4 Jun 2025

VenCo by Cherie Dimaline: A Spellbinding Celebration of Witches, Bloodlines, and the Bonds That Save Us (We Can(ada) Read)

04 June 0 Comments
We Can(ada) Read is by Canadians for EVERYONE to learn more about some amazing Canadian authors!

VENCO

Author: Cherie Dimaline
Series: N/A
Source: Purchased from Libro.fm
Publisher: Random House Canada
Publication Date: February 14, 2023

Overall Rating:
Diversity Rating:
Representation: Métis main characters, elder representation, Black characters, queer characters, gender fluid characters

Summary:
From the bestselling author of Empire of Wild, a wickedly subversive, deliciously imaginative, deeply feminist novel of contemporary witches on the rise—a book that only the supremely gifted storyteller Cherie Dimaline could write.

Lucky St. James, orphaned daughter of a bad-ass Métis good-times girl, is barely hanging on to her nowhere life when she finds out that she and her grandmother, Stella, are about to be evicted from their apartment. Bad to worse in a heartbeat. Then one night, doing laundry in the building's dank basement, Lucky feels an irresistible something calling to her. Crawling through a hidden hole in the wall, she finds a tarnished silver spoon depicting a story-book hag over letters that spell out S-A-L-E-M.

Which alerts Salem-born Meena Good, finder of a matching spoon, to Lucky's existence. One of the most powerful witches in North America, Meena has been called to bring together seven special witches and seven special spoons—infused with magic and scattered to the four directions more than a century ago—to form a magic circle that will restore women to their rightful power. Under the wing of the international headhunting firm VenCo, devoted to placing exceptional women in roles where they can influence business, politics and the arts, Meena has spent years searching out witches hiding in plain sight wherever women gather: suburban book clubs, Mommy & Me groups, temp agencies. Lucky and her spoon are number six.

With only one more spoon to find, a very powerful adversary has Meena's coven in his sights—Jay Christos, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter as old as witchcraft itself. As the clock ticks toward a now-or-never deadline, Meena sends Lucky and her grandmother on a dangerous, sometimes hilarious, road trip through the United States in search of the seventh spoon. The trail leads them at last to the darkly magical city of New Orleans, where Lucky's final showdown with Jay Christos will determine whether the coven will be completed, ushering in a new beginning, or whether witches will be forced to remain forever underground.

Purchase*:
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Content WarningViolence against women (past and referenced, including historical violence tied to witch hunts), Death and grief (mentions of parental loss, on-page death of a character), Racism and colonial violence (including against Indigenous people, Métis-specific experiences, and cultural erasure), Ableism and ageism (both challenged and depicted in character interactions), Drug and alcohol use, Mild sexual content, Mentions of past abuse and trauma

I knew from the first minute that VenCo would be special, but I didn’t realize just how deeply it would root itself in my heart. Cherie Dimaline has crafted a gorgeously gritty modern witch story infused with love — not just romantic love, but familial love, community love, and the kind of fierce tenderness that binds generations of women together. It’s rich with magic, grounded in Métis identity, and driven by characters who feel both powerful and profoundly human.


This was everything I want in a story: witches with purpose, found families that feel like home, and a plot that lets women reclaim what was always theirs. I loved every minute of it.


At the heart of VenCo is Lucky St. James — a Métis millennial trying to keep her life afloat — and her fiercely loving, wonderfully sharp grandmother Stella. Their relationship is the soul of the novel. Stella isn't just comic relief or a background presence — she’s a full, vibrant character with her own arc and grit. Their intergenerational love feels real, complex, and absolutely radiant on the page.


I cried, I laughed, I wanted to call my own grandmother. Their bond is the kind that carries you through hard things and reminds you why we fight for better.


As Lucky is drawn into a hidden world of witches and prophecy, she finds herself swept into a quest to reunite the long-lost VenCo coven. What unfolds is part road trip, part mystery, part reclamation. The witches she meets along the way — each distinct, each deeply rooted in different communities and cultures — represent the spectrum of what womanhood, power, and resistance can look like.


The found family that emerges is glorious. These women are fierce and flawed, full of laughter, rage, and healing. They bicker, they protect, they choose one another — and I would follow them anywhere.


What makes VenCo truly shine is how deeply it’s grounded in Métis culture and storytelling. Dimaline weaves it into the very bones of the book. From Lucky’s worldview to the cultural references and the spiritual texture of the magic, everything feels intentional, layered, and full of her culture.


