Category: Contemporary/General Fiction

Book Review:: The Correspondent | Virginia Evans

A novel to move you. Sybil’s life is as complex and nuanced as the next, and as someone who corresponds best through the written word, we get glimpses into her past, her present, her constancy, and her deepest secrets. The Correspondent is a novel that will make you laugh, cry, smile, and wince as Sybil Van Antwerp bares her soul into the pages.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Book Cover, woman at a desk

An epistolary novel is one told entirely through correspondence. There is no narrator or outside voice – we are presented with letters and emails that cross Sybil’s desk, both incoming and outgoing, and from these we discern her life.

What do we know? She has a complicated relationship with her family, her previous career, a young acquaintance, a new medical diagnosis, and secrets from her past she is both keeping and some she is too afraid to discover. She is older, her children are grown, and she is coming to terms with her life, such as she has lived it to this point.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Book Cover, two birds

This is a beautiful novel. It unfolds so elegantly with each new letter. Sybil is at times laughable stodgy in her set ways, but also touching and vulnerable in others. Her story teaches us that it’s never too late to put yourself out there, to right previous wrongs, or to learn something new about yourself.

I love Sybil, and by the end of her story, I had tears streaming down my face. This is a story I won’t soon forget, and I hope you read it too.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: The Correspondent
Author:: Virginia Evans
Genre:: Epistolary Fiction
Publisher:: Crown
Length:: 304 pages
Audio Length:: 10h
Audiobook Narrator:: TBA
Published:: April 29th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

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The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
The Last Love Note | Emma Grey
Counting Miracles | Nicholas Sparks
I’ll Come to You | Rebecca Kaufmann

Book Review:: We All Live Here | Jojo Moyes

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes is a raw, emotional, and realistic story of a family that has fallen apart and is only functioning through strategic use of metaphorical cellophane tape and sheer force of will.

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes Book Cover

Lila Kennedy finds herself as the head of her household after a humiliating divorce that left her career and reputation in shambles and with him multiplying his genes with one of the other school mums. She and her two daughters have support in the form of Lila’s mother’s second-husband Bill, who is still in the deep throes of grieving her unexpected death. The house is falling apart one expensive project at a time, and the landscape guy keeps bringing up more issues she needs to address but are nowhere near the top of her priority list. Then one day, Lila’s septuagenarian absent-since-she-was-4-years-old father shows up on her doorstep looking for a place to stay for awhile, unafraid to make himself at home and insert himself into absolutely everything with an annoying American charisma that seems to fool everyone else. What follows is a story about family and forgiveness and grief and perseverance, and grace, and the grit to get through the next thing and the next while somehow keeping all the juggling balls from crashing into the ground.

The family dynamics crafted in this novel felt so realistic. The quintessential example of the phrase if it’s not one thing, it’s another. The two grandpas who loved the same woman, the young daughter and her school play, the older daughter and her mean-girl school problems and rebellious streak, the dynamics with the ex-husband creating a new family apart from them and the emotional blow that strikes against them all. On top of everything else, Lila is ‘getting back out there’ as an officially over-the-hill divorcee, and the story of her romantic experiences were so brutally honest, complete with fundamental mistakes, misunderstandings, the inability to see things for what they truly are. It felt raw and honest and I really appreciated that.

This novel has a lot going on, and though certain elements felt somewhat predictable, none of it felt formulaic or cliche. In my experience, Jojo Moyes is a skillful storyteller, and this family drama is one that will keep you engaged and interested until the very last pages, leaving you with warm feelings of hope and acceptance that will fill your cup like only a good book can.

Details

Title:: We All Live Here
Author:: Jojo Moyes
Genre:: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher:: Pamela Dorman Books
Length:: 464 pages
Audio Length:: 12h 38m
Audiobook Narrator:: Jenna Coleman
Published:: February 11th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

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The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
Thank You For Listening | Julia Whelan
Amazing Grace Adams | Fran Littlewood

Book Review:: The Seven O’Clock Club | Amelia Ireland

What does it take to earn a five-star rating? Is it simply capturing and holding your attention? Is it making you feel things down deep in the depths of your soul? Is it creating a world/character/story that will linger in your mind for years to come? If your answer is yes to any of the above, The Seven O’Clock Club makes the list without even trying.

The Seven O'Clock Club by Amelia Ireland Book Cover

This is a book about grief – possibly the most complex of human emotions. Four people are selected to be a part of an experimental project, led by a woman named Geniveve. Each of them has a pain so deep and vivid they can’t face it, it’s ruining what is left of their lives. Geniveve brings them together once a week at seven o’clock for a gently led support-group style meeting. Slowly they are asked to introduce themselves: who they are, how they’ve changed, and eventually, what it was that happened to bring them to the group.

