Her Good Side by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Summary from Edelweiss:

**A New York Times Best Romance Book of the Year** A swoony, heart-melting YA romance from beloved author Rebekah Weatherspoon about two awkward teens who decide to practice dating in order to be good at the real thing. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Jenny Han.

Sixteen-year-old Bethany Greene, though confident and self-assured, is what they call a late-bloomer. She’s never had a boyfriend, date, or first kiss. She’s determined to change that but after her crush turns her down cold for Homecoming—declaring her too inexperienced—and all her back-up ideas fall through, she cautiously agrees to go with her best friend’s boyfriend Jacob. A platonic date is better than no date, right? Until her friend breaks up with said boyfriend.

Dumped twice in just two months, Jacob Yeun wonders if he’s the problem. After years hiding behind his camera and a shocking summer glow up, he wasn’t quite ready for all the attention or to be someone’s boyfriend. There are no guides for his particular circumstances, or for taking your ex’s best friend to the dance.

Why not make the best of an awkward situation? Bethany and Jacob decide to fake date for practice, building their confidence in matters of the heart.  

And it works—guys are finally noticing Bethany. But things get complicated as their kissing sessions—for research of course!—start to feel real. This arrangement was supposed to help them in dating other people, but what if their perfect match is right in front of them?

So, I LOVE Rebekah Weatherspoon’s adult romances – super sexy, kinky, and funny. And I was super-excited to have made my one visit to The Ripped Bodice (since I don’t live in California) when Rebekah just happened to be picking up a shift. (I got my copy of Rafe signed, eeeee!) So I was really interested in Rebekah’s debut YA romance. And it sounded so cute.

Fear not! It does not disappoint! Her Good Side is an adorable but extremely relatable fake-dating romance between Bethany, a self-described late-bloomer who wants a little romance, and Jacob, the photography whiz who gets a rep as the hot guy who gets dumped. After Jacob gets dropped by Bethany’s friend for being “boring” (aka quiet and not overtly horny) and Bethany gets turned down for a date because that guy doesn’t want to be her first date (uh, sorta gross my dude), Jacob and Bethany concoct a plan. They will fake date to raise each other’s romantic profile in the school’s gossip network. Does this involve cute Halloween costumes? Yep. Does this involve joint babysitting of rebellious younger sisters? Yep. Does this involve yummy cooking exploits? Yep. And does this involved kissing for “Science”? Double-yep. And then those pesky feelings had to go and get involved.

Oh, these sweet, awkward babies. Look, I know horny teenagers are a thing, but as someone who was also very much “I don’t get the hype” and didn’t date until college because, like, idk I was more into talking and less into doing #iykyk, I heart Bethany and Jacob forever for this. Being a teenager is so weird. You could not pay me enough to go back. But also…would I have liked some “practice time” dating a cute person who wasn’t going to shame me or anything for not being experienced or super-horny or anything? Oh, for sure!

On top of the A-plot, Bethany is working through the process of figuring out who she is and who she wants to be. She’s got two moms and two sisters were/are incredible basketball players and Bethany herself is really good at it…but she doesn’t love it. And since the expectation is that she will also go off to play elite college ball and then pro, she’s so worried that it’s going to change how her family thinks about her if she quits. Her true passion is cooking (yall, her sandwiches sound amazing). The way Weatherspoon explores the process of figuring out yourself through Bethany is so good. Also a great group of diverse friends in this book which is always super fun in a YA. Definite recommend.

CW for some implied fat-shaming/food-policing because Bethany (who is plus-sized) is told she needs to fuel her body better (paraphrasing) for elite basketball.

Dear FTC: I swiped the paper galley from the bookstore.

Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina by Georgina Pazcoguin

Summary from Goodreads: Award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, aka the Rogue Ballerina, gives readers a backstage tour of the real world of elite ballet—the gritty, hilarious, sometimes shocking truth you don’t see from the orchestra circle.

Swan Dive pitches us into the fascinating, dizzying lives of the dancers in one of the most revered ballet companies in the world. Georgina Pazcoguin, the New York City Ballet’s first Asian American soloist, tells her unfiltered story of leaving small-town Pennsylvania for New York City and training as a professional athlete, miles away from her parents, before finishing high school.

Rocked by scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement, NYCB sits at an inflection point, inching toward progress in a strictly traditional culture, and Pazcoguin doesn’t shy away from ballet’s dark side. She continues to be one of the few dancers openly speaking up against the sexual harassment, mental abuse, and racism that in the past went unrecognized or was tacitly accepted as par for the course—all of which she has painfully experienced firsthand.

