#i also considered ''if i'm kindling for a little while at least i'd feel of use''

[sunburstsandmoonshadows]

"in the end, all I hope for is to be a bit of warmth for you when there’s not a lot warmth left to go around" - boreas, the oh hellos

below, a version with other lyrics:

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hiii!

I'm a huge fan, and eternally grateful to you for leading me to His Valet 🙏🏻

I'm just coming off a serious Lisa Kleypas high and i'm not sure where to go next. I tend to like my romance angsty and historical. What would you suggest?

Thank you for everything you do!

Omg no need to thank me! 'Tis a fun hobby for me (and who knows, maybe eventually I'll publish a book or get into book marketing... the first is a dream, the second possibly a more practical dream given my professional background lol).

Needless to say, if you haven't read any other LaViolette books, she's probably one of my favorite Kleypas readalikes. Less Victorian Decadence (though they're amazing) because of the super high heat and queerness, plus the tendency towards non-monogamy or at least group shenanigans, but her other books like the Bellamys ESPECIALLY read like higher heat Kleypas to me a lot of the time. You probably know this—but the Bellamys give me "edgier Hathaways" vibes and they're all good so far (though Hyacinth and Selina particularly).

Primo historical angst who I consider from a similar like... field? As Kleypas? Is of course Elizabeth Hoyt. All of her books are solid to incredible, and Maiden Lane is just one of those series that I feel EVERY historical romance fan should read. Imo, they're best read in order (though full disclosure, I've yet to read book 1 even though I own it, and I'm kind of holding off because once I read it I'm done with ML and like Kleypas she hasn't published in a while...) but my top five would be Scandalous Desires (Irish river pirate Charming Mickey/moralistic Quaker widow Silence), Thief of Shadows (one of my all time favorites, virgin hero Winter with society widow Isabel), Duke of Midnight (craziest duke ever, Duke Batman Maximus/waaaay too smart for him Artemis), Dearest Rogue (the jaded former man of the law James with the woman he's guarding, Phoebe, who happens to be blind), and Sweetest Scoundrel (ultimate "rogue on the outside sweetheart on the inside" Asa and the uptight but secretly traumatized Eve).

Lorraine Heath, but of course! Just recommended her London's Greatest Lovers trilogy (available for $1.99 as a kindle bundle) and ESPECIALLY Waking Up With the Duke, but she honestly has several I would consider masterpieces/top favorites. Besides that one, I'd especially recommend:

--The Earl Takes All, a modern classic, also known as Gorilla Twins, one of the wildest books I've ever read

--When the Duke Was Wicked, aka (around these parts) (my blog, nowhere else) Rum on Lips, a beautiful widower rake book

--Between the Devil and Desire, the Jack Dodger and Olivia book, a FABULOUS interclass romance (though he's rich, don't forget it) with a hero who is perrrrrfect for Derek Craven girlies (Lovingdon from the above book is a little more similar to Sebastian, if Sebastian was actually terminally depressed and totally in denial about how hard he's falling for HIS redheaded heroine... I actually don't think St. Vincent really was that hard on the denial front once he was in it for real)

Joanna Shupe, of course! Her Fifth Avenue Rebels series is my favorite. I'd say she generally goes a *little* lighter on the angst than Kleypas, but it really depends on the book and they always have angst of some kind, and often a lot of groveling. I'd argue that her angstiest book that I've read is The Duke Gets Even, another all time favorite of mine. It's really pretty daring for the genre, imo, re: the source of the angst. Buuuut I would also recommend reading the series up to that in order for MAX gutpunch, and all the books are good to great.

I haven't read as much Jeannie Lin as I should have by now (just two books so far) but OOOOH The Dragon and The Pearl is so good. So angsty. There's such an anguished love confession in this one. Shoot it into my veins.

Sarah MacLean is definitely someone you can tell has been influenced by Lisa, and she writes great angst. My angst favorites of hers are A Rogue by Any Other Name and Day of the Duchess (the latter of which is another daring one).

Monica McCarty writes great angst—her Highland Guard series is medieval, but it definitely has the Kleypas-type heroes. And you get a LOT of like... "he doesn't love me" angst, some "we're on opposite sides" angst, some "we have beef and it still isn't over" angst throughout the series, which is really pretty consistent (I say as someone who still has a few books left).

Jennifer Ashley's Mackenzie brothers books are SINGULARLY angsty in the best way, and give big Kleypas vibes to me. The Duke's Perfect Wife is an all time favorite of mine, made me cry, and is best read after the first three in order, but they're ALL great.