Each of them has a story, each of them a pain so great it fundamentally changed them. And together, they find community. Friendship. Family.

I knew early on this book was going to be a profound experience. The characters opening themselves up and pouring out their pain was so powerful. Chills were had. Tears were shed. My own heart broke a little bit for every one of them.

These characters and their situations were so well-realized, and when the twist came I was skeptical at first, but it allowed for the themes to resound even more powerfully and left me with a lot to ponder once the story ended.

I am so grateful I got the opportunity to read this book early through netgalley after being one of the chosen ones by Berkley for this title. This is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Amelia Ireland!

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: The Seven O’Clock Club
Author:: Amelia Ireland
Genre:: General Fiction/Fantasy
Publisher:: Berkley
Length:: 368 pages
Audio Length:: 12h
Audiobook Publisher:: Penguin Audio
Published:: April 15th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

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The Last Love Note | Emma Grey
Maybe Next Time | Cesca Major
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Book Review:: Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame | Olivia Ford

Bake off, but make it bookish!

Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame is the cozy adventure of a lithe septuagenarian ready to take a little piece of the world for herself for the very first time.

Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford Book Cover

Jenny Quinn bakes every day. She uses antique scales to weigh her ingredients, and recipes passed down to her from the women in her family. Recipes tell their own stories, you know, of the women who wrote them down, and the time they recorded them. One day on a whim, she decides to enter a televised baking competition, but she’s so unsure of herself (and specifically her bread baking skills) that she keeps her application a secret from her beloved husband. It’s only the second time she’s kept something from Bernard, and the guilt starts to rise like her nemesis: yeasted dough. Remarkably, she gets through to audition after audition and eventually, she can’t hide it any longer, and she realizes she doesn’t want to keep her other secret anymore either. She’s just not sure how to tell it.

Okay seriously, this book gives all the cozy feel-good vibes of Bake Off. Jenny is patient and kind and so sincere it hurts a little bit, but in a good way…? Somehow Olivia Ford has really captured the essence of that British baking competition and infused it into this story perfectly.

Some of the book focuses on some flashbacks to a young Jenny, who finds herself in a very difficult situation. The world was different in those days, especially for women, and I found that storyline so heartbreaking and emotional.

The writing was so engaging and compelling it was easy to connect to the story. A delight all the way through. Like a hug in a book!

5 stars, no notes.

Details

Title:: Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame
Author:: Olivia Ford
Genre:: Cozy General Fiction
Publisher:: Pamela Dorman Books
Length:: 384 pages
Audio Length:: 11h 12m
Audiobook Narrator:: Melanie Crawley
Published:: January 30th, 2024
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

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The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife | Anna Johnston
The Christmas Inn | Pamela Kelley

Book Review:: Eight Hundred Grapes | Laura Dave

Timing is everything, and who knows that better than a wine maker? I’m learning that lesson again from Eight Hundred Grapes. I read it once before in 2022 and rated it 3 stars. Rereading again in 2025 it has earned 5.

I suppose for me it was an acquired taste.

Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave Book Cover

Georgia flees town in her wedding dress, taking refuge back home in Sonoma county, at the bar her brothers own together. She’s been away awhile, and returns to find things not at all how she left them, but in just as complicated a mess as she finds her own self in. The foundations of her family she always believed to be unshakable have been shooketh, and she’s scrambling to make sense of the new reality taking shape around her.

I’m struggling to understand why a version of myself from three years ago didn’t find anything to connect with in this novel. I must not have, to have rated it three stars. The me of today sees a young woman coming to terms with a rite of passage that was thrust upon her all at once instead of coming to it on her own: the dissolution of her folks turning from ‘parents’ into ‘people’. This coming on the heels of a revelation that her fiancรฉ has been hiding the biggest imaginable secret, and that her brothers are tangled up in something she doesn’t understand. All of these things are reinforcing the idea that people, no matter how good their intentions are, or how otherwise ‘good’ they may be, can and will make decisions that can hurt you. Decisions you may not understand. Decisions that will cause ripple effects far beyond what might have been expected.

This book is about coming to terms with the humanity and imperfections of your family, about the impermanence of some things and the imprinting of others upon the very fabric of your being. About holding onto and letting go of childhood. It’s about potential. It’s about building cultivating the soil and knowing when to give up, and more importantly, when not to. It’s about taking control of your own destiny, and accepting the fallibility of others, as we are fallible ourselves. But really it’s a story of a family in crisis, and who can’t relate to that at some level?

