**spoiler alert** I vaguely recall having read Wilson’s children’s book as a child and teenager, but not many and not assiduously. From what I recall,**spoiler alert** I vaguely recall having read Wilson’s children’s book as a child and teenager, but not many and not assiduously. From what I recall, she tapped into some of the more squeamish and heartbreaking aspects of being a teenager – too well, to be honest, for my stomach. I want, and still want, happy endings in romance. Her work was just a bit too confronting in that regard.
However, as a thirty-eight year old woman, opening a book with a character dubiously turning forty while being woken by her cat was calculated to appeal. Alas, I should have taken the red flag of Ellie complaining about not having sex for years on the first page for what it was: the sign of a thoroughly unenlightened character. Although Ellie does things like bring Virginia Woolf on the train (reading her for the first time at forty is not exactly a flex, though, is it?), and looks down her nose at Gary not knowing as much about art as she does (we don’t ever see how much she DOES know, except for her slavering adoration of Paula Rego, which, babe, you can KEEP her, the ugly proportions in her work drive me INSANE), she doesn’t realise that you can have sex … with yourself? She is also shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED, that women might still be having issues with their weight and size in the younger generations. I mean … she literally has a twenty-year-old daughter? Is Lottie the lone woman on the entire planet and the first in history to be untouched by the pervasive messaging that a woman’s body should be as small as fucking possible? Ellie is a RECOVERING ANOREXIC FFS. Did she not take special care when raising a daughter not to transfer that shit to her? Why is this the FIRST TIME she's thinking about it?
Speaking of, is this not a wild thing to include in that context:
‘Gary is surprisingly enthusiastic about all the shrimp-pink, naked nymphs who could all lose a few kilos [emphasis mine]’?? And this coming from a fan of PAULA REGO, the artist who paints women like they’re made of giant Lego?!
Oh stop, this is the same page Ellie thinks Fragonard’s Swing is ‘TOO LASCIVIOUS’ but she’s all over the EROTIC MINATURES OF NAKED WOMEN in the cabinet room of the Wallace Collection. I just realised how annoyed I am that Ellie finds an art friend and instead of enjoying that rare discovery is pissed off because he tells her stuff about art, without ever using her words to say, ‘Gary, I have ALSO been to this gallery before!’ Not once! In all the galleries! Does she mention having been there before!!!!! THAT ONE IS ON YOU, ELLIE WHAT A STUPID NAME FOR AN ADULT.
The more I consider it, having had a night to ruminate, the less I think there’s anything of worth in this book. The love interests are risible. Instead of focusing on the weirdness and borderline-inappropriateness of a high school teacher romancing a past pupil, Ellie focuses on the aspects of Gary that – as her friends rightly point out – are HIM BEING A MAN. She frequently points out her own flaws, like living in squalor despite being old enough to learn how to keep a small apartment clean, but his are unforgivable.
Yet Alice – the female love interest – has no flaws, according to Ellie. The very fact of her being a woman negates them?! I mean, I’m not sure what’s appealing about someone who trauma dumps on you about their current relationship from the first moment you meet, but she’s hot, I guess (??). Alice truly is a blank slate on which Ellie can write what would suit her in a relationship, none of which appears to be gender- or sexuality-specific. Ellie doesn’t want to be lectured at about art because she’d prefer to do it; presumably that’s going to be fine when her partner is also a girl? IDK.
Also, nothing about the blurb suggested this would be a sapphic romance, because I wouldn’t have read it if it was. I have tried plenty and they’re just not something that interest me. I thought the angle of ‘making friends in your forties’ was way more interesting, except even in that Ellie is pathetic. A lot of people who have only historical and/or childrearing-related friends don’t realise that new friendships are always slow-burn. You can fast-track romantic relationships but not friendships, it’s just a fact, and if someone I just met twisted my arm about getting what sounds like the world’s stupidest tattoo I’d run a mile – appropriately, I think.
Low-key but it super irks me when the heroine self-describes as sweaty, pudgy, and frizzy-haired, but all her partners think she’s a goddess. At least give me some evidence that Ellie’s self-regard is fiercely inaccurate. And the bit where she 'tries' eyeliner ... give me STRENGTH. An artist, of all people, should understand that technical skill is involved here. No more than someone who dabbles in watercolours every few years can consider themselves skilled, she can't 'have a go' every once in a while and give it all up as 'too hard'. UGH. THAT ISN'T FEMINISM IT'S LACK OF EFFORT.
Then there’s the fact that Ellie does not act like someone who has a full-time teaching job. It’s unclear where in the academic year we are, but she never GOES TO WORK. She meets her students in lots of random places but never actually has to go TEACH. She never gets the Sunday scaries. Instead, she’s focused on writing a graphic novel about elephants that’s a metaphor for menopause or something. Who the FUCK is the target audience for that? Also, the optics of a white lady who doesn't seem to have left England googling Swahili names is … UM. I guess she can say ‘but my girlfriend is black’ by the end?!...more
**spoiler alert** I don’t think I’ve felt this distinct of a turnaround in favour towards a book since I read – and, for three-quarters of the read-ti**spoiler alert** I don’t think I’ve felt this distinct of a turnaround in favour towards a book since I read – and, for three-quarters of the read-time, HATED – Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss. Truly, it’s a rare feeling, and very enjoyable – all the moreso for how negative my initial feelings were. This nineteen-year-old girl, accidentally pregnant, in no social or financial position to responsibly rear a child, KEEPS THE BABY – man, I can’t recall the last time I was so enraged with a fictional person.
