Book Review: The Love Lyric (The Greene Sisters, #3) by Kristina Forest

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Love Lyric
Series: The Greene Sisters, #3
Author: Kristina Forest
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: February 4, 2025
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

An R&B singer and a corporate executive find love that hits the right notes in this romance by Kristina Forest, USA Today bestselling author of The Partner Plot.

Iris Greene used to be a woman with a plan. But all of that changed after she met the love of her life at twenty-four, got pregnant and married…and then became a widow and a single mother all within the span of a year and a half. Now, after years of hustling, Iris is the director of partnerships at a beauty company and raising spunky six-year-old Calla by herself. Despite her busy life, she still can’t help but feel lonely. She just needs to catch her breath—and one night, at her sister’s wedding, when she steps outside to do just that, she sees a certain singer who takes her breath away. . . .

By all accounts, pop R&B singer Angel Hughes has it made. He’s a successful musician and has just scored a brand ambassador deal with an emerging beauty company. But he’s still not fulfilled; he’s not producing songs he’s passionate about, and there’s a gaping hole in his love life. When he visits the Save Face Beauty office to kickstart his campaign, he’s delighted to see Iris, his stylist’s sister—the beautiful woman he’s secretly had a crush on for years.

Despite their obvious attraction to each other, they must stay professional throughout the campaign tour—which doesn’t quite pan out. But when it becomes clear their lives aren’t in sync, can they fall back in step to the same rhythm and beat?

The Love Lyric is the 3rd book in author Kristina Forest’s Greene Sisters trilogy, following The Neighbor Favor and The Partner Plot. The first two books focus on sisters Lily and Violet; here in The Love Lyric, their older sister Iris takes center stage.

Iris is an ambitious career woman, who juggles a successful corporate role with raising a six-year-old on her own, having been widowed when her daughter was still a baby. While still grieving for her beloved husband Terry, Iris has reached a point in her life where maybe, just maybe, she might consider trying to date again. If only the idea of getting on the apps wasn’t so awful.

A few years earlier, she’d crossed paths with Angel, who then was just starting on his rise to pop stardom. He’d made an impression, but Iris hasn’t seen him again until her sister Violet’s wedding. After sharing a moonlit dance with Angel, Iris pulls away, not wanting to risk taking things any further — because Angel is the brand ambassador for her company, and she needs to maintain professional boundaries… but also because he’s a huge celebrity with women practically throwing themselves at his feet. Why would someone like that ever be interested in someone like her?

There’s more to the story, of course. Angel is still adjusting to his own stardom, and while he achieves top of the chart success with each new track, his label pushes back when he tries to make the kind of music — true R&B — that he really cares about. Plus, having come from a strict, religious home, he faces constant criticism and insults from his mother, who sees his public persona as a disgrace, much too far from his gospel roots.

For Iris, there’s a combination of professional frustration, fear of making changes or taking big risks, and most especially, the fear of letting herself care for someone and risk getting hurt.

Still, Angel and Iris so clearly care about one another and have great physical chemistry too — so it’s inevitable that their resistance can only hold out so long. Factor in the intensity of a week-long business trip and the proximity that comes with it, and it’s only a matter of time before they give in to temptation.

Complications ensue — with a celebrity like Angel, things can’t remain a secret forever. Iris is fearful for her job and also very protective of her and her daughter’s privacy. When their secret relationship is exposed, Iris has some very hard choices to make, and must decide what kind of life and future she wants.

The Love Lyric is a very enjoyable wrap-up to the trilogy. We get time with the rest of the Greene family, and it’s lovely to see Lily and Violet both happy with their relationships and their careers. I appreciated seeing the turmoil Iris faces as a single working mother, trying to do the classic balancing act of being everything to everyone, without letting her daughter down or letting her work commitments slip. Iris’s loss and grief are handled respectfully, showing her love for her late husband and how she navigates the possibility of loving again.

Angel and Iris make a great couple, and despite their ups and downs, they’re able to communicate in a way that’s refreshing and honest. When the typical 3rd act breakup that seems standard in so many romance novels occurs here, it’s for reasons that make sense and that are actually discussed — it’s nice to see healthy conversations in a romance, when so many books rely on miscommunication as a plot device!

The Love Lyric is a great read all on its own, as well as a satisfying conclusion to a very good trilogy. What I especially appreciate about these books is the strong family dynamic and the close bond between the sisters, as well as the individual women themselves and how well-drawn their characters are. I just wish they had another sister so the series could continue!

