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ohjoysextoy_feed) wrote2025-07-08 07:02 am
ohjoysextoy_feed) wrote2025-07-08 07:02 am
PMDD, Why Me by Adam Green
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-08 08:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-08 08:00 amHide Your Wallet: July 8th Release Week
Happy Tuesday, everyone!
Have I mentioned how many good releases are coming out this month? This week, we have more fantasy romances (they never end!), a mystery, contemporary romance, and a YA historical romance.
What’s on your TBR pile this week? Let us know in the comments!
The Frozen People
Author: Elly Griffiths
Released: July 8, 2025 by Pamela Dorman Books
Genre: Mystery/Thriller, Time Travel
Series: Ali Dawson #1
Cold cases are a lot easier to solve when you can travel back in time to find new evidence—unless, that is, you get stuck in the nineteenth century.
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old they’re frozen—or so their inside joke goes. Ali’s work seems like a safe desk job, but what her friends—and even her beloved son—don’t know is that her team has a secret: They can travel back in time to look for evidence.
So far Ali has made trips only to the recent past, so she’s surprised when she’s asked to investigate a murder that took place in 1850. The killing has been pinned on an aristocratic patron of the arts and antiquities, a member of a sinister group called “The Collectors.” She arrives in the Victorian era during a mini ice age to find another dead woman at her feet and far too many unanswered questions. But when her son is arrested, Ali attempts to return home only to find herself trapped in 1850.
Amanda: I haven’t been into mysteries lately, but this sounds interesting.
The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick
Author: S. Isabelle
Released: July 8, 2025 by Storytide
Genre: Historical: European, Romance, Young Adult
This wildly entertaining YA historical romance follows a young Black woman in 1860s England who yearns for a writing career and independence rather than love and marriage, but an unexpected inheritance forces her into London society and reunites her with the boy who broke her heart. Perfect for fans of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Davenports.
Eighteen-year-old Stella Sedgwick is a lost cause. While 1860s England offers little opportunity beyond marriage for a sharp-tongued, dark-skinned girl, Stella dreams of a writing career and independence.
When her late mother’s former employer—the wealthy Thomas Fitzroy—summons Stella to London, he bequeaths her one of the family’s great estates on his deathbed. But such an inheritance will precipitate a legal battle, one that would be much easier if Stella were married. Suddenly thrust into lily-white London society with the goal of finding a husband, Stella also reunites with the Fitzroy heir Nathaniel, her childhood best friend, now somewhat of a stranger.
But London presents other opportunities, like picking up her mother’s old advice column, where “Fiona Flippant” anonymously guided readers through upper-class perils. It turns out the dresses and balls aren’t so bad, though the stares and insults sometimes feel impossible to navigate. Things only grow more complicated with the attention of handsome suitors and Stella’s increasingly tempestuous relationship with Nathaniel. As new opportunities arise and old secrets are uncovered, Stella must decide when to play by the rules, when to break them, and when to let herself follow her heart.
Shana: This has one of the most beautiful covers I’ve seen all year and I can’t wait to read it.
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy
Author: Brigitte Knightley
Released: July 8, 2025 by Ace
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Historical: European, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Dearly Beloathed #1
Loyalties are tested in this enemies-to-lovers romantasy set in an alternate England following an assassin and a healer forced to work together to cure a fatal disease, all while resisting the urge to kill each other—or worse, fall in love.
When Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, falls ill, he realises he needs the expertise of a very specific healer. As fate would have it, that healer belongs to an enemy faction, the Haelan Order.
Aurienne Fairhrim and her fellow Haelan are inundated by sick children suffering from an outbreak of a long-forgotten Pox. Unable to get the funding needed to launch an immunisation programme, the Haelan Order is desperate for money – so desperate that, when Osric breaks into their headquarters to bribe Aurienne to heal him, she is forced to accept.
As Osric and Aurienne work together to solve not only his illness but the mysterious reoccurrence of the Pox, they find themselves ardently denying an attraction which only fuels the tension between them.
Amanda: Dramione book #1 this month. This is such a slow burn.
Rose in Chains
Author: Julie Soto
Released: July 8, 2025 by Forever
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: The Evermore Trilogy #1
New York Times bestselling author Julie Soto crafts a lush and dark romantic fantasy that’s filled with intrigue, magic, and an irresistible enemies-to-lovers romance.
The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.
Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, the world as Briony Rosewood knows it is changed forever. Evil has won, and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment, or death.
Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction—and as Evermore’s princess, she fetches the highest price. After a fierce bidding war, she’s sold to none other than Toven Hearst, scion of a family known for their cruelty.
Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help—and hope—may yet arise in the most unlikely of places…
Amanda: The second of two Dramione books coming out. I’m in heaven.
Soulgazer
Author: Maggie Rapier
Released: July 8, 2025 by Ace
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: The Magpie and the Wolf Duology #1
Every legend has a beginning.
With their freedom on the line, a young woman and a rakish pirate take their fate into their own hands as they attempt to find a lost mythical isle with the power to save their entire world.
Saoirse yearns to be powerless. Cursed from childhood with a volatile magic, she’s managed to imprison it within, living under constant terror that one day it will break free. And it does, changing everything.
Horrified at her loss of control, Saoirse’s parents offer her hand to the cold and ruthless Stone King. Knowing she’ll never survive such a cruel man, Saoirse realizes there is only one path forward…she must break her curse.
On the eve of her wedding, Saoirse seeks out the legendary Wolf of the Wild—Faolan, a feral, silver-tongued pirate. He swears to help rid her of the deadly magic, if she’ll use it to locate a lost mythical isle first. Crafted by the slaughtered gods, it’s the only land that could absorb her power.
But Saoirse knows better than to trust a pirate’s word. With the wrath of her disgraced father and scorned betrothed chasing them, Saoirse adds one last condition to protect if Faolan wants her on his ship, he’ll have to marry her first.
“A tale rife with longing, extraordinary tenderness and delicious tension. A glorious escape for the heart and imagination.”—Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of Last Tale of the Flower Bride
Elyse: Pirates!
Lara: I will read this book for that gorgeous cover alone. The pirates are a bonus.
These Summer Storms
Author: Sarah MacLean
Released: July 8, 2025 by Ballantine Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Literary Fiction, Romance
New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean’s first foray into contemporary fiction, with a sharp, sexy novel about a wealthy New England family’s long-overdue reckoning with hidden desires, destructive secrets…and one week that threatens to tear them apart
Alice isn’t like the other Storm siblings. While the rest stayed to battle for their parents’ approval, attention, and untold billions, she left, building her own life beyond the family’s name and influence. Nothing could induce her to come back, except the shocking death of her larger-than-life father. Now back on the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast, she plans to keep her head down, pay the last of her respects, and leave the minute the funeral is over.
Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his widow and their grown children a final challenge–an inheritance game designed to humiliate, devastate, and unravel the Storm family in ways both petty and life-altering. The rules of the game are clear: stay on the island for one week, complete the tasks, receive the inheritance.
One week on Storm Island is an impossible task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting dysfunctional chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s incessant mansplaining. Her sister-in-law’s unapologetic greed. Her younger sister’s obsession with “vibes”. Her mother’s penchant for stirring up competition between her children. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s enigmatic, unfairly good-looking, second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape the week unscathed.
A story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel is at once deliciously clever and surprisingly tender, exploring past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.
Sarah MacLean’s contemporary fiction with a dose of romance.
Totally and Completely Fine
Author: Elissa Sussman
Released: July 8, 2025 by Dell
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
From the bestselling author of Funny You Should Ask comes an inspiring romance novel about honoring the past, living in the present, and loving for the future.
In her small Montana hometown, Lauren Parker has assumed a few different roles: teenage hellraiser; sister of superstar Gabe Parker; and most recently, tragically widowed single mother. She’s never cared much about labels or what people thought about her, but dealing with her grief has slowly revealed that she’s become adrift in her own life.
Then she meets the devilishly handsome actor Ben Walsh on the set of her brother’s new movie. They have instant chemistry, and Lauren realizes that it has been far too long since someone has really and truly seen her. Her rebellious spirit spurs her to dive headfirst into her desire, but when a sexy encounter becomes something more, Lauren finds herself balancing old roles and new possibilities.
There’s still plenty to contend with: small-town rumors, the complications of Ben’s fame, and her daughter’s unpredictable moods. An unexpected fling seemed simple at the time—so when did everything with Ben get so complicated? And is there enough room in her life for the woman Lauren wants to be? Alternating between Lauren’s past with Spencer and her present with Ben, Totally and Completely Fine illuminates what it means to find a life-changing love and be true to oneself in the process.
Elyse: These characters appeared in Funny You Should Ask which I absolutely loved.
The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam
Author: Megan Bannen
Released: July 8, 2025 by Orbit
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Hart and Mercy #3
From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a new heartwarming fantasy rom-com with an opposites-attract twist set in the delightful, donut- and dragon-filled world of Tanria.
Immortal demigod Rosie Fox has been patrolling Tanria for decades, but lately, the job has been losing its luster. When Rosie dies (again) by electrocution (again) after poking around inside a portal choked with shadowy thorns, she feels stuck in the rut that is her unending life.
The portal’s uptight creator, Adam Lee, must come in person to repair the damage. But when all the portals break down at once, Rosie and Adam wind up trapped inside the Mist. And the reticent inventor in his bespoke menswear seems to know a lot more about what’s happening than he lets on.
Maybe two people who have found themselves stuck in this thorny, tangled life together can find a way to unstick each other … just when their time on this earth seems to be running out.
Book three in the much loved Hart and Mercy series.
Terror at the Gates
Author: Scarlett St. Clair
Released: July 8, 2025 by Bloom Books
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Blood of Lilith #1
The first in an all-new fantasy series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Scarlett St. Clair. In this biting, feminist retelling of Lilith’s story, Lilith will rise from the ashes of her former life to destroy the ancient power that stole everything she loves.
She is the beginning and the end.
She is peace and chaos.
She is terror knocking at the gates.
Estranged from her powerful family, Lilith Leviathan finds refuge in Nineveh, a district in the city of Eden devoted to sin. There, she uses her magic to steal for a living, attracting the attention of the five governing families as well as the church, which expects women to remain pious and silent. When Lilith comes into possession of a beautiful blade, she thinks all her worries are over…until her usual buyer dies while inspecting it.
Frantic, Lilith turns to the only man who can help Zahariev, head of the Zareth family and ruler of Nineveh. His currency is information, and his power is extortion, though he’s always had a soft spot for Lilith. But when the dagger appears, he isn’t sure he can protect her from what’s to come.
Together, they embark on a mission to discover the true power running their world. As their lives intertwine, Lilith realizes Zahariev is more than just a friend, but their devotion to each other is a threat—to the truth, to the church, and to those who want to tear it all down.
Amanda: Look at that cover!