And I mean... I have to recommend Princess by Gaelen Foley, a recent favorite of mine that is SOOOOO deliciously angsty. The longing! The betrayal! The hero wants to get himself killed, assassinating Napoleon FOR HER (and also because he highkey hates himself). The Duke is also super good, and VERY angsty.

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

Hiiii! I normally see you around on the marcsteven tag a lot and I was wondering if you have any fic recs of them? I’m starving for content it’s been so long 😩 Any site is fine, but ao3 works best in my phone! /nf

Do I ever, anon :D (I'll keep this to fics under 500 or so kudos since I'm assuming you've already read the popular fics like Last Night I Watched Myself Sleep and Making Two Reflections into One)

Adjustments by Nagem is 12k, never got enough love imo, and is my favorite finished fic <3 If you don't mind a side of Marcstevenjake polycule, the sequel Waiting Room is always quite excellent too <3

If you don't mind separate bodies au's, I love the 4 part series And for the first time in all my life I Know I'm more than what I fear by dealthydan

Let me love you while the moon is still out by Lady_Clow is a hauntingly beautiful little fic.

If you don't mind ambiguous endings, I really liked the The Happy Ending by kimmy and Mkocuria. (the art at the end is delicious too <3)

come on, come on, darlin by above the ruins, is the sweetest little 5 things + 1 fic, especially if you love the moon boys using petnames with each other. Their second fic We can live right here (like a memory) is also quite good.

you'll wind me up or you'll wind up dead by opensoulsurgery

You Tried to Be a Hero by highkingpenny. 16k, no explicit sex really despite the rating, but I loved the banter between Marc and Steven (still crying over Marc calling Steven his little noodle boy)

If you haven't already, I'd also say check out anything marcsteven that's been written by the AO3 writers TheCarrot, usurp, lostmagician, gloss, pardillo, nakimochiku, It's_brilliant_thor, kika444, and snapdragonpop007. I'll read anything they write, and total, they make up probably half of my reading list anyways.

And if you don't mind WIPS (most of these update semi-regularly), Consider the Flowers (They Don't try to look right) by sacrificeplay and Narcissus in Blue by chashuu are two of the fics that gave me the most Moon knight brain worms. Fall Into Line by Yersifanel is a beast of a fic that hurts so good, What the Right Hand is Doing by ErinPtah has been really interesting so far (and you might consider checking out their Cover of Knight series if you like crossovers and headspace polycule fic), and if you're looking for angsty Hate to Love fic, friight just posted the first chapter for Love Song for a Deadman (i'm assuming you have but if you haven't, also definitely check out their completed beast of a slowburn fic The Measure of Things.)

Hopefully this helps at least a little bit, anon! Like you, I'm starved for any and all new content, i swear I've been refreshing the ao3 tab since last march. Feel free to look at my ao3 bookmarks as well, the first 6 pages are nearly all Marcsteven/Marcstevenjake fic, and I update as I reread fics and add them to my kindle.

(if anyone wants to add their recs or promote their own fic, feel free to add!)

[phantomdialogue]

˗ˏˋ. ݁₊ ✶ ˖ 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐢𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 - 𝟒.𝟕𝟓/𝟓 ☆ . ݁ ˖ˎˊ˗

chestnut springs book four

premise: theo silva is a playboy bull rider who has grown himself a reputation around enjoying a buckle bunny's presence. winter hamilton is a successful doctor getting out of a terrible marriage. their one night stand was the best they've both felt in so long but it was only one night, never to be talked about again. until a certain plus sign comes into play.

couple: theo silva and winter hamilton

tropes: accidental pregnancy, miscommunication (a little), close proximity, he falls first, reverse grumpy x sunshine

available on kindle unlimited

review below!

review:

if you told me even just 2 weeks ago that i would be rating an accidental pregnancy book even close to this high, i'd tell you you were crazy. but winter, theo, and vivi all together just cracked my heart right open. i went into this pitting theo against cade as my favorite chestnut springs man but he quickly stole my heart and left poor cade in the dust. i really wasn't expecting the love that i had for this book at all. i think that there were so many positives that i just was smiling like an idiot reading the whole time.

winter and theo were such a welcome pairing and i think they really played off of each other to change each other for the better. getting to watch theo deal with his own insecurities while also being 100% there for winter was perfect. winter getting to feel secure with something for once in her life and feel completely supported by someone was hitting me in the chest harder and harder the more i read. i think that she just needed to feel a part of a family and she really got that in this book and it made me so happy.

