Review: Hex by Anna Hackett

Posted on June 20, 2023June 18, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

Hex by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Sentinel Security #6
Pages: 256
Published by Anna Hackett on June 13, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

She’s the genius hacker known as Hex.
He’s a ghost—the deep-cover spy known only as Shade.
They generate a dangerous level of white-hot sparks, but he needs her help on a deadly mission.
Jet “Hex” Adler loves being a goddess of all thing tech. She provides her team at Sentinel Security with intel and comms, and she’s good at it. No, brilliant. Sure, sometimes it’s hard to be stuck in the office while her guys are in the field, but computers, tech, and drones are her thing. If only she had the same luck with men.
And that does not include a certain hot, cocky, annoying spy.
Cain aka Shade is dedicated to his country. He does the hard, dangerous work so others don’t have to. He came from nothing, he’s alone, unattached. A man like him has nothing to lose. For Cain, life is always about the mission. It can never be about a certain small, smart, feisty hacker.
But now he needs Jet for an important assignment to stop high-tech drone schematics falling into enemy hands.
Of course, Jet will do anything to help save the world…okay, not the entire world, but a lot of innocent lives. Even if it means going undercover with the man who knows how to push every one of her buttons. But as they work together, dodging danger and bad guys, their scorching attraction explodes…and Cain will realize that for the first time in his life, someone is more important to him than his mission.

My Review:

This last book in the Sentinel Security series has been teased – as has its heroine Jet “Hex” Adler – from the earliest days in the series when she, and we, were introduced to CIA undercover operative Shade, as he gave the occasional assist to his former CIA colleagues Killian “Steel” Hawke and Devyn “Hellfire” Hayden on their way to their HEA in Steel.

When her story opens, Hex is the only member of the Sentinel Security team who hasn’t found somebody to love. She’s been burned more than once by too many men who only seem to be interested in her for the ways they can change her, with Brandon the douche having been the worst of the lot.

Brandon left her psyche with a few scars, and left Hex with the uncompromised desire to find someone who will love her exactly as she is, smarts, sass, petite cuteness and everything else in her sometimes contradictory package.

She doesn’t think Cain Cavanaugh, AKA Shade, could possibly be that man. Which doesn’t explain why, in spite of his dark codename, he lights up her hormones every time they cross paths or even just exchange annoying texts.

But there’s a job to do, as there always is for Sentinel Security. And for once in her career, both with the CIA and now with Sentinel Security, Hex is going to be the one going undercover instead of staying safe and managing all the tech that keeps the rest of her team and found family as safe as she can make them.

She’s off to an international tech conference to exchange a stolen data chip for a high-level sting on the evil broker who plans to sell it to the highest – and equally evil – villain. With Shade as her partner keeping her safe from everyone who is out to get her – especially himself.

A job at which he is both not exactly successful and utterly unsuccessful at the same time. But that’s OK because Hex is perfectly capable of rescuing herself from the bad guys – and doesn’t feel any need whatsoever to protect herself from Shade.

Escape Rating A-: The previous book in this series, Excalibur, just wasn’t the tropes I was looking for, for reasons that I don’t need to get into here.

Very much, and very happily, on my other hand, Hex turned out to be EXACTLY what I was hoping for, with its badass hacker heroine who rescues herself, and the even more badass man who is certain that he’s got too much blood on his hands from too many dark places to be remotely worthy of her.

Of course, he’s right and wrong at the same time. He might not quite be worthy of her, and possibly no one is – I really loved Hex – but he is a worthy man and he’s what she wants and he should definitely know better than to stand in her way. It was terrific watching him figure that out – finally – so they could both take a chance on love. Just like the rest of the members of the Sentinel Security team have done through the course of the series.

Now that Killian Hawke (Steel) and his handpicked team have finally found their HEAs, the action shifts to the Fury Brothers in the author’s next action-adventure romance series, coming in September.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to her next science fiction romance (always my personal faves), Knighthunter, book 2 of the Oronis Knights series, coming OMG NEXT MONTH! Squee!

Juneteenth 2023: Cooperatives

Posted on June 19, 2023June 19, 2023 by Galen Charlton | Author : Galen Charlton | Juneteenth

A year has passed since my first Juneteenth post. I still don’t know what specifically happened to the African American farmer cooperatives of Colleton County, South Carolina, but for today we can look more broadly at the examples of cooperatives after the Civil War.

