The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian seems to be channeling Agatha Christie in his latest novel, The Lioness, in which a party of nine travelers to the Serengeti dwindles down in this mystery-thriller-historical fiction all rolled up into one fast-paced book. Hollywood actress Katie Barstow is getting married, and just for fun she wants to take special people in her life on an after-honeymoon photo trip to Africa.

The expedition is hardly underway when the vacationers are overtaken by Russian mercenaries. The political climate in 1964 was such that Moscow was meddling in Africa as it was believed that Africans would embrace the Russian model of socialism as part of a plan for modernization. But what did that have to do with a group of people whose lives were involved in acting, writing, and publicizing in Hollywood? Just who was the target of this attack?

Each chapter is introduced with a gossipy blurb about one of the safari bound, be it about Katie, her psychologist brother, her actress friend, or her recent co-star. Bohjalian builds suspense throughout the mystery by bringing one chapter to a close in the midst of high dramatic tension and plunging into the next chapter from a different character’s point of view.

A trip to Africa is treacherous enough with all the things that could happen such as animal attacks and snake bites without confrontations and threats by ruthless Russian thugs.  The number in the vacationing party diminishes  as the tension builds toward a climax of betrayal and more killings. Those who survive will never be the same.

Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 24 books. His books have been translated into 35 languages. A few of his books have been made into movies, and his The Flight Attendant became a big series hit for HBO. 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.

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

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

 

 

 

The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

 Following the success of her first book in this series and spurred on by her fans, Kentucky author Kim Michele Richardson’s second book, The Book Woman's Daughter, will arrive in stores in May. Cussy Mary, the beloved book woman, takes a backseat in this story as the protagonist is her daughter Honey Mary-Angeline Lovett.

When Honey’s parents are arrested for violating miscegenation laws, 16-year-old Honey must survive without them in the rugged Kentucky mountains or else be caught and sent away to the orphans’ home or to the House of Reform, neither a kind option. With a lawyer’s help, Honey can stay in Troublesome Creek with a guardian designated by her parents.

Blue-skinned like her biological parents and Cissy Mary because of a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, Honey can cover up the blue with socks and gloves, as those are the only areas on her body that turn blue.  While those who know her love her, Honey is an outcast among others.

When Honey’s guardian Loretta passes away, Honey decides she must show the courts that she can take care of herself. Turns out, the old packhorse library route is to be started up again, and with Cussy Mary’s faithful mule Junia, Honey secures the job delivering books to those living remotely in the Appalachians.

The husband of one of her patrons soon proves to be the villain of the story as he not only runs Honey off his property, threatening her so she does not bring reading material to his abused wife, he also preys on two women in Troublesome Creek, one a miner working to support herself and her child after the death of her husband and the other a troubled young girl with a pet rooster.

When the state challenges Honey’s status as someone her age trying to become emancipated, the decision for Honey to be on her own or sentenced to the House of Reform until she is 21 is in the hands of a judge.

Kim Michele Richardson, best known for The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, brings history to life as she is inspired by both the “blue people” of Kentucky and the brave packhorse librarians who contributed to increased literacy levels among those isolated in the hills.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 1, 2022.

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

 

 

 

What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline

 A family disappears, their house and his business burn to the ground, her business is robbed. What Happened to the Bennetts seeks to discover the answers in a powerful, twisty thriller from Lisa Scottoline.

The Bennett family includes Jason, his wife Lucinda, and their children. What no one knows but the FBI is that one night on a dark road, the family is at first dangerously tailgated then carjacked, leaving two people dead.

The FBI swoops in to persuade who is left of the family to go into witness protection as the carjackers are part of a deadly drug dealing gang as they are witnesses to the murders.. The remaining Bennetts are propelled into a life they do not know or understand, and they start coming undone as they withdraw from the life they once knew. When one of them learns a further truth behind the crime and goes rogue to bring about justice, even more lives are put at risk as the tenseness of the novel escalates.

Will the remaining Bennetts survive? Who is thwarting them at every turn? How will the murderer be brought to justice when a crime boss, a dirty cop, a self-serving lawyer, and a scheming politician keep getting in the way? This fast-paced novel will have readers up all night until they learn how everything shakes out.

Lisa Scottoline has written more than two dozen novels as well as a couple of nonfiction books with her daughter. Last year, she tried her hand at historical fiction with Eternal, which was well received. She also writes a weekly column for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled “Chick Wit.” She lives in Philadelphia with her horses, numerous dogs and cats, and a life-size cutout of Bradley Cooper.

 

 

 

The Long Weekend by Gilly Macmillan

 Once upon a time there were four couples: Rob and Edie, Mark and Jayne, Toby and Ruth, and eventually Paul and Emily. Edie was the woman the men orbited around until she chose Rob, and then one by one, the others married. For some time, all four couples have had The Long Weekend at various escapes. But this weekend in Northumbria takes a different turn as Gilly Macmillan pens her latest thriller about three women, their husbands, and one vindictive widow who plans to murder one of the remaining husbands.

From the time Jayne, Ruth, and Emily arrive at Dark Fell Barn, an isolated retreat that only their hosts can drive them to, things go terribly wrong. They are already in the dumps because for various reasons, their husbands are delayed until the next day. Emily is the newest addition to the group, and she uneasy among them without her husband. The situation goes from bad to worse when the women discover a package left for them in the barn that details that one of them will lose their husband over this long weekend.

