Book Review: Sisters of Fortune by Esther Chehebar

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Sisters of Fortune
Author: Esther Chehebar
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: July 22, 2025
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In this hilarious, heart-warming debut novel, three Syrian Jewish sisters chase love and grapple with the growing pains of young womanhood as they seek their place within and beyond their Brooklyn community.

The Cohen sisters are at a crossroads. And not just because the middle sister, Fortune, is starting to question her decision to get married in just a few months. Nina, the eldest sister, is single at 26 (and growing cobwebs by her community’s standards) when she runs into an old childhood friend who offers her the chance to leave behind the pressure to follow in her younger sister’s footsteps. Meanwhile, Lucy, the youngest, a senior at her yeshiva high school, has recently started sneaking around with a mysterious older bachelor that has everybody asking themselves, ‘Fortune, who?‘

As Fortune inches ever closer to the chuppah, the three sisters find themselves in a tug of war between tradition and modernity, reckoning with what their community wants and with what they want for themselves—and all while learning how to roll the perfect grape leaf under the tutelage of their charismatic grandmother, Sitto, who fled Syria in 1992, and of their mother Sally, whose anxieties are tangled up in her daughters’ futures.

Sisters of Fortune is a sister story about dating, ambition, and coming-of-age under the scope of an immigrant community whose coded language is endearing, maddening, and never boring. The book reckons with what we dream for ourselves, our daughters, and granddaughters. It is concerned as much with where we come from as where we are going—and, above all, with what we are eating for dinner. (And who is making it).

This book about three Syrian Jewish sisters navigating community expectations and the pull of modern life seemed promising, but doesn’t wholly deliver. The three Cohen sisters — Lucy, Fortune, and Nina — deal with parental and community pressure to conform, marry well, and live up to expectations as exemplary wives and mothers. But with one sister’s wedding looming, an older sister remaining unwed and reluctant to play along, and the youngest sister seeming on the verge of a very successful match, the sisters’ lives are suddenly changing in unexpected ways.

Sisters of Fortune includes POV chapters for each sister, but oddly, there’s very little that shows the relationships between the sisters. Instead, each sister seems focused mainly on marriage prospects and dealing with their parents. Their lives are a mix of tradition — cooking, cleaning, preparing Shabbat meals and creating a nice home for their husbands — and modernity — taking the subway to work or school, wearing jeans, getting manicures. Material from so-called bride classes seems a bit out of place — there isn’t a strong sense that the family values quite the level of religious adherence that this material implies.

Between a somewhat messy writing style, too much emphasis on brand names and material wealth, a tendency to include kind of gross moments in random scenes (bits of food flying from someone’s mouth as they talk, engaging in a make-out scene literally minutes after throwing up) and a plot that just sort of peters out toward the end rather than reaching a strong conclusion, I was left mainly unsatisfied by this book.

I did enjoy the scenes with the grandmother and the descriptions of food (although even this felt like too much after a while). There’s a glossary at the end, which will be essential for readers unfamiliar with this culture and its language. I wish there had been a bit more about the family’s backstory; the bits we get are interesting and add depth, but that’s a small part of the story.

This is a fast read, but by the end, I was frustrated by the pacing and the lack of convincing growth for the main characters.

Purchase links: Amazon – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
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8Mar2025

Book Review: Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Jane and Dan at the End of the World
Author: Colleen Oakley
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: March 11, 2025
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Date night goes off the rails in this hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise.

Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.

But before they even get to the second course, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’s only seen in the movies. Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar.

Which means Dan and Jane are the only ones who know what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said “’til death do us part” all those years ago, but if they can survive this, maybe they can survive anything—even marriage.

Author Colleen Oakley has quickly become a go-to author for me, and it’s engaging stories like Jane and Dan at the End of the World that keep me coming back.

When Jane and Dan head out to dinner for their 19th anniversary (which he seems to think is their 20th), rather than go to their stand-by date night restaurant, they instead go to the ultra-exclusive, ultra-expensive La Fin du Monde — a chic place located at the top of an isolated cliff along the Pacific coast. (Dan got a gift card… although he’s shocked to learn that the card only covers the cost of the reservation itself, not the thousand-something-dollar meal.)

The couple seems bored and jaded. Jane has heard every joke already. Dan has grown used to Jane’s need to double-check whether she’s unplugged her curling iron every single time they leave the house. But to Dan, it’s all fine. Jane, however, has had enough. She’s discovered texts between Dan and some unknown woman, and this proof of cheating is the final straw. In between their fancy courses, she informs Dan that she wants a divorce.

