Book Review: The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Amateur
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Publication date: August 4, 2026
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Midwives and The Flight Attendant: When a young woman, a golf prodigy, kills a caddy with a stray ball at the country club, the investigation of this freak accident reveals a dark and shocking tale of secret affairs, predatory men, and a teenager on trial.

1978: It is the first Thursday in August and temperatures are flirting with ninety when Mira Winston, eighteen years old, drives a golf ball from her tee toward the practice net near the clubhouse and caddy shack. The golf ball, weighing 1.6 ounces, tears through the net, traveling 150 miles per hour, and slams, with sickening force, into the temple of a high school junior named Kenny Foster, rupturing an artery and unleashing a torrent of blood. Kenny brings his hand to the side of his head, then topples onto his side. He’s dead before the ambulance even arrives.

In the wake of this terrible accident—and everyone, at first, agrees it was an accident—Mira looks for comfort in all the wrong places: In her lover, Theo Catton, a married man three decades her senior. In her mother, a well-kept woman with secrets of her own. In the dead caddy’s little sisters, girls bewildered by grief. But when the investigators look more closely at the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira’s history of recklessness, and when Kenny’s father spies Mira with her married lover, the affluent and mannered community turns on this once-promising young woman. A gripping story that takes the reader from the sun-soaked greens of a tony Westchester country club to the fluorescent-lit stand of a county courtroom, The Amateur asks: What happens when one small moment—a swing, a ball, a piece of string—changes the course of an entire life?

In prolific author Chris Bohjalian’s newest novel — his 26th! — the focus in on what seems to be a random accident. One August day in 1978, talented golfer Mira Winston, soon to depart for her freshman year at Yale, hits a golf ball at the practice net, as she does hundreds of time every week. But this time, the ball goes through the net and slams into the skull of a caddy — Kenny Foster, Mira’s high school classmate — killing him instantly.

The Amateur unfolds as Mira tells her story from a distance of decades. As we learn, Mira has become a successful author and is now writing her memoir, looking back on this turning point in her teens and revealing the secrets and traumas that have shaped her into the person she is today. And what secrets she has to tell!

Known — unfairly — for her temper, Mira is a golf prodigy who is so good that she routinely plays with the adult men at her country club, the only way she’s actually challenged. Is having a teen girl spend that much time with middle aged, highly privileged men good for her? It may help her golf game, but as we learn, it brings Mira into the orbit of predatory men who see her as fair game. At age 15, Mira begins an affair with a man thirty years her senior… and as Mira reminds us, her impulsive, needy teen brain doesn’t quite grasp that he’s a predator, not a lover.

Within her suburban Westchester home, Mira’s older brother is nicknamed “the Pinnacle” by her parents. She’ll never live up to him, that’s for sure… and meanwhile, Mira makes sure to water down her parents’ liquor bottles so their three or four nightly cocktails won’t be quite as potent as they could be. Mira has friends and does well at school, but she’s clearly a girl who lacks emotional support as well as any sort of internal or external restraint.

The golf accident leads to a chain of events that completely derails Mira’s life. She immediately swears off golf and Yale, and her warped sense of internal logic (something she refers to as Mira Land) leads her to believe that her killing of Kenny is karmic payback for her affair with Theo Catton. When the affair is revealed and then a dispute with the country club golf pro comes to light, questions arise about just what Mira might or might not have done. And while at first her lawyer father assures her that she has nothing to worry about from a legal standpoint, that proves to be untrue. A civil case against the club and the net manufacturer leads to a criminal case against Mira herself. And while Mira, narrating the story, makes it clear that she didn’t do the things she’s accused of, we can easily see how the circumstances — and the sexist prejudices of the time — make her history and her supposed sins support the charges against her.

It’s both fascinating and disturbing to spend time inside Mira’s head for the duration of this story. As adult Mira recounts these pivotal events from her earlier life, it’s clear that she has spent decades coming to terms with what happened and the guilt and trauma she’s carried with her ever since. A post from the author describes Mira as his id and Kenny as his superego, and the idea of Mira as pure id really rings true. She’s impulsive, intelligent but not always smart, and give in to destructive urges for escape, release, or relief, even when she must know that her choices aren’t helping her.

At the same time, the community and era in which Mira lives set her up, again and again, for the worst possible outcomes. Yes, she’s the daughter of a wealthy family with a country club membership — and the elitism inherent in this works against her in the trial scenes, where jury sympathy naturally flows toward the club’s employees rather than the members who complain or demand. But also, she’s just barely an adult, and was in fact a minor when she was seduced by Theo. She remembers being a willing participant — but she was a young girl preyed upon by a much older man, and not of age or in any way truly capable of consent. And yet, in the eyes of the community, and even people she meets later who hear rumors, she’s the person responsible for breaking up a marriage and ruining the lives of the children whose parents divorced. The degree of blame and scorn leveled at Mira is awful, but sadly not terribly shocking, especially in the context of the late 1970s.

I did wonder about the court case and whether the charges against Mira could or would actually have come to trial, much less whether someone in this situation would have ever been criminally charged in the first place. Of course, I have no legal expertise and it’s entirely possible that this is realistic — but I did often find myself saying “really???” while seeing how the legal and criminal aspects developed throughout the book.