Laura Dave, I’m sorry I did not see or understand the brilliance of this novel the first time around. I’m just glad I picked it up again and saw its true worth this time. Thank you, for such an incredible story.

Details

Title:: Eight Hundred Grapes
Author:: Laura Dave
Genre:: Contemporary/General Fiction
Publisher:: Simon & Schuster
Length:: 274 pages
Audio Length:: 8h 6m
Audiobook Narrator:: Joy Osmanski
Published:: February 1st, 2022
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

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The Cheesemaker’s Daughter | Kristin Vukovic
Wish I Were Here | Melissa Wiesner
I’ll Come To You | Rebecca Koffman

Book Review:: Promise Me Sunshine | Cara Bastone

One does not simply move on when their best friend dies. The friend who has been by their side through every important milestone in their life. The friend who is the other half of who they are. When the one left behind doesn’t even know who they are without the other. So when Lou dies, Lenny is not okay.

Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone Book Cover

She can’t go home. She can’t answer the phone. She can’t feed herself properly or take any kind of care of herself. She’s in full denial. But she does take a short-term nannying job one weekend to help out a single mother, and caring for someone else? That’s what she’s used to. That, she can handle.

It’s where she meets Miles, the uncle of the kid she was hired to care for. Though they get off on the wrong foot (who can blame the guy, when she looks like a hollowed-out shell of a healthy woman and he didn’t know her from Eve), Miles sees right through Lenny. He recognizes her pain, because he’s felt it too – a grief so profound it fundamentally rearranges you. They strike up a deal that she’ll call him when she’s in the thickest throes of her pain, if she’ll help him connect better with his niece, who Lenny is so good with. This is the beginning of a stunning and glorious friendship.

This is not your typical romance novel. This book is dripping with sadness and loss and the kind of hopeless feeling you can’t just shrug off or accept. It’s the kind of feeling that leaves you falling asleep on perpetually running ferries at night or showing up to nightclubs with all-night dance parties – anything to stay out of the apartment you can’t stand to exist in alone. It’s the kind of sadness that leaves you gasping for air through tears and sobs and the most minute of memories. But death happens every day, and when you find someone who understands, when you find someone who sees you and isn’t afraid of the grip grief has on you…that person is worth everything.

I can’t seem to get into the details of this one, can I? I keep harping on the vibes, but man, this book is excellent. Lenny is hurting, but she’s a free-spirit fun-loving bubbly girl by default, which plays in beautiful contrast with Miles’ buttoned-up and reserved sort of stiff-man quiet-guy thing he’s got going. They’re an unlikely pair, maybe, but sometimes all you need is someone who understands to just be with you. Sit with you. Sleep next to you…so you’re not alone.

I don’t really have any notes for this one. It’s a little long, and I can think of a few scenes I would personally have shortened, but really, it all works, and if it was shorter I’d have wanted more, surely. I’ve listened to a few of Cara Bastone’s Audible Originals stories, and I have to say she has a knack for creating characters with real depth, even in the shorter format. Of course a full-length novel was going to crush it in character work.

This is the type of story that lingers. Lenny and Miles have been in my thoughts many times in the days since I experienced their story. If you’re looking for a novel to emotionally wreck you that is ultimately uplifting and hopeful, this is your official recommendation for Promise Me Sunshine.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: Promise Me Sunshine
Author:: Cara Bastone
Genre:: Contemporary Romance
Publisher:: The Dial Press
Length:: 416 pages
Audio Length:: 11h 11m
Audiobook Narrator:: Alex Finke
Audiobook Publisher:: Random House Audio
Published:: March 4th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars
Spice Rating:: 3 (open door but…classy? not vulgar)

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If you liked this book, check out these other books about grief…

PS I Hate You | Lauren Connolly
The Last Love Note | Emma Grey
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife | Anna Johnston

Book Review:: When We Grow Up | Angelica Baker

Looking for a book that hits on every hyper-zennial political and culture topic there is without actually giving any substance to any of it?

Man, I hate writing negative reviews, but this one was just.not.it.
I will give the two major trigger warnings for the book here so you don’t have to read through the rest: miscarriage & extra-marital affairs.

When We Grow Up by Angelica Baker Book Cover

The premise of When We Grow Up is a group of friends from childhood go on a vacation together just before turning thirty.

I was expecting it to be an exploration of deep humanity and how we grow and change and how things in our lives that seemed so foundational just don’t make sense anymore. Instead we have a whiny narrator, Clare, who has major self-esteem issues and a group of friends who don’t even like each other all that much (past or present).