They don’t get to continue the conversation; a group of masked people with guns bursts in and zipties the guests and restaurant staff. The apparent leader is quickly infuriated to learn that the billionaire he’s been targeting isn’t actually present — instead, his wife and daughter are having dinner alone. What follow is a tense (but also very funny) countdown to a major confrontation, as the disorganized terrorists, frightened and frustrated restaurant guests, and local law enforcement interact, make generally bad decisions, and deal with circumstances none of them could have seen coming.

Well, maybe Jane could. As events unfold, she realizes that they’re strangely similar to the events of her heist novel — which practically no one read, not even Dan (or so she thinks). But as the evening progresses and more and more details line up with her book, Jane has a feeling she knows what’s coming… and knows she needs to get herself and Dan out of there before the big finale.

“For the love of God, [spoiler]’s never read your book,” Dan hisses, confirming Jane’s own thoughts. “No one’s read your book, Jane! This can’t be like your book because no one has read it.”

Meanwhile, right alongside the heist/adventure elements, this is really a story about marriage and family and parenthood. As Jane and Dan think back over their years together, certain truths and observations become clear. I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, so without revealing how these details connect, I’ll just say that Jane’s thoughts about motherhood, raising children and seeing them become their own people, and devoting oneself to family feel absolutely true and honest and real.

Jane often thinks all of the difficulty with parenting can be summed up by one sentence: Am I overreacting? And how 99 percent of the time, the answer is yes, but how is one to know when it’s the 1 percent of the time worrying is warranted?

Plus, the writing is funny! You might not think a hostage situation in a fancy restaurant would provide moments of humor, but in Colleen Oakley’s talented hands, unexpected bursts of laughter creep in when least expected.

Watching someone get shot was nothing like Jane thought it would be. Or nothing like the movies, which were Jane’s only point of reference. (Then again, having sex for the first time was disappointingly nothing like Dirty Dancing had led her to believed it would be, so she’s not sure why she’s surprised.)

Jane and Dan at the End of the World is fast-paced and engaging, and I raced through each chapter, unable to put the book down. Ultimately, while the heist elements are entertaining and really well-done, it’s the characters and their personal stories that drew me in.

Putting it simply: I love this book. With unexpected twists, down-to-earth truths, and a terrific main character to cheer for, it’s joyful and fun and full of life. Don’t miss it!

For more books by this author, check out my reviews of:

6Feb2025

Book Review: Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Three Days in June
Author: Anne Tyler
Publisher: Knopf
Publication date: February 11, 2025
Length: 176 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter’s wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

Three Days in June is a short, sharp tale of family and marriage. As the title promises, the story unfolds over three days — the days before, of, and after the main character’s daughter’s wedding. Really, all you need to know is that Three Days in June is prime Anne Tyler. If you’re a fan, you know already that you need to read this!

Gail is 61 years old, works in administration at a Baltimore private school, and has lived alone for over 20 years following her divorce. Her only child, daughter Debbie, is a 30-something lawyer about to get married. Gail is slightly befuddled by the wedding plans, which Debbie’s soon-to-be in-laws have taken charge of — combining their abundant money with copious Google searches on how to coordinate a wedding, to produce an event that’s simple yet by-the-book. Of course, it would have been nice if Gail had been invited to the Day of Beauty (not that she’d even known a Day of Beauty was a pre-wedding tradition)… but then again, would she really have wanted to be forced to socialize all day at the spa?

Sometimes when I find out what’s on other people’s minds I honestly wonder if we all live on totally separate planets.

Her work life is confusing as well. A successful staff member, or so she thought, Gail’s just learned that when her boss retires, someone else will get the job she expected to be promoted into — and what’s worse, that new person will be bringing her own staff, effectively replacing Gail entirely. When Gail’s boss tells her, as if it’s supposed to be obvious, that she lacks people skills, it throws her into a tizzy… which is compounded by the arrival of her ex-husband Max on her doorstep. Max has arrived with a foster cat and in need of a place to stay. What’s Gail to do? Determined to make the best of things for Debbie’s sake, she reluctantly lets Max into her home — and by doing so, reopens memories of their past together, and where their marriage went wrong.

Three Days in June is very much a slice of life narrative. The events portrayed are ordinary; they’re one family’s experience of a significant moment, but nothing that happens is terribly dramatic. The beauty of Three Days in June is, in fact, it’s ordinariness. Through Gail’s eyes, we see into the dynamics of a family, with its ups and downs, the relationships that change over time, the impact of divorce on a child, and the ways in which adult parents interact when they lead separate lives.

I loved the writing and the gentle storytelling in Three Days in June. Anne Tyler, as always, excels at showing the inner workings of a marriage, as the sad, complicated story of Gail and Max’s divorce unfolds, but also as we see the two of them reconnecting at this much different stage of their lives. Seeing the realizations that come with age and experience makes this book feel very relatable and real.

