Sunday Salon: The Stand-In, Searching for Sylvie Lee, Letters from Singapore, and Cocoon

 

The Stand-In: A Novel by 

Lily Chu

May 3, 2022, Sourcebooks Casablanca

Genre: rom com, family drama, contemporary, multicultural 

Setting: Toronto 

My comments: 

Gracie Reed wants her mother to live in more expensive senior care facility, but although she has several jobs, she can't afford the facility she has in mind for her mom. When famous Chinese actors Sam Yao and Wei Fangli visit Toronto to star in a play, and Gracie is discovered to be a doppelganger for Wei, they offer her $150,000 to act as a stand in for Wei for two months in her many public appearances. 

Gracie accepts the offer, somewhat reluctantly, but happy to leave a sexually harassing boss at her current job. How she learns to behave and act like Wei Fangli is central to this romantic drama, which involves the handsome Sam Yao. 

A humorous romance, the book focuses on the  personalities of Gracie, Sam, and Wei Fangli, their differences making this novel much more interesting. Themes of  duty versus career goals, family expectations, abandonment and mental health, are also central themes in the book.

I gave The Stand-In a solid five stars, for the plot complexities, character development, the romance, and the social topics it covers.

Also reading:

Searching for Sylvie Lee by JeanKwok 

June 4, 2019, William Morrow

Family drama, suspense, multicultural interest, immigrant fiction

My comments:

A novel about an immigrant family from China who are unable to support their family in the U.S. and forced by circumstances to give up their first daughter, Sylvie, to her grandmother and cousin who live in the Netherlands. 

Sylvie is reunited with her real family years later in NYC at age nine, but returns to the Netherlands some 20 years ahead when her grandmother dies. Sylvie's younger sister Amy then travels from the U.S. to Holland to find her sister, who has mysteriously disappeared on that trip.

Immigrant culture and conflict, Chinese culture and family norms, anti-Asian sentiment in the Netherlands, and other crucial elements of society combine to define Sylvie Lee's disappearance.

A moving picture of family dynamics, love and desire, which all reminded me of a Greek tragedy taking place  in the two cultures - Asian and European.

Letters to Singapore by Kelly Kaur

Published May 1, 2022; Stonehouse Original

Genre: epistolary novel, contemporary fiction, multicultural interest
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My comments: 

Simran avoids an arranged marriage in Singapore when she gets her parents' approval to first attend the University of Calgary, Canada for an undergraduate degree. While in Calgary, Simran's views and experience broaden, so much so that she is delighted to be offered a scholarship to get her Master's Degree after graduation. But her mother writes that it's time for Simran to come home, back to Singapore and her family's traditional way of life.

This is an easily read epistolary novel, with the story of Simran in Calgary revealed in back and forth letters to her friends and relatives in Singapore. I enjoyed learning about life in an Indian community in Singapore and the contrast of Simran's growing love for her life in Calgary.

The novel seems to be partly autobiographical as the author, Kelly Kaur, left her island home in Southeast Asia to study in Calgary. She brings an interesting perspective of an international student first vising and living in North America.

I gave this four enthusiastic stars.

Thanks to Wiley Saichek for a review copy of this book.

 

 
Cocoon by Zhang Yueran

Publication: October 4, 2022; World Editions
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

China: the past as seen in the grandparents, the present as seen in the parents, and the future as seen in the children who don't understand.

I had the impression of young people wanting to understand their grandparents who went through the Cultural Revolution, and their parents, who are in the midst of a new capitalist-minded China, struggling to get ahead in life, leaving behind the traditional way of life of the old China.

Young people have to deal with grandparents they don't understand, parents who leave them behind to search for a future, or divorced parents who go separate ways and let the children be taken care of primarily by the grandparents. The stories are sometimes raw and everything sordid or good is shown to the reader.

I think this novel is so specific to time and place that the readers for which it was intended, the people in China, will get much more from it than readers in another culture, reading a translated version, and trying to understand the context and complete underlying message.

I can see why this author is popular in her home country.

View all my reviews

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: A Climbing Thriller and a Romantic Comedy

 Currently reading:

Breathless (click on title for my review). 

by 

Amy McCulloch 

Published May 3rd 2022 by Anchor Books

Setting: Manaslu, Nepal - the eighth-highest peak in the world

About the book: A high-altitude thriller that will take your breath away--Journalist Cecily Wong is on her most dangerous climb yet, miles above sea level on a mountain in Nepal. But the elements are nothing compared to one chilling truth: There's a killer on the mountain.

I'm half way through, and find it very suspenseful and informative about the dangers and thrills of alpine climbing and mountaineering. 

And now for another rom com, 

Bad Cruz

by 

L.J. Shen

Kindle Edition, published November 10th, 2021

I'm enjoying this  romantic comedy on Kindle Unlimited. 

