Book Review: The Thorns Remain by JJA Harwood

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Thorns Remain
Author: JJA Harwood
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: February 23, 2023
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A dance with the fae will change everything

1919. In a highland village forgotten by the world, harvest season is over and the young who remain after war and flu have ravaged the village will soon head south to make something of themselves.

Moira Jean and her friends head to the forest for a last night of laughter before parting ways. Moira Jean is being left behind. She had plans to leave once – but her lover died in France and with him, her future. The friends light a fire, sing and dance. But with every twirl about the flames, strange new dancers thread between them, music streaming from the trees.

The fae are here.

Suddenly Moira Jean finds herself all alone, her friends spirited away. The iron medal of her lost love, pinned to her dress, protected her from magic.

For the Fae feel forgotten too. Lead by the darkly handsome Lord of the Fae, they are out to make themselves known once more. Moira Jean must enter into a bargain with the Lord to save her friends – and fast, for the longer one spends with the Fae, the less like themselves they are upon return. If Moira Jean cannot save her friends before Beltane, they will be lost forever…

Completely bewitching, threaded with Highland charm and sparkling with dark romance, this is a fairytale that will carry you away.

In The Thorns Remain, the boundary between a small Highlands community and the world of the Fae is breached one fateful night, with devastating consequences for all involved… and only one young woman with the ability to set things right.

It’s 1919, and the small town of Brudonnock is teetering on the brink of extinction. Too many young men have been lost to war or the flu pandemic; others of the younger population have left for new lives in Glasgow or Edinburgh or beyond. Those who remain work nonstop, sunup to sundown, to plow and harvest and keep their families fed, dreading the day when the estate owners will decide to turn them all out and force them from their cottages.

Moira Jean is our main character, a young woman mourning the loss of her true love Angus. Childhood sweethearts who grew up together and got engaged before he departed for war, they’d intended to marry as soon as he returned home, but despite surviving the war itself, he was killed by the flu before they were reunited. As the story opens, Moira Jean lives with her mother, the village healer, and works around the clock on the daily chores of village life, with Angus never far from her mind.

When the villagers learn that they’ve been given a reprieve from a feared eviction for one more year, Moira Jean and her friends decide to let loose for once and celebrate. They sneak off into the forest to drink, sing, and dance, but their dance is joined by strangers. Only Moira Jean, clutching Angus’s iron medal, can see that something is wrong and that these others aren’t actually people. When she wakes the next day, she discovers that her five friends are all gone — but no one else in Brudonnock realizes that they’re missing. For everyone but Moira Jean, false memories are firmly in place, and the missing friends are either traveling or away for work in the cities.

Moira Jean is scared and desperate, and returns to the forest to seek her friends. There, she finds the lord of the Land Under the Hill, whom she refers to as the Dreamer; a ruler of the Fae, who is both terrifying and mesmerizing. He seems fascinated by Moira Jean and her resistance to his glamours, and offers her a bargain: He’ll trade her for the return of her friends — but what he wants in exchange is difficult and costly, and there’s no guarantee that the people who come back will be in the same condition as when they left.

While the remote setting of Brudonnock gives old-timey vibes, it’s important to remember that the story is set in the years following the First World War. The village lacks electricity, running water, and other conveniences, but these do exist in the broader world. The effects of the war are evident on every page: The young men who still live in Brudonnock are all physically changed by the war or illness in some way, and too much of the village’s population has been brutally lost.

It’s no wonder, then, that the world of the Fae seems so enticing to those who have been taken.

‘It was wonderful,’ Callum said again, still breathless. ‘No one wanted for anything. Nothing hurt. There was no work. No war. There was only dancing and feasting and singing – oh, Moira Jean. It was everything I hoped the world would be.’

Even Moira Jean, who can see through the enchantments, can’t help but be tempted by a world that can be whatever she wishes — a place where she can be warm, and well-fed, free from back-breaking work and the constant fear of disease and injury.

At times, especially in the first half of the book, The Thorns Remain felt slow to me — but I think some of that is due to one of my pet peeves when it comes to book formatting. The Thorns Remain is divided into five parts, but within those parts, there are no chapters. Books without chapter breaks really frustrate me, especially because I typically read on a Kindle, and the chapter lengths help me track my progress. This isn’t an unusually long book, but the format makes it feel that way.

I will say that by the second half of the book, the storytelling pace picks up as the stakes get higher, the danger mounts, and Moira Jean’s situation becomes even more precarious. She’s forced to take risks for the sake of her community, even when the enchantment at play turns the village against her. Her strength and determination are remarkable, but she’s never made out to be some sort of superhero: She’s just a village girl who’s determined to do right by her family and friends, because they need her and she’s the only one who knows it.

I originally picked up a copy of The Thorns Remain on a whim after seeing it on a bookstore shelf. I hadn’t heard of it before, but the cover and the synopsis drew me in right away. I’ve had this book on my shelves for over a year now, and I’m so glad I took advantage of my holiday reading time to finally pick it up.

The Thorns Remain is a beautifully written blend of the fantastical and the day-to-day. Moira Jean is a terrific main character: She’s an ordinary person who’s thrust into an illogical, unreal reality, and chooses to take the difficult path of fighting for her friends rather than running away or giving into the lures of magic.

