Category: magical realism
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Book Review: The Nightmare Before Kissmas
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! The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sarah Raasch is a 368-page romance novel with the main focus being Christmas Price Nicholas “Coal” Claus and Halloween Price Hex. It’s the first in the Royals and Romance series. Here is the book blurb: Nicholas “Coal” Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape…
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Book Review: The Coincidence Makers
This post contains mild spoilers. The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum is a 304-page magical realism novel where the Coincidence Makers—Guy, Emily, and Eric—work for a secret organization dedicated to creating and carrying out coincidences. They pretend to be ordinary people, but each have a notebook with assignments to orchestrate events designed to spark significant changes in the lives of their targets. Any coincidence people have ever had was thanks to people like them, who seem to be borderline angels or other supernatural entities. I adored this book; it was such a cute story and a unique idea. It’s hard…
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Book Review: Tokyo Ueno Station
This post contains major 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! Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated to English by Morgan Giles, is a 168-page contemporary fiction. From the publisher: A surreal, devastating story of a homeless ghost who haunts one of Tokyo’s busiest train stations. Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and…
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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…