december

Things I enjoyed in the month of December:
Kristen Callihan's, Forevermore:
"... you, St. John Evernight, are mine. Whether you will it or not. Your heart and soul have been mine to keep since I climbed up in that bloody tree to drive you mad. Mine to protect. And if you are bloody broken, then I bloody well will be here to help you put the pieces back together."

It's become some sort of seasonal tradition that whilst in the throes of pre-Christmas mania and in desperate need of fictitious comfort, I pin my sights directly on Kristen Callihan's Darkest London series. For four years, now, I've belly crawled my overwhelmed ass over to the bookshelves and graspingly pawed the next in the heptalogy out from betwixt its paperback brethren with anxiety clenched paws, and indulged in what can only be described as gaslamp succour. There's no logic or reason to it, nothing more than pure, animal instinct, and I have zero shame hyping my own decision making because goddamn, this act of mindless desperation never fails. And this year is absolutely no different, except it's the last in the series, and the throes are throe-ing especially hard this festive period. On the eve of December, I stepped aboard the twinkly-lit Strugglebus, chose an under-cushioned seat with no seatbelt and gum on the headrest, sat my jittering carcass down and proceeded to listen to the gallop of my heart harmonise with the unhinged cackle of the conductor up front, zigzagging us head on into Saint Nic's antler-helmed sleigh with that old fucker Bing Crosby crooning over the speakers as the soundtrack to our pine-scented demise.Christmas! The most wonderful time of year!
...As you can probably deduce from the purple-hued word vomit above, I'm simply not fucking okay.And my go to move for escapism in any time of depressive distress or, in this case, full cerebral meltdown, is, of course, literature. I mean, I'm always reading, when I wake up, to when my insomniac head hits the cool side of the pillow, but this is a different sort of reading need. It's a necessity to prevent the world from collapsing in around me, it's venturing into far off lands where for a few hours I'm so engrossed that nothing in the real world can touch me. It's the difference between anxiety-buying a SAD lamp just to experience a modicum of the serotonin my brain cannot make itself (especially in the sunless months), or chuckling over yet another pissed off female main character quipping while she kicks the shit out of whatever critter's decided she looks particularly piquant that day and chooses her as the Soup du Jour. Trust me, nine times out of ten it works like a treat. But for a while now, my beloved books have sort of been betraying me, or should I say, my not-capable-of-making-its-own-goddamn-dopamine brain has been betraying them. Reading is everything, the act so tied up in my general wellbeing that the levels of contentedness I'm currently experiencing can be accurately gleaned from whether or not I'm enjoying what I'm reading. Point in fact, for most of this year, I've picked up a veritable stream of "okay" reads, books that've provided adequate service but not enough to warrant a hefty tip, and it's been slowly killing me one turned page after another. To the extent that I've been putting off choosing my next read by weeks, sometimes a month will've passed by with the nightly promise to myself that I'll choose a new book, and instead inevitably scrolling on Instagram until trudging my sorry ass back to whatever romance I'm reading on my kindle app, which my brain is also at war with. Not even the incandescent high of reading two (sometimes three, sometimes many) idiots fall in love has been able to tap into whatever capabilities I have left to produce the "happy hormone", and it's taken me a full year to figure out that it's because I'm, as I said above, not fucking okay. Which is hard, and I hate it, and I know it'll alleviate in time with with effort and holistic aids but in the meantime, I need, need need need, the arts to let me back into the club. I need to feel the particular contentedness of ever so slightly breaking the spine of a new book and discovering a new home inside, which is how I found myself here, back in Victorian London with a bunch of addlepated supernaturals fighting greater evils and falling in angsty love in the process, aka. my happy place. The literary dwelling where the ambience is gaslit, the clothes are flattering but deeply uncomfortable (and a real bitch to get off when it's time to bang), the general populace are inexplicably ignorant to the occult surrounding them at all hours of the smog-laced day (even when they're making a bloody racket), and the main characters are all ethereally beautiful but who possess all the emotional intelligence of my cat, who is clearly a demon trapped in a fluff suit, i.e. they're really pretty and stupid, and I love it.I vividly remember reading the first in the Darkest London series, how it felt, how I clicked with Kristen Callihan's writing and world-building and characterisation; it was one of those "Oh hey, there you are, I've been looking for you" moments that, honest to gods, never gets old. If I could only read match-my-freak books for the rest of my life (and hopefully thereafter in the great library in the multiverse), I'd be the happiest goblin to roam the literary lands, I'd leave offerings to the sainted bookworms and never complain about bad book etiquette ever again (yes, even the monsters who savage the spines to flaccidity, my greatest nemeses). Alas, however, that's not how reading works, but when you find an author you click with, when you encounter that gold dust, book-mate connection, you make sure there's always a story of their's waiting in the wings, on standby for when you're wading through turbulent molasses and only their words will do, like Forevermore was for me in my current time of need.I can't say this is the best book in the series, I can't say it didn't feel a little rushed, or that this many unfinished storylines being pulled together and tied in a corseted bow didn't distract from Layla and St. John's romance.
I can't even say the final battle didn't feel abrupt and not quite as bombastic as I was hoping for. I can't say any of these things without being a dirty, little liar, but I can say I actually kind of don't care? Because for a few hours every day this past week, Forevermore got me through some intense anxiety attacks, numerous episodes of spiralling thoughts, and the post-flu vaccine exhaustion funk. It kept me entertained, thrilled me at times, the smut was peak as per usual, and it continued to provide that expert delivery of victorian gaslamp with a touch of steampunk that didn't make my brain itch from cog-infused exposition but didn't skimp on the scene dressing (I'm so particular about this shit, do not get me started). But best of all? It felt like home again. I opened the first page and knew instantly I didn't have to worry about not enjoying myself, or encountering the down trip when a book starts well and descends into mediocrity, I just knew, with my whole, crotchety being that for three hundred odd pages everything would be okay. Better than okay. It'd be a really fucking good time. And I can't fathom a better way to end a series/microdose a downward mental spiral than this, and I'm really going to miss it. I started the Darkest London series back in 2019 and it's been a beacon in the dark for the past six years, one I'll yearn for the reassurance of there always being a new story waiting for me when I needed it. But hey, maybe I'll read it again next Christmas and remember that supernaturals in Queen Vic's era did absolutely filthy things in carriages in times of great danger when they probably should've been paying more attention to their imminent deaths.Filthy.
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December Diminuendos:
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December Romance Faves:

💘 Mazey Eddings, Well, Actually

platinum stiletto bitch x bespectacled simp

bi / pansexuality rep

hurt / comfort

banter gremlins

taking down the man

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

💘 Ali Hazelwood, Stuck with You

STEM romance

forced proximity

miscommunication trope

shorty short

he falls first & hard

⭐️⭐️⭐️½

💘 Nikki Payne, Pride and Protest

p&p retelling

interracial romance

grumpy stoic x gremlin sun cloud

animosity to ardency

dual POV

⭐️⭐️⭐️½

💘 Tessa Bailey, Wreck the Halls

christmas romance

rockstar progeny

denial kink

second chance down bad idiots

dual POV

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

💘 Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry

mlm hockey romance

babygirl nightmare x babygirl simp

hurt / comfort & interracial romance

enemies to secret lovers to lovers

dual POV

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

💘 Roxie Noir, The Three Night Stand

step siblings romance

one night to every night stand

damaged but healing gremlin vibes

addiction / adhd rep / interracial couple

dual POV

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ½

💘 Kati Wilde, The Wedding Night Before Christmas

christmas romance

marriage of convenience & forced proximity

mallowy ice queen x plaid brunch daddy

autism rep

dual POV

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️