The story follows Samiah Brooks, a tech genius whose boyfriend Craig, as she discovers, has also been dating two other women. Enraged, she confronts him in a restaurant where he is on a date with one of the other ladies – the same restaurant reservation that she booked for their date that he canceled earlier that evening. A video of her explosive confrontation ends up going viral on YouTube.

But on the positive side, she ends up forming a close friendship with the other two women, London and Taylor, and they create a pact not to date any men for the next six months; instead, they’ll use that time to work on themselves on and their dreams.

What Samiah didn’t count on is sexy Daniel Collins, the new hire at the tech company where she works, Trendsetters. She tells herself that she will not allow herself to become distracted by Daniel, though that’s a lot easier said than done, and pretty soon, she wonders whether Daniel may be too good to be true.

This could be the case as we slowly learn that Daniel is indeed not who he says he is, that he’s on some sort of undercover assignment at Trendsetters, thus keeping a massive secret from Samiah. It doesn’t help matters that he starts to fall for Samiah as well, causing him all sorts of guilt and anguish because of the need to deceive Samiah.

Now given that the story starts out with Samiah being deceived by a three-timing boyfriend, the deception issue is especially touchy here, and Daniel is positive that this isn’t going to end well. What’s nice is that we go back and forth between both Samiah and Daniel’s POV, so we get the story from both sides.

I loved the workplace vibe in this story – it definitely sounds like the type of place I would love to work at. I also enjoyed the conversation about why Samiah is such a perfectionist — how she has to work twice as hard as her coworkers, being black and a woman, and how her work always, always has to be perfect the first time because it’s unlikely she’ll get a second chance. Unfortunately, too much of this is still true today in many instances. But I did like the book’s message about diversity and equality in the workplace. I believe Daniel is multi-racial — Korean and Black if my memory serves, so there’s excellent representation with both characters.

All in all, this is a fun own-voices rom-com with strong, admirable characters and a touch a mystery, which adds extra intrigue to the narrative. I thought there was excellent chemistry between the two protagonists, and I also enjoyed the friendship theme that ran throughout.

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This was such a fun, unusual book. It follows our main character Lillian who is a bit down on her luck at the moment. She is then summoned by her wealthy best friend Madison to her mansion, where Madison offers her a position: to work as a governess for her husband’s one-year-old twin children, Roland and Bessie.

Up until now, they were homeschooled and living with their mentally unstable mother until she recently passed away. But there’s a catch. Apparently, the twins spontaneously combust whenever they are agitated, setting fire to pretty much everything around them; though the fire doesn’t harm them at all. Lillian also has to keep the kids’ “ability” a secret as their father, Senator Robert, vies for Secretary of State.

It’s also worth mentioning that the children, who are suffering from trauma brought on by their mother, are wild, with violent tendencies leading to biting and attacking people and then…the flames come.

So Lillian agrees to be their nanny, and we follow her and the fire children over the course of the summer as she slowly establishes trust between the nearly feral kids and herself. She begins to realize that she needs these extraordinary kids as much as they need her. She begins to fight for the kids’ best interests as feelings of protectiveness arise within her, and the kids provide her with a new sense of purpose.

And as the story moves towards its explosive conclusion, Lillian has to make an enormous decision that could affect her and the kids’ lives forever.

So I really, really loved this quirky little book about exploding children and, ultimately, acceptance. It was wickedly funny, charming, and endearing — an all-around feel-good yet odd story with a super weird storyline, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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This is a historical fiction novel that was a recent Book of the Month Club selection and alternates between four different characters over the course of a single day in Paris in 1927. There Jean-Paul, a heartbroken journalist who continually searches for his missing daughter; there Camille, the maid of Marcel Proust who, when asked to burn all of his notebooks kept one for herself, Guillaume, who owes a debt to a crime boss and if he doesn’t pay up by the end of the day, will be killed and Souren, an Armenian refugee who performs puppet shows for children, some of them a tad on the grisly side as he relives his tragic past via his shows.

We get their stories through a series of flashbacks, and we see first-hand the secrets, regrets, sadness, hopelessness, and betrayal that each character is carrying. Via the book’s short chapters, we get a glimpse of their past and present, their life journeys, their heartbreak, their life lessons. There’s a lot to untangle with these highly complex and damaged characters.

The author dives into numerous themes in this novel: war, love, loss, grief, murder, guilt, secrets, deception, and loneliness, which an undercurrent of hope beneath it all. This was an elegant, evocative book with beautiful lyrical writing, which had a melodic flow to it, and I found each character’s backstory to be utterly compelling.

We also have some cameos by Gertrude Stein, Marcel Proust, Maurice Ravel, and Josephine Baker, which added a bit of extra interest to the story.

The four characters’ stories come crashing together in a rather explosive and shocking way at the end of the book. Now I will say that the ending was left open to interpretation, so if you like everything completely and nicely wrapped up at the end, then this may not be the book for you.

