Audiobook Review: Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Just for the Summer
Author: Abby Jimenez
Narrators: Christine Lakin & Zachary Webber
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: April 2, 2024
Print length: 452 pages
Audio length: 11 hours 43 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it’s now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They’ll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other’s out, and they’ll both go on to find the love of their lives. It’s a bonkers idea… and it just might work.

Emma hadn’t planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It’s supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma’s toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they’re suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected–including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?

Interesting marketing — based on its Goodreads listing and the synopsis, I had no idea that Just for the Summer is not, in fact a stand-alone, but is the 3rd book in an interconnected world that includes Part of Your World and Yours Truly. Both of which I adored, by the way (you can see my reviews here and here). That said, Just for the Summer can absolutely be read on its own, but you’ll miss some of the meaning of the names, places, and relationships that factor into this compelling story.

Based on the synopsis, I was not quite prepared for how deeply serious and emotional many parts of this story are. At the outset, the tone is upbeat and humorous: Emma reads a Reddit AITA thread that is both hilarious and strikes a chord: The writer, Justin, realizes that every woman he dates goes on to find her soulmate right after they break up… and Emma has the exact same experience! She contacts Justin, and they exchange funny texts comparing their situations — and from the start, they just click.

Before long, they’re in regular contact, and have progressed to video chats and phone calls. Justin has a brilliant idea: What if they date, and cancel out each other’s curses? They’ll be guaranteed to find “the one” just as soon as they finish with one another. They even figure out the general parameters: Based on past experiences, they’ll need to go on at least four dates, text or talk every day, and kiss (more than a peck) at least once. Easy!

The complication is, Emma is a traveling nurse, and she and best friend Maddie never stay in one place for more than a few months. They take turns picking the destination for each new contract, and next up is Maddie’s pick — a summer in Hawaii. Justin is in Minnesota, and due to some family complications (more on that later), he can’t travel to date Emma. Their master plan seems like a no-go, until Emma convinces Maddie to swap Hawaii for six weeks in Minneapolis. Maddie’s more than a bit reluctant, but when Emma shows her the adorable cottage on an island in a lake — with its own boat! — where they’ll be living, she agrees, and the dating plot can move forward.

There’s much more to the story than initially meets the eye. Justin is about to assume guardianship of his three younger siblings and is soon to become a full-time parent. Emma is dealing with a lifetime of trauma due to severe neglect and abandonment by her narcissistic mother. Emma bounced in and out of foster care throughout her youth (meeting Maddie when Maddie’s parents provided Emma with the most stable and loving home she’d ever had). Emma’s trauma response has been to wall herself off and get “small”, isolating herself, refusing connection, never putting down roots, and never letting herself truly get involved emotionally with anyone but Maddie.

As Justin and Emma spend time together, their chemistry is powerful, but Emma’s unresolved trauma doesn’t allow herself to fully connect — and the fact that he has children in his life raises the stakes even higher. When Emma’s mother intrudes on her summer and her life, a series of clashes and crises ensues, and Emma’s well-being is severely challenged. Her flight instincts are never deeply buried, and this experience with her mother threatens to cause her run once again.

Just for the Summer is an absorbing, engaging read (and listen — the audiobook narrators are terrific). I was completely caught up in Emma and Justin’s stories. We get chapters narrated by each of them, often offering competing perspectives on the same events, allowing us to see the characters’ hopes, fears, joys… and understand why what they’re experiencing might not be the same for both of them.

I don’t think I was prepared for how painful Emma’s experiences would become over the course of the book. Based on the cover and synopsis, a reader could reasonably expect a romantic comedy (also, kicking through the waves at the beach, which is not a thing that ever happens). Still, expectations aside, I was thoroughly drawn into this novel and the characters’ lives, and got to the point where I almost couldn’t stand to read about one more obstacle to their happiness.

I loved the connection to the earlier books. As I mentioned, Just for the Summer could work fine as a stand-alone, but I strongly recommend reading the previous two books, which will make this one a much richer reading experience.

I did feel that the ending (happy, of course) came a little too quickly and easily, based on what we’d learned about what each character was dealing with. For Emma especially, I don’t know that I feel the timeline provided would truly allow a person in real life to progress as far as she does. Still, given the conventions of the genre, these two absolutely do need to get together, and it’s lovely when it all finally works out.

These three interconnected books all feature characters dealing with the fallout of mental health challenges, past traumas, and emotional scars. Listening to them all in such a short time period (for me, almost back to back) can be a lot. I think I might have appreciated Just for the Summer a little more if I’d had more of a break from the other books.

Still, Just for the Summer is powerful, and manages to infuse quite a lot of humorous moments into the much heavier content. I really enjoyed it, and highly recommend reading all three of these terrific books.

3Apr2024

Book Review: Studies at the School by the Sea (Maggie Adair, #4) by Jenny Colgan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Studies at the School by the Sea
Series: Maggie Adair / School by the Sea
Author: Jenny Colgan
Narrator: Eilidh Beaton
Publisher: Avon
Publication date: March 26, 2024
Print length: 288 pages
Audio length: 7 hours, 19 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased (audiobook); E-book ARC from the publisher/NetGalley
Rating:

The long-awaited and never-before published finale in New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan’s delightful School by the Sea series. After all those lessons, it’s time to graduate…. Beloved literature teacher Maggie Adair loves her life at the prestigious Downey House boarding school on the gloriously sunny, windy English coast. It was there that she found her footing as a teacher and fell in love with her colleague David—the two great anchors of her life. But these days Maggie’s feeling restless, lured by the promise of a different life back in her Scottish hometown. How can you follow your heart when it seems to be taking you in two directions at once? Meanwhile, Maggie’s favorite students are abuzz at the thought of graduation and set to fly the nest to their next adventure. What will life hold for mercurial Fliss, glamorous Alice, and shy, hard-working Simone when they finally finish their studies at the school by the sea? Will Maggie stay to welcome the next class of girls, or will she too graduate to new adventures?

