#Anita Kelly

[wee-english-fella]

have realised all my current comfort media is about people escaping big cities and building lives they love and finding their people in small mostly coastal communities....... much to think about........

[ID in alt text]

[dontbelasagnax]

This week I read the best lesbian romance novel- 'How You Get the Girl' by Anita Kelly. It's a soft and sweet character driven romcom set around basketball and fostering a teen in a rough spot. Every single character feels real but the two main characters, Julie and Elle, stole my heart immediately. I really only meant to start it as a bedtime story one night, maybe read two chapters, and then the next thing I knew it was an hour later and I'd been squealing, giggling, and kicking my feet through the first 100 captivating pages. These characters, this book... they've become special to me. Now that I've finished the book, I feel a deep desire to buy it (because I checked it out from the library) so I can further support the author and also... I need to be able to read it as many times as possible, cherish it, and maybe adorn it with notes and hearts.

(It should be noted that this book is the third in a series and I didn't notice until I googled it. I just thought all their friends and family were super well fleshed out. Turns out they're already established characters in other books lol. But it absolutely stands perfectly on its own like I've read it.)

(I'm covering up part of the title because there's a sticker there that has the name of the library)

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Adult F/NB Romances

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander Just Might Work by Katia Rose The Santa Pageant by Lillian Barry Harmony by London Price Bonus: Coming in 2025, My Best Friend’s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner 

[aurorawest]

2023 Reading Wrap-Up

Is it February of 2024? Yes! Am I still going to post my favorite books that I read in 2023? Also yes!

Ginn Hale's Cadeleonian Series, the second half of which I read in 2023: Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Book Two; Master of Restless Shadows, Book One; and Master of Restless Shadows, Book Two

This series begins with Lord of the White Hell and continues with Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, then concludes with Master of Restless Shadows. Each duology follows a different set of characters, but it's a true series so you need to read them in order. It's a toss-up for me whether I preferred Champion of the Scarlet Wolf or Master of Restless Shadows. Both are fantastic duologies. I particularly loved getting Atreau's story in Master because he's sort of an unlikable playboy-esque character in the preceding books...but wait! Turns out there's more to him after all.

After Francesco by Brian Malloy

Who would think a book about living through the AIDS epidemic in NYC in the 80s would be as funny as this book is? It will also tear your heart out and stomp on it. Also takes place partly in Minneapolis (and is by a Minnesotan author).

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

Folklorist meets the Green Man and they fall in love. This is the first half of a duology, the second being Drowned Country, which I just finished today so can't included it on my 2023 wrap-up. All the dark and violent whimsy of the mythic past and the most brutal versions of fairy tales, plus a lovely romance.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Imagine the love child of Lost, Person of Interest, and Battlestar Galactica, but queer and with multiverse shenanigans thrown in (the author has cited Ender's Game as a huge influence). I don't want to say anything more than that, because I feel strongly that you need to go into this book knowing nothing. The twists and turns are so good, the main trio are wonderful, complicated characters, and the world is super cool.

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

In some ways the most heartbreaking of Pulley's novels. Also probably her most dreamy and magical. It's my least favorite of her books, but my least favorite Natasha Pulley book still ended up on my best of 2023 reading list.

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

This book awakened in me a latent love of Soviet queers. You'll see this book filed under sci-fi by booksellers, but it isn't really—it's historical fiction about a very real nuclear disaster in the USSR that was covered up for decades. Like all of Pulley's books, the characters are deeply complicated and flawed. The pleasure is really in reading the way she tells a story and her beautiful use of language, so even if you're not interested in Soviet nuclear disasters, I absolutely recommend you read this. Also, you'll probably be interested in Soviet nuclear disasters when you're done.

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley

Haha, you thought The Watchmaker of Filigree Street punched you in the chest with feels? Get ready for the sequel, which will have you Curled Into A Sobbing Ball On The Floor™. Join Thaniel Steepleton, Keita Mori, and their adopted Waifish Victorian Orphan, Six, as they go to Japan, where things are weird, there are ghosts, and Thaniel and Mori still somehow don't understand what they mean to each other.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

"What if France won the Napoleonic Wars because of time travelers" shouldn't have shattered me the way this book did, but of course it's a Natasha Pulley novel so it absolutely did. Missouri Kite is the most Gay Little Man™. And Joe, poor Joe. The PINING. The YEARNING. When the reveal happens, I had to go back and read prior sections of the book and good god do they hit different. Different and SADDER. This book is my favorite of Natasha Pulley's novels.

Tommy Cabot Was Here and Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian

The first two books in Cat Sebastian's The Cabots series. The books are historical fiction that follow various queer men in the Cabot family. The Cabots are one of those old money, liberal New England families—think Kennedys. Both books are about Sad Gay Men™ finding love in soft, tiptoeing Cat Sebastian fashion. Peter Cabot is a road trip romance and a bit longer, so the characters have some time to breathe.

