Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Bookish Superpowers I Wish I Had. This is a fun one!
Here are ten powers I’d love:
Ability to remember every detail from books already read… especially earlier books in series.
The power to read even when too tired to keep my eyes open.
The ability to listen (and absorb) audiobooks throughout my day without getting distracted.
A superpower that makes signed first editions of my favorite books magically appear on my doorstep the second they’re available.
Teleportation powers that allow me to attend favorite author’s book signings anywhere across the country, with no airplane flights or loss of sleep involved.
The ability to transport myself into the world of a book for a day (but without having to face any real dangers such as disease, getting lost, etc)
The power to snap my fingers and have Hollywood decide to adapt all my favorite books (and do them all perfectly)
A special food-related power that makes any delicious sounding food or drink that I read about in a novel pop into existence in my hands.
One that sounds magical even if it isn’t: The ability to read as much as I want, wherever and whenever I want, without having to worry about work, money, errands, or anything else real-world-ish.
Another teleportation/time travel-y one to round out the list: The ability to travel back in time and meet certain favorite authors from the past!
What bookish superpowers would you wish for?
If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!
PS – I played with an AI image generator using search terms like superhero, woman with superpowers, superhero woman reading… the images in this post are two of the results!
My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.
Life.
Happy Presidents Day!
It’s so nice to get a day off… even when it’s rainy (for the 3rd day in a row) and I have nothing much planned. Sounds like a great excuse for curling up with a cozy throw blanket and a good book!
And while it was raining yesterday, I ended up goofing around with AI image generation, which gave me lots of weird results based on my prompts… but here’s one I ended up liking:
What did I read during the last week?
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden: Beautifully written and absolutely haunting. My review is here.
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez: A captivating contemporary romance that blends humor with more serious issues. My review is here.
Death of an Eye by Dana Stabenow: I love the Kate Shugak series by this author, and was so happy to finally read the first in her Egyptian mystery series. My book group will be discussing this book in the coming week — can’t wait to hear what everyone else thought of it. My review is here.
Also, two shorter reads this past week:
Worst Wingman Ever by Abby Jimenez: Part of the free Improbable Meet-Cute collection available via Amazon this month. A sweet, funny short story that helped me past my book hangover after I finished Yours Truly.
Jane by Aline Brosh McKenna: A contemporary graphic novel that retells the Jane Eyre story. The author was one of the writers/creators of a favorite show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — although based on that, I think I expected at least a smidge of humor. (There isn’t any, really). Still it’s an interesting take on the classic story. I picked it up on a whim while at the library, and finished it in one sitting.
Pop culture & TV:
I finished season 2 of The Bear! One episode in particular has Emmy-winner written all over it, but really, the entire series is just so good. Can’t wait for season 3!
I also started watching One Day on Netflix. I was hesitant — I read the book back when it came out, then saw the 2011 movie version. Do we really need another adaptation? I’m happy to report that based on the handful of episodes I’ve seen so far, the answer is yes — yes, we do need this limited series version. Well worth checking out!
Fresh Catch:
I treated the family to this beautiful new cookbook:
And before you ask — no, I don’t cook (at all!), but my husband does, and in any case, there are some gorgeous pictures in this cookbook, so I’m enjoying looking through it.
Puzzle of the week:
My son and his girlfriend were working on this Lego set last week:
… and that reminded me that I had a puzzle I hadn’t gotten around to tackling yet. And since it rained all day on Saturday, I had time to obsess over it and ended up doing a marathon puzzling session, finishing it in one day. So satisfying!
A close-up view
My lighting for photos leaves a lot to be desired, but trust me — it’s so pretty in person!
What will I be reading during the coming week?
Currently in my hands:
On the Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: I’m reading this for a book group discussion at work, and really like it so far.
Now playing via audiobook:
TheOnly Game in Town by Lacie Waldon: Good, light, silly fun.
Ongoing reads:
My current longer-term reads:
Outlander Book Club is doing a group re-read of Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2), reading and discussing two chapters per week. Coming up this week: Chapters 42 and 43 (of 49). Progress: 81%.