‘She’d thought, somehow, that keeping the baby would make people regard her with more kindness.’ WTF?! I wrote in the margins.
Which is the point, you see. This isn’t Thorpe’s first book. I don’t think anyone could pull this off in their first go of the rollercoaster. Margo is genuinely innocent, and she forces her innocent perspective on the world rather than the other way around. She’s Tess of D’Ubervilles if Tess ever got agency and was written by a woman rather than the World’s Worst Manchild. The finale blew my MIND. The writing is sublime and it does something fresh with a romance plot, because it remembers for romance to be engaging in fiction it also has to be somewhat unlikely.
Quotes I loved:
‘He was a wind chime in human form, dangling dorkily from the glorious tree of higher education.’
‘[...] I would choke these things down with the same worried expression as a dog who’s been given a carrot. Then he would tell me about a weird dream he had where he was a young girl in Meiji Japan.’
‘I just hope she knew how much we loved her. I hope whatever happened that she was able to face it because she knew these two weird monkeys that lived in a creepy old apartment building from the 70s loved her.’
‘A dog without a collar is just an animal. If the world doesn’t know you are loved, then you’re trash. I think that’s even true of people. Maybe. Sometimes. Or I fear it is. That being loved is the only way to be safe.’
‘ “All things that are genuinely interesting aren’t quite real,” Mark had said. It was almost frustrating really, how right that stupid little man had been about so many things.’
‘The sadness from the morning didn’t exactly go away; it dried on me and slowly crumbled, leaving me covered in little flakes, like if you eat a glazed donut in a black shirt. That was how it was being a grown-up. We were all moving through the world like that, like those river dolphins that look pink only because they’re so covered in scars.’
‘They wanted her to be real, but only so it was more fun to keep her in a little cage.’
‘You can’t tell me that if it was men and a medical decision would result in their penis splitting open and them not being able to hold their pee for the rest of their life, they wouldn’t think that should be their own decision.’
‘She just seemed genuinely interested in what being a baby snake might be like. They were two women imagining being baby snakes.’
‘They were like chess pieces: they moved how they moved. If you wanted to win, you couldn’t dwell on how you wished they’d move or how it’d be fairer if they moved in a different way. You had to adapt.’
‘We’re going to be the most awesome, ethical, kick-ass pimps of all time! I mean, if sex work can be a legitimate profession, why can’t being a pimp?’
YES! WHY CAN’T IT?!
The level of empathy Thorpe has for men who engage the services of sex workers is remarkable. In fact, I think it informs the book. Unlike other thinkers – unlike myself – she starts from the perspective of, well, if they’re not going anywhere – and they seem to need something – what does that mean? Yes, it means they want women in their phones answering to their every whim, but it also means they’re lonely for connection. This an incredibly humanitarian take on porn consumption, particularly the in-person kind that OnlyFans straddles. Truly a story for our times. ...more
**spoiler alert** On a craft level, this book was simply not at a publishable standard. I gather Ferne Cotton is some kind of Famous Personality, whic**spoiler alert** On a craft level, this book was simply not at a publishable standard. I gather Ferne Cotton is some kind of Famous Personality, which explains why it got published at all. The quality devolved as the book went on, and presumably whatever editors were involved felt they were past the point of a casual browser deciding to buy it. That was certainly my experience.
The reason it’s not a one-star from me is that the initial descriptions of Human Doormat Made Of Wet Rags, Jade (honestly? Who is a millennial and called Jade? The names in this book read like placeholders), were cringey enough to provide vicarious negative enjoyment. However, as we approached and passed the halfway mark without Jade actually changing or growing even the nub of a spine, it became increasingly clear that all the ‘bad guys’ were one-dimensional. Equally, Jade’s best friend Sophie, her work mentor Jackson (who at least fooled me into thinking he was the secondary love interest, until it turned out that was a WAITER AT THE WEDDING THAT CLOSES THE BOOK WTF), and her family friend Belinda, all exist simply to hype up Jade. Jade, a person who appears to be an eternal yes-man and is so very pathetic and wimpy that it’s hard to understand why anyone put up with her for more than five minutes.
Even the people who took advantages of her terminal case of people pleasing syndrome – why? Jade’s so flaky and unreliable. She does things like ask Sophie to help her DECORATE A WEDDING with TWO WEEKS’ NOTICE and without even an invite to said wedding to soften the blow. Never mind that attending a wedding is a super-stressful prospect, such that you only go through it when you’re in a sexual and romantic relationship with the invitee – for a reason! Jade also takes leave from work with a day’s notice . Yes, her boss Colin is comically villainous, asking her to ‘pick up dry cleaning’ even though they work in set design, why does he have dry clean only clothes? But it’s still a mega flaky thing to do to her colleagues. She’s really bad at babysitting her nieces, to the point where Lily makes minimal sense as a helicopter parent who lets her precious babies stay with someone who feeds them exclusively on cornflakes and croissants. Even Jade's hygiene seems extremely questionable.
None of the characters really make any sense. Lily, the daughter of a working class mogul, marries a 6’5 finance bro with blue eyes? These people only marry each other, hello? That's why no one who's not in that circle can FIND an available finance bro with blue eyes. Lily's still maintaining a jet-black Goth dye job, even though no one in the moneyed classes does anything but brown and taupe? I could go on, but I’m tired of talking about this silly book.