The Amateur is fast-paced and absorbing. Mira is a unique character, and her take on events from her past as well as her recounting of her life at the point in which she’s writing her memoir never follows an easy or expected path. It’s amusing to note that Mira’s bestselling novels include books about a flight attendant and a midwife, and to see conversational references to a sleepwalker and a lioness. (IYKYK… but check out the list of Chris Bohjalian books!)

Chris Bohjalian’s books are must-reads for me, and while I still need to get to some of his earliest novels, I don’t think I’ve missed a new release of his in the past 15 years. In terms of personal preferences, I do love his books with historical settings (such as The Jackal’s Mistress, The Lioness, and Hour of the Witch) more than his more contemporary or thriller-focused books… but that’s only by comparison — I’ve never not enjoyed any of this author’s books.

I raced through The Amateur and found it a compelling, thought-provoking read. Mira’s voice is a stand-out! Beyond the hard-driving plot, there’s plenty here to stop and ponder, and I can see this book making a terrific book group pick. Highly recommended.

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

8Aug2026

Audiobook Review: The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Romance Revival
Author: Christina Lauren
Narrators: Julia Whelan & Vas Eli
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: July 14, 2026
Print length: 352 pages
Audiobook length: 9 hours 54 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance
Source: ARC courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley; audiobook purchased via Audible
Rating:

New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren returns with an unforgettable romance in which a fateful accident erases a troubled marriage from memory—and a scientific breakthrough gives love one extraordinary do-over.

Three years ago, scientist Emery Finch did something completely out of character: She got married. To Luca—the impossibly charming landscaper she met on one blistering night in Vegas who made her laugh, made her dance, made her feel.

But now, Emery is consumed by her top-secret research, missing dinners, forgetting anniversaries, and promising herself Luca will understand once her cutting-edge discoveries come to light. Until the unthinkable happens: A tragic accident takes Luca from her.

Desperate not to lose him, Emery breaks every rule, using the classified technology she’s developed to bring him back to life. And Luca would probably thank her for it, if only he could remember her. Their first kiss, their Sunny Sundays at the beach, the life they built together…all of it is gone.

It may be a miracle of science, but for Emery it’s her one shot at a second chance. And this time, she won’t waste it—because true love is always worth reviving.

I always look forward to author duo Christina Lauren’s new releases — but sadly, The Romance Revival doesn’t quite hit the high mark I’ve come to expect from their books.

In The Romance Revival, Emory is a gifted scientist working practically round the clock on her cutting-edge, super-secret project. She’s made astounding breakthroughs, and her husband of three years, Luca, seems to be forgiving when she forgets commitments or once again stays far too late at the office. What Luca doesn’t know is that Emory has been lying to him since she met him: Yes, she’s a doctor and a scientist, but she does not work on surgical laser equipment, as she’s told him. Behind a vast wall of NDAs and classification levels and high tech security systems worthy of a Bond film, Emory is pouring her heart and soul into developing a medical compound and technology to restore life to people who’ve died. So long as her approached is applied within the first hour of death, she’s managed so far to successfully revive cats and dogs, and the future promise of her research is breathtaking.

Things go terribly wrong on the night of Emory and Luca’s anniversary when, once again working late, she misses their celebratory dinner, and pulls into their neighborhood just in time to see Luca get run over by a car. He’s critically injured, with a wound to his femoral artery. There’s no way an ambulance will arrive in time, so in desperation, she injects him with her compound, then rushes him to her lab and into her equipment, breaking dozens of company policies along the way. The procedure is a success — Luca had been truly dead, but he’s restored to life and his wounds are healing rapidly. There’s one hitch — he has no memory of anything prior to waking up in the lab.

Luca’s new circumstances, while challenging, provide him and Emory with an unexpected second chance. Getting to know one another all over again in the most bizarre of realities, Emory has to come clean about her research and how she saved him — and sharing this secret opens the door for the two of them to communicate with honesty in a way they never had before. As they spend time together, they rediscover the spark and passion that drew them to one another in the first place, but now with the opportunity to set new ground rules and actually focus on connecting and sharing.

If that were the full story, I might have enjoyed The Romance Revival much more. However… quite a bit of the story gets bogged down in the corporate manipulations behind the big top-secret project, the powers-that-be controlling the project and the purse strings, the intense security systems in place, and the backstabbing by other researchers. By the last quarter or so of the book, we’re heavily into thriller territory… but it’s jarring in a book that also has hot and sweaty detailed sex scenes and swoonier scenes of falling in love and recreating special moments.

It’s like this book couldn’t quite decided what it wanted to be. If it’s trying to be a thriller, it needs much better plotting when it comes to the science, the corporate elements, the criminal elements and violence, etc. And if it’s a sunny romance, as the title and cover imply, then scenes of kidnappings and blackmail are really out of place. By attempting to do both, The Romance Revival has a tone that’s inconsistent and far too muddled for my taste.

It’s a shame — I really liked the elements focused on the characters and how they rediscover one another. Their chemistry is off the charts, and I appreciated all the little ways in which they show their love for one another. More of that, and less of the other stuff, would have made this a much more enjoyable read/listen for me.

A note on the audiobook: The majority of the chapters, as seen through Emory’s point of view, are narrated by the incomparable Julia Whelan, who (unsurprisingly) makes every moment count. Vas Eli does a great job as well with the Luca-centric chapters — I enjoyed his voice, his accent, and his delivery.

