#AudioBookReview: The Conjurer’s Wife by Sarah Penner

#AudioBookReview: The Conjurer’s Wife by Sarah PennerThe Conjurer's Wife by Sarah Penner
Narrator: Helen Laser
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fantasy, historical fiction, magical realism
Pages: 40
Length: 1 hour and 2 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on January 1, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

In nineteenth-century Venice, a young woman’s marriage to an illusionist hides secrets that go deeper than his spectacular acts. The stage is set for transformation in a mesmerizing short story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary.
In 1820s Venice, world-renowned magician Oscar Van Hoff confounds sold-out crowds with his astounding manifestations. Even his beautiful wife and assistant, Olivia, is mystified. Her job is to smile and recite her lines—onstage and in society. But the thankless routine is bringing out her rebellious side. Then, on the eve of what promises to be Oscar’s greatest performance yet, Olivia uncovers a secret with the power to shatter all her husband’s illusions. Now the finale belongs to her.

My Review:

The story begins simply, and seems a bit familiar even if, or especially because of its historical setting.

We open with, and looking through the eyes of, the titular conjurer’s wife, Olivia Van Hoff, standing on the stage of an early 19th century Venice theater, waiting for the curtain to rise on her husband’s masterful magical show filled with absolutely breathtaking illusions that no one can penetrate. Not even Olivia, who is not only his wife but also his assistant both onstage and off.

But Oscar is a man who demands that everything be ‘just so’, both on the stage and in their private life. Olivia is standing, knowingly, willfully and rebelliously, three whole entire inches off her mark when the curtain rises.

She can tell that Oscar is incensed. Olivia, however, is practically drunk on the tiny flame of rebellion kindled in her heart. Just as Olivia learns that defiance can be intoxicating, we learn that Oscar is an abusive bastard, and that Olivia has a form of amnesia so all-encompassing that she remembers nothing before their hasty marriage only one year previously.

And just as Olivia has a whole lot of sneaking suspicions about her life before the terrible accident that resulted in her amnesia, the mysteriously masterful nature of Oscar’s illusion, and the suspicious coincidence of timing between her accident and his rise to fame – so do we.

Olivia isn’t necessarily searching for the truth, or even, specifically, a way out of her marriage and the life in the spotlight that she has no desire for. Or, truthfully, for Oscar himself. But that does not mean she does not know precisely what to do with the truth when she finds it.

Escape Rating B: I initially picked this up because it looked like a quick read on a cloudy day, and because I liked two of the author’s previous books, The Lost Apothecary and The London Séance Society. At only 40 pages I read it over lunch, thought it was interesting but not very deep – which is fair for a 40 page story – and moved on with my reading.

(The Conjurer’s Wife also reminded me more than a bit of The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers, which is also a story about magic, performing under the spotlights, and secrets. Lots and lots of secrets.)

Then I picked up an eARC of the author’s upcoming book, The Amalfi Curse. Again, because I enjoyed The London Séance Society and The Lost Apothecary, and not just for their utterly gorgeous covers. But the blurb for The Amalfi Curse seemed like it was teasing me – specifically about something mentioned in The Conjurer’s Wife. Which led to the discovery that the audio of that short story was available through Amazon Prime, and that it would take me about an hour to listen to.

Which brings me to this review, because the story was even more interesting the second time around and the narrator, Helen Laser, did a terrific job as Olivia Van Hoff. Also, the story absolutely does tease something about the ‘witches of Positano’, Oscar’s potential and presumably unrealized ambitions in their direction, as well as the Amalfi coast if not (yet) The Amalfi Curse, making me all the more eager for the book coming at the end of April.

#AudioBookReview: Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey

#AudioBookReview: Merry Ever After by Tessa BaileyMerry Ever After (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #2) by Tessa Bailey
Narrator: Summer Morton, Connor Crais
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, erotic romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #2
Pages: 59
Length: 1 hour and 32 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

A single mother working in a thrift store. A gentle giant farmer who can’t find jeans that fit. When opposites attract, they find themselves making alterations in more ways than one in this smoking-hot short story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey.
Evie Crowe is starting over in a strange town with her newborn, and men are the furthest thing from her mind. If only the quiet, hulking farmer, Luke Ward, would stop coming into the thrift shop and piquing her reluctant interest. Evie wants to stay single all the way—she can’t trust anything more than friends-with-holiday-benefits. But Luke is in it for the long haul. He’s fixed on making this a Christmas Evie will remember forever. If she gives him a chance.
Tessa Bailey’s Merry Ever After is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

Today is the last day of 2024. It’s part of the ‘twilight zone’ of time between Xmas and New Year’s, when time is really REAL, when the days all sort of blend together, when it seems as if time is sorta/kinda infinite and not necessarily in a good way.

I am a terrible completist. By that I mean that I have a tendency to feel compelled to complete things – especially when it comes to book series. Not that I absolutely can’t stop if something isn’t working for me, but when something is working then I have to get and finish them all – no matter how long it takes.

Because this is New Year’s Eve, I have to confess that I don’t expect Reading Reality to get a ton of readers today. But I feel compelled to have a post every single day – there I go with the completist thing again. Adding to that compulsion, I have listened to all of the other novellas in the Under the Mistletoe collection, so I simply couldn’t let the season go by without finishing this last story in the set.

Which leads us to today, December 31, 2024, and my review of Merry Ever After. (It’s still Hanukkah, so it could also be said that from my perspective it is still very much the holiday season and not too late for a holiday read or listen. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

The first, and possibly most important thing to know before jumping into this story is that I was wrong about Merriment and Mayhem being the steamiest story Under the Mistletoe. Because hands down – or perhaps that should be other parts down (and potentially getting rugburn in places no one wants rugburn) Merry Ever After is definitely the steamiest.

To the point where I wouldn’t listen to this where anyone else could hear it. I felt a bit like a voyeur listening to it all by myself in the car. (Also, one never arrives at one’s destination at a convenient point for either the scene or the listener.)

Second, while all of the stories in this collection are short by the very nature of the collection, this one was too short for the depth of the relationship it dove just about straight into. While all of the stories except Cruel Winter with You had hints of insta-love – and Cruel Winter had considerably more than hints – they all did a good job of making the relationships seem a bit longer, at least as friendships and/or leaned into the holiday romance fantasy aspect enough to make it seem not quite so instantaneous.

It’s not just that Evie and Luke jump into bed really, really fast – or in their case get down and dirty on the living room rug – it’s that the depth of their commitment seems to go from zero to sixty too fast for the emotional baggage they’re each dragging along – as well as Evie’s sincere need not to bring someone as undependable and untrustworthy into her baby son’s life as his sperm donor turned out to be.

Not that Luke isn’t reliable and trustworthy, as it turns out, but Evie hasn’t had time to find that out, at least not yet.

And while I did like that this was multi-voiced, with Summer Morton voicing Evie’s perspective while Connor Crais handled Luke’s, Luke’s internal monologue veered really close to some fairly possessive lines right on the verge of stuff that made me really, really wary.

Escape Rating C: In the end, I had a LOT of mixed feelings about Merry Ever After, making it my least favorite story in the collection. Either this one needed a LOT more story to get these characters to the point where their relationship makes sense, or it needed to be a lot simpler by making it about just two adults who are still in a position to potentially screw up their own lives without collateral damage.

This turned out to not be the greatest end for my reading and listening adventures this year, but, it certainly felt cathartic to wrap-up the set, which, overall, I did have a lot of fun with.

As always, your reading/listening mileage may vary.

#AudioBookReview: Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria Bellefleur

#AudioBookReview: Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria BellefleurMerriment and Mayhem (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #4) by Alexandria Bellefleur
Narrator: Amelie Griffin
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audio
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #4
Pages: 58
Length: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

This Christmas, a hot fireman makes a holiday rescue and sparks fly in this funny, sexy holiday short story by bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur.
When Everleigh Dangerfield’s baking disaster necessitates a call to 911, firefighter Griffin Brantley douses the flames in the kitchen, but the ones he stokes in Everleigh are an entirely different story. Unfortunately, Everleigh’s only visiting and doesn’t do casual hookups, no matter how smoldering the temptation. But Everleigh’s holiday mishaps have just begun. And Griffin is seemingly always on call. If Everleigh is game for a change of plans, he can give her the merriest Christmas of her life.
Alexandria Bellefleur’s Merriment and Mayhem is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

In this last week before both Christmas AND Hanukkah, I found myself looking for something a bit lighter than the books I had originally planned. Which is when I remembered that I still had two short little holiday pick-me-ups left in the Under the Mistletoe collection, and thereby hangs a tale. Or at least an Xmas stocking.

And this story certainly is a pick-me-up – or perhaps I should say it’s a pick-her-up. Because that’s exactly what firefighter Griffin Brantley does to, with, and for Everleigh Dangerfield the very first time they meet.

As she’s falling off her kitchen counter after setting her kitchen on fire and failing to turn off the wailing smoke alarm now that its warning has been heeded and the damage from the fire as well as from Everleigh’s successful attempt to put it out have succeeded.

Everleigh is past the point of needing the fire department, when they arrive. But that doesn’t mean that she’s past needing a hot firefighter in her life. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. The very friendly and endlessly flirty Griffin is EXACTLY what Everleigh needs this particular holiday season.

And not just because she keeps living up to her name. She really does bring a “danger field” wherever she goes. Which is only fair, as Griffin has absolutely endangered her heart. It’s a good – and delightfully naughty – thing that she’s done the same to his.

Escape Rating B: First, foremost, and most importantly, this was the right book – in this case audiobook – at the right time. While I was enjoying both the book I was reading (Miss Amelia’s List) and the book I was listening to (Blood Jade), neither of them is exactly light in their respective ways. And the third book I was planning on this week (Echo) is set in the depths of a Chicago winter, which brings its own heaviness to the story even before the murders begin.

In other words, I was looking for something light and fluffy, and this collection has consistently delivered.

Having now read/listened to four of the five, including Cruel Winter with You, All By My Elf and Only Santas in the Building, with Merry Ever After yet to go, I have to say that all of the stories have been a lot of fun, just right for a quick listen or a very quick read in a few spare minutes in the holiday rush.

This particular entry in the series is kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from Cruel Winter, and not just because that’s the longest and this is one of the shortest. The stories take place, almost in each of their entireties, over the Xmas holidays. There’s not a lot of time for the romances to develop, and they absolutely do give off insta-love vibes but it does work.

The holiday season, after all, is supposed to be just a bit magical. Just like falling in love.

Cruel Winter is the one that is far from instant, as the protagonists have known each other ALL their lives. It’s just never been the right time for them until it finally is on this particular night. In some ways, it feels the closest to realistic among these very quick holiday rom-coms.

Merriment and Mayhem is the opposite. It’s VERY instant, to the point where the story feels a bit like a fantasy holiday rom-com. I don’t mean fantasy in the foolish wand-waving sense. I mean fantasy in the sense that the daydream of being swept off one’s feet by a hot firefighter is not exactly uncommon. We ALL already know how we want this one to go. And, for that matter, come. (Ahem!).

It’s just that Everleigh Dangerfield gets to live that particular fantasy over this particular Christmas. Everleigh’s ‘real-life’ version of this particular romantic daydream is so damn hot that it’s a good thing that it’s set in a place that doesn’t get much in the way of snow – because they’d certainly melt any accumulated snowfall for MILES around.

This romance is probably the steamiest of the whole collection. To the point of actual steam rising off the pages and possibly even embarrassment if you listen to the story out loud instead of with headphones. It’s absolutely right for this couple, but not all readers want everyone around them to know exactly what they are reading based on the heat of their blushes.

I listened to Merriment and Mayhem (with headphones) and the story absolutely flew by. The reader, Amelie Griffin, did an excellent job BEING Everleigh, and read the scenes with just the right amounts of chagrin and breathlessness as the story required.

I still have time to finish up the Under the Mistletoe collection before my holidays are over, as Hanukkah doesn’t end until sunset on January 2, 2025 this year. Plenty of time for Merry Ever After and one last sweet and romantic holiday reading treat!

#AudioBookReview: Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood

#AudioBookReview: Cruel Winter with You by Ali HazelwoodCruel Winter with You (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #1) by Ali Hazelwood
Narrator: Vivienne LaRue
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audio
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #1
Pages: 73
Length: 2 hours
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

For two former childhood friends, a blustery winter storm stirs some frosty—and scorching—memories in a delightful short story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.
All newly minted pediatrician Jamie Malek wants is to borrow a roasting pan for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, that requires her to interact with Marc—her best friend’s troublemaking brother, who’s now a tech billionaire. He’s the one who got away. She’s the one who broke his heart. Outside, a howling blizzard. Inside, a crackling fire. Suddenly, being snowbound with the man she never expected to see again might not be such a bad way to spend a winter’s night.
Ali Hazelwood’s Cruel Winter with You is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

I was stuck in traffic at the end of Only Santas in the Building and found myself listening to the teasers for ALL the rest of the stories in the Under the Mistletoe collection and, well, I got hooked. So here we are back with another not too big, not too small, just right little holiday romance to sweeten – and heat up – the season.

This one is the longest entry in the collection, so it has just a bit more time and scope to get into the setup of the story and the backstory of the characters – and do they EVER have backstory. So this one gets just a bit deeper than the others – and it makes for a nice change of pace from the rest.

Jamie and Marc were not childhood sweethearts. Nor did they have a high school romance. Not that Marc didn’t want either of those things to happen. He was just very, very good at not letting Jamie know it.

Which was probably a good thing, as Jamie and his older sister Tabitha were childhood and high school besties. And even when this story takes place – ten whole years after Jamie and Tabitha’s high school graduation – Tabitha still hasn’t gotten past her childhood resentment of her parents’ bringing home their ‘Oops Baby’ just after her third birthday.

But Marc seems to have recognized that Jamie was his person the very first time she held him in her arms, when he was a newborn and she was all of two-and-a-half. In spite of decades of teasing and name-calling and everything that children can do to each other short of outright warfare, Jamie is still his person – a fact that Marc has built his entire life around even as he’s held it so close to his heart that Jamie doesn’t have a clue.

But on this one blustery cold winter night, stuck together at his parents’ otherwise empty house because her self-absorbed father thought nothing of sending her two miles down the road, on foot, in an impending northern Illinois blizzard, to retrieve a copper baking pan from his parents’ kitchen – all the secrets are laid bare.

And finally, at last, so are they.

Escape Rating B: In a collection of mostly fluff, this story gets surprisingly deep. And sad. And just a bit heartbreaking. It’s told in a series of flashbacks, sandwiched between the events of the now, and those flashbacks are what give the story its depth. But not in the way one expects.

It’s never been quite the right time for Jamie and Marc. She’s not quite three years older – something that mattered a lot when they were children but doesn’t matter in their late 20s at all. When things have gotten hard between them – not like that – it’s been because Marc’s been keeping the secret of his true feelings for Jamie pretty much all of his life – and occasionally those feelings get impatient.

He’s always been ready, but Jamie hasn’t. Because she’s afraid, not of Marc, not of having Marc, but of losing him. And it’s in the past that we see why. And that’s where the heartbreaking bits come in, because it’s not about him. It’s about her dad. Not in any terrible way, but certainly in a terribly human way.

I have to admit that Marc’s behavior occasionally tip-toed up to the line into the song “Every Breath You Take” in that it seems like he’s always been watching Jamie, always looking at her and after her even if she doesn’t know it, always waiting for the right moment to tell her that he loves her, planning his whole, entire life around making that happen. It seems romantic – but it’s also just a bit squicky and could have easily gone VERY wrong.

If it had it wouldn’t have fit in this collection at all. But since it didn’t, it did. And it does, in the end, work out. They are both finally in the right place at the right time with all their cards on the table.

I’m still enjoying this collection, the audios have ALL been lovely including this story’s voicing by Vivienne LaRue, and it’s all still feeling “just right” for the season. I may finish them ALL before this holiday is done. After all, Hanukkah doesn’t end until January 2, 2025, so I have plenty of time to indulge my holiday spirit!

#AudioBookReview: Only Santas in the Building by Alexis Daria

#AudioBookReview: Only Santas in the Building by Alexis DariaOnly Santas in the Building (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #5) by Alexis Daria
Narrator: Ruby Corazon
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #5
Pages: 65
Length: 1 hour and 31 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, especially for a comic book illustrator whose late-night fantasies become real in a festive and flirty short story by bestselling author Alexis Daria.
All Evie Cruz wants for Christmas is a nap. And maybe some ornaments for her naked Christmas tree. And while she’s making a list, she wouldn’t mind unwrapping her sexy upstairs neighbor like a present. Luckily, the building’s Santa-themed party and a surprise sprig of mistletoe give her just the opening she needs to make all her wishes come true.
Alexis Daria’s Only Santas in the Building is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

There are going to be more than a few readers/listeners to this one who are disappointed – not by the story itself but rather because the title sets up an expectation that the story will have a bit of a resemblance to the TV series, Only Murders in the Building. It doesn’t.

But I wasn’t looking for that. Instead, I got caught up in Evie’s freelance, gig-economy, deadline-driven life. Let’s just say that her cramming and scrambling to get her work in just minutes before the deadline sounded familiar. I understood the high she got from concentrating SO HARD and squeaking in JUST under the wire a bit too well.

That she was using the concentration and the pressure and the all-consuming nature of it to keep a whole lot of emotional stuff at bay was also something it was easy for this reader to identify with.

And then the story turned utterly delicious when her really sweet and deliciously hot neighbor turned up at her apartment door. It was pretty easy to see exactly why she had a crush on this guy – and to understand why she had no time to figure out whether that crush was returned – or not. Especially with her older sister naysaying in her ear at every turn.

The story, this deliciously sweet little holiday treat, comes to a delightful climax at the building’s annual holiday party, when everyone in the building comes to the penthouse apartment dressed as some variation of Santa – and a couple of meddling neighbors maneuver these two particular Santas under some strategically placed mistletoe to make their Christmas wishes come true.

Escape Rating B: I picked this second title from the Under the Mistletoe collection for the 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon because I wanted something short and sweet – or in this case steamy – for a day when most of us will still be recovering from yesterday’s turkey-induced coma.

And that’s exactly what I found.

Two stories into the collection, though, I’m starting to think that the real theme of the whole thing isn’t so much mistletoe as it is misunderstanding. Or at least mixed signals. Particularly the kind of mixed signals that occur between two people who don’t know each other well enough to know what the person they’ve been dreaming of – or at least daydreaming of – might be thinking about them.

Because their own insecurities get in their way. Both of their ways.

As compared to All By My Elf, the disconnect between Evie and Theo doesn’t even come close to a misunderstandammit. They don’t KNOW each other – and if someone doesn’t help them straighten out their crossed wires, they won’t have a chance to.

Hence that well-placed mistletoe.

Only Santas in the Building turned out to be the perfect light and frothy little story to listen to at the end of a long week. I got precisely what I was expecting and even a little bit more as Evie’s work resonated more than this reader expected. Then again, it resonated more with Theo’s work than he expected, too.

If you’re looking for little pick-me-up stories, this collection has been great so far – and I’ve already finished a third. They’re not deep, because there’s no time for that in this short format. But they’ve all been lovely for what they are and a perfect read and/or listen to help fill out my personal 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon readings.

#AudioBookReview: All By My Elf by Olivia Dade

#AudioBookReview: All By My Elf by Olivia DadeAll by My Elf (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #3) by Olivia Dade
Narrator: Andi Arndt
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #3
Pages: 55
Length: 1 hour and 28 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

Secret crushes, spicy Christmas treats, heinous holiday traffic, and a fateful snowstorm bring good friends together in a funny, heartfelt short story by bestselling author Olivia Dade.
Nina and William are underpaid adjunct professors at the same university, where winter break is no break at all: ’tis the season to make extra money. When their holiday side hustle has them stranded by a blinding blizzard in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing to do but cuddle up for warmth and play a game of Never Have I Ever to pass the time. But in the game of love, secrets never stay secret for long…
Olivia Dade’s All by My Elf is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

What do you do with a used Weinermobile? Does what happens in the Weinermobile STAY in the Weinermobile? Have you ever wondered? Inquiring minds actually get to find out in All By My Elf.

The answers to those questions coincide with a few considerably less humorous and more down-to-earth questions about the lengths (pun definitely intended) that part-time college professors will go to in order to keep feeding their dreams of the ivory towers of academia while still managing to feed themselves on stipends that barely allow them to make ends wave at each other.

Most of all – and best of all – All By My Elf is a romance that satisfies the craving for a hot, steamy friends into lovers romance that toasts a nearly frozen night in a grey-market Weinermobile into a story that’s way bigger than even a 27 foot long hot dog in a bun – or equally long mincemeat-filled roll of phyllo dough in a Mincemobile – could ever manage to contain.

Escape Rating B: Believe it or not, the puns are part of the story – and they are groaners even when Adjunct Professors Nina Teems and William Dern aren’t moaning together in the back of the weiner.

(Speaking of groaners, if the title of this story is giving you an earworm that refuses to let itself be nailed down, that’s because the earworm is tripping over the slight difference between the book’s title and the song’s title, which is ‘All By Myself’, originally performed by Eric Carmen in 1975 but also covered by Sheryl Crow in 1993 and Céline Dion in 1996.)

So, even though there’s nothing either light or fluffy about a giant hot dog nestled in an even bigger bun – the story itself has plenty of both as well as being the perfect steamy antidote to all of Thanksgiving’s turkey and trimmings – not to mention the rock solid nature of some traditional holiday fruitcakes.

