definitely, possibly, maybe

though billed as a new adult romance the main character of when in rome...find yourself is so emotionally and socially stunted she seems like an insecure 16 year old. allegedly she's 21. she does suffer from severe anxiety, but then you spend a whole chapter in her head with her stream of consciousness insecurity and you kind of just want it to end. rory is sweet but so, so insecure. she's had a bad relationship, bad break up, bad high school experience. her family is overprotective, especially since her older brother passed away when she was younger. she travels to rome with her classmates and every overture they make, rory somehow misinterprets to assume they are put upon or making fun of her. with her house mother, theresa, and housemate, ned, she assumes the same thing. and instead of really exploring rome, we get a lot of anxiety about her every step. this is also billed as a romance, and i guess it is, but it doesn't actually feel all that romantic. there's a h...

the other day i made mention of the sweet dreams series in a review , and then i came across this title on my bookshelves and realized that i conflated two of the scenes in this book with wrong-way romance another old favorite sweet dreams title. too good to be true  is a super short, quick read. young adult romances in the 80s were way shorter and sweeter than they are now. this actually feels more like middle-grade to me now, it's that sweet, but the characters are sixteen so this is still definitely a young adult novel. the characters were actually so sweet and nice i wondered if this was meant to be set in canada for a while. but i think the author actually grew up on maple sugar farms outside of chicago, so i'm assuming that this is where this story is set. for some reason the whole maple sugar farm stuck with me long after i had read this story. the book is really short, so to go into any depth regarding the plot seems mean. but basically marty meets hank who she is at...

i know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but i think the cover for burning bright  is absolutely gorgeous, so i was totally predisposed to like the story within. luckily for me it's a really good story, so i can just love the whole package unabashedly. burning bright  tells the story of elinor pembroke, who woke up one day to discover that she had an extraordinary talent for fire. as a scorcher she can make things burn, but as an extraordinary scorcher she can also extinguish. this makes her valuable. to her father she becomes a trading chip, a way of bettering their family's lot in life by marriage. to potential suitors she is no more than a brood mare useful for improving their family's power. and for the royal navy she is a powerful weapon. it's the height of the napoleonic wars and the caribbean is overrun by pirates. her kind of firepower hasn't been seen in over one hundred years in england, and she's barely had a chance to exp...

i've thought a lot about what makes a home, what makes a place feel like home this weekend. we went up to visit boston for the weekend, and even though we haven't lived there for 5 years, it's still home in ways that endwell will never be. i feel comfortable in my own skin there, in a way that i never do in new york. a lot of that has to do with the people around me. i've known for a long time that me and the people of endwell are not of the same kind. but being back among my own people really made it crystal clear. this is a realization that is somewhat unfortunate, since endwell will remain my home for the long term. but it's also nice to know that it doesn't matter how much time goes by, my people are out there, ready to pick up right where we left off. sometimes i think maybe we leave little pieces of our heart wherever we go, because this weekend the maine-endwell little league team from endwell, new york won the little league world series. these boys gre...

i needed a break from europe and the world wars, which has been the backdrop of almost all the historical fiction i've read this past year. the last days of night  was a nice change of pace. set against the so called "war of the currents," we follow paul cravath as he is dragged into the middle of a battle of wills between thomas edison, nikola tesla, and george westinghouse. i'll be honest, i had no idea that the current wars were a thing. what i knew of thomas edison was the whitewashed "he was a genius" story you're given in grade school. and since i went to grade school in new jersey where edison is also somewhat of a state hero, i didn't know that actually he was kind of an ass. the novel at one point takes pains to note that what thomas edison did so brilliantly was not invent, but rather find a way to industrialize ideas and invention. that is certainly a rather unique contribution to science and history, but he was also egotistical and pett...

