Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer...

 

The Wedding War by Liz Talley is available now!

 

“Liz Talley clearly understands women—the enduring power of friendship, the strength and beauty of the human heart, the many ways that forgiveness heals. Funny and heartbreaking, The Wedding War is sassy Southern women’s fiction at its absolute best.” —Mariah Stewart, New York Times bestselling author

 

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Universal -- getbook.at/TheWeddingWarLT

 

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Save the date for this funny and poignant novel of family, friendship, letting go, and moving on by the award-winning author of Room to Breathe.

 

Once upon a time, Melanie Layton and Tennyson O’Rourke were inseparable—but their friends-4ever promises were shattered when an explosive secret was revealed at Mel’s wedding, a secret that destroyed her family. The two haven’t spoken for the past twenty-some-odd years, and they’d be happy if they never crossed paths again.

 

But now Mel’s daughter and Teeny’s son have fallen in love—and announced their engagement.

 

Which means the two women must tolerate one another and play nice long enough to plan their children’s dream wedding. From the beginning, they clash. Melanie imagines a classy, elegant event, in keeping with tradition. Teeny’s vision is a bit more extravagant, and thanks to her habit of marrying well, she’s got the cash to plan the flashiest wedding of the season.

 

Complicating matters are the men in their lives: Tennyson is falling for the wrong guy, and Melanie is trying to hold on to a flailing marriage. Amid the flurry of cake tastings, dress fittings, seating charts, and bridal showers, Mel and Teeny confront their past mistakes—with twenty years of pent-up drama.

 

When the day of the wedding finally arrives, their friendship might just be something old and something new.

 

About the Author:

USA Today best-selling author Liz Talley loves staying home in her jammies and writing emotional women's fiction and romance. Liz has published twenty-seven books, reaching number one in kindle romance. Her stories are set in the South where the tea is sweet, the summers are hot, and the porches are wide. Liz lives in Louisiana with her childhood sweetheart, two handsome children, two dogs and a mean kitty. You can visit Liz at www.liztalleybooks.com or follow her on Instagram or facebook to learn more about her upcoming books.

Connect with Liz!

Website: https://liztalleybooks.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liztalleybooks

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyliztalley

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/liz-talley

I have many, many thoughts about "Pulp" upon finishing it, yet I think it's easier to start with the note of how ambitious, well-researched, emotional and engaging this book was overall. I knew I'd be taken in from the premise of two narrators from the past and present intersecting in a gripping way. The fact that one of them - from the present - is researching lesbian pulp fiction as a part of her senior project was one that made me raise my eyebrows and say "Ooooh, that's cool." (Though thinking back to my high school senior project obligations, I second-hand cringed because that was a lot of work and deadlines. For all the ways that Abby gets swamped and struggles to meet the obligations of her teacher's prompting for assignment completion, I felt for her. For the curious, my project dealt with the genetic differences between different types of twins. Try to guess why, heheheh. ^_^ )

To set the stage of this novel specifically, Abby - in 2017 - is taking on this interesting senior project while dealing with many different weights in her life. She's trying to navigate her relationship with her friend/ex-girlfriend and her parents are steadily drifting apart, never seeming to be there for her or her younger brother anymore. As a means of escaping some difficult situations and a future she doesn't quite have answers for, Abby throws herself into researching a once popular lesbian pulp author named "Marian Love". Abby becomes so engrossed in Marian's story that she wants to determine what happened to the author in the vein of writing her most famous story. Soon it becomes more than just a project for Abby and a full on, borderline obsessive quest.

Enter the other piece of the story, back to 1955 when Janet is coming to terms with her own sexuality in a time when the stakes are high to be in such a relationship. I felt so badly for Janet on many levels because she's so in love, wants to be true to herself and be with the girl that she's hopelessly fallen in love with. She juggles her job at the Shake Shack while also wanting to be a writer and produce some of the same stories that captivate her attention. However, in navigating the prejudices of the time, there's the risk of being shunned by her family AND falling into the clutches of McCarthyism, some clashes which put her and friends dangerously into governmental and societal crosshairs.

I won't spoil how Abby and Janet's stories converge, but it's an experience that as the novel progressed to its conclusion I felt satisfied to watch. I felt that way even when the events were difficult to see unfold for the characters because of how both Abby and Janet grew from those experiences overall. There are moments of sweetness within the more complex and emotional moments of this novel, and I genuinely rooted for both Abby and Janet as I saw what happened to both of them as time went on and they discovered more, not just about the times they lived within, but ultimately how they were able to get to a place where both of them were happy and came into their own. In some pieces of the work, the pacing dragged its heels more than I thought it would, but I did enjoy "Pulp" collectively for what it offered, and it's a story I would read again and have in my personal library.

