Book Review: The Beginning of Everything by Jackie Fraser

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Beginning of Everything
Author: Jackie Fraser
Publisher: Dell
Publication date: September 26, 2023
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

An irresistible friends-to-lovers novel of resilience, hope, and new beginnings from the author of The Bookshop of Second Chances

After escaping a bad relationship, Jess Cavendish is running and leaving it all behind, carrying just a few treasured belongings in her knapsack. She needs to start over, but that means sleeping where she can and making the most of her slim savings. Luckily, she comes across a recently sold, unoccupied house. It couldn’t hurt to stay there while she saves up enough to get her own place, right?

Gethin Thomas is also looking to move on after the end of a long-term relationship. He’s returned to his hometown, anxious to renovate the fixer-upper he bought and move out of his sister’s cramped guest room. When he walks through the door one morning, he finds Jess, who’s ready to run again, and surprises them both by offering to let her stay. It feels like the right thing to do, but Jess doesn’t want a handout. They strike a deal: Jess will help with the restoration, furnishing, and decorating in exchange for room and board.

While they peel wallpaper and shop for new furniture, an unexpected friendship develops as they bond over music and food, and slowly open up to each other about their pasts. When it’s time for Gethin to move in, he convinces Jess to be his official housemate and she agrees—so long as he lets her pay rent. The connection between them soon shifts to an attraction that seems both inevitable and overwhelming, and Jess must decide what she wants. With so much hurt in her past, can she risk loving again? She was brave enough to reach for a new life—and now a future she hadn’t even dreamed possible could be just within her grasp.

If you’ve read the synopsis for The Beginning of Everything, you have a pretty good idea of the entire book. Jess is in her mid-40s, on the run from an abusive relationship, and decides somewhat randomly to hide out in a small town in Wales, where she hopes to figure out how to start over again.

After living in a tent for a few weeks, she discovers an unoccupied home that seems like a possible temporary shelter and — after picking the locks — settles in as a secret squatter. Her relative safety is interrupted when the new owner, Gethin, arrives suddenly and startles Jess into running again.

Rather than changing the locks, throwing away her possessions, and calling the police, Gethin instead exhibits remarkable kindness and leaves a note asking her to talk to him. When she return to the house to gather the items she’s left behind, Gethin makes an unexpected offer: She can remain as a lodger in his home while it’s under renovation, and in exchange, if she’s willing, she can help with the various repair and improvement projects.

Jess is extremely cautious and mistrustful at first, but soon realizes that Gethin is a rare person who is truly as kind and respectful as he appears to be. With time, Jess eases into a friendship with Gethin, and eventually, she becomes his partner in turning his new house into a true home.

Given Jess’s past, however, she’s skittish when it comes to truly trusting a man or feeling at ease with being close with someone, and when feelings beyond friendship emerge, her sense of belonging and ability to remain with Gethin are threatened.

The Beginning of Everything is a nice, pleasant read, but lacks any true drama. It’s enjoyable to see Jess settle into a new life, although I could have done with fewer descriptions of their decorating process. Gethin is lovely, and possibly verges too far into “too good to be true” territory. Would any person really act this compassionately toward a homeless stranger sleeping in their newly purchased property? It’s hard to understand why Gethin would welcome Jess into his home or support her the way does, so we just have to accept that he’s just that nice and move on.

I expected some sort of dramatic encounter with Jess’s ex, and was relieved that that’s not where the plot goes. The focus is on Jess’s emotional and mental state, her healing process, and her uneven journey toward feeling safety with other people. It can be moving, but I wish it had had more depth, and certain of Jess’s decisions feel illogical, which undermines some of the impact.

The writing, particularly the dialogue, gets annoying in places. Jess and Gethin are both so incredibly tentative when they talk to each other that it made me want to interrupt and tell them to speak in complete sentences! For example:

“No, I … no, I’m just surprised.”

“Good surprised or bad surprised?

“I … good surprised? Of course? It’s … unexpected but…”

“You don’t want to,” he says. “That’s okay. I just thought — “

“No, it’s not — “

“Or do you want to?”

And also…

“Painful.”

“Yes, very.”

“Did — “

“Did I want to talk about it? Nope.”

“You don’t think — “

“No.”

“I only — “

Et cetera…

As I said, this is a perfectly pleasant read. It lacks an element of true excitement or surprise, and the basic premise can be a bit tough to believe. Still, Jess and Gethin are both sympathetic characters, and I enjoyed seeing the developing relationship between the two.

28Sep2023

Book Review: Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Hello Beautiful
Author: Ann Napolitano
Publisher: The Dial Press
Publication date: March 14, 2023
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased

An emotionally layered and engrossing story of a family that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?

William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the expected path of wife and mother; Cecelia, the family’s artist; and Emeline, who patiently takes care of all of them. Happily, the Padavanos fold Julia’s new boyfriend into their loving, chaotic household.

But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable loyalty to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?

Vibrating with tenderness, Hello Beautiful is a gorgeous, profoundly moving portrait of what’s possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.

Hello Beautiful is a hard book to describe, and in some ways, just as hard to commit to reading — but as I discovered, sticking with it pays off in the end.

The events of Hello Beautiful swirl around William Waters, whom we follow from boyhood through middle age. His life is marked for tragedy from the start — his older sister dies when he’s less than one week old, permanently scarring his parents and leaving him bereft of their love and attention. William grows up lonely, saved only by the relief and belonging he finds on the basketball court.

