Productively Honest Reading Journal: August 2024

Opining on romance novels, productively

I’ve obviously been sitting on this post for a while, given it’s now November and I’m writing about books I read in August.

I called my last reading journal “brutally honest,” and I felt ambivalent about continuing in the same vein.

Brutally Honest Reading Journal: June-July 2024

Being Productively Honest

Having “a platform” in the internet age is weird. As I become older and wiser, I’m trying to really learn that being authentic and honest doesn’t mean I have to say everything I think.

To me, honesty means I’ll never say I enjoyed a book I didn’t, even if that would be the more politically advantageous thing to do. I also hate the idea that we should only talk about books we enjoy. There’s value in talking about the problems in books, not just as a way to share with other potential consumers but as a way to better understand books and romance novels more broadly.

My biggest concern is how to talk about books that are “not competent,” meaning there are issues with execution or craft that impact my ability to read the book or have anything interesting to say if I do soldier through. It feels like punching down on top of not being very productive or generative, especially when the books are relatively unknown and/or written by self-published authors.

I will continue with these honest reading journal dispatches with the goal of productive honesty. Primarily, that means I may not share all of my DNFs. Onward!

August 2024

The Muse of Maiden Lane by Mimi Matthews

Let’s jump into the deep end immediately.

I enjoyed Mimi Matthews’ A Holiday by Gaslight, which I discussed in a reading recap podcast episode in 2023 (Cold(breath) Comfort Reads). My understanding is her books are generally closed door, so I wasn’t expecting sexy but I was expecting robust romance feels.

The Muse of Maiden Lane featured a male main character who uses a wheelchair. I was intrigued to see how the disability representation would be handled, especially in a historical romance.

After sorting through my internalized ideas of masculinity and sexual scripts and interrogating if I’m the problem here, I still came away feeling like this book positioned the hero’s physical disability as the conflict in the romance.

On the one hand, it makes sense that the hero’s illness (that led to his physical disability) and use of a wheelchair for mobility impacts his life, relationships, and how he moves through the world, especially in a historical setting.

On the other hand, it felt like the hero was defined by his disability rather than it being a part of his characterization. I left the book feeling that every beat in the relationship centered his physical disability, mostly because there wasn’t much tension or conflict in general.

Part of what complicates this was what I perceived as a lack of sexual or romantic chemistry between the main characters. It seemed to play into harmful stereotypes about how people with disabilities aren’t attractive or sexy. The hegemonic sexual script in romance and society is that big, strong men are portrayed as more masculine and sexy: a hero living with a physical disability obviously challenges that societal assumption. The book tried to tell me that they characters were hot for each other, but it didn’t show me and I never felt it.

Matthews doesn’t write super sexy romance in the first place — is this just Matthews’ style? Did I only like A Holiday by Gaslight because I was superimposing North and South sexual chemistry on top of it?

Argh… this one was hard for me. Am I the problem? It seems inevitable that attempts to color outside established romance tropes and archetypes sets the bar higher for execution. Is it unfair to hold a book to the standard it’s setting for itself?

My Dearest Enemy by Connie Brockway

My Dearest Enemy is an enemies to lovers, M/F historical romance. This was a satisfying reread, however I remain confounded by the denouement.

The heroine is a staunch feminist who has vowed not to marry until women have equal rights in marriage. She has reasons: her mother’s first husband punished his wife by taking her children away from her when she ended the marriage, and her mother didn’t marry the heroine’s father for fear of the same thing happening again. As a feminist AND an illegitimate child, the heroine is an outsider in society.

Once they get over their whole enemies thing and move on to lovers, the primary conflict is that he desperately wants a loving family. Marriage and children, specifically, are important to him.

At the end, the heroine relents and agrees to marry him. She doesn’t give up her feminist activism after marriage, but the move undercuts a lot of the interesting things that happen prior to that point.

I don’t even disagree with either of their reasons as characters — it just jumps the shark from the narrative structure we were previously working in.

