Half-Blown Rose by Leesa Cross-Smith

A special thank you to Grand Central Publishing and Hachette Book Group Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Vincent, having grown up as the privileged daughter of artists, has a lovely life in many ways. At forty-four, she enjoys strolling the streets of Paris and teaching at the modern art museum; she has a vibrant group of friends; and she’s even caught the eye of a young, charismatic man named Loup. But Vincent is also in Paris to escape a painful betrayal: her husband, Cillian, has published a bestselling book divulging secrets about their marriage and his own past, hinting that when he was a teenager, he may have had a child with a young woman back in Dublin—before he moved to California and never returned.

 

Now estranged from her husband, Vincent has agreed to see Cillian again at their son’s wedding the following summer, but Loup introduces new complications. Soon they begin an intense affair, and somewhere between dinners made together, cigarettes smoked in the moonlight, hazy evenings in nightclubs, and long, starry walks along the Seine, Vincent feels herself loosening and blossoming.

 

In a journey that is both transportive and intimate, Half-Blown Rose traverses Paris, art, travel, liminal spaces, and the messy complexities of relationships and romance, with excerpts from Cillian’s novel, playlists, and journal entries woven throughout. As Cillian does all he can to win her back, Vincent must decide what she wants...and who she will be.

Cross-Smith's strength is in her immersive prose. She doesn't shy away from creating a strong female lead who (gasp!) puts her own passion above everything, even her family. Reeling from betrayal, Vincent—as in van Gogh—embraces her desires and sexual needs and what it means to be a woman, even while bleeding and emotional. (There's lots of period talk.)

But here's what doesn't work. Every character is not only attractive, but intelligent and interesting, which makes it feel like it's a script for a Hollywood movie. There are also no consequences for anyone's actions, least of all our heroine's (cue the ending). Meandering at times and manic at others, readers will be left feeling a little empty.

Half-Blown Rose is compelling, passionate, and beautifully written.  

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LEESA CROSS-SMITH is a homemaker and the author of Every Kiss A War, Whiskey & Ribbons, So We Can Glow, and This Close to Okay. 

Cross-Smith lives in Kentucky with her husband and their two teenagers.

Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner

A special thank you to the author, Natalie Jenner, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans:

Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiance was killed in action during World War II, the brilliant and stylish Vivien has a long list of grievances - most of them well justified and the biggest of which is Alec McDonough, the Head of Fiction.

Grace Perkins: Married with two sons, she's been working to support the family following her husband's breakdown in the aftermath of the war. Torn between duty to her family and dreams of her own.

Evie Stone: In the first class of female students from Cambridge permitted to earn a degree, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less accomplished male rival. Now she's working at Bloomsbury Books while she plans to remake her own future.

As they interact with various literary figures of the time—Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell), Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and others—these three women with their complex web of relationships, goals and dreams are all working to plot out a future that is richer and more rewarding than anything society will allow.

Bloomsbury Girls is a story about friendship, perseverance, and the love of the written word. 

Vivien, Grace, and Evie are trying to forge their own paths in post-war London. Against the backdrop of a century old bookstore, the trio form an unlikely bond. Jenner's cast is further bolstered by the addition of some famous figures, shining a light on some of the overlooked women authors of that time. And there are also a few characters from The Jane Austen Society that make a cameo. 

Through the intertwined stories of the three women, Bloomsbury Girls examines class, prejudice, and gender roles. Each chapter opens citing one of the shop's archaic and stuffy rules—a clever plot device that becomes oh so satisfying in the Epilogue. Although this book features a larger cast of characters, they are well-developed and have purpose.     

In this union of historical and feminist fiction, there are flashes of romance as well as a little mystery. Jenner's meticulous research, beautiful writing, and rich detail make for another incredible reading experience. This wonderful followup to The Jane Austen Society will delight both historical fiction and literary fans.  

With its charming characters and bookshop setting, Bloomsbury Girls is every book lover's dream! 

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NATALIE JENNER is the author of the instant international bestseller The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls. A Goodreads Choice Award runner-up for historical fiction and finalist for best debut novel, The Jane Austen Society was a USA Today and #1 national bestseller, and has been sold for translation in twenty countries. 

Born in England and raised in Canada, Jenner has been a corporate lawyer, career coach and, most recently, an independent bookstore owner in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs.

