Book Review: Off the Map by Trish Doller

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Off the Map
Series: Beck Sisters, #3
Author: Trish Doller
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication date: March 7, 2023
Length: 272 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Carla Black’s life motto is “here for a good time, not for a long time.” She’s been travelling the world on her own in her vintage Jeep Wrangler for nearly a decade, stopping only long enough to replenish her adventure fund. She doesn’t do love and she doesn’t ever go home.

Eamon Sullivan is a modern-day cartographer who creates digital maps. His work helps people find their way, but he’s the one who’s lost his sense of direction. He’s unhappy at work, recently dumped, and his one big dream is stalled out—literally.

Fate throws them together when Carla arrives in Dublin for her best friend’s wedding and Eamon is tasked with picking her up from the airport. But what should be a simple drive across Ireland quickly becomes complicated with chemistry-filled detours, unexpected feelings, and a chance at love – if only they choose it.

Content warning: Loss of a parent, dementia.

Call me late to the party, but I only discovered Trish Doller’s loosely connected contemporary romance series a couple of months ago. After finishing Float Plan, I moved on to The Suite Spot as soon as I could, and here I am, just a few weeks later, to report back on book #3, Off the Map.

In Off the Map, the main character is the best friend of Anna from Float Plan. Carla works as a bartender at a cheesy pirate-themed restaurant in Fort Lauderdale during tourist season, each year saving up as much as possible to fund her true passion in life, world travel. During her time away from the bar, she goes wherever the road takes her, living on beaches or off-roading in her trusty jeep, enjoying flings but never making plans beyond the here and now.

As a child, Carla’s beloved father Biggie used travel as a way to distract his young daughter from her mother’s abandonment. Each summer, as soon as school was out, they’d hit the road for adventure and exploration. Biggie is a larger than life character, an ex-hippie and Vietnam vet who loves his daughter, his friends, and his music — but eight years before the story opens, Biggie was diagnosed with dementia. And his immediate response was to hand Carla the keys to Valentina (the jeep) and demand that she go off on more adventures, not wanting her tied down or forced to witness his decline.

As Off the Map starts, Carla has come to Ireland for Anna and Keane’s wedding. Keane’s brother Eamon is tasked with picking Carla up and driving her from Dublin to the small town where the wedding will take place. But that would be too straightforward! After giving into their mutual attraction and having an extremely enjoyable night together, Carla discovers that Eamon has never pursued his own dreams of travel and adventure, instead maintaining the steady, reliable existence his family seems to expect of him.

With Carla urging him on, Eamon revs up his classic Land Rover and the two set out for the wedding… but with plenty of detours along the way. As they travel, their connection deepens, and by the time they arrive at their destination six days later, it’s clear that this is way more than a fling.

Reading about Carla and Eamon’s escapades is quite fun (although it’s absolutely feeding the fire of my own wanderlust). I personally wouldn’t want to camp wild or go off-roading, but reading this book let me indulge my fantasies of traveling the world without strings or limitations.

The chemistry between the couple is immediate and fiery, but it’s not just hot sex (of which there is plenty; this book gets a steamy rating) — there’s also tenderness, intimacy, and prolonged kissing, just for the sake of kissing. I appreciated how the author depicts the growing trust and connection between the characters. Yes, their sexual connection is instantaneous, but it’s heightened and deepened by their personal and emotional connection.

Carla’s relationship with Biggie is complicated, and becomes the focus of the last quarter or so of the book, as she finally realizes that she needs to return home and be with him, whether or not that’s what he’s instructed her to do. Carla’s time with Biggie is sweetly and sensitively depicted, and I found it very moving.

Being a romance, Off the Map of course has complicating factors that seem to send Carla and Eamon in diametrically opposed directions before bringing them back together. The ending is lovely but bittersweet, and seems very fitting for the characters and their story arcs.

I enjoyed Off the Map very much (although Float Plan is still my favorite of the three books), and hope there will be more set in this world. The characters in the Beck Sisters books are wonderful, and I want more of them!

**Save

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30Apr2023

Book Review: In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: In the Lives of Puppets
Author: TJ Klune
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: April 25, 2023
Length: 432 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots–fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio-a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.

It absolutely pains me to give a TJ Klune book anything less than 5 stars… but alas, In the Lives of Puppets just didn’t hit the mark for me. This makes me sad! I’ve loved so many of the author’s books, but this tale of robots and found family — which is also a Pinocchio retelling — left me oddly uninvested.

In the Lives of Puppets is the story of a family of oddball robots and machines, living in an isolated forest grove, raising a human child named Victor. As the story gets underway, Victor is now 21, and spends his days in the company of his two best friends, a Roomba-type vacuum robot named Rambo and a medical care robot named Nurse Ratched, who seems to delight in heartless provision of medical treatments (except when she engages her Empathy Protocols and offers a soothing “there, there” to her potential patient).

The trio also live with Gio (Giovanni), an older android who loves inventing, creating, listening to jazz music, and enjoying peaceful family time. Everything changes when Victor discovers a broken down android in the Scrap Yards that seems to still have a little power left in it. Once Victor repairs Hap, hidden secrets come to life, and soon the family’s entire existence is in peril.