That’s something you forget when you’ve been on your own awhile: those married couple conversations that continue intermittently for weeks, sometimes, branching out and doubling back and looping into earlier strands like a piece of crochet work.

At a length of under 200 pages, Three Days in June is a short treat that can be read in one cozy, extended sitting. I felt that I really got to know the characters based on how they lived their lives over these three days. So many little moments ring true. It’s all quite human and lovely.

Over the course of my reading life, I’ve read many Anne Tyler books (this is her 25th novel!), although I don’t always stay on top of her new releases. (I was startled to realize that the last book I read by her, A Spool of Blue Thread, was published 7 years ago!). According to her biography, Anne Tyler is 83 years old. Clearly, she’s still going strong! Here’s to many more Anne Tyler novels yet to come!

For those who are fans, Three Days in June is obviously a must-read. For anyone new to this author, why not pick it up and give it a try? It’s a lovely example of her approach, and I’d imagine anyone reading this book as an intro to the author will be hungry for more by the time they’re done.

21Jul2024

Book Review: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Husbands
Author: Holly Gramazio
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication date: April 2, 2024
Print length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library

This exuberant debut, praised by Gabrielle Zevin as a “time-bending gem,” asks: how do we navigate life, love and choice in a world of never-ending options?

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?

I can pretty much guarantee that you’ve never read a story like this before! The idea sounds nuts — a woman discovers that she has some sort of magical attic that delivers a stream of new husbands to her (not that she had a husband to begin with), and if she doesn’t like the one she gets, she just sends him back up to the attic and waits for the next one to come down.

Despite the out-there premise, The Husbands is a terrific read. Parts are laugh-out-loud funny, but mixed in with the absurdity of it all are nuggets of truth about love, relationships, and learning to live with and accept another person.

The moment his foot disappears, doubt washes through her. Perhaps she will receive only worse and worse husbands, maybe he was the best available, this was her chance and she’s fucked it up.

Lauren’s life turns upside-down when the first husband arrives, but once she realizes that the attic essentially offers a reset, she’s able to change her life at will. Different husbands bring different realities. Each time a new husband arrives, she discovers that her life changes too: Each husband is a doorway into a life some version of her would have chosen, and that means not only a different partner, but also other areas of divergence — different clothes, differently decorated flat, different jobs, even different body shapes. Some versions of Lauren’s life include a devotion to working out or hiking; in others, she’s clearly too worn down to bother. In many, she works in the same job, but there are times when she doesn’t work at all, has jobs she doesn’t know how to do, or finds herself promoted into a role that stresses her out.

Some husbands are more memorable than others. Some Lauren sends back immediately; some she lives with for a few days. There are some she can’t wait to get rid of, and one, sadly, that she wants to keep, but loses to his efficiency (he goes to stow something in the attic before she can stop him, and then he’s gone).

For the first third or so of the book, I wondered if this was what the whole book would be like — just a random string of husbands, and how Lauren interacts with each one. It goes much deeper than that, though, and the storyline gets more intricate and compelling as new developments occur.

Lauren’s never-ending cycle of husbands leads her to ponder choices and outcomes. She realizes that each husband is someone some version of herself chose, and therefore starts to assess each one more critically. Why this person? How did the two of them forge a connection? In what version of her life does this particular marriage make sense?

It’s such an interesting dilemma: What does it mean to enter a relationship that’s already well underway? Lauren is never a newlywed in any of these alternate versions of her life. Each husband is someone she must originally have fallen for, with all the thrills of new love… but by the time they descend the attic stairs, those days are in the past.

There is a time, she thinks, at the start of any relationship, when the process of falling in love softens a personality, like wax in a warm room. And so two people in love change, just a little, pushing their wax figures together, a protuberance here smoothed down but creating a dip there. It doesn’t last long, the time when love can gently change who you are, and in the relationships that she’s visited over the last six months, the moment has long passed.

With each husband, Lauren has to wonder if this is the one to keep, or could the next one possibly be better?

She has always hated being wrong, the idea of doing something that turns out to be an irredeemable mistake.

The consequences of Lauren’s shuffling of husbands become more dire as the book progresses. Eventually, Lauren must decide how much more she can take and whether getting herself out of the cycle is worth the risk of being stuck with someone imperfect.

The Husbands is such a weird and wild book, but I loved it! The writing is fantastic. The pacing zips along, but there are moments of introspection that really strike a nerve. I found the concept and Lauren’s ever-shifting reality absolutely fascinating, deeply engrossing, and very often, incredibly funny. The book provides lots of food for thought on what we risk when we enter into a relationship with another human being — how much can go wrong and how much can go right, how much is unknowable, and how many different outcomes can stem from seemingly simple decisions.

