Book Review: One Night on the Island by Josie Silver

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: One Night on the Island
Author: Josie Silver
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: February 15, 2022
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Review copy via NetGalley
Rating:

Spending her thirtieth birthday alone is the last thing that dating columnist Cleo wanted, but she is going on a self-coupling quasi-sabbatical–at the insistence of her boss–in the name of re-energizing herself and adding a new perspective to her column. The remote Irish island she’s booked is a far cry from London, but at least it’s a chance to hunker down in a luxury cabin and indulge in some quiet, solitary self-care while she figures out her next steps in her love life and her career.
Mac is also looking forward to some time to himself. With his life in Boston deteriorating in ways he can’t bring himself to acknowledge, his soul searching has brought him to the same Irish island in search of his roots and some clarity. Unfortunately, a mix-up with the bookings means both solitude seekers have reserved the same one-bedroom hideaway on exactly the same dates.
Instantly at odds with each other, Cleo and Mac don’t know how they’re going to manage until the next weekly ferry arrives. But as the days go by, they no longer seem to mind each other’s company quite as much as they thought they would…
Written with Josie Silver’s signature warmth, charm and insights into the human heart, One Night on the Island explores the meaning of home, the joys of escape and how the things we think we want are never the things we really need.

Oh, dear. Based on the number of 5-star gushing reviews already posted on Goodreads, this is going to be a minority opinion. Dare I say it? I actually liked this book… but hearts and flowers and best thing ever? No.

A quick overview: Cleo is a dating and romance writer living in London, with a big, busy life that’s pretty hollow at its core. Her editor pushes her to try something radical as her 30th birthday approaches: Head to a remote island off the coast of Ireland and plan a self-partnering ceremony. Essentially, she’ll be stepping off the dating merry-go-round and focus on committing to herself.

Meanwhile, Mack (spelled with a “k” in the book, not as shown above in the synopsis I pulled from Goodreads) is seeking peace and connection with his roots. He grew up hearing stories about Salvation Island from the grandmother who was born there. He’s a devoted husband and father whose wife has pulled away. Now separated for a year, he’s in constant pain hoping to be allowed back into the life he once had, and thinks it would be best for him and his two boys if he stopped hovering around and gave his wife space to figure out what she wants. He’s a gifted photographer, so his time away will also give him an opportunity to explore Salvation the way he’s always wanted to.

In a very cutesy meet-cute, Mack and Cleo are both booked into Otter Lodge, a secluded (not luxury, per the synopsis) cottage on a secluded area of the island. Neither is willing, or even able, to change their plans, since it’ll be a week until the next boat back to the mainland, and there are simply no other accommodations on the island.

With no choice, they settle in and establish rules, going so far as to draw a chalk line down the middle of the cottage. But as their forced togetherness continues, they start to share pieces of themselves with a stark honesty that’s missing from their normal lives, and at the same time, begin to connect with the quirky residents of Salvation. (Of course they’re quirky. Aren’t all small-town community residents quirky in romance novels? Hearts of gold, too, and with open arms for strangers, because that happens in real life.)

Anyway… you can see where this is going. Cleo and Mack make an incredible connection, Cleo finds the inner peace and meaning she’d been missing, and Mack comes to realizations about his marriage, his children, and where he belongs.

I liked the story well enough, and tore through it. It’s a fast read, and I enjoyed Cleo and Mack’s routines and interactions and the sparks that build between them. But, my cynical side couldn’t stay quiet long enough for me to ignore certain issues, either.

First, and this is possibly a complaint more about the book’s marketing rather than the story itself… but the title is terrible and is completely misleading. This isn’t about ONE NIGHT on an island. The point is, Mack and Cleo spend weeks in each other’s company, and it’s the slow, steady accumulation of familiarity and their ability to share pieces of themselves and express themselves honestly as they build trust that finally bring them together emotionally. It’s not at all about just one night. Sheesh.

Second, the set-up is confusing. This is one of the rare reading experiences that’s much better in its second half than in its first. When Cleo’s editor pushes her to go to Salvation, there’s no discussion of parameters or for how long. Cleo’s expenses and lodging are being paid for by the magazine (nice!), and from their initial conversation, I thought it would be for a weekend, or at most, a week. But no, it’s actually for months! Whose work would pay for them to go away like that to write columns about self-partnering? For a 29-year-old who writes a dating column, this seems incredibly unrealistic, and the lack of specificity about Cleo’s plans made it confusing when she and Mack were trying to hash out who had stronger claims to the cabin.