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot: My book group’s current classic read. We’re reading and discussing two chapters per week. Progress: 56%. We’ve finally made it past the halfway point!
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord: My new Classics Club Spin book! I haven’t started it yet — I’m listing it here as a placeholder for now. The target date for this spin is March 3rd, so there’s still plenty of time.
Title: Death of an Eye Series: Eye of Isis, #1 Author: Dana Stabenow Publisher: Head of Zeus Publication date: December 6, 2018 Length: 254 pages Genre: Historical fiction Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
ALEXANDRIA, 47 BC. For three centuries, the House of Ptolemy has governed the Kingdom of Egypt. Cleopatra – seventh of her name – rules from Alexandria, that beacon of commerce and learning that stands between the burning sands of the desert and the dark waters of the Middle Sea. But her realm is beset by ethnic rivalries, aristocratic feuds and courtly intrigues . Not only that, she must contend with the insatiable appetite of Julius Caesar who needs Egyptian grain and Egyptian gold to further his ambitions. The world is watching the young Queen, waiting for a misstep …
And now her most trusted servant – her Eye – has been murdered and a vast shipment of newly minted coin stolen. Cleopatra cannot afford for the coins to go unrecovered or the murderers unpunished, so she asks childhood friend, Tetisheri Nebenteru, to retrace the dead Eye’s footsteps. Tetisheri will find herself plunged into the shadowy heart of Alexandria . As she sifts her way through a tangle of lies and deceit, she will discover that nothing can be taken at face value, that she can’t trust anyone – not even the Queen herself .
As a devoted fan of Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak series, I was curious to see what her non-Kate/non-Alaska books were like. Fortunately, my book group selected Death of an Eye as our February read, which was the perfect opportunity for me to finally read a book I’ve had my eye on for quite a while.
In this historical novel, the main character is a young woman named Tetisheri, the niece and business partner of a successful merchant in Alexandria at the time of Cleopatra’s reign. Tetisheri was close to Cleopatra as a child, and when the queen finds herself in need of a trusted ally, she calls on Tetisheri.
Cleopatra’s “eye” — a person unknown to any but the queen herself, authorized by her to carry out investigations on her behalf — has been murdered while investigating a crime that could spell disaster for Cleopatra. The queen asks Tetisheri to take on the role of Eye and track down both the murderer and the solution to the earlier crime. As she does so, Tetisheri is herself subject to danger, and must also contend with the slippery politics of Alexandrian and Roman nobility.
Once I began wrapping my head around the people, places, and culture, I was quickly immersed in both the historical setting and the crime story. I really know next to nothing about this time period or the society of Alexandria, apart from film and TV depictions and classic dramas (yes, I’ve read both Caesar and Cleopatra and Antony and Cleopatra, but both were a very long time ago).
The Cleopatra we meet in Death of an Eye is not the Elizabeth Taylor version. Here, she’s a young, strong-willed, and incredibly intelligent ruler, struggling to maintain her throne despite the machinations of her co-ruler and brother Ptolemy XIV and his minions, while also pregnant with Julius Caesar’s child and making every effort to stay in his favor. Cleopatra is interested in science and logic, and cares for her people, but has very few whom she can actually trust.
Tetisheri is not a historical figure; rather, she’s a citizen of Alexandria who, as a monetarily secure merchant, has access to many levels of society, but doesn’t personally wield much power. Having survived a cruel marriage, she makes it her mission to rescue enslaved women and give them the means to start new lives. Tetisheri is smart and dedicated, and while she’s not entirely happy about her assignment from Cleopatra, she’s loyal to the queen and determined to see the investigation through.
I really enjoyed Death of an Eye. As I mentioned, it’s not a setting or period that I’m very familiar with, so there was a pretty steep learning curve at the beginning, and all the way through I found myself confusing people and place names. (Helpfully, there’s both a map and a cast of characters list at the front of the book — and I used both quite a lot). The plot is intricate but not hard to follow, and I found myself more and more interested in the mystery as the various pieces came together toward the end of the book.
