Book Review: The Jackal’s Mistress by Chris Bohjalian

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Jackal’s Mistress
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Publication date: March 11, 2025
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.

Virginia, 1864—Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand, and his wife, all the grain they can produce requisitioned by the Confederate Army. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, the territory frequently changing hands, control swinging back and forth like a pendulum between North and South, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield.

And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house, the bones of his hand and leg shattered. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy—but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?

A vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.

Chris Bohjalian is a prolific author — The Jackal’s Mistress is his 25th novel!! — and while he’s such a great writer that every single book is engrossing, it’s his historical fiction novels that truly draw me in and leave me in awe. Fortunately for me, his 2025 new release is historical fiction, set in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the final year of the Civil War. Put simply: It’s excellent.

And the writing is gorgeous — every description brings the scene to life:

Jonathan Weybridge sat on a camp stool atop the crest of a small hill and watched the elegant tendrils of fog in the ravine, the steepled tips of the fir trees piercing the misty clouds like the finials of a wrought-iron fence.

Libby Steadman, at age 25, works tirelessly at her farm’s gristmill, able to keep herself, her 12-year-old niece Jubilee, and freed married couple Joseph and Sally fed by selling grain to the Confederate army. Libby’s husband Peter freed his family’s slaves immediately after he inherited the farm from this father, but he’s still enough of a Southerner to have joined the rebel army. Now, in the fall of 1864, all Libby knows is that Peter was wounded and taken to a Union prison, but it’s been month since she’s had word of him. The household is in constant peril from marauders, rangers, and deserters, not to mention the battles they can hear from not too far away, and Libby is barely holding on most days.

Jonathan Weybridge is a captain with the Vermont Brigade; he’s a former professor who’d prefer to be home with his wife and sons, his books and students, but ends up fighting on the side of what he knows to be right and just. After a fierce battle, he’s severely wounded, and as the Union army leaves the territory, he’s left behind — abandoned to what will surely be a slow, painful death.

By chance, Sally stumbles across Jonathan, and Libby makes a risky choice. She does what she can only hope a Northern woman might do for Peter: She decides to bring Jonathan back to her own home and see if his life can be saved.

It’s highly doubtful at the start. He’s lost a leg and several fingers on one hand. After days of suffering, with no food or medicine, he’s emaciated, in pain, and has untended, bloody injuries that may never heal. Libby is stubborn, though, and she’s determined to keep him alive.

The story of The Jackal’s Mistress is built around thoughtful character development, and rooted in a firm sense of the time and place in which it’s set. Readers can feel the danger from moment to moment. Hearing hoofbeats is enough to set one’s heart racing — any visitor can mean potential disaster, whether by outright violence or the threat of unintended discovery of the household’s secret. The risk Libby takes is profound, and endangers every one under her roof: Sally and Joseph, although free, are subject to much harsher laws, and would likely be hanged on the spot; Libby would be considered a traitor; and of course, Joseph, at best, would be taken prisoner, although given the state of his health, death is the likely outcome.

[He] has met men like Morgan before. On the surface, they were civilized. And, perhaps, without war they would have remained that way. But war gave them permission to be who they really were, men who were comfortable killing all the kindness and magic and beauty in the world, men whose souls were bleak and, therefore, dangerous.

We’re never asked to sympathize with the Southern cause, and yet, we can feel pity for Libby, caught up in a war she doesn’t believe in, trying to save her home and maintain the far-fetched hope of seeing her husband again someday, and not being able to count on the goodwill of neighbors or the army supposedly fighting for her own side to keep her safe. Her bravery is off the charts, yet believable: She’s an ordinary woman who chooses to do extraordinary things because it’s what she feels she must do.

Jonathan is a wonderful character as well. We feel his pain as well as his helplessness. He’s a man of peace, devoted to literature and education, caught up in terrible violence. He cares about the men under his command, misses his family, and yearns for the end of war. The descriptions of his suffering and helplessness are terrible to read, which is a sign of just how powerfully written this book is. As Jonathan begins to recover, he’s able to interact with Libby and the other members of the household, and each interaction has a spark of life and engagement that bring new facets of the characters’ balancing acts into focus.

The Jackal’s Mistress provides a finely woven blend of introspection, character development, and action sequences. It works remarkably well, and brings to life a handful of people caught up in a terrible time, making choices of conscience that could doom them all at any moment. The book is fascinating, moving, and thought-provoking. It’s impossible to put down

The author’s notes explain the real-life people whose story inspired The Jackal’s Mistress, and provides an interesting look at his research and some recommended resources for further reading. Don’t skip the notes when you finish the novel!

I’d rank The Jackal’s Mistress as one of Chris Bohjalian’s best. While his contemporary thrillers are always compelling, twisty reads, it’s his historical novels that truly capture my imagination and my heart. I highly recommend The Jackal’s Mistress — but you really can’t go wrong with any of his books!

For more historical fiction by this author, check out a few of my favorites:

13Mar2025

Book Review: The Love Lyric (The Greene Sisters, #3) by Kristina Forest

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Love Lyric
Series: The Greene Sisters, #3
Author: Kristina Forest
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: February 4, 2025
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

An R&B singer and a corporate executive find love that hits the right notes in this romance by Kristina Forest, USA Today bestselling author of The Partner Plot.

