The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. And the third time you share tea, you become family.

TJ Klune is one of my favorite authors, so I was super excited when this book came to my attention. Once again, he did not disappoint.

Under the Whispering Door is a heartwarming contemporary fantasy about finding yourself. It follows an unlikable, ruthless and driven lawyer named Wallace Price, who is more than a bit surprised (but mostly shocked) to find himself at his own funeral. Apparently, Wallace has died and is none too happy about it. This becomes even more evident when a reaper named Mei shows up to take Wallace to the next stage of his journey.

But instead of taking him to the afterlife, the Reaper brings him to a small tea shop in a remote village called Charon’s Crossing when he meets a charming man named Hugo, the proprietor who is also the ferryman of souls. Hugo’s job is to help souls get ready for crossing over, which turns out not to be such an easy chore for the angry and bitter Wallace Price. But, of course, anger and denial like Wallace’s isn’t anything new for Hugo — he’s seen it before. But he definitely has his work cut out for him as he attempts to lead Wallace out of the darkness and into a more gentle understanding of the mysteries of life.

So with Hugo’s gentle guidance — as well as that from Mei (the Reaper) and Hugo’s ghostly and mischievous grandad Nelson, Wallace begins to understand all that he missed from life, and his outlook slowly begins to change — especially once he learns that it’s never too late to start anew.

It was so delightful to see Wallace’s heart begin to warm as the other charming and quirky characters slowly got under his skin. I loved seeing him grow as a person, and as he did, the more likable and relatable he became. I was surprised by how much I grew to care about this formerly cruel and despicable character, and my heart warmed to see him form meaningful relationships with the other characters in the book (including Apollo, the ghost dog) and witness him making a genuine effort to become a better person.

The author handled some pretty tough topics in the book, such as death, PTSD, suicide, and grief, all of which were handled compassionately and delicately by the author. But additionally, the author’s familiar wit, humor, and charm shine through, resulting in a beautiful heartfelt story that is both moving and thought-provoking. It’s a hard-hitting story that’s at times sad and raw, but that teaches some valuable lessons as the plot unfolds.

All in all, Under the Whispering Door is a delightful heart-tugger of a story about grief, regret, death, love, loneliness, acceptance but most of all, about found family. It’s the kind of story that causes you to laugh out loud in some places and brings a tear to your eyes in others, and I still find myself ruminating and contemplating it many days later. I love a good story about hope, redemption, and second chances, and that’s what we get here with this gentle tale.

As a reader, I found this to be an utterly rewarding journey. There’s also a sweet romance that was the cherry on top of this magical story. Oh, and that ending — it was perfect!

A huge thank you to Netgalley for providing a review copy of this book.

The book will be released on September 21 but is available for preorder from online retailers.

Link to Preorder from Amazon

Blurb:

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Review:

One Last Stop is a contemporary fiction rom/com with a sapphic love story at its core. It also delves rather deeply into magical realism, so if you don’t like woo-woo in your fiction, then you may not like this one. In fact, one of the characters is a psychic. For me, I thought the magical realism aspect worked swimmingly.

The story follows a 23-year-old bi woman named August Landry, who has transferred from her university to one in New York and has a somewhat pessimistic view on life. For her entire life, August has been enlisted by her mother to help in the missing person case of her uncle and, in the process, has developed quite an impressive set of investigative skills. But she’s finally decided that enough is enough and wants to strike out on her own.

So on the very first day of August’s commute to the university, she spills coffee all over her shirt before she steps onto the Q Subway Line. Once on the train, she’s immediately smitten by a gorgeous young punk rock gal named Jane Su, who gives August a red scarf to hide the stain.

After she disembarks the subway, August can’t get the mysterious and swoon-worthy young woman out of her mind and hopes she somehow sees her again. As it just so happens, she sees Jane again the next time she takes the train and happens to be in the same car as August. Then it happens again…and again….and again.

By the way, Jane, who is an Asian lesbian, seems happy to see Jane each time they meet, and a sort of relationship begins to develop between them. When August invites Jane out to coffee, Jane responds simply by saying, “I can’t.”

August is heartbroken but soon discovers that Jane really can’t….literally. That is to say, she has been on the subway for 45 years and is unable to leave it. The kicker is that Jane remembers almost nothing about her life before the subway and has no idea how she ended up stuck on the train.

One thing we learn about August is that she simply cannot resist a mystery, so she decides to put her “girl detective” investigative talents to use and, along with her roommates, try to help August and save her from the subway. As the mysteries surrounding Jane’s past slowly unravel, the two women grow even closer, especially once the kissing starts.

What really made this novel shine for me were the diverse and highly well-fleshed authentic out secondary characters who I ended up loving as much as our two main protagonists. I found myself quickly invested in each and every one of them. Through them, we really get a strong feeling of “found family,” which worked incredibly well in the novel. It’s truly magical when you’re able to find “your people” — you know, the place where you feel you truly belong — and that feeling really came through strongly during the narrative.

I really loved the representation of diverse cultures and sexualities we find with our quirky and eccentric characters. For instance, we have:

• Niko – who is a trans Latino psychic
• Myla – queer Black electrical engineer and artist who has an adoptive Chinese mom
• Wes – a depressed and somewhat mysterious queer Jewish tattoo artist
• Isaiah – the next-door neighbor who is an accountant by day and the flamboyant drag Queen Annie Depressant by night — and who is head over heels in love with Wes
• and Jane, who is a Chinese-American Lesbian

I think many queer people will be able to see themselves in these characters.

There was plenty of fun banter and shenanigans among the roommates, which made me nostalgic for my own college days. The unconventional employees at Billy’s diner also played an essential part in the story. So if you love the found family trope, this one is sure to win your heart.

What was also fun about this story was how much it was a tribute and celebration of queer identity. Once Jane begins remembering her past, we learn about her life in the 70s — the protests and riots she was involved in, how she fought — sometimes with her fists — for the queer community along with her own found family. I thought that the story really brought to light the fights lead by people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community during the 70s and how we still have a long way to go.

As for the romance, well, let me say that it’s probably the best that I’ve read in a while. The sex scenes were tender, erotic, heartwarming without being graphic as August and Jane each learned what each other likes, wants, and needs. You could feel the deep and intense emotion between the two of them, and overall, the sex-positive love scenes felt super realistic.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a five-star read for me, especially given that I connected with pretty much every character in the book, and I adored the unique and clever premise of the story. Besides, how could I not fall in love with an extraordinary novel about a magical girl tethered to a New York subway?

So given that I adored Red, White, and Royal Blue and adored One Last Stop just as much, Casey McQuiston has become a new favorite author of mine, and I can’t wait to read more of their work.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing a digital reviewer copy of this book.

This book will be available for purchase on June 1st but you can preorder it now.

Purchase One Last Stop at Amazon

Blurb:

”For fans of The Matrix and Memento, a twisty, exciting adventure!” –Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander series

The basis for the major motion picture Infinite

Discovered as three notebooks in an antique store in Rome at the turn of the millennium, The Reincarnationist Papers offers a tantalizing glimpse into the Cognomina, a secret society of people who possess total recall of their past lives.

Evan
Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete
memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He
fights loneliness and believes he is unique until he meets Poppy. She
recognizes his struggle because she is like him, except that she is much
older, remembering seven consecutive lives. But there is something else
she must share with Evan — she is a member of the secretive Cognomina.
They are, in effect, immortals — compiling experiences and skills over
lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive
history over centuries.

Poppy invites Evan into the Cognomina, but he must face their tests before entering this mysterious society as their equal.

Review:

I love twisty stories about past lives and secret organizations, so the synopsis of The Reincarnationist Papers grabbed my attention right away. The story follows a fellow named Evan Michaels, a professional arsonist-for-hire. Evan, however, is different than most people in that he is living with three sets of memories inside of his head: his current life and the complete memories of two other people. He suspects that he’s crazy and lives his life the best he can.

But then he meets Poppy, who recognizes Evan for what he really is: someone who has complete recall of their past lives. As it turns out, Poppy has lived seven consecutive lives, so in this way, she’s much older than Evan. She subsequently invites him to apply to a secret society called the Cognomina, a group for people who are like the both of them: immortals who recall all of their past lives. But first, Evan has to go through a series of tests to prove that he is, in fact, one of them, and in so doing, we go more in-depth into his past lives as well as the others in the society via the narrative and flashbacks. I found the drama and the interwoven secrets between the Cognomina members throughout their many lives to be compelling and a lot of fun.

