miss on books that swap back and forth between timelines (which is annoying because it's So Fucking Common), but I did like this! I think it carried it off with more grace than they sometimes can. Overall, this book wasn't centered on my loves and interests, but it was interesting, and I like reading books set in warm places during the cold of the winter. This sounds lukewarm, maybe because I read it on a day I was really sleep deprived, but I did like it a lot!

Gifts by Ursula K. LeGuin

Continuing my periodic goal to read more LeGuin! This one's a quiet story, as LeGuin is so good at, a coming of age with LeGuin's usual really solid worldbuilding. This is one where I don't have much to say, it's just a solid read! You've got to go into it remembering LeGuin doesn't care to do things at the Genre Standard (which seems obvious to say but somehow I find it strange every time even if I like it) about pacing and density of plot, but it's worth it.

Isn't It Bromantic? by Lyssa Kay Adams

Contemporary romance. It was ... fine? I appreciate when writers take a stab at a contemporary marriage of convenience, but that was really most of what it had going for it. To be fair, it might have been unfairly contrasted with the watch I'd done of Heated Rivalry just a few days before? But really it just felt like it was trying to do Jennifer Crusie, with the zany ensemble and idiosyncratic bits (and maybe Crusie in her co-writer era due to the random action plot it spawned at the end), and just got nowhere close to her charm.

At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard

I have to be in the right mood for Goddard (mostly a mood where I am willing to deal with the author having Two Special Boys Who She Loves Very Much And Everyone Loves Them And Says How Cool They Are), but I was in the right mood and I was having a stressful week and needed some self-care, so I went cozy. It was the right choice! Goddard's books, at least in this particular sub-series, are very long and incredibly indulgent, but they rarely feel long while I'm reading them. Sometimes I end up rolling my eyes when once again it gets hammered home how little self-esteem Cliopher has vs. how much other people esteem him, less because it's not realistic (I know many people this is true of) and more because even when I'm in the mood for The Author's Special Boys there are limits, but overall, it was the right book at the right moment for me. (One note from me on this series: the variable timelines and time stuff drive me NUTS. It's a useful tool for an author but it keeps disorienting me rather than bringing me deeper into the world.)

Swept Away by Beth O'Leary

I like O'Leary a lot! And I like this book a lot, I always forget that I love Survival Stories until I'm in the middle of having a heap of fun watching people problem-solve in emergency situations. Some of the family drama stuff in this one worked less well for me, but the overall concept and relationship development? A joy to me. Also, I want an AU on this vague concept in literally every fandom I"m in, thanks.

Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I wish I could remember where I'd run across this rec. I picked it up because my library ebook service had it and I'd seen it on a list at some point. It's a YA fantasy, must have been published when Gail Carson Levine was trendy just judging from the marketing of it. It had its good points! Some interesting worldbuilding, and it really was a coming-of-age story. I kept being torn, because on one hand the heroine was fat and that's wonderful and novel, but on the other hand there was so much focus on it, and she did get starved somewhat at some point so she was Still Sturdy But Less Fat, and just overall how that whole thread was handled was uneven for me. Like, product of its time, but still. The worst aspect of this was the romance! No build-up, shortcuts with dream stuff, hard to believe for me. Like, I knew as soon as he was mentioned that he'd be the love interest, but it was done with no grace whatsoever. The whole romance could have been cut from the book and it would have been stronger for it.

Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur by Ian McDonald

This is someone's book for SURE, but it's not my book. I took it for a spin because there's a dinosaur-riding cowboy in my D&D game, so the dinosaur rodeo of it all here was a fun concept, but this was only like 30% dinosaur, and then 70% backstories for rodeo characters and explaining this dystopian late-20th-century world. If I'd known going in that the dinosaurs were a time travel thing (with Strict Rules) rather than an alternate history thing or a bioengineering thing, I might not have tried it, for some reason that made the whole thing way less fun for me. But it no doubt makes it more fun for someone!

Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown

I skimmed this one hard and frankly only finished it because I knew I was almost done with a book post and wanted to get one out. The concept was interesting to me (two people who have almost been something many times over the years end up on a road trip together hunting down their friend who might be becoming a runaway bride), but I found both the characters incredibly unlikeable, especially our narrator. I don't think I'll be reading any more from this author.

That's all for this time! Next time, maybe I finally get to the most recent Alix Harrow?