Iris Greene used to be a woman with a plan. But all of that changed after she met the love of her life at twenty-four, got pregnant and married…and then became a widow and a single mother all within the span of a year and a half. Now, after years of hustling, Iris is the director of partnerships at a beauty company and raising spunky six-year-old Calla by herself. Despite her busy life, she still can’t help but feel lonely. She just needs to catch her breath—and one night, at her sister’s wedding, when she steps outside to do just that, she sees a certain singer who takes her breath away. . . .

By all accounts, pop R&B singer Angel Hughes has it made. He’s a successful musician and has just scored a brand ambassador deal with an emerging beauty company. But he’s still not fulfilled; he’s not producing songs he’s passionate about, and there’s a gaping hole in his love life. When he visits the Save Face Beauty office to kickstart his campaign, he’s delighted to see Iris, his stylist’s sister—the beautiful woman he’s secretly had a crush on for years.

Despite their obvious attraction to each other, they must stay professional throughout the campaign tour—which doesn’t quite pan out. But when it becomes clear their lives aren’t in sync, can they fall back in step to the same rhythm and beat?

The Love Lyric is the 3rd book in author Kristina Forest’s Greene Sisters trilogy, following The Neighbor Favor and The Partner Plot. The first two books focus on sisters Lily and Violet; here in The Love Lyric, their older sister Iris takes center stage.

Iris is an ambitious career woman, who juggles a successful corporate role with raising a six-year-old on her own, having been widowed when her daughter was still a baby. While still grieving for her beloved husband Terry, Iris has reached a point in her life where maybe, just maybe, she might consider trying to date again. If only the idea of getting on the apps wasn’t so awful.

A few years earlier, she’d crossed paths with Angel, who then was just starting on his rise to pop stardom. He’d made an impression, but Iris hasn’t seen him again until her sister Violet’s wedding. After sharing a moonlit dance with Angel, Iris pulls away, not wanting to risk taking things any further — because Angel is the brand ambassador for her company, and she needs to maintain professional boundaries… but also because he’s a huge celebrity with women practically throwing themselves at his feet. Why would someone like that ever be interested in someone like her?

There’s more to the story, of course. Angel is still adjusting to his own stardom, and while he achieves top of the chart success with each new track, his label pushes back when he tries to make the kind of music — true R&B — that he really cares about. Plus, having come from a strict, religious home, he faces constant criticism and insults from his mother, who sees his public persona as a disgrace, much too far from his gospel roots.

For Iris, there’s a combination of professional frustration, fear of making changes or taking big risks, and most especially, the fear of letting herself care for someone and risk getting hurt.

Still, Angel and Iris so clearly care about one another and have great physical chemistry too — so it’s inevitable that their resistance can only hold out so long. Factor in the intensity of a week-long business trip and the proximity that comes with it, and it’s only a matter of time before they give in to temptation.

Complications ensue — with a celebrity like Angel, things can’t remain a secret forever. Iris is fearful for her job and also very protective of her and her daughter’s privacy. When their secret relationship is exposed, Iris has some very hard choices to make, and must decide what kind of life and future she wants.

The Love Lyric is a very enjoyable wrap-up to the trilogy. We get time with the rest of the Greene family, and it’s lovely to see Lily and Violet both happy with their relationships and their careers. I appreciated seeing the turmoil Iris faces as a single working mother, trying to do the classic balancing act of being everything to everyone, without letting her daughter down or letting her work commitments slip. Iris’s loss and grief are handled respectfully, showing her love for her late husband and how she navigates the possibility of loving again.

Angel and Iris make a great couple, and despite their ups and downs, they’re able to communicate in a way that’s refreshing and honest. When the typical 3rd act breakup that seems standard in so many romance novels occurs here, it’s for reasons that make sense and that are actually discussed — it’s nice to see healthy conversations in a romance, when so many books rely on miscommunication as a plot device!

The Love Lyric is a great read all on its own, as well as a satisfying conclusion to a very good trilogy. What I especially appreciate about these books is the strong family dynamic and the close bond between the sisters, as well as the individual women themselves and how well-drawn their characters are. I just wish they had another sister so the series could continue!

As far as I understand, the Greene Sisters trilogy is author Kristina Forest’s first foray into adult books, after publishing several YA novels. I’ll look forward to reading whatever she writes next!

9Mar2025

Novella review: Murder by Memory by Oliva Waite

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Murder by Memory
Series: Dorothy Gentleman, #1
Author: Olivia Waite
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: March 11, 2025
Length: 112 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A Memory Called Empire meets Miss Marple in this cozy, spaceborne mystery, helmed by a no-nonsense formidable auntie of a detective.

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…

This short, sharp novella presents a murder mystery on board a generation ship — a spaceship a few centuries into a millenium-long journey to a new planet. In the world of the Fairweather (referred to as Ferry), passengers can more or less live forever, by recycling their minds through a series of new bodies once their current body reaches its natural end. Minds are uploaded into the ship’s vast library, and when a new body is needed, the saved memories from a person’s memory book are downloaded and installed into their newest living vessel.

It’s all pretty perfect, except for the day when Dorothy Gentleman, ship’s detective, wakes up in a body that’s not her own. She’d placed herself into a years-long sleep after her last body’s death, but hadn’t intended to come back to life so soon. Now, though, she’s in someone else’s body, with no idea why.

It turns out that her memories have been transferred into the body of a woman named Gloria Vowell, and that Dorothy’s own memory book had been erased, something that shouldn’t have been possible to do. Luckily, there was a backup, but still… something doesn’t add up, and in her role as detective, Dorothy is determined to figure it out.