While the central mystery of Death of an Eye is solved by the end, Tetisheri’s involvement with Cleopatra is by no means concluded, and her personal life — including a love interest — is left very much open-ended. Fortunately, there are two more books in the Eye of Isis series currently available, with a 4th book planned for 2025.
A novel of terrible first impressions, hilarious second chances, and the joy in finding your perfect match.
Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin’-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass” scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.
And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,” and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she can’t refuse.
I loved Abby Jimenez’s previous novel, Part of Your World, and just had to stay in that book’s world a little longer by immediately starting Yours Truly. Great decision on my part! I thoroughly enjoyed this sensitive, romantic audiobook.
But before I explain why, I do need to point out that that is a seriously terrible synopsis above. The synopsis makes Yours Truly sound like a comedic war-of-wills workplace romance… and that’s not how I’d describe this book at all.
So let me put my own spin on this book.
Briana is a highly-skilled ER doctor who’s loved by her coworkers and seems on track for a chief position, just as soon as her current boss finally takes his long-awaited retirement. She’s thrown for a loop when she’s informed that he’s holding off on retirement just a bit longer, and that she may have competition for the chief role — the new ER doctor who just transferred to her hospital.
The new doc doesn’t seem to be lining up fans. On his very first day, the nurses have secretly dubbed him Doctor Death. He’s rubbing everyone the wrong way, and manages to thorougly irritate Briana as well.
What Briana doesn’t know is that Jacob is an introvert with social anxiety, who’s just trying to get through his day without further triggering his anxiety responses. Jacob is dealing with stress in his personal life — his brother announcing his engagement to Jacob’s ex-girlfriend — and learning a whole bunch of social cues in a brand new work setting is not easy for Jacob.
Eventually, Briana clues in to the fact that Jacob is not actually some arrogant, sexist jerk, but is really a deeply sensitive man who’s also a terrific doctor. After Bri extends an olive branch by advising Jacob to win over the ER staff via cupcakes, Jacob writes her a thank-you letter. Yes, writes — as in, by hand — a letter — as in, on paper. Briana can’t help being charmed.
Bri and Jacob start exchanging letters, opening up in writing in a way they haven’t been able to in person. Eventually, letters turn into long conversations, and suddenly, they’re spending more time talking with one another than with anyone else.
When Jacob turns out to be a perfect match as a kidney donor for Briana’s ailing brother, she wants to do a huge favor for him in return. Jacob’s family refuses to embrace his brother’s engagement, fearing that Jacob will be too terribly hurt by the whole thing. He’s not… but to convince his family to get on board and be happy for the couple, Jacob decides he needs a fake girlfriend, and Bri is happy to sign up for the role.
As Jacob and Brianna play-act a relationship, they spent lots and lots of time together, even to the point of fake living together. You get where this is going right? Before long, they’ve both caught feelings — but each is 100% sure that the other is pretending. There’s a lot of tormented self-doubt and longing in store for both of them. Ah, if only people in romance novels knew how to communicate!
Yours Truly has lots of funny scenarios and flirty banter, but it’s also rooted in more serious emotions and complications. Bri is still deeply wounded by her divorce, thanks to her jerky ex-husband who cheated on her for years with a woman she thought was a good friend. Between that and the father who abandoned the family when she was a child, Bri doesn’t believe that love can be counted on, and has serious issues around trust and security. Jacob, meanwhile, has learned to manage his anxiety, but he can be triggered by uncertainty and lacks the confidence to feel that he’s worthy of love. While Briana and Jacob fall madly in love with one another, it takes them a very long time to realize that their feelings are returned, in large part because neither is able to believe that they deserve to be loved by someone so wonderful.
The author does a terrific job of developing these two characters and making them likable even while showing their wounds and their flaws. We readers may feel frustrated enough to want to give them each a good shake, but we also understand why they’re having such a hard time believing in the truth of their relationship.
