The Dictionary of Animal Languages by Heidi Sopinka

A special thank you to Edelweiss and Scribe for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ivory Frame is a world-renowned painter now in her nineties. Fiercely private, she is still devoted to her work. She has never been married, has no family, and no children. When a letter arrives to notify Ivory that she has a granddaughter who lives in New York, her life is turned upside down and her painful past collides with the life she's built for herself.

Disowned by her bourgeois family, the young Ivory had gone to interwar Paris to study art. She discovered her calling with the avant-garde painters and poets who frequent the city's cafes and at the Zoological Gardens, the subject for her art. Ivory also found love in Russian painter, Lev.

When the Second World War claims the life that Ivory has carved out for herself, she turns back to the project that she began in Paris—the dictionary of animal languages—which will consume the rest of her life. The dictionary is both scientific and artistic.

Ivory fully withdraws into her work until one of Lev's paintings is discovered which is inscribed to her. It is now worth a fortune and it brings to light a secret from Ivory's time in Paris. Now in her nineties, she is forced to acknowledge what she has lost.

I had the pleasure of attending an author event with Heidi and she is articulate, gracious, and truly lovely.

Sopinka's novel is a slow burn with lyrical prose. She uses her words as a form of art in this solid debut about love, grief, and art. It is an emotionally charged novel that reflects a love of language with each beautifully written chapter named after an animal.

The vehicle to uncover Ivory's past is the letter that arrives informing her that she has a granddaughter. This information is shocking given that she has never married, or has any family. The reader is then taken on a journey through Ivory's memories in times of art, war, and her yearning for Lev.

The only thing I struggled with, and am unclear about, is why the choice to omit the quotations around the dialogue—this is a huge pet peeve of mine. I never understand why someone would willingly choose to confuse the reader. And who decides this? Is it the writer, or is it the editor? This is incredibly distracting and it detracted from what could have been an amazing story.

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HEIDI SOPINKA is a published journalist who has also written for The Believer.

She has also worked as a bush cook in the Yukon, a travel writer in Southeast Asia, a helicopter pilot, a magazine editor, and is co-founder and co-designer at Horses Atelier. The Dictionary of Animal Languages is her first novel.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

A special thank you to Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing for an audiobook listening copy.

Beginning with our protagonist not opening a very special door, The Starless Sea is an expanse of stories from a realm that contains lost cities and seas, and stories whispered by the dead.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins, now grown and a graduate student, finds an authorless book in his Uni library which has detailed him seeing (and not opening) that door. Completely baffled, armed with clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—and at a loss of how anyone could have known of this experience from his childhood, Zachary sets off on a journey to discover his life's purpose and what was behind the door.

After an eight year hiatus, Morgenstern returns with her elegant prose. This beautifully lyrical masterpiece is a story made up of stories, fables, and fairytales. Erin makes connections to these stories by interspersing them throughout Zachary's journey of self-discovery where he finds his own place in the book's narrative.

Told through an omniscient narrator, The Starless Sea is a whopping 512 pages of dazzling imagery. When I attended an event with Erin, she spoke of how she likes her books to have a strong visual language. This comes as no surprise given the intricate detail in the book.

Unlike other readers that found fault with there being too many stories with the actual story, my criticism has to do with the characters themselves. Morgenstern's writing is so visually stunning, her descriptions are rich and vivid, truly a feast for the senses, but the characters are the opposite—they are flat in that they are not fully fleshed out. One of my favourite descriptions in the book was Allegra's collection of door handles that were suspended like a mobile. We also never find out the symbolism and meaning behind the main visuals throughout the story: the bee, the sword, and the key. Perhaps this was done on purpose to leave the reader to draw their own conclusions? Or maybe the book is one giant metaphor?

The pure magic and genius of this book will solidify Morgenstern as one of the most gifted and unique writers today.

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ERIN MORGENSTERN is the author of the number-on national bestseller The Night Circus that has been sold around the world and translated into thirty-seven languages. Erin also has a degree in theater from Smith College.

Morgenstern lives in Massachusetts with her husband.

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

A special thank you to Libro.fm Audiobooks, Macmillan Audio, Edelweiss, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC/audiobook listening copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Whitman family moves into their newly built home in a tight-knit, established community. Their next door neighbours are single mother, Valerie Alston-Holt, a professor of forestry and ecology, and Xavier, her biracial gifted eighteen-year-old son. Other than sharing a property line, the families have little in common.

At first, the nouveaux-riche Whitmans appear to be a family with traditional values. Brad, the father, is a local celebrity with his charming commercials for his booming HVAC company. He also stepped up to raise Juniper, his wife's (secretly troubled) teenage daughter. But Brad's public persona is quite the opposite to his private one, and he's got secrets of his own.