What follows is a tightly woven tale of a murder investigation, made distinctly odd by the fact that murder isn’t actually permanent on board the Fairweather. Since memories are saved in the library, even a murder victim gets a chance to return to life. Meanwhile, as Dorothy digs, she discovers an intricate pattern of crime going back centuries, along with flaws in the system that Ferry will need to fix if the ship’s way of life is to be maintained.

At just over 100 pages, Murder by Memory is a quick read. It’s written with a nimble touch, immediately immersing the reader into the strange new world of the ship and its way of life (and death). The concept of the memory books and the library is terrific, and the mystery as a whole provides entertainment and food for thought. It did lose me a bit when the focus shifts to unraveling financial records, but fortunately the story moves on quickly and the exact details don’t matter a great deal in the overall scheme of things.

Murder by Memory is apparently the first story in an expected series about Dorothy, and this may explain why it feels like there are several loose threads left dangling at the end of the story — people, concepts, groups that factor into the plot, but seem like they have secrets yet to be revealed. But since there’s more to come, I’m guessing these hints of open questions are intentional, and I already know I’ll want to continue.

Dorothy is a great character, and the fluid concept of age is a piece of what makes her so fascinating. I can’t wait to see what future adventures await her!

8Mar2025

Book Review: Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Jane and Dan at the End of the World
Author: Colleen Oakley
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: March 11, 2025
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Date night goes off the rails in this hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise.

Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.

But before they even get to the second course, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’s only seen in the movies. Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar.

Which means Dan and Jane are the only ones who know what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said “’til death do us part” all those years ago, but if they can survive this, maybe they can survive anything—even marriage.

Author Colleen Oakley has quickly become a go-to author for me, and it’s engaging stories like Jane and Dan at the End of the World that keep me coming back.

When Jane and Dan head out to dinner for their 19th anniversary (which he seems to think is their 20th), rather than go to their stand-by date night restaurant, they instead go to the ultra-exclusive, ultra-expensive La Fin du Monde — a chic place located at the top of an isolated cliff along the Pacific coast. (Dan got a gift card… although he’s shocked to learn that the card only covers the cost of the reservation itself, not the thousand-something-dollar meal.)

The couple seems bored and jaded. Jane has heard every joke already. Dan has grown used to Jane’s need to double-check whether she’s unplugged her curling iron every single time they leave the house. But to Dan, it’s all fine. Jane, however, has had enough. She’s discovered texts between Dan and some unknown woman, and this proof of cheating is the final straw. In between their fancy courses, she informs Dan that she wants a divorce.

They don’t get to continue the conversation; a group of masked people with guns bursts in and zipties the guests and restaurant staff. The apparent leader is quickly infuriated to learn that the billionaire he’s been targeting isn’t actually present — instead, his wife and daughter are having dinner alone. What follow is a tense (but also very funny) countdown to a major confrontation, as the disorganized terrorists, frightened and frustrated restaurant guests, and local law enforcement interact, make generally bad decisions, and deal with circumstances none of them could have seen coming.

Well, maybe Jane could. As events unfold, she realizes that they’re strangely similar to the events of her heist novel — which practically no one read, not even Dan (or so she thinks). But as the evening progresses and more and more details line up with her book, Jane has a feeling she knows what’s coming… and knows she needs to get herself and Dan out of there before the big finale.

“For the love of God, [spoiler]’s never read your book,” Dan hisses, confirming Jane’s own thoughts. “No one’s read your book, Jane! This can’t be like your book because no one has read it.”

Meanwhile, right alongside the heist/adventure elements, this is really a story about marriage and family and parenthood. As Jane and Dan think back over their years together, certain truths and observations become clear. I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, so without revealing how these details connect, I’ll just say that Jane’s thoughts about motherhood, raising children and seeing them become their own people, and devoting oneself to family feel absolutely true and honest and real.

Jane often thinks all of the difficulty with parenting can be summed up by one sentence: Am I overreacting? And how 99 percent of the time, the answer is yes, but how is one to know when it’s the 1 percent of the time worrying is warranted?

Plus, the writing is funny! You might not think a hostage situation in a fancy restaurant would provide moments of humor, but in Colleen Oakley’s talented hands, unexpected bursts of laughter creep in when least expected.

Watching someone get shot was nothing like Jane thought it would be. Or nothing like the movies, which were Jane’s only point of reference. (Then again, having sex for the first time was disappointingly nothing like Dirty Dancing had led her to believed it would be, so she’s not sure why she’s surprised.)

Jane and Dan at the End of the World is fast-paced and engaging, and I raced through each chapter, unable to put the book down. Ultimately, while the heist elements are entertaining and really well-done, it’s the characters and their personal stories that drew me in.

Putting it simply: I love this book. With unexpected twists, down-to-earth truths, and a terrific main character to cheer for, it’s joyful and fun and full of life. Don’t miss it!

For more books by this author, check out my reviews of:

6Mar2025

Book Review: Installment Immortality (InCryptid, #14) by Seanan McGuire

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Installment Immortality
Series: Incryptid, #14
Author: Seanan McGuire
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: March 11, 2025
Length: 432 pages
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Seanan McGuire’s New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated InCryptid series continues with a whirlwind adventure….

