Title: Before the Coffee Gets Cold Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi Publisher: Picador Publication date: September 19, 2019 Length: 213 pages Genre: Contemporary fiction Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
What would you change if you could go back in time?
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
I’ve been hearing about Before the Coffee Gets Cold for years now, and finally made the time to sit and enjoy this cozy, sweet tale.
The setup is simple: A tiny basement cafe in Tokyo has only three tables plus a counter, has three clocks on the wall that show different times (although no one knows why), and is the focus of an urban legend that just happens to be true:
If you sit in a particular chair and focus on a time you want to visit, you can travel to the past — but you can’t leave that chair, nothing you do actually changes the future, and you have to finish your coffee before it gets cold, at which point you return to the present.
For many people, the rules are deal-breakers. What’s the point of going back in time if you can’t actually change anything? But as we see through the four chapters of this slim book, each of which highlights a different person’s reason for time traveling, there’s much to be gained with an open heart and open mind.
At just over 200 pages, Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a fast read, and it felt easy and natural to read it pretty much straight through. The storyline is very calm — there’s little action here; rather, it’s a book about connections, emotions, and getting the chance to say the things we wish we’d said in the first place.
Without going into details about the characters and their particular stories, I’ll just say that the cafe staff and its regular visitors have simple yet strong connections, and as their stories unfold, the emotional impact builds as well.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a lovely, sweet reading experience — a warm hug of a book that I recommend enjoying on a day when you especially need something bright and uplifting.
Since Before the Coffee Gets Cold was published, four more books have been added to the series. Before the Coffee Gets Cold feels very complete on its own, so while I’d like to eventually read more of these books — assuming the rest will be as lovely as the first! — I feel like I can take my time and pick up the next book on a whim, on a day when I need it.
We all have those books — books on our shelves, that we know we should read, that we absolutely WANT to read… and yet, somehow, we just never seem to pick them up and actually, you know, read them.
Well, score one for me! I’ve had 84, Charing Cross Road sitting on my shelf for at least ten years now, and this week, the time finally arrived, and I read it all in one sitting!
“84, Charing Cross Road” is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural differences, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, “The phrase ‘antiquarian booksellers’ scares me somewhat, as I equate ‘antique’ with expensive.” Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic – but unsure she’ll ever conquer “bilingual arithmetic.” By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she’s sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.
Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. “I enclose two limp singles, I will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN I will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT.” Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they’re sharing news of Frank’s family and Hanff’s career.
84, Charing Cross Road is just as wonderful as everyone promised! First off, as soon as I opened the book, I realized that I’d misunderstood what it was about all this time. I thought this book was fiction. It’s not. It’s a selection of the letters sent between the author, a New York freelance writer, and members of the staff of Marks & Co. Booksellers, located in London, spanning the course of over 20 years.
The correspondence starts with a request for certain books, but builds from there to establish a more personal connection between the author and her main correspondent, Frank Doel, as well as Frank’s wife, their neighbor, and other members of the bookstore staff.
The letters begin in 1949, as England is still suffering under post-war shortages; Helene Hanff’s Christmas gifts of meat and eggs do wonders for the bookstore staff’s morale, and their grateful notes back to her are heartwarming and endearing.
84, Charing Cross Road is a lovely, simple book about finding friendship through a love of books. It’s sweet without being cloying, often very funny, and touching as well.
To all those who’ve encouraged me to read this book, now I know why! I loved it. What a treasure.
Published: 1970 Length: 97 pages Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
It’s fun to see how many covers and versions there are of this book! Sadly, it does not appear that an e-book version is available in the US. Still, the book covers are quite fun to compare and enjoy:
There’s also a movie version (1987), starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft — can’t wait to check it out!
From the nine-time women’s basketball icon and two-time Olympic gold medalist—a raw, revelatory account of her unfathomable detainment in Russia and her journey home.
On February 17, 2022, Brittney Griner arrived in Moscow ready to spend the WNBA offseason playing for the Russian women’s basketball team where she had been the centerpiece of previous championship seasons. Instead, a security checkpoint became her gateway to hell when she was arrested for mistakenly carrying under one gram of medically prescribed hash oil. Brittney’s world was violently upended in a crisis she has never spoken in detail about publicly—until now.