In college, he meets Julia Padavano, oldest of four sisters in a tight-knit family. Julie is determined to achieve her life plans, which include marrying a successful man and devoting herself to becoming a wife and mother. William has so little belief in himself that he molds himself to whomever he’s with; Julia falls for William and his readiness to be who she needs him to be. His only passion is basketball, but Julia believes he’d make a great college professor, so he follows the path she sets for him — getting married, entering graduate school, starting a family.

Things go disastrously wrong after the birth of their daughter, and a permanent rift severs the Padavano family. Without entering spoiler territory, I’ll just say that William is at the center of the storm, but the relationships between all members of the extended family end up shattered or reconfigured.

There’s a great deal of sorrow and pain in Hello Beautiful, but real loveliness as well. The Padavano sisters have such closeness and are so interconnected that the changes within the family feel tragic, even though some pieces of the relationships survive and end up even stronger.

I often feel overwhelmed by books that introduce a large family all at once, as it can be daunting to tell the characters apart or remember which personality goes with which person. Not so here — each of the four sisters is distinct and memorable, and they all shine in their own ways. The sisters compare themselves to the March sisters of Little Women (even declaring “I’m Beth today” on days when they’re not feeling well), and by the end, it’s fairly clear which Padavano matches which March girl. I’ve seen some reviewers refer to Hello Beautiful as a Little Women retelling, which I’d disagree with. Yes, there are a few parallels which the sisters themselves call out, but this is a very different book as a whole.

Hello Beautiful is big and sprawling, and for the first third or so, takes a while to truly get going and develop a focus. Much of the story feels anecdotal, and the narrative approach — with alternating chapters dedicated to William, Julia, Sylvie, and other characters — adds to the sense of scattered storytelling. However, when catastrophe strikes midway through, the plot itself sharpens, and the emotional impact truly kicks in.

I took issue with some of the characters’ perspectives on certain events, and disagreed with the commonly held interpretation of what had happened (being intentionally vague… again, no spoilers from me!) — and yet, I can appreciate that each character has their own worldview that shapes their version of events and gives them what they need to carry on and move forward.

The book’s emphasis on family, love, and friendship is quite lovely, and this is what leaves a lasting impression. There’s so much depth to the relationships depicted in Hello Beautiful, as well as the recognition that people’s impact on others can be vast and unseen, and that we can never truly know just how important someone is to so many others.

I’ll be thinking about Hello Beautiful for quite a while to come, and just wish I had others to discuss it with! This would make a great book club selection — there’s so much food for thought.

Hello Beautiful is highly recommended. Don’t miss it!

18Sep2023

Book Review: Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Fair Rosaline
Author: Natasha Solomons
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication date: August 3, 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Was the greatest ever love story a lie?

The first time Romeo Montague sees young Rosaline Capulet he falls instantly in love.

Rosaline, headstrong and independent, is unsure of Romeo’s attentions but with her father determined that she join a convent, this handsome and charming stranger offers her the chance of a different life.

Soon though, Rosaline begins to doubt all that Romeo has told her. She breaks off the match, only for Romeo’s gaze to turn towards her cousin, thirteen-year-old Juliet. Gradually Rosaline realises that it is not only Juliet’s reputation at stake, but her life.

With only hours remaining before she will be banished behind the nunnery walls, will Rosaline save Juliet from her Romeo? Or can this story only ever end one way?

A subversive, powerful untelling of Shakespeare’s best-known tale, narrated by a fierce, forgotten voice: this is Rosaline’s story.

Fair Rosaline is a powerful retelling of Romeo and Juliet, faithful to the major plot beats of Shakespeare’s tragedy, but with a shift in perspective that changes everything. It’s fascinating, fast-moving, and now that I’ve finished, hard to stop thinking about.

In the traditional version, Romeo is first introduced as lovestruck over “fair Rosaline” — until he attends a Capulet party and suddenly falls completely in love with Rosaline’s cousin Juliet. Rosaline is forgotten, and we all know how things turn out for Juliet.

Here in Fair Rosaline, we see life in Verona through Rosaline’s eyes, and it isn’t pretty. With her mother a recent plague victim, Rosaline mourns her loss mostly alone, as her father is consumed by his own grief and has little patience for his 15-year-old daughter. After passing the required period of being locked up to make sure they don’t spread the plague further, Rosaline’s father shares devastating news: It was her mother’s wish that she be sent to the nunnery, and he intends to carry out this plan immediately.

There are no good choices here for Rosaline. Marriage or the convent are the only options, and as her brother is already married and has children, there’s no need to worry about further heirs. Rosaline’s dowry will go instead to the convent, and she’ll be locked behind its walls forever. Her wishes don’t matter. Desperate to prolong her freedom, Rosaline bargains with her father, and in the end, gets a concession — he’ll give her twelve days more at home, but then she must go.

Into Rosaline’s sad life, Romeo bursts like a ray of light. She sneaks away to attend the forbidden Montague ball, wanting a taste of life before she’s locked away, and there meets the handsome, smooth-talking Romeo, who seems instantly enamored by beautiful young Rosaline. Where Fair Rosaline differs sharply from the story we think we all know is that Romeo is clearly older — late twenties or early thirties, at least. As the author’s notes tell us, it’s just custom that Romeo is usually portrayed as a teen: Shakespeare specifies that Juliet is thirteen, but Romeo’s age is never stated.

What becomes clear in Fair Rosaline is that Romeo is a predator. His beautiful words are creepy here, as he uses his sleek, skillful speeches as tools of seduction, preying on much younger, innocent girls, whose sheltered lives leave them susceptible to his grooming. He doesn’t use physical violence to get his way — instead, he seduces with poetic pronouncements and over-the-top romantic gestures, promises of immediate marriage, and depictions of a future life together that’s always just out of reach.