oh, my old fave, enemies-to-lovers trope. i think it's my fave because all that animosity is so combustible. bad judgment is a new adult standalone that follows justine and ryker, and their tempestuous relationship during their third year of law school. like so many enemies-to-lovers justine and ryker come from opposite sides of the track. ryker was born with a silver spoon, the son of a state supreme court justice and high profile attorney who comes from money. justine is the daughter of two con artists who destroyed her credit by stealing her identity while she was still in diapers. her grandfather raised her, and what little income she has from his estate was depleted by the time it came to pay for law school. when the school decides to cut their merit scholarship program, justine is desperate. and when ryker's father offers to pay her tuition in exchange for her help in getting ryker to refocus on his studies, she has no choice but accept his offer. the relationship ...

so i've been doing this on a weekly schedule. this way it will take me years to get through all of my roswell archives. that seems so crazy to me. i swear i had some buffy/spike fan fic too, but maybe it was only stuff i read? i don't think i ever posted it. anyway part 2 follows the jump. catch up with part 1 here.

the second book in the romancing the clarksons series, too wild to tame  picks up the siblings' road trip just after they've left rita behind in hurley, new mexico. their next stop is iowa, where aaron plans to somehow get his political career back on track. it took me a while to get through too hot to handle , but i did end up breezing through too wild to tame. i think it's probably because i liked the leads just a little bit more. aaron is kind of a jerk, but he's got this soft gooey core and you can't help but feel for him because he's the guy who everyone else shut out. so of course he has his guard up. of course he keeps people at arm's length. and then he meets grace pendelton. the daughter of the man who's acceptance is key for aaron's plans. meeting grace in the unlikeliest of circumstances--her air of fragility draws aaron's attention, but her strength of spirit captivates him. once they meet, they can't keep away from each other...

tessa bailey's romancing the clarksons series follows 4 estranged siblings as they cope with the aftermath of their mother's death and struggle to honor her last wishes. belmont, rita, aaron and peggy clarkson are all emotional wrecks, with abandonment issues, imposter syndrome, commitment issues galore. the series kicks off with too hot to handle , and follows the siblings' decision to take a road trip to new york from san diego in order to fulfill one of their mysterious mother's crazy last requests and jump into the atlantic from a pier on coney island at midnight on new year's eve. rita starts the entire chain of events when she accidentally burns down her mother's restaurant. at loose ends, her culinary career in question she guilts her siblings into driving across the country with her. when they end up stranded in the town of hurley, new mexico not too long after their disastrous road trip starts rita finds herself attracted to one of the locals, jasper ...

the title for   claiming the enemy   is a bit misleading, since i'm not sure that doctors piper dawson and alexander "ace" lennox can be described as enemies. she's a resident at hampton bay hospital and he is her attending physician, her boss. after a childhood spent bouncing around foster homes, piper can't help being a people pleaser. she likes to be liked. she actually kind of needs it, craves it, because that's what a childhood filled with rejection does to you. and ace has put up walls around himself to avoid getting involved with anyone since his wife died, and doesn't appreciate piper's attempts to break down those walls even if all she is doing is fostering a friendly work environment. it's too bad that the short length of the novel doesn't really delve more into piper's psyche. ace notes her sapphire-streaked hair and tattoos, and he also notices that at times she doesn't feel comfortable in her own skin, but instead of de...

the first time i read about fighting to be free  i wasn't sure if the demons were real or metaphorical. honestly i think jamie cole would be better off dealing with real demons, because his metaphorical ones are pretty killer. but even though he's dealing with some dark stuff and his past is riddled with emotional landmines he is the dreamiest bad boy boyfriend ever. and how he lands ellie and keeps her for the most part is pretty sweet. i mean, she's also super understanding. she only mildly freaks out when she discovers some of his illegal dealings, and even when she majorly freaks out about his delinquent past it's not unwarranted. jamie and ellie are so cool and collected for being only 18 and 17 years old. and that is my major problem with this book. it's billed as new adult. and while there is a range for what you can consider new adult, usually college age is the lower boundary. this reads as new adult except one of the main characters is 18 going on 25 a...

