Book Review: Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Play Nice
Author: Rachel Harrison
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: September 9, 2025
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from the USA Today bestselling author.

Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parent’s messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.

Play Nice is a story of women confronting their demons… literally and figuratively. And just to be clear, while the synopsis and many blurbs refer to this as a haunted house story, this is not actually about a haunted house. No ghosts! However, the house is possessed, and the demon inside it isn’t going anywhere.

Yes, the house scares me. But nothing scares me as much as the idea that I might become one of those tragic, boring would-never people.

Main character Clio is a lot. She’s in her mid-twenties, a highly successful stylist and influencer who revels in her good looks, appeal, and life-of-the-party vibe. She’s highly curated, always down for a good time. Clio’s party lifestyle comes to a screeching halt when her two older sisters call to tell her that Alexandra has died… Alexandra being the mother who was cut out of their lives when Clio was a young child, the abusive, addicted woman who wrote a scandalous book about demons and lost custody completely after endangering the girls one too many times.

Clio’s sisters Leda and Daphne don’t seem particularly affected by news of Alex’s death, but Clio decides that she’s going to the funeral, a woo-woo affair hosted by an occult society in Connecticut. There, she meets with Alex’s sister and is informed that Alex has left the girls their childhood home, which they didn’t even realize she still owned.

The house is a physical disaster, and what’s more, it was the main focus of Alex’s book, which the girls all promised their father they’d never read. Once again, Leda and Daphne want nothing to do with it, but Clio sees the potential for exposure. Home reno and demo reels are huge! She can do a whole series on before and after as she flips the house and makes it gorgeous enough to suit her standards.

Things go sideways almost from the start. The house is, well, kind of gross and dirty. There are mice. And unexplained sounds. But Clio is sure that her plan is worth it. Then she finds a battered old copy of her mother’s book, with handwritten annotations from Alex to Clio. Soon, unwanted memories creep in, presenting very different versions of the events Clio thought she understood. She’s forced to question the main narratives of her life and to wonder: Was Alex really as crazy and abusive as she’s been told all her life? Or could there possibly be a shred of truth in her rantings about demons and possession?

Play Nice goes from creepy to violent to gross-out horror throughout the course of the book, escalating to an incredibly disturbing climax. Meanwhile, the family itself is rocked to its core as old secrets are revealed and certain betrayals and lies come to light.

Clio is hard to like, and is not exactly a reliable narrator. She’s plagued by questionable or repressed memories, and prefers the image of herself that she’s created to any harder looks in the mirror.

I sound bratty and resentful, which is weird, because i swear I’m only one of those things.

She’s used to getting her way, assumes her role as the family favorite is deserved, and causes some of her own problems through her refusal to listen to anyone else.

The sky is blue and cloudless, the sun high and yellow, and the entire world is incapable of telling me no. It makes me feel like a god. Powerful, bored, dangerous.

An underlying theme of Play Nice is the need — craving — for attention. This is clearly what drives Clio’s career and social life. But, as we learn, it’s also vital to the demon.

“… But the demon is real, Clio. You now that now. And it’s dangerous. Its attachment to you is profound.”

Part of me is flattered, because I love attention. We have that in common, the demon and me. I like being the favorite. This part of me feels an allegiance to it. A kinship.

This book has some truly crazy elements, and reading it can be vertigo-inducing, as we slingshot from Clio’s narration to passages from Alex’s book, to scenes of confrontations with her father and sisters that make Clio (and we readers) wonder which version of reality contains the actual truth — if any do.

Play Nice is a disturbing, scary read, leavened by Rachel Harrison’s excellent writing and healthy doses of humor and smart-ass commentary. I’m a big fan of this author’s books, and enjoyed this one, but not as much as some of her others (Such Sharp Teeth, Cackle, Black Sheep) which I consider true favorites.

If you’re open to creepy, icky moments and skin-crawling scary bits, and enjoy reading about highly caustic and dysfunctional families, then Play Nice might be the book for you! Really, I don’t believe you can go wrong with any Rachel Harrison book. I’m already looking forward to whatever she writes next.

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.

31Jul2025

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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21Jun2025

Audiobook Review: The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Narrator: Dakota Fanning
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication date: April 8, 2025
Print length: 384 pages
Audio length: 15 hours, 32 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Sisters Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were born just a year apart but could not have been more different. Zoe, blessed with charm and beauty, yearned for fame from the moment she could sing into a hairbrush. Cassie was a musical prodigy who never felt at home in her own skin and preferred the safety of the shadows.

On the brink of adulthood in the early 2000s, destiny intervened, catapulting the sisters into the spotlight as the pop sensation the Griffin Sisters, hitting all the touchstones of early aughts fame—SNL, MTV, Rolling Stone magazine—along the way.

But after a whirlwind year in the public eye, the band abruptly broke up.

Two decades later, Zoe’s a housewife; Cassie’s off the grid. The sisters aren’t speaking, and the real reason for the Griffin Sisters’ breakup is still a mystery. Zoe’s teenage daughter, Cherry, who’s determined to be a star in spite of Zoe’s warnings, is on a quest to learn the truth about what happened to the band all those years ago.

