Happy book birthday to Be Sure by Seanan McGuire! Be Sure is a brand new paperback 3-in-1 edition of the first three books in the outstanding Wayward Children series, released just this week.
Be Sure by Seanan McGuire Release date: July 18, 2023 Length: 528 pages Publisher: Tor.com
Synopsis:
Where it all began―the first three books in Seanan McGuire’s multi-Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series.
Join the students of Eleanor West, and jump through doors into worlds both dangerous and extraordinary.
Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Meet Nancy, cast out of her world by the Lord of the Dead; Jack and Jill, each adopted by a monster of the Moors; Sumi and her impossible daughter, Rini.
Three worlds, three adventures, three sets of lives destined to intersect.
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations / No Visitors / No Quests
But quests are what these children do best…
The Wayward Children series consists of 8 novellas so far, with a 9th coming in January (Mislaid in Parts Unknown).
If you visit my blog from time to time, you’ll know Seanan McGuire is an absolute must-read author for me. (Her October Daye series is my #1 fantasy series — long may it reign!) The Wayward Children books are sparkling, immersive, and tightly written. At novella length, they pack a punch, and each new volume adds new dimensions and layers to the universe of these stories.
Books 1 and 2 in this series are particular favorites of mine, but I’ve loved them all. If you’ve never explored the world of Wayward Children, this new paperback would be a great way to get started!
Title: Thief Liar Lady Author: D. L. Soria Publisher: Del Rey Publication date: July 11. 2023 Length: 416 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
“Happily Ever After” is a total scam, but at least this time the princess is the one controlling the grift–until her true love arrives and threatens to ruin the whole scheme. Intrigue, magic, and wit abound in this Cinderella fairytale reimagining, perfect for fans of Heather Walter and Naomi Novik.
I’m not who you think I am.
My transformation from a poor, orphaned scullery maid into the enchantingly mysterious lady who snagged the heart of the prince did not happen–as the rumors insisted–in a magical metamorphosis of pumpkins and glass slippers. On the first evening of the ball, I didn’t meekly help my “evil” stepmother and stepsisters primp and preen or watch forlornly out the window as their carriage rolled off toward the palace. I had other preparations to make.
My stepsisters and I had been trained for this–to be the cleverest in the room, to be quick with our hands and quicker with our lies. We were taught how to get everything we want in this world, everything men always kept for themselves: power, wealth, and prestige. And with a touchingly tragic past and the help of some highly illegal spells, I would become a princess, secure our fortunes, and we would all live happily ever after.
But there’s always more to the story. With my magic running out, war looming, and a handsome hostage prince–the wrong prince–distracting me from my true purpose with his magnetic charm and forbidden flirtations, I’m in danger of losing control of the delicate balance I’ve created…and that could prove fatal.
There’s so much more riding on this than a crown.
In Thief Liar Lady, Cinderella is a con artist, a magic wielder, and a secret agent of the rebellion. And she still manages to charm the handsome prince at the ball!
Ash Vincent, aka Lady Aislinn, has been trained all her life by her stepmother Seraphina to be cunning, heartless, and in control. She can fight, she can cast spells using the rare and expensive magical substance known as lustre, and she can weave enchantments to get her way. Everything works according to plan, and Ash wins the love of Prince Everett at the royal ball, in the process captivating the people of the kingdom of Solis through their “magical” love story.
Playing up the story of a cruel stepmother and evil stepsisters, Ash wins the hearts and minds of pretty much everyone, although Everett’s best friend, Lord Verance of the subject realm of Eloria, doesn’t seem all that impressed. Now all Ash has to do is stay in control, keep up her facade of being a demure, graceful, kind and loving lady, and within a few short months, she’ll be married and secure.
But Ash has a secret agenda, unknown to Seraphina — she’s also in this to advance the cause of the Elorian rebels, and key to their plans is Ash’s ability to influence events from within the royal household.
The deeper Ash gets, the more dangerous her schemes become, and as the royal wedding approaches, the more conflicted she feels about sacrificing her heart for the sake of her mission.
Thief Liar Lady is an engaging read, full of adventure, danger, and plotting. Unfortunately, the early chapters of the book set up the premise in a way that’s mostly just confusing — we hear a lot about lustre, about treaties, rebels, and refugees, and even about agrarian reform, of all things — but Ash’s role and her alliances don’t become clear for some time. The history between Solis and Eloria is likewise muddled, and it takes some effort to puzzle out what’s going on here — and not in the fun, “ooh, give me another clue!” sort of way, but more along the lines of “I don’t know who these people are or what they’re trying to do”.
