Make Believe and the Tales We Weave: An Otherworldly Homecoming

Ashley Poston has cornered the market on romantic dramedies with a dash of fantasy.  And by fantasy I don't mean delusions (although there are those too), but the supernatural.  In this tradition of The Dead Romantics and The Seven Year Slip, she gives us A Novel Love Story.

Elsy Merriweather is an English professor with a dirty little secret: she loves romance novels.  While her colleagues drone on about Beowulf and Byron, she's daydreaming about her next book club read.  Because there's nothing as comforting as a happily ever after.  And Elsy and her best friend Pru know that no one writes one quite like Rachel Flowers.  The author has gotten the besties through many a tough time.  So when she dies and leaves her last book unfinished, Elsy and Pru are grief-stricken.  Especially Elsy.  Because she's been in a funk ever since her fiancé dumped her, a feeling that's only intensified now that Pru's engaged.  The only thing getting her through the day is her upcoming book club retreat.  Yet Elsy is mere miles from the cabin when her pea-green Pinto breaks down.  Panicked, she doesn't know what to do -- until she realizes that she's somehow stumbled into Eloraton, the setting of Rachel Flowers's books.      

It's a book lover's dream.  But also kind of a nightmare.  Because Elsy almost hits someone in the rain, a handsome bookstore owner named Anders.  Persnickety and reserved, Anders is a bit of a buzzkill.  Also, unlike everyone else Elsy meets, she can't recall him from any of Rachel Flowers's books.  Still, she's drawn to him and his charming shop.  As the town mechanic-slash-hot-sauce-purveyor works on the Pinto, Elsy wonders just how long she'll have to stay in this fantasyland.  But as the days go by and she becomes more embroiled in Eloraton's drama -- and the mystery of Anders -- she begins to wonder how she'll ever leave.

A Novel Love Story is a great escape for readers in search of magic.  I love how Poston plays with the boundaries of the world we know and whatever else might be out there.  In doing so, she makes the impossible possible.

And it doesn't get much more happily ever after than that.  

New Lease Release: The Old Apartment

When I heard that Ashley Poston of The Dead Romantics fame had another book out, I was excited, albeit cautiously.  Because there was no way that The Seven Year Slip could be half as good as its predecessor.  But as I began reading, I knew I was wrong.  I was transfixed.

Clementine West is heartbroken after the death of her beloved, eccentric Aunt Analea.  The two used to travel the world, collecting passport stamps like stickers and embarking on endless adventures.  It was on these trips that Clementine fell in love with painting, illustrating the margins of her guidebooks with dreamy watercolors.  Now nearly thirty, Clementine has inherited her aunt's New York City apartment, a bittersweet gift steeped in pain and memories.  Things become even more complicated when an aspiring chef shows up, claiming that Analea sublet the apartment to him.  Iwan is charismatic and handsome and completely bewitched by food.  He has tattoos of herbs and a whisk and bakes Clementine the best lemon pie she's ever tasted.  Despite the walls she's put up, Clementine finds herself falling.  But resisting Iwan's charms is just the tip of the iceberg lettuce.  Because Iwan is from seven years in the past, back when Analea was alive.

With wry humor and beautiful imagery, Poston takes us on the journey of Clementine's heart.  Time shifts and bends as in any space-time continuum story and that, in and of itself, is fascinating.  But it's Clementine's relationships with her aunt, Iwan, and, ultimately, herself, that propel this hauntingly lovely novel.

And that's what makes it so magical.