Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane

 The pretty little wife in the book by that name by Darby Kane is Lila Ridgefield, who has just found some sex videos of her husband with some of his students as this debut novel begins. Meanwhile, three young women have disappeared without a trace in Lila’s college town in New York.

Lila and her husband Aaron Payne are on the outs over the videos, and soon Aaron disappears, or so Lila leads investigators to believe. However, Lila is confused because the last time she saw her missing husband, he was dead in his car parked on the schools’ grounds.

Ginny Davis, the senior detective on the case, suspects that Lila knows more than she’s telling, and as the wife, she becomes the number one suspect among two others: Aaron’s brother Jared and his principal Brent. The story takes many twists and turns as it is brought to a horrific climax with the Pretty Little Wife being in jeopardy.

Darby Kane is the pseudonym for HelenKay Dimon, a former divorce lawyer turned bestselling author of more than 40 romantic suspense, contemporary, and erotic romance books and novellas. She lives in San Diego.

Landslide by Susan Conley

 

Landslide by Susan Conley is titled for the Stevie Nicks’ song that she penned about the changes and challenges of life, which certainly fits Jillian’s life at the opening to the book when the tune is playing on the radio in her car. Jillian’s son Sam, who was with his friend Liam when Liam fell to his death, deals with survival guilt. Jillian’s fisherman husband Kit has suffered serious injuries from an explosion on a boat and is in a hospital seven hours from their home in Maine. More complications will occur in the story as the Archers’ lives are headed for a landslide.

Life is challenging enough raising two teenage boys, and when Jillian is left to parent them alone while Kit is in the hospital far from home, things become a bit too much. Add to that the realization that Kit may have been having an affair prior to the explosion makes it almost unbearable for Jillian.

The pacing of the book keeps one reading, and the characters seem true to life.

Susan Conley has also written Elsey Come Home, Paris Was the Place, and The Foremost Good Fortune. She has also been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, The Huffington Post, Ploughshares, and The Harvard Review. She teaches at the University of Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Program.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

 

Set during the Dust Bowl in the Panhandle of Texas, Kristin Hannah’s novel, The Four Winds, tells the story of Elsinore Wolcott Martinelli, a woman driven from her in-law’s wheat farm in Lonesome Tree, Texas,  by the dust storms, crop failures, and financial hardship. When Elsa’s young son’s life depends on moving out of the Dust Bowl because of his dust pneumonia, she and her two children migrate along Route 66 to California in search of The American Dream. Like the classic novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, this novel explores themes of poverty, discrimination, social justice, and sacrifice.

Both novels are social commentaries on the experience of migrants struggling to survive in their historical moment. Like Steinbeck before her, Hannah has done considerable research including a visit of the FSA “Weedpatch” camp in Arvin, California, where she also spoke to former residents of the camp. She reviewed the same interviews conducted by Sanora Babb, whose own novel Whose Names are Unknown was put aside for the release of Grapes.

The four winds blew people from all across America into California, where they were not wanted and were labeled “Okies” by the residents. Elsa had not always been poor. She came from a wealthy family in Dalhart, Texas, who disowned her when a shotgun wedding to Rafe Martinelli was warranted. As times got harder and harder on the Martinelli farm thanks to the drought and the dust storms, Rafe abandoned his family to pursue his own dreams.

On their own journey to a second chance, Elsa imagined a new home and a new job in California. She had not pictured a “ditch-bank camp” for a home, nor had she expected poor pay for long hours doing menial jobs. Even her children ended up picking cotton to make ends meet, which never happened, as the company store prices gouged their little earnings.

A devastating flash flood took what little they had and left them with nothing but their truck and its contents. They could not go back to the Panhandle because of the son’s health, but it hardly seemed they could succeed in California where they were not welcome.

Communists who are trying to organize workers to unite and to strike where pay and work conditions are lacking come to the forefront at this point in the story. While Elsa’s teenage daughter realized the validity of the concerns of the would-be strikers and wants to take up their cause, Elsa remained fearful about getting involved in the work actions. At a pivotal moment, Elsa’s decision and its consequence drive the story to its climax.

Hannah echoed Steinbeck’s unforgettable closing scene in The Grapes of Wrath in her novel as she brought it to a mighty closing. I found myself thinking back to Steinbeck’s powerful novel at various points throughout this book.

Kristin Hannah, one of my favorite authors, is the bestselling author of The Nightingale, Goodreads best historical fiction novel for 2015, and The Great Alone, Goodreads best historical novel of the year in 2018.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting December 10, 2020.

I would like to thank St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin

 

The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin tells the story of a deadly snowstorm that roared through the Great Plains on January 12, 1888. It hit during the time that many children were in school with teachers little older than themselves.

Benjamin crafted her telling of that day from the actual oral histories of some of the survivors. Sisters Raina and Gerda Olsen, both schoolteachers, are caught in the storm with their students. Anette, a young girl whose mother sold her into servanthood with the Pedersen family, gets lost trying to get home from school with her friend Fredrik, but they end of spending the night in a ravine. Gavin Woodson, a newspaperman, reports the many stories of that day.

An Indianapolis native, Melanie Benjamin is The New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator's Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue. She lives with her husband in Virginia. She usually weaves her historical fiction around people, but in this instance, she chose to write about an event.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 11, 2020.

I’d like to thank Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict

 

Author Marie Benedict has selected Agatha Christie as the latest historic woman to have her story told in The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, coming out in January 2021.

Archibald Christie just had to have Agatha Miller in his life even though she was engaged to someone else. Once married, his feelings for her seemed to slowly diminish until she seemed more of a nuisance to him than someone he loved and coveted. They had married in 1914, had their only child Rosalind in 1919, and the marriage just faded away as he pursued other women.

Although she never discussed it, Agatha Christie went missing in 1926, and her husband was put off because she apparently interrupted a weekend with his lover when the police fetched him because his wife was missing. Her empty wrecked car caused a manhunt to find the mystery writer. She would turn up 11 days later claiming loss of memory when she actually had been creating her best mystery ever.

Marie Benedict has once again beautifully created the story of a famous woman as she did with Mrs. Einstein and Mrs. Churchill. A lawyer who graduated from Boston University Law School, Benedict focused on History and Art History at Boston College as an undergraduate. I wonder who she will next create as she pursues the hidden stories of famous women. Marie Benedict’s subjects don’t always interest me, but her writing draws me in each time.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 8, 2020.

I’d like to thank Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

Daylight (Atlee Pine #3) by David Baldacci

 

Daylight (Atlee Pine #3) by David Baldacci finds FBI Agent Atlee Pine searching for her twin sister Mercy which brings Pine into the middle of Army Investigator John Puller’s drug ring case, which means anything can and will happen.

Mercy was kidnapped when the girls were six years old, and Pine has the best lead so far in finding out the identity of the kidnapper, Ito Vincenzo. In New Jersey trying to piece the clues together, Pine and Puller probe the connection between their cases.

Will Pine find Mercy? Will Puller close his case? These questions and much more will be answered in Daylight.

David Baldacci published his first novel, Absolute Power, in 1996, and it became a popular movie starring Clint Eastwood. Baldacci, a former lawyer, has published another 40 novels for grownups since Absolute Power.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting October 30, 2020.

I’d like to thank Grand Central Publishing, the Hatchette Book Group, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

Atticus Finch by Joseph Crespino

 

Atticus Finch by Joseph Crespino is the “biography” of the father character in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Crespino explains how Atticus came to be modeled after A.C. Lee, Harper Lee’s lawyer-turned-newspaperman father.  Crespino gives many behind the scene details regarding the making of the film in Hollywood as well.

He also discusses the later-found work, Go Set a Watchman, in which a totally different persona was developed for Atticus. Rather than scorn it, he says the book shows how Lee was conflicted about how she wanted to portray her father in literature. Lee was crafting her work in a historical period of militant segregation politics at that time in the South, and she was trying to make sense of how her father fit into the scheme of things.

In this scholarly work, Crespino shares his insider’s look at letters and documents that were made available to him, some from private collections, as well as his conversations with three grandchildren of Lee’s father, her own nieces and a nephew. With his background in history, Crespino is able to put Lee’s work into a social and political history context. Several photographs in the book show a more flattering Harper Lee than the author shots that are usually used.

Fans of Lee and her work will learn much about her life and how it found its way into her writing.

Joseph Crespino, the Jimmy Carter Professor of History at Emory University, is an expert in the political and cultural history of the twentieth century United States, and of the history of the American South since Reconstruction. 

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting October 30, 2020.

I would like to thank Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, a subsidiary of Hatchette Book Group, Inc., and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Three Mrs. Wrights vy Linda Keir

 The Three Mrs. Wrights by Linda Keir is another story of a man who can never have enough women in his life. Jon, Jack, Tripp--whatever you want to call him, keeps adding women to his stable that includes Holly, his wife; Jessica, his newest employee, and Lark, a woman he met in a bar.

It’s easy to predict that the women will all find out about each other, and Jon, Jack, Tripp--whoever will go down. Yawn. Short on plot, thin on character.

The writing team of Linda Joffe Hull and Keir Graff make up the pen name of Linda Keir.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting October 15, 2020.

