Audiobook Review: A Season for Second Chances by Jenny Bayliss

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Season for Second Chances
Author: Jenny Bayliss
Narrator: Ell Potter
Publisher: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: October 19, 2021
Print length: 448 pages
Audio length: 12 hours, 11 minute
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

A charmingly quirky seaside town offers a recently separated restauranteur a fresh start and possibly a new lease on love in A Season for Second Chances, by the author of The Twelve Dates of Christmas.
Annie Sharpe’s spark for life has fizzled out. Her kids are grown up, her restaurant is doing just fine on its own, and her twenty-six-year marriage has come to an unceremonious end. Untethered for the first time in her adult life, she finds a winter guardian position in a historic seaside home and decides to leave her city life behind for a brand-new beginning.
When she arrives in Willow Bay, Annie is enamored by the charming house, the invigorating sea breeze, and the town’s rich seasonal traditions. Not to mention, her neighbors receive her with open arms–that is, all except the surly nephew of the homeowner, whose grand plans for the property are at odds with her residency. As Christmas approaches, tensions and tides rise in Willow Bay, and Annie’s future seems less and less certain. But with a little can-do spirit and holiday magic, the most difficult time of her life will become…a season for second chances.

A Season for Second Chances is a sweet, good-natured book about finding a new purpose and a new love when least expected.

When Annie walks in on her husband having sex (a) in the restaurant they co-own (b) with a younger woman who (c) is a member of the wait staff, Annie has had enough. Max is a serial cheater who’s managed to convince Annie to stay time and time again, but now she’s finally done. After taking a few weeks to hibernate, she finds an ad for someone to live in and care for a seaside home over the winter, and throwing aside any doubts, Annie jumps in.

The house is utterly charming, in an equally charming small town. The home’s owner is an elderly woman whose nephew is trying to convince her to sell the property to a developer, throwing historical preservationists into a tizzy. Annie finds the house and town just what she needs, and soon decides she needs a project — reopening (with the owner’s blessing) the bistro and coffee kiosk on the property that have been shuttered for years.

Annie’s immediate tiff with the nephew naturally develops into an enemies-to-lovers situation (very sweetly). As she settles into small town life, she makes friends and finds a new direction for her life, but then must find a way to make it permanent. There are ups and downs in Annie’s love life as well as in her pursuit of her new home and business in Willow Bay, but as you’d imagine, there’s a happy ending — and despite a near tragedy close to the end, it’s never in doubt that Annie’s life will turn out to be wonderful.

This is an enjoyable book — it has all the elements you’d expect in this sorts of story: quirky characters, new friendships, sexual tension, a dashingly good-looking man with a gruff exterior but a heart of gold. I can’t say the plot holds many surprises, but it’s pleasant and upbeat, which we can all use once in a while.

The audiobook is quite lovely, with terrific narration that captures the various character’s expressions, opinions, and personalities. The story itself goes on a bit longer than it perhaps needs to, and I did occasionally get impatient with scenes about house repairs and setting up the cafe, but overall, it kept me good company on long walks and my commute!

I liked that the main characters are adults in their 40s with grown children, who bring a certain level of earned skepticism to romance and wooing. The ex-husband is a jerk, even when he’s (pathetically) trying to get Annie back, and it was lots of fun seeing Annie put him in his place. The near-tragic accident towards the end of the story seems a bit unnecessary, but it fits the standard romance beats in terms of throwing a big wrench into events before getting to the happy ending.

Overall, this was a good choice for a week when I needed some light, happy entertainment!

3Feb2022

Book Review: Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6) by James S. A. Corey

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Nemesis Games
Series: The Expanse, #6
Author: James S. A. Corey
Publisher: Orbit
Publication date: October 24, 2017
Length: 576 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

The sixth novel in James S. A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse series–now a major television series from Syfy!
A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.
The Free Navy – a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships – has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them.
James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone. Outnumbered and outgunned, the embattled remnants of the old political powers call on the Rocinante for a desperate mission to reach Medina Station at the heart of the gate network.
But the new alliances are as flawed as the old, and the struggle for power has only just begun. As the chaos grows, an alien mystery deepens. Pirate fleets, mutiny, and betrayal may be the least of the Rocinante‘s problems. And in the uncanny spaces past the ring gates, the choices of a few damaged and desperate people may determine the fate of more than just humanity.

I’ve spent the past week in the midst of galactic war, and it may take me a while to recover!

I had to psych myself up to read Babylon’s Ashes, the 6th book in the Expanse series. The series is huge in scope, and the books themselves are pretty huge too — large, chunky books dense with ships and space and rail guns and trajectories and science fiction terminology… and I have to say, I’ve enjoyed the hell out of each and every one.

It’s difficult at this point to separate the experience of reading the books from that of watching the (outstanding) TV series. The overarching storyline of Babylon’s Ashes matches up with the events of the 6th and final season. For the TV version, it does feel like the storyline comes to a reasonable stopping place — although there are clearly plenty more adventures that could be told, since there are three more books in the series. I finally dove into Babylon’s Ashes after finishing the 6th season, and meshing the two different approaches created a terrific reading experience.

