Picked this up while hanging out with my kid at the library, a little too old for him, but I wanted to learn more about the first woman to play pro baseball! As the only girl on my little league team as a kid, plus someone who had always been obsessed with old-timey baseball, I can’t believe I didn’t know that any women played in the Negro Leagues until a few years ago. This is a great introduction to Toni Stone, although the most interesting bits were the additional information and author’s notes in the back. The story itself ended abruptly and there was a lot of slang without context, but otherwise I enjoyed it.

My first Shupe! This was wonderfully fleshed out for being a novella. I don’t know why I’m reading so many age gap romances lately, but this one definitely suffered a little for the continuous mentions of how he’s known her since she was born. Other than that, this was dirty dirty fun, and I’m still impressed with how in depth these characters were even though it was a novella. I did wish we got some dirty in their happy ending, but I’m eagerly awaiting the newsletter epilogue.

Sometimes there is nothing more fun for me than going into a book with absolutely zero idea what it’s about, and this one exceeded expectations on that score. Recommended to me for 12 for 12 by @deep.reads.belle (thank you!!), I had no idea what I was in for and nothing about this cover says VICTORIAN FACTORY GIRL. I absolutely loved the extra level of intrigue here— I’ve read a few books lately with too few or too many villains without proper follow through, and the villains here were well-established and properly bonkers in execution. I would have loved to have seen rather than been told a little more of Nell & Simon’s domestic bliss, but I believed the progression of their relationship. Nell is wonderfully surly and I loved that she didn’t cave easily to anyone. Only my second Duran, but I’m sold.