Where the Rivers Merge by Mary Alice Monroe

 In the first of two planned novels about the history of a plantation in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and its family, Mary Alice Monroe writes in the voice of an adult Eliza Rivers as she recalls her early years in Where the Rivers Merge being published May 13. The present is June 17, 1988, when Eliza, now Mrs. DeLancey, plans to protect Mayfield by putting 1,000 acres surrounding the farm into a conservation plan, a move her son Arthur protests as he tries to push her out of the DeLancey Group.

Eliza’s life as a young girl in the early 1900s consisted of plenty of chores but also time to explore the land, the pond, the forests, the birds, and other creatures. A horse lover, Eliza recounts a bit of history about the Marsh Tacky as she recollects her father’s purchase of the stallion Capitan. However, life on Mayfield was not all rosy as the Rivers family was “land rich and money poor” causing some of the strife in the often-dysfunctional family with a city mother and a country father.

Over the years, Eliza has been able to turn things around on Mayfield, creating a profitable truck market business, and she is developing the Mayfield Wildlife Foundation to preserve the land. With her second marriage, she gained a “collection of businesses into a conglomerate of corporations and subsidiaries” that became the DeLancey Group.

With her son’s limited vision for Mayfield and the company, Eliza seeks out her niece Savannah and grandniece Norah to visit Mayfield so she can share the story of her family’s history with them. A mural in the dining room of the house serves to prod Eliza to tell the stories that go with the scenes starting in the 1700s with construction of the fields for the farm’s original crop, rice.

This initial book in the series takes the reader up to Eliza’s first wedding in 1926 as she ends the telling with “This story is far from over.” Mary Alice Monroe, the Queen of Low Country Fiction and a go-to author of beach reads, has turned her hand to historical fiction, leaving this reader eager for the next book, to be called The Rivers’ End, to learn about all the tales remaining in the mural and the questions left unanswered.

Monroe is at her best when dealing with complex family situations and relationships. She lives on the Isle of Palms, a small barrier island just outside of Charleston, and has a mountain hideaway in North Carolina.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 12, 2025.

I would like to thank William Morrow, an imprint of Harper/Collins Publishers, and NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Readers’ Copy in return for an objective review.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

 Traveling back to the 1960s when Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique was a popular book club read, four women—Margaret, Viv, Bitsy, and Charlotte—struggle with their place in the world in The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick coming out April 22.

Living in a planned community in Virginia, the women call themselves the Bettys in a salute to the author of Mystique. Bonded by their book club, the four each deal with various struggles: raising children mostly single-handedly, dealing with troubling times in their marriages, and dissatisfaction with their current life.

Though Margaret is devoted to her three children and her husband, she wants to do something more with her life. A writing contest catches her eye, causing her to wonder if she could brush up on her skills to become a successful writer.

Viv is proud of her “six “terrific, respectful, clean-cut, all-American kids,” loves her sexy husband, and really wants to get back to work as a nurse now that the kids are all in school. Frustrated with her doctor who will not prescribe birth control pills without her husband’s signature, she realizes her back-to-work plan is a fail as the smell of greasy pepperoni sends her to the bathroom…twice.

Bitsy is the youngest of the wives at 23. Having grown up with horses, Bitsy has always wanted to be a veterinarian but has been frustrated when none of her college professors would write her a recommendation for vet school because she is a woman. She  marries a veterinarian and works as a stable hand where she gets to ride and care for horses.

Charlotte is new to the community of Concordia, quickly earning a reputation as an “oddball.” For some reason not yet known by the others, her husband has banished her from the New York she loves to suburban living in Virginia. Her marital problems seem most profound as her husband is rarely home and is known to have a wandering eye. She finds joy in her four children and her ambitious painting projects.

While they attribute their willingness to try new outlooks and actions to having read Friedan’s book, they also give credit to the bonds they have created as they deal with the past, cope with a changing world, and redefine themselves.

Marie Bostwick writes uplifting historical and contemporary fiction. Marie’s popular Cobbled Court Quilt series has been embraced by quilters and non-sewers alike. Her novel The Second Sister was made into the Hallmark Hall of Fame feature film “Christmas Everlasting.” If she is not reading a book, Marie most likely is in her office writing one. She lives with her husband in Washington state.