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly

This was probably a Stucky fic at one point, right? I mean. No shade though, truly! This was my favorite romcom that I read in 2023. It was also a comp for Strangers to Husbands, haha. I love the setting—hiking the Pacific Crest Trail—and I love the main characters, Alexei and Ben. Alexei came out to his family recently and got rejected, while Ben is from a big, accepting Portuguese family. Funny, touching, and an excellent love story.

Cattle Stop by Kit Oliver

Looks like a romcom but will stab you in the heart repeatedly. Kit Oliver has a gorgeous way with words and captures the dynamic between two people who have no idea how to talk to each other so well. I'm also a sucker for farm settings.

The Sugared Game and Subtle Blood by KJ Charles (The Will Darling Adventures)

I've read almost all of KJ Charles's books at this point, but the Will Darling Adventures are my favorites (I read the first book in the series in 2022). I love the combination of romance and action/adventure. I've never met a m/m book set in the interwar period that I haven't loved. Will and Kim are wonderful characters, and sometimes I think about what other adventures they had after book three ended.

Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray

An FBI agent and a GRU agent get assigned to work a case together in 1959 and they fall in looooove. There's a road trip, a family dinner, and FEELS. I'm not sure I've ever had a time skip hit me in the gut so hard. Remember how I said I love Soviet queers? Here's another example.

Wranglestone and Timberdark by Darren Charlton

What if the real dystopia isn't the zombie apocalypse, but "normal" life? I don't know if I've ever read a YA series that sucker-punched me as hard as this one. I know I've never read a zombie book that sucker-punched me as hard as this one. I don't think these books have even been published in the US (only in the UK), but if you can get your hands on them, they're worth it. Really beautifully written in a style that evokes the emptiness of the great national parks of the American west.

Honorable mentions:

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

[transbookoftheday]

Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly

After a lifetime of failed relationships, non-binary history professor Sam Bell is committed to a new (non)romantic strategy: Thirst Only. It’s the actual drinking where things get too complicated, where Sam inevitably gets hurt.

Sam is good at being thirsty, though, especially when it's karaoke night at The Moonlight Café, otherwise known as Moonie’s to its largely queer regulars. Moonie’s is fun. Comfortable. Safe. Except for tonight, when one by one, all of Sam’s friends abandon them. Disappointed, they prepare to leave—until their #1 karaoke crush catches their eye...

For Lily Fischer, karaoke at Moonie's is the only time she can step outside of her quiet shell. When there’s a mic in her hand, she’s no longer merely a receptionist harboring big dreams. At Moonie's, Lily can pretend to be someone else: someone bold, who takes what she wants. And tonight, what Lily wants is the way Sam looks at her across the room as she sings her signature opening song, like they see her exactly as she wants to be seen. Like Moonie’s Lily is real.

As the night progresses, both Sam’s and Lily’s personal fears are tested, and the real world outside of Moonie’s looms. But maybe sometimes, the real world should be a little more like karaoke. It's not always about knowing all the right words or having the perfect voice. Maybe all Sam and Lily need is a little courage to pick up the mic, and sing anyway.

[ramblesbiab]

I haven't talked about books in a while, but. I kinda just got thrown around by How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly, a book I picked up with the opinion that it would probably be okay, and now that I've finished it it's easily in my top 5 of all time, so I need to talk about it.

This book has one of the most raw and real depictions of depression, and the difficulties of loving with depression, that I've seen, and that's only one of the many social issues tackled, including various LGBTQIA+ issues, foster care, drug dependency, it's all there and yet it doesn't become overwhelming, it's just - natural. It's life.

Another part of this book which is wild to me is the fact that it, apparently, is the third book in a series I haven't read??? I partially picked up on that early with side characters having surprisingly in-depth love stories, yet somehow, I never felt left out. And strangely enough - despite not having as much time as I could've with the characters from the first two installments of this series, it still managed to do a better job at a trope then a different series I've read.

I adore the Bright Falls series by Ashley Herring Blake, however, I've always been a bit annoyed by the ending of the final book, Iris Kelly Doesn't Date. It's a culmination of all three books, where we remove focus from Kelly to marry the characters from the first book, but it doesn't work for me. That's because it felt like Iris got shafted, and that's especially true for her love interest, whose name I can't even remember offhand. It went too all-in on the previous characters, and Iris suffered for it in her own book.

In contrast, while How You Get the Girl does the same thing on paper, it's done with so much more class. We get so much of the characters before the finale that giving them a bit of space is valid, but we also still maintain a solid focus that feels like they're getting a proper sendoff, on top of the series as a whole. And this is still despite the fact that I haven't even read the rest of the series!