i also loved all of the snippets we got about the eaton family and how it's changed since we were introduced to it in the first book. they've really just grown into their own and become such a supportive unit for anyone that enters their family. where is my canadian cowboy family to adopt me? getting to read about winter's relationship with the other girls was so heart warming and i swear i could read a book just about the girls and their daily adventures in the eaton family.

overall, i adored this and i love this series and i'm about to be crushed to finish it with this next book but i can totally see myself coming back and rereading these books a few times at least.

q & a:

are they endgame? - i'm gonna say yes pretty confidently actually. i think that theo really understands winter's trauma and why she is so hesitant towards that long term relationship but we saw him start to reassure her and really make her comfortable with it towards the end of the book. for that reason, i think he has a really good grip on how to guide her and make her feel really grounded in their relationship to keep them endgame.

did i cringe? - shockingly, considering the fact that this is a trope that i never read and usually don't like, i didn't cringe at all. i was melting reading this book i loved it. there wasn't any cringey dialogue or scenarios. i think you could probably argue that some of theo's flirty dialogue has a bit of a cringey aspect to it but i personally found it really endearing.

favorite part? - winter. i was in love with winter the whole book. i think this book really felt like the start of the end of the series and i think a lot of that came from this conclusion to the hamilton family storylines that were opened up in flawless and left unfinished. it still leaves stuff for the last book to tackle but i found myself so attached to winter and getting to read the other side of what summer dealt with and the way that she handled everything both then and now with the baby. i really think that both winter and theo's sides of the accidental pregnancy were explored so thoroughly and that made me so happy to see because i think they both went through so much with all of that. i loved the way that winter really started to come into her own and be this really strong character with so many layers. i just adored the characterization of everyone in this book but specifically winter.

least favorite part? - i think that the one thing that stood out to me was the lack of beau in this book which felt strange since every book so far usually leads into the next one really well. it even mentioned towards the end that he wasn't there and it just felt really odd because he was super present in book three which left this book feeling like we've just kind of left him. i'm sure this will be explained in the next one but with the trend of this series, it did stand out to me. other than that, i don't think i could figure out a least favorite thing haha. i adored this book.

favorite quotes (some spoilers here, of course, but minimal):

Because the very last thing I need in my life is someone who makes me feel like there’s not enough oxygen in my lungs when I’ve only just caught my breath.

“You’re not crashing a single thing. This is a family dinner. You’re family. And so, if my math is right, you’re right where you should be.”

I don’t want to be the one-night stand who’s used to scratch an itch. I want a woman like Winter Hamilton—beautiful, and smart, and sharp-tongued—to look at me and see a future.

“You’re telling me I have a daughter and I missed it all? The pregnancy? The birth? Everything?”

“He said, ‘Mom, I met her.’ And I said, ‘Who?’” Loretta’s lips curve up, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “He said, ‘The woman I’m going to marry one day.’”

I live you. Like I see you everywhere, you are in everything. Our connection is more than physical.

[theloveinc]

hi!!! i have a kindle paperwhite that i love, the newest gen (the option without the ads and 32gb because i love books and wanted lots of storage space). i highly recommend it!!! it’s backlit, so you can read in the dark, and you can adjust the brightness and warmth of the screen, as well as the color of (regular) books between white, black, and a sepia/tan tone. you can also change font size, style, and boldness, as well as page orientation between upright and horizontal. i have a fun little flap cover case for mine, and a screen protector, but i’m sure you can get fancier/more protective cases. i like having my simple flap cover :) you can go onto the internet but it’s kinda ehh, but if you want to read fics from ao3 you can download them and port them onto your kindle using something like calibre, which is a totally free and open source software to take downloaded files, like pdfs or .mobis, and convert them or send them to your kindle/e-reader from a laptop or computer! ao3 supports downloading fics in house, i have several downloaded onto my kindle, and if you read fics from other websites (like fanfiction.net), there are websites that can help you download fics from those sites too, and you can use calibre to transfer them to your kindle :) and then of course you have access to the entire amazon books sale page (on the kindle! you can buy books on your kindle), and if you want to you can get kindle unlimited, which i have because i like reading kitschy romance novels lol mine also has a super long battery life, and i highly recommend spending to get the kindle dock as well, i use it to hold my kindle up while i read in bed and knit, and it connects to a cord to charge it for you :) all-in-all, i honestly really like my kindle paperwhite, but i also had a pretty large kindle library before i got it, so that’s why i got a kindle specifically. i also didn’t want anything that i could put apps on so i could read without getting distracted like i sometimes do on my phone, so the fact that it’s pretty simple in what all it can do is perfect for me :) (and you CAN get comics/manga on it, i just don’t read mine on it, and it’s stuck in b/w/ even on colored pages i think)

