Review: Fiery Girls

I’ve been reading Heather Wardell’s novels for a long, long time. And even though I adore everything she writes, Fiery Girls still sat on my TBR for an embarrassingly long time. It was released in March 2021 and I only got around to reading it in June 2022 (and, you know, am reviewing it now because of schoolwork!). Oops! This was Wardell’s first historical fiction. It was a solid effort and was one I enjoyed reading.

Here's the book’s description:

Two young immigrant women. One historic strike. And the fire that changed America.
In 1909, shy sixteen-year-old Rosie Lehrer is sent to New York City to earn money for her family’s emigration from Russia. She will, but she also longs to make her mark on the world before her parents arrive and marry her to a suitable Jewish man. Could she somehow become one of the passionate and articulate “fiery girls” of her garment workers’ union?
Maria Cirrito, spoiled and confident at sixteen, lands at Ellis Island a few weeks later. She’s supposed to spend four years earning American wages then return home to Italy with her new-found wealth to make her family’s lives better. But the boy she loves has promised, with only a little coaxing, to follow her to America and marry her. So she plans to stay forever. With him.
Rosie and Maria meet and become friends during the “Uprising of the 20,000” garment workers’ strike, and they’re working together at the Triangle Waist Company on March 25, 1911 when a discarded cigarette sets the factory ablaze. 146 people die that day, and even those who survive will be changed forever.

While I did really enjoy this story, and had it read quickly because I was so invested, it had some flaws. I struggled with the dual narration and, to some extent, the characters themselves. Something about the two girls just never full clicked for me. Did I have issues with my own contemporary views being pushed onto historical characters? Maybe. Would it have been better if it was only told from one perspective? Perhaps. Having two different immigrant experiences was interesting from a historical point of view but for the storyline and plot? Not sure. (How many more questions can I ask and answer myself? Let's see!)

The historical event the novel explores is not a happy one. It was actually really tough to read the chapters on the fire, as well as the time immediately leading up to it and the aftermath. Wardell doesn’t pull any punches and it’s a gut wrenching, emotional experience reading as the factory caught fire. As hard as it was to read, I’m glad to have learned more about the fire and the circumstances leading up to it, like the unions and fight for rights.

From a historical fiction perspective (and you all know I love me some historical fiction), Fiery Girls is a major winner. It explores a main topic (the Triangle Waist Company fire) I didn’t know anything about as well as giving me more background on some side topics I was only somewhat familiar with (immigration, working conditions, women’s rights). Heather Wardell remains a favourite of mine and I’m looking forward to what she writes next.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the author via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Small Town, Big Magic

It’s almost Spooky Season which, for me, means cursing the cooler weather (I’m sure I’m a Fall Girl at heart but I hate hate hate saying goodbye to warm weather and knowing snow is coming!), drinking pumpkin beer, and reading witchy books. I don’t particularly love Halloween (other than the tiny chocolate bars) and scary stuff is so not my jam. But novels featuring witches? Especially with a dash of romance? Oh yes. I’m into that. So, I was really interested in Hazel Beck’s novel Small Town, Big Magic which is the start of a new, contemporary magical series. It wasn't the best but it actually was fun to read!

Here's the book’s description:

Witches aren't real. Right?
No one has civic pride quite like Emerson Wilde. As a local indie bookstore owner and youngest-ever Chamber of Commerce president, she’d do anything for her hometown of St. Cyprian, Missouri. After all, Midwest is best! She may be descended from a witch who was hanged in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials, but there’s no sorcery in doing your best for the town you love.
Or is there?
As she preps Main Street for an annual festival, Emerson notices strange things happening around St. Cyprian. Strange things that culminate in a showdown with her lifelong arch-rival, Mayor Skip Simon. He seems to have sent impossible, paranormal creatures after her. Creatures that Emerson dispatches with ease, though she has no idea how she’s done it. Is Skip Simon…a witch? Is Emerson?
It turns out witches are real, and Emerson is one of them. She failed a coming-of-age test at age eighteen—the only test she’s ever failed!—and now, as an adult, her powers have come roaring back.
But she has little time to explore those powers, or her blossoming relationship with her childhood friend, cranky-yet-gorgeous local farmer Jacob North: an ancient evil has awakened in St. Cyprian, and it’s up to Emerson and her friends—maybe even Emerson herself—to save everything she loves.

Emerson was…interesting. Truthfully? She drove me bonkers. But…I still cared about what she was up to? I think I just struggle with people who think they know best and try to manage everyone in their circle. I think what helped me enjoy reading about Emerson was that she wasn’t doing anything because she was cruel. She just figured she knew what was best. And I can’t imagine it would have been easy to find out that everything you thought was true was…not.

