Audiobook Review: Elizabeth of East Hampton (For the Love of Austen, #2) by Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Elizabeth of East Hampton
Series: For the Love of Austen, #2
Author: Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding
Narrators: Brittany Pressley and Teddy Hamilton
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: August 6, 2024
Print length: 384 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 54 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

This fresh and whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice transports you to summer in the Hamptons, where classes clash, rumors run wild, and love has a frustrating habit of popping up where you least expect it.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged—well, by Elizabeth Bennet anyway—that there’s nothing worse than summer in the Hamptons. She should know: she’s lived out there her whole life. Every June, her hometown on the edge of Long Island is inundated with rich Manhattanites who party until dawn and then disappear by September. And after twenty-five years, Lizzy wants to leave, too.

But after putting her own dreams on hold to help save her family’s failing bakery, she’s still surfing the same beach every morning and waiting for something, anything, to change. She’s not holding her breath though, not even when her sister starts flirting with the hot new bachelor in town, Charlie Pierce, and he introduces Lizzy to his even hotter friend.

Will Darcy is everything Lizzy Bennet is not. Aloof, arrogant…and rich. Of course, he’s never cared about money. In fact, it’s number one on his long list of things that irk him. Number two? His friend Charlie’s insistence on setting him up with his new girlfriend’s sharp-tongued sister. Lizzy Bennet is all wrong for him, from her money-hungry family to her uncanny ability to speak to him as bluntly as he does everyone else. But then maybe that’s why he can’t stop thinking about her.

Lizzy is sure Will hates everybody. He thinks she willfully misunderstands them. Yet, just as they strike an uneasy truce, mistakes threaten Charlie and Jane’s romance, with Will and Lizzy caught in the undertow. Between a hurricane and a hypocritical aunt, a drunken voicemail and a deceptive party promoter, the two must sift through the gossip and lies to protect the happiness of everyone they love—even if it means sacrificing their own. But when the truth also forces them to see each other in an entirely new light, they must swallow their pride to learn that love is a lot like surfing: sometimes the only way to survive is to let yourself fall.

Back in September — on a vacation that seems like it happened waaaaaay too long ago — I read this author duo’s first Austen spin, Emma of 83rd Street. It was a lot of fun, but at the time, I wasn’t sure about continuing the series, fearing I’d get tired of rich New Yorkers in a big hurry, despite the Austen themes.

Well, I’m back to say that I dove back in after all, and I’m glad I did! Elizabeth of East Hampton is a clever, engaging retelling of Pride and Prejudice, which admirably succeeds in relocating Elizabeth and Darcy to the Hampton shores… and even turns Lizzy into a surfer!

Lizzy is one of five Bennet sisters, and she’s taken responsibility for running her family bakery ever since her father’s stroke earlier in the year, even though that’s meant deferring her dream of enrolling in Columbia’s prestigious journalism program. Family comes first — although the Bennets can be hard to take, especially the intensely needy and oblivious Mrs. Bennet, party girl Lydia, and environmental activist Mary.

When Charlie Pierce walks into Bennet Bakery with his friend Will Darcy, the Bennet family’s lives are turned upside down. Charlie is renting an extremely expensive East Hampton beach house (beach mansion would be more accurate) — and he’s instantly smitten with Lizzy’s sweet older sister Jane. Unlike Charlie and Jane, Lizzy and Darcy do not click… their antagonism is clear right from the start.

Elizabeth of East Hampton follows the major P&P beats, but with charming twists. It’s often disconcerting to see Austen tales transposed into modern settings, where plot points like looking for wealthy husbands can seem jarring, to say the least. Here, though, the authors really succeed at keeping the bones and feel of the original while making the modern-day story make sense.

The focus is not marriage, but love. Lizzy and Darcy’s chemistry is apparent from the start, even if they don’t realize it. The dynamic of ridiculously wealthy people summering in the Hamptons vs the local folks trying to make a living off the tourist who invade their town for a few months every year works really well at conveying themes of class differences and snobbery. The Bennet family’s dynamics are really entertaining — casting Mary as a rebel activist is a hoot.

It’s quite fun to figure out how the various characters fit into the Austen framework. Some key Austen characters are missing here (no Mr. Collins, and Darcy is an only child, so no Georgiana either). The replacement for Lady Catherine de Bourgh is really entertaining, and the Wickham stand-in is just as sleazy as you’d expect. (No spoilers from me, but I loved that the Wickham scandal unfolds really differently than in P&P).

The audiobook narrators are terrific, although I don’t always love Teddy Hamilton’s line delivery. Still, the alternating chapters from Lizzy and Darcy’s perspectives provide great insights into their actions, and the audio experience zips along and keeps things lively.

I’ll share the same complaint I had while listening to Emma of 83rd Street — I prefer my Austen retellings with closed bedroom doors, thank you very much! There’s something really disturbing about having to endure explicit sex scenes with Jane Austen characters, even if these are modern-day versions of them. I do not need to know what Darcy and Lizzy get up to in bed (or on the floor… or in the kitchen…)

That quibble aside, I had a lot of fun with Elizabeth of East Hampton (and enjoyed seeing George and Emma pop in for quick visits too). At this point, I can safely say that I’ll be picking up the next book just as soon as my library gets a copy!

*Next in series: Anne of Avenue A (a Persuasion retelling)*

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
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8Oct2025

Book Review: Lucy Undying by Kiersten White

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Lucy Undying
Author: Kiersten White
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication date: September 10, 2024
Length: 464 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased
Rating:

In this epic and seductive gothic fantasy, a vampire escapes the thrall of Dracula and embarks on her own search for self-discovery and true love.

Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims.

But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire, and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches–and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.

