Fiction

Highlands New Year

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Title: Highlands New Year

Author: Amy Quick Parrish

Year: 2023

Genre: romance, travel

Queer shit: one side wlw couple

Vibe Check: Snowed in at a Scottish bed and breakfast with romance and the warm and fuzzies

Pile of Opinions:

This book was a cute, romantic, snowed-in, Scottish slumber party! It was the perfect read for me during the summer as I prefer the cold weather. This is book two of three (that I know of) and I ordered book 1 and pre-ordered book 3 and am greatly looking forward to reading them as well. This book is less than 200 pages and makes for a great read-in-one-sitting story. Melissa moved to Scotland (I’m assuming in the first book) because she was told she inherited a home from a distant relative. Her best friend, Caitlin flies out to visit her and finds herself snowed in at a hotel with strangers, including one handsome man who plays guitar, sings like an angel, and makes her want to dive head first into the unknown. This book is exactly what I want in a romance that isn’t spicy. The romance was sweet and gives you the warm and fuzzies.

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Other Books by Amy Quick Parrish

Emma of 83rd Street

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Title:  Emma of 83rd Street

Author: Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding

Year: 2023

Genre: romance

Queer shit: a bisexual in passing

Vibe Check: Modern day Manhattan retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, cute, spicy, empowering.

Pile of Opinions: This one is a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma in modern day Manhattan. The classic age gap between the lead and her love interest (he remembers her being born, etc.) is a weird trope for me but at least the characters in this book directly address it (“suddenly she’s a woman and not a little girl, when did that happen” type of energy) so I’ll allow it. They grew up together and he is a total ass to her. I’m grateful she does humble him! A lot of times once love is confessed it just goes unaddressed so I’m glad the author makes sure to show that Emma is infinitely smarter than Knightley no matter how much older he is or how much more mature he thinks he is. He’s kind of a tool. He holds her to a higher standard than anyone else and is so mean about her humanness. He better spend his life trying to earn her attention haha  I know he is like weird protective big brother energy until he realizes he loves her but also that’s sort of toxic and he’s a mean big brother who bullies her several times because he’s immature and has zero emotional regulation apparently. Overall I love this retelling! It does get spicy (heyo!)! This is great for Austen fans, romance genre readers, and anyone looking for a story of a young woman finally seeing she is everything she needs to be and has accomplished great things and only needs to keep doing what she knows is best for her.

Professional Reader

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Clover Hendry’s Day Off 

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Title: Clover Hendry’s Day Off 

Author: Beth Morrey

Year: 2024

Genre: Empowerment, liberation, breaking cycles, positive midlife crisis

Queer shit: Gay side character

Vibe Check: Positive midlife crisis to seek self advocacy and build the life you want, it just may require burning some things down first

Pile of Opinions: Clover is a recovering people pleaser and professional doormat who decides today is the day to start being a human. She sets out and starts speaking her mind whether she means to or not because she’s had enough and she spends the day doing exactly what she feels like doing. I enjoyed the idea of this book and am proud of Clover for stepping out to advocate for herself and start recognizing what she wants to do. This book did start with her popping two Vicodin and getting a head injury that knocked her out and was bleeding but never looked at by a medical professional. Clover spends her day eating delicious things and burning some things down, while building other things back up, but what I thought would be a heartfelt and liberating story of Clover being set free was actually a very worrisome story. Yes, drugs not prescribed to us can impact us in ways like speaking our mind when we otherwise might not, but Clover went on a path of destruction that didn’t feel productive or healthy to me. She did a lot of self-sabotaging and made a lot of weird and destructive choices that never actually had consequences. This felt like a midlife mental breakdown, which are all entitled to, I just had a hard time rooting for Clover when it often felt like she was just having a head injury about town. She rode the line between self advocacy and fighting toxic with toxic like a tightrope. I did enjoy the characters and I do feel like the book ended with Clover finding some balance to move forward in life with better boundaries and better participation in her own life. I liked the relationships she had with people and where they grew to by the end of the book. The way she burned down her work enemies was really concerning to me as it felt like she forced something on people that could have been extremely triggering for many folks and since there was no warning it felt really upsetting to me. I understand she was standing up to a horrible excuse for a human, but there were other people, other women in the room, and that felt like a really traumatizing way to bring him down. You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed Ferris Bueller’s Day off and if you like seeing middle aged women stick up for themselves and heal from their past (I know I do, that’s why I chose this book). If you like “not as they seem” relationships that break down walls and grow in a very human way. Also there is a bunny and that’s honestly reason enough to read this. 

