Welcome to Litsy!

Alright, it's November, so it looks like only half my #URC2023 is going to be queer romance. Meanwhile, I went back to my past unassigned reads and found 4 books that fit prompts - the one not included here is The Story of My Life by Helen Keller for a blind author.

I'll actually be reading Lady Susan a second time later this month for my read-along Twitch stream.

Trying to finish up @Faranae 's Ultimate Reading Challenge by the end of the year. Again, suggestions for the prompts are much appreciated!

#BookSpinBingo

These are the prompts I have remaining for my own #URC2023 and I'm slightly annoyed that this late in the year, I still have too many to make a little bingo card out of them.

I do have a few dozen books that I haven't applied to prompts yet - children's books and the like, which I'm saving for the December panic. The tagged book is one I can't find a prompt for. I read a lot of those, too, this year.

Now if all of these could be queer romance...

For the #URC2023 I am committing crimes against my own prompts and decided that a book with a how-to book *title* was close enough. Luke is just as much of a little shit as I expected and it was fun to watch him fuck around and find out. Joss and Gareth get more than just a cameo, so we get to see their HEA more than a decade on from the first book, a rare treat.

I already posted about this book for another litsy thingy, but it was also my only #URC2023 read for September, at least by my current tracking. I considered counting Unfit to Print for the Black joy prompt, but I'd prefer to find a book by a Black author for that.

Rake (book) is alright as a standalone bit of fun, though it's a shoddy mystery plot that serves as a threadbare excuse to put two frenemies together.

For #URC2023 July, I only managed to fit one book into the remaining prompts. Admittedly, it's a good book, and since the cuddling is a major element of the pining and romantic plot (lolplot), it was fun to add it to the “A book involving cuddling“ prompt. I have books that could fit my prompts if I weren't being silly and trying to find almost exclusively queer romance, so I'm not panicking yet! Plus, I have a lot of Jordan L Hawk to read still!

For June's #URC2023 I only managed to read one book. I'm going to start panicking soon, especially if I keep on with my little challenge mode to sweep most of it with queer romance. Every book so far is m/m romance, except An Unsuitable Heir, which is nb/m. A Seditious Affair got me to re-read William Blake, although I sadly don't have a complete works or physical copies of any of the Romantics. 😭

This one for the #URC2023 is a bit of a stretch since it has more to do with foundations of modern anarchist philosophy than specifically trade unionism. Still, reading about the Regency unrest resulted in me reading Byron's pro-Luddite speech against the Frame Bill, which I highly recommend. I do have a complaint about the cover, as I have no idea who that man is - both MCs are going grey, this bloke is far too young.

Just two books for the #URC2023 during May, both KJ Charles books. I was hoping to also finish A Seditious Affair, but didn't manage it before the end of the month. I made the mistake of looking at reviews for An Unsuitable Heir before reading it, and good gods the amount of latent transphobia from people who think they are “allies“. I felt like punching people. KJC handled Pen and Mark wonderfully, and I appreciate the “modern“ approach here.

April for the #URC2023 added 8 romance novels. Eventually I'll have to do at least one book that isn't a romance novel, as I don't think the Hurston goes to romance ever. I tagged Jordan L Hawk's newest book since I thought it was great and I couldn't review it for Octocon (there's an on-page sex scene, though not as explicit as his other books). I'm going to run out of books by this set of authors, though, so suggestions welcome!