books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

This was a delightfully working class holiday novella. And not in that ‘the MMC owns a railroad company, why the heck are we calling this a working class trope when he’s a fat-cat bourgeois industrialist??’ way.

This was a real working class trope—maybe the first histrom one I’ve even read. Our heroine found herself running her late father’s very small-scale horse tram in Wales. And our hero was one of the drivers—a soft horseboi with a kind voice and long fingers.

This hero satisfied a very specific childhood crush of mine: David Thewlis (the actor who played Professor Lupin) in the 1994 Black Beauty movie. If you know what I’m talking about, we just became best friends.

It was lovely! Very sweet. Very low-angst. The mutual pining was heartwarming. I only wish we’d had more on-page falling.

This was super sweet! Just a lighthearted holiday Cinderella retelling. The two MCs were really wholesome. There were some festive activities. A masquerade. The angst was close to zero. And the plot zipped along—it’s only 87 pages.

If you’re craving something Hallmark-y, read this. You’re welcome.

I received this as an arc and the these thoughts are my own.

I love Murderbot so much that I'll read them doing just about anything. Even if it's just a side quest sans ART.

I strongly dislike mystery subplots and/or heists. So what am I even doing here? That’s literally what these books are.

Murderbot is just one of the best MCs ever written. So likable, so cynical. Such a robot, yet so reluctantly human. You know how people say they love a character so much they’d read their grocery list? Well, I love Murderbot so much, I’d read their heist plans.

If these novellas had the type of plots I also like? I’d be a goner. Also, these audiobooks are so well-narrated, they’re irresistible.

What can I say? This man is my favourite actually-a-psycho hero. Usually, I can’t muster a ton of enthusiasm for a novella featuring the couple from a full length novel where they already got their HEA. But I loved this!

❄️ The Portuguese setting of these books is absolutely unmatched in any other series. Portuguese folklore, myths, that hint of Catholicism, this author mentioning the most obscure historical details (do you remember when France had a successful communist revolution and was ruled by the Commune of Paris for a few months in 1871? Well, Giovanna Siniscalchi does)—it just doesn’t get any better than this.
❄️ If we were going to reopen any story, I’m glad it was this one. Because Pedro, the Count of Almoster, was A LOT. And watching this reformed villain struggle to stay Morally Grey instead of relapsing back into Actual Bad Guy was a satisfying way of acknowledging just how tragic of a backstory he was dealt.
❄️ Our heroine had a really satisfying character arc. And there was a Prometheus sex metaphor in here that was… a unique interpretation of that myth 😅
❄️ And honestly, I’m just here for Pedro being an intense, manipulative, broody, and overprotective nut.

Is it a stand-alone? I’m too obsessed with reformed villain stories to say yes. If there’s a reformed villain story, I want to read the book where he’s a villain (book one, The True Purpose of Vines), the book where he’s reformed (book two, The Taste of Light), and of course I want to read this bonus Christmas novella where he’s still being hella evil!

So that’s the order I would suggest for you, too. Because if you like historical romance and you haven’t started this series yet, you’re doing it wrong.

Christmas in Central Park by Joanna Schupe
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The premise of this novella was a blast! Our Gilded Age New York heroine wrote an advice column under an assumed identity: a married, respectable society lady who was an expert cook and household manager. Meanwhile, our heroine was actually single, from a lower class, and terrible at cooking and cleaning—she just got all the answers from her mother and friends, who all worked as maids.

So when our hero, the newspaper owner, volun-told her to host a dinner party, she needed a fake husband, mansion, and staff. Pronto [insert festive high jinx here].

And I realized I have a favourite micro-trope: when the hero thinks she’s married (either because she’s a Mrs who’s widowed or because of a secret identity) and falls for her, all while berating himself for lusting after another man’s wife. It’s just the kind of low-stakes angst I like to see.

Though there was one part I wanted more of: our hero was predisposed to fall for her because he loved her columns, the spark of her personality present in her writing. It was so lovely, I needed more!

One word: epistolary 

Did I summon you? Because there was letters.

LETTERS.

Letters between a Captain fighting Napoleon in Spain and someone, anyone, back home—except she’s your best friend/Lieutenant’s sister. The hella awkward forced proximity of ‘uh oh, I overshared in letters to you and now we’re meeting irl’ Was. Everything. 

This novella was, quite frankly, excellent. 

We had:
❄️ falling for each other through letters 
❄️ brother’s best friend (in an especially angsty way)
❄️ meet her face to face to get get out of my system (hahaha)
❄️ class difference trope done the only way I will accept
❄️ a Luddite revolt

This was just my favourite kind of historical romance: deeply deeply emotional plus super historical. The Luddite part of this book was so good—you know I was comparing 19th century frame breaking revolts against mechanization to AI and contemporary work precarity to anyone who would listen.

Am I a Luddite now?

This was great! It just had some themes that aren’t my fav.

I love a one-day timeline novella, and don’t mind the insta-love of it all. I liked that our characters were older. Loved our heroine in academia (especially in a late-1870s setting). And who doesn’t love a good bargain?

That said, I wish I could have pictured our heroine easier—he was gobsmacked by her beauty but she insisted she was plain and I didn’t know what to think. There was some minor fetishized virginity plus a Good Girl I didn’t need. And there was some commentary on ‘loose women’ and what counted as moral versus immoral behaviour that I wished had more resolution.

But the writing itself was evocative and I’d definitely read from this author again.

Secret identity, snowed in at a crumbling castle, only one bed, sharing body heat, with a little bit of “why not? I’ll never see them again” magic—all fun tropes!

And the story took a turn that I really enjoyed and didn’t expect. These weren’t your usual snobby regency nobs—there was some grit and empathy to these characters that made me smile.

A very cute story.

We had some fun themes:
❄️ a recluse duke
❄️ some Beauty and the Beast vibes
❄️ two virgin MCs
❄️ our heroine giving Catherine from Northanger Abby by Jane Austen, love that

But it was way too instalove-y. No, it wasn’t even instalove—it wasn’t even instalust. There wasn’t enough there to call it love or lust, it was just insta. And I was definitely a bit confused by how quickly this wrapped up.