Oh dear. I hate to say it, but after eagerly awaiting this 4th and final book in the School by the Sea series… I sort of wish the author had left things as they were.

The original three School by the Sea books were published between 2008 and 2018, and were more recently reissued over the past few years. I’ve loved this sweet series, focusing on Scottish teacher Maggie’s adventures at a posh girls’ boarding school in Cornwall and her professional and romantic entanglements — which also introduces us to the girls of the school and other staff members, and creates it own special little world.

I was so excited for this 4th book, but sadly, I found the entire thing sort of perfunctory and unsatisfying. In Studies at the School by the Sea, Maggie returns to Downey after a summer back in Scotland with her family, feeling torn between family expectations and the new life she’s chosen for herself. She’s eager to explore her developing relationship with David, a fellow English teacher now working at an underfunded, low-performing local school.

Meanwhile, the main student characters we’ve gotten to know — Simone, Fliss, and Alice — are also back, navigating friendships and rivalries and dealing with serious stress over their upcoming GCSEs. There’s added pressure as Maggie and David create plans for shared school activities, inducing all sorts of culture and social shock among their students.

Somehow, none of the plot lines feel particularly well-developed. The girls’ dynamics get fairly short shrift, we spend no time at all with the Downey headmistress, who had some lovely story arcs in previous books, and Maggie herself seems to have undergone a major personality transplant.

Suddenly, she’s whiny and guilt-ridden, dumping an entire summer’s worth of plans to rush home to Scotland when her ex-fiance is injured — despite there being no actual purpose for her there and having no interest in picking back up with the relationship. Again and again, Maggie makes strange choices, and also seems to have lost her way professionally. A major conflict and almost-breakup occurs between her and David when they escort their students on an Outward Bound program and she feels that he’s focusing too much on the students rather than stealing romantic moments with her. Seriously?

Sigh. I adore Jenny Colgan’s books, and really enjoyed the characters of this series until now. Yes, it’s a nice idea to have a wrap-up book giving everyone a happy ending — but I just never felt that I was reading a particularly engaging story.

My recommendation? Do check out books 1 – 3… and maybe stop there! Or, at the very least, give yourself a pause before reading this one. And if you have time to kill, check out any of the author’s other terrific books. There are plenty to choose from, and so many to love!

PS – The world of British boarding schools — their traditions, grades, exams, etc — remains fairly impenetrable for an uncivilized American like me. However, I did learn two words that I’d never heard before… and I just love how they sound:

Rusticate: Basically, suspension. From Wikipedia: Whereas expulsion from a UK independent school means permanent removal from the school, rustication or suspension usually means removal from the school for a set period, for example, the remainder of the current term.
Invigilate: Supervise candidates during an examination; to watch over the administration of a test to ensure that no cheating occurs.

31Mar2024

Book Review: Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) by L. C. Rosen

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts)
Author: L. C. Rosen
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date: October 30, 2018
Length: 385 pages
Genre: Young adult
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Riverdale meets Love, Simon in this modern, fresh, YA debut about an unapologetically queer teen working to uncover a blackmailer threatening him back into the closet.

Jack has a lot of sex–and he’s not ashamed of it. While he’s sometimes ostracized, and gossip constantly rages about his sex life, Jack always believes that “it could be worse.”

But then, the worse unexpectedly strikes: When Jack starts writing a teen sex advice column for an online site, he begins to receive creepy and threatening love letters that attempt to force Jack to curb his sexuality and personality. Now it’s up to Jack and his best friends to uncover the stalker–before their love becomes dangerous.

Ground-breaking and page-turning, Jack of Hearts (and other parts) celebrates the freedom to be oneself, especially in the face of adversity.

Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) is a book sure to set book-banners’ hair on fire… which is just one indication that this is a book that absolutely should be available to teen readers. Yes, it’s extremely frank about sex — and I’m sure that there are plenty of teen readers who’d absolutely benefit from the novel’s fresh, positive approach.

Jack is a high school boy who loves sex, isn’t interested in a relationship (at least, not for now), believes in consent, communication, and positivity, and isn’t crazy about how much his alleged sexual antics become the fodder for school gossip. He has good friends he can count on, is happy to be out of the closet and enjoys the various boys he hooks up with, and overall, has a pretty good life.

Everything changes when he starts receiving creepy notes in his school locker, which at first seem to be secret admirer messages but quickly turn into creepy, threatening, stalker-y demands. Jack’s confidence and sense of safety are on the line, as the stalker threatens not just him, but his friends and his mother, and it seems as though the only way to protect everyone is to give into the stalker’s demands… and sacrifice his true self along the way.

Meanwhile, Jack’s best friend Jenna convinces him to write a sex advice column for her blog, and he’s soon dispensing sex and life advice that’s personal and informative — but his school principal, among others, wants him to cease and desist, and even insists that Jack’s column and personal appearance are to blame for the stalker’s fixation.

Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) contrasts the tension and fear of the stalker plotline with the joy that otherwise defines Jack’s life. As such, it’s highly readable, entertaining, and emotional, and once I started, I didn’t want to stop until I finished.

