An Exaltation of Larks contains so much love, pain, joy, and despair–and I loved every second of it. This book was beautifully written, and I felt everything that all of the characters felt. It’s not typical that I’ll love a book with such a large timeline and a large cast of characters, but I was immediately compelled to follow them all beyond the pages in this book. Laqueur also took the care to be inclusive of sexualities and not making a big deal out of the character’s preferences, which is in itself a big deal. I want to read this book over immediately just to experience it again. Suanne Laqueur just gained another fan!
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
TITLE:AND THEN THERE WAS VICTOR (on WATTPAD) AUTHOR: Isabelle Olmo YoungAdult/NewAdult, for cursing and adult themes
Set in the 1990s! Victor Manning has been infuriating Becka since she sat behind him in 7th grade English. He’s cocky, self-centered, obnoxious, and above all, he’s somehow discovered that she has a crush on Clem. His teasing of her crush has her climbing on his car and spelling ASSHOLE with her red lipstick on his windshield. But the end of High School has all of Becka’s friends moving away and she’s stuck going to the local university knowing only Victor.
BOOK 1 OF THE PATTY GIRL SERIES!
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“You’re welcome,” he said.
“Do me a favor, don’t lend me helping hands.”
“But you got to dance with dashing Clemente,” he glanced at the ballroom. “Cost me a pretty argument but you’re welcome.”
I studied him; he was completely sober, nothing like he was earlier, and I opened my mouth to question him, but he pursed his lips.
“I told you, find yourself someone who says fuck it all and goes after you,” he said. “Aren’t you tired of chasing after Clem?”
“I’m not -”
“Yeah, you are, you’re still chasing,” he smirked and sauntered back into the dancing fray.
Whether single or in a relationship, Valentine’s Day is always one of my favorite holidays. Pink hearts and frills are my aesthetic and like Lara Jean in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, I’m a bit in love with love itself. So here are some sweet love stories to melt your heart this Valentine’s Day. (more…)
“Close your eyes. If reality becomes unbearable, close your eyes. We were made with an imagination.”
I keep closing my eyes but it’s not working… I’m still done with Even When I’m Gone, I’m still and emotional mess and book three is still not out.
If you think book one was an emotional roller coaster this one was like one of those free fall rides where you are heading upwards and you know all the…
Thea Quinn has no idea what she is. All she knows is that her abilities have been a plague upon her life since she was a child. After years of suffering at the hands of a megalomaniac, Thea escaped and has been on the run ever since.
The leadership and protection of his pack are of the…
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page •BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title &…
V.E Schwab writes such dynamic and complex characters that are so unforgettable. Like they have so much range and spice to them,, they’re just *chef’s kiss*
I often find myself thinking about the gay little family in Vicious and the nerdy little romantics in Addie Larue and the bisexual Slytherpuffs in Shades of Magic. I wish I could give Kell, Lila, Addie, Henry, Victor, Syd, Mitch, Eli and Rhy a little forehead kiss and protect them.
Oh my I am sorry for disappearing!! New phone and couldn’t connect to Tumblr for some reason… But I am back!! And I have some exciting news! Life Support, my new adult, LGBTQ+ love story has been finished for a while but it is getting some upgrades! Like this AMAZING cover I designed! On top of that, I will be starting the second write in February which will result in a bunch new content and updates (including a new title)
It has also had almost 4k reads on Wattpad! (Not a whole lot but still amazing in my eyes)… Here’s hoping to a lot more!
this project was something I really enjoyed working on. I’m so happy to had the chance to draw alternate covers for The Plated Prisoner book series which was commissioned by @thebookishbox books turned out so pretty! also also… I’m going to draw another cover for the fourth book of the series, which is currently in work in progress, cant wait to show it to you guys. xoxo characters belong to @ravenkennedybooks hope you will like it <3 I will be posting rest two covers too bit later xoxo
Ok, here’s the thing. YA fiction features child and teenage protagonists because it is intended to be consumed by children, teens and young adults. If you’re going to browse the YA shelf looking for a rebellion against an evil empire, or superheroes in training, you just have to accept that the protagonists are going to be of a similar age to their intended audience. The genre they are in is literally called the Young Adult genre. It’s that simple. And the genre is not designed to support an adult’s recognition of the danger these young protagonists are facing when they go on their respective adventures.
If you find yourself going from ‘yeah! Fifteen is totally old enough to take on the evil empire!’ to ‘Oh my god who let these kids out on a school night they should have a curfew why aren’t adults handling this battle’, then you might want to look into adult fiction. If you feel like holding up a YA work and declaring that the mentors or guiding forces in the story are evil because they are training children for dangerous situations, then congratulations! You actually are ready to graduate to adult fiction! Where there might also be child soldiers, but that will be treated as a seriously bad thing.
Don’t get me wrong, sticking with YA fiction as an adult is fine! The genre is easy, fun, features delightful adventures, and can offer a very relaxing and comforting escape. But when you find yourself recognizing that ‘kids’ handling large adventures means the adults around them have failed, take that as a sign that you’ve matured. The YA protagonists won’t, they’re going to stay young. And they’ll continue to have adventures at young ages, because kids younger than you are coming up behind you now and want to have their fun reading stories meant for them. If you find yourself reading YA and getting angry over how young the protagonists are, you might save yourself some stress by browsing the adult fiction shelves.
As someone who’s handled acquisitions at multiple publishing houses: this. We have strict protagonist age ranges for each intended target audience — it’s pushing it for a Middle Grade protagonist to be 13-14. YA books become New Adult when the protagonist is at least 18-19. If authors come to us with different ages for protagonists, we tell them to change their genre or change their protagonist.
