Dispatches from Fourteen Light-Years Away
No. 5 · My TBR Pile Is a Personal Attack · May 27, 2026
I was supposed to finish editing chapter 17 last weekend.
Instead I read January Bell’s first book of the Accidental Alien Brides cover to cover on Saturday and started Regine Abel’s Prime Mating Agency on Sunday morning.
Chapter 17 is still open in a browser tab I haven’t clicked since Friday. Oops?
I read the genre I write in, which means every book is technically research. This is what I tell myself when it’s past midnight and I’m three chapters into someone else’s accidental marriage plot instead of revising my own.
Bell writes cultural misunderstanding comedy that catches you off guard — you’re laughing and the next moment you have a lump in your throat. It’s awesome. Abel does the thing I’m always chasing in my own writing, which is making the alien feel genuinely alien. Not a tall human with different-colored skin. The way she weaves biology and instinct into the romance is craft I want to study up close.
Her books are just the kind of ridiculous I love. I read I Married a Minotaur in one afternoon.
I’m back at it, though!
The first book in the series is available for pre-order now.
Hit reply and tell me what’s on your TBR right now. Although, I have zero self-control with book recs, so you’d be doing real damage to my editing schedule.
Signing off, Millie
P.S. Check your inbox on Friday. I have news.
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