Today I purchased the book Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice by Jessica Gordon Nembhard. Quoting from an essay by Dr. Nembhard and her daughter Susan Nembhard,

When we closely examine African American history, we find the common phenomenon that even when Blacks have struggled to find employment, or have been discriminated against and oppressed at work, they have engaged in economic cooperation and solidarity. By cooperation we mean the founding of worker and consumer cooperatives – enterprises that are owned and democratically self-managed by their own workers or by the local community of consumers, not by a detached board and shroud of faceless profit-seeking shareholders. Though little-known and under-discussed even within radical circles, the Black cooperative movement in the US is one of the oldest and most successful examples of solidarity economy practices in the country. From the times of slavery through to Reconstruction, the civil rights era, and the present day, Black people have built up a solidarity economy in order to consolidate a base of material resources that placed real economic power directly in the hands of working-class Black people. Often, then and now, these have formed the economic backbone of the Black struggle for freedom against racial oppression.

…

The African American cooperative movement has been a mostly silent partner of the Long Civil Rights Movement in the US – throughout the struggle for Black liberation, activism for political, legal, and social rights was supported by demands for economic justice and cooperative economic practices. Early on African Americans realized that without economic justice – without equality, independence, stability, and prosperity for all – social and political rights were hollow, or not even achievable at all. In an editorial in 1933, W.E.B. Du Bois summed up the power of a cooperative economy for a subaltern population:

…we can by consumers and producers’ cooperation…establish a progressively self-supporting economy that will weld the majority of our people into an impregnable, economic phalanx.

Look for a review of Collective Courage here in a few weeks.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 6-18-23

Posted on June 18, 2023June 17, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

For Mother’s Day last month I posted a picture of LaZorra, the one and only momcat we’ve ever had – at least so far. So it seems only fitting that for Father’s Day I post a picture of the only dadcat that we’ve ever had, at least so far and so far as we know. (Who knows what Lucifer got up to while he was living rough!)

It’s also totally appropriate that Erasmus follow his sister LaZorra, because that’s pretty much what he did for his entire life. She had ALL the brains, and he had all the sweet. (Yes, they were a bit like the Egyptian pharaohs, as momcat and dadcat were also brother and sister from the same litter, so we know they shared at least one parentcat themselves.)

Coming This Week:

Juneteenth 2023 (Guest Post by Galen)
Hiss Me Deadly by Miranda James (review)
Summer Seasons of Books 2023 Giveaway Hop
Beach Read by Emily Henry (review)
Hex by Anna Hackett (review)

Stacking the Shelves (553)

Posted on June 17, 2023June 16, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

This stack and the two following are going to be just a bit shorter than normal. We’re actually going to go on a bit of vacation after the ALA Conference, so I’m getting a whole bunch of posts ‘stacked up’ so you won’t even notice I’m gone!

light from uncommon stars by ryka aoki audio

warrior of the wind by suyi davies okungbowa

in other lifetimes all ive lost comes back to me by courtney sender

For Review:
Emergency: Stories by Kathleen Alcott
Empty Theatre by Jac Jemc
In Other Lifetimes All I’ve Lost Comes Back to Me by Courtney Sender
The Manor House Governess by C.A. Castle
The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle (Edinburgh Nights #3) by T.L. Huchu
Sun of Blood and Ruin by Mariely Lares
Warrior of the Wind (Nameless Republic #2) by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Y/N by Esther Yi

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (audio)

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Dad-O-Mite Giveaway Hop

Posted on June 16, 2023June 15, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Blog Hops> Dad-O-Mite Giveaway Hop> Giveaways

Welcome to the 2023 edition of the Dad-O-Mite Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox!

Father’s Day is this coming Sunday, June 18th, in the U.S. as well as a whole host of other countries. In honor of that day, this bloghop celebrates dads of all kinds everywhere, whether bio-dads, adoptive dads, foster dads, dads of choice, pet dads and every kind of dad, granddad and father figure out there who is loved by their children, whether those children are little, or big, or have four feet or fur or feathers or scales, or any combination of the above.

We all need someone to fill that role in our lives. We’re not all lucky enough to get such a person. If you have one, and yours is still around, give them an extra hug for those who never did or no longer do.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more dad-worthy prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!

MamatheFox and all participating blogs are not held responsible for sponsors who fail to fulfill their prize obligations.

Review: Famous in a Small Town by Viola Shipman

Posted on June 15, 2023June 14, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Famous in a Small Town by Viola Shipman
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 352
Published by Graydon House on June 13, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

