I wish when certain people were given a platform not granted to many in a woman-focused space, they remembered it's not a personal blog anymore

And if someone walks up and asks for a seat at the table, you just let them sit instead of smugly insulting them & gossiping with the cool kids club after

Stepback Sunday: A Fine Passion by Stephanie Lauren’s

If you think it's more important to ostracize and terrorize trans kids than protecting kids from school shootings you're an asshole and I hope you get hit in the mouth with a lug wrench

Repeatedly

Every so often I like to take on a project that’s too large for me to handle. My latest: I recently bought a bunch of old Romantic Times online and decided to see if I could analyze the HistRom settings for all the reviewed books to figure out how the settings had changed over time.

I received a 12 issue lot if Romantic Times from 1999 in the mail today, and one of them has an article about Jennifer Crusie. My favorite quote:
“Laughing out loud is powerful and sexual; it demands attention and announces knowledge, not innocence.”

To avoid obsessing about the world, I am obsessing about Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series, which I think can be divided into 4 seasons:
1. Orphanage
2. Ghost of St. Giles
3. Pleasure Garden
4. Lords of Chaos
The final book of each season sets up the subsequent season.
#romancelandia

I’m reading my way through the next 24 hours, starting with The Chocolate Temptation by Laura Florand. It’s an old favorite. I am taking no chances with quality at this time.

A month or so ago I saw a post by someone saying "we should all admit that Neil Gaiman has always been a shitty writer." That whole knee jerk revisionism. No, man, that's part of the whole horror. He's an internationally recognized writer. Objectively a good writer. But he's also a fucking monster.

I am impressed anyone can remember how much they paid for their first apartment. Mine was a 2 bedroom/2 bath with 5 of us crammed inside in State College, PA in 1991. I think it was $900…but that seems both too high for the time and too low for my memory of how broke I was.

I made reading resolutions for 2025. Somehow I’ve already forgotten them.

I finished My Season of Scandal by Julie Anne Long last night, and I was struck by what a great read-along it would make for Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas.
#Romancelandia

I finished 100 books this year - 11 nonfiction and 89 fiction. The majority of the fiction were Romance, with Jennifer Crusie being my most read author.

I miss genuinely horny Romance covers.

There are a lot of genres out there. If you say you want a Romance without an HEA or one that’s about a friendship rather than a romantic relationship, what you want is one of those other genres. Seriously, you can find what you want without shattering the genre conventions

It's not that I think anyone is waiting for my favorite books of 2024, but you're getting it anyway. Here they are, my favorite new (and new-to-me) books of 2024 - in no particular order.

As apart of our year-end Best of Romance poll @fatedmates.net discord members also voted on our favorite "New to Me" Romances - those books released before 2024 that we discovered and fell in love with this year. Fully half of the Top 20 "New to Me" are Historicals. Full list in the thread.

Members of the @fatedmates.net discord voted on our Top Romances of 2024 and results were revealed today. Check out the thread for individual titles.
#romancelandia

We had our first snow yesterday

I’m very much here just watching and absorbing at the moment, which I fear makes me look like a bot follow. No, I just want to take my time before engaging.