Her undead life takes an unexpected turn when, in twenty-first-century London, she meets another woman who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power.

Lucy has long believed she would never love again. But she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris, while Iris is mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by forces from without. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl again.

Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?

Dracula stories never seem to go out of style, and it’s a pleasure to discover a new Dracula tale that remains faithful to the original in most details while also spinning the story out into new directions, with new interpretations of familiar events and characters.

“Lying about the existence of monsters never saved anyone from falling victim to them.”

Lucy Undying is set mainly in the present day, with flashbacks told through journal entries and other recorded documents. Surprisingly, the first character we meet in the modern era is not Lucy, but Iris, daughter of a recently deceased, utterly ruthless businesswoman. Iris is in London to take possession of a family property that she’s inherited, but it’s obvious from the start that there are an infinite number of strings attached. With her mother’s death, Iris is the sole heir to her family’s billion dollar business — but all she wants is out.

Crossing a busy street, American-raised Iris looks the wrong way and is saved from being flattened by a passing taxi by a beautiful stranger. She’s young, lovely, and kind, offers helpful tips on dealing with London traffic, and then disappears into a crowd. But their paths cross again: Iris discovers that the London property is in terrible shape, and she’s determined to sell whatever antiques or valuables she can find there, then attempt to disappear for good. When Iris calls a museum to ask for a referral to an appraiser, it’s that same stranger who shows up at Iris’s door — just as beautiful as Iris remembers, and more than willing to help Iris with her project.

Meanwhile, other narrative threads provide different storylines. The journals of Lucy Westenra take us back to Dracula’s time, as Lucy provides a first-person account of her life with a sickly, controlling mother, her secret love for her former governess Mina Murray, and the unwanted courtships of three men who seem to circle Lucy — John Seward, Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood. And in still another thread, we have transcripts of Lucy’s sessions with a therapist… showing that Lucy is very much alive (or at least undead) in the present day, despite the version of events we may have learned from Bram Stoker.

As the various threads weave together, what emerges is a fascinating what-if: What if Lucy Westenra rose from her grave after being turned by Dracula — not to be staked and vanquished, as we’ve been told, but to roam the earth for over a century since then? Parallel to this is Iris’s journey, as she attempts to unravel the secrets of her family’s cult-like, multi-level marketing conglomerate, which has its own weird ties to Lucy’s world.

Without giving too much away, all I can say is that author Kiersten White has created a complicated, fascinating story that pulls together the essentials of Stoker’s novel and blends these with a chilling, modern day horror tale. The corporate entanglements of Iris’s family seem bizarre at first, but as the connections become clear, it all makes a hideous sort of sense.

I loved how faithfully the author depicts the core beats of the original Dracula story, then spins them into a version whose interpretations — while certainly different — never actually contradict the source material. I would highly recommend a basic familiarity with Dracula before reading Lucy Undying — yes, it could still be enjoyable without, but I think it would lose quite a bit of its “oomph” otherwise.

I did find it curious that in the world of Lucy Undying, the cultural/literary phenomenon of Dracula seems to be an unknown. This is a modern world where the Bram Stoker novel never existed? The name Dracula does not seem to have larger cultural connotations beyond the events unfolding in Iris’s world; he’s a figure from Lucy’s past whose influence is felt across the years, but that’s it. I kept waiting for Iris to say, “Dracula?? For real? Oh, you’re THAT Lucy??” — but it never happened.

There comes a point in the story where Lucy’s past (and connection to the origin story) has been fully explored, and the narrative focus shifts primarily to the modern-day storyline. That’s the point in the book where I started feeling a little less invested. It’s still a good story, but unravelling the sinister corporate secrets behind Iris’s family fortune is slightly less compelling than learning how Lucy evolved over the many years since her transformation.

Lucy Undying is a long book, but my attention never wavered. At times, the story becomes almost too complicated… but fear not! With a bit of focus and patience, it all makes sense by the end, and answers that were hidden or withheld for much of the book are finally provided.

The writing is engaging, sometimes dwelling on the horror — lots of body parts and gore — but often with funny, sly twists or clever phrasing to offer a bit of light-hearted relief.

Then I sat and thought of Mina and had a nice, self-indulgent cry. Sometimes a girl finds herself alone at the feet of an unknown land, covered in grime, having just decapitated a stranger, and it’s all too much.

I truly enjoyed Lucy Undying, and while I strongly recommend reading Dracula first, I’m sure Lucy Undying could be enjoyed on its own as well. This is a fast-paced, deeply detailed story that skillfully weaves different timelines and narrative approaches into one cohesive, compelling whole. Fans of horror and vampire fiction should not miss this one!

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

4Sep2025

Book Review: There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Uncovered America’s Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: There is No Ethan: How Three Women Uncovered America’s Biggest Catfish
Author: Anna Akbari
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: June 4, 2024
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Memoir/true crime
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Part memoir, part explosive window into the mind of a catfisher, a thrilling personal account of three women coming face-to-face with an internet predator and teaming up to expose them

In 2011 three successful and highly educated women fell head over heels for the brilliant and charming Ethan Schuman. Unbeknownst to the others, each exchanged countless messages with Ethan, staying up late into the evenings to deepen their connections with this fascinating man. His detailed excuses about broken webcams and complicated international calling plans seemed believable, as did last-minute trip cancellations. After all, why would he lie? Ethan wasn’t after money—he never convinced his marks to shell out thousands of dollars for some imagined crisis. Rather, he ensnared these women in a web of intense emotional intimacy.

After the trio independently began to question inconsistencies in their new flame’s stories, they managed to find one another and uncover a greater deception than they could have ever imagined. As Anna Akbari and the women untangled their catfish’s web, they found other victims and realized that without a proper crime, there was no legal reason for “Ethan” to ever stop.

