What I’m reading (or have already read!) and recommend this month.
Dead Serious Case #1 Miz Dusty Le Frey
Vawn Cassidy
I read this MM romance book on a road trip and it was so funny to be reading about England and then look up and see nothing but desert around me.
Tristan is a pathologist who works for a public mortuary. When a drag queen is brought in, he finds himself suddenly able to see dead people. One of whom is the drag queen who is VERY unhappy at potentially spending all of eternity in that dress.
Both Tristan and Dusty steal the show, although Tristan’s detective love interest is also a charmer. (Maybe I have a thing for hot detective MM romances?) I found myself laughing out loud at several parts and I love a hero who acts as smart as he’s supposed to be.
Starter Villain
John Scalzi
This was my first Scalzi book and it sent me down a real rabbit hole. It’s somehow light and charming and utterly hilarious while still being about villainy.
Charlie is going nowhere with his life when his uncle dies and leaves him his vast evil empire. Suddenly thrust into the role of CEO of a villainous enterprise, Charlie just tries to survive when it seems everyone wants him dead.
You have to love a book that has a funeral scene where someone stabs the corpse to make sure it’s dead dead.
Romantic Comedy
Curtis Sittenfeld
This book is about a comedy writer on an SNL style show who starts dating a rock star who she thinks is way out of her league. But it’s also about what it’s like to be a woman in comedy, and what it’s like to professionally and emotionally limit yourself because of your own self doubt.
It’s also a book about dating during covid? There’s a lot of that and it definitely takes you back to that time with masking and fear and quarantining to see friends.
I think what I ended up taking away from this book wasn’t necessarily the hot romance (even though it was hot) but the backstage stuff about working on SNL and the tension between who is allowed to date “above their class” (male comedy writers) versus what’s expected of women in comedy.