In Coming Home, Brittney finally shares the harrowing details of her sudden arrest days before Russia invaded Ukraine; her bewilderment and isolation while navigating a foreign legal system amid her trial and sentencing; her emotional and physical anguish as the first American woman ever to endure a Russian penal colony while the #WeAreBG movement rallied for her release; the chilling prisoner swap with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; and her remarkable rise from hostage to global spokesperson on behalf of America’s forgotten. In haunting and vivid detail, Brittney takes listeners inside the horrors of a geopolitical nightmare spanning ten months.
And yet Coming Home is more than Brittney’s journey from captivity to freedom. In an account as gripping as it is poignant, she shares how her deep love for Cherelle, her college sweetheart and wife of six years, anchored her during their greatest storm; how her family’s support pulled her back from the brink; and how hundreds of letters from friends and neighbors lent her resolve to keep fighting. Coming Home is both a story of survival and a testament to love—the bonds that brought Brittney home to her family, and at last, to herself.
On the surface, the narrative of Coming Home should be a very familiar story for most readers. Is anyone unaware of what Brittney Griner went through in 2022? For me, despite having followed the media coverage of her ordeal as it unfolded, reading this book was eye-opening. I learned so much about her resiliency and survival, from her initial arrest and throughout her conviction, imprisonment, and eventual release.
In this memoir of her experiences as an American prisoner in Russia, WNBA and Olympics star Brittney Griner (“BG”) presents an in-depth, personal account of what she endured during her hellish ten months in captivity. It’s raw, honest, and moving. She also provides insight into her earlier life, her family and relationships, and her striking experiences as a 6’9″ gay Black woman in a society where she can’t help but stand out.
When BG made headlines after being arrested at a Russian airport, it was shocking — all the more so because she so clearly just made a mistake. As she explains in Coming Home, Brittney was returning to Russia to play with the UMMC Ekaterinburg basketball team after recovering from a bout of COVID. In her rush to catch her flight, BG packed in haste and didn’t empty her bags before repacking them, resulting in two small vials of cannabis oil traveling with her to Russia without her realizing it. And while the cannabis oil was medically prescribed for BG in the US to ease her back pain, it’s an illegal substance in Russia in any quantity.
From her arrest to detention, trial, and finally, imprisonment in a remote labor camp, BG was isolated, living in fear, and confined in harsh, unsanitary, and uncomfortable conditions. Due to her large size, most cells and transportation methods couldn’t accommodate her, forcing her into cramped, painful positions. She spent her few months in detention in a bed that was far too short for her, adding to her intense sleep deprivation.
Fortunately, she ended up housed in detention with an English-speaking prisoner who became not just a translator, but also a friend. Still, it was a hellish experience, cut off from family, friends, her country, and her language, aware from the start that she was being used as a political pawn. Despite the small amount of cannabis in her possession, she faced a potential maximum sentence of nine years — an incredibly cruel, disproportionate punishment for an unintentional mistake. One of many heartbreaking moments in Coming Home is BG’s realization that with a nine-year sentence, she was unlikely ever to see her parents again.
BG shares every moment of her experience in detail, from the arrest through her months of confinement, to the process of being released and the challenges of reintegrating into her life back home and facing the ongoing effects of her trauma. Her narrative is painful to absorb, and it’s impossible to remain unemotional while reading (or listening to) the story of her experiences.
On the flip side, the love she expresses for her family and friends is beautiful, as is the outpouring of support she received, both from those close to her and from strangers around the world. She takes none of this for granted, and repeatedly emphasizes the ongoing struggle to free other Americans still held in captivity in foreign lands.
In addition to sharing the story of her ordeal, Coming Home also shines a light on race and LGBTQ+ issues and how they affected BG both at home and abroad. In addition, her experiences show the impact of the pay disparity between men’s and women’s professional sports in its starkest terms: Because of pay caps in the WNBA, many women basketball players play abroad during the off-season, where their earning potential is exponentially higher than on their home teams. Had BG earned even near a comparable salary to her NBA counterparts, she would not have ended up where she did.
The audiobook is very well done, with BG herself narrating the introduction, epilogue, and acknowledgements, while Andia Winslow movingly narrates the rest. The tone is intimate and urgent, and I felt that I was hearing BG’s voice even when she wasn’t the actual narrator.
