📚💬 “She didn’t know much about buildings, but it was clear that this one needed an unbelievable amount of work.
But at the end of it? Something she built up, rather than cut down.” Travis Baldree, Legends & Lattes

Finished reading: An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera 📚

So good! Manuela is going to marry a wealthy man, for the good of her family. But first, she’s going to spend six weeks in Paris, having Sapphic adventures.

As with all the best romances, this book is about two people who make each other grow as much as it’s about falling in love.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Hotter than steamy, very explicit.

Highly recommend.

There are few feelings as good as canceling a bunch of library holds because your family already owns all the books. 📚

📚 There are still spots available for online attendance at Public Librarianship in Contentious Times, a conference hosted by the University of Michigan School of Information and the Michigan Library Association. School librarians should find this relevant to their work as well and are welcome.

📚🍳 Started reading the introduction to Jules Sherred’s Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips and Recipes for the Disabled Cook and I might cry.

“The kitchen is the worst room in the house if you are disabled. I’m about to change that and make life easier for everyone.”

🔖📚 Read Shadow and Bone author Leigh Bardugo: ‘People sneer at the things women and girls love’ by Sian Cain (The Guardian).

She really is my hero.

🔖📚 Read Falling in Love With the Avengers, America’s Most Toxic Work Force by Leigh Bardugo (New York Times, gift link)

I love Leigh Bardugo so much.

💬📚 “I hunker down with books when I need time to process what’s happening in my own life.
Books give me the space to breathe.”

  • Kelly J. Baker, Final Girl: And Other Essays on Grief, Trauma, and Mental Illness

Currently reading: Final Girl: And Other Essays on Grief, Trauma, and Mental Illness by Kelly Baker 📚

Austin Kleon says to climb your creative family tree. Kelly is like an intellectual big sister, so I’m starting with her. (Katie Rose Guest Pryal is another.) 📝

Finished reading: From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper 📚

Loved it even more than Payback’s A Witch. Full review coming later this week.

📚💬 “Disaster and hero, monster and martyr, beauty and beast . . . Choose your own dichotomy. Because it doesn’t matter. We were always built to be both.” Lana Harper, For Better or Cursed

📚🔖 Read The Parentified Protagonist: From Shifting Roles to Shapeshifter, a guest post by Stephanie Willing (Teen Librarian Toolbox).

📚 Book Riot’s Literary Activism newsletter is always valuable. This week, Kelly Jensen takes a deep dive into the use of ChatGPT to decide whether books should be removed from libraries.

Finished reading: Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper 📚

It’s a witchy romance between two bi women and it has a punny title. What’s not to love? Moderately steamy.

📚💬👱‍♀️ “When Pearl Dragon and cheap wine and even magic have all failed us… there will always be Buffy marathons.” Lana Harper, Payback’s A Witch

😭 I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Bookstore Romance Day Recommendations 📚♥️

We’re just a few days out from Bookstore Romance Day!

A couple things to know about romance novels:

First, they always end with the love interests having either a happily ever after or a happy for now.

Second, they range in smuttiness from super sweet with hardly any physical intimacy, to quite explicit. But the emotions are always the core of the story, not the smut.

Here are some of my favorite romance reads. Pick some up at your favorite indie bookstore!

Mr. and Mrs. Witch by Gwenda Bond. Like Mr. & Mrs. Smith but with a lady witch and her dude witch hunter fiance. World travel, intrigue, blisteringly hot.

The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller. Gilded Age, haunted house, widow unfairly subjected to scandal, cute inventor man, fairly steamy.

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin. Pride & Prejudice but everyone lives in Toronto, is Muslim, and is Indian or Indian-Canadian. Sweet, not even kisses until close to the end.

Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin. You’ve Got Mail but with halal restaurants instead of bookstores. Everyone lives in Toronto, is Muslim, and is Indian or Indian-Canadian. Sweet, not even kisses until close to the end.

Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Transatlantic shenanigans where the son of the president of the US hates and then loves the spare prince of England. Very hot, a little explicit but not much, super witty, unputdownable. Read if you watched the movie but wanted more. (Skip the movie if you read it and will be disappointed that they had to combine or change characters and drop a lot of detail to make it work for the screen.)

The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forrest. A publishing assistant corresponds with her favorite author, who stopped writing fiction after his book about black elves didn’t sell much and his publisher closed. He ends up being her neighbor and they fall in love. Pretty steamy.

If you’re more of an audiobook person, see if you can support your local indie bookstore via Libro.fm.

Finished reading: Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander 📚

This book is super queer and super cute. Simone’s a chef. Ray’s a kitchen manager. They take a long time to get together but once they do, it’s 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Warning: Transphobia & a relatedly garbage workplace.

Want to read: Disabilities and the Library by Clayton A. Copeland 📚

Want to read: Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age by Meryl Alper 📚

Want to read: 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow 📚

Want to read: Birth Control: The Insidious Power of Men over Motherhood by Allison Yarrow 📚

📚🔮 “…the Tarot constitutes first and foremost an apprenticeship in seeing.” Marianne Costa, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards

Finished reading: Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel 📚

Gorgeous prose in this book that’s like if The Lion in Winter was mostly a romance between Richard and Philip. Recommend!

📚💗 August 19 is Bookstore Romance Day!

My fiction reading has been almost exclusively romance (across a variety of subgenres) since May and it’s making me very happy. Why not support your favorite indie bookshop & buy a romance from them?

I’ll write up some recommendations in the coming days.

Finished reading: The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes 📚

This one didn’t click with me right away, but that was about me and what else I’ve read recently, not about the book. It’s beautiful and sweet with a bit of spice, too.