CBR16 Book 15: "The Write Escape" by Charish Reid

Page count: 291 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: A book with a BIPOC author and main character

CBR16 Sweet Books: Cozy

In very short order, Antonia Harper has lost her job and discovered that her fiancée was cheating on her, very shortly before the wedding. The honeymoon was supposed to be in Ireland, and Antonia decides to travel there by herself. Her spiteful ex has cancelled their original reservations, but she rents a cottage to stay in instead. With nothing else to distract her, Antonia decides to make a stab at writing more of the romance novel she's been dreaming of completing (but never had time for, what with her busy job as an editor and trying to plan a wedding). She isn't exactly happy with men in general at present, but the handsome professor in the cottage next door is making her reconsider her wish to be alone.

Aidan Byrnes is a literature professor who is finding his job difficult at the moment. He's rented a cottage in the little town of Tully Cross to get some peace and quiet and to finally have the time and focus to complete an important academic paper. He first runs into Antonia in the tiny supermarket nearby and is both surprised and delighted to discover that she is staying in the cottage next to his. Still slightly weary of romantic entanglements after his girlfriend dumped him a year previous, Aiden nevertheless can't stop thinking about Antonia, who he discovers is not only gorgeous but clever, educated, and funny as well.

What starts out as a bit of a holiday fling begins to turn serious pretty quickly. Neither Antonia nor Aidan were expecting to meet anyone, let alone start falling for them in the sleepy village of Tully Cross. Yet Aiden has a job at an Irish university, and Antonia's life is back in America. Can their fledgling romance turn into something more permanent, with an entire ocean between them?

This is my first novel by Charish Reid and it was fun, but not exactly a perfect read. I really liked Antonia and Aiden as characters, both apart and together. Both are hard-working and devoted to their jobs (but obviously Antonia is unemployed for much of the book since she loses her job early on). Antonia is also very close to her family, especially her sister, which made it difficult when they clearly weren't enthusiastic about her upcoming wedding. I would love to read a sequel novel about her sister.

The majority of the book is set in Ireland, and while I'm sure Irish villages are very quaint and welcoming, it seems like a slightly exaggerated ideal of the place. No one is unpleasant, racist, or rude. I understand that those aren't exactly things that you would want in a fluffy escapist romance, but from my experience, not all small-town folk anywhere are open-minded and whole-heartedly welcoming to any strangers, certainly not those with darker skin colours. 

This was a quick breezy read, and I liked it a lot. There were a few things that annoyed me a bit, but nothing serious enough for me not to want to read more of her books. Firstly, Antonia is obviously using her vacation in Ireland to work on her romance novel. At one point, Aiden uses her computer and can't help himself from reading what she's written. Considering how unsure she is of her writing and how personal a book manuscript can be, this felt like he was reading her journal. When she eventually discovers what he's done, she seems to forgive him very quickly. SPOILER! Antonia also seems able to relocate her entire life to Ireland on very little notice, to be with a guy whom she's known for less than two weeks. Good to know that it's that easy to make a major life change when you finally meet the hot guy you decide is Mr. Right.

Judging a book by its cover: I really like the visible joy on the faces of both of the cover models here. This is exactly the sort of novel that would have a jewel-toned cover with cute cartoony characters on it now, and I'm not sure that trend is as great as publishers think it is. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 46: "Ship Wrecked" by Olivia Dade

Page count: 413 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Maria and Peter share one unforgettable night of passion together, which leads to some awkwardness after Maria leaves without so much as a note the next morning. They then discover that they're about to become co-stars on the incredibly popular fantasy show Gods of the Gates. As their characters' storylines involved being ship-wrecked on a small island by themselves, Maria and Peter, along with a small film crew are basically supposed to stay on location for years, and after they work through the awkwardness of Maria leaving (Peter has baggage that made him react especially badly to being ghosted), they decide that while their chemistry is sizzling, it would be a terrible idea to act on their attraction while it might impact not just their own working environment, but that of their crew. So no further exploration of their pants feelings until they've finished their last scenes.

Of course, both Maria and Peter's characters end up being wildly popular, and while their friendship grows, so does their attraction. Meanwhile, their mutual pining and natural chemistry mean that fans of the show ship them just as much off-screen as on, and they get used to fending off questions about their relationship during their various press tours. Only when the show is in its final season, and their characters have finally filmed their end scenes, can Maria and Peter finally reunite as lovers. Of course, with their contracts ended, both Peter and Maria need to decide what their futures hold. 

Maria is incredibly close to her big, loving family and is seriously considering moving back to Sweden to not be so far away from them anymore. Peter, on the other hand, is pretty much totally estranged from his father but fears losing the financial and professional security the role on God of the Gates has afforded him. While they love each other, they have such wildly different priorities and wants for the future that their relationship may be doomed. 

This is the first time I've ever read a romance novel with a Swedish protagonist. Maria keeps peppering Swedish expressions throughout and using some pretty obscure idioms, and because Olivia Dade is married to a Swede, they mostly work. However, one of the things that kept taking me out of the book whenever it was used, was Maria's chosen term of endearment for Peter, sötnos. The term literally translates as "sweet nose" and I have never in my 43-year-old life heard anyone refer to their lover consistently as that. The book claims that it is used like "sweetheart", but it's more like "sweetie" or "cutie", and the only time I've heard the term used is with small children and maybe pets. See, if Dade had chosen älskling as Maria's endearment of choice, I wouldn't be getting persnickety. That pretty much means "love" or "beloved" and I can basically mentally search and replace all uses of sötnos for älskling and the book would be better for it. Obviously, this is not going to be a nitpick that a lot of readers of this romance object to. I otherwise pretty much loved and was greatly amused by all the other Swedish-isms, including Maria's good-natured roasting of Peter, and her near-supernatural ability to always have a jar of pickled herring around to threaten to beat him over the head with. However, this is a romance, and I would like the actual relationship bits to feel real to me.

