Book Review: The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The House Saphir
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication date: November 4, 2025
Length: 432 pages
Genre: Young adult fantasy
Source: Library
Rating:

This is the tale of Bluebeard as it’s never been told before–a romantasy murder mystery.

Mallory Fontaine is a fraud. Though she comes from a long line of witches, the only magic she possesses is the ability to see ghosts, which is rarely as useful as one would think. She and her sister have maintained the family business, eking out a paltry living by selling bogus spells to gullible buyers and conducting tours of the infamous mansion where the first of the Saphir murders took place.

Mallory is a self-proclaimed expert on Count Bastien Saphir—otherwise known as Monsieur Le Bleu—who brutally killed three of his wives more than a century ago. But she never expected to meet Bastien’s great-great grandson and heir to the Saphir estate. Armand is handsome, wealthy, and convinced that the Fontaine Sisters are as talented as they claim. The perfect mark. When he offers Mallory a large sum of money to rid his ancestral home of Le Bleu’s ghost, she can’t resist. A paid vacation at Armand’s country manor? It’s practically a dream come true, never mind the ghosts of murdered wives and the monsters that are as common as household pests.

But when murder again comes to the House Saphir, Mallory finds herself at the center of the investigation—and she is almost certain the killer is mortal. If she has any hope of cashing in on the payment she was promised, she’ll have to solve the murder and banish the ghost, all while upholding the illusion of witchcraft.

But that all sounds relatively easy compared to her biggest challenge: learning to trust her heart. Especially when the person her heart wants the most might be a murderer himself.

I had high hopes for The House Saphir — I’m always up for a good fairy tale retelling, and I loved this author’s Lunar Chronicles series. Unfortunately, weak world-building, odd word choices, and an unconvincing plot all resulted in a reading experience that was squarely so-so.

The story revolves around Mallory, a con artist from a line a witches who lost her own powers due to a spell gone wrong during her youth. Now, she and her sister support themselves through fake card readings and unauthorized tours of a supposedly haunted house (complete with cheap knock-off heirlooms that they sell to their gullible customers). Not everything is fake, however; the one magical gift that Mallory still has left is the ability to see and communicate with ghosts. At the Saphir mansion, home of the notorious murderer known as Monsieur Le Bleu, Mallory communicates with Trephine, the first of his three murdered wives.

After a botched tour, Mallory and her sister end up hired by Armand Saphir, descendent of the murderer, to rid his country estate of the evil spirit of Le Bleu. And despite having no actual ability to carry out an exorcism, they take the job. After all, money is tight, and they’ve been threatened with arrest for fraud. So… take the job, fake it for a while, get paid, and take off.

All sorts of complications ensue. The world of The House Saphir include an array of monsters, who’ve apparently reentered the mortal realm once the veil fell years earlier. There’s a religion that worships the seven gods, and witches and magic are quite real. But it all is rather muddled. The religion, the monsters, the common beliefs, the reasons for why things are as they are — nothing gets much explanation, and feels like the thinnest of plot scaffolding, only there to explain Mallory’s actions.

I was baffled by the setting. This is a fictional world, European-esque but not actually Europe or countries that exist in our world — but characters have French names and speak French, and a visiting magician named Constantino speaks Italian (“buona sera!”). Why?

One relatively minor thing that bugged me throughout — the author’s use of the word “boy” when talking about a young man. When Mallory pounces on someone coming up behind her, she’s startled to see a “boy”, which made me assume this was someone in the 10 -12 year old range. Nope — the various “boys” Mallory encounters all appear to be upwards of 18 or thereabouts. Annoying, and this took me right out of the story each time.

Overall, I was underwhelmed by the plot and character development, and found the action sequences pretty messy as well. On a positive note, I enjoyed the ghost wives quite a bit, and appreciated that their scenes tended to add a touch of humor to otherwise grim events.

The House Saphir appears to be a stand-alone, although I could imagine a spin-off involving the monster hunters. Perhaps future books might provide more substance for the world-building.

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

23Oct2025

Novella review: Cinder House by Freya Marske

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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

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

Ella is a haunting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cinder House starts by killing the main character:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9Aug2025

Book Review: Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Hemlock & Silver
Author: T. Kingfisher
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: August 19, 2025
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind.

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save— seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.

T. Kingfisher’s fairy tale retellings have become favorites of mine, and Hemlock & Silver is a great addition to this growing collection.