After four generations of caring for the Price family, Mary Dunlavy has more than earned a break from the ongoing war with the Covenant of St. George. Instead, what she’s getting is a new employer, in the form of the anima mundi, Earth’s living soul made manifest, and a new assignment: to hunt down the Covenant agents on the East Coast and make them stop imprisoning America’s ghosts.

All in a day’s work for a phantom nanny, even one who’d really rather be teaching her youngest charges how to read.

One ghost can’t take on the entire Covenant without backup, which is how she winds up on a road trip with the still-mourning Elsie and the slowly collapsing Arthur, both of whom are reeling in their own way from the loss of their mother. New allies and new enemies await in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the path of the haunting leads.

With the anima mundi demanding results and Mary’s newfound freedom at stake, it’s down to Mary to make sure that everyone gets out of this adventure alive.

It’s been a long afterlife, but Mary Dunlavy’s not ready to be exorcised quite yet.

When you’re on the 14th book in an ongoing series, it feels practically impossible to talk about it in a way that will make sense to anyone who hasn’t been along for the journey. And in fact, even though I have read every one of these books, I needed a serious refresher before feeling ready to dive in. Um, what happened last time around? The details are a little fuzzy…

Fortunately, the narrator of Installment Immortality, ghost babysitter Mary Dunlavy, is just bouncing back from a major trauma and missed quite a bit, so her opening in the first chapter is quite helpful:

All right, this is where I recap. Because we’re dealing with five generations of family history here, and that’s a lot, even when you’ve been there from the beginning. I can’t count on anyone having been here from the beginning anymore, myself included, so I’ll give you the basic shape of things and hope that will be enough to ground you in this glorious ghost story already in progress.

Thanks, Mary!

The first chapter is Mary giving us a speed-recap, and it was just what I needed. (That, plus keeping the Incryptids wiki page bookmarked for easy reference.)

A brief explanation on the series (from my review of one of the earlier books):

The InCryptid series is a big, sprawling, interconnected story about the varied and sundry members of the Price/Healy clan — humans (mostly) who specialize in cryptozoology, the study and preservation of non-human people who live among us here on Earth. The arch-enemies of the Price gang (and all non-human species) is the Covenant, a powerful organization dedicated to hunting down and eliminating all cryptids — ostensibly to protect humans, but really, at this point, it’s more from deeply ingrained hatred and a desire to rid the world of everything non-human.

The series has had several different narrators, most of whom get a couple of books in a row before we move on to the next. Installment Immortality is Mary’s second book, and she picks up right where she left off in the previous book, Aftermarket Afterlife.

The Price-Healy family has inflicted serious harm on the Covenant, and now the Covenant wants payback. They’re trying to get it by rounding up and either destroying or weaponizing ghosts, and Mary’s new boss — the anima mundi, the living spirit of the world — wants it stopped before irreversible damage is done. Mary is tasked with finding these wannabe ghostbusters and doing whatever it takes to shut them down.

Meanwhile, the family is in tatters, having suffered two devastating losses in the last book. No one is operating at full speed, but Mary recognizes that siblings Elsie and Arthur need both a distraction and a purpose, and the three set off on a road trip to carry out her mission.

As we get into the main action of the story, the pace quickens and the stakes get higher and higher. Without going too far into the details, I’ll just say that the suspense becomes intense, and I was on the edge of my seat! You might think that when a main character is a ghost and therefore already dead, there wouldn’t be much risk… and you’d be wrong. Mary faces incredible danger, but her devotion to her kids (yes, Elsie and Arthur are adults, but once Mary has been someone’s babysitter, they’re always going to be her kids, no matter their age) keeps her focuses on her mission and determined to do whatever it takes to protect them.

Installment Immortality is another terrific addition to a great series. It can feel somewhat dense at times — there is A LOT to keep track of. But it’s worth it. With a series this big and sprawling, the mythology and interconnectedness is intense (and seriously, those wikis are essential!), but the emotional payoff of seeing the latest developments for characters we’ve had this much time to get to know and love is really rewarding.

Obviously, starting an ongoing series at book 14 is not going to be a satisfying reading experience. Each book builds upon the one before — so really, the only way to enjoy it is to start at the beginning (Discount Armageddon)… and then keep going!

As for me, I’m all in, and can’t wait for #15!

As with other books in the Incryptid series, this one includes a novella at the end, Mourner’s Waltz. The story features the same main character as in the previous novella, picking up the story several months later. There are strong emotional beats plus a nifty adventure. I can’t talk about it without major spoilers, but it was engaging and lovely… and makes me hope that the next main Incryptid book will bring this character back to center stage.

**Save

Save

5Mar2025

Audiobook Review: The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Love of My Afterlife
Author: Kirsty Greenwood
Narrator: Sofia Oxenham
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: July 2, 2024
Print length: 369 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 32 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

A recently deceased woman meets “the one” in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can find him on Earth before ten days are up….

If she wasn’t dead already, Delphie would be dying of embarrassment. Not only did she just die by choking on a microwaveable burger, she’s also now standing in her “sparkle and shine” nightie in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen. And he’s smiling at her.

As they start to chat, everything else becomes background noise. That is, until someone comes running through a door yelling something about a huge mistake and sends the dreamy stranger back down to Earth. And here Delphie was thinking her luck might be different in the afterlife.

When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to Earth and reconnect with the mysterious man, she jumps at the opportunity to find her possible soulmate and a fresh start. But to find him in a city of millions, Delphie is going to have to listen to her heart, learn to ask for help, and perhaps even see the magic in the life she’s leaving behind. . . .