This isn’t a story that flattens identity into metaphor. It’s proud, rooted, and joyful — a reclamation of space in a genre that often erases Indigenous presence.


The witchcraft in VenCo isn’t about flash or spectacle. It’s quiet and powerful, grounded in knowledge, lineage, and resistance. Dimaline uses witchcraft as a metaphor for community strength, cultural survival, and the inheritance of power. And in doing so, she gives us a story that feels both deeply ancient and fiercely modern.


You don’t need to be a witch to understand what it means to carry the strength of the women before you — and VenCo reminds us how precious and dangerous that strength truly is.


VenCo is a love letter to women, witches, aunties, grandmothers, and every person who’s ever felt like the world didn’t have a place for their kind of magic. It’s about carving that space anyway. And filling it with love.


If you’re looking for a witchy, empowering, beautifully written read with Indigenous magic and a warm, unbreakable heart — VenCo is the book for you.

Are you going to pick this up?

2 Jun 2025

The Wedding People by Alison Espach: A Beautiful Disaster Without the Beauty (Review)

02 June 0 Comments

THE WEDDING PEOPLE

Author: Alison Espach
Series: N/A
Source: Purchased at Libro.fm
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Publication Date: July 30, 2024

Overall Rating:
Diversity Rating:

Representation: n/a

Summary:
A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help us start anew. 

It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn't here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she's dreamt of coming for years - she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she's here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan - which makes it that much more surprising when the women can't stop confiding in each other.

In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach's The Wedding People is a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined - and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.
Purchase*:
(note that these are affiliate links! I receive a small amount of compensation at no cost to you)
Content Warning: violence and murder (including graphic descriptions of dead bodies and murder scenes), needles, torture, physical abuse, war, aftermath of war, references to PTSD and trauma, death of a parent, religious oppression, class-based discrimination, grief, survivor's guilt, blood, injury, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, neglectful parent, militarized state violence, alcohol consumption

This was SO painful to get through. There’s no sugar-coating it — The Wedding People by Alison Espach is one of the most joyless reading experiences I’ve had in a long time. And not because it’s dealing with deep, heavy, life-shattering themes (it tries to, and fails), but because it is full of characters I loathed, meandering plotlines that go nowhere, and a tone that feels like being stuck in an endless, awkward brunch where everyone thinks they’re the smartest person in the room — and they’re all wrong.

The premise had promise: a woman checks into a Connecticut hotel to kill herself and ends up tangled in the chaos of multiple weddings and their dramatic guests. That could’ve been a messy, heartfelt, witty literary soap opera. Instead, it’s a slow-motion car crash of overwritten introspection, self-important tangents, and absolutely zero people worth caring about.

I don’t need to like characters, but I do need them to be interesting. And unfortunately, The Wedding People is populated by emotionally stunted narcissists who mistake trauma-dumping and cryptic detachment for personality. Every time I thought I found someone with an ounce of depth, they’d turn around and be the absolute worst again. Every. Single. One.

The main character — who, honestly, I barely remember the name of because she was just that forgettable and also I read this book months ago (but I'm still so angry about it!!!) (oh, it's Phoebe, I just read the summary while adding it to this post) — spends the entire book in a fog of internal misery, passive to the point of nonexistence. The people she meets? A carousel of pretentious, self-absorbed caricatures with the emotional maturity of soap scum.

No one talks like a real person. No one grows. No one learns. It’s like they all entered this hotel with just enough backstory to justify being deeply unpleasant and never once made a decision worth rooting for.

The pacing of this book is glacial. And not in the poetic, contemplative way. In the "why am I still reading this and when will it end" kind of way. At some point, I continued just to hate read, which I so rarely do!

There’s no real momentum, no hook, no payoff. The book circles around themes of grief, identity, and reinvention, but it never commits to actually exploring them. Just vibes. Sad, soggy vibes. I kept waiting for something to happen — a revelation, a twist, even a decent conversation — and it never came. Instead, I was trapped in the literary equivalent of watching beige paint dry in a fog.

This book thinks it’s clever. And that might be the most frustrating part. The prose is trying to be poignant but lands firmly in overwritten and emotionally distant. There's a detachment in the writing that makes it impossible to connect — like watching someone cry behind a pane of glass and wondering if it's just a performance.

I genuinely don’t know who this book is for. People who want to feel bad and bored at the same time? Readers who like their fiction painfully introspective but without any actual introspection? I feel like people are going to read this and tell me I just didn't get it but nah, I got it: people suck.