As far as I understand, the Greene Sisters trilogy is author Kristina Forest’s first foray into adult books, after publishing several YA novels. I’ll look forward to reading whatever she writes next!

19Oct2024

Audiobook Review: Life’s Too Short (The Friend Zone, #3) by Abby Jimenez

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Life’s Too Short
Series: The Friend Zone, #2
Author: Abby Jimenez
Narrators: Zachary Webber and Christine Lakin
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: April 6, 2021
Print length: 384 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 6 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

A brilliant and touching romantic comedy about two polar opposites, one adorable dog, and living each day to its fullest.

When Vanessa Price quit her job to pursue her dream of traveling the globe, she wasn’t expecting to gain millions of YouTube followers who shared her joy of seizing every moment. For her, living each day to its fullest isn’t just a motto. Her mother and sister never saw the age of 30, and Vanessa doesn’t want to take anything for granted.

But after her half-sister suddenly leaves Vanessa in custody of her infant daughter, life goes from “daily adventure” to “next-level bad” (now with bonus baby vomit in hair). The last person Vanessa expects to show up offering help is the hot lawyer next door, Adrian Copeland. After all, she barely knows him. No one warned her that he was the Secret Baby Tamer or that she’d be spending a whole lot of time with him and his geriatric Chihuahua.

Now she’s feeling things she’s vowed not to feel. Because the only thing worse than falling for Adrian is finding a little hope for a future she may never see.

In Life’s Too Short, a crying baby brings a pair of strangers together in the middle of the night, changing both of their lives.

Vanessa Price has just been handed temporary custody of her troubled half-sister’s newborn baby, and is handling it fine… until the baby simply won’t stop crying. Her next-door neighbor, Adrian Copeland, shows up at her apartment door at 4 am offering to help. She’s suspicious… but she knows him by reputation, and she’s desperate enough to allow him in, hand him baby Grace, and go take a shower to calm down (and get the spit-up out of her hair). Lo and behold, the nonstop crying jag has ended by the time she gets out of the shower. An instant friendship is born.

Adrian is a successful, hard-driving criminal defense attorney who needs to be in control at all times. Vanessa is a free-wheeling YouTuber with a huge following, who’s spent the last few years sharing her worldwide travels. But Vanessa’s live-for-today approach has a darker underlying motivation — her mother and sister both had ALS and died young, and she’s trying to make the most of her own life before ALS catches up with her as well.

Adrian and Vanessa form an instant connection, and within days, they’re constantly in and out of each other’s apartments, sharing food, watching TV, caring for baby Grace, and become besties. Both are very clear that they’re not interested in dating or relationships… but we know where that’s going, right?

As the pair spend time together, they each develop strong feelings — as well as an intense attraction — but both assume that the other person isn’t interested in them that way. There’s a lot of time spent on false assumptions and faulty communication before they finally realize the truth of the matter.

I enjoyed the audiobook of Life’s Too Short, with narrators alternating to read chapters told from each character’s perspective. Both narrators do a great job conveying delivery and personalities, and they’re also terrific at pacing and providing humor.

Overall, though, I didn’t love Life’s Too Short as much as some of the author’s other books. First, there’s the communication issue, already mentioned. This is such a staple of contemporary romance novels, and honestly, it overdone. Adrian and Vanessa are both smart people who communicate for a living — yet they can’t get past their misinterpretations and inability to say what they mean or what they want. The misunderstanding phase of their relationship drags on way too long — and then there’s a phase two, once they’re together, about whether Adrian actually knows Vanessa’s health history and possible prognosis. This second phase of communication blunders leads to the major breakup phase of the book, but to me, it didn’t make sense that they ended up with this huge misunderstanding in the first place.

Second complaint: this book leans heavily into the trauma/drama that’s prevalent in so many of Abby Jimenez’s books. Not only is Vanessa dealing with the threat of ALS, mourning her deceased sister, and caring for an infant, but she’s also trying to deal with a father who’s a hoarder and push her half-sister (the baby’s mother) into rehab for her drug addiction. As for Adrian, his control issues stem from his father’s abandonment of the family when he was a child and the lingering fears and damage that’s caused him. It feels like these aspects overwhelm the love story at times, and could probably have been dialed back without losing the overarching emotional impact of the plot.