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Q & A with Natalie Jenner*

GWR: Is there a particular author/work that inspired you to become a writer or the way you write? 

NJ: When I was very little, L. M. Montgomery was my biggest influence and inspiration – although I read from the age of three, the Anne of Green Gables books were the first ones that looked and felt grown-up to me and I overly identified with Anne as a victim of her own imagination! Quickly on Montgomery’s heels was Jane Austen, whose books I discovered relatively young in life on my parents’ shelves. I loved the efficiency of Austen’s prose: how she just dropped you into scenes and didn’t overly describe the characters’ physical appearance or setting. Ironically it felt very filmic to me, very alive – I now see how part of Austen’s genius was knowing exactly how much to give you, the reader, so that your own imaginative work as you read gives you the greatest possible satisfaction and reward.

GWR: What comes first for you—the overall idea or the characters?  

NJ: The idea for sure. I will read something in The New Yorker, or hear a line in a Netflix documentary, or hit my head on something while falling down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, and it just starts to itch. They say you often end up writing about the one thing you can’t not write about. Once I know the setting, time period, and what’s at stake, I sit down to write and then the characters just start showing up, fully formed. It’s so much fun meeting them.

GWR: Did any minor characters become major characters over the course of the novel? Do you have a favourite character? 

NJ: My characters all seem to innately know their place as I write, so it’s rare that one gets out of control. But Daphne du Maurier definitely ended up being a much more pivotal character for the women in the bookshop than I had originally intended, particularly in terms of the mentoring relationship she develops with Vivien. Vivien was a favourite character of mine as I wrote (all that sass and fashion-forwardness!), but honestly, I had a soft spot for all three women in the shop. I also developed a serious writing crush on Lord Baskin as I wrote, and Ash Ramaswamy slowly but stealthily stole my heart. By the end, I would have given Ash anything he wanted.

GWR: I loved your portrayal of what life would have been like for strong, intelligent women who are living outside of what is expected of them. Was there anything that you learned about that time period that surprised you? 

NJ: I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much women were getting done behind the scenes, so-to-speak. Clarissa Spencer-Churchill and Sonia Blair (George Orwell’s widow) really did have the run of the place at the literary journal Horizon whenever the men went off. It was strangely similar to the war: when the men were absent from the workplace, women were entrusted with things they otherwise weren’t, proving their competence all along. 

GWR: The inclusion of actual literary figures and social figures was fascinating. Can you tell us about the research you did? 

NJ: I do this weird thing as an author when I get that first “itch” to write something new: I look for relevant books, movies, and articles lying around the house (I own a lot of books and DVDs) and work from those first, because they are a sort of embryonic reflection of what intellectually turns me on. With Bloomsbury Girls, I had several books on Du Maurier already on my shelves, as well as a fascinating book published on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Foyles Bookshop in London called The Romance of a Bookshop 1904-1929, which set out its earliest financial, staffing, and sales history. As I write, I will trip across new resources which often end up informing the plot: for example, when I learned about Peggy Guggenheim’s time working at the Sunwise Turn, one of the first women-owned and operated bookshops in America, I was thrilled to discover that a 1923 memoir of that shop had recently been reprinted only six months before. So that account became both another seminal resource for me as well as a kind of thematic endgame for the women in my story, who decide to try to take over the bookshop where they work. And the inclusion of Samuel Beckett came about because of a throwaway line in a Netflix documentary on Guggenheim which mentioned her affair with Beckett in the 1930s. So the research process for me happens both before and during the writing, and can look quite haphazard from the outside, but through it all runs a thread of personal meaning—even quirkily of fate—which makes it a joy for me to find ways to incorporate into the actual story.

GWR: What was the inspiration behind the shop rules? 

NJ: I come from decades of working in human resources, most often as a career coach and recruiter, so looking back I think the rules reflect all those HR handbooks and guides I had to administer! The rules also come from the personality of Mr. Dutton, the shop’s general manager: I remember writing the interview scene with Evie Stone at the beginning, and right away picturing how Dutton would have his own HR handbook of a sort, properly framed and installed where everyone would have to see it when sitting in his office. But even before that, different rules had started tumbling out of the various disaffected employees’ mouths as I wrote their initial dialogue, reflecting the strained work environment they are all about to rebel against!

GWR: If Bloomsbury Girls was a beverage, what would it be? 

NJ: It would definitely be what I recently learned the British call “builder’s tea”: strongly brewed black tea, with heaps of sugar and some milk, that is the reward for hard work and a source of camaraderie in the workplace, be it at a construction site or in a bookshop.

GWR: Evie has traversed your novels, do you have more stories for these characters? 

NJ: I am working on a third book which, like Bloomsbury Girls, is a stand-alone but carries forward one of its new characters: Vivien Lowry, the insolent shopgirl and budding playwright. This book takes place five years later at the Cinecittà movie studio in Rome, where Peggy Guggenheim has lands Vivien a job as a script doctor after her latest play bombs. Part of the fun with this book was having a few characters from The Jane Austen Society suddenly show up that I wasn’t planning on, and getting to catch up with them all over again. 

GWR: What is one thing you hope readers take away from your books? 

NJ: I do believe that no matter how difficult life is, you have to find ways to move forward, big or small. That even the smallest decisions or choices (a new book, chatting with someone behind you in line, a cup of coffee with an old friend) can lead to something huge and sustaining. That is, ironically, exactly what happened to me five years ago, when I turned to the works of Jane Austen to get through a difficult health challenge for my family. I had no idea it would lead to my finally getting published after decades of trying, and I so hope that my books always give people that same measure of hope and optimism, as well as a sense of the rich value of our relationships with those around us and in our communities at large.

*A version of this post was published on STYLE Canada.

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

A special thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Money can't buy happiness... But it can buy a decent fake.

Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home--she's built the perfect life. But beneath this facade, Ava's world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn't been used in years, and her toddler's tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point.

Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business--someone who'd never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left holding the counterfeit bag. 

Counterfeit is stylish, soapy, and sharp. Chen pulls back the curtain on the knock-off designer handbag business and on the Chinese factories where they are mass produced. 

This fashion-forward novel is a union of contemporary fiction and mystery. Chen employs a hybrid point of view, shifting from second person—Ava is talking to the detective—to Winnie's third-person account in the second part. She stays within the tight context of the women's relationship, leaving her reader to guess which story is real and which is the counterfeit? 

With strong female characters, Counterfeit is full of glitz, hustle, friendship, and secrecy.

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KIRSTIN CHEN is an award-winning, best-selling author of three novels. Counterfeit has been recommended by Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Time, Oprah Daily, Haper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Parade, and more. Television rights have been optioned by Sony Pictures. Her previous two novels are Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners.

Chen was born and raised in Singapore and now lives in San Francisco. 

The Truth About Ben and June by Alex Kiester

A special thank you to HarperCollins Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A heartfelt debut that explores the complexity of a modern-day marriage when a new mother vanishes one morning and her husband must retrace events of their recent past to bring her home.

Love isn’t something that happens to you; it’s something you must choose every day.

From the moment Ben and June met in a hospital waiting room on New Year’s Eve, their love has seemed fated. Looking back at all the tiny, unlikely decisions that brought them together, it was easy to believe their relationship was special. But now, after several years of marriage, June is struggling as a new mom. At times, she wonders about the life she didn’t choose—what might have been if she hadn’t given up the lead role in a famous ballet to start a family. Feeling like a bad mom and more alone than ever, she writes to her deceased mother, hoping for a sign of what she should do next.

Waking to the sound of his baby, Ben realizes that June is gone, along with her suitcase. As Ben attempts to piece together June’s disappearance, her new friends mention things he knows nothing about—a mysterious petition, June’s falling-out with another mom, her strange fixation on a Greek myth. The more Ben uncovers about June, the more he realizes how little he actually knows her. And now the only way to bring June home is to understand why she left.

One of the central themes in The Truth About Ben and June is the Greek tragedy Medea. June, a former professional ballet dancer, had been cast to play the lead before becoming pregnant with her son. She resonates with the story which becomes apparent through the flashbacks and June's journal entries—techniques Kiester uses to propel the narrative.

Told through alternating perspectives of husband and wife, The Truth About Ben and June is an honest look into the highs and lows of marriage—as well as motherhood—and how many women sacrifice their careers in order to be the primary caregivers in their families. 

Kiester treats her characters with care in this solid debut. All-in-all good effort, even with the convenient conclusion.

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ALEX KIESTER has a degree in creative writing from Rhodes College and has worked as a copy editor and a book editor. The Truth About Ben and June is her debut.

