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text 2018-01-20 19:19
2017 Year in Review: Stats
Shadowhouse Fall - Daniel José Older
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
A Conspiracy in Belgravia (The Lady Sherlock Series) - Sherry Thomas
Food of the Gods: A Rupert Wong Novel - Cassandra Khaw
The Ballad of Black Tom - Victor LaValle
The Stars Are Legion - Kameron Hurley
The Heiress Effect - Courtney Milan
An Extraordinary Union - Alyssa Cole
The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth) - N.K. Jemisin
Clean Room Vol. 3: Waiting for the Stars to Fall - Jon Davis-Hunt,Gail Simone
Did anyone else end up with a broken counter on the Goodreads stats page? I know they had an issue with the date read field earlier in the year. While that eventually worked itself out, my total for 2017 is way off. The states page claims over 100, but the list is really only 79.
 
My breakdown of the 79 "books" I finished in 2017:

anthologies: 0
collections: 0
Adult novels: 50
YA novels: 8
MG novels: 0
graphic novels: 1
art book: 0
comic omnibus: 15
magazine issues: 0
children's books: 2
nonfiction: 3
 
I make a demographics list every year as a way of giving myself the opportunity to think about who I've read and how I can do better.
 
Across all categories:
  Written by Women: 53 (67%, down from 72% in 2016)
  Written by POC: 29 (37%, up from 17% in 2016)
  Written by Transgender authors: 5 (6%, up from 1% in 2016) 
  Written by Non-binary authors: 2 (3%, up from 1% in 2016)
 
While this looks like a large improvement from last year, I should note that this is not unique authors, but total across all my reading. I went on Cassandra Khaw and Daniel José Older benders this fall that account for a lot of my non-white reading. I also went on a Courtney Milan bender in January that is helping inflate the written by women category. 
 
My favorite book from 2017 were really hard to select! It was a great reading year, but I narrowed it down to 10. Please don't ask me to order them as that's clearly an impossible task. They should all appear in the banner at the top, but here's a list, alphabetically:
 
 
I reviewed all 79 titles read in 2017, which is really more than I expected. Not all those reviews are great, but in terms of quantity, I beat my expectations. 
 
My favorite new-to-me author of 2017 is Cassandra Khaw. She's talented and her range includes (nay, celebrates!) splatterpunk. 
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review 2018-01-01 00:00
The Heiress Effect
The Heiress Effect - Courtney Milan I wasn't in love with this book. No really, it was just a good way to pass the time. I wasn't in love with it; the characters were just passing amusement.

In their first meeting, with the impossible Jane, both Oliver and Jane are playing a game. It's not a particularly fun game for anyone involved, but they each have their mission and meaning. And Oliver has...empathy. EMPATHY. And that lead to understanding and friendship. And people not being alone. And...love.

I said the [b:The Duchess War|13489919|The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister, #1)|Courtney Milan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1363009176s/13489919.jpg|19028791] was largely about moments for me. This book, even with its great moments, was largely about connections. The "keep talking," the "you are not alone," and the understanding they each have those people they would do anything for. That Oliver thought Jane impossible for him, but loved her anyway added to the tension and the sorrow in the book--at times, it was killing me. Ambition, see, is a tricky thing. It's difficult for me to understand, it comes at so much cost, and Oliver has ambition--and this is an issue. He needs a presentable wife. And Jane is anything but.

"I could never forgive myself if I asked you to extinguish your fire."


And Jane is so impossibly relatable.

“I am,” she said swiftly, “stubborn, argumentative, and…and he fears, considering my birth, potentially licentious.” She didn’t look up at him to see how he would take this. She probably shouldn’t have told him that. What he would think…

There was a pause. “Lovely. My favorite kind of woman.”

“You’re very droll.”

“Was I joking?” He held up his hands. “I wasn’t joking.”


Yet somehow it was not easy to forgive the tender, compassionate, loyal and sweet-talking Oliver his honesty and choices with Jane, because she's Jane. I don't have another way to explain this smart, relatable, too-forward, socially awkward, loyal, protective, fierce heroine. Or there, I guess I do.

But surely, Oliver wasn't in love with her. Surely not. (One of these days, I would love to catalog all those excuses. I wasn't in love with them. Really, I wasn't.)

But you know what else I love, and I tried to remember to point out a moment similar to this one in [b:Beginner's Luck|35717661|Beginner's Luck|Kate Clayborn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500650717s/35717661.jpg|57220819] and failed, mostly because my reviews are on-the-fly, when Oliver shows up for Jane, riding away on horseback is uncomfortable, unromantic, and not smooth at all. Authentic moments like that in a novel really make a difference for me. There's leaping to the rescue in an inhuman yet entirely sexy way, and then there's this. Being human. Being fallible, and having your butt fall asleep and realizing that a man's thighs are damned uncomfortable.

Jane's bold even if it's not for her own good, true to herself even if it means disappointing others. There's so much to love about this flawed heroine, and a sharp tongue is definitely one of them.
"If you want a wren, marry one. Don't ask me." (Sidenote: parts of this scene were SO relatable for me, they were entirely too painful. Jane's lucky to have Oliver and I'm lucky too)

And what a perfect grand gesture at the end.
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text 2017-07-17 20:08
Suggestions for Booklikes-opoly Ring Card
Lisey's Story - Stephen King
Prince Charming - Julie Garwood
The Heiress Effect - Courtney Milan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Realizing now that we didn't have any suggestions for this one when we were putting together lists. FYI, every time I Google looking for books that fit this card Fifty Shades of Grey pops up. Help a reader out guys. Let's post some good books for this one.

