Civilisation Francaise by Mary Fleming

 

Lily Owens is at loose ends when she realizes after graduating with a degree in law that she has no interest in it.  She knows she doesn't want to be back home with her parents as that has never been a happy place for her.  When her father agrees to fund her for a year in Paris, she enrolls in a course about French culture and heads off.  At first she stays with a family friend, but the wife makes it evident that Lily is a bother.  Lily looks for a job and lodging and is thrilled when she meets a man who is looking for help for his elderly aunt.  She is going blind and needs help only with breakfast as there is another servant who looks after the aunt during the day.

Lily agrees and so meets Madame Quinon.  Although she appears to be an aristocratic French lady, she is in reality an American who came to Paris with her husband before the war.  Germaine is the housekeeper and a Nazi camp survivor.  Together the three settle into the vast mansion that Madame Quinon owns.

Mary Fleming, like Madame Quinon, is also an American by birth but has lived in Paris for over forty years.  Her portrayal of these three women is compelling.  Lily grows up in the year she spends there.  She comes as a shy girl unsure of her worth or what she might want to do with her life.  After several romances and friendships and after taking care of someone else, she emerges as a strong woman sure of herself and her life.  The unraveling of Madame Quinon's life and secrets keeps the reader entranced and the friendship that grows between the three women is life-affirming.  This book is recommended for readers of literary and women's fiction.  

The Island Of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

 

Kostos and Defne are teenagers in love.  That would be fine except for one thing.  They live on Cyprus where Kostos is Greek and Defne is Turkish, meaning that their parents will never accept their love.  They find a tavern run by a gay couple who are also a mixture of Turkish and Greek backgrounds and meet there.  The tavern has a huge fig tree growing up inside and the tree is a character in the novel as well.

When the civil war comes, Kostos' mother sends him to London.  He thinks he is only going for a short visit but in reality it is years before he returns.  Defne has remained on the island throughout the war and now works reclaiming bodies killed in the massacres of that war.  When they see each other, their love reunites and they go to London bearing a cutting of the fig tree.  They marry and have a child, Ada.

Elif Shafak is a Turkish/British writer and her books reflect her Turkish history.  She is known as an advocate for women's rights and her novels often feature strong women who find a way to live their dreams.  In this novel, the reader will learn the history of the Cyprus Civil War as well as the plants, insects and animals who live there, told often by the fig tree character who symbolizes rebirth and continuity.  Kostos and Defne have a love that transcends differences and they find a way to be together.  This novel was shortlisted for the Women's Fiction Prize.  It is recommended for literary fiction and historical fiction readers.

Holly by Stephen King

 

Things aren't going that well for private investigator Holly Gibney at the Finders and Keepers investigative agency.  Covid has shut most things down and Holly's overbearing mother has just died of the disease.  Her partner is out of commission with the virus as well.  Recent jobs have been more of the lost pet variety than crimes Holly could be interested in.  

Still, she has great friends in Jerome and Barbara Robinson, a brother and sister she met through Bill Hodges, her first partner at the agency and the man who brought Holly out of her shell.  She has also just discovered that she is a millionaire as she will inherit everything in her mother's estate.  So when the call  comes in from a frantic mother, Holly is ready for a new case.

The mother wants Holly to find her daughter who went missing a few weeks ago.  She was on her bicycle on her way home after work.  She stopped in a convenience store as she did most days for a soft drink and there her story stopped.  No one saw her after that.  The police think she might have just decided to run away as there was a note left on her bicycle seat saying she had had enough.  But she was twenty-four, college educated with a job she loved.  Why go anywhere?  

Holly agrees to take the case after checking with a police contact who is heading the investigation there and more than willing for Holly to look into it.  As she does, she finds other people who have disappeared in the same area over the years; a college instructor, a young skateboarder, a female janitor at the college and a guy who worked at the local bowling alley.  What ties them all together?  Is it a connection with the college or the location?  As Holly starts to get a grip on what has occurred, she finds an evil she had never expected.

Holly is a character that Stephen King fell in love with.  He originally wrote her as a minor character in Mr. Mercedes but he fell in love with her personality and courage and used her again in Finders Keepers and The Outsiders.  Here she has her own novel and I surely hope this isn't her last appearance.  I'd love to see an entire series written about this woman whose unique mind helps her solve cases and whose personality wasn't allowed to shine until she was middle-aged.  The mystery is convincing and this is one of my favorite King novels.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry by Elizabeth McCraken

 

This anthology of nine stories is by Elizabeth McCracken, who is known for her gentle and offbeat writing.  There is a story about a son whose mother was in a circus sideshow as she was born without arms and now gives a home to other performers who are homeless.  Another story features a family with nine children.  When the children grow up, they still socialize only with each other and push everyone else away, including spouses.  My favorite story is about a couple who receive a visit from a distant aunt of the husband's.  Only after she has been with them for months do they discover she isn't related to them at all.  

Elizabeth McCracken is known as a writer's writer.  She is close friends with Ann Patchett and is the person who reads Patchett's books before they are published.  She has had three books longlisted for the National Book Awards.  Her stories feature the mundane lives of people with fantasy thrown in as an everyday occurrence.  I try to read everything she writes as I find her whimsy and insight into our lives memorable.  This book is recommended for readers of anthologies and literary fiction.

Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito

 

A mass shooting has occurred in one of the wealthiest high schools in Sweden.  Three students and a teacher are dead.  Maja Norberg is arrested.  One of the dead is her best friend and another is her boyfriend who started the shooting.  Maja is charged with murder as she fired the shots that killed her friend, Amanda, and her boyfriend, Sebastian.

This story is told entirely from Maja's perspective.  At first she can barely speak as she is shocked by what has occurred.  We hear how Sebastian, the son of a billionaire, picked Maja out of her class to be his girlfriend.  They sailed on yachts and Sebastian gave enormous parties.  But it is soon clear that Sebastian's father considers him a failure and that Sebastian is damaged by his father's disdain.  He lives in a fog of drug use and soon Maja wants to leave him but when she tries, bad things happen.

Most of the narrative is about the trial.  Maja's parents have hired one of the best attorneys in Sweden and he is sure that Maja doesn't deserve to be in jail.  As the narrative unwinds, it becomes clear that Maja shot Sebastian to stop him killing more people and that her friend was caught by an errant bullet.  But can Maja, who is the most hated person in Sweden and whom the newspapers and mass media have covered as a spoiled rich girl, find justice?

Mmalin Persson Giolito is a Swedish author and lawyer.  Her law background makes the court case interesting as the reader sees behind the testimony to what the various attorneys are trying to accomplish.  But more interesting is the depiction of these rich teenagers and the degree to which money and privilege has ruined their lives, how they would trade the money for a true connection with their jetsetting parents.  This book is recommended for readers of mysteries and court cases.

Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes

 

Cliff wants to kill his former boss, who mentally pushed two of Cliff's friends to their deaths and made Cliff's name mud in his industry.  Doria wants to kill the head of her studio who is planning to kill Doria's acting career because she rejected him romantically.  Gemma eased the suffering of her father's terminal illness by sending him to a painless death; now she is being blackmailed by a co-worker who gets the promotion Gemma deserved and makes Gemma do all of her work.  Gemma doesn't see any way out except to kill her.

All three, along with many others with similar tales, end up at the McMasters School of Homicide.  Geographically remote and secretive, the purpose of the school is to train those who can afford it to be able to kill without detection.  Will Cliff, Doria and Gemma make the grade?

This book is an amusing take on the subject of deserved murders.  The characters are easy to cheer for and the wit and attention to detail is spot on.  Holmes is a playwright along with being an author and his writing shows this as it quickly gets to the point and moves quickly as a play must do.  He has had success with his music, his plays and his books.  This novel is recommended for mystery fans looking for a lighter read.

Never Broken by Lori Duffy Foster

 

After coving a press conference for the announcement of a new commercial and shopping project in an area full of abandoned warehouses and some small shops, journalist Lisa Jamison has a shock.  Getting into her car, she finds a man lying on her back seat.  He is skeletal and seems on his last legs.  A car slowly crawls by her, obviously looking for the man.  Lisa decides to help him and drives him away.

When he can talk the man, Saul, has a horrific story to tell.  He was snatched off the street twelve years ago as a young man.  Along with twenty other people in the same situation, he has been a slave for those years, forced to work sewing goods in a fetid basement.  The slaves are given very little food and beatings are frequent and the hours are long.  One man had escaped a few years before and gotten to the police.  He was turned over to the same people who had enslaved him who convinced the police the man was an escaped mental patient.  His consequence was death.

Lisa is appalled and determined to expose this group.  She hides Saul away with a friend and a doctor she had dated for a while works on Saul's recovery.  But it is soon clear that Lisa is being followed after an attempt on her life.  Telling her editor, he gives her a partner and hides her away in safe locations at night.  Can Lisa and her partner find the slave warehouse before it is moved?

Lori Duffy Foster is a former crime reporter herself and her inside knowledge of how newspaper offices work is evident.  In this novel, she exposes a growing problem that is not common knowledge, that there are still slaves in our country and worldwide.  Many of women forced to work as prostitutes while others are slaves in factories or sold as household help to those willing to be part of this horrific trade.  The reader will be caught up in Lisa's investigation and it's climatic finish.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Strange Affair by Peter Robinson

 

In this fifteenth book in the DCI Alan Banks series, Banks is on leave when he gets a strange call.  His brother, Roy has called and asked Banks to call him back, saying it could be a matter of life and death.  The two brothers aren't close so Banks is surprised.  When he gets to Roy's house, Roy has disappeared, leaving everything behind including his phone.

Meanwhile, back at the station, there's a new murder.  A young woman was found on the expressway in her car with a gunshot wound that killed her.  There have been several other murders and attacks on the expressway in the past few years and Annie Cabbot, who is in charge, wonders if the cases are related.  But there is one strange thing that doesn't fit that theory.  The woman has a piece of paper in her pocket that says Alan Banks and his address.  Is this a friend of Alan's?

