Audiobook Review: My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, & Jodi Meadows

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: My Contrary Mary
Series: Mary, #1
Authors: Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows
Narrator: Fiona Hardingham
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication date: June 22, 2021
Print length: 512 pages
Audiobook length: 12 hours 18 minutes
Genre: Young adult
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Long live the queen: The authors who brought you the New York Times bestselling My Lady Jane kick off an all-new historical trilogy with the classy, courtly tale of Mary, Queen of Scots—perfect for YA fantasy and romance readers.

Welcome to Renaissance France, a place of poison and plots, of beauties and beasts, of mice and . . . queens?

Mary is the queen of Scotland and the jewel of the French court. Except when she’s a mouse. Yes, reader, Mary is an Eðian (shapeshifter) in a kingdom where Verities rule. It’s a secret that could cost her a head—or a tail.

Luckily, Mary has a confidant in her betrothed, Francis. But things at the gilded court take a treacherous turn after the king meets a suspicious end. Thrust onto the throne, Mary and Francis face a viper’s nest of conspiracies, traps, and treason. And if Mary’s secret is revealed, heads are bound to roll.

With a royally clever sense of humor, Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows continue their campaign to turn history on its head in this YA fantasy ideal for fans of A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.

A shapeshifting queen, a perilous court, and a kingdom on the brink. What could possibly go wrong?

I can’t even begin to describe how much fun it is to be back in the world of the Janies… or in this case, a Mary! This author trio has already treated us to revamped versions of Lady Jane Grey, Jane Eyre, and Calamity Jane — and this first Mary book, with its focus on Mary, Queen of Scots, takes us back to the universe of My Lady Jane, with all sorts of fresh twists!

In this fictional version of history, the kingdoms of France, England, and Scotland are full of political maneuvering and manipulation, and the key source of tension within each kingdom is the divide between Eðians and Verities — those who can shapeshift into animal forms, and those who believe that only the truly human follow in the path of righteousness, and all others are abominations.

Mary, Queen of Scots, has been raised in the French court and is betrothed to Francis, heir to the French throne. Mary is also an Eðian — a highly guarded secret that could cost her life in France, where Eðians are despised and persecuted. Mary and Francis have been best friends (and betrothed) since they were children, but now that they’re older, there’s growing pressure to see them married off in order to secure the lines of succession, as well as for France to have a stronger claim on Scotland… and eventually, England as well.

My Contrary Mary is told through chapters that rotate through three different point of view characters: Mary, Francis, and Ari, daughter of court prognosticator Nostradamus. Ari doesn’t seem to have her father’s gift for visions, instead revealing her talents through an array of potions with astounding magical properties. When Ari does try to summon a vision, they seem to be nonsense:

Ari did sometimes see things, but nothing that made sense:

“I see a princess from the moon. She punishes all of the evildoers.”

“I see a girl with pale hair singing in the snow. She wants to let it go, but I don’t know what it is.”

“I see a child. He sees dead people.”

After that, her father stopped asking her what she saw.

Ari’s visions are so entertaining that I feel compelled to share one more:

Ari spoke softly. “I see a boy and a girl. They are floating in the ocean.”

She heard some oohs in the distance, and then a shushing sound.

“It’s very cold. The breath coming out of their mouths freezes instantly.” Ari shivered. “They are not in a boat. They are on . . .” Ari squinted and saw the metal hinges of a latch. “They are on a door? The boy is slipping into the water. The girl is holding his hand. She is promising to never let go. She will hold on forever and they will be together—Oh wait, she just let go.”

As the story unfolds, Mary and Francis seem to be in ever increasing danger. Francis’s mother, Catherine de Medici, wants to rule France through him… and when he pushes back, that evil gleam in her eyes bodes bad news for Francis. Mary’s uncles, a powerful duke and influential cardinal, claim to have her best interests at heart, but as she learns late in the game, what they say and what they actually mean are quite different things. Meanwhile, Mary’s ladies-in-waiting (a delightful group, all named Mary) know Mary’s secrets and will do whatever it takes to protect her… and also have secrets of their own.

The main thing to know about My Contrary Mary is that it’s very, very funny, with a cheeky, deliberately sassy sort of tone that keeps events rolicking along. If you’ve read My Lady Jane, you’ll know that tragic historical events have no place in this fictional world… so fear not for Mary’s head staying attached to her shoulders! It’s safe to assume from the outset that the characters we come to know and love will reach their happily-ever-afters… and for the readers, getting there is so much fun that you almost hate to get to the final chapters.

I listened to the audiobook (which makes it difficult to go back and pull out as many favorite quotes as I normally would with these books). Fiona Hardingham does a fantastic job with the assorted French, Scottish, and English accents, the dialects of the various royals, nobles, and servants, as well as the portrayal of certain Eðians (which I recommend experiencing for yourself!)

As you can probably tell, I adored this romp through an alternate historical world! And now that I’ve finished My Contrary Mary, I’m eager to dive into the other books in the Mary series, which focus on Mary Shelley and the pirate Mary Read.

Interested in the Jane books? Check out:

Purchase links for My Contrary Mary: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

23May2026

Book Review: The Foursome by Christina Baker Kline

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Foursome
Author: Christina Baker Kline
Publisher: Mariner Books
Publication date: May 12, 2026
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of an astonishing true story of two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina—Kline’s own distant relatives—who married world-famous conjoined twins from Siam.

When Chang and Eng Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they’re not just a curiosity—they’re a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they’re looking for wives—and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge.

Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Addie sees in the twins’ fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sallie, quiet and observant, isn’t so sure. When the twins’ lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined.

Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.

In this fascinating work of historical fiction, author Christina Baker Kline shines a spotlight on the conjoined twins for whom the term “Siamese twins” was coined, by showing their lives through the eyes of one of the sisters who married them.

Most of us take for granted that, at the very least, we come into this world alone and die our own deaths But this was not true for my husband and his brother. They could not escape each other.

The Foursome is narrated by Sarah “Sallie” Yates, a young woman with a damaged reputation as the novel opens in the 1840s. After a family scandal, she and her younger sister Adelaide face limited prospects. When the famous conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker (the “Siamese Double Boys”) settle in their North Carolina community, the sisters are as curious as everyone else, but when curiosity turns to courtship, it’s Addie who leads the way, seeing the twins as a way out of their difficulties and a route to a secure future.

The engagement and marriage is, of couse, scandalous. Chang and Eng are joined by a band of flesh at the base of their chests. They’re active, healthy, educated men who pride themselves on living as gentlemen, but to the people of North Carolina, they’re seen as foreigners and as freaks. When the brothers marry the Yates sisters, the gossip is intense and personal.

As Sallie shares with readers, navigating a marriage to a man who can never leave his brother’s side presents complex challenges, from the embarrassment of figuring out sleeping (and sexual) arrangements to sharing a household with her sister to never once being able to have a truly private conversation with her husband. Sallie’s marriage to Eng does eventually turn into one of love and compatibility, but the unavoidable presence of Addie and Chang is a constant source of tension.

Still, something must work. Between them, the two couples have a total of twenty-one children over the years! The sisters eventually demand separate homes, but even so, the rigid scheduling and presence of a husband’s brother mean that the families can never truly be separate.

I saw how they leaned on each other — how their bond became a kind of fortress, both shelter and prison. How, sometimes, it shut out even those who loved them.

Beyond the domestic, The Foursome explores the lives of the Bunker husbands and wives in the context of the looming Civil War. Chang and Eng are landowners — and in the North Carolina of the 1800s, that means that they’ve slave owners. Sallie accepts that enslaved workers are simply a fact of life, but over time, her eyes are opened to what this actually means for the people who raise her children and care for her needs. As their community is drawn into war, and as sons of both households go off to fight, Sallie increasingly finds herself at odds with Addie and their husbands about the Confederacy’s ideals and what it is that they’re fighting to preserve.

Sallie’s voice in The Foursome is open and revealing. She shares the joyful moments, especially as she gives birth to child after child, as well as the discomfort of being married to a man who’ll always belong more to someone else. The descriptions of the family’s adaptation to the brothers’ conjoined nature offer a fascinating look into a situation that seems practically beyond belief.

*(L–R) Sarah, her son Patrick Henry, Eng, Chang, his son Albert, Adelaide*

I did wish that Sallie’s awakening to the evils of slavery came sooner. I couldn’t help but feel that some of her change in perspective was driven by the purely personal, in terms of how slavery affected her rather than out of a sense of compassion and justice for the enslaved. She can’t make up for the past, but she eventually attempts her own version of reparation by offering new beginnings and opportunities to those she’d wronged.

There are sins of action and sins of inaction. I cannot forgive myself for the times I saw wrong and turned away.

Because the story is told through Sallie’s point of view, we only understand Addie through her eyes. This is understandable, yet sometimes frustrating. Addie is the catalyst for the marriage — I would have liked a deeper understanding of Addie’s inner life and why she felt so strongly that the choice to marry the brothers was their best (and only) option.

The Foursome is actually the second novel I’ve read about these historical figures. Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss, published in 2000, is a fictionalized account of their lives as told by Eng. I don’t remember a lot of the details at this point, but I do remember how interesting I found it. Reading The Foursome, I was reminded of many of the biographical details, and was entirely drawn in by this new approach and perspective on their lives.

The Foursome is a powerful, compelling read about remarkable lives, set against the backdrop of one of the most devastating and consequential periods in American history. Sallie’s voice is memorable, and the experiences she describes paint a picture of a particular family’s life that might seem unbelievable if it weren’t actually based on historical events. Highly recommended.

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

21May2026

Book Review: A Town with Half the Lights On by Page Getz

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Town with Half the Lights On
Author: Page Getz
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication date: April 22, 2025
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

For readers of J. Ryan Stradal and The Music of Bees (with a dash of FX’s The Bear) comes a quirky and refreshing epistolary novel about family of culture-shocked Brooklynites transplanted to Goodnight, Kansas and their fight for their unexpected lifeline: the legendary May Day Diner.

Welcome to Goodnight, Kansas.

Population: Many Kansans, three New Yorkers, and one chance to save the place they love most

With more wind chimes than residents, folks don’t move to Goodnight when their lives are going well. That’s why all eyes are on chef Sid Solvang and his family from the moment they turn down Emporia Road to the dilapidated Victorian they inherited.

While Sid searches for work and a way back to Brooklyn, his daughter searches for answers to the cryptic messages her grandfather left behind to save both her family and the town. But then Sid makes an impulsive purchase: the fledgling May Day Diner, an iconic eatery under the threat of the wrecking ball.

As the Solvangs search for their ticket out, they discover the truth of Goodnight: one of heart and tradition, of exploitation and greed, and neighbors you would do anything to save. And the Solvangs must navigate all of it—plus wayward girl named Disco, a host of rambunctious alpacas, and the corrupt factory sustaining the town—in order to find their way back home…wherever that may be.

