The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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IT. IS. TOMORROW! Sign up here and join us at 7:30pm Central Time in discussing Alyssa Cole’s thriller When No One Is Watching at Virtual Book Club. Nikki and I are well on the way to finishing. As of this post I’m at 86% and Nikki’s at 55%. We won’t be struggling to finish because phew once that plot gets moving it’s hard to put down. I’m having some big, BIG feelings about neighborhood dynamics, but I’m not going to spoil them here, you’ll just have to join us tomorrow to find out what really got my heart rate up.

Who else was low-key obsessed with the 1997 animated film Anastasia? You KNOW the one – where Anya, suffering from amnesia, is found by the servant boy Dimitri who saved her from the riots that killed her parents and siblings. Where Rasputin is an evil sorcerer who is determined to remove the Romanov line from existence and has an adorable white bat as a sidekick. (Yes, I know it’s now a Broadway Musical!) Well, author Molly Tullis has taken her obsession of all things historical Russian empire and recreated the story of the end of the Romanovs by giving Anastasia the actual and magical power to save or destroy the family and therefore Russia. The Romanov Oracle is the angsty, sexy, trope-filled homage to Molly’s history obsession and everyone’s desire to be the one making decisions for their own life.

I need to admit that I found darling Molly one night during my late night Instagram Reels doom scrolling, sent some Reel (or multiple of them) to Nikki – probably pertaining to the ACOTAR Bat Boys (IYKYK) – and we became OBSESSED with her presence on Bookstagram. Molly is authentic, relatable, and accessible to her fans and fellow bookworms. She gives almost daily coffee pep-talks in her Instagram stories where she also shares her love of Cassian, videos of her French bulldog Jean Valjean, and reminds us to drink some water. She espouses red lipstick, black clothes, finger tattoos, dark-haired and morally-grey men, and loving yourself for who you are. The Romanov Oracle is her debut novel, and she’s currently working on a four-book Greek Mythology series, the first of which, Consort of Darkness (Asphodel Series #1), has already been released. (Truthfully, we debated adding Nyx and Erebus’ story to Mythology in March last month, but we wanted to review her debut novel on the blog first and already had it planned for April Showers.) She is, and you’re probably getting tired of us saying this on the blog, our people.  #NotSorry

Now, if you haven’t figured it out yet, The Romanov Oracle IS a Romance Novel. We have Anastasia and Mikhail with all of the tropes working against them (and FOR us!) – enemies to lovers, one bed, with a bit of an age gap. We still get that Happily Ever After we expect and crave. Nikki will cover the struggles we both had getting into their story, but once it got going, we were absolutely along for the personal and political rides. This story is more than just those Romance Novel Tropes we love and adore, there’s definitely an underlying commentary on economic disparity and the ways in which people can help those less fortunate. For Anastasia, helping those in poverty in St. Petersburg required her to be just a little bit evil to those of her own class. There were moments of levity, like when Anastasia must explain to Mikhail that there was a woman at the ball indicating with her fan, to him and everyone else in attendance, that she would like to take him to bed! The embarrassment is delicious. 

Finally, my favorite line was repeated at least three times: “She’s magnificent when she’s burning.” And when Molly is burning to tell a story, it’s magnificent. Solid 4 star review debut novel, and even though I probably won’t re-read The Romanov Oracle, The Asphodel Series is on my TBR. (Like that is even a surprise for you.)

Drink Some Water.

~Ashley

Growing up in the early nineties, it felt required to have strong feelings towards all things princesses (#ThanksButNotReally Disney).  We were still in the days of female leads “needing” rescuing from an assortment of struggles by dashing men (*eyeroll*), so while I’ve still not seen Anastasia, I do love a good story about a lost princess and also feel like Russia (particularly before the revolution) is this larger-than-life empire bathed in mystery and glamour.  Maybe that’s just me, but reading Anna by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles in my mom’s Reader’s Digest compilation hardback got me interested, and then in 2019, Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy definitely helped to stoke that interest in a big way!  All that said, when we learned darling Molly we’d come to adore from Instagram also had a novel about Russia I was all in.  I didn’t know anything about it, but it didn’t matter because I’d gotten to know Molly and her reading taste, so it was going to be a fun ride, and was it ever.