If you do listen to the audiobook, be sure to listen all the way through the acknowledgements. Acknowledgement sections of book are usually rather dry and factual, a place for the author to name the various people who contributed to the book. Here, though, it’s an opportunity for BG to express her deep gratitude to her wife, parents, siblings, colleagues, and supporters — it’s hard to listen to this section and remain dry-eyed.
Coming Home is a dramatic, powerful book, full of sorrow yet with an ultimately uplifting message. I already admired Brittney Griner prior to reading this book, but that’s amplified at least tenfold now that I have a deeper understanding of all that she endured and who she is as a person. I highly recommend this book.
Title: Weyward Author: Emilia Hart Publisher: St. Martin’s Press Publication date: February 2, 2023 Length: 392 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
I am a Weyward, and wild inside.
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.
1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.
1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family’s grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.
Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart’s Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.
Weyward has been on my radar since its release in 2023 — and while I’m mad at myself for not getting to it sooner, I’m thrilled to have finally read this excellent novel.
Weyward follows three women across three timelines to tell the story of a family whose women have special gifts — all of whom must break free from the rules and control of men to fully embrace who they are and what they’re capable of.
In 1619, Altha is a healer relied upon by her community, yet also viewed with suspicion. After a gruesome death, she stands trial for witchcraft.
In 1942, Violet is a teen whose cold, cruel father dictates every aspect of her life, while also denying her a life outside the walls of their estate and a chance to pursue the scientific education she yearns for.
In 2019, Kate flees her abusive boyfriend and takes shelter in the cottage she’s inherited from her great-aunt Violet. At first, she just wants a place to hide, but eventually, she learns more about her family’s heritage and what being a Weyward descendent truly means.
This wildness inside gives us our name. It was men who marked us so, in the time when language was but a shoot curling from the earth. Weyward, they called us, when we would not submit, would not bend to their will. But we learned to wear the name with pride.
The three stories swirl around each other through cycles of chapters. Each woman’s story is, in itself, compelling and utterly fascinating. Each character is wonderfully developed, with rich emotions and complicated circumstances. As a whole, the three stories paint a portrait of a family of powerful women, connected by their abilities, their knowledge, their affinity for the natural world, and their need to protect themselves from those who would do them harm.
By the final third of the book, I hated to leave each woman’s story to move onto a chapter about the next, only to find myself completely absorbed in that chapter and character as well. The interconnectedness of the three women’s lives is lovely to see unfold, and I found myself breathlessly tearing through the final chapters to see how it all came together.
I realize I’m not saying much about plot specifics, but that’s intentional. Weyward is a beautifully crafted, evocative story, and I think it’s best to read it without preconceptions or advance knowledge of details. I recommend enjoying it — slowly, if you can (I couldn’t!) — and savoring the texture and depth of the story as it develops.
I loved reading Weyward, and loved Altha, Violet, and Kate as characters. Highly recommended.
Title: An Old Fashioned Girl Author: Louisa May Alcott Publication date: 1869 Length: 224 pages Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
An Old-Fashioned Girl is a novel by Louisa May Alcott first published in 1869, which follows the adventures of Polly Milton, a young country girl, who is visiting her wealthy city friends, the Shaws. The novel shows how Polly remains true to herself despite the pressure the Shaws’ world puts on her shoulders.
The first six chapters of the novel were serialized in the Merry’s Museum magazine between July and August 1869. Alcott added another thirteen chapters before publishing the novel. The book revolves around Polly Milton, the old-fashioned girl of the title, who visits the wealthy family of her friend Fanny Shaw in the city and is overwhelmed by their fashionable life they lead and disturbed to see how the family members fail to understand one another and demonstrate little affection. She is largely content to remain on the fringes of their social life but exerts a powerful influence over their emotional lives and family relations.
Let’s hear it for another great Classics Club Spin result!
I absolutely went through a Louisa May Alcott phase as a young reader. Beyond Little Women, I read Little Men, Jo’s Boys, Jack and Jill, and (I think) Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom… but don’t ask me to tell you a thing about most of them. What I know for sure is that I never read An Old-Fashioned Girl — not for any particular reason. Maybe my local library just didn’t have a copy?
In any case, I’m delighted to have read this book, finally… and while it’s not a masterpiece on the level of Little Women, it’s an engaging read that’s more than it initially seems.
