may 2025
bonjour mes amis! I apologize for being a little late, but in my defense I spent the latter half of the month traveling through the south of France and have been mostly sleeping ever since. here I am standing in a poppy field, a real thing you can find just willy-nilly all over Provence.
read: French Riviera and Its Artists: Art, Literature, Love, and Life on the Côte d'Azur by John Baxter (2015). I read this in preparation for visiting the Riviera and found it enjoyably gossipy and factually suspect. An experience akin to listening to an aged relative tell you stories from their half-forgotten youth.
read: The Suitable ‘Verse by R. Cooper (2023-2025). This is a bit of a cheat, since I only finished the newest book in this series last night, and it is definitely June, but I make the rules here so I’m allowing it. you may recall that I read the first in this series at the end of April. these are queer romances set in a fantasy universe where the gods are fae who mostly act as absent parents to the children they sire. I enjoy R. Cooper’s writing, and the fact that this series hops around within its own timeline, and the romances are good! I will say that a good edit wouldn’t go amiss—mostly to condense, as each book is longer than the last and doesn’t need to be.
read: Ash’s Cabin by Jen Wang (2024). I finally unpacked my books and put them on my shelves, and this was one I’ve had since it came out last summer but hadn’t opened yet, so I did that. Jen Wang is one of my favourite people making comics, and this did not disappoint. This is technically young adult, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it won’t deliver a gut punch of emotions. A story of feeling wrong and alone and thinking that being alone is the solution. Really really good.
place: E-1027 by Eileen Gray (1929). Eileen Gray is one of my favourite artists, so as soon as I knew I would be visiting the Riviera, I made plans to see the house she built in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The house has had a checkered history, and nearly all of the furniture which Gray had designed for it had been sold off, but they’ve done a fantastic job recreating everything as it was when the house was completed in 1929. Seeing it was a dream come true, so wonderful that I’m not even upset that it was in part devoted to Le Corbusier, my enemy.
read: The Curse of the Blue Scarab by Josh Lanyon (2019). I read a few Lanyons this month, but this was a standout. A send-up of Universal horror, this was an extremely chewy new take on “The Mummy.” There’s mystery, romance, addiction, and murder, and I loved every minute of it.
read: The Reanimator’s Heart by Kara Jorgensen (2022). I have decided that I dislike the term “romantasy” even though much of what I read can in all honesty be referred to that way. Anyway, this is a fantasy romance set in a sort of gaslamp world where people have special abilities and also there are demons about. When an investigator is murdered and a necromancer accidentally revives him, they decide to solve his murder. A good time.
film: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023). This came out with a spate of other part one films, so I skipped it at the time. Finally watched it on the flight to France and I thought it was okay! Largely a good time, killer train sequence at the end, but I could not get past the fact that there are four prominent female roles in this movie, they share scenes together—all in one conversation at one point!—yet they never speak to one another. Any of them. At all. I love these stupid movies but come on.
read: Nice: A Short History of Architecture by Félicien Carli (2017). I picked this up in some museum or other and it’s slim but astoundingly comprehensive and I want to read something exactly like this before I visit any new city. It looks like there are several for cities in France, which is wonderful. Get on it, rest of the world.
read: Lessons in Love by Charlie Cochrane (2008). A murder mystery set in 1905 at Cambridge with a lovely romance between an English lecturer and a mathematician. I was charmed by this one—the language, the characters, the sense of place were all perfect. It’s the first in a series, and I have already bought the next one.
place: Villa Kérylos by Emmanuel Pontremoli (1908). Unlike E-1027 I didn’t know anything about this house before arriving, but I immediately fell in love. Built in 1902-1908 for archeologist Théodore Reinach, the Villa Kérylos was intended to be a modern take on an ancient Greek villa, complete with furniture based on ancient Greek forms. The most magical aspect, to me, was the interior decor. Every floor was mosaiced, every wall painted and ceiling painted or with plaster bas-relief carvings. A visual delight.
read: Enemies Like You by Joanna Chambers & Annika Martin (2017). I don’t go much for contemporary romance, but this was ELECTRIC. An assassin set on killing the billionaire responsible for his friends’ deaths meets his enemy’s bodyguard and just can’t seem to kill him. The mystery itself wasn’t terribly complex, but if enemies-to-lovers is your thing, the romance is well worth the read.
read: Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis (2025). I don’t know where I read about this, but whatever the review said was enough to inspire me to check it out of the library and carry it across an ocean. Fun tropey romance between an archduke in name only who seeks refuge from his abusive regent in the household of the vicious witch queen in the neighboring kingdom and the queen herself. I had a blast with this one—made me nostalgic for a time when I was a less picky reader and every romance novel felt new.
read: Copper Script by KJ Charles (2025). Thank god, a new KJ Charles. 1920s romance between a detective and a man who claims to be able to read a person’s character from their handwriting. It’s such a wild and weird ability to saddle a character with, and I loved that he could genuinely do it. As always, the book was a banger, and as always it immediately inspired me to read more KJ Charles. I finished it and then the reread the back half of Subtle Blood, entirely without intending to. Such is her power.
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