I love a good historical reimagining, and that’s how The Romanov Oracle reads.  What if Anastasia had magic?  What if that magic was key to freeing the Russian people from their plight under the rule of the Romanov dynasty?  And what if there was a dashing man there to support (note, I did not say save or help on purpose) her in her efforts?  That is this book, and while it doesn’t start strong, it certainly ends fantastically.  Shockingly, I didn’t want more from the ending.  It’s tied up nicely, with just enough epilogue, and the ending fits the history of Anastasia disappearing.  Everything else doesn’t align that nicely, as Molly’s Anastasia is about ten years older than the historic person, and our leading male is significantly younger than his historical counterpart, and very different in character as well.  Readers should note this is a debut novel, and it reads like one in the beginning.  There’s a bit of backstory in a prologue that is, well, it’s just very underwhelming to read.  Then there are a few chapters that I didn’t love before we jump ahead 15 years and really dig into the story.  I wanted more or better or something from those initial chapters, but Molly more than makes up for it in the remainder of the book.  I’m assuming these pieces are simply Molly and her editor finding their way through the text and hoping for better with her second book.  Again, the rest of the book redeems this for me, and so much more.

Overall, I’m giving The Romanov Oracle 4 solid stars.  The story is solid and creative, and the writing becomes what I wanted and expected after following Molly for several months on Instagram.  I want to tell you the best part for me, but that’s going to take some setup, just like the book.  Molly is very open on Instagram, about who she is, about her past, and about her life.  From following her, I know that she’s working with a therapist to move past a traumatic, religious, patriarchal upbringing (my words, her word is cult).  She’s moving away from all of those pieces of her life before, putting up firm boundaries with her family of origin, and finding herself.  The work of her religious deconstruction is very present in her Instagram, and she’s taken it down to the core and is building up exactly what she wants it to be in its place (tarot cards, crystals, odes to Hades, and all).  I can see Molly working through her trauma, her past, and the way she was treated by those who should have been protecting and nurturing her in this book, through her main characters, and it’s just gorgeous to see all of her internal work come out of her being in this way and to see how far she’s come.  While Molly and Ann Voskamp have very different views on religion, they just might have similar views on writing – that writing a book is the way they process life experiences.  Personally, I don’t need to subscribe to all of Molly’s religious beliefs to appreciate her writing, or her message of independence and self-love on social media, and I relish every time I hear “Good morning babies, it’s coffee time” and just know she’s got a good pep talk coming ahead (and this one might be my favorite).  

What is a book that you read that you read differently because you had some familiarity with the author?

~Nikki 

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The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

As we quickly approach our next Virtual Book Club on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. CST for a discussion of Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching, I’m even more excited since today’s review title is also a thriller!  I might be in a genre hole currently (thank you Kindle Unlimited) and I’m delighted to have some thrillers sprinkled throughout!  If you want something new in your reading life, or love thrillers, or just want a book to talk about with some fun people, sign up here to join in the fun.  

Oh. Darling. Readers.  Today, we’re sharing with you about The Guide by Peter Heller.  It’s been about a year and a half since we read, adored, and reviewed The River, which takes place a few years before The Guide.  You don’t need to read The River before reading The Guide [even though Ashley thinks you need to], however, you’ll understand the main character of The Guide more if you do, because he’s one of the main characters in The River, and y’all, some traumatic things take place in that fantastic book (see post for content warnings).  Here’s what you need to know about The Guide: a few years after the events of The River, Jack finds himself signing-on mid-season as a fishing guide at an elite lodge in his home state of Colorado.  There’s more than fishing going on, and, like main characters do, Jack gets sucked into discovering what’s going on and drama ensues.  

The Guide is about trauma, grief, different pieces of society, and fishing.  The marketing copy says it’s “a novel as gripping as it is lyrical, as frightening as it is moving…” and I agree, except it’s not frightening, but it is thrilling, or maybe suspenseful.  I didn’t know how calming fishing could be, but now I have an idea of it (yes, from a thriller).  It made me want to travel to the Rockies and experience some of the majestic sites Heller gorgeously described, and maybe even hire a guide of my own and do some fishing (although I haven’t fished in more than 20 years, and that was maybe twice).  As this novel was published in August 2021, I appreciated that it mentioned the pandemic, not as a main plot point, but as something that is happening outside the grounds of the lodge and as a reason folks might need a face mask when they leave.  There is talk of quarantines, as there are visits to town, and mandatory temperature checks when they return, but it’s not the focus.  Content warnings are needed for violence and abuse.  Neither are described in great detail, but both are present and gruesome.  

