Adult Fiction

Audiobook: Lies & Weddings

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by Kevin Kwan
Read by Jing Lusi
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There are the uber-rich doing the uber-rich things, including just being despicable to other people. There is talk of sex, drugs, and getting high, and there is swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

 Dr. Eden Tong has grown up in the cabin next to Greshamsbury manor, where her father – while a noted oncologist – is the personal doctor to the Earl and Countess Gresham. While she is good friends with the Greshams – especially Rufus, her best friend – she doesn’t want to get involved in all their old money exploits – flying everywhere on a whim, wearing designer clothes – and she doesn’t have any intention of marrying Rufus (no matter what his Chinese mother thinks). Yet, as the oldest, Augie gets married on the Big Island of Hawaii, Eden finds herself pulled into the Gresham drama. 

There’s more to it, of course: Kevin Kwan’s books are a meandering mesh of drama and Rich People Doing Rich Things. There are a ton of characters (I really liked Freddy Farman-Farmehian (which probably isn’t spelled right) to keep track of, as well as jetting around to exotic locations to enjoy (not to mention all the clothes and food!). It’s a lush, wild, winding book, with an ending that I called but didn’t mind that I did. I loved Lusi’s narration; there were a lot of characters to handle, and she did it beautifully. 

In short, it was a delightful romp of a book and I’m glad I read it.

Sunbringer

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by Hannah Kaner
First sentence: “Arren’s heart screamed.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Godkiller
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, plus lots of violence. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore. 

Spoilers for Godkiller, obviously. 

Our intrepid trio of Elo, Inara, and Kissen have separated – Kissen over the cliff after killing the god Hseth; Elo and Inara back to Kissen’s sisters to tell them of her death. Once they get there, though, they find a rebellion against a king who is overstepping his power. In fact, the hopeful ending of Godkiller is dashed, as Hseth refuses to stay dead, and Arren – our king who is only alive because he is channeling a god – decides to become a god instead. It’s complex and winding, yet utterly simple: stop the god and the king. It’s also utterly impossible.

I adored this one as much as I adored the first. I love that Kaner is playing around with the ideas in mythology without directly drawing from them. I can see hints of mythologies, but this really is its own thing. She’s got solid characters, who are grumpy and off-putting in an entirely loveable way, and she knows how to plot to keep me (at least) turning pages. And there’s representation – Elo’s Black, there’s a Deaf character, and pretty much everyone is some sort of queer, and it’s a delight. I can’t wait for the final book in the trilogy. I have all the faith in the world that Kaner will stick the landing. 

Audiobook: Happy Medium

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by Sarah Adler
Read by Mara Wilson
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s sweary including many -bombs, and has on-screen, explicit sex. It’s in the romance section of the bookstore.

Gretchen Acorn is a con artist. She runs a business where her job is to connect to the spirit world and help her clients connect with their dead loved ones. She tells herself that she’s doing them a service, comforting them in their time of grief. Then one of her clients pays her to go perform an exorcism at the farm of her bridge partner. Gretchen was expecting a quick, weekend job with a nice septuagenarian, and instead gets Charlie Waybill – hot, skeptical, and not at all grateful Gretchen is there. She also gets… a real ghost and a family curse. So, instead of performing an exorcism, she’s tasked with keeping Charlie at the goat farm because his life is in danger if he sells. And she ends up upending her own life in the process. 

By any measure, this was a fun book – a morally gray main character (that you can’t help but really like), a hot guy that pushes her to question her life, while also understanding where she comes from, a clever ghost sidekick. There are baby goats and goofily-knit sweaters! And a slight love triangle, not to mention a sassy best friend (that isn’t a goat). There are bad parents and questionable decisions. Oh, and the narrator is fabulous too. 

But. 

Something is off with it. I’m not sure if it was the sex – they were exceptionally rough, and there was some transactional quality to it that rubbed me a bit wrong – or if it was something else – the quick way Charlie came around to Gretchen (it was only a month, and yet there are books that move faster and I don’t mind), or… I’m not entirely sure. So, while I enjoyed this one, I didn’t outright love it (at least not as much as I loved Adler’s first book). It’s worth reading, though.

Novel Love Story

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by Ashley Poston
First sentence: “There once was a town.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: June 25, 2024
ARC most likely sent to me by the publisher rep, because he’s awesome that way.
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs, and some off-screen sex. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Eileen (side note: one of the joys in this book is the number of times there’s a “come on, Eileen” joke. I loved it!) is an adjunct English professor who not-so-secretly loves romance books. Specifically the Eloraton series by Rachel Flowers. It has seen her through good times, and bad – including a recent breakup that was devastating. She and her best friend Prudence are part of an online book club devoted to reading romance and they meet once a year in a cabin in the Hudson Valley to read and talk and drink wine. Except the only person who can go this year is Eileen. So, she heads north from Atlanta in her 1979 Pinto… and gets lost in a rainstorm once she gets to New York. Where she accidentally almost hits a man in the road and wakes up… in Eloraton.