A sample of issues that triggered my internal copy-editor and pulled me out of the already questionable narrative:
‘‘That you’re, well… trying to be edgy, but missing the mark,’ said Lily. ‘I think you’re looking into it a bit too deeply. They were cheap and they hold cereal and milk so seem to do the job.’’
COMMA!
‘‘Wedding, Jade. Wedding, obviously!’ Lily barked. The sisters walked into Lily’s kitchen which had recently been refurbished.’
COMMA! And please. ‘Said’. ‘Said’ in almost every circumstance, I BEG OF YOU.
‘[...] bending down to gingerly stroke Lily’s plush grey cat, Cumin, anticipating the sneezing fit she knew would come, who was acquired at the time of Lily’s cooking tutorials.’
WTF Basic sentence structure skills where are you
‘I’ve got a lot on at work so I need to head home to crack on with some bits and bobs.’ Lily scrunched up her face. ‘That sounds very generic.’’
I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS
‘‘Jade, honestly, it’s nothing,’ he called out in an ambivalent tone.’
What. Is an ambivalent tone.
‘‘Mean? You think I’m mean?’ Saffron crossed her arms and looked away. ‘We’ll get the game,’ Jade caved.’
That’s a child. Don’t negotiate with a five-year-old, Jade. Also, ‘caved’ is not a speech tag.
‘‘Mum, they’re five minutes late. Just try and relax. And please do not call her thingy when she gets here,’ Jade said with genuine concern. ‘Darling, the worst thing you can say to someone when they are stressed is “relax”. I just want a bloody Pinot Grigio, is that too much to ask?’’
Was she banned from using contractions?
‘‘This is a joke. I worked so hard trying to organise a wonderful dinner for Lily, and look at you all. It’s embarrassing.’ Jacquie, on the verge of tears, flung her arms about like a rag doll.’
Please. Just picture this. Then bang your head against a wall several times, like I did.
‘I walked right over to this delicious young man I was besotted with and, without speaking, I placed a small piece of paper with my number in his hand.’
You don’t need to clarify that a piece of paper with just a number on it is small. No one talks like this. Or thinks like this. Or writes like this. If they do, THEY SHOULD NOT BE PUBLISHED....more
**spoiler alert** Essentially this reads to me like either a re-tread or a forerunner of the excellent Open Hearts. We have a cinnamon roll hero with **spoiler alert** Essentially this reads to me like either a re-tread or a forerunner of the excellent Open Hearts. We have a cinnamon roll hero with a kinky side and an older heroine who is short, has big boobs, and a troubled past. It’s interesting to reflect that usually the bias in romance is in favour of smart, quiet, not Obviously Attractive heroines – the reader-writer bias, in other words. The frequency of setting these romances in the context of Australian football (or whatever this sport actually is; no games ever happen, which I’m totally fine with) means there’s a whole culture referenced with which I’m unfamiliar, although I can probably extrapolate from context cues. My personal preference is of course for a hot, dumb major sports star to fall for the bookish uninterested girl, but that’s a huge self-own.
My issues with this are not so much that set-up, although it’s not precisely my taste, but with the execution. Patrick’s youth – twenty-four to Cheryl’s thirty-two – only really comes up in the context of him being a bit flummoxed by Cheryl’s complex social situation, something he found out about twelve hours previously, in the denouement clash. A bit like Dean before him, he’s a bit too perfect; all his faults are age-related, in the fact of what his age IS, rather than how being twenty-four influences your behaviour, thoughts, and actions. I’m glad there’s increasingly stories out there about age-reversal romances, but short of hoping that the Gen Xer men are somehow better than millennials, I’m not sure there’s much advantage besides the youth = beauty element. ...more
**spoiler alert** It wasn’t that this was bad, by any means, but compared to the superlative experience I had with two of Dangerfield’s other books (O**spoiler alert** It wasn’t that this was bad, by any means, but compared to the superlative experience I had with two of Dangerfield’s other books (Open Hearts and Act Your Age), this simply didn’t live up to her own standard. The leads – expat yoga teacher Charlie and Texan living in Minneapolis James (I, too, was like Minneapolis WTF) – aren’t as fully realised as her other pairings. For example, there’s a big age gap between the leads in Act Your Age, but it’s part of the plot and the kink and their relationship travails. The fact that everyone thinks Charlie is a bit mad for following a boy to America is completely recalibrated when you realise she’s TWENTY-FOUR. Same goes for living in squalor and financial precarity and not being very advanced on a career ladder. In this economy, that’s only unusual and tragic if you’re thirty- or forty-four. Being twenty-four involves trying dumb shit. It’s also not particularly believable that she picked up a group of close-knit friends who have her IN THEIR WEDDINGS when she’s only been in the country a hot minute. Simply put, there was no reason to set this in America, and it snarls up the believability aspects that previously Dangerfield is strong on. James’ past trauma feels really rushed. Overall, it seems like Dangerfield wanted to re-tread Fifty Shades only better, and while she did manage that, it’s only because the bar is in hell. Onwards!...more
**spoiler alert** Given my druthers, I don’t bother with much erotica. For me, coming from fanfic, the pacing is generally off; even in non-explicit r**spoiler alert** Given my druthers, I don’t bother with much erotica. For me, coming from fanfic, the pacing is generally off; even in non-explicit romance, couples get together too quickly, consummate too quickly, and resolve The Problem(s) too quickly. Add to these issues authors who don’t write that well and ask them to write the hardest thing there is to write well … it’s a recipe for me not finishing. In all senses of the word.
