Romancing the Duke, by Tessa Dare

Anther review, another historical romance; this time, the first title in the Castles Ever After series. ¹ (Also, apparently my first review of a Tessa Dare book, which I find baffling.)

Reader beware: parents neglecting, using, and abusing their children; graphic sex on page, and the looming threat of declaring a character insane and committing them to an asylum.

The Last Wolf, by Maria Vale

I’m trying to do SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge this year, and the theme this month is ‘fairy tales’. What could be easier, right? Genre romance is chock-full of Beauty and the Beast retellings ¹ , to say nothing of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and all the rest.

Of course, as I scrolled through my digital TBR shelves and scanned the print TBR cordillera of Doom, not one title jumped out and yelled, “me, me! I’m an obvious fairy tale retelling”. ²

Which is why I have decided that wolf shifters in the woods totally works. (Because Red Riding Hood. Work with me here, people.)

Reader beware: abusive parent, graphic violence, graphic language, sex on page, maternal death, stillbirth. Narrated in first person present tense.

Also, I go on a bit of a rant.

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.

Wild Embrace, by Nalini Singh

Wild Embrace, by Nalini Singh

This is the second all Psy/Changeling anthology, and the first with all new stories. (I reviewed Wild Invitation, the first anthology, here.)

Wild Embrace was released last year, after Allegiance of Honor came out; despite my utter disenchantment with that novel, I had already decided I would read the anthology, so I did at some point later in the year. I wasn’t awed by it, but I remembered enjoying it well enough.

After reading Silver Silence, I decided to re-read and review it, to satisfy my ‘completist’ tendencies.

I probably shouldn’t have done it so soon after, though, because I was hyper aware of all the worst of Ms Singh’s writing tics; none of these stories have aged well for me.

Reader warning: This anthology is part of a long series, so the review by necessity spoils some of the stories that came before. As with the rest of the series, there’s some adult language and explicit sex. Finally, I rant–a hell of a lot–about one of the novellas in this book.