Tag Archives: Shana

Shana reviews Humbug by Amanda Radley

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the cover of Humbug

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Humbug is a quiet Christmas novel with an age gap romance. I found it a relaxing and wholesome read, but it’s an unbalanced workplace romance. The book struggled to decide if it wanted to focus on the characters’ careers, or their love story.

Ellie is a brilliant statistician who is stuck in a dead end job at an HR recruitment firm. Everyone in her office knows that she loves Christmas because her desk looks like a Hallmark holiday movie year-round. So when her firm’s CEO, Rosalind, needs someone to organize an epic office Christmas party at the last minute, she taps Ellie to be her new executive assistant in a cushy penthouse office. There are just two problems. One, Ellie is terrified of heights and can barely stand to be in her new office without hyperventilating.  Two, Rosalind hates Christmas, and her last assistant canceled all the party plans. As they work together, mutual crushes abound! But since neither can imagine the other wanting them, we get a slow sweet burn with plenty of personal growth along the way. 

Rosalind is an intimidating, and exacting boss, and Ellie is initially a nervous wreck around her. But Rosalind is also a compassionate coworker, and a protective single mother, who appreciates Ellie’s talent. And Ellie is clearly talented. The woman engineers a winter wonderland from scratch, outside, during a London winter!

I loved watching Ellie rediscover her confidence through working with Rosalind. At the beginning of the book, Ellie has forgotten her worth and is grateful for any job after a period of unemployment. Slowly, Ellie learns that she’s been coasting along with an unfulfilling role, with roommates who take her for granted. I liked seeing Ellie find her happiness and I think this would be a great read for someone feeling stuck in their life or career. But I was left wishing that the end of the book had focused more on resolving Ellie’s career, and less on ramping on the romance. Still, if you love watching characters slowly figure out they like one another, and prefer your romances with no sex scenes, this may work for you. 

I appreciated that Rosalind was portrayed as both a nurturing person who adores her articulate queer daughter, and as a shrewd businesswoman. She’s powerful and sexy, without feeling unattainable. I don’t usually like ice queen romances OR boss/employee romances, but I loved both of those tropes in Humbug. I thought the power dynamics were smoothly addressed. While there’s several work scenes where Rosalind enjoys flustering a blushing Ellie, Rosalind is too ethical to act on her growing attraction to Ellie. And though there is an age gap, and the two women are clearly at different points in their lives, they both clearly respected one another. 

My favorite part of the story was Ellie’s unapologetic love of all things Christmas. It was intense, and adorable, and I loved that Ellie happily accepted other characters’ more  muted—or hostile—feelings about the holiday. This is a classic Christmas rom-com, with holiday cheer and a predictable storyline. I would vote for Humbug as my favorite Christmas novel of 2021.

Shana reviews Didn’t Stay in Vegas by Chelsea M. Cameron

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the cover of Didn't Stay In Vegas

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Didn’t Stay in Vegas is a lighthearted romantic comedy about two best friends who wake up after a wild night in Las Vegas, and discover that they’re married. To each other. 

Callyn’s life is a bit of a mess, but her best friend Emma is always there to bake her cookies and marathon TV shows.  So when Callyn has a terrible hangover and underwear full of glitter the morning after their mutual friend’s bachelorette party, she immediately looks for steady, reliable Emma—only to discover her in a similar state, holding a marriage certificate. Emma claims she doesn’t remember the wedding, but she also suggests they stay married for financial reasons that feel like a stretch. After a string of life setbacks, Calyyn ends up moving in with Emma, getting a puppy, and being extremely adorable while spending most of their time nesting together. Even clueless Callyn starts to wonder if Emma’s been in love with her all along. 

Didn’t Stay in Vegas is a low-conflict romance, perfect for when you want the book equivalent of a cup of sweet hot chocolate. As a reader, it was fairly obvious early on  that Emma is into Callyn, so most of the book is just watching Callyn slowly figure out her own feelings, while getting her life together along the way. I liked that Callyn and Emma are both comfortably queer before their marriage. This is a friends to lovers romance, not a coming out story. And accidentally falling in the love with your friend is certainly something queer women are good at! 