I wish I had something nice to say, but the best thing I can offer is that I’m done with it. And that feels like a relief. A book about weddings should not feel like a funeral for my attention span.

Are you going to read this one?

31 May 2025

My 2025 Mid-Year Reading Check-In: Surprises, Letdowns, and What’s Still on My TBR

31 May 1 Comments

2025 Mid-Year Freakout Tag

As we hit the halfway point of 2025, I thought it was the perfect time to reflect on the highs, lows, and standout characters from the books I’ve read so far this year. From surprise favourites to reads I’m still itching to start, this check-in gives a snapshot of where my reading life is at and where it’s headed next.

Whether you're also tracking your reading goals or just love a good book recommendation, here’s my mid-year reading check-in.

All links take you to StoryGraph ðŸ’œ

Also, I'm not sure who is still running this or responsible, so if you have any information for credit, please let me know!

Quick Stats

  • Books read: 53/100
  • Pages read: 6,795/10,000
  • Hours listened: 457.08/1,000
  • Average Rating: 3.61
  • Number of 5 star reads: 3 (see them below)

Best Book Read So Far


This charming, magical middle grade had me completely enchanted.
It's heartfelt, empowering, and full of great character work. A true gem.

Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2025

This sequel built beautifully on the cozy fantasy vibes of the first book and gave me even more of what I loved — books, tea, and sapphic pirate mischief.

New Releases I Haven’t Read Yet But Want To

I'm behind on some ARCs so here's some that I am still catching up on that have already released:

Most Anticipated Release for the Second Half of the Year

I’ve got a few books pre-ordered and on my radar, but nothing beats the anticipation of diving into something new and magical.

Here are my upcoming preorders:

Expect a full post soon on my most anticipated Fall 2025 reads!

Biggest Disappointment

The Wedding People by Alison Espach
This just didn’t work for me. The hype had me intrigued but oof was it just bad.

Biggest Surprise

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
I wasn’t expecting this little translated gem to completely steal my heart. It’s quiet and cozy but incredibly moving.

Favourite New Author (Debut or New to Me)

Claribel A. Ortega
Witchlings sealed the deal — I’m definitely going to pick up more from Ortega. Her voice is so distinct and full of warmth. And a new Witchlings book comes out in September so I gotta catch up on the series before then!

Newest Favourite Character

This one’s hard to answer just based on my tracker, but I’ve had quite a few standout characters this year.

Pick up these books for great characters:


Let me know if you want a character spotlight post!

A Book That Made Me Cry

American Royalty by Tracey Livesay
I was not prepared to get emotional over a celebrity romance — and yet here we are. It hit me right in the feels.

A Book That Made Me Cry (Derogatory)

The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Yes, I’m still salty about this one. I should have listened to my gut on this one but sometimes the hype of a book gets to me.

A Book That Made Me Happy

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
There’s something so healing about books that take place in bookstores, especially when they explore grief and rebuilding with such tenderness.

Books I Need to Read by the End of the Year

Here are the upcoming ARCs and releases I’m prioritizing before 2025 wraps up:

These are a mix of queer reads, cozy fantasy, and atmospheric speculative fiction. Aka, totally my vibe.

Five star reads

I only have a few of these so far but these books took my breath away!

Instagram Wrap-up

That’s my reading life at the halfway mark of 2025! Let me know if you’ve read any of these (or plan to), and drop your own mid-year reading wins or letdowns in the comments. I’d love to compare notes.

What have you read so far in 2025? Tell me below!

30 May 2025

Lore of the Wilds: Promised Magic and Mystery, But Delivered Neither (Science Fiction and Fantasy Fridays)

30 May 0 Comments


Science Fiction and Fantasy Fridays introduces readers who are unfamiliar with the Adult SF/F genre to books, authors, and discussions all about the vast expanse of the world of Adult SF/F!

LORE OF THE WILDS

Author: Analeigh Sbrana
Series: Lore of the Wilds Duology #1
Source: eARC via publisher
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: February 27, 2024
Representation: Black main characters, exploration of classism and marginalization, BIPOC secondary cast

Summary:
A Library with a deadly enchantment.

A fae lord who wants in.

A human woman willing to risk it all for a taste of power.

In a land ruled by ruthless Fae, twenty-one-year-old Lore Alemeyu's village is trapped in a forested prison. Lore knows that any escape attempt is futile–her scars are a testament to her past failures. But when her village is threatened, Lore makes a desperate deal with a fae lord. 

She convinces him that she will risk her life for wealth, but really she’s after the one thing the Fae covet above all: magic of her own. 