A negative for me were the detailed, graphic sex scenes, which start to feel never-ending via audiobook. (Yes, I found myself fast-forwarding a bit at one point… it was just too much.) I recognize that this is strictly a matter of taste. On a spice meter, I’d give this book a 4 out of 5, which is not what I typically look for in my romance reading.

Overall, there’s plenty to like about The Romance Revival, but more of a focus and less of an attempt to turn this love story into a thriller would have made it even better.

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

1Aug2026

Book Review: Destination Funeral by Paige Harbison

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Destination Funeral
Author: Paige Harbison
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: July 21, 2026
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A fresh take on Groundhog Day with a dash of Practical Magic meets the magical escapism of One Italian Summer in this heartfelt and hilarious novel following a friend group so damaged that only a funeral could bring them back together.

When Babe—the complicated, magnetic matriarch of their teenage summers—dies, four estranged friends return to sleepy Mercy Island, a storm-swept stretch of coastal Georgia, summoned by the reading of her will.

Didion arrives at the timeworn pink house to find the friends she never thought she’d see again—along with the tensions, attractions, and unfinished business that once bound them together and broke them apart.

What should be a brief weekend of small talk quickly unravels when they wake up and discover…it’s Saturday. Again. And again. And again.

Trapped in a time loop with no end and no instructions, they’re forced to confront the betrayals, breakups, and buried truths that shattered them all those years ago. Because maybe, just maybe, an endless weekend is exactly what they all need to save their own lives.

Sometimes a book about chosen family hits just right… and Destination Funeral does just that. In this story about friends, estrangement, resentment, and reconciliation, a time loop forces four former friends to face the issues that drove them apart while gathered for a funeral at the place where they spent their teen-aged summers.

When Babe dies, she leaves instructions for her funeral to be held at her sprawling beachside house on Mercy Island, Georgia. Her daughters Didion and Sammie arrive, having not seen or spoken to one another in years. Didion, the older sister, resents having to be the responsible one, watching helplessly as free-spirit Sammie makes one bad choice after another. Their long-time best friend Matt arrives with his four-year-old daughter, and rounding out the foursome of adults is Austin, Didion’s teen love and source of her greatest heartbreaks.

As they arrive that Friday, they learn that Babe has left the house to all four of them, on the condition that they spend the weekend there, without phones or laptops, until the funeral on Sunday. Reluctantly, they agree, spend a tension-filled Saturday coping with being in one another’s presence again after so long, and grit their teeth until they can get over with it and return to their regular lives. But when they wake up the next morning, they soon realize that it’s Saturday… again. And so their Groundhog Day time loop begins, with a seemingly endless stream of Saturdays to relive.

But why? And how? Has Babe somehow made this happen? And if so, what will it take to break out of the loop?

As the four are forced to spend time together, old wounds and secrets resurface… and as the day repeats and repeats, the ice between them begins to thaw. Didion is our point-of-view character, and she’s a fascinating person to watch the world with. Her complicated feelings toward Babe and Sammie stem back to her teens, and her role as the responsible person, the one who has to make sure everyone else is okay, has carried forward through her adult year as a driven, successful chef — who can never relax and think about what she herself needs. Even more complicated is her reunion with Austin, someone whom she once loved whole-heartedly and never got over — but also never truly understood. Now, in the time loop, Didion finally has days on end where she can do nothing but be present, forcing her to reflect, understand where she herself added to the messier moments, and the ways in which she let other people down too.

The storytelling focuses on the now — and the endless Saturdays — with “then” chapters mixed in to show the early years on the island, and how the sisters and their friends experienced life with Babe, including moments of utter bliss (Halloween in July!) as well as the loneliness of having a fun mother who couldn’t or wouldn’t actually take care of them.

The relationships are all beautifully drawn. It takes the full length of the book to learn key facts about Babe and understand some of her actions. Likewise, Didion’s realizations and reconnections with the others come gradually — we’re by her side as she slowly starts to unravel her more harmful thought patterns and understand why and how she’s allowed herself to shut out the people who once formed the center of her life. I loved seeing the way the time loop serves as a catalyst for the emotional healing that these four people so desperately need.

It’s not all dramatic and serious — Destination Funeral has lovely moments of humor and fun, and it’s a wonderful homage to the glory of a summer spent in the sunshine, playing on a beach, eating good food, and enjoying a slower way of life.

The author’s previous book, The Other Side of Now, was one of my surprise favorites from 2025, and I’m delighted that her newest book hits so many high marks for me as well. Destination Funeral is a beautifully told story about the importance of holding onto the special people in our lives — whether family or friends — even when it’s hard or outside stress gets in the way. It’s also a wonderful immersive experience for summer, and definitely deserves a place in any bookish beach bag!

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

29Jul2026

Audiobook Review: Romantic Hero by Kirsty Greenwood

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Romantic Hero
Author: Kirsty Greenwood
Narrator: Amy James-Kelly & Jared Zeus
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: June 16, 2026
Print length: 368 pages
Audio length: 8 hours 24 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Review copy via NetGalley; audiobook via Audible
Rating:

A heartbroken romance novelist is forced to address her writer’s block when the villainous cowboy character from her books shows up in the real world, desperately in need of his own Happily Ever After. . . from the bestselling author of GMA book club pick The Love of My Afterlife.

