Audiobook Review: Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages by Jenny Colgan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages
Author: Jenny Colgan
Narrator: Eilidh Beaton
Publisher: Avon
Publication date: June 16, 2026
Print length: 352 pages
Audio length: 11 hours, 44 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased (audiobook); E-book ARC from the publisher/NetGalley
Rating:

EVERYONE IS SEARCHING FOR THEIR PERFECT HOUSE. BUT HOME IS REALLY WHERE THE HEART IS…

Janey Carter has a lot to be grateful for—a home by the sea in the Scottish isles, a job that she loves, two kids who have successfully launched, and a network of kind and supportive friends. But since her husband left, her confidence has taken a nosedive. And then, out of the blue, her thirty-year-old daughter Essie announces she’s moving back home. Janey loves Essie dearly, but she was never the easiest to live with, and Janie has been enjoying the empty nest life.

Yes, Essie Carter has just lost her job, can’t afford her rent in Edinburgh, and her boyfriend isn’t ready to commit. She hates to admit defeat and isn’t wild about moving back to the remote island community where she was raised. But maybe the sea air will clear her head?

No sooner is Essie back under her mother’s roof than an unusual opportunity pops up: the shabby and unloved Seaside Cottages next door come up for sale. Janey has some experience renovating the island’s famous stone fisherman’s cottages, Essie needs something to do, and they could both use a little Air B&B income to warm their pockets. Mother and daughter slowly bond over the shared challenge, which delivers some much-needed revelations for Essie, and offers Janey a surprise second chance at love as well.

If a house can be brought back to life, along with the community around it, then so can a heart …

Jenny Colgan’s books can be counted on to provide a lovely escape to a charming small town, humorous challenges as well as interesting relationship dynamics, and simply gorgeous landscapes — which may induce hallucinations of chucking it all and running away to a sweet little Scottish village on the northern coast!

In Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages, the heart of the story is a mother-daughter relationship that just as prickly now as when Essie was in her teens. Janey is a mid-50s audiologist who loves her job, loves her community, loves the tiny cottage she’s made her home, and loves her adult children… although a bit of distance is best. Essie, around 30, fled their small town of Carso as soon as she could, preferring a life in the business world, with posh social events and gorgeous clothes (and a gorgeous financier boyfriend) in Edinburgh. Essie has never gotten over her parents’ divorce, for which she mainly blames Janey… even though it was her father who cheated and ultimately left for another woman.

Janey loves Essie, but Essie treats her with scorn and can’t really be bothered answering most of her texts. But as the story opens, Essie learns that her banking firm is relocating to Switzerland and she’s being let go. Sure, she had a well-paying job in finance, but she didn’t see this coming and has no savings. With housing in Edinburgh either impossible to find or exorbitantly priced, she can’t afford to stay — so full of dread and misery, she heads back to Carso, to her mom’s tiny cottage, to regroup and (hopefully) get back to a job and “real life” in Edinburgh as soon as humanly possible.

Meanwhile, Janey is slowly coming out of her shell socially. She has very good friends and is well liked and appreciated within the community, but she hasn’t dared dip her toes back into the dating pool since the divorce. She feels old and unattractive, and the dating apps aren’t exactly enticing. When she encounters a very nice man at a pub quiz, she’s interested in someone for the first time, and thanks to a pregnant dog in distress (and a very ungainly batch of puppies), Janey has a strangely quirky reason to interact with this man. Who wouldn’t want to bond over pupppies?

While Janey is delightful, Essie is hard to warm to. She returns to Carso full of despair and feeling hopeless, which she expresses through disdain of the of the town and absolute nastiness toward her mother. She loosens up eventually, once she gets involved in assisting a local with rehabbing the cottages next door — finding purpose and a potential romance along the way — but meanwhile, she can be a total pill.

There’s not exactly a ton of plot in Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages, but that’s okay. The setting, the tone, the characters — these are the reasons we pick up Jenny Colgan novels, after all! I enjoyed seeing the interwoven relationships within the community, and very much enjoyed Janey and her day to day life, as well as the slow dawning of a new romance for her.

I struggled with the mother-daughter relationship, not that it might not be realistic, but just that Essie’s behavior makes her so unlikeable for much of the story. I recognize that she lashes out at her mother because of her own traumas, but it’s just unpleasant to have to see, and made me less interested in following her through the chapters about her adjustment and transformation. (Then again, demographic-wise, I’m much more aligned with Janey than Essie. Perhaps a reader in Essie’s age range might feel more sympathetic toward her?)