Eventually, the pieces get (mostly) explained, and by the last third or so of the book, I felt much more invested and interested in the outcome. Still, the court politics and alliances are not always clear, the use of lustre seems haphazard, and Ash herself seems to change course or act unreasonably more often than is helpful.
Overall, I liked the book, but felt that it was much too long and could have used a lot more clarity in terms of laying out the players, the stakes, and the background. When the plot picks up, there are some exciting moments, but inconsistencies and actions that are illogical take away from the bigger-picture impact.
As a Cinderella retelling, Thief Liar Lady provides some clever twists on the story, and I enjoyed it enough to see it through, despite my reservations.
Title: The Seven Year Slip Author: Ashley Poston Publisher: Berkley Publication date: June 27. 2023 Length: 352 pages Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.
So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: stay busy, work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.
And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.
Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.
Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.
After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.
An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.
It’s been a while since I’ve read a really satisfying time slip novel… and The Seven Year Slip absolutely delivers.
Clementine works as a book publicist, and has plans worked out for every aspect of her life. Her aunt Analea — vibrant, spontaneous, vivacious, always provided the spark in Clementine’s life, whisking her away for world travels, ready to explore, to taste, to try, to experience. But after Analea’s death, the joy has leached out of Clementine’s life, and moving into the apartment bequeathed to her by her aunt just drives home how much she’s lost.
Until she returns home one day, not to her stacks of unpacked boxes, but to the apartment as it was during Analea’s lifetime… and with a very cute guy zipping around the place, offering to make her dinner. Iwan informs Clementine that his mother is a friend of her aunt’s, and her aunt has offered to sublet the apartment to him for the summer while she’s off on a journey with her niece — a journey which Clementine and Analea took seven years in the past.
Clementine finds herself reeling — but not entirely unprepared. After all, all her life, her aunt has insisted that the apartment is magic, and even told of her own seven-year-slip romance at a younger age. Clementine never truly believed the stories, of course, but now, the proof is right there in front of her eyes.
She and Iwan connect over food, family, and dreams, and they enjoy each other’s company immensely. Still, she knows that once she leaves the apartment, she’ll be back to her regular life, and who knows if the magic will work more than once?
The plot of The Seven Year Slip unfolds deliciously, with clues and interludes and interactions woven together to form a wonderful, romantic, hopeful whole. For Clementine, so immersed in grief and loss, meeting Iwan is the spark she needs to rediscover her creative side once again and rethink her true sources of happiness. We see the story through her POV, but Iwan is a lovely character and we get hints of what his side of this magical yet strange experience must have been.
The Seven Year Slip is best experienced without too many expectations or foreknowledge. The book zips by, and the plot threads come together in such a rich and unexpected way. The characters are engaging, and getting to see them as different versions of themselves is really a treat.
This story exists in the same world as the author’s previous novel, The Dead Romantics, but it’s not a sequel — there’s a nod to some of the people from that book, but if you haven’t read that one yet, it won’t take away from The Seven Year Slip at all. (Although, it is VERY good, so check that one out too!)
I really enjoyed The Seven Year Slip, and recommend it highly! It’s a perfect summer read, full of hope and love, friendship, family, and romance. After reading this author’s YA Once Upon a Con trilogy and now two of her adult novels, I can definitely say that Ashley Poston’s books are must-reads!
Title: Ravensong Series: Green Creek Author: TJ Klune Publisher: Tor Books Publication date: August 1, 2023 (originally published 2018) Length: 512 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
The beloved fantasy romance sensation by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about love, loyalty, betrayal, and joy. The Bennett family has a secret. They’re not just a family, they’re a pack . Ravensong is Gordo Livingstone’s story.
Gordo Livingstone never forgot the lessons carved into his skin. Hardened by the betrayal of a pack who left him behind, he sought solace in the garage in his tiny mountain town, vowing never again to involve himself in the affairs of wolves. It should have been enough. And it was, until the wolves came back, and with them, Mark Bennett. In the end, they faced the beast together as a pack… and won.
