Category: General Fiction

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#BookReview Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly @simonschuster @AvidReaderPress #Greta&Valdin #RebeccaKReilly #SimonSchuster

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#BookReview Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly @simonschuster @AvidReaderPress #Greta&Valdin #RebeccaKReilly #SimonSchuster Title: Greta & Valdin

Author: Rebecca K Reilly

Published by: Avid Reader Press on Feb. 6, 2024

Genres: General Fiction, LGBTQIA

Pages: 352

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster

Book Rating: 9/10

For fans of Schitt’s Creek and Sally Rooney’s Normal People, an irresistible and bighearted international bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the dramas big and small of their entangled, unconventional family, all while flailing their way to love.

It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants.

Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master’s thesis, or her pathetic academic salary…) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won’t stop her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word.

Sharp, hilarious, and with an undeniable emotional momentum that builds to an exuberant conclusion, Greta & Valdin careens us through the siblings’ misadventures and the messy dramas of their sprawling, eccentric Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family. An acclaimed bestseller in New Zealand, Greta & Valdin is fresh, joyful, and alive with the possibility of love in its many mystifying forms.

Review:

Fresh, deft, and exceptionally memorable!

Greta & Valdin is a tender, hopeful, intimate multi-generational story that delves into all the emotional bonds and intricate ties that exist between family members, especially two siblings, Greta and Valdin and immerses you in a tale about accepting the things you cannot change, following your heart, learning to heal, and embracing whatever comes next.

The prose is evocative and controlled. The characters are young, self-aware, and relatable. And the tightly crafted, witty plot, told from alternating perspectives, unfolds seamlessly, unravelling all the motivations, behaviours, personalities, desires, needs, insecurities, heartbreak, and complex relationships within it.

Overall, Greta & Valdin is a nuanced, atmospheric, uplifting debut by Reilly that does a remarkable job of highlighting all the universal struggles of navigating the world as an adult, acquiring self-confidence, forging friendships, experiencing love, and feeling entitled to be loved.

This novel is available February 6, 2024.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Rebecca K Reilly

Rebecca K Reilly (Ngaati Hine, Ngaati Rehua Ngaatiwai ki Aotea), born 1991, is a Maaori novelist from Waitaakere, New Zealand. She has a BA (hons) in German and European studies from the University of Auckland and an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, where she won the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for 2019.

Photograph by AMP Berry.

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#BookReview Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr @charcarr1 @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #HoldMyGirl #CharleneCarr #bookmarkedbylandmark

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#BookReview Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr @charcarr1 @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #HoldMyGirl #CharleneCarr #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: Hold My Girl

Author: Charlene Carr

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Oct. 10, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 400

Format: Hardcover

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Two women. Two eggs. One life-changing switch.

Katherine finally has it all. She’s spent her entire life striving for perfection―obsessing over her spotless home, maintaining her pristine reputation, building her perfect family―and her hard work has finally paid off. After seven difficult years of trying (and failing) to conceive, Katherine gives birth to Rose, her IVF miracle child, and at last has the one thing she’s wanted most of all. But one thing isn’t quite perfect. Rose’s pale skin doesn’t match Katherine’s complexion, and an irritating doubt begins to grow in Katherine’s mind.

Tess never got the happy ending she wanted. She underwent IVF at the same clinic as Katherine, but after finally conceiving, Tess’s daughter was stillborn. Now, nearly two years later, she’s approaching rock bottom. Consumed by her grief and without hope for the future, Tess is divorced, broke, and stuck in a dead-end job beneath her skillset. But shortly before Rose’s first birthday, Katherine and Tess get a call from the fertility clinic. Their eggs were switched.

As Katherine’s carefully planned life begins to crumble around her, Tess finally sees the glimmer of hope she needed to get her life back on track. Motherhood has always been their dream, and neither woman is prepared to share that claim over Rose. It will take a tense custody battle to decide who deserves to be Rose’s mother, but it will also push them to the brink.

With themes of racial identity, loss, and betrayal, Hold My Girl is an emotional novel that will leave you What makes a mother?

Review:

Insightful, thought-provoking, and sensitive!

Hold My Girl is a compassionate, moving novel that introduces us to two young women, Katherine and Tess, as they navigate the torment and fallout of their eggs being secretly switched at an IVF clinic, resulting in one mother being ecstatic to finally be the mother she’s always wanted to be and another mother grieving the loss of her baby girl until the truth comes out and each woman has to navigate the emotional, psychological, and legal upheaval of being the birth mother versus the biological one.

The prose is sincere and rich. The characters are vulnerable, multilayered, and genuine. And the plot is a compelling tale of life, loss, love, friendship, family, race, discrimination, marital discord, courage, hope, heartache, secrets, grief, motherhood, interracial families, and infertility.

Overall, Hold My Girl is a fresh, pensive, emotional tale by Carr bursting with heart, hope, and healing that immerses you so thoroughly into the feelings, lives, and personalities of the characters you can’t help but be fully invested.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Charlene Carr

CHARLENE CARR spent much of her childhood creating elaborate, multi-faceted storylines for her dolls and reading under the blankets with a flashlight when she was supposed to be asleep. A bit of a nomad, she’s lived in four countries and seven Canadian provinces. After working an array of mostly writing related jobs, she decided the time had come to focus exclusively on her true love—novel writing. She lives in Nova Scotia with her husband and daughter. Hold My Girl is her tenth novel, and she recently received a Canada Council for the Arts grant to revise her next novel.

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#FeaturePost Between the Head and the Hands by James Chaarani @ecwpress #BetweentheHeadandtheHands #JamesChaarani #ECWPress

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#FeaturePost Between the Head and the Hands by James Chaarani @ecwpress #BetweentheHeadandtheHands #JamesChaarani #ECWPress Title: Between the Head and the Hands

Author: James Chaarani

Published by: ECW Press on Sep. 26, 2023

Genres: General Fiction, LGBTQIA

Pages: 240

Format: Paperback

Source: ECW Press

The candid story of a young man abandoned by his family and religion and left searching for identity in an unfamiliar world.

When Michael Dawouk is disowned by his Muslim family for being gay, he turns his back on the religion and culture he grew up with. He is forced out onto the street, only to be taken in by a former high school teacher who offers him room and board in exchange for sex. Michael is soon left with nothing to believe in, until he meets Wyatt, a successful Texan businessman who takes him under his wing. But what Michael can’t see is that his mentor is just as lost as he is.

Searching for the connection and belonging he lost when he left home, Michael immerses himself in temporary pleasures ― nights of danger, intrigue, and meaningless sex ― until he begins to crave a kinder form of love.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

       

 

 

Thank you to ECW Press for gifting me a copy.

 

About James Chaarani

James Chaarani's work has appeared in Condé Nast's Them, The Advocate, Slate, and Vice. The Toronto, Ontario resident was selected for Lambda Literary's Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices in Los Angeles.

#BookReview If I Let You Go by Charlotte Levin @tinycharlotte72 @PGCBooks @panmacmillan #IfILetYouGo #CharlotteLevin #PGCBooks

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#BookReview If I Let You Go by Charlotte Levin @tinycharlotte72 @PGCBooks @panmacmillan #IfILetYouGo #CharlotteLevin #PGCBooks Title: If I Let You Go

Author: Charlotte Levin

Published by: Pan Macmillan on Sep. 5, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 384

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

If I Let You Go by Charlotte Levin is a deeply moving and gripping portrayal of a woman coming to terms with loss.

Every morning Janet Brown goes to work cleaning offices. It calms her, cleanliness, neatness. All the things she’s unable to do with her soul can be achieved with a damp cloth and a splash of bleach. However, the guilt she still carries about a devastating loss that happened eleven years ago, cannot be erased.

Then, Janet finds herself involved in a train crash and, recognising the chance to do what she couldn’t all those years ago, she makes a decision. As news spreads of Janet’s actions, her story inspires everyone around her, and for the first time her life has purpose and the future is filled with hope.

But Janet’s story isn’t quite what it seems, and as events spiral out of control, she soon discovers that coming clean isn’t an option. Because if Janet washes away the lies, what long-buried truths will she finally have to face.

Review:

Nuanced, gripping, and tight!

If I Let You Go is an unsettling, character-driven novel that introduces us to Janet, a young woman who, after a tragic accident eleven years ago, has spent her life in the shadows, performing her cleaning job to the best of her abilities, keeping house and placating her domineering husband, and visiting her elderly father as often as possible, until one night she decides she’s had enough and by morning her life will be irrevocably changed forever when she wakes to discover she’s a heroine of a train crash she can’t actually remember.

The writing is crisp and edgy. The characters are anxious, tormented, and flawed. And the plot is a tense, unpredictable tale full of twists, turns, revelations, insecurities, deception, grief, manipulation, lies, and tragedy.

Overall, If I Let You Go is an intriguing, intense, immersive tale by Levin that does a wonderful job of highlighting just how devastating and all-consuming guilt and grief can be and reminds us to savour every moment because life can often change in a heartbeat.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

        

 

 

Thank you to Publishers Group Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Charlotte Levin

Charlotte Levin has been shortlisted for the Andrea Badenoch Award, part of the New Writers North Awards, and for the Mslexia Short Story Competition. Charlotte lives in Manchester and If I Can't Have You is her first novel.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

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#BookReview The Second Chance Hotel by Sierra Godfrey @sierragodfrey @KayePublicity @sbkslandmark #KayePublicity #TheSecondChanceHotel #SierraGodfrey #womensfiction #contemporaryromance

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#BookReview The Second Chance Hotel by Sierra Godfrey @sierragodfrey @KayePublicity @sbkslandmark #KayePublicity #TheSecondChanceHotel #SierraGodfrey #womensfiction #contemporaryromance Title: The Second Chance Hotel

Author: Sierra Godfrey

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Sep. 12, 2023

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Pages: 374

Format: Paperback

Source: Kaye Publicity

Book Rating: 8/10

It’s all fun and games until you accidentally marry a stranger in Greece and inherit a hotel.

Amelia Lang’s life is kind of a mess. She’s stuck living at home with her narcissistic mother. Her tech bro ex-boyfriend deliberately sabotages her at work, and she gets fired after throwing a mug at his head (it’s okay! She missed.) Then she has a major falling out with her best friend. So Amelia does what Amelia does best: She runs away.

After traveling around Europe for three months, she settles on a small Greek island to reset her life and figure out what’s next. But after too much retsina, she gets tricked into marrying James, another guest at the hotel, who is perfectly nice—but perfectly boring. To top it off, they are gifted the very hotel they’re staying in—a hotel they don’t want that is in desperate need of some TLC. They agree to keep the hotel open through the busy summer season for the sake of the island’s quirky but well-meaning residents, after which Amelia plans to return home to start rebuilding her disastrous life.

Amelia and James must work together to determine how to get out of their situation—easier said than done for Amelia, who’s started to feel a strong spark of attraction for James. But Amelia is sure her real life is waiting for her back in San Francisco. Is it time for Amelia to return home or could this be the second chance at a new life she didn’t know she wanted?

Review:

Breezy, hopeful, and romantic!

The Second Chance Hotel is a delightfully charming, touching tale that takes us into the life of Amelia Lang at a time when her love life is in tatters, her career is stalling, and she finds herself at the end of a European vacation on a small Greek Island waking from a night of festivities with a pounding headache, an unexpected husband, and a co-ownership in a local rundown hotel that needs more than just a little TLC.

The writing is light and tender. The characters are independent, hardworking, and caring. And the plot is an uplifting tale of life, love, friendship, family, community, starting over, taking chances, old hurts, new beginnings, spirited shenanigans, humorous mishaps, following one’s dreams, and contentment.

Overall, The Second Chance Hotel is a heartwarming, engaging, escapist read by Godfrey that reminds us to always surround ourselves with those we love, stay open-minded, and be excited for whatever comes next.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

        

 

 

Thank you to Kaye Publicity & Sourcebooks Landmark for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Sierra Godfrey

Sierra Godfrey is a technical writer, graphic designer, and a former credentialed sportswriter covering Spanish soccer. When she’s not writing about messy families, she’s taking long walks, reading, and being cozy. Originally from Santa Cruz, California, she has lived all over the world including Santorini, Greece, but now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family, which includes a dog, two cats, and a turtle, all of which seemed like a good idea at the time.

Photo courtesy of Author's Website.

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#BookReview The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange @CeladonBooks #TheConnellysofCountyDown #TraceyLange #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads

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#BookReview The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange @CeladonBooks #TheConnellysofCountyDown #TraceyLange #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads Title: The Connellys of County Down

Author: Tracey Lange

Published by: Celadon Books on Aug. 1, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 288

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 9/10

From Tracey Lange, the New York Times bestselling author of We Are the Brennans, comes The Connellys of County Down: a story about fierce family loyalty, good intentions gone awry, and the consequences of improbable love.

When Tara Connelly is released from prison after serving eighteen months on a drug charge, she knows rebuilding her life at thirty years old won’t be easy. With no money and no prospects, she returns home to live with her siblings, who are both busy with their own problems. Her brother, a single dad, struggles with the ongoing effects of a brain injury he sustained years ago, and her sister’s fragile facade of calm and order is cracking under the burden of big secrets. Life becomes even more complicated when the cop who put her in prison keeps showing up unannounced, leaving Tara to wonder what he wants from her now.

While she works to build a new career and hold her family together, Tara finds a chance at love in a most unlikely place. But when the Connellys’ secrets start to unravel and threaten her future, they all must face their worst fears and come clean, or risk losing each other forever.

The Connellys of County Down is a moving novel about testing the bounds of love and loyalty. It explores the possibility of beginning our lives anew, and reveals the pitfalls of shielding each other from the bitter truth.

Review:

Sincere, immersive, and insightful!

The Connellys of County Down is a tender, engaging tale that sweeps you away to Port Chester, NY and into the lives of three siblings, Tara, Eddie, and Geraldine, as they each grapple with all the secrets, wounds, trauma, tragedy, hurt, shame, guilt, tears, and discontent that surrounds them.

The prose is heartfelt and raw. The characters are complex, scarred, and loyal. And the plot is a beautifully written, affecting tale about life, loss, friendship, family, secrets, jealousy, guilt, pain, anger, denial, resentments, familial drama, forgiveness, miscommunication, and self-reflection.

Overall, The Connellys of County Down is a hopeful, absorbing, multi-generational saga by Lange that reminds us where there’s love, there’s a way and that when it comes to family, life is a combination of all the messy, frustrating, challenging, heartbreaking, complicated moments, as well as all the lovely, wonderful, touching times that happen in-between.

This novel is available on August 1, 2023.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Tracey Lange

Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan, Tracey Lange comes from a large Irish family with a few secrets of its own. She headed west and graduated from the University of New Mexico before owning and operating a behavioral healthcare company with her husband for fifteen years. While writing her debut novel, We Are the Brennans, she completed the Stanford University online novel writing program. Tracey currently lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, two sons and their German Shepherd.

Photo courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

Goodreads

#BookReview Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur @adriennebrodeur @SimonSchusterCA @AvidReaderPress #LittleMonsters #AdrienneBrodeur #SimonSchusterCA

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#BookReview Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur @adriennebrodeur @SimonSchusterCA @AvidReaderPress #LittleMonsters #AdrienneBrodeur #SimonSchusterCA Title: Little Monsters

Author: Adrienne Brodeur

Published by: Avid Reader Press on Jun. 27, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 320

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets—for fans of the New York Times bestsellers The Paper Palace and Ask Again, Yes .

Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.

As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit.

Set in the fraught summer of 2016, and drawing on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Little Monsters is an absorbing, sharply observed family story by a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.

Review:

Dramatic, simmering, and sincere!

Little Monsters is a tender, engaging tale that sweeps you away to the idyllic Cape Cod during 2016 and into the lives of the Gardner family, especially siblings Ken and Abby, as the preparations for their father’s upcoming seventieth birthday party will have them finally confronting all the jealousy, resentment, pain, scars, long-buried secrets, and despicable behaviours that have tied them together since childhood.

The prose is fluid and smooth. The characters are bitter, troubled, and flawed. And the plot is a captivating tale about life, loss, heartache, guilt, love, secrets, revelations, acceptance, familial drama, friendship, hope, mental illness, forgiveness, and introspection.

Overall, Little Monsters is a heartfelt, intricate, nuanced tale by Brodeur that reminds us that families are complicated and messy, the choices we make often have far-reaching consequences, and skeletons often find their way to the surface no matter how well they’re buried.

 

This novel is available June 27, 2023.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

        

 

 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Adrienne Brodeur

Adrienne Brodeur is the author of the memoir Wild Game, which was selected as a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post and is in development as a Netflix film. She founded the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story with Francis Ford Coppola, and currently serves as executive director of Aspen Words, a literary nonprofit and program of the Aspen Institute. She splits her time between Cambridge and Cape Cod, where she lives with her husband and children.

Photograph by Tony Luong.

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#BookReview The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand @elinhilderbrand @littlebrown @HBGCanada #TheFiveStarWeekend #ElinHilderbrand #HBGCanada

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#BookReview The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand @elinhilderbrand @littlebrown @HBGCanada #TheFiveStarWeekend #ElinHilderbrand #HBGCanada Title: The Five-Star Weekend

Author: Elin Hilderbrand

Published by: Little Brown and Company on Jun. 13, 2023

Genres: General Fiction, Women's Fiction

Pages: 384

Format: Paperback

Source: HBG Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hotel Nantucket: After tragedy strikes, food blogger Hollis Shaw gathers four friends from different stages in her life to spend an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket.

Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.

So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.

The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it happens, has many secrets.

The Five-Star Weekend is a surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery set on Nantucket. It will be a weekend like no other.

Review:

Heartwarming, comforting, and nostalgic!

The Five-Star Weekend is a lighthearted, engaging tale that takes you into the life of Hollis Shaw, a middle-aged successful food blogger who, after returning to her hometown of Nantucket, invites four friends, one from each stage of her life, to spend a weekend at her home on the island to help her come to grips with the recent loss of her husband and the strained relationship with her daughter she’s struggling to repair.

The prose is sentimental and tender. The characters are independent, supportive, and layered. And the plot is a compelling, touching tale of life, love, family, honesty, kindness, communication, acceptance, self-discovery, grief, loss, understanding, forgiveness, romance, taking chances, and new beginnings.

Overall, The Five-Star Weekend is another emotive, thoughtful, cosy read by Hilderbrand that does a beautiful job of reminding us just how important, powerful, and meaningful female friendships can truly be.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to HBG Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Elin Hilderbrand

Elin Hilderbrand is a mother of three, an avid runner, reader, and traveler, and the author of twenty-three novels. She grew up outside Philadelphia, and has lived on Nantucket for more than twenty years.

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#BookReview And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu @PGCBooks @groveatlantic @roxanegaybooks #AndThenHeSangaLullaby #AniKayodeSomtochukwu #PGCBooks

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#BookReview And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu @PGCBooks @groveatlantic @roxanegaybooks #AndThenHeSangaLullaby #AniKayodeSomtochukwu #PGCBooks Title: And Then He Sang a Lullaby

Author: Ani Kayode Somtochukwu

Published by: Grove Press, Roxane Gay Books on Jun. 6, 2023

Genres: General Fiction, LGBTQIA

Pages: 304

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 10/10

The inaugural title from Roxane Gay Books, And Then He Sang a Lullaby is a searingly honest and resonant debut from a 23-year-old Nigerian writer and queer liberation activist, exploring what love and freedom cost in a society steeped in homophobia.

August is a God-fearing track star who leaves Enugu City to attend university and escape his overbearing sisters. He carries the weight of their lofty expectations, the shame of facing himself, and the haunting memory of a mother he never knew. It’s his first semester and pressures aside, August is making friends, doing well in his classes. He even almost has a girlfriend. There’s only one problem: he can’t stop thinking about Segun, an openly gay student who works at a local cybercafé. Segun carries his own burdens and has been wounded in too many ways. When he meets August, their connection is undeniable, but Segun is reluctant to open himself up to August. He wants to love and be loved by a man who is comfortable in his own skin, who will see and hold and love Segun, exactly as he is.

Despite their differences, August and Segun forge a tender intimacy that defies the violence around them. But there is only so long Segun can stand being loved behind closed doors, while August lives a life beyond the world they’ve created together. And when a new, sweeping anti-gay law is passed, August and Segun must find a way for their love to survive in a Nigeria that was always determined to eradicate them. A tale of rare bravery and profound beauty, And Then He Sang a Lullaby is an extraordinary debut that marks Ani as a voice to watch.

Review:

Pensive, absorbing, and exceptionally heart-wrenching!

And Then He Sang a Lullaby is a tragic, beautiful tale that sweeps you away to Nigeria and into the lives of two boys, Segun and August, one who is confident in his sexuality and not ashamed to be a gay man while bearing all the hatred and violence faced by that decision, and the other who is torn, ashamed and struggling to come to grips with his sexuality but who ultimately can’t resist what his heart truly wants.

The prose is evocative and expressive. The characters are layered, tormented, and vulnerable. And the plot is an exceptionally impactful coming-of-age tale of life, loss, family, friendship, grief, guilt, denial, secrets, heartache, culture, prejudice, homophobia, violence, and love.

Overall, And Then He Sang a Lullaby is one of those books you never forget. It’s raw, timely, powerful, and heartbreaking. It’s an incredible debut by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu that everyone should have to read, and which ultimately reminds us that to love and be loved is one of humanity’s most fundamental needs and to quote Mahatma Gandhi’s iconic words that perhaps we should all remember a little more often, “Where there is love there is life.”

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

        

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Ani Kayode Somtochukwu

Ani Kayode Somtochukwu is an award-winning Nigerian writer and queer liberation activist. His work interrogates themes of queer identity, resistance, and liberation. His writings have appeared in literary magazines across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.

A note on naming: Following Nigerian naming conventions, family names come first in the name order, followed by the given first and “middle” names. This author’s family name, corresponding to a “last name” in most European and American names, is Ani.

Photo by Ileleji Prince.

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#BookReview The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle @mikegayle @GrandCentralPub #TheMuseumofOrdinaryPeople #MikeGayle #GCPInsider

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#BookReview The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle @mikegayle @GrandCentralPub #TheMuseumofOrdinaryPeople #MikeGayle #GCPInsider Title: The Museum of Ordinary People

Author: Mike Gayle

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on May 30, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 336

Format: Paperback

Source: Grand Central Publishing

Book Rating: 9/10

Still reeling from the sudden death of her mother, Jess is about to do the hardest thing she’s ever done: empty her childhood home so that it can be sold.  As she sorts through a lifetime of memories, everything comes to a halt when she comes across something she just can’t part with: an old set of encyclopedias.  To the world, the books are outdated and ready to be recycled.  To Jess, they represent love and the future that her mother always wanted her to have. 

In the process of finding the books a new home, Jess discovers an unusual archive of letters, photographs, and curious housed in a warehouse and known as the Museum of Ordinary People.  Irresistibly drawn, she becomes the museum’s unofficial custodian, along with the warehouse’s mysterious owner.  As they delve into the history of objects in their care, they not only unravel heart-stirring stories that span generations and continents, but also unearth long-buried secrets that lie closer to home.

Inspired by an abandoned box of mementos, The Museum of Ordinary People is a poignant novel about memory and loss, the things we leave behind, and the future we create for ourselves.  

Review:

Thoughtful, tender, and heart-tugging!

The Museum of Ordinary People is a sweet, poignant tale that takes you into the life of the kind, considerate Jess Baxter as her world gets suddenly turned upside down when, while she is still struggling to come to grips with the loss of her mother, she discovers an extraordinary place that takes and safely stores all those precious things that to most may seem like just trash but to others are layered in memories and love, and where together with the new owner, Alex Brody, she begins to uncover new purpose, passion, long-buried secrets, and unconditional friendships.

The writing is nostalgic and heartfelt. The characters are authentic, dependable, and supportive. And the plot is a delightfully engaging mix of life, loss, family, friendship, kindness, honesty, acceptance, generosity, romance, humour, introspection, grief, loneliness, and love.

Overall, The Museum of Ordinary People is a sweet, moving, uplifting tale by Gayle that does a brilliant job once again of highlighting his exceptional ability to create genuine, relatable characters and unique, memorable storylines that thoroughly enchant from start to finish.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Mike Gayle

Mike Gayle was born and raised in Birmingham, UK. After earning a Sociology degree, he moved to London to become a journalist and ended up as an advice columnist for a teenage girls’ magazine before becoming Features Editor for another teen magazine. He has written for a variety of publications including the Sunday Times, the Guardian, and Cosmo. Mike became a full-time novelist in 1997 and has written thirteen novels, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. After stints in London and Manchester, Mike now resides in Birmingham with his wife, two kids, and a rabbit.

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