"Full of summertime delight…and sweet, nostalgic charm, Famous in a Small Town is a beautiful reminder to…fully embrace the magic that lives inside you." —Heather Webber, USA TODAY bestselling author of Midnight at the Blackbird Café
For most of her eighty years, Mary Jackson has endured the steady invasion of tourists, influencers and real estate developers who have discovered the lakeside charm of Good Hart, Michigan, waiting patiently for the arrival of a stranger she’s believed since childhood would one day carry on her legacy—the Very Cherry General Store. Like generations of Jackson women before her, Cherry Mary, as she’s known locally, runs the community hub—part post office, bakery and sandwich shop—and had almost given up hope that the mysterious prediction she’d been told as a girl would come true and the store would have to pass to…a man.
Becky Thatcher came to Good Hart with her ride-or-die BFF to forget that she’s just turned forty with nothing to show for it. Ending up at the general store with Mary is admittedly not the beach vacation she expected, but the more the feisty octogenarian talks about destiny, the stronger Becky’s memories of her own childhood holidays become, and the strange visions over the lake she was never sure were real. As she works under Mary’s wing for the summer and finds she fits into this quirky community of locals, she starts to believe that destiny could be real, and that it might have something very special in mind for Becky…
Bursting with memorable characters and small-town lore, the enchanting new novel from the bestselling author of The Clover Girls is a magical story about the family you’re born with, and the one you choose.

My Review:

In the summer of 2023, “Cherry Mary” Jackson is eighty years old and holding both a record and legacy in Good Hart, Michigan.

Mary Jackson has held the world record, officially certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, for the furthest distance a cherry pit (from a Michigan cherry, of course) has ever been spit. By anyone, male or female, man, woman or child. It’s a record she’s held since 1958, when she was 15 years old and cherry spitting was considered to be utterly unladylike.

But Mary has never thought of herself as a lady – and neither did either her mother or grandmother.

Which relates to the legacy that Mary is holding. She’s the latest in a long, unbroken line of female owners of the Very Cherry General Store in the heart of Good Hart. It’s not exactly an untarnished legacy, as Mary is all too aware. That Mary’s grandmother was able to pass the store intact to her daughter, who was, in her turn, able to pass it intact to Mary herself, had a rather active hand in making it happen in more ways than just the obvious.

Mary has always known she’s supposed to pass the store to another woman in her family when it’s her time to go. At age eighty, Mary is all too aware that her time is coming sooner than she’d like to think. But her only child was a son, and now, her son’s only child is a son in his mid-30s who seems to be following in his father’s footsteps far away from Mary and the store.

Meanwhile, just-turned-forty Becky Thatcher (yes, her parents really named her that and the inevitable schoolyard taunts and bullying were every bit as awful as one might imagine) has also always known that she had a destiny out there waiting for her to find it. A destiny she learned about when she was a child, spending summers with her beloved grandparents on the shores of Lake Michigan.

They’re gone now, but the memories remain, including Becky’s memory of a dream, or a vision, or a Fata Morgana mirage out of the lake, of a group of three women coming towards her and herself walking towards them.

This summer of 2023, after breaking up with her long-term utter douche-sponge of a boyfriend, Becky and her BFF Monique (AKA Q) take a ride back through time. Not time travel, more like a reboot. They take a ‘Girl’s Vacation’, just like they used to before adult responsibilities sucked them under, and they drive to Lake Michigan, back to where Becky’s grandparents used to take her, to take a summer off from real life to decide if the real life they have to go back to is the one they really want for the next forty years.

Becky and her fate run straight into “Cherry Mary” and her legacy – along with Mary’s yummy grandson – and it finally all comes together. For all of them. In the ‘Blue Hours’ and ‘Golden Hours’ of one beautiful Lake Michigan summer.

Escape Rating A: Famous in a Small Town is an utterly charming take on “we are too soon old and too late smart” applied across multiple generations, from 80-year-old Mary to 40-year-old Becky while in between Mary’s parents are trapped in their own fears and expectations and need to drive a cherry red convertible out of their damn garage and into a life they can both love.

But to give the story a bit of spice (and body!) it also includes just a pinch of the bad decisions and ruthless practicality that seasoned those Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

It’s also a marvelous if sometimes bittersweet tale of the power of women’s enduring friendships – as well as the lifelong enmity that can be spawned when those friendships go sour. As much as the laughter in this story is buoyed by the rock solid, lifelong sisterhood between Becky and Q, it is salted with tears over the even longer relationship between Mary, Francine and Virgie, who now in their sunset are celebrating both the support that Mary and Francine have always given each other as well as the once-upon-a-time kick-in-the-pants that Virgie administered to Mary when she needed it the absolute most.

Sometimes friendship involves standing side by side, and sometimes it manifests as a boot up the backside – even if that boot pulls that friendship apart.

I picked up this book because I loved the beautifully “sad fluff” of the author’s earlier novel, The Clover Girls. (I’ve liked the author’s subsequent books but I just haven’t loved them the way I did The Clover Girls.)

At least not until now.

The very cherry flavored fluff of Famous in a Small Town isn’t nearly as sad as The Clover Girls. There is a touch of bittersweetness in the chocolate the cherries are enrobed in, but the story as a whole is considerably lighter – even though there are some absolutely appropriate and completely justified dark spots.

Then again, I like dark chocolate considerably better than milk because it has just the bit more bite.