Jack’s advice columns are explicit, in that they provide clear, detailed accounts of sexual encounters that help Jack answer questions or explain various situations. Jack’s actual sexual encounters are presented less explicitly — we see before and after, but aren’t actually in the room during. For my own reading experience — an adult reading a YA novel — I was perhaps a tad uncomfortable with that much detail about teen sex… but I’m not the target demographic for this book, so that really is irrelevant. What I think really matters is that there are probably many teens who will feel seen and heard after reading this book, and who may gain some important new pieces of information and things to consider — and to me, that makes this book an important one to keep accessible for a teen audience.

I’ll wrap up by sharing the author’s statement on attempts to ban Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts). It’s far more eloquent than anything I could say myself, and absolutely conveys why this book matters.

Save

31Mar2024

Book Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Good, The Bad, and the Aunties
Series: Aunties, #3
Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
Publisher: Berkeley
Publication date: March 26, 2024
Length: 378 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

What should have been a family celebration of Chinese New Year descends into chaos when longtime foes crash the party in this hilariously entertaining novel by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.

After an ultra-romantic honeymoon across Europe, Meddy Chan and her husband Nathan have landed in Jakarta to spend Chinese New Year with her entire extended family. Chinese New Year, already the biggest celebration of the Lunar calendar, gets even more festive when a former beau of Second Aunt’s shows up at the Chan residence bearing extravagant gifts—he’s determined to rekindle his romance with Second Aunt and the gifts are his way of announcing his courtship.

His grand gesture goes awry however, when it’s discovered that not all the gifts were meant for Second Aunt and the Chans—one particular gift was intended for a business rival to cement their alliance and included by accident. Of course the Aunties agree that it’s only right to return the gift—after all, anyone would forgive an honest mistake, right? But what should have been a simple retrieval turns disastrous and suddenly Meddy and the Aunties are helpless pawns in a decades-long war between Jakarta’s most powerful business factions. The fighting turns personal, however, when Nathan and the Aunties are endangered and it’s up to Meddy to come up with a plan to save them all. Determined to rescue her loved ones, Meddy embarks on an impossible mission—but with the Aunties by her side, nothing is truly impossible…

The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties is the 3rd and final book in author Jesse Q. Sutanto’s comedy series about Meddy Chan and the meddling, hilarious Chinese-Indonesian matriarchs of her huge, interfering family.

Book #3 sees Meddy happily enjoying her honeymoon with her beloved husband Nathan, after the disastrous adventures of the previous two books (including corpses, stolen goods, and potential Mafia hitmen). After a few blissful weeks in Europe, Meddy and Nathan head to Indonesia to celebrate Chinese New Year with the family… and of course, this is when it all hits the fan.

There’s a chaotic storyline about a long-lost lover of Second Aunt’s, now a respectable businessman (and definitely not a crime lord… according to him), whose generous red envelopes go astray — ultimately entangling Meddy, Nathan, and the aunties in a convoluted scheme to get back what was inadvertently lost.

Along the way, the Chan family engages in drugging innocent bystanders, invading (possible) cartel leaders’ homes, minor kidnapping, and other nefarious deeds… but always with the best of intentions. And hey, at least this time there are no bodies hidden in coolers!

The Aunties books are silly, entertaining, and not at all to be taken seriously. The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties is a satisfying wrap-up. Sure, it’s all entirely ridiculous and improbable, but readers who go along for the ride will have a great time.

7Mar2024

Book Review: Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Expiration Dates
Author: Rebecca Serle
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: March 19, 2024
Length: 272 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Being single is like playing the lottery. There’s always the chance that with one piece of paper you could win it all.

From the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer comes the romance that will define a generation.

Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man , she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a Jake.

But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.

Told with her signature warmth and insight into matters of the heart, Rebecca Serle has finally set her sights on romantic love. The result is a gripping, emotional, passionate, and (yes) heartbreaking novel about what it means to be single, what it means to find love, and ultimately how we define each of them for ourselves. Expiration Dates is the one fans have been waiting for.

Expiration Dates is going to be tricky to discuss, and I’ll issue some general advice up front: Read reviews with caution. There’s something that gets revealed in the second half of the book that changes how readers understand everything that’s come before… and I really don’t think more than that should be said about it. If you’re reading a review that’s heavy on plot details or seems primed to disclose secrets — well, my advice is to stop reading!

That said, here’s what I can share about this novel. The main character is Daphne, a woman in her early 30s who enjoys her career as assistant to a powerful Hollywood producer. Born and raised in LA, Daphne loves her city and her parents, who live close by. She’s frustrated by her love life, and is still searching for a relationship that lasts, especially since she always knows exactly how long any given man will stay in her life.

Since childhood, Daphne has received random pieces of paper — sometimes tucked under her door, sometimes dropped next to her or handed to her by a stranger — with a name and a length of time written on it. The name is the person she’s currently dating or about to start dating, and the length of time is how long the relationship will last. Sometimes it’s just one night; sometimes it’s long enough that Daphne can even forget about the note and start feeling like it’s forever.

But until Jake, she’s never received a paper without a time frame. Does the fact that his note just has his name mean that he’s the one who’ll last? Is she about to go on a first date with her forever partner?

That’s a lot to swallow, and while this is the sort of magical element that we readers are supposed to just accept as fact, I never quite could. There’s no explanation, no source, no deep secret here. Daphne gets these pieces of paper that provide relationship expiration dates, period. If you find yourself scoffing at the very concept, then this probably isn’t the book for you.

