The Unexpected Wife, by Jess Michaels

I blame Miz Wendy’s Unusual Historical blogposts for this one (the one for March 2021, specifically.) No sooner had I read the premise, that I had bought the book: three women unknowingly married to the same man, one murdered scoundrel, now what?; then set it in Regency England for good measure, and here I am, ready to go on a ride.

Sadly, life ::cough reading slump cough:: got in the way, and the book languished in the TBR digital cordillera of doom, until now, when I thought it would be an excellent January entry for SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge.

Alas, nothing in the execution worked for me, making this a DNF review.

Note: the author warns of a “Very. Just very, very, very” heat level; I can’t speak about this, as I quit after two kisses that left me very much cold.

A Gifts of Ghosts, by Sarah Wynde

I am not entirely sure why I got this one, though I have a vague memory of it being one of those, ‘this cute story is on sale right now, grab it’ tweets passing my feed in late December 2021, so I did. And it is a cute story in the “quirky small town” subgenre of romance, and honestly a refreshing take on paranormals.

If you want to skip the review, this is mostly a fluffy, just over category-length, ¹ paranormal story with a romance tacked on.

A couple of warnings, though: there’s a history of physical child abuse, which is explained as loving concern (me: hell, no). There are also mentions of traumatic deaths for some of the ghosts in the story, including a suicide and the accidental drug overdose of a teenager.

A Touch of Stone and Snow, by Milla Vane

Once again, first things first: heed all the warnings. The world of A Gathering of Dragons is very, very dark.

These are romances, there is always consent between the protagonists, the world building is very progressive in its sexual politics, but the background is of violence, sexual and otherwise. There’s gore and a lot of very explicit sex on the page, and the language reflect this. Also, while considerably shorter than the first novel, this one is still almost 400 pages. Reader, beware.

A Heart of Blood and Ashes, by Milla Vane

Once upon a time, I read a novella called “The Beast of Blackmoor”, from the Night Shift anthology. Like all the best short stories, it introduced me to a world I got utterly lost into, where I wanted more, more, MORE!

Years passed, and while that novella was the one memorable one in the anthology, I stopped checking the author’s website for updates on upcoming books (oh, reader slump from hell, you most hideous of fiends!). Then, on the last day of the horrible, terrible, no-good year of our doom 2021, a tweet crossed my feed: the first two full-length books in the series were on sale for just $1.99US each. What’s a reader to do?