In Babylon’s Ashes, all hell has broken loose. The solar system’s political balance has been violently upset by a ferocious attack on Earth (see Nemesis Games, book #5) that’s wiped out huge swathes of the population and left the planet with an unsustainable future. This is just part of the plan for Marco Inaros, leader of the Free Navy, the Belter military arm whose goal is to establish Belter dominance and defeat Earth and Mars once and for all.

And while the Free Navy, as the symbol of an historically oppressed people’s rise to freedom, has some claim to a righteous cause, it soon becomes clear that its main function is to further advance Marco’s enormous narcissism and personal vendettas. As he denies food, air, and water supplies to his own people — who are desperately in need — for the sake of political power plays, his supporters begin to question his methods, and the Free Navy develops fractures just when it’s starting to seem surer of victory.

Meanwhile, people like the crew of the Rocinante — our heroes!! — are out fighting the good fight, not just for Earth or Mars or the Belt, but for the sake of humanity having a shot at a future.

This book is just as detailed as the earlier ones, and it takes a great deal of concentration to follow the huge cast of characters, the planets, the political factions, and the mechanics of it all. That said, it’s worth it! I loved every moment, despite having to rely on various fandom wikis to figure out who some of the more obscure characters were and just where they might have shown up previously.

The action is thrilling and scary. I have to admit that it was helpful for me to have watched the TV series, because I’m not sure how well I could have envisioned the space battles and types of ships and weapons and stations without it. That said, it’s all described in marvelous detail, and my inner sci-fi geek enjoyed the hell out of it.

Another element that’s different (but great) about the books is how they take into account the laws of physics and the vastness of space. In the TV series, when a space battle happens, it’s all super fast and immediate — but as the book makes clear, just because one ship is burning fast to ambush another, they still have to travel to get there, so it may take weeks before a planned assault happens. Somehow, that sense of time and distance being factored into the action makes it feel more realistic (but I understand that it wouldn’t work very well on TV to have to interrupt the action to allow for lengthy travel times).

This is not a series to just jump into in the middle, in case that’s not obvious, so if you’re interested, start at the beginning with Leviathan Wakes. I mean, it MIGHT be possible to pick up the story at this point after watching it on TV, but I still think it would be confusing, and why would you want to miss out on the satisfaction of reading the whole thing?

For those who’ve been watching the TV series, the reading experience will be different from here on out, because after Babylon’s Ashes, there will be no TV seasons to mirror the books in the series. We’re in uncharted territory, people! And while the TV version makes changes to characters, places, and events, it’s been close enough to give a good representation of each book’s major plotlines and action sequences. As I move forward to #7, I’m faced with the reality that from now on, there will be no screen action to accompany my reading… so I’ll have to envision all the dramatic torpedoes and rail guns and space maneuvering in my head. I hope I’m up to the challenge!

Now that I’ve finished Babylon’s Ashes, the only thing holding me back from continuing straight on to the next book is how BIG the books all are, and the fact that I do have other books to read! That said, I’m not going to let too much time go by either — I’m hoping to finish the remaining books in the series by the end of this year (but don’t hold me to it!)

Next up for me in the Expanse series:

Strange Dogs: A novella that takes place sometime around or after the events of Babylon’s Ashes

Persepolis Rising: Book #7!

30Jan2022

Audiobook Review: We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: We Sold Our Souls
Author: Grady Hendrix
Narrator: Carol Monda
Publisher: Quirk Books
Publication date: September 18, 2018
Print length: 336 pages
Audio length: 9 hours, 1 minute
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased
Rating:

In the 1990s, heavy metal band Dürt Würk was poised for breakout success — but then lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom as Koffin, leaving his fellow bandmates to rot in rural Pennsylvania.
Two decades later, former guitarist Kris Pulaski works as the night manager of a Best Western – she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Everything changes when she discovers a shocking secret from her heavy metal past: Turns out that Terry’s meteoric rise to success may have come at the price of Kris’s very soul.
This revelation prompts Kris to hit the road, reunite with the rest of her bandmates, and confront the man who ruined her life. It’s a journey that will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a Satanic rehab center and finally to a Las Vegas music festival that’s darker than any Mordor Tolkien could imagine. A furious power ballad about never giving up, even in the face of overwhelming odds, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul…where only a girl with a guitar can save us all.

As the book’s back cover proclaims:

METAL NEVER RETREATS. METAL NEVER SURRENDERS. METAL NEVER DIES.

We Sold Our Souls is about horror and metal and creativity and determination. It’s a little crazy, pretty freaking dark, and has some really icky moments… and yet, I found myself just loving this audiobook.

And hey, I’m not even a metal fan! But reading this book made me wish there was a soundtrack to go with it.

In We Sold Our Souls, we meet middle-aged Kris Pulaski — broken down, hopeless, leading a dead-end life. Once upon a time, she was a rising star along with her bandmates in Dürt Würk. But that was a long time ago, and she hasn’t even picked up a guitar in six years. But when Kris spots a billboard proclaiming the return of Koffin for one last tour, everything changes. Fired up by rage, Kris sets out to reconnect with her old bandmates and reclaim a piece of her past.