After yesterday’s book, which turned out to be more Xmas and less Halloween than I expected, I found myself looking for a lighter and fluffier story to ease us all into the holiday season and especially the 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon that begins tomorrow. I chose this particular short story in the Under the Mistletoe collection because I loved the author’s Spoiler Alert series and was hoping for some of the same laughs amid the romance.

Which I definitely got even if I’m not all that fond of hot dogs and I’ve never had mincemeat in any form – let alone this particular version – that I can recall. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to even think of it again without giggling at least a bit.

All By My Elf takes a gigantic misunderstandammit and turns up the heat between two friends who have epic crushes on each other and are afraid to act on them. At least until the Mincemobile gets stuck in an epic blizzard and they need each other’s body heat to keep from freezing to death. (That’s not really a spoiler as this is a short story and the inevitable is so obvious it can be seen from outer space.) This scenario is one that gets used in romance and in fanfiction ALL THE TIME, and it’s a classic for a reason. It works. It really, really works – no matter how contrived the machinations for getting the couple into it.

If you’re looking for a quick read that combines warmth and heat and more than a few groaning laughs, All By My Elf is a fun, quick, read or listen to give you an excuse to put your feet up and your mind on coast for a few minutes during the busy holiday season.

 

#AudioBookReview: Lovers at the Museum by Isabel Allende

#AudioBookReview: Lovers at the Museum by Isabel AllendeLovers at the Museum by Isabel Allende
Narrator: Nicholas Boulton
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, magical realism, short stories
Pages: 25
Length: 38 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on April 1, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wind Knows My Name comes a mesmerizing tale of two passionate souls who share one magical night that defies all rational explanation.
Love, be it wild or tender, often defies logic. In fact, at times, the only rationale behind the instant connection of two souls is plain magic.
Bibiña Aranda, runaway bride, wakes up in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao still wearing her wedding dress, draped in the loving arms of a naked man whose name she doesn’t know. She and the man with no clothes, Indar Zubieta, attempt to explain to the authorities how they got there. It’s a story of love at first sight and experience beyond compare, one that involves a dreamlike journey through the museum.
But the lovers’ transcendent night bears no resemblance to the crude one Detective Larramendi attempts to reconstruct. And no amount of fantastical descriptions can convince the irritated inspector of the truth.
Allende’s dreamy short story has the power to transport readers in any language, leaving them to ponder the wonders of love long after the story’s over.

My Review:

Lovers at the Museum caught my eye primarily for the audiobook. The narrator, Nicholas Boulton, is the voice of one of my favorite characters in the video game Mass Effect Andromeda. (A game that is much better than the reviews would lead one to believe, but that is not the topic of this review.)

Back on topic, at least a bit more on topic, I have to say that he didn’t sound much like that character in this narration, which I should have expected because they’re not remotely alike nor should they be and that’s just plain good acting.

Which leads me back, again, by a meandering path, to this lovely little short story about, well, love, and magic, and the magic of love.

Although it starts out with the evidence of a whole lot of lust – as that’s a much easier thing to get a handle on – particularly when one of the protagonists is still presenting a handle. So to speak.

Ahem.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao of modern and contemporary art in Spain’s Basque region (pictured at left) is already a magical place, both for its bulky, blocky and some would even say Brutalist, design, and in this story, at least, for the strange and weird things that happen within its walls.

This incident would add to that legend.

The morning staff of the museum discovered two disheveled, entwined, partially nude lovers in one of the galleries sleeping off a night of lustful debauchery that shouldn’t have happened at all. Not for particularly nefarious reasons but simply because they entered while the museum was closed – and should have triggered alarms in every single room they came into – which seems to have been all of them.

They say the door opened for them. They claim that they weren’t really in the museum, but in a magical pleasure palace.

The local police inspector, with a reputation for finding hidden clues, eliciting damning confessions, and a dogged determination to punish the guilty, is frustrated that he can’t break their ridiculous stories and isn’t sure what crime, if any, they actually committed.

It seems as if the magic of the Guggenheim claimed the lovers that incredible night, and it’s taking away the inspector’s will to punish them in the cold light of day.

Escape Rating B: This is short and very, very sweet – even though the inspector is downright salty for a lot of the story.

There’s a lot of salt to be had – at least from his perspective. He’s sure that someone HAS to be guilty of something prosecutable, and that someone is lying to him.

(I was betting on the museum officials lying to cover up less than attentive guards and not so secure security. It seemed like the obvious solution. Which it is logically but then again, this is about magic.)

The inspector wants to punish the lovers for their vice and their disrespect of the museum. But mostly because he envies them the magic of their love – something that is clearly lacking in his own life in spite of his decades long marriage – or perhaps because of it. That’s a bit hard to tell, but it’s sad no matter how one looks at it. Unless one is the inspector, in which case it’s downright tragic.

In the end, it all boils down to magic, the kind of magical realism that takes a story out of the everyday and sprinkles a bit of fairy dust over the proceedings. So short, sweet and utterly charming – including the inspector’s bluster.

Even better, if Isabel Allende is an author you’ve heard about but haven’t ever actually read – as was true for this reader – or if you’re not sure whether or not magical realism could be a flavor in your jam – this delightful short is the perfect way to stick your reading toe into magical realism with an author who is considered a master of the genre.

Review: Signal Moon by Kate Quinn + Giveaway

Review: Signal Moon by Kate Quinn + GiveawaySignal Moon: A Short Story by Kate Quinn
Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld, Andrew Gibson
Format: audiobook
Source: publisher
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, timeslip fiction, World War II
Pages: 57
Length: 1 hour and 22 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories, Audible Audio on August 1, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye comes a riveting short story about an impossible connection across two centuries that could make the difference between peace or war.

Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption.

One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help.

An American ship is taking heavy fire in the North Atlantic—but no one else has reported an attack, and the information relayed by the young US officer, Matt Jackson, seems all wrong. The contact that Lily has made on the other end of the radio channel says it’s…2023.

Across an eighty-year gap, Lily and Matt must find a way to help each other: Matt to convince her that the war she’s fighting can still be won, and Lily to help him stave off the war to come. As their connection grows stronger, they both know there’s no telling when time will run out on their inexplicable link.

My Review:

This story was so beautiful it just about broke me. It was gorgeous and glorious and heartbreaking all at the same time, and I was in tears at the end.

I want to say this is a timeslip story but that isn’t quite right. It’s more of a time-merging story, or a bit of technological SF sleight of hand story. It’s best to just say that it works. It all works marvelously, and let the how and why of it remain a bit nebulous.

After all, our two principals don’t completely understand the why of it themselves. They just know that it happened. And that it saved them both.

Lily Baines is a signal tech in Yorkshire in 1943, spending her days and nights with a Bakelite headset wrapped around her “bat-like” ears, listening for German signals. She’s a Petty Officer in the WRENS (Women’s Royal Naval Service), doing her bit for in a war that she’s entirely too afraid is being lost.

Late one shift, she picks up a signal from an American ship, broadcast in English, in the “clear”, detailing an attack on the ship by “Vampires”. An attack that results in the ship sinking with all hands after 42 minutes of harrowing transmission by the U.S. Naval signal tech, ST Matt Jackson, who gives the date as 2023.

While her superiors are certain that Lily has just been working too many days in a row without a break, Lily feels like she owes it to her fellow signal tech, the man she just heard narrate his own death, to try to help him. So she sends him a letter, a 1943-era radio, extra batteries, and a list of frequencies that she promises to listen on at a specific time every day.

There’s no science fiction involved in her package to the future. Her uncle is a solicitor and she contracts with his office to deliver the package to a certain room in a certain hotel in York on the day Matt said he checked in. Law offices do this all the time, just not necessarily for quite 80 years.

When Matt gets the radio, he’s sure it’s a prank, but he dials the frequency anyway. Even when Lily starts talking, he STILL thinks it’s a prank – at least until that night, when an event that she predicted comes true.

They have less than 24 hours to analyze the transmission that Matt hasn’t sent yet, in the hopes of figuring out what is about to go wrong so that he can prevent it. Or save his ship. Whatever it takes to prevent yet another war.

What they get is more than either of them ever bargained for. It’s enough – and it’s not nearly enough at all.

Escape Rating A++: Signal Moon is short and absolutely perfect in its length. It represents a very brief moment in time and needed to reflect that brevity. Also, it’s just so damn bittersweet – and appropriate in that bitter sweetness, that more would be just too much to take.

It’s that good.

But because of that short length, I was able to sit down with the audiobook and finish in one utterly absorbing and in the end completely heartbreaking listen. (If you have Amazon Prime you can get both the ebook and the audio as part of your Prime membership, and it’s so worth it to listen to the audio if you have a mere 82 minutes to occupy your hands while your mind wanders back to 1943 – and forward to OMG next year.)

The strength of this story is in the characters. The author sketches us a complete picture of Lily and her wartime service with just a bit of description and a whole lot of Lily’s internal monologue as she goes through her day pretending that everything is going to be alright even though she’s scared right down to her not-nearly-warm-enough fingertips that all is already lost.

While Matt’s more frank and frequently profane dialog, along with the desperation of his own internal monologue, gives the reader or listener a clear portrait of who he is and what drove him to become the person – and the officer – that he is on the brink of what could be – briefly – his very own war.

In the audiobook, the two characters are brilliantly voiced by their own narrators, Saskia Maarleveld for Lily and Andrew Gibson for Matt and they embody their characters beautifully. The audio would not have worked half so well with a single narrator. (Saskia Maarleveld is also the narrator for several of the author’s novels, including this year’s The Diamond Eye, which just moved up the towering TBR pile as a result.)

The ending of this story is inevitable. There’s just no other way this one works. But it’s easy to get so involved in their story that you just want it to have a different ending anyway. And that’s what broke me in the end. I knew what the end would be, but this was just one of those times where I really wanted a deus ex machina to step in and make that difference happen – even knowing how much I usually hate those kinds of endings. But it wasn’t, and it shouldn’t have been, meant to be.

Dammit.

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Review: The Wedding Setup by Sonali Dev + Spotlight + Giveaway

Review: The Wedding Setup by Sonali Dev + Spotlight + GiveawayThe Wedding Setup: A Short Story by Sonali Dev
Format: eARC
Source: publisher
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, short stories
Pages: 67
Published by Amazon Original Stories on January 11, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

From USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dev comes a heartfelt short story about one woman’s journey of self-discovery and what it means to be happy.
Ayesha Shetty lost her brother seven years ago, the same time she lost everything else important to her: her dreams, her fierce independence, and the man she loved. Not wanting to see her mother hurt anymore, she put her wild self away and became the dutiful daughter her mother needed and took on her brother’s role in the family business.
Now her best friend’s big, fat Indian wedding is a chance to get away from her endless duties at the restaurant and maybe even have some fun (if she remembers how). But a setup arranged by her mother, with a doctor no less, is the last thing she needs. The fact that he checks all her mother’s boxes just makes everything better…and worse.
Then Emmitt Hughes shows up. Her brother’s best friend. The love she once chose over family duties and her responsibilities. The one she asked to leave, and who did. The one who knows the real Ayesha. Torn between a love from the past that could cost her the only person she has left and her sense of obligation to her mother, will Ayesha find the strength to stop thinking about what everyone else wants and finally put herself first? Or is the old Ayesha truly gone for good?

My Review:

The Wedding Setup is a short story, so I’m going to try to do it justice in a short review. Especially since this is a jam-packed post with an interview with the author, an excerpt from the story AND a giveaway!

From a certain perspective, this is a story about handling grief – or rather NOT handling grief. Ayesha has put herself in a box in her attempt to be the perfect daughter that she never was – and it’s a straitjacket. But so is the reason for that attempt, the death of her brother and her desperate need to hold onto her mother in the ultimately vain hope of preventing either of them from suffering any more losses. Ayesha’s father died when she was ten, and her mother was the rock that sheltered both her and her brother through the rest of her childhood. When her brother died, they were all each other had left. That and the depth of their grief and the fear of another loss.

But they lost each other along the way – even as they spent 16 hours a day together keeping the family’s restaurant afloat. Hanging onto the last remaining bit of her brother’s dream.

As this story opens, it’s been seven years since Ajay died, and Ayesha’s mother has had enough of living with Ayesha’s obedient ghost – because that’s who it seems has been trudging through the world in Ayesha’s place.

But that is far, far, far from what the story seems to be for most of its length. As Amma does her level best to bring back the old, vibrant, downright combative Ayesha by poking that sleeping tiger with every single stick she can find.

In the hopes that her daughter will come back to life and reach out for her own happy ever after.

Escape Rating A-: I have only one complaint about this story – it’s too damn short. It’s beautiful, it’s marvelous, and all the characters are fascinating – even the ones who only exist in memory. I would have loved this story even more if it had been novel length. But it isn’t so I’ll make do with what I have.

Part of the fun of The Wedding Setup is that the setup of Ayesha is not what either Ayesha or the reader think it is. The story is a gem of misdirection, and the reveal at the end forces both Ayesha and the reader to rethink everything that has happened. And rejoice at the ending.

Also laugh uproariously at the mental picture of a rat in scrubs administering a pap smear. Which is the only way to laugh at one of those necessary evils. Read The Wedding Setup to find out just how that comes to pass. The mental picture, that is.


Interview with Sonali Dev + Excerpt from The Wedding Setup

The Wedding Setup may be a short story, but it is tremendously powerful. How would you describe it to readers?

Thank you. It’s the story of a girl who used to be a rebel who followed her heart and fought for what she wanted, and then her brother’s death leaves her responsible for her widowed mother. It’s about being knocked off your feet and getting stuck, and learning how to stand back up and reclaim yourself.

The story invites us to take an intimate look into a mother-daughter relationship. This is a universal theme, however, you also steep the plot in your own Indian heritage. Can you tell readers what this story means to you as a daughter? What it means to you as an Indian woman?

There is so much of my own relationship with my mother in this book. We’ve always been incredibly close. She’s outspoken and confident and she modeled some powerful behaviors for me growing up about owning her own body and her voice. But there were the other parts where she was a product of her time and culture, believing in absolute terms that it is a woman’s duty to nurture her family, to marry ‘at the right time,’ to be a certain kind of mother. These are things she pushed hard. Things I internalized but also fought to do on my own terms and not hers. Ayesha’s relationship with her mother used to be this way, and then a tragedy changes their dynamic. So, it’s an exploration of how battles for identity get derailed by tragedy and grief and what it takes to heal.

Ayesha’s mom describes her as obedient, responsible, and “always putting everyone else before her own needs.” After hearing this Ayesha (internally) feels hypothermic. Can you explain how these seemingly sweet compliments completely destroy your heroine?

The mother-child bond comes with a kind of intuitive understanding of each other that’s unique to that relationship. So, while Ayesha has lost her fiery spirit and both she and her mother have lost years to their grief and struggle to survive, her mother knows who her daughter is deep down and how much she’s buried. So there’s a very nuanced intent to these ‘compliments’ and they hit the nerve they’re meant to hit. Ayesha’s reaction to these words is her dead parts coming back to life.

It only takes a moment—one second—for Ayesha to break free from her ice…a single word from Emmitt has her coming back to life. Why does she have such a powerful reaction to someone she hasn’t seen in seven years?

Ayesha had a crush on Emmitt for many years before they got together. She’s always had a strong reaction to him. The years they spent together as young adults were years when she came into herself, and felt seen and cherished. Then she loses all of that when her brother dies and they break up. So, it’s a combination of things that come together when Ayesha meets Emmitt again. They have a natural connection, but also, with his return come all the memories of who she used to be and how much she used to let herself feel.

Ayesha has never forgotten how Emmitt turns “her messy, impulsive, unfettered emotion into something beautiful.” But she has forgotten the effect that she has on him. What buried memories are uncovered as she watches Emmitt react to their reunion?

Emmitt has always dealt with the world and the pain it causes him by keeping everyone at arm’s length. But Ayesha destroys his defenses with her ability to love (and do everything else) so fiercely. So, when he loses her he’s already lost his ability to protect himself. Their joint grief is what separated them, so, while they understand each other’s pain they both also understand the loneliness of not having each other to lean on. They’ve had to make the journey to healing individually, but meeting each other again brings up the piece that needs the other to heal.

How did you get to know your couple? How were you able to understand what was needed to heal their broken hearts?