As secrets emerge, all three women must face the consequences of their choices: the ones they made and the ones the music industry made for them. Can they forgive each other—and themselves? And will the Griffin Sisters ever make music again?

Jennifer Weiner’s books can be counted on for memorable characters, intricate relationships, and terrific story arcs. The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits delivers all of these.

In this 2025 novel, we’re transported back to the music scene of the early aughts and the rise of the Griffin Sisters, a band whose one album changed lives. Even twenty years after their sudden breakup, devoted fans still love them, and the use of their music in a popular new Netflix series has brought them back into the spotlight once more.

But who are the Griffin Sisters, and where did they go?

As we learn, Cassie and Zoe Griffin were born Cassie and Zoe Grossberg, the daughters of a young, working class Philadelphia couple. Zoe — full of beauty and sparkle — is a delight from birth, but the surprise pregnancy that brings Cassie along less than a year later is not a welcome development for their parents. Their mother struggles to love Cassie the way she loves Zoe, and Cassie’s differences confuse and frustrate her parents.

Everything changes when a preschool teacher notes Cassie’s uncanny musical ability. Although still basically a toddler, Cassie can play the piano by ear, and has a remarkable singing voice as well — although she’s so silent and withdrawn that she’ll only sing with Zoe. And so it goes: Zoe is pretty and popular, and protects Cassie (when she can) from the crueler comments directed at her by other children. Cassie is large, awkward, unsocial, and doesn’t care about clothes, entertainment, or making friends. Music is her only passion, and eventually, she enrolls in a music school in order to pursue a career as a classical pianist.

But Zoe craves the spotlight and stardom. Her perkiness puts her at center stage, even though her singing voice is passable at best. Her knowledge of music is limited to Britney and Cristina and the Spice Girls. She yearns to be a pop princess — and when her bandmates kick her out right before a Battle of the Bands competition, she begs Cassie to perform with her instead. Cassie has no interest, hates being seen, and just wants to be left alone… but she can’t let her sister down. In their performance, Cassie’s gift shines — her voice is transcendent, and while Zoe is the visual appeal, it’s Cassie’s singing and playing that makes their time on stage magical.

So magical, in fact, that a talent agent rushes to their house the next day and whisks them off to a recording label’s headquarters in New York. In the blink of an eye, the teen sisters are signed to a contract and are being prepped for a cross-country tour of radio stations and small venues. To turn the Griffin Sisters in a hit-machine, they need a songwriter, and Russell D’Angelo enters their lives. In his mid-twenties, Russell has a former band, is a talented guitar player, and a genius for writing songs. He and Cassie immediately click and begin creating together, but Zoe is interested in Russell for entirely different reasons. Once he joins the band, it’s only a matter of time before things get complicated.

We know from the opening pages of The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits — the one chapter told from Russell’s point of view — that something terrible happens to tear the band apart at the height of their success. As the book progresses, chapters focused on the band’s rise are interspersed with chapters set in 2024, through which we see just how differently Zoe and Cassie live twenty years later.

In 2024, two decades past their peak stardom, Zoe is a suburban housewife and mother. Yes, she still gets recognized as Zoe Griffin, but those days are long behind her. Zoe’s 18-year-old daughter Cherry has a musical gift of her own and yearns to pursue her own musical career, but Zoe blocks her at every turn, cautioning her about the cruelty of the music industry toward young women.

Meanwhile, Cassie has fled just about as far as she can go — no one has seen her in these past twenty years. She lives alone in Alaska on private acreage, hiding from the world, venturing out as little as possible, and denying herself anything that would give her pleasure, including music.

It takes a good 75% of the book to unravel the mystery of what happened to the Griffin Sisters and explain how Zoe and Cassie ended up with the lives they have now. Thanks to the author’s skillful development of the characters and their complex relationships, there’s never a dull moment as she weaves together the past and present timelines. By the time we get to the answers, we understand deeply both what happened and why, how each character perceived or misunderstood the key events, and how this affected their lives from that point forward.

I’m sure people will compare this lovely novel to Daisy Jones and The Six (a book that I love) — and yes, there are some similarities: A wildly popular band falling apart after only one album together, with plenty of “where are they now?” speculation. But, while the music industry pressures and excesses may feel familiar at times, the stories are quite different. Here, the beating heart of the story is the relationship between Cassie and Zoe, as well as the shifting, new dynamic that occurs once Zoe’s daughter Cherry makes it her mission to reunite the sisters (and the Sisters).

Cassie and Zoe are both flawed but fascinating characters. I’ll admit that it’s very hard to like Zoe, and she behaves terribly in many, many situations, often causing horrible damage. Still, the author is careful to make sure that readers understand Zoe — and while we may hate much of what she does, we also understand the fears and insecurities that drive her actions.

The audiobook, narrated by Dakota Fanning, is a joy to listen to. While on the lengthy side, it’s so well told that I never felt impatient or frustrated. The narration captures the characters’ personalities very well — they feel distinct and recognizable throughout.