There’s an action-packed climax and an ending that’s just right. The Thorns Remain is both a fantasy story and a moving, introspective meditation on the horrors of war and its aftermath. It’s a thoughtful, descriptive, and emotional story, and it’s simply too good to miss!

3Jan2025

Book Review: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children, #10) by Seanan McGuire

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear
Series: Wayward Children, #10
Author: Seanan McGuire
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: January 7, 2025
Length: 160 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.

Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her.

Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she’d been missing from birth.

It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong.

It wasn’t her.

Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake–and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyrreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people.

But even in Belyrreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure.

Adrift in Currents Clear and Clean is the 10th book in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, and I’m pleased to say that the series is going strong. In fact, Adrift stands out as one of the best in the series, as far as I’m concerned.

In this 10th book, the story never actually ventures into Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the setting that anchors the series and creates a connection between all of the books and their characters. Instead, Adrift tells the story of one particular Wayward Child, Nadya, and what happens to her in the world of Belyrreka.

Nadya is not a new character — although, if you’re like me, it might take more than a slight hint to put the pieces together. Readers of the series were introduced to Nadya in the 3rd book, Beneath the Sugar Sky. In that book, Nadya was a student at Eleanor West’s home, having gone through a portal to another world and then been returned to our own. Nadya, like the other characters in the series, was left to yearn for the world that feels like her true home and wait for the day when that world might call her back.

Adrift in Currents Clear and Clean takes us back to Nadya’s origin story. Abandoned at birth, Nadya is raised in a Russian orphanage — a bright child who thrives on caring for the other children and helping them find forever homes.

She was young and sweet and innocent and hard, in the way of children raised in job lots rather than individually; she was doing her best to be a good person, and to figure out what that meant in the context of the world she knew and had and understood.

Born without a right arm below the elbow, Nadya has never felt that she was disabled or missing anything at all; this is who she is, and she manages perfectly well. But at age nine, Nadya is finally adopted herself, by an American missionary couple who see taking in an imperfect child as a good deed. They don’t love her for herself; they love having her as proof of their own goodness.

Nadya’s new life in American is filled with things and luxuries that she wouldn’t have had in the land of her birth, and she knows that she must be compliant and grateful at all times — until the day that her adoptive parents take her to the doctor to receive a prosthetic arm. Nadya doesn’t want it — she’s fine as she is — but her objections don’t matter. She’s forced into wearing the prosthetic, which is clunky and hurts her skin. Now, for the first time, children at school see her as other; she’s not Nadya their playmate any longer, but the girl with the strange fake arm.

Miserable, Nadya goes for a walk to her favorite place, the turtle pond near her home. When she sees a strange shadow on the water that looks almost like a door, she leans in for a closer look, and falls in. Instead of drowning, Nadya wakes on the shores of a strange river in a strange world — and finds a wonderful place where she belongs, finds purpose and connection and true family, and knows that she’s finally home.

Nadya’s life in Belyrreka is wondrous. It’s a world of water — people live beneath the river and the lake, in cities where water has different weights. Some water is for breathing, some for swimming. Heavier water is deeper, and people ride boats and turtles through the lighter water to the dry world above, where they fish and farm and bring back sustenance to the cities. I can understand why Nadya would never want to leave Belyrreka — I would willingly have read much, much more about it.

Of course, if you’ve read Beneath the Sugar Sky, you’ll know that in that book, Nadya is introduced as a girl who returned from a watery world — so Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is a prequel, of sorts, to that book. We read Adrift knowing that Nadya will inevitably be wrenched away from Belyrreka. Seeing her happiness in this world is a special kind of sadness for the reader; we know that her time is limited, even if she does not.

Beneath the Sugar Sky also provides a coda to Nadya’s story in Adrift. When I finished Adrift — with a lump in my throat — I went back to Beneath the Sugar Sky and read the conclusion of Nadya’s part of that story. Without saying too much, I’ll just note that the payoff made my tears go away!

Many readers note having uneven experiences with the Wayward Children series. For me, it’s been generally wonderful all the way through, although yes, some books in the series are more memorable or powerful or affecting than others. We all have our favorites — and now that I’ve read Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear, I can say with certainty that it’s one of the best.

As I’ve said with my review of each books in the series, I highly recommend starting at the beginning and continuing from there. Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is a self-contained story that can be read on its own; there are no other characters or plotlines in it that require knowledge of earlier events in the series. Still, I recommend reading it as part of the whole, in order to get the full impact.

Nadya’s story is incredibly moving, and the world of Belyrreka is a delight. Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is a terrific addition to an inventive, always-changing series. Don’t miss it.

30Dec2024

End of year two-fer: My final two books of 2024

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

As I wrap up my year of reading, I’m squeezing in my final two book reviews for 2024! I finished both of these (one audio, one e-book) right before New Year’s Eve… and didn’t quite have the time to put together full reviews for each one. Here’s my quick take on my last two books of 2024:

Title: Meet Me at the Lake
Author: Carley Fortune
Narrator: AJ Bridel
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: May 2, 2023
Print length: 336 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 56 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Fern Brookbanks has wasted far too much of her adult life thinking about Will Baxter. She spent just twenty-four hours in her early twenties with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, a chance encounter that spiraled into a daylong adventure in Toronto. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn’t.

At thirty-two, Fern’s life doesn’t look at all how she once imagined it would. Instead of living in the city, Fern’s back home, running her mother’s Muskoka lakeside resort—something she vowed never to do. The place is in disarray, her ex-boyfriend’s the manager, and Fern doesn’t know where to begin.