In addition, genres have specific roles adults must play. In Middle Grade books, adults need to be well-intentioned but useless at best — we may ask an author to tone down the role of adults in helping the protagonist in favor of other children. There’s no excitement for a 12 year old reader if the amazing superhero protagonist is always getting bailed out by their parents.
Everything about these stories, from how they’re originally written to what content is shifted in editing, is designed to highlight the capabilities and awesome powers of the child. You will not find one of these books that caters to the sensibilities of someone who’s 20+. It’s just not for you anymore, though we hope you still enjoy it. Adult fiction, however, is for you! And we publish plenty of it with plotlines just as incredible as the YA books that go big!
If you’re looking for content for 18-25s, try New Adult. If you’re in your 30s+, go for Adult. There’s plenty of fiction out there for you.
I want to add to this…
Just because a book has younger characters does NOT make it automatically YA, or even NA.
Coming-of-age novels may be YA, but are not necessarily. They also appear in mainstream (e.g., adult) fiction. As the second poster (@marshmallowsweetheart) points out, what makes a book YA is much bigger than just the ages of the characters. It also involves themes, the structure of the plot, the secondary characters, and even the language employed.
I make this note because Dancing with the Lion has (repeatedly) been marked as YA by readers (not the publisher, mind). It is not YA. And not because I dislike YA. But because I don’t write YA well, nor think in YA themes and plot structures.
It’s a mainstream queer-friendly coming-of-age novel whose main characters happen to be not-quite-13 and 15 when the novel opens. By the end of Rise (the 2nd half) they’re 20 and 22, respectively. And they’ll just get older as the series progresses.
So a reminder that a book isn’t YA just because it’s main characters are teens. ;-)
“Maybe love shouldn’t be built on a foundation of compromises, but maybe it can’t exist without them either. Not the kind that forces two people into shapes they don’t fit in, but the kind that loosens their grips, always leaves room to grow. Compromises that say, there will be a you-shaped space in my heart, and if your shape changes, I will adapt. No matter where we go, our love will stretch out to hold us, and that makes me feel like…like everything will be okay.”
Cue the sobs. This is a book I think I read at the exact right moment, and it has skyrocketed to one of my favourite romances ever.
Nora Stephens is tired of being the villain. She’s tired of getting dumped because her exes have found someone else, tired of never being enough as the city girl, the Peloton-rider, the driven, organized agent. She gets shit done, and she has enough in her life without those men and their excuses. When her sister Libby, who she will do anything for, asks her to go away on vacation for a month to the town where one of her favourite books is set, Nora is hesitant to leave New York - but of course, she does. She could never prepare for what’s waiting for her in Sunshine Falls; not a traditional happy ending, but perhaps exactly the journey she needs.
I’m a huge fan of romances that take tropes and turn them on their heads. Knowing going into this that the main character was the typical bitchy city girl, the antithesis of the sweet, laidback country girls that the dudes in romances always end up with, I was primed to love her. Give me allllllll the driven career ladies, and don’t make them change for a man. I live for that kind of shit.
This one was just so goddamn charming. Right from page one, I felt like I was wrapped in a warm hug while reading. The various nods to being a bookworm absolutely helped - there is something to be said for being seen in fiction, and that’s what this does for those of us that live our lives in books more than anywhere else - but it was also the combination of the small town, the nostalgia for the past, the characters themselves. All of it was this perfect storm of emotion for me.
First of all, as I said already, I loved Nora. I loved her so fucking much. She’s driven and in love with her work, and she’s a caretaker, there for her family no matter what they need. Even if it’s at the cost of her own happiness, because making them happy also makes her happy - or so she rationalizes. And Charlie is an absolute perfect match for her in every way; their chemistry is off the charts immediately, and they had me laughing out loud multiple times with their banter.
The trip to Sunshine Falls, and the ultimate reason behind it, were both so heartwarming yet heartbreaking. This hit close to home for me with the family aspect and had me bawling at the end of it all. Nora deserves all the happiness in the world, and her journey to realizing that moved me.
Send an ask with one or more symbols below for a snippet of my WIP that shows…
something heartwarming sadness fury nausea fear or anxiety humor a turning point discovery injury a secret ☠️ death a fight or explosion fire or heat a kiss or romance embarrassment
…or, bonus, send an emoji for me to interpret!
Tagging a few people to maybe help get this ask game off the ground? Feel free to skip out if this isn’t your thing, I totally get it!
So so so happy for my first publication. “Biscotti al cacao” sarà disponibile in cartaceo e in eBook, a brevissimo! La sua uscita è imminente e io non vedo l’ora. Sono agitata, sono entusiasta, sono infinitamente grata di avere avuto questa possibilità.
Vi lascio la sinossi:
“Può un biscotto al cacao cambiare la vita di una persona? Rovesciarla da un lato all’altro, scompigliarla, sconquassarla, su e giù, sopra e sotto? Certo che no, è solo un biscotto. E Kassandra, studentessa universitaria con la testa ben piantata sulle spalle, non ha la minima intenzione di farsi distogliere dal suo obiettivo di laurearsi in fretta e di diventare una giornalista, da uno stupido biscotto. Ma se le venisse offerto da Cristian, il suo tutor di tirocinio bello e arrogante, sfuggente e misterioso, tutto potrebbe cambiare. Può un biscotto al cacao cambiare la vita di una persona? A volte sì.”
She whispered, “And I am yours.” Those golden threads between their very souls shone with the words, as they formed a harp strummed by a heavenly hand.☁️ - Sarah J Maas ACOSF
Nesta & cassian’s romance/ smut was top tier in ACOSF
Books I’ve Read In 2022 - The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.
Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off.
As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.
I keep closing my eyes but it’s not working… I’m still done with Even When I’m Gone, I’m still and emotional mess and book three is still not out.