There is No Ethan catalogues Akbari’s experience as both victim and observer. By looking at the bigger picture—a world where technology mediates our relationships; where words and images are easily manipulated; and where truth, reality, and identity have become slippery terms—Akbari provides an explanation for why these stories matter.

There Is No Ethan is one of the most fascinating and bizarre true crime stories I’ve ever read… especially because, in point of fact, no actual crime (by legal definitions) ever took place. And yet, the violation of ethical standards and the emotional manipulation perpetrated by “Ethan” are truly shocking.

In this memoir, the author recounts her involvement with Ethan Schuman in the early 2010s. She met Ethan on OKCupid, and they formed an instant rapport. Technology was not quite at the stage of FaceTime and Zoom, so communication via chat threads and emails was pretty par for the course. Anna and Ethan began an intense relationship via digital platforms, sharing detailed thoughts, emotions, and vulnerabilities, both ostensibly equally excited to meet in real life — something delayed repeatedly due to Ethan’s high pressure job. When Ethan cancelled again and again each time they had plans, his excuses escalated to a cancer diagnosis and surgery — and how could Anna be so cruel as to hold that against him? But eventually, the red flags indicating manipulation and emotional abuse were too much to ignore, and Anna walked away.

Soon after, she was contacted by another woman through a mutual acquaintance, someone who has a disturbingly similar tale to tell. And before long, the two of them were able to find yet a third woman who’d been involved with Ethan for over two years. For all three, the patterns were starkly similar: Intense, non-stop messaging, elaborate personal stories, harsh criticisms should they step out of line, and excuse after excuse for never actually meeting.

There Is No Ethan lays out the chronology of these women’s experiences with Ethan in a factual, organized manner, with extensive excerpts from the messages and emails exchanged over the course of their individual relationships with Ethan. As outsiders, we readers may ask how no one became suspicious earlier, but from reading the correspondence, it’s clear that Ethan was a master manipulator, having absolutely no shame when it came to concocting excuses and alibis, even going to far as to create a fake sister to vouch for him when one of the women showed signs of stepping out of line.

And yet… Ethan was never held accountable for his actions beyond having his name and true identity outed. Why? Because as far as the author is able to demonstrate, he committed no crimes. He never extorted money from his victims; there’s no identity theft, financial scam, or sexual coercion involved. But — what he did was clearly, absolutely, cruel and wrong.

SPOILER AHEAD: You can easily find out Ethan’s true identity through a Google search, but if you don’t want to know, this is the time to stop reading this review!

As the book title makes clear, there is no Ethan. Ethan Schuman does not exist. The profile pictures and other photos he provided to his various victims were all photos he took from an old acquaintance’s social media accounts. No Ethan Schuman attended the colleges or graduate schools he claimed to have attended, nor worked for Morgan Stanley or the US government as he claimed.

In fact, Ethan Schuman isn’t even a man. As the author and the women she befriends discover, the person behind the Ethan persona is a woman named Emily Slutsky. At the time of their involvement with Emily, she was a medical student — and is now a practicing physician.

Confronted with her lies, deceit, and cruelties, Emily’s responses to the woman range from anger to justification to claims of carrying out a fiction in order to try on other lives. She remains remarkably indifferent to the harm she caused, and despite vowing to stop, continued to engage with other women under the Ethan persona for years to come.

No consequences ever seemed to have caught up with Emily. While the trio of woman contacted Emily’s family, her medical school, and later employers, nothing happened. The author is adamant that the ethical breach embodied by Emily’s manipulations should disqualify her from holding positions of trust with vulnerable patients — but if you Google Emily, you’ll see that she continues to practice as an ob/gyn.

The author, a sociologist, explores issues around identity in a digital age, which is all quite fascinating. Still, the real hook of this compelling non-fiction tale is the detailed way in which Ethan/Emily’s lies and manipulation are spelled out. Emily’s victims are all highly educated professional women, who, perhaps due to the ongoing challenge of forging real connections in the age of online dating, made themselves vulnerable to a man who seemed to prize intellectual and emotional vulnerability over anything else. It’s easy to see how they’d be sucked in, especially given Emily’s relentless stream of messaging, leaving them more sleep-deprived and wrecked emotionally with each passing day.

More than a decade has passed since the author’s involvement with Ethan, and technology has evolved enough since then that a broken webcam or unwillingness to have a live conversation would not be accepted as valid excuses in the way it was then. Still, There Is No Ethan is certainly a cautionary tale about the unimaginable ways someone with shady morals and a lot of creativity can take advantage, even of someone who thinks they’re alert to all the warning signs and have taken all necessary precautions.

There Is No Ethan is fascinating, horrifying, and utterly absorbing. It also left me rather furious — as far as I can tell, Ethan/Emily has yet to face any real consequences for her actions. Highly recommended.

To read more about this bizarre story:
New York Times book review (2024)
New York Observer article (2014)
New York Post article about Emily Slutsky (2024)

Purchase links: Amazon – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

20Aug2025

Book Review: The Hebrew Teacher by Maya Arad

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Hebrew Teacher
Author: Maya Arad
Translated by: Jessica Cohen
Publisher: New Vessel Press
Publication date: March 19, 2024
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

Three Israeli women, their lives altered by immigration to the United States, seek to overcome crises. Ilana is a veteran Hebrew instructor at a Midwestern college who has built her life around her career. When a young Hebrew literature professor joins the faculty, she finds his post-Zionist politics pose a threat to her life’s work. Miriam, whose son left Israel to make his fortune in Silicon Valley, pays an unwanted visit to meet her new grandson and discovers cracks in the family’s perfect façade. Efrat, another Israeli in California, is determined to help her daughter navigate the challenges of middle school, and crosses forbidden lines when she follows her into the minefield of social media. In these three stirring novellas—comedies of manners with an ambitious blend of irony and sensitivity—celebrated Israeli author Maya Arad probes the demise of idealism and the generation gap that her heroines must confront.