Clare is floundering. She doesn’t seem confident in any of the choices she’s made in her life. She also doesn’t seem close to any of these friends. It’s a paradox that they know one another more deeply than anyone because of how much shame and humiliation they witnessed in each other growing up (inevitable in middle school), but they also know hardly anything about each other as an adult. They claim they’re so close, but they almost never talk about anything personal. Everything is so damn surface level. Then when they finally do, it’s like they could be talking about literally anyone.

I only know Clare by the choices she makes in the novel, and how self-critical she is. I don’t really know a damn thing about her character. That’s a problem.

I didn’t like Jessie, the only other girl in the group (why are there so many girls on the cover?), and the boys didn’t have enough personality to even tell who is who until far too late in the novel. There was a black one and a gay one, and I thought they were the same person for most of the book. We knew who Liam was because Clare is having an affair with him, which also irks me because she didn’t seem to even know why, beginning, middle, or end. (I’m not even counting this as a spoiler since it is alluded to in the blurb).

The biggest problem was I didn’t care. There was nothing interesting about the book except the first chapter. Their vacation in Hawai’i happens to coincide with the false missile alert that went out to everyone on-island in 2018. That happens on page one, and kind of explains the whole book. The characters are completely apathetic, even when they’re warned they’re about to die. This absolutely should have been a short story. It actually would have been an excellent short story.

I wanted to like a book like this. As I read I was hoping that things would shift and the insights would start bringing everything together in some profound way. Nope. Never happened. The only insight here is that Clare is unhappy and kind of judgy. In some ways it kind of felt disparaging toward the whole generation, which, for context, I am the same age as these characters. In 2018 I was turning 30.

(spoiler)
Near the end, Jessie kind of confronts Clare by telling her being a boy’s girl is essentially a fucked-up thing to be.

Ahem.

Like I said, this book was not for me.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: When We Grow Up
Author:: Angelica Baker
Genre:: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher:: Flatiron Books
Length:: 288 pages
Audio Length:: 9h 53m
Audiobook Narrator:: Imani Jade Powers
Audiobook Publisher:: Macmillan Audio
Published:: February 25th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 2-Stars

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The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
It’s All Relative | Rachel Magee
The Summer Pact | Emily Giffin

Book Review:: Beartown | Fredrik Backman

For most, hockey is just a sport, but for one little town deep in the forests of Sweden, it is everything. For the first time in decades, the Beartown Junior team has the skill and raw talent to really go the distance, giving the failing factory town hope again. But at what cost?

Beartown by Fredrik Backman Book Cover

If you’ve never read a Fredrik Backman book before, this is your sign to run out and grab one. This one, or another, whatever appeals to you most. It won’t matter which one you choose, because whatever it is will be amazing. How do I know this when I’ve personally read only three of his books? Because he’s just that good. I trust in his taste, his ability, his discernment. The man knows how to tell a story; a story that will interest you, surprise you, and ultimately move you in ways many books don’t come close to achieving. I even find myself entranced by his social media captions!

If you are honest, people may deceive you.
Be honest anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness.
Be kind anyway.
All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

This story is a series of dominoes. They’re not lined up exactly. More like grouped together in this community amongst the trees, each facing their own direction. It starts with the town hockey club deciding to oust its oldest and most accomplished coach in favor of a younger more energetic man whose only objective is to win. The dominoes are already set, and when this one stumbles it sets forth the kinetic energy that propels the rest of them to wobble, tumbling and bumping into one another. Some in ways anyone might see coming, others in ways people refuse to even acknowledge.

“The people who live here are tough, we’ve got the bear in us, but we’ve taken blow after blow for a long time now. This town needs to win at something. We need to feel, just once, that we’re best. I know it’s a game. But that’s not all it is. Not always.”

This is an account of a fictional town in a fictional race for greatness, but it is one of the most realistic books I’ve ever read. The characters, the setting, the words themselves, are so alive. It might actually be the perfect novel.

Details

Title:: Beartown (Beartown #1)
Author:: Fredrik Backman
Genre:: General Fiction
Publisher:: Atria Books
Length:: 415 pages
Audio Length:: 13h 11m
Audiobook Narrator:: Marin Ireland
Audiobook Publisher:: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published:: September 15th, 2016
The Litertarian Rating:: 5 (thousand)-Stars

Linky Links!!
amazon
B & N
Bookshop.org

Goodreads
author website

If you liked this book, check out…

The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
Counting Miracles | Nicholas Sparks
The Cheesemaker’s Daughter | Kristen Vukovik