Finally, I felt that there was a level of emotional manipulation regarding Vanessa and whether she has the early symptoms of ALS. I won’t go into details, because that would be too spoilery, but by the end I felt very manipulated as a reader.

This may make it sounds like I didn’t enjoy Life’s Too Short at all, and that’s not actually the case. As in all Abby Jimenez books, the writing is crisp and funny and entertaining, and there are plenty of silly moments to lighten the mood. Sure, the male love interest is too perfect to possibly be a real human being, but that’s okay — it’s a nice fantasy to get to know a man who’s gorgeous, amazing with babies, successful, and always picks the perfect gift/date/adventure.

Life’s Too Short is considered the 3rd book in the Friend Zone trilogy, but apart from a very slight connection, it’s really more of a standalone. Adrian was introduced in a very minor way in The Happy Ever After Playlist, and characters from the other books show up briefly in Life’s Too Short — but someone picking up Life’s Too Short on its own would be perfectly fine and would not feel that they were missing anything.

I discovered Abby Jimenez’s books just this year, and have now read them all! While I may have quibbles about plot points and communication styles, overall, her books are zippy, engaging reads that include romance, humor, and deep emotional connection. She’s an excellent storyteller, and creates characters who feel like fully developed, living, breathing people.

The author’s next book, Say You’ll Remember Me, will be released in April 2025 — and I’ll be ready with grabby hands as soon as it’s available!

1Apr2021

Audiobook Review: The Christmas Surprise by Jenny Colgan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Christmas Surprise (Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop, #3)
Author: Jenny Colgan
Narrator: Pearl Hewitt
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication date: 2014
Print length: 272 pages
Audio length: 8 hours 51 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Beach Street Bakery and The Bookshop on the Corner comes a delightful holiday tale full of sweetness, love, heartbreak, and happiness—perfect for fans of Debbie Macomber and Elin Hilderbrand.
Rosie Hopkins, newly engaged, is looking forward to an exciting year in the little English sweetshop she owns. But when fate deals Rosie and her boyfriend Stephen a terrible blow, threatening everything they hold dear, it’s going to take all their strength and the support of their families and their friends to hold them together.
After all, don’t they say it takes a village to raise a child?

Perhaps I was pushing my luck with a SECOND Christmas-themed book, but since the books in question are the 2nd and 3rd books in a trilogy featuring characters and a setting I love, it was awfully hard to resist.

Note: Some spoilers ahead, since otherwise I can’t really talk about the book, the series, and why I felt the way I did about this 3rd book.

The Christmas Surprise picks up right after Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop. Rosie and Stephen are newly engaged and blissfully happy in their little cottage next to the sweetshop in their country village of Lipton. Their close friends are engaged too and planning a fancy wedding, the sweetshop is thriving, Stephen is loving his teaching job at the village school, and Rosie’s great-aunt Lillian is ruling the roost at her senior living home. All is well.

But not for long.

After a surprise pregnancy (about which Rosie and Stephen are elated) ends in miscarriage, Rosie is plunged into despair, especially upon learning that a future pregnancy will be extremely unlikely without intervention such as IVF — way beyond their means.

A surprising email leads them in a new direction. Years earlier, Stephen had volunteered with Doctors Without Borders as a teacher in an African village, and he’s heard from his contact there that the young daughter of a family he became close with is expecting a baby, and the family would like him to be the godfather. Stephen and Rosie begin raising funds for the village and the family within their own small community, but then decide that a trip to visit might be just the thing to break them out of their low times.

It wasn’t a shock by any means to see how this all turned out.

The book of course ends on a happy, jolly note, with just about everyone getting a sweet and happy “ever after”, but it does take some effort to get there. Rosie and Stephen face financial challenges that seem to drive a wedge between them, there’s a major disagreement over medical treatment for their baby, and ongoing difficulty with Stephen’s aristocratic mother’s seeming indifference and coldness toward their new little family.

Naturally, there are also tears of joy, village-wide celebrations that include moments of chaos and comedy and silliness, and plenty of laughs and small-town craziness to go around.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but felt a bit on edge with the Africa storyline. First off, it’s always just “Africa” — as if the continent is one big entity. Why not identify a country? The descriptions are all generic outsider views — the bustle and color, the heat, the lack of modern amenities in a remote village. Rosie and Stephen swooping in and saving the day smacks of white saviourism, and when a snooty mom back in Lipton refers to Rosie’s actions as “colonial privilege”, I didn’t think she was far off.

