Book Review: "The Tide Between Us" by Cem Say

It’s fun to read the books that get lots of hype and publicity, the ones you see everyone else talking about. At the same time, I love stumbling upon a book I’ve never heard of and being taken by complete surprise.

The Tide Between Us definitely falls in the latter category. I’m not even sure how I found it. But this portrait of love, longing, and being truly seen honestly took my breath away. There were so many sentences, paragraphs even, that I highlighted while reading.

“Because you don’t know what missing someone feels like. You’ve never once let yourself do it. Everyone you ever lost, you skipped the missing and went straight to the wall. You built a whole personality out of not needing anyone, and you did it so well you forgot that need is just, a thing people feel. Ordinary people. Every day.”

Emre left Istanbul for an unnamed coastal town. He vowed that he would no longer wait to be seen, to be loved, and he would stop living his life in the margins of others’. At a cafe, he meets Julian, a charismatic older man. There is an immediate attraction but neither knows what their first move should be—if there should be one at all.

Julian has the ability to make people feel like they are the most important to him. But he can only sustain that for so long before he hurts them. His seven-year marriage to Marco is filled with moments of joy and pain, yet neither wants to ask questions they don’t want answers to. As Julian and Emre turn toward each other, both know the gravity of their choices and the inevitability of the end. But how do you distinguish love from feeling seen?

This was an exceptionally beautiful debut novel. The feelings these characters lay bare, the waves of joy, jealousy, pain, and love they experience were so poignant and yet so real. I cannot wait for Cem Say’s next book. I’m so glad I found this.

Book Review: "Hungry Eyes" by Anthony McFly, translated by Nicola Clitheroe

“I don’t know anything about this guy, except that he lives in my street and in my mind.”

Thanks so much to Anthony McFly for sending me a copy of his novel, which was recently translated from the French by a friend of his. It was definitely a wild ride, and I wondered where he was going to take the story!

Amaury is a young man who lives a solitary life. He works hard on his studies and is anxious about the fact that he’s losing his hair at a young age. But what gets most of his attention is the handsome man who lives in the apartment directly across the street from his.

“…his inability to live in an enclosed space gives me full access to see deep inside the interior of his home.”

Amaury watches the man every day, and in fact, every night he turns off his lights so he can watch without the possibility of being noticed. He dreams of a life with his neighbor and hopes that one day he’ll notice him. One night, after watching the man getting closer to a date, Amaury decides to follow them, and winds up having an awkward yet eye-opening evening.

This was well-written and certainly a bit creepy. You don’t know whether to feel sorry for Amaury or worry about what he’s capable of. I definitely needed to read this in one sitting!

Book Review: "Women! In! Peril!" by Jessie Ren Marshall

Do you ever wonder if your sense of humor is so different from other people’s? I often feel that way when I read a book that’s supposed to be “funny” or “zany,” and I’m sitting there thinking, “do I have no sense of humor?”

Jessie Ren Marshall’s debut story collection, Women! In! Peril!, has been labeled “ferociously feminist.” Indeed, the 12 short stories each have women at their center—either from the present or the future, real or robotic, in a variety of situations. The stories deal with issues from queerness and motherhood to relationship woes and cultural identity.

Some of the stories I enjoyed the most were “Annie 2,” about a sex bot who hopes not to be returned, and “My Immaculate Girlfriend,” in which a woman tries to figure out if her girlfriend really has a miraculous pregnancy.

I love short stories—at times it’s amazing how an author can give a novel-like feel in a short number of pages. At times though I feel like they leave me hanging, and just a little more might give me resolution. I felt a little bit more of the latter with this collection.

Book Review: "Immoral Origins" by Lee Matthew Goldberg

How far would you go to help those you love? That's the question Lee Matthew Goldberg raises in Immoral Origins.

Thanks so much to Suzy Approved Book Tours, Lee Matthew Goldberg, and Rough Edges Press for inviting me on the tour for this book. It was wild!

Jake is a petty thief living in New York City in 1978. He mostly sells stolen goods, but he does it to help Emile, his younger brother, who has a host of health problems. He wishes there was a better way.

And then he finds her—a woman with a Marilyn Monroe mask at a Halloween party. It turns out she works for The Desire Card, a shadowy organization that promises to fulfill its high-paying clients’ wishes—for the right price.

As always, what seems too good to be true usually is. Jake finds himself falling for Marilyn and getting drawn deeper and deeper into The Desire Card. But little by little he realizes that it’s not only magnanimous wishes the organization is fulfilling—some of them are actually deadly. In that someone winds up dead.

Having read Goldberg’s Runaway Train trilogy, which so accurately captured the music and ethos of the 1990s, it came as no surprise that the late 1970s setting, complete with the excesses of Studio 54, felt so right. But the thriller elements of the book worked so well, too, that I couldn’t put this down.

This is the start of a brand new series worth reading. It’ll make you think twice about how much you’d sacrifice for those you love.

Book Review: "The Lifestyle" by Taylor Hahn

As Taylor Hahn shows you in The Lifestyle, sometimes you have to shake up your life to figure out what you really want.

Georgina has always gone after what she wants. She has a great job as a partner in a law firm, a great husband, and she’s always trying to put other people’s needs and wants above her own. (Even if her selflessness isn’t always as generous as it seems.)

