Book Review: Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

Love Letters to the Dead

In Love Letters to the Dead, main character Laurel starts high school six months after the death of her sister May, and is still deeply grieving her loss. Wanting a fresh start away from sympathetic comments and intrusive stares, Laurel transfers to the school on the other side of town where she knows no one and no one knows her. Friendless and alone, she tries to figure out where, if at all, she fits in, while dealing with her loss and pain as she puzzles through the events leading to May’s death.

At the start of the school year, Laurel’s English teacher gives the class a strange first assignment: Write a letter to someone who’s dead. Laurel doesn’t turn in the assignment, but she does write the letter — to Kurt Cobain — and then, finding it an outlet for her inner turmoil, she keeps writing. Letters follow letters, and Laurel fills up a notebook with letters to dead people: She writes not just to Kurt Cobain, but also to River Phoenix, Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, Amelia Earhart, and more.

Meanwhile, Laurel slowly finds her way, making two good friends, Hannah and Natalie, and attracting the eye of the cute boy she’s noticed. Sky is a junior, cool enough that everyone seems to like him, but not interested in being part of the popular crowd. Sky seems to be wounded in some way as well, and bit by bit the two are drawn together. But Laurel keeps the story of her loss to herself, and by keeping her pain separate, also keeps a big chunk of herself from the people who care about her. Meanwhile, her home life is silent and painful, as her mother has moved away, her father is withdrawn and depressed, and her aunt, with whom she lives part-time, is a lonely religious nut with a Mr. Ed obsession. Laurel blames herself for her family’s disintegration, but through the power of her new-found friendships and her self-expression via her letters to the dead, she finally starts to come to terms with what happened and to realize that in order to move forward, she has to let go of the past.

Love Letters to the Dead is almost unbearably sad. Laurel’s pain blazes off the page, and her self-loathing and blame are awful yet totally believable. As readers, we don’t know at first exactly what happened to May or how she died — but as the pieces come together, we come to realize that there are layers upon layers of contributing factors, and that while each family member blames him or herself in some way, the sad fact remains that May’s death was simply a terrible accident capping off a long period of unfortunate events.

Meanwhile, no one here gets by unscathed. The supporting characters also go through tremendous challenges and pain. Secret love, public shame, an abusive home life, mental health challenges, and simple neglect factor into the characters’ lives. They skip school, they drink, they make poor choices and take dangerous risks — so that the fact that they all emerge at the end of the year in relatively good shape, and better off than they started, is rather remarkable. Bad things happen — a lot — and while the characters are all interesting, well-drawn, and sympathetic, it does start to feel like an overdose of trauma after a while.

Laurel’s voice is interesting, as she wades through the jumbled mess of her thoughts and emotions and tries to make sense of all that has happened. It’s moving and melancholy to see her reflections on her relationship with May and how her worship of her big sister prevents her from facing the truth. Laurel adored her big sister all her life, and always thought of May as magical, with a perfect life, completely happy, enchanting everyone who came into her orbit. Over the course of the year covered in Love Letters to the Dead, Laurel confronts the truth about May’s life and challenges, how May’s actions led to tragic consequences for each of them, and comes to a place where she can remember May with love and regret, but freed from the need to idolize or over-glamorize her poor lost sister.

In many ways, this book succeeds in showing one girl’s transformative year, and the power of self-expression to free oneself from the walls created within. But at the same time, I did feel that the construct of the book is flawed, and takes away from the ring of authenticity for which the author seems to be striving.

Writing letters to famous dead people just doesn’t really work as an overarching concept. The portions of the letters addressed to the individuals don’t ring true, and are actually a distraction from the character’s journey. Do we need to see her lecturing Kurt Cobain on what his suicide would have meant to his daughter? Or telling River Phoenix why she thinks his life turned out the way it did? For these two and several others, Laurel’s writing sounds presumptuous and like a stretch outside of what the character might do or say. Each time this happened, I felt pulled out of the narrative of Laurel’s story and reminded of the fact that I was reading about a fictional character, rather than continuing to be absorbed by the events and emotions of the book.

So my reaction to this book is truly 50/50: It’s powerful and sad, and conveys a great deal about loss and healing, friendship and honesty, pain and love. At the same time, the tone of the book is uneven, and ultimately a good and moving story is weighed down by the structure used to tell it.