I did feel that the communication issues dragged on longer than necessary, and wished that these two incredibly intelligent people talked honestly a lot sooner. They each make some pretty significant assumptions based on overheard conversations and mistaken beliefs about the other’s feelings, and while we get where they’re coming from, they really could have worked all this out through a simple conversation.
Another quibble is that they’re a pair of doctors, and yet they have unprotected sex! In this day and age, when most romance novels do such a fantastic job of incorporating condoms into sexytimes, its absence in a key scene between Jacob and Briana is a glaring omission. Yes, it’s dealt with later in the plot, but still, given who they are as people, it was not believable to me that they’d have sex in that moment without protection.
That aside, I really did love the characters, the plot, and the overall story. When Bri and Jacob make bad choices, we understand why. The writing balances the zippy, light-hearted moments with the deeper emotional stakes and traumas, and I loved how sensitively they’re able to connect with one another when they open up and truly communicate.
“We’re all a little broken, Briana. We are a mosaic. We’re made up of all those we’ve met and all the things we’ve been through. There are parts of us that are colorful and dark and jagged and beautiful. And I love every piece of you. Even the ones you wish didn’t exist.”
Yours Truly is set in the same fictional world as Part of Your World, and it’s nice to get to visit with that book’s main characters, Alexis and Daniel, and see how they’re doing. Zachary Webber, who voices Daniel in Part of Your World, is back in Yours Truly as the narrator for Jacob’s chapters, and he’s got the role of smart, sensitive, sexy boyfriend down to a science. Kyla Garcia is very good as the narrator for Brianna (and gets her lisp just right in a scene where Bri wears her retainer!). The voices work really well together, and the audiobook as a whole is a treat.
Part of Your World was my first book by Abby Jimenez, and after listening to Yours Truly, I’m all in! I need to read EVERYTHING by this author. If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, do yourself a favor and pick up one of her books!
On a related note…
Amazon’s free story collection for February is romance-themed — it’s the Improbable Meet-Cute collection, and includes a very sweet story by Abby Jimenez, so naturally, I read it immediately after finishing Yours Truly. Worst Wingman Ever is a fast, enjoyable read. Check it out!
The rest of the collection looks great too — have you read any of these stories yet?
Title: The Warm Hands of Ghosts Author: Katherine Arden Publisher: Del Rey Publication date: February 13, 2024 Length: 336 pages Genre: Historical fiction Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale
January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, she receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Soon after arriving, she hears whispers about haunted trenches, and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?
November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two men form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
As shells rain down on Flanders, and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.
After reading and loving Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy, I expected great things from her new novel, The Warm Hands of Ghosts. Those expectations were met, and then some.
In The Warm Hands of Ghosts, we’re plunged into the nightmare of war through the experiences of Laura Iven, a Canadian battlefield nurse, and her brother Freddie, a soldier on the frontlines in Belgium. As the novel weaves their stories together, we’re given an up-close look at the horrors of World War I.
As the book opens, Laura is back home in Halifax in early 1918, having been discharged from the army after suffering serious injury when her hospital in Belgium was bombed. But life in Halifax is not peaceful either; shortly before the book opens, the ship explosion of 1917 (a devastating historical event — read more here) kills thousands in the city, including Laura and Freddie’s parents.
When Laura receives a package containing her brother’s bloody uniform and his ID tags, she’s thrust into even more severe grief, but feels that something’s not right. No one she writes to can tell her about his final days or provide information about what might have happened to him. When she meets a woman heading back to Belgium to organize a hospital, Laura volunteers to go along, desperate to learn more about Freddie’s fate.
Meanwhile, through alternating chapters, we learn that Freddie did survive… barely. After being trapped in a collapsed pillbox on the battlefield, he and a German soldier, Hans Winter, save one another and navigate through the hellscape of the battlefield back to the relative safety of the Allied hospital. But saving Winter makes Freddie a traitor, and he finds shelter with a strange, eerie man whose violin-playing and eerie, ornate hotel promise oblivion and escape from the war.