Now, a year later, Gordo has found himself once again the witch of the Bennett pack. Green Creek has settled after the death of Richard Collins, and Gordo constantly struggles to ignore Mark and the song that howls between them. But time is running out. Something is coming. And this time, it’s crawling from within. Some bonds, no matter how strong, were made to be broken.
The Green Creek Series is for adult readers. Now available from Tor Books.
You many have seen my super-gushy lovefest review of Wolfsong, the first book in TJ Klune’s Green Creek series. You may be wondering — can she keep this up? Will she love the rest of the series, and write yet more super-gushy lovefest reviews?
Yes. Yes, I can. Yes, I will.
Ravensong picks up after the events of Wolfsong (read these books in order, my friends!), but also fills in backstory for this book’s main character, Gordo Livingstone.
We meet Gordo in Wolfsong when he befriends a young Ox Matheson, then twelve years old, abandoned by his father, and desperately lost. Gordo takes Ox in, becomes a friend and father-figure to him, and gives him connection, found family, and a place to belong.
Gordo — besides being the town mechanic — is also witch to the Bennett werewolf pack. Gordo’s magic is embedded in the elaborate tattoos that cover his arms. He’s powerful, but he also has secrets and hidden pain.
In Ravensong, we learn more about Gordo’s past and why he holds on to such bitterness toward the Bennetts. As a boy, Gordo watched his father Robert Livingstone serve as witch to the Bennett Alpha, Abel. At far too young an age, Robert and Abel tattooed the magic into Gordo, and introduced him to the world of witches and werewolves. Yet despite the pain involved, Gordo also found a home with the Bennetts, particularly with Abel’s son Thomas, next in line to be Alpha, and with Thomas’s brother Mark, a kind boy slightly older than Gordo who seemed determined to protect Gordo, even when he didn’t want protection.
After tragedy strikes, Gordo becomes the official witch to the pack — but when a fresh, devastating tragedy occurs, Gordo is left behind. He’s abandoned by the people who are supposed to be his family, and he’s left behind by Mark, who only recently declared Gordo his mate. Gordo stays in Green Creek, but he’s hurt and angry.
When the Bennetts return years later, Gordo has made a life for himself with his garage, the group of (ridiculous) guys who work there, and with Ox, his ward and son-figure. And even as he’s drawn back into the life and struggles of the pack, he never forgives them — or Mark — for the betrayal so many years earlier.
The first third or so of Ravensong gives us all of this history, which is touching and allows us to know Gordo in a different, more complicated way than in Wolfsong. For the remainder of the book, Gordo is deeply enmeshed in the pack’s looming battle against dangerous enemies who seek to destroy the Bennett pack once and for all. The danger strikes deeply at the foundations of the pack, and Gordo’s magic is one of the few defenses and remedies the pack has against a threat that’s seemingly impossible to overcome.
What can I say about Ravensong? I felt completely invested in the well-being of the Bennetts and their pack, to the point that I just wanted everyone to be happy and healthy and not be in danger (although that would rule out about 50% of the plot of the book). These characters are all so wonderfully written, and it’s easy to love them all. Can I help it that I’m an emotional wreck when I see character I love suffering? And they do suffer in Ravensong, unfortunately.
Despite its 500+-page length, Ravensong moves quickly. There’s barely time to catch your breath from one dramatic moment to another. And yet, despite how much action there is, there are also beautiful moments of romantic and familial love.
And lest you think everything is completely dire — there are also hilariously funny scenes, especially when the humans of the Bennett pack get involved.
Then Rico said, “Okay, like. No offense, papi. You know I love you. Bros for life, and all that. But did you go a little nuts in your head from the mystical moon magic? Because it seems like you went a little nuts in your head from the mystical moon magic.”
(Okay, that’s not even the best example, but I was so absorbed in reading that I didn’t stop to highlight all the passages that made me laugh or cry.)
While I loved Ravensong, I maybe loved it a teensy bit less that Wolfsong. Gordo is a hard character to know, and while Ravensong shows us so much more of his life and what happened to make him the man he is now, I still felt a little removed from his inner self at times, in a way that was never true in Wolfsong when it came to Ox.
And while I was aware ahead of time that each book in the Green Creek series would have a different main character as its focus, I couldn’t help wishing for more (much more!) time with Ox and Joe in Ravensong. I mean, they’re there, and they’re still vitally important — but their love story is in the background here, and their role is more focused on their importance to the pack… and I won’t say more, because spoilers, ya know.