(rest of post under cut due to length!!)

thank you sm for the breakdown of yours! sounds like something really fun to have, with all it's uses and the ability to customize it! i remember way back when in like... 5th-6th grade, my friend had a kindle too and her google(-equivalent?) app didn't work very well either....... i see not much has changed lolol (maybe for the best?).

i agree with you, though. i'd definitely get distracted with other apps, so it's almost better not to have them? at the same time tho, i just feel like... paying for a device like that... and then not having the option to have other entertainment would piss me off LOL. esp cuz switching back between phone and kindle at night seems... a bit pointless (why i want to read more in general, to get off my phone + probs why my mom keeps telling me to just use the kindle app but... ehhhh). probably why it's so cheap tho.

as for downloading fics... i'm glad to know it's an option at the very least!!honestly, truly what sounds the best to me (other than the reading itself) is the dock thing, as i'd love to read and crochet, too🥺

but this was really helpful, as i def think it's something i should think about saving up for (and a better quality one too, at least for space and lack of ads bc... yeah u right). not to repeat myself for the 40th time but.. i've got some time to consider it before i really need to put it on the list.

thank you so much for your help tho! it sounds really beneficial and like it was a great gift for you❤️❤️❤️

[cavehags]

Live blog the book here, I'm so morbidly curious but I'd rather die than read if

okay so it’s… not a liveblog since i already read it but yes here are the highlights of THE GRACE YEAR BY KIM LIGGETT

warning for brief descriptions of many kinds of violence and sexual violence under the cut because kim liggett despises women and wants you to know it!

also sorry for my awful photos of my kindle screen

tierney james lives in a society where women have no rights

every year, all the 16-year-old girls are temporarily banished to the wilderness for a year. if they survive, a few lucky chosen ones among them get to get married off to men in town who choose them (the women have no say)

all women have awful lives. they aren’t allowed to congregate with other women. they aren’t allowed to dream or hum or enjoy sex. their husbands can have them banished or executed for any reason. all the girls and women have to watch other women get executed or whipped or punished in some way at least once a month on the full moons

men claim that women require constant supervision and discipline to keep them in line because they could be harboring secret magic. in theory, the point of the “grace year” is to give the girls a chance to burn out their magic before they come back to civilization

but the magic isn’t actually real, and at least the men who run the town are well aware of that

anyway. tierney sets out for her grace year

she discovers she’s unusually prepared to live in the wilderness because her dad prepared her – her dad is super nice and the narrative never considers for a second that he might be complicit in the harms done to these young girls :) so she does stuff like building rain barrels to catch fresh rainwater because the well water they’re supposed to drink has gross algae in it

but the other girls, led by mean ringleader kiersten, start becoming violent and bringing over the misogynistic rituals from their village into the grace year camp - like cutting off fingertips and cute stuff like that :)

tierney stands up to oppression so they kick her out of the encampment lol. bitches amiright? 

the fear with being kicked out of the encampment is not about having to find food and shelter from wild animals. the main fear is Poachers. so on the outskirts of the main society, exiled women are forced into sex work serving the husbands of the village (yup! really!). those women and their children make up the outskirts community. and the adult sons of that community become poachers – and their prey is grace year girls. poachers lurk around the grace year encampment for girls who have run off, and they try to murder and dismember the girls and sell their body parts back to the city. their body parts are then EATEN as fertility potions and aphrodisiacs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so tierney’s like real scared of poachers lol

except weird thing, this one poacher keeps saving her life. this happens twice

then it happens a third time but she winds up knocked unconscious. and she wakes up naked and strapped to a table with some dude using a knife on her

she’s real scared and assumes she’s being skinned alive, because that is what the poachers do! 

she’s too drugged to resist but over a period of weeks she regains consciousness enough to learn that he was just preventing her from freezing to death!!!! and the knife? well he was cleaning her wounds. with a knife. somehow that’s supposed to make sense. i’m not sure either.

