I’m Reading: The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

(contains spoilers)

The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez has been taking the Romance world by storm, and for good reason. It starts with the perfect meet-cute involving an adorable lost puppy, and fulfills all our sighs and yearning for a solid romance from there.  The biggest reason this should be in your TBR pile is the craft. The author writes solid, complex, engaging characters with strong voice, vivid description, and evocative emotions. Sloan’s tragic backstory is dealt with sympathetically without melodrama, and even the antagonists get dimensions.

As some reader reviews mention, the book does feel a little like it’s in two parts, with a solid HFN halfway through. The second part is interesting as it addresses the “after” in the “happily ever after.” The characters must adapt, compromise, draw boundaries, grow as people, and decide how to be a team under stress. I love seeing this extra depth in what would otherwise just be a well-crafted, light romcom. What I don’t love is the classic romance trope of “I’m leaving you for your own good.” It sets my eyes on fire with rage every single time I read it, because it is the opposite of romantic for me. It is dehumanizing, infantilizing, arrogant, and abusive. It is my number one most hated trope in all romance arcs.

That said, in this case, the actual writing craft, the lovable and complex characters, and the dog, all conspire to make me forget about the hated trope and keep this book on my re-read pile.  Especially for the dog. Tucker is SUCH A GOOD DOG.

Visit Abby Jimenez online for links to purchase the book, or check your local library.

I’m Reading: Saddled, by Linda G. Hill

I’m finding myself more and more drawn to light, uncomplicated, wholesome reads. When everything around me is bleak, I want my fiction to be escapism. That’s why Saddled was such a refreshing read, both as a beta reader and a purchaser.

A woman executive at a condom manufacturing company falls hard for a new temp. But she’s responsible for the no-dating policy at work, and to complicate things, she discovers his alter-ego. By day he’s a talented, aspiring public relations rep. By night he’s Saddle McFleshbomb, a professional stripper.

Delightfully feminist, unabashedly raunchy, and sex-worker positive, this romance is a perfect weekend retreat into a gentler, wholesome world of ridiculous co-workers and happy endings. Best of all, you can leave your hat on.

Saddled is available on Amazon. 

I’m Reading: Eve Silver’s Dark Gothics

When I told my partner about wanting to write some gothic elements into my current book, he asked me how many gothics I’d read and enjoyed. I’d read the classics of course, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. They weren’t my favorites. Northanger Abbey was my second-least-favorite Jane Austen, although I found out later that it was intended as a parody of the genre. So why was I looking for gothic elements if I didn’t like gothics?

It was the modern stories that caught my excitement. The Australian Gothic bleakness of Jane Harper’s The Dry. The bleak and haunting beauty of urban decay I explored through Urbex in my 20s. The Southern Gothic aesthetic I saw living in Georgia and North Florida.

In response, he loaned me Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, the classic gothic that caught the imagination of Hitchcock. I was hooked. This was the voice I was looking for.

So when I started reading indie author Eve Silver’s Dark Gothic series, I knew what to expect from the genre. In the first book, Dark Desires, the heroine is cast out alone into the world and takes up service to a handsome and imposing doctor. The doctor proves to be a figure of mystery, and there may be gruesome secrets hiding in his secret laboratory.

I loved the unique twist of her work as an artist, putting her on some equal footing of skill with the Doctor, even if the social class structures of the time prevent her being considered his actual equal. The genre demands a damsel in distress, but as a character she is given strengths and real practical skills, instead of being a simple fainting beauty.

If readers struggle to enjoy the series, the issue might be unfamiliarity with the genre. The books are a delicious example of the classic gothic style, from language to overwrought suspicion of the love interest, to looming and evil villain. The author adds a subtly modernist social dynamic and a lot of intense steam to create a thoroughly satisfying new classic.

The erotic and romantic tension are one of the modern elements, although crafted in a classical voice that goes well with the historical setting. When Eve Silver brings the steam, she brings it! So turn down the lights, get out the wine and petit-fours, and take a journey into a world of brooding doctors with dark secrets, a murderer who stalks the streets of London, and a young artist fallen from high society who must win her way by her wits and heart.