I think that’s because the characters in this one, especially Mary and Becky, are at much better places in their lives than any of The Clover Girls were when their story begins. That Becky’s part of this one begins just as she’s kicked her dead weight of an ex to the curb starts her part on a bit of a celebratory note – even as she’s kicking herself for having tolerated the situation for so long.

But still, this one starts out at a point where no one is in dire straits. Things could be better, things will be worse on the horizon, but they’re at a point where they begin by being open to something good happening, so the fact that it does and that the good happening is the story bakes the whole thing into a delicious Cherry Chip Cake with Cherry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting – the recipe for which is included at the end!

Spotlight + Excerpt: Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale

Posted on June 14, 2023June 13, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> Excerpts> Spotlight

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, time travel romance
Pages: 368
Published by Mira on June 11, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

If you had the power to change the past…where would you start?

Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit. She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend, Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn't (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order…until now.• She's just been dumped.• She's just been fired.• Her local café has run out of banana muffins.
Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past. One small rewind at a time, Cassie attempts to fix the life she accidentally obliterated, but soon she'll discover she's trying to fix all the wrong things.

Welcome to the blog tour for Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale. I’ll be reviewing this book later this month, but in the meantime, here’s a bit of a teaser to whet ALL of our reading appetites!

Here’s how Cassandra’s story starts…(Excerpt from the first chapter of Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale)

WHERE DOES A STORY START?

It’s a lie, the first page of a book, because it masquerades as a beginning. A real beginning—the opening of something—when what you’re being offered is an arbitrary line in the sand. This story starts here. Pick a random event. Ignore whatever came before it or catch up later. Pretend the world stops when the book closes, or that a resolution isn’t simply another random moment on a curated timeline.

But life isn’t like that, so books are dishonest.
Maybe that’s why humans like them.
And it’s saying that kind of shit that gets me thrown out of the Fentiman Road Book Club.

Here are some other things I’ve been asked not to return to:

The Blenheim Road Readers Group
A large flat-share I briefly attempted in Walthamstow
My last relationship
My current job

The final two have been in quick succession. This morning, Will—my boyfriend of four months—kissed me, listed my virtues out of nowhere and concluded the pep talk by ending our relationship.

The job situation I found out about eighty seconds ago.

According to the flexing jaw and flared nostrils of my boss, I’ve yet to respond to this new information. He seems faint and muted, as if he’s behind a pane of thick frosted glass. He also has a dried oat on his shirt collar but now doesn’t seem the right time to point it out: he’s married—his wife can do it later.

“Cassie,” he says more loudly. “Did you hear me?”

Obviously I heard him or I’d still be giving a detailed report on the client meeting I just had, which is exactly what I was doing when he fired me.

“The issue isn’t so much your work performance,” he plows on gallantly. “Although, Christ knows, somebody who hates phone calls as much as you do shouldn’t be working in public relations.”

I nod: that’s an accurate assessment.

“It’s your general demeanor I can’t have in this office. You are rude. Insubordinate. Arrogant, frankly. You are not a team player, and do you know what this office needs?”

“A better coffee machine.”

“That’s exactly the kind of bullshit I’m talking about.”

I’d tell you my boss’s name and give him a brief description, but judging by this conversation, he isn’t going to be a prominent character for much longer.

“I’ve spoken to you about this on multiple occasions— Cassandra, look at me when I’m talking to you. Our highest-paying client just dropped us because of your quote, unquote relentlessly grating behavior. You are unlikable. That’s the exact word they used. Unlikable. Public relations is a People Job. For People People.”

Now, just hang on a minute.

“I’m a person,” I object, lifting my chin and doing my best to stare directly into his pupils. “And, as far as I’m aware, being likable is irrelevant to my job description. It’s certainly not in my contract, because I’ve checked.”

My boss’s nostrils flare into horsiness.

I rarely understand what another human is thinking, but I frequently feel it: a wave of emotion that pours out of them into me, like a teapot into a cup. While it fills me up, I have to work out what the hell it is, where it came from and what I’m supposed to do to stop it spilling everywhere.

Rage that doesn’t feel like mine pulses through me: dark purple and red.

His colors are an invasion and I do not like it.

“Look,” my boss concludes with a patient sigh that is nothing like the emotion bolting out of him. “This just isn’t working out, Cassie, and on some level you must already know that. Maybe you should find something that is better suited to your…specific skill set.”

That’s essentially what Will told me this morning too. I don’t know why they’re both under the impression I must have seen the end coming when I very much did not.

“Your job has the word relations in it,” my boss clarifies helpfully. “Perhaps you could find one that doesn’t?”

Standing up, I clear my throat and look at my watch: it’s not even Wednesday lunchtime yet.

Relationship: over.

Job: over.

