Tepid: Reading note 105

November 7, 2026shallowreader 2 Comments

As AO3 is down, I needed a quick hit of romance cray-cray so I thought I would turn to an old and trusted author, Lynne Graham. As usual, there are spoilers, if Happily Ever After for a Mills & Boon novel can even be considered a spoiler.

A bride and groom embracing (real people not cartoon illustrations). The book title convers the bottom third of the book.

Lynne Graham’s Unveiling the Wrong Bride

The Blurb: Empty vows…explosive marriage bed!

Billionaire Tore Renzetti already considered his convenient wedding a farce, before he realised the wrong bride was at the altar! To honour his grandfather, Tore continues with the ceremony, furiously branding his new wife — who he knows just wants his fortune — with a fiery ceremonial kiss…

Bakery owner Violet would do anything to fund her mother’s life-saving treatment. Even standing in for her sister as Tore’s bride! Violet is bound to the Italian for three, passionless years, until that one kiss tempts her to renegotiate their marriage contract…

The title conveys the Wrong! Bride! trope, and this book has all the hallmarks of a classic Lynne Graham novel:

Twin sisters!
Marriage of Convenience!
Blindsided gazillionaire groom!
The wrong bride twin turns up!
Secret bebbies!
Angry Mediterranean man!
All women are money-grubbing whores!
But this one is an angel!
But I can’t let her know!
Weirdly (not) a virgin!
Oh dear she is divine!
She must never know I love her!
She has a heart of gold!
She knows how to manage my family!
She only agreed to the fake marriage to pay for her mother’s cancer treatment!
Money can’t buy me love!
He swoons!
She swoons!
And then they fell in love!
And live happily ever after.

Ultimately, the book does not deliver. Though Tore and Violet hate each other from the start due to Violet and her sister Tabitha having a last minute (fraternal) twin swapperoo on the wedding day. Understandably, Tore who is coerced (and obligated to his grandparents) to marry their chosen bride for him is apoplectic. This should have allowed for a lot more anger and a lot more heated discussions. However, no-one in this novel gets dragged. The hate is too weak. Everyone was too conciliatory, too kind, too understanding, and even the sense of evil flirty cousin causing jealousies didn’t resonate. Sadly, this story lacked the full punch of absurdity I expect from Lynne Graham, such as we saw in earlier classics such as The Sicilian’s Stolen Son and The Greek’s Chosen Son. There just was not enough revenge and anger resolution to satisfy my melodrama needs.

I also feel that when absurdity is not absurd enough, the sense of reality does not allow for the suspension of disbelief, as it is too grounded and much too close to our world. There is a devastating story about one of my father’s relatives who found himself at the altar marrying the wrong sister, and not the woman whose hand in marriage he had requested. He had approached his eventual father-in-law for a traditional proxy where the bride did not date him or even speak to him before the wedding. The father-in-law deliberately misunderstood which daughter the prospective groom had asked to marry. He was just a young man who had no family present to support him as it was wartime and he was separated from them and far from his home. He had no idea about the detailed information exchange required in a proxy marriage. He was forced to go through a wedding that he had not agreed upon.

I am devastated for the 22 year old with no father, no mother, and no-one to stand up for his interests. I am also devastated for the woman whose father used her to blindside the groom who raged against his marriage for the rest of his life. When he died, his sons told my dad that at least now their mother will get some peace.

Fiction tropes don’t occur in a void. Coerced marriages are not unheard of and nor are they romantic. They destroy lives. Truth is stranger and much more devastating than fiction.

Perhaps I was never going to enjoy this story.

Metadata

My Metadata: absurdist romance, alphabrute, arranged marriage, babies, bat-shit-crazy, castle, category, countryside, dancing, fake name trickery, fake wedding, family dynamics, gazillionaire, grandparents, italian, marriage-of-convenience, martyrdom-for-family, mills-and-boon, misery guts, romance, sex, veddy english, wedding.