Of the two main characters, I found Emma’s kindness and competence more enjoyable than Callyn’s frenetic energy. But this story is told from Callyn’s point of view, so we can only guess at what Emma is feeling. This leads to many hilarious moments, because Callyn is incredibly slow about noticing that her BFF is definitely in love with her. Callyn’s denial persists even after they have sex! 

Still, I was left feeling like Emma’s character was a little flat, and we don’t really learn much about her outside of the relationship. Since Callyn feels younger and less comfortable in her skin, reading the story from her point of view sometimes made the relationship feel immature.

I did enjoy the theme of chosen family. Callyn and Emma’s big queer friend group felt like extras on L Word Generation Q—attractive, vaguely interesting people that I found myself more interested in than the main characters. 

Didn’t Stay in Vegas lacks the emotional substance of Cameron’s other romances, but it’s a frequently funny, comforting, easy read.

Shana reviews Passion Marked by Ophelia Silk

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Passion Marked cover

Passion Marked is a fantasy novel set in a magical world where people’s lives are constrained by whether they have light magic, dark magic, or neither. The worldbuilding inelegantly parallels modern-day racism, and I found it a frustrating read. 

Ellie is an aspiring horse trainer who has been working her whole life towards joining a horse training association. Ellie doesn’t have any magic, but she finds the Diurne, light, golden-haired beings with daytime magic, beautiful and compelling. Unfortunately, Ellie’s career plans are cut short when she stumbles into a black-colored centaur escaping an illegal racetrack. 

Nadine is a Nocturne centaur who hides a sensitive soul behind her bitter, bad girl demeanor. Nocturnes have dark coloring and magic, and Nadine is used to people assuming she’s a demon, and dismissing her. She’s shaken after her rescue from being trafficked, and her easy flirtation with Ellie quickly turns to sex. Nadine thinks this is just another of her many one-night stands. But both women are surprised when their liaison leaves them with a magic bond, called a passion mark, that usually only occurs in an intense relationship between long-bonded mates. The mark requires them to stay physically close to one another, which throws a wrench in Ellie’s career plans since Nocturnes are not allowed near the horses. 

Ellie’s angry at losing her dream job, Nadine feels rejected, and these two have a long road  to learn to trust one another, while trying to find a way for Ellie to work with horses again. Since Ellie’s job is the major conflict between them, I wish there had been more explanation of why she doesn’t have other employment options. However, there is a lot of time spent with horses and stable staff in this book, which I think would appeal to horse-loving queers. 

As a romance fan, I thought the pacing of Nadine and Ellie’s relationship was abrupt and confusing. We don’t learn much about them before they get together, and I felt little emotional connection between them until late in the book.  Ellie and Nadine’s brief first sex scene was insufficiently fabulous to convince me that it would cause a magic passion spell. While the book includes many sex scenes, I found them lackluster at best, and largely focused on Ellie’s pleasure. Only the human parts of Nadine’s  body are involved, which I appreciated, but it added to the lopsidedness. I was left with many questions about the logistics of a romance with a centaur. Horses are big: do these two need a special bed?  How do they spoon?

Much of the plot is woven around the politics of dark and light magic. Passion Marked uses the plight of the socially inferior Nocturnes to offer some very heavy handed social commentary on racism. In this world, most Nocturnes live in ghettos, and most wealthy people are Diurnes; both are assumed by most people to be the result of a meritocracy, despite obvious discrimination against Nocturnes. Dark people are exoticized, and their food and magic is emphasized as different, and lesser. As a Black reader, I was uncomfortable with the way these elements were depicted. First, It felt simplistic and clumsy. For example, Nadine has internalized a sense of extreme inferiority, believing that no one couldn’t possibly want to be in a relationship with her because she’s a Nocturne. Instead of being angry at the prejudice she’s received, she berates herself for her worthlessness. Her insecurity is directly due to her darkness, and since the book implies that its dark people equals People of Color in the real world, I was distracted by how inappropriate it felt to have a marginalized person torturing themselves over not being good enough for a privileged love interest. 