I also wasn’t totally sold on the romance in this one. Friends to lovers is one of my favourite tropes so you’d think I’d be All In when it came to Emerson and Jacob. But the fact that he was grumpy for no apparent reason (turns out there was a reason) and the whole magic amnesia thing…something didn’t quite work for me. Was I still rooting for them? Duh. I love me a Happily Ever After (or, in this case, a Happy For Now). But the tension just wasn’t quite…right.

I always enjoy seeing how different authors approach magic and what rules they put in place in their worlds. I also always appreciate a nod to the history of witches and Salem and so on. (Maybe that’s the historical fiction lover in me!) I liked that there were different types of witches in Beck’s world and they had different types of powers and they were stronger together with one of each type of witch.

In all honesty, looking back at Small Town, Big Magic has me wondering what, exactly, kept me turning the pages and why I’m looking forward to the second book. I think I enjoyed the broad strokes of the story – the why of the cursed town and what will happen – more than the narrow specifics – the personalities of the characters and so on. I will definitely read the next book in the series but it will be one I’ll borrow from my local library.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Winners

I was kind of late to the Beartown game. I knew about the book but wasn't entirely sure I'd enjoy it. My book club decided to read it in the summer of 2018 and then I finally understood what people were talking about. It was incredible and I immediately put the second book, Us Against You, on hold at the library (I loved it too). I was so grateful and excited to receive an ARC of book three, The Winners, (seriously - there was squealing when I opened the envelope). This book. Oh, my heart. It is everything.

Here's the book's description:

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. The residents continue to grapple with life’s big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.
So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?
Everything.

This book is massive. It’s a chunky, hefty tome that clocks in at roughly 680 pages. On the one hand, I’m not sure why it had to be that long. On the other, well, I’m so so so very glad it was. I didn’t want the story to be over so I was thankful to have so many pages of this book to read. This is a story that you don’t want to see the end of.

I’ve only read this series from Backman so I don’t know how he writes his other books. This series though? I can’t properly explain how perfectly he’s written this story. It’s not written like most other books I’ve read. There’s a third person omniscient narrator who knows everything that’s happening or has happened in the story. They even know what will happen even if they don’t always tell us (that first chapter though…). It’s the perfect way to tell a story with a bajillion characters who all need to be featured. And if that sounds confusing, it’s totally not. This series works because it’s telling the story of a community, not just one or two characters (even if there are a few who shine brighter than others).

I’m a pretty emotional person who cries more at books than movies or TV but doesn’t always cry at scenes you’d expect. And sometimes it seems like I have an empty space in place of a heart when gut-punch scenes don’t affect me at all. *shrugs* I went in prepared to have All The Feels with this book thought and, friends, it got me. It did take longer than I expected for the tears to come but I had to fight not to sob when I was getting to the end (maybe don’t read this book in the lunchroom at work?) EVEN THOUGH I knew what was going to happen. Backman dropped hints throughout but, my god, it still hurt when you were actually reading it.

If you haven’t yet experienced the magic that is Beartown, you absolutely must read this series. The Winners is a perfect conclusion to a series I never wanted to see end. As much as it broke my heart, it couldn’t have ended any other way. Fredrik Backman is a writing wizard and I’m so very glad I’ve been able to get lost in this series.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Bet on It

I may have requested Jodie Slaughter’s novel Bet on It because I needed an audiobook to read but I thought it sounded like a really lovely romance. As a white woman who does not have diagnosed anxiety, I enjoyed the different perspective the novel gave me. As an avid romance reader? Well, I didn’t particularly care about the rest of the story.

Here’s the book’s description:

The first time Aja Owens encounters the man of her dreams, she’s having a panic attack in the frozen foods section of the Piggly Wiggly. The second time, he’s being introduced to her as her favorite bingo buddy’s semi-estranged grandson. From there, all it takes is one game for her to realize that he’s definitely going to be a problem. And if there’s anything she already has a surplus of, it’s problems.
In Walker Abbott’s mind, there are only two worthwhile things in Greenbelt, South Carolina. The peach cobbler at his old favorite diner and his ailing grandmother. Dragging himself back after more than a decade away, he’s counting down the days until Gram heals and he can get back to his real life. Far away from the trauma inside of those city limits. Just when he thinks his plan is solid, enter Aja to shake everything up.
A hastily made bingo-based sex pact is supposed to keep this…thing between them from getting out of hand. Especially when submitting to their feelings means disrupting their carefully balanced lives. But emotions are just like bingo callers—they refuse to be ignored.