Library Metadata: I have searched both local and national libraries across Australia, the USA and the UK and cannot find a library record associated with this book which contains any subject heading descriptors.

Sloppy.

The Hunt: Reading Note 104

November 2, 2026shallowreader Leave a comment

October’s TBR Challenge topic of “The Hunt” was certainly a challenge for me as I have not read any adult fiction or non-fiction that could be described as such. Nor have I watched a movie or TV show with any hunting. I am a wimp and just can’t bear such adrenaline rushes. However, I did read a (long) picture book that connects to the theme.

Sid Sharp’s The Wolf Suit

The cover of The Wolf Suit by Sid Sharp.Greenery with red mushrooms border the perimeter, in the middle is a dark house shape with a lamb putting on a wolf mask framed in the middle.

The Blurb: Bellwether Riggwelter is, once again, out of blackberries. This time, rather than tiptoe through a forest full of predators, he comes up with a new plan. He will keep himself safe by blending in—he will sew a Wolf Suit! The disguise works perfectly . . . sort of. Bellwether realizes he can’t enjoy the forest in a bulky suit, and he may not be the only creature in the forest who feels that way. Perhaps not everyone is as wolfish as they appear.

With humor, darkness, and insight reminiscent of Jon Klassen and Edward Gorey, Sharp turns the idiom “wolf in sheep’s clothing” on its head. The perfect contemporary folktale to press into the hands of anyone who has felt they need to pretend to be someone else.

Bellwether Riggwelter is a sheep. He’s a sheep who is rather scared of wolves so he doesn’t venture out of his home much. He has too much fear. Of wolves. However, Bellwether is hungry and needs to find some food (or blackberries). He sews a wolf suit for himself (as sheep are known to have fine motor sewing skills) and ventures out into the woods in pursuit of fruit. He comes across a number of other wolves but is not perturbed as he feels he is acting the part well. Until he sees that his sewing was dodgy and his wolf suit started to fall apart. Decisions had to be made, and in typical happily ever after fairy tale style, no sheep pretending they are wolves died in this picture book.

The picture book was longer than a standard one. It had 4 chapters and seemed to be situated between that picture book and early reader level for kids. Late pre-school or Kindergarten. Though honestly, you can be any age to read this book. It was a lot of fun with great illustrations filled with discoveries embedded throughout for I-Spy inquisitive readers.

Metadata:

My metadata: absurd, anthropomorphic, anxiety, children’s books, environment, fairytale, fear, picture books.

Library metadata: The library closest to my home (where I was once employed) that holds a copy of this book had zero subject descriptors in their metadata. Just the standard Author/Title/Publisher/Year and blurb. Not helpful at all. And annoying.

However, I did find a library in Victoria with a splendid record with the following subject metadata: Genre: Funny animal comics; Subject Term: Self-esteem — Comic books, strips, etc., Self-reliance — Comic books, strips, etc., Wolves — Comic books, strips, etc., Sheep — Comic books, strips, etc., Disguise — Comic books, strips, etc.; Reading Level: Ages 6-11.

I do find it interesting that the book is described as “Comic books, strips, etc.”. It certainly did not have the look and feel of a comic book or a graphic novel. It looked like and read like a picture book. It was just longer. I didn’t think that the expanded length would prohibit a book from being categorised as such.

Go figure! Meanwhile, go read it!

Lush Life: Reading Note 103

November 2, 2026shallowreader 4 Comments

Here is my September TBR challenge review. A few reviews ago, I wrote about Cat Sebastian’s roadtrip romance Peter Cabot Gets Lost, and here is another roadtrip romance by Cat Sebastian this one being her first contemporary novel. As usual, there are lots and lots of spoilers so don’t bother reading if your like surprises.

Cat Sebastian’s Star Shipped

The Blurb: Simon and Charlie, actors on a long-running sci-fi show, can’t stand one another. Charlie is impetuous, outgoing, and basically feral, and Simon thinks he should have stayed in reality television where he belongs. They’ve spent the better part of a decade quarreling over the spotlight and pretty much everything else, and everybody in the industry knows it. Now that Simon’s contract is finally done, he can move to New York, start fresh with work he actually likes, and get away from Charlie.