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The details:

Title: Love Letters to the Dead
Author: Ava Dellaira
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date: April 1, 2014
Length: 323 pages
Genre: Young adult
Source: Review copy courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux via NetGalley

8Apr2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Conversion

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

There’s nothing like a Wednesday for thinking about the books we want to read! My Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday post is linking up with two fabulous book memes, Wishlist Wednesday (hosted by Pen to Paper) and Waiting on Wednesday (hosted by Breaking the Spine).

My most wished-for book this week is:

Conversion by Katherine Howe
(Release date: July 1, 2014)

Synopsis via NetGalley:

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . .

Inspired by true events—from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school—Conversion casts a spell. With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s?

Katherine Howe’s first novel, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, is one of my go-to books when it comes to both academic settings and modern-day connections to witchcraft. Conversion is this author’s first young adult novel, and I think it sounds pretty terrific. The book blurbs describe it as “Prep meets The Crucible” — and that’s enough right there to make me want to read it!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I’m building a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

5Apr2014

Book Review: The Mapmaker’s Daughter by Laurel Corona

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: The Mapmaker’s Daughter by Laurel Corona

The Mapmaker's Daughter In Sevilla, Spain in 1432, Amalia Cresques is the young daughter of a famous cartographer, whose own father was renowned for his cartography skills as well. But the family has a secret: Amalia, her sisters, and her parents conceal their Jewish heritage by living as conversos — Jews who have converted to Catholicism for the sake of survival, but who secretly practice their own religion in hiding. Amalia makes sure to be seen with dirty hands as the Jewish Sabbath approaches on Friday afternoons and buys pork and ham at the butcher shop, so that no prying neighbors can accuse the family of “Judaizing”, a crime that carries harsh punishments if caught.

In The Mapmaker’s Daughter, we follow Amalia from 1432, when she is a little girl of six, through 1492 when, as an old woman, she and her remaining family must leave the land they love as part of the Jewish expulsion from Spain ordered by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Along the way, we view the life of this one woman as well as the shared experiences of the Jews of Spain and Portugal — experiences including forced conversions, hidden identities, persecution, scapegoating, ghettos, and finally banishment.

Amalia is raised from an early age to cherish her heritage, but at the same time to keep it as her most closely guarded secret. Once she and her father move to Portugal in order to accept a court appointment, Amalia begins to explore what it might mean to be more open about her religion, and ultimately finds refuge with an openly Jewish family, the Abravanels, who are esteemed by the Jewish community and who have a great influence at court. With the Abravanels, Amalia is able to embrace the rhythms and rituals of Jewish life, as well as to find a place as an adopted daughter and cherished family member.

And yet, danger is never far away. The fear of persecution is ever-present, and the risks become even greater as Torquemada’s Inquisition grows in power, threatening everyone and everything dear to Amalia.

The Mapmaker’s Daughter covers a period of history that’s both fascinating and frightening. Already familiar with the general history of the time, I still found much to learn from this book. As with all good historical fiction, The Mapmaker’s Daughter makes real events tangible by introducing us to them through the eyes of a character we care about a great deal, which only serves to heighten the impact of the great and awful circumstances that Amalia encounters.

Amalia herself is an interesting character, strong in her convictions, aching for love and connection, never giving up on her inner truths even when they put her at great risk. Desperate for passion and belonging, Amalia’s love life is not easy, but does lead to some remarkable adventures and experiences. Amalia serves as her father’s right hand during her youth, and becomes a skilled polyglot and translator, later an adept poet and tutor, and refuses to take the easier paths available to women at that time. Above all, Amalia believes in her own personal family heritage as well as the heritage of the Jewish people, and holds on to her family’s great atlas, created by her father and grandfather, as a symbol of where she came from and her family’s roots in Spain.

The story as a whole is quite interesting and moving, and yet I found it hard at times to feel emotionally connected. Perhaps this is because the earliest parts of the book are told through the eyes of Amalia as a very young girl, starting at age six, and her narrative voice doesn’t feel entirely true for her age. The pacing of the novel is somewhat problematic: We spend quite a lot of time on Amalia’s childhood, youth, and 20s, then rush through the remainder of her life in the last quarter of the book. This ending section is crammed full of relatives and descendants, children’s children, marriages and pursuits, and it just feels like a lot.