As the two cases progress, Roy's brother seems to have perhaps been mixed up in some shady business dealings.  He has been successful but always willing to skate close to the line.  Has he gotten involved with something dangerous?  The woman is found to have worked in an abortion clinic.  Had that been a factor in her death and how did she know Banks?  Eventually the two cases collide and become one, one that neither Banks or Cabbot will forget.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Gould's Book Of Fish by Richard Flanagan

 

William Buelow Gould was a criminal, he would agree.  His crimes were mostly minor ones, forgeries and other cons.  But he was sent to Australia and after another crime, sentenced to the worst prison in the colony, one from which no one escaped alive.  But Gould had two talents.  One was for landing on his feet and the other was an ability to paint.  His sentence was made more bearable when he was assigned to a staff member who was making a study of the native fish and wanted Gould to illustrate his writings.

We meet many other men in the novel.  There is the psychopathic commander whose fantastical dreams and projects he used Gould's artistic talents to achieve.  He had a native mistress who was also Gould's mistress on the sly.  There was a native tracker who worked for the staff tracking down escapees.  One of Gould's acquaintances from England was also there and used his engineering skills to make his life bearable.  

But mostly it was a drear place where the daily ration of unhealthy food was broken up by beatings, executions and unending toil.  At times Gould was assigned to the worst cells, ones where the tide came in twice a day and the prisoners had to float near the ceiling until the waters receded.  Those assigned there were never dry, never comfortable.  

This book was a major sensation in 2002, winning the Commonwealth Prize, the New York Times Notable Fiction, L.A. Times Best of the Best and many other awards.  Richard Flanagan was born and raised in Tasmania and the book is based on the stories of transported prisoners who endured what was known as the worst prison in the British Empire.  Set in the 1830's, Gould's ability to rise above the everyday torments and occasional outright brutality of his situation while documenting the evil he saw around him educates and horrifies in equal measure.  This book is recommended for readers of literary and historical fiction. 

Bone Deep by Joel Schwartz and Charles Bosworth Jr.

 

On a Tuesday night in 2011, Russell Faria returned home from his weekly game night with friends thirty minutes away.  He walked into a nightmare.  His wife, Betsy, lay on the floor in a pool of blood, stabbed with what was later detailed as fifty five wounds.  He called 911 immediately and EMS workers found Betsy cold and starting rigor mortis, something that would indicate death had occurred around two hours before.

But the nightmare would deepen.  After talking with a woman who claimed to be Betsy's best friend, Russ himself was arrested for Betsy's murder.  Four people testified that Russ was with them at the game night and he had receipts for some errands he had run on the trip but that solid alibi did nothing to sway the police and prosecutor.  Instead they believed Pamela Hupp, the supposed best friend who had lots of story to tell about Russ's cruelty to Betsy although everyone else thought the marriage was solid.  Pam had also ended up with one of Betsy's life insurance policies taken out to care for her two daughters after her death (Betsy had terminal cancer).  Although Pam made lots of noise about giving that money to the girls, she instead spent it on herself.  

Russ went through a trial and one of the authors, Joel Schwartz, was his lawyer.  He thought he had never seen a more clear case of a defendant's innocence but the jury returned a guilty verdict.  Russ was sent to prison but Schwartz continued to work for Russ's freedom.  He filed an appeal, brought a case against Pam for the insurance money and reported the prosecutor and judge to the federal agency responsible for investigating cases where fraud could be involved.  He got a second trial for Russ and after four years, Russ was found not guilty.

This case had more Dateline episodes than any other in the history of the true crime show.  With Russ's lawyer's inside information, true crime readers will learn all the facts of the case.  As time went on, Pam was found to have a connection to several other murders, including that of her own mother, and is currently serving a life sentence.  The sheer evil of committing a murder for her own profit and then trying to frame someone else makes Pam Hupp deserving of the life sentence she has received.  This book is recommended for true crime readers.  

Vanity Fair's Writers On Writers edited by Graydon Carter

 Vanity Fair has collected, in this 2016 edition, various pieces published in the magazine that are written by authors about other authors.  It starts with Christopher Hitchens writing about Dorothy Parker and ends with an article about Kay Thompson, the author of the Eloise books, by Marie Brenner.  There is a section on poets such as W.H. Auden, E. E. Cummings and Marianne Moore.

One of my favorite sections was named Literary Lions.  There Anne Tyler wrote about Reynolds Price, Martin Amis about Saul Bellow and Michael Lewis about Tom Wolfe.  There were also articles about Eudora Welty, Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote, Normal Mailer and Ernest Hemingway.

The next section was about writers who lived overseas and included articles about Paul Bowles, Gabriel Barcia Marquez, Primo Levi, Naguib Mafouz and Salman Rushdie.  The section Short Takes has articles about Willa Cather, James Baldwin, Roger Straus, Ward Just, Toni Morrison, Ishmael Beah, Robert Harris, Judy Blume, Wole Soyinka, Sonny Mehta and Christopher Hitchens. 

A Family Affair had Lili Anolik writing about Joan Didion, Dominick Dunne writing about his brother John Gregory Dunne and Mike Hogan writing about Dominick Dunne.  Memoir had articles by Laura Hobson, Arthur Miller and William Styron.  Styron wrote about his experience with depression and it was the best article on this topic I've read.  

