#helenkay

[fated-mates]

Book Deal Time!

Alexis Daria's A LOT LIKE ADIÓS - $2 Liana Brooks's EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE - $1 Megan Frampton's MY FAIR DUCHESS - $4 Grace Goodwin's MASTERED BY HER MATES - $1 HelenKay Dimon's THE FIXER - $2

We talked MY FAIR DUCHESS in Boss/Assistant and So You Want to Read a Historical, EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE in Superheroes, MASTERED BY HER MATES in Quick and Dirty, THE FIXER in Road Trips, and A LOT LIKE ADIÓS in Women's Friendships, Homecomings, and Second Chances.

[readingwithwrin]

Moorewood Family Rules by HelenKay Dimon | Mystery Book Review

Title: Moorewood Family Rules Author: Helenkay Dimon Publisher: Avon Books Published Date: April 25th, 2023 Genre: Mystery, Contemporary, Family Drama Source: Library Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ Goodreads Summary: One day a con man met an heiress, wooed her, married her, had two kids…and kept on conning. Jillian Moorewood is the oldest child from that meet-cute-gone-wrong marriage. The stable one.…

[sarah-maclean-completist]

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Favorite Reads of 2023

[libertyreads]

Book Review #133 of 2023--

Leave Me Breathless by HelenKay Dimon. Rating: 2 stars.

Read from November 19th to 22nd.

I've got a cold and feel like crap so why not review a book I didn't love? I'm still adjusting to taking longer to read books and attempting to enjoy books no matter how long they take to read. But my struggle didn't really come from that this time around. I was taking care of my husband who was sick at the beginning of the week when I started the novel so I'd get a chapter or two in and have to put it down. And I never minded. The only thing that bothered me about reading this book that way was how long it took to finish. I think this is the perfect book for fans of Romantic Suspense who don't have a ton of time to read on any given day. The chapters are short enough that they could probably get a couple in either way. I just don't know that Romantic Suspense is for me.

What really bothered me was the pacing. I felt like there was insta-love (a big no go for me) and also no real depth to their relationship. There was also something really weird about the way the author gave out snippets of everyone's past. We literally don't find out the main male love interest's past until the final chapter. Which could have been the point given the third act break up, but still. Everyone felt under developed. The suspense aspect of the story was just so far out there for me that I don't think my brain wanted to accept that it was actually happening to these characters. From the whole Stalker/Attempted Murderer to the way the authorities handled it to the way the undercover agent handled the situation. It was all just so unbelievable. I get that in a story like this we have to suspend our disbelief, but it was just a step too far for me this time.

Oddly, the thing that worked the best for me in this novel was the third act break up. There was some drama with an unshared past, inability to commit, and unwillingness to call things the way they are. But we get to see these two characters finally communicating AND we get to see a little groveling where the guy says all the things you hope he will. We even got a resolution to two background character's drama which was a little unexpected but nice.

Overall, I'm just not a Romantic Suspense girlie. I cannot understand this huge horrible thing happening and 10 minutes later you're banging on the coffee table. Especially given you have evidence sitting Right There. Anyway, this might work for some people. Just not me.

[lilibetbombshell]

[sandythereadingcafe]

REVIEW

MOOREWOOD FAMILY RULES by HelenKay Dimon at The Reading Cafe:

‘intriguing, interesting, detailed’

http://www.thereadingcafe.com/moorewood-family-rules-by-helenkay-dimon-a-review/

[thereadingcafe]

[wearethekat]

Favorite Obscure Reads of 2024

The books that didn't make the overall best books of the year, but are hidden gems that deserve more attention.

Hold Me, Courtney Milan. A funny and extremely geeky m/f romance featuring a trans woman.

Letters to Half Moon Street, Sarah Wallace. Charming gay romance set in an alt-Regency with queernormativity and magic.

The Wings Upon Her Back, Samantha Mills. A winged soldier betrayed by her leader and suffering from chronic pain.

The Witchstone, Henry Neff. Adult debut about a family's demonic bargain from one of my childhood favorite authors.

Midnight Rooms, Donyae Coles. A disturbing gothic novel about a biracial girl who marries into a haunted, decomposing house.