Nightshade by Michael Connelly

 Michael Connelly introduces readers to a new character in his police procedurals with Detective Sergeant Stillwell of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in Nightshade, arriving on store shelves May 20. Stillwell finds himself assigned to Santa Catalina Island, 22 miles off the Southern California coast, after the politics of the homicide department have forced him off the mainland.

On Catalina, Stillwell leads the sheriff’s substation where he finds most of his workload confined to drunk and disorderly arrests and petty theft cases. He starts most days watching the folks who disembark the Catalina Express, a ferry from the mainland. Many of the tourists expect to be gambling at the Catalina Casino not realizing that it is and has always been a ballroom and a movie theatre.

Today is going to be different because a hull scraper has reported his encounter with a  human body anchored down 33 feet under a private boat. Having been a recovery diver when he worked on the mainland, Stillwell suits up for the cold water and plunges into the ocean to verify the claim. Stillwell theorizes the body has been in the water for at least four days; he determines it is a woman who has dark hair with a distinct streak of purple dye.

As he surfaces, he plans the next steps in the investigation: call out the dive team, the homicide unit, and the coroner’s investigators from Los Angeles. Once he turns the murder over to the mainland team, he knows he should stand down but instead he works the case from the island side. He finds himself once again pitted against homicide cop Rex Ahearn, known by other cops as A-hole or King A-hole, who wants Stillwell to back off from the case.

Stillwell knows that much investigation can be done on the island rather than from a chair in the homicide unit. Soon, he is on the trail of the woman called “Nightshade,” but once he turns that information over to Ahearn, he finds himself called on the carpet by his boss on the mainland. When Ahearn pins the murder of Nightshade on the wrong assailant, will Stillwell accept that outcome or will he bring in the real killer himself?

Connelly has left the streets of Los Angeles behind for this island in the Pacific that was once owned by William Wrigley Jr. of chewing gum fame. Along with the change in law enforcement venue, the Nightshade novel introduces a wide-range of supporting characters as well as a few “bad guys.”

After Michael Connelly spent three years covering crime in Los Angeles, he wrote his first novel featuring Harry Bosch, The Black Echo, which he based partly on a true crime. Three of Connelly’s characters have found success on streaming platforms Amazon Prime and Netflix: Bosch, Bosch: Legacy, and The Lincoln Lawyer with a third character, Renee Ballard, promised her own series.

The River Knows Your Name by Kelly Mustian

 Author Kelly Mustian has followed up her debut The Girls in the Stilt House with a strong  sophomore novel The River Knows Your Name, coming out April 1. Set in 1971, the story introduces sisters Nell and Evie Brown who are concerned about their mother Hazel. She has started acting  opposite of her secretive and emotionally remote ways, doing things she had never done: inviting Evie out to lunch, taking her shopping, going to movies, and singing in a church choir.

Nell was six years old when Hazel did a favor for a friend by taking in a little girl around two for one night. The friend was never heard from again causing Hazel to uproot them all from their home in Mississippi to Clay Mountain near West Jefferson, North Carolina, to raise Evie as her own. When Evie was ten, she and Nell found inside a book a birth certificate for Evie naming  a stranger as her mother. The girls never let on to Hazel that they knew this secret. Because of Hazel’s change of personality, Nell decides to go back to Mississippi to learn more about Hazel and to track down the person listed on Evie’s birth certificate.

Becca, who had married Ben Chambers in 1932, was still a newlywed, when her “second mother” Lottie drowned in the Mississippi River. Upon hearing the terms of Lottie’s will, Becca learned that she had inherited a house in the near ghost town of Rodney, Mississippi. Orphaned at age six, Becca was aware that Lottie had once lived in Rodney with the only man she had ever loved. Becca did not realize that Lottie still owned a house there, a house that would provide refuge for Becca when her world turned upside down.

The lives of all four women will come together as they deal with love, loss, secrets, and “chosen family.” This book will be hard to put down until the last mystery is revealed. The River Knows Your Name is set in the Mississippi Delta as well as in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Kelly Mustian received the Mississippi Library Association's 2023 Author Award for Fiction, while The Girls in the Stilt House was shortlisted for the 2022 Crook's Corner Book Prize for best debut novel set in the American South. She has also written for numerous literary journals and commercial magazines. Born in Mississippi, Mustian lives in North Carolina.