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-07 03:30 pm
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-07 03:30 pmNon-Fiction, Contemporary Romance, & More
A Bride for the Prizefighter
A Bride for the Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath is $2.99! This is book one in the Victorian Prizefighters series. I’ve heard such good things about Coldbreath’s romance. Would you recommend starting here?
Mina’s well-ordered life is thrown into disarray when her father drops a bombshell on his deathbed: she has a brother she never knew of. Not only that, he is on his way to rescue her from the collapse of their school under a mountain of debts.
A wild journey across country later, Mina finds herself thrown at the feet of the brutish William Nye, prize-fighter and owner of a disreputable inn, The Merry Harlot. Respectable Mina is appalled to find herself obliged to wed this surly stranger!
Forced to draw on reserves of inner strength she never knew she possessed, Mina uncovers perilous secrets and bravely carves herself a new life at the side of this man, as she proves herself a more than worthy partner for the prize-fighter.
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes by Xio Axelrod is $1.99! This came out in the spring and has second chance romance elements and characters involved in the music industry. This one had a lot of buzz. Did you read it?
Her name’s Antonia “Toni” Bennette (yeah, she’s heard all the jokes before) and she’s not a rock star. Neither are the Lillys—not yet. But the difference between being famous and being almost famous can be a single wrong note…or the start of something that’ll change your life forever.
Growing up in dive bars up and down the East Coast, Toni Bennette’s guitar was her only companion…until she met Sebastian Quick. Seb was a little older, a lot wiser, and before long he was Toni’s way out, promising they’d escape their stifling small town together. Then Seb turned eighteen and split without looking back.
Now, Toni’s all grown up and making a name for herself in Philadelphia’s indie scene. When a friend suggests she try out for a hot new up-and-coming band, Toni decides to take a chance. Strong, feminist, and fierce as fire, Toni B. and the Lillys are the perfect match…except Seb’s now moonlighting as their manager. Whatever. Toni can handle it. No problem. Or it wouldn’t be if Seb didn’t still hold a piece of her heart…not to mention the key to her future.
The Duke Has Done It Again
The Duke Has Done It Again by Jane Ashford is $1.99! This is the sixth book in The Duke’s Estates series and is an enemies to lovers romance.
How can they stay rivals when they’re falling in love?
As children of the two most prominent families in town, Gavin Keighley and Rose Denholme have been enemies their whole lives. When the Duke and Duchess of Tereford come to town to get their estate in order, they invite Gavin, Rose, and their families for a visit to settle the feud once and for all. But as jealousy takes root, the entire town begins to compete for the attention of the duke and duchess, forcing Gavin and Rose to choose between fighting for their family interests or fighting for the love that’s blossoming between them.
Blood
Blood by Dr. Jen Gunter is $3.99! This was mentioned in Hide Your Wallet in January. Dr. Gunter’s non-fiction titles have been featured and recommended previously.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-07 07:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-07 07:00 amHooked by Emily McIntire
TW/CW: Graphic violence, kidnapping, mentions of child sexual abuse, assault, murder, torture.
If you’re curious about this book, please check triggers. The author has a more comprehensive list on her website.
Hooked is a dark, contemporary mafia romance with lots of winks and nods to Peter Pan. It’s the first book in the Never After series, which is a reimagining of known fairytales and House of Mouse movies, but with villains as the love interests.
This is your common revenge story of a man wanting revenge against the heroine’s father and woos her as part of his quest for vengeance.
To sum up, Hook’s parents were assassinated by Peter…
Hook was then sent to live with his pedophilic uncle until he turned eighteen. And then he murders him. As one does. Hook’s plan is to use Peter’s daughter Wendy to lure Peter out and kill him. If you’re curious about whether Hook fantasizes about having sex with Wendy on top of her dad’s dead body, the answer is a resounding yes.
As a teen, Hook is taken in by a local crime boss, where they run protection rackets, drug smuggling operations, and the like.
Wendy has her own issues with her father, namely that he’s pretty negligent and neglectful of her and her brother following the death of their mother. He’s also involved in criminal activity that she is blissfully unaware of.
For some reason, I have declared 2025 my dark romance era. I’ve been curious about the subgenre for awhile, though it’s been hard to weed through all of the offerings and I feel like I can make book decisions more easily when I can peruse in a physical store. Shoutout to Lovestruck Books for having a beefy dark romance section.
I found this to be a super compelling read, honestly. I blew through this bad boy in about 5 hours across two days. I loved all the Easter eggs to the source material
…like Hook’s real name being James Barrie and his boat being named The Tiger Lily.
The romance unfolded at a great (and sexy) pace for most of the book and there’s an interesting crime mystery happening in the background.
There’s a mole in the midst of Hook and his boss Ru’s operations, while they’re simultaneously trying to broker a deal with Peter and his airline company to further their drug operations. No one knows that Hook has any former connections to Peter and Peter doesn’t remember Hook since he was a child when they last met, so there’s a tension with his subterfuge with Ru, Wendy, and Peter.
It taps well into my enjoyment of high stakes secrets. Sarah and I have talked at length about how we vary on the angst scale. A friends to lovers romance doesn’t often grab my interest because I think the obstacles are too low. Wooing a woman and brokering an illegal business deal for the purpose of killing a well-known businessman with a highly successful airline company? Thank you, sir. I will have another.
The attraction between Hook and Wendy is cute and flirtatious (you know, until he reveals his master plan and things get wild). He’s British and throws around “darling” a lot (also another Peter Pan nod). It gave me some Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3 vibes. For the Astarion girlies out there, if you know, you know.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it a morality chain trope, as Hook expresses no desire to be “good” for the sake of Wendy, but more so that falling in love with Wendy feels like the first “good” thing he’s allowed himself to experience.
Wendy is wealthy, has lived a sheltered life under the thumb of her rich father, and has assumed the typical role of eldest daughter where she has to parent her younger brother. Her decisions are driven by wanting to establish her own agency. She gets a job despite not needing one. She goes to bars with coworkers to establish deeper friendships. She strikes up a flirtation with a mysterious Brit (Hook).
Sometimes in similar plots, there’s a heaping helping of insta-love or a love interest that skews more toward passive rather than an active participant in a relationship. Perhaps, for me, the bar is on the floor, but Wendy at least wasn’t a wet noodle. I’ll take that as a win.
Everything fell apart with about a quarter left in the book. I felt like I was enduring twist whiplash with big reveal after big reveal, plus there was an uptick in sex scenes that I mostly skimmed. The twists mostly made sense, but there were just too many in rapid succession to really let them sit and simmer.
There’s a point of no return in Hook and Wendy’s relationship that I wasn’t fully on board with. Hook’s boss, Ru, is killed while attending a business deal. Hook was supposed to attend, but says he’ll be late. He’s supporting Wendy as she drops her brother off to a boarding school.
Upon discovering Ru’s dead body at the meeting place, he assumes Wendy had something to do with it. He accuses Wendy of distracting him to keep him from attending the deal so that Ru could be murdered.
But like dude…you offered to go with her. She didn’t ask.
He then kidnaps her and reveals his desire to use her as a pawn to kill her dad and then possibly kill her.
I felt Hook’s connection between going with Wendy coinciding with Ru’s murder didn’t make sense to me. It was too big of a logical leap.
There were also a couple things that don’t appeal to me personally as a reader.
There is a baby epilogue, which I don’t ever enjoy in my romances. There was also a scene where the heroine professes her love, post-facial. I’m not referring to a self-care spa facial (though hey, if the other kind is your version of self-care, we listen and we don’t judge). That said, Hook massaging his baby batter into Wendy’s face as she reveals that she’s fallen in love with him was certainly a creative choice.
Since we’re all friends here, I’ll share that I find sex facials to be not my cup of tea from purely a logistical standpoint. It’s going to sting if it’s in your eyes. God forbid you wear contacts or glasses. Lump this into the same bucket for my hatred of red velvet: it’s a very passionate NO from me.
I will note that in the book Wendy is a Massachusetts transplant from Florida (same, girl) and that threw me for a second. It’s set in a fictional town in an environment that certainly doesn’t bring to mind any of my experiences in the Bay State. There’s not a single mention of the screeching Green Line, ghost buses, or lack of blinker usage. If you’re a stickler for a detailed sense of place especially in an area where you may live, be warned that the setting is very loose set dressing.
However, I kept thinking about this book while working, waiting to finally be on my commute home or have some time on my lunch break to start reading again. I made the grievous error of buying a special edition of this book and, while there are plenty of books out in the series, the special edition of book two, Scarred, isn’t out until August. Yes, I’ve preordered it.
Considering I’ve been in a reading lull lately, Hooked gets major points for reigniting the desire to pull a Bad Decisions Book Club. It was really dirty (a compliment) and mostly fun, and I think it was a good start to my foray into newer dark romance releases this year.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-07 06:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-07 06:00 amCover Awe: Warmth and Softness
Welcome back to Cover Awe!
Cover illustration by Cynthia Sheppard
Amanda: Love the eye contact on this one!
Sarah: This cover is an incredible balance of stillness between their faces and movement with all the fabric. The composition is flawless.
Lara: I’m rather taken with the bouffant hair. I feel it adds to the cover rather nicely.
Cover illustration by Alexis Lampley
Sarah: Oooh my!
Elyse: The dress spacesuit is chef’s kiss.
Sarah: She looks like she’s wearing a bearded iris and floating in front of a soap bubble. I love it.
Lara: Those colours are blissful.
Cover illustration by Devin Elle Kurtz
Sarah: Well that just glows in fascinating ways.
Amanda: This creates such a lovely sense of place.
Sarah: The use of shadow and fire is exquisite. I love how the cat and the main character are limned in firelight.
Lara: I love the details like the whisp of steam coming off the teacup.
Cover design by Dar Albert of Wicked Smart Designs
Amanda: I love how soft everything is and how the color and texture of her dress blends in with the flowers.
Sarah: That is a really interesting merge of a few trends! Flowers, soft focus, mostly similar color palate. The softness is so alluring.
Elyse: She looks like Alba Baptista.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-06 06:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-06 06:00 amGet Rec’d with Amanda – Volume 93
Welcome back to Get Rec’d!
For this edition, I will warn that there are a couple titles related to tech and politics. One is fiction and the other is non-fiction. That may not be everyone’s bag right now. I also have a new mystery with a twist and Sarah popped in with a recommendation.
What recommendations have your received lately? Let us know in the comments!
Can You Solve the Murder
I’m personally really curious about this one and how the interactive elements work out.
“Follow leads, find clues, and interrogate suspects in this intricately crafted page-turner! Will you make the right calls and catch the culprit, or will they slip through your fingers?” —G. T. Karber, author of Murdle
One murder. Six suspects. One truth for YOU to uncover.
YOU are the lead detective and it’s your job to investigate the most mysterious crime of your career.