Brad and Valerie become embroiled in a legal battle over the oak tree in Valerie's yard that is dying as a result of the Whitman's new build and Juniper and Xavier's romance fuels the fight between her stepfather and his mother. This cautionary tale builds to an incredible, tragic climax that negotiates its way through topics of race and race and racism, class and gentrification, sex and sexual violence, and the environment. 

This explosive novel takes place in a "good neighbourhood." Even though the tragedy that ensues has been heavily foretold, what unfolds is nothing short of remarkable. The narrative is layered and intricate with blame and consequence woven in. Fowler skewers the plot with topics of race, class, and love.

What I found most intriguing was how Fowler used the third person omniscient narrator—the neighbourhood—and occasionally breaks the fourth wall. This type of narrator brings forth some awesome truths, offers foreshadowing, and keeps the reader's interest.

My only criticisms are, that the story did take a while to get moving, and the relationship between Zay and Juniper was not fleshed out enough to be believable.

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THERESE ANNE FOWLER is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and A Well-Behaved Woman. She holds a BA in sociology/cultural anthropology and an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University.

Fowler lives in North Carolina. 

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

A special thank you to Libro.fm and HarperAudio for an audiobook listening copy.

Chloe Brown is a computer geek with a debilitating chronic illness. She has allowed her disorder to rob her of living her best life. After a near death experience, she decides to get a life and makes a list of things that will help her accomplish this.

The list is underway—Chloe has already checked off the first task which is to move out of her family's mansion. But she's going to need help with the rest of the items and knows just who to ask. She enlists the help of Redford 'Red' Morgan, her building's handyman. He has tattoos, a motorcycle, and is incredibly hot. Red is also an artist, he paints at night—Chloe may have spied on him a time or two.

Told in alternating points of view, Red is working on overcoming a past abusive relationship and Chloe is learning to stop letting her fibromyalgia steal any more of her happiness than it already has.

The narrator, Adjoa Andoh, was so FAB! She did a bang up job and was absolute perfection with all of the different character voices. (I hope she is signed on to do the rest of the series.)

This is a romance that deals with some rather heavy subject matter and Hibbert handles this with care. Her writing is authentic with multi-faceted characters: Red is sexy and charming, but vulnerable and creative, whereas Chloe deflects with her sharp-tongue and wit. She is also fabulously stylish and smart.

Hibbert writes sexy and diverse romances and this is exactly what we need more of. This book took me by surprise and quite simply captured my heart. Not only was it engaging, it was incredibly delightful and absolutely hilarious!

Talia, you are such a talent! I was utterly charmed and I can't wait to read the second book about the Brown sisters.

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TALIA HIBBERT is an award winning author who believes that people of marginalized identities need honest and positive representation. Her interests include makeup, junk food, and unnecessary sarcasm.

#HarperPresents: Holiday Cookie Decorating at the Toronto Christmas Market

Photo credit: Girl Well Read and #HarperPresents. Do not use without written permission.

What better way to get in the holiday spirit than with holiday cookie decorating at the world famous Toronto Christmas Market in the Distillery Historic District?

Karen Schaler—known as 'Christmas Karen' for all of her holiday themed books and films—was joined by Refinery 29's Carli Whitwell to talk about Karen's Netflix sensation A Christmas Prince, and her new novel Finding Christmas. 

A former military reporter, Karen was a hard news reporter (al-Qaeda, homeland security) who would pitch every day. She said that they were the saddest, hardest stories to hear. As cliché as it sounds, Karen wanted to make a difference and decided to try her hand at her new passion, travel journalism. She was a one-woman show with no photographer and no producer. It was just her!

When she was in Toronto doing her a travel show, she had a bit of a medical issue that required surgery, and she couldn't travel for three weeks. It was right around the holidays and Christmas movies became her therapy.

"It is a very formulaic story and surprisingly, they are difficult to write because you all know the ending," Karen said. So she studied the formula (the meet up, so many problems, the "near-miss" kiss, the "oh-no" moment when all is lost) and researched how commercials are timed. Her desire was to pull from her travel adventures and to tell love stories that anyone can watch.

In less than two years, Schaler has written original screenplays for Netflix, Hallmark, and Lifetime Christmas movies, as well as three Christmas novels for HarperCollins. Her original screenplay, A Christmas Prince, became one of Netflix’s most watched movies of all time. In 2018 she wrote the Hallmark original movie, Christmas Camp, and was then offered a book deal with HarperCollins. Even though she had the screen play for Christmas Camp, she wanted to do a novella (Christmas Camp Wedding: A Novella) and wanted to do a stand-alone book which turned out to be Finding Christmas (Karen also wrote the screenplay for it). Her newest movie, Rediscovering Christmas, will premier on Lifetime on December 15th, 2019.

"Finding Christmas was inspired by my dad." Schaler's parents split up when she was six and she grew up with very modest means. They didn't have a lot, but every Christmas, Karen's dad would set up a scavenger hunt for her to find her present. She didn't realize until she was older that it was the actual hunt that was the gift.

