Anita Kelly

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On Stick Season by Noah Kahan.

I don’t listen to albums anymore.

It’s one of the truths of my adulthood that I am most personally ashamed about; it feels like such an utter betrayal of my younger self. And not even my teenage self, but my twenties self, too! Falling in love with an album is very akin to falling in love with a book, to me: it requires a significant amount of time spent between just you and the art, without other distractions; it is personal, a journey, a moment of your life captured through someone else’s heartfelt work. So much of what I am, at my most personal and essential levels, is captured, at least in my head, through the albums and the books I have loved.

Except then you reach thirty, and you inch ever closer toward forty, and suddenly your back hurts more than it doesn’t, and sometimes you stand up and say “fuck, my knee,” and you lose the focus to listen to an entire album all the way through. At least, this is what adulthood has meant for me; I understand other people my age are still able to absorb full albums of actual newly produced music and I am both happy for and jealous of them.

I still listen to music, of course, almost a voracious amount; I have long commutes, and my focus for podcasts went out the window years ago (same for audiobooks), so I spend hours every week listening to music in the car, contributing to global warming and thinking very meandering thoughts. Except the music I listen to these days is almost exclusively from playlists I’ve made for books I’m writing, which, if I’m in the thick of writing, will be all I really listen to, or if I’m allowing my brain a break from made up characters and situations, I’ll listen to my “Faves [The Current Year]” playlists that I curate annually, composed of random single tracks that have caught my ear from the radio, or from a coffee shop, or popular culture, or someone else’s writing playlist. I’ve been in Book 3 Playlist land a lot these days, so I haven’t been listening to many new things, but one track I heard on the radio recently landed in the “yeah, this deserves to go on the faves playlist” side of my heart, and I was altogether startled when I went to do so and realized I needed to start a “Faves 2023” playlist for it. Where currently, it’s still the only track, but by August or so things should really be pumping.

Or sometimes, I get depressed and make a playlist of all of the happiest, most sentimental songs I can think of from my youth, and title it “trying,” and it helps a little bit, for a while.

The point is, I either listen exclusively to nostalgia, or a very random assortment of singles, and it will never earn me any kind of street cred but it’s how my brain works now.

Until! Stick Season by Noah Kahan.

God, it’s felt important, falling in love with a whole ass album again. Like a little return to my old self, waving and saying, “hey, you! remember how we used to feel things so deeply, all the fucking time?”

It is not at all surprising, of course, that I fell in love with this album; “sad white man with long hair + folksy guitar” is pretty much the blueprint to Anita. I am not reinventing the wheel here. Still, falling in love with this album feels almost as important to me, creatively, as the 100k+ words of Book 3 I wrote over the same past few months.

Stick Season is essentially my kryptonite: it tells a story, centered around a place. I live for storytelling via songs, and when it’s centered around geography? Even better. My assessment of the story of Stick Season—and this is just my interpretation; if Noah Kahan shows up here he has every right to be like, “fuck you, you don’t know me, that wasn’t what I was singing about at all,” but just for the context of this post—something painful has inspired Kahan to return to his small hometown in Vermont, that he has a lot of conflicted emotions about, in a “I love this place deeply but also it depresses the fuck out of me” kind of way. There’s also a bunch of stuff about addiction in here; it’s very possible the addiction is the something painful that’s all wrapped up in Vermont, or simply a response to whatever else has happened. It is an overall angry and often terribly sad album, with these little pops of brightness and optimism here and there to even it out: quintessentially bittersweet.

After falling in love with Stick Season I went back and listened to Kahan’s previous albums, because it’s that kind of obsession, and I was struck at how much Stick Season stands apart. I didn’t dislike the other albums, and completely admit that I haven’t given them enough time to truly sink in, since I just keep wanting to go back to Stick Season. There was one track from an earlier album, “False Confidence,” that had been one of the singletons that made it onto my “Faves 2019” playlist (a particularly bangin’ faves playlist, and “False Confidence” was one of my favorites on it), a connection I hadn’t made previously, and that was a fun little “oh shit, I’ve liked this guy for years!” moment. But overall, his earlier work lacks both the cohesiveness and the bitter melancholy of Stick Season.

Which makes me feel like…fuck, I’m sorry for whatever happened to Noah Kahan that inspired him to make this angry and sad masterpiece, but also, I’m grateful? Which is how I feel about all my favorite art, really. Sorry about the pain; thanks for all the solace your pain gave me! For real, though, you made something really beautiful; hope you have better days soon.

Which brings me to a list of my favorite tracks that I’d love to highlight here, because…just because I’ve been thinking about them all a lot and need to say it all somewhere.

Northern Attitude: A really strong first track that sets the mood of the whole album. Which I love. We love a good thesis statement!

If I get too close
And I’m not how you hoped
Forgive my northern attitude
I was raised out in the cold
If the sun don’t rise ’til the summertime
Forgive my northern attitude
I was raised on little light

I should also say that I’m extremely susceptible, as someone raised in a small town in the Northeast, to feel a particular parasocial kind of closeness to this album. But really, I think anyone who was raised in a place where it gets fucking cold and dark in the winter can relate to a lot of the feels here. (Or even if you weren’t! Blaming your sadness on your environment is a forever vibe.)

Stick Season: I actually don’t have a ton to say about the titular track, which remains as jangly and weirdly infectious the five hundredth time you’ve heard it, except to say that I feel it only gives a hint to the feeling of the whole album, and also that I remain strangely grateful for the moment, in the rambly honesty of the lyrics-packed song, when he mentions COVID-19. I know a lot of artists have this kind of code of like, let’s just pretend in our art right now that this weird world-altering thing hasn’t happened/is happening because it’s still too hard and strange to even process, which I get, but hearing “Doc told me to travel, but there’s COVID on the planes” months ago when I first heard this song gave me this like, stomach-swooping sense of relief that remains every time I hear it. Because like, fuck. There is COVID on the planes! Thank you for saying it, Noah!

All My Love: This is one of those moments of bright optimism I mentioned earlier, the brightest of them all, really, even with the hints of melancholy still present. I mean, the chorus literally mentions antidepressants, so. (Which was confirmed in a delightful Twitter thread I was part of months ago where a bunch of queer writers were like “is he saying pills or pails” and then Noah himself jumped in and was like “pills, I was talking about antidepressants” and we were like oh! thanks Noah! and it was this moment of Twitter pureness I still think about sometimes.) The lyrics suggest it’s simply a song about a one-night stand, but either way, when he sings: It’s all okay; there ain’t a drop of bad blood; you’ve got all my love—it like, soothes every single bad thing that has ever happened to me or anyone in the history of the world.

New Perspective: This has turned out to probably be my most-listened to track on the whole album, which tickles me because like…I don’t know why. There are objectively better bangers, more evocative tracks; but this one has just wormed its way into my head and I want to listen to it all the fucking time. It tells the story of returning to a place that has changed, and to the people who have perhaps changed with it (the title comes from a lyric about wishing he could take someone’s new perspective and shut it in a closet and “drag you back down”). But singing ooh, this town’s for the record now; the intersection’s got a Target, and they’re calling it downtown brings me more satisfaction and joy than I can truly explain. I dunno! I just fucking love it!

I put this one on my Book 3 playlist (along with “All My Love,” because like, I write romance; including “All My Love” is a requirement at this moment) even though it really has nothing to do with Book 3 at all, but I’ve listened to it so much this winter it just had to go there.

Everywhere, Everything: Another moment of lightness and optimism here—perhaps the most romantic song on the album?—while also having perhaps the most dramatic chorus of any of them. Just one of those great walls of sound kind of choruses that make me want to throw my hands in the air and film a sepia-toned montage of the world.