Ultimately, The Husbands is both terrific entertainment and a below-the-surface look at the intricacies of relationships and marriage.

7May2023

Book Review: Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Late Bloomers
Author: Deepa Varadarajan
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: May 2, 2023
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

An Indian American family is turned upside down when the parents split up thirty-six years into their arranged marriage in this witty, big-hearted debut.

“Equal parts funny and heartbreaking, Late Bloomers is a charming story about starting over, stumbling, and finding yourself at any age.”–Jennifer Close, author of Marrying the Ketchups

I have a soft spot for underdogs. And late bloomers. You’ve told me a lot of things about yourself, so let me tell you something about me.

After thirty-six years of a dutiful but unhappy arranged marriage, recently divorced Suresh and Lata Raman find themselves starting new paths in life. Suresh is trying to navigate the world of online dating on a website that caters to Indians and is striking out at every turn–until he meets a mysterious, devastatingly attractive younger woman who seems to be smitten with him. Lata is enjoying her newfound independence, but she’s caught off guard when a professor in his early sixties starts to flirt with her.

Meanwhile, Suresh and Lata’s daughter, Priya, thinks her father’s online pursuits are distasteful even as she embarks upon a clandestine affair of her own. And their son, Nikesh, pretends at a seemingly perfect marriage with his law-firm colleague and their young son, but hides the truth of what his relationship really entails. Over the course of three weeks in August, the whole family will uncover one another’s secrets, confront the limits of love and loyalty, and explore life’s second chances.

Charming, funny, and moving, Late Bloomers introduces a delightful new voice in fiction with the story of four individuals trying to understand how to be happy in their own lives–and as a family.

Late Bloomers is the story of an Indian-American family struggling to figure out their paths in life after husband and wife Suresh and Lata get divorced. Their grown children, Priya and Nikesh, don’t particularly understand what’s going on with their parents, but they’re too immersed in their own complicated lives to fully engage or even ask.

Meanwhile, Suresh goes on one disastrous date (via dating website) after another, and Lata is considering going on the first-ever date of her entire life. While Suresh is astonished by all the lies people tell online, Lata is both amazed and intimidated when a nice man starts paying attention to her.

The story is set sometime in the past (iPhones and online dating exist, but people play music on CDs and watch DVDs) — so maybe 15 years or so ago? The lack of specificity actually made me a little nuts early on. Would it have hurt to stick a date on the first page of the first chapter?

Late Bloomers flows pretty quickly, but I never found myself all that engaged. It’s a nice enough story, but the biggest dramatic moment of the book is when an 8-year-old gets upset and runs away from a birthday party, and everyone has to go look for him. (Spoiler: He’s fine.) Chapters are narrated variously by Suresh, Lata, Priya, and Nikesh, and not all of them are equally likable or able to hold a reader’s (i.e., my) attention. Starting the book with a Suresh chapter feels like a mistake — he’s not pleasant to spend time with, and that made me drag my feet a bit about continuing.

Late Bloomers is a pleasant read — not exactly a page-turner, but interesting enough to want to see through. Of all the characters, Lata is the one who’s most endearing and whose future I felt most invested in. There are a few tangential story threads that are a bit weird (like the younger woman who moves into Suresh’s house for a pretty flimsy reason), but whenever the four main characters come together in their various combinations, the story picks up and is much more entertaining.

The novel shows four different people opening their eyes to new ways of being and thinking about their lives, after accepting the status quo for far too long. Whether it’s people in their 50s starting to date again, or their adult children reexamining their own decisions, Late Bloomers focuses on the possibility of personal growth and making big changes, no matter where in life a person is. Overall, the message is positive, although it takes quite a few mistimed conversations, evasions of truth, and heaps of the characters’ self-doubts to get there.

Recommended for when you’re looking for something domestic and on the non-stressful side to read. Save

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1Apr2023

Book Review: The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Soulmate
Author: Sally Hepworth
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: April 4, 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Get ready for a thrilling, addictive novel about marriage, betrayal, and the secrets that push us to the edge in Sally Hepworth’s The Soulmate.

There’s a cottage on a cliff. Gabe and Pippa’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Night after night Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until he doesn’t.

When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral…Did the victim jump? Was she pushed?

And would Gabe, the love of Pippa’s life, her soulmate…lie? As the perfect facade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest and darkest secrets begin to unravel.

I’ve read all but one of Sally Hepworth’s novels by now, and when I look back at my ratings and reviews, I can see that her books are either big hits for me (especially The Good Sister and The Things We Keep) or so-so reads that I could have done without. Sadly, The Soulmate falls into the latter category.