I had only two minor quibbles by the end of the book. First, there a moment — very late in the story — where Zoe raises the issue of whether Cassie might be on the neurodivergent spectrum — and honestly, that felt a bit out of the blue. Yes, Cassie has a great deal of difficulty in social and public settings, but I never had a sense that she might be considered neurodivergent. I felt that if that was the case the author wished to make, there needed to be a lot more breadcrumbs throughout the book to support this.

My other quibble has to do with a plot thread left dangling at the conclusion:

Highlight the black area to reveal text — ONLY if you don’t mind a spoiler: Who is Cherry’s father? Zoe admits that she’s not sure — it could be Russell, but it could also be Tommy, the band’s drummer. As the story wraps up, I expected some sort of resolution, or maybe even just a hint that Zoe and Cherry might reach out to Tommy… but the matter just isn’t addressed again.

This issue is not critical to the overall story, which — big picture — is about Zoe and Cassie and whether they can find their way back to one another — but it still annoyed me at the end not to get an answer to this particular question.

Those small issues aside, I truly enjoyed The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits. I loved the band’s backstory, the dynamics between Cassie and Zoe, each of their personal journeys, and even the “now” parts focused on Cherry’s attempts to break out as a musician.

Jennifer Weiner’s books are always a treat, and The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits is no exception. Highly recommended.

Oh… but one last complaint.

I don’t just want to READ about the Griffin Sisters’ songs. I want to hear them!!

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.

9May2025

Book Review: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Nightingale
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: January 29, 2015
Length: 593 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.

With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.

Author Kristin Hannah has written several powerful works of historical fiction over the past few years, all of which I’ve loved and felt transported by. Somehow I’d missed reading The Nightingale until now. Finally, ten years after its original publication, I’ve now made a point of reading this compelling story.

The Nightingale takes place in France during World War II, following the timeline of the Nazi occupation to show the lives of two sisters and their divergent experiences during the war.

Vianne and Isabelle are ten years apart in age and miles apart in terms of their relationship as the book opens. Vianne is a wife and mother living in Carriveau, a small country village. She’s blissfully in love with her husband Antoine, and takes joy in her eight-year-old daughter Sophie, a miracle child born after a string of miscarriages. Meanwhile, Isabelle is an impetuous and hot-headed teen, constantly in trouble, always either escaping from or getting kicked out of her latest boarding school.

As children, after their mother’s death, they were essentially abandoned by their grieving, alcoholic father. But Vianne, caught up in her own grief and then struggling with the loss of pregnancy after pregnancy, didn’t have space in heart to love her little sister. The bond between the two seemed irreparably broken.

When the Nazi occupation of France begins, the sisters’ lives change dramatically. Antoine is called to military service and Vianne is left alone to tend to their home and their daughter. Isabelle is sent to take shelter with Vianne, but she yearns for purpose and adventure, not life on a farm. When Isabelle connects with an underground network fighting to carry out secret operations against the Nazis, her life changes yet again. While Vianne believes Isabelle has run off for some ill-advised, irresponsible love affair, Isabelle is actually setting out on a course of heroism and sacrifice, risking her own life over and over again to fight for freedom and justice.

Without going too much more deeply into the plot, I’ll just summarize by saying that The Nightingale balances the sisters’ stories by showing each of their struggles, triumphs, and losses during the war. It’s a devastating look at an awful period, and while many of us have read stories of this time before, this book’s focus on women’s lives under Nazi occupation — and the sacrifices they make in order to not only survive, but to save others as well — conveys an intimacy and fresh perspective that stand out.

It was interesting for me to note how my own sympathies and interests change over the course of the book. Perhaps because we meet Vianne first, I assumed she was our main POV character. When Isabelle first appears, we largely see her through Vianne’s eyes — young, reckless, self-centered. It was easy to feel annoyed by her, and to feel that her impetuous decisions put Vianne’s family at risk. As the book progresses, however, Isabelle takes on a much larger role, sharing the spotlight and growing into the person she always wanted to be. Isabelle throws herself into danger repeatedly, but her devotion and bravery are real. While she and Vianne are sometimes adversaries — even with life and death consequences — we know enough about each woman to understand her action and motivations, even when they don’t actually understand one another.

Kristin Hannah has clearly done a huge amount of research for this book, which I understand represents a major turning point in her writing career — her pivot into historical fiction. It was fasacinating to read her notes at the end and to learn about some of the historical figures who served as inspiration for her, including Andrée de Jongh, a Belgian resistance fighter during WWII who is credited with saving hundreds of downed airmen and other Allied soldiers by smuggling them across the Pyrenees from France into Spain.

The Nightingale is beautifully written and powerfully told, depicting the absolute horrors that the characters lived through, but also showing the beauty of their love for each other, their families, and even the strangers they save. It’s not an easy read, but it’s important and has a deep impact that I know will last.

The Nightingale was originally published in 2015. Earlier this year, the publisher released a 10th anniversary special hardcover edition, which is lovely. The Nightingale is also available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats.

^{A look at the 10th anniversary edition of The Nightingale}

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.

For more by this author, check out my reviews:

I have not yet read any of Kristin Hannah’s earlier works. If you have recommendations, please let me know!