Told through diary entries, emails, school notes, and an anonymous town paper of the Lady Whistledown variety, A Town with Half the Lights On is a tender testament to the notions that home isn’t just the place you live, family isn’t just your relatives, and it’s almost never easy to find the courage to do what’s right.

A Town with Half the Lights On is a fish-out-of-water tale of New Yorkers forced into exile in a tiny Kansas town, and how they inadvertently manage to save the town and themselves in the process. Told through emails, newspaper clippings, and even letters in bottles, this epistolary novel is a fast, light-hearted read that combines Southern quirkiness and small-town shenanigans with some more serious real world issues.

The Solvang family arrive in Goodnight, Kansas fresh from the disastrous loss of their family business in Brooklyn. None of them want to be there, but given their financial and reputational ruin, they really have nowhere else to go. Sid and Scarlet and their teenaged daughter Harlem are dismayed by the dusty little town, the boarded up main street businesses, and the incessant church bells — but having just inherited Scarlet’s late father’s Victorian home and all that goes with it (including three alpacas), they have no option but to settle in.

The Solvangs’ goal is to sell whatever is worth selling from Pop Bannister’s estate and build up enough cash to return to New York. There’s no way they’re going to spend a moment longer in Kansas than they have to! But Scarlet’s father’s will is mysterious: Written in Latin (which he doesn’t actually know) the translated document is full of strange wording and even stranger messages, including what appears to be a hint about a secret treasure. Harlem becomes determined to find this treasure — maybe it’ll be their ticket back to New York!

Meanwhile, the neighbors and various townsfolk are wary of these strangers, and practically hostile toward Scarlet, who left Goodnight over twenty years ago with nary a word to anyone. As we see through letters to the local paper, as well as assorted emails, outsiders aren’t exactly welcome in Goodnight, and New Yorkers must be in league with the Devil himself!

But Goodnight is a town in trouble. The Goodnight American Tire Company is the main town employer, and its frequent rounds of layoffs and pay freezes leave half the town in poverty, with everyone else vying for the few remaining jobs at the factory. The town social and eating hub, the May Day Diner, is about to close, which distresses everyone, especially a strange local girl named Disco who trails glitter and causes mayhem wherever she goes. While Disco would love to buy the May Day herself, she only has the cash she’s earned from weeding neighbors’ gardens — but she has an idea. Sid and Scarlet Solvang were chefs in their former lives: Who better to rescue the beloved May Day?

As Sid and Scarlet get involved, they continue to defer their return to Brooklyn, discussing each investment in Goodnight as a means to save up to leave, but really getting deeper and deeper into the fabric of the community. First the diner, then a food lifeline for out of work locals, then a rehab/rescue of the local hotel… before long, the Solvang family has started injecting life into this boarded-up little town. When the grandfather’s secrets are finally discovered, there’s even more change in store for Goodnight, but not everyone appreciates these outsiders’ interference, and a local battle looms.

The tone of A Town with Half the Lights On is upbeat and humorous, even when the subject takes a turn toward darkness. Sid is depressed and full of self-doubt, having run his generations-old family deli into the ground through his focus on tranforming it into a molecular gastronomy destination. Now, he’s sworn never to cook or enter a kitchen again. Harlem struggles to fit into such a strange environment, and is branded a “non-conformist” from day one in her new school, which is really a death sentence among the middle school crowd. Local girl Disco is a riot, but she has very real struggles with her homelife and her pariah status, and while she’s a force for positive change in the town, she also suffers for it.

A major plot thread throughout is the corruption of the tire factory, and what seems like a few funny statements early on become more significant when the factory’s damage to the community is revealed. As the community goes through a whistle-blowing scandal, labor organizing, and mass layoffs, we see the more serious implications of the situation. Even so, the individual letters and emails that narrate events retain their humorous, quirky tone.

A Town with Half the Lights On is an engaging read, although not everything worked perfectly for me. Oddly, while the story is told through emails and newspaper articles, almost all of these are undated. The opening emails are dated in 2002, and we see a few references to what month it is… but for the most part, everything is undated, other than being identified by days of the week (occasionally) or time of day. Because of this, it’s difficult to tell how much time has elapsed between events, which feels problematic. How long did it take to turn the diner around? How long did the factory collapse take? It’s puzzling to me that we don’t get a clear timeline, especially since the story is told through documents that so easily could have been dated.

The epistolary approach allows many characters, major and minor, to have their say. It’s enjoyable to see so many personalities and voices, which gives a good picture of the variety of people who make up the community of Goodnight. The downside is that we’re reliant on whoever’s writing in the moment to tell us about events — some feel glossed over or briefly summarized, when it might have been more effective seem these events unfold with more of a real-time description.

Those points aside, I did enjoy reading A Town with Half the Lights On. The small-town vibe is lots of fun, and varying viewpoints, opinions, and gossip provide plenty of entertainment value. I’m glad I checked out A Town with Half the Lights On — it’s a quick, joyful read with heart.

20May2026

Book Review: The Shippers by Katherine Center

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Shippers
Author: Katherine Center
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: May 19, 2026
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

One of the hottest, fastest-rising rom-com stars delivers her latest swoon-worthy novel about a destination wedding on a cruise ship.

After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest ), and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is, her sister’s a little busy being a bride at the moment—so JoJo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wing man. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but then showed up, anyway. Cooper: who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper: who was, if she’s honest, the worst heartbreak of JoJo’s life. It’s bliss for her to see him again, and it’s agony, too—and the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can’t bring herself to ask.

Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance—as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally, at last, figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way.

No one does summer romance quite like Katherine Center. THE SHIPPERS will take readers on the cruise of a lifetime in a story awash with romantic longing, top-notch banter, long-held secrets . . . and true love rediscovered.

I usually love Katherine Center books, but The Shippers is a bit too slight and focused on silliness to entirely work for me.

In The Shippers, we open with main character Jojo’s wedding. She’s wearing her soon-to-be mother-in-law’s itchy, awful wedding gown — quite a clear sign that nothing about this wedding truly fits Jojo. She has a history of dumping guys as soon as they fall for her, and her fiancé’s distance and disinterest have kept her in the relationship far longer than made sense. As she’s about to walk down the aisle, her childhood best friend Cooper walks in. Cooper essentially ghosted her four years ago without explanation, but his sudden appearance (and suggestion to fake a faint at the altar) help Jojo realize how little she wants to get married. Fake fainting turns out to be her key to escape.

Six weeks later, Jojo is forced to endure endless gossip and family and neighborhood togetherness for her sister Ashley’s cruise-based wedding. But thanks to Ashley’s interest in psychology, the sisters seem to have figured out Jojo’s problem: They conclude that she’s fixated on her first kiss (at age 10), while carrying some serious abandonment issues courtesy of their distant dad, and will never be able to have a successful, healthy relationship until she resolves the feelings associated with that kiss. Fortunately, the kisser will be on the cruise too, and Jojo will have a week to get him to fall in love with her.

When Cooper unexpectedly shows up for the cruise as well, Jojo loops him into her plan — and when the obnoxious cousin Jojo is rooming with makes it clear that their cabin will be otherwise occupied most nights, Jojo ends up bunking with Cooper. With all that togetherness, it’s only a matter of time before Jojo and Cooper confront their pasts… but her fixation on the kiss may drive them apart for good this time, despite the fact that Jojo seems to be finally waking up to how awesome (and attractive) Cooper is.

“How did you turn into a Disney prince?”

“You think I look like a Disney prince?”

“I really do.”

“You think I look like a cartoon?”

“Not a cartoon like SpongeBob. A sexy cartoon.”

The vibe of The Shippers is mostly goofy. It’s hard to take Jojo’s emotional baggage seriously when it’s addressed in between comical scenes of her wearing inappropriate clothing, falling off her high heels, getting badly sunburned (I mean, that’s not actually funny, but it’s presented as yet another ridiculous thing that Jojo gets herself into), and entering a slow-dance contest with guy who’s clearly wrong for her. We’re obviously meant to be rooting for Jojo to wake up to the fact that Cooper has been her person — and love of her life — all along, but the frantic focus on Jojo making odd choices and getting into crazy situations makes it all seem rather frivolous and shallow.

To be clear, The Shippers is entertaining and zips along with never a dull moment. For me, it was just all so intentionally silly that I couldn’t take any of it particularly seriously, even when the characters attempt to address past hurts and issues in a more thoughtful way.

Still, fans of the author will find plenty to enjoy, and The Shippers would make a good choice for a sunny summer beach read.

Interested in this author? Check out my reviews of other Katherine Center books:
The Bright Side of Disaster
Get Lucky
Happiness for Beginners
Hello Stranger
How to Walk Away
The Rom-Commers
Things You Save in a Fire
What You Wish For
The Love Haters

16May2026

Audiobook Review: Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Our Perfect Storm
Author: Carley Fortune
Narrators: AJ Bridel and Jack Copland
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: May 5, 2026
Print length: 420 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 51 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight years old. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong—they’ve always clashed . . . and come back together. Until now. It’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding weekend, and she doesn’t know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man.

Then, at the start of the festivities, in walks George. For one glorious evening, surrounded by her loved ones, Frankie’s life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, leaving only a note as an explanation.

Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her family’s home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie’s broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino.

Frankie agrees, seeing the trip for what it really is: one last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets and long buried feelings neither knows how to handle. Even if it means falling apart for good.

There’s nothing like a Carley Fortune book! Heartfelt storytelling, deep connections, and beautiful settings are the hallmark of her beach bag-ready novels. Her fifth novel, Our Perfect Storm, captures all the elements I love so much about her writing and delivers a friends-to-lovers story that, despite the trope, feels fresh and expansive.

Our Perfect Storm opens at the start of Frankie’s wedding weekend — a high-end affair at a luxury resort, no expense spared. But initially, it’s not perfect: Frankie is distracted throughout the opening dinner because her best friend (and best man) George hasn’t arrived. Her seemingly ideal fiancé Nate is sitting right next to her, but she can’t enjoy the food or the company… until George finally walks in. (It may not be obvious to Frankie, but we readers know deep, unacknowledged love when we see it!)

The perfect wedding is now back on track… until Frankie wakes up the next morning to a note from Nate, calling off the wedding with no explanation whatsoever. Devastated, Frankie moves back home with her parents and spends the next couple of months trying to get her life back on track.

George hasn’t been seen since the wedding, so Frankie is shocked when he shows up one day, and has a plan. Nate has already told Frankie that she should go to the resort he’d booked for their honeymoon, since it was already paid for. Frankie had no intention of going, but George insists that it’ll be just what she needs — and that he’s going with her. Frankie needs an escape from the world so she can heal, George has been researching recovery after a breakup, and he’s going to guide her through the process.