 

I was thinking that actually a good horror book that would count towards this is "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King. The main character gets married in that book during a flashback. 

 

A good romance that I enjoyed was "Prince Charming" by Julie Garwood where two characters get married and also "The Heiress Effect" by Courtney Milan.

 

Post any suggestions in the comment boxes below. I cannot do the second book in FSOG. I cannot. I got asked to, but I don't love you all enough to suffer through that right now. I may set something on fire. 

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review 2017-06-06 17:27
Rambling Thoughts: The Heiress Effect
The Heiress Effect - Courtney Milan

The Heiress Effect

by Courtney Milan

Book #2 of Brothers Sinister

 

 

Miss Jane Fairfield can’t do anything right.  When she’s in company, she always says the wrong thing—and rather too much of it.  No matter how costly they are, her gowns fall on the unfortunate side of fashion.  Even her immense dowry can’t save her from being an object of derision.

And that’s precisely what she wants.  She’ll do anything, even risk humiliation, if it means she can stay unmarried and keep her sister safe.

Mr. Oliver Marshall has to do everything right.  He’s the bastard son of a duke, raised in humble circumstances—and he intends to give voice and power to the common people.  If he makes one false step, he’ll never get the chance to accomplish anything.  He doesn’t need to come to the rescue of the wrong woman.  He certainly doesn’t need to fall in love with her.  But there’s something about the lovely, courageous Jane that he can’t resist…even though it could mean the ruin of them both.



This series is so addictive.  I started reading The Heiress Effect because I needed an e-book to keep me occupied until I could get back to the paperback I was reading.  But before I knew it, I was picking up my e-reader every chance I had, and just breezing through this book, page after page, chapter after chapter.  By the time I finally put it down, on account of I needed to sleep if I didn't want to be a cranky co-worker, I was already about 69% complete.

The second book to Courtney Milan's Brothers Sinister series was equally as enjoyable and readily likable as the first.  There were, perhaps a few things about it that made me cringe, which was why I found that The Duchess War is still my favorite so far, but all-in-all, I pretty much loved, almost everything about The Heiress Effect.

If the first book showcased how much I loved the hero, Robert Blaisdell, the Duke of Clermont, I believe that this second book showcased one of the most readily loved and awesome heroines in an historical romance I've read.  Jane Fairfield, who can't do anything right, was superbly created as a character you love to love; in fact, I would love to be as open and "in your face" as Jane is, and not give another two-cent care about what anyone thinks.  I love that she's so aware of herself, and I also love that she's not just pretending to fall on the unfortunate side of society's expectations; she truly doesn't know how to behave properly as a lady, and simply chose to multiply her effects by ten so that no one in polite society would even have a clue as to how to respond to her, or further humiliate her, since she's doing the job so nicely herself.

In contrast, while I like Oliver Marshall, I can't say that I loved him all that much.  He's a good man, caring about his family, with a conflicting guilty conscience that makes for great character development and self-revelation.  I found it interesting that, while he's been fighting against the set standards of the aristocrats since he was young, he ended up slipping right into their games in his adulthood.  That even though he's still mentally fighting them and proclaiming how he would use their own games against them so that he could gain power and win, he's still playing their games and compromising his own beliefs.

Oliver came as a point of frustration for me on several occasions throughout the book, probably because, while I sort of understood his excuses and reasons... well, frankly, I didn't really understand them.  If that makes any sense.  For such an intelligent man, he was rather slow on the uptake sometimes.

Meanwhile, there were some other characters that, while I didn't have any major problems with them, I did find some actions frustrating, and found myself wishing we would just get back to Jane and progressing her story line.  Jane's sister, Emily's tangent was cute, but rather dull; however, the relationship between the sisters and their uncle, really DID put into perspective the hardships young girls went through when faced with a guardian like Titus Fairfield, what with all the quack medical experts he paraded into his home to "cure" Emily of her condition.

Truthfully, I would have liked to get more into the girls' family back story about their father and mother, and how they came to be situated with such a holier-than-thou, stubborn, set-in-his-ways, and irritatingly dangerous uncle like Titus Fairfield.  Such a "I'm your guardian and you'll do what I say because I know better than young girls, even against the presentation of logic."  His racist imaginings and snap judgments at the end of the book were also unbecoming, and I would have liked to see him get his comeuppance, though I know it's probably not a necessary thread to explore.

In contrast to Jane's sister, I actually found myself quite in like of Oliver's youngest sister, Free.  She's fiery and independent and intelligent, and I can't wait to get to her story in Book #4 of the series!

Finally, I'd say that a lot of the frustrations I had found in this book were quashed rather easily.  Aside from our heroine, Jane, I also found the ending parts about Oliver's aunt Frederica a rather touching instance--we will recall the Marshall sibling's Aunt Freddy, as Serena's elder sister from the prequel novella, The Governess Affair, whom, suffering from a tragedy, has been unable to leave the confines of her home for almost the entirety of her adult life, all the way into old age.


Anyway...  I could spout things I love about this book all I want.  I could say a lot of things and even points of frustration.  But ultimately, The Heiress Effect was simply an enjoyable book, and one of the few favorites I have read this year in 2017.

 

Source: anicheungbookabyss.blogspot.com/2017/06/rambling-thoughts-heiress-effect.html
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review 2017-02-07 20:14
Review: The Heiress Effect
The Heiress Effect - Courtney Milan

Amazing! I think this is my favorite in the Brothers Sinister series so far. The heroine is brilliant and the hero is just the right kind of jackass. 

 

The writing is so sharp. Equal parts warmth and wit. Great plot, great sex, great characters. This series is fantastic. I desperately want to read the UF/PNR version of these. 

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