Tag: fiction

The Best Books I Read in March (2024).

In March, I read 20 books, bringing my total for the year to 45, and DNFed 14 books. Of those, some were really excellent, while others were very good. My four–sorry, can’t narrow it down to three–favorites were:

The Iron Traitor, by Julie Kagawa. I can’t remember it this was a re-read or not, but I still love this world and these characters. The author is so great at creating believable characters and worlds, and I’m always so immersed when I read her books.

Heir, Apparently, by Kara McDowell. Do you know how excited I was to get approved for this galley? This book (and the one before it) was just so much fun to read! Completely unrealistic, but entertaining on all levels, and I loved it.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, by Fredrik Backman. I was just as transported on this, my second reading of this book, as I was the first time. I love the characters in this, and all the stories are so vivid to me! Can’t recommend this enough.

A Life Intercepted, by Charles Martin (audio). Yes, Charles Martin is my favorite author. And let me tell you why: I do not like football in the slightest, but he made football sound fascinating and compelling in this read, and his characters, like always, are both flawed and so interesting that it’s hard to put it down.

Sundays are for Writing #271

Happy Easter!

It’s been a good writing week: five fiction sessions and three book reviews. The Berlin Letters, by Katherine Reay was an excellent read, but I DNFed Maya’s Laws of Love, by Alina Khawaja and The Happiness Blueprint, by Ally Zetterberg. The characters just weren’t for me.

Happy writing!

Book Review:  The Happiness Blueprint, by Ally Zetterberg   

Image belongs to Harlequin/MIRA.

Title: The Happiness Blueprint
Author: Ally Zetterberg       
Genre: Romance     
Rating: DNF

Klara and Alex are having trouble connecting, but at least their calendars are in sync.

Klara—who’s always thought of herself as a little different, a sneaker in a world full of kitten heels and polished boots—is feeling a disconnect these days. She has type 1 diabetes, currently works in a dead-end job, and is in desperate need of a change. When her dad falls ill, Klara begrudgingly agrees to help run his small construction company while he recovers, even though it means moving back home and pushing the boundaries of her comfort zone to the extreme.

Alex has been a shell of himself since his brother died in an accident. He’s unemployed, has bills piling up, and is distant from friends and family. His therapist is encouraging him to keep things manageable by setting up a calendar, checking off tasks each day, and looking for work to help get him back on his feet. When an ad pops up for a carpenter position at a small construction company, he jumps at the chance to take a step forward.

DNFed at about 10% because, if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s anyone who sits around feeling sorry for themselves and making excuses. I don’t like people like that in real life, and I don’t like them in fiction—it’s just much easier to walk away with fictional characters than real people. These characters just weren’t a good fit for me.

Ally Zetterberg is British-Swedish, a former fashion model, and a mother. The Happiness Blueprint is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Berlin Letters, by Katherine Reay

Image belongs to Harper Muse.

Title:  The Berlin Letters   
Author: Katherine Reay     
Genre:  Historical fiction  
Rating:  4.2 out of 5

From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she’s expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments—especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s—Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.

Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family—by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather’s work, her father’s identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.

As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century’s most dramatic moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night’s promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain’s most iconic symbol.

This is a time period I’m not sure I’ve read anything in, but I enjoyed this! I can’t imagine what it would have been like, watching the Berlin Wall go up overnight and being separated from your family and life. Reay did such a fantastic job of placing the reader in that scene in history, and I really felt the characters’ emotions. This was an emotional but well-written novel set in a bleak time and place, but showing the hope that existed even in that dark time.

Katherine Reay is a bestselling author. The Berlin Letters is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harper Muse in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review and Blog Tour:  Maya’s Laws of Love, by Alina Khawaja

Image belongs to Harlequin/MIRA.

