A lot of romance. Like, a lot a lot. I got this Ultimate Romance Reading Challenge in at the store and obviously I had to test it out. Turns out that while assigned reading is not my favorite, cute little trinkets and toys are enough to get me to play along. Inside this big ole book-shaped-thing are little envelopes with reading prompts written on them. Once you read the book (or complete the task), then you can open the envelope and get your prize! It’s my favorite. I’m such a child.

Reminder: All purchases from links made on this page go to support our bookstore!

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The Roommate Risk by Talia Hibbert
Order the paperback here (or stop in, we’ve got a copy at Twice Told Tales)
Download the audiobook here (but always wear your headphones)

Talia Hibbert is probably my favorite singular romance author. The stories are always excellent. The characters are always three-dimensional characters with whole entire minds, hearts, and bodies. The spice is spicy. She’s all around perfect.

Okay but this one is a little different. It’s a short little thing! 286 pages. The audiobook is a mere 9 hours long and if I had to guess, I’d say that about 6 of those hours are dedicated strictly to sex scenes. This little thing exists for a purpose. And that purpose is not necessarily to tell a well rounded story–if you catch my drift. I did not know that when I picked this up. I’d give it 4/5 spice flames. It is abundant.

But the story, sparse as it is, is so cute! It’s a friends-to-lovers (my personal favorite) story about Jasmine–who has a terrible flood in her apartment and has to move in with her platonic bestie, Rahul, who has oops had a crush on her since the day they met in college. There are chapters that go back in time so we can get a feel for how long this mans has been pining–and the pining! OH THE PINING! THE ANGST! It was real. Six thousand out of five stars. Loved this lil thing!

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
Order your hardcover copy here (or I’m going to have them stocked at TTT for a while so just stop in and try your luck).
Download the audiobook here.

My only not-romance book of the month and boy am I glad I made space for it (even if I don’t get a little treat for reading it)! I loved this book so much. It reminded me of my hometown in such a goooood way!

This takes place in a small town in the south where a vocal minority has strong-armed their way into the libraries to have dozens of books banned. The person at the helm of this crusade? Lula Dean. She decides that to make up for the books she’s had removed from the library, she’ll set up a Little Free Library in her front yard with all the books she approves of! What Lula doesn’t know is that a local prankster has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula’s library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. In the ensuing chapters, we get to learn all about the citizens of this town and what happens for them as they find themselves reading these books!

What I loved about this is that there are so many more level-headed, free-thinking people in this town than you’d think. More than they expected, I think. That’s what reminds me of the town where I live. I hear so many people describe this town as “conservative, close-minded, bigoted”. And suuuure. We’ve got our people like that. But all day every day I meet people who don’t hold those values–I know because they come into my store! Most of them don’t know each other. Many of them think they’re alone in their values in this area but they’re not. Not at all. I wish there was a way to mobilize them and let them know. They’re all so close to running into one another!
Anyway, the people in this town mobilized. And it was so glorious to witness.

Happy Medium by Sarah Adler
Order the paperback here (or at TTT).
Download the audiobook here (it’s read by Mara Wilson–yeah, Matilda!)

This book was perfectly cute. More or less a retelling of Ghost if you ask me. Gretchen Acorn is a fake medium–a con-artist but a con-artist with a heart of gold. She has a rule to leave everyone better than she found them. Even still, she’s starting to feel the pull to get into honest work. That is until one of her richest clients sends her on a mission to exorcise a friend’s goat farm–and makes her an offer she literally can’t afford to refuse. She gets to the farm expecting to burn some things, chant some things, and then take her check and go home but what happens instead is that somehow, there actually is a ghost haunting this farm. And turns our Gretchen is the only one who can see it.

Things I loved: Gretchen was charming. Charlie was hot and broody. The scene where they’re playing pool was swoony and fun. EVERETT THE GHOST WAS FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS. I want a movie version of this book just so I can fall in love with Everett over and over again.

Things I didn’t love: the goat birthing scene I could have done without. And this book did contain some of my absolute pet-peeves of romance books (a stupid misunderstanding in the final 1/4 of the book that threatens to derail everything when if one person just said anything at all, the problem would be solved). Overall, not my favorite but I’m certainly not mad I read it.

