Musings Over Tea: My Latest Reads

This post isn’t about my writing (hallelujah!) but about a few books I’ve read the past two weeks because apparently instead of writing the next book, Creative Me wants to fill the well with books recommended on #BookTok and also by my guilt-tripping Kindle library that has way too many unread books than I’d like.

Yep, I am on Tiktok but I’m not as active as I’d like to be. When I dove in two months ago, it was during the height of Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians being the talk all over #Booktok.

Even though I’ve heard of Ruby Dixon and actually have her as an inspiration for being such a prolific writer with amazing branding all over her series, I’d never actually read her books. So last week, I decided to change all that and picked up my first Ice Planet Barbarians book or IPB.

They’re all easy reads, really. And yes, there is a lot of sex in them. With blue aliens. Who have ridges on certain parts of their bodies including, yes, down there. With a spur to boot. You know, a built-in “rabbit.”

But if you think it’s just all sex, it’s not. There’s actually a story, a plot, a really cold wintry world inhabited by seven-foot tall blue aliens, and engaging heroines you root for.

I enjoyed it so much I read the second, third, fourth, and fifth books. And I am loving the fan art that people are creating all over social media, too.

She’s also serializing her latest book on her website and I’ve been enjoying that, too. In fact, I’ve missed the excitement of waiting for the next installment and it’s become a ritual for me to read the next chapter while sipping my PGTips tea. (Oh, right, I did switch from coffee to tea a few months ago and I have NO complaints!)

This weekend, though, I decided to take a break from reading IPB and writing craft books and finally cracked open Tayhoe, a contemporary romantic suspense set in the Navajo reservation by Judith Schiller.

Tayhoe is the story of Cherokee-Navajo Jimmy Leroy Tayhoe, recently released from a six-year prison sentence, and Kara Lindstrom, the soil and water analyst who gets lost on the reservation and stumbles into his cabin one night. A former activist fighting for his native land, Jimmy is at the end of his rope, unable to fit into the world he once fought so hard to preserve and believing he’s left with only one option. When their worlds collide, it sets in motion so many changes between them as well as the people around them.

This is a slow burn romance that’s got lots of action and adventure thrown in all set on a gorgeous Native American landscape, and boy, did I stay up all night to finish it. I read it on Kindle Unlimited but just bought the paperback to keep on my shelf as well.

It’s up there with my other favorite Native American romance Coyote Dream by the late Jessica Davis Stein.

I’ve got more books to dive into and I can truly see how much I’ve missed that feeling of getting lost in someone else’s book. It’s a nice escape even for just a few hours with no dishes washed, laundry sorted, or worrying whether my kid’s N95 mask is a poor copy of a good one.

But that’s okay.

There’s always tomorrow.