About the book: Two unlikely people - a quarterback turned beloved small town physician and a single mom with a bad reputation - find themselves thrown together on a pre-wedding cruise meant for their entire families. Several factors could prevent them from getting along.

See my goodreads review. 

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday  

Sunday Salon: New Books and a Book Review

 New arrivals

Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight

by 

Riku Onda,

 

Alison Watts (Translator)

Publication June 16, 2022, Bitter Lemon Press

Set in a Tokyo flat over the course of one night, Aki and Hiro spend one last night together before going their separate ways. Each believes the other to be a murderer and is determined to extract a confession before the night is over.

The Martins

by 

David Foenkinos,

 

Sam Taylor (Translator)

Publication June 16, 2022, Gallic Books

‘Go out into the street and the first person you see will be the subject of your next book.’

This is the challenge a struggling Parisian writer sets himself, imagining his next heroine might be the mysterious young woman who often stands smoking near his apartment … instead it’s octogenarian Madeleine.

Book Review

Four Aunties and a Wedding

(Aunties #2)

by 

Jesse Q. Sutanto, March 29, 2022, Berkley

Genre: romantic comedy, romantic mystery, multicultural interest

Meddy Chan's wedding day in Cambridge couldn't get more complicated. Wedding vendors distantly related to her family have threatened her and her family if she interferes with their plan to kill someone they are targeting at the wedding. Armed with the zaniness and the determination of her four aunties, Meddy tries to stop anything from ruining her elaborate and well planned wedding day .

The Chinese-Indonesian aunties steal the show with their outrageous wedding outfits, their misuse of British slang, and their behind the scenes activities to stop a potential murder, all on behalf of their beloved niece, Meddy. 

Written with spunk and a clever use of dialogue, character, and setting, Four Aunties and a Wedding is clearly a romantic comedy winner.

Book from NetGalley.

 

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday  

Sunday Salon: Icelandic Mystery and Rom Coms

 New Books Reviewed:

Kalmann  by J

oachim B. Schmidt,

 

Jamie Lee Searle (Translator), May 19, 2022 

Genre: mystery, crime thriller

I was delighted to receive this mystery novel from Bitter Lemon Press as I have enjoyed reading other Icelandic thrillers.  

The book features Kalmann Odinsson, 34, the narrator, who lives in the tiny village of Raufarhofn in north Iceland.

 

The publisher describes Kalmann as "neurodiverse." Kalmann says the townspeople see him as someone who thinks backwards or as not progressing past age six. But he is liked and humored as he describes himself the protector and Sheriff of Raufarhofn, dressing in a cowboy hat, a sheriff's badge, and a defunct Mauser pistol,  a gift from his American father, whom he doesn't know. 

 An avid shark hunter, Kalmann has life skills taught him by his grandfather, who is now in a home for dementia patients. 

The mystery begins when Kalmann discovers a large pool of fresh blood in the snowy hills at the same time as the richest man in the town goes missing. A patient and understanding female police officer from the city interacts with Kalmann to investigate the mystery, with a surprise for the reader at the end. 

Well plotted, suspenseful, with distinct and memorable characterization and setting, I find Kalmann another excellent Icelandic crime novel. 

The Beach Trap

by 

Ali Brady

Publication June 14, 2022, Berkley. Source: NetGalley. 

Genre: romantic comedy

This is the story of two 12-year-olds who became friends at summer camp only to suddenly discover they had the same father. Kat never answered Blake's letters after camp and after this revelation, but both girls grew up knowing they were half-sisters,  forced to meet about 15 years later when they jointly inherit a beach house from their father.

The plot showing how they dealt with this situation, both sisters needing the money that a sale of the house would bring, is quite a good one. The complications of having to fix up the house themselves to realize a good price for it is a clever twist that carries the plot to the next level. Add to that the new love interests, the beach setting, their different home lives, and the novel becomes  a very enjoyable read, though with a somewhat predictable ending. 

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday  

Sunday Salon: Rom-Coms Galore

 Romantic comedies: NetGalley

Lucy Checks In by Dee Ernst, August 16, 2022, St. Martin's Griffin

Genre: romantic comedy, women's fiction, travel

Comments: Lucia Giannetti was hotel manager for the Fielding Hotel in New York, but after hotel owner and former lover Tony Fielding disappears with millions of dollars, Lucy has to cover the lawsuits and debts with her own money.  

Broken hearted, discouraged, and broke, she accepts a job at the Hotel Paradis in Rennes, France to renovate the 200-year-old hotel. The owner, Claudine, is looking for an American manager to attract tourists. Fixing the run-down chateau with help from only the six hotel residents/co-owners, and with few resources or funding, Lucy faces a daunting challenge. 