Second, I didn’t appreciate some of the stereotypes woven into the worldbuilding. For example,  Nadine’s loves sex, and was very promiscuous beore meeting Ellie. The way this is described  felt straight out of jezebel stereotypes about Black people. 

I like that Passion Marked tries to use classic dark/light magic fantasy tropes to tell a story about racism, but I didn’t enjoy how the book handled those elements. The world building didn’t always make sense to me, which made it hard for me to invest in the romantic story.

Shana reviews The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend by Maddy Court

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My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend cover

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If you love reading advice columns but wish they were less straight, you may enjoy The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend as much as I did. This is a warm and witty book about queer love and relationships. Each thematically organized chapter offers short, straightforward answers to queries that are both universal, like how to come out, and specific, like what do when you’re a Capricorn working in the restaurant industry and your wealthy girlfriend refuses to use her inheritance to pay the rent for three years. Oh, lesbian drama, I love you so. 

The book primarily draws from the author’s own life experiences, occasionally weaving in wisdom from her panel of queer experts. The answers from Mey Rude, a fat trans Latina writer, were particularly affirming, and humourist Samantha Irby was predictably hilarious.

The questions are fascinating and diverse, and the responses frequently surprised me by pointing out nuances in the questioner’s situation that I’d missed. For example, the answer to a twist on “Why don’t my girlfriend and I have sex anymore,” first asked the questioner to examine why she was pushing her partner for sex, after she’d already said no; later pivoting to prurient interest in the failed threesome the writer had mentioned as an aside.  

Drawing strongly on the author’s personal experiences is both a strength and weakness here. There were a few times when Court’s personal stories felt tangential, and the questions were left barely addressed. For example, I was hoping for an insightful response to a question about how to deal with low self-esteem issues when your body is fatter than your thin, ripped girlfriend. Instead of utilizing resources on body positivity and fat liberation or the perspectives of her fat guest panelists, the book included a long story about Court’s history with hating her body that seemed to miss the point.

Many of the questions reflect common themes in queer women’s lives—falling in love, figuring out your identity, navigating queer society as a marginalized person, having tough conversations with lovers and fam. At it’s best, this book felt like chatting with a friend who cares deeply about you, but also isn’t afraid to call you on your bullshit. 

Since many questions focus on firsts, like trying an open relationship, or learning to date long distance, most of the people featured are in their twenties. Still, every section includes questions from people 30+ as well. As a solidly middle-aged queer, I felt much of the advice was still relevant. Or at a minimum, highly entertaining. 
I picked up this book thinking it would be fun to read aloud on a dyke road trip. Because the tone vacillates from poignant to lightly snarky, it’s not as consistently funny as I expected. But I was struck by how much of the book focuses on kindness, on how we can care for one another, and for ourselves. I recommend The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend for readers looking for a life guidance, or a reminder the joys and absurdities of queer community.

Shana reviews The Wife in the Attic by Rose Lerner

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The Wife in the Attic by Rose Lerner Audible original cover

The Wife in the Attic is a gorgeous reimagining of Jane Eyre, available as an Audible audiobook first and as an ebook in Fall 2021. This gothic tale follows a lonely governess employed by a charming aristocrat, but is fascinated by his mysterious wife.  

Miss Oliver is a struggling guitar teacher in 19th-century England, an orphan who’s used to feeling like an outsider, thanks to her mixed Methodist English and working-class Portuguese Jewish background. When she hears of an opening at an isolated manor by the sea, she imagines sumptuous seaside meals, and a chance to bond with a little girl potentially just as lonely and odd as she is. 

Miss Oliver’s new home is a creepy mansion, with sullen servants who won’t let her leave the house. She has a flirtatious master who might be stealing her letters, and an ill mistress who’s never seen outside her room. Her employer, Sir Kit Palethorp, wants an extremely proper Church of England education for his daughter.  Between Miss Oliver’s religious and ethnic background, and her lesbian adventures at boarding school, she knows she’ll need to lie by omission to keep this job. Miss Oliver is never sure how much of the weirdness in the house is typical, but she’s fascinated by the Palethorpes. She spends the book unraveling whether Sir Kit’s foreign wife is the mad, sick woman he describes, and whether the two women–and the unpredictable little girl they’re learning to share–might have more in common than either had imagined.  