Despite my skepticism, I stuck with Expiration Dates, and had a mixed experience. There are ultimately two competing stories going on (I won’t say why), and they don’t actually serve each other very well. The book I thought I was reading turned out to be something else, and to me, it feels as though the book is both trying to do to much and trying to have it both ways.

The unexplainable magical element actually undercuts some of the more serious developments and themes, unfortunately, and kept me from fully embracing the emotions and thoughtfulness of the plot.

At the same time, I did find Daphne’s contemplation of fate and self-fulfilling prophecy very interesting. Do her relationships end because they’re meant to? Meaning, it’s all out of her hands, and this is what the universe is dictating? Or, does she actually contribute to these relationships failing? If she knows ahead of time that she only has three months with someone, does she essentially give up or not invest enough of herself to make it work, since it’s beyond her control anyway?

Expiration Dates poses some interesting questions, but ultimately I did not feel especially invested in the romantic outcome, especially given how obvious it seemed to me. Daphne is a character whom I enjoyed getting to know, but the men in her life never feel fully formed, so truly caring about the various relationships is challenging.

Overall, this is a quick read that offers light entertainment, but doesn’t truly achieve the depth I think it’s aiming for. The magical element may be what differentiates the plot, but I think I would have been more interested in Daphne’s story without it, especially given the (no spoilers!) developments later in the book.

3Mar2024

Audiobook Review: The Second Chance Year by Melissa Wiesner

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Second Chance Year
Author: Melissa Wiesner
Narrator: Helen Laser
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: December 5, 2023
Print length: 328 pages
Audio length: 7 hours 21 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

In this unforgettable story full of charm, wit—and just a bit of magic—a woman down on her luck is given a second chance at fixing her life and trying one year all over again. Perfect for listeners of Josie Silver and Rebecca Serle.

Sadie Thatcher’s life has fallen apart in spectacular fashion. In one fell swoop, she managed to lose her job, her apartment, and her boyfriend—all thanks to her big mouth. So when a fortune teller offers her one wish, Sadie jumps at the chance to redo her awful year. Deep down, she doesn’t believe magic will fix her life, but taking a leap of faith, Sadie makes her wish, opens her eyes, and . . . nothing has changed. And then, in perhaps her dumbest move yet, she kisses her brother’s best friend, Jacob.

When Sadie wakes up the next morning, she’s in her former apartment with her former boyfriend, and her former boss is expecting her at work. Checking the date, she realizes it’s January 1 . . . of last year. As Sadie navigates her second-chance year, she begins to see the red flags she missed in her relationship and in her career. Plus, she keeps running into Jacob, and she can’t stop thinking about their kiss . . . the one he has no idea ever happened. Suddenly, Sadie begins to wonder if her only mistake was wishing for a second chance.

The Second Chance Year is a wish-fulfillment romance and makes for a pleasant audiobook experience — but I may have strained something due to excessive eye-rolling.

As the book opens, Sadie is being dragged to an elaborate New Year’s Eve party by her best friend, as an alternative to sitting on the couch with ice cream and the Golden Girls — her usual activities during the last few months of her Very Bad Year.

Sadie’s long-term boyfriend (the only piece of her life that her overachieving parents actually approve of) dumped her after she confronted a sexist coworker of his at a work function. Her arrogant, inappropriate boss fired her after she spoke up once too often about his poor treatment of the restaurant staff. Due to her lack of a job, she’s been living in her brother’s best friend’s spare room, feeling sorry for herself and her wreck of a life.

When Sadie meets a fortune teller who offers to reset her life and give her a chance at a do-over, she doesn’t really believe her… but she also has nothing to lose.

And lo and behold, when she wakes up the next morning, it’s as if the previous year were erased, and Sadie has the chance to try again. This time, she’s determined to do it right. She’ll think before opening her mouth. She won’t rock the boat. She’ll be supportive of her boyfriend Alex as he establishes himself with his Wall Street peers, instead of being confrontational about the obnoxious bro culture. She’ll put up with her boss’s unfair demands and overly handsy restaurant guests, because the end game is a promotion to Executive Pastry Chef. And she’ll ignore her new awareness of Jacob, the man she kissed on the New Year’s Eve that (now) never happened.

As Sadie navigates her second chance year, things seem to be going her way for a change. But why isn’t she happy? Could it be that becoming a Wall Street wife isn’t her ideal future? Could it be that slaving in a kitchen for an egomaniac chef isn’t the path to career fulfillment that she expected? And could it be that tamping down her outspoken nature could lead to more negative outcomes than those she experienced in her Very Bad Year?

There are some very enjoyable elements to this contemporary-with-a-touch-of-magic romance. It’s fun seeing Sadie interact with people she knows well — who have no idea who she is, since their meetings happened during a year that was reset and therefore never occurred. She finds new purpose via a baking gig at the local coffee house, and scenes there are a treat.

However, Sadie herself is extremely frustrating, too busy trying to avoid her previous “mistakes” to see what’s right in front of her, over and over again. Watching this formerly confident woman repeatedly muzzle herself to preserve a job or a relationship is not fun. Sadie twists herself into knots to become someone she isn’t, and misses the obvious about her love life so many times. I didn’t buy it. She’s too smart and self-assured to fall into these patterns, and it’s especially ridiculous to see how often she misinterprets Jacob’s actions and statements.

Hence all the eye-rolling.

That’s not to mention the magical element of resetting a year — so because Sadie wants a do-over, everyone else loses a year of their lives too? How does that work exactly? Usually, magical interventions and timeslips are not deal-breakers for me and I can just shrug my shoulders and accept them, but something about this one feels a bit unfair to me when I stop to think about it.