I didn’t really understand the bingo bet Aja and Walker made. It seemed like they were children trying to use bribes to get what they wanted but also stop them from having too much of what they wanted (sex, I mean sex)? They’re adults and I found the whole “bet” thing immature (and confusing). Of course I knew they’d end up falling for each other and using the bet as an excuse to keep themselves from getting hurt but I also knew it wouldn’t help and they’d end up together in a Happily Ever After moment. Usually, I don’t mind knowing the way a romance is going to go but I have to care about the journey to that HEA. I didn’t care here and it was unfortunate.

I also just didn’t quite get the chemistry between the two of them. Maybe I missed something important, but it just sort of seemed like there was some physical attraction and that was that. There was an emotional-ish connection as they both had mental health challenges (I want to say anxiety and panic attacks, and maybe depression and also PTSD but I didn’t make notes and don’t have a copy to check). I appreciated that part of the story but it felt separate to everything else somehow. It kind of felt like I was reading about the diagnoses, not human characters.

Also, I’d love to never have a woman’s thighs be mentioned so much ever again in any novel I read. I got it the first time Slaughter mentioned Aja’s legs. She wasn’t a teeny thing (and I loved that). But there was no need to bring it up non-stop, especially by Walker.

The novel was narrated by Angel Pean and I felt she did a good job (but, honestly, I could be wrong - I've put this book out of my mind quite a bit). But from what I remember, she helped me be as immersed as I could be with this story and I’ll definitely keep my eyes out for other books she narrates.

Bet on It should have been a fun romance with great representation from under-written points of view. Jodie Slaughter nailed the rep but the rest of the story? Not so much. Maybe I’ll read another from her, maybe I won’t. Life’s too short for “fine” books!

*An advanced listening copy (ALC) was provided by the publisher, Macmillan Audio, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.* 

Review: The Enigma of Room 622

Every once and awhile I think to myself, “Let’s spread our book reading wings a little bit, Kaley, and try something a little different.” Sometimes it works and I find a book I love. And sometimes…well…sometimes it leads me to hate reading a mystery that seemed like it should be a good fit for me and is just really, really not. That happened with The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker. I don’t even really know what I read, to be honest.

Here's the book’s description:

A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622.
Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622. The attendant circumstances: the succession of Switzerland’s largest private bank, a mysterious counterintelligence operation called P-30, and a most disreputable sabotage of hotel hospitality. A European phenomenon, The Enigma of Room 622 is a matryoshka doll of intrigue–as precise as a Swiss watch–and Dicker’s most diabolically addictive thriller yet.

The book hit my radar at a HarperCollins Canada influencer event. I thought it sounded a little different and like a mystery I could really sink my teeth into. What I ended up getting was a convoluted mystery that the author inserted himself into. I think? Or maybe he was just writing the mystery and turning it into a novel? Or maybe he just made the whole thing up? Smarter readers than I may have it all figured out, but I still don’t know what was real and what was a novel within the novel. And that kind of drove me bananas.

I also didn’t like how the story was written. I don’t know if it was because it was a translation (from French and translated by Robert Bononno) but it felt so choppy and I couldn’t find a good rhythm. And it wasn’t just how the sentences were constructed that I had an issue with. I just didn’t find that the flow of it made any sense whatsoever. It jumped around in time and I couldn’t keep track of much of anything. Then there were a million reveals at the end of the book so I didn’t even get a satisfying conclusion.

I didn’t particularly care about the characters either. I doubt I was supposed to like them but I’m a reader who likes to at least find the characters intriguing even if I don’t particular like them. I don’t think I would have cared if any of them had gone to jail for the murder. As it is, I’ve totally forgotten who committed the crime.

No, The Enigma of Room 622 was not a winner for me. I’m sure there’s an audience for Joël Dicker’s novel but I, unfortunately, was not it.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: One Good Thing

I stumbled upon Alexandra Potter’s Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up back in 2020 and absolutely loved it (review here). When I saw she had a new release coming this year, I knew I had to read it. One Good Thing was full of good things and I really, really enjoyed reading it.