Love with him was carnal and delicious and all consuming; he wasn’t just a hunter but a thief, stealing from girls their very selves.

When Rosaline finally faces the cruel reality of Romeo’s true nature and confronts him, he turns his attentions to her younger cousin Juliet, another easy victim for his manipulation. Rosaline and her beloved cousin Tybalt are desperate to save Juliet, who is too swept up by Romeo’s suave charm to hear their warnings.

Fair Rosaline sweeps us up into Rosaline’s misery as well as her moments of joy. This is clearly a young woman hungry for life, literature, and music, yearning for freedom that can never be hers. Between mourning her mother and dreading her incarceration behind convent walls, it’s no wonder that she’s an easy target for an experienced man who seems to offer her everything she could want.

Life in Verona at this time is presented at a tangible, visceral level, full of dirt, disease, and smells. The upper class lives of Rosaline’s world are adjacent to the terrible poverty and filth of the poorer quarters, and disease isn’t the only threat, as we see example after example of women dying in childbirth or losing children.

Even Juliet, pampered and protected, isn’t truly safe — even before she meets Romeo. After all, to the wealthy and powerful, a pretty thirteen-year-old girl is considered a candidate for marriage. Juliet’s parents plan her marriage to Paris despite her youth.

It was because of Lauretta and Nurse and Old Capulet and the good honest hypocrites of Verona that Juliet believed it was well and good for her to wed a man when she was still a child. While trying to break her in for Paris or his like, her family had seen to it that she was nicely softened for Romeo. Her arms had already been open and ready for him.

The crypts and graveyards themselves loom menacingly throughout the story. They’re not austere, holy sites to remember loved ones, but reeking pits where the dead rot and stink. Juliet’s pretend death and placement in the family crypt is horrifying: This isn’t a beautiful tableau of a young woman in eternal sleep, but a horror of a scene in which a young girl is entombed among rotting corpses.

I won’t say how the author ends her version of the story, but it’s quite powerful and masterfully told. The author weaves in phrases and moments from Shakespeare, but has them feel like natural parts of the story. Events and people fall in line with the origin story, but only on the surface. There’s more going on, and while the major set-pieces still happen, there are different elements, emotions, and motives at play as well. It’s utterly fascinating to see these pieces come together.

Rosaline is a sympathetic character. It’s easy to understand how she’d be vulnerable to someone like Romeo, and while we know she’s making bad decisions, given her lack of experience and dire circumstances, it’s impossible to fault her in any way. She’s a young girl who’s being preyed upon, and we can only admire her for wanting to take action and protect Juliet once she realizes the truth.

Fair Rosaline is a compelling read, upsetting and moving and thought-provoking. I’ll never think of Romeo and Juliet in quite the same way again.

16Sep2023

Book Review: All the Dead Shall Weep (Gunnie Rose, #5) by Charlaine Harris

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: All the Dead Shall Weep
Series: Gunnie Rose, #5
Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher: Saga Press
Publication date: September 5, 2023
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Fantasy / speculative fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Sisters Lizbeth Rose and Felicia as well as brother Eli and Peter, are reunited in Texoma only to break apart before the Wizard’s Ball held in San Diego, which will determine all their fates.

Following the murderous events of the Serpent of Heaven, Lizbeth Rose is awaiting the arrival of her sister Felicia and her husband’s younger brother Eli in Texoma. Both needed to leave the seat of the Holy Russian Empire in San Diego after Felicia’s burgeoning wizardly power in death magic became the reason for kidnapping and assassination attempts from her mother’s family of high-powered wizards in Mexico.

Yet bad news has traveled ahead of them, as Eli is called back to San Diego, taking Peter along with him, splitting them apart in more ways than one as their enemies’ plans for revenge come to fruition.

If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said that I had no interest in getting involved in yet another fantasy series. Times change! I read book one of the Gunnie Rose series, An Easy Death, in February of this year, and since then have inhaled the rest of the available books. As you can imagine, I was delighted to get my hands on a copy of All the Dead Shall Weep, the newest release in this terrific series.

Quick refresher/overview: The Gunnie Rose series takes place in an alternate world in which the United States fractured during the 1930s. The continent is now divided into separate, independent countries, among them the Holy Russian Empire (our California and Oregon), New America, Dixie, Britannia, and Texoma (our Texas and Oklahoma), home to main character Lizbeth Rose.

Lizbeth is a “gunnie”, a talented sharpshooter for hire who earns a living protecting people and cargo. Over the course of the series, she’s met and fallen in love with Eli Savarova, an aristocrat from the HRE and a gifted “grigori”, a term used for Russian magicians. In this world, magic is real and powerful, and while in some circles grigoris are esteemed, in Texoma, they are generally feared.

The first three books in the series are told from Lizbeth’s point of view, and book four switched to Lizbeth’s sister Felicia as narrator. Here in book 5, Lizbeth and Felicia both narrate, each getting their own chapters to lead us through the story.

Lizbeth and Eli are settled in Texoma, enjoying married life in her small town, earning a modest living and trying to fit in. When Felicia and Peter, Eli’s brother, come for a visit, things start getting more complicated. A previously unknown militia group shows up in town with lots of firepower, and end up causing harm and danger to the family. Following these events, Eli departs with Peter without much of an explanation, and Lizbeth is left to believe that Eli has left her to return to his more privileged, comfortable life in the Holy Russian Empire.

Meanwhile, Felicia, who has astounding magical powers of her own, is being courted by eligible partners from the most elite magical families, and this leads to even more danger for all involved.

