Category: contemporary fiction

Book Review: Improbably Yours

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Improbably Yours by Kerry Anne King is a 345-page mystery novel with a romantic element as well. Blythe Harmon finds herself with a high-powered job and a marriage proposal that she feels she can’t say no to in order to have a “successful” life. However, she doesn’t feel fulfilled by these situations, and she receives a treasure hunt from her late grandmother Nomi, offering an escape…
Book Review: Funny Story

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Funny Story by Emily Henry is a 400-page romance novel. Daphne loves the way her fiancé Peter tells their story: how they met, fell in love, and moved back to his lakeside hometown to start a life together. He’s so much better at telling their love story than Daphne, that is until he realizes he’s in love with his childhood best friend Petra, kicking Daphne out…
Book Review: People We Meet on Vacation

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! People We Meet on Vacation is a 364-page romance novel by Emily Henry. Alex and Poppy are total opposites, but ever since they shared a car ride home in college, they’ve been the best of friends. Currently they live far apart, Poppy in New York City and Alex in their small hometown, but every summer for the past 10 years, they’ve taken one week of vacation…
Book Review: Happy Place

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Happy Place by Emily Henry is a 400-page romance novel set in Maine. Three couples go on their annual getaway to a Maine cottage, but one of them hasn’t broke the news that they’ve broken up. Harriet and Wyn have been the golden couple, the one the others look to for a relationship that has worked over the years despite long-distance issues as Harriet becomes a…
Book Review: Anxious People

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is a 336-page mystery set in a small town in Sweden. After a failed bank robbery attempt, the would-be bank robber holds an apartment full of potential buyers hostage. Eventually the hostages are let go, but the bank robber has disappeared. The father-son cop duo must solve how the bank robber escaped. This book was amazing from start to finish. It…
Book Review: Before the Coffee Gets Cold

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Trousselot) is a 213-page book focusing on four characters. There’s some magical realism involved, but it is primarily contemporary fiction. It’s also the first book in a series. Within the book there are four short stories, each story focusing on one of the characters, but all of the characters intertwine between stories, which I really…
Book Review: Beach Read

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Beach Read by Emily Henry takes place off the coast of Lake Michigan in the fictional town of North Bear Shores. It follows January Andrews and Augustus Everett as they navigate grief and writer’s block. January, a bestselling romance author who typically writes happily ever afters, no longer believes in love, and Augustus, an acclaimed literary fiction author who typically kills off his entire cast, is…