2026 Books, Post 4

[lady_ragnell]

I think six of these books have been read in the past week and a half? I went through something of a stuck spot for a while there, but I'm back in the habit again, at least somewhat! Having an easier time with ebooks than paper ones at present, maybe because I keep having reading time when I'm away from my bookshelves and haven't been reading paper books that fit in my purse.

The Husband Gambit by L.A. Witt

This one was a contemporary queer marriage of convenience story that was pretty good! A bit of a Cinderella story, to some extent, dealing with the "prince" in the situation's shitty family (including his horrible homophobic father who is trying to move from a Hollywood producing career into politics, and that didn't hit home at all!). It had enough going on that it didn't quite use all of it to the extent I could have wished, but I did enjoy the ensemble even if they weren't used super effectively at times. Not one I'll remember long, but not one I regret reading either.

Earth Earls Are Easy by Catherine Stein

One suspects Stein may have thought of the title first and based not just this book but what seems to be the setup for a series on it. But for all that, I had a good deal of fun with this one! I have run across, now, a few books in this wildly specific genre of "societal structures etc. are old-fashioned but it's set on Mars" (a book that was basically Chalet School only on Mars, this one, and one I haven't yet read that seems to be like WWII evacuees in Britain on Mars), and frankly I love it? More of this? This was basically a Victorian (I wouldn't say Regency, I'd say pretty solidly mid-to-late Victorian) romance novel, just set on Mars, and without the pretty historical costumes. A bit of an action romance, think more the type where there are spies and shit than just social dramas. Not always as graceful or deft as perhaps it could have been, but frankly I had a great time with this one so I don't really care.

A Legionnaire's Guide to Love and Peace by Emily Skrutskie

I really enjoyed this one! This was a fantasy romance that did a lot of things I really enjoyed with worldbuilding (cool magic system that had some implications and myth stuff I'd have loved to see more of), shockingly well-researched battle tactics (using the Roman century model), had a whole plot point about building a road, and above all else for me, is about the aftermath of defeating the Great Evil and mopping up the smaller evils in its wake and seeing what will get built in its place. The romance was sweet, but really not the part of things that I enjoyed most--not that it was in the least bad! I was just too busy enjoying the other aspects to really get swept in by it too much. (Which can also sometimes be a danger of a friends to lovers situation for me where all of the moments of building trust and affection happened off-screen before the story began.)

The Connection by Kate Simpson-Shaw

A little bit of sapphic contemporary fluff that I picked up when it was either quite on sale or free recently. It was sweet, not much to say about it! There was a minute there when I thought we were going to go WAY more gothic than the bright pink cover implied and do some sapphic incest business involving one of the love interest's sisters romantically pining for her, but that didn't end up happening (even if it would have made more sense, weirdly, than where Simpson-Shaw tried to take things). Not that I mind it being exactly what it said on the tin, but that was my thought process while I was reading!

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

I really liked this! Books about books, you know? Eccentric author of a children's book series who hasn't published one in a while has written a draft and has summoned four people to take part in a contest for ownership of the draft, all four being adults who while children ran away to his private island that's a mirror of the one from his book series. Our heroine desperately needs the money to adopt a small boy she's bonded with, and our hero is the illustrator of the author's books. It's maybe not the deepest or most gorgeously written version of this story, but I just really liked it! A sweet thing to read right before a really stressful week!

The Great Balance Series (A Lady of Vision, A Scholar of Beauty, A Thief of Treason) by Jen Lynning

Reviewing these all together, because I've read them all in the past week, though with a book in between books two and three! Read an introductory novella to this world a year or two ago, and saw this was either on sale or free at some point so I picked it up! I keep wanting to be more excited about indie fantasy romance the way I was a few years back before it got Super Trendy and thus picked up a lot of Tropes That Have To Be There, and I liked this a lot more than I've liked a lot of what I've run across recently--I mean, obviously, to the extent that I finished the series! Mostly I like the worldbuilding mechanics in this, that there are prayer-magics that can be invoked to create certain effects but that have to be balanced by equal and opposite effects (for instance, a minor character in the second book traded the beauty of her lovely singing voice to become physically beautiful, but there are also technological uses, the second book is the most fun for those). I liked the middle best, though the romance was a slightly hard sell for me, but overall, if not exactly groundbreaking, I was just glad to have some fantasy romance that's its own thing without doing the trends too hard. Also, the novella in this series is pretty much required reading, FYI, it's not in this bundle but I think it's free on the author's website?

Not Another Family Wedding by Jackie Lau

Contemporary romance I don't have a ton to say about! I always appreciate a romance where the couple explicitly does not want to have children, plus there's an abortion in the heroine's past, which is VANISHINGLY rare. However, I was a little irked by both the hero and heroine clearly not wanting to have kids and having been friends for a long time but them not telling each other that being pretty much the main thing keeping them from committing for 2/3-3/4 of the book. People don't always communicate perfectly, obviously, and if they did it would make for boring books, but that miscommunication didn't work so much for me. Mostly I was really invested in the heroine and her family as she and her sister struggle through something and as she assimilates the failure of her parents' marriage and the ways they failed her when her sister was born.

The Painted Crown by Megan Derr

I'm going to say: I think I discovered Derr's earlier work first, maybe, and was charmed by the inexpert indulgence in it, and keep reading her newer work when I want the sheer indulgence and not quite finding it as much as I wish I could. Is this objectively better than some of the earlier works by her that I read? It very much is! There's fun politics going on, some sharpshooter rescue mission stuff happening, this and The Engineered Throne are both actually really solid fantasy romances. It's just that I picked it up hoping for Absolute Fluff and I shouldn't have, Derr's recent work has too much range for that! I should keep her in mind for fantasy romance cravings that don't succumb to the Trends I mentioned above instead of Absolute Indulgent Fluff now. (Though I do need to find a new supplier of Absolute Indulgent Fluff, apparently.)

That's all for this time! With a work break coming up week after next, I'm hoping I'll be back with another one of these sooner rather than later.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

Just borrowed the Skruskie off this rec! I see the author is actually quite prolific; it would be nice if this were an entree into another enjoyable Old Reliable author.

[lady_ragnell]

I feel like the Skrutskie's a bit more surface-level than the ones that really seem to resonate with you, but it's got a lot of elements I enjoyed!

I've only read one Skrutskie before and it was her first and didn't quite hit me the way I wanted it to, I should check out some of her later work, probably I'll like it more if this one was any indication.