Everywhere, everything
I wanna love you ’til we’re food for the worms to eat
‘Til our fingers decompose
Keep my hand in yours

Which makes me laugh because like, talking about decomposing fingers is so! very! not my vibe! lolol AND YET. Singing this chorus is so damn satisfying! The first verse of this one is also so relatable (and gentle): Would we survive in a horror movie? I doubt it, we’re too slow-moving; we trust everyone we meet.

Orange Juice: Okay. It is possible I’ve written this entire thing just so I can talk about “Orange Juice.” If I was a smart enough person to be an academic, I would want to write a dissertation on this song. This track, to me at least, digs into addiction & sobriety more clearly than any other track on the album, even though drinking and getting high are mentioning explicitly in many others. The title comes from (again, my interpretation) a loved one offering up a sober person, or someone trying to get sober, orange juice instead of alcohol at a party. A gesture that could be seen as sweet, perhaps, at least on the surface, and the song starts that way: sweet, gentle, kind. Except then the vibe changes, and dramatically, to pure anger.

And I honestly have no idea what’s happening in this angry part; there’s mentions of car crashes and bones in the ground and passing out from drinking in someone’s yard. It’s dark shit. We’re not supposed to know; it’s Noah’s song. But the chorus that’s repeated is someone telling someone else that they’ve changed, and it’s hard to tell whether it’s the teller or the recipient who’s angrier about it, but it’s sung with such deep heartache: And you said my heart has changed and my soul has changed, and my heart, and my heart…

The transition to this darker portion of the song (which is the majority of the song) is told through this vulnerable verse that works so well:

Feels like I’ve been ready for you to come home for so long
That I didn’t think to ask you where you’d gone
So why’d you go?

And even though, again, I have no idea what this song’s really about, that verse always makes me feel guilty about not visiting my hometown enough, for moving so far away in the first place. Phew! A real stab in the heart. I truly am sorry, Mom and Dad.

But then the angry part transitions back, at the very end, to a repetition of the first gentle verse; a tried and true trick. And the transition this time is not as (purposefully) carefully done as the initial transition. Kahan finishes the final line of that angry portion—You didn’t put those bones in the ground—on an almost heavy sigh. Like he’s just fucking exhausted. He doesn’t want to have this fight anymore.

And then there’s only the barest pause before the soft, pretty guitar comes back in with the same verse that started it, but it just feels so much fucking sadder now, even if you don’t know why, and I don’t know how Kahan’s able to fit so many different emotions in this song but I am just. Really deeply impressed with it, and feel like it encapsulates the various emotions that come with loving someone who’s struggling so well that I can’t listen to the end of it without crying.

Honey, come over
The party’s gone slower
And no one will tempt you
We know you got sober
There’s orange juice in the kitchen
Bought it for the children
It’s yours if you want it
We’re just glad you could visit

Growing Sideways: (tw: suicidal ideation) Phew, okay, well, now that we’ve got “Orange Juice” out of the way, let’s jump right into this happy tune, which is one of my favoritest, most bleakest songs about depression I’ve ever fucking heard. It starts with a fun little story about a horrible therapy experience, and then goes into this line, which is my favorite on the album:

And I divvied up my anger into thirty separate parts
Keep the bad shit in my liver
And the rest around my heart

I mean. Fuck. FUCK. That is so fucking good. It bowls me over every single time.

The whole song seems to teeter back and forth between actual suicidal thoughts and the detached kind of numbness that sometimes comes with antidepressants (and/or substance abuse). I am absolutely in love with the chorus, which just summarizes depression so horribly well:

But I ignore things, and I move sideways
Until I forget what I felt in the first place

But then there are lines like and if all my life was wasted, I don’t mind; I’ll watch it go; it’s better to die numb than to feel it all. And I’m just like Noah. NOAH. PLEASE I DON’T KNOW YOU BUT PLEASE TAKE YOUR MEDICATION AND HUG YOUR DOGS. Because fuck. Fuck.

And in the end, that is the side the song ends up leaving on—the “might as well take my medication and keep on waking up I guess” side, in the most poignant but noncommittal way of the depressed:

Oh, if my engine works perfect on empty
I guess I’ll drive
I guess I’ll drive.

Fuck.

Homesick: Probably the most quintessential song on the album for us Stick Season Folks, this is one of those absolute bangers that’s included later on in the album, a move I always respect. I feel like it’s Noah Kahan (and any other artist who arranges an album in a similar way) saying, “I know you want to get to the ‘mean in New England’ song, but listen, you have to get through all these other fucking songs first because I worked hard on that shit too.” OR, alternately, Noah Kahan saying, “Sorry, I know I just had a bunch of sad fucking shit in a row, here’s one you can shout out the car window,” which, as someone whose main edit note on my last book was “let’s try to make this a little less sad so people actually want to read it,” I totally get.

Anyway, this song is great. It’s just great! You really have to listen to it to understand WHY it’s so incredibly gratifying to shout—

I would leave if only I could find a reason
I’m mean because I grew up in New England

—but MAN, it just is! He also does this thing when singing “I’m mean” where he makes “I’m” into like five syllables which is also a move I respect. And while I’m on the themes of my writing and New England, this feels like an appropriate time to blame the fact that I have to say to my editor every single time I turn in a draft, “and I’m sorry, again, about the cursing; I promise I’ll work on it in edits,” on the five years that I lived in Boston. I was so pure and innocent before then! But it fucking changed me.

This song also REALLY gets at the heart of growing up in a small town, PARTICULARLY this line, which I feel with my entire soul:

Well, I’m tired of dirt roads named after high school friends’ grandfathers

Because like, that’s it! Everything is named after someone you or your mom or your grandfather knew! And it’s so nice and why did I always know I could never stay and also I’m homesick.

This line actually always brings me back to this time in high school when I had a psychology class with this old teacher who had taught at my high school for decades and decades, including a full decade too long, and he was probably not all right in the head and the entire experience of that class was unhinged. We took a bunch of weird field trips, including one to his family’s largely defunct farm, and I can’t remember why, likely because there wasn’t an actual reason. I remember some classmates and I standing in a derelict shed where there was a dead squirrel on a shelf and just feeling like, wow. This is dark. But everyone in the class knew this teacher was not right in the head, that nothing we did the entire semester involved any amount of educational value—it really brought us together—and on the way to his family’s largely defunct farm, he stood at the front of the bus, pointing out landmarks along the way like we hadn’t passed the same small town landmarks our entire lives, before he got into some story about wild times he’d gotten into with my grandfather back in the day at some of those landmarks, and I can’t remember what those wild times even entailed, just that I sank further and further into my plastic seat and wanted to die.

Anyhoo, back to Noah Kahan. Amazingly, I’m almost done.

The View Between Villages: Maybe tied with how badly I wanted to talk about “Orange Juice” was how badly I’ve been wanting to talk about this closing track. It’s one of those sparse, eerie closing tracks that’s solidly on the side of “we’re not resolving anything here.” I love these kinds of closing tracks, and this one’s really a master class. It starts quiet. It tells a simple story. The most essential story (I know I’ve used the word essential too much in this post; I will feel badly about it later) of returning to a small hometown:

Alone, in your car, driving down a lonely, familiar road at night.

And for a moment, the nostalgia washes over you, deep and fragile and true.

Feel the rush of my blood
I’m seventeen again
I am not scared of death
I’ve got dreams again
It’s just me and the curve of the valley
And there is meaning on earth
I am happy

And then. Then whatever has happened to Noah Kahan, whatever loss he’s experienced, whatever trauma he’s lived through that has spawned this entire album, comes back, and a bass line starts. And the almost-last verse of the album absolutely pulses through, urgent and echo-y and present and sometimes I listen to the whole album just to get to this, to the goosebumps it raises on my skin.