Sigh. In a light romance about wishes and second chances, realism isn’t the goal, and that’s okay. It just doesn’t completely work for me here.

Still, as narrated by Helen Laser, the audiobook is an entertaining listening. I couldn’t truly let go of the plot contrivances that annoyed me, and yet, I was always disappointed when I had to turn off the audiobook and pause a day before I could continue. The story hooked me, despite my quibbles, and the narration makes the listening experience a lot of fun.

I recommend The Second Chance Year for anyone looking for a bit of light, escapist, romantic entertainment. Don’t take it too seriously, just let it draw you in, and you may be pleasantly surprised!

Added bonus: SO much talk about pastries! Yummmmm.

28Feb2024

Audiobook Review: The Only Game in Town by Lacie Waldon

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Only Game in Town
Author: Lacie Waldon
Narrators: Brittany Pressley, Lee Osorio, Catherine Taber, Mark Deakins
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: March 21, 2023
Print length: 416 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 53 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

One small town, one big prize, one handsome stranger…

Nothing ever changes in Redford, Georgia. That’s what freelance editor Jess Reid loves about her hometown—and part of what keeps her from leaving. Content taking care of her father, a car mechanic who singlehandedly raised her after her mom skipped out, Jess is resigned to a safe, unremarkable existence…until Jasper Wilhelm, the town’s eccentric benefactor, dies suddenly and leaves behind the opportunity of a lifetime.

Financial advisor Carter Barclay has been too busy to visit his grandfather in Redford, but he’s heard countless stories about the town and its zany residents from Jasper. A small, insular town in Georgia is the last place Carter expects to be spending his summer—but it seems his grandfather had one final trick up his sleeve.

At the funeral, it’s revealed that Jasper has devised a massive, high-stakes game for the people of Redford, with the winning duo taking home his entire fortune. The catch? He’s already taken the liberty of pairing them up. As tensions of all kinds rise between Jess and Carter, and the life-changing prize looms closer, the two must decide what they’re willing to risk to change their lives. A love story full of spirit and hijinks, The Only Game in Town is a funny, quirky homage to the people we get to call home.

The Only Game in Town has a romance as a central storyline… but really, I’d describe it more as a love letter to the idea of small town community. There are rivalries and grudges, but also odd-couple friendships, unexpected sources of support… and yes, romance too.

Jess moved back to her beloved home town of Redford, Georgia several years earlier. Her editing career is just okay — she had the opportunity to pursue a more high-powered career with a major publisher, but missed her community and her father. Life in Redford is quiet, to say the least. There’s one bar (a dive, but full of lovable personalities), one bakery (whose owner is currently at war with a former friend who’s dared to start a pop-up muffin business), one hair salon, and plenty of unique personalities (like the guy who sits on a street corner to talk about the weather every day).

Life in Redford is upended when the local philanthropist, Jasper Wilhelm, passes away. Unknown to most of the townsfolk, he worked behind the scenes, assisted by his beloved grandson Carter, to give anonymous bequests to Redfordonians in need. (Yes, they refer to themselves as Redfordonians, which feels clunky, but okay).

Carter only connected with his grandfather ten years earlier, after walking away from his hard-driving, unfeeling parents’ family business and reconnecting with his mother’s estranged father. Carter’s first visit to Redford is for Jasper’s funeral, where he’s immediately charmed by the tiny town… and especially Jess, with her brightly colored wardrobe and devotion to Redford.

After the funeral, Jasper’s lawyer reads the will to the town. Jasper has left his fortune — $10 million — to the people of Redford, but with a catch: They have to play to win. He’s concocted a competition, assigning people as partners to carry out a series of challenges. The winning pair win it all, with all scoring at the discretion of his lawyer. No arguing, no contesting the outcome, and no changing partners. If you want in, you follow Jasper’s rules.

Naturally, the prize money is too enticing for anyone to willingly sit out. And that extends to Jess as well, who’s paired with Nikki, the mean girl who’s never gotten over a high school betrayal (as Nikki sees it) and who’s gone out of her way to be cruel to Jess ever since.

Carter isn’t interested in Jasper’s money for himself, but knows that Jasper intended for him to carry on the work they’d been doing, so when he learns that Jasper assigned him to a team and expects him to play the game as well, he’s convinced that he’s already the prearranged winner. Still, this game seems to have been very important to Jasper, so he goes along with it. But as the game progresses, he finds himself more and more immersed in town life, and starts to feel guilty that the competition may actually be a sham.

Meanwhile, Jess and Carter are drawn together from the start, and as they compete and get to know one another, their initial sparks grow in a deeper connection. But still, they’re competitors, and Carter doesn’t actually live in Redford… so is there any possible future for them once the game ends?

There’s a lot to love about The Only Game in Town. The game itself is silly — there’s a scavenger hunt, a hike, even a Barbie jeep race. Jasper clearly designed the competition to force people to work together, and it’s amusing to see the antics that the townspeople get up to, as well as the way old resentments either derail certain teams or inspire people to keep going.

The small town vibe is a little exaggerated — it’s a bit hard to believe that any small community could be quite that ideal — but still, it’s fun to see all the quirks and charm of the various characters.

I especially enjoyed the dynamic between Nikki and Jess. Their old feud is not what it seems, and Nikki is much more than first impressions might imply. Nikki gets her own point-of-view chapters, and that’s a wonderful decision on the part of the author — hearing from Nikki herself allows us to understand what drives the character and who she is deep-down, beyond the ice princess/mean girl exterior.