As I mentioned in my review of Wolfsong, I love the pack dynamics, the mind to mind connection (PackWitchBrotherLove), and the deep love that runs between all of those who belong to the Bennetts — blood family, found family, humans, werewolves, and their witch. I still feel that I don’t know Mark Bennett very well, and that’s maybe why I wasn’t as deeply invested in Gordo and Mark’s love story as I expected to be — but it’s still lovely and affecting, and takes some twists I never would have seen coming.
Ravensong ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger, setting up what’s still to come in the next books. The main action set pieces are resolved, but it’s clear that the threat to the Bennett pack isn’t gone, just regrouping until it strikes again.
Tor Books is reissuing the entire Green Creek series in gorgeous hardcover editions. Ravensong was originally published in 2018, and while the Kindle/ebook edition is available now, the new hardcover will be released August 1, 2023. Hardcover editions of books 3 and 4, Heartsong and Brothersong, will be released in 2024.
I am all in when it comes to Green Creek, and although I’m trying to pace myself and not read them all at once, I’m not sure how long I can hold out before starting Heartsong!
Title: Thornhedge Author: T. Kingfisher Publisher: Tor Books Publication date: August 16, 2023 Length: 128 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story.
Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling, to return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?
But nothing with fairies is ever simple.
Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…
This slim novella is a fabulous fairy tale retelling… and at this point, the fact that T. Kingfisher has written yet another amazing story should come as no surprise to any of her fans.
In Thornhedge, we get the Sleeping Beauty story, but turned inside out and sideways. The main character is Toadling, a kind-of human (or is she a fairy?) who can shapeshift into a toad. She’s described as:
… the greenish-tan color of mushroom stems and her skin bruised blue-black, like mushroom flesh. She had a broad, frog-like face and waterweed hair. She was neither beautiful nor made of malice, as many of the Fair Folk are said to be.
Mostly she was fretful and often tired.
Toadling is a character who waits, always remaining near the thorn and bramble-covered castle as generations of people come and go across the barren lands nearby.
But Toadling was originally a human child who was stolen off to the world of faeries and replaced by a changeling baby. Toadling was raised with loved by a family of scary sea monsters, but eventually she’s called back to deal with the changeling who replaced her.
Years later, a kind knight stumbles across Toadling and the abandoned keep, and wants to solve the mystery of the girl in the tower — but once Toadling shares her story, it’s clear that waking the princess may not lead to the fairy tale ending everyone expects.
This is such a creative spin on the Sleeping Beauty story, and I loved it! At novella length, Thornhedge makes use of every word and chapter to let us know Toadling, her worries, her struggles, and her sorrows, as well as her memories of a loving childhood and her desire for a different future.
There are scary beings and horrific moments too, but overall, this is a lovely story about a highly unusual fairy tale heroine.
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Books Releasing During the Second Half of 2023.
There are so many books I’m looking forward to! Here are some highlights that I’m excited to read during the 2nd half of 2023… trying not to repeat the books highlighted in last week’s summer TBR post (except for the October Daye books, because those are absolutely at the top of my “most excited for” list this year!!).
The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
Sleep No More (October Daye, #17) by Seanan McGuire
The Innocent Sleep (October Daye, #18) by Seanan McGuire
California Golden by Melanie Benjamin
Dreambound by Dan Frey
Saga, volume 11 by Brian K. Vaughan
The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub
What new releases are you most looking forward to? Please share your links!
Title: Hello Stranger Author: Katherine Center Publisher: St. Martin’s Press Publication date: July 11. 2023 Length: 336 pages Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Love isn’t blind, it’s just little blurry.
Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she’s celebrating the biggest achievement of her life—placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition—the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary” condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie’s new reality with every face she sees.
But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into—love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life?—with not one man but two very different ones. The timing couldn’t be worse.
If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible. Even though there are things we can only find when we aren’t looking. And there are people who show up when we least expect them. And there are always, always other ways of seeing.
Hello Stranger has one of the most instantly interesting set-ups I’ve read recently. Sadie, a portrait artist, is diagnosed with a problematic brain vessel that requires immediate surgery. But when she wakes in the hospital post-surgery, the world looks very, very different.