Passed Alger Brook Road
I’m over the bridge
A minute from home but I feel so far from it
The death of my dog, the stretch of my skin
It’s all washing over me
I’m angry again
The things that I lost here
The people I knew
They got me surrounded for a mile or two

(And half a breath as the bass and percussion and extra strings drop away and—)

The car’s in reverse
I’m gripping the wheel
I’m back between villages
And everything’s still

And then everything is still. Just a few long, quiet stretches of sound while he sits on that bridge. And the album ends.

It is haunting.

It is perfect.

(Traditional) Publishing & Our Brains: We Are Not Equipped for This Shit

Recently for dayjob, I went to another training from Kevin Ashworth, founder of the Northwest Anxiety Institute. I’ve seen Kevin speak before, and I am a bit obsessed with him. He’s funny and smart and one of those presenters where everything he says has your brain and heart screaming yes and oh god it’s not just me and can you talk for like five hours more because my blood pressure really likes this.

Anyway, Kevin often starts off his talks with explaining the difference between stress and anxiety. This is always a pretty simple explanation, but for some reason always feels revolutionary in my head, and on this day in particular it really struck me in regards to publishing, especially now that I’ve lived through my traditional debut.

Stress is when we’re presented with a problem that really sucks, but it’s a problem with a solution, something we can problem-solve. It’s short term, until that stressful thing is over. The example Kevin normally gives is getting a flat tire. It sucks and causes a lot of stress, but you can call AAA. You can call a friend for help. You can call a Lyft to get home. Eventually, you can get the tire fixed and move on with your day.

Most jobs, in general, are stressful. But there are metrics by which you know you’ve done a good job. You secured that deal. You got a good review from your bosses. You finished that report. You got a bonus for your efficiency.

(Kevin also gave the example of, if you are working three jobs and feel awful all the time and then go to therapy and say, help me feel less anxious, you are actually probably suffering from stress, and there is a solution, which is, maybe stop working three jobs, and wow did I feel called out!! [I understand that often that solution is not one people can actually accomplish, that they are working three jobs because they have to, but still, ouch.])

In publishing, there are a lot of things that cause stress, too. Like, writing a book. Writing a book is fucking stressful. Writing a book, or working on edits, on a deadline is fucking stressful. But we can do it (most of the time). We can ask our daily supports for time away from parenting and partner-ing to get the work done. We can drink lots of coffee and force ourselves to put the words on the screen. We can ask friends and beta readers and CPs to help solve problems in our drafts.

Anxiety is a problem that does not have a solution. They are problems that we do not have any control over whatsoever. Anxiety is spending every day worrying about whether you might get a flat tire, even though you have no control over whether there are nails in the road you’re going to drive over today. We literally do not have control over those nails, there is nothing we can do about it, but we are anxious about it anyway.

Well. Let me tell you! How many things in (traditional) publishing writers have absolutely no control over!

We have no control over agents. Over whether there are agents who even exist who will “connect” with your very specific work. Same goes for editors. We have no control over publishing not paying either of these entities enough, or hiring enough of them, or preventing them from suffering burnout. We have no control over advances, if we get advances at all, or royalties, or how those are actually distributed. (We often don’t even know how many books we’ve actually sold.) We have no control over marketing budgets. We have no control over awards, or lists, or TikTok virality. We have thrown our shit out there, and we have no control over what happens next.

(Sure, you can write the best book you can possibly write, but everyone knows publishing isn’t a meritocracy. We have all read books that blow our socks off that have received very little “buzz,” we have all read books that have sold millions of copies that make us go “eh?” Writing the best book you can is the one thing we have control over, but really, in publishing, that doesn’t always mean much.)

It’s not that there aren’t metrics, really; it’s that there are too many of them. Even when you have hit a lot of them, there are always more out there, needling our confidence. There is no performance review where your boss says, good job! You have done your job real good. You win publishing.

We can market ourselves, of course, as much as we can, through social media and events and our websites, but even that doesn’t usually move the needle much in overall sales. But it’s this sector that I think really drives the anxiety.

Maybe there are writers out there who are super confident in their work. They’ve written their heart out, know that it’s the best they can do. They’ve worked their way through the tiers of publishing and now it’s out there in the world. They go back to things they can control: writing the next book. Working in their garden. Making dinner for themselves. Binging their favorite TV shows. God bless these people.

But for most of us, we only return to a vacuum of constant reminders about things we can’t control, but that somehow, because of the engine of social media, we feel like we should. You published a book! Yay, have 24 hours of feeling kind of proud of yourself.

And then start worrying about sales numbers, about your reviews on Goodreads, about your reviews on Amazon. About whether your book will sell enough for multiple printings. Will you sell translation rights? Will you sell TV/movie rights? Will you make lists? Will people make fanart? If none of those things happen, does that mean your book sucks? Is there a monthly subscription for Ben & Jerry’s? Why did you want to do this anyway? What if people loved your first book and now you have to write a second book and what if the first book was just a fluke and everyone fucking hates your second book? What if your partner starts resenting you for all the time you ask off from life to go write? What if your beta readers are just being nice to you because they’re nice people? What if someone found a tweet you tweeted in 2014 when like you were super dumb and young and then you get cancelled? Why have you been on Twitter so long anyway? What if all of your posts are really annoying and everyone secretly hates you? What if you’re talking about your book too much or not enough? How much more money than you, exactly, do you think that Nazi romance author got? Like, thousands and thousands of dollars, right? Will you ever make enough to write full-time? Will writing full-time make you lose your mind, because writing is so weird and personal and it’s hard to do it all the time, and people will judge you for wanting to write full-time because like, that’s not a real job anyway, and people will say things that hurt your feelings even though you know you’re working really hard? Why do you care about any of these things? Why do you feel so weird all the time? Why are you always comparing yourself to others when you know that you’re doing the very best you can?

Because…the publishing machine TRAINS us to compare to others. There is literally no escaping it.

Even though we have no control over any of it.

Even though our brains were not equipped for any of this.

One of the things that Kevin also talks about, in his talks, is that traditional coping mechanisms for stress often do not translate to anxiety. Things like self-care: taking a nice hot bath, eating well, going for walks, all help ease stress. Those are nice things to do for ourselves when we have turned in those edits on deadline.

But they do not actually solve anxiety, as long as all those things that trigger anxiety still exist. One of the things that does help anxiety is competence: having exposure to the things we are anxious about and conquering them. Each time you deal with a flat tire competently, your anxiety about future flat tires, should, eventually, decrease. So I imagine, one day, when I have published 45 books, maybe I will be less anxious about it.

Until then, though, I will keep doing what my heart loves, to the utter frustration of my poor brain.

Top 20 Reads, First Half of 2021

My reading life has felt very off this year, which I’ve learned really throws my mental health. But maybe the actual reality is that everything has felt off this year.

I break these reading roundups into half because doing one big year-long roundup at the end of the year stresses me out—my memory is not that impressive! Last year, I listed my top 25 reads for each half of the year. This year, looking through my reading history of the last six months, I was able to scrounge up 20—which is actually more than I thought I might find. Looking back on all these wonderful reads actually felt quite therapeutic—maybe my brain hasn’t been so off after all.

So here are those random 20 that kept my brain tethered through 2021 thus far. As always, in no particular order:

How to Fail at Flirting - Kindle edition by Williams, Denise. Contemporary Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

How to Fail at Flirting, Denise Williams
Contemporary romance; Berkley (2020)

This was just a really pure delight. I loved the absolute dorkiness of both Naya & Jake; just thinking about them still makes me smile. It was so easy to fall in love with them from the start. And even though this book deals with heavier themes too, Williams handles it so well (and I’ve seen her direct readers to her content warnings so many times), that I still feel light when I think about this book. Warm, charming, and powerful. Can’t wait for Williams’s follow-up!