                                                                                              

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 28, 2025.

I would like to thank Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

The Love We Found by Jill Santopolo

 

In The Love We Found by Jill Santopolo coming out March 18, Lucy recounts the life of her first love, Gabriel, who she met in college in New York City. Gabriel became a war photographer and Lucy produces children’s programming.

She lost Gabe almost ten years ago, and his editor at the Associated Press wants to do an update of Gabe’s book. Lucy has been asked to share Gabe’s photographs for the project. As she digs into the box of his old photos, an address in Italy written on a scrap of paper is intriguing. Impulsively Lucy buys a ticket to Italy to find who lived at the address.

As she uncovers Gabe’s secret, she encounters Dr. Dax Armstrong, a New Yorker in Italy working with a non-governmental organization. Lucy and the doctor become involved over two days in Italy though they promise to renew their acquaintance when he cycles back to New York.

For seven years, Lucy has been divorced from Darren with whom she shares three children. She had been unfaithful to Darren, having shattered their marriage with the information that their youngest child Samuel was not biologically Darren’s.

With her memories of Gabe renewed through the photo project, she believes it is the right time to tell Samuel about his biological father. Darren, adamant that the time is not right to tell Sammy, feels threatened and refuses. But Lucy wants to set herself free of this secret, hoping to chart a new journey for her broken heart with the doctor she met in Italy.

How will Sammy respond to the news that he has a father other than Darren? What will her two older children think about this change in their family dynamic? What are the next steps she can take to put her regret behind her and forge a life with a new love?

Designed as a follow-up to the Reese’s Book Club pick of 2018 The Light We Lost, The Love We Found can be read as a standalone.

Jill Santopolo is the Editorial Director of Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group. She lives in New York City.

What Happened to the McCrays? by Tracey Lange

 

What Happened to the McCrays? is the big question in the third novel by Tracey Lange that was released January 14. Set in Potsdam, New York, the story begins with Kyle McCray’s homecoming as he returns from Spokane, Washington, to help his father while he recovers from a stroke.

Kyle left Potsdam two and a half years ago leaving behind his wife, his father, his employees, and his friends. He headed West, using his skills as a mechanic along the way, before settling in Spokane. He worries about the reception he will receive in his hometown upon his return but the small-town community embraces him: only his wife Casey keeps him at an arm’s length, having divorced him a few months after he left home.

Having once played hockey himself, Kyle is offered a job coaching the middle school hockey team that has been through a number of coaches with none of them sticking to the job. Kyle struggles with his decision at first because Casey is a teacher at the school and a sponsor of the hockey team, and he is concerned about making her uncomfortable if he takes the job.

With a positive reception by the hockey players, their parents, the community, and Casey herself, Kyle starts to think about staying in Potsdam even longer than his father’s recuperation requires. The question is, can he do so without making Casey feel uncomfortable, something he does not want to do since he is still very much in love with her.

The novel is buoyed with love and courage as Kyle and Casey strive to come to terms with redefining their relationship. Told in alternating segments of “Now” and “Then,” the story reveals both sides of their failed marriage as they finally deal with the devastating event that drove them apart.

New York native Tracey Lange completed a Stanford University online novel writing class while writing her debut novel, We Are the Brennans. She lives with her family in Bend, Oregon. She modeled Star, the German shepherd, in the McCray’s story after her own dog.

A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler

 Sixty-somethings are not often the main characters in romantic novels, but in A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler coming out February 4, Charlie and Vivian get a second chance for love after 40 years apart.

Charlie left Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, 40 years ago after his four-year marriage to Vivian ended. He knew his drinking had played a big part in the breakup, but he could also admit to being too young and immature for marriage. The one thing that had not changed during their four decades apart was the love he had for Vivian. Might she still have feelings for him? He was about to find out as she agreed to meet him at the Tomahawk Room for a drink.

Vivian hesitated in her car before meeting Charlie in her hometown telling herself that one drink together does not mean anything. After all, he is just a man she once knew a lifetime ago. She recalled how he broke her heart, but she also knew she held a life-changing secret from their marriage that she was not likely to share over a drink.

Turns out, Charlie was moving back to the area from Albuquerque where he had recently retired from the railroad. His uncle had left him a farm about an hour away in Spooner, but mostly he was meeting her because he wanted to find out if it was possible that the love they shared had not perished.