She needs a plan—a lifeline. To her surprise, it comes in the form of Will, who arrives nine years too late, with a suitcase in tow and an offer to help on his lips. Will may be the only person who understands what Fern’s going through. But how could she possibly trust this expensive-suit wearing mirage who seems nothing like the young man she met all those years ago. Will is hiding something, and Fern’s not sure she wants to know what it is.

But ten years ago, Will Baxter rescued Fern. Can she do the same for him?

This second-chance love story is warm and touching, and made for an engaging, emotional listening experience! Will and Fern spend one perfect day together, and agree to meet one year later to reconnect, after giving themselves time to get their lives on track and start working toward fulfilling their dreams.

It never happens. Fern shows up, but Will doesn’t, and she’s heartbroken. But ten years after their initial meeting, shortly after the tragic death of Fern’s mother, Will checks in at the lakeside resort which Fern has inherited. Her initial reaction to seeing him again after so many years is anger and hurt, but as the two spend time together, their chemistry and connection is rekindled. The question is — can they get past the past?

I really enjoyed this summer-infused tale of love and family and belonging. Some of the communication issues between Fern and Will were annoying, but ultimately, there were reasons for all the ways things went wrong, and it feels good to see how Fern grows enough to figure out what she wants and what she needs to do and say to support that.

The setting is lovely, and made me yearn for a summer retreat to a beautiful lake. Carley Fortune was a new-to-me author in 2024, and I’m looking forward to more in 2025!

Title: The Spellshop
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Publisher: Bramble
Publication date: July 9, 2024
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.

I bought a pretty hardcover edition of The Spellshop a few months ago, and finally got a chance to sit and enjoy it in all its cozy warmth and adorableness!

Without going too much into plot (just see the synopsis above), the main things to know about The Spellshop are: 1) cinnamon rolls 2) jam 3) flying cats 4) merhorses 5) a vine-covered cottage 6) talking plants 7) LOTS of books. Are you convinced of this book’s coziness yet?

The Spellshop is a sweet, lovely read, not terribly serious or strenuous. Even when bad things occur (or seem likely to occur), the characters use wits, creativity, friendship, and love to overcome and thrive. There are some uplifting messages about community, respect, and honesty, delivered with kindness and without getting overly saccharine.

All in all, a warm, snuggly way to wrap up the year!

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26Dec2024

Book Review: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Ministry of Time
Author: Kaliane Bradley
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: May 7, 2024
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

In The Ministry of Time, five people are yanked out of their lives in past centuries and pulled into 21st century England, to live as “expats” — term the Ministry deems most acceptable for describing these people forced to live in a time not their own.

The 21st century world is similar to our present day, but perhaps a few more decades farther down the road, if the cataclysmic weather events and political strife are indicators. The expats — from the 15th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries — are each assigned “bridges”: Ministry agents who live with their assigned expat and help them assimilate into their new worlds.

There’s much at stake: Those who fail to adjust and somehow get a grip on “hereness” — belonging where they are — are likely to get rejected by the current time, almost like an infection being rejected by a body’s antibodies. For the unnamed main character, a woman who jumps at the job offer mainly because of the large salary that goes with it, the task is frustrating and daunting. Her assignment is Graham Gore, a member of the doomed Franklin expedition of the mid-1800s, who’s pulled from the Arctic through a time door, leaving behind the men under his command. Gore is disoriented and belligerent, but with the help of his bridge, begins to learn more about the maddening world he now inhabits.

The Ministry of Time covers interesting ground, with an approach I haven’t seen before in time travel fiction. The book isn’t particularly concerned with the technology of it all. There’s a time door and a device that enables the time travel, but don’t look for explanations — this isn’t that sort of book.

Despite the science fiction trappings, this is instead a work of literary fiction exploring the implications of moving through time, changing the past and the future, and the experiences of belonging, being a refugee, and looking for a home.

As someone who doesn’t normally gravitate toward literary fiction, I must admit that I often found the writing style annoyingly opaque.

Quentin treated me with an impatient familiarity, as if we were both sticky and were leaving streaks on each other.

Throughout the book, I’d come across phrases and passages that made me stop and wonder — is it me, or does this not make any sense? There are words put together in interesting ways, yet I could not find meaning in them.

He blushed with his face on mute.

While sections of the the book felt like a slog, at times I became more invested, particularly in the latter half of the book, when both danger and emotions are heightened and the overall stakes are much more intense. And yet, I couldn’t entirely grasp the implications of the ending, and large chunks of the plot felt a bit half-baked to me. Perhaps this is the non-sci-fi factor: As a fan of science fiction, I expect a certain level of detail — the sci-fi elements need to have enough grounding to feel possible or at least make sense in the context of the world being described. In The Ministry of Time, the time travel is just a fact, the central device that drives the story, and the lack of specificity annoyed me.

By and large, though, it comes back to the writing, which generally did not work for me:

She looked like her organs had been removed and placed in cold storage; worse, like it had happened when she was on her way to what she thought was a birthday party.

There are examples upon examples of descriptions that probably are meant to be clever, but which feel meaningless to me. I read the sentence above multiple times — I still have no idea what the person being described might actually look like in this instance.

