3.5 stars

This was a departure for author Ellie Alexander, who writes a couple more standard cozy series. Main character Emily Bryant left a lucrative tech job in California to follow her dream of being involved in editing/publishing in New York City. She is just getting settled in when she gets a huge jolt -- she finds out her grandmother in California has died and left her a huge mansion. Emily's mom died when she was thirteen and she and her father have been estranged from his whole side of the family ever since. Her father refuses to discuss why that happened and Emily has had no contact with her grandmother or uncle since then.

But the terms of the will are quite clear -- she has to go finish editing a pile of manuscripts in order to inherit. She goes to California with a lot of old resentments and questions, wondering why this side of the family deserted her and her father years ago. The reality when she arrives is much different -- she discovers that her family tried very hard to re-connect and that it was her father who shunned them. And at least one of her cousins is very angry that his beloved grandma's house and memories will go to a virtual stranger.

This would be enough to take in for Emily, who is bewildered, but then she finds out something even more intriguing: the manuscripts she is called on to edit deal with local people -- and the edits she makes play out in real life. She is terrified of messing with people's lives and loves.

This was quite an interesting concept. Without giving anything away, this was quite readable but with a somewhat lame ending. The explanation for what went wrong years ago and the reasons for the family estrangement just seem like a letdown. Still, an unusual plot notion and mostly enjoyable with a lot of fun literary references. Thanks to the publisher and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was enraptured by the first line: “Jane Eyre? Jane Austen? Eyre or Austen?” Yes, I screamed. My two favorite Janes together. What an opener. I went back and saw the dedication and screamed some more: “For every reader who has found themselves through the pages of a book and in the process discovered who they were always meant to be.” The story hadn’t even begun, yet I already saw myself in its pages.
Ellie Alexander understands bookish souls.

What’s Going On?
Emily Bryant finally landed her dream job as a book editor in New York and is on the cusp of acquiring her first project when she gets heaved to Cascata, California by her estranged paternal family. Gertrude, her grandmother, died and left her dreamy historic mansion to Emily – along with mysterious forsaken manuscripts she must edit to claim her inheritance. Unsure what to make of the strange remote town she’s found herself in or of her extended family’s equally strange friendliness, Emily goes against her reservations and looks at the manuscripts. Not much can get stranger in a strange situation, right?
Wrong. Emily’s edits don’t just play out on the page, they play out on the stage that is life. Of course, this terrifies her, because Emily Bryant doesn’t know that she’s in a magical realism novel. It’d be chilling to see that you’re writing the real-life stories of real-life people. (Although, it would have solved many of my anxieties growing up if The Real World followed what I scripted. Alas, I am neither a magical realism character nor a desired reality shifter.)
Emily finds that she can’t escape the manuscripts. But she also can’t escape the loving, steadfast pull of her family or Cascata. And she even starts to learn more about the people the manuscripts are about. All the while, she’s confronting blurry, lost memories of the past, her dad’s reticence about his family and the town, and her looming job back in New York. Her passion for literature, so inextricable from her life, remains the constant as she tries to make sense out of the contradictions and confusions.