An Old-Fashioned Girl seems at times to verge on being too sugary sweet — but then the author adds just enough snark in her commentary to keep it fun and sassy.
For example, this description of a fashionable young lady:
There was a locket on her neck, ear-rings tinkling in her ears, watch and chain at her belt, and several rings on a pair of hands that would have been improved by soap and water.
Plotwise, the tale starts simply enough. 14-year-old Polly is from a hardworking country family, raised to cherish simplicity, goodness, kindness, and doing well by others. It’s a major culture shock for Polly when she goes for an extended visit with Fanny Shaw, a 16-year-old from a wealthy London family. While Fanny offers Polly hospitality, she also is in many ways incomprehensible to Polly. Fanny is immersed in fashion, primping, flirtation, and gossip — none of which hold any interest for Polly, yet Polly is pressured by Fanny to fit in and at least try to make a good impression.
Fanny went to a fashionable school, where the young ladies were so busy with their French, German, and Italian, that there was no time for good English.
Ultimately, old-fashioned Polly is the one who has an impact on the Shaws, finding the goodness in each family member and infusing a sense of fun into the simpler joys of daily life. One especially lovely scene involves the grandmother of the family, who lives in the upper rooms of the Shaw home, surrounded by precious mementos but largely ignored by her boisterous grandchildren. Polly takes a genuine interest in grandma, and manages to find a way to pique the Shaw kids’ interest in a way that creates a warm, lovely connection.
As the author notes in her introduction, An Old-Fashioned Girl was originally a serializedstory that ended with Polly returning back home after her visit, and comprised only six chapters. Apparently, Louisa May Alcott’s readers just weren’t having it, and demanded more! The finished book is 19 chapters in all, and picks up the story six years later, when Polly, now a young woman, returns to the city to support herself and help fund her beloved brother’s higher education.
From here, we see a mature Polly with the determination to work for a living, teaching children’s music classes and living in a rented room. She’s kept her core values, and continues to influence the Shaw family in all sorts of ways. Meanwhile, through Polly’s volunteer work, we get a glimpse of women’s lives at the time, from those struggling to get by to those pursuing art, literature, and learning in lieu of seeking the more traditional pathways for women.
An Old-Fashioned Girl is a fairly simple, straightforward read, and as I mention, it occasionally teeters right on the edge of being too utterly nice. Polly is a bit Beth March-ish, minus the extreme shyness and timidity. Dashes of Jo March, perhaps — Polly speaks her mind, and ventures outside the expected norms for girls and young women of the time. Yet she’s unerringly, unalterably good; she’s kind, she sees the best in people, she’s fair, and she cares for those less fortunate and really, anyone who needs anything at all. She makes peace within the Shaw household and helps each family member in just the way they need. She often does come across as too good to be true — except she’s also wise, self-deprecating, and just sharp enough that I couldn’t help but like her and find her fun to be around.
All in all, I’m very happy to have read An Old-Fashioned Girl, and look forward to catching up a bit more with Louisa May Alcott’s book, including the ones I read so long ago.
Who knew? According to IMDb, there was a film version of An Old-Fashioned Girl released in 1949. The images on the movie poster (below) don’t match how I see the characters in my head, but I’d still be curious to check out the movie, if I can find it.
Title: The Answer is No Author: Fredrik Backman Publisher: Amazon Original Stories Publication date: December 1, 2024 Length: 68 pages Genre: Contemporary fiction Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?
Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.
A new story from Fredrik Backman is practically guaranteed to be a joy to read… so does The Answer is No succeed? The answer is yes!
This funny, quirky tale is about a man who wants the world to leave him alone, but the world doesn’t seem to get the message. He’s perfectly happy, until the frying pan incident spirals out of control, bringing visitor after visitor to his door.
It’s a cute, clever story with a simple plot. What makes it a gem is Backman’s writing, of course. Here are a few choice snippets:
Lucas is happy. This is a very provoking thing to the world. Because people aren’t supposed to be happy, they’re only supposed to want to be happy, because how otherwise are you supposed to be able to sell things to them?
Just to be clear: It’s not that Lucas hates other people. He just really enjoys being where other people aren’t. He works well in groups as long as it’s groups of fewer than two people.