As Lore navigates the hostile world outside, she’s forced to rely on two fae males to survive. When undeniable chemistry ignites, she’s not just in danger of losing her life, but her heart to the very creatures she can never trust.

Purchase*:
(note that these are affiliate links! I receive a small amount of compensation at no cost to you)
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this the book from publisher and chose to review it. This in no way impacts my opinion. Thank you to Harper Voyager for the opportunity to review!

Content Warningimprisonment, violence, death, blood, torture (brief mention), captivity, threat of sexual violence (non-explicit), emotional manipulation, power imbalances, mention of past trauma, natural disaster, coercion, alcohol consumption

I went into Lore of the Wilds with high hopes. A magical library wrapped in enchantments, dangerous fae bargains, and a heroine who dares to chase power sounded like the start of something intense and compelling. Unfortunately, what could have been a gripping, high-stakes fantasy fell flat for me in almost every regard.

The pacing was one of the biggest issues. Scenes that should have carried emotional or narrative weight felt rushed, while other moments dragged without adding to the story. There never seemed to be enough time to let tension build or allow characters to truly develop, which made the overall arc feel disjointed and uneven.

The library, which is introduced as a deadly and mysterious location, felt underused and underwhelming. It’s there, but it never becomes the immersive or pivotal setting it promises to be. Instead, it serves more as a plot device than a central force of the story, which was a major letdown for me. Also, we were only in the library for such a short period of time that I'm not sure why it was included in the summary as such a bit plot point. It basically became a moot point after 20% of the novel.

The magic system also lacked clarity. It isn't clear how Lore's magic works or how the library creates or handles magic. It was all really vague since she's human and shouldn't have access. I wanted more of an exploration with the book she finds since she went from barely being able to do anything to mastering a lot of it really quickly. Even with the "tutoring," it felt like such a short period of time that it was unbelievable.

The romance leans into a love triangle, but it lacked emotional impact. I didn’t feel much chemistry between Lore and either of the fae men, and the relationships developed too quickly to be convincing. That kind of dynamic only works if you care about each connection, and I never did.

My biggest frustration was how easily everything resolved for Lore. She risks very little and loses even less. Her journey toward power should have demanded sacrifice, but instead she glides through the story with barely a scratch. The narrative often told me things were dangerous or difficult, but Lore rarely faced meaningful consequences. She definitely had plot armour and it took away from the meaningful aspects of having to make choices and living with consequences.

In the end, Lore of the Wilds felt like a story that needed more time to grow into itself. The ideas were there, but the execution was too rushed and too convenient. I wanted complexity, but what I got was a surface-level story that wrapped up far too neatly.

I may read the conclusion to this duology since it's only two books, but I'm not going in with high expectations.

Are you going to pick this one up?

28 May 2025

80 Must-Visit Independent Bookstores Across Canada — And My Favourites So Far! (We Can(ada) Read)

28 May 0 Comments
We Can(ada) Read is by Canadians for EVERYONE to learn more about some amazing Canadian authors!

Canada is a diverse and vast place with thirteen (13) provinces and territories each with a unique culture and space. I've travelled to a lot of different areas in the country and have put together a list of interesting and independent bookstores.

For a comprehensive directory of independent bookstores across Canada, you can explore the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association (CIBA) member directory and the IndieBookstores.ca map, which allow you to search by province, city, or specialty.

Let me know if you've visited any or if you plan on visiting some in the future!

There’s something undeniably magical about stepping into an independent bookstore: the creak of floorboards, the smell of ink and paper, the gentle hush that invites you to linger. Canada is home to hundreds of these cozy sanctuaries for book lovers, each one a reflection of its local community. Whether you're after a rare gem, the latest bestseller, or something delightfully unexpected, indie bookstores are where the real literary treasure hunting begins.


As someone living in Ontario, I’m lucky to have access to some amazing independent bookstores and I’ve made it a personal mission to visit as many as I can. While compiling this list of 80 indie bookstores across Canada, I wanted to spotlight a few that have truly left their mark on me.

Ontario Favourites I’ve Visited

These gems have each offered something special—thoughtful curation, a welcoming atmosphere, and shelves bursting with stories I didn’t know I needed:

From Coast to Coast

The map below includes 80 indie bookstores, trying to span across the coast and into the territories. Whether you're heading to the Prairies, the coasts, or the far north, there’s a bookstore waiting to be explored.

These shops are more than just retail spaces, they’re champions of local authors, community builders, and keepers of Canadian literary culture.

Are you going to visit any of these?