Plot Trysts

We bought this one completely, from the conflict to the love story. Maybe the ending was unbelievably sweet, but that's a good thing.

This book is fun and charming and cute. However, be prepared that (for a book about a sex bet) it's very tame.

Meg is joined by Alexandra Vasti for a new limited series in which they will dive into the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold with a new guest host each week. This week, Elizabeth Everett joins them to discuss the foundation of the Vorkosigan series, Shards of Honor. How much did the cold war impact this book? How sexy are experienced heroes? Is this a Romance?

We really loved the unapologetic incorporation of a sexually active heroine, and if anyone knows anything about those pearls, hit us up.

Look, this was an adorable book with a fun concept but the official rating is G.

Hypothetically a virgin widow crime fighter getting with the heir is a plot we can get behind. The specifics of this one, however, left something to be desired for us.

We kick off the new year with an adorable and sexy novella that understands sometimes you just need two hot people and weather-related forced proximity.

Parts of this book are very fun and then a major spoiler/twist happens and we stopped having any fun at all, but the main characters weren't having any fun either. Meg is still personally victimized by chess.

Meg and Laine agree that this book does its thing very well and that there is significantly more attention paid to one character's development. We disagree about whether or not that makes for an enjoyable read.

Stephanie Laurens doesn't know how to write less than 300 pages and even when there's nary a whiff of plot to be found, we can't spend less than 40 minutes talking about it.

The good: well executed, sexy, and a total breath of fresh air. The Laine has notes: It is December and there was nary a Christmas carol to be found.

This is a novella about a Christmas sex cabin. It was so good, but we struggled to stay on topic when discussing

If you can deeply internalize the expectation that this will be very short and closed door, everything in this novella is perfect. If you hear the words "virgin hero" and start salivating, that's kinda hard to do.

Add this to the list of books we didn't think would work for us, but totally did! Everything that's usually annoying to us was charming. Maybe that's the meaning of Christmas?

A boy band member trying to rehabilitate his image with a Christmas movie is shocked but not appalled when his new costar is his favorite porn star. Meg loved it, Laine liked it, and it was VERY Christmas.

This cute newsletter novella scratched Laine's Christmas itch, but Meg struggled with some hamfisted Christmas hijinks. We both enjoyed the sex vacation.

We wanted to like this "rival archeologist" book very much, but the male main character is nothing like Lord Ingram or Rupert, so we struggled.

This episode went a little off the rails. We remain charmed by glimmer falls and enjoyed this new twist on an amnesia romance.

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy our unhinged outtakes and random discussions.

We really struggled to review this book! It was really fun and really sexy, but the characters were inconsistent and the plot was hard to follow. We both really enjoyed reading it, but sound like we didn't when talking about it.

Laine found this to be the perfect balance of zany and sincere. Meg had trouble suspending disbelief. Laine 's started a countdown to Christmas.

The perfect newsletter novella makes you want to read more by the author, and this achieves this in spades. It doesn't reinvent "falling for the wrong brother" in exactly the right way, and the heroine manages to be believably young but also not the worst.

Meg felt many things while reading this book, including devastation that the important scientific work of so many women was lost to history. Laine thought it was super sexy and fun. YMMV.

Moral of the story: all half-Scottish people are queer

This is a platonic ideal of a romance novella! Virgin hero, Christmas, and a whole lot of acted-on lust.