It’s interesting to see how the author weaves economic challenges into the story. People in Carso can’t find housing, because outsiders keep scooping up properties and converting them to vacation rentals for people from the cities, who swoop in, don’t shop at or patronize local businesses, and drive rents sky-high for the people who actually live there. Essie experiences the same in Edinburgh, where she’s constantly exposed to the have/have-not divide and lives in a state of envy over all the gorgeous flats she’ll never be able to afford. While the overarching story is very much centered on the lives of the characters, much of the plot is informed by the financial challenges they experience and the interest in property — for both locals and the wealthy investors who see money rather than people when they look at Carso.

A note on the audiobook: Eilidh Beaton is wonderful. She narrates many of Jenny Colgan’s books, and has a talent for voicing an array of characters, adding just the right humorous touches, and evoking the feel of the place and its people.

Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages is a sweet, light story about mothers and daughters, and about life in a changing community whose people are anxiously trying to hold onto the qualities that make their world so special. The storyline overall is gentle and entertaining. Don’t pick up this book expecting much in the way of action — but if you enjoy interesting characters, beautiful settings, and small town goings-on (and puppies!), this makes a lovely option for good escapist reading.

Note: Amazon and Goodreads indicate that this book is part of the Mure series. It’s not. There’s really no connection at all, other than a location that’s in the same general vicinity. This book does include characters from Close Knit and The Summer Skies, but only in passing — there’s no actual impact on the story here, so no need to read these novels in any particular order.

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.

1Jul2026

Book Review: The Midnight Train by Matt Haig

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Midnight Train
Author: Matt Haig
Publisher: Viking
Publication date: May 26, 2026
Length: 296 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop?

No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there. The chance to re-live the moments that meant most. To see what kind of person you really were.

For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the love of his life. On his honeymoon in Venice.

Before he gave it all away.

He wishes he could go back and live differently. But to do so risks everything . . .

A magical, time-travelling love story, from the world of The Midnight Library.

As The Midnight Train opens, it’s 1974, and Wilbur and Maggie are on their honeymoon in Venice. They’re young, in love, and have their whole lives in front of them. They promise to love one another forever.

They talked and talked, as though a relationship was really just a conversation that never wants to end.

And then we readers turn the page. Wilbur is 81 years old, and it’s the day he dies. And we learn that he and Maggie have been divorced for years, although he still has their wedding photo on display in his house. He clearly still loves her. What went wrong?

Upon dying, Wilbur is summoned to board a train — the Midnight Train — that takes him back through scenes from his life. To reach eternity, where he’ll exist forever and be reunited with everyone he’s ever cared about, he first has to revisit his life, getting off the train to witness significant moments, then reboarding as the train carries him onward. He can only observe, not change things — this is an opportunity to see all the places in his life where his decisions and actions set him on certain paths, and to understand where and how he might have chosen differently.

The incredibly annoying thing about being dead was that you got all your priorities in order, just when it was too late to do anything about them.

The journey is difficult. While Wilbur has the joy of seeing his first meetings with Maggie and how they fell in love, he also must revisit the most painful moments as well, when he lost important people in his life, responded from a place of fear, and made some crucially bad decisions. The further Wilbur travels, the more he wonders: Could he actually interact with his younger self? Knowing all the ways in which he failed, can he try to course-correct? And should he, if it means that he’ll be giving up eternity?

He had lived long enough to know that time and meaning were not shared out equally. Some personal eras were relatively empty. The temporal equivalent of air. And then you would come across a day—or even a minute—and it would have a whole decade’s worth of weight. It would be everything. It would have the power to change an entire life.

The Midnight Train is a moving look at what it means to live fully, and how working toward some unknowable future can mean not fully inhabiting the present. Wilbur is a well-meaning person who loves his wife devotedly, and yet lets the pain of past losses drive him in a way that brings financial success while losing what really matters along the way. Wilbur and Maggie start off so clearly meant for one another, with such brightness ahead of them. It’s painful to see them losing their connection, not through ill intent, but through distraction and ambition and a misdirected focus.

The magical elements of The Midnight Train work well as a conduit for Wilbur’s journey back through his own life. It doesn’t have to make perfect sense, and indeed, we’re told that each person experiences their journey in a way that’s personal to them. Traveling alongside Wilbur, we see the heartbreaking losses of his younger years and can understand the fear and guilt that stays with him, even as we wish for things to turn out differently.