In this slightly off-kilter reinterpretation of the Snow White story, our main character is Anja — a large, plain-spoken woman in her mid-thirties who’s devoted her life to learning everything there is to know about poisons and how to cure them. She’s not a traditional healer: Don’t expect her to mend your broken bones! But if a snake-bite or opium overdose is the problem, she’s the one person most likely (but not guaranteed) to be able to offer even a glimmer of hope.

Anja’s relatively quiet life in a small desert town is upended when the king himself unexpectedly shows up in her workroom one day. He needs Anja’s help: His 12-year-old daughter Snow is fading away, and he suspects poison. Her mother and sister are already dead, and he can’t lose Snow as well — but with the possibility that someone in his court is secretly a poisoner, he needs an outsider’s help. Anja has no choice but to agree to accompany the king and his retinue to the villa where Snow suffers. If it truly is a poisoning case, then perhaps Anja really can make a difference — although she fears what it could mean for her family if she were to fail.

Snow’s case is puzzling and Anja makes little progress until she discovers Snow secretly eating some odd-looking apples. Anja takes a piece to test, and after trying it herself, accidentally finds herself falling against — and through — one of the vast mirrors that seem to be everywhere within the villa. There, Anja discovers a mirror world full of danger and horrific creatures, and learns that the threats against Snow are even more dire than anyone could have imagined.

Anja is a wonderful main character, her lack of tact balanced by her professionalism, honesty, and practicality.

The problem with being plump, middle-aged, and a woman was that people expected you to be motherly, as if that was your default state. I am not. I am actually terrible with children. On the other hand, I have saved the lives of multiple toddlers who licked flypaper, which I feel should count for something

Anja is joined in her desperate quest by her gruff guard Javier — who is steady and supportive, despite communicating mainly in grunts — and an especially delightful and supercilious cat named Grayling, who is able to speak with Anja and has attitude for miles.

“Are you sure I haven’t gone mad?” I asked.

“Your questions are remarkably unoriginal ‘Am I mad, is this a dream, oh no, what’s going on, why is this happening?'” He gazed off into the distance as if I were no longer worth considering

Strange as it sounds, this stung a bit. It’s one thing to know that a cat holds you in mild contempt, quite another to have it actually insult you in language you can understand.

The otherworldly adventure in the mirror world is eerie and unsettling, and there are moments that move this fantasy story toward a horror vibe as Anja discovers something that will give her (and all readers, I suspect) some lasting nightmares:

… the hands reached out and went creeping over the floor, dragging sections of arm behind them. The faces lay tumbled across each other, in a pile that blinked and twitched and moved, the corners of mouths working madly as if in pain.

Shudder.

But even this creature has some unexpected twists in store — the author seem to delight in setting up scenarios that have a hint of familiarity from other stories, then turning them upside down and having them come out completely different in feel and meaning.

Hemlock & Silver provides a fairy tale foundation, then builds upon it to include fascinating characters and a new, distinct story arc, with high stakes and imaginative dangers. I did find the back and forth between the real world and the mirror world occasionally hard to follow… but then again, I was slightly under the weather when I read this book, so this could be a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Hemlock & Silver. It’s not every book that can make you laugh out loud on one page, leave you entirely creeped out on the next, and provide a baffling array of twists and turns to confuse readers before tying the plot up with a convincing conclusion.

Highly recommended!

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

2Aug2024

Book Review: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Sorceress Comes to Call
Author: T. Kingfisher
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: August 6, 2024
Print length: 336 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm’s Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.

New T. Kingfisher books are always a reason to celebrate, and A Sorceress Comes to Call is no exception.

In this fairy tale (with a tinge of horror), Cordelia is the 14-year-old daughter of a cruel sorceress named Evangeline. To the outside world, Evangeline is a pretty, respectable woman, who presents herself as a genteel widow with a marriageable daughter. (Among other despicable acts, she claims Cordelia is 17 and ready to find a husband). But Cordelia lives in constant fear and torment: Evangeline’s powers enable her to make Cordelia “obedient” — she can control Cordelia’s body and force her to behave as she wishes, leaving Cordelia’s mind alert, aware, and helpless to overcome Evangeline’s control.

When Evangeline sets her sights on a wealthy man, intending to marry him, gain control, and then use her new riches and power to get an even more highly stationed husband for Cordelia — all with the intent of adding to her own wealth and power — Cordelia has no choice but to go along.

The Squire, Samuel, lives with his sister Hester on his comfortable estate. Both in their 50s and never married, they’re content with their lives and their circle of friends. Evangeline’s arrival disrupts their peaceful lives, and while Hester’s intuition immediately labels Evangeline as “Doom”, she’s unexpectedly sympathetic toward Cordelia. Cordelia, Hester senses, is innocent — in many ways. She has no choice about complying with her mother’s schemes, but as Hester befriends her, Cordelia starts to realize that she has to find a way to protect these kind people from the evil that awaits.