they build up a rapport and i bet you know where this is going

she falls in love with the fucking poacher :) 

basically she develops sympathy for him when she learns that this PROFESSIONAL GIRL-HUNTER unfortunately LIVES IN POVERTY and therefore DESERVES HER COMPASSION

also poacher is a slur lol

it’s weird that she’s so forgiving towards him because she hears him talking to his friend and they both call women “it” lmao

but who am i to say what is and is not romance

here’s a little snippet of tierney falling in love with him :) 

and this is a weird aside that the book definitely did NOT need, but for your own edification, turns out that in the outskirts community, the men do have sex, but only anal

so anyway this nightmarish misogyny of the main character falling in love with a man who literally hunts teenage girls lasts for maybe a hundred pages

they have sex. even though tierney is likely to get burned at the stake if she returns to the village and her new husband discovers she’s not a virgin. so that’s pretty cool

but eventually tho, another poacher discovers that tierney’s lover is harboring prey and he threatens tierney by telling her he’ll kill her lover if she doesn’t return to the grace year camp right away

she does, because his safety is soooo important to her

again. this man hunts teenage girls

but back at the camp, the girls are super crazy still

oh but one thing tierney learned is that the well water they drink is poisoned and so she thinks if she can get them to stop drinking poison, and to drink from the stream instead, they might get better

see her poacher lover was soooo helpful

back at the camp, the girls are all freaking out that a poacher appears to be creeping around and stealing stuff. tierney assumes it’s the friend of her lover’s who threatened her. the girls at the camp want to just kill her as a sacrifice or something, but tierney convinces them to let her go into the woods to deal with him instead

she does find who was responsible. it turns out it actually wasn’t a poacher at all! it was a guard who she knows who used to work on her family’s estate. he’s a stalker and thinks all girls are whores. it’s not very clear what’s going on with him, but anyway, he dies

but then tierney gets back to the camp and omg the girls have killed a poacher while she was gone!!! tierney freaks out because what if it’s her boyfriend!!!!

it wasn’t, but she still flips out that they very wrongly murdered a woman-hunter

literally cannot believe it. i literally just cannot believe it

HE WAS GOING TO KILL THEM AND SELL THEIR BODY PARTS FOR PEOPLE TO EAT AS APHRODISIACS

BUT YEAH. THEY’RE WRONG FOR KILLING HIM IN SELF-DEFENSE

tierney has this whole awakening that the poachers are victims of the patriarchy too sdhgiasodghaisdg

her one friend at the camp convinces her to go back and find her poacher lover and live with him in the woods forever

oh yeah her sisters are going to get banished to the outskirts and be forced into sex work as soon as they get their first period. but it’s worth it so she can be with her poacher lover

anyway she goes back into the woods, but not before her main bully, kiersten, has a confrontation with ANOTHER poacher

yeah poachers are people too guys

speaking off poachers being human. her lover dies. he dies a hero, protecting tierney

so she goes back to the camp and makes up with the girls

put yourself first girl worry bout yourself

ANYWAY! their grace year is over and finally they get to return to the town! but there’s a roadblock before tierney can move into her husband’s house: SHE’S PREGNANT, AND SHOWING

yep! she’s been pregnant for at least four months. the book saved this news as a big reveal

no wonder her friend told her to go live in the woods with her lover forever

she is sure to be burned at the stake

and actually tierney is down to get burned at the stake because then she’ll be able to speak her piece about how she feels that the grace year is bullshit with a whole audience listening. (she notes that bodies take a long time to burn, OMG TIERNEY FIND A BETTER WAY). 

but when the village realizes she’s pregnant and everyone is like ��BURN HER!!!”, her new fiance heroically intervenes and fakes this whole thing about how actually the baby is his and he wants to marry her anyway

tierney’s like, um, well i really wanted to get burned at the stake, but…….

that’s right. she decides to live and marry this guy all so the poacher’s family line can live on

anyway tierney’s sort of excited to be friends with her new husband but as soon as she tells him the pregnancy wasn’t from rape, he throws a temper tantrum and goes to chop down some trees to cool off

bummer

but all is not lost! she makes up with him and she realizes she can love both him AND the poacher lover

and the baby too, one presumes

tierney really has quite a good life for a society where women aren’t people, i have to say

anyway, soon enough she gives birth. in excruciating detail i might add

as soon as the baby is born, tierney realizes that all this time, when she’s been having dreams about this girl with a red birthmark helping her save her people, those dreams were about HER FUTURE DAUGHTER

tierney names the baby grace

she’s literally seventeen years old

and that is the end of the fucking book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so to recap: men who buy women as sex slave wives? are actually kind and loving souls. men who hunt women and dismember them and sell their organs? also kind and loving souls. but teenage girls being fed poison water? those girls are bitches. tierney doesn’t care about them lol

also

in the acknowledgments

the author thanks elizabeth banks and universal pictures for optioning the book

please let this die in development hell i truly can’t take it

worst fucking book i’ve ever read

thank you goodnight