My biggest quibble is the whole stuck-together trope in play here. And I know, it’s a romance, and we’re supposed to just go with it. But honestly, think about it. If you found out you were going to have to spend even one night, let alone a week or longer, in a completely isolated cabin with a man who’s a total stranger, what would you do? I’d be running for the hills, probably begging some kind townsperson to let me sleep on their couch until the next boat home. I had to wonder — if Mack hadn’t been age-appropriate and gorgeous, would Cleo have agreed to this arrangement? It doesn’t make any sense, and of course I understand that this is the foundation of the entire story… but maybe that’s why I can’t go any higher than 3.5 stars.

On a positive note, I did enjoy how feelings and connection developed between the two main characters, and I liked having chapters from both of their points of view. I also appreciated how their time at Salvation enabled each of them to center their own needs and priorities within their relationship, not forcing either one to drop everything or fundamentally change who they are or what they want for the other. And finally, I love Mack’s devotion to his children and their well-being, putting their needs above everything else, including his desire to be with Cleo. His overarching decision-making process focuses on the boys, and that’s right and good in a very heart-warming way.

I looked back at my reviews of this author’s two previous books, and I have to say that perhaps this author and I just aren’t a match made in heaven. The pattern, based on three books now, seems clear — I like the writing style and many of the elements about the characters, and it’s easy to get swept up in the romance of it all… but too many of the finer details and plot points don’t stand up to the cold light of day when I apply my logical brain to them.

One Night on the Island (ugh, that title!) is an engaging, quick read, but I can’t say I ever believed in the wonder and romance of it all quite enough to override the pieces that didn’t work for me. Despite not completely loving it, I liked it well enough to recommend as a feel-good getaway from the daily grind.

5Feb2022

Audiobook Review: A Season for Second Chances by Jenny Bayliss

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

23Jan2022

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

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

28Dec2021

Book Review: Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Dava Shastri’s Last Day
Author: Kirthana Ramisetti
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: November 30, 2021
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In this thought-provoking and entertaining debut novel about of a multicultural family, a dying billionaire matriarch leaks news of her death early so she can examine her legacy–a decision that horrifies her children and inadvertently exposes secrets she has spent a lifetime keeping.
Dava Shastri, one of the world’s wealthiest women, has always lived with her sterling reputation in mind. A brain cancer diagnosis at the age of seventy, however, changes everything, as she decides to take her death—like all matters of her life—into her own hands.
Summoning her four adult children to her private island, she discloses shocking news: in addition to having a terminal illness, she has arranged for the news of her death to break early, so she can read her obituaries.
As someone who dedicated her life to the arts and the empowerment of women, Dava expects to read articles lauding her philanthropic work. Instead, her “death” reveals two devastating secrets, truths she thought she had buried forever.
And now the whole world knows, including her children.
In the time she has left, Dava must come to terms with the decisions that have led to this moment—and make peace with those closest to her before it’s too late.
Compassionately written and chock-full of humor and heart, this powerful novel examines public versus private legacy, the complexities of love, and the never-ending joys—and frustrations—of family.

This will sound weird — but I’m tempted to not read any further books for the few days remaining in 2021. Why? So I can end on a high note! I can’t tell you how much I loved Dava Shastri’s Last Day. It feels good to think about ending my reading year with such a terrific 5-star read!

In this sensitive, compelling book, we meet the awesome Dava Shastri at age 70. She’s a world-famous philanthropist, having devoted her adult life to using her billions to support worthwhile causes around the world. She’s also a mother, a grandmother, and a widow, and as the book opens, Dava has called her family to their private island for reasons not yet disclosed.

As the family gathers, she shares her big secret: Dava has terminal cancer, and faced with months of painful treatments that may prolong her life but not sustain it in any sort of quality, she decides to leave on her own terms. A doctor is on stand-by, already on the island. After a final day with her family, Dava will be ending her life via assisted suicide.

The family, naturally, is shocked. They’re even more shocked to learn that Dava’s attorney has already announced her death to the world. Faced with the end, Dava has decided to indulge her curiosity and see how she’s remembered — because hasn’t everyone always wondered about attending their own funeral?

