Mini Reviews: New Releases + Audio Books

 

 

These two books, The Cliffs and A Novel Love Story, just came out this summer and I had high hopes for both as I have read books by both of these authors previously and enjoyed them, but ultimately, they fell flat despite one of the books being a Reese Book Club pick.

 

 

 

The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

Genre: Adult Fiction/Audio Book

Pub. Date: July 2, 2024

Publisher: Random House Audio

Source: Personal Copy

Other Books By Author: The Engagements

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

 

 

Goodreads says, "On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth."

 

 

Jane, a Harvard archivist, looks like she has it all. Her dream job and a decent husband, but she has some major demons that she fights daily, the biggest being her alcoholism, which runs in her family. After a work event gone wrong, her life is upended and she ends up taking some time off to go through her mother's estate in Maine. While there, she notices the old Victorian house on the cliffs that she used to explore in her childhood, but has now been renovated. The new owner, Genevieve Richards, has decided that the house is haunted and hires Jane to research the house's history to figure out what is happening. A haunted beach house and complex characters make for a compelling novel. Still, The Cliffs were interspersed with too many heavy topics, such as colonialism, mistreatment of Indigenous people, death of a child, Shakers, and alcoholism, that it felt weighed down and downright depressing.

At first, I found The Cliffs to be entirely compelling. An old house? Yes, please. A possible ghost? Yes, please. Learning about the history of the house and its inhabitants throughout the years? Yes, please. But then Sullivan took a weird turn. It got very exposition heavy and almost like a lecture on Maine's history as well as Indigenous people. While I expected some of that given the history of the house and town, I didn't expect it to be like sitting through a history class. In fact, at one point during the audiobook, I thought I had pulled up a non-fiction book in my library instead of The Cliffs. Also, interspersed between compelling plot points were such heavy topics like the death of a child that the book felt weighed down....too weighed down to bring on vacation, in my opinion.

A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston

Genre: Romance/Audio Book

Pub. Date: June 25, 2024

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Source: Publisher for review

Other Books By Author: The Dead Romantics

and The Seven Year Slip

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

Goodreads says, "A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction… literally.

Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going to her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.

But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel… Because it is.

This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.

Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.

Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.

Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own."

 

English professor, Elsy, loves her book club and spends a week on a reading retreat with them every year in New York. On the way to the retreat, she ends up in bad weather and is detoured into a small idyllic town. The more time she spends in this town, the more time she realizes it is very similar to Eloraton, her favorite fictional town from her favorite book series, Quixotic Falls. As she spends time in Eloraton, she realizes that all of her favorite characters are popping up. She recognizes everyone but Anders, the bookstore owner. A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston is a charming novel for fans of romance and magical realism.
 
What bookworm hasn't wished they could wake up at their favorite literary destination? Whether it be Virgin River, Stars Hollow, Castle Leoch, Green Gables, or other locations, this is a bookworm's dream. Poston taps into that very well with A Novel Love Story. It is a cute read, but I must say it didn't suck me in as much as The Dead Romantics, which I adored.  Ultimately, this novel fell flat for me, because I just couldn't connect with Elsy or her romantic interest; in fact, it felt a bit too cutesy for me at times, especially with the audiobook narrator's southern accent. However, if you love a cozy romance, give this one a try this summer.

 

 

 

Are you a fan of J. Courtney Sullivan or Ashley Poston? Are these books on your summer TBR list? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.