This delightful rom-com has so much more to it than you might suppose from the synopsis! After Delphie chokes on a burger and ends up with a particularly chatty afterlife attendant who clearly is dying (ha!) for a project, she’s given the chance to return to the world of the living, but with a catch. Delphie will have ten days to locate the man she’s briefly met (whose afterlife arrival is apparently an error; he’s sent back after their encounter, with his memory wiped). If she can get him to kiss her, of his own free will, she’ll get to stay alive — and presumably, get her very own happily ever after with her soulmate. If not, though… she’ll be dead again, this time permanently.

For Delphie, the proposition is decidedly challenging. For years, she’s been living in isolation, carefully walling herself off from having to interact with practically anyone. As she informs us early on, she’s only talked to three people in the past several years — the two women she works with at the pharmacy across the street, and her elderly neighbor, whom she checks in on every day.

She’s not just shy. Delphie has been severely emotionally wounded in her earlier life. After her parents’ divorce, her mother stopped functioning, only reviving after falling in love again and basically ditching Delphie to move away and pursue a new life as an artist. Delphie was also horribly bullied during her high school years by her former best friend, causing her to shut off, trust no one, and even give up the drawing and painting that had given her so much joy.

In her late twenties, Delphie is a virgin, has never dated or been kissed. So for her, having to suddenly dash around London to locate one particular man feels like an impossibility — except she wants to live, and actually believes that he could truly be her soulmate. She’s smart enough to realize she needs help, and thus begins the truly lovely part of this story — seeing Delphie start to break out of her shell and connect with other people.

From admitting to her boss and coworker (a mother and daughter) that she needs time off and reluctantly agreeing to finally join them for after-work drinks (which they’ve been inviting her to for years), to meeting the local librarian and having him enthusiastically give her books on finding missing persons, to (literally) running into a friendly dogwalker in the park and having her decide to accompany Delphie on her quest — Delphie suddenly expands the circle of people she knows, and finds, to her surprise, that she doesn’t hate it.

Most interesting is the grumpy downstairs neighbor with whom she’s exchanged snide comments and insults for many years. (She describes him “like if Timothée Chalomet had an extremely tall, extremely brooding asshole of an older brother”.) Cooper may be a jerk, but he assists her when she needs it, and is soon asking her for a favor in return. As they spend time together, she learns more about what’s going on beneath his surly exterior… but all her focus is on finding Jonah, her true soulmate, so onward she must go!

The quest to find Jonah is quite silly and full of mishaps. How to find one man in all of London, when all she knows is his first name and what he looks like? With her growing circle of acquaintances helping her track down clues, Delphie has a series of near-misses, seeking Jonah at a running club, a life-drawing class, a silent disco, and more, before figuring out a way to meet him at last. But as we readers know to expect, tracking Jonah down is very different than convincing him that she’s the love of his life, and things go all sorts of sideways.

The Love of My Afterlife surprised me in so many ways! There are romance tropes galore, but the narrative cleverly recognizes that tropes are at play, and Delphie’s awareness of these tropes (enemies to lovers! only one bed! fake dating!) makes it especially fun.

The true beauty of this book is in seeing Delphie emerge from her painful past and finally start living.

“I never wanted people, though. They make everything messy.”

“That’s a good thing, love. The thing about people is you have to let them drag you to places you don’t want to go. Let them tell you things you don’t want to hear. Let them break you and put you back together… That’s what being alive is.”

As she meets the people of her neighborhood and starts engaging with them, new relationships form, and she finds herself making connections with people who want to know her. She spent years feeling unworthy and unloved, but by opening herself to new people and experiences, she gets to experience what it feels like to care and be cared about.

And yes, there’s a romance! It’s a delicious slow-burn, and the interference of her meddling afterworld coach is quite funny and entertaining.

I listened to the audiobook, and had a blast with it. Narrator Sofia Oxenham captures the silliness and the somewhat zany escapades with flair, but also conveys Delphie’s sadness and loneliness, and the steep hill she has to climb in order to let people into her world.

The Love of My Afterlife only crossed my radar thanks to idly looking up celebrity book club picks one day. This was a Good Morning America pick last year — and I’m not sure why it initially caught my eye, but I’m so glad it did!

With very funny interludes and a lovable main character, and with real emotion to balance the humor and silliness, The Love of My Afterlife is deeper than it might initially seem. It’s wonderful storytelling, full of laughter, that also manages to pull on the heartstrings. A great choice for when you’re in the mood to be uplifted and entertained. Don’t miss it!

28Feb2025

Book Review: Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Kills Well with Others
Series: Killers of a Certain Age, #2
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: March 4, 2025
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Four women assassins, senior in status—and in age—sharpen their knives for another bloody good adventure in this riotous follow-up to the New York Times bestselling sensation Killers of a Certain Age.

After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their rest, but the lack of excitement is starting to chafe: a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions before she gets the itch to get back in the game. When they receive a call from Naomi Ndiaye, the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.

Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, all of them connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster who rules her business empire with an iron fist and plays puppet master in international affairs. Naomi is convinced this criminal queen is bent upon revenge, killing off the agents who attempted to thwart her, and the aging quartet of killers is next.

Together the foursome embark on a wild ride across the globe on the double mission of rooting out the Museum’s mole and hunting down the gangster and her assassin. But their nemesis is unlike any they’ve faced before, and it will take all their experience and a whole lot of luck to get out of this mission alive.