“Well,” I say calmly. “Fuck.”

So that’s where my story starts.

It could have started anywhere: I just had to pick a moment. It could have been waking up this morning to the sound of my flatmates screaming at each other, or eating my breakfast (porridge and banana, always), or making an elaborate gift for my first anniversary with Will (slightly preemptive).

It could have been the moment just before I met him, which would have been a more positive beginning. It could have been the day my parents died in a car accident, which would have been considerably less so.

But I chose here: kind of in the middle.

Thirty-one years into my story and a long time after the dramatic end of some others. Packing a cardboard box with very little, because it transpires the only thing on my desk that doesn’t belong to the agency is a gifted coffee mug with a picture of a cartoon deer on it. I put it in the box anyway. There’s no real way of knowing what’s going to happen next, but I assume there will still be caffeine.

“Oh shit!” My colleague Sophie leans across our desks as I stick a wilting plant under my arm just to look like I’m not leaving another year of my life behind with literally nothing to show for it. “They haven’t fired you? That’s awful. I’m sure we will all miss you so much.”

I genuinely have no idea if she means this or not. If she does, it’s certainly unexpected: we’ve been sitting opposite each other since I got here and all I really know about her is that she’s twenty-two years old and likes tuna sandwiches, typing aggressively and picking her nose as if none of us have peripheral vision.

“Will you?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Why?”

Sophie opens her mouth, shuts it again and goes back to smashing her keyboard as if she’s playing whack-a-mole with her fingertips.

“Cassandra!” My boss appears in the doorway just as I start cleaning down my keyboard with one of my little antiseptic wipes. “What the hell are you doing? I didn’t mean leave right now. Jesus on a yellow bicycle, what is wrong with you? I’d prefer you to work out your notice period, please.”

“Oh.” I look down at the box and my plant. I’ve packed now. “No, thank you.”

Finished with cleaning, I sling my handbag over my shoulder and my coat over my arm, hold the box against my stomach, awkwardly hook the plant in the crook of my elbow and try to get the agency door open on my own. Then I hold it open with my knee while I look back, even though—much like Orpheus at the border of the Underworld—I know I shouldn’t.

The office has never been this quiet.

Heads are conscientiously turned away from me, as if I’m a sudden bright light. There’s a light patter of keyboards like pigeons walking on a roof (punctuated by the violent death stabs of Sophie), the radiator by the window is gurgling, the reception is blindingly gold-leafed and the watercooler drips. If I’m looking for something good to come out of today—and I think I probably should—it’s that I won’t have to hear that every second for the rest of my working life.

It’s a productivity triumph. They should fire people for fundamental personality flaws more often.

The door slams behind me and I jump even though I’m the one who slammed it. Then my phone beeps, so I balance everything precariously on one knee and fumble for it. I try to avoid having unread notifications if I can. They make my bag feel heavy.

Dankworth please clean your shit up

I frown as I reply:

Which shit in particular

There’s another beep.

Very funny. Keep the kitchen clear

It is a COmmUNAL SPaCE.

It wasn’t funny a couple of weeks ago when I came down for a glass of water in the middle of the night and found Sal and Derek having sex against the fridge.

Although perhaps that is the definition of communal.

Still frowning, I hit the button for the lift and mentally scour the flat for what I’ve done wrong this time. I forgot to wash my porridge bowl and spoon. There’s also my favorite yellow scarf on the floor and a purple jumper over the arm of the sofa. This is my sixth flat-share in ten years and I’m starting to feel like a snail: carrying my belongings around with me so I leave no visible trace.

I send back:

OK.

My intestines are rapidly liquidizing, my cheeks are hot and a bright pink rash I can’t see is forming across my chest. Dull pain wraps itself around my neck, like a scarf pulled tight.

It’s fascinating how emotions can tie your life together.

One minute you’re twelve, standing in the middle of a playground while people fight over who doesn’t get you as a teammate. The next you’re in your thirties, single and standing by the lifts of an office you’ve just been fired from because nobody wants you as a teammate. Same sensations, different body. Literally: my cells have cunningly replaced themselves at least twice in the interim.

The office door swings open. “Cassandra?”

Ronald has worn the same thing—a navy cashmere jumper—every day since he started working here a few months ago. It smells really lovely, so I’m guessing there must be plural. He walks toward me and I immediately panic. Now and then I’ve caught him looking at me from the neighboring desk with an incalculable expression on his face, and I have no idea what it could be. Lust? Repulsion? I’ve been scripting a response to the former for a month now, just in case.

I am honored by your romantic and/or sexual interest in me given that we’ve only exchanged perfunctory greetings, but I have a long-term boyfriend I am almost definitely in the process of falling in love with.

Well, that excuse isn’t going to work anymore, is it.