I get a lot of people who come into the shop who are looking for books that are mindless–aren’t bad but aren’t too good either because they want to relax their brains. And this is the book I will recommend to them. I’d give it 3/5 spicy units. There’s one or two sexy bits but they aren’t too overwhelming or overshadow the story.

Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb
Get the paperback here (or at TTT).
Download the audiobook here.

I can’t believe that I read this book (before this book I had no interest in bird watching whatsoever) but more than that, I can’t believe I loved it! I only chose this book because it fulfilled the “read a book with a main character who is much older than you” requirement. They kept talking about how she was middle-aged and she had a daughter who was a senior in high school so I assumed she was much older than me but then at the end of the book I learned she’s only about 18 months older than me. So… here we are. WOOPS! I claimed my prize anyway.

Celeste is in her “year of yes” and she’s trying everything. Yadda yadda yadda she ends up partnered with this hot, scruffy stranger named John for the annual birding competition (whoever finds the most birds wins!). Also she’s pretending to be his girlfriend. I could explain why but it’s a little complicated and does it matter anyway? The fake dating trope almost never makes sense anyway (except in Funny Story–I would have done it too).

Turns out John is an expert birder and he kinda makes Celeste fall in love with it, too. He made ME curious about what the birds are that live in my own backyard. I wish he could come teach me about them! But alas he is fictional.

I liked these people. They were older and they didn’t have stupid reasons for not wanting to get together for real. Celeste just got out of a divorce where she felt like she completely lost her identity and is nervous to jump back into that again. GIRL I GET IT! Hold onto yourself! Anyway, I adored this book.

There’s no sex in this book until the back 1/3 and then that’s preeeeetty much all it is (except for a very satisfying grand gesture). “Middle aged” sex! With aching backs and everything! We love to see it!

Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
Order your paperback here.
Download the audiobook here.

OH! This was so cute. I’ve been putting off reading this book for years because I didn’t want to close up the Brown Sisters trilogy in my mind.

Eve Brown is for anyone who spent their 20’s (or hell, even later) feeling like they were trying on identities: moving from job to job or hobby to hobby and never really finding anything that stuck or felt right. I felt that way–I still feel that way sometimes even though by now I know better.

Another lovely aspect of this storyline is the way that she discovers that she might be somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum and the way that opens up such freedom for her to accept and love herself as she is.

In true Talia Hibert fashion, the spice… is… spicing. So be mindful of that. And also, the story is excellent! I love all of the Brown Sisters so much!

I read one of the best books of the year this month and finished one of the… I’m not going to say worst books… but I did give it 2.5 stars on The StoryGraph and I’m absolutely befuddled by it. More on that later!

Reminder, all purchases from these links go to support our bookstore–Twice Told Tales in McPherson KS!

Only if You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here.

Only if You’re Lucky was everything I want in a thriller.  I regret that it took me so long to finally pick this book up because as soon as I did, I couldn’t put it down!

Margot is a shy girl who is entering her freshman year of college just a few months after losing her best friend in a tragic “accident”. Lucy is an enigmatic force of nature who, for whatever reason, has taken a liking to Margot. She invites her to move in to the house she’s splitting with two other roommates over the summer–just a back-garden away from a frat house. Just as Margot starts to really come out of her shell under the freedom of summer, she runs into a new pledge at the fraternity. She remembers him from her home town because he was responsible for Margot’s best friend’s death the year before. That’s all I’ll say but dang I enjoyed this! I honestly couldn’t figure out exactly where everything was going no matter how hard I tried and I love that in a mystery.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here (or pick up a copy in-store).

Oh, well this was just an utter delight from start to finish. This was the second Christina Lauren book I’d ever read and I think I’m going to read all of theirs from now on. I like the way they write! Christina and Lauren are two different women who write together under the pen-name Christina and Lauren, btw.

This book is like if Pretty Woman was set on a rich private island. I desperately want to watch this as a film for the makeover montage alonnnnne! It’s like Pretty Woman except instead of a sex-worker situation, it’s two people (Anna and West) who got fake married so they could save money on housing back in college. And they were supposed to get divorced but because of reasons that I will not get into in this limited space–that fell through. And now, three years later, these two incredibly hot people have to keep up the marriage charade for one more week–on a private island at West’s sister’s wedding.