The Ministry of Time was one of my more eagerly anticipated reads for winter. Now that I’ve read it, I can’t help feeling let down. I expected something very different than what I got. Overall, while I enjoyed certain elements of the story and was very interested in some of the characters, the storytelling style kept me from truly engaging.

I know this book generated a lot of buzz when it came out and has oodles of fans. I don’t regret reading it, but it won’t be on any of my “best of” lists for 2024.

25Dec2024

Book Review: Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Love You a Latke
Author: Amanda Elliot
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: October 8, 2024
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Snow is falling, holiday lights are twinkling, and Abby Cohen is pissed. For one thing, her most annoying customer, Seth, has been coming into her café every morning with his sunshiny attitude, determined to break down her carefully constructed emotional walls. And, as the only Jew on the tourism board of her Vermont town, Abby’s been charged with planning their fledgling Hanukkah festival. Unfortunately, the local vendors don’t understand that the story of Hanukkah cannot be told with light-up plastic figures from the Nativity scene, even if the Three Wise Men wear yarmulkes.

Desperate for support, Abby puts out a call for help online and discovers she was wrong about being the only Jew within a hundred miles. There’s one other: Seth.

As it turns out, Seth’s parents have been badgering him to bring a Nice Jewish Girlfriend home to New York City for Hanukkah, and if Abby can survive his incessant, irritatingly handsome smiles, he’ll introduce her to all the vendors she needs to make the festival a success. But over latkes, doughnuts, and winter adventures in Manhattan, Abby begins to realize that her fake boyfriend and his family might just be igniting a flame in her own guarded heart.

Let’s hear it for a Hanukkah romance with heart! Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot combines holiday cheer with the fake dating trope, then adds in deeper emotion and meaningful moments related to community, identity, and assimilation. Does that sound too serious? Never fear, Love You a Latke is fun and has an overall upbeat tone… and plenty of Hanukkah joy.

Abby runs a coffee shop in a small Vermont town, but worries that the tourist trade has fallen off, which may imperil her business’s future. When the head of the local merchant association basically ropes Abby into planning a Hanukkah festival as a tourist draw (after all, any town might have a Christmas festival — but nowhere in Vermont is there a Hanukkah festival!), Abby reluctantly agrees, but quickly realizes she’ll need help to pull it off. Unfortunately, the only other Jew Abby can find in her area is Seth, the annoyingly cheerful customer who comes into her shop every day.

With no other options, Abby asks Seth for help — and he agrees, but with one condition: He’ll help her connect with all the great food and event vendors he knows in New York, who’ll be sure to be perfect for the festival, and in exchange, she’ll come spend Hanukkah with him and his parents. A fake girlfriend is just what he needs to get his mother to ease up on the matchmaking pressure. Desperate for Seth’s help with the festival, Abby agrees to the fake-dating scheme. How hard could it be?

Over the eight days of Hanukkah, Abby warms to Seth and his parents, and rekindles her connection to her Jewish roots. Due to an incredibly toxic relationship with her parents, Abby fled not only them, but the entire Jewish community with which they seem so inextricably linked. Through her time with Seth, as well as by experiencing myriad Jewish and Hanukkah settings and events in New York, Abby begins to realize that she can reclaim an important element of her past — her Judaism — without falling prey to the harshness and negativity of her upbringing.

Of course, there are also romantic sparks being kindled as Abby and Seth light the menorah each night. Their chemistry is lovely, and while Abby struggles to avoid entanglement for way longer than I’d wished, her resistance is understandable given the pain of her past. When Abby and Seth finally do connect, it makes the waiting absolutely worth it.

A subplot throughout the book is Abby’s involvement in the Hanukkah festival. Even though she is nominally in charge, it’s clear that the woman who assigns the job to Abby really wants to retain control — and her idea of a Hanukkah festival is essentially a Christmas festival, but maybe add in a game of dreydel. Part of Abby’s evolution over the course of Love You a Latke is learning to take a stand, claim her own heritage, and refuse to be marginalized or forced to assimilate. It’s all quite awesome.

I just didn’t want Christmas in my Hanukkah, the same way I didn’t want to dip a grilled cheese in my cinnamon roll latte. Both were delicious, but I didn’t want them together

Love You a Latke deals with serious themes about emotional abuse and the lasting damage it can inflict, but the book is not a downer in any way. As Abby starts coming to terms with her life, her past, and her hopes for the future, and recognizing that her life feels richer once she reconnects with the Jewish community she thought she’d left for good, she blossoms and is able to start creating meaningful friendships and romantic connections. She and Seth are great together, but it’s also wonderful to see her connecting with new friends and feeling open to a more positive way of living her life.

The Jewish elements in Love You a Latke are handled very, very well. I loved seeing the community and the holiday represented in non-typical yet very positive ways. Too often, I’ve seen Jewish characters included in romance novel in a tokenized or stereotypical way, but I feel that’s been changing more recently. Love You a Latke brings the Jewish without ever resorting to tired old cliches, and even shows how a new generation of young adults find ways to connect to their heritage and community in all sorts of modern, fresh ways.

Love You a Latke is just the book I needed in this week leading up to Hanukkah! As I light the menorah for the first night of Hanukkah tonight, I’ll be thinking of Abby and Seth and their celebrations too!

For anyone looking for a sweet holiday romance that has something to say, do check out Love You a Latke! Highly recommended.

