Another delightful magical realism tale from Heather Webber.

In the Coffee Shop of Curiosities, Ava is finally going to live her life!
Growing up, she suffered from seizures, and always had to be so very careful. Following the death of a friend, she decides to make some changes, big ones, and leave her home and life behind to move to a small town for employment as the caretaker for a an elderly man, and as a part time barista in the local coffee shop.
Such a delightful cast of characters, sweet loves found and rekindled...
A wonderful book all around!

“It has been said…” that this book is the PERFECT warm hug you are looking for!

Magical Realism has been my favorite lately and this book was the perfect combination of magic and hope. At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities had a lovely small town feel while exploring deeper topics of loss and grief. There is strong character development and there was not one character I wasn’t rooting for. I just love the way this book makes you reflect on life and love while also leaving you with some amazing advice. I tabbed so much of this book and know there are quotes I will come back to for some time to come. Here are a few of my favorites.

“If you continue to allow fear to run your life, you will never have the future you year for, the happiness you’ve dreamed of. You must make peace with your past in order to move forward. Stop hiding from your pain. The only way out is through.”

“Tragedy, accidents, especially, rarely come with reasons why. Yet we look for them everywhere. We blame. We deny. We carry guilt, regrets. Sometimes, and this is hard to accept but you must, it is simply that person’s time to go. We are all on borrowed time.”

4.25 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @torbooks for the early copy

Grab your copy out 8/1!

“It has been said.”

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities has the perfect touch of love of magic. ✨

Ava is grieving the loss of her friend/ex-boyfriend. A few weeks after his death, she receives an anonymous letter urging her to leave behind all she knows in Ohio to become a caregiver to an older gentleman in Driftwood, Alabama.

Still grieving the drowning loss of her mother twenty-five years earlier, Maggie lives in her hometown of Driftwood, Alabama and runs the coffee shop her mom started. She cares for her aging father, who has suddenly started acting precular even saying he sees a ghost. Then newcomer Ava comes to town and emotions and transformations begin to surface.

This is my third Heather Webber read, and I am never disappointed. Oh how I adore her characters.

Thank you Thor Publishing and NetGalley for the early copy. I enjoyed this book.

Favorite quote: “Life is too short, too fragile, too precious to hide in the shadows of what might have been. If continuously looking behind, you risk missing the possibilities that lie ahead.” ✨

Favorite character: Estrelle 🪄
Steamy rating: Below zero ❄️
Profanity: Perfectly fine 😇
How I discovered: Goodreads 🖥️
Method: Early copy e-book from NetGalley 📱
Publication day: August 1, 2023 📖

Triggers: loss of a parent/friend

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

I loved every single minute of this book. The writing reminds me so much of Sarah Addison Allen. It was whimsical with love and hope and friendship and magical notions. A perfect book with characters that I fell in love with so easily. I cannot wait for the author to publish another book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group, Forge Books for the ARC of At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities.

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities is a dual narrator story of Ava Harrison, a young woman in early remission from epilepsy who has lived a very sheltered life, and Maggie Mae Brightwell, a woman in her early forties, who runs a coffeeshop in the quaint town of Driftwood. Ava, living in Ohio, is mourning the loss of her ex-boyfriend and receives a job posting in the mail for a caretaker position in Driftwood, Alabama that she believes was sent to her by the ghost of her ex. Maggie is still caught up in the loss of her mother, who was never recovered after she was swept into the Gulf by a riptide when Maggie was a little girl. As both women learn to live with their losses they become close friends buoyed by their neighbors in the small town.

I really enjoyed At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities! It is such a cozy book. The characters of the town are all delightful. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a delightful read that is like being wrapped in a tight squishy hug.

I love her books! There’s always a magical feel to them. It’s a good story of different characters dealing with grief, loss and moving on. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe was one of the best books I read in 2021. It was moody and perfect with the small town magic.