I would like to thank Lake Union Publishing, a trademark of Amazon.com, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Librarian of Boone's Hollow by Kim Vogel Sawyer

 The Librarian of Boone's Hollow by Kim Vogel Sawyer is a lightweight entry into the subject area of fictional packhorse librarians. With Kim Michele Richardson and Jojo Moyes duking it out for the best of the genre in 2019, Sawyer journeys into the mining towns of Kentucky for her entry.

Set during the Great Depression, the protagonist, Adelaide Cowherd, is just about finished with her college year only to be told she is expelled because her parents have failed to pay the college. A part-time worker at the Lexington Library, she learns of a job on horseback delivering books. 

Boone’s Hollow folk are suspicious of strangers and have their prejudices and superstitions causing them to reject Addie as a packhorse librarian. She does have one friend in town whom she met in college, Emmett Tharp. With a degree in business, he has not been able to find a job now that he has graduated until the director of the Boone’s Hollow Packhorse Library must leave the area due to her asthma.

A love triangle soon emerges as an illiterate town girl wants to put her hooks into Tharp while he prefers college-educated Addie, who longs to be a writer with her own books on library shelves. Before long, someone has menaced with the library program and has stolen Addie’s documents.

Kim Vogel Sawyer released her first book in 2006, Waiting for Summer's Return. A former teacher, Sawyer now writes full time and has a speaking ministry.

A Time for Mercy by John Grisham

 John Grisham like I love John Grisham is back with A Time for Mercy, in which Jake Brigance is once again the main character. This time he is tackling another justified killing if only the court would see it that way. Unfortunately, the victim was a deputy sheriff, and there’s not a lot of sympathy in Clanton, Mississippi, for the 16-year-old killer, his mother, and his sister.

Already extremely busy with a case involving wrongful death of a family that was killed in an auto vs train accident, Jake does not want another capital murder case. He agrees only because the judge wants him to take the case, and it is the same judge in the pending wrongful death suit. Once again Jake finds himself at odds with the town and especially law enforcement officers who support one of their own, even though many knew some unsavory things about the victim.

The ending of the book seems to leave the door open to a sequel, and fans of Grisham will hope so as we cannot get enough of Jake Brigance.

John Grisham, a lawyer, started his writing career in 1988 with A Time to Kill, in which he introduced Jake Brigance. Several of his books have been adapted for movies, and he has said he wants Matthew McConaughey to portray Jake once again. No once writes a better trial procedural than Grisham in this reviewer’s opinion.

.

Dear Ann by Bobbie Ann Mason

 “I have often wondered what would have happened to me if I had gone to the West Coast after college instead of the East Coast…The question prompted this novel...” said Bobbie Ann Mason in the acknowledgements of Dear Ann, her latest novel.

The main character, Ann Workman, is looking back at her life when she decides to re-imagine it if she had chosen a different path from the one she chose. That different path has her going to graduate school at Stanford, smoking pot, dropping acid, and being in love. Her love interest appears to be the same boy she was in love with in her real life, Jimmy, an upper class boy from Chicago. Music and literature drive their day-to-day life while the Vietnam War overshadows their existence. This other-life Ann finds herself participating in anti-war demonstrations and visiting Haight-Ashbury.

For readers who grew up in the 1960s, an element of nostalgia comes into play as hits of the day are interwoven into the text as well as many of the works of literature that were popular in college courses at that time.

Bobbie Ann Mason’s memoir, Clear Springs, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Her other titles include In Country and Shiloh and Other Stories. She lives in her native state of Kentucky.

 

 

 

Born to Fly by Sara Evans

 

Because Born to Fly by Sara Evans is part memoir, part advice book, it is not the typical biography. The first half of the book is about her life, which fans of her music will be drawn to. The second half gets very preachy about raising children, raising stepchildren, and dealing with relationships, and just is not as interesting as her life story.

Country singer Sara Evans was a hot commodity some years ago, and it may be that only her loyalist of fans will want to read her story. At her peak, she was a multi-platinum country music singer and songwriter. She was named female vocalist of the year in 2006 by the Academy of Country Music. She and her family had been living in Birmingham, Alabama, but recently returned to Nashville, Tennessee.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting September 28, 2020.

I would like to thank Howard Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

 

The End of Her by Shari LaPena

The End of Her by Shari Lapena starts with a pregnant Lindsey in 2009 in Colorado; her husband Patrick is going to clear the car of snow and warm it up for their trip to her mother’s house across the state. Fast forward to Stephanie in 2018 in New York who has twins who are depriving her and her husband Patrick of sleep. A bit off on his mark at work due to lack of sleep, Patrick seems to panic when someone he knows from Colorado is applying for a job where he works.

Erica Voss had been his wife Lindsey’s best friend in Colorado, but she had an affair with Patrick. Now she has seemingly followed Patrick to New York. She gets him to meet her for a drink where she tells him she thinks he killed Lindsey. Suspecting he has not told Stephanie how Lindsey really died, Erica threatens to tell her the truth unless Patrick pays her off.

Who is telling the truth? Readers will keep turning the pages until they find out.

Canadian Shari LaPena always delivers! The End of Her is a page turner and the possibilities just keep changing until the very end. Lapena is best known for her 2016 thriller novel The Couple Next Door, which was a bestseller both in Canada and internationally. 

The End of the Day by Bill Clegg

I had high hopes for The End of the Day by Bill Clegg based on my previous experience with his first novel. However, the unlikable characters and the screwball timeline left much to be desired. I found myself about 60% through the story, and I just wanted it to be finished.

Three women who knew each other as teens and one of their children are the main characters of the book. Each tells bits of the story from their viewpoint. The three women had grown up together: one was a spoiled rich girl, another her neighborhood friend, and the third a servant to the rich girl’s family. The son of one of the characters is discovering secrets about his birth.

Had the story been told by one character and in a more straightforward timeline, it might have been saved. As it was, it was just not a book for me.

Author Bill Clegg is also a literary agent. His debut novel was Did You Ever Have A Family? which I liked very much.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting September 25, 2020.

I would like to thank Scout Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

 

Anxious People by Fredrick Backman

 Set in Sweden, Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is a crazy, mixed up tale of a person under great duress who is pushed to the limit by domestic circumstances. When all else fails, the parent of two decides the only way out of personal problems is to rob a bank for enough money to cover a month’s rent.

However, while a robbery never happens, the perpetrator stumbles into an apartment open house taking those in attendance into hostage. After they are released by the criminal, eight kooky hostages bewilder the police who are trying to take an investigative report and solve the crime. The mystery starts when the police cannot find any trace of the gun-slinging would-be robber/hostage taker in the apartment after the hostages are freed.

Nothing is as it seems in this story, and several big switches take place before the denouement after which seems to be several endings to the story.

The story is supposed to be witty and entertaining, but it did not appeal to my sense of humor.

Fredrik Backman came to fame with his book A Man Called Ove, which is becoming a movie with Tom Hanks as Ove. Backman and his family live in Sweden.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting September 23, 2020.

I would like to thank Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

 

Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce

 

Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce has earned many positive reviews. However, this was not the book for me. It did not resonate with me at all, and I felt misled by the positive reviews that led me to request this book as an ARC. I was rather disappointed because I did so enjoy The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Basically, this is the story of two women who were most unlikely to become friends…but they did. Margery Benson had a startling end to her happy childhood in England at age 10 when her father committed suicide after learning about the death of all four of his sons in World War I. Margery and her mother lose their home and are forced to move in with her fathers’ sisters.

Jump ahead to Margery’s life in her 40s. She’s never had a friend or a husband. She thought she had a romance once, but she was disappointed. She did have a dream of finding a gold beetle on the island of New Caledonia, but over the years that dream had faded until the day Margery just had more than enough and decided to cast everything aside as she figured out how to take this journey to search for the gold beetle on the other side of the world.

She needed an assistant for this expedition, and four candidates were considered. In the end, the least desired candidate, Enid Pretty, was the only one who wanted to go on this adventure. It is Enid who causes so many complications to the story starting with not having her passport for the voyage. Enid is a non-stop talker, while Margery has little to say. Margery early on figures she just needs to dump Enid and find a suitable assistant.  A series of events changes everything.

A third character, an unsuccessful candidate for the assistant, was a former POW who became obsessed with being Margery’s assistant even though he was unstable. The book would have been much stronger without the distraction of this character.

Rachel Joyce, the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, has written radio plays for BBC Radio 4. Prior to becoming a writer, she was a performer in theatre and television.  

 

 

 

The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly

Be on the lookout for the return of The Lincoln Lawyer! The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly finds Micky Haller arrested for murder of a conman whose body is found in Haller’s Cadillac. Haller brings in his half-brother Harry Bosch to his team to help solve the case and prove that Haller is not guilty, as innocence is not a legal term, and that he was framed.

Thwarted at every turn by a die-hard prosecutor, Haller, free on bond, gets creative as he acts as his own council. Haller and his team stay at least one step ahead of the prosecutor who drags him back in court and gets him returned to jail.

Lincoln Lawyer fans will not want to miss this latest adventure that includes the beloved Harry Bosch.

After Michael Connelly spent three years covering crime in Los Angeles, he wrote his first novel featuring LAPD Detective Harry Bosch (The Black Echo) which he based partly on a true crime. He is the man behind the series “Bosch” on Amazon Prime.