The Midnight Train is a companion of sorts to the author’s 2020 novel, The Midnight Library. You don’t have to have read the first book to appreciate this one, although an important character from The Midnight Library plays a role here. Both books deal with themes related to finding meaning in life, but come at this theme from different angles. Each approach is fascinating — as the author states in his acknowledgments, the two books can be seen as being in conversation with one another.

I found The Midnight Train to be a fast, engaging read with an emotional core that feels true. Wilbur’s journey conveys profound messages about appreciating the life in front of us, but these messages never feel preachy or overly sentimental. There’s a beauty to Wilbur’s experiences and the wisdom that he finally finds at the end of his life. We’re left with a lovely sort of hope as we reach the final pages and see how his story turns out.

I highly recommend The Midnight Train. A lively writing style with humor mixed in alongside the sadness and seriousness make this a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience, and there are plenty of life lessons to be absorbed along the way — not to mention a love story that’s sweet and powerful.

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.

30Jun2026

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2026

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2026.

So many to look forward! Plus all the other books already on my shelves that I still need to read! How will I ever keep up?

Here are ten books scheduled for release from July through December that I’m looking forward to:

The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian (8/4/2026)
Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher (8/25/2026)
Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison (9/1/2026)
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (9/15/2026)
A Divided Duty (October Daye, #20) by Seanan McGuire (9/29/2026)
Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger (10/6/2026)
Dive Bar at the End of the Road by Kelley Armstrong (10/6/2026)
As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (10/13/2026)
Eight Ways to Say I Love You by Amanda Elliot (10/27/2026)
Murmuration by TJ Klune (11/17/2026)

What upcoming new releases are you most excited for? Please share your TTT links!

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26Jun2026

First Lines Friday 6/26/2026

Posted in Fun and Whimsy by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

First Lines Friday is a weekly feature for book lovers created by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here’s how to join in:

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page.
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first.
Finally… reveal the book!

This week’s lines are from an upcoming July release that sounds eerie and atmospheric:

Clay Lockhart’s cries echoed for half a mile up the rain-drowned coastline, carried on the late January storm that tore across the Outer Hebrides — an isolated windswept stretch of archipelagos in western Scotland. The rain had come quick, driven by a snell of cold wind that cut through old, rattling windowpanes and down to bone. In Saltwell — a small shoreline community along St. Magnus Bay — the residents shuttered windows, called in their children, and herded livestock indoors as they had always done when a western gale lashed against their sturdy homes.

But Clay Lockhart flung open his oak front door and strode out into the storm, a body slumped and weighted in his arms: golden hair spilling from a pallid skull, arms swaying like wet dishrags.

I got so caught up in this opening that I just had to share the first two paragraphs!

Vocab time: Snell
Scottish / Northern English Dialect (Adjective)
Meaning: Quick, active, sharp, or bitterly severe.
Context: It is most commonly used to describe piercingly cold or biting weather (e.g., “a snell wind smote us”) or a witty, sharp remark.

So what’s the book?

Habits of the Sea by Shea Ernshaw
Release date: July 7, 2026
304 pages

Synopsis:

A new adult novel from New York Times bestselling author Shea Ernshaw, in which a woman rediscovers the mythical island she stumbled upon as a child—and the man she once met who apparently hasn’t aged.

The night Clay Lockhart’s wife dies, a violent storm tears their home—and the eight hectares of land beneath it—away from the Scottish coast, sending it adrift into the Atlantic. Thirty years later, twelve-year-old Ellie Mills discovers the fabled floating island off the coast of Nova Scotia and finds Clay still living in the weatherworn farmhouse perched on its highest hill.

When the island vanishes overnight, Ellie is left questioning whether it ever existed at all. But decades later, the island resurfaces—and Ellie, now in her thirties, returns, determined to uncover the truth. What she finds is even stranger: Clay hasn’t aged a single day.

Faced with the impossible, Ellie learns that some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved—and that a life shaped by wonder may hold more promise than one bound by certainty.

With her signature atmospheric, lyrical prose, Shea Ernshaw offers us an original work of folklore with a masterful modern touch. A haunting tale, Habits of the Sea spans centuries and coastlines, journeys through time and memory, and redefines the very meaning of love itself.