The news, while full of praise for Dava’s generosity, soon turns to gossip and scandal, as a decades-old rumor of an extramarital affair with a rock singer resurfaces in the wake of the death announcements. Dava is dismayed that these old stories have taken over the headlines, so instead of the tributes she expected, she’s faced once again with the rumors she could never quite shake.

As the book progresses, each of Dava’s four adult children tries to come to terms with Dava’s legacy and their own relationships to their powerful, hard-working, often absent mother. In devoting her life to serving others, Dava’s homelife by necessity came second. And while she raised her children to follow in her footsteps and devote themselves to the family foundations and charitable causes, each has to face their own soul-searching to find their purpose in life — and to figure out whether Dava is someone they want to emulate or rebel against.

There are so many lovely moments, as the siblings explore their connections, their own marriages and relationships, and their place in the world. Even the grandchildren have important roles to play, as they get a final chance to learn the truth about their grandmother — who she is, what her life has meant, and what paths she’s blazed for them.

Dava herself is a fascinating character, a self-made woman whose life contains heartbreak and challenge and ultimate success. She often enigmatic, and at first seems to be a woman who places too much emphasis on physical comfort and luxuries, but we soon learn that there’s so much more to this powerful, determined woman.

The one element that rang a little oddly for me is the setting — the main events surround Dava’s last day take place in 2044. I suppose this is so that the author could root some of Dava and her children’s earlier years in our own contemporary times. The fact that it’s 2044 in this book isn’t particularly explored, beyond a couple of references to climate and the ease of accessing Dava’s chosen end-of-life medical treatment.

Other than that, there’s really not a false note in this beautiful book. I loved the characters, the relationships, the secrets that emerge, and the lovely way the stories all tie together by the end.

This would be a fabulous book group selection — there’s so much to think about and discuss!

Dava Shastri’s Last Day seems to have been an under-the-radar release for the end of 2021. Fortunately, I stumbled across a mention of the book in a year-end list, and the beautiful cover caught my eye. I’m so happy to have read this book, and will be sharing it with lots of friends and family.

12Dec2021

Book Review: Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Wish You Were Here
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: November 30, 2021
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis.
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.
But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.
Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. The whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.
Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.

How you feel about Wish You Were Here will be almost completely dependent on whether you feel ready for a deep-dive into living through the early months of the COVID pandemic via fiction. For me, my overriding response was — it’s too soon. And I suspect many readers will feel this way as well.

In Wish You Were Here, Diana has a career on the cusp of a huge success, a wonderful boyfriend, and a life carefully planned out. Then COVID happens. Diana and her boyfriend Finn had a dream vacation to the Galapagos planned for March 2020, when the book opens. But Finn, a resident at a New York hospital, has his time off cancelled as the virus begins to escalate and New York moves into crisis mode. Since the vacation was already paid for, Finn insists that Diana go anyway, and she agrees.

As Diana arrives at her destination, she’s moving against the flow. Tourists are scrambling to get the last ferry back as the island Diana is heading toward closes down. Still, she’s there already, with a prepaid hotel reservation. Might as well keep going! When she arrives, though, even the hotel has closed, the town seems to be shut down, and Diana — without her luggage, with minimal cash, and no knowledge of Spanish — is stranded.

But as time passes, with only spotty cell reception and inconsistent access to Wi-fi, Diana finds refuge with a local woman and her family, a troubled teen girl and the girl’s father Gabriel, a former tour guide. As this family takes Diana under their wing, she finds connection with them, and grows to love her time on the island, even as she becomes increasingly disturbed by her inability to contact Finn, only occasionally getting email downloads that include his frantic, troubled descriptions of working day and night in the heart of a crisis.

This book is… a lot. Finn’s emails are just too real — I had family members working in New York hospitals in the thick of things last year, and re-experiencing the description of the crisis via fiction is difficult and unpleasant. Not to say that Jodi Picoult is any less than the terrific storyteller she always is — just that there’s way too much realism in this book to make it work as an escape of any sort.

I enjoyed the descriptions of life in the Galapagos, although I marveled at Diana’s incredibly poor decision-making, especially deciding to go forward with staying on the island while every other tourist with sense was leaving. She was fortunate to find people willing to help her, and I couldn’t help but doubt that in real life, things would have gone as smoothly as they did.