Gertie Bickerstaff writes happily-ever-afters for a living. . . . Or she did, until her own love life fell apart. Now her ex is thriving, her deadline is looming, and she can’t write a single word.

The last thing Gertie needs is more drama—like waking up to find a confused and rugged cowboy on her sofa. And not just any cowboy, but River Oakley, the villain from her unfinished novel. Somehow very real . . . and very shirtless.

River wants to go home. Gertie wants her life back. So they strike a deal: he’ll use his cunning ways to help her win back her ex, she’ll finish the novel, and, surely, he’ll return to whatever world he rode in from.

But as River Oakley proves to be so much more than just the bad guy, Gertie has to choose: the ending she thought she wanted . . . or the plot twist she never saw coming.

Another winning rom-com from the very talented Kirsty Greenwood! After loving The Love of My Afterlife (a GMA Book Club pick from 2024), I was more than ready to dive into her 2026 release, Romantic Hero.

The setup is delicious: Gertie is the bestselling author of the Bedlam Creek romance series, set in a small town in Texas (where London-based Gertie has never actually been). Gertie’s always felt so connected to her characters that it felt as if they were speaking to her… but as the deadline looms for the final book in the series (cue the long-awaited proposal scene!), they’ve gone silent. She suffers from horrendous writer’s block and can’t write a word.

Gertie’s long-term boyfriend, supposedly the love of her life, dumped her four weeks earlier (claiming that he’s been feeling “emotionally apathetic” and in need of a “break”, not a break-up), and she’s been an utter ball of misery ever since. When Gertie’s eccentric neighbor decides that what Gertie needs is help from the universe, she’s desperate enough to go along with a rooftop manifestation ceremony. To no avail, alas…

… or did it work after all? Because the next day, Gertie wakes to find a supremely gorgeous and very shirtless cowboy on her couch, who is utterly befuddled as to how he got there. The last thing he remembers is falling asleep under a tree out in the meadow of his ranch — and oh, his name is River Oakley. As in, the villain of Gertie’s series, the antagonist constantly thwarting her heroine’s quest to reclaim her family ranch and find true love. But how could he possibly be THAT River Oakley?

Still, there’s no denying that he exactly fits the description of the man Gertie has written about. Awkward! After much back and forth, they accept the unbelievable yet seemingly undeniable fact that he is the man from her books, and that he very much needs to get back to his own world. The two come up with a hypothesis: Gertie somehow summoned River during her manifestation ceremony, and he’s here to help her get her ex back, since reuniting with Henry was her secret plea to the universe.

And yet… as Gertie and River spend time together, they click in ways neither expected. Gertie is forced to admit that while the River in her books is a scoundrel, the flesh-and-blood (and very hot) version of him has hidden depths and sensitivity… and also comes to realize that Henry is not the ideal man she’d thought he was.

Romantic Hero is such a fun, entertaining read (and listen)! Gertie and River are both great characters, and their chemistry sparkles. The story is funny, with plenty of banter that’s both silly and sexy — and yet, there are emotional moments that hit as well, as Gertie is forced to come to terms with her sister’s death years earlier and to realize that she threw herself into the relationship with Henry rather than actually deal with her terrible grief.

The story moves in unexpected directions, as we learn just why and how River showed up and what this means for Gertie’s writing career. While it seems hopeless that Gertie and River — people from two totally separate worlds — could ever have a future together, the author manages to find a conclusion that both works from a story perspective and feels utterly satisfying.

Audiobook narrators Amy James-Kelly and Jared Zeus bring the characters to glorious life. His Texas drawl as River is delightful, and Amy James-Kelly handles the overall narration as well as Gertie’s voice with a lovely sense of animation.

Overall, the story itself as well as the audiobook listening experience are both highly recommended. What a great bit of happy summer reading!

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

2Jul2026

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

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

21Jun2026

Audiobook Review: Time Loops & Meet Cutes by Jackie Lau

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Time Loops & Meet Cutes
Author: Jackie Lau
Narrators: Cindy Kay & Raymond J. Lee
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: May 6, 2025
Print length: 339 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 15 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

The “masterful, inspiring, and full of heart” (Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author) Jackie Lau returns with a thoroughly unique love story about a woman reliving the same Friday over and over again—and the intriguing man who can’t quite remember her.

Noelle Tom really shouldn’t have eaten those dumplings at the night market. But the old lady at the stall said they’d give her what she needed most, and what Noelle desperately needed after another long workweek was food.

Except now she’s reliving the same Friday over and over. Every morning her alarm goes off at 6:45 no matter what, the Wordle answer is always “happy,” and she watches a silly squirrel video go viral day after day. And no matter how much she works on the same proposal, it’s always erased when she wakes up. It seems Monday will never come in this workaholic’s worst nightmare.

Noelle has no idea how being trapped in a time loop is the “thing she needed most,” especially now that everything seems meaningless. Sure, three fancy meals in a row is a fun treat, but it’s getting repetitive. Noelle’s not sure what lesson the old lady was trying to impart. Even a trip to the dumpling stall doesn’t help…because there’s no sign of it.