Sadie has a condition called acquired prosopagnosia, otherwise known as “face blindness”. There’s nothing wrong with her eyes — it’s her brain that can’t make sense of the faces around her. The surgery has left her with swelling near the brain center that processes faces, and there’s no telling whether this is a permanent or temporary condition. For anyone, this would be distressing. For a portrait artist, this is also potentially career-ending — not that Sadie’s career was going all that well. In fact, right before the surgery, Sadie learned that she was a finalist in a competition that could finally give her her big breakthrough — but if she can’t see faces, how can she paint them?
Sadie’s life was already messy before the surgery — barely making ends meet through her Etsy shop, estranged from her father, stepmother, and truly evil stepsister, living in a rooftop shed that she officially is only supposed to use as a studio.
Now, with face blindness, the entire world has changed for Sadie. She literally cannot understand faces — she sees basically pixelated messes. Sure, she can focus in and see an eye or a mouth, individual features, but she has no ability to make sense of the whole. She can’t recognize people by face at all, and has to rely on hair, clothing, and other cues to figure out who she’s talking to. When dealing with kind people, that can still be okay, but not everyone around Sadie is kind (I did mention the evil stepsister, right?), and the cruelty of some of these encounters is pretty astonishing.
Without going further into the plot, I’ll just say that Sadie’s situation is both fascinating and incredibly difficult to comprehend. I fell down quite the Google rabbit-hole searching for examples of face blindness and how it’s experienced, and learned that there’s a difference between hereditary prosopagnosia (where people have it all their lives, and often don’t even realize it, since that’s how they’ve always experienced the world) and acquired prosopagnosia, usually an aftereffect of traumatic brain injury or illness. After reading stories of people who walk right by their own children without recognizing them or wonder why a strange woman is staring at them before realizing it’s themselves in a mirror, I gained a better understanding of Sadie’s new world too.
Another fascinating element here is Sadie’s conversations with her neuropsychologist about confirmation bias:
Dr. Nicole paused for a good definition. “It means that we tend to think what we think we’re going to think.”
I added all those words up. “So… if you expect to think a thing is true, you’re more likely to think it’s true?”
As Dr. Nicole goes on to explain:
“Basically we tend to decide on what the world is and who people are and how things are — and then we look for evidence that supports what we’ve already decided. And we ignore everything that doesn’t fit.”
As Sadie fits back into her life and tries to find a new approach to understanding the world around her, her assumptions and facts are repeatedly challenged by the need to rethink what she sees and question whether what she understands is true.
Hello Stranger is also a romance, and yes, the romantic plotlines are very good — but for me, it was Sadie’s unique situation and how it impacts every aspect of her life that made this book so compelling to read.
The backstory around Sadie’s family life is the hardest part of the book to accept, because it’s awful and tragic (and yet another great example of confirmation bias and its consequences). I felt so angry on Sadie’s behalf, yet by the end, could kind of see how the situation unfolded from the different characters’ differing experiences of the same events.
The book does explain that face blindness doesn’t necessarily mean the inability to understand expression (which is apparently handled by a different brain area), yet occasionally there’d be lines like:
The smug look had most definitely faded from her face
… that made me question whether this was something that Sadie could actually see or process, or if this was a glitch in the writing continuity.
I’m always fascinated by stories about unusual neurological conditions (such as the novel Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, or any of the writings of Dr. Oliver Sacks, who himself suffered from hereditary prosopagnosia) — but this is my first time reading such a tale in the context of romance.
Sadie’s story is fascinating, and the romance elements add welcome joy and hope to a story that also includes loss and dislocation. Sadie’s romantic escapades can be quite silly, but she’s such a great character that we can’t help but cheer for her. I don’t think I’ve ever read a romance novel quite like Hello Stranger, but it absolutely works.
Title: The True Love Experiment Author: Christina Lauren Publisher: Gallery Books Publication date: May 16. 2023 Length: 416 pages Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance Source: Library Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script.
Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached.
Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?
Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.
The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy’s debut in The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.
Christina Lauren books can be counted on to deliver zippy dialogue, great chemistry, entertaining characters, and unexpected plot points… and The True Love Experiment exceeds expectations with all of these! In fact, The True Love Experiment might just be my favorite Christina Lauren book yet.
Fizzy Chen is a character we’ve met before — she’s the main character’s zany best friend in The Soulmate Equation. Apparently, fans have been clamoring for more Fizzy ever since the earlier book, and now she gets her own chance to shine!