6Apr2025

Book Review: The Sirens by Emilia Hart

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Sirens
Author: Emilia Hart
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: April 1, 2025
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased (hardcover); eARC via NetGalley
Rating:

A story of sisters separated by hundreds of years but bound together in more ways than they can imagine

2019: Lucy awakens in her ex-lover’s room in the middle of the night with her hands around his throat. Horrified, she flees to her sister’s house on the coast of New South Wales hoping Jess can help explain the vivid dreams that preceded the attack—but her sister is missing. As Lucy waits for her return, she starts to unearth strange rumours about Jess’s town—tales of numerous missing men, spread over decades. A baby abandoned in a sea-swept cave. Whispers of women’s voices on the waves. All the while, her dreams start to feel closer than ever.

1800: Mary and Eliza are torn from their loving home in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship heading for Australia. As the boat takes them farther and farther away from all they know, they begin to notice unexplainable changes in their bodies.

A breathtaking tale of female resilience, The Sirens is an extraordinary novel that captures the sheer power of sisterhood and the indefinable magic of the sea.

After reading author Emilia Hart’s debut novel Weyward last fall, I knew I’d read whatever she wrote next. I’m happy to report that The Sirens more than lives up to expectations, and is a beautiful, compelling story that matches the greatness of Weyward.

The Sirens follows two different sets of women across two different timelines. Our main viewpoint throughout is Lucy, a college student who’s had to deal with a strange skin ailment all her life, which leaves her with scars and marks across her body. When she wakes from a sleepwalking episode to discover that she’s attempting to strangle someone, she flees.

Lucy decides to seek shelter with her older sister Jess, whom she’s always loved, but who’s distanced herself from Lucy and their parents. Jess lives in Comber Bay, a small seaside village in New South Wales. Comber Bay has a certain notoriety thanks to a popular podcast focused on a string of disappearances in the town — over the past few decades, eight different men, seemingly with nothing in common, have vanished without a trace.

When Lucy arrives at Jess’s last known address — Cliff House, a ramshackle, dilapidated old house perched precariously over the wild sea — Jess is not there, although her keys, car, and phone are. With few options, Lucy settles in to wait for Jess’s return. She’s intrigued and disturbed by Jess’s paintings, depicting two young women and an old sailing ship. The paintings are beautiful, but the women in them exactly match the sisters Lucy sees in a series of recurring dreams. How is this possible?

Meanwhile, in 1800, sisters Mary and Eliza have been sentenced to transportation to Australia, leaving behind their home and beloved father in Ireland. Two of eighty women convicts crammed into the prison hold onboard the Naiad, they’re subjected to a terrifying sea journey in horrific conditions, with barely enough food or water to sustain them. Mary and Eliza are devoted to one another, terrified by their experiences and the rumors of what await them all in Australia, and desperate for survival. As they bond with the other women on the ship, the sense of community sustains them — but Mary is also concerned by the physical changes she and Eliza seem to be experiencing, and can’t help but wonder over what this might mean for them.

Without giving anything away, I’ll just say that the connections between Lucy and Jess’s story and Mary and Eliza’s becomes clear over time. What unfolds is a story of women living through harsh but recognizable experiences, yet also a tale filled with fantastical elements that add a haunting sense of beauty and magic to the overall feel of the novel.

The writing here is absolutely gorgeous. With every chapter, the author provides insights into the characters’ lives and inner turmoil, but also shows us the beauty of their surroundings, especially the sea, cliffs, and caves of Comber Bay.

I loved the two sets of sisters — each pair has their own special relationship and shared trauma, and obviously the different eras they live in play a huge role in what they go through, yet their stories also share common elements and resonate one to the other across time.

Reading The Sirens is an immersive experience that’s powerful, emotional, and practically hypnotic. I hated to pull away and put the book down, and was sad at the end, not because of unhappiness with the concluding chapters, but because I didn’t want to leave these characters and their world.

The Sirens is a must-read. Don’t miss it!

Purchase links: Amazon – Bookshop.org
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6Dec2024

Book Review: The Comeback Summer by Ali Brady

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Comeback Summer
Author: Ali Brady
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: May 9, 2023
Length: 475 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction / romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Two sisters have one summer to crush their comfort zones and save their grandmother’s legacy in this sweet, sexy, and heartfelt novel by Ali Brady, author of The Beach Trap.

Hannah and Libby need a miracle. The PR agency they inherited from their grandmother is losing clients left and right, and the sisters are devastated at the thought of closing. The situation seems hopeless—until in walks Lou, an eccentric self-help guru who is looking for a new PR agency. Her business could solve all their problems—but there’s a catch. Whoever works with Lou must complete a twelve-week challenge as part of her “Crush Your Comfort Zone” program.

Hannah, whose worst nightmare is making small talk with strangers, is challenged to go on twelve first dates. Libby, who once claimed to have period cramps for four weeks straight to get out of gym class, is challenged to compete in an obstacle course race. The challenges begin with Hannah helping Libby train and Libby managing the dating app on her sister’s behalf. They’re both making good progress—until Hannah’s first love rolls into town, and Libby accidentally falls for a guy she’s supposed to be setting up with her sister.

Things get even more complicated when secrets come to light, making the sisters question the one relationship they’ve always counted on: each other. With their company’s future on the line, they can’t afford to fail. But in trying to make a comeback to honor their grandmother, are they pushing themselves down the wrong path?