This book, with the exception of the pretty scorching one-night-stand Maria and Peter share at the beginning, is very slow burn with a lot of pining for much of the story. Only in the final third or so do Maria and Peter finally act on their six years of pent-up attraction and lust. Then there's obviously the section where their differing priorities tear the apart for a while (I'm more and more coming around to romances without a big third-act separation) before they reunite to live happily ever after. 

Both protagonists happily describe themselves as fat, and there's a running subplot about how Maria's confidence and healthy body image makes her refuse the unreasonable demands of the show's producers to lose weight or in other ways conform to society's so-called beauty standards. Peter is unwilling to risk the wrath of the producers, he needs the part too much and keeps being amazed by Maria's claims that if the job becomes too demanding, she'll just quit and return to Sweden. She acts because she enjoys the job, not because she has to or feels like she has anything to prove to anyone. 

While this book does work as a standalone, it is the final book in Dade's Spoiler Alert series, and there are references to and cameos by the previous couples in the series, as well as the various actors who also star in Gods of the Gates with Peter and Maria. It's more fun to read the bits that involve the actors interacting if you have the established backstory from the previous books. 

Inappropriate lover nickname aside, I really enjoyed this book and thought it was a great ending to the series. It was very strange, but also rather fun, to have Maria's Swedish expressions sprinkled throughout the story. In her acknowledgments, Dade confesses to struggling to complete the novel. I'm glad she had enough time and support to finish it. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't think I've seen a single Leni Kauffman cover that isn't amazing. She just manages to choose the perfect image to illustrate a book, every time. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR9 Book 10: "Faithful Place" by Tana French

Page count: 449 pages
Audio book length: 14hrs 8 mins
Rating: 4 stars

A spring evening in 1985, nineteen-year-old Frank Mackie is waiting impatiently outside for his girlfriend Rosie Daly, as they plan to elope and move to London, making a new life for themselves away from the hard life of the Dublin working poor. When she doesn't show, Frank goes looking for her in the abandoned house a few door down, and finds a note that suggests she's gone off without him. As Frank's father is a violent drunk, his mother is neurotic and shrewish and his siblings aren't exactly anything to write home about, Frank's not really surprised, but he is heart-broken. He leaves Faithful Place, intending never to return.

Twenty-two years later, Frank gets a hysterical phone call from his youngest sister. They've found a suitcase behind the fireplace in that same derelict house where Frank found Rosie's note, and signs suggest that Rosie didn't in fact leave to go off to London to make a life for herself by her lonesome. Frank, now a detective on the Dublin Undercover squad, has to return home, even though every instinct tells him it's a bad idea. Soon he is back in the middle of his highly dysfunctional family's drama, determined to do right by Rosie Daly, whether the investigating murder detectives want him around or not.

Frank Mackie was a supporting character in the previous book in this series, The Likeness, and not necessarily a likable one at that. As with the other books in the Dublin Murder Squad series, this book can be read entirely independently and stand alone from the others, and frankly, only tangentially actually involves the Dublin Murder Squad detectives, because Frank is clearly ignoring them to conduct his own investigation into the decades old murder of his ex-girlfriend.

Tana French's murder mysteries are heavy on the psychological component and in this, the story is just as much about Frank reconciling his past and possible future with his very messed up family, as it is about solving the (after a while) two murders that are at the centre of this book. The middle child in a family of five siblings, Frank is the one who "got away", cutting off contact entirely that night he left to elope with Rosie. Even when he believed she'd abandoned her and their joint plans, he still left his home and family, putting himself through the police academy and wanting to be well rid of his entire dysfunctional clan.

The only family member Frank has had any contact with is his younger sister Jackie. He loves his nine-year-old daughter more than anything, and has tried to shield her from any mention of his past. It's also clear that Frank isn't entirely over his ex-wife, although as the book progresses, it's hinted that the reason their marriage fell apart may not just have been due to Frank's workaholic tendencies (this seems to be a common marriage complaint for the spouses of fictional cops), but also because he never entirely got over Rosie, always hoping that she'd reappear in his life from wherever he disappeared to.

The glimpses we get of Frank's adolescence and home life growing up is bleak as hell, and you can't really blame him for not wanting anything to do with his family, especially his father. The story of what happened to Rosie, as it's unravelled, is rather heart-breaking, although I was pretty sure I'd figured out the identity of her killer about halfway through the book.

I like these mysteries, but always think they drag a bit in parts. All three books I've read now seem to take a very roundabout route to get to the point. In these absolutely exhausting times, where I get depressed just from reading newspaper headlines, I'm not entirely sure I can stomach gritty, psychological crime dramas. I suspect I will get round to reading more of Ms. French's books, but not when in the emotional head space I am right now.

Judging a book by its cover: My audiobook came with the newer cover for this book, which I much prefer to the original one (the cracked, peeling paint of a derelict house, with the title and author's name seemingly painted on the wall). The little, abandoned suitcase and the open, empty road, suggesting the possibilities of travel and all sorts of unspoken potential. Which considering the contents of this story just twists the knife around that little bit more.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.