But then she meets a young woman who also ate the dumplings, and good-looking Cam, who appears in multiple places on her Friday. While he seems to have no memory of their encounters, there are signs he might be the key to getting un-stuck. But Noelle will have to put work aside and live a little in order to make him notice her. As their flirtation progresses, Noelle begins to worry that if she ever gets to turn the calendar page, Cam won’t know who she is and her life may never return to what it was before that fateful Friday…

In Time Loops & Meet Cutes, Noelle’s life revolves around work, even though she never gets the recognition she deserves and seems to constantly be the last to leave the office, staying late to clean up other people’s projects. She lives frugally, despite a decent salary as a mechanical engineer, denying herself any indulgences in order to make sure her savings will see her through whatever the future might hold. After a painful breakup years earlier, she’s also sworn off relationships, and she’s not terribly good at staying in touch with old friends either.

On a Friday in June — June 20th to be exact — Noelle is so hungry after yet another long day at work that she stops at a night market on the way home to grab a bite to eat, and stops at a dumpling stand with a hand-written sign and no line. The charming older woman behind the counter tells her that these dumplings will give her what she needs most — and give how starving she is, their deliciousness seems to do the trick.

The next morning, Noelle’s alarm goes off at 6:45, which is weird since it’s the weekend. And then the Wordle is the same as the previous day’s — huh, an odd glitch? But as the day progresses, Noelle realizes that it’s June 20th again… and so is the next day, and the next, and the next. As hard as it seems to believe, Noelle is forced to accept that she’s stuck in a time loop, and has no idea why or — more importantly — how to get out of it.

It’s amazing how many possibilities there are in a single day. You can quit your job… or not. You can go to Vancouver and feel the rain on your skin. You can eat three types of dumplings and get sprayed by a skunk when you go hunting for ghosts in a cemetery.

On the bright side, she learns that each day is a clean slate, so she can splurge on a fancy meal or new haircut, and all will be reset when she wakes up once again on June 20th — no damage to her bank account or credit card, no long-lasting remorse if she decides the pixie cut really isn’t for her. When she keeps running into a very attractive man named Cam, who seems to recognize her without knowing why, she decides that he might be the key to escaping the time loop. Could it be like a fairy tale, where true love’s kiss has the power to break a spell? But beyond escape, Noelle starts to enjoy these daily first meetings with Cam, especially since there are no consequences that last more than a day — so if she makes a stupid joke or does something especially cringe-worthy, it’ll just get wiped away by the next morning.

But as Noelle continues to “meet” Cam, over and over again, and goes on a series of lovely first dates with him, it starts to feel like not enough. She’s developing feelings, and he seems to respond in a way that shows that something’s pulling him toward her — but she can’t truly connect with someone she has to meet again for the first time every time she sees him.

I was surprised by how utterly charming I found Time Loops & Meet Cutes. The why and how of the time loop is much less important than the fact of it. Noelle meets another woman, Avery, who’s stuck in the same loop, and their friendship offers them both companionship and a sense of normalcy in an incredibly abnormal situation. As Noelle and Avery navigate the ways in which their June 20ths are similar and different, we get a clear-eyed view of why it might be wonderful to experience certain things over and over again for the first time… and how awful it would be to repeat the worst moments too.

The story offers powerful examples of how people can stagnate in safe or predictable lives, and how taking chances can lead to moments that can change the future. Noelle doesn’t become a new person overnight, but over the course of the many months she spends in the loop, she’s able to experience the outcomes of various “what if” moments, which help her see that good things can come from taking chances, as well as the value in being honest and repairing family relationships that she’d once just accepted as being unpleasant.

The romance is sweet and often funny, as Noelle and Cam have first date after first date, each one a bit different. At first, Noelle sticks to a sort of script in her flirting, knowing that Cam responds positively to certain jokes… but as she gains confidence and starts to know him better, she’s able to behave more naturally and enjoy their moments together.

The resolution of the time loop offers fresh problems and dilemmas which are quite interesting. Noelle has to adjust to yet another new reality, one in which she doesn’t get a clean slate each day. Can she still be bold and try new things — and try to connect with Cam — when her actions will carry over to tomorrow?

The audiobook narrators (one for Noelle, one for Cam) do a terrific job bringing the characters to life and showing their personalities and senses of humor. Most chapters are told through Noelle’s perspective, but the Cam chapters are a nice way to break up the sound of the story and add another viewpoint to these decidedly unusual events.

Time Loops & Meet Cutes is a fun, upbeat story with plenty of introspective and sensitive moments too. The big-picture plot points are outlandish, but seeing the time loop play out in relatively ordinary people’s lives makes it all feel relatable… and highly entertaining.

I’ve read several of author Jackie Lau’s previous books, and always enjoy her well-written characters, interesting narratives, and seriously amazing food moments! I recommend Time Loops & Meet Cutes for anyone who appreciates a rom-com with heart — and a very quirky premise.

For more by Jackie Lau:
Donut Fall in Love
The Stand-Up Groomsman
Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie

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.

3Jun2026

Book Review: Take Me with You by Steven Rowley

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

28May2026

Book Review: Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Dolly All the Time
Author: Annabel Monaghan
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: May 26, 2026
Length: 395 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A hardworking single mom returns to her seaside hometown and stumbles into a fake dating situationship with a wealthy, workaholic scion, from the New York Times bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script.