Who knew that we needed novels about women assassins in their 60s? Kills Well with Others is the follow-up to Deanna Raybourn’s 2023 smash hit, Killers of a Certain Age. Both books prove that deadly women… of a certain age… make for excellent entertainment.

The first book was oodles of fun, and now the fabulous four are back for another adventure. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie had more or less retired after the events of the first book. But for Billie at least, retirement — meaning a peaceful life on a Greek island with the man she loves — is making her a bit itchy. Yes, she’s happy, but that sense of purpose (and adrenaline) seems to be missing.

I realized that there are some jobs you leave, but they never leave you. I was playing at being retired because the truth was, I would be a killer until the day I died.

The women are called back into action after a former colleague is murdered, in a way that obviously indicates that this is payback for an assassination they carried out decades earlier. It soon becomes clear that they themselves may be the next targets. Someone is out for revenge, and the team has to figure out who it is, and how to stop them.

There’s enough context provided in Kills Well with Others that a reader could jump right in and follow the story (although I do recommend starting with book one to get the full effect). Essentially, we’re cheering on assassins who work for a non-governmental, international super-secret organization called the Museum, whose purpose is to rid the world of tyrants and cartel honchos and other ultra-bad guys that the more legal approaches can’t seem to touch. I struggled with the morality of the whole concept in book one (am I really rooting for killers???), but ultimately, to enjoy the books, we just have to let that aspect go and take it as a given that these killers are the good guys.

Humanity requires champions, like the knights of old, those who are willing to fight and die, bloody themselves so the others may survive.

That hurdle aside, it’s once again a fast-paced, exciting adventure traveling along with these women as they plot and then dive into action. Their creativity is off the charts, they can fight with whatever they have on hand, and — most entertaining of all — their disguise game is absolutely on point. As they remind us throughout the story, older women tend to be ignored or overlooked or underestimated — so who better to go unnoticed, slip into places where they don’t belong, and get away with murder simply because they don’t appear the least bit threatening or powerful?

The concept is a delight, and the execution (ha!) is terrific. We’re whisked along from ships on the Atlantic to trains through the Balkans, with stops along Venetian canals and Sardinian farmlands. The team is strong and tight-knit, but also bickers and banters just how you’d expect from women who’ve been the closest of friends for 40 years.

Plotwise, the story unfolds with twists upon twists, and plenty of mistaken identities, clues, and red herrings. The women are amazing when they team up, and it’s always a hoot to see the various roles they take on while carrying out a hit or a surveillance mission.

Kills Well with Others is exciting start to finish, and has a very satisfying ending… but clearly, these “women of a certain age” have a lot of fight left in them, and the door seems open (or at least, ajar) for more adventures yet to come. I really enjoyed this outing, and hope Deanna Raybourn will continue the series!

26Feb2025

Book Review: Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Greenteeth
Author: Molly O’Neill
Publisher: Orbit
Publication date: February 25, 2025
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From an outstanding new voice in cozy fantasy comes Greenteeth, a tale of fae, folklore, and found family, narrated by a charismatic lake-dwelling monster with a voice unlike any other, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher.

Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.

Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she’s worth saving. Temperance doesn’t know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor.

Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny’s lake and Temperance’s family, as well as the very soul of Britain.

Greenteeth, a debut novel from author Molly O’Neill, is a delightful fantasy adventure with a unique main character. Jenny Greenteeth is a water-dwelling fae, inspired by a figure from English folklore. According to Wikipedia, “Jenny Greenteeth” is a river hag, a creature who lives in bodies of water and pulls unsuspecting humans to their deaths.

I wasn’t a human, nor a goblin, nor a high fae. I was Jenny Greenteeth, fangs and claws and unholy strength. I was a nightmare, a scary story, the dark shape glimpsed through the weeds.

Yet the Jenny Greenteeth we come to know is much less malevolent that the tales would have us believe. Yes, she loves to eat all sorts of plants and animals that come into her lake, but she doesn’t threaten, and certainly has never lured the nearby townsfolk into her waters. She enjoys a peaceful life, and thinks fondly of the years she spent with her daughter (also called Jenny, as are all women in her line) before little Jenny went off to a lake of her own.

All this changes when she spots a gathering of humans on her shores, led by a stern man in black. A human woman, bound in manacles, is thrown into the lake to drown. Jenny is interested, rescues the woman, and brings her to her underwater cave to learn more. Temperance is a wife and mother, and has been respected as the village healer (and yes, she is a witch), but never had any trouble with her neighbors until the new pastor came along.

Although Jenny has saved her life, Temperance doesn’t dare return to her home. She’s desperate to get back to her family, but when Jenny suggests that she run away and then send for her husband and children, Temperance is reluctant. She loves her village, and suspects there’s more going on than just a witchhunt. Jenny works with Temperance to try to confront the pastor, and discovers that there’s a powerful evil presence at work, one which they can’t overpower or defeat on their own. Joined by Jenny’s goblin friend Brackus, they set out on a quest to learn how to challenge this evil force, and win.

“A witch, a goblin and Jenny Greenteeth are off to seek the King of the Fairies,” he said. “What a delicious disaster this could be.”

Jenny Greenteeth is a wonderful main character. She’s non-human and clearly has a different moral compass and worldview, yet she shows great compassion and an enormous capacity for loyalty and friendship. As she journeys with Temperance and Brackus, her inner workings repeatedly come into conflict with Temperance’s sense of right and wrong. Seeing them navigate their differences and reach for understanding is fascinating and quite touching.