I REALLY liked the FMC in this book. She reminded me so much of my friend Kate who is not only beautiful and talented but has the funniest sense of humor that a lot of people who take themselves way too seriously don’t always understand but the girls who get it get it. In fact I even sent her a passage of this book and was like, “this character reminds me so much of you”! And I got “This is the BEST start to my day” as a response. So glad she agreed.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here (or I’ll have a restock in a few weeks).

I was gifted the ARC of this book back in February. And I was like, “Oh I can’t wait to read this!” And then I didn’t understand 2 of the words on the first page and I put it away, intimidated. I wish I’d powered through though because it’s not an intimidating book at all. However, one of the benefits of not reading a book until the week it comes out is that you don’t have to wait that long before you can talk to people about it!

Many people describe this book as a genre-bender and I definitely agree. It’s got some spy-thriller. It’s got some historical fiction. It’s got workplace-comedy. It’s got some love story–I’ll talk more on that later because as a romance reader I have thoughts.

In the near-future a civil servant completes a series of job interviews–not sure what the job is for but she decides to take it anyway. Turns out time travel exists–okay, we just accept that with no questions asked, and her job is to be a Bridge. A baby-sitter or, more accurately, a translator of sorts for the folks what the British government is bringing back from the past. Our Bridge is assigned to Commander Graham Gore. As far as history knows, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic but we know that he didn’t die there–his body was never recovered. He was swooped up and brought to 2030-something.

This book is so funny. Commander Gore is charming as all hell. The other “expats” are so interesting in the way they interact with one another–despite their centuries in age difference. The spy thriller component is exciting and I was fully riveted.

Now, this is getting long but I gotta talk about how all the marketing is calling this a “romance”.  I believe that marketing teams are using that word because romance is very trendy right now. But the love story in this book doesn’t follow any part of the romance genre. In all my years of romance reading, I have never seen characters fall in love like this or a romance story end like this. There is a love-story sub-plot that magnificently enhances the main storyline. But it is not the whole story by any means. 

Lucky by Jane Smiley
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here (or stop in to Twice Told Tales, we have copies).

God I don’t want to write about this book. I usually DNF books I’m not enjoying so fast. I almost never finish a book that isn’t a 4 or 5 star review–specifically so I don’t have to write reviews about them. I realize this is a voluntary act but… woof.

I read this book because I have loved Jane Smiley’s books in the past (A Thousand Acres? Gutted.) and I really loved the cover of this one. Also the copy inside the front cover gave me Daisy Jones and the Six vibes! Here’s what it says:

_{Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and she tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels like something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is that not actually what Jodie is looking for? Full of atmosphere, shot through with longing and exuberance, romance and rock ‘n’ roll, Lucky is a story of chance and grit and the glitter of real talent, a colorful portrait of one woman’s journey in search of herself.}

No. Just… I finished this book a week ago and I’m still mad at it. I have two copies at the store right now and I have no idea how to sell them to anyone. I know someone will pick this up and they’ll say, “is this one good?” And I’ll have to just… die I guess?

It’s Jodie’s life story essentially. I love an epic story centered on family so I was down. I was listening to this on audio and after a few days, I still felt like I was at that part in the beginning of a book where everything is just about to hit its stride and something big is just about to happen. But nothing ever actually happened. Or rather, things happened… but it was like a list of things happening. “I graduated and then I moved to an apartment and I always had money and never went hungry and I played music and then I quit for no reason. And then I moved to England and didn’t have to struggle a day in my life. I was so lucky.” I’ve never been less connected to a character. Everything in her life was fine. Nothing bad really happened. If it did, she quickly found the silver lining and just kept on going right as rain. I was ready to give up. But before I did that, I decided to read reviews to see if I was missing anything. There were several reviews that said there was a big plot twist in the epilogue (an enormous pet peeve of mine btw—that’s not what an epilogue is for). So, I kept going.

I desperately wanted our main character to explore her luck or examine her privilege—especially when we enter 2010-2015 and she goes on and on about how safe St. Louis is. Completely ignoring the shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent protests-turned-riots in Ferguson. 

I finished the book and found myself obsessed with one question: Why would anyone write this? 

I found an article that described this as a fictionalization of Jane Smiley’s own biography. Only as a musician instead of an author. That answered my question enough but left me disappointed. The worst thing that ever happened to our main character was that she learned about climate change!