The Comeback Summer is so much more than just a story about completing a challenge! This tale of sisters finding their own paths while navigating their relationship and their sense of family obligation is funny, touching, and highly entertaining.

Hannah and Libby have always been close, even more so since their parents divorced while they were still young. When their parents seemed to have mostly checked out of parenting, the girls relied on one another and on their wonderful grandmother Gigi. Gigi was a woman ahead of her time, a powerhouse businesswoman who owned and ran her own PR firm, which she left to the sisters upon her death.

But now, a few years after Gigi’s passing, the company is faltering and the sisters are floundering. Despite their hard work, the firm is losing clients, and without landing some major new accounts, they may lose the business altogether. When a fast-charging podcaster named Lou enters their office, she seems to be the answer to all their business problems — except she’s not quite ready to sign with them on the spot. To land her business, they have to complete her signature challenge — Crushing Your Comfort Zone. Hannah and Libby would rather just give Lou their business pitch, but she insists: They need to commit to her 12-week program, which she’ll monitor over the course of the summer. Only after they finish the challenge will she consider signing with them.

Given the state of their finances, they have no choice but to agree — even though the challenges ahead of them seem daunting. Shy, introverted Hannah — still aching after a traumatic breakup five years earlier — will have to set up a dating app profile and go on twelve dates. Libby — outgoing, energetic, and definitely not into anything more physical then ordering her favorite coffee drink on her way to work — will have to train for, and then compete in, the “Down & Dirty”, a mud-filled obstacle course race to be held at the end of the summer. Both will also be required to keep a “Crush Your Comfort Zone” journal, to explore and challenge the beliefs and approaches that hold them back.

As they move through their challenges, Libby and Hannah are forced to confront their dynamics. As the older sister, Libby has always seen herself as Hannah’s protector, but that has led to both of them getting pigeonholed into roles that seem to no longer be serving them. Libby interferes for Hannah’s own good, rather than trusting Hannah’s agency and instincts. Hannah hides behind Libby’s sociability, letting her do the parts of their work that involve connecting and generating relationships and ideas. Neither quite knows how to break out of their roles without hurting the other, but both start to realize — as they crush their comfort zones — that they way they’ve been living isn’t actually good for either of them.

But wait! Where’s the romance? Yes, there is romance — two romances, to be exact. Hannah’s ex, who broke her heart years earlier, is back in town and wants to reconnect. Hannah has never stopped loving Josh, but Libby is furious. She’s the one who picked up the pieces when Hannah fell apart after the breakup, and she has no intention of letting Josh hurt Hannah again… but is it really her job to still be the protector and make decisions for her sister?

As for Libby, she offers to manage Hannah’s comfort zone challenge by handling the dating app for her — she’ll set up the profile, select matches, and arrange the dates, and Hannah just needs to show up. This is meant to spare Hannah the anxiety that dealing with all this provokes, but it backfires in a major way when Libby finds a connection with one of the men she meets… as Hannah. Libby and Adam flirt and chat via the app, but he thinks he’s talking with Hannah. When Libby realizes that she has feelings for Adam, she’s in quite a bind — admit she’s been pretending to be her sister, let him go, or keep up the charade until it blows up in her face?

The Comeback Summer is yet another highly enjoyable and entertaining read by author duo Ali Brady. What I love about their books is that the women characters’ relationships are at the heart of the stories. Yes, there’s also romance, but those storylines tend to be secondary. What’s really important is the connection between the women. Here, it’s the complicated way in which Hannah and Libby love and need one another, yet also get in one another’s way. The Comeback Summer is at its strongest when it show them growing as individuals and facing the fact that they need to break free from their established roles and change their relationship if they want to lead their best lives.

The Comeback Summer combines emotional connections, sisterly bonds, and a strong sense of fun. Check it out!

I’d never read an Ali Brady book before 2024, and now I’ve read all three! Their next book, Battle of the Bookstores, will be released in June 2025, and I can’t wait to read it!

17Nov2024

Book Review: The Beach Trap by Ali Brady

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Beach Trap
Author: Ali Brady
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: June 14, 2022
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction / romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Two best friends torn apart by a life-altering secret. They have one summer to set the record straight.

When twelve-year-olds Kat Steiner and Blake O’Neill meet at Camp Chickawah, they have an instant connection. But everything falls apart when they learn they’re not just best friends—they’re also half-sisters. Confused and betrayed, their friendship instantly crumbles.

Fifteen years later when their father dies suddenly, Kat and Blake discover he’s left them a joint inheritance: the family beach house in Destin, Florida. The two sisters are instantly at odds. Blake, who has recently been demoted from regular nanny to dog nanny, wants to sell the house, while social media influencer Kat is desperate to keep the place where she had so many happy childhood memories.

Kat and Blake reluctantly join forces to renovate the dilapidated house with the understanding that Kat will try to buy Blake out at the end of the summer. The women clash as Blake’s renovation plans conflict with Kat’s creative vision, and each sister finds herself drawn into a summer romance. As the weeks pass, the two women realize the most difficult project they face this summer will be coming to grips with their shared past, and learning how to become sisters.