In the Lives of Puppets is part exploration of love, family, and what it means to be a “real” human, and part road trip/adventure/quest. By the midpoint of the book, Victor and friends are off on a journey to the City of Electric Dreams to rescue Gio and, hopefully, restore him to his true self.

The writing can be very funny, especially Rambo and Nurse Ratched’s lines. These are probably my favorite parts of the book.

“Are we lost?” Rambo asked nervously.

“Of course not,” Nurse Ratched said. “I know exactly where we are.”

“Oh. Where are we?”

“In the forest.”

“Whew,” Rambo said. “I was worried for a moment that we were lost. Since we’re not, I will instead focus on the fact that we’re in the middle of the woods at night by ourselves. Do big animals like to eat vacuums?”

“I am sure they do,” Nurse Ratched said.

“Oh no,” Rambo whispered. “But I’m a vacuum.”

As the for story threads about emotions and connection and humanity… I was left largely unmoved, and the quest elements mostly failed to hold my interest.

I have to admit, overall this book was a letdown. As I mentioned, I usually adore this author’s work, and can’t really understand why In the Lives of Puppets just did not click for me. In any case, I’ll still be tuning in for whatever he writes next, and meanwhile will look to read some of his backlist titles too.

22Apr2023

Book Review: Said No One Ever by Stephanie Eding

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Said No One Ever
Author: Stephanie Eding
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication date: April 4, 2023
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A peaceful vacation turns into a roller coaster ride of family drama.

Two handsome men with competing agendas cause mix-ups and betrayal.

Sometimes you have to put your foot down to get what you really want in life.

Ellie Reed’s self-esteem can’t take any more of her family’s constant criticism and attempts to control her life. But when she rents an Airbnb on a gorgeous farm in Montana, she encounters a whole new set of family drama and finds herself the caretaker of a barn full of farm animals, caught between two handsome men competing for control of the farm, and the sudden best friend of a spunky elderly widow whose outrageous ideas just might change her destiny…

Spring has sprung.. and what better time is there to enjoy a fish-out-of-water story about a city girl staying on a Montana farm?

In Said No One Ever, Ellie’s life is a mess. Her job as a freelance medical transcriptionist is being phased out, she’s just broken up with her boyfriend of six years (a nice optometrist who’s perfect for Ellie’s family, if not for Ellie), her apartment lease is about to run out, and she has no idea what to do about any of this.

Her overbearing family constantly compares Ellie to her high-achieving older sister, and they have a plan: Ellie should become her sister Avery’s nanny (for three out-of-control littles) and live rent-free in her late grandmother’s house, where she’ll handle fixing it up while getting it ready to sell. Ellie is SO not on board with any of this, but she’s seriously lacking in options.

Needing a break, Ellie books a tiny-house Airbnb rental on a farm in Montana. She looks forward to wide-open spaces, peace and quiet, and some alone time. She gets exactly none of what she expects.

Her host, Marilyn, is picked up by an ambulance within minutes of Ellie’s arrival, before Ellie even gets a chance to meet her. Ellie is left with Marilyn’s hyperactive bulldog Hilda and a barn full of animals — and clearly, the sheep and donkey need care, but Ellie has zero clue what to do. A visit to Marilyn at the rehab/nursing home results in a list of instructions for animal care, plus a budding friendship with the older woman, who is zesty, free-spirited, and full of schemes and dreams.

The arrival of Marilyn’s grandson Warren threatens to derail Ellie’s vacation. Apparently, the family had no idea about Marilyn’s Airbnb plans and is horrified… not to mention that the tiny house Ellie is living in is actually Warren’s, and he’s supposed to be staying there for the next month.

As Ellie settles in, she becomes close to Marilyn, starts to get to know the locals, and has a very grumpy/argumentative dynamic with Warren… which clearly means there are sparks just waiting to fly!

There are plenty of shenanigans, usually caused by Marilyn and her partner-in-crime roommate Belle (the two of them delight in scandalizing the nursing home staff and flirting with the hunky young man from food service) — although some of the misadventures have to do with wandering farm animals as well. Drama is provided through Marilyn’s daughters, two hard-charging businesswomen who have no patience for the farm or their mother’s wishes, and are determined to sell, make a good profit, and move Marilyn to a nursing home closer to them in Spokane.

Now, you might think that an Airbnb guest who’s in town for just a few weeks should have no part in all this farm and family drama… and while that would undoubtedly be the case in real life, in Said No One Ever, that’s clearly not what’s going to happen! Ellie becomes completely wrapped up in the farm and Marilyn’s life, and soon she’s a pivotal player in finding a way to make sure Marilyn gets what she wants.

Although presented as a romance (which it is!), I think my favorite thing about Said No One Ever is the wonderful relationship that develops between Ellie and Marilyn. Ellie still misses her own grandmother, and in Marilyn, she finds an elderly woman to fill some of the empty spaces in her heart. Marilyn’s sense of adventure and spunk are just what Ellie needs, as she involves Ellie in quests and adventures and just plain fun.