There’s been a murder at Elysium, a wellness retreat set in an English country manor. You arrive to find the body of a local businessman on the lawn – with a rose placed in his mouth. It appears he was stabbed with a gardening fork and fell to his death from the balcony above. You quickly realize that balcony can only be accessed through a locked door, the key is missing, and everyone in Elysium is now a suspect… Who did it and why? It’s up to you to figure it out.
YOU gather the evidence and examine the clues.
YOU choose who to interview next, and who to accuse as your prime suspect.
But remember that every decision YOU make has consequences – and some of them will prove fatal…
Do you have what it takes? Can YOU solve the murder? Put your sleuthing skills to the test!
Code Dependent
This is a book I can’t stop thinking about and does a great job explaining the pervasiveness of AI.
Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction
Named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly.
A riveting story of what it means to be human in a world changed by artificial intelligence, revealing the perils and inequities of our growing reliance on automated decision-making
On the surface, a British poet, an UberEats courier in Pittsburgh, an Indian doctor, and a Chinese activist in exile have nothing in common. But they are in fact linked by a profound common experience—unexpected encounters with artificial intelligence. In Code Dependent, Murgia shows how automated systems are reshaping our lives all over the world, from technology that marks children as future criminals, to an app that is helping to give diagnoses to a remote tribal community.
AI has already infiltrated our day-to-day, through language-generating chatbots like ChatGPT and social media. But it’s also affecting us in more insidious ways. It touches everything from our interpersonal relationships, to our kids’ education, work, finances, public services, and even our human rights.
By highlighting the voices of ordinary people in places far removed from the cozy enclave of Silicon Valley, Code Dependent explores the impact of a set of powerful, flawed, and often-exploitative technologies on individuals, communities, and our wider society. Murgia exposes how AI can strip away our collective and individual sense of agency, and shatter our illusion of free will.
The ways in which algorithms and their effects are governed over the coming years will profoundly impact us all. Yet we can’t agree on a common path forward. We cannot decide what preferences and morals we want to encode in these entities—or what controls we may want to impose on them. And thus, we are collectively relinquishing our moral authority to machines.
In Code Dependent, Murgia not only sheds light on this chilling phenomenon, but also charts a path of resistance. AI is already changing what it means to be human, in ways large and small, and Murgia reveals what could happen if we fail to reclaim our humanity.
If Nuns Ruled the World
This was a recommendation Sarah wanted to pass on!
Sarah: Book some of y’all might like. It’s stories about bad ass nuns
Veteran reporter Jo Piazza profiles ten extraordinary nuns and the causes to which they have dedicated their lives—from an eighty-three-year-old Ironman champion to a brave sister who rescues victims of human trafficking
Meet Sister Simone Campbell, who traversed the United States challenging a Republican budget that threatened to severely undermine the well-being of poor Americans; Sister Megan Rice, who is willing to spend the rest of her life in prison if it helps eliminate nuclear weapons; and the inimitable Sister Jeannine Gramick, who is fighting for acceptance of gays and lesbians in the Catholic Church. During a time when American nuns are under attack from the very institution to which they pledge, these sisters offer inspiring, provocative counterstories that are sure to spark debate.
Overthrowing our popular perception of nuns as killjoy schoolmarms content to live in the annals of nostalgia, Piazza defines them instead as the most vigorous catalysts of change in an otherwise constricting patriarchy.
Infomocracy
If you’re the kind of reader who likes to read sci-fi as a reflection of what our future may look like, one of my friends believes this book gets the most right in terms of where our country could be headed.
Read Infomocracy, the first book in Campbell Award finalist Malka Older’s groundbreaking cyberpunk political thriller series The Centenal Cycle, a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series, and the novel NPR called “Kinetic and gripping.”
• A Locus Award Finalist for Best First Novel
• The book The Huffington Post called “one of the greatest literary debuts in recent history”
• One of Kirkus’ “Best Fiction of 2016”
• One of The Washington Post’s “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2016”
• One of Book Riot’s “Best Books of 2016 So Far”
It’s been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything’s on the line.
With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?
Infomocracy is Malka Older’s debut novel.
No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons (peter_watts_feed) wrote2025-07-05 04:04 pm
peter_watts_feed) wrote2025-07-05 04:04 pmNo Obituary. Just an End.
If you’ve been coming here for a while―seven, eight years ago―you may remember how this story started: with a homeless man on our porch, sheltering from a rainstorm; with his cat, Blueberry Panda. I blogged about it here, and here; Caitlin wrote with (as usual) far greater eloquence over on TVO, and was interviewed by Steve Paikin on The Agenda. Back then, the story had no happy ending. It had no ending at all, as Caitlin pointed out. Given the state of the safety nets in this province, such stories generally don’t.
Until they do.
Caitlin came across some administrative trivia the other day, a statement from an office down in Trinidad concerning a dispute over home ownership. Kevin’s death was mentioned in passing, almost an afterthought. We’ve been unable to find any other documentation online: no funeral announcement, no obituary, no condolences or expressions of sympathy. Even fewer people noticed his death than noticed his life.
Caitlin, typically, noticed. And she wrote the following obituary, because nobody else did. Finally the story has an ending. Inevitably, it is not a happy one. But if you’re looking for some kind of silver lining: Blueberry Panda abides. She sleeps on the bed with us every night. She is spoiled rotten.
She is forever Real.
* * *
Obituary for Kevin Videsh Dass
by Caitlin Sweet
I don’t know what his birthday was, but I know he died on April 22, 2024.
I know he was 46 when we met him, in June 2017. So he was 53 when he died.
I don’t know where he died, but I know he was born in Trinidad and moved to Toronto after high school. I know he did a double major at the University of Toronto—philosophy and chemistry. He told us; the internet confirmed it.
I don’t know how he died, but I know he was unwell in all sorts of ways. Schizophrenic—maybe? “Are you taking your meds, Kevin?” “I stopped. They make my head hurt.” Drug addict—almost certainly. The cops our neighbour called on him that first time told us there were crack pipes in the tent we’d given him. We didn’t want to believe this—but then I found crack pipe photos on his Facebook page.
“I want to stop living but then my stomach hurts because I’m hungry and I eat.” He said this in August 2018, nine months after he and his cat Blueberry Panda moved away from our backyard and the ravine beyond it. He was sitting on our porch in the heat, staring dully at nothing. His brown skin looked grey, as it had the night we called the cops, because we had no idea what else to do.
I think that August day was the last time we spoke.
I tracked down his sister when things were at their worst. When we waited for night with gnawing, nauseating dread, knowing he’d rant and sometimes cry (Blueberry there with him, huddled close). It had started out so innocuously, in June 2017, when he’d sung along with Madonna and Whitney Houston. Just an exuberant, slightly off guy who’d chosen our ravine to live in with his cat after being evicted from his apartment. By November, he was incoherent, shouting about demons. Setting fires.
Over Facebook Messenger, his sister told me how hard she’d tried. How many plane tickets she’d bought so he could visit her in Boston, only to have him not show up. How many times she’d set up appointments for him (medical; psychiatric), only to have him not show up. She told me how exhausted she was. How hopeless. When I let her know we’d gotten him into the Bethlehem United shelter with Blueberry, she thanked me, then asked for his case worker’s name, then blocked me.
I know his mental health fell off a cliff after his mother, whom he loved dearly, died in 2010. I know he loathed his father—said he was a homophobe, cruel, angry. I know, again thanks to Facebook, that Kevin’s relationship with his sister disintegrated after their mother died, and he got sick. Or sicker.
Blueberry Panda is what I know best about him. Blueberry, the mustachioed tuxedo cat he found crying under his apartment window when she was small enough to fit in his hand, and who was with him until she was eight years old, and a chonk. She burrowed deep into his sleeping bag with him, when he lived up against our back fence, and later, when he lived in our backyard.
January 14, 2018
What is real is Me and Blueberry Panda, and not anything else at all ever, this whole “people” “life” thing is a video, and all people just do the same moves over and over, and it cannot be changed, I have tried, and “people” and “life” SIMPLY ARE NOT REAL ever, just a video, like a programming, which they cannot alter from, except for Blueberry Panda who is forever real, and I have something better than “life”.
He’d already lost her when he wrote that.
He showed up at our door on January 6, 2018. He sat in our living room, talking in a monotone—a long, low drone of words that mostly didn’t go together. “I lost Blueberry Panda, but I know where she is.” “Where is she, Kevin? Is she dead?” “No. I know where she is. I just can’t tell you. I lost her by the altar. I know she’s safe.” “When did you leave Bethlehem United?” “After five weeks.” “Why?” “People were doing drugs there. It wasn’t clean.”
He told us about his “gift”, that night: his ability to remember previous events as they were happening again, in the present. “I remember this now,” he said. “You were here before”—gesturing at Peter—“but you weren’t.” Gesturing at me. Frowning.
After an hour, and a glass of orange juice, he went back out into the cold. We didn’t give him money. We’d stopped doing that, despite the guilt.
Two days later, I couldn’t concentrate at work, imagining Blueberry dead or lost. No black-and-white cat on the City of Toronto deceased animals website, though. No black-and-white cat listed as found at the Humane Society, or on other lost and found cats sites.
“I lost her by the altar.”
Homeless shelter church Toronto, I typed—and there it was: a warming centre in a church at Dundas and Sherbourne. I think I remember my hands shaking as I dialed their number.
“We do have a cat, yes. She’s been here since December; we were hoping her person would come back for her. We just called Toronto Animal Services today; they’re on their way to pick her up.”
We picked her up.
Kevin showed up on our porch at least twice after Blueberry came to live with us, on January 8, 2018. We didn’t tell him we had her. We had to save her if we couldn’t save him. Right? It was the only sensible thing.
“I want to stop living but then my stomach hurts because I’m hungry and I eat.” She was inside when he said that. Imagine his face, if he’d seen her. If we’d said, “Here she is, Kevin. We found her, but she belongs with you.”
Would this have saved him?
No.
Just the guilt talking. Right?
I checked online for references to him, in the years after we last saw him. (He was standing on the bridge from the subway to the park near our house, that last time. Winter 2020 or 2021; he was rocking gently, eyes on his feet. I walked past with my hood pulled over my face. Guilt, sadness, dread, guilt, sadness, dread; hurry home to curl up around Blueberry.) Nothing…nothing…then, at last:
LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION of the estate of KEVIN VIDESH DASS of 28, Immortelle Avenue, Coconut Drive, San Fernando, Trinidad, who died on the 22nd day of April, 2024, by Cummings Dass of the same place, his father and only person entitled to the estate…
Kevin’s father is seeking ownership of the house in Trinidad that he lost in his divorce from Kevin’s mother. The father Kevin loathed is the reason I know he’s dead.
Kevin Videsh Dass: Month/day unknown, 1971(?)-April 22, 2024.
