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New York Times
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Swoony Romance Novels That Will Upend Your World
Despite romance's reputation as light comfort reading, the genre has a bass line of chaos pulsing through it — the distinction being that romance presents chaos as survivable, even if your entire world is upended. Chaos CHAOS (Bramble, 352 pp., paperback, $19.99) is even the name of Fay's third sci-fi romance adventure, and if you haven't heard about this series yet then you have three books of nonstop thrills and pew-pew space lasers waiting for you. Our heroine is Caro Ogunyemi, a renegade engineer with a past she's determined to keep secret. When a chance to repay some of her moral debt sends her on a solo mission to a high-tech prison planet, she recklessly jumps at it. There she finds Leviathan, a murderous super soldier controlled by an implanted chip that inexplicably fails the instant Caro touches him. From there it's a race to the finish, as prison riots, malfunctioning tech and inconvenient but irresistible attraction add twists and turns to this roller coaster of a plot. When the Tides Held the Moon Roller coasters feature much more literally in WHEN THE TIDES HELD THE MOON (Erewhon Books, 464 pp., $29), a lushly illustrated historical romance about a sideshow found family, a Puerto Rican blacksmith and a captured merman meant to be the next big attraction at Coney Island's Luna Park carnival. In New York in 1911, Benigno 'Benny' Caldera takes on a project nobody else wants: crafting an enormous metal cage for a saltwater tank, a commission from the Luna Park impresario Sam Morgan. Benny's work is so good his boss tries to take the credit — and fires Benny when he speaks up. With unctuous graciousness, Morgan offers Benny a new job, and reveals the tank's secret: It's meant to hold a merman, as soon as they can capture one. But the merman, when they do find him, turns out to be sentient — and the most beautiful creature Benny's ever seen. Soon the blacksmith is spending his nights whispering secrets across the glass barrier to Río, as he calls him, while the date for Luna Park's opening creeps ever closer. Morgan knows how to craft a spectacle, but can he be trusted? Will Benny choose to keep Río imprisoned, or set him free even if it means losing him forever? This book is a charming fable — an elemental dance of fire and water. All Fired Up Flames are more than metaphorical in ALL FIRED UP (Canary St. Press, 304 pp., paperback, $18.99). This Sapphic contemporary between a professional firefighter and a fire science researcher had me reliving my own misspent youth amid the secondhand couches and karaoke bars in the heart of Seattle. Nicole, a freshly minted Ph.D. moving back to her hometown, is trying to get over her feelings for her overdramatic best friend Skylar, with no success. Now she finds that not only has Skylar found a replacement best friend: She's moving to Fiji at the end of the summer, in one of her trademark disaster decisions. Desperate to convince Skylar to stay in town, Nic makes a secret pact with the replacement friend, Kira — an ambitious, type-A firefighter who's hot both in and out of her gear. Conspiracy planning has them whispering in one another's ear … and then casually, not-so-accidentally making out. But while Nic might be ready to let go of her dreams of winning Skylar's heart, Kira is holding onto her own past too tightly. What a messy, drunken, ill-advised joy of a book. Everyone's putting on a cool, with-it surface while paddling like mad underneath. It reminds me of Casey McQuiston's best party scenes, with the on-point Seattle flavor of Alexandria Bellefleur — effervescent and deeply sincere. Marriage Bargain With the Comte Longtime readers know how much I love an elegant category romance like Cole's newest Black historical, MARRIAGE BARGAIN WITH THE COMTE (Harlequin Historical, 272 pp., paperback, $7.99). Evena Baptiste and Dieudonné, Comte de Montreau, are childhood best friends in St. Domingue. Long shamed for being both mixed-race and illegitimate, Dieudonné needs a highborn bride to prove his worth in the court of Louis XVI. Evena's beauty and wit tempt him — but her provincial origin is a mark against her in society's eyes. Years later in Paris, the comte has been left at the altar just as Evena arrives to make a match of her own. When her suitor assaults her, it's Dieudonné who steps in to save her reputation. What follows is a classic case of two people knowing each other well enough to read one another's emotions, but misinterpreting the cause to disastrous effect. English Regencies unfold against the background of an untoppled aristocracy; here, the looming specter of the coming revolution means we know our couple will have more times of trial to come. It's to Cole's credit that they feel strong and adaptable enough to meet one of history's greatest challenges head-on.
