Book Review: The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Berry Pickers
Author: Amanda Peters
Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: April 4, 2023
Length: 295 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

One family’s deepest pain. Another family’s darkest secret.

On a hot day in 1960s Maine, six-year-old Joe watches his little sister Ruthie, sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of the blueberry fields, while their family, Mi’kmaq people from Nova Scotia, pick fruit. That afternoon, Ruthie vanishes without a trace. As the last person to see her, Joe will be forever haunted by grief, guilt, and the agony of imagining how his life could have been.

In an affluent suburb nearby, Norma is growing up as the only child of unhappy parents. She is smart, precocious, and bursting with questions she isn’t allowed to ask – questions about her missing baby photos; questions about her dark skin; questions about the strange, vivid dreams of campfires and warm embraces that return night after night. Norma senses there are things her parents aren’t telling her, but it will take decades to unravel the secrets they have kept buried since she was a little girl.

The Berry Pickers is an exquisitely moving story of unrelenting hope, unwavering love, and the power of family – even in the face of grief and betrayal.

Once again, I have my book group to thank for leading me to The Berry Pickers, a moving story about family secrets, loss, and a search for truth.

On an ordinary summer day in Maine, four-year-old Ruthie disappears as her family picks berries in the nearby fields. Ruthie’s brother Joe, age six, is the last to see her, sitting on a rock finishing a sandwich while he runs off to chase birds. Both will be forever changed by that day.

Joe is haunted by the guilt he carries, feeling that if only he hadn’t left his sister in that moment, tragedy could have been avoided. Their family — mother and father, older sister and two brothers — search tirelessly for Ruthie, but they’re also obligated to the owner of the berry fields where they work each summer. Eventually, they must continue their work, and at the end of the summer, they head back to their home in Nova Scotia with deep holes in their hearts.

Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, we hear from Norma. As a young girl, raised in a practically silent house by a distant father and an overprotective, mentally fragile mother, Norma has been told that the images that come to her of a different mother and a family around a campfire are just dreams. As she grows up, she accepts this version of reality, although she continues to record these dreams in her journals, but she remains skeptical of some of the answers her parents provide when she asks questions. Why is her skin so much browner than theirs? Because she had an Italian great-grandfather. Why are there no baby pictures of her? Because they lost everything in a fire when she was little.

We understand right away that Norma is Ruthie — this isn’t a spoiler! — but it takes much of the book to unravel how Norma ended up where she is. Meanwhile, through their separate narratives, we see Joe and Norma’s lives unfold, and how deeply both are affected by the pain of Ruthie’s loss and everything that followed.

The Berry Pickers is a beautifully written and deeply affecting book. The tragedy that befalls Joe and Ruthie’s family is terrible, but so is the lack of support and resources available in the immediate aftermath. A Mi’kmaq family who come to Maine each summer for farmwork in the berry fields, they’re dismissed by the local police who provide only cursory help. The farm owner too offers lip-service sympathy before reminding them to get back to work. Again and again, we see how the local community and law enforcement see them as other and not worth much effort, and even to blame for the tragedies that come their way, including a terrible incident years later. Joe ends up spending much of his adult life alone, carrying heavy burdens of rage and guilt, and while we may question his decisions, we can understand why he feels he is doing what is necessary.

Norma’s life is easier, on the surface. She grows up in a financially secure home, gets a good education, pursues an academic career — but she’s always adrift, always carrying the weight of her mother’s fears and manipulations, and the overwhelming sense of sadness that pervades their home. Norma’s Aunt June provides love, support, and kindness, but is also complicit in the big lies at the heart of Norma’s family.

We spend much of The Berry Pickers waiting to see how Joe and Norma’s stories will eventually intersect. It’s worth the wait. The ways in which their lives parallel one another, include a significant near miss, make this story especially heart-wrenching. Joe is a flawed man with deep regrets, but we can’t help love him anyway and wish that he could forgive himself much sooner. Norma’s life is driven by the secrets and lies that have surrounded her since her earliest days. The burden she bears leads her to a lonely life, and we ache for her as she suffer her own losses.

The Berry Pickers presents each character’s story with grace and empathy. While this is a story with deep wounds at its heart, the storytelling doesn’t feel oppressively heavy. By using Joe and Norma’s voices, we’re taken along with them through their lives, experiencing their ups and downs, and coming to know each of them in a meaningful way. There are funny and joyful moments too, and the payoff for this journey provides a beautiful ending.

The Berry Pickers is a powerful book that shouldn’t be missed. Highly recommended!

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – 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.