But having it all means nothing when you walk in on your husband having sex with an associate at your law firm—the associate you’re mentoring. Georgina is devastated, but divorce isn’t part of her plan. When a client tells her that swinging saved her marriage and added the desire and passion back in, Georgina is determined that getting into “the lifestyle” (swinging is such a 70s term) is what she and Nathan need.

She’s excited when her two closest friends and their spouses/significant others decide to join her and Nathan on their foray into this new world. And while she finds her encounters immensely freeing, it’s not having the effect on her marriage that she had hoped. Do they have to try harder? Is this not the issue?

When Georgina runs into her college boyfriend at a party, she’s reminded of the path she chose not to take. But the more she thinks about her future, she’s not sure if the life she’s living is the one she really wants. And what does that mean for her marriage, her career, her future, her friends?

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, but I really enjoyed it. It’s funny, poignant, and a bit steamy, but it’s also thought-provoking. Swinging isn’t something I’ve ever thought about so it was interesting to learn more about how people go about it.

Book Review: "In Polite Company" by Gervais Hagerty

You’ll want to head to Charleston after reading Gervais Hagerty's debut novel, In Polite Company!!

“Here’s the thing about Charleston families: we regard civility above all else. No matter what is said or done, we remain in polite company. It’s what we’ve been bred to do: hide our disagreements beneath the smiles. Not say what we mean.”

Simons Smythe was born and raised to do the right things. Her family has been part of Charleston society for generations, and everyone knows the role they are expected to play. Her older sister is having her second baby while her younger sister is scheduled to make her debut into society shortly, which puts her family in the center of the public eye, just the way they like it.

But Simons has always been the one to question expectations. She never quite followed the route her parents wanted, but now she’s engaged to a suitable man and will have the wedding and the life she’s supposed to. The challenge is, she doesn’t think she loves Trip, her fiancé—but is that enough to stop the marriage? (She's also not interested in stopping working once she gets married.)

As a producer for a local television news station, she’s inclined to dig deeper and ask probing questions. But sometimes her work crosses the line and tests the mores of the genteel society she’s supposed to uphold, and that creates tension among her family.

What do you do when you find yourself wanting something different than you’re expected to, when bucking the status quo could mean risking it all? How do you balance what you want with what you need?

In Polite Company is both the story of one woman’s struggle to find her own path and a love letter to Charleston, South Carolina. I really enjoyed this as I love books that provide social commentary about societies I don’t live in. (Plus I love Charleston!)

Thanks to William Morrow Books for the complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review!!

Book Review: "Love at First" by Kate Clayborn

In Kate Clayborn's new rom-com, Love At First, you realize that sometimes the past brings you comfort, but you have to focus on the future in order to find happiness.

He fell in love with her voice. As a teenager, Will was standing under an apartment balcony when he heard the voice of the girl of his dreams. He never actually saw her, but from the joyful tone of her voice, he just knew. But moments later his life was changed by something he overheard, and he soon forgot about the girl on the balcony.

Sixteen years later, Will has returned, as he has inherited an apartment in the same building from someone he never knew. Now an overworked doctor, he plans to clear out the apartment and get it sold as quickly as possible, although he has to consider a temporary solution first. But then he hears a familiar voice from a balcony above—it couldn’t possibly be her, could it?

This apartment building has been Nora’s home since she moved in with her elderly grandmother, but she used to spend her summers there since childhood. She doesn’t take kindly to Will’s plans for his apartment and how it will affect the family unit she and her fellow tenants have formed. It doesn’t matter how handsome and charming he may be—he must be stopped.

As Nora sets out to foil Will’s plans, she’s not above a little bit of friendly sabotage. And as much as her interference stirs up memories for Will he’d rather not deal with, he can’t deny that Nora is irresistible to him, and he wonders if he should let another chance with the girl from the balcony pass him by. Nora, fighting her own attraction to Will, must also decide whether loyalty to her grandmother means staying rooted in the past or moving forward.

Love At First is a cute story about second chances, trusting your heart, and finding comfort in familiarity. I felt like Nora and Will's chemistry was a little more slow-burn than a lot of rom-coms (the whole story seemed slower to gel at first) but there was definitely some steam when they finally got together.

If you’ve not read Kate Clayborn’s Love Lettering, and you’re a rom-com fan, definitely pick that one up.

Book Review: "Cleanness" by Garth Greenwell

Poetic and powerful, Cleanness is demonstration of a writer at the top of his game.

In his second novel, which is more a collection of interconnected short stories, Garth Greenwell continues his exploration of sexuality, intimacy, desire, and the connections we make and lose.

In Sofia, Bulgaria, the unnamed narrator, an American teacher, prepares to return home after a number of years abroad. He reflects on encounters and memories which affected him—the confessions of a student about his own sexuality and feelings about a friend, an experiment with sadomasochism, memories of a lost love, and connecting with another expatriate.

Greenwell’s writing is lyrical, almost poetic, and sexually frank at times. He provides such an authentic sense of time and place. His words evoke passion, love, loss, and eroticism.

"They could make a whole life, I thought, surprised to think it, these moments that filled me up with sweetness, that had changed the texture of existence for me. I had never thought anything like it before."

Greenwell’s first novel, What Belongs to You, was also powerful and beautifully written. He is definitely an author worthy of recognition, but more importantly, worthy of being read.