The Mapmaker’s Daughter is filled with historical figures — not just the nobility who are a more well-known part of the historical record, but also the characters who people Amalia’s life. The Cresques were in fact a well-known family of cartographers, and their masterwork, the Catalan Atlas, is considered one of the most important sets of maps of the period. Likewise, the Abravanels were a real family of Jewish scholars, philosophers, and royal advisers, and played a key role in the fate of the Jews of Spain and Portugal during this period. I only wish that I had had this information prior to reading the novel, rather than finding out via the extras at the end of the book. I think knowing which characters are in fact real people would have helped make the impact of the story even stronger.

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Mapmaker’s Daughter very much. The author brings to life a chapter of history that may not be well known today, but which is certainly powerful and frightening. Using such an unusual and admirable woman as a main character helps make the plight of the Jews feel real in a much more visceral way, perhaps, than just reading a straightforward history. Despite my reservations about the book’s structure and certain issues around the narrative flow, I’m very glad to have read The Mapmaker’s Daughter, and recommend it for fans of historical fiction, particularly those who enjoy reading about time periods less heavily represented in popular literature and learning about the struggles of real people.

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The details:

Title: The Mapmaker’s Daughter
Author: Laurel Corona
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication date: March 1, 2014
Length: 360 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of Sourcebooks Landmark via Netgalley

1Apr2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Secrets of the Lighthouse

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My most wished-for book this week is:

Secrets of the Lighthouse by Santa Montefiore
(Release date: August 5, 2014)

Synopsis via NetGalley:

Set in Ireland on the wild coast of Connemara, this hauntingly romantic novel tells the story of a young woman who goes in search of her family’s past and ends up discovering her future.

Ellen Trawton is running away from it all. She hates her job, she doesn’t love the aristocratic man to whom she is engaged, and her relationship with her controlling mother is becoming increasingly strained. So Ellen leaves London, fleeing to the one place she knows her mother won’t find her, her aunt’s cottage in Connemara. Cutting all her ties with chic London society, Ellen gives in to Ireland’s charm and warmth, thinking her future may lie where so much of her past has been hidden. Her imagination is soon captured by the compelling ruins of a lighthouse where, five years earlier, a young mother died in a fire.

The ghost of the young wife, Caitlin, haunts the nearby castle, mourning the future she can never have there. Unable to move on, she watches her husband and children, hoping they might see her and feel her love once more. But she doesn’t anticipate her husband falling in love again. Can she prevent it? Or can she let go and find a way to freedom and happiness?

The ruggedly beautiful Connemara coastline with its tightknit community of unforgettable characters provides the backdrop for this poignant story of two women seeking the peace and love they desperately need. For each, the key will be found in the secrets of the past, illuminated by the lighthouse.

I love the lighthouse setting, and hope the ghost story aspect will be as good as it sounds!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

29Mar2014

Book Review: Visible City by Tova Mirvis

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Visible City by Tova Mirvis

Visible City

In Visible City, people hidden away inside their own little worlds slowly emerge and find connection. On New York’s Upper West Side, thousands of people go about their lives, passing each other on streets and in cafes, yet never really seeing or being seen.

Nina is a stay at home mother with two young children, having given up a law career in order to embrace full-time motherhood. Yet she finds herself at loose ends, and has taken to gazing at the windows of the building across the street, watching the lives of other people and imaging what their stories might be. She’s particularly fascinated by a couple in their fifties, who spend each night side by side on their couch reading books, seemingly enjoying their time alone but together. Nina wonders what their marriage is like, how they’ve reached this level of quiet contentment — until one night, instead of the couple, she sees a younger woman and her lover, who seem both angry and full of passion. What is their connection to the older couple, and how do they fit into the story Nina has composed about the world she watches from her windows?

Bit by bit, we meet the others who circle through Nina’s view: There are Leon and Claudia, the couple from across the street, each experiencing professional challenges while at the same time caring for their daughter Emma, whose return to their home sparks concern and confusion. There’s Emma herself, on the run from her academic dissatisfaction and from the engagement that she may no longer want. There’s Nina’s husband Jeremy, who puts in long hours at his law firm while yearning for excitement and discovery. There’s Wendy, mother of twins, who is so tightly wound and outwardly perfect that she just might explode one of these days.

