Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Wonderland
SERIES: In Vino Veritas, Book 5
AUTHOR: Rachel Ember
PUBLISHER: Heart Eyes Press
LENGTH: 251 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 22, 2022
BLURB:
I left Vermont on the most painful day of my life and swore I’d never go back. Meadows Park–the shuttered amusement park that’s been in my family for generations–is the home of all my finest and worst memories. They all star Peter Landry–the best friend I ever had, and the only guy I’ve ever loved.
But then my eccentric grandfather buried two million dollars on the property and couldn’t remember where.
So I’m back, and asking Peter for help. He’s an Ivy League lawyer now. Still gorgeous, and able to gut me with a single smile. And I’m still a disappointment, living in the city and washing dishes to get by. As soon as we strike off down the first sunlit path, the Meadows Park magic begins to fill my heart with yearning, lust, and most dangerous of all—dreams.
I’m secretly relieved each time the day ends, leaving us empty-handed. I know it’s wrong—without that money, we could lose the park.
But if I find the treasure, I lose the guy…
REVIEW:
If a book could have an out-of-body experience, Rachel Ember’s Wonderland would be an example of the phenomenon. This fantastical, magical story centers on former childhood best friends Riley Meadows and Peter Landry, who improbably end up reuniting over a search for a missing two million dollars of lottery winnings that are buried somewhere within a derelict, defunct amusement park owned by eccentric, semi-reclusive Gene Meadows, Riley’s Grandpa. The story comes complete with exotic animals, like now-departed zebras and a giant tortoise named Lemon, and cryptic clues to the location of the missing treasure based on Gene’s rapidly deteriorating memories. Within this amazing scenario, Riley and Peter get a second chance at love after they fell out – literally and figuratively – over a (questionable, somewhat implausible) misunderstanding eight years ago.
Wonderland feels like an imaginative reverie. The story is situated within Sarina Bowen’s True North fictional universe of Burlington, Vermont, and Peter is loosely tethered to the “reality” of the other In Vino Veritas series books through his connection to Aaron, his law school mentee/friend who is featured in J.E. Birk’s Counterpoint and to a lesser extent in Birk’s Vino & Veritas series book Booklover. And yet, Wonderland’s story feels very much like the park itself, wholly disconnected, like it exists in some limbo world of in-between where the fantastic hides away within the everyday, mundane, humdrum.
“[T]he park wasn’t reality. It was a magical dimension shoved into the mundane.”
Indeed, the otherworldly magical quality of a “wonderland” is intended to be a special place for Riley and Peter – where nothing is impossible and the most incredible things inexplicably come true.
“During operating hours, it’ll be everybody’s wonderland. But when the gates close, it’ll just be ours.”
The problem is that Ember leaves us floating in this netherworld where the story isn’t grounded in anything that feels “real”, yet the “magical” feels uninspired. The fantastical underpinning of this story should have translated into colorful, wild, deep technicolor, sky’s-the-limit type thinking and actions. But that didn’t translate into the plot. Instead, in my mind’s eye, I saw this story play out in bland shades of green and brown, like watching through a dirty sepia lens over signs of distress and decay everywhere – in the park, family relationships, in Riley and Peter’s relationship. The magical aspects of the park, the woo-woo that should have made us gasp and swoon, instead felt tired. Hence, my reference to the out-of-body experience: Wonderland hovers outside of itself, never establishing its story within the pages as the magical, fantastical romance and hidden treasure adventure it could have been.
To be fair, there’s nothing glaringly wrong with Wonderland. The characters are interesting and likable, and the storyline is unique. It felt a bit lackluster, though, primarily because of the evident potential it had to be so much more than a story that’s simply “fine”. The romance between Riley and Peter doesn’t help either, because it similarly lacks that captivating quality that draws us in and keeps us invested in the plot and their relationship. The misunderstanding didn’t make much sense (although Ember provides a belated, satisfactory explanation towards the end of the book), and the cadence of the reveals about Riley and Peter’s history made it difficult to really get on board with their love story.
Overall, I didn’t find Wonderland to be the wonderful, colorful story I expected, but YMMV. I wonder if I would have liked this more in audio. The story only works with immersion, and on text alone, that never happened. But in the hands of a skilled narrator, the grounding and context this story needs could easily be obtained.
RATING: 
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