What Works?
• Setting. Wow. The house. The town. I would love to have an intimate community like that, or even to just experience it. Plus it’s on the coast! In California! My home! If I could just move it here to SoCal it’d be perfect…the Pacific NW is too cold for me. But I absolutely fell in love with the setting, one of my faves ever. Beautiful descriptions throughout.
Moment of appreciation for THE GARDENS WOW. Every day my need to have a home with lavish gardens to traverse increases. Pemberley, you did this to me at the ripe age of 8.
• She edits different types of books that are ultimately revealed to be united with common threads. When she edits, we legitimately get transported to certain scenes of those books – the edits are like their own little short stories. I found this concept intriguing and effective. Furthermore, it wasn’t redundant when we saw the scenes play out in the story later because they developed Emily’s reactions and/or revealed additional details that weren’t shown in the original editing scene.
• Emily being a reader allowed rich perspectives. The way she sees the world is true to booklovers. It just made for explorations you don’t get to see often in books yet see daily in your life, and I really connected to it. For one, the editing element gave an interesting vantage point because she was involved in other lives – like a reader. She was a real person, though, not a passive character. Yes, the IRL-edits are what draws readers to the book, but Emily’s story is prominent in her story. And the forsaken stories advance her own story – like a reader. I think that reflects our experiences well. It’s also different take on the whole “getting lost in your books” because although we’re lost and don’t know what we’re doing, we’re not lost and know exactly what we’re doing.
Another angle I picked up on was the idea of a safe distance. When we read, we get immersed in so many different worlds and storylines and people and conflict and love and happiness and grief and happenings. Readers feel it all, live it all, experience it all…while not actually going through it. It happens to us, but it doesn’t happen to us We always engage in literature at a safe distance, even though it is far from inconsequential to and separate from us. Safe distance is just the inherent nature of it. I started thinking about this because of:
(a) “What if you took an adventure for yourself, Emily?” “I don’t need to. That’s what books are for.”
(b) How Emily’s edits basically helped write the story of other people’s lives; her changes came true, but not for her. (And yet, her writing their stories helped her write her story.)
This just makes me happy and stimulates much for future introspection sessions.
• I love the practice of rewriting book endings - rewriting them. In my lifetime of reading, I never thought I could do that. Life changer right here.
• This might be one of my favorite magical realism books. Alexander utilized the genre incredibly to interplay her themes of reality and fiction. She saw the opportunity of “writing other people’s lives” and ran with it, while still keeping the book in the bounds of the objective world. The story didn’t overuse or underuse the genre (though I expand on this with suggestions in the next subsection). It created a sense of magic and wonder yet preserved plausibility and relatability. (Unfortunately, it couldn’t answer to the harsh impediment of attainability; not all of us have wealthy grandmothers to bequeath to us a love letter to books in the form of a mansion and editing company).
PS- Ellie mentions in her acknowledgements that this story came to her in one night; how magical realistic. That fun fact makes this even cooler.

What Needs Work?
• The dad. I don’t hate him, I don’t blame him; I believe the whole angle could have been handled better. Throughout, Emily is stumped by the question of why she doesn’t know her paternal family. She’s operated on a narrative spun by her dad that they abandoned them and are evil and must be hated. But everything she sees opposes that. (And then at the end, the dad resolves this great inner turmoil too easily.) So the whole feud between the dad and his family is the book’s big mystery – one that I was annoyed at rather than captivated by. Why? We don’t <i>see</i> that Emily’s operated on this narrative her whole life. The connection to the counternarrative she’s experiencing is there, but there’s nothing to compare it to besides the thought. It could’ve been developed better to generate more conflict and allow readers to experience Emily’s struggle with her.
Consider this line: “Had anything that Dad told me over the years been true? Was this why I struggled against my memories for so many years?” THIS is what we should’ve seen and felt more of. This is great. The memory blurring should have been capitalized on from the start so we can see the struggle. Which brings me to,
• The whole memory thing. Emily recalls her suppressed past through what she encounters in The Ballad and Cascata. But most of these memories are recalled too easily after learning new information (like when she remembers her grandma watching her at the playground). I can see her senses stimulating it, like the sight of a hidden compartment in the wall or the smell of cookies. I’m not well-versed in memory loss, and I know trauma presents differently in everyone, but some recollections felt like a reach.
Better integrating this and developing Emily’s trauma more (from the start) would have strengthened her connection with Gertrude and highlight its complexity. This next part is not a critique, but it would have been cool if Emily caught whiffs of Gertrude’s letter during her stay at Cascata and in her life overall, introduced to readers while she’s still in NY. That would have showed that invisible connection playing out even when unaware of it.
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Who Should Read This?
Bookish people who love being bookish. Where the thought of books alone enthralls you, the sight seduces you. You’re just <i>booksbooksbooks</i>. Because this is a celebration of books and book lovers.
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“An examined life is life lived through the pages of books.”
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Bonus Notes
I took a bunch of notes for this one, and not all made it to the review. so here you go. Raw from the source. This is just me getting excited.
• I WOULD READ I FIND YOU TOLERABLE.
• I completely agree with her rewrite of Little Women.
• “As if her essence were here, in the millions of words printed on these pages.” [paraphrase]
• Oh, to live in a historical cottagey mansion (with quirky homely features) (and extensive gardens) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and write all day.
• God can I have a house in Cascata to retreat to.
• God can I PLEASE stay at The Ballad???? Book lover’s paradise galore. Wait actually I’d love to run it too.
• Book therapist. That is all.
I’ve found my calling but I do not know if reality supports my calling and I do not know how to create it. Will I ever be able to meet this need?
• Elizabeth Bennet, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride & Prejudice supremacy.
• Literary party where you come dressed as a literary character………………….there’s now a massive void in my life that only this can fill.