“During the night someone left an old frying pan on the ground outside the recycling room!” the first head explains, as if this were the beginning of a detective novel where a dead body’s been found in a lake, and a divorced police officer from the big city who has just returned to her childhood home is drawn into an investigation that forces her to confront her past, but which may or may not also give her the chance to fall in love with a man in a flannel shirt who has a golden retriever and a charming down-to-earth view of life.
Lucas opens the door with the defeated manner of a sausage that dressed itself up as a carrot to avoid being eaten by a bear, only to be found by a rabbit.
The Answer is No is available now as a First Reads pick for Amazon Prime subscribers, and will be released officially as of December 1st. It’s a sweet, cheery treat — and obviously, a must-read for Fredrik Backman fans!
Title: The Beach Trap Author: Ali Brady Publisher: Berkley Publication date: June 14, 2022 Length: 384 pages Genre: Contemporary fiction / romance Source: Library Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Two best friends torn apart by a life-altering secret. They have one summer to set the record straight.
When twelve-year-olds Kat Steiner and Blake O’Neill meet at Camp Chickawah, they have an instant connection. But everything falls apart when they learn they’re not just best friends—they’re also half-sisters. Confused and betrayed, their friendship instantly crumbles.
Fifteen years later when their father dies suddenly, Kat and Blake discover he’s left them a joint inheritance: the family beach house in Destin, Florida. The two sisters are instantly at odds. Blake, who has recently been demoted from regular nanny to dog nanny, wants to sell the house, while social media influencer Kat is desperate to keep the place where she had so many happy childhood memories.
Kat and Blake reluctantly join forces to renovate the dilapidated house with the understanding that Kat will try to buy Blake out at the end of the summer. The women clash as Blake’s renovation plans conflict with Kat’s creative vision, and each sister finds herself drawn into a summer romance. As the weeks pass, the two women realize the most difficult project they face this summer will be coming to grips with their shared past, and learning how to become sisters.
I’m a sucker for books with a connection to summer camps… and from the opening chapter, when twelve-year-old besties spend a glorious summer at camp together, only to have their friendship end disastrously, I knew The Beach Trap would be a book for me.
When Blake and Kat meet at Camp Chickawah**, they become best friends right away — but when Kat’s father comes to pick her up early due to a death in the family, the girls make a shattering discovery: Kat’s dad is Blake’s dad too. Blake’s mom had been “the other woman”, and while Blake has happy childhood memories of time with her dad, that all ended when her mother died in a tragic accident, and her father never came for her. Rather than bringing the girls closer, the discovery of their half-sister status permanently drives them apart, and Kat refuses to respond to any of the letters Blake sends her in the months following camp.
**If the name Camp Chickawah seems familiar, then perhaps you’ve read the authors’ most recent book, Until Next Summer, in which the camp and its staff members take center stage. (It’s a lot of fun!)
Fifteen years later, their father has died, and his will reveals a startling bequest: He’s left the family’s Florida beach house to both his daughters, to share 50/50.
Blake is a stressed-out nanny for a wealthy family, working long hours to pay for her grandfather’s assisted living facility. Kat is a social media influencer (ugh), making enough to support herself, but not quite at a point where she can count on financial security. Blake assumes they’ll sell the beach house, or Kat can buy her out — but either way, the proceeds will help ensure that she can continue to care for her grandfather. Kat sees the beach house as a reminder of rare happy childhood memories, and wants to keep it — and also, it might make a great home reno project to enhance her feeds and help her nab a coveted corporate sponsorship.
When Blake and Kat meet at the beach house, they’re dismayed to find the place in shambles. The only way to turn it around and make it at all viable for sale is to repair, renovate, and redecorate. Kat has the funds; Blake has the time (since the family she nannies for is spending the summer in France) and the skills, thanks to the years she spent learning at her grandfather’s side. While there’s palpable tension and animosity between the two women, they know neither can move forward without the other’s cooperation, and they work out a deal. They’ll alternate weeks at the house, Blake will handle most of the actual work, and Kat will have final say on all decor decisions.
After achieving a tense détente of sorts, they move forward. As the summer progresses, and they start having to communicate and spend together, tentative connections are rebuilt. They once loved each other — who will they be to one another now?