A final section is titled Behind The Bestsellers.  It features articles about Josephine Tey, Grace Metalious, Mary McCarthy, Jacqueline Susann, Cormac McCarthy, Stieg Larsson, James Patterson and Donna Tartt.  It discusses the envy of those who write bestsellers and how their work is considered less than weighty tomes of literature.  It also discusses how money and fame has been a curse to some authors rather than the blessing they expected.  This book is recommended for anyone interested in literature and those who produce it for us.  

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta

 

Eve Fletcher is about to start a new chapter in her life.  Since her husband walked out seven years ago, it has been just her and her son Brenden.  Now he is headed off to college and she's not sure she's ready to live alone.  Eve is the head of a senior center so it's not likely she will meet anyone at work.

But Eve adjusts.  She takes a class at a community college and finds friends there.  The class is taught by a transgender man and she is now unsure about how to find female friends.  There is also a college freshman who knows Brenden and considers him a bullying jock.  

Along with challenging her mind, Eve also explores her sexuality.  She watches porn, makes a tentative move towards a female colleague.  The freshman develops a crush on Eve and tries to seduce her.  When all is said and done, how many new experiences will Eve experience?

Tom Perrota is known for his humorous writing, taking up such topics as elections and everyday human existence.  Eve is someone most middle-aged women can relate to as they try to determine who they are and what they want once the years of childrearing are over.  Brenden starts as an obnoxious teenager but grows over the course of the novel.  This book is recommended for readers of literary and women's fiction. 

Age Of Ash by Daniel Abraham

 

Two girls, friends, grow up in Kithamar.  They are poor and do whatever they can, including stealing, to get enough money to survive another day, to get a place to sleep and food to eat.  Alys is the elder and looks out for Sammish.  Sammish is an orphan with no one else to watch out for her and has the ability to fade away in a crowd.  After Alys's brother is killed, the two friends' paths start to separate.  Alys becomes obsessed with taking up her brother's mission and Sammish isn't interested as she sees what Alys's obsession is doing to her.  

A royal intrigue is also taking place.  The current prince of the land had an affair with a priestess and a son was born to her.  The prince leaves, knowing that if necessary he had an heir that others didn't know of.  When he became sick, he sent for the child but by then, others knew and those in opposition kidnapped the child.  Now his mother has come to Kithamar to find her son and Sammish is helping her.  

This is the first in a planned trilogy by Daniel Abraham.  He has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards.  Many know him as James S. A. Corey, the co-author of The Expanse series.  In this series, he has chosen to focus on feminine leads.  Alys, at first glance, seems to be the leader and the strong one of the friends, but as the story unfolds, Sammish in her quiet way, tends to accomplish what she sets out to do.  The royal intrigue seems to be the event that will fuel the second novel in the series.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.

Dazzling by Chikodili Emelumadu

 Two teenage girls deal with spirits in West Africa.  Ozoemena has been chosen to be the family's next leopard.  The leopard spirit is stalking her, waiting for her to agree to the merge.  She, on the other hand, is still angry at her father, who has left the family to find his brother's spirit, the last leopard.  

Treasure's father is also gone but he has died.  Before he died, Treasure and her mother lived with him in a nice house with anything they wanted.  But after his death, his brothers moved in and took everything, evicting the two women.  They now live in a hovel, often hungry unless Treasure is able to scrounge some food somehow.  She makes a deal with a spirit to find him wives if he will introduce her to the Bone Woman.  The Bone Woman can bring back her father from the dead.

The two girls hurtle down their separate paths, both trying to restore their families.  But their paths will collide and only one can survive.  Which will it be?

Chikodili Emelumadu was raised in Nigeria.  This is her debut novel and for most readers it will be an introduction to the culture and superstitions of West Africa.  The girls recognize the value of an education and both long to be in a school situation.  Both girls use what they know to try to patch their broken families and both soon realize that they have gotten in over their heads.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction, especially international fiction.

Obsessed by Ted Dekker

 

The time, 1944.  The location, a Nazi work camp for women named Torun.  Margaret and Ruth arrive on the same day and both are pregnant.  They worry for their babies because the Commandant is known for his cruelty.  The women are worked hard and fed little.  Periodically, one comes back to the barracks to find a red scarf on her bed and that is a death sentence.  She must go to the Commandant's quarters and by the morning, her body will be found hanging from the gates.

Ruth has her baby and Margaret is not far behind.  They obsess that one will have a girl and one a boy and those children will grow and fall in love.  They see that as an ultimate victory over the camp and the cruel men that run it.  When Margaret is chosen for the death ritual, Ruth takes her place so that Margaret can have her baby also.  Margaret promises to raise both children as her own.

Current time.  Margaret has just died in Los Angeles.  She had never found her son or Ruth's daughter although she spent her life looking for them.  She leaves a letter and a box behind for her son.  Now the next generation will play out the obsessions of their parents.  Will the children, now grown, find each other or will the Commandant's son kill them both?

Ted Dekker is known for his thrillers.  He had an unorthodox childhood, his parents missionaries who lived among the cannibals of Indonesia.  This upbringing can be seen in the novels he writes with supernatural elements.  This book explores the concepts of sacrifice, cruelty and the will to live no matter the circumstances one encounters.  The reader will be taken on a rollercoaster ride as the children play out their parents' obsessions and on the edge of their seat wondering who will survive.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

A History Of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

 

Maddie lives on the lake in the forest in an abandoned commune with her mother and father.  Maddie sometimes wonders if they are actually her parents or just the adults willing to take her when the commune broke up and she was a toddler.  Now fifteen, her living situation makes her an outsider at her school and she doesn't have friends.  She is interested when a new family moves in across the lake but close enough to view.

There is a mother and small boy, the father away working.  The mother, Patra, seems lonely.  Paul is four and Linda, which is how Maddie introduces herself, becomes his babysitter and Patra's friend.  She teaches Paul the things she knows about nature.  The father is an astrologer and away on work.  When he returns, the atmosphere at the house changes as he is definitely in control and manages every interaction.

Things are also difficult for a teenager to process at school.  There is a girl who becomes pregnant in the tenth grade after having made accusations of improper contact with a teacher.  She later recants her accusation but the teacher is sent away to prison after questionable items are found in a search.  Maddie/Linda had a relationship with him when he picked her to give her presentation about wolves at a conference.  She wonders if he was truly guilty as he never was inappropriate with her, or if he just didn't find her attractive.

As Maddie looks back on this summer as an adult, the crisis of the time was when Paul became sick.  Leo, the father, is a strict Christian Scientist and this affects how Paul is handled during his illness.  Maddie doesn't understand what is happening as with so many things she witnessed or experienced but now looking back, she wonders if she could have affected the situation.

This is a debut novel.  The author grew up and still resides in Minnesota where the book is set.  Maddie is an interesting character, just figuring out how to relate to others and the world and then stuck in many ways for years afterwards in that summer.  There are questions about the Christian Scientist religion, about controlling individuals, about marriages that are barren and based on one person having all the power.  Readers will feel the tension under the everyday life of Maddie and know that something must have happened that summer that impacted the rest of Maddie's life.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Playing With Fire by Peter Robinson

 

Two longboats have caught on fire and been destroyed.  When DCI Alan Banks gets there, he discovers that there are two casualties.  One was a fifty-something artist and on the other boat, a young drug addict has been killed.  The investigation shows that those killed were squatters, living in the derelict boats and that the fire was arson and therefore murder.  Several days later and a few miles away, a caravan is also torched and another man is killed.  Both men show signs of having been drugged with the same compound.  

There are lots of candidates.  It could be a firebug, someone who just likes to set fires and chose these run down structures randomly.  There was a young man who was living with the drug addict and he had been close to the caravan the night it went up in flames.  He accuses the woman's stepfather, saying that his girlfriend was a drug addict due to the man's abuse and that the stepfather had been trying to get her to move back home.  There was a secondhand bookseller who seemed to have ties to both the men.  The police call in an outside expert when it appears that there could have been an art fraud circle operating in the area and that the artist could be involved.  Who is the murderer and can Banks and his team catch him?

This is the fourteenth novel in the Alan Banks series.  Banks has a new girlfriend although he doesn't get to see her often as she is a policewoman in another district.  Annie Cabbot has a new love interest also and Banks is ashamed to find he is jealous.  Both throw themselves into the investigation and soon find a connection between the two male victims while other suspects can be eliminated.  The final solution is chilling and puts Banks himself in danger.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

The Searcher by Tana French

 Cal Hooper spent twenty-five years as a Chicago policeman.  After his wife decided she wanted a divorce, he decided it was time to retire.  But he didn't just retire and hang around Chicago.  Instead he bought a cottage in rural Ireland that needed repairs and moved across the ocean.

Cal's days are spent cleaning, roofing, stripping wallpaper and painting.  He makes friends with the neighbors, most of whom are older men who farm and have lived there their entire lives.  But there are still some young people.  One, Trey, starts coming by and soon is helping Cal with his work.  But Trey has an ulterior motive.  Trey wants Cal to find his older brother, Brenden, who disappeared six months ago.

Cal is reluctant to do so.  His best guess is that Brendan just decided to take off to try to find a better life in one of the cities.  But as he starts to look into it, it seems that Brendan may have gotten himself caught up in trouble with some of the local drug gangs.  It could be more serious.  

Most people know Tana French as the author of the Dublin Squad series.  This new series is set not in a city but in the country.  Cal knows nothing about the country or the life long relationships that exist and as he starts to uncover dark secrets, he wonders if he is putting everyone he knows into danger.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

 

Bird Gardner lives with his mother and father in a happy home.  But disaster awaits.  The government has passed a law called PACT, Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act.  It brings a wave of censorship with books from other cultures disappearing from libraries.  Anyone who speaks against the law or tries to champion other cultures runs to the risk of imprisonment.  Or even worse, parents who are found in violation of PACT can have their children suddenly removed from their home and rehomed with another family far away and with no way for the parents to find out where their child now lives.

The Gardners are in jeopardy.  Bird's mother is Chinese and her parents died of anti-Asian violence.  Worse, a poem that Margaret, Bird's mother, wrote years before has been adopted by those rebelling against PACT, a phrase from the poem, 'Our Missing Hearts'  becoming their slogan.  This puts the Gardners squarely in the crosshairs and the parents make a heartbreaking decision.  In order to protect Bird and make sure he isn't rehomed, Margaret leaves the family and has no contact afterwards, no letters, no phone calls, no communication.  That allows Bird's father to continue to raise Bird.