16Nov2025

Book Review: A Stranger in Town (Rockton, #6) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Stranger in Town
Series: Rockton, #6
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication date: February 2, 2021
Length: 359 pages
Genre: Thriller/mystery
Source: Purchased
Rating:

In the next riveting thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong, the paranoia increases – along with the stakes – as the town of Rockton tries to solve the latest mystery at their door.

Detective Casey Duncan has noticed fewer and fewer residents coming in to the hidden town of Rockton, and no extensions being granted. Her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, presumes it’s the natural flux of things, but Casey’s not so sure. It seems like something bigger is happening in the small town they call home.

When an injured hiker stumbles from the woods, someone who seems to have come to the Yukon for a wilderness vacation but instead is now fighting for her life, it’s all hands on deck. What – or who – attacked this woman, and why?

With the woman unconscious, and no leads, Casey and Eric don’t know where the threat is coming from. Plus, the residents of their deeply secretive town are uneasy with this stranger in their midst. Everyone in Rockton wants this mystery solved – and fast.

The Rockton series by Kelley Armstrong has been excellent since the very first book, and it’s a thrill to see the connecting story threads weave together here in the 6th book, leading toward an end point still to come in the 7th and final book in the series. A Stranger in Town builds on everything that’s come before it, provides a mystery of its own to solve, and answers questions that have been percolating since the very beginning.

Once again, a quick recap of the series premise:

Rockton is a secret hidden town in the Yukon wilderness, a haven for those seeking extreme shelter from dangers in their real lives — or those who’ve committed some sort of wrongdoing and need a place to start over. Rockton, population 200, is filled with an uneasy mix of crime victims and white-collar criminals — although as Sheriff Eric Dalton and Detective Casey Butler come to discover, the town council is willing to defy its own rules for a price and allow more dangerous people to take advantage of Rockton’s protection.

A Stranger in Town starts with a frightening discovery. In the forest surrounding Rockton, Casey and Eric stumble across a severely injured hiker. She appears to be a well-provisioned but inexperienced tourist, one of the many who pay to be dropped in the Yukon for a wilderness adventure — and like many before her, finds herself in over her head. But as Casey and Eric quickly discover, this hiker wasn’t injured in a fall or animal attack — she appears to have been gravely wounded by hostiles, the pack of “wild” people, seemingly feral or deranged, who live in the forest and pose a continual threat to Rockton and other settlements. What’s more, the hiker was one of a group of four; her companions’ bodies are found nearby.

The attack highlights yet again how dangerous the hostiles are, to the point where the council — the wealthy advisory board that controls and funds Rockton from afar — are ready to shut everything down and dismantle the town, much to Casey and Eric’s dismay. But Casey has had her suspicions about the hostiles from the very beginning of her time in Rockton, and these new murders, and the council’s reaction, give her even more incentive to finally find the long-hidden answers.

If it sounds like I’m being vague… well, that’s intentional! The plot and mystery and clues are all so intricate that to talk about any in detail would mean spoiling the fun of discovering them for yourselves. What I loved about A Stranger in Town, as with the rest of the series, is seeing how the characters interact in each new situation, how much the relationships among the town residents have evolved, and how astutely Casey sees into the truth of the issues and incidents that complicate their lives.

On top of the excellent mystery and the strength of the depiction of the town’s residents, the relationship between Eric and Casey continues to be a delight. They are two strong, intelligent, complicated people. Their personal baggage can cause difficulty when it comes to their feelings and communications, yet their commitment to one another allows them to view situations, and one another, with honesty and fairness. It’s fascinating to see them work through their inner qualms and self-doubt, and to allow themselves to trust in the strength of their love even in moments of serious danger or conflict.

The plot of A Stranger in Town is terrific, and the book is impossible to put down. The mystery at hand is resolved, and there are startling revelations that go way back into Rockton’s history and explain the present challenges the town faces. This book sets up what’s sure to be a dynamite series finale, and I can’t wait to get to it!

The Rockton series ends with book #7. After that, I plan to dive into the spin-off Haven’s Rock series. Next up for me:

Book #7, The Deepest of Secrets

Interested in this series? Check out my reviews of the previous books:
City of the Lost (Rockton, #1)
A Darkness Absolute (Rockton, #2)
This Fallen Prey (Rockton, #3)
Watcher in the Woods (Rockton, #4)
Alone in the Wild (Rockton, #5)

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.

14Nov2025

Audiobook Review: Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Britt-Marie Was Here
Author: Fredrik Backman
Narrator: Joan Walker
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: 2016
Print length: 324 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 18 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

From the best-selling author of the “charming debut” (People) A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, a heartwarming and hilarious story of a reluctant outsider who transforms a tiny village and a woman who finds love and second chances in the unlikeliest of places.

Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. She eats dinner at precisely the right time and starts her day at six in the morning because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention.