Jess’s relationship with her dad is also terrific. He was a teen dad, abandoned by Jess’s mother, who’s worked all his life to give his daughter a warm, loving home. He’s a great character, and I loved seeing his interactions with Jess.

Carter and Jess’s romance sparkles, but it’s not the only storyline — dare I say that the romance is not the only game in town??? — and I really appreciated that. Yes, the romance is an important part of the story, but there’s a lot more going on, and we readers get the opportunity to care about all of it, not just the will-they-won’t-they aspect of the couple’s attraction, or the inevitable romance novel beats (the slow burn, the obstacle, the reunion…)

I listened to the audiobook, and it was great! There are four narrators, one for each of the POV characters (Jess, Carter, Nikki, and less frequent, Ross). Jess and Carter get most of the narrative, but Nikki’s chapters add a lot to the overall story. As a whole, it really works, and the narrators do a terrific job presenting the different perspectives, making the silly competition scenes feel like fun, and also letting the emotions come through at key moments.

The Only Game in Town is a charming story about small town life and what community really means. Friendship and a love story are both important elements, but devotion to the town is what truly drives the characters and the plot. This is a very enjoyable book, and I recommend the audiobook. Really fun entertainment — I look forward to reading more by this author.

17Feb2024

Audiobook Review: Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Yours Truly
Author: Abby Jimenez
Narrators: Kyla Garcia & Zachary Webber
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: April 11, 2023
Print length: 416 pages
Audio length: 11 hours 23 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

A novel of terrible first impressions, hilarious second chances, and the joy in finding your perfect match.

Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin’-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass” scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.

And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,” and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she can’t refuse.

I loved Abby Jimenez’s previous novel, Part of Your World, and just had to stay in that book’s world a little longer by immediately starting Yours Truly. Great decision on my part! I thoroughly enjoyed this sensitive, romantic audiobook.

But before I explain why, I do need to point out that that is a seriously terrible synopsis above. The synopsis makes Yours Truly sound like a comedic war-of-wills workplace romance… and that’s not how I’d describe this book at all.

So let me put my own spin on this book.

Briana is a highly-skilled ER doctor who’s loved by her coworkers and seems on track for a chief position, just as soon as her current boss finally takes his long-awaited retirement. She’s thrown for a loop when she’s informed that he’s holding off on retirement just a bit longer, and that she may have competition for the chief role — the new ER doctor who just transferred to her hospital.

The new doc doesn’t seem to be lining up fans. On his very first day, the nurses have secretly dubbed him Doctor Death. He’s rubbing everyone the wrong way, and manages to thorougly irritate Briana as well.

What Briana doesn’t know is that Jacob is an introvert with social anxiety, who’s just trying to get through his day without further triggering his anxiety responses. Jacob is dealing with stress in his personal life — his brother announcing his engagement to Jacob’s ex-girlfriend — and learning a whole bunch of social cues in a brand new work setting is not easy for Jacob.

Eventually, Briana clues in to the fact that Jacob is not actually some arrogant, sexist jerk, but is really a deeply sensitive man who’s also a terrific doctor. After Bri extends an olive branch by advising Jacob to win over the ER staff via cupcakes, Jacob writes her a thank-you letter. Yes, writes — as in, by hand — a letter — as in, on paper. Briana can’t help being charmed.

Bri and Jacob start exchanging letters, opening up in writing in a way they haven’t been able to in person. Eventually, letters turn into long conversations, and suddenly, they’re spending more time talking with one another than with anyone else.

When Jacob turns out to be a perfect match as a kidney donor for Briana’s ailing brother, she wants to do a huge favor for him in return. Jacob’s family refuses to embrace his brother’s engagement, fearing that Jacob will be too terribly hurt by the whole thing. He’s not… but to convince his family to get on board and be happy for the couple, Jacob decides he needs a fake girlfriend, and Bri is happy to sign up for the role.

As Jacob and Brianna play-act a relationship, they spent lots and lots of time together, even to the point of fake living together. You get where this is going right? Before long, they’ve both caught feelings — but each is 100% sure that the other is pretending. There’s a lot of tormented self-doubt and longing in store for both of them. Ah, if only people in romance novels knew how to communicate!

Yours Truly has lots of funny scenarios and flirty banter, but it’s also rooted in more serious emotions and complications. Bri is still deeply wounded by her divorce, thanks to her jerky ex-husband who cheated on her for years with a woman she thought was a good friend. Between that and the father who abandoned the family when she was a child, Bri doesn’t believe that love can be counted on, and has serious issues around trust and security. Jacob, meanwhile, has learned to manage his anxiety, but he can be triggered by uncertainty and lacks the confidence to feel that he’s worthy of love. While Briana and Jacob fall madly in love with one another, it takes them a very long time to realize that their feelings are returned, in large part because neither is able to believe that they deserve to be loved by someone so wonderful.

The author does a terrific job of developing these two characters and making them likable even while showing their wounds and their flaws. We readers may feel frustrated enough to want to give them each a good shake, but we also understand why they’re having such a hard time believing in the truth of their relationship.

I did feel that the communication issues dragged on longer than necessary, and wished that these two incredibly intelligent people talked honestly a lot sooner. They each make some pretty significant assumptions based on overheard conversations and mistaken beliefs about the other’s feelings, and while we get where they’re coming from, they really could have worked all this out through a simple conversation.