It’s challenging to sum up the overarching plot of this particular installment in the series, because it often felt like it lacked one. There are several high-adventure set pieces, and some connecting threads, but I was puzzled throughout about what the main point was and where the story was going. In some ways, this book feels like a bridge between plot developments — we spend time with the characters and certain things happen, but it feels largely like set-up for other major events yet to come.

All the Dead Shall Weep is shorter than the previous books, and I found myself somewhat less engaged by the plot. However, I do love these characters and find the world of the Gunnie Rose series to be fascinating, so spending time on this book was a nice treat despite the slightly less propulsive plot.

Obviously, with an ongoing series like this, the 5th book is not the right place for a new reader to start — definitely begin with An Easy Death if you’re interested! While this particular book wasn’t as great as some of the others, I still enjoyed it, and absolutely can’t wait for the expected huge payoff in book #6, which I hope will come along soon!

12Sep2023

Book Review: Dreambound by Dan Frey

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Dreambound
Author: Dan Frey
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication date: September 12, 2023
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction / fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In this thrilling contemporary fantasy novel, a father must uncover the secret magical underbelly of Los Angeles to find his daughter, who has seemingly disappeared into the fictional universe of her favorite fantasy series.

When Byron Kidd’s twelve-year-old daughter vanishes, the only clue left behind is a note claiming she’s taken off to explore the Hidden World, a magical land from a series of popular novels. She is not the only child to seek out this imaginary realm in recent years, and Byron—a cynical and hard-nosed reporter—is determined to discover the whereabouts of dozens of missing kids.

Byron secures a high-profile interview with Annabelle Tobin, the eccentric author of the books, and heads off to her palatial home in the Hollywood Hills. But the truth Byron discovers is more fantastical than he ever could have dreamed.

As he uncovers locations from the books that seem to be bleeding into the real world, he must shed his doubts and dive headfirst into the mystical secrets of Los Angeles if he ever hopes to reunite with his child. Soon Byron finds himself on his own epic journey—but if he’s not careful, he could be the next one to disappear…

Told through journal entries, transcripts, emails, and excerpts from Tobin’s novels, Dreambound is a spellbinding homage to Los Angeles and an immersive and fast-paced story of how far a father will go—even delving into impossible worlds—to save his daughter.

Dan Frey’s previous novel The Future Is Yours was a fantastic read, so I jumped at the chance to read his newest, Dreambound. I’m happy to report that Dreambound absolutely lives up to my high expectations!

In this new book, told through the main character’s investigation notebook and email exchanges, Byron Kidd’s world falls apart when his 12-year-old daughter Liza disappears. A note left tucked inside one of her favorite books, a volume in the massively popular Fairy Tale fantasy series, indicates that she’s left voluntarily. With no leads, no sightings, and nothing to go one, the case quickly goes cold, and Liza’s parents are left to cope in their own ways — her mother escapes into rituals of mourning and therapy, and Byron, an investigative journalist, decides to pursue the one lead they do have: the Fairy Tale fandom and its secrets.

Internet rumors draw connections between other missing children cases, all of which seem to be tied to Fairy Tale in some way. Yet when Byron tries to pursue this angle, he’s told that he’s chasing conspiracy theories, and warned not to let his grief and despair tarnish his professional reputation.

But Byron is convinced that he’s onto something, and heads to Los Angeles, where a single ping from Liza’s cell phone was detected after her disappearance. Through manipulation and subterfuge, he manages to get an interview with the author of Fairy Tale, Annabelle Tobin, whose sixth and final book in the series has been long delayed and who lives a reclusive life in her secluded Hollywood Hills mansion.

Things get weirder and weirder — is there truly a “hidden world” that these missing children have managed to get to? Or is the fandom so overly immersed in the fictional Fairy Tale world that predators and traffickers have been able to lure young readers with false promises?

Early on, Dreambound establishes the power of reading and the lure of imagination and fantasy. Byron, wrapped up in his obsessive need to find Liza, contemplates whether he made a fundamental mistake as a parent:

Then I’ll tell you who I am. I’m the guy who can’t sleep, wondering what I did wrong. Wondering how I could have possibly prevented this. Wondering if I made a mistake by teaching her to read, or giving her those stupid, dangerous books.

As all readers know, books have power. For a little while, at least, books transport us to new worlds and new ways of thinking. But Dreambound suggests that there’s more: What if the shared belief of enough readers is enough to make these fantasy worlds manifest within our own? What if what happened to the missing children isn’t shared delusion, but the literal opening of a portal to the hidden world, accessed through the power of believing it to be real?

I mean, what is magic if not a way to transform the world through the power of our thoughts? What are books if not spells? What are stories if not the most powerful and mysterious force known to man?

Dreambound is complicated and mind-bendy, taking us deep into Byron’s investigation through his notes, embedded transcripts of conversations and interviews, and the stories Byron encounters through a mysterious book called (naturally) The Hidden World. To others, Byron may seem to have been driven mad by his loss — but as he digs deeper, the clues he discovers lead him to startling discoveries and unexpected allies, and impel him onward even while outside forces want to stop him.

Annabelle Tobin seems an obvious stand-in for a certain real-world author of a blockbuster, bestselling series of children’s books and movies which have so indelibly changed our pop culture reference points. Not to get too meta, but it’s hard not to draw parallels when reading lines such as this in an email from her editor:

Right now, your work is being tarnished and overshadowed by a public conversation that we’ve lost control over.

