Books

Book 711: Sticks & Scones (Check, Please! #2) – Ngozi Ukazu

I’m so sad this is over. I waited a full year for it, and it was wonderful, but I’m still sad. I re-read each of the two books twice this time to really soak them in and make sure I looked at the artwork and appreciated the dialogue.

I’ll be frank and say that I’m not sure I enjoyed this as much as the first one. I don’t think it was anyone thing and I don’t think that should detract anyone else from reading it, but for me it didn’t have the perfection or the je ne sais quoi (that’s a nod to Jack ;-D) the first book did. There are spoilers after the jump, so don’t read ahead unless you want to know where #Hockey ended.

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Books

Book 710: #Hockey (Check, Please! #1) – Ngozi Ukazu

After reading this last January, I knew I would revisit it. And thanks to a gift card for Christmas to Barnes and Noble, where I don’t usually shop, I ordered a copy of this and the follow up Sticks & Scones. This was all before coronavirus, and I had Sticks & Scones shipped to my office, where I hadn’t been able to get to it for almost a month after it was delivered 🙁

But when I got it, you know I had to re-read this one. And I loved it as mush as my first read. This time around I spent more time luxuriating in the artwork since I’d read the story previously and didn’t need to focus so much on who’s who and it was worth it.

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Books

Book 708: Hotline (Murmur, Inc. #1) – Quinn Anderson

Along with Walker’s The Weight of It All and Throwing Hearts, I picked this up as part of my Kindle Unlimited download spree after Tim got me a new Oasis for our anniversary.

If I’m honest, I picked this one because it didn’t have the traditional half-dressed/watermarked/super-model handsome cover model on it. Even with the super-hokey heart as an “o”, I liked how clean and simple the cover was. And maybe more importantly, I liked that I got to envision the characters without constantly thinking their descriptions are nothing like the cover models (which yes, I spend WAY too long thinking about this).

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ARC, Books

Book 703: The Names We Take – Trace Kerr

By no actual planning on my part I’m posting this on the release date of The Names We Take, which never happens. To be completely honest, the publisher sent this to me months ago and I just now got around to reading it, but hey things work out for a reason.* I liked the idea of the publisher, Ooligan Press, which is a student run press at Portland State University that concentrates on Pacific Northwest Writers and because the blurb was interesting and they’d clearly spent some time perusing my blog I accepted the galley.

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Books

Book 694: A Christmas Cabin for Two – K.D. Fisher

This is the third book . . . Who am I kidding? This is the eighth book in my MM romance book binge starting toward the end of March. If we go back to January 1st, it’s the tenth (excluding young adult and manga). So yeah, it’s been an interesting year so far. [And the understatement of the century goes to . . .]

I grabbed this because time has no meaning any more: 1) It snowed here in Boston this week; 2) When we were driving back from a Costco south of the city there was a Christmas billboard up; 3) earlier on Saturday neither Tim nor I could figure out the date, we were off by 5-ish days; and 4) Tim’s schedule is all sorts of wonky working nights and weekends and I’m working from home for the foreseeable future. So . . . yeah, time has no meaning any more. Why not read a holiday romance in the middle of April?

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