Overall score: 3.5/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley from the publisher; I also bought a copy of the book.

This one has a backstory. Lessee...

The H was apparently a creeper in earlier books in the series (no; am not hunting them down). He's the younger son of a couple who prized (or at least, the father did) his older brother's athletic prowess and indulged in his waywardness, while mostly tolerating the studious and somewhat whimsical H. Older brother got killed, so H felt it his duty to step into his shoes. In the meantime, he had this friend that he ignored publicly...

The h was one of two children to a couple of aging hippies who eschewed responsibility along with authority apparently. Kids spent their formative years bouncing from commune to commune. At some point, the preteen h managed to get herself plopped at her aunt's B&B where she spent the next 6(?) years. The H was her neighbor...and friend - at least in private. He ignored her in school. He also was too busy screwing one of the cheerleaders to attend some sort of recital and hear a poem she'd written for him. So she hand delivered it - as a paperwad, and left town. Oh, of course he was still with the cheerleader when she delivered it.

I'm hazy about this but...she was 16 at the time and still a minor, so where exactly did she go? She didn't finish HS; got a GED instead. She married some guy shortly after graduating culinary school, and is now a well-known chef. Her husband died 2 years prior while on the way to either collect their son after karate practice or some competition (confused about that one too). She's a driven workaholic and is discovering, when forced to actually spend time with the kid, that there are holes in his housebreaking.

She's staying for some ungodly reason with her aunt, next door to the H, trying not to be attracted to him, trying to keep her son from forming an attachment, etc. I can't really figure out the reason behind this. She knew he lived next door, how did she expect to avoid him, or did that never occur to her?

He, genius that he is, encourages the kid's sports obsession over her objections, flirts with her, etc.

The aunt tries her own form of manipulations to get them together.

And the kid makes me want to drag him by one ear to a room somewhere for a "come to Jesus" moment. He's rude, ill-mannered, disrespectful.

Somehow, they wrangle a HEA out of this. Somehow, the H grows a pair and tells his parents in general and his dad in particular to shove it. And I'm just wondering why he sat there, in a carriage house on his parents' property, on a degree in British Lit? Why didn't he push to become a teacher or something? Why the heck didn't he MOVE?

Quick review for a prolonged read (I had to recheck this book from the library several times because it kept getting holds placed on it, but I finally found a stretch to read it the whole way through). This is my second narrative experience from Robin Talley. "As I Descended" is touted as a retelling/reimaging of Macbeth, centered on two girls (Maria and Lily) at an elite school who enact upon a dastardly scheme to take a scholarship opportunity from a popular queen bee (Delilah), but their plan goes several steps too far and unleashes a downward spiral involving a haunted campus, vengeful spirits, revenge games, and overarching obsession with power. Added bonus: a diverse cast of characters including characters of color and prominent GLBT relationships at the forefront. By the summary/plot promise itself, I was definitely going to pick this up, even excited to have the opportunity to do so.

My thoughts in the aftermath of reading this are more mixed, however. I loved how darkly textured this novel was, some of the scenes are downright creepy not just in the visual aspects of the spirits and conflict involved, but actually have some well placed scenes of internal conflict among the characters, especially Maria - who starts off the novel rather naive and good at heart, but takes this downwards spiral as more events in the novel transpire and she gets more obsessed with the power in her grasp. She gets to the point where she denies reality, denies opportunities for herself to lose given what she's lost, and ultimately it's a consuming process that doesn't flinch on showing the burn. The tone and the intention of the novel were well noted.

The execution of this novel, on so many levels, was not good however. The problematic pacing stood out in my mind on one hand. I had to read this book in stretches and those stretches seemed more drawn out - taking me a while to get "in medias res". Part of the reason might've been the rambling musings of the characters within, many times with self-deprecating anecdotes (because, let's be real, this cast of characters is complicated and very, very flawed). The narrative moves in and out of the action, in and out of the creepiness, and that's an issue in itself. The characters also feel like they're missing an extra layer of depth. I get on some levels they're players on a stage (*cough* pun *cough*), but I kept wanting to have more than just a surface level of connection with them.