21Dec2024

Book Review: The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Wishing Game
Author: Meg Shaffer
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: May 30, 2023
Print length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased

Years ago, a reclusive mega-bestselling children’s author quit writing under mysterious circumstances. Suddenly he resurfaces with a brand-new book and a one-of-a-kind competition, offering a prize that will change the winner’s life in this absorbing and whimsical novel.

Make a wish. . . .

Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.

But be careful what you wish for. . . .

Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy.

For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind” Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever.

. . . You might just get it.

For all the adult readers who miss the sense of wonder and delight that a good children’s books series can bring… have I got a book for you!

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer is a quest story for kids who believe in wishes… and then grow up. In this sweet, inventive, lovely tale, the reclusive author of the bestselling Clock Island children’s book series announces that he’s written a new book after a six-year gap… but there’s only one copy, and it will be gifted to the person who wins his contest, which is open to only a select few.

Jack chuckled. “The book exists. And there is only one copy of it in the world. I typed it up and hid it away.”

“And you’re seriously going to entrust it to some stranger?”

“No, but I shall whimsically entrust it to some stranger.”

Shades of Willy Wonka, right?

One of author Jack Masterson’s most devoted fans is Lucy Hart, a kindergarten teacher’s aide whose deepest, most heartfelt wish is to adopt Christopher, an orphaned seven-year-old who’s become the light of her life. Reality interferes in the form of finances: Without an apartment of her own, steady income, and a car, Lucy has no chance of getting approved to foster or adopt. Perhaps, the social worker suggests, it would be kinder to tell Christopher that it’s just not going to happen.

Just as Lucy is verging on despair, the news of Jack’s contest breaks. And Lucy has a secret: At age 13, she ran away to Clock Island and met Jack Masterson. Thanks to being able to solve his riddle, she is one of the four people chosen to compete — and if she wins, she’ll own the exclusive rights to his new book, which she can then sell for enough money to make her dreams of a family with Christopher come true.

Without delving too much further into plot details, let me just say that The Wishing Game is heart-warming, enchanting, whimsical, and full of joy. It’s a book for and about adults, but retains the sense of childish wonder that the best children’s books provide. It’s also a gift for those who love and cherish books, and who believe that stories are more than words on a page.

“Why do only brave kids get their wishes granted?” she asked.

“Because only brave children know that wishing is never enough.”

I loved so much about The Wishing Game. The characters are terrific, especially Lucy, Hugo, and Jack. There’s a romantic storyline, but it’s just one part of the whole, and fits well within the overall weave of the tale. Hugo’s artwork sounds amazing, and I wish it were real! Meg Shaffer does a fantastic job of taking fictional works of art — both Hugo’s paintings and Jack’s books — and making them come to life through her vivid descriptions.

The narrative brilliantly weaves together Lucy’s past — especially the very deep childhood wounds she carries — and the future she hopes for, incorporating a child’s wishes and beliefs into the fabric of an adult life. I loved how all the various pieces come together by the end. Realistic? Maybe not, but this is a book about dreams and wishes. It works.

I came to The Wishing Game after reading the author’s more recent novel, The Lost Story. I do still love The Lost Story best, but The Wishing Game is lovely and wonderful in its own special way, and I’m so happy to have made time to read it.

19Dec2024

Book Review: City of the Lost (Rockton, #1) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: City of the Lost
Series: Rockton, #1
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication date: May 3, 2016
Length: 412 pages
Genre: Thriller/mystery
Source: Library
Rating:

Casey Duncan is a homicide detective with a secret: when she was in college, she killed a man. She was never caught, but he was the grandson of a mobster and she knows this crime will catch up to her. Casey’s best friend, Diana, is on the run from a violent, abusive ex-husband. When Diana’s husband finds her, and Casey herself is attacked shortly after, Casey knows it’s time for the two of them to disappear again.

Diana has heard of a domestic violence support town made for people like her, a town that takes in people on the run who want to shed their old lives. You must apply to live in Rockton and if you’re accepted, it means walking away entirely from your old life, living off the grid in the wilds of Canada: no cell phones, no Internet, no mail, no computers, very little electricity, and no way of getting in or out without the town council’s approval. As a murderer, Casey isn’t a good candidate, but she has something they want; she’s a homicide detective, and Rockton has just had its first real murder. She and Diana are in. However, soon after arriving, Casey realizes that the identity of a murderer isn’t the only secret Rockton is hiding – in fact, she starts to wonder if she and Diana might be in even more danger in Rockton than they were in their old lives.

An edgy, gripping crime novel from a bestselling urban fantasy writer, City of the Lost boldly announces a major new player in the crime fiction world.

Kelley Armstrong has become an auto-buy author for me, and I’ve been loving her recent series (A Rip Through Time and A Stitch in Time) and stand-alones. I hadn’t had the opportunity to explore her extensive backlist until now… and now that I’ve started, I can’t wait to keep going!

City of the Lost is the first book in the 7-book Rockton series. The premise is certainly unique: There’s a remote town — Rockton, population 200 — located in the wilds of Canada’s Yukon territory. It’s home to those fleeing danger who need complete isolation from the outside world, but it also offers shelter to some with questionable pasts who need a way to hide out and start over. There are no navigable roads in or out — new residents arrive by bush plane, and can only leave the same way. Relocating to Rockton is a serious commitment.

The books opens with a bang:

“I killed a man,” I say to my new therapist.

