Reading Round-Up: January 2024
Here are the books I read in January 2024!
On Writing by Stephen King
This was my first book of 2024. It is really interesting to hear how other writers write and plan their days, and someone as successful as Stephen King has some useful insights. I have not yet read a Stephen King horror novel (I welcome your recommendations!), but I was surprised by how funny he is. I definitely think he would be an interesting man to have lunch and chat with sometime.
The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary
🌶️🌶️ out of 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ on the spice scale
This one had been on my Kindle for ages and a critique partner finally pushed me to read it. I was reminded just how much I adore the letter-writing trope, and it is so lovely to see the two main characters in this book open up to each other through post-it notes left in their shared apartment. A very clever take on the roommate trope.
Fake-ish by Winter Renshaw
🌶️🌶️🌶️ out of 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ on the spice scale
The gasp I gusped when I read the blurb for this one:
“I may be anti-marriage, but I’m still pro-romance. Case in point? That sexy curmudgeon I met last year during my cousin’s tropical bachelorette getaway.
That grump was Dorian, the groom’s old college roommate, there for the bachelor party. I couldn’t get enough of his messy brown hair and gorgeous turquoise eyes. We connected on a deep level—emotionally and physically.
But the timing wasn’t right. So we made a pact to reconnect in two years. Now I’m starting a new “job.” It’ll take a lot of work and pays really well—I’m talking seven figures here. All I have to do is pretend to be my boss’s new fiancée…and spend eight weeks with his family on their private island. How hard could it be?
Turns out, a lot harder than I thought. Because the man I’m pretending to love? He’s Dorian’s brother, and now all bets are off…”
This book 100% delivered on drama and perfectly balanced flashbacks to the night Briar meets Dorian and the current timeline so that I was always left wanting to read another chapter. A solid, trope-y romance read!
Haven by Claire Kent
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ out of 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ on the spice scale
It’s tough to fit in tension and world-building and character development into a novella of 169 pages, but Claire Kent really knocked this one out of the park with this post-apocalyptic romance. Think The Last of Us vibes, minus the zombies, plus a happy ever after. It’s definitely a darker romance with some very challenging themes and conflicts, but it felt like a very raw and real representation of what the world might look like after an asteroid hit the planet. This is part of a series, fyi, and I will very likely be continuing it soon!
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