The romance in the book is a slow burn. At first, there’s the suggestion that this will be a love triangle story (and that’s certainly what the blurb describes), but that’s actually not the case. Warren is the obvious love interest, and the other guy — the sexy neighbor with smooth come-ons and heavy-handed flirtation — is ruled out almost immediately, especially when his underhanded manipulative side becomes clear.

I really enjoyed Said No One Ever, with only a few very minor quibbles:

The farm antics are cute, but especially in the first third of the book, a bit too much. I didn’t need quite that much time spent on following Ellie as she learns how to feed the animals, clean their stalls, and collect eggs from the henhouse.
Maybe this is just me, but why would a woman staying alone, on a farm, miles from other people, with no expectation of seeing anyone, still put on makeup every day? (Again, maybe this is just me…). A few times, when there’s an unexpected visitor at the farm, Ellie hopes her mascara isn’t smudged. (If I were alone in a tiny house on a farm, I would not be putting on mascara… and probably wouldn’t even bother with a hairbrush!)
This is more a quibble about the trope than about the book — but only in romance novels would an out-of-towner become that enmeshed in the locals’ lives within a week of arriving. But hey, it’s fiction, and I can suspend my disbelief for the sake of a sweet, engaging read.

For those who like to know these things in advance, the steam level here is sweet. No sex scenes, nothing more intimate than kissing and descriptions of feeling attraction.

The writing is lots of fun, full of laughter and snark and quippy dialogue, not to mention the farm craziness that leaves Ellie at wit’s end:

Since arriving in Montana a single woman, her first sort-of-date involved wrangling a rooster and the second came with a garden hose and a runaway donkey. Of course it did. Her life had fallen into absolute bedlam.

That’s not to say that there aren’t more serious themes embedded in the story. I found certain elements especially moving. While Marilyn is funny and upbeat, the struggle she (along with Warren and Ellie) goes through to maintain her independence and to keep control over her own life can be very difficult to read about. While essentially an upbeat book, Said No One Ever still had me on the edge of my seat at certain parts when Marilyn’s future was on the line — which I think says a lot about how emotionally connected I’d come to feel about the characters.

Also, Ellie’s relationship with her parents and sister, while often played for laughs, is quite sad. They don’t see her for who she is or value her choices at all — so much of their interaction with her is about controlling her life, making decisions for her, and trying to convince Ellie that they, not her, know what’s best for her. Hmmm, sounds like a parallel to Marilyn’s life. I see what the author did there!

As you can tell, I really enjoyed this sweet story of love, friendship, and independence, and the gorgeous Montana setting is an absolute treat! I shouldn’t be surprised that I loved the characters and story — I felt the same way after reading the author’s previous novel, The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale. Looks like Stephanie Eding will be going on my authors-to-watch list!

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12Apr2023

Book Review: Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Same Time Next Summer
Author: Annabel Monaghan
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: June 6, 2023
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

The ultimate summer nostalgia read, about an engaged woman who comes face to face with her first love who she hasn’t seen in fourteen years, but who she spent every summer with from age five to seventeen when he broke her heart, calling into question everything she thought she knew about their love story, and herself.

“An unforgettable love story…Bursting with the magic of first love, it’s everything I want in a summer romance.”–Carley Fortune, author of Every Summer After

Beach Rules:
Do take long walks on the sand.
Do put an umbrella in every cocktail.
Do NOT run into your first love.

Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?

Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed–Sam’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.

I usually wait to read ARCs until right before their release dates, but in this case, waiting was not an option! I absolutely loved Annabel Monaghan’s first adult novel, Nora Goes Off Script, so naturally I had to read her upcoming new release, Same Time Next Summer, just as soon as I had it in my hands. And while the new book didn’t delight me quite as much as the previous one, I still found lots to love.

As the blurb describes, Same Time Next Summer is heavy on nostalgia, capturing the wonder and joy of summers on the beach and first love. Adult Samantha has her teen summer memories safely locked away behind her daily life of routine and safely drawn lives. Teen Sam loved to surf and swim in the ocean; adult Sam sticks to swimming laps in an indoor pool, where distances are precise and predictable. Teen Sam, daughter of artists, loved to create, design, draw — adult Sam works as an HR consultant enforcing carefully worded policies and staring at spreadsheets full of data. Life feels well-ordered and complete, with nicely checked boxes, and all that’s left to do is hammer out the details of her upcoming wedding to her perfect fiancé.

Sam once knew the wild, passionate exuberance of teen love, but now as an adult, her definitions and expectations have changed:

There has never been a moment where I felt like he was a part of me; he is just right next to me, a partner. Love like this is so much more manageable, so much less terrifying. […] This kind of side-by-side love feels like a manageable kind of joy. I now understand that this is what grown-up love is.

When Sam’s parents encourage her to consider having the wedding at the local inn near their beach house on Long Island, she and Jack go for a visit just to please them. Upon arrival, Sam discovers that her teen love Wyatt is staying at his family’s house next door, after more than a decade of silence and separation. With Wyatt so close by, the floodgates open, and soon Sam ends up questioning her feelings, her plans, and essentially, who she truly wants to be.