But at 63, Britt-Marie has had enough. She finally walks out on her loveless 40-year marriage and finds a job in the only place she can: Borg, a small, derelict town devastated by the financial crisis. For the fastidious Britt-Marie, this new world of noisy children, muddy floors, and a roommate who is a rat (literally) is a hard adjustment.

As for the citizens of Borg, with everything that they know crumbling around them, the only thing that they have left to hold on to is something Britt-Marie absolutely loathes: their love of soccer. When the village’s youth team becomes desperate for a coach, they set their sights on her. She’s the least likely candidate, but their need is obvious, and there is no one else to do it.

Thus begins a beautiful and unlikely partnership. In her new role as reluctant mentor to these lost young boys and girls, Britt-Marie soon finds herself becoming increasingly vital to the community. And, even more surprisingly, she is the object of romantic desire for a friendly and handsome local policeman named Sven. In this world of oddballs and misfits, can Britt-Marie finally find a place where she belongs?

Zany and full of heart, Britt-Marie Was Here is a novel about love and second chances and about the unexpected friendships we make that teach us who we really are and the things we are capable of doing.

After finishing Fredrik Backman’s most recent book, My Friends — a true masterpiece — I decided to go back and read the remaining couple of his books that I’d somehow missed. But now that I’ve read Britt-Marie Was Here, I realize that his earlier books may not work for me quite as well as the more recent ones.

In Britt-Marie Was Here, we meet the prickly, socially awkward Britt-Marie who, after 40 years of marriage, leaves her husband and decides to start a life of her own. She’s spent all these year catering to her husband and keeping their home spotless, and has simply taken his word for it when he tells her that she’s not good with people. Now, she’s determined to find her own path, and starts by hounding the poor woman at the unemployment office until she’s finally offered the only available position — acting as caretaker for an abandoned community center slated for closure shortly, in the forgotten, run-down town of Borg.

Borg is miles from nowhere, and seems to mainly consist of a pizzeria that’s also the local grocery store, post office, and car repair shop. The recreation center is just next door, and in just as desperate need of cleaning as the pizzeria, so Britt-Marie gets to work. She’s incredibly awkward and rubs the locals the wrong way right from the start — and yet, she’s not fazed when the curious local kids show up to check her out. Somehow, almost against her will, she gets involved, and soon, she’s formed abrasive yet fond relationships with the adults of Borg while also getting roped into acting as the kids’ soccer coach.

If you like your stories quirky and heart-warming, then there’s a lot you’ll enjoy about Britt-Marie Was Here. Backman’s storytelling is always a delight, and his wordplay and descriptions are just as clever as we’d expect. I especially love how this author captures so much depth about life and emotions in seemingly simple sentences:

She has not run down the stairs like this since she was a teenager, when your heart reaches the front door before your feet.

However… Plotwise, Britt-Marie Was Here feels a little bland. I’ve read plenty of books already about outsiders finding connection and community in a peculiar small town, so this book didn’t especially stand out for me. What’s more, I found the timeline hard to believe: Britt-Marie spends three weeks in Borg, and somehow manages to change everyone’s lives for the better, create new hope for the children and their soccer team, and encourage the townsfolk to become their best selves. In three weeks? As I said, perhaps I’ve just read too many of these outsiders-transform-a-community stories, but I just wasn’t buying it.

On top of my issues with the story, I really struggled with the audiobook narration. The narrator’s delivery was a challenge for me, especially the rhythm and tone of her speaking voice. Something about it just didn’t click, and I often found myself puzzling over what I’d just heard or having to go back and repeat sections — or double-check them against the printed edition.

This is a cute story, and there are some moments I truly enjoyed, but between the narration and the sense of having read too many similar stories already, Britt-Marie Was Here was only a so-so audiobook experience for me.

I do think the author’s style and subject matter have developed spectacularly over the years, and his later books feel much deeper to me. I believe I have just one more of his early novels, and possibly a few shorter pieces, left to read, but after Britt-Marie, I’ll probably hold off for a while before delving further into his backlist.

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.

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12Nov2025

Book Review: Children of Time (Children of Time, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Children of Time
Series: Children of Time, #1
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Orbit
Publication date: June 4, 2015
Length: 600 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A race for survival among the stars… Humanity’s last survivors escaped earth’s ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?

WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

Children of Time is a big, detailed, complex work of science fiction. It requires focus and concentration… and is absolutely worth the effort.

In Children of Time, humanity’s time on Earth has come to an end. While expanding out beyond the solar system and exploring other worlds, factions at home and throughout Earth’s space colonies go from adversarial politics to all-out war. The few remnants of humans on Earth find ways to survive an ice age, only to discover, as the ice finally recedes, that the ice actually protected life from the toxins that now doom them all to extinction — unless they can recreate the ancient tech of their space-faring ancestors and journey to a new planet to start again.