One Hot December (Men at Work, 3): Reisz, Tiffany: 9780373799244: Amazon.com: Books

One Hot December, Tiffany Reisz
Contemporary romance; Harlequin (2016)

One Hot December is the last in a holiday trio (the first books in the series are set around Halloween and then Thanksgiving) that I gobbled up this winter, even if I was a bit behind with this Christmas one that I didn’t actually read until January, oops. While they were all super enjoyable, this was my favorite of the bunch, probably because the heroine was a prickly lady welder, lol. There are two things though that I really loved about this whole series: one, it takes place on Mt. Hood, Oregon (where apparently Reisz lives!!), one of my very favorite places in the world. (Do I think of Reisz and this series every time I go there now? Yes.) Two, you can just tell how much fun Reisz had while writing all of them, which honestly felt…a little revolutionary? Feeling how much fun she must’ve had writing them was so fun to engage with as a reader, and was inspiring as a writer. Like, oh yeah. Sometimes, this can just be fun.

Amazon.com: The Guest List: A Novel (9780062868930): Foley, Lucy: Books

3. The Guest List, Lucy Foley
Mystery; William Morrow (2020)

You can thank the book club I started participating in this year for this one, a book totally out of my wheelhouse but that I totally enjoyed nonetheless (it’s good to get out of your wheelhouse sometimes!). A really tight writing style that I loved, and a great whodunit murder mystery wherein you didn’t only not know who the killer was, but also who the hell was actually murdered. As a bonus, it was really fun yelling about all the horrible people in this book with my book club friends over Zoom. (So many horrible people!!)

Perfect Matcha: Bold Brew Book 3 by Erin McLellan, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®

4. Perfect Matcha, Erin McLellan
Contemporary erotic romance; Self-published (2021)

This was book #3 in the Bold Brew series, a multi-author 10 book series based around a kinky gay coffeeshop in a college town in Pennsylvania. I also read Books 1, 2, 4, and 5, and will probably read the other 5 left in the series at some point when I need something fun and distracting because, well, I am trash. Books 1 and 2 (Cup of Joe by Annabeth Albert and Puppuccino by Allison Temple) were also really enjoyable, but it wasn’t a surprise that Perfect Matcha was my favorite, since in my mind, Erin McLellan can do no wrong. Cam and Theo and their role-playing and pining and toy exploration were adorable.

I will say that this series advertises Bold Brew as an “inclusive” coffeeshop, even though every book in here was m/m—so like, just call it a gay coffeeshop/series. I would have loved this series even more if it actually was inclusive—if there were some f/f stories thrown into the mix, or more trans stories, too. Having a solid m/m series is easier for marketing, but also, like…screw Amazon keywords and search algorithms sometimes, ya know? We can be better.

The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate, #2) by Rosie Danan

5. The Intimacy Experiment, Rosie Danan
Contemporary romance; Berkley (2021)

This was the gentlest, softest book about the most badass people. Most romance readers know the pitch by now—a porn star and a hot rabbi—but this really is an emotional tour de force about faith, vulnerability, and love. I will note for transparency that I know and love Rosie very much, but this one felt really special to me and wrapped itself all the way around my heart.

Shipped: Hockman, Angie: 9781982151591: Amazon.com: Books

6. Shipped, Angie Hockman
Contemporary romance; Gallery (2021)

This debut romance mostly set in the Galapagos was simply so much fun. The pitch for this one is also well documented—The Unhoneymooners meets The Hating Game—but this enemies to lovers really worked for me because Henley and Graeme’s relationship never actually felt toxic to me (my problem sometimes with enemies to lovers)—readers know pretty much from the jump that Graeme is, in fact, a golden retriever that you want to cuddle and squeeze to death, and that the only actual toxicity between them is their workplace. And getting to watch Henley deal with that is super, super satisfying. Smart and charming and heartfelt.

There Will Be Phlogiston (Prosperity Book 3) - Kindle edition by Hall, Alexis. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

7. There Will Be Phlogiston, Alexis Hall
Queer fantasy romance; 2018 (self-published)

This completed my foray into Hall’s Prosperityverse, and I honestly wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it, since it was said to be the story of Lady Rosamond Wolfram, who was…not painted in the best of lights in previous installments of this universe. But then again, like with a lot of Hall’s work, this whole series was ABOUT exploring extremely flawed people—and the occasional pure beams of light who love them anyway, like Byron Kae in previous installments, and like Anstruther Jones in this one. So really it all made total sense in the end. What I will always remember most about this book was that even if Rosamond, Anstruther Jones, and Lord Mercury all lived in a dark, fucked up world…the ending for all of them was so fucking satisfying I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days. This also might have been the first menage romance I’ve ever read? I…was a fan. lol.

Damaged Goods: A Small Town Romance (Ravenswood) - Kindle edition by Hibbert, Talia. Contemporary Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

8. Damaged Goods, Talia Hibbert
Contemporary romance; 2018 (self-published)

Damaged Goods is an extra story in Hibbert’s Ravenswood series, slotting I believe between Books 1 and 2, and it is technically a novella, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that because this book made me feel more things than like, a majority of the full-length novels I’ve read. It’s a second chance romance between very pregnant Laura and her childhood love Samir Bianchi, and I love Samir Bianchi so much that I can only call him by his full name, and goddamn, Hibbert is so good! She’s so good at writing about heavy topics (both Laura and Samir have lived through significant trauma) but with characters that bring each other so much lightness and goodness, full of so much natural chemistry and humor, that it just feels wonderful to read. Also this novella is FREE? LIKE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT RIGHT NOW FOR FREE?? We do not deserve her.

Big Boy - Kindle edition by Knox, Ruthie. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

9. Big Boy, Ruthie Knox
Contemporary romance; 2017 (self-published)

Since I’m on the topic of novellas, I’ll jump into this one, which…phew. PHEW. I’m not sure if novella is even the most accurate term—short fiction, maybe?—because this one is a mere 77 pages, and how, HOW Ruthie Knox was able to knock me flat in 77 pages, I will never comprehend. Again, I feel like I remember both of these characters so much more vividly than half of the full-length novels I’ve read. This was another download I clicked because of Twitter, and like always, the readers I trust on Twitter GET ME, because this was the kind of super emotional gut punch I live for. Big Boy is, in fact, not a reference to the hero of this story, but to a train—a train that lives in a museum, where two almost-strangers occasionally meet to role play and make love. And oof, this book IS sexy, but more than that, it is just…an emotional gut punch. I know I already said that, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it.

A Lady's Formula for Love by Elizabeth Everett: 9780593200629 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

10. A Lady’s Formula for Love, Elizabeth Everett
Historical romance (Victorian England); 2021 (Berkley)

Whenever I read well-done historical romance, I basically putter around the apartment muttering, “Okay, but how can they be so smart?” Like, how can historical romance writers understand history, and plot, and romance, and writing, all so freaking well? And then sometimes they go and add science to the mix, too, like this fantastic debut, and I really start to lose it. Anyway—this romance between a lady scientist and her bodyguard ticked so many of my boxes—a damn-what-society-thinks super-smartypants heroine, a starchy, buttoned up hero with wounds who falls to pieces over said smartypants heroine, a great cast of supporting characters, and a twists-and-turns mystery. I can’t wait for more.

(I will note here that I have read critiques of Everett’s inclusion of a trans character in here and the choices she makes in regards to him. I respect those critiques, and people’s choice to maybe not read this book because of that [and to disagree with what I’m about to say]. My own viewpoint is that writing trans characters into historical fiction is extremely tricky—there are simply so many ways to describe being trans now that did not exist in the Victorian Era—for which I personally give authors grace. And that overall, the choice to include a trans character at all in historical fiction—and one that is so openly loved, accepted, and supported by the main characters, as is the case here—is one that is still powerful and important to me, and I was really grateful to see it in a book published by Berkley.)