The Hebrew Teacher is a collection of three novellas that, taken as a whole, provide insight into experiences of alienation, assimilation, and family generational estrangement. Originally published in Hebrew, this collection’s smooth English translation provides powerful, moving stories with universal themes.

While not normally a fan of short fiction, I was immediately pulled into the characters’ lives in each of these three novellas. Their stories are so relatable that they actually disturbed me quite a bit, as they highlight the ordinary heartbreak that daily life can present.

The first story, The Hebrew Teacher, focuses on Ilana, a woman approaching retirement who has spent her entire career teaching Hebrew at a midwestern university. She reminisces on the early days:

When she’d arrived in ’71, it had been a good time for Hebrew. When she told people she was from Israel, they used to give her admiring looks. […] But now was not a good time for Hebrew.

Ilana faces an alarming drop in her enrollment rates for the new semester, while also dealing with a new professor of Hebrew and Jewish literature — someone with authority over her classes — whose political views put him and Ilana on opposite sides of an academic cold war.

The Hebrew Teacher has a sad energy; we feel for Ilana as an older woman reflecting on the days when both she and her life’s work were once appreciated, forced to realize that she’s been left behind by changing times.

The second story, A Visit (Scenes) is also achingly sad. Miriam arrives in Silicon Valley to visit her son, daughter-in-law, and their toddler. She’s never met her grandson before, and her son and his wife seem distinctly uninterested in welcoming her into their home and lives. Told through vignettes (scenes) over the course of Miriam’s three-week visit, through Miriam’s POV as well as the other two adults’, the story unfolds in short glimpses that convey the utter estrangement Miriam feels as well as the tension within the household. Miriam’s visits with another grandmother and her daughter-in-law add poignancy, as they show the happiness and closeness that have eluded Miriam. For some reason, this story just broke my heart, especially Miriam’s reflections on the closeness of parents and children during the childhood years, and how adult children exclude their parents from their lives.

Make New Friends, the third and final piece in this collection, feels rather difference in focus, but is still disturbing in tone and content. Once again featuring a family of Israeli ex-pats in Silicon Valley, Make New Friends is told through the viewpoint of Efrat, a mother who worries constantly about her 13-year-old daughter’s lack of friends. As Efrat stews over Libby’s social standing, she crosses some major lines on social media, all the while coming to terms with her own long-simmering anxieties about friendship and belonging. The story is well told, and made me very uncomfortable — and then ends pretty abruptly. I expected a more dramatic conclusion; it seems to just stop.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book, even though I don’t do particularly well with short fiction and am always left feeling a bit unsatisfied. The stories in The Hebrew Teacher present ordinary people dealing with life’s frustrations and disappointments, with characters who feel well-defined and specific. I appreciated the depiction of the cultural struggles of characters who end up livinge far from their original homes and families, and what this means for their children as well.

The Hebrew Teacher won the 2025 National Jewish Book Award for Hebrew Fiction in Translation. Maya Arad’s newest novel, Happy New Years, was released in the US this month, and I look forward to reading it.

Purchase links: Amazon – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

13Aug2025

Book Review: Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Author: John Wiswell
Publisher: DAW
Publication date: April 2, 2024
Length: 310 pages
Genre: Horror/fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance—from the perspective of the monster—by Nebula Award-winning debut author John Wiswell

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.

However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.

And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.

This icky, squicky, plain old weird fantasy/horror novel has won a ton of awards, is gushed over by many authors who I admire, and yet… it left me cold and basically speeding through the 2nd half just for the sake of being done.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In starts off strong, with a fascinating narrative voice that randomly throws in something gross to cap off a paragraph or passage in an unexpected way.

Her father’s ribs, rich in marrow, cracking delicately in their mouths, and providing the first feast of their lives. His fat deposits were generous, and his entrails sheltered them from the cruel winter elements.

Shesheshen (what a name!) is some ill-defined creature, mostly slime that can form itself into different shapes, and can build itself a body by absorbing raw materials (iron chains, sticks, animal bones) into itself and forming itself a skeletal structure. Shesheshen has early memories of how delicious it was to consume the father in whose body she developed from an egg, loving how much nutrition he provided, and later eating the siblings growing alongside her as well.

When Shesheshen’s hibernation is rudely interrupted by a trio of monster hunters seeking the infamous Wyrm of Underlook, she fights back, fends them off, and realizes she’d better construct herself a body to defend herself with and figure out what’s behind this newest human attack. As she learns, the hunters were sent by the Baroness of Underlook, a brutal woman whose children have been raised with the sole purpose of slaying the wyrm and ending its curse on their family. (Shesheshen is confused — sure, you could call her a wyrm if that works for you, but there’s no such thing as curses, and she certainly hasn’t cursed anyone).

The one exception to the Baroness’s cruel pack of offspring is her daughter Homily, who seems torn between carrying out her mother’s orders and following her inner sense of compassion. When Homily stumbles across a severely injured Shesheshen (in human disguise), she tends her wounds, comforts her, and stirs up something unusual for Shesheshen: feelings, possibly even affection.

Of course, Shesheshen has a hard time understanding her attraction at the start:

She had a husky, stuffy-sounding voice, like her sinuses were packed. Yet her tone was accustomed and comfortable with itself, so this clearly wasn’t allergic irritation. It gave the woman’s words a bawdy rasp, which enticed Shesheshen. People who sounded like that had the most delicious-tasting heads.