For Kris and the rest of Dürt Würk, success was once within reach. They were opening for Slayer, finally moving from seedy dive bars into the world of arena rock concerts — but then their lead singer Terry Hunt betrayed them all, convincing them all to sign contracts that guaranteed his own mega stardom but left them all in the dust. The problem is, Kris can’t quite remember what happened on “contract night”, and neither can anyone else. What really went on during the hours they all lost that night?

The answer is right there in the book’s title, but how they got there and what happens next makes this book so entertaining and hypnotic.

Dürt Würk’s mythology as Terry Hunt’s failed first band includes the story of their never-released album Troglodyte, rumored to have been a masterpiece yet supposedly destroyed and buried forever. As Kris sets on a quest to stop Terry and the evil fueling his success, it’s the music and lyrics of Troglodyte that give her the strength and courage to keep going, and she’s convinced that Troglodyte holds the key to finally getting back what was stolen from her.

I loved reading about Kris’s musical journey, from teaching herself guitar in her basement as a teenager, playing until her fingers bled, through building a band and launching their career. We really get to feel the rush of finding oneself in music, feeling the emotions and rage and beauty pour out through their songs.

The book is sprinkled throughout with the lyrics to the Troglodyte tracks, and hearing them recited in the audiobook (alas, not sung or with music to go with) made the experience a total treat. It’s dark, dark, dark, but oddly fascinating.

Black Iron Mountain is cold, cold, cold
The language they speak is old, old, old
And their lies are made of gold
Iron rain is falling
On the bodies of the slain
The Blind King keeps calling
Trapped inside a coffin made of pain

There are a few scenes that made me want to squirm right out of my body, being very gross and disturbing (and boy is that weird to listen to), but on the whole, the horror is more often expressed through slow builds and unseen terror than through outright gore (although there’s that too). Needless to say, maybe not a good choice if you’re squeamish.

The narrator’s voice comes across as raspy and a bit damaged, kind of how I’d imagine Kris would sound after all those years of hard living. The plot zips along, cleverly intercutting radio interviews about Koffin and Dürt Würk with scenes following Kris’s journey toward either vengeance or redemption.

I admit to being a tiny bit confused by a few things toward the end, but that’s okay. Overall, this book cast a spell on me and completely sucked me in. And look, I’ll never be a metal fan, but I am very much a fan of Kris Pulaski, guitar goddess extraordinaire!

We Sold Our Souls is a lot of fun — I’ve had a copy on my shelves for a few years now, and I’m glad I finally gave it a chance.

*The paperback cover – so awesome that I want this edition too!*

28Jan2022

Book Review: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Author: Malinda Lo
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Publication date: January 19, 2021
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Young adult / historical fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A story of love and duty set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the Red Scare.
“That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.” And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a beautiful, sensitively told story of a young woman in 1950s San Francisco, discovering her sexuality, finding first love, and navigating her place in the world of Chinatown and beyond.

Lily Hu is a high school senior who loves math, science, and reading Arthur C. Clarke. She’s fascinated by the idea of rockets and space, and dreams of one day working alongside her aunt at the Jet Propulsion Lab. Lily is the oldest child of a Chinese-American family living in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and her world revolves around the neighborhood and its community. While she attends a nearby high school, her friends and her activities are all based in Chinatown too — until she starts to get to know Kathleen, a girl in her advanced math classes.

Lily and Kathleen — or Kath, as she prefers to be called — begin to form a tentative friendship after Kath accidentally picks up a newspaper ad that Lily had saved, a promo for a male impersonator’s appearance at a nightclub. Kath mentions that she’s been to the Telegraph Club once, and the two girls agree to sneak out late one night and go together.

Meanwhile, Lily is unsure what to make of the feelings stirred in her when she reads about Tommy Andrews, the nightclub performer, or when she spies a pulp novel at the local drugstore that features two scantily clad women on the cover. When she and Kath finally make it to the Telegraph Club, Lily’s eyes are opened, seeing women together in clearly romantic relationships.

As Lily’s story progresses, she and Kath explore their feelings and learn more about the secret underworld of gay life in San Francisco. At the same time, the “red scare” is bringing fear to Chinatown, as even naturalized or American-born Chinese people are threatened with deportation and pressured to inform on others. When Lily’s father’s naturalization papers are confiscated during questioning about communist activity in Chinatown, the danger strikes home, and Lily is confronted by the potential consequences her own actions could have on her family.

Last Night the Telegraph Club is a moving coming of age and coming out story, and also a well-researched and eye-opening look at a particular time and place in 20th century history. The author shares a great deal of information at the end of the book about her research, her intentions, who she interviewed, and even provides a wide-ranging bibliography for those who want to learn more.

As she points out, there isn’t a lot written about Asian lesbians in historical fiction. The topics covered within this book are a unique blend of LGBTQ+, Asian American, and San Francisco history, and they work together spectacularly.

Lily is a fabulous main character. She’s not flashy or outrageous by any means. A studious, smart girl devoted to her family, she’s really never stepped foot out of line prior to this point in her life. She struggles with the conflict between her identity, her emotions and desires, and her family duty. Lily is portrayed as a sensitive girl who might have truly thrived in the modern era, but because of the time and culture in which she’s born, there is no easy answer for her.