Ronald clears his throat and runs a large hand over his buzz-cut Afro. “That’s mine.”

“Who?” I blink, disoriented by the grammar. “Me?”

“The plant.” He points at the shrubbery now clutched under my sweaty armpit. “It’s mine and I’d like to keep it.”

Ah, the sweet, giddy flush of humiliation is now complete.

“Of course,” I say stiffly. “Sorry, Ronald.”

Ronald blinks and reaches out a hand; I move quickly away so his fingers won’t touch mine, nearly dropping the pot in the process. It’s the same fun little dance I do when I have to pay with cash at the supermarket checkout, which is why I always carry cards.

I get into the lift and press the button. Ronald now appears to be casually assessing me as if I’m a half-ripe avocado, so I stare at the floor until he reaches a conclusion.

“Bye,” he says finally.

“Bye,” I say as the lift doors slide shut.

And that’s how my story starts.

With a novelty mug in a box, a full character assassination and the realization that when I leave a building I am missed considerably less than a half-dead rubber plant.

About the Author:

Holly Smale is the internationally bestselling, award-winning author of the Geek Girl (soon to be a Netflix series) and The Valentines teen series, which have sold 3.4 million copies worldwide. In January 2021, Holly was diagnosed autistic at the age of 39. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. Holly regularly shares, debates about, and celebrates neurodiversity on Twitter and Instagram @holsmale. Cassandra in Reverse is her adult debut and was named A Reese’s Book Club Pick, an Amazon Editors’ Top Pick of the Month, and a June Must Listen on Apple.

Social Links:
Author Website: https://www.hollysmale.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/holsmale
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holsmale/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5824402.Holly_Smale

Guest Review: Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander

Posted on June 13, 2023June 11, 2023 by Amy Daltry | Author : Amy Daltry | A+ Reviews> book reviews> Guest Review

Chef's Kiss (Chef's Kiss, #1) by T.J. Alexander
Format: paperback
Source: publisher
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, queer romance, romantic comedy
Series: Chef's Kiss #1
Pages: 308
Published by Emily Bestler Books on May 3, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A high-strung pastry chef’s professional goals are interrupted by an unexpected career transition and the introduction of her wildly attractive nonbinary kitchen manager in this deliciously fresh and witty queer rom-com.
Simone Larkspur is a perfectionist pastry expert with a dream job at The Discerning Chef, a venerable cookbook publisher in New York City. All she wants to do is create the perfect loaf of sourdough and develop recipes, but when The Discerning Chef decides to bring their brand into the 21st century by pivoting to video, Simone is thrust into the spotlight and finds herself failing at something for the first time in her life.
To make matters worse, Simone has to deal with Ray Lyton, the new test kitchen manager, whose obnoxious cheer and outgoing personality are like oil to Simone’s water. When Ray accidentally becomes a viral YouTube sensation with a series of homebrewing videos, their eccentric editor in chief forces Simone to work alongside the chipper upstart or else risk her beloved job. But the more they work together, the more Simone realizes her heart may be softening like butter for Ray.
Things get even more complicated when Ray comes out at work as nonbinary to mixed reactions—and Simone must choose between the career she fought so hard for and the person who just might take the cake (and her heart).

Note from Amy: I realized as I was writing this that I’ve been gone from these pages since the beginning the COVID-19 pandemic; my last review was for Melanie Yaun’s PsyTek. In the early days of the pandemic, just weeks after that review was posted, we lost Melanie, so the rest of that story, sadly, is lost to us, as is her brilliant work at our shared day job, her joyous wit, and her dear, dear friendship. In the time since then, I’ve not been as much of a reader or writer as I have been in the past. But the subject of today’s post, perhaps, marks a turning point for me, where I can get back at the keyboard.

Guest Review by Amy: Two people, who get a crush on each other and spend most of the book circling around that fact through an assortment of tribulations, until one of them apologizes and says they’ll never mention it again, and the other says, “wait, what?” and they ride off into the sunset together. Tropey as it comes, right? That’s the basic recipe for a rom-com, isn’t it?

When I saw a queer romance, involving a chef, I was all-in. I love to cook (ask Marlene!) and I love queer romance almost as much as I love sci-fi. If there’s ever a queer romance set on a spaceship involving the ship’s cook, I may spontaneously combust. (Marlene’s comment: Ryka Aoki’s marvelous Light from Uncommon Stars is more cooking than cheffing, but there’s a spaceship and a queer romance and donuts and it’s marvelous. I’ll be prepared to pick up your pieces if you combust upon reading.)