Still, Annabelle differs in key ways, ends up being more sympathetic than I’d originally believed, and has unique secrets that we can only assume are not shared with her real-world counterpart.

I loved the adventure, the unraveling of clues, and the emphasis on the role of books and fantasy in our lives, as well as the underlying mythos in which beliefs shared across enough people gain power to stand on their own. Byron is not always a likable person (some of his tactics are fairly despicable), but he can be forgiven his crueler moments for the sake of his devotion to getting his daughter to safety, no matter what he has to sacrifice.

At points, I wished that the glimpses of the world of the Fairy Tale series went more in-depth. I do love a good story-within-a-story plot device, and in this case, the bits we do see of the Fairy Tale fantasy world seem very alluring — it’s easy to see, based on these snippets, how they might generate such a devoted fan base.

Still, the point is not the Fairy Tale series itself, but its effect on its readers — particularly those still young or open enough to both understand the real world in which they live yet still hold out hope that fictional ideals might somehow be true.

The concepts here are wonderful, the plot is convoluted and twisty, and the fantasy elements are immersive and imaginative. Dreambound is a compelling, entertaining read that kept me turning the pages until way past my bedtime. Don’t miss it!

9Sep2023

Audiobook Review: The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Breakaway
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Narrator: Nikki Blonsky, Santino Fontana, Jenni Barber, Soneela Nankani, Joy Osmanski
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: August 29, 2023
Print length: 400 pages
Audio length: 13 hours, 30 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased (audiobook); E-book ARC from the publisher/NetGalley
Rating:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner comes a warmhearted and empowering new novel about love, family, friendship, secrets, and a life-changing journey.

Thirty-three-year-old Abby Stern has made it to a happy place. True, she still has gig jobs instead of a career, and the apartment where she’s lived since college still looks like she’s just moved in. But she’s got good friends, her bike, and her bicycling club in Philadelphia. She’s at peace with her plus-size body—at least, most of the time—and she’s on track to marry Mark Medoff, her childhood summer sweetheart, a man she met at the weight-loss camp that her perpetually dieting mother forced her to attend. Fifteen years after her final summer at Camp Golden Hills, when Abby reconnects with a half-his-size Mark, it feels like the happy ending she’s always wanted.

Yet Abby can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right…or the memories of one thrilling night she spent with a man named Sebastian two years previously. When Abby gets a last-minute invitation to lead a cycling trip from NYC to Niagara Falls, she’s happy to have time away from Mark, a chance to reflect and make up her mind.

But things get complicated fast. First, Abby spots a familiar face in the group—Sebastian, the one-night stand she thought she’d never see again. Sebastian is a serial dater who lives a hundred miles away. In spite of their undeniable chemistry, Abby is determined to keep her distance. Then there’s a surprise last-minute addition to the group: her mother, Eileen, the woman Abby blames for a lifetime of body shaming and insecurities she’s still trying to undo.

Over two weeks and more than seven hundred miles, strangers become friends, hidden truths come to light, a teenage girl with a secret unites the riders in unexpected ways…and Abby is forced to reconsider everything she believes about herself, her mother, and the nature of love.

In Jennifer Weiner’s wonderful new novel, we spend time with Abby Stern, a smart woman in her 30s who’s comfortable in her body, happiest on a bicycle, and questioning whether her seemingly perfect boyfriend of two years is actually perfect for her.

Abby has spent her life subject to her mother’s constant criticism of her size and weight, and was even forced to spend three summers at a “fat camp”. But as an adult, Abby knows that her active lifestyle keeps her healthy, and refuses to chase diet fads or deny herself the pleasure of good food in pursuit of the elusive slimness everyone thinks she should want.

As for her love life, Abby is adored by her podiatrist boyfriend Mark, and she knows she can have a good life with him, but she’s hesitant about taking the next step. Something seems to be missing. On the verge of having to make a decision about moving in with Mark, Abby is offered a last-minute job leading a two-week bike trip from Manhattan to Niagara Falls, and although nervous about it, she decides that this might be just what she needs to clear her head, escape for a little while, and even have a little fun.

As the group assembles, Abby gets two shocks: Her mother has joined the trip, and so has Sebastian, the gorgeous guy she had an out-of-character one-night-stand with a couple of years earlier. She’s never forgotten how amazing the night with Sebastian was, even though she never expected to see him again. What’s even more shocking to Abby is how delighted Sebastian seems to be to see her, and how excited he is at the idea of spending time with her.

The story is told largely through Abby’s perspective, although we also get sections from Sebastian’s point of view, as well as shorter interludes from others on the trip. Sebastian’s chapters are interesting, as we get to see what’s going on in his head and understand the backstory of his sudden social media infamy, and also powerful are chapters focused on a teen girl and her mother.

I loved seeing Abby in her element, and I truly appreciated the portrayal of her as someone comfortable in her body and embracing health without focusing on her weight. Abby is a great example of body positivity as well as empowerment, and as we see her developing plans for the next stages of her life, I was impressed by her goal of empowering younger girls through cycling education and riding.

One secondary plotline involves the women of the bike trip coming together to support a teen girl, enabling her to access the health care and choices she’d be denied in her home state. The sense of community and the way the women all participated in keeping the teen safe were lovely and inspiring to read about.

And of course, there’s a romantic element which works really well, although in some ways, the love story aspects are less important than the soul-searching and self-discovery that several of the characters undergo throughout the book. Also really fun? The bike trip itself! Apparently, I’m a sucker for a good outdoor adventure tale, and even though I haven’t been on a bike in years, the trip sounded just wonderful to me.