All these lives and more intersect and collide. Each person is the center of his or her own life, and as each chapter unfolds, we see how the people in the background of one scene have equally compelling stories, passions, and pursuits of their own.

The action is rather minimal, unfolding in small vignettes roughly centered around a new building going up in the neighborhood and its impact on the residents — yet that’s only incidental. Mostly, Visible City is about the people, all of whom seem to have a core of unhappiness in their lives. In a city of millions of people, these characters all have an unfulfilled desire to be known, to be truly seen, to reveal their true natures and break free of the strictures of their seemingly fine lives. No one is happy; each is hiding a secret desire or fear; frustration, loneliness, and alienation seem to rule the universe that these characters inhabit.

I’ll be honest — there was only so far I could bring myself to care about any of this. For the most part, Visible City felt like yet another story of well-off New Yorkers dealing with the type of woes that plague people who don’t really have a lot to worry about: Motherhood is hard. My dissertation doesn’t really interest me any more. Visible City is all about people who have pretty good lives, but are still unhappy. If ever a group of people deserved the hashtag “first world problems” applied to their lives, this one does.

I’ve enjoyed this author’s previous novels, particularly The Ladies Auxiliary, but somehow never felt particularly drawn in or engaged by Visible City. The writing is elegant and thoughtful, but ultimately the subject matter left me cold.

Visible City should appeal to readers who enjoy contemplative novels with a focus on internal reflection. For those who prefer their reads more plot- or action-driven (and apparently, I fall into this category), this probably isn’t the book for you.

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The details:

Title: Visible City
Author: Tova Mirvis
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: March 18, 2014
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Adult contemporary
Source: Review copy courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via Netgalley

28Mar2014

Book Review: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

18293427 When I finished reading this book and then went back and looked at the book blurb:

In the spirit of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Gabrielle Zevin’s enchanting novel is a love letter to the world of books – and booksellers – that changes our lives by giving us the stories that open our hearts and enlighten our minds.

… my first thought was “Damn.” Because in my head, I wanted to say something about this being a love letter to book lovers, and it’s already been said. Double damn.

But really, how can I complain — when I have just read a book that I LOVED so, so much?

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is one of those quiet, unassuming books that you think will be sweet and pleasant — and then BAM! It sneaks up on you, grabs you by the heart, and makes you feel so many feels.

A. J. Fikry, when we first meet him, is a sad, lonely man. A. J. owns Island Books, the one and only bookstore on Alice Island, a short ferry ride away from Hyannis, Massachusetts. The store is not doing very well, and neither is A. J. Since his wife’s death almost two years earlier, A. J. is drifting through his life, drinking himself into oblivion once a week, being grumpy to his customers, and just not finding a reason to care.

All that changes when a drunken night during which a valuable Poe manuscript goes missing triggers a bizarre chain of events which leads to the discovery of a toddler abandoned in the bookstore — who soon becomes the center of A. J.’s life.

As A. J. starts waking up to the possibility of a happy future, his business picks up as well, and little by little Island Books becomes the center of bookish activity on the island. My favorite bookish happening is the Chief’s Choice book club, started by the local police chief and consisting of a book group for cops — which no cop really can decline to participate in, since the chief is the one organizing it.

Meanwhile, a very persistent sales rep from a small publishing company seems to make a very large impression on A. J., and their business relationship slowly blooms into something more, with lots of awkwardness and false starts, but always with a shared passion for books.

Can I just say yet again how much I loved this book? Excuse me for gushing, but The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry seems tailor-made for anyone whose life revolves around reading. (Yes, that includes me, and I suspect it includes anyone reading this review!) Amidst the story of A. J.’s personal journey is a meditation on reading and how a life can be shaped and measured by the books read along the way. So much of what I feel about reading is encapsulated here, and it’s simply beautiful to meet so many characters who feel this way too.

The writing is clever without being forced, yet I found myself laughing out loud at various points, such as :

Ismay has stylishly cut, spiky red hair, pale skin and eyes, long, spindly limbs. All her features are a little too large, her gestures a little too animated. Pregnant, she is like a very pretty Gollum.