I’ve read two previous novels by Shea Earnshaw, including the excellent A History of Wild Places — so I was delighted to win a copy of Habits of the Sea in a Goodreads giveaway, and can’t wait to get started.

Does this sound like something you’d enjoy?

Happy Friday! Wishing everyone a great weekend!

25Jun2026

Book Review: The Children by Melissa Albert

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Children
Author: Melissa Albert
Publisher: Bramble
Publication date: June 2, 2026
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Source: Library
Rating:

An intoxicating, haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.

Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.

In one, she lives in the wooded shadow of her family’s isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of her mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where her magical adventures have made her a household name. In reality, Guinevere’s childhood isn’t the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and her older brother are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the lichen-clotted woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.

Now an adult coasting on her mother’s name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family’s legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she’s spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s creative genius?

Wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, The Children whispers to you from the hallway outside your bedroom, lights flickering as you turn the pages of a book that didn’t seem so scary a moment ago. It’s a story for anyone who’s ever revisited an old favorite and found it cast in a darker light, the line separating magic and memory blurring as the gap widens between the authors we imagined and the people they turn out to be.

The Children is a creepy, haunting tale that drew me in practically from page 1 and never let me go. I found myself immersed in this story about the children of a bestselling author — whose childhood was anything but the ideal dream portrayed to the public.

Edith Sharpe writes the children’s fantasy series, The Ninth City, at the family’s rural Vermont home, an isolated place known as the Farmhouse, surrounded by forests and orchards, miles from anywhere. As Edith’s fame grows, so too does the never-ending streams of stars and artists and wannabes who gravitate into Edith’s orbit. Edith’s children, however, never asked for or agreed to the fame that they’re forced into by their mother, who gives her main characters her children’s names. The world thinks they know Ennis and Guinevere Sharpe, the brave, clever brother and sister who star in the series. Only Ennis and Guin know the truth about their childhood — one in which they essentially grew up wild and untended, cared for only by one another while their parents indulged in a life of creative frenzies, dissipated parties, and a general lack of interest about their children’s wellbeing.

As adults, Guin and Ennis have been estranged for twenty years, ever since the horrific night of a fire that destroyed their world and thrust them into very different lives. Now in her early 30s, Guin has been living off her mother’s legacy, in terms of both her inheritance and being part of the publicity machine that keeps Edith Sharpe on the bestseller list year after year. While promoting her own memoir — a whitewashed, ghost-written, surface-level and sunny depiction that bears little resemblance to the truth — Guin learns that Ennis will be opening a new art installation entitled “Mother”, and is immediately consumed by the need to reconnect with him… and to find out whether he’s finally decided to break his silence on Edith Sharpe after all these years.

As Guin goes off the rails, ruining her carefully constructed publicity tour through unpredictable and ill-advised interviews, she’s thrust back into childhood memories she’s worked so hard to ignore or deny.

The story unfolds through modern-day chapters, in which adult Guin spins out of control in her search for meaning and for Ennis, woven among chapters going back to the siblings’ childhood, from arriving at the Farmhouse when Guin was five years old to the final disaster when she was eleven. There’s a certain beauty to some elements of their early years, as they run wild, unhindered in their exploration of the forests, with no rules and little to no guidance about their daily lives. They’re supposedly home-schooled, but they’re not. They’re fed… when someone remembers, or when they fend for themselves. Their father, a gifted actor who was forced out of the spotlight due to scandal, is a shining, glorious creature… until he’s not; until something, somehow causes him to lose bits and pieces of himself and fade into a failed has-been.

And then there’s Edith, a woman who’s never been predictable, married young to an older man, and an uninvolved mother even at the best of times. But something happens at the Farmhouse. Guin loves the house, except for the sinister 3rd floor room where Edith writes. And Edith writes in frenzied bursts, clacking away on her typewriter with no interruptions allowed.

The sense of menace is pervasive throughout The Children. We may not know exactly why, but we know from the start that very bad things have happened. At the same time, we know that the Ninth City books were life-changing for their millions of fans, and that Guin and Ennis are seen as heroes, standing in for Edith and the world she created even as they attempt to live their own lives. The neglect that Guin and Ennis live through is disturbing in and of itself, but add to that the sense that something other is going on, something very much not right, and the chills ratchet up higher and higher.