As a non-native San Franciscan myself, I’m always interested in learning more about the history of my adopted city, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club delivers. While many of the places and neighborhoods are the same, the city has changed in dramatic ways since then. I loved seeing all the familiar streets and landmarks mentioned as Lily and Kath and others explore the city, and appreciate that they venture beyond the areas often covered in popular media to include lesser known spots too, such as one of my own favorite places:

Judy had fallen in love with Ocean Beach the first time she saw it almost four years ago, right after she first arrived in San Francisco.

Although as Lily herself later reflects, you can’t always count on the weather:

She suspected it would be freezing out by Ocean Beach

On a more serious note, the response of Lily’s family to learning about her orientation is sadly typical of the time, but still incredibly painful to read:

“There are no homosexuals in this family,” she said, the words thick with disgust.

… and …

“There are studies,” her father said. “You’re too young for this. This is a phase.”

My only quibble with this book is that I wished for a little more at the end, between the last full chapter and the book’s epilogue. I can’t say much without entering spoiler territory, but I wish the events of the last chapter had been carried forward longer to show what happened in the ensuing months. The epilogue wraps the story up very well, but it’s almost too abrupt in its resolution. Still, overall, I’m happy with how things were resolved for the various characters, and felt so invested in Lily’s well-being that I wish I could check back in with her to see how her life turned out 10, 20, and 30 years down the road.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club is engrossing, moving, and sensitive, with memorable characters and a fast-moving plot that manages to convey so much, so well. Highly recommended.

27Jan2022

Book Review: Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Shit Cassandra Saw
Author: Gwen E. Kirby
Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: January 11, 2022
Length: 288 pages
Genre: Short stories
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking points, from Hellenic times to today.
Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn’t mean she’s resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren’t ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers. Gwen E. Kirby experiments with found structures–a Yelp review, a WikiHow article–which her fierce, irreverent narrators push against, showing how creativity within an enclosed space undermines and deconstructs the constraints themselves. When these women tell the stories of their triumphs as well as their pain, they emerge as funny, angry, loud, horny, lonely, strong protagonists who refuse be secondary characters a moment longer. From “The Best and Only Whore of Cym Hyfryd, 1886” to the “Midwestern Girl [who] is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories,” Kirby is playing and laughing with the women who have come before her and they are telling her, we have always been this way. You just had to know where to look.

Please do judge a book by its cover… at least in this case. Shit Cassandra Saw‘s cover is bright, almost eye-searing, and clearly puts the reader on notice that it’s time to shake things up.

This collection of short stories covers times and settings from the ancient world to the contemporary, mixing in fantastical elements with pieces that are all too real. The women in these stories are angry, despondent, and tired of being ignored or mistreated or threatened. Told through a variety of styles and voices, the stories work as a collection by playing with perception and tropes, and letting women’s voices shout out clearly.

All that being said, some of the stories in Shit Cassandra Saw worked better for me than others. In general, I really liked the historical pieces, although a few of the contemporary stories really appealed as well.

My favorites include:

A Few Normal Things That Happen A Lot: My absolute favorite of the bunch, and it’s so weird and wonderful. From the opening lines:

A woman walks down the street and a man tells her to smile. When she smiles, she reveals a mouthful of fangs. She bites off the man’s hand, cracks the bones and spits them out, and accidentally swallows his wedding ring, which gives her indigestion.

… it’s clear that nothing here is normal, although yes, the story is about things that happen a lot. Random men telling women to smile. Creepy dudes on subways exposing themselves. Male joggers following maybe a bit too closely. Unwanted comments about appearance. All those little moments that are really so common that every woman has experienced them in one way or another.

In this story, the author does an amazing job of portraying how fear of these moments pervades women’s lives, turning simple things like a walk from one’s car to the front door into something to plan and consider — and then shows how that might all turn around, given a few sci-fi-flavored twists.

This story is also available to read online via TinHouse.

Shit Cassandra Saw That She Didn’t Tell the Trojans Because At That Point Fuck Them Anyway: A short piece that’s just so well done, about all the things Cassandra could tell Trojans about, but:

She is tired of speaking to listening ears. The listening ears of the men who think her mad drive her to madness.

It ends on an oddly uplifting note, as Cassandra’s thoughts turn to all the things she wishes she could tell the women of Troy about too, things that would make them happy if they only knew.

And briefly:

Scene in a Public Park at Dawn, 1892: About two women duelists, very short, but I really liked it.

There are other stories I liked too, and a few that kind of clunked, but overall, it’s a great collection, and I really enjoyed the variety of topics and styles. Many of the stories were previously published elsewhere; some are available through the original online sites were they appeared, and some are original to this collection.

Fun fact: I might never have stumbled across this book or thought twice about it until I happened to click on a link to a story on LitHub, motivated solely by the fact that the image for the article was a scene from Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, which is a movie that I love an irrational amount. Once I clicked through and read Gwen E. Kirby’s thoughts on the movie and how its “stabbiness” empowers the women in it, I was sold!

This sort of stylized violence, stabbiness if you will, emerges in my writing as a fascination with women from history who fight and with contemporary women who wish they could. Stabbiness makes me wonder how violence in these very specific contexts can feel affirming, even as violence is the thing being defied.