New York Times
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
3 Horror Novels That Put an Extra-Terrifying Spin on Death
Rose of Jericho ROSE OF JERICHO (Tor Nightfire, 335 pp., $28.99) continues what Grecian started with his 2023 novel 'Red Rabbit,' and that's a good thing. 'Red Rabbit' introduced readers to Sadie Grace, who is wanted for witchcraft; Rabbit, the ward of a hunter who is tracking Sadie Grace; and Rose, a widow who eventually adopts Rabbit. The novel traced how these strangers came together, but it also took Grecian's voice into weirder, far more magical pastures. 'Rose of Jericho' picks up as the group travels to the village of Ascension, Mass., to take care of Rose's sick cousin. Unfortunately, there is more to the town than meets the eye. The house they move into is rumored to be haunted. There is a monster lurking in the nearby woods. And in Ascension, people don't seem to die. In one case, when a young boy gets run over by a swayback mare pulling a dogcart, his torso is split open and his internal organs exposed … and he just picks himself up and walks to the doctor without any pain. Rose, Rabbit and Sadie Grace race to get to the bottom of things, but unbeknown to them, something worse than the undead is making its way to Ascension. Sadie Grace and Rabbit are intriguing enough to make this an engaging narrative, but Grecian also deftly juggles other fascinating characters, like Moses, a man with a bullet hole through his skull who killed Death to avenge his wife. Together, this cast elevates the novel into must-read territory. Fast-paced, surprisingly funny and unexpectedly grisly, this is Grecian at the very top of his game. REKT The internet is full of gruesome, terrible things, and those horrors are at the core of REKT (Erewhon Books, 355 pp., $28), an intensely unnerving novel about a grieving man who, in his despair, turns to the darkest corners of the web. Sammy Dominguez has always been haunted by the death of his uncle, which he witnessed as a child and feels responsible for. However, it was the death of his girlfriend Ellery in a car crash that sent him into a spiral. In his agony, he develops an addiction to awful videos — including snuff films and scenes of death and mutilation. Then someone sends him a link to a site called 'chinsky.' There, Sammy finds footage of Ellery's accident, along with dozens of videos of her dying in other ways. In fact, he can type anyone's name into the site and watch them die in a variety of dreadful scenarios. As his life disintegrates, Sammy becomes obsessed with the person who sent him the link and with finding out what chinsky is all about. This is a great novel, but it's not a fun read. 'Rekt' is ugly and ruthless, moving from normal situations to gut-churning descriptions in a heartbeat. Gonzalez is a talented author who delivers solid character development and sharp writing about grief and guilt, but what sets this novel apart is its unflinching brutality. It's tough to read a book filled with horrific accidents and vicious murders, but Gonzalez makes the price of entry worth it with his sharp assessment of human nature. In 'Rekt,' he highlights our gluttony for pain; explores how algorithms can pull people, like a strong underwater current, to terrible places; and shows, unforgettably, how the internet can desensitize us to atrocity. Nameless Things If you want a little pulp in your horror, look no further than NAMELESS THINGS (Rising Action, 281 pp., paperback, $17.99), a tension-filled, alien-haunted romp through the wilderness. Mike is a mid-30s man recovering from a tough breakup. In a hazy fuzz of angst, he agrees to join his friend Wade on a hiking trip through the Devil's Cup state park in Colorado. One night, they see a meteor fall nearby and go to investigate. As they make their way to the crash site, they meet two couples: one pair with a kid and the other from Australia. Then the deaths start. The meteor brought something with it, and soon the ground under them is brimming with deadly worms, and the earth grows so soft that they can topple healthy trees with a little push. To stay alive and get out of the park, the ragtag group must move quickly, because the worms might be mutating and something even more terrifying might be on the horizon. Though Jensen gives us plenty of mayhem, essential things like back story and character development are left in the shadows. We never learn much about any of the players, which means readers feel little empathy when they start dying. But the running around in a panic and the twitchy bodies full of worms make for a fun read, and sometimes that's exactly what you need.