The audiobook has several narrators, but Abby and Sebastian’s voices are of course dominant throughout the story. Abby is voiced by Nikki Blonsky (who starred in the Hairspray movie), and Sebastian is voiced by Santino Fontana (the original Greg in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend). Both are terrific.

Jennifer Weiner is one of my must-read authors at this point, and The Breakaway absolutely delivers. I think I still have a few of her earlier books to get to , and I’ll certainly be reading whatever she writes next.

The Breakaway is enjoyable, entertaining, and emotionally moving and satisfying. Highly recommended.

7Sep2023

Book Review: The Innocent Sleep (October Daye, #18) by Seanan McGuire

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Innocent Sleep
Series: October Daye, #18
Author: Seanan McGuire
Publisher: DAW
Publication date: October 24, 2023
Print length: 368 pages
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

For one bright, shining moment, Tybalt, King of Cats, had everything he had ever wanted. He was soon to set his crown aside; he had married the woman he loved; he was going to be a father. After centuries of searching for a family of his own, he had finally found a way to construct the life of his dreams, and was looking forward to a period of peace—or at least as much peace as is ever in the offing for the husband of a hero.

Alas for Tybalt and his domestic aspirations, fate—and Titania—had other ideas. His perfect world had been complete for only a moment when it was ripped away, to be replaced by hers. Titania, Faerie’s Summer Queen, Mother of Illusions and enemy of so many he holds dear, has seized control of the Kingdom, remaking it in her own image. An image which does not include meddlesome shapeshifters getting in her way. Tybalt quickly finds himself banished from her reality, along with the Undersea and the rest of the Court of Cats.

To protect his people and his future, Tybalt must find the woman he loves in a world designed to keep her from him, convince her that he’s not a stranger trying to ruin her life for no apparent reason, and get her to unmake the illusion she’s been firmly enmeshed in. And he’ll have to do it all while she doesn’t know him, and every unrecognizing look is a knife to his heart.

For Tybalt, King of Cats, the happily ever after was just the beginning.

Buckle up! The 18th book in the excellent October Daye fantasy series is unusual, powerful, and a one hell of a ride.

The Innocent Sleep is a big departure from the norms of the series, in two significant ways: 1) It’s releasing only a month and a half after the previous book, Sleep No More, rather than the usual one-year gap between installments, and 2) for the first time in the series, the book’s POV character is not Toby herself, but her husband Tybalt, King of Cats.

As we saw in book #17, Titania has worked her malevolent magic to create a new version of reality — a version where changelings like Toby exist to serve their pureblood families, and those of magical lines that don’t fit Titania’s ideals, such as shapeshifters and other inconveniences, are locked away in skerries or sealed-off courts, dead or non-existent to the rest of Faerie.

For October and Tybalt, this is a problem. Tybalt’s magic allows him to see through illusions quickly, so he knows the truth and that Titania’s world is a lie — but as the King of the local Cait Sidh court, his first duty is keeping his trapped people alive and cared for, an exhausting task leaving him no time to try to rescue Toby.

In Sleep No More, the construct of this false reality leaves Toby and Tybalt separated for much of the book, and here in The Innocent Sleep we get to find out more about what he’s been up to during this forced separation. As we’d expect, he does not take it at all well, and spends much of his time absolutely furious, as well as deathly afraid for his beloved. After receiving dire prophecies from a Seer, Tybalt is forced to do something he’s not at all good at — waiting. The time isn’t right yet for him to intervene, and while everything in him is frantically urging him to rescue Toby NOW, he’s been told in no uncertain terms that doing so will doom them all.

Tybalt’s mind is an interesting place to spend a book. We know he’s madly, passionately in love with Toby — but as a hero of the realm, she’s not a safe or easy person to care for. Through Tybalt’s narrative, we learn just what he experiences every time she goes off to fight or undertake a dangerous quest. It’s fascinating to see this man, who’s a King and defers to no one, show again and again how much he supports Toby’s path in life, even while desperately afraid that one day she’ll meet something or someone she can’t survive.

Tybalt is haughty, is often accused of speaking like someone in a Shakespearean play (which is true), and is fabulously entertaining.

“I am a cat, sir. I always look my very best, even when I don’t, and to so much as imply otherwise is to run the risk of treason.”

I looked back to Simon, summoning every ounce of haughty disdain I could find. I had quite a bit.

That woman can hold a grudge like a cat, and I have very few higher compliments that I can give.

The Innocent Sleep has an interesting problem at its core, which is that the plot itself isn’t moving the overall series story forward. This book covers the same time period and events as the previous one, and it ends at the same point as well. This means that we already know the outcome of the central crisis, which lessens the dramatic impact. On the other hand, it is fascinating to see how Tybalt experiences these events, and to learn more about what he’s been doing all the time he’s off-page in Sleep No More. The author does a great job of weaving the books together whenever Toby and Tybalt are in the same scene, so that the dialogue and stage-direction matches completely — but now we understand how all of this looks and feels to Tybalt, which is really fun.

I truly can’t wait to see what happens next in the series. Alas, I’m afraid we’re now back to waiting a year for a new book!

The Innocent Sleep includes a novella at the end, as is typical for the October Daye series. This one, Doubtless and Secure, is about Dianda and her life as ruler of Saltmist in the Undersea. It’s good, but very long. It’s always interesting to get these side-stories filling in the blanks of other characters’ lives — someday, I’d love to see a whole collection of Toby-verse stories!