Professional Reader

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The Name Drop

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Title: The Name Drop

Author: Susan Lee

Year: 2023

Genre: Coming of age, family expectations, economic class, 

Queer shit: not that I remember

Vibe Check: Wealthy Elijah and lower middle class Jessica accidentally swap lives for the summer and decide to not correct it, sweet and funny romance and exploration of breaking free from family expectations and building your own future

Pile of Opinions: A mix-up with names at the airport leads to a summer of opportunities. Elijah and Jessica decide to take advantage of the airport’s mix up and swap jobs for the summer. Elijah, set to spend the summer in New York at his fathers company, decides to go incognito and live the summer as a regular intern and leave the executive training program to Jessica. Elijah is from a 1% family in Korea and Jessica from a middle class family in Southern California, the two get to explore New York City together and realize they enjoy spending time together. This is a beautiful coming of age story about breaking free from toxic family values and learning who supports you in living the life you want and finding happiness. This book also tackles class and financial privilege, misogynistic companies too set in their old ways, as well as complex family dynamics. This book is for romance readers, YA readers, and anyone who wants to read about someone else’s family drama for a few hundred pages. This is my first read of Susan Lee’s and I’m looking forward to jumping right into Seoulmates asap. Let me know if you’ve read this one and what you think in the comments.

Professional Reader

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Legends & Lattes

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: Legends & Lattes

Author: Travis Baldree

Year: 2022

Genre: Fiction, fantasy, gaslamp fantasy, romance, coffee shop

Queer shit: Yup! Lead character, also baked goods, tell me cinnamon rolls aren’t queer!

Vibe Check: Viv is done fighting beasts and ready to open a coffee shop in a new town, but first she has to build it (and teach people what coffee is)

Pile of Opinions: Viv is an orc ready to leave the violence of swords and quests behind and settle down into a new town and build a coffee shop and community. She faces obstacles and has to overcome some local trouble makers but this low stakes fantasy is as cozy as your favorite coffee shop. I recommend this to anyone who likes stories, liking fantasy or coffee is not a prerequisite. I don’t have much to say about this book other than you should read it and it immediately became one of my favorites so go read it then come tell me what you liked. The found family/community aspect of this absolutely melted my heart and the characters were all unique and delightful. There is a character that is nearly non-verbal, there is queer shit, and there is baked goods and coffee. Let me know if you’ve read it and what you thought.

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A Psalm for the Wild-Built

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Author: Becky Chambers 

Year: 2021

Genre: Sci-Fi. Low stakes, post-industry

Queer shit: Genderqueer, pronouns

Vibe Check: Genderless tea monk sets out on a quest to hear crickets in the wild and meets a robot who becomes their companion

Pile of Opinions: What a precious little piece of a tree pulp! This book healed parts of my soul I didn’t know a book could heal. A genderless tea monk decides to search for crickets to hear their song and on the way meets a robot that lives in the wild with other robots since all the factories were shut down out of respect for the robots’ rights. This book is so wholesome and raw. The world is so broken and it’s overwhelming and this book made me want to make tea and go in search of cricket songs. This book immediately made it to my list of books I get for people as gifts regardless of what they usually read. Very excited to read A Prayer for the Crown-Shy 🙂

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City of girls

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: City of Girls

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Year: 2019

Genre: Fiction, female relationships, building a life, responsibility (idk, these aren’t genres)

Queer shit: One side gay character, a threesome, lesbians, theater (IYKYK)

Vibe Check: Young woman decides to go against the plan her family had for her life and moves to her Aunt’s theater in NYC after dropping out of college in 1940

Pile of Opinions: This book as a whole piece was confusing to me as it felt like the first 250 pages were one book and the last couple hundred were a second book. I enjoyed both books but they didn’t feel cohesive. I felt like the first part felt like what I expected the book to be about and I loved it and enjoyed it. It was very coming of age, finding your purpose outside your parents’ expectations, understanding the value you already have that you can contribute to a community, fitting in without losing yourself. I loved the friendships and lessons learned and observations. I enjoyed the second part of the book, living through the war and building an independent life as an adult in NYC. I loved the friendships in this book and enjoyed seeing how they change over decades. This book was told from the perspective of the lead woman looking back on her life and telling her stories as an old woman. Seeing friendships over a lifetime and how someone can be our everything for a time and out of our life another time and that doesn’t make the relationship any less valid or important. I read this book in a few days and I feel like perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it over a longer period of time. Some shows aren’t meant to be binged in a single weekend and some books aren’t either. I really enjoyed this over all once I accepted it as more than the 250 I expected it to be and enjoyed it for the collection of stories that it was. I love a good found family and there should be more books about the beautiful chaos of a theater community.

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