Tag Archives: popular fiction

The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware

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I just wanted something quick and mindless to read and Ruth Ware’s novel The Woman in Cabin 10 ticked the boxes. Kinda sorta.

Travel writer Laura “Lo’ Blacklock is about to go on a five-day cruise, the inaugural voyage of the Aurora, a “boutique super-luxury cruise liner traveling around the Norwegian fjords” and nothing is going to stop her, not even the fact that she recently woke up in the middle of the night to discover a strange man in her flat.

Lo is certain that she can parlay this experience into a promotion at Velocity, the magazine she writes for. At the very least, she might be in line to take over as editor when hers goes out on maternity leave.

As is often the case with first-person narration, Lo isn’t very reliable. For one thing, she drinks a lot. For another, she takes anxiety medication. And she’s already sleep deprived when she boards, due to the aforementioned home invasion. Still, she is determined to make the most of this opportunity, until the woman in the cabin next door to hers (there are only ten on this ship) goes missing. Lo had only met her briefly when she knocks on her door on day one to borrow mascara. (Who would ask to borrow a stranger’s mascara? Yikes.)

Anyway, after a dinner with far too much alcohol, Lo is woken from a dead sleep.

I don’t know what woke me up – only that I shot into consciousness as if someone had stabbed me in the heart with a syringe of adrenaline. I lay there rigid with fear, my heart thumping at about two hundred beats per minute…

What she thinks she witnesses is someone being thrown overboard; what she thinks she sees is blood on the glass partition that separates her balcony from the balcony of the woman next door. When she relates her story to the ship’s head of security, though, he assures her that no one is staying in cabin ten. For the next 150 pages or so, Lo tries to figure out what she actually saw and who this woman is.

The Woman in Cabin Ten is a locked room mystery that takes way too long to get where it’s going, but it’s easy to read and if you don’t read a ton of this type of story, you’ll probably find it fun.

Look for it on Netflix in the coming months.

The Spoon Stealer – Lesley Crewe

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After my first experience with a book by Maritime author Lesley Crewe (Amazing Grace), I would never have willingly chosen to read another book, but The Spoon Stealer was selected for my book club and so my options were to either suck it up and read it or just not bother. I sucked it up.

Emmeline Darling is a senior living alone with her dog, Vera, in England. She joins a memoir writing workshop at her local library and she begins to share her life story with the other ladies in the group, several of whom become her fast friends. Her memoir begins on a summer morning in Nova Scotia in 1894 when Emmeline’s mother was hanging out a line of clothes and Emmeline arrives suddenly, dropping “into a basket full of freshly laundered linen.”

The ladies in the memoir group, with the exception of the workshop leader, become fast friends and continue to meet after the workshop ends because they are so invested in Emmeline’s story. And it’s quite a tale.

Two of Emmeline’s older brothers had gone off to fight in the Great War and when Teddy, her favourite, ends up in hospital in England, Emmeline races to his side. That’s how she comes to spend the majority of her life in England.

As with any life, Emmeline’s is full of joy and heartache. She makes friends along the way; she experiences extreme luck and devastating loss. She is a ‘character’ – stealing hearts and spoons wherever she goes. Oh, and Vera talks – but just to her, of course, because that would be ridiculous, right?

I had an easier time with The Spoon Stealer than I did with Amazing Grace. I’m not sure that this is actually high praise or not because I still had a lot of problems with this one. For one thing, people do not talk the way they do in this book. And relationships aren’t magically repaired after decades of estrangement, which is what happens when Emmeline’s brother, Martin, dies and leaves her the family farm even though they haven’t spoken in years and years (and years). In fact, Emmeline hasn’t spoken to any of her remaining family for ages, but when she returns to Nova Scotia it’s poof! magic. The dialogue between the characters often serves as exposition/character development and, for me at least, it wasn’t believable.

There was at least one eye-rolling character twist and a tug-at-your-heart-strings ending that felt manipulative. And also – talking dog. 😦

I know people love this author, but she just isn’t my cup of tea.

The Haven- Amanda Jennings

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Tara has long wanted to get out from under her parents’ expectations. What they want, “conventional achievement. Money. A successful career. A sensible car with comprehensively researched insurance. A well-showered husband and two polite children” is not necessarily what she wants for herself. When she meets Kit and his best friend, Jeremy, at university Tara feels as though she has found her people. In Kit, more specifically, she has found her person.

Life becomes more complicated for Tara and Kit when they discover they are pregnant. Although Kit comes from a lot of money, he doesn’t necessarily get on with them and wants nothing to do with their money which he resents because they’ve done nothing to earn it and they have so much “while people struggle to make ends meet.” Because he doesn’t want to access his trust fund, Kit and Tara and soon baby Skye are living in a grubby bedsit in London. That’s when Jeremy makes a crazy suggestion, partly fueled by the fact that he is convinced the world is going to go nuts when the calendar clicks over to 2000.

Anger, resentment, and dissatisfaction are boulders we lug around. It’s time to cast them off. The establishment hold us in contempt. It imposes rules and we obey like sheep. When we don’t they lock us up. Well, not anymore. I’ve had enough talking and marching. Writing slogans on homemade placards and being ignored. It’s time to start doing. I want to make a difference. Be the change I seek. […]Let’s do something. Build something. Start living properly.

So, Kit accesses his trust fund and buys Winterfell Farm on Bodmin Moor near Cornwall. Soon they have a small community working and living together in harmony.

Until, you know, things aren’t so harmonious anymore.

Amanda Jennings’ novel The Haven is a top heavy book that, while certainly easy enough to read, doesn’t actually go anywhere until the last 50 pages. The cast of characters is small and I did feel like I knew them and cared about them, particularly Tara, Kit and Skye, but not a lot happens in the first 200+ pages – unless you care about people working together to get a rundown farm back on its feet. The introduction of a couple new characters sends some ripples out into the water, but the cultish aspects of the commune come late in the game and aren’t particularly sinister.

This is more a book about a group of people with good intentions who lose their way.

Slow Dance – Rainbow Rowell

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Rainbow Rowell’s (Eleanor & Park) latest novel, Slow Dance tells the story of Cary and Shiloh, best friends since grade seven. The novel begins at the wedding of the third member of their little group, Mikey. Shiloh, now a divorced mom of two young children, is anxious and nervous about seeing Cary again; it’s been fourteen years since they’ve even talked to each other. And it would be one thing if their friendship had just drifted away, as friendships sometimes do. Things were slightly more complicated than that, though. so there are stakes inherent in this reunion.

Shiloh had been imagining this moment – the moment she’d see Cary again – for months, but even in her imagination, it wouldn’t mean as much to him as it did to her. Cary wouldn’t have been thinking about it all day. He wouldn’t have been wondering, worrying, that Shiloh might be here. He wouldn’t have bought a new dress, so to speak, just in case.

Slow Dance traces Shiloh and Cary’s relationship from its humble beginnings to the present day – including this reunion and its aftermath, but the story is not linear. We spend time with them (and Mikey) as they navigate high school, as Shiloh goes off to college and Cary to the navy. We learn their many quirks – Shiloh’s penchant for poking at Cary, the fact that whenever they go anywhere the three of them are always crammed into the front seat. Although Cary and Shiloh might not have admitted back in the day, Mikey knows that the two love each other and are just too chicken shit to admit it. So the slow dance of the title is just Shiloh and Cary slowly but surely – with all life’s obstacles and complications thrown into the mix – working their way back to each other.

Shiloh and Cary are both extremely quirky characters, but I actually really liked them both. Their insecurities prevent them from outing themselves to the other about their feelings. They are best friends, but they are also young when they realize that these romantic feelings probably aren’t going away. As a reader, you know exactly where these two are going to end up, but this is a book where the journey is more important than the destination.

I enjoyed the read.

Twenty-Seven Minutes – Ashley Tate

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Canadian author Ashley Tate’s debut Twenty-seven Minutes begins with a horrific car accident in which teenager Phoebe Dean, who is “too young and too beautiful and too good to die”, dies. Her older brother Grant, was driving. Her friend, Becca, was in the back seat. They survived.

Ten years later, as Grant’s mother plans a memorial for the perfect daughter she lost, townsfolk are petitioning to have the bridge where the accident happened demolished. Not so much because of what happened to Phoebe but because of Rose Wilson, an elderly woman who has also had on accident on the bridge.

The memorial is stirring up a lot of drama in the town. Grant, who has always been troubled despite the fact that he was a big football star back in the day, is clearly imploding. He drinks, sleeps around and is clearly still grieving over the loss of his sister, but he comes across as an asshole more than as someone who can’t seem to shake off what happened that night.

There is also some sort of weird relationship between Grant and Becca. They have made some sort of agreement about what happened on the bridge the night Phoebe was killed and have also agreed not to talk about the status of their relationship.

June is also in mourning. On the night Phoebe died, her older brother, Wyatt, left home and never returned. Now June’s mother has died, leaving her all alone in the world until, miracle of miracles, Wyatt returns. He won’t tell her where he has been for the last decade, he just hints that all will be revealed.

The novel tracks multiple perspectives, each of them having a vested interest in what actually transpired on the bridge that night. This reveal is what we wait almost 300 pages for. 300 long pages of people shrieking at each other or saying the same thing over and over. It was not a fun time.

The title refers to the twenty-seven minutes between when the accident happens and when Grant actually calls for help. The reveal is both unbelievable and kind of ridiculous. The teenage versions of these characters sound exactly like their twenty-something selves and none of them are particularly likeable or sympathetic. I understand how people can get mired in grief, but this book was interminable and the ultimate payoff not worth the effort.

Not for me.

The Offing – Roz Nay

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I have had good luck and so-so luck with Canadian writer Roz Nay. I LOVED Our Little Secret and I enjoyed reading The Hunted, although it was a little bit less successful overall. Her latest novel, The Offing swings more to the so-so side of the scale. It was certainly an easy book to read and it definitely had its heart-pounding moments, but it was also slightly unbelievable – especially the big reveal.

So, Ivy and her bestie, a beautiful model named Regan, have escaped their lives in New York and are currently backpacking in Australia. Ivy, especially, had a need to get out of NYC. Her elicit relationship with one of her professors has imploded and now he seems to be stalking her. She needs to get off the grid, so she convinces Regan to take a job crewing on a sail boat bound for Darwin. The boat’s owner, Christopher, and his eleven-year-old daughter, Lila are on a Christmas Break adventure. The only other passenger will be Desh, the boat’s cook (and also a new hire.)

Christopher gives off total Dad vibes, and the fact that his daughter (and her cat) is with him, makes him seem even more harmless, so the girls sign on and off they go. Of course, nothing is ever that simple in this type of novel, right?

First of all, Ivy’s creepy ex-lover seems to have made his way to Australia. Secondly, Lila suffers from night terrors. Christopher seems indecisive and odd. Desh is friendly and hot and Ivy is drawn to him, but her insecurities over Regan’s physical appearance – what dude wouldn’t find her more attractive? – causes a strain in the girls’ relationship. Then there’s Blake Coleman, skipper of The Salty Dog, a boat that keeps showing up.

As is the way with these books, you are supposed to be thrown off by everyone’s shady behaviour – and there is certainly plenty of it in this book. There are some truly tense moments and some instances where I turned the pages super fast because…what’s going to happen?! But…

That denouement just didn’t totally work for me.

That said, The Offing is a twisty, fun and entertaining book. It’s perfect if you are looking for something fast-paced and not too difficult to read…which, as I was returning to another school year when I picked it up, made it the perfect book for me.

Not in Love – Ali Hazelwood

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Not in Love is my first book by the prolific smut-for-science-geeks writer Ali Hazelwood. Traditionally, this would not at all be the sort of book I would gravitate towards for a variety of reasons (age of the protagonists being the main one), but someone on Litsy mentioned that this book was angsty, so I thought I would give it a go. Not angsty, but not the worst book of this type I have read.

Rue Siebert, a hot scientist – biotech engineer to be perfectly accurate – works for a kick-ass female CEO at Kline, a company devoted to food science. Rue doesn’t have time for relationships, so she uses a dating app to find men to have sex with (well, not intercourse, but everything else; she doesn’t enjoy intercourse).

She meets Eli Killgore, also smokin’ hot, for one of these mutually beneficial no-strings hook-ups, but before they can take their instant attraction upstairs, Vincent – Rue’s unstable brother – ambushes Rue in the hotel bar and Eli has to white knight him off the premises. Nothing kills a pre-sex buzz like a sibling. Eli and Rue part ways without even so much as a kiss.

Of course, that’s not the last these two will see of each other. When Rue arrives at work the next day, she finds out that Kline is under the threat of a hostile take-over and who is part of the team trying to do this? Yep – Eli Killgore (and what is with that surname?)

Anyway, Not in Love is relatively plotless (unless you count some buzz words and science jargon as plot). This is really about two people who are falling in love despite all the obstacles in their way (fraternizing with the enemy being top of the list). What saves this book for me is that both Rue and Eli were actually likeable characters and their sexcapades weren’t totally cringe-y.

Would I read another book by this author? Probably not. But if banter, sex, science and two hot people are your poison, you could certainly do a lot worse.

Seven Summers – Paige Toon

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I am not sure why I keep setting myself up for romantic failure. I admit that I am a hopeless romantic, but my personal experiences have definitely skewed the way I look at romantic love. There’s a certain type of romance that hits just right for me. I am more The Paper Palace than This Summer Will Be Different.

In Paige Toon’s novel Seven Summers, Liv returns to her home in St. Agnes, Cornwall after finishing her degree in sculpting at Edinburgh College of Art, and a brief stint studying the masters in Florence.

Her parents are delighted to have her home, as is her older brother Michael, who has Down Syndrome. Liv has a plan. She is hoping to make enough money to move to London, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to tell her parents.

At a local bar, The Seaglass, she reunites with her best friends, Amy and Rach. Their high school friend Dan’s band is playing there, and Liv is immediately drawn to the new singer, Finn. Apparently, he was also a classmate, but “The Finn we went to school with as really shy. […] This Finn is next-level hot….”

Liv and Finn are drawn to each other as is the way of these things. The problem is that Finn doesn’t live in St. Agnes anymore; he relocated to Los Angeles to live with his father after the death of his mother. He is only home for the summer to visit with his younger half-brothers and help out Dan’s band. (He’s got his own musical aspirations State-side.) And, of course, Liv’s life is in flux, too. That’s not going to prevent them from developing feelings for each other. But as we all know, the course of true love never runs smoothly.

Seven Summers follows Liv and Finn over the course of, well, I’m sure you’ll have figured it out, seven summers. But those summers are in the past when the novel begins. Things are slightly different for Liv in the present. She’s still in St. Agnes, working at The Seaglass and managing some holiday properties, and that’s where she meets Tom, he of the broad shoulders and “a very, very solid facial structure” which I take to mean he is attractive. Liv develops feelings for Tom which are reciprocated.

So, the question is how does Liv get from Finn to Tom. Well, I’ll leave that for you to discover.

I did not want to hurl this book across the room when I was done, and so that’s a compliment to Toon. Yes, I found the characters young, but then again that’s not going to be a problem for the majority of readers. My biggest problem with this book was the “have your cake and eat it too” denouement. Some people will absolutely eat it up and there is nothing wrong with that, obviously. I guess I am just a little bit too old to believe in the romantic fantasy of happily-ever-after. I found it all to be a little over-the-top.

For those of you who like low-spice, characters who are nice to each other, and an all’s well that ends well conclusion – you could do far worse than Seven Summers.

Darling Rose Gold -Stephanie Wrobel

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If you’re at all familiar with Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard, then you’ll settle right into Stephanie Wrobel’s novel Darling Rose Gold. In this story, told in alternating voices, Patty and Rose Gold are reunited after Patty’s five year prison term. She was incarcerated for aggravated child abuse. Patty denies the allegations.

Once upon a time, they said, a wicked mother gave birth to a daughter. The daughter appeared to be very sick and had all sorts of things wrong with her. She had a feeding tube, her hair fell out in clumps, and she was so weak, she needed a wheelchair to get around. For eighteen years, no doctor could figure out what was wrong with her.

The novel begins on the day Patty is released from prison. She is hopeful that she and her daughter will be able to repair their relationship. She wonders, “if I spent almost two decades abusing my daughter, why did she offer to pick me up today.”

Rose Gold is 18 when her mother is convicted and her narrative focuses on the past, specifically the period of time that her mother is in prison. She is making a valiant effort to reclaim her life. She is working and trying to save money to get her teeth fixed; they have rotted from years of throwing up. Five years later, when Patty is released, Rose Gold is living in the house she has purchased and raising her infant son, Adam, solo.

When mother and daughter are reunited, things are tense and strange. Neither narrator is particularly reliable or sympathetic. Patty is given a room with eyes painted on the ceiling; Rose Gold keeps her bedroom locked. The people in their small town make it clear that Patty is not welcome. She is friendless and dependent on her daughter. As she watches her grandson, she reminisces about Rose Gold’s childhood.

When I brought Rose Gold home that first night, I was captivated. Give me another kid to watch sleep, and I’ll tell you I’d rather watch a couple of geezers golf eighteen holes. But when it’s your own kid? Ask any mother. They know.

Darling Rose Gold landed on all sorts of Best Of lists when it came out in 2020, but I would have to say that my reading experience was nothing special. I didn’t particularly like the way it was written; I felt as though I was being told everything. This is a game of cat and mouse except that both characters are rats.

Midnight is the Darkest Hour – Ashley Winstead

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I really wish the cover flap hadn’t compared Ashley Winstead’s novel Midnight is the Darkest Hour to Verity because it really does her book a disservice. Winstead’s book is far superior to Hoover’s (but I am not a fan of Hoover at all, so there’s that).

Ruth Cornier lives in Bottom Springs, Louisiana, where her father is the evangelical preacher in charge of Holy Fire Baptist. An only child, Ruth leads a sheltered, friendless life; her only companions are books, in particular, Twilight. She dreams of one day finding her own Edward Cullen.

…in the vampire Edward, I found everything I’d ever wanted in a man. He loved Bella with single-minded devotion, a self-effacing passion beyond anything a human man was capable of. That’s in turn how I loved him.

(I too have loved a taciturn vampire, although mine was a little less sparkly than Edward. LOL)

But anyway.

Everett Duncan also lives in Bottom Springs. An act of violence brings Everett and Ruth together and bonds them when they are seventeen and the story flips between this early period of their relationship and several years later, when they are 23. When a skull is discovered in the swamp, Everett and Ruth work together to uncover Bottom Springs’ dark underbelly.

In the present day, Ruth lives on her own and works at the local library. She has very little to do with her parents, stepping away from the church’s fire and brimstone teachings. Everett has left Bottom Springs, returning “every year on the first true day of summer.” Things are different this year, though, and not only because the discovery of the skull, but because Ruth has a boyfriend, Deputy Barry Holt.

I read Midnight is the Darkest Hour in one sitting. It’s the perfect blend of southern gothic and mystery, plus a dash of angsty romance. (Which, c’mon, if you’re going to love a vampire, you gotta love the angst.) This book has a lot to say about the patriarchy, religion, and family. Ruth has been cowed all her life, but when she decides she’s not going to take it anymore – well, that’s a journey worth taking.

I think Winstead’s only gotten better. I wasn’t a huge fan of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife (although there were some parts of it I really did enjoy), but I LOVED The Last Housewife. Midnight is the Darkest Hour is another winner and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.