The story is full of wonderful fairy-tale-esque moments and devices, but the characters themselves are what make this book especially delightful. Hester in particular is a hoot, but so are her other close friends — all women on the more mature side, perhaps disregarded by society and viewed as silly or unimportant older women, but with sharp wit, keen intelligence, and nerves of steel.

Evangeline and her horse/familiar Falada are evil, but they’re sly and devious, and not easily defeated. The story builds to a scary, dramatic confrontation, and some elements of the action toward the end have more of a horror feel to them — but it’s all quite exciting and delicious to read, and I loved seeing how the good guys have each other’s backs.

A Sorceress Comes to Call is such a satisfying, engaging read! The characters are superb, and made me care deeply about all the magic-laden ups and downs of the story.

T. Kingfisher’s fantasy/fairy tale stories are among my favorites, and A Sorceress Comes to Call is a terrific addition. Highly recommended.

9Jul2023

Book Review: Thief Liar Lady by D. L. Soria

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Thief Liar Lady
Author: D. L. Soria
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication date: July 11. 2023
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

“Happily Ever After” is a total scam, but at least this time the princess is the one controlling the grift–until her true love arrives and threatens to ruin the whole scheme. Intrigue, magic, and wit abound in this Cinderella fairytale reimagining, perfect for fans of Heather Walter and Naomi Novik.

I’m not who you think I am.

My transformation from a poor, orphaned scullery maid into the enchantingly mysterious lady who snagged the heart of the prince did not happen–as the rumors insisted–in a magical metamorphosis of pumpkins and glass slippers. On the first evening of the ball, I didn’t meekly help my “evil” stepmother and stepsisters primp and preen or watch forlornly out the window as their carriage rolled off toward the palace. I had other preparations to make.

My stepsisters and I had been trained for this–to be the cleverest in the room, to be quick with our hands and quicker with our lies. We were taught how to get everything we want in this world, everything men always kept for themselves: power, wealth, and prestige. And with a touchingly tragic past and the help of some highly illegal spells, I would become a princess, secure our fortunes, and we would all live happily ever after.

But there’s always more to the story. With my magic running out, war looming, and a handsome hostage prince–the wrong prince–distracting me from my true purpose with his magnetic charm and forbidden flirtations, I’m in danger of losing control of the delicate balance I’ve created…and that could prove fatal.

There’s so much more riding on this than a crown.

In Thief Liar Lady, Cinderella is a con artist, a magic wielder, and a secret agent of the rebellion. And she still manages to charm the handsome prince at the ball!

Ash Vincent, aka Lady Aislinn, has been trained all her life by her stepmother Seraphina to be cunning, heartless, and in control. She can fight, she can cast spells using the rare and expensive magical substance known as lustre, and she can weave enchantments to get her way. Everything works according to plan, and Ash wins the love of Prince Everett at the royal ball, in the process captivating the people of the kingdom of Solis through their “magical” love story.

Playing up the story of a cruel stepmother and evil stepsisters, Ash wins the hearts and minds of pretty much everyone, although Everett’s best friend, Lord Verance of the subject realm of Eloria, doesn’t seem all that impressed. Now all Ash has to do is stay in control, keep up her facade of being a demure, graceful, kind and loving lady, and within a few short months, she’ll be married and secure.

But Ash has a secret agenda, unknown to Seraphina — she’s also in this to advance the cause of the Elorian rebels, and key to their plans is Ash’s ability to influence events from within the royal household.

The deeper Ash gets, the more dangerous her schemes become, and as the royal wedding approaches, the more conflicted she feels about sacrificing her heart for the sake of her mission.

Thief Liar Lady is an engaging read, full of adventure, danger, and plotting. Unfortunately, the early chapters of the book set up the premise in a way that’s mostly just confusing — we hear a lot about lustre, about treaties, rebels, and refugees, and even about agrarian reform, of all things — but Ash’s role and her alliances don’t become clear for some time. The history between Solis and Eloria is likewise muddled, and it takes some effort to puzzle out what’s going on here — and not in the fun, “ooh, give me another clue!” sort of way, but more along the lines of “I don’t know who these people are or what they’re trying to do”.

Eventually, the pieces get (mostly) explained, and by the last third or so of the book, I felt much more invested and interested in the outcome. Still, the court politics and alliances are not always clear, the use of lustre seems haphazard, and Ash herself seems to change course or act unreasonably more often than is helpful.