The best part about The Guide is the writing.  It’s paced just like Heller’s description of Jack’s client getting her first fish of the week, slow and calm, then running to chase it, and reel it in. As Jack is getting to know his client, she says “Never Summers and the Gore Range.” “God, the names. You could almost walk into the words themselves.” That’s exactly how I feel about Heller’s descriptions of nature and of fishing, you could just walk into the words.  Heller doesn’t just show the actions of the fishing, but through internal monologue, we also learn the mindset of fishing, how those who master it, or anything, easily become absorbed by the activity.  As Jack is trying to discover what’s happening at the lodge, he’s also trying to figure out who he can trust, and does a bit of a deep dive into the character of one of the lodge’s guests, so there’s a bit of a character study as well.  Jack’s internal monologue is just as poetic as someone who has “read and read with the hunger of someone seeking more than diversion.”  You read that right readers, if you remember from The River, Jack is our people.  For the record, again, there isn’t enough epilogue.  I want the settling of the characters after, which only sort of happens, but only a snapshot of settling. 

Even with that feeling of ‘more epilogue’, I’m giving The Guide a solid four stars.  I won’t likely reread this, but I’m even more interested in his backlist than I was before.  I think this book might be the reason I give Peter Heller a season pass.  This is another gorgeous novel that has amazing depth, lush descriptions, and made me, again, interested in something (fishing) I had no prior interest.  

What’s a novel that featured something you are now interested in because of your reading experience?

~Nikki 

In the way way back of September 2020 when we reviewed The River during Emergency Preparedness month, I focused on Peter Heller’s lyrical prose and fabulous structure. As I write this blog post, there are April ‘showers’ – read thunderstorms – creating music and a light show outside. It seems the perfect ambiance to reflect upon the second novel I have read by Heller and all of the amazing ways he thrilled and surprised me with his words. I forgot that Heller has an MFA in both poetry and fiction, but his skill is undeniable. I am having trouble putting what I love about The Guide into coherent sentences without spoiling major plot points of the story. Maybe I should just list the things that have touched me and not be coherent about it at all.

1. I love that what makes Jack our people is his love of the written word and the semi-pretentious way he thinks about his experience in academia. 
2. I love the way Heller is able to showcase his knowledge and love of both fiction and poetry by the way Jack and the other characters speak about literature.
3. I love the way Jack guides his client, Allison K., through fishing the river and the way their relationship develops through all the drama at the lodge.
4. I love how Jack speaks Spanish to Ana, the woman who cleans his cabin at the lodge, in order to build a rapport with someone with whom he would be working for the rest of the summer.
5. I love the way Heller fictionalizes the later stages of the COVID pandemic and how very real life it currently feels.
6. I love how in Jack’s inner monologues I am reminded about what it means to be human. The feelings we feel, the thoughts we think, that are so similar and yet make each one of us completely different from the other.
7. I love how Jack keeps a milk-crate of his favorite books in his truck so that they are always on hand. I feel like my kindle works for the same purpose.
8. This last point has spoilers. Click on “details” to reveal it.
   I love the flashbacks Jack has of his family life on the ranch in Colorado and the way he remembers his mom and Wynn who both died tragic deaths in front of him. (Yes, this is a spoiler for The River and I’m sorry but it’s inherently integral to understanding who Jack is as a character.)

Be prepared to read straight through to the end of the novel once you reach the 75% mark. It’s a quick read over all and when the climactic events start occurring it becomes un-put-downable. I’m giving The Guide a four star review, too, but only because I, like Nikki, don’t foresee re-reading it. I will, however, continue to prioritize Heller’s new releases and will at some point make it to his backlist. Maybe I’ll pick one up the next time I am out in the wilderness, whenever that will be.

~Ashley

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The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

With about two weeks until virtual book club, how’s your reading coming along?  We have both checked out When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole  from the digital library and we’re looking forward to it, but that’s about it for now.  We’ll get there, but we’re more excited to see your faces on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. CDT for those who sign up here to get the link to our Virtual Book Club conversation.  We also want to know, so leave us a comment, or slide into our DMs, what you’re reading lately, and what you’re wanting to read and discuss with others.  We’ve been enjoying discussing a recent read over the last several days, and want your help in selecting some virtual book club titles for the rest of the year.  Genres, titles, likes, dislikes, let us know yours so we can plan some fun reads and readerly conversations for us all!