Charlie has taken the first step on a long road to try to win Vivian back into his life. Vivian has lots of reservations including the way Charlie treated her in their marriage and his drinking problem. Vivian’s life has been hard what with a second husband who became an invalid before passing away. She had endured lots of disappointments and hardships, having made mistakes and lived in sadness. Charlie was offering her the world, and she was just too afraid to accept.

Slowly the two become friends, but even in that kind of relationship, they suffered ups and downs. The mistakes of the past haunted them. However, Charlie was financially able to make Vivian’s life—and the lives of her daughter and granddaughters—easier although Vivian was sensitive to money issues. The guy even bought her a horse, a lifelong dream finally realized for Vivian.

The questions remain. Were they truly in love with one another or was their courtship just a stopgap to loneliness? How could Charlie give up alcohol after all these years? What might happen if Vivian reveals the secret she has kept from Charlie for 40 years? What had they done to deserve a second chance at love? What kind of challenges would they face if they restarted their relationship?

Nickolas Butler is the author of four other novels: Shotgun Lovesongs, The Hearts of Men, Little Faith, and Godspeed. Born in Pennsylvania, raised in Wisconsin, Butler lives in rural Wisconsin with his family.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting January 22, 2025.

I would like to thank Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

Nobody's Fool by Harlan Coben

 Former New York detective Sami Kierce is Nobody’s Fool, the latest mystery by Harlan Coben coming out March 25. One evening while he is teaching an adult ed criminology class on the Lower Eastside, a mystery woman briefly pops into class. Thinking she is someone from his past, fast-acting Sami slips a tracking device into her coat pocket as she dashes out of the room.

Sami dismisses his students so he can follow the woman who he dubs “Maybe Anna,” a woman who he met in Spain when he backpacked through Europe with some friends after college 25 years ago. He trails  her to an upper-class neighborhood in Connecticut where he is deflected from the estate by two guards.

Not to be deterred, Sami engages his students—many of whom are true crime fanatics--with the task of finding out the identity of the woman. He does not reveal his main concern: the last time he saw Anna in Spain, she was dead.

Anna’s death knocked him off his career path of becoming a doctor. Instead, he chose to join the  police force, a job from which he eventually was fired for multiple violations of law enforcement protocol. In addition, he was being sued for causing a civilian to be seriously injured. To make ends meet as he supports a wife and son, Sami has been trading legal representation in the lawsuit for becoming an  investigator in divorce negotiations, supplementing his income with his part-time teaching gig.

How can the visitor to his classroom possibly be a woman he met 25 years ago? What are the chances he can redeem himself and dismiss his guilt IF Anna is really alive?

Harlan Coben is a prize-winning mystery and suspense writer with the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards to his credit—the first author to have won all three. A dozen of his books have been adapted into the Netflix series including Fool Me Once, which premiered in January 2024.

Southern by Design by Grace Helena Walz

 In the debut novel by Grace Helena Walz, Magnolia "Mack" Bishop is Southern by Design as she navigates Bishop Builds, her home preservation design firm in Charleston, South Carolina. Mack’s marriage is in a state of dissolution after her husband sent a body part photo of himself to another woman.

 

Though Mack’s firm misses out on a prestigious fellowship for historic preservation, she does secure a new design job thanks to her mother Magnolia Sr., a force to be reckoned with as she has always tried to control Mack’s life including pushing for a match with the husband Mack is now divorcing. Better than the design project is the opportunity it presents for a shot at a home improvement TV show, something Magnolia Sr. has no control over whatsoever, though she would like to be a co-host.

 

Her love life might be looking up as Mack takes a chance on an old love who returns to Charleston when she is in the thick of designing a wide Georgian mansion with a double porch. If left to romance on her own terms instead of a push from her mother, Mack would have married Lincoln Kelly 15 years ago before he left Charleston for a career in New York City. He is back in town with a young son, and Mack has some big decisions to make.

 

This contemporary romance comes out February 11, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

 

Grace Helena Walz received a master’s in social work at the University of Houston and worked with children in foster care, as a medical social worker, and in a mental health capacity.  She resides outside of Atlanta with her family.

 

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting January 3, 2025.

I would like to thank Harper Muse, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.