There is a twist, and it’s a BIG one, at about 60%… and I don’t know why I was so surprised. I mean, I HAVE read Jodi Picoult books before. I should have remembered that there’s always a twist. I didn’t see this one coming, and it’s a doozy… and I won’t say anything further about it or talk about the rest of the book, because I think it’s worth reading this book in as unspoiled a state as possible. (That said, I imagine that many reviews will spoil the twist up front, so I recommend avoiding those or proceeding with caution.)

Wish You Were Here is in many ways a rumination on finding joy in life, in being present, and about learning and reconnecting with what truly matters. In the heart of a pandemic, in a time with fear running rampant and isolation a key factor of life, it’s connections and purpose and love that matter, not the next meeting or work project or purchase. All this is encapsulated in Diana’s experiences, and while none of her revelations are earth-shatteringly new, they’re still presented in a way that feels affirming and hopeful.

As I said, for me, Wish You Were Here was too current to make for an enjoyable reading experience. The details on experiencing COVID, from the perspectives of health care workers and survivors and families of people who lost their lives, feel ripped from the headlines — and that, I think, is where I struggled with this book. I’ve spent the past year and half reading the newspapers and watching coverage and being inundated with COVID discussions; reading fiction with the same subject is not at all relaxing.

Maybe if this book were to be handed to me in five years, I might feel differently. As of now, despite the book being highly readable and the fact that I was interested in the characters and how their lives would turn out, I can’t say that I’m glad to have read it. Mostly, it felt like a return to a recent bad dream, and I struggled at times to stick with it — not because it’s not well-written (it most assuredly is), but because I’m just not ready to receive COVID stories as entertainment, no matter how seriously it’s presented or how good the intentions.

As I wrote at the start, I think for each reader, it’ll come down to a question of whether it’s too soon to read a COVID novel. For me, it was. Your mileage may vary.

28Oct2021

Book Review: All the Feels by Olivia Dade

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: All the Feels
Author: Olivia Dade
Publisher: Avon
Publication date: November 16, 2021
Length: 385 pages
Genre: Romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Following Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade returns with another utterly charming romantic comedy about a devil-may-care actor—who actually cares more than anyone knows—and the no-nonsense woman hired to keep him in line.
Alexander Woodroe has it all. Charm. Sex appeal. Wealth. Fame. A starring role as Cupid on TV’s biggest show, God of the Gates. But the showrunners have wrecked his character, he’s dogged by old demons, and his post-show future remains uncertain. When all that reckless emotion explodes into a bar fight, the tabloids and public agree: his star is falling.
Enter Lauren Clegg, the former ER therapist hired to keep him in line. Compared to her previous work, watching over handsome but impulsive Alex shouldn’t be especially difficult. But the more time they spend together, the harder it gets to keep her professional remove and her heart intact, especially when she discovers the reasons behind his recklessness…not to mention his Cupid fanfiction habit.
When another scandal lands Alex in major hot water and costs Lauren her job, she’ll have to choose between protecting him and offering him what he really wants—her. But he’s determined to keep his improbably short, impossibly stubborn, and extremely endearing minder in his life any way he can. And on a road trip up the California coast together, he intends to show her exactly what a falling star will do to catch the woman he loves: anything at all.

All the Feels is a follow-up/companion to last year’s Spoiler Alert. Not a sequel exactly, since the timelines are somewhat concurrent, but a look at different characters in the same world, with some overlap. In both books, the framing is the massively popular TV series Gods of the Gates, a multi-season, big budget production based on a very popular but unfinished book series, which seems to have gone decidedly off the rails once the storyline moved passed the published books. Remind you of anything yet?

In All the Feels, we start with a bang as lead actor Alex Woodroe, who plays Cupid on the show, is being severely reprimanded by the showrunner after he’s arrested in a bar fight in Spain as production on the final season is wrapping up. Alex is impulsive and known for his outrageous behavior, but drunken brawls are not typical for him. Still, the production is out of patience and taking no chances, so they assign him a minder — someone to shadow him everywhere, be with him at all times, and make sure he does not step a toe out of line until the new season airs.

