Once Upon You and Me by Timothy Janovsky is a contemporary romance. On the closed door/open door/in the room/in the bed heat scale, this book puts you in the bed with the main characters. Here’s the publisher’s description of the book:

When Taylor Frost’s boss, Amy, flies him across the country to prep for her daughter’s sweet sixteen at the Storybook Endings Resort in the Catskills, the solo mission is well within his wheelhouse. Taylor is excellent at his job—except, he’s probably not supposed to flirt with the resort’s mountain man of a manager, Ethan Golding. Because the rugged older man is also the birthday girl’s father, aka Amy’s ex-husband. Oops.

For Ethan, his divorce seemed like the bad ending to his romantic story. And now, making his daughter’s sweet sixteen dreams come true is the closest he’ll get to the kind of magic happiness in fairy tales. Until adorable Taylor has him wondering if maybe this is just the beginning of a more erotic kind of bedtime story…

The only problem is Amy. And how very not okay she’d be with the chemistry between her assistant and her ex.

If only forbidden flings ever led to happily-ever-afters…

What I loved

I always love Timothy Janovsky’s characters, and Taylor and Ethan are two more delightful guys I loved watching fall in love. Ethan has ADHD that’s only recently been diagnosed. He’s spent a lot of his life feeling like his challenges with executive function are moral failings, and especially like his ex-wife Amy saw them that way. He’s a dad who lives on the opposite coast from his daughter, which breaks his heart a little all the time. He’s bi which sets him up for frustrations when he tries to date, as the men he meets are always surprised by this and often aren’t comfortable dating someone who is also attracted to women. He is deeply lonely.

Taylor is the second oldest kid in a family with many siblings. His older brother took off young and his parents are inattentive and flakey, which leaves him as the primary caretaker for all his sibs. He’s very good at taking care of people. He’s been working as Amy’s assistant for three years, waiting for a promotion, and quietly making sure she has everything she needs to keep her business running smoothly. But it seems like no one ever takes care of him.

In my favorite romances, the people in the relationship each are able to be exactly what the other person needs. Taylor is able to meet Ethan’s ways of coping with ADHD with compassion. Ethan shows Taylor that he deserves to be cared for as much as he cares for others. I love how these two are like puzzle pieces specifically carved to fit together.

I also love the way fairy tales suffuse the story. The resort where it’s set is inspired by fairy tales. Taylor and Ethan read fairy tales together. Taylor starts out their time together staying in the Snow White Cottage. I’m sure Timothy Janovsky chose this fairy tale to highlight her specifically. I’m choosing to imagine it’s because he is a Disney fan and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first Disney fairy tale feature adaptation.

What I wanted more of

There’s nothing Timothy Janovsky left out. I would just be happy to spend more time with these guys.

What I need to warn you about.

Timothy Janovsky includes warnings at the beginning of the book, so check those out. There is biphobia and some judgmental responses to Ethan’s ADHD. There’s also discussion of Ethan’s father living with MS that has progressed so far as to limit his mobility.

Who should read this book

People looking for a low-conflict, high heat contemporary where two charming men connect and complete each other’s lives.

Book: Once Upon You and Me Author: Timothy Janovsky Publisher: Afterglow Books by Harlequin Publication Date: April 29, 2025 Pages: 288 Age Range: Adult Source of Book: ARC via NetGalley, Library

A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera is a historical romance set mostly in Paris during the 1889 Exposition Universelle, about a Dominican-Mexican doctor and the duke who falls for her. On the closed door/open door/in the room/in the bed heat scale, this book puts you in the bed with the main characters. Here’s the publisher’s description of the book:

Physician Aurora Montalban Wright takes risks in her career, but never with her heart. Running an underground women’s clinic exposes her to certain dangers, but help arrives in the unexpected form of the infuriating Duke of Annan. Aurora begrudgingly accepts his protection, then promptly finds herself in his bed. New to his role as a duke, Apollo César Sinclair Robles struggles to embrace his position. With half of society waiting for him to misstep and the other half looking to discredit him, Apollo never imagined that his enthralling bedmate would become his most trusted adviser. Soon, he realizes the rebellious doctor could be the perfect duchess. But Aurora won’t give up her independence, and her secrets make her unsuitable for the aristocracy. When a dangerous figure from their past returns to threaten them, Apollo whisks Aurora away to his villa in the French Riviera. Far from the reproachful eye of Parisian society, can Apollo convince Aurora that their bond is stronger than the forces keeping them apart?

What I loved

This is the third book in Adriana Herrera’s Las Léonas trilogy, and I have loved every book in the series. Herrera gives us three best friends, each having her own adventure. By the time it’s Aurora’s turn to be the heroine, her friends Luz Alana and Manuela have found their own partners and the circle of the three friends has expanded to include Luz Alana’s husband, Evan, and Manuela’s partner, Cora. Evan and Cora often serve as a Greek chorus for the hero, Apollo, and it’s delightful.

Apollo himself is an incredibly dreamy hero. Aurora has been running herself ragged tending to patients both night and day. She has neglected her own needs. Apollo notices her taking care of others and not taking care of herself, and takes it upon himself to take care of her.

