Is it weird that I feel guilty if I haven’t read 10 books in a month? I feel like I’m slacking! Fortunately, it’s really about quality, not quantity—and July had no shortage of quality reads! In fact, I met two of my favorite heroines of the year so far: Portia Hobbs, in Alyssa Cole’s A Duke By Default, and Cherry Neita, in Talia Hibbert’s The Princess Trap. Two amazingly relatable women, written by two amazingly talented women! Portia, who is trying to get her life together and eventually discovers that she has ADHD, really spoke to me. I felt so seen as I recognized my own mess in hers. As for Cherry…? Man, I wish I had her take-no-shit attitude!

I also can’t rave enough about what’s coming out of the young adult sector these days. Zoraida Córdova’s Bruja Born and Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation were both excellent. I really would love to see the latter as a big-budget blockbuster film, subverting all the usual tired tropes of most zombie flicks.

The reading rundown:
A Taste of Pleasure by Chloe Blake (contemporary romance)
A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole (contemporary romance)
Bruja Born by Zoraida Córdova (young adult, urban fantasy)
My Lord, Lady, and Gentleman by Nicola Davidson (erotic historical romance)
The Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert (contemporary romance)
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (young adult, speculative fiction)
Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal (mainstream fiction)
The Tycoon by Molly O’Keefe (contemporary romance)

On the TBR:
Unfit to Print by KJ Charles
It Takes Two by Jenny Holiday
Mr. Hotshot CEO by Jackie Lau
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone
Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir