This month, I didn’t have the best of luck with my books. The first two books are by authors I’ve both read and interviewed before, but I didn’t like them quite as much as I did past books. Are they worth the read? Yes, absolutely, especially the Cyrano de Bergerac-inspired novel, Love Letters for Other People by Shaylin Gandhi.
The third book on the list was a DNF for me; I just couldn’t seem to get into it. I have to really care about the characters in some way to want to know how they end up. Case in point, a novel that’s not on this list that doesn’t come out until May of next year. I should have read the earlier reviews, because the characters were all deeply unlikeable.
Last of all, we have a new-to-me author, Alice Feeney. I had picked up the book at My Chapter House, the charming bookstore in Hickory, NC. From the cover ot the mysterious premise of the book, I couldn’t wait to see how everything turned out… but alas, not only was the ending rushed, certain things couldn’t physically have happened the way they played out. There was just no way I could wrap my head around it.
That being said… and if I haven’t completely discouraged you from reading the rest of the post… here are the lists of books I read this month.
The Time Hop Coffee Shop | Phaedra Patrick
This book was definitely different than any of the Phaedra Patrick books I’ve read in the past. The Little Italian Hotel and last year’s The Year of What If were my absolute favorites. I featured a Q&A with the author on both books, and in each, she gave a sneak peek of the next book. This book gives you a glimpse at what it would be like to live in an iconic coffee commercial.
Greta Perks feels like her life has left her behind. Her husband is currently penthouse-sitting for a friend, her daughter has become distant, and she is grasping at any role that will even give a glimmer of the life she once had when she started in the Maple Gold coffee commercials with her family. After receiving a flyer from a mysterious older woman, she goes to a coffee shop that only appears when you need it to, and where there are rules that must be obeyed. Only one cup of coffee, no takeaways, don’t try to stay where you go in your dreams.
With the first sip and her first wish, Greta finds herself back in Mapleville. Everything is perfect, and she feels like she might have a second chance. Her daughter and her husband both adore her, and she makes friends with one of her neighbors Milly. It isn’t long before Mapleville begins to feel less than ideal, but despite this fact, Greta still feels drawn to it.
When she makes a mistake and adds more coffee leaves to her cup, she finds herself restricted from returning to the coffee shop… and when she tries the place seems abandoned. No rows of coffee jars, no sign in the window, weeds growing out front.
One desperate day, the coffee shop reappears, and she’s given a choice: stay in Mapleville forever, or return to her old life and start again. What choice will she make when faced with the ideal of perfection and her real life? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Rating: A–
Greta Perks was once the shining star of the iconic Maple Gold coffee commercials, the quintessential TV wife and mom. Now fame has faded, her marriage is on the rocks, her teenage daughter has become distant and Greta’s once-glittering career feels like a distant memory.
When Greta stumbles upon a mysterious coffee shop serving a magical brew, she wishes for the perfect life in those past Maple Gold commercials. Next thing she knows, Greta wakes in the idyllic make-believe town of Mapleville, where the sun always shines and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and second chances fill the air. Given the opportunity to live the life she dreamed, Greta is determined to rewrite her own script. But can life ever be like a coffee commercial? And what will happen when Greta has to choose between perfection and real life, with no turning back?
Love Letters to Other People | Shaylin Gandhi
I was first introduced to author Shaylin Gandhi in last year’s When We Had Forever and shared a Q&A with the author. It was such a good book, so as you can imagine, when I found out her next novel (which she gave a sneak peek of in the aforementioned Q&A) was coming out this December, I couldn’t wait to give it a read.
When someone steals her idea, Aubrey MacLean (mathematician and former high school cheerleader) returns to her hometown in rural Indiana. It isn’t long before she runs into her first love/the man who broke her heart. Feelings begin to stir, and despite how much they’ve changed over the years, it’s obvious to everyone except for Abby that Nick Thacker has never gotten over her.
If you love stories featuring second chances, this book is definitely one that you’ll want to check out!
Rating: A
An emotionally gripping page-turner about heartbreak, old secrets, and second chances—with an unexpected Cyrano twist. For fans of Lucy Score and Mia Sheridan.
When mathematician Aubrey MacLean’s career implodes, she has no choice but to return to her rural Indiana hometown, at least temporarily. But small towns have long memories, and so does she, especially when it comes to Nick Thacker, the boy who broke her heart.
Nick’s life is routine: long shifts at the steel mill, plus a side business writing love letters for other people. It’s enough to numb his regrets—until his first love returns, stirring up a past he thought he’d buried.
New Release
Introducing Mrs. Collins | Rachel Paris
Charlotte Lucas has never been a romantic. Practical to a fault, she accepted Mr. Collins’s proposal with clear eyes and a steady heart, trading passion for security. Life at Hunsford Parsonage may be quiet and predictable, but it is hers to manage—and she’s determined to make the best of it, whatever her friend Elizabeth Bennet may think.
That is, until an unexpected guest at nearby Rosings Park turns Charlotte’s careful world on its head. He sees her, challenges her, and a spark is lit.
Torn between what she must do and what she truly desires, Charlotte finds herself at the center of a story she never expected to be hers. A tale of love, loss, and second chances, Introducing Mrs. Collins is for anyone who wondered if there was more to the sensible character we met in Pride and Prejudice. It is the story of a woman who had written herself out of her own life and is only now daring to want more.
Watch Us Fall | Christina Kovac
While I was initially drawn to the storyline, which features four friends who share a home in the heart of Georgetown, I found myself losing interest in the chapters told from the POV of the missing person (Addie’s ex-boyfriend, Josh). Despite having a glimmer of interest in the fact that Josh told Addie he believed that Lucy (the other POV in the story) was keeping secrets, I just couldn’t muster up enough interest to find out.
Rating: DNF
Lucy and her three best friends share a glamorous but decaying house in the heart of Georgetown. They call themselves “the Sweeties” and live an idyllic post-grad lifestyle complete with exciting jobs, dramatic love lives, and, most importantly, each other.
But when Addie, the group’s queen bee, discovers that her ex-boyfriend Josh has gone missing, the Sweeties’ worlds are turned upside down. In the days leading up to his disappearance, Josh, a star investigative journalist from a prominent political family, was behaving erratically—and Lucy is determined to find out why. All four friends upend their lives to search for him, but detectives begin to suspect that the Sweeties might know more than they’re letting on.
Beautiful Ugly | Alice Feeney
This novel started so well. It had a promising premise. An author who has just found out that he is a best-selling author is having the best day of his life. Until his wife disappears, and it’s not only his wife that he loses that day. He also loses his ability to write. When everything else in his life starts to disappear, along with his dream home that he’d been renovating with his wife, he finds himself in a dreary hotel room, with a book due and no way to write one.
When his agent (and his wife’s godmother) suggests that he go to a remote island to stay at a cabin that she’s inherited there, he feels as if there is no way he can really say no. So he packs up his few belongings along with his dog, Columbo, and boards the ferry to the island of Amberly.
If it wasn’t odd enough that there is no cell phone service on the island, he starts to hear things go bump in the night, and discovers that the author who had called the cabin home has buried the last book he ever wrote (which has never been published), hidden under the floorboards.
The longer he spends on the island, the more things he discovers that just don’t add up. Including the fact that he keeps seeing his wife everywhere, dressed in the red coat he last saw her in.
The only real issue that I had with this book was the ending. One, it just didn’t make sense. There was no way Grady could have done what he is accused of doing at the end, plus everything felt so rushed. It’s one of those endings that makes you both confused and frustrated at the same time.
Will I read another Alice Feeney book? That remains to be seen.
Rating: B
Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.
A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.
Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.