While I had guesses about the mysteries of The Children, I never did quite manage to figure it all out, and I’d guess that most readers end up in the same boat. The revelations near the end of the book are mind-blowing, yet tie the entire story together in a way that makes a frightening sort of sense. I simply couldn’t put the book down; each chapter is stunning in its own way. I cringed quite a bit over adult Guin’s choices and actions, but there’s no denying that she follows a path that seem practically foreordained. The childhood chapters are more deeply disturbing and impactful, but the entire book works so well together that it’s impossible to point out any moments where the story lags or loses focus.

I’d say that my only complaint about The Children has more to do with my reading experience than with the book itself. I tore through the final third or so in such a mad dash to get to the end that I’m afraid that I may not have absorbed it all as deeply as I might have if I’d taken my time. I can definitely see going back for a reread to savor it more slowly and pick up the themes and hints I might have missed along the way the first time through.

The Children is one of this summer’s biggest, buzziest books… and it’s well worth giving in to the hype and giving it a chance! Creepy, scary, disturbing, and compelling, this story will stick with you long after the final pages.

Want to know more? Check out these great reviews:
Tammy at Books, Bones & Buffy
Krysta at Pages Unbound

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.

23Jun2026

Top Ten Tuesday: Top ten books on my TBR list for summer 2026

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books on My Summer 2026 to-Read List.

Before getting started with my summer TBR, I took a look back at my spring TBR post… and discovered that I did pretty well! Of my 10 winter TBR books, I actually read eight and DNFd one. I still intend to read the one remaining book, which is the first in a series I’ve been planning to start this year:

So, I’ll leave Just One Damned Thing After Another here as a reference… and meanwhile, I’m picking another ten books for my summer reading TBR! Of course, narrowing it down to just ten is practically impossible, but here’s the batch of books I’m putting high on my priority list right now:

The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage
My Imaginary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows
Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews
The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

What are you planning to read this summer? Please share your TTT links!

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19Jun2026

First Lines Friday 6/19/2026

Posted in Fun and Whimsy by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page.
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first.
Finally… reveal the book!

This week’s lines are from a 2026 release by an author whose previous books I’ve enjoyed:

Is now a good time to mention that my husband has been leaving me in increments (first the far side of the bed, then the guest room, and now, apparently, his own apartment) and I’m not taking it well?

So what’s the book?

No Matter What by Cara Bastone
Release date: March 3, 2026
337 pages

Synopsis:

Roz and Vin can’t look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It’s been a year since they survived a life-altering accident, and their marriage hasn’t been the same. But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things, until she discovers Vin has signed a new lease. So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: sign up for a figure-drawing class.

Between Roz’s determined attempts to improve her artistic skills and her adventures with her best friend, Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date and his footsteps in their previously unoccupied guest room. But it would all be a lot easier if Vin wasn’t Raffi’s older brother, and if she didn’t still find him incredibly, debilitatingly attractive and kind.

So kind, in fact, that Vin offers to let Roz draw him. What is she supposed to say? It’s probably better than her original plan of finding some random male model online, and she needs all the practice she can get. Plus, that’s sure to make a separation easier, right? Focus on every detail of your estranged spouse’s body while drawing him in the nude? But after the year they’ve spent avoiding each other, it feels good to see and be seen by one another again.

As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?

I’ve read two previous novels by Cara Bastone, and just got on the library waitlist for the audio version of this one.

Does this sound like something you’d enjoy?

Happy Friday! Wishing everyone a great weekend!

12Jun2026

First Lines Friday 6/12/2026

Posted in Fun and Whimsy by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page.
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first.
Finally… reveal the book!

This week’s lines are from a recently released book that I’m eager to read:

As the water taxi sped across the lagoon, the two young honeymooners gazed ahead in awe.

So what’s the book?

The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
Release date: May 26, 2026
255 pages

Synopsis:

When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop?

No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there.
The chance to re-live the moments that meant most.
To see what kind of person you really were.

For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the love of his life. On his honeymoon in Venice.

Before he gave it all away.

He wishes he could go back and live differently. But to do so risks everything . . .

A magical, time-travelling love story, from the world of The Midnight Library.

I had the pleasure of attending a talk and book signing with the author this week! The event was wonderful, and I can’t wait to start the book.

Does this sound like something you’d enjoy?

Happy Friday! Wishing everyone a great weekend!