I LOVE LOVE LOVED THIS BOOK. I felt so connected to it as a wanna be writer myself. I have read other books by Ellie Alexander including all the books in her bakeshop series. This book was much different than those and so much better.

Emily Bryant just landed her dream job as an editor in New York when she gets called back to the family hometown of Cascata, CA because her grandmother died and left her the family home. Emily has little memories of this family as her father has always led her to believe they are bad people who cause nothing but trouble and she is extremely reluctant to return. However, as she walks around Cascata and her grandmother's, now her, home, memories come flooding back and none of them are negative. Leaving Emily more confused than ever she also finds out her grandmother owns Lost Coast Literary and was a book editor herself.

I got lost in this book and read almost 2/3s of it in one sitting and I was so sad to put it down but I had to go to work the next day. This book felt like a lovely warm hug along the same lines as Heather Webber's magical realism books. I do hope Ellie Alexander plans to revisit these characters in the future. This is definitely a book I will read more than once. I'd give it 10 stars.

I honestly feel this book could have been so much more but fell so flat for me. The premise is a clever idea but all the editing and magic became a very small side story to her continues inner monologue about her family drama. Same paragraphs over and over again. Scenes that could have been shorter were dragged out to become annoying (looking at you Victoria and your money) and others that need more depth were over in a flash.
It wasn't awful, it just wasn't my jam.

I was unprepared for how good this book was going to be. You know what I mean? You know the author writes quality books, the blurb fascinates, the cover is perfection so you eagerly crack open the pages (figuratively of course, I would never crack my beloved iPad) and fall into a new world you never want to leave. This whimsical masterpiece is cozy mystery bliss.

What I liked most is the mystery in this book. Cozy mysteries are usually about investigating a murder but this one was investigating the past – family, relationships, heartbreak and reconciliation.

Now living in NYC, Emily gets a call that her grandmother died and she must return to the California coast to fulfil the tasks set out in the will. When she gets there, she’s presented with a mysterious job she must accomplish – edit the forsaken manuscripts. I’m sorry, what? Emily has no idea what that means (which is where the mystery comes in!) and so it begins, the slide into the heart of the mystery; untangling the events that kept Emily and her father estranged from the rest of the family. As the book progressed, more of the story came out and it was heartwarming, tragic and cathartic all in one. Truly, this was a great piece of writing.

I loved that the mystical elements were so well balanced and integrated within the reality of the story that it felt natural, I don’t know that my reactions would’ve been any different from Emily’s as she navigated and assimilated her new role as Book Therapist and when you add in all the beautiful scenery (I could almost smell the scent of salty sea air, piney forests and slug slime!) a diverse cast of characters, and a compelling narrative of healing the pain of lost loves, this book will keep you in its tight grip long after you finish. I don’t know if this book will become a series or not (fingers crossed) but I very much want to return to Cascata and the new community I desperately want to be a part of.

Thank you to Netgalley, Sweet Lemon Press and Ellie Alexander for the opportunity to read this amazing book.

3+ stars This book has many of my favorite tropes: unexpected inheritance, interesting house, a little not-spooky magic. The main character Emily is likable and I enjoyed learning about her past and seeing her develop as a character. The story itself was a little short in some places where I felt like some of the story was glossed over and not quite tied up but overall this was a fun bookish book and I’ll seek more books out from this author.

Thank you to Net Galley and Sweet Lemon Press for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honesty opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sweet Lemon Press for this ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily. When I saw a book by Ellie Alexander available on NetGalley, I knew I had to try and get a copy. She is one of my favorite authors. This book is quite different from her usual books, which is usually a red flag for me with most authors. However, that was not the case with this book. I thoroughly enjoyed diving into this book and living in a fantasy with Emily. Emily Bryant is a book editor in New York City. She receives word that she has to return to Cascata, where her grandmother lived because she has been named in her grandmother's Will (a grandmother she has not seen or heard from since she was a small child). She is curious and cautious, but she boards a plane from New York City to California's Lost Coast area where she finds out she has inherited something very valuable, part of which cannot be valued in dollars. The plot for this book is very clever and engaging for the character. This is a story of a little magic, forgiveness and healing, as well as learning that not everything is always what it seems. This was an emotional book for me as she learns more about her grandmother, and what she missed over the years, but now she cannot get that time back. As she is editing the manuscripts her grandmother left behind, she realizes that she is creating chaos in her new community and that people's live intertwist with one another daily without fully realizing what the future holds for the other person. Assumptions are not good when you do not fully understand the person's full story. For book lovers this is a very enjoyable read because you can just imagine the beauty of the house on the seaside cliff with books, books, everywhere. It is a reader's paradise.