Soldiers exchange stories of someone called “the fiddler”, whose music both captivates and repels, and who is rumored to steal men’s souls in exchange for relief from their worst nightmares. Freddie falls under the spell of the fiddler, but as he loses bits of himself, he doesn’t find the peace he seeks. Meanwhile, Laura refuses to give up on finding the truth about her lost brother, and the siblings endure greater and greater dangers in their quest to discover one anothers’ fates.
The Warm Hands of Ghosts incorporates an other-worldly element as it examines the toll of war and horror on people’s inner selves. We see wounded and shell-shocked soldiers, people maimed or whose minds have been destroyed. Is it any wonder that they embrace the idea of a supernatural presence that feeds off souls and promises ease? As Laura ponders:
Was remembered agony better than feeling nothing at all?
That’s the crux of the dilemma facing the characters who encounter the fiddler. Life amidst the hell of war promises pain and suffering, and even out of the warzone, as Laura experienced back in Halifax, there’s no escape from the torment of memories. The characters, again and again, face this impossible decision: Give in and forget, or hold on and suffer?
They all drank. The wine was glorious. Like getting hit in the face by an ocean wave; it was a shock, then a pleasure, then a numbness.
There’s so much more to the story, of course. Underneath the horror of it all, there are strong threads of love running throughout the lives of the characters we come to know. The bonds between Laura and Freddie, Freddie and Winter, and Laura and the women she befriends are all strong, forged in a shared experience that those who haven’t been to war will never be able to fully comprehend.
Laura is a marvelous characters. As a nurse, she’s extremely brave, competent, and compassionate. She’s also damaged, both physically and emotionally, and makes decisions following her heart, even when logic would dictate otherwise. Freddie is fascinating as well — wounded to his core, suffering in his psyche from the horrors he’s both seen and inflicted, and unable to envision any sort of future for himself.
The battlefield scenes are vivid and terrible and utterly visceral. The terror and butchery are shown plainly, and the psychological toll is clear and awful to read about.
Despite the disturbing nature of reading about World War I battlefield experiences, I was struck over and over again by how beautiful Katherine Arden’s writing is. Little phrases and moments would catch my attention from time to time, just because I so admired the words and sentences.
London felt like limbo to her, the glittering center of the modern world become merely the war’s antechamber.
I would imagine that the supernatural element might not work for every reader, particularly for those who pick up The Warm Hands of Ghosts looking for a more traditional historical fiction reading experience. (Then again, the title does have the word ghosts in it, so it’s not like the supernatural piece is hidden in any way.) For me, I found The Warm Hands of Ghosts a powerful, sad, evocative book, and it’s fully deserving of a 5-star rating. Highly recommended.
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Love Freebie, which means we all put our own spin on the topic of LOVE.
Focusing on my favorite love stories from the books I’ve read recently has become my go-to topic for the “love freebie” TTT topic — I’ve been keeping it going since 2020! Here are my ten favorite love stories that I read in the past year:
My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.
Life.
My husband and I celebrated our anniversary last week! 26 years married, 31 years together… still going strong. Since the actual date of our anniversary was midweek, I took a day off from work, and we headed out for a beautiful walk along the bay, then had lunch at a new spot that just opened nearby. On Friday night, we did a fancier celebration (fancy for us — basically, an event where I wore something other than jeans and even put on a hint of mascara!) — we had dinner at a favorite restaurant downtown, and enjoyed every bite.
Besides that…
Everyone in my city was basically glued to their TVs yesterday for the Super Bowl… and since I don’t care about sports (although, yes, I wish the 49ers had won), I took advantage of my “me time” to go get a massage. Ahhhh… bliss.
What did I read during the last week?
The Frame-Up by Gwenda Bond: I powered through to the end, but can’t say I enjoyed it. My review is here.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry: It’s really sad to listen to this memoir so soon after Matthew Perry’s death, but I admire his courage in sharing so much of his story. My thoughts are here.