His assigned minder? Lauren Clegg, the (dickish) showrunner’s cousin, who’s currently assessing her own next career move after burning out on ER trauma. Lauren is not your standard beauty — she’s (maybe) five feet tall, very round, with a crooked nose (thanks to an out-of-control ER patient) and an assymetrical face. Her cruel cousin refers to her off-handedly as ridiculous and ugly, but in Alex’s view, she’s birdlike, reminding him of a winter wren. Which, for reference, looks like this:

Alex, described by a loving castmate as a “delightful asshole”, is outraged by being assigned a nanny — but beyond the external assholery, he’s actually a very good guy. So, while he delights in trying to get a reaction out of “Nanny Clegg”, he also treats her with respect and kindness, especially once they arrive back in LA and she takes up residence in the guest house on his estate.

Alex himself is a complex character. His outgoing, full-speed-ahead, screw-the-consequences persona is cover for a man who carries deep guilt over family history and who is willing to put everything on the line to defend people in need, even if it means possibly torpedoing the career he fought so hard for. His ADHD makes him hard for others to control, and while he has coping strategies that work well for him, his impulse control challenges cause him trouble again and again.

As we get to know Lauren, we see how she’s internalized other people’s view of her, even her own family’s. She’s dependable, but not as important as everyone else — this is\the lesson she’s learned over the years, and she dreads having others (including Alex) come to her defense at their own expense. She knows that the world sees her as unattractive (and that awful people seem to have no qualms about saying so to her face), and she’s rather just put up walls and remove herself emotionally that have anyone else take risks on her behalf.

As Alex and Lauren spend time together, they create a bubble of two, moving beyond resentment and impatience into trust and friendship, and finally acknowledging a deep attraction too. Their growing feelings for one another are challenged by the outside world and the demands of Alex’s career — but they’re also challenged by their own baggage and their deeply ingrained defense mechanisms. When hurt and self-sacrifice threaten their new-found happiness, they each find that they need to dig deep, work on themselves, and learn to get out of their own way if they’re to have a future.

This is absolutely an opposites-attract fairy tale. Alex is a gorgeous movie star, yet the plain woman with an unassuming personality who does not meet standard beauty ideals is the one who steals his heart. It certainly strains belief, but accepting the wish-fulfillment elements, All the Feels is quite a lovely and engaging read.

In Spoiler Alert, we learn much more about Gods of the Gates, which is pretty delightful in its own way. Here, we hear more about the problematic nature of the final season and why it causes Alex in particular so much grief. We also spend more time with some of the castmates introduced in the first book, via group text chats and in person, and they’re a treat.

All the Feels also includes some of the fanfiction elements introduced in Spoiler Alert — to a lesser extent, but in a way that’s so Alex and so outrageous, and it made me really laugh.

I did really enjoy All the Feels, but as I mentioned, there’s a wish-fulfillment feel to the story that sometimes made me take a step back and squint at the book. Could this relationship work in real life? Well, maybe… but put this story together with the main relationship in Spoiler Alert, and it becomes a little harder to embrace the idea that two gorgeous and successful leading men, who also happen to be best friends, would fall for two women who — to be clear — are absolutely lovely and delightful, but who do not meet Hollywood beauty standards by a long shot.

The last third of the book includes very graphic sex scenes, so if you prefer your romance on the implied rather than explicit side, you might want to be aware of this before going in. Explicit isn’t usually my jam when it comes to my reading choices, but I was invested enough in the characters that I wasn’t thrown off too much by these scenes (and anyway, the characters are so clearly joyful together that it’s hard not to be happy for them, no matter how graphically engaged they are.)

All the Feels could work as a stand-alone — there’s enough context provided to make the key elements of the show and its issues understandable — but I’d recommend starting with Spoiler Alert to get the full picture. Also, Alex and Lauren’s story happens in the background in Spoiler Alert, so it’s fun to see pieces of it unfolding through other characters’ eyes before reading their story on its own.

All in all, I recommend both of these books. All the Feels features memorable characters, snappy dialogue, a moving (if improbable) love story, and a fairy tale ending. It’s a feel-good book that, for all its unlikely elements (not just the central relationship, but also some of the pieces related to Alex’s career), will make you smile.

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24Oct2021

Audiobook Review: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: People We Meet on Vacation
Author: Emily Henry
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: May 11, 2021
Print length: 364 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 46 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased (Kindle); Library (audio)
Rating:

Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read, a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.