Detective Casey Duncan has a huge secret that’s been weighing on her for the past twelve years. After a brutally violent attack left Casey with permanent physical and psychological scars, she went to confront the ex-boyfriend whose actions brought about the attack (and who abandoned her to her attackers). During the confrontation, she shot and killed him, although that hadn’t been her intention. While she’s essentially gotten away with the killing, she’s always known that it could catch up to her at any point.

Meanwhile, her best friend Diana has been assaulted yet again by her cruel, abusive ex-husband, and she and Casey fear that they’ll never fully be rid of him. When Diana hears about a town where people can disappear, she proposed that they both go and get the protection they so desperately need. Casey is hesitant, but she realizes that this is the best possible solution for Diana. After an intense screening process, they’re in, but with a catch: The selection process easily unearthed Casey’s secret, but because they need a detective, they’ll let her in — only for a six-month stay.

Casey and Diana’s relocation to Rockton introduces them to a world that’s truly apart from everything they’ve known. And while Diana immediately immerses herself in the social life available to her as one of the small number of women in town, Casey gets right to work under the direction of Sheriff Eric Dalton. Dalton is brusque, demanding, and no-nonsense, and while he initially did not want Casey in his town, he quickly realizes how skilled and valuable she is.

Dalton and the town are in desperate need of Casey’s talents, as dead bodies begin cropping up. At first, it’s assumed that missing Rockton residents have simply wandered off into the woods and perhaps met with accidents, but as gruesome corpses are found, it becomes apparent that a killer is at work. Everyone in town is a potential suspect, and to make matters worse, Casey soon discovers that many of Rockton’s residents are actually more dangerous than she’s been led to believe.

The murder mystery and thriller elements are detailed and complex, with plenty of misleading clues and confusing trails of evidence. For a very small town, Rockton has a lot of characters to introduce, and my one complaint about City of the Lost is that it became difficult at various points to keep all the random people and their backstories straight.

That aside, the drama and tension escalate effectively throughout the story, and I loved seeing the different pieces come together. For me, when I read a mystery series, I enjoy the particular crime to be solved in each book, but what really holds my interest and attention is the character development that connects the books. City of the Lost is only the first book, but I can tell already that the characters are going to keep me coming back for more.

Casey herself is a terrific, imperfect, complex main character, and she has fabulous chemistry with Sheriff Eric Dalton. Even before personal chemistry comes into the mix, they’re amazing as partners, butting heads constantly while also building rock-solid respect for one another as professionals. Seeing them together, for me, is the high point of the story.

Beyond Casey and Eric, there are plenty of side characters who add depth to the story and help create a picture of a full society in this little town. And while the murders do get solved, there is clearly more to uncover in terms of people’s secrets and bigger picture questions about the council that runs Rockton from afar.

City of the Lost is a fantastic way to start a series! After just one book, I can say with certainty that I’m hooked and need more. Fortunately, there are six more books to explore in the main series, and I understand that a spin-off series, Haven’s Rock, includes two books so far, with a third due out in 2025. .

I’m going to try to take my time and not do a series binge… but it’s incredibly tempting to barge straight ahead! I’m looking forward to continuing the Rockton series. Next up: Darkness Absolute.

14Dec2024

Book Review: A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Letter to the Luminous Deep
Author: Sylvie Cathrall
Publisher: Orbit
Publication date: April 25, 2024
Length: 432 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A charming fantasy set in an underwater world with magical academia and a heartwarming penpal romance, perfect for fans of A Marvellous Light and Emily Wilde’s Encylopaedia of Faeries.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.

Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches and field notes left behind—and learn what their siblings’ disappearance might mean for life as they know it.

Inspired, immersive, and full of heart, this charming epistolary tale is an adventure into the depths of a magical sea and the limits of the imagination from a marvelous debut voice.

In the world of A Letter to the Luminous Deep, human life is lived on ships and floating anchorages, on a planet with only one small land mass. Legend has it that one thousand years earlier, a cataclysmic event known as the Dive occurred: Before the Dive, people lived in the sky (on spaceships? orbiting stations?), but the entire civilization suddenly plummeted into the seas below. Relics of the pre-Dive world are still occasionally found, but humanity now lives on the water’s surface — or occasionally, below it.

As the book opens, we’re introduced to E. Cidnosin, a young woman who resides alone in Deep House, the underwater compound built by her late mother. E. prefers the solitude, as it keeps her brain calm and allows her a peaceful life. When she spots an unusual sea creature outside her window, she writes to a renowned scholar, Henerey Clel, to ask for help in identifying it. From that initial contact, the two develop an ongoing correspondence, through which they reveal more and more of themselves and grow to truly connect and care for one another.

Sadly, what we learn early on is that E. and Henerey were presumed dead after an explosion at Deep House. Now, a year later, E.’s sister and Henerey’s brother are trying to piece together what happened by sharing their siblings’ notes, letters, and journals. As they correspond, they form a friendship of their own, and become deeply involved in solving the mystery of E. and Henerey’s fate — and trying to determine if another mystery with worldwide implications might be at play.

I wanted to love A Letter to the Luminous Deep, but realized almost immediately that it wouldn’t work out that way. Epistolary novels are tricky: There are plenty I’ve enjoyed, but they only work if the letters are informative enough to give readers a bigger view of the letter writers’ worlds. That was not the case here. Perhaps the author’s intention was to keep an air of mystery throughout the book, but for me, the result was a lack of information that kept me from engaging with the story.