A magical, fun, sweet, and a little sad story.

The story is so creative and different.

Due to unknown circumstances on the m.c., Emily's part, she has had no relationship with her grandmother and other family in the town she was born in, Cascata, on the Lost Coast part of Northern California.
When her grandmother passes away, her will stipulates that Emily and her father must return and fulfill the terms of the will, in order to inherit.

Emily is at first extremely reticent to meet this long-lost family and town, as she still harbors a lot of resentment. Once in town, she is immediately charmed by the town and its people.

I have to say that I was just as charmed by the town and its inhabitants. I love that Emily's family embraces her, as if they had never been apart.

The grandmother's home, The Ballad, is the stuff of dreams. Lost Coast Literary, the publishing company that Emily inherits is very unique, and I love the twist about editing the manuscripts.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review of this book.

Emily's journey to discover the truth about her past, and create a new future for herself is inspiring. Her magical edits and the changes they bring show how things in life don't always go the way we hope they will.
I love the unique setting in Cascata on California’s Lost Coast, it adds another layer to the events within the story.

I hope that this will become a series, as I would enjoy another adventure with Emily.

Thanks to Sweet Lemon Press LLC for the ARC on NetGalley

#LostCoastLiterary #NetGalley

Emily Bryant is a book editor, trying to find her way in New York city. When she finds out she won't be able to make a pitch for a book she's editing, she wonders if it was all a mistake.
A sudden request from an estranged relative suddenly changes the course of Emily's life, and possibly those around her. Another wonderful novel by this author which will reel you in and hold you enthralled as the layers of story are revealed.

This book was okay. The writing was… fine. The plot was kind of fun and… fine. I struggled with it, because I intensely disliked the protagonist.

3.5/5 stars

It has just been her and her father for as long as Emily can remember. It's not the perfect family arrangement she'd dreamed of, but it works out just fine. Then one day she gets a text message from her cousin who she hasn't seen or spoken to in years. What he wants? Her grandmother has died and left her her house. The only catch? She needs to come back to Cascata and edit some manuscripts before she can actually inherit anything. Begrudgingly, she accepts the invitation, since her family didn't give her much of a choice, and against her father's advice, goes to Cascata. Will it actually be a bad idea or will it unlock a part of her she didn't know she was missing?

I really enjoyed the way this story and journey were written. I really loved the small town feeling the author was able to create, so much so that I actually want to visit the area now. I really loved the chemistry and relationships and how they evolved between Emily and her extended family. The only thing I wish I could change is her relationship with her father and some of his choices. This feels intensely personal so I would still recommend this to anyone who enjoys a cozy mystery.

Lost Coast Literary by Ellie Alexander was so enjoyable to read. It was a book that captured me from the very beginning. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next as I never wanted to put it down. I loved getting to know Emily, her family, the people she met, and her love of books. I enjoyed seeing the story unfold! I also wish I was on the Lost Coast, seems like a place I would very much love to be. Highly recommending this read!

A cosy mystery, the right amount of ages, a book about books, literature, but it is more than that. It is about thinking one thing until the reality hits and you realise things are not as they seem.

As strange as it seems this is a charming mystery, there is a bit of magic to this cosy story and all the bits and pieces of the story is what kept me interested. I love a book like this as it is easy to read yet it still holds some interest and fun.

A great cosy to read at the beach, at the pool, cosied up in a chair or near the fire. As long as you have a cup of tea you will enjoy it.

What you need to know about this book is that a love of reading and everything bookish is not necessarily required for you to fall in love with it.
But man, Lost Coast Literary is like triple chocolate fudge cake with ice cream for bibliophiles like me!

Emily, a feverishly passionate bibliophile (think Nina Hill on steroids) and is a would be editor, trying to break into publishing and bringing her bookish dreams to life when she gets the call that her estranged grandmother has died and left her the family estate. The strange thing is that Emily hasn’t seen or heard from her grandmother in decades and didn’t know that she herself was a book editor. I order for Emily to inherit the incredible home, she needs to finish editing a stack of manuscripts and this is where the fun begins. Emily’s edits seem to be effecting peoples lives in the small town and now Emily can’t be sure if her love of fiction has gone one step too far.

This book is charming, but before charming became a condescending thing to say about a book. The layers of emotion, the incredible scenic descriptions and the palpable sense of people dealing with their love and their loss, with grief and hope makes for a magical realism that is both uplifting and tender. I loved the pure escapism that is created here and I especially love that this book doesn’t take a jaunt into the familiar territory of chucking in a romance just for the heck of it. It’s all about the books and I am here for it. Incredible read.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. Ellie Alexander has done it again everyone. I absolutely adored Emily's character in this book. This was an exciting reading experience. I absolutely highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Her writing style is phenomenal. This book will be in stores on March 29, 2022 for $16.00 (USD).

Fortunately, the protagonist captivated me from the beginning. Her life in New York City and then the required move to a small town on the coast of California were appealing. The secrets about her family issues kept me reading. Her "gift" almost got me to quit reading, but by the time that was revealed I was vested enough in her story to continue. I am glad I did. A few tears may have been shed at the end. Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy via NetGalley.

This book presented a unique premise, but in my opinion, the execution didn't always live up to the potential. For me, there were still a couple of unanswered questions. For example (spoiler alert!) who wrote the actual forsaken manuscripts the main character was supposed to edit? Did I miss that information?

In terms of the characters, most of them weren't memorable for me. Even though I am an editor and thought I would relate to the main character, Emily, because we have that in common, I really didn't. Although I was curious about the rift in the family, I didn't become invested in the outcome and only read this book all the way through because it was a NetGalley copy and I wanted to give an honest review. I'm sure this book has its readers who will absolutely love it on every level. I must confess that I am not that reader.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading this book but neither would I recommend it.

Lost Coast Literary is a sweet-as-candy chick-lit stand-alone, set in a fictional small Far North California town in a region called the Lost Coast, which turns out to be real (thanks Google Maps). I don’t really read this kind of thing anymore, but requested it at a time when I needed a break from violent thrillers on the recommendation of new Book Friend, because I liked the sound of the premise and the bookish elements. The trope of an unfulfilled young woman inheriting a property in a quirky town, leading to new friendships and a career change, is ubiquitous in cosy crime and romantic fiction, but this throws in a fantasy twist that promised something more interesting than was actually delivered.

Emily Bryant has just moved to New York to start a new career in publishing, when she receives word that her paternal grandmother has died, leaving Emily The Ballad, her mansion in the quaint beachside town of Cascata, but with a strict condition - she must finish editing a pile of “Forsaken” manuscripts - and no one can tell her why. Emily hadn’t seen Gertrude since she was a young child, and never understood why her father’s family cut all ties when her mother died, so is confused by the bequest, and by her uncle and his family’s unexpected friendliness, but dutifully sets to work on the novels. When the “improvements” she’s made start magically playing out in front of her in the lives of Cascata’s residents, Emily just wants to help, but her well-meaning meddling just causes more problems. All she wants to do is sell The Ballad and get back to her job, but as her memories start to clear and she learns how beloved Gertrude was in the town, Emily begins to wonder if perhaps there’s another side to her family’s story… and whether everyone actually needs a Happy Ever After?

This was a cute story chock full of literary references, designed to appeal to bookworms of all ages - who doesn’t dream of being gifted a beautiful house full of books? Cascata sounds idyllic - apart from the weather - although the technicolour descriptions gave new meaning to the expression Purple Prose. I got bored with Emily’s self-absorbed angst about her perceived abandonment, and felt the “mysteries” of what had happened and why no one would talk about it was contrived and made little sense. Emily’s efforts to help her new friends were the most interesting part of this - because her family issues were frankly tedious - but were still pretty predictable. I was disappointed that the author felt the need to insert a late love interest into the plot - why can’t a heroine ever have a happy ending that doesn’t include meeting a man? I also am tired of books set in the present that are being released in 2022 still pretending Covid never happened. 3.5 rounded down from me, but please remember this really isn’t my genre, so I’m sure fans of cosy chick-lit will like it much more than I did.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sweet Lemon Press for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily. Lost Coast Literary is published on March 29th.

This book was a wonderful surprise. I thought I would enjoy the story but it surpassed my expectations. I absolutely adored this book! The premise was original and creative. The relationships the protagonist had and/or developed with the other characters were honest and real exploring both the negative and positive aspects that color all types of relationships.- Particularly family dynamics. I was particularly moved by the bond Emily shared with her grandmother as I could relate to how special that can be. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.