Wednesday Reading Meme

[ratcreature]

What I Just Finished Reading

I finished reading the second of that Leta Blake A/B/O series, Alpha Heat, and the companion novella, Slow Birth about what happens to the original couple from the first book during the events of the second (tbh, that was a bit tedious due to the overlap). I then started to read the third, Bitter Heat, but got stuck some two thirds in or so. I guess my A/B/O dynamic mood is finally winding down? I also read a porny novella by Kris Ripper, Training Mac (Erotic Gym, #1), because I was still in the mood for kink, but somehow that author's porn never quite works for me, though I've kept trying a couple of times now, because it gets good reviews. I then switched to re-reading a bunch of Steve/Bucky fanfic, some kink, some soothing h/c.

What I'm Reading Now

I haven't given up on Bitter Heat yet, so I might get back to it once I finish re-reading this Steve/Bucky novel (not an A/B/O AU, btw, if you want to check it out, it's Bucky recovery fic) .

What I'm Reading Next

I haven't gotten around to reading What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch yet, so I still intend to read that soon. I also picked up The Duke Undone by Joanna Lowell, because a review on SBTB lead me to check out the free preview and that was intriguing. So that's a new addition to my ever growing TBR pile.

Comments

re: The Duke Undone

[kkglinka]

Oh, I just finished the Duke Undone (audiobook version). It was delightful! The author makes it pretty clear that the male protag has adhd, military vet ptsd with subsequent alcoholism, but doesn't pull the love fixes everything trope, because taking corrective actions is his choice. Meanwhile the heroine is a working class artist dealing with city council, political city gentrification issues that go along with cronyism and landlord systems. I thought it was very well done while remaining firmly in-period, with great character by-play. (I don't know about the sex scenes because I listen to books aloud in my work truck and therefore skip over them).

Re: The Duke Undone

[ratcreature]

Cool! I haven't gotten around to it yet, but at least I finally managed to read the Rivers of London novella.

How do you know how far to skip? I find skipping in audiobooks so much more tedious than on paper or even ebooks. I now listen to them sometimes (after a couple of eye surgeries reading and screens were forbidden to me for some weeks, so I had no other option, and came to see some positives) but still prefer text.

Re: The Duke Undone

[kkglinka]

A typical kissing scene averages 3-5 30sec fast-forwards but sex scenes almost always continue to the end of chapter, necessitating a full skip to next chapter. Sometimes they'll finish with some pillow-talk or dialog advancement and I just accept that I'll miss info from those exchanges.