The author does a wonderful job of evoking the sensations of summer — the feel of the sand, the sound of the waves, the sights and sounds and tastes that make up a perfect beach getaway. The joys of summer love come through clearly as well — teen Sam and Wyatt are so obviously mad for one another, but also best of friends and so good for one another. The writing powerfully captures the tremendous pain of heartbreak and how it can change someone so thoroughly:

Putting a person back together isn’t easy, but if you’re smart about it you can reassemble yourself in a totally different, better way. Turn carefree into careful; bandage up your heart and double check the adhesive.

The reasons for their breakup are slowly revealed (I was certain I’d figured out the answer as of the very first chapter — it was surprising and fun to be proven wrong), and meanwhile, we see Sam’s adult life in light of who she used to be. We know long before Sam does that her current life and future plans are not right for her, but it takes quite a lot for her to open her eyes and figure it all out.

There’s some lovely writing in Same Time Next Summer. Sam does quite a lot of soul-searching, and we get Wyatt’s point of view too. Some reveals are a bit obvious, but still, I enjoyed seeing how the pieces came together. By having both Sam and Wyatt as POV characters, we readers are able to see what they missed, or where their perceptions led them away from one another. It’s quite sad… but a happy ending is pretty much guaranteed (I mean, take a look at the cover! OF COURSE there’s a happy ending). The strength of the story is in seeing how these two characters find their way back to one another.

Same Time Next Summer is a quintessential beach read — highly recommended for days in the sun as the waves crash nearby.

**Save

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5Apr2023

Book Review: To Swoon and To Spar (The Regency Vows, #4) by Martha Waters

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: To Swoon and To Spar
Series: The Regency Vows, #4
Author: Martha Waters
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: April 11, 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Historical fiction/romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

The Regency Vows series returns with this story about a viscount and his irascible new wife who hopes to chase her husband from their shared home so that she can finally get some peace and quiet—only to find that his company is not as onerous as she thought.

Viscount Penvale has been working for years to buy back his ancestral home, Trethwick Abbey, from his estranged uncle. And so he’s thrilled when his uncle announces that he is ready to sell but with one major caveat—Penvale must marry his uncle’s ward, Jane Spencer.

When the two meet in London, neither is terribly impressed. Penvale finds Jane headstrong and sharp-tongued. Jane finds him cold and aloof. Nevertheless, they agree to a marriage in name only and return to the estate. There, Jane enlists her housekeeper for a scheme: to stage a haunting so that Penvale will return to London, leaving her to do as she pleases at Trethwick Abbey. But Penvale is not as easily scared as his uncle and as their time together increases, Jane realizes that she might not mind her husband’s company all that much.

The Regency Vows series is a fun, upbeat set of stories centered around a circle of friends who have decidedly non-traditional love stories in a time when social rules are everything. Four books in, the series continues in its lively approach, this time focusing on a marriage of convenience that (surprise, surprise) turns into a true romantic match.

The first three books focused on three close friends — Violet, Diana, and Emily — each getting their own story of love, bickering, bargains, sexytimes, and total devotion, plus healthy doses of their friendship, which really makes the books stand out. Yes, they’re romances, but the women’s relationships with one another are just as important as the love stories.

Here in book #4, To Swoon and To Spar, the story shifts to Diana’s brother, Lord Penvale — close to his sister, very good friends with all of his sister’s friends’ husbands, but not particularly looking for love or marriage. Since childhood, his one goal (or should we say, obsession?) has been to buy back his family’s estate from his greedy uncle.

At long last, the uncle is ready to sell, but there’s a catch: He wants to be rid not only of the Cornwall estate, but also his ward, a serious young woman named Jane whose late father served with him in the Navy. If Penvale wants Trethwick, he’ll have to marry Jane. Penvale wants the estate, and Jane wants to be rid of her guardian. The match seems to offer both what they want, and after a very sensible discussion, they agree to move forward.

Penvale does not know that Jane is secretly plotting to drive him away from Trethwick. She doesn’t hate Penvale and has no malicious motivation — she’s simply very shy and introverted, and would rather be left alone at the beloved mansion in Cornwall to enjoy the huge library and the gorgeous views, without a pesky husband to contend with.

Needless to say, all does not go according to plan, and Penvale is not nearly as gullible as Jane had hoped. And as is true with all of the pairings in this series, sparks fly, and before long, the dry, sensible all-business marriage threatens to turn into a true meeting of hearts and minds.

While the ghost story aspect is very silly (maybe even ridiculous), it’s still cute to read, and I liked both Penvale and Jane as characters. Early on, I missed the rest of the friend circle and their banter and antics, but eventually they do show up, and dial up the fun to eleven.

Jane is quite prickly, and at first I thought she was one of these typical strong-willed heroines that we’ve seen so many times, where unpleasantness is meant to be a sign of her independence and proto-feminism. But in actuality, so much of Jane’s unfriendliness can be attributed to her social awkwardness and intense shyness, and it makes her so relatable and lovable.

The writing is jaunty and witty, and made me giggle throughout the book, such as…

Jane meant to make an elegant, stately departure at this juncture, but at that moment, she came to learn a truth — perhaps not universally acknowledged but undeniable all the same: It is impossible for a lady to extract herself from straddling a gentleman’s lap with anything approaching grace.