“This book is like a spicy margarita…sweet and a little salty, tart and hot…I have fallen in love with Dolly and with funny, fizzing Annabel Monaghan!” —Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

If they start by pretending, can they end with something real?

Dolly Brick has never met a problem she couldn’t solve. Not when her mom left when she was twelve, and not at thirty-nine when she moves with her son back to Whitfield, Rhode Island, for the summer to keep her dad and brother from losing the family home.

So when she comes across Stewart Whitfield—annoyingly handsome scion of the Whitfield family—with a flat tire and at the wrong end of a very public, very humiliating breakup, it’s in her nature to help. But Stewart’s proposed arrangement ends up being more than either of them bargained for, because as public dinners and high-society benefits turn into sunset boat rides and kisses that hit her bloodstream like a ghost pepper, Dolly starts to feel something more than helpful. She’s never relied on anyone besides herself—can she really start now?

If summer is just around the corner, then it’s time for an Annabel Monaghan novel! Once again, her newest book is a delightful mix of grounded characters, interesting situations, sincere emotions, and fantastic beachy vibes.

Dolly Brick seems to never stop working. A single mom on the verge of 40, Dolly works four (yes, four!) jobs to make ends meet, support her son, make sure her dad and disabled brother have a non-leaky roof over their heads, and basically keeps everyone and everything going through sheer willpower. As Dolly All the Time opens, she’s headed back to her Rhode Island hometown for the summer — not what she’d had planned — to deal with the aftermath of a small electrical fire at her family home.

Once there, she jumps right back in — working at the counter at her father’s fish store during the busy tourist season, making sure her brother Chris gets his meds adjusted, bringing in a contractor to look at the fire damage, and figuring out how much of the needed repairs she can do on her own. Dolly is incredibly adept at fixing and creating — that’s what living on a shoestring budget will do for you! — but when she learns from the fire department that the roof is in such bad shape that the house may be condemned if they don’t replace it, she comes close to despair. Even with all her jobs, there’s no way the family has that kind of money.

Rescue arrives in the form of Stewart Whitfield, son of the town’s extremely wealthy founding family and next in line to be CEO of the family business. Or rather, Dolly starts off by rescuing Stewart, who finds himself in desperate need of help when he gets a flat tire and has a dead cell phone battery. Of course, he’s never changed a tire in his life, and of course, Dolly is a pro. When a passing paparazzo snaps a photo of them, Stewart realizes Dolly may represent more than just roadside assistance. After being very publicly dumped by his fiancée, Stewart needs to show his family that he’s stable and grounded enough for the CEO job. Cue the fake girlfriend trope!

Stewart offers Dolly a deal, complete with NDA. If she’ll pose as his girlfriend for the summer, attending key galas and family events with him, he’ll pay her enough to fix the roof (and then some). It’s a weird offer (which Dolly immediately connects with Pretty Woman), but really too good a chance to save the family home to pass up. Stewart is stiff and seems to be a workaholic, but Dolly detects a glimmer of something more relatable underneath the suits and fancy cars, and she agrees to the deal.

After an adorable makeover outing with Stewart’s younger sister (one of my favorite characters in the book), Dolly begins her role as Stewart’s fake girlfriend. She’s quirky and definitely not trained for high society, and yet there’s something in her non-conforming demeanor that starts to put Stewart at ease. As they spend time together, she challenges him to loosen up, even just a little. Why not take out the sailboat that he hasn’t touched in years? How about a break from working around the clock to enjoy a bit of summer? When Stewart meets Dolly’s family, she gets a chance to see how considerate he can be, and as the weeks pass, Stewart and Dolly begin to connect in ways that no longer feel like it’s all for show.

There’s just so much to love about this book! First, Dolly herself is amazing. While she struggles to allow others to share her burdens, her devotion to her family is incredibly admirable. She doesn’t resent her responsibilities — she’s a deeply committed caregiver, and her 24/7 priority is keeping her family safe and happy. As she learns over the course of the book, she really doesn’t have to take everything on her own shoulders, but learning to let others in is part of her personal journey. She’s a fantastic mother to 13-year-old Gus. I admired the honesty with which she interacts with him — they have a lovely dynamic.

The romance feels real very quickly, and is well-developed. We see Stewart and Dolly opening up to one another, and can track how their appearances-for-show turn into time spent together that means something to them both. The plot may follow key trope milestones in some ways, but it comes across as genuine. There’s no doubt that these two have a connection and understand one another in ways no one else does. They’re wonderful together.

Now, there is a 3rd-act breakup, which I generally dread these days while reading contemporary romances. Here, the events make sense. None of the more common failure-to-communicate or the (awful) I’m-dumping-you-for-your-own-good scenarios! When Dolly and Stewart’s relationship blows up, we know exactly why. We can hate it, but we also understand what went wrong (and fortunately, can be very confident that there will be a happy ending, even if they have to suffer before getting there).

Dolly All the Time conveys heartwarming messages about devotion to family, taking time to care for oneself even while caring for others, and giving thought to what real happiness might look like. The family dynamics are outstanding, and the romantic elements really sing.

I’ll note that this book has plenty of romantic, swoon-worthy moments, but that sex scenes are closed-door / off-the-page… which I, for one, really appreciate!