The Wife in the Attic is a brilliant historical novel, filled with layers of secrets, and gothic fiction references. It’s unsettling and tense, but not scary.  I loved Miss Oliver and Miss Palethorpe: they’re both outsiders who are skeptical observers of English society, and the book is peppered with their pointed commentary on English blind spots. Both women have trouble trusting others, and find they are not as alone in the world as they’d imagined. Readers who like to explore class and cultural differences in historical relationships would enjoy this book. 

Miss Oliver is initially enthralled with the Palethrope family, even though she doesn’t trust either of the parents, or herself when she’s around them. Miss Oliver is a compelling heroine who knows she’s being manipulated, but can’t decide by whom. As the book continues, we learn more about her, and it was beautiful watching the character heal from generational trauma by connecting with other Portugese Jews.

There are many creative twists on the original Jane Eyre, but I wished the book had spent more time exploring the daughter’s storyline. There’s also a moment of disassociation during sex where consent is muddy. I felt that scene was unnecessary, and may be triggering for some readers. 

It’s very hard to talk about this book without spoiling it, but The Wife in the Attic is smart, romantic, and a queer Jane Eyre that transforms the classic into an addictive story where no one trusts one another. I rarely read audiobooks, but I highly recommend this one. 

CW: gaslighting, antisemitism, ambiguous consent

Shana reviews Who We Could be by Chelsea Cameron

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Who We Could be by Chelsea Cameron

Who We Could Be is a fluffy, heartwarming romance about supposedly straight best friends who fall in love with each other. The story loosely reimagines two of my favorite characters, Anne Shirley and Diana Barry from Anne of Green Gables. I sometimes find coming out stories too predictable and trite. I loved this gooey, angst free story anyway, and recommend it for when you need an inclusive, low-conflict read.

Tessa is a quiet, nurturing, librarian who falls asleep most nights while giggling over the phone with her best friend Monty. She’s engaged to be married to a guy no one much likes, especially outspoken Monty. The two friends are fiercely and unapologetically each other’s most important person.

Monty works at a bookstore owned by her lesbian trans aunts, and is also engaged to her sweet friend Gilbert Gus, who she adores, but is more likely to play games with than kiss. When Tessa’s lackluster fiance cheats on her, Monty takes her on an alternate honeymoon. This leads to the two going on practice dates to help Tessa ease into dating again. Along the way these two figure out what everyone around them already knows: they’re perfect for one another.

Tessa and Monty have an intensely loving friendship, and watching them discover their romantic side left me squealing with joy. Their dynamic is a balm for every fan who sighed over two straight characters who clearly should be dating each other, whether that’s Rizzoli and Isles, or Diana and Anne.

Who We Could Be has an idyllic, fairy tale quality. It’s set in a progressive small New England town, and cocoons the characters within this supportive atmosphere. Instead of leaning into the drama of ended engagements and newfound sexuality, the story resolves potentially obstacles easily, letting Tessa and Monty’s playful relationship take center stage. I appreciated that the characters come to recognize their queer sexuality before falling in love with one another, and the role Monty’s aunts play in their drama-free coming out process.

Cameron specializes in stories about BFFs who fall in love, and after reading Who We Could Be, I devoured her backlist. This remains my favorite version of this trope. Highly recommended for fans of quiet romances.

Shana reviews Comet’s First Christmas by Delilah Night

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Comet’s First Christmas by Delilah Night

I love sappy holiday movies, and Comet’s First Christmas nailed the sweet and silly tone of some of my favorites, glossing over any plot holes with Christmas magic.  It’s a sweet, earnest, PG-rated novella about a reindeer shifter who falls for an elf. The worldbuilding is excellent, but the storyline is unlikely to appeal to readers who aren’t die-hard fans of North American Christmas culture.