Meanwhile, the earlier humans’ space exploration included an ambitious terraforming agenda, journeying to far-flung solar systems to seed likely planets with the potential for new homes for humanity. As we learn early on, though, even this undertaking comes to ruin due to the factionalism and wars that devastate life on Earth.

One scientist heading a terraforming project succeeds, however… in a way. The pioneer of a project known as exaltation, Dr. Avrana Kern’s mission is to seed a terraformed planet with monkeys and a nanovirus to speed their evolution — then have the humans remain in suspension for centuries until the monkeys have evolved enough to support human settlement on their planet. But thanks to the war between humans, something goes very, very wrong with her plans.

Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that the story of what happens on this planet is utterly fascinating. Essentially, an unintended species is infected by the nanovirus — and over the course of Children of Time, we see an intensely interesting version of human evolution as played out by another species entirely. Thanks to the relatively short life span of this species, many generations pass over the course of the decades and centuries that follow — and we see them evolved from basic hunting skills to complex reasoning, strategy, building, communication, religious ideology, and eventually, highly advanced biochemistry and technology.

Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, we see the final remnants of the human race aboard the ark ship Gilgamesh, following the star maps and recovered documents of the last space-exploring humans in a desperate search to locate the old terraformed planets. Because they mainly exist in suspension, millennia pass during the Gilgamesh’s journey. We see familiar characters as they come out of suspension, often after decades or centuries have passed, in order to deal with new threats or discoveries. The concepts of time and what constitutes a life span are investigated in strange and wonderful new ways.

I don’t want to go too far into specifics, as there’s a real joy in seeing just how inventively the author spins out this story. The chapters alternate between life on the Gilgamesh and life on the planet, and it’s done so well that by the time the inevitable conflict between the two arrives near the end of the book, it’s impossible for a reader to favor one side over the other.

I’m thrilled that I’ve finally read Children of Time. Despite the book’s length, it’s so engrossing that the pages just fly by. For science fiction fans, this book is a must!

There are two more volumes in the series currently available, with a fourth set for publication in early 2026. On the one hand, Children of Time does wrap up very well, so I’d say it’s perfectly fine and satisfying to approach it as a single-volume stand-alone. On the other hand, I enjoyed Children of Time so much that I’m eager to read more set in this sci-fi universe!

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

6Nov2025

Book Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Author: Grady Hendrix
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: January 14, 2025
Length: 482 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased
Rating:

There’s power in a book…

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.

Grady Hendrix writes marvelously inventive horror novels, with psychological and physical terrors around every corner. Here in Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the greatest horror is not in the supernatural elements, but in the treatment of the pregnant teens sent in disgrace to the Wellwood Home.

“You are here because you acted like a barnyard animal,” Miss Wellwood said. “You took the glory of your womanhood and threw it in the mud.”

The girls at the home are young, and at the complete mercy of their families, the staff of the home, and the doctors. They are never allowed to forget just how awful they are, how little they matter, and how little control they have over anything that happens to their bodies. They are all utterly ignorant as well — they know what they did to get pregnant, but have no idea what childbirth actually entails.

“You all don’t need to worry yourselves about what’s going to happen when you go to the hospital,” he said. “Because it’s none of your business. You just do what the doctors say and you’ll be fine.”

Fern is distraught when her father angrily bustles her off the home and leaves her there without even a good-bye. “Fern” isn’t even her name — all girls are given new names upon arrival, to preserve anonymity and to make the entire experience as separate from their real lives as possible. All Fern wants is to go home, to forget this ever happened, and to get back to her school, her friends, and the senior play.

But the harsh realities of pregnancy are impossible to ignore, especially once Fern witnesses another girl go into early labor in the bathroom and has to face the awful truth of what lies ahead for her. When the biweekly book mobile shows up, Fern asks the librarian for a book on what really happens during childbirth — which would be considered contraband at the home, where pleasant middle grade books seem to be the only allowed reading material.

The book the librarian passes along is anything but benign children’s fiction. Instead, she hands Fern is a hidden copy of a book titled How to Be a Groovy Witch (how awesome is that?!?!). The book’s contents are mostly incomprehensible, but Fern, Rose, Zinnia, and Holly are able to figure out a spell to cure Zinnia’s unrelenting morning sickness… by transferring it to someone else, with shockingly effective results.

The girls are drawn in by the lure of witchcraft and the power it promises, not seeing until it’s too late that nothing is given for free.