Dolly All the Time is both a terrific summer read — oh, to be in a little seaside town with salt breezes, ice cream shops, and walks on the beach! — and an engaging love story. There’s deep emotional impact, yet the tone is upbeat, with plenty of humor and whimsy to balance the more serious moments.

He’s in a tuxedo that was woven by angels with tiny hands to the exact specifications of his body. His black shoes have been professionally tied by the royal shoe tyer.

Great plot, wonderful characters, and a seaside, sunny setting all add up to a wonderful start to beach reading season. Highly recommended — for any time of year!

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.

Interested in more books by Annabel Monaghan? Check out my reviews:
Nora Goes Off Script
Same Time Next Summer
Summer Romance
It’s a Love Story

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21May2026

Book Review: A Town with Half the Lights On by Page Getz

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Town with Half the Lights On
Author: Page Getz
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication date: April 22, 2025
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

For readers of J. Ryan Stradal and The Music of Bees (with a dash of FX’s The Bear) comes a quirky and refreshing epistolary novel about family of culture-shocked Brooklynites transplanted to Goodnight, Kansas and their fight for their unexpected lifeline: the legendary May Day Diner.

Welcome to Goodnight, Kansas.

Population: Many Kansans, three New Yorkers, and one chance to save the place they love most

With more wind chimes than residents, folks don’t move to Goodnight when their lives are going well. That’s why all eyes are on chef Sid Solvang and his family from the moment they turn down Emporia Road to the dilapidated Victorian they inherited.

While Sid searches for work and a way back to Brooklyn, his daughter searches for answers to the cryptic messages her grandfather left behind to save both her family and the town. But then Sid makes an impulsive purchase: the fledgling May Day Diner, an iconic eatery under the threat of the wrecking ball.

As the Solvangs search for their ticket out, they discover the truth of Goodnight: one of heart and tradition, of exploitation and greed, and neighbors you would do anything to save. And the Solvangs must navigate all of it—plus wayward girl named Disco, a host of rambunctious alpacas, and the corrupt factory sustaining the town—in order to find their way back home…wherever that may be.

Told through diary entries, emails, school notes, and an anonymous town paper of the Lady Whistledown variety, A Town with Half the Lights On is a tender testament to the notions that home isn’t just the place you live, family isn’t just your relatives, and it’s almost never easy to find the courage to do what’s right.

A Town with Half the Lights On is a fish-out-of-water tale of New Yorkers forced into exile in a tiny Kansas town, and how they inadvertently manage to save the town and themselves in the process. Told through emails, newspaper clippings, and even letters in bottles, this epistolary novel is a fast, light-hearted read that combines Southern quirkiness and small-town shenanigans with some more serious real world issues.

The Solvang family arrive in Goodnight, Kansas fresh from the disastrous loss of their family business in Brooklyn. None of them want to be there, but given their financial and reputational ruin, they really have nowhere else to go. Sid and Scarlet and their teenaged daughter Harlem are dismayed by the dusty little town, the boarded up main street businesses, and the incessant church bells — but having just inherited Scarlet’s late father’s Victorian home and all that goes with it (including three alpacas), they have no option but to settle in.

The Solvangs’ goal is to sell whatever is worth selling from Pop Bannister’s estate and build up enough cash to return to New York. There’s no way they’re going to spend a moment longer in Kansas than they have to! But Scarlet’s father’s will is mysterious: Written in Latin (which he doesn’t actually know) the translated document is full of strange wording and even stranger messages, including what appears to be a hint about a secret treasure. Harlem becomes determined to find this treasure — maybe it’ll be their ticket back to New York!

Meanwhile, the neighbors and various townsfolk are wary of these strangers, and practically hostile toward Scarlet, who left Goodnight over twenty years ago with nary a word to anyone. As we see through letters to the local paper, as well as assorted emails, outsiders aren’t exactly welcome in Goodnight, and New Yorkers must be in league with the Devil himself!

But Goodnight is a town in trouble. The Goodnight American Tire Company is the main town employer, and its frequent rounds of layoffs and pay freezes leave half the town in poverty, with everyone else vying for the few remaining jobs at the factory. The town social and eating hub, the May Day Diner, is about to close, which distresses everyone, especially a strange local girl named Disco who trails glitter and causes mayhem wherever she goes. While Disco would love to buy the May Day herself, she only has the cash she’s earned from weeding neighbors’ gardens — but she has an idea. Sid and Scarlet Solvang were chefs in their former lives: Who better to rescue the beloved May Day?

As Sid and Scarlet get involved, they continue to defer their return to Brooklyn, discussing each investment in Goodnight as a means to save up to leave, but really getting deeper and deeper into the fabric of the community. First the diner, then a food lifeline for out of work locals, then a rehab/rescue of the local hotel… before long, the Solvang family has started injecting life into this boarded-up little town. When the grandfather’s secrets are finally discovered, there’s even more change in store for Goodnight, but not everyone appreciates these outsiders’ interference, and a local battle looms.

The tone of A Town with Half the Lights On is upbeat and humorous, even when the subject takes a turn toward darkness. Sid is depressed and full of self-doubt, having run his generations-old family deli into the ground through his focus on tranforming it into a molecular gastronomy destination. Now, he’s sworn never to cook or enter a kitchen again. Harlem struggles to fit into such a strange environment, and is branded a “non-conformist” from day one in her new school, which is really a death sentence among the middle school crowd. Local girl Disco is a riot, but she has very real struggles with her homelife and her pariah status, and while she’s a force for positive change in the town, she also suffers for it.