October 23, 2016
AND I BELIEVE THAT HEAVEN IS FULL OF TREES AND SHRUBBERY THAT HAVE DARK DARK GREEN AND BLUE LEAVES (BLUE ON THE TIPS OF THE LEAVES), AND TREES WITH DARK GREEN AND RED LEAVES (RED ON THE TIPS OF THE LEAVES). AND I BELIEVE HEAVEN HAS LOTS OF STREAMS AND LAKES AND WATERFALLS AND BEACHES THAT ALL GLISTEN IN A SOFT, GLOWY TRANSLUCENCE. AND I BELIEVE THAT IN HEAVEN, I CAN REACH UP MY HAND TO THE SKY AND PICK A STAR RIGHT OUT OF THE SKY, AND HOLD IT IN MY HANDS, AND ADORE IT, AND I BELIEVE THAT I CAN BRING THE STAR HOME WITH ME. AND I BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE MANY, MANY BEAUTIFUL UNICORNS IN HEAVEN AND I BELIEVE THAT ALL THE UNICORNS CAN TALK TO THE GOOD PEOPLE AND/OR BEINGS JUST LIKE I TALK TO MY CAT, BLUEBERRY PANDA.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-05 10:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-05 10:00 amKickass Women in History: Icelandic Women at Sea
For this month’s After Dark at the Movies, I’m writing about The Damned, a folk horror film about 19th century Icelandic fishers who find themselves in desperate straits and faced with the consequences of a terrible choice. I found it interesting that the small crew included two women – an older woman who cooks for the crew and a younger woman who manages the site and the crew, and whose gender never seems to be an issue when it comes to exerting authority and leadership.
This movie sent me down an internet rabbit hole where I found that women were an integral part of Iceland’s fishing industry for centuries.
Iceland women show up in ancient sagas as seafarers. Gudrid the Far Traveller, who was probably born around 985, voyaged over much of Europe and visited Greenland, Vinland, Norway, and Rome. Aud the Deep-Minded lived even earlier, and shows up in several sagas as a woman who captained her own boat on a journey from Scotland to Iceland.
Many Icelandic women achieved legendary status. Thurídur Einarsdóttir was famous for never losing a single crew member and for having a side business as a private detective.
Anna Björnsdóttir kept fishing even while pregnant.
Rósamunda Sigmundsdóttir is famous for wearing red skirts to attract seals.
Halldóra Clubfoot filled her boat with exclusively female rowers and beat men in countless rowing challenges.
Icelandic fishing in the 18th and 19th centuries was not particularly segregated by gender.
In a review of Sea Women of Iceland, Jane Nadel-Klein states:
Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it seems, fishing provided some relief and women played key roles as crew and even as boat captains.
Roberta Kwok wrote an essay about this same book in which she quotes the author:
Willson’s team combed through historical archives and publications to gather examples ranging from a female captain who led crews made up entirely of women, to expectant mothers who rowed late into pregnancy.
The sea “wasn’t a male space,” says Willson, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a former seawoman. “It was not a feminist act in any way for them to go to sea.” It was just part of everyday life.
As the articles linked below describe in detail, women eventually became less involved on boats but deeply integral to fish processing which bolstered Iceland’s economy from 1903 to the 1969. Síldarstúlkur, also known as herring girls, poured into coastal towns to process fish directly from the boats. These young women changed Iceland’s economic world and found independence financially and socially.
While the herring girls enjoyed financial independence and a lively social life in dock towns that exploded into large cities, their work was difficult. The herring girls worked long hours, called at any time of day and night whenever a boat came in. The conditions were miserable and many started very young. One woman describes starting at work on the docks alongside her mother on her seventh birthday and being “an independent herring girl” by age eleven. The herring girls were passionate and savvy labor organizers who fought in strikes and demonstrations for pay equity and better working conditions.
Elizabeth Heath relates how this independence helped advance women’s suffrage and other rights for women in Iceland:
Herring girls’ organizing efforts took place around the same time that women won suffrage in Iceland. The country’s first women’s rights organization formed in 1894 and collected signatures on voting rights petitions. By 1907, 11,000 women and men—more than 12 percent of the population—had signed on. In 1915, women over 40 were granted the right to vote, and in 1920, the country introduced suffrage for all citizens ages 18 and up.
Later she relates:
In 1968, the Arctic Ocean herring fishery collapsed as a direct result of overfishing. The once-plentiful Atlantic herring was on the verge of extinction, and Iceland’s economy took a sharp tumble. Siglufjörður and dozens of towns like it emptied out. Fish processing plants were abandoned, boats sat idle in harbors and docks no longer hosted lively gatherings. But even as many herring girls returned to domestic duties, their impact on Icelandic politics and society continued to resonate.
Today only a small percentage of Icelandic women work on boats, but even the pervasive sexism in the industry has never driven them away altogether.
I fell into this topic because of my interest in The Damned, set in the 1800s. Sea Fever is another excellent independent horror movie. Set in 2017, it features an Irish fishing crew captained by a woman. The tiny crew includes another woman as well as a female biologist.
Real life fishing captain Linda Greenlaw became famous following the 2000 film adaptation of the nonfiction book A Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. She published her own memoir, The Hungry Ocean in 1999 and has published several subsequent nonfiction books as well as novels.
Back in Iceland, the 2025 documentary Strengur (also released as Tightlines) tells of young women learning to be fishing guides on Iceland’s rivers. Perhaps the depiction of women at sea and in the other roles within the fishing industry will bring women new recognition and opportunities within a changing social and environmental world.
Iceland’s Forgotten Fisherwomen
Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the Edge by Margaret Willson (a review by Jane Nadel-Klein)
How Iceland’s Herring Girls Helped Bring Equality to the Island Nation
Women of the Seas: A Brief History
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-05 06:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-05 06:00 amWhen We Chased The Light by Emily Bleeker
B
When We Chased the Light
by Emily Bleeker
October 22, 2024 · Lake Union Publishing
Contemporary RomanceErotica/Erotic RomanceRomance
This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at @thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next good freelance job.
…
CW: Contains child death, domestic violence, and old-fashioned attitudes about mental illness.
When I picked up When We Chased The Light, I had no idea it’s a continuation of Bleeker’s previous New York Times bestseller When We Were Enemies. That’s not the author’s fault, but Lake Union has to know this is going to cut into buys from confused newbies to the series, who have no idea that the first chunk of Vivian’s story happens in the previous book. How did she become an Italian translator at a POW camp? Previous book. How did she become a USO dancer? Previous book. How she met the secret love of her life, Father Antonio Trombello? Previous book. I won’t count that against this volume but it’s going to be quite a struggle if the reader hasn’t picked up the first volume.
Post-World War II, all-American sweetheart Vivian Snow became a major Hollywood icon. Living with the fact that her soldier husband has been declared MIA after going AWOL, she focuses on her career, leaving her daughter to be raised by her much put-upon sister. Vivian would do anything to be famous, unaware of the turbulence her romantic life bestows upon her future-actress daughter. Rumors that she had her abusive hubby bumped off during his disappearance do not help.
All the while, Vivian holds on to a close relationship with Father Trombello. Whispers of an affair linger in the air, but have never been proven. Did the priest break his vows? The truth lies in postcards sent between them – set to be auctioned off by Christies as part of Vivian’s estate.
I definitely recommend reading the first book, well, first. But once you do, the continuing adventures of Vivian are fascinating to follow. She’s a staunch, interesting character who rather reminds me of the “Marvelous” Midge Maisel, only minus the sense of humor. Vivian could’ve used more laughs in her life.
The book is overall a solid piece of fiction, if too focused on all of the men who abuse Vivian in a huge variety of ways. After awhile, the total lack of decent men in her life leaves one yearning for some kind of divine intervention to defrock Father Trombello. Then it becomes generational trauma, with Vivian’s little girl becoming a great actress with a messy series of relationships. The misogynistic mess that was Old Hollywood is enervating but also feels quite real.
When We Chased the Light should involve pre-reading its opening volume, but it’s a fairly decent overall experience even with its flaws.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-04 03:30 pm
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-04 03:30 pmHoliday Romance, Fantasy, & More
The Lion’s Den
RECOMMENDED: The Lion’s Den by Katherine St. John is $2.99 and a Kindle Daily Deal! Elyse wrote a Lightning Review for this one and gave it an A. Definitely check out her review for a list of triggers to be aware of.
This book is really two mysteries in one, and when they collide it’s a wonderful “ah-ha” moment. I wish I could say more than that, but I don’t want to ruin a single thing for another reader.
A dream vacation on a luxurious yacht turns deadly in this pulse-pounding beach read and perfect book club pick about glamour, friendship, romance, and betrayal on the Riviera.
Belle likes to think herself immune to the dizzying effects of fabulous wealth. But when her best friend, Summer, invites her on a glamorous girls’ getaway to the Mediterranean aboard her billionaire boyfriend’s yacht, the only sensible answer is yes. Belle hopes the trip will be a much-needed break from her stalled acting career and uniquely humiliating waitressing job, but once aboard the luxurious Lion’s Den, it becomes clear that all is not as it seems.
The dream vacation quickly devolves into a nightmare as Belle and the handful of other girlfriends Summer has invited are treated more like prisoners than guests by their controlling host, and Belle comes to see Summer for what she truly is: a vicious gold digger who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Belle soon realizes she’s going to have to keep her wits about her — and her own big secret close to her chest — if she wants to make it off the yacht alive.
Duke, Actually
Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday is $2.99! This is a holiday romance and the second book in the Christmas in Eldovia series. I remember Elyse reading it and commenting in Slack that she was enjoying it. I, sadly, don’t do holiday romances. What about you?
USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday follows A Princess for Christmas with another delightful contemporary Christmas romance between a playboy baron and a woman who has said goodbye to love.
There’s a royal wedding on, and things are about to get interesting.
Meet the man of honor
Maximillian von Hansburg, Baron of Laudon and heir to the Duke of Aquilla, is not having a merry Christmas. He’s been dumped by a princess, he’s unemployed, and his domineering father has sent him to New York to meet a prospective bride he has no interest in. In the city, he meets Dani Martinez, a smart (and gorgeous) professor he’s determined to befriend before their best friends marry in the Eldovian wedding of the century.
Meet the best woman
Newly single, no-nonsense New Yorker Dani is done with love—she even has a list entitled “Things I Will Never Again Do for a Man”—which is why she hits it off with notorious rake Max. He’s the perfect partner for snow angels in Central Park and deep conversations about the futility of love.
It’s all fun and games until their friendship deepens into attraction and, oops…
Falling in love was never part of the plan.
A Quantum Love Story
A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen is $2.99! Shana recently mentioned this on Whatcha Reading and was having a good time with it. Have you read this one?
A cozy sci-fi novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Star Brotherhood
The only thing harder than finding someone in a time loop is losing them.
Grieving her best friend’s recent death, neuroscientist Mariana Pineda’s ready to give up everything to start anew. Even her career—after one last week consulting at a top secret particle accelerator.
Except the strangest thing a man stops her…and claims they’ve met before. Carter Cho knows who she is, why she’s mourning, why she’s there. And he needs Mariana to remember everything he’s saying.
