Book Review: "Let's Pretend This Will Work" by Maddie Dawson

“Well, I just think that when that first love comes along, it brings with it a huge thunderclap of feeling—something so amazing that we get overwhelmed with it. And that it’s tempting to think that it’s the only love there ever could be in the world. But then it ends. Most of the time it ends.”

Mimi is a drama teacher who has never really been in love before. So when she and Ren, her fellow drama teacher, start dating and falling in love, she feels this is her destiny. And her psychic agrees.

But the night Ren proposes to Mimi, he finds out his ex-wife Judith has been in a car accident and had a stroke. He rushes back to New Haven to be with his adult daughters in order to figure out what kind of care his ex-wife needs. He moves home with his daughters to care for Judith in their house, but he convinces Mimi to move to New Haven so he can have her nearby.

Ren rarely has time for Mimi; if he stops by at all, it’s mostly for sex. She is angry with herself and Ren, and realizes more and more that he’s never going to want to leave his family for her. (She even cooks for Ren and his daughters, and spends time with Judith to give them all a break.) To fill her loneliness, she becomes friends with the parents who run a daycare co-op in the ground floor of her building, and little by little, she finds a job and a community, and realizes what her heart wants most.

This is a funny and emotional story about realizing you are worthy of love exactly as you are, not as someone wants you to be. It’s also a story of found family, of recovering from grief, and how strange the path to happiness may seem while you’re following it.

I’ve enjoyed several of Maddie Dawson’s previous books, but this is my favorite. It’s so full of humor and heart. The book will publish 6/1.

Book Review: "Mr. Breakfast" by Jonathan Carroll

Jonathan Carroll's new book is a little odd, but it's tremendously powerful and thought-provoking.

“The best thing in the world, the most anyone can hope for, is to wake up in the morning liking where you are, what you do, and, if you’re lucky, who you’re with. Ask or expect more and you’re a greedy fool.”

Graham Patterson is a stand-up comedian, but his career never seems to have gotten the traction he’d hoped for. He needs to figure out what his next steps are, so he buys a car and plans to drive cross-country, and hopes that inspiration will strike and lead him to success.

Along the way, he stops in North Carolina and gets a tattoo. Shortly thereafter, he starts seeing things that don’t make sense. It turns out that the tattoo is tremendously unique, and it will give him the ability to see his parallel lives. He can choose the life he is living, or see two other possible paths he could take, and he can stay in the life he chooses. But once he makes a choice there’s no telling what will happen.

This book is so fascinating and compelling. It looks at the choices we make and the impacts those choices have on ourselves and others. It’s also a story about connection, love, and finding what—and whom—you care about. Obviously there’s some suspension of belief that’s necessary, but I just loved this.

Book Review: "The Setup" by Lizzy Dent

She has a plan. Fate has other ideas.

Mara rarely makes a move without checking her star sign each day. But somehow she finds herself in Budapest, making an impromptu visit to a fortune teller. The woman tells Mara that she’ll meet the man of her dreams imminently, but something will need to be fixed before love can take hold.

After a chaotic end to her session, Mara gives into the temptation of trying on the fortune teller’s garb. And that’s when he walks in—Josef, an absolutely handsome cellist from Austria—who thinks she’s the fortune teller. So what else should she do except pretend to be that woman, and tell him his destiny will await him at a cafe in the small English town of Broadgate at the end of August. And the crowning piece of his “fortune” is that his destiny’s name is Mara.

Of course, that doesn’t give Mara much time to transform herself into the woman she believes Josef will want. And along the way she has to deal with work crises, feeling abandoned by her best friend, and a handsome housemate, who makes her question whether Josef is the right man for her after all. But she’ll need to gather all of her courage and self-confidence in order to figure out just what her true destiny is.

This was a fun romp, full of quirky characters and romance. Lizzy Dent writes really enjoyable stories, even if they’re a bit predictable.

Book Review: "Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop" by Roselle Lim

Roselle Lim's second novel, Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop, has a little romance, a little drama, a little clairvoyance—and lots of yummy-sounding food!!

Ever since Vanessa was young she has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of her teacups. But blurting out prophecies hasn’t always worked for her—so much so, she switched to coffee and has tried to sublimate her skills, much to the anger of her Aunt Evelyn, a talented clairvoyant.

Now Vanessa is facing pressure from her mother to find a husband, but even the matchmaker can’t figure her out, because clairvoyants aren't supposed to be able to find matches. And when Vanessa predicts death for the first time, she is so overwhelmed that she realizes she has to try and control her abilities, so she turns to her aunt.

Evelyn is ready to train Vanessa but there is a lot of work to be done since she’s tried to fight her abilities for so long. Vanessa goes to Paris to help Evelyn open her new tea shop. While falling in love with all that the City of Light has to offer (not to mention a handsome man), she learns a lot about what destiny truly means—how to follow it but how not to let it consume her life. At the same time she realizes where her talents lie, and how she may find happiness, something she has always dreamed of but never believed it could happen.

I loved this book. I loved the family drama, the romance, the clairvoyance stuff, the setting, even the predictability of it all. Don’t read this book if you’re the slightest bit hungry because it is FULL of descriptions of phenomenal food and French pastries.

Lim is a terrifically engaging writer whose books leave you feeling happy. I enjoyed her first book (Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune) and I look forward to seeing what comes next in her career!

Book Review: "The Christmas Backup Plan" by Lori Wilde

Lori Wilde's The Christmas Backup Plan is a cute, steamy, and surprisingly emotional romance where opposites attract.