You can read the article here.

As I’ve mentioned countless times on this blog, I really don’t consider myself a short story reader, and I don’t typically have the patience to read an entire book of stories. With Shit Cassandra Saw, I took a slower approach, reading just one or two stories per day, and found the entire experience really enjoyable. I’m glad I took the time to appreciate this book. If you like your stories on the weird side with a strong feminist theme throughout, check out this collection!

23Jan2022

Book Review: In a Book Club Far Away by Tif Marcelo

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: In a Book Club Far Away
Author: Tif Marcelo
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: April 6, 2021
Length: 381 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy via NetGalley
Rating:

From the author of Once Upon a Sunset and The Key to Happily Ever After comes a heartwarming and moving novel following three Army wives—estranged friends—who must overcome their differences when one of them is desperate for help.
Regina Castro, Adelaide Wilson-Chang, and Sophie Walden used to be best friends. As Army wives at Fort East, they bonded during their book club and soon became inseparable. But when an unimaginable betrayal happened amongst the group, the friendship abruptly ended, and they haven’t spoken since.
That’s why, eight years later, Regina and Sophie are shocked when they get a call for help from Adelaide. Adelaide’s husband is stationed abroad, and without any friends or family near her new home of Alexandria, Virginia, she has no one to help take care of her young daughter when she has to undergo emergency surgery. For the sake of an innocent child, Regina and Sophie reluctantly put their differences aside to help an old friend.
As the three women reunite, they must overcome past hurts and see if there’s any future for their friendship. Featuring Tif Marcelo’s signature “enchanting prose” (Amy E. Reichert, author of The Coincidence of Coconut Cake) and the books that brought them together in the first place, In a Book Club Far Away honors the immense power of female friendship and how love can defy time, distance, and all old wounds.

In a Book Club Far Away is a story about the lasting value and importance of women’s friendship. Set amidst a group of Army wives, with chapters taking place both in the present day and 10 years earlier, it tells the story of close connections, long grudges, and the possibility of reconciliation and renewal.

In the present, Regina and Sophie both receive “SOS” messages from their old friend Adelaide. [Note: The synopsis above is inaccurate — Regina and Sophie have remained closed with Adelaide across the years, but are estranged from one another.] Regina is a former officer herself, a divorced mom, and the owner of a struggling catering company in Georgia. Sophie is a nurse, whose life partner is retired military, raising their soon-to-be-college-students twin daughters in Florida. When Adelaide calls for help, they both drop everything else to be there for her… although discovering that Adelaide failed to disclose the other’s presence to Regina and Sophie almost sends them out the door again.

But Adelaide is in dire need of help, and the old code amongst Army wives, to always be there for each other, especially when their husbands are deployed, can’t be ignored. The affection Regina and Sophie each have for Adelaide is enough to get them to agree — unwillingly — to spend time in each other’s presence for the week.

Meanwhile, there are chapters that take us back ten years, to when the three women first met and bonded at an Army base in upstate New York. As their men, members of the same military unit, head out on a nine-month deployment, they turn to one another for companionship. Adelaide decides to organize a military spouse book club, to help bring people together during the long months of loneliness. From this book club, Sophie, Regina, and Adelaide soon form an unbreakable bond.

It’s clear early on that something terrible happened back in those days to break up the trio and destroy their trust and affection, but we don’t completely find out the details until late in the book. Meanwhile, as Regina and Sophie care for Adelaide and her toddler, their close proximity forces them to reconsider past events, examine their own lives, and start to form a shaky new relationship.

I might not have been drawn to this book if I’d bumped into it in a bookstore, but because I had an ARC, I decided to finally read it — and I’m glad I did. The cover and the title don’t particularly convey the main themes of the story. This is, first and foremost, a story about how meaningful women’s friendships can be. Yes, they all have relationships and partners and families, but they turn to each other for understanding and support that they can find nowhere else.

I thought the book did an excellent job of showing the lives of military spouses — the pain of separation, the worry, the loneliness, the seemingly unwinnable challenge of having to start all over again every few years, even the challenge of having the military member return from deployment and finding a way to reintegrate them into the life they’ve been away from for so many months.

I really enjoyed the interplay between the past and the present, and of course, a big plus for me is the importance of the book club. The book is broken into sections corresponding to the books the group is reading, and it makes sense thematically (as well as just being entertaining). And how could we not love a book that shows how important books are in our lives?

I did the think the big reveal about what caused the friendship to break up ten years earlier was a little less dramatic than I expected. It sounded as though there were some miscommunications and misplaced blame that caused the big fight. It was sad to think about all the wasted years, but this made me appreciate how the women came back together even more.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The women’s lives were all interesting, their relationships with the significant others in their lives were varied and well portrayed, and most essentially, their bond of friendship was just lovely to read about.

This isn’t a particularly heavy read, although there are sad moments and challenging issues from the women’s lives that are honestly shown. Still, the overarching theme of the women’s connection and their importance in each other’s lives is beautiful and makes this a fulfilling read.