The one theme that threads through all my books is finding yourself on the tightrope between personal freedom and responsibility to family and community. Healing is always about finding or rediscovering your love for yourself. So, I understand my characters through that lens: how have they lost themselves? What about themselves do they need to reclaim and fall in love with? A truly connected couple is one who aids this journey in each other, recognizes it, and supports it.

In a limited number of pages you not only give readers a living, breathing couple, but also an avalanche of equally interesting characters like Ayesha’s best friend, suitor, aunties…and you even create depth with characters that are no longer living. Why was it so important to spend time with these secondary characters? What do they reveal about your hero and heroine?

I believe that as humans we are a sum total of our relationships and the world we live in and build for ourselves. How someone treats other people and how they respond to how they are treated is what constitutes character.

At its heart, every story is about a person who is somehow at odds with the world they live in or with themselves because of the expectations of their world, and the journey they make to resolve that conflict. Ayesha wouldn’t be Ayesha without her mother and Bela, her best friend and the community she was raised in. Bela has been her wild other half growing up, then their paths diverged, but they continued to be each other’s support. Her mother has become a crutch she uses to hold on to her grief. Emmitt’s grief over his friend has run his life for seven years too. So the secondary characters are just as integral to the story as the protagonists.

While the plot focuses on grief, there is also great joy to be found. After all, the backdrop of the story is a giant wedding. What do you personally find the most fun at a traditional Indian wedding celebration?

I’m always only there for the food and dancing! Fine, and getting to dress up. And the wine. Also, maybe the chance to hang out with family and friends I only see at weddings. And the drunk aunties and uncles.

After readers devour The Wedding Setup, which of your other books would you recommend they read next?

First, thank you so much for devouring The Wedding Setup! I’m incredibly proud of my Rajes series, a set of retellings of my four favorite Jane Austen novels set in a politically ambitious Indian American family from Northern California. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors is a gender flipped Pride and Prejudice. Recipe for Persuasion is a two-generational homage to Persuasion set on a Food Network show. Incense and Sensibility, the love story between a gubernatorial candidate and a yoga therapist who can save him but also destroy his campaign, pays tribute to Sense and Sensibility. And the upcoming The Emma Project (May 17th 2022), which is a gender flipped Emma that explores what it means when a person with tremendous privilege offers charity to someone who has much less.

The Wedding Setup Excerpt

Goose bumps rose across Ayesha’s skin, one sharp dot at a time.

“Ayesha.”

That was it. Just that one word. Her name. In a voice that was its own ghost.

She squeezed her eyes shut. One tight squeeze. Tight enough to hurt, tight enough to almost dislodge the false eyelashes Andre had pressed into her lash line one by one with the precision of a surgeon. Then boom! she was in control again and back to Ayesha on Ice.

Eyes blank, face set, she turned toward the voice.

Emmitt.

The impact of him was a body blow.

The entire universe stilled. Words weren’t a thing. Or sound. Breath? What was that?

Ayesha! Get a grip.

No grip. That’s how it had always been. She’d had no grip when it came to Emmitt Hughes. Not even a little bit. Not when she’d spied on him and Ajay playing Mario Kart and Minecraft and GTA for hours, for years. Not when she’d yearned and dreamed and spun stories with him at the center.

I’ve made my love for you, my god.

It was the cheesiest of lines from one of those Bollywood songs her parents had played on repeat at the restaurant. Amma had loved translating the over-the-top lyrics and explaining their nuances.

Back when Amma was full of stories and songs and laughter. Before Ajay.

Ajay.

Her brother’s unspoken name fell between them like a glass bauble and shattered.

“You remember Emmitt,” Edward had the gall to say.

Bela shot him a glare.

You didn’t tell me he would be here. Ayesha threw the silent accusation at her traitorous best friend, who gave her nothing more than another worried look.

No, Eddie. Remind me again who he is? The snarky words stuck in Ayesha’s throat. Old Ayesha would have said them. Old Ayesha said everything.

“Emmitt,” New Ayesha said, every feeling buried under her customer-is-king voice from the restaurant. “Nice to see you again.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed in the long column of his throat. How was he still so darned beautiful?

One swallow, and then he smiled back. Banking feelings where no one saw them had been his thing. Emmitt the Wall. That’s what Ajay had called him. Her brother had been best friends with him since Emmitt had moved to Naperville in fifth grade after his parents’ divorce. Years of friendship, and he’d still held Ajay at that slight distance he’d been so good at. Something she would always wish she hadn’t cured him of.

You broke me, Ayesha.You broke every defense I’ve ever had against the world.

She, Ayesha Shetty—too tall, too dark, too outspoken, too intense, too ambitious, too everything for everyone else had been just enough to break through Emmitt the Wall.

“It’s nice to see you too,” he said gently, sounding . . . she dug through her brain to come up with the right word. Grown-up? Contained?

Good. Because Ayesha was all those things now too. Not a grenade with its fuse pulled, ready to blow up the world.

Author Biography

USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dev writes Bollywood-style love stories that explore universal issues. Her novels have been named best books of the year by Library Journal, NPR, the Washington Post, and Kirkus Reviews. She has won numerous accolades, including the American Library Association’s award for best romance, the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for best contemporary romance, and multiple RT Seals of Excellence; has been a RITA finalist; and has been listed for the Dublin Literary Award. Shelf Awareness calls her “not only one of the best but one of the bravest romance novelists working today.” She lives in Chicagoland with her husband, two visiting adult children, and the world’s most perfect dog.

Buy Link: https://amzn.to/3pWDqM8

Social Media Links

Website: https://sonalidev.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SonaliDev.author

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sonali_Dev

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sonali.dev/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7025918.Sonali_Dev

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