But along with her desire for justice and a deep respect for her craft, Pazcoguin has an unapologetic sense of humor about the cutthroat, literally survival-of-the-fittest culture of ballet. She relishes telling us about the torture (but economic necessity) that is the holiday “Nutbuster” season and holds nothing back in relaying the face-plants, backstage fights, and raucous company bonding sessions. You’ll never see a ballerina, or a ballet, the same way again.

Swan Dive is a really good memoir about being a biracial Filipina ballet dancer at New York City Ballet and what she experienced in pursuit of the art form she loves. She describes microaggressions, macroaggressions, fat shaming, verbal and psychological abuse from the artistic director at NYCB (although he’s no longer there, Peter Martins casts a very long shadow by having casting control over ballets he created), and sexual harassment from colleagues (one of whom will get a glowing retirement performance this fall). Gina does not pull her punches in this book and at times it is hard to read her experience (a, because it’s painful, and b, it made me really mad). She’s a born storyteller, though, and I just flew through the book. In between the “memoir” chapters are short “Swan Dive” chapters – times when she took a big fall, and often is able to laugh about it later.

I do wish that she talked a bit more about the decision to start Final Bow for Yellowface. She does mention it in part of discussing the built-in Orientalism/Yellowface of the Nutcracker but I think some more information about her work with Phil Chan and how the organization works would have been good (they do have a book though: Final Bow for Yellowface). But that’s a very minor thing.

Swan Dive is out July 26!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Her Night With the Duke by Diana Quincy (Clandestine Affairs #1)

Desire knows no reason…

When Lady Delilah Chambers finds herself stranded at a country inn on a rain-swept evening, she’s forced to fend off a group of ruffians with the help of a handsome gentleman. Irresistibly drawn to each other, Leela and the stranger spend one reckless night in each others’ arms—and then go their separate ways. But the very next day Leela receives the shock of her life when she meets the duke who is set on wedding her beloved stepdaughter.

When it finds two destined hearts…

One night isn’t enough with a woman as fierce, fiery, and brilliant as Leela. Elliot Townsend, Duke of Huntington, cannot believe his good fortune when their chance encounter leads to an unforgettable evening of passion. Yet Hunt’s luck runs out when he is introduced to his prospective mother-in-law. Dowagers aren’t supposed to look like this… 

Leela and Hunt are determined to keep each other at arm’s length, which should be easy enough for two intelligent adults with reputations to uphold. The problem is all logic is lost when it comes to a passion that refuses to be ignored.

Stranded at a rural inn due to a storm, there’s only one couch (the inn doesn’t have any free rooms), so why not have a mind-blowing one-night stand with an intriguing stranger…only to find out days later that you will connected to this individual through an impending marriage. Not to each other…. Oops.

And that’s the runaway premise of Her Night With the Duke. Leela is on her way back to her deceased husband’s estate from her travels in the Levant to support her step-daughter Tori during an impending betrothal. When Leela is menaced by racists at a roadside inn – whom she dispatches handily with a knife – she attracts the admiration of a fellow traveler, one Elliot Townsend. Why not indulge a mutual attraction for just one night? Elliot inspires a passion that she didn’t realize possible. When she wakes in the morning, wrapped in his cloak, he’s gone.

Elliot, for his part, never would have dreamed he would temporarily misplace his consequence and spend a mind-blowing night with a stranger at an inn. EVER. He’s trying to escape the curse that afflicts every-other generation of the Dukes of Huntington. One generation wrecks the duchy through extreme profligacy, the next generation repairs it. Elliot’s elder brother died whilst trying to wreck the estate, so Elliot is determined to prove everyone wrong by being an upstanding member of the aristocracy as the perfect specimen of ducal consequence. Which does not involve bringing a mysterious, soul-ensnaring woman to multiple orgasms in a night before fleeing at dawn. It involves marrying a young, virginal woman who will make the perfect duchess, Lady Victoria.

And fate laughs. Because “Tori” and “Lady Victoria” are one and the same. Elliot has shagged senseless the woman meant to be his future step-mother-in-law. Leela, for her part, throws up on Elliot’s boots when introduced to him at tea. The two of them try to avoid each other during the house party meant to lead up to Elliot’s betrothal to Tori – who seems rather awed by his station and can barely put two words together around him while she chats easily with his private secretary – but they keep being drawn into each other’s company. When Elliot’s betrothal to Tori is announced everyone will have to decide where their hearts lie…. (No spoilers, this part is so good!)