The House of the Red Balconies, AJ Demas. Demas' latest charming and gentle queer romance set in an alt-Mediterranean world, about an engineer and a courtesan.

Activation Degradation, Marina J Lostetter. SF about a robot sent to attack a spaceship, but instead gets captured and discovers its humanity.

Bang Bang Bodhisattva, Aubrey Wood. Dystopian cyberpunk about a trans girl hacker.

Moorewood Family Rules, Helenkay Dimon. A woman gets revenge, Leverage-style, on her family, who had her take the fall for her and go to prison.

The Tenfold Tenants, EV Belknap. A charming and spiky novel about a guy who's resigned to running a boarding house for magical beings due to the economic slump.

Shoestring Theory, Mariana Costa. Second chance time travel romance, in which a wizard court jester confronts his evil king ex.

Sorcery and Small Magics, Maiga Doocy. Two academic rivals go on a quest after one of them accidentally (and illegally) curses the other.

Mazes of Power, Juliette Wade. A twisty political SF book about the fight to be the heir in an underground eugenicist cave society.

Dark Woods, Deep Water, Jelena Dunato. A lovely dark fantasy novel about three people whose paths lead them to be trapped in a cursed castle.

The Uses of Illicit Art, Wendy Palmer. An absolute souffle of a romance novel set at a breakneck pace about a guy with magical thief powers and the bounty hunter desperately trying to capture him.

[ninja-muse]

November started out bookish, because my Dad came to visit for a few days, which meant a bookstore visit, a poetry reading, and a bookish movie. It then got mundane and kind of time-dilated. If feels like October was three months ago at least and that all the books took ages to get through, which is absolutely not the case. I didn't write much, just kind of lazed around. Maybe that's it?

It was a good reading month, though! Apart from one DNF that was just not for me, I didn't read a single dud and Libby kept on coming through with anticipated reads. I not long have anything actively on hold there, and few things on hold physically at the library right now either, which hopefully means I'll be able to tackle The ARC Pile again next month and burn through a handful of those before the new year. Wish me luck?

I am well and truly going to lose most of my reading challenges this year. There's no way I'm going to hit 140 books, no way I'm going to read the remaining books on my personal "read these 50 books" challenges, and I might have hit 10 Canadian authors but I'm certainly not going to hit the stretch goal of 20. I'm mostly okay with this. Really. At least I finally passed my goal of 40,000 pages. Huzzah!

Also, as you can tell by that stack of six books, I do not have a book acquisition problem. You have a book acquisition problem! Only two of those were purchases though—I've been meaning to read The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and The Mighty Dead comes recommended. The rest of them were out of damaged shipments at work. If the publisher doesn't want them back and we don't have the space to store them, what am I meant to do? Throw them away? Salt Fat Acid Heat is totally writing research, of course.

Somehow, I suspect I'm not going to hit my goal of reading more books off my TBR shelves than I add to them this year either.

And now without further ado, in order of enjoyment…

The Water Outlaws - S.L. Huang When Lin Chong is convicted of a crime she didn’t commit, she finds herself allied with infamous outlaws.

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (lesbian, genderfluid), mute secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: death, violence, torture, blood

The Night Watch - Sarah Waters

Four Londoners after and during the War, and the melancholiness of life and love.

8.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (lesbian, bi woman), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (lesbian, queer)

warning: self-harm, abortion, blood, war, suicide

Lay Them to Rest - Laurah Norton

A portrait of people solving Doe cases and their methods.

8/10

warning: missing and murdered people, human remains

Ogres - Adrian Tchaikovsky

The world is a cruel place full of powerful ogres, and you are a peasant with a grudge.

7.5/10

warning: violence, murder, classism, oppression

Turning Darkness into Light - Marie Brennan

Audrey Camherst gets the chance to translate lost Draconean texts but grows suspicious of her new employer.

7.5/10

Black British-coded main character

warning: xenophobia

The Circumference of the World - Lavie Tidhar

A pulp sci-fi novel that doesn’t exist, the real lives it affects, and the secrets of the universe.

