Susan’s Book Blog

I’m starting to get into holiday reads now that we’re halfway through December. These are a few I read last year and I loved all three!  🎄 In a Holidaze is a trippy and magical time loop romance with a cozy cabin setting and big happy family vibes.  🎄 The Holiday Swap is a sweet Hallmark-style identical twin life swap with bakery goodness.  🎄 The Geek Who Saved Christmas is a sweet ‘n fluffy grumpy/sunshine enemy neighbors-to-lovers after-40 romance. I highly recommend all three if you’re looking for some cozy holiday reading!  ❤️💚 What’s on your holiday to-read list, if you have one? (I’m hoping to get to The Plight Before Christmas and A Merry Little Meet Cute.)

  Stuffed by K. Sterling If you don’t want the magic of Christmas forever sullied by images of a horny Santa Claus who brings tidings of joy and three-ways, stop right here.  This was utterly bonkers, but brilliant. I was NOT expecting what this turned out to be. I went from What the hell am I reading, to OMG THAT IS SO SWEET IM GONNA DIE. This is in turns ridiculous (in the best way), sexy (read: absolutely filthy), and incredibly sweet and heartfelt. The tone is largely tongue-in-cheek and chock full of corn and cheese - until it gets seriously (and rather unexpectedly) sincere. I don’t know how Sterling pulled this off but it WORKS. It uses every porny cliché out there but doesn’t take itself seriously, which I think is precisely why it works.  A hilarious prologue sets the stage for a series of vignettes in which Santa grants people’s Christmas wishes. There are sexy shenanigans in them all but each of the stories has a very sweet, heartfelt happy ending. (Also? Santa is not here f

 2022 was a year where I spent a great deal of time reading and reviewing ARCs (advance reader copies). I didn’t always get all the books I requested (Edelweiss is particularly brutal) but I did get approved for a truly amazing selection of great books.  Pictured below are most of the ARCs I received this year from NetGalley. [NetGalley only; I didn’t include the one I was sent via Edelweiss ( You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty ) or the one I got directly from an author ( Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots ).] All told, if my counting is right, I left reviews for a total of 30 books in 2022. I DNF’d (Did Not Finish) a total of 5 of them. I’m hoping to pull back on how many I request in the coming year because reading and reviewing on a deadline, no matter how much time I’m given, becomes like work and I’ve found that reading obligations put me in a reading slump. I’m much too much of a mood reader to be able to read and review to someone else’s timeline.  If you request ARCs, how do y

  📚  Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown  📚   🥁   🥁   🥁   🥁   🥁 #1   Something Fabulous   &  A Lady For a Duke  by Alexis Hall  I grouped these two together because I don’t know if one deserves to be ranked above the other. For me, these books are Alexis Hall doing the best work of his career. They’re very different books - SF is a hilarious, over-the-top love letter to Regency romances while ALFaD actually IS a Regency romance. (ALFaD is profoundly beautiful. And it has a declaration of love in it that rivals Darcy’s for Elizabeth Bennett.) But both books exhibit everything Hall excels at and in the most entertaining ways.  3️⃣  2️⃣  1️⃣  🎊 What did you think of my Top Ten (or thirteen) choices? Have you read any of them? Will they be on your TBR for 2023? What are some of your favorites this year?

📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚  #2 Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo This might actually be the first horror novel I’ve ever read and it absolutely blew me away. The writing was subtle and masterful. It was so atmospheric you could almost smell the dirt and feel the humidity in the air. The characters were so believable and well drawn it made the supernatural elements even scarier because it all felt so real. I want to read more by Lee Mandelo!!!! 

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown  📚   #3  The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi  Ugh. I loved this so much. Everything about it was  🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 K nights, tournaments, chivalry, ethics, secrets… The angst, the longing, oh it was exquisite. It was 500 pages but I was sad when it was over because I wanted more.  My full review of The Scottish Boy can be found here . 

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚  #4 Heated Rivalry and  The Long Game by Rachel Reid  If you don’t know Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov by now, what are you even doing with your life? Go discover Rachel Reid’s genius already. These and the other two books in the Game Changer series I’ve read so far have been the most amazing, addicting, compulsively readable spicy fluffy romances I have ever read. I NEED MORE. (I put these two together in one place because the books are an inseparable pair in my mind. They must be together. Like Shane & Ilya.)

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚   #5 A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland  A cinnamon roll prince and his cinnamon roll bodyguard fall for each other in a slow burn mystery/romance set in a long-ago middle eastern-style fantasy world. I read this one back in August and I still think (daydream, internally scream) about it practically daily. There are kaftans and doors and hinge pins and JUST READ IT OKAY  My full review of A Taste of Gold and Iron can be found here . 

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚  #6 The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer A mind-bending, thrilling, character-driven dystopian space odyssey that will leave you with a broken but mended heart and an existential crisis. Not just one of my personal favorites but also one of the best books I read all year.

📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚  #7 You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi  Just a beautifully written story about surviving grief and finding love again with loads of drama thrown in. Feminist, queer, and stunning. I’d never read anything by Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) before but this definitely made me want to try some of their other books.  *Books pictured: UK cover (left), US cover (right) You can find my full review of You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty  here .

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚   #8 The Bodyguard by Katherine Center  This was sweet, swoony, funny, and just everything you could want in a romance all pulled together with excellent writing. Aspects of the MC Hannah’s backstory hit home for me with this one and made it that much more impactful but the plot is legitimately interesting and the characters are fantastic. This feels to me like an excellent example of the best of the Romance genre.  You can find my full review of The Bodyguard here . 