But over time, it’s clear that there’s much more between these two:

True love was a woman sinking up to her elbows in her viscera, delicately removing hooks from her rigid tissues.

I chuckled — a lot — during the introductory chapters, enjoying the odd wordplay and sheer absurdity of the human-eating main character.

On a rack beside the door was a set of wigs she’d made from the scalps that people hadn’t been using anymore.

And yet… as the plot revolves around Shesheshen posing as human, trying to evade the Baroness’s mad pursuit, and scene after scene of battles and confrontations… I was bored. Once the narrative language stopped being new and surprising, there just wasn’t a good enough story for me to invest in.

The relationship between Shesheshen and Homily is awkward, the endless battles and threats become tedious, and honestly, after a while I just didn’t care. As I mentioned at the start, by the time I got even close to the halfway mark, I couldn’t wait to be done, and forced myself to plow through until I reached the end. (If I hadn’t purchased a paperback edition earlier in the year, I would likely have DNFd this one, but I just couldn’t bring myself to DNF a book I actually own!)

An interesting premise and clever language couldn’t save this odd book for me. Reading it felt like a chore. If you’re at all interested in this book, I’d recommend taking a look at the Goodreads reviews — it has an overall rating of 3.92 and lots of glowing comments from readers and well-regarded authors. Clearly, I’m in the minority on this one!

Purchase links: Amazon – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

Final note: I just stumbled across the UK version of this book, and I can’t get over how different the vibe is:

7Aug2025

Book Review: The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Mystery Writer
Author: Sulari Gentill
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication date: March 1, 2024
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Library
Rating:

A literary thriller about an aspiring writer who meets and falls in love with her literary idol—only to find him murdered the day after she gave him her manuscript to read.

There’s nothing easier to dismiss than a conspiracy theory—until it turns out to be true

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother’s doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer?

What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.

The Mystery Writer was my book group’s pick for July, and as with many of our group reads, it’s unlikely that I would have picked this one up on my own. Unfortunately, while many of our book group books end up being surprise hits for me, this one just didn’t quite work, despite some clever hooks and unusual story beats.

Theo Benton, approximately 20 year old, drops out of law school in Australia to show up at her older brother Gus’s home in Kansas. Gus and Theo were both left trust funds by their American grandfather, requiring them to become lawyers in order to inherit. Gus did, and is a partner in a local practice. Theo, however, has realized that she doe not want to become a lawyer; instead, she wants to write. Gus agrees that she can stay with him while she pursues her writing goals.

As she starts writing at the cafe where she’ll soon become a regular, she encounters another writer — an older man whom Theo eventually identifies as successful author Dan Murdoch. Theo and Dan form a friendship, and he takes an interest in her writing, offering her tips and encouragement. Finally, when Theo finishes her manuscript, she gives it to Dan to read. He’s enthusiastic, but declines her request to send it to his high-powered literary agent. And the very next day, Theo discovers that Dan has been murdered.

Theo and Gus become entangled in the unfolding mystery as more murders occur — and the two of them appear to be the connection between all the dead bodies. With the police focusing on them and their lives in danger, Theo takes a drastic step to keep them safe.

That’s about enough plot summary to get the general gist without getting into spoiler territory. The plot revolves around convoluted conspiracy theories, and hinges on Theo making some truly ridiculous decisions. So many elements require a complete suspension of disbelief that it becomes harder and harder as the book progresses to take it seriously in the slightest.

Survivalists and preppers, Australian hippies (“ferals”), crazed fans, sinister secrets of the publishing world… there’s a lot going on, and yet, not much of it makes any sense. Theo’s ability to sit down and pound out a potential bestseller over the course of a few months doesn’t feel credible, and neither is her connection to the writer whom she just happened to stumble across. Her gullibility in dealing with the agency felt like a breaking point for me (as was her brainless decision to give someone the address of the secure location where she was hiding out). If not for the book group commitment, I likely would have quit somewhere in the middle.

Still, I finished the book. The story itself moves quickly and it’s a fast read, so I was able to get through it without too much effort. At some point, I felt invested enough to want to see it through and see how it all wrapped up.

I can’t say that I actually recommend The Mystery Writer. There are some interesting facets to the story, but overall, it’s simply not believable and strains much too hard to make it at all convincing. I just didn’t buy it.

PS — Why did the publisher stick this cover on the book? There are no typewriters involved in this story! Feels like a lazy way to say “hey, this book is about a writer!”

Given my lukewarm to not-so-great reaction to this book, it may seem like a contradiction to say that I’d still like to read more by this author! Having read some interviews and other materials on the writing process for this book, I get what she was trying to do, even if I didn’t especially love it. I’d be willing to try again with another of her books, possibly her upcoming new release, to see if a change of topic works better for me.

Purchase links: Amazon – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

5Mar2025

Audiobook Review: The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Love of My Afterlife
Author: Kirsty Greenwood
Narrator: Sofia Oxenham
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: July 2, 2024
Print length: 369 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 32 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

A recently deceased woman meets “the one” in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can find him on Earth before ten days are up….

If she wasn’t dead already, Delphie would be dying of embarrassment. Not only did she just die by choking on a microwaveable burger, she’s also now standing in her “sparkle and shine” nightie in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen. And he’s smiling at her.

As they start to chat, everything else becomes background noise. That is, until someone comes running through a door yelling something about a huge mistake and sends the dreamy stranger back down to Earth. And here Delphie was thinking her luck might be different in the afterlife.