When Bird gets old enough to question where his mother is and why she left, he finds a clue that could lead him to her.  He takes off by himself to find his mother and join her fight.  Will he be successful?

Celeste Ng is known for writing novels that talk about situations that challenge families.  Her exploration of  Asian prejudice and censorship in a time of increased book banning feels prescient.  The reader will fall in love with Bird and rally to the side of those fighting for freedom in an increasingly limited country.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The House Of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

 

In 1921, Somerset Maughn, known as Willie to his friends, arrives in Penang, Malaysia, along with his secretary Gerald.  He is there to visit his old friend Robert who lives there with his wife Lesley and their children.  Maughn has just released a new book and it is doing well but while on his visit, disaster strikes.  He gets news from his lawyers that he has lost all his savings in a risky investment.  Distraught, he looks around for material for a new book.

Willie is gay and Gerald is not only his secretary but his lover.  He had hoped to divorce his wife and travel more extensively with Gerald but that is not likely if he is impoverished.  He hears that Robert and Lesley had known the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat Sen and believes that Lesley may have had an affair with him.  Would that be a good topic?  Willie believes that everyone knows a writer uses everything he hears so he doesn't need to feel guilty about exposing secrets others have kept hidden.  But as he gets to know Lesley better in late night conversations, he finds a better topic.  One of Lesley's friends had been charged with murder of a man she might have been involved with.  

Robert and Lesley have secrets but not the ones that Willie suspects.  Their marriage has been a sham for many years but under everything there is still some love existent.  Lesley is torn between keeping her secrets or blowing everything up in the relief of having someone to tell them to. What will Willie do?

This novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize as were his two previous novels.  It won various awards and is considered a best historical fiction.  Eng was born in Penang so he knows the area and can reproduce it and its culture during this time period.  There is much discussion of homosexuality and of the Chinese revolution to overthrow the Emperor.  The murder trial adds mystery while validating the cultural attitudes of the English who lived there and considered themselves above the native population.  This book is recommended for readers of historical and literary fiction.

I Want To Thank My Brain For Remembering Me by Jimmy Breslin

 

Jimmy Breslin was known as a journalist in New York who focused his attention on the ordinary people of the city.  One of his most famous articles was his interview of the man who dug John F. Kennedy's grave after his assassination.  Breslin also was known for reporting on the Mafia which was strong and noticeable in the city at that time and was beaten badly by a member of the Lucchese crime family.  He also uncovered corruption in local government and covered the race riots.  

In this book, Breslin finds that he has an aneurysm on his brain and much of the book is dedicated to his reaction on finding he will have to undergo brain surgery.  He explains what the condition is, how he found the best surgeon and then reports on the operation from start to finish.  Of course, there is much angst before the operation although Breslin, who is a Catholic, feels he is ready to die if that's what's in the cards.  He is much more concerned about surviving but being unable to remember things or think.

Breslin is also known as the journalist who Son of Sam wrote a series of letters to.  These letters were printed in the paper and many at the FBI condemned Breslin, saying that his sensationalizing of the murderer extended his criminal activity and caused more murders.  Breslin was at the center of most events during the 1950's to his death in 2017.  He wrote columns up onto his death and always focused on the average person who was just trying to make it in the world.  This book is recommended for those interested in journalism, events of the time and autobiographies.  

A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp

 

Anna is twenty-four and wants to be an opera singer.  She was shocked when she was accepted to the London conservatory she applied for on a scholarship as she never expected it would happen.  She moves to London much to her parents' dismay but they aren't able to help her with money.  She must scrimp and save and take side jobs when they appear.  Then she meets Max.

Max is in his mid-thirties, rich and successful and everything Anna had dreamed of.  He is an investment banker and has a huge apartment on the seventeenth floor of a glass skyscraper.  Max is in the process of getting a divorce and the two agree to keep it casual, keep it light.

But soon Anna finds that is impossible to do.  She finds herself skipping classes and rehearsals if Max has a free evening.  She listens as he questions if this is the life she really wants, one of constant competition and auditions, one that pays little unless you are at the very top of the profession.  She even lets Max give her money when he sees how she is struggling to even eat some weeks.  Anna finds that her dreams seem to be shifting from the career she has always held first to being whatever Max wants her to be.  Which dream will win

This is Crimp's debut novel and she takes much from her own life.  After getting a degree from Cambridge in English, she spent several years trying to be an opera singer, although it was clear to her from the start that she was ill-suited for it.  She describes the atmosphere of a conservatory clearly, the comradery, the competition, the constant anxiety and fear of failure and the joy when something goes well and it seems that one might yet reach their dreams.  She also captures the experience of a young girl dating a man who is soon overpowering.  She explores how slowly one starts to accommodate the man's schedule, his desires, his need to remain free even if one is head over heels in love with him.  Accepting someone else's thoughts about one's dreams is a formula for failure but the balancing act between one's dreams and one's desire for love is a tricky one, one that many women wake up in middle age to regret which end of the balance they have ended up with. I listened to this novel and the narrator with her English accent transports the reader to the London Anna is trying to conquer.   The reader will emphasize with Anna but may not like Max.  This book is recommended for readers of literary and women's fiction.