22Jan2022

Book Review: Soulstar (The Kingston Cycle, #3) by C. L. Polk

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Soulstar
Series: The Kingston Cycle, #3
Author: C. L. Polk
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: February 16, 2021
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

With Soulstar, C. L. Polk concludes her riveting Kingston Cycle, a whirlwind of magic, politics, romance, and intrigue that began with the World Fantasy Award-winning Witchmark. Assassinations, deadly storms, and long-lost love haunt the pages of this thrilling final volume.
For years, Robin Thorpe has kept her head down, staying among her people in the Riverside neighborhood and hiding the magic that would have her imprisoned by the state. But when Grace Hensley comes knocking on Clan Thorpe’s door, Robin’s days of hiding are at an end. As freed witches flood the streets of Kingston, scrambling to reintegrate with a kingdom that destroyed their lives, Robin begins to plot a course that will ensure a freer, juster Aeland. At the same time, she has to face her long-bottled feelings for the childhood love that vanished into an asylum twenty years ago.
Can Robin find happiness among the rising tides of revolution? Can Kingston survive the blizzards that threaten, the desperate monarchy, and the birth throes of democracy? Find out as the Kingston Cycle comes to an end.

In the third and final book in the Kingston Cycle trilogy, we pick up within weeks of the end of book #2 (Stormsong), this time with the character Robin Thorpe serving as our narrator.

Robin was introduced in the previous books, but here takes center stage. She’s a nurse at the veteran’s hospital, but also comes from a witch clan and has strong ties to the activist movement within Kingston. As the book opens, Robin is very involved in the mission to free imprisoned witches from the horrific asylums where they were kept for the past twenty years and bring them home to their families. Among the freed witches is Zelind, Robin’s spouse, whom she hasn’t seen in all these years.

Society within Kingston is in turmoil, as the aether powering the city has been cut off, the lower classes are suffering, and demands for social justice are on the rise. Meanwhile, the new King has promised change, but seems especially focused on slow, incremental change that doesn’t challenge the status quo in a significant way. Robin’s people want dramatic action, and she becomes in political activism that threatens to overturn the entire government structure of Aeland.

The book very much focuses on activism, political change, and reparations — but the thematic elements don’t seem to mesh well with the fantasy elements. The witches are present as an oppressed class demanding justice, but the politics take precedence. As in the previous books, I was frustrated by the lack of clarity over some basic questions around the fantasy world, such as the presence of ghosts and who can see them, the significance of soulstars, and even the question of who knows what about magic and witches. Additionally, the various political and social and community-based factions introduced all become one big blur over the course of the novels. At times when there was a big reveal, rather than feeling the impact, I first had to go back and check to see who these people were and what role they played.

Wrapping up the trilogy:

I’ve had my eye on these books ever since Witchmark (book 1) was released, and picked up paperback editions over the years. With all three books on my shelf, I was determined to make 2022 the year I finally read them.

Sad to say, I was for the most part underwhelmed. While I liked key characters, I was disappointed to see the main characters from the first two books shunted aside in the narrative from book to book, relegated to supporting roles and with no further exploration of their inner lives.

For a fantasy world, I expected much more in terms of the fantastical elements and the world-building. Instead, I’d describe these books as a story of political change and social justice that happens to be set in a fantasy world.

I had hoped to love these books. I didn’t. I was interested enough in the characters to see the trilogy through to the end, but I can’t say that this trilogy will ever make a list of my favorites.

21Jan2022

A gorgeous book to give: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady
Author: Edith Holden
Publisher: Rizzoli
Publication date: 2018
Length: 192 pages
Genre: Nature
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A charming addition to Rizzoli’s carefully curated program of bringing classic books back into print.

This beautifully packaged facsimile of Edith Holden’s original diary is filled with a naturalist’s masterful paintings and delightful observations chronicling the English countryside throughout 1906. As one of the few true records of the time in print, the handwritten thoughts and paintings contained in The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady transport readers to a more refined, romantic, and simpler time.
Capitalizing on the current Downton Abbey-inspired appetite for Edwardian-era ephemera, fashions, and society, this reproduction brings readers back to a time in which propriety, civility, and an appreciation for the natural world reigned. This souvenir of a bygone era serves not only as a calming touchstone, but a reminder that as long as we choose to see it, we are still surrounded by beauty and grace. Presented to retain the charm and beauty of the original volume filled with Holden’s hand-drawn illustrations of the English countryside’s flora and fauna through the changing seasons of the year, as well as handwritten notes, observations, and quotations, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady makes a lovely addition to any home’s library or side table.

Looking for a gorgeous gift book for a nature lover? Have I got a book for you!

Edith Holden was a British artist and teacher who lived from 1871 – 1920. In 1906, she spent a year documenting the beauty of the world around her through her journals, which were first published in 1977.

Rizzoli reissued this beautiful replication of Edith Holden’s work in 2018, and I’m so glad I stumbled across it. This high-quality hardcover features thick, sturdy pages, filled with the words and illustrations that the author originally recorded.

Organized by month, Edith Holden includes background information on the calendar, some mottos and rhymes about each month, a day-by-day recording of the plants, animals, and weather she encounters, and beautiful illustrations of the natural world she observes. Mixed in with these are also a rich array of poems that she’s selected, all of which complement her writing and drawings.