It made me realize that it wasn't a bad trope, just bad execution in the Bright Falls series, as much as I still adore those books. All in all, I'm excited to read more from Anita Kelly now, and I highly recommend How You Get the Girl whether you've read the first books or not.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

How You Get The Girl

Contemporary romance

follows a basketball star who left the sport 8 years ago after an injury, who unexpectedly becomes the foster parents for her niece who she encourages to join the high school basketball team

and the team’s coach, who happens to have been a massive fan, and also needs a co-coach

they start to become friends, and when the latter reveals her insecurities about dating and relationships, the other offers to practice dating her so she can figure things out. but of course they start to fall for each other..

lesbian MC, questioning demisexual MC

[homerjacksons]

Advent Calendar 2024 - December 9

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

📚 BOOK SPINE SCAVENGER HUNT 📚

🌻 A spine with a flower on it: Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

🩷 A spine with a heart on it: Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

⚜️ A spine with foiling on it: Dark Heir by CS Pacat

🌿 A spine with a plant on it: Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly

🐈‍⬛ A spine with an animal on it: Starling House by Alix E Harrow

[instagram]

The wax melt pictured is from Book of the Wick and you can use SHELVES10 to save 10% at checkout!

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - October 28th - This Month's Favourite

tied between Tomboy Survival Guide and Wherever is Your Heart this month <3

[mccoppinscrapyard]

Read in 2023 (6/?)

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly

❝ That each person could choose what brought them closest to belonging, the power in that. Knowing that one day, people might discover even better words for it. That there was only ever freedom in continuing to find new names for who we were, who we could be. ❞

[theangrybooknook]

Something Wild and Wonderful

I turned 30 two weeks ago, and so, my friend Maria asked me what kind of book I would like as a gift. Because of course, we gift each other books. I had this one on my list after stumbling upon the German edition in town, but I wanted to read it in English. Shortly afterwards, this arrived in the mail, and it was one of the sweetest reads of my year so far.

Synopsis: Alexei and Ben meet on the Pacific Crest Trail, each of them with different motivations and different problems. Whereas Ben is finally settling on a career but struggles with getting his general life in order, Alexei is struggling after coming out to his Russian-orthodox family. Faced with a new world in which he has no longer strict parents nor an overbearing church, Alexei stumbles down the PCT not knowing where his life might be headed - and right into Ben's arms, saving him from a rattlesnake.

Personally, I am not a hiker. I am not interested per se in books that are about hiking or the outdoors, but for some reason, this book simply spoke to me. I was completely taken in after a few pages only, adoring Anita Kelly's simple yet incredibly beautiful and gentle style. It is not overly complicated but also not too simple - it is not quite how people speak, but also not too literary, making it accessible and endearing to both casual and more experienced readers. I often have the problem that the simple language of rom-coms bores me to death, but this was absolutely not the case here.

Alexei and Ben are absolutely fantastic characters that the reader cannot help but root for. Both have their issues, rooted in family affairs and the struggle of figuring out who they are and what they want from life. Whereas Ben's family is open-minded and has no issue with him being gay, Alexei struggles with the consequences of coming out to his conservative, Russian-American family and the loss of his religious life. Alexei is frequently mentioned praying before going to sleep, but it never feels forced, but as merely part of him. It is incredibly refreshing to read a queer character that, despite the trauma, is still religious and does not blame their god for what happened to them. Ben's struggles are of a different nature, with him being unsure about his career and what he actually wants to do with his life - and whether to stay near his family or not.

The book is perfectly paced. Nothing happens too early or too soon, neither in terms of plot development or personal growth of the characters. Everything gets its time to develop and does so at the right speed and with the appropriate consequences. All obstacles, including social anxiety, personal issues, and sudden reactions happen exactly when they should - and that is, in my opinion, a great task to achieve, and Anita Kelly has done so masterfully. Not once did I get the impression that Ben and Alexei moved too fast or too slow, or that their decisions were rushed. It felt all incredibly natural.

Something Wild and Wonderful is a story of self-discovery and, most importantly, self-forgiveness. Alexei and Ben learn to accept who they are and that they are, indeed, wild and wonderful at the same time. In fact, the novel is so full of warmth and acceptance that it left me with a very fuzzy, warm feeling on the inside when I finished it, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

[the-final-sentence]

‘Let’s dance.’

Anita Kelly, from How You Get the Girl

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: New Sapphic Sports Romance, 2024 Edition

Playing for Keeps by Jennifer Dugan (YA) Love and Sportsball by Meka James Hoops & Heartstrings by Eliza Lintzski Wake Up, Nat & Darcy by Kate Cochrane How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly

[eleftherian]

sigh I’m thinking about ben & alexei again 🏳️‍🌈 I hope they have a good pride month

[transbookoftheday]

I Didn't Sign Up for This by Anita Kelly

Sometimes, your girlfriend dumps you in Switzerland.

If you’re lucky, it’ll be right before Christmas.

To be specific, it just might be the day before you were set to go skiing in the Swiss Alps. As a Christmas present from said girlfriend.

And maybe Nicole didn’t expect me to still go skiing in the Swiss Alps without her, but you know what? You only live once. I will never in my life be able to afford a day like this again.

And sure, it’s possible I’ve never touched a pair of skis before, but I’m an adaptable person.

I’ll figure it out.