In this world there is one truth: everything has a price, and every price must be paid. Perhaps you will not pay it today, maybe you can put it off until tomorrow, but one day there will be a knock at your door in the middle of the night, a voice in the darkness beside your bed, a letter laid upon the table when you believe yourself to be alone, and it will contain a bill that must be paid, and you will pay it in blood.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is an absolutely compelling read. It’s a little on the longer side, but it flies by. The girls’ terror and helplessness feel palpable, and the book is a stark reminder of how far we’ve come in so many ways… and how awful it would be to move backward.

There are several gross-out scenes resulting from the girls’ spells, as well as scenes of supernatural power and strange, other-worldly phenomena. Some parts can be truly scary. And yet, the most horrifying scene is a hospital delivery. Nothing goes wrong medically, but it’s a detailed, horrible depiction of what labor and delivery in the 1970s entailed for so many women. That, to me, is the truly disturbing part of this book. Well, that, plus the girls’ utter lack of agency, the casual cruelty of the adults controlling them, and the soul-crushing sense of shame forced on them from every direction.

They said she could go back to her old life. They said it wouldn’t hurt. They said she’d never have to think about it again. They lied.

I loved the girls’ character development, and how each of them struggles to find strength to face their own particular hell. The girls’ power truly lies in their connection and support of one another, even more so than in the gifts they discover through the book and the librarian’s coven. Despite their individual suffering, they still find joy and friendship, as they band together to take back control and figure out how to survive.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a moving, powerful, absorbing read. The depiction of the historical time and place feels spot-on. 1970s slang and attitudes provide some needed moments of fun and entertainment, despite the overall seriousness of the subject matter. (It’s shocking to see the pregnant girls constantly smoking cigarettes… but hey, it’s 1970!)

Grady Hendrix writes terrific horror, always with unique, clever twists and set-ups. I believe I have one more of his books yet to read (and I’m looking forward to it!); meanwhile, I’m thrilled that I finally got my hands on Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. Highly recommended.

For more by this author:
Horrorstör
My Best Friend’s Exorcism
Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction
We Sold Our Souls
The Final Girl Support Group
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – 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.

5Nov2025

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)*

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29Oct2025

Book Review: The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Everlasting
Author: Alix E. Harrow
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: October 28, 2025
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From Alix E. Harrow, the New York Times bestselling author of Starling House, comes a moving and genre-defying quest about the lady-knight whose legend built a nation, and the cowardly historian sent back through time to make sure she plays her part–even if it breaks his heart.

Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters―but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.

Centuries later, Owen Mallory―failed soldier, struggling scholar―falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives―and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.

But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend―if they want to tell a different story–they’ll have to rewrite history itself.

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow is a beautifully written, slow-burn heartbreaker, with time twists that are truly mind-boggling. After finishing the book a few days ago, I’m still trying to put all the pieces together, but I’m also just basking in the overall feel of the story.

The story of Dominion had many villains over the years, shifting along with the borders of her empire, and many storytellers. But it only ever had one hero, and her name was Una Everlasting.

The country of Dominion has a long, bloody history of war and conquest. Generations of soldiers return home damaged mentally and physically, if they return home at all. Historian Owen Mallory is one of these, suffering recurring trauma and carrying scars from his time at the front. Now, he devotes his time to research the foundational national mythology of Dominion — the story of Sir Una Everlasting, the greatest knight the country has ever known.

“In order to have a future worth fighting for, you must have a past worth remembering.”

Everyone knows the story of Una, a young orphan who found greatness after pulling a legendary sword from a tree, then pledging herself to find for her queen and country. Hers is a tale of strength, courage, and devotion. From her battles to her seemingly impossible quests to her tragic death, the tale of Sir Una Everlasting has motivated and inspired the people of Dominion for centuries.

When a mysterious book arrives on Owen’s desk, it seems to hold the answers to his obsessive research: It’s impossible… but it appears to be the story of Una, written in her own time. Such a thing has never been found before, or even rumored to exist. The arrival of the book plunges Owen into a journey through time, as he ends up transported back into Una’s lifetime — where he discovers that there is more to the story than he ever could have imagined.

The intricate storytelling is best experienced without too much information in advance, as seeing it unfold is part of the book’s power. I went into The Everlasting knowing nothing more than what was in the book’s cover blurbs… and found myself both shocked and entranced as the story unfolded.

The Everlasting conveys several powerful themes; among the most fascinating is the power of shared legends to shape history. Countries experience a sense of shared pride in their foundational stories. But what happens when those stories have holes in them, or when the glorious past is perhaps not so glorious after all? The Everlasting shows the power of these stories to motivate, but also to be used to manipulate. In the hands of corrupt, power-seeking leaders, tales of sacrifice and nobility can be the excuse needed to conquer, kill, and engage in endless wars.