Poppy and Alex are a delightful pairing in all the right ways. They’re diametrically opposed when it comes to lifestyle and goals. Poppy dreams of travel and freedom; Alex dreams of home and family and being settled. He’s uptight, she’s loose and open. And yet, they bond so tightly that everyone and everything else in their lives are extraneous. So long as they have each other, even if they only see each other during their annual summer trips, then their lives are good.

But something went wrong two summers ago, and they haven’t talked since. And for Poppy, nothing makes sense any more. She has her dream job, working for a high-end travel magazine and basically getting paid to go anywhere in the world and enjoy the hell out of it… but her life has been pretty joyless ever since Alex was removed from the equation.

People We Meet on Vacation is framed around “this summer”, but interspersed chapters take us back to “10 summers ago”, “5 summers ago”, etc. Through these chapters that show past history, we get to experience the depth of Alex and Poppy’s connection, why they mean so much to one another, and get hints of why they are the way they are, as we learn more about their families, their upbringings, and their formative years.

I loved the chemistry and the adorable banter between the two. They’re funny in so many unexpected ways. Any scene that they’re both in absolutely shines.

At the same time, there’s plenty of harder times in the mix as well. Why did their friendship fall apart? Why do they seem to have such a hard time identifying what they want? Why do none of their romantic partners ever work out for them?

The travel segments add crazy fun, as most of their plans end up derailed or taken in unexpected directions, and their random adventures and encounters keep the entertainment value of this novel high.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the masterful Julia Whelan, and it was a delight. I can see why people become fans of certain audiobook narrators. I’ve now listened to more than a few audiobooks narrated by Julia Whelan, and she’s truly gifted. Here, her voices for Poppy and Alex are perfectly tuned to their personalities, and her delivery of their funnier exchanges made me laugh out loud.

I have to admit that it was touch and go for me for the first few chapters. The introduction of Poppy’s best friend, a social media influencer, made me want to duck out, and their discussion of “millennial ennui” was practically the nail in the coffin… but since I really enjoyed my last book by this author (Beach Read), I decided to stick with it. And I’m glad I did!

People We Meet on Vacation is surprisingly insightful for a book with such an upbeat cover and title. It allows its characters to dig into their wants and needs (while also showcasing their outstanding chemistry and dynamics), including introspective moments that give greater depth to the story without ever weighing it down.

This ended up being an excellent audio experience — highly recommended!

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21Oct2021

Book Review: Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Eight Perfect Hours
Author: Lisa Louis
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: September 28, 2021
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In this romantic and heartwarming novel, two strangers meet in chance circumstances during a blizzard and spend one perfect evening together, thinking they’ll never see each other again. But fate seems to have different plans.
On a snowy evening in March, 30-something Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college when disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded, alone in her car, without food, drink, or a working charger for her phone. All seems lost until Sam Attwood, a handsome American stranger also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. What follows is eight perfect hours together, until morning arrives and the roads finally clear.
The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again, but fate, it seems, has a different plan. As the two keep serendipitously bumping into one another, they begin to realize that perhaps there truly is no such thing as coincidence. With plenty of charming twists and turns and Lia Louis’s “bold, standout voice” (Gillian McAllister, author of The Good Sister), Eight Perfect Hours is a gorgeously crafted novel that will make you believe in the power of fate.

Do you believe in destiny and meant-to-be? If so, Eight Perfect Hours will make your heart happy… and if not, you may find yourself scoffing a bit, but you’ll still be in for a sweet and thoughtful read.

In Eight Perfect Hours, Noelle becomes stuck in a snowy traffic jam on the way home from an upsetting and disappointing reunion. Sad over the memories stirred up, heart-broken over a letter retrieved from a time capsule, Noelle finds herself a teary mess without phone service or charger while stuck on the road — until a (handsome, of course) stranger offers her a warm spot in his passenger seat and the use of his power cord.

As the two wait out the traffic shutdown together, they share stories, dreams, and laughs, and seem instantly connected… but when the roads clear, they say goodbye and go their separate ways.