So off they go to Tofino, a beautiful location on Vancouver Island, where they’ll be staying in a luxury villa at a fancy resort, with nothing to do but enjoy the scenery, explore, eat good food, and let Frankie find fresh inspiration and let go of the past. Of course, the past is not so simple. While Frankie had only known Nate for a total of one year prior to their almost-wedding, she’s known George since childhood. They’ve been there for one another through family sorrows, personal challenges, growing up, and turning into adults. From next-door neighbors to best friends to college roommates, they were inseparable for most of their lives, until George pulled away in recent years, leaving Frankie to miss him and wonder what happened to their friendship.

As they week in Tofino unfolds, George and Frankie reconnect, falling back into their easy dynamic, sharing truths and secrets, but also noting new elements to their chemisty… like a intense attraction that Frankie was never willing to fully acknowledge in the past. It becomes clear that there’s way more between them than friendship, but they’ll need to get past old hurts and traumas before they can fully trust that what they feel might just be love… and that they might have a very different future ahead of them than either could have imagined.

I just loved Frankie and George! They’re both fully developed characters. We can care about them because we get to know them so well. Flashback chapters take us back to their childhood and adolescence, and of course it’s clear to a reader that these two are way beyond “best friends”. The way they trust one another is lovely, as is the way they’re so easily able to fall back into spending constant time together, even after being apart for years.

In addition to her cancelled wedding, Frankie has a lifetime of unresolved issues to finally come to terms with, particularly in regard to her complicated relationship with her mother. I appreciated seeing the thoughtfulness with which the characters deal with this, and how past trauma gets addressed and acknowledged.

Of course, the heart and soul of the story is the connection between Frankie and George. The plot points I’ve mentioned so far may not sound action-packed, but that’s not what this book is. There’s plenty of humor, serious talks and situations too, but overall, the pacing is leisurely and gives time for the relationships and character growth to unfold.

The armchair travel elements can’t be ignored. Carley Fortune’s books always have the most lovely settings, and I was practically dying over the descriptions of Tofino. (Sad but true: I took a fantastic road trip to Vancouver Island last summer, but didn’t have quite enough time to get to Tofino… clearly, I need to go back!)

As with the author’s other books, the audiobook is narrated by AJ Bridel, who does a wonderful job. This time, she’s joined by Jack Copland, who does the dialogue for the male characters. I loved listening — the voices, pacing, and delivery are all fantastic.

Obviously, I’m a big fan, and Our Perfect Summer hit all the right notes for me. I’ll eagerly await whatever Carley Fortune writes next. Meanwhile, I highly recommend Our Perfect Summer, and all of her other books too!

For more by Carley Fortune:
Every Summer After
Meet Me at the Lake
This Summer Will Be Different
One Golden Summer

15May2026

Book Review: Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Dead Weight
Author: Hildur Knútsdóttir
Translated by: Mary Robinette Kowal
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Publication date: May 26, 2026
Length: 160 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

An Icelandic night may hide secrets and affairs – or even bodies – in this gruesomely cathartic horror thriller from the author of The Night Guest.

Unnur was living a normal, if lonely, life until a black cat showed up at her door.

When she tracks down the cat’s wayward owner, she finds a young woman just as lost and in need of help. Like a gust of cold air in a Reykjavík night, Ásta and her pet slip into Unnur’s life.

It’s unexpected, but welcome. Unnur likes the company, and she begins to rely on Ásta in turn. But like a black cat, trouble has been tailing her new friend, and Unnur is the only one there for Ásta when things take a violent turn.

The two women quickly learn: nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.

This new Icelandic thriller opens with a bang, as I shared in a recent First Lines Friday post:

I have thought long and hard about how I would dispose of a dead body. I have carefully weighed options such as digging, sinking, burning, hiding. It’s something I do when I can’t sleep. I used to think that everyone did this, that each person I met had a plan of their own. But the day I casually mentioned mine during lunch at work, a weird and uncomfortable silence settled over the table. So it turns out that most people listen to audio books when they can’t sleep. It’s only me who hides bodies. I find it relaxing.

With an opening like that, it’s clear that at some point in this tense novella, there WILL be a body to deal with. The questions are — whose, and why, and how?

I’ll pause here for a second — I don’t typically share content warnings, but when it comes to abuse, I feel it’s necessary.

Content warning: Domestic/relationship violence, physical and emotional abuse.
Content reassurance: Cats are an important part of the plot… and they are fine! No animal deaths or injury (although they are threatened).

The story is told by Unnar, who is somewhat of an odd duck, and does not necessarily appear to be a reliable narrator. She’s a successful businesswoman who has learned to feign reactions to get what she wants.

I practice the look I’m going to use. Raise my eyes up and to the right. Because I’ve read that people look there when they’re doing creative thinking, but to the left when doing recall.

Meanwhile, she lives alone and conducts a passionate relationship with a married man, whose influencer wife she stalks on Instagram, convinced that he’s being honest when he says that theirs is a loveless marriage and he’s only staying for the sake of the children. Hmm, no married man has ever claimed that before, have they?

Unnar’s predictable life is interrupted when a cat shows up on her doorstep. The cat seems to find a way inside, even when the apartment doors are closed. After a couple of days of visits, Unnar searches Facebook for posts about missing cats, and tracks down the owner, a young woman named Ásta. Ásta is thrilled to be reunited with Io, but has an odd request: Can Unnar keep her for a while? Ásta’s boyfriend really doesn’t like cats, and she doesn’t want to rock the boat. When Unnar comes home again to find that Io has had a kitten, she agrees with Ásta’s proposal that mom and baby kitty will stay until the kitten is old enough to be moved, and they set up a schedule for Ásta to come and visit.