Aria Alzate is a wedding planner ready to create the perfect wedding for her best friend, but when a concussion prohibits her from driving to the town of Twilight, Texas, she’s worried the whole event may collapse. And when she finds out that Remington Lockhart will be (begrudgingly) driving her to Twilight, she’s even less thrilled.

Aria and Remy have known each other since childhood—her three sisters are even married to his three brothers, and everyone is fairly convinced that Remy and Aria are destined to be together. But Remy, recently discharged from the Army after a career-ending injury, is as uptight as they come, and he can’t handle Aria’s casual, fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants style. How can a wedding planner not believe in backup plans?

Despite their obvious chemistry (which they deny vehemently), the ride to Twilight is difficult because of their constant need to get under each other’s skin. And when they’re waylaid by an ice storm, they have to decide whether to give in to their attraction or fight it every step of the way—and what doing either will mean in the long run.

Will they get to Twilight on time for the wedding? Will everything go off without a hitch? Are Aria and Remy truly meant for each other as their siblings have been?

Unless you’ve never read a rom-com, you can figure out all those answers. But along the way, Lori Wilde throws in some serious steam and some moving conversations about PTSD and grief that don’t often happen in a rom-com.

The Christmas Backup Plan was a sweet, fun read that might have caused a tear or two (whatever). I look forward to exploring more of Wilde’s Twilight, Texas series!

Avon Books provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

Book Review: "Forever Eve" by JB Lexington

Forever Eve is a super-steamy and thought-provoking book about a woman’s search for true love and happiness.

Izabel thought she had it all when she met Bo. He’s handsome, sexy, and well-connected, and his father is grooming him to be the future governor of Illinois. Izabel has had to make sacrifices because of his and his father’s ambitions—like postponing their wedding until Bo has made a name for himself politically—but she knows it will all be worth it.

But the pressures on Bo cause him to have anger and control issues, and Izabel feels like she’s walking on eggshells all the time. Even their wedding night turns into a nightmare when Bo’s anger gets the best of him, and he tries to keep her from seeing her free-spirited best friend, Natalie, whose lifestyle he disapproves of. (He also knows Natalie hates him.)

When Bo is out of town for business, Natalie convinces Izabel to attend a session with a Past Life Regression therapist. Izabel is unprepared for how this session will rock her world. And when she meets a handsome and familiar man, it opens her eyes to the things she has been keeping bottled up—and the things she so desperately wants.

While the scenes of abuse may be triggers for some, there aren’t many and they’re not too extreme. There’s some serious steam here, but at its heart this is a book about a woman realizing she deserves so much more than she is getting.

The author provided me with a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom" by John Boyne

A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom is a sweeping look at love, family, history, and destiny.

Have you ever read a book that you felt you couldn’t describe properly? That’s definitely the way I feel about John Boyne’s newest book. What I can say, however, is once again, his storytelling blew me away.

We start at the dawn of time, 1 AD. A baby is born to a warrior and his wife, amidst his father’s acts of violence. The baby has an older brother, who mostly resents him.

The story shifts as time passes, changing locations, names, certain facts, but the general thrust of the story remains the same, as if to say that what is destined will happen no matter who or where you are. We travel through history, getting glimpses of historical figures and events through time, all the way to the future.

At times this felt more like interconnected short stories than a cohesive novel. This was an interesting concept and I loved what Boyne has to say, that no event or emotion is unique to just one person. In the end, though, I don’t know that this worked for me as much as I hoped it would. But his storytelling transcended it all, so much like I felt about Fredrik Backman's Anxious People, the writing elevated the book, in my opinion.

If you’ve never read Boyne before, please read The Heart’s Invisible Furies, The Absolutist, and A Ladder to the Sky.

NetGalley and Hogarth Books provided me with a complimentary advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "Maybe in Another Life" by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Man, oh man, what a book.

Taylor Jenkins Reid has blown me away again with Maybe in Another Life, another exceptionally beautiful, powerfully thought-provoking book, this one about destiny and soulmates and the choices we make.

As she nears 30, Hannah has been drifting from thing to thing, place to place. She doesn’t know what she wants from life. After breaking up with her boyfriend she decides to move home to Los Angeles, and stay temporarily with her best friend Gabby and her husband, Mark.

"Life is just a series of breaths in and out. All I really have to do in this world is breathe in and then breathe out, in succession, until I die. I can do that. I can breathe in and out."

On her first night back, at a get-together with old friends, she sees Ethan, her high school boyfriend, who broke her heart back then. They still have the same chemistry, and it’s clear there’s still possibility between them. When Gabby and Mark get ready to head home for the night, Ethan asks Hannah stay at the bar with him.

What happens if she stays? What will that mean for her and Ethan? What happens if she goes? Will that change how he feels about her? Hannah considers what both possibilities might mean. And then the book proceeds by exploring both scenarios, in alternate chapters, and the path that each scenario leads to.

"Life is long and full of an infinite number of decisions. I have to think that the small ones don’t matter, that I’ll end up where I need to end up no matter what I do. My fate will find me. So I decide to..."

I loved Maybe in Another Life so much. I am so in love with the way TJR writes, the way she pulls you into every story.

I can’t believe I have only one more of her books left to read! (Seriously, if you haven't read her books, you need to. Daisy Jones & The Six was one of my top 5 books from 2019 and One True Loves also was on my list of favorites, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was one of my favorites from 2018.)