Claudia has never left the North Pole. She spends her days training to join the elite squad of flying reindeers who help Santa deliver gifts around the world. Did you know Santa’s reindeer are all queer women who can magically shift their form?  When a spot on the team unexpectedly opens up at the last minute, Claudia takes the title of Comet, and is assigned to the New York City office, where she’ll work with East Coast elves in the final few weeks before Christmas. Claudia has anxiety and is worried she won’t perform well. Luckily her Personal Assistant elf, Jillian, is smoking hot and supremely competent.

Jillian grew up in New York and prefers it to the formality of life in the North Pole, where the roles of reindeers, elves, and snowmen are tightly prescribed. Jillian’s willingness to think creatively comes in handy when secret Christmas haters hack the reindeers’ communication tech. Will solving this Christmas mystery together give Jillian and Claudia a chance to fall in love?

I found this to be a comforting read, the book equivalent to a mug of peppermint hot cocoa. Comet’s First Christmas is a smorgasbord of classic Christmas cultural references—gingerbread, ice skating, the Nutcracker ballet, decorated store windows, and Santa at Macy’s. Claudia’s anxiety and imposter syndrome made her very sympathetic, and I was cheering for her to see herself the way others clearly did.

I appreciated that unlike most Christmas romances, the worldbuilding wasn’t US-centric. Comet’s route stretches from Brazil to Canada, and Claudia spends a few memorable scenes eating her way through the Singapore office. There’s even a brief mention of the ethics of Western museums with stolen artifacts.

I didn’t enjoy the romance as much as the other story elements. Claudia falls for Jillian instantly, and basks in her beauty and nurturing spirit. But the book didn’t describe why Jillian would quickly fall for Claudia. The two are tongue-tied and awkward around one another, and their professional dynamic sometimes made it feel like Jillian was mothering Claudia. The two of them felt young, and the simplistic style of the book made the romance seem immature.

Part of the plot focuses on humans who have “lost their belief” in Christmas, with Claudia and Jillian trying to convince “nonbelievers.” I prefer secular Christmas romances, and while Comet’s First Christmas is never overtly religious, I could have done without this proselytizing. Most of the book focused on the collective action of many people working together to spread Christmas magic, so emphasizing the exclusivity of Christianity felt out of step. The mystery behind the plot to ruin Christmas is only partially resolved, so the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped.

Shifter romances have a reputation for wild sex scenes, but I didn’t mind that this low-heat romance is sweet, rather than sexy. The camaraderie of Claudia’s fellow reindeers working to make the world a happier place, puts friendship and chosen family at the center of this fluffy queer novella.  Comet’s First Christmas is unapologetically and intensely Christmassy, which will either make readers devour it as quickly as I did, or want to run away.

Shana reviews The Deep by Rivers Solomon 

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The Deep by Rivers Solomon

The Deep is the most beautiful book that I’ve read this year. It’s a lyrical novella based on a Hugo Award-nominated science-fiction song by clipping, a hip-hop group. The Deep is a reimagined mermaid story about an underwater society descended from African women tossed overboard during the transatlantic slave trade. We learn about the culture and history of these people, the wajinru, through the eyes of Yetu, their newest Historian.

Historians are responsible for holding the memories of every wanjinru who has lived, allowing individuals to live unburdened by the trauma of their collective past, only regaining temporary knowledge of their history through a yearly magic ritual. Yetu didn’t have a choice in taking on this calling, and she is overwhelmed by the weight of so many memories. In desperation, she tries to escape her role and carve a different path, one that brings her adventure, love with a surface dwelling “two-legged” woman, and a new respect for the power of memory.

Solomon packs a lot of eloquence into this small package and makes daring choices, like having the wanjinru appear fearsome to humans, rather than seductive sirens. The Deep feels longer than its 166 pages, in a good way. I enjoyed the wanjinru’s creative perspective on gender and relationships, and the way Solomon slowly explains the mystery of how their society came to be.

The story smoothly segues between Yetu’s present and the memories she carries. I sometimes dislike time jumps, but the inventive structure of the book made them feel seamless. However, I love complex worldbuilding and I found myself wishing for more explanation of the wanjinru’s fraught interactions with surface dwellers, alluded to through mentions of shipwrecks and oil rigs. The book’s atmospheric tone is gorgeous, but it also leaves some details to the reader’s imagination. For example, we never know exactly where in human geography Yetu is living.