7.5/10

albino Vanuatan main character, faceblind main character, half-Guyanese Jewish secondary character

warning: sexist, racist, and homophobic characters

Sleep No More - Seanan McGuire

October is a changeling born to serve her family, and happy in her role. Unfortunately there are people who remember her very differently.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (bi men), 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: villains really like their ideas about blood purity

The Innocent Sleep - Seanan McGuire

Tybalt’s wife has been caught in Faerie’s grandest illusion and he just wants to bring her home.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 main character (bi man), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (poly, sapphic, bi man), 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: eugenics

DNF

Moorewood Family Rules - HelenKay Dimon

Jillian is out of prison and determined to make her con artist family go straight, no matter what.

Currently reading:

A Power Unbound - Freya Marske

Jack, Alan, and their friends must find a hidden artifact and foil a plot. Jack and Alan do not get along.

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (gay, bi), main character with injured leg and chronic pain, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (gay, bi woman, lesbian), 🏳️‍🌈 author

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories

major disabled character

warning: colonialism, racism

Stats

Monthly total: 8 Yearly total: 117/140 Queer books: 4 Authors of colour: 1 Books by women: 5 Authors outside the binary: 1 Canadian authors: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 1 Books hauled: 6 ARCs acquired: 2 ARCs unhauled: 2 DNFs: 1

January February March April May June July August September October

[sword-and-stars]

I've been arguing with myself for some time whether to ask you this.... This year's (2023) Book Riot Read Harder challenge includes a challenge to "Read one of your favorite author's favorite books." Since you are one of my favorite authors, would you be willing to share with the internet some of your favorite books, please? (I also plan to ask muffinlance, so don't be alarmed if you see this on their feed, please.)

Aight bestie so fun fact I’m supposed to be in bed so I can’t scour the bookshelves so these are gonna be off the top of my head. You asked the queer librarian about books so uh. You’re getting jeopardy categories, babey.

I will be accepting no criticism on my absolutely flawless taste in reading material, thank you.

Comfort reads

1. The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)

2. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine l’Engle)

3. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (Sangu Mandanna)

4. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones)

5. Brave Story (Miyuki Miyabe)

Books I think are genuinely good that say “i like books but I’m not a pretentious fuckwit”

1. Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

2. Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)

3. Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune)

4. Call Us What We Carry (Amanda Gorman)

5. The Circle of Magic Quartet (Tamora Pierce) and I don’t care that sticking four books in one slot is a cop out. Suck my nuts.

Fun books of dubious quality that I will nevertheless defend to the death

1. Battle Royal (Lucy Parker)

2. Golden Spoon (Jessa Maxwell)

3. Moorewood Family Rules (HelenKay Dimon)

4. How to Bite Your Neighbor (and win a wager) (D.N. Bryn)

5. The Honey Don’t List (Christina Lauren)

Literary equivalent of my AO3 history

1. The Rake Gets Ravished (Sophie Jordan)

2. Love & Other Disasters (Anita Kelly)

3. A Soul to Keep (Opal Reyne)

4. King of Immortal Tithe (Ben Alderson)

5. Dead Romantics (Ashley Poston)

[storyxonline]

The Romance Dish: Review & Giveaway -

Moorewood Family Rules: A Novel by HelenKay Dimon Publisher: Avon Release Date: April 25, 2023 Reviewed by PJ One day a con man met an heiress, wooed her, married her, had two kids…and kept on conning. Jillian Moorewood is the oldest child from that meet-cute-gone-wrong marriage. The stable one. The sensible and dependable one. The one who protects and fixes. The one who went to prison to save…

[fated-mates]

You are in the right place! Your eyes do not deceive you! We’re actually talking about spy romances this week and no Sarahs were harmed during the discussion, but that’s probably because it was a discussion with one of her favorite people, the fantastic Nana Malone!

We talk about Nana’s immense career, about how she took matters into her own hands and started making the covers she wished to see in the world, about her Brown Nipple reading challenge, about her latest book, a Kobo original, The Spy in 3B, and about porny ferris wheels. Real ordinary stuff. We also get to the bottom of why Sarah doesn’t like spy romances generally, but why she can’t get enough of Mr. & Mrs. Smith retellings.