Title:  Maya’s Laws of Love
Author: Alina Khawaja      
Genre: Romance    
Rating:  DNF

Maya Mirza is so convinced she’s unlucky in love that she’s come up with a list of laws to explain it. Most importantly…

    Maya’s Law #1: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

But that’s about to change. Maya’s headed to Pakistan for an arranged marriage with a handsome, successful doctor who ticks all the right boxes. First comes marriage, then comes love—she’s sure of it. Except…

    Law #4: When you think you’re lucky, think again.

From the start, Maya’s journey is riddled with disaster, and the cynical lawyer seated next to her on the plane isn’t helping. When a storm leaves them stranded in Switzerland, she and Sarfaraz become unlikely travel companions through bus breakdowns and missed connections.

    Law #6: Trips are never smooth sailing.

And before long, Maya’s wondering whether she’s just experienced the ultimate in misfortune—finally meeting the right man a few days before she marries someone else. And Maya might just be the worst person to keep a secret.

    Law #18: If you’re overtired, you’ll always spill your guts.

But maybe, if she’s willing to bend some laws, this detour could take her somewhere totally—and wonderfully—unexpected.

This just wasn’t for me. The MC wasn’t for me. I don’t know very much about this faith and culture, but the first 10% just didn’t feel like it lined up with what I do know.

Alina Khawaja is from Canada. Maya’s Laws of Love is her newest novel./

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

Sundays are for Writing #270

This was a good writing week! I wrote Four book reviews, and got in five fiction sessions. An Unlikely Proposition, by Rosalyn Eves (This read like watching a telenovela), Good Half Gone, by Tarryn Fisher (DNFed because I didn’t like the MC), A Feather So Black, by Lyra Selene (I really liked this and can’t wait to read more!), and Bad Like Us, by Gabriella Lepore (This was a kind of YA locked room murder mystery—but I didn’t like the victim at all, so I wasn’t too invested.).

The fiction sessions were mainly brainstorming a do-over and working on bits of a re-write because I decided I didn’t like the genre or world I was writing in, So there’s that.

Happy writing!

Book Review: Bad Like Us, by Gabriella Lepore

Image belongs to Inkyard Press.

Title: Bad Like Us
Author: Gabriella Lepore     
Genre: YA, mystery     
Rating: 3.8 out of 5 

Spring break is a vibe—until someone gets murdered.

Partying with popular classmates they barely know is not what Eva and her BFFs had in mind for their spring break. But things have been off ever since Miles’ academic career took a turn for the worse (they don’t talk about it), so a trip to a private beach lodge might be exactly what they need. And Eva won’t admit it, but the chance to reconnect with Colton is worth putting up with Piper’s constant livestreams to her thousands of “besties.”

At first, it’s all sand and waves, but tensions run high when an anonymous letter shakes up an already-flailing love triangle.

When someone turns up dead, Eva can’t even trust her closest friends—but she thinks she can trust Colton. As they get closer to the truth, they uncover secrets that upend everything they thought they knew about their fellow spring breakers.

Frankly, Piper got on my very last nerve, and I had trouble keeping the other characters—well, the female characters except Eva—straight. It was a little hard imagining all these parents being okay with their teenagers going off on their own, with no phone service, so that required suspending my disbelief quite a bit. Despite the subject matter, this felt like a fluffy, quick read, and would probably be a good weekend read.

Gabriella Lepore lives in Wales. Bad Like Us is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Inkyard Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: A Feather So Black, by Lyra Selene

Image belongs to Orbit Books.

Title: A Feather So Black
Author: Lyra Selene      
Genre:  Fantasy    
Rating:  5 out of 5

In a kingdom where magic has been lost, Fia is a rare changeling, left behind by the wicked Fair Folk when they stole the High Queen’s daughter and retreated behind the locked gates of Tír na nÓg.

Most despise Fia’s fae blood. But the queen raises her as a daughter and trains her to be a spy. Meanwhile, the real princess Eala is bound to Tír na nÓg, cursed to become a swan by day and only returning to her true form at night.