But with each visit, Unnar becomes more and more concerned about Ásta’s well-being. She shows up with bruises, and is clearly scared to upset her boyfriend. When he tracks her to Unnar’s home, violence ensues, and the growing friendship between the two women leads to startling results.

I’d love to be able to say which book (from almost 30 years ago) that this reminded me of… but even to name the book would be to reveal more than I should about the plot! Suffice it to say that things take a turn for the grisly, and Unnar’s detachment and level-headedness become a necessary counterweight to Ásta’s emotions and fragility.

I have mixed feeling about Dead Weight. On the one hand, it’s a highly readable, fast-paced, absorbing story — and given that it’s novella-length, it’s a very quick read. On the other hand… I’m not sure what to make of certain plot elements and characterizations.

Unnar is both incredibly competent and seemingly emotionally stunted. She hints at incidents from her family history, but we never entirely get the full picture. Her romantic relationship shows both her ability to feel and her ability to compartmentalize and shut down the emotions that don’t serve her own narrative; there are clear signs of denial and possibly even more serious mental health concerns that become apparent as she interacts with Ásta.

On a more practical note, Unnar’s narration makes very clear all the ways in which society doesn’t value women’s strength, expects certain types of performance and demeanor, and doesn’t recognize or have sufficient resources when a woman experiences abuse and needs an escape plan. Unnar seems to lack a moral compass, yet even thought she’s practically a stranger to Ásta, she’se the only person in Ásta’s corner when she’s in danger.

I found the ending ambiguous. I’m not sure how to interpret the very final scene. (There are two options — I don’t know which answer I like better, and I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to know or guess).

This book is definitely not a good choice for the squeamish — only read if you can tolerate blood and gore!

Overall, while I still prefer the author’s previous book, The Night Guest, I found Dead Weight an intriguing, all-in-one-sitting read. Check it out for the Icelandic vibe, and if you enjoy ambiguity and unreliable narrators.

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

14May2026

Book Review: An Ordinary Sort of Evil (A Rip Through Time, #5) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: An Ordinary Sort of Evil
Series: A Rip Through Time, #5
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication date: May 19, 2026
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Historical fiction/mystery
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley
Rating:

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong returns to Victorian Scotland in the latest in the genre-blending Rip Through Time series.

Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Mitchell has grown accustomed to life in Victorian Scotland after travelling 150 years into the past into the body of a housemaid. She’s built a new life for herself. Even though she works as an assistant to forensic-science pioneer Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie, she considers them true friends. And with Gray in particular, perhaps, someday, something more.

Late one night, Gray and Mallory are summoned urgently to the home of Lady Adler, a patron of Gray’s undertaking business, and they assume there’s been a death in the household. But instead, they arrive in the midst of a seance with a ghost demanding Gray’s presence. The ghost is Lady Adler’s former maid, who had gone missing but now requests that Gray investigate her murder. Although Gray and Mallory are skeptical, they agree to look into the matter, whether she’s dead or alive. But unsure if there’s been a murder or not, unable to call out the medium as a fraud, and concerned for the fate of the young maid, Gray and Mallory are once again drawn into a mystery much more puzzling–and more dangerous–than it first seems.

An Ordinary Sort of Evil, book #5 in the excellent A Rip Through Time series, delivers the twisty mystery and terrific character moments that we’ve come to expect over the course of these books.

A quick explanation of the story so far: Mallory Mitchell, a Canadian homicide detective from the 21st century, stumbles through a time anomaly while visiting family in Edinburgh and finds her consciousness now inhabiting the body of a 20-year-old housemaid in Victorian Scotland. This housemaid words for Dr. Duncan Gray, an undertaker and scientist who assists the Edinburgh police with unusual cases, which is probably the best of all possible situations for Mallory to have landed in.

As the series progresses, Mallory adapts to her new life, and after sharing the truth about herself with Duncan and a few other close connections, she’s able to apply her detective skills in this new, strange world. Five books into the series, Mallory is established as Duncan’s assistant, although with her modern-day detective and forensic skills, she takes the lead for their investigations. Meanwhile, Mallory and Duncan’s professional closeness and personal friendship seems to be developing into something more, and yet Victorian standards related to class, race, and gender threaten to put an end to any deeper relationship before it can even start.

As An Ordinary Sort of Evil opens, Mallory and Duncan are summoned to a wealthy patron’s home in the middle of the night — not to investigate a murder, but because a ghost summoned during a seance has asked for Duncan by name. Or so the medium says: She claims that a maid working in the patron’s household has contacted her, and wants Duncan to investigate her murder. The problem is, the maid was last seen alive and well, and was believed to have left for new opportunities. Mallory and Duncan scoff at the spiritualism fad, but when a body turns up, they’re immersed once more in an investigation, trying to determine if this is in fact the missing maid, what happened to her, and how someone at the seance could have known of her death.

It’s an ordinary sort of evil. The kind people do every day, and never think twice. It’s just how you get ahead in life.

Once again, Kelley Armstrong skillfully blends an intriguing, unpredictable murder mystery with Mallory’s fish-out-of-water existence in a time not her own, while also keeping the character development moving forward and building upon everything that’s happened so far in the series. That’s a tough order to fill, but this author makes it work, and then some.

One of the delights of these books is seeing Mallory’s adjustment to life in Victorian times. For propriety’s sake, she must pose as Duncan’s subordinate and defer to him — publicly, at least — on matters in which she’s the expert. Behind closed doors, however, she lets loose and allows her outspoken nature to break free, which makes for all sorts of entertainment as we readers get to enjoy her anachronistic sass and snark.