Because time is about to loop.
In a flash of energy, it’s Monday morning. Again. Together, Mariana and Carter enter an inevitable life, four days at a time, over and over, without permanence except for what they share.
But just as they figure out this new life, everything changes. Because Carter’s memories of the time loop are slowly disappearing. And their only chance at happiness is breaking out of the loop—forever.
Fathomfolk
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan is $2.99! This came out February of last year. Sarah reviewed the Illumicrate subscription box and this one was of their offerings.
Revolution is brewing in the semi-submerged city of Tiankawi, between humans and the fathomfolk who live in its waters. This gloriously imaginative debut fantasy, inspired by East Asian mythology and ocean folk tales, is a novel of magic, rebellion and change.
Welcome to Tiankawi – shining pearl of human civilization and a safe haven for those fleeing civil unrest. Or at least, that’s how it first appears. But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on top: peering down from shining towers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk – sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas – who live in the polluted waters below.
For half-siren Mira, promotion to captain of the border guard means an opportunity to help her downtrodden people. But if earning the trust and respect of her human colleagues wasn’t hard enough, everything Mira has worked towards is put in jeopardy when Nami, a know-it-all water dragon and fathomfolk princess – is exiled to the city, under Mira’s watch. When extremists sabotage a city festival, violence erupts, as does the clampdown on fathomfolk rights. Both Nami and Mira must decide if the cost of change is worth paying, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-04 08:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-04 08:00 amJuly 2025 Queer Romances
Happy July! Summer is heating up with a vengeance, both in the air and on the page, so break out some cool drinks, cue up your next read, and enjoy!
The No Repeat Policy
Author: Jordon Greene
Released: July 1, 2025 by Summit Ridge Press
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Months ago a cheating ex-boyfriend left Kolton Wolf’s world shattered.
Jaded and angry, romance becomes whatever ends up in his bed from the apps or the club with a strict no-repeat policy.
Then he comes into the picture.
It’s Halloween at the “club” when Kolton first lays eyes on him. A Greek god in full costume, what little there is of it. Kolton can’t take his eyes off them. They’re perfect, beautiful. A few steps across the bar and what looks like rejection leads Kolton to an amazing steamy night with conversation far exceeding the usual surface level hookup he’s used to. The next day Kolton breaks his own no-repeat policy and reaches out to the boy.
Ghosted.
No one after that reaches the Greek god’s lofty levels. They’re simply temporary enjoyment between the ever repeating flashes of that night. Is Kolton fated to only relieve his angelic encounter as a dream, or will time and chance bring them back together before Kolton gives up?
Greene’s best known for his YA Noahverse novels, which makes it extra intriguing to see him break into Adult with a spicy romance, the perfect length (just under 200 pages) to make an ideal beach read.
Taste the Love
Author: Karelia Stetz-Waters
Released: July 15, 2025 by Forever
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
A delicious, heartwarming romantic comedy about big dreams, life-changing friendships, and the people who bring out your best.
Six years ago, eco-chef Alice Sullivan and her culinary-school rival almost gave into the burning tension between them. But those kisses? Just the heat of competition boiling over. Sullivan never expected to see Kia after graduation . . . until Kia crashes back into her life with a plan to buy Sullivan’s beloved Portland greenspace.
Kia has worked hard building her social media empire as the big-hearted glitter-bomb queen of the food-truck scene. Now she’s one step away from opening a foodie utopia for underrepresented culinary talents. But Kia’s plans catch the attention of a bulldozer-happy food conglomerate, and now both Kia and Sullivan’s dreams are on the line. When a legal loophole turns out to be the only way to save what they each love most, they’re left with one pull off a very public fake marriage to obtain the deed to the land and keep their old rivalry under control.
As the line between fake and real love blurs, can Kia and Sullivan set aside their differences and find the perfect recipe for happily ever after?
The Stetz-Waters writing pair are at it again with another charmer, this one about two culinary school rivals reunited over another fight that pushes them into a marriage of convenience. The tension is high, both sexual and otherwise, and the care and love Sullivan has for the contentious land and its associate memories leaps off the page.
We Are the Match
Author: Mary Roach
Released: July 29, 2025 by Montlake
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
In this glittering, sapphic reimagining of Helen of Troy set in modern day mobster Greece, Helen is the daughter of a powerful crime lord on Paris is the woman hellbent on destroying her—if they don’t fall for each other first.
They’re thrown together in an opulent world of privilege, power, and cover-ups—and the closer they grow, the more the fragile balance of power in the world of crime lords begins to fray.
Because if Helen doesn’t choose to abandon her newfound connection with Paris and marry into the alliance her father arranged, they could all go to war.
And Helen and Paris might just be ready to let them.
I don’t read a lot of dark romance, but Sapphic, mafia, and Greek mythology-inspired? I absolutely had to check out Roach’s newest, and was not disappointed. (Note: she also has a YA coming out in September called Seven for a Secret that sounds similarly excellent and comps to Sadie, one of my favorite YAs of all time.) It’s vicious, it’s sexy, and the chemistry between Helen and Paris blazes.
The Fortune Hunter’s Guide to Love
Author: Emma-Claire Sunday
Released: July 17, 2025 by Harlequin Historical
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance
Will this cynical fortune hunter find her true match? Find out in this enchanting sapphic historical romance
How can Lady Sylvia save herself from financial ruin?
Step 1: Move to the seaside for the summer, where there will be no shortage of wealthy bachelors holidaying.
Step 2: Strike a deal with local farmer if Hannah can help Sylvia bag a rich husband, Sylvia will fund Hannah’s dream of opening a cheese shop.
Step 3: Charm her way into luncheons, parties and exclusives balls, but do not start to confuse friendship with romantic feelings for Hannah.
Step 4: Focus on her fortune hunting scheme and not let her heart get carried away by her unexpected and magical kiss with Hannah!
There’s just something about seeing a Harlequin historical with a Sapphic pair on it, especially in an era when mass market paperbacks seem to be almost as rare as, well, Sapphic historicals. This one sounds charming and delightful!
Lasso Lovebirds
Author: Clio Evans
Released: July 15, 2025
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Novella, Western, Romance
Series: Rainbow Ranch #3
In this steamy polyamorous cowboy romance novella, Beau Adams finds that the best things always happen in threes…
Living in the heart of Oklahoma, I’m just a cowboy with boots rooted firmly in running Rainbow Ranch. As eldest brother and professional worrier, I spend my days working hard with my family and yearning for someone I can never have.
Priscilla. She’s called Rainbow Ranch home for years and without her, my world would fall apart. Pris is gorgeous and smart and deserves everything good in her life. While I’ve always had eyes for her, I’ve never been brave enough to cross the fence between friends and lovers.
When a charming storm chaser named Sky arrives at our ranch, the three of us decide to give our wild hearts a chance. Sky is charismatic and sweeter than a cinnamon bun, and they just might be the missing piece we’ve needed.
But with pains from the past and worries about the future, Pris isn’t sure she can risk being hurt again, Sky isn’t sure Rainbow Ranch can be their home, and I’m not sure I can be the cowboy Pris and Sky deserve.
Can fate lasso the three of us into giving love a chance? Or will this whirlwind romance be our first and last rodeo?
The Rainbow Ranch series launches this month, kicking off with M.A. Wardell’s Stirring Spurs, and this polyam entry easily caught my eye because, well, look at it! It sounds sweet and sexy and like a much needed addition to queer canon, with its western backdrop and M/F/X romance. Yee-haw!
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-04 06:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-04 06:00 am674. Enchanted Romantasy Feasts with Gaby Leon, HappyGabyCooks
You may know Gaby Leon as HappyGabyCooking on TikTok and Instagram. She’s also the author of a new cookbook! The Enchanted Feast is a gorgeous book filled with recipes inspired by Gaby’s favorite Rrrrrromantasy titles. There are cocktails, snacks, entrees, and terrific cookies and desserts. This episode, and this cookbook, might make you hungry.
If you’re thinking you might need to check out this cookbook, yes, yes you do. And if you’ve got a potluck coming up, this book has you covered.
Inspired by other Patreon folks, including Chris DeRosa at Fixing Famous People, I’ve made some of the Patreon content free so you can sample what we’ve got.
- Do you want to do a crossword puzzle from the May 1995 issue of RT? The crossword puzzle is available for free on Patreon right now!
- Would you like to read an issue of RT Magazine? The December 1997 issue is now available for your perusal.
- Or would you like to try one of our bonus episodes? Join Amanda and me as we look back at our 2024 predictions about romance and publishing.
This collection of special previews is available now to all listeners, and there’s a link in the show notes to dive in. And if you like our free samples, join us in the Patreon community where there’s bonus content and more.
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Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-03 03:30 pm
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-03 03:30 pmA Freebie, Cat Sebastian, & More
Partners in Crime
RECOMMENDED: Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai is $2.99! Lara read this one and gave it an A- in a Lightning Review:
Because of my absolute abhorrence of a Big Misunderstanding plot, I nearly didn’t come back to this book, so if that turns you off, too, don’t make my mistake. You’ll be rewarded with a fun, emotionally nuanced, and surprising heist adventure – a very memorable one!
Indian Matchmaking meets Date Night in this fun, romantic adventure by Alisha Rai — “One of the very brightest romance writers working right now.” (Entertainment Weekly)
Mira Patel’s got a solid accounting career, good friends, and a whole lot of distance between her and her dysfunctional family. All that’s missing is a stable romantic relationship. Armed with a spreadsheet and professional help, she sets out to find her partner in only legal activities, but much to her matchmaker’s dismay, no one is quite right.
Including Naveen Desai, the very first match she unceremoniously rejected.
Lately Naveen’s been too focused on keeping his sick grandfather’s law firm afloat to think about love, and he’s stunned when Mira walks back into his life to settle her aunt’s affairs. He’s determined to keep things professional…though it’s impossible not to be intrigued by all of the secrets piling up around Mira.
If getting back together with an ex is a bad idea, getting kidnapped with one is even worse.
Suddenly, Naveen and Mira find themselves in a mad dash through Las Vegas to escape jewel thieves, evade crime bosses, and follow the clues to untangle the mess her family left behind. As her past comes back to haunt her, Mira despairs of ever finding someone who might understand her…but maybe, over the course of one wild night, she’ll find that he’s right by her side.
Two Rogues Make a Right
RECOMMENDED: Two Rogues Make a Right by Cat Sebastian is 99c! Lara wrote a Lightning Review for this one and gave it an A:
This review could easily extend to countless paragraphs of my simply listing the ways in which I love this book and what it has done for me, but I must stop so that you, dear Bitchery, can pick this book up and enjoy it yourselves.
Will Sedgwick can’t believe that after months of searching for his oldest friend, Martin Easterbrook is found hiding in an attic like a gothic nightmare. Intent on nursing Martin back to health, Will kindly kidnaps him and takes him to the countryside to recover, well away from the world.