Therefore I give Eve Dangerfield the highest compliment when I say her erotica reads like fanfiction. I’m now on my third of her books, and the first encounter between the couples is never the most thorough; they, and the reader, are left wanting more. She also allows for one of my favourite things in romance: MISCOMMUNICATION.
In this case, the obstacles between Ash and Dean are legitimate. He’s a flake with a bad financial record, even if he’s sweet and sexy and sends her photos of birds instead of dick-pics. They resolve these in realistic and incomplete ways. The sex scenes are actually hot – no notes – and the writing can be funny and genuinely good as well:
each second scraping over her skin like an uncut diamond
Like, I don’t want this in every second paragraph, or even more than once a book, but it elevates the sex scenes.
Plus, there was a bit when Ash dumped Dean for her own good, and he was so sad about it, and I cried. I can count on one hand how many times ANY love story made me do that. ...more
**spoiler alert** My issue with this book is really an issue with me, the reader reading it. I happen to simply LOVE romances about repression, miscom**spoiler alert** My issue with this book is really an issue with me, the reader reading it. I happen to simply LOVE romances about repression, miscommunication, and wistfully pining. I go to queer historical fiction on the assumption of one, if not all three, being present by virtue of it being, you know, HISTORY. I appreciate this may not be what the average queer reader of KJ Charles is looking for – and whoever she’s actually writing for, it’s not someone like me, who wants those key features in any romance.
It’s a solidly written story about Rufus, who unexpectedly inherits an earldom after a life in the army, and his new secretary Luke. There’s a lot of dynamics with the incumbent family to whom Rufus is an unwelcome surprise and I could have done with more of it. What little is there is great, but, like the scene where Luke gets trapped in a stone chest by conniving relatives, Charles gives herself no time or space to explore it. It would be okay, if problems weren’t resolved on the page they were raised, or in the next scene! It would be okay to feel a sense of danger or despair or mild upset, given the ironclad HEA that goes along with this genre and reassures anyone reading about anything bad that precedes it. Alas. ...more
**spoiler alert** Terry Pratchett was always being asked for more Rincewind. Rincewind has a few books wherein he’s the nominal lead character, but as**spoiler alert** Terry Pratchett was always being asked for more Rincewind. Rincewind has a few books wherein he’s the nominal lead character, but as the Discworld series progressed, he appears less and less, and only in walk-on roles. Pratchett maintained that given the point of Rincewind is that he’s a coward who always runs away and wants to be left alone, he could easily be overused, or turn into something else. For some of Pratchett’s characters – Vimes is a key example, Vetinari another – that growth and change is interesting and necessary. Rincewind, on the other hand, is a one-note joke.
That’s sort of how I feel about the extended Walsh universe in Keyes’ books. Mammy Walsh in particular has outstayed her welcome. I was boggling at the idea of anyone who is Irish and lives in Ireland thinking you could land up in a tourist joint on Paddy’s weekend without a booking expecting that would be fine. It crosses the line from funny hijinks to out-and-out psychopathy. Claire is another example. She sounds like Great Craic; in other words, she’d be an absolute dose to deal with after five minutes of her company. Given this book has a cast of literal thousands, I’m not sure why Anna’s family needed to be in it at all.
There’s just too much plot. For example: Courtney, the receptionist of the hotel in the tourist town Anna is employed to do PR in, ends up having an affair with a celebrity film director. Courtney is married to the local guard, who’s involved in an attempt to trash the spa resort Anna’s (or rather Claire’s) friends are establishing in the area. Courtney leaves her husband for the director, who is also discovered by Anna to have a secret talent for painting, which ends up in a gallery show organised by Anna’s ex, Angelo. That’s a lot, isn’t it?! And it’s covered in about the same space as I wrote about it here. A big-shot Hollywood director having an affair with the (married with kids) help is a big ask, to be honest, and needed way more time and work than it got here. It’s positioned as a lovely ending, instead of being categorically insane on all levels.
Anna’s actual PR work is barely mentioned – not that I wanted it to be, necessarily. Most of the airspace is taken up with her evolving relationship with Joey Armstrong, the One That Got Away. I have absolutely no issue with this plot device on its face, in fact it’s one of my favourite tropes, but the problem is that Anna already had a Grand Romance storyline in the previous book in which she featured. She had a carefree young adult relationship with Shane, followed by a grown-up one with Aidan (RIP), and then a left-field second-chance romance with Angelo, the American free spirit. And now the whole storyline is rewritten to incorporate the fact that during these epochal relationships Joey was actually in love with Anna … while also fathering four children with two other women. To say I don’t buy it is the understatement of the century. It could be done, even within the confines of having Anna’s three previous big relationships in play. But it can’t be done like this.
Unfortunately, Keyes is falling prey to our culture’s obsession with reboots and remakes. There was absolutely no need for this book to be about the Walsh family except that it’s big-time nostalgia-bait. Keyes is massively popular and while I don’t think there’s a Walsh family fandom per se, there’s probably the closest thing to it that exists among middle-aged mom book clubs. So maybe there are people out there who are delighted to see the Walshes on a pointless outing for pure old times' sake. I’m just not one of them....more
**spoiler alert** The first page of this novel was a personal gut-punch. Marnie, thirty-eight, outlines her loneliness as a single, childless woman, w**spoiler alert** The first page of this novel was a personal gut-punch. Marnie, thirty-eight, outlines her loneliness as a single, childless woman, whose friends have all drifted far out in the ocean of ‘parenting small children in two-adult units’. Yes, I thought, I can see myself here!
Unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last very long. The issue isn’t entirely Nicholls’ fault, of course. To tell a love story, you must start with two people not currently in love. Usually this is because they are under thirty years old. Sometimes it’s because they’re currently in a relationship but it’s not the right one; this is a difficult starting point, for obvious reasons, and I’ve seen it less and less as the woke century progresses. However, it’s not feasible to write a love story in which one protagonist has simply no opportunities, without making said protagonist have something(s) very wrong with them. Yet that’s the reality for a lot of single women. (With single men, it is usually because there’s something wrong with them, and that something is failure to adult.) It reminds me of the beginning of The Mindy Project, where Mindy crashes the wedding of her ‘one hope’ love interest. As the seasons progress, Mindy goes through several viable relationships, because whatever about a standalone book or movie, you can’t keep up hours of television with a lead woman who’s glamorous, financially and professionally successful, and socially adept, and NOT have men be interested.
That’s what no one wants to address in any fiction I’ve seen. To be a single straight woman is often to have priced yourself out of a market of men who pee on the bathroom floor and would prefer to date down rather than up. Nicholls attempts to even this playing field by making Marnie not that professionally or financially successful, via the rather baffling choice of her not going to university. This choice is part of a larger disconnect, which I couldn’t put my finger on for ages – and it’s that this is a book about two people aged 38 and 42 respectively, written by a man who’s nearly 60. These characters’ concerns and motivations and social inheritance is that of people twenty years older. The biggest class divide I can see in my generation is between those who went to college and those who didn’t, the second being a much smaller and more insular group – and one which Marnie isn’t written as convincingly belonging to. She is believable as someone who finished school in the eighties or nineties, NOT the noughties. And Michael reads as a pensioner most of the time.
The prose was also – perhaps fittingly, given the plot – pedestrian. Nothing stands out as memorable or quotable. Marnie and Michael are relentlessly ordinary; Marnie is only somewhat interesting in her precarity, and to make this book work, Michael needed to be positioned as more of a saviour in that regard. The ending didn’t make me think either of them were better off than they were before, which is not really where you want to land in romancelandia. ...more
**spoiler alert** A very impressive ‘middle book of a trilogy’, which features Damen and Laurent finally getting together but with the significant obs**spoiler alert** A very impressive ‘middle book of a trilogy’, which features Damen and Laurent finally getting together but with the significant obstacle of Damen’s real identity before them. I do love a competent problem solver and both these dudes exhibit this trait, albeit on different axes. Between the St Mary’s-esque training and the flight along the rooftops I find it even more difficult to believe this isn’t paying homage to Lymond. Still not sure who Damen is then – Jerrot Blythe? Gabriel? Who cares? Pacat has done something new with the Lymond mould. I remember in the initial online version I assumed he was a Fanon!Draco; now I realise that the major proponents of Fanon!Draco were likely (certainly, in the case of Maya) writing FD as a version of Lymond. It’s delightful.
‘‘Your face is well balanced.’ She slapped him encouragingly on the back, ‘You have very long eyelashes. Like a cow. Come. We will sit together, drink, and eat meats.’
‘Close enough to see your eyelashes,’ said Damen. ‘It’s lucky you do not have the size to breed great warriors.’ And then he stopped himself. This was the wrong mood. This was the mood if he were here with a warm, amenable partner, someone he could tease and pull in towards himself, not Laurent, chaste as an icicle. ‘My size,’ said Laurent, ‘is the usual. I am not made in miniature. It’s a problem of scale, standing next to you.’ ...more
**spoiler alert** I did really enjoy this book, and parts of it made me tear up. However, it’s not really a plotty book. We know from the prologue (wh**spoiler alert** I did really enjoy this book, and parts of it made me tear up. However, it’s not really a plotty book. We know from the prologue (why tho) that one of the Blue sisters died the year before the book opens and they are all dealing with the fall-out. It’s an extended meditation on what it means to be the children of addicts, and perhaps – although this is not explicit – a question about whether the children of addicts should become parents themselves. I feel a lot of women writers skirt about this topic instead of making it the focus, this idea that being a woman and wanting to be a mother are not synonymous. I suppose it’s a big one to look at directly, given that for most of history that was the entire point and purpose of being a woman. As someone who doesn’t feel that way, it’s always reassuring to see it explored in fiction. In the case of this book, the fact that the childfree-but-in-denial woman is a lesbian slightly dilutes the impact for me; a man who wants a child needs a woman in a very visceral way, but a woman who’s married to another woman can do that without involving another person directly.
There’s also a lot of flashbacking, such that the actual meat of the story takes place over only a few weeks, and a massive amount of plot points are resolved in those weeks for reasons of narrative exigency. It’s not a criticism, just a fact of the way the book was written.
Some delicious descriptions:
‘The fabric was the palest confectionary pink, like the underside of a kitten’s paw.’
‘Riley’s personality was like every activity from a child’s birthday party rolled into one.’
‘He collected these unwanted words and made them beautiful again, like a child gathering pieces of sea glass along the shore.’
Including one of the best crush descriptions I’ve ever read:
‘She didn’t know when it started, this wanting, but once the seed was planted in her it kept growing until she was like a cracking pot that cannot contain its plant. The truth was that she wanted him everywhere, not just in her corner. The specifics of her wants were not extravagant, but the very fact of them felt enormous.’