I raise a slow middle finger.

“Too bad I do not know what that means,” he says. “I am certain, though, that it expresses your agreement with my point.”

The mystery in An Ordinary Sort of Evil is highly entertaining and not at all straightforward. I often thought I had a sense of how things might unfold; each time, I was wrong. Following Mallory and Duncan’s investigation is pure delight — I loved seeing how the clues and false leads and various suspects and their actions all come together by the end.

As for the characters and their relationships, things do progress in ways that will make readers of this series very happy, but there’s plenty of room for even more developments… and that’s all I’ll say about that!

A Rip Through Time continues to entertain and offer thrills and mysteries to puzzle through, and I can’t wait for more. Highly recommended — but do start at the beginning of the series! You won’t want to miss a thing.

Next up: A newly announced novella, to be release later this year. I absolutely plan to read it — I’ll need a Mallory fix while waiting for the next book in the series.

Brawlers & Burglars
Release date: December 1, 2026

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

For more in this series:
A Rip Through Time
The Poisoner’s Ring
Disturbing the Dead
Schemes & Scandals (novella)
Death at a Highland Wedding
Kirkyards & Kindness (novella)

9May2026

Quick Take: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Publisher: Saga Press
Publication date: March 18, 2025
Length: 448 pages
Genre: Horror / historical fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians comes a tale of the American West, writ in blood.

This chilling historical novel is set in the nascent days of the state of Montana, following a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab as he haunts the fields of the Blackfeet Nation looking for justice.

It begins when a diary written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall in 2012. What is unveiled is a slow massacre, a nearly forgotten chain of events that goes back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow, told in the transcribed interviews with Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar and unnaturally long life over a series of confessional visits.

This is an American Indian revenge story, captured in the vivid voices of the time, by one of the new masters of literary horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

Unpopular opinion time: This story of a vampire seeking revenge for the massacre of his people, the Blackfeet of Montana, should have been right up my alley… and yet, I had to force myself to stick with it and slog my way through to the end.

This book has an endless number of rave reviews, including from media sources and bloggers I tend to align with. And yet, it just didn’t work for me.

There’s a great premise: A newly discovered diary left behind by a Lutheran pastor in 1912 reveals a shocking set of confessions from a Blackfeet named Good Stab. Good Stab seeks out Arthur Beaucarne to share the story of his unnaturally long life, his transformation into a vampire, and the punishments he’s meted out to those he deems responsible for murdering his people.

And yet, I found myself disengaged and frustrated throughout much of the book. There are some compelling and horrifying set pieces, some very moving interludes as Good Stab recounts what’s happened to the Blackfeet and to the buffalos… and yet, the story he tells is full of names, places, and incidents that loop and cross, sometimes dropping important pieces of information into long bits of a tale so that they get more or less buried. I found it confusing to track the who and how and why of many of the developments, and ultimately ended up caring far less than I should have, with what should have been big revelations falling flat.

I’m definitely in the minority on this one. By the end, I just wanted it all to be over.

Sigh. Not a book for me.

7May2026

Audiobook Review: The Body by Stephen King

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Body
Author: Stephen King
Narrator: Wil Wheaton
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication date: Originally published 1982; new audiobook edition released 2026
Print length: 192 pages
Audio length: 6 hours 38 minutes
Genre: Coming of age novella
Source: Library
Rating:

Decades after starring in the film adaptation, Wil Wheaton narrates an all-new recording of the story that shaped a generation!

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King’s timeless novella The Body, originally published in his 1982 collection Different Seasons and adapted into the 1986 film classic Stand by Me, now available as a stand-alone edition.

Four rambunctious young boys venture into the Maine woods in search of a boy from a nearby town who has disappeared. Gordie Lachance and his three friends set out on a quest to find the missing boy’s body along the railroad tracks. The Body is set outside King’s iconic fictional town of Castle Rock, which is the setting of many of King’s most popular books including It and The Stand, and Castle Rock, a 10-episode Hulu original series, based on King’s short stories. King’s The Body is an iconic coming of age story that explores the loneliness and isolation of young adulthood.

And from an earlier edition of the book:

It’s 1960 in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Ray Brower, a boy from a nearby town, has disappeared, and twelve-year-old Gordie Lachance and his three friends set out on a quest to find his body along the railroad tracks. During the course of their journey, Gordie, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio come to terms with death and the harsh truths of growing up in a small factory town that doesn’t offer much in the way of a future.

A timeless exploration of the loneliness and isolation of young adulthood, Stephen King’s The Body is an iconic, unforgettable, coming-of-age story.

Originally published in 1982 as part of Stephen King’s Different Seasons collection, The Body is best known as the story adapted into the outstanding film Stand By Me. I consider myself a fairly well-read Stephen King fan, although I’m nowhere close to having read all (or even more than half) of his works. And yet, before this week, I’d actually never read The Body… and now that I have, I’m astounded that I’ve been missing out on it all these years.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that The Body may just be one of the most perfect examples of a coming-of-age tale. The story is clearly autobiographical in some ways, in terms of the Maine vibe of the early 1960s, the companionship among boys, the rituals and cultural signifiers, the sense of a future looming just around the corner (not to mention the more obvious fact that the narrator is a writer who writes horror stories, lives in Maine with his wife and children, etc. etc. etc.)