Content warning: Suicide is a recurring topic in this book, as are mental health concerns, diagnoses, and treatments. I would not recommend this book for readers for whom these topics might be triggering.

In The Soulmate, two different women narrate a dramatic occurrence, what happened before, and what happens next. Oddly, one of these two women is already dead when we meet her as a narrator, and she tells her side of the story from her afterlife.

Pippa lives with her gorgeous, wonderful husband Gabe in a cottage by a cliff’s edge. It’s a beautiful location, but with a downside — the cliff facing their home is known locally as The Drop, and it’s a spot that’s known for its number of suicides. Once they move in, Gabe keeps an eye on the cliff, and in the year they’ve been there, has managed to talk seven different people away from the edge with his calm, caring approach. He’s a local hero.

But everything changes when a woman on the cliff doesn’t step away. Pippa comforts Gabe, assuring him that he did all he could. But something nags at Pippa — what she saw and the way Gabe described it to police don’t quite match up.

The woman who died is Amanda, and she shares her story as well, going back to the early days of her own marriage. As the story progresses, we see how Amanda and her husband Max are connected to Pippa and Gabe. There are dark secrets, and clearly there’s more to Amanda’s death than meets the eye.

I found the characters very hard to relate to or even care about. Pippa is the only decent one in the mix, although Amanda isn’t a bad person necessarily — but she does allow herself to turn a blind eye to all sorts of shady and criminal business dealings and enjoy the lifestyle funded by Max’s success.

The more we learn, the harder it is to fathom why Pippa would remain in her marriage, and it’s frustrating to see how her protective parents and sister wait until much too late to actually share with her what they observe.

The twists and turns in the plot felt like cheap shock devices to me, and the big reveal at the end did not satisfy me. Being vague here, but a fact that should have been redemptive doesn’t override the fact that some of these people did or were responsible for awful things.

I’m not typically a reader of thrillers, but once in a while, if the plot twists are new and surprising, the writing is great, and the characters can make me care, I’ll find myself enjoying them. Sadly, that isn’t the case here. Even the writing has some strange, jagged edges. For example, when Pippa is asked whether her two little girls are twins, she replies that they’re “Irish twins […] born less than a year apart”. Maybe it’s me, but I’ve never heard that phrase before, and there’s no reason for it — it feels derogatory, and a weird way to describe one’s own children.

Pippa is a lawyer, clearly very intelligent, yet she acts as if she has no clue about many things, including Gabe’s business dealings:

I never asked too many questions about his work. The truth was, I had only the most rudimentary understanding of what Gabe did, and when he talked about it I understood less rather than more.

Then there’s the whole issue of Amanda’s narration from the great beyond. It’s weird and off-putting; at the end she states that after death, she could now see “the whole scene unfurl” regarding events she hadn’t known prior to death — so death makes someone omniscient? Such a strange way to reveal backstory and secrets.

The Soulmate tries, I think, to illustrate deep truths about marriage, trust, and fidelity, but on the whole, it misses the mark. Yes, the book held my attention, but I felt that there were too many false notes and much too much obliviousness to make any of it believable.

I’ve given The Soulmate 3-stars, but that may be overly generous. It’s a quick, compelling read, but at the end of the day, I found it unsatisfying.

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24Mar2022

Book Review: The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Younger Wife
Author: Sally Hepworth
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: April 5, 2022
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Thriller/contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

THE HUSBAND
A heart surgeon at the top of his field, Stephen Aston is getting married again. But first he must divorce his current wife, even though she can no longer speak for herself.
THE DAUGHTERS
Tully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their father’s money.
THE FORMER WIFE
With their mother in a precarious position, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the truth about their family’s secrets, the new wife closing in, and who their father really is.
THE YOUNGER WIFE
Heather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses in all of them?

I could not put this book down… and yet now that I’m done, I really don’t know what to think!

As the book opens, we’re at the wedding of Stephen and Heather. They make a beautiful couple, and everyone is so pleased that Stephen has found love again after going through the pain of his former wife’s slide into dementia. And how lovely that he thought to include his ex-wife in this special day! But after the vows, something goes wrong in the next room. There’s blood and an ambulance…

And that’s just the prologue!

From there, we go back some months to Heather’s first meeting with Stephen’s adult daughters, Tully and Rachel. Heather is actually younger than both of them, and they’re prepared to hate her. They’re none too pleased with their father either, but they’re trying to be supportive. He’s done right by their mother, finding her a good nursing home and excellent care, making sure there’s no worry about finances… so why shouldn’t he have the opportunity for love once again?

As the story unfolds, we get chapters from Tully, Rachel, and Heather’s perspectives. No one’s life is as perfect as it seems. Rachel, a magnificent baker, has been dealing with a trauma from her teens for almost 20 years. Tully, a suburban wife and mother, has anxiety through the roof and very unhealthy coping mechanisms. And Heather certainly has not shared the true story of her family’s sordid past.