3Sep2023

Book Review: Sleep No More (October Daye, #17) by Seanan McGuire

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Sleep No More
Series: October Daye, #17
Author: Seanan McGuire
Publisher: DAW
Publication date: September 5, 2023
Print length: 368 pages
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

October is very happy with her life as the second daughter of her pureblood parents, Amandine and Simon Torquill. Born to be the changeling handmaid to her beloved sister August, she spends her days working in her family’s tower, serving as August’s companion, and waiting for the day when her sister sets up a household of her own. Everything is right in October’s Faerie. Everything is perfect.

Everything is a lie.

October has been pulled from her own reality and thrown into a twisted reinterpretation of Faerie where nothing is as it should be and everything has been distorted to support Titania’s ideals. Bound by the Summer Queen’s magic and thrust into a world turned upside down, October has no way of knowing who she can trust, where she can turn, or even who she really is. As strangers who claim to know her begin to appear and the edges of Titania’s paradise begin to unravel, Toby will have to decide whether she can risk everything she knows based on only their stories of another world.

But first she’ll have to survive this one, as Titania demonstrates why she needed to be banished in the first place—and this time, much more than Toby’s own life is at stake.

Who would think that the 17th book in a fantasy series could still make a reader gasp, cry, and want to beg the author for mercy on behalf of the characters? I suppose it’s not truly a surprise when it comes to the October Daye series — this is a series that delivers heart-stopping plot twists and emotional upheavals consistently (while also having plenty of humor and moments of absolute delight). The author doesn’t let the characters (or the reader) get comfortable for long, and books 16 and 17 in the series are prime examples.

Going back a book for a quick minute, book #16 picks up after our hero Toby (a literal hero of the realm) finally finds true happiness and marries the love of her life. And then her world takes a horrifying turn, devastating things happen, and life as Toby knows it will never be the same.

Without going too far into plot details, the 16th book ends with a terrifying twist that left me practically sobbing on the floor and screaming NOOOOO. So it’s not a surprise when book 17, Sleep No More, picks up the story where it left off, ready to tie my guts into knots once again.

Have I mentioned how much I love these books? Honestly, I do, even though they wreak havoc on my state of calm.

In Sleep No More, October is imprisoned within a false world in which nothing about her former life remains true, and what’s more, she has no idea that the world she now inhabits isn’t where she’s always been. In this world, she lives according to the rules for all changelings (half-human, half-fae) — her purpose is to serve her family, especially her pureblood sister. She’s happy with her lot. She loves her sister August, and knows that she has an important role to fill. So long as she keeps her head down, does what she’s told, and doesn’t offend any purebloods, she’ll have as good a life as an unimportant changeling can aspire to.

But cracks in the façade of a perfect life appear. Toby begins to experience things that don’t make sense, and soon people show up who insist that this isn’t the real world. Even as Toby begins to recognize the elements that don’t add up and starts to discover her own true nature, she clings to the false world where she’s loved and protected. Eventually, though, she can’t deny the truth of the situation, and along with trusted allies, sets out to save the world (again).

For fans of the series, this book is powerful, scary, upsetting… and also a totally compelling read. It should be pretty obvious that the 17th book in a series is not a good place to start, but I’m happy to take this opportunity to once again recommend picking up book #1, Rosemary & Rue!!

In a truly unusual move, the next book in the series, The Innocent Sleep, will be released in October. Two books within two months! These books typically come out once a year, so this is totally exciting. Stay tuned! I’ll be back with thoughts on The Innocent Sleep very, very soon.

*Up next in series: The Innocent Sleep (release date 10/24/2023)*

Side note: At certain points in the story, I kept flashing to a bit of dialogue from the Buffy episode The Wish:

Anyanka: You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any better than this?
Giles: Because it has to be.

2Sep2023

Book Review: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Love, Theoretically
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: June 13, 2023
Length: 389 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.

Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?

Love, Theoretically is author Ali Hazelwood’s third novel… and I think I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. This book on its own may be fine — but after reading the previous two, I can’t help but feel that Love, Theoretically is just more of the same.

Main character Elsie Hannaway is desperate for a good job in academia — one that allows her to focus on research, earn a steady paycheck, and have the health benefits she so desperately needs she she can afford her insulin supply. Her job as an adjunct professor keeps her finances unstable and her nerves fried, not to mention her reserve of patience absolutely tapped out dealing with the neverending flimsy excuses of slacker undergrads.

Being one of two finalists for a prestigious post at MIT is a dream come true, except one of the members of the selection committee is Jack Smith, the brother of a man she’s been fake-dating as well as someone who’s been ruthless in his criticism of her branch of physics. It seems likely that he’ll torpedo her candidacy, but despite his clear mistrust, he ends up showing her unexpected kindness.

Inevitably, these two supposed enemies are forced to acknowledge their mutual attraction and actual feelings, although there are plenty of barriers to break through before they get there. Elsie has spent her life trying to please everyone, pushing her own needs to the back of the priority line in order to give others what they want from her. She’s never her authentic self (doesn’t even admit to her best friend that she actually hates the art films they watch together), until Jack calls her on her lack of honesty and forces her to be true to herself while she’s around him.

Elsie and Jack have immediate chemistry… and, well, it’s clear from the start where this is going. As in the author’s previous books, the love story is well-established-professional-who’s-maybe-evil vs rising-star-needing-a-break-and-to-break-free-of-internalized-obstacles. (OK, from what I’ve read online, Ali Hazelwood started out writing ReyLo fanfic, and it shows… although I have only the barest of familiarities with that particular ship).

Perhaps I might have appreciated this book more if I hadn’t read the others, but I struggled with a been-there, done-that feeling throughout this particular reading experience. Yes, the particulars of the plot are different, but the overall dynamics are very much aligned.