Pop culture & TV:
I’ve been busy catching up on some series and doing random bits of other watching. I posted a wrap-up, here.
Fresh Catch:
My local bookstore sent out this cute collection to sponsors:
Puzzle of the week:
I always love these literary-themed puzzles from Laurence King! The World of King Arthur was pretty tricky and lots of fun.
BUT — there’s a piece missing! Only a fellow puzzle-lover can truly understand the suffering caused by not being able to place the final piece.
Oh, the horror!
Update: Right before hitting “publish” on this post… I found the missing piece! All is well with the world.
What will I be reading during the coming week?
Currently in my hands:
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden: I’m close to the end, and I’m loving it! After a couple of less than stellar recent reads in the past few weeks, it’s wonderful reading something that’s so captivating and well-written.
Now playing via audiobook:
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez: I really enjoyed my first audiobook by this author, and I’m excited to be listening to another one! I’m at about 40%, and it’s great so far.
Ongoing reads:
My current longer-term reads:
Outlander Book Club is doing a group re-read of Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2), reading and discussing two chapters per week. Coming up this week: Chapters 40 and 41 (of 49). Progress: 76%.
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot: My book group’s current classic read. We’re reading and discussing two chapters per week. Progress: 49%.
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord: My new Classics Club Spin book! I haven’t started it yet — I’m listing it here as a placeholder for now. The target date for this spin is March 3rd, so there’s still plenty of time.
I haven’t done a TV wrap-up post in a very long time… but it’s a quiet Sunday morning, and what better opportunity to talk about series/shows I’ve enjoyed recently?
Here’s a round-up of what I’ve been watching:
The Greatest Night in Pop: A total surprise delight for me! I hadn’t heard anything about this documentary before stumbling across it on Netflix. If you’re of a certain age (*cough* me *cough*), then you actually remember when We Are the World was released, and if not, I’m sure you’ve come across plenty of nostalgic look-backs on MTV and elsewhere. This behind-the-scenes look at the making of We Are the World is sweet, entertaining, surprising, and a little heart-tugging too (considering how many of these singers are no longer with us). I’m so glad I checked it out!
The Bear. Yes, I’m incredibly late to the party! I re-upped my Hulu subscription last month after a year without it, and now I’m busily watching everything I missed out on. I just finished watching season 1 of The Bear, and liked it enough to plan to start season 2 this coming week. The kitchen-speak is fascinating all on its own, and I definitely want to see where all these characters are going.
All Creatures Great & Small (season 4): This show is total comfort food for the soul — like warm slippers and a mug of hot cocoa (yes, with little marshmallows too). It’s sweet and gentle, with kind human drama and plenty of wonderful animal scenes and gorgeous landscapes. Watching new episodes on Sunday evenings is a great antidote to the Sunday scaries.
Dark Winds: Two season in, this detective series (adapted from Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee books) is fascinating, with tight plotting, terrific characters, and a stellar cast. Lead actor Zahn McClarnon (also amazing in Reservation Dogs) is the mesmerizing central focus of Dark Winds, with a performance that’s powerful and emotional.
And finally…
Crash Landing On You: Oh my, this show is EVERYTHING. It starts off with a rom-com feel — a South Korean businesswoman/heiress literally crash-lands in North Korea after a paragliding accident (hey, it happens). There, she is immediately found by an army captain who, after a series of chases and mishaps, ends up sheltering her in his village while trying to help her get back home.
The comedy is boosted by the captain’s squad of adorably dorky soldiers and the gossipy women of the village… and then a few episodes in, everything suddenly becomes ultra dramatic. There’s a sneering bad guy trying to capture/torture/kill everyone, risky escapes, and gun battles, but even more important… it’s a heartbreaking story of star-crossed lovers!
We’ve all heard about ugly-crying… but Crash Landing On You introduced me to the splendor of beautiful crying. These characters tear up a lot, and every single time, it’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.