11. Float Plan, Trish Doller
Women’s fiction; 2021 (St. Martin’s)

This book will undoubtedly be in the running for my Top 5 favorite books of all of 2021. (Being that we’re still only at the halfway mark, I’m leaving room for others to possibly really wow me.) I’d call it women’s fiction with a strong romantic plot line, since there is fantastic romance in here, but the heart of the story is really Anna’s grief. (This is one of those ones where I feel like the cover and marketing misrepresent what this book actually is…which is not Doller’s fault.) Struggling to get over her fiancé’s death by suicide, Anna impulsively sets off for the Caribbean in his sailboat one day, the one they had planned to sail around the world in together. After an initial scary foray off the coast of Florida, she realizes she can’t go it completely alone, and hires Keane Sullivan to help her reach Trinidad, where she and her fiancé were meant to be married. Doller’s writing is just so tight, and this was such a sparkling, fascinating tour through the world of sailing and the Caribbean that left me in awe, and aching to explore the world and respect my life. Keane is dealing with demons of his own, and the way Keane and Anne respect and honor each other’s grief is just…healing and beautiful. This one stayed with me for days.

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting - Kindle edition by Charles, KJ. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

12. The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting, KJ Charles
Queer historical romance; 2021 (self-published)

So here us KJ Charles fans were, waiting for the last installment of the Will Darling Adventures, and she was like hey, actually, have this book instead! And we were like, okay! (I mean it’s possible she had always planned to release this one before Subtle Blood and I just wasn’t paying attention; it’s hard to keep track of these prolific geniuses.) This standalone romp of two swindling siblings trying to escape their past and make their way in the world, and the grumpy baronet who gets in their way, was an absolute delight once I got immersed and like, understood what the hell was going on. (One signature of Charles’s work, if you’ve never read it, is that she really just throws you right into it, and it almost always takes me a good few chapters to feel like I actually know what the hell is happening. But then I love it!) Charles is so good at plot, and that “but how the hell is this actually going to work out” feeling, and then swooping in with the MOST satisfying endings. A wizard.

The Ex Talk: Solomon, Rachel Lynn: 9780593200124: Amazon.com: Books

13. The Ex Talk; Rachel Lynn Solomon
Contemporary romance; 2021 (Berkley)

In addition to being one of the kindest, most generous humans on the planet, Rachel Lynn Solomon is now pretty firmly entrenched as one of my favorite writers, too, and I loved The Ex Talk, her adult romance debut, just as much as I knew I would. Anyone who loves NPR and podcasts will feel SO SEEN by this book, and she is just so, so good at that seething rivals-to-lovers explosive chemistry. Gah. Her characters/writing also just have so many funny, relatable, lovable details crafted into them that make them last in your mind—I read this months ago and just the other day on the drive home, totally randomly, thought about Dominic’s master’s jar and felt so happy. And now I’m thinking about it again and feeling so happy again!!

Amazon.com: Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers) (9798623912671): Liese, Chloe: Books

14. Only When It’s Us, Chloe Liese
Contemporary new adult romance; 2020 (self-published)

Liese is an author I kept hearing about last year and only finally got off my duff to start reading this year, and now I cannot wait to keep shoveling in every other book she ever writes. This is a romance set in college, so I’d consider it that new adult category that publishing is determined to make not exist and that readers continually beg for. Willa is a stubborn, hotheaded soccer star, so of course I loved her immediately. Ryder also used to be a soccer star, but has abandoned the game—and speaking—after losing his hearing. There is a lot going on in this book (big warning that Willa’s mother is dying of cancer), but the chemistry between Willa and Ryder is so fantastic (and fun, and frustrating, and warm), and Liese’s writing that level of emotional that I love, and so much about this felt fresh and different from romances I’ve read before. Like a big hug, even if I have personal FEELINGS about the end of Willa’s soccer storyline, which has 100% to do with my own soccer feelings and not Liese’s writing, lol. (Go Thorns!)

Hot Copy: A Novel - Kindle edition by Barrett, Ruby. Contemporary Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

15. Hot Copy, Ruby Barrett
Contemporary romance; 2021 (Carina)

This is a super steamy office romance between a buttoned-up boss and her gooey soft cinnamon roll intern, but at the heart of the office dynamics and the steam is actually a mutual connection over dealing with grief. This book was also super fun for me because it was set in Boston, and I will always be sentimental over anything to do with Boston (where I used to live and where I started my own love story). It’ll make you turned on AND make you cry, my favorite combo!!

Waiting for a Scot Like You: The Union of the Rakes - Kindle edition by Leigh, Eva. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

16. Waiting for a Scot Like You, Eva Leigh
Historical romance (Regency England); 2021 (Avon)

Give me “grumpy Scot” + “road trip for a merry widow to visit an orgy” and I am already a very happy person! This final installment in Leigh’s 80s inspired Union of the Rakes trilogy, like the whole trilogy itself, was just a really good time. I am here for grumpy/sunshine, along with “adventurous woman finally chasing adventure after being held back by men” every damn day. Every time I hear “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” on the radio now, I think of these books first.

Erotic Stories of Punjabi Widows (2017) — Balli Kaur Jaswal

17. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, Balli Kaur Jaswal
Contemporary fiction; 2017 (William Morrow)

Another book I probably wouldn’t have picked up without my book club (thanks book club!), there was so much to enjoy about this book—in particular, the fact that it is about exactly what the title says, lol. An exploration and tribute to the South Asian community of Southall in London that’s both critical and loving, I loved rooting for Nikki, but loved rooting for the Sikh widows and their erotic stories (which listen, some of them were really good) and dreams even more.

As If on Cue | Book by Marisa Kanter | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster

18. As If on Cue, Marisa Kanter
Contemporary YA; 2021 (Simon & Schuster)

I loved this SO much. This is the only YA on this list, which proves how behind at my day job I’ve been…but reading this made me realize how much I do miss reading YA. This is a great rivals-to-romance story (pitting the band geek against the drama nerd when their school’s arts budget is cut), but I particularly loved the well-drawn depiction of Natalie’s family (and Reid’s, too, although Natalie’s is at the heart of the book). The writing is so clear and clever and current—this is a YA book for teens (particularly, driven, nerdy teens). I have seen some criticism of Natalie’s actions in this book: she is very intense and makes some very no-good horrible decisions in here. But for me (in addition to adding to the drama of the story, from a narrative perspective—my jaw literally dropped when she did The Thing), Natalie rings even truer to me as a dynamic teen character because of her flaws. Teenagers are very intense and make very no-good horrible decisions sometimes. And all of her fears that prompted her bad decisions rang true to me. Also: let’s not even talk about Reid and his curls! Anyway, this one comes out in September, and I can’t wait to buy it for my high school library.

Accidentally Engaged: Heron, Farah: 9781538734988: Amazon.com: Books

19. Accidentally Engaged, Farah Heron
Contemporary romance; 2021 (Forever)

This was just a treat and a half. (I’ve also mentioned this elsewhere, but I am OBSESSED with the lettering on this cover.) Nadim was a DREAMBOAT of a hero—DREAM. BOAT. And (similar to As If On Cue actually) I loved all the detail/complexity paid to Reena’s family and their dynamics. The plot was also a fun twist on the fake engagement/dating trope, as it was like…a real/fake/real/fake engagement (probably not a technical description; read the book to understand what I mean). Heron also gives such wonderful, loving descriptions of food in her books. Bread is the real star of this one (my favorite scene of the book is hands down when Nadim keeps like a hundred sourdough babies whilst looking after Reena’s sourdough starter), but there is so much MORE than bread, too, that I was salivating for most of this read.