the always delightful flavia de luce is back in the eighth installment of alan bradley's mystery series, thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd . have i mentioned how much i love the titles to all the flavia de luce novels? this one takes its name from the double, double, toil and trouble speech in macbeth . and indeed poor flavia has her share of toils and troubles in this novel. 1 WITCH.  Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. 2 WITCH.  Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd.   3 WITCH.  Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!   1 WITCH.  Round about the caldron go;                         In the poison'd entrails throw.—                      Toad, that under cold stone,                         Days and nights has thirty-one;          ...

claire stevens and liam chase didn't set out to become memes. but after claire earns the reputation of a runaway bride after calling off two weddings, and after liam earns instant internet popularity as hot hvac guy when an ill-timed picture goes viral, they don't really have any say about it. after all once it's out on the internet there is no taking it back. but when their attempts to avoid the city put them in each other's orbit they know that laying low will become problematic. after all the headlines write themselves, see "hot hvac guy keeps bride from running" for example. even worse, they can't really keep their hands off each other. from the moment they meet, a moment that involves a tree crushing liam's truck by the way, there are sparks. when you add in a hungry raccoon named stanley, a sudden snowstorm, a broken down furnace, and a little bittersweet holiday spirit, you have the perfect recipe for a lighthearted holiday romance.  the 4...

so this one is an alternate universe/challenge fic. i think i always found these fun to write because it allowed me greater freedom to play with the characters. the conditions i needed to follow, as well as part 1, follow the jump.

madelyne jean summers lives for summer. not because she likes the heat (she actually doesn't). or because she loves the time off from school (that's okay, but it's not the reason). she loves summer because she can finally stop pretending to be the popular cheerleader type and embrace her inner nerd. she loves comic books. and live-action role playing games. and cosplay. and even though she's dating the football quarterback, she also kind of loves a nerd named logan scott. even if she refuses to admit this to herself. ever since an embarrassing incident in the seventh grade she's been hiding her nerd-love from everyone. afraid that if she admits what she truly likes her friends will abandon her and make fun of her. but when issue #400 of the super ones  fails to show up in her mailbox on release day she needs to find out what happens. she heads to the town's comic book store and is horrified to realize that logan scott is at the register. even worse he reco...

sometimes i wonder if i might have liked a book better if i'd listened to the audiobook instead of reading it. but when i think of fates & furies by lauren groff i go back to the fact that i so disliked mathilde, and while i didn't mind lotto so much, he's also a ridiculous character. but the book won so many awards. it seemed like everyone was in love with it. and i mean, the writing is gorgeous. it's lush but not too abstruse or impenetrable. i actually read this over two nights. rather quickly because i borrowed it from the library and then let it sit on my nightstand until it was just about due and i couldn't renew it because someone else had a hold on it because everyone and their mother's book club was reading this thing. in the end it's a story about marriage and the lies we tell each other to get on with life. and how no matter how much you love someone else, the tiny things that you do to keep the peace cut away at your soul. and sometimes wh...

i don't know you guys. it's like we were maybe too comfortable. on a whim, my husband planted the seeds of possibly moving. and now i'm looking at houses on zillow and thinking of what ifs. it's crazy to move. i swore the last time we did it that i'd never do it again. but why should i stay in one place forever? we are not trees. we do not grow roots. but i love our house. no matter what happens in the coming days i'll remember that. but oh, the chance to start fresh somewhere new is incredibly appealing too. i grew up moving every three to five years. we've been in this place five years. maybe it's time to move on. onwards and upwards, yes? #pivot

if you ever need a good pick-me up you should watch mr. bean's holiday . it is the best movie to watch if you are feeling slightly down. because mr. bean is both awful and utterly hilarious. there is no way to properly describe this movie. it's a road trip film. it's an odyssey. it's a story of unlikely friends. it's a story that shows how heroes can be found in the unlikeliest of places. mr. bean is no one's hero, but in the end he acquits himself nicely. and he is so, so funny while doing so.