Her car won’t start, and she has no cell service, so she’s stuck for a few days in a fictional town, with a guy – Anders – who also knows that the town is fictional.

That’s the premise – but the heart of the story is deeper than that. It’s about the power books have in our lives, the way characters can feel real, and letting go when it’s time, and embracing change. It’s about books and stories and community and connection.

And I adored it. (Of course!) It’s not as spicy as Seven Year Slip, but it’s sweet. And at its heart, it’s about Eileen learning to embrace love again. It’s about how love is important but maybe friendships are more important. It’s about grief and loss and moving on. But there are also some dreamy kisses and a grumpy-sunshine trope that made me smile (though I never could quite picture Anders with the blonde hair he was supposed to have).

It’s an absolute delight of a novel.

Audiobook: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

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by Heather Fawcett
Read by Ell Potter & Michael Dodds
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Others in the series: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
Content: There are some dangerous moments and an off-screen sex scene. For some reason, it’s in the Romance section of the bookstore, which I disagree with. (While it has a romance, it’s not Romance!)

Spoilers for the first one, obviously.

It’s a little while after the events of the last book, and Emily and Wendell have settled back into teaching (such as it is, for Wendell) at Cambridge. But, soon after his birthday, he starts feeling ill, and his faerie magic goes haywire. It turns out that his stepmother -who overthrew his father and killed his entire family for the throne – is stepping up her assassination plan. This concerns Emily and she’s more than ever determined to find the Nexus and get Wendell back to his realm so he can off his stepmother. This involves a trip to the Alps, this time with the department head and Emily’s niece in tow. As they try to unravel the mystery of the Nexus, Wendell slowly deteriorates. Will they be able to find it and get him back to his realm in time?

Much like the first book, this is utterly delightful. The combination of historical fiction and faerie magic is charming, and Emily is a delightful narrator to be our guide through this world. It’s doubly delightful on audiobook with Potter doing an admirable job capturing all the characters and the intricacies of the plot. I loved the twists and turns in this one, and I liked that Fawcett allowed Emily to save Wendell by using her own wits, and not relying on magic to get her out of trouble.

I don’t know if this is it for Wendell and Emily – the book had a logical end to the story – but I’d happily follow them on more adventures! Such a good series.

The Fireborne Blade

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by Charlotte Bond
First sentence: “On my oath, I, Sir Nathaniel, do swear that what I am about to tell the Distinguished Mage is the truth.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: May 28, 2024
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There is violence and some pretty gruesome deaths. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Maddileh is a knight. She’s managed to get herself disgraced – it was something to do with an ex-lover and punching him in the face because he was an ass. She figures that there’s only one way to reclaim her honor: get the legendary Fireborne Blade from The White Lady Dragon. It’s impossible, but she’s going to do it.

Of course, it’s not that simple. Her story is interspersed with chapters that are histories – some oral, some told by others – of knights who fought dragons and often didn’t live to tell their tales. If the White Lady is anything like these… then how is Maddileh going to survive? The narrative also jumps in time – sometimes you’re present with her and her squire in the tunnels, others you’re getting her backstory.

This slim novel is utterly compelling. It’s tight, it’s giving me dragons in a way I haven’t seen dragons before (yay for that), and it’s got characters I care about. The publisher is comparing it to Fourth Wing, etc. but that’s not it: it’s more comparable to T. Kingfisher, Martha Wells, or Nicola Griffith than the sprawling, over-dramatic Fourth Wing. This prose is SPARE. The action is intense. The romance is incredibly understated. It’s masterfully done, and I hope it finds an audience because I think it’s fantastic. (Bonus: the sequel is out in October.)

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

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by T.J. Klune
First sentence: “Stepping off the ferry and onto the island for the first time in decades, Arthur Parnassus thought he’d burst into flames then and there.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The House in the Cerulean Sea
Release date: September 10, 2024
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is talk of abuse and a couple of moments of actual abuse. There is talk of trauma and CPTSD. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

I have to admit: I didn’t think this book was necessary. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an absolute delight of a book that ended quite satisfactorily. However, I am also not sad to spend more time on Marsyas Island with Arthur, Linus, and the children, and this book makes the case that it needs to exist.

This picks up soon after Cerulean Sea – the government is holding hearings to determine the future of the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. Arthur, having lived in an orphanage when he was young and is currently the headmaster of one, decides to face things and goes to testify. Which, of course, goes horribly wrong. So, another inspector is sent out to see what Arthur, Linus, and the children are up to and if the home is up to DICOMY standards.

Nothing – and everything – goes right.

Much like the first book, this is less about the plot and more about the characters. I adore the children – from Sal stepping into his own as a young man and a leader, to Talia and Phee, to Lucy and Chauncy, and David, the newest one – a yeti who has been on the run since his parents were brutally murdered. I adore Arthur and Linus and their relationship, and the way they wholly support and love each other. I can tell that Klune is angry at all the laws that are being passed targeting LGBT youth – especially the trans bills – and that they’re being done in the name of “protecting the children” and he harnesses that anger to good effect here. There are some absolute laugh-out-loud moments and some pages that are so beautifully written and so moving that I could hardly see the page for my tears.

