Better late with books than... no books at all?

If you’ve been wondering where Kissing Books disappeared to last month — well, friends, that’s on me.

Thanks to an overall state of anxiety at *gestures vaguely to everything going on in the world right now* and… actually, that’s just about the sum of what happened. I sort of wound up taking the month off from recommending romance to just plain find my escape in reading romance for a little while, popping my head up occasionally on Twitter like one of those prairie dogs cautiously emerging to investigate the situation.

But I’m back, and I’m hopeful that this will once again become a weekly thing in your inboxes, because I’m definitely zooming through my TBR pile now that a good majority of us are still stuck at home. You’ll probably notice something of a trend in this week’s recs too; the truth is that I’ve mostly been sticking to historical romances lately out of a desire to escape THIS specific place and time, but the real beauty of histrom is that you can lose yourself in a wealth of different time periods, from Regency-era to Gilded Age to medieval and more.

To Have and to Hoax by Martha Waters

(historical romance)

Five years ago, Lady Violet Grey and Lord James Audley met, fell in love, and got married. Granted, it was something of a whirlwind marriage considering the fact that they were found in a compromising position, but details. One year into their life as a married couple, they had the fight to end all fights and have barely spoken since. Waters’ charming debut is full of humorous prose and banter, but there’s good intrigue too, because you’re DYING to know what happened to leave Violet and James so at odds with each other and why their marriage has been so frosty. Still, even those times when this estranged couple is bickering with each other, there’s a spark that alludes to a different kind of tension between them and only adds to the inevitability that, at some point, that dam is going to break and break HARD. It’s a fun read, but it also tackles some very real problems between two people who never really had time to come to grips with their own issues before they married each other, and what happens once they work through those — both separately and together.

The Rogue of Fifth Avenue by Joanna Shupe

(historical romance, content warning for sexual assault)

I’m always on the lookout for histrom not necessarily set in the typical Regency environs, and Joanna Shupe’s new Gilded Age series couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for me. Frank Tripp has worked his way up to becoming one of the most preeminent lawyers in New York City; he’s basically also a glorified fixer for the wealthiest families in society, but there’s one problem he can’t seem to control and that’s the fiercely independent daughter of one of his clients, Mamie Greene. Meanwhile, Mamie’s intending to marry another man purely for pragmatic reasons, but when her path and Frank’s continue to cross in the most unlikely of circumstances, she’s forced to reconcile whether she might have deeper feelings for the last man she should be considering as a potential lover. Before I even fully finished this one I was already hitting the 1-click buy button on the sequel, The Prince of Broadway, which has been getting as much praise if not more(?!). These books were my break-glass-in-case-of-emergency series, but they also might just go down as one of my favorite romance series of all time.

The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham

(historical romance; content warnings for miscarriage described on page, alcoholism, addiction, animal cruelty, imprisonment of female character (not the heroine), gaslighting)

I've been using the word "achy" to describe some of my favorite romances lately — ones that include big-time angst but are ultimately very satisfying even in spite of those heartbreaking moments. I've been a fan of Peckham since her Charlotte Street series and The Rakess built on so much of what I loved from her earlier books while managing to do something completely different, with a rich sense of place and gorgeous prose. Sera is a heroine unlike any other, independent and feminist but also vulnerable, with lots of inner demons that she has to combat, and we see her deal with those struggles throughout the course of this book, especially when it comes to acknowledging the ways in which she uses sex and alcohol as a way to numb herself or cope. As a hero, Adam is a widower, a loving family man, and quietly supportive. Their relationship was refreshing and fulfilling, and I also loved Sera's inner circle of friends (who presumably will be getting their own romances in future books). This has definitely been a more polarizing romance within my circle of friends/fellow reviewers, and it isn’t a light read by any means, but it’s a book that stuck with me after I finished reading it and continues to stay with me because of what it achieves.

Kissing Books is a weekly newsletter about, well, exactly what it sounds like, plus other non-romance novels that might have varying levels of smooching in them. Questions? Comments? Reply to this email, or find me on Twitter @carlylane. If you’re reading this on Substack or someone forwarded this email to you, consider clicking that helpful button to become a regular subscriber.