Martin doesn’t much care where he is or even how he got there. He’s much more concerned that the man he’s loved his entire life is currently waiting on him hand and foot, feeding him soup and making him tea. Martin knows he’s a lost cause, one he doesn’t want Will to waste his life on.
As a lifetime of love transforms into a tender passion both men always desired but neither expected, can they envision a life free from the restrictions of the past, a life with each other?
The Hurricane Wars
The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon is $1.99! This was Guanzon’s debut and is a fantasy romance. I believe Elyse mentioned this one on a previous Hide Your Wallet. This is also a title that joins the ranks of published Reylo fics.
A land ravaged by storms and conquerors…
A refuge across the sea that comes at a price…
A volatile alliance between two bitter enemies…
A growing attraction as dangerous as it is irresistible…
On opposite sides of a vicious war, a soldier who can channel light magic and a prince who summons shadows find themselves locked in a deadly dance that neither can seem to truly win. As the Continent falls to howling winds and violent lightning brought on by a ruthless emperor’s fleet of stormships, the only way for Talasyn to save countless lives is to reclaim her birthright in a mysterious archipelago over the Eversea—and to enter into a fraught political marriage with Prince Alaric, the very man she had sworn to destroy.
Like Talasyn, Alaric makes no secret of his displeasure with such an arrangement. But, when a new threat emerges to shatter a fragile peace, necessity forces the reluctant couple to work together while wrestling with the inconvenient but undeniable bloom of desire amidst a backdrop of secrets and cutthroat political intrigue.
What would you do to win a war? What would you do to save all that you hold dear? And what do you do when the person you hate finds their way into your heart, beneath the rising tempests?
The Weaver Takes a Wife
The Weaver Takes a Wife by Sheri Cobb South is FREE! I’ve seen this book compared to the romances of Mimi Matthews and Mary Balogh. Have you picked this one up before?
Haughty Lady Helen Radney is one of London’s most beautiful women and the daughter of a duke, but her sharp tongue has frightened away most of her suitors. When her father gambles away his fortune, the duke’s only chance for recouping his losses lies in marrying off Lady Helen to any man wealthy enough to take a bride with nothing to recommend her but a lovely face and an eight-hundred-year-old pedigree. Enter Mr. Ethan Brundy, once an illegitimate workhouse orphan, now owner of a Lancashire textile mill and one of England’s richest men. When he glimpses Lady Helen at Covent Garden Theatre, he is instantly smitten and vows to marry her. But this commonest of commoners will have his work cut out for him if he hopes to win the heart of his aristocratic bride.
The Fat Nutritionist (thefatnutritionist_feed) wrote2025-07-03 11:13 am
thefatnutritionist_feed) wrote2025-07-03 11:13 amI fat-accepted myself so hard, I became a jock – part 3: cycling.
In spring of 2022, I tried out a kick scooter my husband randomly brought home, and loved it, which got me thinking about riding a bike. I needed something to do in the spring and summer, when ice skating is much less available. Back in 2020, I’d bought myself a little three-speed steel retro bike, with fenders and a Dynamo hub and a front rack, but I was too busy and stressed to re-learn how to ride a bike at that point.
So once I finally had the bandwidth, I took my bike out into the quiet parking lot of a closed doctor’s clinic on a Sunday, practiced mounting and dismounting (using a curb), and slowly got myself riding on quiet streets and getting my balance back. Riding a bike as a fat adult felt quite different than it had as an average-sized kid, and it took a while to get my muscle memory back. But with patience and letting myself go slow, it did come back. With a vengeance.
I started riding that granny bike everywhere, as fast as possible, on gravel trails and in the forest, and eventually for 50 km one summer’s day. Then I thought, “I’m gonna need a faster bike.”
All of this, from buying skates and taking lessons, to buying a bike and then needing a better bike, was all wildly intimidating as a somewhat shy person, but also as a fat person. Going into sports-focused stores does not feel comfortable as a fat person. I feel lucky that no one gave me a hard time, but they easily could have, and it would have been very discouraging.
I forced myself to go to a couple of bike shops and test ride some bikes…and then I fell in love, predictably, with the ugliest and most expensive bike possible: a Salsa Warbird with a carbon frame in millennial gray. I was immediately repulsed by the colour when they pulled it off the rack, but when I rode it, I found myself whispering sweet nothings to it, telling it how smooth it was, how fast it was, and how much I loved it, even though it was far too expensive for me. I went home and sulked for a week, and my husband told me to go back and buy the Warbird, so I did.
It was still ugly, and I still loved it more than I have ever loved an object before. It was and continues to be the most expensive thing I have ever owned. I rode it a bunch in the late summer and fall of 2023, culminating in an 85 km trip.
The following spring, I got hit by a car (thankfully it was a very slow, ridiculous crash and I was only a bit bruised), and had to replace a bunch of parts on my bike (which thankfully the driver’s insurance paid for), as well as the frame, which is now a beautiful, glossy black instead of gray. So now I’m even more in love with it, and that’s what I was riding this morning, yet another roller coaster in my life.
I did not think all this would happen when I decided to accept myself as a fat person and stop dieting in November 2000. I just wanted to experience peace in my body, stop caring so much about how I looked, stop experiencing the intense shame that I’d been taught to feel about my weight, and the guilt and confusion around food that came with it. I had no idea I was an athlete; I had no desire to become one. But somehow, learning to treat myself and my body with compassion allowed me to learn things about myself that had been hidden for years, decades.
As it turns out, I’m a small-time thrill-seeker, a diver, a skater, a cyclist. I’m still fat. Hills are hard, but I descend like a beast.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-03 06:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-03 06:00 amGuest Review: The Lilac Ghost by Irene Saylor
This guest review comes from Lucynka! Lucynka is a long-time lurker, who has occasionally commented under a couple different names in the past. Over the last few years, she’s become really interested in the history of the romance genre, particularly those forgotten or oft-overlooked parts. You can find her on Bluesky @lucynka.bsky.social, or else over on her WordPress, where she blogs about “obscure bullshit,” including a lot of romance pulp magazines from the 1920s-’40s.
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First of all, a big thanks to Heather S and her Half Price Books excursion for putting this book on my radar. While all of the books featured in that post were solid gold in their own ways, The Lilac Ghost caught my eye specifically because 1.) that is indeed a very pretty cover, and 2.) who doesn’t love a ghost? The (even briefer) cover copy for the 1972 reprint even promised that it was “a very romantic ghost”!
Combine that with the fact that I was having A Week
, and, well, I decided to take a chance and treat myself to the more reasonably-priced of two copies that I managed to find online. These vintage Gothics tend to come in one of three flavors—good, bad, or bonkers—so even though 1970 is actually way later than my usual wheelhouse, I was in need of a nice mental distraction, and thus hoped that even if it wasn’t good, it would at least fall into that “bonkers” territory.
And readers? To my delight, it was about 50% bonkers, 50% genuinely good and suspenseful, and 100% entertaining. And just in case you need a refresher before we dive in, the cover copy:
After a whirlwind courtship at sea, Virginia had married Rick Bradley and gone with him to his ancestral home, an isolated house perched on the peak of a mountain and shunned by villagers and tradesmen. Now, after three weeks, Rick had gone off without warning, leaving his wife alone in a raging storm, with no company save a few women and the lilac ghost of Bradley Hall. And the ghost which walked the garden by the lilac bush was hardly reassuring.
My favorite part of The Lilac Ghost is probably the beginning, as the author wastes no time and just throws you right into the deep end.
Do we get a chapter showing the heroine’s “whirlwind courtship”?
Do we even get a scene where Virginia discovers her husband’s note, unceremoniously letting her know that he had to disappear on Sudden Business?
NO! Straight away, they’re already married, he’s already left, and the wind is already howling as Virginia writes a letter to her twin sister, Carol. (Yesss, Ms. Saylor! Give the readers what they want!)
Now, much like Chekhov’s Gun, I’m a firm believer in the idea that if you introduce a twin in a story, they’d better metaphorically go off at some point. As such, I am pleased to report that sister Carol does indeed go off later. But also…
…the fact that she’s Virginia’s identical twin never really factors into anything? Like, there’s a token scene where another character is like, “WTF, Virginia—I just saw you in a bar an hour ago!” presumably to foreshadow to the reader that something might be up, but that’s it.
Carol never impersonates Virginia, nor does Virginia ever get mistaken for Carol and thus get told something she wasn’t supposed to know, etc. There is effectively nothing to stop them from just being plain, regular-degular sisters, and the story might even make more sense if they didn’t look exactly the same?
The fact that the author was still like, “NAH, IT’S TWIN TIME, BABY,” in the face of all this is a move I kind of have to respect.
Anyway, Virginia’s writing a letter to her sister, but a storm is raging! The wind blows the fancy French doors of the library open, and as she gets up to close them, she’s distracted by a lightning strike and a subsequent flash of fire in the distance, down the mountainside. Will she and the three maids, and Rick’s unmarried aunt Cordelia, have to abandon the mansion and flee for their lives???
No! Because just then “a strong, wiry, muscular, masculine hand” grabs her wrist, pulls her out onto the terrace, into a man’s arms, and he kisses her!
It’s Rick!
But no—Rick never kissed her so passionately, so possessively, and Rick has green eyes, not blue! Who the fuck is this ardent stranger who looks so uncannily like her husband???
The man is “mocking” and “satiric,” all, “Didn’t they tell you about me, Virginia~? Aren’t you going to invite Rick’s favorite cousin in before he catches pneumonia~?” He’s giving off big “mad relative in the attic” vibes, and you, like me, might find yourself wondering, “Omg, is this the titular ‘ghost’???”
FOOLS! You, like me, would be wrong then, because just then the actual ghost appears! A spooky vision in white, out near the lilac bush, that disappears into the garden! Virginia uses the supernatural distraction to get away from this sexy, frightening stranger, and—not trusting that he’s necessarily who he says he is—locks the French doors against him. She then sensibly realizes that this potential madman isn’t likely to give up so easily, and she manages to get the front door bolted just in time to thwart him. He pounds on the door as Virginia tries to think of any other possible entrances she needs to shore up, but then there’s a thud and a woman’s scream that reverberates from the second floor. For reference, we are a mere seven pages into this book.
Chapter two opens with the line, “I charged up the stairs like a woman zeroing in on a nylon stocking bargain day sale”—which is admittedly not as good as, “Kaliq dismounted with the same speed and grace as he would remove himself from the body of a woman he had just made love to,” but it’s still pretty up there, imo.
Virginia checks on Aunt Cordelia, only to find her so sound asleep she’s damn near comically snoring, which means the scream probably came from the maids’ quarters. As Virginia makes her way toward them, however, she sees a flash of white around a corner. Omg, the ghost is now inside!
Virginia, herself, screams, at which point two of the maids come running—senior maid Rilla and subordinate Suz. We then get this fantastically dumb and melodramatic exchange:
“The ghost walks!” I burst out.
