The books we read on vacation

Is that when you bring out the high tension books or the low tension books?

I adore physical books, but have discovered that ebooks have one *enormous* advantage: I can bring literally hundreds of books with me on vacation.

Will I read hundreds? No. But I did read four and a half, and that would’ve taken up a lot more space¹. I also would’ve absolutely brought the wrong books with me to read—in fact I didn’t read the only physical book I brought. Being a hardcore mood reader and all.

I did choose the first book ahead of time, I made sure I had Cathy Yardley’s Role Playing downloaded before I left.

Cathy Yardley has been publishing romance since 2008, and while I haven’t read her earliest stuff I really love her most recent books. Role Playing is about a 48 year old divorcee and a 50 year old semi retired nurse who meet and initially bond over their favorite MMO. Do Me A Favor, which came out last month, is about a 46 year old widow and a 42 year old divorced father of two who become neighbors on a PNW island. Both stories are charming, most of the conflict comes from outside the couple, but they have things to overcome and need to grow in order to have one another. I *loved* both of these books. Yardley writes solid characters with a very real supporting cast and a good dash of humor.

From that, I suppose you can guess that Do Me A Favor² was the second book I read on vacation.

After devouring two warm romances and doing almost nothing else (but staring at a lake), I was actually ready for a book with more world level stakes. Gosh, it’s been a long time.

I finally finished Stealing Glass by Liv Strom (and started Claiming Glass). I’ll check back when I finish the series, but I’m engaged and want to know what happens next. The world is interesting. It’s a Cinderella retelling. Technically. Enough that there are some familiar archetypes and there was a ball and a shoe to kick things off. Goodreads describes it as Mistborn meets Sarah J Maas and that’s actually not a bad comparison. It has the same world feel as Mistborn to me, but it’s much more interested in the romance part than Mistborn.

How to describe…the dead come to rest in the City of Tal. Most of their religion is about setting the dead to rest and not crossing roaming spirits. There are various magics about (death, elemental, mental, and rune based) in the world, but openly practicing is poor taste. There is also this problematic thing called Mage’s sickness, which is basically going mad from using too much magic.

Here is the Goodread’s blurb:

Run from Tal and become a dancer.

If only he’d not caught me…


I’m an indebted stepdaughter, a sister and a thief.

He is the crown prince of the City of the Dead.

And he thinks I’m his missing foreign bride, trying to break the engagement.

Our mother said kindness will lead to a better tomorrow, but my twin sister argues only blood will even the score.

Rebels are circling, the prince has plans of his own, and my employer cannot be trusted. But none of that matters because, for a chance at freedom, I’ll lie and cheat and steal.

At the end of summer, there will be a wedding, but who will live to see it?

It’s time to play the princess.


Stealing Glass is the first book in the Tales of Bones and Roses Cinderella duology, a slow burn romantasy with bantering enemies to lovers, royally mistaken identity and backstabbing political intrigues in a darkly gothic world.

Book 1 had these slow spots, but once I had it on vacation I read the whole thing pretty quickly. I got almost halfway through book 2 before vacation ended, and now I’m poised at this point in the story where I’m pretty sure everything is about to go very badly (possibly too badly for not even half way). I’m afraid :-P

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Edited to add:

I can’t believe I forgot. I also read Persephone in Bloom, by Kate Healy. I really enjoyed it—more than I expected, to be honest. When they get spicy, it’s spicy, but it’s more of a slow build up to that and it’s so sweet. Workplace romance tropes often lean into the taboo, but this one took the opposite approach by contrasting Zeus and Hades. Hades went out of his way immediately to make things above board and be certain he wasn’t even accidentally abusing his power. Zeus just abuses his power. This book was pretty light and funny, informed by Greek myth in some fun ways—but also deals with a pretty serious Mother Gothel type situation with Persephone and her mother.

1. I also read a novella. (The novella was from an anthology and I wasn’t that impressed with it. I was skimming by the end.)

2. Cathy Yardley’s books are all about a four on the spice-o-meter. I personally find her approach to sex scenes really refreshing, and they very much fit with the characters and don’t go on forever just for the sake of going on forever.