The Everlasting is also a love story, which isn’t obvious at the beginning. There’s a slow awakening, a sense of devotion and yearning that builds over time, and ultimately, a gorgeous connection that’s a meeting of hearts, souls, and bodies. And yet, a sense of tragedy hangs over the love story. By the time the love between the characters fully blossoms, we already know that there can be no happy endings for these two.

I love you by then, or would soon, or always had.

In terms of the reading experience, I found the opening chapters a bit slow, but once the book arrives and Owen gets drawn into Una’s story, it’s un-put-down-able. A few oddities make the reading experience challenging but worthwhile: Large chunks of the story are written in the second person, but in places, the person telling the story changes. I had to stop at several points to remind myself of who was narrating a particular section and who the “you” was.

The main challenging aspect is the time factor. Time loops in all sorts of interesting ways, and the weaving and changing of history becomes more and more complicated as the story progresses. I couldn’t always quite make the “how” of it all make sense… but I also couldn’t look away. The puzzle pieces do fit, but at some point, I stopped trying to apply logic to certain elements and just let myself be swept away by the lush, gorgeous writing.

I highly recommend The Everlasting. It’s a remarkable piece of writing, with powerful messages about power, propaganda, and corruption, told through the vehicle of an achingly beautiful love story. This is a story that will stick with me for a long time to come.

26Oct2025

Audiobook Review: The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Secret Christmas Library
Author: Jenny Colgan
Narrator: Eilidh Beaton
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication date: October 14, 2025
Print length: 320 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 16 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased (audiobook); E-book ARC from the publisher/NetGalley
Rating:

A new holiday story set in the Scottish Highlands to warm booklovers’ hearts by Jenny Colgan, New York Times bestselling author of Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop.

Mirren Sutherland stumbled into a career as an antiquarian book hunter after finding a priceless antique book in her great aunt’s attic. Now, as Christmas approaches, she’s been hired by Jamie McKinnon, the surprisingly young and handsome laird of a Highland clan whose ancestral holdings include a vast crumbling castle. Family lore suggests that the McKinnon family’s collection includes a rare book so valuable that it could save the entire estate—if they only knew where it was. Jamie needs Mirren to help him track down this treasure, which he believes is hidden in his own home.

But on the train to the Highlands, Mirren runs into rival book hunter Theo Palliser, and instantly knows that it’s not a chance meeting. She’s all too familiar with Theo’s good looks and smooth talk, and his uncanny ability to appear whenever there’s a treasure that needs locating.

Almost as soon as Mirren and Theo arrive at the castle, a deep snow blankets the Highlands, cutting off the outside world. Stuck inside, the three of them plot their search as the wind whistles outside. Mirren knows that Jamie’s grandfather, the castle’s most recent laird, had been a book collector, a hoarder, and a great lover of treasure hunts. Now they must unpuzzle his clues, discovering the secrets of the house—forming and breaking alliances in a race against time.

A treat for booklovers and treasure hunters alike, The Secret Christmas Library serves up a delicious mystery with a hint of romance, and plenty of holiday spirit!

Jenny Colgan’s books can be counted on for sweet romance, lovely settings, clever people, and simple pleasures, and The Secret Christmas Library delivers all of these… although the stakes in this particular book are mainly on the low end of the scale.

Last year, the author published a fun novella, The Christmas Book Hunt, in which a young woman named Mirren ends up on a search to find a rare book that her great-aunt remembers from her childhood. Seeing the book again is her dying wish, so Mirren turns book detective, chasing leads and sorting through dusty old shelves to make her beloved aunt’s wishes come true.

Surprise! In The Secret Christmas Library, Mirren is back! The rare book that Mirren found is proudly displayed in the British Museum, along with a plaque giving Mirren credit for finding it. Mirren is not (as the blurb might imply) a professional book finder; she’s kept her less-than-exciting day job as a surveyor, but dreams of spending more time with the books she loves. When she bumps into a stranger while visiting “her” book at the museum, and admits that she’s the person on the plaque, it’s the start of an adventure she could not have anticipated.

The stranger is Jamie McKinnon, who has just inherited the family estate in the Scottish Highlands. Estate? It’s more like a castle… although it’s on the verge of falling apart, deeply in debt, after years of family neglect and mismanagement. But Jamie’s grandfather always implied that there was a secret treasure to be found there — a book worth more than anyone could imagine. Jamie is desperate to save the estate, and hires Mirren to come look for the book.

To Mirren’s surprise, he’s also hired Theo, her competitor/partner on her previous book hunt — someone she thought might be a romantic partner too, until he ghosted her after their last adventure. She’s not thrilled to be reunited with him, but is determined to put feelings aside to pursue this new quest.

