March 2025 Reading List

[tjs_whatnot]

And before I begin, this is where I beg you to join Fable (and give you a cool invite code that gives us both $$ for one of their interactive ebooks). Fable is AWESOME! ❤️



Triple Sec by T.J. Alexander ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Found this on the New Releases shelf at my library (which I'm starting to suspect is just a place that they put books that everyone should read, but won't actively seek out-- something I would TOTALLY do if I were a librarian 🤣).

Anyway, I got it because it looked cute and would fulfill a Bingo square that I sadly had to leave blank last year because I'm a bit leery about polyamory. But this was a delight. It started as F/F but then there was some F/NB and then they all worked it out together. ❤️

Bear, Otter and The Kid by T.J. Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay. I know this book gets a lot of grief because it reads like fanfiction of the movie “Shelter.” And it totally does. Like REALLLLLY good fanfiction of that movie.

But, I'm fine with that. I mean, I've read really good Shelter fanfiction (I've even written some that I wouldn't call terrible) and I've also filed off serial numbers of fic and published it, so I get it. I also get why he'd deny it (which he's allowed to do), but I just know. Especially since I know he has written fanfic (he talked about it recently, and in his Extraordinaries series, the MC is a fanfic writer and you can tell that he knows the ins and outs of its rules and jargon).

Most importantly though, it's just a really good book. It has a barely adult brother tasked with the awesome responsibility of raising his brother after his mom fucks off and leaves them, an awesome support system in a best friend and a girlfriend that he's had since elementary school…and his best friends older brother 😉).

Proper English by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It's always interesting to read sapphic stories told by authors who I've only read their m/m stuff. How it differs.

This one had more slow burn then the other books I've read, and the plot was way more important than the developing of the relationship. Not that Charles’ books don't all have a mystery to solve, but IDK, this one reads slightly different. But I did really enjoy it and I'll have to read more of their work to rank it amongst the others.

Flash Fire by T.J. Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

The second in Klune's Extraordinaries YA series. I really enjoyed it and it was nice to see that things I noticed and predicted in the first book were acknowledged and discovered in this one.

But, since I read all three in a short span of time, it's hard to remember what specific things happened in which book. There is a reason though that I read(listened) to them so fast, and that is because they are a delight. ❤️

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not my first sports romance, but my first Hockey one. I liked it. It was tropey AF, and it was pure smut there in the first half. But then, it went and got real and there were like… feelings and shit, and yeah…

Still… I know there are more books in this series, but I'm just not really jazzed about reading more. Maybe later. * shrug *

Going BiCoastal by Dahlia Adler ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love the premise of this book and loved reading to see how it could be handled. I might even want to one day tell a similarly premised book.

What's the premise, you ask? Two separate fates that play simultaneously back and forth and ends in a bit of a choose your own adventure. Sort of like Sliding Doors, if both stories gotta happy ending.

A girl has to make a choice between staying in NYC with her dad and finding a summer job and pining after a mysterious red-headed girl that she keeps running into, or go to L.A. with her estranged mother who has set her up with an intern job in her company. She'll be sharing her office with a hot guy who can't stand her… until he does.

Poor her. Two really good choices and I honestly couldn't decide on which one she should take.

Taxes and TARDIS by N.R. Walker ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Again, cute, low-stakes smutty goodness. This time with way more geekiness. I was surprised about how much Doctor Who was in the book, but also, could have had more. 🤣🤣

All Systems Red by Martha Wells ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

OMG did I love this book! It was super short, and super funny and also super heartfelt in a bizarre and incredibly relatable way. I can't wait to read more of this semi-adorable Murderbot.

I read this for the same IRL bookclub that I read This is How You Lose the Time War and I'm starting to understand why the book club is called Queer and Weird Bookclub. 🤣🤣

Heat Wave by T.J. Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Such. A. Great. Series!

This will definitely be added to my YA Rec List, my superhero rec list (I actually don't have a list started for this genre, so if anyone wants to give me suggestions), for my neurodivergent rec list, and of course for my TJ Klune rec list.

Do You Ship Us? By Claire Rosalind ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

I've had this book in my kindle library for so long, I honestly don't remember where it came from. I feel like in the mid-range of my fic reading/writing life, this might have been an author I knew? Or maybe a friend of a friend? It definitely reads like a filed off Bandom story (again, no judgment, I love that shit!) But it did sort of drive me crazy with some of the choices made, and some of the conclusions being made being slightly unrealistic. But still, fun read!

Boy Underground by Catherine Ryan Hyde ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I found this at my local library and I needed to branch out from the romance 24/7 (though I have gotten much more versatile, yeah?). But this was an intriguing story about a group of friends at the beginning of WW2. One goes off to war, one goes to a Japanese internment camp and one gets accused of a crime he didn't commit and spends his last year of highschool hiding in his other friend's cellar. It was good, but it could have been SO MUCH better. ~sigh~.

How to Blow It With a Billionaire by Alexis Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Wow is this series sort of amazing! (Except I still hate the title!)

While, I love all of Hall's more popular books (I will love Luc O’Donnell forever), I feel sorry for people who don't read their back catalog. They truly have so many great books about character growth and discovery and I'm so very smitten.

  And that was my March. How about you all?