I LOVED Leela – strong, forthright, intelligent (far more than Elliot, haha), and determined to be herself and live her life despite the Patriarchy and Racists who try and get in her way. She’s lived her own life since her husband died – travelling to meet her mother’s relatives in the Levant, writing a bestselling travel memoir about that journey – and isn’t looking to mold herself into a Society lady ever again. But she’s also still a human character, who is vulnerable and trying to find where she fits into the world as a biracial woman in the Regency. I loved her relationship with Tori and how she tries to champion and protect Tori despite Devon’s (the awful brother/stepson) continual attempts to be the worst person on Earth.

Where I got tripped up a bit was with the hero, Elliot. Overall, as a character I understood where he was coming from in fighting this “degenerate curse” that ravages every other generation in his family and how he was really trying to combat his brother’s profligacy. Except it leads him into a really bad corner of “My Reputation And Consequence Is The Most Important Thing To Me” and he says some really bone-headed things as a result, especially to Leela. I don’t think he really suffered the consequences of these actions or that he did enough groveling to make up for. He doesn’t risk enough to make up for being a twat, in my opinion. Quincy should have taken a finger. (Why yes, I am a Fated Mates fan, did you have to ask?)

Overall, I loved Leela and Elliot. The story was really good and I loved the denouement (though if you don’t like baby-logues you might want to skip the Epilogue) but I required more groveling.

Her Night With the Duke is out today!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher, but I also got a finished copy in the mail from Avon (? I don’t remember requesting it).

The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan (The Wedgeford Trials #1)

Miss Chloe Fong has plans for her life, lists for her days, and absolutely no time for nonsense. Three years ago, she told her childhood sweetheart that he could talk to her once he planned to be serious. He disappeared that very night.

Except now he’s back. Jeremy Wentworth, the Duke of Lansing, has returned to the tiny village he once visited with the hope of wooing Chloe. In his defense, it took him years of attempting to be serious to realize that the endeavor was incompatible with his personality.

All he has to do is convince Chloe to make room for a mischievous trickster in her life, then disclose that in all the years they’ve known each other, he’s failed to mention his real name, his title… and the minor fact that he owns her entire village.

Only one thing can go wrong: Everything. 

ALLLLLLERRRRRTTTTT!!! Courtney. Milan. Has. A. New. Full. Length. Novel. WHEEEEE!!!!!!!

Chloe Fong is a planner – her to-do lists have to-do lists (seriously – if bullet journaling had existed in Victorian times, Chloe would have had the most efficient bullet journal of ever). She has a lot to get finished today – most important, and possibly the one she procrastinated on the most, is to figure out a name for her father’s secret recipe special brown sauce so they can launch the new product during the Wedgeford Trials (the Trials are like a cross between Capture the Flag and LARPing, it sounds like a hoot). What Chloe does not need, is one Jeremy Wentworth popping up to tease her to distraction. Three years ago she told him to leave her alone until he could be serious – and he did exactly as she said.

Jeremy Wentworth fell in love with Chloe about five seconds after he met her around the age of 12. And now he’s back to try and convince her that he is serious. Serious about loving her, serious about wanting her in his life. There’s just one wrinkle – Jeremy is actually the Duke of Lansing. The same duke who owns the entirety of the village of Wedgeford, this wonderful place made up of people hailing from cultures across the British Empire. Jeremy first visited the village as a lark instead of going to visit his horrible cousin during school holidays. He told no one that he was the duke because he loved how he seemed to fit right into this rich, multicultural community that immediately assigned him a Trials team. Jeremy is also half Chinese and has experienced the racism and microaggressions from his family and the peerage – would Chloe, as a British Chinese woman, want to be his duchess?

The Duke Who Didn’t is a sweet, low-stakes-but-still-with-teeth Victorian historical romance. Chloe wants to make sure her Ba gets the recognition he deserves for his delicious Brown Sauce (think Worcester Sauce, but maybe with elements from Chinese cuisine) and Jeremy needs to convince Chloe that she’s his one, true love. What I really loved is that Jeremy doesn’t want to change Chloe – he loves her glasses and lists and determination and her love for her father and the village – he just wants to figure out how to both be the Duke of Lansing and take care of her. The reveal, when it comes out that Jeremy is really the duke the entire village makes fun of, was so delicious. Courtney packed this book with so many good things: pining, good food (ugh, the bao buns, do want), a duke in disguise, a small road trip, only one bed, and, at the very end, a bit of delicious revenge.