I really enjoyed seeing Kat and Blake work their way back toward friendship, and more. Both grew up lonely; both grew up hungry for the love and attention of a distant father, who cause each one intense emotional pain in the aftermath of the big revelation years earlier. While having very different backgrounds and upbringings, Kat and Blake connect on a deeper level. It’s lovely seeing them work through the hurt and misunderstandings, and start to realize how much time they both spent blaming one another for things outside of their control.
Each woman also finds romance over the course of the summer, but one thing I really appreciate in this book (and in the other Ali Brady book I’ve read, Until Next Summer) is that romance is secondary to friendship. The romantic relationships and storylines are great, but it’s the friendship and sisterhood between Kat and Blake that drive this book and give it its emotional impact and joy.
Where The Beach Trap falls a little short for me has mainly to do with Kat’s character. Bluntly put, she’s hard to like. First off, having a social media influencer as a main character is an instant turn-off for me. (Side note — I feel like contemporary romances have a higher proportion of influencers as characters than is representative of the demographic in real life…) Kat’s whole shtick for most of the book is summed up by her tagline, “life is a fashion show”. She eventually learns to appreciate the messiness of life and what it means to connect, and revises her philosophy — but it’s a fairly quick turnaround, not entirely believable. I’m glad she ended up in a better place, but her attitude for much of the book is very hard to take.
Overall, however, I liked The Beach Trap a lot. The story moves quickly, the setting is terrific, and I loved the dynamic of these sisters finding a way to salvage the defining pain of their separate lives and find a way forward together.
I’ve now read two books by this author duo, and look forward to more! There’s one more book I haven’t read that’s currently available (The Comeback Summer), and an upcoming new book to be released in 2025 (Battle of the Bookstores). I plan to read them both!
About the authors: Ali Brady is the pen name of writing BFFs Alison Hammer and Bradeigh Godfrey. The Beach Trap is their first book together. Alison lives in Chicago and works as a VP creative director at an advertising agency. She’s the author of You and Me and Us and Little Pieces of Me. Bradeigh lives with her family in Utah, where she works as a physician. She’s the author of the psychological thriller, Imposter.
Title: Lady Tan’s Circle of Women Author: Lisa See Publisher: Scribner Publication date: June 6, 2023 Print length: 352 pages Genre: Historical fiction Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
An immersive historical novel inspired by the true story of a woman physician in 15th-century China.
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.
From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.
Lisa See’s books are consistent hits for me, and Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is no exception. I was hesitant about getting started, not sure if I was ready to go quite that far back in time. It should not have surprised me that this book was a compelling, excellent reading experience that pulled me in right from the start.
As the book opens, main character Yunxian is an eight-year-old girl, already learning from her mother about how to be a proper wife and fulfill her role as a woman in 15th-century noble Chinese society. When her mother, always referred to as Respectful Lady, dies of infection stemming from her bound feet, Yunxian is sent away to live with her grandparents, who begin training her as a doctor.
As Yunxian matures and then marries, her skills as doctor grow, but she’s limited in her ability to practice by the strict rules surrounding the family’s household, as dictated by society’s norms for the upper class and enforced by the iron rule of Yunxian’s mother-in-law. Her friendship with the midwife Meiling is frowned upon, as midwives are considered practically taboo — they’re necessary, yet because of their dealing with blood, are considered improper for a lady to associate with.
Without delving too deeply into plot, I’ll just say that Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is both an eye-opening exploration of the roles of women in that time and place, and a personal story of one particularly brave and talented woman, the effect she had on those around her, and the struggles with friendship, marriage, and motherhood she endured and overcame. While some of the details of individual encounters and scenes are purely fiction, Yunxian was a real person whose published works on medicine are considered groundbreaking — especially considering that they were written by a woman and focused on treating women, a field male doctors of that time had little interest or experience with.
The book sheds lights on customs that, to modern and Western eyes, seem not only archaic but cruel. In particular, the subject of foot-binding is covered extensively (as in the author’s earlier novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan). Some scenes can be hard to read, and it’s especially heartbreaking to read about a woman binding her own daughters’ feet, and to accept that in that society, it was an expected ritual of girlhood, crucial to being marriageable and viewed as a decent, honorable young woman.
