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3 Speed Reads for Valentine’s Day (f/f, m/m/, and m/f)
Happy Valentine’s Day my lovely readers!
I know, I know, it’s a made-up holiday. But I think there’s something lovely about celebrating romance in the middle of winter. Even if your version of celebrating it is delighting in the quirks of the genre and maybe not necessarily romance in real life.
(Personally I will be celebrating it in real life, but hey, I’m a newlywed. 😉 )
So maybe you’re finding yourself at home with no plans for Valentine’s Day. Sure, you could watch re-runs of The Bachelor, but why not spend the wintry day curled up with a quick romance read? Not sure what to read? Here are three speed read romances, vastly different from each other. What makes them a speed read? They are all less than 200 pages. And don’t worry. All three of them got 4 stars or more here on Opinions of a Wolf.
Braided: A Lesbian Rapunzel
By: Elora Bishop
Mood: You believe in fairy tales and happy endings!
Pairing: f/f
Length: 61 pages
Blurb:
A lesbian retelling of Rapunzel. Gray, a witch’s daughter, visits Zelda every day. The witch switched Gray’s fate into Zelda, so now Zelda is the one entwined with the spirit of the tree that the people worship. She must live on the platform and every day lower her hair for people to tie ribbons and prayers into. Gray feels horrible guilt over their switched fates, but she’s also falling in love with Zelda.
Full Review
Listening to Dust
By: Brandon Shire
Mood: You like a tragic romance that makes you cry. Keep the tissues handy for this one!
Pairing: m/m
Length: 142 pages
Blurb:
A chance meeting between orphaned British writer, Stephen, and American soldier, Dustin, leads to a passionate love affair in England. But when Dustin chooses to go back home to his small Southern town to care for his mentally challenged brother, Stephen is left behind, sending letters that are never answered. He finally decides to follow Dustin home and arrives only to discover that Dustin is no more.
Full Review
Love Among the Chickens
By: P.G. Wodehouse
Mood: You enjoy slapstick and want to laugh. A lot!
Pairing: m/f
Length: 176 pages
Blurb:
Jeremy Garnet, a novelist, is living a relatively quiet bachelor life in London when his old school friend Stanley Ukridge shows up. Ukridge is starting a chicken farm with his wife, Millie, and wants “Garnie old boy” to come stay with them. He’ll get to write in the country in exchange for a few hours of work a day. In spite of the fact that Ukridge is planning to run the chicken farm without any prior knowledge or studying “the better for innovation, my boy,” Garnie takes him up on it. Of course, life with the eccentric Ukridge surrounded by chickens isn’t quite the quiet writing environment Garnie was planning on. Not to mention the Irish professor neighbor’s lovely daughter that Garnie can’t quite get out of his head.
Full Review
Book Review: Porcelain: A Novelette by William Hage
Summary:
Out near the Pine Barrens in New Jersey sits the Whateley Bed & Breakfast, home of a wide collection of knick-knacks and antiques for its guests to view, including a beautifully ornate porcelain doll. However, after the Whateley’s latest guest purchases the doll as a gift, a horrifying series of nightmarish events begins to unfold.
Review:
This is the final review for the 2015 ARCs I accepted (6 total). Woo! This 8,000 word novelette was the perfect way to wrap up my year of ARCs. Bite sized, it kept me entertained for almost precisely the duration of the public transit portion of my commute.
This short horror involves a father buying a doll for his daughter, only to have the doll wind up to be evil. I don’t consider that a spoiler, because I think it’s pretty clear from the cover and the description that is what is about to go down. While some of the evil doll aspects were about what I was expecting, others were not. The scenes happened at just the right pace to hold interest, and I did find myself hoping I’d have time to finish the novelette without having to stop. I think the story is helped by reading it in one sitting, so I would advise picking it up when you know you have enough time to finish it in one go.
All of this said, while I enjoyed it and it is well-written, it just didn’t linger with me. I wound up feeling quite neutral about it. Perhaps because the novelette is so short that there’s no time to establish an emotional connection with the main character. It’s also possible that the ending just failed to wow me. That said, other readers who are more generally into short fiction than I am will probably enjoy it more than I did.
Overall, this is a well-written piece of short fiction that should be read in one sitting. Recommended to fans of short horror.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 23 pages – novella
Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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