Or:

Lambiase is recently divorced. He had married his high school sweetheart, so it took him a long time to realize that she was not, in fact, a sweetheart or a very nice person at all.

And yet, even with the humorous tone always present beneath the surface, the emotions are real and visceral:

A. J. watches Maya in her pink party dress, and he feels a vaguely familiar, slightly intolerable bubbling inside of him. He wants to laugh out loud or punch a wall. He feels drunk or at least carbonated. Insane. At first, he thinks this is happiness, but then he determines it’s love. Fucking love, he thinks. What a bother. It’s completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.

Ultimately, though, what I love most about this wonderful book (and yes, I pretty much loved it all) is what is has to say to about readers and their reading passions:

When she told me it was her favorite, it suggested to me strange and wonderful things about her character that I had not guessed, dark places that I might like to visit.

People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question: What is your favorite book?

Don’t miss out: Read The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry. Filled with beauty and sorrow, love and humor, and an abiding love for books and readers, this book was an unexpected delight for me — and apparently is now one of those books: Books that fill you up with so much emotion and enjoyment that you want to run right out and start putting copies in people’s hands.

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The details:

Title: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publication date: April 1, 2014
Length: 230 pages
Genre: Adult contemporary
Source: Review copy courtesy of Algonquin Books via Netgalley

22Mar2014

Book Review: Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Grasshopper Jungle Well, this is certainly one of the oddest books I’ve read in a long time.

In Grasshopper Jungle, we meet 16-year-old Austin Szerba, who lives in Ealing, Iowa and is very much in love with his girlfriend Shann… and with his best friend Robby. Austin spends much of his time either confused or horny, or both. Ealing is a dead-end town that dried up after its major business, McKeon Industries, shut its doors and left most of the Ealing residents unemployed — as a result of which, stores have shut down, people are constantly being foreclosed or evicted, and the entire town has a feeling of hopelessness.

And then one day, things take a decided turn for the apocalyptic. In a weird confluence of events, Austin and Robby get beaten up, some nasty boys steal a McKeon Industries artifact that contains a lethal mold, and a chain of events starts that leads to the end of the world as we know it. This particular end of the world takes the form of 6-foot-tall praying mantises with exoskeletons strong as armor who only want to do two things…

It’s up to Austin, Shann, and Robby to save the world — or not, maybe. Or possibly just figure out what the heck is going on and salvage what they can. Oh, and also figure out what their own little triangle means, and whether anything good can possibly come of it. And yeah, maybe repopulate the planet, if necessary.

Along the way, we get Austin’s family history, all the way back to his great-great-many times great-grandfather in Poland, his descendants and their twisted history, and all the little turns of fate or coincidence that lead them to Ealing, Iowa and a plague of unstoppable, lethal, giant insects.

Austin is an historian, recording everything in his notebooks with a commitment to honesty, while at the same time noting that all written history is, of necessity, an abbreviation. No one can ever record every single thing, so what we end up learning is the bits and pieces that the recorders felt most important, but not necessarily the entire truth.

In Austin’s version of history, we read about Presidents and testicles, agricultural experiments and cave paintings, the Rolling Stones and skateboards. We also learn about love and devotion, confusion and yearning, friendship and bravery, and how dangerous a crazy person with a science lab can be.

The writing is funny, random, and rather Vonnegut-like in places. Odd facts and figures are inserted here and there in Austin’s narrative, and he returns over and over again to repeat certain phrases and thoughts throughout the book. Chief among these:

It was not a good idea.

You know what I mean.

Nobody knew anything about it.

And then there’s the word used by Austin and Robby more than any other in the book, “uh”, followed by the closely related “um”, which are all-purpose responses appropriate for almost all occasions:

Shann squirmed in her seat. She said, “Uh. Am I wrong about something, or do you two boys actually know something more than I do about what he’s talking about?

I said, “Uh.”

Robby said, “Uh.”

Grasshopper Jungle is strange and hilarious, often disgusting, completely rambling, with odd flights of free association and bizarre facts, and a connect-the-dots feel to it that shows either that all life is connected and that the smallest moments may have huge meaning and consequences… or that everything is random and trivial, and that nothing we do matters in the long run. But not really — even in the midst of giant bugs destroying humankind and chowing down on everyone they encounter, there’s a sense of joyous celebration of life that keeps Grasshopper Jungle flying along despite the body parts and cataclysmic events.