I love this little book. The Duke Who Didn’t is out today! (Brief content warning that Jeremy and a other characters discuss racism they have experienced from white British people, but it isn’t graphic or violent on the page.)

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the author.

Queen Move by Kennedy Ryan

Summary from Goodreads: The boy who always felt like mine is now the man I can’t have…

Dig a little and you’ll find photos of me in the bathtub with Ezra Stern. Get your mind out of the gutter. We were six months old. Pry and one of us might confess we saved our first kiss for each other. The most clumsy, wet, sloppy . . . spectacular thirty seconds of my adolescence. Get into our business and you’ll see two families, closer than blood, torn apart in an instant. Twenty years later, my “awkward duckling” best friend from childhood, the boy no one noticed, is a man no one can ignore.

Finer. Fiercer. Smarter. Taken.

Tell me it’s wrong. Tell me the boy who always felt like mine is now the man I can’t have. When we find each other again, everything stands in our way–secrets, lies, promises. But we didn’t come this far to give up now. And I know just the move to make if I want to make him mine.

Sarah MacLean was raving about Queen Move back when it released so I finally got to it this week. Overall, a really good second-chance romance between two childhood best friends. We get to see them as friends, maybe first loves as kids, then we pick up when Kimba comes back to town to try and get a gubernatorial candidate to hire her to run his campaign. The characters of Ezra and Kimba and what they have to work through to be happy together are really good. In addition, Kimba is dealing with early-onset peri-menopause, which is extremely rare to have on the page let alone in romance, and that is handled really well. (Although, tiny spoiler, it does have a Magic Pregnancy baby-logue, so if that’s not your thing, just FYI.)

However, this skates very, very close to a “cheating romance”, which I don’t do. When Kimba and Ezra come back together as adults, only Ezra and his partner Aiko (and eventually Kimba) know that their partnership is over. They make this decision before Aiko leaves on a month-long business trip – where she will sleep with the guy who is travelling with her – but decide not to tell everyone until after their son’s birthday so he doesn’t worry. So technically, Ezra is available when he and Kimba have SERIOUS sparks on a trampoline. But to the rest of the world Ezra is still just-about married to Aiko. And that’s a very squicky thing for me in romances, where the lines of where one relationship ends and another begins aren’t clear. So that bothered me a bit. But the rest of the story is excellent. Great writing.

Dear FTC: I purchased this book on my Nook.

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley (Rogues and Remarkable Women #1)

Summary from Goodreads: Created by a shrewd countess, The Widow’s Grace is a secret society with a mission: to help ill-treated widows regain their status, their families, and even find true love again—or perhaps for the very first time…

When headstrong West Indian heiress Patience Jordan questioned her English husband’s mysterious suicide, she lost everything: her newborn son, Lionel, her fortune—and her freedom. Falsely imprisoned, she risks her life to be near her child—until The Widow’s Grace gets her hired as her own son’s nanny. But working for his unsuspecting new guardian, Busick Strathmore, Duke of Repington, has perils of its own. Especially when Patience discovers his military strictness belies an ex-rake of unswerving honor—and unexpected passion…

A wounded military hero, Busick is determined to resolve his dead cousin’s dangerous financial dealings for Lionel’s sake. But his investigation is a minor skirmish compared to dealing with the forthright, courageous, and alluring Patience. Somehow, she’s breaking his rules, and sweeping past his defenses. Soon, between formidable enemies and obstacles, they form a fragile trust—but will it be enough to save the future they long to dare together?

Now, when I started A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby I was a bit nonplussed as to how Patience could get hired as her own child’s nanny/wet nurse without getting outed by the servants – unless the servants were in on it. But, fear not, the problem is easily solved in the first few chapters. Onward.

I’ll go with 3.5 stars out of 5. I liked the story of Patience and Busick and will she be able to get her baby back (plus bag a duke in the process, heyo, it’s a romance novel of course). There was a good mystery plot with excellent tension, although I’m still a little hazy about how the whole finance plot worked but that’s pretty minor. I really liked the historical detail Riley put into Patience’s backstory both as a woman color in pasty, imperial England and her plight as a widow who does not have guardianship of her own child and how this leaves her very, very little (extremely little) legal recourse to baby Lionel. Busick is also a character we rarely see in romance fiction – a hero who has lost a limb in wartime. It affects how he’s treated by others despite his rank as a duke. The romance plot itself is pretty low steam but it’s not chaste. There is definitely kissing and a small number of boob jokes (they’re kind of hilariously bad). I’m looking forward to future books in this series because this was fun.