11Jun2026

Book Review: The Last Lady B by Eloisa James

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Last Lady B
Author: Eloisa James
Publisher: Gallery
Publication date: May 12, 2026
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Historical romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Lady B may have married Bluebeard; she may have fallen in love with a gorgeous, grumpy solicitor; she may have met a ghost and survived to tell the tale! New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Eloisa James delights with witty historical romance with a gothic twist.

In the depths of winter, Lady Genevieve Hughes, her pet piglet, and her septuagenarian husband travel to a haunted abbey in the Scottish Highlands. Evie is excited to meet a ghost (perhaps one of her husband’s three previous wives), but didn’t expect the funny, quirky guests to become the friends she’s never had. And she certainly didn’t imagine meeting Sir Godric Everly, a sardonic, witty solicitor who loathes her husband.

Yet as secrets and lies turn Evie’s world upside down, Sir Godric becomes the one person whom she can trust.

[Note: Redacting part of the synopsis — too spoilery!]

More importantly, she has to figure out whose identity is false, whose vows are dishonorable, whose truths could destroy her reputation—and where her heart belongs.

The Last Lady B is such a fun historical rom-com romp! In this upbeat romance, our main character Genevieve (Evie) goes through twists galore, including ghostly encounters, strange mysteries, and adventures in a possibly cursed castle, before finally arriving at a happy ending.

Perhaps there comes a time in every woman’s life when she discovers that propriety is poppycock. To put it vulgarly, propriety is bollocks.

Or perhaps that only happens to a woman foolish enough to marry a man older than her father.

Evie, at age 25, isn’t much interested in courtship or having a successful season. Her family has a sterling reputation and her father has a title, but their fortunes are in tatters. Evie has seen one too many potential matches dissolved over her lack of a dowry (or new gowns). Then there’s the added fact that the idea of marriage isn’t all that attractive. From what she’s heard, all that bedroom stuff sounds like something to endure, so maybe she’s not missing much.

However, Evie has a beloved younger sister, and she does care very much about her future. And so, she develops a plan: The elderly Lord Burnsby, in his 70s and with three late wives, is looking for wife #4 — someone young, pretty, and a charming companion. Evie isn’t looking for romance, and makes it clear that she expects a platonic relationship — but he’s polite, kind, and willing to sign a contract for a generous dowry for her sister. So yes, call Evie a fortune hunter if you must, but she has a goal and is willing to tolerate scornful sniffs if it ensures a good future for those she loves.

Except things don’t quite work out that way. After an uneventful (boring) half-year of marriage, Evie heads to Lord Burnsby’s estate in the Scottish Highlands for the Christmas holidays — an ancient abbey rumored to be haunted by his three dead wives — and finds that her tolerable husband has secrets and a loathsome side that she never expected. As they’re joined by Lord Burnsby’s heir, his new (lovely) wife, and his best friend, complications abound, including the fact that the best friend, Sir Godric Everly, is attractive and has a wonderful heart hidden beneath a gruff exterior.

It gets even more convoluted, as more unexpected houseguests and residents show up, enormous secrets and scandals come to light, and the chilly, lonesome abbey reveals its own dangers. And is that really a ghost that Evie encounters? Could there be dead wives hovering about? And if they are, what could they possibly want?

The plots twists of The Last Lady B are highly entertaining, with each new reveal leading to yet another secret or misleading clue. Plenty of banter makes for scenes with a certain zing, and Evie’s spirit and willingness to speak her mind make her a delightful lead character.

The storyline offers ups and downs, moments of romantic bliss and erotic tension, while also providing an opportunity for Evie to redefine her own priorities, what she’s willing and not willing to do to achieve her goals, and what a real family might actually look like.

After the various twists concerning Lord B’s shady secrets are finally wrapped up, the book concludes with another couple of chapters focusing on Evie’s love life — and while it’s good to see her finally get the happiness she deserves, I could have done with a bit less detail about her sexual awakening. But that’s a matter of reader preference — your mileage may vary.

This was my first Eloisa James book. I can see from her website (https://eloisajames.com/books/) that she’s an incredibly prolific author. From a glance at all the titles and covers, my impression is that The Last Lady B is a bit of an outlier, with its light, comedic tone, and that most of her other novels are more serious/dramatic romances. Someone correct me if I’m wrong! If she does have other books with more of a similar vibe, I’d love to know about it.

The Last Lady B is a fun, engaging romance with a strong sense of sassy humor and snark. It was just the right book to lighten my mood when I most needed it, and I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended!