Each of the three women evokes sympathy in her own way. For Tully and Rachel, they’re dealing not only with issues from their pasts, but also grieving the loss of a beloved mother, mourning a bit more with each visit to the nursing home and the realization that the woman who was so central to their lives has slipped away from them bit by bit. Heather’s childhood was awful, but she’s built a fresh start for herself, even as the occasional doubts about her perfect new life creep in.

It’s hard to say much without giving away key spoilers, so I’ll proceed with caution. As I mentioned, I simply couldn’t put this book down, and finished it over two days of intense reading. Not that that’s surprising — Sally Hepworth’s book always bring out the compulsive reader in me! With short, sharp chapters and fascinating POV characters, The Younger Wife sucked me in from page 1 and just never let me go.

And yet… I felt oddly flat after the end. I really and truly can’t say more, but the resolution left me confused and weirdly disappointed. I need to go back and poke around in earlier chapters to see if I missed anything and reexamine how the pieces fit together.

Do I recommend this book? Yes, but perhaps with tempered expectations. Sally Hepworth is a terrific teller of tales, and she creates fascinating, memorable characters. The Younger Wife did not move and engage my emotions the way The Good Sister did, but that’s a very high mark to meet.

The Younger Wife is a fast page-turner, and I enjoyed the reading experience. Now I just need to think about that ending some more…

25Nov2021

Audiobook Review: That Summer by Jennifer Weiner

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: That Summer
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Narrator: Sutton Foster
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: May 11, 2021
Print length: 432 pages
Audio length: 13 hours, 21 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Summer comes another timely and deliciously twisty novel of intrigue, secrets, and the transformative power of female friendship, set on beautiful Cape Cod.
Daisy Shoemaker can’t sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful; her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she’s got it good. So why is she up all night?
While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction, she’s also receiving misdirected emails meant for a woman named Diana Starling, whose email address is just one punctuation mark away from her own. While Daisy’s driving carpools, Diana is chairing meetings. While Daisy’s making dinner, Diana’s making plans to reorganize corporations. Diana’s glamorous, sophisticated, single-lady life is miles away from Daisy’s simpler existence. When an apology leads to an invitation, the two women meet and become friends. But, as they get closer, we learn that their connection was not completely accidental. Who IS this other woman, and what does she want with Daisy?
From the manicured Main Line of Philadelphia to the wild landscape of the Outer Cape, written with Jennifer Weiner’s signature wit and sharp observations, THAT SUMMER is a story about surviving our pasts, confronting our futures, and the sustaining bonds of friendship.

That Summer is a beautifully crafted story about women’s lives, women’s friendship, raising daughters, and keeping secrets. It’s going to be very hard to talk about without revealing major plot points, so I’m going to go light on content and talk instead about themes and how it made me feel.

First off, though — even though I tend not to include or want to read content warnings, I do think it’s important for readers to know in advance that this book includes sexual assault as a major plotline. While it’s handled sensitively and thoughtfully, please know that if this is a subject you find triggering in fiction, then this isn’t going to be a good reading experience for you.

Onward with That Summer! I won’t go into how or why, but the chance encounter described in the synopsis is much more intentional and meaningful than Daisy knows. As the book unfolds, we learn about Daisy’s early life, her choice to marry very young rather than complete college, and how her life has been shaped by her husband’s decisions. We also get to know Diana very well, and she is not what she seems… but while the initial set-up may seem like the start of a psychological thriller, it’s instead an exploration of the turning points in a young woman’s life and how an entire trajectory can be derailed by moments of tragedy and violation.

Beyond the POV chapters told from Diana and Daisy’s perspectives, there are also chapters where the action is seen through the eyes of Beatrice, Daisy’s 14-year-old daughter. These are fascinating as well, especially as the older women reflect back on their own tumultuous teen years and how those years shaped the women they’d become.

The writing in That Summer is lovely, especially the way the author so skillfully and thoughtfully shows us each main character’s inner world and how they experience the world around them. I loved getting to know both Daisy and Diana — and this is a big achievement, as the initial set-up led me to believe that Diana, clearly hiding something and with a secret agenda, would be a sinister or unlikable character, which is absolutely not the case.

The book is very much informed by the #MeToo movement and the moments of reckoning catching up with perpetrators of sexual assault. It’s fascinating to see the characters’ reactions to the seemingly daily news coverage of one celebrity or public figure after another being exposed for their bad behaviors — including the reactions of male figures in the characters’ lives, which vary from anger to disbelief to internalized guilt.