Fizzy is a very successful romance author in her late 30s, who’s reveled throughout her adulthood in her casual, open-to-anything approach to sex and dating. But as The True Love Experiment opens, she’s realizing that she may finally have just plain run out. She’s never been in love, and (in a very funny scene) she explains to best friend Jess that she may in fact have now dated every single man in San Diego. With these eye-opening revelations, Fizzy hits a major writer’s block — how can she write compelling romance when she’s not sure she actually believes in it anymore?
We also meet Connor, a gorgeous guy (whom Fizzy initially categorizes as romance tropes Hot Millionaire Executive, Hot Brit, and DILF) who’s a completely devoted divorced dad and the producer of environmentally-conscious documentaries. When his boss gives him an ultimatum — produce a money-making new dating show to save the production company, or be out of a job — Connor has to weigh his professional integrity against the reality that if he loses this job, he’ll have to move to LA to find work, which means giving up his role in his daughter’s daily life. Reluctantly, he commits to the dating show concept.
When Fizzy and Connor meet, they initially rub each other the wrong way… but we know that won’t last, because there are instant sparks amidst the bickering and button-pushing. Between them, almost as a dare to see who can come up with the craziest concept, they develop a framework for the new show: Fizzy will be the star, and the show will cast “heroes” who fit into defined romance archtypes — the bad boy, the hot nerd, the cinnamon roll, the one who got away. Fizzy will date each of them, the audience will vote on her true soulmate each week and determine who gets eliminated, and in the end, the audience will select a winner who’ll receive a cash prize. But there’s another twist: Fizzy and all contestants will also take the DNADuo test (see The Soulmate Equation for more info), a genetic screening test that identifies relationship compatability and defines matches on a scale (Base, Silver, Gold, Diamond, etc). At the show’s finale, the DNADuo match results between Fizzy and the finalists will be revealed, and then Fizzy will get to decide who she truly wants to be with.
As you might expect, all does not go according to plan. How is Fizzy supposed to fall in love with one of the show’s heroes when she’s distractingly attracted to Connor? The more time they spend together, the clearer it becomes that this isn’t just a matter of physical connection — but falling in love isn’t an option when (among other reasons) it would breach her contract with the show.
Okay, that’s the basic plot outline. What that doesn’t tell you is the insanely great connection between Fizzy and Connor, the absolutely hilarious dialogues that occur throughout the book, Fizzy’s amazingness as a person, and how utterly loving Connor is, as a dad, a friend, and a person who’s mad for Fizzy.
The book is told through both Fizzy and Connor’s POVs, so we know what’s going on inside and out. There’s the obligatory big obstacle that seems to tear the two apart late in the book, and I was very frustrated at first — but getting to hear from both characters why the incident blew up the way it did, how it triggered them and what past issues it brought up, and how internally conflicted they were in the aftermath helped me accept what had happened, even if I disagreed with how both of them behaved in the moment.
The show itself is lots of fun, although I question whether a show like this would be as successful in real life as it is in the story. The show starts with eight heroes and unfolds over just six episodes — is that really enough time to find true love? (OK, I need to admit here that I have never watched a single episode of The Bachelor or other dating shows, so I take anything of this sort with heaps of grains of salt).
I listened the audiobook, which has different narrators for Fizzy and Connor, and they were both wonderful! The downside of listening to the audiobook is not being able to highlight the parts that made me laugh out loud (there were plenty!) and share them here.
The True Love Experiment is so engaging, charming, and funny. I love that the characters are clearly amazing people, and that we get to see them in other roles (parent, aunt, best friend, daughter) to get a view of their lives outside the relationship as well. Fizzy and Connor are each fantastic on their own, and their connection together is not only full of physical chemistry but also based on emotional honesty and empathy.
Overall, The True Love Experiment is a joyful, entertaining read, with plenty of humor but also sincerity and intelligence. Highly recommended!
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books on My Summer 2023 to-Read List.
I’m hoping to get to a LOT of books already on my shelves… but I also have a bunch of new releases coming up that I’m really looking forward to, so the key will be finding the right balance of old and new!