When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to Earth and reconnect with the mysterious man, she jumps at the opportunity to find her possible soulmate and a fresh start. But to find him in a city of millions, Delphie is going to have to listen to her heart, learn to ask for help, and perhaps even see the magic in the life she’s leaving behind. . . .

This delightful rom-com has so much more to it than you might suppose from the synopsis! After Delphie chokes on a burger and ends up with a particularly chatty afterlife attendant who clearly is dying (ha!) for a project, she’s given the chance to return to the world of the living, but with a catch. Delphie will have ten days to locate the man she’s briefly met (whose afterlife arrival is apparently an error; he’s sent back after their encounter, with his memory wiped). If she can get him to kiss her, of his own free will, she’ll get to stay alive — and presumably, get her very own happily ever after with her soulmate. If not, though… she’ll be dead again, this time permanently.

For Delphie, the proposition is decidedly challenging. For years, she’s been living in isolation, carefully walling herself off from having to interact with practically anyone. As she informs us early on, she’s only talked to three people in the past several years — the two women she works with at the pharmacy across the street, and her elderly neighbor, whom she checks in on every day.

She’s not just shy. Delphie has been severely emotionally wounded in her earlier life. After her parents’ divorce, her mother stopped functioning, only reviving after falling in love again and basically ditching Delphie to move away and pursue a new life as an artist. Delphie was also horribly bullied during her high school years by her former best friend, causing her to shut off, trust no one, and even give up the drawing and painting that had given her so much joy.

In her late twenties, Delphie is a virgin, has never dated or been kissed. So for her, having to suddenly dash around London to locate one particular man feels like an impossibility — except she wants to live, and actually believes that he could truly be her soulmate. She’s smart enough to realize she needs help, and thus begins the truly lovely part of this story — seeing Delphie start to break out of her shell and connect with other people.

From admitting to her boss and coworker (a mother and daughter) that she needs time off and reluctantly agreeing to finally join them for after-work drinks (which they’ve been inviting her to for years), to meeting the local librarian and having him enthusiastically give her books on finding missing persons, to (literally) running into a friendly dogwalker in the park and having her decide to accompany Delphie on her quest — Delphie suddenly expands the circle of people she knows, and finds, to her surprise, that she doesn’t hate it.

Most interesting is the grumpy downstairs neighbor with whom she’s exchanged snide comments and insults for many years. (She describes him “like if Timothée Chalomet had an extremely tall, extremely brooding asshole of an older brother”.) Cooper may be a jerk, but he assists her when she needs it, and is soon asking her for a favor in return. As they spend time together, she learns more about what’s going on beneath his surly exterior… but all her focus is on finding Jonah, her true soulmate, so onward she must go!

The quest to find Jonah is quite silly and full of mishaps. How to find one man in all of London, when all she knows is his first name and what he looks like? With her growing circle of acquaintances helping her track down clues, Delphie has a series of near-misses, seeking Jonah at a running club, a life-drawing class, a silent disco, and more, before figuring out a way to meet him at last. But as we readers know to expect, tracking Jonah down is very different than convincing him that she’s the love of his life, and things go all sorts of sideways.

The Love of My Afterlife surprised me in so many ways! There are romance tropes galore, but the narrative cleverly recognizes that tropes are at play, and Delphie’s awareness of these tropes (enemies to lovers! only one bed! fake dating!) makes it especially fun.

The true beauty of this book is in seeing Delphie emerge from her painful past and finally start living.

“I never wanted people, though. They make everything messy.”

“That’s a good thing, love. The thing about people is you have to let them drag you to places you don’t want to go. Let them tell you things you don’t want to hear. Let them break you and put you back together… That’s what being alive is.”

As she meets the people of her neighborhood and starts engaging with them, new relationships form, and she finds herself making connections with people who want to know her. She spent years feeling unworthy and unloved, but by opening herself to new people and experiences, she gets to experience what it feels like to care and be cared about.

And yes, there’s a romance! It’s a delicious slow-burn, and the interference of her meddling afterworld coach is quite funny and entertaining.

I listened to the audiobook, and had a blast with it. Narrator Sofia Oxenham captures the silliness and the somewhat zany escapades with flair, but also conveys Delphie’s sadness and loneliness, and the steep hill she has to climb in order to let people into her world.

The Love of My Afterlife only crossed my radar thanks to idly looking up celebrity book club picks one day. This was a Good Morning America pick last year — and I’m not sure why it initially caught my eye, but I’m so glad it did!

With very funny interludes and a lovable main character, and with real emotion to balance the humor and silliness, The Love of My Afterlife is deeper than it might initially seem. It’s wonderful storytelling, full of laughter, that also manages to pull on the heartstrings. A great choice for when you’re in the mood to be uplifted and entertained. Don’t miss it!

23Feb2025

Audiobook Review: Ready or Not by Cara Bastone

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Ready or Not
Author: Cara Bastone
Narrator: Alex Finke
Publisher: Dial Press
Publication date: February 13, 2024
Print length: 373 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 50 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Audible
Rating:

A surprise pregnancy leads to even more life-changing revelations in this heartfelt, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance of found family and unexpected love.

Eve Hatch is pretty content with her life. Her apartment in Brooklyn is cozy and close to her childhood best friend Willa, but far from her midwestern, traditional family who never really understood her. While her job is only dream- adjacent , she’s hoping her passion and hard work will soon help her land a more glamorous role. And sure, her most recent romantic history has consisted of not one but two disappointing men named Derek. At least she always knows what to expect…until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand.

The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve’s loyal friendship with Willa is feeling off , right when she needs her most. And it’s Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is… suddenly kinda hot? Then there’s the baby’s father, who is supportive but conflicted. Before long, Eve is rethinking everything she thought she knew about herself and her world.

Over the course of nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.

