Category Archives: love

Worthy Rivals

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Never the Roses, Jennifer K Lambert

Who pushes you to be better, even if they don’t know or intend it?

Simon Sinek and Adam Grant.
Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
Apple and Microsoft.
Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas.
Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.
The University of Chicago and Northwestern.

Competitors and rivals. Each unique and outstanding in style, substance, and mission, but similar enough to be compared, contrasted, and set at odds. But each half of the pair makes the other better; they keep each other driven to stay in the game. Thus they each spur the other to learn, grow, and evolve. Their respective fields all benefit widely from their public rivalry, elevating standards and aspirations for all: win-win-win.

Oneira and Steranos, the most powerful sorceress and sorcerer, respectively, exemplify this integrated dichotomy in Jennifer K Lambert’s Never the Roses. Pitted against one another for decades of war costing fortunes, lives, and their own consciences, they finally connect in real life (as opposed to ‘remotely’, each locked away in their own respective kingdom directing warfare from afar) when Oneira retires and decides to visit Steranos’s personal library surrepticiously one night, the most serious and skillful oneiromancer who committed one of the gravest atrocities of wartime, pranking her erstwhile nemesis on an impulsive whim. Thus begins a magical slow burn, sensual yet low spice, playful yet tragic love story of two individuals for whom true understanding and full acceptance can only be found in each other. Their knowledge, skill, and power, literally unrivaled by anyone else in the world, makes them the perfect diametrical foes and exquisitely matched lovers and allies.

I adore this story becuase it makes me grateful to have in my life so many intellectual and relational equals. “Iron sharpens iron,” my friend says. When I engage you in wit, query, and debate, when we compare and exchange perspective at the highest levels of curiosity and possibility, OH how my mind positively tingles! My best insights and thought integrations occur during these sparkling conversations and I just cannot get enough. We make each other better in all the most meaningful ways, but most of all we each truly see and feel seen by the other. That sensation de-escalates the nervous system, settles it into a place of safety and acceptance. I’m starting to think there may be no substitute for this singular feeling and the benefits thereof.

How fascinating–the only people I share this relationship with whom I’d actually call rivals are my Red voting friends. Is it semantics? I am weirdly averse to the idea of competition–do I hate losing that much? …Do I meet worthy rivals in the gym? Maybe. Hmmm, this may be worth exploring more. I wonder if I have any other books to reference in the query? Maybe one will come to me by this time tomorrow. Good night, dear readers!

Bane Bloom by Sharon Lynn Fisher

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Mug gifted from Sister when I graduated med school, 1999

Thanks to the Google random number generator, tonight you get reflections on Book #95 from the 2026 list: Bane Bloom by Sharon Lynn Fisher.

The blurb:

A botanical illustrator in Victorian England uncovers a country garden’s secrets in a fantastical novel of dark enchantments by the author of Tea & Alchemy.

In 1850, Catherine Gray, a botanical illustrator from London, travels to a remote estate in the Lake District to catalog and paint the specimens thriving in a mysterious glasshouse garden. The most bewildering find is a water lily that somehow alters its appearance. Nearly as puzzling is Thomas Bane, the brooding groundskeeper, who closely guards the estate’s secrets—including the disappearance of Catherine’s predecessor.

The mystery deepens when Catherine discovers the diary of Prudence Bane, Thomas’s late mother, which contains revelations about the odd flora and its hold on a family touched by madness. The more she uncovers, the more the line between fantasy and reality—and superstition and fact—begins to blur.

Unable to trust her own thoughts, Catherine draws closer to Thomas, her only anchor in this strange place. But even he can’t fully protect her from the house and his otherworldly family. Only Catherine can break the Bane family’s cycle of heartbreak…but first she’ll have to confront her own.

My review:

Review of advance copy received from Author
[FIVE STARS]

Typically excellent; highly recommend!
I have only known Sharon Lynn Fisher’s writing since January, when I listened to Tea & Alchemy, because Marisa Calin and Shane East perform it. Since then I have listened to Grimm Curiosities, Salt & Broom, and now Bane Bloom, thanks to an Advance Listener Copy from Sharon herself (thank you, ma’am!). I can now write with authority: Sharon writes the MOST satisfying and engaging slow burn, low spice romances! Catherine, like Sharon’s other heroines, exudes honest, humble smarts and spunk, and follows her intuition to connect with (super)nature. Thomas, not quite tormented but cranky with a heart of gold, could live alone forever, but that soft metal melts eventually, to all our collective delight. This story delivers mystery, intrigue, and real human emotion, with just enough angst to engage for binge without torturing us. Bronwen Price does a loving and beautiful job with the vast majority of the narration, and Will Watt’s deep, warm timbre gives Thomas’s voice something to look forward to. I will soom embark on the rest of Sharon’s backlist–can’t wait!