An Unexpected Kind of Love by Hayden Stone

20. An Unexpected Kind of Love, Hayden Stone
Queer contemporary romance; 2021 (Entangled)

Hayden is a friend of mine, so I’ve had the pleasure of reading this in a few stages of its journey to publication, and I’m so excited to see it go live. Out in August, this is a queer take on Notting Hill, featuring a grumpy British bookseller and a charming American actor, and do you even need to know more than that? Stone’s writing is at turns wry and poetic, and I just really love these two and their sweet, tender love story. I want to hang out in Soho at Barnes Books so bad.

I’ll be back in December or January with my favorite reads of the second half of the year—when I’ll also be just weeks away from releasing my own book. (!!) I definitely won’t be freaking out at all.

Anita

25 Favorite Books: First Half of 2020

These are in no particular order (seriously) and are not exclusive to books published in 2020, but simply what I’ve personally read in 2020. So, like everything else about me, supes random! And my commentary below each one aren’t really reviews, per se, more like…just feelings about how that book made me feel. So, now that you’re PUMPED for this, let’s gooooo!

Love from A to Z, S.K. Ali
YA Contemporary; 2019 (Salaam Reads/Simon & Schuster)

I read the award winning Saints and Misfits a couple years back and enjoyed it, but it was one of those books that I knew objectively was beautifully written but I personally had a harder time getting into than I wanted. Likely because it deals with themes of sexual assault (among other things), which is often hard for me. Did I get wrapped up into Love from A to Z so much faster because there’s a much stronger romantic element with a totally swoon worthy hero? Probably! Listen, I know who I am, okay?!

Along with the swoon worthy romance (they connect with the same piece of art, influencing their life philosophies, years before they meet each other *sob*), this one also deals with so much: MS, loss of family members/grief, drone strikes, Islamophobia. And Ali’s talent with words is just incredible. Ali’s female MCs in both of her books so far are so fiercely angry and I respect that so much. This book also takes place in Doha, Qatar, a setting I don’t think I’ve ever read in fiction before.

He’s Come Undone: A Romance Anthology, Emma Barry, Olivia Dade, Adriana Herrera, Ruby Lang, & Cat Sebastian
Adult (mostly contemporary, one historical) romance; 2020 (self published)

When I saw this anthology announced on Twitter, I SCREAMED?! And then the whole thing was EVEN BETTER THAN I DREAMED?!

This is a group of novellas by a group of top-notch romance authors all centered around the beloved trope of a buttoned-up man getting totally effed up by love. Of the five authors, the only ones I hadn’t actually read before were Emma Barry and Olivia Dade, and I so loved getting my first tastes of their work here. From a writing perspective, I so, so admire these writers’ ability to pack so much character development and story arcs into these novellas; like, how?! I consumed this anthology slowly like a fine wine, and I loved how different each story was, as well. The characters ranged from piano virtuosos to murder diorama artists to professional baseball players to middle aged women having to move back home to take care of ill parents to sad teachers in 1970s New England private schools and phew! I wanted to hug each and every one of them!!!

The Prince of Broadway, Joanna Shupe
Adult Historical Romance [Gilded Age, NYC]; 2019 (Avon)

This is the second in Shupe’s Uptown Girls series, and I really enjoyed the first installment, The Rogue of Fifth Avenue, last year, but THIS ONE! Holy shiiiit. First off, this has one of the hottest sex scenes I’ve read (yeah, the mutual masturbation in the brothel one), and it happens relatively early on, too, so this book was already a W I N N E R for me lolol but seriously, this is one of the most fiercely feminist historical romances I’ve ever read. Even with a real alpha hero, Florence—an uptown girl who is determined to open her own illegal lady run casino for ladies only—meets him beat for beat. Just two alphas really alpha-ing it up in here. This also has the best ending I have ever read in a historical, or really any romance ever. Just thinking about it makes me so very very happy.

What I Like About You, Marisa Kanter
YA Contemporary Romance; 2020 (Simon & Schuster)

This book is the epitome of adorable, and also really niche nerdy, as the MC is a book blogger/influencer whose ultimate goal is attending Book Con. As a book nerd I enjoyed this aspect, although I did think some teens who aren’t as attuned to the world of publishing might be like “WTF is going on” for some of it, lol. BUT that’s okay because the relationships and character development are the real universal story here. I am such a sucker for this You’ve Got Mail-esque trope, where one of the protagonists keeps her online identity secret as she gets to know her online best friend IRL, unbeknownst to the best friend. It’s just…such a good trope, for so many reasons!

I also enjoyed this for the fact that the characters rang as true to me in terms of being teens. So many YA books these days have their characters going through such dark, adult-level emotions, and believe me, I am not saying that those emotions and experiences aren’t legit, because they are. Seriously, I love your dark YA. But also, like…some teens are just nerds. And while both characters in this book do in fact have older-than-their-years worries (the MC is literally running a full time business at the same time that she’s trying to survive as a high school student), I enjoy that they also like, stressing about AP tests. And a lot of the scenes—the bowling alley traditions, the hangouts in friends’ basements—really felt like genuine high school to me.

A Night to Surrender, Tessa Dare
Adult Historical Romance [Regency England]; 2011 (Avon)

In my self-directed Introduction to Romance education, there were three authors who were truly instructive to me: Alyssa Cole, Cat Sebastian, and Tessa Dare. I want to write more extensively about each of those authors at some point, but when I was really, frankly, feeling like shit a few weeks ago, I realized how long it had been since I’d read a Tessa Dare. I flew through her most recent Girl Meets Duke series first, and then went back and devoured her Castles Ever After series, but that was all last year. So a few weeks ago, I prescribed myself with a Dare for my mental health, and oh man, it was the right choice. This is the first book in her Spindle Cove series and I forgot just…how happy her books make me? That sounds so simple but it’s so true and important. Dare is funny, and romantic, but all of her premises are always so genius and FUN and PERFECT. Like Spindle Cove, a lovely seaside village in the British countryside that is ruled by women who either don’t fit in with regular society or need to recover from society’s traumas. I want to go to a seaside British village run by ladies!! Tessa Dare also frequently writes about disability. One of my favorite heroes ever of hers is the blind duke from Romancing the Duke; I similarly enjoyed the injured military man who gets wrecked by Spindle Cove here.

The Chocolate Thief, Laura Florand
Adult Contemporary Romance; 2011 (Kensington)

This is one of those books that I likely never would have picked up on my own (the cover, eh), except that it was recommended by Charlotte, one of my Twitter mutuals that I trust about everything, during the #RomBkLove Twitter event in May. And I was so pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this story about an heiress to a Hershey-esque American chocolate empire who goes to Paris to woo the finest chocolatier in the land into a business deal. When the chocolatier says nah (obviously), she takes to spying on him and his kitchen, and I sort of love how obsessed this woman is? Like…she is seriously out of her mind about chocolate, y’all. Like, she should probably calm down, honestly, but she doesn’t, and I love that the hero, when he finds out how obsessed she is, is just…turned on by it?? lol romance is the best. Anyhoo, in addition to the delight of reading a book that’s literally entirely about chocolate, there is a particularly hot scene where they somehow bang while walking up stairs, which was rather remarkable. My only complaint, actually, is that I wanted much more banging after this scene and it didn’t happen, which was probably an editorial decision, but it’s FINE I guess.