And I LOVE this. I don’t know much about Mellors’ backstory but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was addiction plus enlightenment in it.
‘I believe everything happens. Period. Or full stop, as you would say. That’s it. Things happen and we have to learn to live with them, as long as suicide is off the table, that is. If we can find meaning in them, fine, but even if we can’t, we still have to live with them. The meaning is an afterthought, an anaesthesia. Happens is the only word in that statement that’s empirical. The rest is whatever helps you sleep at night.’
I will follow Mellors’ career with interest. ...more
**spoiler alert** I thought this cover and title looked familiar, and of course, Irwin’s first outing was with A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting, comp**spoiler alert** I thought this cover and title looked familiar, and of course, Irwin’s first outing was with A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting, complete with a similar jewel-coloured silhouette design. Not a bug but a feature – I gave in to my comfort instinct and bought this instead of yet another handsome aspirational tome that will sit on my TBR for a year or more, and read this in a day.
Irwin’s bio says she wrote a dissertation on Georgette Heyer and when I say I would DIE to read it, I mean it. She also consulted the owner of the London Fine Art studios for information on painting methods, a place I have attended a number of times myself and love dearly. (I’m still not sure Eliza would be painting alla prima for a ‘finished’ work and a month is a WILD time to consider an oil dry, but I quibble.) As someone who’s read all Austen, all Heyer, a number of biographies and historical works about them and the era, I consider myself inadvertently well-informed about Regency England. There’s nothing in this book’s period detail that is new to me, but I did enjoy seeing it, especially when you contrast the likes of Julia Quinn (cursed be her name) having her characters talk about ‘city blocks’ and other hideous American modernisms.
Again, the fact that I have read every Heyer slightly tells against me with this book. Eliza shares some DNA with Anne Elliot, but also with the heroines of Black Sheep and The Nonesuch, among others. The premise is that Eliza has been widowed, ten years after being forced to marry the uncle of her actual heart’s desire. (The book is quiet on how this came about when she is described by herself and others as shy and only okay-looking.) In a fit of pique, her dead husband leaves her a substantial fortune, on the stipulation that she act with propriety. She goes on to act with quite a lot of impropriety, especially as regards to Lord Melville, a half-Indian remix of Lord Byron. The fact that a) Eliza was shy and retiring her whole life in addition to being emotionally squashed by her domineering husband for a decade and b) has the equivalent of a million a year at stake, makes it hard for me to believe she Mario-jumps from not even being able to say ‘uh maybe no’ to her mother dispersing Eliza’s fortune on to her disliked brothers, to gallivanting with rakes while still in mourning. I feel the book needed to either make more of this transition, or less of the morality clause, given it turns out to be a red herring anyway. (Or make living on their artistic wits something she and Melville fully commit to at the end.)
That being said, it was a polished performance, without too many ‘indeeds’ in the dialogue, and for at least half of it I wasn’t sure who she’d end up with. Of course, in 2023 the ring would always go to the lad with the bants, which is not very Austen or Heyer of us, but times they are a-changin’. (Do I want all my heroes to have banter? I absolutely do not, but I’m very much in the minority here.) ...more
**spoiler alert** I nearly backed out of this book in its opening letter. The premise is Groundhog Day, whereby MC Emma keeps reliving a Monday that e**spoiler alert** I nearly backed out of this book in its opening letter. The premise is Groundhog Day, whereby MC Emma keeps reliving a Monday that ends in the death of her husband. These days are bookended by letters from said husband, Dan, written annually in memory of the day they met on a tube. It’s this particular meet-cute that grates, as does Dan’s writing style, which is info-dumpy to the nth degree. When I got into the third-person POV from Emma – who is anxious, stressed, and inadvertently an asshole – the inherent second-hand tension ratcheted up and kept me hooked. The letters then kept referencing a version of Emma that never appears in the present, a saintly and faintly annoying paragon who must be only visible through Dan’s rose-tinted glasses.
At first I thought this would more of a comedy, and we’d get several carefully described days wherein Emma ‘fixes’ everything she does wrong the first time. There’s a bit of that, but like the film from which it takes its cues, Emma spends months of time wallowing and desperate. And, unlike the film, she tells Dan what’s happening, which leads to the magical realism revelation that he’s been living on borrowed time since a previous accident. The ending is ambiguous and a good choice in the circumstances. There are several matrushka-doll mysteries embedded in the first day that, while easily-guessed and unoriginal in and of themselves, are enlivened by Emma’s original obliviousness slowly fading as she realises how off-track her life has become. In conclusion: propulsive, but somewhat lacking substance. ...more
**spoiler alert** My previous experience with Laurie Colwin was a profoundly negative one, as Shine On, Bright and Beautiful Object really sucked me i**spoiler alert** My previous experience with Laurie Colwin was a profoundly negative one, as Shine On, Bright and Beautiful Object really sucked me in with its prose and premise before – literally – sucker-punching me in the last twenty-odd pages. I cannot describe the sense of betrayal, the loathing and disgust that turnaround inspired in me. I’m not actually sure why I gave Happy All The Time a chance, except that I’ve been on a bit of a run with the literary-fiction-adjacent stuff recently and the premise of this at least wasn’t dire. And so it proved to be: in fact, it’s one of the most accurate blurbs I’ve ever read. Four well-off, good-looking people manage to fall in love in spite of themselves. That’s it. That’s the show. And Colwin isn’t manufacturing drama, she’s simply documenting it, because it’s happening in spite of the characters’ manifest good fortunes with regard to their lot in life.