Suz clutched at Rilla’s arm. “She always walks when death strikes!”
“Be still!” Rilla snapped.
The maid’s frightening words somehow had the effect of bringing me to my senses. I straightened.
“There are no ghosts,” I said in my no-nonsense secretarial tone of voice.
BITCH, YOU LITERALLY JUST SAID IT WALKS. PICK A LANE, VIRGINIA.
Anyway, it’s determined that the initial scream came from Kathy, the youngest maid. She saw the ghost, screamed and sprained her ankle in her ensuing panic, and now she’s sobbing her heart out as only a sixteen-year-old girl can, because she won’t be able to keep her date with a fella.
It turns out Kathy wrote a poem, got it published in a magazine, at which point an admirer of the poem wrote to her and they struck up a correspondence. They were supposed to finally meet at the railroad station tomorrow, as he’s coming in on an afternoon train, but now that plan’s obviously fucked.
Oh, and the guy’s name is supposedly Alan Dale (like Alan-a-Dale, from the tale of Robin Hood), and Kathy told him she’s the illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic family because she was ashamed of being a mere maid. Virginia is like, “Jfc, Kathy!”
I wished I could meet the man. I most certainly would give him a piece of my mind, trying to take advantage of a naive sixteen-year-old girl.
As an aside, we never find out exactly how old Virginia is (my guess is early- to mid-twenties?), but it’s worth noting that I actually quite like her as a heroine. She’s admittedly something of a cipher (she has a twin sister, worked as a secretary in a publishing house before her marriage, and that’s about all we ever learn of her), but she generally has a good, sensible head on her shoulders, which makes it pretty easy to root for her.
Her voice isn’t so distinct that the story really needed to be told from her first-person POV, but I at least never got tired of being literally stuck in her head, and while there are some irritatingly of-its-time gender politics at play, where Virginia feels it’s only right to defer to a man in certain situations, for the most part I feel she holds up relatively well to modern reading (see: the above situation with Kathy).
Anyway, with the upstairs drama having since been sorted out (Virginia decides she’ll meet Kathy’s mystery man at the train station herself tomorrow, to suss him out), and with the rain thankfully in the process of letting up, our heroine returns to the library to finish her letter to her sister. But there’s one loose end she forgot to tie up, and as such, she’s stopped dead in her tracks by the sight of her handsome terrace intruder casually sitting at her desk, seemingly waiting for her.
She’s like, “Holy shit, how did you get in?” and he merely lifts up some keys and says, “Through the front door.” It turns out he really is Rick’s cousin Jeff (the reactions of both Aunt Cordelia and the maids later confirm this), and he sets about to catching Virginia as she almost faints, then serves her some coffee while she recovers from everything that has happened since the first page.
Now, you might find yourself asking here: if Jeff had keys to the place and could get in at any time, then why the hell was he skulking around on the terrace in the rain, practically cackling like a madman, and the only answer I can give you is, “Idk, for drama???”
For that matter, why did he passionately smooch a woman he knew to be his cousin’s wife?
The explanation he gives is that Virginia “looked very kissable”—which is both a shit reason to effectively assault someone, and (as we’ll come to realize) strangely out of character, as well; for all that he was introduced like some crazy black sheep of the family, Jeff presents from here on out as a surprisingly normal and more or less respectful guy. I kept waiting for him to again get all handsy and kissy with Virginia as the book progressed, and to my amazement it never really happened.
Well, not until the end, but that’s more of an understandable, heat-of-the-moment love confession than anything.
Well, Virginia smells lilacs, Jeff goes back outside to investigate, the lights go out, and the telephone starts ringing. It’s Rick! He tells her he’ll be home tomorrow evening, and then, after she hangs up, Virginia gets attacked, and it becomes apparent that the lilac ghost—or at least this particular manifestation of it—is corporeal, after all. Virginia manages a scream, the “ghost” goes running, the lights come back on, and it’s then that Jeff reappears, this time with sourpuss Aunt Cordelia.
As Rick clearly couldn’t be bothered to inform Virginia of the Greater Bradley Situation before fucking off, Jeff does her the favor and gets her up to speed. It’s here that we get the main thrust of the story, which (contrary to what the cover copy and the first couple chapters might have indicated) is not actually about melodramatic happenings in the middle of a storm, but is in fact all about inheritance issues.
Basically, back in the day, Grandpa Bradley built the family fortune and had five children—three boys and two girls. Of the boys, oldest son Samuel begat Rick, and Nicholas begat Jeff.
Cordelia was the “good daughter,” with a head for business, who never married, and the other daughter Rosamunde was the wild one, the family beauty and flirt, who died under mysterious circumstances fifteen years ago: she was found at the bottom of the local waterfall with a broken neck, and while it was officially deemed an accident, there’s always been the lingering suspicion that she was pushed, either by a jealous lover or a disapproving family member. Supposedly the lilac ghost is Rosamunde’s spirit, looking for her murderer; she seems to show up every year in May, around the anniversary of her death.
There were rumors that Rosamunde might have had a child before she died, and so Grandpa in turn tied up her ten million dollar inheritance before he died, with the stipulation that if no heir was found within fifteen years, then the money would be divided among the remaining relatives. And, well, that fifteen year mark just passed, which is actually—as we later find out—related to why Rick had to leave so goddamn abruptly before the start of the story (and, coincidentally, why Jeff suddenly arrived).
Further complicating matters is that around the time of Rosamunde’s death, hitherto unmentioned third son Stan was like, “FUCK THIS FAMILY,” and ran away to sea. It is unknown whether he’s still alive, married, had any children, or whatever. And sure enough, glamorous Elaine and her teenage son Vern show up, claiming to be his widow and child, which would entitle them not only to Stan’s money, still sitting unused in a New York City bank, but to a quarter of Rosamunde’s.
It’s here that we get the legit good part of the book, as the story goes from being crazy, over-the-top Gothic shenanigans, and instead turns into a pretty solid and suspenseful mystery, as Virginia inadvertently finds herself roped into this mess as Rick’s legally wedded wife—or his potential widow, as the case may be. After all, the fewer surviving family members there are means there’s that much more money to go around, and clearly somebody is out for blood—the only question is who?
Furthermore, what about the lilac ghost?
Is it really Rosamunde’s spirit, trying to find her killer?
Someone simply taking advantage of the family legend for their own nefarious purposes?
Or is Rosamunde—somehow, miraculously—still alive and wreaking regular, non-paranormal vengeance?
So it’s good fun, with genuinely good pacing and misdirections, and it kept me genuinely riveted to the pages. I even…
…started to wonder if Virginia (and by extension her sister) were actually related to the Bradleys. Like, they’re presumably too old to be Rosamunde’s child(ren), but for a while it was looking like they could maybe, unknowingly, be Stan’s? Did Rick marry his first cousin, perhaps on purpose in an attempt to consolidate the family wealth? (And consequently, does Jeff now have the hots not just for an in-law, but for an actual blood relation?) The story never actually goes down such weird, incestuous paths, but the fact that I wondered for a while if it would is a point in its favor, imo.
Where The Lilac Ghost falls down, however (or else goes back to being wonderfully, hilariously unhinged, depending on how you feel about these things), is the end:
After Virginia, herself, gets thrown over the falls in an attempt to kill her, it’s revealed pretty much out of the blue that her sister Carol has been in cahoots with Rick for literal years. It was she who was playing the part of the lilac ghost and otherwise doing things behind the scenes—the idea being that they’d secure Rosamunde’s inheritance solely for Rick, and then marry, which would give Carol legal access to the Bradley millions.
Rick’s notorious womanizing ways and his suddenly getting married while on a cruise fucked that up, though—especially when it turned out that his new wife was Carol’s sister. This is where the whole twin thing really makes no sense, because you’d think Rick would have recognized the familial relation upon first meeting Virginia (SHE AND CAROL LITERALLY LOOK EXACTLY ALIKE), and thus would have, yanno, gotten a hold of his bad self and not married her?
Like, it really would be better for the narrative if they’d just been regular sisters, and Rick only realized the relation after the fact.
As for why Rick married Virginia in the first place? It’s never adequately explained, but Jeff surmises that he might have genuinely fallen in love with her, if only for a short while (and presumably been too arrogant to worry about how this might throw a wrench into his well-laid murder plans and also piss off his romantic partner-in-crime).
Furthermore…
…Elaine turns out to be a red-herring, as it’s revealed she actually was Stan’s wife—it’s her “son,” Vern, who isn’t what he seems, as he’s actually Rosamunde’s long-lost love-child.
And the father? Elaine’s own father, Lew Whittaker, who runs the town general store and who was having an extra-marital affair with Rosamunde back in the day. Lew and his wife had been raising the boy as their own when Grandpa Bradley started searching for the kid, and rather than let him fall into this fucked-up rich family’s hands, Lew paid Elaine and Stan to take him away and care for him.
WHAT DRAMA, AMIRITE? Messy enough for Jerry Springer, for sure.
Oh, and also…
…after the jig is up, Rick shoots himself rather than face charges, and this information is delivered so matter-of-factly at the start of the last chapter that I literally stopped and flipped back to make sure my copy wasn’t missing any pages.
So it isn’t perfect.
Technically-speaking, it has a weak end and some definite plot holes—one of my favorites being when Virginia finds a begonia plant in the hospital trash (it had been sent to Rick while he recovered from some injuries) and there’s mention of the card slipping between the outer paper and the pot; you expect that this card will later serve as some dramatic reveal, like maybe the name of the person who sent it will be important, but nope—the begonia plant gets metaphorically dropped and is never returned to. (*Muah* chef’s kiss, I love it.)
But for all its arguable flaws, I do think the good outweighs the bad here—or at least the entertaining outweighs the irritating. (It kept me obsessively turning the pages, so clearly it was doing something right, yeah?) Like most of these vintage Gothics, the emphasis is on the mystery and suspense far more than the romance (the romance is effectively reduced to a subplot), but as a subplot it worked for me, and—weak end aside—I’d still dub it an above-average example of its subgenre.
Unfortunately, it seems to be a pretty hard title to come by these days, but if it sounds like your jam and you happen to run across a copy in the wild, I do indeed recommend picking it up.
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 06:00 pm
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 06:00 pmLinks: Blue’s Clues, Romance Bookstores, & More
Welcome back, everyone! How are we feeling this Wednesday?
We’ve had a bit of a shakeup in the household and I’m putting things in spoilers as it deals with pet health.
We took our oldest cat, Linus, to the emergency vet on Monday evening for a nosebleed. Results came back that he most likely has a tumor in his nose. We’re putting him on steroids, but the vet was clear that his expectancy is months if he reacts well to the steroids and weeks if not.
While he’s nearly eighteen, this wasn’t what we expected to hear. Linus is also the first pet I had as an adult, so impending pet loss and arrangements are new to me. We also think our pets are going to live forever.