Overall, I liked the book, but felt that it was much too long and could have used a lot more clarity in terms of laying out the players, the stakes, and the background. When the plot picks up, there are some exciting moments, but inconsistencies and actions that are illogical take away from the bigger-picture impact.

As a Cinderella retelling, Thief Liar Lady provides some clever twists on the story, and I enjoyed it enough to see it through, despite my reservations.

28Jun2023

Book Review: Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Thornhedge
Author: T. Kingfisher
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: August 16, 2023
Length: 128 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling, to return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?

But nothing with fairies is ever simple.

Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…

This slim novella is a fabulous fairy tale retelling… and at this point, the fact that T. Kingfisher has written yet another amazing story should come as no surprise to any of her fans.

In Thornhedge, we get the Sleeping Beauty story, but turned inside out and sideways. The main character is Toadling, a kind-of human (or is she a fairy?) who can shapeshift into a toad. She’s described as:

… the greenish-tan color of mushroom stems and her skin bruised blue-black, like mushroom flesh. She had a broad, frog-like face and waterweed hair. She was neither beautiful nor made of malice, as many of the Fair Folk are said to be.

Mostly she was fretful and often tired.

Toadling is a character who waits, always remaining near the thorn and bramble-covered castle as generations of people come and go across the barren lands nearby.

But Toadling was originally a human child who was stolen off to the world of faeries and replaced by a changeling baby. Toadling was raised with loved by a family of scary sea monsters, but eventually she’s called back to deal with the changeling who replaced her.

Years later, a kind knight stumbles across Toadling and the abandoned keep, and wants to solve the mystery of the girl in the tower — but once Toadling shares her story, it’s clear that waking the princess may not lead to the fairy tale ending everyone expects.

This is such a creative spin on the Sleeping Beauty story, and I loved it! At novella length, Thornhedge makes use of every word and chapter to let us know Toadling, her worries, her struggles, and her sorrows, as well as her memories of a loving childhood and her desire for a different future.

There are scary beings and horrific moments too, but overall, this is a lovely story about a highly unusual fairy tale heroine.

I loved it!

30Apr2023

Book Review: In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: In the Lives of Puppets
Author: TJ Klune
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: April 25, 2023
Length: 432 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots–fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio-a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.

It absolutely pains me to give a TJ Klune book anything less than 5 stars… but alas, In the Lives of Puppets just didn’t hit the mark for me. This makes me sad! I’ve loved so many of the author’s books, but this tale of robots and found family — which is also a Pinocchio retelling — left me oddly uninvested.

In the Lives of Puppets is the story of a family of oddball robots and machines, living in an isolated forest grove, raising a human child named Victor. As the story gets underway, Victor is now 21, and spends his days in the company of his two best friends, a Roomba-type vacuum robot named Rambo and a medical care robot named Nurse Ratched, who seems to delight in heartless provision of medical treatments (except when she engages her Empathy Protocols and offers a soothing “there, there” to her potential patient).

The trio also live with Gio (Giovanni), an older android who loves inventing, creating, listening to jazz music, and enjoying peaceful family time. Everything changes when Victor discovers a broken down android in the Scrap Yards that seems to still have a little power left in it. Once Victor repairs Hap, hidden secrets come to life, and soon the family’s entire existence is in peril.

In the Lives of Puppets is part exploration of love, family, and what it means to be a “real” human, and part road trip/adventure/quest. By the midpoint of the book, Victor and friends are off on a journey to the City of Electric Dreams to rescue Gio and, hopefully, restore him to his true self.

The writing can be very funny, especially Rambo and Nurse Ratched’s lines. These are probably my favorite parts of the book.

“Are we lost?” Rambo asked nervously.

“Of course not,” Nurse Ratched said. “I know exactly where we are.”

“Oh. Where are we?”

“In the forest.”

“Whew,” Rambo said. “I was worried for a moment that we were lost. Since we’re not, I will instead focus on the fact that we’re in the middle of the woods at night by ourselves. Do big animals like to eat vacuums?”

“I am sure they do,” Nurse Ratched said.

“Oh no,” Rambo whispered. “But I’m a vacuum.”

As the for story threads about emotions and connection and humanity… I was left largely unmoved, and the quest elements mostly failed to hold my interest.

I have to admit, overall this book was a letdown. As I mentioned, I usually adore this author’s work, and can’t really understand why In the Lives of Puppets just did not click for me. In any case, I’ll still be tuning in for whatever he writes next, and meanwhile will look to read some of his backlist titles too.