I’m a sucker for books with a connection to summer camps… and from the opening chapter, when twelve-year-old besties spend a glorious summer at camp together, only to have their friendship end disastrously, I knew The Beach Trap would be a book for me.

When Blake and Kat meet at Camp Chickawah**, they become best friends right away — but when Kat’s father comes to pick her up early due to a death in the family, the girls make a shattering discovery: Kat’s dad is Blake’s dad too. Blake’s mom had been “the other woman”, and while Blake has happy childhood memories of time with her dad, that all ended when her mother died in a tragic accident, and her father never came for her. Rather than bringing the girls closer, the discovery of their half-sister status permanently drives them apart, and Kat refuses to respond to any of the letters Blake sends her in the months following camp.

**If the name Camp Chickawah seems familiar, then perhaps you’ve read the authors’ most recent book, Until Next Summer, in which the camp and its staff members take center stage. (It’s a lot of fun!)

Fifteen years later, their father has died, and his will reveals a startling bequest: He’s left the family’s Florida beach house to both his daughters, to share 50/50.

Blake is a stressed-out nanny for a wealthy family, working long hours to pay for her grandfather’s assisted living facility. Kat is a social media influencer (ugh), making enough to support herself, but not quite at a point where she can count on financial security. Blake assumes they’ll sell the beach house, or Kat can buy her out — but either way, the proceeds will help ensure that she can continue to care for her grandfather. Kat sees the beach house as a reminder of rare happy childhood memories, and wants to keep it — and also, it might make a great home reno project to enhance her feeds and help her nab a coveted corporate sponsorship.

When Blake and Kat meet at the beach house, they’re dismayed to find the place in shambles. The only way to turn it around and make it at all viable for sale is to repair, renovate, and redecorate. Kat has the funds; Blake has the time (since the family she nannies for is spending the summer in France) and the skills, thanks to the years she spent learning at her grandfather’s side. While there’s palpable tension and animosity between the two women, they know neither can move forward without the other’s cooperation, and they work out a deal. They’ll alternate weeks at the house, Blake will handle most of the actual work, and Kat will have final say on all decor decisions.

After achieving a tense détente of sorts, they move forward. As the summer progresses, and they start having to communicate and spend together, tentative connections are rebuilt. They once loved each other — who will they be to one another now?

I really enjoyed seeing Kat and Blake work their way back toward friendship, and more. Both grew up lonely; both grew up hungry for the love and attention of a distant father, who cause each one intense emotional pain in the aftermath of the big revelation years earlier. While having very different backgrounds and upbringings, Kat and Blake connect on a deeper level. It’s lovely seeing them work through the hurt and misunderstandings, and start to realize how much time they both spent blaming one another for things outside of their control.

Each woman also finds romance over the course of the summer, but one thing I really appreciate in this book (and in the other Ali Brady book I’ve read, Until Next Summer) is that romance is secondary to friendship. The romantic relationships and storylines are great, but it’s the friendship and sisterhood between Kat and Blake that drive this book and give it its emotional impact and joy.

Where The Beach Trap falls a little short for me has mainly to do with Kat’s character. Bluntly put, she’s hard to like. First off, having a social media influencer as a main character is an instant turn-off for me. (Side note — I feel like contemporary romances have a higher proportion of influencers as characters than is representative of the demographic in real life…) Kat’s whole shtick for most of the book is summed up by her tagline, “life is a fashion show”. She eventually learns to appreciate the messiness of life and what it means to connect, and revises her philosophy — but it’s a fairly quick turnaround, not entirely believable. I’m glad she ended up in a better place, but her attitude for much of the book is very hard to take.

Overall, however, I liked The Beach Trap a lot. The story moves quickly, the setting is terrific, and I loved the dynamic of these sisters finding a way to salvage the defining pain of their separate lives and find a way forward together.

I’ve now read two books by this author duo, and look forward to more! There’s one more book I haven’t read that’s currently available (The Comeback Summer), and an upcoming new book to be released in 2025 (Battle of the Bookstores). I plan to read them both!

About the authors: Ali Brady is the pen name of writing BFFs Alison Hammer and Bradeigh Godfrey. The Beach Trap is their first book together. Alison lives in Chicago and works as a VP creative director at an advertising agency. She’s the author of You and Me and Us and Little Pieces of Me. Bradeigh lives with her family in Utah, where she works as a physician. She’s the author of the psychological thriller, Imposter.

27Apr2024

Book Review: Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Darling Girls
Author: Sally Hepworth
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: April 23, 2024
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley (also won a copy in a Goodreads giveaway)
Rating:

SISTERS, SECRETS, LOVE, AND MURDER… Sally Hepworth’s new novel has it all.

For as long as they can remember, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have been told how lucky they are. As young girls they were rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance at a happy family life.

But their childhood wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild and thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?

A thrilling page-turner of sisterhood, secrets, love, and murder by New York Times bestselling author Sally Hepworth.

If you’ve read any books by Sally Hepworth, you know to expect twists, turns, and then even more twists. Darling Girls delivers them all, and packs in plenty of complex relationships and emotions as well.

In Darling Girls, we meet Jessica, Alicia, and Norah — a chosen family of sisters who came together through traumatic years as foster children. Despite the terrible experiences they endured as young teens, their relationship has been the bedrock of their years since then. Now adults, they’re all dysfunctional in different ways, but their sister bonds are the one constant that keeps them grounded.

When bones are found under the demolished home where they once lived, they’re summoned back to the town of Port Agatha to give statements to the police. What actually happened at Wild Meadows? Whose bones could they be? And are the sisters witnesses or suspects?

Through flashback chapters, we learn more about their childhood. Jessica was the first to be fostered with Miss Fairchild, a seemingly lovely woman whose farmhouse and grounds appear to be ideal for a small child. And at first, everything is perfect. Miss Fairchild dotes on Jessica, encourages her to call her “Mummy”, and never wants them to be apart. There are downsides, of course: When Jessica begins attending school and talking about new friends, she’s quickly shut down. No one is allowed to replace Mummy as the center of Jessica’s life.

Years later, when Miss Fairchild also takes in Norah and Alicia, Jessica’s world is abruptly changed yet again, as she’s reprimanded, punished, and pushed aside. But Miss Fairchild’s iron control is slipping — she hadn’t anticipated the girls’ bond or that they might start to question her rules and her methods.

It’s best not to know much more than that when reading Darling Girls. The characters are quite interesting — the sisters all have lasting scars from their years in the foster system, and their trauma manifests in different ways. The depiction feels realistic, and it’s sad and scary to read. At the same time, the chosen family is beautiful in its own way, and I loved seeing the unwavering support that Jessica, Norah, and Alicia provide to one another.

Being a Sally Hepworth book, I knew to expect to have my expectations up-ended, and that’s exactly what happened. I’m not a frequent thriller reader, but diving in every once in a while and going along for the roller coaster ride is quite fun.

As with all books by this author, Darling Girls is immersive and impossible to put down. It made me think, it gave me a few chills along the way, and it definitely kept me on my toes. Check it out!

22Feb2024

Book Review: On the Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: On the Rooftop
Author: Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Publisher: Ecco
Publication date: September 6, 2022
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

A stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters’ ambitions for their own lives—set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San Francisco

At home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they’ve become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore.

Now Vivian has scored a once-in-a-lifetime offer from a talent manager, who promises to catapult The Salvations into the national spotlight. Vivian knows this is the big break she’s been praying for. But sometime between the hours of rehearsal on their rooftop and the weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls have become women, women with dreams that their mother cannot imagine.

The neighborhood is changing, too: all around the Fillmore, white men in suits are approaching Black property owners with offers. One sister finds herself called to fight back, one falls into the comfort of an old relationship, another yearns to make her own voice heard. And Vivian, who has always maintained control, will have to confront the parts of her life that threaten to splinter: the community, The Salvations, and even her family.

In On the Rooftop, the world of 1950s-era San Francisco — specifically, the city’s Fillmore District — is brought to life through a family of talented women. Sisters Ruth, Esther, and Chloe range in age from 20 – 24, and they’re on the cusp of stardom. Singing in three-part harmony, moving through their perfect dance steps, they’re the main attraction at the top clubs of the Fillmore, but their mother Vivian wants more. LA, New York, everywhere — her girls are destined for greatness.

Yet as we learn through chapters told from each sister’s POV, Vivian’s dreams aren’t necessarily her daughters’ dreams.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood around them is on the verge of change as well. The Fillmore is the family’s safe haven — it’s where Vivian and her husband landed twenty years earlier after fleeing Klan violence in Louisiana. In the Fillmore, every building and block and the people who live there represent a piece of a tight-knit community. Everyone knows everyone’s business; everyone looks out for one another… or if not, is ready to carry tales when someone steps out of line.

But white businessmen having been showing up more and more frequently, and soon their goal is clear. The neighborhood has been identified as one suitable for redevelopment, and that means its current residents and businesses have to go. At first, the approach is more of a sales pitch — home and business owners offered a buyout to relocate. But persuasion turns into coercion, and evictions due to public domain eventually threaten every member of the community.

On the Rooftop is both a family story and a community story. The sisters and Vivian are well-drawn, distinct personalities, each with their own hopes, sorrows, and intentions. Through their separate POV chapters, we get multiple perspectives on the turning points in their lives, and come to understand the women’s options and limitations in that time and place.

As a portrait of a community, On the Rooftop shows the devastation of gentrification and displacement, as it illustrates the dismantling of a community who have no say or voice in the matter.

It took me until close to the end of the book to realize that the story beats were reminding me of a story that at first glance might seem like something completely unrelated — Fiddler on the Roof. But once I made the connection, I experienced a huge “aha moment” as the pieces came together. Sure enough, in the author’s notes at the end of the book, she lists Fiddler on the Roof as one of her inspirations.

Themes of (yes) tradition, children choosing paths different from their parents’ expectations, community dispersal and forced exile — all are integral to the story of the these sisters, their mother, and their neighborhood. The author beautifully incorporates these elements so that the Fiddler motifs are subtly part of the story — this isn’t a retelling, and we’re not hit over the head with obvious comparisons. The commonalities enhance the reading experience, but the story is strong enough to stand on its own even without noticing these elements.

Overall, On the Rooftop is a powerful, emotional, lovely book about family and community. This book is our library’s “On the Same Page” book for February, and it’s also the group read one of my in-person book groups has selected for Black History Month. I look forward to the various discussions and events for this book coming later in the month — and meanwhile, highly recommend this terrific book.

7Jan2024

Audiobook Review: Get Lucky by Katherine Center

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Get Lucky
Author: Katherine Center
Narrator: Morgan Hallett
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: April 6, 2010
Print length: 288 pages
Audio length: 8 hours 13 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

How do you change your luck? Katherine Center’s marvelously entertaining and poignant new novel is about choosing to look for happiness—and maybe getting lucky enough to find it.

Sarah Harper isn’t sure if the stupid decisions she sometimes makes are good choices in disguise—or if they’re really just stupid. But either way, after forwarding an inappropriate email to her entire company, she suddenly finds herself out of a job.

So she goes home to Houston—and her sister, Mackie—for Thanksgiving. But before Sarah can share her troubles with her sister, she learns that Mackie has some woes of her own: After years of trying, Mackie’s given up on having a baby—and plans to sell on eBay the entire nursery she’s set up. Which gives Sarah a brilliant idea—an idea that could fix everyone’s problems. An idea that gives Sarah the chance to take care of her big sister for once—instead of the other way around.

But nothing worthwhile is ever easy. After a decade away, Sarah is forced to confront one ghost from her past after another: the father she’s lost touch with, the memories of her mother, the sweet guy she dumped horribly in high school. Soon everything that matters is on the line—and Sarah can only hope that by changing her life she has changed her luck, too.

After reading and loving Katherine Center’s five most recent novels plus one from her backlist, I decided to listen to another backlist book via audio when I stumbled across it on Hoopla. And while Get Lucky was a fun, engaging listen, it’s clear to see that this is an earlier work from an author whose books just keep getting better and better.

In Get Lucky, Houston-born Sarah is thriving at her New York ad agency. Well, okay, she got passed over for promotion in favorite of the less-qualified jerk she’d been dating… but still, her ideas have resulted in a huge campaign (more on this later) that’s getting loads of attention. Unfortunately, when an email from her sister has her spiraling in the middle of the night, she shares a link with the rest of the company (never hit Send on an all-staff email in the middle of the night!!) that’s deemed inappropriate, and she’s abruptly fired. By her jerky ex. Whose nickname is Mr. Dynamite, in case you’re wondering.

Getting fired right before Thanksgiving is not ideal, and things get worse for Sarah when she boards her flight back to Houston for the holiday and ends up seated next to her high school ex-boyfriend, who (a) has gotten incredibly hot and (b) has apparently never forgiven her for dumping him in a truly thoughtless and cruel manner (which she regrets, but of course, you can’t undo the past).

Arriving home, Sarah’s sister Mackie immediately informs her that she’s done with trying to have a baby. After yet another miscarriage related to endometriosis, Mackie is giving up on her dreams of becoming a mom. And Sarah — adrift, jobless, and without plans — has an idea. Her uterus is just fine, after all. Why not become Mackie and her husband’s gestational carrier? After a tiny pause to consider, Mackie and Clive are in, and in practically the blink of an eye, Sarah is living in Mackie’s nursery/guest room, and pregnant.

The book delves into Sarah and Mackie’s past, the death of their mother during their teen years, and how that’s affected (and continues to affect) their openness toward love, connection, and commitment. While their father continued to care for them after their loss, he was so befuddled by his own grief that his parenting was always distant and ineffectual, so the girls had to rely on one another for everything that mattered. As Sarah lives with Mackie and moves forward with the pregnancy, she also is confronted by the feelings from her past that bubble up, complicating an already complicated situation.

There’s also a love story, of sorts, which is more of a background plot thread than a front-and-center focus, which is why I wouldn’t classify this book as a romance. Sarah also deals with career choices, rebuilding a relationship with her father, and finding a new outlook on life thanks to the outrageous-but-awesome new woman in his life.

Get Lucky is enjoyable, but some elements feel especially dated or jarring, even though it was only published 13 years ago. The ad campaign launch that kicks off the story is truly atrocious — it’s a campaign for a new line of bras, and the tagline is “boob ’em”… and I won’t even go into all the ways this plays out and how awful it sounds. Later, there’s an extended plot element revolving around Sarah’s involvement with the young woman who was the ad campaign’s bra model — all of which feels unnecessary and distracting, and does nothing to move the plot forward.

Overall, I’m not sure that the story truly holds together. There are a lot of random plotlines, and Sarah’s journey sort of meanders through them all. That said, there’s also plenty of humor, some very funny dialogue, and sneaky little moments that are suddenly quite emotional and pack a punch.

Morgan Hallett’s narration is quite good, capturing Sarah’s inner voice, the zaniness of some of the side characters, and the array of voices and situations. I found this a light, entertaining listen that didn’t demand a whole lot of attention, which was perfect for my life this week.

If you’re a Katherine Center fan, or simply enjoy a sister-centric story, it’s worth checking out this backlist title.