Of course, I knew for sure that Jane was a woman after my own heart when she (irritably) explains to a visitor:

“I like to reread books from time to time,” Jane added. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Since this is a romance, I suppose it’s a requirement that there’s a major falling out between Penvale and Jane that drives them apart prior to the inevitable happy ending. The misunderstanding and separation felt like the weakest links in the story to me, as both seemingly smart characters jumped to miserably unfounded conclusions — but fortunately, this unhappy phase wasn’t dragged out for too long.

To Swoon and To Spar is an entertaining, silly, joyful addition to a sweet series, and I look forward to seeing which couple will take center stage next time around. I have my guesses… but we’ll have to wait and see!

1Apr2023

Book Review: The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Soulmate
Author: Sally Hepworth
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: April 4, 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Get ready for a thrilling, addictive novel about marriage, betrayal, and the secrets that push us to the edge in Sally Hepworth’s The Soulmate.

There’s a cottage on a cliff. Gabe and Pippa’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Night after night Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until he doesn’t.

When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral…Did the victim jump? Was she pushed?

And would Gabe, the love of Pippa’s life, her soulmate…lie? As the perfect facade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest and darkest secrets begin to unravel.

I’ve read all but one of Sally Hepworth’s novels by now, and when I look back at my ratings and reviews, I can see that her books are either big hits for me (especially The Good Sister and The Things We Keep) or so-so reads that I could have done without. Sadly, The Soulmate falls into the latter category.

Content warning: Suicide is a recurring topic in this book, as are mental health concerns, diagnoses, and treatments. I would not recommend this book for readers for whom these topics might be triggering.

In The Soulmate, two different women narrate a dramatic occurrence, what happened before, and what happens next. Oddly, one of these two women is already dead when we meet her as a narrator, and she tells her side of the story from her afterlife.

Pippa lives with her gorgeous, wonderful husband Gabe in a cottage by a cliff’s edge. It’s a beautiful location, but with a downside — the cliff facing their home is known locally as The Drop, and it’s a spot that’s known for its number of suicides. Once they move in, Gabe keeps an eye on the cliff, and in the year they’ve been there, has managed to talk seven different people away from the edge with his calm, caring approach. He’s a local hero.

But everything changes when a woman on the cliff doesn’t step away. Pippa comforts Gabe, assuring him that he did all he could. But something nags at Pippa — what she saw and the way Gabe described it to police don’t quite match up.

The woman who died is Amanda, and she shares her story as well, going back to the early days of her own marriage. As the story progresses, we see how Amanda and her husband Max are connected to Pippa and Gabe. There are dark secrets, and clearly there’s more to Amanda’s death than meets the eye.

I found the characters very hard to relate to or even care about. Pippa is the only decent one in the mix, although Amanda isn’t a bad person necessarily — but she does allow herself to turn a blind eye to all sorts of shady and criminal business dealings and enjoy the lifestyle funded by Max’s success.

The more we learn, the harder it is to fathom why Pippa would remain in her marriage, and it’s frustrating to see how her protective parents and sister wait until much too late to actually share with her what they observe.

The twists and turns in the plot felt like cheap shock devices to me, and the big reveal at the end did not satisfy me. Being vague here, but a fact that should have been redemptive doesn’t override the fact that some of these people did or were responsible for awful things.

I’m not typically a reader of thrillers, but once in a while, if the plot twists are new and surprising, the writing is great, and the characters can make me care, I’ll find myself enjoying them. Sadly, that isn’t the case here. Even the writing has some strange, jagged edges. For example, when Pippa is asked whether her two little girls are twins, she replies that they’re “Irish twins […] born less than a year apart”. Maybe it’s me, but I’ve never heard that phrase before, and there’s no reason for it — it feels derogatory, and a weird way to describe one’s own children.

Pippa is a lawyer, clearly very intelligent, yet she acts as if she has no clue about many things, including Gabe’s business dealings:

I never asked too many questions about his work. The truth was, I had only the most rudimentary understanding of what Gabe did, and when he talked about it I understood less rather than more.

Then there’s the whole issue of Amanda’s narration from the great beyond. It’s weird and off-putting; at the end she states that after death, she could now see “the whole scene unfurl” regarding events she hadn’t known prior to death — so death makes someone omniscient? Such a strange way to reveal backstory and secrets.

The Soulmate tries, I think, to illustrate deep truths about marriage, trust, and fidelity, but on the whole, it misses the mark. Yes, the book held my attention, but I felt that there were too many false notes and much too much obliviousness to make any of it believable.

I’ve given The Soulmate 3-stars, but that may be overly generous. It’s a quick, compelling read, but at the end of the day, I found it unsatisfying.

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30Mar2023

Book Review: A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A House with Good Bones
Author: T. Kingfisher
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Publication date: March 28, 2023
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Gothic horror
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A haunting Southern Gothic from an award-winning master of suspense, A House With Good Bones explores the dark, twisted roots lurking just beneath the veneer of a perfect home and family.

“Mom seems off.”

Her brother’s words echo in Sam Montgomery’s ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone.

She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam’s excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out.

But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above.

To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.