Colwin’s descriptors are simply delicious:
‘Holly’s hair would look like a sable paintbrush against the pillow’
‘Education, she said, was something that enriched your life— not something you did things with. Guido thought of her as a city- state— strong, well- defended, and perfectly self- sufficient.’
‘Misty’s personality was a deliberate creation. She felt she was not unlike one of those seashells that looks elaborate, but is only the housing for a very soft animal.’
And her observations on love are wincingly accurate:
‘He was not, he realized, dying of love. He was simply lifeless without its object. What he felt about Holly was not obsession, but enrichment.’
I’ve been thinking this for a while now – the idea that a relationship opens things up for you, as an individual. ‘Enrichment’, in the same terms as that of a zoo animal, is a perfect analogy.
‘John Bride was symbolic of normal man, which meant that he was handsome and at ease with women. He did not engage Misty in long conversations about anything. He kissed her in alleyways. He took her dancing. He told her he found her beautiful, and the most intelligent person in the world is a fool for this sort of information.’
‘But she was confirmed in her view that she was a special case of one sort or another. Only another special case might truly love her and since those were rare, and Misty was not a compromiser, it was clear to her that she would probably float through life alone. The John Brides of this world were not in fact for her.’
My god, did I ever identify with Misty.
‘It was all over, she thought. What was all over was the person she had been all her life until yesterday— a person on the verge of something. She had been that person for so long it frightened her to give it up. That person had been waiting for The Big Event. The Big Event, of course, was love. Love had to do with flexing your personality to see what it might attract. What it attracted was some resplendent being who dropped from the sky and immediately loved you for your character.’
UGH.
And as for this:
‘“You don’t know what I’m like,” said Misty. “I have a fair idea,” said Vincent. “You’re the scourge of God.”’
Who wouldn’t die for the kind of love who calls you a scourge of God? ...more
**spoiler alert** This is a book about a fat girl who gets a hot guy, which is the purest form of wish fulfillment – all tea no shade. It did make me **spoiler alert** This is a book about a fat girl who gets a hot guy, which is the purest form of wish fulfillment – all tea no shade. It did make me reflect that the trope of ‘hot man who sleeps around but has never had a serious relationship’ has never actually been presented as weird or abnormal in my experience. It’s framed as a win that the girl in question finally gets him to settle down, but the fact that he didn’t before is so normalised – in a way an equivalent female character having many hookups and/or serious relationships simply isn’t. The interposition of a bit of family and cycling buddy-related drama cut through the otherwise rather dull will-they won’t-they of Abby and Sebastian. Just … grand, like....more
**spoiler alert** I am at a stage with Sarra Manning that it’s an automatic pre-order for me every time she releases a new book … but. But. Her turnar**spoiler alert** I am at a stage with Sarra Manning that it’s an automatic pre-order for me every time she releases a new book … but. But. Her turnaround of late years has been prodigious, but her work suffers from under-editing-itis. It’s particularly apparent in this book, which has all the nuts and bolts of a really good, gritty, pastel-iced gunpowder cupcake … but.
Esme (because no one. In romance. Can have. A real. NAME.) has a traumatic backstory, because no one writes books about stable, emotionally-regulated people. (Fair.) She married an emotionally abusive failing actor in her early twenties, after an emotionally neglectful childhood. Her divorce was messy, her relationship with her sister fractured, that with her parents non-existent. She’s closed herself off from a ‘real’ relationship, until in one night she simultaneously participants in a hen party manifesting sesh and suffers a head injury. (I won’t even get into the medical side of this, because it’s mostly okay except when it’s not. I’ve seen worse.) This head injury causes her to hallucinate her ‘ideal man’ and mistake it for successful manifesting.
I do like this concept, especially the way it ends with a Sliding Doors-style repeat meet-cute with the real Theo (now called Johnny). For all its problems, Sliding Doors remains in its concept one of my favourite movies. I have possibly quite a niche penchant for stories that focus exhaustively on the run-up to the perfect romance (Timer is another excellent example, as is most of Maeve Binchy’s work). Because – in romance, the HEA is a given. That fallback allows for all sorts of heinous happenings to occur beforehand, because the HEA will heal them all. For me, you don’t even need the onscreen HEA; just knowing it will come after ‘The End’ is enough.
