Sparring Partners by John Grisham

 Sparring Partners by John Grisham is a collection of three novellas being published at the end of May. In “Homecoming,” Grisham takes fans back to Ford County, Mississippi,  the setting of many of his earlier books. The familiar character Jake Brigance is featured in this story about a fellow lawyer named Mack Stafford who three years ago left his family and disappeared to some foreign country, supposedly with a fortune. Mack has had a change of heart, and  he calls on Jake to help him return to the United States. He wants to make it up to his ex-wife, who is dying of cancer, and give his daughters a home. What are the chances? Slim to none, according to the family. Yet, a headstrong daughter has another opinion.

“Strawberry Moon”  introduces the reader to Cody Wallace,  who is sitting on Death Row three hours away from his execution. He and his brother never had a chance, born to a prostitute who did not want them. Both escape foster care, living off the land, looting houses, pawning the items for cash. One fateful night, something went deadly wrong. Even though he wasn’t even armed, Cody was sentenced to death, and now all avenues have been exhausted. Cody has one final request. It is simple, costs nothing, but it would break the rules. Will a prison guard jeopardize his job for a Death Row inmate and allow Cody his request?

Kirk and Rusty Malloy, two brothers as well as practicing lawyers who took over the family law firm from their father who was sent to jail for killing his wife are the “Sparring Partners.” The brothers have long been on opposing sides, speaking only when absolutely necessary. The firm is going into the toilet unless Diantha Bradshaw, the managing partner in the practice and the only person at the firm the partners trust, can save the practice. Worse, their father is almost assured a get out of jail free card with a $2 million bribe to the governor of Missouri. Can the partners outbid their father to keep him in jail so they can tap into the fortune he hid before being arrested for murder? Not wanting any part of their bribery scheme, Diantha must find a way to save the firm.

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. Born in Arkansas, he and his wife split their time among their homes in Charlottesville, Virginia; Destin, Florida, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

 

 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver is a powerful 560-page epic tale inspired by Charles Dicken’s own David Copperfield, both stories of boys from childhood to maturity. Kingsolver not only plunks her protagonist down in Appalachia, but she also gives voice to the people who live here who realize that they are constantly overlooked, thought less of than others, and basically disregarded by America. In this important book coming out in October, Kingsolver even takes aim at the atrocities of Big Pharma that blanketed Appalachia with opioids and pill mills, with lingering effects to this very day.

The story starts in a trailer in Lee County in Southwest Virginia, where Damon Fields was born to a teenage unwed mother who drinks Seagram’s followed by Vicodin to dull her labor pains. His father “Copperhead” Woodall had died in an accident at the Devil’s Bathtub, a family story that causes the young boy to fear bathtubs, opting for showers only.

Eventually dubbed with the nickname “Demon Copperhead,” he narrates the story of his life through the dangers of an addicted mother, an abusive stepfather, foster care, child labor, his own addiction, and a disastrous love affair with an addict. Along his journey, he makes good friends with the people next door, the Peggots, whose grandson “Maggot” becomes Demon’s best friend; a married couple, Annie and Mr. Armstrong, both teachers, who recognize Demon’s artistic gifts, and Angus, the daughter of a football coach who sees potential in Demon. These characters form  his true family, providing him safety nets from time to time as he maneuvers through so many damaging situations a child, later a young man, should not have to encounter.

Skillfully, Kingsolver develops parallel plots to David Copperfield, and she borrows or alters names from the Dicken’s novel for her own cast of characters. Demon could be overlooked as just another kid on drugs going nowhere in Appalachia, but he exhibits such a compelling honesty and forthrightness along with a sense of humor that he will not soon be forgotten.

Demon Copperhead is Barbara Kingsolver’s masterpiece, adding another title to her Appalachian Literature books along with Prodigal Summer and Flight Behavior. She writes essays and poetry as well as novels. Raised in rural Kentucky on the border between the Bluegrass and the Appalachian Mountains, she earned  degrees in biology, ecology, and evolutional biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona. She writes about social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments. Recognition for her work includes nominations for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize (The Poisonwood Bible). She lives on a farm in Washington County, Virginia.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 22, 2022.

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

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

 Let me save you some time, dear reader. If you have picked up this book expecting a psychological thriller, BEWARE that it resolves certain elements of the plot through the supernatural. As I am not a reader of the supernatural, had I not been reading this book for an honest review, I would have slammed it shut at the moment it became surreal.

Casey Fletcher is on the road to destruction as she copes with widowhood by drinking excessively and using high-power binoculars to watch The House Across the Lake, the latest psychological thriller from Riley Sager due out in June. Running away from lots of bad press as her acting career is drowning in alcohol, Casey saves her neighbor from drowning in Lake Greene, where Casey’s family has long owned a lake house in Vermont.

The near death of Katherine Royce, a retired supermodel, bonds the two women. Tom, Katherine’s tech titan husband, is extremely grateful to Casey, and the couple boat across the lake to Casey’s side where they share an expensive bottle of wine. With further spying on the couple, Casey decides the marriage is in trouble, and she believes Katherine has just vanished, although Tom assures Casey that Katherine has simply gone back to their apartment in New York City.

When Casey cannot raise Katherine by text or a phone call – and she clearly sees by using the app Tom invented – that Katherine is located in the house across the lake, she takes matters into her own hands. But this is a Riley Sager novel, so readers expect that nothing is as it seems, and the plot will follow lots of twists and turns before coming to a shock of an ending. However, when the plot makes a wrong turn into the surreal, the book just goes downhill, unless the reader is a fan of the supernatural resolution to a story. And the shocking ending? It is missing.

Sager is a former journalist, editor, and graphic designer who previously published mysteries under his real name, Todd Ritter. A Pennsylvania native, Riley lives in Princeton, New Jersey, where he writes, reads, cooks, and attends movies.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 18, 2022.

I would like to thank PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand

 Elin Hilderbrand dips into the supernatural in possibly her last beach read before winding up her career in that genre with The Hotel Nantucket coming out mid-June.

A tragic fire in 1922 killed the 19-year-old secret lover of the hotel owner and marked the beginning of the end for The Hotel Nantucket. Fast forward to 2022 when billionaire Xavier Darling restores the hotel to its previous glory, with help from Lizbet Keaton who is his general manager. Despite the full renovation, the locals still talk about the ghost of Grace Hadley who perished in the fire. Indeed, Grace is still haunting the hotel as she is not satisfied that her death was never declared the murder that it was.

Lizbet struggles with an inexperienced crew she must whip into shape to deliver that over-the-top service that Darling expects – and rewards with a nice bonus to any employee who is singled out in hotel reviews. A 5-key rating from hotel reviewer Shelly Carpenter is his goal as none has yet been awarded to any establishment.

An ensemble of characters unfolds the story along with Ghost Grace: Lizbet, who is recovering from a broken long-term romance; Alessandra, the front desk manager on the prowl for her next Sugar Daddy; Sweet Edie, a Nantucket girl who always goes the extra mile serving the guests from her spot at the front desk; Magda English, head housekeeper extraordinaire who was handpicked by Darling to head the cleaning team; and Chadwick Winslow, a rich kid who is redeeming himself from having done a misdeed by taking a menial job at the hotel – an eye-opening experience to how some people treat their hotel rooms.

The hotel team members are all hiding secrets that haunt them as they go about their day-to-day duties running The Hotel Nantucket. How will Lizbet open her heart to the famous chef who runs the in-house Blue Bar? How far will Alessandra go to get what she wants from married hotel guests and islanders? What could Sweet Edie have done to be the target of a blackmailer? How can Chad heal the wounds in his relationships with others and forge a career path for himself? Will their combined efforts bring about that coveted 5-keys rating? Will Ghost Grace’s death finally be vindicated?

Having long lived in Nantucket, Elin Hilderbrand has great insight about how things work on the island. At the end of the novel, she provides a bonus guide to all things Nantucket including lodging, eating, and adventure tips for island visitors. Her future involves developing a half-dozen projects in Hollywood. Rather than writing books, she hopes to be a book influencer like Reese Witherspoon and others who have their own book clubs.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 17, 2022.

I would like to thank Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

Dream Town by David Baldacci

 In Dream Town (Archer 3) by David Baldacci  due out April 19, private eye Aloysius Archer heads to Los Angeles to visit with an actress friend to ring in 1953. Their celebration is interrupted when Liberty’s friend Eleanor Lamb stops by their table and hires Archer on the spot when she learns he is a private eye because she believes someone is trying to kill her.

Archer plans to meet Lamb the next day to get a contract signed and a down payment for his services, but Lamb is missing, and there is a dead body in her house. Even though his new client is missing and there is no retainer fee, Archer takes on solving the mystery of the dead man and the missing woman.

He soon finds himself chasing all over Los Angeles along with a trip to Las Vegas as he tries to put the clues together. Unfortunately, he comes across smugglers and a mob executioner as the plot thickens, and Archer sifts the truth from the lies as he chases one puzzle piece after another.

Typical of a Baldacci thriller, the kernel of truth is hidden in a plot that is as twisted and furious as a tornado. 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.

A Virginia native, Baldacci and his wife Michelle co-founded the Wish You Well Foundation that works to increase literacy in the United States.

 

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