I’ve never not loved any book I’ve read by T. Kingfisher… and having just finished A House with Good Bones, I can safely say that my record is intact!

Putting aside my overly convoluted wording, the bottom line is — A House with Good Bones is another fantastically creepy, highly readable book by an author who knows how to tell a great story!

There’s so much to love here. Southern Gothic vibe. Highly intelligent and rational main character (she has a Ph.D. in entomology!) thrust into a decidedly odd situation. Family secrets and a dark past. Childhood nightmares and memories that might not be what they seem. All of these ingredients, and more, woven into a tightly constructed, tense, yet weirdly enjoyable narrative with no wasted space or filler. No wonder I read this in a day!

Sam is a fabulous main character — smart, caring, and happy to talk about bugs at the drop of a hat. I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily want to eat dinner with her, but she’d be great fun to hang out with. When her fieldwork for her next research project gets postponed, she heads to North Carolina to spend a few months with her mother, and notices that her mom is just not herself. Gone are the brightly painted walls, cheerful artwork, and frank conversations. Suddenly, the house is 50 shades of ecru, a Confederacy-era painting is hanging over the mantelpiece, and they even say grace before meals.

We are not a family that says grace over food. Gran Mae always insisted on it, but Mom’s Christianity has generally been limited to a fondness for Jesus Christ Superstar.

Does mom have early onset dementia? Is she having some sort of breakdown? Nothing makes sense, and Sam is worried.

On top of these worries, Sam is also a bit freaked out by weird occurrences. Like, why is there a vulture perched on the mailbox every time she drives up to the house? And why are there no bugs in the garden? And what’s up with that weird photo she finds in the attic?

I’m clearly not going to give anything away, so let’s just say that answers are revealed, secrets unraveled, and creepy-scary weirdness becomes more and more dominant as the story progresses. It gets terrifying and also icky, yet it’s totally fascinating and impossible to look away from.

One of the things I love about T. Kingfisher’s books is that no matter how creepy things get, the writing is so much fun! There are tons of one-liners and quips I could share, but even in non-flashy asides, the tone of voice is delightful:

She is a genuinely kindhearted person and a champion worrier. If there was an Olympic sport for worrying, Mom would win the gold and then give it to the silver medalist because she was afraid that they might feel bad for losing.

A House with Great Bones is so gripping and so enjoyable. The ending is great, with a big dramatic climax, a satisfying resolution, and just a little hint of lingering menace keeping it from feeling too sunshine-y and neatly wrapped up. I would happily spend more time hanging out with Sam! Even though I was very creeped out at times, I had so much fun reading this book, and recommend it wholeheartedly.

16Mar2023

Book Review: Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Lone Women
Author: Victor Lavalle
Publisher: One World
Publication date: March 28, 2023
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Historical fiction/horror/fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Blue skies, empty land—and enough room to hide away a horrifying secret. Or is there? Discover a haunting new vision of the American West from the award-winning author of The Changeling.

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk is opened, people around her start to disappear…

The year is 1914, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, and forced her to flee her hometown of Redondo, California, in a hellfire rush, ready to make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will be one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can cultivate it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing keeping her alive.

Told in Victor LaValle’s signature style, blending historical fiction, shimmering prose, and inventive horror, Lone Women is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—and a portrait of early twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen.

I’d never read anything by Victor LaValle until now, but how could I pass up a book that’s historical fiction, horror, and the story of a strong woman making her own way, all wrapped up into one story?

When we meet Adelaide, we know right away that something is very wrong… mainly because she’s in the process of burning down her house with her parents’ dead bodies inside. She leaves with a huge, heavy steamer trunk and sets off for a ship to Seattle, and from there, a train to Montana, where homesteader land is available to anyone who’s willing to live there.

Adelaide craves solitude, a fresh start, and freedom from the dire secret that’s haunted her family her entire life. Her old home in California was a farm close by other Black farming families, but even among people she felt a kinship with, there was a distance — rumors flew about her and her parents and the family’s strangeness.

Montana isn’t exactly the promised land, though. Adelaide’s homestead is barren earth with a primitive cabin, about 16 miles from the nearest town, the tiny Big Sandy. While she suffers through the shockingly cold and windy weather of her new home, where it’s not even winter yet, she also starts to meet some of the other “lone women” nearby, and forms tentative first connections.

But Adelaide’s secret — and her locked steamer trunk — are never far from her mind, and keep her prisoner to her obligation to hide what she sees as her family’s curse from everyone nearby — for their own safety as well as hers. Meanwhile, there are other dangers as well — bandits who prey upon lone women, racist townsfolk who view conformity as the only virtue, and powerful town leaders who are intent on pushing out those who don’t abide by their rules and inflicting their own form of frontier justice whenever they deem it necessary.

Lone Women has violence and terror, but it also has remarkably strong women at its heart. Adelaide herself is wonderful, as are the other women she bonds with. It’s astonishing and admirable seeing her determination to survive, make her own way, and not give in.

The mystery of the trunk is unfolded slowly — and I won’t give anything away, but at a certain point in the story, I let out a very loud “OH!!!” when things finally became clear. Such an amazing reveal!