Another quibble is that they’re a pair of doctors, and yet they have unprotected sex! In this day and age, when most romance novels do such a fantastic job of incorporating condoms into sexytimes, its absence in a key scene between Jacob and Briana is a glaring omission. Yes, it’s dealt with later in the plot, but still, given who they are as people, it was not believable to me that they’d have sex in that moment without protection.

That aside, I really did love the characters, the plot, and the overall story. When Bri and Jacob make bad choices, we understand why. The writing balances the zippy, light-hearted moments with the deeper emotional stakes and traumas, and I loved how sensitively they’re able to connect with one another when they open up and truly communicate.

“We’re all a little broken, Briana. We are a mosaic. We’re made up of all those we’ve met and all the things we’ve been through. There are parts of us that are colorful and dark and jagged and beautiful. And I love every piece of you. Even the ones you wish didn’t exist.”

Yours Truly is set in the same fictional world as Part of Your World, and it’s nice to get to visit with that book’s main characters, Alexis and Daniel, and see how they’re doing. Zachary Webber, who voices Daniel in Part of Your World, is back in Yours Truly as the narrator for Jacob’s chapters, and he’s got the role of smart, sensitive, sexy boyfriend down to a science. Kyla Garcia is very good as the narrator for Brianna (and gets her lisp just right in a scene where Bri wears her retainer!). The voices work really well together, and the audiobook as a whole is a treat.

Part of Your World was my first book by Abby Jimenez, and after listening to Yours Truly, I’m all in! I need to read EVERYTHING by this author. If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, do yourself a favor and pick up one of her books!

On a related note…

Amazon’s free story collection for February is romance-themed — it’s the Improbable Meet-Cute collection, and includes a very sweet story by Abby Jimenez, so naturally, I read it immediately after finishing Yours Truly. Worst Wingman Ever is a fast, enjoyable read. Check it out!

The rest of the collection looks great too — have you read any of these stories yet?

9Feb2024

Book Review: The Frame-Up by Gwenda Bond

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Frame-Up
Author: Gwenda Bond
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication date: February 13, 2024
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A magically gifted con artist must gather her estranged mother’s old crew for a once-in-a-lifetime heist, from the New York Times bestselling author of Stranger Suspicious Minds.

Dani Poissant is the daughter and former accomplice of the world’s most famous art thief, as well as being an expert forger in her own right. The secret to their success? A little thing called magic, kept rigorously secret from the non-magical world. Dani’s mother possesses the power of persuasion, able to bend people to her will, whereas Dani has the ability to make any forgery she undertakes feel like the genuine article.

At seventeen, concerned about the corrupting influence of her mother’s shadowy partner, Archer, Dani impulsively sold her mother out to the FBI—an act she has always regretted. Ten years later, Archer seeks her out, asking her to steal a particular painting for him, since her mother’s still in jail. In return, he will reconcile her with her mother and reunite her with her mother’s old gang—including her former best friend, Mia, and Elliott, the love of her life.

The problem is, it’s a nearly impossible job—even with the magical talents of the people she once considered family backing her up. The painting is in the never-before-viewed private collection of deceased billionaire William Hackworth—otherwise known as the Fortress of Art. It’s a job that needs a year to plan, and Dani has just over one week. Worse, she’s not exactly gotten a warm welcome from her former colleagues—especially not from Elliott, who has grown from a weedy teen to a smoking-hot adult. And then there is the biggest puzzle of why Archer wants her to steal a portrait of himself, which clearly dates from the 1890s, instead of the much more valuable works by Vermeer or Rothko. Who is her mother’s partner, really, and what does he want?

The more Dani learns, the more she understands she may be in way over her head—and that there is far more at stake in this job than she ever realized.

I’m not entirely sure what this book was trying to be. A heist caper? A tale of generations of women with magical powers forced to serve a supernatural being? A contemporary romance, complete with love triangle? Perhaps the problem is that The Frame-Up tries to be all of these, and doesn’t quite hit the mark with any.

Dani Poissant has been estranged from her mother and her chosen family of art thieves ever since she turned her mother in to the FBI ten years earlier. Now, she lives and works alone, using her magical gifts to scam bad guys and restore a little bit of justice to their victims (and earn a paycheck for herself).

When her mother’s former associate, a mysterious man named Archer, tracks her down, she’s forced to confront her past. A billionaire art collector, who has never let anyone inside his well-named Fortress of Art, has died, and his family plans to open the collection to the public for the first time and auction it off. There’s a painting that Archer wants, and he wants Dani to get it for him.

For… reasons, Dani accepts, and heads back to her old home base to reunite with her former circle of thieves/family and plan one final heist, hoping to repair her connection to her mother and rid themselves of Archer once and for all.

I’ll be blunt. This book is a mess. Plot lines are all over the place, as is the tone. We’re supposed to feel Dani’s deep connection to the people she goes back to — Rabbit, Mia, Elliot — but none of it is fleshed out. We’re told about Dani’s thoughts and emotions, but none of it felt substantial to me.

The magical powers that enable them to control technology or create master forgeries or find anything lost are a convenient jumble, and the heist itself is nonsensical, as are the other magical art thieves who try to get in their way.

The storyline about Archer’s past with the women of the Poissant family is a little more interesting than the rest… but it doesn’t get explained until past the midway point of the book, and even then, it feels familiar. A supernatural being haunting/controlling generations of women in the same family? I could name at least two or three other books with the same theme.

Messy, jumbled plots and characters aren’t helped by messy writing. There are sentences that I had to stop and parse — just who are we talking about here? There’s even a scene where someone using an alias gets referred to by his real name — but it’s clearly not an intentional slip or a piece of the plot, just a place where more editing was needed. I can only hope that the errors and awkwardness I noticed in the ARC are cleaned up in the final published version.