Crash Landing was my first introduction to K-drama, so I have nothing to compare it to and can’t comment on whether there’s anything else like it. For me, I was glued to the screen for all sixteen episodes and totally bereft when it ended. What an absolute treat.
(The trailer plays up the drama, but trust me, it’s really funny too.)
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What have you been watching lately? Let me know what you’ve been loving!
Title: The Frame-Up Author: Gwenda Bond Publisher: Del Rey Publication date: February 13, 2024 Length: 352 pages Genre: Contemporary fiction Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
A magically gifted con artist must gather her estranged mother’s old crew for a once-in-a-lifetime heist, from the New York Times bestselling author of Stranger Suspicious Minds.
Dani Poissant is the daughter and former accomplice of the world’s most famous art thief, as well as being an expert forger in her own right. The secret to their success? A little thing called magic, kept rigorously secret from the non-magical world. Dani’s mother possesses the power of persuasion, able to bend people to her will, whereas Dani has the ability to make any forgery she undertakes feel like the genuine article.
At seventeen, concerned about the corrupting influence of her mother’s shadowy partner, Archer, Dani impulsively sold her mother out to the FBI—an act she has always regretted. Ten years later, Archer seeks her out, asking her to steal a particular painting for him, since her mother’s still in jail. In return, he will reconcile her with her mother and reunite her with her mother’s old gang—including her former best friend, Mia, and Elliott, the love of her life.
The problem is, it’s a nearly impossible job—even with the magical talents of the people she once considered family backing her up. The painting is in the never-before-viewed private collection of deceased billionaire William Hackworth—otherwise known as the Fortress of Art. It’s a job that needs a year to plan, and Dani has just over one week. Worse, she’s not exactly gotten a warm welcome from her former colleagues—especially not from Elliott, who has grown from a weedy teen to a smoking-hot adult. And then there is the biggest puzzle of why Archer wants her to steal a portrait of himself, which clearly dates from the 1890s, instead of the much more valuable works by Vermeer or Rothko. Who is her mother’s partner, really, and what does he want?
The more Dani learns, the more she understands she may be in way over her head—and that there is far more at stake in this job than she ever realized.
I’m not entirely sure what this book was trying to be. A heist caper? A tale of generations of women with magical powers forced to serve a supernatural being? A contemporary romance, complete with love triangle? Perhaps the problem is that The Frame-Up tries to be all of these, and doesn’t quite hit the mark with any.
Dani Poissant has been estranged from her mother and her chosen family of art thieves ever since she turned her mother in to the FBI ten years earlier. Now, she lives and works alone, using her magical gifts to scam bad guys and restore a little bit of justice to their victims (and earn a paycheck for herself).
When her mother’s former associate, a mysterious man named Archer, tracks her down, she’s forced to confront her past. A billionaire art collector, who has never let anyone inside his well-named Fortress of Art, has died, and his family plans to open the collection to the public for the first time and auction it off. There’s a painting that Archer wants, and he wants Dani to get it for him.
For… reasons, Dani accepts, and heads back to her old home base to reunite with her former circle of thieves/family and plan one final heist, hoping to repair her connection to her mother and rid themselves of Archer once and for all.
I’ll be blunt. This book is a mess. Plot lines are all over the place, as is the tone. We’re supposed to feel Dani’s deep connection to the people she goes back to — Rabbit, Mia, Elliot — but none of it is fleshed out. We’re told about Dani’s thoughts and emotions, but none of it felt substantial to me.
The magical powers that enable them to control technology or create master forgeries or find anything lost are a convenient jumble, and the heist itself is nonsensical, as are the other magical art thieves who try to get in their way.
The storyline about Archer’s past with the women of the Poissant family is a little more interesting than the rest… but it doesn’t get explained until past the midway point of the book, and even then, it feels familiar. A supernatural being haunting/controlling generations of women in the same family? I could name at least two or three other books with the same theme.
Messy, jumbled plots and characters aren’t helped by messy writing. There are sentences that I had to stop and parse — just who are we talking about here? There’s even a scene where someone using an alias gets referred to by his real name — but it’s clearly not an intentional slip or a piece of the plot, just a place where more editing was needed. I can only hope that the errors and awkwardness I noticed in the ARC are cleaned up in the final published version.