But if you like historical fiction and/or Paris, then you may want to give The Paris Hours a try.

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Blurb

Badly wounded and on the run from his WWII Hungarian brigade, Janos Nagy stumbles through a temporal gateway to the future. Suddenly stranded in Manchester, England, 2041, Janos wants answers about a crazy world he doesn’t recognize.

Dieter Schmidt, flamboyant historian/linguist for the Temporal Research Institution has those answers, but the TRI is a neutral entity, set up to verify historical events under a strict code of noninterference. That doesn’t stop Dieter from taking Janos under his protection. Trust doesn’t come easy to Janos, who came from a time when revealing his secrets could get him killed, but the two men slowly build a tentative friendship with a possibility for more. But Janos’s continued presence in the future and Dieter’s persistence raise questions about the limits of the noninterference policy.

Since the rules have been bent once, one agent sees no reason why he can’t push them further, and he travels back to 1914 to make a few changes of his own. Under Janos’s guidance, Dieter must leap back in time to stop the rogue agent from changing the past and risking everyone’s future—if he can survive history.

Review

I love time travel novels, and this one did not disappoint.  Time Waits was a bit unusual as it takes place in the future, 2041 to be exact, and one of our main characters is from the WWII era — a wounded, nearly dead Hungarian soldier on the run who suddenly finds himself in an unexpected time period in a confusing place surrounded by strangers.  This aspect added an especially riveting element to the story.

I enjoyed the slow-build of the romance in this story as each of our two protagonists fights his attraction for the other; Nagy because of internalized homophobia due to an especially traumatic and horrifying event in his past and out-and-proud Dieter, who fights against taking advantage of this man now trapped 100 years in the future.  It’s also worth noting that Dieter also has severe PTSD as a result of his initial encounter with Nagy.  

Both men suffer from physical wounds and deep emotional wounds, and the road to recovery isn’t easy for either of them. Thus, they have a plethora of issues they need to overcome, and I enjoyed witnessing their journey as they did so, though the book explores a few dark themes along the way. 

In this way, Time Waits ends up being quite an emotional read that takes us on a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs:  pride, anger, aggression, resentment, hope, hopelessness, kindness, cruelty, hatred, and love. The romance here is complicated as both men have traumas preventing them from opening up to the other.  And just when you think our guys have finally attained their “happily ever after,” the author throws in one final heart-wrenching curveball, which sends their futures into uncertainty.   

So even though the beginning of their relationship was more than a tad rocky side, our two protagonists do have an amazing simmering chemistry between them, and I rooted for their HEA. They’re both complex, multi-layered, and exceptionally vivid characters — so vivid, in fact, that they jumped off the page for me. There was also some phenomenal world-building here, which also helped to bring this story to life.  

The author does a brilliant job of crafting vivid, tension-filled, heartfelt scenes that flooded me with the characters’ depth, complexity, and their flawed, beautiful hearts. Besides being a compelling sci-fi adventure, Time Waits is also a heart-tugger of a story filled with life, loss, fear, survival, heartbreak, compassion, and eventually, love.   This immersive narrative swept me up from the first page to the last.  It’s about facing unimaginable heartbreak and coming out stronger on the other side, no matter how long it takes you.

This is the first book in the Time Lost series, and I’ll definitely be continuing on with the rest of them.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Nine Star Press for providing me with a review copy of this book.

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I don’t read biographies all that often, but this one caught my eye, and I’m so glad that I read it. Once a Girl, Always a Boy follows Jeremy Ivester, a trans man who was born as Emily. We follow his journey as he struggles with his identity, knowing all along that something is not quite right with the way he perceives himself.

What’s compelling about this book, however, is that it’s written by his mother, and the author represents the entire family via multiple points of view. In this way, it’s not just Jeremy’s journey we’re reading about but that of his entire family. There is such a strong sense of love and family throughout the book which rendered it all the more endearing.

The story is told in short, vignettes of Jeremy’s life presented chronologically by him and his loving family. We follow along with Jeremey at each stage of his journey, and I loved being privy to his thoughts, feelings, and questions as he struggled to discover his identity and deal with the enormous repercussions of all of his decisions.

Additionally, the everyday gender issues that Jeremy had to deal with were quite eye-opening, things such as sleepovers with his friends, shopping for clothes, getting hair cuts, standing up at weddings, puberty, presenting your ID when asked, prescriptions, passports, which bathroom to use, discrimination and prejudice by others, getting a job, and hateful legislation aimed at trans people. My heart went out to Jeremy as he tried to figure out how he fits into his world, and I applaud his bravery and tenacity as he made many tough decisions, remaining true to his heart in the process.

As a reader, I loved that Jeremy and his mom shared his entire story with us, beginning from around the age of six or so through his adulthood in his 20s. I loved hearing his voice and being privy to his thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams every step along the way. What was also interesting was his family’s own journey, as they tried to understand and support him and work through their confusion about what their son was going through.

