The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst

July 22, 2025

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst

After using an illegal spell to create a sentient spider plant, librarian Terlu Pena was punished by being turned into a wooden statue, on display in the magical library as a warning to the rest of the staff not to dabble in the spells that they curated. But she hadn't meant any harm - she was just lonely. Nevertheless, the magic court decided to make an example of her. She stood on a pedestal in the library, frozen in place until one day, she wakes up to find herself in a winter forest on an island with no idea how she got there. Not only that, there is an enchanted greenhouse that is slowly dying, and a handsome gardener who expects Terlu to fix the greenhouse.

Charming cozy fantasy, not exactly a sequel to The Spellshop, more like a companion piece that provides the backstory of the librarian who made Caz the sentient spider plant. Terlu was the only character in the first book whose story was not resolved, so I'm glad the author decided to focus on her in this book. The greenhouses are marvelous creations, as are the green winged cat and the tiny dragons that act as pollinators. Themes are loneliness, forgiveness, and healing. The author has planned two or three more books set in this world. Another beautiful cover, too.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

A magical greenhouse

Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan

June 26, 2025

Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan

Max is a lawyer, part-time poet, and a mixed race trans woman. At 30 years old, after a break up with her longtime boyfriend, she falls down a flight of stairs at a New Year’s Eve party (and she wasn’t even drunk). Upon waking up in the hospital, she thinks it’s time to stop partying, settle down and be an adult. But she isn’t sure how to go about it. After she meets a man named Vincent, a British-Chinese man, she thinks she may be on the right track, but Vincent has his own set of baggage.

Someone described this as sad girl lit, which is pretty accurate. The main character, Max, is a mixed race transgender woman in a new relationship with a British-Chinese man. Both have their share of baggage (there are several scenes in the story of people packing suitcases), causing Max to wonder if we should judge people by who they are today or who they were in the past. Adulthood should come with a warning label. Complex themes include love, loss, identity, trans people, race, millennial angst. Love the cover. 

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Pile of baggage, just like the people in this book

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

November 24, 2023

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

Remy Wadia has traveled back to India, the country he left a decade earlier, to adopt a baby. He plans to meet the baby's mother, visit his estranged mother briefly, and then return home to the United States. But things take a sudden turn when he learns among other things that his mother is seriously ill and in the hospital.

I love Umrigar's fiction. She writes about universal topics from a new angle (not necessarily an Indian angle). Beautiful language. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys literary fiction.

A Mumbai street market/shopping district (the author still refers to Mumbai as Bombay)

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by

December 17, 2019

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal

The three Shergill sisters were all born in England, and only the oldest sister has ever visited India.  The sisters weren’t close growing up and have grown even further apart as adults.  They are shocked when their widowed mother makes a last request on her deathbed:  that her three daughters make a pilgrimage to India to visit the holy sites and spread her ashes.  Each of the sisters feels responsible for their mother’s lifelong unhappiness, and their stories unfold along their travels, bringing them closer together as their mother wished.

I was interested enough in the sisters to continue reading, but disappointed in the repetitiveness of their thoughts and the slow pacing made the story drag. 

(I’m sorry, but the India described in the book sounds like a horrible place:  very hot and humid, crowded, dirty, and dangerous for women.  There are 15% more men than women in India, due to the cultural preference for sons, and the Indian men in the story break into violence very quickly.)

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

July 27, 2019

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope met at the police academy and were rookie cops together.  They weren’t particularly close friends, but end up being neighbors in the New York suburb of Gillam.  Their children grow up together and the youngest two, Kate and Peter, become best friends.  But Brian’s wife Anne is mentally unstable, and when she commits a violent act, the two families are bound together forever.

In hindsight (which is always 20/20), several of the characters realize that they should have seen a tragedy approaching.  There is also a hint of Romeo-and-Juliet, when forbidden lovers Kate and Peter find each other again years later.  As the years pass, several of the characters come to realize that the people they demonized, are just regular people with their good and bad points, and that mental illness is just that, an illness.

Uncle George is somewhat overlooked in all the drama between the two families, but he is actually a wonderful character, the guy who always manages to show up when you need him, no matter what is going on in his life.  He is a hard-working man who takes on his brother’s responsibilities and makes major changes to his life without complaining (Peter realizes that his uncle was only around 30 when he took him in and raised him).  

Overall, I enjoyed the novel but there were a few things I would have changed.  I would have liked to hear from Lena (Francis’s long-suffering wife) about how she felt over the years.  Some episodes are over-explained and got a little long (yeah, the Stanhopes are genetically prone to alcoholism, we got it, no need to explain more).  Less teen-aged angst would have been okay, too.  The ending was a little unsatisfying.  I’m not sure what I was expecting but like a lot of literary fiction, the book sort of just stops when one of the characters realizes that they are all just fine.