Noelle has a lot on her plate in her regular life. She dreams of becoming a florist and has a real gift for flower arranging, but she works instead as a cleaner while supporting and caring for her homebound mother. While she has a delightfully hippy-ish best friend, she’s still lonely. Two years earlier, her long-term boyfriend/fiance dumped her when she declined to leave her mother to follow him to an overseas job. At the center of Noelle’s sorrow, though, are her memories of Daisy, her high school best friend who died in a car accident at age 18. Noelle has never gotten over Daisy’s death, and carries around enormous guilt over something she could not have prevented.

After the traffic jam and those eight perfect hours, Noelle’s life goes back to same-old, same-old, until she randomly encounters Sam once again. And once again, their instant connection sparks back to life — but when she suggests that they keep in touch, he’s not so enthusiastic. Still, Noelle and Sam continue to bump into one another or find out that they’re connected in various ways, and eventually, Noelle becomes convinced that the connections between her and Sam can’t possibly just be random.

Is it fate? Were they always meant to meet? What is it that’s brought them together, and what does it all mean?

Eight Perfect Hours is a touching love story that also highlights the devastating and long-lasting effects of grief and guilt. It also presents different views of love: Is settling into a relationship that’s comfortable enough? How much can a person change their life, and if they have the chance, should they? How does someone balance love, individual happiness, and goals with family obligations and commitments?

These are all important questions, and the author gives Noelle great food for thought as she works through all of her issues and finds ways to address the traumas of her past.

As for the romance, while I really liked Noelle and Sam together, I’m not personally a huge believer in destiny and the one perfect soulmate, so bits of the story started feeling pretty farfetched to me. Still, even the more outlandish coincidences are balanced out by explorations of emotional connection, friendship, and purpose, so I could ignore the elements that didn’t particularly work for me.

On a quibbling note, I did feel like the “eight perfect hours” that Noelle and Sam spent together weren’t fleshed out enough. In the moment, while reading about their initial time together, I didn’t get the full sense of how special it was. The connection between them was described through Noelle’s thoughts and reactions, but I didn’t actually see it. I wish this part had been stronger, but their chemistry becomes more obvious over the course of the novel, so this wasn’t a huge issue, more a minor annoyance.

Overall, Eight Perfect Hours is a fast, engaging read about characters who really moved me. If you enjoy contemporary romances, check this one out!

PS – A quick note on the cover: This is NOT a Christmas book (in fact, the snowstorm/traffic jam takes place in March), and I feel like the cover makes this seem like much more of an upbeat holiday book than it actually is.

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14Oct2021

Book Review: Cackle by Rachel Harrison

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Cackle
Author: Rachel Harrison
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: October 5, 2021
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching position that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. She’s stunned by how perfect and picturesque the town is. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is dreamy too, minus the oddly persistent spider infestation.
Then Annie meets Sophie. Beautiful, charming, magnetic Sophie, who takes a special interest in Annie, who wants to be her friend. More importantly, she wants Annie to stop apologizing and start living for herself. That’s how Sophie lives. Annie can’t help but gravitate toward the self-possessed Sophie, wanting to spend more and more time with her, despite the fact that the rest of the townsfolk seem…a little afraid of her. And like, okay. There are some things. Sophie’s appearance is uncanny and ageless, her mansion in the middle of the woods feels a little unearthly, and she does seem to wield a certain power…but she couldn’t be…could she?

Feeling witchy? Cackle is a perfect choice for the spooky month of October!

As Cackle opens, Annie’s life, to be blunt, sucks. Her long-term boyfriend has informed her that their relationship is more friendship than romance — but since good apartments are hard to come by, they keep living together, taking turns on the futon, for five more months. No wonder Annie is depressed and in a rut, especially since Josh was so much the center of her world for all these years that she never developed a friend circle and is now alone and miserable.

Annie finally makes a change in her life, and it’s a big one: She’s moves from Manhattan to the small town of Rowan in upstate New York, where she accepts a teaching job at a local high school and moves into a rented apartment. She doesn’t quite know how to connect with locals and worries that she’s made a terrible mistake… until she meets Sophie.

Sophie is beautiful and kind, immediately taking an interest in helping Annie settle in and offering her unconditional friendship. But why do the townspeople all seem so deferential and even afraid when it comes to Sophie? Sophie takes Annie to her mansion in the woods, showers her with gifts, and offers her a refuge in which to be pampered and recenter her life. And Annie loves it — but is Sophie too good to be true?

