Ok, we are in the crunch period to the Royal Wedding Shenanigans (someone in my twitter feed shared the news that Eugenie & her dude have moved into another one of the cottages at KP, which makes everyone neighbors), the boys are making me crazy, and I need to go review some API doc with several non-native English speakers, so here, have the thing that has been keeping me sane recently some more Modern Royals recs:
A Princess In Theory, Alyssa Cole, might have the Best Premise Ever: Our Heroine, a grad student/former foster child on a shoestring budget, keeps getting these irritating emails about how she’s the Betrothed of the Crown Prince of Thesolo in Africa. Our Naledi, being a smart girl, ignores the spam. Except… it’s not spam. 😀 So, yeah, super-fun premise; super-gorgeous cover; fun, mostly fluffy, plot, seasoned judiciously with a little reality, angst and villains, requisite HEA ending. Prince Thabiso is a little oblivious to his privilege but not outrageously so; his right-hand-woman is awesomely cool (I hope she gets a sequel); and Naledi, the heroine, is a little vulnerable under her strength. All very good stuff with maybe a little bit of a rushed ending, but still, super-fun to read.
Royally Matched, Emma Chase, sequel to Royally Screwed, which I also liked, though I will say, the men of this family (the hero is RS’s hero’s brother) are about as far down the jackass line as I want to go. They (mostly) make up for it and get better, so there’s that.
The Princess Trap, Talia Hibbert – I feel like this one should come with content warning for abusive relationships, because, holy crap, does the prince in question come from one seriously bad, bad, bad family situation. He’s mostly still a functioning adult, but he comes with a lot of baggage and ends up dragging the heroine into it all. She’s pretty awesome, though. There should probably also be a smut warning, because there’s lots of (well-written and just a little on the kinky side) sex.
Royals, Rachel Hawkins, is out today and I am waiting for the d/l from the library, but I’m giving it a shout-out because RH’s #sexyhistory twitter threads have kept me going on more than one long, gray Tuesday. I’m waiting patiently for the whole War of the Roses thread, which will probably take weeks and weeks. (Today’s thread seems to be Queens Mary and Anne and their less than heteronormative emotional lives and the tangles in which Srs Historians tangle themselves to not admit said less-than-heteronormativity.)
Previous list here
And finally, a podcast: When Meghan Met Harry, which has been updating weekly since the beginning of the year, covering every wedding rumor, related event, and marginal possibility. If you only want to listen a little, grab last week’s ep with Tan from the new Queer Eye as special guest.
And speaking of, I am loving the new incarnation of Queer Eye, especially since they’re running around the ATL, *double* especially when they take their fabulous selves out into the wilds of OTP (Outside the Perimeter, aka, Red Country.) I don’t think there’s been an episode yet where I haven’t cried.
Also. Holy sh*t, I had ZERO inclination to see Venom, and the first teaser trailer did nothing for me, but then the second trailer dropped and TH (IN WELL-FITTING JEANS) came striding onto my youtube with his whole face visible (and scruffy, killmenow) and this is clearly a lost cause.
Alsoalso, I was going to write up my reactions to Infinity War, but I think they can be summed up as… (definitely spoilers) …
I was sitting there mildly impressed at just how many damn characters were in the damn movie, and enjoying it for what it was, but then Bucky said, “Steve?” and Rhodey was yelling for Sam and Peter was traumatizing Tony and Steve said, “oh, God,” and yikes, that got to me more than a movie about comic book characters should. (And then Fury said, “Motherfu–” and that pretty much summed it all up.)
I await the fix from the next movie.
In the meantime, I will return to my little dabblings and readings in happy AUs and ignore the rest of the world.
Engineer, writer, wife, mom... 