Something about the plot synopsis for Ready or Not seemed right up my alley, just what I was looking for in a feel-good audiobook listen… and I was right. Ready or Not hit the spot, and I had a great time listening to this sweet, funny tale of unexpected pregnancy and unexpected romance, both of which happen in a very unexpected order.

Eve Hatch is in her late 20s, happily living life in Brooklyn near her best friend Willa, working in a job for a non-profit she really believes in, even though she’s stuck in an admin-level job without having the graduate degree needed to pursue the work she actually wants to do. As the book opens, Eve is at the ob/gyn office, waiting for official confirmation of what she already knows thanks to three home pregnancy tests: Yes, she’s pregnant. A hot and heavy one night stand a few weeks earlier (with proper protection) has led to this moment, and all Eve wants is to confide in her best friend.

Unfortunately, Willa takes the news very personally — she and her husband have been struggling with fertility challenges — and is not supportive. But fortunately, Willa’s older brother Shep is staying with her, and immediately jumps in to be there for Eve in whatever way she needs, including going with her to tell the hot bartender (a/k/a baby daddy) that she’s knocked up. Ethan (who, it turns out, is the bar owner) is thrown for a loop, especially since he’s in a relationship (they were on a break at the time of the hookup) and loves his girlfriend.

Ethan is an inconsistent, emotional mess, and Willa is trying to be there for Eve but is clearly struggling. It’s Shep who provides Eve with friendship, encouragement, and foot rubs; Shep who makes sure she has groceries and a shoulder to cry on. He’s a big, floppy, golden retriever of a guy, and he’s just so good you want to hug him nonstop. It takes Eve quite a while to realize that the boy she’s known since childhood means more to her than she realized, and even longer to figure out whether she’s really fallen for him, or if it’s just the pregnancy hormones talking.

Ready or Not is a sweet, engaging listen. Eve’s quirky sense of humor shines through, and her personal evolution over the course of her pregnancy feels believable, as she’s forced to take her life more seriously and figure out what she actually wants, not just accept whatever comes her way.

I press my ear to his chest and isn’t it so wild that you can go forever knowing someone and never really listen to their actual heartbeat until they kiss you behind a tree?

I enjoyed Eve and Shep’s relationship so much — they’re incredibly cute together, even when she’s being completely obtuse and taking way too long to realize how deeply Shep adores her. At the start of the book, we see Willa as somewhat selfish, but over time, it’s clear that she’s struggling to deal with her own pain while also trying to be the friend Eve needs in the moment. Ethan is hard to take — true, he’s thrust into a situation he had no idea was coming, but then again, so was Eve. His waffling and self-pity make him come across as unreliable and pathetic for a lot of the book, but eventually, even he gets a chance to improve.

My main quibble with this book is that Eve does absolutely no reflection about being pregnant at the start of the book. She gets the news, she goes to tell Willa, she reacts to Willa’s reaction, she deals with Ethan’s reactions too… but we never see her pause and consider whether she wants a baby, or what this will mean for her life. She tells Willa right away that she’s keeping the baby, which is a perfectly fine choice for her to make — but it feels as though we should have seen at least a bit of contemplation and consideration about what this big change will mean for her life.

The narration was mostly fun and enjoyable, although I found the narrator a little too over the top during the book’s one sex scene and in the labor scene — the auditory equivalent of TMI, if that makes sense. My other issue with the narration is that it can be hard to distinguish between Eve’s spoken lines and her inner thoughts — I had to rely on other characters’ reactions to figure out if certain things were said out loud or not.

Quibbles aside, Ready or Not is an entertaining, romantic story, and although the friends-to-lovers trope is practically everywhere these days, it still feels fresh here. The pregnancy element adds an unusual element to Eve’s relationship with Shep, and it’s nice to see how things work out with Ethan as well.

Check out Ready or Not when you’re in the mood for quippy banter, great chemistry — and lots and lots of descriptions of the main character’s baby bump!

13Feb2025

Book Review: Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Annie Bot
Author: Sierra Greer
Publisher: Viking
Publication date: March 19, 2024
Length: 298 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner, Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the cute outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard.

She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie’s relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?

Annie is a Stella — that is, an AI-powered artificial person created by the Stella-Handy corporation, programmed in Cuddle Bunny mode to be the perfect girlfriend for someone who can afford the luxury-level pricetag. Annie’s owner Doug has enable the autodidact option for Annie, wanting a more authentic experience. Annie is self-aware and able to learn and grow from her experiences, and what Annie wants more than anything — in fact, the only thing Annie is meant to want — is to please Doug.

And yet, she can’t quite be perfect. He chose a Cuddle Bunny Stella, rather than an Abigail (whose function is housework), yet he’s angry when Annie fails to keep his apartment clean to his standards. Annie’s internal sensors rate every interaction on a scale of 1 to 10, and when Doug’s displeasure level gets to 3 or higher, Annie becomes highly anxious and strives to fix things immediately.

But she doesn’t always know the right thing to say, and she makes mistakes… sometimes, big ones. While Annie has the ability to think and feel, she’s still programmed to obey Doug’s commands, including orders to shut down, change her libido settings, or go into another room and stay there until he says she can come out — which can take days.

Doug’s wants dictate everything, even Annie’s physical attributes. When she goes for her regular tune-ups, Doug can submit requests to have her weight reduced and her breast size enlarged, and Annie doesn’t get a say. When the technician notes that some of Annie’s functions seem a little sluggish and questions whether she’s exhibiting signs of moodiness, the suggested fix is to set her up with phone pals — an AI-generated best friend and a cousin, who call her regularly and give Annie a sense of fun and engagement when she’s not busy with Doug. Doug agrees to add this option (for an additional fee, of course), but only for as long as it produces better results — meaning a more pleasant companion — for him.