The quest itself is full of danger and adventure and magical obstacles. To be honest, this is the only element of the story that dragged for me — but quite possibly, I’ve just had my fill of quest stories. The specific challenges the trio face are fine, but never felt impossible to me; I was never in any doubt that they’d find a solution without too much difficulty.

Several scenes take place in the court of the high fae, and these were lovely. There’s a sense of power and magic, but also sorrow: The book repeatedly makes clear that the old ways are fading from the world, and that Jenny and all the fae may soon be remnants of a long-gone past.

The final chapters of the book provide a very satisfying ending, and there are some terrific surprises and twists that I won’t reveal here, other than to say that Jenny’s story ends up intersecting with English folklore and mythology in a wonderful, unexpected way.

Jenny and Temperance are both well-developed, strong characters, and I enjoyed spending time with them very much. Brackus is fun too, but less essential, and I’d didn’t get as good a sense of him as an individual. I loved Jenny’s world and her perspective on life as seen from her lake. I can’t say I’ve come across a character quite like Jenny before.

Greenteeth is a wonderful read, and I’ll look forward to whatever Molly O’Neill writes next!

For more on Greenteeth, check out reviews at:

Books, Bones & Buffy
CJRTB Books

23Feb2025

Audiobook Review: Ready or Not by Cara Bastone

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Ready or Not
Author: Cara Bastone
Narrator: Alex Finke
Publisher: Dial Press
Publication date: February 13, 2024
Print length: 373 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 50 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Audible
Rating:

A surprise pregnancy leads to even more life-changing revelations in this heartfelt, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance of found family and unexpected love.

Eve Hatch is pretty content with her life. Her apartment in Brooklyn is cozy and close to her childhood best friend Willa, but far from her midwestern, traditional family who never really understood her. While her job is only dream- adjacent , she’s hoping her passion and hard work will soon help her land a more glamorous role. And sure, her most recent romantic history has consisted of not one but two disappointing men named Derek. At least she always knows what to expect…until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand.

The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve’s loyal friendship with Willa is feeling off , right when she needs her most. And it’s Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is… suddenly kinda hot? Then there’s the baby’s father, who is supportive but conflicted. Before long, Eve is rethinking everything she thought she knew about herself and her world.

Over the course of nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.

Something about the plot synopsis for Ready or Not seemed right up my alley, just what I was looking for in a feel-good audiobook listen… and I was right. Ready or Not hit the spot, and I had a great time listening to this sweet, funny tale of unexpected pregnancy and unexpected romance, both of which happen in a very unexpected order.

Eve Hatch is in her late 20s, happily living life in Brooklyn near her best friend Willa, working in a job for a non-profit she really believes in, even though she’s stuck in an admin-level job without having the graduate degree needed to pursue the work she actually wants to do. As the book opens, Eve is at the ob/gyn office, waiting for official confirmation of what she already knows thanks to three home pregnancy tests: Yes, she’s pregnant. A hot and heavy one night stand a few weeks earlier (with proper protection) has led to this moment, and all Eve wants is to confide in her best friend.

Unfortunately, Willa takes the news very personally — she and her husband have been struggling with fertility challenges — and is not supportive. But fortunately, Willa’s older brother Shep is staying with her, and immediately jumps in to be there for Eve in whatever way she needs, including going with her to tell the hot bartender (a/k/a baby daddy) that she’s knocked up. Ethan (who, it turns out, is the bar owner) is thrown for a loop, especially since he’s in a relationship (they were on a break at the time of the hookup) and loves his girlfriend.

Ethan is an inconsistent, emotional mess, and Willa is trying to be there for Eve but is clearly struggling. It’s Shep who provides Eve with friendship, encouragement, and foot rubs; Shep who makes sure she has groceries and a shoulder to cry on. He’s a big, floppy, golden retriever of a guy, and he’s just so good you want to hug him nonstop. It takes Eve quite a while to realize that the boy she’s known since childhood means more to her than she realized, and even longer to figure out whether she’s really fallen for him, or if it’s just the pregnancy hormones talking.

Ready or Not is a sweet, engaging listen. Eve’s quirky sense of humor shines through, and her personal evolution over the course of her pregnancy feels believable, as she’s forced to take her life more seriously and figure out what she actually wants, not just accept whatever comes her way.

I press my ear to his chest and isn’t it so wild that you can go forever knowing someone and never really listen to their actual heartbeat until they kiss you behind a tree?

I enjoyed Eve and Shep’s relationship so much — they’re incredibly cute together, even when she’s being completely obtuse and taking way too long to realize how deeply Shep adores her. At the start of the book, we see Willa as somewhat selfish, but over time, it’s clear that she’s struggling to deal with her own pain while also trying to be the friend Eve needs in the moment. Ethan is hard to take — true, he’s thrust into a situation he had no idea was coming, but then again, so was Eve. His waffling and self-pity make him come across as unreliable and pathetic for a lot of the book, but eventually, even he gets a chance to improve.

My main quibble with this book is that Eve does absolutely no reflection about being pregnant at the start of the book. She gets the news, she goes to tell Willa, she reacts to Willa’s reaction, she deals with Ethan’s reactions too… but we never see her pause and consider whether she wants a baby, or what this will mean for her life. She tells Willa right away that she’s keeping the baby, which is a perfectly fine choice for her to make — but it feels as though we should have seen at least a bit of contemplation and consideration about what this big change will mean for her life.