Simon’s only problem is that people might assume he’s been pushed off the show due to being impossible to work with. And he is kind of difficult to work with. He doesn’t get along with people—unlike Charlie, who somehow tricked everyone on the show into adoring him despite some outrageously bad on-set behavior during the show’s first season. Simon would rather never have to see Charlie again, but reluctantly agrees to stage a very public friendship during the short time before he moves. When Charlie has to leave town to deal with a family emergency, this means Simon comes along. Their road trip brings Simon to places he would never have willingly chosen to visit—and he finds he’s actually not having a terrible time.

The more he gets to know Charlie, the more Simon suspects he’s underestimated his former coworker. Simon also realizes that after seven years, Charlie might know him better than anyone ever has. Even stranger, Charlie seems to be starting to actually like him, despite knowing him so well. Still, Simon is about to move three thousand miles away, so whatever’s starting between him and Charlie can’t really amount to anything… right?

In Star Shipped, long-term costars who can barely stand each other, Simon Devereaux and Charlie Blake have been acting together in a Star Trek-y TV series for 7 years. Simon is a complete snob who feels that Charlie lowers the tone of their show as Charlie is a former reality TV star – a bit of shirtless, pretty boy muscles – eye candy for the viewers. Charlie is younger, extroverted, a people pleaser and fun. Charlie is a puppy dog who “accumulates friendships like some kind of snowball of extroversion, always gathering and never letting go”. Meanwhile, Simon is introverted, anxious, suffers from debilitating migraines, has one friend Jaime and his dog, and Simon behaves like a dickhead and isn’t anywhere near as insightful as he thinks he is. Grumpy Simon’s the opposite to Charlie which being co-leading men in the sci-fi series makes life tense for them and their friends even though it makes great TV propelling lots of fandom shippers. Despite his disdain, there are occasional moments with Simon acknowledging that “Charlie learns his lines faster than anyone Simon’s worked with and he’s quick on his feet” and other such asides.

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Backlist Banger: Reading Note 102

November 2, 2026November 2, 2026shallowreader 2 Comments

SuperWendy’s August’s TBR topic is the Backlist Banger – a book by a favourite author that has been sitting on your TBR for a long time. I have always adored Anne McAllister’s books. She has been an auto-read author for me for nearly 3 decades, and I have reviewed her books several times on my blog (sexy baklava book FTW). The book I read was first published in 2014, but first read by me this year.

Anne McAllister’s Last Year’s Bride

Book Cover. Author's name is bigger than the book title. A bride and groom sitting on the ground (there goes her dress, in front of a ye olde wooden wagon. The groom has cowboy boots and a cowboy hat on to flag that this is a cowboy romance.

It’s for the ranch. It’s your duty. A man does his duty, always. His father Sam’s words were carved into Cole McCullough’s brain. His responsibilities lay with Rafter M Arrow, which had been in their family for over a hundred years. Even though they were fighting a losing battle to keep the place going.

The ranch always came first, over personal comfort, sometimes reason and definitely women. Sam had seen both his wives walk away, dismissing them as hot-house city girls who couldn’t survive the wilds of rural Montana. So how had Cole ended up making a spur-of-the-moment marriage last year in Reno to TV director Nell, who was as city as they came? Nell was prepared to give it all up to be with Cole. But he knew how it would as it had always ended before. It was time to stop living a pipe dream and sue for divorce.