This is a long, boring book about a privileged, white boomer with no capacity for honest self-reflection, just navel gazing.  And if anyone wants to read it, I have two copies at Twice Told Tales.

That’s the last book that I finished so, sorry to end on a bummer note but hey that’s how I felt.

XOXO, Libby

While I hated considerably less books than I did last month, I don’t know that I’ll ever write a book review better than that one. So don’t get your hopes up.

Here’s what I read in April! Don’t forget that all sales from the links in this post go to benefit Twice Told Tales: our new/ used bookstore in McPherson KS.

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The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentil
Download the audiobook here.
Order your copy here or in person at Twice Told Tales

I really like this author’s works–I LOVED The Woman in the Library and I might even have liked this one more than that if it weren’t for all the… tedious inaccuracies that I kept catching throughout the piece. It’s so important to get a reader/ editor from the place where you’re going to set your book if you’re not terribly familiar with it.

It felt like there was a lot of research done to determine, say, the names of streets and certain landmark businesses in Lawrence, which was fun! Love it when my favorite bookshops and restaurants get a shout out in fiction! But then other basic things were overlooked. For example, an American would never say “I just got out of hospital.” They’d say, “I just got out of the hospital.” I know it’s small but it really sounds strange to an American ear. Also, there’s no such thing as the Kansas Police Department. Here, it’s the [City] Police Department (so, in this case, Lawrence Police Department) or the [State} Bureau of Investigation (Kansas Bureau of Investigation). 

Anyway, if you’re not an insufferable snob like me, and you really enjoy mysteries and have even a passing interest in the conspiracy-theory community, you’ll probably love this book!

When You Are Mine by Kennedy Ryan
Listen to the audiobook here.
Order the paperback here.

What… the fuck, Kennedy Ryan. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Technically, I didn’t finish this book. But I read 90% of it. Until I realized that it was part of a duology and this story would not be resolved at the end. At which point I actually threw this book in the trash so no one else would be subjected to it. YOU’RE WELCOME, MCPHERSON KANSAS.

All the marketing for this story makes it seem like such a fun rom-com. A cutie girl who grew up in foster care with few resources starts her own vintage resale shop and falls for a dark and broody millionaire in a forbidden lovers trope. Fun right? NO! Everyone has endured the worst trauma imaginable. And the author goes into too much detail. Like, a lot a lot of detail. Which would be fine if it served the plot in any way but it does not at all.

Content warnings for childhood neglect, severe childhood SA, kidnapping, graphic description of a shooting, spousal r*pe as a form of punishment (which, by the way, no one–including the author, seemed to think was a big deal. They kept saying, “I’m so glad he didn’t hurt her.” What the fuck you guys.) And there’s probably more but I definitely quit after the last one.

Anyway–Kennedy Ryan has been getting so much attention lately! This is one of her earlier works, so I am eager to read a more recent book of hers. But I checked the reviews on StoryGraph and it sounds like her books generally have a lot of trauma in them. So… we’ll see.

Worry by Alexandra Tanner
Download the audiobook here.
Buy the hardcover here or in-store at Twice Told Tales.

Ordinarily I don’t enjoy books in the “depressed twenty-something woman who lives in NYC” genre but I rather enjoyed this one. Maybe because it’s about sisters and I currently have such a complex, non-relationship with my sister that a story about sisters who love each other–even if they hate each other, was what my soul needed. But also, this story stayed on the humorous side of realistic. It didn’t get too depressing but it still felt very honest.

I liked the way that this book found a way to put words to the existential yearning of “god I wish I could just put down my phone and live my life!” Also it made me miss my sister.

Till Death Do Us Part by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (pub date: Aug 13)
Pre-Order the Audiobook here.
Pre-Order the hardcover here.

Sometimes I need to hear from someone else before I know exactly how I feel about a book. And this is one of them. That’s why as soon as I finished this book, I gave it to my book bestie, Shulah. She loves mysteries and thrillers like I do. She also loves wine and this book takes place in the wine world (really made a case for natural wines and now I want to try some out).

Ten years ago June’s husband (to whom she’d been married for only a week) drowned and his body was never recovered. Now, a decade later, she’s ready to settle down with a new husband and a new life. But… suddenly she starts seeing her first husband almost everywhere she goes. And before she can commit to this new life, she needs to find out if she’s just seeing things or if he really is alive.