Aurora is a fierce doctor, the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Mexico, collaborating with colleagues in Paris to establish a network of women’s clinics. She dedicates herself to her work. Her growing attraction to Apollo gets her out of her head and into her body.

Adriana Herrera always gives us a delightful cast of supporting characters and here she gives us Brazilian boxing club owner Gilberto and his Vietnamese partner Minh, whose mother farms lavender in the French countryside. Apollo’s body man, Jean-Louis, is a giant who Apollo appoints to escort Aurora on dangerous night patient visits but whom Aurora quickly wins over to doing what she asks more than what Apollo does.

I feel like I’m not doing the book justice here.

Adriana Herrera writes love scenes that tie the emotional and physical relationships of the main characters to each other in a way that both titillates and tugs at heartstrings. The more Aurora and Apollo get to know each other, the more each of them impresses the other with their commitment to helping the people they serve: patients in Aurora’s case, and tenants in the duchy in Apollo’s case.

Romance readers love a broken character, and I especially love the way Aurora is broken, the way she is constantly fighting to prove her worth while also caring deeply for her patients.

What I wanted more of

I found myself lingering over this text rather than devouring it, I think because I didn’t want Las Léonas to end. There’s nothing I wish Adriana Herrera would have included in this book that she didn’t. I just hope she keeps writing historicals.

What I need to warn you about.

The clinics where Aurora works offer services that were perfectly legal in Paris in 1889, but also those that were not, especially contraceptive services and abortions. Abortions and abortion aftercare are discussed in the book. Herrera has a note about this at the beginning of the book, so definitely look at an ebook preview or the first few pages of a physical copy to read that. Aurora is put in physical danger and there is reference to poor treatment at the hands of a peer in her past as well as reference to the same peer continuing this behavior in the book’s present.

Who should read this book

Lovers of historical romance. People who want a historical romance that isn’t set in England or during the Regency. Readers who want to see fierce Afro-Latina women defying the limitations society tries to put on them and finding love. Readers who love found family.

Book: A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke Author: Adriana Herrera Publisher: Canary Street Press Publication Date: February 4, 2025 Pages: 432 Age Range: Adult Source of Book: ARC via NetGalley, Purchase

Everybody writes about being the mother of a baby. But what about being the mother of a big kid? You are this new version of yourself, integrated with the old, out of the early fog, free of the strange combination of portentousness and tedium. But you are still postpartum, you are eternally postpartum. You matresced, you are no longer becoming a mother but you are a mother. What is unique at this stage? Are you still annihilated? Is your life still kintsugi? Do you live in fragments? I think yes, but the fragments are bigger now. You have more time for yourself but you remain available, vulnerable, to interruption at any moment. You still steal your moments for self from sleep. The quiet of the sleeping house is still a precious time.

"The Book of Love" by The Magnetic Fields

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What song would you use to describe your current relationship?

The first song that came to mind was Riki Lindhome's "Middle Age Love," because we've been together for almost 27 years and still find each other super attractive. But I wanted a less explicit choice so I picked "The Book of Love." It's long and boring, like our relationship might look to people outside of it, but I love so much of what my husband does.

View Kimberly Hirsh's Crucial Tracks profile

"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers

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Describe the perfect song for a road trip and why it works.

This song starts every road trip our family takes, as an homage to its use in How I Met Your Mother. The driving beat is perfect for that early road trip energy.

View Kimberly Hirsh's Crucial Tracks profile

Please enjoy this extremely Kimberly blackout poem by Austin Kleon.

I had two newsletters in my inbox today that talked about the value of diving into an author’s complete works or backlist, A Love Letter to the Single Author Course by Ravynn K. Stringfield and Your next best friend by Austin Kleon.

Stringfield says,

To follow an author across the trajectory of their life, see how their styles and ideals changed over time, watch them venture into different forms and genres, was captivating. It was like the most immersive psychology class you could imagine. Under the guidance of the right professor and with appropriate supplementary materials—not just secondary sources, but writing by others that perhaps the author in question may have been inspired by or inspired with their own work—important cultural moments could be rendered in sharp relief. Literary disputes made as lively as any reality TV beef. Portraits of artistic communities shone. So much could be gleaned from taking an intentional walk through just one person’s corpus.

Kleon says,

We spend a lot of our lives as readers on the search for new books. But how many great books are already waiting for us on our shelves? How many favorite authors would we form deep relationships with if we simply read or re-read a few more of their books?

In the Discord community for the Fated Mates podcast, I’ve seen several of us do this with a particular author. Especially rewarding for me has been reading Sarah MacLean’s adult (as opposed to young adult) novels, watching her grow from writing the Regency ballrooms that populate so much of historical romance into creating a Victorian-era girl gang dealing out justice to people who are extra misogynistic as a backlist to Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne. I love tracking features MacLean returns to and evolves. For example, her books usually include a high-emotion scene tied to some incredible location—an underwater ballroom, a bench where if you whisper on one end another person sitting on the other hand can hear you perfectly as if you were right next to them. But then she evolves this, so in a book where characters are on the road for much of the book, she deploys a gorgeous puzzle box in exactly the same way she deploys these magical locations and it’s a joy to behold.