I considered DNFing repeatedly throughout this book, but wanted to see it through in case something happened in the latter half to make me feel more invested. It didn’t. By the end, I was hate-reading. I was going to finish this book, dammit!
Such a disappointment. I read the author’s three previous books, which were all cheery, silly, supernaturally-infused adventure/romances. I hoped for a similar reading experience with The Frame-Up, but sadly, that was not the case.
Title: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing Author: Matthew Perry Narrator: Matthew Perry Publisher: Flatiron Books Publication date: November 1, 2022 Print length: 250 pages Audio length: 8 hours, 49 minutes Genre: Memoir Source: Library Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.
In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.
Reviewing a memoir often feels like a weirdly invasive endeavor. Who am I to praise or criticize the author? Sure, we can talk about how the book made us feel or what we think of of the writing, but a memoir is such a personal creation that it’s difficult to say much more than that.
In the case of Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, it’s an extraordinarily bizarre and uncomfortable experience to read this memoir — and especially, to listen to the audiobook narration by Matthew Perry himself — only a few short months after his tragic death.
As the synopsis shows, the opening lines of the book are eerie, and the following paragraph even more so:
If you like, you can consider what you’re about to read to be a message from the beyond, my beyond.
I was a big fan of Friends back in the day, and always adored Chandler. I knew very little about the actor behind the character, other than the gossip and scandals that cycled through the headlines over the decades — tales of addiction, destructive behavior, and rehab after rehab.
Here, in Matthew Perry’s memoir, we get a personal tour of his life, from childhood through his early 50s (just two years prior to his death) — and it’s profoundly sad in so many ways. Surprising too — I’d assumed that he was yet another example of someone destroyed by fame, but as we learn in this book, Perry’s drinking and addiction started many years before he became a break-out star.
Blending a recounting of his childhood and teens, his early years in the show biz industry, his phenomenal success in Friends, and beyond with interludes where we get uncomfortably up close and personal with the horrid details of the torment he inflicts on himself through his excessive use of drugs and alcohol, the memoir lets us inside his life and shows us the person behind the tabloid stories.
Perry comes across as smart, funny, and deeply wounded. His is a fascinating, tragic story told by someone living the addiction, and it’s not pretty (although he manages to inject his sense of humor even into the most harrowing of episodes).
I occasionally felt that it was all too much. I didn’t need to know quite that much about his ups and downs, the vast quantities of pills, the physical impact of his addictions, and his sex life. But then again, this is his truth that he’s sharing — as I said, it’s hard to criticize a memoir. Could he have toned it down or shared a bit less? Sure. But this is his story, and that’s what I signed up to experience.
I know he also got quite a bit of flak for some of his attempted jokes that fall flat in delivery, in particularly a passage where he laments the too-young deaths of brilliant talents like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger, then follows up by saying “but Keanu Reeves still walk among us.” And then repeats the Keanu Reeves line again later after talking about Chris Farley’s death. Dude, why do you have it in for Keanu Reeves? (Perry apparently apologized for this after the book came out and said the line would be removed from future editions… but it’s definitely there in the library book and audiobook I borrowed.)
I imagine that listening to this audiobook six months ago might have been a very different experience. Listening now, after Perry’s death, is truly like listening to a voice from beyond the grave. Every time he talks about barely surviving or how lucky he is not to be dead, it’s a shock.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an intimate look into the life and psyche of a complicated, troubled, unhealthy person who was also insanely talented, incredibly funny, and apparently, a person with a very loving heart. Hearing his voice sharing his story made me very sad for the loss of him as a person and as a talent. If only his next performance were still to come, rather than this book being his final good-bye.
I do recommend Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. It’s sad and difficult, but I’m glad that Matthew Perry chose to share himself with the world in this way. We’ll never know what else he might have done.
Bookshelf Fantasies 