At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities - Heather Webber - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Heather Webber

NARRATORS: Hallie Ricardo and Stephanie Willis

GENRE: Romance-Drama, Magical Realism.

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A heartwarming story set in a small town. Found family plus magical realism combined with relatable and likeable characters. Enjoyed this.

Story Synopsis:

When twenty-seven year old Ohio resident Ava receives a mysterious letter advertising the position of a caretaker for a cantankerous old man and his cat, she decides to take a risk for the first time in her life, travelling all the way to Driftwood, Alabama.

Thirty-eight-year-old Maggie has run Magpie's, a little shop of coffee and curiosities since a long time. She keeps herself overly busy to forget her increasingly strained relationship with her father Desmond and also her health issues. When Ava arrives in response to her advert, the two women become good friends, and without knowing it, begin a journey of healing in each other’s lives.

The story comes to us in the first person perspectives of Ava and Maggie.

Bookish Yays:

😍 The book gets the small-town vibe perfectly, right from the closeness of the people to the nosiness of the characters to the helpfulness in times of need. I loved how the beachside elements were used to add a further touch of atmosphere to the picture-perfect location.

😍 The central characters are really sweet and loveable. Ava and Maggie struggle with their personal and health issues, and this inner dynamic is carried over in their external interactions as well. Both of them are strong characters and carry the story capably.

😍 The secondary characters are also amazing, whether they have extended roles or limited ones. My favourite of all was Estrelle, the scary old lady who owned the sewing store. A special shoutout for having a gay couple in the cast of characters, not a common occurrence for a story set in a Southern small town.

😍 Even beyond the above, we have Norman the endearing dog, Molly the free-spirited cat, Cluck-Cluck the marathoning chicken, and little Juniper – the most charming baby ever. Talk about cuteness overload!

😍 I loved the way Ava’s struggles with epilepsy were written in the story. Her problem with being constantly mollycoddled by her mom, her wish to live life on her own terms, her constant fear about having an epileptic attack and yet not allowing that fear to constrain her activities – the whole presentation felt authentic.

😍 The book also touches upon mental health, and the impact of grief on someone's personality. While this doesn't go too dark in accordance with the genre, it is still handled very well. 

😍 There is a lovely thread of magical realism throughout the book through strange events, unexplained predictions, paired curiosities, and odd butterflies. While some of these are explained away with a more rooted reason later in the book, they still add a lovely surreal touch to the plot.

😍 If you ask me what were the key events in the book, I will struggle to answer because the book is more like a series of small events than a couple of major ones. Yet, the story just whizzes by and I never felt like it was lagging or dragging. I liked how plot simplicity didn’t lead to boredom.

😍 There are multiple potential and new romantic relationships in the novel. Though the two main ones felt rushed and overly saccharine at times, they still matched the tone of the book and were totally steam-free. This might be among the very few times when I have no major complaints about the love stories in a novel. Sometimes, cutesy still works.

Bookish Nays:

😟 While Maggie has a college-going son, she is just 38. Yet, somehow the writing seems to portray her as a much older woman, not by outright calling her ‘old’ but by having frequent references to her age. It felt quite odd and didn’t gel with her actual age.

😟 It is a touch too goody-goody. If you are looking for more realistic small-town vibes, that won’t happen as there’s not a single negative character. The conflict in the plot comes more from family dynamics than from any external source.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 12 hrs 10 minutes, is narrated by Hallie Ricardo and Stephanie Willis. I appreciate the decision of having two narrators for the two first-person povs. However, I only liked the narrators and didn’t love them. They had nice voices but it took me a good while to get into the book because their somewhat subdued performance kept causing my mind to wander. I wasn’t a fan of their voices for male characters, nor did I find them expressing the right emotions while reading. I liked the Southern accent of the narrator voicing Maggie as it brought a genuineness to the experience, but after a few chapters, her Southern accent seemed to disappear. This also meant that I kept muddling between the two characters after the initial chapters as both narrators sounded quite similar. 

The fact that I still enjoyed the book so much is a credit to the author and the story.

This is my first experience reading a Heather Webber book, and I am quite happy with the outcome. The novel reminded me of Ruth Hogan’s works, and I am keen to explore more by Webber.

Definitely recommended if you want to read a beautiful small-town story that is sugary-sweet in plot and characters.

My thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.