The castle is indeed a disaster, and Jamie’s grandfather appears to have been a hoarder, at least when it comes to books. There are miles and miles of overflowing shelves throughout the corridors, and even the cupboards are stuffed with books. Their only clue is a poem the grandfather has left behind, full of cryptic clues and strange references. With only a few days until Christmas and a heavy snowstorm leaving the group stranded, they devote themselves to trying to decipher the clues and locate the book… assuming it even exists.

Meanwhile, as Mirren gets to know Jamie, she realizes that this handsome laird has an inner sweetness that she feels drawn to. And the more she comes to care for Jamie, the more important finding that book and saving Jamie’s home feels to her.

The Secret Christmas Library really takes a while to get going. There’s lots of loveliness — an old-timey train, scenes of exploring the castle, fancy dinners (with men in kilts!), a sweet nostalgic feel once the power cuts out and they dance by candlelight to an old Victrola. The book hunt is cute, but not particularly engaging… at least for this reader. Personally, I find I don’t have much patience for this sort of plot — finding hidden objects, discovering clues in old pictures, following a word puzzle to a particular location. (Maybe that explains why I have no interest in escape rooms either…)

In any case, these type of scenes make up a good portion of the book. It’s nice, but not terribly exciting. Things get a little more dramatic when the weather and some other elements combine to put the people — and the castle itself — in grave danger. A dramatic escape as well as the escalation of various personal connections and relationships make the last 25% or so much more engaging — finally, some stakes to truly care about!

The audiobook is narrated by Eilidh Beaton, narrator of many Jenny Colgan books. Her delivery is warm, with an engaging cadence, and she excels at the various characters’ accents and speaking styles. I found it easy to get into the story, and the narration never let my interest wander.

Overall, this is a fun, sweet book, but not quite as wonderful as some of the author’s other books. I’d still recommend this book for Jenny Colgan fans who’ve read all her books and gobble up her new releases as soon as they’re available (guilty!!). For those newer to her works, I do think this is a fine choice, but there are others I’d probably recommend more highly to get a true taste of how lovely her books can be.

23Oct2025

Novella review: Cinder House by Freya Marske

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Cinder House
Author: Freya Marske
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: October 7, 2025
Length: 144 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Library
Rating:

Sparks fly and lovers dance in this gorgeous, yearning Cinderella retelling from bestselling author Freya Marske—a queer Gothic romance perfect for fans of Naomi Novik and T. Kingfisher.

Ella is a haunting.

Murdered at sixteen, her ghost is furiously trapped in her father’s house, invisible to everyone except her stepmother and stepsisters.

Even when she discovers how to untether herself from her prison, there are limits. She cannot be seen or heard by the living people who surround her. Her family must never learn she is able to leave. And at the stroke of every midnight, she finds herself back on the staircase where she died.

Until she forges a wary friendship with a fairy charm-seller, and makes a bargain for three nights of almost-living freedom. Freedom that means she can finally be seen. Danced with. Touched.

You think you know Ella’s story: the ball, the magical shoes, the handsome prince.

You’re halfway right, and all-the-way wrong.

Rediscover a classic fairy tale in this debut novella from “the queen of romantic fantasy” (Polygon).

Cinder House by Freya Marske is a magical, memorable novella-length retelling of Cinderella, and it includes a haunting unlike any I’ve read before.

Cinder House starts by killing the main character:

Ella’s father died of the poison in their tea. Ella drank less and so might have lived, and not turned ghost at all, if the house hadn’t shrieked for its master’s murder in the moment she stood, dizzied and weak, at the top of the stairs.

Ella is dead… but that’s not the end of her story. As she comes back to consciousness, she finds herself tethered to her home, visible to those who live there — her stepmother Patrice, and her two stepsisters, Danica and Greta. None of them care about Ella in the slightest, but they do come to realize that she’s convenient.

Ella is not just an airy, incorporeal ghost floating around a particular place. Instead, she truly becomes the spirit of the house — she feels the house, as if it’s an extension of her own body.

How does a house, lacking flesh, feel fury? With the fire in its hearth and in the wide black stove.

She’s aware of the mice in the walls, the water in the pipes, the heat in the stove… but she’s also aware of anything wrong or out of place, and she can interact physically with anything that belongs to the house. She has an obsessive need to clean anything messy, to mend anything broken. For Ella’s stepfamily, it’s handy to have a ghost around to do their bidding, and it’s even economical! They’re able to dismiss the servants, and have Ella at their beck and call. Worst of all for Ella, when her sadistic youngest stepsister realizes that Ella feels what the house feels, she’s able to use pain — like sawing away pieces of woodworking or breaking windows — to coerce Ella into obedience.