I considered DNFing repeatedly throughout this book, but wanted to see it through in case something happened in the latter half to make me feel more invested. It didn’t. By the end, I was hate-reading. I was going to finish this book, dammit!

Such a disappointment. I read the author’s three previous books, which were all cheery, silly, supernaturally-infused adventure/romances. I hoped for a similar reading experience with The Frame-Up, but sadly, that was not the case.

2Feb2024

Audiobook Review: Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Part of Your World
Author: Abby Jimenez
Narrators: Julia Whelan & Zachary Webber
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: April 19, 2022
Print length: 400 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 5 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

After a wild bet, gourmet grilled-cheese sandwich, and cuddle with a baby goat, Alexis Montgomery has had her world turned upside down. The cause: Daniel Grant, a ridiculously hot carpenter who’s ten years younger than her and as casual as they come—the complete opposite of sophisticated city-girl Alexis. And yet their chemistry is undeniable.

While her ultra-wealthy parents want her to carry on the family legacy of world-renowned surgeons, Alexis doesn’t need glory or fame. She’s fine with being a “mere” ER doctor. And every minute she spends with Daniel and the tight-knit town where he lives, she’s discovering just what’s really important. Yet letting their relationship become anything more than a short-term fling would mean turning her back on her family and giving up the opportunity to help thousands of people.

Bringing Daniel into her world is impossible, and yet she can’t just give up the joy she’s found with him either. With so many differences between them, how can Alexis possibly choose between her world and his?

The New York Times bestselling author of Life’s Too Short delivers a refreshingly modern fairy tale perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Emily Henry.

After seeing rave reviews for Abby Jimenez’s books for a few years now, I decided to borrow Part of Your World when it popped up as “available now” in my library app. What a treat! Sometimes a spontaneous borrow is exactly right.

In Part of Your World, a driving mishap in the middle of nowhere (okay, not exactly nowhere — rural Minnesota, about two hours from Minneapolis) introduces Alexis to Daniel when he comes to her rescue and tows her car out of a ditch. Hungry and rather amused by this nice, charming guy, Alexis accepts his offer of grilled cheese, especially when there’s an opportunity to meet his “kid” (the baby goat he’s fostering). One thing leads to another… but then Alexis goes back to her regular life, never expecting to see him again.

Alexis is an ER doctor working at the hospital her family founded 125 years earlier. In the world of high-profile medicine, her family is royalty. A Montgomery has always led the hospital, and with her parents retired and her elder brother suddenly deciding to continue his medical work overseas, the mantle is passing to Alexis, whether she wants it or not.

But she can’t get Daniel out of her mind, and he can’t stop thinking of her either. Daniel runs a B&B in his small town (where he’s also mayor), works as a carpenter/woodcrafter as a passion, and is deeply embedded in the lives of his neighbors. His life is in Wakan; hers is in Minneapolis. They’re incredibly different. There’s no way they fit together… and yet, as Alexis visits again and again, their chemistry is undeniable, and it’s soon clear that their connection goes well beyond physical.

While this may sound like a sweetness-and-light romance (and parts of it certainly are), there are heavier, more serious themes running through Part of Your World. Most significantly, the book deals substantially with abusive relationships. While there’s a background storyline involving domestic violence woven into the plot, the piece that most severely affects Alexis and her self-esteem, her outlook on life, and her self-criticism and stress is the emotional abuse she suffered for years in her relationship with her ex-boyfriend. It was never overt and certainly never in public, but the consistent demeaning and gaslighting left Alexis with deep wounds and insecurities that color how she moves through the world. Also, importantly, the behavior she lives with for years is both affected by how she interacts with her father and the burden of expectations she places on herself in order to fulfill her parents’ wishes, and this also severely impacts her relationship with Daniel.

In a nutshell, the pressures on Alexis to be what her family expects narrows her worldview to such an extent that she can’t even imagine doing anything but what’s demanded of her — and with that limitation, she can’t envision any possible world in which Daniel fits into her life. I ached for Daniel, who — not understanding Alexis’s experiences or knowing her history — is left feeling that he’s an embarrassment and not good enough for her. I often felt angry with Alexis, but that’s not really fair either. The abuse she lived with scarred her, and while Daniel is hot and kind and amazing, that doesn’t automatically erase everything that came before.

There’s a touch of magical realism in Part of Your World which startled me at first, but I ended up really loving. Nasty people who treat Daniel shamefully are suddenly pelted by acorns falling from the trees in the yard, despite it being the wrong season. A lightning strike, seemingly out of nowhere, knocks a branch from a tree and prevents Alexis from leaving in a moment when she feels all is hopeless. It’s not so frequent as to feel heavy-handed, just a nice, subtle touch that lends a bit of a “forces of nature” element to the love story.

One reason I was eager to listen to this audiobook, once I stumbled across is, is that Julia Whelan is the narrator for the Alexis chapters, and she’s as amazing here as always. Zachary Webber voices Daniel, and he captures his sensitivity and sense of fun to a T.

Part of Your World is romantic and full of small-town charm, but there’s plenty of heartache and sorrow too. The light and dark elements work together very well, and overall, this is a lovely, relatable, and uplifting novel. Highly recommended — and if you’re an audiobook listener, don’t miss out on these terrific narrators!

There’s a companion book set in the same fictional world, with Alexis’s best friend as main character. Can’t wait to read it!