The Roommate, Rosie Danan
Adult Contemporary Romance; to be published September 2020 (Berkley)

Since I was just talking about banging, feels natural to talk about The Roommate next! Which is the only book on this list that isn’t out yet, so you should pre-order it! [ETA: It’s out now and people love it and it’s been optioned for film and omg I’m so happy??] Disclaimer: I know her!! So I am biased. But the setup of this one is just, ugh, perfect. An uptight socialite from Connecticut moves to LA to be roomies with her lifelong crush, or at least that’s what she thinks. But SURPRISE when she gets there the crush says oops, sorry forgot to tell you, I’m going on tour with my band now, but don’t worry!! I got some other dude to lease my room. And that other dude is totally a porn star! Our heroine is shocked, and…intrigued. This book is so smart and sex-positive and good and hot, and I loved learning more about the porn/sex worker industry. I love Josh and Clara so much, and it’s so fun watching other people start to read and love this as it gets closer to publication.

Pansies, Alexis Hall
Adult Contemporary Queer Romance (m/m); 2018 (self-published)

I’m now wondering if my previous list of Alyssa and Cat and Tessa being my most instructive romance authors was wrong, and if Alexis Hall should be added to that list. Being that I am absolutely, completely, stupidly obsessed with Alexis Hall. Yes, okay, I’m doing it! My list is now Alyssa, Cat, Tessa, and Alexis Hall. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I read all of the Spires stories this year (even though that, again, doesn’t feel real, I have definitely been reading them for like a decade at least) and I’m going to mention two of the other ones on this list too in a bit, but Pansies is the last of the series, the most recent one I read, and it just really hit me in the feels. I think because it takes place in a small town. The MC is a guy who used to be a bully back in high school, a big man around town who was similarly successful when he moved to London and made a lot of money but…still doesn’t really feel comfortable being an out gay man, still doesn’t really know who he is, and coming back to his small town, where he falls in love with this total messy disaster who’s trying to keep his dead mother’s flower shop alive while drowning in grief, this guy whom the MC used to bully in high school, it brings the MC to his knees basically. I mean, everyone in the Spires books are brought to their knees by feelings, which is why I love them so much. But queer small town feels are A Lot for me, and this book…yeah.

Well Met, Jen DeLuca
Adult Contemporary Romance; 2019 (Berkley)

This was such a perfect comfort read for me. I think a book like this translates to comfort read when the world building is done really well. And in addition to the romance in this Renaissance Faire rom-com being just so good, I really felt like I was inside that Renaissance Faire, like I could live in the fictional small town of Willow Creek, and like I could go back there again and again. I mean, when we weren’t at the Ren Faire, we were in a bookstore! Loved it, and can’t wait for the sequel later this year.

When Dimple Met Rishi, Sandhya Menon
YA Contemporary Romance; 2017 (Simon & Schuster)

This book brought me out of a major YA reading slump, which I am so grateful for! I’d been meaning to read Menon’s Bollywood-inspired rom-coms ever since this came out (and I now can’t wait to read all of her others), and I fell for both Dimple and Rishi, who meet at a coding camp for teens in the Bay Area (after their parents have already arranged for them to date and hopefully marry), so hard. This was one of those YA romances that also felt genuinely sexy to me [which I think is fair to say not in a creepy way but in a way that acknowledges that teens can have sex lives], where their relationship felt hard won and real and I was just dying for them to get their HEA, and then the HEA was so perfectly over-the-top romantic. This also includes a couple fantastic scenes where you get to see brown teens just really hand white kids their dumb arrogant asses. SWOON.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Talia Hibbert
Adult Contemporary Romance; 2019 (Avon)

Talia Hibbert wrote one of my absolute favorite reads of last year (Work for It) and this one got so much great good hype that I knew I would love it, and yup, I really did!! This is another trope that I’m always into—the MC makes a list of Things To Do to Feel Alive! after living a relatively sheltered life. I will always love a list! She’s rich and successful at her job, but also suffers from chronic pain due to fibromyalgia, which causes her to rarely leave her apartment. She’s also fat and hot, which I love too. Also hot: Red (ugh, such a good hero nickname), the super of her apartment building who is hiding himself from his impressive art career. There are so many hijinks and sexy bits and a cat named Smudge. I am currently (im)patiently watching for its sequel to arrive at my house from Powell’s.

A Charm of Magpies series, KJ Charles
Adult Paranormal Queer Romance (m/m); 2017 (self-published)

I am counting all three of these books as one because I read them all in a row in the space of like, a week, which was omg so fun! These books are also ~spooky~ which, as the world’s biggest scaredy cat, always makes me feel proud of myself! Seriously though, these books are different from most of the books I read (as this list shows), all nonstop action and suspense and I couldn’t tear myself away from them. These two dummies almost die for each other like a gajillion times and there are sex-fueled tattoos and I loved every second of it.

Flowers from the Storm, Laura Kinsale
Adult Historical Romance [Regency (I think?) England]; 1992 (Avon)

This is one of those old school romances I’d been hearing about since joining the romance community, and I am so pleased to learn that the reason everyone loves Kinsale is because Kinsale is bananapants. Just non-stop, over the top drama. The first half of this book takes place in a mental institution, because the Duke of Jervaulx has suffered some type of affliction that’s never named but I assume was some type of stroke. It’s left him essentially mute, which obviously back in the day equaled insane, and his awful family ships him off to the institution and proceeds to attempt to steal all of his wealth and power. The woman who ends up being his nurse (basically) is of course the only person who believes he’s perfectly sane, and while she tries to fight for his salvation, she is also a Quaker who disagrees with everything the Duke stands for? Like, hardcore Quaker drama in here, which I was! not! expecting! I also wasn’t expecting a mental institution, but these are the joys when you jump into an old school romance that you knew absolutely nothing about beforehand!

Something to Talk About, Meryl Wilsner
Adult Contemporary Queer Romance (f/f); 2020 (Berkley)

You’ll note that there are a ton of m/m romances on this list but this is the only f/f, and there’s a lot to unpack there both concerning myself and the publishing industry, but right now let’s blame it on the publishing industry because that’s easier! f/f is simply not published NEARLY as much as m/m. (Malindo Lo has a lot of good essays about why.) You typically have to find queer small publishers to find f/f romance, at least until Something to Talk About! Whooo. Disclaimer: I know them and so I am biased!! But once I sat down and opened this slow-burn Hollywood-set romance between a lesbian show runner and her bisexual assistant, I couldn’t stop, and finished it within a day. It’s compulsively readable and charming and comforting. There are so many great side characters in here too, like Emma’s fat sister who runs a bakery. My favorite scene in the book is probably when Emma, the assistant, has an asthma attack when they’re on their way to a shoot, and Jo, the show runner who is previously Miss Professional At All Times, loses her shit (at least, for Jo), and ugh! When someone who doesn’t realize they’re in love with the other person yet sees that person get hurt or be vulnerable in any way and they get so disproportionately protective! *weeping face* Pump it into my veins!

Invitation to the Blues, Roan Parrish
Adult Contemporary Queer Romance (m/m); 2018 (self-published)

This is the sequel to Small Change, which I also read this year and really loved, but Invitation to the Blues has stuck with me so hard for so many different reasons. I do hate this cover, though, because Jude’s red hair is LONG; it is mentioned so many times, Faron plays with it and braids it all the time so why is it short on the cover, I hate it. BUT I love everything else about this book. I love, first of all, that this book takes place in Philly! And both Jude and Faron are such interesting, memorable characters, and their chemistry is just…fantastic. Jude, whom we meet in the first book, is a musician who’s struggling with mental health after a suicide attempt, and the way Parrish describes depression here, and importantly, how Faron loves him—neither as a burden, nor as a problem to be “solved”—is so, so good. I think about this book so often even though it’s been months since I read it.