Here’s the book’s description:

In life, nothing is certain. Just when you think you have it all figured out, something can happen to change the course of everything . . .
Liv Brooks is still in shock. Newly-divorced and facing an uncertain future, she impulsively swaps her London Life for the sweeping hills of the Yorkshire Dales, determined to make a fresh start. But fresh starts are harder than they look and feeling lost and lonely she decides to adopt Harry, an old dog from the local shelter, to keep her company.
But Liv soon discovers she isn’t the only one in need of a new beginning. On their daily walks around the village, they meet Valentine, an old man who suffers from loneliness who sits by the window and Stanley, a little boy who is scared of everyone, hides behind the garden gate and Maya, a teenager who is angry at everyone and everything. But slowly things start to change…

At 35, I’m still sort of the right age for most rom coms, but I have to come to grips with the fact that I am getting older and, with that, comes the appreciation of reading about older heroines. While I can’t recall if we ever learn exactly how old Liv is, I do know Liv has lived a good chunk of life and life has not been the most kind to her lately. We’re meeting her at pretty much the lowest point of that life as she’s buying a total fixer upper in the middle of nowhere after her divorce. But you just know that reading as she figures out this newly single life is going to be so rewarding. And it really was.

I was initially wary of all the different characters mentioned in the book’s description. I kind of just wanted Liv’s story and didn’t want all the confusion of other characters muddying the waters. However. The stories of Valentine, Stanley, and Maya are so important to Liv’s own story that it wouldn’t be the same novel without them. And, really, it still is Liv’s book. The other characters only have the odd chapter dedicated to them but it helps make the overall story stronger.

Another reviewer on Goodreads said that this book is a like a “snuggly blanket”, and I couldn’t agree more. Potter has written a book with all the feels that leaves the reader feeling warm and happy and so very comfortable. That’s not to say there aren’t hard moments in the book, because there definitely are. She runs into her ex at a party, her home renovations aren’t running smoothly, Valentine’s wife’s dementia is getting worse, and there are tricky family secrets that come to light. But Potter makes everything alright in the end, just as life should be. It’s lovely.

Alexandra Potter has become a must-read author for me. I really enjoyed One Good Thing and highly recommend it for anyone looking for a great read.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributor, Publishers Group Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: As Seen On TV

I was so so so SO excited when I learned Meredith Schorr would be publishing a new book and with Forever, no less, one of my favourite publishers. I’ve known Meredith for years and have loved her work so to have her traditionally published rom com, As Seen on TV, in my hot little hands was a thrill. And it was such a enjoyable read, too!

Here's the book’s description:

Emerging journalist Adina Gellar is done with dating in New York City. If she’s learned anything from made-for-TV romance movies, it’s that she’ll find love in a small town—the kind with harvest festivals, delightful but quirky characters, and scores of delectable single dudes. So when a big-city real estate magnate targets tiny Pleasant Hollow for development, Adi knows she’s found the perfect story—one that will earn her a position at a coveted online magazine, so she can finally start adulting for real . . . and maybe even find her dream man in the process.
Only Pleasant Hollow isn’t exactly “pleasant.” There’s no charming bakery, no quaint seasonal festivals, and the residents are more ambivalent than welcoming. The only upside is Finn Adams, who’s more mouthwatering than the homemade cherry pie Adi can’t seem to find—even if he does work for the company she’d hoped to bring down. Suddenly Adi has to wonder if maybe TV got it all wrong after all. But will following her heart mean losing her chance to break into the big time?

OK – tough things out of the way first. I have to say that I wanted to love this one more than I did. Does it mean it was bad? NO. It just means my expectations were SKY HIGH. It was tough to swallow when Adi drove me nuts with her incredibly naïve views on small towns, as I grew up in a small-ish town. That said…I did really like that the story was a twist on the Hallmark movies we’ve all watched. The small town isn’t always the place to find a Happily Ever After!

There was a bit of a nostalgic feel to this book, even though it’s very much a contemporary set rom com with a young heroine. It felt like the rom coms of many years ago, you know the classic ones that we all rewatch over and over again. There was a lot of heart and a lot of cringeworthy moments with laughs along the way and all wrapped up with a Happily Ever After bow. It was delightful.

Schorr created an amazing cast of characters with this book. Even with Adi’s questionable thoughts about small towns and how to be a journalist (my partner is a reporter so I’ve had a front row seat on the profession for a long time), I still loved her. I wanted to hang out with her and really get to know her better, which is something I always look for in my rom coms. And Finn!? Yes, please. I shouldn’t be surprised that Schorr wrote such a fabulous hero because the love interest in her self-published Blogger Girl series is just as wonderful. Adi’s best friend, Kate, and Adi’s mom were amazing side characters and I loved how strong all the relationships were between the women. So good.

Meredith Schorr’s new novel is perfect for fans who love old school rom coms. As Seen on TV is full of love and laughs and will leave romance readers feeling satisfied.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Forever, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*