 

 

 

Where I Come From by Rick Bragg

 

Where I Come From by Rick Bragg is a collection of his columns from Southern Living and Garden & Gun. Whether he is writing about a beloved dog or driving a new-fangled truck, Bragg can touch the heartstrings and tickle the belly laugh. Whether he is writing about his photographer friend Ken Elkins or his mother Margaret, Bragg is a terrific storyteller.

He brings a unique perspective to each situation he writes about. His food critiques make this reader’s mouth water.  

Alabama native Rick Bragg is a celebrated author and newspaper columnist. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 recognizing his work at The New York Times. He has written books about the people of the foothills of the Appalachians including  All Over but the Shoutin, Ava's Man, and The Prince of Frogtown.

Horse Crazy by Sarah Maslin Nir

Horse Crazy by Sarah Maslin Nir is the book many of us horse crazy girls could have written about our own horse experiences. I enjoyed it very much. Part memoir, part nonfiction about various horses, horse breeds, and stories of other horse owners, this is a great book for all readers who admit to being “horse crazy.”

The truly “horse crazy” are no doubt acquainted with Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry; Nir has gone to the root of the story that was highly romanticized in the book. For readers of the book, they might be surprised by the reality of the story.

She has visited the museum of the black cowboy in Texas and trainer Monty Roberts in California. She even has a chapter about Breyer horses. In a trip to India, she fell in love with the Marwari horse, brought illegally to America by Francesca Kelly, a wealthy London socialite whose love for an Indian nobleman shaped her life’s mission: to rescue an endangered Indian breed of horse.

Sarah Maslin Nir, an accomplished equestrienne, is a staff reporter for The New York Times. Nir was a Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for “Unvarnished,” a controversial investigation into New York City’s nail salon industry.

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

In Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman, the story of Maria Owens is revealed as the matriarch of the Owens line that are characters in two earlier Hoffman books, Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. Maria was abandoned in 1644 (1620 in another of the books) as a baby in England. She was found by Hannah Owens who taught her all she knew about “Unnamed Arts.” Her biological mother Rebecca houses Maria when Hannah turns her loose into the world but because of her birth father who is NOT Rebecca’s husband, Rebecca sends Maria half a world away to the West Indies.

Young Maria is taken advantage of by John Hathorne – yes, that John Hathorne of the Salem Witch Trials -- and is left pregnant. She seeks him by securing passage on a ship to Massachusetts, where he denies her and his child. Because of her use of the herbs and such to help women in the community, a jealous woman reports to the courts that Maria is a witch. Hathorne would like nothing more than to solve his problem by having Maria drowned as a witch.

The book is beautifully written, and the plot is one that readers will want to read straight through. I am now primed to read the other two books in this series.

Alice Hoffman writes short stories as well as novels. Born in New York, Hoffman lives in Boston.

Dear Carolina by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Dear Carolina is the debut novel of Kristy Woodson Harvey. The book is a letter to baby girl Carolina who was given birth to by Jodi, a 19 year-old mess of a girl, cousin to Graham, who is married to Frances AKA Khaki. Graham and Khaki want a baby but haven't had any luck getting pregnant. Khaki persuades Jodi to keep her baby rather than have an abortion. Within the first few chapters, Jodi surrenders Carolina to Khaki and Graham because she realizes that she is ill-equipped to care for the baby, having almost surrendered to drinking again before coming to this critical decision.

With that suspense resolved quickly early in the book, the rest of the novel details how the two women co-mother Carolina writing alternating chapters addressed to the baby. Many changes occur for both women as they figure out the important things in their lives.

Kristy Woodson Harvey is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s school of journalism and holds a master’s in English from East Carolina University. She and her mother  Beth Woodson write a blog called Design Chic about home decorating, an interest that is the occupation of Khaki in the book. Currently working on her sixth book due out in 2021, Harvey lives in North Carolina with her family.

Babyville by Jane Green

In Babyville by Jane Green, three women have decidedly different baby experiences. Julia desperately wants a baby even though she's unhappy with her partner Mark. Maeve never wants a baby or a man as she is strictly a career woman. Sam is deliriously happy being pregnant but did not realize the experience it would be to actually have full responsibility for a baby. This book was structured a little bit differently from most of Green's others in giving each of the women a separate section of the book but tying them altogether throughout.

Sam is the one pregnant friend that Julia can stand to be around even though her own plans to get pregnant are failing.  Maeve's pregnancy is totally unplanned when she has a brief encounter with someone she works with. Sam is overwhelmed by her responsibilities for baby George and thinks she us starting to un-love her husband. Julia met Maeve at a wedding of a mutual friend of all threee women, and Sam met Maeve at a coffee shop.  As in all Jane Green books, things will have a way of working out...although there might be a surprising twist or two.

Jane Green is one on the consummate writers of women's fiction. Her chick lit is always enjoyable and often infused with humor. Formerly a journalist in the United Kingdom, Green lives with her husband and their blended family in Westport, Connecticut.

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult will be a big hit for readers with a strong interest in the ancient civilization of Egypt. For me, the book was too heavy in detail about that aspect. I had to drill down to the story of Dawn Edelstein who was shaken to the very core when she survived a plane crash that made her question if her choices in life had been the right ones.

Was her choice to marry Brian, have a daughter, live in Boston, and become a death doula the right decision? Or should she have stuck with her education to be an archaeologist and work with Wyatt in Egypt to complete her research about The Book of Two Ways, a map of the afterlife?

Within the story are these BIG questions: what does a well-lived life look like, what do we leave behind when we die, do we make choices or do that make us, and who would you be if you had picked another path when you were making life choices?

The book is well researched and well written as one comes to expect with a Jodi Picoult book. Picoult has always been one of my go-to authors. I especially have enjoyed the twists she gives in her conclusions to her books. My favorite book was My Sister’s Keeper. Picoult lives with her family in New Hampshire.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin is a quiet book about a newly widowed mother of four who is learning to navigate without her husband Maurice, who had died from a heart attack. Two of the children, the daughters, are young adults and away at school. The two younger sons and Nora are now on their own in Wexford, Ireland, in the 1960s.

Forced to sell the family’s vacation home, Nora is soon back to work after years of being a homemaker for her family. Some of her in laws are helping with the children’s education and other expenses. Slowly Nora reshapes her life and finds new interests so that she can carry on.This is definitely a character driven book as it explores how to navigate own’s life after losing a life partner.

This is my first reading experience with the author Colm Toibin who was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1955. Nora Webster is his eighth novel. Having worked as a journalist for for many years, he is a regular contributor to the Dublin Review, the New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books.

Where the River Runs by Patti Callahan Henry

Where the River Runs by Patti Callahan Henry looks at the adolescent we once were and how we got to where we are today. Meridy Dresden's life was all planned out. She had just graduated from high school, she was headed to college in three months, and she would marry her boyfriend Danny. But at a graduation party, a fire breaks out, destroys a landmark of the town, and takes two lives.

Years later Meridy has just seen her son go off to baseball camp before he heads off to college, and she is feeling the pinch of an empty nest. In her home in Atlanta with her successful husband Beau, she learns about a childhood friend being pressed to restore the destroyed landmark back in her hometown in South Carolina. Meridy has been harboring a terrible secret about that night, and she cannot let her friend make such a reparation. Instead, she puts everything at risk as she heads back to South Carolina to see if she can set everything right.

This was Henry's second book in her career of 15 books and counting. As well as writing women's fiction, she also has written the historical fiction called Becoming Mrs. Lewis -- The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis. She and her family have homes in Alabama and South Carolina.

Swan by Frances Mayes

Swan by Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, establishes itself quickly as a Southern gothic novel, the only novel Mayes has written to go along with her memoirs and poetry. The tale starts off promising enough with the bizarre exhumation of J.J. and Ginny’s mother Catherine, who was buried 19 years ago after an apparent suicide. Nothing like this has ever happened in Swan, Georgia, before causing the local sheriff to call in for help from the Georgia State Police.

Since J.J. and Ginny were children at the time of their mother’s death, they were deeply scarred by the event. J.J. retreated to the family cabin after graduating from college, and Ginny headed to Italy to do some hands-on work toward her advanced college degree. Both are called “home,” upon the discovery of their mother’s remains outside of her grave.

Some enlightening news from the sheriff along with some information pieced together from Catherine’s journals and a piece of film provide the siblings with a revised version of what happened one afternoon that ended Catherine’s life.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the book until the ending, the unresolved plot elements leave something to be desired. The book feels unfinished.

Born in Fitzgerald, Georgia, Frances Mayes has homes in both Italy and North Carolina.

 

 

Seven Lies by Elizabeth Kay

Seven Lies by Elizabeth Kay had an interesting concept, and the story worked for awhile until it descended to a point that it does not. A debut novel, it had a delicious beginning but is quick to unravel as the reader learned  all is not as it seems and so wonders, was any of it what it seemed?

Jane and Marnie had been friends for years. Jane was the first of the two to get married, and she was quite happy in her marriage. Tragedy striked, and her husband was killed by a drunken driver. In the meantime, Marnie had been dating and was pretty deep into a relationship with a man when a grief-stricken  Jane sought her out for sympathy. Marnie’s boyfriend Charles resented Marnie’s tender loving care of the grieving Jane, and he worked to put distance between the friends.

Jane’s first lie to Marnie was that she liked Charles when she absolutely abhored him, deciding he was unworthy of someone as good as Marnie. Soon, Charles and Marnie were engaged ad planning a wedding. Jane went along with the marriage, as much as she hated it for her friend, and the wedding went along well until Charles made a move on Jane. Or did he?

Elizabeth Kay works at Peguin Random House and writes on the side.

I'd Give Anything by Marisa de los Santos

I'd Give Anything is Marisa de los Santos' latest novel. In 1997, Ginny realized she was in love with her best friend Gray who had a secret. The couple was part of a foursome including Kirsten and CJ that formed in the ninth grade. They were all four the best of friends until a tragedy happened in their town. Ginny had written about the year in her journal including a terrible secret that has hainted her for 20 years.

Fast forward to 2017, Ginny and Kirsten are still friends but Ginny has not spoken to Gray or CJ since their senior year in high school. Married to Harris who has done something unthinkable, causing him to lose his job, Ginny had to sift through all the parts of Harris' scandalous actions before she could move forward, always with protecting their daughter Avery in mind. 

If having her marriage wrecked was not enough, Ginny's mother was dying of cancer. Ginny, her brother Trevor, and Adela had never really gotten along but Ginny maintained a relationship with her mother while Trevor left home years ago and has stayed away from the family. Ginny would have given anything to reconcile not only with her brother but also with her friends Gray and CJ.E

Marisa de los Santos was an English insturctor at the University of Delaware. She has a Ph.D from the University of Houston. Also a poet, she has written several novels as well as a book of poetry. She is married to David Teague, picture book and middle grades author. They live with their children in Delaware.

Walk the Wire by David Baldacci

Finally, David Baldacci has recaptured what it was that made him a thrilling suspense writer in Walk the Wire. Amos and Alex are involved in solving a woman's murder because when her prints were run, an alert went off in the FBI. The location is in London, North Dakota, where fracking, the military, and Anabaptists coexist.

Some close calls bring in another team of Baldacci characters into this crossover crime novel. Working together, the two teams unravel much of what is going on but still struggle to solve the mystery of the dead woman. Heavy body count in this novel as someone is trying to keep the good guys from getting to the truth.

I have been a Baldacci fan since Absolute Power in 1996 and have read just about all he has written although the last couple of novels seemed "off the mark."

He Started It by Samantha Downing

He Started It by Samantha Downing is a twisted tale of siblings fulfilling a road trip mission as a qualification for inheriting their grandfather’s fortune.  Grandfather once took the three – Beth, Portia, and Eddie – on this road trip years ago when they were children. His will mandates that they must take the trip again to fulfill his final wish of scattering his ashes on the West Coast.

Their journey starts in Alabama with a rented car. Beth’s husband Felix and Eddie’s wife Krista have joined the excursion as they navigate through state after state going to all the sites --  mostly bizarre -- they saw as children. They stay in cheap hotels and eat diner food. It doesn’t take long for nerves to fray with this much togetherness.

Along the way they are being followed by people in a black truck who they believe are doing menacing things like putting nails in their tires and stealing the starter relay. All bets are off when Grandfather’s ashes go missing! There are lots of secrets in this road trip tale including a missing sibling who accompanied them on the original journey and a killer among them.

This is my first Samantha Downing book but then she’s only written two so far. Her debut novel My Lovely Wife was nominated for an Edgar award and is being considered for a feature film with Amazon Studios and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films. She is a writer with no formal training who lives in New Orleans.

From the Lake House by Kristen Rademacher

From the Lake House: A Mother's Odyssey of Loss and Love by Kristen Rademacher is a sobering look at failed relationships and infant loss. On the rebound from one failed romance, Rademacher jumped into another relationship without really considering important factors like lifestyle and finances. A rather reckless intimacy routine in this rocky coupling led to an unplanned pregnancy.

While the author had no doubts about the pregnancy and the soon-to-be baby, the pairing with the man she called Jason had so many Dead End, Caution, and Stop Signs as to not be viable. After losing the baby in stillbirth, Rademacher nearly lost herself. She did recover over time and removed herself from the toxic relationship although not before a second pregnancy, this one ending in miscarriage.

The book is a testimony to the strength of the human spirit and how one can come back from devastating loss and rebuild oneself with the help of caring family members and friends, even a special one she never met in person.

Kristen Rademacher has crafted an honest and compelling memoir about personal loss. Others who have experienced the heartbreak of losing a child as well as failed love affair will witness a profound healing the way one woman achieved it.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting July 20, 2020.

I would like to thank She Writes Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan

The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan may be my favorite of her novels as it is a clever tale blending historical fiction about women in the advertising industry with stories about four seemingly unrelated marriages. The five timelines almost made my head spin, but in the end, it was so worth the effort.

The fictionalized account of Frances Gerety’s career in the advertising industry is the frame that holds the book together. Gerety was a pioneer along with others in the book in the advertising industry. She brought the slogan “A diamond is forever” into the vernacular, a signature line still used today after its inception in 1948.

The account begins in 1947 with Gerety hard at work on an advertising campaign for selling diamonds. Evelyn and Gerald start the 1972 timeline as she prepares a lunch for their wayward son who has left his wife for another woman. James worries that his wife Sheila could have done better in the marriage department as they struggle making ends meet as their account unfolds in 1987. The love triangle among Delphine, Henri, and PJ starts in 2003. Kate and Dan are purposely unmarried as they don’t believe in marriage in 2012 when Kate’s nephew is marrying his partner.

The layering of these stories makes for such a rich story-telling experience. The way Sullivan brings the narrative all together in the end will stay with me for a long time proving to me that she is a masteful storyteller. Her revenge scene is on the level of Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” No wonder Reese Witherspoon optioned the book for movie treatment.

This book was one of People Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2013 and an Irish Times Best Book of the Year. Her fifth novel, Friends and Strangers, was released this summer. Sullivan has also written shorter pieces for publications such as The New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, and Real Simple. She has written a couple of pieces about The Engagements and Frances Gerety including one at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-a-diamond-is-forever-has-lasted-so-long/2014/02/07/f6adf3f4-8eae-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html  Born in Massachusetts, Sullivan lives with her family in New York.

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

In Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan, the author unfolds a story about the relationships of the women in a Boston family who have a vacation retreat on the banks of a beach in Maine. The three acres contains the original cottage built by the Kelleher man as well as a more modern house built later. This is not a beach read nor is it chick lit although the cover sure portrays it that way. Maine is a much more layered and intense story in the capable hands of Sullivan whose proving grounds for female relationships occurred in her debut novel Commencement.

The Kelleher women are complicated: Alice, the widowed matriarch, has resumed  her drinking alcohol after a long break as she aches over the loss of her husband Daniel 10 years ago and the tragic death of her sister even longer ago; daughter Clare never has time for Alice because she is busy running a business with her husband and supporting her son’s acting ambition; daughter Kathleen, beloved by Daniel and always at odds with Alice not least of all because of her divorce, is a recovering alcoholic; Kathleen’s daughter Maggie is pregnant and has just parted from a not very nice boyfriend; and Ann Marie, married to Alice’s son Patrick, is the woman who has never been considered good enough by her sisters-in-law to be in the Kelleher family. 

Their stories and secrets develop over a summer when all but Clare end up at the beach property at the same time, something they’ve tried for years now to avoid by divvying up the cottage by months: June for Kathleen, July for Ann Marie, and August for Clare with Alice there in the “big house” throughout. Themes explored in the novel include sibling rivalry, social climbing, the afore-mentioned alcoholism, and Catholic guilt. For the most part, the tone is serious with insertions of dry humor throughout.

Sullivan was a prolific magazine and newspaper writer before she started writing novels. Maine, her second, named a Best Book of the Year by Time magazine, and a Washington Post Notable Book for 2011, was thoroughly enjoyable.

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

I have loved college novels like Commencement since reading The Group decades ago, and I always wished I could have gone away to college instead of attending a commuter college. In her debut novel, J. Courtney Sullivan, a Smith College graduate herself, features her alma mater in the story of four college gals who were quad-mates and their lives after college. If you know anything about Smith, you know it is a liberal school, and according to one of the characters, there are a lot of “confused people” who attend Smith. If books about open lesbian and transgender folk offend you, this is probably a book to skip. I continued with it because it was the debut novel for this writer, and I wanted to see how she started her writing career.

The four characters who graduated in 2002 are very different from each other: Celia drinks too much and hooks up with all the wrong guys; Bree has enormous family support until she breaks her engagement to a boy back home and takes up with someone her family doesn’t approve of; Sally, a poor little rich girl who has just lost her mother to cancer, and April, the work-study student who has strong opinions and is the ultra-feminist in the story.

The author takes the reader through the foundation of the friendships and then moves the characters to a few years in the future when one of the gals is getting married and the other three will be in her wedding. In some ways, the characters have remained the same and in some ways, they are more so than they were in college.

J. Courtney Sullivan has written for the New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, and Real Simple among other publications. Her fifth novel Friends and Strangers was published this year. Reese Witherspoon has optioned one of her other books for a movie. Born in Massachusetts, the author lives in Brooklyn with her family.