But then Nell came back to Marietta with The Compatibility Game, a reality program, in which couples discovered what they were willing to do for love by living and working at Rafter M, and Cole found himself taking part too…

Keeping your marriage a secret from your families is not a favourite trope for me. Not that it doesn’t happen, it’s just that if it does happen, there are usually other family dynamics at play which forces this situation. Often there are scary control issues occurring for at least one person in the couple to necessitate keeping a marriage secret so it is hard to be on board with the romanticising and fictionalising and genrefying of this oft terrifying situation. In this book, it is not as terrible, however our hero Cole McCullough’s impossible family responsibilities keep him from laying his love out to be seen by his family so he keeps his whirlwind romance and marriage to city-girl (lol but of course) Nell Corbett who he meets in a cowboy (him) documentary she films.

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Freedom: Reading Note 101

November 1, 2026November 1, 2026shallowreader 3 Comments

Another day, another TBR Challenge catch up post, this one has the theme of Freedom for the month of July. This one bothered me because it was a five-star love-it read yet I only had a handful of notes from when I read it. I had to borrow it again just to write this review. The usual warnings that there are many spoilers ahead.

Ava Wilder’s Some Kind of Famous

Blurb: It’s been a decade since Merritt Valentine’s peak as a celebrated singer-songwriter… and her subsequent career-ending mental breakdown. Since then, she’s abandoned the glitz of Los Angeles to move in with her sister, Olivia, in the sleepy Colorado ski town of Crested Peak, hoping to heal her lingering emotional wounds of the spotlight.

Life in Crested Peak would be uncomplicated if not for Merritt’s inconvenient crush on the local contractor and handyman, Nikolaos Petrakis. Niko is disarmingly handsome and too kind-hearted to ever be right for the complex and prickly Merritt. Though tempting, a fling with Niko would only bring the kind of drama Merritt has vowed to leave behind.

After his last heartbreak, Niko is done dating his fellow townies. Still, he can’t shake his fascination with the brilliant Merritt, even as he heeds their mutual friends’ warnings to steer clear of her chaos. But when Merritt needs help fixing up a house of her own, Niko is glad to be the only man for the job.

As the two spend more time together, their mutual attraction sparking a deeper connection than either one expects, they’re forced to confront the idea that they may have underestimated each other– and themselves.

This book opens to a scene where hot mess, super famous musician Merritt Valentine who has been sheltering with her twin sister in a mountain town for the last two years, trying to valiantly recover from a trail of destructive behaviour, self-sabotages when her sister hints at her moving out to Merritt’s own home in the coming year (for good baby reasons). Merritt needs to find a contractor to take on her home higher up in the mountains. Queue local jack-of-all-trades Nikolaos Petrakis who “was so beautiful he was almost boring, rescued only by a handful of jolie laid imperfections”. Through a series of house consultations, trips to trade shops, and dinners at their local bar, Merritt and Niko talk, laugh, belt out ABBA songs (also adoring the movie Mamma Mia!), indulge in rhythmless dancing (a delightful scene) and develop a rapport while trying very hard to keep from hooking up. But this is a romance, and of course they cross that line. Sex between the two of the brings about an even deeper understanding of how they are in their local community together, especially as this relationship has a deadline with Niko planning on permanently moving away to another part of the country. But their connection is too strong, their approaches to life problems so similar, and their tolerance for differences bring them close together.

This was not an easy coming together. Merritt had many mental health issues. And through a lot of therapy and help, she had come to a stage of coping with life. Merritt seems to think that she isn’t worthy of a good life and good relationships due to her past responses:

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Pride: Reading Note 100

October 29, 2026November 1, 2026shallowreader 2 Comments

Though my 100th note seems like a huge achievement, I want to point out that I only started the note series in 2019, 10 years after I started my blog. I still want to give it some attention, and as SuperLibrarian Wendy’s TBR Challenge theme for June is Pride, I am going to discuss one of Rachel Reid’s lesser known books The Shots You Take released in 2025. Once again, I reveal all, there are spoilers galore. If you want no surprises, do not keep reading.

Rachel Reid’s The Shots You Take

A sweet and sexy hockey romance about two ex-teammates and former best friends with benefits who are about to discover whether you can ever really have a second chance. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid.