For me, the true highlight is the illustrations. They’re just beautiful. Not being a huge poetry fan, I ended up skimming a lot of these (ugh, I’m so unsophisticated and lack a decent appreciation for poems), but they’re still nice to have.

I read through the entire book, and I think this is one I’ll keep handy for a quick peek whenever I need a pick-me-up. This would be an amazing gift for the gardener or nature lover or poetry fan in your life!

To see more examples of Edith Holden’s artwork, visit this site, which handles licensing for all related merchandise (and has a nice gallery of images to browse through).

There’s also a coloring book:

And who knew? There was even a TV series about Edith Holden!

As for how I first became interested, I have to be honest and say it’s all about the jigsaw puzzles! I had never even heard of this book until I stumbled across a set of seasonal jigsaw puzzles inspired by Edith Holden… and even after I’d completed all four, I had no idea there was a book until a kind friend mentioned it to me.

This book would make a terrific gift for someone who loves beautiful books, nature, gardens, even historical diaries! Or maybe even a nice little treat for yourself.

20Jan2022

Book Review: Stormsong (The Kingston Cycle, #2) by C. L. Polk

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Stormsong
Series: The Kingston Cycle, #2
Author: C. L. Polk
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: February 11, 2020
Length: 346 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

After spinning an enthralling world in Witchmark, praised as a “can’t-miss debut” by Booklist, and as “thoroughly charming and deftly paced” by the New York Times, C. L. Polk continues the story in Stormsong. Magical cabals, otherworldly avengers, and impossible love affairs conspire to create a book that refuses to be put down.
Dame Grace Hensley helped her brother Miles undo the atrocity that stained her nation, but now she has to deal with the consequences. With the power out in the dead of winter and an uncontrollable sequence of winter storms on the horizon, Aeland faces disaster. Grace has the vision to guide her people to safety, but a hostile queen and a ring of rogue mages stand in the way of her plans. There’s revolution in the air, and any spark could light the powder. What’s worse, upstart photojournalist Avia Jessup draws ever closer to secrets that could topple the nation, and closer to Grace’s heart.
Can Aeland be saved without bloodshed? Or will Kingston die in flames, and Grace along with it?

Book two of the Kingston Cycle by C. L. Polk continues and builds upon the story begun in Witchmark. In Witchmark, we’re introduced to the world of Aeland, an early industrial-age country coming out of a brutal war with neighboring Laneer. Our point of view character is Dr. Miles Singer, a traumatized war veteran who himself treats suffering war veterans, all the while keeping his true identity — son of one of the most powerful families in Aeland — a tightly held secret.

In Aeland, the ruling families control the climate through magical rituals, maintaining the even, pleasant seasons year-round and enabling good harvests and a strong economy. By the end of Witchmark, certain truths have come to light, among them the fact that the aether powering Aeland (basically, electricity) is generated via a truly heinous conspiracy. Through the intervention of Miles, his lover, and his sister, the conspiracy is broken apart, but that’s resulted in the shutdown of aether power.

As we pick up in Stormsong, the country is facing a harsh winter without heat or power, and the food supply is threatened as well. Aeland is a country of haves and have-nots, and outside of the royalty and the inner circle of ruling families, almost eveyone is in the latter category.

In Stormsong, Miles’s sister Grace takes over as the point of view character. Dame Grace Hensley is a powerful mage and political leader, but she faces a growing circle of enemies and obstacles. The conspirators behind the aether atrocities are all imprisoned, but their influence is still widely felt. The remaining power players are jockeying for key positions, and Grace’s leadership may come apart at any moment if she can’t solidify her political alliances.

Stormsong is very much about enacting social change. Grace knows that certain horrible laws need to be overturned, but at the outset, she thinks the country needs to ease into it. Yes, the persecution of witches (as revealed in Witchmark) is a travesty, but she fears that the outrage that will erupt when this becomes widely known will have a devastating effect on the country. Slow and steady seems to be her initial approach — maybe stop the badness, but still keep it a secret?

Over time, though, a courageous journalist and other activists push the agenda forward and force Grace’s hand. It’s a complex set of considerations and actions — social justice issues, political power, and the stability of the reigning monarchy are all at play.

The author finds a way to blend the personal and the political here in Stormsong, showing us the stakes for the society as a whole as well as the personal risks to Grace and those she cares about. Grace as an individual is fascinating — a young professional woman who seeks to stay in power because she knows she can do good, but who’s also very much aware that her family’s privilege, built over many years of corruption, are what gave her access to power in the first place.

I would have liked to have seen Miles more in this book (I became very attached to him in book #1), but he does participate with Grace in key scenes, and it’s nice to see that he’s doing well and that his love life is thriving!

One of my complaints about Witchmark was about insufficiently clear world-building. I felt that there were too many concepts that were introduced but not well explained. Some aspects are clearer to me now after reading Stormsong, but I’d still like certain things spelled out even more — especially the Amaranthines, a race (?) or species (?) of people (?) who are feared by all, seem to have unfathomable magical powers, and who intervene in the conflicts between people when they seem fit. I’ve seen other bloggers and commenters interpret them as being this world’s equivalent of the Fae, which helps me make better sense of them, although I think they’re maybe also supposed to be some sort of celestial (?) beings, and their world is called Solace (?) but also has something to do with where souls of the dead go, so maybe some sort of heaven (?).