Funny Story by Emily Henry
Download the audiobook here. (My favorite narrator by far.)
Order the hardcover copy here or in-store at Twice Told Tales

THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEEN LOOOOKING FORRRR!!! I’m sad this book is over because wow I loved it. It’s everything I want in a romance. It’s Emily Henry’s best work IMO. It busted me out of my reading rut thank goodness.

Daphne and her fiance Peter break up when Peter leaves her for his best friend, Petra. Petra leaves her long-time boyfriend, Miles to hook up with Peter. Which leaves Daphne out on the street and Miles with a free room in his apartment. So they become roommates.

The banter: impeccable. The fake dating: somehow perfectly believable. The side characters: utterly delightful. The spicy bits: maddening. In a great way. I have no complaints about this book and considering the mood I’ve been in lately–that’s nearly a miracle.

(In the middle of writing this a customer asked me what I’m obsessed with, and I so quickly sold this book to her. I worry that I overhyped it? But I know I didn’t.)

Open Wide: A Cookbook for Friends by Benny Blanco
Order here.

I read this book from page 1, skipping nothing. I think Benny Blanco is such a weirdo with a big heart. The way he talks about stuff is just strange and delightful and he seems to always default to a position of generosity when he talks about other people. Reading about how he stocks his kitchen is such a treasure. Hearing why he likes certain foods or memories of times with buddies is so endearing and also hilarious.

What I loved about this book is the way it’s organized. When I was just mindlessly flipping through it felt so random to me. One page you have a recipe for tres leches cake, another page you have a recipe for fried chicken, then a breakfast burrito, then oatmeal cookies. But once I sat down to read it, I recognized that each chapter is split up into different menus that he would make for different themed parties with his friends! Which is honestly the only way that I ever want a cookbook to be organized for as long as I live. Never again do I want to be expected to come up with my own menu.

Anyway–will I ever make anything from this book? Probably not. I have so many cookbooks and I still get all my recipes from Pinterest. I’m just gonna pass it off to a buddy so they can enjoy.

April started off kinda shitty in the reading dept but we ended on such a high note! Spring has sprung baby!

I’ve had a serious case of… readers block? Is that what it’s called? A rut? Eh. Anyway, I just haven’t felt like listening to my audiobooks and I’ve been reading my physical books even more slowly than usual. And that’s how I ended up reading one, solitary book in March. Which is actually great because I need space to air my grievances. In this essay, I will…

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‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Buy the paperback here.
Download the audiobook here.

Three Truths from My Life:
1. From my calculations, 75% of the people I’ve met, describe themselves as “huge” Stephen King fans.
2. When I explain that I’ve never read a Stephen King horror book before and ask each of these people what I should start with, every single person told me a different title. And he has written enough books that, mathematically, this fact adds up.
3. When I figure I can’t go wrong with anything (due to the vastness of answers), and then tell people which book I settled on, without fail, everyone made a face like they were swallowing a burp and said, “Oh no.”

So that felt cool!

First of all, it’s “APOSTRAPHE Salem’s Lot”. Because the town is actually called Jerusalem’s Lot. Which means, is this book actually pronounced “suh-lem’s lot”?

Secondly, even though every single one of you (I guess I’m just writing this as a letter from me to the whole Church of Stephen King) told me (way too late I might add), that you hated this book, no one explained to me why they hated it. If it was the story, I actually didn’t mind the story at all. If I had known it was a vampire novel, I never would have picked it up (I can not emphasize how much research I did not do before deciding on this book–I literally picked the one that felt best in my hand). That being said, the story was captivating! I really liked the primary characters (and even a few of the side characters–those that I could keep straight. Even the baddest bad guys were compelling). But UGH I hated his writing style.

You could rip off the first 200 pages of this book and not miss a thing. I can sum up the whole Part 1 in two sentences: This story takes place in Maine. It is gloomy.

I was prepared for 1970’s sensibilities and tried not to hold them against him. The f-slur is very prominent. The way he talks about women, fat people, gay people, Black people, Asians, Mexicans, disabled people, old people… (almost) all people is straight up gruesome.