So, no, while this book was not “needed”, it is wanted and welcome, and I’ll happily read anything else Klune decides to write about this family.

Audiobook: Happily Never After

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by Lynn Painter
Read by Helen Laser & Sean Patrick Hopkins
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It is very sweary and very spicy. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Sophie Steinbeck doesn’t believe in love. Especially after she found out her fiance was cheating on her right before their wedding. Enter Max Parks: a wedding objector for hire. He is responsible for dealing with the wedding Sophie desperately wants to get out of, helping her save face. And, as part of a drunken night, she decides she wants in. So, the next time Max has a wedding to derail, he calls her up. Thus begins their partnership… which soon blooms into a friendship. Except, Sophie doesn’t believe in love and Max has sworn off it. So, when they kiss – even though there’s a lot of chemistry there – it doesn’t mean anything. But what happens when it starts to?

Oh, this one was delightful on audio. But the narrators are superb, and I adored the characters that Painter created. She wrote some pretty incredible banter, and the sexytimes were done incredibly well (she wrote some of the best kissing I’ve read in a while). There are some genuinely funny bits, and while I think the idea of people objecting at weddings for pay is kind of silly, Painter made it work.

It was just a lot of fun.

The Spellshop

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by Sarah Beth Durst
First sentence: “Kiela never thought the flames would reach the library.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
ARC provided by the publisher.
Release date: July 9, 2024
Content: There are some intense moments. It will be in the SciFi/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Kiela was content with her job as a librarian in the stacks of the Great Library of Alyssium. She and her sentient spider plant assistant, Caz, don’t interact with many people but who needs people when you can organize books? Then, when a rebellion sweeps through the city, the library is set ablaze, and Kiela finds herself taking a bunch of spell books and heading toward her parents’ home on the island of Caltrey. Once there, she realizes she needs to hide – she stole books from the library, and regular citizens aren’t supposed to have access to spells! – and so she decides to open a jam shop as a cover. But then, she meets other islanders and makes friends, and ends up finding a place where she belongs after all.

File this one under “delightful books where not much happens”, though there is the conflict of hiding the books from the other islanders and the looming problem of what if They realize that the books are missing (which is kind of borne out by the end, in a very satisfying way). But, mostly, it’s Kiela and Caz making a home for themselves (and yes, there is a romance with a neighbor, who also has a herd of merhorses) and blooming where they’re planted (pun not intended). I haven’t read one of Durst’s books in a while, but it was delightful to go back to her books. She’s a talented storyteller, someone who knows how to develop characters and a world that feels real. She writes in the afterword that she wanted to create a book that feels like a cozy cup of hot chocolate, and I think she succeeded. It’s a warm delight of a book that I think will make a lot of readers happy.

Audiobook: Rainbow Black

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by Maggie Thrash
Read by Hope Newhouse
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is a lot of swearing, including multiple f-bombs, frank talk of sex, and descriptions of a murder scene. It’s in the Mystery section of the bookstore (for a lack of a better place to put it.)

Lacey Bond had an idyllic childhood, out in the New Hampshire woods with her hippie parents who ran a daycare. But then, when she was 13, her parents were arrested on 30 counts of pedophilia, with the townspeople – and more importantly, therapists and prosecutors – accusing them of witchcraft and Satanism, and doing Unspeakable Things with the children. These children also said that Lacey was there, was forced to be a part of it, which Lacey knows she wasn’t. Except, none of the adults believe her. And then, when her older sister, Eclair, is brutally murdered in their house, Lacey is thrown into the system. She does have a friend – Dylan (I hope that’s spelled right!) – who is trans, and who is taken away to live with her abusive biological father and creepy older brothers. Lacey becomes panicked – she has endured a LOT of trauma – and ends up making a decision that puts Lacey and Dylan on the run to Canada.

Fourteen years later, this all comes back to haunt them as they are trying to move past their traumatic childhood and create a decent life for themselves.

It’s a weird book – excellently read by Newhouse – not quite horror, though there is a lot of talk of Satanic Panic and Lacey is often in situations that could be called horrific – not quite a mystery, mostly because there’s no mystery about who is doing these things. I think, in the end, it’s a condemning look at what happens to a kid who – through no fault of their own – gets caught in the system. Of the adults trying to manipulate and coerce the kids to their ends. The adults who weren’t able or just didn’t help out as much as they could. And of the adults who just don’t believe the things the kids say, if they don’t line up with the story they want or need. Also taking a hard look at the consequences when kids take their lives into their own hands. It’s harrowing and sad, though Thrash injects humor along the way.

I don’t think I liked this one in the traditional sense, but I did find it compelling – especially on audio – and it did give me a lot to think about.