The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell

 

The Zook women live on an island on the waters, or swamp as most would call it, in Michigan.  The head of the family is Herself, a woman who those around her fear but come to for healing.  She lives in harmony with the plants and animals of the waters, even the rattlesnakes that are a protected species.  Herself had three daughters.  One is living in California, one is a nurse nearby and the youngest, Rose Thorn, is the town's fascination.  All the men are in love with her.  She has always loved the farmer next to the island but refuses to marry him.  Rose periodically disappears, staying with her sister in California and leaving behind her eleven year old daughter, Dorothy known as Donkey, with Herself.

Men are forbidden on the island.  Herself was married but that was long ago and she doesn't trust men with their guns and their casual destruction of everything around them.  When a bullet hits Herself her thoughts are justified.  Her injury brings all the sisters home and the Zook family secrets start to emerge. 

Bonnie Jo Campbell is known as a master of documenting the lives of those who live close to nature, those who are poor and ignored.  Campbell has the knack of transporting the reader into the world she has created and the characters are drawn so well one feels they just ran into them at the post office yesterday.  There are echoes from Campbell's own life in the novel as she also grew up in Michigan and she also loves mathematics as Donkey does.  The relationships between the sisters and their mother are strong and sustaining.  This book should be a strong contender for literary awards such as the Women's Prize for Literature and the Booker and is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Close To Home by Peter Robinson

 

When Alan Banks was fourteen, like most teenage boys he had a gang of friends.  They played football, listened to music, checked out girls and just hung out at each others' homes.  Of them all, Banks was closest to Graham Marshall.  Then, a few weeks after Banks had an encounter near the river with an aggressive man, Graham went missing.  Did he run away?  Had he been murdered?  Now, all these years later, bones have been found and identified as Graham.  Although the body isn't in Bank's district, he volunteers to help with the case.

There is also a case going on at home.  Another teenage boy, this one the stepson of a famous footballer, has gone missing.  Luke was a quiet boy, interested in literature and music with not much use for sports. When Luke's body is found floating in the water,  Annie Cabbot is assigned the case and Banks works it also.  There are hints that Luke had a girlfriend that no one can identify and that there  was tension at home.  Can these two cases of murdered teenage boys be solved?

This is number thirteen in the Alan Banks series.  The reader gets to see more about Bank's background and his relationship with his parents and brother.  Banks meets a new woman, the officer in charge of the Graham Marshall case and since he and Annie are no longer dating, he starts a relationship with this new woman.  At the end, both cases are solved along with a larger issue of police corruption and gangster involvement.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

House Of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

 

Iris is the youngest of the infamous Hollow sisters.  When they were small, they disappeared off a busy Edinburgh street on New Year's Eve in the space of time it took for their parents to exchange a kiss.  They reappeared, Grey, Vivi and Iris, a month later on the same street, naked and shivering and with no memory of where they had been or what happened there.  Their parents who had been about to be arrested for murder were ecstatic.  

But things weren't good.  The parents had spent a month grieving and blaming each other and the marriage was basically over.  The girls' father had a mental breakdown and killed himself.  Both Grey and Vivi left and made their own way in the world, leaving Iris alone at home with her mother.  Grey had become the world's most famous model and designer while Vivi was a rebel and played in a rock band.  

Now Grey has disappeared again and Iris and Vivi band together along with Grey's boyfriend, another model, to find her.  Can they find Grey and all the secrets their lives have been composed of?

Krystal Sutherland, originally from Australia, is a young adult author.  Her books incorporate the supernatural and are dark with vividly drawn characters.  The reader will be drawn into the Hollow sisters' mystery and appalled as all the secrets emerge.  This book is recommended for young adult readers and those interested in the supernatural.

Exordia by Seth Dickinson

 

When Anna goes on a walk in Central Park, the last thing she expects is to meet an alien.  An alien with nine snakelike heads and who expects to come home with her.  Ssrin tells Anna that they share a connection that will never end.  Anna, who is a Kurdish immigrant, is not sure she believes Ssrin but the fact that no one else seems to see her lends merit to the idea.

Ssrin is on Earth for a reason.  She is a renegade from her home planet and is here to retrieve a spaceship called Blackbird.  It is in Anna's home country and she wants Anna to go with her.  Anna is contacted by the United States government which is trying to make sense of Blackbird.  She and Ssrin go there along with the military and an associate Defense Secretary.  There are already scientists from several countries there trying to figure out what Blackbird is.

The word isn't good.  The aliens want not only to retrieve Ssrin and Blackbird but plan to extinguish human life on Earth.  Anna reunites with her mother who she hasn't seen since she was a child and who leads the Kurdish immigrants in the area.  An Iranian pilot also joins the core group that is frantically working to find a way to save human life on earth.  Is it possible?

Seth Dickinson hit the science fiction genre with his book The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which is more of a fantasy.  This novel is more science fiction and has lots of military action and battles.  It brings together seven humans, each with their own strengths and weaknesses along with their own secrets, and bands them together to attempt the impossible.  There is lots of math and science and this is not a novel that one picks up for a light afternoon's reading; it requires concentration and intelligence to fully grasp the horror of what is happening and the science that may defeat it.  This book is recommended for science fiction readers.  

Cultish by Amanda Montell

 

In this book, author Amanda Montell, who holds a degree in linguistics, discusses cults and how one of their major tools in attracting and retaining members is language.  At the beginning, individuals are 'love-bombed' and told that they can reach their highest potential.  Promises and information is kept vague.  Later, those who have joined are given a language specific to those surrounding them, drawing them in deeper and giving them a feeling of community.  That feeling of community is used to guilt trip anyone who wants to leave and many finally wake up to find years have passed.

Montell starts by using examples of what everyone calls cults, people like Jim Jones and the leader of Heaven's Gate, both of whom led their followers into suicide.  She talks about how deception is a key component of these cults and gives examples of various dangerous and life threatening cults.

But then Montell goes on to describe other areas which are 'cultish' and that use many of the same techniques and language that their more dangerous cousins do.  Multilevel marketing like Amway, cosmetic and clothing lines are discussed.  This is interesting because most of the individuals caught up in these areas rarely think of themselves as belonging to cults.  Another area, the newest one created by our Covid isolation and our focus on health, are exercise groups like Crossfit and Peleton.  These groups have cultish language, create groups that soon are the individuals social outlet and which disappear immediately when the individual leaves the group.

Montell has written several books about linguistic subjects and has a popular podcast about cults.  She wrote Wordslut: A Feminist Guide To Taking Back The Language in which she encourages women not to allow others to define them by the words they might be called.  Her degree is in linguistics from NYU.  This book and its concepts are in development for a television series and is recommended for nonfiction readers interested in how language can be used for negative purposes.  

Captain Sinbad by Graham Diamond

 

Sinbad is renowned in Bagdad as an adventurer, soldier and hero.  He is about to marry his long time love, Scheherazade, when the Caliph decides to take her as his own wife and makes Sinbad a criminal.  Sinbad flees Bagdad but is determined to return and marry his love.

His plan is to find a ship and sail until he can find the elusive Red Dahlia which is said to allow the finder to have his most desperate wish.  As Sinbad starts the journey, he finds a talking frog and promises to help him return to being ordinary.  Off they go and soon Sinbad has a ship and crew.

There are many adventures.  Sinbad is captured by female pirates and then imprisoned by the Greeks.  He encounters storms like he has never seen and washes up in Spain in a small village which is about to be overrun by an army of thieves and murderers.  In all his travels, he falls in love with women who help him.  But can he ever get back to Scheherazade?

Graham Diamond writes predominantly in the fantasy and science fiction genres.  This book is a rollicking retelling of the legend of Captain Sinbad and all his adventures.  The reader will be immersed in intrigues, storms, battles and given peaks into Sinbad's way with women and his loyalty to those he surrounds himself with.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

Murder Road by Simone St James

 

April and Eddie are driving to their honeymoon resort when they take a wrong turn.  Soon they are on a deserted road, deep in the woods with no one or nothing around.  Then they see the girl stumbling down the road.  They stop and determine that she is definitely in trouble; there is blood everywhere.  They get her in the car and to a hospital at the nearest town but she dies there.  

Now the police are suspicious of the couple and tell them not to leave town.  The couple go to a local bed and breakfast and are interrogated repeatedly by the police.  They learn that there have been other hitchhikers who have been killed on that stretch of road going back twenty years.  There are also rumors of The Lost Girl who was the first murder victim found and who has never been identified.

Eddie and April know they are guiltless but that doesn't mean they don't have secrets.  Both have things they have never told anyone, including each other.  The police start to bring their secrets to the surface and the couple decides that they will have to find the killer if they are ever going to be able to leave.  With the help of a pair of crime fascinated teenage sisters and the irascible owner of the bed and breakfast, they start to delve into the mystery.  Can they find who killed The Lost Girl?

Simone St. James has made a name for herself in the mystery genre.  Her books typically have a supernatural element and this one follows that.  But the supernatural in this novel is much more believable than usual and the reader will be drawn into April and Eddie's story.  They are both believable characters, haunted by their pasts but totally in love with each other.  As they work to find the answers, they draw on the strength of their relationship.  This book is recommended for mystery readers. 

Help For The Haunted by John Searles

 

Sylvie Mason doesn't live a teenage normal life.  Her parents are ghosthunters, and spend their time giving lectures and going to haunted places to rid them of spirits.  They have fitted up the basement to bring the most disturbed individuals back to the house to stay until they are healed.  Sylvie has a big sister, Rose, and that's her touchstone to normality.

Then one winter night, things explode.  Her parents are called to a deserted church in the middle of a snowstorm.  They take Sylvie with them but that only means that she is the one who discovers their murdered bodies.  Now she and Rose are living by themselves in the house with all their parents' haunted artifacts in the basement.  

Sylvie is determined to find out what happened.  She is the main witness for the crime and she isn't sure she remembers exactly what happened in that dark place.  She also wants to know all the family secrets that were kept from her.  Can she find out the truth?

John Searles writes suspense novels, often with a supernatural overtone.  He was the books editor at Cosmopolitan magazine and his novels are bestsellers.  In Sylvie, he has created a character readers can relate to as she delves into her family's history, determined to find the truths that have been hidden from her.  This book is recommended for suspense readers.