Cackle is a fun romp, with some scary/slightly gross moments in the mix, but it stays mostly on the lighter side. There’s a lot of pleasure to be found in Annie’s enjoyment of Sophie’s friendship, even while red flags are popping up everywhere. (There’s also super adorable Ralph, and I’m not going to say any more about him! You need to meet him for yourself.) While it seems clear from the start that Sophie has secrets, Annie remains oblivious for quite a while, and even when she begins to sort it all out, her responses aren’t entirely what I would have expected.

This is an enjoyable pre-Halloween read — not too heavy or serious, some good character development and support of not bowing to others’ opinions, finding one’s true self, and a celebration of friendship. Plus… witches!!

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26Sep2021

Book Review: An Observant Wife by Naomi Ragen

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: An Observant Wife
Author: Naomi Ragen
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: September 14, 2021
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In this rich and compassionate novel, An Observant Wife, Naomi Ragen continues the love story between newly observant California-girl Leah and ultra-Orthodox widower Yaakov from An Unorthodox Match.
From the joy of their wedding day surrounded by supportive friends and family, Yaakov and Leah are soon plunged into the complex reality of their new lives together as Yaakov leaves his beloved yeshiva to work in the city, and Leah confronts the often agonizing restrictions imposed by religious laws governing even the most intimate moments of their married lives. Adding to their difficulties is the hostility of some in the community who continue to view Leah as a dangerous interloper, questioning her sincerity and adherence to religious laws and spreading outrageous rumors. In the midst of their heartfelt attempts to reach a balance between their human needs and their spiritual obligations, the discovery of a secret, forbidden relationship between troubled teenage daughter Shaindele and a local boy precipitates a maelstrom of life-changing consequences for all.

In An Unorthodox Match, we were introduced to Leah, a 30-something woman who turns to ultra-Orthodox Judaism after leading a mostly secular life, desperate for meaning and true connection to something greater than herself. As she enters the religious community of Boro Park in Brooklyn, she comes to care for a widowed man named Yaakov and his motherless children.

Here, in An Observant Wife, we follow Leah and Yaakov as the story continues with their wedding and early marriage. Leah has found true love with a good and kind man who loves her back, and she’s found fulfillment by becoming a mother to his young children, whom she loves unreservedly. She’s also made piece with his 17-year-old daugher Shaindele, who in the first book was set on sabotaging the relationship, but has now come to accept and even appreciate Leah’s innate goodness and the joy she’s brought back to their little family.

While Leah is committed to her family and to the complicated rules of behavior that come with with life in the religious community, the community does not truly accept her. Seemingly innocent moments get blown out of proportion and become the fodder for increasingly hostile gossip. When Shaindele is unwise and gets involved in a secret relationship with the black sheep son of a powerful family, the scandal can only be contained by agreeing to a harsh set of decrees from her school principle, but these in turn put Shaindele at risk. And when Leah and Yaakov take a stand to protect her, their entire way of life, as well as their family’s safety, is on the line.

Without going into detail, I will say that once again the author delivers an insider’s look into a world that feels like a completely alien culture. Even as someone raised in an observant Jewish household, I find this setting among the ultra-Orthodox startling and eye-opening. The rules governing every single moment of one’s life seem oppressive and often degrading to me, yet the author does an effective job of conveying how the people within the community find meaning and reinforcement of their faith by virtue of these guidelines for how to live a proper life.

The book perhaps spends too much time on introspection, as we follow the thoughts and feelings of not just Leah, but also Yaakov, Shaindele, and the family’s grandmother, Fruma Esther. It’s interesting to see how they deal with their lives and their religious obligations, but the plot can bog down when there are pages of contemplation and inner turmoil.

The plot takes some dramatic turns, and by the end, I was very invested in the characters’ well-being and their relationships. I did feel that the wrap-up was a little too neat and ideal, but the path to get there was certainly worthwhile.

Overall, An Observant Wife is a fascinating look into a world that can feel like a throwback to an earlier century for a 21st century reader, yet it’s set very much in the contemporary world of the ultra-Orthodox. I really came to care for the characters and could appreciate their devotion to their way of life, even while knowing that the religious elements that would absolute send me running in the other direction if they ever applied to my own life.

This book and An Unorthodox Match are both worth reading — the unusual setting and the memorable characters bring this world and its people to life.

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