The actions of some of the townspeople represent the true horror of this story, and I loved how the frightening elements combine so well with the historical depiction, the character studies, and the fantastical elements too.

Overall, I loved Lone Women. The mood builds dramatically, the characters are distinct and memorable, and the resolution… well, again, I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s got a great ending!

10Mar2023

Book Review: A Sinister Revenge (Veronica Speedwell, #8) by Deanna Raybourn

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Sinister Revenge
Series: Veronica Speedwell, #8
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: March 7, 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Veronica must find and stop a devious killer when a group of old friends is targeted for death in this new adventure from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Deanna Raybourn.

Veronica’s natural-historian beau, Stoker, has been away in Bavaria for months and their relationship is at an impasse. But when Veronica shows up before him with his brother, Tiberius, Lord Templeton-Vane, he is lured back home by an intriguing job offer: preparing an iguanodon for a very special dinner party.

Tiberius has received a cryptic message—along with the obituaries of two recently deceased members of his old group of friends, the Seven Sinners—that he too should get his affairs in order. Realizing he is in grave danger but not knowing why, he plans a reunion party for the remaining Sinners at his family estate to lure the killer out while Veronica and Stoker investigate.

As the guests arrive and settle in, the evening’s events turn deadly. More clues come to light, leading Veronica, Stoker, and Tiberius to uncover a shared past among the Sinners that has led to the fatal present. But the truth might be far more sinister than what they were prepared for.

Hurray! A new Veronica Speedwell adventure is here, and it’s deliciously complicated and captivating.

Veronica is a dedicated lepidopterist and natural history enthusiast, with a more-or-less accidental sideline in investigating unsavory crimes such as murder, impersonation, and other deadly pursuits. In partnership with her soulmate Stoker, who is perhaps more obsessed with taxidermy than might be advisable, she pursues solutions to complex conspiracies and usually manages to bring wrong-doers to justice — even if her definition of justice doesn’t always match up exactly with the legal system’s definition.

As A Sinister Revenge opens, Veronica is dealing with the fall-out of a MAJOR complication that came to light in the previous book, An Impossible Impostor. The impact on her relationship with Stoker is severe — he’s removed himself from London to engage in fieldwork, and has quite clearly asked Veronica for space. Yes, he still loves her… but is that enough?

When Stoker’s oldest brother Tiberius requests Veronica’s help, they track down Stoker to the forests of Bavaria, where Tiberius pleads for help. He’s received death threats, and needs Veronica and Stoker to figure out who they’re from — and prevent his own and possibly other people’s demise.

The action moves to Tiberius’s country estate, to which he invites close companions from his youth, all of whom may be either potential murder victims… or the murderer. With our power duo on the case, the house party will hopefully end with the discovery of motive, means, and the guilty party, and not with dead bodies to mourn.

As always, Veronica and Stoker are incredibly fun to spend time with. Veronica, as narrator, is full of snark and sass, highly intelligent, and fully insistent on her right to be her own person, and not give in to societal expectations about a woman’s proper place. Because she and Stoker are semi-estranged for much of the book, some of their usual spicy chemistry and high-octane banter are missing, but they still manage to work together, contradict one another, and focus on the case enough to keep the entertainment value high.

The mystery itself is a good one, combining tropes such as a country-house/isolated setting, a guest list where one person is sure to be the murder, and many, many red herrings. There are plenty of clues scattered throughout, but also quite a bit of misdirection and false leads. I was kept guessing throughout the book, and found the unraveling of secrets and eventual big reveal of the whodunit very clever and very, very well done.

I always love seeing Veronica in action, and adore her independence, risk-taking, and sense of adventure. I also love her whole-hearted embrace of the importance of physical love as well as romantic love (or as she puts it: “Physical congress, I have often observed, is as revivifying to the spirt as to the body”.)

The writing in this series is utterly delightful — this book includes such terrific vocab words as “omnificent”, “rampageous”, “rumbustious” “cicerone”, “thaumatrope”, “vellicate”, and more. The dialogue is quick and witty, and the characters are all quite distinct and entertaining.

Eight volumes in, the Veronica Speedwell mysteries remain energetic, clever, and enchanting. In A Sinister Revenge, we get a captivating mystery plot as well as terrific character dynamics. Once again, I read the newest release much too quickly, and now face the long, long wait for another new book!

I’ll end with the same advice I’ve included in my reviews of every book in this series: If you haven’t yet had the pleasure, start with book #1, A Curious Beginning. There’s a very good chance you’ll want to continue!

This series has become one of my favorites. Don’t miss it.

4Mar2023

Book Review: Backpacking Through Bedlam (InCryptid, #12) by Seanan McGuire

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Backpacking Through Bedlam
Series: Incryptid, #12
Author: Seanan McGuire
Publisher: DAW
Publication date: March 7, 2023
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Seanan McGuire’s New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated urban fantasy InCryptid series continues with the twelfth book following the Price family, cryptozoologists who study and protect the creatures living in secret all around us.

Reunion, noun:
1. The state of being united again.

Reconciliation, noun:
1. An act of reconciling, as when former enemies agree to an amiable truce.
2. The process of making consistent or compatible.
3. See also “impossible.”