I think it would be fascinating to take a romance author’s work—Stringfield suggests that Beverly Jenkins is ripe for this treatment—and dig into not just the texts themselves, but the texts the author might have been reading, the world events happening while they were writing.

I listened to the Fifty Shades of Grey episode of Fated Mates yesterday and in that, Sarah MacLean talks about how romance writers are all reading each other’s works and having a conversation in their books. Her casino series, The Rules of Scoundrels, was a response to J. R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood. I suspect MacLean’s series influenced Joanna Shupe’s casino book, The Prince of Broadway.

This makes me think of the concept of scenius, which Brian Eno coined but I learned of through Kleon’s work. What can we learn about the creative network present in an author’s life by doing a single author study either individually or as part of a group or class?

What authors’ backlists have you explored? Whose would you like to?

This week is National Library Week in the US and today is Right to Read Day. @cygnoir@social.lol wrote a great post about how you can show up for libraries. United Against Book Bans has a page on actions to take for Right to Read Day.

Here in North Carolina, I’m tracking House Bill 595, the latest parental rights bill filed. As soon as it’s moved far enough to go to a vote, I’ll be contacting my state legislators and urging then to vote NO on it.

Here are some of its chilling library-related provisions:

• placing responsibility for the selection of materials in the hands of superintendents and boards, instead of in the hands of library professionals with training and professional expertise in selecting materials
• requiring that all library books selected are “integral to the instructional program,” which will likely limit the purchasing of materials for students’ free choice of reading
• the creation of a “content access designation” (read: rating) system, flattening complex evaluation of books for a given community’s needs
• requiring that all materials selected be available for a 30 day review period by parents, which will place an immense administrative burden on library staff (I have a relatively small library budget and I order about 100 books at a time)
• the use of a broadly defined designation of “harmful to minors” as a test of whether materials should be included in a collection, which is likely to target books about growth, development, and anatomy as well as disproportionately target books with LGBTQ+ topics
• the establishment of standing “community library advisory committees” with as-yet-undefined requirements for membership, as opposed to ad hoc committees carefully curated to evaluate each materials challenge
• the requirement that every book made available in a book fair be reviewed by “appropriate school personnel,” which will generate a large administrative burden for library staff and, I anticipate, result in the reduction of book fairs and the resulting budget they provide for libraries without any alternate method of funding provided
• the criminalization of library staff who provide items deemed harmful to minors
• the ability for parents to demand access to a record of their child’s library borrowing
• the creation of restricted sections in public libraries, effectively requiring library staff to spend time reclassifying every work in a collection
• the creation of a special category of library cards for minors (another immense administrative burden)
• the revocation of library cards obtained by minors without their parents’ permission

Taken together, these provisions are likely to lead to librarian’s self-censorship in purchasing, administrative burdens grinding library services to a halt, library staff leaving the profession, school libraries losing funds, and most importantly, kids not having the materials they need to learn and grow as readers and people.

If you live in NC, please keep an eye on this bill and get ready to contact your state legislators about it. If you live elsewhere in the US, check EveryLibrary’s Legislation of Concern tracker to see what’s going on in your area.

Please join me in fighting for libraries. These are existential threats for libraries and library staff.

In November or December, I choose a word for the next year. Then for the first quarter of the new year, I try it out and see if it actually fits. If it doesn’t, I pick a new word to coincide with the spring equinox, the start of the western astrological year.

At the end of 2024, frustrated by the fact that all I did was work, sleep, read, and play video games, I chose the word “More” for 2025. I wanted to do more, connect more, pursue more.

But that’s not the word I’m finding myself living.

My new word for 2025 is “Enough.” Enough is the spirit of harm reduction. It’s enough to feed myself, even if what I feed myself is not what I have in the moments of my richest nutritional profile. It’s enough to do my job and keep myself and my child going.

Two books are really helping me feel into enough, even though I haven’t finished either of them yet:

• How to Keep House While Drowning by K. C. Davis
• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

And in the spirit of enough, I’ve decided this blog post is long enough.

I haven’t been writing much lately, something that has special irony since on Sunday I took Sarah MacLean’s Start Your Romance Novel Today class. (Reader, I did not start my romance novel that day. Or rather, I started playing with several ideas for romance novels. But did not get any words down.)

I haven’t been writing for REASONS and reasons, but I think it would be good for me to blog a bit.

It’s just a hard time right now, you know? I subscribed to too many newsletters with action alerts. I think I need to scale back to just Bull City Indivisible. It’s just that they recommended all these other ones. But now I get overwhelmed and don’t read any of them, and that’s no way to be active in my community.

I hadn’t really thought of migraines as a condition where I have flares, but I’m beginning to, because I get these status migraines that go on and on. I’m seeking better treatment for them than I ever have before, and that’s promising, but still not enough.

I’m going to go put away laundry soon. That’s a thing I can do that will make my and my family’s world a little better.

I’m a big pile of meh today.