As you can see, I’m still somewhat confused!

I like the overarching story and the characters enough that I want to know what happens next, so I’ll be continuing onward to book #3, Soulstar. Here’s hoping it all comes together and that everything is crystal clear by the time I finish the trilogy!

14Jan2022

Book Review: Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Anatomy: A Love Story
Author: Dana Schwartz
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Publication date: January 18, 2022
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Historical fiction / Young adult fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.
Edinburgh, 1817.
Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.
Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.
When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.
Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.
But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.

I have to be honest — I was 100% drawn to this book because of the cover! I mean… gorgeous, right? Unfortunately, my impression based on the cover led me to expect something intense, dramatic, perhaps tragic… and while there’s a lot that works about this book, the initial impressions don’t really pan out.

Anatomy takes place in Edinburgh in 1817, presenting a view of the state of medicine and society at that time. The wealthy and titled live comfortable, oblivious lives, while the poor suffer and starve, and sickness spreads through the city without much in the way of effective medicine to stop it.

In this world, physicians may be respected, but surgeons certainly are not. Their work is considered only steps above butchery. To learn the art and science of surgery, anatomists must rely on “resurrection men”, grave robbers who dig up fresh corpses to earn a living.

Jack Currer is one such resurrectionist, a teenaged boy who supports himself through this gruesome and dangerous work, while dreaming of a better life. 17-year-old Hazel Sinnett is a young lady, niece of a viscount, comfortably settled in her family’s gorgeous home, pampered, and expected to marry her cousin, to whom she’s been unofficially engaged since childhood.

But Hazel nurtures a secret dream of becoming a physician, and she’s determined to pursue it, no matter the obstacles. Disguised in her late brother’s clothing, she begins attending classes at the Royal Edinburgh Anatomists’ Society in preparation for the physicians exam, but is soon discovered and tossed out.

Undeterred, she decides to continue studying on her own. With the rest of her family conveniently away for several months, she arranges for Jack to bring her bodies to study, and soon opens the doors of her family home to any poor people who need medical attention. While her practice flourishes, she gains skills and knowledge, and is soon a doctor in all but certification.

But something sinister is happening in Edinburgh. Other resurrectionists of Jack’s acquaintance have gone missing, and the business of digging up graves becomes more dangerous by the day. Amidst the danger, Hazel begins joining Jack on his work in the graveyards. As they spend time together, they develop trust and friendship, and then stronger emotions, although their difference in social station would seem to be insurmountable.

I was excited to read Anatomy, as the early history of modern medicine is truly fascinating. This is not the first book I’ve read set in this time and place, with a similar focus on the work of anatomists. However, while I expected that the plot would be mostly about the challenges of a young woman pursuing a career in science — something off-limits to her because of her gender and her social status — that’s not really what the book delivers.

Instead, the book takes a turn toward more of a thriller, with disappearances and sinister deaths, and there’s a supernatural/fantasy element that I wasn’t expecting — and honestly, that threatened to ruin the story for me. I loved reading about Hazel’s burning desire for an education and to do good in the world, but the climax and resolution negate the sense of historical reality established earlier in the book.

Also, this may be my own fault, but I assumed this was adult fiction. Only as I got further along did it occur to me that this might actually be YA — and yes, it’s listed as such on NetGalley, so I suppose I just didn’t notice that ahead of time. Maybe this is why the plot ended up feeling a little trite and simplistic to me. I wanted rich historical fiction; instead, I got a watered-down historical setting that focuses on romance and a fantastical element that’s just weird.

As for the romance — well, Hazel and Jack are both very likable characters, and I appreciated that they could develop feelings for each other, but their first kiss is anything but romantic:

Hazel pressed her shoulders up against Jack, partly to avoid the chill leaching from the moist earth through her jacket, but partly because his warmth — the solidity of his presence — made her less dizzy with fear. It anchored her. They were there, together. Whatever — whoever — was out there, neither of them would have to face it alone.

Wondering where this is taking place?

She had kissed Jack Currer in a grave, and he kissed her back, and even with everything else they had faced, that moment was the hardest Hazel’s heart had beaten the entire night.

I think if I’d realize this was a YA book, I might have had more tolerance for it as I was reading it. As it was, I felt a little let down by the realization that the intense, presumably adult drama I’d been expected had turned out to be a teen-aged love story with an otherworldly twist.

I would read more about anatomists in the early 1800s or historical fiction about Scotland in that time period or about women trying to study medicine at a time when they weren’t permitted to do so — in a heartbeat! Sadly, this book didn’t deliver what I’d hoped for.

Anatomy has a great setting and interesting premise, but the overall structure and content of the story was a letdown for me. It’s not a bad read at all, but this is a prime example of expectations getting in the way of enjoyment. Perhaps if I’d more accurately anticipated the tone and content, I might have appreciated it more.

I’m going to be looking forward to hearing other people’s thoughts on this book. It did keep me turning the pages, even though I found many aspects borderline ridiculous. Your mileage may vary.