To go back to basics, the core story is as follows: In Castle Rock, Maine one summer day, a group of 12-year-old boys set out on an adventure. The boys are a motley crew, from a variety of unsavory or unlucky families, and even at age 12, no one really expects much of any of them, and the town itself seems like the definition of a dead end. On this summer day, they overhear some of the town “JDs” (aka, the dangerous older brothers and their assorted hoodlum friends) that they’ve found a dead body — a boy who’s been missing for a few days and is believed to be lost somewhere in the woods.

Gordie, Chris, Vern, and Teddy are bored, thirsty for excitement, and eager to claim the title of town heroes. School is about to start, and they have nothing else going on, so they decide to beat the older boys to the body, report that they’ve found it, and basically claim a hefty dose of glory for themselves. The trek to the body is more challenging than they expected, involving miles and miles of train tracks, spots of true danger, and imagined horrors during a sleepless night in the woods.

The brilliance of The Body is in the details. The writing is beautifully evocative of the era, the dynamic of being a 12-year-old boy, the mix of hopefulness and hopelessness that pervades their lives, and the absolute devotion that childhood best friends share for brief moments in time. I felt immersed in Gordie’s worldview; the storytelling voice is powerful and immediate, and we feel what Gordie is feeling throughout.

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you?

The Body is also funny and profane and silly — there are some gross-out moments, and the kind of insults that pass for humor among 12-year-old boys. More seriousness is always beneath the surface, or even out in the open. There’s danger from the older boys, but also the looming danger of the future hurtling toward them. What chance do any of these boys have for getting out of their small town? What kind of lives lie ahead? Gordie narrates this tale from a future vantage point, at once enjoying the sweetness of nostalgia while also letting us know that in some ways, these summer days were the best days of their lives, and that they were followed by sorrow and loss and a variety of big and small disappointments.

Wil Wheaton is, of course, a stellar narrator. Having been one of the child stars of Stand By Me (playing Gordie), he’s the perfect choice for this new audiobook edition. His storytelling voice is humorous and inflected with emotion and amusement, and he hits the more tragic or contemplative notes just right.

Listening to The Body reminds me (as if I need reminding) just what an amazing storyteller Stephen King is. On top of telling a terrific tale, he also lets us in on the joys of being a writer and a storyteller, and without hitting us over the head, uses Gordie’s voice to show the power of language and narrative.

The Body is a fantastic story, and the audiobook is truly a special experience. Even if you’ve read the story before, it’s well worth checking out the new audio version.

As for me, I’m now dying for a re-watch of Stand By Me!

UPDATE: I realized after publishing this post that I should have included a link to a New York Times piece about Wil Wheaton, Stand By Me, and this audiobook: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/24/books/wil-wheaton-the-body-audiobook-stephen-king.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g1A.i-zn._LjQK8zr0fNu&smid=url-share

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

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3May2026

Book Review: The Impossible Fortune (The Thursday Murder Club, #5) by Richard Osman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Impossible Fortune
Series: The Thursday Murder Club, #5
Author: Richard Osman
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: Library
Rating:

Who’s got time to think about murder when there’s a wedding to plan?

It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal.

But when Elizabeth meets Nick, a wedding guest asking for her help, she finds the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. And when Nick disappears without a trace, his cagey business partner becomes the gang’s next stop. It seems the duo have something valuable—something worth killing for.

Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, jumps into the fray to help the gang as they seek answers: Has someone kidnapped Nick? And what’s this uncrackable code they keep hearing about? Plunged back into action once more, can the four friends solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

It’s always a treat to pick up another Thursday Murder Club book — and now that I’ve finished The Impossible Fortune, I’m all caught up!

This installment picks up a year after the events of book #4, The Last Devil to Die. The gang is as close as ever, but they’re getting a bit itchy to solve more murders. When Joyce’s daughter Joanna’s wedding rolls around, the best man reaches out to Elizabeth for help. He thinks someone is trying to kill him… and based on the bomb placed under his car, it looks like he’s right.

As the group dig into Nick’s worries, they learn about a top-secret storage facility, a potential fortune in Bitcoin, possibly double-crossing business partners and investors, and all sorts of shady secrets. Meanwhile, their personal lives have unanticipated complications, and while Joyce is beaming with joy ever time she gets to mention that she now has a son-in-law, she’s also more than ready to interrogate suspects over tea and baked goods.

The writing in The Impossible Fortune is as clever as always, full of sharp little twists and plenty of humor.

Connie would love to get married. Perhaps she should do something about that? What she really needs is a Tinder for criminals. Everyone could use their most recent mugshot.

The crime is twisty and well-constructed, with a handful of suspects and more than a few red herrings. Meanwhile, there are bad guys to be dealt with, as only our group of septuagenarians can. And even amongst the good guys, there’s room for words of wisdom and the occasional dose of snark.

“We’re not going to be dissuaded,” says Ron. “Don’t try.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Elizabeth. “You go right ahead. Perhaps they’ll put you all in the same prison? That would make it easier to visit.”

“No one’s going to prison,” says Jason.

Elizabeth nods, reassured. “I wonder if anyone who ever said that before actually did end up in prison? Surely not.”

The 5th book in a series is obviously not the place to start… but take my word for it, it’s absolutely worth the time to start at the beginning and then keep going. I’ve enjoyed every moment with this terrific cast of characters, and I’m only sorry that I’ve run out of Thursday Murder Club books to read. According to the author’s notes, there’s more to come, although I haven’t seen anything definite yet about an expected date for another book. Whenever it does come along, I’ll be waiting!