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚  #9 So This is Ever After by FT Lukens I will never not recommend this book. This is a Forever Favorite. It was one of my first reads of 2022 and I still love it so much. An Idiots to lovers/soulmates queer romance that is absolutely hilarious and starts the story at The End. Arek is a Chosen One figure in this D&D-inspired medieval fairy tale where shenanigans and romance and hilarity ensue. Just read it, it’s fabulous.  You can find my full review of So This is Ever After here .

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚   #10   Icebreaker by A.L. Graziadei  Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez  Technically I read these in ARC form in 2021 but they were both released in 2022 and I think they deserve some recognition on the list. These will always be two of my faves, for very different reasons, but they are both absolutely amazing and deserve all the love. Icebreaker is a queer hockey romance with excellent mental health rep; PoYW is a semi-magical small town romance with great characters and is hands down Abby Jimenez’s best work to date.  You can find my full review of Icebreaker here   and my review of Part of Your World here .

I want to do a Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown and I thought I’d start with a group of runners-up that didn’t crack my Top 10 but definitely deserve an Honorable Mention for being utterly fantastic books.  These are stories about finding love and family, sometimes in unexpected places, single parenthood, coming out, starting over, grumps and the rays of sunshine who love them, and any number of other tropes, but they’re all well written, filled with heart, and offer a whole lot of amazing rep. And I LOVED THEM ALL. They will be on my shelves for a long time to come. 📚 Have you read any of these? What made YOUR faves list this year? Books shown: 📕Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell 📗How To Fake It in Hollywood by Ava Wilder 📕Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots by Cat Sebastian 📗Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish 📕Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade 📗Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon 📕The Suite Spot by Trish Doller 📗Love at First Spite by Anna E Collins 📕The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale by Stephani

  Unexpecting by Jen Bailey YA, LGBTQ    Romance Wednesday Books Scheduled release: 8/22/23 🍂  5 stars out of 5  🍂 “ Sometimes doing the necessary thing, even when you’d rather do anything else, is the right thing to do. ” You know those books that just get better and better as you go along? This is one of those books. The premise was enough to hook me, the plot hit the ground running on page one, the characters completely had me wrapped around their fingers, and the emotional stakes just increased with every page turn. By the 70-80% mark, I was in tears. I really loved this one.  Ben is the sweetest kid. He’s 16 and an excellent student, super smart, responsible, a hard worker, but now he’s struggling to make sense of his life now that he’s found out he got his friend pregnant. He’s also gay. So there’s a bit of angst and drama but Ben ends up learning a lot of important lessons with the help of his amazing support system of family and friends.  Ben has grown up with a revolving doo

  Solomon’s Crown  by Natasha Siegel Scheduled to publish on March 14, 2023 // 5 👑 out of 5 // This is Richard I/Philip II fanfic and I’m so here for it. If you’re unfamiliar with these historical figures, never fear because IT DOES NOT MATTER. Siegel makes it clear in her author’s note that she plays fast and loose with historical accuracy - in that there is very little. 😂  Richard I and Philip II are one of those “were they lovers?” situations. (Historians just love telling us how two kings sleeping in the same bed was a PR move/political statement. Sure, Jan.) And frankly they lived 1000 years ago so it’s damn near impossible to get a definitive answer but who cares? They lived a THOUSAND YEARS AGO. To us, they have always been and will always be characters in a story. This author is just using them to tell her own story.  The family drama between Richard, his father the king, and his brothers was compelling and totally had me invested. I know a (small) bit about the Angevins and

⏳ Coming Soon ⏳ ARC reviews of two new queer YA books: Unexpecting by Jen Bailey and  Darkhearts by James L. Sutter 🔜 🔜 🔜 Synopsis: Benjamin Morrison is about to start junior year of high school and while his family is challenging, he is pretty content with his life, with his two best friends, and being a part of the robotics club. Until an experiment at science camp has completely unexpected consequences: a baby. After he came out, Ben and his mother never expected him to be raising a baby as a single dad, but together they come up with a plan to fight for his rights and prepare him for fatherhood. As the weight of his decision weighs down on him, Ben struggles to keep up with school, friends, family, and a budding romance. Unexpected is categorized as YA (13-18) and is scheduled to be released by Wednesday Books on 8/22/23.  🔜 🔜 🔜 Perfect for fans of  Red, White, & Royal Blue  and  Perks of Being a Wallflower ,  Darkhearts  is a hilarious, heartfelt novel about fame, ro

Never Ever Getting Back Together   by Sophie Gonzales Available now! DNFd at 41% (Click on the title above for a synopsis and more info.) Okay so it wasn’t *bad*, there were just some choices made that felt inappropriate to me and, bottom line, just made it too much of a young read for me. I see people say they’ve “aged out” of YA or don’t feel comfortable reading it because they’re too old to relate to it anymore but I have never felt that way. I love rooting for a teen to find self-acceptance, self worth, or a love interest. I have no problem with that at all. Sometimes I even feel like I can vicariously relive my own teen years through them only with a much more satisfying outcome at the end. 😂  I also love a good frothy sleazy reality tv show as much as the next person. But can we at least agree literal teenagers probably shouldn’t be participating in them? These kids are 18. Sigh. No. Nooooo. This felt like a worse kind of exploitation than one normally finds on reality dating sh