Love Lettering, Kate Clayborn
Adult Contemporary Romance; 2019 (Kensington)

Clayborn is such a master of words in general, but what I think is so compelling about her is that her books feel both quiet and action-packed all at once, which is especially true of Love Lettering. She is so good at describing all the little details of a life, so that you feel like you know these people, inside and out, and it makes all the emotion packed into even the small actions in the pages so…intense, but in such a quietly realistic way. I absolutely loved the premise of the love story in here—a lettering artist who tries to both fall in love with her own art again and get a small-town man to fall in love with New York City by taking walking tours of the city’s best hand-lettered signs. This is already like, so up my alley that I am 100% there, but there is also a fantastic female friendship subplot that felt so realistically painful and important to me, and then, like, WHOA there is exciting stuff that I didn’t see coming at all. This book is lovely, through and through.

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager, Ben Philippe
YA Contemporary; 2019 (HarperTeen)

This book is about a Haitian-French-Canadian kid who moves to Austin, Texas for his mom’s new job. He chronicles his Canada-to-Texas culture shock in his journal, framed by all the American high school tropes he’s seen in movies. Norris is such a caustically funny character that I both loved him and hated him, you know? (He is also so voicey that I frequently wondered if this should have been written in 1st person instead of 3rd, but I eventually got used to it.) But heart eventually shines through all of the self-deprecating humor. I love both Madison and Liam, two people Norris never would have expected himself to become friends with; they are both such great characters. And what I actually love about this book is that Norris is actually like…called on his shit. Or rather, he has to own up to the fact that his sarcastic, whipsmart attitude might be hilarious but also hurts people. Which, as a lover of HEAs, I simultaneously hate, because being called on his shit means that he doesn’t necessarily get an HEA. But it is arguably an HFN (happy-for-now), which is really probably the only honest ending for a YA. (Even though I still want the HEAs anyway, obviously.)

Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid
Adult Contemporary Queer Romance (m/m); 2019 (Carina Press)

This book. All banging. All angst. All the time. This is the best enemies to lovers romance I will ever read, THAT’S IT, NO QUESTIONS. This is the second book in Reid’s Game Changers series, and like A Charm of Magpies, I consumed all of them within a week, and honestly loved all of them and can’t wait until the fourth comes out in the fall. But I will never get enough of Shane and Ilya, their HEA is the best, I want to read this book again and again, the grilled cheese and the lake house and all of it, UGH. I love this book and the rest of us out there who love it, collectively. I’m so glad we have this small joy in our lives together.

A Duke in Disguise, Cat Sebastian
Adult Historical Queer Romance (f/m) [Regency England]; 2019 (Avon)

I caught up on Sebastian’s Regency Imposters series this year by reading both this and A Delicate Deception and really loved them both and had a hard time deciding which to feature here. So, whatever, just imagine I’m featuring both because I’m obviously going to talk about them both. It was interesting because both are super different—A Duke in Disguise is more action packed, about political activists in the city trying to break down the system (the system which one of them, of course, discovers he is unwittingly a part of), while A Delicate Deception is much more quiet, about two anxious people being anxious together in the country. I have to note that I’ve seen a few people on Amazon/Goodreads describe these books as the first straight ones Sebastian has written, and like I KNOW one should never read Amazon/Goodreads reviews, but just to be clear! These books are still hella queer! Like literally everyone in A Delicate Deception is queer, and I love how the heroine in A Duke in Disguise has only ever slept with women before so she’s like “huh, being attracted to a man, interesting, I mean I guess I’ll try it” or at least that’s how I pictured her thoughts in my own head. Anyway, bad people die, queer people get to live the lives they want, I love Cat Sebastian. (And no, I have not read Two Rogues Make a Right yet and I can barely stand it.)

For Real, Alexis Hall
Adult Contemporary Queer Romance (m/m); 2018 (self-published)

I tried a few BDSM books before For Real, but the power dynamics in some of them…made me uneasy. For Real, for me, was the first kink book I read (which is likely 100% due to my own kink lit ignorance) that actually described the power dynamics in a way that totally made sense to me, that felt equal and beautiful and hot and wonderful. (All of which might be even more impressive considering this is also a love story between an older and a much younger man.) Totally worthy of the Lambda & RITA Awards this book won; just incredible. Have I mentioned I love Alexis Hall.

The Worst Best Man, Mia Sosa
Adult Contemporary Romance; 2020 (Avon)

This is one of those rom-coms that is just so fun along with being steamy and sweet and interesting. The set-up of this one is great, wherein a Brazilian-American wedding planner trying to grow her business has to work with her ex-fiancee’s brother (the ex-fiancee who broke up with her the night before their wedding years earlier) on a business deal. Watching them fall for each other was so hilarious and satisfying; you really wanted both of them to win their end of the bargain! The whole sequence where they get roped into the couples’ retreat, from being trapped in those big plastic balls to the sexy sexy car scene the next morning, is one of the most memorable parts of a book I’ve read this year.

Hurricane Season, Nicole Melleby
Middle Grade Contemporary; 2019 (Algonquin)

This is the only middle grade book on this list, which is interesting to me. I have been reading some middle grade (although I should be reading more), but this is the only one that really stuck in my heart this year, even though middle grade is often so easy to get stuck in my heart. Hurricane Season is about a girl with a mentally ill father, who becomes obsessed with Vincent Van Gogh because she thinks if she can understand Vincent, maybe she can understand her dad, and she can help him be better, so that CPS doesn’t take her away from him. It’s an all around gut wrencher that also has really lovely LGBT themes.

Wicked and the Wallflower, Sarah MacLean
Adult Historical Romance [Regency England]; 2018 (Avon)

Sarah MacLean is one of those romance powerhouses that I had never read before, and now that I’ve finally read one, I get it! I have to admit it took me a little while to get into this one, because I felt like there was a lot of repetitive stuff at the beginning. BUT once the action really got going! Phew! I couldn’t stop reading, and I can’t wait to read the rest in this series. I also loved how the trajectory in this one (similar to The Prince of Broadway) was the opposite of what you read in many Regency era historicals, where women from lower classes accidentally land themselves a duke. Here, the MC does want to land a duke at the beginning, to be clear, BUT then is like, “What if I just want to lead a life of crime instead??” An obvious superior choice!

Glitterland, Alexis Hall
Adult Contemporary Queer Romance (m/m); 2018 (self-published)

Glitterland was my first Alexis Hall and I still heart it so much. I’m including all the Spires stories here separately (& I should note that I did also read and love Waiting for the Flood but it didn’t affect me as much as the other three) because they are all so different, at the same time that they do have a similar feel. And that feel is feelings, lolz. What I remember loving so much about this one, an opposites attract story between a very depressed man and a literally glittery man, is how well Hall captures depression and mental illness (similar to Invitation to the Blues). But when I look back through some of my favorite quotes from this book, I forget how funny Hall is, too? Like, laugh out loud funny, and yes, I am dying to read his upcoming rom-com, I can barely even talk about it. But something else that’s captured in Glitterland and the other Spires stories that I appreciate too is the messiness of queer friendships sometimes, friendships that can meld into romantic or sexual relationships and back again, and it’s a particularly queer thing that only queer authors like Hall can truly get. These books are, in general, full of messy mess while still being so beautiful, and that is such a gift.

The Undefeated, Kwame Alexander & Kadir Nelson
Picture Book; 2019 (Versify)

One day earlier this spring, back when we could still go into our jobs every day, I spent my morning reading through a bunch of picture books I had purchased for my middle school library and crying. There were probably better ways I could have been spending my work time, but also, probably not.

There are so many beautiful picture books out there these days, but this one is put together by two absolute powerhouses of kid lit and it is, in my opinion, one of those essential books that every child in this country needs to have available either in their home or their schools. Kadir Nelson is the illustrator of this New Yorker cover that has gotten a lot of traction lately, along with many other covers and many other remarkable books. His work is absolutely stunning, and having it overlaid with Alexander’s strong, joyous verse is impactful to your core.