I mean, of course it was lovely that they adopted this newborn who was essentially given up on by his birth family, but it felt a little too pat and condescending for my comfort — even though it did result in the happiness that the characters were so desperately in need of.

I’m not sorry I read/listened to this book, since I really do enjoy the characters and the entire town of Lipton, and was happy to see everything wrapped up with a pretty bow by the end. Still, it stretched my tolerance in parts and the ultra-happy ending, while predictable, was also a bit too pat and deliberately joyful for my taste.

Then again, there was simply no way I wasn’t going to finish the trilogy, and ultimately, it’s been a fun, sweet reading and listening experience. I can’t say no to Jenny Colgan books, and I’m glad to have spent time with Rosie and her adorable little sweetshop!

3May2020

Book Review: The Last Emperox by John Scalzi

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Last Emperox (The Interdependency, #3)
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: April 16, 2020
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

The collapse of The Flow, the interstellar pathway between the planets of the Interdependency, has accelerated. Entire star systems—and billions of people—are becoming cut off from the rest of human civilization. This collapse was foretold through scientific prediction… and yet, even as the evidence is obvious and insurmountable, many still try to rationalize, delay and profit from, these final days of one of the greatest empires humanity has ever known.
Emperox Grayland II has finally wrested control of her empire from those who oppose her and who deny the reality of this collapse. But “control” is a slippery thing, and even as Grayland strives to save as many of her people from impoverished isolation, the forces opposing her rule will make a final, desperate push to topple her from her throne and power, by any means necessary. Grayland and her thinning list of allies must use every tool at their disposal to save themselves, and all of humanity. And yet it may not be enough.
Will Grayland become the savior of her civilization… or the last emperox to wear the crown?

Bravo to John Scalzi for this masterful conclusion to an entertaining and exciting sci-fi trilogy! Not every trilogy sticks the landing, but The Last Emperox absolutely does.

The story picks up right after the end of The Consuming Fire, as the Interdependency’s existence is threatened by the collapse of the Flow, the impossible-to-explain time/space stream that connects the various star systems of the empire. The Flow is what allows humankind to survive, since the empire was designed specifically to make each settlement and star system not self-sustaining, but dependent on all the others. As the Flow starts to disappear, the worlds of the Inderdependency will find themselves cut off and lacking vital resources, and unless a solution is found, the people there will be doomed to a slow, inevitable extinction.

As if that weren’t enough to deal with, Emperox Grayland II, the supreme leader of the Interdependency, has already survived a couple of assassination attempts and failed coups, and her future’s not looking too great either. Despite the threat to their very existence, the noble houses can’t seem to stop their endless backstabbing and manipulation, each attempting to grab as much power as possible for themselves, without worrying too much about the fate of the billions of commoners whose lives are at stake.

As always, John Scalzi’s writing is full of snark and snappy dialogue, as well as complex political machinations and intricate science fiction scenarios to drool over. Also, I just get such a kick out of his unique names for characters, including two of my favorites, Senia Fundapellonan and Nadashe Nohamapetan.

(To be clear, Nadashe Nohamapetan is a terrible person. I just love her name.)

My favorite character (although it’s hard to choose) would have to be Kiva Lagos, who is super smart, totally kick-ass, and never met a sentence that wouldn’t be better with a few f-bombs. I love this interchange between her and Senia (who’s speaking first here):

“It’s not a great idea to be too in love with your own cleverness.”
“What are you, my mother?”
“If I were your mother, I’d use the word ‘fuck’ more often.”
“It’s a perfectly good word.”
“Sure,” Senia said. “Maybe not as every other word that comes out of your mouth, though.”
“I don’t even hear myself saying it, half the fucking time.”
Senia patted Kiva. “I know that. You’d hear it if I used it as much as you did.”
“No I wouldn’t.”
“Fucking yes you fucking absolutely fucking would.”
“Now you’re just exaggerating.”
“Not by much.”

I won’t go into plot developments, because I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun. I will say, though, that the ending goes in a way I never would have imagined, and it totally threw me for a loop! It’s cool, though, and makes sense, and even though the story comes to a satisfying close, I’d love to get an update on these characters and this world down the road and find out how it all worked out for them in the long run.

The Interdependency is, plain and simple, a great, funny, exciting, intricate sci-fi space opera. I had a blast reading these books. Read all three!

Interested in The Interdependency? Check out my reviews of books 1 & 2:
The Collapsing Empire
The Consuming Fire