What was entertaining about this book is that it felt like it was a non-fiction story — a sort of documentary in which the author comes across these “Reincarnationist Papers” in an antique bookstore in Rome and is now sharing those notebooks in book format for all of us to read and ponder. So in this way, I found the world-building to be phenomenal. I thought this aspect was such a unique and refreshing take on the past life genre and really added to the story’s overall enjoyment. It was fascinating how all of the characters no longer feared death at all because they knew they’d be coming right back. This was quite an interesting philosophy on the overall theme of life after death.

We’re also treated to a delightful set of eccentric and hedonistic personalities in the Cognomina, all of which added an essential element to the story. Each character was captivating and described in such detail that I could easily picture having a conversation with any one of them, resulting in a vivid and atmospheric story. I especially enjoyed the character arc of Evan as he experienced considerable growth throughout the book.

We also learn the origin of the Reincarnationist Papers — who wrote them and why. But that’s all I’ll say on that lest I move into spoiler territory. But I can say that The Reincarnationist Papers is a delightful and enthralling read that makes you ponder who you are, where you come from, and what your responsibilities are to both. Told in alternating perspectives with crisp writing, I found this to be quite a thought-provoking book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

A huge thank you to TK and Blackstone Publishing for providing a review copy of this book.

Purchase The Reincarnationist Papers on Amazon

Touch is a unique sci-fi/thriller/espionage story that follows an entity known as Kepler, who is referred to as a “ghost”; that is to say, a being who has the ability to jump from one body to another, basically, hijacking the other person’s body. The ghost then lives that person’s life: it drives the person’s car, is married to the person’s spouse, can spend the person’s money, and have sex using the person’s body. The person whose body they take over (the host) is pushed aside and has no memory of anything that has occurred while the ghost is in control. Ghosts can leave a body at any time by simply touching a different person, and the only thing ghosts leave behind when they move on is bewilderment and confusion.

The story takes off when the host body that Kepler was wearing, Josephine Cebula, is brutally murdered. The kicker is that the assassin was not only out to kill Josephine but also Kepler. Kepler now occupies the assassin’s body and is determined to find out the truth about who or what is behind the assassination — and why.

This story kind of reminded me of Every Day by David Levithan, in which the entity wakes up in a new body every day, except they have no control over who they occupy. In this story, our main characters can jump into any body they want, whenever they want.

I loved the original premise of this story, of how the ghosts can live any type of life they want. They can be whoever they want, look however they want and go wherever they want. If you want to, you could be a movie star or even a leader of a country.

Of course, this isn’t so great for the hosts, who can lose days, months, years, or even an entire lifetime to a ghost. Imagine that you’re seventeen-years-old and shake hands with a stranger. The next thing you know, you’re 77 with children and grandchildren, and you don’t remember any of the prior 60 years. So in this way, the story deals with the morality, implications, and ramifications of wearing someone else’s body. Many interesting moral issues were brought up throughout the book, especially those such as free will, identity, and the nature of love. It also raised some interesting questions about the nature of reality.

Have you ever found yourself in another room and forgot why you’re there? Hmm…perhaps a ghost just took a ride in your skin.

I loved the depth in which the author examined the life of a ghost and found it utterly compelling and fascinating. We learned how such an untethered soul survives by stealing the consciousness of others and are, in essence, immortal (unless their host dies before they can touch another person). It struck me that, in a way, Kepler and their kind are a sort of “parasite” and one can certainly understand someone’s desire to eradicate such beings. And that’s the interesting aspect of this story; that though ghosts are indeed parasites, they are also people.

Regardless, however, there are those who hate and fear ghosts and consider them to be nothing more than monsters who steal people’s lives and deserve to be eliminated. But the villain in this story — a serial killer — has motivations much grander and more dangerous than merely eliminating ghosts.

Even though there was quite a bit of body jumping going on in the story as well as numerous flashbacks, I was never confused. I loved journeying along with Kepler as they described their mesmerizing life, both in the past and present. I found this fast-paced story to be so addicting that, even though the book was over 400 pages, I tore through it in two sittings. The gripping storyline and the short chapters helped in that manner.

All in all, this story ranks up among my favorites, especially with its likable yet morally gray protagonist. The writing is beautiful, the plot is utterly unique and engaging, and the story execution flawless. This dark and brilliant story really took me by surprise and did not disappoint. Loved it!

Purchase Touch on The Book Depository