Kiss Her Once for Me

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun, 351 pages

Last Christmas, Ellie was crying on the floor of Powell's Books when she met a woman with whom she immediately fell in love with. Literally — they spent 15 hours together and then they slept together (a HUGE deal for Ellie, who, as a demisexual, normally takes a LONG time to first trust and respect someone before finding them sexually attractive). And then as quick as it started, it ended. Almost a full year later, Ellie is struggling with a dead-end job and a week away from eviction when handsome real estate heir Andrew drunkenly suggests a marriage of convenience: he gets access to a $2 million trust while Ellie gets 10 percent to help get her on her feet. All they have to do is tie the knot, stay married for a bit, and then divorce — oh, and spend a week at Andrew's family's cabin at Christmas. Despite her reservations, Ellie agrees, only to learn that Andrew's sister is the woman from the year before, and what do you know, they still have some SERIOUS feelings for each other.

OK, so it's kind of a convoluted plot, with a whole bunch of tropes shoved in (there's even a "there's only one bed!" situation at one point), and WAY too much Christmas music for my grinchy heart... but it's a sweet and funny book, and an homage to While You Were Sleeping (probably my favorite romantic comedy ever), and I totally loved it. My one complaint is that Ellie's beautifully described web comics appear here as text. I get the complications of having interstitial comics in a romance novel, but man, that would have made this really good book great.

Under Wildwood

Under Wildwood by Colin Meloy, 560 pages

The second book of Meloy's Oregon-set, foresty hipster fantasy trilogy finds cyclist Prue traveling back into the Impassable Wilderness to help restore the natural order to the land, once again with the help of now-bandit Curtis. But this time, they're fighting off kitsune assassins and racing against nefarious industrial titans who scoff at child labor laws and have Curtis's sisters hard at work. It's the second book in a trilogy and as such has that weird nothing's starting, nothing's finished feel about it, though my daughter and I certainly enjoyed it. Our favorite part was when Prue and Curtis encountered a community of blind shouting moles and their elaborate Fortress of Fanggg, which made us giggle every time I read it aloud. On to Book 3!

Wildwood

Wildwood by Colin Meloy, 541 pages

Prue McKeel is your average 12-year-old, riding her bike around her neighborhood of Portland with her baby brother, Mac, on a lovely fall day. Everything changes when Mac is abducted by a murder of crows, who carry him across the river into the Impassable Wilderness. Suddenly, Prue and her classmate Curtis (who tags along, despite Prue's protestations) are embarking on a wilderness rescue mission filled with anthropomorphic animals, an evil witch, coyote soldiers, and a wild group of bandits.

I read this first book of Decemberists' singer Meloy's Wildwood Chronicles to my daughter, who absolutely loved it — though given Meloy's penchant for multisyllabic and archaic words, we had to pause several times for definitions ("phalanx" and "bayonet" come to mind). Despite what she termed "juicy words," she completely fell in love with Prue's strength and resourcefulness, Curtis's haplessness, and the many colorful characters of Wildwood. We'll be starting on the second book directly.

The Paragon Hotel

The Paragon Hotel by Lindsay Faye  432 pp.

The tale of  "Nobody" Alice James begins on a train to Portland, Oregon in 1921. She is trying to disguise the fact that she has a serious bullet wound and ends up aided by the black Pullman porter on the train. He takes her to the Paragon Hotel, an establishment restricted to Portland's black community. Oregon is a state determined to remain white and the KKK has made its presence known. The residents and managers of the hotel are understandably nervous about having a white woman on the premises, especially one who refuses to divulge just how she was shot. She is taken under the wing of Miss Blossom Fontaine, a local entertainer with secrets of her own. When a young mixed-race boy disappears, Alice James may be the only one able to assist in getting the authorities to find him. The story flashes back to her life in New York where "Nobody's" connection to the Mafia leads to her desperate journey to escape. Surprise revelations about the characters crop up throughout the story which is both tragic and hopeful. I listened to the Overdrive audio version which was adequately read by January LaVoy.