It didn’t help for me that Jack, while ostensibly empowering Elsie to recognize and express her own desires rather than fit herself to everyone else’s, comes off as domineering and controlling. Further mucking things up for me is that Elsie’s character never actual seemed to make sense — I understood what I was told about her people-pleasing nature, but just didn’t buy it.

Love, Theoretically isn’t a bad read. It goes by quickly and kept my interest. It just didn’t seem to offer much new — so yes, it was fine, but perhaps I’ve just read enough by this author at this point. I don’t think I’ll need to read more of her books, unless she does something completely different and moves away from the love-amongst-scientists theme.

31Aug2023

Book Review: Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Whalefall
Author: Daniel Kraus
Publisher: MTV Books
Publication date: August 8, 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Whalefall is a scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

I can promise you that you’ve never read a book like Whalefall before! I’ve seen some comparisons to The Martian, and that’s pretty fair… more on that below!

In Whalefall, our protagonist is 17-year-old Jay, a teen wracked by guilt over his fractured relationship with his deceased father. Mitt Gardiner was revered in the Monterey dive community, but as a father, he inspired fear in his son. Mitt’s focus was 100% on the ocean and its mysteries, but his fury at the encroachment of humans and his dissatisfaction with daily life made him a man whose anger and bitterness cost him job after job.

While Jay’s older sisters were mostly immune to Mitt’s moods, Jay spent all his life as the focus of Mitt’s obsessions, forced out on dives from a young age, forced to parrot back Mitt’s teachings and support his ill-thought-out pipe dreams and get-rich-quick schemes. After a terrible confrontation, Jay left home and spent the last years of his father’s life, as Mitt deteriorated due to mesothelioma, living with friends and refusing to see his father.

We learn about Jay’s history and the torturous relationship with Mitt through flashback chapters, interwoven with the “now” of Jay’s story. As the book opens, Jay is heading for Monastery Beach, a dangerous area on Monterey Bay, to search for his father’s remains. Preferring to die at sea than in a hospital bed, Mitt committed suicide there by throwing himself off a boat while loaded down with dive weights. Jay has convinced himself that if he can retrieve Mitt’s bones from the Bay’s floor, he’ll find some sort of peace or redemption.

He definitely doesn’t believe in closure. People aren’t doors. They’re whole floor plans, entire labyrinths, and the harder you try to escape, the more lost inside them you become.

Using shoddy, second-hand gear, Jay heads into the water, at first allowing himself to marvel at the undersea world and its beauty, his father’s words echoing in his mind. Disaster strikes soon enough: Jay ventures across the edge of an undersea canyon that leads to true depths, is awed by the sight of a giant squid, and realizes too late that the squid is being hunted by a sperm whale. Caught up in the squid’s tentacles, Jay is pulled into the whale’s mouth, and then swallowed.

As the chapter headings show us, Jay’s oxygen tank will sustain him for no more than an hour. As each chapter passes, we see the tank’s readings decrease. He’s in a seemingly hopeless situation — how could a small human possibly manage to escape from a whale’s belly? And yet, Jay looks around and determines not to give up… at least, not until he has to.

As the situation deteriorates, and possibly due to the dangerous levels of nitrogen and methane, Jay begins to hear his father’s voice. Is it real? Is it in his mind? Is the whale channeling Mitt? Doesn’t matter — this voice reminds him again and again of incidents from his past, and through these memories, Jay is given hints of knowledge that he can use.

Depending only on what he has with him, as well as the weird flotsam floating in the whale’s stomach, Jay begins to fight a seemingly unwinnable battle to save himself. And little by little, as his father’s voice guides him, Jay begins to find an inner peace with his past as well.

The descriptions in Whalefall are brutal and terrifying. Jay’s body goes through unimaginable degrees of punishment, from acid burns to bone-breaking compression due to the whale’s stomach’s peristalsis, to the painful pressure damage caused by the whale’s sudden dive for the depths. Readers with weak stomachs and/or an inclination toward claustrophobia might want to think twice before starting this book!

So how is the story of a teen inside a whale similar to The Martian, the story of an astronaut stranded on Mars? In both cases, a person in an apparently hopeless, fatal situation finds a way to survive through science, knowledge, and a McGyver-ish ability to take what he has and use it to his advantage. For Jay, that means using neoprene, a squid’s beak, Brillo pads, batteries, and more to create tools, first aid supplies, and other devices necessary to last just a little bit longer and try to find a way out before his air is gone.

While a harrowing tale of danger and escape, Whalefall is also a deeper story of love, regret, and the complicated power of parent-child expectations and disappointments. Mitt is not a nice guy by any means, yet it’s his presence that enables Jay to survive, and as we learn through Jay’s memories, there are kernels of value buried deep in Jay’s subconscious that let him see that life with Mitt wasn’t only the nightmare he remembers.

I first heard about Whalefall thanks to Tammy at Books, Bones & Buffy, who featured it months ago as a Future Fiction pick. Thank you, Tammy! Don’t miss her review, here.

Whalefall is a tense, addictive read that’s impossible to put down once started. I did wish to know more about what happens next at the end, even though I recognize that that’s not the point of the story. (Can’t help that I’m super practical and curious…)

I’m so glad that I decided to read Whalefall. I loved the Monterey setting, the references to Steinbeck, the glimpses of lives devoted to the sea, and the depiction of the power and mystery of whales and other deep-dwelling creature. More than anything, this story of survival and desperation is a look inside a young man’s pain, longing, and regret, and these elements — the personal and the thriller — come together to make a compelling whole. Highly recommended.