We get a sense of the world through the letters, but details are dripped out so sparingly that I felt frustrated rather than intrigued. Meanwhile, the characters themselves are hard to connect to. I couldn’t imagine much about E. or Henerey beyond their words on the page, and the lack of definition of elements of their world makes it hard to get a fuller picture of their daily lives and experiences.

With the epistolary format, all content is provided through letters and documents, and the writing style of the characters is highly stylized. Without any other narrative to provide more straightforward language or descriptions, that writing style gets tiresome very quickly.

I will say that the story picks up in the final third, and by the end, there’s a payoff for sticking with it. Still, too much of the book feels like a slog, and at over 400 pages, that makes for a less than satisfying read.

A Letter to the Luminous Deep is apparently the first book in a duology, with book #2, A Letter from the Lonesome Shore, due out in spring 2025. As of now, I can’t seem myself continuing with the story.

13Dec2024

Audio shorts: Two (bookish) holiday romances for your listening pleasure

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Well, okay, it’s a pretty good time of the year… but it’s a great time for short stories and novellas that tie into the holiday season.

Here are my quick takes on two short audiobooks that lifted my spirits and distracted me from shopping lists and an end-of-year crunch at work.

Title: The Christmas Book Hunt
Author: Jenny Colgan
Narrated by: Eilidh Beaton
Publisher: Amazon Originals
Publication date: December 1, 2024
Print length: 126 pages
Audiobook length: 3 hours 26 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A heartwarming meet-cute short story from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Christmas Bookshop.

A Christmas mission…

Mirren’s beloved great-aunt Violet is seriously ill. Her one Christmas wish is to be reunited with a long-lost hand-illustrated book from her childhood, a challenge Mirren gladly accepts to give Violet some much-needed festive cheer.

An enchanting journey…

With no sign of the cherished volume online, Mirren falls into the fascinating world of rare books. From London to snowy Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh’s cobbled streets, she chases leads from bookshop to bookshop—and bumps into mysterious, charming Theo, who, unbeknownst to her, is searching for the same book for reasons of his own…

The start of a new chapter?

As the two join forces to track the book down before time runs out for Violet, will Mirren find her Christmas miracle—and maybe even a kiss under the mistletoe… ?

For fans of Josie Silver, Jill Mansell and the Queen of Christmas herself, a snow-swept love story to warm even the coldest winter’s day.

Jenny Colgan can always be counted on for sweet, cozy stories with clever plots and relatable characters. In this terrific short story, Mirren finds herself dreading the family’s holiday get-together, largely because of how stressed out her mother gets weeks in advance. And in the weeks leading up to this Christmas, Mirren learns that her beloved great-aunt Violet is terminally ill, with only a short time left to live.

When Mirren visits Violet to see what she can do for her, Violet makes it clear that there’s only one thing she wants: the book of poetry she remembers her father reading to her when she was a child eighty years earlier. The book is A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson — easy enough to find — but she’s yearning to see the exact edition her father shared all those years ago. The problem is, she’s referring to an illustrated edition that doesn’t seem to actually exist. There are rumors, sure, but as Mirren contacts countless rare book dealers, it seems clear that she’s on a wild goose chase. But the book means so much to Violet, so Mirren is determined to continue the search.

However — one cut-throat antiquarian book dealer wants the book too, and assigns his intern/nephew Theo to follow Mirren and get his hands on the book first. Since Theo depends on his uncle for his livelihood, he has no choice but to comply — but as he follows Mirren to small towns in Wales and Scotland on their Christmas book hunt, the two strike up a friendship, and possibly even more.

Theo and Mirren’s dynamic is sweet and silly, as they follow clues and get into all sorts of sticky situations while hunting for the book — but it’s complicated, since Theo is with Mirren under false pretenses, at least at the start. Of course, before long, he’s in it to help Mirren fulfill Violet’s dying wish, and would never dream of betraying her, but by not being honest from the start, there’s a barrier to the growing feelings between the two.

Of course, this is a Christmas romance, and the overall tone is upbeat and joyful, even when misunderstandings and conflicts pop up. As a story focused on tracking down a rare book, it’s a lovely treat for book lovers. Mirren’s devotion to Violet is especially touching, and the conclusion of the book hunt is both surprising and utterly right.

The Christmas Book Hunt is such a gem! It’s a lovely listen in the lead-up to the holidays.

Title: Booked for the Holidays
Author: Liz Maverick
Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky, Andrew Eiden
Publisher: Audible Originals
Publication date: November 14, 2024
Print length: n/a
Audiobook length: 3 hours 41 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Free via Audible
Rating:

Brighten the holidays with this funny, heartfelt rom-com about the stories—and the love—that we never forget.

When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year.

When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.

As Hanukkah unfolds, Abi and Dov cozy up in his grandmother’s brownstone apartment working their way through his writer’s block and untangling plot threads. Before long, the novel starts taking shape … and so does their simmering attraction. Will their own story end once the book is written, or is this just the first chapter?

Another holiday listening delight! I’m over the moon to discover a Hanukkah romance that’s sweet and funny — and a great choice for people who love books about books!