Sutton Foster is the narrator of That Summer, and I loved listening to her voice the varied characters. The book is a pleasure to listen to, as well as to read.

As I said, I’m going to keep this short because I just don’t want to delve into the plot any further, so I’ll wrap up simply by saying that I found this book moving and important, with a story that feels current and powerful, and character voices that truly shine. Don’t miss it.

2Dec2019

Book Review: Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Evvie Drake Starts Over
Author: Linda Holmes
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: June 25, 2019
Length: 289 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

In a small town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth “Evvie” Drake rarely leaves her house. Everyone in town, including her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and she doesn’t correct them. In New York, Dean Tenney, former major-league pitcher and Andy’s childhood friend, is struggling with a case of the “yips”: he can’t throw straight anymore, and he can’t figure out why. An invitation from Andy to stay in Maine for a few months seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button.

When Dean moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken–and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. But before they can find out what might lie ahead, they’ll have to wrestle a few demons: the bonds they’ve broken, the plans they’ve changed, and the secrets they’ve kept. They’ll need a lot of help, but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance–right up until the last out.

Evvie Drake is not your typical widow. She’s hidden herself away not out of grief, but from fear that everyone will discover that she’s NOT actually grieving. Evvie’s late husband Tim was her high school sweetheart, a respected town doctor, and behind closed doors, a nasty man with a tendency toward gaslighting and emotional abuse. Evvie’s little secret is that the night Tim died, Evvie was packing her car and getting ready to leave — but now, the whole town treats her with kid gloves and tells her how much they loved her husband, and she just can’t seem to shake the feeling that she’s at fault somehow.

Meanwhile, Dean is the current ultimate failure in sports, going overnight from star pitcher to a guy who can barely throw a ball. He’s been mocked and publicly humiliated, so finding a haven in a little town in Maine seems like a good idea. When Evvie rents him her spare rooms, it’s a good solution to both of their most immediate problems, and pretty soon they fall into an easy friendship, each understanding that the other has been hurt badly and just needs a little room to breathe and recover.

Of course, their connection develops into more, but it’s complicated. As the story progresses, they both have to face certain truths, and discover that moving forward can only truly happen when they let others in and start dealing with and sharing their secrets.

This book has been popping up on my recommendation lists ever since its release in June, and as with most hyped books, I was resistant. I’m so glad I finally gave in and grabbed a copy when I saw it at the library!

The writing is light and breezy and engaging, even when dealing with the more serious and troubling issues concerning Evvie’s marriage. The author presents a realistic look at Evvie’s process of shock, guilt, anger, and loss, and follows her through her coming to terms with what’s holding her back and seeking help. Likewise with Dean, there are no easy answers or fixes. As much as Evvie wants to find the solution to Dean’s pitching problem, it’s not something within her power, no matter how badly she wants to help him. Dean too has to go through a process of loss and anger in order to find acceptance and a way to move on.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is filled with likeable characters and small-town charm. I loved the New England town with its quirky characters and deep connections. where everyone knows everyone… and probably knew their grandparents too. Evvie’s relationship with her best friend Andy feels authentic, and I struggled along with Evvie as their paths seemed to diverge and their friendship suffered under the weight of Evvie’s secrets. Evvie and Dean’s relationship was pretty much pitch-perfect (*groan* — sorry for the baseball pun!) — rather than subjecting us to the dreaded insta-love scenario, the author allows their friendship to grow and blossom into romance with all the caution and hesitation that people in such precarious points in their lives might experience.

I really enjoyed this book, and heartily recommend it! There’s real emotion and some sad and painful moments, but there’s love and joy and friendship and family too, and overall the vibe is hopeful and a celebration of being open to life and connection. Don’t miss Evvie Drake!

Warning: This book may make you want to move to a small coastal town, get a dog, live by the water, and attend local sporting events. Proceed at your own risk.

9Jun2019

Audiobook Review: The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARD

The true story of a couple who lost everything and embarked on a transformative journey walking the South West Coast Path in England

Just days after Raynor Winn learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their house and farm are taken away, along with their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, through Devon and Cornwall.

Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea, and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable and life-affirming journey. Powerfully written and unflinchingly honest, The Salt Path is ultimately a portrayal of home–how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

I feel like I could just make a list of relevant adjectives and leave my review at that:

Powerful.

Beautiful.

Moving.

Inspiring.

Courageous.

Not enough? Okay, here goes, with a bit more commentary.

I remember hearing something about The Salt Path when it was released, but didn’t really know what the book would focus on or whether it was really for me. Having just finished the audiobook, I can emphatically state that yes, this IS a book for me, and I suspect for many others too.