A major plot thread throughout is the corruption of the tire factory, and what seems like a few funny statements early on become more significant when the factory’s damage to the community is revealed. As the community goes through a whistle-blowing scandal, labor organizing, and mass layoffs, we see the more serious implications of the situation. Even so, the individual letters and emails that narrate events retain their humorous, quirky tone.

A Town with Half the Lights On is an engaging read, although not everything worked perfectly for me. Oddly, while the story is told through emails and newspaper articles, almost all of these are undated. The opening emails are dated in 2002, and we see a few references to what month it is… but for the most part, everything is undated, other than being identified by days of the week (occasionally) or time of day. Because of this, it’s difficult to tell how much time has elapsed between events, which feels problematic. How long did it take to turn the diner around? How long did the factory collapse take? It’s puzzling to me that we don’t get a clear timeline, especially since the story is told through documents that so easily could have been dated.

The epistolary approach allows many characters, major and minor, to have their say. It’s enjoyable to see so many personalities and voices, which gives a good picture of the variety of people who make up the community of Goodnight. The downside is that we’re reliant on whoever’s writing in the moment to tell us about events — some feel glossed over or briefly summarized, when it might have been more effective seem these events unfold with more of a real-time description.

Those points aside, I did enjoy reading A Town with Half the Lights On. The small-town vibe is lots of fun, and varying viewpoints, opinions, and gossip provide plenty of entertainment value. I’m glad I checked out A Town with Half the Lights On — it’s a quick, joyful read with heart.

20May2026

Book Review: The Shippers by Katherine Center

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Shippers
Author: Katherine Center
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: May 19, 2026
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

One of the hottest, fastest-rising rom-com stars delivers her latest swoon-worthy novel about a destination wedding on a cruise ship.

After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest ), and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is, her sister’s a little busy being a bride at the moment—so JoJo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wing man. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but then showed up, anyway. Cooper: who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper: who was, if she’s honest, the worst heartbreak of JoJo’s life. It’s bliss for her to see him again, and it’s agony, too—and the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can’t bring herself to ask.

Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance—as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally, at last, figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way.

No one does summer romance quite like Katherine Center. THE SHIPPERS will take readers on the cruise of a lifetime in a story awash with romantic longing, top-notch banter, long-held secrets . . . and true love rediscovered.

I usually love Katherine Center books, but The Shippers is a bit too slight and focused on silliness to entirely work for me.

In The Shippers, we open with main character Jojo’s wedding. She’s wearing her soon-to-be mother-in-law’s itchy, awful wedding gown — quite a clear sign that nothing about this wedding truly fits Jojo. She has a history of dumping guys as soon as they fall for her, and her fiancé’s distance and disinterest have kept her in the relationship far longer than made sense. As she’s about to walk down the aisle, her childhood best friend Cooper walks in. Cooper essentially ghosted her four years ago without explanation, but his sudden appearance (and suggestion to fake a faint at the altar) help Jojo realize how little she wants to get married. Fake fainting turns out to be her key to escape.

Six weeks later, Jojo is forced to endure endless gossip and family and neighborhood togetherness for her sister Ashley’s cruise-based wedding. But thanks to Ashley’s interest in psychology, the sisters seem to have figured out Jojo’s problem: They conclude that she’s fixated on her first kiss (at age 10), while carrying some serious abandonment issues courtesy of their distant dad, and will never be able to have a successful, healthy relationship until she resolves the feelings associated with that kiss. Fortunately, the kisser will be on the cruise too, and Jojo will have a week to get him to fall in love with her.

When Cooper unexpectedly shows up for the cruise as well, Jojo loops him into her plan — and when the obnoxious cousin Jojo is rooming with makes it clear that their cabin will be otherwise occupied most nights, Jojo ends up bunking with Cooper. With all that togetherness, it’s only a matter of time before Jojo and Cooper confront their pasts… but her fixation on the kiss may drive them apart for good this time, despite the fact that Jojo seems to be finally waking up to how awesome (and attractive) Cooper is.

“How did you turn into a Disney prince?”

“You think I look like a Disney prince?”

“I really do.”

“You think I look like a cartoon?”

“Not a cartoon like SpongeBob. A sexy cartoon.”

The vibe of The Shippers is mostly goofy. It’s hard to take Jojo’s emotional baggage seriously when it’s addressed in between comical scenes of her wearing inappropriate clothing, falling off her high heels, getting badly sunburned (I mean, that’s not actually funny, but it’s presented as yet another ridiculous thing that Jojo gets herself into), and entering a slow-dance contest with guy who’s clearly wrong for her. We’re obviously meant to be rooting for Jojo to wake up to the fact that Cooper has been her person — and love of her life — all along, but the frantic focus on Jojo making odd choices and getting into crazy situations makes it all seem rather frivolous and shallow.

To be clear, The Shippers is entertaining and zips along with never a dull moment. For me, it was just all so intentionally silly that I couldn’t take any of it particularly seriously, even when the characters attempt to address past hurts and issues in a more thoughtful way.

Still, fans of the author will find plenty to enjoy, and The Shippers would make a good choice for a sunny summer beach read.