The book imaginatively explores the nature and purpose of memories, generational trauma, and collective healing. It is so insightful that several times I gasped out loud while reading it. I appreciated the balance between the joy and ingenuity of the wajinru, and their painful history. I love books that use alternate history as social commentary and The Deep incorporates this with a light touch. It’s a powerful book, but also an engaging story with a sympathetic heroine. The Deep is a compelling and absorbing read that would appeal to lovers of feminist science fiction, underwater fantasy epics, or stories from the African diaspora.

Shana reviews Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole

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Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole

Once Ghosted, Twice Shy is a novella about a second chance romance between Likotsi, an African woman visiting New York City, and Fabiola, the Haitian-American femme from Brooklyn who she can’t stop thinking about.

The story is part of Alyssa Cole’s Reluctant Royals series, which primarily features straight couples. Likotsi was my favorite character from the first book, and I was thrilled when she got her own story. The cover is amazeballs! I would love to have it as a poster for my wall. I often get annoyed by singular queer stories in a straight-ish series because they feel like throwaways, but this book delighted me.

Likotsi is the assistant to Prince Thabiso, the protagonist in A Princess in Theory, the Coming to America + Black Panther mashup in which she features heavily. Likotsi lives in a fictional African country that feels vaguely like Lesotho, but even more like Wakanda. She lives a fairly luxurious life, thanks to her proximity to royalty. Likotsi frequently travels for work and loves her all-consuming job, but she struggles to take breaks from running the Prince’s life and getting his UN policy priorities passed. The book opens with Likotsi enjoying a rare weekend off in New York, doing touristy things. She’s trying to distract herself from brooding about the woman she met in NYC eight months ago. Unfortunately for her, on her very first morning of vacation she runs into the girl on the subway.

Fabiola is an aspiring jewelry artist, and an accountant who loves math. She spends a lot of time worrying about her extended family, some of whom are undocumented immigrants. Fabiola has a fantastic sense of style, and I found myself drooling over her femmy outfit descriptions. When Likotsi and Fabiola meet up in the subway car, they’re both wary of one another. Likotsi is still smarting about Fabiola dumping her without an explanation. Fabiola isn’t sure if Likotsi can handle her complicated family situation. They end up exploring Fabiola’s favorite parts of the City together, while we’re treated to flashbacks of their initial whirlwind romance. Likotsi and Fabiola first met through a dating app, but the casual connection they were both planning on, quickly turned more serious. So why did Fabiola end it so abruptly, and can a relationship work when they live on different continents?

This was a fast and lighthearted read. I loved the evocative New York City setting, and enjoyed vicariously tagging along on the heroines’ adventures. I sympathized with Fabiola even though she was a breaker-of-hearts, because her family’s situation is tough. However, because this is a fluffy romance, all problems are solved, with hot sex scenes along the way. The book has some royalty trope flavor, because one character has more social power than the other, but there weren’t any celebrity dynamics to get in the way.

I think Once Ghosted, Twice Shy works well as a standalone. There are passing references to characters from the previous book, and this story glosses over some of the cultural context of Likotsi’s country, but none of that would prevent a reader from following along with the story. The plot is pretty straightforward—women date, they fall in love, the end—which I found relaxing, but could be frustrating for readers looking for more twists and turns. I’m generally not a huge fan of flashbacks, and they sometimes disrupted the flow of the story here. But the flashbacks also added balance to their relationship dynamics, because Likotski drives their romance initially, and with Fabiola taking the lead the second time around.

I would love to read more characters like Likotsi in f/f romances. She’s a dandy who loves clothes; and an unapologetically romantic and squishy cinnamon roll. Likotsi has access to a great deal of power through her work, and I enjoyed seeing an African character in that role especially since Africans are underrepresented in American queer romance. I also adored watching the two women flirt by talking about math and art. The heroines in this slow burn story had excellent chemistry, and I was dying for them to get together. My main critique is that the book felt short. It’s only 106 pages, so we mostly see the characters on only a few epic dates. I was left wanting more of these two. Overall, a quick and pleasurable read.