For this list, I’ll just focus on some upcoming (and recent) new releases that I’m excited for:
Hello Stranger by Katherine Center
The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
With Love From Cold Word by Alicia Thompson
Infinity Gate by M. R. Carey
Ravensong by TJ Klune
The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner
Sleep No More (October Daye, #17) by Seanan McGuire
All the Dead Shall Weep (Gunnie Rose, #5) by Charlaine Harris
Thief Liar Lady by D. L. Soria
What are you planning to read this summer? Please share your links!
Title: Lion’s Legacy Author: L. C. Rosen Series: Tennessee Russo, #1 Publisher: Union Square Co. Publication date: May 2, 2023 Length: 304 pages Genre: Young adult Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Seventeen-year-old Tennessee Russo’s life is imploding. His boyfriend has been cheating on him, and all his friends know about it. Worse, they expect him to just accept his ex’s new relationship and make nice. So when his father, a famous archaeologist and reality show celebrity whom he hasn’t seen in two years, shows up unexpectedly and offers to take him on an adventure, Tennessee only has a few choices: 1. Stay, mope, regret it forever. 2. Go, try to reconcile with Dad, become his sidekick again. 3. Go, but make it his adventure, and Dad will be the sidekick. The object of his father’s latest quest, the Rings of the Sacred Band of Thebes, is too enticing to say no to. Finding artifacts related to the troop of ancient Greek soldiers, composed of one-hundred-and-fifty gay couples, means navigating ruins, deciphering ancient mysteries, and maybe meeting a cute boy.
But will his dad let Tennessee do the right thing with the rings if they find them? And what is the right thing? Who does queer history belong to?
Against the backdrop of a sunlit Greek landscape, author L. C. Rosen masterfully weaves together adventure, romance, and magic in a celebration of the power of claiming your queer legacy.
If you read the synopsis above and thought “gay teen Indiana Jones”… you wouldn’t be far off! Lion’s Legacy is full of daring adventures, death-defying traps, and mind-boggling puzzles… all wrapped up in a story about finding community and reclaiming queer history.
Tennessee Russo (who goes by Ten) is the 17-year-old son of a high-profile reality TV star and archaeologist. Each season of the show focuses on Ten’s dad going off on a danger-filled quest to retrieve an ancient artifact. For two of the show’s most successful seasons, Ten accompanied his dad as his sidekick and cameraman, but he walked away from his dad and the show after a heated argument over the fate of the recovered relics.
Now, after a two-year absence, Ten’s dad is back to entice him into one more adventure, but Ten’s really not sure that he trusts his dad or wants to spend time with him. However, the timing is great — after getting cheated on and then dumped by his boyfriend, he’s ready to get away and get immersed in a new quest, and his dad couldn’t have picked a better one: They’re going off in search of the Sacred Band of Thebes.
Legend has it that this band of warriors was composed of 150 pairs of bonded/married gay lovers, who pledged themselves to one another in a sacred ceremony. Some say that the rings the pairs wore — the sacred bands — were more than just symbolic, and that they imparted magical strength and fighting abilities to the men who wore them. Of course, the naysayers say that the warriors were committed as a platonic band of brothers — no gay subtext here! — but Ten is convinced that the Sacred Band of Thebes represents a crucial piece of queer history, and he’s determined to bring it to light.
Author L. C. Rosen (who also writes as Lev AC Rosen, and is the author of such fantastic books as Depth and Lavender House) creates an adventure tale with heart in Lion’s Legacy. The quest itself is lots of fun, full of deadly arrows, rickety plane rides, narrow cliffs, and spurting bursts of fire (plus a very cute local boy to act as translator). But what really makes this book stand out is the emphasis on reclaiming queer history, and how that shared history creates community and connection. The messaging is positive and lovely, and I really enjoyed how deeply Ten thinks about these things and expresses what it all means to him.
There’s also serious consideration given to issues around artifacts and where they belong — whether treasure hunters like Ten’s dad are committing thievery by finding these relics and selling them to the highest bidder… or whether such pieces should go to high-paying museums because they’re the ones most likely to keep them both safeguarded and available to the public, rather than hidden away in someone’s storage room forever. Through Ten, we’re shown the different sides of the issues, and also through Ten, are shown how someone committed to doing the right thing can also come up with creative and meaningful solutions.
Overall, Lion’s Legacy is a terrific adventure story with strong messages and very positive queer representation, and would make a great and very welcome addition to any young adult library shelf. This book is apparently the first in a series, and I look forward to seeing where Ten’s adventures take him next.
Bookshelf Fantasies 