I got a better idea of what it takes to update and run a large hotel, from clean linens, to painting the walls, repairing woodwork, plaster and plumbing, decorating each room, and then attracting and taking care of  visitors. 

It was an interesting reading experience, following Lucy and the residents/co-owners of the hotel through the process of creating a beautiful country hotel. Romance helped the story too, as of course, Lucy meets someone she becomes attracted to. A delightful read for the armchair traveler and those who enjoy romantic comedy and France.

I also liked the author's previous rom-com, Maggie Finds Her Muse. 

Rom-coms to be read:

Seoulmates by Jen Frederick, January 25, 2022, Berkley

Genre: romantic drama, multil-cultural interest

About: When Korean adoptee Hara Wilson lands in Seoul to find her birth mother, she doesn’t plan on falling in love with the first man she lays eyes on, but Choi Yujun is irresistible. (publisher)

 
The No-Show by Beth O'Leary, April 26, 2022, Berkley

Genre: rom-com, women's fiction

 

About: Three women are unwittingly stood up by the same man they all consider their boyfriend.  

Siobhan is a life coach; Miranda is a tree surgeon; Jane is a  volunteer for a local charity shop. 

Can't wait to see how each one handles this. 

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Mailbox Monday, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves

It's Monday: New Novels by Asian Americans

 More Asian-American and Asian-Canadian authors are surfacing with light romantic comedies and cozy mysteries. On my TBR list:  

 

Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim, August 4, 2020, Berkley

Genre: romance, comedy

Setting: Paris

Ever since she can remember, Vanessa Yu has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of their teacups.... To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai. 

Mimi Lee Reads Between the Lines by Jennifer J. Chow, November 10, 2020, Berkely
Genre: light mystery, cozy    Setting: Los Angeles

When a local teacher is found dead, LA’s newest pet groomer Mimi Lee finds herself in a pawful predicament—with her younger sister’s livelihood on the line. She sets out to solve the crime and save her sister. 

(See my review of the author's first Mimi Lee mystery, Mimi Lee Gets a Clue.) 

Meme: It's Monday: What Are You Reading? 

Book Review: Seducing Mr. Darcy by Gwyn Cready

Seducing Mr. Darcy

An intriguing plot, suspenseful and engaging to the very end.
Seducing Mr. Darcy by Gwyn Cready (2008)

I've been reading Cready's romantic erotic paranormal time travel comedies in reverse order. The comedy  reminded me of Shakespeare. The subtitle could be "Jane Austen meets Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and others."

Flip Allison time travels to the early 19th century England after a  new masseuse tells her to imagine herself in her favorite book. She chose Pride and Prejudice, and finds herself as Lady Quillan, seducing  or being seduced by Darcy himself in Regency England. This little event changes the plot of Pride and Prejudice, and Flip, back in the 21st century, is horrified by the way the book now reads. She contrives to return to the 19th century to undo what happened and make sure that Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy marry in the end, as Austen wrote the book. She is followed back in time by Magnus Knightly, an Austen scholar, and by her ex-husband Jed and his current love interest, the university student Io. This makes Flip's job back in time much more complicated and adds both to the romance and to the slapstick comedy.

I read most of Seducing Mr. Darcy on a long car ride to Canada, while keeping an ear on the audio of a much different book,  The Swan Thieves: A Novel by Elizabeth Kostova, but this didn't distract me from Seducing Mr. Darcy.

Have an enjoyable Memorial Day holiday wherever you are and whatever you're doing!

 

Book Review: Flirting with Forever by Gwyn Cready

Flirting with Forever by Gwyn Cready (Mass Market Paperback, March 30, 2010)
My summary: Art historian Campbell Stratford finds herself transported to the 17th century while doing research for a book on the sex life of Dutch artist Van Dyke. There she meets Peter Lely, a former portraitist for Charles I. Peter lives in the Afterlife, is waiting for a new life from the powers that be, but is told he first has to stop Campbell from writing her book and smearing the reputation of the great Van Dyke.

When Peter and Campbell meet in the 17th century, sparks fly and they become romantically involved. She returns to the present, but he follows her to the 21st century, where she discovers that he has betrayed her.

My comments: As chick lit, the book's for mature chicks. As romance, it is sizzling in at least two lengthy 17th century scenes, though artfully done. As comedy, it is often clever and funny, as when Campbell tells the 17th century folk that her name is Katie Holmes and at another time, that she is a Spanish countess, wife of Antonio Banderas. As fantasy and time travel, the plot is original and the story well written.

The words that came to mind while I was reading this book: "Saucy! Spicy!" (Something Bruno might say before announcing his rating for a "hot" tango in "Dancing With the Stars"). This chick-lit time-travel romance is definitely for over age 18, I'd say. Make that over 21! The spiciness was thoroughly enjoyable however!