Other elements are fascinating from a more historical/sociological perspective — learning about family structure, the running of a household, and of course, the practice of medicine at that time, especially since many of the basic tenets of Yunxian’s medical practice are still considered important elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
The friendship between Yunxian and Meiling is especially moving. It’s not without conflict, as the two women’s very different stations in life lead to barriers that cause resentments and sorrows. Ultimately, though, it’s this relationship that provides one of the core emotional threads of the story.
Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together.
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a beautifully written look into the life of a fascinating woman, while also presenting an immersive reading experience about a time and place that’s so very different from our modern lives. I enjoyed every moment, and simply couldn’t put the book down once I started. Highly recommended — this book should not be missed!
Title: The Teller of Small Fortunes Author: Julie Leong Publisher: Ace Publication date: November 5, 2024 Length: 336 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in this warm and wonderful debut fantasy, perfect for readers of Travis Baldree and Sangu Mandanna.
Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells “small” fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences…
Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a knead for adventure, and—of course—a slightly magical cat.
Tao sets down a new path with companions as big-hearted as her fortunes are small. But as she lowers her walls, the shadows of her past are closing in—and she’ll have to decide whether to risk everything to preserve the family she never thought she could have.
Cozy fantasy is having a moment — and I’m here for it! What’s not to love about tales of friendship and magic, usually with baked goods, cats, and other comfort symbols in the mix?
The Teller of Small Fortunes fits wonderfully into this cozy trend, with its emphasis on being true to those you love, being kind, and looking for good outcomes for as many people as possible.
As the book opens, Tao is a traveling fortune-teller — but as she makes clear, she only tells small fortunes. She provides simple, plain truths to the people who seek her advice; nothing life or death, just small visions of a person’s next steps, something to help them along their way.
We also learn that Tao is on the run. A Shinn (an ethnicity standing in for Chinese-born) in the land of Eshtera (essentially, a Caucasian-dominant kingdom), Tao stands out wherever she goes, and is often eyed with suspicion. When Tao was a child, her mother married an Eshteran nobleman and left Shinara behind. Tao has grown up with wealth and comfort, but never love or acceptance, and as her magical powers became apparent, was about to be forced into servitude in the Guild of mages. She fled before that could happen, and spends her time alone, on the road, always moving from village to village, fearful of the Guild catching up to her.
Tao’s life changes when she meets two travelers she initially takes for highwaymen. Instead, she learns that Mash and Silt are, respectively, a mercenary and a (mostly) reformed thief, searching for Mash’s young daughter who’s been missing for six months. When Tao reads Mash’s fortune, she sees a vision of father and daughter together, which gives Mash a much-needed infusion of hope. The trio decide to journey on together for a little while, and soon, a baker named Kina joins the traveling band.
… [H]er voice rose through the great room like the scent of fresh-baked pie, explaining the various intricacies of Lindisian baking, as the four of them finished a hearty and thoroughly warming supper, awash in the glow of a good day and the hopes of what tomorrow might bring.
Much of the story is about the group’s adventures on the road, as they search for Mash’s daughter, encounter kind and not-so-kind people during their travels, and ultimately, return to the kingdom’s capital where Tao must confront her fate.
The Teller of Small Fortunes is a quick, light read. There are some moments of danger, but the overall vibe is so warm and gentle that we never truly have to fear a bad outcome. The characters are given room to shine and to grow as individuals. Their companionship allows them to understand themselves, reflect, and to find ways to do and be better.
Plenty of small details stand out and add fun and warmth. Kina’s baking is absolutely delicious… but for whatever reason, anything she bakes looks terrible. The ongoing descriptions of her misshapen scones are really funny, but also, hearing about the smells of cinnamon and sugar made me ready to eat anything that comes out of her oven (regardless of how it looks).
Tao’s approach to fortune-telling is also lovely — her approach is gentle and honest, without hocus-pocus or showmanship. She has a gift, uses it to support herself, and helps people whenever she can.
The emphasis on found family and true friendship lends the book a deeper message beyond the fantasy story — while the fantasy elements are nicely established as well. Even the elements that are set up at the start as terrible or fear-inducing or threatening end up being not quite so bad, all in all.
“A troll,” repeated Mash grimly, hefting his mace out of its belt loop. “Did it attack you? Threaten violence; seize your goods?”
“Eh? No, of course not. It’s worse than that,” said the farmer. “It went and philosophized at us!”