After moving back to his hometown ten years ago, Riley Tuck thought he had left his major league hockey career—and his broken heart—far behind. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes, it brings ex-teammate and former best friend with benefits Adam Sheppard back into his life.

Coming to the small town of Avery River, Nova Scotia, might have been a mistake. Adam’s not sure he’ll ever win back Riley’s trust after the way they left things—and the attention he’s getting as a huge hockey star isn’t exactly helping. Yet the chemistry that crackles between them is undeniable, even now.

As Adam helps Riley navigate his grief, long-buried feelings start to resurface. But they’ll have to square off with their complicated past if they’re going to have a real shot at a new beginning.

After waiting 3 months on my library holds queue, this book came through for me on Monday and I accidently read it in the one day.

I have no notes.

No notes at all.

I was so far lost reading through the this page-turner novel, a second-chance at love romance for former best-friends and superstar hockey players Riley and Adam. The novel starts at the funeral of Riley’s beloved father who has just died suddenly and unexpectedly. Riley is wracked with grief in the church where he sees Adam turn up to attend the funeral service. As the story unfolds, we find out that Riley and Adam were drafted together as young (and dumb and poorly equipped to deal with life) adults who lived in a shared apartment together while they played hockey in Toronto. In their third(?)/fourth(?) year of playing, Adam gets drunk enough to start having sex with (gay) Riley who has been deeply in love with him for a long time. None of these are spoilers as they are revealed early in the story, as is the unsurprising denial of love from Adam who continues to claim to be straight, who gets married and has children with (his now ex-wife) Maggie. Newly divorced and out Adam is finally ready to court Riley, but Riley had left playing professional hockey 12 years earlier, devastated by Adam’s rejection, devastated by their actions after a cup win, devastated enough to move to another team, and so devastated that he spiralled into harmful and damaging mental health behaviour. Riley left hockey and returned home to recover, and Adam’s reappearance unwillingly brings all the memories and emotions to the fore.

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New Beginnings: Reading Note 99

October 28, 2026October 29, 2026shallowreader 5 Comments

I am on a blogging roll, playing catch up over my 3 days of no teaching and no marking, before assessments come in at the end of the week. I feel astounded at the free time. But also astounded that I am writing rather than reading. Let’s relish the moment and here is the May TBR Challenge topic of New Beginnings – here’s an international student love story.

Elle Kennedy’s Girl Abroad

When nineteen-year-old Abbey Bly gets the opportunity to study abroad for a year in London, it’s the perfect chance to finally slip out from under the thumb of her beloved but overbearing retired rock star father. She’s ready to be free, to discover herself – but first off, to meet the girls she’s rooming with. That is, until she arrives at her gorgeous new flat to discover those roommates are actually all boys. Charming, funny, insufferably attractive boys. And off-limits, with a rule against fraternizing between housemates after unwanted drama with the previous girl.

Abbey has never considered herself a rulebreaker. But soon, she’s lying to her father about her living situation and falling for not one, but two men she can’t have: her rugby-player roommate and a broody musician with a girlfriend. Not to mention, her research for school has gotten her tangled in a deeply hidden scandal of a high nobility family, surrounding her in secrets on all sides.

If there’s any hope of Abbey finding love, answers, or a future in London, she’ll have to decide which rules – and hearts – might be worth breaking . . .

I think if I was anywhere near being a teen/young adult, I would have enjoyed this study abroad, coming of age, love triangle, finding yourself away from your parents story. However, I am in my fifties and I just got increasingly annoyed as I read this book. I was especially agitated with the stereotyped characters – the American ingenue, Abbey and her accidentally rooming with 3 men in a share house in Notting Hill :: rolls eyes:: – the Black, gay Brit, the Hugh Grant Brit, the jacked laconic Australian.

