Ever have one of those starts to the year where you feel like you're running and running and never quite catching up? That's me right now. I've been working my butt off getting three books ready for release this fall (as well as a re-release of my novella The Wedding Week in June), and I've been working through some special work projects for my day job. I hate falling back on the cliche excuse, but I've been busy. Still, I try to make time to read even if it's not quite as much time as I'd like. So here's a highly unscientific list of what I've been able to read* and enjoy so far this year:
So Sweet, by Rebekah Weatherspoon
So here's the deal. I know Rebekah Weatherspoon's incredibly smart and funny on Twitter, and I was fortunate enough to have been introduced to her at RWA last summer so I got to see all that in person. This means I should have realized her novella So Sweet was going to be just the right sort of funny-sexy-give-me-more-now-damnit but apparently I wasn't thinking straight because it was reallyfunny-sexy-give-me-more-now-damnit. Now everyone please go buy this book so we can all talk about Kayla and Michael. #okaythanksbye
Stay With Me Forever, by Farrah Rochon
I want to apologize. This is the first Farrah Rochon book I've read of the several that have been stacking up on my TBR, and I feel like I've let all my friends down in not evangalising for her books before this. Stay With Me Forever is sharp and smart and sexy—just the sort of book that reminds me why I fell in love with category romance so many years ago. The hero is delicious, but the tough-but-noble heroine really steals this Louisiana-set book. Also, can I just say that this has nothing to do with the book but isn't that a gorgeous cover?
Rushing to Die, by Lindsay Emory
Margot Blythe's back for another sorority sisters' mystery! I was thrilled when Lindsay announced there would be a sequel to her Sisterhood is Deadly and—true to form—I gobbled it up in an afternoon. Fun, funny, and sharp with a sexy police officer to boot, I absolutely love this cosy mystery series and can't wait to find out what happens next.
No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, by Sarah Maclean
I'm going to pivot to audiobooks for a moment. I might not have had a huge amount of time to read this winter, but I did have to do some mundane things like commute and cook. Enter audiobooks. This was my first, and for about a week afterward I heard my own revisions in narrator Rosalyn Landor's delicious voice. I love the Rule of Scoundrels series (the second is still my favorite) and was happily surprised to find listening to the book a delightful experience.
The Splendour Falls, by Susanna Kearsley
This book isn't a romance but what RWA would have called a novel with "strong romantic elements" until they did away with that category at the RITAs (RIP). I picked The Splendour Falls up at an RWA long ago, and it took me until February to finally read it. I'm so happy I did because it fits this lovely subgenre of books about inevitably English women going somewhere charming like France, meeting a bunch of interesting characters, solving a low-stress mystery, and dealing with some link to the past. This is sink into an armchair with a cup of tea reading.
*Sadly I can't talk about a couple really enjoyable RITA judging books I read in February because of contest confidentiality. Maybe one day I'll be able to innocuously slip them into a roundup and no one will be the wiser.