Find the series and excerpts at evesilver.net.

I’m Reading: Mariana Zapata

If you asked me last year what romance tropes I was fairly “meh” about, the list would have included sports romance and slow-burn. Reading Mariana Zapata has reminded me once again that it isn’t about the trope; it’s about the writing.

I started with The Wall of Winnipeg and Me on recommendations from an agent. Despite knowing nothing about American football, I was drawn right into the characters and fascinated by their struggles. The main character, Vanessa, hooked me, and I wanted to cheer when she took absolutely no more nonsense from Aiden. I loved the deep POV and slightly unreliable narrator, as Aiden’s motivations and inner self slowly unfolds from behind the curtain of Vanessa’s annoyance and assumptions. I love that Vanessa has her own dreams to pursue and defends them so strongly. I loved it so much I re-read it three times in as many months, and went hunting for more.

After devouring Zapata’s entire Kindle Unlimited catalog, I put her squarely among my favorite authors. I think they are all on my re-read list, but my top three are definitely:

1. The Wall of Winnipeg and Me
2. Under Locke
3. Lingus

With From Lukov with Love a close tie for third.

Dear Aaron was a really interesting take on the epistolary novel, as the MC exchanges emails with a soldier stationed overseas for the first half of the book. I’ve never really connected well with epistolary novels, but if you’re a fan of the style, this should resonate well.

You can see Zapata’s full catalog with descriptions and purchase links at https://www.marianazapata.com/books. Many of her books deal with sensitive subjects such as childhood and domestic abuse, so individuals with trauma histories should beware. Most or all are available as audiobooks.

Houseplant Writing

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January 2 was supposed to be my big return day from taking December off from writing. But it wasn’t. January 1 was my first day at the gym after graduating from physical therapy for knee surgery, and (as my family and friends won’t be shocked to hear) I overdid it. That plus a big office de-cluttering project meant that on January 2, I had exactly enough energy and pain control to lay on the couch, play Dungeon Boss, and fight with trolls on Twitter.

I had plans. Houseplant said no.

A lot of writers are putting enormous pressure on themselves to “produce.” Whether it’s a certain word count each day, or a certain amount of time on the keyboard, or a book in an already busy month. It is very easy to get caught up in creative flow or bow to pressures of jobs and responsibilities and ignore basic care. I’ve had days when I’ve produced ten thousand words, but forgot to eat or drink and spent nine hours stuck in a single position, staring at a screen. Was that an accomplishment? Was it worth it? Would it have made me a worse writer to produce those words in three days instead of one?

Self care is prioritizing your needs and your body’s needs, but commercialization of self-care has distorted the meaning. Re-framing self-care as houseplant care helps me better prioritize. I need food, shelter, water, movement, and rest. I may not always have the resources or ability to get those things, but some level of them needs to be a priority in the discretionary spending of my time. I may not always get the highest quality of those things, but I want to be mindful, in the give-and-take of life’s demands, that I can’t produce good writing if I don’t have the physical resources to live and grow.

So sometimes I will need a day off from writing. Sometimes there will be other demands on my time (like a sick family member) that need to take priority. Sometimes I will need to produce less in order to take care of basic physical needs. That’s okay.

Houseplant approves.

NaNoWriMo Project

I’m doing my very first ever NaNoWriMo! I’ve always wanted to participate, and never managed a clear enough schedule to do so. This year, I’ve got a project in the hands of beta readers and cleared the deck for November. I’m excited to announce my NaNo project, with the working title “Inheritance:”

When professional psychic Silver Chase (a.k.a. Agnes) arrives in Weldon Falls, Michigan, she has two goals. The first is to claim the estate of the birth father she’d never known. The second is to avoid as many people as she can. The second had always been her goal. But as the small, strange town begins to pull her into its secrets, she’s torn between a misanthropic neighbor she just can’t seem to avoid pissing off, and a handsome local cop who seems determined to make her social. As the secrets turn deadly, she must decide who to trust, when her instincts tell her the answer is “nobody.”

If you’d like to buddy up, my profile name is JoGeekly!