The narration was mostly fun and enjoyable, although I found the narrator a little too over the top during the book’s one sex scene and in the labor scene — the auditory equivalent of TMI, if that makes sense. My other issue with the narration is that it can be hard to distinguish between Eve’s spoken lines and her inner thoughts — I had to rely on other characters’ reactions to figure out if certain things were said out loud or not.

Quibbles aside, Ready or Not is an entertaining, romantic story, and although the friends-to-lovers trope is practically everywhere these days, it still feels fresh here. The pregnancy element adds an unusual element to Eve’s relationship with Shep, and it’s nice to see how things work out with Ethan as well.

Check out Ready or Not when you’re in the mood for quippy banter, great chemistry — and lots and lots of descriptions of the main character’s baby bump!

21Feb2025

Book Review: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3) by Heather Fawcett

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales
Series: Emily Wilde, #3
Author: Heather Fawcett
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication date: February 11, 2025
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

The third installment in the heartwarming and enchanting Emily Wilde series, about a curmudgeonly scholar of folklore and the fae prince she loves.

Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project studying the inner workings of a faerie realm—as its queen.

Along with her former academic rival—now fiancé—the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare filled with scholarly treasures.

Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal How can an unassuming scholar such as herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in, for Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic—and Emily’s knowledge of stories—to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.

The 3rd book in the Emily Wilde series picks up right where the 2nd book leaves off, but lacks the forward momentum and much of the charm that infuses the earlier books.

In the 2nd book, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, dryadologist Emily Wilde locates the door to her fiancé Wendell’s kingdom (he’s actually a King of Fairie), so that he can return from exile; thanks to Emily outwitting (and poisoning) his wicked stepmother who’d stolen the throne, the kingdom is Wendell’s once again. As Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales opens, Emily and Wendell have reentered his kingdom and are making their way to his castle.

And they seem to spend a very long time making their way… we spend an awfully long time just hearing about them walking through the forest, picking up assorted companions as they march along.

Eventually, the action picks up, and the narrative focuses both on Emily’s adjustment to life in the Faerie world, where she’s quite out of place as a mortal Queen despite Wendell’s best efforts to make her happy, and their investigation of a curse that’s infecting the kingdom. The previous queen is still somewhere in the kingdom, and she’s poured her poison into the land itself. It will take a dramatic, dire action to save the kingdom, and Emily wants to make sure that the cure for the infection won’t end up dooming Wendell.

Emily is a scholar and lives for research, so when action is called for, she heads for the books. One of the lovely aspects of the Emily Wilde books is how Emily relies on her academic research into folklore to provide clues to how to actually survive and solve puzzles while amongst the fae. In this case, she finds an obscure tale of a forgotten fae king that provides clues as to how to beat the old queen — but she is dismayed to realize that there may be no saving Wendell himself. Of course, Emily isn’t someone who gives up in the face of a challenge, and dives deeper into the research and also undertakes a highly risky quest in order to find a solution that saves the kingdom and the man she loves.

As in the previous books, Emily interacts with fae and mortals, and we’re treated to her scholarly tangents about the history, mythology, and sources related to all the various types of fae she meets. While some fae are absolutely terrifying, Emily’s scholarly curiosity sees her through, despite her fear and the dangers of her quest.

The book is told via Emily’s journal entries, which is effective to an extent… and yet, also removes any question about whether Emily herself survives any given situation. She’s writing a record of what she’s experienced, so we also know that she made it through any given danger before we even read about it. Something about the writing style puts the reader at a distance: We’re hearing about events after the fact, and even when the narrative describes an action sequence, it’s action that’s happened to the character already, thus depriving the narrative of a true sense of suspense.

I do really enjoy the world of Emily Wilde, but this third book feels oddly flat. By the end, the stakes and the plot pick up quite a bit, but as a reader, it’s hard to feel the sense of investment or emotion provided by the other two. Obviously, this isn’t meant to be a standalone, but it’s still disconcerting to pick up the book and feel like we’ve started in the middle of something. There’s an assumption that we already know the characters… and yet, the lack of character development is striking. We don’t learn anything further about them, and while we see them in action as the plotlines move forward, they don’t particular feel like living, breathing characters the way they did in the previous books.

I loved the previous two Emily Wilde books, but sadly, this one was only… okay. The 3rd book does a nice job of wrapping up the story and provides a very good outcome for Emily and Wendell. The slow start was discouraging, and it really takes quite a while before it feels as thought there’s any sort of story momentum. Eventually, I felt more involved and enjoyed the last half of the book much more than the beginning.

Readers who’ve read the first two Emily Wilde books will certainly want to read Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales. As the trilogy’s conclusion, this book provides a satisfyingly happy ending, even though the slow pacing means it takes a while for the story to really gain traction and feel likes it’s actually moving.

Taken as a whole, I enjoyed the Emily Wilde trilogy very much and recommend them for anyone who enjoys a good fantasy foray into the world of Faerie… especially when narrated by a grumpy scholar. There’s a lot to love here, and I suspect I might not have felt the slow pace of the third book if I’d read the trilogy straight through… so that’s my reading advice to anyone new to the world of Emily Wilde: Start with the first book, and if it captures your imagination (and I think it will), keep going right away with books two and three!