The Teller of Small Fortunes has relatively low stakes, but a very big heart. It’s cozy and gentle, through and through, and makes for a sweet read. I was drawn to this book because of its beautiful, colorful cover, but stayed for the warmth of the story itself. If you’re looking for a bookish antidote to stress and gloom, The Teller of Small Fortunes is a great choice.
Title: Every Summer After Author: Carley Fortune Narrators: AJ Bridel Publisher: Berkley Publication date: May 10, 2022 Print length: 320 pages Audio length: 9 hours 38 minutes Genre: Contemporary romance Source: Library Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.
For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.
When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.
Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.
Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.
Book friends! I have a new romance author on my must-read list! Thanks to my recent audiobook experience with Every Summer After, I can safely say that I need to read ALL of Carley Fortune’s books.
In Every Summer After — the author’s debut — 30-year-old Persephone (Percy) Fraser is called back to the small town where she once spent ever summer, to attend the funeral of the mother of the boy she thought would always be by her side and in her life.
As a 13-year-old, Percy began spending summers in her family cabin at Barry’s Bay, next door to the Florek family, whose 13-year-old son Sam quickly became her best friend. As the years passed, Percy and Sam moved from friendship into romance, realizing that they’d had the good fortune to fall in with their soulmates at such an early age. While on different paths as their college years approached — Sam moving away for an intense premed program, Percy remaining in Toronto to study writing — they always expected to spend their lives together. Until something went very, very wrong.
Now adults, it’s been 12 years since Percy and Sam last saw one another or even spoke. Something terrible happened all those years ago — but what? As Percy arrives back in Barry’s Bay for the funeral, she’s both fearful and excited at the thought of seeing Sam again. But will he even want to see her? Can old wounds ever heal?
The book takes us back to Percy and Sam’s teen years, as chapters alternate between then and now. The “then” chapters are charming. The author’s depiction of 13-year-old friendship is sparkling and authentic, and as the two teens grow closer and begin to acknowledge deeper feelings, their dialogue, actions, and flirtation feel sweet and real. These chapters gave me The Summer I Turned Pretty vibes — not identical plotwise by any means, but just a really sweet portrait of young love, insecurities, playfulness, and teen conflict and pressure.
Meanwhile, the “now” chapters show how little Percy has gotten over Sam, despite all the years that have passed. She’s built a life and a career that seem fulfilling on the surface, but has never let anyone even close to her heart. Seeing Sam again brings all the old emotions flooding back, and he seems just as drawn to Percy as she is to him. But there are old hurts and secrets still to be unpacked, and Percy is afraid that it’s all much too late.
What can I say? I loved Every Summer After. The descriptions of the summers on the lake are so evocative of the beauty of being young and free and full of joy at everything life has to offer. There are ice cream cones and swimming, pizza parties and movies on DVD… the teen chapters are so full of nostalgia and warmth, and give off such happy vibes, even though we know that, eventually, something is going to ruin it all.
The adult chapters are harder emotionally, because Percy is clearly not okay, and whatever happened — which is only revealed in the book’s final chapters — must have been a doozy. We spend so much time seeing how much Sam and Percy love each other, so there’s a sense of dread as we get closer to the end, realizing that the bad thing, whatever it is, is coming soon.
Unlike many romance novels, the catastrophe between Sam and Percy feels believable. They’re teens, and yes, some of it has to do with poor communications, but those errors and mistaken assumptions and hurt feelings feel realistic for characters at that age. It made me very sad to realize where their relationship was heading, and we know from the start of the book that twelve years go by with no contact… but none of this feels like a contrivance for the sake of romance tropes.
Every Summer After packs an emotional punch, but includes so much joy and hope that the heartbreaking elements don’t weigh it all down. And of course, there’s the requisite HEA, but even knowing it will work out, it’s still a roller coaster until we get there.
The audiobook narration is terrific. I really appreciated how the narrator modulates her voice to reflect Percy’s age. Young Percy really does sound like a young teen, and her delivery, voice, and speech patterns are spot-on. As Percy grows up, summer after summer, her voice changes subtly as well. It’s all just so well done.
I truly enjoyed every moment of listening to Every Summer After, and immediately put myself on the hold list for the author’s other two available novels. Based on Every Summer After, I expect them to be great!
Bookshelf Fantasies 