Grasshopper Jungle is weird and wild, but utterly wonderful — in its own bug-infested, sex-obsessed, end-of-the-world way.

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The details:

Title: Grasshopper Jungle
Author: Andrew Smith
Publisher: Dutton Books
Publication date: February 11, 2014
Length: 388 pages
Genre: Young adult/science fiction
Source: Library

19Mar2014

Book Review: Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

Night Broken (Mercy Thompson, #8)

You know how some series outstay their welcome? Well, as far as I’m concerned, Mercy Thompson can stay as long as she wants! In Patricia Briggs’s inventive and engrossing urban fantasy series, Mercy Thompson is the heroine extraordinaire. She fixes cars, kicks butt, bakes amazing chocolate chip cookies, and shifts into coyote form at will. Being married to the Alpha of the local werewolf pack means life is never boring, and she manages to hold her own among all the big, bad (but with hearts-of-gold) wolves, as well as with all the various and sundry supernatural beings that populate the Washington Tri-Cities area.

In Night Broken, the 8th in the series, Mercy faces a truly scary adversary: her husband’s ex-wife. Christy is a human who has perfected the art of manipulating everyone around her by eliciting sympathy for poor little her, and when she acquires a psycho stalker, of course she comes to the pack for protection. Mercy grits her teeth and tries to stay calm, but between Christy’s attempts to take over her home and the dangerous creature that threatens all their lives, it’s no wonder she’s feeling a wee bit tense.

Night Broken continues the author’s winning streak, providing a mix of exciting action and danger while also showcasing Mercy’s emotional side and her struggles and challenges. Having come so far with her, it’s lovely to see Mercy making her way in the pack and enjoying her rare private moments with her oh-so-sexy husband Adam and her stepdaughter Jesse.

I truly loved this newest addition to one of my favorite series — my only complaint being that I read it within two days of its publication, and now I have to wait again!

Obviously, anyone who hasn’t read a Mercy book yet should start at the beginning. If you enjoy urban fantasy with tough, smart women at the lead, this is a series not to be missed!

A final note: For a tiny taste of Night Broken, check out tomorrow’s Thursday Quotables post here at Bookshelf Fantasies!

And if you want to know more about the Mercy books, you can also check out my review of the 7th in the series, Frost Burned.

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The details:

Title: Night Broken (Mercy Thompson, #8)
Author: Patricia Briggs
Publisher: Ace Hardcover
Publication date: March 11, 2014
Length: 341 pages
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: Purchased

18Mar2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Evergreen

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My most wished-for book this week is:

Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen
(Release date: July 8, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

From the celebrated author of The Bird Sisters, a gorgeously rendered and emotionally charged novel that spans generations, telling the story of two siblings, raised apart, attempting to share a life.

It is 1938 when Eveline, a young bride, follows her husband into the wilderness of Minnesota. Though their cabin is rundown, they have a river full of fish, a garden out back, and a new baby boy named Hux. But when Emil leaves to take care of his sick father, the unthinkable happens: a stranger arrives, and Eveline becomes pregnant. She gives the child away, and while Hux grows up hunting and fishing in the woods with his parents, his sister, Naamah, is raised an orphan. Years later, haunted by the knowledge of this forsaken girl, Hux decides to find his sister and bring her home to the cabin. But Naamah, even wilder than the wilderness that surrounds them, may make it impossible for Hux to ever tame her, to ever make up for all that she, and they, have lost. Set before a backdrop of vanishing forest, this is a luminous novel of love, regret, and hope.

Doesn’t this sound terrific? I love the wilderness setting, and the family dynamics sound fascinating. Can’t wait!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

17Mar2014

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books on my Spring TBR List

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week, we’re focusing on the books we most look forward to reading this spring… and yes, I have plenty! Here are the top 10 books on my to-be-read list — some upcoming new releases, and some books that have been patiently waiting for me for months (or years) already:

1) Written In My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon

Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander, #8)

2) Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Mr. Mercedes

3) The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

The Serpent of Venice

4) My Real Children by Jo Walton

My Real Children

5) Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Landline

6) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

7) Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Burial Rites

8) Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Life After Life

9) The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #1)

10) In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

In Cold Blood

What books are you looking forward to reading this spring? Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

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