When a hidden gate to the realm is discovered, Fia is tasked by the queen to retrieve the princess and break her curse. But she doesn’t go with her is prince Rogan, Fia’s dearest childhood friend—and Eala’s betrothed.

As they journey through the forests of the Folk, where magic winds through the roots of the trees and beauty can be a deadly illusion, Fia’s mission is complicated by her feelings for the prince…and her unexpected attraction to the dark-hearted fae lord holding Eala captive. Irian might be more monster than man, but he seems to understand Fia in a way no one ever has.

Soon, Fia begins to question the truth of her mission. But time is running out to break her sister’s curse. And unraveling the secrets of the past might destroy everything she has come to love.

I loved this! I enjoyed Fia’s point-of-view so much:  how she feels like she never fits in and she doesn’t really understand a lot of things but keeps trying her best anyway. I never liked the queen or Eala at all, and I wish Fia had been more observant when it came to both of them.

Rogan was likable enough, although I frequently wanted to smack him. Irian, I liked him from the beginning. Who doesn’t like a dark, handsome, mysterious, powerful stranger? I enjoyed this world and the bits of history sprinkled in it, and the magic and cultures were fascinating to me. Can’t wait to read more!

Lyra Selene lives in New England. A Feather So Black is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Orbit Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review and Blog Tour: Good Half Gone, by Tarryn Fisher

Image belongs to Harlequin/Graydon House.

Title: Good Half Gone  
Author: Tarryn Fisher     
Genre: Thriller/mystery     
Rating:  DNF

Iris Walsh saw her twin sister, Piper, get kidnapped—so why does no one believe her?

Iris narrowly escaped her pretty, popular twin sister’s fate as a teen: kidnapped, trafficked and long gone before the cops agreed to investigate. With no evidence to go on but a few scattered memories, the case quickly goes cold.

Now an adult, Iris wants one thing—proof. And if the police still won’t help, she’ll just have to find it her own way; by interning at the isolated Shoal Island Hospital for the criminally insane, where secrets lurk in the shadows and are kept under lock and key. But Iris soon realizes that something even more sinister is simmering beneath the surface of the Shoal, and that the patients aren’t the only ones being observed…

I made it about 20% of the way through this, but…it was a struggle. The writing was solid, no problems there. But the characters just didn’t work for me. I didn’t like either sister in the past, and I didn’t care for Irish in the present, either. Ergo, this was a no-go for me. I didn’t like the characters, so it didn’t keep my attention.

Tarryn Fisher is a bestselling author. Good Half Gone is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/Graydon House in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: An Unlikely Proposition, by Rosalyn Eves

Image belongs to Macmillan’s.

Title: An Unlikely Proposition  
Author:  Rosalyn Eves      
Genre: Romance   
Rating:  3 out of 5

Eleanor did not come to London to be proper and boring. After the death of her husband and a year of mourning, the seventeen year old wants nothing more than her independence and to have a little fun. She’s hardly looking to remarry, despite pressures from her late husband’s nephew, who is keen on obtaining her inheritance. Eleanor quickly devises a plan that includes a fake engagement. What’s not a part of the plan? Falling for a dashing, quiet man outside of her social circle – a man who is not her betrothed. Can she survive the Season with her heart and her fortune intact?

Thalia is determined to begin afresh after a disastrous first Season in London. No romantic distractions, but only her work as a poet and newfound companion to Eleanor. Determined to get her poems published, she struggles to be taken seriously as a female writer. As the spring progresses, Thalia does not expect to take interest in a man from her past (a man who is engaged to her employer, no less!), but some feelings demand to be felt even if the timing isn’t quite right.

This was just an okay read for me. The characters felt more like caricatures or paper dolls than fully fleshed-out people, and I kind of felt like I was watching a telenovela, with the dramatics and over-the-top emotional decisions. I liked the secondary characters better than the primary ones, and would have enjoyed seeing more of them.

Rosalyn Eves lives in Utah. An Unlikely Proposition is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Macmillan’s in exchange for an honest review.)