It comes as a bit of a surprise to me that Nikki and I have never actually reviewed a book by Helen Ellis (except that one time when Ashley sort of did). We’ve discussed her books, Southern Lady Code and American Housewife, multiple times when we used to make more book list posts on Mondays. C’est la vie, we have moved on from that. (Ain’t nobody got time for that mess around here anymore.) Helen Michelle (as she has admitted in Southern Lady Code that her mother calls her, and so now we do too) was born and raised in Alabama and currently lives in New York City with her husband and cats. Besides being one of the most humorous authors we have ever read, Helen Michelle also plays poker professionally. (More on that in a bit.) We love her sass and give-no-effs attitude, and how terribly real she is about everything in life, the good, the hilarious, and the terrible.

Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light: Essays by Helen Ellis is an essay collection filled with tales of friendship, family, and the daily struggles and celebrations of ‘grown-ass women.’ Unlike American Housewife which is filled with short stories that might could be true, every essay from Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light is based on Helen Michelle’s life. From the story of her friend’s battle with breast cancer, to her elderly parents’ downsizing from a four-bedroom house, to her own decision to get plastic surgery – her ‘Doubleday chin’ as she’s calling it – the wit and truth sound like your own best friends telling you about their adventures (or their trials). Oh, my favorite part was during the story of “The Last Garage Sale.” This is where we learn that Helen Michelle’s papa made “Everything for my sister and me [into] an opportunity to gamble.” And she learned to play poker from her father. In that same story, we hear about how Helen Michelle’s younger sister uses the same positive reinforcement tactics with her children – like betting her six year old son a nickel that he doesn’t have to pee before they get in the car (he pees, everyone wins!). Thrown in with all these anecdotes from real life are truth bombs like: “My parents were planning to downsize from their four-bedroom house, where I’d never lived, so I had few sentimental attachments. I am attached to my parents, but when it comes to their stuff (and their parents’ stuff, and their parents’ parents’ stuff), I can take it or leave it.” Girlfriend, yes. I can honestly just leave it. Less stuff, more fun stories!

Any Southern girl will find so much amusement in what Helen Michelle says about us as a collective and how we express our individuality. Did you know that there’s a difference between being a character and being a booze hound. “A character is more of a room-temperature thing out of place. Like a dildo on a coffee table. You can’t believe what you are seeing. But there it is. Right next to the remote.” We will find so much to laugh over when she talks about her life in New York, because we don’t have to experience random people’s nudity on the subway. She speaks of female friendships through the decades and how they evolve and also how having friends older and younger than you by a decade is always necessary to keep you on the proper course.

I can’t say anything else except 10/10 recommend everything Helen Michelle Ellis writes. Five Star Review, Always. Season Pass Holder For Life. Laugh out loud even when she’s talking about the not so fun fact of breast reconstruction after a mastectomy: you don’t get to keep your nipples. That’s both terrible and terribly funny. Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light is a book about life and all the baggage we carry: personal, emotional, friendly, familial, serious, and humorous. Or Seriously Humorous.

~Ashley

Oh readers, what to say about Darling Helen Michelle?  I thought Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light: Essays was going to cause marital issues at my house.  Here’s the deal, sleep, or lack thereof, causes marital issues with my husband.  I don’t have caffeine after 3pm because then I don’t go to sleep at old thirty 9:30 like my husband likes, or even 10:30 which is my usual.  So, when I, like I do, laid down to read myself to sleep with this book, I should have known the chapter titled “My Kind of People” wasn’t a great plan.  I was laughing so, SO hard and I just knew it was going to cause a problem.  Miraculously it didn’t, but y’all, when Ellis shares the specifics of being bet she would say a word of the other people’s choosing on stage during a panel, at a writers conference, where she’d sold a whooping six books, it was worth it.  I won’t share the details, but do know her husband describes the whole concept as her “Helen shtick,” or where she shocks people with the contrast between her nice appearance and her unfiltered (or perhaps perfectly filtered) words.  Y’all, Helen Michelle is definitely my kind of people.  

In Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light: Essays, Ellis refers to her friends as a “grown-ass lady gang” and tells stories of reunions of said gang.  She tells about her school and town banning Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret (which, side note, I’m STILL pissed no one handed me as a tween or teen) and her mother driving to the closest town to buy a copy for her.  And she regales with a comparison between her southern childhood friends and her New York City friends.  These essays are real and vulnerable, while also being funny and inspiring.  

I’m very pleased to give Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light: Essays by Helen Ellis a solid five star rating and to say that I’ll gladly read this title again, and again, and I’m ever so grateful my amazing book buddy gifted me a copy for Christmas!  This is truly the gift that keeps on giving in all the best ways.  

~ Nikki

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