In The Salt Path, author Raynor Winn shares the painful story of how she and her husband Moth lost their family farm after a lengthy legal battle stemming from an investment with a friend. While not all that much detail is given about the case itself, it sounds as though this long-term friend was fairly shady and went after Ray and Moth to cover his expenses when the project tanked. Not able to afford counsel in the drawn-out court case, the couple had no choice but to represent themselves, and ultimately ended up losing everything on what seemed to be a technicality.

Given a week to vacate their home, Ray and Moth are thrown into despair, compounded by a visit that week to a doctor who confirms that Moth suffers from a degenerative neurological disease that will kill him after a painful decline at some point in the near future. If this were fiction, a reader might be tempted to protest the melodrama of having characters lose their homes and livelihood AND get a terminal diagnosis all in the same week, but this is real life, and it really happened this way.

The choices available to the couple are slim. They’re left with public benefts that amount to about $60 a week, and can go on the wait list for public housing — but because Moth’s illness isn’t in end stages just yet, they don’t have priority. They can stay with family and friends temporarily, but are afraid of becoming burdens and outstaying their welcomes. And then a strange whim occurs to them as they’re sorting through the remains of their old life — why not just walk? Now in their 50s, Moth and Ray haven’t done any serious outdoor adventuring in many, many years, but the idea of walking the South West Coast Path grabs hold of them as a way of being somewhere, with a purpose, rather than completely buckling under the weight of their bad luck and inauspicious prospects.

And so, they gather gear, put most of their belongings into storage with friends, and set out to walk the Coast Path. It’s not easy. Moth’s illness is painful, to the point that he can barely get out of bed some days. And yet, they’re determined to walk rather than sit still. As they move forward, they face ongoing shortages of food, scraping by on their meager weekly allowance (and eating lots of noodles), camping wild wherever they can find a spot to pitch the tent, and slowly, mile by mile, falling into a rhythm that has a beauty all its own.

Ray and Moth have a marriage that the rest of us can only envy. Together since their teens, the love between the couple is strong and unbreakable, shining through Ray’s writing on every single page. It’s heart-breaking to hear Ray’s thoughts on how much this man means to her, and what the future might hold for both of them as his disease progresses.

Meanwhile, each chapter brings fresh insights and wonders. Parts of the book read like an ode to the natural beauty of the landscapes and seascapes they see on their journey. It really sounds spectacular. There’s also sorrow and harsh realities — the author includes statistics and background information on homelessness in the UK, and shows how the official numbers are only a small representation of the true homeless population.

Homeless themselves, Ray and Moth again and again face the general dislike and fear that most people seem to feel toward the homeless. They meet many people along the path — fellow hikers, local residents, random strangers. When seen as older backpackers with presumably enough wealth to take weeks away from the world to walk the path, they’re applauded and warmly greeted. But when Moth explains to previously friendly people that they’re homeless, the others shrink away from them and can’t seem to distance themselves fast enough.

The writing is simply beautiful. Ray shares her pain and her sorrows, but also reveals the growing sense of belonging that she finds through the path:

The country towered above me, a blank empty space containing nothing for us. Only one thing was real, more real to me now than the past that we’d lost or the future we didn’t have: if I put one foot in front of the other, the path would move me forward and a strip of dirt, often no more than a foot wide, had become home. It wasn’t just the chill in the air, the lowering of the sun’s horizon, the heaviness of the dew or the lack of urgency in the birds’ calls, but something in me was changing season too. I was no longer striving, fighting to change the unchangeable, not clenching in anxiety at the life we’d been unable to hold on to, or angry at an authoritarian system too bureaucratic to see the truth. A new season had crept into me, a softer season of acceptance. Burned in by the sun, driven in by the storm. I could feel the sky, the earth, the water and revel in being part of the elements without a chasm of pain opening at the thought of the loss of our place within it all. I was a part of the whole. I didn’t need to own a patch of land to make that so. I could stand in the wind and I was the wind, the rain, the sea; it was all me, and I was nothing within it. The core of me wasn’t lost. Translucent, elusive, but there and grown stronger with every headland.

A note on the audiobook: Narrator Anne Reid is lovely, making the story feel alive and vibrant, capturing the emotion of Ray’s first-person narration in a way that makes it feel like a friend telling you a story. Really a treat to listen to.

There’s so much to love about The Salt Path. I found Ray and Moth’s journey and their devotion to one another so inspirational. And, this book really made me want to get out and walk a long path some day!

Don’t miss this book. It’s a beautiful work, and is worth taking the time to savor.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Salt Path
Author: Raynor Winn
Narrated by: Anne Reid
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication date: March 22, 2018
Length (print): 288 pages
Length (audiobook): 11 hours, 2 minutes
Genre: Memoir
Source: Purchased