Ella is trapped, until she discovers a trick for leaving the house — but no matter how far she wanders, she snaps right back to the staircase where she died at the stroke of midnight. Years pass, until finally, events in the world outside the house affect Ella and her family.

The Prince invites all the young unmarried women of the kingdom to a ball, during which he’ll choose a bride. Of course, most people suspect that there’s already a betrothal being arranged for political purposes, but that doesn’t stop the eligible women of the kingdom from dressing up and hoping for attention — including Ella’s stepsisters.

As the story progresses, we see Ella find a magical means for attending the ball too, thanks to her friendship with a fairy she meets in the marketplace. There are conditions, of course, and nothing goes quite according to plan — but she does meet the prince, and discovers that he’s dealing with magical complications of his own… and that the two of them may be able to help one another in ways that no one else can.

Cinder House is such an inventive retelling! I loved the details around what Ella feels and goes through as a house ghost, and the encounters with the prince, and the details of his curse, are fascinating too. The plot is tightly woven, yet never feels rushed, and the overall tone is full of magical, fantastical elements that create an atmosphere of surprise and delight.

The ending does get surprisingly… well… kinky, in a certain way, but it’s not terribly explicit (and definitely is not your typical fairy tale ending!)

Overall, I thought Cinder House was great! I’m so glad I saw so many positive reviews and decided to check it out for myself. Cinder House is a terrific example of what a novella can be: It tells a full story, provides characters to care about, and wraps up a compelling plot with just enough storytelling.

I’d never read anything by Freya Marske before, but now I’m eager to explore more of her books. I know people love the Last Binding series — adding to my TBR!

Purchase links: Amaz o n – Audible audiobook – 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.

19Oct2025

Book Review: Blind Date with a Werewolf by Patricia Briggs

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Blind Date with a Werewolf
Author: Patricia Briggs
Publisher: Ace
Publication date: October 21, 2025
Length: 288 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

When the deadly werewolf Asil is gifted five blind dates by some anonymous “friends,” his reclusive life will never be the same, in this enthralling novel in stories from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series.

Includes two all-new stories as well as three previously published stories.

Dear Asil:

We are worried about you. A werewolf alone is a sad thing, especially at Christmastime. So we have a challenge for five dates in three weeks. We have taken the work out of it and connected you with five people from online dating sites. You should also know that we have informed the whole pack and instigated a betting pool. Have fun!

Sincerely,
Your Concerned Friends

For fans of the Mercy Thompson and Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs, this new book — a novel composed of five connected stories — is a real treat. For someone who hasn’t read those series, this book might be more of a challenge, but still lots of fun.

Asil Moreno, known among werewolves as the Moor, is a centuries-old werewolf known for his power, violence, and instability. Only his Alpha, the ruler of all werewolves in North America, is dominant enough to keep Asil under control. Asil is deadly, but beautiful, and he knows it. He also has very little interest in other people, and certainly no interest in romance, not since the death of his mate many, many years earlier.

But Asil’s friends think he needs a boost — and, we suspect, also are looking to have a little fun at his expense. Through anonymous emails, they challenge him to go on a series of blind dates that they’ll arrange for him. Asil is not enthusiastic in the slightest, but there’s a pack bet that he won’t succeed in completing the five dates of the challenge, and Asil is not one to ever back down.

Let’s just say that the dates don’t go exactly as planned. Each supposedly romantic set-up turns into a mission involving lots more danger and blood than candlelight and roses. In each case, it’s extremely entertaining to see Asil present himself as a respectable, desirable date… only to have each encounter go entirely sideways.

Blind Date with a Werewolf includes three stories previously published in other anthologies, plus two stories that are original to this book. Taken as a whole, they make a highly enjoyable reading experience, with a great story arc, lots of amusing character moments, and plenty of high stakes and action sequences.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the events of Blind Date with a Werewolf carry over into the greater universe of Patricia Briggs’s series. (The next new book will be #7 in the Alpha & Omega series, tentatively scheduled for release sometime in 2026).

As I mentioned, Blind Date with a Werewolf is perfect for fans of the related series. I do think it could be read on its own even without familiarity with its greater fictional universe, although I think some of the intricacies about pack dynamics and werewolf nature might be harder to unravel.

In any case, this really is a very fun book, and I tore through it in about a day and a half. Asil’s adventures are funny, fast-paced, and have just enough danger in them to keep us readers on the edge of our seats. Of course, now I’m dying for more of this world… I may need to dive back in and do a reread of the Alpha & Omega books, at the very least.

Purchase links: Amaz o n – Audible audiobook – 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.