It’s a very interesting book and I recommend it heartily despite my puzzlement. He’s an adventurer who transforms from an Ugly Duckling into a hottie with a heart of gold. Their romance begins via antagonistic, then vulnerable, letters, and there’s a cast of interesting and complex side characters.

Stand and Defend by Sloane St. James

Contemporary M/F sports romance in which a woman leaves an abusive relationship and moves in with his family friend.

I rubbernecked this book longer than I wanted to. What broke the trance was a scene in which the MCs had penetrative sex in a bar, sitting in a booth next to the male MC’s teammates/colleagues.

Not my monkeys, not my fantasy.

Promise Me Heaven by Connie Brockway

This was another re-read. Like My Dearest Enemy, Promise Me Heaven is an M/F historical romance.

This one has a former/current spy caught up in a scheme by the heroine to enlist his help in teaching her how to catch a husband to support her family. Of course it turns into sex lessons, but also involves a daring escape from France when Napoleon threatens to return to power.

Connie Brockway is one of those authors who was pretty popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s but I don’t hear her spoken of much in romance circles these days, which is a tragedy. I think her body of work is significantly more interesting than certain other authors from the same time period…

Seducing the Sheriff of Nottingham by Cassandra Gannon

I’d call this book a fractured fairy tale that’s half Robin Hood/half Gargoyles fanfic. Goofy off-kilter fairy tale-inspired stories are my jam, and I definitely understand the appeal of Gargoyles fanfic…

I was charmed by the premise for a bit, but got the sense that the book was being padded out to milk Kindle Unlimited pageview dollars.

The gist of how authors get paid on Kindle Unlimited is that the more pages readers read, the bigger cut of the KU pot the author gets every month. Therefore, it’s in authors’ best interest to write longer books, however the catch is that to keep readers going, authors are also incentivized to have things happen on those pages.

I literally got to ~90% and things were finally happening but I didn’t like the feeling that I was being tricked into mindlessly turning pages to see what would happen so I stopped.

Only in Your Dreams by Ellie K. Wilde

This is an M/F contemporary romance with a twin brother’s best friend trope and another abusive ex-boyfriend (hot on the heels of Stand and Defend).

It was surprisingly sweet and the pining off the charts. You know I love pining. It’s my favorite. I enjoyed it!

Lights Out by Navessa Allen

Lights Out is a stalker dark romance (M/F contemporary). I knew that going in and I was trying to branch out. It seems to be a thing people are into so I was curious about it, especially because the appeal seems to be that the stalker breaks in to her house to take care of her and like, shovels the snow from her driveway.

I got about 50% of the way in and was enjoying parts of it but realized that I did not like any of the stalker romance parts.

It was a weird combination of pulling punches and punching too hard.

I’ve noticed that a lot of dark romances that veer into “taboo” topics want to have their cake and eat it too: they go out of their way to assure the reader that the situation is safe but want the reader to be excited by the thrill of danger.

The moment that I tapped out was when the stalker hero was encouraging the heroine to ride the handle of a knife he jammed into her mattress, ruining it, while the hero assured her that he cleaned the handle first with an antibacterial wipe and the author has his inner monologue assure us that he’s already ordered her a new mattress.

Not my monkeys, not my fantasy.

Time Served by Julianna Keyes

This book has the MOST flawed main characters in a very interesting way. This was a reread, and I covered it way back in episode 5 of Shelf Love with guest Kini Allen.

The Orc and the Innkeeper by Cora Crane

The Orc and the Innkeeper was recommended by Kassi in episode 162 about Old Skool Romantasy. It’s a… are orcs men if they’re not human? Whatever, it’s a heterosexual cozy fantasy interspecies romance with a childhood bully to lovers plot.

Bully romance isn’t really my thing, but this went down smooth and easy. It’s definitely cozy, a la Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree, but a bit spicier. If you’re looking for Gilmore Girls vibes with orc anatomy, Cora Crane can hook you up.

Wrap Up

That’s it for this installment of my reading journal. I’ve been reading like a wild woman, so lots of books to catch up on from September and October!

What do you think?

• Have you read any of these?

• Have I enticed you to read anything?

• Have any thoughts on “productive honesty”?

Please share in the comments below!