The initial shock and frequent crying has tapered off a bit, but this is uncharted territory for me.
For those who have been in a similar situation, please share your wisdom! Because wow, it sucks.
If you want to put your comments in a spoiler tag, you’ll want to put your comments between these tags and remove the asterisks. [*spoiler]text goes here[*/spoiler] If it isn’t working, don’t worry. I can fix it on my end!
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Georgia shared this link on England’s first romance-only bookstore. If any of you make a trip to Saucy Books, please report back!
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I’m loving this trend of people showing off their partner’s hobbies on social media with aggressive support.
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This link comes from K, who shared this talented craftsman addressing comments on masculinity.
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If you didn’t hear, Steve Burns from Blue’s Clues is launching a podcast!
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 03:30 pm
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 03:30 pmSonali Dev, Bridgerton, & More
Molly Molloy & the Angel of Death
Molly Molloy & the Angel of Death by Maria Vale is 99c! I highly suggest listening to the podcast we did with Maria on this book. She explains it well that this isn’t a romance per se
Death needs a do-over.
Azrael—grim reaper and devourer of worlds–has messed up. Instead of taking Molly Molloy’s soul, he patted her on the back and saved her from choking on an atomic chicken wing.
Now she can see him. Talk to him. Touch him. Say ‘no’ to him. And make him question the assumptions he has held for an eternity.
Molly is sick of Death capsizing her life. He’d taken her parents, then her grandparents, then her first great love.
Now, just as she was on the verge of getting her life together with a job that paid enough and a NYC apartment that didn’t cost too much, Death interferes again in ways she could never have imagined.
The Powers that Be want Azrael to fix his mistake but before he can, Death makes one more.
He falls in love.
Forget Me Not
Forget Met Not by Julie Soto is $1.99! This was Soto’s contemporary romance debut and I mentioned it on a previous Hide Your Wallet. I liked this one! The book does switch between past and current events to show more of the main couple’s previous history, but I understand it could be a jarring format for the reader.
An ambitious wedding planner must work with her grumpy florist ex, whose heart she broke, on the most high-profile wedding of her career, in this spicy and emotional romance from popular fanfic author Julie Soto.
He loves me; he loves me not…
Ama Torres loves being a wedding planner. But with a mother who has been married more times than you can count on your fingers, Ama has decided that marriage is not the route for her. But weddings? Weddings are amazing. As a small business owner, she knows how to match her clients with the perfect vendor to give them the wedding of their dreams. Well, almost perfect…
Elliot hates being a florist, most of the time. When his father left him the flower shop, he considered it a burden, but he’s stuck with it. Just like how he’s stuck with the way he proposed to Ama, his main collaborator and girlfriend (or was she?) two years ago. But flowers have grown on him, just like Ama did. And flowers can’t run off and never speak to him again, like Ama did.
When Ama is hired to plan a celebrity wedding that will bring her business national exposure, there’s a catch: Elliot is already contracted to design the flowers. Things are not helped by the two brides, who see the obvious chemistry between Ama and Elliot and are determined to set them up, not knowing their complicated history. Add in a meddling ex-boss, and a reality TV film crew documenting every step of the wedding prep, and Ama and Elliot’s hearts are not only in jeopardy again, but this time, their livelihoods are too.
The Emma Project
The Emma Project by Sonali Dev is $1.99! This is the last book in Dev’s Austen-inspired Rajes series and is an Emma retelling. Sonali has been on the podcast and as always, was such a blast to talk to.
Emma gets a fresh Indian-American twist from award-winning author Sonali Dev in her heartwarmingly irresistible Jane Austen inspired rom com series.
No one can call Vansh Raje’s life anything but charmed. Handsome—Vogue has declared him California’s hottest single—and rich enough to spend all his time on missions to make the world a better place. Add to that a doting family and a contagiously sunny disposition and Vansh has made it halfway through his twenties without ever facing anything to throw him off his admittedly spectacular game.
A couple years from turning forty, Knightlina (Naina) Kohli has just gotten out of a ten-year-long fake relationship with Vansh’s brother and wants only one thing from her life…fine, two things. One, to have nothing to do with the unfairly blessed Raje family ever again. Two, to bring economic independence to millions of women in South Asia through her microfinance foundation and prove her father wrong about, well, everything.
Just when Naina’s dream is about to come to fruition, Vansh Raje shows up with his misguided Emma Project… And suddenly she’s fighting him for funding and wondering if a friends-with-benefits arrangement that’s as toe-curlingly hot as it is fun is worth risking her life’s work for.
Bridgerton Collection: Volume 1
Bridgerton Collection: Volume 1 by Julia Quinn is $2.99! You get three full-length historical romances and these collections, when not on sale, are priced at $19.99. Not a bad deal!
An enchanting collection containing the first three novels in New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn’s beloved Bridgerton series set in Regency England—The Duke and I, The Viscount Who Loved Me, and An Offer from a Gentleman—now a series created by Shondaland for Netflix.
The Duke and I
When Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, agree to a fake courtship, they think they’ve found the perfect solution to their problems. Romantically associated with one of London’s most desirable catches, Daphne’s prospects among the ton will soar. For avowed bachelor Simon, an attachment to Daphne will deter would-be brides and their ambitious mamas. Their plan works like a charm—at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule. . .
The Viscount Who Loved Me
London’s most elusive bachelor, Anthony Bridgerton is determined to wed. But one obstacle stands in his way—his intended’s older sister, Kate Sheffield, who is driving Anthony mad with her determination to stop the betrothal. Kate is quite sure that reformed rakes do not make the best husbands, and Anthony Bridgerton is the most wicked rogue of them all. She’s determined to protect her sister—even as she fears she may not be able to resist the reprehensible and oh so desirable rake herself . . .
An Offer from a Gentleman
Sophie Beckett never dreamed she’d be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton’s famed masquerade ball—or that she would be spinning in the arms of her “Prince Charming”—the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton. But when the clock strikes midnight, Sophie’s enchanting evening ends. Since that night Benedict has been able to think of nothing but the bewitching young woman, and he’s sworn to find and wed his mystery miss. Yet will another unexpectedly steal his heart—and his chance for a fairy tale love?
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 06:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 06:00 amLet’s Make a Scene by Laura Wood
Coercive control/emotionally abusive relationship in the workplace – historical, off-page
I almost never read celebrity romances. Second-chance romances really turn me off, mostly. Enemies-to-lovers is tough to make convincing. I am so glad that I didn’t judge this book based on my past experience of these tropes because this story was ELECTRIC, particularly the chemistry between the two protagonists! I had a phenomenal time reading it.
Cynthie Taylor is 20 years old and has been cast in a small British Regency movie. This is her very first professional acting gig. Her co-star, Jack Turner-Jones, is a nepo baby and 24 years old. He’s been in training since he was a kid. She’s had no training whatsoever. They clash immediately.
Thirteen years later, there is a sequel in the works which is good for both of them at that stage in their careers. During the promo for the first movie, they had a PR relationship. For the sequel, they’re asked to do the same, only this time there is a documentary crew filming behind the scenes of the film shoot.
As setups go for fake relationships, it works because it’s clear what the benefits would be for both of them. As setups for a second-chance goes it works because the chemistry is definitely there the first time around, but they are just not the right people for each other at that stage. The enemies-to-lovers aspect is also constructed well because both characters remain mostly likeable (thanks to the dual POV) while their animosity makes sense, too.
But let’s quickly chat about our two leads. There are two distinct Cynthies in this story. The 20-year-old and the 33-year-old. The narrative bounces between the two points in time with about an even amount of time spent in each era. The young Cynthie is magnetic, raw, sensitive and in over her head. The older Cynthie has been through a really tough ordeal with her latest film and she’s finding it incredibly difficult to trust again. Up to this point, all of her relationships have been disastrous.
There are also two distinct Jacks. The 24-year-old is desperate to prove himself and make his famous parents proud. This is his first movie (but not his first acting gig) and he will do whatever it takes to make it work. He’s horrified to be acting alongside such a wildcard. At the start of the book, it’s not at all clear what 37-year-old Jack is going to be like, but the initial signs are promising.
Throughout the novel, we bounce between the two eras. The two eras are distinct (it’s clear from our leads’ behaviour that a full 13 years has passed) and are cleverly interwoven so that they act as a foil for the other era. This was a little different to what I anticipated. I thought there’d be a couple flashbacks to illuminate the origin of the animosity, but actually a lot of time is spent with young Jack and Cynthie. I was surprised to find myself enjoying time with the young versions because usually I exclusively read romances featuring older protagonists. Both timelines have their share of scorching chemistry, one of my favorite aspects of this story.
This is an emotionally rich novel spanning the full gamut of human emotions. From deep despair to heartbreak to euphoria to awkwardness to hot hot chemistry. The lead characters felt really well developed. As most of the dual timelines happen on film sets, there are a lot of side characters who are necessarily flat but still interesting to read. This book is also impossibly romantic. I won’t give you examples so as not to spoil anything, but so often I’d find myself smiling giddily as I read. The blurb tells me that this is a companion novel. I haven’t read the first in this series but I didn’t struggle at all to follow this story. I’m sure if I read book one, I would get more out of book two, but I personally didn’t feel the lack.
In some ways, this story is a love song to movies, specifically romantic comedies. There are many film references to classic 90s and 2000s movies and they make it really fun. It was a lovely jolt of nostalgia for me. Something that I didn’t realise would come with celebrity romances is that you get this titillating feeling of peeking behind the curtain, the imagined other side of the velvet rope separating the celebrity world from us plebs. I really enjoyed it!
If you are looking for that sweet, sweet escapism and need it in the form of an emotionally rich story with some really well-handled tropes, then I strongly recommend Let’s Make a Scene. Oh, and that chemistry? Flames! So hot!
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books (smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 08:00 am
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-07-02 08:00 amSB-AD Quarterly Recommendation Updates!
Left of Forever
Author: Tarah DeWitt
Released: May 20, 2025 by St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Series: Spunes, OR #2
I swear I did not know we were running a guest review of this one when I recommended it to two (!!) people who really liked second chance romances with relatable characters. I feel like people’s tastes are so different that this hardly ever happens where one book works for more than one request.
Xeni
Author: Rebekah Weatherspoon
Released: October 4, 2019
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Series: Loose Ends #2
This reader wanted a diverse cast, a cinnamon roll hero, and any and all romances that were the antithesis of the current administration. I thought of Xeni and gave a bonus suggest of Rafe by the same author as well. The heroes are supportive and the world is more reflective of the wide range of people and cultures in our U.S. population.
The Billionaire’s Wake-Up-Call Girl
Author: Annika Martin
Released: July 9, 2018
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Series: Billionaires of Manhattan #2
Some of the things this reader mentioned liking were rom-coms, secret identities, and nothing that inches toward darker themes. I’m pretty picky about rom-coms, since humor is subjective, but I remember being charmed by this one and how the hero falls for this mystery woman over the phone.