Escape Rating: A+: One of the things that makes a whole lot of romances work is that they draw the reader – usually a female – into identifying with the – usually a female – protagonist. It’s a formula that has driven Harlequin’s success since before Marlene or I were born. But what happens when the reader is not drawn into the world of the protagonist from whose eyes we are seeing the story, but to their love interest? In my case, that is what happened in Chef’s Kiss. Our protagonist, and the lens through which we see author TJ Alexander’s New York City setting, is Simone, a trained chef, who works at a fairly staid old media company producing recipes in a test kitchen. She’s happy with her situation; it’s her dream job! Sure, it doesn’t pay as well as it could, perhaps, but the magazine has been losing subscriptions for a while now, because 21st century, you know…

Other reviewers, and indeed, the book’s back cover, call Simone “high-strung,” but to my eyes, that is kind of a cheap shot, as no one calls her that between the covers of the book, and I’m just not seeing that. She’s a bit uptight, perhaps, something of a perfectionist, and rather resistant to change, certainly. So when the publisher of the magazine calls her in and tells her their whole business model is changing to creating video content, and then she discovers that the long-time kitchen manager has been replaced by a much younger and more energetic person who is going to change literally everything in her orderly world, she is, to put it mildly, kind of agitated about it. I get that, and I don’t think that classifies as “high-strung.” She’s just behaving…well, like I might, in her shoes. And I’m not high-strung. Am I? (Marlene’s comment: No, you’re not. Or I am too and we’re NOT going there because cheap shot is still cheap.)

It doesn’t take long, of course, until the bisexual Simone falls for the tall, good-looking and energetic new soul in the kitchen, though – Ray is super-cute, enjoys wearing a leather apron, and looks really good in it. But they’re just colleagues, you know…then, just friends, of course…

The publisher’s video guy accidentally posts a clip of Ray being hilarious and awesome on the magazine’s channel, and it goes viral, and all of a sudden, the strategy for media is changed, and Simone and Ray are co-hosting a hit show on YouTube, much to the chagrin of the company’s arrogant social media manager. Things rock on pretty well, until…

Okay, I’m going to have to level with you here. I’m not an unbiased reader; Ray is non-binary, tending toward masculine, and I’m non-binary, tending feminine. When Ray comes out at work, they have mixed results. While Simone and the other kitchen staff are supportive, management (including that snooty social media maven) are not, continually dead-naming and misgendering them. And Ray tells their allies in the kitchen to not make a fuss, because they cannot lose this job – and when we as readers are informed of why, when Ray tells Simone, my heart just broke for them.

Yes, this story is a rom-com. And yes, it’s got all the classic elements of one – the not-quite-understanding each other’s subtexts, the “I said things when I was drunk” night, the “we’ll never mention this again.” But there is a second story here, and it’s one that Simone shows us in some pretty sharp detail – Ray’s struggle for their identity and acceptance. Simone is there for Ray, as they are Going Through It, tending to them through what – for both Ray, and for me – are some of the toughest moments of their life. Ray’s path, because it mirrors my own, resonated forcefully with me, even though the details of their path are quite a bit different from my own. It’s the same struggle, really: the struggle to be themselves. It is a struggle I have lived with for over a decade now, and seeing Ray’s life through Simone’s eyes brought me back to some of the difficult moments of that period.

Simone is going through her own struggle, too, being a mostly-closeted bisexual woman, and when she outs herself to her manager (in the discussion over Ray’s coming-out), you see her own frustration with the struggle she sees coming. It’s not on the scale of Ray’s, but it’s there, and we get to see her respond to that in a really rewarding way when she points out to her boss that “You’re the only straight person in the room.”

Cisgender and/or straight readers might not get that resonance, and for those readers who don’t, this is still a fantastically cute, sassy, well-crafted rom-com with a little steam and some great food for thoughtful reflection. If you’re one of those readers, that’s okay, though this reviewer’s hope is that seeing Ray and Simone’s struggles educate you a bit, and give you a better feeling for those people around you who may not fit in the same mold you do. For queer folk and their allies, though, there’s so much more to see and feel here. My one gripe about this book is that the ending came too quickly, the resolution a little bit deus ex machina for my tastes – the happy-for-now ending came quite abruptly, even though it was a good end to the tale. This was TJ Alexander’s first work, and I am going to read their second work, the follow-on Chef’s Choice, right away. I’m hungry for more.