And that’s what gets me about this book. Because I was way more invested in Esme’s relationship with her mother and her sister than I ever was in this flash-in-the-pan romance with Theo. Of course, this is framed by my preference for long, long-drawn-out UST as well. But the information about Esme’s ex-husband, her childhood, and her fall-out with her sister are info-dumped at random, ill-paced intervals rather than being integrated mysteriously throughout. I know Manning CAN do this because she HAS done it. It’s just … not quite there, this book. It’s underbaked. It needed a few more goes in the proving drawer. Manning – going by Instagram – doesn’t seem to allow for this time in her process. Which is understandable from a financial standpoint but frustrating from a reading one. ...more
**spoiler alert** This book was … fine. It reminded me, for obvious reasons, of Kinsella’s The Undomestic Goddess, wherein a burned-out lawyer inadver**spoiler alert** This book was … fine. It reminded me, for obvious reasons, of Kinsella’s The Undomestic Goddess, wherein a burned-out lawyer inadvertently becomes a housekeeper for a couple with notions. In this case, Sasha is a burned-out marketing thingummy for an app company. In the year of our Lord of Quiet Quitting 2023 this does hit differently. Sasha retreats to a seaside resort that has significantly deteriorated since her childhood visits and there finds a fellow burn-out called Finn. We all know what’s going to happen here; the question is how we get there. While the mystery around the local artist and the person leaving them cryptic messages on the beach is mildly entertaining, it also diverts attention away from the growing relationship between Sasha and Finn. Because this relationship … develops fine? They are two single, attractive people thrown by circumstances into close proximity with no other options – it would be almost pathologically weird if they didn’t make hay with it. Aside from being overwhelmed by her job, Sasha has no real issues to overcome. The last minute revelation of Finn’s maybe-girlfriend came a bit too late to pack a real emotional punch. It also feels slightly weird to have a protagonist that ‘loves’ marketing. Again, the idea of leaving the rat race has been done so many times and economically has never been less viable, so that’s fair, it’s just dispiriting. I just wish Kinsella would stretch herself a bit more. And stop writing in the first person, just for once....more
**spoiler alert** Sophie Kinsella has a talent for writing teeth-grindingly irritating characters, but everyone in this book takes the biscuit. Lottie**spoiler alert** Sophie Kinsella has a talent for writing teeth-grindingly irritating characters, but everyone in this book takes the biscuit. Lottie has a 'habit' of doing weird stuff in the stress of a breakup, but the weird stuff isn't 'get a revenge haircut' but 'join a cult' or 'be suckered into a scam and lose loads of money'. This time, having misinterpreted her boyfriend's actions as signals of an imminent proposal, she shacks up with an emotionally disturbed ex-boyfriend and marries him after three days. Lottie's sister Fliss (no one can have a real name apparently) is understandably concerned, but in her role as a head travel reviewer (??) enlists/bribes the staff of a luxury honeymoon destination to disrupt Lottie's wedding night repeatedly so she's entitled to an annulment rather than a divorce.
The thing about all this is, in the context of supposedly light-hearted, earnest romance fiction, it veers towards absurdist. If Kinsella allowed herself to be darker, to aim for the psychological heart of what she's always dancing around, she could have created a really intense, interesting portrait of two very fucked-up sisters. There's a TikTok going around about how romance leads don't have friends because the group chat would have stopped most of the romances in their tracks, but it's equally true that most romance leads don't have parents either. In this case, which is commonly the case, they're dead, but they tend also to be peripheral to the action. One thing romance writers would do well to remember is that it's childhood wounds they're usually interrogating in the writing of stories about people who, if they were mentally very well, wouldn't BE in a position to have this much plot happen to them. So yeah. Here's hoping Kinsella one day allows herself to write a psychological thriller or any genre that doesn't have pink covers, just to see what it's like....more
**spoiler alert** This book has a cutesy title given it’s set in a hotel and features protagonists who get sort-of wake-up calls about their (romantic**spoiler alert** This book has a cutesy title given it’s set in a hotel and features protagonists who get sort-of wake-up calls about their (romantic) lives, but by the time I got to the proposal finale that features the only actual hotel wake-up call of the novel I was so ready to be done. Beth O’Leary is a very unpredictable author. I liked The Flat Share and I thought The No Show was genuinely fantastic, but the other two books were of uneven quality. This one is her worst so far.
It features an Of Course I’m Quirky female lead called Izzy, because you can’t ever be called a name fit for an adult woman in most of chicklit, who wears red and orange stripes in her hair. I honestly missed the initial description of this so I’m guessing they’re clip-in fake hair tails, which. People stopped wearing those in 2003, I am pretty sure. I’d take the ubiquitous pink-haired protag over someone who sounds like a colour-blind My Little Pony. For some reason the male lead finds these charming.
I also had such a difficult time picturing Lucas, first of all because it reads to me as a Polish name and so I had him big and tanned and blonde, and then it’s revealed he’s Brazilian. Which, whatever. But Latin Americans, like West Europeans … they’re fucking short, man. I’m sure the odd one is tall but the average must be less than UK/Ireland’s of five eight. Which is NOT TALL. I’m also not sure why Brazilian? I don’t know much about hospitality in the UK but in Ireland it’s dominated by Spanish and Eastern Europeans.
Speaking of hospitality and knowing nothing about it, the extent of my knowledge is that I stay in hotels. I suspect O’Leary has about that level or less, if I’M here going 'this sounds fake' about most of what these two receptionists spend their time doing. It’s also wild to me that anyone is staying in a hotel or visiting its restaurant when THE CEILING IS STILL BEING REPAIRED. Also the stairs?! Construction site is not the vibe. Also, does anyone really spend months and months in a hotel in 2023? Unless they’re in Direct Provision?
The hotel itself is on the skids, but is saved by a popstar doing an Instagram story about it. Social media influencing is something I'm subject to but not knowledgable about, yet I find it extremely hard to believe it will fix the actual economics of a failing business.
I liked the premise of the story – Izzy writes Lucas a Christmas card inviting him to kiss her under the mistletoe, it For Some Reason doesn’t reach him or he declines and they spent the next year spatting. But before even the midway point the romance was doing the most boring possible thing, of having them sleep together but not like each other. And yes, I fully concede this can and does happen, having done it, but it’s probably low key one of the most depressing and tawdry versions of romantic encounters. Like, we KNOW they’ll end up together, that the miscommunication over the mistletoe was miscommunication not rejection, but at least make the journey more interesting than THIS. Plus, in most of their interactions, Izzy is genuinely annoying. When people say she’s acting like a child … she is. It’s not cute, and it does not a good romance make....more
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