I have since finished The Absinthe Earl, and will continue with The Raven Lady, Books 1 and 2 of The Faery Rehistory Trilogy.

*Sigh* I might attribute my mild obsession with romantasy in 2026 to the Crowns Trilogy by Nicola Tyche, which I have listened to at least six times in its totality, and the last book alone, War Queen, at least nine, since this time last year. It’s possible that I just wanted to escape reality in this year that began with ICE murdering regular people on the street and sliding into various other atrocities and disgraces with almost no meaningful accountability at the highest levels of US government.

These books highlight the best in humanity (in contrast to the news), wherein characters face mortal threats from outside actors, and must find in both themselves and each other the courageous vulnerability and calm rationality to problem solve and save their communities. The romances bloom from emergent mutual admiration, each hero/ine of the other’s perceptiveness, knowledge, intelligence, and fortitude. They are complementary equals; the heroes respect their heroines above all. That’s true in Crowns also. Maybe that’s what really draws me to these stories, as the current US federal administration dominated by toxic white men all but denigrates women. All the more satisfying that so many women (and women physicians!) were just elected to Congress.

From Facebook, cannot remember source, sorry!
Also according to Google, there are currently 20 physicians serving in the 119th Congress, 4 senators and 16 representatives. They are almost all white, and there is one woman among them.

Last night I wrote about how romance can teach us self-love. Tonight I highlight romances that teach us mutual respect and value intellectual acumen in women and emotional attunement in men. Romance is the best selling book genre year over year, and yet we ignore its significance. Maybe if we paid more attention to these quintessentially human stories, we could treat ourselves and one another better and make the world better for it.

Romance and Self-Compassion

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Alexis Hall and everything you need to know about how to engage with them

What parts of your personality are both fundamentally you and also shameful?

Maybe shameful is too strong or not the right word. But what unique and fundamental aspects of your personality also cause you to dislike yourself? Maybe they cause you to feel like a misfit among ‘normal’ people. Or so few people relate to (or even reject) this part of you that you hardly share it? Maybe it’s a behavior pattern that puts people off a little, but you can’t help it because it’s just who you are and you refuse to deny or repress your core self.

I wonder how Alexis Hall would think of what I’m about to write, but I hope they would know it’s written respectfully and out of admiration, curiosity, and exploration.

Never After, Something Extraordinary, and For Real

In the three books of theirs that I have devoured multiple times (highly recommend you do, too) and written about twice (Never After and Something Extraordinary), all of the main characters are both irrepressibly authentic and at least somewhat self-loathing. Every one of them finally comes to accept and love themselves more fully with the help of their respective love interest, often having to be told and shown multiple times, both subtly and forcefully, how valuable they are.

Hall writes so lovingly and relatably about the human condition of self-criticism, how organically it occurs, how insidiously, and how it shows up in all of our relationships, not just romantic ones. I hope every one of us has felt at least partially saved by a supportive other who shows up and loves us for our strengths and gifts before we fully perceive and celebrate them. How lucky if it was a parent or teacher early in life, or a life partner who continually reminds us? But what about those parts that we have yet to reconcile?

Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff

I listened to Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion years ago and highly recommend it. She definitely leads by example and walks her talk. I think I’m still integrating the concepts and practices, and life is so much better. “With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and support we’d give to a good friend,” says the banner on the website landing page. How did society become so perfectionist and hypercritical? Such a downward spiral, the self-criticism that fuels judgment and criticism of others and manifests in harsh words and harmed relationships. [facepalm]

The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Debbie Ford

Long before taking up audiobooks or Self-Compassion, I read (or tried to read–never actually finished) The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. In her attempt to show us the parts of ourselves that we most loathe, I stepped waist deep in my inner psychological shitpile and picked a fight with Hubs that lasted two weeks. I was too afraid to open the book again then, but maybe I will now? Oh, the gift of living longer and learning about oneself…

I will be forever grateful to Book Club for teaching me the value of fiction, and how it opens us more deeply to both empathy and self-awareness. I get so much more out of the non-fiction I consume when I live vicariously through characters’ lives, feel their emotions so closely adjacent to my own.

I so admire and appreciate authors like Alexis Hall, whose prose can so deftly pierce our armor and open our hearts through lyrical expressions of characters’ utterly vulnerable and quintenssentially human fears and longings. Consuming these stories makes me more compassionate in general, to both myself and others. It reminds me that we are all here to love–to seek it, offer it, receive and share it, and thrive on it. And one of the most empowering things we can do for the world–exponentially so–is love ourselves first.