Review: Curio by C.S. Poe

Title: Curio

Author: C.S. Poe

Length: 60 Pages

Category: Contemporary Romance

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: Curio is chock-full of warmth and smiles. It’s a short, sweet, and utterly charming story that shines—not despite its length but because it packs so much heart into so few pages.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Llewellyn Cooper and his aunt Julia run Curio Cabinet in New York City’s West Village, where the clientele is as strange as the junk being amassed in their secondhand shop. Llewellyn and Julia have been as thick as thieves his entire life, and Llewellyn can’t imagine being anywhere else six days a week—even if Julia’s bizarre habits and inappropriate conversations drive him crazy. That’s family, though, right?

When Llewellyn drums up the nerve to chat with a routine customer—in part due to curiosity, as Henry McLaughlin returns time and again to purchase nothing but old photographs, but also because the bearded and bow tie–wearing man is the finest thing to ever step foot inside Curio—it seems like Llewellyn will finally have a plus-one for future RSVPs. But just when things start looking up in the romance department, it turns out Henry might be too strange for the Cooper family.

And that’s saying something.

Review: C.S. Poe’s Curio is a small gem. It’s a short, sweet, and utterly charming story that shines—not despite its length but because it packs so much heart into so few pages.

Lew, Henry, and Lew’s aunt Julia are exquisite characters, remarkably charming and extraordinarily delightful. There is a grin to be grinned on nearly every page of this story, until it comes time for Lew and Henry to bring us back down to earth for a moment to clear up the wee misunderstanding that made Lew question Henry’s motives.

There is a little wink and nod to a certain sourpuss that Poe’s readers will undoubtedly find smile-worthy, too, adding that bit of fun to the vibrant Village vibe. Curio is chock-full of warmth and smiles.