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3Jun2026

Book Review: Take Me with You by Steven Rowley

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Take Me with You
Author: Steven Rowley
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: May 19, 2026
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy via NetGalley (audiobook purchased via Audible)
Rating:

A poignant, hilarious, and wholly original love story, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Celebrants and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband Norman get out of bed late one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light and . . . disappear. How could Norman desert him after a lifetime together? Where did he go? And, most confoundingly . . . will he ever return? Jesse knew they were longing for something, both feeling stuck. But had Norman been so stuck that his only option was to leave Jesse behind?

As Jesse struggles to understand Norman’s disappearance, he tries to piece together his new reality. Is he expected to wait patiently for a partner who may never come back? Or is this an opportunity for reinvention? He is, after all, alone for the first time in his adult life. Should he return to the classroom? Put in a pool? Get a dog? Call his estranged mother? What does it mean to be alone when you’ve always been one half of a whole?

When Norman’s sister Lally lands on Jesse’s doorstep with an urgent request, Norman’s absence becomes even more profound. Add to Jesse’s grief and confusion a conspiracy-theorist neighbor, a strange man following him, and suspicions that he may have had a hand in Norman’s disappearance, and Jesse starts to crack under the pressure. With his husband missing and the world closing in, all eyes are on Jesse. Before he can understand how Norman could leave it all behind, Jesse must confront what it means to stay.

In Take Me With You, Steven Rowley brings his resonant wit and emotional insight to an epic love story – an exploration of the forces that draw two people into the same orbit and the gravity that threatens to pull them apart.

Take Me With You is a sweet, gently humorous look at love, long-term relationships, being left behind… and alien abduction. Yes, that’s correct: In this lovely work of contemporary fiction, a man leaves his partner of 30-something years to soar off in a strange beam of light. And yet… don’t pick up Take Me With You expecting a science fiction adventure. The aliens are just the trappings of the story: The novel is actually about what it takes to stay together, what it means to be left, and how to find ways to move forward.

Jesse and Norman met as young men when their paths collided, literally, during a skating/biking accident. While very different people, they connected instantly and have grown — if not old — then certainly mid-to-late middle aged together. Living in a solitary home in the desert of Joshua Tree, they’ve built a good life together. So yes, their knees may creak, and Jesse is not okay with Norman’s new tongue scraper… but they’ve seen each other through a lot, and expect to always be together.

Until one night, Jesse wakes up to a bright light, and runs to the backyard just in time to see Norman step into a beam of light that draws him up into the sky. It’s not an abduction, really: Norman seems to be a willing participant. And then he’s gone, and Jesse is left behind, and he has no idea what to do with himself.

Jesse is an award-winning author, already committed to teaching a class on humor writing at the local community college. But how is he supposed to teach anyone to be funny, especially when his own life feels particularly tragic?

Much of the novel is told through Jesse’s perspective, until we hit a shift about halfway through. Norman’s sister Lally becomes the point-of-view character at that point, as she seeks answers about Norman’s whereabouts with an agenda of her own.

Because I listened to the audiobook (narrated by actor Michael Urie, who is fabulous), I wasn’t able to highlight great quotes/lines as I went along, which is a shame. The writing in Take Me With You is wonderful — not a surprise, given how terrific the author’s use of language is in previous novels such as The Guncle and The Celebrants. There’s an underlying sadness to so much of what happens here, but there’s joy and plenty of laughter too. Even at his lowest, Jesse can’t help but be funny, and his interactions with the people in his life make the book sing.

Abandonment is an overarching theme of this book. Many characters experience or have experienced abandonment at some point in their lives, whether through deliberate choices or unexpected tragedies — but there’s also the abandonment involved in emotional distance. Jesse and Norman have spent decades together, but are they truly still together the way they once were? Is Norman’s departure the act of abandonment, or have they each removed themselves from one another through inertia and routine and the general erosion of long relationships?

I’m not sure that I entirely understand what happens very near the end of the book… but that’s okay. I can live with some ambiguity, and meanwhile, loved getting to know these richly drawn characters and their quirky lives.

Take Me With You didn’t delight me quite as much as Steven Rowley’s previous books did… but I still enjoyed it very, very much. Upbeat writing adds a needed dose of light to what might otherwise be heavier moments. Memorable characters, an unusual premise, and clever dialogue make this a book to savor.

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
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