This book is ultimately about the power of saying – and living – your truth, without fear. It’s not just a story about being trans, but it’s also about discovering one’s true self in the face of the expectations of society and family.

It’s a powerful and compelling story that needed to be told and needs to be read and talked about. This was a surprising read that took me places I very much didn’t expect. It’s the kind of book that makes us think about who we are and how we want to live our lives, and I don’t think I’ve ever read such an intimate and moving portrayal of gender issues like this before. It actually moved me to tears in several places.

Once a Girl, Always a Boy succeeds in doing what you hope every book will do – it pulls you in from the first page, holds you captive in the middle, then leave you satisfied and thoughtful — and perhaps a bit wiser — at the end.

What I especially found riveting about Jeremy’s story is how he was able to discover his true self and move to his place in his life where he was happy, all with his family’s love and support. It was evident how having a loving and supportive family like Jeremy’s made all the difference in his life, and it hurts my heart to realize that not all trans people are so fortunate.

Ultimately, I feel that Jeremy’s story should be a welcome addition to everyone’s bookshelves, regardless of whether you fall somewhere on the LGBTQIA+ Spectrum or not. This is a lovely story about a family accepting their son’s transition and illustrates perfectly how we should all be supporting our children and loved ones. At the end of the day, it’s a story of being human. It’s about unconditionally loving our kids, regardless of how challenging and painful that move toward acceptance can be.

I always find it difficult to rate biographies because, after all, what we have is a true story/snippet of someone’s life. But I don’t hesitate in the least to rate this one five solid stars out of five.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Jo Ivester for providing me with a review copy of this book. This title will be released on April 21, 2020 but you can preorder it from The Book Depository or from Amazon.

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I Found You follows a single mother and artist named Alice living on a British seaside. One day she spots a stray man who is sitting on the beach near her house and staring at the ocean. He’d been there for hours and has no coat and no idea what is name is or why he’s there. Against her own better judgment, she invites him to stay with her until he gets his memory back and nicknames him Frank for the time being.

Meanwhile, in a London suburb, we’re introduced to Lily Monrose, a recently-married young bride who, originally from Ukraine, moved to London to marry her husband, Carl. They’d only been married for a couple of weeks when one day, he doesn’t come home from work, so Lily calls the police.

After she brings them her husband’s passport, she’s shocked to learn that the passport was purchased on the dark web, and according to police, her husband, as she’d known him, doesn’t exist.

Then the story moves twenty-three years in the past where we’re introduced to the Ross family, specifically their two teenagers, Gray and Kirsty, who are on summer vacation with their parents. They meet a young man named Mark Tate who’s in town visiting his Aunt and who develops an obsessive interest in Kirsty, which troubles Gray. And Gray isn’t surprised when things take a dark turn.

So these are the three storylines and the multiple POVs of Alice, Lily, and Gray, and we move back and forth as they become closer and closer to intertwining. I loved this method of storytelling, and I found myself immediately engrossed in each of the three plotlines as each of them slowly increased the suspense throughout the course of the novel.

It was so much fun trying to guess how these stories would eventually come together. Now I will say that this wasn’t a particularly action-based story but rather delved deeply into the development of the characters, which worked really well for me.

They were so compelling, well-fleshed out, and multi-layered that I ended up feeling as though I know them personally. They felt like ‘real’ people.

The tone of the story started out lightly, shifted to a bit darker, and then to downright ominous as we delve into some serious subject matter. I thought this story was tightly plotted with the surprises coming at just the right time.

Franks memory slowly begins to return, Lily meets people who can help solve the mystery that is her husband and the events in the past unfold, revealing their connection to the present day. I enjoyed how I was never quite sure who to trust as part of the story was like a spider web of lies, each woven tightly only to reveal yet another layer of lies underneath.

So for quite a while, we weren’t sure who to believe and who to trust, which rendered the story all the more exciting for me.

Jewell writes a wonderfully atmospheric, compulsive chiller of a thriller with overtones of horror. I found this story addictive, compulsive, dark, and sinister, and the writing is taut with a gloomy black cloud hanging over our cast of characters.

I loved the delightful, pervasive feeling of menace that lingers over the story, especially when we had no idea who was the true villain in the story. I think that one of the things that I liked most about this book is that I was never sure who I was “rooting” for at a given time.

There’s real depth to the story, which delves into themes of grief, loneliness, regret, crippling emotional suffering, double lives, and second chances. There’s even a bit of romance thrown it.

The development and progress of the plot were very curious and thrilling and felt to me like I was unearthing some long-lost treasure. I also thought that the short chapters and alternating POVs kept the story moving along at a brisk and satisfying pace.

All in all, I found this to be brilliantly devious, dark, and emotionally riveting — at times creepy and violent — but definitely propulsive, another standout gem by Lisa Jewell.

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