Abi is an aspiring editor at the publishing house that publishes D. B. Ziegler’s hugely popular cozy mystery series. When the author misses the deadline for her newest manuscript, Abi’s bosses send Abi over to offer a pep talk and try to coax the author to finish up. What she discovers is D. B. Ziegler’s grandson Dov, who informs Abi of sad news: His grandmother has passed away, and made him promise to finish her final book for her. Problem 1: He’s not a writer. Problem 2: No one can know that she passed until after he turns in the book.

Abi is shocked and sad — Debra Ziegler is her favorite author! She’s also determined to help Dov in whatever way he needs, offering story input, a “bible” of key events and people in the series, and ongoing reminders to stop baking and get back to typing!

As Dov and Abi work together, they develop a quirky, bantering dynamic. With “Snowmageddon” shutting down streets and subways, Abi is forced to hunker down with Dov as they eat Hanukkah treats, light the menorah, and figure how to finish the series in a way that will honor Dov’s grandmother and satisfy her legions of fans.

Booked for the Holidays is a lot of fun, and I really liked the approach to celebrating Hanukkah, keeping it low-key but meaningful, and infusing the entire story with a cozy warmth.

It’s also lovely to see how much Dov loves and respects his grandmother! He and Abi have a great connection, and the story flows easily and quickly.

Another great choice for holiday audio entertainment!

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11Dec2024

Book Review: Diavola by Jennifer Thorne

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Diavola
Author: Jennifer Thorne
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Publication date: March 26, 2024
Length: 296 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Jennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, Diavola is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology.

Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive.

It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone—including her blandly docile husband and two kids—falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet.

The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails—the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.

(Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)

Talk about a family vacation from hell!

The air felt murky when she joined everybody at the table, but it was the usual Pace family murk, bad moods combining to form a full low-pressure weather pattern.

In this creepy, atmostpheric horror novel by Jennifer Thorne (author of the brilliant Lute), a family stay in a Tuscan villa turns nightmarish… and not just because of the forced proximity of a dysfunctional family.

Main character Anna Pace is a constant disappointment to her family. Blamed for everything from the death of her middle school classroom’s pet guinea pig to fooling around with her sister’s prom date (she didn’t, actually) to every other sort of wrong-doing imaginable, Anna is constantly on alert. The idea of spending a week with her family is so stressful that she secretly arrives in Italy two days early to squeeze in some alone time before she has to face the rest of the group.

The family’s idyllic Tuscan luxury rental seems off right from the start. There’s a dead zone around the building where nothing grows. A tower is kept tightly locked, and while Anna thought she saw a window in it, it’s actually totally bricked over. Why is there a goat kept tethered at the end of the lane? And why does Anna spot locals sneaking around with flashlights at night?

Little incidents pile up — slamming doors, spoiled food, onslaughts of mosquitoes — and then escalate into rearranged furniture and injuries caused by unseen hands. The family seems to be in the worst sort of denial. Anna’s father insists that there’s nothing wrong, because he paid for this vacation, dammit!, and they WILL enjoy it. Everyone else falls back on blaming Anna for causing problems.

“I don’t know why you’re trying to stir things up, Anna,” she spat. “I gave up trying to figure that out a long time ago, goodness knows, a long time! There is absolutely nothing wrong with where we’re staying.”

Anna knows deep down that what’s happening at the villa isn’t normal, especially given the side-eye the family gets whenever they venture into the nearby village. She can fell it in the air whenever they go back into the villa, a sense of wrongness and bad intent — and the longer they stay, the worse it gets, especially with the terrible dreams of a menacing woman that begin to haunt Anna’s every moment… even when she’s not asleep.

Oh, this book gets creepier and creepier as it goes along, and the family’s insistence on acting as if everything is okay becomes enough to make you want to pull your hair out. I would have been running away as fast as my legs could carry me as of the second day — and Anna does consider leaving, but it’s the same old family dynamic that keeps her from going:

Everybody would worry about her if she left and it would poison the rest of their vacation and she wouldn’t want to hear about it, but by God, she would. She’d hear about it at every single gathering forevermore.

The toxicity of the family is a huge factor in the horror elements. Yes, there are gruesome, gory incidents, and plenty of disturbing scenes, but the way Anna’s family treats her is one of the most upsetting aspects of this book. She’s the family scapegoat, for no very good reason except that that’s what they’re all used to. No wonder she dreads these family vacations.

Not to downplay the actual horror — the haunting storyline is scary and insidious, and there’s a moment where we readers might think that Anna has finally broken free… but then we see that there’s still quite a bit of the story left, and get a creeping suspicion that the terror isn’t even close to being finished with Anna.

Diavola is a relatively short novel, and if possible, should be read in one or two long reading sessions. Due to limited reading time this past week, I read the first half or so in little fits and starts, and found myself rather disengaged — but I’m convinced the fault was in my approach, not the book itself. Once I sat down for more extended reading over the weekend, I couldn’t put the book down and flew through the second half.

As a story of haunting and possession, Diavola is sinister and frightening. As a tale of awful family dynamics, it’s both relatable and bleak. Black humor lightens some of the worst moments, and yet the overall vibe is menacing all the way through.

There are some gross-out scenes, so be warned if you’re on the squeamish side. Recommended for horror fans who appreciate a gothic vibe in their stories of terrible family vacations.

PS – If nothing else, Diavola should be a lesson to us all to look beyond AirBnb reviews and do a good Google search when staying in ancient villas!