Gwyn Cready is a RITA Award winner and author of other time-travel novels, Seducing Mr. Darcy and Tumbling Through Time. I am tempted to pick them up as well, not for the eroticism, which I think is a bit overdone, but for the unusual fantasy, the humor, and what I suspect are more clever plots.

Thanks to Ayelet Gruenspecht of Simon and Schuster for a copy of Flirting with Forever, for my objective review.

Challenge: 100+ Reading Challenge,

Review: Nancy's Theory of Style by Grace Coopersmith

Nancy's Theory of Style by Grace Coopersmith (Paperback, May 18, 2010)

Genre: women's fiction, romance

My comments: Nancy's Theory of Style is funny, original. I loved the romance and the characters. Nancy is a perfectionist in her tastes - her dress, her apartment, and her relationships have to be "just so." When she splits from her husband because of what he did to their dream house in her absence - putting a gigantic wet bar in their bedroom, for instance - she leaves for her San Francisco apartment and hires an assistant, Derek, who is equally fastitidous about style. Because he is gay, Nancy assumes their business relationship will work out perfectly.

Nancy's style is put to the test not only by Derek, who becomes increasingly attractive to her, but also by a four year old child literally left on her doorsteps by Nancy's irresponsible cousin, Birdie. How does Nancy cope with toys on the living room floor, a puppy in the closet, and the mayhem that a young child brings?

I can't wait for the next romantic comedy that Grace will write! I loved Nancy's Theory of Style! And not just because I was given a free copy of the book by Simon and Schuster to review! For romatic comedy, I give this a five.

See Grace's guest post: Mayhem Ensues by Grace Coopersmith

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge,
 

Guest Post by author Grace Coopersmith, Mayhem Ensues

Mayhem Ensues, a guest post by Grace Coopersmith, on her debut romantic comedy,

Nancy's Theory of Style by Grace Coopersmith, (Paperback, May 18, 2010)

Thanks and welcome Grace, for visiting to discuss Nancy's Theory of Style. Why did you switch to this genre? How easy was that for you?

Grace:  I studied literature and creative writing, so naturally I feel guilty about writing romantic comedies. After all, there are so many serious topics to cover: war, pestilence, families ripped apart by abuse and addiction, political corruption. These fabulous topics can be paired with characters who feel a sense of ennui, or alienation, or unspecified rage. I’m utterly dazzled by the range of Oprahish subjects that reveal moral depravity in a convenient, fictionalized form.

Sometimes I daydream about writing such a book. It will be in dispassionate third-person, present tense natch, and I’ll strive to make it simultaneously stark and turgid. It will have tortured metaphors and detail so painstaking that readers will wish they were having a root canal instead. In other words: it would have artistic merit. I’d be able to tell my intellectual friends that I’m working on this noble tome, and they would be impressed and invite me to speak at their book clubs.

Instead, when people ask me what I do, I mumble, “Comedy, um, set in San Francisco, er, young woman, very stylish, contemporary…Oh, are those grilled prawns on the buffet?”

Why do I do it then, when I must suffer the scorn that accompanies a writer of, ugh, romantic comedies? Because I am deeply and irrevocably flawed. Because I would rather laugh than cry. Because I’m delighted when I make others laugh.

My agent told me that I can’t use the term “romantic comedy” to describe my books. “It’s the kiss of death,” she said. Frankly, I have a hard time keeping up with publishers’ What’s Hot/What’s Not Hot lists. Anyway, Nancy’s Theory of Style is a romantic comedy about a young socialite, Nancy Carrington-Chambers, who leaves her gauche husband and their tacky McMansion. She returns to her pied-a-terre in posh Pacific Heights to focus on her event planning company, Froth.

Nancy hires the perfect assistant. Derek Cathcart is a British, gay, and impeccable. Then Nancy’s irresponsible cousin deposits her four-year-old in Nancy’s care and takes off to places unknown. You know what I’m going to say now, right? Sure, you do. Mayhem ensues! I love that phrase. There is a party that goes tragically awry. Parties that go tragically awry are a common theme in my stories. And in my life. But let’s not go there.

When I wrote Nancy’s Theory of Style, I was thinking of our society’s materialism. People were overextending themselves to buy horrible huge houses with rooms they never used. There was a sense of entitlement. There was a sense that things could provide happiness. I also thought of those women who have an unrealistic list of requirements for any man. Then they wonder why they’re alone.

So my message, if any, is that perfection is not only unachievable, it is undesirable. The quirks in life make it interesting and beautiful.

-------------------
Thanks so much, Grace, for giving us so much insight into your new book! Here is my Review of Nancy's Theory of Style

Grace Coopersmith is one and the same as Marta Acosta, author of the CASA DRACULA books.