What kept pulling me out was a structural thing. Patience’s perspective is in first-person while Busick’s perspective is in close third. Switching back and forth like that drives me batty. It just gets in the way of the story. Ymmv, of course.

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby published in June 30!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley form the publisher via Netgally.

Rafe: A Buff Male Nanny by Rebekah Weatherspoon (Loose Ends #1)

Summary from Goodreads:
All Dr. Sloan Copeland needed was someone to watch her kids. What she found was the man of her dreams…

After a nasty divorce and a thousand mile move, Dr. Sloan Copeland and her twin daughters are finally getting the hang of their new life in Los Angeles. When their live-in nanny bails with no warning, Sloan is left scrambling to find a competent caretaker to wrangle her smart, sensitive girls. Nothing less will do.

Enter Rafe Whitcomb. He’s all of those things, not to mention good-natured and one heck of a whiz in the kitchen. He’s also tall, and handsome, and bearded, and ripped, and tatted, wrist to neck.

It doesn’t take long for the Copelands to invite Rafe into their home. Just as quickly, both Sloan and Rafe find themselves succumbing to a heady mutual attraction, neither of them wants to deny. With every minute they spend under the same roof, this working mom can’t help but wonder if Rafe can handle all her needs…

Rafe is a solid “what if Chris Hemsworth was a ginger with way more tattoos and also real good with kids” fantasy where a genius cardiac surgeon (single mom with twins) needs a nanny in an emergency and this real tall hot bearded dude with excellent references happens to be available. And then they realize very quickly that they’re attracted to each other, like attracted to each other. Then have amazing sex when neither of them have kid duty. Loved it. Plus Rafe’s family is so awesome.

Picked up my copy at The Ripped Bodice almost exactly one year ago and had Rebekah sign it for me because she just happened to be working 💖

Dear FTC: This copy is fucking mine.

The Lure of the Moonflower by Lauren Willig (Pink Carnation #12)

Summary from Goodreads:
In the final Pink Carnation novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla, Napoleon has occupied Lisbon, and Jane Wooliston, aka the Pink Carnation, teams up with a rogue agent to protect the escaped Queen of Portugal.

Portugal, December 1807. Jack Reid, the British agent known as the Moonflower (formerly the French agent known as the Moonflower), has been stationed in Portugal and is awaiting his new contact. He does not expect to be paired with a woman—especially not the legendary Pink Carnation.

All of Portugal believes that the royal family departed for Brazil just before the French troops marched into Lisbon. Only the English government knows that mad seventy-three-year-old Queen Maria was spirited away by a group of loyalists determined to rally a resistance. But as the French garrison scours the countryside, it’s only a matter of time before she’s found and taken.

It’s up to Jane to find her first and ensure her safety. But she has no knowledge of Portugal or the language. Though she is loath to admit it, she needs the Moonflower. Operating alone has taught her to respect her own limitations. But she knows better than to show weakness around the Moonflower—an agent with a reputation for brilliance, a tendency toward insubordination, and a history of going rogue.

I reached the point in this COVID-19 zoo where I had to read my “break glass in case of emergency” book: The Lure of the Moonflower by Lauren Willig, the final book in the Pink Carnation series. I was introduced to this series waaaay back in 2006 by my sister-in-law Kristen (I was reading The Thirteenth Tale and she was reading Pink 1, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, and we kept sneaking looks at each other’s books 😂) and since then had happily devoured each book as it came out. My favorites are books 3 and 7 (Geoff/Letty and Turnip/Arabella forever 💖💖). But when book 12 came out, the final book, the actual Pink Carnation’s story, I couldn’t read it. I bought it on release day but could not make myself open it. It was the last book, and Lauren wasn’t committed to ever write any more. So it sat and stared at me from the top of my Pink Carnation stack for five years.

So I guess we can thank the coronavirus because last night I sat down in my reading chair, looked over at my Pink Carnation stack, and just picked it up. I read almost the whole thing straight through. It’s good and sweet and brings back a lot of familiar characters and lines up nicely with my James Bond rewatch (only less misogyny and more flowery French spies). And now it’s done. Guess I’ll go re-read Turnip’s book now.

Dear FTC: I read my own damn copy of this book.