I like to read dark and twisty thrillers. I’m not too sensitive to read a brutal scene every now and again if it serves the story. But this was on another level. The excruciating detail that he included in one particular scene where a man is beating his wife made me feel like if I was Stephen King’s wife and I read that, I’d sleep with one eye open. But when it was over, I thought for sure that with that much detail, this was going to come back into the story to play an important role. I even predicted how it could potentially serve the story. But no. Nothing much really even happens with those characters. That was more or less the end of their story. I just felt like the author really wanted to feel what it was like to hit a woman. And then make millions off of it.

The insistence on explaining the minutia of every single thing really obliterated any momentum or even tension that happened to build. We’ll be in a really wild part of the story and in the middle, the character catches a whiff of something that reminds them of, I don’t know, a tuna fish sandwich that he saw his fifth grade teacher eating one day. So, now we have to dedicate the next six pages to this fifth grade teacher and her life story and where she moved to once she retired and what it looked like as she chewed. Or whatever. And then when you’re nearly falling asleep, you remember we were in the middle of the climax of this story! So we get back to that. And that happens over and over and over and over again for 662 pages.

Sure, there’s an argument to be made for over explaining everything but this is an essay on why I don’t like Stephen King. I honestly think it all comes down to I don’t like the way this man wastes so much of the reader’s time. It doesn’t feel like this man writes with the reader or even the story in mind–it feels like he does it all for himself. Which is his prerogative, I suppose. It’s all so he can prove that he can get in there and experience what it’s like to touch this tree or beat the ever loving shit out of a pretty girl.

NOW, I say all of this with the full understanding that this book was not only written in 1975 but that King was coked out of his mind and that this was only his second book, and that authors grow and change in their craft like any other artist. If his current Twitter presence is any indication, I’m sure that he has grown and changed as the culture has shifted and as he’s gotten sober. I’m sure as a person he’s excellent. But I don’t feel compelled to pick up another one of his books any time soon.

I think that if I had discovered Stephen King’s writings in the 1990’s like all my peers did, I’d probably have a really nostalgic place in my heart for him and collect him like they do. And I don’t begrudge anyone for having that at all. But having sampled him in 2024, there are a lot of other places that I’m going to turn for my horror needs moving forward. Authors like Tananarive Due, Toni Morrison, and Stephen Graham Jones are where I’m going to be looking.

I’ve never written this much about a single book outside of school. The irony is not lost on me.

PS: In the spirit of “I’ll try anything twice,” a friend at book club did convince me to give The Shining a try and I believe I’ll do it. Not any time soon. But one day.

Woof. I’m ending February in a reading slump. I’m just in one of those moods. I don’t want to listen to any audiobooks because I haven’t got the attention and all my physical books are a trudge. That’s okay though because the two books I read in February were incredible 5* reads. Honestly–I think I’m just struggling to get anything to follow up after these two.

Between these two books I read this month and the Kiley Reid and Tia Williams books I read last month, I think that I’m ready to admit: I need way, way, way more literature by Black women in my life in 2024. So, I’m excited to be more intentional with that.

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Token by Beverley Kendall
Download the audiobook here. (OH! She’s currently on sale for less than $5!!)
Order the physical copy here.
(Or as of the moment of this blog post, we have a used copy at Twice Told Tales.)

After her most recent experience of being the Token Black Girl at a corporate gig, Kennedy Mitchell decides she’s done doing this work for free. She and her best friend team up to begin Token, their boutique PR firm that helps “diversity-challenged” companies and celebrities.

This is a cute, fun romance with all the typical romance tropes–but this one has such a cool and realistic foundation! It has a short fake-dating moment (the most unrealistic, eye-roll-inducing trope IMO) which required no suspension of belief on my part! I look forward to more books by Beverley Kendall in the future!

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
Download the audiobook here.
Order the book here.
(Or as of the moment of this blog post, we have a used copy at Twice Told Tales.)

Akwaeke Emezi writes in so many genres. I read The Death of Vivek Oji a few years ago and was really enchanted by her grasp of the complexities of grief and the way she walks with her characters through it. But she also has excellent YA and even Children’s books.

YMAFODWYB (only complaint, that title is too damn long) is technically a “romance” but when it came to shelving it in my store, I couldn’t put it in there. This book has a few sex scenes but that is not all it takes to make a book a romance! This book has grit and grief and ooooh it is messy. Feyi is a messy, messy bitch. And we adore her. We are rooting for her. Even in the complexity of love and grief and struggle.

I realize I didn’t tell you what this book was about but who cares. Just go read it and then let’s chat.