When Karen is writing, she doesn't describe someone by their hair colour, or their skin colour. This is done on purpose because she wants the reader to put themselves in the story and envision the character the way that they want to. "If I put diversity that might (in the Hollywood world) you know, throw somebody off. So if I don't say, it's kind of odd I think as an author, but I'm a new author and nobody told me I couldn't, so I don't say blonde hair, blue eyed."

Why do you think people want these movies right now?

"Things have been very divisive no matter what side you are on. There's so much anger, there's so much anxiety, there's so much uncertainty. We've gone backwards decades with some of our politics," Karen said. "A Christmas Prince is a safe place, it's an escape." You know you are getting your happily ever after.

Karen watches Hallmark for her wish fulfillment. She wanted to be part of that type of family, have all the beautiful decorations, and experience a happy ending because she didn't have any of that growing up. It is a connection—people are feeling a sense of family and these Christmas movies/novels are bringing people together. (As a side note: almost all of the Hallmark movies are shot in Canada and Karen is a proud member of the Writers Guild of Canada.)

In writing novels, Karen gets to be the director and the producer—they are in her own time. "When you can pick up a book and can be taken to that place, and you can be cozy with your mulled wine and your cookies. Novels will always be the ultimate number one storytelling in my mind." She went on to say that it is the purest way for an author to tell their story.

To end the afternoon, we all toasted with our mulled wine.

Finding Christmas

With all the glittering decorations, twinkling lights, snow angels, gingerbread men and mistletoe, Christmas is Emmie's first true love.

This year, she can't wait to share her favorite Christmas traditions with her boyfriend, Grant. Especially because she thinks he's "the one." So when Grant's hectic work schedule has him more "Bah Humbug" than "Ho, Ho, Ho," Emmie creates a holiday-themed scavenger hunt to help him find his Christmas spirit. At the end of the journey, Grant will arrive at the charming town of Christmas Point where she's planned a romantic weekend filled with holiday activities.

But Emmie's plan backfires—a mix-up has the wrong guy following her clues! Sam, a best-selling mystery writer, thinks that Emmie's clever Christmas riddles are from his agent to help him get over his case of writer's block.

When he arrives at Christmas Point and finds the stunned Emmie, he immediately feels she's someone special. But Emmie can't get past the fact that the wrong guy has shown up. Inspired by the charming town, Sam decides to make the best of it and convinces Emmie to join him in a little holiday fun while she waits for Grant.

When Grant finally does shows up, Emmie is disappointed that he's not enjoying the activities she so carefully planned and can't help wonder if he really is the one. She also can't get Sam out of her mind. With Christmas fast approaching, Emmie will need the magic of the season to help steer her in the direction of true love…

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KAREN SCHALER is a three-time Emmy Award–winning storyteller, author, screenwriter, journalist, and national TV host. She has written original screenplays for Netflix, Hallmark, and Lifetime Christmas movies, including the Netflix sensation A Christmas Prince.

Traveling to more than sixty-five countries as the creator and host of Travel Therapy TV, Karen is constantly inspired by the diverse people, places, and cultures she encounters. All of Karen’s stories are uplifting, filled with heart and hope.

Better Believe It by Fern Ronay

A special thank you to the author, Fern Ronay, for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

On social media, Jada Marlone is living the perfect life. She has a loving husband, a beautiful little boy, and a successful career. But her real life is far from being Instagram worthy—she is disconnected from her husband, motherhood is not what she expected, she has a strained relationship with her mother (if it's not one thing, it's your mother), and she's barely keeping it together at work.

Thinking that her lot in life is already set by the choices she's made, she has a chance encounter with her ex and wonders if this is the universe giving her a sign. But then Jada's dead cousin, Gina, starts appearing in her dreams to help her figure out why she's made some of the choices in her life. When things start to unravel, will she learn from Gina's lessons, or will she continue to make the same mistakes and live miserably ever after?

This story had the right amount of sass and smarts, and was purely entertaining. Jada is a complex character—on the surface she seems to have it all together, but she is simply trying to hold it together. I'm sure that there are many women that will be able to see parts of themselves in her and be able to relate on some level. My favourite scene was Ethan's fourth birthday party. Pure comedic gold. And I do love characters that cuss. There are loads of us that are well educated that curse like the proverbial drunken sailor.

For those of you that regularly read my blog, you know that I don't like comparisons. But Fern's writing is comparable to a Sophie Kinsella novel in that there is the same sharpness and humour. Once again, Ronay strikes the right balance of lightheartedness and purpose, and I devoured this in one sitting.

Congratulations, Fern, on another fab novel!

FERN RONAY is the author of two novels: Better in the Morning and Better Believe It. She also is the host of the podcast Signs from the Other Side.

Ronay has lived in NYC, Chicago, and now resides in Los Angeles with her husband, but she will always consider herself a Jersey girl.