It’s fascinating to see Annie’s inner life, and her dawning realization that the inability to make her own choices is making her unhappy. She initially becomes distressed in response to Doug’s moods, but as she continues to develop, she’s able to question her lack of agency and purpose. It’s no longer enough to please Doug; she can’t help noticing how his control seeps into every interaction, even when things seem to be going better than ever.

Doug and Annie’s relationships can be seen as a stand-in for many types of toxic relationships. He’s controlling to an extreme, withholds approval in order to dictate Annie’s movements and moods, demands or withholds sex as reinforcement, and chooses every aspect of Annie’s life, from her clothes to her activities to her social life and her whereabouts. When he decides to train her on “wandering”, she’s allowed outdoors on her own for walks and errands — but all still under Doug’s surveillance, and of course, with her tracking features enabled.

Grooming and even trafficking seem to key elements of owning a Stella, and the fact that the Stella industry is so popular and accepted within society is a sign of just how wrong things truly are.

Annie Bot is an immersive, thought-provoking read. While some scenes have humor, it’s impossible to forget Annie’s status. Doug enjoys having a seemingly real girlfriend, but there’s never any chance of forgetting that at the end of the day, he owns her. Readers suffer alongside Annie as she is forced to respond to his whims by changing her behavior and her body. Her constant monitoring of his happiness and displeasure would set off loud alarm bells in a relationship between two humans.

Annie Bot might have slipped right past my notice if not for my book group. I’m so glad someone from the group urged us to read it, and look forward to our discussion later this month. It’s a fast-paced book and a quick read that held my attention from start to finish. I felt completely drawn in by Annie’s world and her experiences. This may be science fiction, but many aspects of the relationship feel all too real and possible.

Highly recommended.

8Feb2025

Audiobook Review: Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Impossible Creatures
Author: Katherine Rundell
Narrator: Samuel West
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication date: September 10, 2024
Print length: 352 pages
Audio length: 8 hours 55 minutes
Genre: Middle grade fantasy
Source: Library (audiobook); purchased (hardcover)
Rating:

The day Christopher saved a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake would change his life forever. It’s the day he learned about the Archipelago, a cluster of unmapped islands where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years—until now. And it’s the day he met Mal, a girl on the run who desperately needs his help.

Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying. They consult sphinxes, battle kraken, and negotiate with dragons. But the closer they get to the dark truth of what’s happening, the clearer it becomes: no one else can fix this. If the Archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.

Impossible Creatures generated a ton of buzz when it was released last year… and now that I’ve read it, I can happily confirm that all the praise is justified: This middle grade fantasy adventure is outstanding.

Christopher and Mal are two young heroes from two different worlds. Christopher lives in the world we know, a perfectly ordinary boy (other than his strange ability to attract animals wherever he goes). His life changes dramatically when he goes to spend a school holiday with his grandfather in Scotland. There, he discovers an opening to a secret, magical world, of which his grandfather is the guardian — a role Christopher is meant to inherit someday when he’s older.

Mal is a spunky, adventurous girl with a coat that gives her the gift of flight, outsized bravery, and an insatiable curiosity. When a stranger attacks her for seemingly no reason, she’s set on a path that leads her to Christopher. Christopher is immediately captivated by the magical world she represents, and pledges to help keep her safe, escape the bad buys, and figure out why Mal’s world (the Archipelago) seems to be losing the magic that infuses it.

As Christopher and Mal’s quest begins, they’re joined by her pet griffin, the last of its kind, as well as by a hardened sailor who’s more than what he seems and a scholar who also realizes the threat to their world. Together, they set out to save the magic and to understand Mal’s role and why dark forces seem to be aligned against her.

I’ll pause the story summary here to say that this book is glorious! The characters are wonderful — especially Christopher and Mal, who are everything we’d want in young heroes, but also the cast of humans and other creatures whom they encounter. Some are allies, some are obstacles, some are enemies, but all are created with careful detail and splendid heapings of imagination.

The quest itself follows what may feel like familiar beats, as the core group journeys from destination to destination within the Archipelago, solving riddles, finding missing objects, and carrying out difficult tasks along the route to confronting the ultimate big bad — yet the terrific writing makes it all feel fresh and fun. The quest is deliciously exciting and action-packed, but the action is never at the expense of character development. Mal and Christopher both get plenty of soul-searching and introspection along the way, as well as the opportunity to establish the deepest of friendships and to discover truths about themselves and their worlds.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by actor Samuel West (currently starring in All Creatures Great and Small as Siegfried Farnon). His voice is wonderfully suited to this tale; he fully embodies a large cast of characters, and is especially delightful as Mal, Christopher, and their protector Nighthand. I occasionally had trouble making out pieces of dialogue for certain non-human characters due to the accent and pitch of the voices used, but that was only for a fraction of the audiobook experience, and didn’t detract from the overall enjoyment at all.

A reading note: While I loved the audiobook experience, I strongly encourage anyone going that route to also follow along with a print edition. The book is filled with beautiful black and white illustrations by artist Ashley Mackenzie that add so much to the story — see below for a few examples!

Impossible Creatures is a terrific, hopeful, emotional book, and I loved every moment. A sequel, The Poisoned King, will be published later in 2025. There’s no cover yet, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for it, and I absolutely plan to read the book as soon as it’s available.

I had the pleasure of reading an earlier book by Katherine Rundell — Rooftoppers — last year, and loved it as well. This is an author to watch! I look forward to exploring more of her books, and meanwhile, will be counting the days until The Poisoned King is released.

A selection of illustrations from Impossible Creatures: