Under the Southern Sky Kristy Woodson Harvey

 In Under the Southern Sky by Kristy Woodson Harvey, Amelia Paxton investigates what becomes of abandoned embryos in fertility clinics in Palm Beach, Florida, as a feature story for her magazine. What she uncovers is so much more: her childhood friend Parker, who lost his wife to cancer three years ago, has forgotten about the embryos that he and his late wife Greer created to implant when she beat her battle with cancer, which never happened.

The fact that Amelia has just lost her husband to his lover does not make delivering the news about the embryos any easier. She finds that a grieving Parker has been stuck for three years, but when she tells him the news that he needs to make a decision about the fate of his four embryos, he becomes unstuck and starts to make plans for the embryos to be implanted in a surrogate as a way to bring his late wife back into his life.

Complicating their lifelong friendship is that unbeknownst to the other, Parker has always loved Amelia, literally the girl next door, and she has admired him ever since she took real notice of him when she was in college. But neither thinks the other could ever possibly fall in love with him or her.

Seeing that Parker’s plan to find a surrogate has brought him back to the living, Amelia decides she could do this for him: she could carry these babies and then get back to her life. What follows are twists, turns, complications, disappointments, then sudden realizations as both Amelia and Parker move forward in their lives. 

Under the Southern Sky is more than a romance. It is Southern women’s fiction with multiple subplots, a bit of mystery, a near loss, and a crazy aunt in the attic, er, East wing. Readers who enjoy Elin Hilderbrand, Mary Kay Andrews, and Mary Alice Monroe will find a similar experience with Harvey’s books.

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. Harvey lives in North Carolina with her family. 

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian

The most talented Chris Bohjalian has turned a three-line reference from 1662 in the records of Boston’s Court of Assistants regarding a petition for divorce for cruelty into a powerful novel of historical fiction, Hour of the Witch.

Puritan Mary Deerfield seeks a dissolution of her marriage to Thomas Deerfield for what would be called domestic abuse today. He has cursed her, called her names, hit her, pushed her, and stabbed her with a dinner fork.

The three-tined dinner fork has come to Boston by way of Mary’s merchant father who says they are being used throughout Europe to accompany a knife and spoon. When two of these forks are found planted in Mary’s flowered dooryard, her servant Catherine accuses Mary of casting a spell with the “Devil’s tines.”

When the petition comes up for judgement in a magistrates’ court in Boston, Mary finds herself pitted between the ending of her marriage but possible condemnation as a witch, a crime punishable by hanging in this period three decades before the Salem witch trials. As a woman, Mary has very little power to fight for her freedom from her loathsome husband.

After the divorce petition has been decided, Mary ends up back in court condemned as a witch with the evidence stacking up against her. Only a Bohjalian plot twist might possibly save her as this fast-paced story races to the finish line.

Bohjalian is the best-selling author of 21 books, three of which have been made into movies. His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, and Salon. He adapted his novel Midwives for a play which opened in January 2020. He has also written for magazines and newspapers. His daughter Grace Experience has narrated several of his books in audio form. He lives in Vermont with his wife, photographer Victoria Blewer.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 11, 2021.

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

When the Stars Go Dark

 

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain is hard to absorb for readers with daughters. The grisly historical fiction mystery takes the reader back to 1993 in Northern California when young girls were being abducted, including Polly Klass, one of the cases covered in this book.

Anna Hart, the protagonist, is a successful missing persons detective. She is consumed by her work, haunted by the dark side of people who abduct and harm others.

Because of a personal tragedy, Anna has fled San Francisco and heads back to her final foster home in Mendocino. When she lived there, her teenage friend Jenny had been abducted and murdered. Anna reunites with two old friends: Will, the son of the police chief and now the police chief himself, and Caleb, Jenny’s brother. All three have been damaged by what happened to Jenny.

Will is currently involved in the case of a missing girl, Cameron, daughter of a former Hollywood star who has stepped back from the limelight to raise her daughter in Mendocino. Soon after, another girl, a fictitious character named Shannon, and Polly Klass are also reported missing. Even though she is on leave, Anna decides she was drawn back to Mendocino to help Will find Cameron.

When one of the girls decaying body is found, Will and Anna double down in their efforts to find Cameron before time runs out. A most menacing suspect who has been below their radar the whole time will be revealed.

While it is a different sort of McLain book, readers will be riveted to their seats for this page turner.

I loved the two Paula McLain books about two of Ernest Hemingway’s wives, The Paris Wife and Love and Ruin. With an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, she is also the author of two collections of poetry and the memoir Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, her story about being a foster child. Her work has also appeared in a number of magazines. Born in California, McLain lives with her family in Cleveland, Ohio.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 9, 2021.

I would like to thank Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

 Sally Hepworth has become a must-read writer for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the suspense of The Good Sister. I couldn't put it down until I finished it.

Fern is the fraternal twin on the spectrum, making readers wonder how she could have ever earned a librarian degree as she has major trouble engaging with people. Rose is the twin who serves as a second mother to Fern guiding her away from precarious situations. Their own mother is portrayed in Rose’s diary as a psychopath who constantly puts the twins at risk.

Rose is also infertile, and when Fern realizes this, she decides she could become a surrogate mother for her twin. After all, Rose has kept Fern’s dark, deadly secret about something Fern did years ago.

Before her plan is fully formed and executed, Fern becomes involved with Wally, a like soul who understands Fern’s quirkiness better than others. Not long after they become involved, Fern becomes pregnant, and the surrogate plan is suddenly in the works. Once again mothering Fern, Rose helps her decide that her twin should give her the baby to raise as her own, which was what Fern planned in the first place, unbeknownst to Rose. How does falling in love with Wally affect Fern’s sisterly devotion?

Having read Sally Hepworth before, readers will be expecting a twist, and wham! what a twist! Hepworth is the bestselling author of seven novels include The Mother In Law in 2019. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her family.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 7, 2021.

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

Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson

 

Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson is a fast-paced baby-snatching story whose kidnapper is obsessed with avenging her daughter’s ill-thought deeds in college. Bree Cabbat has it all -- a loving husband, three children, a fine home, and plenty of money in the bank – until her baby Robert is snatched.

Paralyzed with fear, Bree does everything the kidnapper tells her to, including poisoning a man who is not only a friend of her husband’s but also his colleague. Eventually enough clues pile up that Bree knows her husband has been involved with the kidnapper’s daughter Lexie in some way, and she keeps forming the question, “What did you do?” in her mind until she finally confronts him.

Lexie lived a wild life in college with plenty of sex and drugs. She seemed to have no limits. When she suggested a threesome that included Bree’s husband, she had not counted on another person at the fraternity slipping in and taking photos. Soon the photos were spread across campus, and Lexie was asked to leave the school because of an agreed-upon morals clause. Her life descended from there into a spiral of prostitution and drug addiction.

Bree’s husband Trey never told her about this escapade, which he is not proud of and blames on being drunk and then taking drugs that Lexie brought to the fraternity. He is profoundly ashamed of that one wild night and does not buy into Bree’s suggestion of rape…something never suggested by Lexie herself.

While I was enjoying the intensity of the book nearly to the ending, this heavy-handedness toward Trey did not set well with me. Lexie wanted a threesome, she brought the drugs, she initiated it all. That photos were taken and distributed was not part of her plan nor Trey’s and his friend’s…that was purely on the photographer. All three men are eventually murdered, but their deaths did not go down well with me as I believe Lexie’s actions did have consequences. Too much blame is put on the others with no responsibility assigned to Lexie. Just my two cents. The pat ending with Bree and a male friend ending up together, even though I could see it coming throughout the book, did not fit.

Joshilyn Jackson is a bestselling novelist with works including Never Have I Ever, Gods in Alabama, and The Almost Sisters. She reads the audio versions of her books and has been nominated for the Audie Award. The author is a resident of Decatur, Georgia.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 6, 2021.

I would like to thank William Morrow and Custom House for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Paris Library by Janice Skeslien Charles

 

Just when readers think there could be no new stories about World War II, Janice Skeslien Charles comes along with a book about the role of librarians at the American Library in Paris during the war in The Paris Library. Based on the stories of real librarians of the ALP, the book explores the themes of friendship, family, betrayal, and the power of literature.

Told on two interwoven timelines – the war years in Paris and 1983 in Froid, Montana – widowed Odile Souchet is a curiosity to her neighbor, teenage Lily. Odile keeps to herself causing Lily to create a school project to about France, Odile’s native country, to learn more about her mysterious neighbor.

Unbeknownst to Lily, Odile had been a librarian in the American Library in Paris during the war years. The daughter of a policeman, Odile had a young police officer as a boyfriend, and her brother Remy was a soldier in the war. Working with her colleagues, Odile became a part of the Resistance using books as her “weapons.”  Her boss, the real-life Dorothy Reeder, had already organized a service to get books into the hands of soldiers serving anywhere. Odile and her colleagues made deliveries to those Jewish subscribers who were restricted from the library by the Nazis. Terrible betrayals -- one done to her and one she inadvertently caused – drove Odile from France, her parents, and her friends to a very different life in Montana.

Although Odile has been a recluse since her husband died, Lily has slowly drawn her out into the world again. The two grow close by their common interests, and Odile began to teach Lily the French language. She becomes Lily’s companion when Lily’s mother died and her father returned to work.

Her overwhelming curiosity causes Lily to betray Odile, who once again withdraws from society. Odile no longer opens her door to Lily and even skips Mass to avoid the girl. How will Lily ever be able to win Odile over again and learn about this forlorn women’s past?

Janice Skeslien Charles has crafted her locales from places she lives as she divides her time between Paris and Montana. She became interested in the librarians of the American Library in Paris when she worked there herself in 2010. The Paris Library is her second book following her debut novel, Moonlight in Odessa.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting December 7, 2020.

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