Then you have the protective retired rockstar dad who is struggling with separation anxiety and not being close to his teenage daughter and seriously, I don’t blame the man. Abbey was way too young to be organising this trip into the foreign unknown on her own. Then add all her lies and manipulations so her father doesn’t realise that she wasn’t in a women’s dorm but with unknown men. This could have gone scarily wrong had it been a different genre, and it was all just too much for old-parent-me. I did giggle when Abbey considers buying her father an “emotional support rabbit” to get him through her year abroad.

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TBR Challenge – Fool’s Errand: Reading Note 98

October 28, 2026shallowreader 4 Comments

Wendy the SuperLibrarian provides a short description for April’s TBR challenge theme of Fool’s Errand. She writes that it is “some sort of harebrained/desperate/Hail Mary kind of motivation for one of the main characters, fake relationship/engagement etc. And I have to say that you can’t get more fake a relationship when you are convinced that your romantic fate is coupling with a plane. You read that correctly.

As always, I remind you that I have spoilers throughout my review. The ending is revealed, the crazy is revealed. Though is it a spoiler if it is mentioned in the blurb? Now hold onto your smelling salts, this review is hell-a sweary!

Kate Folk’s Sky Daddy.

The blurb is taken from GoodReads as the publisher blurb was much shorter.

Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges in her true passion: taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could.

Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry” one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.

So there are no surprises when I say that Kate Folk’s Sky Daddy is a fucking wild ride (read?). It is everything that the blurb promised and yet it totally blindsided me. And I am further blindsided by the fact that this book is traditionally published by a Big 5 (Big 4?) company. I am not used to trad pubs going all out with wild stories and I wish there were a lot more easily available.

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Tropetastic: Reading Note 97

October 28, 2026November 2, 2026shallowreader 3 Comments

I have been lost to my blogging world since March when I had the good fortune to watch and then read Heated Rivalry. My first post for this topic was a review on Heated Rivalry which then turned into a partial academic paper where I am now sitting on 800 words and a 20 slide presentation with nowhere to present it¹. So instead, I am going to write about the road trip romance trope for Wendy SuperLibrarian’s TBR Challenge for March in October. Don’t mind me and my lateness. Also a reminder that I always have spoilers. Look away if you don’t want to know what happens at the end.

Cat Sebastian’s Peter Cabot Gets Lost.

The Blurb and Content notes taken straight from the author’s website:

Summer 1960:

After years of scraping by, Caleb Murphy has graduated from college and is finally getting to start a new life. Except he suddenly has no way to get from Boston to Los Angeles. Then, to add to his misery, there’s perfect, privileged Peter Cabot offering to drive him. Caleb can’t refuse, even though the idea of spending a week in the car with a man whose luggage probably costs more than everything Caleb owns makes him want to scream.

Peter Cabot would do pretty much anything to skip out on his father’s presidential campaign, including driving across the country with a classmate who can’t stand him. After all, he’s had plenty of practice with people not liking him much—his own family, for example. The farther Peter gets from his family’s expectations, the more he starts to think about what he really wants, and the more certain he becomes that what he wants is more time with prickly, grumpy Caleb Murphy. As they put more miles between themselves and their pasts, they both start to imagine a future where they can have things they never thought possible. Content notes available².

The road trip is a romance in its own right, with the changeable settings, navigating the landscape. Then add to the road trip love and the coming together of two people who find themselves in forced proximity with all the joys and tensions that come from being in a car. The romance road trip is the modern day Odyssey, a heroes’ journey both to a destination and to finding their sense of self and sense of connection while fighting off the Cyclops and the Laistrygenians. Unlike the wine-dark sea—antiquity’s water superhighway—in the modern day version, the romance is grounded, it is earth based, trees, deserts, lakes, mountains, terra firma, soil beneath their feet, tar for the tyre treads. The modern roadtrip, just like in the Odyssey, culminating with the love proposition, the conviction and reliability of the marriage bed, a journey worthy of courtship³. Cat Sebastian affirms the role of the roadtrip as a narrative choice in this book, writing that “travelling across the country to be with a lover is a venerable tradition”, and for Peter and Caleb, this is story is centred on their own queer journey together.

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