i haven't actually watched too much of the rio 2016 olympics live, because, well, nbc does such a terrible job of airing it. the few events i've tried to catch the live stream while at work were not successful and so i've mostly gotten my news from twitter and caught the key moments via youtube. none of these things help nbc with their ratings, and i feel like they can do better. that they have done better. (though the other day i read someone on fivethirtyeight say that "the olympics are sports packaged for non-sports fans" and that made total sense to me. anyway, today i really wanted to watch something live. for the first time in puerto rico's olympic history there was a chance to win a gol d medal. no athlete representing puerto rico had ever done that, and no woman had ever medaled for puerto rico in her sport of choice. and then mónica puig, a women's singles tennis player did it. she got the gold. and it was so awesome to watch live. even thou...

the pleasure of the rose  is marketed as a western meets the highlands. and while i suppose it is a western meets the highlands in some ways, in that the male lead is half-comanche, in the end it's mostly just a highlands story. and that's totally fine, except it's not even an interesting highlands story. i just ended up feeling like the author kept setting us up for something to happen, and then nothing would. there is no real conflict here. that's the novel's biggest problem. there are all these interesting characters who have depths that we don't get to explore. fletcher is an interesting character who basically disappears from the book mid-way through. the story of how a half-comanche becomes a duke and settles into his ancestral home should be something compelling. exploring the likely racism and distrust that he would have faced if this was not fiction would have been interesting. and while certainly there is racist language used, there is no real acti...

here is the conclusion to this one. i think this was one of the earlier fan fics i wrote, because i definitely wrote better ones. but if i want a complete personal archive i've got to post the good and the bad. anyway, you can catch up with the previous parts on the links: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , and 9 and read on for part 10.

the first time i'd ever heard of denise grover swank was when i read one paris summer  which i had randomly requested on netgalley back in may. then i got a riffle email letting me know that the substitute was available to read for free and i figured i'd check it out. i'd really enjoyed one paris summer  and the description for the substitute made it seem like something i would enjoy. and boy did i. this books kicks off the series about three childhood friends who'd made a pact when they were nine about getting married when they turned 30. a fortune teller had cursed them (though honestly i find this part of the story confusing, even after getting it summarized three times). the fortune teller tells them that they will have weddings that will end in disaster and that they will end up marrying their true loves, not their originally intended grooms soon after. so the whole pact and curse thing seem to happen at the same time, and it seems to be less of a curse and more ...

so whenever i think of a perfect birthday scene, nothing tops this one from sixteen candles . definitely one of my all-time favorite movies. maybe i'll re-watch it tonight as a birthday treat.

i thought i had read all the bridgerton novels . when he was wicked  is on my yearly re-read list after all. and i also love to sir phillip, with love . and this makes sense because i adore francesca and eloise bridgerton. and i could tell you i love the bridgerton books, but the truth is i love those two books and i don't really love the rest as much i think i do. so for years i was convinced that of course i had read the duke and i  because it kicks off the whole series, and why would i have not read it. but then recently i read the description and had to admit to myself that this book sounded unfamiliar. and to my delight it was unfamiliar. the hook with daphne and simon is that she is a normal girl of her time period. she wants to get married and have children. but she wants to find someone who means something to her, the way her mother and father meant something to each other. and simon is a duke, her older brother's best friend, who doesn't want to be married or h...

i never went to summer camp, but i have watched wet hot american summer  and sleepaway camp  and the parent trap   so i'm pretty sure i know what summer camp is all about. daring the bad boy won't really change your mind about any clichés about summer camp, though there is 100% less murders in it than sleepaway camp . this young adult summer read tells the story of jacob fazio, bad boy extraordinaire, whose run-ins with trouble have condemned him to work as a lifeguard at his uncle's summer camp. jake has to keep on the straight and narrow, breaking the rules can land him in juvie. he's definitely made some mistakes, but he's also carrying around a lot of anger and grief. his mother died of cancer when he was fourteen, and his father handled this by pretending she never existed, moving them out of their home, and starting over somewhere new. this was not the best way for jake to handle his grief, thrust into an entirely new environment when his world had been...

