Sunday Soup - May Day

In The Soup This Week... Keri Arthur, Chanel Cleeton, Amanda Bouchet, Charlotte Stein

Soup Dish:  on my mind/good links

✽Fabio has certainly taken more than a fair share of ridicule--even my 6'2" husband, who once sported some flowing locks of his own, does a killer "I can't believe it's not butter" impersonation. But I gotta say, Fabio certainly seem to take it with good grace. His latest appearance at the new romance-only bookstore, The Ripped Bodice, made some definite ripples on Twitter this week.

✽Controversy broke out this week over Amy Lane's m/m Selfie, where a person of color is referred to as a "chocolate love monkey."  Look here for a Storify capture, courtesy of Julio, and Riptide's subsequent response. It's been a passionate discussion. I'm sorry these kinds of things are still happening, but in some sense, the fact that the conversation is happening, I think is good and hopeful. It's the sunshine as disinfectant, to paraphrase former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (who, by the way, seems to have been a fascinating person. If you were looking for a random internet byway to spend some time in, here you go.)

✽ If you're looking for even more reading, you can always try Violet Blue's weekly roundup of sex-news links. The site is NSFW, but the articles are not aimed at titillation. 

What I'm reading
I'm totally on a roll this week. Great stuff from #RT16, and still can't stop the one-click finger...

✽Tried and true, Keri Arthur never fails me. City of Light was awesome and I tore through in a single day (and one late night. I love that her heroines are tough but vulnerable, brave in the face of terrifying enemies, and have this unapologetic sexuality that remains orthogonal to morality.

✽Charlotte Stein's Never Sweeter was an absolute killer. Emotionally wracking. Stein takes situations that we can relate to, but then pushes them and pushes them and then shoves them over a cliff. This story is about a woman who'd been bullied in high school far beyond what most of us ever experience- trying not to spoiler anything, but the phrase "attempted murder" happens. She is terrorized by this person for years. He follows her to college, out of a real desire to make amends. I honestly found the idea that the heroine could have any spark of sexual feeling for him to be pretty dubious, but if you suspend that disbelief, it's it's an intense, romantic, emotional ride.

✽So then I went back to Fly With Me, by Chanel Cleeton, which was all light and sassy and sexy in the beginning but then had me torn up and weepy at the 80% mark or so. I've read a fair number of books featuring former military characters, but in reading this one, I realized that I haven't read too many that involve currently-active members. I didn't see it coming and it really hit me with some patriotic feels along with the romance.

✽My last read was another huge winner. It doesn't release until August but I'll give you just a little tease: fantasy/PNR, worldbuilding loosely based on the Greek mythological pantheon, warrior hero reminiscent of Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo and a heroine whose secrets include turning invisible and breathing fire, and those are just the little ones. Watch for a full review of A Promise of Fire, by Amanda Bouchet, later this summer. But if you wanted to pre-order now, I'm saying that wouldn't be a mistake.

2016 Book Goals
So three of my four reads above were physical books, but I got them all at RT, so I'm not sure they count as stash, or at least, they definitely weren't part of the stash as of January 1. Still... it's a little progress? sort of?

No progress at all on the non-fiction. I do have a couple titles on hand, maybe I'll dig into one of them this week.  I've been trying to decide on my next read!

That's it for this week. Happy reading!