Alice Price-Healy gave up her life for fifty years to focus completely on the search for her missing husband. The danger of focus like that is that it leaves little room for thinking about what happens after…and now that she’s finally managed to find Thomas, she has no idea what she’s supposed to do next. The fact that he comes with a surrogate daughter who may or may not have some connection to Alice’s recently adopted grandson is just icing on the complicated cake.

So the three of them are heading for the most complicated place in the universe: they’re going home.

But things on Earth have changed while Alice, Thomas, and Sally have been away. The Covenant of St. George, antagonized by Verity’s declaration of war and Sarah’s temporary relocation of an entire college campus, is trying to retake North America from the cryptids and cryptozoologists who’ve been keeping the peace for the past hundred years. And they’re starting in New York.

Alice and company have barely been back for an hour before the Ocean Lady and the Queen of the Routewitches are sending them to New York to help, and they find themselves embroiled in the politics of dragons, kidnappings, and of course, the most dangerous people of all: family.

Getting “back to normal” may be the hardest task Alice has undertaken yet.

The InCryptid series is a big, sprawling, interconnected story about the varied and sundry members of the Price/Healy clan — humans (mostly) who specialize in cryptozoology, the study and preservation of non-human people who live among us here on Earth. The arch-enemies of the Price gang (and all non-human species) is the Covenant, a powerful organization dedicated to hunting down and eliminating all cryptids — ostensibly to protect humans, but really, at this point, it’s more from deeply ingrained hatred and a desire to rid the world of everything non-human.

The InCryptid series unfolds in waves, sort of, with different books in the series focusing on different family members — including siblings Verity, Alex, and Antimony, their wild adventures, and also their love lives. By book 12 in the series, we’ve shifted focus a few more times, and Backpacking Through Bedlam is the second book in a row starring Alice, the family’s grandmother (who appears to be about 20, not her actual 80-something years).

Backpacking Through Bedlam picks up the story where it left off in book #11, Spelunking Through Hell. Alice has spent the past 50 years searching alternate dimensions to find her beloved husband Thomas, who was stolen away from her after a disastrous deal with the crossroads. In book #11, the pair was finally reunited, and here in #12, the story continues with their journey home.

It’s not all smooth, and they have a humanitarian sort of mission to accomplish first, but they do eventually make it back to their secluded home in Michigan… only to be summoned moments after arrival to come help their granddaughter Verity in New York.

Alice and Thomas and their surrogate daughter Sally are immediately shoved into danger, as Verity and her family are busy trying to protect a nest of dragons from very persistent and deadly field agents sent by the Covenant. There’s no time for a family reunion — Alice is forced to pretty much instantly start fighting her way through the tunnels of New York to save the day.

All this to say, it’s another fun adventure in the InCryptid world, with the Price family protecting those in need and taking the fight to the bad guys.

It’s entertaining and also moving to see Alice and Thomas reunited with their grandchildren. The family as a whole has mixed feelings about their long-lost grandparents, since Alice essentially abandoned her own children 50 years early, leaving them to be raised by trusted friends, in order to pursue what everyone believed to be a hopeless quest to find her husband.

Now they’re back, but it’ll be a while before they can truly be part of the family again, and maybe even longer before Alice and Thomas can let one another out of arm’s reach without feeling the awful fear of another impossible separation. I love the family and relationship dynamics in these books even more than the action sequences — although those are great too.

Backpacking Through Bedlam has a bit of a slow start, but once the travelers land back in our own dimension, the story and pace pick up quite a bit.

In the previous book, it was a little jarring to focus on Alice, since we’d barely spent time with her up to that point. Now she feels more like a main character, and I enjoyed seeing her and Thomas reestablishing their lives together.

I have the same complaint about Backpacking Through Bedlam as I did with Splelunking Through Hell — there’s a lot of assumed knowledge about the characters’ backstories and the family history. Here’s what I mentioned in my review of #11, and it still holds true:

Side note on InCryptids: This is a huge expanded world, and it’s supported by many, many short stories available through the author’s website and via Patreon. That’s nice… but also frustrating. Apparently, if I’d been keeping up with all the Price short stories, I would be very invested in Alice and Thomas and would know pretty much everything about their courtship, romance, and early years together. But I haven’t! And that feels problematic for me. Yes, I can make an effort to go get caught up (and I probably will, once I figure out the order the stories should be read in) — but I do think the books alone should tell a complete story, and in this case, I felt like I was always missing key pieces of information.

There are SO many short stories that the author has written about Alice’s parents and grandparents. In Backpacking Through Bedlam, Alice refers quite often to her parents’ marriage, her own youth, and earlier generations too — but those aren’t details we have any way of knowing just from the main series. It’s frustrating, and I don’t particularly have the patience to go read every story on Patreon. Here’s hoping Seanan McGuire will some day collect all of these tales and put them into an all-in-one edition — that would be something I’d happily pick up.

Overall, though, Backpacking Through Bedlam continues the InCryptid series with the author’s signature quirky writing, funny dialogue, and plenty of hidden weaponry. I do love these characters, and will keep reading books about the Price family for as long as the author keeps writing them.

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