Kiester lives with her husband in Austin, TX. 

Are You Sara? by S. C. Lalli

A special thank you to the author, S. C. Lalli, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Two women named Sara each get into a rideshare...but only one makes it home alive. Which Sara was the real target?

Law student Saraswati “Sara” Bhaduri holds down two jobs in order to make her way through school, but it’s still a struggle. She’s had to do things to pay the bills that most people wouldn’t expect from “a nice Indian girl.” It seems like an ordinary busy Tuesday night at Gavin's, the local dive bar, until her boss demands Sara deal with a drunk girl in the bathroom.

The two have an instant connection despite their different circumstances. Why? Because they both have the same name. When they both order rideshares home, Sara and Sarah tumble in the back of the cars and head out into the night.

But when Sara awakes in her rideshare, she finds she's on the wrong side of town—the rich side—and she realizes: she and Sarah took the wrong cars home.

With no money, Sara walks back to her apartment—on the shady side of town—only to discover police lights flashing and a body crumpled on her doorstep: Sarah.

Was Sarah Ellis or Sara Bhaduri the target? And why would anyone want either of them dead?

The result of Lalli's foray into the thriller genre is an unflinching and compulsive novel which features two dynamic and powerful voices with present day Sara Bhaduri and past Sarah Ellis. Because the two women only meet each other once in real life, Sarah's flashbacks fully flesh out the story.

This whip-smart psychological thriller is a comment on social status and expectations—both societal and familial. Sara Bhaduri's character also has the added layers of race and class, and because of Lalli's tight character development, she is incredibly complex and compelling. 

If you like a darker, grittier read, Are You Sara? is a perfect addition for your shelves. Congratulations, S. C. Lalli on a remarkable thriller debut.

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S. C. LALLI is an author of Punjabi and Bengali heritage who writes romance and women’s fiction novels under her full name Sonya Lalli. She studied law in her hometown of Saskatoon, Canada, and at Columbia University in New York. Sonya has worked in law, legal journalism and book publishing. 

Lalli lives in Vancouver with her husband.

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Q & A with S. C. Lalli*

GWR: Are You Sara? is your first foray into the crime thriller genre, did your writing process differ from the way you would approach a romance novel?

SCL: I am a plotter, not a pantser, when writing my romcoms. I know who my characters are, I have a general idea of the different obstacles they will face during the story, and I know where they will end up.

When it came to writing my thriller, I was definitely a major plotter as well—and I thought I really had a handle on my main characters, the important plot points, all the necessary red herrings, etc. before I started writing. However, I still found that during writing the draft a lot happened that I hadn’t planned for or thought of before. I found out that you really need to leave enough room to be creative as you go and let the characters take interesting twist and turns—sometimes with interesting results that surprised me and I hope will surprise readers as well. For example, one subplot that ties into the overall plot of the novel is Sara’s romantic life and interests—it changed completely as I was writing the story. After spending time with Sara, writing her, watching her character evolve and become more nuanced, the subplot of how she handles her romantic life and interacts with the people around her changed a lot. 

GWR: How did you come up with the concept? What sparked the idea?

SCL: Several years ago (pre-Covid), while I was out in Toronto with friends and waiting for my Uber to arrive, I looked across the street and saw another woman waiting for her ride. Our cars pulled up at the same time and they were the same colour. We both went our separate ways but on my way home I ended up thinking about what might have happened if we had gotten into each other’s rides? 

It sparked an idea—what if this scenario happened to a woman and she got into the wrong car, and ended up at the wrong house? What happens after she eventually gets home and finds the other woman dead on her doorstep? Everything else—the story of who Sara is and why someone might want to kill her—all came later, and was based on other half-baked concepts I had thought about before. 

GWR: What comes first for you—the overall idea or the characters?  

SCL: Usually the overall idea comes first for me and this was what happened for Are You Sara?. That being said, I had the seed for a character like Sara for a long time. Sara is a woman who defies stereotypes—she always does what she wants and is independent, unabashedly ambitious and driven. A no nonsense type of person. While developing this book idea, I realized that it was the perfect plot for a character like Sara.

GWR: What do you have more fun with, character development or plot?