Review: Rose/House by Arkady Martine

Posted on June 12, 2023June 11, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B- Reviews> book reviews

Rose/House by Arkady Martine
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: horror, mystery, science fiction
Pages: 128
Published by Subterranean Press on May 18, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

Dust jacket illustration by David Curtis.
Arkady Martine, the acclaimed author of the Teixcalaan Series, returns with an astonishing new novella.
Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with.
A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. But now Deniau’s been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect’s will: all his possessions and files and sketches are confined in its archives, and their only keeper is Rose House itself. Rose House, and one other.
Dr. Selene Gisil, one of Deniau’s former protégé, is permitted to come into Rose House once a year. She alone may open Rose House’s vaults, look at drawings and art, talk with Rose House’s animating intelligence all she likes. Until this week, Dr. Gisil was the only person whom Rose House spoke to.
But even an animate intelligence that haunts a house has some failsafes common to all AIs. For instance: all AIs must report the presence of a dead body to the nearest law enforcement agency.
There is a dead person in Rose House. The house says so. It is not Basit Deniau, and it is not Dr. Gisil. It is someone else. Rose House, having completed its duty of care and informed Detective Maritza Smith of the China Lake police precinct that there is in fact a dead person inside it, dead of unnatural causes—has shut up.
No one can get inside Rose House, except Dr. Gisil. Dr. Gisil was not in North America when Rose House called the China Lake precinct. But someone did. And someone died there. And someone may be there still.
Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

My Review:

I want to call Rose/House a haunted house book. AND I also want to say it’s more horror than it is anything else. But neither of those labels is strictly accurate. I’m not sure any labels I could possibly come up with would be strictly accurate.

And I’m sure that Rose House itself would agree. If it would condescend to consider anything I ever said at all, ever. After all, I’m not the one and only human that Rose House is required to accommodate.

Which may be the best place to begin. Rose House is the last, greatest, and best house built by the famous – sometimes infamous – architect Basit Deniau sometime in the next century. I want to say it’s a house with an integrated AI, but it’s more like the house IS the AI, and the AI is the house. It’s other in ways that haunt the reader and the story from beginning to end.

If it actually ends. I’m not totally sure about that.

This is one of those stories where the prime mover and shaker is dead, to begin with. And so is an unnamed and unidentified victim of the many and stringent security measures that Rose House is capable of.

Which is where the nearby China Lake Police Department, in the person of Detective Maritza Smith, comes in. Rose House is required to notify the local police of the presence of a dead human within its walls. It is not required to let the police, or anyone else, within those walls to investigate that body, except for its late creator’s one and only representative.

And it has more than enough free will to play with its prey before this AI spider invites the unsuspecting human fly into its surprisingly sticky web.

Because no one who enters Rose House leaves it unscarred. If they manage to leave at all.

Escape Rating B-: I picked this up because I still miss Teixcalaan. (Yes, I know I said that the ending of A Desolation Called Peace allows for a third book but doesn’t require one. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t WANT a third book REAL BAD.)

I knew going in that Rose/House wasn’t going to scratch that particular itch but the author’s writing style is just so lovely that I figured I would enjoy this novella even if I didn’t love it. Which pretty much sums up my reaction all the way around.

Rose/House touches on a lot of genres. It’s SFnal in its presentation of Rose House as a self-willed AI. At the same time, the way that the house plays with its potential prey has all the chills of horror because the very idea of a house deciding whether or not it wants to kill or absorb anyone within its walls is enough to make anyone startle a bit the next time their own dwelling makes random settling noises.

There’s certainly a bit of mystery in the way that Detective Smith is presented with a murder she can’t investigate, let alone solve, unless she finds a way into Rose House AND a method of going along with its thought processes without getting absorbed by them. Plus there’s the mystery of Rose House’s creator and all of the greedy and grasping people who believe they are entitled to a piece of his legacy and believe that the ends justify their means of acquiring it.

Which they don’t.

Rose/House supports all of those various plot strings, potentials and possibilities without really solving any of them, which works because this novella is short and it’s intended to leave the reader wondering whether Rose House has manipulated everyone and everything – including the reader – all along. It’s not meant to be solved, it’s meant to continue as a puzzle long after the last page is turned.

Whether that will leave the reader puzzled or satisfied is a question that each reader will have to answer for themselves. I wanted this to focus on the mystery – and i’m left a bit unsatisfied that it didn’t really resolve those issues.

The biggest questions that remain are all wrapped around the AI itself. And they are questions that leave me with shivers of possibility – all of them horrifying.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 6-11-23

Posted on June 11, 2023June 10, 2023 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

This looks like it for this week. Although, things could change. As they sometimes do. We’re going on a trip in a couple of weeks and I’m already freaking out about making sure there’s content. It’ll work out. Somehow. At least it always has so far! A HUGE thank you to Amy Daltry for coming back after being away from Reading Reality MUCH TOO LONG and helping me out this week!

But speaking of things that worked out to have a LOT of content, I caught Tuna refilling his tank of solar power just outside my office earlier this week. He’s plunked his big self right in the middle of a sunbeam and looks like he’s planning to take on all comers to protect his spot. Which isn’t what happens, as he’s really just a big, fluffy softy – no matter how much it looks like he’s glowering in this pic.

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Berry Good Giveaway Hop (ENDS THURSDAY!)
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Hello Summer Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Come Out & Play Giveaway Hop