in unexpectedly wilde , rose chen uses the co-workers to fake relationship to sexy lovers trope pretty effectively. lucas wilde is cate delaney's boss, and they've been working together on a sex trafficking case. when both of them end up in vegas for the weekend--he is attending a friend's wedding, she is letting off some steam--neither of them expects to spend much time with one another. but when lucas's friend threatens him with a set-up at the wedding, lucas asks cate to play his girlfriend. cate goes along with it, because she likes her boss, but she's also wary because she's been harboring a secret attraction to him and the purpose of coming to vegas was to find someone to help her release all that sexual tension with. of course she was right to be wary, because they can't keep their hands off each other after all. and after spending all weekend in bed together, facing the reality of having to go back to work where fraternization is frowned upon and...

kingston's when a lady deceives  kicks off a new series set in late victorian london. jennie quinn is an investigative reporter for the herald in the style of nellie bly. she's gone undercover at insane asylums to reveal inhumane conditions, and her current case is more personal in nature, she's gone undercover as a barmaid at an establishment notorious crime boss claude hardwick owns to reveal his part in the death of mary mcdaniel, a source she feels like she put in danger.  mary was going to share a journal that would implicate hardwick with regard to his many crimes, a story that it too irresistible for jennie to keep away from. among the sources she wants to pry information from stands matthew colton. a disgraced member of scotland yard and now hardwick's lieutenant, he must know secrets she is dying to share. from the moment he saves her from a drunken customer, the attraction between them flares. and he is too smart, too dangerous to stay close to, and yet, s...

this part is also pretty racy. you can catch up via the links to parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , and 8 . read on for part 9.

resisting the rebel  irresistibly uses the opposites attracts theory of story-telling. even better for me, it also uses the fake-relationship-turns-real method. obviously, i loved it. it has all the right ingredients and characters you can root for. i mean, this plot is right up my alley. bad boy caleb torrs can't help being sucked in by mandy pennington's orbit of hippy-dippy disco cheer. there's no reason he should feel compelled to help her, but he is. and he's also really attracted to her even though she is not his type. she's a joiner. he's a loner. she's been madly in love with her best friend from kindergarten, he's got a stalker ex-girlfriend. this is how fake relationships are born. she'll get a boy to make her friend jealous, he'll get a girl to let the ex know he's moved on. both caleb and mandy end up getting way more than they expected when they launch their crazy plan. for one, caleb can't pretend to be the boyfriend o...

winner takes all kicks off the champion valley series, which i suspect will follow the stories of blake carpenter, brandon west, and cameron shaw, who were the last champions of high school football that blanco valley ever produced. blake carpenter rose the highest, until his career in the nfl was sidelined by knee injuries and accusations of doping. after taking a year off to sulk he returns to football, not quite triumphantly, but it is still the game that he loves. and high school football is better than no football. sparks fly when blake meets annabelle turner, a physical therapist and divorcée who ignores his hostility and makes a point of working with the kids on the team on stretching and conditioning. blake has good reason to be wary of therapists, since he was thrown under the bus by his team and the therapists there in an effort to do everything and anything it took to win and get him back on the playing field. but annabelle is incapable of taking a step back from some...

run to you   is technically the kick-off to a new series by rachel lacey, unless you've read rock with you , and you've already been introduced to the town of haven, north carolina and some of its inhabitants. while the lead characters weren't introduced in the novella, some of the secondary characters in run to you  were and it's nice to have a little bit of history with the town as you read the novel. in any case, run to you  uses my favorite romance trope, the fake relationship that turns real. i like it in books, in film, i maybe even like it in real life. here ethan hunter meets gabrielle "gabby" winters and there is instant sizzle. ethan's beloved grandmother, dixie, who raised ethan after some really horrifying things happened to his parents, recognizes that spark and is convinced that they are meant to be. dixie happens to be on the verge of dying as she has an inoperable brain aneurysm threatening to burst at any moment. because ethan will do ...