SCL: I usually have more fun with the plot because I get to play around with it a lot more. Once my characters are in place, I have so much fun crafting the plot and subplots and figuring out how everything fits together. It’s like a puzzle. 

GWR: Why did you decide to write Are you Sara? from a dual point of view and timeline? Was it easier or more difficult to explore parallel storylines? 

SCL: Sara Bhaduri is the main character and we see the majority of the novel unfold through her eyes. However, it was really important for readers to understand and get to know Sarah Ellis, the victim in the first chapter. We get to see Sarah Ellis evolve in the years, months, and days leading up to her murder. We get to know her as a person, not just a victim. Writing flashback chapters from her POV made natural sense. Because the two women only meet each other once in real life, right before the murder, writing from Sara’s POV alone wouldn’t have been enough to really flesh out the story.

GWR: How did your background in law and previous legal journalism experience shape the novel?  

SCL: My background definitely informed a lot. Sara is in law school and I was able to use my own university experience to inform this. Sara is very cynical about the law and the justice system—it’s a huge part of her character—and having a background in law helped me write that part of her character in a more nuanced way.

GWR: What is your favourite part of the publishing process? 

SCL: The first edit. I love drafting a novel, but at some point, I know I need fresh eyes and I am lucky to have editors who I trust and who understand exactly what I’m trying to accomplish. I love that feeling of getting an editorial letter and know that I’m about to begin working on a substantive edit. Editors see the holes, what can be improved/ polished, and seeing their ideas/ suggestions often spurs my own creativity and I end up finding all sorts of ways to improve my characters and the story. 

GWR: If your book was a beverage, what would it be? 

SCL: Definitely an Old Fashioned. I think in general any kind of stiff cocktail would describe Sara—she’s a bad ass who can handle her liquor. But I think the Old Fashioned is also the perfect homage to the old school law clique/Boys Club that Sara finds herself in.

GWR: Can you share what you are working on now?

SCL: Right now, I am editing my fifth rom-com—which will publish in April 2023. (Name TBC) It’s a companion novel to a A Holly Jolly Diwali (published under Sonya Lalli) and focuses on the main character in that book’s older sister Jasmine. After that, I’ll turn to writing my next thriller. I have a few ideas and can’t wait to get started...

*A version of this post was published on STYLE Canada.

In the Weeds by B. K. Borison

A special thank you to the author, B. K. Borison, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Evelyn St. James isn’t the kind of woman you forget.

Beckett Porter certainly hasn’t. One incredible weekend in Maine, and he’s officially a man distracted. He’s not unfamiliar with hot and heavy flings. He knows how it goes. But Evie wove some sort of magic over him during their tumble in the sheets. He can’t stop thinking about her laugh. Her hand pressed flat against his chest. Her smiling mouth at his neck.

Also, her eyes. And her legs. 

So when she suddenly appears on his farm as part of a social media contest, he is…confused. He had no idea that the sweet and sexy woman he met at a bar is actually a global phenomenon: social media influencer Evelyn St. James. When she disappears again, Beckett resolves to finally forget her and move on. 

But Evelyn St. James has a problem. 

Feeling disconnected from her work and increasingly unhappy, she’s trying to find her way back to something real. She returns to the last place she was happy, Lovelight Farms and the tiny town of Inglewild. 

It has absolutely nothing to do with the hot farmer she spent two incredible nights with. 

Nothing at all. 

Borison's follow-up to Lovelight Farms is a second-chance romance about finding one's own happiness and worth. 

Evie is a workaholic that is struggling in her daily life with balance and burnout. Beckett is surrounded by strong women—his mom, his sisters, Stella, and Layla—but even with the emotional depth this allows him, he has trouble voicing his wants. There is an added layer of vulnerability that comes through in his love for animals and how social settings are a bit much for him (cue the earmuffs).      

Borison's writing is quiet and unassuming. It literally creeps up on you and envelopes you in a giant hug—which is what you will want to do with this book when you finish it. Besides a few missteps with punctuation, it is hard to believe that she isn't a seasoned author and is self-published. 

In the Weeds is a second-chance romance is about finding one's own happiness and worth. It is sweet, steamy, and sexy. A total smash! 

B. K. BORISON started writing in the margins of books when she was in middle school and hasn't stopped. Lovelight Farms was her debut novel.

Borison lives in Washington D.C. with her sweet husband, vivacious toddler, and giant dog.