I think I unfairly went in expecting those vibes from this book. This book features another small town in Alabama. Ava gets a letter with a job listing in a small town that she suspects was sent by her newly dead ex boyfriend. They parted on good terms but she feels responsible for his death since she refused to go out with him the night he was in an accident. So she drives from Ohio to this tiny town in Alabama and finds the job is not exactly what she was expecting.

Maggie owns the coffee shop that her mother opened prior to her death. She refuses to change anything because her mother set it up this was for a reason. So it's in total purgatory. Her father would like to sell it to shake things up for Maggie and she is horrified because that's more change.

I wanted to love this, I truly did. I just didn't find that I clicked with the main characters very much. The last chapter or so what a snapshot of what I would have liked to have seen in the entire book. I just didn't feel like a ton was happening to progress the story until it picked up at the very end and then it was over. I was just left disappointed.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A small, Southern beach town. Two women haunted by the losses in their past and coping with the difficulties of health problems. Ava is brought to the town by a mysterious letter sent by a ghost. Maggie is drowning in taking care of everyone else, so she takes Ava in. The ensuing journey is full of cozy, heartwarming moments as their friendship grows amid the mystery of Ava’s ghost. They may find they have more in common than they knew.

This novel is a cozy, beachy story about love, community, and friendship and finding yourself. It deals largely with grief and it’s many stages, as many of the characters have lost something that led them to the town. Full of little magics, new beginnings, and fresh starts, it’s an easy and engaging read that will leave you hopeful about the good in the world.

This is a charming and whimsical story. I especially admire how the novel explores the theme of resilience, exploring how to move on after tragedy and grief. All the emotions are here, and it's an entertaining journey with the characters. The coffee shop as a gathering place works well to provide a touchpoint as the characters come and go in their daily lives.. Ultimately the theme of healing by connecting with others will warm your heart.

This is truly a magical book. You'll pick it up and say you're only going to read 2 chapters and then suddenly realize you've been reading for a hour, and don't want to stop! The characters grab you immediately- they are southern small town America at it's best, with a coastal vibe that makes you want to be in their world. Add in some mystery about Maggie's mother and Ava's future, and you have a book where you might see the end part way through, but the adventure is so much worth the read, you don't mind! Call it the perfect Summer read- it has romance, humor, chick lit, dysfunctional families, and some magic. You'll soon be enchanted with this book too!

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities is another lovely book by Heather Webber. I was first introduced to her writing after the recommendation from a friend to read Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe, and I have since fallen in love with her small town style of storytelling. This book follows two main characters, Ava and Maggie, after Ava receives a mysterious letter that leads to her take a chance and start a new life on the coast of Alabama. Maggie hires Ava to help her in her coffee shop and also as a caregiver for her father who has not seemed like himself lately. What follows in the pages are many quirky and beloved small town characters, a few well loved pets with unique personalities, a touch of magic, and many life lessons. If you are looking for a lovely, light hearted escape with a touch of magic that you could easily recommend to a friend of any generation, this is the book for you. Thank you to Net Galley, Tor Publishing Group, Forge Books for an early copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

This really hurts me to say because Heather Webber is one of my favorite authors but I didn’t like this book. I didn’t connect with any of the characters like I did with all of her other books. I didn’t feel the pull to the small town and fall in love with its residents. I didn’t get any of the magical realism that has been in the other books. In fact, I had a hard time distinguishing between Ava and Maggie while listening. I was so excited to be able to listen to this and am sad that I just couldn’t connect.

A strange letter from a dead boyfriend lifts Ava from her grieving state and drives her towards a new life in Driftwood, Alabama. She misses Alexander, who was always trying to pull her out of her shell to experience more in life but all she has left of him is guilt over his death and a crumbled help wanted ad. As she stands outside a coffee shop, Magpie’s, waiting for her interview with the manager, she notices that this town is full of peculiar people but she feels safe and welcomed.

Magpie’s is a coffee shop run by Maggie Brightwell who is, by far, the most popular person in Driftwood. The townspeople come by everyday just to see Maggie, and catch up on the latest small town gossip.

When Ava presents the help wanted ad to Maggie, she’s stunned! She wrote up an ad asking for help with her father, Desmond, but she crumpled it up and threw it in the trash…how did Ava get it?

This was my first book by Heather Webber, but won’t be my last. As I’m writing this review, I’m searching for more of her books that I can fall completely in love with just like this one.

The butterfly was the first thing that drew me towards this book. I believe that every orange and black butterfly that flies around me is the spirit of my grandmother checking up on my accomplishments in life. The author included the butterfly in this story and made my heart flutter. 🦋

This book weaved a magical story in my mind that will stay with me forever. I’m usually not an emotional person, but the ending left me in tears and I immediately wanted to read it again.

Thank you Tor for the annual treat that is a Heather Webber book. once or twice a year I want a whimsical southern charm magical realism story and Heather Webber's work always is jus the right style, pace, and charm that I want.
I always feel hopeful and charmed after reading/listening to her books and that is just what I want once or twice a year. At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities brings me back to the joy of Webber's Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe, which I loved, and the similar whimsy of a bakery/coffee shop setting and small town motifs. I love the examination of sorrows and regret mixed with relatable MCs with Maggie and Ava and the deftly developed themes on feeling haunted by the past/lost chances and the sense of renewal that comes with a little magic, hope, and finding where you belong.

A win for fans of this author and readers who like last year's Other Birds; for fans of southern charm, bakery shop/small town vibes, and whimsical magical realism.

The book blurb for this is accurate. It is a story about Ava and Maggie's lives intersecting and helping both of them move on from different things. That said, this book is cute and heartwarming and perfect for someone who is not me. I chose it because the blurb made it sound like there was a magical angle to the story. It is there, but I would say that it is specifically more paranormal, which I am just not personally into. However, I know several people who really love emotional, touching books and occasionally enjoy adding another aspect to those stories, such as fantasy or paranormal. This book is absolutely for people who enjoy that kind of thing and I am going to recommend it to them.

My only criticism is that, for both of the main characters, it seemed like big things in their backgrounds were revealed all at once and with little to no indication that the reader was going to get a big info dump. This disrupted the flow of the story for me. I think it would have been more engaging for me if their background stories had been worked in more gradually. it felt very much like the characters would be experiencing something that reminded them of something that happened in the past and then - wham - the reader would get the whole story about whatever it was all at once. I applaud the author for not making me wait to find out all of the details, but it felt like a lot to remember all at once

I guess this is my year of DNFing books 😪 I have to say with this one I quite literally fell asleep trying to read this arc and I’m sorry but that’s where I say to put it down. I only got like not 40 pages in and idk if it was the writing or the story but it put me to sleep 🥲
I wish I could “not rate” this book as I did not finish it, so I feel that my rating is not entirely fair. But I have to add a rating on here so that’s why it is a low rating.

A mediocre cup of curiosity at best for me. Felt the story didn’t live up to the hype of the summary and the duo-perspective writing was overall just repetitive. I did enjoy the small town “Sweet Magnolias” vibes from Driftwood and eccentric townsfolk though.

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities
Heather Webber
Pub Date August 1, 2023
Forge
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Magical realism is a new genre for me but I loved and reread this book just for the joy of it.
I highly recommend.
5 stars

I missed the magic in this sorry. Unlike her other stories, which I truly love, I struggled to get through this one. I wasn’t able to connect with the characters and felt they lacked depth. I think maybe I needed other POV from Estrelle or Dez to make it more magical.

Webber’s books always leave my heart happy! This book was no exception. I loved Ava and Maggie and their separate stories as well as their combined story. This was woven together well.
However, I was left feeling a little unfulfilled. I just wanted more of everything because it was so good and there was just so much more I wanted! More of the romance, more from the animals, and more from the friendship. Maybe a sequel could one day come our way!?!

Thanks to NetGalley and Forge Books for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.