Which lends me to discuss my next point of contention in this book: while I love the fact this book FEATURES a wide range of representation (characters of color, bisexual characters, gay characters, character with a disability, etc.), the ACTUAL representation of these characters in the context of the story gives me pause, even to the point where I was really uncomfortable reading and had to put the book down in spaces. I didn't expect some of the rampant homophobic/biphobic slurs and commentaries that some of the characters in here spout. Granted, there are FEW opportunities where the characters shut this kind of language down, but it's still so prevalent that you can't separate that from the experience of the novel. I thought some characters really didn't have good representation at all, if by absence of said representation (i.e. Lily's disability in many places was masked) or representation where it was marred by very notable cliches (i.e. Maria and Mateo were very distinct caricatures of their race in places, and the fact that a group of Latino guys were essentially labeled as criminals just because of Maria's story to try to throw blame away from her...nah, dude. That didn't sit right with me at all).

It's hard to reconcile the good of this novel when there's so much of it that just didn't work well with the material it had. It's not the fact that this is a retelling/reimaging of MacBeth that's the issue, it's the way the narrative chose its focus. The focus could've been inclusive and thrilling without necessarily ceding to these cliches and problematic portrayals.

In the end, I'm willing to give credit to it having thrilling images and power plays for the horror novel it chooses to be, but at the same time I think so much of the narrative aim and presentation could've been better to make it more enthralling as well as inclusive. While it's difficult to say - with how darkly toned this novel is based on its source material - the inclusions could've been completely positive, it could've had more impact if the characters had more solid foundations and the focus was maintained on how they manipulated each other for their own goals and ends rather than using their identities in negative portrayals. Even if the intention was dark humor, dark humor does better when punctuated with characters fleshed out and situations developed enough to support it.

Overall score: 2.5/5 stars.

View all my reviews

I received a copy from Netgalley.

I pre ordered this one, as it had been on my wish list for ages and then jumped at the chance as soon as it was on Netgalley, and had a happy dance when I got approved. (Though it did take me shamefully long time actually finish). I’m not sure what it was – but I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I was hoping to.

Great cast of characters and double plus points for diversity, but there was just something missing from this one for me. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was. The plot was interesting, and I could pick out the Macbeth parallels. I didn’t study Macbeth in school, so I can’t say how accurately it related, but looking from a few reviews I’ve read it’s a really loose retelling.

I think I struggled with it towards the end because it got very weird and very confusing, at least for me. Though I was fairly surprised by the ending, it certainly wasn’t what I expected, but on reflection I suppose it suited the Shakespearian tragedy feel.

The novel tells the story of Lily and Maria, who attend a very posh boarding school on what used to be a planation. There have been stories and rumours of ghosts on campus for many many years and more than a few tragedies and deaths. Lily and Maria are a couple, even though they are both still in the closet. They want to be done with high school and go to college together. Lily has her ticket to Stanford set, but Maria doesn’t. Maria believes her only option is to win the Cawdor Kingsley Prize scholarship. There’s just one problem in their way – golden girl Delilah Dufrey also head of the line for the Cawdor Kingsley Prize.

Delilah is the most popular girl in school – she appears to be friends with both Maria and Lilly. The opening scene is them all hanging out with some other kids doing a séance where weird things start happening right away, there may be a ghost in the room and there’s hints that Maria has some sort of understanding or communication powers with spirits which she is in deep denial of. So Lilly and Maria plot to get Delilah out of the running so Maria can win the prize.

It’s an interesting take on how far would you go to stay together and go to be the best you can. With a lot of morality issues as well – which at first seem non existent in this school setting. But some as things progress and the plot gets twistier –there’s that underline attack of conscience and nagging doubt as things quickly descend into darkness and madness.

There’s lots going on with ghosts and spirits and something to do with the history of the plantation where the school was built on. Spanners thrown into Maria and Lilly’s happiness when other students start to realize what’s going on – namely Maria’s best friend Brandon and his boyfriend Mateo start putting the pieces together.

(The other thing this book has going for it is there isn’t a single hetro couple that gets any focus – which was awesome – it’s all about Lilly and Maria and Brandon and Mateo).

But as the novel goes on and things get creepier, it seems the effect of guilt with the atmosphere in the school and the ghosts takes its toll on everyone’s mind. And this was where it got very confusing, (for me anyway).

But it was certainly a gripping read, even if it was weird towards the end.

Thank you Netgalley and Mira Ink UK for approving my request to view the title.