S03.41: Spy Romance Interstitial with Nana Malone

RELEASED: June 2, 2021

[libertyreads]

I read quite a few Christmas related books for my Christmas in July this year. My favorite was Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison. I also enjoyed Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds which is technically about Hanukkah. The Twelve Dates of Christmas was a good time but not a ton of substance for me. The Christmas Wager is a new release that came out this Fall. Codi Hall has a Christmas series called Mistletoe Romance. The first one of that series is called Nick and Noel's Christmas Playlist and it's my favorite. HelenKay Dimon also has a couple Christmas romances in her novella series called Holloway. My favorite is We'll Be Home for Christmas.

Other Christmas recommendations: Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohen and David Levithan. His Christmas Miracle by Dani Collins. All I Want for Christmas by Maggie Knox. In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae. The Sugar Creek series by Jenny B. Jones which includes A Sugar Creek Christmas and His Mistletoe Miracle. Miracle Creek Christmas by Krista Jensen. Christmas at the Ranch by Anita Hughes. A Magical New York Christmas by Anita Hughes. Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle. Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle. 10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston. Snow in Love which is an anthology of short stories from Melissa De La Cruz, Nic Stone, Aimee Friedman, and Kasie West. In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren. All I Want for Christmas by Wendy Loggia. The Mistletoe Trap by Cindi Madsen. Greenglass House by Kate Milford is technically a middle grade and is technically just set at Christmas but it was a fun read. Christmas Wishes by Sue Moorcroft. Another anthology is My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories. Faking Under the Mistletoe by Ashley Shepherd. There are two Christmas Romances in a series by Tara Wyatt called The Graysons. Book one is called Snowflakes Fall, book two is Like Fresh Fallen Snow.

Those are way too many recs for reading three or four Christmas things, but I hope you can find something you'll really enjoy.

I’m going a challenge on December 1st where every week leading up to Christmas I read some thing Christmas related, if anyone has any book recs for the challenge let me know! ^^

[penelopecat]

I loved @bigfinishprod’s full cast @2000adcomic audios and was sad when they ended. When they brought back Dredd in their enhanced audiobook format, I bought them all, but somehow didn’t get around to listening to them until now. I love Karl Urban’s portrayal of Dredd in the movie of the same name, and I was surprised by Joseph Fiennes work in the America audiobook and how it seemed initially jarring but grew on me. But the Dredd voice I will always hear when I read the comics is that of Toby Longworth, so it was fantastic to hear him again. And the story, by veteran Dredd writer & editor David Bishop, was a lot of fun with a nice twist at the end. #thismakesmehappy #2021reads #books #audiobooks #audiodrama #bigfinishproductions #2000adcomic #judgedreddcrimechronicles #judgedredd #strangerthantruth #davidbishop #tobylongworth #helenkay https://www.instagram.com/p/CbStgjgL3G4/?utm_medium=tumblr

[libertyreads]

Book Review #127 of 2023--

We'll Be Home for Christmas by HelenKay Dimon. Rating: 3.5 stars.

Read on November 1st.

I decided to start out with a quick and festive read for the first day of the month. October was a bit of a mess so I wanted to start out on solid footing. Turns out it wasn't all that festive, but I still had such a good time reading this one. My library app said it was about 100 pages even thought GoodReads AND StoryGraph both put it at almost 400. Definitely felt more like 100 pages. In these short stories we already know what I'm going to say: it wasn't long enough. I wish we had more angst, more longing, and, oddly, more sex. That's not something that I--an asexual reader--normally say about romance novels, but this one was weird because it showed how much attraction, fire, chemistry these characters had before they finally gave in. But then the scene of them actually giving in to their desires was a little...lackluster. It's like the author wanted to close the bedroom door here but isn't known for that so she kept the door ajar. It was odd for me. Plus not getting the holiday vibes I was going for on Day 1 of Christmas? A little disappointing. I still enjoyed this one more than the first book in this series so it's definitely a step in the right direction.

[chrisloria215]

So good I had to share! Check out all the items I'm loving on @Poshmarkapp #poshmark #fashion #style #shopmycloset #lizme #katehill #helenkay: https://posh.mk/bvoOScVxQX