Being isolated from the world in their out-of-the-way destination, the women cannot reach their husbands to check on them and tell them about the threatening letter in the package. Ruth gets drunk, Edie decides to hike back to the farmhouse where the hosts live, and Jayne tries to first go after Edie then babysit Ruth. Before morning comes, Edie will have broken her ankle, Ruth will have disappeared, and none of the husbands have shown up as planned.

But nothing is really as it seems, and when the women get back to their homes, their lives will become completely undone in this can't-stop-until-you-finish-it novel.

Gilly Macmillan’s first novel, What She Knew, was an Edgar award nominee. With a background in art history from her studies at Bristol University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, Macmillan lives in Bristol, UK, with her family and writes full time.

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

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

 

 

 

The Wedding Veil by Kristy Woodson Harvey

While her earlier novels are solid fiction about Southern women, her latest, The Wedding Veil, leaves behind the Hallmark-type stories as this historical fiction offering is Kristy Woodson Harvey’s masterpiece. Blending a modern-day romance with the story of heiress Cornelia Vanderbilt’s wedding veil, Harvey’s well-researched tome includes biographical detail about the Dresser and Vanderbilt families as well as the history of the Biltmore, the largest home in America.

This North Carolina writer has blended the story of the wedding veil over two distinct timelines encompassing the early 1900s and present day starting with the ill-fated wedding of Julia Baxter who learns at the bridesmaid’s breakfast at the Biltmore that her intended has been unfaithful. In contrast, Edith Vanderbilt’s story begins with the death of her husband and the huge responsibility of keeping the Biltmore estate financially healthy in 1914 as she prepares to pass it on to her daughter Cornelia on her 25^th birthday.

The chapters alternate between different points of view as well as different years as both Julia and Cornelia  sort out their feelings about love and their roles in life. The stories become linked with the beautiful veil that Edith’s family had passed down from one Dresser female to another as well as to Cornelia Vanderbilt herself.

Kristy Woodson Harvey lives with her family in Beaufort, NC. She writes standalone novels as well as the Peachtree Bluff series, now being adapted into a one-hour drama for NBC.

 

 

 

All I Want by Darcey Bell

Author Darcey Bell blew me away with her debut novel, A Simple Favor, which was later made into a movie. It was a real page turner with so many twists and turns that readers couldn’t possibly see where they were going to end up.

While a sophomore book is hard to pull off after an incredible first book, Bell did it again with Something She’s Not Telling Us, a delicious page-turner that I read in one afternoon because I JUST HAD TO KNOW THE OUTCOME.

The third book is a letdown. In All I Want, the reader just wants to be done and forget about the time wasted reading the book. Ever since Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, writers of psychological fiction  seem compelled to twist it up in their books, but this was a twist too far.

 It sounds like the perfect creepy haunted house novel. Readers are promised Shirley Jackson-type overtones. But with no likable characters, an unreliable narrator, and no motivation for the characters to do the things they do, the book was hugely disappointing, not just to me, but to two out of three professional critics, as well as a good number of Goodreads members.

The premise deals with a young, expectant couple wanting to take on rehabilitating a Victorian mansion in upstate New York because they have more money than sense so why not? Of course, the mansion has a dark, dark history, which may be the best part of the book, but then that crumbles as well as the dilapidated country lodge. The last chapter is the coup de grace.

Darcey Bell is a preschool teacher in Chicago. She was raised on a dairy farm in Iowa. Readers know she has the talent to rebound from this book.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting January 20, 2022.

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

 

 

 

The Long Weekend by Gilly Macmillan

 Once upon a time there were four couples: Rob and Edie, Mark and Jayne, Toby and Ruth, and eventually Paul and Emily. Edie was the woman the men orbited around until she chose Rob, and then one by one, the others married. For some time, all four couples have had The Long Weekend at various escapes. But this weekend in Northumbria takes a different turn as Gilly Macmillan pens her latest thriller about three women, their husbands, and one vindictive widow who plans to murder one of the remaining husbands.

From the time Jayne, Ruth, and Emily arrive at Dark Fell Barn, an isolated retreat that only their hosts can drive them to, things go terribly wrong. They are already in the dumps because for various reasons, their husbands are delayed until the next day. Emily is the newest addition to the group, and she uneasy among them without her husband. The situation goes from bad to worse when the women discover a package left for them in the barn that details that one of them will lose their husband over this long weekend.

Being isolated from the world in their out-of-the-way destination, the women cannot reach their husbands to check on them and tell them about the threatening letter in the package. Ruth gets drunk, Edie decides to hike back to the farmhouse where the hosts live, and Jayne tries to first go after Edie then babysit Ruth. Before morning comes, Edie will have broken her ankle, Ruth will have disappeared, and none of the husbands have shown up as planned.

But nothing is really as it seems, and when the women get back to their homes, their lives will become completely undone in this can't-stop-until-you-finish-it novel.

Gilly Macmillan’s first novel, What She Knew, was an Edgar award nominee. With a background in art history from her studies at Bristol University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, Macmillan lives in Bristol, UK, with her family and writes full time.

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

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