Jan 31 2020
Some books are like a long cool drink of water on a hot day: to be consumed greedily because it just feels so good going down. Obviously, since I brought it up, one of these books is Helen Hoang’s The Bride Test, which has just dethroned its predecessor, The Kiss Quotient, as my favorite contemporary …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/01/31/the-bride-test-the-kiss-quotient-2-by-helen-hoang/
Dec 18 2019
This may well be the best romance novel I’ve ever read. And it’s not just because it features a leading pair from two wildly under-represented groups in romance fiction. From start to finish, I desperately wanted our lovers to wind up together. I have literally never cared so much about a romantic couple having their …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/12/18/the-kiss-quotient-the-kiss-quotient-1-by-helen-hoang/
Nov 06 2019
There’s an almost Hardy-esque quality to this book, from its impoverished protagonist’s longing for higher education to the frank discussions of sexual transactionalism to the desperately whipsawing balancing acts between respectability and happiness. Of course, since this is a romance novel written in the modern era, our main protagonists do find their ways towards a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/06/bringing-down-the-duke-a-league-of-extraordinary-women-1-by-evie-dunmore/
Aug 17 2019
What a delightfully fast read! Great romance novel featuring a pair of childhood sweethearts forced apart by their family circumstances, who manage to find their way back to each other. The twist, or hook, is that they’ve spent the last decade seeing each other for only one night a year, meeting at whichever coordinates she …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/08/17/hate-to-want-you-forbidden-hearts-1-by-alisha-rai/
Jul 20 2019
The Calculating Stars starts with a bang. Elma York, Kowal’s protagonist and first-person narrator says that she and her husband had flown up to the mountain cabin that he inherited for stargazing, “By which I mean: sex. Oh, don’t pretend that you’re shocked. Nathaniel and I were a healthy young married couple, so most of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/07/20/the-calculating-stars-by-mary-robinette-kowal/
Apr 20 2019
Twenty-odd years ago, I would likely have rated this novel higher than I do now. I actually only picked it up because I was recently told that it’s considered a classic of the romance genre. I’ve read my fair share of Barbara Cartland and old school Mills & Boon, and was delighted in college to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/20/frederica-by-georgette-heyer/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/01/08/white-stag-permafrost-1-by-kara-barbieri/
Sep 14 2018
I’m not one of those snobs who always insists that the book was better than the movie adaptation. In my experience as a pop culture connoisseur, particularly in our modern era, book and movie are often on a similar level to one another. Gone Girl, for example, was excellent in both forms, though that likely …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/09/14/from-page-to-screen-crazy-rich-asians/
Jan 08 2018
For some reason, I can’t put this book in a folder on my Kindle, so when it was time to pick something to read on my flight home, I figured it was about time I got through this one so I could delete it finally and have it not clutter up my main page. Also, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/01/08/wicked-intentions-maiden-lane-1-by-elizabeth-hoyt/
Jul 09 2017
Due diligence for work! I didn’t like this quite as much as I enjoyed the Max Revere books I’ve read so far, most likely because there is So Much Backstory alluded to here that it doesn’t feel like the start of a series but the continuation of some other book I can’t quite figure out. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/07/09/love-me-to-death-lucy-kincaid-1-by-allison-brennan/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire