rebeccaheyman
Rebecca Faith Editorial, Inc.
Precise, spacious, compassionate critique for novels-in-progress.
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Every romance book promoted on tiktok is just full to the brim with horrible "steamy" taglines that are just like... Eyes on me, Little Beast. I'm here to make you Damp
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Without question, one of Howard's best
Review: The Duke in Question by Amalie Howard (Sourcebooks Casablanca, 08 Nov 2022)
The Duke in Question is the standout best of the Daring Dukes series so far. Bronwyn and Valentine have incredible chemistry, and the mystery at the center of the plot -- while fairly easy to parse -- is nonetheless juicy enough to keep the pages turning.
Three-sentence summary: Far from the vapid paragon of society everyone believes her to be, Bronwyn Chase is a covert agent of the Crown, running messages to people and places accessible to her because of her place in the ton. Valentine Medford, Duke of Thornbury, has retired from his service as spymaster to the Crown, but can't quite leave the hustle behind thanks to a mysterious operative known only as the Kestrel. When their missions intersect, Bronwyn and Valentine find themselves on the run, and struggling to balance the secrets they keep with the passion they can't deny.
This book was perfectly executed from start to finish. The pacing, characterization, tropes, conflict -- it's all so thoughtfully composed, and Howard pulls it off without a hitch. Note for the prudish: this is a non-stop steam train. Sex in public places? ✅ We-had-a-near-death-experience-and-now-must-bang? ✅ "Of course I'm not a virgin," said the virgin. ✅ Truly, this book is a giver.
While the Daring Dukes series has continuation with characters and references to previous events, this can be read as a standalone.
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Together we...sputter
Review: Together We Burn by Isabel Ibañez (Wednesday Books, 31 May 2022)
Together We Burn had all the potential to be a standout standalone fantasy romance, but the glacially slow pacing, flat chemistry between the main characters/love interests, and a saccharine-sweet, Disney-fied ending turned it into a major slog. I listened to the audio, and even at 1.5x speed, Ana Osorio's narration was strangely childlike and slow. I confess to falling asleep more than once and not having the mental fortitude to rewind.
Three-sentence summary: When tragedy strikes the Zalvidar family's dragon-fighting arena, eighteen-year-old Zarela has to pick up the pieces while her father fights a devastating injury. To rebuild what they've lost, she enlists the reluctant help of Arturo Díaz de Montserrat, a Dragonador and trainer with a dark past. As Zarela strives to become a Dragonador in her own right, Arturo's radical views on dragon fighting begin to change her mind about the ancient art form, while the connection between them begins to change both their hearts.
The book opens with a double disaster -- one a year before the story proper, and one just as it begins. It's hard to claw your way out of an emotional deficit that large, and I'm not sure Together We Burn ever succeeds. Zarela has all the pluck you could wish for in a YA fantasy heroine, but she makes selfish, boneheaded decisions that endanger herself and others. The "big twist" at the end was more soapy than I like to see, and the ending that ties everything in a neat bow made my teeth hurt, it was so sweet.
All in all, a great premise (How to Train Your Dragon, but make it Spanish, and a little spicy), but poor execution.
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An unfortunate exception
Review: I'm The Girl by Courtney Summers (Wednesday Books/Macmillan Audio, 13 September 2022)
It had to happen eventually: Courtney Summers has written a book I didn't actually like. The writing is wonderful, and the gritty violence hiding just below the surface of a seemingly quotidian world is there, too -- both hallmarks of what makes Summers so great. But I'm The Girl relies heavily on our ability to believe in a place and people whose rarified wealth and status make them untouchable -- and in some ways, unbelievable. Books like Sadie and The Project hit hard because they seemed to shine a light on dark, twisted parts of our culture that nonetheless felt true. I'm the Girl doesn't ring with truth in the same way, and the story overall suffers for it.
Three-sentence summary: Sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis dreams of being an Aspera Girl -- one of the elite, beautiful few who work the "executive floor" of the titular club on the edge of her small town. But her mission to join their ranks is interrupted by tragedy, when Georgia discovers the body of a 13-year-old girl on the road to Aspera. After a too-close encounter with the killer, Georgia teams up with the victim's sister to uncover the truth behind the brutal murder, only to discover that wealth, power, and complicity too often leave the truth woefully far out of reach.
Georgia is a frustratingly unlikeable character who reads younger than her 16 years. Sadly, I think she's probably emblematic of too many young women raised on a steady diet of patriarchy, objectification, diet/beauty culture, systemic racism, and poverty. But her single-minded focus on becoming an Aspera Girl makes her seem more unhinged than the average teen, and simultaneously less sympathetic. More than anything, Georgia is a victim of circumstances far beyond her control, and I'm The Girl is a stark reminder that we need to advocate for all victims -- especially minors -- regardless of whether they're especially likable.
Summers is known for tackling difficult issues in her books and exposing violence against girls and women, but I hope she doesn't lose sight of the fact that her first purpose is to tell great stories. Like some other recent YA thrillers -- e.g., Ace of Spades, The Mary Shelley Club -- I'm The Girl relies on the portrayal of power and wealth so great, it makes those who have it untouchable; and while this is likely a reality for some (Epstein and Weinstein, I'm looking at you), the truth of it is already stranger than fiction.
Lori Prince does a fine job voicing a substantial cast. Even listening at 1.5x speed, her inflection and emotion were crystal clear.
Thank you to SMP/Wednesday Books and Macmillan Audio for the advance eBook and audio copies.
#i'm the girl#courtney summers#fiction#ya fiction#audiobooks#book review#book recommendation#macmillan audio#wednesday books
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Such a rising talent
Review: Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel (Ballantine, 10 May 2022)
Such Big Dreams is a profoundly impressive debut that explores hidden depths of the "real" Mumbai through the eyes of a tenacious underdog, Rakhi, as she strives to carve out a life of her own in a world that wants to use her for its own ends.
Three-sentence summary: Twenty-three-year-old Rakhi lives in the shadow of tragedy, but makes her way through the world thanks to her steady job at Justice For All, an NGO on the brink of closure. When a powerful family offers their support to the organization in exchange for an internship for their naive Canadian friend, Rakhi strikes a deal with wide-eyed Alex: she'll show him the "real" India, and he'll help her apply to college. While pursuing her dreams at first seems harmless, Rakhi soon finds herself entangled in other, more powerful people's ambitions, and must decide once and for all whether to remain in the safety of what she knows, or take a risk for the sake of a better, fuller life.
Several reviewers balked at the heavy incorporation of Hindi words without definitions or contextual explanations, but I view this as an intentional choice to force readers to experience exclusion from the "true" culture in the novel. We are outsiders in Rakhi's world, and while she's happy to show us around, cultural barriers ensure we'll never see the full truth.
The book's first half lacks tension, so much that I'm not sure every reader who picks up the book will stick around for its conclusion. Such Big Dreams is more character and culture study than compelling fiction, but a worthwhile read all the same.
Thank you to RHPG/Ballantine for the advance copy.
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Well-built romance from a YA juggernaut
Review: Built to Last by Erin Hahn (SMP, 18 Oct 2022)
Erin Hahn's dependably excellent YA writing transitions beautifully to the adult market in Built to Last, a sweet, steamy, second-chance, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance.
Three-sentence summary: Shelby Springfield defied the odds when she left the glitz of Hollywood -- and her hot-mess, party-girl reputation -- and found her calling restoring historical homes and furniture in rural Michigan. But when Hollywood comes knocking with an opportunity to film a home-reno reality-TV pilot, Shelby can't say no -- especially when Cameron Riggs, her former co-star and first love -- signs on to the show alongside her. With the second chance they've both longed for finally at hand, Shelby and Cameron have to face down their complicated history and decide, once and for all, if their love is built to last.
This was a feel-good romance that somehow manages to be wholesome despite the adult content. Hahn's tone is lighthearted even in heavier moments, and the reality-TV setting keeps the external plot humming along. It's as compulsively readable as HGTV is watchable: it might not plumb the depths of human experience, but it'll keep you glued to the page to the very end. There's a similarly "surface-level' vibe to the emotional development between Shelby and Cameron; they love each other from the start, they know they love each other from the start, and the decisions they have to make to act on that love aren't especially soul-shattering. All the same, it's nice to see it all unfold.
I hope we see more adult romance from Erin Hahn in the future -- and that she'll dig as deep as she does in her YA books for the emotional punch she's more than capable of delivering.
Thank you to SMP for the advance copy. #SMPinfluencer
#built to last#romance#romance books#smp#smp griffin#book review#book recommendation#erin hahn#netgalley
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The duke *gets it*
Review: The Duke Gets Even by Joanna Shupe (Avon/HarperVoyager, 24 January 2023)
The Duke Gets Even is an absolute knockout from Joanna Shupe, and features two of the most magnetic characters I've read so far this year.
Three-sentence summary: Railroad heiress Nellie Young lives on her own terms, disregarding the aristocracy's social and moral conventions in favor of pursuing a life of pleasure that most assuredly does not include marriage. Meanwhile, the Duke of Lockwood is forced to play by the rules as he endeavors to find and marry an American heiress whose fortune will save his crumbling, debt-ridden estate. When Nellie and the duke's secret affair turns into a deeper connection, they each have to decide if taking a chance on one another is worth sacrificing the futures they always thought awaited them.
A warning for the prudish: This is a sex-positive, explicit romance that celebrates women's rights and, to some degree, kink. Nellie and Andrew's physical intimacy generates a language and subtext integral to their character development both separately and as a couple, so readers bent on dismissing the book for "too much sex" are always-already missing the point.
My one, ardent hope for Joanna Shupe is that she stops booking Justine Eyre for her aBooks, so I can enjoy rereads in an alternative format. I want to hear all that ducal dirty-talk in a voice that doesn't make my ears bleed.
Thanks to Avon/Harper Voyager for the advance copy.
#book review#book recommendation#historical romance#fiction#joanna shupe#fifth avenue rebels#reading#books
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Not too much ado about this duke
Review: Much Ado About Dukes by Eva Devon, aBook narr. Sasha Higgins (Dreamscape Media, 23 August 2022)
Much Ado About Dukes is a good-enough historical romance, but it's certainly not Devon's best. While her writing is as accomplished as ever, the story lacks forward propulsion, and there's a significant missed opportunity for a more compelling external plot. More on that below.
Three-sentence summary: William Easton, Duke of Blackheath, has sworn off love forever, and instead lives a life of service and duty. When bluestocking activist Lady Beatrice Haven enters the duke's life as his brother's fiancé's cousin, he doesn't anticipate that the woman who's been writing him impassioned letters advocating for women's rights is as enticing as she is outspoken. When Beatrice's circumstances take an abrupt turn, William steps in with an offer of marriage and the understanding that love will never enter into their union -- but fate has other ideas.
The narrative skews hard toward interiority. In moments of confrontation between William and Beatrice, we get one snippet of dialogue followed by minute upon minute of internal dialoguing. That inner turmoil is interesting enough, but it drags the pacing pretty aggressively and makes for too much repetition. Part of Beatrice's characterization as an outspoken advocate for women's rights makes space for a compelling external plot; she might have been attacked during a speech, or threatened by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo -- basically, the Regency-era equivalent of incels. I thought this would have sped up William's character growth, and added some needed tension to the narrative overall.
I confess that when I fell asleep without setting a timer and the audiobook ran through the last hour while I was unconscious, it took some convincing to make me go back and re-listen to what I missed. Things just got kind of dull in Act III -- lots of hemming and hawing, very little tension/action.
For a better example of Eva Devon's excellent storytelling, read The Duke's Accidental Bride (01 Aug 22, Entangled).
Thank you to Dreamscape Media for the advance copy.
#book review#book recommendation#eva devon#historical romance#fiction#reading#books#netgalley#audiobooks#sasha higgins#much ado about dukes#new release
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Perfect on paper and everywhere else
Review: Mr. Perfect on Paper by Jean Meltzer (Harlequin Audio, 09 August 2022), narr. Dara Rosenberg
The perfect contemporary romance novel should:
✅ be driven by deep character development for both main characters
✅ feature a dynamic plot that puts internal and external conflict in conversation
✅ make the reader fall in love with the characters while they fall for each other
If you're looking for a novel that checks off all these boxes, AND gives impeccable anxiety rep, AND beautifully portrays Jewish culture/joy/conflict/practice, AND is laugh-out-loud funny, look no further than Jean Meltzer's Mr. Perfect On Paper.
I am, in the words of my foremothers, verklempt.
Three-sentence summary: Third-generation matchmaker and tech wunderkind Dara Rabinowitz has helped thousands of Jewish couples find love, but her Generalized Anxiety Disorder and grief after her mother's death have prevented her from doing the same. When her beloved Bubbe Miriam outs Dara's "Perfect Jewish Husband" list on live TV, the show's host — widowed single dad, Christopher Steadfast — convinces Dara to let him and his cameras follow her on her quest to find a man that checks off every item. But as Dara and Chris spend more time together trying to find her perfect match, they learn that love doesn't play by the rules — and "perfect on paper" doesn't always mean forever.
I genuinely can't say enough about how much I loved this book. The romance is clean but swoon-worthy, with a slow-burn, opposites-to-friends-to-lovers trajectory that smolders despite near-zero physical contact between them. Dara loves and celebrates her Judaism, and Meltzer shows us the unique struggles and triumphs of living a faith-based life in the modern world. The book's thoughtful structure — based on the Jewish High Holiday season — reflects the fullness of Jewish experience, as Dara prioritizes her observance even while striving to find love in the public eye. At the same time, the narrative both challenges and explores Jewish traditions — most significantly, the prohibition on intermarriage. Meltzer is never pedantic, illuminating both the beauty and struggle of modern Jewish life in ways that made me proud of my culture without feeling judged for being far less observant than Dara herself.
This book is already top of my gift-giving list for the holiday season, and it's only August. Pro tip: Treat yourself to Dara Rosenberg's exquisite audiobook narration, particularly if you're unfamiliar with Jewish terms.
Five enormous stars (of David) to a contemporary novel as perfect in practice as it is on paper.
#book review#book recommendation#five star review#fiction#contemporary romance#romance books#mr perfect on paper#jean meltzer#jewish fiction#jewish joy#jewish romance#romance#new release#harlequin audio#mira books#books
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A remarkably accurate title
Review: Games in a Ballroom by Jentry Flint (Shadow Mountain, 03 May 2022)
It's not hard to see why I was initially drawn to Games in a Ballroom because of its cover, though I might have gone the extra mile to research "proper romance" before adding this to my TBR. For the uninitiated, "proper" is the historical romance equivalent of "clean" -- i.e., no sex. It's not a surprise from Shadow Mountain Publishing, which I later learned is an imprint of LDS bookseller and publisher Deseret. Curse me and my magpie tendencies...
The challenge of clean romance (I refuse to adopt the term "proper," which feels pejorative to bodice-rippers) in any genre, but particularly historical romance, is replacing moments of intimacy with equally character- and relationship-building scenes. Ballroom offers up a unique alternative: an elaborate game of tag.
It's a serviceable concept, but as repetitive as you remember from your playground days.
Our main characters, Emerson and Olivia, don't offer much (anything?) in the way of character growth. He's determined to make her see him as more than her friend's older brother from the very first page, just as she's resigned to making a match chosen by her abusive father. Emerson comes up with the somewhat convoluted plan to draw Liv out of her shell (where "shell" means "self-protective behavior" but hey it's just semantics!) using an ongoing game of tag, which he's sure will result in her realization that he cares for her. If it all sounds a bit puerile, that's because it is.
Realistically, this book is perfect for readers who abhor smut but want to read a historically-set romance, and who don't care much about character growth. In my experience, contemporary romance is doing a better job of offering up clean or closed-door narratives that nonetheless evoke incredible depth of feeling (off the top of my head, Thank You For Listening by Julia Whelan and Mr. Perfect on Paper by Jean Meltzer both fit the bill). Sex is just one way to portray intimacy -- but I'm fairly certain a game of tag doesn't count among the alternatives.
Thank you to Shadow Mountain for the advance copy.
#games in a ballroom#historical fiction#romance#clean romance#beautiful cover strikes again#fiction#netgalley#book reviews
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It all comes down to character
Review: It All Comes Down to This by Therese Anne Fowler (SMP, 07 June 2022)
It All Comes Down to This reads like La Croix tastes: a diluted and somewhat flat version of what you thought you were getting. None of the characters were particularly likable, and all of them have "problems" created by their own selfishness.
Three-sentence summary: In the wake of their mother's death, the three Geller sisters learn their mother's family history wasn't as straightforward as they always believed, and furthermore, the family matriarch has left strict orders to sell the family summer home on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Eldest sister Beck moves into the cottage under the guise of renovating for sale, while secretly she nurtures a plan to fix it up and live there, leaving her husband and their sexless marriage in the process. As the sisters bicker endlessly over what to do, each reveals her own secrets that prove the whole family is garbage.
Ugh. I couldn't wait for this one to be over. The Geller conundrums are the definition of rich people problems. The side plot about a character named CJ with a mysterious past who's trying to buy the Geller property is strange and irrelevant. Beck tries to lay blame for her crappy marriage at his feet, and by extension, the drama between her and her middle sister -- but none of it is actually his fault, and we never needed to hear about him at all.
For character-driven "New England summer" novels driven by real emotion and pathos, read Jennifer Weiner's excellent Summer series (Big Summer, That Summer, The Summer Place).
#it all comes down to this#smp influencer#book review#book recommendation#jennifer weiner does it better#family drama#fiction#loved the jewish rep but really hated the rest
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Big yikes energy
Review: A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon (Scribner, 02 August 2022)
This book. Hoo boy.
Three-sentence summary: Linda lives a quiet life with her incredibly mediocre husband, Terry, who eventually finds himself the chief suspect in a serial murder investigation. Meanwhile, Linda is fixated on her house's previous resident, Rebecca, who must obviously have a glamorous, perfect life because she receives catalogues in the mail that still come to her old address. Linda inserts herself in Rebecca's life all while excising her own demons from a painful childhood.
I am so tired of authors writing "quirky" characters with exaggerated characteristics that would put them on the Autism spectrum if they weren't so grossly over-written. It makes a farce of a real condition that effects over 75m people globally. Not being able to read social cues, hyper-fixations, misunderstanding humor... these are symptoms, not adorable quirks. Linda reads like a caricature, not a character; reading scene after scene of her just entirely missing the plot is frustrating, not endearing. Worse, the conclusion of A Tidy Ending calls into question whether or not Linda's behaviors are in fact innate to her personhood or whether they're part of an elaborate, deliberate, sinister performance. All in all, not a great introduction to Cannon's work, which I understand is beloved by many. Her writing is clearly accomplished, but the characters and plot in A Tidy Ending were entirely unpalatable.
#book review#book recommendations#fiction#netgalley#joanna cannon#a tidy ending#new release#skip this one#autism isn't a quirk
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A gift that keeps on giving
Review: With Love From Wish & Co. by Minnie Darke (Ballantine, 16 August 2022)
Minnie Darke delivers another charming, deeply felt novel in With Love From Wish & Co. There's a distinctive tone and quality to Darke's prose that translates to pure comfort and enchantment, though I can't entirely identify what makes it so. Maybe it's the way she tucks the story around her characters, or the laser precision of her pacing, or the honesty and humanness around character growth. Whatever it is makes Darke's writing unique as a fingerprint, yet familiar enough that I'd know her words anywhere. For that reason, and so many others, With Love is an absolute joy to read.
Three-sentence summary: Marnie Fairchild's gift for gift-giving--not to mention her airtight discretion--makes her a successful gift-buyer, particularly for wealthy men with "complicated" lives. When a mix-up for her most valuable client leads to the implosion of his marriage, Marnie has to make it right before her mistake costs her the one thing she wants above all others: the historic shopfront that once belonged to her grandfather, and which she at long last has an opportunity to buy. With her reputation and the shop's future on the line, Marnie doesn't expect to find love amid the wreckage caused by her uncharacteristic error -- but that doesn't stop love from showing up on her doorstep, inextricably linked to the very family she may have just destroyed.
One of the things I adore about Minnie Darke is her refusal to deny her characters their humanness. Protagonists make mistakes and antagonists pursue redemption in equal measure; I looked forward to the return of each POV as much as I regretted leaving the previous.
My only criticism: Whoever came up with the illustrated cover should be fired. The dull, dated color scheme and clipart-style illustration are entirely antithetical to the characters, all of whom have a strong sense of visual/aesthetic beauty. I saw an alternative cover based on a well-lit, brightly-colored, contemporary photo of a wrapped gift -- and that at least captures the vibes if not the precise tone of the novel. The Lost Love Song had a similarly dissonant cover -- cartoonish where it should have been elegant. I don't know who in Darke's camp is making these decisions, but they're doing her whole catalogue a disservice.
Thank you to RHPG Ballantine for the advance copy.
#with love from wish & co.#minnie darke#fiction#book reviews#book recommendations#ballantine books#books#netgalley#romance
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The irony of the title is just... wow.
Review: Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan, narr. Hillary Huber (Penguin Audio, 7 June 2022)
Nora Goes Off Script is an almost-exact mashup of the publisher comps: Evvie Drake Starts Over meets Beach Read. From the former, we take a recently single white woman (through divorce rather than death, though you'll wish Nora's ex a worse fate) who ends up making a domestic arrangement with a famous person that eventually leads to *feelings*. From the latter, we have winky references to romance tropes from a writer who knows the formula for happily ever after but doesn't necessarily believe in it. Shared credit for the small-town setting and secondary cast of supportive family and friends.
Where Off Script falls short is plot. Leo (the Famous Person™️) leaves for work — you know, as a normal, working person does — and can't return to Nora's side exactly as scheduled. The rest of the book is a meditation on why he seems to ghost her, how Nora will persevere, and how she can leverage her pain to sell another screenplay (she writes TV-movie romances). When Nora and Leo eventually have an adult conversation and the reason for his behavior is made plain, it's obvious a single phone call or clarifying text message would have cleared up the confusion and obviated all the drama.
That's right, friends: MISCOMMUNICATION TROPE ALERT. Next to amnesia, it's one of my most loathed narrative devices. These two walnuts could have had ONE CONVERSATION and the audiobook would have ended 3 hours sooner. Don't get me started on how the miscommunication originates when Leo takes the word of an 11-year-old as gospel, never checking in with the 40-year-old he's in an actual relationship with to verify the unlikely "truth" spoon-fed him by a salty minor.
Hillary Huber's narration sounds bored, as usual. Her tone is flat and somewhat wry — the auditory equivalent of a raised eyebrow. I'm officially adding her to my list of narrators to avoid (current population: Justine Eyre).
Off Script reads like what it is: a story gleaned from the leavings of better books. Monaghan's prose, which is pleasant enough and sometimes yields a neatly-turned phrase, will trick most readers into thinking this is an inoffensive, even charming read. In reality, the novel is a book equivalent of the canned scripts Nora writes for romance channel movies: a story you've heard before, packaged to make you think it's something entirely new.
#book review#nora goes off script#audiobooks#tropes can be useful but seriously stop using the shitty ones
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What did I just listen to??
Review: Bookish People by Susan Coll, narr. Alexa Morden (Harper Muse, 2 August 2022)
Bookish People is a satiric send-up of book stores, publishing, and Millennials. What the publisher describes as a "big-hearted screwball comedy" is in fact a meandering, plot-less meditation on grief and modernity. As is so often the case these days, the cover/marketing has nothing to do with the actual contents of the book.
Three-sentence summary: Grieving her husband's recent death, Sophie Bernstein dreams of retreating from the world into a secret nook hidden in her bookstore -- if only she could outfit the space with the amenities needed for a long-term stay. Withdrawing from life is made more difficult by a series of mishaps small (car towed! keys sucked into the vacuum! a beloved employee moves on to another career!) and large (protests at the store! unhinged employees! financial struggle!). Meanwhile, Clemi -- the store's events coordinator and a younger version of its owner -- leverages her position at the store to bring her suspected biological father through the doors, despite his contentious public image as an alcoholic likely responsible for his wife's suicide.
If my summary sounds unhinged, that's because it is. Bookish People finds itself awfully funny, but the details obviously intended to charm are arduous and belabored. A few strong moments of true satire hide among the rubble of attempted comedy, but by and large, this is a miss. Even the "book about books" factor isn't strong enough to rescue a plotless novel about unlikeable characters.
It's critically important to note that while I had an eBook ARC of this novel, I ended up listening to the audio after it published. Alexa Morden delivers one of the worst performances I've ever heard. Her mispronunciation of common words was so pointed, I double-checked the text to see if her errors were somehow intended by the author. But no. She just... doesn't know how to pronounce extremely basic words and phrases. For example:
per-EE-ne-uhl (perennial)
SEC-u-tary (security)
S-AH-viet (Soviet)
ANachronism instead of aNAchronism
Mal for mall
Hah-vering (hovering)
Mary-land (Maryland)
PAHT-o-mac (Potomac)
Honestly, did no one listen to this before it was published? Appalling.
#bookish people#susan coll#new release#audiobooks#book review#book recommendation#the primary animal in the book is a turtle so why is there a dog on the cover
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Quelle suprise, it's not actually a romance
Review: Lucy Checks In by Dee Ernst (SMP, 16 August 2022)
Lucy Checks In is a somewhat deceptive women's fiction confection disguising itself as a romance. Even the cover -- which shows a slender woman with brunette hair, and whose butt might very well be defying gravity -- doesn't accurately portray Lucy, our intrepid protagonist, who is gray-haired and nearing 50 years old. Does the book feature romance? Sure! It's a critical secondary plot, but not the crux of the conflict. Cover-shoppers beware: What you see is not what you get.
Three-sentence summary: After Lucy is disgraced by her uncomfortable proximity to a catastrophic scandal at work, she accepts the only job she can get: rehabilitating a dilapidated boutique hotel across the Atlantic, in Rennes, France. She arrives to find the place completely neglected, and must work with the group of pseudo-misfit residents living on the property to get Hotel Paradis back in shape ASAP. Renovations to the property give Lucy a chance to build herself back up after her confidence was so rocked back in the States, and she discovers new friendships, found family, and the romance she didn't know she was waiting for along the way.
I kept having to remind myself that Lucy is nearly 50; the voice is distinctly "late 20s." Lucy has just had her world rocked by a major betrayal (part and parcel of the aforementioned scandal), but her tone and interiority lack a sense of grounding or gravitas -- instead falling back time and again on insecurity, self-doubt, and fear. Obviously anyone, at any age, can experience a full range of emotion, but I didn't see much evidence of Lucy as the world-traveled, veteran hotel manager whose composure has been honed to a fine point by years in the service industry. In light of the other areas of dissonance (deceptive cover and genre categorization), I wonder if this was supposed to be a younger woman's story all along, but Ernst aged her protagonist purely for consistency within her catalogue.
Lucy Checks In is a good book if it's what you're looking for -- but I don't quite see how the right readers will find it if its packaging caters to an entirely separate audience.
#lucy checks in#dee ernst#book review#book recommendation#fiction#stop calling it romance when it's not romance#new release
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Mad about false expectations
Review: Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane (Avon/HarperVoyager, 9 August 2022)
Mhairi McFarlane fans know to expect certain non-negotiable elements in each of her novels:
- Start with a breakup
- Strong friend group
- Intensely British pop culture references
- Slow-burn, closed-door romance
- Razor-sharp wit
- Handsome, white male love interest
- Deep character development
- Big, messy, complex emotions
What shifts in each of her books is proportion, and the lion's share in Mad About You falls to the last two in my list. More on-par with the heaviness of Just Last Night than some of McFarlane's lighter novels, her latest carries major trigger warnings for emotional abuse, death of parents, death of grandparents, and cyber-bullying. McFarlane's prose offers plenty of light in the dark, but this is by no means a romcom or even, really, a romance.
Three-sentence summary: When wedding photographer Harriet Hatley declines a marriage proposal from her long-time boyfriend, she jumps on the opportunity to move out of his house -- even if it means moving in with Cal Clarke, who it turns out isn't the benign stranger with an available room Harriet was hoping for. Cal is coping with the recent end of his own long-term relationship, and a friendship blossoms between him and Harriet as they discover far more in common than they anticipated. When a figure from Harriet's past resurfaces with his malicious sights set on destroying her career and reputation, she's forced to confront the past holding her back from the future she wants -- a future that includes Cal as more than a friend.
There's a certain "soap opera" feel to Mad About You, a disappointing departure from the grounded, almost universal normality of Mhairi's novels. For two people who live together, Harriet and Cal are rarely without company; while their friendship develops believably in the company of Lorna and Sam, their respective best friends, it's hard to imagine how they have time to develop real feelings for one another when drama is forever arriving on their doorstep. Though it's customary for Mhairi's couples to come together within spitting distance of the last page, the romance here is several orders below prime.
McFarlane's 2021 release, Just Last Night, marked a departure from the "romcom with backbone" I'd come to expect from her, and Mad About You continues the trend. It's time to give up the winky 90s references in her titles, and market these books in a way that better establishes appropriate expectations for their content. When a solid two thirds of a novel is spent dissecting emotional abuse at the hands of two separate partners, it's hard to reconcile a candy-colored cover palette and pop-reference title.
Thank you to Avon for the advance copy.
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